D&D (2024) Some things...including from the videos

[TerraDave]

More feats are coming, maybe many more.

They really like the epic feats, so expect something kind of like in DMG now to allow those to keep being taken by 20+ level characters.

Seem to be thinking about higher levels more in general (which would be a huge change).

2014 rogue very popular, so not changed much, which means others will probably be changed more. Look out fighter, monk and sorcerer!

Yes, subclasses are being standardized, including to make multi-classing easier.

Shift to prep spells--which I am sure we will all start calling "Flex-Vancian", which is not in the video, but which I think will really take off--to bring more obscure, non-combat spells into play.

Warriors will do new things with weapons, implying maybe some new weapon properties/tags for them or maybe groups or leveraging existing weapon properties.

Change in light/dual weapons was meant to help rogue, especially, and ranger. Count it as a buff.

People forgot about bardic inspiration die, and now the bard player has more control on how it is used.

Thornwhip was meant to help melee rangers. Same for barkskin--which you can combine with dual wielding now!

At some point they quickly joke about the OP paladin. Though maybe that means it doesn't change much?

 

[tetrasodium]

More feats are coming, maybe many more.

They really like the epic feats, so expect something kind of like in DMG now to allow those to keep being taken by 20+ level characters.

Seem to be thinking about higher levels more in general (which would be a huge change).

2014 rogue very popular, so not changed much, which means others will probably be changed more. Look out fighter, monk and sorcerer!

Yes, subclasses are being standardized, including to make multi-classing easier.

Shift to prep spells--which I am sure we will all start calling "Flex-Vancian", which is not in the video, but which I think will really take off--to bring more obscure, non-combat spells into play.

Oh thank god a term for it!*

Warriors will do new things with weapons, implying maybe some new weapon properties/tags for them or maybe groups or leveraging existing weapon properties.

Change in light/dual weapons was meant to help rogue, especially, and ranger. Count it as a buff.

People forgot about bardic inspiration die, and now the bard player has more control on how it is used.

Thornwhip was meant to help melee rangers. Same for barkskin--which you can combine with dual wielding now!

At some point they quickly joke about the OP paladin. Though maybe that means it doesn't change much?

I agree on the plethora of warrior feats being likely. jump action & strike as a free/bonus action possibly with benefits is one I figure likely. A lot of the old niche weapon specific feat/prc abilities seem like likely targets there but none spring to mind

* Really I wanted to say that

 

[Blue]

As a side note, 2014 Rogue changed in a number of ways, both directly and indirectly.

Nerfing damage output by only allowing sneak attack on your turn, plus the smaller nerf of it only working with an Attack action so no melee spells.

Enhancing TWF so it's compatible with bonus-action-heavy classes. Meaning double tghe chance to land a SA in melee without giving up Cunning Action.

Moving back one of the signature rogue abilities, Evasion, until near the end of average campaign length (9th out of 10 levels).

Clarifying that Sleight of Hand is used with picking locks and disarming traps (at least for the Thief subclass, which explicitly called for Theives tools in the same place), and then putting in the Rules Glossary that if you have both tool and the skill you get advantage - so it's pretty trivial to have advantage on those things now.

 

[TerraDave]

As a side note, 2014 Rogue changed in a number of ways, both directly and indirectly.

Nerfing damage output by only allowing sneak attack on your turn, plus the smaller nerf of it only working with an Attack action so no melee spells.

Enhancing TWF so it's compatible with bonus-action-heavy classes. Meaning double tghe chance to land a SA in melee without giving up Cunning Action.

Moving back one of the signature rogue abilities, Evasion, until near the end of average campaign length (9th out of 10 levels).

Clarifying that Sleight of Hand is used with picking locks and disarming traps (at least for the Thief subclass, which explicitly called for Theives tools in the same place), and then putting in the Rules Glossary that if you have both tool and the skill you get advantage - so it's pretty trivial to have advantage on those things now.

Oh sure. I think the whole "only happens on an attack" is hard to judge in isolation, as we will see that, and probably other similar changes across the board.

And of the 3, it did change the least. Again, look out sorcerer!

...though I don't think they will go so far to move from spontaneous to flex-vancian casting (which is what we are calling it now).

 

[cbwjm]

Change in light/dual weapons was meant to help rogue, especially, and ranger. Count it as a buff.

Also helps with dual-wielding barbarians, no more having to wait a round to make your off-hand attack.

 

[TerraDave]

Also just saw these in the playtest packet. Discussed a little here, though not that much:

New Weapon options for certain Classes (noted above)
A new system for creating a home base for your characters
Revised encounter-building rules

The last of those is certainly needed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Nerfing damage output by only allowing sneak attack on your turn, plus the smaller nerf of it only working with an Attack action so no melee spells.

Moving back one of the signature rogue abilities, Evasion, until near the end of average campaign length (9th out of 10 levels).

I think both of these will not survive the playtest. Especially the first.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Shift to prep spells--which I am sure we will all start calling "Flex-Vancian", which is not in the video, but which I think will really take off--to bring more obscure, non-combat spells into play.

Issue with this is it will exacerbate an existing problem.

Right now, because out-of-combat spells can never fail, and almost never have negative consequences at all (beyond obviously dumb usage), they're drastically more effective than skills in the exploration and social pillars. Giving out more Expertise won't fix this (bringing back Take 10 and Take 20 might help a lot, but they aren't doing that), because it just changes the fail chance a bit. Skill usage is still always a risk, and often an ill-defined one, whereas magic is risk-free (which is a funny thing to say, as it's not true at all in fantasy fiction).

So now we'll see even more in the way of casters dominating exploration and social.

The only positive thing for non-casters is auto-Advantage if both a skill and a tool apply, but that has limited utility - it will help Rogues but as tools don't usually apply to things like Athletics or social skills (beyond perhaps Deception and disguise/forgery stuff), it won't help other non-casters much. And it also helps casters if they decide to use skills, of course!

People forgot about bardic inspiration die, and now the bard player has more control on how it is used.

But you also get drastically fewer usages of it.

In 5E, you get usually 3 usages at L1, going up to 4 at L4, then it becomes per Short Rest at L5, and you get 5 uses at L8 (assuming typical ASI usage). That's as high as it's likely to go.

In 1D&D, you get 2 usages at L1, going to 3 at L5, then it becomes per Short Rest at L7 (which is painfully later than it should be, frankly), and you get 4 at L9, 5 isn't until L13, and then you go higher at L17 (a frankly unlikely level).

Overall that means a huge decrease in how many actual uses of Inspiration you can make. Especially at levels 1-10, where most play occurs.

So the design is improved, but I'd strongly suggest they need to reconsider whether it's PB or PB+1, and to pull the Short Rest thing back down to L5. Jack of All Trades is also weirdly late, I note.

 

[Neonchameleon]

More feats are coming, maybe many more.

Yay! The casters need some I think. And I'm hoping for level 12 feats. (Level 8 feats I think would be overkill)

Seem to be thinking about higher levels more in general (which would be a huge change).

Huh! I look forward to seeing them offering things to the high level fighter.

Shift to prep spells--which I am sure we will all start calling "Flex-Vancian", which is not in the video, but which I think will really take off--to bring more obscure, non-combat spells into play.

Boo! Hiss! And I don't think it will work.

Thornwhip was meant to help melee rangers. Same for barkskin--which you can combine with dual wielding now!

Bark Skin, yes. Thorn Whip? VSM so the twf class needs one weapon away to cast it, 1d6 damage per tier, spell attack roll (i.e. off-stat). Just carry daggers or shuriken. (The spell I was hoping for was Magic Stone to make an entirely Wis based ranger for their attacks)

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

and then putting in the Rules Glossary that if you have both tool and the skill you get advantage - so it's pretty trivial to have advantage on those things now.

This is confusing to me. If you have both, you get advantage.

So, if you only have one or the other you get a regular check? So, you can pick a lock, without tools using slight of hand, without any penalty? Or do you get disadvantage?

Was there any change to how tools, in general, work?