One D&D Expert Classes Playtest Document Is Live

The One D&D Expert Class playest document is now available to download. You can access it by signing into your D&D Beyond account at the link below. It contains three classes -- bard, rogue, and ranger, along with three associated subclasses (College of Lore, Thief, and Hunter), plus a number of feats.

One D&D Playtest

One D&D Playtest Materials Get the One D&D playtest content, try it out in your game, and then provide feedback! Check back regularly for new conte...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't disagree with you here, but I think the issue is more complex than WotC being unwilling to do it.

5e (and most RPGs) just don't have robust wilderness exploration/travel rules (and honestly I don't see how they could and keep to the spirit of the game) but let's say those are created, and exploration becomes roughly equivalent to combat as an interesting, varied subsystem, and the Ranger has awesome abilities that make those more fun without trivializing them.

The problem is you can't just let the Ranger play in this new playground: every class has to have meaningful ways to participate. It's one thing to say that some players make a couple of Survival or Persuasion rolls while other players watch, but it's another thing to design a whole, engaging subsystem and only let some players contribute meaningfully.

And you also can't let magic trivialize this subsystem. I know a lot of people feel that casters are vastly superior to martials in combat, but it's not like the martials just stand there and watch while the casters dispense with the bad guys. (And if that's happening the encounters were already trivial.)

So now you're not just designing a new subsystem, but re-designing...or at least augmenting..all the classes to give them ways to engage with it.

I just don't see it happening.

Want to play the popular archetype of the natural explorer? Take Survival, use a bow, describe your character as wearing a green cloak.

The Ranger has got to be something more/different.

Level Up does literally all these things. It is possible, if you put in some effort to make the game that way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And that UA failed.

Keep your courtesy trolling. You speak dismissively and insultingly about things people like and the people who make them, and get offended when I call a claim you make absurd?

No. If this is how you do, do it with someone else.

What's courtesy trolling?

 

[Olrox17]

I think it just might be their way of stepping away from a conversation that was upsetting them.

Jeez, kind of an overreaction, considering how civil the conversation has been so far.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Jeez, kind of an overreaction, considering how civil the conversation has been so far.

I do wish you didn't have to guess who has you on their ignore list.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I humbly request that the idea of 'preparing' spells be tied to the wizard only.

And then maybe we not have the wizard.

 

[darjr]

I do wish you didn't have to guess who has you on their ignore list.

It’s kinda the point of it though. If some folks knew they’d target them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

But how many of those systems were good? Psionics took how many tries to do across 2e, 3e, and 4e? Incarnum wasn't well received. Neither was Tome of Magic. Neither TSR nor WotC ever managed to make a non-spell magic system that ever caught on. I guess WotC just feels spells are a better received version of 4e powers and treat them as such.

I thought the Psionics for 3.5e was pretty good, but I'm willing to admit I may be an outlier as I didn't have much exposure other than playing a few high levels (8th-13th). The class (psion) and race (elan) I played allowed me to be incredibly versatile, at least it felt like that. It may have been OP, I cannot be sure due to my limited experience.

 

[Minigiant]

There aren’t subsystems for those because the goal with them is best served without subsystems. Not just simplicity, though that is a very worthy goal, but also improvisational freedom.

I do wish they’d give a little more text describing and giving examples, but I certainly don’t want to see 5e become 3.5 or 4e with their hyper specific crunch for each skill.

Indeed 5ES goal is to be overall simple and mostly freeform with spells being pinpoint counters to reality.

However lack of examples seriously hurts their expand of Expertise.

 

[darjr]

I do wish that there were slightly different rules for spells for different types of casters. I mean there already are, wizards vs sorcerers for instance, why not extend that to rangers? Say they don’t need some or many of the components and/or they are not arcane and can’t be dispelled or counter spelled.

But then what happens with multi class characters?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It seems so. It really shouldn't be, though, right? Professional game designers and all that. Other systems seem to have managed (PF2E for example).

It seems though, that anything slightly not-normal is going to be represented by spells, moving forward. It's the simplest, easiest solution, requiring no extra work. I can see how some people might refer to that as "lazy design" I suppose, and I'd have no counterargument except to say they aren't trying to make a well-designed game, they're trying to make an ever-more popular game, and that's the only goal that matters.

Insultingly? Where? Where are we actually disagreeing?

See the bolded, above.

What's courtesy trolling?

Staying strictly within the rules while being just disrespectful enough to goad the other person into being discourteous.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Other systems seem to have managed (PF2E for example).

This is the part that most strongly indicates bias and preference, btw.

PF2E managed to make a particular type of game. Far from a better one, though. They didn’t manage to do something 5e has failed to do, they just made a different kind of game. That’s it.

 

[Eric V]

See the bolded, above.

Staying strictly within the rules while being just disrespectful enough to goad the other person into being discourteous.

!!!

The bolded part is me saying professional game designers CAN design things a certain way (it shouldn't be be beyond them to be able to do that), so that if they don't, it's because they're CHOOSING to not do so (because of the design goal of popularity).

How is this insulting or even controversial?

As for me mentioning PF2E...you're still wrong in your assumptions about me. Again. I never said I preferred that system; I brought it up to show that making a non-spell ranger that is efficient is possible.

 

[Faolyn]

I do wish that there were slightly different rules for spells for different types of casters. I mean there already are, wizards vs sorcerers for instance, why not extend that to rangers? Say they don’t need some or many of the components and/or they are not arcane and can’t be dispelled or counter spelled.

But then what happens with multi class characters?

I suppose if you went with spells-as-powers, then there wouldn't be a big issue there. A ranger/wizard would have wizard spells and ranger magical powers. Ditto if you built most or all classes using a warlock-esque chassis or picking and choosing "invocations."

Heck, go back to Ye Olden Days where the only spellcasters were clerics and wizards, and maybe druids. Everyone else gets magical powers.

 

[darjr]

I suppose if you went with spells-as-powers, then there wouldn't be a big issue there. A ranger/wizard would have wizard spells and ranger magical powers. Ditto if you built most or all classes using a warlock-esque chassis or picking and choosing "invocations."

Heck, go back to Ye Olden Days where the only spellcasters were clerics and wizards, and maybe druids. Everyone else gets magical powers.

Well I was more leaning toward less homogeneous rules per class.

 

[grimslade]

First off: Baggins, James Baggins. James Bond is a halfling with the Lucky feat is hilarious.
Second, what are we discussing anymore? The sacred cows are all enshrined now. There will be no holy bbq in the One D&D playtest. Spells are the default resolution mechanic for anything beyond a simple d20 roll. As one of the proponents of psionics as a new subsystem, I have come to accept this slowly. So are we just spouting game design for discussion's sake?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's plenty clear nothings' really off the table by now, so I wouldn't put away the grill and humorous apron just yet. Hopefully.

 

[Umbran]

Keep your courtesy trolling.

Mod Note:
Do you get he irony here?

If someone suggests that maybe you're not being all that nice to folks, being a jerk to them in response doesn't exactly prove them wrong.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Except that I referenced the half-caster spell progression--since I looked at the ranger's spell list at the time--and used the wrong name for it.

"More spell exclusivity" isn't helpful when you can't actually get the spells you apparently need to have in order to be a ranger until much higher level, but at the same time, have no non-magical abilities to make up for that lack.

Aaaand ignored. Oh well.

Same. Pretty weird. Oh well is really the only reaction. Some other poster, I forget who, swears blind they don't have me on ignore, and I definitely don't have them on ignore, because I can see their posts, but they can't see mine! So maybe something wacky is up.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I humbly request that the idea of 'preparing' spells be tied to the wizard only.

And then maybe we not have the wizard.

You have my axe!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not sure I count brief rules for specific situations as “a whole subsystem”. I mean, I guess you could; I’m not going to argue there’s a threshold of column inches required. But then let’s get rid of the word “rule” and call everything a subsystem.

The poster I'm responding to regards the subsystems within spells as subsystems - they said as much, so it's a subsystem.