D&D (2024) Playtest Druid and Paladin One D&D survey is live.

[shadowoflameth]

The medium mount is a good idea. I proposed not having the smite spells be spells at all, just make them higher level variants of Divine smite. and lose the restrictions on spells in the same round. That way, people who want to do Banishing Smite or whatever can do it, the bonus action isn't used, the spell restriction is unneeded, and double smiting isn't a thing as they seem to want. Clean fix.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I also said to roll the smite spells into the class feature.

 

[tetrasodium]

One of my criticisms of the druid was that at 1st level a character can potentially have a tiny familiar to scout and a druid under the existing rules can cast Polymorph at 7th becoming tiny, swimming or flying. There is no reason to restrict access to higher levels for forms that the druid can already take with a different ability. I hope they listen to the feedback, IMHO both classes were bad. I put that I did not playtest. It was because nobody in my group wanted to play these.

In the video a couple days ago crawford mentioned something that made me think about wotc designing each class feature in isolation rather than as a sum of their parts. He got asked something like why tiny form was so high in level & mentioned how it was because as a tiny creature you still have all of the wildshape stuff and the benefits of size tiny. The way he described it though only really worked if you use the old wildshape to have a tiny bear or whatever. With the new wildshape it's the druid's base HP, an AC that's probably no better than the base druid & quite possibly less than a freshly minted level one paladin's AC. Under that new wildshape the justification described for such a high level on tiny form starts breaking down pretty badly.

That's important because so much of casters in 5e (druid especially) feels like every individual piece was designed to counter a 3.x problem in isolation(often theoretical white room thought experiment level problems)In aggregate those things amount to much more than the sum of their parts & create new problems that actually manifest in play without the need for theoretical whiteroom thought experiments.

 

[mamba]

In the video a couple days ago crawford mentioned something that made me think about wotc designing each class feature in isolation rather than as a sum of their parts. He got asked something like why tiny form was so high in level & mentioned how it was because as a tiny creature you still have all of the wildshape stuff and the benefits of size tiny. The way he described it though only really worked if you use the old wildshape to have a tiny bear or whatever. With the new wildshape it's the druid's base HP, an AC that's probably no better than the base druid & quite possibly less than a freshly minted level one paladin's AC. Under that new wildshape the justification described for such a high level on tiny form starts breaking down pretty badly.

no, it clearly is because of the new Wildshape rules, because your statblock is independent of the animal you choose, so you can have a mouse that hits like a bear with it, whereas in 5e you would be as weak as a mouse

At low level this is OP, at high level it is not because your char’s features have gained in power

 

[tetrasodium]

no, it clearly is because of the new Wildshape rules, because your statblock is independent of the animal you choose, so you can have a mouse that hits like a bear with it, whereas in 5e you would be as weak as a mouse

At low level this is OP, at high level it is not because your char’s features have gained in power

It doesn’t matter if the stat lock is independent of the creature if the stat lock is trying to dial back "maybe moon druid of old was tuned a notch too high" while the tiny form is trying to dial back "since this moon druid wildshape is still going to be tuned a notch too high".
At the end if the day the combo results in these new templates being an awful set of stats at any level and as a result the hypothetical white room gains for tiny form are meaningless without some significant multiclass bingo assumptions.

 

[mamba]

It doesn’t matter if the stat lock is independent of the creature if the stat lock is trying to dial back "maybe moon druid of old was tuned a notch too high" while the tiny form is trying to dial back "since this moon druid wildshape is still going to be tuned a notch too high".

that is an assumption that is not supported by what Crawford said.

 

[shadowoflameth]

The part about letting the druid look in Wild Shape like whatever animal he wants as flavor is fine. The problem with tiny size being 11th level to me is that the advantage of being tiny is not in line with an 11th level ability. Specifically, because the druid can be tiny before 11th level with abilities that he already has. I also don't see a restriction on being large which also has advantages. With or without the generic stat block, restricting tiny size specifically to 11th level is pointless because players who want to do it at 7th can still do it with Polymorph. Players who want to be large can be large at 3rd with Reduce/Enlarge. Restricting the size of Wild Shape as a preventative of 'shenanigans' makes no design sense.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Just finished. A reminder to people to work towards constructive criticism. The druid was an obvious failure, but make sure to explain why you feel this way, providing suggestions to improve it.

I agree I (mostly) gave paly high and druid low marks and tried to explain why

 

[Clint_L]

I responded to each question on the survey. I was broadly negative about the proposed changes to druids; IMO that is a "back to the drawing board" situation. I was generally supportive of the tweaks to paladins, though I think some of the spells are underpowered for their level, and I still think the nerfs to banishment are too extreme - this is a spell that is currently OP, but the nerf makes it very weak for a fifth level spell.

I think both steeds and familiars are becoming too widespread. Familiars are a particular issue for me. They slow the game down and an inordinate amount of time can be spent not on what the player's characters are doing, but on what one player's familiar is doing. I am okay with this when they are rare and there is maybe one in the party, but not if there are three, at which point everyone should just get a familiar and they can have their own adventure (Critical Role actually used this as the premise for a one-shot, and it was pretty fun).

And I was scathing in my response to the revised Spare the Dying cantrip, because the last thing the game needs is "healing word, the cantrip." If you think pop-up healing is an issue now, wait until that becomes available. Also, with some of these revisions we are getting into a situation where a few cantrips are so obviously superior that they are basically mandatory.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And I was scathing in my response to the revised Spare the Dying cantrip, because the last thing the game needs is "healing word, the cantrip."

Hardly healing word. Cure Wounds, at best.

All it needs is to specify that the target is still unconscious, and it’s perfectly balanced.