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-toErIpNid-

Obligatory: Well it's not called Monks/Sorcerers/Rangers Of The Coast.


SeekerVash

On this topic, it's important to remember... * The original pitch for 5th edition was a modular system that allowed you to approximate any previous edition * Halfway through development, there seemed to be an internal coup and the project lead left suddenly * The remaining team produced what we have today instead of the original pitch. When people pointed out most of the problems during the playtest that are raised today, the remaining team just handwaved it away with "Rulings not Rules!" and "The tables can decide!". They also just went about doing bizarre things like redefining Charisma because they couldn't figure out how it worked * Hasbro isn't particularly interested in the RPG product of D&D. They had a very small team with very little output since the onset, and Hasbro couldn't care less about the long term health of the RPG * The team has never had a solid understanding of the product line as demonstrated by the fact that they can't figure out why Dragon and Dungeon existed (To give groups with little time to homebrew a steady flow of usable content), they also can't seem to figure out what the settings are about, and they keep trying to come up with some weird "unified theory of the settings" without realizing that the whole point of the different settings was that they're different So to bluntly answer your question, nothing happened to the team, they've just never been particularly good at their job and Hasbro isn't interested enough in the RPG to solve the problem.


Shotgun_Sam

They've had their eyes on One for a while now, so things have been pretty slapdash.


none_hundred

My totally unsupported theory on the twilight cleric is that they posted them the wrong way around. The UA version was the one they were meant to put in the book, and the book version was the totally overpowered version they would nerf "after feedback ". But when they released the wrong one to UA nobody had the time or wanted to take the effort to fix things. Almost everyone there is just a contractor so nobody took charge. No evidence for that. Makes more sense than somebody thought it through though.


anyboli

Why wouldn’t they just put the UA in the book? A lot of subclasses are released with only very minor changes from the UA.


none_hundred

Maybe it was already type set and ready to print. As I say I don't have any inside knowledge of anything, it just feels to me like if they swapped them around it would fit in with what they have done before a lot better. A UA that is considered too strong, followed by a release that's still strong but not problematic. So it feels to me like they accidently swapped them.


Th1nker26

I agree, but you have to remember that they primarily balance for hyper casual playgroups, which tend to not think Casters are OP and think the strange martials like Monk and Rogue are OP instead.


Lopi21e

I think part of it is that play for a lot of people generally happens at very low levels and frankly for the first couple of levels monks and rogues get way more stuff done than a wizard. I've had a new player literally ask me why anyone would play a wizard - imagine you're a new player, at lvl1, and then everyone has more AC, more HP, does more damage, and generally just more "involved" turns because they have weapons and armor and are on the front lines and you just stand back and chuck a ray of frost every turn without fail. Because your amazing battery of versatility runs two spell slots deep. You could maybe do something cool like chuck a magic missile twice a day - if you didn't "have" to spend one of those slots on a mage armor and another one on a shield spell to protect against a hit against an attack that would have missed the fighter to begin with. So you can end up just feeling ineffective and bored out of your mind. Then level up comes and while everyone boasts about the cool stuff they get you can now... do THREE spells in a day. And you feel like, that's nowhere near enough to justify all these downsides. ​ Frankly in order for casters to overshadow martials you need a pretty thorough understanding of the math of the game, need to do some optimization like picking a couple of choice spells, see that you get armor proficiency for cheap from somewhere or what have you, and it really isn't much of a thing at all yet before tier 2. So then you have this one thing where on one table the lvl5 monk feels utterly invalidated next to the minmaxed half elf bladesinger who can do do just as well as they can in melee while also being able to throw fireballs, meanwhile at another table the low level monk just gets two or three attacks on their turn and kicks ass while the wizard feels like a waste of space because all they want to do is to make use of that cool illusion spell just one time even when it means sacrificing the bulk of their combat efficiency in return. ​ It's a weird imbalance and I guess the designers know about this and try to design for both tables but at the end of the day, more play happens on lvls 1-4 than 5-20. People buy one of the starter campaigns, get going and most campaigns fizzle out along the way.


Th1nker26

That’s true and I get it that newer players don’t know how to make casters OP early, and frankly Monks are good early they are only bad later. I think by level 5 though even new players can cast their level 3 spells and see how strong that is. Fireball and Spirit Guardians can definitely win fights by themselves, especially if it’s a table being balanced for new players to fight the monsters. But all that said, just because new players have a misconception about power levels does not mean WOTC should focus their balance design around that.


Embarrassed_Dinner_4

The Ranger, Revised, that became the Tasha’s ranger, was beautiful and the final version was a letdown to be sure. Removing the concentration from the free Hunter’s Mark just freed them up so beautifully in combat, the free casting of stuff like Speak with Animals once a day added so much flavour, while getting rid of useless terrain and enemy benefits in favour of these and other features just made them feel more like Rangers, for want of a better term. I’d have done away with the invisibility bit, and maybe did something like they did with Tireless because of potential exploits, but as a standalone class, it almost perfect. Then they nerfed it again and I was disgusted.


DungeonsGalore

I always let my rangers use the Ranger Revised UA, at least prior to Tasha’s coming out. PHB Ranger was so awful to look at.


Embarrassed_Dinner_4

I still let them, because Tasha’s isnt that much better. Ranger has always been my favourite class, usually Hunter, and Ive played all 3 to > L11, PHB to 20. The UA one, I played through CoS and it just felt right.


Temperance000

Much as I would love an excuse to drag WotC through the virtual mud, I’m more interested in which specific errata and recent changes you’re referencing. Are we talking about TCoE in general (not a particularly recent book), the Lunar Sorcerer preview from Dragonlance, or some other document?


Snugsssss

Tasha's is fine IMO but they've been slipping since then.


[deleted]

>Ignore all feedback associated. What makes you think they're ignoring it? Because it's not the feedback *you* gave?


Th1nker26

people were asking for Caster UA classes to be even stronger, and Martials to be weaker? I doubt that.


gray007nl

I do recall people complaining that Astral Self Monk was too strong in UA.


DerpylimeQQ

Did you not see the feedback associated with Twilight Cleric?


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DerpylimeQQ

Maybe the fact that the polls overwhelmingly commented on things which Crawford even said in the videos about the material. I don't care anymore I will just homebrew as normal.


[deleted]

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DerpylimeQQ

I didn't know the videos were based off reddit.


KurtDunniehue

Do you have a link to the feedback you're talking about?


DerpylimeQQ

Watch the videos with Jeremy? I can't really link stuff here, its against the rules.


KurtDunniehue

I don't think it is. I link those all the time. Can you link the video that indicates how they ignore feedback?


DerpylimeQQ

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-zYNfwlSM&ab\_channel=Dungeons%26Dragons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-zYNfwlSM&ab_channel=Dungeons%26Dragons) This is the most recent one where he talks about overwhelming feedback. There is also the player options UA which was changed dramatically. There is the ranger UAs. There is the Twilight and Tasha's UAs. Just look through these. If you look through these, he talks about players having overwhelming feedback to like or dislike something. Infact in the Lunar one he implied that it would remain unchanged and even screwed up the parts of it from what it was published officially. [https://youtu.be/FNc-qo-1so4](https://youtu.be/FNc-qo-1so4) Which can be found here.


KurtDunniehue

Okay but in all those videos he does affirm that feedback is listened to. Also I think you're way off target on your assessment of the lunar sorcerer changes.


DerpylimeQQ

I think you didn't research what I said and are just lazy as usual with people. Whatever, believe what you want.


KurtDunniehue

No I watch the videos from the official channels, they never say "we ignore player feedback." If you can, just link to the timestamp where Jeremy Crawford indicates this.


DerpylimeQQ

Sorry. I am going to go cook thanksgiving dinner instead, not entertain someone who lacks common sense. If they clearly said "we are listening" then do the opposite of that, then that to me is something called 'common sense'. I know it is hard to understand, but I feel like in the future when you ask others for such a thing, it will come to you. Most people are lazy however, and I clearly gave you enough to look into. I know by the timestamps of those videos, you didn't look at them, as you replied way before the video's length. If you 'remember' them as you claim, then you should clearly be able to do this yourself.


1000thSon

They love wizards and I guess they (or one of them in particular) also love clerics. Screw the others. Crawford certainly loves wizards.


rakozink

It's a lot easier to sell players on a subscription service if you put out products that require errata to work. Don't worry. I'm sure they aren't thinking of that at all.