Dragonriding

 Today, sorting through the vast number of things to do when you hit max level (or, in fact, just finishing the main quest campaign, which I did at level 68) I decided to try getting all the Dragonriding Glyphs. It turns out it's not all that difficult. There are a couple in Azure Span whose locations are not super obvious (Riverfork Crossing is not, as you might imagine, at a place where a river forks).

But I think I've now gotten the hang of dragonflying - especially once you've got the glyphs to invest heavily in it. The key is to maintain momentum - you want the buff that you get when you go very fast, with blue energy around your mount's wings. There are skills that cause you to regenerate Vigor (the resource that you spend on movement abilities) when you have this buff, meaning you don't have to land to regenerate it. What I've realized is that ultimately, you want to build up to this buff early on, and then you'll have enough speed to keep boosting yourself up (and thus get more momentum on your way down) or giving yourself a speed boost.

Now, I can actually climb more or less indefinitely if I'm careful - the bottom tier of the dragonriding skills causes the Thrill of Flight buff (or whatever it's called) to regenerate a vigor every 5 seconds - fast enough that you will be able to stay aloft pretty easily.

Blizzard has thoughtfully made this skill acquisition account-wide. You only have to find these glyphs once, and you get all the skills from the campaign quests (that reward the four mounts, which are also account-wide) on all your characters, so you should be able to take to the skies with aplomb the moment you come ashore.

It's a ton of fun, and I hope we'll see more mount customization over the course of the expansion.

God of War Ragnarok

 So, my Christmas present arrived about a month early - my family collaborated to get me a PS5, bundled with a code for God of War Ragnarok. As it stands, I'm thus inundated with games to play, but I've been trying out the new game (and also checking out how Elden Ring looks on the PS5 - my biggest takeaway is that the lighting is way more impressive, which is more important than you'd think until you see the difference.)

Anyway, I played the original God of War back in 2005/2006, having heard how amazing it was, and was, frankly, a little underwhelmed. However, the Norse revamp of the series, after the original trilogy saw Kratos destroy basically the entire Greek Pantheon, was a fascinating exercise in both changing the look and feel of the game (taking the action to an over-the-shoulder 3rd person rather than a carefully-choreographed camera) and also evolving thematically.

God of War Ragnarok is certainly not once again reinventing the series - it plays very similarly to the un-numbered fourth game (meaning that the two other games in the series I own are both simply named "God of War.") However, at least so far, the game feels more assured. There was a bit of sameiness in the previous entry in terms of creature design and environments, and here, things feel a little more varied.

There are muscle-memory issues to deal with after playing Elden Ring so much (I also got the Demon's Souls remake on sale, but haven't yet played that,) and I think the tighter camera, while great for the look of the game, does sometimes make it easy to get overwhelmed by foes (Kratos turns a tad too slowly).

Once again, menacing gods are showing up at Kratos and Atreus' house, though this time the introductory fight is with Thor - who is mythologically accurate with his giant gut and red hair, and really puts you through your paces (your "victory" against him is just survival - it's not fun getting hit with Mjolnir, even if your Leviathan Axe was made by the same dwarves).

So far I've had an extended journey through Svartalfheim/Nidavelir, and I'm now doing stuff in Alfheim, which of course we saw in the previous game. In fact, I think Alfheim looks a lot better this go around - somehow the design of the dark elves we fought in the previous game felt kind of PS2-era in design, while so far, the experience in Alfheim has felt a lot more modern.

Thematically, we once again return to Kratos' efforts to be a good father to his son, who is growing more rebellious and independent. The Father/Son dynamic is naturally a rich well from which to draw thematic relevance, and how appropriate, then, that the main villain is Odin, the All-Father - played recognizably (the model is based on the actor) by Richard Schiff. Kratos wants his son to be strong, courageous, and better than he was, but he recognizes in Atreus a lot of the careless anger and inability to see the longterm consequences of his actions. Kratos is unable to play a truly sensitive nurturer, but strives toward something that can put his son on the right track.

In the midst of all of this, due to the events of the last game (and spoilers if you know your Norse myth,) the Fimbulwinter has begun. Midgard, where Kratos and Atreus make their home, is blanketed in perpetual snow, but we also see how other realms are affected in their own ways. The realms also give us the opportunity to get some visual variation - while Midgard is in its perpetual winter, Svartalfheim is a land of geothermic pools - and is suffering from frequent earthquakes (not great for a place where the dwarves often work in mines).

Indeed, we revisit a few locations from the previous game, though in general, the conditions have been changed enough to make them feel like very different environments - the temple of Tyr, which serves as a hub in the previous game to go between realms, is now frozen over. Kratos is also no longer hiding the Blades of Chaos under the floorboards of his house. They are now prominently on display, and you get access to them relatively early compared to the last game. There are some skills you can learn that encourage you to swap between the blades and the axe frequently in combat.

And the combat is fun, even if I feel a little spoiled by From Soft's approach. Once again, as you level up, you can gain additional moves, and it can be very satisfying when you get enough of a hit combo that your weapon glows with its given element and you start really carving through foes (also, as always, there are a number of brutal finishing moves you can do after you've stunned a foe, which Atreus can help you do much faster if you remember to use Square to pummel enemies with arrows.

But also, playing this I'm reminded that these have always been puzzle games with combat interstitials. NPCs will often comment on Kratos' seeming attention deficit, though Atreus will defend him by explaining that his father likes to find out-of-the-way loot (Kratos, naturally, would never bother to explain his actions).

Now that I've fully stepped into the PS5 era, I'm looking forward to all the new games (or even 2... or 3? year old games) coming out. I've got the Demon's Souls remake (never played the original) and I'm planning on seeing if I can just upgrade my digital Final Fantasy VII Remake with the "intergrade" DLC.

Holy Crap is Gix Good

 The early days of the Brother's War release I'd been on a bit of a losing streak. A lot of the exciting new decks people were talking about - Azorius Soldiers, an Izzet Prowess deck - were letting me down. While I really enjoy my Mono Red Powerstone deck, I've been thwarted in getting to actually ramp up (usually by hard control decks that counter absolutely everything and those very same prowess decks that never work for me).

But then, I decided to embrace my dark side.

Historically, Black has been my favorite Magic color, ever since I pulled a Royal Assassin out of my very first Revised Edition 60-card starter back in 1994. (Technically my second MTG purchase, as I had also gotten a Fallen Empires booster pack before I understood that I would not be able to do anything with it on its own).

This deck is a race-to-zero deck that is all about burning everything down, yourself included. The best card is Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, which is a 3/3 for IBB (already pretty decent - remember how getting a creature with power and toughness for its mana value was generally something only green and white got to do? Scathe Zombies was a vanilla 2/2 for 2B). Gix has a triggered ability, which is that when you deal combat damage to a player with a creature, you can pay 1 life to draw a card. The more creatures you swing in with, the more cards you can draw.

Aggro's big challenge is usually running out of steam when you get into the main game, but I just won a game with more cards in hand than an Azorius control deck.

Gix actually has a very expensive activated ability that I don't even remember what it does because that first one is good enough. (Ok, it's 4BBB: Discard X cards and exile the top X cards from your opponent's library, which you can play (lands or spells) without paying their mana costs - really good if you can get it off (maybe using power stones) but we want to kill the opponent before we'd get 7 mana to play with).

Obviously, we use some standard aggressive black creatures - Tenacious Underdog is an obvious inclusion here. Graveyard Tresspasser is always good (and nice to use against graveyard shenanigans decks).

However, on theme with this is Defiler of Flesh. Like all the Defilers, this lets you treat one black mana symbol in any permanent spell as Phyrexian mana, which you can pay with 2 life instead of one black. Also, when you play such a card, you can give one of your creatures +1/+1 and menace until the end of turn.

Now, you combine this with all the cards we're drawing from Gix and then making our creatures better at getting to the opponent, and you get a feedback loop where you can get more things into play than your lands should allow. This thing's a 4/4 body for 4 mana, which is pretty good value. Also, multiple Defilers can convert multiple mana symbols, so, for example, your Tenacious Underdog can come in for 2 mana if you're willing to pay 4 life.

Again, this is a high-risk deck. You want to end things ASAP because you're going to be reducing your life total (ideally) faster than your opponent is. But it does two things that feel great as a magic player - it fills your hand with cards and lets you play those cards when you've drawn them.

Right now I don't have Sheoldred in it, because I'm trying to keep things relatively cheap, but I might swap her in for some others to give this more sustain (indeed, Gix actually winds up netting you positive life if Sheoldred is out). I think I have Henrika Domnathal, who does have her uses (the "sacrifice a creature" option is helpful to deal with a beefy defender).

I also have Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist, though I don't know if she's the right fit. Basically, she's a useful 1-drop with Deathtouch - a good combo with Gix because players will let her deal her 1 damage rather than lose a creature. But I haven't made use of her sacrifice trigger or her graveyard exiling to make minions - we usually have plenty of cards as it is to put creatures in the field, and we don't have the mana to spare for her ability.

Anyway, it's a fun deck and I've been racking up wins with it.

Primal Storms, Uldaman Redux, and Dragonflight's Launch Event

 Dragonflight launches on the 28th, but this Tuesday the pre-launch event proper has begun.

There are three major elements to this event:

Dracthyr Evokers Playable:

This is certainly the biggest one. After the longest gap we've ever gone without getting a new class, the Evoker is here. I'm still skeptical that all Dracthyr need to be Evokers - I think there's plenty of lore to justify other classes, like Warriors - but after we got no new class in BFA or Shadowlands, we're finally getting a new one, making this the fourth new class and third Hero Class. It is also, notably, the very first ranged DPS spec they have added to the game (Survival Hunters were kinda-melee, kinda-ranged early on, before becoming firmly ranged around BC or Wrath, and then firmly melee in Legion).

Evokers start at level 58, with a unique starting experience similar to the Death Knight (well, pre-Mists DK) and Demon Hunter. As the second neutral race, unlike the Pandaren, Dracthyr simply choose their side at character creation.

At least in this level 60 stage, the Evoker seems quite strong, though you need to get used to its unconventional rotation and its unique 25-yard range (as opposed to most ranged characters, who get a 40-yard range). Though this has been the case for Monks and Demon Hunters, once again there's a strong emphasis on mobility - the lower range on their spells is made up for by the excellent "Hover" ability, which gives you a boost forward and also lets you cast some of your spells while moving for a few seconds.

The starting experience is not super-long, and should familiarize you with the base abilities, though you will not get any talents (I sort of wish that it worked the way the Death Knight intro did back in the day, giving you one or two talent points with each quest you completed).

Primal Storms:

This is the big bread-and-butter element of the pre-launch. Ultimately, this is, I think, somewhat mid-tier. It's something to do, but basically you'll be sitting around in the Badlands, Northern Barrens, or Un'goro Crater fighting elementals and various cultists to collect a currency that can be traded for 252 gear or a toy and a (relatively small, but better than nothing) reagent bag, which essentially works like the old profession bags except that it has its own dedicated bag slot.

The invasions come with a random element, which means elementals that have different abilities. The only real annoying thing here is that only the elites appear to be open-tap, meaning you're best off just avoiding hitting anything other than them. There's a daily quest here that will get you more of that currency to buy gear with. Periodically, an extra-powerful elemental will show up that attacks after you kill enough of the other creatures near it. These bosses can drop a shard of their element where, once you collect all four, you can turn them into a new heirloom trinket.

I believe these scale with level, so you can also use this to level up alts.

A bit of a far cry from the excellent Legion invasions, but a good way to practice new rotations.

Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr:

Thankfully, Blizzard now seems to like to do revamp dungeons without getting rid of the old one. You'll be familiar with a lot of the rooms in this updated Uldaman, which has been rebuilt with high-resolution graphics and also streamlined so that it's harder to get lost.

The bosses here drop 278 gear, and you get a quest early on that will award a 278 weapon for completing the dungeon. It's easy enough that most groups will plow through it (obviously when we get to the actual dungeon at level 70, we might want to be more careful and actually learn how the bosses work.)

What was that? Learn how the bosses work? Ok, let's go through them:

The Lost Dwarves are back, and to be fair this fight I have less of a sense of all the little things, but basically they will, at certain health percentages, jump into their flying longboat and bombard the place. I think you're supposed to take them down together to avoid the later bombardment.

Next, in Ironaya's old room, we fight a Trogg chieftain. He summons adds periodically, as well as a big totem. Destroying the totem will stun all the troggs for several seconds.

Third is a sort of Titanforged Sethrak guardian. She will gain a stacking buff, and also puts down these sand traps on random players that will stun anyone who walks into them. The tank can run her through these to cause her to lose her buff stacks.

Fourth is, I want to say "Emberon," which is a stone golem. Several other golems around the room, which are not targetable, will shoot little balls of fire around the arena. Periodically (and with current gear, often he's dead before you hit this phase,) he'll go to the center of the room and create this rotating flame wall that will quickly kill people standing there. There are three golems who can now be attacked, so you want to burn them down quickly while keeping on the move to avoid the flame wall.

Finally, we have an Infinite Dragon who steals the information we went in here to find in the first place. He has a breath attack, so the tank should face him away from the party. The room fills up with weird time-pools, and periodically he "steals your time," so the party needs to run through these pools to get it back (before this phase, you'll take damage from them, I think.)

Anyway, it's relatively quick for now.

That more or less covers the event. We've got a little less than two weeks before the expansion proper launches, but for now, we can get back into the swing of things.

Finally Figuring Out the Evoker (Devastation)

 For I believe over a month now, the "Dragonflight Beta" has been open for everyone to create a level 70 Dracthyr Evoker, though you can't actually do stuff in the Dragon Isles.

Getting dumped into a level 70 class, especially with the new, complex talent system, can be a little difficult. But I've started to figure out how this thing works, at least at its most basic level.

The Devastation spec is the Evoker DPS spec, and thus likely to be the more popular of the two.

While you have mana as a resource, much as most casters (other than Arcane Mages) do these days, you don't really need to worry about it. Instead, you'll track a different resource: Essence. This takes the form of six little spheres below your mana bar, and actually works similarly to a Death Knight's runes (I haven't confirmed if it does the thing where only three can recharge at a time, but I believe it does). Essence regenerates over time, and so the rhythm here is that of alternating powerful spenders with filler spells.

Your bread-and-butter single target filler is Living Flame. This is actually both a damage and healing spell, depending on who you're targeting. It has a relatively short cast time and there are talents that will cause it to sometimes be instant-cast.

For cleave situations, there's Azure Strike, which is instant-cast and hits three targets. I believe there are times when you want to use this even in single target, though that's more of a strategy thing than an explicit design.

Both Living Flame and Azure Strike have talents that are triggered by them called Essence Burst, which make Disintegrate and Pyre free.

Your main single-target Essence spender is Disintegrate, which costs three Essence and channels a beam of destructive energy at the target.

For multiple targets, you can spend Essence on Pyre, which lobs a ball of fire at the target and splashes to hit anyone nearby. Like Azure Strike, this is instant-cast.

Eternity Surge is one of your main Empowered spells - you hold down the button (or hit it quickly once and then again to set it off) to scale it between levels 1 to 4. The levels of empowerment here actually only determine how many targets it hits, so on single targets, there's no reason to charge it up all the way. This does a big burst of arcane damage, and I think picks targets based on proximity. This has a 30-second cooldown, so you'll weave it in when it's up.

Fire Breath is another Empowered spell, and this one works kind of interestingly - it does a burst of fire damage in a cone and then puts a DoT on creatures it hits. However, charging it doesn't simply increase the damage. Instead, the longer you charge it, the more damage it does up front, and the shorter the DoT lasts. Essentially, it does the same amount of damage at any level of empowerment (or possibly slightly more at a lower empowerment) but you can pick between sustained damage or burst. On trash, for instance, you might choose to go for a full empowerment to burst enemies down quickly, but on a boss you might pick instead to do a low empowerment to keep the DoT ticking longer.

Dragonrage is your big 2-minute cooldown ability, and buffs your damage, while also doubling the chance to get the Essence Burst proc, and also shoots off several Pyres to start with.

Deep Breath is another 2-minute cooldown, which both does damage in the area and moves you to the targeted location, in a cool animation that has you do the classic dragon breath-strafe.

There are other abilities, but I think these are the basics you'll be using frequently and want easily accessible on your action bars.

Of note, Evokers don't get the 40-yard range of most ranged characters, instead fighting at 25 yards. This will make movement and positioning that much more important. Thankfully, your AoE abilities are mostly instant-cast, so you'll be able to keep up with the tanks and melee on a fast-moving dungeon run.

The nuances of various talents and passives, and other, more niche abilities are something I'll have to get more experience with the class in order to talk intelligently about it.

Subclass Levels in One D&D

 As someone whose first real class-based RPG was World of Warcraft (actually, I think it's technically Quest for Glory V, though those were always kind of adventure games with RPG elements) the idea of subclasses is pretty natural. In WoW, each class has three "specializations," which will significantly change the way you play (and is used to make some classes capable of performing the tank or healer role).

    (TANGENT: Actually, not every class has three specializations, or "specs." Druids initially had three, but when Mists of Pandaira, the fourth expansion, changed the way that the old talent trees worked, it was no longer feasible to separate the Melee DPS, Cat-form-focused version of the "Feral" tree and the Tank, Bear-form-focused version. So they just gave them a fourth spec, called Guardian, which focused on Bear form. Then, with Legion (expansion 6) they introduced the Demon Hunter, who only has one DPS and one Tank spec. On Tuesday, they'll add the Evoker, who has one DPS and one healing spec. Thus, while the average has been 3 since Legion, the average number of specs in WoW for each class is going below 3 for the first time ever.)

In 5th Edition, each class makes a choice at 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level (most at 3rd) to pick a subclass. While there are other choices to make, like Spells, Fighting Styles, and other nuanced options (Warlocks get a lot of these) this is the big one, which has a big impact both on your mechanics and your flavor.

In the Expert Classes UA, they announced that subclasses will now all get their features at the same levels - you'll pick yours at level 3 and get your first features, then get more at level 6, 10, and 14.

Notably, this was a big deal for the Bard given that previously, they only got subclass features at three levels.

The implications here are pretty big. Let's start with the big ones:

The first pretty huge thing is this means that multiclassing will require a bigger investment to grab subclass features. It's actually pretty easy to pick up some powerful effects with a single level dip in some cases - perhaps the most infamous being the Hexblade Warlock, which gives you weapon proficiencies and armor training, along with the ability to designate a (non-two-handed) weapon to use Charisma for its attacks. Now, getting any such features will require a three-level investment, which is not insignificant.

But, also, from a roleplaying point of view, I think it will be contingent on players and DMs to coordinate for those subclasses that have heavy lore implications. A Warlock, for example, has subclasses based on the patron with whom they formed a pact in the first place to have literally any of their power - at least that's how it's been explained in 5E so far. Rather than choosing a subclass at level 3, it seems like if you want to play it this way, you'll need to have in mind what you're going to play from the get-go if you want to be able to figure out a backstory with your DM.

There are three classes that currently get their subclass right away at level 1: the Warlock, Cleric, and Sorcerer. In each case, the person gets their power from something implied in their subclass. The Warlock, as discussed above, gets it from their patron. The sorcery subclasses, I'd say, tell a story of how you got those inherent magic powers. The Cleric is somewhat more flexible, but at the very least it implies that your powers derive from some deity that embodies the domain your subclass represents (though in my newly-begun Spelljammer campaign I'm running, the Trickster Cleric worships my God of Invention, Science, Knowledge, and the Stars - I'm allowing her to flavor it as trickery being a kind of inventiveness).

Now, I think you can work out a solution here, but it won't work for every backstory. I think the first two levels in each case might be a process of discovering the nature of your power's source. In the Cleric's case, it's easy enough to imagine that there are multiple orders amidst worshippers of your deity, and that you pick your domain by picking a priestly order - this is the easiest to pull off. In the case of the Sorcerer, it might be that the true nature of your powers doesn't really manifest itself until you've managed to unlock something about it. The Warlock... here I think we have the trickiest thing to deal with. It's easy enough to say that you were making a deal with someone whose nature you didn't fully understand, but that sort of forces you into a type of backstory you might not really want. It's a decent choice to make if you want to play a Warlock but don't have a strong sense of what subclass you want, but I think simply playing it as if your powers were always themed around your patron and just don't really manifest specific rules for it until level 3.

Currently, these are the levels at which each class gets its subclass features:

Artificer: 3, 5, 9, 15

Barbarian: 3, 6, 10, 14

Bard: 3, 6, 14

Cleric: 1, 2, 6, 8*, 17

Druid: 2, 6, 10, 14

Fighter: 3, 7, 10, 15, 18

Monk: 3, 6, 11, 17

Paladin: 3, 7, 15, 20

Ranger: 3, 7, 11, 15

Rogue: 3, 9, 13, 17

Sorcerer: 1, 6, 14, 18

Warlock: 1, 6, 10, 14

Wizard: 2, 6, 10, 14

*This is only Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike, which you could argue is more of a class feature than subclass one.

So, as we can see, the Barbarian won't have to change where its subclass features come at all. The Druid and Wizard will only see their subclass choice bumped back to 3rd level, but the rest come at the same time. Artificers will push their middle two back and the last one up a level (though unless we get an updated Artificer, I don't think we'll need to change them).

But some classes - the Cleric, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, and Sorcerer, will no longer have a subclass feature that doesn't come online until tier 4. The Paladin in particular might need some revisiting, as their final subclass feature is simultaneously their capstone ability for the entire class. These take the form of "ultimates," usually letting the paladin go into some kind of super-mode. It actually makes for one of the better (maybe best, though I think "infinite rages" and "infinite wild shapes" might beat it out for sheer cackling joy) level 20 capstones. Of course, now, the old level 20 abilities come at level 18.

The Artificer (who, again, might not be affected by this) will likely feel not so great about this, given that two of the subclasses get their Extra Attack feature currently at level 5, along with all the martial classes (sans Rogues). Here, they're delayed by one level. To be fair, this is true of Bladesinger Wizards, College of Swords Bards, and College of Valor Bards, who get their second attack at 6. Still, those subclasses are kind of exceptional, whereas Battle Smiths and Armorers make up a full half of all Artificer subclasses, and thus you could argue that it's also a "martial" class.

As stated before, Bards get a new level in which to learn subclass features. Interestingly, none of their existing subclass levels have to shift - they just get something new at 10. Clerics and Fighters get 5 subclass feature levels, though. Now, Clerics always get either Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike at level 8, so I sometimes argue that this is more of a class feature than a subclass feature. But Fighters do, truly, get subclass features at 5 different levels. Two of these could be shifted by one level, and then you'd just need to drop their 18th-level features.

I've also speculated on a drastic redesign of the Fighter to basically make everyone a Battle Master, and so I could imagine that subclasses would also need to be significantly redesigned with that in mind.

What remains to be seen is what we'll see reprinted and how it'll look. In the Expert Classes UA, we got the College of Lore, the Hunter, and the Thief, with promises that other subclasses for those classes would show up in later UAs. We also know that there will be more subclasses in the One D&D PHB than there were in the 2014 one, but we of course don't know which those will be. I think it's a relatively safe bet that we'll see some familiar ones from later books like Xanathar's and Tasha's, but there could also be some brand-new ones.

Reprinting revised versions of other subclasses would also help make it easier to update existing characters to One D&D - rather than wondering how your, say, Rune Knight is going to work in the new system, you might find it right there in the Player's Handbook and update accordingly.

We are, I hope, due for another UA to drop relatively soon. Tuesday will be the 15th of November, which would put us about a month and a half from the Expert Classes UA, which itself came about a month and a half after the Character Origins UA (it's also when both Brother's War comes out on MTG Arena and the Dracthyr Evoker becomes playable in World of Warcraft, so if we get a UA I'm going to be a very busy nerd indeed). I don't know if that will answer or clarify any of the things we looked at here, but we'll see.

Light Weapons, Bonus Actions, and Who Wins

 One D&D will bring about various rules revisions, some large, some small. The game still basically works the same way - we're not going back to THAC0 or replacing proficiency with skill ranks.

One of the most popular changes is also a rather subtle one.

In the current rules, nothing is stopping anyone with Extra Attacks from fighting with two different weapons - attacking with your Flame Tongue Longsword in one hand with attack number 1 and your Frost Brand Rapier in the other hand with attack 2. But light weapons have a special property, which allows you to make two attacks with your main hand and then get an additional, bonus attack with a weapon in the off hand - allowing those who don't have extra attack to make two attacks and those who do to make three (or, if you're a fighter, possibly 4 or 5, depending on how many extra attacks you get). The only downside is that you don't get to add your Strength (or Dexterity, with a finesse weapon) to the damage roll.

That's not actually changing.

Again, this is a subtle change. What is changing is that, under the current rules, that bonus attack uses your bonus action.

Depending on your class, this might be no problem, or it could be a bit of a hinderance.

However, under the new One D&D rules, the light weapon bonus attack is now just part of the attack action, leaving your bonus action free.

What's the real implication here?

What I want to go through is how this is likely to affect each class that likes to fight with weapons and to see how powerful this can be.

Artificers:

Two of the four Artificer subclasses favor weapons, but the Armorer is rather locked into using their built-in armor weapons, neither of which has the light property. However, the Battle Smith does need to use their bonus action more or less every turn to command their Steel Defender to attack.

Artificers don't get Fighting Styles, but an Artificer can pretty easily get magical weapons. Even if they have a stingy DM who doesn't give them any magic weapons, the Battle Smith could, by level 6, have one light weapon infused with Enhanced Weapon and another infused with Radiant Weapon, giving them at least a +1 bonus on the damage of each weapon.

Still, the ultimate bonus damage here might not be all that exciting. We can do better.

Barbarians:

Ok, now we're talking. The Barbarian, of course, typically starts an encounter by going into a Rage, which takes a bonus action. Barbarians love getting more attacks, because their damage is boosted by Rage in addition to their Strength and any magical bonus the weapon has.

Under the current rules, a dual-wielding Barbarian will suffer a bit of a drop in damage compared to someone using a two-handed weapon in short fights, due to the fact that they miss out on that first bonus attack. But this downside will disappear - partially - with the new rules.

For example, let's imagine a level 9 Barbarian with +5 to Strength, using a Greataxe versus dual-wielding Hand Axes. At this level, they have a +3 damage bonus from Rage.

Under the new rules, every turn, not just turns after Raging, will look like this:

2H: 1d12+8, or 14.5, times 2, which is 29

Dual-Wield: 1d6+8, or 11.5, times 2, so 23, plus 1d6+3, so 29.5.

Notably, until hitting level 9, this does not outpace the two-hander. (I'll also note that if Barbarians get Fighting Styles, as they look likely to, the total damage bonus of taking Two Weapon Fighting will be 5 per turn, while Great Weapon Fighting with a Greataxe will be about 2.67, which should let dual-wielding pull ahead. I believe that Brutal Critical will actually balance out as, while your critical with a short sword will not as impressive, you also have a 50% higher chance to get a critical with an extra attack.)

So, Barbarians, at least by mid levels, will win quite a bit here.

Fighters:

Fighters have always devalued dual-wielding because they already get so many attacks. If you only get two attacks per turn normally, an extra one is 50% more attacks. But if you're attacking 4 times a turn (granted, that's only level 20 Fighters - though we'll see about that given how everyone's getting Epic Boons at 20 now) that's only 25% more. One thing we also have yet to see is how this will interact with Action Surge - I believe the wording still says once per turn, which would seem to have Fighters further devalue light weapons.

Monks:

This all depends on whether a Monk's bonus action Martial Arts unarmed strike remains a bonus action or gets similarly folded into the attack. If one could do both of these, it would allow you to attack four times a turn at level 5, quite a bit more impressive than Fighters having to wait for level 20.

Currently, the Martial Arts attack functions kind of like built-in dual-wielding along with the fighting style. If it's a choice between a Shortsword with no damage bonus (a straight d6) versus even a tier 1 monk's unarmed strike (1d4 plus probably 3) the unarmed strike will do more damage.

We just need to see how things are designed here.

Paladins:

Paladins currently don't have access to two-weapon fighting as a fighting style. But even without it, a dual-wielding paladin build is not crazy, especially at high levels. First of all, dual-wielding lets you fish for critical hits, which you can then drop a Divine Smite on. At level 11, every weapon attack you make does an extra d8 of radiant damage, which durns a potentially dinky 1d6 light weapon into 1d6+1d8, or about 8 extra damage on average (Polearm Master is great on Paladins as well, as the bonus strike may only be a d4, but with the extra d8 and getting to add your strength modifier on top of any magic bonus).

That being said, Paladins don't really struggle for bonus actions in most cases - there are the specialized smite spells, and depending on how liberal you are with such spells, you might feel better about this, but I think you won't see a huge change here.

Ranger:

For opening rounds, this can potentially be a game changer, because Hunter's Mark is now being positioned as a central Ranger mechanic (not that it wasn't before). I can definitely say that my Gloomstalker dual-wielder would sometimes feel frustrated that things were dying each turn, and so he'd only get a turn on something with Hunter's Mark, and not be able to take advantage of doing 2d6 damage with his main hand and off hand.

The point is, Hunter's Mark is the sort of spell that gains value for every attack you make, but is also rather demanding of your bonus action, as you'll often need to use that to move the effect from one target to the next as your foes go down. Freeing up your bonus action is going to make this way less painful.

I'll also note that the Crossbow Expert feat has been updated with this in mind - sort of. The current version lets you make an attack with a hand crossbow (or now, a crossbow with the light property, which is at least currently just those) as a bonus action after you make an attack with a one-handed weapon. Here, the implication is that you can always wield a hand crossbow and get the same benefit of the light weapon, but this lets you add your ability modifier to the damage. This might actually be a nerf, as I don't know that this will allow you to use the same crossbow for the "normal" attacks and the bonus, light weapon attack. (Also, Jeremy Crawford has said that "ignoring the loading property" only allows you to use it with something like Extra Attack, and still expects you to have a hand free to reload). Indeed, this could either be a buff or a nerf, as on one hand it could imply that even if you have, say, a rapier in one hand, you don't need that free to load the hand crossbow. But it also seems to imply that if you have, say, a souped-up +3 Hand Crossbow, you need a second to fire off the off-hand attack.

Rogues:

Rogues might be the big winners here. Dual-wielding as a Rogue is generally a really good idea, because it significantly increases the chance to get sneak attack. The actual damage of the off-hand attack is kind of inconsequential, because you're getting way more out of it when you get a chance to get your sneak attack after missing on the first attack.

Let's imagine a scenario to demonstrate: We have a +5 to hit and are attacking something with an AC of 16, meaning we have to roll an 11 or higher to hit the target (and obviously critting on a 20). We'll say we're level 3, so our sneak attack is 2d6. We're using Daggers because we're being stylish rather than optimized.

So, our "hit array" is:

Miss 1-10 (50%), Hit 11-19 (45%), Crit 20 (5%)

We start by calculating the damage when just attacking once (and we're assuming we've got an ally in 5 ft of the target and don't have advantage).

So, our damage will be 1d4+3+2d6, or 5.5+7, aka 12.5. Crit damage is 2d4+3+4d6, or 22 on average.

So, 45% times 12.5 is 5.625 and 5% times 22 is 1.1, meaning our total average damage per attack (in a single-attack scenario) is 6.725.

But, when we dual-wield, we calculate this differently. Sneak Attack can trigger on either attack, but only once per turn. Thus, if we miss with the first attack, we can potentially get the damage on the second. The way we calculate this is the following: We start by simply calculating the weapon damage for the first attack on its own and subject it to the same Hit/Crit chance coefficients to find our average weapon damage per first attack. We do the same for the second attack (which will be less as we're not adding our Dexterity modifier to the off-hand damage).

However, for the Sneak Attack, we start by applying the same to its 2d6, which will account for the first attack. Because a hit on the first attack means no sneak attack on the second, we need to basically imagine a nested, microcosmic scenario where we miss the first attack and then apply the same thing.

Essentially: Our chance to get sneak attack on the second attack only happens if the first misses, and so we're only working in the 50% of the time that the first attack misses. Within that scenario, we then have the same chance as before, so we take our usual 45% hit chance times hit damage and 5% crit chance times crit damage and then multiply it by 50% to account that this is only ever happening if the first attack misses.

The ultimate upshot of this is that Sneak Attack in this case goes from missing 50% of the time to only 25% of the time, which should increase our potential damage significantly. Let's calculate it out:

Main Hand Weapon Hit: 1d4+3, or 5.5

Main Hand Weapon Crit: 2d4+3, or 8

Damage per first main weapon attack: 45% x 5.5 + 5% x 8, or 2.875.

Off Hand Weapon Hit: 1d4, or 2.5

Off Hand Weapon Crit: 2d4, or 5

Damage per off hand attack: 45% x 2.5 + 5% x 5, or 1.125 + 0.25, or 1.375

Sneak Attack Hit: 2d6, or 7

Sneak Attack Crit: 4d6, or 14

Main Hand Sneak Attack Damage Per Attack: 45% x 7 + 5% x 14, or 3.15 + .7, or 3.85

Off Hand Sneak Attack Damage Per Attack: 50% x that last number, or 1.925

Now, we add them all up and find that our total damage average per round is 10.025.

That's a huge jump from the 6.725 when attacking with just one weapon, and most of that difference is accounted for in the bump to sneak attack.

Now, what does this matter? Rogues can already dual-wield light weapons. The key here I think is that Rogues are also a class that really likes to use bonus actions - there's basically no reason not to use a bonus action on your turn thanks to Cunning Action at 2nd level.

So, now you can get these two attacks in and then potentially hide to get advantage on a subsequent attack or dash or disengage to position yourself more favorably. One popular move is to run up to a foe that is within melee of an ally, attack, and then disengage, forcing them to chase after you (and draw an opportunity attack from your ally) if they want to punish you.

    So, in conclusion, I'd say that our probable biggest beneficiary of this change is the Rogue, though I think that Rangers and Barbarians are going to be very happy about it as well. (I'm curious to see if there's any errata for subclasses printed outside of the PHB - the Soul Knife would probably love to be able to get their extra psychic blade as part of the attack. That does have the Dex bonus built into it, though, so who knows.

Elden Ring, Stage by Stage: Limgrave

 So, I've poured a lot of hours into Elden Ring. I've beaten the game on three characters (though I got help on the final boss on my Dragon incantation Arcane build) and I think I've faced nearly everything in the game.

There is a lot. FromSoft's games have always had out-of-the-way things to find, but the scope of the Lands Between dwarfs Yharnam, Lordran, Dranleic (I assume, never played that one,) and Lothric.

One thing that I think is quite notable, though, is that if you take your time and smell the roses, the game is easier than the others, though I'm also tempted to try re-playing one of the older games and putting a little more focus on leveling up my HP stat and worrying less about my throughput stats and see if the games wind up feeling easier.

However, it can be useful to figure out a gameplan. I think it's always good to have a sense of what sort of character you want to build throughout your playthrough, even though the relative abundance of Larval Tears makes re-speccing relatively easy (after beating the likely second major boss).

Generally speaking, I recommend being as much of a completionist as possible, especially if you're a new player, because you'll get the equipment and the levels you'll need to make the challenging areas and bosses easier. I recommend as well holding off on "world bosses" in certain areas until you're nearly done with everything there.

Also, I might not know where everything is here - while I've picked over the game with a fine-tooth comb, it's also vast.

Stage One: Northern Limgrave (not including Stormhill). We're defining this as the area north of Agheel Lake, but beneath Stormhill.

You start the game in Limgrave, but even this area is kind of divided into expanding regions of relative difficulty. There are three mini-dungeons in this area - a cave north of the road between the church and the gatefront ruins that is very short. There's also the first catacombs dungeon northwest of that along the same cliff walls, and finally a demi-human cave. This last one is actually the subject of one of your earliest NPC quests. There is also one dungeon which is the heroes' grave whose stonesword key-locked door you'll pass when first emerging from the tutorial cave. I recommend saving this for later, as it's pretty tough (this notably has an Arcane-scaling Sacred Seal in it, which will be a must for any dragon-magic build or anyone who wants to mix in some incantations with a bleed or otherwise status-effect-heavy build). Note that if you continue on through the Demi-Human cave, you'll find another exit that takes you to an island (otherwise inaccessible) with a dragon shrine - if you want to learn Dragon Incantations, this will be the place to learn them until you can get to the other one in Caelid.

NPCs and Quests: In this first area, the only real quest is the starting one of Boc, the Seamster. There's a slightly discolored tree near the road south of the gatefront ruins that you can roll into to show Boc, and then pick up a quest from him. If you then go into the Demi-human cave on the coast, you can find him by the site of grace and then give him the sewing needle you get off the boss. He'll follow you around and alter clothes (which basically means removing or adding back on cloaks to chest armor) for free once you do. There's another leg to his quest, but we'll worry about that later.

World Bosses: There are two world bosses in this area. The first should be very obvious - the Tree Sentinel, who rides around right where you emerge from the starting cave and is there as newbie bait (or for hardcore players to try to down before they can even spend those runes on levels). The other is the first of the Night's Cavalry enemies, who appears on the bridge leading further into Limgrave, but only at night. Remember that if you die to these guys, you'll want to rest at a Grace Site and wait until Nightfall to try again - the same is true for all but one of the Deathbirds).

Stage Two: Agheel Lake and Environs

You could argue this is part of that same starting area, but there is a bit of a step up in difficulty here. This is the area around Agheel Lake.

There are a couple of mini-dungeons to search out. There is the mine in the north of the lake (with a red-rimmed hole marked on the map) that will get you some smithing stones to upgrade your first weapon. Following the river northeast out of the lake, you can find both a small cave with some bandits and Patches as the "boss," though I recommend talking to Bloody Finger Hunter Yura before you approach, as there's your first NPC invader outside. Further up that river is another catacomb dungeon. East of the road down toward the Weeping Peninsula to the south, there's a ruins with a big Miranda Flower in it. There's a way down into the basement where you can fight a Pumpkinhead as a boss (summon some spirits to get him to turn his back and let you get some decent attacks in) and it's here where you'll find Sellen, a Sorcery teacher (you can make her your primary sorcery teacher if you want, and give your scrolls to her, but I recommend saving all your spell scrolls and prayerbooks for Miriel up in Liurnia so you can do one-stop-shopping.)

A word of caution: the ruins on the south part of the lake have two treasure chests. One holds the Twinblade, a fun weapon for dex-heavy builds (especially if you put a bleeding infusion on it) while the other is a trap that puts you in a dungeon you are almost certainly not high enough level for in Caelid, and you'll be stuck there until you can get back to the entrance of the dungeon. It's not impossible to escape, but it will be a real challenge and pain especially for new players.

NPCS and Quests: Bloody Finger Hunter Yura can be found under a curved ruin (making a kind of arch) south of the lake. He'll basically tell you to be careful, but will help you with the NPC invader near Patches' cave. Afterward, you can speak with him further up that river. Patches himself will surrender when you do enough damage to him, and you can meet him at various other places (and, as always, get pushed off a cliff by him). Of note is that, after you return to him following this peace agreement, he'll sell an (expensive) item that can stun Margit the Fell for a couple seconds once per fight attempt (and you can fight Margit up to three times in the game). Sellen also has a quest line that you can do if you have high intelligence, though this starts a while later.

Also, not a dungeon, but some ruins on the cliffs in the southeast here have a scroll that allows Sellen or other sorcery trainers to teach you other sorceries.

World Bosses: Agheel is your first dragon world boss, and killing them lets you get the Agheel's Flame incantation at a shrine. Again, you should be patient and avoid this guy until you feel you've done most of the other stuff.

Evergaol: There is an Evergaol in the south, but it's also part of Blaidd's quest (see below,) so you can talk to him first and summon him as an NPC ally, making the fight here much easier (like, you can practically just let him do it).

Stage Three: Mistwood

The truth is that there isn't a ton in Mistwood, so I'm going to count the region to the north as part of it. In the wood itself, Fort Haight is kinda-sorta a mini dungeon (though much smaller than most). You can find Kenneth Haight on top of a fallen bit of architecture north of the woods and he'll ask you to re-take the fort. In terms of actual mini-dungeons, the only one I can think of right now is an easily-missed cave up in the north near the coast (you'll need to use those Torrent stream things to jump up the cliffs).

In the ruins with the first Tibia Mariner (see below) there's also a really great Talisman, the Green Turtle Talisman, which is worth picking up.

NPCS: As mentioned, there's Kenneth Haight, who is really kind of a supporting character in Nepheli Loux's quests. Also, when you first pass by the ruins in the western part of the wood (with a deadly sleeping Runebear within) you'll hear some howling. You can then go to the merchant in the Church of Elleh, who will teach you the "snap" emote that will then let you call down the howling wolf-man, Blaidd, who will give you another little quest, and becomes a major NPC in Ranni's quest chain. Up in the ruins atop the cliffs on the road to Caelid is D, Hunter of the Dead, who will task you with (or simply congratulate you if you've already done it) defeating the Tibia Mariner in the ruins. If you do so, he'll show you where the teleporter to go to the Bestial Sanctum is, where you can turn in Deathroot to Gurranq to get Bestial incantations and other goodies.

Stage Four: Weeping Peninsula

At this point, you're probably fine to go north to Stormhill, but there's a lot you can do down in the Weeping Peninsula, so you might as well. All the way to the south is Castle Morne, one of the game's sort of "major mini-dungeons" or "not-quite legacy dungeons." Before we go there, though, we have several things we can do first. Up on the eastern cliffs in the northeast is a catacomb dungeon (beware that it has a tough boss for lower levels). Traveling into the western part of the region, there's an out-of-the-way cave dungeon on the shore facing the rest of Limgrave, with a Rune Bear as its boss. Between the hill with the village full of frenzied flame people and the hill with the minor erdtree is a mine dungeon - always good to do those for smithing stones. There's another catacomb dungeon kind of underneath that minor erdtree that is fairly easy to find if you simply ride south from the church north of the tree. Finally, there is a hard-to-find cave dungeon underneath one of the churches (accessible via an entrance in the cliffs below) that has a Miranda Flower as a boss in perhaps the tiniest boss room in the game.

NPCs and Quests: Upon crossing the bridge into the peninsula (is it not technically an island?) you can meet Irina, who asks you to take a letter to her father in Castle Morne. Irina, or rather, whoever it is that inhabits her body, becomes an important NPC in Liurnia and part of the Frenzied Flame story, but I think you can technically skip this and still do that - but no reason you should. Her father can be found a bit out-of-the-way once you get to the top of the castle, and will basically say "cool, I'm going to chill here until you beat the boss."

World Bosses: There are two night-only world bosses here. One is a second Night's Cavalry, who you can find very near the site of grace with a merchant north of the outer walls of Castle Morne. The other is a Deathbird, who can be found not far from there, underneath the same walls to the west. There's also a wandering mausoleum, which you can use to duplicate remembrances in case you want both of a boss' items. Also, there's the Demihuman Queen in a big ruin in the lowlands to the north (near the Runebear cave dungeon). Additionally, there's an Erdtree Avatar near the minor erdtree.

Evergaol: This evergaol requires a Stonesword key, and has an Ancient Hero of Zamor in it.

Stage Five: Stormhill

We're getting there - now we go up from the gatefront ruins (or west from the village with the Tibia Mariner) to Stormhill. There's only one mini-dungeon here, I believe, which is a catacombs in the cliffs east of Stormveil Castle (not the first cliffs, but near the bridge to that village). Stormveil Castle is, of course, the first major dungeon of the game, and what we're building toward here.

NPCs and Quests: In terms of quest-quests, you'll want to talk to Roderika in the shack after you enter, but I doubt many would miss her. You can also meet Recusant Bernahl, who will continue popping up for quite a long time. However, the best NPC you can meet here (though weirdly he didn't show up there on my latest playthrough - thankfully, if you miss him, you don't lose out on his quests) is Warrior Jar Alexander, the very best thing in any FromSoft game.

World Bosses: There are two night-only world bosses. One is the Bell-Bearing Hunter found at the Warmaster's Shack (where you can find Bernahl during the day). The other is another Deathbird a bit southeast of there.

Evergaol: There's another Evergaol here with a Crucible Knight in it. Good luck, you'll need it.

Stage Six: Stormveil Castle

I'm not going to go super in-depth here, but you'll start with a fight against Margit the Fell Omen, and ultimately face Godrick the Grafted as you first major boss. There's also an ulcerated tree spirit down in the lower levels, but I recommend coming back to this after you've leveled up a bit and are ready to progress Fia's quests.

NPCs and Quests: You'll meet Rogier here (and can summon him to fight Margit) and Nepehli Loux (whom you can summon for Godrick). Note also that Gatekeeper Gastoc will steal a bit of your runes every time you die - you might not notice, but you'll see that the amount you collect after doing a corpse run isn't the full amount you dropped. I believe you can find him in various places and confront him about it, but I don't know that that ends until you've beaten Godrick.

Ok, so that - I think - covers Limgrave. There are obviously some important items you might find out in the world, but I think this will more or less give you a sense of how to feel you really haven't left any major stones unturned.

Dragonflight's New Old New Talent System

 I really liked the new talents that came out with Mists of Pandaria. For those of you who are not old fogies (World of Warcraft came out half my life ago, which I'm sure would make older players think I'm very young, but more just makes me feel crazy that this game has been around so long,) and who also haven't checked out Classic (which I imagine is quite useful as a time machine,) originally WoW's "specializations" were nothing but the points you put into different talents. Every Paladin, for example, got certain abilities up through level 9 (which you had to pay for at a class trainer, and sometimes that training was expensive so you'd skip some abilities you didn't use!) and then got a single talent point at every level from 1 onward, investing those in one of three trees that corresponded to what we now know as specializations.

This continued through Burning Crusade and Wrath, with the trees getting deeper to account for more levels, but in Cataclysm, they made their first significant change to the system - at 10, you'd pick a specialization, which would come with certain bonuses and abilities immediately (Demonology Warlocks got their Felguard, for example,) and then there were smaller trees for each of them, and you'd only get a talent point every other level. You also could not put points into another tree until you had put enough into your primary tree to get the capstone talent (though you didn't need to take it - you just had to put in the 51 or whatever the number was points that would be required to get it). This did break a few things - one popular Mage build in Wrath was the Frostfire build, which centered around a new spell called Frostfire Bolt (which more or less got replaced with Flurry) and invested heavily in both the Frost and Fire talent trees, not putting enough in either to get all the way to the capstone talents. With Catalcysm's system, one could no longer do this.

And so, Mists blew that all away, creating more interesting choices (as opposed to things like "you do X% more damage" that were there to fill up space). This coincided with a pretty major rework of the specs - now that you simply learned spells and abilities appropriate to your spec, rather than having to find them on a talent tree and then get the "baseline abilities" from a class trainer, the specs started to diverge significantly. For example, all Warlocks used to use both Immolate and Corruption, and Destruction Warlocks only replaced Shadow Bolt when they got Incinerate on their trees.

And the Mists system has more or less been in place for ten years. Starting in Legion, we began to get other, complex systems that stacked on top of it to determine player power, like artifact weapons, Azerite armor, and covenant conduits. On one hand, the system was far simpler to switch out than the big, complex talent trees, but there was an issue: with only six or seven rows of talents, you were only getting a new talent to try out every fifteen levels or so. This created a ton of "dead levels" where you didn't really get anything new, and especially with level scaling introduced, the notion that these levels had any meaning was pretty lost.

The level squish helped with this a bit, but players and developers were reminded of the fun of that incremental progress one felt when gaining talent points under the old system. And I think that's why we've arrived here.

Now, back in the old days (like, pre-3.1,) you couldn't change your talents or your spec unless you paid your class trainer gold, and the amount that this cost grew each time you did it, seriously disincentivizing you from experimenting with different builds, and forcing you to commit to a role. I leveled my Paladin from 1-80 as Protection because of this (well, I guess 10-80 as you didn't really have a spec until level 10).

The first cracks in this rather draconian system came with 3.1, when "dual spec" could be unlocked at your trainer for 1000g (which used to be a fair amount).

Now, with the new system, you can swap talents any time you're not in combat. The complexity of the old trees remains, though the system is a little more free-form. I think there will be a kind of inertia that encourages players to look up online what the best theory-crafted build is, but the system is very flexible.

One thing that's interesting is that, much like your transmog outfits, you can save several builds to quickly swap between them. I think putting together a single-target build, an AoE build (possibly with a secondary "cleave" build) and a soloing build for your specs is probably a good way to use those.

I'm eager to see how these feel in the midst of the new expansion. Right now, we're missing ten talent points, after all.

Another thing of note is that there are now two trees you use at a time - the class tree and the specialization tree, which you get points for at alternating levels. I don't think I'd write one off as the "utility tree" and the other as the "performance tree," but this might serve to preserve a little mental bandwidth when switching specs.

Wretched Again, Now With Night Sword!

 When you first play a game like Dark Souls or Bloodborne or what have you, the "Wretched," or "Waste of Skin" etc. seems like an odd choice. Go in with crap stats in everything? And with no equipment (ok, to be fair, in Bloodborne everyone starts with basically no equipment... and I don't think you can respec, so this argument might not apply there).

But I've found that with Elden Ring, a game that is somehow vaster than any previous FromSoft Souls-like, and yet which I feel I have a better mastery of than any previous entry, my instinct for new characters is to go Wretched.

For one thing, Elden Ring is more generous than previous games in letting you re-spec. I believe there are 15 or possibly more Larval Tears, which you use as a currency with Renalla (once you've beaten her) to reassign your attributes.

The reason this benefits the Wretched is that when you do this, you cannot assign points lower than your starting statistics. If you were going to go with an Astrologer but decided that you now think you'd prefer an Arcane, Rivers of Blood build, you're going to be holding onto a lot of worthless Intelligence.

Starting a Wretched character is a little rough - I don't recommend it for a first playthrough. It takes a good while to get a decent set of armor, and you'll need to grind a little early on to get the stats to equip even a simple longsword or the like.

So I've now done that a second time.

My first Wretched eventually wound up using Blasphemous Blade and Gargoyle Greatsword with a jump-attack-focused dual-wield greatsword approach, buffing with incantations.

This one, I first wanted to try out a Twinblade - which are a little few and far between (you basically can find one generic twinblade and then don't get another until like Altus Plateau). I put Bloody Slash on it to take advantage of the fast attack rate, but I found myself growing a little unenthused about that (especially after my Int-based Samurai, who dual-wields Moonveil and a Cold Uchigatana, both of which, being katanas, have bleed build-up) and so I decided to go for a theme - I think this character will go for the Age of the Duskborn ending, and so I figured I'd make a death-sorcery character.

I'm using Sword of Night and Flame, which I hadn't really tried before, and I do have Rancor and Ancient Death Rancor (though not the Intelligence to cast the latter yet) and I'm slowly working my way through. It'll be a while before I can get the Prince of Death's Staff, which scales with both Intelligence and Faith. The intention here is to level Intelligence to 34 so I can cast Ancient Death Rancor, then focus on getting Faith to 24 so that I can unequip the Two Finger's Heirloom and still meet the attribute requirements for everything.

Luckily, being a Wretched, if I find I'm not so into this build, I can try a different one with relative ease (though I'll need to get more Larval Tears! I don't think you really get a good reserve of them until Nokstella.)

As someone who always gets a bit of anxiety about this kind of thing, I kind of wish that Larval Tears were something you could get an unlimited number of, even if it required farming a bit.

I'll put that up there with making it so that you can't miss quests or rewards if you do things in a slightly off sequence (I've missed the Magic Scorpion Charm on two characters who could have really used it because I didn't get Seluvis' quest done before giving Ranni the Fingerslayer Blade. And on my Samurai, I think I must have screwed up something with Nepheli Loux, because she's still in Roundtable Hold, talking about the Storm King Ashes I gave her, and I could have sworn she'd move on to Stormveil after you go to Farum Azula.)

Anyway, I rushed ahead in Liurnia in order to respec, so I'm now cleaning the place up. I've got I think almost everything out of Raya Lucaria (except getting trapped by the Abductor Virgin at the bottom to take me to the prison under Volcano Manor). Right now I'm just hungry for levels to get everything up and running.

D&D Beyond is Great, and I Hope the Digital/Physical Bundles Will Be Better in One D&D

 I finally caved and purchased the "Player Bundle" (PHB, Xanathar's, Tasha's, and Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide) along with Monsters of the Multiverse on D&D Beyond, despite already owning those books as physical items. At 125 bucks, roughly, that comes to 25 dollars per book, or about 50% of what I originally paid for each book (SCAG might have been cheaper, but the bundle made the cost of getting that one added on trivial, so I went for it).

With WotC's purchase of D&D Beyond, we've seen a lot of content released through it, between free things like Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1, the Vecna Dossier, and in fact the whole playtest for One D&D (though, frustratingly, they haven't actually made it so you can make character sheets with the new rules - hopefully that's just a technical challenge they'll eventually figure out).

Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen will be the first book they release as a physical/digital bundle. I believe it costs like 5 dollars more, which I still feel a little salty about, but certainly not as much as I do over paying 30 bucks more.

The problem, as I've said before, is that this only lets you get the physical book from WotC directly. I have a local gaming store where I'm friends with the manager, and I'd really, really prefer to buy books from there. But this 125-dollar purchase I just made (which doesn't even cover some of the other sourcebooks I'd like unlocked on D&D Beyond, such as Fizban's or some of the setting books) is not something I want to make a regular habit.

I would love, love, love if WotC gave out digital vouchers with a code to stores selling the books, which they could hand you at checkout (perhaps even charging a little premium for it).

I only use D&D Beyond for character sheets, so I'm really only ever going to get the player-facing sourcebooks on it (a reason, perhaps, why we've seen a lot more races and subclasses going into DM-facing books) and so I have no real compunctions about picking up the awesome alt-cover of the Dragonlance book at my store.

But I'd far prefer to lose any friction here and let me support my local store while getting the new D&D books. As it stands, the current model disincentivizes people from getting their books at the stores that have done so much to promote the hobby, and feels... not great.

Ease of Use and Book Design - the Dangerous Efficiency of One D&D

As a note, I might regret the use of the word "dangerous" in this title, because I abhor internet sensationalism, especially when talking about a rather wonky nuance to a work-in-progress update to the rules of a game hobby that players and groups can very easily ignore. So, to any reading, please join me in taking a breath and remembering that we're only passionate about this because we love the hobby, and that, especially in a game like this that exists in books and text documents that aren't going away, nothing's going to change our world (jai guru deva).

 I started reading the Pathfinder Second Edition rules, which are all available for free, provided by Paizo online. They bear a lot of similarities with Starfinder, but also incorporate some concepts from D&D 5th Edition that are appealingly familiar. The Proficiency Bonus, an invention of 5E, is not present in Starfinder (and I assume not in Pathfinder 1E either). The PB is a very useful way of tracking the way that a player character will just generally get more powerful as they level up in the broadest, simplest terms. Your hit bonus, your spell save DC, any skills you have, and a number of other features just go up a certain amount as you level up, independent of any other choices or features you have.

This sort of efficient design can be really effective and easy to figure out.

But sometimes, it can be a surprising hinderance.

In the 2014 PHB (the only 5th Edition PHB that yet exists,) every individual class that has the Spellcasting Feature fully explains how spellcasting works. There's a lengthy set of paragraphs and a bolded section that explains the way you calculate a saving throw DC. The same is true of Fighting Style among the Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers. Extra Attack, which Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Paladins, and Rangers all get, is explained in every class entry.

Likewise, the Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Gnome each have Darkvision, and in each instance, the way that Darkvision works is explained.

From an efficiency standpoint, this is horribly inefficient. It's precisely the same feature (sure, Drow get 120 feet instead of 60 feet, but it works the same.) I think the spellcasting segments in particular are huge - taking up maybe a full page of each class segment in the class chapter.

But it also makes it relatively easy to use.

When I was reading the Starfinder rules (and sorry for always going to Starfinder - it's just that it's the only d20 TTRPG for which I both have the rulebook and have read it) I was rolling up a Soldier (rough equivalent to the Fighter) and found myself deeply confused about their capstone ability, Kill Shot. Essentially, a high-level Soldier in Starfinder can sometimes hit someone with a weapon so hard that the target needs to make a Fortitude Saving Throw (literally a Constitution saving throw - Starfinder only has Con, Wis, and Dex saves, but calls them Fortitude, Will, and Reflex saves to make it very clear they're not ability checks) or they instantly die.

But nowhere in the Soldier chapter is it explained how one gets that saving throw DC.

Now, it turns out that before the class section, there's a segment that explains the general formula for figuring out a saving throw DC for class abilities (if memory serves, it's 10 + your class' primary ability modifier + your level in that class, or sometimes half your class level). That's all well and good - numbers go higher in Starfinder than they do in 5th Edition D&D, so having a DC of 28 or something is not unreasonable.

But the problem was that I found myself flipping back and forth for several minutes, sure that I'd gone insane, searching for where the hell I could figure out how to calculate the DC.

Starfinder has an extensive feat system. Every player character gains a feat every other level (I want to say every odd level). In addition, though, classes will often grant you feats. One such feat is weapon proficiency (forgive me if I get some of these terms wrong). At a certain level (2 or 3) in your class, you get the "weapon proficiency feat" in every weapon type that your class is designed to use. The feat allows you to add your level to the damage you deal with a weapon with which you have this feat (again numbers in Starfinder go up a lot higher than in 5E). Technically speaking, this means that a Soldier is picking up maybe a dozen feats at this level-up. They all do essentially the same thing, which is actually quite simple to explain, but reading the class entry in the core rulebook does not explain this to you. Practically, you're supposed to already know how that feat works and skip forward (much as a 5E veteran can typically ignore the whole Spellcasting section when they're playing a Druid after having played a Cleric). But for a new player, this creates a sort of...

You remember the quest in Zelda Ocarina of Time where you had to do this elaborate series of trades in order to get the powerful Biggoron Sword?

The design of One D&D has moved D&D in a more modular, systematic direction, which I think can be wonderful. I like having clear definitions of, for example, what you get out of a Tool Proficiency (for one, it makes Sleight of Hand a clear choice for Rogues to take as a skill).

The embrace of feats as a core gameplay system is part of this, and again, I think it's actually pretty good in a lot of ways. Feats in particular have always felt like a painful trade between more interesting gameplay and the satisfaction of getting things "maxed out," and for this OCD-sufferer, the fact that I can still actually get my most important stat to 20 while taking all feats is a huge relief.

What I worry about, though, purely from a layout and ease-of-use perspective, is that this will encourage WotC to present One D&D in a more efficient, but less comprehensible manner. Yes, Great Weapon Fighting works identically for the Fighter as it does for the Paladin. But when that choice is presented to me, I want to be able to read it in class section, and not have two entries that just say "look at the feat chapter."

Indeed, one of the most bafflingly designed elements of the 2014 PHB is its infamously terrible index. There are tons of entries in there where you'll look up, say, "mounts," and it'll say "see pack animals," which then has the page number - when it would have been literally less ink to simply print the page number under both entries.

I'll confess that I don't know much about the demands of formatting and laying out books like the D&D core rulebooks. And certainly, D&D gets the benefit of being such a beloved brand that they can print three core rulebooks for their game that they expect anyone who wants to run it to buy, rather than a single core rulebook like basically any other TTRPG (admittedly, Starfinder kind of requires two, because there are no monster stat blocks in the Core Rulebook).

More players than ever are enfranchised into D&D thanks to 5th Edition, and none of these concerns I'm voicing are really for myself. I've been DMing since 2015, and I've been following the development of One D&D pretty closely (as you might be able to tell given the volume of blog posts I've made about it).

But one of the things that made 5th Edition D&D so successful was that someone like me, who had basically never played any TTRPGs before (other than a few sessions of the Song of Ice and Fire RPG) could pop these books open, read them, and start running a game with relatively little friction (though I think the DMG encounter building rules were too complicated and discouraged using lots of low-CR monsters, which would have made my early adventures more exciting, rather than having a single Orog downed by the paladin's crit smite before anyone else had a turn).

The point being: sometimes shorthand, and this kind of systematic filing away of certain features can look elegant and efficient, but redundancies can often make things far more comprehensible.

I might even go a little more radical and say that I think that One D&D's impulse to classify many different things as "Feats" is a bad impulse. As it stands, First-level Feats, Fighting Styles, Fourth-level Feats, and Epic Boons are all officially Feats in One D&D, when the equivalent to 2014 5E effectively has 4th level feats as the only thing that work quite the same way. I'm tempted to say that a different word should be used for 1st level feats, and that we should keep Fighting Styles and Epic Boons (which are acknowledged as "20th level feats") should be kept their own thing.

I'm less zealous about the latter proposition, but it's a thought.

Class Groups: Speculating on Warriors

 The presence of the Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk in the Warrior group is not really that controversial (some have argued the Monk is an odd fit, to be fair). Each of these is a combat-oriented class that gets the Extra Attack feature, and is most typically found in melee (Fighters can be built as ranged combatants, but I think most people first imagine Fighters as heavily-armored melee brawlers).

The weirdness of the Warrior group is the exclusion of other classes - the Ranger and Paladin - who share many of these traits. Rangers are most typically imagined as ranged combatants (though I, fool that I am, made a Strength-focused dual-wielding ranger). But Paladins, along with Barbarians and Monks, are obligate melee fighters - their mechanics only really work properly when they're fighting with a melee weapon.

People tend to divide the classes into two broad categories: "martial" classes and spellcasters. Essentially, where I think this breaks down, is that some classes are generally going to be fighting with a weapon while others will generally use spells. There are some exceptional cases: Clerics' main focus is clearly spellcasting, but about half the subclasses have features that buff their melee weapons (and often give them proficiency with martial weapons) in what I imagine is an effort to encourage them to use these attacks not necessarily as their main group role, but to function as their "default action" when they don't need to cast any big spell. (I think the buff to their weapon damage doesn't tend to keep up with a cantrip like Toll the Dead.) Druids can also be somewhat weapon-based, either using the natural weapons of a wild shape form or with things like shillelagh or even just using a scimitar while buffed with something like Circle of Spores' Symbiotic Entity. Warlocks, likewise, can sort of build themselves a bit as a "martial" class with things like Pact of the Blade (especially when combined with the Hexblade patron).

With the Experts, we saw that the things linking the classes are the following: they all get the Expertise feature, Epic Boons (which are basically level 20 feats,) are categorized by class group, and we've been told (though have yet to see) that magic items that may have previously said "requires attunement by a cleric, druid, or warlock" or the like will now likely say "requires attunement by a Priest."

With the Ranger update, we see that, exceptionally, Rangers are allowed to pick a Fighting Style despite not being a Warrior, which I think strongly implies that Fighting Style will be the unifying class mechanic between the Warrior classes.

This is actually quite a change, because of the three Warrior classes, only the Fighter currently gets Fighting Styles. At a baseline, only Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins get them. The only class I believe can get Fighting Styles outside of a feat (which all Fighting Styles will be considered) is the College of Swords Bard, which can pick up Dueling or Two Weapon Fighting.

Barbarians getting Fighting Style, I think, makes a lot of sense. You could argue that their lack of it in the past was meant to reflect the notion that they don't really have any formal training, the way a Fighter might. Many of the conventional fighting styles would work well for them - Great Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Fighting (and given the Light weapon buff, this might be a very popular choice for Barbarians, who already liked dual-wielding) and Dueling all make a lot of sense for them. Really, only Defense wouldn't make sense for them (they can wear medium armor, but what Barbarian gives up their mobility for a little more AC when you have Unarmored Defense?) Oh, and Archery.

Now, Monks are another matter. Archery, Defense, and Protection are basically useless to them. Great Weapon Fighting is also, I'd imagine, unlikely to be too popular - it basically only applies to a quarterstaff (turning a d8 from an average of 4.5 to 5.25 - or I suppose 5.5 to 6.3 if you're tier 4). We also don't yet know whether Martial Arts and its bonus action attack will still work that way, or if it will be folded into the attack similarly to the light weapon change. I've often felt that the Martial Arts bonus action attack more or less lets the Monk dual-wield their fists, with two-weapon fighting rolled in. If they can wield two light weapons and then also get a bonus action unarmed strike, that would be very powerful (essentially getting four attacks per turn after level 5).

The thing to bear in mind is that there might be more fighting styles we didn't get in the Expert Class UA because this was meant to just provide the ones a Ranger might take. One that buffs unarmed strikes might be too obvious for a Monk. If we see some of the Tasha's era Fighting Styles, things like Blind Fighting could be a really fun choice for a Monk.

Beyond Fighting Style, the way the group is described, they seem to be designed to play a tank-like role for the group, dishing out damage in melee but also mitigating damage they take.

Of the three, Barbarians are the only ones who really explicitly mitigate damage, but a Fighter can be built to have a high Armor Class and thus take significantly less damage. Outside of builds like my Eldritch Knight (who, I'll boast, effectively had an AC of 27 thanks to Shield) the Fighter doesn't really have any benefit in this strategy over the Paladin (and you could argue that, thanks to paladins' Aura of Protection, they play this role slightly better).

The Monk, though, falls behind on survivability. Monks can put out a lot of damage (though they suffer by comparison when their allies load up on powerful magic items - though perhaps not as much as some might think, as there's nothing preventing you from getting a really powerful quarterstaff) but while they can eventually get a decent AC, they suffer from not quite catching up with heavily-armored (or even medium-armored) classes in terms of AC while at the same time being a d8 hit die class, giving them generally less HP than Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, and even Rangers (I don't know why Rangers have a d10 rather than a d8).

I've proposed mechanics the Monk should have to reduce their incoming damage - I like the idea of subtracting their proficiency bonus (though this runs into the problem of being too powerful with a one-level dip, so perhaps it should simply go up with Monk level or maybe be based on Dexterity modifier,) which would make them stronger in some situations compared to the Barbarian, while less powerful in others. (The Monk becomes the mob tank while the Barbarian is the big-monster tank).

I really like the general approach to the Monk, but I'd like to see the class revisited in a way the Ranger was to really get it to a point where it can overcome the perception of being underpowered.

My speculation here is a little less focused on the class group than the classes itself. I will say that I think it would be very cool to see some Warrior-specific magic items. Granted, that can often just take the form of magic weapons (and armor,) but I'll be curious to see if they come up with some more creative ideas.

Regarding Barbarians, I think that some of the punishing elements of Rage could be removed. My Ravnica game has a Selesyna Loxodon Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. Now that we've finally hit 15th level, his Rage does not fade if he doesn't attack or get attacked. I've never really found Rage dropping in this way to be an interesting challenge - it just feels like a way to screw the player out of a major resource.

In general, I think that either Rage should be easier to maintain, or Barbarians should have more things they can do outside of Rage. For example, the Ancestral Guardian features basically all only work if you're Raging (except the ritual spells,) and so I ran a lengthy dungeon in which the Barbarian got to the final boss without any Rages left, and basically could do nothing beyond his normal attack action. Yes, resource management is important, but Barbarians should still feel like Barbarians even if they've run out of this fairly limited resource.

So I'd just let it last the full minute, but on top of that, I'd also let some features that currently require you to be Raging to work all the time.

For Fighters, I'm very curious to see how radical they go. I've speculated, and I've seen others speculate, that Fighters could wind up all getting Maneuvers like a Battle Master. This would be a pretty radical change. Currently, the Fighter is kind of a blank canvas as a base class, but with extra ASIs (or extra feats, as we'd say in the One D&D format) to build the class to your liking.

The Fighter, as a class, isn't broken, but it does rely on its subclasses to become interesting. Maneuvers would certainly raise the skill cap for the class if introduced, but I think it could also give the class a clearer identity than simply "the customizable class" while still being fairly customizable. I could even imagine new fighter subclasses being built with maneuvers in mind. The Eldritch Knight, for example, might use maneuvers to produce magical effects (or even just produce Arcane spells) rather than using a system of spell slots. The Arcane Archer, likewise, has always felt like a flavorful but not as powerful version of the Battle Master, with an emphasis on ranged combat. Rune Knights could easily reimagine their runes as maneuvers. Psi Warriors already use their psionic energy dice in a similar manner to superiority dice (admittedly, this was designed to look and work similar to Soulknife Rogues).

We don't know what subclasses are going to be printed in the One D&D PHB - for all the hollering that the online community has had over these documents, my takeaway has been that the approach has been a very conservative one - mostly built on tweaking the existing system as it is, usually providing quality-of-life improvements along with a few experimental concepts.

As such, I'm going in with the assumption that we'll be seeing every subclass from the 2014 PHB revised but kept, along with a few more (because the total they announced is more than the subclasses in the existing PHB).

The first question, then, is what happens to the Battle Master if, effectively, every Fighter is now a Battle Master. The other question that raises is what might have to give in order to make up for the greater power that Fighters in general would have.

Addressing the first question:

Likely, we'd have to either see the Battle Master replaced with another subclass or we'd need to see a significant redesign that seeks to revisit the concept of the Battle Master and evoke its flavor mechanically. I'd be in favor of the second option. Currently, the Battle Master's subclass features are all built around getting your maneuvers and the superiority dice that fuel them, and then improving those, with only two exceptions. At level 3, you gain one artisan's tool proficiency (which, to be honest, feels sort of out of nowhere and not really in line with the flavor of the subclass). At 7, you get Know Your Enemy, which lets you learn details about a creature if you spend a minute observing them. This one is actually very cool and flavorful, though of limited use (especially in a campaign without a lot of social gameplay and intrigue, like a dungeon crawl or a wilderness exploration campaign).

My sense is that if maneuvers became a Fighter-wide feature, it would make sense for subclasses to grant maneuver options. And in that case, I could see providing a more limited list as a baseline and then making the Battle Master really focus on being a battlefield commander - things like Commander's Strike, Distracting Strike, Goading Attack, Rally, and Bait and Switch are all maneuvers that make you feel like someone who is truly mastering the battlefield and in particular setting up your allies to work together as a unit - something I feel is really there as part of the Battle Master flavor (whereas a Champion is there to be the center of attention on the battlefield, the Battle Master is all about group tactics). I could see expanding the Battle Master's options as a team player could give them a nice niche if their current central mechanic is given to all Fighters.

Now, of course, giving Maneuvers to all Fighters - a class that isn't exactly underpowered as it stands - could risk making them a little too powerful. Power creep is somewhat inevitable in a game where nerfs are going to be booed while buffs are going to be celebrated (look at the pretty much universal positive response to the Light weapon change and the more or less total condemnation of the critical hit changes that were immediately rescinded,) and so I think taking power away from Fighters, even if balanced against making maneuvers universal, will elicit a lot of condemnation.

The simplest nerf I could imagine is taking away one or both of the Fighter's extra feats. Currently, Fighters get 7 ASIs (again, under the new system these would be simply referred to as feats) as they level up. Rogues get 6, while all other classes get 5. I've tended to see the Fighter's many ASIs as a way to make up for the fact that their base class only has a couple of features, and thus you're not paying as much to add in customization (something like Great Weapon Master, if it was a class feature, would be a pretty good and important one). With the greater complexity of Maneuvers, perhaps the Fighter wouldn't need those extra opportunities for Feats (especially given that taking non-ASI feats in One D&D looks like it will be less punishing due to your getting half an ASI anyway - I honestly think we might see lots of character builds that never take an ASI).

This, also, would probably not cause as much of an outcry as taking away something like Action Surge, or the Fighter's 3rd and 4th attack - things that people really love about the class (well, I'm assuming others love the latter - I don't know how many people actually play into tier 3, but I can tell you it feels pretty cool to get three attacks per round, or six with an action surge.)

Essentially, I see them going one of two directions with the Fighter - we're either going to see a radical redesign of the class, or we're going to see it barely changed at all. I don't really see them going with a middle ground between the two.

Now that we're in November, we're probably a week or two out from the next UA. I'd guess we'll be seeing another class group preview, but I have no idea which one they'll do next.

Furthermore, I don't know what other elements we'll see them explore. The Rules Glossary part of each of these has, quietly, been the most important part of the documents, given that it details things that affect everyone, rather than just the modular choices you make with a particular character.

I'll also say that I think the weird new spell preparation rules - where you're forced to prepare a certain number of spells at each level, rather than just a total number of spells in general - is something I'm hoping will be walked back. That's unlikely to be relevant to the Warrior group - the group for which only one subclass of its three classes has conventional spellcasting. But as a sort of broad summation for these class group posts, that's something I'm eager to see more about.

Fingers crossed we'll see that next UA soon and we can have a ton more information to analyze, critique, and speculate on.