Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins | One D&D
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2:47: Playable races
9:55 Ardlings
17:40 Backgrounds
34:27 Feats
47:49 Rolls, Natural 20s and Inspiration
UNEARTHED ARCANA 2022
CHARACTER ORIGINS
By Jeremy Crawford, with Christopher Perkins and Ray Winninger
This document is the first in a series of Unearthed Arcana articles that present material designed for the Player’s Handbook coming out in 2024. The material here uses the rules in the 2014 Player’s Handbook, except where noted. Providing feedback on this document is one way you can help shape the next generation of D&D.
Inside you’ll find the following content:
Character Races. These are the Race options being considered for the Player’s Handbook- all with updated design.
Character Backgrounds. Here you’ll see the fun role that a character’s Background is going to play in helping flesh out the character’s origin.
Starting Languages. This section specifies the number of languages a character knows when created.
Feats. Every 1st-level Feat mentioned herein appears in the “Feats” section, which contains both new and revised Feats.
Rules Glossary. In this document, any term followed by an asterisk appears in a glossary at the end. This glossary defines certain rules terms that appear in this document, focusing on terms that have been clarified or redefined or that don’t appear in the 2014 Player’s Handbook.
Before delving into these new options, please read the “This Is Playtest Material” sidebar. - บันเทิง
"We want this Dwarf to be the Dwarfiest Dwarf. We want this Elf to be the Elfiest Elf."
*Humans get Inspiration every Long Rest*
"We want this Human to be the most 'Hold My Ale' Human!"
So d&d humans are the new ttrpg equivalent of Florida man? I can get behind that XD
@@iselreads2908 Always has been.
@@iselreads2908 Always have been. It's only just now backed by the rules :P
That seems crazy. Then human players would always want to take a long rest before a big challenge. Get your beauty sleep men, this is going to be a tough boss fight.
They do get "Versatile" to get ANOTHER Feat.
"The way that Ardlings differ from their Aasimar cousins is that every one has the face of an animal. You see, we're really leaning in to the fact that a lot of D&D players are furries."
Exactly. Do you know what? I wouldn't mind that in the PHB too much... but not as the celestial counterpart to the Tiefling. That should be the Aasimar.
Imagine how a horse-headed aasimar eats. The jaw motion and the blank look in the eyes. Oats.
Why would there ever be a direct connection between Furries and D&D?
@@drosarius5929 because newer players want to play neon green dog people?
Ardling Is an anagram of Guardinal without the U and an A. There were Celestial in 3.5 and were animal Based(Aka Celestial Furries). They took the Aasimar(Planetouched) Guardinal, renamed them with an anagram and presented them as novelty.
Lazy Donuts!
Here's a summary or quick click to what part you want:
2:24 Free feat (based on background potentially?) at level 1 at character creation
3:40 New traits for races based on mythic original of the race.
5:00 Continuation to races using dwarfs as example. To make them feel "dwarfy", useful, but also familiar.
6:40 Talks about Tiefling bloodlines and changes related to lower planes and resistances. Also fire bolt cantrip. Potentially bloodline choices to other races?
9:00 Tieflings and Humans get size choices of small or medium. Referencing Tieflings to smaller infernal beings as reason as well as human to give option to those that are human, just smaller.
09:57 New race in Arcana called Ardlings (?) Outer planes related like Tieflings and Aasimar. Connected to 3 upper planes. Small/Medium options, they all have faces of animals (Ancient Egypt pantheon?) You get animal choices to pick. Comes with temporary flight through spectral wings. Exalted, heavenly or idyllic legacies similar to Tiefling bloodlines.
14:24 Orcs are added into the Player's Handbook. Identical from Monsters from the Multiverse. Considered “graduates” to the Player's Handbook.
15:15 More customizable, and narrative weight in backgrounds. Also adding some changes to races to give the same customizable and narrative weight. Opening up wacky genetics options, get to pick one parent's mechanics/in-game traits, and the other parent for aesthetics.
17:45 Back to backgrounds. "Build your own background" with instructions or use templates pre-built to customize.
19:05 Ability scores selection are now, in play testing, within the background sections. But you can still, and I quote, “put it wherever you want” - Jeremy Crawford.
21:29 2 skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, language, starting equipment, but now changed, so they all have the same value to emphasize the build your own background.
22:44 First level feat, BUT, giving feats a level system. Don't want to make feat selection overwhelming, so they are grouping them up.
25:00 FIRST level feats no longer have ability score bonuses, it is the sign of first level feats. Higher level feats will still have ability score increases and some balancing.
26:40 How some template backgrounds have specific feats or options, but can also use it to match the way you want it.
27:57 Alert feat is changed. 37:18 is the changes, now a first level feat. Allows for switching initiative roll with another character.
28:10 Backgrounds is about building character and make mechanic game choices, to make the character you want, for the story you want to have.
29:20 Background is how to express your character's culture and moving some racial coded elements and move it to background and culture.
30:00 Example dwarves gets fewer subraces due to it being more cultural than racial and moved into background. Mentions laborer as a background for the classical fantasy dwarf.
32:10 Talks about Monsters of the Multiverse synergy and that it will fit will all existing books, past or future.
34:20 Feats philosophy and their decision-making on it. Includes revisions, brand-new feats. Why some became first level feats. Also, making sure all the feats are not just made for specific archetypes. But that most are actually helpful, no matter who they are, or narrative reasons (background), or helpful to the party. Filling gaps that existed and broad functionality.
38:53 Example of a new feat Musician added. 3 music instrument choices, gives inspiration after short/long rest based on the proficiency bonus.
41:29 Magic initiate spell changes. You can now cast the spells you select from the feat, with your existing spell slots, if you have them.
42:22 NEW thing: spell definitions, categorization. Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists. "The source of your magic". Arcane - Manipulating the magic in the Multiverse. Divine - Deities and their realms. Primal - Drawing on magic from the elements, spirits, and nature. They are no longer just flavor
44:00 New spells in the future will have one or more of these spell list, allowing for easier picking. Allowing for new classes/spell, spell lists added to potentially be introduced easier?
47:18 Might be getting UA material monthly, they need a lot of feedback and mentioned earlier it would go on for the next coming year, and trailer suggested the book is to be released in 2024*
48:45 Inspiration is now going to be obtainable through natural 20s. Giving a snowball effect. You can also only have 1 inspiration, but give it to another character.
49:45 Oh dear god, they buffed humans to generate one inspiration every long rest. Which makes sense since the extra feat from Variant Human is now the level 1 standard for everyone. Meaning, humans were useless for about 48 minutes, lol.
50:39 They are now looking at things that people hoard and reworks it to be used, instead of keeping things on your character sheet for the whole campaign.
51:48 They are TESTING new critical hits mechanics. (Could spell critical hits might do additional effects of some kind in the future? If those spells can't get critical rolls, I wonder?)
54:40 Only player characters can do critical hits in the testing. Seeing strange/unsatisfying/terrifying events of low level players getting annihilated. Monsters, technically, already got their own critical hit mechanic, the recharge ability, such as the dragon's breath effect. Calls the player character's critical hit mechanic as "special ability of player characters".
58:35 Embracing how people actually plays with natural 1's and natural 20's. Natural ones are an automatic failure, natural 20's are natural success for ability checks. Not just in combat. Turns out we all been playing it wrong. (But remember, natural 20 Charisma rolls are not mind-control.)
1:00:20 Everything is subject to change based on us. Play test, play test, play test. It is very important since they are redoing the FIRST book based on all of our feedback from the beginning until now.
1:01:57 They will be very specific what things they release into Unearthed Arcana, not just throw random stuff out.
1:03:05 More videos are coming, here is the timestamp how to get access to the UA, feedback and all that stuff. The first UA material is coming out any second now, or might already be out!
*2024 release MIGHT be the Wizards of the Coast's Virtual Table Top (VTT) software, I might have confused the new player's handbook and the software release to be the same. Wopsie!
Did I miss something? Let me know!
Thank you!!!
Thank you for doing this, I always really appreciate it when someone does this, especially for very long videos like this. Keep up th good work!
You are a saint. Thank you so much!!!
Absolut legend, thanks
You’re the hero we need
It sounds like the game is really integrating customizability into the core rules. Instead of presenting a bunch of default options with some half-hearted build-your-own rules (like in 2014), we're getting fairly robust and flexible background rules followed by a bunch of examples. I like that.
Let hope they fix some of the martial rules like two weapon fighting, and others.
@@chrowx Don't let past cynicism get in the way of future enjoyment :)
@@chrowx Small rule revisions? They are changing almost every race, feat, class, spell, completely changing backgrounds, redefining combat, conditions... on and on. This is the first UA of OD&D. It's 5.5e not 6e and it's meant to clean up the progressively messier rules while shifting a lot of things in a way that players have said they've wanted for a while. How you got "small rule revisions" from an hour long video that only scratched the surface of the UA is truly some next level idiocy. And it may seem like revisions because they have already been working these things into 5e with Tasha's, Xanathar's and MoM. Also, it's been 8 years, second why would they have released a revision of the system after just releasing it? smdh
@@chrowx Well we don't really know that yet. All we have are these new origin rules so far, and there's some pretty significant changes here.
It feels like they are canonizing homebrew rules which seems… dumb. Let players customize their home game with home rules or you will marginalize a huge amount of your core customers.
"Everyone's background will now give them a first level feat" my friends and I have been house-ruling that you get a bonus feat at level 1 for years, so that's already a great change.
lol like 3.5 dnd used to do.
i agree, i think it will add so much more variation to chracters
Tying ability scores to backgrounds means less customisation in practice. Free feat at lvl one would give us actual customisation.
@@deanmccourt4800 in the pdf they straight up say you can put the asi anywhere so it's not like you are locked. Also they do give a free feat at lvl 1
@@dominikpokorny7993 now we're back we started where backgrounds don't matter.
Could have replaced 4 pages of rules with "free feat at lvl 1"
I love the emphasis on background, however I did love how the old one’s would prompt you with ideals, bonds, flaws etc. sometimes I’d ignore them, but other times they were very inspiring and helpful
That might still appear. We don't know.
hopefully those will still be there and just are not in this first print. What i REALLY miss are the social background features. Like how the haunted had an easier time getting help from strangers due to "Heart of Darkness" or how Antropologist can communicate on a basic level with any group they observe thanks to "adept Linguist"
i like tie in with the existing mechanics focus traits, but it would be great to have something kept in the rules that encuraged uniqueness in roleplay
@@KN-oc7cu Love em too but don't think I've seen it used in a table
@@CharalamposKoundourakis i guess thats fair. i am always more excited for them in theory then in practice. In the tables i run normally the ones that are used are to find a library or pull rank on a city gaurd, but even then its rare... hell i even have a campagn thats going where a knight has 3 retainers to be go-fors for him, and even though i role play the npcs the player rarely asks them to do anything lol. its much more smooth of a system design to cut things people dont use.
still as a player i always loved scoping out the rare oportunites to use this and would hate to see them go :(
@@KN-oc7cu Only exception for me is I'm using the functionary feature where I'm an expert in bureacracy but the dm in that game is kickass.
"Spells don´t crit" Warlock: Then we agree to disagree.
Edit: FFS
For those who like to "UHM Ackchyually!"
Warlocks cast more(!) than just EB. And yes, other classes suffer from it aswell!
"I reject your reality and substitute my own via my patron"
R.I.P. Firebolt crit. The only thing a low level mage can enjoy
Eldritch Blast isn't on the Arcane spell list. It's potentially a feature not a spell. If it is, it could maybe crit.
@@dragonboyjgh so? It is not JUST eldritch blast. And RAW "Weapons and Unarmed Strikes* have a special feature for player characters: Critical Hits" It is neither.
@@tobylegion6913 unless it's rewritten to BE a charisma based weapon attack, thereby rolling the hexblade changes into base warlock. INCLUDING bringing back the functionality of the old 3.5 Hideous Blow invocation.
"Most spells trigger saving throws as opposed to an attack roll"
Warlocks who use exclusively Eldritich Blast:
-_-
No reason why eldritch blast could be different. It might not even be a spell; it was specifically excluded from the arcane cantrip list in the UA
My thoughts exactly. I get their thouhgts on changing how crits work but beamlocks aelly do lose out.
@@chrisdaignault9845 I'm guessing that's a hit towards Warlock being finally switched to being a int based caster.
Non pact of the blade warlockd btfo
Where is this mention? I don't like this at all. Way too many DMs fudge saving rolls against players.
I hope that, with the new "monsters can't crit" rule, you update the Grave Domain Cleric features. Undoing critical hits is one of that subclass's most impactful abilities
i’m wondering if they’ll even consider it as part of the play test, considering it wasn’t part of the core phb. in which case, it doesn’t feel like it’s very backwards compatible with other sourcebooks.
guess we’ll have to see in the next UA.
And Adamantine is useless as Enemy Weapons, and PC armor/shields.
Like any rule that is optional.
@@richardmoreno5445 Yes but like all core rules, it will be one other material will assume to be the case going forward. The impact won't be huge for most tables, but as pointed out classic items like adamantite armour will either have to gain some new feature, or be functionally no different from steel in any game using the basic rules.
It's shocking that anyone would even consider the possibility that these things wouldn't get updated. OBVIOUSLY something that literally doesn't work with the new rules will change when the rules change.
I don't know if anyone noticed, but Humans can now be size small/medium, while Dwrafs are still stuck on medium only XD
Yeah but it's weirder that its purely cosmetic
I am assuming this is to allow players to create a human with dwarfism or a child. With the way the background works now, you can play a level 0 game that takes place before you become an adventurer.
jesus, make dwarves small already!
make em small and give em features that give them strength equal to a medium size individual and that's it!
I am sad to see Dragonborn's breath weapon nerfed again, just after it was buffed to actually have a use. Now it's right back to where it was when 5e first launched, just slightly different with a higher base damage.
You can still use the Fizban's Version though. Just cut off the Ability Scroe Improvements granted by the race (as they are now granted by background), use the Fizbans Raceial Traits instead of the new ones and you're good to go. That's the good part. The Races are structured in a way that you can use 5e races without any work whatsoever.
@@StabYourBrainyeah I think you are right there, I also think they don't intend to replace or remove Chromatic, Metallic, and Gem, dragonborn.
1d10+level scales really well though
I thought that at first, but this is as good or better than Fizban’s. An 11th level Fizban’s breath weapon deals 3d10 (average 17.5, minimum 3, maximum 30) and an 11th level db under this system deals 1d10+11 (average of only 16.5, but minimum of 12 and maximum of 21). So the maximum is less, but the minimum is more, and moreover, you’re just getting a much narrower spread of damage, which is overall an improvement to the ability. No one wants to spend an action dealing several dudes 4 damage at level 11.
That said, I think they need to change it back to replacing one attack in a series, as opposed to spending your whole action.
Let's write them when the survey comes online
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My biggest fear is DnD becomming a subscription service in which case poor folks like me will be slowly forced out of the enjoyment of this hobby.
Is there going to be a way to add our physical copies of our books to D&D Beyond or is it always going to be purchase digital or physical but not both unless you want to pay 2x
@@GamerSkyler9 i realy hope so, it is so unfair we shall buy the books so many times. 1 physical. 2 fantasy grounds unity 3 dndbeyoun not even a discount on it and i know there is more like roll20. foundry and soon new vvt modes
@@sheatanner9935 the big problem is the corporate culture. subscription service could be cool, IF it was cheap, and it COULD be cheap given its one system used by many users, all digital content. BUT instead the price of a subscription is 'what is the maximum we can squeeze out of the subscriber' instead of 'what is the cheapest we can charge to deliver a good system, provide a decent income for everyone, and a small profit excess for further development'. Greed has produced the worst atrocities throughout recorded history and we'll continue to see it in the new feudal corporate culture.
Still using the term Race is problematic.
I want spears to be better. Hopefully there are feats to do that.
Same!
considering they were the main weapon of the vast majority of foot soldiers across time and space, they should absolutely be better.
There already is a feat for that and it's called polearm master. Spear and quarterstaff are the only compatible options that let you equip a shield so spears absolutely have their place.
@@andrewtedd2398 I still feel they should do better damage or have higher versatility. Let them be finesse or something.
@@VioletMoonfox 1d6, compatible with polearm master, and has the thrown and versatile properties. Any more damage on a thrown weapon would be a little scary, especially if finesse was also added. There's plenty of weapons that need rebalancing but I don't think the spear is one of them.
I think that instead of spellcasters losing the ability to get a critical hit with spells, it would be more interesting if Martials were given more versatile options with weapon-specific abilities
Like if a blow dart could force an enemy at less than 10 HP to save against falling asleep, or if a thrown dagger could pin a target to the floor
Yeah I can def see they are trying to give martials a boost but I feel that this isn't the way. Weapon specific effects or abilities would def change the mentality of jusy pick biggest Dice in my opinion
I'm not a fan of spells/abilities being unable to critically strike and hope that change is reverted. Spells in particular having attack rolls instead of hitting saves is already exceptionally rare. Now those rarer options are even a little worse now. In my opinion they should produce more spells that have attack rolls instead of trying to hit saves all the time.
Let’s see how it plays at the table. Most spells and cantrips typically outstrip martial damage options at higher levels as a base function, so giving martial the edge of occasional extra damage may not prove detrimental to the casters in actual play.
The point I assume it to not step on martials toe, there will probably be a feature or feat added that makes a catrip slinger build viable, but they're unlikely to give the option to all spellcasters.
I sort of like it as a way to help differentiate martials and casters. Especially when you consider that at higher levels casters typicall outclass martials. It sort of helps balance things a bit.
Maybe Agonizing Blast will enable crits as well as add the Charisma mod to damage.
I’m not a fan either. The game is supposed to have epic swings in either direction. Not just swing in favor of players so they get a guaranteed trophy.
One thing i'd love to see is a return of some of the 3.5 classification of abilities such as spell-like and supernatural so that its more clear cut what can be dispelled or resisted by some effects.
Speaking of this sort of stuff I'm really interested to see if they'll port Elder Evils to 5e but I'm really worried they're going to bungle it horribly
Looks great, only concerns so far are these:
Dragonborn lost the ability to substitute it's breath weapon for one of it's attacks, which it gained in Fizban's. I believe this was a welcome change and would like to see it stay.
While I like the simplification for the spell lists (particularly for the sorcerer), I don't know if it makes the most thematic sense in the case of the bard, but maybe that's just me.
I don't really think that lucky should be a 1st level feat but at least a 4th level feat. Too much power.
I would like to know if there is still an option for floating ASI scores or if it now will be locked to backgrounds. Specifically because this also locks out splitting it up into +1/+1/+1, as I don't see that as option.
Other than those, I love pretty much all of the changes listed, as they're all quite interesting.
@Portsyde The very first paragraph of the Backgrounds section explains building your own background, which is now the default. When you build your own background, ASI is floating and has the 3 +1 rules. The prebuilt backgrounds are suggestions and examples if players do not want to build their own.
Also Lucky did change, though only slightly. The original Lucky allowed you to choose which roll to use, therefore allowing abuse if you had disadvantage you could essentially have 3 dice to choose from. The NEW Lucky specifically gives you Advantage. You no longer get to choose which one to use, you have to take the higher. This also means that if you had disadvantage, you do not roll 3 dice, you cancel the disadvantage and only roll once. Also you have a number of points equal to PB rather than 3 always. Also when you use a Luck point against a creature you give them Disadvantage vs choosing which roll they use.
Yeah, most likely we can keep using Fizbans, so im not too worried about dragonborn; most 5e-books seem to be backwards-compatible after all, especially post-tashas, and they've been working on this for quite a while now. There's been talk about it since 2020 IRC.
Also, listen closely what they said about spell lists; classes and subclasses will also have access to spells beyond these three lists, so I imagine Bards'll still have access to things like Healing Word and Cure Wounds for example, even though they're according to the UA, an Arcane class, and those are divine spells.
If anything, this seems to be giving bards more offensive options; if bards have access to the entire Arcane spell list, and then some extra spells from the Primal and Divine spell lists, then imagine real quick: Bards could get Fireball without magical secrets now. At the very least, the UA would give them Firebolt, Hellish Rebuke, Chromatic Orb... lots and lots of more offensive options. It's interesting! though we'll have to wait and see for further UAs on how things'll work!
Another concern if it comes to pass, multiclassing casting classes with the different major spell lists.
If my understanding is correct, the spell lists for the classes are broken down between Arcane, Divine, and Primal spells. Each caster class is assigned one of these lists and can pick from any spell on that list so long as they have the appropriate level and slots for it. Imagine a Paladin who'd likely use the Divine spell list, multiclassing with Warlock that is likely an Arcane spell list caster. Granted we still have the downsides of multiclassing to help keep things in check, but imagine the chaos it could cause.
Crawford does say in the video that we'll see in the future how classes interact with these lists. So it won't be all Arcane classes with the same spell list or anything.
Also, to your point about the lucky feat - the feat isn't as powerful in a game where humans get one charge of it everyday, and you can get more everytime you roll a 20. Or its more powerful? The balance of the feat will be different.
@@greenplumberL reading it, you have points equal to proficiency, you can either use a point to give yourself advantage, or to give an opponent disadvantage
Auto success on 20 and failure on 1: You are not removing friction, those groups that guess the rules, rather than read have no friction, those that actually read this rule have no friction. However, you do put a lot of pressure on the DM to control when players roll, some players tend to roll while they are declaring an action, even if they shouldn't. I think it is a good idea for saves though, put the fear of damage into the wizards with +9 to concentration saves. And give a glimmer of hope to the fighter in full plate that is about to be roasted by a dragon.
That's because saves and attacks are limited and straightforward in what they do. You either hit or you miss, either succumb to the effect or avoid/withstand it. But with checks, it's up to players to decide what they want to do and up to DM to set the difficulty. Automatic success on a nat20 might mean ridiculous shenanigans, like ripping a planet in half with a successful athletics check. What is possible and what in not is up to DM to decide and adjudicate. I suggest that WotC provide a clear description or ruling to prevent people from attempting to lift castles or make DM tell them the secret plan of the villain because someone tried to guess it with intelligence check and scored a nat20.
@@kamchatmonk In a way, they already do that, they say no DC can be lower than 5, or higher than 30.
I disagree with that, if I roll a 35 on athletics, I should jump over some obstacle that the guy who "only" rolls a 30 can't.
Another reason the auto success bugs me, is because you cannot really handle retries. What is to stop you from just trying a task like picking a lock over and over again until you roll a 20? The DM. But then the question becomes when is it appropriate to retry, how many times can you retry etc.
Under the old rules, if you had the time, you could just retry until you rolled a 20, and if that wasn't enough, the lock is just beyond you, now nothing is beyond you.
I can definately agree with, saves and attacks being much more limited in the scope of what they do, and therefore auto success being fine, I think that is good observation.
@@peterrasmussen4428 We usually ruled one try per long rest to avoid endless retries. That way, at least time is a factor, it is usually limited in some way in campaigns.
@@kamchatmonk That is reasonable, and will probably work for most situations
@@peterrasmussen4428 Also, that new UA says: "Rolling a 20 doesn’t bypass limitations on the test, such as range and line of sight. The 20
bypasses only bonuses and penalties to the roll."
Curious wording. It kinda depends on what DM considers limitations on the test. Also, if it only bypasses bonuses and penalties, it might mean that if the task is impossible for a given character (but still doable for someone else), he/she still won't succeed. WotC gotta clarify this nuance. Lastly, the DM can always say, "you succeeded in that you didn't traumatize yourself while trying to do something this suicidal"))
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I can't be the only one who sees a lot of inspiration from Pathfinder 2e in some of these new features.
Which is natural. 5e inspired PF2e. Pathfinder 2e among many cool stuff HUGELY improves on player customization. Now 5.5 takes some of the ideas of further player customization from PF2e and implements it into their new design.
Inspired? Stolen. And they're acting as if these ideas are their own. I don't remember Jason Bulmahn pretending that he didn't look at 4e, 5e, and other modern RPGs for ideas to consider when designing PF2e.
Oh no I was totally feeling that, too. Felt weird to me that Ardlings aren't just a kind of Aasimar, too?
PF2E imo actually pulls a lot of inspiration from 4E DnD, and i think 5E also pulled some elements from all of the older editions and renamed things. so it wouldnt surprise me if some inspiration is pulled from PF2E. But mostly its that groups who play D&D also prob play PF and vice versa, and since these are the groups prob giving the most feed back they prob see things they like in one game and ask for it to be in the other.
@@ErikZane lol at pathfinder being considered "original" in any sense of the word.
@@Agell He is referring to Pathfinder 2e. Which is original in the same way that 4e or 5e is original.
Love what I'm hearing. My only gripe is with Inspiration. I would rather that natural 1s get rewarded with Inspiration rather than 20s, especially if auto-fails are going to be a thing. But either way, this will incentivize roll-spamming, which I disapprove of. If this is going to be a thing, then there should be bolded text that says players can't just make checks whenever they want to.
This is the way it kind of works in Legend of the 5 Rings. If you try to fight against your flaw (like if your flaw is Alcoholic and you fail a roll to avoid drinking in a situation where you really shouldn't be...like at court in front of the Emperor) and fail, you get a void point (inspiration). Note you cannot 'intentionally fail' either for a void point...or if you did there are other systems in place which mean you lose prestige (honor or glory) by failing and honor or glory are pretty damn important, if nobody respects you...well...life gets very hard.
That'll probably be in the PHB/DMG. Since 20's are auto passes, there needs to be a clarification that DM's need to only ask for a roll if something is possible.
@@corbingovers7559 Agreed, this will (and always has been) up to the DM to determine when a roll is required. I do think it will help people realize that players don't need to roll for every little thing, or don't get to make a check because they said they wanted to. The DM determines when a roll is required, and even if you use this rule in the first place. If it works for your table, cool, if not, oh well, keep doing inspiration how you like it.
Players already aren't supposed to decide to make checks. Athletics isn't a button you press to "do the thing". the player describes an action, DM says "okay I'll need you to roll for that." Then the player rolls. Short handing to "can I roll X" is useful but if a player just rolls then declares "I got a nat twenty to persuade this guy" i without asking or the roll being called for, it doesn't count.
@@TheOokamiStudios yes but it could be clearer in the PHB and DMG to prevent "my nat 20 deception roll makes me king now" assumptions. Previously it was the 30+ DC that provided the impossibility, now it's "don't allow rolls on impossible stuff"
Level 1 Feats connected to backgrounds is giving me big Pathfinder 2e vibes and I love to see it.
The more D&D turns into pathfinder the better it will be tbh
Also: I really hope WotC does release the core books in other languages at the time as the english versions :D
Spell "crit", rolling 20 on the attack roll, or rolling a natural 1 on a saving throw should just lead to the maximum dice damage. The current spells are balanced to be good damage with average rolls and devastating rolling max damage. I believe this would be a nice way of dealing with spell "crits".
Yes
I've been considered this for a hot minute myself. I'm just worried about it nuking my players too much to actually use it😅
Disintegrate
Statistically, that’s pretty close to what a crit is.
definitely agree that something needs to happen here, or at more least feats or internal class mechanics for spellcasters that make it easier for them to maximize/enhance their damage. maybe a 1/day spellcasting feat that lets them deal max damage, no roll needed.
The new alert feat fixes a common rogue problem. It's often much easier to get sneak attack if you don't go first.
But now who has alert can be surprised... I didn't like it. Perhaps just changing the +5 to +Profciency would be better. And giving the ability to swap initiative with an ally is also a good point. But being surprised having the Alert feat seems like a bad downgrade...
@@danielzarkos In previous UAs, there have been feats that require other feats. It's possible that they've pared down Alert to make it appropriate for level 1 characters and will have an upgraded version with additional features available at later levels.
Am I confused. Isn't it core rules that you can delay your turn to some degree?
@ No, you currently can't delay or alter turn order.
@ I think you often can hold an action or a spell, but not a turn. Not movement or bonus action. But that might be a house rule?
Making the game much more modular, easy to user for beginners at start high customization option. Balancing the classes, features and taking out unpleasnt high randomeness from combat by specifically giving more control to DMs and more interaction options for players. Love the route they are taking from Gamedesigner perspective.
Okay, but what's the draw for vet tabletoppers? Being beginner friendly is all well and good but you're only a beginner for so long.
so... being more and more less like dnd...
@@RaineInChaos eh fair. But to DA a bit, many systems these days allow for high customization.
@@RaineInChaos same:)
A lot of cool stuff here, but the one thing I am absolutely against is the change to critical attacks. Spellcasters already don't get to add any modifiers to their spells except for a few very specific class features. They also have far fewer opportunities for critical hits due to so many spells being Save DC rather than Attack Roll. Now you want to remove the few times a spellcaster can get excited to actually roll a nat 20 in combat for simplicity's sake? I feel like this is a change that will only hurt the player experience.
As for making critical hits a player only feature? This feels like a turn back towards the super easy "no-risk, all-reward" style of 4th edition (I skipped most of 4E, this is just what it feels like to me, 4e players don't come after me please, lol). It should be on the DM to mitigate early game crit damage if necessary for that party. Criticals by monsters or npcs can be scary but it's also exhilarating and often leads to amazing encounter-changing moments that are really memorable. I don't think there should be an official ruling stating that only players can crit. Leave that up to the DMs and what they feel is right for their table.
I'm not completely against the snowballing inspiration on nat 20s, it could be interesting and I'd like to try it out, however I agree with some of the other people here who say it would be more interesting to get an inspiration after a nat 1 resolves instead. You failed miserably but you learned from that failure and you're determined to do better next time.
Overall some very cool new options that I'm excited to test out!
I have no intention of starting an argument, I just wanna present the point that spellcasters already have a lot more things than martial classes; be it the crazy utility wizards and bards have, the buff and battlefield control clerics, paladins and even warlocks can bring, etc. I, personally, wouldn't be against leaving crits as a martial feature and having some kind of minor effect on the spells when they score a nat 20.
@@thedeathofabachelor8782 First off, thank you for stating your opinion in a mature and well explained way!
If we were back in 3.5 I would agree with you, however 5e does give martial classes a lot more to do than they used to. There are very few subclasses that don't get access to special actions, powers, or spells. This change would hurt any spellcaster that wants to build a blaster, devastate rogues and paladins since it only allows weapon damage to crit, and give nothing new to the few martial classes it wants to lift up. On top of this, since this will technically still be 5e and so many players have already been playing with spell, smite, and sneak attack crits, this will likely feel like a pointless punishment to many players.
Nat 20s should feel like an exciting event when rolled, especially in combat. With these changes many players won't have any reason to care about them and that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of fun. I will be very surprised if it makes it to print and would fully expect it to be ignored at most tables that have already been using 5e.
@@CandleLight129 I agree and disagree with your martial point. True, martials have come a long way from 3.5, but compared to spellcasters in 5e, there is a MASSIVE imbalance between the two. Strixhaven is a criminal example of this. They dedicated an ENTIRE book for spellcasters, and gave spellcasters a ton of stuff even before then, while there's very little for the martials.
@@kaiserium8551 Fair point, but then the solution should be to build something new that celebrates the martial classes rather than just taking things away from the others. On top of that, these changes still punish martial classes (as far as we know before seeing class changes) like the rogue and paladin. Give the fighter and barbarian something new to play with that's theirs, rather than taking something away from everyone else. An example, if we want to stick with the theme of critical hits, would be bringing back expanded crit ranges for weapon and unarmed attacks, or exploding crit dice, or weapon specific effects on crit hits.
Agreed, removing caster crits doesn't address any imbalance but just removes those exciting crit moments from casters. Also the monster critting thing, I agree entirely that it's good to have an element of chaos in there, that the monster may suddenly crit twice in a turn & you've got that tense moment of trying to pull through. Far better that it's a little harder to balance than that it just becomes a game of your attack & hp vs their attack & hp til someone dies
To be clear, we access the document on DND beyond? Looks like there's a place the document should be in the description, but it's not there.
It drops at 12 PDT
PDF drops at 12PM PST/3PM EST
Just saying that I would gladly watch a 3 hour video of you guys going over every single thing
I wonder if Psionics will fit in it's own category (Arcane, Divine, Primal designations are back), of it they'll mix and match it. 4e had it as it's own category after all.
begging on my knees and weeping at the WotC altar for psionics to be its own thing, maybe even separate from magic
You are saying there’s 3 spell list now; I would love if there were a forth one. Currently sorcerer, wizard, warlock shares a lot of spell in common which may make choosing between one another more complicated. If there was an arcane spell list for wizard/bard/artificer (by learning and practice) and eldrtich spell list for sorcerer/warlock (power given by a patron or ancestry/event); it makes a bard a support with arcane spells and give a support ability to warlocks (shields; retaliate, regeneration, etc as a reaction) making them easier to explain in terms of gaming mechanics because often new players have a hard time deciding between all spell casters because it’s not easy to tell them apart without explaining all the mechanics. Subclasses them can make anyone more support/dpr.
There is a secret 4th list. It's a custom spells list that only certain classes/feats etc get.
only real reservation here is about critical success on skill-checks. I guess the DM then has to decide whether something is even possible for a character to achieve, before deciding whether they allow a roll. Since characters have different capabilities, whether or not a roll is allowed will vary from character to character. Sounds.. interesting.
Edit: the term they are using for this in the UA itself is "warranted"
the DM is already not supposed to ask for rolls on impossible tasks
@@heyheyhey0220 true but I also would have them roll to see how things would be reacted too. A high roll on a persuasion for the king to abdicate the throne could be taken as a joke for example
If you don't want a player to succeed at something DON'T ASK THEM FOR A ROLL. If it's impossible in the first place.. why roll? It's a waste of time and unnecessary.
@@StabYourBrain it can flavor the outcome of the failure. As mentioned above you can not succeed in a minority inconvenient way and you can not succeed in drastically detrimental ways. Having the dice help determine that based on the character’s abilities and stats still serves a narrative purpose and feels in the spirit of the game. But of course “can’t do it, no roll allowed DM just decides what happens if you try based on RP and game history” is also viable.
I would not ask for a roll in the first place because if you make a player fail for rolling a natural 20 - no one is happy or having fun in that situation. (You want to have a flavour of an outcome, roll a d10)
I'm not in love with having to tell players what skill checks are impossible before they roll, which is the only option that doesn't break adventures, or create disappointment, when they roll natural 20s. I liked letting them roll for something that was mathematically impossible, and then telling them that they didn't roll high enough. That might sound mean, but it leaves some mystery to the difficulty checks. Now the player has to effectively know if any particular roll is possible or impossible. That seems a bit meta-gamey to me.
I know right now that I couldn’t climb Everest without a lot of help. I’m not sure if I could pick a random lock you put in front of me since I know how to pick some locks but some are trickier without looking as such. If a PC wouldn’t know if it’s possible you don’t have to tell them until they’ve tried… but if your players are trying to climb Everest with no tools and no training, you should be reminding them their character knows they can’t do it.
a character without any hope of success (a warrior without any tools or knowledge of picking locks trying to pick a really complicated lock) ... why should you roll then O_o just because dice makes nice click clack?
Do you ever run a campaign where the players want to try doing something, but you know it's impossible? Players frequently don't know when things are beyond their capabilities. Telling them that it's impossible to convince the mayor to help track down the murderer, is metagame knowledge, but you'd want to tell them that so they don't get excited about rolling a natural 20 when they try. Telling them it's impossible even makes it likely that they immediately figure out that the mayor is the killer. It just creates a dilemma that wasn't there when the dice were rolled and the DM simply told them they failed the check, even with a natural 20.
@@ChrisOsberg i talked about "thinks you needed to be learned to do properly" like pick a lock or find a very old track
and you answer with "well and what about persuasion?"
@@Zanji1234 In the cases where people have no training for something like picking a lock and there is no way they can do it I won't let them role for it but if they are trained in lock picking and I know the lock is beyond the characters current skill (the DC is idk 25 and they have a +3) I still let them roll to not just say yeah this lock to difficult for you to pick and even if I say that my players always still want to roll. Not being able to succeed on a roll allows for things to exist in the world currently beyond the players skill level that they can come back to later which my players do quite often. I understand the argument of just don't let them roll then but that is just not they way every DM runs things, if the rules get changed to this it only leads to the removing of this play style or having to explain you use the old rules for rolling.
Thank you for going back to a feat system. The biggest thing about 5E I dislike is the lack of character customization, it's what makes me play Pathfinder. Keep up with it! Also, please include a basic rule section for converting old 5E material forward!
I myself would like to see skill points return. To me it reflects a character's continued interest in a particular aspect of themselves as they progress. Just picking some proficiencies at character creation and maybe later getting a few through feats and then having just a flat bonus added to everything feels like it takes away some of the character's individuality.
I like a lot of where you're going with this, including the degree of modularity.
On the inspiration talking point, I think they should do that for nat 1's. Nat 20's already have enough benefits. Maybe you feel more determined to succeed because of the colossal failure
“Karma”
@@faykoo I think Karma is when an enemy critically hit you and you get something against them. I would call my suggestion a point of determination
i have never been inspired by failure, but a great success has always inspired me to greater heights of success.
I do feel this is a great way to put a positive spin on a nat 1
@@darschpugs4690 Lots of people get inspired by failure. "darn... let me try again I can do this!" :)
It would be interesting if they reintroduce Epic Destiny from 4th edition. It was a cool way thematically/mechanically to retire a pc.
Along with martial maneuvers and minions, this is something I really really wish 5e had ported over
Yes yes yes. I loved the concept of epic destinies and being able to pick one for a character. I still dream of my Swordmage becoming an Archlich.
I feel like thats something a DM should decide, you tell them what you want the character to do, but they choose how it happens.
I doubt it honestly. It's mostly just wasted work. There's very little a semi-competent group of level 20s can't do. And there is nothing in the game that exceptionally competent level 20s can't do. Where would the story even be if you were that high a level?
@@Jkf180degrees They don’t necessarily need to go past level 20 to bring back Epic Destinies. It could be like a bonus subclass from 15-20 for example.
I'd definitely homebrew around the new crit rule, but I really like everything else!
Which crit rule though? the getting inspiration on crits? the monsters not being able to crit? or the ability checks can now crit?
Ability checks for sure...the DC 31 idea is a good idea for giving the DM a rule to use to make things impossible, but now the most unskilled players can do incredibly impossible things 5% of the time.
@@Little_Dragon626 For me personaly everything except for the inspiration on crits I will not use because IMO it's straight up stupid. When it comes to the ability checks my games ussauly have locations the party will revisit multiple times throughout the campaign so there will be things that require checks to open that is too high for a first level player to open, or I let them roll to see how well they succeed in this clearly impossible thing they are trying to do but with this they can just succeed. many many people I know let players roll even though they can't actually succeed on what they are trying to do. Rule the game like this is where you get things from like I seduce the dragon, DM I rolled a nat 20 which means the dragon now has to be seduced.
@@Little_Dragon626 ability checks shouldn't crit and monsters should be able to crit still. Also they've said spells no longer crit to bring casters back inline with martials but unless the features are reworded crits no longer apply to sneak attack or smites so martials suffer too.
Yeah I’d probably be in the same boat, I have a lot of casters who wants that crit for their attack spells.
By removing Critical hits from monsters baseline, it does provide the opportunity to add a variable level Critical Strikes ability to a stat block where appropriate.
For example:
Critical Strikes: If you roll an 18 or higher with [X-stat block ability], add an additional XdX (average dmg) and add it to the attack damage.
Forcing DMs to do more work and balancing for them and having to make tough decisions on when to be hard on the players and feel guilty for focusing or favoriting against their players. Basically washing hand of responsibility and pitting the players against the DM instead of providing more balance and instruction for the DM to fall back on in situations where they want to be as fair as possible
@@NoxLegend1 they are wanting specific feedback for playtest material for potentially creating a new monster manual. This is was not an idea for homebrew at this point.
I really don't like the changes to Dragonborn. Why not use Fizban's Chromatic Dragonborn as the new Player's Handbook default dragonborn? Reverting the breath weapon back to an action instead of part of an attack action makes it stricly worse than Fizban's version. Especially if you look at how it scales in comparison. The expected values at level 1 for Fizban's is 5,5 for the playtest 6,5. That scales to 11 and 10,5 at level 5, 16,5 both at level 11 and 22 and 22,5 at level 17. With Fizban's especially martial characters could also use other attacks and don't have to decide to forgoe an entire round of attacks.
Like I said: Make Fizban's chromatic dragonborn the new default and your problems are solved. No need to introduce yep another (strictly worse) version.
I think the basic rational is that you are potentially damaging multiple creatures at one time with damage that is going to quickly scale higher than anything you can do with a weapon. I think because breath weapons are like a cantrip, they want to balance them with what one could do with a spell and giving martial characters the ability to basically cast a cantrip and attack could be an issue.
Though at this point it is technically an assumption that any character class is going to be able to have multiple attacks. The change could very well be because everyone only has one action (perhaps with scaling damage instead) ...or maybe instead of having multiple attacks martial characters get two actions instead, and therefore the breath weapon could be one action, followed by a weapon attack.
The really bad part of the playtest is that to some degree with kind of need an idea of where the classes are going to form better opinions on some of the options presented here.
Play test it, try it out then give your feedback this is UA it is all up for change
i dont agree of using ONLY the chromatic. out of all the races in the game Dragonborn is the most confusing if you collected all the optional subraces or ust versersions you have a confusing unified mess that the teflings anther race who originally started out as just a single race that got latter subrace options managed to avoid. if your counting wildmount and the 2014 phb then the dragonborn has a total of 6 options and out of all of them the fizbans ones where better unified and in my opinion better balanced and flavorful. what the dragonborn need is to be given ether there own races of several dragonborn types like what we saw in MOTM or like the teflings in this UA where they say ok all dragonborn have this. now pick your subrace and add whatever that says onto it. ether way it leaves room for the dragonborn to be all sorts of different types of dragons. but also ya Wizards stop making the dragonborns breath attack offal. you made humans borderline OP let the race that embodies half of your games namesake be at least a little on the strong side. go nerf the locotha or some other never used race and not 1 of the popular races just out of there sheer looks and style.
@@bradleyhurley6755 to be fair the dragonborns breath attacks at least the cones where always better for the martial class's who typially got multi attack because if a caster was caught with 2 or more hostiles within 15 feet of them they would ether be in a lot of trouble or use there AOE spells if they had any. now the Line breaths did work better for casters as there wasnt as many spells with line based effects and with a range of 30 feet the range of a lot of just single target spells where more advantagus to use the breath attack. i played a blue dragonborn with the fizban book and it was basically for me a budget chain lighting that i could cast more often thanks to PB times a day and then use a bonus action spell i was a tempest cleric and my breath attack really cleared up my use to do healing word or sacred wepeon and my breath attack was considerably more powerful then any cantrip i had and i could angel it so i could hit more then 1 every now and then.
I think the reason for only the chromatic dragons is that at least the other typically good dragons normally aren't in the monster manual and once you have the chromatic dragons everything else is easily reskinable. Basically you get a breath weapon of the type of dragon that you are has. So you don't really need to list all the options. My assumption is that the options are matching what is going to be presented in the monster manual.
Fun thought: the new inspiration on a 20 and giving inspiration to others if you already have it makes reckless attacking barbs and other crit fishers more supportive with team play now, which I love!
No critical damage on spell attacks is gonna be a tough pill for a lot of spellcasters to swallow, especially Warlocks. I imagine the playtest community will reject this, or at least request that it only apply to levelled spells. I was almost expecting JC to say crits now do max +1D(x), which is how a lot of tables play it.
I liked that aspect as it helps a little with martials losing power i feel but i definitely agree that id like them to go to max damage then Dice roll makes crits feel better
Yeah I'm not big on that hopefully they'll make it only leveled spells.
Very glad this exists. It really helps with understanding the design behind the mechanics changes as presented.
The new stuff feels like they're taking the stuff that people liked of pf2e and adding it to themselves. I enjoy this cause there was a lot of stuff in pf2e was good, but the memes kept most people thinking it was impossible to learn. With this, I can finally use the mechanics without people crying, pissing, and shitting themselves.
Well said
lol, this
Honestly very excited by the MENTALITY on display here. It seems like they really want to forge D&D with the 'suggestions' that exist largely through homebrew worlds. They're making common the rules that many DMs change, and I think that makes a lot of sense.
I'm excited to see what the UA brings, and looking forward to the new tools we're getting. I just hope they can manage to keep pricing for DNDbeyond tools reasonable. D&D can't become the most expensive game of all time, it's already so expensive of a hobby.
I mean it can be expensive, but at least it's not Warhammer (I play both :/ )
@@dankevill1010 oof, I feel bad for your wallet
In fairness you can play D&D and spend nothing. The SRD is freely available, tools like Roll20 is free and there is a ton of free content available online.
@@Wertbag99 No, and I understand that. I still think it's not a reasonable expectation that they not make it TOO expensive to get in on this 'premium' level of play with D&D beyond and their table top and all that.
I"m not asking for free, I just don't want to have to take out a mortgage to get some minis.
@@KitZunekaze Minis are not a requirement they are a luxury.
It sounds like characters are getting power creep through feats and some of these new options. And dramatic increase in inspiration. If this is to be backwards compatible I hope they are ramping monsters and environmental hazards as well.
That's what books like Monsters of the Multiverse have been trying to do. Have they done it well? My judgement is still out, but... It's heading the right way? Is it enough? Probably not. I think it necessary to keep patching the monsters sadly. Then again, I am always updating statblocks.
If theyre bringing an already anemic system to a higher level, is it really powercreep?
The change to inspiration certainly feels like power creep.
Well put, this was my thought when reading through this UA. Nothing that a few more hit points or added minions to combat can't change. I've just got to keep these things in mind when planning encounters if the players want to playtest this.
They nerfed a lot of these Level 1 feats though. Especially Lucky has been nerfed pretty heavily.
Initial play test of this this past weekend: removal of spell crits - they hate it. No monter crits makes features and items such as adamantine armor pointless except in PvP. Unarmed strike rules are good, but confusing with unarmed feat.
I hope Elementalists are now included (Primordial would be a nice touch), they were a Wizard specialists introduced in 2nd Edition along with Wild, as a new class, if not a new specialization for Wizards in the One D&D.
Elemental Clerics would be a nice inclusion as well, esp. if Dark Sun is reintroduced, as well for the Elemental dieties in the Forgotten Realms.
I feel like Elementalist would be better suited as a sorcerer subclass, as evocation wizard already serves that purpose pretty well for wizard.
As for elemental clerics, about the only element that's missing is earth. For fire you have light cleric, and for water and air you have tempest cleric.
Given that Primal Magic is the magic type directly tied to the Inner Planes, if it did come back it would probably be a Druid
Considering they mentioned elemental spells in Primal, an Elementalist would be Primal. Druids and Rangers are already slotted for Primal for One D&D.
Here is your clear and concise feedback about crits: If you roll a D20 to attack with ANYTHING, and you Roll a 20. It is a critical Hit. Double ALL damage Die involved. Anything else is dumb.
Sounds like they are actually pulling great 4e aspects into 5e (all spells come from three thematic spheres, leveled feats-maybe monster design too?)
"Great 4e aspects" is an oxymoron. And I will die on this hill.
@@DocFunkenstein then by all means ...🤷♀
yeah, it was also being used in pf2e as well along with the skill save system and limiting crits to weapons/unarmed strikes.
@@DocFunkenstein hey, some people (not me), did enjoy that game. it's fan base exists, not as big as 3.5 or other older editions, but some people did have fun whilst they played it
@@DocFunkenstein 4e might be an ugly forest but it contains some very lovely trees.
Martial classes operated a lot better in 4e for example, with abilities that let them be more effective in crowded combat environments.
I set this video up for the morning last night, and apparently I didn't pause it. I'm just glad autoplay was off.
I like that creativity and customization lies at the heart of these updates. The new spell lists are interesting, but as others have noted, subclasses will have to be much more potent to sufficiently delineate between the different casting classes
Backgrounds + origins = awesome, total win, you did that right.
I really like the new feat system. This is something my group and I had been talking about for our upcoming campaign. The DM in that said "give me a short backstory as to why you have a 'simple' feat, and you get it."
I find it extra funny that they bring up the healer feat, because that's the one I chose.
The problem with many of the 2014 feats is that they are just not worth taking compared to others. Why take healer when you can take something powerful like Great Weapon Master? That was the thing our group decided to get around.
Nice to see that it's now codified in the new UA.
Also love that all feats have some benefit that isn't just silly fluff. I hope the cooking feat makes it into 1st level as well. It's really one of those background style feats, maybe you used to be the cook for some merchant etc. And cooking utensils is still an artisan tool.
3.5e called. They want their feat system back.
@@Jim-Bob-Billy-Joe-Johnson Not too familiar with 3.5 but my impression is that this isn't the same, similar, but not the same
Just read through the pdf and I'm going to be going over it with my players later today. excited to incorporate this into my games and give feedback.
I'm really digging this and haven't been this excited about dnd stuff since 3.0 was announced. (to be clear I love 5e and it's my favorite system, but I was hesitant at first were as now I'm all in and super hype! )
I already want to change the inspiration on crit feature.... do it for critical failures, not critical successes (you get an idea on how to do better next time)
So nice to see 5E character customization growing closer to Pathfinder 2E's excellent modularity. :)
Your free scores are now background scores. Options are more limited now not less.
@@deanmccourt4800 except the default is “build your own background” in which you are putting those bonuses where you want anyway.
So feats are tied to background, except if you don't want them to be. Looking forward to buying s new rulebook for that exciting change
@@deanmccourt4800 Your starting level 1 feat at character creation is. And you can pick what level 1 feat that is, that you want to start with, alongside that score increase.
Literally spent last night making 3 more Spelljammer backgrounds with feats, this is awesome for scaling and balancing.
This is all excellent stuff. Really love the direction the game is moving based on this unearthed arcana
I love the idea of opening the door to having every humanoid race be officially combinable, but it definitely feels more like reskinning arace than combining two. A little underwhelming imho.
I also like that with these rules level 1 characters feel a little less helpless.
I almost forgot to mention that I think Lucky maybe should give you luck equal to half your proficiency bonus of something. It’s just maybe too good at level 5 or so. I also think that Crafter is busted. The flat discount is too good because the party just gives all the money to the Crafter and they buy everything. Was making a character last night with a player and I had him write down it was only with his own gold. It just make the economy completely different and harder to balance otherwise.
20% off on non-magical goods is not busted, maybe the fighter and paladin gets their full plate 3 sessions early, so it esstially +1 AC for 2 memebers of the party for 3 sessions out of a maybe 30 session campaign.
What exactly is it you are afraid they will buy? PCs can afford almost any adventuring related mundane item from level 5+ without trouble anyway.
I really like the the race combining mechanics presented in An Elf and a Orc had a Baby. There you get to choose your parents and get to customize traits/skills from each parent, so you aren’t just a reskinned elf, you also can have some orc qualities. You also get to choose how you were raised as a diplomat, tradesperson, follower of the Raven Queen, etc. You’re really able to customize your character.
Please, work on End Game or post Level 14 content.
Grapple contests between the party until everyone has inspiration hurray 😆
Very intriguing!
Making lineages more unique +10000
Honestly, I feel like getting Inspiration on a Nat 1 would be healthier for the game, rather than a Natural 20, failing forward, just feels better because if you're rolling really bad to the point it's not fun, having inspiration keep coming to help you out would feel better.
Edit: A lot of people seemed to have assumed this meant allowing everyone to reroll nat 1s, this was not what was said at all, you roll a nat 1, you fail, you get an inspiration for future. And to the people saying "that's too strong", ... it's really not, it's much weaker in fact than giving someone an inspiration for getting a natural 20, given that they are already doing well, and then being given tools to do better.
Giving inspiration on a Natural 1 basically gives every PC the halfling's Lucky feature. Too strong.
As much as I would like to give inspiration on a nat 1, I have to agree with our first commenter here and say it would be giving every race the lucky racial trait as a standard game mechanic which takes away some of what made halfling unique
Why not both? Get Inspiration on a Crit Fail or Crit Success. More Inspiration = more fun!
@@waynecribbs8853 Actually...now that I think about it...maybe they can implement a rule so that you CAN get inspiration from a nat 1, bit you can't use it on the skill check that triggered the nat 1? It would still giving the halfling lucky trait it's place, but is still giving that failing forward idea that you messed up this time, but have a chance at doing better the next time.
The way I would do it, when you roll a Nat 1, you just fail, but you can choose to fail spectacularly, taking a negative condition or effect, while gaining inspiration for playing off of it. Similarly to characters earning inspiration for being compelled by their Seed of Fear in Van Richten's or any character Flaws in the DMG. I would also tie this into enemy monster critical hits since that isn't a thing anymore, you can choose to take a critical hit to increase the drama and gain inspiration for it.
As a DM i really like the idea of having more recharge abilities for monsters, being able to decide when/if to turn up the heat would make combat balancing easier, imo, however, i think that spellcasters should get something for a critical, perhaps it doesn't consume a spellslot or something allong those lines, spells can hit unexpectedly or harder as well i'd think.
Really hate the change to crits. Makes rogue's damage potential and Paladin's divine smite damage sooo much lower and much less satisfying.
This doesn't include class reworks, yet. They're just testing out the average use cases for crits, to see if these limits work in general before applying them to class reworks. I very, very highly doubt that the Rogue and Paladin will not have these features changed to account for the new crit system, if it stays. Warlock's eldritch blast, as well.
@@Caleb_Plehn Yeah, all those abilities need to include is the key words "adds dice to your Weapon/Unarmed Strike damage" and it would count for crits. Easy peasy.
Eldritch Blast would require something else though. I guess "Counts as Weapon" or simply "Can crit even though it isn't a Weapon"
@@Aldaris1234567 I would imagine a simple "When you roll a 20 as part of your attack roll, do xyz" would suffice.
@@Caleb_Plehn For Blast? That will work.
Definitely need some bonds, flaws, and ideals, but there is so much to love in this new PDF.
Customizability is great, plus the unarmed strikes are really neat. First level feats are nice to see, plus all new changes
That system feeding into Inspiration is literally my favorite mechanic in 5th (even beating the ease of use in Advantage Disadvantage) but literally no one uses it as written.
Background becomes "just make one up" and Inspiration becomes "you made the table laugh."
D&D players: Magic is OP vs martial you need to balance it
Also D&D players: Magic not having critical hits sucks because I want to do all the damage
Before anyone gets upset, that includes me. But I will give it a chance.
The thing that will really suck is if smite, sneak attack, and bonus dice from spells (hunters mark etc) don't get counted with this wording. Crits kinda become meh in that case. Oh wow I can roll 2D8 instead of 1D8 and that's it.
Yeah I am somewhat curious about if things like smite and sneak attack are counted in the double dice. His wording in the video sounded like they aren’t but it does sort of make crits quite limp.
Tfw you get extra damage for free and still complain
Well spell caster are op in term of cc, utility not dmg. It just make spell caster unable to enjoy crit as a mechanic
I mean, the spells that made spellcasters OP compared to martials were the AOEs and save-or-sucks - neither of which crits matter for.
The only exception off the top of my head is Inflict Wounds when paired with Hold Person
@@mixmastermind That's like saying if you take a pay cut at work you shouldn't complain cause you're still getting paid something
Love the new Inspiration rules. Going to start using them at my table immediately.
I like that the direction this is all going is focused on player characters working as an actual party instead of individual focus. Seems like this will make for a better experience at the table with pushing team work as a majorly beneficial factor. Also FINALLY stat increases are being applied to more sensible areas then locking in at lineages. My favorite UA update so far.
When Crawford started explaining how in the future all 20s will be automatic successes and all 1s will be failures, I was excited that you guys would fix a longstanding problem I've had with this edition in particular, and that has to do with saving throws. This problem shows up more at higher level play than lower level, but it has to do with how a character's bad saves never improve at all. I was in a game where a barbarian failed his save against fear while we were fighting an ancient red dragon, the save was a DC 21, but he had no modifier. We decided a 20 would work regardless, but the problem was he only had a 5% chance still to succeed. In otherwords, without magical intervention of the sort we didn't actually have he'd have to sit out for 10 turns because he couldn't approach the dragon. We did solve the problem by tossing the unwilling barbarian with a telekenisis spell but regardless I think it's a bit of an oversight this very annoying scenario could even happen.
Could have invested a feat into resilient, had a level 10+ paladin with you, cast the first level spell Heroism, or a number of different things. You're facing off against one of the toughest creatures in the multiverse. You need to be prepared before engaging.
Honestly this sounds like a case of bad preparation. There are spells and feats that can help with saving throws. I don't think it's an oversight, that characters have certain weaknesses, that will never or barely improve. The Game offers more than enough ways to compensate for such things, which is a lot more engaging imo than having a character slowly but surely becoming all powerful.
It's an Ancient Red Dragon tho, it's supposed to be incredibly difficult and sometimes a character just isn't going to be a match for it. That's part of the reason you have a party to cover your weaknesses, and there should be consequences to your lack of preparation. If you're going up against an Ancient Red Dragon, your party could have done research on its strengths and weaknesses, and potentially commissioned magic items or potions that would help you be resistant to things like fear or its breath attack
@@lelandwhitehead56 in this case the party consisted of a wizard, barbarian, rogue, and a druid. No paladins or heroism spells. My issue comes more from the fact this is a very exclusive exclusive to 5e. Even in 1e you never had a 0 or even 5% of actually passing a saving throw, because the whole design behind the mechanic is that there's supposed to be this larger than life heroic aspect to the character. The saving throw from inseption was a mechanic that said your character is a hero and above average, and has a chance to evade things that would surely kill normal folk
If you're at a level where you can fight an ancient red dragon and reasonably expect to win, and you don't have a single counter to fear effects, I think that's on you. Bless is a 1st-level spell that let's you add 1d4 to saving throws, which would be more than enough to help the Barbarian pass his save. Heroism is a 1st-level spell and makes you outright immune to the frightened condition. Both of them can be upcast to affect your whole party. There's also calm Emotions, paladin Auras, etc. that can remove or suppress being frightened.
I think that if you're going to use Recharge as the main version of monster crits, then a LOT more monsters need to have Recharge abilities... like most of them. Either that, or there needs to be some kind of explicit mechanic for adding Recharge abilities to existing monsters in the Monster Manual, other than the vague "Modifying a Monster" like stuff we have in the current DMG.
Here's the thing. As a DM, I don't want to keep track of recharge abilities for all the monsters in an encounter. If there are 5 for 6 monsters with recharge abilites keeping track of who has used their ability and who hasn't, and who has recharged theirs sounds like a mess.
Thank you! There are so many strong choices made in this new wave of the game. This is D&D at it's best!
I can say without playtesting that I do not support the change to crits only applying to weapon and unarmed strikes. I have played enough to know how meaningful and exciting it is when the paladin lands that crit smite, or the rogue gets that sneak attack crit. Or the time that a boss hit our cleric with inflict wounds, and then our cleric hit him back but rolled a nat 20 to crit and drop him. Those were such epic and exciting moments at our table. Removing those moments takes away a significant part of what makes the game so great.
It sounds like the Ardlings are just weird looking Aasimar. They are even connected to the heavens, and can have wings, just like the Aasimar, and also have three subraces
Also, water is wet.
I'm not seeing the point of them. Then again, it seems like every critter under the sun is being turned into a D&D race (flying squirrels? Turtles? Cows? Rabbits? C'mon guys....) So I'm pretty sure they're going to ignore that bit of feedback.
I mean I see it kinda like egiptian gods type of deal. Aasimar are more like classic angels but the ardlings are closer to that divine animal feeling of egiptian gods. I mean if I can play a Toth looking fucker then I'm good.
A bit of Feedback:
Personally, as a person who loves D&D and fantasy in general, the main issue I have is with D&D's worldbuilding. As a worldbuilder, when I create a fantasy setting I approach fantasy not from a perspective of magic or medieval aesthetic, but from the viewpoint of how different people groups and cultures interact. The issue with the "Dwarfiest Dwarf", or the "Elfiest Elf", is that those architypes have been done -So Many- times in every other fantasy setting. I think the reason why people love the Eberon setting is that it takes Elves and Dwarves and Hobgoblins: which we have already seen -So Many- times: and gives them unique cultures with art and taboos and religions. That itself is just the tip of the iceberg: at least the elves and dwarves have cultures. The larger issue with cultures is that when Wotc introduces a new race to the game, they are given no culture at all and are more often than not, an anthropomorphized version of an animal or concept. Like: ok, here's these cat people called Tabaxi, do they have lore? No. Do they have a culture? -no. Ok, do they have a religion? -well there's this guy called the cat lord who you get one sentence about. So they're just cat people? -yup. I like Tabaxi but they could be so much more potent if we had a view of their society and how they work as a people group: and I mean that for D&D's other races too. Just saying you can give your character culture does not mean there will be an actual culture.
I hope someone from Wotc sees my feedback. Have a good day.
I personally prefer for different races, especially the more "niche" ones to not have much lore provided with them. As a DM and world builder myself, it gives me a fun challenge to build lore and what not for these races. I also enjoy completely altering lore for races such as elves or dwarves, so when my players come to my table, it's a new experience. What I don't want is for players to read about lore of a particular race and come to my table and become disappointed that I didn't use the "canon" lore.
In short, I prefer the vagueness of these different races, it sparks creativity on both the players and DMs.
In my experience, the best answer to something like this is to make your own; I've been ignoring D&D "lore" since the first time I sat behind the screen, doubly so since I switched from 5e to OSR systems and non-d20-based systems. If the outlined mechanics for an ancestry don't match what you'd expect culturally from dwarves in your setting (screw stonecunning, dwarves in my setting once rode Dire Corgis into battle across the steppes, so they should be naturally gifted at riding weird mounts!), hack the mechanics to fit the world you want to present to players.
I think this gives a GM much more editorial power, too -- can't think of a reason for tabaxi to exist in your setting? Sorry, player, you can't be a cat person yet. Maybe the group's wizard can research some absurd Mad Science nonsense to create catfolk, and your next PC could be one of those.
TTRPGs should be DIY af, otherwise they're just Frostgrave or Warhammer with breaks for funny voices.
@@wyrmisis Exactly, for me it's Just come to the point where I'm writting my own game system. I also like a bit of verisimilitude in my settings so I don't want to waste my time extremely convoluted speculation on how an evolutionary branch of cats, not omly became bipedal, but also developed the mouth parts to speak a human language and to develop aosable thumbs and complex brains, just to have Tabaxi. I wish it were less controversial for DMs to disallow certain races so that people don't have to find or create an entirely new TTRPG system.
Part of the issue with giving a culture to a race is that the culture is only relevant to a single setting. It's one of the consequences of how WotC designed D&D. The Tabaxi in Forgotten Realms will be different from Tabaxi in Eberron or Dark Sun, if they exist at all.
If I am a DM and I am creating my own setting, the existing culture of the Tabaxi may conflict with what I have in mind, so everything they write may be utterly useless to me at best. At worst, it could color the opinions of my players and make them expect something that I don't intend. So it's a lose-lose situation.
But, as I said, this is WotC's own fault for not having a single setting that's well fleshed out and widely known. Most people don't know anything about any of WotC's settings.
@@KrahzduulTheObliterator Definitely, I've had prospective players and other folks in the D&D space get kinda upset when I ask them to justify the existence of a tortle or lizardfolk or kenku in a game beyond "I'm a human IRL, humans are boring."
Part of building verisimilitude is building out a curated list of character options. That's something Cypher (the backing system for Numenera) does really well -- part of your session zero is agreeing on what options are available to player characters.
I'd love for One D&D to ship with a checklist document for GMs to share before character creation outlining, "these are the ancestries I'm allowing, these are the classes I'm allowing," and let that communicate the tone of the game that the group hopefully already agreed to play.
I don't know, I'm not exactly the best person to have feedback on this; I left 5e for older school pastures years ago, where system hacking is the norm and rules get thrown out in favor of communal rulings. I just want to see this side of the hobby happy and healthy, for if I ever do end up wandering back to try out superheroic PCs again :P
If you're putting a system together, I'd definitely recommend checking out the White Hack, Into the Odd, and Mausritter -- very cool systems that do very interesting things with the skeleton of D&D.
Loving what I’m hearing so far! Got a super long car trip coming up soon and can’t wait to dive into the UA on the road!
Halfway through the video and I'm liking what I'm hearing so far
For Backgrounds, I'd like to see a choice of 2 Feats. For example, that Sailor: Tavern Brawler OR one that is ship-based.
Well Jeremy explicitly said that the go to option is build your own background - so the premade backgrounds are just samples - you can swap the tawern brawaler with whatever feat you want and call it "magical sailor" or "ship entertainer" ;). I personally love this versatility.
@@Ozzborn85 I knew that would come up as a response. I never 'build' characters. I just thought it would be cool to have the 2 or 3 most appropriate feats for a sailor right there. (I would roll which one to take myself ;)). Good for GMs too.
No spell crits = less fun, especially for characters that rely more on cantrips like Warlocks.
Eldritch blast wasn’t included as a Cantrip in the UA. So it’s probably a warlock class feature and may well crit.
@@WhoGivesAFlyingDick so reverting back to 3.5 warlocks?
It does sort of help balance out the power of spellcasters and martials at higher levels though
I wonder how that affects blade of disaster, as it’s supposed to deal extra damage on a “crit”. Is it technically a “weapon”?
@@J0eMega maybe as well as spell attack, and melee spell attack we might see weapon spell attack. Though if they're trying to keep spell crits out to allow martial crits to be a martial thing, then maybe not
The dragonborn in Fizban's book worked fine, and the gem variety should be there as well!
crawford addresses this at th-cam.com/video/mOQ_Exh0DmY/w-d-xo.html ... they all exist side-by-side and should be usable.
@@itsatraplol No, yeah, yeah, I do understand that, but I mean it like now that the gem type is introduced as canonical, why don't include a PHB version as well? 😅
The real answer to 'can a spell score a Critical Hit' works like this mechanically: How does one score a Critical Hit? By completing an attack roll, and score the sufficient number, which is most often 20, but can be a number less than that potentially if an increase in threat range is used for some reason.
That means any attack that uses an attack roll can result in a Critical Hit, unless the attack or game designer specifically says no it can't, writing an exception to the general rule. Spells that required an attack roll could score a critical hit, like Scorching Ray but Magic Missile which hit automatically do not require a roll, thus they cannot score a critical hit, their bonus is they automatically hit If the designer (s) now decide that spells, all spells, cannot score a critical hit, so bit it, but that would mean it is only prevented because they wrote a rule preventing spells fro doing so.'
In prior editions most spells did NOT require an attack roll. If you did a Flame Strike for example or Ice Storm or Lightning Bolt or Fireball you simply cast and the wizard directed where the spell's effect was to go or manifest. Poof you hit auotmaticcally, unless the spell specifically stated you must roll an attack roll and I think there were a couple to a few spells that did this like Melf's Acid Arrow (correct mei if that is wrong).
That means in 5e they chose to add that many spells must roll an attack roll and if they can then they could potentially result in a critical hit. Makes sense as it is logically consistent and that is a good thing.
I think there should be a different classification for feats that are mainly intended for roleplay, which players might be concerned that if they take that feat they'll be making their character significantly less effective than the other characters in the party. Having this separation would work well with adding beginning feats to backgrounds because it would allow characters to delve into that aspect of their character with a reasonable advantage without making the player have to choose between being better at roleplay vs better at combat when it comes to feats.
I really like this idea, just getting 2 feats at level 1, one from the combat list & one from RP. Seeing the Crafter feat next to like Tough or Alert just feels like it's punishing RP
@@c0niferal Maybe they could benefit in general from not making players choose between character options which lend themselves to roleplay vs combat and instead have every character option in one of those categories, offering a set number of each option. I personally think the more they break down character building into unique customization rather than forcing players into their prebuilt lore the better. I really obvious example of this is in Warlocks. You have a ton of invocations which very few people will choose because they instead have to make sure their character will survive. So maybe instead rebuild the progression so you have one combat invocation and one roleplay invocation. For balance they may have to rewrite a lot but I think ultimately it would serve the players well.
@@camerongaul261 that's a great example, yeah exactly, so often choosing the fun or more fitting RP option means you'll feel weak in combat & could drag down the party even, constantly going down & needing healing because you chose RP over sheer survivability. I've always chosen decent combat choices then reflavoured them but having RP choices throughout character creation at any level, Not at the cost of combat would be amazing
A fresh take on stuff - im loving what im hearing
As fresh as original Planescape for Planescape races, and Pathfinder 2 for new racial system.
Same. I'm very pleasantly surprised.
I personally don't like that critical rule all that much. It just seems really unimpressive. Most characters don't do the majority of the damage they do from the weapons dice. It's other things that effect it. So only doubling the weapon dice is just super unimpressive. I've always thought if you score a critical all of the damage dice rolled on that attack should be doubled. Anything attached to the attach that requires a roll should get rolled twice. Or doing it more old school. Get a calculation of the total amount of damage dealt by the attack and double it for a crit. The change to slow being a status effect I think is excellent and it makes a lot of sense for it to play out that way. Slow should be the opposite of haste after all.
Yeah
Fantastic conversation, the enthusiasm is contagious! As a player, I am absolutely psyched: this new focus on modularity, background and teamwork is going in an incredibly exciting direction, and I hope we will see new multiclass rules in the same spirit. As a DM my feelings are a little more mixed; it's already hard to challenge players in 5th edition, and I worry that there is a little bit of power creep going on. I am DMing mid-level characters, and critical hits can unexpectedly turn the tide and introduce tension in fights they would normally crush. So I am not sure whether I would be willing to give up on them, without at least increasing the number of recharge abilities my monsters have... but maybe monsters of the multiverse already does that?
In any case, this is great, and I can't wait to playtest these new UAs!
Im very hyped for this, EVEN MORE i hope they revamp how EACH weapons acts and does ther thing.
Maybe not EACH weapon. If they follow their design philosophy so far, we're likely to see an introduction of weapon CLASSES so that every possible weapon can fit into one or more of them, as is appropriate.
I want this too. I think it was a terrible change. Weapons need to matter almost just as much as magic does
This would be SO COOL!
Wonder if they might look into the Dungeon Coach for inspiration since he did a revamped weapons and armor system that gives martials quite a bit of tools to play with. Weapons had special crit effects based on the damage type, and passive benefits based on the weapon type. Hammers for example got to add their proficiency bonus to damage rolls against targets wearing metal armor and rolled maxed damage against structures or objects made from things like glass, stone, things like that. Because it dealt bludgeoning damage, on a crit, the target is pushed back 5 feet and knocked prone, no saving throw to resist it.
Yeah it will be interesting to see how they improve weapons. Currently you have half a dozen martial weapons that do 1d8, but they are all functionally identical. There is little reason to pick a flail over a morningstar, or a battleaxe over a longsword. They all just blend together. Different crit ranges is an obvious choice, damage verse different armour types would be harder but would make sense, different speed, different reach... just things to make them more unique.
Casters should get a point of inspiration if the enemy rolls a Nat 1 on a Spell save. That way they could get inspiration as easy as melees who keep rolling in fights.
That's a good suggestion.
Love this idea
Honestly, that could be solved if they moved from the Vancean system to a Spell Check system. Roll to cast, just like non magical classes roll to attack.
I like the idea of Critical hits being restricted to weapons and unarmed strikes. I believe most players can agree that besides the Fighter and Paladin class, not many martial classes can match a caster in damage output against enemies. At best, the most damaging weapons a martial class can wield deals 2d6, such as a Greatsword or Maul.
Meanwhile, for the casters, they have spells that can damage multiple enemies at once, such as Fireball or Spike Growth, but in addition, casters have spell attack rolls that usually immediately outmatch the damage output of a martial. For instance, take Guiding Bolt - a 1st-Level spell attack that deals 4d6 radiant damage on a hit, while a Maul does 2d6 Bludgeoning. Guiding Bolt already deals damage equivalent to a Maul's damage on a critical hit, making it more effective at damage. Even with Extra Attack at Level 5, a martial with a Maul is just doing what a Cleric did at Level 1. Cantrips that deal damage have upcasts at Levels 5, 11, and 17, and they start to outmatch weapons too, such as Fire Bolt and Eldritch Blast. On top of that, weapon damage types - Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing - are the most common damage types monsters can resist besides Poison, and casters can cast spells of any damage type they choose, especially if you're an Order of Scribes wizard or have the Transmutated Spell metamagic, making martials potentially do less damage more often. Spells already have more than enough reason to outmatch Martial classes (besides the Fighter and Paladin) in DPR with AoE and Spell Attacks.
Thus, I believe restricting critical hits to weapons and unarmed strikes helps to grant martial classes a better reception in terms of mechanics, even if only slightly, and balance them against the casters. Casters can be good for their naturally high damage, while Martials can be good for the best use of Inspiration. An instance of advantage can make a caster more likely to hit with a spell attack, while a Martial gains that & the potential to boost their DPR more often.
The biggest change I want in D&D is having intention paired with the rules, and not just the rules by themselves.
Rules can work so much better if you just communicate to players WHY you chose the rules you did. It can also be helpful when rules don't work as intended, and so tables can make their own rulings to amend where misalignment occurs.
that's the purpose of unearthed arcana; to allow players to playtest these changes and provide feedback, instead of wotc just publishing a new book and hoping for the best.
No RPG does this. Do you want them to include a detailed statistical breakdown of every customization option and why they included it? As far as rules not working as intended, that's pretty much the slogan of 5e
5.5e is gonna be an interesting time
I have huge concerns about the totality of these changes. One of my criticisms with 5E is that after level 4 or 5, it's rare for the group to really feel terribly threatened. It does happen, of course. And it is very contingent on your team's play style and your DM.
But all of these really crank up the power of the group. More frequent inspiration, monsters can't crit, etc. It just kind of feels like plot armor to me lol. I'd like to hear more about any tweaks to encounters, monsters, etc. to see if they are offsetting this at all.
Your DM is going easy on you, huh?
(I'll admit, at high levels, it can be hard to balance an encounter, because a couple dice rolls either way can make the difference between a TPK and a breeze of an encounter... see my party getting STUPID lucky in Tomb of Horros and taking the demi lich out in like 2 rounds without it being able to do anything to us.)
Multiple small opponents are more deadly for a party of adventurers than one big bad one. That concept seems to be something a lot of people find impossible to grasp.
If the tweaks in Monsters of the Multiverse are any indication, then the changes to the Monster Manual in 2024 will be minimal. Hit points were increased slightly, and it's harder for PCs to mitigate damage from magical monsters.
Hopefully, the 2024 DMG will provide much better encounter building guidelines than the 2014 DMG, and be a lot more transparent about CR.
I feel like part of the problem is at higher levels a lot of DM's just throw 1 big baddie at the group and then action economy basically just makes the big baddie a push over (a lot of this problem is with how CR is calculated and this part deff needs an overhaul which i feel they are going to do, Monsters of the multiverse has already beefed up some monsters). But when facing groups of enemys encounters can quickly turn in to TPK's. even low level cr monsters are still threatening to mid level party members if there is a bunch of different things going on. On top of this i also feel DM's dont throw enough "Other" complications durring combat. Things like difficult terrain, moving objects or hazards, npc's that NEED to be saved or even a 3rd party of enemys who is attacking both sides. there are tons of things that can ADD to a challenge of a fight that isnt just another stat block.
@@UchihaKat I try to design my Big climactic boss-type encounters in such a way that the PCs will probably lose in a straightforward battle, but there are numerous opportunities for the PCs to improve their odds (such as by learning about the boss's strengths and weaknesses from rescued prisoners, or by making the underlings willing to betray the boss). This does raise the risk of a TPK, but the players tend to blame themselves rather than accuse the DM of being unfair.
Oh wow. Can't wait to check those out.
Hope farmer makes it into the sample backgrounds because being a farmers in a world full of monsters n bandits are no joke
Same.
Love the concept of some random kid leaving home with next to nothing to make their way through the big wide world.
Wheel of Time oh yeeaaaah. You go get em sheepherder.
I like the changes covered so far. Really happy to see Backgrounds being more involved and actually having active in-game effects that, you k now, reflect the characters’ backgrounds.
Affixing ability scores to a background limits what you can pick in practice. Though we learnt this lesson from Tashas and took it away from Race
This all seems so cool and I’m so excited to play with the new custom backgrounds. However, I’m not sure how I feel about the new crit hit system. As someone who plays casters near exclusively in campaigns I’m gonna be so sad to loose the excitement of a critical hit in comparison to my martial counterparts. And while as a player I’m happy that I don’t get to be crit on I do actually enjoy the fear of a Nat 20 even the in early levels. But I don’t know I’ll have to play it to really know
When you hear a designer say "we're taking away something that you have," in the same video where they start introducing new feat and magic/spell structure organization, you can be sure that what they really mean is, "We felt it was inappropriate for *everybody* to crit, and we'd really like if *X, Y, and Z* subclasses and feats gave you the ability to crit with certain spells / add additional effects on a crit/high-roll / very poor save DC / etc because that'd be really cool for them." This UA only covers a small subset of what is effectively Session Zero / pre-1st level content, so we will almost certainly be hearing nothing of the new magic changes until after they've had a thorough barometer check of how high everybodies blood pressure gets at the changes to dragonborn, inspiration, crits, etc. People hate things being changed but they always want to see change, after all, so it's a fun tug o' war to play with the broader public (cough short-sighted, emotional, reactive, with access to only very limited partial information and far from satisfactory domain expertise, etc, cough) as a designer. So fun. So, so fun.
You still crit, you still auto hit and gain inspiration you just don’t double the damage. As a DM this means I dint have to add 200hp to every bbeg to account for a crit hit in round 1
Loving all the changes.
I'm curious if the core books we already own on dndbeyond are going to be updated to the new core books or, much more likely, we have to rebuy the core set