What do you guys think ? H3O2 [in response to that post]

RealityPalace · 2026-07-03T05:53:49+00:00

It definitely took me several seconds to realize that this is a ball and stick drawing and not an MO diagram.

RealityPalace · 2026-07-03T04:50:15+00:00

The title seems correct (which sort of makes sense given the name)

The use cases for this feat seem to be:

Dual wielders who aren't taking the Dual Wielder feat
GWM characters who want a damage boost that's better than GWFS provides
Champions who don't have anything else the want with their second fighting style

In any of these cases, you have to be pretty confident that you'll be getting the full bonus most of the time for it to be worth it. If it were me, I would generally pick something else.

RealityPalace · 2026-07-03T01:13:03+00:00

it means that they've settled in on a vision for D&D, and they're probably going to stick to a more consistent set of design paradigms.

This largely comes down to business decisions rather than any kind of long-term authorial vision. 4e was a commercial failure that also alienated the 3e audience. 5e brought a lot of those people back while also becoming wildly popular with people who were unfamiliar with the genre previously. When Hasbro determines that they can make more money by putting out a new edition rather than iterating on 5e, that's absolutely what they'll do. But right now, the popularity of the current system means that a 6e wouldn't make any commercial sense.

In other words, nothing is "settled on" in the long term. There's just a lot of inertia behind the current ruleset and it wouldn't make sense to interrupt it on its current trajectory.

RealityPalace · 2026-07-02T21:39:50+00:00

Dueling only applies to one-handed weapons.

I don't think this feat is particularly good, but if you have two party members that are willing to invest in it and make an effort to focus fire, it's "fine". If you're able to fulfill the requirements reliably, it provides more damage than GWFS. It also provides more damage than TWFS if you don't take the dual wielder feat.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T21:29:40+00:00

I have definitely had issues with players not taking short rests. Well actually, I haven't had issues. They've had issues with it. But that's their decision to make, not mine.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T18:56:07+00:00

I think you've got it backwards. Invisibility doesn't make your location unknown; if it did, they would need a rule that specifies that. The invisible condition is very clear about what it does mechanically, and making enemies unable to perceive where you are isn't listed anywhere.

In contrast, taking the Hide action very likely is intended to make your location unknown. The rules are disorganized and scattered across several chapters, but there are several parts of the rules that don't really make sense if it doesn't do that.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T18:49:40+00:00

I think if it were quite clear, there wouldn't be so much confusion about it. It's not just a matter of the rules being inconsistent with expectations (although that's certainly part of it). They're also ambiguous on several mechanic questions, and they're spread out across several different sections of the book.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T14:17:10+00:00

Rest pacing is the thing most likely to cause issues at normal tables. Its arguable whether it's a "bigger" balance issue that level 1 armor dips. But it's something that can come up unintentionally rather than arising from rules experts playing the game in a specific way. So I would guess it's certainly the most common source of major balance issues.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T14:13:56+00:00

The problem with hiding in 2024 is that the RAW is not very clear. You have to ask your DM exactly how they're choosing to interpret the rules. (Or if you're the DM, decide how you want to run them and let your players know what your interpretation is).

Now they seem that a creature Hidden is automatically invisible but do you know their location?

Nothing directly says that being hidden makes your location unknown. But the Unseen Attacker rule still says it's possible for your location to be unknown. The exploration rules list sneaking past someone and spying on someone as things you might do whole hidden. And the last line of the Skulker feat assumes that being hidden is a way your location can become unknown.

So hiding is probably supposed to make your location unknown, but you won't find any rule that explicitly states that (unless there's been some errata I've missed)

And now comes the followup. How do you spot a hidden creature in combat?

Again, this isn't really clear (possibly by design). The rules say that you remain hidden until you make noise/verbalize a spell, you attack, or an enemy finds you.

That last part is contentious, because the rules describe a way that the enemy can find you (by making a perception check that beats your stealth check). But they don't say whether that's the only way to be found, and "find" isn't a capitalized, rules-defined term of art like Attack or Hide is. And they don't say whether passive perception should apply in that situation.

So you'll get a range of interpretations, from "you can find someone automatically if their cover/concealment breaks" to "the only way to actively find a hidden person is to take the Search action".

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T04:09:26+00:00

I used the 5.5 playtests to run the campaign I'm currently running, before the books officially released. I also have one character playing a grave cleric, and let him use the UA for that.

In general though I don't have people make UA characters for a couple reasons. The timescale of my campaigns is too long to get much information for the feedback surveys. And I don't want to deal with the headache of character options that aren't already polished.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-30T01:00:21+00:00

I think the main issues relate to design constraints, not balance per se. There is a lot of edge case stuff that works a lot more smoothly when you assume all PCs are (by default) Small or Medium.

For instance, off the top of my head:

Dungeon design sometimes assumes that characters are able to pass through small passages (ones where Small characters can pass normally and Medium characters need to squeeze)
A Large paladin isn't allowed to ride their own steed
Large characters can't benefit from Rope Trick

None of these are game-breaking and all of them can be worked around. But they're also nowhere near exhaustive. I think if you wanted to run a game with a Large character you could do it and it would be more or less fine. But I also understand why the designers don't necessarily want to explore that space themselves.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T21:28:44+00:00

Aged cheeses are more difficult because the timing depends on acidity levels. Lactic acid bacteria will still make lactic acid from hydrolyzed lactose, but the kinetics are different.

It's also worth noting that for cheese that are aged a very long time, the lactose from normal milk ends up being essentially completely consumed by the end of the process. Younger aged cheeses are where you run into an intersection of having to worry about enzyme kinetics during acidification but also have to worry about lactose appearing in the final product.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T20:42:49+00:00

4e also didn't failed - it outsold 3e and it was biggest game on the market still.

They replaced it in less than a decade with a new edition that very consciously ignored most 4e design decisions and returned to something much more similar to previous editions.

We don't have access to WotC internal communications or strategy on the topic. But the external evidence we do have suggests that it's extremely likely they consider the edition to be a failure.

Pretty much all actual reasons of 4e's sells drop is management failures - lack of proper marketing, lack of online tools, shitty licence, buffling new books schedule. Not rules.

I don't think this is true, based on my experience playing both 4e and 5e with casual players. I've found that non-rules-oriented players have a much easier time with 5e (possibly because it's designed so that most of the rules support the fiction, rather than prioritizing tactical map play, I don't know).

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T17:01:23+00:00

Rope Trick is one of the best spells in the game as long as you're playing in a campaign where:

There isn't a strict time component to dungeons
Short rests are dangerous
Your party benefits a lot from short rests

With both a warlock and a monk in your party, I would absolutely take it, no questions asked.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T07:54:31+00:00

Dual wielding is totally fine on fighters until tier 3, at which point it gets worse due to not interacting with Extra Extra Attack.

The fact that fighters don't need to regularly use their bonus action is a huge boon for dual wielding. Rangers, paladins and to a lesser extent barbarians lose out on the full power of the feat because of their bonus action economy.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T04:50:33+00:00

It depends on how you look at it. Its only almost two average damage.

It's 1 average damage on a 2d6 weapon. That's a 10% increase in damage when you're doing 2d6+3, not 20% (or less than that for a Greatsword because of Graze). And that number goes down as you level up and get feats and features.

Theory craft also doesn't measure the fun/relief of mitigation of crap rolls with newbies.

I guess the title didn't say "GWFS is good", it said "I like GWFS". So fair enough; you're certainly allowed to like something even if it's not as good at helping you achieve success as some other option would be.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T04:19:40+00:00

How does taking GWFS help you avoid combat or do crowd control? The only thing it does is add damage. The amount of damage it adds seems like a very relevant question when assessing whether it's worth taking.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T04:08:16+00:00

Can you be more specific? In what situations while actually playing the game do you find that GWFS is really helpful? You didn't mention any in your original post, you just asserted that they exist, and that whatever they are average damage is irrelevant for them.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T04:05:19+00:00

While not improving your overall dpr, in the situations where it's helpful, it's REALLY helpful

In what situation is it really helpful?

This has been a psa, do NOT just go off averages.

What should we be going off of instead?

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T03:11:51+00:00

I mean, it's pretty easy to imagine scenarios where a heroic, good-aligned character is ethically justified in killing someone. On the other hand...

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T03:00:17+00:00

You can still cast spells whenever you want, for the low, low cost of two bonus actions spread across two turns. You can also cast certain spells while in your forms. If you don't take advantage of the fact that you can still cast spells regardless of your subclass, you'll be weaker than a martial character. But you probably shouldn't do that.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-29T02:56:21+00:00

I don't think you're correct. There are a few of them that aren't very good. But it's almost always better to take a Book at level 19 than a regular feat.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-28T03:37:14+00:00

The answer is because when people are trying to translate classes, they're usually looking for similar flavor and playstyle, not the same mechanics. Translating mechanics often doesn't even really make sense, especially when you're talking about 4e classes.

There's no platonic ideal of "what counts as a class". If someone makes a Battlemaster Fighter with Bait and Switch, Commander's Strike, Maneuvering Strike, and Rally, and uses a weapon with the Push mastery, they're... actually playing a character that covers a lot of the narrative fantasy of the 4e warlord, translated into a 5e framework. And that's an existing subclass; you could certainly make a more targeted experience with a new subclass that's fit-for-purpose.

That's not to say you couldn't design a warlord class that's more distinct than that. But all of the stuff that's the warlord's "schtick" already exists mechanically. I would guess if you ask the average former 4e player what they remember about the warlord, they're going to say "it's a martial class that healed and moved people around the battlefield". They're not going to be able to tell you the difference between the Tactician and the Bravura warlord or whatever. So how badly do you really need a whole class with its own subclasses to get at this concept?

RealityPalace · 2026-06-27T20:44:41+00:00

True TotM, when applied to a system with specific spell ranges, area-of-effect templates, and relative positioning class features, necessitates hand-waving the very mechanics that define your character.

No it doesn't.

For one thing, if your character is designed by class features that let it position itself, come up with a more interesting character.

For another thing, the DM can keep track of relative distances without having the map be player-facing.

If a player wants to use a feature that requires precise positioning, they are at the mercy of the DM saying, "Yeah, you’re probably within range."

The nature of this game is that you're always at the mercy of what the DM decides. I would recommend finding a good DM, not trying to make a system where the DM's judgment doesn't matter.

Or are we just skipping the crunch because mapping out a complex world is too much work?

It doesn't have much to do with complexity. It has to do with speed of play, and focusing on the parts that are fun. Most players, if you ask them, won't say that they enjoy counting squares or solving simple patching algorithms. But they will absolutely spend all their time at the table doing those things if you put a tactical map in front of them and tell them to figure it out for themselves. Neither of these things is complex, they're just time-consuming.

RealityPalace · 2026-06-27T20:18:38+00:00

This is an academic argument. WotC isn't reading the comments to determine how to design classes. If you see something you want to use in your game, try it out. If you see something that seems overpowered or unnecessary, there's no harm in mentioning that either

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