Welcome back to the weekly D&D and Tabletop Gaming thread! Here’s a place where we can talk about Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop games that you nerds might be into. Tell us about the games you’re playing, speculate about future expansions, recruit your fellow Avocados into new groups, whatever you want.
Last week, we got the first official look at “the future of D&D” with some playtest material released for the revised core rule books that are coming in 2024. WotC is referring to this as “One D&D” for now, and it seems like they’re trying a ton of new things, while at the same time making sure that it’s all compatible with 5e as it stands now.
Just to summarize some of the changes that appear in this playtest:
- Ability score increases are tied to your character’s Background rather than their Race. You can pick +2 to one score and +1 to another, or +1 to three different scores. Sample Backgrounds provided have ability score boosts assigned, though you’re encouraged to customize.
- Every PC gets a Feat at first level, also tied to Background.
- Feats will have level requirements, so at 1st level you’re only choosing from a subset of Feats, none of which will provide additional ability score options.
- Orcs are going to be added to the PHB as a playable race, and there’s a new race called the Ardling that’s basically a celestial version of the Tiefling.
- They’re changing the rules on the Inspiration mechanic so that a player gains Inspiration whenever they roll a Natural 20. Inspiration can be used to grant advantage on any roll. If a player already has Inspiration when they roll a Nat 20, they can give it to another player. Also, all Humans gain Inspiration with every long rest.
- On any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you will automatically succedd on a natural 20, and automatically fail on a natural 1 (previously only attack rolls worked this way). In addition, weapon attacks and unarmed strikes will score a crit on a nat 20–spells won’t crit, though I think they’ll still auto hit.
- Only PCs can score a crit, not monsters, and it seems like only the weapon’s damage dice will be doubled. This might mean Sneak Attacks and Smites are significantly less powerful, but its also possible that we’ll that addressed in future class-specific playtests.
There are also changes to traits from certain races, updated conditions, new feats and backgrounds, and more. What do you all think of these changes? Has anyone had an opportunity to really play around with them in-game yet? What other changes are you hoping to see (or not to see) going forward?
[spoiler title=”Players and Characters”]Wafflicious is back in the DM’s seat to continue our 5e Cthulhu Mythos adventure. Our players include:
- JosephusBrown as Anton Illinois (Human Inquisitive Rogue/Fighter), a disgraced archaeology professor who has turned to seeking arcane rituals
- CleverGuy as Bastian Updelver (Deep Gnome Alchemist Artificer), an eccentric local potionmaker
- TheHayesCode as Hazel Green (Dhampir Spirits Bard), a flapper, séance MC, and aspiring spiritualist
- Spiny Creature as Ku (Kenku Twilight Cleric), a local priestess of Bastet, goddess of protection
- The Wasp as Leah Zann (Tiefling Great Old One Warlock), a professor from Miskatonic University who accepted a deal with Yog Sothoth to get an advantage over her male colleagues
- The Ugly One with the Jewels as Minty Rocksmasher (Dwarf Berserker Barbarian), survivor of an eldritch accident which decimated her tribe[/spoiler]
No recap this week, because we didn’t have a session last Saturday.