The playtest for the 2024 Core Rulebooks (which I honestly think will wind up being called 5.5 by the community) has now had 5 documents, giving us new versions of the playable species (not races - still think I prefer Lineage or Ancestry, though I realize that the former has a special meaning as something you can be transformed into,) backgrounds, the core 12 classes (would love to see an update to the Artificer, but maybe we'll get one later along with other new classes) and a whole bunch of tweaks to rules, feats, and items.
The documents have been coming out at a 2-3 month cadence, but I think we also need to get some more out there if we're going to have this whole thing tested in time for it to go to the printers (I imagine the books won't come out until later next year, but they need to get it buttoned down a lot sooner than that).
This isn't going to be a comprehensive list, but it'll be a grab-bag of elements in the playtest that I've found particularly notable. I'm also not going to make any real effort to balance positive versus negative feedback, because frankly, I've had a mostly positive impression of what's going on here. Also, some of this is going to be small, fiddly stuff, and some will be broad, big stuff.
Good: The New Stonecunning
The Dwarven species trait, Stonecunning, has the same name but is completely and utterly different than its 2014 version in all other ways. The original was very much a "cultural" trait that the design is trying to move away from, and the ability to get blindsense by touching a stone surface feels both like something that makes sense as a physiological trait and also could be very useful.
Good: Paradoxically Opening up Hybrid Species Options by Removing Half-Elves and Half-Orcs
I wrote extensively on my thoughts as someone who has a hybrid cultural identity myself about how I may not have agreed with the blanket statement that "half-X" terms were inherently racist (being someone who has often called himself half-Jewish) but I think this change does a number of welcome things, the best being that it endorses the idea that any number of playable species could actually have mixed ancestries, and we aren't weirdly privileging elf/human and orc/human hybrids.
Good: Custom Backgrounds
Backgrounds in current D&D don't tend to have much of an impact except in settings like Ravnica where the background is super-charged. Moving the ability score bonuses that had been tied to race (though only vaguely) to backgrounds, and then foregrounding custom backgrounds, and then also giving everyone a feat at 1st level, all feels pretty good.
Mixed: 1st level feats
As someone with nearly 8 years of D&D under my belt, I'm often impatient to get to level 5 at minimum, when it feels like the game really takes off. And giving people 1st level feats is a good way to make your character feel special even at those earliest levels. But I also do sometimes worry about growing complexity for the game in the early levels, because I also have a lot of players (even those who have been playing a long time) who don't really have a mind for putting together "builds" and just want to hop in an RP, and have some simple system to use. Now, granted, separating 1st level from 4th+ level feats does help here.
Good: 4+ feats all giving one ability score bonus
Feats are fun, and often very powerful, but I don't know about you, but I have a sort of OCD need to try to max out ability scores. My 5th level Wizard has 20 Int and 17 Con, and I'm planning on picking up Resilient: Constitution when we hit 8th level. And while I'm intending to then spend the other ASIs on feats, a small part of me goes "are you sure you don't want to get his Con to 20 as well?" Obviously, that'd be crazy - I don't need to have more HP than the Paladins and the Fighter (I'm currently only slightly behind).
But this change actually makes the idea of picking up feats slightly less painful. That Wizard already has his Int maxed, but if I'd used Point Buy or Standard Array instead of rolling (very well - he's got positives to all modifiers except Wisdom, because I decided it'd be in-character for him to be absent-minded) I'd still be able to get him to 20 Int even taking feats at every ASI, even if it took until level 16, with the new feats.
Good: Rangers Feel Like They Have an Identity Now
For most of 5E, Rangers have kind of felt like "not really as good as a Dex Fighter, with a bunch of features that sometimes might work?" The Tasha's re-work helped a lot to make them more broadly useful, though the Favored Foe mechanic was pretty terrible. Honestly, not a ton of things changed here, but the idea of emphasizing that the Ranger is the Expert of Exploration actually feels really strong. No one is going to be better at moving around the environment and navigating.
Also, while Hunter's Mark isn't terribly strong after the first few levels, concentration-free Hunter's Mark becomes far more attractive.
Bad: The Weird Spell-Slot/Spell-Level Preparation Restriction
So, I don't know if this is still going to be a thing (the Mages in the latest playtest were not restricted in this way) but the idea that you have to prepare spells based on the spell slots you have, and specifically a spell of the level for each slot, could cause big problems - you couldn't, say, prepare Meteor Swarm and Wish at the same time. Sure, you only get to cast one or the other, but when are you ever going to unprepare Wish?
Good: Standardization of Subclass Feature Levels:
Now, this is something they're currently saying they're going to roll back because people weren't excited about it enough. Let me go on the record: I am excited about this. Yes, it's a little strange to have classes that formerly got their subclasses at level 1 now wait until level 3 (I'm getting my powers from some strange otherworldly entity - just wait a bit for me to tell you what it is) but in terms of game balance and just feeling good, this was a slam dunk - Rogues shouldn't have to wait until level 9 to get their second subclass feature (Artificers get their 3rd at that level). So, I hope that they do reinstate this change (I'll also say that I think the shuffling of 1st and 2nd level features for such classes works pretty well).
Bad: Wild Shape is Broken:
This isn't going to be terribly surprising, but the version of Wild Shape presented in the Druid and Paladin playtest is just... pointless. To sum up - yes, the current version of Wild Shape is maybe too powerful, with the massive pool of HP that the Druid gets. This is especially crazy at max level when a Druid can shift as many times as they want. It's an insane amount of extra hit points per short rest.
But in the playtest, even though Wild Shape is meant to allow the Druid to go into melee, this version gives them basically no defensive benefit - your AC will likely be lower (even though it's based on Wisdom - it still isn't making up for Leather Armor and a Shield in most cases) and no boost to your HP. It gives you Extra Attack, effectively, but you're probably going to do roughly the same amount of damage or more with cantrips.
I will say I like the idea of templates for the wild shape forms, but I think they need to tweak them in a couple ways to make it non-suicidal for a Druid to actually use them. (And throw in some customization choices to fit the animals they describe turning into).
Mixed: Arcane, Divine, and Primal Spell Lists
So, the creation of these three broad spell lists, and having classes get spells from those lists, is I think intended as kind of future-proofing. If you add, say, a revised Artificer, you can simply say that they get Arcane spells from, say, the Transmutation, Abjuration, Evocation, and Conjuration schools, and then any new spells you add to the game can be checked against that to see if Artificers can use them.
The only awkwardness, though, is when some classes get access to spells they previously couldn't, or when they lose access. In particular, with the new scaling of Divine Steed, Clerics will actually get better use out of the spell than Paladins, which feels wrong.
Now, Playtest 5 gave us some class-exclusive spells, so perhaps we'll see changes of that ilk.
Good: Weapon Masteries
There's some balancing required - Flex sucks, for example, and Vex is probably too good. But I think this makes things more interesting for martial classes, and it gives all those weird weapon types an identity.
Good: Warlock Pact Boons:
While there might be some tweaking to do, the incorporation of stuff like the Hexblade's "use charisma for your attacks" into pact weapons and the overall package that you get with your pact boons are great. These feels like great, defining choices.
Good: Warlocks with Medium Armor:
If you want Pact of the Blade to work, this feels necessary.
Bad: Warlocks as Half-Casters
Yes, Warlocks' spellcasting system in the 2014 rules is really weird for multiclassing. But even though Mystic Arcanum allows you to cast spells at the level you'd be able to as a full-caster (though weirdly only starting at level 5, meaning you go from having only 1st level spells to potentially 1st, 2nd, and 3rd) the design of that new version of the feature is an utter trainwreck of awkwardness, where you'll have to swap it out every other level for a new version.
Personally, I'd be happy for them to just bring back Pact Magic, and maybe give more spell slots that recharge on a long rest. (I'd also be nice to let you upcast spells past 5th level, so that, for example, your Undead Warlock could cast Summon Undead at 6th level instead of having to pick up Summon Fiend for such a spell).
Impatient: Where's the Monk?
The Monk is one of my favorite 5E classes, even if people have pointed out that it has a lot of shortcomings in terms of power. I want to see how they're going to close that gap, power-wise, with other classes, and find a way for the Monk to shine.
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