D&D (2024) Playtest 6 Survey is Open

[codo]

Oh c'mon! Next you be telling me they didn't get rid of Exceptional Stength because "fighters can still get a +6 to damage".



It tells me they are valuing continuity with 2014 over any sort of actual improvement. They MUST know there is dissatisfaction with the ability for PCs to get short rests reliably. They alluded to it in the warlock UA video. Adding "get a free 1-minute short rest 1/day" doesn't fix those complaints, it band aids them.

Much like Druid Wild Shape, I assume the answer is going to be "We hear you, but ¯\(ツ)/¯."

Why is that what you want is actual improvement, but what the overwhelming majority of players want is just valuing continuity? Just because your prefer something doesn't mean it is actually an improvement for the majority of players. If you want to say that you prefer something, just say that, don't act like your preference is the obviously objectively better option.

 

[tetrasodium]

OK, and I agree the Monk needs work. That doesn't people shouldn't give positive feedback on the stuff that they like. @tetrasodium suggested something bothered him so much about one or two other aspects of the playtest that he wasn't planning to let WOTC know anything he actually liked. Which can only make things worse.

I was already less than pleased about the 180 shift in packet 4 to packet 5 where Crawford talked at length about wanting to be sure that they really nailed the class themes and feel for warlock and sorcerer. Packet 5 gave us a wizard that doesn't seem to even consider the wizard as anything but a slow stumbling sorcerer who needs high level sized gold investment for low level sorcerer abilities. Then packet 6 came along to backtrack on both the move away from short rest nova class design and the death & dying changes.

Pending the slightest shred of evidence to the contrary wotc has decided to target the inner munchkin of biggest munchkin at my table as the most important segment of d&d players as the apparently deliberate miss on the problem that the flight change shows. As I mentioned earlier, I feel that the post survey results video from packet 5 will serve as a barometer and given that a vote against something counts as 2.33 votes for thet thing wotc has set the stage to make clear that voted against are all they are concerned about.

Why is that what you want is actual improvement, but what the overwhelming majority of players want is just valuing continuity? Just because your prefer something doesn't mean it is actually an improvement for the majority of players. If you want to say that you prefer something, just say that, don't act like your preference is the obviously objectively better option.

Anything with two or more groupings of opinions automatically gets tossed by the process in place even if all of them are favored by 32% individually because the split ensures the 70 percent threshold is impossible. Wotc has not created and described a process to determine what the "overwhelming majority of players want". The process in place is one that allows a small minority to veto anything not overwhelmingly flavored with near unanimous landslide 70% proportions. The only time such a process makes sense is if the primary goal is to avoid doing anything as much as possible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They didn't really change it, they just turned it upside down and made it THaAC20. 30 is the new -10.

The rules, as ot stand, function. In my experience, they work. That WotC is making no moves to fundamentally change them suggests that the group for whi h they work is...significant.

I find it quite unlikely that fundamentally changing core rules that impact most of the game was ever on the table, barring bonkers levels of dissatisfaction.

They tried to make the Warlock not a short rest class. They stopped putting new short rest recharges into the system and instead updated things to x/day.

Enough people are dissatisfied that they’ve been working on fixing it for them for several years now.

Trying to dismiss that because you insist on interpreting a behavior to match your experience is not meaningful debate.

 

[Parmandur]

I find it quite unlikely that fundamentally changing core rules that impact most of the game was ever on the table, barring bonkers levels of dissatisfaction.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg...?

 

[codo]

Anything with two or more groupings of opinions automatically gets tossed by the process in place even if all of them are favored by 32% individually because the split ensures the 70 percent threshold is impossible. Wotc has not created and described a process to determine what the "overwhelming majority of players want". The process in place is one that allows a small minority to veto anything not overwhelmingly flavored with near unanimous landslide 70% proportions. The only time such a process makes sense is if the primary goal is to avoid doing anything as much as possible.

Yes. If something doesn't receive at least 70% approval they will keep iterating until they find something that does. That is their playtest process. They have been doing it that way for over a decade, and it seem to work really well for them. It was the playtest process they used when first creating 5e, and 5e is by far the most popular version of D&D ever. If the process works why change it to focus on the complaints of a minority?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not applicable in this case.

We are talking about monks. They absolutely are broken.

 

[Parmandur]

We are talking about monks. They absolutely are broken.

No, not at all. Room for improvement, sure, everything does. But the Monk absolutely functions in the game.

 

[Remathilis]

Why is that what you want is actual improvement, but what the overwhelming majority of players want is just valuing continuity? Just because your prefer something doesn't mean it is actually an improvement for the majority of players. If you want to say that you prefer something, just say that, don't act like your preference is the obviously objectively better option.

I'm not alone in the complaints on how short rests are handled. It's not what I want. WotC didn't call me up and asked what I wanted. They had feedback. There was a reason bladesinger changed from 2/short rest to proficiency mod per day. There was a reason why Fizban dragonborn breath weapons (and other racial traits) went from 1/short rest to prof pet day. There was a reason they wanted to swap warlock to spellcasting and channel divinity to per day use. It was to minimize the effects of missing a short rest. They know short rests are a problem, they have been designing around them since Tasha's!

Now WotC is all like "yeah, short rests. Remember those man? Short rests are cool!" Like everything between Tasha's and packet 6 never happened. Then again, WotC can't decide if using templates or statblocks for class features are good (wild shape vs beastmaster companion) and if a class's subclasses should get bonus spells or not (half the ranger and 3/4 of the druid subs get bonus spells, but all the paladin and cleric subs do).

Anyway, I look forward to the dragonborn having a breath weapon use per short rest again in 2024. Need to keep that continuity with the old book and short rests are cool...

 

[Chaosmancer]

Mathematically, it's the same sort of resource pool as Paladins. As long as adequate Ahort Rests are available, and given a normal Adventure Day (which WotC isnmaking any changes to, which makes sense to me based on my experience), then the Monk is just fine.

Not really. When Treantmonk did his video, he compared the damage of the monk using flurry. It was STILL significanty lower (at that level) than the other classes. Which means even given infinite Ki, that problem is going to persist.

Then you have the current monk which includes planned obselesance of Weapon Mastery and a few bizzare nerfs to Open Hand, and just having enough Ki really doesn't look like any sort of real solution. It needs to be that plus other structural changes.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm not alone in the complaints on how short rests are handled. It's not what I want. WotC didn't call me up and asked what I wanted. They had feedback. There was a reason bladesinger changed from 2/short rest to proficiency mod per day. There was a reason why Fizban dragonborn breath weapons (and other racial traits) went from 1/short rest to prof pet day. There was a reason they wanted to swap warlock to spellcasting and channel divinity to per day use. It was to minimize the effects of missing a short rest. They know short rests are a problem, they have been designing around them since Tasha's!

Now WotC is all like "yeah, short rests. Remember those man? Short rests are cool!" Like everything between Tasha's and packet 6 never happened. Then again, WotC can't decide if using templates or statblocks for class features are good (wild shape vs beastmaster companion) and if a class's subclasses should get bonus spells or not (half the ranger and 3/4 of the druid subs get bonus spells, but all the paladin and cleric subs do).

Anyway, I look forward to the dragonborn having a breath weapon use per short rest again in 2024. Need to keep that continuity with the old book and short rests are cool...

Those are all surface level things, to help alleviate issues at some tables. Not structural changes, which they could do if there was a steel of dissatisfaction.