I think the changes to Eldritch Knight sound awesome. One of the biggest reasons that I didn't play that subclass was the restrictions on schools of magic. Removing those restrictions AND making it easier for the Fighter to use spells along side attacks is exciting and makes be want to give it a try.
I would have liked a better overview of Psi Warrior though, that part is disappointing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
A truly battle master! Great changes in my opinion.
The Epic Boons are really powerful. A quick note I took: "[...] if your DM wants you to keep playing at level 20 you can go beyond the power that characters normally have [...] once they reach the ceiling or reach the level cap [...] now every time you hit a certain amount of XP you can pick another Epic Boon feat [...] if you play at level 20 long enough you could conceivably get one of your scores all the way up to 30 [...] meaning that at that point you are truly god tier"
Related to that video, but not only the Fighter. Interesting how the surprise is going to work in the new edition (link to timestamp): disadvantage on initiative rolls.
We just premiered the overview of the 2024 Fighter! What do you think so far?
What do I think so far? These uber-buffs are ridiculous, and DM's are going to have massive headaches. Further, these additional layers of complexity, as crawford admits when he says the term "just became a more intricate mini-game" at 6:10, will slow the game down even further. Players will struggle even more to keep things straight.
I get why wotc does it. The only way to sell 6e (and yes, when you can't use a 2024 PC in 2014 game mechanics, as crawford said in the last video, it is a new edition) is to buff everybody's PC. There is no other reason for players to switch over to 6e. So so many people believe that more powerful PC's = "more fun", and newer is always better. Both those concepts are wrong.
There is no way getting around it. The DM's will have a much harder time dealing with player builds, and because increased complexity of these builds, players will make even more errors, and will allow even more opportunity for cheating, since DM's will not be able to keep up with all the complexity, while running a game. Of course, if the idea is to phase out human DM's with an AI driven VTT aka video game, then yeah, these buffs make some sense. Because I know of at least 3 DM's that are adamant they will never move to 6e.
- Tactical Mind, Tactical Shift, and Studied Attacks are all unchanged from the last UA.
- Master of Armaments is gone, replaced with Tactical Master. Instead of swapping mastery properties on their weapons, the Fighter can simply choose to use Push, Sap, or Slow on the fly (i.e. when they hit) with any weapon instead of its existing property. This means level 9+ Fighters will probably want to prepare the other masteries like Topple or Vex instead.
- Like every other class, Fighters gain access to Epic Boons at 19th level. The ones Crawford mentioned in the video are an epic boon that grants permanent Truesight out to a certain radius, one that lets you convert any miss into an automatic hit 1/turn, and one that lets you teleport whenever you take the Attack action or Magic action.
Battlemaster
- The fighting styles Blind Fighting, Interception, Thrown and Unarmed are all core now; Protection also got buffed (he didn't say how), and you can now swap your fighting style(s) whenever you gain a fighter level.
- As per the UA, the Tasha's Battlemaster maneuvers Ambush, Bait & Switch, Commanding Presence and Tactical Assessment are now core.
- Know Your Enemy and Student of War are unchanged from the UA (i.e. hugely buffed from 2014)
Champion
- Remarkable Athlete was changed from the UA - it still grants advantage on Athletics and Initiative (which functionally means Champions can't be Surprised), but now it grants free movement when you score a crit (which is of course more likely for the Champion than other classes) instead of the weird jumping thing.
- Heroic Warrior benefits from the buff to Inspiration, which now gives you full rerolls instead of just advantage, and the rerolls can be applied to any die roll not just the d20.
Eldritch Knight
- Change from the latest UA, there is no more spell school restriction on the Eldritch Knight at all, even starting out. (Confirmation that this is true of the Arcane Trickster now too.)
- As per the UA, Eldritch Knights can use arcane foci and rituals now.
- Improved War Magic got nerfed from the UA, you're capped at combining 2nd-level spells with your attack action.
Psi Warrior
- They only mentioned "wording changes," so I suppose we'll have to wait and see what that means.
Battlemaster could have been included with base fighter to further enhance the fighter's 'mastery' of 'weapon masteries' to do something beyond 'i hit something and something happens' and 'I use second wind for x'. Mastery of the weapon of the mind...
Creative enough eldritch knight could work weapon masteries into say cantrips.
Battlemaster could have been included with base fighter to further enhance the fighter's 'mastery' of 'weapon masteries' to do something beyond 'i hit something and something happens' and 'I use second wind for x'.
Crawford spoke about that idea (folding Battlemaster Maneuvers into the base Fighter) directly, and why they ended up rejecting the idea.
I think a good compromise would be for them to buff the Martial Adept feat, and possibly allow it to be taken more than once. That way you could have a Champion or even a Barbarian with a few maneuvers - not as many as a Battlemaster, but enough for more "spice" alongside the Weapon Mastery system.
Battlemaster could have been included with base fighter to further enhance the fighter's 'mastery' of 'weapon masteries' to do something beyond 'i hit something and something happens' and 'I use second wind for x'.
Crawford spoke about that idea (folding Battlemaster Maneuvers into the base Fighter) directly, and why they ended up rejecting the idea.
I think a good compromise would be for them to buff the Martial Adept feat, and possibly allow it to be taken more than once. That way you could have a Champion or even a Barbarian with a few maneuvers - not as many as a Battlemaster, but enough for more "spice" alongside the Weapon Mastery system.
That would be a great idea, and it may be happening to some extent. We won't know until we see the revised Feats, but I will keep my fingers crossed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
I really like most of what I’ve read, haven’t seen the video yet, though. Love using healing surge for other things and the buff to indomitable. I’m still not convinced that having more than 3 masteries at once will be as great as they think. Usually, at that point, you’ll have a magic weapon with properties that will be more valuable than switching to a different weapon just for its mastery. Particularly when you’ll have three you could add to any weapon. (I really like that idea of changing on the fly, as it definitely opens up choices, it’s just, if I can apply sap with any weapon, then it actually works against you to use a weapon that has sap naturally.)
But, I’ll be happy to find out I’m wrong about that when I get a chance to try it in play.
That would be a great idea, and it may be happening to some extent. We won't know until we see the revised Feats, but I will keep my fingers crossed.
Just to add to this, Superior Technique from Tasha's is still a thing too and should be available to Fighters at 1st-level, provided your table is okay with combining Tasha's material with the new PHB as the devs recommend.
(I really like that idea of changing on the fly, as it definitely opens up choices, it’s just, if I can apply sap with any weapon, then it actually works against you to use a weapon that has sap naturally.)
If you have a native Sap weapon, you can still apply one of the other two (Slow or Push) on the fly with Tactical Master instead, so the feature is still useful I'd say. It rewards you for using a weapon that's completely outside those three, but if yours falls within that set you still benefit.
(I really like that idea of changing on the fly, as it definitely opens up choices, it’s just, if I can apply sap with any weapon, then it actually works against you to use a weapon that has sap naturally.)
If you have a native Sap weapon, you can still apply one of the other two (Slow or Push) on the fly with Tactical Master instead, so the feature is still useful I'd say. It rewards you for using a weapon that's completely outside those three, but if yours falls within that set you still benefit.
Absolutely. But if I use a non-sap weapon, I have four choices instead of three. Really, I recognize my issue is pretty academic until we see which weapons have which properties. Like I said, I'll be very happy if I'm wrong and it's just the kind of thing that sounds bad (to me, at least) but actually works well in play.
They should have just done the actual work, fixed the core math system and called it 6e instead of this half-assed stuff that won't be fully compatable.
- Improved War Magic got nerfed from the UA, you're capped at combining 2nd-level spells with your attack action.
To be fair, that limit was mentioned in the "design note" part of UA7, it just wasn't reflected in the rules text, so it was unclear which version was intended.
Absolutely. But if I use a non-sap weapon, I have four choices instead of three. Really, I recognize my issue is pretty academic until we see which weapons have which properties. Like I said, I'll be very happy if I'm wrong and it's just the kind of thing that sounds bad (to me, at least) but actually works well in play.
Your reading is correct but it's not a big deal at all. 3 WM choices instead of 4 on a hit is just not a material drawback, and certainly not enough of one to offset discarding a great magic weapon or one that otherwise synergizes well with your build.
To be fair, that limit was mentioned in the "design note" part of UA7, it just wasn't reflected in the rules text, so it was unclear which version was intended.
Unrelated to fighter, but did you all catch the new surprise rules. If you're surprised, disadvantage on initiative. No more first round you don't do anything.
(I really like that idea of changing on the fly, as it definitely opens up choices, it’s just, if I can apply sap with any weapon, then it actually works against you to use a weapon that has sap naturally.)
If you have a native Sap weapon, you can still apply one of the other two (Slow or Push) on the fly with Tactical Master instead, so the feature is still useful I'd say. It rewards you for using a weapon that's completely outside those three, but if yours falls within that set you still benefit.
Absolutely. But if I use a non-sap weapon, I have four choices instead of three. Really, I recognize my issue is pretty academic until we see which weapons have which properties. Like I said, I'll be very happy if I'm wrong and it's just the kind of thing that sounds bad (to me, at least) but actually works well in play.
While I agree it encourages you to use a non-sap, push, or slow weapons if you have a magic version of one of those weapons already then I would rather use that and have only the two other options to choose from than using a non magical weapon just to have three additional options.
Unrelated to fighter, but did you all catch the new surprise rules. If you're surprised, disadvantage on initiative. No more first round you don't do anything.
Yeah. Seems like basically a good change, though it seems likely to result in anomalies where you surprise an enemy... and still go last. A house rule that tempts me is
Surprise and Ambushes
In a potential ambush situation, initiative is modified:
The ambushers roll both initiative and stealth, and use the higher value.
The ambushees roll both initiative and perception, and use the lower value.
Eldritch Knight being able to sacrifice an attack to do a cantrip is pretty good, being able to sacrifice two attacks to cast a spell is even better!
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
ModeratorWe just premiered the overview of the 2024 Fighter! What do you think so far?
D&D Beyond ToS || D&D Beyond Support
I think the changes to Eldritch Knight sound awesome. One of the biggest reasons that I didn't play that subclass was the restrictions on schools of magic. Removing those restrictions AND making it easier for the Fighter to use spells along side attacks is exciting and makes be want to give it a try.
I would have liked a better overview of Psi Warrior though, that part is disappointing.
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
A truly battle master! Great changes in my opinion.
The Epic Boons are really powerful. A quick note I took: "[...] if your DM wants you to keep playing at level 20 you can go beyond the power that characters normally have [...] once they reach the ceiling or reach the level cap [...] now every time you hit a certain amount of XP you can pick another Epic Boon feat [...] if you play at level 20 long enough you could conceivably get one of your scores all the way up to 30 [...] meaning that at that point you are truly god tier"
Related to that video, but not only the Fighter. Interesting how the surprise is going to work in the new edition (link to timestamp): disadvantage on initiative rolls.
Heroic Warrior is a great feature. Having one free re-roll of any die every turn is a crazy good ability to have.
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
What do I think so far? These uber-buffs are ridiculous, and DM's are going to have massive headaches. Further, these additional layers of complexity, as crawford admits when he says the term "just became a more intricate mini-game" at 6:10, will slow the game down even further. Players will struggle even more to keep things straight.
I get why wotc does it. The only way to sell 6e (and yes, when you can't use a 2024 PC in 2014 game mechanics, as crawford said in the last video, it is a new edition) is to buff everybody's PC. There is no other reason for players to switch over to 6e. So so many people believe that more powerful PC's = "more fun", and newer is always better. Both those concepts are wrong.
There is no way getting around it. The DM's will have a much harder time dealing with player builds, and because increased complexity of these builds, players will make even more errors, and will allow even more opportunity for cheating, since DM's will not be able to keep up with all the complexity, while running a game. Of course, if the idea is to phase out human DM's with an AI driven VTT aka video game, then yeah, these buffs make some sense. Because I know of at least 3 DM's that are adamant they will never move to 6e.
Summary of changes since the last UA:
Base Fighter
- Tactical Mind, Tactical Shift, and Studied Attacks are all unchanged from the last UA.
- Master of Armaments is gone, replaced with Tactical Master. Instead of swapping mastery properties on their weapons, the Fighter can simply choose to use Push, Sap, or Slow on the fly (i.e. when they hit) with any weapon instead of its existing property. This means level 9+ Fighters will probably want to prepare the other masteries like Topple or Vex instead.
- Like every other class, Fighters gain access to Epic Boons at 19th level. The ones Crawford mentioned in the video are an epic boon that grants permanent Truesight out to a certain radius, one that lets you convert any miss into an automatic hit 1/turn, and one that lets you teleport whenever you take the Attack action or Magic action.
Battlemaster
- The fighting styles Blind Fighting, Interception, Thrown and Unarmed are all core now; Protection also got buffed (he didn't say how), and you can now swap your fighting style(s) whenever you gain a fighter level.
- As per the UA, the Tasha's Battlemaster maneuvers Ambush, Bait & Switch, Commanding Presence and Tactical Assessment are now core.
- Know Your Enemy and Student of War are unchanged from the UA (i.e. hugely buffed from 2014)
Champion
- Remarkable Athlete was changed from the UA - it still grants advantage on Athletics and Initiative (which functionally means Champions can't be Surprised), but now it grants free movement when you score a crit (which is of course more likely for the Champion than other classes) instead of the weird jumping thing.
- Heroic Warrior benefits from the buff to Inspiration, which now gives you full rerolls instead of just advantage, and the rerolls can be applied to any die roll not just the d20.
Eldritch Knight
- Change from the latest UA, there is no more spell school restriction on the Eldritch Knight at all, even starting out. (Confirmation that this is true of the Arcane Trickster now too.)
- As per the UA, Eldritch Knights can use arcane foci and rituals now.
- Improved War Magic got nerfed from the UA, you're capped at combining 2nd-level spells with your attack action.
Psi Warrior
- They only mentioned "wording changes," so I suppose we'll have to wait and see what that means.
Battlemaster could have been included with base fighter to further enhance the fighter's 'mastery' of 'weapon masteries' to do something beyond 'i hit something and something happens' and 'I use second wind for x'. Mastery of the weapon of the mind...
Creative enough eldritch knight could work weapon masteries into say cantrips.
Crawford spoke about that idea (folding Battlemaster Maneuvers into the base Fighter) directly, and why they ended up rejecting the idea.
I think a good compromise would be for them to buff the Martial Adept feat, and possibly allow it to be taken more than once. That way you could have a Champion or even a Barbarian with a few maneuvers - not as many as a Battlemaster, but enough for more "spice" alongside the Weapon Mastery system.
That would be a great idea, and it may be happening to some extent. We won't know until we see the revised Feats, but I will keep my fingers crossed.
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
I really like most of what I’ve read, haven’t seen the video yet, though. Love using healing surge for other things and the buff to indomitable.
I’m still not convinced that having more than 3 masteries at once will be as great as they think. Usually, at that point, you’ll have a magic weapon with properties that will be more valuable than switching to a different weapon just for its mastery. Particularly when you’ll have three you could add to any weapon. (I really like that idea of changing on the fly, as it definitely opens up choices, it’s just, if I can apply sap with any weapon, then it actually works against you to use a weapon that has sap naturally.)
But, I’ll be happy to find out I’m wrong about that when I get a chance to try it in play.
Just to add to this, Superior Technique from Tasha's is still a thing too and should be available to Fighters at 1st-level, provided your table is okay with combining Tasha's material with the new PHB as the devs recommend.
If you have a native Sap weapon, you can still apply one of the other two (Slow or Push) on the fly with Tactical Master instead, so the feature is still useful I'd say. It rewards you for using a weapon that's completely outside those three, but if yours falls within that set you still benefit.
Absolutely. But if I use a non-sap weapon, I have four choices instead of three. Really, I recognize my issue is pretty academic until we see which weapons have which properties. Like I said, I'll be very happy if I'm wrong and it's just the kind of thing that sounds bad (to me, at least) but actually works well in play.
They should have just done the actual work, fixed the core math system and called it 6e instead of this half-assed stuff that won't be fully compatable.
To be fair, that limit was mentioned in the "design note" part of UA7, it just wasn't reflected in the rules text, so it was unclear which version was intended.
Your reading is correct but it's not a big deal at all. 3 WM choices instead of 4 on a hit is just not a material drawback, and certainly not enough of one to offset discarding a great magic weapon or one that otherwise synergizes well with your build.
Fair enough - I guess now we know
Unrelated to fighter, but did you all catch the new surprise rules. If you're surprised, disadvantage on initiative. No more first round you don't do anything.
While I agree it encourages you to use a non-sap, push, or slow weapons if you have a magic version of one of those weapons already then I would rather use that and have only the two other options to choose from than using a non magical weapon just to have three additional options.
So far I like the changes.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Yeah. Seems like basically a good change, though it seems likely to result in anomalies where you surprise an enemy... and still go last. A house rule that tempts me is
OMG! The fighter is undergoing a serious glow up!
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master