The classes generally have either 4 or 5 levels in which they unlock subclass features right? So you can create 2 sets of standardized progression for them based on that fact. That way you can more or less retain backwards compatibility while fixing progression for classes like Sorcerer or Rogue that have to spend a long ass time waiting for their next subclass feature(s).
I completely agree. I think Subclass progression should be at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. This would pair nicely with how characters get ASIs every 4 levels. Furthermore, since half-casters get more spells at odd-numbered levels, while full casters get access to higher-level spells at odd-numbered levels and Rogues get Sneak Attack at odd-numbered levels, this means most classes would get something new and interesting at every level. You'd just have to revamp the Barbarian, Fighter, and Monk so they get meaningful class features at odd-numbered levels as well and everyone would have something approximating a 'uniformed progression' without all classes feeling the same.
I think a big point about backwards compatibility is that while people who stick with the old source books might not be interested in the new core books, they may very well be interested in the new expansion books and subclasses that come with them - and you'd be losing those customers if the new subclasses can't be used with the old cores. In general adaptation of new versions is always slow-ish unless the last version was incredibly un-liked, so being able to cater to the majority who hasn't transitioned makes sense monetarily.
I feel like a very simple compromise would be to provide features at 3, 6, 10, and 14 and just add a sidebar that says “if you are using the 2014 bard, gain the 10th and 14th level features at 14th level.
As the famous quote says "Oh, shit, here we go again...". I'm so tired of spending my limited resource on other players for them to constantly forget about it.
I think the backwards compatibility thing is an anchor on their necks that's going to drag them down to turning out a product that very few people will actually be really excited about. For American English speakers, using the 'glamour' spelling is akin to spelling fairy as 'faerie'; making it more British makes it seem older and more magical.
From what I've seen, at least among Americans who would care at all, Glamour has a magical/mystical component with Old World flavor while Glamor is more specifically Hollywood glitz.
I think Counterspell and other reaction spells may have been a concern for the Reaction use inspiration. If the goal is to get people to use resources and not hoard them, having such strong competition for you one reaction per round could severely limited it’s use. At a certain level, I would be much more likely to hold my reaction for counterspell or absorb elements than I would to use it for a bardic inspiration.
I agree 100%. My biggest fear with reaction Inspiration was the conflict with Counterspell or even attacks of opportunity. Counterspell with the Jack of All Trades boost was one of my favorite things about the 5e bard, especially with something like the Lore Bard’s Additional Magical Secrets. Yes, it did make doing things with a Bonus Action more difficult at times, but the things I found that REALLY wanted my BA were other classes subclass features like the Steel Defender, Primal Companion, or Wildshape accessories, none of which really mattered if I was playing a straight Bard. It did stop that iconic idea of a two weapon fighting roguish bard, but TWF in 5e wasn’t worth it anyways and with weapon mastery (hoping the martial subclasses get at least a fighting style in their base class in the final draft) that two weapon fighting dream can be a reality.
Bard's Inspiration as a reaction is neat and does make it simpler, true, but giving it beforehand is so much more flavorful, I like it more that way. And with a duration of an hour, it gives some options like sending someone scour ahead with Inspiration to help with a Perception or Stealth check even if the Bard isn't around.
Personally I think inspiration as a reaction is more flavourful. Like the bard has seen that you're struggling and given some encouragement or played a tune that helps you focus, in the moment.
Also, I’ve played in a lot of adventurers league, and they are pretty stickler for the RAW interpretation of abilities like bardic inspiration. Which somewhat makes sense to optimize for standardization in a world where you are hopping from table to table.
Our table almost always allows these kinds of post roll modifiers like shield or BI after the DM announces the outcome. We play on a VTT with open rolls, so the DM is usually immediately announcing outcomes of rolls, and attack rolls against players are all open for everyone to see anyway. This is mainly to keep the flow of combat and make things move quickly.
I see this as kind of a Nerf because not all checks are pass or fail some are a spectrum of success, meaning inperation dice can not be used. Two examples are intuitive, which is a Dexterity ability check but can't be "failed" in the normal sense. Second Investigation to find hidden clues could be a spectrum of success 17 could means only one clue is found but 20 could mean 2 or more, the check was not a failure so it couldn't be used.
@@brianlurvey8553 While RAW you can't apply it, I feel like its pretty easy for a DM to allow bardic to be used in those cases. In my mind, if its a roll that has pass/fail states (like attack rolls and saving throws) then you get that before deciding if you want to use bardic, but if it doesn't have those states then you could still decide to use bardic if you want to. I think thats easy enough, but would prefer some amount of support for that from WotC in the official rules instead of needing to add it myself.
Whats frustrating is that for the most part, people really liked having standardized subclass progressipn, but the one thing that sucked was starting at level 3. Classes like warlock and sorcerer are now really weird because their origin and patron should be right when you make the character, not manifest later. And yet, now they axe the thing that most people liked while also keeping all subclasses at 3rd level? Its like the worst of both worlds
Agreed. This has basically killed any enthusiasm I have for the update. I was unreasonably excited about standardized progression. Overall, everything else breaks about even, in my mind, in regards to excitement or disappointment, but that change has killed it for me. It's needless, counterproductive, and doesn't even make sense flavor wise. They've dug their heels in on a change that only makes sense in the original, larger context while removing all the other changes. They care about "fun" and want things that "feel good" that make you excited for what's new? This change feels terrible to me, and has soured my opinion on the rest. Like you said, it's the worst of both worlds.
Dance isn't the only new subclass, Druid also got the Circle of the Sea. That said, I really appreciated this breakdown because in my own reading of the bard playtest, not having played a bard, I didn't think about some of the ways these changes would play out at the table
Something I noticed with the Dance Bard, is that shocking grasp exists as a melee option, which starts as average lower damage but scales better, and scales with the primary casting stat. So if a Bard wanted to mix it up in melee, there isn't really a reason to do so if you had the cantrips-known budget to spend on Shocking grasp. Also, it solves the problem of 'Okay Bard, you're in Melee and you hit the guy... Now what?' of the Dance Bard. To compare to this UA's Monk subclasses, while they could be better, most of them (excluding Way of Mercy) have ways of going into melee, and then getting back out again. They also have more movement on their own turn, which allows them to outpace pursuers. While Inspired Movement allows for more movement, it's after a creature has already gone, and it doesn't specifically help the Bard avoid being run at.
So if I was disappointed in the latest Monk offerings, I can play a Bard now? Sweet! I've been sleeping on Bards and this new material is giving me a lot of inspiration for fun character concepts.
Worth mentioning that the ability to swap out Magical Discoveries spells will stack with your normal ability to swap spells. So after level 6, Lore Bards will be able to swap out up to two spells per level (one of which can be a spell from any list), which will be pretty nice on odd levels in particular, and generally will help prevent any spell selection backlog as you progress.
I played Bardic Inspiration RAW 2014. My players are generally much slower at their rolls than most optimized tables are, so anytime they give me a roll, I make sure to repeat their roll to them before making the pass/fail call, so the use of inspiration before the pass/fail was never an issue for us. I prefer it over the newest version, but the reaction inspiration was my favorite.
We play it RAW as well, but I dislike the metagaming where certain players (especially those that also DM) are much better at guessing the AC or save DC that's needed while casual players might burn their BI dice when it isn't needed. I appreciate that the current UA version eliminates that. A player with a BI dice could try to ask the DM if they lost Initiative and if they could add the dice (though it might not be strictly RAW). Bards having BI available as a Reaction 24/7 in the Expert Classes UA caused a different metagaming issues due to the DM having to reveal whenever a check failed. It defeated the very purpose of initiating certain ability checks (Investigation, Insight, or Perception), i.e. to figure out whether there is something hidden to uncover? The DM being obliged to telling whether any check failed (such that BI applies), effectively prevented using subterfuge against the players. In the current UA version, this hidden power of a BI it limited to the periods where the Bard has pro-actively distributed BI dice, which is more tolerable (though it can now last a full hour).
As for the "metagaming" of AC and DC I consider that a flaw of the rules rather than specific players. Some folk, like myself, are naturally mathematical. It's not a conscious decision to crunch the numbers, my brain just does it and I'd have to actively focus not to do so.
@@SortKaffeyour point about metagaming is very true, we found that out within 5 mins of play testing it I think it's odd to worry about a bad player burning inspiration. If they didn't want to use it when they shouldn't have, they should have paid attention like the other players at the table
I just tell them the DC they need to hit. Saves me, and them, the hassle of going pass/fail, because they can see for themselves and decide if they want to use bonuses like inspiration. I'm also perfectly happy telling them the AC and HP of monsters they're fighting. It does reduce the chance of me fudging rolls in their favor of course.
And this is one reason why restricting the conversion of spell slots to bardic inspiration to once per turn matters. Otherwise you could cast Irresistible Dance for free three or more turns in a row: 1) with the base use, 2) with your four dice, and 3+) after converting four spell slots to inspiration dice. This way, you at least have to spend a few turns converting spell slots to regain the feature again after casting it the second time.
You can only convert spell slots to inspiration when you don't have any inspiration, so... well, you could argue your statement is true in that they're of equal value now that there's a conversion rate, but you can't actually turn 4 level 1 slots into a cast of Otto'. After you've done the first conversion you won't be allowed to convert again until you've spent the inspiration.
Re Tasha's and Xanathars: Here's a HUGE issue with the playtest: they aren't telling about spells like absorb elements, green flame blade, or Booming blade... without such knowledge...builds can change a LOT! We need certainty, REAL spell text and we need it last week!!
I feel this. I really do, but there is no way they are going to come out with 3 complete books, let us playtest, then rewrite those books every few weeks. If you look at it the way I do, everything they have shown so far changes context completely if they do something like double all of the monsters' hp, or shift them all two places in CR. As frustrating as it is, we just have to work with what we have.
THIS!~ Even as a design notes. Same with items. Note like "we are planning to add a lot of magic items that modify Unarmed Strikes and monk DC" will change perception of the monks completely.
At the very least, they NEED to say what spell lists all existing spells are on in some auxiliary document or something for things to actually be backwards compatible. Otherwise the new casters RAW can't use any spells outside the PHB
With college of dance, you could take the divine spell list gain the two smite spells on there to add smite to your unarmed attacks. A divine priestess whose faith is shown through dance. Very thematic and pretty powerful imo. With full spell slot progression smites
I absolutely hate waiting to announce successes or failures as a DM. So my game experience went exactly as you said. Started playing Inspiration by RAW, but then as everyone got more experienced, I started valuing quicker and snappier gameplay. So inspiration has been rolled after the announcement for a long time now.
One thing you forgot to mention with the Mantle of Majesty interacting with Beguiling Magic: Command is also an Enchantment spell. If you are willing to expend the inspiration to reuse Beguiling Magic, you could use Mantle of Majesty to charm multiple people and then bounce around locking them down with Commands. It's gets expensive as the number of targets grow, but it can be a really disruptive control option against enemies.
you can get you free agile strikes of any action that spends inspiration on an action, bonus action and reaction so the combo of inspiring movement and agile strikes works and could be quite fun. You get to move without provoking (whilst taking free thwack as you depart) and your ally gets to move.
Personally, I’m a big fan of them changing bardic inspiration back to a bonus action, as I’m of the believe Bards have far better uses for their reaction than their bonus action. Bardic Inspiration being a reaction meant you couldn’t use spells like Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, or Counterspell, nor could you use subclass features like Cutting Words, making their be anti synergy between the base class and its subclasses. Additionally, I don’t think it’s that big of an ask for people to just keep track of their bardic inspiration in writing (I personally have a set of green character dice I only put out onto the table when I have bardic inspiration, that way I have a visual reminder of both when I have bardic and the die type) so keeping it a reaction to not bog down gameplay seems unnecessary.
Reactive inspiration was a unique feature that opened the BA one might garner from multiclassing and soft-buffed subclasses that offered alternative uses. It soft-nerfing lore bard would've frankly been a feature. Keeping your reaction open for spells being an actual choice offered more roleplay opportunity. BA inspiration that you have to keep reminding people on is worse than Bless or Guidance, in no small part because there are *guaranteed* to be more instances of it with bards. Reactive "don't accept failure, yet" is much more impactful at the table than the inevitable nagging of "remember your inspiration". In summary, I am not excited by this specific adjustment. If reactive inspiration is offered as an alternative rule, I will definitely be badgering for it at every table.
Its true reaction inspiration was a great feature, but downside is you can only do one inspiration at a time. Sometimes if I know we're coming up to a big battle I give out 2 or 3 inspiration before the battle starts. With reaction you can't do it, and you give up your ability to possible shield or absorb elements depending on what might come your way. But reaction does make it so that you never have to worry about handing it out ahead of time, as long as you have your reaction you can help, so I guess I see both ways.
As for bardic inspiration, I believe the best solution would be to offer both options: Bards can use bardic inspiration as a bonus action to give a floating bonus that can be used as needed once within the next hour, OR you can use it as a reaction to help an ally that just failed a save or check of some kind. This would be a much more practical use of the ability and would cater to those who prefer either style.
This version of the Bard is awesome. Related to bardic inspiration I really like the newest presentation, having BI linked to reactions meant that one, potentially, missed out on casting absorb elements, feather fall, countercharm (the reworked one), counter-spell, shield, and slivery barbs. Personally, I'm using BI rarely if its a reaction only, which is in direct competition with the spells listed previously. Being able to use spell slots to regain BIs could be useful, I like the option. The subclasses are ok to great related to changes made. College of Dance is a cool concept, and strong but I do agree that the level 3 feature "Fancy Footwork" needs to be buffed, but disagree with the idea that the level 6 features may need to be nerfed to compensate for the improvement. As a side note, I really liked the idea of Song of Rest as a feature I just think the implementations weren't quite good enough, the 2014 version wasn't that effective, and the re-work from the expert playtest was too specific/"you are definitely a healer now". Backwards compatibility I can take or leave it, but I understand why they have leaned heavily into it. Take care all.
I prefer innovation over backwards compatibility. The reaction mechanic for inspiration is a perfect example of a new idea I’d rather have over backwards compatibility. I also think changing the subclass progression was a substantial improvement to some classes (looking at cleric but especially at rogue).
As for your question about backwards compatibility: I don’t care if the new version is not backwards compatible, but I’m also not the person who buys the books. I’ve always used the books of my brother, or girlfriend, or friends, etc. If I was the person who bought the books then I might care more unless this new version of DnD is bad. From what I understand plenty of people never moved from 3.5 to 4 because they didn’t want to play a war minis game, and some never went to 5 because they feel like character customization doesn’t have enough options. I know when I buy a game console it usually takes a lot for me to get a new game, let alone a new system, because a tiny part of me will often feel like money was “wasted” if I didn’t get what I felt was the “full value” of the games I bought. That feeling will obviously differ across people, and I recognize it’s probably stronger in me than in many others, but regardless it’s at least somewhat applicable in DnD because of how much time and money people put towards reading and buying the books. And great video! I hope you keep this channel and community running for a long time!
I think backwards compatibility is important because of all of the 3pp who have years of 5e supplements out, and that helps keep them relevant and able to continue selling those books. It also helps me because I have many 3pp subclasses I have not yet been able to play in a game that I would really like still be able to use when people start moving over.
DnD designers often seem to forget how play works with regards to what knowledge different people at the table have at any time. Like a DM COULD write everyone's AC down but then they may proclaim a hit and forget shield of faith was active, whereas the players track that better on their own character. Players usually don't know the AC of enemies, but they tend to estimate it accurately after a few attacks. Sometimes they expect DMs to keep some things secret but the rules make it very difficult. Player knowledge changes play. Like ideally players shouldn't know if their stealth roll succeeds, but if they roll really high they sneak super confidently knowing they rolled high. One could design a stealth system where a player has a passive stealth and enemy awareness is rolled secretly, or the GM rolls stealth for the player so they don't know how well they are sneaking, but if you don't design things that way, you should expect that certain character stat info is gonna be shared when maybe it shouldn't be, and design features with that in mind. My games seem to go much like yours in these regards.
I do not care about backwards compatibility, if anything I consider it a huge downplay on my enthusiasm I'm fairly new to DnD and this was going to be the first time in my life I would see a new edition being made (started playing 5E around 2021 so it was already well established by the time I arrived.) That being said, I must admit I'm glad Inspiration is a Bonus Action once more because as a Bard I cannot overstate how important having your Reaction free for Counterspell becomes at later levels.
One thing that's nice about the backwards compatibility is that I would totally play a Conquest Paladin/Glamour Bard multiclass, because the Frightened condition for Beguiling Magic does not break on damage.
You know who really needs to be able to choose their spell list? Sorcerers. (Ish. It should be based on their origin/bloodline/whatever, ALA Pathfinder 2e. That's a mechanic I just can't go back from having now.)
Quick thought on Bouns action vs Reation for inspiration. Did you calculate the changes to Guidance in since it is now a reaction? Now the Bard can have both options to stack the deck/dice in the parties favor.
My tables play add-to-roll-before-announcement features as-written, but we are all comfortable with each other and on the same wavelength. We are not slow players. So usually in that beat after a roll is made that will likely be a failure, a player will start talking without the DM needing to ask explicitly if someone is going to try and modify the roll, either immediately saying what they're going to use (sometimes clicking the feature into the roll20/foundry chat as they do so), or saying "I'm considering using this, but I'm uncertain due to X reason, what do you guys think?" And we have a back-and-forth usually lasting no longer than 10 seconds before a decision is made on using a feature or spell to modify a roll. I remember a time where the indecision could take a while, where players would look through their features to see if they had anything they could do about a roll. Sometimes that still happens if we are playing a one shot at high level, which I get is something you do a fair bit of. But overall, it hasn't been an issue at my tables years.
People definitely need to remember that, by the time you get to Level 10 play, you're not just suddenly going to change how you've been building your Bard that whole time? Like, there are a LOT of spells from Level 1 to 5, but you can only trade out one spell per level with this version of the playtest Bard, so when you consider that many games end around that Level 14 mark, that's just not enough time to go back and get those choice lower-level spells without missing out on getting more of those higher-level spells. So, even though the boost is appreciated, you DO still have the opportunity cost that balances out that added flexibility (and that's a good thing). As far as backward compatibility, in my own brain, I was fully prepared to dump entire books from my brain for the new PHB rules, and while there is some new appeal for previously-released subclasses due to those rule changes, I think I could have easily waited for those subclasses to make re-appearances in later sourcebooks. There's also my concern that 5th edition might go the way of some earlier editions, where it becomes so bloated with content that it will become too difficult for new AND old players to find the games that they're looking to play (e.g. LFGs needing to specifically include which PHB will be used, or worse, Session 0s attempting to Frankenstein hybrid rules that no one will be able to properly keep track of). We definitely paid an opportunity cost for backward compatibility, one that we hopefully won't have to pay ten years from now when the game reaches a similar decision point.
Indeed. Abandoning the opportunity of starting with a clean slate (i.e. retiring broken subclasses) and making much needed changes to certain base classes (such as synchronizing subclass progression) means that 5e won't be revitalized after all. Rather, 5e will be a bigger mess than ever and the 2024 books will only increase the need for abandoning 5e and starting over with a 5.5 or 6th edition. Preferably one that's compatible with published 5e adventures, which is how they defined backwards compatibility before broadening the meaning.
I prefer it as a bonus action, like some others have mentioned, I have lots of things (mainly spells) I want my reaction for and I rarely need my bonus action. Plus you can make sure multiple people have the bardic inspiration
Do not forget the added utility of the updated Unarmed Strike options such as Grapple and Shove baked into the feature. The Dance bard gets those as options included with the free Unarmed Strike. Its basically 2 weapon masteries I foresee giving inspiration and doing a shove for free then taking an action
Except that Grapple and Shove depends on a save DC based on your Strength, thus, locking out the Monk and College of Dance from using them despite it would've been both fun and appropriate.
I'm not fussed about backwards compatibility, though it's nice if the system is close enough that I can hack an old subclass into a new game with about the same effort as homebrew.
Valor getting weapons as spell focus means I have a new option for my spellbow. Previously, it was a warlock or an artificer. Basically the weapon as a spell focus allows you to cast ranged spell attack cantrips through your bow. Fire bolt, ray of frost, eldritch blast could be reflavored as spell arrows or "trick arrows" for a Hawkeye or Green Arrow type build. So Yay!!🎉 I'm extremely happy for this one change (as well as the base class feature to choose whatever Spell List you want means starting Arcane for the cantrips and by lvl 10, you are getting fifth level spells so lightning arrow, swift quiver and hail of arrows are all available. Too bad about conjure barrage and conjure volley now being ranger-exclusive, but it's fine.)
Backwards compatibility matters to me. Not enormously, but I would be lying if it didn't matter at all. We've spent a decade building up interesting subclasses, and seeing like half of them no longer being supported would be frustrating, especially for those I had been planning on playing in the next few years. I likely would have made homebrew conversions for them that my tables would be fine with (I already use a homebrew buffed artificer), but for instances outside of that, yes, I think there are certain types of content that shouldn't be made obsolete. Classes and subclasses fall under that purview. The other reason I'm glad levelling progressions for subclasses has changed is because artificer actually gains some really fascinating identity by having a subclass feature at 5th level, and I've had been sad to see that go.
I personally feel that reverting away from reaction inspiration isn't that bad. The issue was that reaction limits it to once per round limiting it's flexibility. Also it becomes another hoarding issue of worrying about not wanting to use your reaction for inspiration when you may want to use other reaction spells/abilities vs. bonus action which bards were rarely worried about using.
Hi Chris! Both my tables use the original Bardic Inspiration, and I quite prefer it! Mostly because I think it makes the decision to use BI more of a prophylactic one, rather than a reactionary one, which feels like it keeps the player evaluating risk/reward more. It's also much less powerful than knowing whether the roll would succeed or fail without adding BI prior, to the point where several of us feel like this is TOO good of an improvement. It's lost all risk now. It's almost a Legendary Resistance lite, and steps on the toes of Reliable Talent.
Alert Feat plus Tandem Footwork = Great shared initiative boosts plus ability to swap places with a willing ally (+3PB +3or+4 DEX + 1D8 to initiative) = About +10 to character's initiative at level 6
Exactly! Or you're free to use it with the 2014 PHB version of the class (e.g. if your Eloquence Bard's Infectious Inspiration isn't compatible with Bardic Inspiration as a Reaction, though that could easily be solved with your DM as well).
I'm of two minds regarding backwards compatibility. On one hand, it makes it easy to just fit in a subclass. There are many I haven't played and there are a few favorites that I'd like to try with the new base class changes. On the other hand, it stifles creativity and restricts advancements in the base class, such as Bardic Inspiration as a reaction.
Why even bother being a Wizard when you can be a Bard or Sorcerer with the entire Arcane spell list? Neither of my DMs allow enough loot or downtime that the new Wizard features would see any use.
I mean, did the best magic class in the game really need that many updates? It’s not that Wizards are getting screwed, just that everyone else is getting much needed boosts (and still some weird unappreciated changes). “Equality can feel like injustice when you’re used to privilege and power.”
@@SortKaffe the problem with the 2014 wizard is that it’s best at too many things, even before subclasses. I love Sorcerer and I I know multiple people who love Warlock, but at the highest levels the best uses for Sorcerer or Warlock are generally as a multiclass, usually with Paladin. Whereas multiple full wizard builds are top tier. If Wizard is moved even to “second best at everything before subclasses” then it still has potential to be the best class in the game, but you’ll actually need to try to optimize it and it won’t flagrantly overshadow other classes. For example: Chronurgy magic subclass was a mistake. It didn’t have to be OP, but WotC saw dollar signs and let it be ridiculous knowing they can always fall back on “well if your table thinks it’s unbalanced you can always fix it” It’s like if a game company knowingly releases a game with a ton of bugs and focuses on releasing DLC because they know the fan base will make mods that fix things.
Yes. The community is freaking out over create spell "which has an insane gold cost" meanwhile the bard is becoming a goddamn arch mage to everyone's cheers and applause. It's annoying. Bard didn't need this kind of love, and yes, while the wizard was arguably too strong, the solution wasn't to make their spell list THIS cheap. I still wanted the wizard to be the best caster in the game. Now the wizard appears to be among the worst, with a single gold reliant (aka DM reliant) mechanic to maybe help them keep up. This is not great.
I’m sad Bards lose the class identity of having a unique spell list with a limited yet strong collection of the thematically-appropriate spells across the Divine, Primal, and Arcane lists. Instead, they can choose between being a pseudo Cleric, Druid, or Wizard (only Charisma-based). I much preferred the direction of the Expert Classes UA and I’m especially disappointed about the abandoning of Songs of Restoration and the Heal option of Bardic Inspiration that ensures that the table can rely on any Bard having access to some kind of healing. I fear tension due to the Bard player wanting to pick the Arcane spell list, while the other players and the DM suggest that they pick the Divine or Primal list if they’re the only potential healer at the table. From level 10, Bard will eventually be a perfectly generic spellcaster as they have access to all three spell lists. Moreover, Bard players get decision paralysis each level from 10-20 instead of having Magical Secrets feel like an exciting special occasion at levels 10, 14, and 18.
That level of complexity should be reserved for the Lore Bard (which would make the subclass feel more unique than this UA version). I appreciate how the spellcasting of the 2014 base class is easily approachable for casual players without being weak. That said, I understand that simplicity might be a hard sell in this optimizer community where such a level of flexibility spurs excitement about endless new build options.
Thanks. I can understand your excitement of the amount of options it opens up without being unbalanced. I'll try to get on the hype wagon if this is eventually how it ends up.
Answering some of the questions you asked us: 1. Do you play having Bardic Inspiration apply after the roll but before the DM says whether it fails/succeeds and do you like it that way? - When I play I do it as written, when I DM I let players decide afterwards if they forgot or didn't have time to use it. There's no reason to like the RAW version of the feature in the 2014 PHB, it puts the burden of using the bard's feature on a player who's thinking about their turn and their features etc. 2. Is backwards compatibility important to you? - Yes, even though I'd probably play the new shiny toys like you mentioned but really the only content or books I look forwards to, even as a DM, are the player option ones (subclasses, specifically). At the rate at which they dished those out for 5e I don't trust them to give me enough so I'd like to have as many options as we can, and who knows? some subclasses that I overlooked previously or didn't feel like would be fun to play might get more interesting with the changes to the core classes for the new edition. Don't have any specific ones in mind, but as an example let's say maybe the Arcane Archer will be more appealing to me with the new fighter etc.
Backwards compatibility is incredibly important to me. I like making sure my players have every option they could want open to them, and if someone has a great Echo Knight concept Id hate to be like ‘ok yeah so you use the old rules but the other Fighter can use the new ones’ it’s just way too much of a limitation
Irresistible Dance effectively comes back on a short rest unless you're under weirdly specific time pressure. If you can rest for one hour, you can usually rest for two hours, so first get back your uses of Bardic Inspiration, then use those to get the Dance back, then get your Inspiration back again
This assumes players get to short rest twice in quick succession. At least at my table, you don't get the benefits of a rest without DM permission, so if you're trying to squeeze in weird resting patterns for reasons like this, you'll probably get shut down. Likewise with other common rest manipulation strategies like a 2014 Warlock doing LR - Hex - SR, Coffeelock breaking up its LRs into SRs to generate more spell slots, and so on. And of course if you use variant resting rules like gritty realism, that shuts a lot of similar things down. (Highly recommend that if you're a DM who gets frustrated by players resting more than you'd like but don't want to just do resting by fiat, as it makes the time-crunch aspect of resting way scarier.) Of course, you could also just not play that way and be okay with players resting however they choose. Part of the point of TTRPGs is that the rules are all more or less suggestions; RAW's only purpose is to make things more portable and comparable between tables.
@@life-destiny1196 it does indeed assume you can do that, but that's a reasonable assumption because there's nothing in the rules preventing you from doing so. Online rules discussions can't reasonably take into account everyone's homebrew
Honestly, make this Bard a 3/4 caster (maxing out at 7th level spells) and you got a perfect class. There's just too many cool and powerful features in there to give them full spellcaster progression imo.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't think every Bard gets Vicious Mockery for free. "Whichever list you choose, it includes the Vicious Mockery cantrip for you." implies to me that you have access to it no matter what spell list, but you still have to select it as one of your cantrip options, similar to 5E warlock subclass spells.
As a DM I rule bardic as written in the 2014 PHB, BUT ONLY at times where I want extreme narrative tension. Rolling perception for travels on the road and using a bardic? Sure adding that bardic after I've announced its a failure? Also fine. But when it's a boss fight, and someone roles a saving throw for some catastrophic ability, I will try and build tension by getting them to roll and then asking if they want to add anything else before I announce they/pass fail. It keeps tension high, when they roll like 16+ and I still say "are you you don't wanna use bardic " All that said, I don't mind the change.
I loved the reaction based inspiration! I have actually home brewed a fix for backward compatibility. Use the rules in play test 6, but allow reaction inspiration proficiency bonus times per day. This way you don't interfere with established mechanics, but can still throw out those clutch moment inspirations. It is a little more to keep track of, but the bards at my table are really enjoying how much more impactful they feel getting to actively use the ability. Glad to see I'm not the only one who was saddened by the loss. BTW I also have a couple of bards of different levels in my game. The way we have dealt with the whole "who gave whom what die of inspiration" problem is as follows. Each bard has a number of the appropriate dice. When they inspire someone, they hand them one of those dice. That way they know how many inspirations they have left, who was inspired by whom, and the player with inspiration has that die sitting in front of them as a reminder that it is available. We use starkly monochromatic dice for this, and all of one color for each of them, so they are easy to pick out at the table. I can just look at a player's area and tell if they have inspiration. It really saves on all that confusion, at a cost of about 5 bucks from the local game store's loose dice bin.
My favorite thing about Reaction Bardic Inspiration is that it gives me, the Bard, player agency over when I use MY feature, and I don't have to constantly bog down gameplay reminding the other players that they have my Bardic Inspiration.
Hey, guys! Can anyone clear my question, please? Is this channel the most famous channel for optimized character build? Like, the creator breaking down the numbers of builds that he creates in order to achieve the greatest numerical advantage? Are there other channels like this one? I am not very knowledgeable in this matter. Thank you for your attention!
If WotC plans to reprint old subclasses with player feedback in mind, then I don’t care at all about backwards compatibility. I have a Monk I’ve been meaning to play that works really well flavor-wise with the Way of Long-Death from SCAG for example. Also, you could do an actual poll on your community page, it’s good for the algorithm! Great video, appreciate the work you do as always!
One version of Bardic Inspiration I really wish we could have playtested would be having only 1 use of it, but it recharging whenever you spend a spell slot to cast a bard spell, so it's not exactly a separate pool of resources. Connected to that, I think Countercharm should simply be something that happens when you cast a bard spell on your turn, no additional action/bonus action/reaction required: you do your bard thing, allies who hear you get advantage.
One of the few things I really loved this UA was Bard being able to choose their spell school, less for mechanics, and more for theme. A bard in a remote tribe might make more sense as Primal. A bard with the Divine spell list makes so much sense as for a lot of character ideas. Even if Arcane might be the most "generally powerful" spell list, there are so many storytelling options opened up here, and I love it. It's right up there with Warlocks being able to choose mainstat. If only they let Monks choose mainstat, too. Ripping off that Pact Boon structure for Monks would have allowed classic Dexterity, but also Strength Monks to capitalize on Athletics, or Wisdom Monks just because that'd be fun too. Give each their own alternative defense calculation, and away we go.
Here's the reason to use the RAW for the 2014 version(s) - the classic scene. The DM & player stare at each other across the field. Er, table. The DM holds up a pocketwatch playing a tinkling tone. Then suddenly a hero appears. With a pocketwatch playing the same tinkling tone. Sweat beads on people's brows. Violins swell. Staccato guitar strumming. Horns join in. Then all goes silent except for the tinkling of that dang watch. . .Will you or won't you? Suddenly there is a crack of thunder! Did you choose correctly? If not, you have to bring _A Few Dollars More_ of munchies to the next session...
Notably, Mantle of Inspiration had another small, but not insignificant change. It used to say “creatures that you can see and that can see you.” As long as you are (thematically appropriately) able to look at your reflection, those targets could also include you RAW. Now Mantle of Inspiration says OTHER creatures, so you can’t give yourself temp as part of Mantle of Inspiration anymore, even if it was kinda niche and cheesy.
It's debatable whether it was always intended to exclude yourself: "you gain the ability to weave a song of fey magic that imbues your allies with vigor and speed."
For the issue of remembering Bardic Inspiration, and the Bard's reaction, when I play a bard I just keep a bunch of specific dice for Bardic Inspiration, and when I give it to someone I physically give them the die, and take it back when they use it.
My one worry with switching to uniform level progression is that they said that was the only way they could work Cunning Strikes into the Rogue. It’s so good there’s no way they’ll remove it because everyone loves it but apparently it’s harder to fit in otherwise.
I believe they would be able to figure it out, but it's clever communication to present it as a tradeoff, avoiding that Rogues get too sad about having to wait untill 9th level for their second subclass feature.
I personally care about backwards compatibility. There are a lot of subclasses that I really loved the flavor and/or mechanics of, but haven't had the chance yet. I have a feeling my group will move on to this edition when it's released, and I don't want to miss my chance to play, say, a graviturgist or a chronomancer.
We have always been using Bardin Inspiration exactly as written in PHB2014. You see low number on your dice, so you add it immediately, you don't add it after you count and announce roll total, you announce it during that calculation and add it all together. It has never been an issue at any of our tables.
To respond to the bardic inspiration question: I play at a few different tables. Two are very fun and lighthearted but one is quite competitive, and is designed to be that way. (Definitely not everybody’s cup of tea but we enjoy it!) Because of the competitive nature of those games, we stick very strictly to RAW and don’t deviate in any cases, so we still used inspiration as written there. Both inspiration and portent have been cause for headaches, so I am very happy to see this change to RAW to hopefully reduce the number of headaches dealt with in those types of environments.
On the topic of being grouped up when rolling initiative in combat with the Watching Paladin, the Dancer Bard also means that is potentially less of worry, since if all of your allies are within 5 feet of the bard when that Fireball is cast, they will all take at most half damage, if not no damage from dexterity save spells... Though they would still need to worry about Constitution, and Wisdom saving effects.
Our group still uses the RAW version of Bardic Inspiration. I agree that it adds a bit of jam that the DM briefly pauses before announcing the result, and sometimes not enough delay has occurred to allow the inspiration. From a justification standpoint, our group sees it in a similar camp to character flaws; while you may be heroic, you're still only a Tabaxi. If you're paying attention (it is a lot of attention required, as you, the player, need to keep track of a lot more), it's pretty cool to "finally" be able to pull off this skill. In practice, however, I've found that the longer we play, the more we end up switching to other uses of Bardic Inspiration that are more reliable such as Cutting Words.
My dnd group is playing a homebrewed version of 5e where my dm has buffed certain things to be better (like monks) and nerfed things that are op (silvery barbs) so while I think we do want the new stuff to be somewhat compatible with the old stuff, what we really want is whichever one is more balanced. Although I think what’s gonna end up happening is we’re gonna keep playing with the 5e skeleton but just adapt certain things when us players ask like for example I’ve been telling my dm about the new rogue “manuvers” and how I think we should use them.
I agreed with you about reaction inspiration but my girlfriend convinced me that there are good reasons to want it back to a bonus action, for example if many party members are hit with an aoe and have inspiration you help them all with their save on the same round.
For the Dancer Bard's free casting of Otto's Irresistible Dance spell being able to recharge with Bardic Inspirations, there might be some interesting interactions with Short Rests, like if you have 4 Bardic Inspirations remaining before starting a Short Rest you can regain the Otto's Dance basically for free. Also, if you have allies who can cast the updated "Prayer of Healing" spell, or the Xanathar "Catnap" catnap spell, you could potentially exploit regaining Bardic Inspirations on a Short Rest by using one of those spells in conjunction with a normal Short Rest to get two back to back refills of Bardic Inspiration, like you could take a normal short rest to regain your Bardic Inspirations, give out Inspiration to all of your allies, or regain the free casting of Otto's Irresistible Dance, then have an ally cast "Prayer of Healing"/"catnap" to take a Short Rest in 10 minutes (leaving 50 minutes on the Bardic Inspiration you gave to any allies before your second short rest). The fact that Druids, Clerics, and Paladins regain only one "Channel" usage on a short rest would mean they could exploit those spells for back to back short rests.
I really like the Valor Bard in general as a weapon attacking Bard option, despite it not being as strong as other subclass options. They really didn’t add much to it with this playtest, but what would be cool to see is if they gave the valor bard some weapon mastery options included with their subclass features. I think the swords bard eats the valor bards lunch as the preferred martial bard. Weapon mastery might be a good way to differentiate them make the valor bard more appealing depending on the build. Great video Chris, appreciate your breakdowns.
The other fun thing about College of Dance is that it's an interesting lynchpin for multiclass builds. That might be more theme-forward than results-forward, but having a punching-character who isn't a Monk opens up a tonne of options. Maybe not "strong" options (paladin still needs 13 strength and can't wear armor, for example), but oh so much fun.
I'm all for backwards compatibility. More choices = more choices, and even if I personally wouldn't want to play old subclasses and all that, some other person in my table might. I'm also really excited to see what kind of abominations my players are bringing to future campaigns, mixing new and old.
Just for the tables I have been at, the inspiration die was always used before the DM stated it one way or the other. Its never been an issue or awkward at all for us. If someone remembers that they had it after the fact, then they do miss it for the roll, just like they do whenever someone forgets they had a feature or a thing, no big. Asking to use it after or anything like that would ironically lead to what you mentioned, slowing down the game. I did love the idea of a reaction to inspire, just like the reaction change to guidance. I hope they do go back to that. Not only do I not care about backwards compatibility, I think it is going to get in the way of doing anything truly meaningful about how the game's currently balanced. Every class in the game should feel fun and impactful, certainly having their strengths and weaknesses. The weapon masteries were a great step forward for that, but it was only a step, not the whole journey. Dex for example is still way over valued while strength is basically a dump stat on nearly everyone unless they are willing to except great weapon master as a requirement for a martial.
I will miss the old version of inspiration. We would often pile guidance and bardic inspiration on someone trying to do something impressive in the off chance they roll a number >25 led to some great descriptions. But we could just work on our regular descriptions, and save it for when it's needed
A good thing now though is a bard that goes on the divine spell list can stack guidance and inspiration by themselves. The current onednd version of guidance is a reaction so a bard can give someone their inspiration; then if they still somehow fail add guidance as a reaction. Those crazy fun super rolls may not be a thing anymore; but a divine bard can basically ensure noone ever fails a check.
Dazzling footwork sounds incredible. Dexterity and Charisma are the main focuses or a dancing bard anyway, so it's perfectly normal to start with an AC of 17-18 without a shield and with no disadvantage on stealth checks. It is a fantastic feature and does not come with downsides like having an otherwise bad race (tortle). Go variant human and pick this and a lvl 1 feat and you are off to the races. With rolled stats this is even better. Glorious feature. Barbarian gets Dex + con which is usually worse as they'd normally want strength over dex. Sounds a 10 / 10 feature. Fantastic.
I used to have my players declare "I"m using Bardic inspiration on this roll" whenever I asked for a result, that way they could choose to add it if they weren't confident on the roll, but that lead to some moments when I went ahead with the roll and had to walk back once they said that they wanted to use it after all. Personally, after using the Reaction-based Bardic Inspiration of the last playtest, I gotta say that felt a lot smoother and much more rewarding for my Bard players, I could see them beaming with a smile whenever they butt into a failed roll to grant them inspiration.
16:44 speaking of that lukewarm response in the survey, here's something that I hope we get in one of the surveys later on: a question along the lines of "were there any features or versions of features in one of these play tests that wound up being dropped but you really liked and wanted to keep? Specify." Then the features that get mentioned the most in that question could be surveyed one more time to get our final thoughts.
For the fail checks for BI (Bardic Inspiration) usage. Our group sorta already knew if a roll was to low to add the BI die, which I am sure most tables are ,like this, but yes we used it before we gave a "final answer"
I think a possible line of reasoning they are holding on to with the 'when you roll initiative and are empty' that they have on the monk too is an attempt to avoid players who want to steamroll the DM into trivial initiative rolls as a way to farm an otherwise limited resource. Player: I attack the farmer's dog. DM: Roll initiative. Player: Sweet, now I run away. DM: Ummm okay, the farmer calls his dog back and they don't pursue, you're out of combat. Player: I attack the first person I pass on the road. DM: Really? Okay, it's a human with a cart pulled by a donkey. Roll initiative. Player: Great, I'm refilled on Bardic Inspirations! DM: ..... Do I think that's a realistic worry for high level play? No, any DM running that level ought to be able to shut that down, and any player playing that level hopefully isn't doing it for those sort of exploits, but....
Vicious mockery also works against for any creature you can see OR HEAR within range. So if I hear an enemy in the next room, I can yell an insult at them through the wall and give them a headache
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I do not care about backwards compatibility as much as I do think subclasses should have uniformed progression
I fully agree, but I still comment for the algorithm.
Or at Very least the ones that have 6+ level gaps between their subclass features need something to smooth them out. Please 😢
The classes generally have either 4 or 5 levels in which they unlock subclass features right? So you can create 2 sets of standardized progression for them based on that fact. That way you can more or less retain backwards compatibility while fixing progression for classes like Sorcerer or Rogue that have to spend a long ass time waiting for their next subclass feature(s).
@@M9Seradon Paladin says hi with their don't get any meaningful subclass features until level 15 design.
I completely agree. I think Subclass progression should be at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. This would pair nicely with how characters get ASIs every 4 levels. Furthermore, since half-casters get more spells at odd-numbered levels, while full casters get access to higher-level spells at odd-numbered levels and Rogues get Sneak Attack at odd-numbered levels, this means most classes would get something new and interesting at every level. You'd just have to revamp the Barbarian, Fighter, and Monk so they get meaningful class features at odd-numbered levels as well and everyone would have something approximating a 'uniformed progression' without all classes feeling the same.
Thank you for that respectful remembrance. I, too, am in mourning.
I think a big point about backwards compatibility is that while people who stick with the old source books might not be interested in the new core books, they may very well be interested in the new expansion books and subclasses that come with them - and you'd be losing those customers if the new subclasses can't be used with the old cores.
In general adaptation of new versions is always slow-ish unless the last version was incredibly un-liked, so being able to cater to the majority who hasn't transitioned makes sense monetarily.
While I agree, this version is looking better and better and giving into that clientele is holding the game back which is bad.
Didn't think about that point, it's make a lot of sense for the forward point of view, the futur expansion being compatible with 2014 version.
I wish they make all new. I love that they had fixed the subclass progression levels.
Insightful! I had never considered backwards compatibility from that angle.
I feel like a very simple compromise would be to provide features at 3, 6, 10, and 14 and just add a sidebar that says “if you are using the 2014 bard, gain the 10th and 14th level features at 14th level.
As it stands, College of Dance and taking the Primal Spell List sounds like my go-to for a Shaman in D&D now, and I couldn't be more pleased.
That is awesome. I could see a Nordic skald type battle guy too.
@@josephrion3514 Which is funny, since College of Valor bards are supposed to be the skalds lol
Faerie C o Dance with Primal spells!!
That’s fantastic!
“In remembrance of when we no longer needed to remind a player that they had inspiration.” All Bard players take a moment of silence.
When I say I laughed out loud, I LAUGHED 😂😂
As the famous quote says "Oh, shit, here we go again...". I'm so tired of spending my limited resource on other players for them to constantly forget about it.
I think the backwards compatibility thing is an anchor on their necks that's going to drag them down to turning out a product that very few people will actually be really excited about.
For American English speakers, using the 'glamour' spelling is akin to spelling fairy as 'faerie'; making it more British makes it seem older and more magical.
Is it?
Interesting. I've seen glamourie used that way but not glamour.
From what I've seen, at least among Americans who would care at all, Glamour has a magical/mystical component with Old World flavor while Glamor is more specifically Hollywood glitz.
@@ryanroyce I see Glamour and Glamor as the same word.
I'm pretty... American.
Glamour is actually the standard spelling in American English as well
I think Counterspell and other reaction spells may have been a concern for the Reaction use inspiration. If the goal is to get people to use resources and not hoard them, having such strong competition for you one reaction per round could severely limited it’s use. At a certain level, I would be much more likely to hold my reaction for counterspell or absorb elements than I would to use it for a bardic inspiration.
Not having BI as a Reaction leaves space for Countercharm being a Reaction and actually a useful feature.
I agree 100%. My biggest fear with reaction Inspiration was the conflict with Counterspell or even attacks of opportunity. Counterspell with the Jack of All Trades boost was one of my favorite things about the 5e bard, especially with something like the Lore Bard’s Additional Magical Secrets. Yes, it did make doing things with a Bonus Action more difficult at times, but the things I found that REALLY wanted my BA were other classes subclass features like the Steel Defender, Primal Companion, or Wildshape accessories, none of which really mattered if I was playing a straight Bard. It did stop that iconic idea of a two weapon fighting roguish bard, but TWF in 5e wasn’t worth it anyways and with weapon mastery (hoping the martial subclasses get at least a fighting style in their base class in the final draft) that two weapon fighting dream can be a reality.
Bard's Inspiration as a reaction is neat and does make it simpler, true, but giving it beforehand is so much more flavorful, I like it more that way. And with a duration of an hour, it gives some options like sending someone scour ahead with Inspiration to help with a Perception or Stealth check even if the Bard isn't around.
Personally I think inspiration as a reaction is more flavourful. Like the bard has seen that you're struggling and given some encouragement or played a tune that helps you focus, in the moment.
🎼"Brave Sir Robin ran away... brave, brave Sir Robin!"🎶
Also, I’ve played in a lot of adventurers league, and they are pretty stickler for the RAW interpretation of abilities like bardic inspiration. Which somewhat makes sense to optimize for standardization in a world where you are hopping from table to table.
Our table almost always allows these kinds of post roll modifiers like shield or BI after the DM announces the outcome. We play on a VTT with open rolls, so the DM is usually immediately announcing outcomes of rolls, and attack rolls against players are all open for everyone to see anyway. This is mainly to keep the flow of combat and make things move quickly.
I see this as kind of a Nerf because not all checks are pass or fail some are a spectrum of success, meaning inperation dice can not be used. Two examples are intuitive, which is a Dexterity ability check but can't be "failed" in the normal sense. Second Investigation to find hidden clues could be a spectrum of success 17 could means only one clue is found but 20 could mean 2 or more, the check was not a failure so it couldn't be used.
@@brianlurvey8553 While RAW you can't apply it, I feel like its pretty easy for a DM to allow bardic to be used in those cases. In my mind, if its a roll that has pass/fail states (like attack rolls and saving throws) then you get that before deciding if you want to use bardic, but if it doesn't have those states then you could still decide to use bardic if you want to. I think thats easy enough, but would prefer some amount of support for that from WotC in the official rules instead of needing to add it myself.
Agreed, but now is our chance to get the clarification and I'm thinking about league play as well.
But Shield has always been cast after the attack roll succeeds? Even says so in the casting time.
Whats frustrating is that for the most part, people really liked having standardized subclass progressipn, but the one thing that sucked was starting at level 3. Classes like warlock and sorcerer are now really weird because their origin and patron should be right when you make the character, not manifest later.
And yet, now they axe the thing that most people liked while also keeping all subclasses at 3rd level? Its like the worst of both worlds
Agreed. This has basically killed any enthusiasm I have for the update. I was unreasonably excited about standardized progression. Overall, everything else breaks about even, in my mind, in regards to excitement or disappointment, but that change has killed it for me. It's needless, counterproductive, and doesn't even make sense flavor wise. They've dug their heels in on a change that only makes sense in the original, larger context while removing all the other changes. They care about "fun" and want things that "feel good" that make you excited for what's new? This change feels terrible to me, and has soured my opinion on the rest. Like you said, it's the worst of both worlds.
Dance isn't the only new subclass, Druid also got the Circle of the Sea. That said, I really appreciated this breakdown because in my own reading of the bard playtest, not having played a bard, I didn't think about some of the ways these changes would play out at the table
Something I noticed with the Dance Bard, is that shocking grasp exists as a melee option, which starts as average lower damage but scales better, and scales with the primary casting stat.
So if a Bard wanted to mix it up in melee, there isn't really a reason to do so if you had the cantrips-known budget to spend on Shocking grasp. Also, it solves the problem of 'Okay Bard, you're in Melee and you hit the guy... Now what?' of the Dance Bard.
To compare to this UA's Monk subclasses, while they could be better, most of them (excluding Way of Mercy) have ways of going into melee, and then getting back out again. They also have more movement on their own turn, which allows them to outpace pursuers.
While Inspired Movement allows for more movement, it's after a creature has already gone, and it doesn't specifically help the Bard avoid being run at.
Stealth buff to Air Genasi
So if I was disappointed in the latest Monk offerings, I can play a Bard now? Sweet! I've been sleeping on Bards and this new material is giving me a lot of inspiration for fun character concepts.
Yeah, now you can play a college of Dance Bard who can out-monk the monk, and can out-cleric the cleric. Broken!
Worth mentioning that the ability to swap out Magical Discoveries spells will stack with your normal ability to swap spells. So after level 6, Lore Bards will be able to swap out up to two spells per level (one of which can be a spell from any list), which will be pretty nice on odd levels in particular, and generally will help prevent any spell selection backlog as you progress.
The spell slot conversion sounds very interesting for a swords bard
Ooo. You know, that is a really good point
I played Bardic Inspiration RAW 2014. My players are generally much slower at their rolls than most optimized tables are, so anytime they give me a roll, I make sure to repeat their roll to them before making the pass/fail call, so the use of inspiration before the pass/fail was never an issue for us. I prefer it over the newest version, but the reaction inspiration was my favorite.
We play it RAW as well, but I dislike the metagaming where certain players (especially those that also DM) are much better at guessing the AC or save DC that's needed while casual players might burn their BI dice when it isn't needed.
I appreciate that the current UA version eliminates that. A player with a BI dice could try to ask the DM if they lost Initiative and if they could add the dice (though it might not be strictly RAW).
Bards having BI available as a Reaction 24/7 in the Expert Classes UA caused a different metagaming issues due to the DM having to reveal whenever a check failed. It defeated the very purpose of initiating certain ability checks (Investigation, Insight, or Perception), i.e. to figure out whether there is something hidden to uncover? The DM being obliged to telling whether any check failed (such that BI applies), effectively prevented using subterfuge against the players. In the current UA version, this hidden power of a BI it limited to the periods where the Bard has pro-actively distributed BI dice, which is more tolerable (though it can now last a full hour).
As for the "metagaming" of AC and DC I consider that a flaw of the rules rather than specific players. Some folk, like myself, are naturally mathematical. It's not a conscious decision to crunch the numbers, my brain just does it and I'd have to actively focus not to do so.
@@SortKaffeyour point about metagaming is very true, we found that out within 5 mins of play testing it
I think it's odd to worry about a bad player burning inspiration. If they didn't want to use it when they shouldn't have, they should have paid attention like the other players at the table
I just tell them the DC they need to hit.
Saves me, and them, the hassle of going pass/fail, because they can see for themselves and decide if they want to use bonuses like inspiration.
I'm also perfectly happy telling them the AC and HP of monsters they're fighting. It does reduce the chance of me fudging rolls in their favor of course.
@@freman007 this is what I do as well. Never get why DMs cared about players knowing your monsters stats
You can cast Otto's irresistible dance using 4 lvl 1 spell slots. That might be useful sometimes
And this is one reason why restricting the conversion of spell slots to bardic inspiration to once per turn matters.
Otherwise you could cast Irresistible Dance for free three or more turns in a row: 1) with the base use, 2) with your four dice, and 3+) after converting four spell slots to inspiration dice.
This way, you at least have to spend a few turns converting spell slots to regain the feature again after casting it the second time.
You can only convert spell slots to inspiration when you don't have any inspiration, so... well, you could argue your statement is true in that they're of equal value now that there's a conversion rate, but you can't actually turn 4 level 1 slots into a cast of Otto'. After you've done the first conversion you won't be allowed to convert again until you've spent the inspiration.
@@wesslan_ Totally forgot that detail. Good catch!
Re Tasha's and Xanathars: Here's a HUGE issue with the playtest: they aren't telling about spells like absorb elements, green flame blade, or Booming blade... without such knowledge...builds can change a LOT! We need certainty, REAL spell text and we need it last week!!
I feel this. I really do, but there is no way they are going to come out with 3 complete books, let us playtest, then rewrite those books every few weeks. If you look at it the way I do, everything they have shown so far changes context completely if they do something like double all of the monsters' hp, or shift them all two places in CR. As frustrating as it is, we just have to work with what we have.
THIS!~ Even as a design notes. Same with items. Note like "we are planning to add a lot of magic items that modify Unarmed Strikes and monk DC" will change perception of the monks completely.
At the very least, they NEED to say what spell lists all existing spells are on in some auxiliary document or something for things to actually be backwards compatible. Otherwise the new casters RAW can't use any spells outside the PHB
With college of dance, you could take the divine spell list gain the two smite spells on there to add smite to your unarmed attacks. A divine priestess whose faith is shown through dance. Very thematic and pretty powerful imo. With full spell slot progression smites
I absolutely hate waiting to announce successes or failures as a DM. So my game experience went exactly as you said. Started playing Inspiration by RAW, but then as everyone got more experienced, I started valuing quicker and snappier gameplay. So inspiration has been rolled after the announcement for a long time now.
One thing you forgot to mention with the Mantle of Majesty interacting with Beguiling Magic: Command is also an Enchantment spell. If you are willing to expend the inspiration to reuse Beguiling Magic, you could use Mantle of Majesty to charm multiple people and then bounce around locking them down with Commands. It's gets expensive as the number of targets grow, but it can be a really disruptive control option against enemies.
you can get you free agile strikes of any action that spends inspiration on an action, bonus action and reaction so the combo of inspiring movement and agile strikes works and could be quite fun. You get to move without provoking (whilst taking free thwack as you depart) and your ally gets to move.
Personally, I’m a big fan of them changing bardic inspiration back to a bonus action, as I’m of the believe Bards have far better uses for their reaction than their bonus action. Bardic Inspiration being a reaction meant you couldn’t use spells like Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, or Counterspell, nor could you use subclass features like Cutting Words, making their be anti synergy between the base class and its subclasses. Additionally, I don’t think it’s that big of an ask for people to just keep track of their bardic inspiration in writing (I personally have a set of green character dice I only put out onto the table when I have bardic inspiration, that way I have a visual reminder of both when I have bardic and the die type) so keeping it a reaction to not bog down gameplay seems unnecessary.
Reactive inspiration was a unique feature that opened the BA one might garner from multiclassing and soft-buffed subclasses that offered alternative uses.
It soft-nerfing lore bard would've frankly been a feature.
Keeping your reaction open for spells being an actual choice offered more roleplay opportunity.
BA inspiration that you have to keep reminding people on is worse than Bless or Guidance, in no small part because there are *guaranteed* to be more instances of it with bards.
Reactive "don't accept failure, yet" is much more impactful at the table than the inevitable nagging of "remember your inspiration".
In summary, I am not excited by this specific adjustment. If reactive inspiration is offered as an alternative rule, I will definitely be badgering for it at every table.
I want to see less of those spells, so i definitely prefer the reaction version
Its true reaction inspiration was a great feature, but downside is you can only do one inspiration at a time. Sometimes if I know we're coming up to a big battle I give out 2 or 3 inspiration before the battle starts. With reaction you can't do it, and you give up your ability to possible shield or absorb elements depending on what might come your way.
But reaction does make it so that you never have to worry about handing it out ahead of time, as long as you have your reaction you can help, so I guess I see both ways.
As for bardic inspiration, I believe the best solution would be to offer both options: Bards can use bardic inspiration as a bonus action to give a floating bonus that can be used as needed once within the next hour, OR you can use it as a reaction to help an ally that just failed a save or check of some kind. This would be a much more practical use of the ability and would cater to those who prefer either style.
I think it would be far too good, especially with how great Bard spellcasting is now.
It's too much homework for WotC to make sure interesting subclass features are compatible with either use.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Well, I have a problem with that too... They're supposed to be a jack-of-all-trades, not superior spellcasters to everyone else.
Bard getting to pick their spell list makes it a pretty good multiclass option for other charisma casters
This version of the Bard is awesome.
Related to bardic inspiration I really like the newest presentation, having BI linked to reactions meant that one, potentially, missed out on casting absorb elements, feather fall, countercharm (the reworked one), counter-spell, shield, and slivery barbs. Personally, I'm using BI rarely if its a reaction only, which is in direct competition with the spells listed previously. Being able to use spell slots to regain BIs could be useful, I like the option.
The subclasses are ok to great related to changes made. College of Dance is a cool concept, and strong but I do agree that the level 3 feature "Fancy Footwork" needs to be buffed, but disagree with the idea that the level 6 features may need to be nerfed to compensate for the improvement.
As a side note, I really liked the idea of Song of Rest as a feature I just think the implementations weren't quite good enough, the 2014 version wasn't that effective, and the re-work from the expert playtest was too specific/"you are definitely a healer now".
Backwards compatibility I can take or leave it, but I understand why they have leaned heavily into it. Take care all.
I prefer innovation over backwards compatibility. The reaction mechanic for inspiration is a perfect example of a new idea I’d rather have over backwards compatibility. I also think changing the subclass progression was a substantial improvement to some classes (looking at cleric but especially at rogue).
As for your question about backwards compatibility: I don’t care if the new version is not backwards compatible, but I’m also not the person who buys the books. I’ve always used the books of my brother, or girlfriend, or friends, etc.
If I was the person who bought the books then I might care more unless this new version of DnD is bad. From what I understand plenty of people never moved from 3.5 to 4 because they didn’t want to play a war minis game, and some never went to 5 because they feel like character customization doesn’t have enough options.
I know when I buy a game console it usually takes a lot for me to get a new game, let alone a new system, because a tiny part of me will often feel like money was “wasted” if I didn’t get what I felt was the “full value” of the games I bought. That feeling will obviously differ across people, and I recognize it’s probably stronger in me than in many others, but regardless it’s at least somewhat applicable in DnD because of how much time and money people put towards reading and buying the books.
And great video! I hope you keep this channel and community running for a long time!
I think backwards compatibility is important because of all of the 3pp who have years of 5e supplements out, and that helps keep them relevant and able to continue selling those books.
It also helps me because I have many 3pp subclasses I have not yet been able to play in a game that I would really like still be able to use when people start moving over.
DnD designers often seem to forget how play works with regards to what knowledge different people at the table have at any time. Like a DM COULD write everyone's AC down but then they may proclaim a hit and forget shield of faith was active, whereas the players track that better on their own character. Players usually don't know the AC of enemies, but they tend to estimate it accurately after a few attacks. Sometimes they expect DMs to keep some things secret but the rules make it very difficult. Player knowledge changes play. Like ideally players shouldn't know if their stealth roll succeeds, but if they roll really high they sneak super confidently knowing they rolled high. One could design a stealth system where a player has a passive stealth and enemy awareness is rolled secretly, or the GM rolls stealth for the player so they don't know how well they are sneaking, but if you don't design things that way, you should expect that certain character stat info is gonna be shared when maybe it shouldn't be, and design features with that in mind. My games seem to go much like yours in these regards.
I do not care about backwards compatibility, if anything I consider it a huge downplay on my enthusiasm I'm fairly new to DnD and this was going to be the first time in my life I would see a new edition being made (started playing 5E around 2021 so it was already well established by the time I arrived.)
That being said, I must admit I'm glad Inspiration is a Bonus Action once more because as a Bard I cannot overstate how important having your Reaction free for Counterspell becomes at later levels.
One thing that's nice about the backwards compatibility is that I would totally play a Conquest Paladin/Glamour Bard multiclass, because the Frightened condition for Beguiling Magic does not break on damage.
You know who really needs to be able to choose their spell list? Sorcerers. (Ish. It should be based on their origin/bloodline/whatever, ALA Pathfinder 2e. That's a mechanic I just can't go back from having now.)
Quick thought on Bouns action vs Reation for inspiration. Did you calculate the changes to Guidance in since it is now a reaction? Now the Bard can have both options to stack the deck/dice in the parties favor.
My tables play add-to-roll-before-announcement features as-written, but we are all comfortable with each other and on the same wavelength. We are not slow players. So usually in that beat after a roll is made that will likely be a failure, a player will start talking without the DM needing to ask explicitly if someone is going to try and modify the roll, either immediately saying what they're going to use (sometimes clicking the feature into the roll20/foundry chat as they do so), or saying "I'm considering using this, but I'm uncertain due to X reason, what do you guys think?" And we have a back-and-forth usually lasting no longer than 10 seconds before a decision is made on using a feature or spell to modify a roll. I remember a time where the indecision could take a while, where players would look through their features to see if they had anything they could do about a roll. Sometimes that still happens if we are playing a one shot at high level, which I get is something you do a fair bit of. But overall, it hasn't been an issue at my tables years.
I think a lot of people forget that Xanathar's already has the rule about skill checks stacking with tool proficiencies.
People definitely need to remember that, by the time you get to Level 10 play, you're not just suddenly going to change how you've been building your Bard that whole time? Like, there are a LOT of spells from Level 1 to 5, but you can only trade out one spell per level with this version of the playtest Bard, so when you consider that many games end around that Level 14 mark, that's just not enough time to go back and get those choice lower-level spells without missing out on getting more of those higher-level spells. So, even though the boost is appreciated, you DO still have the opportunity cost that balances out that added flexibility (and that's a good thing).
As far as backward compatibility, in my own brain, I was fully prepared to dump entire books from my brain for the new PHB rules, and while there is some new appeal for previously-released subclasses due to those rule changes, I think I could have easily waited for those subclasses to make re-appearances in later sourcebooks. There's also my concern that 5th edition might go the way of some earlier editions, where it becomes so bloated with content that it will become too difficult for new AND old players to find the games that they're looking to play (e.g. LFGs needing to specifically include which PHB will be used, or worse, Session 0s attempting to Frankenstein hybrid rules that no one will be able to properly keep track of). We definitely paid an opportunity cost for backward compatibility, one that we hopefully won't have to pay ten years from now when the game reaches a similar decision point.
Indeed. Abandoning the opportunity of starting with a clean slate (i.e. retiring broken subclasses) and making much needed changes to certain base classes (such as synchronizing subclass progression) means that 5e won't be revitalized after all. Rather, 5e will be a bigger mess than ever and the 2024 books will only increase the need for abandoning 5e and starting over with a 5.5 or 6th edition. Preferably one that's compatible with published 5e adventures, which is how they defined backwards compatibility before broadening the meaning.
I prefer it as a bonus action, like some others have mentioned, I have lots of things (mainly spells) I want my reaction for and I rarely need my bonus action. Plus you can make sure multiple people have the bardic inspiration
Bard with Primal spell list played as Viking like Skald is in my opinion nice idea.
Do not forget the added utility of the updated Unarmed Strike options such as Grapple and Shove baked into the feature.
The Dance bard gets those as options included with the free Unarmed Strike.
Its basically 2 weapon masteries
I foresee giving inspiration and doing a shove for free then taking an action
Except that Grapple and Shove depends on a save DC based on your Strength, thus, locking out the Monk and College of Dance from using them despite it would've been both fun and appropriate.
@@SortKaffe hopefully clarified to be based on the stat used in the Unarmed Strike
I'm not fussed about backwards compatibility, though it's nice if the system is close enough that I can hack an old subclass into a new game with about the same effort as homebrew.
Valor getting weapons as spell focus means I have a new option for my spellbow. Previously, it was a warlock or an artificer. Basically the weapon as a spell focus allows you to cast ranged spell attack cantrips through your bow. Fire bolt, ray of frost, eldritch blast could be reflavored as spell arrows or "trick arrows" for a Hawkeye or Green Arrow type build. So Yay!!🎉 I'm extremely happy for this one change (as well as the base class feature to choose whatever Spell List you want means starting Arcane for the cantrips and by lvl 10, you are getting fifth level spells so lightning arrow, swift quiver and hail of arrows are all available. Too bad about conjure barrage and conjure volley now being ranger-exclusive, but it's fine.)
Backwards compatibility matters to me. Not enormously, but I would be lying if it didn't matter at all. We've spent a decade building up interesting subclasses, and seeing like half of them no longer being supported would be frustrating, especially for those I had been planning on playing in the next few years. I likely would have made homebrew conversions for them that my tables would be fine with (I already use a homebrew buffed artificer), but for instances outside of that, yes, I think there are certain types of content that shouldn't be made obsolete. Classes and subclasses fall under that purview.
The other reason I'm glad levelling progressions for subclasses has changed is because artificer actually gains some really fascinating identity by having a subclass feature at 5th level, and I've had been sad to see that go.
The Artificer won't be changed due to being omitted from the 2024 books.
I personally feel that reverting away from reaction inspiration isn't that bad. The issue was that reaction limits it to once per round limiting it's flexibility. Also it becomes another hoarding issue of worrying about not wanting to use your reaction for inspiration when you may want to use other reaction spells/abilities vs. bonus action which bards were rarely worried about using.
Hi Chris! Both my tables use the original Bardic Inspiration, and I quite prefer it! Mostly because I think it makes the decision to use BI more of a prophylactic one, rather than a reactionary one, which feels like it keeps the player evaluating risk/reward more. It's also much less powerful than knowing whether the roll would succeed or fail without adding BI prior, to the point where several of us feel like this is TOO good of an improvement. It's lost all risk now. It's almost a Legendary Resistance lite, and steps on the toes of Reliable Talent.
Alert Feat plus Tandem Footwork = Great shared initiative boosts plus ability to swap places with a willing ally (+3PB +3or+4 DEX + 1D8 to initiative) = About +10 to character's initiative at level 6
If I want to play an older subclass that badly my DM and I will make it work. Backwards compatibility isn’t that important.
Exactly! Or you're free to use it with the 2014 PHB version of the class (e.g. if your Eloquence Bard's Infectious Inspiration isn't compatible with Bardic Inspiration as a Reaction, though that could easily be solved with your DM as well).
I'm of two minds regarding backwards compatibility. On one hand, it makes it easy to just fit in a subclass. There are many I haven't played and there are a few favorites that I'd like to try with the new base class changes. On the other hand, it stifles creativity and restricts advancements in the base class, such as Bardic Inspiration as a reaction.
As a Wizard player…I’m starting to think every spellcaster is getting a GREAT set of upgrades and we’re gonna get screwed.
Why even bother being a Wizard when you can be a Bard or Sorcerer with the entire Arcane spell list?
Neither of my DMs allow enough loot or downtime that the new Wizard features would see any use.
I mean, did the best magic class in the game really need that many updates? It’s not that Wizards are getting screwed, just that everyone else is getting much needed boosts (and still some weird unappreciated changes).
“Equality can feel like injustice when you’re used to privilege and power.”
But if Wizard can only do stuff that other classes can do better, why even waste pages on it in the 2024 PHB?
@@SortKaffe the problem with the 2014 wizard is that it’s best at too many things, even before subclasses. I love Sorcerer and I I know multiple people who love Warlock, but at the highest levels the best uses for Sorcerer or Warlock are generally as a multiclass, usually with Paladin. Whereas multiple full wizard builds are top tier.
If Wizard is moved even to “second best at everything before subclasses” then it still has potential to be the best class in the game, but you’ll actually need to try to optimize it and it won’t flagrantly overshadow other classes.
For example: Chronurgy magic subclass was a mistake. It didn’t have to be OP, but WotC saw dollar signs and let it be ridiculous knowing they can always fall back on “well if your table thinks it’s unbalanced you can always fix it”
It’s like if a game company knowingly releases a game with a ton of bugs and focuses on releasing DLC because they know the fan base will make mods that fix things.
Yes. The community is freaking out over create spell "which has an insane gold cost" meanwhile the bard is becoming a goddamn arch mage to everyone's cheers and applause. It's annoying. Bard didn't need this kind of love, and yes, while the wizard was arguably too strong, the solution wasn't to make their spell list THIS cheap. I still wanted the wizard to be the best caster in the game. Now the wizard appears to be among the worst, with a single gold reliant (aka DM reliant) mechanic to maybe help them keep up. This is not great.
Druid also got a whole new Subclass Chris! Not just College of Dance but the Storm druid.
You mean the SEA druid?
I’m sad Bards lose the class identity of having a unique spell list with a limited yet strong collection of the thematically-appropriate spells across the Divine, Primal, and Arcane lists. Instead, they can choose between being a pseudo Cleric, Druid, or Wizard (only Charisma-based).
I much preferred the direction of the Expert Classes UA and I’m especially disappointed about the abandoning of Songs of Restoration and the Heal option of Bardic Inspiration that ensures that the table can rely on any Bard having access to some kind of healing. I fear tension due to the Bard player wanting to pick the Arcane spell list, while the other players and the DM suggest that they pick the Divine or Primal list if they’re the only potential healer at the table.
From level 10, Bard will eventually be a perfectly generic spellcaster as they have access to all three spell lists. Moreover, Bard players get decision paralysis each level from 10-20 instead of having Magical Secrets feel like an exciting special occasion at levels 10, 14, and 18.
That level of complexity should be reserved for the Lore Bard (which would make the subclass feel more unique than this UA version). I appreciate how the spellcasting of the 2014 base class is easily approachable for casual players without being weak.
That said, I understand that simplicity might be a hard sell in this optimizer community where such a level of flexibility spurs excitement about endless new build options.
I can understand that
Thanks. I can understand your excitement of the amount of options it opens up without being unbalanced. I'll try to get on the hype wagon if this is eventually how it ends up.
Answering some of the questions you asked us:
1. Do you play having Bardic Inspiration apply after the roll but before the DM says whether it fails/succeeds and do you like it that way?
- When I play I do it as written, when I DM I let players decide afterwards if they forgot or didn't have time to use it. There's no reason to like the RAW version of the feature in the 2014 PHB, it puts the burden of using the bard's feature on a player who's thinking about their turn and their features etc.
2. Is backwards compatibility important to you?
- Yes, even though I'd probably play the new shiny toys like you mentioned but really the only content or books I look forwards to, even as a DM, are the player option ones (subclasses, specifically). At the rate at which they dished those out for 5e I don't trust them to give me enough so I'd like to have as many options as we can, and who knows? some subclasses that I overlooked previously or didn't feel like would be fun to play might get more interesting with the changes to the core classes for the new edition. Don't have any specific ones in mind, but as an example let's say maybe the Arcane Archer will be more appealing to me with the new fighter etc.
Backwards compatibility is incredibly important to me. I like making sure my players have every option they could want open to them, and if someone has a great Echo Knight concept Id hate to be like ‘ok yeah so you use the old rules but the other Fighter can use the new ones’ it’s just way too much of a limitation
Just play 5e dnd then?
Irresistible Dance effectively comes back on a short rest unless you're under weirdly specific time pressure. If you can rest for one hour, you can usually rest for two hours, so first get back your uses of Bardic Inspiration, then use those to get the Dance back, then get your Inspiration back again
This assumes players get to short rest twice in quick succession. At least at my table, you don't get the benefits of a rest without DM permission, so if you're trying to squeeze in weird resting patterns for reasons like this, you'll probably get shut down. Likewise with other common rest manipulation strategies like a 2014 Warlock doing LR - Hex - SR, Coffeelock breaking up its LRs into SRs to generate more spell slots, and so on. And of course if you use variant resting rules like gritty realism, that shuts a lot of similar things down. (Highly recommend that if you're a DM who gets frustrated by players resting more than you'd like but don't want to just do resting by fiat, as it makes the time-crunch aspect of resting way scarier.)
Of course, you could also just not play that way and be okay with players resting however they choose. Part of the point of TTRPGs is that the rules are all more or less suggestions; RAW's only purpose is to make things more portable and comparable between tables.
@@life-destiny1196 it does indeed assume you can do that, but that's a reasonable assumption because there's nothing in the rules preventing you from doing so. Online rules discussions can't reasonably take into account everyone's homebrew
Honestly, make this Bard a 3/4 caster (maxing out at 7th level spells) and you got a perfect class.
There's just too many cool and powerful features in there to give them full spellcaster progression imo.
Agree.
In my groups Bardic Inspiration AND Normal Inspiration have both been applied after the failure is evident. In both cases it just flows better.
I could care less about backwards compatibility, better off without it! Goodbye Gift of Alacrity and Chronurgy and all that nonsense!!!
The moment of remembrance was the funniest thing I’ve seen in weeks! Thanks, Chris.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't think every Bard gets Vicious Mockery for free. "Whichever list you choose, it includes the Vicious Mockery cantrip for you." implies to me that you have access to it no matter what spell list, but you still have to select it as one of your cantrip options, similar to 5E warlock subclass spells.
As a DM I rule bardic as written in the 2014 PHB, BUT ONLY at times where I want extreme narrative tension.
Rolling perception for travels on the road and using a bardic? Sure adding that bardic after I've announced its a failure? Also fine.
But when it's a boss fight, and someone roles a saving throw for some catastrophic ability, I will try and build tension by getting them to roll and then asking if they want to add anything else before I announce they/pass fail.
It keeps tension high, when they roll like 16+ and I still say "are you you don't wanna use bardic "
All that said, I don't mind the change.
I loved the reaction based inspiration! I have actually home brewed a fix for backward compatibility. Use the rules in play test 6, but allow reaction inspiration proficiency bonus times per day. This way you don't interfere with established mechanics, but can still throw out those clutch moment inspirations. It is a little more to keep track of, but the bards at my table are really enjoying how much more impactful they feel getting to actively use the ability. Glad to see I'm not the only one who was saddened by the loss.
BTW I also have a couple of bards of different levels in my game. The way we have dealt with the whole "who gave whom what die of inspiration" problem is as follows. Each bard has a number of the appropriate dice. When they inspire someone, they hand them one of those dice. That way they know how many inspirations they have left, who was inspired by whom, and the player with inspiration has that die sitting in front of them as a reminder that it is available. We use starkly monochromatic dice for this, and all of one color for each of them, so they are easy to pick out at the table. I can just look at a player's area and tell if they have inspiration. It really saves on all that confusion, at a cost of about 5 bucks from the local game store's loose dice bin.
My favorite thing about Reaction Bardic Inspiration is that it gives me, the Bard, player agency over when I use MY feature, and I don't have to constantly bog down gameplay reminding the other players that they have my Bardic Inspiration.
Hey, guys! Can anyone clear my question, please? Is this channel the most famous channel for optimized character build? Like, the creator breaking down the numbers of builds that he creates in order to achieve the greatest numerical advantage? Are there other channels like this one? I am not very knowledgeable in this matter. Thank you for your attention!
If WotC plans to reprint old subclasses with player feedback in mind, then I don’t care at all about backwards compatibility. I have a Monk I’ve been meaning to play that works really well flavor-wise with the Way of Long-Death from SCAG for example. Also, you could do an actual poll on your community page, it’s good for the algorithm! Great video, appreciate the work you do as always!
One version of Bardic Inspiration I really wish we could have playtested would be having only 1 use of it, but it recharging whenever you spend a spell slot to cast a bard spell, so it's not exactly a separate pool of resources.
Connected to that, I think Countercharm should simply be something that happens when you cast a bard spell on your turn, no additional action/bonus action/reaction required: you do your bard thing, allies who hear you get advantage.
One of the few things I really loved this UA was Bard being able to choose their spell school, less for mechanics, and more for theme. A bard in a remote tribe might make more sense as Primal. A bard with the Divine spell list makes so much sense as for a lot of character ideas. Even if Arcane might be the most "generally powerful" spell list, there are so many storytelling options opened up here, and I love it.
It's right up there with Warlocks being able to choose mainstat. If only they let Monks choose mainstat, too. Ripping off that Pact Boon structure for Monks would have allowed classic Dexterity, but also Strength Monks to capitalize on Athletics, or Wisdom Monks just because that'd be fun too. Give each their own alternative defense calculation, and away we go.
Here's the reason to use the RAW for the 2014 version(s) - the classic scene. The DM & player stare at each other across the field. Er, table. The DM holds up a pocketwatch playing a tinkling tone. Then suddenly a hero appears. With a pocketwatch playing the same tinkling tone. Sweat beads on people's brows. Violins swell. Staccato guitar strumming. Horns join in. Then all goes silent except for the tinkling of that dang watch. . .Will you or won't you? Suddenly there is a crack of thunder!
Did you choose correctly? If not, you have to bring _A Few Dollars More_ of munchies to the next session...
Notably, Mantle of Inspiration had another small, but not insignificant change. It used to say “creatures that you can see and that can see you.” As long as you are (thematically appropriately) able to look at your reflection, those targets could also include you RAW. Now Mantle of Inspiration says OTHER creatures, so you can’t give yourself temp as part of Mantle of Inspiration anymore, even if it was kinda niche and cheesy.
It's debatable whether it was always intended to exclude yourself:
"you gain the ability to weave a song of fey magic that imbues your allies with vigor and speed."
For the issue of remembering Bardic Inspiration, and the Bard's reaction, when I play a bard I just keep a bunch of specific dice for Bardic Inspiration, and when I give it to someone I physically give them the die, and take it back when they use it.
My one worry with switching to uniform level progression is that they said that was the only way they could work Cunning Strikes into the Rogue. It’s so good there’s no way they’ll remove it because everyone loves it but apparently it’s harder to fit in otherwise.
I believe they would be able to figure it out, but it's clever communication to present it as a tradeoff, avoiding that Rogues get too sad about having to wait untill 9th level for their second subclass feature.
my man your humour is so out of pocket. Im never expecting it. Its always delivered with complete monotones. Gets me everytime
I personally care about backwards compatibility. There are a lot of subclasses that I really loved the flavor and/or mechanics of, but haven't had the chance yet. I have a feeling my group will move on to this edition when it's released, and I don't want to miss my chance to play, say, a graviturgist or a chronomancer.
I don't particularly care about backwards compatibility but it does make it easier for groups to pick and choose between new and old material.
0:21 Not the only class that got a new sub class, Druid also got a new circle, Circle of the Sea
We have always been using Bardin Inspiration exactly as written in PHB2014.
You see low number on your dice, so you add it immediately, you don't add it after you count and announce roll total, you announce it during that calculation and add it all together.
It has never been an issue at any of our tables.
To respond to the bardic inspiration question: I play at a few different tables. Two are very fun and lighthearted but one is quite competitive, and is designed to be that way. (Definitely not everybody’s cup of tea but we enjoy it!) Because of the competitive nature of those games, we stick very strictly to RAW and don’t deviate in any cases, so we still used inspiration as written there. Both inspiration and portent have been cause for headaches, so I am very happy to see this change to RAW to hopefully reduce the number of headaches dealt with in those types of environments.
On the topic of being grouped up when rolling initiative in combat with the Watching Paladin, the Dancer Bard also means that is potentially less of worry, since if all of your allies are within 5 feet of the bard when that Fireball is cast, they will all take at most half damage, if not no damage from dexterity save spells... Though they would still need to worry about Constitution, and Wisdom saving effects.
Our group still uses the RAW version of Bardic Inspiration. I agree that it adds a bit of jam that the DM briefly pauses before announcing the result, and sometimes not enough delay has occurred to allow the inspiration. From a justification standpoint, our group sees it in a similar camp to character flaws; while you may be heroic, you're still only a Tabaxi. If you're paying attention (it is a lot of attention required, as you, the player, need to keep track of a lot more), it's pretty cool to "finally" be able to pull off this skill. In practice, however, I've found that the longer we play, the more we end up switching to other uses of Bardic Inspiration that are more reliable such as Cutting Words.
My dnd group is playing a homebrewed version of 5e where my dm has buffed certain things to be better (like monks) and nerfed things that are op (silvery barbs) so while I think we do want the new stuff to be somewhat compatible with the old stuff, what we really want is whichever one is more balanced. Although I think what’s gonna end up happening is we’re gonna keep playing with the 5e skeleton but just adapt certain things when us players ask like for example I’ve been telling my dm about the new rogue “manuvers” and how I think we should use them.
I love the image of my college of dance bard somersaulting in the air, casting fireball on his enemies below, and landing unharmed with swag.
I agreed with you about reaction inspiration but my girlfriend convinced me that there are good reasons to want it back to a bonus action, for example if many party members are hit with an aoe and have inspiration you help them all with their save on the same round.
Would it be too clunky or over powered to have bardic inspiration be able to be passed out with either a bonus action or reaction? Why not both?
For the Dancer Bard's free casting of Otto's Irresistible Dance spell being able to recharge with Bardic Inspirations, there might be some interesting interactions with Short Rests, like if you have 4 Bardic Inspirations remaining before starting a Short Rest you can regain the Otto's Dance basically for free.
Also, if you have allies who can cast the updated "Prayer of Healing" spell, or the Xanathar "Catnap" catnap spell, you could potentially exploit regaining Bardic Inspirations on a Short Rest by using one of those spells in conjunction with a normal Short Rest to get two back to back refills of Bardic Inspiration, like you could take a normal short rest to regain your Bardic Inspirations, give out Inspiration to all of your allies, or regain the free casting of Otto's Irresistible Dance, then have an ally cast "Prayer of Healing"/"catnap" to take a Short Rest in 10 minutes (leaving 50 minutes on the Bardic Inspiration you gave to any allies before your second short rest). The fact that Druids, Clerics, and Paladins regain only one "Channel" usage on a short rest would mean they could exploit those spells for back to back short rests.
I feel like It would make sense for the Warlock to also pick their spell list depending on their patron.
I have to say, you've been getting more and more creative with your humor lately. I might even call it "inspired". :)
I love how much funnier you've become since years ago when I started watching you.
I really like the Valor Bard in general as a weapon attacking Bard option, despite it not being as strong as other subclass options. They really didn’t add much to it with this playtest, but what would be cool to see is if they gave the valor bard some weapon mastery options included with their subclass features. I think the swords bard eats the valor bards lunch as the preferred martial bard. Weapon mastery might be a good way to differentiate them make the valor bard more appealing depending on the build. Great video Chris, appreciate your breakdowns.
Awesome analysis as always
The other fun thing about College of Dance is that it's an interesting lynchpin for multiclass builds. That might be more theme-forward than results-forward, but having a punching-character who isn't a Monk opens up a tonne of options. Maybe not "strong" options (paladin still needs 13 strength and can't wear armor, for example), but oh so much fun.
I'm all for backwards compatibility. More choices = more choices, and even if I personally wouldn't want to play old subclasses and all that, some other person in my table might. I'm also really excited to see what kind of abominations my players are bringing to future campaigns, mixing new and old.
Just for the tables I have been at, the inspiration die was always used before the DM stated it one way or the other. Its never been an issue or awkward at all for us. If someone remembers that they had it after the fact, then they do miss it for the roll, just like they do whenever someone forgets they had a feature or a thing, no big. Asking to use it after or anything like that would ironically lead to what you mentioned, slowing down the game.
I did love the idea of a reaction to inspire, just like the reaction change to guidance. I hope they do go back to that.
Not only do I not care about backwards compatibility, I think it is going to get in the way of doing anything truly meaningful about how the game's currently balanced. Every class in the game should feel fun and impactful, certainly having their strengths and weaknesses. The weapon masteries were a great step forward for that, but it was only a step, not the whole journey. Dex for example is still way over valued while strength is basically a dump stat on nearly everyone unless they are willing to except great weapon master as a requirement for a martial.
I will miss the old version of inspiration. We would often pile guidance and bardic inspiration on someone trying to do something impressive in the off chance they roll a number >25 led to some great descriptions. But we could just work on our regular descriptions, and save it for when it's needed
A good thing now though is a bard that goes on the divine spell list can stack guidance and inspiration by themselves. The current onednd version of guidance is a reaction so a bard can give someone their inspiration; then if they still somehow fail add guidance as a reaction. Those crazy fun super rolls may not be a thing anymore; but a divine bard can basically ensure noone ever fails a check.
Dazzling footwork sounds incredible. Dexterity and Charisma are the main focuses or a dancing bard anyway, so it's perfectly normal to start with an AC of 17-18 without a shield and with no disadvantage on stealth checks. It is a fantastic feature and does not come with downsides like having an otherwise bad race (tortle). Go variant human and pick this and a lvl 1 feat and you are off to the races. With rolled stats this is even better. Glorious feature. Barbarian gets Dex + con which is usually worse as they'd normally want strength over dex. Sounds a 10 / 10 feature. Fantastic.
I used to have my players declare "I"m using Bardic inspiration on this roll" whenever I asked for a result, that way they could choose to add it if they weren't confident on the roll, but that lead to some moments when I went ahead with the roll and had to walk back once they said that they wanted to use it after all.
Personally, after using the Reaction-based Bardic Inspiration of the last playtest, I gotta say that felt a lot smoother and much more rewarding for my Bard players, I could see them beaming with a smile whenever they butt into a failed roll to grant them inspiration.
16:44 speaking of that lukewarm response in the survey, here's something that I hope we get in one of the surveys later on: a question along the lines of "were there any features or versions of features in one of these play tests that wound up being dropped but you really liked and wanted to keep? Specify." Then the features that get mentioned the most in that question could be surveyed one more time to get our final thoughts.
For the fail checks for BI (Bardic Inspiration) usage. Our group sorta already knew if a roll was to low to add the BI die, which I am sure most tables are ,like this, but yes we used it before we gave a "final answer"
I think a possible line of reasoning they are holding on to with the 'when you roll initiative and are empty' that they have on the monk too is an attempt to avoid players who want to steamroll the DM into trivial initiative rolls as a way to farm an otherwise limited resource.
Player: I attack the farmer's dog.
DM: Roll initiative.
Player: Sweet, now I run away.
DM: Ummm okay, the farmer calls his dog back and they don't pursue, you're out of combat.
Player: I attack the first person I pass on the road.
DM: Really? Okay, it's a human with a cart pulled by a donkey. Roll initiative.
Player: Great, I'm refilled on Bardic Inspirations!
DM: .....
Do I think that's a realistic worry for high level play? No, any DM running that level ought to be able to shut that down, and any player playing that level hopefully isn't doing it for those sort of exploits, but....
Vicious mockery also works against for any creature you can see OR HEAR within range. So if I hear an enemy in the next room, I can yell an insult at them through the wall and give them a headache