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- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2024
- The Eldritch Lorecast deep dives into the D&D 2024 previews to explore backgrounds, weapon mastery, heroic advantage, subclasses, and that one missed opportunity!
Experience Grim Hollow on D&D Beyond: ghostfiregaming.com/GGYT_GHPG...
Follow the Grim Hollow Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
Email your questions to podcast@ghostfiregaming.com
Ben: @TheBenByrne
Dael: @dailydael
Shawn: @shawnmerwin
Robert: @RobertHartleyGM
Editor: @ZsDante
Topics:
00:00 - Intro
03:20 - Grim Hollow on D&D Beyond
10:31 - Grim Hollow Tranformed
16:46 - D&D '24 PHB preview
19:29 - Backgrounds and origins
34:50 - Major rules changes
52:50 - New subclasses 
Развлечения
I do like the “+1 from class, +1 from background, +1 from species” idea. That makes a lot of sense to me. But I would have a choice inside of that too. Like a Paladin chooses the +1 from either Strength or Charisma. A wood chooses from either Dexterity or Wisdom.
I like that the choice for custom backgrounds is in the DMG and not the PHB. It allows the DM to control the players choices which may or may not fit with the DMs world. Players will have to ask, can I play this rather than the DM being the bad guy and having to say no, you cannot play that.
I like this too. It preserves customization, but gives the DM more explicit authority to arbitrate what is or is not appropriate for the campaign.
The background customization was entirely incorporated and is super easy to use. I, like Dael, only used custom backgrounds.
I've been engaging with the playtest materials since weapon masteries were introduced. Weapon masteries don't slow down combat - martial turns are still way faster than spell caster turns, and situations like the fighter switching weapons 8 times just never happens. At most, the fighter knocks someone prone then switches to a different weapon to start pushing the enemy.
The point of weapon masteries is to keep the class simple for those who want it (you don't need to switch weapons. Just pick the one weapon set for your build) and give more tactics to those who do.
Finally, I'll push back on how switching weapons is weird imagery. It's weirder to me that the wizard can, somehow, do the entire incantation for fireball, aim it in the heat of battle, release it, and still have time to reposition while being shot at. A fighter kicking someone back a foot or too just to make room to pull out a different weapon? Police and military are trained to do exactly that.
Agreed. Although topple does require a save, so it slightly slows things down. But casters always take longer.
In terms of weapon switching, I also have some issues with complaints of verisimilitude. Like this is a fantasy game with supernatural superheroes where people can literally summon hands, can grow into giants, teleport, and heal. And thats just the martials. And our main issue with realism is that martials have fast hands to draw weapons?
I am simply getting rid of interaction rules in my game, it's free (shield is a BA). I realise for formal rules that might be an issue, but for me I can trust my players not to be stupid with it.
what you're skipping is the sheathing of drawn weapons, that's what takes time. Police and military can switch weapons quickly because they have slings (they can just drop/grab the weapon) and quick draw holsters (which are faster and easier to draw/sheath than blades). Doesn't really work the same with medieval weaponry.
Don't know the new rule, but based how it was before and how it SHOULD work imo, is you're welcome to cycle through all your weapons, and drawing a weapon as part of the attack is fine, but sheathing is not. So you'd have to drop all of your weapons as you go to do this, because sheathing one weapon and drawing another right after is enough to constitute an action (a bonus action or fighting style at the least). So you can still do it, dropping weapons as you go. Still cool and cinematic in the right moment, but comes with a simple cost. You better hope you can pick them up after the battle, and before an enemy does, etc. Players can have their fun, but so can the DM. Everyone wins.
As for Crits, we house ruled, basic weapon or spell dmg dice auto Max, set those aside, and then roll the dmg dice again and add them. So Crits are always Massive! We also have fun and zany 1's = roll 1d6 and something sh@%y happens. It's been working out great til for the past 2 years and are level 14 now.
We also use the max + roll crit rule, and it works really well.
The origin stuff is weird because it is gonna be REALLY hard to put the toothpaste back in the bottle of compltely custom stat buffs from tasha's and how that can represent anything about your character and where they came from, how they were raised beyond just, the job they had before adventurer. That said I hope similar to some of the optional toggles on dnd beyond page 1 of the character creator that enable things like third party content, homebrew or custom origin stats, they add an option for enabling taking any origin feat not just the ones granted by your background, else we're gonna see a lot more of me fiddling with the homebew tool for my players to let the game give them the options they want.
All of THIS ^^^
I wish I had an inkling that the Grim Hollow refresh was coming prior to buying the current version of the books. That's a lot of money for material that will be made obsolete in a few months...
It isn't obsolete. There's not an upgrade that makes that material unusable. You can play it with 5th Ed material forever.
Same lol
@benjackson-ellery4267 the material was advertised as being obsolete and needing improvements and will be updated to 2024 rules as the reasoning for the kickstarter in October
I'm pretty sure the heroic inspiration will allow you to reroll ANY roll including ALL damage dice for a fireball or your hit point increase at level up.
Yay! We removed bio essentialism and reinvented social class to replace it!
😅
Heroic Inspiration as it pertains to damage dice. A wizard in casting Fireball draws upon his mystic knowledge that provides an increase in damage or other aspects of the spell like area of effect? In so doing takes levels of exhaustion?! More thematic. Take a risk with a consequence.
I think the "my DM aproves this change" check box... would be Surprisingly helpful.
I think it would be abused, and checked even when the GM is unaware of the players choice. "Submit this to my GM for approval" would be my choice.
@falconnm true, and yes
And they did that… in the 4e App. So the technology is there, it is possible to implement.
I agree with Robert here, there is nothing wrong with tieying race and background to an ability score, playing against type should feel like... playing against type. The rules inform about the setting, and in most dnd settings, races function in a similar way with goliaths being naturally stronger than halflings. Allowing the DM to change the setting at his will should be an option, but the game should have a default setting for it to have some crunch. Otherwise, the DM is the one in charge of telling players "on my world, goliaths get a +1 STR as part of their 1st level ASI" and some players may complain.
glad you guys have differing thoughts on some of the topics because some of the takes make me want to vent my spleen. the worst was that there shouldnt be weapon mastery because itll make combat take even longer. martials are so boring to play, it's roll to attack two or three times and that's it. now they have different choices. thatd be like saying let's get rid of spell casting, it makes combat take to long.
Crawford mentioned using Heroic Inspiration for crit-fishing, which suggests to me that it’s going to be reroll-take better. The only difference from 2014 Inspiration is that it can be applied to any die roll, instead of only a d20.
On it's own it's mechanically similar, but it interacts with some things differently. The biggest example IMO is when you have advantage inspiration in 2014 is completely useless because there is no double advantage. But with heroic inspiration it now stacks with advantage, which is good considering there are now so many more ways to gain advantage. I believe It's also different in that you can choose to use heroic inspiration after seeing the result of your roll instead of having to use it before the roll, though I haven't seen the wording, and I think many DM's run 2014 inspiration that way anyway despite it not being RAW.
Thats what it is, if you actually listened. Reroll ANY dice, use new result. So if you wanted to you could use it to reroll the lower advantage roll try for crit, which the Champion might want to do since they get it every turn.
In a way, don't (some) monsters already have weapon mastery? They can hit, then force a save or you're knocked prone, grappled, stunned, etc et al ad nauseum. So long as it's clearly (and simply) included in a stat block, I don't imagine it'll bog down my table (anymore than monster stat blocks already do).
Merwin's Spleen is an absolutely overpowered spell...
I saw someone on Twitter talking about this change, and I kinda came to the conclusion we should just get rid of the 1st level ASI altogether and rebalance the game so a +2 to +3 in your primary ability score until you get an ASI at level IV is good enough. You either tie the ASIs to species or background and people get mad about being either pigeonholed or nerfed if they want to play against type, or you make them floating, and then you're getting that ASI based on absolutely nothing outside of game mechanics. Just make the highest score you can get with Point Buy viable for 1st level play.
I genuinely don't understand the problem people have with 2014 Surprise. "A creature with the Surprised condition cannot move or take actions during the first round of combat" is perfectly straightforward to me. Maybe "A creature loses the Surprised condition after it takes damage" would be an okay nerf, but a whole-ass redesign feels unnecessary to me. People just need to stop being grognards about 5E's new (well, new a decade ago) terminology. Your "surprise round" is dead, just like your "skill checks". dealwithit.gif
Man, all this talk about Ben's problem player is making me concerned about jumping back into my homebrew Thug Rogue subclass whose core feature is adding Grapple to the list of options for Cunning Action and being able to deal Sneak Attack damage to a creature with a speed of 0. Sounds like that might be something that just encourages players like Stephen...
50:40 thnx Shawn. I did this in my last game. It makes being a DM so much easier. Roll behind the screen and just put them wherever. Such a small tip but for me, a gamechanger.
I'm full in with Robert. Playing against type should end up with you have a wider build instead of a focused build. If the type is different in a different setting then there should be new content for that. I would prefer that we stop using ASIs at all in character creation and purely use high impact features. Races should provide biology and backgrounds should provide experiences. These features should have the clearest and main synergies with expected classes.
I've been working on a set of features based on adding a new strength and weakness to every race. Orcs have double the food/water requirements, but get extra hit dice now so they can heal up. That probably seems most appealing to a fighter or barbarian who are taking hits all the time, but it also should appeal to the wizard who is much more scared of being on low hp.
This is what I want from races and backgrounds, playing to type gives you very clear easy to use synergies. Playing against type gives you better coverage. This also comes back to the ongoing increase of Single ability score design. By increasingly focusing on a single score min maxing just that score helps a player way more than it probably should. If classes had uses for the other scores to play differently, EX battle master gets extra manuevers based on int, sorcerers get extra sorc points based on con, monk gets extra ki based on wis. That's all resource based but it would make you play different. Do you want to hit harder or do more? Ranger can get extra foes based on int and wizard can get cheaper spell writing based on wis. There's so many axis to make players feel more unique, but people are so stuck on getting that +2 in their main score they don't even consider how insane it is when they already have 16 other points in it.
I'd like to see them remove the character creation ability score improvement from class, background, and species and just give an improved standard array, like Sly Flourish's +3 +2 +2 +1 +1 -1 or similar. But, if they want to keep the three +1s, just attached them to the class...
Also, I would like to see them retire the ability score from the character sheet and stat blocks and just use the mod. There's already a conversion table in the 2014 book that I can refer to if I ever need to know the score instead of the mod.
They would just use the mod if they could get away with it. But too many players and groups are super into rolling their stats so they're pretty stuck with it
@@davidfarnham5623for sure. Sounds like something for the Alternative Rules section
The stats are very core to D&D, so moving away from that would be seen as very NOT D&D.
Even if they mean nothing really, the game has had them forever, so removing them isn't gonna give unless it's for a very very good reason.
@@cbeaird52 I stated that it was my want to see these changes, not that I expected them to occur.
@@lachrymalquietus that's fine.
I wanted to offer my perspective as to why they've stuck/will stick around.
its a reroll for ANYTHNG, including leveing up and using it for your HIT POINTs roll! :O
I anticipate a sage advice errata for that 😂
I know I am probably late to the discussion and I am sorry I didn't read all the comments. So there's a good chance that this was already mentioned. The ability score increases based on species/ancestry/lineage, background and class kind of is the way it's done in A Life Well Lived by Cubicle 7 which my players and I really enjoyed using for character creation for our new campaign.
Still I always give my players the option to choose where they want to put their +1s (with a maximum of +2 to a single ability). But if they do diverge from the defaults, they need to come up with a narrative explanation, which is likely to also inform specific and interesting role playing aspects of the character.
I'm disappointed that we never got to see Shawn's spleen! 😢
41:51 If you look at gambling, failure and near wins are more addictive than winning.
The 2014 5e surprise rules were a problem because getting surprise was SO powerful that it made many combats trivial, which in turn demotivated the DM to allow the PCs to get surprise.
Making getting surprise an advantage but not SO consequential, gives the DM permission to let the PCs get surprise.
A like for Michael Winslow!
@20:30 "...We're not talking about Tales of the Valiant..." seems to be the doctrine of the internet. What did Kobold Press miss that they go out raised by DC20?
Hedge wizards of the realms... unite!!! 🪄
WTF? I didn't expect Rob to be on here!!
"I'm not playing with myself for half an hour", that's an improvement from many gamers.
The surprise change is welcome imo. Surprise was one of those things that was 1: confusing, 2:felt really unfair as a player, and 3 was devastating in encounters, so much so that basically every class that could took pass without trace because having an entire round of free attacks just outright ended things.
With the paladin nerf I was dooming, but then I saw the rogue and now the warlock and I'm not dooming anymore, I'm hyped again. I'm hyped for the new revision!!
I can't get behind Ben wanting to neutralize the environment. Interacting with the environment for tactical advantage is great fun and cinematic as hell. I think DM's should be trying to add interesting interactions to the environment for their players to abuse, not trying to turn every fight into a fight in a big, empty room. Keep in mind the point of playing isn't to "win". Most players are under the general assumption they are going to technically win unless they do something really dumb and get the party TPKed or they're playing in an extremely lethal campaign for whatever reason. Mostly we're playing to do cool stuff. Sometimes that's roleplaying. Sometimes it's throwing monsters off ledges. Maybe don't put a ledge in every fight, but put some in and let players have fun. You're the DM, you can always bring in 3 more monsters that were down the hall on turn 3 if you want to.
There is something about the way bio essentialism is used that feels ableist to me. Entities are limited by their hardwire and that isn't a moral judgement about their character. There is something different about saying halflings are all physically weak or dwarfs clumsy that is different from them being necessarily good or evil, which is a bio essentialism that is bad. To say it isn't okay to limit characters based of their biology is to imply it isn't okay to have those limitations, ableism.
If the species don't have features that make them fundamentally different what are they even?
These species do have such differences, such as dark vision, general morphology, etc.
Nothing biological makes someone evil or not, yes, and that's the same about clumsiness. Any dwarf spending his upbringing in a circus would be much less clumsy & be capable of impressive feats of coordination/balance compared to most from any other species. :)
A costume. That's all they've become.
@@ChristopherRoss. Finally. It's always been silly to limit players' choices & penalise them mechanicallly for being creative. 👍
I agree. It’s just obvious. Just like males are generally bigger and stronger than females (of course there are outliers, but on average…).
@@zTom_ I don't think of certain mechanics as penalizing but reinforcing fictional realities
I started to follow Viva la Dirt League when they were doing Starcraft parody music, so it has been a long time
In the original SpellJamer (according to the AJ Pickett video) space Orcs, the "Scro" are actually much more intelligent than regular orcs & could be both buff & brainy 💪👨🚀🧠
They should allow you to remove the stat increase with the regular feats (I believe all the regular feats are now "half feats" with +1 to a stat plus features) and make them "origin feats".
Talking about the reroll heroic advantage or GW fighting style, if it was reroll and take the highest (which it isn’t) if you were rolling a d8 for damage and rolled a 7, why not reroll because you could get an 8. So it has to be take the second roll no matter what
The new grapple rules have completely nerfed those who used levelling up options to specialise in grappling. By making an escape based on a test based on a dc that does not include the grappler athletics, the the grappled creature can use athletics
Critical damage should just be max damage on the extra damage dice. That way, you'll always do better damage than a regular hit.
I'm not trying to be that person, but Pathfinder 2e gives you ability score bonuses from your Ancestry, Background, and Class individually, just like you all mentioned...
Huh, I always had the complete opposite experience with shoves and grapples in my game. It always felt as a fighter that it was a massive sacrifice to to do these things, just to improve the flavour of the fight. To win I should really be hitting for 25 dmg with GWM and letting the wizard upcast hold person or spam wall of force, but my table often has high optimisation, and all of the ledges Ben Burns is seeing in his dreams have never appeared in our endless dungeons and caves 😢
give Bulwark fighter its own Weapon Mastery for shields >:)
Shields aren’t weapons…
@@brilobox2 ☝️🤓
24:32 This discussion of assumptions about types and wanting to give people freedom, at a certain point, i feel it comes down to let people just make up whatever stats they want vs. it's not a game without rules. Because +2 and +1 comes from species, but it's bioessentialist so now it comes from background, but now your discouraging farmers from being wizards, so now it's +1/+1/+1 from each class and background and species, but you're assuming you can't have smart soldiers, and we want people to play what they want - then you're one step away from saying let people just put +3 where they want, which is essentially the same as saying increase the base attribute distribution by 3, which isn't that far from saying just let people decide what stats they want to reflect their character, in which case it's just freeform. I don't have any sort of answer. I just felt like the discussion was leaning in the direction of how much freedom do you give before there's no system in your system?
With the re-rolling and still getting a low roll for damage, I wonder if it would be better to give the option of either actually re-rolling and taking whatever comes, or giving the option of taking the average so that way there isn't the chance of once again rolling low and sticking with it.
52:19 Why did no one else laugh!
Low Fantasy Gaming has an initiative system where the level of success determines if you go before or after tiers of the enemy. Only the best roll will go before a boss etc.
I willlikey continue to use thee max dmg + an additional rol for crit damage. That way the worst rol isstil at least 1 point higher than the maximum you could have originally rolled.
Though I still wonder how we could possible get exploding dmg diefor some effects.
i like that and jsut maxz damag more than rolling for disappointing max damage :D
Custom backgrounds will be in the dmg.
Eps, we've always had switch weapon as a bonus action, I thought that was standard eddition in 5e. Makes much more sense to me.
You roped Robert on 😀
A spell caster can use spells that lock out an enemy such as hold person etc, so why shouldn't a martial be able to do the same but using strentgh rather than magic.
Do the new Surprise rules offer any guidance on what to do with a "surprised" enemy who still rolls higher than the party on initiative?
I feel like it wasn't previously clear that they may not know they're in combat, so they might use their turn continuing their patrol, etc. As mentioned in the thieves' guild example here, the new rules would seem to leave a vague area where you've surprised someone, you've passed your stealth checks, but then their Spidey-Sense tingles and they dodge your prepared attack.
sURPRISED IS JSUT DISADVANTAGE ON THE INITIATIE ROLL, thatS it! the end :D
I mean, it depends on the Narrative tbh.
If you charged at the enemy, and this happend, that enemy takes their turn knowing you're there.
I'd have to think about what would happen if a DM called for combat before the enemy actively knew they were engaged, because I wouldn't do that.
@@cbeaird52 That's actually rules-as-written.
You can't make an attack roll if you aren't in combat, so as soon as your hidden sniper lets the arrow fly everyone rolls initiative.
Under the 2014 rules, you could argue that the target either continues what they were doing or just stands perfectly still until their Surprise wears off.
@@cbeaird52 This. It all comes down to what are the enemies aware of, though we also have to consider what initiates combat, which has always been a bit confusing. So if you're in a conversation and suddenly attack an enemy even though they can see you under 2014 I wouldn't make the NPC surprised, because it's too OP. Under this I'd be willing to give the player surprise, but the NPC still might get lucky and act first because they can see you start your attack and simply react quicker. If you're attacking from a hidden position and enemies aren't aware of you at all I'm not giving them spidey sense no matter how well they roll. I'm not sure if the rules bother covering initiating combat in that circumstance or not. I think many DM's will allow the first attack to happen on it's own, outside initiative, then have everybody roll initiative and start combat. I don't think D&D RAW does or will support making attacks outside initiative, though. You could just have the NPC's not react on their turns until the attack happens, but then you are punishing faster NPC's by making them not react until round 2. I'll have to think about how I want to handle it, but I'll wait until I see the new rules so I can consider any possible interactions. Or there might even be something on it... but I doubt it.
@@MannonMartin Yeah, I've honestly always run it where the first attack happens outside of combat, especially D&D.
Then combat is triggered with surprise, if the enemy survives.
No one needs permission from the book to use whatever stats you want. We were doing all the things in Tasha's before a book was printed.
Well yeah obviously but we still can and should analyze the product
Technically yes but there's a portion of players that are weirdly stringent to the book. Whether in large or small ways. And at the end of the day wizards can and should make a better product. I'm not a big fan of the skyrimification of dnd but they should be constantly improving.
I'd just before a whole new game or edition than this half meausre
Half measure? Is that what youre calling it.@@ross8093
We were all is an overstatement, but I understand the sentiment.
Heroic advantage question: Can I force the DM to reroll the dragon's breath recharge roll?
I can reroll HP on level up?
Only on rolls you make. So not the recharge, but possibly the HP. Though if so they might errata that one!
I'm excited for the refresh! Will the Valika subclasses be in the new Players Guide?
I think it is hysteria and self serving to say/think that this system means "farmers cant be wizards". It's quite reasonable to say that sage wizards got to 18 INT at 4th level and has a +7 spell attack, while the farmer is +6. +1 on a roll isnt "farmers can NOT be wizards"
The discussion and points made at 24:55 are exactly the reason DC20 has a better core ruleset with their Prime modifier being their highest stat regardless, allowing for Intelligent fighters, and Mighty Wizards, and Charismatic Barbarians.
What is even the point of having stats at that point, though? It would be better off just to have static bonuses and cut that element out of the game entirely.
@@ChristopherRoss.The main thing it does is to be generally decent in _combat_
If you're an Intelligence based Barbarian instead of the "classic" Might one, you still will have to live with being less effective in all the traditional Barbarian things like Athletics/grappling, etc.
You're just considered to be an efficient "Adventurer" who will be able to land a hit. :)
You'll just be able to enjoy better out of combat abilities (like Investigating) in comparison to your dumb beefy Barb.
@@ChristopherRoss. Because stats aren't for attacks in DC20. They are for other things, passive and active. Different stats give you different things - as they should.
Stat boosts used to always be in backgrounds. It's just that pre-5e a character's race *was* their background. And it was bad. And this is bad.
How will all the current content fit in with the new update?
Bill Allen Damage Alternate Scoring System (BADASS). When you score a critical, roll damage normally. Add the maximum result to what you rolled. i.e. A d8 weapon does 9-16 damage on a critical.
Edit: Got the name wrong, Bill not Bob.
It seems like cusom backgournds has the LEAST amount of min/maxing power gaming avialable, i dont see why they ar ehiding it in the DMG as optional.
Instead of a reroll, why not just add a d6 or a d8 to the roll?
or, why not jsut reroll....
they have custom backgournds on DnDbeyond already, not gonna be a big change. I just hate the removal of designing yoru backgtournd as the CORe rule and being moved to optional.. I despise mother may i features.
A game where class doesn't matter, where race doesn't matter, where you can do anything you please??? That will never be D&D, but it certainly is FATE.
Oh and BTW, PF2e give attribute boosts based on race, additional boosts based on the chosen background (one of which is predetermined, and the other is a free choice) and a boost based on class. And the system works incredibly well.
Yeah and most PF players still choose races that optimize a character.
Tell us why any of those elements no longer matter.
@@brilobox2 I believe you also mean to say D&D 5e players are guilty of this too.
And that's rather the point. Games such as 5e, PF2e and others place mechanical emphasis on race (the inherent biological abilities of a species such as dark vision), class (being the collection of abilities and the order in which you get them that make you entirely unique compared to that other class). and similarly to a lesser extent, backgrounds. Which is apposed to games like FATE where there is no mechanical weight given to race, where you don't have a "class" and as such your character is defined by actions taken in the fiction.
It's weird how averse the D&D community is to the prospect of Backgrounds being at all relevant. I'd much rather pick between Soldier and Scholar backgrounds with different upsides and downsides rather than have custom backgrounds where everyone gets the same optimal spread of stats/skills/feat regardless of what word they write under Background on their sheet.
Why are we still not just putting the ASI into classes. You became a Wizard, you should have an intelligence bump. 🤦♂️
Or better yet, just reduce the impact of ability scores in general.
But I'm probably not going to be running this anyway.
I gotta bump up against some of the stuff said about the background system (or origins or whatever). First, In the real world a person's education and training pretty much determines what tasks they are good at, and what tasks they may struggle with. Next, it was said, "I guess a farmer can't be a wizard." This is assuming a background spans the character's entire history. If a person was only a farmer, sure it's likely they wouldn't be a wizard, but more likely farming can be in the back story but the formative experiences and teachings in their life that lead them to be a wizard are probably not just farming. Backgrounds are not backstories. Backgrounds shouldn't be used to explain a characters entire life, just formative experiences that lead to them becoming heroic adventurers. Every character could have a family back home that farms land. They could also go on to do other things that lead them to be the adventurer they are.
This is actually a very excellent point, which unfortunately probably is not in the actual PHB so it probably won't even occur to most people as it did not to the crew in the show. I will definitely be emphasizing this in my games, however.
In the real world, there is only one singular human race, with zero differences in regards to physical or mental capability.
Elves and dwarves aren't real and aren't human. They're fantasy imaginations and exaggerations of certain characteristics and tropes.
I'm torn over 5.5e. Some of the changes seem good QoL changes, some of them feel like new things for the sake of new things that aren't improving the game. Perhaps my biggest concern is that players have had a lot of things move to bonus actions, in order to free up actions for spells/attacks (which is good for player satisfaction). Because it tilts action economy further into the players favour. So this all hinges in what the new Monster Manual has done to address the balance and still ensure combat is as challenging as we want it to be.
Uno cards are mad right now with the statement of bad game designs LOL.
creating anythig in D&D Beyond is absolutely awful.
It is possible, but not easy, and things get much worse if your creations come into contact with die rolls. While it may not be too difficult to alter the flavor of an established option, beginning from scratch can be quite a task.
Players will optimize the fun out of the game if you let them. this is a player behaviour issue. People who don’t like it will change it. The best option is to increase the standard array, or points available in the point buy systems. Roll 4d6 drop lowest, do that 7 times and also drop the lowest of the 7.
Then assign the ability scores as the player sees fit. No ability scores attached to any species, background, or class.
I have a question, the panel said they do not like conditions like Stun, Paralyze and such, so do all your players know that they never have to face any of these conditions and if so do you never run into any creatures that can do those conditions? Not that you need them to challenge the group, but just seems weak to me, sorry if that sounds rude, it was not my intention, I just could not figure out a better way to phrase it.
It is weak. Most of the time players get to make rolls each turn to end the stun/paralyzation so they aren't "doing nothing." Does this mean they also don't use the sleep spell in their campaigns? LOL.
In contrast, Pathfinder 2 does a good job with it's stun/fear type conditions: instead of losing your entire turn, you generally get a value that reduces the number of actions you can take. So "stunned: 1" means you spend one action (of your three actions) to reduce the condition to 0 (ending it) and you still get to take two actions. Stunned: 2 means you spend/lose 2 actions before you can take an action, etc.
As written, as part of the attack *action* you can draw *OR* stow a weapon. Paired with the free object interaction this should mean that you can swap weapons without sacrificing any attacks only once per turn, even if you spend action surge. (Btw I hate this! Doing a second object interaction should be a bonus action not an action)
DC20 system solves the "INT dump stat / must optimize in certain stats" problem in the Prime Ability approach. Professor DM addresses the main issue with 5e24 overdesign; you're essentially telling players you cannot do certain things because they are only done by certain classes. (why would any non CHA PC ever attempt to socially interact towards a goal if they have a lower stat than the party face player?) Only the weapon mastery maul wielder can knock opponents prone etc.
yes! absolutely! the entire discussion at 25 min is amazing.
I think that's the point of niche protection, though. The PCs are supposed to be archetypes, and parties balance out each other's weaknesses, and that is a core design of the game going back to Gygax. I would say that perhaps if you want to play a game where you can build into anything, GURPS or similar point-buy systems might be more your speed.
The Professor will decry anything that has any mechanics beyond sitting around at a table and talking as overdesigned, so I don't give him much credence in this area. And considering how much he prefers OSR stuff, its weird that he would be so against archetypal design like that when the more old school you get, the more rigid and restricting the design becomes for character options.
As for the prime ability stuff, at that point DC should have just done away with ability scores altogether and given a flat bonus.
@@ChristopherRoss.DC20 uses a standard array where you _will_ have a negative in one of the stats too.
Everyone in the party will be bad at something so they can complement eachother by design. :)
The point of the Prime attribute is that you'll never be a liability that penalises everyone every time a combat happens. You'll be able to pull your weight
I think modern players almost fetishize having optimal builds while (the character) still being a special snowflake. I like Robert's suggestion regarding ability scores - +1 from race, +1 from background, and +1 from class. Will every combo be optimal? No; nor should they be. If I actually wrote up my own game, I'd do something similar, probably with most races and backgrounds giving a choice between two +1s, and the class giving a +1 in its prime ability.
Ability Score Bonuses in Backgrounds:
I have such a hard time understanding what they believe is to be gained from that complication. Here’s the downsides of that design decision:
-It makes determining Ability Scores and thus character creation more complicated. In a way, it’s even worse than the 2014 version because now you’re asking new players to make even more uninformed decisions (with significant consequences), which causes stress and takes time.
-It restricts builds (even with a custom background in the DMG).
-It says weird things about professions and backgrounds (as a soldier you can’t be as intelligent as your acolyte friend?)
what is the upside here? Who needs game mechanics to help them justify their stats?!
I don’t think anyone can look at D&D and keep a straight face that player characters are supposed to be these perfectly stereotypical characters that encapsulate the statistical average of their species and background. Not with all their superpowers that get crammed into earlier and earlier levels despite having a theoretical range of 20 levels that could easily accomodate from very average jane/joe in heroic circumstances to just another day in our superheroes’ life types of gameplay.
The only reasoning I can imagine is a very flawed design logic of “we want backgrounds to matter more”, which is a very backwards way to design a game. What am I missing? It’s not like making determining stats a simple one-step thing would keep anyone from imagining the strength of their character coming from all the hard labor on the field in their previous farmer life…
That could be solved simply by making a Custom Background
@@kongoaurius yes.
It's also a fix to a problem you shouldn't be having in the first place.
Because there is no upside to what causes the problem.
(There's legitimate design reasons to allow custom backgrounds. Enabling folks to get the stats they want isn't one of them. The proper, efficient solution to that issue is tojust let them pick their stats and be done with it)
How is wanting to fix a lackluster part of the game, here the backgrounds, not be a valid way of game design? :)
I personally would definitely continue to use the more customisable "pick your stats bonuses as per current Tashas 5e" but I can see the logic behind it (& love the free feat).
@@zTom_ The crux of the matter is the following:
we play to have a good play experience, not for the sake of this feature or that. The game needs to be good for people, not for systems. When you design without keeping that in mind and instead try to make this or that system more impactful for its own sake, you're losing sight of what you're trying to accomplish in the first place. Any design (in this case changes) should be something that enhances the game experience, rather than some arbitrary system, that's design for design's sake.
Giving backgrounds more systemic weight by making them limit and complicate your stats gives more weight to backgrounds, but is not fixing anything meaningful, instead it makes things worse.
I am completely pro the removal of bio-essentialism but against the white-washing of race/species… which feels like where we are headed.
your table, your rules. the who game is nothing but a list of suggesitons per Gary Gygax lol
Yeah, it seems strange disentangling modifiers from race and then changing it from race to species where different species are specifically different creatures and would have difference stats.
D&D was better when they did just take a stand. they make Orcs and Goliath strong, they make elves dexterous, etc. If you are just going to have any species choose any ability then there's really less point in having different species. they just come down to every character is just a same collection of numbers. I agree with @RobertHartleyGM playing against type is part of the fun. if they remove type then they remove that fun. take a stand and give permission to change it, but it's weak to just say anything is anything.
I AGREE!
Cateful, the woke cult will lynch you for the racism of bioessentialism.
Just play how you want
D24 is not for me. It is frustrating to hear all of you talk about D14 surprise, disliking it, and its flaws, when at the same time using it incorrectly. As a ranger fan, and fan of barbarians and rogues, it is frustrating to see/hear how "paladins are great and rangers are bad" at the same time people not using or using incorrectly rules that are greatly impactful to a class like the ranger.
As a DM I have to disagree with Shawn's stance of "What we should want as a game design world is letting people play whatever they want and not 'suffer' because of those choices".
The most interesting settings have opinions about how the world works, and how species, backgrounds, and classes exist within them. Unless the characters are the exception to the rule, you're creating a world where anyone, from any species, with any background is just as likely to be any class as anyone else. So if playing in a generic fantasy setting like that (like Forgotten Realms) is your bag, great - but there are costs to that choice because you then lose that opportunity to play against type. Your dwarf wizard, or halfling eldritch knight or goliath arcane trickster is just as unusual as every other class/species/background combination, which is to say not at all.
Continue down the road of 'everyone can play whatever they want' and you've moved into a classless points-based system like Gurps, which again if that's your thing, great, but I find that constraints and meaning choices are a key component of character design and not something to be eliminated.
The characters _are_ exceptions are they can generally end up their adventuring "career" close to godhood (or at least be demi-gods)
Even a level 1 character is already above the vast majority of the "normal folks"? :)
Agree. And most of the time players aren't "suffering" by playing a "non-optimal" race for a class because that race also has other benefits. Taking 2-3 more levels to get to your +5 bonus in your class' prime stat stat isn't "suffering" anyway. People get too hung up on a +1 stat bonus that rarely makes much of an impact in the long run. Even for DCs.
Point buy for racial features is honestly not that interesting to me. It is much better for most players to have a discrete set of traits indicating things about a race which they can use as inspiration for their character. Giving people such a blank page to work with works well for some players, but for many others it leads to choice paralysis.
The GM not rolling for initiative for his monsters almost completely invalidates the mechanic. If you are choosing by fiat when your monsters go in the turn order, why have the players roll at all? Just to see the player turn order? This also invalidates player choices for feats like Alert or other class features that boost initiative or rely on going before the monster because the DM can ignore all of that and have his monsters go at any time he chooses to suit his narrative.
If the DM is so worried the players will smoke his BBEG before he gets to use him, then give it a static initiative that is high enough that it is likely to go early in the round, but it doesn't punish players for making build choices that give them better chances to go first, or punish players who got lucky.
Despite the crack about "gamist" DMs and players, DnD IS a game and the randomness of the dice is one of the key components of the game which makes it exciting to play because you can't predict or control the outcome.
If a DM doesn't like the initiative mechanic, he should just not use it altogether and just base turn order off of the DEX score (as other games do) so players don't waste their resources building for a mechanic that won't be used.
It only invalidates it if you, as the DM don't take their rolls into consideration. I'm not arguing for DM fiat on turn order. Just saying I think you're overreacting and basically assuming the DM completely ignores initiative. They seemed to be suggesting the DM place monsters in turn order where it still made sense with some monsters acting slower than others, ect.
As for the "gamist" comment, Shawn's a VERY narrative driven player. That's his bias. He likes simple mechanics, doesn't really engage with art, and really focuses on story and environment players can engage with. We all have our own bias.
Also, there's already a simple way for DM's to run creature initiative without rolling for monsters baked into the game. Passive initiative is a thing, and the new stat blocks even have it printed right next to the creature's initiative modifier, (though anybody could add 10 without difficulty, but I suspect it's more there as a reminder than to simplify the math.) This has the added benefit of having most monsters act near the middle of the turn, with higher dex monsters going first and then the party going before or after based on their rolls.
Rolling dice doesn't fit how some people want to play the game now. They want auto-success or auto-failure. Failing used to be a part of D&D. Now, everyone wants to be a superhero and succeed automatically.
.... did none of them watch the videos? If using heroic inspiration on your dmg dice, re-roll all dice. They cover d&d and don't know such answers.... come on
I watched the videos for all the new content from the last 2 weeks and I don't remember that.
What
@@cbeaird52 I don't think they have revealed the actual wording, but Crawford seemed to me to be suggesting that when you do it you are rerolling the entire roll and not just one die. There wasn't any suggestion of having to choose a die to reroll.
I absolutely hate most of the artwork that's been shown so far. Between the cringe, rampant girl bossing, and fetishzation of minorities I couldn't be less excited about D&D 5.24: Virtue Signal.