What do you miss from the D&D Next playtest?

[hastur_nz]

It's probably against our NDA to reveal anything too specific, let alone publish it.

From memory, there wasn't a great amount of real meat left out of what we playtested - more like a lot of variations on how to do stuff, see what worked for people, change what didn't for next time. In fact, all I can remember was variations that were changed, rather than anything specific that was actually left out. More the complete opposite, i.e. there were complete sections of rules that were never play-tested. For example the Warlock class was never in the playtest rules, nor were the final XP rules (an early version of XP and monster level was in the alpha/public beta, but it was changed heavily in final 5e), the encounter building rules were never in the playtest (no wonder they are a mess), and so on.

I do recall our Wizard player saying he was disappointed with how loads of people complained early on that Wizards were too powerful, so they got nerfed in the next playtest pack; I think the final way Cantrips scale has alleviated that problem somewhat, but I do still agree that while the baseline for Wizard in 5e is better than it was for say 3.5, the general damage output is still too low for most spells (a high level spell should be far more significant than what someone can achieve by using a weapon for a round).

 

[Ath-kethin]

I also liked the +1 due to race, +1 due to class setup for skills. I also liked the feat-based option for non-class spellcasters (basically "Magic Initiate" was the first, and was a prerequisite for the second - which gave you higher-level spells and more lower-level spells - and so on).

I still have all the packets, but there was nothing else I remember being sad to see missing from the final rules.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My biggest thing was the Dual-Souled Willpower fueled sorcerer, man, that was just one of the most evocative class designs I've ever seen. A little OP, but it pressed every single one of my buttons.


I remember the Warlock had something similar to Eldritch Invocations, they gave them abilities but also came along with some curse like effects. Like, you gained the ability to see in the dark but your eyes always looked like cat eyes, or you gained the ability to charm people but a large wart grew on your nose.

Small things also, like I remember that the original name for the Cleric's Sacred Flame cantrip was Radiant Lance, which I think was a slightly cooler name.

 

[The Old Crow]

I have a vague memory that there was a Ranger. And that I really liked it. But I can't check because it seems that I either recycled the playtest stuff, or it was on the computer that went kaput.

Am I misrembering, or did they release a playtest Ranger?

 

[Li Shenron]

Is there something that was in the playtest you liked and it got cut? What was it?

I miss the turn-based Exploration module.

 

[CubicsRube]

I miss the turn-based Exploration module.

How did that work?

 

[Gadget]

Agreed. I didn't see the playtest sorcerer myself, but from what I've heard, it would've been more interesting than what we got. (The sorcerer is one of the few 5E classes I'm truly "meh" on.)

Wasn't there something substantially different about warlocks, too?

It's probably against our NDA to reveal anything too specific, let alone publish it.

From memory, there wasn't a great amount of real meat left out of what we playtested - more like a lot of variations on how to do stuff, see what worked for people, change what didn't for next time. In fact, all I can remember was variations that were changed, rather than anything specific that was actually left out. More the complete opposite, i.e. there were complete sections of rules that were never play-tested. For example the Warlock class was never in the playtest rules, nor were the final XP rules (an early version of XP and monster level was in the alpha/public beta, but it was changed heavily in final 5e), the encounter building rules were never in the playtest (no wonder they are a mess), and so on.

I remember the Warlock had something similar to Eldritch Invocations, they gave them abilities but also came along with some curse like effects. Like, you gained the ability to see in the dark but your eyes always looked like cat eyes, or you gained the ability to charm people but a large wart grew on your nose.

As I recall, Warlocks, Sorcerers (other than the experimental version mentioned by others that was briefly tried), Rangers, Bards, Paladins, & (not sure) Barbarians were never in the public play test. Which is sad, because most of those classes could have benefited tremendously from more playtesting, though I understand that they didn't want to put all their cards on the table for free. Also, I don't think the public play test was used for fine tuning things as much as getting feed back on an over all direction and feel. Some things were intentionally not balance well or at least needed much more refinement.

I remember being quite surprised by some of these classes when 5e was released, and I kept up with most of the play test materials and conversations about it here at enworld.

**EDIT** A few of the classes I named above may have made limited or brief appearances in the play test packets, but--like the sorcerer--they either were not iterated on or left off future packets and did not have much of their final incarnation in the release of 5e.

 

[renevq]

Arcane Archer as a feat. Although it could have used some tweaking, it was way better in both a mechanical and narrative sense than the subclass in XGtE.

 

[Teataine]

At one point feats were much meatier and closer to subclasses or prestige classes.
The whole system was more open and there were a lot more options to tweak your character in various ways. Dito martial and skill dice.
More options were sensible or evocative enough to be played while now everybody seems to fall for the same "optimal" choices.
The Sorcerer was amazing, and although I understand why they didn't release it as the Sorcerer, it could have been a new class.

I wish I could still find the packets somewhere and plunder them for houserules.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Things I miss:
- Specialties, which allowed (essentially) a feat-tree that was not class-dependent.
- Thugs -- a purpose-built strength build for rogues
- a skill to Break an Object