So I just queued up the YouTube interview with Crawford talking about the UA. He specifically says that ardlings are a distinct and new race, refers to their "aasimar cousins" and then focuses on how cool it is that they have animal features and can gain limited flight as a PHB race. He then doesn't mention the pre-existing aasimar again, never mind how the "new" limited flight feature is just a watered down version of what protector aasimar already have. So instead of just making aasimar a PHB race we get something that the lead designer specifically describes as being a lot like aasimar, but furry. Egyptian and archons are mentioned but only in reference to the "cool animal features" and nothing else.
Seriously, the only thing substantively differentiating them from aasimar is that they have the heads (and if you want, literal fur/feathers/hide) of animals. Please tell me why we need those aside from appealing to furries. From other stuff Crawford is saying they fully intend for existing books to work with future material so MotM races are still fully RAW, and that does include aasimar. So if they want to give us something "new" as a PHB race then why do we get something that could be done as adding more lineages to a pre-existing race? The answer is furries. The only substantive original thing about them is that they have animal aesthetics. It's just like twenty different versions of elves, but now instead of "lake elves" or "death metal dwarves" we get an entire race that's "furry aasimar."
The rest of the stuff he says sounds great, and I might even soften a bit on the concept of two foot tall humans with a 30' walking speed with minimal grumbling, but I'm not going to ever be supportive of trying to sell something that's a blatantly inserted kitchen sink furry race and serves no other purpose as "new" and "original."
Just had someone panicking about "I heard they are removing Eldritch Blast in 1DD!"
I expected panic and confusion, but not at the levels that I have seen so far. Much of it could be resolved by simply reading the PDF and/or watching a video.
Just had someone panicking about "I heard they are removing Eldritch Blast in 1DD!"
I expected panic and confusion, but not at the levels that I have seen so far. Much of it could be resolved by simply reading the PDF and/or watching a video.
If D&D players could read (well) or had an attention span greater than a goldfish's, they wouldn't be constantly complaining about misinterpreted rules online.
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I'd be more accepting of animal-headed celestial planetouched had WotC not removed the Guardinals from D&D. (Guardinals being the Neutral Good celestials who were furries that lived in Elysium and the Beastlands).
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I'd be more accepting of animal-headed celestial planetouched had WotC not removed the Guardinals from D&D. (Guardinals being the Neutral Good celestials who were furries that lived in Elysium and the Beastlands).
Were they ever officially removed? Because, when I was first reading through the document, I thought that this race was intended to be descended from Guardinals/Celestial Beasts from the Heavens.
Also, Planescape is getting an official book next year. That could be the perfect time to reintroduce them.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Just had someone panicking about "I heard they are removing Eldritch Blast in 1DD!"
I noticed this though, and I can't help but speculate what it means. Does it mean that only warlocks can pick up EB? Does it mean that every warlock gets EB so they all have access to the eldritch invocations that have EB as a prerequisite? I'm excited to find out!
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
I'd be more accepting of animal-headed celestial planetouched had WotC not removed the Guardinals from D&D. (Guardinals being the Neutral Good celestials who were furries that lived in Elysium and the Beastlands).
Were they ever officially removed? Because, when I was first reading through the document, I thought that this race was intended to be descended from Guardinals/Celestial Beasts from the Heavens.
Also, Planescape is getting an official book next year. That could be the perfect time to reintroduce them.
It could also be that they're being reintroduced in the 2024 Monster Manual. Which would make sense, I think.
Just had someone panicking about "I heard they are removing Eldritch Blast in 1DD!"
I noticed this though, and I can't help but speculate what it means. Does it mean that only warlocks can pick up EB? Does it mean that every warlock gets EB so they all have access to the eldritch invocations that have EB as a prerequisite? I'm excited to find out!
My guess is that it'll either be a Warlock-specific spell that cannot be granted through feats, or it will become a Warlock Class Feature (like people have been asking for for years).
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8.) "GETTING RID OF COOL RIBBON BACKGROUND FEATURES!" Name me one time someone in your game used their 2014-style Background Feature in a way that significantly improved a session or helped the story. One time. I'll wait.
It is a VERY specific case, but I did use the Knight "Retainers" Feature pretty often. My PCs would have an attendant, squire, and a majordomo. While they would not follow my PC or the party into dungeons or combat, it was nice having retainers that could stay behind and watch our stuff, tend to our horses, and keep camp. I hope "Retainers" returns in One D&D as a Feat.
I'd be more accepting of animal-headed celestial planetouched had WotC not removed the Guardinals from D&D. (Guardinals being the Neutral Good celestials who were furries that lived in Elysium and the Beastlands).
Were they ever officially removed? Because, when I was first reading through the document, I thought that this race was intended to be descended from Guardinals/Celestial Beasts from the Heavens.
Also, Planescape is getting an official book next year. That could be the perfect time to reintroduce them.
Well, I hope so. Just noticed how they haven't been mentioned at all prior to this. There are far fewer celestials in 5E than there were in previous editions, which I've found to be a real shame.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
So I just queued up the YouTube interview with Crawford talking about the UA. He specifically says that ardlings are a distinct and new race, refers to their "aasimar cousins" and then focuses on how cool it is that they have animal features and can gain limited flight as a PHB race. He then doesn't mention the pre-existing aasimar again, never mind how the "new" limited flight feature is just a watered down version of what protector aasimar already have. So instead of just making aasimar a PHB race we get something that the lead designer specifically describes as being a lot like aasimar, but furry. Egyptian and archons are mentioned but only in reference to the "cool animal features" and nothing else.
Seriously, the only thing substantively differentiating them from aasimar is that they have the heads (and if you want, literal fur/feathers/hide) of animals. Please tell me why we need those aside from appealing to furries. From other stuff Crawford is saying they fully intend for existing books to work with future material so MotM races are still fully RAW, and that does include aasimar. So if they want to give us something "new" as a PHB race then why do we get something that could be done as adding more lineages to a pre-existing race? The answer is furries. The only substantive original thing about them is that they have animal aesthetics. It's just like twenty different versions of elves, but now instead of "lake elves" or "death metal dwarves" we get an entire race that's "furry aasimar."
The rest of the stuff he says sounds great, and I might even soften a bit on the concept of two foot tall humans with a 30' walking speed with minimal grumbling, but I'm not going to ever be supportive of trying to sell something that's a blatantly inserted kitchen sink furry race and serves no other purpose as "new" and "original."
I mean if I can provide all the backing I listed as wonderful reasons to include them in the game then it's lost on you.
You are against the inclusion of something that could make some people happy because you dislike furries.
Honestly they aren't even mechanically very good. Take an aasimar, lose the darkvision and necrotic resistance for a weak flight ability that will function as a glorified jump in most cases, and replace the subclass/lineages with innate spellcasting. The flight is gimmicky and the lineages could quite simply be just tacked onto aasimar as extra options and nobody would blink. The race has no need to exist.
Honestly they aren't even mechanically very good. Take an aasimar, lose the darkvision and necrotic resistance for a weak flight ability that will function as a glorified jump in most cases, and replace the subclass/lineages with innate spellcasting. The flight is gimmicky and the lineages could quite simply be just tacked onto aasimar as extra options and nobody would blink. The race has no need to exist.
I. Very and emphatically. Disagree with you assertion. There's room for both to exist, and comfortably at that. Quite frankly, the only time in 5th edition where Aasimar as a player race acted as a real counterpoint to Tieflings was as as an example on how to homebrew a race, and even then it was an afterthought at best. After it saw official release, bot narratively and mechanically, it was NOT analogous to Tieflings at ALL! Ardlings, with some proper tweaking, represent a FANTASTIC opportunity to create a celestial counterpart to Tieflings.
Honestly they aren't even mechanically very good. Take an aasimar, lose the darkvision and necrotic resistance for a weak flight ability that will function as a glorified jump in most cases, and replace the subclass/lineages with innate spellcasting. The flight is gimmicky and the lineages could quite simply be just tacked onto aasimar as extra options and nobody would blink. The race has no need to exist.
I agree that mechanically they are not very good. But I disagree that they have no need to exist.
While you, or I, or some others can just paste the aesthetics onto another race, or homebrew, or any 1000 other responses, for each of us there is a DM out there who only uses published material as written. The aardlings exist for anyone- not just furries- who want the flavor of the race and play in that theoretical campaign.
That is just one need for them to exist. Any race can be argued that they don't need to exist, but the question is why shouldn't they other than "I don't like them"?
It's kind of amazing just how many people are losing their collective heads over...well...nothing, really. I kind of have to wonder, how many people have actually *read* the document before they decided to start running their mouth over something either inconsequential or that they're just plain *incorrect* about, y'know?
This is just how humans are trained to behave in 2022. There will be a barrage of knee-jerk, reactionary rants, those rants will dominate the conversation because we engage more with controversy, and everyone's time is wasted because no one is going to change their mind.
It's kind of amazing just how many people are losing their collective heads over...well...nothing, really. I kind of have to wonder, how many people have actually *read* the document before they decided to start running their mouth over something either inconsequential or that they're just plain *incorrect* about, y'know?
This is just how humans are trained to behave in 2022. There will be a barrage of knee-jerk, reactionary rants, those rants will dominate the conversation because we engage more with controversy, and everyone's time is wasted because no one is going to change their mind.
I think it's wonderful. I work email customer service and have a lot of free time between bits of work, so the forum being active makes me happy today lol
1.) "REPLACING ALL SPELLCASTERS' SPELL LISTS WITH THREE GENERIC AWFUL SPELL LISTS INSTEAD!" The Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists are in addition to existing class spell lists, not a replacement for existing class spell lists. They exist as broad categorizations that are useful to specific subclasses and specific feats/abilities, such as Magic Initiate. They are not intended to replace class spell lists and would do a damn poor job of it as a number of existing classes mix spells from multiple lists. Your wizard will still by the wizziest wizzerd. Don't panic.
2.) "REPLACING MY AASIMAR WITH THESE WEIRD CREEPY ANIMAL CROSSING WANNABES!" Aasimar have never been a PHB species. The very first aasimar was an example of how to homebrew a new species by altering an existing species' statblock in the DMG, which people latched onto because they wanted Majestic Golden Angel People to combat the thronging legions of Saucy Crimson Devil People. "Official" aasimar came later in Volo's Guide to DM Headaches, and then in M3. Aasimar live in M3, not in the PHB. They're not being replaced any more than any other non-PHB species is; this document is concerned solely with nuPHB stuff, so of course aasimar didn't bear mentioning.
3.) "REMOVING CRITICAL HITS FROM D&D FOREVAR!" The playtest document is experimenting with removing crits from monsters, and turning critical hits into a player-only ability. Jeremy Crawford laid out, in crystal clear unmistakable terms, that this is an experiment. The playtest document is just that, and if there's enough outrage then they'll back off and reinstate monster crits. But frankly, the dev team's justification for removing monster crits is actually very good. It allows the team more freedom to design cool monsters and has a nontrivial impact on encounter balancing. Challenge Rating will work better when monsters can't randomly deal double damage for no reason, and treating Recharge as the monster-only counterpart to the PCs' ability to Crit is a really cool dynamic. try it out, you may find yourself agreeing with them.
4.) "RUINING ABILITY CHECKS AND SAVING THROWS WITH THIS 'd20 TEST' CRAP!" "d20 Test" is simply a easy and convenient shorthand for 'a roll which involves the d20." Nothing is actually changing about attack rolls, ability checks, or saving throws, other than the fact that the Internet being a bunch of ****wits that couldn't grasp "Nat 1s/20s only do special things on attack rolls" managed to get that rule changed. Odds are quite good that the only thing the d20 Test rules actually changed was how you were (incorrectly) already playing anyways.
5.) "TAKING AWAY ALMOST ALL THE FEATS AND SPELLS!" This is the Character Origins playtest document. Nothing that is not relevant to character generation is presented here. The very short lists of spells and the low number of low-level feats are because this document isn't about spells or feats, it's about character generation. it gives you enough to evaluate the new way to generate a first-level character. You do not need the entire PHB grimoire and the entire PHB feats list to create a first-level character. Those things are not gone, they're simply not relevant to this one document's limited scope.
6.) "GETTING RID OF MY FAVORITE SUBRACE!" Subraces are not gone. Well, they are gone, but that's because the things subraces used to do have been folded into a choice one makes within a base species. You select a Legacy/Lineage for elves, ardlings, tieflings, and gnomes, with that legacy giving you back everything your subspecies used to and in many cases a little more. You still select a draconic ancestry for dragonborn. Dwarves do not select a Legacy, but that's because the best traits of Mountain dwarf and Hill dwarf were folded into the one singular 'Dwarf' species, which is arguably one of the most powerful options in the document.
7.) GETTING RID OF MY HALF-ELVES/HALF-ORCS!" Actually, yes. yes they are. Half-elves and half-orcs do not have their own unique stat blocks anymore. Instead, the playtest document instructs players that they are allowed to mate any two humanoid species together and produce a Half X/Half Y, utilizing the mechanical abilities of one of the two parent species but mingling their appearance as they like. This is something people have been doing in D&D for longer than 5e's been a thing. "Half-orcs" can easily be recreated by using the Orc stat block, taking Savage Attacker in your background, and making your orc slimmer and less green. Similarly, half-elves are 'Elves, but without trance and with a bunch of skill proficiencies'. Play Human with Magic Initiate and pick fey-y spells to get a more human-leaning half-elf, or pick Elf and take one of the crafty/skill-y feats to get a more elf-leanming half-elf. In either case, this is a loss, but not one that really feels significant given the hugely expanded scope of character generation.
8.) "GETTING RID OF COOL RIBBON BACKGROUND FEATURES!" Name me one time someone in your game used their 2014-style Background Feature in a way that significantly improved a session or helped the story. One time. I'll wait. . .. ...nothing? Yeah, me neither. Most 'Background Features', especially in the PHB - and remember, this document concerns itself solely with PHB content - are things any self-respecting DM would just let you do because you have [X] background. Entertainers being able to sing for their supper? Roll a music check, see how much supper you get. Acolytes being able to shelter in temples? They're temples, it's a pretty terrible temple that turns away a faithful servant in need. Sages being able to look stuff up? Holy hell, if you tell your party they can't try and research stuff because none of them are Sages, I have no idea how anything happens at your table. I have yet to meet the DM that doesn't leap at the chance to dump world lore into players' laps through the paper-thin guise of "this is what that 8 on your Intelligence check found..."
* * *
Anyways. That should do for now. More to be added when I spot new worrying trends people are panicking over with the new One D&D announcement and playtest material. Just remember - don't panic. Whatever the issue is, I guarantee it's not that bad. And if it is? This is the start of an eighteen-month playtest cycle. Stuff is gonna change. Embrace it, enjoy it. This is an exciting time to be a D&D nerd.
I love that people are worrying about things beyond level 1 like they are going to jump in and play test a level 20 character in session 1 lol.
There are some things I am unsure of, but lIke you say it is step one in what is the biggest play test of any gaming system ever. I can’t think of a single publisher or game developer who has effectively done an open beta test on there entire new gaming system this early. Games Workshop certainly doesn’t lol. I also think that people need to consider that some of these new rules will eventually be part of a bigger piece, no double damage for casters is one I have seen complained about a lot but we have no idea what other changes to magic there will be.
Removing monster cries did make my ears prick up and give me an initial disapproving look, but, the more I look at it or it is built into better monster design it makes sense, plus limiting the crit damage coming in means monsters will last long enough to do cool things with in combats. No more bumping my BBEG hit points just to account for a critical smite attack buffed by a spell to deliver 250 hit points in one go (I exaggerate but you get the point).
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So I just queued up the YouTube interview with Crawford talking about the UA. He specifically says that ardlings are a distinct and new race, refers to their "aasimar cousins" and then focuses on how cool it is that they have animal features and can gain limited flight as a PHB race. He then doesn't mention the pre-existing aasimar again, never mind how the "new" limited flight feature is just a watered down version of what protector aasimar already have. So instead of just making aasimar a PHB race we get something that the lead designer specifically describes as being a lot like aasimar, but furry. Egyptian and archons are mentioned but only in reference to the "cool animal features" and nothing else.
Seriously, the only thing substantively differentiating them from aasimar is that they have the heads (and if you want, literal fur/feathers/hide) of animals. Please tell me why we need those aside from appealing to furries. From other stuff Crawford is saying they fully intend for existing books to work with future material so MotM races are still fully RAW, and that does include aasimar. So if they want to give us something "new" as a PHB race then why do we get something that could be done as adding more lineages to a pre-existing race? The answer is furries. The only substantive original thing about them is that they have animal aesthetics. It's just like twenty different versions of elves, but now instead of "lake elves" or "death metal dwarves" we get an entire race that's "furry aasimar."
The rest of the stuff he says sounds great, and I might even soften a bit on the concept of two foot tall humans with a 30' walking speed with minimal grumbling, but I'm not going to ever be supportive of trying to sell something that's a blatantly inserted kitchen sink furry race and serves no other purpose as "new" and "original."
Just had someone panicking about "I heard they are removing Eldritch Blast in 1DD!"
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I expected panic and confusion, but not at the levels that I have seen so far. Much of it could be resolved by simply reading the PDF and/or watching a video.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
If D&D players could read (well) or had an attention span greater than a goldfish's, they wouldn't be constantly complaining about misinterpreted rules online.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I must protest the manner in which you've besmirched the good name of goldfishes, Third!
I do apologize, Xanathar. Please do tell Sylgar I'm sorry.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I'd be more accepting of animal-headed celestial planetouched had WotC not removed the Guardinals from D&D. (Guardinals being the Neutral Good celestials who were furries that lived in Elysium and the Beastlands).
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Were they ever officially removed? Because, when I was first reading through the document, I thought that this race was intended to be descended from Guardinals/Celestial Beasts from the Heavens.
Also, Planescape is getting an official book next year. That could be the perfect time to reintroduce them.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I noticed this though, and I can't help but speculate what it means. Does it mean that only warlocks can pick up EB? Does it mean that every warlock gets EB so they all have access to the eldritch invocations that have EB as a prerequisite? I'm excited to find out!
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
It could also be that they're being reintroduced in the 2024 Monster Manual. Which would make sense, I think.
My guess is that it'll either be a Warlock-specific spell that cannot be granted through feats, or it will become a Warlock Class Feature (like people have been asking for for years).
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
It is a VERY specific case, but I did use the Knight "Retainers" Feature pretty often. My PCs would have an attendant, squire, and a majordomo. While they would not follow my PC or the party into dungeons or combat, it was nice having retainers that could stay behind and watch our stuff, tend to our horses, and keep camp. I hope "Retainers" returns in One D&D as a Feat.
Well, I hope so. Just noticed how they haven't been mentioned at all prior to this. There are far fewer celestials in 5E than there were in previous editions, which I've found to be a real shame.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I mean if I can provide all the backing I listed as wonderful reasons to include them in the game then it's lost on you.
You are against the inclusion of something that could make some people happy because you dislike furries.
We disagree.
Honestly they aren't even mechanically very good. Take an aasimar, lose the darkvision and necrotic resistance for a weak flight ability that will function as a glorified jump in most cases, and replace the subclass/lineages with innate spellcasting. The flight is gimmicky and the lineages could quite simply be just tacked onto aasimar as extra options and nobody would blink. The race has no need to exist.
I. Very and emphatically. Disagree with you assertion. There's room for both to exist, and comfortably at that. Quite frankly, the only time in 5th edition where Aasimar as a player race acted as a real counterpoint to Tieflings was as as an example on how to homebrew a race, and even then it was an afterthought at best. After it saw official release, bot narratively and mechanically, it was NOT analogous to Tieflings at ALL! Ardlings, with some proper tweaking, represent a FANTASTIC opportunity to create a celestial counterpart to Tieflings.
I agree that mechanically they are not very good. But I disagree that they have no need to exist.
While you, or I, or some others can just paste the aesthetics onto another race, or homebrew, or any 1000 other responses, for each of us there is a DM out there who only uses published material as written. The aardlings exist for anyone- not just furries- who want the flavor of the race and play in that theoretical campaign.
That is just one need for them to exist. Any race can be argued that they don't need to exist, but the question is why shouldn't they other than "I don't like them"?
This is just how humans are trained to behave in 2022. There will be a barrage of knee-jerk, reactionary rants, those rants will dominate the conversation because we engage more with controversy, and everyone's time is wasted because no one is going to change their mind.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I think it's wonderful. I work email customer service and have a lot of free time between bits of work, so the forum being active makes me happy today lol
I love that people are worrying about things beyond level 1 like they are going to jump in and play test a level 20 character in session 1 lol.
There are some things I am unsure of, but lIke you say it is step one in what is the biggest play test of any gaming system ever. I can’t think of a single publisher or game developer who has effectively done an open beta test on there entire new gaming system this early. Games Workshop certainly doesn’t lol. I also think that people need to consider that some of these new rules will eventually be part of a bigger piece, no double damage for casters is one I have seen complained about a lot but we have no idea what other changes to magic there will be.
Removing monster cries did make my ears prick up and give me an initial disapproving look, but, the more I look at it or it is built into better monster design it makes sense, plus limiting the crit damage coming in means monsters will last long enough to do cool things with in combats. No more bumping my BBEG hit points just to account for a critical smite attack buffed by a spell to deliver 250 hit points in one go (I exaggerate but you get the point).