D&D 5E Playtest 7 and video premieres Sept 7th 11am Central.

[Parmandur]

And the Wizard got an epic crowbar of nerf to the face! At-will Shield? Modify spells better than sorcerer? No sireee.

I mean, not really. Wizards still gets to turn certain pitent Spells into Cantrips eventually, this just means not everyone will feel "compelled" to do Shield. Amd Modify Spell going away, while sad, isn't really a big nwrf since it wasn't really powerful, more flavor.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

And the Wizard got an epic crowbar of nerf to the face! At-will Shield? Modify spells better than sorcerer? No sireee.

I mean, Wizard fans wanted to keep their spell list superiority and didn’t want to share, so….no
new toys for them.

 

[TerraDave]

I was finally able to finish the video!

As a DM, when I hear all the class features I think, do we really need these?

As a player I think, maybe we do.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I was finally able to finish the video!

As a DM, when I hear all the class features I think, do we really need these?

As a player I think, maybe we do.

This has been my impression of the entire D&D'24 UA so far. They seem laser-focused on fixing the game/addressing its' issues through the class abilities (with small side-jogs into specific spells and the occasional 'how the movement action works'-type things). To me, it seems like rearranging the deck chairs rather than the holes in the boat*. Adding this to barbarian or taking that from paladin or making the sorcerer a little more distinct are fine and all, but they don't address what I consider the glaring issues (anemic non-combat pillars, vestigial skill system, stealth/perception/surprise, multiclassing in general, wildly different experiences in # of encounters/rest, etc.).
*not using the standard 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic' analogy because 5e isn't 'sinking,' just has issues.

At the same time, every time the release another one of these, I go through it like a kid at a candy store -- 'I want that, I want that, I don't want that, I wish they had two of those, does anyone really want that,' etc.

 

[Parmandur]

To me, it seems like rearranging the deck chairs rather than the holes in the boat

But what if the boat has no holes, and the only issues to resolve are ones of interior decorating...?

 

[Willie the Duck]

But what if the boat has no holes, and the only issues to resolve are ones of interior decorating...?

I'm not sure how that plays out outside the analogy. I very specifically stipulated that 5e isn't a sinking ship. I don't know what good it does us to start coming up with arbitrary definitions as to whether a thing-to-be-addressed is a hole vs. a tacky lamp. That seems like pressing the analogy past the point of usefulness.

My position (IMO, YMMV, etc.,) is that, if a 2024 revamp to the game needs to happen at all, what it ought to be addressing is the larger aspects of the game that exist outside of the minute differences between individual character classes and builds. No amount of perfectly balancing warlocks vs druids vs barbarians is going to keep the actual character contribution equal when two playgroups have vastly different ideas of number of encounters per day. Nor does everyone I play with care nearly as much about equal contribution/perfect balance as people who frequent forums do. But all the people I play with have noted things like not enough uses for gold, all that want skills to matter think the skill system could use more definition, those that even read the stealth and lighting/perception rules agree it's kinda wacky, etc. For that reason, I feel like the developers have been focusing on (or at the very least submitting for public consumption/response) the stuff least likely to significantly impact my games, or even moreso--whether a given group I'm in keeps playing 5e at any given time or plays something else.

 

[Parmandur]

My position (IMO, YMMV, etc.,) is that, if a 2024 revamp to the game needs to happen at all, what it ought to be addressing is the larger aspects of the game that exist outside of the minute differences between individual character classes and builds.

I would posit that, from WotC point of view looking at their feedback, there maybe aren't any larger aspects that need addressing.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I would posit that, from WotC point of view looking at their feedback, there maybe aren't any larger aspects that need addressing.

Okay. That's certainly a possibility.