I finally had a chance to sit down and read part of this damned thing. Did anyone else notice the nerf to Sneak Attack?
Yes, and if anything it needed a buff. Though the buff I want is more focused around what you can sneak attack with like improvised weapons(furniture), basically I'd change it to any non heavy attack as opposed to finesse. I want a club for knocking people out, some kind of choke out, or neck snap move. They made this cool evocative sneak attack you see in comics, literature, movies and are like nope all the fun options from those sources you can't do because we are hung up on rogues only using these select weapons for thematic purposes which really should be up to the player and not them.
Unclevertitle, they are only doing the PHB classes, artificer is from a later volume so you won’t see it in the play test the brief mention is basically all your getting.
I finally had a chance to sit down and read part of this damned thing. Did anyone else notice the nerf to Sneak Attack?
What nerf?
It can't work with booming blade etc.
I’m not a fan.
Neither am I, overall I think the rogue is roughly where it was maybe a bit weaker and sneak attack is weaker and lost some flexibility when it needed the opposite.
Yeah I don't like it either. I wonder why they're doing it. Was Rogue damage somehow more than they wanted? Was the "meta" of looking for ways to do off turn Sneak Attack somehow not the kind of gameplay they wanted from the Rogue class?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Unclevertitle, they are only doing the PHB classes, artificer is from a later volume so you won’t see it in the play test the brief mention is basically all your getting.
I'm well aware.
Now that I know what the issue is with how they have a rule with only referencing the PH with later supplements I will say that sucks hard. Yes, the whole classifying feats etc under expert etc helps a bit but it wont help with sub classes so you will be stuck with whatever sub classes they get from the getgo. And it just normally sucks for their fans to just have to wait a year+ to play the class they want.
I really like this version of ranger. I remember making my first 5e ranger years ago and feeling really bad when I realized I was just inherently worse at stealth than the party rogue because they got expertise and I didn't, then being a liability whenever I tried to play the role of scout. You know, that role rangers are historically meant to fulfill.
They always should've had expertise. Rangers are cunning survivalists that make use of their wide skill set to survive in hostile environments to range ahead of the party to scout and report back. Then you have abilities like Roving, Tireless (though this one feels a bit weak given how high a level you get it), and Nature's Veil that make you better at moving around obstacles and getting into places you shouldn't. Feral Senses at 15th level basically turn you into Wolverine with the ability to sense enemies in perfect darkness, which is very appropriate.
Biggest of all though are the spellcasting changes. PREPARED CASTING is huge. Rangers not being able to choose what spells they need for the day clashed with the class identity in my opinion, and now they can better adapt to new challenges by changing spells to suit their environment. Getting access to cantrips is especially big though. I can already see some cool character concepts becoming available.
Move over STRanger, make way for WISer!
... Okay let's not call it that actually.
BUT. Ranger can now naturally get Shillelagh, allowing one to make a super SAD melee ranger using a club/shield combo or a staff. I could see a sort of Friar Tuck staff fighter with Guidance being fun. Focus wholly on WIS and take expertise in Survival and Perception. Suddenly you have an excellent forest guide who leads civilians through dangerous forests using their keen eyes to spot traps and ambushes, uses Guidance to keep their clients from falling intro traps, keeps them fed by hunting and gathering on the trail, and fights off bandits with their magically empowered staff.
Or you can take Thorn Whip and be a sort of Indiana Jones sort. Expertise in acrobatics and Investigation. If your DM is lenient you could use it to snag obviously trapped items from a distance or swing over pit traps. Otherwise just pull enemies into the traps instead, or just pull them into your dual wielding shortsword ranger with the new Light Weapon rules.
Hunter's Mark not needing concentration is also pretty big. Both for damage and for flavor. Most people focus on the damage it deals, but Hunter's Mark also gives you advantage on Perception and Survival checks used to find the target. That means that once a ranger has spotted you it is almost impossible to escape them, which is super thematic for the ranger. Especially since now they can combine it with other concentration spells like Beast Sense, Pass Without a Trace, or Treestride to go full Predator on someone's behind.
Also I noticed Heat Metal is a Transmutation spell. Use turn 1 to cast Heat Metal on the enemy's codpiece and place Hunter's Mark on them. Then start loosing arrows boosted by Hunter's Mark into the target with your action while burning them with your bonus action each turn. Add on Hunter's Prey and that seems like it'd be a LOT of potential damage per round.
Also as an aside I love that they grouped Animal Handling in with Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation for the new Influence Rolls. The 5e version was incredibly anemic as written. You could only calm domesticated animals and intuit the intentions of wild ones. Now it seems like it can do the same things you could do with Persuasion, just with animals and, most importantly, monstrosities! That actually makes it a pretty worthwhile skill to invest in.
Though I am a bit worried that it seems to have been moved from WIS to CHA, which isn't great for druids and rangers who usually have low charisma. This'd mean bards and warlocks are better at communicating with animals than druids and rangers, which is wildly unthematic.
I feel like a complete moron, but I can't for the life of me find where they moved the line to that says bard's & ranger's expended spell slots can be restored on a long rest, or for that matter, ever.
Also, I'm convinced that every official example & suggestion of what options to pick is a prank to give new players a worse time. Rangers are told that the standard is to spend one of their two 1st level prepared spells on hunter's mark just a paragraph after the feature that says that they have it autoprepped for free.
I feel like a complete moron, but I can't for the life of me find where they moved the line to that says bard's & ranger's expended spell slots can be restored on a long rest, or for that matter, ever.
Also, I'm convinced that every official example & suggestion of what options to pick is a prank to give new players a worse time. Rangers are told that the standard is to spend one of their two 1st level prepared spells on hunter's mark just a paragraph after the feature that says that they have it autoprepped for free.
it's not covered because this section from the PHB still applies during the playtest
Finishing a long rest restores any expended spell slots (see chapter 8 for the rules on resting).
This is from the spell slots section of chapter 10.
Yeah I don't like it either. I wonder why they're doing it. Was Rogue damage somehow more than they wanted? Was the "meta" of looking for ways to do off turn Sneak Attack somehow not the kind of gameplay they wanted from the Rogue class?
BB + Sneak Attack was objectively the optimal way to play every single Rogue. Even with Steady Aim, ranged Rogues were just trash compared to a melee rogue with BB. Doing the math, any Rogue that takes Magic Initiate for BB+Find Familiar (Adv on the BB attack) and uses the "run in BB, Disengage & run away" to get even jut 50% of the time the secondary damage from BB easily out damages every other class and they can do this all day long as the only expendable resource they are using is the familiar.
I see a lot of efforts in the UA to try to get rid of these obvious one-best-way to play - nerfing GWM and boosting alternatives like Shield Master & Charger, nerfing SS so archers aren't simply by default better than melee... [Except that they did nothing to nerf PAM so it is still unambiguously optimal to use a polearm on every two-handed weapon user]. Though they've messed up with the Favoured Foe on Ranger since concentration free Hunter's Mark is simply a must for every single martial now - it matches or exceeds GWM for bonus damage up to level 13.
But has anyone noticed how it's now WAY harder to force a flying creature to the ground? Prone, Grapple, anything that reduced flyspeed to 0 now has no effect on a flying creature, the only options are incapacitating them or restraining them which basically means any flying creature with legendary resistances is never getting forced to the ground.
Yeah I don't like it either. I wonder why they're doing it. Was Rogue damage somehow more than they wanted? Was the "meta" of looking for ways to do off turn Sneak Attack somehow not the kind of gameplay they wanted from the Rogue class?
BB + Sneak Attack was objectively the optimal way to play every single Rogue. Even with Steady Aim, ranged Rogues were just trash compared to a melee rogue with BB. Doing the math, any Rogue that takes Magic Initiate for BB+Find Familiar (Adv on the BB attack) and uses the "run in BB, Disengage & run away" to get even jut 50% of the time the secondary damage from BB easily out damages every other class and they can do this all day long as the only expendable resource they are using is the familiar.
I see a lot of efforts in the UA to try to get rid of these obvious one-best-way to play - nerfing GWM and boosting alternatives like Shield Master & Charger, nerfing SS so archers aren't simply by default better than melee... [Except that they did nothing to nerf PAM so it is still unambiguously optimal to use a polearm on every two-handed weapon user]. Though they've messed up with the Favoured Foe on Ranger since concentration free Hunter's Mark is simply a must for every single martial now - it matches or exceeds GWM for bonus damage up to level 13.
They did nerf PAM, it no longer applies to spears and the reaction attack is no longer an "opportunity attack", which means it no longer has synergy with sentinel.
One reason I think they have limited sneak attacks to the attack action, is that magic initiate is now available at level 1, which means literally every rogue is just going to pick it up else wise... I do think rogue damage does tend to decline in the late game compared to other classes but with the change to light weapons and get advantage at level 13, that might already be enough given a rogue can now attack twice and bonus action disengage after. Much easier to ensure you get the sneak attack damage in.
I finally had a chance to sit down and read part of this damned thing. Did anyone else notice the nerf to Sneak Attack?
Yes, and if anything it needed a buff. Though the buff I want is more focused around what you can sneak attack with like improvised weapons(furniture), basically I'd change it to any non heavy attack as opposed to finesse. I want a club for knocking people out, some kind of choke out, or neck snap move. They made this cool evocative sneak attack you see in comics, literature, movies and are like nope all the fun options from those sources you can't do because we are hung up on rogues only using these select weapons for thematic purposes which really should be up to the player and not them.
The solution there is a Battle Master-like subclass -- or given the new setup, even something like a Rogue-only Feat -- that gives you additional options with your Sneak Attack, not adding a bunch of stuff into basic Sneak Attack
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thinking about sneak attack I would just add all light weapons and include unarmed strikes. The change would add only a couple more weapons as there are few light weapons that are not finesse. So that would cover using a club or light hammer to knock someone out.
I'd love so see a Rogue ability that could help the party more. Instead about being benefits for yourself. The use scrolls is a great example. Give the Rogue a couple of heal scrolls or such and they can assist. Something like you have an action that purposely misses the target but you then give a party member advantage. Just as an example
But has anyone noticed how it's now WAY harder to force a flying creature to the ground? Prone, Grapple, anything that reduced flyspeed to 0 now has no effect on a flying creature, the only options are incapacitating them or restraining them which basically means any flying creature with legendary resistances is never getting forced to the ground.
Flying creatuers fall if they're Restrained. How do you Restrain someone? That is a question that's currently not addressed in the UAs we have.
Its counter intuitive perhaps, but Grappled doesn't mean the same as Restrained. If you grapple someone, that just means that you've got a hold on them, which lets you drag them around or smack them (and be smacked in turn.) I'm sure there will be future rules on restraining someone - it'd be odd if thrown nets or grappling didn't let you restrain people.
And its not like you can't grapple someone and pull them to the ground either. And I'm sure there's a whole weight limit thing too.
Yeah I don't like it either. I wonder why they're doing it. Was Rogue damage somehow more than they wanted? Was the "meta" of looking for ways to do off turn Sneak Attack somehow not the kind of gameplay they wanted from the Rogue class?
I too don't like it. But do keep in mind that it's not a massive change to sneak attack, it's only a small nerf. And it was kinda broken with things like the Commanders Strike Battle Master feature.
Yes, and if anything it needed a buff. Though the buff I want is more focused around what you can sneak attack with like improvised weapons(furniture), basically I'd change it to any non heavy attack as opposed to finesse. I want a club for knocking people out, some kind of choke out, or neck snap move. They made this cool evocative sneak attack you see in comics, literature, movies and are like nope all the fun options from those sources you can't do because we are hung up on rogues only using these select weapons for thematic purposes which really should be up to the player and not them.
I'm well aware.
I’m not a fan.
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Neither am I, overall I think the rogue is roughly where it was maybe a bit weaker and sneak attack is weaker and lost some flexibility when it needed the opposite.
Yeah I don't like it either. I wonder why they're doing it. Was Rogue damage somehow more than they wanted? Was the "meta" of looking for ways to do off turn Sneak Attack somehow not the kind of gameplay they wanted from the Rogue class?
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!
Now that I know what the issue is with how they have a rule with only referencing the PH with later supplements I will say that sucks hard. Yes, the whole classifying feats etc under expert etc helps a bit but it wont help with sub classes so you will be stuck with whatever sub classes they get from the getgo. And it just normally sucks for their fans to just have to wait a year+ to play the class they want.
Is there a way to test the new classes online through dnd beyond or do you have to do everything on paper in order to test the classes?
Unclevertitle,
Thank you for the correction. Memory is not fixed and perhaps hope met memory in my head and created something that was not there. :p
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At this time, only on paper.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
I really like this version of ranger. I remember making my first 5e ranger years ago and feeling really bad when I realized I was just inherently worse at stealth than the party rogue because they got expertise and I didn't, then being a liability whenever I tried to play the role of scout. You know, that role rangers are historically meant to fulfill.
They always should've had expertise. Rangers are cunning survivalists that make use of their wide skill set to survive in hostile environments to range ahead of the party to scout and report back. Then you have abilities like Roving, Tireless (though this one feels a bit weak given how high a level you get it), and Nature's Veil that make you better at moving around obstacles and getting into places you shouldn't. Feral Senses at 15th level basically turn you into Wolverine with the ability to sense enemies in perfect darkness, which is very appropriate.
Biggest of all though are the spellcasting changes. PREPARED CASTING is huge. Rangers not being able to choose what spells they need for the day clashed with the class identity in my opinion, and now they can better adapt to new challenges by changing spells to suit their environment. Getting access to cantrips is especially big though. I can already see some cool character concepts becoming available.
Move over STRanger, make way for WISer!
... Okay let's not call it that actually.
BUT. Ranger can now naturally get Shillelagh, allowing one to make a super SAD melee ranger using a club/shield combo or a staff. I could see a sort of Friar Tuck staff fighter with Guidance being fun. Focus wholly on WIS and take expertise in Survival and Perception. Suddenly you have an excellent forest guide who leads civilians through dangerous forests using their keen eyes to spot traps and ambushes, uses Guidance to keep their clients from falling intro traps, keeps them fed by hunting and gathering on the trail, and fights off bandits with their magically empowered staff.
Or you can take Thorn Whip and be a sort of Indiana Jones sort. Expertise in acrobatics and Investigation. If your DM is lenient you could use it to snag obviously trapped items from a distance or swing over pit traps. Otherwise just pull enemies into the traps instead, or just pull them into your dual wielding shortsword ranger with the new Light Weapon rules.
Hunter's Mark not needing concentration is also pretty big. Both for damage and for flavor. Most people focus on the damage it deals, but Hunter's Mark also gives you advantage on Perception and Survival checks used to find the target. That means that once a ranger has spotted you it is almost impossible to escape them, which is super thematic for the ranger. Especially since now they can combine it with other concentration spells like Beast Sense, Pass Without a Trace, or Treestride to go full Predator on someone's behind.
Also I noticed Heat Metal is a Transmutation spell. Use turn 1 to cast Heat Metal on the enemy's codpiece and place Hunter's Mark on them. Then start loosing arrows boosted by Hunter's Mark into the target with your action while burning them with your bonus action each turn. Add on Hunter's Prey and that seems like it'd be a LOT of potential damage per round.
Also as an aside I love that they grouped Animal Handling in with Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation for the new Influence Rolls. The 5e version was incredibly anemic as written. You could only calm domesticated animals and intuit the intentions of wild ones. Now it seems like it can do the same things you could do with Persuasion, just with animals and, most importantly, monstrosities! That actually makes it a pretty worthwhile skill to invest in.
Though I am a bit worried that it seems to have been moved from WIS to CHA, which isn't great for druids and rangers who usually have low charisma. This'd mean bards and warlocks are better at communicating with animals than druids and rangers, which is wildly unthematic.
Sneak attack - if you could get it - is on par with an unoptimized fighter for damage. The thing that made sneak attack bad was GWM/PAM and XBE/SS.
I feel like a complete moron, but I can't for the life of me find where they moved the line to that says bard's & ranger's expended spell slots can be restored on a long rest, or for that matter, ever.
Also, I'm convinced that every official example & suggestion of what options to pick is a prank to give new players a worse time. Rangers are told that the standard is to spend one of their two 1st level prepared spells on hunter's mark just a paragraph after the feature that says that they have it autoprepped for free.
it's not covered because this section from the PHB still applies during the playtest
This is from the spell slots section of chapter 10.
BB + Sneak Attack was objectively the optimal way to play every single Rogue. Even with Steady Aim, ranged Rogues were just trash compared to a melee rogue with BB. Doing the math, any Rogue that takes Magic Initiate for BB+Find Familiar (Adv on the BB attack) and uses the "run in BB, Disengage & run away" to get even jut 50% of the time the secondary damage from BB easily out damages every other class and they can do this all day long as the only expendable resource they are using is the familiar.
I see a lot of efforts in the UA to try to get rid of these obvious one-best-way to play - nerfing GWM and boosting alternatives like Shield Master & Charger, nerfing SS so archers aren't simply by default better than melee... [Except that they did nothing to nerf PAM so it is still unambiguously optimal to use a polearm on every two-handed weapon user]. Though they've messed up with the Favoured Foe on Ranger since concentration free Hunter's Mark is simply a must for every single martial now - it matches or exceeds GWM for bonus damage up to level 13.
But has anyone noticed how it's now WAY harder to force a flying creature to the ground? Prone, Grapple, anything that reduced flyspeed to 0 now has no effect on a flying creature, the only options are incapacitating them or restraining them which basically means any flying creature with legendary resistances is never getting forced to the ground.
They did nerf PAM, it no longer applies to spears and the reaction attack is no longer an "opportunity attack", which means it no longer has synergy with sentinel.
One reason I think they have limited sneak attacks to the attack action, is that magic initiate is now available at level 1, which means literally every rogue is just going to pick it up else wise... I do think rogue damage does tend to decline in the late game compared to other classes but with the change to light weapons and get advantage at level 13, that might already be enough given a rogue can now attack twice and bonus action disengage after. Much easier to ensure you get the sneak attack damage in.
The solution there is a Battle Master-like subclass -- or given the new setup, even something like a Rogue-only Feat -- that gives you additional options with your Sneak Attack, not adding a bunch of stuff into basic Sneak Attack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thinking about sneak attack
I would just add all light weapons and include unarmed strikes.
The change would add only a couple more weapons as there are few light weapons that are not finesse. So that would cover using a club or light hammer to knock someone out.
I'd love so see a Rogue ability that could help the party more. Instead about being benefits for yourself. The use scrolls is a great example. Give the Rogue a couple of heal scrolls or such and they can assist. Something like you have an action that purposely misses the target but you then give a party member advantage. Just as an example
Flying creatuers fall if they're Restrained. How do you Restrain someone? That is a question that's currently not addressed in the UAs we have.
Its counter intuitive perhaps, but Grappled doesn't mean the same as Restrained. If you grapple someone, that just means that you've got a hold on them, which lets you drag them around or smack them (and be smacked in turn.) I'm sure there will be future rules on restraining someone - it'd be odd if thrown nets or grappling didn't let you restrain people.
And its not like you can't grapple someone and pull them to the ground either. And I'm sure there's a whole weight limit thing too.
I too don't like it. But do keep in mind that it's not a massive change to sneak attack, it's only a small nerf. And it was kinda broken with things like the Commanders Strike Battle Master feature.
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