Power Creep that is RUINING D&D 5e
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2024
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:56 Volo's Guide to Monsters
5:00 Xanathar's Guide to Everything
11:25 Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
14:37 Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse
15:38 Strixhaven a Curriculum of Chaos
16:30 Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
18:34 Wrap up 
Игры
We need monster powercreep
Yes we do!
I mean, the DM can definitely take care of that however he wants.
I usually adjust by doing some homebrew version (which keeps Metagamers on their toes) or, if I don't have time, I'll increase the monster's HP.
@someoneelse4939 yes but wotc gets paid to make monsters. Dms don't. If we buy books for monsters we should have strong options relative to players
@@yunusahmed2940 Agreed
Gloom Stalker is one of those subclasses where I look at the 3rd level features and go "You could've spread just these over the entire subclass and it still would've been excellent" Lol
Darkvision being relegated to an "okay" feature is still insane to me. Vision and light control is super important in the way I learned to play the game, and the overabundance of that feature is wild.
If it was more rare, it would definitely be more valuable.
I houseruled it out of most races in my game. I'm not sure why DND is so deadset on destroying the Exploration Tier.
i think it also comes with a lot of DMs newer and older placing less importance on the need for it too, less encounters being in dimly lit dungeons and on open battlefields or volcanos, or other well lit places. or even when it's night time, in lit camps and such.
I located my original playtest rules and used the Low-Light vision rules from there. Now most races have low-light vision, not Darkvision.
Darkvision definitely needs to be fixed, but the definition of darkness also needs to be fixed. The fact that so many races have darkvision but cats don’t is crazy, yet the idea that humans are blind on a moonlit night is also crazy.
The best powercreep in 5e was probably allowing racial ability score bonuses to be assignd freely. That opened up so many new character options.
That's definitely an example of power-creep done right.
I get it but... 5E races are really just window dressing and cosplay to me. Does anybody actually PLAY an elf or a halfling or a tiefling or a yuan-ti pureblood in their games? Or are they just playing with an identical bag of Stats and Hit Points as the next person?
The loss of identity is certainly a downer
Such statements assume that mechanical benefits are the only way to create ++cultural++ or racial identity. Magic: the Gathering does the "mechanically similar, culturally different" ideas much better than any core D&D setting.
For me it depends on the character. I certainly have loads where the race is secondary to the class and all the other things that go into a character. I think everyone does. But I also have several where the race is central.
Here are two I’ve played recently.
1. Elven cleric of memory (knowledge) that explores elve’s trance and ancestral memory.
2. Changeling monk where the monk abilities are flavored as the changeling shifting its body around in unnatural contortions.
my first ever 5e character ended up reclassing into a Twilight Cleric and maybe it's because it was an online game and i was very engaged in combat, but i really enjoyed getting to hand out temp HP after basically everyone's turn. it kept me focused on everyone's turn and i could feel the impact of my ability happening every turn. it even became a running gag in the vein of stuff like "I would like to rage" where I always said "You are now the proud owner of [#] temporary hit points."
that being said, being a Tasha's subclass in a party with three PHB subclasses and one of them being 4 Elements Monk... yeah, i could feel the gap in strength.
At the very least Twilight's powercreep benefits every character build at the table. It's a lot less annoying being significantly and consistently outshone when the outshining is making me better at what I do.
@@MalloonTarka that's how i felt! it was really satisfying being able to passively keep everyone up and let them take more actions without having to worry about their hit points.
Honestly it would be a whole lot less annoying to deal with at the table if it had been "level + spellcasting mod" instead of "Level+1d6" That 1d6 that needs to be rolled EVERY. EFFING. TURN. (not per round... EVERY TURN). It gets SO annoying.
It's especially annoying because even if the player hasn't been hit since last time you gave them points you are incentivized to roll because you might roll higher than last time, even though the difference would be marginal.
I played one as written once... never again. When I'm DM I typically rule that the player does not roll, it just gives average (4+level). The problem is that on Forge or Avrae, the automated feature can't be told to do the average, so it still has to be micromanaged every bloody turn (at least online if the Twilight player is onto it they can do it in the background without bothering the active player or the whole table).
I agree with Chriss though, it should just give the temp HP at the beginning and that's it. It's already a solid feature even if you nerf it to this.
For what it's worth, you'd still feel a significant power gap with that monk if you were a PHB cleric.
Playing a character that gives everyone good stuff every turn is always a lot of fun, especially because *most* of the time it doesn't come off as OP, even when it is Quite Powerful, because ultimately you're just making all your friends better at doing the thing they were already doing, just better now!
I'm reminded of in Pathfinder, playing a Path of War character using Radiant Dawn and just handing out the heals and temp-hp like candy. Nobody is ever upset to have some extra temp hp, or an extra save against some condition that was bothering them. :)
I played a Yuan Ti, and the magic resistance was something the DM argued about constantly. I'd ask if targeted by something weird if it was magical, and he'd be like, "doesn't say that it is", and I'd just shrug and be done with it. I only fought one real spellcaster (and he even tried to argue about that, because they used "innate" spells). And it was only occasionally that the poison immunity came up. The spells were lackluster (poison spray is often resisted, I didn't encounter many snakes, and I'm long used to DM's being really strict when a PC uses Suggestion, plus the one time I tried, they saved anyways). OTOH, I quickly discovered that the real benefit to the Yuan-Ti is that WotC apparently really loves the poisoned condition, because it came up a lot, often in places I didn't think it would, like fighting Troglodytes, and every time I realized I was immune to taking disadvantage, the DM gave me the side eye, lol.
😂😂😂
Sounds like the DM doesn’t know his party
@@gannondewveall7736 or the type of DM who doesn’t allow players to do the thing they built their character to do.
I play a Yuan Ti Alchemist Artificer (and has the poisoner feat) in a D&D campaign, didn't have much experience with D&D in General, Just found it funny as a Background, he hat a laboratory accident and became a bit more of a snake because of that. Poison immunity, Magic Resistance etc. never came really into play (about 9 month of Play?). Changes Class to Battlesmith after all the alchemical stuff never where used by the Group. I don't think my Character ist overpowered, is more of an untility thing.
I play a Yuan-ti Rogue, and I've had pretty much the same experience. Every single time I've used Suggestion they've saved. Poison Spray is a waste of an action compared to just attacking, and speaking to snakes is so niche that it hasn't come up yet. Poison damage isn't common so that immunity rarely comes into play. Magic Resistance is probably the most OP part since it gives me advantage while also having Evasion, however, the simple fix for DMs to that is...targeted magic. If there's no save...it doesn't matter if you have Magic Resistance or Evasion. Sure, you probably can't fireball me, but you can certainly hit me with an upcast 4 shot Scorching Ray for 8d6 (assuming everything hits).
If a player can make something "broken", it's simply on the DM to be creative and resolve the issue in game. Don't make their abilities useless, just have a living world where sometimes the monsters have foreknowledge of the players and have adjusted accordingly. It's called a hero's journey, and a big part of that is overcoming challenges targeted against your weaknesses.
"DMs can just make harder encounters" is true to a point. Yes, a DM can create an encounter to kill any player at any time. But the goal is to challenge a party of players. And that becomes increasingly difficult when parties become omega powerful in specific niche ways. I've seen parties where someone created an unkillable tank. Now in order to challenge that player, the DM has to bring in monsters that become incredibly lethal for everyone else in the party. The same dynamic exists with high damaging characters and tanky mobs. This problem exists without power creep but it gets dialed up to 11 because of the layers of compounding benefits that are possible with creep.
That isnt necessarily true. There are still ways to attack players with absurd ACs because point buy does not let you perfectly cover every stat.
There also is guaranteed damage via spells such as magic missile or simply saving throw spells that still deal half dmg on a successful save.
As DnD doesnt really have a tanking mechanic its not actually very useful for 1 guy to be much tankier than the rest as monsters can decide to just go after the other 3 or so players.
Also the reverse is just a encounter design problem. High single target damage always existed with fighter and it makes them a really feast or famine class that can easily destroy badly designed encounters that focus on 1 big enemy.
Once you add in more encounters with lots of small enemies or add a few medium ones the fighter becomes noticeably less useful.
Now thats likely gonna look a bit weird and targeted to that one player and its likely easier to just sit down with him and talk it over that his build is way above the party average and desired campaign powerlevel.
Targeting the weaknesses of OP power gamers is an art form. Every character should have their turn to shine but also need to depend upon the rest of the party.
Power creep typically alienates some players/dms even if everyone does it. Party balance is not just the characters race and class, it is also the personality and preference of all the pcs as well as the dm.
@@luminous3558 This is true in a white room, but in a real game your monsters must fit the theme of a location. Taken in context of the fact that 5e attaches game mechanics to visual themes (ice = con save, fire = dex save), it becomes unfeasible to do in many cases. i.e. You're in the poison swamp & the problem player is immune to poison damage. Good luck with that one.
There are also a number of other issues. If the player requires a niche strategy to be challenged, how do first-time opponents know about it? What if the enemy is specifically trying to kill one of the weaker players (i.e. an assassin)?
So it's not really possible in a "regular" campaign, the players need to agree to susbend their disbelief for the sake of balance. If your player is the sort of immature crybaby that would make their character overpowered relative to the other PCs, they're going to refuse, and bitch & moan about being targeted.
And here's the kicker: Even if it possible, why should the problem player have the right to impose extra work on the DM & the other players. Kick that motherfucker from the game.
I can agree to: powercreep is sometimes good. But it doesn't have to be the rule or it's just an endless climb up
Ultimately the problem isnt powercreep, it is the players themselves. You are not required to be the most optimal character.... shocker, I know !!
If you are playing in a competitive DnD game then sure, powergame till your hearts content. However, in a typical game the players should be making characters in tandem with the DM to figure out what is acceptable tuning.
Blaming WOTC for making the rules "overpowered" is just gaslighting. Sure, they are objectively overpowered, but in the end it is the player that makes the conscience decision to powergame, and the DM that makes a conscience decision to allow that character to break their game.
@@fomori2 making it a rule meant that they dont have to always create even more powerful content than what they created before.
Then i agree with you with the: "you're not required to be the most optimal character" damn it's my favourite way of playing.
However my point was another one.
Creating every time something that overshadows most of the older stuff, and not balancing it out eh doesn't feel good. You're gonna end up with subclasses or character options which feel useless.
And even if it's up to us to decide whether or not those make it in the final version, do you think me opposing against thousands of players would make the difference? O.o
Competitive and casual dnd are two separate things.
However playing a class/subclass or race which is clearly overpowered. You can optimize or not but that's gonna be powerful anyway.
Also, i didnt blame anybody.
I’m honestly hopeful they make Gloom Stalker less of a nightmare to DM for. The single playtest we got for it kinda sucked, as I think the consensus was 3rd level was the problem, not much else. The fear effect is unironically so clunky to the kit and takes away from the CC based Fey Wanderer that it was honestly confusing. I hope the time in the oven helped them figure out a solution that’s both fun to play as, play alongside and DM for.
I didn't like the playtest version either. It was a nerf, but as you say, they nerfed the wrong things. I'm hoping they come up with a better version.
One of the main issues with Gloomstalker is how everyone seems to play invisibility wrong.
Unless you hide, they still know where you are!
So many groups and players I've been with say things like "I'm invisible so he doesn't know where I am." It gives them dis on attacks and you advantage, which is still really strong, but they can still target you pretty easily, or throw a light a torch and throw it to where you are to make you visible, etc.
Gloomstalker plus a rogue dip is something I hardly ever see, but it is SO good for this reason (also Goblin+GS). The Goblin Gloomstalker is actually the scary one for the DM, not the Bugbear Gloomstalker.
The one I hate the most is the Elf Gloomstalker. "I'm invisible." Elven Accuracy go brrrr.
@insertphrasehere15 That's more a problem with the mechanics for invisibility combined with Umbral Sight needing a nerf (if people are handling invisibility the way it should *actually* be handled rather than RAW)
@@insertphrasehere15 Very true, Invisibility is to often it seems ruled as in effect invulnerability to everything targeted. Which isn't how it is supposed to be at all, if you want to spend your action economy requirements to hide in the first place being invisible is a great boon, both helping you pull of the hiding and helping you stay hidden while moving in the open. Though the same is also true of lighting levels and cover in general in most games it seems.
But in part that is IMO because its too easy to overlook them and often too awkward to keep track - The PC does not have LOS but I the player know exactly what is going on because I can still see the whole map or in theatre of the mind when its next to impossible to keep track of those sort of details so the DM tends to be capricious but leaning permissive. Though some VTT do have dynamic LOS which might help get players in the right mindset as they don't really get to know everything, but can still presumably hear the chat or see in the combat log the effects they can't see.
In second edition the complete elf handbook was so broken they later issued an apology for it.
"Kits" were a mess in general. Good concept, poor execution.
@@TreantmonksTemple it's been bad since the beginning. Female drow in 1st edition could end up with over 10 spells at 1st level at the cost of 20% XP penalty. Which for thief or cleric still meant they leveled up as fast or faster than fighters.
The apology was a KS stretch goal from a different company (same writer) and it was very much a forced non apology
Elf wank has been an issue since time began. There's a handful of features in 5e that either only work with elves or only work with elf flavoring even though numerically there's no reason to have the restriction.
Power creep is to be expected in any game, but dnd has such an easy way of letting players test new options, especially high volume players like yourself. It’s crazy to me that some of things get printed.
Me too.
Wotc knows very well that broken sells more. Balance was never relevant to them because "the dm can fix it"
Then again, Sleet Storm and Plant Growth are still as ludicrous as it was in 2014, and while there was quite a bit of damaging power creep, DnD was always broken past level 10 from the start.
While gloomstalker is certainly a very strong and heavily used subclass, I do think that it's the combination of things that gets it there - it's a bunch of good features that combine to a great total rather than each blowing it away. Also notably the last one is one I find heavily table dependent - because in my experiences it never really comes up (with there functionally always being dim or bright light when in combat) , while I know other tables and optimizers have it happening all the time (to the point where I've seen some people assuming it gives permanent advantage when doing the math on damage).
More broadly for power creep, I think that it's usually bad when it pushes too much 'fixing' into somewhere it shouldn't be. Like hexblade includes a bunch of fixes for pact of the blade, essentially - but instead of an errata for that they put it into a new patron at lvl 1, which just isn't a good decision.
Edit - Also silvery barbs is completely fine for me lol. Shield is by far the most egregious for me in lvl 1 spells that warp the game, and that's not power creep and baseline.
The weirdest example of powercreep to me has always been Darkvision. In 2016 it was a genuine consideration that you wanted but couldn't always get. In 2024 if you don't have it you're probably the only one, and the DM might not even remember to care.
I'm running a campaign for new players with builds just from the Players Handbook. Honestly with multiclassing and feats, plus what we have all learned about builds, the characters are really potent without being too complex. It's scary fun!
2014 only? Rangers and Monks are pretty bad. But Lore Bards and Battlemaster Fighters are amazing!
@@dontokoi30 yes! I think with the original you have to be creative: start with the concept and put it together. So, perhaps not a Ranger, but maybe a bow-using Fighter with the Sharpshooter feat and a level or two in rogue. Perhaps not a monk, but maybe a high Dex Paladin with polearm master or the Tavern brawler feat.
I just made a post that I have been doing the same thing and everybody seems to be having more fun.
Especially Monks are only weak/overly restricted in low level play, so any campaign starting around the mid-level range someone can safely go PHB Monk to be self-sufficient with minimal or no multiclassing. ...Except Four Elements, they never really have enough resources to reliably live out their fantasy alongside other people being smart about their builds. Maybe a Tavern Brawler Eldritch Knight for that? Shrug. That's probably too much of a tradeoff.
@@Shalakor we found monks played as archers who then use their speed and burst damage to close and mop up were pretty viable even at low levels.
I was hoping you would call out Wildmount. As a DM who has dealt with a chronurgy wizard for 15 levels I can attest that its totally broken.
I have never played with chronurgy wizard, so I cant really see or appreciate what is so OP about it? Can you list something for uneducated? :)
@ It can concentrate on two things and can force fails or successes, this gets really bad when things like magic jarring into creatures immune to exhaustion come into play.
2nd and 6th lvl are good and useful but not broken. However having all features actually be good is sadly outside the norm for wizard subclasses.
@@GravityAP I see, thx. Actually yeah, forcing failed saves is probably quite broken and double concentration should be big nono ingame. Makes sense
Yup dead on my dude, better than I could have said!
@@GravityAP I feel like most problems with chronurgy wizards are solved by having a good talk with your player. I love chronurgy wizard, and I will talk with my DM about it whenever I play it.
Good afternoon Chris! My mission is making good progress! I finished the '20-'21 build Playlist and am now on the Bladesinger build from '22! Bladesinger is possibly my favorite thing to play in 5e, I've loved them since AD&D's Complete Book of Elves.
Tomorrow is the session 0/soft session 1 to explore our starting village/island for the campaign to introduce my friend's SO to D&D, hopefully they'll fall in love with TTRPG gaming like this friend group has! If not that's OK, D&D is for everyone, but not everyone's cup of tea!
Much love, I hope your weekend is an excellent one! 💜
I'm looking for your comments now on my vids.
@@TreantmonksTemple 😍🥰
I really think they should've just released some errata for some of the older ranger subclasses etc.
Alot of the old subclasses can be brought up to snuff with a little tlc to cover those rough edges (also give bonus spells to more sorcerer and ranger subclasses."
I always wondered what 4 elements monk would look like if they built it like the other 1/3 casters.
Wildemont is in the same category as the Penny Arcade book, and yes, that Rick and Morty book. Its third-party content published by WotC, as paradoxical as that sounds. We even got an admission from Crawford that there was a missing paragraph in one of the Echo Knight's more egregious abilities (I dont remember which) but that the D&D team isn't able to issue errata on that book so its out of his hands.
that would probably be the 7th lvl ability to make your echo go 1000 feet. It lacks any mention of the (seemingly intended) restriction against attacking from said echo.
Or from teleporting TO that echos location.
Honestly, I was quite heartbroken that the design intention was so much weaker than the written class, I opted out of Echo knight after lvl 6 and are going with Dao warlock now.
@@FlorisGerber Talisman Warlocks can teleport with another character anywhere within the same plane of existence. I could see a fair way of handling this be splitting the difference between as written and as intended by making long range Echo swapping a limited resource ability in a similar vein to that Invocation. ...So, you could maybe participate in an assassination from a safe distance, or make a quick escape out of some situations, but wouldn't be practical for open combat.
The feat I really like but feels pretty power creep-ey, that I find really hard not to take on a wide range of characters is fey touched. Lots of characters can’t access Misty step and getting that plus one or a huge range of good spells (including silvery barbs), is really hard to not take. It is annoying that a lot of the time on a build I feel like I’m screwing myself by not taking that feat.
Absolutely. Even if you don't cast spells it's worth considering. Even if you already know the spells!!
I love fey touched, but I make sure only to take it on my characters where it reinforces their story. They need to have a significant interaction with the Feywild. In addition to silvery bards, bless and dissonant whispers are great spells to consider.
That face when you realize you are the power creep.
Honestly I think powercreep is good for martials. With things like echo knight and gloom stalker (yes ik ranger isn't technically a martial), they were starting to move in the right direction on the martial/caster divide and buffing up weapon users. But of course, it didn't help because they went ahead and added things like chronurgy and peace.
Peace dip is more like a taking the piss out of the dm dip.
10:24 I mean, if your players have the resources to scribe out 100 scrolls of goodberry (2,500 gold and 100 days), then they have the resources to secure food and water for their journey.
In regards to silvery barbs; I don't think that it's a problem if ONE caster in the party has silvery barbs, but if the WHOLE PARTY has silvery barbs then it can be a problem. Also, like... I've died before because I used my reaction to cast silvery barbs instead of holding it for absorb elements.
It gets so demoralizing when you're looking at options to build your character and having to dismiss half the subclasses because they don't reflect the current design philosophy of the game anymore. Warlocks have it really rough with the PHB subclasses feeling super old with effects that last one whole round with one use per short rest because WoTC didn't invent proficiency bonus times per day when the PHB came out.
I had to leave dnd due to this, finding pathfinder much more
balanced and it’s fun being able to be viable with most every build
Yeah I feel this too!
I get what you're saying but Fiend is still one of the best Warlock subclasses in my view.
Fiend is a great subclass, though. It's lasted the test of time imo. Wizards are about to ruin it in the new handbook, sadly.
Short Rest? I'm pretty sure a lot of them are One Use per Long Rest. And then there's the Invocations where is basically learning a spell and using a spellslot or Acanum to cast it, instead of just adding the damn thing to the Warlock Spell List. Even Tasha's took a dump on them by making their Expanded Spell lists OPTIONAL so you don't actually automatically learn them, they're just added to the list you can choose from.
When it comes to the Echoknight, honestly I feel like it's one of the VERY few martial subs that can put them anywhere near the level of a caster. Most Fighter subs just kinda suck or don't give anything really game changing until later levels. Granted the Unlimited Teleport is kinda absurd but other than that most of it doesn't seem like it's gamebreaking, especially compared to things Casters can do on similar levels.
let's not forget that silvery barbs was so explosively reacted to, that people forgot that the same book introduced an even worse example of powercreep:
feats through backgrounds before the option exists in the PHB.
It's my understanding that setting backgrounds are never paired against feat-less backgrounds. If the DM is allowing setting backgrounds that give feats, they're supposed to also give feats to other backgrounds. (There's a curated list of feats they're supposed to give out, off the top of my head it often includes Lucky, Skilled, and Tough).
So yeah, as a DM you're never supposed to have Quandrix Student background going up against, say, the Sailor background, unless you give the Sailor background some feats to pick from.
Not saying no DM has ever misunderstood this rule, but in theory this isn't supposed to be run as just raw powercreep. You're supposed to either run no backgrounds that have feats, or give a feat to all backgrounds.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath i dunno where your understanding comes from, but it's definitely not based on actual rules or rulings. There's nothing in the books addressing settings backgrounds vs sourcebook backgrounds, the only thing close to that is the group and specifically the DM having power over what material is and isn't usable at a table.
granted, what you're saying is a totally reasonable way to look at setting content, especially the strixhaven backgrounds, however it's not a rule that all players must use a certain subset of backgrounds in order for them to be used by anyone. it's just that one would hope that if someone brought the strixhaven book to the table, they'd be willing to let all the players use it if they wanted lmao. as a matter of fact, only recently has the adventurers league addressed this issue by havign a currated list of feats for players to take alongside a background should they allow dragonlance/strixhaven/giants BG in their tables and a player isn't using those sources. mostly because this won't be too big of an issue come september since the new PHB will have level 1 feats baked into backgrounds.
Edit: yeah it looks like we're thinking of the same thing. what you're describing is the adventurer league rules. but adventurer's league is a format of play, not exactly a standard in which the rules of the game enforce. though my point about backgrounds stands as the rules were made specifically in response to the backgrounds introduced in strixhaven and dragonlance, and then in bigby's it became no longer able to ignore since that's an actual sourcebook and not a setting
@@lighthadoqdawg "There's nothing in the books addressing settings backgrounds vs sourcebook backgrounds"
Uh, yes that does show up in the books, or at least some of them?
From the Glory of Giants book:
"If the Dungeon Master allows players to pick any of the two new backgrounds, then all characters in the campaign start with a feat at level one. Those who pick the backgrounds will have their associated feats, while everyone else will be able to pick between Skilled or Tough."
From what I read online a similar disclaimer showed up in most of the other books that have backgrounds that offer feats (Dragonlance and Book of Many Things apparently say something similar).
@@KaitlynBurnellMath also since youtube won't let me edit my reply:
Also bigby's was released 2 years AFTER strixhaven. that's two years of only setting based background-feats with no official sourcebook alternative. Hell, I was even mistaken and spelljammer mentions feat stuff but let's be real. the setting backgrounds are still far in a way better than the alternative. and it's /again/ not an PHB addendum, it's a rule in the addtional books themselves.
my point bout the power creep still stands.
back in 3E we had 'Level Adjustment', you paid for those additional features with levels
Yuan-ti had a level adjustment of +2 lol. I think given that a lot of math sort of depends on PCs being the same level and moving away from awarding XP only to people who like... showed up to the session, level adjustment feels like the baby that got launched out the window with the bathwater.
@@al8188 you add Level Adjustment to the creature's Hit die, so if you wanted a yuanti pureblood fighter you should be at least level 7, 4 hit die +2 level Adjustment +1 fighter
@@danielmartinontiverosvizca7325 I am agreeing with you? I was commenting on the fact that the slower level progression for one character is seen as an undesirable artifact at modern tables, especially given the prevalence of milestone leveling.
@@al8188 this, really. Milestone is seen as the standard method of progression rather than the optional considering it's one less thing a DM has to think about and lets them directly choose when PCs level up and no one has to worry about being 'behind' . Level adjustment in this case for using races like the legacy yuan-ti would probably have to be handled a bit differently like forcing the first couple of hit die on levels as 1's or something. but even then, that wouldn't exactly be considered a fair trade-off if say.. you were playing a backliner or a mage who can already protect themselves well against being attacked.
Level adjustment was the right idea, but as presented it never quite worked, you always ended up weaker than party members who had more feats/class abilities than you did. I've always been partial to the idea of monster classes as a better way to achieve the same thing.
Words cannot describe my hatred of echo knights. I used to run an open campaign for my LGS, and there was this dude who made it his mission to cheese every single dungeon with that stupid unlimited teleport.
I also originally agreed with your initial assessment of silvery barbs when it was released. But after seeing in an action with my group, I had to tweak it so that could only affect a creature once per round. I understand why DM‘s want to ban it. Otherwise everyone is a silvery barby girl in a silvery barby world.
I also gave Silvery Barbs a chance and decided ultimately it was annoying.
I made it a 3rd level spell.
I find it odd that it doesn't just give disadvantage to an enemy and advantage to an ally. That might still be too powerful but rerolling is absurd and makes it more complicated than it has to be. Also lacking the pretty common "it must use the new roll" which would prevent stacking it.
@@this_epic_name this, i'm not sure who at wotc thought it should be a first level spell
@@TheEliteJohan I have done this as my ruling at my table (it just gives disadvantage to a roll that an enemy makes, and advantage to an ally)... the issue is that since this HB version requires the player to intervene BEFORE the DM rolls the dice, the player has to be hyper vigilant, and the DM has to announce everything before he rolls, pause for silvery barbs, then continue, which is its own flavour of timewasting and annoying (especially when the player says after you rolled without thinking and announced a hit/crit that they would have silvery barbsed).
The Divination Wizard is annoying in the same way, that (as written) it has to be triggered before it is rolled, but the DM might roll something without telling the player. Most groups I've played with play the Divination wizard as a replacement, which is adding power to the feature, but also it has very limited use, so it's fine.
Silvery Barbs being able to be cast lots and lots of times, and being able to be picked up via a feat dip by everybody is what makes it different than Divination.
I hope Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind feature in the next video on examples that are ultimately good for the game.
Sorcerers didn't have high satisfaction rating due to having the smallest number of spells known, thus, optimized sorcerers usually knew the same core spells with no room for picks that were only situationally useful.
Tasha's helped show that going forward, every sorcerer subclass must have an expanded spell list that is always prepared (the same is true for Druid, Ranger, and Warlock). Luckily, we get a power level reset with the coming rules update.
I find it really common now for DM’s to tell their Sorcerer to put together their own subclass specific spell list if they’re not playing an Aberrant Mind or a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer.
This two is some type for power creep. Like gloomstalker vs rogue, it is clockwork soul vs wizard .
These 2 are so good is embarrassing WotC doesn't seem to be retroactively adding subclass spell to every other sorcerer sub
Warlock only have them added to their Spell List, not their Known spells (sadly)
The decision was good. The implementation not so much, I think the Clockwork Soul was an overcorrection. Sorcerer's already have a huge advantage over most casters because:
a. they are the only full casters that have one free 'feat tax' covered by having proficiency with Con saves;
b. they have more viable multiclass options than most full casters;
c. they have much more flexibility with their casting with their metamagic.
They should have a more limited spell list. The PHB was too limited and so those advantages were lost on a class that was too weak to be viable, but the Clockwork soul gave them access to most of the gamechanging spells that usually only wizards have access to and I don't think that it was good for the game. Not only because it is a power creep, but also because it bridged most of the gap that separated the concept of sorcerers from wizards.
You also forgot to mention that “hex dip” gives you Eldritch Blast, the rarely resisted multi-target damage 120’ range attack roll cantrip
and shield, more importantly
Warlocks should get EB for free and it should scale off warlock level, not character level. Change my mind.
I think the worst problem for the caster-martial divide in D&D is that powercreep is mostly affecting casters.
When a new book comes out, it's almost guaranteed to include spells, which means that casters get more powerful (unless all of the spells are bad, of course) while it's a true rarity for books to include new options for existing martial characters. So to take part in the "powercreep" as a martial, do I now have to abandon my character and make a new one with the cool new subclass?
I used to think the same thing about full casters being superior to martial characters, but at higher levels (starting in tier 3) where monsters have more resistances, immunities, solid saving throws and legendary saves, having a character with a magic weapon that can hit really hard takes center stage while casters are relegated to supporting roles.
@@ryancparker If you're playing a full spellcaster and you're using your turn to deal damage, you're doing it wrong anyway. Let the mortals swing their swords if they must, you control the entire battlefield. They may be on center stage, but the spotlight is aimed where you decide.
@@WombatDave What are your go to control spells at t3/4?
@@ryancparker Heavily depends on class, of course, and even more so on what the enemies can do. Mainly enemy movement options, as flying, burrowing, and teleporting all require different considerations.
Wall of Stone is excellent against enemies that rely on walking to get where they need to be. Use it to divide the enemy forces, thus making some of them spend actions getting around the wall. If I spend one action to cast it, and getting around it eats up 3+ enemy actions, it is a cost well counted.
Flesh to stone is another good one, given that it more or less forces the target to start making death saves if it fails the initial save. Granted, it targets constitution, making it less useful than it might otherwise be. If you have a way to force a failure on the initial save, however, it is basically 3 rounds of the restrained condition with the possibility of up to 5 rounds as well as taking that enemy out entirely if you get lucky.
Power Word: Pain can be quite useful against enemy spellcasters.
Reverse Gravity is incredible for the same reasons as Wall of Stone. If the party is fighting a group of creatures, half of them can be removed from the fight or reduced to less powerful ranged attacks. Also, saving against the spell is a lot less helpful than with other spells.
Dominate Monster, Feeblemind, Imprisonment. All very good.
The best, in my opinion, is Maze. No save to resist the spell, a DC 20 Int check to escape, and escape attempts require an action on behalf of the target. This removes an enemy from the fight for at least one of their actions, and bypasses legendary resistance entirely. Also, that is an Int check, not a saving throw, meaning that even at the hard cap of 30 intelligence, the target has a 50/50 chance. A surprising number of high CR creatures also have a penalty to intelligence, which means they cannot succeed at all.
There are other spells, of course, but those are some of my favorites at higher tiers.
New feats is a stable of any new book too. Fighters and Rogues get to pick more feats than anyone else, so you can often access some interesting choices without changing your subclass.
Magic items are also common in new books, so talk to your DM if you feel like your martial PC lacks interesting options.
As a more casual player, I feel rangers have gotten to the point where Gloomstalker isn’t an automatic pick. Drake warden and fey wanderer and swarm keeper seem strong enough to play by themselves, and I have a Tasha’s beast master who is effective. Gloomstalker is still the standout if you want to be an assassin, but I feel like it’s not a total nobrainer pick.
As a dm I’ve tried to get my players to use spell scrolls and crafting them, but I’ve only had 1 player make them and he was a bit of a munchkin. And 8/10 times he didn’t even need them. Maybe it’s a power creep problem in the power gaming/optimizer community but as an average player at an average table most players hoard gold for magic items not scrolls.
Compared to how busted shield is (+5 ac FOR THE WHOLE ROUND) I’m not against silvery barbs. Sure it can come in clutch at a bad moment but I prefer that to 30 ac wizard tank or counter spell. The advantage is cheep though, it didn’t need that.
The Tasha's subs are good enough that you can actually pick one without feeling terrible for it, but in the end GS is still the most effective by far and the one that's still the Dip subclass for everything. Before it was like choosing a weapon between a rock, a pointy stick and a Gun. Now they added swords and halbeards to the mix, still nowhere near as good, but you won't feel completely jipped if you don't take the gun.
Swarm Keeper looks the most fun to me. Gloom Stalker feels like a major table/encounter dependant subclass. But in those situations, kinda power gamey.
A lot of people talk about powercreep as this inherently bad thing that developers should avoid at all costs or they aren't doing their job. Powercreep is inevitable. Period. I'm not going to go deep into the game design theory behind it but the TL;DR is that having more options is inherently a type of power, meaning even if you add some kind of "bare minimum" option you are increasing the power level within the game. That doesn't mean developers should just "give in" to it and let it run rampant, but it's like asking the government to stop inflation without understanding what inflation is or why inflation is bad.
Powercreep is bad when the options that have been powercrept are so much weaker than the newer options that it begins negatively affecting how people feel about the game and how much fun they are having with it. It is so rampant in 5e because the game designers have a distinct philosophy where they cannot "invalidate" someone's book/merchandise they own by releasing an errata that directly contradicts it. They have to make new options and staple them as alternatives to the old one like they did with Ranger. I think this is an inherent design flaw in 5e because this contradicts their other design philosophy of not over-complicating 5e because it means that your previously simple Players Handbook characters now have all their constituent parts split across different books that, - surprise surprise, - you also have to purchase to acquire legally.
This is quite literally a textbook example of the "simplicity paradox" where trying to oversimplify something leads to an incredibly complicated backend. The simplicity only works if you sort of squint and tilt your head sideways, but anytime you want to dig into something (say, to troubleshoot a ruling) it becomes unreasonably daunting than if it had originally been designed with fully explaining mechanics in mind.
A few predictions for the next video:
Tashas new class features (ranger especially)
Beast master revision
Mercy monk
Additional battlemaster maneuvers
New half feats like crusher or fey touched
Buffs to bad races in monsters of the multiverse
You shall find out Monday.
surprised there's no mention of rune knight and giant barbarian, which completely change how grappler builds work for the absolute better lol.
also i'd probably argue that dragon monk was more better for the game than mercy. Mercy does the gloomstalker thing of overloading the class with good features to address it being called weak, whereas dragon actually does a thing to alieviate their actual issue of overdependence of KI by giving them some free once a days.
Mercy monk would be wild imo. it
d o e s make monk feel powerful, but it also feels like it makes any other monk subclass obsolete
I wouldnt add the ranger revisions, since those are more of a glorified errata and thus not really powercreep.
Same with the races; as per Chris definition, they dont take anything away by overshadowing other options.
Fey Touched on the other hand … that shits just straight broken and belongs in this weeks video; I‘ve not seen a character since it released that didnt take it.
@@mayhemivory5730 that's a bit of an over exaggeration, imo. yes has fey touched been a very popular feat? yes. but it's not a must pick for casters by any right. not when telekinetic/telepathic existed at the same time, and divine touched would follow, not to mention warcaster still existing and casters still needing to make the choice of taking it now vs. fey touched, or putting it off later. and that choice right there argues against powercreep, because if it's a conscious choice you need to make, then that means it's not an auto-pick
I think while subclasses like the Gloomstalker and Echo Fighter are stronger compared to their own subclasses, the biggest and worst power imbalance comes from the PHB wizard over all the other classes. Even just looking at your tierlist, the Wizard is just so high up that they are the only class with PHB options on the A Tier, and matter of fact they have 6 of them. I honestly think the other classes such as Gloomstalker and Echo Fighter needed to exist for the Ranger or Fighter to be on equal footing to just the base Wizard. The other subclasses from those classes just need to be stronger, remade so they are also options that are fun to play while being able to shine outside of what the Wizard does.
For sure, though that's not an example of power creep since Wizards have been like that since day 1 of 5th ed.
@@TreantmonksTemple That's an awful way to think about it, in my opinion. The bad classes being made less bad while the good classes remain good shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing. It's like back in 3.5 when everyone ragged on Tome of Battle, Path of War got this in Pathfinder 1E as well, for making GOOD melee classes that weren't relegated to being flunkies. I don't remember reading your thoughts on the ToB at the time, were you of the same kind of opinion on that?
You also have to consider the financial incentive for power creep. WOTC makes their money by selling new books. And powerful new features sell more books.
Yep, for sure.
In my first ever campaign we rolled really high which we didn’t even realize, and I looked up some strong builds to help us make decent builds so people wouldn’t build something that felt really weak since that would suck, but I ended up with a half elf lore bard that, after racial bonuses, had an 18, 16, 16, 14, 12, 12 and my sister had an arrakora gloomstalker with 18 18 12 10 10 8. Ya, we were a bit strong.
I agree with this list *but* I think an even bigger problem than this kind of powercreep is the fact that what wotc supplies GMs with is still pretty much pegged to 2014 PHB+Null no feats no magic items& intentionally bad CharOp rather than the kinds of PCs players are coming to the table with.
What do you mean? Monster design?
@@apjapki Monster math, DC & skill check stuff, other tools, etc. 5e's DM support never quit targeting 2014
After several decades of playing the game (since early 1977), I can state confidently that 'power creep' is nothing new, nor limited to D&D. Almost every successful game will continue to grow to the point of unplayability. Essentially, the game producers will milk the success of the game by adding new stuff until its too bloated to deal with.
TSR got right to that point before it collapsed. It happened to 3e. Thankfully 4e didn't survive long enough. Its happening now with 5e. And the fools in development think they can avoid the inevitable fall by 'retooling'. Not. They haven't gone back to a simple base as they did with 3e and 5e. They've taken the already overinflated 5e and just made it worse.
That's one of many reasons why I'll not adopt the new 'edition'. It's doomed from the get-go. I predict 3 years before it blows up.
Methinks you forgot your own bugbear fighter/wizard build when you said there was only one specific build for which bugbear is overpowered ... 😉
lol, true.
I think the later cleric options get a bad rap. I can probably count on my fingers how many times I've used Channel Divinity during the PHB-only period. Most of those times something happened that kept it from being useful. It's supposed to be the cleric equivalent to Arcane Recovery but honestly it's just such a bad feature, being often needlessly specific and action intensive. The later options are much stronger, but I think being good is better than being often worthless.
I completely agree with the Channel Divinities of of older Cleric subclasses being under-powered. But I think Twilight and Peace were definitely an over correction.
Most channel divinities are underwhelming and the new ones are overwhelming, I do wonder if the middle ground would be considered Strong, muddle of the road or weak, as the difference could be very minute.
That's fair
channel divinity in PHB should be bonus action. Or allowed to be cast as bonus action if you cast spell with your action. Then nerf the OP outlier. Or atleast make it possible from level 6 onwards or something.
I mean, some of the effects are nice, but lot of time really not worth the action when you can cast 5th level spell instead.
@ and remove unnecessary restrictions like life clerics must be below half HP restriction, you are rarely gonna be able to use up all those HP points, though if it was turned into a lay on hands effect that’d be better.
I really dont think Echo Knights are in the same conversation as Chronurgy Wizards in terms of brokenness. They're by far the most fun I've ever had with a martial character (I love martials), and neither me nor my dm nor anyone in my party had an issue with any aspect of it 🤷 Teleporters are my favourite archetype so I was overjoyed to get to play one.
Echo Knight is mostly deserving of flak for being poorly written. The concept is good but its a class you gotta feel more than actually go with the RAW.
Matt Mercer is a great DM but terrible game designer as shown by all his homebrew being janky and his own system being terrible.
@luminous3558 As said by @KamasFitzgerald Echo Knights are not necessarily broken power wise, but they are definitely broken in terms of having horribly worded abilities Try explaining how a Ghost Lance/Force Lance build works to casual player. Hopefully, in OneD&D Echo Knights, come back as a subclass but with clearly written abilities.
Honestly, the fact that one of the best Martial Subclasses must use Magic to even feel on par with the average spellcaster is proof of how broken the game is overall.
It was pretty jarring honestly. I've never played with anybody worried about echo knight power level. Fighters aren't good and it's not even at the peak of fighter. Oh no now you have 3 choices as a fighter to be half as good as picking a wizard. At least the dips make sense for the other complaints.
Oddly enough, 'Shield' is actually still more broken that 'Silvery Barbs' as a defensive spell
Silvery Barbs is only really broken when combined with spells such as 'hold monster'
Hej, thank you for the vid. I recently watched your one dnd martial caster divide video. Do you have a different option after having seen changes to casters and spells?
I will certainly re-evaluate after the new PHB comes out.
Ah yes, Explorers Guide to Wildemount. The book only book that I've straight up banned from my games. Why? Because I've told players the *only* way I'd allow it is if they understood the rulings around what their subclass did. Universally, they get confused, and I have to explain I'd have to do that with every single interaction with the poorly worded features.
I never forget that time I made an Custom Lineage Echo Knight/Forge Cleric 8/1 with Sentinel, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master and Combat Reflexes (Homebrew from our DM to get +1 str or dex and and an extra Reaction every turn). Teleporting all the map with two units with a free +1 Halberd from Forge Cleric, stopping enemies movement was fun af, with the addition of being able to go nova in an important combat with Unleash Incarnation. That was one of the most fun campaigns I played.
I either mostly or emphatically agree with each of these.
But, you didn't even touch on what my biggest beef is with this creep.
Options paralysis.
Even with pen and paper, at release we could sit down and create a new character in a couple minutes, with the possible exception of spell selections if you didn't already know what you wanted. Each addition, even the good ones, slowed this down.
It's become so cumbersome now that it's not even limited to creation. Every level up is a chore, and so many ambiguous feature interactions that I spend as much time explaining things to my players as I do introducing encounters.
I'm not against an option heavy game with mechanical complexity, but we already had that before 5e came out. What 5e (supposedly) offered was a streamlined rules system and simple mechanics to facilitate newbie friendly and casual player friendly play.
That's gone.
Examined individually, I really do like MANY of the features and options that have been added. But taken as a whole, it completely undoes the thing that 5e was actually really good at.
When the new PHB comes out, that's potentially a good time to start over and stop using some previous material.
@@TreantmonksTemple yup. I've already begun the "PHB + Xanathar + current setting" rule for most settings based campaigns. It doesn't fix everything, but it keeps things a bit more manageable.
Feeling like you have lots of options is a good thing. This sounds like more of a personal problem with indecisiveness. I would implore you to focus on your character rather than the meta game. All of the sudden your decisions will become much more natural.
Each level-up is a chore? There's nearly nothing interesting in levelling-up, except the possibility of multiclassing... What are you smoking?
@@Omnifarious42 obviously, the MC option is a part of it. But if you think that's it, and that the added options over the years don't make it more complex, then you're not paying attention. You can always choose a simpler game I guess.
Let me elaborate briefly on the comment you made " the new options overshadow the old options".
The options available in the player handbook include basic fantasy tropes. Like a draconic sorceror or evocation wizard or a fiend warlock. But now, you cant pick these fantasy tropes because you must pick something like the moon/abberant mind/ clockwork sorceror, chrono/scribe wizard, or hexblade or even hexadin.
As for races, elves can teleport as a racial ability. Some races just fly. Other races resist or are immune to some damage types. Among other things.
And i am aware of the argument: a pro dm can handle / balance around it. But the scale got way too rediculous.
To that point that of fantasy tropes being overshadowed, the genre of the game seems to have changed from classic fantasy to Furry/Scaly sci-fi or anime steampunk. Everyone is an anthropomorphic animal with an edgy hexblade dip (a dip with zero RP behind it). For my current campaign with both new and experienced players I've stopped allowing multiclassing as well as kept the races that only make sense to the setting (Classical Greek Mythos) and the game as improved significantly. Players are much less concerned with gaming the system and more into the campaign itself. Much easier to prep without having to calculate for wildcard power builds mixed with the newer player's vanilla PCs. Not to mention the genre of the campaign isn't subverted by Plasmids or a party that belongs in a Richard Scarry children's book.
I agree with your opening statement. Power creep is not a significant problem. Good DMs can absolutely manage the game regardless of character powers.
I've never had any issues with these examples. Over 10 years of running 5e with a diversity a players, I rarely encounter optimizers. Even when I did it wasn't a issue.
I mean, I understand your channel is all about optimization. However, the overwhelming majority of players I encounter are more interested in character development and story. Power creep has never been a problem.
Yeah, I ban most of these things outright.
I like variety, but so many players just ONLY ever go for one option. For instance, I find it hard to say no to say, outright ban multiclassing because, for example, taking that 1 level dip into Fighter makes playing a Pact of the Blade Warlock so usable when you don't want to use a blasted Hex-dip.
I think more tables need to be open to limiting the scope of splats/supps available in favor of an actual setting. All this talk lately about narrative games, but every campaign is just "sourcebook melange"
@@al8188Agreed, most of the stuff in the splat books aren't really needed. I mostly play pathfinder 1e and constantly see people complaining about content but tell them that the core, advanced players, and dmg are really the main ones that will be used and with that more than enough content is available. I get there is far less content in 5e in comparison, but I still feel like the rule of core +2 can still be fine.
@@slydoorkeeper4783 I had a PF1e college playgroup that would play Microscope to create a setting, then we would agree what splats would fit the setting and play with only that for a 3 or 4 sessions one-shot. Some of the most fun I had was making a build with a curated selection, almost like cube drafting in MTG.
I'd call EGTM an official source book only because, along with Strixhaven, I've had players spend *significant* lengths of time arguing for content from the book (well...player...the artificer 1/rogue 1/wizard X simply *had* to be Chronurgy and have Silvery Barbs)
Part of this is because of how 5e simplifies "proficiency" bonuses. In 3.5 taking 1 level of a martial class gives you 1 level of to hit bonus, in 5e anyone proficient with a skill or item is the same as any other character of similar level
It’s part of the sales model of their books. If the book doesn’t have better, a lot of people aren’t going to buy them. Cool new races, but they’re not any better; likewise on subclasses and feats and spells. I used multiple AIs to rate early class features. Gloomstalker, Twilight Cleric, Divination Wizard were three of the highest. I didn’t use Chronurgy or other later subclasses like Path of Giant. But everyone agrees those later ones are more powerful than Divination Wizard. Likewise with Barbarian.
My main problem with tasha's are all the "times your proficiency moddifier" features at level one. Wich means you get better at a class without taking levels at that class. Class features should scale only on class levels, no general leveling up.
It’s funny, when a player gets immunity it’s OP but monsters get so many immunities it makes certain builds completely useless for example, the poison condition is practically useless cause almost every monster has immunity to it. So why make a big deal when the player gets it? Some immunities make sense like a flame elemental not being hurt by fire but for every immunity there should be a counter weakness to balance the monster, example flame elemental weak to ice attacks, that would make fights much more interesting… I’ve looked at monster stats and honestly most limit players to go to the power creep route from the high limitations
Silvery barbs most powerful tool is not the defensive one as mentioned - it effectively double many characters spell slots, giving them two chances to land their, perhaps only, high level spell - giving an exponential increase in chance to end a fight during the first turn. This is absolutely ridiculous for a level 1 spell. Your level 1 spell can give double the odds of you landing your high level spell slots. This is almost like doubling the ammount of highest spell slots you have. Absolutely crazy design. PC defensive power is fine to me as a DM. I dont mind the heroes heroically surviving. I can always make encounters deadlier when needed. But them just shutting things down with too much ease makes it not worse for me as a DM but for the players. But doubling the odds on every single highest level spell use for the rest of their career? ....
I have (and still) argue that the level 1 designation is an editing error and WotC has just kept doubling down on it rather than admit to a mistake.
It's equivalent to a feature that costs 3 sorcery points. It's not "double your spell slots".
Honestly my thoughts on Echo Knight is I like it because usually Fighter subclasses that isn't Battle Master tend to not do much to push the envelope for excitement and play VERY safe due to the existence of Action Surge and x3 Attacks.
It does need a bit of tuning though, but I like how... crazy it is. Give me more fighters that try crazy things!
Power creep and diversity is easy to counter. Add an extra monster or two or environmental or lair effect or time challenge. Easy to do on the fly too with extra HP.
And a usable power loops can be avoided with a session zero friendly conversation. I think a good balance is if your character can do something cool like that you’ll allow it once or twice for cool RP moments but you aren’t going to let it break things over and over and take away from other players.
For Al builds being feat starved and custom lineage etc the solution is to just give everyone a first level feat and take it off the table.
5:48 Since you mentioned Beastmaster subclass within Ranger as being worthless at level 3. I wanted to ask you if you have played Baldur's Gate 3, how would compare that version of Beastmaster across all levels? Because I liked the upgrades animals/familiars received in it. Ignore my comment if you have no interest in Baldur's gate 3.
beastmaster in bg3 is really strong(looking at you spider web spammer), in 5e its not awful but it is basically playing subclasses
I just wish that more tools had been given to DM's to offer greater challenges to players that could be applied concurrently with the power creep. The last official book that, to me, showed any evolution of the monsters that the players must face it was Ravnica; creatures with exchangeable qualites & powers that could offer tactical surprises. VRGtR had some small improvements in the "Monstrous Traits" section of the Monsters of Ravenloft. Tashas added more nuanced environmental threats in TCoA, under the Dungeon Masters Tools Section. That's all I can think of.
I liked the addition of mythic actions in the Theros book, i felt like they added something cool to epic bosses, but was disappointed that they were mostly just "the fight keeps going" actions
I mean you can just think stuff up yourself. As the DM you actually have control over everything provided you arent going mad with power your players wont just up and leave.
Sourcebooks are way more important to players because they are subject to DM fiat at all times.
@luminous3558 sure but as a DM it's also helpful to have a set of guidelines or a structure to build upon. Sometimes the DM doesn't have time to make up a well thought out or structured mechanic for some crazy thing the table comes up with, so it can be helpful to be able to go "oh okay, that idea is very similar to these rules that they added in XGtE, give me a minute to look that up and i can use that for this scenario".
Even outside that, sometimes you want structured rules that you can share with your players. Like if they get a sidekick or a hireling-- maybe you don't want that ally to be a normal player character statblock for balance reasons, but you want a nice easy "grab this statblock from this splat and that's your ally, get familiat with it, now you get to keep track of their stats while i run all the monsters, the hive, the lair actions, the environment, the storm outside, the sentient scooby doo van i shouldn't have given you, and the dozen backstory npc's you're trying to rescue." If that splat references static rules then those DM rules also become player rules.
What about selecting monsters for the campaign that are 1-3 CR classes higher than recommended with a party of OP PCs? Could that work at least until Tier 3?
@@tetragono70 Unfortunately, the answer is; "sometimes, sure". Part of the evolution of subclasses over the years has been creating better Action Economy for them; giving the players more opportunities to interact with encounters in any given turn.
That's also more answers to the challenges you pose to the group, being executed more quickly. We all have the image in our head of the BBEG we designed that died in one round.
The physical threats that the players face have to play catch-up; They're immune to surprise, so the dramatic tension of an ambush changes while being mechanically nullified. The Temp HP absorbs that environmental hazard, enemies being destroyed before they can act through sheer damage output.
DM's need more tools in their toolbox, to have a name for a new mechanic that surprises the players, that builds into the dramatic tension of any given conflict, while giving them a challenge that makes it worth the time & effort to build an optimized character to being with.
There are two kinds of creep I'm particularly weary of: Power creep and complexity creep.
I play BECMI D&D, and reject ("ban") anything after the Immortal Set (so, all the Gazetteers and class adding splat books), as well as any optional rule from after the Expert Set -- so it becomes basically B/X with a few important tweaks (and rules for dominions and mass combat that aren't used because everyone is too low level for such things). That keeps things nice and simple.
OSR is very popular
I love the echo knight. That's how powerful all martial classes should be.
I think the real issue is that Powercreep does not get along well with 5e's Bounded Accuracy
One thing that stands out to me is that Peace Cleric (as opposed to Hexblade) and flexible-stat YuanTi or costume lineage (as opposed to Bugbear or Haregon) are simply a lot more universal. They fit and display their full power on any build that you put them on.
Peace dip isnt gonna out-hex the Hex dip on paladin; but only on paladin. Where you never put a hex dip on a rogue, you can totally put a peace dip and benefit.
Re partnered content, I believe that labeling came about once they started adding 3rd party non official content like Taldorei and Grim Hollow and Drakkenheim. I had been running Call of the Netherdeep and went to look after finishing the campaign, only to find it there now rather than under adventures.
Feels like the Rick and Morty, netherdeep and Wildemount are now the “attacks with a melee weapon” to official contents “melee weapon attacks”
I have a player who uses Silvery Barbs and I never really thought of it as much of a problem. In fact, I think it has had some of the more exciting moments for the players when they get to dodge a crit that would have taken someone out of the fight. I do agree it's a very powerful spell but it also has some fun moments to it.
One of my pet peeves was there all along. The Guidance cantrip. It boosts ability score rolls. You know what is an ability score roll? Initiative. What is more annoying than the 1d8 boost to initiative that Gift of Alacrity gives a player for 8 hours? Another player spamming Guidance every minute to get a boost to initiative, just in case the DM calls for it. Bonus annoyance points if they keep reminding you.
Yes they need to absolutely limit it to once per character per day as in the first UA.
Help action + Guidance makes skill monkey characters utterly irrelevant and that sucks.
I'm sure someone already mentioned it, but shepherd druid is insane from xanithars guide. combine that with one of the tasha clerics ( my favorite being twighlight) and you just kinda win everything. In a druid8/cleric2 split, you have exploration(wild shape) damage (conjure animals) tanking (conjure animals) and healing and support, (twighlight cleric). You get major main character syndrome, and it doesn't even rely on you having good stats. The only thing you can't do very well is be the party's face.
As far as I know CR kinda broke apart from wizards after the ogl debacle. They made a game system and all. Wizards shot it's own foot so bad I'm really amazed it took this long for the ceo to be replaced.
They didn't even get rid of her, she quit.
When it comes to CEO, quitting a lot of times means she was invited to leave by the board
The Xanathar and Tasha outliers aside I just don’t think this problem is as bad as presented.
Yuan-Ti is a good example. “Snake person” is a rare concept for the average player. You’re basically only seeing YT PCs from scaly furry players who are universally not powergaming and usually opt for dragonborn anyway, or power gamers.
Whiteroom builds and death matches just aren’t representative of the game in the wild.
I’m a perfect example, I’ve built tons of murder machines but played only one (nuclear wizard in a one shot) largely because no matter what a hypothetical 11th level or 20th level looks like, the thought of not getting 2nd level spells at third and 3rd at 5th etc, is just unbearable. No amount of AC or martial proficiency makes up for it. But that’s me because I like wizards and warlocks and sorcerers.
You have a good point but then again it only takes one campaign with a single character who is light years ahead of the others to really sour the room.
For good examples of power creep I really like Steady Aim for rogues. Additionally the Genie warlock was really cool and a breathe of fresh air for a different style of warlock.
I really hope every sorcerer and ranger subclass will get expanded spell lists in the new phb, not just tasha's and xanathar's
Hunter deserves extra spells too, I think the new version of Jump would make sense and Beastmasters Share Spells sounds great on paper but other than using Zephyr Strike and Absorb Elements theres almost no good spells for the Ranger to use with that feature
the extra power creep of the twilight and peace cleric in the same book is that twilight gives out temp HP and the peace cleric's 6th level ability lets the player's teleport around the battlefield to take damage for other players so that the DM can't gang up on one player.
Battlemaster is as good as Echo Knight and is better than Rune Knight. Echo Knight is amazing, but the way it's most amazing is in utility, which the fighter was sorely lacking in. The only way I'd consider it the outright best fighter is at 17th-20th level, where it has a second clone. This is a crazy strong feature, but all it does is allow it to keep up with 8th and 9th level spells, which martial characters should be able to do. It's certainly not more powerful than a smite crazed Vengeance Paladin/Champion Fighter/Sorcerer build, or even a pure capstone Vengeance Paladin at 20th level.
I dunno. It's great, but I think it's great in a fun way, and allows for creating a character that literally has to have a good story in order to work mechanically.
These kinds of videos are always so fascinating to me as a DM; none of my players in any of my groups ever engage in online discussions of builds and stuff like that (or even reading about new official content releases), so although I've been very well aware of the power creep in the system I haven't been affected by it interestingly
Does this level of power is enough to balance martials with casters?
Imagine gloomstalker bugbear options as a 9+ lvl martial features. Or passive 300 dark vision as rogue feature.
I think a feature like Twilight Sanctuary that was active rather than passive would work better. Spells that hand out temporary hit points are sorely lacking, so an archetype or spell list oriented around them would be cool.
Alternatively, just make the cleric use a bonus action on their turn to pump out more temp HP with the feature. Maybe even their Action.
love to hear what you have to say about the giants book, wow those feats are crazy
I intentionally built a weak character with the Giant Strike background feature. It has helped close the gap. The level four feature should put me in the mic with the power gamer builds.
I think they can fix the power creep very easily! Push all the features back a few levels. They need to add pre-levels to the game. It resolves all the early gane problems.
Fast early levelling is solved with smaller upgrades. Feature creep is solved with simplicity. Early instadeath is resolved with better damage scaling.
I think having level 0, 1/4, and 1/2 wpuld be great! Match the challenge ratings!
This is so weird to me. Many printed campaigns will start at 3+ anyway. Power creep is OP builds vs nonOp builds, not players vs monsters.
@@apjapki power creep is when a player build at level X is better than a player build at level X+y
No level 3 should out perform a level 5, but some builds do. This in turn means you must use more/stronger monsters against the players at the same level, because their builds are stronger.
Just catching up to this one. Big power creep to me is the overuse of Darkvision. Seems like they hand it out like candy. Sure it isn't as powerful as some think it is, but at the right (or wrong) table it can end up being more powerful than you think. Then they hand it out like crazy. Wish they hadn't gotten rid of low light vision from 3.5. I think more races could benefit from having that than darkvision being handed around willy nilly.
The weird thing about power creep in my experience with 5e is it’s hard to tell if things are actually too strong, or if the stuff they’re creeping over were weak to begin with.
There's no objective truth either way.
The warforged before the physical version of the Eberron book had the same problem as the yuan-ti where they could have effective scaling magic armor over the levels
The OneD&D playtests have brought some great powercreep such as the overhauled monks and barbarian's new brutal strike feature.
So what do you do about all this power creep? Fix it, ban it, or just roll with it?
I just made a new character and went Variant Human over Custom Lineage on my Vengeance Paladin. Custom Lineage is a no brainer on a caster class where they have good half feats like say Fey Touched, but for a MAD melee character it didn't pencil out since I'm taking Polearm Master at 1st level and then Sentinel later (I know, so original).
4:00 - That is absolutely valid and don't be ashamed of it. If everyone's overpowered, then everyone's balanced. But I would heavily discourage playing a Yuan-Ti Pureblood in a mixed party, just because the YTP (lol) is so much more powerful.
I try to curtail power creep, aiming content I design to be balanced between PHB and TCoE in power (excluding the outlier cleric domains). The more challenging aspect of mitigating power creep between official supplements is WotC's maddening using subclasses to address class issue (e.g. ranger and monk) - working out ways to elevate the 2014 monk without making Mercy still superior took much finagling. My goal is for a player to always feel good making a character that fits the concept and not feel compelled to choose the latest options because they're simply better.
The big issue with monks are 1) Most of the class features feel like Ribbons for how often they end up being useful. 2) Their main features often come with a bunch of annoying and complicated restrictions that feel arbitrary (Such as unarmored defense not stacking with Shields) 3) They aren't just MAD but it's in a way that is very hard to synergize due to skill limitations. 4) Nearly everything remotely useful costs Ki no mater how minor it is so they very quickly run out of resources and become very squishy and much worse fighters.
@@Tomeroche Yeah they are maybe the worst case of "Martial Level Up" where you get a tiny feature for a big level where a caster gets a new spell slot tier and a feature.
WotC should seriously rework the level 10+ levels of all non-casters to make it somehow justifiable to straight class them without being objectively worse than multiclass.
Fighter is the only martial that gets decent features by virtue of extra attack just scaling that well that you can give up a majority of features just to hit more often with a magic weapon and/or Sharpshooter/GWM.
A dishonorable mention goes to Mizzium Apparatus from Ravnica, for 2 reasons.
One, it lets spellcasters prepare too many spells, especially situational ones.
And 2, it gets worse with multiclassing into full casters allowing you to get more spells from different spell lists, allowing you to take exclusive spells like Synaptic Static/Feather Falling/Silvery Barbs/Shield while getting the other situational spells from spell lists.
It really should be an example of why sometimes you need to be very careful with introducing new items without considering the other rules of the game.
Are they updating 5e subclasses in September?
They are updating the game, so yes.
I find it surprising to hear you say this stuff after having just listened to your video on Lvl 20 play (especially your thoughts on Silvery Barbs). PHB already has a lot of powerful things (Conjure Animals👀). D&D always requires a social contract between everyone to make sure the game feels fun. If you are pulling shenanigans (scribing a ton of scrolls of goodberry for unlimited healing, orrrrr summoning 24 velociraptors) and one of your friends say they don’t enjoy participating in that play style, you should stop doing that. But if everyone is on board (including the dm) that level of power can be super fun!
This might be a controversial opinion but I love the fact that the baseline of power in 5e has gone up. I played 3.5/PF for quite a few years in to 5Es lifespan, and XGtE and TCoE was a REASON to switch. Early 5e seemed TOO much of an overcorrection from the excessive crunch of 3.5 to me and I'm very happy that it's finally meeting in the middle of those points.
I know you have done some great content on DC20 already, and the game is in a bit of flux being in an alpha state but is there any plans to consider doing some optimized build videos or rule analysis for that system?
I would strongly recommend against this for the reason you stated: the game is in high flux due to the alpha. The devs have overhauled both core options and specific overtuned features, and are highly likely to do so again once or twice more before the beta.
@@godminnette2 only one more alpha (0.7) is due before beta which will be coming when the Kickstarter closes (starts 6/4). Also that's why I said plans, as in the future when the system is more set.
@@chriscampion6721 I was counting the 0.8 release in the "two major updates" bit, but yeah.
I'm definitely planning to cover more DC20 content at some point, though builds will probably not happen until it's officially published.
It seems like they should just update more subclasses to even things out… they could use informatics on DnD beyond for a start. If only a few players use the least powerful subclasses… give them a minimally or moderately useful feature. Who wouldn’t like an Arcane Archer with a free woodworking tool proficiency, extra utility or combat options for a Fathomless warlock’s Tentacle (think a weaker bigbys hand) or an extra fighting style on a Hunter Ranger? Subclasses no one uses might as well not be in the game… adding a few fun features might make them playable enough to see some action.
This works for PC races as well. Gnomes, Sea elves, Tiefling, tritons, etc could use some serious love to get players excited to use them again. So many players want to play Shadar Kai Vengeance paladins with a Hexblade multiclass. It would be nice if they supported more variety by balancing things better.
I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the backgrounds with a feat from Strixhaven and Glory of the Giants.
You’re just the best, you’re videos have helped me be a better DM so much and made my play group have much more fun
playing a heist campaign, lots of sneaking around a robbery
I'm a mobile thief druid legacy Yuan Ti
We have a gloomstalker ranger who abuses being invisible all the time
One of the people who pops in as a guest player had an echo knight for a few sessions, and he had a bug bear for another few sessions
our party is full of power gamers lol
but the GM is very brutal, so it evens out
The echo knight blew me away when I saw how much damage he did, and how he could attack through a ghost
15:39 I will say, my experience with Silvery Barbs has been that the spell is more /annoying/ than it is powerful, because it's a 1st level interrupt that slows down combat because a player could declare an attempt to "counter" an effect at pretty much any time. More versatile than Shield and also has a secondary effect (give Advantage to someone else) that just make the game slower.
Also, it *NEEDS* to be banned in any PvP scenario, because that problem gets exponentially worse, and it's a lot less fun (and debateably more powerful) when it's used against players.
"The DM could just run harder encounters" is the same mindset as in PF1E where number scaling gets so out of control that a party could be anywhere from a full group of tiny chickens to literal superheroes. If power creep gets out of hand, eventually 5e will run into the same problems that PF1E does in that the GM has no idea how to balance encounters because of how significantly different each player character is to the next in power.
Granted, CR is practically meaningless in 5e as it stands, so I guess that's not too different to how it is now.
Also, I'm not sure if others had mentioned this. Explorer's Guide was largely written by Matt Mercer, so it was absolutely a hands off project of WotC. It offers busted options that aren't technically official content, so a GM shouldn't feel bad refusing them.
Explorer's guide to Wildemount was always partnered content. It was made by Matt Mercer.
I wonder if gloomstalker and echo knight were meant to "fix" the imbalance between martials and casters
They were. They did the same with the Warlock class. Warlocks are very weak because they only have 2 spellslots. So now they release overpowered subclasses to compensate (looking at you, Hexblade).
Ah
Release more magic based subclasses to fix the Martial Caster divide. Absolute ClownWorld decisions from WoTC.
Gloomstalker was a heavy handed way of trying to not make a shit ranger subclass. Echo knight is no better than battle master. Is a subclass too strong if its worse than 80% of full caster builds, worse than most pally builds and worse than playing another class with the usual fighter dip instead? Are we really complaining that now there's 3 ways for a fighter to be a middle of the pack combat character, which is it's strong point?
Is it power really power creep that every ranger now goes gloom? Idk considering none of these people would touch ranger otherwise. Gloom breaks the game in multiclass sure, but so do 100 other things if you're power gaming. On the other hand just picking the caster/cha classes is still stronger than gloomstalker on its own. Same for hexblade, not particularly good without multiclass.
I don't play with people trying to break the system anymore and these subclasses are very cool and well balanced on their own.