DnDBeyond
Joe Manganiello’s tips for being a better D&D Player – DnDBeyond
Listen to @JoeManganiello give his expert advice on how to be a better D&D player, and how he prepares for a game session, in this interview with I spoke with my friend Joe Manganiello
THIS IS A AN AUTOMATIC CAPTION TEXT from YouTube, so it’s not “perfect”.
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about his player tips and tricks for DDmy tips for players I would say you’re
telling the story – I prepare as a
player not as much as I do as a DM but I
do prepare and I do think about where
I’d like to take the character and I do
think about cinematic moments whether
they involve the mechanics of the game
or story-wise you know the great example
is stealing the hand of Vecna why she
shouldn’t say stealing I just took it it
didn’t belong to anybody at that point
it was just laying there but that was a
lot of prep and Matt and none of the
players of the table knew anything Matt
knew that our cron was keeping an eye
out was cognizant that Vecna was using
something that teleports cities and
armies that can maybe be used to
teleport TMS so he knew that I was
interested in that but he didn’t know
anything further than that that was all
me planning and so that’s the kind of
care that I put into playing just
playing in a campaign and I like to take
that same sort of energy I mean
sometimes the stakes I mean they’re
never really that high that’s very
unusual that’s like a final campaign
battle stakes but with that said every
time I play as a player I’m always think
I’m always at home and I’m thinking okay
I’ve got this T playing hacks warlock
I’ve got darkness now if I take Devil’s
sight I can see through the darkness if
I cast darkness on an object an amulet a
weapon on a piece of armor that’s the
bugbears it will move with it or I can
hit it you know I’m thinking how can i I
go home and I lay the books out at night
and I sometimes I’m looking if I have a
game coming up I’m trying to figure out
a new combat strategy I’m trying to work
something out so that when I get there
I can then help my group out with this
crazy almost game-breaking thing that I
figured out I can see in the dark and
you can’t and I think
darkness and just start sniping people
in the dark at advantage you know I’m
and I think a lot of the players that I
play what they they play that way to
their real number crunchers and I think
that’s the beauty of this game and one
of the real addictive things about this
game is you can do it by yourself I mean
in between games you can go home and you
can study and you can get better at it
somebody recently asked me can I be bad
at Dungeons & Dragons and I said yeah
you can you people can be bad at it you
know I think to people who are nervous
to get back into it like don’t be afraid
everyone that plays in my group my home
group we were all a bunch of guys who
played when we were younger who gave it
up for 20 or more years and are now
picking it back up and every single
person to a man says you know please
just yeah
take it easy on me don’t judge it’s like
we don’t care we were all that person
we’re just gonna help you and point to
what you know the modifier you need to
add to that role we’re gonna help you
out and that died yep
roll that one yeah we’re gonna help you
out it’s all good I love seeing the
light come back on and players that
haven’t played in a long time but with
that said it’s like you make your
character you’re gonna understand about
50% you play the first time I’d say
you’re gonna understand another 30s now
you’re up to 80% after you played one
game back in and then on the car ride
home you’re gonna go I should have done
that and that’s another 10% and then
when you crack the books during that
week leading up to the second adventure
you’re gonna pick up the rest and by the
time you get there for the second
adventure you’re gonna know what to do
thank you again Joe so much for the
interview I am your host Todd Kenrick
thank you so much for watching
@ToddKenreck. https://t.co/uuwzPK0I15 pic.twitter.com/ngwn40N2fi
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) December 3, 2019
Psychic Warrior (Darth Vader?) explained by Jeremy Crawford – Unearthed Arcana
Do you want to feel a little like Darth Vader in your D&D game? Then the Psychic Warrior might be for you! @ToddKenreck asks @JeremyECrawford all about the latest fighter UA subclass just released! https://t.co/jO6Tj018jq
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) November 25, 2019
Interested in some of our thoughts behind the material in today's Unearthed Arcana? Lead #dnd Rules Designer @JeremyECrawford sits down with @ToddKenreck to talk about the Psychic Warrior and our approach to psionic powers in 5e. https://t.co/ZEASyvRnlk pic.twitter.com/zTRHLOKsIa
— Dan Dillon 👥 (@Dan_Dillon_1) November 25, 2019
How UA ‘Class Feature Variants’ change D&D Classes – DnDBeyond
Take a closer look at many of the specific class options in the latest Unearthed Arcana with this conversation between –THIS IS A AN AUTOMATIC CAPTION TEXT from YouTube, so it’s not “perfect”.
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Yeah, so the Rogueand the Wizard are both
so solid in their base classes
and they have pieces that
all need to be there.
And with this UA, we wanted
to not force anything.
We didn’t want to put in replacements
or enhancements just because we could.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– We really wanted to be targeted.
And because of that approach,
the Wizard and the Rogue got just enough.
(Todd laughs)
Wizards are now gonna
have some versatility
with their Cantrips.
– [Todd] Right.
– There are a few spells that we added
particularly to help
the divination sub-class
but all Wizards are gonna
be happy to get them
if given certain character concepts.
The Rogue, they got one, but it’s a biggy.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– It is the ability
to use their cunning action to aim
thereby giving themselves advantage
on their next attack
roll on the same turn.
The trade-off though,
is they have to give up
all of their movement that turn.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– They can’t have moved
before using it and as soon as
they use it their speed drops to zero.
So, this really is for the Rogue
who is locked toe-to-toe
in malaise with their foe,
or the Rogue who is
safely ensconced in some sniper position.
– [Todd] Right.
– And also for the
Rogue, who is in a group,
maybe where there are
no malaise combatants
to help set Sneak Attack up.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– Many Rogues are actually
gonna have no need for this.
Because many Rogues are in
groups that have a Fighter
or a Barbarian or somebody
else who is setting up
Sneak Attack for them, round
after round after round.
This is really for that Rogue who
doesn’t have a malaise buddy,
they’re in fights where
there’s nowhere to hide.
– [Todd] Yeah.
But, by golly, they would really love to
be able to use their Sneak Attack.
And if anyone’s wondering, oh my goodness,
is this overpowered?
No, it is not.
The Rogue is actually
designed assuming they are
using their Sneak Attack almost every
single time they take a turn in combat.
– It’s the key, well, it’s one of
the key features of being a Rogue.
And yeah, if you’re going to
have friend within five feet.
– Well, but again, if you don’t
and there’s no place to
hide, this aim option
gives you a way to use your Sneak Attack.
We also had other intents for this.
The Rogue is designed in many ways
to be the agile action hero,
and of all of our classes
the Rogue is the person who,
let’s say you knock them prone.
And normally when you’re knocked prone,
you’re attacks have disadvantage.
The Rogue of all people, should be able to
line up a shot, while laying on the ground
with their hand crossbow and fire.
Being able to aim to wipe their
disadvantage away from being prone.
So, this,
this option, it’s one option
but its applications are
extremely powerful and appealing.
– I love it, it’s like being a Wolverine.
But yeah, the term,
the saying, a knife
fight in a phone booth,
comes to mind (laughs).
– [Jeremy] Right, right.
– Like this Rogue, that’s what the Rogue
should be good at, is
that kind of situation.
– [Jeremy] Yeah.
– You do all these wonderful things for
Rangers and Fighters and
I’m very excited about both.
I’m strongly considering
playing a Fighter now.
You just keep on giving
goodness to the Warlocks.
Which, I like Warlocks, there’s a lot
of juicy goodness with the Warlocks.
And there’s a theme in this UA,
to a certain degree, of helping.
I’m seeing this more
and more in your design.
Helping everyone else.
You’ve got a, now you have a Talisman.
And you, primarily the
function of this Talisman
for a Warlock, is to help somebody else.
To help them with Skill Checks, or–
– Well, no, the Warlock
can use the Talisman
just to help themselves, but it is true
that its full potential is unlocked
when you give it to somebody else.
– [Todd] Right.
– And this arose when we were looking at
the Pact Boon options that
are already in the game.
And people have let us know,
can we at least have another option?
‘Cause even though people
love Pact of the Blade
and Pact of the Chain
and Pact of the Tome,
it was like, maybe another one.
So, we had fun creating the Talisman.
– [Todd] We’re never gonna
stop asking for more!
– Oh, I know!
(Todd laughs)
But it,
it was non-interesting to us,
to design something that is essentially
just like the others, but
with a different aesthetic.
I wanted this to be functionally
different in some way.
To speak to a different play experience.
So that, also Warlocks felt
like they had more options.
That if you want to go the
full Spellcaster route,
you can often take Pact of the Tome.
If you really like the notion
of having a little critter
who is helping you out,
whether it’s a little
fiendish critter or a fey
critter or something else,
well, Pact of the Chain is great.
And if you really love
the kind of Warrior Mage
kind of aesthetic, well, you
can get Pact of the Blade.
What the Warlock was really missing
was the more support Warlock.
A person who has made a pact,
but not necessarily for selfish reasons.
And who might be using this magic,
whatever its origin, to help
not only themselves but others.
And so, the Talisman is a way to do that.
That said, we even provided
some support options
also for the Tome Warlock by giving you
the ability to save a friend from death
by having them sign their
name in your Book of Shadows.
‘Cause we wanted to do a
little, some more flavorful
things with the Book of Shadows
when we were doing this
on Unearthed Arcana.
– I love that.
It’s almost the opposite
of the Book of Death.
If you were a fan of the Death series.
– [Jeremy] Right, right.
(Todd laughs)
– But yeah, to write your friend’s
name down and that will save them once.
– [Jeremy] Yeah.
– Is lovely, and so narrative, it makes
the Book of Shadows way
more interesting to me now.
– [Jeremy] Yeah.
– The other one I am
totally in love with is
the one where you can cast sending.
Tell me about that, because that
is such rich narrative flavor.
– Yeah, so here you can,
again, if someone has signed
their name on the special
page in your Book of Shadows
that has to do with this
communication, you can communicate
with them wherever they are in the world.
And you write the message on that page,
and they hear it mentally
and then they can mentally
respond, and their message
appears on the page.
And again, it’s just, the Warlock is
such a fertile ground when it
comes to this kind of flavor.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– Always fun to design for.
And also, there are some more invocations
as well in this UA,
some of which are for the Talisman.
Again, there are the ones we’ve just been
talking about for the
Tome, and then we even
have one for Pact of the Blade.
– [Todd] Yes!
– Which is the–
– [Todd] Very interesting!
– Yes, it’s instantly don a Suit of Armor
and be proficient with it.
– Yeah, you got that little bit
of that Iron Man thing going on.
What’s interesting about it to me is,
’cause everyone thinks Hexblade.
But Hexblade is, because I’ve played
a Hexblade that was eight strength.
So, I had a very wispy,
skinny Vincent Price man
who could carry a fail fancy sized
GRPG sword (laughs)!
– [Jeremy] Right.
– ‘Cause you get to use
your charisma modifier.
But, so, elder charmer as an invocation.
You touch a piece of armor, any armor,
and you’re proficient with it.
That means Platemail, but Platemail has
a strength requirement.
– [Jeremy] It sure does.
– So, now you, I see that as an advantage
of maybe you wanna play a big,
buff Warlock (laughs), right?
– Yeah, yep, yeah.
So, you, it’s just providing more options.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– And that is again what this
Unearthed Arcana is all about.
New fighting styles also appear for
the Fighter, the Ranger and the Paladin.
– [Todd] Unarmed is very interesting.
– Yeah, yeah, because people
have, people have told us
they’d love to have a
character who’s very effective
with unarmed fighting, without
necessarily being a Monk.
Because the Monk is our
premier, unarmed fighter.
But we decided we would give an option
for Paladins, Rangers and Fighters.
We also give Rangers and Paladins
the option to essentially not
take a regular fighting style,
and instead learn Cantrips,
because some Rangers
and Paladins really want to delve
deeper into the magical
side of their class.
And this gives them that option.
– The extended spell list also,
again, there’s this theme.
The Talisman has this very like,
help your party, feel to it.
Now the Book of Shadows
has the same thing.
You’re helping with communication,
you’re helping flat out save their life
by having their name in there
and this is the character
I tend to like to play, but
I don’t wanna play a Paladin.
Right?
And now, you’re giving me the option
to be the Warlock that actually cares,
or is trying to help the party,
or has a loved one they want
to make sure is always safe.
Ranger now has Warding Bond.
I thought that was very interesting
because you could be a Ranger who is
just shooting arrows,
but someone out there
you’re now currently protecting.
– Yeah and,
we included several buffing spells
on the expanded Ranger
list for several reasons.
One, I love the classic
concept of the Ranger
going all the way back to first edition,
of the Ranger essentially
being to the Druid
what the Paladin is to the Cleric.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– And I think you and I
have talked about before.
The Ranger originally had to be good.
– [Todd] Yes!
– In first edition D&D,
there was no such thing as evil Rangers.
– Oh yeah, I was a neutral, good Ranger.
I showed you my original character.
I had wonderful premonition
for an eight-year-old.
– And so, I always love it when we
have a chance to lean into the
Ranger not just as the person
who’s roaming through the wilds,
but is roaming with a purpose.
They’re roaming to protect,
not only the natural world,
but also the people who travel through it
and the people who reside there.
These buffing abilities are
also there for the Beast Master.
A Warding Bond is actually a way
for the Beast Master to
protect their companion.
– [Todd] Yes (laughs)!
– And it is also a nice
option for any Ranger
who might use the Animal Friendship spell
to befriend and animal and then
have that animal as an MPC companion.
– [Todd] Right.
– So, some of these additions
are achieving multiple goals for us.
There’s again the broader
narrative of the Ranger as this
nature-flavored protector
but then also helping Rangers who
have beasts who are traveling with them
and they want to give those
beasts a chance to survive.
– That’s what I love about this UA.
And all of the UAs that
have been coming out.
There,
there is some great, juicy strategy
that you are introducing into the game,
but they have narrative and role-playing
consequence at the same time.
You’re getting all of it at the same time.
Giving a Ranger Warding Bond has so many
implications like you just mentioned.
And it’s lovely, I mean,
you also have the Talisman has an ability,
if you’re a Warlock and you use that
and you give it to maybe a Fighter,
not a Spellcaster, you,
they attack that person
who’s wearing the Talisman and they
can get shocked for psychic damage.
And then knocked back 10 feet.
If you’re putting that on a Barbarian
I mean, that’s just a
nightmare (chuckles)!
You’re just making him
even more of a tank.
– [Jeremy] Yeah.
And it’s more of this
players working together to
form this cohesive group
and I adore all of it.
It’s so flavorful and fun
and leads you down a much
more role-playing path.
– And that,
that interaction between characters,
those role-playing options
also are behind the options
that we provided in the
Bard and the Barbarian.
The Bard now has an option to enhance
Spellcasters’ spells
with Bardic Inspiration.
– [Todd] Yeah.
– ‘Cause, baseline Bardic Inspiration
isn’t really doing anything for a spell
that doesn’t involve an attack roll.
And so, this provides an option for
the Bard to assist their,
say their Wizard friend
or their Cleric friend or somebody
who’s primarily casting spells
that don’t involve attack rolls in combat.
The Barbarian really gets
a role-playing option
for one of their features,
which is the ability
to get rid of danger
sends, to instead become
and expert in a couple of skills,
allowing the Barbarian
player to lean more into
a Barbarian who maybe
is more than their rage.
– [Todd] Yes.
And I know most of us who
like playing Barbarians,
and I love playing a Barbarian,
are all about and love
that they’re rage machines.
But also sometimes a person
wants another concept.
And so, that’s here.
Similarly, with the optional
replacement of fast movement,
this is giving the Barbarian a chance
to interact with a tactical situation
in a way they can’t with
just a straight speed boost.
We know not everyone
is going to want this.
It is the nature of the
replacements in this
Unearthed Arcana that people
are going to, in some cases,
want to keep what’s in
the Player’s Handbook.
That’s fine, we designed them that way.
– [Todd] Right.
– We designed them so that you could have
a person at your table who’s using
the Player’s Handbook
version of a feature,
next to a person using the replacement
version of that same feature.
And they’re both going to perform well.
Again, that’s part of these replacements.
They are not like, once and for all
replacing what’s in the
PH, it’s a new option.
And as is again, this entire buffet
that we’ve been talking about.
– [Todd] Is there anything
that came out of this
that is a particular favorite of yours?
Personally, or are you not
allowed to play favorites?
– Ah, so, I am so often the parent
who loves all their children,
and so there is stuff
I love in every single
one of these classes.
And, I mean we have been working
on these for quite a while,
tinkering with them,
revising them, deleting.
I mean, there are actually a lot of things
that died on the cutting room floor.
And that’s the nature of design.
And so, this set of options
that we’ve presented
honestly, if I had the
time, I would love to play
a character who gets to enjoy using
everyone of these
enhancements or replacements.
– Yeah, what do you think that,
have you already started to see feedback?
Because this is a big UA,
this is like an event UA.
– So far people have
been very excited by it.
And I’m looking forward to getting
the survey feedback so that we can dig in.
My hope is that people love them enough
so that we can take
these to the next level.
Because again, just as
a DM and as a player,
I would love to see these
as a part of DMs toolkits.
That when they’re creating a campaign
and they’re considering what’s going to
be special about this campaign?
What options are available
in this campaign?
I think this set of
options are just gonna be
another great tool for DMs to consider.
Particularly to ease pain points,
to bring new smiles to
peoples faces about characters
that they might’ve been
like, I’ve been there,
done that with Clerics or
Bards or Rangers, but now suddenly see
these new options as like,
wow, I thought I was done
playing that class, but
now I’m all about it!
So, it really it, I’m hoping these will
bring fresh excitement for people
about these classes
that they already love.
@ToddKenreck & @JeremyECrawford! https://t.co/grjABvuZuu pic.twitter.com/b6IhiHDFpR
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) November 8, 2019
Replacements&Enhancements for Rangers and Fighters explained by Jeremy Crawford – DnDBeyond
The latest Unearthed Arcana class variant features for Rangers & Fighters gets a breakdown! – Now with the replacements
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in this UA, here is where,particularly, when you look
at a class like the Ranger,
we’ve been able to give alternatives
that people have been hungry for.
We have gotten feedback for a while
that people would like an
alternative to Favored Enemy
in the form it had in
the Player’s Handbook,
an alternative to Natural Explorer
and some of the other
features, and so, here,
we’ve offered up some alternatives.
They’re really saucy.
– They are very good, I will have to say,
especially if you’re playing
a Horizon Walker, where,
sometimes, the Favored Enemy
still made perfect sense,
but if you’re a Horizon Walker,
you go through a lot of terrain. (laughs)
– [Jeremy] Yes, yeah.
– Maybe some terrain isn’t listed, right?
– [Jeremy] Yeah, yeah.
– But ooh, Hunter’s Mark,
without concentration,
and without, so, (chuckles)
and it’s not even a bonus action, right?
– [Jeremy] Well, we don’t mess
with how you cast the spell.
– Yeah, yeah, that’s right, so, yeah,
so Hunter’s Mark, you can just do it.
You get spell components,
doesn’t take a spell slot,
and this is remarkable because
this kind of frees you up
to do smites now, which
Rangers have as well,
which I thought was very clever.
– So, yes, one of the
enhancements we do in this article
is adding spells to certain
classes, spell-less.
We’ll see what people
think of these additions,
and we’ll see if they make
it into a publication.
Again, this is a thing on
the buffet that a group
has to decide if they’re
gonna turn on or not.
This is not, these are not sort of errata
to the Player’s Handbook.
This would be–
– [Todd] This is UA.
– This is UA.
– This is a test session.
– And, no, but even if it, again,
makes it into a publication,
this is not an add-on
to the PH, this is, here’s an option
that your group may or may not turn on.
Now, I am really fond of what
we’ve done for the Ranger.
Like all UA material,
when we do class design,
we have not optimized
it for multi-classing.
So I do, I should say that
there is a good chance
that Deft Explorer and Favored Foe,
if they make it to our
next level of development,
there will be some tweaking to make it
so that they are not too juicy
of an option for everyone
to just dip into Ranger for one level.
– Oh, yeah, yeah, because a hunter,
immediately when I saw Hunter’s Mark,
what didn’t require
concentration, I’m like,
can I just do Variant Human, then get Hex,
and now layer Hex on top of Hunter’s Mark?
I’m like, no, because,
just because it doesn’t
require concentration
doesn’t make it not a concentration spell,
and that’s how I was just
fighting in my brain.
I don’t know–
– [Jeremy] But, no, actually, the–
– Oh, really?
– The game doesn’t have a concept
of a concentration
spell as an abstraction.
– [Todd] Okay, okay, so it doesn’t.
– No, the game is like,
you’re either concentrating
on a spell or you’re not.
– Okay, okay, that’s
interesting ’cause Hex
on top of Hunter’s Mark is mean. (laughs)
– [Jeremy] But again, I–
– But not optimized for multi, yeah.
– Yeah, it’s not optimized
for multi-classing,
and so the not having to
concentrate, that is an example
of something that is likely to change
in the next phase of development.
We often, and this is not only true
for this Unearthed Arcana,
but also for our subclasses,
we will often put things
out that are more potent
than we would end up publishing.
I’ve mentioned before, it is
actually far easier for us
to produce something that is
more powerful than we want,
and then, but see, do
people like the concept,
and simply rein in the power,
rather than producing something
that’s super underpowered
and because often to address that,
you don’t just fiddle with the numbers,
you often have to come up with new design,
which then has to go back
into playtesting, so in a way,
it’s actually more efficient
for us to present something
that’s overpowered and
then just have to turn some
of the numbers down.
Now, I also want to talk
about the primal beasts
for the Beastmaster.
– Oh, I love how you’ve done this,
because this is something
you and I have talked before.
You have now started to
include the stats for creatures
within the classes themselves,
and this is a great example of that.
Not only that, but you also provided
kind of the best ones, right?
Everyone chooses an owl, right?
Because you can do a flyby
and stuff like this, but yeah,
so you provided these awesome choices
for the Beastmaster, so.
– So part of the philosophy
behind what we did
with the Beastmaster companions
is I did not want us,
with this Unearthed Arcana,
to go too deeply into subclasses.
Part of that is because
that would have been a road
that would have no end, because the game
has many, many subclasses,
and it really would’ve
gone far beyond the point
of this UA, which was, its main goal
is provide some cool
options for base classes.
That said, I did want us
to give the Beastmaster Ranger something
because we know, in survey after survey,
this is the subclass where
people are most hungry
for some new options.
And so I had this aha moment,
’cause I was racking my brain,
how can I give people what they want
without actually changing
what’s in the Player’s Handbook?
And I realized, well, we actually do it
through the creature, because it’s funny,
technically speaking, what’s
in this UA is not a change
to the Beastmaster at all.
These are simply two
additional monster stat blocks
that the Ranger is free to partner with
as a part of their companion feature.
And they are designed
to work with everything
in the Beastmaster subclass as written.
I mean that was one of the
other design goals I gave
to myself and to Dan
Dillon and Ben Petrisor,
is whatever we design, again,
unless we make an explicit
exception, has to work
with the Player’s Handbook,
and the person needs to be able
to open the PH, look at
one of these options,
and have the two seamlessly lock together.
So people might wonder,
when they look at, say,
these new Beastmaster
companions, and then compare them
to, say, the Battle Smith’s Steel Defender
or the recent Wildfire Spirit,
they’ll notice that some of the scaling
that is in those other creatures
is not in these new Beastmaster
companion creatures.
The reason for that is the
scaling is in the Beastmaster,
and these creatures are designed, again,
to work seamlessly with
the Beastmaster feature.
You still use every word in it,
pair it to these stat blocks,
and you’re good to go.
I wouldn’t be surprised
if people give a thumb up
to these creatures, and I hope they do
because I think they’re a lot of fun.
I wouldn’t be surprised
if we ended up designing
another creature or two
to give Rangers a few more options.
I would also love to explore
doing this kind of thing
for other places in the
game, where you summon things
or befriend things, because it allows us
to design exactly the thing
that the person needs.
Anytime we throw the door wide open,
and I think you and I have
talked about this before,
to just, hey, go loot the Monster Manual.
First off, almost all of that’s designed
just for the Dungeon Master.
– [Todd] Exactly.
– So it is always risky when
we do that, and it also means
we end up having to be
way more conservative
in our design than we tend to be.
The Beastmaster is very conservative
because we’re so generous on just,
as long as you meet the CR specification,
go loot all of our monster books.
If we bring that, basically,
if those doors get closed,
we can then actually be way more generous
because we know exactly
what we’re giving you.
What I don’t know is if
we’ve talked about the fact
that this approach was actually
in the D&D Next playtest.
This was actually how we
originally wanted pet classes
and also the Druid’s Wild Shape to work.
– [Todd] Well, no, I didn’t know that.
– Yes, there was at least
one draft of the Druid
where the B stat blocks were in the class
and they were customized for the Druid.
At the time, it was too alien to people
who were used to being able
to go to the monster book
and get it, and between that point
and the book’s publication,
there wasn’t time for us
to get it right, so we
reverted to the classic way
of doing it ’cause it’s like,
well, it has been the way
D&D has done it for decades.
We will, and that, often, in playtesting,
if there’s not time to
make the new thing work,
you then have to revert to
the old thing you know works.
So what’s funny is this has
actually been an approach
I have wanted to be in the game
since before fifth edition even came out,
and now we’ve just, we’ve
had time to get people
used to it and to also do a better job
of showing the advantages of it,
because anytime you just
change something in a game,
the audience needs time to warm up to it,
to see, oh, I get it, that
I’m getting something cool
by going down this new path,
and really, this entire UA
is about providing some new
paths that I hope people,
when they start exploring, will see,
oh, this is really neat, I’m
seeing my character in a way
I’ve never seen them before.
– Yes, I’ve actually
experienced this multiple times,
especially with the Ranger.
Originally, my own character
started as a Ranger,
and this feels like very
much back to where he started
all those years ago, but
things I really liked,
incorporating a little
bit of the Bowmaster,
those abilities with fighters,
so now that you have,
you can actually get a bonus
to Deception, I believe,
and so, you can be a
very clever fighter now,
and now I can play this fighter
that isn’t just muscle and
swords and everything else.
I feel like there’s like more lead way
to customize the fighter a little bit.
– That is an example of us leaning more
into what’s actually in the
writeup of the Battle Master,
in the Player’s Handbook,
where we actually talk
about the Battle Master as
not just a person of brawn,
but also a person who has gone
through rigorous training,
and so the flavor text
is all there for it,
but when you get to the maneuvers
in the Player’s Handbook,
it’s all about combat,
and we wanted to show
that no Battle Masters, and
anyone else who has access
to maneuvers, can, as a part
of their training as a warrior,
have refined other aspects of themselves.
I mean, and people who
have been in militaries
in our own world know this to be true.
I mean, many people,
especially who have gone
through officer’s training,
are extremely well-spoken and
have all sorts of training
that has nothing to do with just combat.
And they’re also great
soldiers, but there’s more.
And so we wanted, in these options,
to show, and there’s more.
Maneuvers are also so fun and so versatile
that we wanted to give
all fighters the option
of dipping into them,
which is why we offer up
this new fighting style,
Superior Technique,
that allows any fighter,
if this option is turned on
in their campaign, to snag a maneuver.
Anyone can already do that
in the Player’s Handbook
using the Martial Adept feat.
– [Todd] Yeah, we can do the
feat, but now this is like–
– But, and not every
group use feat uses feats.
– [Todd] That is also true.
– So, also some of the
options in this document
are about giving people
some of the versatility
that feats provide without
having to use feats.
Because we know that a sort
of narrow majority of groups
don’t actually use
feats, and so, basically,
communicating to people, well, hey,
all the versatility
you want is right there
in the feat system.
That isn’t actually a
satisfying path for some groups
because some groups don’t want to interact
with the feat system.
This is another way for a group
to get some of that versatility
without having to dip into feats,
and also without having to multi-class,
because there are also many people
who love just playing a
single-class character.
@ToddKenreck chats with @JeremyECrawford about the replacements, enhancements & new spells for Fighters, Rangers & their animal companions! https://t.co/zXfUt5O4eB pic.twitter.com/H93j8g4kL4
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) November 7, 2019
On Nov 15th select UA will be archived: Brute, Giant Soul, Archivist, School of Invention & Arcane Weapon – DNDBeyond
On Nov 15th select UA will be archived: Brute, Giant Soul, Archivist, School of Invention & Arcane Weapon. Characters with that content remain usable but new characters cannot add the content unless it is recreated for private use. Visit https://t.co/DhMaAaRCyy for homebrew help! pic.twitter.com/i4iSjiDo1v
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) November 6, 2019