- Goliath w/ giant heritages was very highly rated - Revised Dragonborn is now highly rated - Ardling is out of the PHB. Crawford and other fans love it, but the devs feel they need to introduce it to the multiverse a bit better in a future product rather than them being core. - Jump Action is out of the rules glossary. It passed the scoring threshold but the comments weren't delighted by it, so they're looking for different ways to add clarity to jumping. - Confirmation that they're on the fence with Eldritch Blast being a spell or Warlock class feature - More frequent survey feedback videos in 2023 to go along with the packet release videos - Next UA packet "in a few days", then the following packet will be in April, and then chonkier packets roughly bi-monthly after that. - There will now be a changelog showing what has been removed since the previous packet.
I don't think Aardling is a surprise, I am among those that like the concept but think that like any race, it needs a good amount of lore behind it which the race doesn't particularly have right now. Of course with what they said, it might suggest that there is a consideration of a campaign involving the beastlands, if they look to revisit the Aardlings.
For another thing people had been noticing, the reason eldritch blast isn't in the spell list is because they are (as plenty of people guessed) considering making it a class feature for warlocks.
For another thing people had been noticing, the reason eldritch blast isn't in the spell list is because they are (as plenty of people guessed) considering making it a class feature for warlocks.
Looks like they'll land on this in time for the Mage packet
Okay. I maaay have cheated and watched the video silently with captions on at 1.5 speed, just because I couldn't wait to take in the first movement on the One playtest in thirty years. A few key takeaways from said admittedly sketchy watch:
-Dragonborn 2.0 scored very well, above 80 percent. The redux landed well, Draconic Flight was particularly popular.
-Goliaths also scored very well, above 80 percent. The different giant ancestries abilities were very popular.
-Ardlings are officially out of consideration for the 2024 PHB. The species mostly seemed to confuse players; Crawford wants to revisit them in a future non-PHB sourcebook where they can give more story/fluff context to where they come from and why they exist. But they're not going to be a PHB species. Crawford does, however, love all the Good Boy/Girl fanart people produced for ardlings.
-Cleric scored well, particularly features like Holy Order that offered some customization. Crawford stated that the intent of the design team was to build a cleric class for the people who love clerics; the intent is to serve the class's fans rather than trying to broaden its appral. Broader appeal is great, but they prefer to make every class for the people who love that class.
-Against all sanity, the D&D design team DOES go through written comment feedback. They consider it vitally important, especially when something scores well but the written comments reveal players are lukewarm on it. One example was The Jump Action - it scored well, but written comments were more to the effect of "it's okay" or "I can live with it", which the design team considers unacceptable.
-New UA documents will include specific lists of things/ideas which have been cut from the playtest, in the interests of further clarity for the playerbase. No more default "if we didn't include it, it's 2014 rules" assertions.
-The team is abandoning monthly playtest drops in favor of a roughly bimonthly approach favoring larger, thiccer documents. They heard the feedback that players want more time to chew on each drop and are adjusting the playtest to accommodate. Crawford claims this will not impact the overall quantity of playtesting they can do; Yurei remains unconvinced.
-Next document is in a couple of days and will include the two remaining Priest group classes, druid and paladin. Unstated was whether or not it includes anything else.
-Eldritch Blast was not in the Arcane spell list specifically because the design team is considering making it a warlock class feature rather than a spell. When they get around to the Warlock UA drop they'll have made a preliminary decision.
That's what I pulled from the video so far. May revisit it when I get home and can listen as well as read, but hopefully that helps other stuck-in-office people. Lot of good, some bad, and a real surprise. Not a bad start to the day.
I need to write a "How to Give Feedback Wizards Will Listen To" post when I get home. Every time I see people sharing their feedback I see a bunch of design suggestions and "you should try this" junk. If the design team is actually combing through written responses manually rather than scraping it with a keyword bot, then people need to start learning how to give the kind of feedback the team actually needs.
Hint: unsolicited design advice is not what the team wants or needs.
I don't think Aardling is a surprise, I am among those that like the concept but think that like any race, it needs a good amount of lore behind it which the race doesn't particularly have right now. Of course with what they said, it might suggest that there is a consideration of a campaign involving the beastlands, if they look to revisit the Aardlings.
Ah, well. Maybe we'll see it in Planescape then...
To be clear, I'm in the office too, but I guess that's the privilege of being able to schedule an "emergency meeting" on my calendar and close the door 😁
Next document is in a couple of days and will include the two remaining Priest group classes, druid and paladin. Unstated was whether or not it includes anything else.
If their goal is truly beefier documents going forward, it will have to. My guess is that it will include the revisions from the Expert Class feedback since they didn't discuss that at all, thus they can go over it when the packet comes out. ("You'll see we did XYZ to the Hunter Subclass because 60% of you said...")
I’m scared to see what the Mage packet is going to look like, based on the current spellcasting trend. I really, really, really, think they need to avoid having Wizards and Sorcerers using the exact same list and known spells setup, plus locking selections down by spell slot only dampens people’s ability to be flexible to the situation. Also low-key disappointed we’re gonna have to wait on Ardlings, would have been a fun base to try and adapt a kitsune character concept from a homebrew I played with some friends a few years ago.
-Eldritch Blast was not in the Arcane spell list specifically because the design team is considering making it a warlock class feature rather than a spell. When they get around to the Warlock UA drop they'll have made a preliminary decision.
-Eldritch Blast was not in the Arcane spell list specifically because the design team is considering making it a warlock class feature rather than a spell. When they get around to the Warlock UA drop they'll have made a preliminary decision.
OH thank all that is holy.
I got soooo sick of Eldtritch Blast in my last campaign when everyone and their dog was taking it in through Magic Initiate...
-Eldritch Blast was not in the Arcane spell list specifically because the design team is considering making it a warlock class feature rather than a spell. When they get around to the Warlock UA drop they'll have made a preliminary decision.
OH thank all that is holy.
Thank them for... considering it? We don't know where they'll land yet 😛
The “Hunter” Ranger had received a modified version of “Hunter’s Mark” that allowed them to glean details of the target they were hunting.
This was interesting because, while “Hunter’s Mark” was still attainable by other classes, it suggested that it would be more useful for a Ranger, since the subclass itself had a specific way to grant it more capabilities.
This also suggests that other Ranger subclasses might receive modified “Hunter’s Mark” features, different for each subclass.
If they were to do a similar thing for “Eldritch Blast” and Warlock subclasses, it may mean that we will actually see some adjustments for that cantrip going forward…something to give more identity to it besides “just force damage”.
Honestly the comments about stuff scoring well and not being enjoyed brings me hope for the design team. I also appreciated the acknowledge ment of bad design input even In a joking manner. Too many people want All classes to fit their playstyles rather than each class having its playstyles defined by its mechanics.
I still feel bad about the ranger "design team comment embargo" but the between the lines information may be spot on.
Eldritch Blast, by itself, is good but not great. It's more stable than Fire Bolt given its multiple attacks, but those multiple attacks also mean Eldritch Blast hits for its maximum damage dice notably less often. Force damage is better than fire damage, but outside of high-level play monster resistances are rarer than people tend to think. Fire Bolt serves perfectly fine up into the levels where a mage usually has better things to do on their turn.
It's Agonizing Blast, specifically, that turns EB into "great". Agonizing Blast can close to double the expected average damage of any given EB bolt and allows warlocks to easily keep pace with basic martial damage. Sure, Eldritch Blast gets no Power Strike option, but it's also a ranged d10 that cannot be disarmed or run out of ammo. None of that would matter without Agonizing Blast, though.
Which makes a really good case for making EB+AB a class feature for warlocks. As ot stands, the spell and Invocation are a tax on the class's choices. Yes, there's edge case warlock builds that can get by without EB, but if the blast is a class feature that opens the door for patron-specific modifiers for the ability. Perhaps each patron can add a unique effect to Eldritch Blast at level 3, to help differentiate warlocks. And things like Pact of the Blade could also modify EB, i.e. turn it into a melee spell attack rather than requiring the warlock to become expert in weaponry in a way it simply can't without losing to martial characters for free.
So yeah. Would be interesting to see what they could do with EB as a class feature rather than a forced spell selection.
I'd been wondering how they were going to handle this in the wake of folks review bombing the playtest in response to the OGL mess. At least, people saying they were going to do that. Then I realized it's probably pretty easy to just disregard people giving everything a 0 after a certain date.
I give them a lot of credit for just setting aside the ardling until they can come up with a coherent reason for it to exist. It says a lot that they are willing to step away from something instead of forcing it on us. Also, are we really attached to the name "ardling?" Can we maybe workshop that?
I'd love to see Eldritch Blast become a class feature. Then add agonizing blast at level 3 to make it less attractive for MC dips. And maybe, make buffing it be like cleric holy orders they're tinkering with. At level X, you can add repelling blast or grasp of hadar or eldritch spear. At level Y, you can add one of the ones you didn't pick the first go around. And/or let you change the damage type to make it more thematic with your patron (The Undead does necrotic, The Celestial does radiant, etc.) It just opens up a lot of options to make it more flavorful.
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Woohoo, finally!
Highlights:
- Goliath w/ giant heritages was very highly rated
- Revised Dragonborn is now highly rated
- Ardling is out of the PHB. Crawford and other fans love it, but the devs feel they need to introduce it to the multiverse a bit better in a future product rather than them being core.
- Jump Action is out of the rules glossary. It passed the scoring threshold but the comments weren't delighted by it, so they're looking for different ways to add clarity to jumping.
- Confirmation that they're on the fence with Eldritch Blast being a spell or Warlock class feature
- More frequent survey feedback videos in 2023 to go along with the packet release videos
- Next UA packet "in a few days", then the following packet will be in April, and then chonkier packets roughly bi-monthly after that.
- There will now be a changelog showing what has been removed since the previous packet.
Could we get a summary, for people who may be stuck in the office and are unable to watch the video for another nine-ish hours?
Please do not contact or message me.
Added, see edit
I don't think Aardling is a surprise, I am among those that like the concept but think that like any race, it needs a good amount of lore behind it which the race doesn't particularly have right now. Of course with what they said, it might suggest that there is a consideration of a campaign involving the beastlands, if they look to revisit the Aardlings.
For another thing people had been noticing, the reason eldritch blast isn't in the spell list is because they are (as plenty of people guessed) considering making it a class feature for warlocks.
Futher updated the Highlights section
Looks like they'll land on this in time for the Mage packet
Okay. I maaay have cheated and watched the video silently with captions on at 1.5 speed, just because I couldn't wait to take in the first movement on the One playtest in thirty years. A few key takeaways from said admittedly sketchy watch:
-Dragonborn 2.0 scored very well, above 80 percent. The redux landed well, Draconic Flight was particularly popular.
-Goliaths also scored very well, above 80 percent. The different giant ancestries abilities were very popular.
-Ardlings are officially out of consideration for the 2024 PHB. The species mostly seemed to confuse players; Crawford wants to revisit them in a future non-PHB sourcebook where they can give more story/fluff context to where they come from and why they exist. But they're not going to be a PHB species. Crawford does, however, love all the Good Boy/Girl fanart people produced for ardlings.
-Cleric scored well, particularly features like Holy Order that offered some customization. Crawford stated that the intent of the design team was to build a cleric class for the people who love clerics; the intent is to serve the class's fans rather than trying to broaden its appral. Broader appeal is great, but they prefer to make every class for the people who love that class.
-Against all sanity, the D&D design team DOES go through written comment feedback. They consider it vitally important, especially when something scores well but the written comments reveal players are lukewarm on it. One example was The Jump Action - it scored well, but written comments were more to the effect of "it's okay" or "I can live with it", which the design team considers unacceptable.
-New UA documents will include specific lists of things/ideas which have been cut from the playtest, in the interests of further clarity for the playerbase. No more default "if we didn't include it, it's 2014 rules" assertions.
-The team is abandoning monthly playtest drops in favor of a roughly bimonthly approach favoring larger, thiccer documents. They heard the feedback that players want more time to chew on each drop and are adjusting the playtest to accommodate. Crawford claims this will not impact the overall quantity of playtesting they can do; Yurei remains unconvinced.
-Next document is in a couple of days and will include the two remaining Priest group classes, druid and paladin. Unstated was whether or not it includes anything else.
-Eldritch Blast was not in the Arcane spell list specifically because the design team is considering making it a warlock class feature rather than a spell. When they get around to the Warlock UA drop they'll have made a preliminary decision.
That's what I pulled from the video so far. May revisit it when I get home and can listen as well as read, but hopefully that helps other stuck-in-office people. Lot of good, some bad, and a real surprise. Not a bad start to the day.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm glad they are going to be giving us info about stuff they dropped or cut.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I need to write a "How to Give Feedback Wizards Will Listen To" post when I get home. Every time I see people sharing their feedback I see a bunch of design suggestions and "you should try this" junk. If the design team is actually combing through written responses manually rather than scraping it with a keyword bot, then people need to start learning how to give the kind of feedback the team actually needs.
Hint: unsolicited design advice is not what the team wants or needs.
Please do not contact or message me.
Ah, well. Maybe we'll see it in Planescape then...
If their goal is truly beefier documents going forward, it will have to. My guess is that it will include the revisions from the Expert Class feedback since they didn't discuss that at all, thus they can go over it when the packet comes out. ("You'll see we did XYZ to the Hunter Subclass because 60% of you said...")
I’m scared to see what the Mage packet is going to look like, based on the current spellcasting trend. I really, really, really, think they need to avoid having Wizards and Sorcerers using the exact same list and known spells setup, plus locking selections down by spell slot only dampens people’s ability to be flexible to the situation. Also low-key disappointed we’re gonna have to wait on Ardlings, would have been a fun base to try and adapt a kitsune character concept from a homebrew I played with some friends a few years ago.
OH thank all that is holy.
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I got soooo sick of Eldtritch Blast in my last campaign when everyone and their dog was taking it in through Magic Initiate...
I mean, it’s “meh” compared to a halfway decent martial setup
Thank them for... considering it? We don't know where they'll land yet 😛
Interesting…
The “Hunter” Ranger had received a modified version of “Hunter’s Mark” that allowed them to glean details of the target they were hunting.
This was interesting because, while “Hunter’s Mark” was still attainable by other classes, it suggested that it would be more useful for a Ranger, since the subclass itself had a specific way to grant it more capabilities.
This also suggests that other Ranger subclasses might receive modified “Hunter’s Mark” features, different for each subclass.
If they were to do a similar thing for “Eldritch Blast” and Warlock subclasses, it may mean that we will actually see some adjustments for that cantrip going forward…something to give more identity to it besides “just force damage”.
Honestly the comments about stuff scoring well and not being enjoyed brings me hope for the design team. I also appreciated the acknowledge ment of bad design input even In a joking manner. Too many people want All classes to fit their playstyles rather than each class having its playstyles defined by its mechanics.
I still feel bad about the ranger "design team comment embargo" but the between the lines information may be spot on.
Eldritch Blast, by itself, is good but not great. It's more stable than Fire Bolt given its multiple attacks, but those multiple attacks also mean Eldritch Blast hits for its maximum damage dice notably less often. Force damage is better than fire damage, but outside of high-level play monster resistances are rarer than people tend to think. Fire Bolt serves perfectly fine up into the levels where a mage usually has better things to do on their turn.
It's Agonizing Blast, specifically, that turns EB into "great". Agonizing Blast can close to double the expected average damage of any given EB bolt and allows warlocks to easily keep pace with basic martial damage. Sure, Eldritch Blast gets no Power Strike option, but it's also a ranged d10 that cannot be disarmed or run out of ammo. None of that would matter without Agonizing Blast, though.
Which makes a really good case for making EB+AB a class feature for warlocks. As ot stands, the spell and Invocation are a tax on the class's choices. Yes, there's edge case warlock builds that can get by without EB, but if the blast is a class feature that opens the door for patron-specific modifiers for the ability. Perhaps each patron can add a unique effect to Eldritch Blast at level 3, to help differentiate warlocks. And things like Pact of the Blade could also modify EB, i.e. turn it into a melee spell attack rather than requiring the warlock to become expert in weaponry in a way it simply can't without losing to martial characters for free.
So yeah. Would be interesting to see what they could do with EB as a class feature rather than a forced spell selection.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'd been wondering how they were going to handle this in the wake of folks review bombing the playtest in response to the OGL mess. At least, people saying they were going to do that. Then I realized it's probably pretty easy to just disregard people giving everything a 0 after a certain date.
I give them a lot of credit for just setting aside the ardling until they can come up with a coherent reason for it to exist. It says a lot that they are willing to step away from something instead of forcing it on us. Also, are we really attached to the name "ardling?" Can we maybe workshop that?
I'd love to see Eldritch Blast become a class feature. Then add agonizing blast at level 3 to make it less attractive for MC dips. And maybe, make buffing it be like cleric holy orders they're tinkering with. At level X, you can add repelling blast or grasp of hadar or eldritch spear. At level Y, you can add one of the ones you didn't pick the first go around. And/or let you change the damage type to make it more thematic with your patron (The Undead does necrotic, The Celestial does radiant, etc.) It just opens up a lot of options to make it more flavorful.