VenerableBede
Adventurer
Let's make this quick and cranky.
General Shtuff
Short rest continues to go the way of the dodo rather than being fixed, but despite proving committed to this decision WotC refuses to completely axe having features recover partially or entirely on a short rest. (This is also despite fundamentally changing one of the most iconic short rest–recharging abilities in the game—more on that later.)
Jeremy Crawford, if you read this, stop going halfway. Remove short rest or fix it. Personally, I'd prefer fixing, and here are, IMO, the three best options recommended by the general community:
Weapons
Gonna love play a musket-wielding Kensei gunk in the future, and since it's in the PHB I can safely assume it will be allowed at most tables.
Oh, huh, yeah, Weapon Masteries are a thing too, I guess. I like that martial classes alway get at least two AND can swap them at short rests—previously I was afraid you would get one and swap it never, which would just exacerbate the game's existing martial issue of "Pick one weapon on day one, never change weapons unless you get a direct upgrade in the same category, get butthurt if the DM takes your weapon way, doesn't give you a direct upgrade in the same category, and/or does give you an upgrade but it's a different type of weapon." (Granted, players should choose not to get butthurt, but it happens anyway.)
Long story short, this is decent and provides some options, and I like that it's always-on. Nothing world-shaking here, though. Wish Nick would get integrated in the main rules (for the sake of rangers and rogues) rather than being limited to weapon mastery.
Spells
Woah—pact boons are being granted in the form of warlock-exclusive cantrips now? And they automatically include invocations that were basically required to make them good long-term anyway? And they have other quality of life improvements that were sorely needed and that warlock fans have been begging for for ages?
Wow. I'm super excited and super hopeful for this being the best incarnation of the warlock ever now. dramatic irony musical cue
As for everything else:
Feats
Epic Boon of Dimensional Travel provides you with a powerful, flexible, reliable feature that's always on. That feels epic. Every other boon does not feel epic.
Also... c'mon man, this is epic level play we're talking about here. Get rid of the class restrictions on the boons. Why shouldn't my fighter have the ability to attack and then teleport after he's attained power such that he could kill many canonical deities? It's suppose to be epic, and that's epic.
Barbarian
Fellow barbarian lovers, I know math just doesn't work with you, but do this equation with me and smile.
Rage lasts up to 10 minutes and you have way more control over it not ending. That's pretty cool. Also, while Raging you have advantage on all Strength ability checks which, if I'm reading this packet right, is any skill check that uses Strength. Neato, but situational. Finally, at 2nd level you get Primal Knowledge, which, while Raging, lets you use Strength with a handful of skills, including Perception and Stealth.
In other words, you can get SO MAD that you see way better and hide way better (constant advantage on Perception and Stealth).
...
GROK THE STRENGTH-BASED BARBARIAN ROGUE HAS RE-ENTERED THE ROOM. YOU DO NOT SEE GROK. GROK CANNOT BE SEEN, FOR HE HAS HUGE MUSCLES AND IS VERY ANGRY. GROK SEES ALL, FOR HE HAS HUGE MUSCLES AND IS VERY ANGRY.
I love this. I absolutely love this. Please WotC, for the love of all that is good, let this survive the final draft.
...
Oh yeah, and the Berserker Barbarian is playable now. Still doesn't deal the kind of damage I imagine a no-holds-barred-frenzied-angrier-than-angry barbarian should deal, but it's a step in the right direction, and at least he doesn't suddenly get old and have to take a nap after getting mad once.
Fighter
Yup, it's a fighter.
Sorcerer
Was kind of hoping that these classes would get upgraded to prepared spells rather than memorized spells, like everything else. Oh well.
Most of my comments that directly relate to sorcerer are in the Spells section, but I will note that kind-of free wish is really awesome, the revised Metamagic costs (and being able to swap Metamagics is nice), the Draconic Sorcery changes mostly look great (the exception being replacing at-will flight with flight only active when you cast a subpar 4th-level spell, of which the minor additional damage doesn't make up for it)—and Twinned Spell metamagic was gutted, so nothing else matters, 0/10, please fix, Sakurai. Crawford. Morrus. Whoever. I'm not picky.
Warlock
SO MANY CHANGES that felt like the WotC team has finally been listening to the warlock lovers were completely invalidated by taking away pact magic and making warlocks half casters. This is not what we wanted when we asked for more spell slots. (This also breaks warlocks in ways potentially unexpected by the WotC team—warlocks have slower spell progression now, making some of their previously awesome spells really average or even below average when you now get them. This also makes the hex changes a lot worse, since you can't cast hex at your highest spell level, take a nap, and still benefit from hex all day while also having your spell slots, at higher levels at least.)
Warlock is my thing. Warlock is my jam. This is not a warlock. Pact Magic was the feature that made warlock awesome. It is a feature, not a bug, even if it doesn't appeal to everyone. People who hate warlock (usually because of Pact Magic), those aren't the people to listen to because they don't get it (and have other casters to pick from anyway). Pact Magic doesn't need removal, it needs refining, and some possible refinements already show promise on other features in previous playtest packets.
Refer to my suggestions on fixing short rests for significantly better ways to fix this issue. However, I do want to suggest what I think is the best suggestion for fixing Pact Magic: model it after the Cleric/Druid playtest packet's version of Channel Nature/Divinity. The warlock would need a few more uses per day than the channels, and would need the number of uses to go up at higher levels, but keeping the 1/slot per short rest recharge would help retain the flavor and uniqueness of the feature. (Maybe even let warlock recover 2 uses/short rest starting at level 11 or 17. Or 4 at 18. And while I'm dreaming impossible dreams, switch to spell points rather than spell slots and let the warlock cast spells at the level they want rather than always the highest level. This change will never happen because it will damage the simplicity 5e is going for and kill much of the warlock's beginner-friendliness, but I can dream, Harold.)
Please, please, please, WotC... un-massacre my boy.
sniffs
Let's look at the other changes while we hope that Pact Magic comes back.
Wizard
The slap in the face, the salt in the wound.
I get that Arcane Recovery existed before this playtest, but why in the Nine Hells do wizards retain a feature that lets them recover spell slots on a short rest and warlocks get all short rest recovery features taken away from them?!?!?!?!?
Cruelty of cruelties! Injustice of injustices!
Nothing else matters. -1/10, wizards are irredeemable.
In Conclusion
When I finished reading the Spellcasting section of the warlock, I turned to my good friend and said, "For a niche portion of WotC's audience, this is worse than the OGL debacle, and that's only slightly exaggerating."
General Shtuff
Short rest continues to go the way of the dodo rather than being fixed, but despite proving committed to this decision WotC refuses to completely axe having features recover partially or entirely on a short rest. (This is also despite fundamentally changing one of the most iconic short rest–recharging abilities in the game—more on that later.)
Jeremy Crawford, if you read this, stop going halfway. Remove short rest or fix it. Personally, I'd prefer fixing, and here are, IMO, the three best options recommended by the general community:
- Good: Make short rests short. 10 minutes is a number thrown out a lot. Anything longer than 15 minutes is too long.
- Better: Steal what Channel Divinity and Channel Nature already do (and what makes them feel really cool) in the most recent playtest; namely, MORE uses per day (so you still get decent use out of them if you never short rest), but you still recover one use per short rest.
- Best: Allow a character to meditate 1–5 minutes to recover a feature that previously recovered on a short rest. Limit this to PROF bonus/day (or another number that doesn't scale with level to help prevent multiclass shenanigans). (Admittedly, this kinda removes short rest from the equation entirely, but I consider that a best of both worlds solution.)
Weapons
Gonna love play a musket-wielding Kensei gunk in the future, and since it's in the PHB I can safely assume it will be allowed at most tables.
Oh, huh, yeah, Weapon Masteries are a thing too, I guess. I like that martial classes alway get at least two AND can swap them at short rests—previously I was afraid you would get one and swap it never, which would just exacerbate the game's existing martial issue of "Pick one weapon on day one, never change weapons unless you get a direct upgrade in the same category, get butthurt if the DM takes your weapon way, doesn't give you a direct upgrade in the same category, and/or does give you an upgrade but it's a different type of weapon." (Granted, players should choose not to get butthurt, but it happens anyway.)
Long story short, this is decent and provides some options, and I like that it's always-on. Nothing world-shaking here, though. Wish Nick would get integrated in the main rules (for the sake of rangers and rogues) rather than being limited to weapon mastery.
Spells
Woah—pact boons are being granted in the form of warlock-exclusive cantrips now? And they automatically include invocations that were basically required to make them good long-term anyway? And they have other quality of life improvements that were sorely needed and that warlock fans have been begging for for ages?
Wow. I'm super excited and super hopeful for this being the best incarnation of the warlock ever now. dramatic irony musical cue
As for everything else:
- Hex looks... I dunno. Giving you all of your bonus damage on one attack is nice for warlocks that attack less (which is mostly just the bladelock starting level 11, when every other warlock using eldritch blast gets three attacks per turn), but having it fight for concentration with other spells that boost your effectiveness way more means that I still won't be using it much. (Also, the bonus damage comes at the cost of higher level spell slots, which wasn't necessary with old hex.) But it also caps out at less overall potential damage increase. I call it a small net loss.
- All of the new sorcerer spells (and "new" in the case of chaos bolt): Aiiight. This does fill gaps that the sorcerer had. Why can't each spell granted as a class feature also be cast for free just once per day, though? Why not?
Feats
Epic Boon of Dimensional Travel provides you with a powerful, flexible, reliable feature that's always on. That feels epic. Every other boon does not feel epic.
Also... c'mon man, this is epic level play we're talking about here. Get rid of the class restrictions on the boons. Why shouldn't my fighter have the ability to attack and then teleport after he's attained power such that he could kill many canonical deities? It's suppose to be epic, and that's epic.
Barbarian
Fellow barbarian lovers, I know math just doesn't work with you, but do this equation with me and smile.
Rage lasts up to 10 minutes and you have way more control over it not ending. That's pretty cool. Also, while Raging you have advantage on all Strength ability checks which, if I'm reading this packet right, is any skill check that uses Strength. Neato, but situational. Finally, at 2nd level you get Primal Knowledge, which, while Raging, lets you use Strength with a handful of skills, including Perception and Stealth.
In other words, you can get SO MAD that you see way better and hide way better (constant advantage on Perception and Stealth).
...
GROK THE STRENGTH-BASED BARBARIAN ROGUE HAS RE-ENTERED THE ROOM. YOU DO NOT SEE GROK. GROK CANNOT BE SEEN, FOR HE HAS HUGE MUSCLES AND IS VERY ANGRY. GROK SEES ALL, FOR HE HAS HUGE MUSCLES AND IS VERY ANGRY.
I love this. I absolutely love this. Please WotC, for the love of all that is good, let this survive the final draft.
...
Oh yeah, and the Berserker Barbarian is playable now. Still doesn't deal the kind of damage I imagine a no-holds-barred-frenzied-angrier-than-angry barbarian should deal, but it's a step in the right direction, and at least he doesn't suddenly get old and have to take a nap after getting mad once.
Fighter
Yup, it's a fighter.
Sorcerer
Was kind of hoping that these classes would get upgraded to prepared spells rather than memorized spells, like everything else. Oh well.
Most of my comments that directly relate to sorcerer are in the Spells section, but I will note that kind-of free wish is really awesome, the revised Metamagic costs (and being able to swap Metamagics is nice), the Draconic Sorcery changes mostly look great (the exception being replacing at-will flight with flight only active when you cast a subpar 4th-level spell, of which the minor additional damage doesn't make up for it)—and Twinned Spell metamagic was gutted, so nothing else matters, 0/10, please fix, Sakurai. Crawford. Morrus. Whoever. I'm not picky.
Warlock
SO MANY CHANGES that felt like the WotC team has finally been listening to the warlock lovers were completely invalidated by taking away pact magic and making warlocks half casters. This is not what we wanted when we asked for more spell slots. (This also breaks warlocks in ways potentially unexpected by the WotC team—warlocks have slower spell progression now, making some of their previously awesome spells really average or even below average when you now get them. This also makes the hex changes a lot worse, since you can't cast hex at your highest spell level, take a nap, and still benefit from hex all day while also having your spell slots, at higher levels at least.)
Warlock is my thing. Warlock is my jam. This is not a warlock. Pact Magic was the feature that made warlock awesome. It is a feature, not a bug, even if it doesn't appeal to everyone. People who hate warlock (usually because of Pact Magic), those aren't the people to listen to because they don't get it (and have other casters to pick from anyway). Pact Magic doesn't need removal, it needs refining, and some possible refinements already show promise on other features in previous playtest packets.
Refer to my suggestions on fixing short rests for significantly better ways to fix this issue. However, I do want to suggest what I think is the best suggestion for fixing Pact Magic: model it after the Cleric/Druid playtest packet's version of Channel Nature/Divinity. The warlock would need a few more uses per day than the channels, and would need the number of uses to go up at higher levels, but keeping the 1/slot per short rest recharge would help retain the flavor and uniqueness of the feature. (Maybe even let warlock recover 2 uses/short rest starting at level 11 or 17. Or 4 at 18. And while I'm dreaming impossible dreams, switch to spell points rather than spell slots and let the warlock cast spells at the level they want rather than always the highest level. This change will never happen because it will damage the simplicity 5e is going for and kill much of the warlock's beginner-friendliness, but I can dream, Harold.)
Please, please, please, WotC... un-massacre my boy.
sniffs
Let's look at the other changes while we hope that Pact Magic comes back.
- Medium Armor Training is good. Now add shields or give Pact of the Blade access to the best two-handed weapons (which have the Heavy property), or both. Doing this gives bladelocks required tools for being secondary martials but still doesn't put them anywhere near outshining dedicated martials in their intended roles. (Except maybe the monk, but the 5e monk is about as tough as a wet paper towel and deals slightly more damage.)
- Eldritch blast is a class feature—good, it already effectively was. It only scales off warlock levels—ok, only people scared about multiclassing shenanigans will cheer.
- Hex is a class feature—meh. Provide something that lets you cast it at least once per day without expending a spell slot or requiring concentration (not as one of the world's most disappointing capstones) and you'll be on to something.
- The invocation situation is interesting. On the one hand, you get a total of 9 now (rather than 8), and several invocations effectively required for progression were automatically included in the Pact Boons. But this is balanced out by Mystic Arcanum being turned into invocations, meaning it's going to cost you at least 4 invocations to get back the spells you previously got automatically. That might be a wash, an even amount of give and take, but then again the changes to Pact Magic might make it a net negative since Mystic Arcanum in this new form is clearly being used to cover for slower spell progression. But then again, I don't see anything in this feature that would prevent you from using it to get two or three (or more) 9th-level, or 8th- or 7th- or 6th-level, spells that you can cast per long rest, which no one else can do. That will probably get fixed in the final draft (does it really need fixing?), but it's a really cool niche in this draft. (This also fixes the mostly terrible spell-granting invocations the warlock previously got, but that's an entirely separate issue.)
- Chainlocks can take an invocation that causes creatures they successfully attack to be Charmed; at least at my table, since the creature now views you as a friend that means it won't attack back, which I find hilarious. I like it.
- First-level feats can be taken as an invocation. Some first-level feats looked pretty OK, so this is a "Maybe solid." However, if this door is opened, how about let bladelocks get some weapon masteries using an invocation?
- Fiend Patron has its Fiendish Vigor feature nerfed so its only useful to bladelocks not using weapons with reach. Meh. Versatility was more fun.
- Patron spells automatically being added to your spell list—and you can cast one for free per day—is AWESOME!
Wizard
The slap in the face, the salt in the wound.
I get that Arcane Recovery existed before this playtest, but why in the Nine Hells do wizards retain a feature that lets them recover spell slots on a short rest and warlocks get all short rest recovery features taken away from them?!?!?!?!?
Cruelty of cruelties! Injustice of injustices!
Nothing else matters. -1/10, wizards are irredeemable.
In Conclusion
When I finished reading the Spellcasting section of the warlock, I turned to my good friend and said, "For a niche portion of WotC's audience, this is worse than the OGL debacle, and that's only slightly exaggerating."