Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

[ishy]

New survey to fill on player satisfaction
http://sgiz.mobi/s3/D-D-5e-Elements-Survey-2
-
Notes on previous survey such as how they will address concerns over rangers being unsatisfactory by releasing new 'optional' features for them.
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feature ... ack-survey

Betting now that making Rangers "satisfactory" doesn't actually involve making them not suck balls, but instead is some bullshit like the 3.5 spell-less ranger where he gives up all of his spellcasting for 1-3 bonus feats or some similarly shitty feature. Because most of the ranger complaints I saw back when I was following the 5e forum was how much they hate the ranger being a half caster, nevermind that casting ability being the only thing keeping the shitty class halfway useful.

Well..... here is the spell-less ranger

[Seerow]

New survey to fill on player satisfaction
http://sgiz.mobi/s3/D-D-5e-Elements-Survey-2
-
Notes on previous survey such as how they will address concerns over rangers being unsatisfactory by releasing new 'optional' features for them.
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feature ... ack-survey

Betting now that making Rangers "satisfactory" doesn't actually involve making them not suck balls, but instead is some bullshit like the 3.5 spell-less ranger where he gives up all of his spellcasting for 1-3 bonus feats or some similarly shitty feature. Because most of the ranger complaints I saw back when I was following the 5e forum was how much they hate the ranger being a half caster, nevermind that casting ability being the only thing keeping the shitty class halfway useful.

Well..... here is the spell-less ranger

It's sad how predictable it is.

[Orion]

That's actually a pretty good design article. Certainly the best writing about design I've ever seen from Wizards.

[Gnorman]

That's actually a pretty good design article. Certainly the best writing about design I've ever seen from Wizards.

Care to elaborate on what makes it so good? I'm legitimately curious.

[Insomniac]

"Rangers have a spellcasting progression that is half as vigorous as the normal progression. The Spellcasting feature can be tinkered with a bit, but it still needs to be a significant portion of what the class can do."

Totally agreed. A proposed fix would be to make the Ranger not have Spells Known and simply prepare off its Ranger list, the way that the other Divine casters (Cleric, Druid and Paladin), do in 5E.

Completely agree with that statement. Stripping magic and given bullshit abilities is a poor fix and has traditionally rarely, if ever, worked with Ranger fixes and house-rules.

"Much of the ranger’s extra potency in combat comes from spells such as hunter’s mark and from the class features granted by the ranger archetypes. The 3rd-level feature in each archetype usually either provides a raw increase in combat power, or grants the ranger greater combat versatility."

Not sure how true that is, but it seems to be objectively true. The Ranger just needs to get a few more abilities that are just a smidgeon stronger. A quick and easy fix would be to give them 2, or maybe even all 3 proposed abilities, instead of merely 1.

"Favored Enemy was intentionally designed to provide no combat bonus, because the ranger’s strength in combat should not rely solely on the discretion of the Dungeon Master or the circumstances of the adventure. Although the Hunter archetype’s 3rd-level ability does rely somewhat on the nature of the foes being fought, Favored Enemy is generally useful in the interaction and exploration pillars of the game."

This makes no sense. It is called FAVORED ENEMY and in 3.5 and Pathfinder it provides explicit bonuses in combat against foes, like increased damage or increased accuracy or both in the case of Pathfinder. Give them Pathfinder style +2/+2 on attacks against Favored Enemies and in a Bounded Accuracy system, Favored Enemy would be very strong.

The interaction and exploration pillars are already covered by things like Favored Terrain. Favored Enemy needs to focus on the combat pillar of the game.

The only thing I disagree with is the third paragraph out of 3 paragraphs about the Ranger. Other than that, they were right.

The provided spell-less Ranger isn't on first blush awful, but it is almost certainly weaker than losing spell access. It almost has to be. Trading in spell-casting for minor and linear bonuses just doesn't really work that well in d20 systems.

Favored Soul as presented is a totally reasonable Sorcerer background.

[Grek]

In 5e, Favoured Enemy gives you advantage on checks to track and recall information about your favoured enemy. It also lets you speak their language. That's it, and honestly it's a good thing that Favoured Enemy doesn't do much. They explain why in the article: If you take Favoured Enemy: Dragons, and the DM decides you're going to be facing Demons this campaign, you're shit out of luck. Favoured Enemy really, really needs to be a tiny bonus if you're going to base it off encountering enemies of one specific type.

Also, what are you on about with this "all 3 three proposed abilities, instead of merely 1." thing? That is what the article already says. It specifically acknowledges that Spellcasting is worth more than one class feature. It says that in exchange for losing Range Spellcasting, you should gain new abilities at level 2, 3, 9, 13, and 17 - The same levels as a spell ranger would have been getting new spell levels. It also says to give anyone with the Beastmater Archtype something at level 15 to replace Share Spells at the level a Beastmaster Ranger would normally get that.

Maneuvers are stuff like "Give an ally a bonus action to attack out of turn and let them do an extra die of damage.", "Get an extra die of damage and force a save vs some bad effect", "Do an extra die of damage and let all your allies move out of turn." or "Get +1d8 to AC for the rest of the fight". That is, things that ranger spells (which are universally pretty bad) do. The animal summoning ability is the text from actual spell of that level with the (Su) tag replaced with (Ex). It's even one of the better ranger spells of that level, because Bounced Accuracy makes summoning a pack of wolves be a valid tactic for the majority of the game. This isn't as good as optimized wizard casting, but it is better than the ranger casting you're trading it out for.

[OgreBattle]

So what exactly makes a spell-less ranger a different concept than "A fighter who has skill proficiencies and featsto spend on nature stuff"?

[Grek]

Favoured Terrain and a pet tiger.

[Username17]

My one complaint about that article is that it never really stopped and answered the question "Is this class a pile of hot ass to begin with?" A discussion of how to shift class features around to make a class that is roughly as powerful as a specific class that already exists is fine and all, but what if the class itself is a class that people almost universally complain about for being shitty? I've seen a lot of people nominate the Ranger for "worst class" in 5e, so making something internally balanced to that seems to be rather missing the point.

Of course, at this point the designers of the game claim to be OK with having just 12 classes total, which seems to almost totally miss the lessons of 4th edition. The designers claim that they can handle everything with alternate class features and don't really need to have a book release schedule. But that's so obviously bullshit that I don't really know what to say.

It's kitchen sink fantasy. It needs a Classplosion.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

Rogue is probably worse than ranger. As the ranger, you still get magic, and some of that magic is shit like "conjure a bunch of tiny bullshit animals to crush your opponents through the power of bounded accuracy." The only reason people don't bitch about the rogue is because "it's supposed to suck at combat; how else would you balance the AWESOME ability to get an extra +2 to +6 to a couple of skills? Also cunning action is SO NEAT."

[ishy]

My one complaint about that article is that it never really stopped and answered the question "Is this class a pile of hot ass to begin with?" A discussion of how to shift class features around to make a class that is roughly as powerful as a specific class that already exists is fine and all, but what if the class itself is a class that people almost universally complain about for being shitty? I've seen a lot of people nominate the Ranger for "worst class" in 5e, so making something internally balanced to that seems to be rather missing the point.

-Username17

I disagree. The point of shifting shit around is to create the 'class' you want to play. If you change the balance point around, all you're doing is create trap options.
It'd be like creating feat taxes to get a class up to par, only worse.
Instead of making the ranger stronger, you'd have to pick between a competent ranger (without casting) or the one that you'd actually like to play, but is incompetent (with casting).

[Ferret]

Rogue is probably worse than ranger. As the ranger, you still get magic, and some of that magic is shit like "conjure a bunch of tiny bullshit animals to crush your opponents through the power of bounded accuracy." The only reason people don't bitch about the rogue is because "it's supposed to suck at combat; how else would you balance the AWESOME ability to get an extra +2 to +6 to a couple of skills? Also cunning action is SO NEAT."

I'm apparently alone in being pretty impressed by the combat potential of the Assassin Rogue, then? I'm running Phandelver for my group, and I'm pretty sure an intelligently played assassin rogue could have walked through everything up to the miniboss fight in each of the two sections we've completed so far (cragmaw hideout and Tresendar Manor).

[Dean]

I'm pretty sure an intelligently played assassin rogue...

Within the edition you're playing those words don't make any sense. As the DM I'm sure it seems clear to you when you could hide and sneak attack in your game but that's because you're DMing it. You're literally the only person who can determine that information in 5E.

[DSMatticus]

It really has nothing to do with how intelligently you play it.

The fighter and the barbarian will both contribute more damage than the assassin to every single fight of the day. Yes, even if the assassin opens with assassinate. Yes, even if the assassin gets to sneak attack every single round. Yes, even if your DM agrees you can use cunning action to play peek-a-boo sniper in the middle of combat for advantage on all your attack rolls. As a matter of fact, if your DM doesn't agree that you can use cunning action to play peek-aboo sniper in the middle of combat for advantage then the fighter can outperform you without spending any resources at all and you should just kill yourself and reroll. The monk, while probably not able to outdamage you at most levels, gets stunning fist and can basically always contribute to the fight by making enemy's faces play red light green light. And then remember that because the 5e RNG is so tight, no matter how generous your DM is there are combats you aren't going to get to assassinate things and rounds you aren't going to get sneak attack things.

There are levels where it's close enough, but overall being a rogue is suffering.

[Orion]

Why did I like the article? Because it talks honestly about which features are important and which aren't, and it has level benchmarks explaining at what levels important combat abilities should appear and so on. Frank is right that it doesn't think about inter-class balance at all, but at least they're thinking about how each class works and why it works, and proposing a framework to make changes more noteworthy than the piddly shit most proposed 3.5 feature swaps were.

I was always impressed by the audacity of some examples. Their willingness to straight-up make a sorcerer with cleric spells is the kind of obvious thing that 3.5 would never have done.

[Eikre]

Their willingness to straight-up make a sorcerer with cleric spells is the kind of obvious thing that 3.5 would never have done.

is this supposed to be irony

[Mistborn]

Their willingness to straight-up make a sorcerer with cleric spells is the kind of obvious thing that 3.5 would never have done.

is this supposed to be irony

I hope so

[Mask_De_H]

I'm going to be nice and assume he meant an arcane caster that gets divine spells too, without a band-aid like Arcane Disciple.

Also, lemme do a breakdown on damage. We assume the Rogue can play peekaboo to be nice.

L1: Fighter's rocking a greatweapon with the Great Weapon fighting style for 2d6 + Str . Rogue is getting 1d8 + 1d6 + Dex with advantage. Barbarian is getting 2d6 + Str + 2 from Rage. Barbarian has the best consistent damage with Rage up, but Rogue is actually doing only one less damage. Out of Rage, peekaboo Rogue wins out.

L3: Barbarian goes Berserker, since we're specced for damage, so that's 4d6 + 2xStr + 4 in Frenzy. Fighter goes Battle Master, giving them an extra d8 to their attacks as burst damage. They also get Action Surge at 2nd. So our Great Weapon Fighter is doing 2d6 + Str, but can add 1d8 to that four times a rest. A nova round is Action Surge with a maneuver on each strike, giving you 4d6 + 2xStr + 2d8 if you land everything. Rogue gets Assassin and an extra d6, putting them at 1d8 + 2d6 + Dex with peekaboo. Assassinate makes 2d8 + 2d6 + Dex. Already the Rogue is falling behind. The Barbarian gets advantage, too.

L5: The Fighter and Barbarian get Extra Attack. The Rogue gets an extra d6. Barbarian is now rocking their burst damage all the time, and burst for another 2d6 + Str + 2. A Fighter can piss away all their Superiority dice for a total of 8d6 + 4d8 + 4xStr on one flurry. The Rogue ain't got shit at this point.

[Dean]

Here's what I'll say about Rogue, their feature never becomes redundant. I think any optimized Barbarian would inevitably turn into a Barbarian/Fighter or Barbarian/Rogue because Barbarian as a class just stops giving you things. Fighter is similar but not as bad.

For several days now I've been considering making and posting a "Warblade" homebrew class on Gitp and Wizards. It will literally just be a Sorcerer with its mechanics obfuscated. Instead of having concentration spells like Haste and Stoneskin it will have a "Fighting Style" it can be in that will give it bonus actions or resistance to all damage. Its offensive spells will be maneuvers so "Lightning Bolt" becomes "Blade Throw" and so on. I basically want to make a single Sorceror build that will be a better martial character than any 5e martial character and then disguise its mechanics and refluff everything to make it seem like a VAH and then get to argue with everyone for days about how overpowered he is

[DSMatticus]

Sneak attack is doubled on a crit, so the assassinate opener is actually pretty powerful. It's just not powerful enough to make up for the fact that in every other round you're doing less damage than the fighter without spending resources, and it's just not powerful enough to make up for all the resources the fighter has to spend getting extra damage. Also, the rogue is spending their bonus action every round to play peek-a-boo sniper, but the fighter can grab one of the feats that lets him make an extra attack as a bonus action each round and suddenly even when he's not action surging he's still getting extra attacks.

The problem with multiclassing martials is that extra attack from different classes doesn't stack. A single class fighter gets their second attack at level 5, and their third attack at level 11. If you grab 3 barbarian levels, that's 8 and 14 respectively when you multiclass fighter. If you grab 5 barbarian levels, that's 5 and 16. I would probably still multiclass out of barbarian at level 3 if I thought the campaign was going to make it that far.

But I would multiclass out of rogue at level 3 no matter what. You've got expertise, cunning action, assassinate, and 2d6 sneak attack, and the only thing you're going to get for staying the course is 1.75 damage per level on a hit. Meanwhile the fighter's superiority dice are 18 total damage plus rider per short rest at level 3 declared after a successful hit and action surge is just amazing. Holy shit, go rogue 3/fighter X.

It's actually kind of funny how old school the multiclassing feels. There's a definite suck now for power later vibe, where as in 3.5 it mostly just fucking sucked. Rogue 3/fighter 5 is way better than fighter 8, but Rogue 3/Fighter 2 is way shittier than fighter 5 and probably even rogue 5. If you want to multiclass productively, be good at guessing when the campaign will end, I guess.

[Username17]

Their willingness to straight-up make a sorcerer with cleric spells is the kind of obvious thing that 3.5 would never have done.

is this supposed to be irony

I think this has to be irony. He described it as "the audacity of their examples." Sarcasm doesn't carry terribly well over the internet, but he basically can't have been serious. The example in question is based on the Favored Soul, which of course was literally a thing in 3.5.

And the actual example in that article is pretty weird. The original Favored Soul was, of course, a terrible class. Because Cleric spells are not as good as Wizard spells and you need a shit tonne more of them in order to do Cleric things. You could feel pretty good about your contributions to the party if you had just charm monster, but if you want to do Clerical status repair you need remove poison, remove disease, remove curse, lesser restoration, and at least one flavor of cure foo wounds. Cleric spells on the list are individually quite bullshit and getting the ability to learn them one at a time is not a very good ability.

This is why I was actually pretty dismissive of the article and the way it thought about class balance.

Since this sorcerer is going to be gaining its magic by being imbued with divine power, we decide to give the Favored Soul access to some spells normally gained by the cleric. Any time we expand the known spells of the sorcerer, we run the risk of overshadowing the other sorcerous origins, since the limitation on the number of spells the sorcerer knows has a big impact on how the class plays. This indicates that the other class features probably shouldn’t all tie closely to the sorcerer’s spellcasting, since that aspect of the sorcerer is already getting quite a boost.

The thing is that getting to know some Cleric spells is not actually "quite a boost." To a first approximation, casting Cleric spells as a Sorcerer makes you a shitty Cleric. Because Clerics get a much nicer class chassis than Sorcerers do. Adding Wizard spells to the Cleric is an obvious powerup, but adding Cleric spells to the Sorcerer is usually just giving them more trap options.

-Username17

[pragma]

The thing is that getting to know some Cleric spells is not actually "quite a boost." To a first approximation, casting Cleric spells as a Sorcerer makes you a shitty Cleric. Because Clerics get a much nicer class chassis than Sorcerers do. Adding Wizard spells to the Cleric is an obvious powerup, but adding Cleric spells to the Sorcerer is usually just giving them more trap options.

-Username17

I think the cleric spells come in via a domain and don't count against spells known. The article just recommends a sorcerer chassis with a domain bolted on: it's a subclass that casts spells off the sorceror list but always counts as "knowing" one from the domain. This is strictly an improvement because the 5e sorcerer really hurts for spells known and the domain gives them a few extra.

[virgil]

So, are there any books in the pipeline? Has anything come out since the core books and the Rise of Tiamat?

[Insomniac]

So, are there any books in the pipeline? Has anything come out since the core books and the Rise of Tiamat?

Not really. They have the 3 core books and 2 shorter adventure path books.
A third was just released on the 7th called Princes of the Apocalypse. It is a larger 250 page book that starts characters at level 3 and is going to the well again with the Elemental Evil concept. It introduced some new races and spells, most notably a bird-like race from a fairly obscure monster, the Aaroacka I think is how you spell it, that has a 50 foot fly speed. Also Goliaths and Deep Gnomes and Genasi.

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads ... nionv2.pdf

WOTC has released some video game stuff for Neverwinter and something called Sword Coast or something like that, some sort of computer-based tool for 5E that Fantasy Grounds did, some board game stuff, but the pen and paper stuff is getting precious little support.

It does not appear that they have scheduled books like Complete books for class types, a Psionics option, another monster manual or two, a setting book for something like Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun or Eberron (possibly after Dark Sun for 4E bombed), another Player's Handbook or DMG.

I guess they learned the lesson with the 4E schedule. Rather than have an audacious schedule and fail to deliver on it, they've simply decided to not have one at all.

The pickings look awfully slim from now until this winter. This lackadaisical schedule mystifies me.

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tableto ... g-products

[Wiseman]

wrong thread...