Rangers needed the buff compared to phb ranger. The feats restricted to warrior group were mostly fighting styles, which were already restricted to 3 classes anyway. But the power level is a legitimate concern, though maybe less extreme than you say.
That is the perception by the community, despite the fact that current DPS builds almost always take 3 levels of Gloomstalker Ranger. But this is largely because the community for some reason thinks that Ranger should be a DPS class, despite the fact that it gets a ton of utility in addition to martial abilities. The current One D&D Ranger is very overtuned and makes all other Dex-based martials obsolete since they get great skills, great spells, and great damage.
I'll even give the off turn sneak attack could be exploited and abused but honestly we never saw it. Sure haste could give them double sneak attacks a round but I've never seen a character think that was a good use of both a 3rd level slot and their concentration. But hey for the sake of argument I'll go with it. That is broken. This fix doesn't just stop that, it also stops a huge range of non abusive uses of it. Standard AoO, geez let the exploit weakness class exploit the weakness they just opened. Readied actions, sure you can make some argument about not having enough time when a guy just comes through the door, I don't buy it but fine not enough time to line up a sneak attack in that instance. How about the rogue is watching a meeting on sniper over watch. He's drawn a bead on the wizard with a readied action of once he starts casting a spell, well damn I guess you just have to wait for normal initiative order and shoot him after he casts the spell, that is lame.
Sniper overwatch would be a situation of surprise, which 5e does not use readied actions for - it would give the rogue a whole turn before the wizard gets to act. We have yet to see how One D&D handles surprise, but the current One D&D sneak attack rules + current 5e Surprise mechanics would give you Sneak Attack to sniper someone.
Not really, only a readied action works as you'd need a readied action to interrupt a casting of a spell. In sniper over watch it is the wizard starting initiative in this scenario, as you are not attacking until the wizard starts casting a spell, and since the wizard is starting things off he is not surprised he may not see you and get sneak attacked but there is no surprise mid fight. Likely his companions are not as well as they were waiting for the wizard to start things off. Surprise only exists in 5e when people not ready to fight suddenly are fighting. It is not going to happen when two potentially hostile groups meet up both ready for the first sign of betrayal suddenly have an attack go off.
Put it the other way, lets say the party is sitting there negotiating with evil group Y, worshipers of the betrayer god. Suddenly evil group y has attacks coming from hiding,. they are surprised and lose a round. You don't think every player would be like dude how are we surprised we were expecting this ambush. We literally said before the fight, this is probably a trap they will likely have something invisible or hiding ready to ambush us. I'm not going to pull that on the players, but they wont get to pull that either.
And just on a logical time based event how does this happen. If the wizard starts casting a spell I shoot. The wizard starts casting a spell, okay you have surprise 6 seconds of time are yours while the wizard stands there and does nothing even starting to cast that spell we were talking about.
Rangers needed the buff compared to phb ranger. The feats restricted to warrior group were mostly fighting styles, which were already restricted to 3 classes anyway. But the power level is a legitimate concern, though maybe less extreme than you say.
That is the perception by the community, despite the fact that current DPS builds almost always take 3 levels of Gloomstalker Ranger. But this is largely because the community for some reason thinks that Ranger should be a DPS class, despite the fact that it gets a ton of utility in addition to martial abilities. The current One D&D Ranger is very overtuned and makes all other Dex-based martials obsolete since they get great skills, great spells, and great damage.
People weren't taking it for amazing ranger levels they were taking it for a amazing subclass feature. Its not much different than a hexblade dip, they aren't going wow warlocks is so cool, they are going hey that hexblade subclass that lets me use chr as my attack stat would be dope on my paladin so I only have to worry about maxing charisma.
But sure after tashas the ranger was solid. Pre tashas it wasn't the monk but it didn't have much reason to take it over other martials.
Rogues are not supposed to be the highest DPS class in the game! It is supposed to have lower DPS than damage-focused classes like Fighter or Barbarian, because it gets so much extra utility outside of combat - otherwise there would be 0 reason to play a Fighter since Rogue would be just as good or better at every aspect of the game. The problem is actually that Ranger is overtuned and in it's current iteration making Fighters largely obsolete except as a MC dip.
That's the thing. They aren't. Sneak attack is just supposed to let them keep up but not leave them on even grounds which was already established since the start of 5e. Even with being able to sneak attack twice a round they still were behind other DPR classes like fighter, ranger, barbarian, and paladin. Now with the new nerf they are worse off than before. There was no justification for the nerf.
Why are some folks acting like these changes are the beginning of the end for these classes or something?
Being only able to Sneak Attack on your turn doesn't seem like that huge of a shift for Rogues, and Bards are still spellcasters that have access to a decent spell selection (and no, not just the healing spells).
They are just singing healers now, they lost a lot of utility and damage spells. Lore bard is trash now with no extra magical secrets. You get 1 reaction per round and everyone in your party is going to expect you to save it to heal them. Combined with the fact that bards are counterspell or silvery barbs(cutting words as well for Lore) junkies in most cases, you have so many things competing for your reaction. Magical secrets at 11th and 15th level(was 10th, 14th, and 18th), jack of all trades at 5th level(was 2nd), restricted spell list(they lost access to a lot of spells), Font of Inspiration at 7th level(was 5th). It's just a huge nerf all the way around honestly. Top tier class for almost any playstyle reduced to social interaction and healer.
Why are some folks acting like these changes are the beginning of the end for these classes or something?
Being only able to Sneak Attack on your turn doesn't seem like that huge of a shift for Rogues, and Bards are still spellcasters that have access to a decent spell selection (and no, not just the healing spells).
Bards I flat out don't get. I'd say overall they got a mechanical boost, though they did take a thematic hit.
Rogues the hits they took are not large for most outside optimizers but they were a undertuned class as is, so any hit is a pretty big thing and is signalling to me the designers have no idea where the balance of the game is at.
They are just singing healers now, they lost a lot of utility and damage spells. Lore bard is trash now with no extra magical secrets. You get 1 reaction per round and everyone in your party is going to expect you to save it to heal them. Combined with the fact that bards are counterspell or silvery barbs(cutting words as well for Lore) junkies in most cases, you have so many things competing for your reaction. Magical secrets at 11th and 15th level(was 10th, 14th, and 18th), jack of all trades at 5th level(was 2nd), restricted spell list(they lost access to a lot of spells), Font of Inspiration at 7th level(was 5th). It's just a huge nerf all the way around honestly. Top tier class for almost any playstyle reduced to social interaction and healer.
So spells like Haste, Dissonant Whispers, Hideous Laughter, Sleep (at lower levels), Polymorph, Detect Magic, Blink, Thunderwave (which is now Transmutation), Fly, etc, don't exist now or something?
And they still have Silvery Barbs, assuming you're allowed to still use that with the playtest at your table.
Also they're prepared casters now, so you don't even have the reasoning that they have limited spell selections, since you can prepare these each day.
Even Clerics get some damaging options and buffs, what I am saying is that Bards lost the diversity that they used to have. They will be seen as healers and buffs for the party, nothing more than that.
That's the thing. They aren't. Sneak attack is just supposed to let them keep up but not leave them on even grounds which was already established since the start of 5e. Even with being able to sneak attack twice a round they still were behind other DPR classes like fighter, ranger, barbarian, and paladin. Now with the new nerf they are worse off than before. There was no justification for the nerf.
If a rogue was reliably getting 2 Sneak Attacks per round then they would be far outshining any DPS class in terms of damage, same for when Sneak Attack is combined with BB/GFB Rogue goes from average DPR to best DPR in the game - which is not intended. One D&D blocks these to make Rogue consistently average DPR.
Even Clerics get some damaging options and buffs, what I am saying is that Bards lost the diversity that they used to have. They will be seen as healers and buffs for the party, nothing more than that.
And Bards don't get damaging options and buffs? I even listed some of them in the previous post. Yes, they lost out on a lot of the stuff they could do before, but even with this narrower focus they now have, they aren't terrible at all, as far as I'm concerned.
Also what they are seen as =/= what they actually are or can be. If that dictated anything, Clerics would only be healers much of the time, when we know full well they can be more than that.
That's the thing. They aren't. Sneak attack is just supposed to let them keep up but not leave them on even grounds which was already established since the start of 5e. Even with being able to sneak attack twice a round they still were behind other DPR classes like fighter, ranger, barbarian, and paladin. Now with the new nerf they are worse off than before. There was no justification for the nerf.
If a rogue was reliably getting 2 Sneak Attacks per round then they would be far outshining any DPS class in terms of damage, same for when Sneak Attack is combined with BB/GFB Rogue goes from average DPR to best DPR in the game - which is not intended. One D&D blocks these to make Rogue consistently average DPR.
I'd be interested to see some numbers on that. In my experience, even a Rogue guaranteed to get two shots at Sneak Attack per round with BB/GFB on both due to warcaster might be very hard pressed to keep up with the best GWM/PAM builds. And even then the comparison is not particularly fair, because the GWM/PAM builds can pretty much generate all of their damage on their own with little risk of a dip due to circumstances, while a Rogue counting on a reaction Sneak Attack is certainly counting on some combination of either luck or assistance from their teammates.
Rangers needed the buff compared to phb ranger. The feats restricted to warrior group were mostly fighting styles, which were already restricted to 3 classes anyway. But the power level is a legitimate concern, though maybe less extreme than you say.
That is the perception by the community, despite the fact that current DPS builds almost always take 3 levels of Gloomstalker Ranger. But this is largely because the community for some reason thinks that Ranger should be a DPS class, despite the fact that it gets a ton of utility in addition to martial abilities. The current One D&D Ranger is very overtuned and makes all other Dex-based martials obsolete since they get great skills, great spells, and great damage.
The counter to that (and this applies to Rogues as well), is that a lot of DM's bypass or otherwise avoid playing to skill based challenges on the grounds they should be player challenges and see rolling to solve puzzles as some sort of sleeze or something.
That isn't a problem in the design of the classes though, that's a problem with some DMs. The game is designed around using 3 pillars equally : social, skills, combat. Obviously any DM that ignores one of these pillars will make classes that specialize in the pillar feel worthless -> it sucks to be a barbarian in a game with no combat, a bard in a game with no NPCs to interact with, or a druid in a game entirely within a city. This is why session 0s are so important!
Why are some folks acting like these changes are the beginning of the end for these classes or something?
Being only able to Sneak Attack on your turn doesn't seem like that huge of a shift for Rogues, and Bards are still spellcasters that have access to a decent spell selection (and no, not just the healing spells).
They lost the ability to sneak attack on a ready action which allowed the to keep up but not be on even grounds with other dps classes. They lost sneak attack on AoO which some people said it was OP even though it never came up as often. They also lost the ability to sneak attack with blade cantrips. This pushed them further behind than they already were in DPR and are now worse off. Bards and Rangers are are better still monkeys than rogues and all rogues got to was a massive nerf and a few QoL changes.
I'd be interested to see some numbers on that. In my experience, even a Rogue guaranteed to get two shots at Sneak Attack per round with BB/GFB on both due to warcaster might be very hard pressed to keep up with the best GWM/PAM builds. And even then the comparison is not particularly fair, because the GWM/PAM builds can pretty much generate all of their damage on their own with little risk of a dip due to circumstances, while a Rogue counting on a reaction Sneak Attack is certainly counting on some combination of either luck or assistance from their teammates.
They are just singing healers now, they lost a lot of utility and damage spells. Lore bard is trash now with no extra magical secrets. You get 1 reaction per round and everyone in your party is going to expect you to save it to heal them. Combined with the fact that bards are counterspell or silvery barbs(cutting words as well for Lore) junkies in most cases, you have so many things competing for your reaction. Magical secrets at 11th and 15th level(was 10th, 14th, and 18th), jack of all trades at 5th level(was 2nd), restricted spell list(they lost access to a lot of spells), Font of Inspiration at 7th level(was 5th). It's just a huge nerf all the way around honestly. Top tier class for almost any playstyle reduced to social interaction and healer.
They really didn't, they even gained some utility spells. Also top tier class not being top tier at everything anymore isn't a bad thing.
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How are you getting Surprise if you are not hidden?
That is the perception by the community, despite the fact that current DPS builds almost always take 3 levels of Gloomstalker Ranger. But this is largely because the community for some reason thinks that Ranger should be a DPS class, despite the fact that it gets a ton of utility in addition to martial abilities. The current One D&D Ranger is very overtuned and makes all other Dex-based martials obsolete since they get great skills, great spells, and great damage.
R.I.P. Bards. May you heal or suck from now on.
How do you figure?
R.I.P Rogues as well. May your DPR be worse off than before.
Not really, only a readied action works as you'd need a readied action to interrupt a casting of a spell. In sniper over watch it is the wizard starting initiative in this scenario, as you are not attacking until the wizard starts casting a spell, and since the wizard is starting things off he is not surprised he may not see you and get sneak attacked but there is no surprise mid fight. Likely his companions are not as well as they were waiting for the wizard to start things off. Surprise only exists in 5e when people not ready to fight suddenly are fighting. It is not going to happen when two potentially hostile groups meet up both ready for the first sign of betrayal suddenly have an attack go off.
Put it the other way, lets say the party is sitting there negotiating with evil group Y, worshipers of the betrayer god. Suddenly evil group y has attacks coming from hiding,. they are surprised and lose a round. You don't think every player would be like dude how are we surprised we were expecting this ambush. We literally said before the fight, this is probably a trap they will likely have something invisible or hiding ready to ambush us. I'm not going to pull that on the players, but they wont get to pull that either.
And just on a logical time based event how does this happen. If the wizard starts casting a spell I shoot. The wizard starts casting a spell, okay you have surprise 6 seconds of time are yours while the wizard stands there and does nothing even starting to cast that spell we were talking about.
People weren't taking it for amazing ranger levels they were taking it for a amazing subclass feature. Its not much different than a hexblade dip, they aren't going wow warlocks is so cool, they are going hey that hexblade subclass that lets me use chr as my attack stat would be dope on my paladin so I only have to worry about maxing charisma.
But sure after tashas the ranger was solid. Pre tashas it wasn't the monk but it didn't have much reason to take it over other martials.
That's the thing. They aren't. Sneak attack is just supposed to let them keep up but not leave them on even grounds which was already established since the start of 5e. Even with being able to sneak attack twice a round they still were behind other DPR classes like fighter, ranger, barbarian, and paladin. Now with the new nerf they are worse off than before. There was no justification for the nerf.
Why are some folks acting like these changes are the beginning of the end for these classes or something?
Being only able to Sneak Attack on your turn doesn't seem like that huge of a shift for Rogues, and Bards are still spellcasters that have access to a decent spell selection (and no, not just the healing spells).
They are just singing healers now, they lost a lot of utility and damage spells. Lore bard is trash now with no extra magical secrets. You get 1 reaction per round and everyone in your party is going to expect you to save it to heal them. Combined with the fact that bards are counterspell or silvery barbs(cutting words as well for Lore) junkies in most cases, you have so many things competing for your reaction. Magical secrets at 11th and 15th level(was 10th, 14th, and 18th), jack of all trades at 5th level(was 2nd), restricted spell list(they lost access to a lot of spells), Font of Inspiration at 7th level(was 5th). It's just a huge nerf all the way around honestly. Top tier class for almost any playstyle reduced to social interaction and healer.
Bards I flat out don't get. I'd say overall they got a mechanical boost, though they did take a thematic hit.
Rogues the hits they took are not large for most outside optimizers but they were a undertuned class as is, so any hit is a pretty big thing and is signalling to me the designers have no idea where the balance of the game is at.
So spells like Haste, Dissonant Whispers, Hideous Laughter, Sleep (at lower levels), Polymorph, Detect Magic, Blink, Thunderwave (which is now Transmutation), Fly, etc, don't exist now or something?
And they still have Silvery Barbs, assuming you're allowed to still use that with the playtest at your table.
Also they're prepared casters now, so you don't even have the reasoning that they have limited spell selections, since you can prepare these each day.
Even Clerics get some damaging options and buffs, what I am saying is that Bards lost the diversity that they used to have. They will be seen as healers and buffs for the party, nothing more than that.
If a rogue was reliably getting 2 Sneak Attacks per round then they would be far outshining any DPS class in terms of damage, same for when Sneak Attack is combined with BB/GFB Rogue goes from average DPR to best DPR in the game - which is not intended. One D&D blocks these to make Rogue consistently average DPR.
And Bards don't get damaging options and buffs? I even listed some of them in the previous post. Yes, they lost out on a lot of the stuff they could do before, but even with this narrower focus they now have, they aren't terrible at all, as far as I'm concerned.
Also what they are seen as =/= what they actually are or can be. If that dictated anything, Clerics would only be healers much of the time, when we know full well they can be more than that.
I'd be interested to see some numbers on that. In my experience, even a Rogue guaranteed to get two shots at Sneak Attack per round with BB/GFB on both due to warcaster might be very hard pressed to keep up with the best GWM/PAM builds. And even then the comparison is not particularly fair, because the GWM/PAM builds can pretty much generate all of their damage on their own with little risk of a dip due to circumstances, while a Rogue counting on a reaction Sneak Attack is certainly counting on some combination of either luck or assistance from their teammates.
That isn't a problem in the design of the classes though, that's a problem with some DMs. The game is designed around using 3 pillars equally : social, skills, combat. Obviously any DM that ignores one of these pillars will make classes that specialize in the pillar feel worthless -> it sucks to be a barbarian in a game with no combat, a bard in a game with no NPCs to interact with, or a druid in a game entirely within a city. This is why session 0s are so important!
They lost the ability to sneak attack on a ready action which allowed the to keep up but not be on even grounds with other dps classes. They lost sneak attack on AoO which some people said it was OP even though it never came up as often. They also lost the ability to sneak attack with blade cantrips. This pushed them further behind than they already were in DPR and are now worse off. Bards and Rangers are are better still monkeys than rogues and all rogues got to was a massive nerf and a few QoL changes.
Here are the truncated numbers:
Level 5 vs CR 5
Rogue: 1x chance at BB+Sneak Attack at Adv = 19.7 DPR (27.6 if bonus BB damage activates)
Rogue: two-weapon fighting + reaction attack = 27.5 DPR
Fighter: SS+XbowXpert build = 15.2 DPR
Fighter: PAM+GWM build = 18.8 DPR
Level 8 vs CR 8
Rogue: 1x chance at BB+Sneak Attack at Adv = 23.7 DPR (31.6 if bonus BB damage activates)
Rogue: two-weapon fighting + reaction attack = 34.4 DPR
Fighter: SS+XbowXpert build = 25.9 DPR
Fighter: PAM+GWM build = 23.5 DPR
Level 10 vs CR 10
Rogue: 1x chance at BB+Sneak Attack at Adv = 28.5 DPR (36.4 if bonus BB damage activates)
Rogue: two-weapon fighting + reaction attack = 39.7 DPR
Fighter: SS+XbowXpert build = 30.4 DPR
Fighter: PAM+GWM build = 28.1 DPR
Level 15 vs CR 15
Rogue: 1x chance at BB+Sneak Attack at Adv = 41.7 DPR (53.5 if bonus BB damage activates)
Rogue: two-weapon fighting + reaction attack = 55.8 DPR
Fighter: SS+XbowXpert build = 40.1 DPR
Fighter: PAM+GWM build = 37.5 DPR
They really didn't, they even gained some utility spells. Also top tier class not being top tier at everything anymore isn't a bad thing.