D&D (2024) Survey Launch | Player's Handbook Playtest 5 | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

[Chaosmancer]

Adding a single line and beholders getting hover. Oh no.

Um... how is "X and Y would be variable depending on how a good a flier it would be" a single line? That may be a single line... for every single flying creature and flight type in the game.

And you would need it to be consistent, which means designing an equation of some sort. And then exceptions to account for the weird things.

This is not a simple process. And certainly not simpler than "all movement is basically the exact same"

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but I feel like an easier fix would be to have basically two "modes" for flying: Hovering and Soaring.

• Hovering: You are using most of your downforce to traverse more accurately around. You can move up to half your speed in the air, or you can stay in place. You can dash if you like, which will also be at half-speed.
• Soaring: You are moving fast, but less able to maneuver and cannot stay in place. You must move up to your full speed and can dash if you like. However you must travel your full speed, and you may only make one 90 degree/sideways turn per move action. You must move at least one space before turning.
• To switch between these two "modes", you must expend an action. This can be done before or after you move.

You can now do some interesting things. I don't have a hard and fast rule to rein in or define gaining altitude (largely for soaring, I think hovering kind of deals with itself), but I think it's probably doable. But with this, you avoid most hassle of lots of rules because being in different modes focuses you on a few hard limits: Hovering is slow but allows for exact movement, Soaring is fast but lacks maneuverability.

EDIT: Hoo boy, made a bunch of very fast clarity edits. Hopefully got everything I wanted in there.

Okay but... what problem are you trying to solve here? Especially since what you have effectively down is say "all flight is down as though you are traveling through difficult terrain" because no one in their right mind would ever use an action for that.

And, I don't think most people find the speed of fliers to be a big issue. Plus, these rules now need to apply to monsters, which is a mess for a DM to try and deal with, since an enemy can't dive bomb the players from above or swarm them or do any of a dozen things DMs want them to do. Heck, I'm sure an argument can even be made that the enemy can't land, because you must move your full flight speed, and can't stop early.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The second you start adding these sorts of limitations and rules for "realism" or "verisimilitude"

If this is suggesting I'm doing anything for verisimilitude, I'm going to have to ask you to take that back.

I just want some semblance of depth and interaction. I know 5e hates that, but they're supposed to be pretending to improve things.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Okay but... what problem are you trying to solve here? Especially since what you have effectively down is say "all flight is down as though you are traveling through difficult terrain" because no one in their right mind would ever use an action for that.

I was largely doing it as a thought experiment, though I don't think adding a few rules is necessarily a problem as much as making things easier on edge cases and making the act itself feel different than just, say, walking on air.

Also I don't know what you are talking about with "down". I think you mean hovering? And people would use that if they didn't have the room to swoop around, if they needed fine maneuvering, or if they simply wanted to stay in place.

And, I don't think most people find the speed of fliers to be a big issue. Plus, these rules now need to apply to monsters, which is a mess for a DM to try and deal with, since an enemy can't dive bomb the players from above or swarm them or do any of a dozen things DMs want them to do.

Sure they can. If they are swarming, they are just hovering, which makes sense. If they are swooping past, they are soaring and using their attacks as they fly by. Hell, you can even make a sort of "pounce" attack that stops your movement immediately as you put all the force of your movement into an attack.

Heck, I'm sure an argument can even be made that the enemy can't land, because you must move your full flight speed, and can't stop early.

Well, that's because I didn't come up with rules for moving up and down. Was just kind of shooting from the hip, but I could come up with some if I wanted. I don't think this is really indicative of actual problems with my rules as much as pointing out something I made in 5 minutes doesn't cover everything.

Edit: But y'know, they could just switch an Action to Hover and land if they wanted to land nearby (they're basically actively slowing themselves down because they are coming in too hot). Or they just use the full movement and land a bit further away. Nothing wrong with forcing players to make some decisions about how they move, as well as not just letting them move however they want.

 

[James Gasik]

3 dimensional movement has always been the bane of D&D, and I, for one, am happy to not have complicated rules to worry about. So what if someone can move in an unrealistic way, such as turning on a dime or taking off vertically without X squares of land movement to take off? I've tried to run aerial combats where different creatures have to move Y squares to turn, and it sucks. Or how about the 3.e era, where most flying creatures couldn't even full attack without having to land, yet they kept printing Average maneuverability fliers that inexplicably had multiple attacks they couldn't even use without ceding their primary advantage!

Instead they created a bunch of feats as workarounds for their own restrictions, like Wingover, but only certain creatures had the brain power or the Hit Dice to have all the feats they needed, and even then, you get this guy who doesn't have hover. Oh sure, he has Flyby Attack, but because he can only turn at a 45 degree angle for every 5 feet of movement, and he has to move at least 40 feet a turn or fall (barring his one free Wingover a turn), using the thing in combat feels more like Robo Rally than D&D!

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but I feel like an easier fix would be to have basically two "modes" for flying: Hovering and Soaring.

• Hovering: You are using most of your downforce to traverse more accurately around. You can move up to half your speed in the air, or you can stay in place. You can dash if you like, which will also be at half-speed.
• Soaring: You are moving fast, but less able to maneuver and cannot stay in place. You must move up to your full speed and can dash if you like. However you must travel your full speed, and you may only make one 90 degree/sideways turn per move action. You must move at least one space before turning.
• To switch between these two "modes", you must expend an action. This can be done before or after you move.

You can now do some interesting things. I don't have a hard and fast rule to rein in or define gaining altitude (largely for soaring, I think hovering kind of deals with itself), but I think it's probably doable. But with this, you avoid most hassle of lots of rules because being in different modes focuses you on a few hard limits: Hovering is slow but allows for exact movement, Soaring is fast but lacks maneuverability.

EDIT: Hoo boy, made a bunch of very fast clarity edits. Hopefully got everything I wanted in there.

What problem are you trying to solve here? It's still bleach style stand in the sky just to nullify threat from ground based adversaries. It doesn't require enough movement to make the "mode" granting free hover a tactical concern. One 90 degree turn doesn't even impose difficulty in combat either because facing rules are "optional". Standing in the sky and moving one square from where you were standing is still standing in the sky.

All this really does is allow the same problem to remain while technically doing something that accomplishes the single goal of applying a "I don't have a dog in this.... [both sides]" do nothing limit that serves to make things difficult for the GM to balance thanks to enshrining the ability to say "well... actually the letter of the rule says I only need to..." Someone on reddit made a great post about this recently

Spoiler: said post

Most players don't want balance, they want power fantasy​

Hot Take
There's a trend of players wanting the most powerful option and cherry picking their arguments to defend it without appreciating the extra work it creates for the DM. I'm not talking about balance issues within a party with one PC overshadowing everyone else. 5e is designed for a basic style of play and powercreep (official or homebrew) throws off the balance and makes it harder for the DM to create fair and fun encounters.
Some famous examples that are unbalanced for the game's intent but relentless defended by optimizers in the community.
Armor and shield dips

• "The spell progression delay is a fair cost for multiclassing. Just give martials options to increase AC too."
• Artificer or hexblade dips for medium armor and shield is a significant boost to caster defense well worth the 1 level spell delay. Clerics getting the Shield spell similarly grants very high ACs that martials can't rival. Monsters appropriate for tier 2 play aren't designed to deal with 24 AC. Most importantly, this removes the niche protection of martials being tanky frontliners and fantasy of casters being glass cannons to... armored cannons.

Peace dip

• "Whoever can spare a 1 level dip, go into peace cleric to grab us double bless! It's a helpful 25% boost."
• 5e's design of bounded accuracy and many buffs turning into advantage/disadvantage is good intent. A non-concentration 10 minute emboldening bond directly exploits bounded accuracy for so little cost. The fallacy is thinking 2d4 (5) = 25% bonus. The true value is a relative increase from baseline success and on great weapon master and sharpshooter is a whopping 62.5% (65% base accuracy, 40% with -5/+10, 65% again with emboldening bond + bless).

Twilight sanctuary

• "A strong group buff helps everyone and hurts no one. Clerics are support and this is just one of the best subclass to do that!"
• Every DM who has tried to run an official adventure for a party with twilight sanctuary will find that you can barely put a dent through your party's hp. As a non-cleric player playing with a twilight in the party, I get no joy from fights I know the DM has artificially inflated to compensate for twilight, or curbstomping encounters the DM just runs normally.

Silvery barbs

• "It feels great to negate crits and give save or suck spells a second chance. Besides, we already have Shield which is super strong! Are you gonna ban that too?"
• SB is a versatile spell better than one of Grave Cleric's niche features and lets you reaction-cast a save or suck a second time. The argument that "you lose your reaction for other things" is a focusing on the wrong thing; causing a creature to fail a control spell (which often eliminates their turn) is much stronger than keeping your reaction available. The fact that there is already a strong 1st level spell is not valid justification for adding another strong (borderline broken) spell into the game.

Flying races

• "They're balanced if you add some ranged attacks, flying enemies, and environmental factors."
• What the player really means is "I want to play a flying race to trivialize some of your encounters. Don't add ranged flyers or a low ceiling EVERY TIME or that defeats the purpose of me wanting to break some of your encounters."

Extra feats

• "Choosing between an ASI or feat is a difficult decision. Martials need extra feats to compete with casters. Also give casters extra feats so nobody feels bad. Let's all just start with a level 1 feat so variant human and custom lineage aren't OP."
• The whole point of feats and ASIs is they are two strong character building options that you have to choose between. Some of the most powerful feats assume you delay your ASI so it takes longer for you to get +5 DEX & CBE & SS. The already flawed encounter calculator breaks even more when character have what should normally should be 8 levels higher to acquire.

Rolling for stats with bonus points or safeguards

• "I'm here to play a hero, not a farmer. I want rolled stats where anyone can use anyone's array and if nobody rolls an 18, we all reroll. Rolling is fun/exciting/horribly unbalanced."
• Starting with 20 after racial bonuses is effectively two free ASIs compared to 27 point buy. That's still akin 8 levels higher to acquire.

Balancing concerns

• A good DM can balance for whatever the players bring to the table... but it takes a lot more effort for the DM who is already putting so much work into the game.
• The "just use higher CR creatures until you're happy with the difficulty" response has a few issues. Most optimization strategies don't give the party more hp, moving this closer to rocket tag territory. For twilight sanctuary, the one time they don't use it your now tailored fight that was medium is now deadly-TPK. Unbalanced features buff the players in janky ways that create other problems.
• Players pick the strongest options: that's not a fault in itself, it's a game after all. But combined with overpowered official content and popular homebrew buffs can create a nightmare for DMs to run.
• If the players want all these features and additional homebrew bonuses like feats or enhanced stat rolling to be more powerful, why not... just go the simple route and play at a higher level? (if you really want to kill an adult dragon with ease, just be level 15 instead of 10)

5e needs to stop assuming that players aren't going to behave like players & write rules that enable the GM rather than rules designed to shrield against the adversary known as the gm.

 

[Justice and Rule]

What problem are you trying to solve here? It's still bleach style stand in the sky just to nullify threat from ground based adversaries. It doesn't require enough movement to make the "mode" granting free hover a tactical concern.

That's fair, but that's always been a problem with flying in general. Not sure how to really solve that.

One 90 degree turn doesn't even impose difficulty in combat either because facing rules are "optional".

No, when I say "turn", I mean in regards to changing your movement direction. Facing might be optional, but I'm specifying that you can only change your direction of movement once a turn and that you have to move at least one square/5feet before doing so on any turn.

Standing in the sky and moving one square from where you were standing is still standing in the sky.

Again, what kind of flight do we assume is magical? Do you need to use something to actually move your or...? I think it's easier to think and restrict flight for something like an Aarakocra because flapping makes for an easier restriction. But even then, they would likely be able to do some level of hover (or at least slow movement). The bigger thing would not being able to use your hands (though I think they can fight with their feet canonically?).

All this really does is allow the same problem to remain while technically doing something that accomplishes the single goal of applying a "I don't have a dog in this.... [both sides]" do nothing limit that serves to make things difficult for the GM to balance thanks to enshrining the ability to say "well... actually the letter of the rule says I only need to..."

So you want more limits? I mean, I was trying to make something in the mode of what I think 5E works at, which is largely simple. If you want something more complicated, I think that can get hashed out. I figured that it would be an easy "Split the difference" sort of thing to give a few easy to remember rules. If you want something more complicated, I'd love to try that.

Your tone, however, feels unnecessarily aggressive for what we are talking about, and I don't understand why.

 

[James Gasik]

Session Zero question: "Hey I see some of you have chosen to play flying races. Figured we might have some three-dimensional combats to take advantage of that- do you prefer realistic flying or superhero flight? I'm in the realistic flying camp myself, but I know that tracking turning arcs, half speed ascent, double speed descent, and all that jazz can be obnoxious, so if you prefer simple, we can do simple. Keep in mind most monsters have better fly speeds than you guys will have as well."

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I am having a real rough time with this survey. There is simply too much stuff in this playtest packet for me to process. I realize they are probably pressed for time, but my quality of feedback is way below what it usually is for these things and even though we are trying to actually playtest it, there is simply too much stuff to actually get a feel for. I am almost thinking that at this point, my feedback is going to be worse than useless. They really need to rethink how they do this whole playtest process unless they want a bunch of half redigested hot takes from Reddit and YouTubers.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am having a real rough time with this survey. There is simply too much stuff in this playtest packet for me to process. I realize they are probably pressed for time, but my quality of feedback is way below what it usually is for these things and even though we are trying to actually playtest it, there is simply too much stuff to actually get a feel for. I am almost thinking that at this point, my feedback is going to be worse than useless. They really need to rethink how they do this whole playtest process unless they want a bunch of half redigested hot takes from Reddit and YouTubers.

I was finding that with the prior playtest surveys, so I have started saving the pdf and annotating them as I read and re-read to leave notes to myself for the survey. I found it really useful.