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Some initial thoughts - Overall I like the race redesigns. Dwarf supremacy has returned. Full orcs are cool and good. Also, I like how they are handling half-races and I'm glad future PHBs won't waste pagecount on describing their origins. Now if you really want to play one, you pick the game stats of one parent, average the life span of both, then do whatever for a visual appearance. Gameplay-wise, half-orcs are either fully orc or fully whatever the other half is. Ardlings are....uh...from what I can tell, completely new, and I don't know why they didn't go with aasimar. It seems like aasimar have had a rough time over the editions, bouncing between different concepts. Now we get animal-headed angels. Just weird. So now you can play a toad-headed angel that can fly and gets guidance and healing word as racial spells. Mechanically that's great, I would love to play that with the new healer feat on a cleric or something, but I wish the animal thing was optional. Feats! Alert nerfed. No more surprise immunity, init bonus now based on prof bonus which is a nerf at low/mid level play. Some fluff feats (crafter, skilled) mixed with combat-boosting feats. Trap options in the making. Lucky supervantage nerfed. Good riddance. Magic Initiate streamlined and added to spell lists. Good (for picking up Shield without multiclassing). I can see this getting chosen a lot for spell cherry-picking. Tavern Brawler - sailors now better than monks at unarmed combat, as it should be Notably, what is missing: GWM, Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, all the power feats are pushed out of 1st level. A good decision.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:32
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These changes are broadly good, although if they want to keep the race hybridization rules as-is (and they should really say "species") they're going to have to make sure that no race with a better base movespeed than 30 ever comes out ever.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:33
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Huh, the changes to Crits are interesting. I'm curious if they will fiddle with Sneak Attack and Smite in turn, or if it just makes things less spectacular (in the rare cases that the crit happens). I like that they added some explicit notion of "mixed parentage", where you can basically mix and match, which seems like a good idea.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:34
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Also like all rules they can be finessed. Like if I had a level 20 rogue with like a +20 to lock picking, they are not going to fail to break into something with the fantasy equivalent of a lovely masterlock, if for some god forsaken reason I make them roll, which I probably wouldn't, I probably would make the natural one something like, you were careless and made some noise but still get the lock open.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:36
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quote:The DM determines whether a d20 Test is warranted in any given circumstance. To be warranted, a d20 Test must have a target number no less than 5 and no greater than 30. It’s really dumb to auto fail skills 5% of the time despite how much of your life you might have dedicated to mastering that skill.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:38
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Magic Initiate is hugely improved now it's more in line with new 'one free cast then you can cast it with spell slots' feats, and also it specifically says you can swap one out when you level up.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:39
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Alert is a buff, IMO, taking it and being able to have the caster swap initiative with whoever is highest in the party is very strong
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Aug 18, 2022 21:40
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I think as long as 'some stuff is out of the realm of possibility no matter how well you roll' is fine, then 'your character is good enough at this that there's no way they fail, no roll' is also fine.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:40
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Looks like critical hits specifically exclude spells now too.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:43
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ritorix posted:Notably, what is missing: GWM, Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, all the power feats are pushed out of 1st level. A good decision.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:47
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Nemo posted:It’s really dumb to auto fail skills 5% of the time despite how much of your life you might have dedicated to mastering that skill. They probably did it because so many tables don't know that auto fails only apply to attacks. But what they really should have done is just remove auto failure. If your modifier is high enough and the DC/AC low enough that a 1 is a success, congratulations, you are not going to fail that. Encourage the DM in such cases to say "you pull it off but you make it look baaaaad".
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Aug 18, 2022 21:50
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If the DC is 10+your skill bonus you automatically succeed with no roll I thought.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:51
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Congrats on everyone being able to attack with your choice of Int, Wis, or Cha with one feat
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Aug 18, 2022 21:55
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Azathoth posted:Someone in this thread once told me to not let players roll on anything that cannot succeed. Like if someone wants to roll to suplex the moon, that cannot happen so don't let them roll. Seems relevant here. as a DM you call for rolls. players dont just all get to crowd around and try to pick the lock or whatever, and if players start wrestling each other to farm critical rolls for free inspiration you say "no that doesnt work dude" because this isnt a video game the problem with skill rolls having auto succeed or failure is you need to very clearly tell new DMs 1) dont let your players tell you when they are rolling("dm i roll bluff to tell the guard im the king. dm i rolled a 20 he thinks im the king"), 2) only call for rolls where you arent sure if the players can succeed or fail, and 3) a natural 1 or a 20 represent either failure or success states and not a catastrophic failure or monumental success that changes the possible result
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Aug 18, 2022 21:57
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Oh poo poo yeah, it used to be that druid spells had to be wis, so now you can choose. That's great.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:00
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Azathoth posted:Someone in this thread once told me to not let players roll on anything that cannot succeed. Like if someone wants to roll to suplex the moon, that cannot happen so don't let them roll. Seems relevant here. in PARANOIA you can suplex the moon right out of character creation the moon is a glowing orb that turns on to tell you it's nightcycle in your sector
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Aug 18, 2022 22:02
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Azathoth posted:If the DC is 10+your skill bonus you automatically succeed with no roll I thought. I don't think so? Not a rules expert though. The PHB says passive checks apply either when you want to just average a bunch of rolls to save time (e.g. checking for secret doors in every room) or when you don't want to alert your players to the existence of the check. It's very bad and counterintuitive for both purposes though, they should get rid of it.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:05
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:Just the weapon die though, not the smite die or sneak attack die. So its a huge nerf to them. We should wait to see if in the class sections, they explicitly state that crits double sneak attack and/or smite damage, but currently, yes it does look like a big nerf. I do like how many feats scale with proficiency bonus, but steering martial backgrounds to take the Savage Attacker feat, which looks to be just as underwhelming as it is in current 5e doesn't give me warm fuzzies that they recognize that martial classes needed help.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:07
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What do the asterisks mean by the way? Is that things they're unsure about and are up for change? E: nm, it says right in the intro. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 22:07
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I just noticed Eldritch Blast isn't on a spell list. Other warlock spells are. If they added it to the arcane list, all high elves and magic initiate takers could use it. Maybe they are specifically restricting it to warlocks.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:09
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the going theory is Eldritch Blast is now a base warlock class feature
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Aug 18, 2022 22:10
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That would make sense. Magic Initiate would be just stupid if everyone could pick up Eldritch Blast plus other stuff at level 1. It would literally need to be what every other feat is balanced around.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:11
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It would be cool if they didn't make Warlocks need to take agonizing blast for it to do extra damage, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect their core feature to be outdone by a crossbow
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Aug 18, 2022 22:14
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Pathfinder 2nd Edition had the good sense to add in a Not doing that is kicking the psionics ball further down the field
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Aug 18, 2022 22:14
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Mr. Lobe posted:It would be cool if they didn't make Warlocks need to take agonizing blast for it to do extra damage, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect their core feature to be outdone by a crossbow Yeah, I hate choices like that which aren't really choices. It's really hard to see a Warlock build that doesn't take that, it's just too good.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:16
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ritorix posted:I just noticed Eldritch Blast isn't on a spell list. Other warlock spells are. Someone came up with the idea that each warlock patron should have its own signature cantrip, so great old one gets eldritch blast, fiend gets firebolt, celetial gets sacred flame, and you add your CHA bonus to the damage; and the invocations you used to be able to add to eldritch blast (like push them, pull them, double the range etc), you instead get to add to your signature cantrip.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:19
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Me, watching that Unearthed Arcana video, every time they talk about a new feature that's straight from 4e: 
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Aug 18, 2022 22:23
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have the rules been uploaded to anywhere that isn't d&s beyond? i'm not gonna make an account just for this
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Aug 18, 2022 22:24
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Ok, finished reading, and I really like most of what they're doing here. Moving Ability Score Bonuses from race to Background is an excellent choice. It just makes a lot of sense, really adds to the fantasy of creating a character that's competent at the things you want the character to be competent at, and should be competent at, without feeling limited to choosing races that are stereotypically good at those things. Ditching the awkward and nearly always problematically-described Half-orc race and just letting us play Orcs is also a good call. Speaking of half-orcs, and the sacred cow half-elves I'm sure someone will cry about, the way these rules handle half-races seem fine, and maybe someone's gonna want to play a half dragonborn/half ardling and why the gently caress not, right? This new Ardling race seems pretty fun. Kind of a half-aasimar/half-(insert tabaxi, kenku, aarakora, leonin, loxodon, or that weird goat-man or pig-girl you didn't know you wanted to play until I just said that here). I wonder if some people would rather the pure human-like aasimar, or a non-celestial flavor of furry though. Humans getting a bonus feat by default and not as an "optional" rule that rear end in a top hat DMs disallow is a thumbs-up from me. The Dragonborn breath weapon seems...just ok at low levels, and if +level damage is all the scaling it's going to get, probably doomed to be just a forgotten footnote on the character sheet after level 5 or 6, same as it is now. Maybe we'll get some feat support, that isn't a trap option compared to other feats. Disappointing since that should be the most exciting thing about playing a Dragonborn. The Dwarf Forge Wise feature should just give any two Artisan's tools. I'll be including this on my first feedback submission. It's just a ribbon feature that doesn't really affect much anyway, and why not take the opportunity to emphasize that dwarves are people who love working with tools and making things, and dedicate themselves to excellence no matter what they are crafting. Brewer's Tools should be obvious, but I could justify even things like cobbler's tools ("These dwarven-made boots are guaranteed to last forever, even hiking across stony mountain passes"), cartographer's tools ("A team of dwarven surveyors are sighting measurements on the next hilltop"), or calligrapher's tools ("The Royal Bookwright of the dwarf-king meticulously recorded the name in her precisely uniform hand to the Ancient Book of Grudges."). Elves and Tieflings are great. Love the bonus spell choices for the most part. Feat levels are potentially interesting, but I'd like to see some examples of higher-level feats before I pass judgment on if it's a good, bad, or meh addition to the rules. The feats we got are mostly ok. Alert seems incredible. I'm still not sure how Lucky interacts with existing Advantage/Disadvantage. I'm also curious about the math for Savage Attacker. Clearly it benefits the weapons with the biggest damage die, Great-axe and Lance especially, but Glaive, Pike, Halberd and Heavy Crossbow are all looking strong right now. Not having done the math yet, I'm guessing it's only going to net a +2-3 average damage on a d10 weapon, which I'm not sure is good enough to justify a feat. It certainly doesn't stand up to GWM, but are we even getting to keep GWM, and if so, is it going to be considered a 1st level Feat? I suspect SA is a fun-looking, but bait-y trap feat where the damage bonus you're getting just doesn't scale, doesn't synergize that strongly with anything else, and ultimately doesn't justify the feat slot. Finally, it seems like we're going back to all-encompassing Arcane/Divine spell lists like we had in older editions, but now Druids and Rangers are off the Divine list and on a new Nature list. This suggests that classes will just be given access to one of the three lists, rather than the customized lists they have now. I don't really have a problem with this, but it creates some weird flavor snafus with regard to some classes' signature spells now being much more widely available. It's not that I hate that Wizards get to cast Vicious Mockery, Dissonant Whispers and Armor of Agathys now, but do they really need even MORE options? Wasn't the Cleric cantrip list short enough without removing Mending? Also are clerics going to be rocking out with Smite Spells and Finding Steeds now?
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Aug 18, 2022 22:24
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I think warlock, ranger and paladin will probably all have their own little bolt-on lists that only they can access. So for example warlock gets arcane + a list that contains hex, eldritch blast, grasp of hadar etc. This is basically how the Pathfinder 2e lists work - for most classes you get the standard list for your kind of magic, and then an additional specialty list according to your customization choice for your class. So even though there's only four big lists, each class and parts of those class has its own spell options. (some classes also swap lists entirely depending upon your customization choices in pathfinder 2e, like a fey sorcerer uses the primal list like a druid).
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Aug 18, 2022 22:29
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ritorix posted:Also, I like how they are handling half-races and I'm glad future PHBs won't waste pagecount on describing their origins. Now if you really want to play one, you pick the game stats of one parent, average the life span of both, then do whatever for a visual appearance. Gameplay-wise, half-orcs are either fully orc or fully whatever the other half is. Hell yeah the forbidden race is now canon. I'm gonna start making a Dwelf right away 
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Aug 18, 2022 22:30
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It really looks like backgrounds are effectively just suggestions at this point. You could just as easily say to put your bonuses where you like (as per Tasha's) and then pick your skills, feat, one tool, and one language. Which, honestly, I kinda prefer. Bummer to lose those flavor features but they come up pretty rarely anyway in most games. LOL at replacing aasimars with furries. That solves the endless requests for more furry races at least.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:32
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Human is an animal, i don't see why you couldn't make your ardling manfaced if you really wanted to
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Aug 18, 2022 22:41
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St0rmD posted:
I would guess that Lucky's explicit language of imposing Advantage/Disadvantage is meant to result in it canceling out existing Disadvantage/Advantage, rather than replacing the results of an Advantage/Disadvantage roll. This seems like it would be extra useful for rogues to make an attack eligible for Sneak Attack by simply using the Lucky feat. According to this table, the benefit of Savage Attacker maxes out at slightly less than a +2 to damage for a d12 weapon on a single damage roll per round. code:
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Aug 18, 2022 22:42
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I'm finding the 'level 1 feats' thing interesting, as it implies that there will be other feats that will be gated by level. Probably a good idea. Which in turn makes me wonder what happens to current feats from Tasha's that have no level requirement? Surely if they're rebalancing the feats in the PHB, they'll want to rebalance things like feytouched, right? So how does that work for people who have the physical books - do you just have to buy 'tashas revamped' in a few years time? Also it seems like monks can just straight up replace one of their unarmed attacks with a grapple now?
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Aug 18, 2022 22:42
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Piell posted:Congrats on everyone being able to attack with your choice of Int, Wis, or Cha with one feat Quarterstaff works with PAM and you can also add Thorn whip and Longstrider for free....brb respeccing my Paladin St0rmD fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 22:43
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Alert is busted good. A must-take in almost any group imo. You're basically rolling initiative once for each player in the group, with a bonus. If everyone takes the alert feat, you just choose turn order for your group.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:44
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Verisimilidude posted:Alert is busted good. A must-take in almost any group imo. You're basically rolling initiative once for each player in the group, with a bonus. I like this idea narratively. It's like your team has drilled and practiced so much they're as coordinated as a sentai superhero group.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:46
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Which in turn makes me wonder what happens to current feats from Tasha's that have no level requirement? Surely if they're rebalancing the feats in the PHB, they'll want to rebalance things like feytouched, right? So how does that work for people who have the physical books - do you just have to buy 'tashas revamped' in a few years time? It works like magic cards. Only people with the original books can pick "legacy feats". Your DM will make sure you own a legitimate copy of Tashas before you are allowed to use any of these reserve list feats.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:47
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Froghammer posted:Pathfinder 2nd Edition had the good sense to add in a When they want to do Psionic options adding a Psionics list seems the best idea.
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