Fair; it could use a passive combat buff or spending Second Wind to re-up the charges between rests.
Granted, you are also getting more from the Brutality than you get from a Maneuver- Sap and extra damage, Vex and advantage on saving throws, and Topple with a mini stun effect. The idea might be to explore a midpoint between Champion where it's basically all passives and Battlemaster with a very large and involved repertoire. Personally I like the CHA part because it gives it synergy with some multiclasses while limiting others- you can dip it with a Paladin or Bard to add some combat moves but it less readily works with Barbarian- but at the moment it is gonna feel pretty meh on days with a lot of encounters.
How long will the survey be open. Cause a week is hardly enough time to test things thoroughly. It took me 3 days to get my DM to look up from their 3 different campaigns on going to have cup of coffee and acknowledge that a new UA came out.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
How long will the survey be open. Cause a week is hardly enough time to test things thoroughly. It took me 3 days to get my DM to look up from their 3 different campaigns on going to have cup of coffee and acknowledge that a new UA came out.
it closes September 11th!
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Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her) You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On| CM Hat Off Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5]. Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
The point of having better outlined Exploration rules is to incentize people to write and publish modules with more Exploration included. Right now the oudoor Exploration pillar is poorly represented in published modules. Example: There are only a few books where anything like Navigation or Cartographer's tools would even remotely be worth choosing. That's because most modules take place in a city, in a dungeon or some kind of place where you are intentionally supposed to get lost via magic (Feywilds, the Abyss). That's just one example.
Ofc the DM can, theoretically, make NPCs that are more active. D&D can be played a lot of dfferent ways. The point is that many do not and this is partially b/c the RAW does not incentivze or make it easy to do so in a way that is organized and meaningful. Rolling on a table to generate PC traits and known relationships is the very opposite of meaningful NPCs, but that's what we are encouraged to do. The published modules from WotC itself does not incetivize meaningful NPCs outside of a handful of recurring famous people. That's the point; to make Exploration meaningful, it has to start from the Top, not just say "Well, DMs can do anything if they want to." I, mean, DMs can also not run D&D if they want to. That's not really a good argument for the lack of Exploration tie-ins.
Well, published adventures are a different story, I was thinking in terms of homebrew. And I guess it remains to be seen if this will be an adventure or a setting book, or what.
But I will say there’s no rule that’s going to help people make a compelling NPC. Even if they write one in a campaign book it will fail to the DM to bring it to life, and I think we’ve all seen plenty of well written but poorly acted movies to know how that sort of thing turns out. Teaching a DM to create a good NPC would be more like a fiction writing workshop coupled with an acting seminar than something they can cover in a rule book.
Acting skill has nothing to do with NPC-making. However, understanding story structure is. Part of the DMG should have been devoted to helping new DMs understand story structure and provided examples from previously published AD&D/D&D fiction to illustrate this. There are visual tools that exist which professional story writers use. How do people like George R.R. Martin and Isayama Hajime manage to create multi-volume works while maintaining consistent characterization throughout? Is that coincidence? No, these people use visualisation tools, storyboards, and character bibles to keep track of all this stuff. For a role-playing game that is trying to evolve with the times, WotC isn't working very hard to provide new DMs with the kinds of tools we should have when we are paying $50 for a new book about "how to be gud DM."
Now, how does one tie the Exploration pillar with storytelling? Make the environment itself an NPC. Most obvs example of this is when the city or island that the PCs journey to is actually a living entity or construct that possesses intelligence and motivation. A less obvious example is to disrupt the assumption that places do not change. Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, the mines of Phandelver, can and should change over time and the changes should be noticeable. If there is a mountain or lake that the PCs keep returning to, a DM can change the characterization, change the types of sidequests related to it, provide plot-related points in terms of hidden artifacts or "trash" items that actually flesh out an NPC's backstory. A PC exploring the Shire of the LotR series at the beginning of the trilogy should feel differently than how they feel exploring the Shire near the end, not just b/c the Big Bad is dead at the end, but also because the NPCs age, move, or people who run the Shire are different.
The point of having better outlined Exploration rules is to incentize people to write and publish modules with more Exploration included. Right now the oudoor Exploration pillar is poorly represented in published modules. Example: There are only a few books where anything like Navigation or Cartographer's tools would even remotely be worth choosing. That's because most modules take place in a city, in a dungeon or some kind of place where you are intentionally supposed to get lost via magic (Feywilds, the Abyss). That's just one example.
Ofc the DM can, theoretically, make NPCs that are more active. D&D can be played a lot of dfferent ways. The point is that many do not and this is partially b/c the RAW does not incentivze or make it easy to do so in a way that is organized and meaningful. Rolling on a table to generate PC traits and known relationships is the very opposite of meaningful NPCs, but that's what we are encouraged to do. The published modules from WotC itself does not incetivize meaningful NPCs outside of a handful of recurring famous people. That's the point; to make Exploration meaningful, it has to start from the Top, not just say "Well, DMs can do anything if they want to." I, mean, DMs can also not run D&D if they want to. That's not really a good argument for the lack of Exploration tie-ins.
Well, published adventures are a different story, I was thinking in terms of homebrew. And I guess it remains to be seen if this will be an adventure or a setting book, or what.
But I will say there’s no rule that’s going to help people make a compelling NPC. Even if they write one in a campaign book it will fail to the DM to bring it to life, and I think we’ve all seen plenty of well written but poorly acted movies to know how that sort of thing turns out. Teaching a DM to create a good NPC would be more like a fiction writing workshop coupled with an acting seminar than something they can cover in a rule book.
Acting skill has nothing to do with NPC-making. However, understanding story structure is. Part of the DMG should have been devoted to helping new DMs understand story structure and provided examples from previously published AD&D/D&D fiction to illustrate this. There are visual tools that exist which professional story writers use. How do people like George R.R. Martin and Isayama Hajime manage to create multi-volume works while maintaining consistent characterization throughout? Is that coincidence? No, these people use visualisation tools, storyboards, and character bibles to keep track of all this stuff. For a role-playing game that is trying to evolve with the times, WotC isn't working very hard to provide new DMs with the kinds of tools we should have when we are paying $50 for a new book about "how to be gud DM."
Now, how does one tie the Exploration pillar with storytelling? Make the environment itself an NPC. Most obvs example of this is when the city or island that the PCs journey to is actually a living entity or construct that possesses intelligence and motivation. A less obvious example is to disrupt the assumption that places do not change. Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, the mines of Phandelver, can and should change over time and the changes should be noticeable. If there is a mountain or lake that the PCs keep returning to, a DM can change the characterization, change the types of sidequests related to it, provide plot-related points in terms of hidden artifacts or "trash" items that actually flesh out an NPC's backstory. A PC exploring the Shire of the LotR series at the beginning of the trilogy should feel differently than how they feel exploring the Shire near the end, not just b/c the Big Bad is dead at the end, but also because the NPCs age, move, or people who run the Shire are different.
While I think a quick synopsis of The Hero's Journey could be pretty useful in the DMG, it should be noted that whole multi-hundred page books are written on this (and other story-telling techniques) and trying to fit all of that into the DMG with everything else as more than just an outline with a few sentences per stage is not feasible IMO.
I don't have my books in front of me and I can't find it in the digital versions, but perhaps just putting those on the "reading list" that I'm sure one of the sourcebooks has (if it's not already there) would be nice.
Well, I only run my campaigns in Eberron ... so there's honestly nothing here I can use. The theme just doesn't interest me. You would think that maybe some of these might work for an apocalyptic environment like the Mournland, but .... no. They don't.
I guess I could maybe see a Gladiator fighter, but the design isn't great - both the champion and battle master are so superior that anyone taking gladiator is penalized from the get-go, not to mention having STR, CON, DEX- reliant class now reliant on CHA as well. If you have decent scores in all those stats, play a paladin instead. You get to add Sap, Vex, or Topple weapon properties? Big deal... the most popular weapons already have these, plus you're stepping on the core class's toes by allowing weapon property changes at such low level. I see a lot of level 3 Fighter dips in the future. Frankly, some of these ideas would work pretty well for a Swashbuckler subclass for Rogues, but if Gladiator becomes official, I don't see the powers that be authorizing a rogue subclass that already does a lot of the same things.
Circle of Preservation is unbalanced even at level 3 ... a large area that gives free temp hit points every single round AND removes fear and poisoned conditions? And you only expend a Wild Shape use, which recharges every short rest? That's like Twilight Cleric on steroids! ... As is, this subclass would be either nerfed or banned at my table.
The Defiler sorcerer isn't very good... no one is going to accept draining your own hit points as the defining subclass feature. And the Defiler spell list relies a lot on spells that allow CON saves, so their bonus spells will be pitched against one of the most common high bonus saves in the game. Also, the Life Steal feature also relies on monsters/enemies failing their CON save, so the sorcerer just duplicates its existing problem with multiple subclass features.
The one subclass here whose concept would fit an Eberron campaign is the Sorcerer-King Patron ... because you can easily substitute the Lich-Queen as the patron, or even one of the Daelkyr. But sadly, the spell list is mostly psionics, which is stepping on the toes of the Aberrant sorcerer and the Great Old Ones patron. Psionics just doesn't fit the flavor for many campaign worlds, and for those where it does, we already have at least two other - better designed - options.
Overall, I give this entire UA a big thumb's down... on a scale of 1 to 5, a 2 at best if I'm feeling generous that day. Just my opinion, but hey, that's what you asked for.
Fighter isn’t STR, CON, DEX reliant. They’re STR or DEX reliant with CON as a secondary. Add to that the ASI at 6th level and they can cope with the CHA aspect of Gladiator just fine. The issue is just the weak scaling of uses.
Fighter isn’t STR, CON, DEX reliant. They’re STR or DEX reliant with CON as a secondary. Add to that the ASI at 6th level and they can cope with the CHA aspect of Gladiator just fine. The issue is just the weak scaling of uses.
I would argue that although they don't require high scores in STR, DEX, and CON, all three are advised to be their three highest scores if they want to be functional. Unless your fighter is a rapier-wielding musketeer, they will nearly always have Strength as their highest score (for attack rolls, damage, and the ability to wear the heaviest (and best) armor. They can't abandon Dexterity, as they need it for Initiative checks and attack/damage rolls with many ranged weapons.
As for Constitution, you show me a Fighter with an average CON score and I'll show you a Fighter that spends a great deal of its time making Death saves.
Yes, rules as written, you don't NEED high scores in all three traits... but the way gameplay actually works, if you put your Charisma score higher than any of those other three, you are effectively putting your Fighter at a disadvantage.
Initiative is low value and unless you have a class feature and a feat supporting it in addition to your DEX mod it will be far more influenced by the d20 than a stat bonus, so unless you're attacking with DEX there's little reason to prioritize it as a stat, and the CON bump to HP is nice but marginal compared to the enemy DPR at any tier of play. Also, DEX is not needed for ranged attacks because we have Thrown weapons like Javelins to give them STR based ranged options when needed.
Unless your fighter is a rapier-wielding musketeer, they will nearly always have Strength as their highest score (for attack rolls, damage, and the ability to wear the heaviest (and best) armor. They can't abandon Dexterity, as they need it for Initiative checks and attack/damage rolls with many ranged weapons.
One of the main selling points of a heavy armor build is that you can abandon DEX, because it does nothing to help your AC
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Well, I only run my campaigns in Eberron ... so there's honestly nothing here I can use. The theme just doesn't interest me. You would think that maybe some of these might work for an apocalyptic environment like the Mournland, but .... no. They don't.
While not officially announced, this UA is pretty clearly a group of setting-specific subclasses for Dark Sun. Them not working well in a different setting is a feature, not a bug.
Well, I only run my campaigns in Eberron ... so there's honestly nothing here I can use. The theme just doesn't interest me. You would think that maybe some of these might work for an apocalyptic environment like the Mournland, but .... no. They don't.
While not officially announced, this UA is pretty clearly a group of setting-specific subclasses for Dark Sun. Them not working well in a different setting is a feature, not a bug.
One of the original rules for Eberron was that if it existed in D&D, there was a place to put it into Eberron.
The Gladiator can fit anywhere, as the rules don't even tie them into being performing fighters.
The Preserver Druid can easily be tied to one of the many druidic orders in the world.
The Sorcerer King Warlock can be tied to any tyrannical group, only the Defiler seems to have issues. Although I could see one being reskinned and drawing from the power of the Mournlands. Maybe a warforged sorcerer in service to the Lord of Blades.
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Fair; it could use a passive combat buff or spending Second Wind to re-up the charges between rests.
Granted, you are also getting more from the Brutality than you get from a Maneuver- Sap and extra damage, Vex and advantage on saving throws, and Topple with a mini stun effect. The idea might be to explore a midpoint between Champion where it's basically all passives and Battlemaster with a very large and involved repertoire. Personally I like the CHA part because it gives it synergy with some multiclasses while limiting others- you can dip it with a Paladin or Bard to add some combat moves but it less readily works with Barbarian- but at the moment it is gonna feel pretty meh on days with a lot of encounters.
The gladiator seems very similar in this regard to the arcane archer from the previous UA, it just uses charisma instead of intelligence.
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You can call me LT. :)
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How long will the survey be open. Cause a week is hardly enough time to test things thoroughly.
It took me 3 days to get my DM to look up from their 3 different campaigns on going to have cup of coffee and acknowledge that a new UA came out.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
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D&D Staffit closes September 11th!
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On | CM Hat Off
Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Useful Links: Site Rules & Guidelines | D&D Educator Resources | Change Your Nickname | Submit a Support Ticket
I gave this one pretty close to Green across the board.
Preserver needed to be toned down a bit and Gladiator needed a slight buff. The other two didn't really need to change.
Suggested a couple ribbon ideas for the Preserver and Defiler just because.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Acting skill has nothing to do with NPC-making. However, understanding story structure is. Part of the DMG should have been devoted to helping new DMs understand story structure and provided examples from previously published AD&D/D&D fiction to illustrate this. There are visual tools that exist which professional story writers use. How do people like George R.R. Martin and Isayama Hajime manage to create multi-volume works while maintaining consistent characterization throughout? Is that coincidence? No, these people use visualisation tools, storyboards, and character bibles to keep track of all this stuff. For a role-playing game that is trying to evolve with the times, WotC isn't working very hard to provide new DMs with the kinds of tools we should have when we are paying $50 for a new book about "how to be gud DM."
Now, how does one tie the Exploration pillar with storytelling? Make the environment itself an NPC. Most obvs example of this is when the city or island that the PCs journey to is actually a living entity or construct that possesses intelligence and motivation. A less obvious example is to disrupt the assumption that places do not change. Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, the mines of Phandelver, can and should change over time and the changes should be noticeable. If there is a mountain or lake that the PCs keep returning to, a DM can change the characterization, change the types of sidequests related to it, provide plot-related points in terms of hidden artifacts or "trash" items that actually flesh out an NPC's backstory. A PC exploring the Shire of the LotR series at the beginning of the trilogy should feel differently than how they feel exploring the Shire near the end, not just b/c the Big Bad is dead at the end, but also because the NPCs age, move, or people who run the Shire are different.
While I think a quick synopsis of The Hero's Journey could be pretty useful in the DMG, it should be noted that whole multi-hundred page books are written on this (and other story-telling techniques) and trying to fit all of that into the DMG with everything else as more than just an outline with a few sentences per stage is not feasible IMO.
I don't have my books in front of me and I can't find it in the digital versions, but perhaps just putting those on the "reading list" that I'm sure one of the sourcebooks has (if it's not already there) would be nice.
What do I think?
Well, I only run my campaigns in Eberron ... so there's honestly nothing here I can use. The theme just doesn't interest me. You would think that maybe some of these might work for an apocalyptic environment like the Mournland, but .... no. They don't.
I guess I could maybe see a Gladiator fighter, but the design isn't great - both the champion and battle master are so superior that anyone taking gladiator is penalized from the get-go, not to mention having STR, CON, DEX- reliant class now reliant on CHA as well. If you have decent scores in all those stats, play a paladin instead. You get to add Sap, Vex, or Topple weapon properties? Big deal... the most popular weapons already have these, plus you're stepping on the core class's toes by allowing weapon property changes at such low level. I see a lot of level 3 Fighter dips in the future. Frankly, some of these ideas would work pretty well for a Swashbuckler subclass for Rogues, but if Gladiator becomes official, I don't see the powers that be authorizing a rogue subclass that already does a lot of the same things.
Circle of Preservation is unbalanced even at level 3 ... a large area that gives free temp hit points every single round AND removes fear and poisoned conditions? And you only expend a Wild Shape use, which recharges every short rest? That's like Twilight Cleric on steroids! ... As is, this subclass would be either nerfed or banned at my table.
The Defiler sorcerer isn't very good... no one is going to accept draining your own hit points as the defining subclass feature. And the Defiler spell list relies a lot on spells that allow CON saves, so their bonus spells will be pitched against one of the most common high bonus saves in the game. Also, the Life Steal feature also relies on monsters/enemies failing their CON save, so the sorcerer just duplicates its existing problem with multiple subclass features.
The one subclass here whose concept would fit an Eberron campaign is the Sorcerer-King Patron ... because you can easily substitute the Lich-Queen as the patron, or even one of the Daelkyr. But sadly, the spell list is mostly psionics, which is stepping on the toes of the Aberrant sorcerer and the Great Old Ones patron. Psionics just doesn't fit the flavor for many campaign worlds, and for those where it does, we already have at least two other - better designed - options.
Overall, I give this entire UA a big thumb's down... on a scale of 1 to 5, a 2 at best if I'm feeling generous that day. Just my opinion, but hey, that's what you asked for.
Fighter isn’t STR, CON, DEX reliant. They’re STR or DEX reliant with CON as a secondary. Add to that the ASI at 6th level and they can cope with the CHA aspect of Gladiator just fine. The issue is just the weak scaling of uses.
I would argue that although they don't require high scores in STR, DEX, and CON, all three are advised to be their three highest scores if they want to be functional. Unless your fighter is a rapier-wielding musketeer, they will nearly always have Strength as their highest score (for attack rolls, damage, and the ability to wear the heaviest (and best) armor. They can't abandon Dexterity, as they need it for Initiative checks and attack/damage rolls with many ranged weapons.
As for Constitution, you show me a Fighter with an average CON score and I'll show you a Fighter that spends a great deal of its time making Death saves.
Yes, rules as written, you don't NEED high scores in all three traits... but the way gameplay actually works, if you put your Charisma score higher than any of those other three, you are effectively putting your Fighter at a disadvantage.
Initiative is low value and unless you have a class feature and a feat supporting it in addition to your DEX mod it will be far more influenced by the d20 than a stat bonus, so unless you're attacking with DEX there's little reason to prioritize it as a stat, and the CON bump to HP is nice but marginal compared to the enemy DPR at any tier of play. Also, DEX is not needed for ranged attacks because we have Thrown weapons like Javelins to give them STR based ranged options when needed.
One of the main selling points of a heavy armor build is that you can abandon DEX, because it does nothing to help your AC
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
While not officially announced, this UA is pretty clearly a group of setting-specific subclasses for Dark Sun. Them not working well in a different setting is a feature, not a bug.
One of the original rules for Eberron was that if it existed in D&D, there was a place to put it into Eberron.
The Gladiator can fit anywhere, as the rules don't even tie them into being performing fighters.
The Preserver Druid can easily be tied to one of the many druidic orders in the world.
The Sorcerer King Warlock can be tied to any tyrannical group, only the Defiler seems to have issues. Although I could see one being reskinned and drawing from the power of the Mournlands. Maybe a warforged sorcerer in service to the Lord of Blades.