I don’t recall if they ever mentioned survey results from Bastions and Cantrips. Did they do it when UA8 came out? Not sure when 9 will come out. Maybe by the end of the month?
I wonder what they will do for UA9. I thought it was supposed to be the last PHB UA. Would like to see more on what they are doing with spells
I expect a more stable testing of Warlock. And possibly Bard now that unified spell lists got dropped.
There are SO many spells that need work. Heat Metal, Spike Growth (Push), Animate Objects, etc.
I'd like to see Feats for Tavern Brawler and Grappler get another pass.
They did say that playtesting Warlock and Bard were done along with 7 other classes. It’s why Barbarian, Druid, and Monk were the only remaining 3 to be tested in UA8. So I don’t know if we will see them again.
I expect a more stable testing of Warlock. And possibly Bard now that unified spell lists got dropped.
There are SO many spells that need work. Heat Metal, Spike Growth (Push), Animate Objects, etc.
I'd like to see Feats for Tavern Brawler and Grappler get another pass.
I doubt it. Half of a magical item and swapping pacts for patron at level 1 is all I expect to see for warlock. It's very disappointing.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I expect a more stable testing of Warlock. And possibly Bard now that unified spell lists got dropped.
There are SO many spells that need work. Heat Metal, Spike Growth (Push), Animate Objects, etc.
I'd like to see Feats for Tavern Brawler and Grappler get another pass.
They did say that playtesting Warlock and Bard were done along with 7 other classes. It’s why Barbarian, Druid, and Monk were the only remaining 3 to be tested in UA8. So I don’t know if we will see them again.
Yeah, we're pretty well into final touches by now, especially if they're planning to publish this year. Even if they give anything else another pass, they're not going to make any major changes, just tweak within the existing format. Honestly, if they're gonna run anything big by us in the next UA, I expect it'll be feats. They made noises about getting into branching arrays of feats again, but I'm not remembering much of that in the UA's.
Edit: Plus, feats are very easy for them to just say "nope, we don't have this ready yet" if a few ideas aren't hashed out and then release them later in another book, as opposed to core class features or even just settling on subclasses.
It would be good business sense to save things for later books. You're not going to want a book of nothing but subclasses for example. Having some feats to throw into them just makes solid sense.
What I am hoping for, is a look at spells. There are some problematic spells that can and should be adjusted. I am disappointed it's taken this long to release some work on spells, but I suppose that class stuff has run over because some of them have just not gone well.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Honestly, I could see two more playtest documents in faily quick succession, last time paladin hot a swing they were still doing arcane, divine, and primal spell lists. I expect there will be one with a few classes and feats as well as a few spells adjusted. Then there will probably be a 'last pass' document containing nearly everything, just so the community at large can point out weird inconsistencies before they hit print. But that's for the handbook.
I'm not going to be surprised if there's additional playtest material for the new DMG, probably covering new stuff like bastions, big features that are ultimately optional but which need a lot of eyes on them. I get the feeling WOTC is going to try and nail down a much more solid DMG to build off of for future adventures to use. That way they can advertise an adventure as taking advantage of this or that optional feature from the DMG.
Honestly, I could see two more playtest documents in faily quick succession, last time paladin hot a swing they were still doing arcane, divine, and primal spell lists. I expect there will be one with a few classes and feats as well as a few spells adjusted. Then there will probably be a 'last pass' document containing nearly everything, just so the community at large can point out weird inconsistencies before they hit print. But that's for the handbook.
I'm not going to be surprised if there's additional playtest material for the new DMG, probably covering new stuff like bastions, big features that are ultimately optional but which need a lot of eyes on them. I get the feeling WOTC is going to try and nail down a much more solid DMG to build off of for future adventures to use. That way they can advertise an adventure as taking advantage of this or that optional feature from the DMG.
Who knows, they might. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. JC said they had all the info they needed to move on to final internal adjustments with no further need of playtest, as far as the classes are concern
The next UA should be DMG or MM since they would need this last playtest to check for the last time and do a last-time revamp before passing it out again.
The next UA should be DMG or MM since they would need this last playtest to check for the last time and do a last-time revamp before passing it out again.
The monster Manuel probably won't get a UA of its own just due to the incredibly varied amount and number of monsters, though a DMG UA may introduce new generalized monster features as part of a test concerning the adjustment or building of monsters by a DM. But even then it's very difficult to simplify the building of monsters.
Didn’t they announce a provisional publication date for the PHB of the 21st May? I claim no expertise in the publishing industry, but I imagine that they will have had to send it to the printers by now.
Feats and spells are the two main areas I'm interested; though I feel like they've already released UA for the most problematic feats already, so spells are what I would expect the focus to be on. Spell balance in 5e has been pretty mixed, with some big offenders at most levels, but also a big pass of higher level spells is needed to reign some of those in and limit caster supremacy a bit.
Things like making wish an action only when replicating lower level spells, so it's a ritual to do big complicated custom wishes, true polymorph maybe could be toned down; being a dragon is great, but having a choice of literally any creature from CR 20 down is a hell of a wide scope when they've been limiting everything else (and it's extremely powerful).
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Things like making wish an action only when replicating lower level spells, so it's a ritual to do big complicated custom wishes
The balance on everything but spell replication is the DM twisting and the 1d10 per spell level necro damage when you cast spells after. Plus the STR dip, if your table remembers to track that. If you try to use that spell and then have combat the same day, you're gonna have a bad time.
true polymorph maybe could be toned down; being a dragon is great, but having a choice of literally any creature from CR 20 down is a hell of a wide scope when they've been limiting everything else (and it's extremely powerful).
I get the point that using stat blocks can be clunky, but there's no good way to capture the sense of polymorphing short of that. Maybe just include a clause giving the DM some discretion over available forms to highlight for players that this is something you need to set up ahead of time.
true polymorph maybe could be toned down; being a dragon is great, but having a choice of literally any creature from CR 20 down is a hell of a wide scope when they've been limiting everything else (and it's extremely powerful).
I get the point that using stat blocks can be clunky, but there's no good way to capture the sense of polymorphing short of that. Maybe just include a clause giving the DM some discretion over available forms to highlight for players that this is something you need to set up ahead of time.
Except they are also trying to get rid of "mother may I" stuff as well, so don't want to have DMs making any calls about player-facing stuff. They would have to do something like they did for WS and put the available monsters in the PHB and stay you can only transform into those - both for Polymorph and for True Polymorph. Unless that is, they swap to the way Tasha's did it with "Draconic Transformation" and "Otherworldly Guise" with template-based creatures.
Except they are also trying to get rid of "mother may I" stuff as well, so don't want to have DMs making any calls about player-facing stuff. They would have to do something like they did for WS and put the available monsters in the PHB and stay you can only transform into those - both for Polymorph and for True Polymorph. Unless that is, they swap to the way Tasha's did it with "Draconic Transformation" and "Otherworldly Guise" with template-based creatures.
I dunno if they'd go as far as trying to do templates after they did such a bad job of the Wild Shape templates (despite it not being a fundamentally bad idea, just not nearly as flexible as it needed to be), but I could see them paring the selection right down somehow and/or tying them to the caster's own hit-points to some degree (so it isn't quite so much the having your cake and eating too spell that it currently is).
But really this why I want a spells release so we can get some idea of their thinking and what designs they're looking at; among the higher level spells the power levels definitely vary wildly, and it'd be nice to see them at least make an effort to balance higher level play a bit. Or even just to find out that they're thought about it at all beyond power word kill.
I know most campaigns don't make it to that high a level, but some do, and some people want to play in brief high level campaigns and one-shots etc., so these levels shouldn't feel like an afterthought or like they're just a pile of ideas your DM has to somehow do all the work to refine.
And that's not to say that other levels don't need refining too, but many of the earlier level spells have been mentioned already. Like is heat metal going to remain in its current auto-damage with infinite range bonus action repeat form? I hope not, because while I love the spell, it definitely needs some toning down. Either fireball needs toning down, or similar damage spells for other elements need tuning up, as well fire is commonly resisted, the gap is still wider than that justifies etc.
I forgot about magic items as well actually, it'd be nice to see at least a sample of what's new and what's changing; even if it's just some of the headline changes it'd be good to see what's coming so we can give feedback. It's been hard to evaluate Monk for example when we still only know in theory what magic items might be like for them. At least Bigby's Big Book of Bigness added some more.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
true polymorph maybe could be toned down; being a dragon is great, but having a choice of literally any creature from CR 20 down is a hell of a wide scope when they've been limiting everything else (and it's extremely powerful).
I get the point that using stat blocks can be clunky, but there's no good way to capture the sense of polymorphing short of that. Maybe just include a clause giving the DM some discretion over available forms to highlight for players that this is something you need to set up ahead of time.
Except they are also trying to get rid of "mother may I" stuff as well, so don't want to have DMs making any calls about player-facing stuff. They would have to do something like they did for WS and put the available monsters in the PHB and stay you can only transform into those - both for Polymorph and for True Polymorph. Unless that is, they swap to the way Tasha's did it with "Draconic Transformation" and "Otherworldly Guise" with template-based creatures.
They tried, and the backlash was bad enough that they reversed course all the way on several points. There's no good way to use templates for something that's meant to be as varied as Polymorphing, and after the dismal failure of their first take on Wildshape and the fact UA 8 makes no mention of templates, they seem to have realized it's just not viable when the intent/flavor is that the effect is supposed to choose from a large array of options. Also, I rather doubt most tables are actually going to limit themselves to just the PHB blocks; it's a useful blurb if a DM finds the need to pump the brakes a little, but honestly trying to take the "mother may I" element out of D&D is fundamentally impossible. If they really thought they could go for it, then honestly I have to call that an out of touch pipe dream, not a realistic plan.
And that's not to say that other levels don't need refining too, but many of the earlier level spells have been mentioned already. Like is heat metal going to remain in its current auto-damage with infinite range bonus action repeat form? I hope not, because while I love the spell, it definitely needs some toning down. Either fireball needs toning down, or similar damage spells for other elements need tuning up, as well fire is commonly resisted, the gap is still wider than that justifies etc.
Fireball and lightning bolt are more powerful by design because they are iconic spells.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
And that's not to say that other levels don't need refining too, but many of the earlier level spells have been mentioned already. Like is heat metal going to remain in its current auto-damage with infinite range bonus action repeat form? I hope not, because while I love the spell, it definitely needs some toning down. Either fireball needs toning down, or similar damage spells for other elements need tuning up, as well fire is commonly resisted, the gap is still wider than that justifies etc.
Fireball and lightning bolt are more powerful by design because they are iconic spells.
And that's an incredibly poor poor reason for them to have done that, because if other similar spells aren't balanced against them then they're punishing players for choosing anything else. Either other elemental options should be similarly strong, or the over-tuned ones need to be toned down, so there's no "best" choice, only the choice you most want to make.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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Any word on playtest 9 or the survey results of playtest 8?
I don’t recall if they ever mentioned survey results from Bastions and Cantrips. Did they do it when UA8 came out? Not sure when 9 will come out. Maybe by the end of the month?
I wonder what they will do for UA9. I thought it was supposed to be the last PHB UA. Would like to see more on what they are doing with spells
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I expect a more stable testing of Warlock. And possibly Bard now that unified spell lists got dropped.
There are SO many spells that need work. Heat Metal, Spike Growth (Push), Animate Objects, etc.
I'd like to see Feats for Tavern Brawler and Grappler get another pass.
They did say that playtesting Warlock and Bard were done along with 7 other classes. It’s why Barbarian, Druid, and Monk were the only remaining 3 to be tested in UA8. So I don’t know if we will see them again.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I doubt it. Half of a magical item and swapping pacts for patron at level 1 is all I expect to see for warlock. It's very disappointing.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Yeah, we're pretty well into final touches by now, especially if they're planning to publish this year. Even if they give anything else another pass, they're not going to make any major changes, just tweak within the existing format. Honestly, if they're gonna run anything big by us in the next UA, I expect it'll be feats. They made noises about getting into branching arrays of feats again, but I'm not remembering much of that in the UA's.
Edit: Plus, feats are very easy for them to just say "nope, we don't have this ready yet" if a few ideas aren't hashed out and then release them later in another book, as opposed to core class features or even just settling on subclasses.
It would be good business sense to save things for later books. You're not going to want a book of nothing but subclasses for example. Having some feats to throw into them just makes solid sense.
What I am hoping for, is a look at spells. There are some problematic spells that can and should be adjusted. I am disappointed it's taken this long to release some work on spells, but I suppose that class stuff has run over because some of them have just not gone well.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Honestly, I could see two more playtest documents in faily quick succession, last time paladin hot a swing they were still doing arcane, divine, and primal spell lists. I expect there will be one with a few classes and feats as well as a few spells adjusted. Then there will probably be a 'last pass' document containing nearly everything, just so the community at large can point out weird inconsistencies before they hit print. But that's for the handbook.
I'm not going to be surprised if there's additional playtest material for the new DMG, probably covering new stuff like bastions, big features that are ultimately optional but which need a lot of eyes on them. I get the feeling WOTC is going to try and nail down a much more solid DMG to build off of for future adventures to use. That way they can advertise an adventure as taking advantage of this or that optional feature from the DMG.
Who knows, they might. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. JC said they had all the info they needed to move on to final internal adjustments with no further need of playtest, as far as the classes are concern
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
The next UA should be DMG or MM since they would need this last playtest to check for the last time and do a last-time revamp before passing it out again.
The monster Manuel probably won't get a UA of its own just due to the incredibly varied amount and number of monsters, though a DMG UA may introduce new generalized monster features as part of a test concerning the adjustment or building of monsters by a DM. But even then it's very difficult to simplify the building of monsters.
They're mostly focused on player facing stuff for the UA's. Monster stats are usually done in-house.
Didn’t they announce a provisional publication date for the PHB of the 21st May? I claim no expertise in the publishing industry, but I imagine that they will have had to send it to the printers by now.
Feats and spells are the two main areas I'm interested; though I feel like they've already released UA for the most problematic feats already, so spells are what I would expect the focus to be on. Spell balance in 5e has been pretty mixed, with some big offenders at most levels, but also a big pass of higher level spells is needed to reign some of those in and limit caster supremacy a bit.
Things like making wish an action only when replicating lower level spells, so it's a ritual to do big complicated custom wishes, true polymorph maybe could be toned down; being a dragon is great, but having a choice of literally any creature from CR 20 down is a hell of a wide scope when they've been limiting everything else (and it's extremely powerful).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The balance on everything but spell replication is the DM twisting and the 1d10 per spell level necro damage when you cast spells after. Plus the STR dip, if your table remembers to track that. If you try to use that spell and then have combat the same day, you're gonna have a bad time.
I get the point that using stat blocks can be clunky, but there's no good way to capture the sense of polymorphing short of that. Maybe just include a clause giving the DM some discretion over available forms to highlight for players that this is something you need to set up ahead of time.
Except they are also trying to get rid of "mother may I" stuff as well, so don't want to have DMs making any calls about player-facing stuff. They would have to do something like they did for WS and put the available monsters in the PHB and stay you can only transform into those - both for Polymorph and for True Polymorph. Unless that is, they swap to the way Tasha's did it with "Draconic Transformation" and "Otherworldly Guise" with template-based creatures.
I dunno if they'd go as far as trying to do templates after they did such a bad job of the Wild Shape templates (despite it not being a fundamentally bad idea, just not nearly as flexible as it needed to be), but I could see them paring the selection right down somehow and/or tying them to the caster's own hit-points to some degree (so it isn't quite so much the having your cake and eating too spell that it currently is).
But really this why I want a spells release so we can get some idea of their thinking and what designs they're looking at; among the higher level spells the power levels definitely vary wildly, and it'd be nice to see them at least make an effort to balance higher level play a bit. Or even just to find out that they're thought about it at all beyond power word kill.
I know most campaigns don't make it to that high a level, but some do, and some people want to play in brief high level campaigns and one-shots etc., so these levels shouldn't feel like an afterthought or like they're just a pile of ideas your DM has to somehow do all the work to refine.
And that's not to say that other levels don't need refining too, but many of the earlier level spells have been mentioned already. Like is heat metal going to remain in its current auto-damage with infinite range bonus action repeat form? I hope not, because while I love the spell, it definitely needs some toning down. Either fireball needs toning down, or similar damage spells for other elements need tuning up, as well fire is commonly resisted, the gap is still wider than that justifies etc.
I forgot about magic items as well actually, it'd be nice to see at least a sample of what's new and what's changing; even if it's just some of the headline changes it'd be good to see what's coming so we can give feedback. It's been hard to evaluate Monk for example when we still only know in theory what magic items might be like for them. At least Bigby's Big Book of Bigness added some more.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
They tried, and the backlash was bad enough that they reversed course all the way on several points. There's no good way to use templates for something that's meant to be as varied as Polymorphing, and after the dismal failure of their first take on Wildshape and the fact UA 8 makes no mention of templates, they seem to have realized it's just not viable when the intent/flavor is that the effect is supposed to choose from a large array of options. Also, I rather doubt most tables are actually going to limit themselves to just the PHB blocks; it's a useful blurb if a DM finds the need to pump the brakes a little, but honestly trying to take the "mother may I" element out of D&D is fundamentally impossible. If they really thought they could go for it, then honestly I have to call that an out of touch pipe dream, not a realistic plan.
Fireball and lightning bolt are more powerful by design because they are iconic spells.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
And that's an incredibly poor poor reason for them to have done that, because if other similar spells aren't balanced against them then they're punishing players for choosing anything else. Either other elemental options should be similarly strong, or the over-tuned ones need to be toned down, so there's no "best" choice, only the choice you most want to make.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.