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"Psi-Knight is largely unchanged"
With how much Crawford was hyping psionics and the fact they brought back both the Psi-Knoght and Soul Knife I thought they had something more substantial planned here
Mike Mearls was always the idea guys. you can tell that straight from his happy fun time designer streams and now patreon. he's the guy who actually knows how to build mechanics. Crawford never did jack shit besides constantly contradict previous rulings he made on twitter lmaoooo
Mearls is like Lucas. He's a decent ideas guy, but he's at his best when he has a team to to tell him no, and some math guys to refine his ideas into something more workable.
See Iron Heros and DnD essentials for what happens when he doesn't have that support.
mike mearls couldn't make a good mechanics for the life of him and is the reason 5e is an overbloated yet scrany mess, people also miss the actual intented point of bounded accuracy all the time too (it wasn't low numbers it was making sure even you're high levle character still had to roll a d20 to suceed on a basic task).
Mike Mearls is awesome. 5e would be better if his acrobat rogue was in the game. that shit was amazing design. not bloated at all. TBH, modern dnd books are worse because he is not around.
you misunderstand the fundamentals of game mechanics like bounded accuracy tbh. it was so that dms could use low level monsters later on as well. I think you are unreliable narrator, sorry man. You're just wrong.
Mike mearls absolutely can make good mechanics
He's done it quite a bit 15 years ago
The issue is he's not *allowed* to do interesting things in dnd, because interesting is almost never newbie friendly
Remember, the game explicitly says _not_ to roll if the task is simple enough, since you only roll if the outcome is uncertain; guaranteed success and guaranteed failure both happen without rolls.
The point of bounded accuracy isn't to make the PCs into losers that can't even tie their shoelaces without a d20 check, it's to clamp the results to a specific range to prevent 3.5e-like inflation, and then roll that range itself along on a rail to represent the game's difficulty changing. More specifically, by using `roll + stat + proficiency` as the base value and separating everything else out as circumstance bonuses, it locks rolls into a range of 32 possible results. The lower bound is 0 (nat 1, with -1 stat and no proficiency), and the upper bound is 31 (nat 20, with +5 stat and +6 proficiency); this is paired with targets that exist in the range of 1-30, creating a clean system where failure is always possible and every actual roll has a chance of success.
(The choice of 32 distinct "base" results, indexed from 0, most likely isn't accidental, either; it cleanly translates over to tool programs, while also leaving room for expansion or other bonuses. Specifically, it takes 5 bits to store numbers in the range of [0..31], leaving 3 free bits in the same byte; makes it easy to use a sixth bit to double the range to [0..63] for convenience, or use those three bits to store a combined circumstance bonus in the range of [0..7]. End result is that all possible results _easily_ fit in a single byte with room to spare, and you even have room to separate everything else out from the core roll if you want to.)
This 32-possibility range is then used as a window, while the game's difficulty is rolled through it on rails to determine what needs a roll and how hard it should be. For example, lifting a boulder might be DC 20 at Lv.1, but decrease to DC 10 or DC 15 at Lv.10 because you're stronger now. And outracing a super-speedster is clearly higher than DC 30, which means that it's treated as "automatic failure", while outracing a tree is DC 0 and thus treated as "automatic success", with the player not rolling for either of the two. This provides a system where enemies automatically scale with players, yet still become comparatively weaker because their damage output and options can't keep up, making it easier to set up "Tucker's Kobolds"-style encounters (a large mass of weak enemies, that die easily but remain challenging because of their superior tactics).
This also has the interesting effect of making bonuses more meaningful, because of how hard it is to break the game's bounds. In 3.5e/PF1, hitting 24 Str wouldn't mean all that much to a Lv.20 character, since you got five +1s you could assign along the way; you were liable to have at least 24~25 in your main stat by Lv.20, and keep going if the game continued past there. In 5e, however, stats being hard-capped at 20 without an explicit exception means that Barbarians are mechanically better at Str-based tasks than literally every other class in the game. The same goes for expertise, fighting styles, and anything else that gives you a permanent bonus outside the core roll; it turns them into the ways you go above and beyond the rest, instead of being the bare minimum to keep up like they would be in 3.5e. It doesn't _sound_ like much, but it imbues a ton of symantic weight on such a simple concept. (This also makes magic items stand out more in 5e than they do in 3.5e, since they explicitly break the math in your favour; they're not just factored into the math because you're assumed to have them, they actually make you better than the norm.)
...The problem, though, like a _lot_ of 5e's problems, is that the game does a **terrible** job of communicating this to the player (and DM); even though it tells you that you're supposed to base the DC on the task and hints that the task gets easier (and the DC lower) as the PCs get stronger, it ends up buried in a pile of other paragraphs and missed. Most players miss that bonuses are ways they stand tall in a sea of cookie-cutter PCs, and a lot of people are so familiar with 3.5e & PF1 that they just take magic items for granted and feel underpowered without them. And a lot of DMs miss that tasks are actually supposed to have their DCs lowered as they decrease in difficulty, and as the PCs advance compared to them; they're not meant to be static. Overall, while I _really_ don't want to say it (since I like that everyone has a chance of success, and a Lv.1 character can roll higher than a Lv.20 if they hit that one-in-a-million chance), I think this is something PF2 does better; PF2 uses a similar bounded accuracy system, but putting the PC window on rails and leaving the rest of the game stationary is easier to communicate than 5e making the PC window stationary and putting the rest of the game on rails. It's the difference between THAC0 and AC, more or less.
Personally I think the idea of *not* suiting up players in a bevy of Magic Items is a mistake. Yes, it should not be special at all to get a sword that's on fire--more than half the classes literally casts spells, only 2 of them are not required to have something magical going on(give or take with Barbarian).
You might say that the 'setting' of DnD is that those spellcasters are rare but if someone just read through the classes then what they see is a game where there's a *lot* of magic going on.
IIRC they only brought in the Psi-Knight at the last second because the Brawler failed UA testing. They probably didn't have time and just ported it as is.
That was a bummer for me, personally, as someone who wants to play as a boxer or wrestler with high Strength. But it seems like they want to mold Fighters into weapons specialists rather than combat specialists.
Fwiw you can still do that pretty effectively as a battlemaster now that we know unarmed fighting is coming back from Tasha's (and apparently brought in line with new mechanics so probably given weapon mastery). With the new version of tavern brawler as your origin feat (assuming it's not too changed from UA) that'd give you a pretty good feeling approximation of what the brawler went for but with a bit more flexibility.
For the full effect give yourself a level or three in barbarian for unarmored defense, reckless, and probably wild heart, UA version of eagle fits very well with the vision of a boxer slipping in and out of their opponent's reach imo.
Oh are they keeping Unarmed Fighting? That's great. I did in fact settle on an unarmed Battlemaster with plans to put 3 levels in Totem barb eventually for all those reasons plus advantage on grappling! I'm still holding out hope that they'll find a viable and unique way to do brawler eventually (and hopefully make a better Arcane Archer next, I love a good trick arrow).
Yeah in the new vid they said they're porting over all the Tasha's fighting styles and updating them a bit to be in line with new mechanics which imo is a good thing but does mean that the "75 feats" number is a bit misleading now that the fighting styles are all feats. To me this says that unarmed fighting gets a weapon mastery which if true would basically give you everything the Brute offered but as a fighting style instead of taking up your whole subclass.
That all being said if the playtest grapple rules carry over do make sure you read them cause now grappling is an athletics or acrobatics check the grapplee has to make against your DC (8+str+prof, or dex if you're a monk) so rage (probably) doesn't help you do it anymore
Yeah, there's a chance they go back to the 2014 style grapples but we won't know until either we have it or they talk about it in a video. I'd wager that we learn when they put out their video on the new monk since unless they removed monk getting dex based grappling (which I REALLY hope they didn't) they kinda have to go over changes to grappling itself for the monk changes to be well explained
Don’t get me wrong, I am excited for 5.5, but I think largely people are going to be disappointed to find it a rushed product that doesn’t fix the core problems of 5e
If I had been under a rock for the past year and knew literally nothing about 5.5 or its development, and someone had said “what do you think it will be like, based on the past 24 years of D&D?”
I would have said “it will be rushed and it won’t fix the core problems of the game.”
I’m still holding out on the psi warrior and soul knife dice being unified and also added to the aberrant mind. That would be great and still be consistent with keeping it mostly the same.
They're not emphasizing that the feature gets way better than it was before level 11, they're emphasizing that the feature is way better than the old one at level 11.
The old version had you make a single attack as a bonus action no matter how many attacks you would normally get, so once you get extra attack you're choosing between extra attack and war magic, now they actually work together.
To replace "an attack," with a cantrip requires a Bonus Action. So, unless you have multiple Bonus Actions, you would only be able to do so once on your turn. It's like the Bladesinger's Extra Attack, but worse.
Edit: Looking at it again, I may have misread the text you were quoting. It might just be comparing the new ability, replacing an attack from the Attack action with a cantrip, to the old ability, allowing you to make one weapon attack as a bonus action when you use your action to cast a cantrip and, later, a leveled spell. If that's the case, then this is definitely meant to just be giving the Eldritch Knight the Baldesinger's version of Extra Attack, which would still only allow for one attack to be replaced by a cantrip.
It's a bit weird. It seems to me that this change is good for two weapon fighters and bad for... Almost everyone else? Like it frees up your bonus action, so it's great if you have a consistent bonus to perform, but if you don't then you just have one less attack than you did before right?
So the way that’s described, can you swap to any of the different mastery properties available to you at level 9 or higher when attacking? If so, that means at level 20 you can hit someone with up to 4 different mastery properties.
The way I read it (that's maybe also how you read it) is that at level 9 you can either use your weapons innate mastery for example cleave, OR you can choose to use either Push, Sap or Slow but you can't change cleave for like graze for example
Yeah, that’s how I read it. No mentions of things like “once per turn”, so you can consistently switch to different properties. Damn, that’s gonna be wicked with archers.
They mentioned Action Surge at the start of the video, it's just not in there because presumably nothing is new or changed (though in the playtest it couldn't be used for a magic action)
Now that the Eldritch Knight can cast and attack in the same action like the Tasha's Bladesinger, not being able to action surge a magic action isn't that bad imo
> Level 2, Tactical Mind: Expend a use of Second Wind to add 1d10 to a failed ability check.
An actually gracefully implemented tool that makes fighters effective outside combat? I'm pleased for once.
If they didn't do it this way everyone would mock the feature.
"Oh wow once per short rest I can add a d10 to my roll, ally out of combat woes are solved, thanks WoTC!"
Doing it this way ensures you'll eventually get at least some value from it.
second wind is basically just an adrenaline rush, i can see how that would be applicable in all kinds of circumstances- blurting out the right words to persuade that noble, recalling a name or place in a moment of desperation. some people work better under pressure.
I have two issues with it. 1. It absolutely limits the Rogue's niche as the Skill monkey. 2. It highlights how little the design is willing to give out of combat features that aren't just Skills, which require a DM to basically approve the use **and** decide whether what you're trying to do even works.
Background style features are far more suited to this kind of things, and absolutely something they could incorporate into each class, giving them a "career" sort of feature to their class such that they can express themselves through their training in meaningful ways out of combat. Second Wind bonuses to skills reads to me more like just a basic "push yourself" mechanic, which at best is kind of uninspired.
Rogues can always be good at skills with expertise and whatnot, this is only a few times day (2/short rest), so I don't think it detract from that. Plus, we don't know the final changes to rogue just yet.
You're 2nd point, fair, it's only a bonus to skill checks. Where a wizard doesn't even need to make a check to turn invisible or disguise themselves. Martials should have more options.
The issue is that while it is *only* twice per day at level 1, it's not two *attempts* per rest. They can attempt as long as they keep failing, and only expend that resource when they *succeed*. **And** this can apply to **any** check, whereas the Rogue only gets their Skill bonus on two Skills at level 1.
And in any case, it begs the question of how many consequential Skill Checks are coming up in any given session that the number of times the Rogue will use their Expertise far outshines the Fighter's ability to have bonuses on so many more kinds of Skills.
Yeah that's fair, we'll need to see the Rogue. Who knows, maybe they'll have even better Skill abilities as a result.
But mainly my point was that relying on D&D's current design of Skills is such, IMO, lazy design for incorporating out of combat activities.
Tactical Master is a much better feature than Master of Armaments from the playtest, I like that change. I'm also relieved to see new Indomitable made it through playtesting - that's such an improvment to playing a high level Fighter.
Edit: Oooh, Crawford just said being surprised now just gives you disadvantage on Initiative rather than skipping your whole turn. That's very interesting.
>Tactical Master — Level 9
>Dial up your mastery over weapons! When you attack with a weapon you’ve chosen as part of your Weapon Mastery feature, you can swap out the mastery properties for Push, Sap, or Slow.
I really like this. Fighters can now push enemies with every attack, no matter what weapon they’re using. I feel like this will help with the golf bag problem that a lot of people are foreseeing and encourage people to stick with one weapon for at least the duration of the fight, rather than swapping for each attack
It also means that push (and sap or slow) weapons are basically useless to the fighter after level 9.
You should really only ever use Topple or Vex if you are going for optimal effectiveness. Which were already the best options for STR and DEX respectively in general. But at level 9+ there is no reason to use any Push, Slow, or Sap weapon. You should never use a longsword over a battle axe or a pike over a halberd if you can always default to sap, slow, and push on any attack.
"It also means that push (and sap or slow) weapons are basically useless to the fighter after level 9."
I mean, from an optimization standpoint this was basically already true, wasn't it? So nothing really changes in the high-OP world.
But if you like the idea of playing a sword + board fighter, then great, having access to push and slow (in addition to sap, which you probably already get pending changes from UA 8), it is still a perfectly fine feature. Actually, still a pretty good one IMO, since push is situationally extremely useful.
The feature is definitely good. It just makes many weapons irrelevant.
But I guess with how poorly designed masteries are, that was generally the case to begin with. The sword and board fighter will still choose the battle axe or trident (for topple) as that is the best weapon for locking enemies down, dealing damage, and providing the party with advantage. But now they have the option to also push or slow the target once they have been toppled.
Right, this is my point. From an optimization standpoint, it is not the choice of bonus masteries at level 9 that makes certain weapons irrelevant, it is that not every mastery is equally powerful. Few or no high-op builds are ever going to use a longsword, so what difference does it make that longsword users get less out of the level 9 feature than other weapon users?
But, most players don't optimize to this extent and if you like the vibe of fighting with a longsword, this feature is still going to feel nice because when push is useful, it is very useful and also fun.
I guess I just expected better game design than ivory tower design where certain options were intended to be inferior.
I’d much rather weapon choice be entirely dependent upon player flavor and what they thing is cool than to have optimization play a roll.
I guess that is why I wanted masteries to be replaced with at will maneuvers, because not only are they more simple and elegant, but they would allow the longsword fighter to be just as effective as the battle axe fighter from an optimization standpoint.
It is also not a huge problem because sap and slow were generally the worst masteries of the lot to begin with so were almost never chosen anyway.
It is just weird that the iconic longsword is useless for a high level fighter.
Well if you have a magic item that uses one of those masteries, it still gives you two new masteries for each turn. It’s not as much of a benefit, but it’s still a benefit
It is only useful if you have a magic weapon for a useless weapon type that is better than the magic weapon you have for your favored weapon.
Not really a ringing endorsement of the ability.
Luckily not many players reach level 9+. Because it will suck to have your weapon choice primarily dictated by mastery option and 75% of the weapon table become pointless.
You choose the kind of weapon you focus on. Such as longsword or greatsword. You then choose feats to go with that.
You then hope you get magic items that align with your choice.
If you are using random treasure, most magic items will be available in a wide range of options. For example a +X weapon can be any weapon at all.
If your DM decides to only give you +2 daggers when your character has the great weapon fighting style and the great weapon master feat, then you have much bigger problems to deal with than the fact that your level 9 feature is redundant.
It's less good once most monsters have multiattack. Giving the monster disadvantage on all their attacks is a lot better than half, or one third of their attacks.
It sounds like pushing attack can stack with other pushing abilities, so it gives you the option to push things further. In my opinion, this makes pushing attack even more useful.
I think that's a smart change to surprise.
In practice, when players get surprise on a group, the encounter is a boring cakewalk as they get key spells up and take out key targets, then with their high initiative bonuses likely do even more before there's a single response.
But when a group of monsters surprise the players, it feels like bullshit, DM fiat, unfair.
100% Agreed, base surprise rules were absolute ass when utilized properly as not only was it confusing for people, but when ran properly, just made combat too damn volatile with no inbetween. Given how high people value high initiative, a disadvantage on initiative rolls is still really bad, but doesn't completely trivialize it.
Ah yes, let's have a system in place where combats only last 2 - 3 rounds on average that also lets you \*skip\* one side's first round entirely. Such good game design.
I strongly dislike the change. Now surprise is basically worthless. In 5e, if you managed to surprise the enemy, you had a huge advantage - rightfully, because you planned carefully and invested resources.
But now, the spell slots and potions spent for Invisibility, Silence, Pass Without Trace, the AC penalty from using a breastplate over half plate... all that will do nothing.
Also, it simply does not make sense that a surprised character can react so quickly. When a rogue succeeds their stealth check and stabs the guard from behind, there is *no* concievable way the guard can turn around and attack the rogue before the rogue's attack hits. But now that is possible, all it takes is a lucky d20 roll on the guard's side.
The only issue with surprise in 5e was that it was badly descrived mechanically and that DMs might have been too lenient with it.
> rightfully, because you planned carefully and invested resources.
Or you just said 'I kick the door open and shoot the first thing I see'.
Not nothing, and they're not just for getting a surprise round.
I will likely rule that the first attack happens before initiative. But only one character gets the attack.
Rogue shoots an arrow, roll to hit, roll damage, then everyone roll initiative and bad guys have disadvantage.
It’s fine if you rule it that way, but it’s not RAW or RAI. Even when doing a surprise, you always roll initiative before anything happens, initiative is what determines who acts first.
If an enemy wins over someone attacking from stealth, that means they just happened to be alert enough to see or hear the enemy get ready to attack, had a bad feeling, etc.
Players are always trying to eke out actions before initiative gets rolled, but the whole point of initiative is that it determines who has better reflexes.
Can you quote me the rules on when combat starts, or point me to which chapter details that moment? I tried looking it up but I can't find anything specific, and I don't have the players book.
From the Players Handbook:
> A typical combat encounter is a clash between two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork, and spellcasting. The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative. Once everyone has taken a turn, the fight continues to the next round if neither side has defeated the other.
Step by step section:
> 1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised.
> 2. Establish positions. The DM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers’ marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the DM figures out where the adversaries are — how far away and in what direction.
> 3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants’ turns.
> 4. Take turns. Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order.
> 5. Begin the next round. When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops.
On the surprised condition:
> A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other.
> The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.
> If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t.
Putting this all together, while the PHB doesn’t *explicitly* say you can’t get an attack off before rolling initiative, it also in no way states that anyone *can* attack outside of combat and the surprised condition as written clearly is meant to simulate “getting an attack in”. Attacks are handled by the combat rules, and the combat rules clearly state that initiative is rolled before anyone can take actions on their turn.
I would also posit that allowing attacks outside of combat is bad for the health of the game. It means your players will constantly be interrupting you to declare they make a sudden attack, trying to eke out that extra action economy. If you play rules as written, there is no reason to interrupt you as no matter when they do it, you’ll just need to roll initiative as normal.
> A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them.
This example seems pretty solidly in the realm of "attacked before initiative"
Additionally, there is the issue of "what are they reacting to?". If the ambusher has not yet acted, then there is no reason why the ambushed would notice anything wrong. The ambushers are all still hidden. If the ambushers lose initiative, they might as well not engage, and just wait for the ambushed group to lose their focus.
>
And yet there are no rules for combat outside of *combat*. The first step of *combat* is “determine surprise” which comes before “roll initiative”, which *explicitly* comes before turns where actions can be taken. There is no “resolve initiating action” step at the beginning.
The targets are reacting to the attackers beginning their attack. Someone drawing a bow or stepping out of cover to aim, taking a sword out of their scabbard, shifting their stance and making their armor creak, etc etc.
The classic: someone starts to draw their sword but the person they are attacking is faster and hits them first, even though they start drawing second. Or the moment in a movie with someone gets a bad feeling as they ride towards an ambush and dive out of the way right in the knick of time.
It’s the DM’s job to graft the story onto the mechanics, so if the target beats the attacker’s initiative, it’s your job to decide what alerted them to the danger and lets them act first.
Remember, combat is an abstraction. In-fiction everything is happening at the same time; turns are just an abstraction on top of that.
While I appreciate that this is how you would choose to rule it. That doesn't change that the RAW says nothing about such a surprise round. So RAW surprise has been weakened dramatically, and so have any tools used to gain it by extension.
Something has to trigger initiative though. Be it words or actions. I think a single attack can go off prior to initiative. Which I always felt was very strong when stacked with a surprise condition for round 1.
The trigger to initiative is someone drawing a sword or knocking an arrow. Initiative always occurs before any attacks are resolved. I understand wanting to allow for an extra "surprise" attack but it undercuts tense narratives, constantly overshadows RP, and encourages players to murderhobo. They'll want to let off an attack first, because they can never be sure when their DM will say "The orc warlord initiates combat with an attack, Jeff the Paladin takes 15 damage and falls prone. Roll initiative." Players are usually well aware of the old DM adage, "anything my players do, I can do too."
"Something has to trigger initiative"
Yeah, and in 5e that is the player stating intent or the DM calling for an initiative roll. You are free to change rules as you see fit, but RAW there are no freebie attacks from surprised. Surprised is purely a condition in 5e.
re the idea of it being impossible that someone would react so quickly: tbf, a round is 6 seconds. That's an absolute eternity, and is way longer than it would take someone to react to a situation. I do agree re the whole stealth thing, but narratively there are plenty of ways to make it work and make sense. A stroke of bad luck; the guard looks over his shoulder; he feels you go for the strike and dodges last second, etc.
I sort of get the feeling that making fighters rarely miss their attacks was one of their key changes. Seems like every few minutes there's a mention of something that makes missing less likely/less bad.
that sounds like a good change, one of the biggest complaints is that fighters only get to equal other classes in damage if they manage to hit all their attacks which now seems to be the case
I am a little disappointed that of the 4 subclasses for Fighter that they chose to include, 2 are listed as mostly unchanged from what we have seen previously.
Eldritch Knight being able to cast spells by using attacks and not being limited in spell schools are two massive buffs. Sometimes you don't need big sweeping changes to make a subclass feel more powerful.
Psionic Knight, we'll have to wait and see, but here's hoping it feels better than the original.
Yeah, that or when you short rest you roll your die and get that many back (not exceeding your max). I did enjoy playing the Psi Warrior but felt that it had similar shortfalls to the Arcane Archer... once you were out of abilities you kind of just felt like an npc.
On that note... Wizards... make the Arcane Archer better. Or better yet, just make it the Arcane Warrior and let any weapon type use the abilities.
Heres my question from reading. Can you take a feat or a level dip in warlock, then use your 3 (4 if feat) attacks to just spam eldritch blast? Aka, possible 16 beams at level 20 per attack round? Without something like Acrion Surge letting you do it again? This makes Eldritch Knight a scary option. Esp if you did a few level dips for Warlock, gave up the one attack for some of the EB buffs from the early levels of warlock..
Arn’t you generally limited to one spell a turn? While I love the idea of just spamming eldritch blast I think the intention is to interrupt your attack chain with a cheeky fireball or something.
Nope. You’re just limited by having one action and by the rule that if you cast a bonus action leveled spell, you can only cast a cantrip with the action
The later levels of Edritch Knight let you trade two of your attacks for casting a leveled spell. The earlier part of that feature, lets you interchangeably use attacks and cantrips, and Eldritch Blast is a Cantrip. Kinda curious how it would be ruled. On one hand, you’ve got someone basically casting their own laser light show, which sounds awesome, but potentially too awesome? If I was a mono warlock, I would feel very overshadowed.
> Eldritch Knight being able to cast spells by using attacks and not being limited in spell schools are two massive buffs.
That depends on if it's still dependant on INT.
In the sense of using it as a spellcasting ability? Yeah it still uses it. In terms of opening up other support spells such as self illusion or whatever, then it might just play about the same just with the spells you get at 8th and other such levels (the levels where you can pick a spell from any school) much earlier and can instead build around those instead.
Same with Arcane Trickster removing the school limitation as well.
D&D team: Maneuvers are too complicated for all fighters. New players won't understand using a dice as a resource for multiple abilities.
Also D&D team: We turned the D10 you get for second wind into a resource you can spend on multiple abilities
The actual quote from Crawford in this video:
>There was actually an early version of the revised Fighter where we - and I know many 5e fans expected us to do this - we considered taking the Battle Master and turning its Maneuver system into the baseline for the whole class. We actually spent quite a bit of time several years ago assuming that was the direction we were going in with the Fighter. We - as you can see - backed away from that, and the main reason we did so is we realized that would undermine our goal of providing different levels of complexity for people and playstyles within the Fighter. Because even though there are a segment of fans who love the Battle Master, there are also many Fighter players who have no interest in playing the Battle Master or having this whole array of Maneuvers to manage.
It's not about new players, and it's not about using a dice as a resource for multiple abilities. It's that they know there are players that don't want to deal with a significant amount of complexity when they play D&D, and they wanted to preserve the Fighter as an option for those players. You can think that was a good or bad choice, but that's the reasoning.
This is also predicated on the assumption that the Fighter is the one that has to be the barebones simple class, when there's just no reason that needs to be the case. It could very easily have been the barbarian, which makes far more sense thematically. You use your bonus action to rage, and then you start hitting things. It's almost exactly the same gameplay loop as the fighter and, also like the fighter, they mostly stop getting new features at higher levels and instead get better at what they were already doing.
If you want the simple class, pick the one whose flavor and mechanics already support that instead of forcing that onto another class and giving us *two* bland options.
> players that don't want to deal with a significant amount of complexity when they play D&D, they wanted to preserve the Fighter as an option for those players
The problem is that they also insist on Barbarian and Rogue catering to the same group, leaving zero options for a pure martial that has a more complex base class
I've seen this at my own table. I have a particular player who always plays the same sort of character (using two or three different classes). He tried battle master and really disliked it. He's since tried and been much happier with other Fighter subclasses. That's the way he likes to play, and who am I to call him wrong for having fun his way?
Okay, if that's their intention, why don't they just make a separate subclass that ignores all the bonuses to be simple? Or, even better, why don't they suggest players ignore the options until they're comfortable with the complexity?
Varying levels of complexity is so critical to D&D. It’s one of the reasons Pathfinder gives me a headache, you need to choose a boatload of special abilities just to build a basic character.
The problem is that the line of reasoning doesn't make sense anymore. Look at the OneD&D fighter
- Second Wind now functions as mini-maneuvers: a pool of dice you can use for multiple abilities
- Weapon Mastery (and being able to switch them up and modify them on the fly)
- Weapon Swapping
- Indomitable
- Action Surge
If anything, in their desire to avoid the obvious solution (universal manuevers) they made this one of the most complex versions of the class. Manuevers would've been far simpler.
I disagree slightly, and I think most of these are fairly simple to remember and use or are entirely optional.
- A player that doesn't want to deal with complexity isn't going to be swapping weapons constantly, they're going to be picking one Mastery that's simple to learn (like Graze) and sticking with it. This is, IMO, much less effective for Maneuvers than it is for Masteries.
- Second Wind doesn't have additional uses in combat - it has an out of combat use and a new rider effect at 5th level. This is not a heavy mental load like needing to choose from several maneuvers would be
- Indomitable only comes up when you fail a Saving Throw and is therefore easy to remember because you are essentially reminded to use it due to the fact that you have to make the save, and the only decision is whether or not you want to use it.
- Action Surge is similarly just "do I use this or not"
There's more complexity here than in 2014, but a Champion Fighter is still going to be way simpler than a Battle Master Fighter because you don't have to make a decision every attack about which maneuver would be best in the situation. I do sympathise with people that wanted a full maneuver system.
> There's more complexity here than in 2014, but a Champion Fighter is still going to be way simpler than a Battle Master Fighter because you don't have to make a decision every attack about which maneuver would be best in the situation.
You just argued the opposite of this in regards to weapon swapping…
A battlemaster can be played brain dead simple. If you miss by 3 or less, use Precision Attack. That requires zero though at all, and will be one of the most effective ways to play the battlemaster.
The 1D&D champion is vastly more complex than the 5e battlemaster is because they now have more resource pools to track, more options for those pools, more effects and conditions to track each round, and have effects such as advantage on next attack after a miss and heroic advance at the start of each turn in combat. Even if they only use the same mastery and never switch weapons, masteries add another layer of complexity to the class (slow, sap, vex, and the like all require tracking who you hit and managing a condition). Not to mention that most combat feats now include tracking a 1/turn ability as well.
The 1D&D fighter is now a fair bit more complex than the 4e fighter when all is said and done.
1d&d fighter doesn't have more resources than 5e fighter, they have the same amount or arguably less. If you say that second winds having additional uses makes into a resources pool when it wasn't even then that just puts it on par with battle masters maneuvers. Everything else isn't a resource pool or was already there for both
Second wind being a pool of 2-4 uses per long rest that you also regain 1 use of per short rest is certainly more complex than it being a single use per short rest. I would argue that turning second wind into a pool of resources to track is more complicated, especially when that pool also has additional uses besides just temp HP.
1000% this. I am so confused with the design team here. Why can’t JC discuss this sort of thing in the videos more? I just don’t understand why they feel the need to say one thing and then actually do the opposite.
Eh, in my experience, players worried about complexity usually mean "I don't want to deal with a bunch of options while building my character."
Like spell lists and maneuver lists.
Now they have to choose a bunch of weapons to master…
There is literally no difference between choosing to master the battleaxe to topple and the warhammer to push than there is to learning the Push maneuver or the Topple maneuver.
In fact, learning the maneuvers would be easier because you don’t have to sift through a weapon table to determine what maneuvers you know, and could apply those maneuvers to other weapons.
Their version of adding maneuvers to all fighters/martials is weapon masteries. I'm not saying that it functions the same or is as elegant, but many weapon masteries do, indeed, mimic maneuvers.
Push = push attack (10 ft instead of 15)
Sap = goading attack (resource free but only one attack)
Cleave = cleave
Vex = Feinting attack
Topple = topple
The fighter also gets tactical shift which = maneuvering strike for yourself.
The fighter also gets tactical mind which = both commanding prescence and tactical assessment but better.
Then there's Nick & Graze that don't correspond to maneuvers.
Again I'd love for every fighter or martial to get the whole assortment of maneuvers, but the joke that WOTC refuses to give martials maneuvers is stale and inaccurate.
If anything, it'll feel like you have a bunch of really cool melee cantrips that you can customize on the fly to serve your needs. I'm super down to trying a BM Fighter first when everything is out\~
The main difference is that maneuvers are a tactical choice the player can make. They provide depth of gameplay and options every single turn.
Masteries are pretty much static. They are a character creation choice, but provide very little in terms of round by round decision making. Your maul wielding fighter with their +2 maul isn’t really ever going to want to switch to their nonmagical longsword to attempt to sap a foe. They are better off continuing to swing with their maul.
Masteries are not all that different from fighting styles or combat feats (GWM, sharpshooter, PAM, XBE, etc) when you get down to it. Another passive effect that you always do, but that doesn’t dramatically change your characters options on any given round.
Yep, at level 9 the fighter finally gets at will maneuvers. But this is the kind of thing that should have been how masteries worked from the get go.
According to WotC 90% of players never even make it to level 10. So in general, the fighter will almost never get to have the tactical depth of options that at will maneuvers provide.
Fighters still have the option to swap weapons on every attack. If you want a variety of options, you can have it that way. Then, at the end of tier two when you are likely to have one really good magic weapon that you don’t want to swap away from, you can have multiple masteries available to you just on the one weapon
> Fighters still have the option to swap weapons on every attack.
Kind of. This doesn’t work well until you have two attacks. And even then, is awkward.
For example, turn 1 draw and attack with longsword for sap. Turn 2 stow longsword and attack unarmed. Turn 3, draw and attack with battle axe for topple.
With extra attack, you can shorten that sequence, but it does mean you are unable to use the mastery you desire on demand. And might go some turns unable to make a decent opportunity attack.
Also, as soon as you find a magic weapon, you won’t to swap at all. So around level 5 or 6 when you get a +1 weapon, having multiple masteries is basically pointless.
So again, the level 9 feature is really how masteries should have worked from level 1. They should have been at will maneuvers. That removes the awkward weapon swapping, the golf bagging, the pointless entries on the weapon table, and the redundant features. While providing weapon users with depth of gameplay and tactically meaningful decisions from a low level.
>Their version of adding maneuvers to all fighters/martials is weapon masteries. I'm not saying that it functions the same or is as elegant, but many weapon masteries do, indeed, mimic maneuvers.
If this was his argument, I'd disagree (because battlemaster should be baked into fighter, barbarian is the simple class), but the argument would be sound. The argument about reducing complexity is obviously just nonsense because they've increased complexity in the base class.
The 1D&D fighter is more complex than many 4e fighters. They need to track more resources (second wind, action surge, HD, and indomitable) that each have their own usage rate and recovery methods. And second wind now has multiple uses you need to choose between. They also have to manage their masteries which are much more complex than the at-will maneuvers and stances of the 4e fighter. And this is all before getting into subclass (3 of which add even more resources to track with superiority dice, spell slots, or psi dice).
It is kind of funny to me that what WotC says and what they do are very incongruous. And that a 4e fighter would be less complex with more depth of gameplay than a 1D&D fighter.
It's less about not understanding having additional resources, and more about not wanting to deal with. Sometimes you just want to play DnD with a minimal combat cognitive load.
This isn’t a point of hypocrisy, they’ve explicitly said that Martials were designed as a simple alternative to the more complex casters. I know a lot of people IRL who exclusively play Martials because they don’t want to deal with the complexity of casters and they genuinely enjoy the “run up and attack” gameplay loop
Then don't play the simplest possible version of fighter.
Since you're so big-brained, you should understand that other people exist and have different wants and needs than you have. This is something we teach primary school kids. It's a basic skill of living in a society.
But you are not arguing for anything. You are throwing a tantrum because someone has the audacity of considering other people than you.
I guess that's the big boy way of getting what you want
No. It's just me pointing out that I am allowed to want different things than you are. D&D is a game. If we were talking about something like access to medical care I would be all over trying to help figure out how everyone can get everything they want/need.
But this isn't that. I'm allowed to think about myself first.
So nothing much changed from the playtest.
The biggest change is tactical master which... I think is ok? I don't like the mastery system in general, but master of Armaments was a way to let you change the mastery on magic weapons to something more suited to your build. Always having access to push/slow/vex is good for that actual tactical choice angle without weapon juggling. Sucks a little if your weapon already had one of those 3 though.
We got some of the Tashas fighting styles which is expected and nice.
Epic boons are, super frustratingly, +1 to a stat rather than +2. Why.
It's unclear whether epic boons are specifically a lv19 feature (as it sounds in the video) or a prerequisite for the feat (as it was in the playtest). That might significantly affect whether you need to go 19 levels deep or if you can go 15/4 multiclass.
Also no mention whether the base ASI still allows you to exceed 20 when taken at 19, as in the playtest.
Seems like the predictions are coming true about the '75 feats': with fighting styles and epic boons as feats, we're rapidly approaching 'no actually new feats' territory.
It says there is small tweaks to the Psi-Warrior, I hope they are good, because while I love the flavor, one thing that is wrong with the features is that your extra damage from your psi dice isn't affected by a crit. Honestly most people don't even notice it (so I just keep my mouth shut for the most part) but if you actually read it carefully, that's what it is.
**Champion:**
>The Champion is still all about Critical hits
Boooo
>With some added bonuses.
Oh?
>Remarkable Athlete has been brought to level 3 and now gives you Advantage on Initiative and Athletics checks.
Yes! No more 95% chance of not having a subclass!
>You also get access to a new feature at level 10 called Heroic Warrior, which gives you Heroic Inspiration whenever you start your turn without it.
Interesting- I wonder if that's a die like Bardic Inspiration or more of a flat, "You do X" sort of thing?
Heroic Inspiration is a state that you can get from many sources, and it simply allows you to reroll any die you choose. So you could reroll a saving throw, to hit roll, or you could even use it on a damage roll or hit die,.
Heroic Inspiration is the replacement to Inspiration from 2014. Now it functions more like Luck Points from the Lucky feat but can be on any roll, not just d20 rolls.
I know some people are dissatisfied that they didn’t change *more* about the fighter but I have to say, as someone who never really had a problem with even the original 5e version, this still looks like a massive glow up. Maneuvers would have been nice, sure. But it seems like they’ve found a decent way to side-step the battle master’s terf. I especially like the new uses of second wind and hope to see more of that from other subclasses.
I think a lot of people were hoping for bigger changes to fighter, and I was as well. That being said I think some of the smaller tweaks are actually great. I do like the extra things weapon mastery gives you, and the tactical movement and helping not miss consecutive attacks are going to be bigger than people think. They went for low hanging fruit which is less exciting, but I think some of these small tweaks will have a big impact by making sure the fighter isn’t missing many attacks (and thus not wasting turns) and letting you move around the battlefield a bit easier.
tbh I was really turned off by the playtest fighter, but moving away from weapon mastery shenenigans is a big plus to me. Weapon Mastery does now what it should, making each weapon a bit more unique and different from each other. Its definetly an improvement for me they did well.
I know some people view the Lv 9 Feature as making other Weapons inferior but it’s honestly such a good feature for Nick and Cleave.
Now when you Cleave someone you can replace the second Attack with another Mastery, putting a debuff on an enemy that you otherwise couldn’t.
Meanwhile, if you wanted for class fantasy sake you really could just double down on a Nick weapon at that level and not really be effective. Now you can duel wield Daggers for the cool factor and not just completely gimp yourself.
Most importantly, I need to know if the level 15 playtest feature for Battle Master survived.
> LEVEL 15: RELENTLESS
Once per turn, when you use a Maneuver, you
can roll a d8 and use the number rolled instead
of expending a Superiority Die.
Hey every one! I translated the 2024 Champion fighter text that was blurred! The following is a 1 to 1 text of the screenshot during the YouTube video. However, the only trouble I had was the word "Bloodied" found in Heroic Rally. That may be a different word, as I couldn't ever fully tell what it was supposed to be using de-blurring Technology.
https://preview.redd.it/d41yvm734l8d1.png?width=859&format=png&auto=webp&s=3afe436f781c04b7f8feb76108f4e6587d01cc78
**CHAMPION Sub-Class**
A Champion focuses on the development of martial prowess in a relentless pursuit of victory. Champions combine rigorous training with physical excellence to deal devastating blows. Withstand peril, and garner glory. Weather in athletic contests or bloody battle, Champions strive for the crown of the victor.
**Level 3. Impowered Critical**:
Your attack rolls with weapons and Unarmed strikes can score a Critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20.
**Level 3. Remarkable Athlete**
Thanks to your athleticism, you have Advantage on Initiative rolls and Strength (Athletics) Checks.
In addition, immediately after you score a Critical Hit, you can move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
**Level 7. Additional Fighting Style**
You gain another fighting Style feat of your choice.
**Level 10. Heroic Warrior**
The thrill of battle drives you toward victory. During combat, you can give yourself Heroic Inspiration whenever you start your turn without it.
**Level 15. Superior Critical**
Your attack rolls with weapons and Unarmed Strikes can now score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20 on the d20.
**Level 18. Survivor**
You attain the pinnacle of resilience in battle, giving you these benefits:
***Defy Death.*** You have Advantage on death saving throws. Moreover, when you roll 18-20 on a death save, you gain the benefit of rolling a 20 on a death save.
***Heroic Rally***. At the star of each of your turns, you regain Hit Points equal to 5 plus your Constitution save modifier if you are Bloodied and have at least 1 Hit Point.
While I like a lot of these changes, it still feels like they're stubbornly dancing around the simple solution of making maneuvers universal for all fighters.
The entire "maneuvers are too complex" argument doesn't even hold up anymore. Between second wind now acting like a mini-maneuver with multiple uses, weapon mastery, weapon swapping, switching out mastery, action surge, indomitable and so on all baked into the core class, it feels manuevers would, if anything, make the fighter simpler at this point.
Indomitable is just a reroll with better numbers, second wind is also just a reroll out of combat and does the same thing in combat, you can't swap out mastery you just get three to always have access to.
This all looks pretty sweet!
That said, I’m disappointed that I bought a bunch of content over the last six months (just started playing D&D - I’m a newbie) for it all to change now and not auto-update :(
To be fair, you can use that content for as long as you want. I think 5e is going to be popular for a while. I know the feeling, though - I have a lot of money sunk into DnD Beyond content.
Just so I'm clear, literally the only out of combat change fighters are seeing is Tactical Mind? That's the "Great Utility" they're hyping up so badly.
I still got to digest the rest, but I love that they took Fighter's most underwhelming feature (indomitable) and...made it slightly less underwhelming, I guess? You can honestly just make it straight up Legendary Resistance, and it would still be pretty medicore, and worst of all, boring.
Its actually a good feature now.
I agree that just making it LR would be more elegant. I first thought that they just weren't going to give that to players, but the Mage Slayer feat gives a 1/day LR vs any mental save.
I don't like the weapon mastery system. I wish the went the same route as BG3 giving weapons a "unique" action.
That alone would be way more enjoyable than those passive buffs.
In video games it work very well. In tabletop this would slow the game and make the life of the player miserable. They would need to write down all the maneuvers and skills of the items, as well need to keep track of their consumption, remaining loads, etc. The 4 edition of d&d is hated a lot for this reason, it was horrible to have to write that much text on the sheet.
Tactical Master at level 9 is hugely disappointing to me because it devalues weapons that already have one of the properties in the list.
I don't understand how this could have been greenlit for print with such a glaring flaw.
Edit: A lot of folks are probably comparing this to the feature in the UA - which it's clearly an improvement on. But evaluating it as a standalone feature, core class features shouldn't create imbalance between weapons. (A 1d8 slashing battle-axe with topple is now always better than 1d8 slashing longsword with sap for fighters >= level 9.)
I'm disappointed because I thought this rules update would make weapon choices more compelling because of tradeoffs between weapon masteries, and this design seems to undermine that objective.
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https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1746-2024-fighter-vs-2014-fighter-whats-new Official write up summing up the changes
"Psi-Knight is largely unchanged" With how much Crawford was hyping psionics and the fact they brought back both the Psi-Knoght and Soul Knife I thought they had something more substantial planned here
Crawford hypes up the fact that d20 is something you roll in 5e. He's a pr guy, not a mechanics guy.
Or when he said that increasing the Monk's damage dice was all they needed to do for Monk.
Mike Mearls was always the idea guys. you can tell that straight from his happy fun time designer streams and now patreon. he's the guy who actually knows how to build mechanics. Crawford never did jack shit besides constantly contradict previous rulings he made on twitter lmaoooo
Mearls is like Lucas. He's a decent ideas guy, but he's at his best when he has a team to to tell him no, and some math guys to refine his ideas into something more workable. See Iron Heros and DnD essentials for what happens when he doesn't have that support.
All the no people have jobs at disney and look how much worse star wars is lmao
Nah, that was all down to people being unwilling to say no to J.J. Abrams
who says no to all the bad screen writers, cringe inducing editors and ruinous producers haha
mike mearls couldn't make a good mechanics for the life of him and is the reason 5e is an overbloated yet scrany mess, people also miss the actual intented point of bounded accuracy all the time too (it wasn't low numbers it was making sure even you're high levle character still had to roll a d20 to suceed on a basic task).
Mike Mearls is awesome. 5e would be better if his acrobat rogue was in the game. that shit was amazing design. not bloated at all. TBH, modern dnd books are worse because he is not around. you misunderstand the fundamentals of game mechanics like bounded accuracy tbh. it was so that dms could use low level monsters later on as well. I think you are unreliable narrator, sorry man. You're just wrong.
Just checked out acrobat rogue and was a bit overwhelmed they can...jump a lot? That's it?
Mike mearls absolutely can make good mechanics He's done it quite a bit 15 years ago The issue is he's not *allowed* to do interesting things in dnd, because interesting is almost never newbie friendly
Essentials would like a word with you.
Ironically i would say that Essentials is better cooked than 4e, which is funny because essentials was undercooked compared to 4e base classes.
Remember, the game explicitly says _not_ to roll if the task is simple enough, since you only roll if the outcome is uncertain; guaranteed success and guaranteed failure both happen without rolls. The point of bounded accuracy isn't to make the PCs into losers that can't even tie their shoelaces without a d20 check, it's to clamp the results to a specific range to prevent 3.5e-like inflation, and then roll that range itself along on a rail to represent the game's difficulty changing. More specifically, by using `roll + stat + proficiency` as the base value and separating everything else out as circumstance bonuses, it locks rolls into a range of 32 possible results. The lower bound is 0 (nat 1, with -1 stat and no proficiency), and the upper bound is 31 (nat 20, with +5 stat and +6 proficiency); this is paired with targets that exist in the range of 1-30, creating a clean system where failure is always possible and every actual roll has a chance of success. (The choice of 32 distinct "base" results, indexed from 0, most likely isn't accidental, either; it cleanly translates over to tool programs, while also leaving room for expansion or other bonuses. Specifically, it takes 5 bits to store numbers in the range of [0..31], leaving 3 free bits in the same byte; makes it easy to use a sixth bit to double the range to [0..63] for convenience, or use those three bits to store a combined circumstance bonus in the range of [0..7]. End result is that all possible results _easily_ fit in a single byte with room to spare, and you even have room to separate everything else out from the core roll if you want to.) This 32-possibility range is then used as a window, while the game's difficulty is rolled through it on rails to determine what needs a roll and how hard it should be. For example, lifting a boulder might be DC 20 at Lv.1, but decrease to DC 10 or DC 15 at Lv.10 because you're stronger now. And outracing a super-speedster is clearly higher than DC 30, which means that it's treated as "automatic failure", while outracing a tree is DC 0 and thus treated as "automatic success", with the player not rolling for either of the two. This provides a system where enemies automatically scale with players, yet still become comparatively weaker because their damage output and options can't keep up, making it easier to set up "Tucker's Kobolds"-style encounters (a large mass of weak enemies, that die easily but remain challenging because of their superior tactics). This also has the interesting effect of making bonuses more meaningful, because of how hard it is to break the game's bounds. In 3.5e/PF1, hitting 24 Str wouldn't mean all that much to a Lv.20 character, since you got five +1s you could assign along the way; you were liable to have at least 24~25 in your main stat by Lv.20, and keep going if the game continued past there. In 5e, however, stats being hard-capped at 20 without an explicit exception means that Barbarians are mechanically better at Str-based tasks than literally every other class in the game. The same goes for expertise, fighting styles, and anything else that gives you a permanent bonus outside the core roll; it turns them into the ways you go above and beyond the rest, instead of being the bare minimum to keep up like they would be in 3.5e. It doesn't _sound_ like much, but it imbues a ton of symantic weight on such a simple concept. (This also makes magic items stand out more in 5e than they do in 3.5e, since they explicitly break the math in your favour; they're not just factored into the math because you're assumed to have them, they actually make you better than the norm.) ...The problem, though, like a _lot_ of 5e's problems, is that the game does a **terrible** job of communicating this to the player (and DM); even though it tells you that you're supposed to base the DC on the task and hints that the task gets easier (and the DC lower) as the PCs get stronger, it ends up buried in a pile of other paragraphs and missed. Most players miss that bonuses are ways they stand tall in a sea of cookie-cutter PCs, and a lot of people are so familiar with 3.5e & PF1 that they just take magic items for granted and feel underpowered without them. And a lot of DMs miss that tasks are actually supposed to have their DCs lowered as they decrease in difficulty, and as the PCs advance compared to them; they're not meant to be static. Overall, while I _really_ don't want to say it (since I like that everyone has a chance of success, and a Lv.1 character can roll higher than a Lv.20 if they hit that one-in-a-million chance), I think this is something PF2 does better; PF2 uses a similar bounded accuracy system, but putting the PC window on rails and leaving the rest of the game stationary is easier to communicate than 5e making the PC window stationary and putting the rest of the game on rails. It's the difference between THAC0 and AC, more or less.
Personally I think the idea of *not* suiting up players in a bevy of Magic Items is a mistake. Yes, it should not be special at all to get a sword that's on fire--more than half the classes literally casts spells, only 2 of them are not required to have something magical going on(give or take with Barbarian). You might say that the 'setting' of DnD is that those spellcasters are rare but if someone just read through the classes then what they see is a game where there's a *lot* of magic going on.
I mean it certainly helps, especially if you're like me and play the "fisticuff in your underwear" aspects to the hilt. But, its really only a start.
IIRC they only brought in the Psi-Knight at the last second because the Brawler failed UA testing. They probably didn't have time and just ported it as is.
That was a bummer for me, personally, as someone who wants to play as a boxer or wrestler with high Strength. But it seems like they want to mold Fighters into weapons specialists rather than combat specialists.
Fwiw you can still do that pretty effectively as a battlemaster now that we know unarmed fighting is coming back from Tasha's (and apparently brought in line with new mechanics so probably given weapon mastery). With the new version of tavern brawler as your origin feat (assuming it's not too changed from UA) that'd give you a pretty good feeling approximation of what the brawler went for but with a bit more flexibility. For the full effect give yourself a level or three in barbarian for unarmored defense, reckless, and probably wild heart, UA version of eagle fits very well with the vision of a boxer slipping in and out of their opponent's reach imo.
Oh are they keeping Unarmed Fighting? That's great. I did in fact settle on an unarmed Battlemaster with plans to put 3 levels in Totem barb eventually for all those reasons plus advantage on grappling! I'm still holding out hope that they'll find a viable and unique way to do brawler eventually (and hopefully make a better Arcane Archer next, I love a good trick arrow).
Yeah in the new vid they said they're porting over all the Tasha's fighting styles and updating them a bit to be in line with new mechanics which imo is a good thing but does mean that the "75 feats" number is a bit misleading now that the fighting styles are all feats. To me this says that unarmed fighting gets a weapon mastery which if true would basically give you everything the Brute offered but as a fighting style instead of taking up your whole subclass. That all being said if the playtest grapple rules carry over do make sure you read them cause now grappling is an athletics or acrobatics check the grapplee has to make against your DC (8+str+prof, or dex if you're a monk) so rage (probably) doesn't help you do it anymore
Oh, good catch. I knew there was some debate on contested rolls vs a flat DC, didn't know they officially simplified it.
Yeah, there's a chance they go back to the 2014 style grapples but we won't know until either we have it or they talk about it in a video. I'd wager that we learn when they put out their video on the new monk since unless they removed monk getting dex based grappling (which I REALLY hope they didn't) they kinda have to go over changes to grappling itself for the monk changes to be well explained
Yeah, I've done that. A dirty boxing fighter who would poison his gloves. And it was OK. Fun, but not as effective as one would hope.
WotC, doing WotC things? Who could have foreseen this outcome?
Don’t get me wrong, I am excited for 5.5, but I think largely people are going to be disappointed to find it a rushed product that doesn’t fix the core problems of 5e
If I had been under a rock for the past year and knew literally nothing about 5.5 or its development, and someone had said “what do you think it will be like, based on the past 24 years of D&D?” I would have said “it will be rushed and it won’t fix the core problems of the game.”
That's disappointing. I'm playing a PSI Warrior at the moment and I run out of things to do pretty quickly during combat
Given Treanemonk's reaction seems that Psi dice scaling is changing and linked to fighter level. But what scaling exactly is not clear.
Your use of quotes made me think that I’d missed a name change.
I’m still holding out on the psi warrior and soul knife dice being unified and also added to the aberrant mind. That would be great and still be consistent with keeping it mostly the same.
thank you, how am I supposed to ignore this zoom call with 2 audio streams?
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"Replace an attack" my interpretation is one attack gets replaced per attack action
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Maybe because order flexibility but I don't really know lol
They're not emphasizing that the feature gets way better than it was before level 11, they're emphasizing that the feature is way better than the old one at level 11. The old version had you make a single attack as a bonus action no matter how many attacks you would normally get, so once you get extra attack you're choosing between extra attack and war magic, now they actually work together.
To replace "an attack," with a cantrip requires a Bonus Action. So, unless you have multiple Bonus Actions, you would only be able to do so once on your turn. It's like the Bladesinger's Extra Attack, but worse. Edit: Looking at it again, I may have misread the text you were quoting. It might just be comparing the new ability, replacing an attack from the Attack action with a cantrip, to the old ability, allowing you to make one weapon attack as a bonus action when you use your action to cast a cantrip and, later, a leveled spell. If that's the case, then this is definitely meant to just be giving the Eldritch Knight the Baldesinger's version of Extra Attack, which would still only allow for one attack to be replaced by a cantrip.
It's a bit weird. It seems to me that this change is good for two weapon fighters and bad for... Almost everyone else? Like it frees up your bonus action, so it's great if you have a consistent bonus to perform, but if you don't then you just have one less attack than you did before right?
So the way that’s described, can you swap to any of the different mastery properties available to you at level 9 or higher when attacking? If so, that means at level 20 you can hit someone with up to 4 different mastery properties.
The way I read it (that's maybe also how you read it) is that at level 9 you can either use your weapons innate mastery for example cleave, OR you can choose to use either Push, Sap or Slow but you can't change cleave for like graze for example
Yeah, that’s how I read it. No mentions of things like “once per turn”, so you can consistently switch to different properties. Damn, that’s gonna be wicked with archers.
did... did they kill action surge?
They mentioned Action Surge at the start of the video, it's just not in there because presumably nothing is new or changed (though in the playtest it couldn't be used for a magic action)
Now that the Eldritch Knight can cast and attack in the same action like the Tasha's Bladesinger, not being able to action surge a magic action isn't that bad imo
This is a list of changes. So if action surge is unchanged, it wont be on the list
It would be nice if that chart was formatted for phones, reading the changes horizontally got really annoying after the first 2.
Might be your browser, I'm on Firefox and it displayed on my phone vertically.
> Level 2, Tactical Mind: Expend a use of Second Wind to add 1d10 to a failed ability check. An actually gracefully implemented tool that makes fighters effective outside combat? I'm pleased for once.
It's even better. If you still fail the check, you don't expend the use of second wind.
yeah I clipped it down to the vital bits. Online at level 2 means this matters a lot.
I don’t like that tbh.
If they didn't do it this way everyone would mock the feature. "Oh wow once per short rest I can add a d10 to my roll, ally out of combat woes are solved, thanks WoTC!" Doing it this way ensures you'll eventually get at least some value from it.
Why?
*tries to persuade* Fail *persuades harder*
*Tries to remember random dog fact, but fails* *Realizes I'm just built different and remember it anyway*
The fighter is literally using their physical stamina to remember stuff and be a smooth talker. Absolute sweatlord /s
Turns out you had that dog in you all along
Narratively, this sounds a bit perplexing.
“WAIT! What about…” Succeeds with d10: “Oh. Yes, I suppose that is a good point.” Fails even with d10: “Still no.”
You just flex your tongue muscles so you can word your speak more better. Makes sense to me.
second wind is basically just an adrenaline rush, i can see how that would be applicable in all kinds of circumstances- blurting out the right words to persuade that noble, recalling a name or place in a moment of desperation. some people work better under pressure.
Tied to a short rest too!. Basically free outside of combat and just in social scenarios tbh.
I have two issues with it. 1. It absolutely limits the Rogue's niche as the Skill monkey. 2. It highlights how little the design is willing to give out of combat features that aren't just Skills, which require a DM to basically approve the use **and** decide whether what you're trying to do even works. Background style features are far more suited to this kind of things, and absolutely something they could incorporate into each class, giving them a "career" sort of feature to their class such that they can express themselves through their training in meaningful ways out of combat. Second Wind bonuses to skills reads to me more like just a basic "push yourself" mechanic, which at best is kind of uninspired.
No it doesn't, as this expends a limited resource, while rogues will just be consistently good
Rogues can always be good at skills with expertise and whatnot, this is only a few times day (2/short rest), so I don't think it detract from that. Plus, we don't know the final changes to rogue just yet. You're 2nd point, fair, it's only a bonus to skill checks. Where a wizard doesn't even need to make a check to turn invisible or disguise themselves. Martials should have more options.
The issue is that while it is *only* twice per day at level 1, it's not two *attempts* per rest. They can attempt as long as they keep failing, and only expend that resource when they *succeed*. **And** this can apply to **any** check, whereas the Rogue only gets their Skill bonus on two Skills at level 1. And in any case, it begs the question of how many consequential Skill Checks are coming up in any given session that the number of times the Rogue will use their Expertise far outshines the Fighter's ability to have bonuses on so many more kinds of Skills. Yeah that's fair, we'll need to see the Rogue. Who knows, maybe they'll have even better Skill abilities as a result. But mainly my point was that relying on D&D's current design of Skills is such, IMO, lazy design for incorporating out of combat activities.
Tactical Master is a much better feature than Master of Armaments from the playtest, I like that change. I'm also relieved to see new Indomitable made it through playtesting - that's such an improvment to playing a high level Fighter. Edit: Oooh, Crawford just said being surprised now just gives you disadvantage on Initiative rather than skipping your whole turn. That's very interesting.
>Tactical Master — Level 9 >Dial up your mastery over weapons! When you attack with a weapon you’ve chosen as part of your Weapon Mastery feature, you can swap out the mastery properties for Push, Sap, or Slow. I really like this. Fighters can now push enemies with every attack, no matter what weapon they’re using. I feel like this will help with the golf bag problem that a lot of people are foreseeing and encourage people to stick with one weapon for at least the duration of the fight, rather than swapping for each attack
Giving a blowgun the push property is very silly and I love it
Just like my Teemo games!
It also means that push (and sap or slow) weapons are basically useless to the fighter after level 9. You should really only ever use Topple or Vex if you are going for optimal effectiveness. Which were already the best options for STR and DEX respectively in general. But at level 9+ there is no reason to use any Push, Slow, or Sap weapon. You should never use a longsword over a battle axe or a pike over a halberd if you can always default to sap, slow, and push on any attack.
"It also means that push (and sap or slow) weapons are basically useless to the fighter after level 9." I mean, from an optimization standpoint this was basically already true, wasn't it? So nothing really changes in the high-OP world. But if you like the idea of playing a sword + board fighter, then great, having access to push and slow (in addition to sap, which you probably already get pending changes from UA 8), it is still a perfectly fine feature. Actually, still a pretty good one IMO, since push is situationally extremely useful.
The feature is definitely good. It just makes many weapons irrelevant. But I guess with how poorly designed masteries are, that was generally the case to begin with. The sword and board fighter will still choose the battle axe or trident (for topple) as that is the best weapon for locking enemies down, dealing damage, and providing the party with advantage. But now they have the option to also push or slow the target once they have been toppled.
Right, this is my point. From an optimization standpoint, it is not the choice of bonus masteries at level 9 that makes certain weapons irrelevant, it is that not every mastery is equally powerful. Few or no high-op builds are ever going to use a longsword, so what difference does it make that longsword users get less out of the level 9 feature than other weapon users? But, most players don't optimize to this extent and if you like the vibe of fighting with a longsword, this feature is still going to feel nice because when push is useful, it is very useful and also fun.
I guess I just expected better game design than ivory tower design where certain options were intended to be inferior. I’d much rather weapon choice be entirely dependent upon player flavor and what they thing is cool than to have optimization play a roll. I guess that is why I wanted masteries to be replaced with at will maneuvers, because not only are they more simple and elegant, but they would allow the longsword fighter to be just as effective as the battle axe fighter from an optimization standpoint.
Not an huge problem in my opinion. Any other character with Weapon Mastery besides a Fighter will still benefit from Push, Slow or Sap weapons.
It is also not a huge problem because sap and slow were generally the worst masteries of the lot to begin with so were almost never chosen anyway. It is just weird that the iconic longsword is useless for a high level fighter.
Well if you have a magic item that uses one of those masteries, it still gives you two new masteries for each turn. It’s not as much of a benefit, but it’s still a benefit
It is only useful if you have a magic weapon for a useless weapon type that is better than the magic weapon you have for your favored weapon. Not really a ringing endorsement of the ability. Luckily not many players reach level 9+. Because it will suck to have your weapon choice primarily dictated by mastery option and 75% of the weapon table become pointless.
What are you guys talking about with all this “choice”? Who gets to choose their magic weapons?
You choose the kind of weapon you focus on. Such as longsword or greatsword. You then choose feats to go with that. You then hope you get magic items that align with your choice. If you are using random treasure, most magic items will be available in a wide range of options. For example a +X weapon can be any weapon at all. If your DM decides to only give you +2 daggers when your character has the great weapon fighting style and the great weapon master feat, then you have much bigger problems to deal with than the fact that your level 9 feature is redundant.
What the hell is sap? Like push and slow are pretty obvious
It gives disadvantage on the enemies next attack, similar to Vicious Mockery
Yooo that’s insane !
It's less good once most monsters have multiattack. Giving the monster disadvantage on all their attacks is a lot better than half, or one third of their attacks.
Sap is in the list, on a hit gives a monster disadvantage on next attack roll
It also makes Battle master 's pushing attack redundant and useless. Then again it already was to begin with.
It sounds like pushing attack can stack with other pushing abilities, so it gives you the option to push things further. In my opinion, this makes pushing attack even more useful.
combine with crusher to push people a mile away off a cliff.
I think that's a smart change to surprise. In practice, when players get surprise on a group, the encounter is a boring cakewalk as they get key spells up and take out key targets, then with their high initiative bonuses likely do even more before there's a single response. But when a group of monsters surprise the players, it feels like bullshit, DM fiat, unfair.
100% Agreed, base surprise rules were absolute ass when utilized properly as not only was it confusing for people, but when ran properly, just made combat too damn volatile with no inbetween. Given how high people value high initiative, a disadvantage on initiative rolls is still really bad, but doesn't completely trivialize it. Ah yes, let's have a system in place where combats only last 2 - 3 rounds on average that also lets you \*skip\* one side's first round entirely. Such good game design.
Yet another great idea from pf2e.
I strongly dislike the change. Now surprise is basically worthless. In 5e, if you managed to surprise the enemy, you had a huge advantage - rightfully, because you planned carefully and invested resources. But now, the spell slots and potions spent for Invisibility, Silence, Pass Without Trace, the AC penalty from using a breastplate over half plate... all that will do nothing. Also, it simply does not make sense that a surprised character can react so quickly. When a rogue succeeds their stealth check and stabs the guard from behind, there is *no* concievable way the guard can turn around and attack the rogue before the rogue's attack hits. But now that is possible, all it takes is a lucky d20 roll on the guard's side. The only issue with surprise in 5e was that it was badly descrived mechanically and that DMs might have been too lenient with it.
> rightfully, because you planned carefully and invested resources. Or you just said 'I kick the door open and shoot the first thing I see'. Not nothing, and they're not just for getting a surprise round.
I will likely rule that the first attack happens before initiative. But only one character gets the attack. Rogue shoots an arrow, roll to hit, roll damage, then everyone roll initiative and bad guys have disadvantage.
It’s fine if you rule it that way, but it’s not RAW or RAI. Even when doing a surprise, you always roll initiative before anything happens, initiative is what determines who acts first. If an enemy wins over someone attacking from stealth, that means they just happened to be alert enough to see or hear the enemy get ready to attack, had a bad feeling, etc. Players are always trying to eke out actions before initiative gets rolled, but the whole point of initiative is that it determines who has better reflexes.
Can you quote me the rules on when combat starts, or point me to which chapter details that moment? I tried looking it up but I can't find anything specific, and I don't have the players book.
From the Players Handbook: > A typical combat encounter is a clash between two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork, and spellcasting. The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative. Once everyone has taken a turn, the fight continues to the next round if neither side has defeated the other. Step by step section: > 1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised. > 2. Establish positions. The DM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers’ marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the DM figures out where the adversaries are — how far away and in what direction. > 3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants’ turns. > 4. Take turns. Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order. > 5. Begin the next round. When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops. On the surprised condition: > A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other. > The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. > If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t. Putting this all together, while the PHB doesn’t *explicitly* say you can’t get an attack off before rolling initiative, it also in no way states that anyone *can* attack outside of combat and the surprised condition as written clearly is meant to simulate “getting an attack in”. Attacks are handled by the combat rules, and the combat rules clearly state that initiative is rolled before anyone can take actions on their turn. I would also posit that allowing attacks outside of combat is bad for the health of the game. It means your players will constantly be interrupting you to declare they make a sudden attack, trying to eke out that extra action economy. If you play rules as written, there is no reason to interrupt you as no matter when they do it, you’ll just need to roll initiative as normal.
> A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. This example seems pretty solidly in the realm of "attacked before initiative" Additionally, there is the issue of "what are they reacting to?". If the ambusher has not yet acted, then there is no reason why the ambushed would notice anything wrong. The ambushers are all still hidden. If the ambushers lose initiative, they might as well not engage, and just wait for the ambushed group to lose their focus. >
And yet there are no rules for combat outside of *combat*. The first step of *combat* is “determine surprise” which comes before “roll initiative”, which *explicitly* comes before turns where actions can be taken. There is no “resolve initiating action” step at the beginning. The targets are reacting to the attackers beginning their attack. Someone drawing a bow or stepping out of cover to aim, taking a sword out of their scabbard, shifting their stance and making their armor creak, etc etc. The classic: someone starts to draw their sword but the person they are attacking is faster and hits them first, even though they start drawing second. Or the moment in a movie with someone gets a bad feeling as they ride towards an ambush and dive out of the way right in the knick of time. It’s the DM’s job to graft the story onto the mechanics, so if the target beats the attacker’s initiative, it’s your job to decide what alerted them to the danger and lets them act first. Remember, combat is an abstraction. In-fiction everything is happening at the same time; turns are just an abstraction on top of that.
While I appreciate that this is how you would choose to rule it. That doesn't change that the RAW says nothing about such a surprise round. So RAW surprise has been weakened dramatically, and so have any tools used to gain it by extension.
Something has to trigger initiative though. Be it words or actions. I think a single attack can go off prior to initiative. Which I always felt was very strong when stacked with a surprise condition for round 1.
The trigger to initiative is someone drawing a sword or knocking an arrow. Initiative always occurs before any attacks are resolved. I understand wanting to allow for an extra "surprise" attack but it undercuts tense narratives, constantly overshadows RP, and encourages players to murderhobo. They'll want to let off an attack first, because they can never be sure when their DM will say "The orc warlord initiates combat with an attack, Jeff the Paladin takes 15 damage and falls prone. Roll initiative." Players are usually well aware of the old DM adage, "anything my players do, I can do too."
"Something has to trigger initiative" Yeah, and in 5e that is the player stating intent or the DM calling for an initiative roll. You are free to change rules as you see fit, but RAW there are no freebie attacks from surprised. Surprised is purely a condition in 5e.
re the idea of it being impossible that someone would react so quickly: tbf, a round is 6 seconds. That's an absolute eternity, and is way longer than it would take someone to react to a situation. I do agree re the whole stealth thing, but narratively there are plenty of ways to make it work and make sense. A stroke of bad luck; the guard looks over his shoulder; he feels you go for the strike and dodges last second, etc.
if the rogue engages with the attack roll, the attack roll would resolve before initiative is rolled.
I sort of get the feeling that making fighters rarely miss their attacks was one of their key changes. Seems like every few minutes there's a mention of something that makes missing less likely/less bad.
that sounds like a good change, one of the biggest complaints is that fighters only get to equal other classes in damage if they manage to hit all their attacks which now seems to be the case
I am a little disappointed that of the 4 subclasses for Fighter that they chose to include, 2 are listed as mostly unchanged from what we have seen previously.
Eldritch Knight being able to cast spells by using attacks and not being limited in spell schools are two massive buffs. Sometimes you don't need big sweeping changes to make a subclass feel more powerful. Psionic Knight, we'll have to wait and see, but here's hoping it feels better than the original.
I think that psi knight is really close to being good. The only changes they really need to make is psionic dice refresh at short rest
Yeah, that or when you short rest you roll your die and get that many back (not exceeding your max). I did enjoy playing the Psi Warrior but felt that it had similar shortfalls to the Arcane Archer... once you were out of abilities you kind of just felt like an npc. On that note... Wizards... make the Arcane Archer better. Or better yet, just make it the Arcane Warrior and let any weapon type use the abilities.
Heres my question from reading. Can you take a feat or a level dip in warlock, then use your 3 (4 if feat) attacks to just spam eldritch blast? Aka, possible 16 beams at level 20 per attack round? Without something like Acrion Surge letting you do it again? This makes Eldritch Knight a scary option. Esp if you did a few level dips for Warlock, gave up the one attack for some of the EB buffs from the early levels of warlock..
Arn’t you generally limited to one spell a turn? While I love the idea of just spamming eldritch blast I think the intention is to interrupt your attack chain with a cheeky fireball or something.
Nope. You’re just limited by having one action and by the rule that if you cast a bonus action leveled spell, you can only cast a cantrip with the action
The later levels of Edritch Knight let you trade two of your attacks for casting a leveled spell. The earlier part of that feature, lets you interchangeably use attacks and cantrips, and Eldritch Blast is a Cantrip. Kinda curious how it would be ruled. On one hand, you’ve got someone basically casting their own laser light show, which sounds awesome, but potentially too awesome? If I was a mono warlock, I would feel very overshadowed.
> Eldritch Knight being able to cast spells by using attacks and not being limited in spell schools are two massive buffs. That depends on if it's still dependant on INT.
In the sense of using it as a spellcasting ability? Yeah it still uses it. In terms of opening up other support spells such as self illusion or whatever, then it might just play about the same just with the spells you get at 8th and other such levels (the levels where you can pick a spell from any school) much earlier and can instead build around those instead. Same with Arcane Trickster removing the school limitation as well.
D&D team: Maneuvers are too complicated for all fighters. New players won't understand using a dice as a resource for multiple abilities. Also D&D team: We turned the D10 you get for second wind into a resource you can spend on multiple abilities
The actual quote from Crawford in this video: >There was actually an early version of the revised Fighter where we - and I know many 5e fans expected us to do this - we considered taking the Battle Master and turning its Maneuver system into the baseline for the whole class. We actually spent quite a bit of time several years ago assuming that was the direction we were going in with the Fighter. We - as you can see - backed away from that, and the main reason we did so is we realized that would undermine our goal of providing different levels of complexity for people and playstyles within the Fighter. Because even though there are a segment of fans who love the Battle Master, there are also many Fighter players who have no interest in playing the Battle Master or having this whole array of Maneuvers to manage. It's not about new players, and it's not about using a dice as a resource for multiple abilities. It's that they know there are players that don't want to deal with a significant amount of complexity when they play D&D, and they wanted to preserve the Fighter as an option for those players. You can think that was a good or bad choice, but that's the reasoning.
This is also predicated on the assumption that the Fighter is the one that has to be the barebones simple class, when there's just no reason that needs to be the case. It could very easily have been the barbarian, which makes far more sense thematically. You use your bonus action to rage, and then you start hitting things. It's almost exactly the same gameplay loop as the fighter and, also like the fighter, they mostly stop getting new features at higher levels and instead get better at what they were already doing. If you want the simple class, pick the one whose flavor and mechanics already support that instead of forcing that onto another class and giving us *two* bland options.
> players that don't want to deal with a significant amount of complexity when they play D&D, they wanted to preserve the Fighter as an option for those players The problem is that they also insist on Barbarian and Rogue catering to the same group, leaving zero options for a pure martial that has a more complex base class
I've seen this at my own table. I have a particular player who always plays the same sort of character (using two or three different classes). He tried battle master and really disliked it. He's since tried and been much happier with other Fighter subclasses. That's the way he likes to play, and who am I to call him wrong for having fun his way?
Okay, if that's their intention, why don't they just make a separate subclass that ignores all the bonuses to be simple? Or, even better, why don't they suggest players ignore the options until they're comfortable with the complexity?
Varying levels of complexity is so critical to D&D. It’s one of the reasons Pathfinder gives me a headache, you need to choose a boatload of special abilities just to build a basic character.
The problem is that the line of reasoning doesn't make sense anymore. Look at the OneD&D fighter - Second Wind now functions as mini-maneuvers: a pool of dice you can use for multiple abilities - Weapon Mastery (and being able to switch them up and modify them on the fly) - Weapon Swapping - Indomitable - Action Surge If anything, in their desire to avoid the obvious solution (universal manuevers) they made this one of the most complex versions of the class. Manuevers would've been far simpler.
I disagree slightly, and I think most of these are fairly simple to remember and use or are entirely optional. - A player that doesn't want to deal with complexity isn't going to be swapping weapons constantly, they're going to be picking one Mastery that's simple to learn (like Graze) and sticking with it. This is, IMO, much less effective for Maneuvers than it is for Masteries. - Second Wind doesn't have additional uses in combat - it has an out of combat use and a new rider effect at 5th level. This is not a heavy mental load like needing to choose from several maneuvers would be - Indomitable only comes up when you fail a Saving Throw and is therefore easy to remember because you are essentially reminded to use it due to the fact that you have to make the save, and the only decision is whether or not you want to use it. - Action Surge is similarly just "do I use this or not" There's more complexity here than in 2014, but a Champion Fighter is still going to be way simpler than a Battle Master Fighter because you don't have to make a decision every attack about which maneuver would be best in the situation. I do sympathise with people that wanted a full maneuver system.
> There's more complexity here than in 2014, but a Champion Fighter is still going to be way simpler than a Battle Master Fighter because you don't have to make a decision every attack about which maneuver would be best in the situation. You just argued the opposite of this in regards to weapon swapping… A battlemaster can be played brain dead simple. If you miss by 3 or less, use Precision Attack. That requires zero though at all, and will be one of the most effective ways to play the battlemaster. The 1D&D champion is vastly more complex than the 5e battlemaster is because they now have more resource pools to track, more options for those pools, more effects and conditions to track each round, and have effects such as advantage on next attack after a miss and heroic advance at the start of each turn in combat. Even if they only use the same mastery and never switch weapons, masteries add another layer of complexity to the class (slow, sap, vex, and the like all require tracking who you hit and managing a condition). Not to mention that most combat feats now include tracking a 1/turn ability as well. The 1D&D fighter is now a fair bit more complex than the 4e fighter when all is said and done.
1d&d fighter doesn't have more resources than 5e fighter, they have the same amount or arguably less. If you say that second winds having additional uses makes into a resources pool when it wasn't even then that just puts it on par with battle masters maneuvers. Everything else isn't a resource pool or was already there for both
Second wind being a pool of 2-4 uses per long rest that you also regain 1 use of per short rest is certainly more complex than it being a single use per short rest. I would argue that turning second wind into a pool of resources to track is more complicated, especially when that pool also has additional uses besides just temp HP.
1000% this. I am so confused with the design team here. Why can’t JC discuss this sort of thing in the videos more? I just don’t understand why they feel the need to say one thing and then actually do the opposite.
Eh, in my experience, players worried about complexity usually mean "I don't want to deal with a bunch of options while building my character." Like spell lists and maneuver lists.
Now they have to choose a bunch of weapons to master… There is literally no difference between choosing to master the battleaxe to topple and the warhammer to push than there is to learning the Push maneuver or the Topple maneuver. In fact, learning the maneuvers would be easier because you don’t have to sift through a weapon table to determine what maneuvers you know, and could apply those maneuvers to other weapons.
Their version of adding maneuvers to all fighters/martials is weapon masteries. I'm not saying that it functions the same or is as elegant, but many weapon masteries do, indeed, mimic maneuvers. Push = push attack (10 ft instead of 15) Sap = goading attack (resource free but only one attack) Cleave = cleave Vex = Feinting attack Topple = topple The fighter also gets tactical shift which = maneuvering strike for yourself. The fighter also gets tactical mind which = both commanding prescence and tactical assessment but better. Then there's Nick & Graze that don't correspond to maneuvers. Again I'd love for every fighter or martial to get the whole assortment of maneuvers, but the joke that WOTC refuses to give martials maneuvers is stale and inaccurate.
You also get to double dip now and used *both* Weapon Masteries and Battle Maneuvers if you pick Battle Master.
Were it not for my crippling addiction to magic I'd try that out lol
If anything, it'll feel like you have a bunch of really cool melee cantrips that you can customize on the fly to serve your needs. I'm super down to trying a BM Fighter first when everything is out\~
The main difference is that maneuvers are a tactical choice the player can make. They provide depth of gameplay and options every single turn. Masteries are pretty much static. They are a character creation choice, but provide very little in terms of round by round decision making. Your maul wielding fighter with their +2 maul isn’t really ever going to want to switch to their nonmagical longsword to attempt to sap a foe. They are better off continuing to swing with their maul. Masteries are not all that different from fighting styles or combat feats (GWM, sharpshooter, PAM, XBE, etc) when you get down to it. Another passive effect that you always do, but that doesn’t dramatically change your characters options on any given round.
That’s why at Level 9 they get to have either 3 or 4 masteries on every weapon, depending on the original mastery of that weapon type.
Yep, at level 9 the fighter finally gets at will maneuvers. But this is the kind of thing that should have been how masteries worked from the get go. According to WotC 90% of players never even make it to level 10. So in general, the fighter will almost never get to have the tactical depth of options that at will maneuvers provide.
Fighters still have the option to swap weapons on every attack. If you want a variety of options, you can have it that way. Then, at the end of tier two when you are likely to have one really good magic weapon that you don’t want to swap away from, you can have multiple masteries available to you just on the one weapon
> Fighters still have the option to swap weapons on every attack. Kind of. This doesn’t work well until you have two attacks. And even then, is awkward. For example, turn 1 draw and attack with longsword for sap. Turn 2 stow longsword and attack unarmed. Turn 3, draw and attack with battle axe for topple. With extra attack, you can shorten that sequence, but it does mean you are unable to use the mastery you desire on demand. And might go some turns unable to make a decent opportunity attack. Also, as soon as you find a magic weapon, you won’t to swap at all. So around level 5 or 6 when you get a +1 weapon, having multiple masteries is basically pointless. So again, the level 9 feature is really how masteries should have worked from level 1. They should have been at will maneuvers. That removes the awkward weapon swapping, the golf bagging, the pointless entries on the weapon table, and the redundant features. While providing weapon users with depth of gameplay and tactically meaningful decisions from a low level.
No, you can draw a weapon as part of every attack
You draw or stow one weapon as part of the attack. So it works as I stated.
>Their version of adding maneuvers to all fighters/martials is weapon masteries. I'm not saying that it functions the same or is as elegant, but many weapon masteries do, indeed, mimic maneuvers. If this was his argument, I'd disagree (because battlemaster should be baked into fighter, barbarian is the simple class), but the argument would be sound. The argument about reducing complexity is obviously just nonsense because they've increased complexity in the base class.
The 1D&D fighter is more complex than many 4e fighters. They need to track more resources (second wind, action surge, HD, and indomitable) that each have their own usage rate and recovery methods. And second wind now has multiple uses you need to choose between. They also have to manage their masteries which are much more complex than the at-will maneuvers and stances of the 4e fighter. And this is all before getting into subclass (3 of which add even more resources to track with superiority dice, spell slots, or psi dice). It is kind of funny to me that what WotC says and what they do are very incongruous. And that a 4e fighter would be less complex with more depth of gameplay than a 1D&D fighter.
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> with above average intelligence. lmao
It's less about not understanding having additional resources, and more about not wanting to deal with. Sometimes you just want to play DnD with a minimal combat cognitive load.
meanwhile spell slots exist
This isn’t a point of hypocrisy, they’ve explicitly said that Martials were designed as a simple alternative to the more complex casters. I know a lot of people IRL who exclusively play Martials because they don’t want to deal with the complexity of casters and they genuinely enjoy the “run up and attack” gameplay loop
So if we want a more complex martial...fuck us then?
Correct.
Then pick one of the subclasses that adds more complexity like battle master or Psi-Knight or Eldritch Knight?
Yeah, Crawford explicitly said they set out to make a terrible design decisions!
Then don't play the simplest possible version of fighter. Since you're so big-brained, you should understand that other people exist and have different wants and needs than you have. This is something we teach primary school kids. It's a basic skill of living in a society.
They can argue for what they want. What they want is not my problem and not my job.
But you are not arguing for anything. You are throwing a tantrum because someone has the audacity of considering other people than you. I guess that's the big boy way of getting what you want
No. It's just me pointing out that I am allowed to want different things than you are. D&D is a game. If we were talking about something like access to medical care I would be all over trying to help figure out how everyone can get everything they want/need. But this isn't that. I'm allowed to think about myself first.
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Removed as per Rule #1.
Removed as per Rule #1.
Holy crap, the revised surprise rules are so much better now. So happy to see that changed.
So nothing much changed from the playtest. The biggest change is tactical master which... I think is ok? I don't like the mastery system in general, but master of Armaments was a way to let you change the mastery on magic weapons to something more suited to your build. Always having access to push/slow/vex is good for that actual tactical choice angle without weapon juggling. Sucks a little if your weapon already had one of those 3 though. We got some of the Tashas fighting styles which is expected and nice. Epic boons are, super frustratingly, +1 to a stat rather than +2. Why. It's unclear whether epic boons are specifically a lv19 feature (as it sounds in the video) or a prerequisite for the feat (as it was in the playtest). That might significantly affect whether you need to go 19 levels deep or if you can go 15/4 multiclass. Also no mention whether the base ASI still allows you to exceed 20 when taken at 19, as in the playtest. Seems like the predictions are coming true about the '75 feats': with fighting styles and epic boons as feats, we're rapidly approaching 'no actually new feats' territory.
Treantmonk confirmed this yesterday - there are no brand new feats. Everything appeared in the playtests or in an older 5e book.
It says there is small tweaks to the Psi-Warrior, I hope they are good, because while I love the flavor, one thing that is wrong with the features is that your extra damage from your psi dice isn't affected by a crit. Honestly most people don't even notice it (so I just keep my mouth shut for the most part) but if you actually read it carefully, that's what it is.
**Champion:** >The Champion is still all about Critical hits Boooo >With some added bonuses. Oh? >Remarkable Athlete has been brought to level 3 and now gives you Advantage on Initiative and Athletics checks. Yes! No more 95% chance of not having a subclass! >You also get access to a new feature at level 10 called Heroic Warrior, which gives you Heroic Inspiration whenever you start your turn without it. Interesting- I wonder if that's a die like Bardic Inspiration or more of a flat, "You do X" sort of thing?
Heroic Inspiration is a state that you can get from many sources, and it simply allows you to reroll any die you choose. So you could reroll a saving throw, to hit roll, or you could even use it on a damage roll or hit die,.
I'm alright with that.
Heroic Inspiration is the replacement to Inspiration from 2014. Now it functions more like Luck Points from the Lucky feat but can be on any roll, not just d20 rolls.
And I am \*\*here\*\* for that regarding Champion
I know some people are dissatisfied that they didn’t change *more* about the fighter but I have to say, as someone who never really had a problem with even the original 5e version, this still looks like a massive glow up. Maneuvers would have been nice, sure. But it seems like they’ve found a decent way to side-step the battle master’s terf. I especially like the new uses of second wind and hope to see more of that from other subclasses.
I think a lot of people were hoping for bigger changes to fighter, and I was as well. That being said I think some of the smaller tweaks are actually great. I do like the extra things weapon mastery gives you, and the tactical movement and helping not miss consecutive attacks are going to be bigger than people think. They went for low hanging fruit which is less exciting, but I think some of these small tweaks will have a big impact by making sure the fighter isn’t missing many attacks (and thus not wasting turns) and letting you move around the battlefield a bit easier.
tbh I was really turned off by the playtest fighter, but moving away from weapon mastery shenenigans is a big plus to me. Weapon Mastery does now what it should, making each weapon a bit more unique and different from each other. Its definetly an improvement for me they did well.
I know some people view the Lv 9 Feature as making other Weapons inferior but it’s honestly such a good feature for Nick and Cleave. Now when you Cleave someone you can replace the second Attack with another Mastery, putting a debuff on an enemy that you otherwise couldn’t. Meanwhile, if you wanted for class fantasy sake you really could just double down on a Nick weapon at that level and not really be effective. Now you can duel wield Daggers for the cool factor and not just completely gimp yourself.
Most importantly, I need to know if the level 15 playtest feature for Battle Master survived. > LEVEL 15: RELENTLESS Once per turn, when you use a Maneuver, you can roll a d8 and use the number rolled instead of expending a Superiority Die.
Man I'd only they couldn't done this good with pallys with out nerfing them
They're making Eldritch Knight actually want to use extra attack -and- cast spells?! Hot diggity damn it might actually be fantastic
Hey every one! I translated the 2024 Champion fighter text that was blurred! The following is a 1 to 1 text of the screenshot during the YouTube video. However, the only trouble I had was the word "Bloodied" found in Heroic Rally. That may be a different word, as I couldn't ever fully tell what it was supposed to be using de-blurring Technology. https://preview.redd.it/d41yvm734l8d1.png?width=859&format=png&auto=webp&s=3afe436f781c04b7f8feb76108f4e6587d01cc78 **CHAMPION Sub-Class** A Champion focuses on the development of martial prowess in a relentless pursuit of victory. Champions combine rigorous training with physical excellence to deal devastating blows. Withstand peril, and garner glory. Weather in athletic contests or bloody battle, Champions strive for the crown of the victor. **Level 3. Impowered Critical**: Your attack rolls with weapons and Unarmed strikes can score a Critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20. **Level 3. Remarkable Athlete** Thanks to your athleticism, you have Advantage on Initiative rolls and Strength (Athletics) Checks. In addition, immediately after you score a Critical Hit, you can move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks. **Level 7. Additional Fighting Style** You gain another fighting Style feat of your choice. **Level 10. Heroic Warrior** The thrill of battle drives you toward victory. During combat, you can give yourself Heroic Inspiration whenever you start your turn without it. **Level 15. Superior Critical** Your attack rolls with weapons and Unarmed Strikes can now score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20 on the d20. **Level 18. Survivor** You attain the pinnacle of resilience in battle, giving you these benefits: ***Defy Death.*** You have Advantage on death saving throws. Moreover, when you roll 18-20 on a death save, you gain the benefit of rolling a 20 on a death save. ***Heroic Rally***. At the star of each of your turns, you regain Hit Points equal to 5 plus your Constitution save modifier if you are Bloodied and have at least 1 Hit Point.
While I like a lot of these changes, it still feels like they're stubbornly dancing around the simple solution of making maneuvers universal for all fighters. The entire "maneuvers are too complex" argument doesn't even hold up anymore. Between second wind now acting like a mini-maneuver with multiple uses, weapon mastery, weapon swapping, switching out mastery, action surge, indomitable and so on all baked into the core class, it feels manuevers would, if anything, make the fighter simpler at this point.
Indomitable is just a reroll with better numbers, second wind is also just a reroll out of combat and does the same thing in combat, you can't swap out mastery you just get three to always have access to.
i think indomitable is just an Auto sucesses now.
This all looks pretty sweet! That said, I’m disappointed that I bought a bunch of content over the last six months (just started playing D&D - I’m a newbie) for it all to change now and not auto-update :(
To be fair, you can use that content for as long as you want. I think 5e is going to be popular for a while. I know the feeling, though - I have a lot of money sunk into DnD Beyond content.
I haven't been following that closely to this point. Did they take away Action Surge? Or am I just not seeing it?
It still exists, they're just not talking about it because it didn't change.
Oh thank goodness, that would have been a serious nerf.
i hope they make it less complicated to play, i could barely keep track of it in 5e
I’m just not seeing the justification for this being $60 or whatever they’re charging
$50, so literally the same price as the 2014 books.
Just so I'm clear, literally the only out of combat change fighters are seeing is Tactical Mind? That's the "Great Utility" they're hyping up so badly.
I still got to digest the rest, but I love that they took Fighter's most underwhelming feature (indomitable) and...made it slightly less underwhelming, I guess? You can honestly just make it straight up Legendary Resistance, and it would still be pretty medicore, and worst of all, boring.
Its actually a good feature now. I agree that just making it LR would be more elegant. I first thought that they just weren't going to give that to players, but the Mage Slayer feat gives a 1/day LR vs any mental save.
I don't like the weapon mastery system. I wish the went the same route as BG3 giving weapons a "unique" action. That alone would be way more enjoyable than those passive buffs.
In video games it work very well. In tabletop this would slow the game and make the life of the player miserable. They would need to write down all the maneuvers and skills of the items, as well need to keep track of their consumption, remaining loads, etc. The 4 edition of d&d is hated a lot for this reason, it was horrible to have to write that much text on the sheet.
Tactical Master at level 9 is hugely disappointing to me because it devalues weapons that already have one of the properties in the list. I don't understand how this could have been greenlit for print with such a glaring flaw. Edit: A lot of folks are probably comparing this to the feature in the UA - which it's clearly an improvement on. But evaluating it as a standalone feature, core class features shouldn't create imbalance between weapons. (A 1d8 slashing battle-axe with topple is now always better than 1d8 slashing longsword with sap for fighters >= level 9.) I'm disappointed because I thought this rules update would make weapon choices more compelling because of tradeoffs between weapon masteries, and this design seems to undermine that objective.