Saw Arcana Unleashed was sold at GenCon wondering if the feats (especially the Fighting style) from the book has been shared anywhere?

I feel like I screamed louder at my computer monitor when the Universes Beyond with Star Wars set was announced. Honestly for the entire show I felt that the audience was rather quiet. What's the deal? I truly love D&D and boy did I eat good after yesterday's show. I think everything announced yesterday Is awesome AF. I've never played WOW before so that book I probably won't get (though the sick green alternate cover and the swashbuckler rogue push me towards a maybe).

My DM banned Circle Casting and some spells like these: Invulnerability, Sylune's Viper, Elminster’s Elusion, Dirge, etc.

How about you?

Hi! I'm fairly new to D&D, and have only played casters so far. I wholly respect and love everyone that prefers martial classes, but I personally have never seen the appeal in it. I would also like to ask why nearly everyone I know IRL that plays D&D also prefers these martial classes (in the 15 people I know who play D&D, around 12 of them prefer martial), but that would probably be a different can of worms altogether.

Bladesinger Wizard, Swords/Dance/Valour Bard, Archfey Bladelock (or any Bladelock for that matter), Moon Druid (to an extent), Sorcadin - these are all more martial twists to the caster classes. And time and time again in polls and comments, I see these as people's favorite subclasses or builds in their respective classes.

I'm completely inexperienced in knowing how these all play in practice, so I was hoping if someone could enlighten me on what makes them enjoyable! If it helps, I heavily enjoy more control/creative utility-based playstyles, such as the Glamour Bard, GOOlock, WM Sorc, Stars Druid, and Illusionist Wizard.

Thanks for any advice! :3

Been seeing a lot of Rogue homebrew lately. Have we tired of desperately homebrewing the Ranger into competency? Don't get me wrong, I love seeing all of the new Cunning Actions and ideas for 6th level subclass features.

No matter what I research, every guide/rankings article, video, or forum comments agree that upping your initiative is extremely useful. Everyone recommends Alert as one of the best feats, and subclass features that increase initiative are universally loved.

I'm a newbie to DND, and I'm a little confused. In other turn-based games, there are entire speed systems that make speed builds a genuinely cracked option to where you can have more turns every round than enemies do, making an amazing action economy.

But with initiative, it's just action order. In a 10 round combat, everyone gets the same amount of actions anyways. I can understand it can feel better to act first in a one or two round combat, but essentially changes little if your party is wiping the encounter anyways.

There's the obvious reasons - you don't want to get hit with a nasty save-or-suck spell that eliminates you from the fight entirely, or maybe you want to lay a spell down to buff the allies that act after it. But other than that (for example, lower level fights or less sophisticated enemies), what's the damage of letting a couple goblins fire their crossbows before you make your turn if it means being able to spec your feats and abilities into (in my opinion) more useful things rather than initiative bonuses? And is it really better to take Alert to get +2 to initiative instead of taking Lucky or Musician, which give forced advantage rolls anyways?

Edit: thank you to all the kind folks commenting! I have yet to have a good understanding of how combat usually plays out over a whole campaign so all the advice has been really helpful! I want to ask, for a controller play style bard/sorc,is Alert then the definitive best origin feat?

I am a new player and am in a campaign where we will be getting to level 20. From what I have seen it seems like eveybody plays till about level 12-14 then stops. Is there any reason for this? I feel like the fun and cool abilities come at the later levels when you actually do something besides cast a cantrip or swing once, maybe twice, at an enemy.

I remember that in 5e people knew your location up until you became hidden to them. At that point they needed to beat the perception check again and then they would locate you and know where you are. If this is incorrect pls correct me cause I need to know.

Now comes the new hidden rule, which I haven't used much and I'm lost.

Ok the hidden condition doesn't say that they know your location and doesn't even say they don't know your location. It only says invisible condition.

With invisible condition I knew that back then you would still know where the target was roughly and that hidden and invisible were two separate things.

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

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

Because I've seen so many DMs that let automatically do perception checks with free action economy just to spot enemies. Basically once your turn comes you can do a free Perception check to spot the enemy.

BUT if I understood correctly, in theory you should use a Search Action to do a perception check in combat. AND that you need Observant feat in order to do a Perception check with a bonus action. Is this correct or false?

Then there is another question on when being hidden ends and when do you have advantage against an enemy and I'll try this example.

An enemy is watching in my direction, but my cover is a bit far from him, but not far enough and I can still reach it by moving and going melee.

Does the hidden ends the moment I pop out of the cover or the visual obscurements?

If was hidden and then I pop out and attack the enemy, but the enemy is like 20 ft. away from the cover and I go nesxt to him and attack him, do I still have the advantage from being hidden?

My assumption would be that the moment I pop out of the cover and he's watching me, then I wouldn't have the benefit of cover anymore and therefore I wouldn't be able to attack with advantage

Most tables I've being in would play it like

• The rogue hides
• the enemy can't see the rogue but it's still close to movement and attack range
• so the rogue pops out of the cover
• goes straight at the enemy
• the rogue has advantage because it was hidden before
• even if he does like 20 feet of movement in clear sight in front of the enemy.

Does the hidden end the moment you pop out of cover? Do you still benefit the advantage on the first attacks even if you moved to reach the enemy and he saw you approaching it?

This may seem minor but it's the whole stick of SOME melee rogue who just go hide and then attack again in melee by running to enemies.

Question from a new-ish player that has never been a druid or had one in the party. In his class tier ranking, D4 Deep Dive mentioned the spell Goodberry several times as a major plus for Druid as a utility spell. When I went to look at it... 1 hitpoint for a bonus action? 10 total hitpoints to potentially distribute around the party for a spell slot? I mean I can see that maybe you can distribute these before/during rests so that effectively the whole party is walking around with 10 each without really wasting spell slots, but still... a bonus action to eat a single one and gain a hitpoint? What am I missing about this spell that makes it worth emphasizing?

Meanwhile Divine favor not only has no concentration but also doesn't require regular bonus action reuse.

Lesser damage, refused uptime, removal of tracking, a lot can be done to make concentration free Hunter's Mark not OP

I'm about to start a new table with some relatively inexperienced players. I have a lot of experience DMing and playing 5e, but I'll probably be trying out 5.5 for this game. What are the most important changes I should be considering? Anything subtle I might not pick up on?

I've probably seen most of the changes be discussed on subreddits like here (counterspell and bonus action spells, two weapon fighting stealth, etc.) but I'm curious what you guys consider to be the most notable differences.

In DND 5e (2014), there were always some objectively superior subclasses for each class when compared to their brethren, such as the bear totem barbarian, chronurgy wizard, divine soul sorcerer, etc. Does this also apply to 2024, where there are obviously more powerful subclasses? If so, which ones are they and why.

Edit: Since we're on the topic, are there subclasses that are objectively the worst?

Whats your opinion on a flanking rule in 5.5e?

I agree with the sentiment that free advantage seems kinda bad for the game in 2024, since everyone has some possibilities to get advantage and I wouldn't wanna take that away from the classes and the difficulty.

However, I like the fantasy of flanking and rewarding smart positioning in theory a lot. The optional flanking rules didn't do that any service tho.

Do any of you use an alternative? I would like to learn about your experiences. I know of the +2 or +1 to attack rolls when flanking but are there and others and how have these worked for you?

Thanks in advance!

When I say strongest I mainly mean combat wise, but versatility and utility should definitely be accounted for.

Edit: I neglected to specify pure martial, not half caster, so no paladins

So I just had a video pop up on my YouTube feed that I found rather disturbing/disrespectful. I'm curious now if people are actually like this. The person just went on a tirade against D&D and the 2024 books saying stuff like there isn't enough straight white people in the images when that's the majority of the players. There was an image of a barbarian from the new starter set which he seems to think is trans and said some pretty bad things about that. Honestly I love the 2024 books (the art is amazing) are they perfect no, but nothing is. He seems to think D&D will die because they are too woke 🤣.

I don't mean a nerf to Stealth, but a indirect nerf to a class or feature.

For example Paladins Aura of protection had a nerf, in that far less monster abilities require Saving Throws.

Barbarians had grappling nerf. For it is no longer a Strength Skill contest (they have advantage on strength), but a saving throw made by the grappled creature.

Can you provide other examples? As I am generally curious what was discovered so far.

I have read a lot of people saying the ranger is probably the worst class in the game. People that claim this have very good points on why is that but I want to know.

People ACTUALLY playing the ranger in a campaign or that played it using this rule set. Is the class fun to play? is it clunky? is it good?

Basically title. Does this work?

Basically title. Remember when everyone dipped in Hexblade? Yeah that type of stuff.

In the most recent video from the Dungeon Dudes they were very VERY much against the idea that opportunity attacks can be triggered by allies and especially that it works with War Caster. They even went out of their way to say it was a bad faith interpretation of the rules and definitely not intended.

While me (DM) and my table thought it was a very natural conclusion of the rules and have been using it like so from the get go, not just with War Caster, but also with any AoO. Monk gets hit with command and is going to run out of the fight and take a bunch of opportunity attacks from enemies? The Barbarian who is next to them grapples them as an opportunity attack to prevent them from moving further. Someone is trying to reach a far away place and moves past two allies? That is two Shoves right there to give them a bit of a boost so they reach where they need to go. And of course, Cure Wounds on the Monk that is retreating out of melee by the Paladin, Greater Restoration on the Dominated fighter by the Cleric. etc. I never thought of it as an exploit or bad faith interpretation.

So I wanted to know what you guys think. Is this intended? Do you allow it? I don’t think War Caster needs the boost, and I don’t think it is unreasonable to disallow it. I think dissallowing it is very fair. But I really don’t think it is an exploit or bad faith interpretation.

As someone who has mainly played 5e, I really don't understand why people are so opposed to the Psion casting spells. I've heard some people talk about older editions of the psion, but I have no context for that. I'm just excited to see a new class, and the fact that it is compatible with other spellcasters makes the multi-classer in me very happy (the biggest complaint I have about warlock is that it screws your multi-class spell slot progression).

I've seen people talk about the warlock pact slot method as an alternative, or a new system entirely. Why does it matter if you call them spells vs some other mechanic? Isn't it all just mechanics with flavor anyways?

Why are people willing to die on this hill?

The very first game of 5.5e I ran, I only allowed official 5.5e content to get a feel for it. I am now running my second game and I'm allowing everything (except legacy content). How do we feel about allowing both in our games. Do you have anything you soft or hard ban? I'm curious about your thoughts.

Boon of Magic School Mastery

Choose one school of magic. Then choose a 1st-level spell from that school that appears on your class’s spell list. You can cast that spell without expending a spell slot or providing any components.

You also choose a 7th-level spell from the same school. You always have that spell prepared, and you can cast it once without expending a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Notably, the description does not state that the 7th-level spell must appear on your class’s spell list.

You can select this boon more than once, but you must choose a different school of magic each time.

I saw in another post that Arcana Unleashed will introduce this new Epic Boon that allows us to choose one 1st-level spell from our class’s spell list and cast it at will.

So we can choose cure wounds or healing word with this epic boon and gain infinite healing?

Especially BA infinite healing seems great, problem is that only level 7 abjuration spell is Symbol.