D&D 5E Sage Advice is back!

[Parmandur]

If they do go this way, and use Backgrounds to narrativize Feats...it would make it easy to provide Quick Build Feat recommendations. If they bring the 1-2 punch Feat "chains" into Core, too, then that would help non-optimizers even more with making reasonable Feat choices, which is currently one of my observed problems with Feats (watching people's eyes glaze over when trying to explain the Feat rules and selections). If the new PHB has a suite of default suggested "Background Feats," and then made other Feats branch off...thst could work well for helping ease character generation while multiplying options.

If a Human retains a 1ST Level Feat power, that would also allow a Human PC to have a completed chain at Level 1.

 

[Li Shenron]

You could just give players who don’t want feats the option to take an ASI at first level

I always can, but will they?

The bad side of this change is the loss of inclusivity. Before, the game accommodates both people who want feats and people who don't, at the same table, and without treating them unequally.

An even worse possible change, should they go with it (currently it's only a hint), would be if they progressively replaced short rests abilities with "number per day equal to proficiency bonus). The 5e designers went a long way to originally allow characters who had less to plan over long rests, and such change would go only backwards, and for what? Because they decide that one playstyle is after all superior over the other?

It's a shame that Crawford is not seeing how these mechanical changes can potentially disenfranchise many players, while they are actively trying to increase inclusivity on the narrative side (e.g. alignment changes).

 

[Parmandur]

I always can, but will they?

The bad side of this change is the loss of inclusivity. Before, the game accommodates both people who want feats and people who don't, at the same table, and without treating them unequally.

An even worse possible change, should they go with it (currently it's only a hint), would be if they progressively replaced short rests abilities with "number per day equal to proficiency bonus). The 5e designers went a long way to originally allow characters who had less to plan over long rests, and such change would go only backwards, and for what? Because they decide that one playstyle is after all superior over the other?

It's a shame that Crawford is not seeing how these mechanical changes can potentially disenfranchise many players, while they are actively trying to increase inclusivity on the narrative side (e.g. alignment changes).

Speaking as someone who despises Feats as they traditionally work...this might just work.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Great interview. I'm down with this design direction.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hot take coming that is going to probably mess up my alerts and this is just my opinion but - I don't think "suboptimal" matters as much in 5e as it did in 3e or 4e. In 3e a suboptimal build truly messed with the math of the system, and of course in 4e if you managed to make a suboptimal character it hurt. Because they were both games going for a specific tuning for balance.

5e just ... doesn't so much. The math is harder to break by accident because it's so flat and spread out over 20 levels. The subclasses aren't built to hold up to optimization and often their various abilities are more of a "this is a cool thing you can do" instead of "this is how you're going to be an effective member of the adventuring team". That difference in mindset means that if you're an optimizer the game is pretty easy to optimize but if you're not you can probably be in a party with a mix of optimizers and non-optimizers and not have the optimizers ripping their hair out every session because someone on the team isn't pulling their weight.

Optimization in 5e feels to me more like optimization in 2e was - optimizers have an advantage over non-optimizers, but the game doesn't break if you don't optimize. And unlike 2e it isn't as easy to just break the game entirely by optimizing by finding the right game-breaking kit that the DM has to ban because with the reduced publication schedule they just haven't generated that kind of accidental material into the game.

I agree completely. See my comments about warlocks in this very thread.

 

[Mordhau]

There are no trap choices built into feat chains in 5e, because the intro feat is still a feat on par with all of the other feats. Even if you don't "master" the system enough to understand that choice 1 leads to choice 2 if you opt to do that, choice 1 is still sufficient.

Well not the Squire of Solamnia feat. It's a very weak feat for it's intended users (martial classes going into Knight of Solamnia) most of what it gives they already have.

That's fine if it's supposed to be weaker than a normal feat, but not if it's intended to be equal.

 

[Mordhau]

When he talked about it he talked about the later feats being better than the standard for feats. That means that the intro feats will be of standard quality and then later ones a bit better.

Aaah they're prestige classes then.

 

[Mordhau]

I always can, but will they?

The bad side of this change is the loss of inclusivity. Before, the game accommodates both people who want feats and people who don't, at the same table, and without treating them unequally.

An even worse possible change, should they go with it (currently it's only a hint), would be if they progressively replaced short rests abilities with "number per day equal to proficiency bonus). The 5e designers went a long way to originally allow characters who had less to plan over long rests, and such change would go only backwards, and for what? Because they decide that one playstyle is after all superior over the other?

It's a shame that Crawford is not seeing how these mechanical changes can potentially disenfranchise many players, while they are actively trying to increase inclusivity on the narrative side (e.g. alignment changes).

If there's one thing you can say for these decisions it's that they're market tested. The sheer conservatism of everything they do is paramount. If they do this it will be because they get positive feedback*.

It's interesting that they've been trying various ways to thread this needle for a long time. First they tried out prestige classes, but obviously that didn't take, then they tried out subclasses that weren't linked to classes and that didn't take either. So now they are repackaging the same basic idea as feat chains and seeing how their audience reacts.

*At some point I think they will discover that they have followed the most engaged part of their audience down a cul de sac, and lost a part of their less engaged audience, but that's probably years away and right now they get lots of good will and positive press and have no real competitor anwyay.

 

[Maxperson]

Well not the Squire of Solamnia feat. It's a very weak feat for it's intended users (martial classes going into Knight of Solamnia) most of what it gives they already have.

That's fine if it's supposed to be weaker than a normal feat, but not if it's intended to be equal.

That one is different. You aren't taking that feat. It's a bonus given to you by your background. I expect those to be less than the ones you are actually investing a feat choice in. Even so, 2 of the 3 abilities are still useful to martial characters.

 

[Parmandur]

If there's one thing you can say for these decisions it's that they're market tested. The sheer conservatism of everything they do is paramount. If they do this it will be because they get positive feedback*.

It's interesting that they've been trying various ways to thread this needle for a long time. First they tried out prestige classes, but obviously that didn't take, then they tried out subclasses that weren't linked to classes and that didn't take either. So now they are repackaging the same basic idea as feat chains and seeing how their audience reacts.

*At some point I think they will discover that they have followed the most engaged part of their audience down a cul de sac, and lost a part of their less engaged audience, but that's probably years away and right now they get lots of good will and positive press and have no real competitor anwyay.

I think the ayse they have set up is pretty good at preventing thst cul de sac phenomenon that killed 3E, 3.5, 4E, and Essentials. And precisely through thst measured conservative testing regimen and iterative products.