D&D 2024 News Roundup - Wizard, Warlock, and Early Access

[@RobearRich]

I’m disappointed we lost the ability for warlocks to choose their main casting stat. To me, the Warlock seems like it should be able to fit into any other class. It is someone who is willing to bind themselves to a supernatural entity to accomplish a goal. I’d say you do it by subclass. Maybe Fiend and Great Old One could be Charisma or Intelligence because it’s a common trope for intelligent people to make deals with things they don’t understand for more knowledge/power. Celestial and Fey would be Wisdom or Charisma because I could see Druids or Clerics easily wanting to go into these classes thematically. Charisma is always available but then the others depend on what you choose.

[@the_twig131]

Yeah, the WISlock was really cool, I'm sad to see it go. I'm sad to see almost everything from PT5 Warlock go though.

[@vortigern7021]

hopefully the playtest warlock could be a base for a new class in the future. I really liked it but understand the backlash.

[@malmasterson3890]

Personally, I think a class structure like that should stick to homebrew tables. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of it too, but putting it in the base rules will inevitably cause headaches unless they make the features much worse, which was partly what they did. If you have a great flavor reason for it though or you just have a fun build that your DM approves of it'd be cool.

[@ElManReborn616]

WotC changes Poisonous Snake to Venomous Snake Most people: Zoologists: **THANK YOU!!!**

[@the_twig131]

Yep, it was really good damn irritating.

[@normal6483]

I can't wait for Agonizing Magic Stone to allow 1d6+Cha+Cha attacks, especially in conjunction with magic slings or buddies who can throw the stones for you. If Magic Stone doesn't change at all, it might be the most effective tactic available to Warlocks. I wonder if the new Pact of the Blade invocations will also allow the sling to become a super weapon? Either way, it's perfect for a King David build, especially if you pick Celestial Patron.

[@the_twig131]

I think that Magic Stone probably won't be in the PHB. Not impossible, but it's probably a low priority spell. It's my absolute favourite spell in the game though. Agonizing Magic Stone and Shillelagh are probably going to be pretty good, assuming that they do work.

[@Zr0din]

Slap the keyboard in case they are watching!

[@the_twig131]

We're always watching...

[@galdeveer]

Gonna be honest. Not what I thought you were going to do with the dagger.

[@the_twig131]

I had many plans prepared...

[@Lathaon]

Ooh, good idea with the trial for early access!

[@torinsmith9867]

Rangers should be able to do an aragorn and let them know the locations of every creature within a mile. Limited number of times per day.

[@the_twig131]

A Ranger version of Paladin's Divine Sense would fit really well.

[@ice8433]

The only news channel worth watching

[@pederw4900]

Howdy do folks it’s a news roundup

[@arcanerecovery2567]

Too much is now tied to Hunter's Mark... what if I never use that sub par and useless spell... is my Ranger just a dud then? Do they actually suck worse than before?

[@the_twig131]

No, they definitely don't. (Almost) all of the Hunter's Mark stuff is additional. They are no worse than in Tasha's (which was fine), but have extra stuff specifically for people who do use HM.

[@arcanerecovery2567]

@@the_twig131 good to know I can still play an optimal ranger without having to waste my time with HM, thank you for your prompt reply.

[@jinxtheunluckypony]

This week was a lot less inspiring than last. I was really hoping the Moon Druid reveal would come along with them announcing a buff to Wild Shape’s hit rate. With your elemental forms being taken away a high level Moon Druid won’t be able to hit anything while wild shaped.

[@shadow-faye]

You're making a lot of assumptions about the monsters

[@the_twig131]

I think that a lot of it is down to the fact that this week didn't have any content creator releases, and the Rogue had basically nothing new. That meant that we basically got 1/3 of the new content that we got last week. Wild Shape is pretty disappointing though, I'm mostly just sad that they didn't end up doing templates. Not the playtest templates because they sucked, but more of a "build your own Wild Shape" style template, where you could pick from a list of enhancements.

[@Lathaon]

I found the Ranger pretty disappointing, personally. I don't usually take Hunter's Mark. The combination of costing a resource, having a long duration, and requiring concentration, means it feels wasteful to let it end early. But it isn't a very interesting spell, and there are other concentration spells on the ranger list that I don't like feeling locked out of using for whole hours at a time. So, new Ranger having multiple features revolving around it is not a welcome change as far as I'm concerned. Also, I don't like how so much of the Ranger-specific flavour has been stripped away. If you ignore the names and flavour text and just look at the mechanics, Deft Explorer and Nature's Veil could easily be mistaken for Rogue features. Meanwhile, more Rangery features like Primeval Awareness and Land's Stride are just gone. (Yes, I know Primeval Awareness was bad, but I liked the concept of it and would have appreciated some minor adjustments to make it more useful rather than a "Just use your spellcasting")

[@the_twig131]

The Hunter's Mark stuff is really odd. It's not a great spell, so for a lot of builds, you just sort of have 4+ features which do basically nothing. It's not bad having them, you just get a bunch of levels with boring stuff.