Note: This week WotC sent the Pinkertons to a community member's home, who threatened the man and his family, forcefully held open the door when his wife attempted to shut them out, proceeded to enter his home and took some product the man had been sent by mistake. They threatened him with jail time, fines, and reduced his wife to tears. The Pinkertons have a long and rotten reputation for union busting, intimidation, and a whole lot worse. Wizards were fully aware of who they were hiring and the methods they wished to be employed. You can read more about this incident in the links in the description, including WotC's response, and form your own conclusions on their motives and character. Remember that you always have a choice of who you choose to support with your money. There are enough free resources online to provide D&D content for a lifetime, and many more incredible 3rd party options. Remember you always have a choice with who you choose or do not choose to support, and your voice is powerful.
The TH-camr, OldschoolMTG, bought an unreleased pack of MtG with a very similar name to the pack he was trying to buy (it was likely that somewhere in the supply chain, somebody mistook one for the other) so WotC sent the bad guys from RDR2 to his house to intimidate him and his wife and threaten jail time (despite being a private organization)
The thing with the power creep in 5e is they don't have the same answer to the problem that they had in 3.5. With the book of 9 swords that brought in very powerful weapon fighting styles. Heck there was an attack that allowed you roll a d20 and add your concentration skill to the damage. Were with out adding you str or dex you could be doing like 11 dmg min with 10 skill points in concentration or 30 max. Also with the complete warrior book added sick feats like over sized two weapon fighting that allowed you to duel weild 2 long swords or really any one handed weapons. These things fixed the power creep a little and with the book of nine swords kind of made a melee fighter able to out damage casters if made correctly.
@ Colby, a martial can out damage a full caster at every level, using poison and sharpshooter/HWM. Example, a Bugbear Gloomstalker ranger (3 levels) / Battle Master Fighter (all other levels) can do WWWWWWWWWWWWWAY more damage than any full caster and thats just ONE example. Its not even close.
I'll just put my 2cents on the One D&D content here: across the board, all casters are now incredibly more versatile, with the ability to change their spells more easily and other various features, such as the ability to create spells for wizards. What did martials get? Mostly Weapon mastery, allowing them to do some fun stuff with various weapons, though the feature feels very tacked on, and of yeah a nerf to damage across the board, sneak attack no longer being a thing, paladin smiting only once per turn, no more Sharpshooter or Great Weapon master for big damage, and absolutely NO outside of combat utility. This means that the one thing martials are supposed to be good at, combat, casters now do better, and martials get nothing in exchange. You thought the martial and caster divide was bad in 5e, well One D&D is going the extra mile In the new content the fighter at level 13 gets to pick a weapon mastery they didn’t really like so didn’t pick at earlier levels and use it on another weapon, basically they can now use a stick or a whip more effectively. Meanwhile wizards at that same level 13 can teleport across the world and disintegrate things from existence. And don't get me started on the warlock (look how they massacred my boy)
I too have very strong feeling on the Warlock (in part 2 on Colby's channel)! I agree on Weapon Master, not to mention that it's been a feature in many wonderful homebrews for years and is available to add to your games from a number of great sources, Crit Academy's Weapon Perks system being my favourite one!
One small note that I think you may have missed is that, with Primal Knowledge, barbs don't just get to use strength for those skills, they also get advantage, since they're raging and they're making them as strength checks.
Yep, I got on here to make this comment. Rage did change. Now the dual wielding handaxe viking fantasy can be played (where you also get to throw the handaxe every so often)! I just wish the vex property was something different. That's too strong in general, and it doesn't jive with reckless attack (which they mentioned).
@@adowens0004 I think the others should be beefed up to reach vex level. I kinda wish they made martials scale better, these changes make them completely dominant early and ok later on.
I'd bet money that one of Eldritch Knight's features will add the Magic Action to Action Surge the same way the Thief's Fast Hands adds Search and Slight of Hand to Cunning Action
That was my first reaction to this. I kind of hope that is a level 6/10 ability, though, or they’ll end up with lots of casters with 3 levels of fighter
The way these UAs are going I'm really concerned that the Eldritch Knight won't even be a subclass. They changed the schools of several spells just to keep the Bard's access to them and now EK doesn't, if they go with the same restrictions that the 2014 version has.
Here's a great new weapon feature that would be appropriate for the Blowgun: Silent: using this weapon while Hidden does not negate Stealth. Of course a smart opponent can still figure out where you must be based on the trajectory of the blowgun dart that's stuck in their neck, or their unconscious friend's neck. But they'd still have to search for you, as opposed to a crossbow that they can hear snapping, or a thrown dagger that is easier to see, etc.
@@barcster2003 True. But then again, I suppose that's true in real life too, right? Personally I'd House Rule this Silent feature onto the blowgun if one of my Players actually wanted to use it. I mean in real combat would you ever use one? The only stories you ever hear of them being used is for a sneaky assault.
@@NickolasRAnderson hm, good to know. Well, since you have them, any insight as to what makes them actually useful, and how to realistically reflect that in-game? Or are they just useless?
Finally...Barbarian Berserker DOESN'T SUCKS! (Also I like the fact we can extend Barbarian's Rage with a bonus action now, lets you do the cool cinematic moment of holding up the collapsing gates of a temple without losing rage at the end of your turn since that was a skill check, not an attack lol.)
That's exactly what I was thinking also. Rage well running into a burning building and rescue those inside, or running into arrow fire. Hold the falling arch, etc.
Doing some quick math, the DPR of the Berserker is pretty dam decent for a straight classed character with no feats or other bonuses outside of its abilities Though, a bit of a shame that reckless attack doesnt last till the start of your next turn, so OP attacks and the 10th lvl reaction attack dont benefit.
@Silver Sickle I haven't played a martial character yet as I'm only 1.5yrs into my first 5e game. Wouldn't this make a level 5 Barb using frenzy with a Greatsword for example, say +4 str mod, do 6d6 + 12 (2d6 GS hits, 2d6 Frenzy, +4 mod +2 rage)? For an average of 33 at Level 5 with no feats? That doesn't seem bad at all to me but, I'm also not an optimizer and still relatively new to stuff so correct me if I'm wrong.
While I do like that its an official mechanic I think any decent DM would have allowed your to rage doing something like that. Rules are just guides, they need to be pushed by the DM for story and flavor. Player + DM = Great experience for all, Player vs DM = Someone eventually having a bad time.
You guys forget another powerful fact of the Graze ability: dealing damage to enemies you can't see, or otherwise have disadvantage of hitting. I've had multiple instances where an enemy went invisible, or stood in magical darkness, and my attacks would constantly miss. The fact your attacks can now still damage them, is amazing. Also, Noodle fights are a thing of the past as well! Just tonight, my low level party was constantly missing their attacks on some bugbears and bandits. Very boring and unsatisfying..
OH! I didn't think of that! I was kinda sad my favorite greatsword "only" got graze instead of cleave, but that certainly ups my opinion on the weapon mastery!
Another detail is that some enemy stat blocks have a higher AC on the first attack the would hit, ultimately getting an extra block in but still taking some damage.
@@johngerhart8627 yes. Not on mirror image though, since you would hit a different "target". Blur only gives disadvantage, which increases the likelyhood of missing an attack. And graze specifically states you still do damage even when missing an attack. It's what the ability is meant for. Someone blurs half out of existence, and you graze them instead of hitting them full on. It's a very neat thing to have, honestly. I like it!
One issue that 5e and by extention D&Done has is that they cater to young children with the game, with classes like Fighter having the Champion subclass which just says 'I attack'. This hamstrings them to some degree - if a complicated Caster is no better than a character that literally just say 'I attack' then there is no pay off for doing anything interesting. So, the fact that Casters *are* ahead is fine with me if they don't raise the floor that stubborn Martials subclasses are holding back.
@@cozzy6547 Oh, do tell? If you mean, why does the Champion hold back the Fighter? It is due to being a subclass of the Fighter - i.e., the Fighter base cannot be too interesting since it would make the Champion subclass goal of being incredibly simple impossible. If you mean, why is the Champion so incredibly simple? It is the stated goal of WotC that Champion fulfil this role. I personally think that the Barbarian could fulfil this and instead let the Fighter be the tactician, however, that is not what WotC has gone for. The only martials (not half-casters) are Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue. Barbarian is simple, Fighter is simple, Rogue in combat is simple. It is what WotC have gone for with martials, which holds martials back less they reduce combat to a simple back and forth of 'I attack' being the optimum strategy.
@@verdurite you can make very creative and interesting builds with the martial classes as long as you are willing to take interesting feat, subclass, and fighting style combinations.
Something to note about Rage that's slightly different than before, is it now works with ALL weapon attacks that use Strength, so you can make a ranged weapon attack with a thrown weapon, and it hits harder, where previously it was just "melee weapon attacks," so you lost that damage bonus when you threw weapons. Not a huge difference, and something a lot of people just ignored if they even noticed the exact nerdy verbiage in the first place.
I paused at 1:05:14 just to bring something up to Colby. An 11th-level 20-STR berserker landing a crit with a greataxe would be dealing 2d12 + 6d6 + 19 slashing damage. If I did the math right, that's 72 damage on a single attack. And they get another swing (at advantage, because why not), which without critting deals another 1d12 + 8 (average of 14.5) for a total of 86.5 damage. That's great.
This was kind of really irritating to me because they were talking about an additional “3d6” at level 9, when it’s 4d6 at level 6. I was so triggered cause they had the document right in front of them, they could have just scrolled up a page to check.
Their cadence felt like one of them was a second off the other maybe. Doesn’t seem like they were trying to talk over each other though. Love the enthusiasm for this.
@@BobbyMcBobPants that is likely just a delay issue with then being in different locations. Very common on these collab videos, but sometimes people come off as fighting each other, but I never got that impression here.
On the martial vs caster thing, as a DM I've not really noticed much difference, atleast at tier 1-2 play Yes casters lend themselves to optimisation, but most people aren't optimisers, and in the games I've played, it's only a problem if something FEELS weak, and dealing 50 dmg per round with a greataxe doesn't feel weak when you are laying into a giant or cutting minion's heads off. What I would like to see is more interesting things you can do as a martial class, fighters and barbarians especially can just turn into "attack, roll damage, end turn" I would also just encourage dms to lean into the strengths and weaknessess of the party present, even if you are running a pre-written game, tweak a few things, let different classes have moments of glory, and moments of sweating it out.
hi! just so you know, JC did clarify in one of the interview videos that you’re still supposed to be able to crit with smites, jurys still out on sneak attack though
Great vid! Liked hearing both of your thoughts on this! Cool to see Colby here! I think I like that this action surge isn't auto include in a spellcasters multiclass build! However, having the second wind back on a long rest seems worse! I think that the number of Frenzy d6s should scale with the barbarians proficiency! but if a character multiclass it should only scale when taking barbarian levels, otherwise I'm also a bit concerned about the multiclassing barbarian and rogue, because the damage scales beter with the addition of sneak attack dice and frenzy dice! I'm looking forward to trying out the new weapon master traits! I wonder if the weapon master will be paired more often with the Crusher and Slasher feats now!? Can't wait to try it out!
I think the best part of the Unconquerable is that wording I see, indomitable still applies to death saving throws. Which means, the fighter now can automatically succeed a death save AND heal themselves AND take their turn all at once.
This was enjoyable to listen too at work, on account of you both having a very chill tone. You need a podcast where you just ramble about TTRPG stuff for 1-2 hours.
At first I thought the strength skill combo was just intimidation or people reacting to strength, but if this is more like channeling primal power, then this might bring in room for the 4e seeker and warder as barbarian subclasses.
Just popping into the comments to day I loved the video. It was great chill watching and I'd love to see you two have a sit down and chat about the entire new phb test material. I'd honestly watch 10 hours of this stuff!
As a note for future videos maybe scale the camera smaller so we can also read along with what you guys are reading couse right now there is so much dead space where there is just background from where you are instead of the text page. Love the video and the conversations around it
my favorite part about unconquerable on the fighter is that with it they can actually stand up to pesky wizards trying to fling them into distant planes of existence multiple times while staying healthy, amazing flavor and it really nails that feeling of "I'm the unstoppable force"
As someone who loves playing fighter. These are just some fantastic changes. Sure they may not be enough to even out spellcasters and martials, but it definitely is a step in the right direction to make fighters feel even more different from each other and make every attack you do more meaningful and flavor. And the champion changed are just, they're great. It's significantly easier to do a crit fishing build without having to too as much effort into them. But at the same time also giving it more, uniqueness and more flavor and mechanical benefits that it lacked beforehand. Still pretty simple for people to play which is great, but there is a smidge more complexity in that skill feature the champion gets and thematically fits imo. So overall I think it's a great change. And another note for fighters is they're MUUUCH more durable now. Because not only do they have more chances to succeed a failed saving throw, but they also can heal on top of that. AAAAND they get 2 uses or Second Wind earlier on which makes me even happier since second wind always felt underwhelming. ON TOP OF THAT it scales as well, which makes indomitable at later levels scale too which mwha, perfect. So I'm happy with the fighter changes and the weapon mastery changes
Still watching but a couple things I wanted to point out - -The push mastery trait can be used on ranged weapons -Primal knowledge says while raging you can make a strength check instead of the normal check associated with the other skills like perception or stealth, which you talked about, but I don't think you realized that you would also get advantage on those. Since you are making a strength check while raging. -JC came out in a video and said that they intended sneak attack and divine smite to still crit and just poorly worded those playtests.
19:00 I think Graze sounds great because it means I never again have to feel like my character is completely not contributing to the encounter. It negates the Wil Wheaton effect! If I have 2 attacks per round and +4 modifier then I'm doing minimum 8 damage per round without even hitting anything! If I take a Feat that allows me to dual wield heavy weapons, then even my Bonus Action adds another minimum of 4 points damage!
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 Against a spell caster, graze would force concentration checks on every attack guaranteed. Concentration checks are upon taking damage not upon a hit, so any form of multi attack can shut down a castor's spell. For casters this cheapens mage armor and shield, while making the warcaster feat a requirement to have.
Doesnt Primal Knowledge also mean that Barbarians now have Advantage on every Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth and/or Survival check while Raging, since they have Advantage on Strength Checks?
It does, Because it states that you make it AS a strength check, and not Substitute so ANGRY BARBARIAN IS THE SNEAKIEST MAN, I can finally roleplay Drax Efficiently
It gers even worse than that my friend. Thanks to indomitable which allows you substitute your strength score for all strength checks and the fact that while you rage those list of skills count as a strength checks... it becomes like rogues reliable talent on steroids. You get advantage on the check and now you can never roll below a 20. I love Barbarian in 5e but this is ridiculous and needs to be taken out.
@@coltenhorne4187 Along with that You only have a certain amount of rages, and Alot of those skills are used for Either RP or In combat Skill checks, You need to use your Bonus action to Keep rage up AND need to take an action to use a Skill. So you literally can't do anything In combat using this, and for RP it's heavily limited because more than likely you're not raging EVERY single time you make a skill check or else you get this like 3-4 Times at lvl 9
I feel like Barbarians, Fighters and Monks should have a number of Attacks equal to their Proficiency Bonus. Artificers, Paladins and Rangers should get a number of Attacks equal to half their Proficiency Bonus (rounded up). Every other Class that can get access to extra Attacks stay the same.
Love the collaboration and discussion. I had to grin many times whenever the discussion went to 'nerfing' a spellcaster in some way and it was thought of as 'bad'. Only because some of the conversation was talking about how martial classes were so outclassed by spell casters. So when a few tweaks were made to spellcasters, it was almost looked at like 'that sucks'. Granted a few times it was said that was fair or could work because of the fact that they seem to be trying to balance the martial/spellcasting gap, but I still had to smile when spellcasting nerfs were discussed as 'bad'.
Sap is cool, but its usefulness quickly goes downhill as you increase in levels. It needs some kind of scaling as foes you face get more and more attacks. Compared to Push(which can be a free Disengage), where forced movement is always relevant and thanks to teamwork, gets better as time goes on. Even Topple fares better, a Con save, but the benefits of when it works are Huge.
Weapon mastery does not feel strong enough for me. Maybe it needs level scaling or something, but it just doesn’t feel like it is diverse enough to make a real difference to a character and make them have nearly as much utility or combat ability as casters
I like primal knowledge's roleplay value. I feel like it's to help include the people who dont use "rage" as an actual "rage". for example, a warforged barbarian who uses rage as a sort of "terminator kill switch" mode.
I love the change to action surge. I hope we see something like Eldritch knight at level 6 or higher say "when you use the additional action from action surge, you can use it to take the Magic action". That was the Eldritch knight could still fireball fireball at level 13
If you just want the info why on earth would you just not go read it regardless? Any sort of video will either leave parts out, miss represent something (on accident, not necessarily on purpose), or provide opinions in regards to the commentary...
@@snipegrzywa Because I want the opinion as well, just not an opinion that doubles or triples the length of the material. And I wouldnt just go read it regardless because Im not invested in knowing everything about everything before its even in a final state. I'll read it all when its finalized.
Concerning the Berserker: I will say that Retalliation at level 10 gives you a decently reliable extra attack per round, so the gap with Fighter is still there, but this does help bridge that gap a bit. ( I do agree that I had expected more. There is nothing to offset the loss of Great Weapon Master)
I also wanted to say thanks for covering the UA, i also really enjoyed the longer format. I had to already gone through the UA and made some notes on things i liked and dislike, so i can then test and see if my assumption was correct, so it was nice to have you guys share your input.
this makes me so happy because honestly I wanna be friends with you both. Will, I respect the HELL out of you for the integrity and intellect you displayed during the OGL mess, and Colby, you are my mellow, and seem like the nicest guy. And being kind, imho, is the most important thing in this world. Y’all inspire me to want to create dnd content.
Colby, I know that guy. He's awesome! His videos are super fun and enjoyable to listen to all the way through! Makes me feel like I'm playing dnd at work! Thanks for hosting part 1 Dnd Shorts!🎉
@59:53 Common misconception from the reading of the UA, but Jeremy Crawford has stated in videos that smites and sneak attack still double damage dice on critical hits. The wording in the documents does a poor job of explaining this but smites and sneak attack are still intended to crit. I think they just want to limit the amount of times you can do a burst option in one turn.
"Cleave's already in D&D, that's just an optional rule" It sounds like you guys figured out the difference, but for those who don't know: "Cleave Through Enemies" is a DMG rule that lets you carry overkill damage to another enemy when you drop a creature from full HP to 0 HP in a single attack. It's pretty much a rule that only helps out martials in minion fights.
Loved this collab! I agree with all of the comments saying that you're the same person at different speeds bahaha. My initial reaction on the Weapon Mastery properties and the Barbarian/Fighter buffs were: "Wow, these are cool!" And then I saw everything that had been done to Wizard and Sorcerer and said "Wow, these are cool... and super powerful!" and I think that truly defines how WOTC seems to be approaching the updates. The question you guys asked at the beginning of whether WOTC is interested in closing that gap in power between martials and spellcasters seems to be obvious based on this update alone, which is a bit unfortunate, but I at least appreciate the attempt to give martials tactical options. It just feels entirely moot when Wizards can now... *checks notes* ... create spells that CANNOT HAVE CONCENTRATION BROKEN. Generally speaking, I think the only two classes to be truly nerfed so far in these updates are Druid and Warlock... which also happen to be my favorites in 5e. 😢
Alright, random thing I noticed - if dual wielding with a weapon that has Graze, the second attack doesn't add your ability modifier, so if you roll low, you could actually do less damage if you hit than if you missed.
Amazing collaboration! I noticed you were both wondering about usage of Sap. This is tailor-made to nullify the enemy's advantage against a Recklessly attacking Barbarian!
Barbarian is now limited to not wearing heavy armor to be able to enter Rage, before they can still wear one but don't receive benefit from Rage. So, heavy armor is an Anger Management tool.
Colby's voice is pretty relaxing. Normally Heavy Metal is what relaxes me but listened to one of his vids where he had a cold and my eyes were feeling soooo heavy. Made it to the end though.
On the barbarian, it seems like you guys might be missing some of the awesome here (and please note, I'm not even close to being a fan of OneD&D so far and have no plans to make the switch) ... Feral Instinct (which you didn't discuss) gives both advantage to Initiative checks and Dexterity saves. Advantage on Dex saves is almost or just as good as giving them proficiency with Dex saves, so that's another Saving throw proficiency at level 7, or close enough. Indomitable Might pairs with Primal Knowledge very nicely, so by level 11, any time you score less than a 20 on any of those skill checks it counts as a 20. Brutal Critical is huge... when you crit - which you do more often than others since you are attacking with advantage a lot - you not only do your crit damage but also adding your level... even to unarmed attacks. So at level 11 when you just start this ability, you're knocking down stone giants with your maul (topple property) and causing 4d6+5 str +3 rage +11 dmg, so 4d6+19 before adding any other mods (magic or feats) for an average of 33 per hit... or do the same thing with a battle axe (also has topple) for 2d8 and keep your shield, average dmg 28. And in unarmed combat? You're doing 21 points of damage (1 x2, +19) or even 2d8 +19 if you have the unarmed combat fighting style (which would require a feat). I know monsters have a lot of hit points at this level, but that's still a ton of damage from just one character, especially from a non-depleting resource... meaning you can do it over and over again every round, without expending "x per short rest" abilities or spell slots. Compare this to a fighter who's only doing 4d6 +7 with the same weapon (Str bonus plus dueling fighting style), and it's a huge difference. For Relentless Rage, don't forget that there's no limit how often this can be used... if your 15th Barbarian gets taken to 0 hp, he only needs a DC 10 Con save to stay up and have 30 hit points. If it happens again, he can do the same thing with a DC 15 Con save, which should be easy to do by this level since his Con save is at least +10, maybe more. A third time, he's still got a 50/50 chance to do it with a DC 20 Con save, so that's like giving your barbarian 3 times where he should have fallen out of the fight, but didn't. Once is already pretty good, but 3 times is ... wow. DMs are gonna be chewing their nails over this one. And after a short rest, they can do it all over again at no penalty. And finally, the end game... yeah, we lost the barbarian capstone of +4 to both Str and Con, but instead we get +2 to Str and Con at 18th, and then at level 20 we get another +2 to one of them, ANNNNND another +1 to something from the epic boon feat. So we only lost +1 to one score, and we gained an epic boon feat which should have some pretty cool extra feature of some kind. Not a bad trade-off at all, in my opinion. So... what do you think?
Absolutely! They really slept on the absolutely power that is the barbarian now. The barbarian now never fails a skill check when it counts, does incredible crit damage across all weapons, included thrown weapons! and is several times harder to kill! This is the first time I am actually excited after reading class changes from One DND! Cheers!
I'm a little disappointed that Unarmored Defense hasn't been changed. It still causes the Barbarian to become kinda MAD (Multiple Ability Dependant). Because it kinda forces you to either increase 3 ability scores at once or have a shitty AC. Honestly you'd be better off picking up scale mail armor starting off and then later upgrading to half plate than you would be using Unarmored Defense. Personally I'd suggest changing Unarmored Defense to be more like Natural Armor. So while you're unarmored your AC would be equal to 13+con
My thoughts on the Weapon Masteries: Cleave: This’d be great on a Paladin with Divine Favor, or a raging Barbarian. Flex: I actually hate this feature. Versatile weapons should incentivize switching between one-handed and two-handed, providing different benefits for each. It’s right there in the name: versatile. Graze: I feel like this could still allow bonus +1/2/3s from magic weapons. Just specify that you don’t hit with it, and as such can’t do something like smiting with it. Nick: After some deliberation, I feel like it’s fine. Push: Definitely needs to be once per turn, and maybe reduced to 5 ft. The “away from you” part is fine, though, considering that’s the wording things like Battle Master Push and Thunderous Smite use. Sap: I feel like it’s fine that it’s only on attacks. After all, *AC* doesn’t boost your saves. I like this feature. Slow: Decent tanking feature. Very good against enemies with free disengages or similar abilities. Topple: I see this as a combination of Slow and Vex, but a bit less reliable since it requires a save, which I think is appropriate since it effectively does both. wait, why is it a con save? It should be Dex or Str. Vex: I’d say the advantage is slightly stronger than Topple’s, since Topple requires a hit and a failed save. Topple doesn’t risk you breaking the chain, though. This doesn’t combo well with things that give you full-turn advantage, but it’s great with things that give you advantage on one attack, like Help or Zephyr Strike. Zephyr Strike: Not a Weapon Mastery but a very underrated spell. Shame it’s Ranger exclusive. Bladesingers or Eldritch Knights with Booming Blade would get so much use out of its free disengage effect. Ranger: The most underrated class in the game. It’s not even bad, and I’d argue it never was.
to balance martial with casters - is it as easy as dropping back to d4 (+ con bonus) hp for full casters for hp - and making a char casting arcane spells unable to use any armor (even if multiclassed) ? Old school I know but is this simple fix enough. Harsh for sure, or perhaps a feat like "Iron Will" - granting martial chars only an X/short rest innate counterspell-like ability?
I love how most miss the epic boon ability change slightly. That at max on pure class would give not only the epic boon but also increases the primary ability of that class and raise the maximum number of it to 30 now. Though, the only issue is getting to max 20 and continuing on byond that for those characters. So it's fair to not forcus on it too much on it.
As a player who really enjoyed my time as a barb in a long campaign, the playtest barbarian is honestly a substancial buff! Dont sleep on the good stuff! Primal power that aids your skill checks + Indomitable might make sure you as the barb always makes skill checks when it counts (never losing a random strength check to the random lucky roll by the wizard again!). The actually scaling damage from brutal critical is fantastic across the board, as very few weapons actually has a d12 damage die, and nothing sucks more then getting a 1 on that. Brutal critical on a dagger only added one more 1d4 to the crit. They have also removed the restriction that limited features/bonuses such as rage damage, reckless attack and brutal critical to melee weapons, which means thrown weapons benefits from it! Relentless rage can be used several times per shortrest! which means if you get knocked down you get double your barb level in HP EVERY TIME you succeed the Con save! They might have moved around some of the features, but I absolutely think this is a fantastic buff to the class. This is the first class in the One DND playtest where I actually like the changes. The Barbarian now deals more reliable damage across all weapons, will absolutely succeed a skillcheck in a pinch and is waay harder to kill! Sorry for the wall of text! But as a Barbarian at heart, Im actually excited for the changes to the class! (This class only tho...)
The weapon mastery system seems like an overcomplicated but at the same time simplified version of Pathfinder 2e weapon properties. Less options more work
I am very positive on the new barbarian. I think it improved a lot (new rage, primal knowledge + indomitable, better bounce back, and better(?) critical). I am excited for the new one!
Absolutely! I wrote a wall of text explain in my own comment, but you put it simply! Barbarians just got way cooler. I would say brutal critical is better now! It doesn't waste 3 level features(kinda) and it does reliable damage across the board! At level 11 a 18 str barb could crit with a dart for a total of 2d4 + 18 even without weapon bonuses
@@Motidur Yeah certainly most of the time the new brutal critical does more dmg! My "(?)" was in a few instances it is worse. Namely lvl 9 and 10, where you don't get it anymore 😂 Also, if you have a d12 weapon it's equal at lvl 13 and worse at level 17-19 (going by average roll on the d12).
Yeah - taken together, I'm going to buy this! It looks like fun and is SO much clearer! I appreciate the doubling down on what classes represent. Still needs a bit of work, but the majority of this is really well developed.
Two points from the start of your fighter discussion: 1. Fighters having extra feats is a hold over from earlier editions. While that may not be a reason to keep it, it wasn't 5e laziness that lead to that being the design. 2. All subclasses coming online at 3rd level presents two problem classes: clerics and warlocks. How can you be the devout follower of a god/ the second signatory to a contract from whom you derive all your power while having no idea who it is you are serving?
I do not think I would let that "push doesn't specify horizontally" argument fly at the table. Specifying away from you is enough, unless you are attacking someone who is above you, there won't be any fall damage added to that.
Brutal Critical should be replaced with a feature that does that damage on each attack that hits, or increases your crit chance and adds your critical damage.
You guys bringing up Reckless Attack vs Vex also made me think. If you don't gain anything from getting damage (no longer extending rage) then there really is no point in recklessly attacking anymore
Something they missed about Vex, or didn't pay enough attention to, is that the next attack has to be on the same creature. Great if you are fighting a dragon, or some other giant beastie, but if it is several medium enemies, or worse, a bunch of minions, then it is useless. If the creature dies from your attack, or before your next turn, then Vex does nothing for your next attack. I can honestly see a situation where it is one of the worst, because at the start of your turn you don't have the Adv, then you get advantage on your second attack, maybe your third, but then it either died during your turn, or dies before your next turn, so you have to start all over. Add to that the chance of missing the first attack and not starting the chain, or randomly missing the second attack... I don't know, I feel like it's good, and maybe especially good when combined with an offhand dagger to use Nick as the last attack for turn, but I think it is way overhyped by these guys. I think I'd rather spend my whole turn trying to Topple it, so that all my allies can pummel it into oblivion and move on to the next guy (advantage for everyone is better than advantage just for me, especially if the advantage for me ends up wasted because my allies kill it anyway).
I simply don't understand why people are saying Martials are even worse now? Were we all expecting martials to get maneuvers as a global mechanic? I'm actually really dang excited to fuss around with weapon mastery and see what can be done.
The fighter buffs actually seem really great and I’m a fan. It hurts to say I’m liking One D&D because I haven’t so far but I like all of the stuff in this video
One spot where Barbarians did gain, and I’m glad of it, is that they can gain their bonus damage and can reckless attack with any strength-based attacks, opening the door to thrown weapons in a way they didn’t work in 5e. A cool fantasy becomes available again.
Did they notice that with Primal Knowledge not only can you use Strength but I believe if you're raging you get advantage on all those checks as well because you have advantage on Strength Checks while raging and those are now Strength Checks. and of course at lvl 9 those because auto 20's (if you have +5 Strength by then) which is pretty great and similar to Rogue's Reliable Talent Also Brutal Critical is basically even. At 11th lvl it is better, but at 13th lvl is basically equal since you'd get an extra 2d12 (13 average) or just a flat 13. then the new once is a bit better for 14th, 15th and 16th lvl (I mean barely but better), but at 17th its now worse since you'd normally have 3d12 (avg 19.5 dmg) vs this new one giving you only flat 17 dmg. So its really a different way but no real benefit. They should have given Barbarians more since no one likes playing them at higher levels and instead they did nothing to Brutal Critical and decreased Primal Champion.
Note: This week WotC sent the Pinkertons to a community member's home, who threatened the man and his family, forcefully held open the door when his wife attempted to shut them out, proceeded to enter his home and took some product the man had been sent by mistake. They threatened him with jail time, fines, and reduced his wife to tears.
The Pinkertons have a long and rotten reputation for union busting, intimidation, and a whole lot worse. Wizards were fully aware of who they were hiring and the methods they wished to be employed. You can read more about this incident in the links in the description, including WotC's response, and form your own conclusions on their motives and character.
Remember that you always have a choice of who you choose to support with your money. There are enough free resources online to provide D&D content for a lifetime, and many more incredible 3rd party options. Remember you always have a choice with who you choose or do not choose to support, and your voice is powerful.
The TH-camr, OldschoolMTG, bought an unreleased pack of MtG with a very similar name to the pack he was trying to buy (it was likely that somewhere in the supply chain, somebody mistook one for the other) so WotC sent the bad guys from RDR2 to his house to intimidate him and his wife and threaten jail time (despite being a private organization)
actually insane
Thanks for highlighting this!
Remember folks, piracy against unfair companies is not only within your rights, but an obligation.
The thing with the power creep in 5e is they don't have the same answer to the problem that they had in 3.5. With the book of 9 swords that brought in very powerful weapon fighting styles. Heck there was an attack that allowed you roll a d20 and add your concentration skill to the damage. Were with out adding you str or dex you could be doing like 11 dmg min with 10 skill points in concentration or 30 max. Also with the complete warrior book added sick feats like over sized two weapon fighting that allowed you to duel weild 2 long swords or really any one handed weapons. These things fixed the power creep a little and with the book of nine swords kind of made a melee fighter able to out damage casters if made correctly.
Thanks again Will for agreeing to this fun slog 😂 - I had a blast. Love you brother!
You outdid yourself! Went over an hour for both parts! New record?
I’m so glad you are growing in the community
where can i hear this eps as a podcast?
Great collaboration! keep up the good work you two
@ Colby, a martial can out damage a full caster at every level, using poison and sharpshooter/HWM. Example, a Bugbear Gloomstalker ranger (3 levels) / Battle Master Fighter (all other levels) can do WWWWWWWWWWWWWAY more damage than any full caster and thats just ONE example. Its not even close.
I'll just put my 2cents on the One D&D content here:
across the board, all casters are now incredibly more versatile, with the ability to change their spells more easily and other various features, such as the ability to create spells for wizards.
What did martials get?
Mostly Weapon mastery, allowing them to do some fun stuff with various weapons, though the feature feels very tacked on, and of yeah a nerf to damage across the board, sneak attack no longer being a thing, paladin smiting only once per turn, no more Sharpshooter or Great Weapon master for big damage, and absolutely NO outside of combat utility.
This means that the one thing martials are supposed to be good at, combat, casters now do better, and martials get nothing in exchange.
You thought the martial and caster divide was bad in 5e, well One D&D is going the extra mile
In the new content the fighter at level 13 gets to pick a weapon mastery they didn’t really like so didn’t pick at earlier levels and use it on another weapon, basically they can now use a stick or a whip more effectively. Meanwhile wizards at that same level 13 can teleport across the world and disintegrate things from existence.
And don't get me started on the warlock (look how they massacred my boy)
I too have very strong feeling on the Warlock (in part 2 on Colby's channel)! I agree on Weapon Master, not to mention that it's been a feature in many wonderful homebrews for years and is available to add to your games from a number of great sources, Crit Academy's Weapon Perks system being my favourite one!
Warlock is way better in my eyes, I have to disagree.
Warlock got the kind of Nerf that all the spellcasters need
One DnD promoted true oneness by making all martials obsolete. One caster and only caster
Well said
Hahaha leave it to Colby to get D&D *shorts* to make a 3 and a half hour long dive xD
Perhaps my greatest accomplishment to date. Up next: he gets me to put out something shorter than 45 minutes :P
Fun fact: it was 6 hours but DND Shorts trimmed it down to better fit his content xD
@@DnDDeepDive don't you already put out shorts tho?
@@arandomweeb3834 I suppose, but those are just excerpts from my real videos 😉
@@DnDDeepDive ...That is true. I concede your point
One small note that I think you may have missed is that, with Primal Knowledge, barbs don't just get to use strength for those skills, they also get advantage, since they're raging and they're making them as strength checks.
I think my favorite thing about this is seeing each of your mannerisms and hand gestures side by side. Will is just a sped up Colby
Notice Barbarian does now gain Rage Damage/Reckless Attack advantage on Thrown weapon attacks using Strength by default.
Yep, I got on here to make this comment. Rage did change. Now the dual wielding handaxe viking fantasy can be played (where you also get to throw the handaxe every so often)!
I just wish the vex property was something different. That's too strong in general, and it doesn't jive with reckless attack (which they mentioned).
@@adowens0004 I think the others should be beefed up to reach vex level. I kinda wish they made martials scale better, these changes make them completely dominant early and ok later on.
That's pretty cool. Didn't even know that didn't apply prior. Fairly sure a lotta gamed home ruled it so nice to see that supported from the get go.
I'd bet money that one of Eldritch Knight's features will add the Magic Action to Action Surge the same way the Thief's Fast Hands adds Search and Slight of Hand to Cunning Action
That was my first reaction to this. I kind of hope that is a level 6/10 ability, though, or they’ll end up with lots of casters with 3 levels of fighter
I agree, War Magic is currently 7 so I feel that could be a good fit for the level 6 spot and roll the Magic Action with Action Surge into that one
This.
@@Skorm26 Presently War Magic at 7* is only a Cantrip you have to get to 18 to use a leveled spell with it.
The way these UAs are going I'm really concerned that the Eldritch Knight won't even be a subclass. They changed the schools of several spells just to keep the Bard's access to them and now EK doesn't, if they go with the same restrictions that the 2014 version has.
Here's a great new weapon feature that would be appropriate for the Blowgun:
Silent: using this weapon while Hidden does not negate Stealth.
Of course a smart opponent can still figure out where you must be based on the trajectory of the blowgun dart that's stuck in their neck, or their unconscious friend's neck. But they'd still have to search for you, as opposed to a crossbow that they can hear snapping, or a thrown dagger that is easier to see, etc.
It should have something like that. Currently there's no reason to use it.
@@barcster2003 True. But then again, I suppose that's true in real life too, right? Personally I'd House Rule this Silent feature onto the blowgun if one of my Players actually wanted to use it. I mean in real combat would you ever use one? The only stories you ever hear of them being used is for a sneaky assault.
One small issue, blowguns are louder than bows. I know this as someone with both.
@@NickolasRAnderson hm, good to know.
Well, since you have them, any insight as to what makes them actually useful, and how to realistically reflect that in-game? Or are they just useless?
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 in Real life cheap to make easy to use. In d&d............I got nothing
This sir is a D&D Long
Love the D4 crossover
Finally...Barbarian Berserker DOESN'T SUCKS! (Also I like the fact we can extend Barbarian's Rage with a bonus action now, lets you do the cool cinematic moment of holding up the collapsing gates of a temple without losing rage at the end of your turn since that was a skill check, not an attack lol.)
That's exactly what I was thinking also.
Rage well running into a burning building and rescue those inside, or running into arrow fire.
Hold the falling arch, etc.
Clench teeth as a bonus action lads.
Doing some quick math, the DPR of the Berserker is pretty dam decent for a straight classed character with no feats or other bonuses outside of its abilities
Though, a bit of a shame that reckless attack doesnt last till the start of your next turn, so OP attacks and the 10th lvl reaction attack dont benefit.
@Silver Sickle I haven't played a martial character yet as I'm only 1.5yrs into my first 5e game. Wouldn't this make a level 5 Barb using frenzy with a Greatsword for example, say +4 str mod, do 6d6 + 12 (2d6 GS hits, 2d6 Frenzy, +4 mod +2 rage)? For an average of 33 at Level 5 with no feats? That doesn't seem bad at all to me but, I'm also not an optimizer and still relatively new to stuff so correct me if I'm wrong.
While I do like that its an official mechanic I think any decent DM would have allowed your to rage doing something like that. Rules are just guides, they need to be pushed by the DM for story and flavor. Player + DM = Great experience for all, Player vs DM = Someone eventually having a bad time.
You guys forget another powerful fact of the Graze ability: dealing damage to enemies you can't see, or otherwise have disadvantage of hitting. I've had multiple instances where an enemy went invisible, or stood in magical darkness, and my attacks would constantly miss. The fact your attacks can now still damage them, is amazing. Also, Noodle fights are a thing of the past as well! Just tonight, my low level party was constantly missing their attacks on some bugbears and bandits. Very boring and unsatisfying..
OH! I didn't think of that! I was kinda sad my favorite greatsword "only" got graze instead of cleave, but that certainly ups my opinion on the weapon mastery!
Another detail is that some enemy stat blocks have a higher AC on the first attack the would hit, ultimately getting an extra block in but still taking some damage.
@@partypegasus8666 the parry ability! I completely forgot about that. Nice one!
I forgot about that with graze that's really good so would that work on say blur?
@@johngerhart8627 yes. Not on mirror image though, since you would hit a different "target". Blur only gives disadvantage, which increases the likelyhood of missing an attack. And graze specifically states you still do damage even when missing an attack. It's what the ability is meant for. Someone blurs half out of existence, and you graze them instead of hitting them full on. It's a very neat thing to have, honestly. I like it!
Can't wait to see Colby's next multi-character build video about the Slow inflicting Bugbear Bonk Battalion.
I love the honesty in the title
WoTC: “We’re going to give martial characters tools to catch up to casters”
Also WoTC: “hehehe caster buffs go brrrrrrrr”
One issue that 5e and by extention D&Done has is that they cater to young children with the game, with classes like Fighter having the Champion subclass which just says 'I attack'. This hamstrings them to some degree - if a complicated Caster is no better than a character that literally just say 'I attack' then there is no pay off for doing anything interesting.
So, the fact that Casters *are* ahead is fine with me if they don't raise the floor that stubborn Martials subclasses are holding back.
@@aimerw that is a terrible take.
@@cozzy6547 Oh, do tell?
If you mean, why does the Champion hold back the Fighter? It is due to being a subclass of the Fighter - i.e., the Fighter base cannot be too interesting since it would make the Champion subclass goal of being incredibly simple impossible.
If you mean, why is the Champion so incredibly simple? It is the stated goal of WotC that Champion fulfil this role. I personally think that the Barbarian could fulfil this and instead let the Fighter be the tactician, however, that is not what WotC has gone for.
The only martials (not half-casters) are Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue. Barbarian is simple, Fighter is simple, Rogue in combat is simple. It is what WotC have gone for with martials, which holds martials back less they reduce combat to a simple back and forth of 'I attack' being the optimum strategy.
@@aimerw if you think the martials are simple, you haven't played enough of them. Nuff said
@@verdurite you can make very creative and interesting builds with the martial classes as long as you are willing to take interesting feat, subclass, and fighting style combinations.
Wooo! The dive we needed! The new weapon stuff is bonkers.
You guys rock, thanks and love seeing both my faves in the same place!
Something to note about Rage that's slightly different than before, is it now works with ALL weapon attacks that use Strength, so you can make a ranged weapon attack with a thrown weapon, and it hits harder, where previously it was just "melee weapon attacks," so you lost that damage bonus when you threw weapons.
Not a huge difference, and something a lot of people just ignored if they even noticed the exact nerdy verbiage in the first place.
Ah. A Colby length dnd shorts video. Very exciting
This is great, I appreciate both y'alls content and it's fun to see you chatting head to head like this!
For those of you who like learning new tricks in D&D almost as much as you enjoy playing, welcome home.
I paused at 1:05:14 just to bring something up to Colby. An 11th-level 20-STR berserker landing a crit with a greataxe would be dealing 2d12 + 6d6 + 19 slashing damage. If I did the math right, that's 72 damage on a single attack. And they get another swing (at advantage, because why not), which without critting deals another 1d12 + 8 (average of 14.5) for a total of 86.5 damage. That's great.
This was kind of really irritating to me because they were talking about an additional “3d6” at level 9, when it’s 4d6 at level 6. I was so triggered cause they had the document right in front of them, they could have just scrolled up a page to check.
So funny how you guys keep talking over each other out of just sheer joy of wanting to talk about it. Perfect nerd conversation 🥰😂
Their cadence felt like one of them was a second off the other maybe. Doesn’t seem like they were trying to talk over each other though. Love the enthusiasm for this.
@@BobbyMcBobPants that is likely just a delay issue with then being in different locations. Very common on these collab videos, but sometimes people come off as fighting each other, but I never got that impression here.
On the martial vs caster thing, as a DM I've not really noticed much difference, atleast at tier 1-2 play
Yes casters lend themselves to optimisation, but most people aren't optimisers, and in the games I've played, it's only a problem if something FEELS weak, and dealing 50 dmg per round with a greataxe doesn't feel weak when you are laying into a giant or cutting minion's heads off.
What I would like to see is more interesting things you can do as a martial class, fighters and barbarians especially can just turn into "attack, roll damage, end turn"
I would also just encourage dms to lean into the strengths and weaknessess of the party present, even if you are running a pre-written game, tweak a few things, let different classes have moments of glory, and moments of sweating it out.
The most anticipated collaboration of all time!
You're both amazing creators. Thanks for the fun and interesting content
hi! just so you know, JC did clarify in one of the interview videos that you’re still supposed to be able to crit with smites, jurys still out on sneak attack though
Yeah, but it's more ragebaity to insist they WotC said you can't
I thing they walked back the change that made where SA can’t Crit as well
@@CooperAATE i have faith that it's a mistake on will's part, not rage bait
Great vid! Liked hearing both of your thoughts on this! Cool to see Colby here!
I think I like that this action surge isn't auto include in a spellcasters multiclass build!
However, having the second wind back on a long rest seems worse!
I think that the number of Frenzy d6s should scale with the barbarians proficiency! but if a character multiclass it should only scale when taking barbarian levels, otherwise I'm also a bit concerned about the multiclassing barbarian and rogue, because the damage scales beter with the addition of sneak attack dice and frenzy dice!
I'm looking forward to trying out the new weapon master traits!
I wonder if the weapon master will be paired more often with the Crusher and Slasher feats now!? Can't wait to try it out!
I think the best part of the Unconquerable is that wording I see, indomitable still applies to death saving throws. Which means, the fighter now can automatically succeed a death save AND heal themselves AND take their turn all at once.
This was enjoyable to listen too at work, on account of you both having a very chill tone. You need a podcast where you just ramble about TTRPG stuff for 1-2 hours.
At first I thought the strength skill combo was just intimidation or people reacting to strength, but if this is more like channeling primal power, then this might bring in room for the 4e seeker and warder as barbarian subclasses.
Just popping into the comments to day I loved the video. It was great chill watching and I'd love to see you two have a sit down and chat about the entire new phb test material. I'd honestly watch 10 hours of this stuff!
So excited that both of you are on the same video
As a note for future videos maybe scale the camera smaller so we can also read along with what you guys are reading couse right now there is so much dead space where there is just background from where you are instead of the text page. Love the video and the conversations around it
my favorite part about unconquerable on the fighter is that with it they can actually stand up to pesky wizards trying to fling them into distant planes of existence multiple times while staying healthy, amazing flavor and it really nails that feeling of "I'm the unstoppable force"
As someone who loves playing fighter. These are just some fantastic changes. Sure they may not be enough to even out spellcasters and martials, but it definitely is a step in the right direction to make fighters feel even more different from each other and make every attack you do more meaningful and flavor. And the champion changed are just, they're great. It's significantly easier to do a crit fishing build without having to too as much effort into them. But at the same time also giving it more, uniqueness and more flavor and mechanical benefits that it lacked beforehand. Still pretty simple for people to play which is great, but there is a smidge more complexity in that skill feature the champion gets and thematically fits imo. So overall I think it's a great change. And another note for fighters is they're MUUUCH more durable now. Because not only do they have more chances to succeed a failed saving throw, but they also can heal on top of that. AAAAND they get 2 uses or Second Wind earlier on which makes me even happier since second wind always felt underwhelming. ON TOP OF THAT it scales as well, which makes indomitable at later levels scale too which mwha, perfect. So I'm happy with the fighter changes and the weapon mastery changes
Colby, love your videos as well. I am subscribed to both of you.
Cheers!
Great collab! There's alot to process. On to part 2, for more discussion and processing.
Well this doesn't exactly look like 'Short' but i love it , since it is the collab between my two favourite dnd youtubers
Still watching but a couple things I wanted to point out -
-The push mastery trait can be used on ranged weapons
-Primal knowledge says while raging you can make a strength check instead of the normal check associated with the other skills like perception or stealth, which you talked about, but I don't think you realized that you would also get advantage on those. Since you are making a strength check while raging.
-JC came out in a video and said that they intended sneak attack and divine smite to still crit and just poorly worded those playtests.
19:00 I think Graze sounds great because it means I never again have to feel like my character is completely not contributing to the encounter. It negates the Wil Wheaton effect! If I have 2 attacks per round and +4 modifier then I'm doing minimum 8 damage per round without even hitting anything!
If I take a Feat that allows me to dual wield heavy weapons, then even my Bonus Action adds another minimum of 4 points damage!
yeah but concentration checks tho...
@@glyphin343 not quite following you.
What do Concentration Checks have to do with the Graze feature?
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 Against a spell caster, graze would force concentration checks on every attack guaranteed. Concentration checks are upon taking damage not upon a hit, so any form of multi attack can shut down a castor's spell.
For casters this cheapens mage armor and shield, while making the warcaster feat a requirement to have.
Personally I would move graze to once per action, so like action surge could use it twice, but a multi attack gets it once.
Awesome collab! Great to see you both on the same vid!!!
Will is like coffee, while Colby is like tea. Which is ironic given where they come from.
I love the added complexity to the weapons. This gives DnD Deep Dive material for years to come.
Super love that your longest video is with D4. Very on brand 😂. You're both great!
In my house rules; Warpicks do piercing and bludgeoning damage, you must specify which end you're attacking with before rolling
Doesnt Primal Knowledge also mean that Barbarians now have Advantage on every Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth and/or Survival check while Raging, since they have Advantage on Strength Checks?
Yup!
It does, Because it states that you make it AS a strength check, and not Substitute so ANGRY BARBARIAN IS THE SNEAKIEST MAN, I can finally roleplay Drax Efficiently
It gers even worse than that my friend. Thanks to indomitable which allows you substitute your strength score for all strength checks and the fact that while you rage those list of skills count as a strength checks... it becomes like rogues reliable talent on steroids. You get advantage on the check and now you can never roll below a 20.
I love Barbarian in 5e but this is ridiculous and needs to be taken out.
@@coltenhorne4187 you usually won't have rage on outside of combat though. How often will a barb hide during combat? Really doesn't seem that busted
@@coltenhorne4187 Along with that You only have a certain amount of rages, and Alot of those skills are used for Either RP or In combat Skill checks, You need to use your Bonus action to Keep rage up AND need to take an action to use a Skill. So you literally can't do anything In combat using this, and for RP it's heavily limited because more than likely you're not raging EVERY single time you make a skill check or else you get this like 3-4 Times at lvl 9
I feel like Barbarians, Fighters and Monks should have a number of Attacks equal to their Proficiency Bonus.
Artificers, Paladins and Rangers should get a number of Attacks equal to half their Proficiency Bonus (rounded up).
Every other Class that can get access to extra Attacks stay the same.
I LOVE THIS! You're both my favorites 😁
Love the collaboration and discussion. I had to grin many times whenever the discussion went to 'nerfing' a spellcaster in some way and it was thought of as 'bad'. Only because some of the conversation was talking about how martial classes were so outclassed by spell casters. So when a few tweaks were made to spellcasters, it was almost looked at like 'that sucks'. Granted a few times it was said that was fair or could work because of the fact that they seem to be trying to balance the martial/spellcasting gap, but I still had to smile when spellcasting nerfs were discussed as 'bad'.
Sap is an awesome thing… think about moving after hitting and not getting hit by opportunity attacks from that creature or a mage with war caster
Sap is cool, but its usefulness quickly goes downhill as you increase in levels.
It needs some kind of scaling as foes you face get more and more attacks.
Compared to Push(which can be a free Disengage), where forced movement is always relevant and thanks to teamwork, gets better as time goes on. Even Topple fares better, a Con save, but the benefits of when it works are Huge.
@@MrSeals1000 its value to me is in protection.
Basically, 1 enemy should be having disadvantage on an attack when it's not your turn.
Great collaboration! I really enjoy both of your channels.
Just BTW barbarians did have unlimited rages at level 20 just like druids had unlimited wildshape
20:40 I have my own spreadsheets, and I can confirm that Graze looks very good on them.
Weapon mastery does not feel strong enough for me. Maybe it needs level scaling or something, but it just doesn’t feel like it is diverse enough to make a real difference to a character and make them have nearly as much utility or combat ability as casters
ya martial classes will still be heavily dependent on magic weapons adding to their damage
I think some people aren't remembering that these abilites do not use resources.
I like primal knowledge's roleplay value. I feel like it's to help include the people who dont use "rage" as an actual "rage". for example, a warforged barbarian who uses rage as a sort of "terminator kill switch" mode.
TR8c says hi 👋
The War Pick was only 1d8 piercing damage and lack the versatile prop in 5e
Rapier
I love the change to action surge. I hope we see something like Eldritch knight at level 6 or higher say "when you use the additional action from action surge, you can use it to take the Magic action". That was the Eldritch knight could still fireball fireball at level 13
Wow. D4 is a great guy but he is LONG winded. Im just here for the info so it will be faster to just read it all myself haha
Understatement of the year.
If you just want the info why on earth would you just not go read it regardless? Any sort of video will either leave parts out, miss represent something (on accident, not necessarily on purpose), or provide opinions in regards to the commentary...
@@snipegrzywa Because I want the opinion as well, just not an opinion that doubles or triples the length of the material. And I wouldnt just go read it regardless because Im not invested in knowing everything about everything before its even in a final state. I'll read it all when its finalized.
Concerning the Berserker: I will say that Retalliation at level 10 gives you a decently reliable extra attack per round, so the gap with Fighter is still there, but this does help bridge that gap a bit.
( I do agree that I had expected more. There is nothing to offset the loss of Great Weapon Master)
I also wanted to say thanks for covering the UA, i also really enjoyed the longer format. I had to already gone through the UA and made some notes on things i liked and dislike, so i can then test and see if my assumption was correct, so it was nice to have you guys share your input.
This was fantastic! What an excellent collaboration! Love to see more!
this makes me so happy because honestly I wanna be friends with you both. Will, I respect the HELL out of you for the integrity and intellect you displayed during the OGL mess, and Colby, you are my mellow, and seem like the nicest guy. And being kind, imho, is the most important thing in this world. Y’all inspire me to want to create dnd content.
Colby, I know that guy. He's awesome! His videos are super fun and enjoyable to listen to all the way through! Makes me feel like I'm playing dnd at work!
Thanks for hosting part 1 Dnd Shorts!🎉
@59:53 Common misconception from the reading of the UA, but Jeremy Crawford has stated in videos that smites and sneak attack still double damage dice on critical hits. The wording in the documents does a poor job of explaining this but smites and sneak attack are still intended to crit. I think they just want to limit the amount of times you can do a burst option in one turn.
"Cleave's already in D&D, that's just an optional rule"
It sounds like you guys figured out the difference, but for those who don't know: "Cleave Through Enemies" is a DMG rule that lets you carry overkill damage to another enemy when you drop a creature from full HP to 0 HP in a single attack. It's pretty much a rule that only helps out martials in minion fights.
Loved this collab! I agree with all of the comments saying that you're the same person at different speeds bahaha.
My initial reaction on the Weapon Mastery properties and the Barbarian/Fighter buffs were: "Wow, these are cool!" And then I saw everything that had been done to Wizard and Sorcerer and said "Wow, these are cool... and super powerful!" and I think that truly defines how WOTC seems to be approaching the updates.
The question you guys asked at the beginning of whether WOTC is interested in closing that gap in power between martials and spellcasters seems to be obvious based on this update alone, which is a bit unfortunate, but I at least appreciate the attempt to give martials tactical options. It just feels entirely moot when Wizards can now... *checks notes* ... create spells that CANNOT HAVE CONCENTRATION BROKEN.
Generally speaking, I think the only two classes to be truly nerfed so far in these updates are Druid and Warlock... which also happen to be my favorites in 5e. 😢
Alright, random thing I noticed - if dual wielding with a weapon that has Graze, the second attack doesn't add your ability modifier, so if you roll low, you could actually do less damage if you hit than if you missed.
Amazing collaboration!
I noticed you were both wondering about usage of Sap. This is tailor-made to nullify the enemy's advantage against a Recklessly attacking Barbarian!
Barbarian is now limited to not wearing heavy armor to be able to enter Rage, before they can still wear one but don't receive benefit from Rage. So, heavy armor is an Anger Management tool.
Colby's voice is pretty relaxing. Normally Heavy Metal is what relaxes me but listened to one of his vids where he had a cold and my eyes were feeling soooo heavy. Made it to the end though.
27:30 Rune Knight for sure, but also Goliath by the playtest rules.
Y’all are sleeping on the fact that Primal knowledge making those skills based on your strength score means they also have advantage because of Rage.
Awsome.
The push property is absolutely broken, especially with the enlarge/reduce spell...then you can push adult dragons!!
On the barbarian, it seems like you guys might be missing some of the awesome here (and please note, I'm not even close to being a fan of OneD&D so far and have no plans to make the switch) ... Feral Instinct (which you didn't discuss) gives both advantage to Initiative checks and Dexterity saves. Advantage on Dex saves is almost or just as good as giving them proficiency with Dex saves, so that's another Saving throw proficiency at level 7, or close enough. Indomitable Might pairs with Primal Knowledge very nicely, so by level 11, any time you score less than a 20 on any of those skill checks it counts as a 20.
Brutal Critical is huge... when you crit - which you do more often than others since you are attacking with advantage a lot - you not only do your crit damage but also adding your level... even to unarmed attacks. So at level 11 when you just start this ability, you're knocking down stone giants with your maul (topple property) and causing 4d6+5 str +3 rage +11 dmg, so 4d6+19 before adding any other mods (magic or feats) for an average of 33 per hit... or do the same thing with a battle axe (also has topple) for 2d8 and keep your shield, average dmg 28. And in unarmed combat? You're doing 21 points of damage (1 x2, +19) or even 2d8 +19 if you have the unarmed combat fighting style (which would require a feat). I know monsters have a lot of hit points at this level, but that's still a ton of damage from just one character, especially from a non-depleting resource... meaning you can do it over and over again every round, without expending "x per short rest" abilities or spell slots. Compare this to a fighter who's only doing 4d6 +7 with the same weapon (Str bonus plus dueling fighting style), and it's a huge difference.
For Relentless Rage, don't forget that there's no limit how often this can be used... if your 15th Barbarian gets taken to 0 hp, he only needs a DC 10 Con save to stay up and have 30 hit points. If it happens again, he can do the same thing with a DC 15 Con save, which should be easy to do by this level since his Con save is at least +10, maybe more. A third time, he's still got a 50/50 chance to do it with a DC 20 Con save, so that's like giving your barbarian 3 times where he should have fallen out of the fight, but didn't. Once is already pretty good, but 3 times is ... wow. DMs are gonna be chewing their nails over this one. And after a short rest, they can do it all over again at no penalty.
And finally, the end game... yeah, we lost the barbarian capstone of +4 to both Str and Con, but instead we get +2 to Str and Con at 18th, and then at level 20 we get another +2 to one of them, ANNNNND another +1 to something from the epic boon feat. So we only lost +1 to one score, and we gained an epic boon feat which should have some pretty cool extra feature of some kind. Not a bad trade-off at all, in my opinion.
So... what do you think?
Absolutely!
They really slept on the absolutely power that is the barbarian now.
The barbarian now never fails a skill check when it counts, does incredible crit damage across all weapons, included thrown weapons! and is several times harder to kill!
This is the first time I am actually excited after reading class changes from One DND!
Cheers!
I'm a little disappointed that Unarmored Defense hasn't been changed. It still causes the Barbarian to become kinda MAD (Multiple Ability Dependant). Because it kinda forces you to either increase 3 ability scores at once or have a shitty AC. Honestly you'd be better off picking up scale mail armor starting off and then later upgrading to half plate than you would be using Unarmored Defense. Personally I'd suggest changing Unarmored Defense to be more like Natural Armor. So while you're unarmored your AC would be equal to 13+con
My thoughts on the Weapon Masteries:
Cleave: This’d be great on a Paladin with Divine Favor, or a raging Barbarian.
Flex: I actually hate this feature. Versatile weapons should incentivize switching between one-handed and two-handed, providing different benefits for each. It’s right there in the name: versatile.
Graze: I feel like this could still allow bonus +1/2/3s from magic weapons. Just specify that you don’t hit with it, and as such can’t do something like smiting with it.
Nick: After some deliberation, I feel like it’s fine.
Push: Definitely needs to be once per turn, and maybe reduced to 5 ft. The “away from you” part is fine, though, considering that’s the wording things like Battle Master Push and Thunderous Smite use.
Sap: I feel like it’s fine that it’s only on attacks. After all, *AC* doesn’t boost your saves. I like this feature.
Slow: Decent tanking feature. Very good against enemies with free disengages or similar abilities.
Topple: I see this as a combination of Slow and Vex, but a bit less reliable since it requires a save, which I think is appropriate since it effectively does both. wait, why is it a con save? It should be Dex or Str.
Vex: I’d say the advantage is slightly stronger than Topple’s, since Topple requires a hit and a failed save. Topple doesn’t risk you breaking the chain, though. This doesn’t combo well with things that give you full-turn advantage, but it’s great with things that give you advantage on one attack, like Help or Zephyr Strike.
Zephyr Strike: Not a Weapon Mastery but a very underrated spell. Shame it’s Ranger exclusive. Bladesingers or Eldritch Knights with Booming Blade would get so much use out of its free disengage effect.
Ranger: The most underrated class in the game. It’s not even bad, and I’d argue it never was.
to balance martial with casters - is it as easy as dropping back to d4 (+ con bonus) hp for full casters for hp - and making a char casting arcane spells unable to use any armor (even if multiclassed) ? Old school I know but is this simple fix enough. Harsh for sure, or perhaps a feat like "Iron Will" - granting martial chars only an X/short rest innate counterspell-like ability?
This was a good thing to have on in the background while playing some battletech. thanks for reviewing the rules.
I love how most miss the epic boon ability change slightly. That at max on pure class would give not only the epic boon but also increases the primary ability of that class and raise the maximum number of it to 30 now.
Though, the only issue is getting to max 20 and continuing on byond that for those characters. So it's fair to not forcus on it too much on it.
As a player who really enjoyed my time as a barb in a long campaign, the playtest barbarian is honestly a substancial buff! Dont sleep on the good stuff!
Primal power that aids your skill checks + Indomitable might make sure you as the barb always makes skill checks when it counts (never losing a random strength check to the random lucky roll by the wizard again!).
The actually scaling damage from brutal critical is fantastic across the board, as very few weapons actually has a d12 damage die, and nothing sucks more then getting a 1 on that. Brutal critical on a dagger only added one more 1d4 to the crit. They have also removed the restriction that limited features/bonuses such as rage damage, reckless attack and brutal critical to melee weapons, which means thrown weapons benefits from it!
Relentless rage can be used several times per shortrest! which means if you get knocked down you get double your barb level in HP EVERY TIME you succeed the Con save!
They might have moved around some of the features, but I absolutely think this is a fantastic buff to the class. This is the first class in the One DND playtest where I actually like the changes. The Barbarian now deals more reliable damage across all weapons, will absolutely succeed a skillcheck in a pinch and is waay harder to kill!
Sorry for the wall of text!
But as a Barbarian at heart, Im actually excited for the changes to the class! (This class only tho...)
The weapon mastery system seems like an overcomplicated but at the same time simplified version of Pathfinder 2e weapon properties.
Less options more work
I am very positive on the new barbarian. I think it improved a lot (new rage, primal knowledge + indomitable, better bounce back, and better(?) critical). I am excited for the new one!
Absolutely! I wrote a wall of text explain in my own comment, but you put it simply! Barbarians just got way cooler.
I would say brutal critical is better now! It doesn't waste 3 level features(kinda) and it does reliable damage across the board!
At level 11 a 18 str barb could crit with a dart for a total of 2d4 + 18 even without weapon bonuses
@@Motidur Yeah certainly most of the time the new brutal critical does more dmg! My "(?)" was in a few instances it is worse. Namely lvl 9 and 10, where you don't get it anymore 😂
Also, if you have a d12 weapon it's equal at lvl 13 and worse at level 17-19 (going by average roll on the d12).
Yeah - taken together, I'm going to buy this! It looks like fun and is SO much clearer! I appreciate the doubling down on what classes represent. Still needs a bit of work, but the majority of this is really well developed.
the topple push fighter combo is just that one baseball bat heat action from yakuza
Which is probably great.
Two points from the start of your fighter discussion:
1. Fighters having extra feats is a hold over from earlier editions. While that may not be a reason to keep it, it wasn't 5e laziness that lead to that being the design.
2. All subclasses coming online at 3rd level presents two problem classes: clerics and warlocks. How can you be the devout follower of a god/ the second signatory to a contract from whom you derive all your power while having no idea who it is you are serving?
FYI, Crawford clarified smites Can still crit.
I do not think I would let that "push doesn't specify horizontally" argument fly at the table. Specifying away from you is enough, unless you are attacking someone who is above you, there won't be any fall damage added to that.
Love the long form content on this kind of stuff
You two are a great team. Keep up the collaborations!
Rage dmg needs to be proficiency bonus and give 1 more rage per long rest.
Brutal Critical should be replaced with a feature that does that damage on each attack that hits, or increases your crit chance and adds your critical damage.
The collaboration we were all waiting for.
This is an awesome Deep Dive you guys did
You guys bringing up Reckless Attack vs Vex also made me think. If you don't gain anything from getting damage (no longer extending rage) then there really is no point in recklessly attacking anymore
Something they missed about Vex, or didn't pay enough attention to, is that the next attack has to be on the same creature. Great if you are fighting a dragon, or some other giant beastie, but if it is several medium enemies, or worse, a bunch of minions, then it is useless. If the creature dies from your attack, or before your next turn, then Vex does nothing for your next attack. I can honestly see a situation where it is one of the worst, because at the start of your turn you don't have the Adv, then you get advantage on your second attack, maybe your third, but then it either died during your turn, or dies before your next turn, so you have to start all over. Add to that the chance of missing the first attack and not starting the chain, or randomly missing the second attack... I don't know, I feel like it's good, and maybe especially good when combined with an offhand dagger to use Nick as the last attack for turn, but I think it is way overhyped by these guys. I think I'd rather spend my whole turn trying to Topple it, so that all my allies can pummel it into oblivion and move on to the next guy (advantage for everyone is better than advantage just for me, especially if the advantage for me ends up wasted because my allies kill it anyway).
Great match up of Will and Colby! Do more!
I simply don't understand why people are saying Martials are even worse now? Were we all expecting martials to get maneuvers as a global mechanic? I'm actually really dang excited to fuss around with weapon mastery and see what can be done.
39:10 just wanted to point out that both your rage bonus damage and your Reckless Attack can be used with thrown weapons now
The fighter buffs actually seem really great and I’m a fan. It hurts to say I’m liking One D&D because I haven’t so far but I like all of the stuff in this video
One spot where Barbarians did gain, and I’m glad of it, is that they can gain their bonus damage and can reckless attack with any strength-based attacks, opening the door to thrown weapons in a way they didn’t work in 5e. A cool fantasy becomes available again.
Did they notice that with Primal Knowledge not only can you use Strength but I believe if you're raging you get advantage on all those checks as well because you have advantage on Strength Checks while raging and those are now Strength Checks. and of course at lvl 9 those because auto 20's (if you have +5 Strength by then) which is pretty great and similar to Rogue's Reliable Talent
Also Brutal Critical is basically even. At 11th lvl it is better, but at 13th lvl is basically equal since you'd get an extra 2d12 (13 average) or just a flat 13. then the new once is a bit better for 14th, 15th and 16th lvl (I mean barely but better), but at 17th its now worse since you'd normally have 3d12 (avg 19.5 dmg) vs this new one giving you only flat 17 dmg. So its really a different way but no real benefit. They should have given Barbarians more since no one likes playing them at higher levels and instead they did nothing to Brutal Critical and decreased Primal Champion.