The only thing I make unhappy about is releasing a book that has the info I already have in 2 books Volos and mordis, I hope that here on dnd beyond it will be treated like the basic rule set and monster manual, if you already own the monsters here you get the updated versions for free.
Considering DDB is required to implement errata and offer the latest, updated mechanics for everything it'd be more than a little surprising if that wasn't the case.
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The only thing I make unhappy about is releasing a book that has the info I already have in 2 books Volos and mordis, I hope that here on dnd beyond it will be treated like the basic rule set and monster manual, if you already own the monsters here you get the updated versions for free.
Considering DDB is required to implement errata and offer the latest, updated mechanics for everything it'd be more than a little surprising if that wasn't the case.
I don't know. That is a decent chunk of lost sales if everyone here gets the contents of a whole book (plus parts of 2 others) for free. That is also why I think there won't be free updates to the revised rules coming in 2024.
The only thing I make unhappy about is releasing a book that has the info I already have in 2 books Volos and mordis, I hope that here on dnd beyond it will be treated like the basic rule set and monster manual, if you already own the monsters here you get the updated versions for free.
Considering DDB is required to implement errata and offer the latest, updated mechanics for everything it'd be more than a little surprising if that wasn't the case.
I don't know. That is a decent chunk of lost sales if everyone here gets the contents of a whole book for free. That is also why I think there won't be free updates to the revised rules coming in 2024.
Updating the contents of sources for those who own access to those sources already is not the same as giving those contents away for free. Volo's and Mordenkainen's will be updated, I'm sure.
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The thief, or rogue in this case, would have to be deliberately designed to be of absolutely no help whatsoever in combat. When a fight breaks out your job becomes "find a rock, hide behind it, and hope you don't die." You essentially do not get to participate in the Combat pillar of D&D, your class choice excludes you from it. In exchange, the game allows your thief to level up much faster than other classes. Setting aside the issue of milestone progression that ignores experience in favor or "level up when it's best for the game" and the many inherent problems with PCs all being of wildly different levels from each other...leveling up, in a class-based RPG, is supposed to grant you new tools and powers that make you a better adventurer. Better at doing your job, better at broadening out your job to help cover deficits or downs, and just overall better at doing the Adventure thing. In this case however, the thief has one job, and one job ONLY - to disarm traps.
That's it. That's the full extent of the thief's job, according to your own stated example of the ideal endpoint for 'balance' in a D&D ruleset. they suck donkey rocks at fighting, but they're the only class that can disarm traps. Leveling them up makes them better at disarming traps, but it does not make them better at fighting since that's not their job, and it does not make them better at overall adventuring since that is also not their job. The thief's job is to disarm traps. That's it. That's all. That is the sum totality of the reason for that character's existence - if there's a trap, he comes up and disarms it. If there's no traps? The thief's player sits down, shuts up, turns his character sheet over, and reads a book on his Kindle because it's not his class role or job to contribute to the game at any point or in any way that do not directly pertain to the disarming of traps.
To be faaaaaiiiiiir
That kind of game balance makes sense where the main unit of game is a party, not an individual. Practically speaking, a game where the player is playing a squad or whatever --- like an RTS or a single-player video game RPG. Of course it falls on its face in a game where the player has a single character that acts like an avatar in the game world (and you're back at "sit down and listen while the netrunner hacks for 30 minutes").
Cue someone mentioning that in old-school D&D everyone had multiple characters and it was a game to see which (if any) made it through...
The only thing I make unhappy about is releasing a book that has the info I already have in 2 books Volos and mordis, I hope that here on dnd beyond it will be treated like the basic rule set and monster manual, if you already own the monsters here you get the updated versions for free.
Considering DDB is required to implement errata and offer the latest, updated mechanics for everything it'd be more than a little surprising if that wasn't the case.
I don't know. That is a decent chunk of lost sales if everyone here gets the contents of a whole book for free. That is also why I think there won't be free updates to the revised rules coming in 2024.
Updating the contents of sources for those who own access to those sources already is not the same as giving those contents away for free. Volo's and Mordenkainen's will be updated, I'm sure.
There is a lot of content in that third book (all the Races and Monsters revised) AND is a new book that they intend to release separately later in the year.
Edit: I would be willing to bet that they won't update Volo's or Mordy's to match Monster's of the Multiverse.
That kind of game balance makes sense where the main unit of game is a party, not an individual. Practically speaking, a game where the player is playing a squad or whatever --- like an RTS or a single-player video game RPG. Of course it falls on its face in a game where the player has a single character that acts like an avatar in the game world (and you're back at "sit down and listen while the netrunner hacks for 30 minutes").
Cue someone mentioning that in old-school D&D everyone had multiple characters and it was a game to see which (if any) made it through...
Heh. You're not wrong, but you've also illustrated exactly why that sort of balance is just absolutely the last possible way D&D should go. "Characters" (and let's be realistic, they don't even really qualify as characters anymore at that point) are deliberately incomplete and are pointless outside of The Unit. That's perfectly fine, even expected, for tactical wargames. I like those styles of game very much, I love me a nice, meaty tactical vidya gaem. Disgaea's my heckin' jam, and one of these days I'll play one of those X-COM games I own.
But that crap just doesn't fly for a tabletop RPG where your one, single character you play full time for several hours at a stretch is supposed to be a fully realized, complete individual with goals, desires, fears, and a history. If "You have Expertise with thieves' tools" was literally the only class feature I had, a'la BL's take on the Thief? I would never set foot outside my town. I'd open up a nice locksmithing business and live a modest life as a village girl helping people get into their shit when they lose their key again. I sure as shit wouldn't be wandering out in the wilds for weeks into a hellish monster-infested ruin, hoping and praying nothing noticed me, only to be told "hey, we found an ancient deathtrap again. Go un-deathtrap it for us" in exchange for a paltry pittance of whatever the Real Adventurers(TM) find and mental scars that will last a lifetime. Nuh. Screw that noise.
Adventurers need to be adventurers. Bold men and women with broad, well-honed skillsets well suited to tackling the unknown. And frankly, just like a tactical wargame there need to be good ways to build your character and bad ways to do it, or there's no point in having different ways to build your character at all. Each of the pieces you build with should absolutely be useful and viable in its own context, but recognizing which pieces work together and which pieces clash, which pieces are critical to your particular adventure and your chosen primary roles and which would simply be wasteful distractions? That's the shit that makes a good player good. It feels weird that OSR-type gamers, who're so focused on D&D as a long-form wargame with light elements of fantasy overlay, would be opposed to having a rich and diverse set of tools to approach their tactical scenarios with.
But what do I know, eh? I'm just some braindead moron Janey-come-lately, gotta play for at least thirty more years before I'd stand any chance of knowing what I'm talking about.
That kind of game balance makes sense where the main unit of game is a party, not an individual. Practically speaking, a game where the player is playing a squad or whatever --- like an RTS or a single-player video game RPG. Of course it falls on its face in a game where the player has a single character that acts like an avatar in the game world (and you're back at "sit down and listen while the netrunner hacks for 30 minutes").
Cue someone mentioning that in old-school D&D everyone had multiple characters and it was a game to see which (if any) made it through...
You're not wrong that the concept of the game was very different back in the 1e days, but I don't think it was quite because of an assumption of it being like an RTS, though I do understand what you mean, there was a very different philosophy about what a character was meant to be. It was more like an avatar representing the player in the game, less so the sort of emotionally charged personal thing players make characters out to be today.
There was also a very different outlook on the game by the players. It wasn't just about creating stories, those were expected to emerge naturally through the course of play, but players tried to accomplish things in the game, they made very meta plans. A player running a thief for example might try to raise gold through adventuring so that they could form a thieves guild or build a stronghold for example. There was more to the game as a whole than simply "questing", but it wasn't necessarily done in a deep narrative sense, but more like a meta concept of things players did in a DM's world. It was actually more like an MMO in that sense so players might gather and actually have very meta discussions about how they might approach a particular adventure or problem in the game, what equipment they would bring, what tactics they would use, they might hire other NPC's to help them. It was less of a "my character would do this thing because he feels this way" and more about "Lets bring your druid on this one, we are going to be traveling through x forest and bob was there last week with his magic-user and said he ran into some wild boars". I don't even know if that makes sense to anyone who plays the game today and didn't play back then but it was definitely a very different atmosphere at the table and between players. We did in character stuff to especially once characters matured and got more powerful but it was not uncommon for a player to call you up and say stuff like "Dude, we are doing the Temple of Elemental Evil and Bill's Thief Marcus just died, we need you can you bring your Thief and come over and help us out". Like that is a quote from a conversation I literally had in the 90's.
Now the balance of the game was built around a lot of these concepts and Yuri is not wrong that players who brought certain characters would be expected to perform certain duties. I don't think anyone thought it was boring as he described but of course he is exaggerating the limitations considerably. You would however for example insist someone bring a Thief because traps and locked things were inevitable and they stood the best chance of dealing with them, gold was XP after all, that was how you leveled up so not being able to open locks, disarm traps meant less gold which meant less XP.
I'm not suggesting we should bring back these styles of play into modern games, after all, we already have 1e, its awesome, if you like that style of play, its still very much available today. Hell I just bought a brand new set of 1e AD&D books a couple of years back during the re-print, the OSRIC is available. If WotC decided to try to re-create 1e I don't think I would appreciate that any more than modern D&D players would, I mean, why create something that already exists. 1e AD&D is better supported today than it was during TSR days, there are more adventures and books coming out today for the game than I ever remember coming out back in the 80's and 90's. The game is alive and well and has a metric ton of communities that support it.
I will say this though, it is a hell of a game, a lot more challenging, tense and vivid than modern D&D is today. Modern D&D is fun for me in the way watching football on tv is fun, but 1e was more like putting on pads and getting out there yourself. I'm glad to see that more and more modern gamers are stepping out of their comfort zones and getting out their to try the classics which I think is in big part thanks to the OSR. They have done a great job of revitalizing the classic hobby as 5e has done to bring in new players, but its why I don't think Wizards of the Coasts needs to do anything. I think its perfectly fine that they create modern D&D for modern players, but I do think they can do better in terms of balance and fine-tuning the game and I hope they continue on the path of modularity as they have. Right now 5e is pretty tweakable but there are certain things that just aren't fixable by your average DM so hopefully, they address some of those bigger issues in the new update.
I like your take, even if I disagree with some of the stuff you said. I wasn't around back in 'the day', but I don't think players have changed that much at all. I think there is most likely a mix of players like the ones you were talking about back in the 90s and players much like there are today.
Either way, thanks for being politer in your disagreement than some on this site at times 😂
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
For example its a very common sentiment that deep narrative storytelling has always been a major component of the game and "we have always done it this way" referring to the 80's and 90's D&D and I can assure you that while by the law of averages it's very likely that there probably were some people/tables who did play the game this way, 99.9% of people playing D&D in the 80's and 90's were running Dungeon Crawls and any claim to the contrary is nothing more than revisionism of history. I don't know exactly why its so important for some modern gamers for this to be true about D&D in the past, like I don't see how it affects the present of how people prefer to play today, but people are very passionate about it, insisting on it to the point that things get very hostile, very quickly, if you point out that it's not true at all.
To me, based on my interactions and observations here on Beyond's forum, it seems like GMs and players of my around my age are pretty moderate in terms of play style, we do not really care how others run their games, and we are not going to tell them that they are doing D&D wrong. Our only demand as a group for Wizards is we wish to be recognized and respected (individually, we still have various and contradicting demands, but those demands are generally not based on play style). The only time I will tell others they are doing it wrong or imply that way is if someone or some group is not having fun, and "no D&D is better than bad D&D" basically covers that, so I would just tell people to leave and find another more suitable group or just kick the troublemaker out.
I find that players with extremely strong narrow views are actually players of the older generation with decades of experience and played through a few editions of D&D. I do not have a great impression of roleplayers, despite myself enjoying roleplaying, but that is not because of interacting with roleplayers of my generation, that negative impression stems from interacting with players of the older generation. About a year ago on this forum, there was a roleplayer of the older generation with some pretty toxic views about preserving the soul of D&D by needlessly antagonizing min-maxers and power gamers. Now, we have another player of the older generation right here in this thread also talking about preserving the tradition of D&D, but this time it is coming from a different direction and complaining about role players. I do not have a great view of roleplayers either, and I am subsconsciously pretty biased against them after interacting with a few of them, but I still consciously recognize that not all role players are like that.
That hyper-negative attitude towards old-school D&D I don't get at all. I don't know where that comes from or what triggers it, it's very strange to me.
Well, from what I see, I do not think that negative attitude is coming from us young people. To me, it just looks like a vocal minority of narrow minded old people wanting to preserve their own individual vision of D&D while young people are accepting of all play styles and visions, and we young people are being scapegoated as the ones who wants change just because we stand up and defend that inclusivity, despite the fact that there are also old people who stand up for that inclusitivity too.
Like, I feel like I can guess which generation people are from on how hostile they are to certain things. I do not like murderhobos and I would not want to play in such a campaign, but my dislike is not coming from a place of hostility, but rather from a place of differing taste. I hate shiitake mushrooms and offal and I avoid eating them at all costs, but I am not going to talk shit about people who eat them, and in fact I think it is great that people enjoy eating offal so we are not wasting food. On the other hand, the vocal minority who talk about preserving D&D also often bag on people who have a different play style than them. The toxcity that comes from these people is like the same irrational phobia and hatred I have for spiders; I mercilessly kill any spider I come across with extreme prejudice, and I would not mind if all spiders go extinct despite knowing how bad that could be for the environment. The hate I have for spiders is very different from the hate I have for shiitake mushrooms and offal; one is out of malice and evil, while the other is literally just a matter of taste. If I had to guess the generation of forum users that come to mind, I am guessing Pangurjan is an older Millenial, while Yurei is a younger Millenial around my age. If I did not know you played an old edition of D&D, I would have guessed you are an older Millenial. I guess Sposta is an older Millenial or Gen X and Shoak might be an older Gen X or Boomer. I base my guesses on what a person dislikes and how much they show that dislike.
I'd maybe be careful with throwing around generational tags willy-nilly like that, Gamma. Some folks instantly enter their barbaric Rage when they see that junk, and frankly it isn't always a great measure of someone's attitude.
As for "why do young people always try and rewrite the history of D&D?", BigLizard? We don't. Or at least I don't. I don't have any hands-on experience with The History of D&D, save for the last few years. I don't really say things like "this is the way D&D has always been." What I say is "this is the way D&D is now", and I will try and explain why to the best of my knowledge to people who are confused. Admittedly sharply if the confusion is coupled to hostility, which it often is from some folks. Many such folks tend to hold the corollary opinion "The way D&D is now sucks, I want my plotless dungeon crawls and guilt-free genocide back", and those of us who like the way D&D is now are obviously going to push back against that. I'm not trying to rewrite the history of the game. I don't care about the history of the game, at least not as anything but an academic subject of curiosity and a well of inspiration for the folks that were there to draw on. The History of D&D has no bearing on my game. I have no issue with Wizards mining the history of the game for new products, and when they do I hope they can strike a proper balance between reverence for what came before and necessary modernization...but the modernization is necessary. If for no other reason than because printing the exact same thing they already did thirty years ago is unnecessary, that version already exists.
Like it or not, modern D&D is different than historic D&D. Don't like that change? Vote with your wallet. After all, voting with wallets is what led to modern D&D in the first place.
Also? Side note specific to BigLizard, and a few others here and there.
My name is Yurei, BL. Wye Yew Are Ee Eye. Y-U-R-E-I. Ee Before Eye, Right After R. Normally I'm pretty forgiving of people misspelling my name since it's a non-English word and not everybody is going to be familiar with it, but it's also spelled out right there next to every single post I make and I don't think I've ever seen you spell it successfully even once. I know you don't like me. I know you want me to piss off and abandon D&D. That's fine. You're absolutely entitled to those feelings and opinions and I won't say you nay. You can, however, make the absolutely minimal effort required to get my ******* name right at least once in a bloody while if you're going to address me, if you would be so kind. if you really, truly hate typing out all five letters in the correct order, call me Rei.
Not Yuri - I'm not a Russian bear wrestler.
Not Yurie - I'm not whatever that even is.
Not Yuriel - I'm not an angel, by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
Yurei. Or just Rei if Yurei's too hard. Thank you and good day, sir.
I don't care about the history of the game, at least not as anything but an academic subject of curiosity and a well of inspiration for the folks that were there to draw on. The History of D&D has no bearing on my game.
I find this...odd, your complete dismissal of the game's history. Because it may not directly influence your playstyle or the game at your table, but I assure you: D&D's past still impacts your game.
I say this not as a grumpy old grognard who thinks everything was so much better back in the day. While I love a lot of things about 1E, I think 5E is a better version of it, and one that provides far more clarity and flexibility. But both the actual origins of the game, as well as the mechanics of previous versions, affect the present version and your own game, though perhaps in ways that aren't obvious. And, in general, I really prefer the push towards role-play and fleshing characters out, though I don't love the marked decrease in danger of permadeath in 5E RAW.
Leomund's tiny hut, for instance. I've done a ridiculous amount of reading on that spell, here, on other forums, and in previous editions. Understanding that current version is actually a Frankenstein of the safe haven spell (I think that's what it was called) from a previous edition and the older tiny hut spell explains a LOT - plus it gives me ideas on how to potentially houserule it, should I so desire.
Rigid, complaining old schoolers can learn something from newer players - just as newer players can have their perspectives widened and challenged by longtime gamers.
To be clear: nothing is gained when anyone takes an unyielding, "the youth today!" type of stance, nor when a particular edition is held up as One True Edition.
I have no issue with Wizards mining the history of the game for new products, and when they do I hope they can strike a proper balance between reverence for what came before and necessary modernization...but the modernization is necessary.
Modernization isn't driven by WotC either. WotC isn't changing the way they develop D&D and design products for it for the sake of change or because thats the way they like it. D&D is a product, commercialized by a company that thinks in terms of business. I'm sure most of the people working there love D&D too, but as a company commercial success comes first. And that means catering to the market. Modernization is driven by WotC's audience. I get that not everybody likes the direction this audience takes with their beloved pastime, I certainly don't like every aspect or outcome of this evolution either, but the way it works is that WotC does what they think the majority of players (actual and potential!) want. None of us own D&D individually. All of us own D&D collectively. Don't like what the collective does? That's understandable, but it's something we neither can or should be able to change by ourselves.
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A fair criticism, Xukuri. Allow me to amend/clarify: I don't hold The History of D&D to be sacred, or automatically superior to anything that has come recently. All ideas need to be challenged, whether just brand new born or established for fifty years. "Older" doesn't mean better, the same way newer doesn't mean better. My argument is against the idea that D&D needs to be a certain way just because it always has been that way before, and anyone who does D&D a different way is at best a misguided TT rookie that would be "better off" with a far less well-supported and accessible system whilst leaving D&D to the Experienced Purists, or at worst an actively criminalistic malefactor deliberately seeking to corrupt and destroy The True D&D for their own sick amusement.
The way D&D was does not need to be the way D&D is. Yes, certain changes would break the game's spine and render it 'Not D&D', but nobody agrees on what those changes would be. The OSR folks say that this has already happened - D&D 5e is Not D&D, the game's spine broke in the transition and it's not true D&D anymore. For other folks, "D&D" could survive alterations far more drastic than even 4e. As one example (that's sure to get me hissed at), I have no attachment to D&D 5e's class system. I would be perfectly content for the game to eliminate rigid and unbending classes altogether and instead create a massive pool of layered feats from which you build your character piecemeal, assembling exactly what you want to play. Not necessarily point buy, and there would have to be Traditions/Paths that basically hold someone's hand through the process of using the new system to recreate the old rigid, unbending, utterly inflexible classes...but I would still be perfectly willing to call that game "D&D" where many, even likely most, people would not.
As an easier example: for many people, bounded accuracy and the changes to skill and proficiency progression broke the spine of D&D and made the game into something new and abhorrent instead of their beloved fantasy game. For others, they can't imagine what D&D would be like without it.
when I say that I don't care about The History of D&D, I mean that I don't give it any more or less weight than any other proposed idea. Does reverting some aspect of the game to its historical roots make the overall game better? Cool. Do it up. Does reverting some aspect of the game to its historical roots make the overall game worse? Then don't do that, however much some folks might complain about it. Does inventing something entirely new, such as bounded accuracy, make the overall game better? Then do that instead of the historic thing.
Easy as that, really. Do whatever makes the game better. Whether that be Old Stuff or New Stuff, without any unnecessary bias for Old Stuff.
I have no attachment to D&D 5e's class system. I would be perfectly content for the game to eliminate rigid and unbending classes altogether and instead create a massive pool of layered feats from which you build your character piecemeal, assembling exactly what you want to play. Not necessarily point buy, and there would have to be Traditions/Paths that basically hold someone's hand through the process of using the new system to recreate the old rigid, unbending, utterly inflexible classes...but I would still be perfectly willing to call that game "D&D" where many, even likely most, people would not.
There was also a very different outlook on the game by the players. It wasn't just about creating stories, those were expected to emerge naturally through the course of play, but players tried to accomplish things in the game, they made very meta plans. A player running a thief for example might try to raise gold through adventuring so that they could form a thieves guild or build a stronghold for example. There was more to the game as a whole than simply "questing", but it wasn't necessarily done in a deep narrative sense, but more like a meta concept of things players did in a DM's world. It was actually more like an MMO in that sense so players might gather and actually have very meta discussions about how they might approach a particular adventure or problem in the game, what equipment they would bring, what tactics they would use, they might hire other NPC's to help them. It was less of a "my character would do this thing because he feels this way" and more about "Lets bring your druid on this one, we are going to be traveling through x forest and bob was there last week with his magic-user and said he ran into some wild boars". I don't even know if that makes sense to anyone who plays the game today and didn't play back then but it was definitely a very different atmosphere at the table and between players. We did in character stuff to especially once characters matured and got more powerful but it was not uncommon for a player to call you up and say stuff like "Dude, we are doing the Temple of Elemental Evil and Bill's Thief Marcus just died, we need you can you bring your Thief and come over and help us out". Like that is a quote from a conversation I literally had in the 90's.
Now the balance of the game was built around a lot of these concepts and Yuri is not wrong that players who brought certain characters would be expected to perform certain duties. I don't think anyone thought it was boring as he described but of course he is exaggerating the limitations considerably. You would however for example insist someone bring a Thief because traps and locked things were inevitable and they stood the best chance of dealing with them, gold was XP after all, that was how you leveled up so not being able to open locks, disarm traps meant less gold which meant less XP.
This brings back memories of so many sessions where stuff like that happened. When we would all sit together at the table in what would now be called a session zero. Everyone would roll 3d6 in order and put them on the sheet as rolled. There were no bards at character creation as you had to multiclass fighter thief and wizard before you could chose bard. Monks were very different too, and were usually actually assassins. Paladins were virtually unheard of due to the stat requirements being so high. Once everyone had rolled and put their stats down it would be "right who has the highest dex? Rod you are the party rogue, who has the highest wisdom? Fred you are our cleric, who has the highest strength? Jane you are our fighter". That is literally how many games started, and they were a blast too. Some of us old timers still do things like "Hey Jack we have a dnd game on Wednesday nights after school, you want to join? Great we need you to make a wizard because we don't have one yet". Even now, I look at characters that have been made and think ok what are we missing, what do we need as a party, and then might alter a feat or background to get thieves tools if nobody has it, or some other really useful skill or tool proficiency that the group is missing.
"Divine Soul Sorcerer. Celestial Patron Warlock. Way of Mercy Monk. It begins to feel uninspired, unnecessary, and repetitious.
Does anyone really want to play a healing warlock instead of an actual full cleric?"
Currently playing an 11th level Celestial Warlock. I went this route for a number of reasons.
1. One of the better support Warlock options, combined with tome you are a swiss army knife and enough Cantrips to manage most situations 2. EB+AB gives an easy defined ranged damage that keeps pace for damage and is consistent and easy to pull off 3. Difficulty. Managing the character creation options requires skill and keeps me interested 4. Character and story. You want to play a healer, but you don't want the traditional cleric route. This is just different enough to provide some fun.
I love cleric, but the difference in character and play style is great and its fun. Perhaps it doesn't work for you, but Matt Mercer seems to be enjoying his Divine Soul Sorcerer.
5e's ability to work around party composition is one of its greatest strengths, and it makes playing with less people easier. Not needing to force a cleric on someone helps people enjoy their time better.
"Divine Soul Sorcerer. Celestial Patron Warlock. Way of Mercy Monk. It begins to feel uninspired, unnecessary, and repetitious.
Does anyone really want to play a healing warlock instead of an actual full cleric?"
Currently playing an 11th level Celestial Warlock. I went this route for a number of reasons.
1. One of the better support Warlock options, combined with tome you are a swiss army knife and enough Cantrips to manage most situations 2. EB+AB gives an easy defined ranged damage that keeps pace for damage and is consistent and easy to pull off 3. Difficulty. Managing the character creation options requires skill and keeps me interested 4. Character and story. You want to play a healer, but you don't want the traditional cleric route. This is just different enough to provide some fun.
I love cleric, but the difference in character and play style is great and its fun. Perhaps it doesn't work for you, but Matt Mercer seems to be enjoying his Divine Soul Sorcerer.
5e's ability to work around party composition is one of its greatest strengths, and it makes playing with less people easier. Not needing to force a cleric on someone helps people enjoy their time better.
Yeah. I mean, I agree that there are some balance issues, and I'd like to see some weaker subclasses get touched upon in future books similar to the ranger redo in Tashas. But all in all, despite the variety having some balance issues, I like having these options for the same role.
I wouldn't mind seeing another system in 6E, but I really like 5E's class and subclass system, especially the variety within classes that subclasses bring to them. It's not perfect, but for me the positives of the system far outweigh the negatives.
That and the presence of other healers means that clerics don't always have to be timid, passive healbots with absolutely no job other than watching HP gauges. I played a Tempest domain cleric a while back that kept basic healing prepared, but otherwise vastly preferred to charge into the front lines of combat in her chainmail armor and with her magic warhammer sparkin'. Cynai was a cleric, yes - of a god that valued strength, valor, and power over compassion and restoration. Healing is for Melora's folk, clerics of the Stormlord that aren't willing to throw down and get stuck into the thick of combat aren't worthy of their holy symbols.
Dreams druids and Celestial warlocks make better CLS healers than clerics anyways, with their oodles of pseudo- Healing Words on tap. And sleeping is better than magic for healing severe injuries, however bizarre that mechanic may be. If I'm playing a cleric of a domain that doesn't focus on healing, y'all shouldn't be expecting me to focus on healing. I'll bring some, and if I'm in a position where I need to do it I'll do it, but my Tempest cleric will be Tempesting, my War cleric will be warring, my Trickery cleric will be pulling sneaky buggery, my Forge cleric will be right behind the Tempest and War clerics smacking people upside their faceholes in the thick of combat, so on and so forth.
That and the presence of other healers means that clerics don't always have to be timid, passive healbots with absolutely no job other than watching HP gauges. I played a Tempest domain cleric a while back that kept basic healing prepared, but otherwise vastly preferred to charge into the front lines of combat in her chainmail armor and with her magic warhammer sparkin'. Cynai was a cleric, yes - of a god that valued strength, valor, and power over compassion and restoration. Healing is for Melora's folk, clerics of the Stormlord that aren't willing to throw down and get stuck into the thick of combat aren't worthy of their holy symbols.
Dreams druids and Celestial warlocks make better CLS healers than clerics anyways, with their oodles of pseudo- Healing Words on tap. And sleeping is better than magic for healing severe injuries, however bizarre that mechanic may be. If I'm playing a cleric of a domain that doesn't focus on healing, y'all shouldn't be expecting me to focus on healing. I'll bring some, and if I'm in a position where I need to do it I'll do it, but my Tempest cleric will be Tempesting, my War cleric will be warring, my Trickery cleric will be pulling sneaky buggery, my Forge cleric will be right behind the Tempest and War clerics smacking people upside their faceholes in the thick of combat, so on and so forth.
One way to look at it is that killing the enemy faster means less incoming damage, so in a sense you're healing by prevention!
Even cleric domains with more emphasis on healing don't need to be doing it every round anyway. It's not like a video game where your healing alone is going to outpace enemy damage indefinitely, so while you want to keep people alive and in the action economy, I'd imagine even a healing centered cleric wouldn't ONLY be healing anyway.
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Considering DDB is required to implement errata and offer the latest, updated mechanics for everything it'd be more than a little surprising if that wasn't the case.
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I don't know. That is a decent chunk of lost sales if everyone here gets the contents of a whole book (plus parts of 2 others) for free. That is also why I think there won't be free updates to the revised rules coming in 2024.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Updating the contents of sources for those who own access to those sources already is not the same as giving those contents away for free. Volo's and Mordenkainen's will be updated, I'm sure.
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To be faaaaaiiiiiir
That kind of game balance makes sense where the main unit of game is a party, not an individual. Practically speaking, a game where the player is playing a squad or whatever --- like an RTS or a single-player video game RPG. Of course it falls on its face in a game where the player has a single character that acts like an avatar in the game world (and you're back at "sit down and listen while the netrunner hacks for 30 minutes").
Cue someone mentioning that in old-school D&D everyone had multiple characters and it was a game to see which (if any) made it through...
There is a lot of content in that third book (all the Races and Monsters revised) AND is a new book that they intend to release separately later in the year.
Edit: I would be willing to bet that they won't update Volo's or Mordy's to match Monster's of the Multiverse.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Heh. You're not wrong, but you've also illustrated exactly why that sort of balance is just absolutely the last possible way D&D should go. "Characters" (and let's be realistic, they don't even really qualify as characters anymore at that point) are deliberately incomplete and are pointless outside of The Unit. That's perfectly fine, even expected, for tactical wargames. I like those styles of game very much, I love me a nice, meaty tactical vidya gaem. Disgaea's my heckin' jam, and one of these days I'll play one of those X-COM games I own.
But that crap just doesn't fly for a tabletop RPG where your one, single character you play full time for several hours at a stretch is supposed to be a fully realized, complete individual with goals, desires, fears, and a history. If "You have Expertise with thieves' tools" was literally the only class feature I had, a'la BL's take on the Thief? I would never set foot outside my town. I'd open up a nice locksmithing business and live a modest life as a village girl helping people get into their shit when they lose their key again. I sure as shit wouldn't be wandering out in the wilds for weeks into a hellish monster-infested ruin, hoping and praying nothing noticed me, only to be told "hey, we found an ancient deathtrap again. Go un-deathtrap it for us" in exchange for a paltry pittance of whatever the Real Adventurers(TM) find and mental scars that will last a lifetime. Nuh. Screw that noise.
Adventurers need to be adventurers. Bold men and women with broad, well-honed skillsets well suited to tackling the unknown. And frankly, just like a tactical wargame there need to be good ways to build your character and bad ways to do it, or there's no point in having different ways to build your character at all. Each of the pieces you build with should absolutely be useful and viable in its own context, but recognizing which pieces work together and which pieces clash, which pieces are critical to your particular adventure and your chosen primary roles and which would simply be wasteful distractions? That's the shit that makes a good player good. It feels weird that OSR-type gamers, who're so focused on D&D as a long-form wargame with light elements of fantasy overlay, would be opposed to having a rich and diverse set of tools to approach their tactical scenarios with.
But what do I know, eh? I'm just some braindead moron Janey-come-lately, gotta play for at least thirty more years before I'd stand any chance of knowing what I'm talking about.
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I like your take, even if I disagree with some of the stuff you said. I wasn't around back in 'the day', but I don't think players have changed that much at all. I think there is most likely a mix of players like the ones you were talking about back in the 90s and players much like there are today.
Either way, thanks for being politer in your disagreement than some on this site at times 😂
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
To me, based on my interactions and observations here on Beyond's forum, it seems like GMs and players of my around my age are pretty moderate in terms of play style, we do not really care how others run their games, and we are not going to tell them that they are doing D&D wrong. Our only demand as a group for Wizards is we wish to be recognized and respected (individually, we still have various and contradicting demands, but those demands are generally not based on play style). The only time I will tell others they are doing it wrong or imply that way is if someone or some group is not having fun, and "no D&D is better than bad D&D" basically covers that, so I would just tell people to leave and find another more suitable group or just kick the troublemaker out.
I find that players with extremely strong narrow views are actually players of the older generation with decades of experience and played through a few editions of D&D. I do not have a great impression of roleplayers, despite myself enjoying roleplaying, but that is not because of interacting with roleplayers of my generation, that negative impression stems from interacting with players of the older generation. About a year ago on this forum, there was a roleplayer of the older generation with some pretty toxic views about preserving the soul of D&D by needlessly antagonizing min-maxers and power gamers. Now, we have another player of the older generation right here in this thread also talking about preserving the tradition of D&D, but this time it is coming from a different direction and complaining about role players. I do not have a great view of roleplayers either, and I am subsconsciously pretty biased against them after interacting with a few of them, but I still consciously recognize that not all role players are like that.
Well, from what I see, I do not think that negative attitude is coming from us young people. To me, it just looks like a vocal minority of narrow minded old people wanting to preserve their own individual vision of D&D while young people are accepting of all play styles and visions, and we young people are being scapegoated as the ones who wants change just because we stand up and defend that inclusivity, despite the fact that there are also old people who stand up for that inclusitivity too.
Like, I feel like I can guess which generation people are from on how hostile they are to certain things. I do not like murderhobos and I would not want to play in such a campaign, but my dislike is not coming from a place of hostility, but rather from a place of differing taste. I hate shiitake mushrooms and offal and I avoid eating them at all costs, but I am not going to talk shit about people who eat them, and in fact I think it is great that people enjoy eating offal so we are not wasting food. On the other hand, the vocal minority who talk about preserving D&D also often bag on people who have a different play style than them. The toxcity that comes from these people is like the same irrational phobia and hatred I have for spiders; I mercilessly kill any spider I come across with extreme prejudice, and I would not mind if all spiders go extinct despite knowing how bad that could be for the environment. The hate I have for spiders is very different from the hate I have for shiitake mushrooms and offal; one is out of malice and evil, while the other is literally just a matter of taste. If I had to guess the generation of forum users that come to mind, I am guessing Pangurjan is an older Millenial, while Yurei is a younger Millenial around my age. If I did not know you played an old edition of D&D, I would have guessed you are an older Millenial. I guess Sposta is an older Millenial or Gen X and Shoak might be an older Gen X or Boomer. I base my guesses on what a person dislikes and how much they show that dislike.
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I'd maybe be careful with throwing around generational tags willy-nilly like that, Gamma. Some folks instantly enter their barbaric Rage when they see that junk, and frankly it isn't always a great measure of someone's attitude.
As for "why do young people always try and rewrite the history of D&D?", BigLizard? We don't. Or at least I don't. I don't have any hands-on experience with The History of D&D, save for the last few years. I don't really say things like "this is the way D&D has always been." What I say is "this is the way D&D is now", and I will try and explain why to the best of my knowledge to people who are confused. Admittedly sharply if the confusion is coupled to hostility, which it often is from some folks. Many such folks tend to hold the corollary opinion "The way D&D is now sucks, I want my plotless dungeon crawls and guilt-free genocide back", and those of us who like the way D&D is now are obviously going to push back against that. I'm not trying to rewrite the history of the game. I don't care about the history of the game, at least not as anything but an academic subject of curiosity and a well of inspiration for the folks that were there to draw on. The History of D&D has no bearing on my game. I have no issue with Wizards mining the history of the game for new products, and when they do I hope they can strike a proper balance between reverence for what came before and necessary modernization...but the modernization is necessary. If for no other reason than because printing the exact same thing they already did thirty years ago is unnecessary, that version already exists.
Like it or not, modern D&D is different than historic D&D. Don't like that change? Vote with your wallet. After all, voting with wallets is what led to modern D&D in the first place.
Also? Side note specific to BigLizard, and a few others here and there.
My name is Yurei, BL. Wye Yew Are Ee Eye. Y-U-R-E-I. Ee Before Eye, Right After R. Normally I'm pretty forgiving of people misspelling my name since it's a non-English word and not everybody is going to be familiar with it, but it's also spelled out right there next to every single post I make and I don't think I've ever seen you spell it successfully even once. I know you don't like me. I know you want me to piss off and abandon D&D. That's fine. You're absolutely entitled to those feelings and opinions and I won't say you nay. You can, however, make the absolutely minimal effort required to get my ******* name right at least once in a bloody while if you're going to address me, if you would be so kind. if you really, truly hate typing out all five letters in the correct order, call me Rei.
Not Yuri - I'm not a Russian bear wrestler.
Not Yurie - I'm not whatever that even is.
Not Yuriel - I'm not an angel, by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
Yurei. Or just Rei if Yurei's too hard. Thank you and good day, sir.
Please do not contact or message me.
Ugh. I don't mind older, but Millenial? You wound me, good sir... :p
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I mean, clearly Pang is a Millenial...in cat years.
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I find this...odd, your complete dismissal of the game's history. Because it may not directly influence your playstyle or the game at your table, but I assure you: D&D's past still impacts your game.
I say this not as a grumpy old grognard who thinks everything was so much better back in the day. While I love a lot of things about 1E, I think 5E is a better version of it, and one that provides far more clarity and flexibility. But both the actual origins of the game, as well as the mechanics of previous versions, affect the present version and your own game, though perhaps in ways that aren't obvious. And, in general, I really prefer the push towards role-play and fleshing characters out, though I don't love the marked decrease in danger of permadeath in 5E RAW.
Leomund's tiny hut, for instance. I've done a ridiculous amount of reading on that spell, here, on other forums, and in previous editions. Understanding that current version is actually a Frankenstein of the safe haven spell (I think that's what it was called) from a previous edition and the older tiny hut spell explains a LOT - plus it gives me ideas on how to potentially houserule it, should I so desire.
Rigid, complaining old schoolers can learn something from newer players - just as newer players can have their perspectives widened and challenged by longtime gamers.
To be clear: nothing is gained when anyone takes an unyielding, "the youth today!" type of stance, nor when a particular edition is held up as One True Edition.
Modernization isn't driven by WotC either. WotC isn't changing the way they develop D&D and design products for it for the sake of change or because thats the way they like it. D&D is a product, commercialized by a company that thinks in terms of business. I'm sure most of the people working there love D&D too, but as a company commercial success comes first. And that means catering to the market. Modernization is driven by WotC's audience. I get that not everybody likes the direction this audience takes with their beloved pastime, I certainly don't like every aspect or outcome of this evolution either, but the way it works is that WotC does what they think the majority of players (actual and potential!) want. None of us own D&D individually. All of us own D&D collectively. Don't like what the collective does? That's understandable, but it's something we neither can or should be able to change by ourselves.
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A fair criticism, Xukuri. Allow me to amend/clarify: I don't hold The History of D&D to be sacred, or automatically superior to anything that has come recently. All ideas need to be challenged, whether just brand new born or established for fifty years. "Older" doesn't mean better, the same way newer doesn't mean better. My argument is against the idea that D&D needs to be a certain way just because it always has been that way before, and anyone who does D&D a different way is at best a misguided TT rookie that would be "better off" with a far less well-supported and accessible system whilst leaving D&D to the Experienced Purists, or at worst an actively criminalistic malefactor deliberately seeking to corrupt and destroy The True D&D for their own sick amusement.
The way D&D was does not need to be the way D&D is. Yes, certain changes would break the game's spine and render it 'Not D&D', but nobody agrees on what those changes would be. The OSR folks say that this has already happened - D&D 5e is Not D&D, the game's spine broke in the transition and it's not true D&D anymore. For other folks, "D&D" could survive alterations far more drastic than even 4e. As one example (that's sure to get me hissed at), I have no attachment to D&D 5e's class system. I would be perfectly content for the game to eliminate rigid and unbending classes altogether and instead create a massive pool of layered feats from which you build your character piecemeal, assembling exactly what you want to play. Not necessarily point buy, and there would have to be Traditions/Paths that basically hold someone's hand through the process of using the new system to recreate the old rigid, unbending, utterly inflexible classes...but I would still be perfectly willing to call that game "D&D" where many, even likely most, people would not.
As an easier example: for many people, bounded accuracy and the changes to skill and proficiency progression broke the spine of D&D and made the game into something new and abhorrent instead of their beloved fantasy game. For others, they can't imagine what D&D would be like without it.
when I say that I don't care about The History of D&D, I mean that I don't give it any more or less weight than any other proposed idea. Does reverting some aspect of the game to its historical roots make the overall game better? Cool. Do it up. Does reverting some aspect of the game to its historical roots make the overall game worse? Then don't do that, however much some folks might complain about it. Does inventing something entirely new, such as bounded accuracy, make the overall game better? Then do that instead of the historic thing.
Easy as that, really. Do whatever makes the game better. Whether that be Old Stuff or New Stuff, without any unnecessary bias for Old Stuff.
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Hisssssss Hissssss!!!!
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
This brings back memories of so many sessions where stuff like that happened. When we would all sit together at the table in what would now be called a session zero. Everyone would roll 3d6 in order and put them on the sheet as rolled. There were no bards at character creation as you had to multiclass fighter thief and wizard before you could chose bard. Monks were very different too, and were usually actually assassins. Paladins were virtually unheard of due to the stat requirements being so high. Once everyone had rolled and put their stats down it would be "right who has the highest dex? Rod you are the party rogue, who has the highest wisdom? Fred you are our cleric, who has the highest strength? Jane you are our fighter". That is literally how many games started, and they were a blast too. Some of us old timers still do things like "Hey Jack we have a dnd game on Wednesday nights after school, you want to join? Great we need you to make a wizard because we don't have one yet". Even now, I look at characters that have been made and think ok what are we missing, what do we need as a party, and then might alter a feat or background to get thieves tools if nobody has it, or some other really useful skill or tool proficiency that the group is missing.
"Divine Soul Sorcerer. Celestial Patron Warlock. Way of Mercy Monk. It begins to feel uninspired, unnecessary, and repetitious.
Does anyone really want to play a healing warlock instead of an actual full cleric?"
Currently playing an 11th level Celestial Warlock. I went this route for a number of reasons.
1. One of the better support Warlock options, combined with tome you are a swiss army knife and enough Cantrips to manage most situations
2. EB+AB gives an easy defined ranged damage that keeps pace for damage and is consistent and easy to pull off
3. Difficulty. Managing the character creation options requires skill and keeps me interested
4. Character and story. You want to play a healer, but you don't want the traditional cleric route. This is just different enough to provide some fun.
I love cleric, but the difference in character and play style is great and its fun. Perhaps it doesn't work for you, but Matt Mercer seems to be enjoying his Divine Soul Sorcerer.
5e's ability to work around party composition is one of its greatest strengths, and it makes playing with less people easier. Not needing to force a cleric on someone helps people enjoy their time better.
Yeah. I mean, I agree that there are some balance issues, and I'd like to see some weaker subclasses get touched upon in future books similar to the ranger redo in Tashas. But all in all, despite the variety having some balance issues, I like having these options for the same role.
I wouldn't mind seeing another system in 6E, but I really like 5E's class and subclass system, especially the variety within classes that subclasses bring to them. It's not perfect, but for me the positives of the system far outweigh the negatives.
That and the presence of other healers means that clerics don't always have to be timid, passive healbots with absolutely no job other than watching HP gauges. I played a Tempest domain cleric a while back that kept basic healing prepared, but otherwise vastly preferred to charge into the front lines of combat in her chainmail armor and with her magic warhammer sparkin'. Cynai was a cleric, yes - of a god that valued strength, valor, and power over compassion and restoration. Healing is for Melora's folk, clerics of the Stormlord that aren't willing to throw down and get stuck into the thick of combat aren't worthy of their holy symbols.
Dreams druids and Celestial warlocks make better CLS healers than clerics anyways, with their oodles of pseudo- Healing Words on tap. And sleeping is better than magic for healing severe injuries, however bizarre that mechanic may be. If I'm playing a cleric of a domain that doesn't focus on healing, y'all shouldn't be expecting me to focus on healing. I'll bring some, and if I'm in a position where I need to do it I'll do it, but my Tempest cleric will be Tempesting, my War cleric will be warring, my Trickery cleric will be pulling sneaky buggery, my Forge cleric will be right behind the Tempest and War clerics smacking people upside their faceholes in the thick of combat, so on and so forth.
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One way to look at it is that killing the enemy faster means less incoming damage, so in a sense you're healing by prevention!
Even cleric domains with more emphasis on healing don't need to be doing it every round anyway. It's not like a video game where your healing alone is going to outpace enemy damage indefinitely, so while you want to keep people alive and in the action economy, I'd imagine even a healing centered cleric wouldn't ONLY be healing anyway.