This thread is just to share and discuss any hot takes you had about any of the 1DD playtests, that playtests rules, classes, mechanics, or really just anything else about it.

Hot Take: Overall, I actually like 1DD. I know a lot of people may disagree, but overall, I like 1DD. The new background system is really cool, the new feat-system is great, and I've had more things I liked about the playtest than disliked. Maybe its just me, but I feel that Wizards is really heading in the right direction with the game. Does that mean there are no areas to be improved? No, of course not. It just means that I think there aren't a lot of things to be improved and changed, at least in the 2nd UA, than I think should stay. Maybe I'll change my opinion on this though, we'll see how things go,

I totally dig most of it as well.  There are a lot of good things coming out of it. And they seem to be listening to the community, even if they don't always find the right fix the first time. I think that's worth a lot. 

We tend to focus on the problems in discussions.  Partially because we definitely don't want bad rules getting through to the final product.  Partially from disappointment losing things we were used to.  And a little bit from sheer confusion (why do they hate opposed rolls so much?).

But there is a lot worth praising. The more I use it, the more of my reservations go away. I'll still comment on the things I don't like in the survey, but I think it will be a small percentage of the overall. 

I also like most of what's here in 1DD. There are some changes I think are really bad, but could be fine once we know the full scope of rules changes. Those are the places I'll focus on in the survey.

I think it remains to be seen how open wizards is to feedback. There's no way the 2nd playest UA was influenced by the results of the first UA's feedback survey. There just wouldn't have been time. But they are at least saying the right things, and they're giving themselves enough time to incorporate feedback and iterate on their ideas.

Quote from Barefoot_Halibut >>

I think it remains to be seen how open wizards is to feedback. There's no way the 2nd playest UA was influenced by the results of the first UA's feedback survey. There just wouldn't have been time. But they are at least saying the right things, and they're giving themselves enough time to incorporate feedback and iterate on their ideas.

 I dunno. Wizards may not have had time to review all the survey responses, but they certainly had time to look on any D&D internet platform and see what aspects were controversial. So maybe the 2nd playtest wasn't influenced much by the survey, but I have a hard time believing that none of the things people said about 1DD impacted the 2nd playtest.

Hot Take: Oversimplification is as dangerous as "too much complexity."  People CAN, and DO, bounce off of 'Too Simple' as much as 'Too Complicated'.

A constant I have seen since the first document dropped is an ardent desire to use 1DD to remove as much complexity as possible from R5e, and absolutely vicious complaints against any measure taken by Wizards to improve depth of gameplay at the seeming expense of "easy" - even if there wasn't actually any loss or reduction in 'easy'.  See: the massive community outrage about Backgrounds in Origins PT1 as an obvious example.  And not only complaints against Wizards, but some truly horrible things are said at/to/of anyone who supports depth, engagement, and the idea that D&D should be a game about making decisions.

Telling people who want/enjoy those things that they're bad people and they don't deserve to play the game is not okay, and it's also not smart.  Telling people to shut the f@#$ up, go away, and play something else too often means that eventually there's no one left to play with and your 'beautifully simple, easy, and stress-free' game dies and disappears.

Hot Take:

Change Race to Ancestry: 'The ABCs of Character creation: Ancestry, Background, Class" is just too damn good for my brain to not want to be real. 

But yeah, I'm overall very happy with the changes I've seen. The only one I've looked at and really disliked was the 'no reaction sneak attack' as getting a reaction sneak attack usually requires teamwork to pull off (Dissonant Whispers to make them run and trigger an AoO, or the commanders strike ordering the rogue to take an extra shot) and I think teamwork should always be rewarded. 

not really a 'dislike' but the new Dwarf Stonecunning really needs to not be dependent on the type of ground to trigger the tremorsense, because it puts the DM in a position to have to tell a player 'No, you cant' when they have an idea they want to do because the material isn't conducive. It also breaks the flow of the game to confirm an environmental variable. I had the same problem with the original Stonecunning as you had to ask the DM if this was an appropriate time to use the ability vs being able to simply know when it was appropriate. Having the Tremorsense pre-requisite be "you have to be on the ground and not submerged in liquid" is enough for a player to know if they can without directly asking".

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Hot Take: Oversimplification is as dangerous as "too much complexity."  People CAN, and DO, bounce off of 'Too Simple' as much as 'Too Complicated'.

A constant I have seen since the first document dropped is an ardent desire to use 1DD to remove as much complexity as possible from R5e, and absolutely vicious complaints against any measure taken by Wizards to improve depth of gameplay at the seeming expense of "easy" - even if there wasn't actually any loss or reduction in 'easy'.  

I honestly haven't seen anyone who wants to "use 1DD to remove as much complexity as possible" from the game. I have seen people argue against adding additional complexity, especially to the base Fighter class, but I really haven't seen people advocate to remove existing complexity. I've also seen people (such as me) lauding 1DD for adding optional complexity that hadn't previously existed, while providing other alternatives for people who want to keep things simple. Again, I have seen people argue against adding additional complexity, but not arguing for Wizards to remove existing complexity. Those two things are very different.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

See: the massive community outrage about Backgrounds in Origins PT1 as an obvious example. 

 I've seen no massive community outrage about 1DD's new background system; they seem to be the one thing that is universally loved. I haven't seen any people saying the background system should be removed because it's too complicated, their are literally simpler alternatives (premade backgrounds) for people who don't want to use the slightly more complicated system. There are over 50 million people who play D&D, some of them will always hate anything and everything just so they have something to hate, but I haven't seen anything but love for the new background system. Maybe some people are attacking it on platforms like Reddit that I'm not on?

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Hot Take: Oversimplification is as dangerous as "too much complexity."  People CAN, and DO, bounce off of 'Too Simple' as much as 'Too Complicated'.

 And not only complaints against Wizards, but some truly horrible things are said at/to/of anyone who supports depth, engagement, and the idea that D&D should be a game about making decisions.

Telling people who want/enjoy those things that they're bad people and they don't deserve to play the game is not okay, and it's also not smart.  Telling people to shut the f@#$ up, go away, and play something else too often means that eventually there's no one left to play with and your 'beautifully simple, easy, and stress-free' game dies and disappears.

I am very, very sorry if you experienced this. Disagreeing with someone is one thing, but civility is another. Just because someone dislikes another's opinion doesn't mean they should dislike the holder of that opinion too.

Quote from Guytza >>

Hot Take:

Change Race to Ancestry: 'The ABCs of Character creation: Ancestry, Background, Class" is just too damn good for my brain to not want to be real.

 I dunno. The current system works pretty well though I would like race to be called "Species(')" instead, so as to be more clear to new players for what it is about. Would ancestry include some of the things your character did, or would it just be 5e's race renamed? If yes, then I think that would be too similar to background and might be kind of confusing. If no, then I think ancestry might be a pretty confusing name, and I think calling it species(') would avoid some of that confusion. That being said calling it "'the ABCs of character creation" would be pretty cool...

Quote from Guytza >>

But yeah, I'm overall very happy with the changes I've seen. The only one I've looked at and really disliked was the 'no reaction sneak attack' as getting a reaction sneak attack usually requires teamwork to pull off (Dissonant Whispers to make them run and trigger an AoO, or the commanders strike ordering the rogue to take an extra shot) and I think teamwork should always be rewarded. 

 I dunno, some of it may have been teamwork, but there are some ways to abuse Sneak Attack by using it lots of times per round. And whether or not you think it is abusing the mechanic or just a "cool" use of your features, it certainly made Rogue and Sneak Attack a lot more powerful. As long as this way to make Sneak Attack far more powerful remained, then WotC would have had a much harder time being able to improve the overall Rogue and Sneak Attack ability, since you also improve the builds of all those people who are already getting much more out of Sneak Attack then the vast majority of Rogue players did. So, in short, this change hurts the few people who found ways to use the abilities multiple times per round, while allowing WotC to change Rogue in ways that make it better and more fun for everyone.

Quote from Guytza >>

not really a 'dislike' but the new Dwarf Stonecunning really needs to not be dependent on the type of ground to trigger the tremorsense, because it puts the DM in a position to have to tell a player 'No, you cant' when they have an idea they want to do because the material isn't conducive. It also breaks the flow of the game to confirm an environmental variable. I had the same problem with the original Stonecunning as you had to ask the DM if this was an appropriate time to use the ability vs being able to simply know when it was appropriate. Having the Tremorsense pre-requisite be "you have to be on the ground and not submerged in liquid" is enough for a player to know if they can without directly asking".

 I didn't even notice Dwarf Stonecunning:) I'll try and look at it later.

I stayed with 3.5 for a good while after 5e came out because I did not like the over-simplification that 5e presented (I still refer to 5e as the "Fisher Price edition" because of how much less "articulation" is allowed). Honestly, I feel like 1DD is doing a much better job than 5e did with simplifying character build but in a way that allows players to complicate it if they want (DNDB, I hope you're listening). I totally understand that some people love the simplicity, but if WOTC can't make both the "tacticians" and the "drama kids" happy, they are going to end up with only one of them buying in to the final product (and the rest holding out with an older version like I did).

I do like what 1DD did with backgrounds. I could totally see Critical Role's fingerprints all over the 5e Background mechanics and I hated it, but the new function makes it feel like an organic part of character creation. The creative side of me wants to do a quest with a "level 0" Expert who starts with a race and background but has to kill a few rats and spiders before earning that 1st level of Rogue or Ranger. Or maybe a level 0 Mage who has to clean the mephits out of his tutor's library before finally understanding what it means to be a wizard.

...Of course, the devil's advocate side of me wants to add a level of the new Ranger to the leader of my next NPC orc encounter so he can use Hunter's Mark on the spellcaster in the back row and then Zephyr strike past the front-row tanks for some dual-wielding action on the squishies. (IMO, when the class starts out so powerful, it does make it harder to add it to an NPC without breaking the balance.) Of course, we have yet to see if the new DMG has different mechanics than 5e when it comes to monster building.

The thing with complexity is that it also allows for additional detail to be added in for fine tuning. That can allow for solid character options, variation, and other stuff. Things you can't do if you simplify systems too much. I feel the best way to summarize it is that complexity is good when it feeds into depth; but terrible when it does little beyond cause extra problems. Simplicity is great for reducing headaches, but can easily lead to shallowness and a lack of depth.

I originally wrote this in a different thread, talking about grappling rules, but felt it would be better here since it is a long tangent.

One of the issues with some of the new rules is something that people who are fans of OSR, basic DnD, 'old school' rules are always saying.  They claim that more complex and rigid rules take away agency and creativity.  I played a lot of basic DnD long ago.  It was definitely simpler.  Not necessarily better.  Nostalgia does strange things to people.  But they do have a (partial) point on this, even if it often sounds like the old 'back in my day.'

They say that players 'these days' think the only thing they can do is what's printed on their character sheet.  What I think they mean, from experience playing over many editions, is the more rules you create, the more players feel constrained by the rules.  It's not so cut and dry as all that, but it is a real phenomena I have seen. Players look to their character sheet for options when it's their turn.  It's natural.  They see their list of abilities, and consider them first, before the general rules options. They will almost always use Misty Step if they have it, before they consider just jumping. Sometimes it's because it's the safest option. Many times it's just the only option they 'see.'

Basic/1e DnD had rules for rolling to hit and doing damage, some classic spells, and a few abilities.  Elves could detect the presence of a secret door on a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6. Just... sense them. 'There's a secret door over there.' Thieves could pick locks.  High Strength let you bend bars and lift gates. That was a specific thing you wrote down... What your odds were to bend iron bars, like a portcullis or jail cell. The few abilities that had specific rules were very much geared towards exploring a dungeon.  That was the game.

But for most things like grappling, or swinging from a chandelier, or discerning lies, or disguising yourself as a guard, or pushing a rust monster off a cliff... those were things that didn't have rules.  You just said you wanted to do them.  The DM decided if you succeeded and what it looked like.  Maybe they took your class or stats into consideration. But mostly it was just left up to your imagination and a referee.  In fact, if you didn't get creative with your actions, you'd probably lose your character. If you only rely on your 4 HP and your 1d6 sword to get you through a dungeon, you aren't surviving.

In the second edition, they introduced Non-Weapon Proficiencies. They were an attempt to cover things like Animal Handling, Blacksmithing, Languages, Swimming, and Singing.  Just the name of it alone shows how much many of these things weren't covered by earlier rules. How much early rules were combat focused.  People wanted rules for these non-combat things. They wanted guidance for refereeing these concepts that people wanted to do in games. These proficiencies were awkward to use, often forgotten, and vague. But they lead us to the skill proficiencies and feats we have now.

Now I really like 5e (and a lot of what the next edition is shaping up to be). I think it's the best rules so far, a great evolution of the game. 3.5e/Pathfinder are not the games I want to play.  They took the idea of skills and special powers to the most extreme, giving you rules and modifiers and charts for everything.  It's too much, and it doesn't add anything to the telling of a story. If you like number crunching and character crafting, it might be just your type of thing.  And that's great, lots of people love those games! It's just not what I'm looking for. 

5e has an elegant simplicity.  It does so much more with very little.  I like that.  It's brought in tons of new players.  That's awesome.  But those new players have questions.  They don't necessarily have the experience to tell them how to handle certain situations in games. They see rules for some things but not others.  They wonder how to referee when a PC asks the king for his crown.  Or what to roll if a PC wants to wrestle an Ogre. Or how to tell if the Rogue is hiding well enough to get Sneak Attack. 

We like cool new feats and special abilities, but to get them they have to come with rules. We've seen what happens when the rules are vague and open to interpretation.  Many people didn't care that Rangers could forage better.  Or that being an Acolyte meant being given sanctuary in a far away church.  They didn't know what that meant for the game. They didn't know how to referee it.  They needed numbers. 

So we get weird grappling and hiding and influence and search rules.  They're trying to give us numbers, but keep it simple.  It's a reasonable goal. But it leads to even more questions.  It leads to very weird situations.  More loopholes. More confusion.

I've played these games a long time. I've been the 'forever DM.'  I don't need a rule to tell me that your Wizard with a Strength of 8 can't drag an Ogre around the battlefield, but the barbarian probably can. Or that the Rogue is hidden behind those crates. Or that the king won't give you his crown. But a lot of people do, and that's totally okay!  DnD has never been great at explaining these things to new DMs and players. And when they do offer good advice, it's often overlooked.  Because numbers are easier to understand. 

I think I know what they want to do, and I don't think it's a bad goal.  But the current playtest rules are a MESS when it comes to these things.  The relative power level of a combat skills is easy to fix. Adjudication complex social and physical actions are much harder. These are the places I'll have the most feedback probably. 

Quote from BoringBard >>

Quote from Barefoot_Halibut >>

I think it remains to be seen how open wizards is to feedback. There's no way the 2nd playest UA was influenced by the results of the first UA's feedback survey. There just wouldn't have been time. But they are at least saying the right things, and they're giving themselves enough time to incorporate feedback and iterate on their ideas.

 I dunno. Wizards may not have had time to review all the survey responses, but they certainly had time to look on any D&D internet platform and see what aspects were controversial. So maybe the 2nd playtest wasn't influenced much by the survey, but I have a hard time believing that none of the things people said about 1DD impacted the 2nd playtest.

I don't remember seeing anything in the 2nd UA that seemed like it was a direct response to feedback from the first one. The only one you could make an argument for was reverting the crit rules, but they said they just had a couple more ideas they wanted to test. So even the language they used was couched in "this isn't because of feedback, it's just something we want to try".

I'm not saying they won't incorporate feedback. That has to be the main goal of the playtest and surveys. But it remains to be seen just how much feedback they actually listen to, and how much that will affect the final rules.

Quote from Snowtworf >>

The thing with complexity is that it also allows for additional detail to be added in for fine tuning. That can allow for solid character options, variation, and other stuff. Things you can't do if you simplify systems too much. I feel the best way to summarize it is that complexity is good when it feeds into depth; but terrible when it does little beyond cause extra problems. Simplicity is great for reducing headaches, but can easily lead to shallowness and a lack of depth. 

 Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to complexity in general as long as the class aren't insanely complicated. The only place I'm really opposed to it is in the base Fighter class. Anyways, as I've stated numerous times, the way 1DD is adding in additional complexity is great, because there are alternatives for the people who don't want to deal with that added complexity while allowing people like me to revel in how cool and unique our builds are.

Anyways, I like complexity in most places. That being said, this isn't even a problem; I haven't seen anyone advocating to use 1DD to remove all complexity from the game. Can you provide a link to someone on these forums advocating to remove a complicated mechanic that existed in 5e from 1DD because it was "too complicated"? No one (as far as I've seen at least) is advocating for using 1DD to make the game as simple as possible. Certainly, no one has disagreed with people saying that oversimplification is dangerous. No one has argued in favor of any of the things that the people on this thread are fighting against, so I really don't even see why we're discussing an argument that literally no one has made. 

1DD is not taking complexity out of the game. If anything, they are adding more complex systems such as the background system, and modifying systems such as the feat/ASI system to make them more complex. That being said, (Hot Take) I actually really like both of those changes, because it means more advanced players can make more advanced and complicated builds, while giving new players a simpler option in case they want to take it.

Quote from TaleMasterTOV >>

Honestly, I feel like 1DD is doing a much better job than 5e did with simplifying character build but in a way that allows players to complicate it if they want (DNDB, I hope you're listening).

I've said something like that myself, before.

hot take: Attack action shouldn't include one or more Weapon Attacks. time to rename one of those 'attacks' to 'strike,' 'assail,' 'assault,' etc for ease of use.

hot take: "rare" languages should be gated behind some modicum of effort. maybe as addition to multiple cerebral feats like 'Observant,' 'Keen Mind,' and/or as a new 1st-Level character origin feat called something like 'Polyglot' or 'Tutoring My Rich Parents Purchased For Me'.

hot take: Ranger's 13th level 'Nature's Veil' breaks the 'skill expert' theme by requiring a spell slot for limited invisibility. it's all do-it-yourself hard work and clever adaptation right up until the ranger gets lazy and asks spirits to do it for me pretty please. even so, i can't fault them for removing seemingly skill-oriented 'Vanish' (can't be tracked) and 'Hide in Plain Sight' (roll in mud for +10 stealth) since those could feasibly be roleplayed for bonus at any level.

hot take: was the 'Vanish' ability to bonus action Hide removed to give Ranger more dependence on spells like 'Pass Without Trace'? or will there be a stronger influence for 'skill expertise' coming later? perhaps in the form of 'Fighting Style' feats (4th-level?) for 'prerequisite: Expert Group'... something like 'Ambush' that brings back bonus action Hide. and something like 'Opportunist' which could bring back bonus action Object Use for those Rogues who miss it.

Hot Take: Why is 1DD leaving us with the same old 12 boring classes? I want the 12 to stay, but I don't see what is wrong with offering a couple more classes.

We could have a Witch class with rituals, incantations, curses, and more. We could have a psionics class, a Blood Hunter, and Artificer should certainly be in the core rule book. But no, we're stuck with the same 12 old classes that we've spent years playing. What if I want more class options, more flavor, more variety? It won't hurt anyone to add more classes as long as there is not a super insane number of them. Say, 16 classes, so we could have four in each "class group" would be great. If you don't like a class, you don't need to play it. But other people should be able to play that class and I find it very frustrating that we have so few limited options in that regard.

I think I have a pretty hot take...

I'm not a huge fan of prepared spellcasting and I believe that adding it to more classes takes away from the experience of building a character. I really like making interesting mechanical choices when leveling up, something 5e has a depressing lack of to begin with... Making it so that more classes are able to change out their entire spell selection, the primary way of making a caster distinct from another caster of the same class, is honestly super disapointing to me.

Two lore bards are now just a long rest away from being identical outside of feats and starting proficiencies... That's just takes away the entire aspect of your known spells being part of the identity of your character and what they are mechanically.

I understand most people appear to like this change, but to me, it's the main reason for why I'm not interested in playing a druid or cleric in current 5e and I really don't like seeing such a major aspect of meaningful choice being taken away.

I'm not sold on the prepared spells either.  It does open up more freedom and flexibility.  It does fit the theme of the Bard being an expert. But I wonder if everyone is getting this option.  If so, then what makes a wizard special? Will they be limited by their spellbook while everyone else gets their whole list to choose from? I've been wondering about this. One solution I can think of is to have the wizard consider every spell in their book as always being prepared, no matter the number and level. I guess we have to wait and see. (And as much as I love Clerics, the spell prep can be really annoying)

I'm old enough to remember when the Bard and Ranger were the only ones who could only "know" a few spells.

Now it seems like the wizard is the odd one out (being the only one who has to actually have the spell in memory before casting it).

Prepared spells makes sense for the ranger.  The ranger is an adaptable survivalist, able to flex and bend to meet the challenges of a variety of different situations and terrains.  Rangers being able to bend their spell list with a bit of preparation just feels more ranger-y.  I'm less convinced on bard, yeah.  I understand why they're seemingly standardizing on prepared spells, but I'm not sure I approve of the entire thing.

Quote from TaleMasterTOV >>

I'm old enough to remember when the Bard and Ranger were the only ones who could only "know" a few spells.

Now it seems like the wizard is the odd one out (being the only one who has to actually have the spell in memory before casting it).

 Not sure what you mean by this. 5e is the fist time rangers haven’t prepared their spells the way all other divine casters do, and in 5e, rangers and bards have been joined by sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards(ish) from the beginning.