Returning to Riven

 One of, if not the very first computer game I ever remember playing was Cosmic Osmo - a fun little exploration game that was probably just a glorified Hypercard stack and didn't really have any objectives. The only point was to explore the various planets in a goofy, kid-friendly solar system. I think I was three, but my sister and I would return to this game time and again, and we later got an expansion to it: Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel, which I believe was when they re-released it on CD-ROM (then a kind of new technology) with four new planets to play around in.

But in the packaging was an ad for the next work by the same studio, Cyan. A little game called Myst.

I was only seven when Myst came out, but I think even as a little kid I understood it to be a phenomenon. The graphics (while they wouldn't win any awards today) were astonishing. If you were too young to remember, 3D graphics, as in polygonal objects in a simulated 3D environment, rather than 2D sprites, were, prior to this, usually either untextured, with vector lines sketching out the shapes, or they only had solid colors for textures. Myst wasn't being rendered real-time - it was basically a series of still images with occasional pre-rendered animations. But the game was by far the most beautiful thing that had come out of the computer game industry up to that point. And the world was a fascinating, surreal environment that oozed mystery.

As a kid, I didn't even realize there was an objective to the game for a long time. I remember my best friend in elementary school talking about how he had reached the "Mechanical Age" and the "Channelwood Age" and having no clue what he was talking about. But, over time, I'd come to understand that, unlike Cosmic Osmo, there was a goal beyond just exploring the map. But honestly, the real pleasure of the game was just seeing the strange sights.

In the infancy of the internet, there wasn't really the online hype machine there is now, and so the first time I discovered there was a sequel to Myst was when I walked into an independent computer store my dad liked (he's a professor of computer science, so he'd often take me to tag along while he was shopping for computer stuff) and I saw "Riven, the Sequel to Myst."

So, naturally I got that game, and was introduced to a far more complex, far, far more challenging puzzle/exploration game.

I have a confession: I'm pretty impatient with puzzles. I'm totally the kind of guy who will look up the solution to a puzzle if I get stuck on it. I try not to peak ahead, especially in a game that is all about puzzles, but it's a weakness of mine.

Riven was... it was difficult.

Myst had a wonderful, surreal world, but in a lot of ways, the design of the world was basically one built around puzzles. The giant gears and wooden rocket ship on the primary Myst island were ultimately there only to serve as big signposts that said "hey, there's a linking book to another age here!" The fact that the isle of Myst was not really built to be a place where people really lived helped give it its strange, dream-like aesthetic, but you could argue that it was also a little "gamey."

Riven is, let's be clear, also an environment built around puzzles. But unlike Myst, the puzzles in Riven all seem to have some kind of in-world purpose.

And there's a story there that is, yes, partially told through extensive, hand-written journals (evidently actually written by hand and scanned) but there's also a lot of environmental storytelling:

Gehn, the father of Atrus (the sort of benevolent figure whom you rescue in the original Myst but who seems to have big family problems, as his sons are the villains of the first game) is, like Atrus, a practitioner of "The Writing," a magical skill developed by the D'ni civilization. Writing allows the creation of Linking Books, which act as magical portals to other "Ages" or worlds/universes. Atrus believes (and I think we're meant to agree with him) that these Linking Books are only describing worlds that already exist, and while alterations to the books can have an impact on the worlds that they link to, ultimately there's no real hierarchy between the ages.

Gehn, on the other hand, is convinced that writing a Linking Book actually creates the world to which it links, and because he wrote a linking book to the age of Riven, he believes himself to be the creator of it, and currently rules over it and the native Rivenese as a god - manipulating their culture to set them to aiding him in the creation of books, after Atrus trapped him on Riven.

I love environmental storytelling, and you can see pretty early on the way in which Gehn has shaped this culture around his needs. It's a story of colonialism, with Gehn using his knowledge of The Writing and technology (which ranges from 19th century steam engines to holograms and force fields) to keep himself in power.

Riven sacrifices a little of the dream-like surrealism of Myst in favor of a more justified world, but it's not like things are totally normal here. Rifts in the ocean and earthquakes demonstrate the manner in which the age is succumbing to some structural instability - possibly the consequence of Gehn's attempts to alter it to his needs.

Recently, Cyan came out with a full 3D remake of Riven, and so I downloaded it. I've been having a fun nostalgia trip - though there was a bit of a false start when I found myself unable to push a button in the very first puzzle of the game (I felt very foolish when I realized I had just not gotten close enough to it to press the button).

Like the earlier Myst remake, you have full freedom of movement (more or less - sometimes they restrict you to a path, but you can walk and move the camera around like any modern first-person game). Sadly the old FMV characters had to be replaced with 3D models - a choice I understand, but makes me all the more appreciative of Remedy for keeping the live-action FMV fires burning.

Also, I feel like some of the puzzles are different than they were in the original, but I genuinely cannot tell if this is because they are or if it's just that it's been decades since I played this game. For one thing, I cannot seem to find any of the little spherical balls with Rivenese numbers on them that form the eye of hidden animal shapes.

I also don't remember any of the puzzles involving Rivenese numerals (apparently the boxy base 5/25 ones are actually D'ni numerals - numerals I've been dreaming of using as a recurring puzzle in a D&D campaign) that seem to be associated with these little idols/shrines that also look totally unfamiliar... but again, it's been probably over 20 years since I played this game.

Anyway, the sequence of events also feels a little unfamiliar - I had to go to four of the islands in the game before I actually got into the village on the Jungle Island, which I don't remember being so hard to get into.

Graphically, I think the industry has advanced so far that even with a modern update in Unreal Engine, Riven's graphical fidelity isn't really anything special (and arguably even looks a little low-budget). But the visual conceptualization is really fantastic, and is an aesthetic that has absolutely burned itself into my brain.

While there's a lot of horror within the world design (hey, how about we teach kids how to count with a toy recreating the executions they most definitely witness on a regular basis!) there's a part of me that wishes I could live in a world with this general look and feel - you know, minus all the creepiness.

Throughout the game, the number five is a big motif, and I will say that we lose one expression of that motif in this modern remake - back in the day, the game came on five CD-ROMs, and you had to change discs every time you went to a different island.

Ok, I don't miss that too much.

Species Expansion in PHB 2024

 Every species in the 2024 Player's Handbook has precedent in 5th Edition. While the Orc is being added to more or less take the place of the Half-Orc, as "half-" species are being phased out in favor of the idea that you're free to re-skin any of the species as hybrids with others, the Goliath and the Aasimar are making a full leap from supplementary releases (the Goliath first showing up in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion, but reprinted in other books since, and the Aasimar I think technically showing up in the DMG but introduced properly in Volo's) into the core options.

To a large extent, the general flavor of these species, and the ones returning from the 2014 PHB, are more or less the same. However, the Goliath and the Tiefling are both getting fleshed out in an interesting new way that I think bears consideration, with implications for worldbuilding.

Let's start with the Goliath:

Oddly, at least in the Volo's version, there's actually no mention of Goliaths as being related in any way to Giants. They're a big humanoid species, probably popularized more than anything by Travis Willingham's lovable brainless Barbarian, Grog Strongjaw, from Critical Role's first campaign. As Critical Role has generally tried to carefully spin out their own lore, such as by renaming some species, Goliaths in their campaigns are typically referred to simply as "half-giants."

The connection to giants is going to become far more explicit in the 2024 PHB, and in fact, Goliaths will be tied to the "true giants." The existing Goliaths are essentially being retroactively designated as the Stone Giant-affiliated subspecies, while you'll be able to have Hill, Frost, Fire, Cloud, and Storm Giant Goliaths as well (it'd be cool if we got a Fomorian Goliath at some point, as Bigby's new giant lore says that they were once one of the main categories of True Giants before their associated demigod broke away and was cursed).

What's interesting is that this means that the Goliaths we've known for almost all of 5th Edition are actually just a fraction of the species as it will exist moving forward. Aesthetically, the black tatoos/markings (I never could tell if they were meant to be tattoos or natural patterns in the skin) appear to be limited to the Stone Goliaths.

Generally, Goliaths have been portrayed as largely nomadic people organized into tribes and clans, but I wonder A: if Stone Goliaths are going to have some new lore tying them more closely to the subterranean craftsmanship-focused culture of Stone Giants, and B: if we're going to see other Goliaths given different vibes for their default cultures.

Tieflings have been a core species option since 2014 (possibly even in 4th Edition and maybe 3rd?) but the general assumption for tieflings has been that their lower-planar connection is really specifically the Nine Hells. In Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, this was made even more specific as a tie to Asmodeus in particular, with variant tiefling options based on connections to the other Dukes of Baator.

However, it looks like we'll be zooming out a bit in 2024, and broadening tieflings into three subspecies - the Infernal (like the 2014 version,) the Abyssal, and the Chthonic, with Infernal tieflings tied more to the lawful-leaning lower planes, the Abyssal leaning more toward the chaotic ones, and Chthonic sitting in the middle with the ethically neutral lower planes like Hades (sidenote: I personally love the word Chthonic).

Notably, if you look at the original tieflings from Planescape, they were not tied specifically to the Nine Hells. In fact, 2nd Edition tieflings were really weird - not just bearing fiendish horns and tails, but really just having weird, mutant-like forms, like an NPC who has writhing snakes that come out of her eye sockets rather than normal eyes.

The art for the tieflings suggests that they're going to stick with a narrower visual identity - big horns, rough, scaly skin, and tails - but with perhaps a little more variation in, for example, skin color. If I had to guess, in the linked image, the red and purple-pink tieflings are probably the familiar Infernal variety, while the green one might be Abyssal, while I feel pretty confident the grey one is probably Chthonic (not sure about the blue ones).

This doesn't go quite as broad as I'd imagined (I had a Chthonic tiefling NPC in a campaign I ran named "Dead Terry" who looked a lot like a Merrenoloth, but was actually a chaotic neutral (leaning good) gang leader in a city plagued by demon-worshipping cops) but I think should introduce some fun new vibes for tieflings.

Tieflings admittedly are already often playing against type - while they're touched by the evil of the lower planes, they're fully humanoids with free will and just as capable of being heroic good guys. I often see them portrayed as oppressed minorities (such as in Baldur's Gate 3, where a backlash to the events of the Descent into Avernus adventure has caused a lot of anti-tiefling sentiment) but I think it would be interesting to see how the different planar origins might influence the way that the tieflings see themselves in the world, and how they are seen.

While the Nine Hells are interesting as a story device, I also often feel like they're emphasized over the other Lower Planes. While The Abyss is probably in second place for "most likely to be involved in a campaign," the introduction of Chthonic Tieflings feel like they could give places like Hades, Carceri, and Gehenna their due.

As a note, while these two species are getting expanded outward, it does seem that a few will be consolidated. While Duergar were redesigned as their own independent species in Monsters of the Multiverse, the other dwarf subspecies are now being folded into a single option - Mountain and Hill Dwarves are now just Dwarves.

Similarly, Halflings, whose Stout and Lightfoot variants seemed even more of a stretch story-wise (I don't think I've seen any settings in which there's any real distinction between Halfling cultures - I did it in my setting, but even there, I never really fleshed out the Lightfoot culture, and am totally fine with just seeing them collapsed into a single mechanical entity).

Elves will remain multifaceted, and of course Dragonborn will still choose a specific draconic lineage. I don't recall if Gnomes will still choose between Rock and Forest Gnomes.

Aasimar are also sort of effectively being collapsed into a single entity, because you'll be able to choose between different Celestial Revelation options (either on a long rest or simply every time you use the feature - I can't quite recall).

Ok, Yeah, The Final Boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree Is Pretty Dang Tough

 So, I plowed pretty easily through most of the bosses of the Elden Ring DLC with my Strength/Faith build. I definitely think I've been having a tougher time on my pure Int build - the Golden Hippopotamus at the entrance to the Shadow Keep was quite tough, though actually got easy when I didn't summon Freyja and Hornsent (I feel like the buffs to the bosses for summoning NPCs is more intense in the DLC?) It wound up taking me a good four or five attempts, compared to one-shotting it on the first character.

Anyway, I knew that Radahn/Mohg/Miquella had a reputation for being incredibly hard. I've now attempted it.

My impression is that it's definitely hard, but it doesn't seem impossible. My first couple attempts, I got killed in mere moments before even doing anything (actually my dropped zero runes appeared outside the golden fog gate after my second try). I have both Ansbach and Thiollier to summon, though on my last attempt today I decided to skip Thiollier, which actually made it feel a bit easier because Radahn wasn't hitting as hard.

It's still nasty - in the first phase, Radahn's attacks are very quick and hard to dodge, with a couple of delayed attacks that trick you into dodging early. Just getting an opening to pop out the old Mimic Tear generally forced me to wait until the NPCs momentarily drew his attention. My build, which focuses on taking out big chunks of the enemy's health with dual-wielding jump attacks, still only felt like I was chipping away tiny bits of his massive health pool.

Still, I've now been able to get to phase two twice - the exact HP level where this happens seems to vary slightly, as I think the second time I did he was at like 75%.

The second phase has Miquella, now apparently a god, riding his back and imbuing his attacks with holy damage, with a ton of very hard-to-dodge, massive area effects.

I think on my best attempt I got him down to somewhere around 25-30%, so it feels like it's maybe not quite within reach (I fully ran out of healing potions) but could be with a bit of practice.

One thing I will note is that I'm at a 17 Scadutree Blessing, which I think means I have room for three more, which could push me over the edge. As with a lot of bosses, the bad pattern I can fall into is that I get hit, heal up, and because of the potion-drinking animation, I have a hard time dodging the next attack, so I get into this cycle of never having a chance to attack.

I think if I can survive a few hits here and there (or get better at dodging them) I might be in a much better situation.

It is funny, though - the first time I fought the Oprhan of Kos, kind of an equivalent as the final boss of a DLC, it took me something like 20 attempts, but when I went back on a second character, I one-shot him (not, like, a single hit, but a single attempt).

Anyway, no real rush here. The sad thing about this is that I don't think there's any plan for further DLCs for the game, so on a certain level, this is kind of the last hurrah for the characters you take into the expansion. I mean, I know there's NG+, but it's not quite the same.

Elden Ring has been one of my favorite video games of all time - a culmination as well as an evolution of all the things FromSoft has learned making Soulsborne games from Demon's Souls onward.

I really love the world of Elden Ring - I think I connect with it on a level I never really did with Dark Souls - and I'd be really excited if they announce an Elden Ring II someday (though I've got to say that Shadow of the Erdtree feels very much like an Elden Ring 1.5, it's so massive). On the other hand, I doubt that this will be the last of From's Soulslike games. There are so many fantastic quality-of-life improvements in this compared to earlier titles, so I'd love to see them exploring other genres that work with this gameplay. I'd be ecstatic to see a Bloodborne II with some of the improvements of Elden Ring (Bloodborne with a degree of build flexibility comparable to Elden Ring would be utterly amazing). Frankly, I've always thought it would be cool if they tried a futuristic sci-fi game with Soul-like mechanics (no, Armored Core doesn't count).

Class By Class, How Good Should Existing and Potential Players Feel?

 While we won't have the actual new PHB (or PH, as WotC has been referring to it, which I guess is technically more correct, but flies in the face of what I thought was the conventional abbreviation) for a little over two months (I think I get a week's early access because I'm a D&D Beyond subscriber) we have now gotten a big preview of these classes, and I think some community members already have advanced copies that are covered by NDAs.

While everything in the game is getting a new coat of paint, it's clear that some classes are getting bigger changes than others. I wanted to go through each of the twelve core classes (sorry, Artificers) and talk about how much of a change they've received and whether I think players should feel excited to convert from the 2014 versions or roll up a new character with these changes.

A couple notes:

Weapon Mastery is going to apply to a lot of classes, and is actually a pretty big change, but I don't want to just talk about it over and over. I think every class that gets Weapon Mastery is going to be happy about it, as it will make weapon choice a more interesting one, but I also think they've done a decent job of making every option attractive enough that you can still pick a weapon based on aesthetics and enjoy yourself (reminder: Flex was removed, to much rejoicing).

Secondly, with four redesigned/new subclasses coming with each of these classes, we need to consider the fact that some classes really get their power from their subclass, and so ignoring subclass features to just look at the class features might do a disservice - for instance, I think that the Ranger in particular leans pretty hard on its subclasses to get a lot of its power.

    Barbarian:

While there's a lot of focus on Brutal Critical being replaced by Brutal Strikes (which I hope has clearer wording than it had in the UA, because I still don't totally know if you can still get advantage on an attack with it if you were getting advantage from some other means, like attacking a prone target) I actually think that, by far, the biggest and most impactful thing here will be the changes to Rage.

Rage now lasting 10 minutes, and the ability to extend it with a bonus action, is a total game-changer. I think Barbarians will feel a lot freer to burn rage outside of combat for environmental exploration now. Admittedly, 10 minutes and an hour are always kind of nebulous amounts of time in-game, but this is still pretty good.

I think we can also note specifically how nice it is that the Berserker's core mechanic no longer inflicts exhaustion on you - this was a rather baffling design decision from 2014 that probably should have gotten a replacement in Tasha's. But, thankfully, the new design should be much more usable. I also think the Path of the World Tree, the brand new subclass, will be very appealing (and might replace Path of the Giant for my insane Bugbear Polearm build that allows the Barbarian to strike from across the room).

    Bard:

The Bard looks like it functions pretty similarly to how it already did, though as with all classes, there are some nice quality of life changes. I think the biggest impact, though, will be for mid-to-high-level campaigns, because Magical Secrets' redesign is massive.

In terms of subclasses, the three returning options are mostly just polished up. I will say the Valor Bard's new Bladesinger-style Extra Attack should also be very appealing - while I don't know if they're being reprinted here, the SCAG-era melee cantrips, Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade, will both be fantastic options here. And believe it or not, but True Strike - which has been completely redesigned - might actually be a good option as well.

Bards are another one of three classes getting a brand-new subclass in the PHB: the College of Dance, which I think could potentially be really good in combat-heavy campaigns.

    Clerics:

In terms of raw power, I don't see Clerics getting buffed, per se, which is fine given that they were already plenty powerful. What I think will be more of note is the degree of customization you have available to you. With armor training and weapon proficiency now made as an independent choice from your subclass, you will be freer to decide whether you really want to mix it up in melee or stay back at range.

    Druids:

On the spellcasting side of things, we're basically looking at the same change that the Cleric got, but I will say I think the armor upgrade choice in Primal Order will be more tempting than the ones the Cleric get in Divine Order, given that Druids are a Wisdom-focused class and thus are less likely to max out their potential AC while wearing Light Armor.

I think the changes to Wild Shape are kind of more in line with how the feature is meant to work, though I'm one of the small group of people who really would have preferred templates rather than using existing stat blocks (the only problem with the first UA preview was that the stat blocks were bad).

Moon Druids are going to probably feel a pretty significant dip in power, but this is one of those instances where the power they had was overtuned. Instead, I think that it's more likely that players who don't go with Circle of the Moon will no longer feel like they've just flat-out made the wrong choice.

Druids also get the Circle of the Sea subclass, which is brand new. I honestly don't feel like I have enough of a sense of this subclass to know how powerful it will be - it is very combat-focused. But it's thematically pretty great - I can really picture a storm-tossed sailing ship with a Sea Druid standing on the deck, lightning crackling around them.

    Fighter:

The Fighter was always pretty solid - a highly-customizable class thanks to its extra feats. Really, there are just a few nice quality-of-life changes, the best, I think, being that Indomitable will likely actually help when you have to make a tough saving throw.

In terms of subclasses, I'll confess I'm a little biased to checking out the changes to the Eldritch Knight. They get an amazing change (basically picking up the Bladesinger version of Extra Attack at level 7 rather than involving bonus actions, and then getting an upgrade to that at level 17) though I'm a little sad and frustrated that they didn't also grant them the ability to use a weapon as a spell focus.

While I'm not going to touch on it for every class that gets it, I think Weapon Mastery will be a lot of fun for Fighters.

    Monk:

The Monk gets, I think, the award for Most Improved. If you ever hesitated to make a Monk because of its reputation for being underpowered, you'll really want to check out the new version.

In my mind, there are two things that are going to really make you notice the Monk's increased power.

The first and broader one is that you'll have more efficiency with your Focus Points (the new name for Ki Points - and thank God they didn't stick with "Discipline Points" because I don't want to have to type that over and over for ten years). Stuff like Step of the Wild and Patient Defense having alternate free options will make you feel like you have a lot more tools at your disposal.

However, I'd actually argue that the thing that is really going to make you feel more powerful is the change to Deflect Attacks - which is basically a buff to Deflect Missiles that allows it to now work on melee attacks.

At least in my experience, ranged weapon attacks are relatively uncommon with monsters - most ranged characters in D&D are spellcasters. Unless you're facing primarily humanoid enemies, you very rarely have ranged weapon attacks to deflect. But melee attacks? Those happen all the freaking time.

And it turns out that Deflect Attacks actually reduces damage by quite a huge amount. The result is that, if they can keep their Reaction free, the Monk is actually going to be potentially second only to the Barbarian in absorbing enemy attacks. Unless they're getting absolutely swarmed, being able to prevent up to 1d10+Dex+Monk Level (which at level 5 is probably going to be like 1d10+9, average of 14.5) damage to you every single round is kind of massive.

I also think it's notable that the changes to both Unarmed Strikes (now incorporating shoves and grapples) and Martial Arts (which now lets you use Dexterity to set the DC for grappling) will mean that Monks are going to actually be really good at moving foes around the battlefield and locking them down.

And we haven't even touched on subclasses. While the Elements Monk does have to spend FP to "turn on" their main ability, it's relatively cheap at just 1 point and and has some pretty significant benefits. While I don't know if Elements is suddenly the best subclass, it has definitely shed the stank of the old Four Elements Monk being arguably the worst subclass (actually, I think the true honor there goes to the Purple Dragon Knight Fighter).

    Paladin:

First, a caveat: I think the Paladin will remain a popular and powerful option. There's a big nerf baked into a key Paladin feature, but I don't think it will ruin the class - it will just downgrade one of its key capabilities.

Divine Smite is a spell now, and it will now (at least as of the last UA) now take your bonus action to cast. The good news is that you don't need to cast it before making an attack - you'll still be able to wait and see if you've landed a critical hit before casting it and benefit from the doubled damage as a guarantee. But this has a couple implications: first, you won't be able to stack Divine Smite with any of the other Smite spells, and you won't be able to smite multiple times per turn. You also, I believe, can no longer smite when it's not your turn (such as with an opportunity attack).

The bonus action casting time will also now have it interfere with some subclass abilities, like Vow of Enmity or Sacred Weapon (which has been buffed by now making it a bonus action instead of an action - a great change). The fact that it's a spell will also make it vulnerable to counterspell (though I think that's pretty rare) and also means that Paladin/Barbarian multiclass builds have gotten a serious, potentially build-breaking nerf.

However, all that being said, I think the class is still good and powerful. You'll actually get more uses of Channel Divinity, and as mentioned before, many features that were once full actions are now bonus actions, allowing you to buff up your weapon, for example, and then strike in the same turn.

Also, the various Smite spells like Wrathful Smite and Searing Smite have been redesigned to make them competitive with Divine Smite - like DS, they will now let you choose to cast them after you've already hit, so you'll just be trading damage for utility.

    Ranger:

Ok:

I think most of us hoped that the Ranger would get more interesting buffs. There's also a real fixation on Hunter's Mark, a spell that I think tends to fall out of a Ranger's typical damage routine once you get access to more powerful concentration spells.

I think most of the changes here are giving us the Ranger as we saw it in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (though Favored Foe has been redesigned to simply give you free castings of Hunter's Mark - far better than the Tasha's version of it).

All in all, I think the 2024 Ranger is going to work a lot better than the 2014 one. But I do think that it remains to be seen if the class really feels like it has a niche - in combat, it often feels like the Ranger falls behind a ranged Fighter (the only Ranger I played was a Strength-based dual-wielder, so I'm a deviant).

What is a bit of a shame is that the changes here don't suddenly make me want to drop everything and try a class that I was never all that impressed by. There are a lot of iterative changes here, but while it's a huge improvement over 2014, I don't know if it's enough of an improvement over the Tasha's version.

    Rogue:

Rogues get what I think might be the coolest new class feature in Cunning Strikes, which lets you effectively treat your Sneak Attack dice as a resource to spend on various utility options. This is the closest I think 5E has gotten to an "instant resource" - something that is not attrition based, but still feels like something you can build up and spend.

To a large extent, the stuff the Rogue was already good at remains - they're still the ultimate skill-monkey class. But I think Cunning Strikes is going to introduce a lot of cool tactical choices (on top of weapon mastery) that should make it a lot of fun to play.

    Sorcerer:

The Sorcerer is ultimately going to retain its strong position as a powerful blaster-caster, with Metamagic letting you alter your spells on the fly.

I think the most impactful combat-to-combat change is going to be Innate Sorcery - a kind of Sorcerer equivalent of Rage, which gives you advantage on all attack rolls with Sorcerer spells and increases their save DCs by 1. This can only be used twice a day, so in combat-heavy days you'll need to conserve it as a resource (and unlike Barbarians, I don't think you get more uses of it) but it will be a key choice to make in every fight.

Sorcerers will also get to learn more spells, and on top of that, three of the four subclasses come with additional spells as well, so Sorcerers will get a lot more versatile.

I think the only real nerf in any of this is that Twin Spell is not going to be as powerful as it once was (oh, and Draconic Sorcerers will only get their fly speed for limited time, rather than having permanent wings).

    Warlock:

The Warlock has gotten a lot of reworked stuff. Notably, you get an extra Eldritch Invocation (or maybe two more?) and all Pact Boons are now simply EIs, meaning you can be a Tomelock, a Chainlock, and a Bladelock all on the same character.

Pact of the Blade in particular has been improved in a way that I think will end the tyranny of the Hexblade - the pact itself now lets you use Charisma as your ability to attack with the pact weapon.

Warlocks will also get a lot more spells to work with, because "expanded spell lists" that come with each subclass are now simply "patron spells," which you'll gain automatically without counting against your total spells known.

Also of note, the Archfey and Great Old One patrons have been significantly redesigned. The GOO has a similar vibe to its older incarnation, but every feature has been significantly improved and in some cases just replaced. (Clairvoyant Combatant shares some elements with Entropic Ward, but is now both much more thematically connected to the concept of the subclass but also is just flat-out much, much better than the old ability). The Archfey is more like a total redesign, with a focus on the Misty Step spell that will let you zip around the battlefield and inflict fey shenanigans in addition to being incredibly mobile.

    Wizard:

Wizards didn't need a ton of help, did they? Well, you'll still be getting a couple fun toys, like a bonus to your Arcana rolls and a new design of the "savant" subclass features. These features will now simply give you a spell from your chosen school to add for free to your spellbook every other level, correcting the bizarre way the old versions of these features would actually incentivize not learning spells of your chosen school on level-up.

    So, there you have it. I think simply because of the degree to which it was improved, the Monk probably winds up having the best time with this PHB update. I think the Paladin probably has the least fun with it, simply because it's the only class that gets a nerf that is going to be felt across all subclasses (only Circle of the Moon Druids are going to lament the changes to Wild Shape all that much). The good news is that even where there were nerfs, I think that the overall feeling here will be an improvement.

I can definitely say the updated classes I'm most eager to try out are the Monk and Rogue. Sort of wish I could say the Ranger, but that's admittedly also a class fantasy I've never been quite as excited by simply on a flavor level.

Should You Convert to 5.5E With Existing Campaigns?

 As I've posted about often, the campaign I'm currently running is over four years in, with players at level 17 now (not... terribly close to hitting level 18, but we're through the second of four major arcs I want to do before they hit that).

I've been following the development of 2024's new core rulebooks (one of which actually lands in 2025) very closely, and while there are one or two things I'm not terribly happy about (Divine Smite), I've been pretty on-board for the vast majority of the changes (really, if anything, my biggest issue with them is that I think they could have gone farther. And I'd have liked to see the Artificer elevated to a core class so that we could get new subclasses and spells for it with each Xanathar's/Tasha's-like book).

Starting off a new campaign with these revised rules would be pretty straightforward. You might have a bit of an adjustment period in learning some of the nuances of the various changes, but you'd be starting fresh. And brand-new players will simply learn these rules as if they were always in place.

But what about converting an existing campaign?

Now, I think this is doable for sure. But I also think that there are a lot of questions about how players might wish to "retcon" some of their choices in a way that might make their characters profoundly different.

Let's start with feats. Technically just an optional feature in the 2014 rules, feats are now a core mechanic in 2024, and one that every character will get when they first arrive on the scene at 1st level.

Origin Feats (I believe that's the new term for level-1 feats) are generally useful and typically broad - feats like Tough or Skilled. No one is going to regret having these, but they might not be the character-redefining feats like Great Weapon Master (though that's also been nerfed).

Where I think this gets trickier, though, is that higher-level feats (those that you won't get until 4th level) now all come with a one-point ability score bonus.

This has led me to suspect that we're going to see a lot more characters in 2024 and beyond with lower general ability modifiers but with more feats - if your Rogue can still eventually max out their Dexterity but get a bunch of cool features along the way, you might be more tempted to pick up Sharpshooter and Skulker and all those little Rogue-friendly things.

And thus, I think some of your players might be tempted to re-think how their character is built, maybe having taken primarily ASIs over feats in the 2014 rules.

Would it break the game for them to change this? Probably not, but you'd need to be careful and ensure that this doesn't break other little things: consider a Cleric who had a 16 in Strength now dropping potentially down to 14. If they use heavy armor, they might now be slowed down by the plate armor they're wearing.

In fact, Clerics in particular might wind up requiring a bit of transformation - with armor training no longer tied to subclass but instead Divine Order, you might need to ensure that that Life Cleric who no longer has heavy armor training has a set of roughly equivalent medium armor that they can use instead.

    Now, what I think is important in converting is making a firm choice to do so - as best you can, if you are converting, try to make sure that you're replacing all PHB content. While I think the 2024 PHB is mostly a buff to just about every class, there are a few nerfs here and there, such as the change to Divine Smite (though the same change effectively buffs the other Smite spells) or the nerfing of Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter.

If you leave it up to the players, they're going to be tempted to cherry-pick all the most powerful options from the two versions of their classes, effectively shielding them from any nerfs while gaining any buffs. While as always, D&D doesn't need to be super balanced to be fun, I'd still recommend putting a foot down and insisting that, at least on a player-by-player basis, if you want to upgrade to the new version for your character, you've got to take the whole thing - class mechanics, spells, feats, etc.

However, you'll likely still encounter some Frankensteined characters - the PHB is not reprinting every single character option that has come before, after all. If you have a School of Necromancy Wizard, you should be able to let them upgrade the base class while retaining the 2014 subclass, but you'll need to take a look at all the new interactions. We haven't seen the new version of Animate Dead yet, but given how most spells that summon creatures have been significantly transformed and semi-replaced with the Tasha's-style summon spells, some of that subclass' features (like automatically getting a bonus skeleton or zombie with Animate Dead) might not even make sense anymore with the new version of it. We have yet to see how specific the guidance on older spells and features will be.

I think some players might also be tempted to significantly reconceptualize their characters with this revised game system. For example, on a flavor level, I adore the Monster Slayer Ranger. I think I'm on the record on this blog for having a soft spot for gothic monster-hunters (one of the main characters in the novel I'm writing becomes one, though I think she'd be more of a battle master fighter if she were a D&D character). However, some of the flavor of the Monster Slayer has kind of dripped into the 2024 version of the Hunter, such as the ability to learn a monster's damage vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities. Thus, it's possible for a player to feel that some revised subclass option fits their character better than their current choice.

Where this might get a little tricky is if they try to fully shift classes. A character might have been flavored as a warrior who uses a kind of combat-dance to fight their adversaries. They might have been a Bladesinger Wizard or maybe a re-skinned Drunken Master Monk, but now there's a perfect subclass for that very concept - the College of Dance Bard.

Fully reconstructing a character is, of course, at the discretion of the player and the DM, but I'd caution that this will be a very big change that could disrupt the balance of the party, and even cause problems regarding what equipment they possess.

One note as well is that the PHB is, mechanically, eliminating the Half Elf and Half Orc. These are still options for a character in the universe of your game, but the idea is that any hybrid character (even people with mixed ancestries outside of these two options) will simply choose which species they most closely match on a physiological level - a person with a human parent and an elf parent will now simply choose to be either mechanically human or mechanically an elf.

Again, the game should still work just using the 2014 Half Elf for such a character, but this is a moment where a player might think the new version of these two species fits better (trade that Darkvision for a level 1 feat?)

One of the big headlining changes to the game is the introduction of Weapon Mastery, which will create additional effects caused by different kinds of weapons for Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, and Rogues (and with feats to allow other classes to get in on the fun). I've seen some concern that these additional effects might slow combat down, but I think that for the most part, because martial characters tend to use the same weapon for a long time, they'll simply know what that weapon does and use its property.

Still, this might also encourage players to seek out weapon types they weren't as into previously, and DMs might consider ensuring a greater variety of magical weapons to appear in the game.

Two additions that might be controversial are the Pistol and Musket. These weapons hit harder than most ranged weapons, but also have pretty short normal ranges. The big thing is that these do make firearms a core option for the game. Classes don't tend to start with a free choice of ranged weapons (Rangers have the option to specifically get a Longbow, and most classes that get a free choice of martial weapons have to specifically choose martial melee weapons). Thus, I believe that Muskets and Pistols are sort of gatekept by the DM (though possibly with certain invocations a Warlock might theoretically be able to conjure one as a Pact Weapon).

Now, what we haven't seen much of in the way of previews is stuff like the redesigned monsters in the Monster Manual and what new magic items show up in the DMG. I believe we've been told that items that will buff unarmed strikes are going to be part of that - likely a simple reprint of the Wraps of Unarmed Mastery (+1/2/3) which showed up in the Book of Many Things, and basically act like +X weapons for your unarmed strikes (obviously ideal for Monks). As a DM, you'll probably want to make sure you look at what new items you can toss at your players.

    I think the key here is to get buy-in from friends. If they're excited to see the new character options and the tweaks to the rules systems, you should consider converting the campaign. If people want to stick with what's familiar, the 2014 (updated in Xanathar's and Tasha's) version of D&D is still a fantastic game.

Indeed, the fact of the matter is that this transition is much less than going to a fully new edition, and I'm given to understand is even less of a change than the transition from 3rd to 3.5 edition. Converting will have its challenges, but I don't think it will be too hard.

In fact, even in the playtest process I started implementing a couple of changes from the UA - particularly when it comes to Tool Proficiency (very useful when one of your players is an Artificer).

Welp, I Might Have Screwed Up The Quests on Another Character

 I brought my pure-Int character into Shadow of the Erdtree - the first character I played in the game, who wields the Darkmoon Greatsword and a bunch of Sorceries as is fighting style. Now knowing about Ymir and also how to skip ahead to the Scadu Altus without killing Rellana, I decided to skip ahead and pick up what Sorceries I could from the guy (even going to the southern Finger Ruins to get some more). Unfortunately, going to the Cathedral of Manus Metyr, or at least nearby it, triggered the breaking of Miquella's Great Rune - one of two major "act break" moments the progress the story of the expansion.

I had not fought any of the major bosses of the expansion (though boy did the Death Knight with the Twin Axes feel like one,) and so when I went to Belurat afterward and made my way to the Divine Beast boss, I found that Freyja was not there for me to summon her.

Now, I don't know if this totally screws up her questline (in fact, I'm not entirely sure how things go with her - on my other character, I still wound up fighting her along with Dryleaf Dane and Leda, with Ansbach and Thiollier by my side (Hornsent attacked me as an invader before Romia, and I'd killed Moore already when I accidentally struck down one of the Forager Brood - something I'm being very careful not to do this time around). I did still get the message from Leda at the foot of the not-yet-substantiated Enir-Elim, so I'm hoping I can still do stuff with her.

I'm also a little worried that I might miss out on being able to summon Hornsent for the Messmer fight - which worries me both because I want to do his story again but also because that fight is one of the harder ones in the DLC.

Anyway, even without Freyja, me and my Mimic Tear were sufficient to take down the Divine Beast in a single attempt. I tried using the Glintstone Nails spell, but honestly, the Darkmoon Greatsword's Ash of War remains quite powerful.

Again, I think it's possible that the people claiming the DLC is too hard are just those who refuse to use the tools the game gives to make it easier. I have no qualms about using a souped-up Spirit Ash and any summons I can manage, because that's just made the game more enjoyable to me (and even with them, still quite a challenge).

Anyway, while I like the Darkmoon Greatsword, I do sort of want to try leaning more toward Sorceries, and just need to figure out which really match the power of the weapon. I want to pick up more of the Death Sorceries that are used by enemy spellcasters, but they're not as conveniently granted by a single NPC.

I'm also a little surprised because Ymir vacated his chair after only ringing the first bell, and I hope I didn't screw up his quest by opening the passage down to the lowermost Finger Ruins (it's bad enough that my Sorcerer never got the Magic Scorpion Charm). Maybe I'm just forgetting the sequence of events? At any rate, I'm going to try to stick to the normal order from here on out, so my next step is Castle Enis.

Bard Deep Dive

 I'll confess: I've never found the Bard that appealing of a class. But I think that puts me in the minority - the Bard is a popular and powerful addition to any party. And it is (unless I'm forgetting something) the last class we're getting a big video preview for in this "pre-orders are available" marketing blitz.

The overall sense here is that the Bard as a whole is not changing a whole lot, but there are some features that are getting shifted around. Expertise, for example, comes at level 2 now.

First off, the Bard spell list is being expanded, though we'll also see how Magical Secrets effectively gives them the biggest spell list of any class in the game once they hit level 10.

Another slight tweak: Bardic Inspiration now lasts an hour, rather than ten minutes, so you'll have a larger window to use it before it wears off (to be fair, the distinction between 10 minutes and 1 hour, other than when seeing how long it takes to take a short rest, is a distinction I don't see a lot of DMs really worrying about).

One big change is that Font of Inspiration will now allow the Bard to expend spell slots to regain expended uses of Bardic Inspiration, which is pretty cool.

Countercharm, long treated as a useless ability, has been totally redesigned: now, if a creature fails a saving throw against a charm effect, the Bard can use their reaction to allow them to make another saving throw and potentially replace the failed save, and that re-roll is made with advantage. Making this a reaction is a huge boon, and I think will make Bards potentially very good at saving allies from charm effects.

Likely the biggest change here is Magical Secrets. When you get this (at level 10, I believe) you can now select spells from the Cleric, Druid, or Wizard spell list when you learn new spells upon leveling up. As far as I can tell from the video, there's no limit to this other than the number of spells you learn at each level. The reasoning for why only these three classes' lists is that they represent the sort of quintessential Divine, Primal, and Arcane spellcasters, while other classes like the Ranger or the Paladin or the Warlock have more idiosyncratic spell lists tailored to their specific class fantasies.

Given how broad the options here are, I think this is going to be a massively popular change - your spell list explodes when you get this. Again, the video implies that you don't have to choose one of the three, but instead just get all three lists in addition to the normal Bard list, but I'll warn that in the UA the choice was instead to get one of those three lists as your options. Still very good. (Notably, the Magic Initiate feat is now tied to those three spell lists as well.)

Superior Inspiration has gotten a couple of improvements, including no longer being the capstone (though you still need to wait until level 18). The other big buff is that you no longer need to be fully out of BI uses to benefit from it - now, if you roll initiative with zero or one use, you reset to two, no matter what. This kind of change is very welcome - it's silly that a Bard could be punished for having held onto a single Bardic Inspiration, so this fix is nice.

The new capstone is Words of Creation, which lets you learn Power Word Heal and Power Word Kill without counting against your spells known, and it also lets you target two eligible targets at a time with it, rather than just one.

    I will say that Mass Heal is still probably going to be better than Power Word Heal even if you get to hit a second target, but this is still pretty cool. The "word" nature is also very thematic.

Subclasses:

Bards are getting a brand-new subclass: the College of Dance.

Dance Bards are going to be all about mobility in combat. You'll get an Unarmored Defense feature similar to a Monk's (though using Charisma rather than Wisdom, I think) and also, when you expend a Bardic Inspiration die (either through the normal Bardic Inspiration or other features of the subclass) you get to, as part of that same action/bonus aciton/reaction get to make an unarmed strike against a target in range, and on top of that, your unarmed strikes now deal damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration die plus your Dexterity modifier (in other words, basically keeping pace with the new Monk). Also, remember that shoving and grappling are now part of unarmed strikes (though unlike the Monk, I don't think you get to set escape DCs based on Dexterity rather than Strength).

At level 6, if an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you, you can expend a Bardic Inspiration die as a reaction to move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks, as well as granting a nearby ally that half speed, non-opp-attack movement as well. And remember, you can also make an unarmed strike as part of this.

You can also expend a BI die when you roll initiative to give your whole party a bonus to their initiative rolls equal to your result.

At 14, Dance Bards get Evasion (like Rogues and Monks) but they can also share it to allied creatures within 5 feet of them.

The College of Glamour, first seen in Xanathar's, has gotten some changes. Flavor-wise, I'd argue that this, more than the College of Lore, is the Bard subclass that most closely fits with the popular conception of the D&D Bard - kind of rock-star personality who can manipulate the minds of others. So I'm glad to see it here.

Beguiling Magic fully replaces Enthralling Performance. You get Mirror Image and Charm Person automatically learned (I'm still not happy that they're describing spells known for classes that can't swap out their spells on a long rest as simply "prepared spells," which feels like it could lead to confusion). It also allows you to (a limited number of times per long rest) attempt to Charm or Frighten a creature whenever you cast an Enchantment or Illusion spell.

Mantle of Inspiration got a buff to the Hit Points it restores, and Mantle of Majesty now both automatically gives you the Command spell, and also lets you regain uses of the feature by expending spell slots of 3rd level or higher.

Unbreakable Majesty is also simpler, allowing you to simply prevent attacks rather than redirecting them to other targets.

The College of Lore (and the College of Valor) return.

Lore has gotten some minor tweaks - Magical Discovery works like Magical Secrets, only getting access to the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard spell lists, but you can swap the spells gained by this on each level up.

Another subtle change is that Cutting Words now will work against foes even if they are immune to the Charmed condition - so it just works now, which is great!

Peerless Skill has also gotten some bad-luck protection, as you'll now only expend the BI die if the feature turns a failure into a success, and won't cost you anything if it fails to help you (a bit like the Soulknife's Psi-Powered Knack). Love this sort of thing, where you don't get that real "feels-bad" moment of expending an important resource and getting nothing out of it.

College of Valor gets two subtle but powerful buffs:

First off, you can use your weapon as a spell focus. I'll confess that I was very sad to see this not added to the Eldritch Knight, as someone who got to level 12 having to drop my weapon every time I cast Shield (in retrospect I should have picked up Warcaster at my first ASI). Valor Bards will thus be free to wield sword and board and be perfectly capable spellcasters.

The second big change is that your Extra Attack feature, a bit like the EK's redesigned War Magic and the (not in the PHB) Bladesinger's Extra Attack, now lets you replace one of your attacks with a cantrip. I don't know if Booming Blade and/or Green-Flame Blade is going to be in the PHB, but regardless, this will be a nice way to let you really feel like a magic/melee hybrid.

    So there we have it! All the class previews with the somewhat imminent new Player's Handbook. I definitely think that there are some real winners and losers here - I think the Monk has been elevated fantastically while the Ranger maybe didn't get as much love as we hoped. The Paladin is still a strong class but I think we've got to call the Divine Smite changes a nerf (though the Smite Spells now look a lot more attractive). Weapon Mastery should make most martial characters feel like they have more interesting choices to make and a more interesting effect on the battlefield, though it might slow combat a little. Pure spellcasters are probably going to feel the most similar, though we'll really have to see more of the spell redesigns.

I think that in most cases, even with nerfs, we're looking at an improvement to the game, the result of essentially ten years of playtesting with these basic designs. Fixing some of the outlier bad options from 2014 is really exciting - I could even imagine playing an Elements Monk now, or a Berserker Barbarian.

Anyway, we'll see what other previews are lined up - we got a brief look at the new visual design for dragons today, but I'm much more curious about monster design, though we'll have to wait until next year to actually get the new Monster Manual.