TRPG General Chat

1:19 AM

@AncientSwordRage What are expert classes? The equivalent to prestige classes?

1:30 AM

In 3e, "expert" was an NPC class that had access to almost all the skills and lots of skill points, mediocre baseline modifiers, and nothing else.

KorvinStarmast

2:09 AM

@ThomasMarkov I think I ruled right on this. Cleric one one side of a wall of force, caster of the wall on the other side. Cleric summoned a water elemental to a spot he could see on the caster's side of the wall. Legit?

Adeptus

3:10 AM

@KorvinStarmast "Nothing can physically pass through the wall" - I've seen some people say that this also stops (most) spells, because they require a "clear path to the target". The WOF provides full cover, so only a few spells can get through - mostly those that teleport you, those that affect anyone who can see/hear you, and a few specific exceptions like Sacred Flame ("ignores cover").

KorvinStarmast

If you can see the spot, and the wall is transparent, then you can summon. That's how we see it. Sacred flame, for example, isn't stopped.

Joshua

Somebody's got a point: i.redd.it/w9ad6kizsnq91.jpg

KorvinStarmast

It's unclear and open to interpretation.

@Joshua My wife does crap like that all the time when I am trying to sleep, TBH. 😋 (Not D&D related, but raising things when I am trying to sleep)

BESW

Heh, looks like a point for my "the whole cosmos is the interior of a single egg in the Outer Realms, and when the world ends that's the tarrasque hatching" theory of the PoL setting.

AncientSwordRage

3:46 AM

@Adeptus so from having looked at the video it's a way their grouping some classes (ranger, rogue, bard)

BESW

@AncientSwordRage Looks to me like they're re-inventing the "power source" categorization from 4e.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW they've already done that with the magic spell lists

arcane/divine/primal

BESW

They've always done that sort of thing with spells--arcane/divine/psionic in 3e, for example. But all the other classes tend to fall into the definition-by-absence category "not magic."

4e decided that "Martial" was its own power that justified epic superhuman capacity just like "Arcane" or "Primal" does, which opened up a lot of very cool new ways to think about "not magic" characters and better fit a lot of the intersemiotic inspirations like Hercules, He-Man, or Conan.

Adeptus

4:19 AM

@AncientSwordRage yeah, I just found the video. Sounds that way. "Expert classes" = classes with an emphasis on skills (I guess?)

AncientSwordRage

5:04 AM

@BESW I hope they go a similar route

@Adeptus yeah

Matthieu

5:56 AM

@AncientSwordRage I just saw that. "Fluids" does sound very odd, can't say I've really heard it before outside of the world of medicine

Pretty sure I've heard "fizzy drinks" before, although it doesn't really cover non-carbonated soft drinks, I guess.

Adeptus

6:17 AM

@Matthieu I've always heard "soft drinks" to refer to fizzy drinks... what's a "non-carbonated soft drink" - like, fruit juice or something?

BESW

6:28 AM

@Adeptus Yeah, "soft" means "not alcoholic," and came to be associated mostly with fizzy drinks just because so many of the recreational soft drinks were fizzy.

("hard" drinks are those distilled to make the alcohol content higher than the fermentation process could do on its own)

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Matthieu

6:41 AM

@Adeptus I was thinking about drinks like iced tea and other industrial, sweet drinks that aren't carbonated

Matthieu

7:00 AM

Although now that I think about it, there aren't any other I can name that come to mind straight away...

AncientSwordRage

9:11 AM

@Matthieu I think it 100% came from us talking to each other and saying like: "Have you drunk enough coke?" "No... I've drunk diet coke." .... Some time later "Have you drunk enough diet coke..." "No, I've drunk squash".... Even later "Have you had enough fluids?" "...yes".

Matthieu

11:46 AM

@AncientSwordRage Fluid intake has been brought to acceptable levels.

AncientSwordRage

12:07 PM

@Matthieu exactly!

Thomas Markov

5:29 PM

Unearthed Arcana 2022 Expert Classes direct .pdf download link

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Q: Is there any monster with statblock changes during an encounter?

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Xirema

5:43 PM

@ThomasMarkov Been infodumping about it to my D&D group.

As with the last one, there's stuff I like, and stuff I don't like

One thing that's interesting is that Ranger spellcasting progression is now exactly the same as [the current version of] Artificers.

And I'm guessing they're going to do the same with Paladins

Thomas Markov

This Unearthed Arcana article uses the rules for attack rolls and critical hits found in the 2014 Player's Handbook.

Hey, they listened.

Xirema

@ThomasMarkov They've also said they haven't had a chance to respond to survey feedback yet. 😛

But also, I'd be extremely surprised if they have no one on reddit, or watching Dungeon Dudes, and the myriads of feedback they would have gotten outside the survey that people generally didn't like that change.

Unfortunately, this UA seems to be interested in adding new rules cruft.

The new Movement Speed rules are a clear-cut example of "yes, the old rules were a little problematic, but these are obviously worse"

Thomas Markov

Ewww I dont even know how the hidden condition works.

Xirema

It works with the Hide Action; that part isn't so bad.

But they've also committed to the "we didn't think through how invisibility works" mistake they made in the 2014 PHB.

> When you are invisible, you benefit from the Hidden condition against any creature that is unable to see you

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov How nice.

Xirema

5:54 PM

Boom. Done. Easy.

KorvinStarmast

@Xirema OK, I guess that's an improvement?

Xirema

@KorvinStarmast Well, that's what I'm saying they should have put.

That is not what they actually put.

The wording is only marginally different from what they put in the 2014 PHB.

Which is problematic because it leads to "okay, you cast see invisibility, you now see the invisible creature, but you still have disadvantage to attack it (and it has advantage to attack you) because the Invisibility condition itself confers those benefits and makes no note of a creature's ability to see it"

And, like, I've never had a problem ruling that way, but I'm the minority in the community, and I know a lot of people are bothered by that ruling.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov now it's part if their plan to play with how criticals work 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thomas Markov

As written, you can only be hidden if you can be hidden from every enemy. You cant be hidden with respect to one or some enemies if you are detected by another.

AncientSwordRage

That's DnDBeyond dumb...

Xirema

5:59 PM

@ThomasMarkov True, but the granularity of "hidden to some creatures, detected to others" is something that was very rarely played out at the table. Usually it goes like "one creature has spotted you; they call out your position to their allies; you are no longer hidden"

Thomas Markov

@Xirema Hmm, I've used it all the time.

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6:21 PM

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Thomas Markov

Im working on a meta post about the One D&D playtest material, I think we should keep questions about the different articles separate. That is, we shouldnt update answers to older UA questions with info from the newer articles.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov good plan

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6:47 PM

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Xirema

7:23 PM

So one other thing I saw in the UA: both Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter got heavily nerfed.

(Crossbow Expert did not get nerfed. Yes, the feat does less now, but they also increased the power of two-weapon fighting in general, rendering the extra feature of the old feat no longer necessary)

Interesting that they nerfed Sharpshooter more than GWM: GWM still has "Prof Bonus extra damage, once per turn", but Sharpshooter no longer has any bonus damage.

Thomas Markov

@Xirema Which is totally fair IMO. The original Sharpshooter without the damage feature was still a good feat.

I played in a campaign where the DM didnt allow the damage features of SS/GWM. I still took Sharpshooter and was happy with it.

Xirema

@ThomasMarkov The responses to my question suggesting a (mild, milder than what we see here) nerf to the Sharpshooter feat beg to differ. 😛

Thomas Markov

@Xirema which question

Xirema

14

Q: Does this nerf to the Sharpshooter Feat make it too weak or unbalanced?

I'm getting pretty close to wrapping up a campaign where the highest damage dealing character in the party was a Sharpshooting Fighter, who in combination with the Crossbow Expert feat, was regularly dealing upwards of 100 points of damage per turn in the levels 11-16 range, not including Action ...

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The version I actually used in my campaign ended up being a -5/+6 version instead of the -5/+5 I proposed there.

You actually have the accepted answer on that question

I dunno. I don't think I mind that much the nerf to sharpshooter, but I am inclined to argue the GWM nerf goes a little bit too far.

Although the GWM version is probably strictly better at higher levels.

Although although, players having to make choices mid-combat is a good thing, IMO, and the new version removes that.

Thomas Markov

7:39 PM

@Xirema Pretty good frame challenge from user73918 tbh (I'll pretend I don't know who that was)

Xirema

@ThomasMarkov As I pointed out in the chat though, they were talking past me a whole lot. The number I threw out (100 points of damage per round) was not meant to be a turn-to-turn average, it was a colloquial reference to the upper bound.

I actually have no idea who it was, lol

So they kept saying "it's only 2 points of damage per attack!" and like... no, not if you engage with the actual numbers I'm working with.

And if you dig into the particulars, it still represents like a 40-50% damage increase overall.

I dunno.... I agree SS was too strong as a feat as-is. I think the nerf went too far. I don't agree that GWM was too strong, but it probably did need something to make it less of an autopick option.

That's the main reason I buffed Two-Weapon Fighting in my current campaign: to give a third option that would meaningfully compete with SS and GWM.

Speaking of: their new rules for Two-Weapon Fighting are almost identical to the rules I'm using as a baseline.

The only difference is that I allowed characters to keep the ability score mod for damage on the extra attack, whereas they're still restricting it behind the fighting style.

NautArch

8:16 PM

Just getting to this new release - big changes to bardic inspiration, too.

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10:36 PM

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Ben

11:45 PM

Who like building QTEs and Traps?

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