There's not going to be a 5.5e. All these alternate features will go into a Xanathar's-like supplement, probably with some other variant rules, and will stay completely optional. That's as close to a 5.5e we're likely to get.
I hope you're right...honestly you probably are. But I'm prepared for the worst.
Outside of piss-poor execution by Wizards, at least. Which, to be fair, would be par for the ****in' course for them. But seriously, an updated/advanced ruleset and option set would go so god damned far towards fixing the innumerable sore spots and friction points in 5e.
If they're going to push their stupid Adventurer's League thing and force strict, unbending compliance with the (incredibly threadbare and shitty) rules, they can fix their ******* rules. Especially given their unbending iron adherence to PHB+1. Putting a huge list of class updates like this into an "optional supplement" just means said supplement becomes the mandatory, necessary +1 and the rest of the game falls off.
A competently executed 5.5e, built by professional game designers and not through mass frickin' committee like the current 5e rules, would be pretty much thee best Christmas present any of us could ever get.
Copy pasted from my group's homebrew Facebook page:
The good: - None of the spell options look broken that I can see. They seem logical choices for the classes. The one exception that I noticed was giving the Cleric access to the Paladin's Aura spells. Those spells take a long time for the Paladin to unlock, and introducing them into play early may upset the balance of the game. Especially if you let a Life Cleric cast Aura of Vitality. But I don't know. Besides, healing isn't something you want to depend on in 5e, so I'm probably overreacting. - New Manuevers/Fighting Styles/Metamagic options are all good. I especially like the Druidic Warrior Fighting Style for the Ranger. If you want to play a pure Wisdom Ranger, pick Shillelagh and there you go. - New Font of Magic options are cool. I've been hoping for an Elemental Metamagic for a long time. - The Talisman Boon for Warlocks looks useful. And the other Eldritch Invocations aren't terrible either. - The Ranger's alternate features aren't useful to me, since I tend to play premade campaigns where you have an overarching story. In many homemade campaigns, though, Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy might be too circumstantial to call good.
The bad: - Monk Weapons: This infringes too much of the Way of the Kensei's features. The main class gets to make more attacks at the cost of doing less damage with each attack. Allowing the monk to use d10s as their damage die out the gate shouldn't be allowed. Except for the Kensei, but that's their whole schtick. - Blessed Strikes: the Cleric should not have this feature. While I'll grant that some of the Divine Strikes aren't very good (looking at you, Trickery), letting them all deal radiant damage would be questionable. Letting them all deal radiant in response to you dealing ANY damage is too much. - The Warlock spell list. I'm speaking specifically about Animate Dead and Greater Invisibility. The Expanded Spell lists for the Warlock consist entirely of spells that the main class doesn't know, and Greater Invisibility appears on the Archfey list. As for Animate Dead, maintaining your undead army is a spell tax for the wizard or cleric, but for the warlock who just needs a short rest, it's different. I'm not saying that Warlocks shouldn't have Animate Dead, but consider that them having it is different than a Wizard having it. They'd make better necromancers than the actual Necromancer subclass. - Wild Companion. Not sure it's bad, but since it's a free Find Familiar that costs only a use of Wild Shape (which you get back on a short rest), it lets you get around many of the limits that Wild Shape has at early levels. The Wizard can do the same thing, true, but Wizards are intentionally overpowered in their versatility, since they are hard to play as. - I'm a little worried that the Rogue's Aim feature might step on the toes of the Arcane Trickster, who can do something similar at higher levels. Advantage is strong, after all.
Could Go Either Way: - Spell Versatility: Sorcerers get the best of this, since they are defined almost exclusively by their spells and have a wider variety of spells on their list than the others. - New Channel Divinity options. In a dungeon that allows lots of short rests, this could be strong. - Favored Foe: to take this ability, you give up Favored Enemy entirely, and instead you learn Hunter's Mark, don't need to concentrate on it, and get a few free casts.
Personally, I don't terribly mind the Unarmed Fighting feature. Grappling, in my experience, isn't nearly as nightmarish as everyone makes it out to be (well, unless enemies use it against the players, but there are reasons for that), and to take this style, you have to give up dealing an automatic extra damage per hit with Dueling or more consistent damage with Great Weapon Fighting.
Cantrip Versatility: I honestly thought this was already a mechanic and have been letting my players do this lol.
Spell Versatility: Personally... I'm not a fan. I get the desire to not be as locked in, but I'd rather players just had the ability to swap out up to their spell mod worth of spells upon level-up. It would make them more flexible and less noob trappy while also not stepping on the toes of prepared casters.
Fighting Styles: These are cool. Thrown Weapon Fighting has been sorely needed.
Barbarian: This seems decent, but it seems like the list for Survival Instincts ought to be swapped with the expertise list that Rangers get.
Bard
Magical Inspiration: I can get on board with this.
Bard Extra Spells: About time Bards got Maze.
Cleric
Cleric Extra Spells: Ehhh... I've never actually played with a paladin, so I'm not sure how much this steps on their toes.
Harness Divine Power: This is good.
Blessed Strikes: So... just a straight buff to Spiritual Weapon? Did Spiritual Weapon need a buff?
Druid
Druid Spells: I'm a bit curious why druids are getting the shaman-y spells. I get the desire to not require a party have a cleric with the addition of Revivify, but with so many classes getting it now, that seems to have diluted Cleric's brand quite a bit.
Wild Companion: When I told my land druid player about this, she literally jumped for joy. This is unadulterated goodness.
Fighter: I don't have too much opinion here, but they seem good.
Monk
Monk Weapons: Uhh... So martial Drow monks now? Armed monks have always been weird to me, so I don't have much of an opinion here.
Ki-Fueled Strike: This is certainly niche, but should help things a bit.
Distant Eye: Sure, why not.
Quickened Healing: Sure, that's fine.
Paladin: Never played as or with a paladin.
Ranger
Deft Explorer: This is so much better. My only concern, as alluded to above, is that Canny seems to be what Barbarians ought to have gotten.
Favored Foe: This is fantastic, but to be honest, this really just comes down to 1d6 extra damage per turn and enhanced tracking. I think this ought to be simplified further. Additionally, this makes an L1 dip into Ranger quite appealing.
Druidic Warrior: Odd, but sure, why not? I don't see a terrible gain from this, but I'm not opposed.
Ranger Spells: Revivify?! Why?! I can at least understand Druids getting it, but Rangers? They'll be at higher levels anyways by the time they get this. This is weird. I like all the others though.
Primal Awareness: I'm not sure I love the logistics of giving players 7 spells they can each cast once a day. In principle this is cool though.
Fade Away: Cool.
Ranger Companions: Yes, yes, yes.
Rogue
Cunning Action - Aim: Ranged rogues will be helped quite a bit by this. I worry for the ranged sneak attack subclasses though since this undercuts them somewhat.
Sorcerer
Sorcerer Spells: I disagree with Grease, Flaming Sphere, and Foresight. The first two are more along the lines of battlefield manipulation spells than I'd like to see on Sorcerers, and Twinned Foresight is terrifying.
Empowering Reserves: Odd, and kinda similar to Wild Magic Sorcerer. Not a huge fan.
Imbuing Touch: This is fine I guess for low level play. Don't love it though since it has no use after that.
Sorcerous Fortitude: Inspiring Leader does nearly as much as this, does so for free, and does so for the whole party.
Elemental Spell: Cool, but outside the niche cases where vulnerabilities exist and players can find them, players will just be casting Thunderball and Acidball due to lack of resistances. Even so, this will never compete with the Big Three (Twinned, Subtle, Quickened).
Seeking Spell: When I first read this, I thought it bypassed even total cover. Even if you literally let Fireball go through walls, I'm not sure it would compete with the big three metamagics.
Unerring Spell: This is not great in stock 5e. Crown of Stars is marginally better than Fire Bolt at those levels. Scorching Ray uses lots of hits, and so isn't functional with this. That leaves you with (unless I'm forgetting something): Vampiric Touch, Witch Bolt, and Chromatic Orb. Vampiric Touch is the sort of ability it would be nice to guarantee a hit on if you're trying to save your life. Witch Bolt seems like it'd be slot efficient if you could guarantee that first hit, but it's so easy to break the connection. Chromatic Orb just doesn't scale well. At my table, I have a few homebrewed higher level spells, and even then, it's still not great. Honestly, if this were 3 points to make a spell attack autohit, I'm still not sure if it would be worth it.
Warlock
Warlock Spells: I love every last bit of this.
Eldritch Invocations: These are cool. Eldritch Armor especially has some fun implications since it essentially gives you proficiency in all armor. The talisman invocations seem weak aside from the teleportation though.
Talisman Pact Boon: I don't love this. I don't doubt that it's probably very useful numerically, but it just feels lame.
I’ve seen a couple people mention worrying about Twinned Foresight. You have to be 17th level and burn 9 of your 17 points. How many people on this forum have even played a 17th level character? 1/50?
I can share that it will. With the complexity it brings, we will not be able to have it available immediately. We'll get it in place as soon as possible and keep everyone posted!
To people saying that you can just spam hunters mark with the new thing, no you cant. A creature cannot be under the effect of multiple spells of the same kind at once. Once you have cast hunters mark with this, if you tried to cast it again, it would fail until the duration of the original ended.
I think the main reason they didn't give something similar to the Warlock is because not all Warlock builds use Hex and it sort of would paint the Warlock class into a corner and be like "Okay, you have to use curses." I agree that Hex is a very important spell for many warlock builds, but it isn't 100% must add for every Warlock. I've built plenty of Hexless Warlocks, have yet to built a Ranger without Hunter's Mark.
I think a happy medium would be an Invocation that allowed you to cast Hex at will without expending a spell slot.
Really? I would think that it is honestly equal, if not even better (i.e. more frequently used) especially with the ability debuff with hex
an invocation is a good idea but ugh. so many more invocations coming out yet too limited invocation slots.. MOAR invocations plz
I've long been wanting a feat similar to Martial Adept that allows you to take a couple of invocations (while still respecting their requirements of course). Some of them would be super useful for other classes, and it would give Warlocks the ability to take extra invocations.
One thing that is interesting with these changes it kind of tips Wizard's hand on what may be in the Artificer class that is coming out in a few weeks. With many classes getting some form of Spellcasting Versatility or Cantrip Versatility, "The Right Cantrip for the Job" at level 10 will become underwhelming to some degree. I wouldn't be surprised if that is baked down into the Artificer's Spellcasting class feature and then Spell Storing Item moved up to the level 10 slot.
I think they mean the spell storing item that does not expend a spell slot and can be cast out of multiple times, not the "expend a spell slot and another person can cast this spell" version. Which apparently is going to be one of the alchemists abilities? I guess that makes sense, potion crafting and all, but I hope they get something good along with that as well.
I mean, the alchemist could pass around disguise self, expiditious retreat, false life, sanctuary, aid, alter self, blur, enhance ability, Enlarge/Reduce, invisibility, see invisibility, blink, fly, gaseous form, haste (with the hasted maintaining concentration, not to be undervalued), water breathing, water walk, freedom of movement, stoneskin, greater restoration, absorb elements, and detect magic, not to mention all of the healing spells invovled in the artificer spell list. And probably getting some good range of self spells with their subclass if this is the case. And apparently they will have an "experimental elixir" which is a randomly determined buff potion regenerating on a long rest, with abilities that are, for the most part, better versions of 1st level spells.
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I hope you're right...honestly you probably are. But I'm prepared for the worst.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
How the hell would a 5.5e be bad?
Outside of piss-poor execution by Wizards, at least. Which, to be fair, would be par for the ****in' course for them. But seriously, an updated/advanced ruleset and option set would go so god damned far towards fixing the innumerable sore spots and friction points in 5e.
If they're going to push their stupid Adventurer's League thing and force strict, unbending compliance with the (incredibly threadbare and shitty) rules, they can fix their ******* rules. Especially given their unbending iron adherence to PHB+1. Putting a huge list of class updates like this into an "optional supplement" just means said supplement becomes the mandatory, necessary +1 and the rest of the game falls off.
A competently executed 5.5e, built by professional game designers and not through mass frickin' committee like the current 5e rules, would be pretty much thee best Christmas present any of us could ever get.
Please do not contact or message me.
Copy pasted from my group's homebrew Facebook page:
The good:
- None of the spell options look broken that I can see. They seem logical choices for the classes. The one exception that I noticed was giving the Cleric access to the Paladin's Aura spells. Those spells take a long time for the Paladin to unlock, and introducing them into play early may upset the balance of the game. Especially if you let a Life Cleric cast Aura of Vitality. But I don't know. Besides, healing isn't something you want to depend on in 5e, so I'm probably overreacting.
- New Manuevers/Fighting Styles/Metamagic options are all good. I especially like the Druidic Warrior Fighting Style for the Ranger. If you want to play a pure Wisdom Ranger, pick Shillelagh and there you go.
- New Font of Magic options are cool. I've been hoping for an Elemental Metamagic for a long time.
- The Talisman Boon for Warlocks looks useful. And the other Eldritch Invocations aren't terrible either.
- The Ranger's alternate features aren't useful to me, since I tend to play premade campaigns where you have an overarching story. In many homemade campaigns, though, Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy might be too circumstantial to call good.
The bad:
- Monk Weapons: This infringes too much of the Way of the Kensei's features. The main class gets to make more attacks at the cost of doing less damage with each attack. Allowing the monk to use d10s as their damage die out the gate shouldn't be allowed. Except for the Kensei, but that's their whole schtick.
- Blessed Strikes: the Cleric should not have this feature. While I'll grant that some of the Divine Strikes aren't very good (looking at you, Trickery), letting them all deal radiant damage would be questionable. Letting them all deal radiant in response to you dealing ANY damage is too much.
- The Warlock spell list. I'm speaking specifically about Animate Dead and Greater Invisibility. The Expanded Spell lists for the Warlock consist entirely of spells that the main class doesn't know, and Greater Invisibility appears on the Archfey list. As for Animate Dead, maintaining your undead army is a spell tax for the wizard or cleric, but for the warlock who just needs a short rest, it's different. I'm not saying that Warlocks shouldn't have Animate Dead, but consider that them having it is different than a Wizard having it. They'd make better necromancers than the actual Necromancer subclass.
- Wild Companion. Not sure it's bad, but since it's a free Find Familiar that costs only a use of Wild Shape (which you get back on a short rest), it lets you get around many of the limits that Wild Shape has at early levels. The Wizard can do the same thing, true, but Wizards are intentionally overpowered in their versatility, since they are hard to play as.
- I'm a little worried that the Rogue's Aim feature might step on the toes of the Arcane Trickster, who can do something similar at higher levels. Advantage is strong, after all.
Could Go Either Way:
- Spell Versatility: Sorcerers get the best of this, since they are defined almost exclusively by their spells and have a wider variety of spells on their list than the others.
- New Channel Divinity options. In a dungeon that allows lots of short rests, this could be strong.
- Favored Foe: to take this ability, you give up Favored Enemy entirely, and instead you learn Hunter's Mark, don't need to concentrate on it, and get a few free casts.
Personally, I don't terribly mind the Unarmed Fighting feature. Grappling, in my experience, isn't nearly as nightmarish as everyone makes it out to be (well, unless enemies use it against the players, but there are reasons for that), and to take this style, you have to give up dealing an automatic extra damage per hit with Dueling or more consistent damage with Great Weapon Fighting.
General
Barbarian: This seems decent, but it seems like the list for Survival Instincts ought to be swapped with the expertise list that Rangers get.
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Fighter: I don't have too much opinion here, but they seem good.
Monk
Paladin: Never played as or with a paladin.
Ranger
Rogue
Sorcerer
Warlock
Wizard
does anyone know when the newest UA will be available? the Class Features one i mean.
Regarding ranger beast master companion:
It says it enhances the rangers class feature, so its not instead of the original one? Does a beast master now have two conpanions?
No, its just you base it off either the land or air primal beast.
I’ve seen a couple people mention worrying about Twinned Foresight. You have to be 17th level and burn 9 of your 17 points. How many people on this forum have even played a 17th level character? 1/50?
Make it official! NOW! :D much better than any subclass I saw yet.
Has there been any mention from the fine folks at D&D Beyond about when they will release these options / enhancements for play-testing?
https://twitter.com/BadEyeAdam/status/1191578772127932417
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To people saying that you can just spam hunters mark with the new thing, no you cant. A creature cannot be under the effect of multiple spells of the same kind at once. Once you have cast hunters mark with this, if you tried to cast it again, it would fail until the duration of the original ended.
I guess you could cast it multiple times on different creatures? But i dont find that too ridiculous.
Thank you!
I've long been wanting a feat similar to Martial Adept that allows you to take a couple of invocations (while still respecting their requirements of course). Some of them would be super useful for other classes, and it would give Warlocks the ability to take extra invocations.
One thing that is interesting with these changes it kind of tips Wizard's hand on what may be in the Artificer class that is coming out in a few weeks. With many classes getting some form of Spellcasting Versatility or Cantrip Versatility, "The Right Cantrip for the Job" at level 10 will become underwhelming to some degree. I wouldn't be surprised if that is baked down into the Artificer's Spellcasting class feature and then Spell Storing Item moved up to the level 10 slot.
Or a class feature that's actually useful, instead!
#5eisnot3.5e
#artificersareadventurerstoo
Please do not contact or message me.
I think they mean the spell storing item that does not expend a spell slot and can be cast out of multiple times, not the "expend a spell slot and another person can cast this spell" version. Which apparently is going to be one of the alchemists abilities? I guess that makes sense, potion crafting and all, but I hope they get something good along with that as well.
I mean, the alchemist could pass around disguise self, expiditious retreat, false life, sanctuary, aid, alter self, blur, enhance ability, Enlarge/Reduce, invisibility, see invisibility, blink, fly, gaseous form, haste (with the hasted maintaining concentration, not to be undervalued), water breathing, water walk, freedom of movement, stoneskin, greater restoration, absorb elements, and detect magic, not to mention all of the healing spells invovled in the artificer spell list. And probably getting some good range of self spells with their subclass if this is the case. And apparently they will have an "experimental elixir" which is a randomly determined buff potion regenerating on a long rest, with abilities that are, for the most part, better versions of 1st level spells.