D&D 5E Thirteen observations about Xanathar’s Guide

[Shadowdweller00]

1. Samurai’s Fighting Spirit grants temporary hit points. You can also give yourself advantage “until the end of the current turn” (XG 31). Do the temporary hit points disappear then too? “Unless the feature has a duration, they last until they’re depleted or you finish a long rest” (PHB 198). Well, the feature does, so the temp HPs disappear at the end of the current turn – before the enemy attacks. This doesn’t seem right (and may need errata?).

I too interpret the description to mean that the temp hit points last longer than end-of-turn (i.e. until next long rest by default).

3. Paladin’s Oath of Redemption (XG 38-39). No longer has the Armor of Peace or the Warrior of Reconciliation features. Does this mean Redemption paladins are still carrying greatswords and wearing heavy armor? Doesn’t this undercut the concept? (It certainly seems at odds with the illustration provided).

I don't personally see how. A paladin is still specifically a trained warrior; presumably force of arms is to be used after other forms of dissuasion prove ineffective. A greatsword serves that role just fine - while heavy armor is more a matter of personal protection.

4. Scout Rogue’s Survivalist feature (XG 47) gives proficiency and expertise with Nature and Survival. It’s not called expertise here (for reasons that aren’t clear), but the effect is the same and it doesn’t stack (XG 5). Not stacking is explicit on the Prodigy feat (XG 75), but this isn’t an exception. Apparently there is no benefit if you have already chosen Expertise in either or both of these skills (unless you work something out with your DM).

Fortunately you can choose which skills to take Expertise in before you reach that point. See: Bounded accuracy

5. Sleeping in Medium and Heavy armor now gives limited benefits from a long rest (XG 77-78). Many will just ignore this, but it’s a reasonable ruling.

I personally give levels of exhaustion for sleeping in medium/heavy armor. But YMMV.

7. Tying Knots (XG 78). While I would prefer proficiency in ropes as a tool, we now know that knot-tying and untying is formally part of Slight-of-hand, a skill I have hitherto not been interested in.

Yeah...doesn't QUITE strike me as being in keeping with my conception of "sleight of hand" either. But I think it's generally better to have more expansive/versatile skills, at least for the less commonly used types.

8. Interaction of skills and tools (XG 78). I’ve been troubled by the overlap before, and now we have rules that say when two overlap, it gives advantage. This makes obvious sense in a few cases (Herbalism with Medicine), but it feels a little bit like a tax – proficiency in Thieves’ Tools helping with Investigation or Perception to spot a trap, for example. It also means that a capella singing can’t ever gain the advantage available to accordion players (Musical instruments with Performance). I’m still thinking about this.

I don't have much of a problem with the overlap to begin with - the typical character gets a strictly limited number of proficiencies.

9. Tool descriptions (XG 78-85) and Common Magic Items (XG 136-40) are pretty cool.

Wholehearted agreement.

10. Ceremony spell (XG 151): Ugh. I hated the UA version of this, and it’s still bad:

Fortunately you're free not to use it. And even a cleric who doesn't hate it is free to swap it out each day when they receive spells.

a. Atonement: how can one be willing about alignment change? Alignment isn’t fixed unless it’s a magical effect, and there are no restrictions on classes and alignment. If it’s to counteract a magical effect, the player may be willing, but the character by definition isn’t. Unless this is now the only way that a character can change alignment, in which case we can convert savages and CE goblins can be made NG. In which case it’s awesome.

I've heard that the whole repentance thing is a staple of some religions...

b. Coming of Age and Dedication can only give their benefits to a creature once (ever). Who wants to track this nonsense? Do high-level characters save this until just before they bight the Ancient Red Dragon, and suddenly decide to get confirmed before the fight?

The spell seems designed more for the typical commoner, who I doubt will be fighting many dragons.

c. Wedding. That is, unless they get married to each other. In a world with Raise Dead spells, the “to death do us part” nonsense implicit in the now-undefined term of “widowed” (in addition to being completely out of step with the 20th century, let alone the 21st) suggests that divorces typically involve fights to the death, so that characters are free to re-marry. And the benefit is to help Armor Class? Yep, that’s why I got married. So my wife and I could do better on the tag-team gladiator pits for the first half of our honeymoon.

I've known couples that need protection... from each other. The whole married before one spouse goes off to war (and dies) is a bit of a fiction staple.

11. Find Greater Steed (XG 156) is now a top pick for Bard’s Magical Secrets at level 10. Who needs a familiar when you can ride a rhinoceros?

Is a familiar really what your spell choice would otherwise have been? Hey, I'm not judging (much).

13. Finally, a point about what’s not there: the absence of Booming Blade and Greenflame blade from the spell lists seems deliberate. I know they are powerful (possibly over-powerful) and popular spells. For those who are concerned about the PHB+1 rule, this seems a good way to curb their use.

Or otherwise still have incentive to purchase/use SCAG.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I too interpret the description to mean that the temp hit points last longer than end-of-turn (i.e. until next long rest by default).

I agree that's probably what's intended, but the PHB sentence seems pretty clear.

Fortunately you can choose which skills to take Expertise in before you reach that point.

For the most part, the game is good at letting characters evolve naturally. This works against that. I'm not complaining about the non-additive nature, but for classes where you choose your subclass after first level, it is unusual for a decision to render a subclass benefit so weak. As I said, people will have to talk to their DM.

I've heard that the whole repentance thing is a staple of some religions...

Yup, and in the ones I'm thinking of that's a choice of the individual, not something the religious figure does to you if you are willing. And the effects last longer than a day. And you don't get better at juggling noticing things as a result.

As i said, if this is a backdoor way to introduce conversion of evil races, fine (well, not fine, but comprehensible). But I don't think that's what is meant.

I've known couples that need protection... from each other. The whole married before one spouse goes off to war (and dies) is a bit of a fiction staple.

Yup, and if the spell offered anything related to that, I'd buy it. But it doesn't. I guess people could start throwing rocks at the spouse left behind in order to find out if the war bound one has died at any time in the first week. Once the rocks start hitting more often, you know the spouse has been killed.

There's no need for the spell. The PHB says that acolytes can "perform sacred rites" and that's distinguished from being a cleric. This spell changes that, and in the process creates ridiculous situations.

I'm surprised this is the observation that's getting traction.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I could be wrong, but the scout feature doesn’t present a conflict, RAW.

That is, when you gain proficiency in something that you already have proficiency in, you can instead pick up a proficiency of the same type. I believe it’s in the phb.

Not sure if it goes for doubles prof bonus, as well (expertise is a class feature, not a generic rules term for adding double your prof bonus to something. Ie, the expertise class feature for rogues and Bards allows you to double prof bonus).

If it doesn’t, just don’t take expertise in those skills. Then, you gain dbl proficiency in them at level 3, and pick up two new skills because you already have nature and survival proficiency.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Yup, and in the ones I'm thinking of that's a choice of the individual, not something the religious figure does to you if you are willing. And the effects last longer than a day. And you don't get better at juggling noticing things as a result.

As i said, if this is a backdoor way to introduce conversion of evil races, fine (well, not fine, but comprehensible). But I don't think that's what is meant.

I'm thinking more along the lines of this actually (Catholic rite). There's actually a whole host of religious and folklore-based examples of rituals or other things (such as this) that can remove sin/wrongdoing and a fair few require a holy figure who knows or has been empowered to conduct the rites.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yep, that’s why I got married. So my wife and I could do better on the tag-team gladiator pits for the first half of our honeymoon.

Assuming you weren't sarcastic, you and your wife are clearly cut out to be adventurers. Congratulations!



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

Of course I could see this being abused "Gee, Bob, another wife died under mysterious circumstances? That's too bad. So who's your new friend?"

Ah, so Henry VIII (the English King) got +7 AC from his wives?

Sweet deal!


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[MarkB]

Ah, so Henry VIII (the English King) got +7 AC from his wives?

Sweet deal!

That's why marital characters are superior to spellcasters.

 

[Li Shenron]

4. Scout Rogue’s Survivalist feature (XG 47) gives proficiency and expertise with Nature and Survival. It’s not called expertise here (for reasons that aren’t clear), but the effect is the same and it doesn’t stack (XG 5). Not stacking is explicit on the Prodigy feat (XG 75), but this isn’t an exception. Apparently there is no benefit if you have already chosen Expertise in either or both of these skills (unless you work something out with your DM).

Is this a 3rd level feature? I suppose it is, in which case it's not a huge deal. Just tell the player not to pick Nature or Survival proficiencies at 1st level, or at least not to pick Expertise, since she'll get it anyway a couple of levels later. Alternatively, the DM can allow swapping expertise to another skill but that's a house rule. OTOH, if this is a 9th (or more) level feature then it's an issue... you can't really ask a Scout player to wait so long without those defining skills.

I also wonder why not just call this Expertise, if after all it's not supposed to stack with it. They did the same thing with the Ranger class feature. If it works like Expertise, and doesn't stack with it, why not just give it the same name? This is not like Advantage with activates other special abilities (so it makes sense to have some features which allow 2 rolls-pick-the-highest without them being the same as advantage), IIRC there is no feature in the game which activates only if you have expertise, but I may be wrong. Thus, not calling these features Expertise just complicates bookkeeping...

5. Sleeping in Medium and Heavy armor now gives limited benefits from a long rest (XG 77-78). Many will just ignore this, but it’s a reasonable ruling.

I wonder how many people actually asked for this... it sounds like that kind of stuff that is almost never needed, and yet many might want it written in an official book anyway. Whatever... at least it clarifies that the DM should basically force everyone to start without armor when the party is ambushed during sleep unless someone specifically chooses to sleep in armor and take the penalties.

7. Tying Knots (XG 78). While I would prefer proficiency in ropes as a tool, we now know that knot-tying and untying is formally part of Slight-of-hand, a skill I have hitherto not been interested in.

Actually this sounds like a good idea to me. Sleight-of-hand sounds appropriate, and I like the idea of adding new uses for skills that are narrower than average.

8. Interaction of skills and tools (XG 78). I’ve been troubled by the overlap before, and now we have rules that say when two overlap, it gives advantage. This makes obvious sense in a few cases (Herbalism with Medicine), but it feels a little bit like a tax – proficiency in Thieves’ Tools helping with Investigation or Perception to spot a trap, for example. It also means that a capella singing can’t ever gain the advantage available to accordion players (Musical instruments with Performance). I’m still thinking about this.

This sounds very interesting... does this apply only to skill+tool or also to skill+skill? I would prefer the former, because it increases the value of tools proficiencies relative to the value of skills.

Anyway I suppose that there were 3 options here: no effect, advantage, expertise. I think advantage catches a nice middle ground in terms of benefits to the actual check, although it may also activate special abilities that require advantage. I am generally not so fond of getting advantage easily, but for skills it's not nearly as a big deal as with attacks.

10. Ceremony spell (XG 151): Ugh. I hated the UA version of this, and it’s still bad:

a. Atonement: how can one be willing about alignment change? Alignment isn’t fixed unless it’s a magical effect, and there are no restrictions on classes and alignment. If it’s to counteract a magical effect, the player may be willing, but the character by definition isn’t. Unless this is now the only way that a character can change alignment, in which case we can convert savages and CE goblins can be made NG. In which case it’s awesome.

Ceremony got the lowest possible vote for me in the feedback. As usual, I am a special snowflake...

Anyway the Atonement effect basically brings back the old Atonement spell (but down to 1st level!). This campaign-dependent, considering that many groups nowadays don't even use alignments, but yet this is IMO actually THE main effect of this spell, compared to the other uses. If you don't use alignments, you can pretty much ignore this spell for the whole campaign, unless something very specific comes up.

If the wording hasn't changed from UA, it should work also in the case when alignment is changed magically. I think it's very much open to debate whether a PC is "willing" or not. I would not take it for granted that someone "evil" is happy to be like that, there's a lot of people who don't like what they are and would like to change... Let's also keep in mind that this doesn't actually change someone's alignment but only reverts it back to what is presumably a fairly stable value.

b. Coming of Age and Dedication can only give their benefits to a creature once (ever). Who wants to track this nonsense? Do high-level characters save this until just before they bight the Ancient Red Dragon, and suddenly decide to get confirmed before the fight?

c. Wedding. That is, unless they get married to each other. In a world with Raise Dead spells, the “to death do us part” nonsense implicit in the now-undefined term of “widowed” (in addition to being completely out of step with the 20th century, let alone the 21st) suggests that divorces typically involve fights to the death, so that characters are free to re-marry. And the benefit is to help Armor Class? Yep, that’s why I got married. So my wife and I could do better on the tag-team gladiator pits for the first half of our honeymoon.

They are pretty stupid effects. Apparently someone at WotC got amused by the idea. It made it into XGE only because the time between UA and XGE was short, and it got reviewed/feedbacked only once. IMO it's similar to other fancy controversial ideas like the "intoxicated" condition that amused the designers (or their bosses), then becamse stale and boring, and was ultimately discarded. Same would have happened here if only there had been a longer time window before publication.

I can see that it might be used in a very well played and run campaign where some of the PCs go through these life events, but honestly there was absolutely no need for mechanical benefits, and also for a spell that could have been just a narrated non-magical ceremony.

13. Finally, a point about what’s not there: the absence of Booming Blade and Greenflame blade from the spell lists seems deliberate. I know they are powerful (possibly over-powerful) and popular spells. For those who are concerned about the PHB+1 rule, this seems a good way to curb their use.

Honestly I am happy with that, from what I've heard those cantrips give too much melee strength. They also have dorky cartoonish names for my tastes

 

[Kobold Stew]

I could be wrong, but the scout feature doesn’t present a conflict, RAW.

That is, when you gain proficiency in something that you already have proficiency in, you can instead pick up a proficiency of the same type. I believe it’s in the phb.

I think, RAW, it does. The passage you refer to is speaking specifically about Backgrounds at character gen. (PHB 125).

Not sure if it goes for doubles prof bonus, as well (expertise is a class feature, not a generic rules term for adding double your prof bonus to something. Ie, the expertise class feature for rogues and Bards allows you to double prof bonus).

You don't get to add double proficiency ever (XG 5).
There are a small class of abilities that you only get if you don't have them already: a light cleric learns the light cantrip "if you don't already know it", e.g., which they might if they have MC/d in from another class. In that case, RAW, no additional cantrip.

Monk Shadow Arts is another, Necromancer Undead Thralls, Transmuter Shapechanger, now this.

And if you think this is just me with a weird reading, compare the Illusionist's Improved Minor Illusion, which says "If you already know this cantrip, you learn a different one." That's why it seems deliberate in the other cases.

If it doesn’t, just don’t take expertise in those skills. Then, you gain dbl proficiency in them at level 3, and pick up two new skills because you already have nature and survival proficiency.

Yup, that's the solution, or talk to the DM and ask (reasonably) to sub in something else.

 

[Kobold Stew]

This sounds very interesting... does this apply only to skill+tool or also to skill+skill? I would prefer the former, because it increases the value of tools proficiencies relative to the value of skills.

Skill+tool. It's a very useful section.

Ceremony got the lowest possible vote for me in the feedback. As usual, I am a special snowflake...

And I am with you in the blizzard.