Nothing is stopping a player from asking "can I attempt to summon an entity to bargain with?" if they have summoning-relevant spells, or even asking "what would I have to acquire to attempt such a casting?" Would it be homebrew, yes, but name me one Archmage NPC that doesn't use magic just off the cuff because they're magic rather than restricting themselves solely to their Official Spell List.
Your Official Spell List is the magic you know will work, one hundred percent of the time, provided nothing unusual janks you. If you want to try and summon a hag and make a fey bargain? Magic it up, let's make some rolls, do some roleplay, and see what happens. You have no idea if it will work the way you want it to, but isn't that supposedly half the point of the terribad "Conjure" spells in the first place? If the DM is supposed to have all kinds of narrative leeway with those spells, then I say dispense with the crap spell frameworks entirely and embrace "You can certainly try."
Ya make it skill checks and quests. There are some curses that can't just be removed by remove curse. So why not have some beings that cant just be summoned by a third or 4th level spell.
I liked the UA8 monk. It was definitely an improvement over the initial release. I was surprised it scored so high, it was good but not perfect. But, again, I wonder if it’s just the crappy survey. I was a little gun shy to be too critical on areas that I thought could use work for fear of them reverting to the earlier/2014 version. Especially in the ranking (satisfied, very satisfied, etc) but I did voice any concerns in the comments
I had concerns with the new monk as well, e.g. Wholeness of Body in the Open Hand still needs a lot of work. But the sky-high reception didn't surprise me at all, and watching Treantmonk use it so effectively in the level 15 one-shot on Insight Check's channel last week brought a tear to my eye.
Disappointing that this was the last PHB UA; I was still hoping for another playtest with updated spells so we could do some focused testing on a reasonably complete set of spells. Spells were something I found difficult to playtest effectively when we were just using every other 5e spell as-is, for example the fallback damage on the updated power word kill is difficult to assess without knowing if other 9th-level damaging spells are going to remain as-is, and whether it's still going to be over-shadowed by true polymorph and wish.
At the very least it'd be nice to get a video discussing the aims when it comes to the "balancing pass" of the rules, specifically how are they evaluating spellcasters versus non-spellcasters in order to judge which need to be strengthened or nerfed?
I'm a bit surprised that the monk polled in the 90's; in fact I'm surprised that anything polled in the 90's, that seems highly unlikely. It does make me worry again about the quality of the results, as "satisfaction" is a strange thing to ask for as a metric, because it lacks a clear way to say "I like an idea, but it needs improvement". We really should have been asked to rate by several factors like "fun", "complexity" and "strength", or given the ability to do so optionally (as the surveys are already huge without tripling the questions). I know we could write whatever we wanted in the text boxes, but it's hard to trust how closely they'll be scrutinised and acted upon.
Also surprised to hear the new conjure spells polling well; I found them all a bit boring, and lacking even a fraction of the utility of the existing conjure spells – by all means simplify and make them less disruptive, but boiling them into a single effect means losing so much. That was a big part of what people hated about the original Druid Wildshape changes so it seems strange for people to react positively to the same happening to these spells.
In general though I'm at least hopeful, but I'm still worried about a bunch of things; I'm not a fan of the weapon mastery system in its current form, and I'm worried the way the survey works means we won't see many (if any) changes to it, as if it remains as-is we're stuck with it for the next 10 years.
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I get the feeling the Conjure spells polled better than the Druid stuff because players who'd been the victim of abusive play of the Conjure spells scored them highly just to get rid of the 2014 versions. Any DM who'se had to deal with the eight-velociraptors or eight-pixies BS likely scored those changes "Overwhelmingly Satisfied" even if they hated the new spells. Many players who've watched a druid take forty-five minutes to run their turn and basically invalidate the entire table by playing X-COM: WILDLIFE instead of D&D likely also rated the new Conjure spells highly as a much less abusive take on the idea. The Druid template forms were rejected by druid players specifically, while nobody else really cared; the new Conjure spells were embraced by everyone who's ever agreed with Matt Mercer DMing for Keyleth in the early days: "**** that spell."
I am, however, equally astonished at the monk's seemingly fantastic reception. I do not recall being impressed, nor seeing much in the way of 'Impressed' around the Intarwebs.Maybe monk players have just been so beaten down over the last decade that they'll take any small improvement they can get?
I'll say one more time; Finesse needs a little more support in the Mastery system, because essentially your only options are TWF with a Scimitar and a Shortsword if you need to free up your Bonus Action, TWF with two Shortswords otherwise, or use a Rapier with pretty much only Vex. The Whip with Slow technically exists, but Whips have always been niche and Slow is probably the least engaging mastery option atm. Getting one more mastery option on the table would do a lot to allow finesse Fighters to properly embrace the modularity of the system.
I am, however, equally astonished at the monk's seemingly fantastic reception. I do not recall being impressed, nor seeing much in the way of 'Impressed' around the Intarwebs.Maybe monk players have just been so beaten down over the last decade that they'll take any small improvement they can get?
I'm assuming it's 90+% answered either satisfied or very satisfied, but that only makes me want to know what the split is on those two; because I feel like the Monk maybe warrants satisfied, but may not have a majority as very satisfied. This is exactly the kind of thing they should have mentioned because it gives it a better indication of whether a class is nearly done or "doing well but still needs work".
I thrive on stats so it's always annoying to me to have them mentioned but never released in any form (they could easily summarise the ratings data since it's trivial to anonymise, text is obviously way, way harder). I'd be interested for example in comparing the satisfied and very satisfied split of the Monk compared to, say, Rogue.
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.
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I'll say one more time; Finesse needs a little more support in the Mastery system, because essentially your only options are TWF with a Scimitar and a Shortsword if you need to free up your Bonus Action, TWF with two Shortswords otherwise, or use a Rapier with pretty much only Vex. The Whip with Slow technically exists, but Whips have always been niche and Slow is probably the least engaging mastery option atm. Getting one more mastery option on the table would do a lot to allow finesse Fighters to properly embrace the modularity of the system.
That might be intentional, honestly. A way to sneakily redress some of the lopsidedness of Finesse in the first place, since a Finesse fighter (or anyone else) gets easy access to drastically superior ranged weaponry without having to really give up any significant melee capacity. Limiting(ish, for Fighters) the Mastery properties on Finesse gear might be a way to allow the Strength bois with mostly pointless chuckin' weapons to gain a different form of versatility. DX Fighter gets versatility in engagement range and tools used; ST Fighter gets versatility in controlling effects in the scrum. I could be raving nonsense, but honestly it makes a weird kinna sense in my head.
90% satisfaction isnt like getting a 90 on a test, its more like this is generally not hated. like rotten tomatoes.
its also going to be a bit relative in this case. the fact that its a big improvement matters a lot.
I actually expected this to have a very high approval rating 80+, I'm not really surprised by 90% its a very clear improvement to most people.
that doesnt necessarily mean it has no issues. or even that its neccesarily where it needs to be. Though to be honest I don't really have big issues with the main class.
I am, however, equally astonished at the monk's seemingly fantastic reception. I do not recall being impressed, nor seeing much in the way of 'Impressed' around the Intarwebs. Maybe monk players have just been so beaten down over the last decade that they'll take any small improvement they can get?
Do you follow many D&D Youtubers, or visit other forums like Reddit? I saw overwhelming excitement about the new Monk on my feed when that UA dropped, and it was compounded by the fact that most people (including both you and I, if I recall correctly) were coming out of their rather disheartening "we're-done-experimenting-and-are-leaning-towards-minor-adjustments-from-2014" video right before UA8 expecting that the only remaining changes would be barely noticeable, like keeping Brutal Critical but making the die a d12. Instead, what we got was one of the biggest swings we saw since the Rogue got a brand new feature.
And the improvements to Monk are definitely not small. Decoupling Martial Arts and Flurry from the Attack action is huge - a level 1 monk can out-tank a Fighter now simply by Dodging with their action and punching with their bonus action, all day long, and sacrificing very little damage by doing so. That punch starts at d6 now instead of d4, and they can grapple effectively right out of the gate too. At level 2, they can Dash and Disengage as a bonus action all day long too.
Skipping ahead to level 5, Stunning Strike spam is a thing of the past - when it worked, it would trivialize entire boss fights, and when it didn't, the monk felt like they were wasting all their resources on doing nothing. The new one compensates you for your stunning attempts even when they don't work.And skipping ahead again to 10+, where the 2014 monk just straight up stopped getting damage boosts in Tier 3 and Tier 4, the 2024 monk is able to stay comfortably above the baseline all the way up now.
I'm assuming it's 90+% answered either satisfied or very satisfied, but that only makes me want to know what the split is on those two; because I feel like the Monk maybe warrants satisfied, but may not have a majority as very satisfied. This is exactly the kind of thing they should have mentioned because it gives it a better indication of whether a class is nearly done or "doing well but still needs work".
I thrive on stats so it's always annoying to me to have them mentioned but never released in any form (they could easily summarise the ratings data since it's trivial to anonymise, text is obviously way, way harder). I'd be interested for example in comparing the satisfied and very satisfied split of the Monk compared to, say, Rogue.
My guess (which is admittedly conjecture) is that it's a single scale and the different responses are just weighted differently. So Very Satisfied might = 1, while Satisfied = 0.7, Dissatisfied = 0.4, and Very Dissatisfied = 0, or something like that. Thus if you're landing on 90%, it means that the vast majority aren't just favorable, they're overwhelmingly hitting VS. Whereas 80% means there's a mix of VS and S, but VS is still well-represented. That kind of thing. In other words, the number itself can give you somewhat of a decent idea what the split was.
Exsqueeze me, I'm an angry white woman, thank you very much. And I didn't demand jack monkey squat when it came to the Monk. I learned* my lesson* after eating a buffet's worth of Vacation Points for wanting the warlock to stop being awful.
Frankly? I don't imagine most tables will give a hoot if someone wants to play a 5e class or a One D&D class or a hybrid mix of the two or whatever. Tongue of Sun and Moon is a ribbon feature I can't imagine most DMs would have a problem simply letting the monk have at 13 (or even earlier, hell) if the player was really excited about it. Empty Body's a harder sell, but frankly a lot of these zany old features that're getting phased out (presumably, we haven't seen the final book yet) are easily fodder for custom feats or Gifts for specific characters. Not every monk will be able to turn invisible and ghosty, no - but Alice's monk, who's spent her entire journey honing the arts of the Astral Self, might very well be able to. Devon's Cobalt Soul infiltrator that needs to move among many circles might learn to tap their ki to gain the effects of Tongue of Sun and Moon far earlier than 13th level.
Or just play the 5e version with the 5e subclasses and don't care. As I've told innumerable people innumerable times: the 2014 books aren't going anywhere. If you prefer them, use them.
90% satisfaction isnt like getting a 90 on a test, its more like this is generally not hated. like rotten tomatoes.
I know, but even so 90% is a high result, but like I say I think it stems from the way the survey is structured. I've complained about that on every other UA thread, I'm not going to stop now. 😝
Part of it will come down to people who didn't want to give Monk feedback, so they're just not being counted at all (as they weren't even asked for an overall satisfaction rating), so it's not 90% of all respondents, it's 90% of respondents who asked to give Monk feedback.
But again this is where the lack of detail in the information they give gets a bit frustrating; like, how many of Monk respondents said they play-tested (which we can then guess at how many actually play-tested)? How many are long term Monk players (started in 3.5e or earlier), which age/edition groups liked Monk best etc. I'd really like to see a lot more of the data they're actually getting.
that doesnt necessarily mean it has no issues. or even that its neccesarily where it needs to be. Though to be honest I don't really have big issues with the main class.
I don't think it has any major problems, there's a bunch of tiny tweaks I'd like to see, and maybe some features shuffled around in the levels. I forget off-hand but I still felt there were a couple levels where the features either aren't that great for a lone feature, or which come online too late.
The only major thing that really matters to me is that I really wish we'd get some alternatives to Stunning Strike; Monk should really be a control/debuff skirmisher, yet while Rogue got Cunning Strikes, Monk is still limited to only Stunning Strike. While it's great when it works, I'd rather have the choice of some lesser but more reliable effects as well, like shunting a Large or smaller enemy by 5 feet.
People have said "leave that to sub-classes" but that same logic could apply to the other classes that have gained combat options like Barbarian and Rogue, plus I'd rather see a core option that Open Hand can then dial up to 11 as part of its focus (so all Monks can do a little, but Hand does a lot).
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I get the feeling the Conjure spells polled better than the Druid stuff because players who'd been the victim of abusive play of the Conjure spells scored them highly just to get rid of the 2014 versions. Any DM who'se had to deal with the eight-velociraptors or eight-pixies BS likely scored those changes "Overwhelmingly Satisfied" even if they hated the new spells. Many players who've watched a druid take forty-five minutes to run their turn and basically invalidate the entire table by playing X-COM: WILDLIFE instead of D&D likely also rated the new Conjure spells highly as a much less abusive take on the idea. The Druid template forms were rejected by druid players specifically, while nobody else really cared; the new Conjure spells were embraced by everyone who's ever agreed with Matt Mercer DMing for Keyleth in the early days: "**** that spell."
I am, however, equally astonished at the monk's seemingly fantastic reception. I do not recall being impressed, nor seeing much in the way of 'Impressed' around the Intarwebs.Maybe monk players have just been so beaten down over the last decade that they'll take any small improvement they can get?
Seeing how the rest of the playtest went, that was the best way to get a change that's favorable, even if not ideal. Rating something honestly risked a return to 2014.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Exsqueeze me, I'm an angry white woman, thank you very much. And I didn't demand jack monkey squat when it came to the Monk. I learned* my lesson* after eating a buffet's worth of Vacation Points for wanting the warlock to stop being awful.
I couldn't help but actually laugh out loud reading that. We say 'lol' far too much but that actually got a belly laugh for 'buffet's worth of vacation points'.
You're not wrong though, as I hinted in my other reply. People who didn't play warlock voted down the FAR SUPERIOR test version so they could continue to think that pact magic is actually good, in real play.
Dammit, I swore I wasn't going to complain about the warlock stupidity in this thread, but I figure your vacation points at least warranted an agreement from someone who has played multiple warlocks.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
So in short, if you enjoyed all of the features that made Monks what they were, then you're a stupid ****er who should throw themselves in a ditch and not play D&D. All you should care about is having three features you spam at every opportunity, because you have literally nothing else worth using whatsoever.
Did I say that?
Did anyone say that?
Look. I get it. I despise what this community did to the warlock - or rather, didn't do to the warlock. They took a class I love to play even though it's absolutely horrible at the table and made it somehow even worse, without addressing any of its actual problems, after showing us all a version that - with proper iteration - could've Really Gone Somewhere. It feels wretched, having the thing you really enjoy snatched away by people who don't get it, who don't care.
But I'm telling ye right now. This ain't the place for the rants, especially when we haven't seen the new shit. Is it gonna be the splendid overhaul the system's badly needed for years? No. But I wouldn't be surprised if the new books had expanded options for granting players special boons/Gifts outside of ordinary progression; that seems to've become quite popular over the last few books, and honestly? Ribbon features SHOULD be personalized and tailored to your specific character. They should be a thing only you can do, because it's what your character's adventures have earned them. There should be way more of that sort of thing in D&D, and if the new DMG doesn't make much better allowances for it I will be Irritated.
Besides, if you keep it up you're gonna wind up at the same buffet I did, and that sucks. Frankly I'm amazed I'm bothering to post anymore at all, must be a superiorly boring day at work.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
90% satisfaction isnt like getting a 90 on a test, its more like this is generally not hated. like rotten tomatoes.
I know that, but even so 90% is a high result, but like I say I think it stems from the way the survey is structured. I've complained about that on every other UA thread I'm not going to stop now. 😝
Part of it will come down to people who didn't want to give Monk feedback just not being counted at all (as they weren't even asked for an overall satisfaction rating), so it's not 90% of respondents, it's 90% of respondents who asked to give Monk feedback.
But again this is where the lack of detail in the information they give gets a bit infuriating; like, how many of Monk respondents said they playtested? How many are long term Monk players (e.g- started in 3.5e or earlier), which groups like Monk best etc. I'd really like to see a lot more of the data they're actually getting.
that doesnt necessarily mean it has no issues. or even that its neccesarily where it needs to be. Though to be honest I don't really have big issues with the main class.
I don't think it has any major problems, there's a bunch of tiny tweaks I'd like to see, and maybe some features shuffled around in the levels.
The only major thing that really matters to me is that I still really wish we'd got some alternatives to Stunning Strike; Monk should really be a control/debuff skirmisher, yet while Rogue got Cunning Strikes, Monk is still limited to only Stunning Strike. While it's great when it works, I'd rather have the choice of some lesser but more reliable effects as well, like shunting a Large or smaller enemy by 5 feet.
People have said "leave that to sub-classes" but that same logic could apply to the other classes that have gained combat options like Barbarian and Rogue, plus I'd rather see a core option that Open Hand can then dial up to 11 as part of its focus (so all Monks can do a little, but Hand does a lot).
I intiatialy wanted more options with stunning strike, I think that would balance its use more and possibly be more fun. But since they did cunning and brutal strikes, I'm sure its an idea they rejected internally.
So its like, id like this, but apparently they aren't going that direction. So it comes down to is this fun to play, and in my playtests, it was capable, and pretty fun. It was interesting having option to use actions. And, managing ki felt a bit better having some aspects that weren't tied to ki, and the metabolism.
my big issue was open hand, but I don't think they commented on that, and I think many people were so hyped about main class, I expect openhamd to get some bleed. Though I want changes, and put that in my feedback, I don't really expect they will change much in the ways I think they should.
essentially, its an improvement, and it was looking like it would be a slight downgrade
So in short, if you enjoyed all of the features that made Monks what they were, then you're a stupid ****er who should throw themselves in a ditch and not play D&D. All you should care about is having three features you spam at every opportunity, because you have literally nothing else worth using whatsoever.
Did I say that?
Did anyone say that?
Look. I get it. I despise what this community did to the warlock - or rather, didn't do to the warlock. They took a class I love to play even though it's absolutely horrible at the table and made it somehow even worse, without addressing any of its actual problems, after showing us all a version that - with proper iteration - could've Really Gone Somewhere. It feels wretched, having the thing you really enjoy snatched away by people who don't get it, who don't care.
But I'm telling ye right now. This ain't the place for the rants, especially when we haven't seen the new shit. Is it gonna be the splendid overhaul the system's badly needed for years? No. But I wouldn't be surprised if the new books had expanded options for granting players special boons/Gifts outside of ordinary progression; that seems to've become quite popular over the last few books, and honestly? Ribbon features SHOULD be personalized and tailored to your specific character. They should be a thing only you can do, because it's what your character's adventures have earned them. There should be way more of that sort of thing in D&D, and if the new DMG doesn't make much better allowances for it I will be Irritated.
Besides, if you keep it up you're gonna wind up at the same buffet I did, and that sucks. Frankly I'm amazed I'm bothering to post anymore at all, must be a superiorly boring day at work.
Honestly, I am glad you are back and with what appears to be a new perspective. Providing perspective without going overboard with it. I agree with a lot of your perspectives, but I am also glad that compromise is something the forums are better at embracing. This book isn't going to be everything anyone wanted, but I do believe it will be an overall improvement.
As someone who has played warlock more than any other class in the game. I found both the first iteration and second iteration of the warlock to be big improvements. I can't wait to see the fully refined final version of the class and will probably continue to enjoy it.
I'll say one more time; Finesse needs a little more support in the Mastery system, because essentially your only options are TWF with a Scimitar and a Shortsword if you need to free up your Bonus Action, TWF with two Shortswords otherwise, or use a Rapier with pretty much only Vex. The Whip with Slow technically exists, but Whips have always been niche and Slow is probably the least engaging mastery option atm. Getting one more mastery option on the table would do a lot to allow finesse Fighters to properly embrace the modularity of the system.
That might be intentional, honestly. A way to sneakily redress some of the lopsidedness of Finesse in the first place, since a Finesse fighter (or anyone else) gets easy access to drastically superior ranged weaponry without having to really give up any significant melee capacity. Limiting(ish, for Fighters) the Mastery properties on Finesse gear might be a way to allow the Strength bois with mostly pointless chuckin' weapons to gain a different form of versatility. DX Fighter gets versatility in engagement range and tools used; ST Fighter gets versatility in controlling effects in the scrum. I could be raving nonsense, but honestly it makes a weird kinna sense in my head.
And how often have you been a melee Fighter and thought "boy, I sure wish I was in the back row using a bow and arrow right now"? Or fought an enemy that stayed more than 30 ft away from the party for the duration of the fight? The hypothetical "more options" exist, but in practical play the circumstances that would make emphasizing DEX markedly better for combat performance seem to occur very rarely, if ever. The weapon damage difference between thrown and ranged is hypothetically 2 points per attack, probably closer to 1 in practice since you need a feat to make Heavy Crossbows viable on a martial, while the melee difference between DEX and STR is likely to weigh more heavily towards the 2 in practice. Maybe possibly you could get an attack off at a distance in the round before everyone comes to grips, but again in my experience most encounters don't place units that far apart. Finally, one advantage STR has over DEX range that doesn't generally get mentioned is that STR can make the transition while still holding a shield; all the bows except a hand crossbow require two hands, which means you'd literally need to burn a whole turn stowing the shield when you made the transition and another one readying it again. So a DEX Fighter can either stick with a weapon that's got arguably worse performance than javelins thanks to loading if they want to transition between melee and range with a shield, sacrifice 2 AC to transition freely mid-combat on top of generally being a step behind Heavy Armor, or commit to melee or ranged when or possibly before many encounters start (depending on if your DM lets you make any final adjustments in that slice of time right before Initiative is officially called for) and still eat the AC loss at range. Does all of this really say "DEX is too good, must nerf/restrict"?
And it's not "ish" on the Finesse limitations; the parameters set mean even with the level 9 feature, they can only use Vex, Nick, and Slow. If they just tossed something like Topple or Sap into the mix I'd be fine, but as it is there's literally only a single mastery you're likely to use in melee if you want a DEX duelist, meaning a classic option that is nowhere near the highest DPR is now being soft-nerfed by being locked out of most of the versatility Fighters are supposed to be gaining. They're still not going to be able to effectively use what are arguably the two best mastery options of all, since those are Heavy weapon only, so exactly what floodgates are being opened by giving them the option to have a second mastery that can consistently impact the flow of combat in melee? You think the people who want to play knight in shining armor are all going to drop their longswords and plate mail for a rapier and leather? STR has over twice as many melee options as DEX, and even once you hit level 9 and start playing with Masteries a bit, Vex still tends to present as the only serious option for any DEX Fighter (Longbows and Heavy Crossbows can Topple or Push, but Push is almost entirely dependent on an environmental factor to be useful and Topple literally makes your attacks less likely to hit if you pull it off).
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Nothing is stopping a player from asking "can I attempt to summon an entity to bargain with?" if they have summoning-relevant spells, or even asking "what would I have to acquire to attempt such a casting?" Would it be homebrew, yes, but name me one Archmage NPC that doesn't use magic just off the cuff because they're magic rather than restricting themselves solely to their Official Spell List.
Your Official Spell List is the magic you know will work, one hundred percent of the time, provided nothing unusual janks you. If you want to try and summon a hag and make a fey bargain? Magic it up, let's make some rolls, do some roleplay, and see what happens. You have no idea if it will work the way you want it to, but isn't that supposedly half the point of the terribad "Conjure" spells in the first place? If the DM is supposed to have all kinds of narrative leeway with those spells, then I say dispense with the crap spell frameworks entirely and embrace "You can certainly try."
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Ya make it skill checks and quests. There are some curses that can't just be removed by remove curse. So why not have some beings that cant just be summoned by a third or 4th level spell.
I liked the UA8 monk. It was definitely an improvement over the initial release. I was surprised it scored so high, it was good but not perfect. But, again, I wonder if it’s just the crappy survey. I was a little gun shy to be too critical on areas that I thought could use work for fear of them reverting to the earlier/2014 version. Especially in the ranking (satisfied, very satisfied, etc) but I did voice any concerns in the comments
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I had concerns with the new monk as well, e.g. Wholeness of Body in the Open Hand still needs a lot of work. But the sky-high reception didn't surprise me at all, and watching Treantmonk use it so effectively in the level 15 one-shot on Insight Check's channel last week brought a tear to my eye.
Disappointing that this was the last PHB UA; I was still hoping for another playtest with updated spells so we could do some focused testing on a reasonably complete set of spells. Spells were something I found difficult to playtest effectively when we were just using every other 5e spell as-is, for example the fallback damage on the updated power word kill is difficult to assess without knowing if other 9th-level damaging spells are going to remain as-is, and whether it's still going to be over-shadowed by true polymorph and wish.
At the very least it'd be nice to get a video discussing the aims when it comes to the "balancing pass" of the rules, specifically how are they evaluating spellcasters versus non-spellcasters in order to judge which need to be strengthened or nerfed?
I'm a bit surprised that the monk polled in the 90's; in fact I'm surprised that anything polled in the 90's, that seems highly unlikely. It does make me worry again about the quality of the results, as "satisfaction" is a strange thing to ask for as a metric, because it lacks a clear way to say "I like an idea, but it needs improvement". We really should have been asked to rate by several factors like "fun", "complexity" and "strength", or given the ability to do so optionally (as the surveys are already huge without tripling the questions). I know we could write whatever we wanted in the text boxes, but it's hard to trust how closely they'll be scrutinised and acted upon.
Also surprised to hear the new conjure spells polling well; I found them all a bit boring, and lacking even a fraction of the utility of the existing conjure spells – by all means simplify and make them less disruptive, but boiling them into a single effect means losing so much. That was a big part of what people hated about the original Druid Wildshape changes so it seems strange for people to react positively to the same happening to these spells.
In general though I'm at least hopeful, but I'm still worried about a bunch of things; I'm not a fan of the weapon mastery system in its current form, and I'm worried the way the survey works means we won't see many (if any) changes to it, as if it remains as-is we're stuck with it for the next 10 years.
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.
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I get the feeling the Conjure spells polled better than the Druid stuff because players who'd been the victim of abusive play of the Conjure spells scored them highly just to get rid of the 2014 versions. Any DM who'se had to deal with the eight-velociraptors or eight-pixies BS likely scored those changes "Overwhelmingly Satisfied" even if they hated the new spells. Many players who've watched a druid take forty-five minutes to run their turn and basically invalidate the entire table by playing X-COM: WILDLIFE instead of D&D likely also rated the new Conjure spells highly as a much less abusive take on the idea. The Druid template forms were rejected by druid players specifically, while nobody else really cared; the new Conjure spells were embraced by everyone who's ever agreed with Matt Mercer DMing for Keyleth in the early days: "**** that spell."
I am, however, equally astonished at the monk's seemingly fantastic reception. I do not recall being impressed, nor seeing much in the way of 'Impressed' around the Intarwebs.Maybe monk players have just been so beaten down over the last decade that they'll take any small improvement they can get?
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I'll say one more time; Finesse needs a little more support in the Mastery system, because essentially your only options are TWF with a Scimitar and a Shortsword if you need to free up your Bonus Action, TWF with two Shortswords otherwise, or use a Rapier with pretty much only Vex. The Whip with Slow technically exists, but Whips have always been niche and Slow is probably the least engaging mastery option atm. Getting one more mastery option on the table would do a lot to allow finesse Fighters to properly embrace the modularity of the system.
I'm assuming it's 90+% answered either satisfied or very satisfied, but that only makes me want to know what the split is on those two; because I feel like the Monk maybe warrants satisfied, but may not have a majority as very satisfied. This is exactly the kind of thing they should have mentioned because it gives it a better indication of whether a class is nearly done or "doing well but still needs work".
I thrive on stats so it's always annoying to me to have them mentioned but never released in any form (they could easily summarise the ratings data since it's trivial to anonymise, text is obviously way, way harder). I'd be interested for example in comparing the satisfied and very satisfied split of the Monk compared to, say, Rogue.
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.
That might be intentional, honestly. A way to sneakily redress some of the lopsidedness of Finesse in the first place, since a Finesse fighter (or anyone else) gets easy access to drastically superior ranged weaponry without having to really give up any significant melee capacity. Limiting(ish, for Fighters) the Mastery properties on Finesse gear might be a way to allow the Strength bois with mostly pointless chuckin' weapons to gain a different form of versatility. DX Fighter gets versatility in engagement range and tools used; ST Fighter gets versatility in controlling effects in the scrum. I could be raving nonsense, but honestly it makes a weird kinna sense in my head.
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90% satisfaction isnt like getting a 90 on a test, its more like this is generally not hated. like rotten tomatoes.
its also going to be a bit relative in this case. the fact that its a big improvement matters a lot.
I actually expected this to have a very high approval rating 80+, I'm not really surprised by 90% its a very clear improvement to most people.
that doesnt necessarily mean it has no issues. or even that its neccesarily where it needs to be. Though to be honest I don't really have big issues with the main class.
Do you follow many D&D Youtubers, or visit other forums like Reddit? I saw overwhelming excitement about the new Monk on my feed when that UA dropped, and it was compounded by the fact that most people (including both you and I, if I recall correctly) were coming out of their rather disheartening "we're-done-experimenting-and-are-leaning-towards-minor-adjustments-from-2014" video right before UA8 expecting that the only remaining changes would be barely noticeable, like keeping Brutal Critical but making the die a d12. Instead, what we got was one of the biggest swings we saw since the Rogue got a brand new feature.
And the improvements to Monk are definitely not small. Decoupling Martial Arts and Flurry from the Attack action is huge - a level 1 monk can out-tank a Fighter now simply by Dodging with their action and punching with their bonus action, all day long, and sacrificing very little damage by doing so. That punch starts at d6 now instead of d4, and they can grapple effectively right out of the gate too. At level 2, they can Dash and Disengage as a bonus action all day long too.
Skipping ahead to level 5, Stunning Strike spam is a thing of the past - when it worked, it would trivialize entire boss fights, and when it didn't, the monk felt like they were wasting all their resources on doing nothing. The new one compensates you for your stunning attempts even when they don't work.And skipping ahead again to 10+, where the 2014 monk just straight up stopped getting damage boosts in Tier 3 and Tier 4, the 2024 monk is able to stay comfortably above the baseline all the way up now.
My guess (which is admittedly conjecture) is that it's a single scale and the different responses are just weighted differently. So Very Satisfied might = 1, while Satisfied = 0.7, Dissatisfied = 0.4, and Very Dissatisfied = 0, or something like that. Thus if you're landing on 90%, it means that the vast majority aren't just favorable, they're overwhelmingly hitting VS. Whereas 80% means there's a mix of VS and S, but VS is still well-represented. That kind of thing. In other words, the number itself can give you somewhat of a decent idea what the split was.
Exsqueeze me, I'm an angry white woman, thank you very much. And I didn't demand jack monkey squat when it came to the Monk. I learned* my lesson* after eating a buffet's worth of Vacation Points for wanting the warlock to stop being awful.
Frankly? I don't imagine most tables will give a hoot if someone wants to play a 5e class or a One D&D class or a hybrid mix of the two or whatever. Tongue of Sun and Moon is a ribbon feature I can't imagine most DMs would have a problem simply letting the monk have at 13 (or even earlier, hell) if the player was really excited about it. Empty Body's a harder sell, but frankly a lot of these zany old features that're getting phased out (presumably, we haven't seen the final book yet) are easily fodder for custom feats or Gifts for specific characters. Not every monk will be able to turn invisible and ghosty, no - but Alice's monk, who's spent her entire journey honing the arts of the Astral Self, might very well be able to. Devon's Cobalt Soul infiltrator that needs to move among many circles might learn to tap their ki to gain the effects of Tongue of Sun and Moon far earlier than 13th level.
Or just play the 5e version with the 5e subclasses and don't care. As I've told innumerable people innumerable times: the 2014 books aren't going anywhere. If you prefer them, use them.
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I know, but even so 90% is a high result, but like I say I think it stems from the way the survey is structured. I've complained about that on every other UA thread, I'm not going to stop now. 😝
Part of it will come down to people who didn't want to give Monk feedback, so they're just not being counted at all (as they weren't even asked for an overall satisfaction rating), so it's not 90% of all respondents, it's 90% of respondents who asked to give Monk feedback.
But again this is where the lack of detail in the information they give gets a bit frustrating; like, how many of Monk respondents said they play-tested (which we can then guess at how many actually play-tested)? How many are long term Monk players (started in 3.5e or earlier), which age/edition groups liked Monk best etc. I'd really like to see a lot more of the data they're actually getting.
I don't think it has any major problems, there's a bunch of tiny tweaks I'd like to see, and maybe some features shuffled around in the levels. I forget off-hand but I still felt there were a couple levels where the features either aren't that great for a lone feature, or which come online too late.
The only major thing that really matters to me is that I really wish we'd get some alternatives to Stunning Strike; Monk should really be a control/debuff skirmisher, yet while Rogue got Cunning Strikes, Monk is still limited to only Stunning Strike. While it's great when it works, I'd rather have the choice of some lesser but more reliable effects as well, like shunting a Large or smaller enemy by 5 feet.
People have said "leave that to sub-classes" but that same logic could apply to the other classes that have gained combat options like Barbarian and Rogue, plus I'd rather see a core option that Open Hand can then dial up to 11 as part of its focus (so all Monks can do a little, but Hand does a lot).
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.
Seeing how the rest of the playtest went, that was the best way to get a change that's favorable, even if not ideal. Rating something honestly risked a return to 2014.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I couldn't help but actually laugh out loud reading that. We say 'lol' far too much but that actually got a belly laugh for 'buffet's worth of vacation points'.
You're not wrong though, as I hinted in my other reply. People who didn't play warlock voted down the FAR SUPERIOR test version so they could continue to think that pact magic is actually good, in real play.
Dammit, I swore I wasn't going to complain about the warlock stupidity in this thread, but I figure your vacation points at least warranted an agreement from someone who has played multiple warlocks.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Did I say that?
Did anyone say that?
Look. I get it. I despise what this community did to the warlock - or rather, didn't do to the warlock. They took a class I love to play even though it's absolutely horrible at the table and made it somehow even worse, without addressing any of its actual problems, after showing us all a version that - with proper iteration - could've Really Gone Somewhere. It feels wretched, having the thing you really enjoy snatched away by people who don't get it, who don't care.
But I'm telling ye right now. This ain't the place for the rants, especially when we haven't seen the new shit. Is it gonna be the splendid overhaul the system's badly needed for years? No. But I wouldn't be surprised if the new books had expanded options for granting players special boons/Gifts outside of ordinary progression; that seems to've become quite popular over the last few books, and honestly? Ribbon features SHOULD be personalized and tailored to your specific character. They should be a thing only you can do, because it's what your character's adventures have earned them. There should be way more of that sort of thing in D&D, and if the new DMG doesn't make much better allowances for it I will be Irritated.
Besides, if you keep it up you're gonna wind up at the same buffet I did, and that sucks. Frankly I'm amazed I'm bothering to post anymore at all, must be a superiorly boring day at work.
Please do not contact or message me.
^^ and it is worse than 2014. For the record.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I intiatialy wanted more options with stunning strike, I think that would balance its use more and possibly be more fun. But since they did cunning and brutal strikes, I'm sure its an idea they rejected internally.
So its like, id like this, but apparently they aren't going that direction. So it comes down to is this fun to play, and in my playtests, it was capable, and pretty fun. It was interesting having option to use actions. And, managing ki felt a bit better having some aspects that weren't tied to ki, and the metabolism.
my big issue was open hand, but I don't think they commented on that, and I think many people were so hyped about main class, I expect openhamd to get some bleed. Though I want changes, and put that in my feedback, I don't really expect they will change much in the ways I think they should.
essentially, its an improvement, and it was looking like it would be a slight downgrade
Honestly, I am glad you are back and with what appears to be a new perspective. Providing perspective without going overboard with it. I agree with a lot of your perspectives, but I am also glad that compromise is something the forums are better at embracing. This book isn't going to be everything anyone wanted, but I do believe it will be an overall improvement.
As someone who has played warlock more than any other class in the game. I found both the first iteration and second iteration of the warlock to be big improvements. I can't wait to see the fully refined final version of the class and will probably continue to enjoy it.
And how often have you been a melee Fighter and thought "boy, I sure wish I was in the back row using a bow and arrow right now"? Or fought an enemy that stayed more than 30 ft away from the party for the duration of the fight? The hypothetical "more options" exist, but in practical play the circumstances that would make emphasizing DEX markedly better for combat performance seem to occur very rarely, if ever. The weapon damage difference between thrown and ranged is hypothetically 2 points per attack, probably closer to 1 in practice since you need a feat to make Heavy Crossbows viable on a martial, while the melee difference between DEX and STR is likely to weigh more heavily towards the 2 in practice. Maybe possibly you could get an attack off at a distance in the round before everyone comes to grips, but again in my experience most encounters don't place units that far apart. Finally, one advantage STR has over DEX range that doesn't generally get mentioned is that STR can make the transition while still holding a shield; all the bows except a hand crossbow require two hands, which means you'd literally need to burn a whole turn stowing the shield when you made the transition and another one readying it again. So a DEX Fighter can either stick with a weapon that's got arguably worse performance than javelins thanks to loading if they want to transition between melee and range with a shield, sacrifice 2 AC to transition freely mid-combat on top of generally being a step behind Heavy Armor, or commit to melee or ranged when or possibly before many encounters start (depending on if your DM lets you make any final adjustments in that slice of time right before Initiative is officially called for) and still eat the AC loss at range. Does all of this really say "DEX is too good, must nerf/restrict"?
And it's not "ish" on the Finesse limitations; the parameters set mean even with the level 9 feature, they can only use Vex, Nick, and Slow. If they just tossed something like Topple or Sap into the mix I'd be fine, but as it is there's literally only a single mastery you're likely to use in melee if you want a DEX duelist, meaning a classic option that is nowhere near the highest DPR is now being soft-nerfed by being locked out of most of the versatility Fighters are supposed to be gaining. They're still not going to be able to effectively use what are arguably the two best mastery options of all, since those are Heavy weapon only, so exactly what floodgates are being opened by giving them the option to have a second mastery that can consistently impact the flow of combat in melee? You think the people who want to play knight in shining armor are all going to drop their longswords and plate mail for a rapier and leather? STR has over twice as many melee options as DEX, and even once you hit level 9 and start playing with Masteries a bit, Vex still tends to present as the only serious option for any DEX Fighter (Longbows and Heavy Crossbows can Topple or Push, but Push is almost entirely dependent on an environmental factor to be useful and Topple literally makes your attacks less likely to hit if you pull it off).