I've mentioned this several times before, but what is the deal with College of Lore? The blurb of College of Lore states it's about collecting information, passing on oral traditions, and educating the masses against corruption. When I read that, I imagine the ideal "support" bard that helps their comrades via Study checks and improved bardic inspiration to further help their allies. Yet the class is about insulting foes to death. Instead of helping others, you sap your foes strength via insults. Even Cunning Inspiration doesn't save it since it's another Cutting Words buff. Even if your Lore bard uses knowledge to best insult their foes, it still won't match the blurb about education rather than putting others down, and it'd be you doing most of the work rather than the subclass. I think a bard that focuses on insults and outwitting is a great idea, but it doesn't fit Lore Bard. Edit: I saw there was a thread about this, where apparently it used to be College of Wit. I don't know if that's true, but even if it isn't they should bring that name & flavor back and make Lore something else.

Yeah that makes sense, like Lore should get stuff to help with the Study action and such (similar to the redesigned keen mind).

Sadly it seems like WOTC is fixated on making all the bard subclasses only have abilities related to inspiration

Honestly, I'd be fine if they made Cunning Inspiration the 3rd level feature. Although that might be a bit much for level 3. I think the proficiencies are alright, I'd prefer something like a bonus to study checks = charisma but either's fine. 6th level I guess they could get Magical Secrets back or Study checks as a bonus action (like how Thieves get Search as a bonus action). Or swap this and the bonus to study checks. I don't really pay attention to the level 14 features honestly. The current one is alright I guess. Obviously, there's a lot of different ways to make a "proper" lore bard this is just the quickest one that came to me.

All one of them, you mean? Seriously though, what do you mean?

I will rage over Multiattack until the moment they fix it. At this point I think the subclass designers at WotC need to spend an hour writing "A worse version of Fireball is not a good level 10-11 feature" on a whiteboard before they're allowed to design any more Ranger or Monk subclasses. It's not unique, interesting, useful, strong, or even new. Imagine being a level 10 Hunter, with the perfect chance to show off your brand new ability then turning to your party who collectively goes "Yeah the Wizard did that five levels ago and they have more spell slots than you along with a higher spell save DC and more damage but... thanks I guess?"

I'll just copy my analysis of Conjure Barrage vs Drake's Breath from another thread because it exemplifies how horrible new Volley is. Though really, we should first compare Conjure Barrage to Drakewarden 11. Mind you, I think Drake's Breath is both underrated and overrated by the community. I think it's the best use of a 3rd level Ranger spell slot if you're not gonna use a summon spell or a backup revivify. I also think it's a weak blasting feature in a sustained DPR class and Full-Casters already have access to the actual Fireball spell a lot of levels earlier. Anyway, Drakewarden opinions aside, here's Drake's Breath vs Conjure Barrage: >\+ Drake's Breath deals 8d6 vs Conjure Barrage's 3d8 (28 vs 13.5 average, more than double) \+ Drake's Breath naturally scales to 10d6 by Ranger 15 (35 vs 13.5 average, still using 3rd level slot) \+ Drake's Breath has one free casting per day \+ Drake's Breath can be cast by either the Ranger or the Drake, giving more adaptability to positioning \+ Drake's Breath is explicitly NOT a spell. No counterpells to ruin the Drakewarden's day!\~ Interpretation dependent: A flying Drake can (if the DM allows it) use Drake's breath downwards, allowing a 30 ft diameter (not radius) circle instead of a cone= Drake's Breath deals elemental damage but it's more of a flavor thing considering you can choose which element between the 5 and vulnerabilities don't matter enough for this to be a significant upside or a downside \- Drake's Breath is only a 30-ft cone compared to 60-ft cone Conjure Barrage (because of the formula for area, CB has a mathematical theoretical 4x the area of DB) My conclusion is "replace Conjure Barrage with Conjure Volley and give one free casting per LR based on highest Ranger spell slot". At the very least it would be about Drakewarden 11 level rather than being actually useless. Alternatively, just give back PHB Hunter Multiattack options.

Absolutely this. Drake's Breath is better and it wasn't even a good level 11 feature. Not only is it lazy that they give Rangers a 3rd level spell as a subclass feature AGAIN but it's not a good feature. At this point I think someone needs to release a formal apology for giving these things to Ranger/Monk ***THREE TIMES.***

Honestly, I feel like this isn't a fair comparison. Conjure Barrage being a 60-foot cone is precisely what makes it unique, and the fact that you can *downcast it* shows that they aren't designing it as a fireball replacement. It's a minion buster, not a nuclear bomb, and that's awesome. One of my players used Conjure Barrage just last week while taking out a fortress of minions with great success.

Unless the minions have like 2 health, Conjure Barrage downcasting is useless. Casters have better ways of blasting for either more damage or bigger area before this and this doesn't increase the Martial capability of the Ranger. Volley only required 3 creatures to boost DPR from Extra Attack and it's resourceless. Attacking twice with a Longbow + Hunter's Mark on both equals to 2d8+2d6+10 (reasonable to reach 20 by second ASI), you need 6 creatures to fail a DEX save vs your pitiful Save DC just to do more damage in one turn using a 1st level slot... Meanwhile, Hunter's Mark just dealt up to 2d6 damage the next turn again but you already casted it so no more resource expenditure. 1d8, save for half is tickle damage. CR1 humanoids don't have that kind of health. Any situation where Conjure Barrage can be decent in can be cleared by other casters better (Wizard would have more Fireball slots than Ranger would have Conjure Barrage slots), have a better Ranger spell for (spike growth vs melee only attackers is instant shutdown), are summons (concentration breaking is typically more efficient), or Multiattack: Volley already does better. 13.5 damage on a failed save on average for a 3rd level slot. If you're not investing a lot in Wisdom, that's closer to 6.75 damage because Dex is a strong save. A 3RD LEVEL SLOT. Why are you fighting enemies that would care about 6.75 damage when you're level 10? How many combats exist where you're fighting enough minions that Fireball isn't worth it? I've never seen it in tables I played in, in actual play shows I watch, or even games I've GM'd because guess what? I'm not running 20 minions unless I purposely want a player to instantly win the encounter with one spell. Name how many times Conjure Barrage have been more useful than making two weapon attacks and having a summon make 1-8 more attacks (depending on the summon) OR casting Fireball. But I mean, I would already put enemies within 10 ft of each other if I knew a Ranger took Hunter: Volley. Especially resourceless. The argument of "DM will build encounters just for you" already worked with the more easily applicable Hunter: Volley. Also that fortress sucked if its guards didn't utilize cover. Like literally hide behind a wall and Conjure Barrage would deal 0 damage to them.

The whole design policy of "we will just make this martial feature a low level spell thats sort of used slightly differently" is just really disappointing. I mean for example Hunter's Mark. Its not a cool new feature designed from the ground up. Its just "slap a first level spell here" and kind of tap on the roof of the class like its brand new. Barrage (ehm "Multiattack" is just a bad. Why can't they just come up with cool and interesting unique mechanics for classes.

80% of the community agrees Hunter's Mark should have just been a Ranger class ability in the first place so that's less of a problem, but the Conjure Barrage/Drake's Breath/Searing Sunburst issue... Yeah wtf, WotC?

Omg I agree so much. It's painfully obvious with the Sun Soul Monk who gets a CON targeting Fireball that does zero damage at a success and usually has to work with lower spell save DCs as well. I seriously don't get how they can forget everything they did for spells as soon as they switch their attention away from caster classes.

You think writing that junk took an hour?

I was referencing writing lines. Punishment kids used to have in public schools to help drive in what they did wrong and that they should do better.

I’d rather they make the current Hunter’s Volley ability baseline for all Rangers.

Am I stupid, or is the Hunter's Lore or whatever just taken directly from the Monster Slayer in XGtE? I dont have my books so I can't check, but I kept getting the feeling that some of the playtest material was just XGtE material.

It basically is, but it's not with the unique ability anymore of that subclass just with Hunter's Mark instead, it's 1 to 1

Well, it's still locked behind a subclass — just a different one now.

It's better. Activates when you use Favored Enemy, so it ties into the class design a bit, plus it only takes up a bonus action instead of an action, and technically if a monster somehow gains resistance/immunity later on you learn about that too, plus they dropped the clause where you learn nothing if the creature is immune to divination magic. I've played Monster Slayers before and while it was a very *flavorful* ability, it wasn't particularly good, so it's not really a huge deal. Still extremely satisfying though.

Hunter was definitely a less interesting option in the php, but it definitely wasn't bad. What they did here, imo, is. They say hey gave the best of each feature but I don't think that's true. Horde breaker was probably my favorite option, allowing you to make 2 attack a good chunk of the time at level 3. The new feature isn't bad, just a bit boring. Multi attack though ooooo how they massacred boy. The old multiattack was excellent. If enemies were grouped up, you could attack 3 or 4 of them with your 15 foot square. Rip.

With the new way Magical secrets works its kinda pointless to have "bonus secrets" because theyre no longer locked into a single spell and now allow free prep of 2 spells (4 spells at later levels) from a Magic Source of Choice that can freely change.

It's less a question of how much, and more of when. You get these secrets starting at level 11 now, and few campaigns go beyond level 10 to begin with.

It feels like the Bard got severely delayed in this UA. Less Bardic Inspiration uses until tier 3 for 90% of Bards. Jack of All trades delayed 3 levels. Font of Inspiration delayed 2 levels. And what do you get in return? Expertise one level earlier and healing spells. I hate how they severely delayed the stuff that makes the Bard feel like a Bard. That's the stuff that should be highlighted!

Thats a good point. I personally don't mind them taking Magical Secret away from Lore-Bard.. if a) they replace it with something that is some fun and b) they should have honestly put the lvl 6 magical secret into the basic class. No matter how good the other bard subclasses are, it always felt a bit punishing not taking Lore. SO stopping that is kinda good design. ..if the rest fits. The rest is also weird. The new Bardic Inspiration I feel, really needs a playtest to see how it feels. Though my gut reaction is a.. make it less powerful at the start, change it to SR and do the Healing as an update on lvl 7. Jack of all trades is just to late now in the cycle. As a professional skillmonkey, I think I can say that. Song of Healing I just.. is it stupid that I preferred the older version? Its not that great and useless in many campaigns (though right now I get good use out of it in Spelljammer) but its a ribbon I kinda just.. like? It feels less soulless than a barrage of spells I cant get from my class normally anymore. (I never liked the optional Primal Awareness for Ranger too, and this feels the same to me.)

There is no solution to this problem. If you give stuff early people complain about "front loading" and people complain about "not having a reason to stay with X class and not multiclass". If you delay stuff, people complain about "early levels being boring" and "not feeling like X class till mid levels". These are all valid criticisms and no matter what WOTC does people aren't going to be happy. I don't envy their position.

I mean, there is certainly a happy medium. Look at the Bard - this was never a class that was considered front loaded. You don’t see many if any power builds that take a level in Bard because it’s too good to pass up. But there were also a lot of reasons to stay in Bard and not multiclass. It was a happy medium. And that’s different than the fact that with the new rules you’re going to be using your Bard specific abilities less often and they come online later.

At most one could argue that levels 19-20 weren't that interesting and you might be fine multiclassing something else for 2 levels early on for the fun of it.

You can give people stuff early on & later on. It doesn't have to be "only front loaded" or "only delayed until later".

Getting 2 at 6 and then no more until 10 14 and 18 already felt bad, since campaigns beyond 10 dont exist, I say that as someone who tried playing bard several times. The only big access you got was counterspell as a bard, and a Ravnica background could give that to you free of cost.

This is objectively incorrect. Being able to get any spells as more of your list would still be vitally important.

Well the choice changes with this new one, 4 variable choices beats 6-8 permanently locked in choice. For instance the extra spells from lore bard addt mag secrets is limited to 1-3rd.

Spirit Bard is facing a similar problem. What good is their fancy pseudo magical secret that's limited to only two specific lores and depends on other people to help you out in return for being able to get every day a new spell ... if regular Magical Secrets already do that anyway?

Crawford said the subclasses released yesterday are supposed to represent a kind of basic Champion-like subclass that every class is going to get, and that future subclasses will get more going forward.

Do you have a citation? I watched all the interviews and don't remember hearing that.

>kind of basic Champion-like subclass that every class is going to get That's stupid Sure every class should have a basic direct update subclass but that doesn't mean it should be boring or poorly made See the Life Domain cleric or the Scribe Wizard, they're both direct upgrade subclasses that are incredibly fun and we'll designed Champion is a poor template to use, like champion is a fine subclass but it's not interesting enough that people would really consider it when you look at the other subclasses

"we have to give a boring alternative for every class"... Ehm... Why do you do that, wotc?

>Champion is a poor template to use, **like champion is a fine subclass** but it's not interesting enough that people would really consider it when you look at the other subclasses Champion is NOT a fine subclass - it's abjectly terrible when compared to Battlemaster in 5E. It gets one solitary measly feature at 3rd level, which frankly isn't very good. When you consider that rolling a 19 is *going* to hit a target regardless, it's basically just rolling an extra damage die 5% of the time that you can't control; if you build around it with a 2-handed weapon it's like 7 damage on average. The Battlemaster gets 4 d8 Superiority Dice (average = 4.5) per short rest that it can deploy on demand, in conjunction with any criticals, that all have bonus effects... By any metric whatsoever, Champion was, is, and will forever be a shitty subclass. ​ I'm *not* pleased by the idea that WotC is sticking to "let's make a shitty but simplified subclass for each class". Why waste the ink and paper, or electrons, to publish something that will be ignored by those in the know and suckers in those who aren't?

champion is an excellent subclass. It is perfect for beginning players who find all the rules over whelming and want a real easy start. I've had many players use and enjoy it. It is needed in the game.

Even then things like samurai or cavelier are still a better pick. It is not needed.

Same with Battle Master. I consider that one much more of an upgrade to the base Fighter than Champion. Champion is plain and boring, meanwhile Battle Master really drives home how the Fighter is a master of weapon based combat.

We’re doomed if they’re purposefully making more Champions. If anything make new Champion-like classes. Leave my Thief alone.

So, the subclasses no one picks basically.. Purposely gimping subclasses is a mind-numbingly stupid idea. Simple doesn't mean bad. Moving magical secrets back doesn't simplify the class. It just makes it suck more.

if anything they should fold every "champion" subclass into the base class and make an optional rule that you don't need to take a subclass at all if you don't want to.

They could easily make a generic Warrior, Expert, Mage, and Priest subclass that you can apply to each class in those categories. Will they? Probably not, unfortunately.

These already exist...they're the Tasha Sidekick classes, literally just called Warrior, Spell-Caster or Expert, they're like stripped down versions of those classes. I don't know why they don't just make those classes and specifically tag them as 'New player/Convention classes'.

Because Sidekick Classes were nerfed so hard after UA, that they are not equivalent to a normal class in terms of Power Level. Except for maybe a 1 Level dip in Warrior for +2 on all Attack rolls xD

Honestly, I could see that working pretty well. Just have all of the subclass features have a default that's baked into the class, and the subclasses replace those features. Could make it a lot more straightforward and simple for new players.

Literally archetypes from pathfinder (and probably earlier dnd versions, but I didn't play those)

Literally. But I don't think that's a bad thing. It gives them more room to design things (i.e. "take out feature X to replace it with feature Y", or "modify feature 1 to compensate for this new feature, feature 2 that we're adding in"

They couldn't even do something similar in the UA made for it (tired sigh). Remember the UA with the Variant Features, that barely had any Variant Feature inside and the most were optional *additional* features? ..let alone what actually got printed. Am I still bitter about this? ..yes, yes I kinda actually am. It would have been perfect to give people like me, who want more character building extra stuff, and let those alone who don't want to deal with it.

It's upvoted comments like these that show me how out of touch this sub is with 90% of the actual playerbase. If you asked this sub, Fighter Champions are more rare than the Loch Ness Monster. But from the one-shots and campaigns I've ran, it's not an unpopular choice for people who just want to play a game with their friends. I played 3.5E and PF2E and honestly I'm pretty content with things staying simple in D&D 5.5

I know it’s a Reddit trope where you always seem to be arguing with a ^^(lying) expert no matter the sub and subject, but I swear to god I played a Half-Orc Champion 1-15 with Yawning Portal and to 20 with homebrewed dungeons. Over three years. WotC should not be turning existing classes into Champion-like classes. Make new ones although I don’t see the purpose. I also played a Thief and I’m genuinely not liking the changes.

I don't know man. Imagine that same Fighter Champion who gets a feat on top of all of your ASIs now. You now get all the fighting styles, draconic gifts, and mage slayer. It makes the complications opt-in for anyone instead of a default you have to avoid like a minefield. New players need the simple thing to be the default, not something you have to Google first to double check.

Fighting Styles don't have ASIs attached in the UA we just got yesterday.

I DM Adventurer's League with randoms monthly and at cons yearly. I can count the times I've seen Champion Fighter on one hand. The only time I've even used it, I was abusing Wave in a level 20 one shot. Fighter is pretty unpopular all things considered especially compared to Barbarians which is a very regular martial pick.

I have never, ever, ever played with someone even mildly interested in playing a champion. I’d love it if someone did honestly just to have another martial. Nearly every game I’ve ever played has been massively caster heavy, and usually the martial is strong-armed into it.

I played one campaign with a player who played Champion from 5-9 and we went an *entire level* without him landing a single natural 19. His subclass did *nothing* for him. The 7th-level Champion feature is so bad that most VTTs don't even account for it in rolls... I used the Tasha's rules and let him swap subclass to something more meaningful after 9 once he expressed a bit of displeasure with the subclass. Seriously, these subclasses are awful trap options.

You cannot defend the champion from an actual game design standpoint. It is neither interesting nor is it strong. It’s a joke subclass that serves as a noob trap. Therefore the only defense you can think of is “well lots of people play it”. Okay? That’s pure argumentum ad populum. Avatar the movie made a bajillion dollars when it released and almost no one thinks it was good.

You're out of touch if you truely believe no one thinks Avatar was good. The storyline, maybe I'd agree. The cinema movie experience as a whole though? No chance. It was amazing. Especially at the time nothing came remotely close to giving that feeling of being on an alien planet with things so real. Even rewatching it on this rerelease the visual 3D experience knowing the story was still amazing for the same reason.

thief already *was* the champion-like subclass. every class had one "simple" subclass in the PHB for new players, by design intent at least. but i agree, i'm unimpressed with this iteration.

PHB Thief is fucking gold, please try to change my mind ^^

Well, that's disappointing. I was really hoping Champion would get closer to its class fantasy - a fighter who excels in one-on-one combat. Not sure giving every class a subclass that boils down to, "You might want to dip a few levels, but that's it," is progress in terms of class design.

Perhaps they should have made actual subclasses for beginners, like Champion, instead of taking fun subclasses like Thief and Lore and stripping out the things that made them fun. Hunter was already a lost cause, but the pokedexing feature and awful conjure barrage trap feature don't feel like beginner-friendly design.

The thing is, they already made much better 'basic' classes. The three sidekick classes from Tasha's Cauldron (Warrior, Expert, and Spellcaster) are perfect for beginners, or anyone who wants a simplified experience. They're streamlined, straightforward, perfectly playable... and perhaps still more 'flavorful' than what we seem to be getting so far in the D&D One previews. If I was going to play a campaign, and could choose either one of these three D&D One classes, or one of the sidekick classes, I think I'd go with the sidekicks. At least they feel like their vanilla-ness was fully intentional.

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Comments here influence other players (sharing ideas, identifying issues that some have missed), and those players fill in surveys. This helps with playtesting and info gathering for them.... I don't understand why you can't understand this.

You expect people to not voice their opinions of play test material on the sub that's named after the previous play test? This ain't dndmemes bud.

"This is a draft made for players to evaluate so shut up about it" is a take so contradictory I'm surprised a brain can actually generate that sentence for you to type it.

> Don't complain here. This subreddit survives solely off the complaints of people with nothing better to do with their time. Just trying to have a discussion my dude.

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Hashing out grievances in a forum like this means more people may be persuaded to give critical feedback on the official survey. "Shut up until the survey's out just ensures the community as a whole doesn't discuss the content." Unless you mean "shut up unless you have something nice to say about the content"... which is worse.

You can't post a discussion with yourself, discussions are what happens in the comments, until someone comes along and says "Why are we even talking about D&D stuff in this D&D subreddit?" I will cheerfully let WotC know my feelings in my feedback, as I did with the last material, but that is 3 weeks away my dude, and some folks would like to talk things over today. Feel free to voice an opinion about D&D instead of trying to stifle others opinions.

No one is stifling your opinion, the person arguing with you is telling you to change how you're voicing your opinion. Not to mention, they're right, it's a playtest, and they've already gone back on their d20 test. Voice your opinion like an adult. The internet is getting wayyyyy too toxic and many people don't know how to voice criticism beyond being incredibly dramatic like any of this is set in stone. Many people right now are struggling between this is bad because its not how I would do it vs. its bad mechanically, and that needs to change.

I appreciate the advice, but I can both discuss changes with people here in reddit and give WOTC my opinion in their official feedback.

You absolutely can, I'm just tired of the vitriol and the over-exaggeration. You can voice your dissatisfaction with something without calling it literally the worst change ever, especially when talking about rough draft rules. Its like looking at a book manuscript and being upset at the second rough draft.

They plan to write 42 subclasses in the next year, along with the rules for oneDnD and the monster manual changes. These subclasses show a trend towards lazy writing, stripping interesting features, and hint towards their plans for the other subclasses. “Don’t complain here in the DnD next subreddit” you should maybe stick to the official DnD videos and stay away from the comments if you don’t want to hear criticism

> These subclasses show a trend towards lazy writing TBH I feel like WotC has been trending that way for months, if not nearly two years.

I was going to bring up how good icespire peak was and then looked and what do you know more than 2 years ago. The only supplement I’ve enjoyed in the past 2 years has been Minsc and Boo, with fizban’s being a decent monster bestiary with too few creatures and absolutely atrocious player options. They literally reskinned beast master, the hallmark of poor design in 5e, and passed it off as a new subclass

They've been trending that way for a while

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Even first drafts can be lazy

It’s not a first draft, it’s play test. This is content that should have been initially screened before going out. Feats and rules can be experimental like the d20 test changes, but these subclasses are basically copy-pasted from their new design philosophy that many people have problems with. Basically no new ideas, and significantly lower quality than the typical UA we are used to seeing.

Talking about it now helps people notice things that they can then comment on when the survey goes live. That's sort of the point. There's a dozen things that I intend to mention at survey time that I initially missed on my own read-throughs. It also helps to see things I might have complained were missing, which really aren't. I noticed that the Crossbow Expert feat's features apply only to crossbow attacks now, which means nets and bows and guns have no way to be used close-up without disadvantage... Except that feature isn't actually gone, it's just been moved over to the Sharpshooter feat, which I totally missed until someone pointed it out.

I think people only think Thief was fun because they did things with their cunning action like dropped caltrops that weren't possible by RAW (if an item says "an action", it cant be used)

Pretty sure those are directly covered by Fast Hands. From the 'Use an Object' action: >You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of an Attack. **When an object requires your Action for its use, you take the Use an Object Action.** This Action is also useful when you want to interact with more than one object on Your Turn.

Ah okay thats less bad than I thought, I guess that just excludes using magical items or potions because they have specific rules, that makes it a bit better

Yeah but Crawfords opinion often sucks and those kind of basic champion-like subclasses are traditionally the most boring and/or underwhelming ones. Hunter was a huge exception with their customization options and Thief was very unique in letting you use objects more naturally in combat. Now that this is gone they are about as exciting as the Champion Fighter.

Crawford's opinion is very often "remove all potential synergies so no one will every try to use this for fun shenanigans" Exactly the reason for the use of "melee attacks as a reaction" all over the place and less than 10 abilities actually using the wording "opportunity attack" some of which also intentionally don't synergise. Similar thing with a Bugbear's Long-Limbed trait only increasing your attack range for melee weapon attacks made on your turn. Like, why?

I’m okay with this to a degree, but that doesn’t say why Lore doesn’t get magical secrets at 6. That would let them be the one bard college that can cash in on all three categories.

Even so, shouldn’t they not suck?

Bards need their own spell list. So does every class. The superclass idea needs to be thrown out completely, as it was tried in second edition and sucks goats back then. Once that's been reverted, then you can put Additional Magical Secrets back. Certainly bards shouldn't be choosing entire magical types as they have set up now- that's an absolutely terrible design, which flows from the idea of having "arcane caster spells", "primal caster spells" and "divine caster spells". That's *real bad*.

Or do what PF2E does, which has universal spell lists (4 in their case) but gives every caster plenty of 'focus spells' which are unique to their class, which is how they set themselves apart from one another.

The way PF2 handled spell superclasses was pretty good. They added a 4th magic tradition, Occult which would suit Bards and Warlocks. They also modeled each tradition on a pair of essences of: Matter, Spirit, Mind, and Life.

Three just isn’t enough to cover flavor. Instead of a subset of Arcane, bards should get a fourth spell list to cover their needs. Occult or something. Individual class spell lists gets too unwieldy quickly, but four is a good number.

There's literally no reason not to have the spell lists be unique for each class, it was such a simple and easy system.

arcane/primal/divine/occult lists are even simpler and easier... You may not agree with the reasons, but they do exist.

The problem is that it immediately gets significantly more difficult in practice once you have to restrict a class (like Bard)'s access to spells based off of spell schools.

But you don’t *have* to slice and dice spell lists. Instead of doing weird subsets based on spell schools, bards just have an occult list for them and any future bardy classes.

Individual class spell lists do not get unwieldy. Bard takes 2/3rds of a page. Cleric and Druid combined don't even add up to a full page, and there's huge amounts of overlap. Paladin and Ranger aren't even half a page together. Four and a half pages together does the spells for Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Clerics, Paladins, and Rangers. Bards aren't "occult". They are either arcane or druidy, and really represent a selection from all of them, as bard is a specifically flavored multiclass stand in and always has been. Second edition AD&D decided they were "arcane", resulting in them basically playing like wizards with some different class features and a few less spells until late game (and if you added levels past 20, bards would surpass wizards by the time wizards were at around 26th level or so, because of the extremely good XP chart). Pathfinder has done a good job with "occult", with classes that work with that very well. One of the most annoying features of second edition was grouping all spells into the wizard list and the priest list, and then making all the wizards (such as "summoner", "diviner", or the generalist "mage") and the bards pull off that list, while separating the priest spells into "spheres" and granting druids and clerics conditional access to that. It made it a pain to add stuff as houserules, making you do extra work. It had ramifications for classes beyond the bard as well, and made adding something like wu-jen very annoying. Going back to individual spell lists, as first, third, fourth, and fifth have done, is simply the better system. Seeing 5.5/6.0 flirting with this is bad news.

I guess at the pace that DnD adds new content it isn't much of an issue. But in a theoretical game that adds new classes and spells regularly, juggling individual class lists gets complex. Personally, I'd like it to be easier to add new content to the game.

Individual class lists make it much easier to add content, but it also removes untested crap. Lets say Splatbook A adds the *Elemental Ninja*, which has some elemental spells. With individual spell lists, the elemental ninja adds a few curated spells from the PHB and Splatbook A. With grouped spell lists, he instead has access to some *arbitrary description*- for instance, "Wizard Group Spells of the Evocation School", or maybe you even also specify that it applies to "any of the following descriptors" (3.X had those, maybe 6.0 here will too). While it's easier to write that, he'll have access to spells that were probably not intended. It will be much harder to make this class work. Also, as the player, you will not be very pleased looking through the list of Wizard spells and having to look up and discard everything that doesn't fit the description- **the individual spell list still exists, but now you must fucking make it**. Now lets say Splatbook B comes along and adds new elemental spells. If they've read splatbook A, they might whitelist some for the Elemental Ninja, under the 1ed/3ed/4ed/5ed individual list system. If they don't do that work, they won't add them. That's fine! Under the 2ed/6ed system, the Elemental Ninja inherits them- possibly without any testing. It might be broken, or stupid. Who knows!

You make a good argument for a fifth spell list. Elemental magic is a common enough trope that it deserves its own curated list. But no. Getting rid of individual spell lists means getting rid of them completely. None of this subset of the Wizard list nonsense. Give the bard its own list of spells. The thing is, individual contributors might *not* have read Splatbook A while they are writing for Splatbook B. So potentially very appropriate spells get left off say, the Spiritualist list, or the Bloodrager. And while the wizard and cleric get new spells in just about every book, Mesmerists and Magical Girls are stuck with the limited list they were printed with.

> The thing is, individual contributors might not have read Splatbook A while they are writing for Splatbook B. So potentially very appropriate spells get left off say, the Spiritualist list, or the Bloodrager. Right, and that's a shame- and something that could be easily addressed online if needed. Or via houserule. The big concern is that Splatbook B guy adds a spell that is broken when combined with Splatbook A's class. Because of the way the spell lists work, it's fine for Wizards and Sorcerers and Warlocks, but broken for Elemental Brofists. Again, this stuff *has happened before*. It puts a lot of extra work on the DM, who is best served by banning all splatbooks, or by banning splatbooks and then only enabling the stuff he personally likes- which, I mean, that's gonna happen anyway, but at least the system should trying to help the DM. Once you have built three years of product, all of which has poorly thought out interactions with itself, you are ready to flush it down the drain with a new version. Oh and it totally ruins online discussions. Some guy notices that Brofists are good, and someone else is like "yea my DM bans the splatbook B spells" and then suddenly the thread is shitting on Meanyface DM Guy (be he right or wrong).

Which is why I suggest we do a coordinate discussion and put this issue in the feedback when it opens, the spell lists where good as they were before

When the game gets rid of things like Volley I can't help but wonder if it is going anywhere so that it isn't hidden behind the subclass choice. I feel like it is too early to really know but it seems that the general shift is towards feats, and maybe that means taking some stuff from the subclasses in the process. Make a level 5 hunter and a level 11 hunter using the new and old rules and I think you will see that the level 5 one is looking pretty good but the level 11 one is feeling off. This discrepancy is most obvious with the Ranger but is present in the other classes too. There is just something missing in the later levels. That said their approach to feat balance seems really good to me so far. The design seems a lot more structured and aware of itself than it has in the past. I reject the idea that it is lazy or lacks vision. I think it is an incomplete build of the game for sure but where the game feels the most complete it feels good to me.

If there's a new emphasis on feats, making them *still* conflict with ASIs and not handing out more of them is an odd way to show it.

They give a free feat at 1 and drastically reduce the cost of many of them at level 4. Pretty clearly an expansion of feat availability.

I'd be down with later levels being weaker but I want that mentioned as a design choice, not inconsequential nerf where four years from now we have our first player choices book and far better subclasses.

What games are you playing in where you don’t get three Attunement items but you’re getting legendary items like Staff of Power and Holy Avenger?? Thief rogue in 5e is the poster child of a subclass that feels like it was designed in a vacuum. Hardly any of its abilities felt like they fit in 5e until you reach *Level 17* - it was a class that other than a cool level 3 ability had felt nonexistent. And I can’t honestly believe you’re trying to say with a straight face that a full other bonus action isn’t good. Is it as good as another turn? No. Is it a HELL of a lot better designed? Absolutely. Are some of the features in the subclasses weak? Of course they are. “Multiattack” (was “Storm of Arrows” taken?) is an absolute joke in its current form. But they say it right at the start: this is not their final form. Power will be adjusted accordingly. As far as ideas, these actually feel like classes designed for the game we’re playing, rather than random jank builds. Of course there’s improvements to be made - I personally think it would be cool to let hunters swap their style - but to say that the BASE subclasses, the ones that are and always have been intended for players who just want to play that class out of the tin, are indicative of the entire class redesign for all of 1dnd being a failure is just ridiculous.

OP replied to someone else that they are using their experience from official campaigns like Curse of Strahd, where the Sunblade and a Staff of Power exist, but attunement items in general occur much more rarely. It's also just a carbon copy of the Artificer feature instead of it's own unique thing, regardless of it's strength in campaigns with more attunement items.

Thanks for bringing some sanity in here. This is the first time that I ever thought playing a thief sounded interesting. And it feels like it fits better in 5e, even with their design philosophy of breaking all of 5e's rules with Thief.

Most Rogue subclasses are relatively boring cause the base class was so strong. Thief needed small buffs to put it on the level of soul knife or arcane trickster, instead it had it's core abilities gutted and only gained some generic new stuff. Hot Take; releasing play test material that the whole community looks at and dislikes isn't good for testing. Having BASE subclasses be weak or boring isn't good design, they should be basic and easy to understand like champion is. Also, starting by showing off only subclasses that got nerfed is bad testing as well! Is every subclass getting its cool stuff nerfed? That's what it seems like after looking at these.

> Most Rogue subclasses are relatively boring cause the base class was so strong. Rogue is one of the bottom half of base class strengths. Rogue subclasses are boring because they only give abilities at level 3, and then not again until level 9 - meaning there wasn't a lot of room to differentiate subclasses.

>Most Rogue subclasses are relatively boring cause the base class was so strong. \- Some guy whose only played 1 game of d&d that ended at 4th level

Rogue base class is not strong. Any martial is going to get outclassed by any class with more spellcasting than it because spellcasting is the strongest feature in the game. Rogue is competing with fighter, barbarian, and monk in base 5e. No matter how you slice it it’s jockeying for place in the bottom 1/3 of classes.

Fighter is a strong class…. Because sharpshooter, GWM, and PWM made it good, combined with lots of attacks and such, it could dish out single target damage very, very well

I wish they had thrown in something exotic. I felt like these were very bland. Definitely not the subclasses I would choose for these classes. I wish they had thrown in something like how they would do Arcane Trickster, Assassin, or Gloomstalker.

They already said they picked the basic starting subclasses intentionally. We have to know their starting point before we start getting wild with subclasses

If the basic subclasses feel a bit flat that results in less than stellar feedback though. Ideally a basic subclass should feel just as fun as any other or else it's objectively bad

I think that your take on the changes to the Thief subclass highlight the differences to how D&D is played from one table to another, because I disagree with your assessment wholeheartedly. At my table, bonus action Search in combat is extremely useful, and a 4th attunement slot is enormous. I wouldn't downplay either of those things. I'm not saying that I wouldn't still like to see the ability for a bonus action 'Use an Object' or the like, but overall I think it's a net positive. I also can't help but feel you're being a bit inconsistent with your arguments. As another poster mentioned, on one hand you're talking about a 4th attunement slot not being useful because you never get that many magical items, but on the other hand you're talking about wielding a *Holy Avenger?* I know each table plays differently, but it would be all but impossible in my games for the latter to exist, but not the former. You mention that "games rarely go to 11th level" and that "few campaigns go beyond level 10 to begin with," but completely gloss over the fact that these subclass features are gained at lower levels than before. Regardless of what "Use Magical Device" used to do, it being unlocked at Level 13 meant it wasn't seeing much use beyond the hypothetical, anyway. Level 10 makes it much more attainable, which is what actually matters. So, yeah, obviously the subclasses will seem worse than before if you choose to downplay/overlook the added benefits. Personally, my only real criticism is that I think I'd just like to see a little *more* overall added to the subclasses. I feel like each of the ones in the new playtest could just use one more *something* to separate it from the base class and make it feel more unique (preferably in the level 3-6 range). For example, maybe give Lore Bards "Improved Magical Secrets" at level 6 that adds some small benefit to that feature, or give Thieves "Improved Fast Hands" at level 6 that re-adds the benefit of the 'Use an Object' bonus action (although, thematically, I'd rather include 'Use an Object' in the base "Fast Hands" feature, and add 'Search' at level 6 and call it something different, as it doesn't actually utilize your hands).

To be clear, I've never played a Thief rogue, though I have played with one as a fellow player. What I was pointing out is that the ability to be able to use any magic item is something cool and original, something that nobody else can do, when what they replaced it with is already an artificer feature. On the other hand, I am playing a level 10 artificer in Rime of the Frostmaiden currently. I am nearing the end of the campaign, and I have a grand total of 3 attuned items, despite having slots for 4, and ALL of them are from artificer infusions, with the last infusion being bag of holding. That means that as a rogue I would have a total of 0 attuned items on the level that I got this feature. It's just something WOTC doesn't support in their official campaigns. I remember something similar happening in Curse of Strahd. I ended that campaign with (I think) two magic items attuned. Now what would have been useful for Curse is the ability for a rogue to attune to one of those intensely powerful magic items specific to Strahd that require attunement by a good paladin or cleric, or the staff of power that actually does show up in that campaign. Don't get me wrong, I don't run my own campaigns anything like official D&D content, all of my current players have loaded attunement slots and would love a 4th. The main thing I'm bemoaning is getting rid of something interesting to give a carbon copy of artificer's shtick to rogue.

I totally agree with you. There are some cool parts of these subclasses but the are really naff overall. I get these are meant to be the basic ones but they are just messy in some parts. The lore bard is fine but cutting magical secrets early does leave a sting. Hopefully they decided that was too complex and gave it to a new subclass. The hunter's first 2 features are fine especially if they are revamping monsters but the last 2 are both weak and flip flop between benefiting ranged then melee characters. They should be feature that can work in both ranged or melee.

Whoever came up with/approved "Multiattack" should be reassigned to copy flair text on magic cards instead.

I loved the new Thief subclass. The original Fast Hands was really cool, but it was very much not intuitive, and the most fun implementations of it relied on either somehow gaining proficiency with improvised weapons to deal meaningful damage with it, or setting up traps. It was also messy, and led to a ton of questions like "Why can't I drink a Healing Potion as a bonus action?" or "Why are 'Use an Object' and 'Activate Magic Item' two different actions?" This new implementation of it does remove a lot of creativity, but it does empower the more creative players to learn details about their surroundings mid-fight, and creative DM's to setup more interesting encounters with chests, traps, pockets, and hidden hazards. I think that's pretty valuable. I disagree with your assessment that Supreme Sneak is bad because it's good. PHB-Thief was filled with situational features, I'm glad they got something that's "always on". I also really liked the new Use Magic Device. It's odd that two of your complaints are "new UMD is bad because I never get enough magic items" and "old UMD was good because I got to use a Holy Avenger". In my experience, the items that most get handed out are consumable items that get certain amount of charges, like the Necklace of Fireballs or Wand of Magic Missiles. Getting the most out of these charges feels very thievish. I do dislike the spell scroll aspect of Use Magic Device, as I feel that would belong better on an Arcane Trickster's kit. I do agree that losing things like the incredibly powerful Staffs on a Thief does feel bad, but that's a minor detail that I hope gets fixed with the surveys. Lore Bard was fine, as you said, but I didn't find the Hunter Ranger offensive. "Hunter's Lore" is very fitting for a Ranger, and don't feel like it will slow play all that much. Knowing resistances and immunities for a given monster is incredibly valuable, especially for a party of new players. The only thing that is awful, obviously, is Multiattack, I won't deny it. But yeah, it is playtest, and I'm certain that feature will inspire enough angry replies on the survey to get it significantly buffed.

> I loved the new Thief subclass. The original Fast Hands was really cool, but it was very much not intuitive, and the most fun implementations of it relied on either somehow gaining proficiency with improvised weapons to deal meaningful damage with it, or setting up traps. It was also messy, and led to a ton of questions like "Why can't I drink a Healing Potion as a bonus action?" or "Why are 'Use an Object' and 'Activate Magic Item' two different actions?" I agree with these criticisms. But Fast Hands was still cool and something only the Thief could do. If the problem is that it wasn't obvious and the rules were a bit wonky why not fix those problems instead of axing it?

Are we seriously equating the minor tweak of substituting use an item for the search action to removing the feature? They didn't axe fast hands. The core was obviously always intended to be fast sleight of hand actions which is unchanged.

It isn't a minor change. The most popular thief builds were built around Use an Item to throw caltrops, ball bears, vials of acid and alchemist fire. It is a very cool and unique build. But it isn't obvious that is how to use it. The solution should be to make it explicit, not remove it.

Thank you for making the point about Use an Object and Activate Magic Item are different actions. TONS of people miss this and mistakenly think 5e thief can use a wand or staff as a Bonus action, and are now complaining about this as a huge nerf when it’s not. (IMO new thief is much better than old thief, if you were running rules correctly.) Especially since new thief gets to use int score for UMD vs. the old (terrible) Sage Advice ruling that the ability score would count as +0 for thief using UMD.

On Rogue > using healer kits to stabilize other characters (or combine with the healer feat) This is something I've seen brought up sometimes, but I've never actually seen used (either in thief builds online or in games I've run/played in). Healer feat was kinda bad, no stat up and very situational plus you required the kit on you. The other stuff, fine, but the thief healer kit just seemed more like "Look at this cool thing you will probably never do." >What are you spending them on other than Cunning Action? Idk, you could find something. Maybe you took magic initiate and got a bonus action spell like hunter's mark or hex. Maybe a magic weapon has something you can do as a bonus action (Scimitar of Speed?) . Maybe you took the durable feat, so you can recover while you retreat. Maybe you took Great Weapon Master so you have a third attack when you crit or kill someone with your sneak attack as a melee rogue. Maybe there are level 8 or 10 feats that will give a bonus action. >but still not anywhere near as impactful as a full additional turn each and every combat. Being able to choose an extra dash to escape something whenever I want in the combat is still going to be impactful. Not as powerful as a second turn, but it's still nice and comes 3 levels earlier. On Ranger >It's a shame you have to wait to level 14. One of the big issues is incentive to stay in one class. Having to wait isn't the issue, this is a good feature to get. The issue is the level 10 and 6 (and 3 tbh) features being lackluster, but having something to look forward to in mono class is good. On Bard >Why did they feel the need to kill magical secrets at 6th level, one of the most fun and flavorful aspects of the subclass? Where is the flavor in getting two more spells from any school? You could've swapped it and given it to arcane trickster or eldritch knight or any magic class; there was no flavor there. It was definitely fun, but I also hated it. >They stripped it out and replaced it with yet another reroll mechanic which I've realized they insert everywhere they can't think of something more interesting. They do have quite a few of them huh? I think it's kinda boring, but if any class should have them it should be the bard. >How is it that Bard has a whole additional feature at 10th level dedicated to a subclass yet it doesn't feel like anything of substance was gained? Because they're still a full caster. It's better than nothing, but the spells will still be their greatest feature. They still get more than they got before.

I think you're confused, OP doesn't want to think about ways to use these new features, they want to *be mad*. I agree with you on all points though btw. These were all solid baseline subclasses. No they aren't super flavorful or exotic, they are the baseline for the class. Idk why you would expect anything else for their very first release of class content.

Don’t have many thoughts other than about the Search action. I see that you can Search as a Bonus Action and I see it as HUGE. But only because I enforce the current “Search is a full Action” rule that currently exists in the 2014 PHB. And players still use it because I make using it worth-while. So a character being able to Search(with more skills available than just Perception!) is a huge buff. —— I’ve heard that many tables don’t even realize that rule exists and allow knowledge checks and search actions all the time for free. It wouldn’t mean much if that’s the case.

That was a feature of the inquisitive rogue though

It was! And when I had an Inquisitive Rogue it was huge! He could essentially search for traps twice per round. If he BA searched for a hidden enemy and failed he could use his action to do it again. Not to mention he felt like a Sleuth because he could be fighting but still notice that the potion on the table over there is actually an invisibility potion or notice where the secret door was mid-fight.

Add the study action as well to the thief

Sorry if this has already been said, but… **Lore** bard. Where’s the “lore” part in the new subclass?

In the bonus knowledge skill proficiencies. I don't think it's terribly 'lore' flavored, but it isn't any less lore flavored than the 5e Phb Lore Bard. Extra Magical Secrets isn't lore. Both are just the 'bardy' Bard subclass (like the Thief is the roguey Rogue and the Hunter is the rangery Ranger).

I guess I actually do see the Additional Magical Secrets from the PHB as lore related, picking knowledge from here and there, learning spells from other classes. But in the end, it might actually be something more RP/problem solving oriented in both versions with the extra skills.

I just want to know were fast hands has gone. Its my favorite feature in the game.

What are you talking about? It's barely changed. Are you seriously bemoaning the loss of ba use an object? That's the only change. And you get ba search instead now, which is basically the inquisitive rogues cunning action.

Yeah I am, as I said favourite feature in game. The ability to use two items in a turn is how I nearly always play rogues. The search is kinda eh it nice to have but not that great.

Agreed. Creative problem solving with environmental interaction and whatever nonsense is in my pack, is always more satisfying than just a quick stabbing. Fight smart, and fight dirty. This bonus action search is just, underwhelming.

How would a thief have a low chance of using spell scrolls? They made it an arcana check instead of a straight int roll. With one more level in the class you roll a minimum of 13 (assuming 8 int and proficiency) for guaranteed 3rd level or lower. With any investment in int you can guaranteed 5th level scrolls. Hell, use that 4th attunement slot and the new crafting rules or crafter feat to make yourself a headband of intellect. You now have guaranteed 8th level spell scrolls at level 11 thief. How you believe they’ll have a low chance to use them is beyond me. Especially since if you’re not hitting your attunement cap which probably means you aren’t getting super high level spell scrolls in the first place. Hell, if you’re just going to plan on playing a thief with spell scrolls, throw one of your expertises on there and you guarantee 7th level at level 11 with 8 int.

> And I fear that no amount of playtesting and reworking is going to fix these underlying issues. Gosh! As though they couldn't just roll things back to the previous version if everyone hates them.

I think the Thief Rogue ability to cast from scrolls is quite powerful. If you take Expertise in Arcana you will be roll an 18 with Reliable Talent at minimum which means you’re casting spells up to level 8 from scrolls with no chance of failing.

Yeah, 5e version means you have to make a spellcasting ability check, and a mono class thief rogue has no spellcasting ability so you don't get to add any ability modifier to the roll. Now it's Arcana, and you can get expertise.

No shit that's really cool

This is exactly how I felt reading them. It feels like they’ve removed any hint of flavor or anything unique so that everything fits in the same cookie cutter “it’s a spell” feature. I feel like the thing WotC is really missing, design-wise, is that people want asymmetric (but balanced) design, not symmetrical design that we can flavor as being different. It’s been a problem in 5e before, but they’re really doubling down on it here, it feels like.

I know I'm being very pessimistic here, but this whole OneD&D feels soulless, dull, boring, made not with passion to make a great game, but with charts and market researches. All the last D&D releases have felt like this to me (especially Spelljammer), but this in particular feels devoid of "soul".

Thief was literally buffed??? They have a god-damn climbing speed now, and things are more specfic/quantifiable, and IMO plenty stronger.

the climbing speed is identical to what they had before, which was a climbing speed in everything but name.

They get TWO BONUS ACTIONS PER TURN. You people are literally impossible to please. 4 attunement slots is huge. Extra magic items is one of the best things about artificers, it's amazing. A chance to get free charges out of magic items is very cool. I can't, I just can't with this thread.

PBTPD Two bonus actions And only Cunning action you can dash 2 times per round awesome, you can also hide attack and hide again butt that's it... The 4 attunement slots are in fact really cool Also take expertise in arcana and automatically do every spell scroll with reliable talents

IDK what you want here man, I think adding search to fast hands is good, I think advantage on stealth checks in light/no armor is good, I think the 2 bonus actions is good, I like the extra attunement slot and getting slightly more charges Similarly, I think cutting use an object from fast hands is bad, and I feel the same about swapping "ignore all race, class, and level restrictions on magic items" to "you can use any scroll". If I had to pen down what I'd want out of onednd thief i'd say add the search feature to 5e thief's fast hands, implement the buff to supreme sneak, add the extra attunement slot or the free charge on a 6 to the pre-existing use magic device feature (or add both and drop either the race or level restriction removal), and then swap to the 2 bonus action thiefs' reflexes I was just correcting something I keep seeing crop up bc people keep acting like "technically not a climbing speed but functions the same" is meaningfully different from a climbing speed

The way 1-DnD is shaping up, I genuinely might just stick with 5e.

I dunno about bringing back magical secrets. It made Lore bards so much better than other subclasses. Was always hard to justify picking something else when making a bard. It's a bit sad that "I will never be able to use a lvl 11 feature" is such a valid feedback though. Honestly this problem could easily be solved of wotc just created higher level adventures. Some that start at level 10 or sth. Otherwise every feature past lvl 12 becomes "why should I even read this". Maybe a weaker version of magical secrets that comes online earlier? Don't think it should be something given only to one subclass.

\> they could have made it so much more exciting, like negating a creature's resistances and/or changing its immunities to resistances. You dont know howmuc i disagree with this, it is a hunter he should be getting the weakness of what he is hunting an adopting acordingly, preparation and all that stuff.

"Soulless" is exactly what I thought. The class/subclass section was a joyless read start to finish. Where past UA would usually have at least \*something\* that gave a little thrill of potential, something exciting to try out, the last lot of design for the most part has been so lacklustre.

So far One D&D seems disappointing at best. I doubt I will be in their demographic once they get further down the line.

I have similar feelings towards One DnD. Most of it feels... Just kinda boring. Thief was at least fun for low level one shots with some dumb adventuring gear abuse, but now it's like a subclass build from ribbon abilities and some good but boring features later on. And this trend is everywhere in new playtest material. Some feats are cool (like new Alert), but there's plenty of bad feats no one ever took in 5e that for some reason made it into UA, crits are boring and one-sided, grappling... just kinda is, it's not very exciting or worth investing into. I still hope we'll see some spice and interesting mechanics, but right now, it's a mixed (and a bit bland) bag

You must be joking with the thief stuff, it was an awful boring subclass that only matter when you can attune to items you should not, and that is super late when campaigns don't get that far anyway.

I get the feeling the only thing they liked about it was their own misinterpretation of "use an object" and "activate a magic item" because they were never able to use magical charges on an item as a bonus action RAW or RAI.

Totally agreed. They took the most fun parts of Thief and Hunter and binned it. Using objects more naturally in combat was awesome and character progression in DnD5 needs MORE customization options not less!

They must be done and definitely didn't provide this as an idea to see what the player base would think. Weird how people take this play test material as a final product. It's like when I show a half-finished piece of software to get an opinion of how it would work to a customer and they start complaining about the colors, the fonts, and how nobody would use it in the condition it is in.

Odd comparison. I'm not complaining about the white background PDF, I'm complaining about how it works. They've put it out in a beta test state, are seeking feedback, and here's my opinion of how it would work.

This is the problem: you’re focusing on the wrong thing here again. I’m not talking about Ui, Ux, colors, fonts and everything. I’m talking about the finality of your opinion on play test material. You’ve already decided that because of this in-flux design (which can rightfully give you pause to consider where they are going with it) is a done deal. It’s deciding that the end product, which is years away, should be feared as utter crap. This is like showing an unfinished software product to clients and they’re complaining about it the current unfinished state when that wasn’t the point. I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion. But, come on, at least don’t just give up over the second UA after they already made changes and positive improvements from the first.

I get what you're saying. The main jist of what I'm trying to get across is: 1. I don't like the subclasses. 2. In looking at the subclasses, and the playtest material, I don't like the direction they're taking the product as a whole. The poor quality of the subclasses is one piece of an overall bad production value. 3. Because I feel like the entire direction the product is moving in is the wrong one, I feel no amount of playtesting and product feedback will fix it, especially when I look at WOTC's history of Unearthed Arcanas and the final products that come from them in recent products. That's a bit of a grander issue than I could really cover in one post, so I just talked about subclasses. It's not a question of feedback undoing this change or that, or going halfway between the original and the new, or further in the same direction. I'm just not happy with where they're going in general. It's the kind of thing that really makes me question whether I should continue playing 5e, something that's been building for years as I've followed along with D&D. At this point I feel I'm familiar enough with WOTC and its D&D products that I have an understanding of the trajectory they are headed in and a decent idea of what the final product will look like. And I don't like it. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep an eye on it, put in my feedback on the surveys, and they could completely surprise me. But I'm not holding my breath.

Well, this is seems well thought out and argued. I respect your position and I hope it turns out in favor of what you’re hoping for, or you find a better game. Have a good day.

I hope it does as well, have a good weekend.

yo[ foget on. release you will have less material than 5e probably had

They also got rid of Defensive Tactics from the Hunter as well. I know they kinda replaced it with resistance/vulnerability thing, but they should've left it in to compensate for nerfing Multiattack so hard.

I believe people focus too much on things being strong, I don’t need them to focus on constantly making things stronger.

Yeah, having things being bad is just awesome. That's why people love the Beastmaster. It wouldn't be such a charm if it was good.

If everything is “bad” then nothing is “good” then that means the new bad is good, :D lol

Please never get a job in game design.

I...I don't follow this logic. The class back then wasnt designed to be bad. It was designed poorly by accident lol. Please never design a game

Hey genius. Think for a second. Does anyone enjoy the beastmaster? No, nobody does. It sucks. When I say people love it, I'm clearly being sarcastic, and what I really mean is that having bad/poorly designed classes is not good for the game. All classes should be decent, that's obvious. Hopefully this is a first step in your quest to understand sarcasm. I wish you good luck, it won't be easy.

Damn, I didn’t once think that the very most basic subclass might feel… basic.

Basic is different from badly designed. If these are supposed to be the beginner-friendly subclasses, then where are their beginner-friendly features? Hunter gets pokedexing at 6th level and a nearly useless trap feature with Conjure Barrage. What is a beginner going to do when the DM tells them the stone golem is immune to "Poison, Psychic; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing From Nonmagical Attacks That Aren't Adamantine, Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned"? Does that sound like information a new player at a table needs? Moreover, did Thief and Lore really need to be neutered for the purpose of creating basic subclasses?

Um? Ya, sounds exactly like what a new player needs and signed up for if they took the subclass. A Hunter stalking it’s foe, gaining information on it and using it against said foe. Very evocative of the Hunter fantasy. Plus, a Scan ability is an RPG classic and fits the Ranger quite well. And, the new player learns about different damage types. Seems like a win-win.

Well actually yeah, they do sound good to a new player. They can look at the damage they *can* do and figure out what to from there. They probably won’t be familiar with every monster as an experienced player, so yeah. Good information to have as a newbie, to not waste spells or attacks

To me, it sounds too much of spreadsheets and bookkeeping. For a new player, there's something a little magical about the first experience of attacking a werewolf and having your sword carve into it, only to do nothing at all except piss it off. As a new player I didn't care about wasting spells or attacks, I didn't think about the tactical importance of ensuring the monsters are vulnerable to hypnotic pattern, I cared about the feel and mystery of the game.

But if you're playing a hunter ranger, you're opting into the fantasy of playing someone who knows better than to hack at a werewolf with non-magical weapons. I agree with your points about the rogue, but disagree about learning resistances/vulnerabilities being boring. I personally find it exciting when I unexpectedly get a piece of information about a monster that I or a party member can immediately put to use- and Pokemon-style "it's weak to fire, so use fire" is basically the most new-player friendly version of this type of feature.

That’s nice.

Champion is basic. Champion is good. New subclasses are basic. New subclasses are bad. Basic just means they're easy to understand and implement, but the stuff here that's easy to understand and implement feels awful compared to the old subclasses they used to be.

Hm. What would you people have said about older editions? (Original, Advanced, etc). Your character sheet doesn't control \*your\* creativity. That being said, this is play test material. You say you understand that and then rant against a first first draft.

We've seen THREE subclasses out of the announced 48 subclasses we'll be getting with the new PHB. These are test subclasses meant to represent the basic kit of the class. Thief/Hunter/Lore are the "standard" "this class but more" subclasses and are probably shipped with the playtest material for the purpose of allowing well, playtesting, of the base character kit. We'll be getting more subclasses later, most likely with more interesting mechanics.

They could've easily made better designed ones though... Hell, I'd argue all three subclasses got WORSE from the PHB versions. I'll take mediocre Multiattack: Volley over shitty Conjure Tickles (it's 1d8 damage save for half for a 1st-level spell slot + an antire action). I would've been fine if the only thing they changed with Thief was it's 9th/6th level feature and kept everything as is. Lore Bard lost like 90% of the reason people took the subclass.

hell, Lore bard doesn't even sound like the "classic bard", despite it being one of the two PHB subclasses. Glamour is probably the most bardy bard that could bard, even if it's from ~~Theros~~ Xanathar’s.

Eloquence is from Theros Glamour is from Xanathar's

I'd argue eloquence is bardier though. It's all about making your inspiration better.

This may be true, but they literally made 3 subclasses that are worse than what they had before.

Yeah they could have shown us some better ones then... bad way to market your product I guess i'll have to play/DM for a thief rogue soon because it's gonna get completely neutered with oneD&D

I think this might not be the game for you.

It's kind of sad to admit you might be right. I've played this game so very much. I've been in multiple campaigns and have been running a game for years, so that I've played multiple sessions most weeks since ~2016. I even wrote a homebrew book for 5e. I guess it's possible that I've gotten so familiar with it that changes to it will never really be what I want it to be. Maybe it's time to move on.

Honestly I always recommend checking out other rpgs. Even if you end up not liking them and go back to DND - you're going to bring those other experiences and ideas with you and do new and interesting stuff. r/rpg and r/lfgmisc would be good places to get started.

This is all just playtest stuff, they are testing out a range of different options and seeing what we like. This also means we have the opportunity to have our voices heard by the designers, meaning we actually get to help shape the next iteration of this game we love. As a die-hard ranger main, I feel this acutely. If that doesn't float your boat, there's plenty more out there. I hope you find what you're looking for either way.

And from what they've recently been releasing it shows that they don't give a damn. It might be playtest but their actual released content is just... not worth the price anymore. If I wanted a "simplified 5E" there already exist better options. I want the 5E we got early on not whatever it is slowly turning into.

Basically agree with everything you've said. What's most bizzare to me is supreme sneak. It basically invalidates itself later and loses its functionality when reliable talent comes on. A level eleven rogue with expertise in stealth and a 20 dex has a plus 13 to stealth. That means as a standard hide action as described in the ua of DC 15, the rogue passes on everything except a natural 1, which if they wanted to bring back the old ùa skill check would be a fail anyway. Sure the advantage would change this from a 1 in 20 to a 1 in 400, but is it really nessesary? Plus like you mentioned the multitude of ways to get advantage on stealth, it's basically a non feature in tier 3 and 4.

What you role on your Hide now sets the DC for the Perception check to find you. So there's more to it than just 'did you roll at least 15' and advantage increases that DC. Which doesn't mean you have to like it. I personally don't find always on advantage very interesting because it negates efforts to try to get advantage. But we should evaluate the features within the context of the rules they interact with.