He/Him
The closer we get to release, the more I worry that their decision to make this a backwards-compatible revision that also has its own entire set of rules changes, subclasses, magic items, monsters, and adventures is going to leave everyone unhappy.
I did some math to see how good Sorcerous Burst is on average, now that it’s a d8. Because these are averages, I’m only looking at additional bonus dice added from the base dice, because the chances of rolling a second round of bonus dice is so minuscule (even at lvl17) that they don’t affect the average damage significantly.
From levels 1-4, you roll 1d8 as a base, which means you have a 12.5% chance to roll one 8 and get a bonus damage dice. Each 1d8 has an average damage of 4.5, so your average damage is 4.5 + (12.5%)(4.5) = 5.06. That’s still less than a Firebolt’s average of 5.5, but you do get to change your damage type every turn AND you’re more likely to do 10 or more damage than a Firebolt (10% chance of 10 damage, vs (12.5%)(87.5%) = 10.9% chance of rolling an 8 and then at least a 2 to deal 10+ damage). At the same time, Sorcerous Burst is much more likely to do negligible damage than a Firebolt. A 5e goblin has 7 HP, for example. If you hit one with Firebolt, you have a 4/10 = 40% chance to deal at least enough damage to kill it with one shot from full health. If you hit one with Sorcerous Burst, however, you have a 2/8 = 25% chance to deal enough damage to kill them.
From levels 5-9, you roll 2d8, which gives you a 21.88% chance of rolling exactly one 8, and a 1.56% chance of rolling two 8s, for a total average damage of 10.13 (vs Firebolt’s 11). At lvl11, the average damage goes to 15.19 (vs 16.5), and at lvl17 it goes to 20.25 (vs 22). So it’s the same pattern at every level: Firebolt does more on average, but Sorcerous Burst has better chance to deal high damage, has a much higher potential damage cap, and its damage can be changed if damage type matters…while it also has a greater chance of doing a small amount of damage. It is, in short, a swingy and unpredictable spell, which is very thematic.
I think Sorcerous Burst is the right pick for a sorcerer looking for a damage-dealing cantrip. It’s not strictly better than Firebolt, and is more likely both to overkill its targets and to not deal enough damage when you need it to, but it’s also more likely to surprise you and deal way more damage than you thought it would. It’s also more likely to be useful as a damage-dealer in more situations, since you can change its damage type.
Oh good, they finally addressed how the “X Savant” (the wizard school discount feature) actually incentivizes you to not take spells of the appropriate school on level-up, and hope you find them as scrolls to copy them later. It actually does what it should do now: give you more spells of a particular school.
Also, Memorize Spell means that the wizard is now not only the best utility caster for rituals, they’re the best utility caster, period. Every weird, niche spell that could be useful but only if you happened to prepare it on the right day is now available to you with just a minute of prep time. That’s simply fantastic, I love it.
I like the idea of Studied Attacks…but at the same time, I don’t like how it makes it impossible to roll your 3-5 attacks at once, because the order of your attacks (and whether you hit or miss with a previous attack) matters.
You say that’s a problem, but it just sounds like you can double up your meme with a greentext
I don’t mind having to make “tough choices” in general, only when the obviously correct choice is boring and the suboptimal one is the cool fun one.
This perfectly sums it up. The problem is that increasing your scores needs to be pretty darn strong, strong enough to compete with a feat…but as you said, it’s usually pretty boring. A couple of +1s certainly add up and make your character more powerful on average, but a feat that grants entirely new functionality just feels so much more impactful and fun.
I would have preferred them to entirely separate stat growth and feat selection, but the OneDnD method of just making most (all?) feats into “half feats” is acceptable as well.
I genuinely hope this results in healthy competition for D&D. That can only result in better content and games for us as players.
Love this classic.
In order for subclasses to feel impactful and varied, they do need to change how you play pretty significantly…but that means they need to have a pretty hefty set of abilities right when you first get the subclass. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the classes that are the worst offenders as “most abused multiclass dips in 5e” all get their subclasses at levels 1 or 2.
Oh for sure that’s why they’re doing it. Subclasses require a bucket of features when you first get them in order to substantially differentiate themselves from the main class, which means it’s a big power jump. All the most common dips in 5e (warlock, cleric, sorcerer) are classes that get their subclass at 1st level.
Thanks for the shout-out!
I mean, it’s right in the name isn’t it? Seems perfect.
Honestly it sounds a lot like the Heroic Inspiration system from the OneDnD playtest material. Mostly the part about getting one every session (human characters get one for free every long rest) and having more defined reasons for a DM to hand it out.
This feature really is lackluster, especially given how it initially looks pretty strong.
How about something like the Nature Cleric’s 6th level ability, Dampen Elements, reworked into an Aura?
Starting at 7th level, when you or a creature within 10 feet of you takes acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, you can use your reaction to grant resistance to creatures of your choice within 10 feet of you against that instance of damage.
So, it’s more limited in range than the cleric’s (10’ vs 30’), but you have the option of applying it to multiple people if they all get hit by the same elemental damage, so it should still work for spells. Shame it won’t work against Magic Missile or other force / bludgeoning damage spells anymore though. Maybe you could put “force” in there as another option…but that could probably lead to cheese, since on-demand resistance to force is likely to open up some abusive interactions (like make Staff of the Magi a much less suicidal nuke).
It’s also balanced somewhat by the fact that a paladin’s reaction is more useful than a cleric’s usually.
idk where I thought that was going, but I definitely did not expect “grognard” to be linked to an elite fighting unit lol…
Hey, if anyone wants to mod it, I’ll make it
Now that’s just a really cool story that I’ve never heard before, thanks!
Of course it has to be this one first XD
They probably mistyped “immoral”.