5.5E Playtest Packet 3 (Cleric and Species)

Front matter
  1. The notion of “Primary Ability” used to be called a Prime Requisite in earlier versions of D&D. Given 5E’s attempt to evoke older editions, I’m surprised they didn’t bring back that terminology. I realize this was in packet 2 and I didn’t comment on it then, but it just stood out to me now.
  2. Class Groups might serve as limitations on e.g. who can attune to a magic item. That actually is a return to classic D&D handling of things like magic items – starting with 3rd edition, there was a move toward a more diegetic approach – character options were based on their capabilities rather than on out-of-game abstractions like class; there would have been a rules like “must be able to cast at least 3rd level Arcane spells” instead of “must be a member of the Mages class group”
Cleric
  1. Clerics are noted as drawing power “from the realms of the gods,” and continue that “a Cleric can reach out to the divine magic of the Outer Planes – where the gods dwell – and channel that energy,” to do their magical thing. This description is setting the expectation that a Cleric need not draw on the power of any particular divinity or group of divinities, unlike 5E’s expectation that a Cleric served a singular deity – a reversion to the 4e concept of the Cleric
    1. That’s better in terms of giving players options for the sort of characters they want to play, but it probably needs to be stated even more explicitly: the Cleric’s abilities may be granted by a divine being or beings, but it’s a one-time thing and there’s no ongoing dependence. Though this doesn’t work very well with the Divine Intervention ability…
    2. This also goes with the assumption that some religious officiants have no clerical ability. However, the paragraph discussing this is all about vague wording – it doesn’t try to give a sense of how common clerical ability is in religious practitioners in the default setting. I’m not looking for super-precise numbers here, but something like “the vast majority” or “over half” or “perhaps one in ten” – a real rough description of a fraction to give players an idea of how much spellcasting ability they should expect from a well-staffed temple in a major city vs one far off in a tiny village – if clerical ability is rare enough, we shouldn’t expect to be able to predict where one might find a priest able to cast Raise Dead. If you want players to be able to make that sort of projection, you’ll have to make spellcasting more common than a freak occurrence, at least.
    3. A more general aesthetic hang-up of mine: it’s weird to me that all Clerics are hooked into radiant damage. I’m a bit more used to classical/old school D&D, where the Chaotic/evil clerics tended to be on the Cause Wounds, cast-Darkness-instead-of-Light side of the fence. It’s weird to me that all Clerics are into radiant, radiant, radiant without an option to have Clerics focused on necrotic damage or effects. Someone might say this will come as options in some later domains, but I can only judge based on what’s before me now.
  2. Channel Divinity moves from being usable once per short rest to Proficiency Bonus times per long rest. This is part of the general trend of moving away from 5E’s use of short rests – I don’t think that’s a good idea, since it was a good point of differentiation for some classes and class abilities.
    1. In classic D&D, the only such ability Clerics had was Turn Undead, and there was no limit on how many times that could be used. I think that gave Clerics better niche protection than anything which has been done since – people have decided that Clerics are fundamentally healbots, but classically they were anti-Undead specialists with a side of healing (in OD&D, B/X, and BECMI, Clerics can’t cast spells at 1st level, but they can Turn Undead). I think giving Clerics the ability to do other things with their Channel Divinity has really hollowed out their niche (to be fair, so have a number of other changes which have made undead less intimidating as opponents – they used to be the only enemies who didn’t check morale: now no-one does; and undead used to be able to inflict effects like aging and life level drain: now even their reduction of maximum HP goes away after a good night’s rest).
    2. Now everyone starts with a Channel Divinity ability to direct energy into a single target within 30’, either healing 2d8 HP (trying to bolster the healbot niche), or doing that as radiant damage with a Con save for half damage.
      1. At 1st level, the healing effect seems pretty significant – one use is more powerful than a Cure Wounds, and with 1/2 the range of a Healing Word.
        1. It requires a Magic Action, which probably requires a full Action in general rather than a Bonus Action like Healing Word does in 5E…but presumably casting Bonus Action spells will also require the use of the Magic Action, which means sometimes the Magic Action is a Bonus Action and sometimes it isn’t. Unclear terminology strikes again!
        2. This seems designed to further push the Cleric into healbot territory…but only if the Cleric is confident they won’t run themselves out of needed capability to Turn Undead. That concern about exhaustion of a shared resource may cause players to refrain from making full use of this ability. This wouldn’t be as big an issue if Channel Divinity was a short rest ability (and if short rests were designed so that groups actually took them regularly; I think this is a key design failure in 5E, and it looks like designers have given up on trying to address it). It would also be easier to make Channel Divinity a short rest ability if uses of it – like healing – couldn’t stack indefinitely. Some healing effects should probably just give temporary HP…
      2. The attack option isn’t all that great compared to Sacred Flame. It does twice as much damage to start and gains a bit more of a damage advantage starting at level 13 (both add 1d8 at level 5, but Sacred Flame gets another 1d8 – catching up completely on damage via level 7’s Blessed Strikes), it targets a Constitution save instead of a Dexterity save, and it does half damage if the target saves…but as downsides, it only has half the range and it’s on a Long Rest refresh instead of being an at-will ability.
    3. Turn Undead itself seems mostly unchanged – it’s still a Will save affecting all undead within 30 feet.
      1. 5E used to require the undead to be able to see or hear the Cleric; 5.5 does not
      2. 5.5 makes the undead who fail the save dazed, until it takes damage or the Cleric dies or is incapacitated; 5E doesn’t inflict Dazed and the condition doesn’t end if the Cleric dies or is incapacitated
        1. Dazed is pretty powerful – it’s basically most of what the Slow spell used to do
      3. 5.5 prevents the turned undead from doing anything at all but moving, and they have to move further away from you. That doesn’t prevent them from attacking you if they can do so in some way that involves doing nothing but moving away. The 5E version explicitly forces the turned undead to try to get away “and it can’t willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you” – which could keep it from trying to move away if its movement is constrained enough.
      4. Undead Will save bonuses range from -1 (Skeletons) to +9 (liches). This means that, just like in 5E, it’s possible for a Cleric to try turning a group of undead and fail to turn skeletons in the group but succeed at turning the lich commanding them.
  3. The use of the “Prepared Spells” terminology appears to include Cantrips. That means even cantrips can be changed out after a long rest. That’s really only relevant at low levels – the Divine spell list has all of 6 cantrips, and a Cleric will be able to prepare 5 by 10th.
    1. Incidentally, Clerics seem to have lost Mending from their spell list – it remains for Arcane and Primal lists. I wonder why they took that away?
    2. You can prepare 1 spell per spell slot you have – tied to the same spell levels as well. You used to be able to prepare Wisdom modifier + Cleric level, which was slightly more at many levels, but tied at a few – albeit with a free choice of which levels of spells were prepared.
    3. The list of recommended prepared spells makes some choices which seem odd to me:
      1. Spare the Dying is used to stabilize people who are dying, but you have to be able to touch them and any effect which heals even a single HP will do the same and get them back up. I would expect both Healing Word and the Channel Divinity ability to handle most of this need – that’s 4 rescues per long rest at 1st level, assuming the Cleric doesn’t use their 1st level spells for anything else. I’d expect the Cleric’s cantrip choices to be Sacred Flame and 2 from (Guidance, Resistance, and Light).
      2. 1st level spell choices are Shield of Faith (fine) and Cure Wounds. Cure Wounds doesn’t make much sense to me when Healing Word is available unless Healing Word is getting nerfed – Cure Wounds heals an extra 2 HP per level of spell slot used – at 1st level it’s 7.5 vs 5.5 HP – but it’s a touch spell and requires an action and a somatic component, while Healing Word is a bonus action with a range of 60 feet and only needs verbal components (so you can stay fully armed the whole time). The bonus action part is significant – it means you can use Healing Word and still take a normal action (casting Sacred Flame, making a melee attack, or helping someone else – maybe even casting Spare the Dying if that’s called for).
      3. As someone who played a lot of earlier D&D, it’s weird for me to think of a Cleric intentionally not having any ability to bring the dead back ready to go as soon as they become available. I understand putting off Raise Dead – you can just prepare it after a long rest, just as you’d usually memorize it only as needed. But there’s no suggestion the Cleric should prepare Revivify. At first I thought this suggested list might be taking into account the Domain spells from the sample Life Domain in the same packet, but the prepared spells suggest the Cleric prepare Death Ward at 9th level, while the Life Domain gives it automatically at 7th level. So I guess the designers think you mostly don’t have to worry about folks dying in combat at lower levels (“lower” meaning “below level 18” in this case – that’s when they suggest you prepare Raise Dead by default). 
  4. Holy Order your choice of specializations: combat, lore, or magic.
    1. With Protector you get martial weapons and heavy armor proficiency. Getting heavy armor at 2nd level creates a minor low-level character build issue – either you knew you were going to take this option and dumped your Dexterity, probably leaving yourself at a few points lower AC than you would have liked, or you didn’t know and may end up feeling you wasted points on Dexterity. Making these sort of build choices after 1st level may be good at helping minimize level dipping (and note that this is one of the few ways a character who doesn’t start with Heavy Armor training can pick it up later; the only other one I’m aware of is taking a feat), but it can create character building issues like this. It would work better if the game was better about openly treating 1st-2nd level as tutorial levels for 1st-time players and encouraging experienced groups to start at 3rd level. Martial Weapon proficiency doesn’t have the same issue.
    2. Scholar – Gain proficiency in 2 knowledge-type skills, each of which gets a bonus to rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier. This has the same issue as Protector – the skills you’d have been most interested in getting this good at are the ones you’d probably have wanted to start with anyway, so these selections feel potentially wasted. The Wisdom modifier addition to the roll is nice, and interestingly it’s completely independent of your proficiency bonus or any class levels, so if you really want to be good at these lore rolls you can dip for 2 levels to get this and maybe Expertise from another class.
      1. If you choose the wrong skills for this – ones that don’t get used all that often – you don’t have any ability to modify these choices after the fact. Maybe this should just be the ability to add your Wisdom modifier or Cleric level (whichever is lower) to any attribute check which would use one of those skills, whether or not you’re proficient in them.
    3. Thaumaturge – prepare 1 extra Divine cantrip (which means at high levels you’ll just have all of them prepared all the time), and you regain 1 Channel Divinity use per short rest. This is the only option that doesn’t have weird build order issues.
      1. This is one of the few options which is putting moving toward rather than away from short rests.
  5. The domain is now treated like other subclasses and is selected at 3rd level. Once again this makes it seem like your character really begins at 3rd level rather than at 1st. I mentioned my thoughts about this under Holy Order.
  6. At 5th level Turn Undead becomes Smite Undead, the replacement for the “D” (Destroy) option on old Turn Undead charts. Now every undead creature that fails its save takes (proficiency bonus)d8 radiant damage (so 3d8 when you gain this ability).
    1. A basic zombie has 3d8+9 Hit Points, so this won’t be enough to take them down until you get to 5d8 damage, which means you have to be at least 13th level. A big step down from classic D&D. Skeletons will probably go down to this at 5th level, and Shadows almost certainly will (low HP and a vulnerability to radiant damage). The issue here is inflated monster HP.
    2. Creatures that aren’t destroyed outright will take some damage…which immediately ends the Dazed condition imposed by being turned according to the Turn Undead description. Additional text could be added to clarify this problem away, but a larger problem is that doing damage to turned undead incentivizes the rest of the group to try piling more HP damage on them, which then nullifies the effect of turning. Better to just have this vaporize weak undead and be done with it – it’s not like modern D&D combat ends too quickly or anything.
    3. Hey, guess what: this is the last class-based advancement to turning undead. All other advancement is based on your Wisdom modifier and proficiency bonus, so at this point you could multiclass to Druid and your ability to Turn Undead would keep advancing just the same. You probably don’t actually want to do this – high-level Cleric spells are decent enough you wouldn’t want to actually stop progressing toward them – but Turn Undead isn’t doing anything to keep you coming to church, if you know what I mean.
  7. Blessed Strikes at 7th level – you can add 1d8 radiant damage to damage a creature takes from one of your weapon attacks or 0-level spells. It doesn’t specify that the spell has to make an attack (which is good – Sacred Flame inflicts a saving throw), nor that the 0-level spell has to be Divine. You can only do this once per turn (but it isn’t necessarily restricted to during your turn), and unlike the feature some domains gave in 5E, this doesn’t increase to 2d8 at higher levels. This is…better than nothing, I suppose. This doesn’t require any commitment of resources like Concentration or spell slots and isn’t affixed to a target, so it’s better than 5E Hex in that sense (except for Hex’s synergy with Eldritch Blast).
  8. At 9th level you get another Holy Order. I don’t think you’re likely to add on Protector at this point – you likely committed to having a Dexterity bonus or not back at 2nd level – so now you’re either expanding your skills or magical ability a bit. I think Scholar is probably a better choice now – you’re 9 levels into the game, so you probably have a better idea which of the listed skills is most likely to be actually useful. Thaumaturge was probably too useful at lower levels where the number of cantrips you could prepare and times you could Channel Divinity were key limitations, but if you chose Protector at 2nd level I could maybe see picking up Thaumaturge now.
  9. At 11th level you can ask for your deity or pantheon to directly intervene on your behalf.
    1. The concept doesn’t play nicely with the idea of a Cleric not needing to directly follow a deity or pantheon, and I think this should really have the description updated to address that or it’ll be a stumbling block for that expansion of the Cleric.
    2. This ability came online 1 level earlier in 5E. However, the chance of success is so low and its potential use so infrequent that it doesn’t make much of a difference until it becomes 100% reliable – 20th level in 5E, but 18th level in 5.5.
      1. In 5E, there was a 7-day cooldown on a success; in 5.5 it’s a 2d6 day cooldown. That’s still a 7-day average. I don’t see the value in randomizing this. Also, the cooldown is awfully long compared to every other ability I can think of – is the ability powerful enough to justify being available only 1/7th as often as the Wizard can cast Wish, or is it just the color text about invoking direct divine aid that makes it seem like the Cleric shouldn’t be using this once a day?
      2. I think it’s weird that at 18th level the ability is called “Greater” Divine Intervention, since it isn’t greater in any way – just more reliable.
    3. Any Divine spell is appropriate. 5E used to explicitly indicate that any Cleric or domain spell was appropriate as an effect for this – does this mean that domain spells will never include non-Divine spells, or that any spell the Cleric gets via a domain will be considered as a divine spell for them (and therefore for this), or that domain spells which aren’t on the divine list aren’t eligible?
      1. For that matter, I’m still not sure how to read the claim that any Divine spell is appropriate. I’m pretty sure that it’s at least saying that spell level is no object – if the character makes this roll at 11th level, they may get a 9th level spell effect even though they can’t prepare or cast anything above 6th level. I’m less sure if this directive is meant to be exclusive (i.e. spells from the divine spell list are fine, but other spells are not), or just a suggested starting point (i.e. any divine spell is totally OK; don’t worry about it. You may also want to consider other possible effects).
  10. Life Domain
    1. Domain spells – because domains start at 3rd level now, they don’t grant any 1st-level domain spells, so this domain doesn’t grant Cure Wounds or Healing Word. That means a Cleric of Life is being pushed to double down on committing resources to healing, by both choosing this domain and also committing 1st level spell preparation slots.
    2. At 3rd level, casting a spell via a spell slot that restores HP to a creature restores an additional [spell slot level +2] HP to the creature. This is pretty weak for single-target spells, but considerably better for spells that heal multiple targets. It does help narrow the difference between Healing Word and Cure Wounds, making Cure Wounds even less optimal: the difference now becomes 10.5 HP healed via Cure Wounds vs 8.5 HP healed via Healing Word.
      1. This ability used to be gained at 1st level. Having an ability pushed from 1st level to 3rd wouldn’t be much of a nerf since levels 1 and 2 aren’t meant to last very long, except that it’s reducing available healing when characters have relatively low HP.
    3. At 6th level you can Channel Divinity to spread out Cleric level * 5 HP in healing amongst anyone you can see within 30’, but can’t bring anyone about 1/2 their max HP; this starts at 30 HP of healing and scaled (unlike spells, for free!) up to 100 HP at 20th level. Compared to Mass Healing Word gained at 5th level:
      1. Mass Healing Word is 1d4 + Spellcasting modifier + 5 (from 3rd level Life domain ability), or 11.5 HP expected, targeting up to 6 creatures within 60’. That’s an expected healing value of 69 HP (nice), with no 1/2 max HP cap. This Channel Divinity ability can’t match that until 14th level, but on the flip side it doesn’t compete for spell slots, you can allocate healing as needed, and you can benefit any number of creatures within 30’. Ah, and Mass Healing Word is still a bonus action while this is an Action. The unlimited number of targets within a nearby range makes this a good candidate for healing a large number of targets – a sizable group of nearby allies, for example, or summons creatures.
      2. This ability used to come online at 2nd level; now it’s been pushed back to 6th. That means the competition with Mass Healing Word used to be less of an issue because this mass healing ability was exclusive to the life domain for levels 2-4, and other Clerics only gained a comparable ability at 5th level. Now this is merely a nice extra.
    4. Starting at 10th level you regain 2+spell slot level HP when you use a leveled spell to restore HP to another creature. This is the same ability that used to be gained at 6th level.
      1. At 10th level if you use 100% of your spell slots on spells that would trigger this ability, it buys you 71 HP of self-healing, and at 10th level you probably have about 73 HP – this is just about enough to take you from 1 HP to full. But one use of your 6th level Channel Divinity domain ability would get 50 HP of healing, of which you could personally use 35, and you’d still have spell slots left.
      2. Note that you don’t get this benefit by casting the healing spell on yourself – it has to heal “another creature”. How this works with e.g. Mass Healing Word if targeted at both yourself and multiple other creatures isn’t made explicit, but I assume you get this benefit exactly once if the spell restores HP to at least 1 creature other than yourself.
    5. The 14th level ability to maximize dice rolled on healing spells is unchanged from 5E. Normally the difference between a Healing Word (1d4 per level of spell slot) and a Cure Wounds (1d8 per level of spell slot) is 1.5 HP/level of spell slot; this increases it to 4 HP per level of spell slot. While this makes both spells better, it has the effect of making Healing Word worse than it was by comparison. More interestingly, this doesn’t have any effect on spells like Heal which restore a fixed amount of HP. It’s odd the way this feature has the secondary effect of altering the relative desirability of various healing spells.
Revised Species
  1. Ardling
    1. Conceptually, it’s now much clearer that these are anthro characters rather than a celestial parallel to Tieflings.
      1. Ardling subtypes all seem to be based around different types of movement advantages. I guess if you’re trying to fit another animal type into the Ardling mold you have to decide if it flies or swims or climbs or default to it being a Racer. I feel like this is a fairly narrow set of molds.
    2. Ardlings can still choose to be Small while Dwarfs cannot, at least in playtest packets to date.
    3. Animal Ancestries
      1. These give a list of animals which fit each category, and are very clear about how that impacts your appearance.
      2. Climber
        1. Climb speed just keeps climbing movement from being slower than regular movement; it doesn’t actually help you succeed – if there even is a risk of failure (5E doesn’t seem interested in that idea). I think that makes this ability less interesting.
        2. Once per turn add proficiency bonus to unarmed strike damage. This seems pretty minor, and really only interesting to characters who are going to be making a bunch of unarmed strikes (i.e. Monks), but not necessarily a lot of unarmed strikes each round (so, under 5E rules a Monk who’s using a weapon and using their bonus action to make 1 unarmed strike).
      3. Flyer
        1. When you fall at least 10’ you can use your reaction to glide down and avoid damage. This sucks. I mean, it’s at-will non-magical Feather Fall, but you can only use it on yourself. But the real reason it sucks is that 5E has rules for flight (which is great!) but none for gliding. If it had gliding rules, you could tell people that this is essentially Link’s parasail from Breath of the Wild, only without bullet time. It wouldn’t actually be that good, of course – the very direct experience of movement in a video game and the relative freedom the parasail brings won’t be matched in a TTRPG – but it would still open up a lot of possibilities in terms of going places and having a flight-like ability without the worry of giving out true flight at level 1.
          1. The solution is probably to steal/adapt gliding rules from Palladium’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness – though frankly “steal from TMNT&OS” is generally the answer when designing procedural games where you’re playing anthro characters who are supposed to having mechanically significant animal traits
          2. A quick and dirty set of rules for gliding might be that while gliding:
            1. You move downward at 60 feet per round, which won’t result in any damage from falling
            2. For every foot you move downward, you can move forward a number of feet equal to your proficiency bonus.
            3. (note that this sort of gliding makes advantage on jump checks (below) a meaningful bonus, since it gives you a better chance to jump high enough to actually start a glide).
        2. Advantage on the ability check taken as part of the Jump action. This is allows you to Jump (as an Action, remember) without having to run 10 feet to avoid disadvantage. It’s still pretty underwhelming unless you have some actual use for jumping (like the glide rules I proposed, above).
        3. There’s no consideration of how your vestigial wings interact with armor. I suspect that’s because Wizards designers focus on mechanics within a theme rather than imagining how things would work diegetically. If this isn’t clarified to somehow not be an issue with armor or even  clothing, the Flyer type is probably a non-starter for most character classes – Monks, Sorcerers, and Wizards being the likely exceptions.
      4. Racer
        1. On a Dash, get a speed bonus of 10*Proficiency bonus. No units provided, but presumably this is feet.
        2. Good for characters who will Dash often (Rogues and to a lesser degree Monks) and who want addition movement for when they do (probably just Rogues). Probably not very useful otherwise.
      5. Swimmer
        1. Swim speed (which doesn’t make you more able to swim, just lets you swim without a movement penalty) – this isn’t that impressive.
        2. Resistance to Cold damage – this isn’t a big deal, but it’s something that’s broadly useful to a lot of character classes.
        3. Can hold breath for up to 1 hour – now this is a wildcard! Ordinary characters can hold their breath for 1+Con bonus minutes, animals that specialize in doing so (like whales) often top off at around 30 minutes. You can outdo all of them and there’s no spell that gives this ability. There are spells that give water breathing, or that allow a character to assume the form of another creature, but nothing lets a character hold their breath for an hour and keep acting normally. This isn’t particularly powerful, but it does have uses and it is a completely unmatched capability in the game, which makes it interesting. It would be better if the 5E designers hadn’t screwed up the poison rules and decided that inhaled poisons effect even creatures holding their breath because they do damage to other tissues. Hint: if it harms you without you breathing it, it isn’t inhaled – it’s a contact poison like tear gas, while an inhaled poison is more like carbon monoxide.
        4. This is the only Ardling type that seems broadly applicable across all character classes. You could make an entire party out of Swimmers and you wouldn’t be giving characters of any class a particular advantage or disadvantage, but you would be expanding the adventuring capabilities of the party as a whole – due to the ability to hold breath, they could go places that other creatures just can’t.
    4. You know a Divine cantrip which you can swap out after a long rest (it defaults to Thaumaturgy, but the swapping just means it has a starting value for players who don’t know what they want). Give characters Sacred Flame so they have a ranged radiant damage option! Give someone Resistance so they can use a reaction to boost a party member’s saves! The best part is the ability to swap out the cantrip after a long rest – you can’t do that with Magic Initiate. The only thing keeping this ability from being a bit too good is the very limited list of 0-level Divine spells.
      1. You also select one of the mental attributes to use as your spellcasting ability for this – really, just for Sacred Flame when you have that selected. That increases the number of classes this synergizes with
    5. Proficient with Perception to reflect keen senses. Actual real-world animals tend to use Advantage on some Perception checks to implement this. I have mixed feelings about this – it gives you one of the more broadly useful skill proficiencies, but in the process prevents a character with a dog head from being any better at sniffing things out than another character who’s trained to be perceptive.
      1. It’s nice to see more species who don’t have darkvision – humans were starting to look like a very oddly-limited species.
  2. Dragonborn
    1. Dragonborn entered the core books in 4E, and to be honest they’ve never worked for me. I have of course absolutely understood the appeal of playing a dragon person, but every implementation to date has left me cold. This one is much the same – I think it’s better than 5E’s implementation, but I still wouldn’t every consider playing a Dragonborn, while I could see making an Ardling.
    2. Creature Type is humanoid. This is the first thing I’d change – if you want to sell players on the idea they’re playing dragon people, make their Creature Type be Dragon. It has no direct mechanical effects, but the fact that the character is treated as a dragon by magical effects (albeit a human-sized, human-shaped one) would help sell the concept.
    3. You have a dragon ancestor which gives you a damage resistance and a damage type for your breath weapon. Simple and straightforward enough, except for one catch: if you choose a damage type that comes up more often in the game (say, you end up fighting a lot of fire-based enemies) your resistance becomes more useful, but your breath weapon becomes less useful, and vice versa if you choose a damage type which doesn’t come up often.
    4. You no longer automatically know Draconic. I think that’s good – that means it’s treated more like a real language that has to be learned rather than some sort of racial memory thing.
    5. Breath weapon: Only usable on your turn by taking the Attack action; replaces 1 attack with Fire Bolt damage that has a (small) area of effect and always hits but offers a Dex save for 1/2 damage. The save DC is based on your Constitution (which every class values, but not as their main attribute; and which makes some sense in-character). You can use this proficiency bonus times per long rest.
      1. Making this take a single attack means it’s intended to compete with individual weapon attacks in terms of expected damage, not with spellcasting (except for cantrips).
      2. The nearest point of comparison is Fire Bolt, but that has a single target and can miss completely. A dragonborn who knows Fire Bolt will presumably save their breath weapon for when they can target at least 2 enemies, so assuming a 50% chance to miss or have the enemies save, this breath weapon will probably do about 3 times as much damage in a single use as Fire Bolt.
      3. This now lets the character choose the form of the breath attack when used, rather than having that determined at character creation. This isn’t a huge boost, but it’s still nice.
      4. One major downside of this feature is that the player decides on their damage type at 1st level and then they’re stuck with it, even if they might run into a ton of enemies who are resistant to that type of damage. I don’t think there’s a good way to change that without changing the Dragonborn concept so that the character doesn’t appear to have a single type of Dragon as an ancestor.
    6. Darkvision. For all I think this feature is too common it makes sense on dragon people. If anything, I’d prefer to see it taken away from most elves and other non-subterranean creatures…
    7. Draconic Flight – up to 10 minutes of flight that don’t require concentration; not available until 5th level and only usable once per long rest at that point no matter the character’s level.
      1. I’m calling out the limit on use because this feature is being treated like a competitor to the Fly spell – neither is available until 5th level. However, an arcane caster will be able to cast Fly more times per long rest as they gain levels; the Dragonborn’s feature never improves once they’ve gained it. That would be fine – species abilities are generally less significant than class features – but for the Aarakocra, who give a superior flying ability (50 feet instead of equal to your speed, no time, concentration, or use per day limits, but there are some restrictions on armor). This isn’t necessarily a fair comparison: in any campaign where it matters how well and often a character flies the Aarakocra is far and away the most powerful species.
        1. It will be interesting to see if and how the Aarakocra are modified. If they aren’t, that suggests the designers see this flight ability as fairly insignificant, with the breath weapon and damage resistance being the marquee features.
    8. On the topic of ribbon abilities: I don’t think the dragonborn really sells the idea of being draconic. Having creature type humanoid is part of it, but another part is that you supposedly have all these draconic features – scales, claws, teeth – with no mechanical heft. I’d prefer to given them at least a minor effect to make characters feel substantial:
      1. Scales: If you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 10 + 1/2 your proficiency bonus + Dex bonus
      2. Claws: when you make an unarmed strike you can choose to use your claws, inflicting proficiency bonus + Strength bonus in slashing damage.
      3. Bite: when you make an unarmed strike you can choose to use your claws, inflicting proficiency bonus + Strength bonus in piercing damage.
  3. Goliath
    1. Goliaths are the playable-giants species, but they aren’t Large by default – they can only become Large starting at 5th level, only once per Long Rest, and only for 10 minutes. The 5E designers have long shown an incredible aversion to allowing PCs to just be Large and I’ve never understood why. That’s partly because they’ve never bothered to explain it. It’s so weird – 5E isn’t like 3rd edition, where different sizes had a whole bunch of predefined modifiers that applied to things like reach and attributes – the effects of size are basically defined on a case-by-case basis, except for the basic implication of the space a creature takes up.
      1. A Goliath gets Advantage on Strength checks and +10 feet to speed for the duration. This is somehow supposed to be an ability that’s too good to have before spellcasters get 3rd-level spells like Fly and Fireball, and well after Druids are able to Wild Shape. This doesn’t even include the extra damage that comes with the Enlarge spell. I just can’t get why 5E designers are so terrified of allowing Large characters.
    2. Goliaths get an ability specific to a giant type usable proficiency bonus times per long rest. These seem to be a pretty mixed bag, but mostly on the weaker side compared to just having a decent cantrip, and most have no utility outside of combat.
      1. Cloud Giant – bonus action to teleport 30’. This is pretty useful, especially at lower levels, and is the only option which has significant utility out of combat.
      2. Fire Giant – +1d10 fire damage on a successful attack roll. This is pretty good at lower levels but not very impressive at higher levels – compare to Sneak Attack, Hex, or Hunter’s Mark – or more pointedly, to Fire Bolt. This ability doesn’t mention what type of attack roll it applies to, which means it can be used with both spell and weapon attacks.
      3. Frost Giant – +1d6 cold damage on a successful attack roll and target has its speed reduced by 10 feet for 1 turn. The damage is once again not very impressive, but the slow effect is where this gets some utility, especially since you can use this both at range and in melee. As with the Fire Giant ability, this isn’t worht much if it isn’t applied to an already-meaningful attack, since this is basically just a 1st-level Ray of Frost on its own.
      4. Hill Giant – knock a Large or smaller target prone when you hit it with an attack roll. Since the target doesn’t have any way to resist this other than being too big or not getting hit this seems like a pretty decent anti-humanoid ability, and it doesn’t just duplicate a cantrip.
      5. Stone Giant – use a reaction to subtract 1d12 + Con modifier from damage you were about to take. This is actually more useful than it might appear, since it can prevent effects that require you to take damage from taking effect, like the Fire, Front, and Hill Giant Goliath abilities; this can also be used to help preserve concentration.
      6. Storm Giant – use a reaction to do 1d8 thunder damage to someone within 60 feet who just damaged you. I don’t see how this is particularly useful – it doesn’t seem like it’s going to do enough damage to discourage enemies from attacking you, or to contribute meaningfully to taking them out of the fight except at very low levels.
    3. Some abilities that actually don’t have a bounded number of uses:
      1. Advantage on saves to escape being grappled (but you aren’t actually better at grappling, just at breaking out)
      2. Count as 1 size larger for determining carrying, lifting, and dragging capacity (assuming your group pays any attention to these details – 5E doesn’t seem to care about them. In contrast, 1st edition reduced your movement rate based on how encumbered you were).
Feats
  1. Bonus Feats at 20th Level – This is unchanged from playtest packet 2, but there I skipped over it. I still don’t know quite what to make of it. This rules option appears to be the designers throwing a bone to people who want to get in a significant amount of play at 20th level including the potential for further advancement, but without the designers having to commit to any further character advancement design.
    1. It’s interesting that this advancement is stated in terms of Experience Points but the advancement doesn’t come with any additional levels – the character is not only done advancing in any classes (even by multiclassing), but also in terms of gaining additional HP and Hit Dice (save via feats). And there’s still just no way to increase their proficiency bonus – there isn’t even an epic boon to do that.
    2. In terms of XP, this is set at 30K XP increments – the size of the steps from 15th to 16th and 16th to 17th levels, rather than later level increases. That means each of these additional feats are treated as being equivalent to all of the following combined (for a single-classed spellcaster):
      1. +1 proficiency bonus
      2. +1 9th level-spell slot
      3. +1 step/die of cantrip damage
      4. +4 (at least) HP
      5. +1 HD
    3. I don’t feel characters are getting 30,000 XP worth of advancement out of additional feats – not even the epic boons. Likewise, I don’t think feats offer nearly enough mechanical coverage to suffice as a way of having continued improvement – for example, a character could never gain the ability to prepare higher-level spells, nor spell slots of a level they didn’t already have except via Magic Initiate (which allows 2 cantrips and a single 1st-level spell once per long rest).
    4. Overall, this whole approach strikes me 
  2. Ability Score Improvement – I think the formatting is the only change from playtest packet 2.
  3. Epic Boon of Fate
    1. Add or subtract 1d10 from a single d20 test done by somebody within 60 feet, usable once per rest (any type) or initiative roll.
    2. This is obviously meant to be the ‘epic” version of Lucky, but it doesn’t quire work way – it can’t be novaed when that’s what you really need, if you have a really bad roll this may well not be enough to save the day.
    3. This allows you to kind of blow bounded accuracy out of the water, since it gives you another bonus on d20 tests which is likely to be as big as your proficiency bonus. Does this mean that bounded accuracy just isn’t meant to be a concern in 5.5e once characters hit 20th level, or did the designers just not pay attention to this? My suspicion is the latter, since 5e and 5.5e’s limited skill systems mean that the problem with high totals on d20 rolls isn’t the number you can end up rolling, but how reliably you can hit various target numbers.
    4. I think the power on this is fine, but if I’d taken about it expecting some sort of ability to mess with fate I’d probably feel a little disappointed. Not terribly disappointed, but enough that it’d probably annoy me over time.
  4. Epic Boon of Spell Recall
    1. Once per long rest you can cast a prepared spell of up to 5th level without using a spell slot.
    2. Note that this doesn’t give you a 5th-level spell slot (which you could use to upcast a spell below 5th level), but the ability to cast a 5th level or lower spell without using a slot – it’s essentially the ability to treat a spell up to 5th level as a ritual  without altering its casting time (but only once per long rest).
    3. Compare this to the Wizard’s Arcane Recovery: at 9th level a Wizard can recover up to 5 levels of spell slots after a short rest, but only “[o]nce per day.” By the time the Wizard hits 19th level – before they can get this “epic” boon – they can recover 10 levels of spell slots (none of them above 5th level) per day, so up to 5 level spell slots. And since these are real spell slots, they can be used for upcasting Fly or Dispel Magic or whatever.
    4. The only real use for this ability is if you absolutely need to cast a spell right now and you are completely out of the resources to do so. In other circumstances you may have the ability via a short rest to recover a greater degree of spellcasting resources via Arcane Recovery if you’re a Wizard or Pact Magic if you’re a Warlock, and those without being 20th level. A Sorcerer can’t outright recover, but can at least upgrade their spell slots by going through Sorcery points.
    5. In short, this ability is weak – it comes online much too late to be this dependent on very precise circumstances to be useful.
  5. Epic Boon of Truesight
    1. You have Truesight. It isn’t a magical ability that can be suppressed or a heightened state that you have to invoke or maintain – it’s just always on. Truesight is pretty good – it lets you just ignore darkness, see through and automatically save against visual illusions, etc. This is an ability that does what it says, and is useful enough to really become a marquee ability for a character. The only downsides are the 60 foot range and only coming online at 20th level, but if you take this as a capstone for a character who’s maximized their Perception rolls the latter at least feels like hitting your peak competency.
    2. This epic boon is good in the way that I wish all epic boons were.
Rules Glossary
  1. Changelog
    1. I strongly feel this is the best part of not only this playtest packet, but of all the playtest packets to date: it highlights what has changed in a larger corpus. Ways this could be improved:
      1. Make this apply not just to the glossary, but to the entire packet
      2. Include discussion of why changes were made, perhaps not in the changelog itself but in each section or near each change.
  2. Aid [Spell]
    1. Affects 6 targets instead of 3, which is enough for an entire party. This makes the spell more likely to see use without actually being all that big a boost in practical terms. Yes, mathematically it’s a 100% increase in value (if you have 6 targets of value), but it won’t feel that big.
    2. Duration goes from 8 hours to Instant. This is good – you don’t have to think about when your temporary HP might expire.
  3. Attack [Action] (“Equipping Weapons” section)
    1. You can (1) equip or unequip (2) a weapon (3) before or after (4) each attack you make (5) as part of an Attack action, (6) even if the attack is an unarmed strike.
    2. I rewrote it that way to help illustrate the number of details that can get lost in the text of each of these little rule definitions. I don’t mean to say that the rules shouldn’t be this complex, but rather that even complex rules can be presented in a way that makes them easier to understand (or at least, to understand their level of complexity).
      1. For example, consider (2): you can only equip or unequip a weapon. You can’t do that ammunition for a weapon, or a potion or flask of oil.
      2. Or consider (5): you can’t do this when making an attack as part of a bonus action or reaction, or when making a weapon attack that isn’t part of the Attack action (for example, casting a cantrip like Greenflame Blade which includes a weapon attack).
    3. The main thrust of this change is intended to be (6), which extends this to unarmed strikes. It’s interesting to imagine someone using an unarmed strike to grapple, then pulling out a weapon right after that attack. I don’t think that’s a problem, but I’m not sure how that works with the “free hand” requirement of a grapple, though.
  4. Barkskin
    1. The rules glossary entry for this spell wasn’t updated. That means it still says “Here’s a new version of the Barkskin spell,” even though there isn’t anything new about it relative to playtest packet 2. 
  5. Banishment [Spell]
    1. Banishment is a spell that 5E completely screwed up by changing the intent from actually banishing beings from their non-native planes to a basic action-denial spell. Until they fix that there won’t be any fixing this spell as far as I’m concerned.
    2. Let’s look at the spell as if it was just an unnamed spell partway through the design process. In 5E the spell is like Hold Monster (5th level) except
      1. It’s 4th level
      2. Range is 60 feet instead of 90 feet
      3. Save targets Charisma instead of Wisdom
      4. Can affect undead
      5. A target that fails their save is incapacitated on a demiplane (or on their homeplane for those not native to the current plane) instead of in-place
        1. Planar non-natives who stay under the effect for the full duration remain on their home plances instead of returning to where they were
      6. Targets are only incapacitated rather than paralyzed, which means they can still move and speak, but can take neither actions nor reactions. The other features of the paralyzed status are irrelevant, since the affected target is removed from the field of battle.
        1. I don’t see how the ability to move and  speak is meaningfully better for the targets than being fully paralyzed, but I suppose that if multiple targets are affected by upcasting this spell, this allows them to at least plan for their return
      7. Importantly: the target only receives 1 save, instead of 1 per round.
      8. In short: either 5E Banishment is much too good, or 5E Hold Monster is much too weak
    3. In 5.5E the significant changes are
      1. Range is 30 feet instead of 60 (5E) or 90 (Hold Monster)
      2. Everyone who fails their save is incapacitated on a demiplane regardless of whether or not they’re planar natives
        1. Planar non-natives who stay under the effect for the full duration are sent to their home planes instead of returning to where they were
      3. Targets receive 1 save per round
      4. In short: 5.5E Banishment is still too good relative to Hold Monster, but at least it isn’t hugely better than all comparable action-denial spells.
    4. Overall, Banishment has been made less of an issue, but I’d still flunk it in the design process under any name
  6. Grappled [Condition]
    1. This condition is scarcely changed from playtest packet 2, clarifying only that
      1. The grappler can carry along the grappled “when it Moves”, and
      2. The escape condition that relies on moving you outside the range of the grapple removes the language about not using your own Speed (which is redundant because your Speed is fixed at 0 while grappled)
    2. I’ve realized I want to comment on some other aspects of grappling that I didn’t cover while reviewing playtest packet 2, so I’m including that here.
      1. Grappling’s only effect on the grappled creature is to fix their speed at 0 and give them disadvantage when trying to attack anyone other than the grappler. It does not otherwise prevent or even inhibit taking other types of actions – for example, a grappled character can use a greatsword or a halberd to attack their grappler without penalty. Likewise, they can continue to concentrate on spells without an issue, and they can continue to cast spells as before except for the limitations on attack rolls – spells that rely on saving throws (including cantrips such as Poison Spray) can be used against any target without any reduction in power or likelihood of having their full effect.
        1. The lack of limits on spellcasting means that a grappled spellcaster may make their saving throw to escape, narrowly fail, then use the Resistance cantrip as a reaction to give them a bonus that might allow them to actually escape anyway. This suggests that Rangers will be more difficult to successfully grapple than Fighters or Barbarians.
      2. Grappling does almost nothing to help the forces attacking the grappled creature – the grappler can carry or drag them around, but has no particular ability to move them otherwise (by shoving or throwing them), nor does either the grappler or their allies have any enhanced ability to attack the grappled creature, whether by gaining new options for attacking them or by having better odds of succeeding at what they could already try.
        1. This means you can’t
          1. hold an enemy in place so that one of your allies can hit them without the target dodging
          2. choke them out
          3. disarm them any better than you could if you hadn’t grappled them
          4. prevent them from taking actions like casting spells or speaking or drawing and using weapons or other equipment
          5. etc.
        2. In effect, grappling is almost entirely focused on controlling a target’s movement and guiding its attacks toward the grappler – the sort of thing you’d think of as “marking” as used by 4E Fighters. You can’t get Heracles vs Antaeus out of this mechanic
      3. The Grapple option for an unarmed strike indicates the grapple is only possible if the target is no more than 1 size larger than you and you have a hand free to grab the target. There’s no clear indication there or in the Grappled condition if those conditions must continue to be true for the grapple to persist (in fact, the “free hand” condition can’t generally remain true in a very literal sense, but we could imagine it to mean “you must have a hand you can use to do nothing other than initiate and maintain the grapple”) I bring this up for a couple reasons:
        1. It suggest that getting larger is a way to end the Grappled condition
        2. It imposes an additional cost on the grappler (which admittedly makes perfect intuitive sense): you have to keep a hand committed to the grapple. But this makes grappling someone an even worse deal: you’re committing a hand to (1) bind their movement to your own, and (2) give them disadvantage on attack rolls against someone other than you. And now you get to choose between using a one-handed weapon or a shield
  7. Guidance [Spell]
    1. Identical to playtest packet 2, except
      1. A creature can benefit from this effect any number of times rather than just once per long rest
      2. The range drops from 30 feet to 10 feet, which means it’s more of an out-of-combat ability
    2. Worth remembering that this cantrip can only be used when the caster or an ally within range actually fails an ability check – it can’t be used on a success to boost a skill roll total (for e.g. a Stealth or Jump check), nor can it be used in advance in an attempt to get a better roll.
    3. An improvement over playtest packet 2, and over the original version (since it’s available as-needed instead of requiring you to handle it in advance)
  8. Influence [Action]
    1. The description no longer suggests granting advantage or disadvantage on the roll to represent a request that fits a particular target of Influence particularly well or poorly, just temporarily shifting the target’s attitude.
    2. The updated version lists skills and situations where they’d apply to an Influence roll. This guidance seems good, but has issues:
      1. The suggestions (carried over from packet 2) that multiple rolls will be required to influence a hostile creature means that it’s much easier to intimidate someone who’s friendly to you than someone who’s hostile. This suggests the description of Influence was conceived in terms of using Persuasion and hasn’t been adjusted to consider other ways of Influencing targets.
    3. The new description no longer includes the descriptions of what Influence can accomplish on a target with a given attitude at a given DC.
      1. In fact, DCs are now specific to the target instead of having DC 10 and DC 20 thresholds. The minimum DC for a check is set at 15 or the target’s Intelligence, whichever is higher.
        1. This means it’s harder to Deceive, Intimidate, or Persuade very intelligent creatures. So it’s easier to intimidate Hulk than, say, early Kitty Pryde.
          1. Note that setting the DC this way suggests that Insight doesn’t serve as a defense against Deception – that seems counterintuitive.
    4. Labeling Influence as an Action suggests it isn’t an extended activity, but something you can attempt on your turn in combat – that you can make a complete attempt at persuasion or deception in 6 seconds or less (a combat round), the same amount of time it takes a Monk to try punching someone a couple of times. I don’t think that makes a lot of sense – I can see very limited attempts at Influence taking place at this timescale, but many of them should take longer, and not just because a character failed the initial check. This entry doesn’t provide any suggestion for how extended attempts to Influence a target should be run compared to Action-level attempts to Influence.
      1. I suspect the [Action] label put on this entry is part of a larger trend of trying to package the use of skills into Actions so that inexperienced players have a clear sense of when they might apply and how they might handle any interactions. I don’t think this approach has been sufficiently considered, though.
    5. Overall, I think the changes to this action make it less well-constructed than it was in the prior packet.
  9. Light [Weapon Property]
    1. I don’t believe the wording change on this (relative to packet 2) has any mechanical effect.
  10. Long Rest
    1. 0-level spells cast out of combat no longer interrupt a Long Rest
    2. You can now resume an interrupted Long Rest
    3. A Long Rest now reduces your level of Exhaustion by 1
    4. You now have to wait 16 hours after completing a long rest to begin a new one, whereas previously you could only benefit from 1 Long Rest in any given 24-hour period
    5. Overall, Long Rests were too restorative and remain too restorative. The boosts here are relatively minor – they don’t significantly worsen the problem and the ability to resume an interrupted rest may reduce player anxiety, so I don’t see any harm in these changes.
  11. Magic [Action]
    1. Specifies that this also applies to using a feature that requires a Magic Action, not just to casting spells and using items.
  12. Prayer of Healing [Spell]
    1. Affects spellcasting ability modifier targets instead of a flat 6
    2. Can only affect a creature once per Long Rest
    3. No longer adds spellcasting ability modifier to the 2d8 HP of healing
    4. Now gives targets the benefit of a Short Rest
    5. Basically, the spell is now “once per long rest, take a short rest in 10 minutes by using a 2nd-level spell slot (oh, and get some bonus healing as well)”
      1. The utility of this spell depends on how often the 1-hour length of a short rest was getting in the way of groups actually using them regularly. For groups that basically avoided short rests completely, this is almost a mandatory spell, with the once-per-long-rest limitation being the only aspect approaching a drawback. For groups that regularly took all their breaks this change is a nerf.
      2. Overall, I’d rather just see short rests changed to be shorter and have some limitation on how often characters can benefit from them.
  13. Priest’s Pack [Equipment]
    1. The pack has gone from 19 GP to 33 GP, and has seemed to change in focus: no longer the sort of equipment you’d expect for an indigent priest who may have to set up shop anywhere, it’s now focused on containing priestly adventuring equipment. I’d rather see both packs defined with names that make clear the purpose of each, just to help new players have a common understanding of setting conventions.
  14. Resistance [Spell]
    1. Just like Guidance, this is now usable as a reaction when someone within 10 feet fails a saving throw.
    2. This is tremendously useful – Divine casters usually don’t have a lot to do with their reactions anyway, and they can keep using this to help other characters break out of ongoing effects as long as they can get within 10 feet of the character.
    3. Note that when you take damage and have to try to maintain Concentration, that’s a Constitution saving throw. If you have to make one of those saves and you miss it by a couple points, you may be able to save it and keep your Concentration effect running – especially valuable if it’s based on a higher-level spell slot
    4. The range matches up with the radius of a Paladin’s aura that gives a bonus to saving throws. If a Paladin gets access to Resistance – perhaps via Magic Initiate – they become an even more powerful defensive force than they were before, whether that involves protecting others directly or (as mentioned above) keeping Concentration-based effects running.
    5. This change makes Resistance a must-have Divine cantrip (well, it helps that there’s only 6 of them), and pretty competitive on the Primal cantrip list as well.
  15. Spiritual Weapon [Spell]
    1. Now a Concentration spell, so you can’t cast this and a Concentration spell and just use your bonus actions for free damage from this spell
    2. Makes clear that the Spiritual Weapon can only damage targets within 5 feet of its current location (presumably an antidote to characters making spiritual weapons take the form of bows or guns to strike at range).
    3. Overall a nerf. Probably not a critical one, but not unwarranted or completely out of left field.
  16. Truesight
    1. Like the prior definition, but formatted to make it easier to see what capabilities it gives. The only difference is the 5.5E version doesn’t let you see the original form of a shapechanger. Note that it still lets the user see creatures transformed by magic – it just seems to assume that if a creature is a shapechanger, those changes can’t be seen through (presumably they’re natural enough, or perhaps shapechangers don’t really count as having “original” forms?).
    2. An improvement in presentation, and the loss of capability seems minor and probably useful in service of retaining at least some mysteries (like “is this person a doppelgänger or a werewolf or just a normal person?”)

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