The new PHB is out and I'm still on the fence about it. Much stuff has been reworked. There are some changes and new ideas I like and some I don't like. But thats mostly down to personal preferences. The new digital book still has a bit of work to be done but I expect that the team is hard at work on it, and I trust them that most of the technical issues will be fixed eventually.
There are however a few things that I think D&D could do better in the future. Most of my gripes are about making the rules more intuitive. While it might still be possible to include changes about these issues in the current ruleset I would not be surprised if thats not really possible at this point. In that case I would hope that the devs might consider some changes for future editions.
Darkvision (and possibly other rules that could be more intuitive).
With the 2014 edition many groups used darkvision wrong and there where many groups where players felt bad when their character was the only one without darkvision, forcing the whole group to give away their position with light. While that was (and is) still true, what many people missed was that without light even with darkvision you would have disadvantage on perception checks to notice the pit trap or the monsters waiting in ambush. This is not entirely the players fault as the rules for that where stretched out over different parts of the rulebook. Sadly the 2024 edition did not recitify this. Worse, they somehow managed to make it even harder. I own only the digital version which is very easy to navigate as you only have to follow the links... but still, it's not easy to get to these rules. You see "Darkvision" in your species description but it does not say what it does. So you click it (or hover over it) to discover it let's you see in darkness as in dim light. Going to dim light you still get no real idea what it means as it tells you "an area with dim light is lightly obscured" so you have to follow that to find out that you have disadvantage on perception. How are players (especially new ones) supposed to get this rule right ? Why not include all of this in the darkvision descrition ?
Half Feats.
It seems that all general feats (except ability score improvement) are now half feats. That is very unintuitive for new players. As an experienced player you probably know you want to pick feat X at level Y and leave the corresponding stat at an uneven level. But a new player might not have accounted for that and might "waste" an attribute point. Worse, what happens when he maxed out dex first and then took defensive duelist ? An experienced player might run into the same problems if he (god forbid) decides to let his choices be affected by what is happening in the game. Maybe he never wanted to take "Resilient" but after seing a good friend being killed because he was not able to resist some effect he changes his mind. Story influenced character development should not be punished in my opinion. For future editions I would prefer to either have no half feats or to minimize their drawbacks by allowing you to freely choose the attribute you raise. At the very least if that point would be wasted because the attribute is already at 20. This would be much the same as you can do when getting background skill that you already have, so why not have the same rule for attribute increases ? And yes, of course anyone can houserule this but I think it would benefit the rules to be more beginner friendly and generally more intuitive from the start.
Please keep posts in this thread about unintuitive rules !
Feel free to add any other issues you come across to this thread, but again please keep to the topic. This thread should not be about stuff that is personal preferences or obvious errors as there are other threads for these issues.
I would not have seen this as a negative personally. But you're right, in that it sort of makes the "mini game" of character planning more prominent than character playing but frankly that's been a very large component of D&D since around 3rd edition. (which, lets face it, actively punished you for evolving your character organically, for example, by locking you out of certain prestige classes because you picked the wrong skills, or spell levels because you dipped fighter, or depriving you of an attack because you were off your BAB by one at the wrong level and so on).
I have sympathy for players who have this problem. In a recent playthrough of Solasta (a video game based on D&D ruleset), I didn't realize how many half-feats there were, and took 2xDex on a Ranger, only to find later that the archery feats I wanted later both were +1 dex half-feats. And she was already at Dex20. No rebates :(
A sympathetic DM in a real game would probably allow a "free respec" of the previous selection if one of their players made a similar mistake. Technically that's a +1 power boost for the previous levels, but , yeah, that's not really a big deal if you give everyone a single feat respec at the same time.
I think that the half feats is not unintuitive at all, and in fact helps to solve the problem of the warlock dip for any martial that uses melee weapons and charisma. Now, with them being half feats, you can't take classes designed and balanced around being a bit MAD and just dipping warlock for a level and ignoring that tradeoff. Now, str will be much more valueable for heavy weapons, because heavy weapon feats are giving str, which a warlock dipper won't be getting. I think it's an excellent change and a necessary one.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The Multiclassing rules for Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters still cost them a caster level when their level isn't divisible by 3, which is an issue they carried over from the 2014 rules.
E.g. A 4th level EK has the spell slots of a 2nd level caster when single-classed (their slots are calculated as level / 3 rounded up.) They then take a level in wizard, and their multiclassed caster level is still ⌊4/3⌋ + 1 = 2. Any other class would've gained a caster level. Paladins and Rangers worked like this too in 2014 as well, but not in 2024.
I think that the half feats is not unintuitive at all, and in fact helps to solve the problem of the warlock dip for any martial that uses melee weapons and charisma.
That's already a solved problem anyways, every class now gets its subclasses at 3rd level so you can no longer take 1 level in Warlock and get Hexblade's Curse and Hex Warrior.
The new PHB is out and I'm still on the fence about it. Much stuff has been reworked. There are some changes and new ideas I like and some I don't like. But thats mostly down to personal preferences. The new digital book still has a bit of work to be done but I expect that the team is hard at work on it, and I trust them that most of the technical issues will be fixed eventually.
There are however a few things that I think D&D could do better in the future. Most of my gripes are about making the rules more intuitive. While it might still be possible to include changes about these issues in the current ruleset I would not be surprised if thats not really possible at this point. In that case I would hope that the devs might consider some changes for future editions.
Darkvision (and possibly other rules that could be more intuitive).
With the 2014 edition many groups used darkvision wrong and there where many groups where players felt bad when their character was the only one without darkvision, forcing the whole group to give away their position with light. While that was (and is) still true, what many people missed was that without light even with darkvision you would have disadvantage on perception checks to notice the pit trap or the monsters waiting in ambush. This is not entirely the players fault as the rules for that where stretched out over different parts of the rulebook.
Sadly the 2024 edition did not recitify this. Worse, they somehow managed to make it even harder. I own only the digital version which is very easy to navigate as you only have to follow the links... but still, it's not easy to get to these rules.
You see "Darkvision" in your species description but it does not say what it does. So you click it (or hover over it) to discover it let's you see in darkness as in dim light. Going to dim light you still get no real idea what it means as it tells you "an area with dim light is lightly obscured" so you have to follow that to find out that you have disadvantage on perception.
How are players (especially new ones) supposed to get this rule right ? Why not include all of this in the darkvision descrition ?
Half Feats.
It seems that all general feats (except ability score improvement) are now half feats. That is very unintuitive for new players. As an experienced player you probably know you want to pick feat X at level Y and leave the corresponding stat at an uneven level. But a new player might not have accounted for that and might "waste" an attribute point. Worse, what happens when he maxed out dex first and then took defensive duelist ? An experienced player might run into the same problems if he (god forbid) decides to let his choices be affected by what is happening in the game. Maybe he never wanted to take "Resilient" but after seing a good friend being killed because he was not able to resist some effect he changes his mind. Story influenced character development should not be punished in my opinion.
For future editions I would prefer to either have no half feats or to minimize their drawbacks by allowing you to freely choose the attribute you raise. At the very least if that point would be wasted because the attribute is already at 20. This would be much the same as you can do when getting background skill that you already have, so why not have the same rule for attribute increases ?
And yes, of course anyone can houserule this but I think it would benefit the rules to be more beginner friendly and generally more intuitive from the start.
Please keep posts in this thread about unintuitive rules !
Feel free to add any other issues you come across to this thread, but again please keep to the topic. This thread should not be about stuff that is personal preferences or obvious errors as there are other threads for these issues.
Interesting thought on Half-Feats.
I would not have seen this as a negative personally. But you're right, in that it sort of makes the "mini game" of character planning more prominent than character playing but frankly that's been a very large component of D&D since around 3rd edition. (which, lets face it, actively punished you for evolving your character organically, for example, by locking you out of certain prestige classes because you picked the wrong skills, or spell levels because you dipped fighter, or depriving you of an attack because you were off your BAB by one at the wrong level and so on).
I have sympathy for players who have this problem. In a recent playthrough of Solasta (a video game based on D&D ruleset), I didn't realize how many half-feats there were, and took 2xDex on a Ranger, only to find later that the archery feats I wanted later both were +1 dex half-feats. And she was already at Dex20. No rebates :(
A sympathetic DM in a real game would probably allow a "free respec" of the previous selection if one of their players made a similar mistake. Technically that's a +1 power boost for the previous levels, but , yeah, that's not really a big deal if you give everyone a single feat respec at the same time.
I think that the half feats is not unintuitive at all, and in fact helps to solve the problem of the warlock dip for any martial that uses melee weapons and charisma. Now, with them being half feats, you can't take classes designed and balanced around being a bit MAD and just dipping warlock for a level and ignoring that tradeoff. Now, str will be much more valueable for heavy weapons, because heavy weapon feats are giving str, which a warlock dipper won't be getting. I think it's an excellent change and a necessary one.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Crzyhawk, I'm afreaid you lost me. What do half feats have to do with warlock dips ?
What I mean by half-feats are feats that give you a +1 bonus to an attribute.
The Multiclassing rules for Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters still cost them a caster level when their level isn't divisible by 3, which is an issue they carried over from the 2014 rules.
E.g. A 4th level EK has the spell slots of a 2nd level caster when single-classed (their slots are calculated as level / 3 rounded up.) They then take a level in wizard, and their multiclassed caster level is still ⌊4/3⌋ + 1 = 2. Any other class would've gained a caster level. Paladins and Rangers worked like this too in 2014 as well, but not in 2024.
EDIT:
That's already a solved problem anyways, every class now gets its subclasses at 3rd level so you can no longer take 1 level in Warlock and get Hexblade's Curse and Hex Warrior.
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