....What that says to me is that no DM should ever allow UA in their game unless they're homebrewing monsters and disregarding encounter math already, and also you should never get attached to anything that hits in UA.
.... and nobody and nothing can "playtest" these things when there's a brand new set clamoring for your attention every thirteen seconds.
Nobody play tests anything. If you actually run a poll most (almost everyone who responds) people will tell you that their games do not allow UA materials. For example, I put out two separate polls inquiring about the Pact of the Talisman. Only one person who responded to either poll admitted to actually trying it out, but I got at least a half-dozen responses from people whose “DM’s don’t allow UA,” but most of them could tell me why it sucked.
If nobody allows UA in their campaigns then people are giving their feedback to WotC blindly. WotC is then taking all of that info, and tweaking/not tweaking the UA materials based on that untested feedback. Then they release it, and all of a sudden people are complaining about the “officially published” versions and half of them end up wishing that things were more like the UA. Case in point, the Alchemist.
I have only allowed UA a couple of times, and only if it was balanced. I just give feedback about the many things I know about 5e, so I don't have to playtest the UA in order to know what needs to be fixed.
I'm agreeing with you. Most people don't playtest UA, and I don't think Wizards expects us to.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
....What that says to me is that no DM should ever allow UA in their game unless they're homebrewing monsters and disregarding encounter math already, and also you should never get attached to anything that hits in UA.
.... and nobody and nothing can "playtest" these things when there's a brand new set clamoring for your attention every thirteen seconds.
Nobody play tests anything. If you actually run a poll most (almost everyone who responds) people will tell you that their games do not allow UA materials. For example, I put out two separate polls inquiring about the Pact of the Talisman. Only one person who responded to either poll admitted to actually trying it out, but I got at least a half-dozen responses from people whose “DM’s don’t allow UA,” but most of them could tell me why it sucked.
If nobody allows UA in their campaigns then people are giving their feedback to WotC blindly. WotC is then taking all of that info, and tweaking/not tweaking the UA materials based on that untested feedback. Then they release it, and all of a sudden people are complaining about the “officially published” versions and half of them end up wishing that things were more like the UA. Case in point, the Alchemist.
I have Played with many DMs who have allowed it. And have actually play tested tester things I comment on. I track both my before take and my “after playtest” take on things. So I can see how my view myself changed too, and I include that in my feedback.
As a DM who frequently allows UA material, I find it rather funny that some of the biggest neigh-sayers of the content don't even playtest it. It is your job as a DM to actively balance the game around your character's choices and, if a character is using a under or over powered class, you must react accordingly.
I have a 5 year campaign running that has a Mystic, Revised Ranger, and (most recently) the Wildfire Druid in it and nothing has gone off the rails yet. The Mystic is generally more difficult to balance around but I've made it easier on myself by initially nerfing the character's player race to be an Awakened Corgi with low hit points and is only allowed to pick Disciples that "make sense" for the character (we have conversations about it during every level). 3 years later and that little corgi is a powerhouse but has never once outshined any of the other players at the table.
Most of the DMs I know allow the usage of UA as well, and ya'll should at least attempt it. It is a good exercise in game balance. My next one shot has an Armorer, Unity Cleric, Psychic Warrior, My custom Blood Hunter subclass, and Star Druid... so things are gonna get weird, but I'm excited.
....What that says to me is that no DM should ever allow UA in their game unless they're homebrewing monsters and disregarding encounter math already, and also you should never get attached to anything that hits in UA.
.... and nobody and nothing can "playtest" these things when there's a brand new set clamoring for your attention every thirteen seconds.
Nobody play tests anything. If you actually run a poll most (almost everyone who responds) people will tell you that their games do not allow UA materials. For example, I put out two separate polls inquiring about the Pact of the Talisman. Only one person who responded to either poll admitted to actually trying it out, but I got at least a half-dozen responses from people whose “DM’s don’t allow UA,” but most of them could tell me why it sucked.
If nobody allows UA in their campaigns then people are giving their feedback to WotC blindly. WotC is then taking all of that info, and tweaking/not tweaking the UA materials based on that untested feedback. Then they release it, and all of a sudden people are complaining about the “officially published” versions and half of them end up wishing that things were more like the UA. Case in point, the Alchemist.
I have Played with many DMs who have allowed it. And have actually play tested tester things I comment on. I track both my before take and my “after playtest” take on things. So I can see how my view myself changed too, and I include that in my feedback.
As a DM who frequently allows UA material, I find it rather funny that some of the biggest neigh-sayers of the content don't even playtest it. It is your job as a DM to actively balance the game around your character's choices and, if a character is using a under or over powered class, you must react accordingly.
I have a 5 year campaign running that has a Mystic, Revised Ranger, and (most recently) the Wildfire Druid in it and nothing has gone off the rails yet. The Mystic is generally more difficult to balance around but I've made it easier on myself by initially nerfing the character's player race to be an Awakened Corgi with low hit points and is only allowed to pick Disciples that "make sense" for the character (we have conversations about it during every level). 3 years later and that little corgi is a powerhouse but has never once outshined any of the other players at the table.
Most of the DMs I know allow the usage of UA as well, and ya'll should at least attempt it. It is a good exercise in game balance. My next one shot has an Armorer, Unity Cleric, Psychic Warrior, My custom Blood Hunter subclass, and Star Druid... so things are gonna get weird, but I'm excited.
Back to topic, what do you all think about the Ranger's "Smite" ability?
I think it should scale with increased spell slots.
It's unnecessary, the subclass already gets an at will damage boost and Blessings of the Courts is already more reliable damage than Divine Smite, with a thrown in chance to frighten. At level 7 that Range with a Scimitar (and Hunter's Mark) can do 6d6+4 damage on one of their hits, with most of that damage being psychic and the chance to debuff the enemy.
Back to topic, what do you all think about the Ranger's "Smite" ability?
I think it should scale with increased spell slots.
It depends. If they were to remove Dreadful Strikes and replace it with a different option then I would agree, a scaling "smite" ability could do the class well. But with the ability to already imbue your weapon with psychic damage I'd think that the Ranger would potentially do far too much damage in one turn (especially if you already have Hunter's Mark up).
As a DM who frequently allows UA material, I find it rather funny that some of the biggest neigh-sayers of the content don't even playtest it. It is your job as a DM to actively balance the game around your character's choices and, if a character is using a under or over powered class, you must react accordingly.
***
Most of the DMs I know allow the usage of UA as well, and ya'll should at least attempt it. It is a good exercise in game balance.
I allow UA no problem. I never really understood a DM worrying about “balancing” things. It isn’t that hard. I agree with you.
Back to topic, what do you all think about the Ranger's "Smite" ability?
I think it should scale with increased spell slots.
Uuhh, combine Dreadful Strikes with the Variant Ranger’s free Hunter’s Mark and dual wielding Rapiers that adds up to a resource free (1d8+1d6+DEX piercing +1d6 Psychic) against the “Marked” target, and (1d8+DEX piercing +1d6 Psychic) against a second target, assuming Two-Weapon fighting style. You wanna juice that further? Simply castHunter’s Mark. You want to juice that further? Blessings of the Court. You wanna juice it further than that? I want my encounters to at least be a challenge....
I got a party shrugs 3 Deadly encounters per long rest. They have no magic items save for a couple consumables (not potions though) and a Pole of Collapsing, and 1 Cloak of Protection, that’s all they got.... 😳
If you want Blessings of the Court to scale, then Dreadful Strike gotsta go.
Here's some more fun rules interactions for the Armorer:
Per the Armor Model 3rd-level Armorer feature: "Each model includes a special weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Intelligence modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls."
This means that attacks made with the Thunder Gauntlets could be affected by the second effect of the Elven Accuracy feat: "Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once."
Interestingly enough, Elven Accuracy betters your odds of activating the first effect of the Great Weapon Master feat: "On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." Although you'll still need the Dual Wielder feat to have a consistent bonus action melee attack, albeit one that's lacking your melee attack modifier bonus to its damage.
Elven Accuracy also synergizes well with Sharpshooter, and both feats also work with the Lightning Launcher.
Since the power armor can be used as a spellcasting focus, you can also store a 1st- or 2nd-level spell in it per the Spell-Storing Item 11th-level artificer feature. One could even reasonably argue that the power armor special weapons could store spells since they're classified as simple weapons. As for spell selection, the armorer spell list has three solid options to store: magic missile, mirror image, and shatter.
Just some math about advantage: Advantage basically squares the chance of missing for rolls where there is a target to beat. If you miss 50% of the time on a straight roll, having advantage will give you a 0.5 * 0.5 = 25% chance of missing, equating to a +5 (this is the example that the commonly touted "advantage = +5" comes from). If you only have a 20% chance of missing, then advantage is worth less: 0.2*0.2 = 4% chance of missing. That means your odds only improve by 16% (+3.2).
For rolls where you're not trying to beat a target (and instead, higher is just better), there is no "miss chance" to square. I was interested, but didn't know the formula to work it out, so I just brute forced it: figured out what the higher roll was on every possible of the 400 combinations you could make, then averaged that. It worked out that your result will be on average 3.3 higher (13.825 avg for advantage vs 10.5 for straight roll). A +5 on initiative is flat better than advantage on initiative, and they could stack.
A bonus also gives you something that advantage never can: a higher possible total. For this reason, I'd take a +5 over advantage at every opportunity.
Just so you all are aware, WOTC doesn't release UA to playtest for balance. The reason they release it is to judge how the community would react to a concept that they are working on. Even if you've never played the UA, just giving feedback from how it seems is what WOTC is looking for. "I like this subclass" "I like this feature" "I don't like this feature" "This flavor is weird" "I don't like this" is what they are looking for.
Here's some more fun rules interactions for the Armorer:
Per the Armor Model 3rd-level Armorer feature: "Each model includes a special weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Intelligence modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls."
This means that attacks made with the Thunder Gauntlets could be affected by the second effect of the Elven Accuracy feat: "Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once."
Interestingly enough, Elven Accuracy betters your odds of activating the first effect of the Great Weapon Master feat: "On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." Although you'll still need the Dual Wielder feat to have a consistent bonus action melee attack, albeit one that's lacking your melee attack modifier bonus to its damage.
Elven Accuracy also synergizes well with Sharpshooter, and both feats also work with the Lightning Launcher.
Since the power armor can be used as a spellcasting focus, you can also store a 1st- or 2nd-level spell in it per the Spell-Storing Item 11th-level artificer feature. One could even reasonably argue that the power armor special weapons could store spells since they're classified as simple weapons. As for spell selection, the armorer spell list has three solid options to store: magic missile, mirror image, and shatter.
On Storing a spell for multiple uses don't forget the Shield spell a great defensive option for tanking.
I have only allowed UA a couple of times, and only if it was balanced. I just give feedback about the many things I know about 5e, so I don't have to playtest the UA in order to know what needs to be fixed.
I'm agreeing with you. Most people don't playtest UA, and I don't think Wizards expects us to.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
As a DM who frequently allows UA material, I find it rather funny that some of the biggest neigh-sayers of the content don't even playtest it. It is your job as a DM to actively balance the game around your character's choices and, if a character is using a under or over powered class, you must react accordingly.
I have a 5 year campaign running that has a Mystic, Revised Ranger, and (most recently) the Wildfire Druid in it and nothing has gone off the rails yet. The Mystic is generally more difficult to balance around but I've made it easier on myself by initially nerfing the character's player race to be an Awakened Corgi with low hit points and is only allowed to pick Disciples that "make sense" for the character (we have conversations about it during every level). 3 years later and that little corgi is a powerhouse but has never once outshined any of the other players at the table.
Most of the DMs I know allow the usage of UA as well, and ya'll should at least attempt it. It is a good exercise in game balance. My next one shot has an Armorer, Unity Cleric, Psychic Warrior, My custom Blood Hunter subclass, and Star Druid... so things are gonna get weird, but I'm excited.
Did I just read how to play Ein in D&D?
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Back to topic, what do you all think about the Ranger's "Smite" ability?
I think it should scale with increased spell slots.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
It's unnecessary, the subclass already gets an at will damage boost and Blessings of the Courts is already more reliable damage than Divine Smite, with a thrown in chance to frighten. At level 7 that Range with a Scimitar (and Hunter's Mark) can do 6d6+4 damage on one of their hits, with most of that damage being psychic and the chance to debuff the enemy.
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I think that something similar to the paladin smite would make sense. Maybe the additional d8 goes against your preferred prey?
It depends. If they were to remove Dreadful Strikes and replace it with a different option then I would agree, a scaling "smite" ability could do the class well. But with the ability to already imbue your weapon with psychic damage I'd think that the Ranger would potentially do far too much damage in one turn (especially if you already have Hunter's Mark up).
I allow UA no problem. I never really understood a DM worrying about “balancing” things. It isn’t that hard. I agree with you.
Uuhh, combine Dreadful Strikes with the Variant Ranger’s free Hunter’s Mark and dual wielding Rapiers that adds up to a resource free (1d8+1d6+DEX piercing +1d6 Psychic) against the “Marked” target, and (1d8+DEX piercing +1d6 Psychic) against a second target, assuming Two-Weapon fighting style. You wanna juice that further? Simply cast Hunter’s Mark. You want to juice that further? Blessings of the Court. You wanna juice it further than that? I want my encounters to at least be a challenge....
I got a party shrugs 3 Deadly encounters per long rest. They have no magic items save for a couple consumables (not potions though) and a Pole of Collapsing, and 1 Cloak of Protection, that’s all they got.... 😳
If you want Blessings of the Court to scale, then Dreadful Strike gotsta go.
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Here's some more fun rules interactions for the Armorer:
Per the Armor Model 3rd-level Armorer feature: "Each model includes a special weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Intelligence modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls."
This means that attacks made with the Thunder Gauntlets could be affected by the second effect of the Elven Accuracy feat: "Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once."
Interestingly enough, Elven Accuracy betters your odds of activating the first effect of the Great Weapon Master feat: "On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." Although you'll still need the Dual Wielder feat to have a consistent bonus action melee attack, albeit one that's lacking your melee attack modifier bonus to its damage.
Elven Accuracy also synergizes well with Sharpshooter, and both feats also work with the Lightning Launcher.
Since the power armor can be used as a spellcasting focus, you can also store a 1st- or 2nd-level spell in it per the Spell-Storing Item 11th-level artificer feature. One could even reasonably argue that the power armor special weapons could store spells since they're classified as simple weapons. As for spell selection, the armorer spell list has three solid options to store: magic missile, mirror image, and shatter.
Just some math about advantage: Advantage basically squares the chance of missing for rolls where there is a target to beat. If you miss 50% of the time on a straight roll, having advantage will give you a 0.5 * 0.5 = 25% chance of missing, equating to a +5 (this is the example that the commonly touted "advantage = +5" comes from). If you only have a 20% chance of missing, then advantage is worth less: 0.2*0.2 = 4% chance of missing. That means your odds only improve by 16% (+3.2).
For rolls where you're not trying to beat a target (and instead, higher is just better), there is no "miss chance" to square. I was interested, but didn't know the formula to work it out, so I just brute forced it: figured out what the higher roll was on every possible of the 400 combinations you could make, then averaged that. It worked out that your result will be on average 3.3 higher (13.825 avg for advantage vs 10.5 for straight roll). A +5 on initiative is flat better than advantage on initiative, and they could stack.
A bonus also gives you something that advantage never can: a higher possible total. For this reason, I'd take a +5 over advantage at every opportunity.
Just so you all are aware, WOTC doesn't release UA to playtest for balance. The reason they release it is to judge how the community would react to a concept that they are working on. Even if you've never played the UA, just giving feedback from how it seems is what WOTC is looking for. "I like this subclass" "I like this feature" "I don't like this feature" "This flavor is weird" "I don't like this" is what they are looking for.
Plus, when players play it and provide feedback, it helps them make it more balanced should it become an official subclass.
On Storing a spell for multiple uses don't forget the Shield spell a great defensive option for tanking.
You can only store spells with a casting time of one action in a Spell Storing Item; shield has a casting time of one reaction.
So do we have any information when this UA will be added to D&D Beyond so we can use it here?
I expect it’ll go up sometime on Monday. That has been the trend lately.
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Yes, but they care much less about balance for UAs than "what is the community's general view on this?"
And that’s part of the problem.
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It's only a problem because of the community's misperception about it.