D&D (2024) Playtest 8 Survey

[Mephista]

Bad for your doesn't equate to poison, which is why we have poisons, venoms and diseases as separate things.

They're different things in reality, but they all deal poison damage. The DMG treats venoms and poisons interchangably. Well, sometimes diseases do necrotic damage instead, like in the Harm spell, but other times? Gas Spore's Death Throws, for instance, is a disease, deals poison damage and inflicts the Poisoned Condition.

D&D doesn't use real world conventions with these terms, and here? Neither should we. We should be using D&D's.

I'm also not sure all the wine makers in D&Dland want to be accused of practicing necromancy everytime they make wine. Alcohol is an actual poison you know.

Yep, which is why Dwarves were given poison resistance. Because they're all alcoholics.

I can see that, but that's very different from a poison spray.

Not if you're spraying poisoned blood. Have you ever played the Vampire ttrpgs? There a discpline that converst blood to poison and spits it out at people. You're spraying poison.

 

[Maxperson]

They're different things in reality, but they all deal poison damage. The DMG treats venoms and poisons interchangably. Well, sometimes diseases do necrotic damage instead, like in the Harm spell, but other times? Gas Spore's Death Throws, for instance, is a disease, deals poison damage and inflicts the Poisoned Condition.

D&D doesn't use real world conventions with these terms, and here? Neither should we. We should be using D&D's.

Yep, which is why Dwarves were given poison resistance. Because they're all alcoholics.

Not if you're spraying poisoned blood. Have you ever played the Vampire ttrpgs? There a discpline that converst blood to poison and spits it out at people. You're spraying poison.

Good points, but I'm going to disagree with you that we should be using D&D's definitions here. This issue is caused by WotC throwing the baby out with the complexity bathwater. They've over simplified and now poison = disease = necromancy.

That's not a good thing and in my opinion should be opposed, which what I did with my survey response.

 

[Mephista]

The "rider" is that it ignores invisibly, blindness, Dodge, and high AC. And enemies with just a few HP left.

Same as 3e, "you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target" (i.e. disadvantage).

Not sure what other niche it you think it should have.

It can't quite ignore enemies when they're invisble or you're blind, because you have to know where to swing to attack. High AC / disadvantage isn't a good trait either, because cantrips that target saves instead exist - those ignore AC /disadvanage too.

I've never seen a DM that lets players see enemy HP to know when they can ping an enemy for such minor amounts of damage. And at that point, the battle is effectively over anyways. At higher tiers, you might as well just toss out a Magic Missile or an AoE, you have enough low level spell slots.

So, you need to be in melee, enemy having high AC/disadvantage, somehow know the enemy has 3-ish HP... this is an increasingly niche area it can be used to take up one of your very limted cantrip slots.

 

[Mephista]

Good points, but I'm going to disagree with you that we should be using D&D's definitions here. This issue is caused by WotC throwing the baby out with the complexity bathwater. They've over simplified and now poison = disease = necromancy.

That's not a good thing and in my opinion should be opposed, which what I did with my survey response.

You're kinda twisting what I'm trying to say, but whatever. Its not important. Vibes are what's important, yeah? If its not something you're vibing with, then yeah, you should complain about it on the survey.

And I kind of agree, but for different reasons than you.

Personally, I look at spell schools from the perspective of "results of a Detect Magic test, as performed by a PC." If a player comes across an aura of Necromancy while dungeon delving, they're going to think it relates to undead somehow. Or life drain. Not being hit by poison - that should be Evocation or Conjuration (cloudkill, for example). Or a fear effect - that should be illusion or enchantment. If they hit Transmutation trap, they should be thinking of being turned into an animal, or stone, or something.

The spell schools are all over the place, yeah, but this is how I think of them and how they should work. Because the PCs don't really care what school their magic comes from.

 

[mellored]

It can't quite ignore enemies when they're invisble or you're blind, because you have to know where to swing to attack

invisible doesn't make your location unknown.

High AC / disadvantage isn't a good trait either, because cantrips that target saves instead exist - those ignore AC /disadvanage too.

True.

At higher tiers, you might as well just toss out a Magic Missile or an AoE, you have enough low level spell slots.

Or save the slot for shield and use the cantrip.

So, you need to be in melee, enemy having high AC/disadvantage, somehow know the enemy has 3-ish HP... this is an increasingly niche area it can be used to take up one of your very limted cantrip slots.

Never said melee.
And high AC, disadvantage, or low HP. Not all 3.

And I haven't done any numbers, so it might need tweaked.

Or maybe simpler to just do.

Truest Strike
You deal 1d6 damage to the target within 60'. This damage ignores immunity and resistant.
Level 5: 2d6
Level 11: 3d6
Level 17: 4d6

 

[Weiley31]

Shocking Grasp doesn't make any sense with its change. Especially since, as of Deck of Many Things, Legendary Actions are still a thing according to Asteria's stat block.

One could argue that the reason why the Planescape 5E's Time Dragon didn't have legendary action and Reactions instead, was because of the fact that a Time Dragon would be able to mess with *Time like that. Hence being more on theme than an actual replacement of Legendary Actions.*

 

[Charlaquin]

Shocking Grasp doesn't make any sense with its change. Especially since, as of Deck of Many Things, Legendary Actions are still a thing according to Asteria's stat block.

One could argue that the reason why the Planescape 5E's Time Dragon didn't have legendary action and Reactions instead, was because of the fact that a Time Dragon would be able to mess with Time like that. Hence being more on theme than an actual replacement of Legendary Actions.

It’s likely not one or the other - legendary actions will probably still exist, though they
might be used more sparingly than they have in the past. However, multiple reactions may be a new tool being used to give something similar to legendary actions to more commonplace “solo” or “boss” monsters.

 

[OB1]

It’s likely not one or the other - legendary actions will probably still exist, though they
might be used more sparingly than they have in the past. However, multiple reactions may be a new tool being used to give something similar to legendary actions to more commonplace “solo” or “boss” monsters.

This made me think of a crazy idea. Haven't fleshed it out, but here's what I'm thinking.

Make reactions a group resource equal to the number of PCs in the party. Spent reactions reset at the top of initiative each round for each PC still able to use reactions at that point (so an unconscious PC at the top of the round reduces available reactions by 1 that round). Any PC can claim a reaction when it's relevant as long as there are reactions still available that round. Enemies get their own pool of reactions, which are equal to the number of PCs and any enemy can claim a reaction when it's relevant.

With a group of 5 PCs fighting 1 enemy, both sides get 5 reactions a round.
With a group of 5 PCs fighting 10 enemies, both sides get 5 reactions a round.

Feel like this opens up all kinds of new tactical options (some of which I'm sure could be severely abused) and also levels reaction economy across different numbers of monsters. Have I lost my mind?

 

[mellored]

Legendary Re-Actions.

 

[Charlaquin]

This made me think of a crazy idea. Haven't fleshed it out, but here's what I'm thinking.

Make reactions a group resource equal to the number of PCs in the party. Spent reactions reset at the top of initiative each round for each PC still able to use reactions at that point (so an unconscious PC at the top of the round reduces available reactions by 1 that round). Any PC can claim a reaction when it's relevant as long as there are reactions still available that round. Enemies get their own pool of reactions, which are equal to the number of PCs and any enemy can claim a reaction when it's relevant.

With a group of 5 PCs fighting 1 enemy, both sides get 5 reactions a round.
With a group of 5 PCs fighting 10 enemies, both sides get 5 reactions a round.

Feel like this opens up all kinds of new tactical options (some of which I'm sure could be severely abused) and also levels reaction economy across different numbers of monsters. Have I lost my mind?

Interesting idea! It would certainly help compensate for the action economy advantage the side with greater numbers usually has. I imagine some folks would have verisimilitude-related objections to the fact that, say, a lone orc can make more attacks in the same 6-second round than an orc among a large group can, but how much of an issue that is will be group dependent.

Another potential issue I could see arising is players getting frustrated by their allies “using up” all the reactions before they get a chance to use theirs. Probably less of an issue with groups who are very good at coordinating their group tactics, but still, I might be inclined to make this a monster-side-only thing.