Justified by how a hat, however verbose or cyclopic or magical, can't actually "sit". Human familiar's legs and behind may as well make themselves useful. ;-)
Kinda made him dance a little PH. No harm done imo, and it looked like JC was very prepared. He was an unknown to me prior to PH24, I kept the faith to some degree, because Chris Perkins was still keeping a hand on the correct tiller. He was my favorite author for Dungeon magazine down the years, and felt like I knew him. JC is alright imo, still keeping an eye on him, but he is ok and I appreciate his work.
Looking directly at the hat would be akin to witnessing Pale Night without her veil. Your mind would either melt & kill you outright or you would black out & recall nothing.
For that class's fantasy, it's a very needed buff, especially now that it's clarified that verbal component is as loud as normal speech - so you can't whisper it. I hope Enchanter gets something similar to make it more permissive for them to cast enchantments in social situations too.
@@devonfornal3050That's a common misconception, but nowhere in the spell does it say the Verbal component is what you say as your suggestion. The spell has a Verbal component to cast, you speak magic words, and Then you say your suggestion. The only spell that Does work this way is Gift of Gab. And thats because its an Aquisitions Inc. spell, which generally bend or ignore common spell rules.
@@Rynewulf I tend to only impose components on players when it's relevant. Like if a player has rope around their hands I don't let them cast somatic spells, but otherwise I'm not too worried about that grain of sand to fill a bucket of water
Nothing beats Warlock not having a Patron. That said, I think the intent is that you still "have" the patron/bloodline/deity/etc but you just don't get the subclass-exclusive features. Does feel a bit weird though, i'll admit.
@@MumboJ The thing is, if you don't have the features you aren't "limited" by them, so you could be a pacifist war domain - or the most murderous peace domain cleric - in existence and it would still make sense, you haven't actually chosen the domain yet so it's fine right? Peacemaker is actually a serious DnD character now. But yes, I agree, Warlocks don't make sense.
@@MumboJ I don't understand the issue, of course they still have a patron/bloodline (it can be justified for clerics ig, but i'll include those later regardless, because 99% of players pick a domain right away anyway), they just don't get any of their exclusive benefits yet. Just because it's not mechanically represented doesn't mean that flavour-wise it's not true. The same goes for the cleric and their domain and sorcerer and their bloodline. Hell, you're even told you should pick your patron/diety/bloodline beforehand I'm pretty sure That's like saying that a level 5 knowledge cleric isn't *actually* dedicated to any *specific* god just because mechanics don't distinguish between Mystra and Selune. And why is this critique coming *now* when Paladins had it this exact way for the entirety of 5e? I agree that subclasses should give level 1 features, but this critique feels misguided, you don't need the mechanics to hold your hand every step of the way
@@user-zz3sn8ky7z I always put it like this: Does a Warlock start out with 1st-level spells? Maybe. But does your draconic sorcerer come out of the womb covered in scales and blasting 1st-level spells? Probably not. So if they start out barely able to conjure their cantrips at will, they PROBABLY develop into those skills and their connection to their abilities as they age. This misguided criticism is funny to me because the flavor is actually WORSE for MARTIALS, not spellcasters. A Psi Warrior doesn't start off with a single psionic ability. A Soul Knife has to use real weapons until suddenly they have mind-daggers. An Eldritch Knight doesn't get any cantrips at level 1 because they aren't an EK until level 3!
Hottake: I want Druid to have access to higher CR Beast at level 20 at least. I feel at that point you should be able to turn into an elephant without need of homebrew
Level 20 capstone for druid should be to wild shape into any non-boss monster in the momster manual. So no Krakken, abbolith, dragon, or Terrasque but yes to T-rex, Buttle, Arkhag
and pointy hat missed that variant humans are even more useless now, the OP stuff gets banned at most tables and now they are stuck with being weaker than a half elf whos got so much over them, the ASI, the resistance, the immunity, the spellcasting or extra speed, shorter sleep and so on. the extra feat at lvl 1 is a bad idea
@@piotrolejnik621 it's just a flat out nerf though, it doesn't fix the problem any more than choosing to only remember a few stat blocks and only using those would fix the problem. It's like making casters simpler by reducing the number of spells known.
@@Melatonin1111 Long time druid player here, I actually submitted feedback for druid during the whole UA phase. I don't think this a bad change per say, but I proposed that these 'prepared' forms were the only ones that would be able to be used for combat, and that other forms should be unlimited for either RP/utility. Gave the example of a party member in disguise riding into a compound on the druid disguised as horse. Unfortunately, it wasn't considered for the final print but I tried xD
@@Feanor6450 imo it's balanced in other areas, I like new druid way more - in fact we are using play test version in our table. It is way simpler, still complex and demanding, but also more fun for my player, and doesn't feel like cheating with getting a whole new HP pack. Higher AC in wild shape is a big change - less hits, less concentration saving throws. I could go on forever, I like new Druid and ability for any subclass to have useful wild shapes also in combat
"Warlocks don't get more spell slots." "Uh, that's bad." "But they get more Eldritch Invocations slots!" "That's good!" "Eldritch Invocations that gave free spells are gone." "That's bad." "But your invocations that empower your eldritch blast can now empower your other damaging cantrips." "That's good!" "The cantrips contain potazium benzoate." "..." "That's bad." "Can I go now?"
A great feature of BG3 was that that each weapon had mini maneuvers. That way even as a paladin you have options other than a normal attack. Glad to see weapon mastery does this
On the subclass at level 3 thing; that's always been weird, for every class. A barbarian suddenly following a totem at level 3 is strange; a ranger suddenly gaining an animal companion at level 3 is bizarre; etc, etc. Personally, I just think every campaign that isn't catering to new players should start at level 3 at a bare minimum, to allow for more cohesive characters from the get-go
It really doesn't make sense to me for Warlock though and cleric, like why would you have invocations before picking your patron. Unless everyone is gonna use the "drawing from unknown powers". I just think it takes away some of the thematic differences in the classes.
Also I don't love the whole just don't play levels 1-2 as they can be good for overall character development. Alot of people start 3-5 and that's fine but essentially taking away or suffesting not to play 2 levels (when people usually don't even play above lvl 10) removes some fo the fun in my eyes.
@@mjlogan1964 I don't see it. You have _zero_ options, those first two levels, roleplay wise or combat wise. There's so little going for you, and so little to do, how is that "good for overall character development?"
@@johnathanmonsen6567 What do you mean there isn't roleplay opportunities? It's the start of you story and sets a basis of where your characters are coming from. And not all people want to start as already experienced adventurers. Some people like to build up and work on inter-party relationships. I also still stand by recommending people not play parts of your game isn't good, since again people usually don't even play past lvl 10 in most groups.
28:53 I'm a US Navy veteran. As long as you're not trying to pass yourself off as active military or a veteran, you can wear uniform pieces without offending anyone who matters.
I'm also a US Navy vet. It's OK to wear a uniform in any kind of presentation, like what you are doing. As my fellow vet said, it's not passing yourself off as active duty or a vet (you don't need a uniform to do that).
@@TasteTheRainbow346My Dad was Army during Vietnam (in Germany though). They would sneak into the Air Force mess hall whenever they could (Not sure how that worked), because Air Force chow was so much better than what they were getting.
@andypanda4756 I've heard the same thing from my uncle, who was in the Marines. It definitely depends on the base. I haven't been to an army mess hall, so I personally can't compare.
I think druids having familiars, while adding to an already super powerful build, makes so much sense. Like, if any classes get familiars it should be Rangers and Druids by default.
I have always thought this. Ranger and Druid are definitely the classes that feel like they would have a little animal buddy. I guess Beastmaster Ranger does make up for this, but not everyone necessarily wants their animal friend to join as an ally in battle. My Druid had a chipmunk companion just for roleplaying flavour, with no mechanical advantage.
I dont get why content creators get cold feet to ask questions bigNsmall about absolute baffling/ ignored/ gutted changes and features when meeting the WotC in person? If I had the chance.. yeah you BET!
@@odinulveson9101Business. They dont make UA-cam a career by stepping on toes, its why say Paradox bans or ignores most creators who say their dlcs are outright bad, or Bethesda only interacts with superfans. If you want to not spend 100s of currency per new D&D book, youve got to be gentle with your opinions and interviews.
@@Rynewulfthis is sadly true. If you piss off the company you rely on for your content, you not only lose the free books, but you lose early access, you lose exclusive access to insider information like interviews etc. and you're basically relegated to buying the books for yourself when they come out, then having to read them and make your videos after that, so you're massively behind everyone who *didn't* upset their corporate overlords. It's the same as with all the warhammer youtubers - if they ever step out of line when criticising GW, they lose access to that gravy train and are lowered to the status of a pleb having to buy their own stuff and not have early access to information/codices/minis etc. Basically, big corporations very heavily control the narrative, even indirectly, because so many people rely on keeping them on good terms to maintain a competitive edge in a very crowded market.
@@Rynewulf Yeah. Fully understandable. Thats why in person is the optimal approach. Meet in an official spot, cafee. Then they cant start running, ignoring you etc without it looking silly/ pathetic. An analogue ( if been there )? You know certain ( in my experience, tiresome but successfully solved in the end ) few girls, exes that ghost/ cold shoulder you and FINALLY you meet them in person? Yeah! To drag the truth out of them, clear the air, agree to disagree even without being utter cowards and be grown ups? Treat companies the same. Cozy up to them enough to get to meet them in person. THEN strike with hard/ unusal questions. Just soften up with banal.. well, diplomatically safe questions first, create a dialogue buffer. Make them feel safe on that you wont ask uncomfortable questions👌
my favorite class is Druid and while I understand your assessment, I feel like showing up to the table with a whole binder full of statblocks you picked out is part of the Druid Fantasy 😌 (DMs hate me)
My inital thought was that liniage should be the umbrella term and race could be the smaller environmental, social and genetic changes like Lineage Dwarf, Race Hill Dwarf... i woul like to say... that is probably worse lol.
The change of name is good, I'm disappointed with the lacking mechanics. Instead of actually giving each species something special and fun they, again, just shove a bunch of spells into some and congratulate themselves.
@@reverbthevocal421 race is a pseudo scientific term with negative historical context behind it, not really surprising that every ttrpg is looking for a new term
I've always described race as ancestry instead, I think it encourages players to consider their family and heritage, but mainly because ancestry+background+class makes ABC which satisfies me aesthetically
"Ancestry" both has the fantasy flavor _and_ implies that it's the part that's about biology rather than culture or personal history. I wonder if there's a particular reason they didn't call it that and I just don't notice.
The big issue with D&D doing this officially is that Pathfinder does exactly this. Would there be a lawsuit? Probably not, but companies avoiding that makes sense.
One change I really like is that every class is proficient in simple weapons now. It just makes sense that simple means everyone can use it. It doesn't mean you will get weapon mastery with it but you can swing a simple weapon reliably if you have enough strength or dex.
There's a lot more to weapon proficiency than swinging it around. All classes could use simple weapons, they just lacked proficiency, which makes sense. Anyone can just grab a sword/staff and swing it around, but it takes a decent amount of training and practice to be able to wield *any* weapon with proficiency. It's yet more dumbing down and simplifying to the point where there is basically no point in weapon proficiency being a thing any more - just say everyone can use everything and be done with it. Yes it's dumb, but it's no dumber than saying you need special training to use a longsword, but any random person can pick up a sling and be magically proficient with it with no training or experience.
@@HippoLore Druids too. Was a literal grab bag of fittingly thematic but extremely random weapons like sickles, quarterstaves, slings, and a few others. Works great for a class who is either 'mostly casting' or 'mostly Wildshape' but it still was very weird and made any attempt at standardizing the arsenal a bit more complicated. Monks meanwhile was every simple weapon and every non-Heavy Finesse martial, something I'm sure MANY a DM let slide to allow glaive-monks.
On Druids: One of my thoughts was to do something akin to the "template stat blocks" with the inclusion of a maneuver adjacent "traits" list that you could add to individualize your forms. Do you want tentacles? Camouflage? Tough skin? A special scream attack? You could make a MASSIVE list. And it would be incredibly straightforward to homebrew your own new ones or add something into later books. In the beginning, you'd get the options of "Medium Beast" as is or "Small Beast" w/ ONE of your known traits. Eventually this expands, allowing you to eventually get to the "Large Beast" and "Tiny Beast" templates and unlocking new traits as well as having multiple traits together on the same form at the same time. And you could just explain this however you want. Is your flight because you're a bat? A bird? A terrifyingly large palmetto bug? DO WHAT EVER! And this would also have given Moon Druids a very straight forward option for being "the best wildshapers" by giving them a few extra known "traits" and being able to add one more than any other druid at their level. And the players could more easily have prepped a handful of go-to transformations that they know they'll want in advance, but also have the choice to mix and match on the fly if a unique scenario presents itself.
I like that idea a lot as well! As someone who primarily plays Warlocks, I have a lot of experience with modular customization options like that, and what feels more like a master of nature than someone who invents their own animal forms?
Druids are fine and they WILL NOT play like Clerics. Once you see the Druid spell list, you will understand that you can make an OP character. Right now, the backwards compatible Sporea Druid is the best Druid.
My brother-in-arms, this is what I also wrote in my surveys for both the druid and beast master ranger. I went with a point system instead so combat features like pack tactics or multi-attack used a lot of points and support features like echolocation or keen senses used only one point.
@@joshuasmith9061 While I'm not opposed to a point system, I know WotC would be wary of using one. But even then, could use levels as a staging barrier, and have certain traits get better at higher levels to scale power.
@@archy2529 I was ambivalent the first time, and literally laughed out loud the second. If it happens again I'm renaming it the Shadowpark and the dark overlord will be Bester Chennington.
In my opinion Ranger should have Hunter Mark be a feature that you pick a dude and do more damage either as a bonus action or when you land an attack. In addition tracking, insight, and knowledge bonuses against them. And at later levels magic scrying and stuff. Then you build-a-bear for the Favoured Foe and Land abilities(keep the over stuff as a nice ribbon) but you get some additional more generic stuff like if your favoured land is Plains get to dash as a bonus action, Forests let you ignore difficult terrain, Humanoid foes let you get additional bonuses to social interactions, giants let you knock enemies prone easier, aberrations give you resistance to psychic and fear etc. making the ranger really customisable to hunt specific dudes.
i think the needed flavour for rangers really should be "fuck that one guy in particular". just being an incredible hater. the nemesis class. sometimes the "my dog hates you too" class. the track you to the ends of the earth and to other planes even class. they want it from the interest in hunters mark but don't commit to making it a reality. rangers being a class with biggest reason to take survival and perception and everything, give them a real "i can find you wherever you run" class theme
This is the perfect explanation for what a ranger is in combat. People dismiss the ranger because they think it fills no particular niche in combat and it's just a fighter with a few druid spells. WotC have managed to screw up so badly with the ranger that now people think that it shouldn't even exist.
The problem with ranger is much of it are things which would limit the game conceptually if restricted to one class. Martial druid with tracking skills for free is basically what it is like paladin is martial cleric with a gifted companion/steed build in for free. It's like how rogues are not the only trap finders anymore. Also, people have totally forgotten that spells preparations are class features. Ranger had 2! spells before level 6 known, only swappable one at a time on level up, one of which was hunter's mark more than likely. They were not Paladins who could willy knilly change their level+cha mod spell preps completely every long rest. These rituals will give the ranger the exact same kind of flavor.
My personal favourite flavour is the "one man adventuring party", with the side order of "fuck that guy in particular". Like, they're whom you send to retrieve the mcguffin or kill the big scary thing in case an adventuring party isn't around or you're light on cash, so they can kinda do whatever the situation calls for, at least when it comes to fighting and exploration.
It might help to know that "species" wasn't always associated with science; in the Middle Ages, it was a broad term for "type" or "sort", e.g. a far-traveling merchant accepting many *species* of coins along their route. Applied to people, it meant roughly the same thing as when we refer to someone's "looks" in casual conversation.
I prefer species. Race would mean dwarfs and dragonborns were closely related🤨 And D&D have evolution along with magic explanation on things. My understanding using Dragonborn as example. I could do us humans but thats risky in these times😂 Species= Dragonborn Sub-species = A different type of dragonborn that share the DNA setup buts waaay different Race= Chromatic, Gem or Metallic Sub-Race= The 5-10 ( yes including missing/ lesser knowns ) variants of each heritage. Like f.ex Blue, Red, Yellow, Topaz, Amethyst, Emerald, Copper, Silver, Gold Phenotype= Noticable differences in color hue from individual to individual, slight facial shape, head features, eye colors. One Copper dragonborn might have bit longer headspikes., another a darker copper hue etc Oh.. yeah almost forgot. Sub-species = A different type of dragonborn that share the DNA setup buts waaay different
Ultimately there's no perfect term--"ancestry" doesn't make sense for Warforged, Autognomes, or Reborn. I liked "origin" but then I found someone who hated it. "Species" is as good as anything else considering it's just a game term that probably won't come up much in play.
It’s still used in that sense in classical music - when talking about counterpoint, we refer to the different types and ratios of counterpoint as “species,” e.g. first species is 1:1, second is 2:1, etc.
The thing about Ranger’s fantasy is that it’s a pathfinder and hunter. It goes out into the wilds and survives in ways that other classes would struggle to do the same. Except… aaaallll of that fantasy is often hand waved away as a Survival check in most games. Maaaaybe at Advantage. … Like… I can see why Rangers get shafted. The thing core to their fantasy is something ANY character can do, if you build your character a certain way. So… what fantasy SHOULD Rangers have instead? Welp… they can at least deal good damage. And they can sometimes have a pet depending on Subclass. That’s… Ranger-ish… right?
I've always felt that the Ranger's class features should put more emphasis on the Ranger's mystical connection to nature and/or the fey. (As the Paladin is to the Cleric, the Ranger is to the Druid). I know this is a controversial opinion, and there are many out there who wish that the Ranger was even less magical. But with the way that non-combat skills have evolved since the Ranger was first introduced in the 1970s, the identity of "Fighter who is a Heroic Monster-Fighting Loner that lives in the Wilderness" is not enough on its own to sustain the Ranger as a separate class.
@@daviddalrymple2284 100% agree. I homebrewed a version of Ranger built around party support. Why? Because Rangers are often guides through the wilderness they roam. They need the tools to make that guidance effective. And it hooks them into teamwork and team tactics, something essential for a good DnD class. The end result is a Ranger that is fun to play and one that feels impactful both in combat and out of combat. Someday, WotC will find that balance too….
In my opinions, Druid and Ranger has always been two overlapping subclasses, especially that they share a lot of the same spells. In 5e the one good reason to have a ranger in your party is when you have to succeed several Survival checks when travelling to avoid exhaustion. But now that they have revised exhaustion to be not as deadly, I think rangers would be even less useful.
Something I think a lot of people are missing about druids getting animal companions and paladins getting Conjure Horse, changes that both seem random from the perspective of 5e, is that these are returning features from 3.5. I don't know (or care) enough about 4e to know if they had them then, but back in the 3.5 days the druid's animal companion and the paladin's special mount both got an entire page of rules just for themselves, so it makes sense for those features to be coming back in the new books.
I do think that the animal companion option isn't that great for non land druids. For stars you would rather activate your starry form more often, for sea you want wrath of the sea and for moon obviously you want to keep being in wildshape.
Its also just thematic to have a class that can "Call horse" like Witcher, you dont need to roleplay it as ghost horse, you can pretend its just Roach someone getting around xD
@@barcster2003 Good? You're really missing the theme here. Something that has always been core for the druid identity is preferring the company of non-humanoid companions. I don't even play 5e, and hearing for the first time that they didn't have animal companions is mind-blowing. Besides, there are plenty of fun water animals and some fun amphibious options.
I definitely love both inclusions, and I'm all for reviving older content, but idk, it feels like Paladin could have gotten something else, something more to go ALONG with the magical steed component. Overall, it kind of feels like some classes got a lot of love and some classes got changed for no reason at all. Maybe it'll play well enough tho
I agree misty step was part of the reason for the signature spell change but overwhelmingly the problem was shield and to a lesser degree absorb elements
I wish so bad someone would ask JC why didn't they remove concentration with hunters mark. They experimented with removing concentration from hunters mark in a UA 3 separate times, it was popular 3 times, only to back track on final decision 3 times.
My DM has let me run with the UA rules of concentrationless mark and it feels so much better, brings the ranger closer to the damage output of similar classes
TBH the real best ranger is just what Tasha's did if they made that change alongside maybe reintroducing the favored enemy creature type dealing extra damage with Favored Foe, the same way Paladins deal extra smite damage to undead. I also love Tasha's Rangers because they leave room for arcane warrior flavor. Paladins are Divine Warriors and Rangers are usually Druidic Warriors, but we should also be able to be Arcane Warriors as without having to be an Eldritch Knight or a Bladesinger Wizard.
"At third level, you get to choose a spirit totem from a list of five. There's Bear (pick Bear), Eagle (pick Bear), Elk (pick Bear), Tiger (pick Bear), and Wolf (pick Bear)!" Hopefully they were able to revamp the other spirit animals you could pick from, as the Elk specifically offered the worst boons from the five, while the other spirits were more situational (pick Bear).
From other stuff revealed elsewhere there are a couple of things about this: 1. They get to pick new options for the bonuses during Rage every time they rage, and the always on ones every Long Rest. 2. The list is actually different every level (Bear, Wolf, and Eagle is only available at 3rd,), the other stuff has been updated and changed somewhat. So yeah, everything past 3rd has been updated.
For the first options, you get to swap at the start of every rage, so you can pick whatever works best at the moment instead of being locked into "This will probably be the most useful most often", so if you're fighting something you don't need the bonus resistances, or it doesn't cover the resistances you need, then you can pick something else. Bear was nerfed (Now no longer resist force, necrotic, radiant or psychic) Now if you know/think the enemy isn't going to hit you with stuff you need to resist, you can go wolf (Give everyone advantage on the target you're next to, even ranged attacks now) or Eagle if you want a super hit and run character with dash and disengage to dominate running around the field. The others can be swapped on long rest so you're not locked in for them either, letting you piece together for the encounters.
The issue with Eldritch Blast having such a huge death grip on the class is that EB was the defining feature of the class back in 3.5 (the og iteration of the class) You had EB which was your class SLA and then invocations which were SLAs that you could use at will. They were basically reflavored and slightly stronger and more versatile versions of existing spells for the most part. You also had blast shape invocations which changed the range, area, or targets of your EB and blast essence invocations which changed the damage type or added an extra effect to your EB. Thinking back the 3.5 version of the warlock was more in line with 5e’s design philosophy than the actual 5e warlock.
Yeah, I was hoping they would take more inspiration from the 3.5 Warlock. If, as this video implies, the problem with 5e Warlocks is that most of them take all the same invocations to power up Eldritch Blast, I don't see how changing that to "most of them take all the same invocations to power up Toll the Dead" is going to fix the problem.
@@James_McKay I think the main reason that D&D 5e hasn't made a satisfactory Ranger is that they're trying to please too many people. There is a very vocal contingent of the fanbase who want the Ranger to be a woodsy warrior with no magical powers (like Strider/Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings). Meanwhile, the D&D Ranger has traditionally been a warrior who learns Druid spells. And since 3e, the Ranger's signature ability has been "Favored Foe." For various reasons, both mechanically and thematically, the traditional version of Favored Foe/Enemy isn't really satisfactory in 2024. (Heck, in 2014, it was already comically underpowered. The Paladin's smite got a huge power boost from 3e to 5e, but the Ranger's Favored Foe actually got weaker from 3e to 5e). I do think that concentration-free Hunter's mark is too powerful (if only because of the multiclass shenanigans that it enables: Hunter's Mark raging Barbarians ; Blade Warlocks stacking Hunter's Mark and Hex on their weapon attacks, etc.). But I do think that the Ranger deserves better.
@@daviddalrymple2284 You got something massively wrong here. The hunters mark isn't concentration free. You just can't lose concentration as long as you aren't incapacitated or die. It still requires concentration AND what I just decribed is a level 13 feature lol. So no, this is NOT a good multiclass option, you'd have to have 13 levels in ranger to make use of this. So no, this isn't op in any way. And lastly, please just listen properly when watching videos? He said that you can't lose concentration, not that it's not required anymore. What he said is wrong, you CAN lose it by being incapacitated or dying, but my point is, you ignored what he said and just went with the made up idea that it doesn't require concentration anymore.
26:47 the druid now have a number of known forms for wildshape, so you can’t choose between all beasts every time you wildshape, just between those you know
I’d like to imagine that the bit at 0:22 actually went on for way too long with Jeremey so dumbfounded and not being able to answer anything for an hour straight while pointy hat’s familiar kept rattling off questions.
Personally I love that you're not overly negative. Dnd was something I wanted to get into as a kid, watched actual plays forever, but didn't have the opportunity to play myself back then. Imagine my surprise when I finally get the chance to play, have settled in, hear there's new core books coming and feel excited, just to have everyone shit on it or anything WotC. I'm all for critiquing changes to things we love, and I appreciate your clear and specific critiques of certain changes. On other channels or forums it seems like all people say is "WotC BAD!" without actually giving reasons or analyzing whats changed. It's tiring and frankly that attitude will drive people away from the community. We play Dnd to escape, and over analyzing and bringing nothing but negativity into that space sort of defeats the purpose in my mind. I thought Dnd was supposed to be fun and endlessly adaptable with homebrew, but people are acting the the WotC will bust down their door and arrest them if they dont adhere to changes they don't like, as if homebrewing and changing things isnt a cornerstone of Dnd.
Evyn Fong's illustration of the sorcerer IS amazing. Generally I am loving the art in this? John Grello too. Maybe because I'm an illustrator so I'm biased and I'm happy to see there's no AI garbage in the new book.
@viczio the skepticism is earned, but they've sent the PDF to numerous sources ahead of time, and I think it's likely if AI art was in there it would've been spotted. wizards policy is no ai art, even if it hasn't been enforced well in the past that's still better than using it on purpose.
The section about the changes with races honestly made me crack up so much I subbed and this is my first video of yours I have watched. Great stuff good sir
From your frustrations with Druid, it sounds like you would *love* Pathfinder 2e's shapeshifting mechanics for the exact same reason I hate them: I *want* the stat blocks. I actually want to turn into the creature I'm turning into instead of turning into like, one of three video game options. I would've liked to have split the difference on Wildshape-tanking by giving the player some amount of Temp HP (or perhaps, if they turn into something with more HP, they gain the difference in HP) whenever they Wildshape, but this is fine. I also like the mechanic of learning new forms like a wizard learning spells, though I can see that backfiring if you never actually encounter beast-type creatures.
I absolutely agree. The fun of choosing whether to wild shape into a brown bear or a giant spider doesn't come from being allowed to say the word 'bear' or 'spider'. It's being able to attack twice and sniff around for clues, versus being able to see in the dark and abseil down holes. Turning into a generic walking creature is not just weaker, it's terribly bland. And obviously the fix for that is not to make them customisable. Having the player write a new stat block whenever they wild shape is no-one's idea of fun. I am onboard with the idea that wild shape is too powerful - or more accurately that Moon druids are too powerful because they have that excellent ability and are still full casters on top of that. Removing the temporary HP from wild shape is interesting, and in some cases it makes the ability more powerful: you can wild shape into a mouse, hide in a hole, take 1 point of damage, and not die from your medium-size body being crushed into such a tiny space. But it makes it dramatically weaker in combat. Most beasts have a poor AC and get hit a lot. So Moon druids will have to keep burning through their spell slots to heal themselves. Other circles I suppose will just have to hope they are early enough in initiative to end their wild shape before they're killed. I think a more natural fix would be to spend a spell slot of level X to wild shape into a creature of CR X rounded up. So you can shapechange into a CR 0 creature such as a cat for free, but you need a level 1 slot to become a CR 1/2 warhorse. That would be more logical than twice per short rest: it's a magical transformation, so you spend some of your magical power to do it. And while I'm asking for things I'm not going to get, would it be too much to ask for consistent rules for wild shape, polymorph, lyncanthropy, doppelgangers and other forms of shapechanging?
@@tulliusexmisc2191 I disagree on the spell slots point; pretty much every spellcasting class (except wizard; RiP in Peace Wizards but you get the most spells (except healing I guess)) gets something outside of spellcasting they can do as a signature ability. Okay so I just looked it up and you very specifically gain a scaling bonus to wild shape if you're a Moon Druid, and all druids get temp HP whenever they wild shape. I do agree that it feels a bit silly for a rat to have your full hit points. Moon Druids triple that bonus.
This is what I keep saying, statblocks are the best way to have a true transformation, it isn't a super sayan mode like the order of the lycan or the beast barbarian, it is actually turning into an animal and actually using the exact same statblock that the actual animal uses is the best way to do it because you are literally that animal. Templates is too close to a super sayan mode (though there was nothing "super" about the template's they provided which definitely didn't help) for my liking, if I want a class with a few specific fixed buffs from a transformation I'll play a cleric or a sorcerer. I really like the statblock system and I think removing it is not only mechanically weak by loses a lot of flavour too.
@@tulliusexmisc2191 I kinda like that idea, infinite uses for CR 0-1/4 means that it better provides the flavour of being a shapeshifter, whereas most druids I have seen tend to save wild shape for combat and then use the subclass feature (wildfire spirit, symbiotic entity, starry form etc) in combat. Most druids don't actually wild shape all that often and even more so it feels dumb that turning into a dog is as hard as turning into a literal dinosaur, I think all druids should get 2 uses of wildshape as it is now, infinite CR 0-1/4 wildshapes from level 6-7, the ability to use spell slots for better wild shapes and moon druid should get higher CR forms both from the 2 per short rest uses and per spell slot, say equal to the spell slot level rather than equal to 2/3 rounded down or something. The main problem with making it equal to spell slot level times something is that polymorph is so much more powerful, however it does require concentration so... I dunno.
Only youtubers I follow for classes and such are Pointy Hat and D&D shorts and y'all uploaded long videos back to back so this will be a pleasant afternoon.
25:48 That's not entirely true, the thing with the first UA Druid is that the templates they gave us sucked ass. They didn't help with tanking, exploration, utility, damage or anything like that; they prevented you from using your spells and only gave you a minor boost to your speed. And, obviously, people reacted negativity to that and demanded stat blocks back if they were gonna give us something so terrible; so instead of improving the templates or giving more customization options they gave us stat blocks again. I wholeheartedly believe that if they presented us with at least functional templates, the reaction to them would have been a lot more positive.
Yup, can’t repeat it enough. Though going to stat blocks does loose some of the uniqueness of certain animals. But it’d certainly make for better scaling. At least now though Moon Druids will have passable AC & won’t be lacking in damage (assuming their to hit chance isn’t abysmal. Should also use wisdom for that too instead of the beast’s strength or dex).
This, just this, I keep saying this. The "tank" form gave you no hp, capped your AC to 15 and gave you no real damage output buff compared to just casting shillelagh and way behind picking green flame blade from your background and casting it with wisdom.
your ad made me think we were getting new canon dnd classes for the first time in years and i got excited. youve managed to toy with my emotions, good job
Can we have a "My new player really wants to play a druid, what now?" video? Druids are such a core fantasy for so many people and it being the most difficult class in the game is really frustrating. Thanks you for all the awesome video's! They have helped me and many of my players!
@@SithCats agreed, druids are best when you can actually turn into animals, rather than nerfing yourself hugely for virtually no benefits. I think pointy doesn't like druid and just thinks it should be nerfed into oblivion and needs to be so simple literally anyone could play it with ease even if they had never heard of dnd.
I can see why you wanted the simpler druid wildshape from the ua, but there were also issues with the ua one. it was simpler, but for most people it felt really kinda boring, to have all types of creatures difined by a single statblock lost so much of the flavor the druid had, like you can say you are a spider, but without any of the web features that made that statblock interresting or feel like a spider. there were also some rules issues with that version of wildshape, but enough people spoke about that.
Yeah it should be an "option" for newbie's but having the different aspects is of each animal is a lot better, its not hard to keep track stat blocks with something like roll20
What blows my mind is that immediately after he talked about wanting the UA wild shape, he moved on to Fighters and praised how weapon masteries make it so the weapons don't all play the same. If you like that about Fighters, why would you want to do the exact opposite to Druids and make them more samey?
One note about quickened spell. It NEVER allowed you to cast two leveled spells in a turn. It still followed the ba spell rules. The only feature that allowed for 2 leveled spells on a turn was action surge. The only metamagic that got nerfed was twinned spell. Wild Magic used to trigger only if your dm had you roll the d20 for wild magic. As Jeremy Crawford put it, it suffered from "Mother May I?". Changing it to happen when you cast any leveled spell is a huge change. The Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul got huge changes! Neither of them are able to switch out their origin spells. While it affects the Aberrant Mind a lot more (I'd go over it, but I don't want to write an essay), they both took a huge hit in versatility. Now CS is stuck with spells like alarm and detect good and evil instead pf being able to switch them out with more useful spells.
Twinned Spell never let you double cast AoE, nor did it ever let you cast spells that already targeted multiple creatures, including spells that, when upcasted, add extra targets already (you could Twin the base version of Invisibility, but not if you were to upcast it). It says so literally in the entry for Twinned Spell: "To be eligible, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level. For example, magic missile and scorching ray aren’t eligible, but ray of frost and chromatic orb are." The name no longer matches because you don't get double the amount of attacks, but the effect of "when you cast a single target spell, you can target a second creature with an extra attack too" is still the same. Instead, when you use a higher level Invisibility in the new version, you get an extra invisible person instead of it just not being allowed to work. This is a straight up buff to Twinned Spell, it's only nerfed if players/DMs didn't read the effect and were using it wrong to begin with. A DM can still allow it to literally double the amount of targets/attacks, but it was never like that in the base rules.
On the subject of wild magic, I hope the new table doesn't include TPK any more. That is the single least fun thing in the entire 5.0 Player's Handbook.
@therren9981 I know twin spell never allowed you to double up on aoes like fireball, I assumed that it was a joke lol. The new version of twin spell is DEFINITELY a nerf for the simple fact that you could double up on spells that were never meant to target more than one creature like haste, disintegrate, dominate person/monster, etc. Even healing spells like cure wounds and revivify were an option if you were a divine soul. All of those and more no longer work with the new version of twin spell. That being said, the new version is far more balanced *because* it no longer works on spells that were never meant to target multiple people.
Yeah Divine Soul is hit especially hard by the massive twin spell nerf. I’m gonna miss it. Another component to it I haven’t seen mentioned is that you can’t twin cantrips anymore because they don’t increase targets. I like that everything else sorcerer was buffed but old twin spell was like the whole reason I played sorcerer :(
This is the one video about the class changes that I watched and that's the only one I'll ever need. Thank you Pointy (and human familiar of course) for your service!
See Invisibility lets you see ethereal creatures, so Third Eye is buffed (except that See Invisibility is a spell and therefore subject to Dispel Magic).
26:27 The problem was not that it was perfect but that people wanted the old version, the problem was that we wanted those generic statblocks but with some customization... You know, with beast stablocks you can be a snake and make it bite the enemy is poisoned or the spider can shoot web. WOTC just decided it's better to stay where we are than do something fun.
Didn’t help that the stat blocks they gave us were underwhelming power wise either. If they’re trying to sell us on something make it a little over tuned as opposed to really weak like what they showed us.
@@redhoodie4111I’d assume the 56 likes he has currently? It’s not an uncommon opinion. It’s like we’re (the player base that gave feedback) being blamed that it wasn’t changed but they didn’t give us a good alternative. I’m sure some don’t want a set stat block at all as well.
i feel like the best compromise would really be that. if they make good generic statblocks that are strong enough for people to want to use for the basic purposes and project flavour on to. and then let you also pick other beasts. sad that we don't get owlbear-chimera type additions to the class. even as a moon druid replacement for the elemental forms.
I think what's important to understand is they hate wildshape and want to kill it, but can't. So they beat it to a pulp with a nerf bat and left it in the book.
Congrats on getting it sent early and the interview, Hat! You absolutely deserve it! And yes, we would absolutely *love* a video like this for species changes!
My favorite class summary so far, you're fun and helpful! Now, for The subclass at level three for paladin, cleric, and warlock thing: I would flavor it that you already are following your big powerfully daddy but haven't proved yourself yet. You're the intern for them until level three when you ha e proven yourself enough to get the gifts. Thanks again
I think i'd rather flavour it as the pact is made and there, but the bond isn't deep enough for the unique aspects of the patron to start shining through yet
Your sincerity is clear and I really enjoyed you giving us a breakdown on what matters with these changes and not getting lost in the numbers trying to make one side better or worse for everyone. Thank you so much for everything you do. I really enjoy these videos.
There's this brazilian RPG called Tormenta20 that has one of the bestdruids i 'd ever seen, when you wild shape, you choose one type of animal (Strong, fast, flying) and it gives you habilities acording to the type of animal you choose (like damage reduction, more attacks etc.) and you can gain feats that can make you fuse two types (like flying and strong for a gryph) and you can flavor it as any animal you want
I absolutely love this, and not just for the outfits, the material was great too! Especially since I totally did not want to sit through a deep dive into each one 👌
Yeah, I think that was a big reason. The other reason they mentioned is because they wanted to further simplify low-level play. Presumably, their market research has shown that there are a lot of people curious to play D&D who still find the learning curve too steep.
@@matthewwarner2305 and you also get to take the newly improved Armor of Agathys which if built around has the potential to be incredibly powerful because of the degree of defense and save-less retaliation frost damage you get to inflict
I think twilight cleric and Lunar sorcerer are then 2 big ones, Lunar sorcerer gets 5 cantrips and 5 level 1 spells at level 1, though there are 3 spells you can't pick one of them is shield so it is effectively 2 you can't pick. While twilight cleric gives you basically everything, all weapons and armour, sharable darkvision, advantage on initiative checks and some really good spells.
I personally think that part of what I love about druids is that they while they are hard/complex to play and require much more collaboration with the DM to ensure you don't break things, the power they provide rewards you for taking that on yourself. Playing a "Circle of Dreams" druid as our party's primary healer currently, I grant that I may be biased, but still...
This is what I keep saying, I like a complex class that rewards creativity and skill. Pointy has a thing about classes needing to be simpler, unless they are martials. But I think there should be a complex class that veterans can play with for when other stuff is boring.
51:00 It feels like you didn't actually read the wild magic table and only looked at the new numbers. What they did is combine multiple effects into one prompts. So instead of having a few table entries that cause a specific spell to be cast, you now have a single entry that causes one of 8 spells to be cast. There are multiple of these multiple-possibility entries, in total making the wild magic table actually MORE expansive than before.
@@ДюсековИльяс It's more about the flavor and principle; a lot of WOTC changes I could honestly care less for. Thus, I'll ignore them, but there were some good changes.
@@Nerdhistory_TheLibrarian i mean if you were a rapier bard...you were a swords bard, tha like doesn't change... I don't get how one weapon that wasn't really that great or used is so important
@@ДюсековИльяс Because Rapiers aren't common swords in medieval settings, so the class that's all about charisma, showing off, being extra etc 100% makes sense to have the fancy dueling sword that's usually only available to the elite.
I wanted Druid’s Wildshape to be treated like a spell list, base Druid gets a list of creatures who’s stat blocks you use and retexture to suit the players needs and the subclasses add their own wildshape lists. It would have been a mix of what everyone wanted, stat blocks with unique skills, but limiting the number you need to carry around with you just flavouring/retexturing the forms as needed. Also I’m find with temporary hitpoints with wildshape but both base Druid and Moon Druid need more.
Something mentioned in the videos talking about the rules update is that anything named the same between 2014 & 2024 the intent is that you use the new version. With that said since the Barbarian subclass does not have the same name (Wildheart vs. Totem) it means both are available in the 2024 edition.
The Druid thing isn’t to bad for me because of one specific reason: you have a set amount of prepared shapes you can turn into, not just any beast. I don’t know exactly how it’s worded officially in the book, but at least it actually gives a player and DM a more solid place to start then a thousand random beast stat blocks. As for Ranger, while making it an actual beast master in general would make it more flavorful, making it an actual hunter would also take it a long way flavor wise. Make it so you do more damage against a certain creature type, have it be able to change the creature type on a long rest, or give it something that allows it to overcome or easily identify a creature types resistances or immunities. Though, that would essentially just make them Ghostfire Gaming’s Monster Hunter class.
The probem though is that limiting the available options doesn't make it easier, just choose to only pay attention to a few. It is like if they made spellcasters simpler and easier by reducing the number of known spells.
@@Feanor6450 I get what you mean, but then there is the problem that people like the uniqueness of some of the beasts they can turn into. A dire wolfs pack tactics or one of the beasts that have a charge mechanic. There are definitely ways they could have simplified it more or gone a better route, but they wanted to get everything out on a schedule so no further play testing was done. Heck, I gave feedback for them to either keep the base star blocks and allow them to learn more unique beast shapes later on or to give some sort of customizing system like the Circle of Mutation from Grim Hollow, but they limited the amount of play testing they were doing so something like that was never in the cards with this.
> "I sat down with Jeremy Crawford..."
> Actually sends his human familiar in his place
Justified by how a hat, however verbose or cyclopic or magical, can't actually "sit". Human familiar's legs and behind may as well make themselves useful. ;-)
Seeing the hat in it's true form would melt Jeremy's eyes, why do you think he needs the familiar at all?
Kinda made him dance a little PH. No harm done imo, and it looked like JC was very prepared. He was an unknown to me prior to PH24, I kept the faith to some degree, because Chris Perkins was still keeping a hand on the correct tiller. He was my favorite author for Dungeon magazine down the years, and felt like I knew him. JC is alright imo, still keeping an eye on him, but he is ok and I appreciate his work.
@@davialmeida4442because it has thumbs
Looking directly at the hat would be akin to witnessing Pale Night without her veil. Your mind would either melt & kill you outright or you would black out & recall nothing.
The fact that illusionist can cast illusion spells without verbal components for me is a real buff, makes them true tricksters
For that class's fantasy, it's a very needed buff, especially now that it's clarified that verbal component is as loud as normal speech - so you can't whisper it. I hope Enchanter gets something similar to make it more permissive for them to cast enchantments in social situations too.
Youve met a dm or player who remembers components? And uses them as a mechanic?
@@3Andzia3 For many spells like suggestion the verbal component of the spell is what you are saying as part of the conversation
@@devonfornal3050That's a common misconception, but nowhere in the spell does it say the Verbal component is what you say as your suggestion.
The spell has a Verbal component to cast, you speak magic words, and Then you say your suggestion.
The only spell that Does work this way is Gift of Gab. And thats because its an Aquisitions Inc. spell, which generally bend or ignore common spell rules.
@@Rynewulf I tend to only impose components on players when it's relevant. Like if a player has rope around their hands I don't let them cast somatic spells, but otherwise I'm not too worried about that grain of sand to fill a bucket of water
Sorceror not knowing their bloodline until level 3 is so funny to me. They basically hit magic puberty.
And clerics aren't sure about what aspect of their god they're hyped about.
Nothing beats Warlock not having a Patron.
That said, I think the intent is that you still "have" the patron/bloodline/deity/etc but you just don't get the subclass-exclusive features.
Does feel a bit weird though, i'll admit.
@@MumboJ The thing is, if you don't have the features you aren't "limited" by them, so you could be a pacifist war domain - or the most murderous peace domain cleric - in existence and it would still make sense, you haven't actually chosen the domain yet so it's fine right?
Peacemaker is actually a serious DnD character now.
But yes, I agree, Warlocks don't make sense.
@@MumboJ I don't understand the issue, of course they still have a patron/bloodline (it can be justified for clerics ig, but i'll include those later regardless, because 99% of players pick a domain right away anyway), they just don't get any of their exclusive benefits yet. Just because it's not mechanically represented doesn't mean that flavour-wise it's not true. The same goes for the cleric and their domain and sorcerer and their bloodline. Hell, you're even told you should pick your patron/diety/bloodline beforehand I'm pretty sure
That's like saying that a level 5 knowledge cleric isn't *actually* dedicated to any *specific* god just because mechanics don't distinguish between Mystra and Selune.
And why is this critique coming *now* when Paladins had it this exact way for the entirety of 5e?
I agree that subclasses should give level 1 features, but this critique feels misguided, you don't need the mechanics to hold your hand every step of the way
@@user-zz3sn8ky7z I always put it like this: Does a Warlock start out with 1st-level spells? Maybe. But does your draconic sorcerer come out of the womb covered in scales and blasting 1st-level spells? Probably not. So if they start out barely able to conjure their cantrips at will, they PROBABLY develop into those skills and their connection to their abilities as they age.
This misguided criticism is funny to me because the flavor is actually WORSE for MARTIALS, not spellcasters. A Psi Warrior doesn't start off with a single psionic ability. A Soul Knife has to use real weapons until suddenly they have mind-daggers. An Eldritch Knight doesn't get any cantrips at level 1 because they aren't an EK until level 3!
12:33 Barbarian
16:09 Bard
19:20 cleric
22:50 Druid
28:44 Fighter
32:07 monk
37:13 paladin
41:27 ranger
44:38 rogue
47:55 sorcerer
51:46 warlock
55:52 wizard
Thank you kind soul
MVP
Oh god thank you
Ty
Guys its the Main Charakter!
Hottake: I want Druid to have access to higher CR Beast at level 20 at least. I feel at that point you should be able to turn into an elephant without need of homebrew
Hopefully they rework CR beasts with the Druid in mind for the monster manual.
It hurts me to my core that not even a Moon Druid can turn in to a t rex at level 20
Level 20 capstone for druid should be to wild shape into any non-boss monster in the momster manual. So no Krakken, abbolith, dragon, or Terrasque but yes to T-rex, Buttle, Arkhag
@@donniejefferson9554 shapechange?
Did we forget spells like shapechange exist?
You missed that Druids now prepare wild shapes like spells, so they carry at most few stat blocks, not all of them
and pointy hat missed that variant humans are even more useless now, the OP stuff gets banned at most tables and now they are stuck with being weaker than a half elf whos got so much over them, the ASI, the resistance, the immunity, the spellcasting or extra speed, shorter sleep and so on. the extra feat at lvl 1 is a bad idea
Honestly, I kind of like that.
@@piotrolejnik621 it's just a flat out nerf though, it doesn't fix the problem any more than choosing to only remember a few stat blocks and only using those would fix the problem. It's like making casters simpler by reducing the number of spells known.
@@Melatonin1111 Long time druid player here, I actually submitted feedback for druid during the whole UA phase. I don't think this a bad change per say, but I proposed that these 'prepared' forms were the only ones that would be able to be used for combat, and that other forms should be unlimited for either RP/utility. Gave the example of a party member in disguise riding into a compound on the druid disguised as horse. Unfortunately, it wasn't considered for the final print but I tried xD
@@Feanor6450 imo it's balanced in other areas, I like new druid way more - in fact we are using play test version in our table. It is way simpler, still complex and demanding, but also more fun for my player, and doesn't feel like cheating with getting a whole new HP pack. Higher AC in wild shape is a big change - less hits, less concentration saving throws. I could go on forever, I like new Druid and ability for any subclass to have useful wild shapes also in combat
"Warlocks don't get more spell slots."
"Uh, that's bad."
"But they get more Eldritch Invocations slots!"
"That's good!"
"Eldritch Invocations that gave free spells are gone."
"That's bad."
"But your invocations that empower your eldritch blast can now empower your other damaging cantrips."
"That's good!"
"The cantrips contain potazium benzoate."
"..."
"That's bad."
"Can I go now?"
the eldritch blast invocations can now be used on any one damage cantrip, not all of them at the same time
warlocks do get more spell slots. its called magical cunning.
Why have other damaging cantrips when you have Eldritch freakin' Blast? Did that get nerfed or something?
@@CharlesUrban eldritch blast did not get nerfed
@@CharlesUrban Variety is the spice of life, friend.
A great feature of BG3 was that that each weapon had mini maneuvers. That way even as a paladin you have options other than a normal attack. Glad to see weapon mastery does this
On the subclass at level 3 thing; that's always been weird, for every class. A barbarian suddenly following a totem at level 3 is strange; a ranger suddenly gaining an animal companion at level 3 is bizarre; etc, etc. Personally, I just think every campaign that isn't catering to new players should start at level 3 at a bare minimum, to allow for more cohesive characters from the get-go
It really doesn't make sense to me for Warlock though and cleric, like why would you have invocations before picking your patron. Unless everyone is gonna use the "drawing from unknown powers". I just think it takes away some of the thematic differences in the classes.
Also I don't love the whole just don't play levels 1-2 as they can be good for overall character development. Alot of people start 3-5 and that's fine but essentially taking away or suffesting not to play 2 levels (when people usually don't even play above lvl 10) removes some fo the fun in my eyes.
@@mjlogan1964 I agree totally
@@mjlogan1964 I don't see it. You have _zero_ options, those first two levels, roleplay wise or combat wise. There's so little going for you, and so little to do, how is that "good for overall character development?"
@@johnathanmonsen6567 What do you mean there isn't roleplay opportunities? It's the start of you story and sets a basis of where your characters are coming from. And not all people want to start as already experienced adventurers. Some people like to build up and work on inter-party relationships. I also still stand by recommending people not play parts of your game isn't good, since again people usually don't even play past lvl 10 in most groups.
28:53 I'm a US Navy veteran. As long as you're not trying to pass yourself off as active military or a veteran, you can wear uniform pieces without offending anyone who matters.
I'm also a US Navy vet. It's OK to wear a uniform in any kind of presentation, like what you are doing. As my fellow vet said, it's not passing yourself off as active duty or a vet (you don't need a uniform to do that).
Currently in the U.S. Navy.
The only disappointment is that it's Chair Force.
@kingofoutcastia8165 I'd rather be an airman than a seaman. Now, if you'll excuse me this chair isnt going to sit on itself.
@@TasteTheRainbow346My Dad was Army during Vietnam (in Germany though). They would sneak into the Air Force mess hall whenever they could (Not sure how that worked), because Air Force chow was so much better than what they were getting.
@andypanda4756 I've heard the same thing from my uncle, who was in the Marines. It definitely depends on the base. I haven't been to an army mess hall, so I personally can't compare.
Pointy Hat not playing the UA-cam game and making one video per class to get more views. A legend.
the real youtube game is long form videos
@@epadefunder5331 I thought 15 minutes was a perfect length in terms of monetization and ads in video
tbf, long form videos make more money, considering a one hour video can run more ads -> more Revenue.
I was worried that I wouldn't be able to sit through this video but I could watch this fine man talk for hours.
I think druids having familiars, while adding to an already super powerful build, makes so much sense. Like, if any classes get familiars it should be Rangers and Druids by default.
I have always thought this. Ranger and Druid are definitely the classes that feel like they would have a little animal buddy. I guess Beastmaster Ranger does make up for this, but not everyone necessarily wants their animal friend to join as an ally in battle. My Druid had a chipmunk companion just for roleplaying flavour, with no mechanical advantage.
@@0Fyrebrand0I’m doing a oath of vengeance paladin that has a snake familiar that he spoke too simply for the roleplay aspect💀
They used to in 3.5
@@benjamindebo9283 are the dnd rule makers like high or something why would they take that away😭
@@echo3568 different teams but also until recently the dnd design team wasn't very.... professional
Out the gate our favourite hat is trying to traumatise Crawford
I dont get why content creators get cold feet to ask questions bigNsmall about absolute baffling/ ignored/ gutted changes and features when meeting the WotC in person? If I had the chance.. yeah you BET!
@@odinulveson9101Business. They dont make UA-cam a career by stepping on toes, its why say Paradox bans or ignores most creators who say their dlcs are outright bad, or Bethesda only interacts with superfans.
If you want to not spend 100s of currency per new D&D book, youve got to be gentle with your opinions and interviews.
@@Rynewulfthis is sadly true. If you piss off the company you rely on for your content, you not only lose the free books, but you lose early access, you lose exclusive access to insider information like interviews etc. and you're basically relegated to buying the books for yourself when they come out, then having to read them and make your videos after that, so you're massively behind everyone who *didn't* upset their corporate overlords. It's the same as with all the warhammer youtubers - if they ever step out of line when criticising GW, they lose access to that gravy train and are lowered to the status of a pleb having to buy their own stuff and not have early access to information/codices/minis etc.
Basically, big corporations very heavily control the narrative, even indirectly, because so many people rely on keeping them on good terms to maintain a competitive edge in a very crowded market.
@@Rynewulf Yeah. Fully understandable. Thats why in person is the optimal approach. Meet in an official spot, cafee. Then they cant start running, ignoring you etc without it looking silly/ pathetic. An analogue ( if been there )? You know certain ( in my experience, tiresome but successfully solved in the end ) few girls, exes that ghost/ cold shoulder you and FINALLY you meet them in person? Yeah! To drag the truth out of them, clear the air, agree to disagree even without being utter cowards and be grown ups? Treat companies the same. Cozy up to them enough to get to meet them in person. THEN strike with hard/ unusal questions. Just soften up with banal.. well, diplomatically safe questions first, create a dialogue buffer. Make them feel safe on that you wont ask uncomfortable questions👌
my favorite class is Druid and while I understand your assessment, I feel like showing up to the table with a whole binder full of statblocks you picked out is part of the Druid Fantasy 😌 (DMs hate me)
I love when the hat is pointy
I loved when the hat said "It's pointing time!" and made the familiar point all over the book.
wait...wouldn't that mean that...there are times when the Hat is not pointy?
@@keenirr5332 flaccid hat 😔
@@gray6219 wait...do you mean when Pointy Hat's screen image was bent like some cliched and probably trademarked wizard hat?
Real
the change from "race" to "species" i couldt care less but the chagne from "subrace" to "lineage" is a good one in my book.
Edit: Typo
pathfinder 2 had something like that.
I think "race" and "lineage" fit a fantasy world a lot better.
My inital thought was that liniage should be the umbrella term and race could be the smaller environmental, social and genetic changes like Lineage Dwarf, Race Hill Dwarf... i woul like to say... that is probably worse lol.
The change of name is good, I'm disappointed with the lacking mechanics. Instead of actually giving each species something special and fun they, again, just shove a bunch of spells into some and congratulate themselves.
@@reverbthevocal421 race is a pseudo scientific term with negative historical context behind it, not really surprising that every ttrpg is looking for a new term
Omg … it never occurred to me that that the potted plant was a Hitchhiker’s reference - and I LOVE that book!
I've always described race as ancestry instead, I think it encourages players to consider their family and heritage, but mainly because ancestry+background+class makes ABC which satisfies me aesthetically
Nice
That's a great one
Your ABC thing is one of those things that's so perfect it makes me retroactively mad it's not official.
"Ancestry" both has the fantasy flavor _and_ implies that it's the part that's about biology rather than culture or personal history. I wonder if there's a particular reason they didn't call it that and I just don't notice.
The big issue with D&D doing this officially is that Pathfinder does exactly this. Would there be a lawsuit? Probably not, but companies avoiding that makes sense.
One change I really like is that every class is proficient in simple weapons now. It just makes sense that simple means everyone can use it. It doesn't mean you will get weapon mastery with it but you can swing a simple weapon reliably if you have enough strength or dex.
Wait... there were classes that couldn't use simple weapons?!
@@HonestGhost21wizards and sorcerers got a weird selection of a few specific simple weapons. Monk got the same I think
There's a lot more to weapon proficiency than swinging it around. All classes could use simple weapons, they just lacked proficiency, which makes sense. Anyone can just grab a sword/staff and swing it around, but it takes a decent amount of training and practice to be able to wield *any* weapon with proficiency. It's yet more dumbing down and simplifying to the point where there is basically no point in weapon proficiency being a thing any more - just say everyone can use everything and be done with it. Yes it's dumb, but it's no dumber than saying you need special training to use a longsword, but any random person can pick up a sling and be magically proficient with it with no training or experience.
@@HippoLore Druids too. Was a literal grab bag of fittingly thematic but extremely random weapons like sickles, quarterstaves, slings, and a few others. Works great for a class who is either 'mostly casting' or 'mostly Wildshape' but it still was very weird and made any attempt at standardizing the arsenal a bit more complicated. Monks meanwhile was every simple weapon and every non-Heavy Finesse martial, something I'm sure MANY a DM let slide to allow glaive-monks.
I remember when the 2nd edition came out and the book had a forward that said “THIS IS NOT A NEW EDITION!”
On Druids: One of my thoughts was to do something akin to the "template stat blocks" with the inclusion of a maneuver adjacent "traits" list that you could add to individualize your forms. Do you want tentacles? Camouflage? Tough skin? A special scream attack? You could make a MASSIVE list. And it would be incredibly straightforward to homebrew your own new ones or add something into later books.
In the beginning, you'd get the options of "Medium Beast" as is or "Small Beast" w/ ONE of your known traits. Eventually this expands, allowing you to eventually get to the "Large Beast" and "Tiny Beast" templates and unlocking new traits as well as having multiple traits together on the same form at the same time. And you could just explain this however you want. Is your flight because you're a bat? A bird? A terrifyingly large palmetto bug? DO WHAT EVER!
And this would also have given Moon Druids a very straight forward option for being "the best wildshapers" by giving them a few extra known "traits" and being able to add one more than any other druid at their level.
And the players could more easily have prepped a handful of go-to transformations that they know they'll want in advance, but also have the choice to mix and match on the fly if a unique scenario presents itself.
I like that idea a lot as well! As someone who primarily plays Warlocks, I have a lot of experience with modular customization options like that, and what feels more like a master of nature than someone who invents their own animal forms?
Druids are fine and they WILL NOT play like Clerics.
Once you see the Druid spell list, you will understand that you can make an OP character.
Right now, the backwards compatible Sporea Druid is the best Druid.
My brother-in-arms, this is what I also wrote in my surveys for both the druid and beast master ranger. I went with a point system instead so combat features like pack tactics or multi-attack used a lot of points and support features like echolocation or keen senses used only one point.
@@joshuasmith9061DC 20 is doing something similar I believe.
@@joshuasmith9061 While I'm not opposed to a point system, I know WotC would be wary of using one. But even then, could use levels as a staging barrier, and have certain traits get better at higher levels to scale power.
The musical sting when you say "Shadowfell" still makes me chuckle every time :)
Never gets old
@@archy2529 I was ambivalent the first time, and literally laughed out loud the second. If it happens again I'm renaming it the Shadowpark and the dark overlord will be Bester Chennington.
In my opinion Ranger should have Hunter Mark be a feature that you pick a dude and do more damage either as a bonus action or when you land an attack. In addition tracking, insight, and knowledge bonuses against them. And at later levels magic scrying and stuff.
Then you build-a-bear for the Favoured Foe and Land abilities(keep the over stuff as a nice ribbon) but you get some additional more generic stuff like if your favoured land is Plains get to dash as a bonus action, Forests let you ignore difficult terrain, Humanoid foes let you get additional bonuses to social interactions, giants let you knock enemies prone easier, aberrations give you resistance to psychic and fear etc. making the ranger really customisable to hunt specific dudes.
i think the needed flavour for rangers really should be "fuck that one guy in particular". just being an incredible hater. the nemesis class. sometimes the "my dog hates you too" class. the track you to the ends of the earth and to other planes even class. they want it from the interest in hunters mark but don't commit to making it a reality. rangers being a class with biggest reason to take survival and perception and everything, give them a real "i can find you wherever you run" class theme
I think ultra survivalist or martial class version of cleric could also be a great flavor for rangers
This is the perfect explanation for what a ranger is in combat. People dismiss the ranger because they think it fills no particular niche in combat and it's just a fighter with a few druid spells. WotC have managed to screw up so badly with the ranger that now people think that it shouldn't even exist.
Pathfinder 2e did this very well.
The problem with ranger is much of it are things which would limit the game conceptually if restricted to one class. Martial druid with tracking skills for free is basically what it is like paladin is martial cleric with a gifted companion/steed build in for free. It's like how rogues are not the only trap finders anymore. Also, people have totally forgotten that spells preparations are class features. Ranger had 2! spells before level 6 known, only swappable one at a time on level up, one of which was hunter's mark more than likely. They were not Paladins who could willy knilly change their level+cha mod spell preps completely every long rest. These rituals will give the ranger the exact same kind of flavor.
My personal favourite flavour is the "one man adventuring party", with the side order of "fuck that guy in particular". Like, they're whom you send to retrieve the mcguffin or kill the big scary thing in case an adventuring party isn't around or you're light on cash, so they can kinda do whatever the situation calls for, at least when it comes to fighting and exploration.
It might help to know that "species" wasn't always associated with science; in the Middle Ages, it was a broad term for "type" or "sort", e.g. a far-traveling merchant accepting many *species* of coins along their route. Applied to people, it meant roughly the same thing as when we refer to someone's "looks" in casual conversation.
So you're saying D&D is at the forefront of "taking it back" on behalf of aggrieved medievalists? 😉
I prefer species. Race would mean dwarfs and dragonborns were closely related🤨 And D&D have evolution along with magic explanation on things.
My understanding using Dragonborn as example. I could do us humans but thats risky in these times😂
Species= Dragonborn
Sub-species = A different type of dragonborn that share the DNA setup buts waaay different
Race= Chromatic, Gem or Metallic
Sub-Race= The 5-10 ( yes including missing/ lesser knowns ) variants of each heritage. Like f.ex Blue, Red, Yellow, Topaz, Amethyst, Emerald, Copper, Silver, Gold
Phenotype= Noticable differences in color hue from individual to individual, slight facial shape, head features, eye colors. One Copper dragonborn might have bit longer headspikes., another a darker copper hue etc
Oh.. yeah almost forgot. Sub-species = A different type of dragonborn that share the DNA setup buts waaay different
Ultimately there's no perfect term--"ancestry" doesn't make sense for Warforged, Autognomes, or Reborn. I liked "origin" but then I found someone who hated it. "Species" is as good as anything else considering it's just a game term that probably won't come up much in play.
It’s still used in that sense in classical music - when talking about counterpoint, we refer to the different types and ratios of counterpoint as “species,” e.g. first species is 1:1, second is 2:1, etc.
Just like Jeremy Crawford said:
If you're having to explain it every time, maybe it's not great?
You are honestly one of my favorite creators of dnd content. I love your editing style, your jokes, the music, and the visuals.
The thing about Ranger’s fantasy is that it’s a pathfinder and hunter. It goes out into the wilds and survives in ways that other classes would struggle to do the same.
Except… aaaallll of that fantasy is often hand waved away as a Survival check in most games. Maaaaybe at Advantage.
…
Like… I can see why Rangers get shafted. The thing core to their fantasy is something ANY character can do, if you build your character a certain way.
So… what fantasy SHOULD Rangers have instead?
Welp… they can at least deal good damage. And they can sometimes have a pet depending on Subclass. That’s… Ranger-ish… right?
I've always felt that the Ranger's class features should put more emphasis on the Ranger's mystical connection to nature and/or the fey. (As the Paladin is to the Cleric, the Ranger is to the Druid).
I know this is a controversial opinion, and there are many out there who wish that the Ranger was even less magical. But with the way that non-combat skills have evolved since the Ranger was first introduced in the 1970s, the identity of "Fighter who is a Heroic Monster-Fighting Loner that lives in the Wilderness" is not enough on its own to sustain the Ranger as a separate class.
@@daviddalrymple2284 100% agree. I homebrewed a version of Ranger built around party support. Why? Because Rangers are often guides through the wilderness they roam. They need the tools to make that guidance effective. And it hooks them into teamwork and team tactics, something essential for a good DnD class.
The end result is a Ranger that is fun to play and one that feels impactful both in combat and out of combat. Someday, WotC will find that balance too….
Great video! Thank you for this! Trying to reserve judgement, but Druid and Ranger just seem so disappointing! 😢
In my opinions, Druid and Ranger has always been two overlapping subclasses, especially that they share a lot of the same spells. In 5e the one good reason to have a ranger in your party is when you have to succeed several Survival checks when travelling to avoid exhaustion. But now that they have revised exhaustion to be not as deadly, I think rangers would be even less useful.
Something I think a lot of people are missing about druids getting animal companions and paladins getting Conjure Horse, changes that both seem random from the perspective of 5e, is that these are returning features from 3.5. I don't know (or care) enough about 4e to know if they had them then, but back in the 3.5 days the druid's animal companion and the paladin's special mount both got an entire page of rules just for themselves, so it makes sense for those features to be coming back in the new books.
I do think that the animal companion option isn't that great for non land druids.
For stars you would rather activate your starry form more often, for sea you want wrath of the sea and for moon obviously you want to keep being in wildshape.
Its also just thematic to have a class that can "Call horse" like Witcher, you dont need to roleplay it as ghost horse, you can pretend its just Roach someone getting around xD
@@barcster2003
Good? You're really missing the theme here. Something that has always been core for the druid identity is preferring the company of non-humanoid companions. I don't even play 5e, and hearing for the first time that they didn't have animal companions is mind-blowing.
Besides, there are plenty of fun water animals and some fun amphibious options.
I definitely love both inclusions, and I'm all for reviving older content, but idk, it feels like Paladin could have gotten something else, something more to go ALONG with the magical steed component. Overall, it kind of feels like some classes got a lot of love and some classes got changed for no reason at all. Maybe it'll play well enough tho
I agree misty step was part of the reason for the signature spell change but overwhelmingly the problem was shield and to a lesser degree absorb elements
Silvery barbs.
@@Perri-Winkle silvery barbs isn’t in the new core rules, so it can be better managed, but that’s certainly a factor
I wish so bad someone would ask JC why didn't they remove concentration with hunters mark. They experimented with removing concentration from hunters mark in a UA 3 separate times, it was popular 3 times, only to back track on final decision 3 times.
What's "funny" is that War Domain Cleric gets to have zero concentration on Shield of Faith and Spiritual Weapon.
@@floofzykitty5072 and paladin does on divine favor even though that spell is basically just hunters mark but one minute
I blame dndshorts for telling everyone concentrationless hunter's mark was too op
My DM has let me run with the UA rules of concentrationless mark and it feels so much better, brings the ranger closer to the damage output of similar classes
TBH the real best ranger is just what Tasha's did if they made that change alongside maybe reintroducing the favored enemy creature type dealing extra damage with Favored Foe, the same way Paladins deal extra smite damage to undead.
I also love Tasha's Rangers because they leave room for arcane warrior flavor. Paladins are Divine Warriors and Rangers are usually Druidic Warriors, but we should also be able to be Arcane Warriors as without having to be an Eldritch Knight or a Bladesinger Wizard.
We got 1 hour pointy hat video before GTA6
That’s crazy
This comment needs to be pinned.
Dude, the before GTA6 meme is like, still massive
At this rate we're gonna get GTA 7 before GTA 6
Not this again
00:05 I love the immediate shade throw at multiple engagement videos. XD
What does engagement video mean?
"My brain has turned to oatmeal... so... bon appetit" is such a bar
"Started making it. Had a break down. Bon appetit"
"At third level, you get to choose a spirit totem from a list of five. There's Bear (pick Bear), Eagle (pick Bear), Elk (pick Bear), Tiger (pick Bear), and Wolf (pick Bear)!"
Hopefully they were able to revamp the other spirit animals you could pick from, as the Elk specifically offered the worst boons from the five, while the other spirits were more situational (pick Bear).
From other stuff revealed elsewhere there are a couple of things about this:
1. They get to pick new options for the bonuses during Rage every time they rage, and the always on ones every Long Rest.
2. The list is actually different every level (Bear, Wolf, and Eagle is only available at 3rd,), the other stuff has been updated and changed somewhat.
So yeah, everything past 3rd has been updated.
For the first options, you get to swap at the start of every rage, so you can pick whatever works best at the moment instead of being locked into "This will probably be the most useful most often", so if you're fighting something you don't need the bonus resistances, or it doesn't cover the resistances you need, then you can pick something else.
Bear was nerfed (Now no longer resist force, necrotic, radiant or psychic)
Now if you know/think the enemy isn't going to hit you with stuff you need to resist, you can go wolf (Give everyone advantage on the target you're next to, even ranged attacks now) or Eagle if you want a super hit and run character with dash and disengage to dominate running around the field.
The others can be swapped on long rest so you're not locked in for them either, letting you piece together for the encounters.
The issue with Eldritch Blast having such a huge death grip on the class is that EB was the defining feature of the class back in 3.5 (the og iteration of the class)
You had EB which was your class SLA and then invocations which were SLAs that you could use at will. They were basically reflavored and slightly stronger and more versatile versions of existing spells for the most part. You also had blast shape invocations which changed the range, area, or targets of your EB and blast essence invocations which changed the damage type or added an extra effect to your EB.
Thinking back the 3.5 version of the warlock was more in line with 5e’s design philosophy than the actual 5e warlock.
Yeah, I was hoping they would take more inspiration from the 3.5 Warlock. If, as this video implies, the problem with 5e Warlocks is that most of them take all the same invocations to power up Eldritch Blast, I don't see how changing that to "most of them take all the same invocations to power up Toll the Dead" is going to fix the problem.
gonna quote Jocat regarding rangers. "Just play a fighter with a bow" and it applies even harder now
Yep. in other ttrpgs ranger has more identity and it could have that identity in DnD but it just... doesn't. either in old book or in new book.
@@James_McKayBLOCKHEADS PROFILE PIC?????
@@James_McKay I think the main reason that D&D 5e hasn't made a satisfactory Ranger is that they're trying to please too many people. There is a very vocal contingent of the fanbase who want the Ranger to be a woodsy warrior with no magical powers (like Strider/Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings). Meanwhile, the D&D Ranger has traditionally been a warrior who learns Druid spells. And since 3e, the Ranger's signature ability has been "Favored Foe." For various reasons, both mechanically and thematically, the traditional version of Favored Foe/Enemy isn't really satisfactory in 2024. (Heck, in 2014, it was already comically underpowered. The Paladin's smite got a huge power boost from 3e to 5e, but the Ranger's Favored Foe actually got weaker from 3e to 5e).
I do think that concentration-free Hunter's mark is too powerful (if only because of the multiclass shenanigans that it enables: Hunter's Mark raging Barbarians ; Blade Warlocks stacking Hunter's Mark and Hex on their weapon attacks, etc.). But I do think that the Ranger deserves better.
Especially with fighter getting the feats
@@daviddalrymple2284
You got something massively wrong here. The hunters mark isn't concentration free. You just can't lose concentration as long as you aren't incapacitated or die.
It still requires concentration AND what I just decribed is a level 13 feature lol. So no, this is NOT a good multiclass option, you'd have to have 13 levels in ranger to make use of this. So no, this isn't op in any way.
And lastly, please just listen properly when watching videos? He said that you can't lose concentration, not that it's not required anymore. What he said is wrong, you CAN lose it by being incapacitated or dying, but my point is, you ignored what he said and just went with the made up idea that it doesn't require concentration anymore.
I'm so embarrassed that i never picked up on the potted plant 42 reference. Thank you for pointing that out pointy hat!
we were playing with a wild magic character last week and they got it and i immediately clicked at the joke.
26:47 the druid now have a number of known forms for wildshape, so you can’t choose between all beasts every time you wildshape, just between those you know
I’d like to imagine that the bit at 0:22 actually went on for way too long with Jeremey so dumbfounded and not being able to answer anything for an hour straight while pointy hat’s familiar kept rattling off questions.
So happy to see a pointy hat video get 5K views in 30 minutes. He’s come so far in just the past year and he deserves all of it.
Personally I love that you're not overly negative. Dnd was something I wanted to get into as a kid, watched actual plays forever, but didn't have the opportunity to play myself back then. Imagine my surprise when I finally get the chance to play, have settled in, hear there's new core books coming and feel excited, just to have everyone shit on it or anything WotC. I'm all for critiquing changes to things we love, and I appreciate your clear and specific critiques of certain changes. On other channels or forums it seems like all people say is "WotC BAD!" without actually giving reasons or analyzing whats changed. It's tiring and frankly that attitude will drive people away from the community. We play Dnd to escape, and over analyzing and bringing nothing but negativity into that space sort of defeats the purpose in my mind. I thought Dnd was supposed to be fun and endlessly adaptable with homebrew, but people are acting the the WotC will bust down their door and arrest them if they dont adhere to changes they don't like, as if homebrewing and changing things isnt a cornerstone of Dnd.
5:47
"I barely think."
The human familiar has never been so relatable
Evyn Fong's illustration of the sorcerer IS amazing. Generally I am loving the art in this? John Grello too. Maybe because I'm an illustrator so I'm biased and I'm happy to see there's no AI garbage in the new book.
*That we know of
@viczio the skepticism is earned, but they've sent the PDF to numerous sources ahead of time, and I think it's likely if AI art was in there it would've been spotted. wizards policy is no ai art, even if it hasn't been enforced well in the past that's still better than using it on purpose.
The section about the changes with races honestly made me crack up so much I subbed and this is my first video of yours I have watched. Great stuff good sir
The hat let the human familiar have a whole video to himself 😮
From your frustrations with Druid, it sounds like you would *love* Pathfinder 2e's shapeshifting mechanics for the exact same reason I hate them: I *want* the stat blocks. I actually want to turn into the creature I'm turning into instead of turning into like, one of three video game options.
I would've liked to have split the difference on Wildshape-tanking by giving the player some amount of Temp HP (or perhaps, if they turn into something with more HP, they gain the difference in HP) whenever they Wildshape, but this is fine. I also like the mechanic of learning new forms like a wizard learning spells, though I can see that backfiring if you never actually encounter beast-type creatures.
I absolutely agree. The fun of choosing whether to wild shape into a brown bear or a giant spider doesn't come from being allowed to say the word 'bear' or 'spider'. It's being able to attack twice and sniff around for clues, versus being able to see in the dark and abseil down holes. Turning into a generic walking creature is not just weaker, it's terribly bland.
And obviously the fix for that is not to make them customisable. Having the player write a new stat block whenever they wild shape is no-one's idea of fun.
I am onboard with the idea that wild shape is too powerful - or more accurately that Moon druids are too powerful because they have that excellent ability and are still full casters on top of that.
Removing the temporary HP from wild shape is interesting, and in some cases it makes the ability more powerful: you can wild shape into a mouse, hide in a hole, take 1 point of damage, and not die from your medium-size body being crushed into such a tiny space.
But it makes it dramatically weaker in combat. Most beasts have a poor AC and get hit a lot. So Moon druids will have to keep burning through their spell slots to heal themselves. Other circles I suppose will just have to hope they are early enough in initiative to end their wild shape before they're killed.
I think a more natural fix would be to spend a spell slot of level X to wild shape into a creature of CR X rounded up. So you can shapechange into a CR 0 creature such as a cat for free, but you need a level 1 slot to become a CR 1/2 warhorse. That would be more logical than twice per short rest: it's a magical transformation, so you spend some of your magical power to do it.
And while I'm asking for things I'm not going to get, would it be too much to ask for consistent rules for wild shape, polymorph, lyncanthropy, doppelgangers and other forms of shapechanging?
@@tulliusexmisc2191 I disagree on the spell slots point; pretty much every spellcasting class (except wizard; RiP in Peace Wizards but you get the most spells (except healing I guess)) gets something outside of spellcasting they can do as a signature ability.
Okay so I just looked it up and you very specifically gain a scaling bonus to wild shape if you're a Moon Druid, and all druids get temp HP whenever they wild shape. I do agree that it feels a bit silly for a rat to have your full hit points. Moon Druids triple that bonus.
at least animal form has more options than "land" "sky" "water"...
AND the higher level forms (Monstrosity Form) are pretty fucking sick.
This is what I keep saying, statblocks are the best way to have a true transformation, it isn't a super sayan mode like the order of the lycan or the beast barbarian, it is actually turning into an animal and actually using the exact same statblock that the actual animal uses is the best way to do it because you are literally that animal. Templates is too close to a super sayan mode (though there was nothing "super" about the template's they provided which definitely didn't help) for my liking, if I want a class with a few specific fixed buffs from a transformation I'll play a cleric or a sorcerer. I really like the statblock system and I think removing it is not only mechanically weak by loses a lot of flavour too.
@@tulliusexmisc2191 I kinda like that idea, infinite uses for CR 0-1/4 means that it better provides the flavour of being a shapeshifter, whereas most druids I have seen tend to save wild shape for combat and then use the subclass feature (wildfire spirit, symbiotic entity, starry form etc) in combat. Most druids don't actually wild shape all that often and even more so it feels dumb that turning into a dog is as hard as turning into a literal dinosaur, I think all druids should get 2 uses of wildshape as it is now, infinite CR 0-1/4 wildshapes from level 6-7, the ability to use spell slots for better wild shapes and moon druid should get higher CR forms both from the 2 per short rest uses and per spell slot, say equal to the spell slot level rather than equal to 2/3 rounded down or something. The main problem with making it equal to spell slot level times something is that polymorph is so much more powerful, however it does require concentration so... I dunno.
I LOVE druids complexity and how they synergize with other classes
Pointy hat hour video on class changes? Oh we are eating good
Look like somebody cast Heroes Feast.
@@Healermain15I'm sad that spell is nerfed.
Saw your familiar at GenCon :D He was very nice and signed my book to my mother
Say hi to Karen for me!!!
You have a great voice. I could watch you talk about D&D all day. Heart your face. ❤
Only youtubers I follow for classes and such are Pointy Hat and D&D shorts and y'all uploaded long videos back to back so this will be a pleasant afternoon.
They dropped them right before their two hour GenCon panel too, insanely based.
If you haven't seen them yet, I also put Deficient Master and XP to Level 3 at the upper echelon of D&D UA-cam.
25:48 That's not entirely true, the thing with the first UA Druid is that the templates they gave us sucked ass. They didn't help with tanking, exploration, utility, damage or anything like that; they prevented you from using your spells and only gave you a minor boost to your speed. And, obviously, people reacted negativity to that and demanded stat blocks back if they were gonna give us something so terrible; so instead of improving the templates or giving more customization options they gave us stat blocks again.
I wholeheartedly believe that if they presented us with at least functional templates, the reaction to them would have been a lot more positive.
Yup, can’t repeat it enough. Though going to stat blocks does loose some of the uniqueness of certain animals.
But it’d certainly make for better scaling.
At least now though Moon Druids will have passable AC & won’t be lacking in damage (assuming their to hit chance isn’t abysmal. Should also use wisdom for that too instead of the beast’s strength or dex).
I just wish they stuck with the templates long enough to actually improve them and refine them.
@@nikkothegoblin "I just wish they stuck with the [X] long enough to actually improve them and refine them."
- 5e in a nutshell
This, just this, I keep saying this. The "tank" form gave you no hp, capped your AC to 15 and gave you no real damage output buff compared to just casting shillelagh and way behind picking green flame blade from your background and casting it with wisdom.
your ad made me think we were getting new canon dnd classes for the first time in years and i got excited. youve managed to toy with my emotions, good job
Can we have a "My new player really wants to play a druid, what now?" video?
Druids are such a core fantasy for so many people and it being the most difficult class in the game is really frustrating.
Thanks you for all the awesome video's! They have helped me and many of my players!
I definitely think someone should make that video. I don't think it should be PointyHat.
@@SithCats agreed, druids are best when you can actually turn into animals, rather than nerfing yourself hugely for virtually no benefits. I think pointy doesn't like druid and just thinks it should be nerfed into oblivion and needs to be so simple literally anyone could play it with ease even if they had never heard of dnd.
That opening brought back memories and I’m grateful
YOu were so right about the sorcerer illustration, i LITERALLY cannot stop looking at it
I can see why you wanted the simpler druid wildshape from the ua, but there were also issues with the ua one.
it was simpler, but for most people it felt really kinda boring, to have all types of creatures difined by a single statblock lost so much of the flavor the druid had, like you can say you are a spider, but without any of the web features that made that statblock interresting or feel like a spider.
there were also some rules issues with that version of wildshape, but enough people spoke about that.
Yeah it should be an "option" for newbie's but having the different aspects is of each animal is a lot better, its not hard to keep track stat blocks with something like roll20
That could've been fixed with a menu of additional abilities, allowing the flavour of shape shifting into a wolf-spider (instead of a wolf spider).
@@hweidigiv That would be a interesting subclass if you can splice animals together. The Chimara Druid
@@GreyfauxxGaming Yep, I love that, I'm making it.
What blows my mind is that immediately after he talked about wanting the UA wild shape, he moved on to Fighters and praised how weapon masteries make it so the weapons don't all play the same. If you like that about Fighters, why would you want to do the exact opposite to Druids and make them more samey?
One note about quickened spell. It NEVER allowed you to cast two leveled spells in a turn. It still followed the ba spell rules. The only feature that allowed for 2 leveled spells on a turn was action surge. The only metamagic that got nerfed was twinned spell.
Wild Magic used to trigger only if your dm had you roll the d20 for wild magic. As Jeremy Crawford put it, it suffered from "Mother May I?". Changing it to happen when you cast any leveled spell is a huge change.
The Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul got huge changes! Neither of them are able to switch out their origin spells. While it affects the Aberrant Mind a lot more (I'd go over it, but I don't want to write an essay), they both took a huge hit in versatility. Now CS is stuck with spells like alarm and detect good and evil instead pf being able to switch them out with more useful spells.
Twinned Spell never let you double cast AoE, nor did it ever let you cast spells that already targeted multiple creatures, including spells that, when upcasted, add extra targets already (you could Twin the base version of Invisibility, but not if you were to upcast it). It says so literally in the entry for Twinned Spell: "To be eligible, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level. For example, magic missile and scorching ray aren’t eligible, but ray of frost and chromatic orb are."
The name no longer matches because you don't get double the amount of attacks, but the effect of "when you cast a single target spell, you can target a second creature with an extra attack too" is still the same. Instead, when you use a higher level Invisibility in the new version, you get an extra invisible person instead of it just not being allowed to work. This is a straight up buff to Twinned Spell, it's only nerfed if players/DMs didn't read the effect and were using it wrong to begin with. A DM can still allow it to literally double the amount of targets/attacks, but it was never like that in the base rules.
@@therren9981 correct, people just choose to ignore that and twin fireball. Or something.
On the subject of wild magic, I hope the new table doesn't include TPK any more. That is the single least fun thing in the entire 5.0 Player's Handbook.
@therren9981 I know twin spell never allowed you to double up on aoes like fireball, I assumed that it was a joke lol.
The new version of twin spell is DEFINITELY a nerf for the simple fact that you could double up on spells that were never meant to target more than one creature like haste, disintegrate, dominate person/monster, etc. Even healing spells like cure wounds and revivify were an option if you were a divine soul. All of those and more no longer work with the new version of twin spell. That being said, the new version is far more balanced *because* it no longer works on spells that were never meant to target multiple people.
Yeah Divine Soul is hit especially hard by the massive twin spell nerf. I’m gonna miss it.
Another component to it I haven’t seen mentioned is that you can’t twin cantrips anymore because they don’t increase targets.
I like that everything else sorcerer was buffed but old twin spell was like the whole reason I played sorcerer :(
This is the one video about the class changes that I watched and that's the only one I'll ever need. Thank you Pointy (and human familiar of course) for your service!
See Invisibility lets you see ethereal creatures, so Third Eye is buffed (except that See Invisibility is a spell and therefore subject to Dispel Magic).
I like how, at the Warlock part, light reflection in his eyes makes it seem like he has goat eye pupils. Fitting with horns
Thank you for the super comprehensive overview, Pointy Hat! Great video. I hope you have an awesome, relaxing break!
26:27 The problem was not that it was perfect but that people wanted the old version, the problem was that we wanted those generic statblocks but with some customization... You know, with beast stablocks you can be a snake and make it bite the enemy is poisoned or the spider can shoot web.
WOTC just decided it's better to stay where we are than do something fun.
Didn’t help that the stat blocks they gave us were underwhelming power wise either.
If they’re trying to sell us on something make it a little over tuned as opposed to really weak like what they showed us.
who tf is this "we"? is the "we" with us right now?
@@redhoodie4111I’d assume the 56 likes he has currently? It’s not an uncommon opinion.
It’s like we’re (the player base that gave feedback) being blamed that it wasn’t changed but they didn’t give us a good alternative.
I’m sure some don’t want a set stat block at all as well.
i feel like the best compromise would really be that. if they make good generic statblocks that are strong enough for people to want to use for the basic purposes and project flavour on to. and then let you also pick other beasts.
sad that we don't get owlbear-chimera type additions to the class. even as a moon druid replacement for the elemental forms.
I think what's important to understand is they hate wildshape and want to kill it, but can't. So they beat it to a pulp with a nerf bat and left it in the book.
The Hitchhiker reference on the Wild Magic Sorcerer is insane, never really thought about It lol
I have read book!
@@TheKingOfNerds I've read too! Finished the entire franchise just some weeks ago. Loved It!
Maybe if there had been a sperm whale as well I might have noticed.
Just found your channel recently, and I love it! Thank you for all the work you put into these videos.
"it's July, in Spain"
Fair
totally, it is hell here right now.
Congrats on getting it sent early and the interview, Hat! You absolutely deserve it!
And yes, we would absolutely *love* a video like this for species changes!
Im new to DnD and just finished reading the book and making a druid character and then all my hopes and dreams get crushed after watching this video
[pauses at the Wild Magic table]
What the Fork!?!?!?!?!?!?!
[quietly weeps for one of my favorite inside jokes]
My favorite class summary so far, you're fun and helpful!
Now, for The subclass at level three for paladin, cleric, and warlock thing:
I would flavor it that you already are following your big powerfully daddy but haven't proved yourself yet. You're the intern for them until level three when you ha e proven yourself enough to get the gifts.
Thanks again
I think i'd rather flavour it as the pact is made and there, but the bond isn't deep enough for the unique aspects of the patron to start shining through yet
Thank you thank you thank you for all this work! I know it was hard, but I really appreciate that you did it.
Excellent breakdown! And yes I would love another video eventually about the species changes (or other changes) you want to talk about
Genuinely love your videos, Pointy Hat. Thanks for helping me DM with your awesome creations and suggestions 💚
It's really funny having started in 2E, where a central part was always to get your horsey. So it makes total sense to me
"Have fun butt-dialling Cthulu" is a new favourite quote from this channel. Golden
It was difficult focusing on the sorcerer section when they drew the draconic sorcerer so hot lmao
Yup. GOO Warlock as well. We are slaying with this one 🔥
Little late to video but great job making it easy to understand yet also fun and light hearted. Amazing job
Your sincerity is clear and I really enjoyed you giving us a breakdown on what matters with these changes and not getting lost in the numbers trying to make one side better or worse for everyone. Thank you so much for everything you do. I really enjoy these videos.
There's this brazilian RPG called Tormenta20 that has one of the bestdruids i 'd ever seen, when you wild shape, you choose one type of animal (Strong, fast, flying) and it gives you habilities acording to the type of animal you choose (like damage reduction, more attacks etc.) and you can gain feats that can make you fuse two types (like flying and strong for a gryph) and you can flavor it as any animal you want
I absolutely love this, and not just for the outfits, the material was great too!
Especially since I totally did not want to sit through a deep dive into each one 👌
Have a good day for those who are reading this!
I very much appreciate this :). I hope you have a good day as well
@@justgarrick thank you, have a good day yourself.
That button on the white shirt…is holding onto its dear life and I’m here for it.
As a ranger/druid multiclasser, I am devistated
Thanks for compiling all the class changes!!!
I think the move to subclasses at 3 is to stop 1 level dips. Mainly to stop hex blade and cleric (I'm looking at you peace) single dips.
Yeah, I think that was a big reason.
The other reason they mentioned is because they wanted to further simplify low-level play. Presumably, their market research has shown that there are a lot of people curious to play D&D who still find the learning curve too steep.
Except you now get the main hex blade benefit with a 1 level warlock dip still 😂
@@matthewwarner2305 and you also get to take the newly improved Armor of Agathys which if built around has the potential to be incredibly powerful because of the degree of defense and save-less retaliation frost damage you get to inflict
@@Bonehead_Paladin wait, improved?
Edit, found it, bonus action casting time, but it is only for warlock now.
I think twilight cleric and Lunar sorcerer are then 2 big ones, Lunar sorcerer gets 5 cantrips and 5 level 1 spells at level 1, though there are 3 spells you can't pick one of them is shield so it is effectively 2 you can't pick. While twilight cleric gives you basically everything, all weapons and armour, sharable darkvision, advantage on initiative checks and some really good spells.
I personally think that part of what I love about druids is that they while they are hard/complex to play and require much more collaboration with the DM to ensure you don't break things, the power they provide rewards you for taking that on yourself. Playing a "Circle of Dreams" druid as our party's primary healer currently, I grant that I may be biased, but still...
This is what I keep saying, I like a complex class that rewards creativity and skill. Pointy has a thing about classes needing to be simpler, unless they are martials. But I think there should be a complex class that veterans can play with for when other stuff is boring.
Hat is Hour, Fan is happy
51:00 It feels like you didn't actually read the wild magic table and only looked at the new numbers. What they did is combine multiple effects into one prompts. So instead of having a few table entries that cause a specific spell to be cast, you now have a single entry that causes one of 8 spells to be cast. There are multiple of these multiple-possibility entries, in total making the wild magic table actually MORE expansive than before.
There’s still time to delete this cringey comment.
As a former scout big kid from Utah... I'm considering that a personal shoutout!! 🎉🎉🎉
I really appreciate the video. It really cements that I'm never touching 1dnd in any form or function. 5E and Pathfinder it is.
You said no rapiers for bards and my jaw dropped
As a DM I choose to ignore this my players can still have bards with rapiers this change is horrific
@@Sc1lla i mean there's a subclass for swordy bards... it's literally only a 1 damage upgrade over other weapons
@@ДюсековИльяс It's more about the flavor and principle; a lot of WOTC changes I could honestly care less for. Thus, I'll ignore them, but there were some good changes.
@@Nerdhistory_TheLibrarian i mean if you were a rapier bard...you were a swords bard, tha like doesn't change... I don't get how one weapon that wasn't really that great or used is so important
@@ДюсековИльяс Because Rapiers aren't common swords in medieval settings, so the class that's all about charisma, showing off, being extra etc 100% makes sense to have the fancy dueling sword that's usually only available to the elite.
I love the art, it looks scrumptious! Speaking of, big fan of the matching outfit for the classes :D
I wanted Druid’s Wildshape to be treated like a spell list, base Druid gets a list of creatures who’s stat blocks you use and retexture to suit the players needs and the subclasses add their own wildshape lists. It would have been a mix of what everyone wanted, stat blocks with unique skills, but limiting the number you need to carry around with you just flavouring/retexturing the forms as needed. Also I’m find with temporary hitpoints with wildshape but both base Druid and Moon Druid need more.
Something mentioned in the videos talking about the rules update is that anything named the same between 2014 & 2024 the intent is that you use the new version. With that said since the Barbarian subclass does not have the same name (Wildheart vs. Totem) it means both are available in the 2024 edition.
thanks for all the hard work! take a break! you've earned it big time!
you KNOW I’ve been waiting patiently to hear your thoughts on the new classes, dropping everything to watch this right now >:)
The Druid thing isn’t to bad for me because of one specific reason: you have a set amount of prepared shapes you can turn into, not just any beast. I don’t know exactly how it’s worded officially in the book, but at least it actually gives a player and DM a more solid place to start then a thousand random beast stat blocks.
As for Ranger, while making it an actual beast master in general would make it more flavorful, making it an actual hunter would also take it a long way flavor wise. Make it so you do more damage against a certain creature type, have it be able to change the creature type on a long rest, or give it something that allows it to overcome or easily identify a creature types resistances or immunities. Though, that would essentially just make them Ghostfire Gaming’s Monster Hunter class.
The probem though is that limiting the available options doesn't make it easier, just choose to only pay attention to a few. It is like if they made spellcasters simpler and easier by reducing the number of known spells.
@@Feanor6450 I get what you mean, but then there is the problem that people like the uniqueness of some of the beasts they can turn into. A dire wolfs pack tactics or one of the beasts that have a charge mechanic. There are definitely ways they could have simplified it more or gone a better route, but they wanted to get everything out on a schedule so no further play testing was done. Heck, I gave feedback for them to either keep the base star blocks and allow them to learn more unique beast shapes later on or to give some sort of customizing system like the Circle of Mutation from Grim Hollow, but they limited the amount of play testing they were doing so something like that was never in the cards with this.
@@PhantomKing188 I'm with you, I love the statblock system and I was complaining about the limit as an attempt to simplify it.
This was so helpful and informative - thank you! I would love to see a video breakdown of the species following the well-deserved break 👍🤘
Spell mastery was not done for misty step, it was done for shield
It's probably both tbh