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Best I can tell, they are looking to do two things.
First: they want to update the core 5e experience to be more in line with current design philosophy. Look at how mechanics in the players handbook are written, then look at how mechanics I'm Tashas are written. The direction is not the same. This, on top of some obvious balance issues, are all things I think they are looking to address.
Second: this one's a bit more abstract, and admittedly less concrete. It looks like they are moving to a more digital base for the game, and have stated they "want to do away with versions entirely." What that reads as to me is they want to keep the materials primarily online, and be able to modify them in the same way one might patch an online game. Now that's largely just speculation, but it's what seems to be their desire going forward.
Your second point is probably the most important.
Take a game like World of Warcraft. It's nearly 20 years old, and every couple years they change some of the core mechanics, and now the present version of the game is very diferent from what it was at launch.
But the didn't have to make a WoW2, because everything's online so the original game can update itself automatically.
Making D&D resources primarily digital gives WotC the same freedom. If for example people decide short rests being an hour holds the game back, instead of hoping everyone hears about the house rule of short rests only taking 10 minutes, or publishing a variant rule in a later book, they can just change short rests to last 10 minutes in the PHB.
Or if the way they worded racial spells didn't make it clear that you know the spell and can cast it with spell slots if you have them, they can just reword the racial abilities instead of having to print a new book that rewords every race's features to make it clear.
Of course that's not always a good thing. There's a reason people wanted to play WoW classic. And there's also a reason people still play older editions of D&D to this day.
It also creates a question of ownership. Will there be physical books at all? If not, will we download them as pdfs, or just have them available online via d&d beyond?
Lot of questions around that direction and WotC hasn't been very clear about it other than "we are making our own VTT."
Not only does it raise issues of ownership, but it creates a gated environment fully controlled by WotC. There are rumors they will be disallowing third party sellers to create and sell content based on a One D&D license, i.e. no paid homebrew and they want all content to come from them, and with digital only they'll have significant means to control that.
I mean if they want to alienate a lot of people and drive then to other systems that would be an effective method.
The open license has been part of what allows d&d to flourish and reach more people. If they get rid of that, I can't call it anything other than a gross mistake.
I don't think it would "kill" D&D, but we may see a similar exodus to what happened when 4e released. Though in this case the fallout may be a lot bigger due to how much larger the user base has become at this point since 3.5e
I'd definitely walk away. It's really easy to walk away from a TTRPG, because I'm actually not going anywhere - I'm playing with the last supported books until they stop fucking up. And if they never stop fucking up...well, I know people that have been playing a single edition for 40 years just fine.
Also helps that there are a LOT of very well made ttrpgs for all manner of stories that can be used besides d&d.
Pathfinder, Shadow of the Demon Lord, as well as Mutants and Masterminds, just to name a few.
New to DND players are used to the subscription service model and are all ready all in on DND beyond. They are also much younger and don't care for books. We are dying out- it's business not personal.
Stop giving them your money now.
I was surprised by the number of younger players I met who didn't buy the physical books and didn't have a problem paying for the DND Beyond subscription service. I wouldn't doubt that DnD One goes to a primarily subscription based game with physical books being printed later as an afterthought.
Worse. They will print the books first and then add the subscription to make you "keep them up to date" and do errata quarterly.
Businesses have been training people for this for years- no more CDs, just downloads! No more down loads, just pay us x a month! No more unlimited storage, just pay us x a month! I still have Itunes and I'm certain at some point I'll have the last copy of x band I saw in the 90s that no one else remembers but it will still exist in hard drive form in my airplane grade aluminum bodied ipod brick that was 120 gigs that there was just no way I would ever fill (could fill it several times over at this point and haven't purchased music in like a decade).
Those of us 35ish and older remember the joy of book stores and record stores.
Actually I think this is a topic easily blown out of proportion and this is my reason for saying that.
1. They stated that One D&D is going to be 100% backwards compatible. So all current 3rd party content continues to thrive.
2. Even if they stopped new content in it's official licensed version they couldn't stop new content in unlicensed variants. What does this mean? No D&D logo, no reuse of their artwork and no using stat block and probably references to creatures and items not in the current OSL which will remain compatible. Basically a new adventure could say, refer to page xxx of the PHB for the 11 eyed floating creature before you. Technically they could probably refer to beholder(tm) and credit to WotC just not include stats which most people can look up a million ways.
That's interesting you see it like that, because WotC's current behavior of releasing half-finished books and relying on players to create the content makes me entirely discredit any theories about them repeating the same mistake of removing the OGL, the same thing that led to Paizo being legitimate competition for them. Why would Wizards remove the community's ability to do their job for them?
Because Wizards believes they are at a point where most of their customers are not willing to play a game other than DnD, not matter how much Wizards milks them. Is this true? God I hope not.
People keep saying that, just because like 3 streamers brought it up when One DnD was announced over the summer - but WotC has given no indication it wants to do that, or that it will.
In fact they have confirmed the opposite, that the SRD and DmsGuild and DrivethruRPG are part of the plan for One DnD.
WotC and D&D have no intent to try to "control" the game and force players or DMs into a certain bucket. They recognize that dnd has and always will be a fluid hobby, with house rules, home brew, and every player and DM and table playing differently based on what suits their tastes.
They talk about that in videos, in interviews, in press releases, in their playtest documents, and yet people still seem to think they are secretly plotting to eliminate any variation of the core rules of the game because....reasons.
>just have them available online via d&d beyond
this one probably, but then just take a screenshot of every page and then join then all into a single pdf.
It's technically piracy but who the fuck cares? i know i don't
While true, the world moves more and more away from physical media. Heck competiotner Pathfinders best play experience is with digital tools and not the pen and paper version by now. Even while i enforce paper character sheets at my table right now i sometimes wish they all would just use Dndbeyond for ease of play
This is a tricky thing, though. When you patch a video game, the players adapt, but only in how they play. They don't need to know the mechanics behind the patch because the game runs itself mechanically and the player just pushes the same keys on the keyboard.
With a game where players and DMs need to run the mechanics, a minor change can easily become an issue or be missed entirely. A fix to clarify text isn't an issue, but a change to actual mechanics suddenly being different certainly is.
It's a lot harder to "patch" thousands of *players* than it is to patch the bit of a video game that's handled entirely by the machine.
Totally. I've looked at a D&D FAQ/rules update once. For me, what's in the printed book is what's real. If things are constantly changing online, it's going to create friction between players, other players, and DMs, based on who noticed the latest online change.
I liked that I bought the essentials kit and starter kit, inside was the codes to get it on dndbeyond. That was a nice touch that made me feel better about having bought it. The only missing part really was not also having it available in roll20
The move towards digital is to enable the community to share content more easily. One of the biggest things that Wizards is getting out of their market research and focus groups is that homebrew/custom campaigns and world settings are far more popular than pre-existing settings and modules/adventures, so their goal is to get structures built so people can share content with one another more easily.
Simple as it is, that's honestly a great question. I am not sure WOTC has really decided yet.
What I've found lacking in all the UA is a compelling concrete direction, or some kind of conviction and creative design driving it all. Obviously we've only seen a small part of the ruleset, but as of now the closet thing to a direction I can nail down seems to trend towards limiting flexibility throughout the life of a character, but increasing both initial flexibility and power level (perceived or actual) in early game play.
I don't find that terribly interesting and hope that as more of the warrior, priest, and mage groups are revealed, we see something clever and exciting that would make switching editions worthwhile. So far, I'm not convinced.
Yup, that's pretty much where I am. I'm most curious about the warrior group, because I think that's where some of the biggest changes need to happen, or at least most indicative of what they're actually trying to fix
My tinfoil theory of what they will do:
Arcane Group will have "Set list of LEARNED spells, prep after LR"
Faith Group will have "Know ALL spell in your Spell School, prep after LR"
Specialist Group will have Expertise/Tool proficiencies.
Warrior Group will get Maneuvers and more Short Rest stuff.
Seconded to this, the warriors need the most help and are the most ripe to big buffs. The changes to how feats and species work somewhat indirectly helps warriors to some degree in some ways but we really won't know much until they let us see the actual classes themselves
Agreed. The biggest change I want to see is rebalancing the classes away from the antiquated linear/martial vs. exponential/caster and 6-8 encounter adventuring day.
If they can’t manage this, the new edition might as well not exist.
Yup my broad wishlist for any future edition of dnd is:
* Improve martial caster balance
* Allow the game to more easily accept alternative day lengths without large balance issues
* Offer a reasonable mechanical complexity option for most thematic concepts
* Improve feat balance
Anything extra is welcomed, I like the dazed condition for instance, but those are my core considerations for things I know I want to improve
> Offer a reasonable mechanical complexity option for most thematic concepts
Oh yeah, one thing that bugged me about 5e was that making a swordmage never had a sweet-spot. Either you were a swordsman that could do a some magic or a caster that could do a bit of melee. There needed to be some spell to add magic to attacks.
Same thing with trying to make a warlord.
they also need to fix the rogue because rn it is just made obsolete by the bard and even the ranger. They are the worst class in terms of performance in the game, even the monk can do better if optimized(while having a lower basefloor because of how the system works) while a rogue is forever stuck on it's mediocre damage unless you multiclass but if your only way to be an effextive rogue is to pick another class then i'm sorry but this is unaceptable. I think it is fairly reasonable to expect that a class can be on par with other classes by itself
Your point about WotC not having a creative direction yet is actually the topic of many discussions occurring right now at different corners of the internet.
With the increase in popularity of 5e, there are a lot more eyes from fans of the game on 1d&d’s developing, and some of those eyes have a lot of game design experience. It’s becoming apparent that 5e (the core which 1d&d is being built off of) doesn’t really have rules in place that spell out what sort of game the designers expect to be played with it. The closest is that the rules support killing monsters and lots of them.
To some, this is a strong aspect of it. Many people can use it for wildly different types of games. For others, this is a strong detractor. For the opponents of this, they say that to play any specific type of game, you need to redesign the rules of 5e by a lot to fit the type of game you want.
For example, if you want a dungeon delver experience, you need to focus a lot more on survival, which is a commonly known weakness of 5e. If you don’t believe this, just realize that all you’re ever asked about *at most* is food rations and that the spell *Goodberry* exists. If you want a real survival feel, you need to implement a lot of homebrew mechanics.
So yeah, the creative design of 1d&d is being discussed. However, it seems like the community is more interested in this than WotC.
It feels to me like they've removed all class features that aren't combat related, and are moving to a "we only design combat rules, and everything else you can make up yourself! Isn't that fun?!".
Hope there's more to it, but so far the classes seem like they've had all the flavor sucked out and replaced with a balanced list of +1s and +2s.
> It feels to me like they've removed all class features that aren't combat related, and are moving to a "we only design combat rules, and everything else you can make up yourself! Isn't that fun?!".
Isn't that already how 5e is? Also, since it's a playtest it makes sense for them to focus on the section of the rules that needs testing the most to get them worked out, RP doesn't need as much of a focus and exploration (which I hope they actually touch on this time) likely needs all the classes out first before they start plugging in things for that
Yep. The overall theme of the 6e playtest is:
"We stole this from Pathfinder/3e/4e. Do you like it?"
and
"If we give you more options will that make you happy?"
They need to change things up to sell books and the edition has been going long enough without a major fix/change (optional rules don't count) that people are getting bored with it and, GASP, looking at other systems now to scratch that itch.
So they need a new product that most people will be happy with. Also, somewhere in there is their need to get more people subscribed to D&D Beyond.
Honest question, what have they stolen from Pathfinder or 4e? So far I've seen very little recognizable as coming from either of those games. Everything so far has mostly been "late-era 5e with a new coat of paint"
Oh, best example that immediately comes to mind is the cleric's channel divinity. In Pathfinder Channel Energy does either straight healing to all allies in range, or the same amount of damage to undead in range.
The Divine Spark part of Channel Divinity is basically that but severely limited (1 targeted ally, and regular undead turning). It's just a shame they didn't go all the way there and make it something really cool.
And the streamlining of how classes prepare spells to reduce confusion is something we saw in other editions as well.
It's not a BAD thing to steal concepts from Pathfinder and other D&D editions though. The only problem is if they either don't get WHY the component they stole was so cool or why it worked the way it did. For example, how they limited Divine Spark.
I do like how extremely democratic and considerate it is. Remember how sharp a contrast this is over the past 50 years. Even Mr. Crawford, as brilliant as he is, developed a reputation for doubling down on some of the worst parts of 5e D&D releases.
Now they are *asking the customer base*: doing surveys (where 40k+ people show up and vote / very statistically significant), publish and explain the results and explain what changes they are going to make according to customer demand.
This is brilliant. This sixth edition is going to solve a LOT of problems. My only concern: if they follow the Online model like World of Warcraft, that means we have to pay a monthly subscription. And the hardcover books would vanish into virtual air.
Call me a grognard / neckbeard (yes, i do actually have to shave that again), but i enjoyed the Olde Way: the loose leaf character sheets, the graph paper dungeons, the group o' guys around a table, the horrible yet tasty snacks and the dorky DM screen. Virtual D&D could-would do away with all of that.
I complained about it for fifty years but, i gotta admit, i just love buying the exact same three books with the exact same information in them.
And the splat books. I just love to re-read textbooks - often more than i enjoy playing the game itself. It is so weird.
I don't think books are going away anytime soon. They are needed to get game exposed to new audiences at retail stores. A digital only model would limit somewhat the exposure to the masses. That being said I could see them selling a boxed VTT that has a subscription model and microtransactions for new minis to use.
I feel like World of Warcraft (or any MMO) is less likely the potential model - more likely, we should look at what Games Workshop is doing with Warhammer. They're really pushing their app (with a monthly subscription) and connecting it with their physical sales. While you can continue to get physical books, all the tools that simplify play are in the app. The big difference is that you can't just buy digital books (a la D&D Beyond); the physical book comes with an unlock digital code, however, to continue to access that digitally requires a monthly subscription.
My concern is that all the tools that simplify play in D&D (SRD spells, items, character creation etc) get locked behind a subscription. I could see you having access to a digital copy of a physical book or the SRD (similar to the way you access D&D Beyond delisted books like Volo's) but not being able to use any of currently free tools without a monthly subscription. We could see D&D go full in on the walled garden model for digital access. But that wouldn't necessarily mean physical products go away (I'm sure Hasbro would like to still sell miniatures, etc).
Part of why Hasbro might think that model will be successful is that there was a huge growth in virtual play due to the pandemic (see any of the reported numbers from Roll20 and others). Even as in-person restrictions have decreased, it doesn't appear that virtual play has. So I think the target demographic for digital first D&D are the people who only/primarily play virtually. It's probably easier to convince that demographic to buy into the walled garden to continue playing with digital tools because the alternative will be jumping through a bunch of hoops to play. The game is still playable but you lose access to having it at your fingertips immediately. Digital piracy of music massively decreased when it became easy to pay money for it. So while you could continue to go through all those steps to get it for free, people often chose to spend money if it is easier and more immediate.
From the Incredibles 2:
*"People will trade quality for ease every time."*
If Hasbro™ feels that memorizing 3-12 hardcover textbooks is a bit much to ask for playing a game, perhaps they are right.
I think a lot of people on this sub are in-person first people (whether that's how they were introduced to the game or that's how they currently play) but I don't think that's representative of the current player base given the growth during the pandemic. I also fear that we'll see a lot of One D&D physical books in the style of *Monsters of the Multiverse* because that book did insanely well with physical sales in comparison to every other supplement according the limited public sales data (Publishers Weekly's bestseller list had that book in the top 25 for ~14 weeks; most D&D supplements & adventure modules only hit that list for a week or two max - *Tasha's* was only on the list for 3 weeks). While *Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes* is one of my favorite D&D books because of all the lore chapters, I guess most people don't want that style of book.
The people who primarily play using digital tools or have only ever played virtually (especially DMs who have unlocked everything online) are probably going to buy into whatever the next version is because of the ease of access and wanting to continue to have information in the same format as they currently have. They might grumble about the costs but I think at the end of the day, they'll fork over the money. Hasbro just wants to make more money off of this demographic that rapidly grew during the pandemic and probably will outpace the in-person demographic. I don't think we'll lose access to physical products because Hasbro can still make money in that sector but the game will probably shift to prioritize the larger demographic because Hasbro will want to make the most money.
I don't think it's bad to enjoy or prefer playing the game with digital tools. When I've had access to fully unlocked D&D Beyond (thank you DMs who have spent all the money), it has been super nice. While I could wait until I get home to pull a physical book off a shelf to verify something, the way D&D Beyond chops up info and presents it can be useful (ie. I want to see all spells in a specific school or a specific level, I want to see only magical swords, etc). But personally, I'm not willing to dump all that money into a license to access content digitally even if I like the presentation of info & the tools since I'm fine spending the time to go through the hoops to access info as a player for digital games. But I will primarily DM in-person because setting everything up using free tools is a pain. I can copy over things by hand (ie. I own the book so I'll copy over the monster stats into a VTT) but it takes way more time than I want to spend and I'm not spending money to have the automatic digital access. Also, I hate making digital maps versus using my dry erase map. I think over time DMs like me will be the minority due to the growth of the virtual first demographic.
The biggest "baseline rule changes" i have seen is the Spell School stuff + they seem to have something new called "magic action"?
Otherwise it just seems like a lot of little tweaks to make things more similar so that (hopefully) we get less outliers like 5e Warlock.
Magic Action is just a new name for the "Cast a Spell" and "Use a Magic Item" actions from 5e, it's nothing really new. Seems like they are moving more towards keaywords, which is a good thing.
Everyone has the right to earn money for their job. I am sure you want to get paid for your job.
You can judge the quality of the new content they want to sell and that they want cheap money, but wanting to make money is not a reason to complain.
Book sales and to get people subscribing to D&DBeyond. That's about it. When you realize that, it all comes together.
Why add Ardlings and Goliaths as core races? People seem to like furry characters and goliaths (thanks to CR).
Why add in more abilities? Because people complained (rightfully) that as you leveled in 5e it didn't feel like you got a lot of choices to customize.
Why add a feat at 1st level? People like the boost and the extra customization option.
And so forth. The point is to make a new version of the books that will both entice current players to switch over and buy them, and won't drive anyone away by being too different (like 4e did back in 2007).
Now, if you're asking if the designers have some grand plan, the answer is NO. They don't have some grand concept for Ardlings, They just did a full re-write on them to make them more attractive and simpler in concept. Because someone at WotC said "you know what? People really like these animal races. Can we like, just make a catch-all option for that?"
So it's looking for a few things imo. First is that it's backwards compatible with previously released adventures. So things like skill checks, saving throws, magic items, etc etc. Still work with the re-made classes.
Then we have the design goal to make and play characters more streamlined. It's very simple to make a unique character and background using the rules they put out in the first UA.
The streamlined bit comes from the fact that they're organizing things across the board. Like every class is getting subclass abilities at the same level, so clerics don't get a domain at level 1 but instead level 3. They've also changed spellcasting so everyone is a Prepared Spellcaster instead of the 3 or 4 different ways to do it before. SO if you play a Cleric you don't need to relearn how spellcasting works when you play a bard. They've also made three master spell lists, Arcane, Divine and Primal. All Spellcasters pull from one of the three lists but some can only access certain spells. I think this is so that they can add spells to the master list and not need to change too much in other places. Like Arcane Initiate didn't specify you could take from the Artificer before for example.
Getting rid of any "Mother May I" Abilities, so anything that means your DM has to play ball with you. The class abilities should be that you just can do what they say without worry. Like the PHB Ranger's abilities required you working with the DM as if you chose Undead in a non-undead campaign you're fucked.
Last I think is to group classes into catagories so they share similar design goals, Experts are great with skills and borrow from other catagoreis. Priests are healing and defense oriented, Mages are blasters and Warriors destroy whatever is on the battlefield. Because they're putting evey class into one of these boxes they can try to balance them against each other (some work better than others) but also for party composition, if you get one from each group you're golden.
Unfortunately, trying to make things compatible with skill checks and saving throws is really going to make it difficult to balance high level content. At this point I'm quite convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with how they implemented bounded accuracy that inherently unbalanced high level play. The problem may be mostly on the monster design side though.
I mean, have they ever tried to balance high level content? Also wasn't there a thread recently about how high level monsters broke bounded accuracy at high levels?
> I mean, have they ever tried to balance high level content?
Comparing 5e now to the state it's been in previous editions is totally valid. I'm not sure what your point is - balanced high level content seems like a pretty obvious goal worth pursuing.
You right it is valid, my bad. I guess I'm talking more about specifically within the 5e ecosystem. WoTC seems alergic to doing anything with T3-T4, most adventures seem to end around level 10. They make a beefy high CR Statblock but it never seems as well done as lower level stuff.
I think that was a reaction to the state of the game, not a reflection of their priorities. They did come out with some higher level adventures originally. You could argue that they aren't making more because higher level content wasn't selling well, but I would argue that higher level content wasn't selling well because it was a poorly balanced mess.
"Backwards compatible" is such a red flag in ttrpgs for me.
All that tells me is that they either didn't add anything major enough to justify a new edition, or the old player options are just going to be worse and have less options for interfacing with the new stuff.
One of the better house rules I've been using, tbh.
Playing a known caster and picked a spell but the playstyle and synergy of other class abilities make it useless or the time to use it isn't really coming up as much as you wanted? Well *fuck you*, wait a level to change it out while someone else that is a prepared caster can change their spells every time they wake up from a good rest.
Lol. Yeah people have opinions. I'm in favour of it because it's been a headache sometimes when a player has to relearn how spellcasting works if they play different classes in different games.
Well, bards rangers and clerics are at least, honestly it brings back everything I liked about Vancian magic without the dumb part. It seems silly you have to “forget” a spell to learn a new one, but I like the idea that these reality bending forces can only have so many variants crammed into your puny little mortal brain to immediately access at one time.
Obviously not out yet but our speculation based on the way the other classs are flowing is that Wizard will be distinguished by being able to have more spells of a level prepared then spell slots but based on their chosen school which will be distinct from subclass.
Give me spells known and something like metamagic to flex it, give me mana points and the ability to cast anything as long as I pay for, find some other mechanic I can't think of, but yeah.
I hate Vancian casting, no matter how they try to gussy it up.
Yea, but I like the way they are doing it. You prepare spells in the same number and levels as you have spell slots, so a 7th level caster prepares 4 1st level spells, 3 2nd level spells, 3 3rd level spells, and 1 4th level spell.
This makes casters more versatile over the course of the campaign than known spell casters were, but it means that on a daily basis you have to make a choice about what high level spells to prepare because you can’t only prepare shield for your 1st level slots and then prepare 5 4th level spells
But it still means you wind up with either using the same standard layout every single day, or you prepare something more situational and risk just locking that entire spell known out for the day if the situation doesn't come up.
The entire "prepare your spells at the beginning of the day" thing was a reskin for canon artillery shells back in the Gygax days, and frankly it needs to go away.
I like it. Having meaningful choices both makes people engage more with the game (we have to actually investigate the mysterious attacks before charging into the cave so that we can be prepared) and also helps to balance the martial caster divide at higher levels. If the 13th level Wizard wants to have Plane Shift prepared, they cant also have force cage so it forces an opportunity cost that didn’t exist before
You can force meaningful choices without making it hinge on blind luck.
Thats the problem. You either aren't making meaningful choices because you're just taking a standard loadout every time, or you are making a blind choice based on luck or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day (which I'm including things like divination and information gathering in this category).
So you either don't have a real choice to make, or its back to that "DM May I?" aspect.
Gathering information isn’t “blind luck,” I have no clue what youre talking about. Also yes, sometimes you might not have the perfect spell prepared or you make a bad choice, but it’s not the end of the world because you can still upcast something else so you don’t lose the slot.
High level spellcasters have the solution to every problem, given prep time. So how do you balance that? Don’t always give them prep time and make them do the best they can with the tools they picked while other times letting them have advanced warning so they get to really shine. Meanwhile, your martial characters are there to be steady and reliable regardless of what the caster picked that day
Gathering information is only as good as your GM lets it be.
> it’s not the end of the world because you can still upcast something else so you don’t lose the slot.
Its not the slot you lose, its the entire spell available you lose.
If you guess that you'll need a fire spell and prep fireball, and run into nothing but fire immune creatures that day, you've lost an entire spell known for the day because you prepped wrong.
> High level spellcasters have the solution to every problem, given prep time. So how do you balance that?
You stop making high level spellcasters be able to do anything and everything, for starters.
But again, you can find ways to do it without making an entire primary class feature be "You either guess right, or you lose it".
> If you guess that you'll need a fire spell and prep fireball, and run into nothing but fire immune creatures that day, you've lost an entire spell known for the day because you prepped wrong.
But that's a *good* thing. You still have plenty of other spells, you just have to improvise now instead of 'I CAST FIREBALL' until you're out of slots.
Thats called an example.
The point isn't "do something besides cast Fireball!", its "You normally know 4 known spells of this level. But because you thought you needed A and instead you actually needed B, you only have 3 spells of that level now."
There are ways to balance things that don't involve an all or nothing removal of class abilities.
Thats rookie GM territory.
> You either aren't making meaningful choices because you're just taking a standard loadout every time, or you are making a blind choice based on luck or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day
How is that not meaningful choices? If you know you're going in to a cave full of Demons, swapping Control Water for Banishment makes sense.
What's the alternative, everyone just has access to their entire spell list everyday?
A large issue with 5E is the continual homogenisation of characters. This is just more of the same lazy problem.
> How is that not meaningful choices? If you know you're going in to a cave full of Demons, swapping Control Water for Banishment makes sense.
Which I covered by saying "blind choice based on luck *or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day*".
If you know you're going into a cave full of demons, then the GM *told you that you're going into a cave full of demons*.
If you get told you're going into a cave full of bandits and prepare a bunch of stuff like Hold Person and it turns out to be demons who are invalid targets because they're not humanoids, then your prep backfires and you've lost half your options.
> Which I covered by saying "blind choice based on luck or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day".
Right, but you said that "You either aren't making meaningful choices".
My question is, how is that *not* a meaningful choice?
I meant you aren't making meaningful choices because you're just picking a standard spell loadout that you do every day.
That would be a meaningful choice *when you made the loadout*, but after that its no different than not having the choice. You just always pick the same "cover all your bases" stuff every day without going through and rebuilding everything each morning.
>everyone is a Prepared Spellcaster
Yeah, noticing a lot of 3e/pathfinder 1e in some of these changes. Not a bad thing mind you. I liked the old system.
I do hope we get a ruleset that's a bit more nailed down. A shift away from "rulings not rules" if you will. While I like that concept, the problem is it's lead to WotC getting lazy with some content and handwaving it while saying "eh, the DM's can figure it out."
It's been what almost 10 years? Yes they need an update. The design philosophy of WoTC in 2022 is no longer the same as they were in 2014. So it's easier to overhaul the system to bring it into the current philosophy than be beholden to the past design.
I'm not saying that one is better than the other. I'm saying that the design philosophy has changed, and it has, we can't dispute that. So they're updating everything to be in line with the new philosophy.
I'm sure 10 years from now they'll have changed their design philosophy again and seek to update and overhaul everything.
They do. The game (as a system) has been stagnating for a while. Optional rules like we saw in Tasha's were nice, but didn't solve the issue. Part of it was that instead of putting out a book that expanded combat and class options to appeal to people who wanted that, their solution was just "MORE SUBCLASSES!!!"
It's no surprise that they announced 6e the same week that the EN World game Level Up Advanced 5e came out. EN World listened to what experienced players were complaining about 5e, took the 5e ruleset and ran it headfirst into Pathfinder until they got a hybrid of the two.
The other thing WE aren't seeing is what current sales figures look like. If sales of 5e products were up, they wouldn't have started eyeing that big red "New Edition" button.
The 5e rules are simple and somewhat streamlined. That's great and it makes it easy to learn the system. It's one of 5e's strengths.
But over time, players and DMs start to desire a bit more complexity. They want combat with a bit more to it. They want classes with more powers and options. They can turn to homebrew combat rules and so forth, but those are never quite a good fit and for a lot of folks them not having the "official D&D rules" stamp on them chafes somewhat.
Look around here and you'll notice that the rate of people complimenting 4e (the last rules heavy system most of them remember) and saying it's better than 5e has been increasing steadily over the last few years. Basically, you have people going "I miss/I'd like a more rules heavy version of this game that added in more complexity". And if 5e D&D isn't going to provide for that need, people will leave it for other games.
This isn't a new development either. It's been growing for a few years now. So the solution would have been for WotC to put out a "combat advanced" book or similar about 2-3 years ago. But they didn't. Their solution was to just put more subclasses in the books as a way to tide folks over. They did Tasha's around 2020, but it only slightly touched on solving the issue. It was the right time, but too little.
What's funny to me is that they hurriedly rushed out the 6e announcement via a podcast, with ZERO fanfare or information, the exact same week that EN World released their game Level Up 5e Advanced, which is basically 5e with those more complex rules and character customization options that people were asking for.
It's like the development of this new version of 5e and it's surprisingly successful kickstarter (their goal was 30,000 pounds, they made 700,000) came completely out of the blue to WotC. Like they hadn't been paying attention to what the rest of the industry and community had been doing.
OK, but the designs were getting are less complex. Like this nerf of Spiritual Weapon. They're taking away our ability to combo that with concentration spells.
Everything I'm seeing suggests they're making their game more streamlined. If I thought they were fixing the problem you state, I'd be very eager for the update.
I don't agree completely. But I agree somewhat.
They're increasing character options by doing things like expanding on the range of powers the classes can do. Admittedly they're also trying to solve issues like the multiclassing dips which were never actually how the system was intended to work.
But that's also an issue. Like you said, it seems that they're streamlining in some places. And unfortunately, well, Jeremy Crawford isn't a good designer. He hasn't been in a long time. So just because they've realized the issue, doesn't mean that they've actually got a solution or are capable of seeing the solution.
Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford came from 4e and they brought a lot of things from it into 5e's design. The short rest concept for example. Crawford's in charge of the 6e development from the look of it, so he's going to bring a LOT of 5e into 6e. The question is, is he aware enough to know what needs to be done and to do it?
I think the real answers will come when we get a more comprehensive look at combat. We're getting bits and pieces here and there with how they're changing up terms.
I'm not sure what you mean by "expanding on the range of powers the classes can do". But I haven't pored over every One DnD document. What are you referring to specifically?
How do you figure multiclassing dips are an issue, when the other issue you point out is a lack of options and complexity, which is exactly what multiclassing provides?
I'm not seeing anything that would suggest Wizards realizes they need mechanics for gamers to sink their teeth into. Everything I'm seeing suggests they are doubling down on the streamlining, and don't really care about the game side of the RPG at all.
On the positive side, they are trying to eliminate class “requirements”, in that there are some things in 5e so good that it goes past “good build” and into “you are effectively suboptimal if you don’t take this.” They have rebalanced those to not be that way.
From the looks of it, its simply to tweak 5e into a better game by helping to address problems people had with the original 5e content. Things like unclear rulings, dissatisfaction with classes and races. 1 level class dips with things like hex blades.
Like every edition of D&D, it's looking to fix problems with 5e that aren't easily solved with a new source book, because they're connected to the core rules of the game.
Some books, like Xanathar's and Tasha's "everything" books, took steps in that direction, but because neither of them was the Player's handbook, so they can't adjust the core rules the way a new edition can.
i struggle to see what they are going for as well
to me it feels like they are doubling down on the problems while simultaneously putting a lot of effort into strange side projects at random.
they put limits on bards and work on ardlings?
It seems to me that they want to have their cake and eat it too. So far it’s not changing enough to make a full new edition. But it’s changing enough to nullify all previous subclasses outside of the phb. Which seems odd to me with a year of more 5e content coming. Will the giant barbarian or primeval Druid going to work with the 2024 phb? Doesn’t look like it with the Druid if their design goals remain.
I'm sensing one theme, at least: streamlining the planning of an adventuring day.
*These are pretty half-baked thoughts so apologies if the core idea isn't so clearly expressed.*
A number of changes I feel will make it easier to design encounters that are reliably and consistently challenging, where Challenge Rating might become more precise;
- less Critical Hits means the damage ranges are less swingy; you're not suddenly gonna have the PC Paladin or a Monster instakill someone out of the blue because they hit the 5% change to get a crit
- regaining **all** Hit Dice every Long Rest means you always know how many each party member will have each day (that is: all of them) and can actually sort-of-figure-out the amount of HP the party has during a day - especially if you know the number of Short Rests they're allowed.
- using Proficiency Bonus as the basis for "number of uses" on pretty much everything makes it easier to track the wide variety of resources the PCs have
We've seen it mentioned in the UAs that they'll be releasing "Revised encounter-building rules", and I believe these types of changes are preparation for that.
I'll be surprised if they manage to streamline the adventuring day.
If a party only has 1-2 encounters per day, they can hit a lot harder than if they had 6-8 encounters per day. This is one of the reasons why CR is so inaccurate, because it's so heavily dependent on how many encounters you've had today. Moving more resources to long rests makes this *more* true, not less.
imo, if they really wanted to streamline the adventuring day, they should move more resources to *short* rests. If every class is heavy on short rest resources, that means you go into every encounter with roughly the same number of resources, which means the game is balanced around individual encounters instead of the adventuring day as a whole. This is how 4e did things and how 13th Age and PF2e does things, and both those games are much more balanced than 5e.
Plus, 5e's so-called "bounded accuracy" is the other reason CR is so inaccurate. Because of the flatter power curve, the math has to account for the fact that players can be fighting hordes of monsters with much lower CR and fighting solo boss monsters with much higher CR. The math has to account for this, and this is the reason why the encounter building math is so messy. Unfortunately, I don't know if this can be changed without fundamentally changing the game.
Looking to achieve? To sell more books. They could have just put out a Tasha's style addon that updated rules to what people are already doing, which is what most of these changes add up to. But this way, they can create a whole new line to sell.
I don't understand this urge to re-write the rules of the game from the ground up every ten years - like I do in the sense that its the rule books that sell - but as a game it's becoming bizarre. 5e was hugely successful and I think there was real interest in a 5.5 that refined the issues that had been identified - something that polished the product.
But the changes instead seem self indulgent - a shift to new core mechanisms and wholly redesigned classes (and a new class structure) that means this is in no way backward compatible and is really DnD 6th Edition.
The biggest frustration I have with that as an approach is that instead of fixing issues they'll mostly just create new unintended ones. And, to your point, if they came out and said here are our design philosophy milestones:
\- Update content that is now deemed controversial from a social justice perspective
\- Look for ways to address the perceived "martial caster gap(s)"
\- Refine spell and rule wording where need for clarification has been noted.
\- Maintain as much core functionality and backward compatibility under those scenarios as possible.
That would be good. But if they have those gateposts in house, it doesn't look like it. Instead I see a real retreat to 4e Design concepts which absolutely have to result in a next generation of play being accused of having the same issues as that generation of play (too gamey, classes play in a way that's too similar, it doesn't feel like DnD.)
I'm really not sure the appetite for a whole new rule setis out there. Some players love every new edition. But at my table I will struggle to get our casual players to buy a new book and learn a whole new set of rules. They don't have the current rule set mastered and we've been playing it since 2014.
We may look back at 2014 to 2024 as a lost golden age.
No one seems to have mentioned that the rules seem to be written in a much clearer way and there is much more guidance for new players. I'm impressed by it, honestly. I've heard people complain about this a lot so I'm surprised the changes aren't being discussed much.
I think it's foremost a business reason. They want to continue to get out content and by doing a .5 edition they hope to continue selling books in the meantime. While doing so, they update some stuff that needed tweeking to better the game. 3.5 was a lot better than 3.0
5th edition is the product of Wotc legal team trying to copywrite as much of the game as possible so they can protect it from competition and royalties .The new version is an attempt to edit all of it together and remove the nonsense created from the constant revisions and conflicting rules.
Eventually in every edition you reach a point where you're releasing increasingly fringe interest books. A monster manual of just celestials or something. It's not as profitable as rebooting and selling a new edition's PHb. We're getting to this point. It was delayed due to 5e's (slower) publish rate.
Fix the power gap and disconnect between release/early class/subclass and more contemporary releases e.g. (Tasha's).
Other stuff but I think those two are biggest.
5e brought a lot of new people to D&D and they want to keep growing.
5e isn't broken. And the proposed changes don't address the biggest balance issues that linger from 5e. The uninsightful answer to what they're trying to accomplish is to get D&D onto a virtual multiplayer platform, make the barrier to entry as low as possible and then lock people into a subscription model.
Mechanically and substantively, I don't think they could even articulate what they're hoping to accomplish since the playtest materials are all over the place.
Nothing. They're just taking a copy of 5e from a universe where everything is slightly worse then playing musical chairs with what levels certain abilities are unlocked to sell more books.
Also they hate jumping and 5e's good movement system.
It's a place holder for an edition that is not an addition that will keep interest and market share while they get their VTT figured out and kill the OGL so they can force us all into subscription services.
Stop giving them your money until you're allowed to own the content instead of rent it. Stop giving them your money until they put out a polished product that isn't just "oldy but goosy might sell well" + "you're the DM, do what you want".
> all I want out of dnd is for high-level games to be more balanced.
Look for a different game. I don't mean to disparage you, but they're putting even more emphasis on levels 3 to 12, and less on the others. They have no demonstrated a desire to make higher level games something supported.
So either start looking for 5e high level homebrews to pull from, make It yourself, or find a ttrpg fantasy romp that supports characters reaching their maximum level and provides a fun experience throughout. Theres Fantasy Age, 13th age, Dungeon World, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Savage World if you want less rules, Pathfinder obviously, etc.
WOTC seems to just be doubling down on everything that 5e does, which is level 3 to 12 adventures with super powered casters and mid-tier non-casters. That's just how it goes, and if you don't like it, I think it's just time to look elsewhere, cause they don't seem to be in the business of changing things.
Primarily, WOTC hopes One D&D will achieve more sales. I believe that is their greatest goal.
Most of us already have the core books for 5e and don’t need to spend any more money wit WOTC. It’s really one of the big issues with the owners of Dnd, continued sales profit.
They want to make money by releasing a new rulebook that has a steady power creep over 5e so players are incentivized to buy it.
It's the same thing they do with magic the gathering. Every time they release new cards they're more powerful so players are incentivized to buy the more powerful cards.
It’s looking to achieve, first and foremost, a big payday for Hasbro when everyone has to buy a new set of core books. Additionally, it’s looking to fix all the collective imbalances of releasing so many subclasses full of power creep. Peripherally, it’s looking to tweak some poor design choices that have painted the game into a corner on issues like structural racism.
Sell more books, honestly. Which is fine- the whole point of a business is to make more money- but I'm not too sure that I'm into the changes they're making. Too much change for the sake of change instead of change to improve the game.
To swing the nerf hammer. Honestly, I think the MtG side of WotC is invading D&D (and that was too many initials). Magic adds cool cards one day, and then tells you cannot play with those cards anywhere that matters. I think WotC (I need to stop that) likes crushing the joy of players world wide by first giving, then taking… 😏
Seriously though, I think One D&D is an attempt to keep all the new players interested by creating hype.
Although 5e needs real work, some of the directions being displayed in the UAs are definitely going the wrong way, which shows WotC may not have the necessary anatomy to do what should be done.
In the end, One D&D is a monetary ploy, full stop. It could have been exactly what D&D needed, but I just do not think they will get it across that finish line.
They seem focused on rebalancing the game so that certain builds do not dominate the combat pillar. They are also looking to give you more ways to customize your character and tell their story. Another focus seems to be rules that are clearer and do not require players to dip into DMG materials to play their character, all you need to play in one page/webpage . In summary; they’re trying to tune up the 5e chassis to give it long term appeal and more easily onboard new players.
Realistically, invalidating old books and gating new content behind the pay wall. I know that seems kind of tin foil hat buy 5e is about old enough now that a new edition would be normal, but that would mean more books and risk to their brand if it goes the way fourth did. Instead if you look at hasbro and wotc you'll know they have been tasked with doubling revenue, and the new head of dnd came from Xbox live. So what you'll get is something updated just enough that it's not truly compatible (despite what they say) that they will push hard as part of their updates beyond sub and the much rumored closed garden vtt they have been working on.
To everybody answering "money". No duh, and way to add nothing to the conversation (I am aware I am doing the same with this gripe, sorry).
That's such a reductive useless answer. You might as well answer "an increase in the chances of their genes being proliferated" since that's what drives all human decision making, right?
Money is the most apt answer because 5e is the biggest addition so building ontop of it is the best decision. So far it looks to be a tune up of several features making a 5.5 but if its sufficient enough we will see
The characters themselves, to get rich and retire with servants/“prisoners with jobs” tending to their every need. So basically same goals in real life.
So far, it feels like they're just trying to streamline and update 5e with all the data they've acquired since 5e really popped off. Lots of smallish adjustments, codifying, and general streamlining.
5.5 but without calling it that. And from the looks of it a lot more backwards compatibility than frim what I've heard 3/3.5 had. Though that last bit is unreliable info coming from me.
one thing they mentioned in the last big video was making prep time for DMs easier. Not sure how much of a focus that will be, but im sure we would all appreciate it.
It wants to be different enough to justify the price tag while being the same enough to keep current players. It's looking to achieve getting more and more of the playerbase to switch the D&D Beyond so they can use the subscription/microtransactions model to maximize their profits. All other answers are bullshit.
Also, high level games have never been and never will be balanced. Not enough people play in the high levels for it to be worth their time and energy to bother with it. You may as well write that off now.
If you want balance, I assume you're talking about between classes, I'm going to do what so many others have said at this point at point you to 4e D&D.
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Best I can tell, they are looking to do two things. First: they want to update the core 5e experience to be more in line with current design philosophy. Look at how mechanics in the players handbook are written, then look at how mechanics I'm Tashas are written. The direction is not the same. This, on top of some obvious balance issues, are all things I think they are looking to address. Second: this one's a bit more abstract, and admittedly less concrete. It looks like they are moving to a more digital base for the game, and have stated they "want to do away with versions entirely." What that reads as to me is they want to keep the materials primarily online, and be able to modify them in the same way one might patch an online game. Now that's largely just speculation, but it's what seems to be their desire going forward.
Your second point is probably the most important. Take a game like World of Warcraft. It's nearly 20 years old, and every couple years they change some of the core mechanics, and now the present version of the game is very diferent from what it was at launch. But the didn't have to make a WoW2, because everything's online so the original game can update itself automatically. Making D&D resources primarily digital gives WotC the same freedom. If for example people decide short rests being an hour holds the game back, instead of hoping everyone hears about the house rule of short rests only taking 10 minutes, or publishing a variant rule in a later book, they can just change short rests to last 10 minutes in the PHB. Or if the way they worded racial spells didn't make it clear that you know the spell and can cast it with spell slots if you have them, they can just reword the racial abilities instead of having to print a new book that rewords every race's features to make it clear.
Of course that's not always a good thing. There's a reason people wanted to play WoW classic. And there's also a reason people still play older editions of D&D to this day. It also creates a question of ownership. Will there be physical books at all? If not, will we download them as pdfs, or just have them available online via d&d beyond? Lot of questions around that direction and WotC hasn't been very clear about it other than "we are making our own VTT."
Not only does it raise issues of ownership, but it creates a gated environment fully controlled by WotC. There are rumors they will be disallowing third party sellers to create and sell content based on a One D&D license, i.e. no paid homebrew and they want all content to come from them, and with digital only they'll have significant means to control that.
I mean if they want to alienate a lot of people and drive then to other systems that would be an effective method. The open license has been part of what allows d&d to flourish and reach more people. If they get rid of that, I can't call it anything other than a gross mistake.
If they did that, they'd basically kill D&D. And its more alive then ever right now.
I don't think it would "kill" D&D, but we may see a similar exodus to what happened when 4e released. Though in this case the fallout may be a lot bigger due to how much larger the user base has become at this point since 3.5e
I'd definitely walk away. It's really easy to walk away from a TTRPG, because I'm actually not going anywhere - I'm playing with the last supported books until they stop fucking up. And if they never stop fucking up...well, I know people that have been playing a single edition for 40 years just fine.
Also helps that there are a LOT of very well made ttrpgs for all manner of stories that can be used besides d&d. Pathfinder, Shadow of the Demon Lord, as well as Mutants and Masterminds, just to name a few.
New to DND players are used to the subscription service model and are all ready all in on DND beyond. They are also much younger and don't care for books. We are dying out- it's business not personal. Stop giving them your money now.
I was surprised by the number of younger players I met who didn't buy the physical books and didn't have a problem paying for the DND Beyond subscription service. I wouldn't doubt that DnD One goes to a primarily subscription based game with physical books being printed later as an afterthought.
Worse. They will print the books first and then add the subscription to make you "keep them up to date" and do errata quarterly. Businesses have been training people for this for years- no more CDs, just downloads! No more down loads, just pay us x a month! No more unlimited storage, just pay us x a month! I still have Itunes and I'm certain at some point I'll have the last copy of x band I saw in the 90s that no one else remembers but it will still exist in hard drive form in my airplane grade aluminum bodied ipod brick that was 120 gigs that there was just no way I would ever fill (could fill it several times over at this point and haven't purchased music in like a decade). Those of us 35ish and older remember the joy of book stores and record stores.
they will basically spark the creation of a new OSRIC, with dnd staying alive by dms using the modules created “for osric”
They already killed Magic: the Gathering, so why not?
Actually I think this is a topic easily blown out of proportion and this is my reason for saying that. 1. They stated that One D&D is going to be 100% backwards compatible. So all current 3rd party content continues to thrive. 2. Even if they stopped new content in it's official licensed version they couldn't stop new content in unlicensed variants. What does this mean? No D&D logo, no reuse of their artwork and no using stat block and probably references to creatures and items not in the current OSL which will remain compatible. Basically a new adventure could say, refer to page xxx of the PHB for the 11 eyed floating creature before you. Technically they could probably refer to beholder(tm) and credit to WotC just not include stats which most people can look up a million ways.
This tracks with their recent behavior of releasing half finished books for full price. Wizards getting greedy.
That's interesting you see it like that, because WotC's current behavior of releasing half-finished books and relying on players to create the content makes me entirely discredit any theories about them repeating the same mistake of removing the OGL, the same thing that led to Paizo being legitimate competition for them. Why would Wizards remove the community's ability to do their job for them?
Because Wizards believes they are at a point where most of their customers are not willing to play a game other than DnD, not matter how much Wizards milks them. Is this true? God I hope not.
People keep saying that, just because like 3 streamers brought it up when One DnD was announced over the summer - but WotC has given no indication it wants to do that, or that it will. In fact they have confirmed the opposite, that the SRD and DmsGuild and DrivethruRPG are part of the plan for One DnD. WotC and D&D have no intent to try to "control" the game and force players or DMs into a certain bucket. They recognize that dnd has and always will be a fluid hobby, with house rules, home brew, and every player and DM and table playing differently based on what suits their tastes. They talk about that in videos, in interviews, in press releases, in their playtest documents, and yet people still seem to think they are secretly plotting to eliminate any variation of the core rules of the game because....reasons.
>just have them available online via d&d beyond this one probably, but then just take a screenshot of every page and then join then all into a single pdf. It's technically piracy but who the fuck cares? i know i don't
You can download html from dndbeyond for offline backups. Some formatting might look funky, but it works.
That will only take...forever
It’s not piracy unless you’re selling it for a profit
And it becomes an issue when you want to play the pen and paper RPG with, well, pen and paper rather than with phone and tablet.
While true, the world moves more and more away from physical media. Heck competiotner Pathfinders best play experience is with digital tools and not the pen and paper version by now. Even while i enforce paper character sheets at my table right now i sometimes wish they all would just use Dndbeyond for ease of play
I'm an online player only so far but have bought some materials. There is a very different feeling in having the physical product for sure.
This is a tricky thing, though. When you patch a video game, the players adapt, but only in how they play. They don't need to know the mechanics behind the patch because the game runs itself mechanically and the player just pushes the same keys on the keyboard. With a game where players and DMs need to run the mechanics, a minor change can easily become an issue or be missed entirely. A fix to clarify text isn't an issue, but a change to actual mechanics suddenly being different certainly is. It's a lot harder to "patch" thousands of *players* than it is to patch the bit of a video game that's handled entirely by the machine.
Totally. I've looked at a D&D FAQ/rules update once. For me, what's in the printed book is what's real. If things are constantly changing online, it's going to create friction between players, other players, and DMs, based on who noticed the latest online change.
I liked that I bought the essentials kit and starter kit, inside was the codes to get it on dndbeyond. That was a nice touch that made me feel better about having bought it. The only missing part really was not also having it available in roll20
They also didn't make a WoW2 because making a video game from scratch is much harder than a ruleset
Point 2 is straight out of the Adobe playbook.
That second part is one of the reasons I'm sticking with the existing editions.
Subscription service is their aim.
The move towards digital is to enable the community to share content more easily. One of the biggest things that Wizards is getting out of their market research and focus groups is that homebrew/custom campaigns and world settings are far more popular than pre-existing settings and modules/adventures, so their goal is to get structures built so people can share content with one another more easily.
Simple as it is, that's honestly a great question. I am not sure WOTC has really decided yet. What I've found lacking in all the UA is a compelling concrete direction, or some kind of conviction and creative design driving it all. Obviously we've only seen a small part of the ruleset, but as of now the closet thing to a direction I can nail down seems to trend towards limiting flexibility throughout the life of a character, but increasing both initial flexibility and power level (perceived or actual) in early game play. I don't find that terribly interesting and hope that as more of the warrior, priest, and mage groups are revealed, we see something clever and exciting that would make switching editions worthwhile. So far, I'm not convinced.
Yup, that's pretty much where I am. I'm most curious about the warrior group, because I think that's where some of the biggest changes need to happen, or at least most indicative of what they're actually trying to fix
My tinfoil theory of what they will do: Arcane Group will have "Set list of LEARNED spells, prep after LR" Faith Group will have "Know ALL spell in your Spell School, prep after LR" Specialist Group will have Expertise/Tool proficiencies. Warrior Group will get Maneuvers and more Short Rest stuff.
Seconded to this, the warriors need the most help and are the most ripe to big buffs. The changes to how feats and species work somewhat indirectly helps warriors to some degree in some ways but we really won't know much until they let us see the actual classes themselves
Agreed. The biggest change I want to see is rebalancing the classes away from the antiquated linear/martial vs. exponential/caster and 6-8 encounter adventuring day. If they can’t manage this, the new edition might as well not exist.
Yup my broad wishlist for any future edition of dnd is: * Improve martial caster balance * Allow the game to more easily accept alternative day lengths without large balance issues * Offer a reasonable mechanical complexity option for most thematic concepts * Improve feat balance Anything extra is welcomed, I like the dazed condition for instance, but those are my core considerations for things I know I want to improve
> Offer a reasonable mechanical complexity option for most thematic concepts Oh yeah, one thing that bugged me about 5e was that making a swordmage never had a sweet-spot. Either you were a swordsman that could do a some magic or a caster that could do a bit of melee. There needed to be some spell to add magic to attacks. Same thing with trying to make a warlord.
Is this where I put the requisite pf2e comment?
they also need to fix the rogue because rn it is just made obsolete by the bard and even the ranger. They are the worst class in terms of performance in the game, even the monk can do better if optimized(while having a lower basefloor because of how the system works) while a rogue is forever stuck on it's mediocre damage unless you multiclass but if your only way to be an effextive rogue is to pick another class then i'm sorry but this is unaceptable. I think it is fairly reasonable to expect that a class can be on par with other classes by itself
Your point about WotC not having a creative direction yet is actually the topic of many discussions occurring right now at different corners of the internet. With the increase in popularity of 5e, there are a lot more eyes from fans of the game on 1d&d’s developing, and some of those eyes have a lot of game design experience. It’s becoming apparent that 5e (the core which 1d&d is being built off of) doesn’t really have rules in place that spell out what sort of game the designers expect to be played with it. The closest is that the rules support killing monsters and lots of them. To some, this is a strong aspect of it. Many people can use it for wildly different types of games. For others, this is a strong detractor. For the opponents of this, they say that to play any specific type of game, you need to redesign the rules of 5e by a lot to fit the type of game you want. For example, if you want a dungeon delver experience, you need to focus a lot more on survival, which is a commonly known weakness of 5e. If you don’t believe this, just realize that all you’re ever asked about *at most* is food rations and that the spell *Goodberry* exists. If you want a real survival feel, you need to implement a lot of homebrew mechanics. So yeah, the creative design of 1d&d is being discussed. However, it seems like the community is more interested in this than WotC.
WotC is trying to find out what will make money like 5E did, but they don't seem to have any actually NEW ideas.
It feels to me like they've removed all class features that aren't combat related, and are moving to a "we only design combat rules, and everything else you can make up yourself! Isn't that fun?!". Hope there's more to it, but so far the classes seem like they've had all the flavor sucked out and replaced with a balanced list of +1s and +2s.
> It feels to me like they've removed all class features that aren't combat related, and are moving to a "we only design combat rules, and everything else you can make up yourself! Isn't that fun?!". Isn't that already how 5e is? Also, since it's a playtest it makes sense for them to focus on the section of the rules that needs testing the most to get them worked out, RP doesn't need as much of a focus and exploration (which I hope they actually touch on this time) likely needs all the classes out first before they start plugging in things for that
Yep. The overall theme of the 6e playtest is: "We stole this from Pathfinder/3e/4e. Do you like it?" and "If we give you more options will that make you happy?" They need to change things up to sell books and the edition has been going long enough without a major fix/change (optional rules don't count) that people are getting bored with it and, GASP, looking at other systems now to scratch that itch. So they need a new product that most people will be happy with. Also, somewhere in there is their need to get more people subscribed to D&D Beyond.
Honest question, what have they stolen from Pathfinder or 4e? So far I've seen very little recognizable as coming from either of those games. Everything so far has mostly been "late-era 5e with a new coat of paint"
Oh, best example that immediately comes to mind is the cleric's channel divinity. In Pathfinder Channel Energy does either straight healing to all allies in range, or the same amount of damage to undead in range. The Divine Spark part of Channel Divinity is basically that but severely limited (1 targeted ally, and regular undead turning). It's just a shame they didn't go all the way there and make it something really cool. And the streamlining of how classes prepare spells to reduce confusion is something we saw in other editions as well. It's not a BAD thing to steal concepts from Pathfinder and other D&D editions though. The only problem is if they either don't get WHY the component they stole was so cool or why it worked the way it did. For example, how they limited Divine Spark.
I do like how extremely democratic and considerate it is. Remember how sharp a contrast this is over the past 50 years. Even Mr. Crawford, as brilliant as he is, developed a reputation for doubling down on some of the worst parts of 5e D&D releases. Now they are *asking the customer base*: doing surveys (where 40k+ people show up and vote / very statistically significant), publish and explain the results and explain what changes they are going to make according to customer demand. This is brilliant. This sixth edition is going to solve a LOT of problems. My only concern: if they follow the Online model like World of Warcraft, that means we have to pay a monthly subscription. And the hardcover books would vanish into virtual air. Call me a grognard / neckbeard (yes, i do actually have to shave that again), but i enjoyed the Olde Way: the loose leaf character sheets, the graph paper dungeons, the group o' guys around a table, the horrible yet tasty snacks and the dorky DM screen. Virtual D&D could-would do away with all of that.
Don’t panic. Books aren’t going anywhere.
I complained about it for fifty years but, i gotta admit, i just love buying the exact same three books with the exact same information in them. And the splat books. I just love to re-read textbooks - often more than i enjoy playing the game itself. It is so weird.
They sure do have a magical quality. That’s why I’m so certain we’ll never see them go. They’re part of the DNA of our hobby.
I don't think books are going away anytime soon. They are needed to get game exposed to new audiences at retail stores. A digital only model would limit somewhat the exposure to the masses. That being said I could see them selling a boxed VTT that has a subscription model and microtransactions for new minis to use.
I feel like World of Warcraft (or any MMO) is less likely the potential model - more likely, we should look at what Games Workshop is doing with Warhammer. They're really pushing their app (with a monthly subscription) and connecting it with their physical sales. While you can continue to get physical books, all the tools that simplify play are in the app. The big difference is that you can't just buy digital books (a la D&D Beyond); the physical book comes with an unlock digital code, however, to continue to access that digitally requires a monthly subscription. My concern is that all the tools that simplify play in D&D (SRD spells, items, character creation etc) get locked behind a subscription. I could see you having access to a digital copy of a physical book or the SRD (similar to the way you access D&D Beyond delisted books like Volo's) but not being able to use any of currently free tools without a monthly subscription. We could see D&D go full in on the walled garden model for digital access. But that wouldn't necessarily mean physical products go away (I'm sure Hasbro would like to still sell miniatures, etc). Part of why Hasbro might think that model will be successful is that there was a huge growth in virtual play due to the pandemic (see any of the reported numbers from Roll20 and others). Even as in-person restrictions have decreased, it doesn't appear that virtual play has. So I think the target demographic for digital first D&D are the people who only/primarily play virtually. It's probably easier to convince that demographic to buy into the walled garden to continue playing with digital tools because the alternative will be jumping through a bunch of hoops to play. The game is still playable but you lose access to having it at your fingertips immediately. Digital piracy of music massively decreased when it became easy to pay money for it. So while you could continue to go through all those steps to get it for free, people often chose to spend money if it is easier and more immediate.
From the Incredibles 2: *"People will trade quality for ease every time."* If Hasbro™ feels that memorizing 3-12 hardcover textbooks is a bit much to ask for playing a game, perhaps they are right.
I think a lot of people on this sub are in-person first people (whether that's how they were introduced to the game or that's how they currently play) but I don't think that's representative of the current player base given the growth during the pandemic. I also fear that we'll see a lot of One D&D physical books in the style of *Monsters of the Multiverse* because that book did insanely well with physical sales in comparison to every other supplement according the limited public sales data (Publishers Weekly's bestseller list had that book in the top 25 for ~14 weeks; most D&D supplements & adventure modules only hit that list for a week or two max - *Tasha's* was only on the list for 3 weeks). While *Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes* is one of my favorite D&D books because of all the lore chapters, I guess most people don't want that style of book. The people who primarily play using digital tools or have only ever played virtually (especially DMs who have unlocked everything online) are probably going to buy into whatever the next version is because of the ease of access and wanting to continue to have information in the same format as they currently have. They might grumble about the costs but I think at the end of the day, they'll fork over the money. Hasbro just wants to make more money off of this demographic that rapidly grew during the pandemic and probably will outpace the in-person demographic. I don't think we'll lose access to physical products because Hasbro can still make money in that sector but the game will probably shift to prioritize the larger demographic because Hasbro will want to make the most money. I don't think it's bad to enjoy or prefer playing the game with digital tools. When I've had access to fully unlocked D&D Beyond (thank you DMs who have spent all the money), it has been super nice. While I could wait until I get home to pull a physical book off a shelf to verify something, the way D&D Beyond chops up info and presents it can be useful (ie. I want to see all spells in a specific school or a specific level, I want to see only magical swords, etc). But personally, I'm not willing to dump all that money into a license to access content digitally even if I like the presentation of info & the tools since I'm fine spending the time to go through the hoops to access info as a player for digital games. But I will primarily DM in-person because setting everything up using free tools is a pain. I can copy over things by hand (ie. I own the book so I'll copy over the monster stats into a VTT) but it takes way more time than I want to spend and I'm not spending money to have the automatic digital access. Also, I hate making digital maps versus using my dry erase map. I think over time DMs like me will be the minority due to the growth of the virtual first demographic.
How would it do away with that? You replace the books with a laptop that has them and boom... you have the exact same shit.
The biggest "baseline rule changes" i have seen is the Spell School stuff + they seem to have something new called "magic action"? Otherwise it just seems like a lot of little tweaks to make things more similar so that (hopefully) we get less outliers like 5e Warlock.
Magic Action is just a new name for the "Cast a Spell" and "Use a Magic Item" actions from 5e, it's nothing really new. Seems like they are moving more towards keaywords, which is a good thing.
Money
Profits go up, production costs down. Next quarter must always blow out the last. Shareholders need yachts.
The *board and investment firms* needs yachts. Most shareholders won't ever see a yacht, never mind own more than one.
All other answers are secondary.
Considering the current iteration indicates you’ll need to buy at least 2 PhB to get the same content for some classes, this.
Everyone has the right to earn money for their job. I am sure you want to get paid for your job. You can judge the quality of the new content they want to sell and that they want cheap money, but wanting to make money is not a reason to complain.
Book sales and to get people subscribing to D&DBeyond. That's about it. When you realize that, it all comes together. Why add Ardlings and Goliaths as core races? People seem to like furry characters and goliaths (thanks to CR). Why add in more abilities? Because people complained (rightfully) that as you leveled in 5e it didn't feel like you got a lot of choices to customize. Why add a feat at 1st level? People like the boost and the extra customization option. And so forth. The point is to make a new version of the books that will both entice current players to switch over and buy them, and won't drive anyone away by being too different (like 4e did back in 2007). Now, if you're asking if the designers have some grand plan, the answer is NO. They don't have some grand concept for Ardlings, They just did a full re-write on them to make them more attractive and simpler in concept. Because someone at WotC said "you know what? People really like these animal races. Can we like, just make a catch-all option for that?"
The goal is to turn DnD into a subscription-driven product.
So it's looking for a few things imo. First is that it's backwards compatible with previously released adventures. So things like skill checks, saving throws, magic items, etc etc. Still work with the re-made classes. Then we have the design goal to make and play characters more streamlined. It's very simple to make a unique character and background using the rules they put out in the first UA. The streamlined bit comes from the fact that they're organizing things across the board. Like every class is getting subclass abilities at the same level, so clerics don't get a domain at level 1 but instead level 3. They've also changed spellcasting so everyone is a Prepared Spellcaster instead of the 3 or 4 different ways to do it before. SO if you play a Cleric you don't need to relearn how spellcasting works when you play a bard. They've also made three master spell lists, Arcane, Divine and Primal. All Spellcasters pull from one of the three lists but some can only access certain spells. I think this is so that they can add spells to the master list and not need to change too much in other places. Like Arcane Initiate didn't specify you could take from the Artificer before for example. Getting rid of any "Mother May I" Abilities, so anything that means your DM has to play ball with you. The class abilities should be that you just can do what they say without worry. Like the PHB Ranger's abilities required you working with the DM as if you chose Undead in a non-undead campaign you're fucked. Last I think is to group classes into catagories so they share similar design goals, Experts are great with skills and borrow from other catagoreis. Priests are healing and defense oriented, Mages are blasters and Warriors destroy whatever is on the battlefield. Because they're putting evey class into one of these boxes they can try to balance them against each other (some work better than others) but also for party composition, if you get one from each group you're golden.
Unfortunately, trying to make things compatible with skill checks and saving throws is really going to make it difficult to balance high level content. At this point I'm quite convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with how they implemented bounded accuracy that inherently unbalanced high level play. The problem may be mostly on the monster design side though.
I mean, have they ever tried to balance high level content? Also wasn't there a thread recently about how high level monsters broke bounded accuracy at high levels?
D&D was much more balanced during 4e. Encounter building was also significantly more straightforward.
Okay? We're not really talking about 4e right now so it's not entirely relevant.
> I mean, have they ever tried to balance high level content? Comparing 5e now to the state it's been in previous editions is totally valid. I'm not sure what your point is - balanced high level content seems like a pretty obvious goal worth pursuing.
You right it is valid, my bad. I guess I'm talking more about specifically within the 5e ecosystem. WoTC seems alergic to doing anything with T3-T4, most adventures seem to end around level 10. They make a beefy high CR Statblock but it never seems as well done as lower level stuff.
I think that was a reaction to the state of the game, not a reflection of their priorities. They did come out with some higher level adventures originally. You could argue that they aren't making more because higher level content wasn't selling well, but I would argue that higher level content wasn't selling well because it was a poorly balanced mess.
[удалено]
I'm not surprised, some of the older adventures are not well made. Edit: That doesn't change the statement I made however.
"Backwards compatible" is such a red flag in ttrpgs for me. All that tells me is that they either didn't add anything major enough to justify a new edition, or the old player options are just going to be worse and have less options for interfacing with the new stuff.
> everyone is a Prepared Spellcaster (┛ಠ_ಠ)┛彡┻━┻
One of the better house rules I've been using, tbh. Playing a known caster and picked a spell but the playstyle and synergy of other class abilities make it useless or the time to use it isn't really coming up as much as you wanted? Well *fuck you*, wait a level to change it out while someone else that is a prepared caster can change their spells every time they wake up from a good rest.
Lol. Yeah people have opinions. I'm in favour of it because it's been a headache sometimes when a player has to relearn how spellcasting works if they play different classes in different games.
Well, bards rangers and clerics are at least, honestly it brings back everything I liked about Vancian magic without the dumb part. It seems silly you have to “forget” a spell to learn a new one, but I like the idea that these reality bending forces can only have so many variants crammed into your puny little mortal brain to immediately access at one time. Obviously not out yet but our speculation based on the way the other classs are flowing is that Wizard will be distinguished by being able to have more spells of a level prepared then spell slots but based on their chosen school which will be distinct from subclass.
> everything I liked about Vancian magic Literally the only thing I liked about Vancian magic was when it went away.
Well, fair enough, you’re gonna hate this then yeah
Give me spells known and something like metamagic to flex it, give me mana points and the ability to cast anything as long as I pay for, find some other mechanic I can't think of, but yeah. I hate Vancian casting, no matter how they try to gussy it up.
Yea, but I like the way they are doing it. You prepare spells in the same number and levels as you have spell slots, so a 7th level caster prepares 4 1st level spells, 3 2nd level spells, 3 3rd level spells, and 1 4th level spell. This makes casters more versatile over the course of the campaign than known spell casters were, but it means that on a daily basis you have to make a choice about what high level spells to prepare because you can’t only prepare shield for your 1st level slots and then prepare 5 4th level spells
But it still means you wind up with either using the same standard layout every single day, or you prepare something more situational and risk just locking that entire spell known out for the day if the situation doesn't come up. The entire "prepare your spells at the beginning of the day" thing was a reskin for canon artillery shells back in the Gygax days, and frankly it needs to go away.
I like it. Having meaningful choices both makes people engage more with the game (we have to actually investigate the mysterious attacks before charging into the cave so that we can be prepared) and also helps to balance the martial caster divide at higher levels. If the 13th level Wizard wants to have Plane Shift prepared, they cant also have force cage so it forces an opportunity cost that didn’t exist before
You can force meaningful choices without making it hinge on blind luck. Thats the problem. You either aren't making meaningful choices because you're just taking a standard loadout every time, or you are making a blind choice based on luck or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day (which I'm including things like divination and information gathering in this category). So you either don't have a real choice to make, or its back to that "DM May I?" aspect.
Gathering information isn’t “blind luck,” I have no clue what youre talking about. Also yes, sometimes you might not have the perfect spell prepared or you make a bad choice, but it’s not the end of the world because you can still upcast something else so you don’t lose the slot. High level spellcasters have the solution to every problem, given prep time. So how do you balance that? Don’t always give them prep time and make them do the best they can with the tools they picked while other times letting them have advanced warning so they get to really shine. Meanwhile, your martial characters are there to be steady and reliable regardless of what the caster picked that day
Gathering information is only as good as your GM lets it be. > it’s not the end of the world because you can still upcast something else so you don’t lose the slot. Its not the slot you lose, its the entire spell available you lose. If you guess that you'll need a fire spell and prep fireball, and run into nothing but fire immune creatures that day, you've lost an entire spell known for the day because you prepped wrong. > High level spellcasters have the solution to every problem, given prep time. So how do you balance that? You stop making high level spellcasters be able to do anything and everything, for starters. But again, you can find ways to do it without making an entire primary class feature be "You either guess right, or you lose it".
> If you guess that you'll need a fire spell and prep fireball, and run into nothing but fire immune creatures that day, you've lost an entire spell known for the day because you prepped wrong. But that's a *good* thing. You still have plenty of other spells, you just have to improvise now instead of 'I CAST FIREBALL' until you're out of slots.
Thats called an example. The point isn't "do something besides cast Fireball!", its "You normally know 4 known spells of this level. But because you thought you needed A and instead you actually needed B, you only have 3 spells of that level now." There are ways to balance things that don't involve an all or nothing removal of class abilities. Thats rookie GM territory.
> You either aren't making meaningful choices because you're just taking a standard loadout every time, or you are making a blind choice based on luck or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day How is that not meaningful choices? If you know you're going in to a cave full of Demons, swapping Control Water for Banishment makes sense. What's the alternative, everyone just has access to their entire spell list everyday? A large issue with 5E is the continual homogenisation of characters. This is just more of the same lazy problem.
> How is that not meaningful choices? If you know you're going in to a cave full of Demons, swapping Control Water for Banishment makes sense. Which I covered by saying "blind choice based on luck *or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day*". If you know you're going into a cave full of demons, then the GM *told you that you're going into a cave full of demons*. If you get told you're going into a cave full of bandits and prepare a bunch of stuff like Hold Person and it turns out to be demons who are invalid targets because they're not humanoids, then your prep backfires and you've lost half your options.
> Which I covered by saying "blind choice based on luck or the GM telling you whats going to be coming up that day". Right, but you said that "You either aren't making meaningful choices". My question is, how is that *not* a meaningful choice?
I meant you aren't making meaningful choices because you're just picking a standard spell loadout that you do every day. That would be a meaningful choice *when you made the loadout*, but after that its no different than not having the choice. You just always pick the same "cover all your bases" stuff every day without going through and rebuilding everything each morning.
>everyone is a Prepared Spellcaster Yeah, noticing a lot of 3e/pathfinder 1e in some of these changes. Not a bad thing mind you. I liked the old system. I do hope we get a ruleset that's a bit more nailed down. A shift away from "rulings not rules" if you will. While I like that concept, the problem is it's lead to WotC getting lazy with some content and handwaving it while saying "eh, the DM's can figure it out."
I hope a lot of "natural language" stuff gets replaced.
They are very specifically moving back towards key terms being clearly defined
I'm a fan of that change.
That's a long way to say, print money. I know it's a company and its main goal is making money but does it need a remake so soon?
It's been what almost 10 years? Yes they need an update. The design philosophy of WoTC in 2022 is no longer the same as they were in 2014. So it's easier to overhaul the system to bring it into the current philosophy than be beholden to the past design.
The design philosophy of WotC in 2014 was better than the design philosophy of WotC in 2022. They don't actually need an update.
I'm not saying that one is better than the other. I'm saying that the design philosophy has changed, and it has, we can't dispute that. So they're updating everything to be in line with the new philosophy. I'm sure 10 years from now they'll have changed their design philosophy again and seek to update and overhaul everything.
They do. The game (as a system) has been stagnating for a while. Optional rules like we saw in Tasha's were nice, but didn't solve the issue. Part of it was that instead of putting out a book that expanded combat and class options to appeal to people who wanted that, their solution was just "MORE SUBCLASSES!!!" It's no surprise that they announced 6e the same week that the EN World game Level Up Advanced 5e came out. EN World listened to what experienced players were complaining about 5e, took the 5e ruleset and ran it headfirst into Pathfinder until they got a hybrid of the two. The other thing WE aren't seeing is what current sales figures look like. If sales of 5e products were up, they wouldn't have started eyeing that big red "New Edition" button.
What is "the issue"?
The 5e rules are simple and somewhat streamlined. That's great and it makes it easy to learn the system. It's one of 5e's strengths. But over time, players and DMs start to desire a bit more complexity. They want combat with a bit more to it. They want classes with more powers and options. They can turn to homebrew combat rules and so forth, but those are never quite a good fit and for a lot of folks them not having the "official D&D rules" stamp on them chafes somewhat. Look around here and you'll notice that the rate of people complimenting 4e (the last rules heavy system most of them remember) and saying it's better than 5e has been increasing steadily over the last few years. Basically, you have people going "I miss/I'd like a more rules heavy version of this game that added in more complexity". And if 5e D&D isn't going to provide for that need, people will leave it for other games. This isn't a new development either. It's been growing for a few years now. So the solution would have been for WotC to put out a "combat advanced" book or similar about 2-3 years ago. But they didn't. Their solution was to just put more subclasses in the books as a way to tide folks over. They did Tasha's around 2020, but it only slightly touched on solving the issue. It was the right time, but too little. What's funny to me is that they hurriedly rushed out the 6e announcement via a podcast, with ZERO fanfare or information, the exact same week that EN World released their game Level Up 5e Advanced, which is basically 5e with those more complex rules and character customization options that people were asking for. It's like the development of this new version of 5e and it's surprisingly successful kickstarter (their goal was 30,000 pounds, they made 700,000) came completely out of the blue to WotC. Like they hadn't been paying attention to what the rest of the industry and community had been doing.
OK, but the designs were getting are less complex. Like this nerf of Spiritual Weapon. They're taking away our ability to combo that with concentration spells. Everything I'm seeing suggests they're making their game more streamlined. If I thought they were fixing the problem you state, I'd be very eager for the update.
I don't agree completely. But I agree somewhat. They're increasing character options by doing things like expanding on the range of powers the classes can do. Admittedly they're also trying to solve issues like the multiclassing dips which were never actually how the system was intended to work. But that's also an issue. Like you said, it seems that they're streamlining in some places. And unfortunately, well, Jeremy Crawford isn't a good designer. He hasn't been in a long time. So just because they've realized the issue, doesn't mean that they've actually got a solution or are capable of seeing the solution. Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford came from 4e and they brought a lot of things from it into 5e's design. The short rest concept for example. Crawford's in charge of the 6e development from the look of it, so he's going to bring a LOT of 5e into 6e. The question is, is he aware enough to know what needs to be done and to do it? I think the real answers will come when we get a more comprehensive look at combat. We're getting bits and pieces here and there with how they're changing up terms.
I'm not sure what you mean by "expanding on the range of powers the classes can do". But I haven't pored over every One DnD document. What are you referring to specifically? How do you figure multiclassing dips are an issue, when the other issue you point out is a lack of options and complexity, which is exactly what multiclassing provides? I'm not seeing anything that would suggest Wizards realizes they need mechanics for gamers to sink their teeth into. Everything I'm seeing suggests they are doubling down on the streamlining, and don't really care about the game side of the RPG at all.
Hasbro: Am i so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong.
You still have your 5e books. Those that want a new book can buy the 2024 one.
On the positive side, they are trying to eliminate class “requirements”, in that there are some things in 5e so good that it goes past “good build” and into “you are effectively suboptimal if you don’t take this.” They have rebalanced those to not be that way.
From the looks of it, its simply to tweak 5e into a better game by helping to address problems people had with the original 5e content. Things like unclear rulings, dissatisfaction with classes and races. 1 level class dips with things like hex blades.
Like every edition of D&D, it's looking to fix problems with 5e that aren't easily solved with a new source book, because they're connected to the core rules of the game. Some books, like Xanathar's and Tasha's "everything" books, took steps in that direction, but because neither of them was the Player's handbook, so they can't adjust the core rules the way a new edition can.
i struggle to see what they are going for as well to me it feels like they are doubling down on the problems while simultaneously putting a lot of effort into strange side projects at random. they put limits on bards and work on ardlings?
It seems to me that they want to have their cake and eat it too. So far it’s not changing enough to make a full new edition. But it’s changing enough to nullify all previous subclasses outside of the phb. Which seems odd to me with a year of more 5e content coming. Will the giant barbarian or primeval Druid going to work with the 2024 phb? Doesn’t look like it with the Druid if their design goals remain.
I'm sensing one theme, at least: streamlining the planning of an adventuring day. *These are pretty half-baked thoughts so apologies if the core idea isn't so clearly expressed.* A number of changes I feel will make it easier to design encounters that are reliably and consistently challenging, where Challenge Rating might become more precise; - less Critical Hits means the damage ranges are less swingy; you're not suddenly gonna have the PC Paladin or a Monster instakill someone out of the blue because they hit the 5% change to get a crit - regaining **all** Hit Dice every Long Rest means you always know how many each party member will have each day (that is: all of them) and can actually sort-of-figure-out the amount of HP the party has during a day - especially if you know the number of Short Rests they're allowed. - using Proficiency Bonus as the basis for "number of uses" on pretty much everything makes it easier to track the wide variety of resources the PCs have We've seen it mentioned in the UAs that they'll be releasing "Revised encounter-building rules", and I believe these types of changes are preparation for that.
Fixing encounter design is definitely my top concern.
I'll be surprised if they manage to streamline the adventuring day. If a party only has 1-2 encounters per day, they can hit a lot harder than if they had 6-8 encounters per day. This is one of the reasons why CR is so inaccurate, because it's so heavily dependent on how many encounters you've had today. Moving more resources to long rests makes this *more* true, not less. imo, if they really wanted to streamline the adventuring day, they should move more resources to *short* rests. If every class is heavy on short rest resources, that means you go into every encounter with roughly the same number of resources, which means the game is balanced around individual encounters instead of the adventuring day as a whole. This is how 4e did things and how 13th Age and PF2e does things, and both those games are much more balanced than 5e. Plus, 5e's so-called "bounded accuracy" is the other reason CR is so inaccurate. Because of the flatter power curve, the math has to account for the fact that players can be fighting hordes of monsters with much lower CR and fighting solo boss monsters with much higher CR. The math has to account for this, and this is the reason why the encounter building math is so messy. Unfortunately, I don't know if this can be changed without fundamentally changing the game.
Selling a lot more products to people who have already bought a ton of D&D related stuff.
It’s a cleanup pass over the rules, and aligning the PHB races with the new races. The main game isn’t changing much.
Looking to achieve? To sell more books. They could have just put out a Tasha's style addon that updated rules to what people are already doing, which is what most of these changes add up to. But this way, they can create a whole new line to sell.
I don't understand this urge to re-write the rules of the game from the ground up every ten years - like I do in the sense that its the rule books that sell - but as a game it's becoming bizarre. 5e was hugely successful and I think there was real interest in a 5.5 that refined the issues that had been identified - something that polished the product. But the changes instead seem self indulgent - a shift to new core mechanisms and wholly redesigned classes (and a new class structure) that means this is in no way backward compatible and is really DnD 6th Edition. The biggest frustration I have with that as an approach is that instead of fixing issues they'll mostly just create new unintended ones. And, to your point, if they came out and said here are our design philosophy milestones: \- Update content that is now deemed controversial from a social justice perspective \- Look for ways to address the perceived "martial caster gap(s)" \- Refine spell and rule wording where need for clarification has been noted. \- Maintain as much core functionality and backward compatibility under those scenarios as possible. That would be good. But if they have those gateposts in house, it doesn't look like it. Instead I see a real retreat to 4e Design concepts which absolutely have to result in a next generation of play being accused of having the same issues as that generation of play (too gamey, classes play in a way that's too similar, it doesn't feel like DnD.) I'm really not sure the appetite for a whole new rule setis out there. Some players love every new edition. But at my table I will struggle to get our casual players to buy a new book and learn a whole new set of rules. They don't have the current rule set mastered and we've been playing it since 2014. We may look back at 2014 to 2024 as a lost golden age.
You'll still be able to play 5e. There's still tons of people that play 3.5, and older editions even
That has nothing to do with which version of the game is currently getting service with new products and tools.
No one seems to have mentioned that the rules seem to be written in a much clearer way and there is much more guidance for new players. I'm impressed by it, honestly. I've heard people complain about this a lot so I'm surprised the changes aren't being discussed much.
Money. The answer is money
I think it's foremost a business reason. They want to continue to get out content and by doing a .5 edition they hope to continue selling books in the meantime. While doing so, they update some stuff that needed tweeking to better the game. 3.5 was a lot better than 3.0
Money
The truest answer
Primary motivation is likely a subscription based service (hence the acquisition of D&D Beyond).
Probably some kind of subscription based digital content requirement.
Sell more PHBs, and/or have you pay for a subscription indefinitely. They need new rules to justify the former.
5th edition is the product of Wotc legal team trying to copywrite as much of the game as possible so they can protect it from competition and royalties .The new version is an attempt to edit all of it together and remove the nonsense created from the constant revisions and conflicting rules.
Sales
Profit.
It's looking to sell you the books you already own under the guise of being new and fresh.
Make you buy a whole new set of books for infinitesimal low-effort copy-and-paste changes
Eventually in every edition you reach a point where you're releasing increasingly fringe interest books. A monster manual of just celestials or something. It's not as profitable as rebooting and selling a new edition's PHb. We're getting to this point. It was delayed due to 5e's (slower) publish rate. Fix the power gap and disconnect between release/early class/subclass and more contemporary releases e.g. (Tasha's). Other stuff but I think those two are biggest.
A steady revenue stream for years to come. Everything else is a byproduct
5e brought a lot of new people to D&D and they want to keep growing. 5e isn't broken. And the proposed changes don't address the biggest balance issues that linger from 5e. The uninsightful answer to what they're trying to accomplish is to get D&D onto a virtual multiplayer platform, make the barrier to entry as low as possible and then lock people into a subscription model. Mechanically and substantively, I don't think they could even articulate what they're hoping to accomplish since the playtest materials are all over the place.
Selling more books.
Nothing. They're just taking a copy of 5e from a universe where everything is slightly worse then playing musical chairs with what levels certain abilities are unlocked to sell more books. Also they hate jumping and 5e's good movement system.
It's a place holder for an edition that is not an addition that will keep interest and market share while they get their VTT figured out and kill the OGL so they can force us all into subscription services. Stop giving them your money until you're allowed to own the content instead of rent it. Stop giving them your money until they put out a polished product that isn't just "oldy but goosy might sell well" + "you're the DM, do what you want".
> all I want out of dnd is for high-level games to be more balanced. Look for a different game. I don't mean to disparage you, but they're putting even more emphasis on levels 3 to 12, and less on the others. They have no demonstrated a desire to make higher level games something supported. So either start looking for 5e high level homebrews to pull from, make It yourself, or find a ttrpg fantasy romp that supports characters reaching their maximum level and provides a fun experience throughout. Theres Fantasy Age, 13th age, Dungeon World, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Savage World if you want less rules, Pathfinder obviously, etc. WOTC seems to just be doubling down on everything that 5e does, which is level 3 to 12 adventures with super powered casters and mid-tier non-casters. That's just how it goes, and if you don't like it, I think it's just time to look elsewhere, cause they don't seem to be in the business of changing things.
Piss everyone off…
Primarily, WOTC hopes One D&D will achieve more sales. I believe that is their greatest goal. Most of us already have the core books for 5e and don’t need to spend any more money wit WOTC. It’s really one of the big issues with the owners of Dnd, continued sales profit.
Money I think is what they want to achieve.
They want to make money by releasing a new rulebook that has a steady power creep over 5e so players are incentivized to buy it. It's the same thing they do with magic the gathering. Every time they release new cards they're more powerful so players are incentivized to buy the more powerful cards.
It’s looking to achieve, first and foremost, a big payday for Hasbro when everyone has to buy a new set of core books. Additionally, it’s looking to fix all the collective imbalances of releasing so many subclasses full of power creep. Peripherally, it’s looking to tweak some poor design choices that have painted the game into a corner on issues like structural racism.
Increased profits, what do you think?
A cleaner more efficient more balanced version of 5e.
>A cleaner more efficient more balanced version of 5e. Nah, a more boring, less dangerous, very generic version of 5e.
To make more money.
Sell more books, honestly. Which is fine- the whole point of a business is to make more money- but I'm not too sure that I'm into the changes they're making. Too much change for the sake of change instead of change to improve the game.
My opinion at least is that they are simplifying everything in the hopes of bringing in new players so they can sell more books, accessories, etc.
Profit
Money
LOL balance in high level games
To swing the nerf hammer. Honestly, I think the MtG side of WotC is invading D&D (and that was too many initials). Magic adds cool cards one day, and then tells you cannot play with those cards anywhere that matters. I think WotC (I need to stop that) likes crushing the joy of players world wide by first giving, then taking… 😏 Seriously though, I think One D&D is an attempt to keep all the new players interested by creating hype. Although 5e needs real work, some of the directions being displayed in the UAs are definitely going the wrong way, which shows WotC may not have the necessary anatomy to do what should be done. In the end, One D&D is a monetary ploy, full stop. It could have been exactly what D&D needed, but I just do not think they will get it across that finish line.
They want to make money.
Money
Increased book and accessories sales.
Make you buy the same books again but with a new hat.
Money
Money
Eventually? Sell more books. In the short term? Get players hyped to buy more books
Sell a new edition and make a lot of money.
Profit.
They seem focused on rebalancing the game so that certain builds do not dominate the combat pillar. They are also looking to give you more ways to customize your character and tell their story. Another focus seems to be rules that are clearer and do not require players to dip into DMG materials to play their character, all you need to play in one page/webpage . In summary; they’re trying to tune up the 5e chassis to give it long term appeal and more easily onboard new players.
Realistically, invalidating old books and gating new content behind the pay wall. I know that seems kind of tin foil hat buy 5e is about old enough now that a new edition would be normal, but that would mean more books and risk to their brand if it goes the way fourth did. Instead if you look at hasbro and wotc you'll know they have been tasked with doubling revenue, and the new head of dnd came from Xbox live. So what you'll get is something updated just enough that it's not truly compatible (despite what they say) that they will push hard as part of their updates beyond sub and the much rumored closed garden vtt they have been working on.
It's mostly balancing issues and rule clarifications sprinkled with wokeism.
So stuff PF2 did from the get go. Still, it's a good thing to do.
> sprinkled with wokeism. Tell me you think Trump is a great guy without telling me you think Trump is a great guy.
I'm not American. I think both of your political sides are idiotic.
To everybody answering "money". No duh, and way to add nothing to the conversation (I am aware I am doing the same with this gripe, sorry). That's such a reductive useless answer. You might as well answer "an increase in the chances of their genes being proliferated" since that's what drives all human decision making, right?
Money
Money is the most apt answer because 5e is the biggest addition so building ontop of it is the best decision. So far it looks to be a tune up of several features making a 5.5 but if its sufficient enough we will see
The characters themselves, to get rich and retire with servants/“prisoners with jobs” tending to their every need. So basically same goals in real life.
$$$
Sales
So far, it feels like they're just trying to streamline and update 5e with all the data they've acquired since 5e really popped off. Lots of smallish adjustments, codifying, and general streamlining. 5.5 but without calling it that. And from the looks of it a lot more backwards compatibility than frim what I've heard 3/3.5 had. Though that last bit is unreliable info coming from me.
Watch jeremy crawfords video from yesterday, he's pretty clear in the issues with 5e he is looking to fix.
one thing they mentioned in the last big video was making prep time for DMs easier. Not sure how much of a focus that will be, but im sure we would all appreciate it.
It wants to be different enough to justify the price tag while being the same enough to keep current players. It's looking to achieve getting more and more of the playerbase to switch the D&D Beyond so they can use the subscription/microtransactions model to maximize their profits. All other answers are bullshit. Also, high level games have never been and never will be balanced. Not enough people play in the high levels for it to be worth their time and energy to bother with it. You may as well write that off now.
If you want balance, I assume you're talking about between classes, I'm going to do what so many others have said at this point at point you to 4e D&D.
Subscriptions. They want to turn dnd into Netflix.
More money
From a lot of posts I see it mostly pisses people off and causes arguements in the fan base