D&D (2024) WotC On One D&D Playtest Survey Results: Nearly Everything Scored 80%+!

In a 40-minute video, WotC's Jeremy Crawford discussed the survey feedback to the 'Character Origins' playtest document. Over 40,000 engaged with the survey, and 39,000 completed it. I've summarised the content of the video below.

High Scorers

• The highest scoring thing with almost 90% was getting a first level feat in your background. This is an example of an experimental thing -- like advantage and disadvantage in the original 5E playtests.
• Almost everything also scored 80%+.

About The Scoring System

• 70% or higher is their passing grade. In the 70s is a thumbs up but tinkering need. 80% means the community wants exactly that and WotC treads carefully not to change it too much.
• In the 60s it's salvageable but it really needs reworking. Below 60% means that there's a good chance they'll drop it, and in the 40s or below it's gone. Nothing was in the 50s or below.

Low Scorers

Only 3 things dipped into the 60s --

• the d20 Test rule in the Rules Glossary (experimental, no surprise)
• the ardling
• the dragonborn

The next UA had a different version of the d20 Test rule, and they expect a very different score when those survey resuts come in.

It was surprising that the dragonborn scored lower than the ardling. The next UA will include new versions of both. The main complaints were:

• the dragonborn's breath weapon, and confusion between the relationship between that dragonborn and the one in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
• the ardling was trying to do too much (aasimar-like and beast-person).

The ardling does not replace the aasimar. The next version will have a clearer identity.

Everything else scored in the 70s or 80s.

Some more scores:

• new human 83%
• dwarf, orc, tiefling, elf tied at 80-81%
• gnome, halfling tied at 78%

Future installments of Unearthed Arcana

• The next one will have new ardling and dragonborn, a surprise 'guest', and a new cleric. It will be a shorter document than the previous ones, and the one after that is bigger again. Various class groups.
• Warrior group digs into something teased in a previous UA sidebar -- new weapon options for certain types of characters. Whole new ways to use weapons.
• New rules on managing your character's home base. A new subsystem. Create bases with NPCs connected with them, implementing downtime rules. They're calling it the "Bastion System".
• There will be a total of 48 subclasses in the playtest process.
• New encounter building rules, monster customization options.
• New versions of things which appear in the playtest after feedback.

Other Notes

• Playtests are a version of something with the assumption that if something isn't in the playtest, it's still in the game (eg eldritch blast has not been removed from the game). The mage Unearthed Arcana will feature that.
• Use an object and other actions are still as defined in the current Player's Handbook. The playtest material is stuff that has changed.
• Thief subclass's cunning action does not interact with use an object; this is intentional. Removed because the original version is a 'Mother may I?" mechanic - something that only works if the DM cooperates with you. In general mechanics which require DM permission are unsatisfying. The use an object action might go away, but that decision will be a made via the playtest process.
• The ranger's 1st-level features also relied too heavily on DM buy-in, also wild magic will be addressed.
• If you have a class feature you should be able to use it in the way you expect.
• If something is removed from the game, they will say so.
• Great Weapon Fighting and Sharpshooter were changed because the penalty to the attack roll was not big enough to justify the damage bonus, plus they want warrior classes to be able to rely on their class features (including new weapon options) for main damage output. They don't want any feats to feel mandatory to deal satisfying damage. Feats which are 'must haves' violate their design goals.
• Light Weapon property amped up by removing the bonus action requirement because requiring light weapon users to use their bonus action meant there were a lot of bad combinations with features and spells which require bonus actions. It felt like a tax on light weapon use.
• Class spell lists are still an open question. Focus on getting used to the three big spell lists. Feedback was that it would be nice to still have a class list to summarize what can be picked from the 'master lists'. For the bard that would be useful, for the cleric and wizard not necessary as they can choose from the whole divine or arcane list.

The playtest process will continue for a year.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

we used 3.0 stuff in 3.5 unless that specific thing was rewritten in 3.5.

same with 3.75, err Pathfinder

yeah but most tables didn't. I have seen people take the weird no name hero thing from sword and fist and update it (since complete warrior skipped that one) but not most.

Then again I also personally updated 2e things to 3e, and 3.5
I also took 2e and 3/3.5e stuff and updated it to 4e.
In 5e I took it one step father and had an NPC follow the 2e wizard rules and show up as 'the survivor' in a multiverse game... "Some say he is from that last universe"

I also have a spiritual sequel to that multiverse game in the works that would merge WoD, Deadlands, Torg, 2e D&D, 4e D&D, and Rifts characters into a 5e game.

 

[Staffan]

Tends to be the same issue for some people with high level rogues once you get reliable talent. Unless the DM sets up scenarios where literally no one without expertise can hope to achieve the target required, a straight skill check becomes boring.

Rob Donoghue had a thread a while back on Twitter where he pointed out that one of the reasons combat works fairly well in D&D and non-combat tasks generally don't is that combat uses a large number of rolls, where you have a fair bit of control over the circumstances of each roll, and with each individual roll being fairly low-stakes in relation to the eventual outcome. This creates a situation where you both have excitement over individual rolls, and (in most cases) a fair bit of certainty that the PCs will come out on top. Overall, PCs will likely have win percentages of 95% or more, even if any individual attack roll might only have a 60% chance to hit.

But skill checks tend to be more binary: you make one roll, and if you fail that's it. You need to find another approach. If you can't pick the lock, you can either break down the door, cast a knock spell, or find someone who has the key. And in that situation, a 60% chance of success is pretty unsatisfactory. Some games use something akin to skill challenges for important skill checks (multiple rolls, sometimes for different skills, and where a single failure doesn't wreck the whole effort), but D&D tried that in 4e and as we know everything that came from 4e is unholy and must be purged.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Rob Donoghue had a thread a while back on Twitter where he pointed out that one of the reasons combat works fairly well in D&D and non-combat tasks generally don't is that combat uses a large number of rolls, where you have a fair bit of control over the circumstances of each roll, and with each individual roll being fairly low-stakes in relation to the eventual outcome. This creates a situation where you both have excitement over individual rolls, and (in most cases) a fair bit of certainty that the PCs will come out on top. Overall, PCs will likely have win percentages of 95% or more, even if any individual attack roll might only have a 60% chance to hit.

But skill checks tend to be more binary: you make one roll, and if you fail that's it. You need to find another approach. If you can't pick the lock, you can either break down the door, cast a knock spell, or find someone who has the key. And in that situation, a 60% chance of success is pretty unsatisfactory. Some games use something akin to skill challenges for important skill checks (multiple rolls, sometimes for different skills, and where a single failure doesn't wreck the whole effort), but D&D tried that in 4e and as we know everything that came from 4e is unholy and must be purged.

Not all of it. I liked the setting.

 

[Staffan]

The PHB Warlock is almost functionally identical to the Next Playtest Warlock. The loss of the Next Playtest Sorcerer is tragic, but the reason given for pulling back on it was that people thought it would be difficult to convert sorcerers from past editions. The idea that the 70% approval threshold played into it is speculation. But I’d also wager the fate of the Next Playtest sorcerer was part of what lead WotC to realize more focused chunks would be a better approach than full vertical slices.

There were a lot of problems with the D&D Next sorcerer. The main was that over the course of a day you'd go from a caster to a bruiser, and those have quite different demands regarding stats, gear, and so on. As a side effect, this meant that once you started transforming you'd be worse at casting IIRC, which meant that if you wanted to hold something back for a boss fight you nerfed yourself for the whole day. Another problem was that it was particularly draconic-themed, leaving out all the other possible sorcerer origins.

 

[Charlaquin]

There were a lot of problems with the D&D Next sorcerer. The main was that over the course of a day you'd go from a caster to a bruiser, and those have quite different demands regarding stats, gear, and so on. As a side effect, this meant that once you started transforming you'd be worse at casting IIRC, which meant that if you wanted to hold something back for a boss fight you nerfed yourself for the whole day. Another problem was that it was particularly draconic-themed, leaving out all the other possible sorcerer origins.

You definitely did not become worse at casting once you started transforming. Except in the sense that the transformations were triggered by having fewer Willpower remaining, which was your resource for casting spells.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Rob Donoghue had a thread a while back on Twitter where he pointed out that one of the reasons combat works fairly well in D&D and non-combat tasks generally don't is that combat uses a large number of rolls, where you have a fair bit of control over the circumstances of each roll, and with each individual roll being fairly low-stakes in relation to the eventual outcome.

that is SUPER insightful... and why I wish they had worked harder at skill challanges. We need a robust system like that for non combat. (not that I am saying that skill challange was perfect at the end or that it wasn't a mess to start... but it was a start).
My hope is that Strixhave exams and social stuff gets worked on and integrated more... the influence action is a start.

But skill checks tend to be more binary: you make one roll, and if you fail that's it. You need to find another approach. If you can't pick the lock, you can either break down the door, cast a knock spell, or find someone who has the key. And in that situation, a 60% chance of success is pretty unsatisfactory. Some games use something akin to skill challenges for important skill checks (multiple rolls, sometimes for different skills, and where a single failure doesn't wreck the whole effort), but D&D tried that in 4e and as we know everything that came from 4e is unholy and must be purged.

 

[Vaalingrade]

we used 3.0 stuff in 3.5 unless that specific thing was rewritten in 3.5.

same with 3.75, err Pathfinder

3e specifically wrecked the character I was using at the time of the drop: a rogue alchemist who used a bastard sword.

 

[Retreater]

Sure, these are mostly tweaks, but they do seem to mostly be tweaks for the better and make the whole thing more coherent. Neither of which is bad.

If you feel this is not enough, then do not buy it, it's simple. I am not sure what big changes you want (and by extension whether they would even be considered an improvement by 5e players rather than e.g. the OSR crowd), but WotC is clearly not interested in making any.

I'm just so sick of 5e. And the idea of the future of the TTRPG hobby being 5.1 for the foreseeable future already has my eyes glazing over.
And yes, I can choose not to buy it, and I probably won't. It doesn't keep me from wishing that things could have gone differently.

 

[Retreater]

That said, have you checked out pathfinder 2? That's different enough.

Yes. I am running a weekly game of it online. It's almost "there" for what I'd want (certainly closer than 5e).
What I don't like is that I can't find anyone locally to play it, but I can run a game of D&D every day of the week and have to turn away players.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There were a lot of problems with the D&D Next sorcerer. The main was that over the course of a day you'd go from a caster to a bruiser, and those have quite different demands regarding stats, gear, and so on. As a side effect, this meant that once you started transforming you'd be worse at casting IIRC, which meant that if you wanted to hold something back for a boss fight you nerfed yourself for the whole day. Another problem was that it was particularly draconic-themed, leaving out all the other possible sorcerer origins.

You definitely did not become worse at casting once you started transforming. Except in the sense that the transformations were triggered by having fewer Willpower remaining, which was your resource for casting spells.

yes and no to you both... it was a VERY different concept that while great in theory needed more work.
the sad part is a great idea with bad execution can get a 40% approval and dropped