Wow, a lot of people want to argue for pigeon-holing races into classes. If you tie down a races bonus to specific scores, it means that playing them as a class that depends on other ability scores is sub-optimal, limiting the stories the player can help tell. Rules like that would make Orc Wizards and Elf Barbarians painfully hard to play if your fellow players are optimizing.
Further, things like Orc's being stronger is represented with the powerful build trait. having the ability score tied to background instead of Race makes more sense. Those other racial abilities MOSTLY make sense, as for the most part they are magical, or just factors of biology.
It seems like they are nerfing critical hits, too. They are only applicable to weapon or unarmed strikes, and only roll the damage die for the weapon or unarmed strike. So no spell crits and no sneak attack massive crit damage.
I think it's important to recall a basic precept of D&D. Unless the rules specifically state you can't do something....... you can do it.
Nowhere in the playtest rules does it say that Critical Hits can't be applied to sneak attack, or smite. Spellcasters have had the advantage in damage for quite some time. And though this may be an attempt to boost melee damage the rules doesn't specifically say crits can't be applied to spells.
It is worrying, since the original rules specifically stated that critical hits applied to bonus damage such as sneak attack, so it's omission here does seem pointed.
I'm generally in favour of the background and feat changes, they seem mostly good; couple of minor tweaks I may suggest it seems good overall.
The inspiration changes I'm not in favour of at all though; tying it to natural 20's favours characters that roll more attacks, and rewards luckier players for being lucky (they've already got a critical hit, so they're not the ones who need help). And it doesn't fix the main problem which is that inspiration as written has never been a good bonus; single use advantage declared before a roll is so easily wasted so either nobody uses it, or half the time they regret doing so. Most groups I've played treat it as a re-roll instead, which is better, but I'd rather see it be become something really important like an automatic success (minimal, so never a critical hit).
Even having it trigger on 1's as more of a bounce back mechanic wouldn't really work, as control casters spend a lot of their time forcing their enemies to roll instead of themselves. I'd much rather see it become a mixed "bad luck" and "good roleplay" mechanic, e.g- if a player casts a big spell and it fails, the DM can give them a point of inspiration (to do better), or if they engage in some good roleplay that can't be rewarded directly (by not asking them to roll a check), give them inspiration as a deferred success.
I suspect that inspiration is going to be used to activate some class features. It's just a suspicion, not based on anything solid. But I have that suspicion.
I really wish things like the Ardling and Teifling, as well as rules for half races had been split off into their own thing where you could switch out abilities to play as someone that is half something else
The restriction of critical damage to melee weapons and unarmed attacks MAKES MECHANICAL SENSE, but just FEELS really unfair to a primary spell caster. Because we rolled that nat 20 too. and our reward is... it hits. which thanks to the balanced numbers it was gonna do anyway.
I like the simplification of the spell lists to just three, and the spell casters have assigned spell lists. Now I wonder how they're going to handle certain things like smite spells, and ranger exclusive spells. Will they go away or are full casters going to get access to them?
I like the background building system, and the sample backgrounds as it makes things clear you can adjust these however you want if you want to take one. Less limits on creation.
My biggest pet peeve with the backgrounds, which I love overall, is that they make you take a specific language. What if I'm an acolyte but I serve someone like Lolth or Tiamat? How would Celestial make sense there?
Change the language. They don't make you take a specific language. These are just sample builds that you can use as a starting point if you don't want to build a background from scratch.
Change the language. They don't make you take a specific language. These are just sample builds that you can use as a starting point if you don't want to build a background from scratch.
Fair enough. It was just something that nagged at me, but that makes sense.
I'm disappointed with the rules for half-races. Pick a race and pretend you're half something else? That's just flavoring and we could already do that.
Agreed, I wish these were more crunchy, especially if Half-Elf and Half-Orc are now being discontinued. I like the idea of hybrids in concept, especially for homebrew settings, but right now the rules for them are so barebones in this iteration of the playtest.
They're close; if they let us mix and match a little bit more than just the physical attributes, it would be better. Let us mix up the abilities too. I like the versatility, but let it be more. Let me make a Half-Evlen Ardling, and let me mix and match the racial spell lists.
I agree with all of these statements, BUT ... I can see why they wrote these bits as they are. They wanted it to be more about ease of creation and flavor, not so much about mechanics. I like crunchy rules too. A LOT. But there is something to be said for accessibility for new players. AND ... many of the DMs among us will just allow players to do things exactly like your suggestion about mixing the racial spell lists anyway. Problem solved!
As far as mixing abilities from different races during the creation of a hybrid; I think the reason they didn't do that was balance. Some racial abilities are no-doubt weighted more or less useful, and it would be easily abusable if we let players choose which ones they wanted to mix and match. Not saying it would be nutty overpowered, but it would be easily abusable.
Fact is, some of the racials are already stronger than others. They already have a disclaimer about that at the beginning. Tieflings, Elves and Ardlings have powers that make humans, halflings and orcs look more mundane. Note: I’m not complaining about that. I’m pointing out that balance of power isn’t the be all end all. I’m saying personal fantasy should be. And the proposed hybrid system only goes half-way promoting personal fantasy. They try to tell us we can do whatever we want, but the tools for it aren’t quite good enough.
Along those lines, they could also do more to diversify some of those more mundane races. Note: I’m not proposing they be buffed, but give them more variety. Give halflings back their subraces as lineages. If we’re getting orcs instead of half orcs, give me a few different tribes of orcs. They don’t need the innate spell tiers, it’s fine if the more otherworldly like races like elves and tieflings keep those. But let other races have more variety.
Going back to hybrid, it honestly feels a bit like a step backwards to when 4e left out half-orcs until the 2nd players handbook.
I'm really underwhelmed by the half-race rules. My ideal fix to this would be relatively easy I think.
Basically the "special traits" for each race would mark certain traits as replaceable or swappable. You still choose all of the "special traits" for one parent's race, and then you can replace 1 trait from the other parent's race. The trait you replace and the trait you replace it with both have to be "replaceable".
Human: Skillful
Ardling: Damage Resistance
Dragonborn: Damage Resistance or Darkvision
Dwarf: Stonecunning or Darkvision
Elf: Darkvision or Keen Senses
Gnome: Darkvision
Halfling: Naturally Stealthy
Orc: Darkvision or Powerful Build
Tiefling: Darkvision
I think you could probably make even more traits replaceable, but these ones all seem to be about on par power-wise. This would also allow WOTC to add more replaceable traits in future books to allow for more customization.
That said, Battlemaster with Grappling Strike is now easily the break-away champion of the Grappling types. You hit (with an unarmed strike), and choose Knock Prone; you then get to Initiate a Grapple (automatically giving them a saving throw against you), by my reading. Otherwise ... you ... maybe do a second Unarmed Attack for free w/ a Grapple consequence? Unsure the resolution there of Grappling Strike with new rules, but still interesting.
I'm really underwhelmed by the half-race rules. My ideal fix to this would be relatively easy I think.
Basically the "special traits" for each race would mark certain traits as replaceable or swappable. You still choose all of the "special traits" for one parent's race, and then you can replace 1 trait from the other parent's race. The trait you replace and the trait you replace it with both have to be "replaceable".
Human: Skillful
Ardling: Damage Resistance
Dragonborn: Damage Resistance or Darkvision
Dwarf: Stonecunning or Darkvision
Elf: Darkvision or Keen Senses
Gnome: Darkvision
Halfling: Naturally Stealthy
Orc: Darkvision or Powerful Build
Tiefling: Darkvision
I think you could probably make even more traits replaceable, but these ones all seem to be about on par power-wise. This would also allow WOTC to add more replaceable traits in future books to allow for more customization.
I like this. Btw, I made a thread to discuss hybrid race theory. Would you please post this over there too?
I'm really underwhelmed by the half-race rules. My ideal fix to this would be relatively easy I think.
Basically the "special traits" for each race would mark certain traits as replaceable or swappable. You still choose all of the "special traits" for one parent's race, and then you can replace 1 trait from the other parent's race. The trait you replace and the trait you replace it with both have to be "replaceable".
Human: Skillful
Ardling: Damage Resistance
Dragonborn: Damage Resistance or Darkvision
Dwarf: Stonecunning or Darkvision
Elf: Darkvision or Keen Senses
Gnome: Darkvision
Halfling: Naturally Stealthy
Orc: Darkvision or Powerful Build
Tiefling: Darkvision
I'd love to see something like this, either that or traits should be separated into "primary" and "secondary" traits, with each group being roughly balanced; when you go a half race you would then pick the primary trait(s) of one race, and the secondary trait(s) of the other.
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Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Only thing I'd change here is darkvision with elves in general. I like the keen senses better with darkvision specifically to elves who spent time in the underdark such as Drow. The other thing that could be added to this is Darkvision could come in different sizes, 30ft. 45ft. 60ft. ect. It doesn't have to be a 60 ft. only thing. Half-races could benefit with this. For instance, a Half-elf Drow maybe has 30ft. instead of 60ft. Because their half human.
Only thing I'd change here is darkvision with elves in general. I like the keen senses better with darkvision specifically to elves who spent time in the underdark such as Drow. The other thing that could be added to this is Darkvision could come in different sizes, 30ft. 45ft. 60ft. ect. It doesn't have to be a 60 ft. only thing. Half-races could benefit with this. For instance, a Half-elf Drow maybe has 30ft. instead of 60ft. Because their half human.
I'm really underwhelmed by the half-race rules. My ideal fix to this would be relatively easy I think.
Basically the "special traits" for each race would mark certain traits as replaceable or swappable. You still choose all of the "special traits" for one parent's race, and then you can replace 1 trait from the other parent's race. The trait you replace and the trait you replace it with both have to be "replaceable".
Human: Skillful
Ardling: Damage Resistance
Dragonborn: Damage Resistance or Darkvision
Dwarf: Stonecunning or Darkvision
Elf: Darkvision or Keen Senses
Gnome: Darkvision
Halfling: Naturally Stealthy
Orc: Darkvision or Powerful Build
Tiefling: Darkvision
I think you could probably make even more traits replaceable, but these ones all seem to be about on par power-wise. This would also allow WOTC to add more replaceable traits in future books to allow for more customization.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
For those debating what exactly the new Critical Hit rules mean, there’s a YouTube interview (“Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins | One D&D” on the Dungeons & Dragons channel) where they clarify:
- spells do not crit - monsters/npcs do not crit - only weapon dice are affected (at least by default)
That discussion starts ~51:45. It also seems like the crit changes are some of the ones they’re least confident in; they’re taking the playtest opportunity to try out some big changes with critical hits, but not all of those changes might stay.
I think I like the changes, with one caveat: I want certain class abilities (especially sneak attack) to state in their new descriptions (once they’re out) that their damage dice also get rolled again on a crit. Limiting crit damage to just the weapon’s damage by default, but having some abilities that also add crit damage, would help avoid some of the absurd crit-stacking scenarios mentioned above while allowing abilities that feel like they ought to have it for balance be explicitly noted in the upcoming rules.
The proposed d20 roll change is not something I'm going to use. Crit damage is crit damage, and it only works on attack rolls and for everyone. I'm fed up with the nerfing of casters and adversaries. Buff martials instead of taking away from others.
I wonder if they're trying to address the 6-8 encounter adventuring day to adjust balance for fewer daily encounters? That would explain why you might nerf something like critical hits? Maybe they're aiming to have characters doing less damage overall, so when characters facing fewer than 6-8 encounters (as most tables do) go nova or doesn't completely overrun encounter design?
Just a half-formed thought. Probably not the case if they're making any claim towards backwards compatibility.
My biggest pet peeve with the backgrounds, which I love overall, is that they make you take a specific language. What if I'm an acolyte but I serve someone like Lolth or Tiamat? How would Celestial make sense there?
Page 11 from the CharacterOrigins.pdf states: "If you instead decide to customize a premade Background, you can choose any features in that Background and replace them with the features below of the same name. For example, if you want to change a Background’s Language feature, you can replace that feature with the Language feature below."
Overall I really like this - the race changes, the backgrounds, the feats, the general approach to giving players more control and more choices in developing our characters.
Criminals can now get Thieves' Cant! Backgrounds that give you tool proficiencies also give you the tools! It's just great.
Tiefling changes mostly look good. I still want to play my first character again, a Tiefling Fiend/Tome Warlock who had a Pact with 'Grandfather' (leaving out Great, Great, Great...). I think with the new features (and maybe mix in some Aberrant Mind) she'd be even more what she was supposed to be.
I disagree, though, with the 'widespread acceptance' thing. At the very most it should be 'widespread acceptance in some worlds like X and Y' or something along those lines. The blanket direction interferes with part of the reason people find Tieflings interesting, is rather unintuitive, and flies in the face of the 'of many worlds' approach they're taking to races in general.
I like the Elf changes, especially the Wood Elf. I like Tremor Sense for Dwarves. Dragonborn breath should probably be a bonus action, not an action.
The part I don't like is crits. The mix of changes feels really scattered. "Critting is something player characters do!" doesn't work if spellcasters don't crit on attacks and many martials now don't see an appreciable increase in damage (rogues, paladins).
It also nerfs non-Hexblade Warlocks compared to other casters (much more heavily reliant on cantrip damage, almost entirely using an attack roll cantrip) and possibly Sorcerers compared to Wizards etc. (since Sorcerers likely sacrifice spell slots for additional sorcery points to enhance magic, and thus rely on cantrips with attack rolls less than Warlocks but more than Wizards - Bards and Clerics also use fewer cantrips plus theirs usually use saves instead). While buffing martials in relative terms is a good idea, this seems like a bad way to do it. It is bad for balance among casters, and deprives casters of the excitement of a crit when they are making attack rolls.
Critting on saves and ability checks is okay, if coupled with clarity on the role that proficiency/expertise plays - maybe proficiency making rolls possible that otherwise wouldn't be.
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Wow, a lot of people want to argue for pigeon-holing races into classes. If you tie down a races bonus to specific scores, it means that playing them as a class that depends on other ability scores is sub-optimal, limiting the stories the player can help tell. Rules like that would make Orc Wizards and Elf Barbarians painfully hard to play if your fellow players are optimizing.
Further, things like Orc's being stronger is represented with the powerful build trait. having the ability score tied to background instead of Race makes more sense. Those other racial abilities MOSTLY make sense, as for the most part they are magical, or just factors of biology.
It is worrying, since the original rules specifically stated that critical hits applied to bonus damage such as sneak attack, so it's omission here does seem pointed.
I suspect that inspiration is going to be used to activate some class features. It's just a suspicion, not based on anything solid. But I have that suspicion.
So my takes so far
I really wish things like the Ardling and Teifling, as well as rules for half races had been split off into their own thing where you could switch out abilities to play as someone that is half something else
The restriction of critical damage to melee weapons and unarmed attacks MAKES MECHANICAL SENSE, but just FEELS really unfair to a primary spell caster. Because we rolled that nat 20 too. and our reward is... it hits. which thanks to the balanced numbers it was gonna do anyway.
I like the simplification of the spell lists to just three, and the spell casters have assigned spell lists. Now I wonder how they're going to handle certain things like smite spells, and ranger exclusive spells. Will they go away or are full casters going to get access to them?
I like the background building system, and the sample backgrounds as it makes things clear you can adjust these however you want if you want to take one. Less limits on creation.
My biggest pet peeve with the backgrounds, which I love overall, is that they make you take a specific language. What if I'm an acolyte but I serve someone like Lolth or Tiamat? How would Celestial make sense there?
Change the language. They don't make you take a specific language. These are just sample builds that you can use as a starting point if you don't want to build a background from scratch.
Fair enough. It was just something that nagged at me, but that makes sense.
Fact is, some of the racials are already stronger than others. They already have a disclaimer about that at the beginning. Tieflings, Elves and Ardlings have powers that make humans, halflings and orcs look more mundane. Note: I’m not complaining about that. I’m pointing out that balance of power isn’t the be all end all. I’m saying personal fantasy should be. And the proposed hybrid system only goes half-way promoting personal fantasy. They try to tell us we can do whatever we want, but the tools for it aren’t quite good enough.
Along those lines, they could also do more to diversify some of those more mundane races. Note: I’m not proposing they be buffed, but give them more variety. Give halflings back their subraces as lineages. If we’re getting orcs instead of half orcs, give me a few different tribes of orcs. They don’t need the innate spell tiers, it’s fine if the more otherworldly like races like elves and tieflings keep those. But let other races have more variety.
Going back to hybrid, it honestly feels a bit like a step backwards to when 4e left out half-orcs until the 2nd players handbook.
I'm really underwhelmed by the half-race rules. My ideal fix to this would be relatively easy I think.
Basically the "special traits" for each race would mark certain traits as replaceable or swappable. You still choose all of the "special traits" for one parent's race, and then you can replace 1 trait from the other parent's race. The trait you replace and the trait you replace it with both have to be "replaceable".
I think you could probably make even more traits replaceable, but these ones all seem to be about on par power-wise. This would also allow WOTC to add more replaceable traits in future books to allow for more customization.
Poor Grappler Builds, RIP you will be missed.
That said, Battlemaster with Grappling Strike is now easily the break-away champion of the Grappling types. You hit (with an unarmed strike), and choose Knock Prone; you then get to Initiate a Grapple (automatically giving them a saving throw against you), by my reading. Otherwise ... you ... maybe do a second Unarmed Attack for free w/ a Grapple consequence? Unsure the resolution there of Grappling Strike with new rules, but still interesting.
I like this. Btw, I made a thread to discuss hybrid race theory. Would you please post this over there too?
I'd love to see something like this, either that or traits should be separated into "primary" and "secondary" traits, with each group being roughly balanced; when you go a half race you would then pick the primary trait(s) of one race, and the secondary trait(s) of the other.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I wonder if they are going to address variable value of different damage resistances
Only thing I'd change here is darkvision with elves in general. I like the keen senses better with darkvision specifically to elves who spent time in the underdark such as Drow. The other thing that could be added to this is Darkvision could come in different sizes, 30ft. 45ft. 60ft. ect. It doesn't have to be a 60 ft. only thing. Half-races could benefit with this. For instance, a Half-elf Drow maybe has 30ft. instead of 60ft. Because their half human.
To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
For those debating what exactly the new Critical Hit rules mean, there’s a YouTube interview (“Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins | One D&D” on the Dungeons & Dragons channel) where they clarify:
- spells do not crit
- monsters/npcs do not crit
- only weapon dice are affected (at least by default)
That discussion starts ~51:45. It also seems like the crit changes are some of the ones they’re least confident in; they’re taking the playtest opportunity to try out some big changes with critical hits, but not all of those changes might stay.
I think I like the changes, with one caveat: I want certain class abilities (especially sneak attack) to state in their new descriptions (once they’re out) that their damage dice also get rolled again on a crit. Limiting crit damage to just the weapon’s damage by default, but having some abilities that also add crit damage, would help avoid some of the absurd crit-stacking scenarios mentioned above while allowing abilities that feel like they ought to have it for balance be explicitly noted in the upcoming rules.
The proposed d20 roll change is not something I'm going to use. Crit damage is crit damage, and it only works on attack rolls and for everyone. I'm fed up with the nerfing of casters and adversaries. Buff martials instead of taking away from others.
I wonder if they're trying to address the 6-8 encounter adventuring day to adjust balance for fewer daily encounters? That would explain why you might nerf something like critical hits? Maybe they're aiming to have characters doing less damage overall, so when characters facing fewer than 6-8 encounters (as most tables do) go nova or doesn't completely overrun encounter design?
Just a half-formed thought. Probably not the case if they're making any claim towards backwards compatibility.
Page 11 from the CharacterOrigins.pdf states: "If you instead decide to customize a premade Background, you can choose any features in that Background and replace them with the features below of the same name. For example, if you want to change a Background’s Language feature, you can replace that feature with the Language feature below."
Pet Peeve solved.
Overall I really like this - the race changes, the backgrounds, the feats, the general approach to giving players more control and more choices in developing our characters.
Criminals can now get Thieves' Cant! Backgrounds that give you tool proficiencies also give you the tools! It's just great.
Tiefling changes mostly look good. I still want to play my first character again, a Tiefling Fiend/Tome Warlock who had a Pact with 'Grandfather' (leaving out Great, Great, Great...). I think with the new features (and maybe mix in some Aberrant Mind) she'd be even more what she was supposed to be.
I disagree, though, with the 'widespread acceptance' thing. At the very most it should be 'widespread acceptance in some worlds like X and Y' or something along those lines. The blanket direction interferes with part of the reason people find Tieflings interesting, is rather unintuitive, and flies in the face of the 'of many worlds' approach they're taking to races in general.
I like the Elf changes, especially the Wood Elf. I like Tremor Sense for Dwarves. Dragonborn breath should probably be a bonus action, not an action.
The part I don't like is crits. The mix of changes feels really scattered. "Critting is something player characters do!" doesn't work if spellcasters don't crit on attacks and many martials now don't see an appreciable increase in damage (rogues, paladins).
It also nerfs non-Hexblade Warlocks compared to other casters (much more heavily reliant on cantrip damage, almost entirely using an attack roll cantrip) and possibly Sorcerers compared to Wizards etc. (since Sorcerers likely sacrifice spell slots for additional sorcery points to enhance magic, and thus rely on cantrips with attack rolls less than Warlocks but more than Wizards - Bards and Clerics also use fewer cantrips plus theirs usually use saves instead). While buffing martials in relative terms is a good idea, this seems like a bad way to do it. It is bad for balance among casters, and deprives casters of the excitement of a crit when they are making attack rolls.
Critting on saves and ability checks is okay, if coupled with clarity on the role that proficiency/expertise plays - maybe proficiency making rolls possible that otherwise wouldn't be.