u/MyrthDM

One thing I still notice in 5.5E combat is how quickly everyone can end up standing in place once melee starts.

A Fighter reaches an enemy, the enemy reaches the Fighter, and unless something forces one of them to move, they can spend the next several rounds standing in the same squares trading attacks.

At my table, I notice it most when there is actually interesting terrain available. There might be cover, a doorway to defend, an ally who needs help, or a better position a few squares away, but once someone is engaged in melee, taking a free hit just to reposition often feels like a bad trade.

And I think Opportunity Attacks are part of that.

At the same time, I definitely would not just remove them.

Without Opportunity Attacks, what actually stops an enemy from simply walking past the Fighter and attacking the Wizard? Melee characters already have fewer ways to control space than I would like, and removing one of the few mechanics that makes standing next to them matter could make that even worse.

So I’m kind of stuck between two things I want.

I want combat where people actually move around the battlefield, but I also want being engaged by a dangerous melee character to mean something.

How does it feel at your table?

Do Opportunity Attacks make combat too static?

Do your players willingly take them to reposition, or mostly stay put once they are engaged?

Would you ever restrict Opportunity Attacks to certain classes, monsters, or abilities instead of giving them to everyone?

Or are they a necessary part of making melee combat matter at all?

One of the smaller 5.5E changes I genuinely like is the new Heroic Inspiration. Being able to reroll a die after seeing the result feels much more useful than having to declare Advantage beforehand, and I particularly like that you can now pass it to another player if you already have it.

But I still wonder how much this has actually changed the way people use Inspiration.

At my table, I've always found that players tend to fall into two categories. Some spend resources like Inspiration almost immediately because they'd rather use them than risk forgetting about them. Others save them for the perfect moment, which sometimes means carrying them through several sessions without ever using them.

The revised rules seem like they should help with that. Rerolling an important failed saving throw or a terrible damage roll feels like a pretty immediate benefit, and allowing players to share Inspiration introduces another interesting decision.

But I'm not sure whether the bigger problem was ever the mechanic itself, or simply that DMs often forget to award Inspiration and players forget they have it.

I'm also curious how people feel about Humans getting Heroic Inspiration after every Long Rest. It encourages players to actually spend it rather than treating it like an emergency resource, but it also means some characters have access to it much more consistently than others.

So how has it worked at your table?

Are players actually using Heroic Inspiration more often in 5.5E?

Do you award it regularly for roleplaying and memorable moments, or mostly rely on features that grant it?

Have you seen players give their Inspiration to someone else when it really mattered?

Or is it still one of those mechanics that everyone likes in theory but regularly forgets about?

With another Underdark UA out and another survey coming, I’ve been thinking about how I actually interact with Unearthed Arcana.

Wizards calls it playtest material, and ideally the feedback should come from people actually putting these options into a game.

But I have to admit that most of the time, that is not what happens for me.

I read the subclass or species, imagine how it would interact with the game, compare it to existing options, maybe build a character around it... and then I form an opinion.

Actually getting it onto the table is much harder.

At my table, campaigns are already running with characters people are invested in. If a new UA subclass drops, I’m probably not going to ask someone to replace their character just so we can test it.

Even if we make a one-shot specifically for the UA, that still only tells me how the option feels for a few encounters at one particular level.

There is also the practical side of it. UA is not supported in the D&D Beyond character builder, so testing it usually requires more manual setup than using normal character options.

And by the time I have actually played enough sessions to know whether something scales properly, creates weird interactions, or gets annoying after repeated use, the community discussion may already have moved on.

So I’m curious how people actually fill out these surveys.

Do you genuinely playtest the UA before giving feedback?

Do you mostly judge it by reading and character building?

Have you ever changed your opinion on a UA option after actually using it at the table?

And if most feedback is inevitably based on first impressions, should Unearthed Arcana be structured differently to encourage more real playtesting?

The September D&D Beyond Drop got me thinking about something I’m still not completely sure how I feel about.

Drops are no longer just maps, cosmetics, and little DM tools. We now have subscriber content that includes feats, spells, backgrounds, magic items, and even a playable species with the Duskling.

And I think there are two very different ways to look at that.

On one hand, I actually like the idea of smaller experimental releases between books.

Not every weird spell, monster, feat, or species needs to justify an entire sourcebook. If the designers have something fun that would otherwise sit in a folder for years, putting it out through Drops gives people more material to play with.

At my table, I could absolutely see myself using some of that smaller content.

Where I become less comfortable is when actual character-building options are tied to an ongoing subscription.

Maps, VTT features, digital dice, cosmetics, encounter tools... those feel naturally tied to a digital service.

A playable species or feat feels different to me.

If one player says, “I want to use this official species,” and another player cannot even access the same rules without a subscription or someone sharing the content with them, it starts to feel like character options are being divided according to how you access the game.

To Wizards' credit, Master Tier subscribers can now share Drops content with their campaigns, and they have said the material will eventually be available through marketplace bundles too. That makes the situation much better than it was when Drops first launched.

But I’m still not sure I like the precedent.

Maybe I’m drawing an arbitrary line, but I think there is a difference between paying for convenience and paying for access to pieces of the tabletop rules.

How do you feel about it?

Are subscriber-exclusive player options a reasonable benefit for D&D Beyond?

Do you treat Drops content as official material at your table?

Would you be more comfortable if it was just timed early access before everyone could buy it normally?

Or do you think spells, feats, subclasses, and species should never be tied to a subscription in the first place?

With Arcana Unleashed out, I’ve started wondering how 5.5E is going to handle power creep over the next few years.

I don’t mean that every new option is automatically overpowered. New books obviously need to give people things they actually want to use, and stronger does not necessarily mean broken. Still, some of the newer feats already feel noticeably more generous than a lot of the PHB options.

The School Adept feats are probably the easiest example. Evocation can give you access to things like Fireball and Wall of Force, Conjuration gets Misty Step, Dimension Door, Conjure Animals and more, Transmutation gets Slow, Polymorph, Animate Objects, and so on across the other schools, all while giving you another benefit on top of the extra spells.

Then there are feats like Portal Jumper, Transmuted Anatomy, Arcane Omens, Arcane Artist, Familiar Friend, Spell Resistant, and others that also pack quite a lot into a single choice.

Portal Jumper, for example, gives you repeatable short-range teleportation and a damage resistance. Transmuted Anatomy gives you extra movement and some useful defensive benefits. Arcane Omens gives you Guidance and a way to potentially turn a failed saving throw into a success.

I’m not saying every one of these is broken, because I don’t think they are. But taken together, they do make me wonder whether the general power budget for feats is already creeping upward.

Once newer books are available, people naturally start looking there first. It is not always because they are trying to optimize either. A lot of the newer options simply feel more exciting or give you more to build around.

And honestly, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I would rather have feats people are excited to take than a perfectly balanced list where half the options get ignored.

What worries me more is where that leads a few years from now. I don’t want the 2024 PHB to eventually feel like the “basic” set of character options while all the really desirable stuff lives in later books.

We saw some of that happen during 2014 5E, and I’m curious whether 5.5E is heading in the same direction.

Do the Arcana Unleashed options actually feel stronger to you, or just newer and more interesting?

Do the new feats feel appropriately balanced against the PHB?

And what 5.5E option, if any, first made you think, “Okay, this might actually be power creep”?

One thing the World of Warcraft book has made me think about is how reluctant modern D&D seems to be to create completely new classes.

The book has to represent all 13 WoW classes, but instead of adding a bunch of new base classes, it uses the existing PHB classes as the foundation, with new subclasses, altered options, class skins, and guidance for recreating each concept.

And from a practical standpoint, I completely understand that.

5.5E already has a solid class framework. Every completely new class means designing twenty levels of progression, subclasses, balance interactions, multiclassing rules, magic items, and everything else that comes with it.

But I’m starting to wonder if subclasses are sometimes being asked to do too much.

For me, the point where reflavoring starts to break down is when the mechanics constantly remind you what the character actually is.

At my table, I’m completely fine with reflavoring abilities when the underlying mechanics still fit the fantasy. But if someone wants to play something fundamentally different and half of the base class features need to be renamed, ignored, or explained away, I start wondering whether we are really playing that concept or just forcing it into the nearest existing chassis.

A Death Knight being built from a Paladin is an interesting example. There is obviously a lot of overlap there, so it can work. But at some point, if enough Paladin features need to change to make it actually feel like a Death Knight, would a dedicated class have been cleaner?

And the same question applies outside Warcraft.

Warlord, Summoner, Swordmage, Shaman, Psion, Warden, and plenty of other concepts have been suggested as full classes over the years.

I do not want dozens of classes just for the sake of having more classes.

But I also do not think every fantasy archetype necessarily needs to become “Fighter, but with this subclass” or “Wizard, but flavored differently.”

So where do you think the line should be?

What character concept genuinely deserves a full class in 5.5E?

What concepts are perfectly fine as subclasses?

And would you rather see Wizards experiment with a few entirely new classes, or keep expanding the existing ones?

The new Path of Ceremorphosis in the Underdark UA is probably one of the more interesting player options I’ve seen in a while.

Instead of becoming a Mind Flayer being purely a story event, curse, or campaign-ending transformation, there is now an actual feat path that lets a character gradually progress toward full ceremorphosis and pick up iconic Mind Flayer abilities along the way.

And I genuinely love the idea.

At my table, I normally treat things like lycanthropy, vampirism, curses, or other major transformations as something that happens because of the story. The player gets bitten, infected, makes a terrible bargain, touches something they absolutely should not have touched, and then we figure out what that means for the character.

There is something really fun about the transformation not being completely under the player’s control.

But I can also see the appeal of giving it proper mechanical support.

If a player tells me, “I want my character’s arc to be slowly turning into a Mind Flayer,” I would much rather have an actual balanced progression to work with than improvise the entire thing myself.

My hesitation is that turning transformations into feat paths also changes how they feel.

If becoming a Mind Flayer is something you deliberately plan into your build at level 8 because the later feat gives you a powerful ability, it starts feeling less like a terrifying transformation and more like another optimization choice.

And if this system works, I assume Mind Flayers are only the beginning.

You could easily imagine similar paths for becoming a vampire, lich, werewolf, fiend, celestial, or other creature.

I’m honestly not sure whether I want that to become a major part of 5.5E or whether I would rather keep those transformations weird, dangerous, and mostly story-driven.

How do you feel about it?

Would you allow a player to deliberately build toward becoming a Mind Flayer?

Do you like transformation feat paths as a new character progression system?

What other transformations would you want to see supported this way?

Or should becoming a monster remain something that happens during the campaign rather than something you choose from a feat list?

I’m genuinely really interested in the return of Dark Sun, especially now that Wizards is explicitly describing it as a mature-rated setting where survival itself is supposed to be part of the experience.

But it also makes me wonder how well Dark Sun actually fits the assumptions of modern 5.5E.

A big part of what makes Athas interesting to me is that the world itself is hostile. Water matters. Resources matter. The environment matters. Magic has consequences. Psionics are everywhere. Powerful rulers dominate what little civilization remains, and simply crossing the wilderness should feel like an adventure rather than something that happens between encounters.

And that is probably the part I’m most curious about as a DM.

At my table, making survival pressure feel meaningful has always been harder than making combat dangerous. Once characters have enough spells, healing, class features, equipment, and ways of bypassing normal problems, things like food, travel, weather, and exhaustion can very quickly stop feeling threatening unless I deliberately build around them.

That is fine in most campaigns.

But in Dark Sun, I feel like those things need to matter.

If the party can solve water, food, navigation, extreme environments, recovery, and travel with the same ease they might in a normal campaign, I’m worried Athas could end up feeling like regular D&D with deserts and scarier monsters.

On the other hand, I’m actually more optimistic than I would have been a few years ago.

Calling it the first mature-rated fifth edition setting suggests to me that they are at least willing to let Dark Sun be substantially harsher than the normal game. And if Blood and Power is willing to introduce setting-specific rules for survival, defiling magic, scarcity, psionics, equipment, resting, or other parts of the game, then maybe 5.5E being the underlying system does not really matter.

For me, that is the key.

I do not think Dark Sun needs to recreate every old rule exactly. But I do think playing on Athas should force me and my players to approach problems differently than we would in the Forgotten Realms.

If I can take the same character, use basically the same assumptions, rest the same way, manage resources the same way, and just fight different monsters, then something important has probably been lost.

So what do you think?

Can 5.5E actually deliver a proper Dark Sun experience?

What rules would need to change for Athas to genuinely feel dangerous?

Should Dark Sun heavily modify survival, resting, equipment, magic, and resource management?

Or do you think 5.5E is flexible enough already, and most of what makes Dark Sun work comes from the setting and the DM rather than harsher mechanics?

You must assemble a group of four established Forgotten Realms characters for an expedition from the Sword Coast to the far eastern edge of Faerûn.

The journey will involve wilderness survival, hostile kingdoms, ancient ruins, magical disasters, negotiation, and at least one enemy powerful enough that fighting may be the worst option.

No gods, no divine avatars, and no Elminster.

Choose exactly four characters:

One leader.

One warrior.

One expert in magic or ancient lore.

One wildcard who brings something the others cannot.

They do not need to like or trust one another, but they must have a realistic chance of completing the journey without destroying the group from within.

Who are your four choices, and which member is most likely to cause the expedition to fail?

With all the new D&D Beyond features being announced, I’ve been thinking about how much the way we actually play D&D has changed.

Years ago, I thought of D&D Beyond as basically a convenient alternative to books and paper character sheets.

Now I’m not sure that describes it anymore.

At my table, digital character sheets and quick rules lookups can make things significantly easier. A player can click a feature, immediately see the relevant text, track resources, change equipment, or look up a spell without stopping the game to search through a book.

I definitely would not want to lose all of that convenience.

But I have also noticed a strange side effect: for some players, if something is not easily visible in the character builder, it almost stops existing.

If an older option requires manual setup, a rule is buried somewhere outside the sheet, or two versions of something exist and the interface emphasizes one of them, players are much less likely to use the thing they cannot immediately find.

And with 5.5e continuing to add new books, D&D Beyond Drops, character options, digital tools, and now a rebuilt mobile app specifically designed to help during in-person sessions, I wonder if the digital platform is slowly becoming part of the actual game experience rather than just an optional accessory.

That has advantages.

It makes a fairly complicated game much easier to manage, especially for newer players.

But I also do not love the idea of the tabletop game becoming so dependent on a particular platform that playing without it starts to feel like the inconvenient version.

Especially when some material is digital-only or tied to subscriptions.

So I’m curious how other tables have changed.

How many of your players use D&D Beyond during every session?

Could your table comfortably switch back to books and paper sheets tomorrow?

Do you think digital automation actually helps people understand the rules, or does it sometimes hide the rules behind buttons?

And do you like the direction of D&D Beyond becoming more integrated with how 5.5e is played, or would you rather the tabletop game and the digital platform stay more separate?

The history of the Realms is filled with wars, divine conflicts, collapsing empires, magical disasters, and political struggles that are often described only in sourcebooks or brief references.

Choose one historical event and give it a full modern novel trilogy.

It could explore the fall of a civilization, the founding of a kingdom, a conflict between deities, the rise of a famous faction, or an event that permanently changed part of Faerûn.

I would be tempted by the fall of Netheril, although it may be even more interesting to focus on a less familiar event whose outcome is not already known by every reader.

Which event would you choose?

Who should be the central characters, and would you want the story told from the perspective of the winners or the people who failed?

The World of Warcraft announcement got me thinking about the larger direction D&D seems to be taking with Universes Beyond.

Personally, WoW is actually an easy sell for me. I’ve played both WoW and D&D for a long time, and Azeroth already has so many things that translate naturally into D&D: dungeons, raids, classes, races, monsters, factions, magic items, and huge fantasy villains.

I genuinely want to play with that book.

And I can also see the appeal of something like Star Wars. Even if I would probably keep it separate from a normal fantasy campaign, the idea of using the D&D ruleset to run a completely different universe could be really fun.

What I’m less sure about is what happens if Universes Beyond becomes a major part of the release schedule rather than an occasional experiment.

At my table, I already tend to decide pretty carefully which books and character options belong in a campaign. If I am running Forgotten Realms, I probably do not want someone simply showing up with a Worgen Demon Hunter because the option technically exists on D&D Beyond.

But at the same time, that is one of the big differences between D&D and something like a card game. Nothing forces me to mix those settings. A World of Warcraft campaign can stay in Azeroth, a Star Wars campaign can stay in its own universe, and my normal D&D campaign never has to interact with either of them.

So part of me thinks crossovers could actually work extremely well for D&D.

My only concern would be if licensed settings started taking up so much of the release schedule that traditional D&D settings and completely original material received less attention.

Where do you land on it?

Are you excited about D&D Universes Beyond?

Would you use crossover character options in a normal 5.5e campaign, or keep each setting separate?

What other universe would you actually want to see adapted?

And at what point, if any, would crossover releases become too much?

The setting has accumulated an enormous number of monsters and strange creatures across novels, adventures, sourcebooks, and different editions.

Some appear constantly, while others seem perfect for memorable encounters but are rarely discussed or used.

What creature deserves far more attention?

It does not need to be uniquely native to the Realms, but it should have an especially interesting place in the setting’s lore, history, or ecology.

What makes it different from a generic monster encounter?

How would you introduce it in a campaign so the players immediately understood why it was special?

I’ve been looking through what is coming in Arcana Unleashed, and the amount of new material for magic-heavy characters is pretty substantial.

There are eight subclasses, including four Wizard schools, lots of new and revised spells, more than 20 feats, and a large collection of magic items. There are martial-adjacent options in there too, like Arcane Archer and Warrior of the Mystic Arts, but the whole book is obviously built around magic.

And to be clear, I think that sounds fun. I am not arguing that a book called Arcana Unleashed somehow has too much magic in it.

It just made me realize how much I would like to see the opposite book eventually.

At my table, I think 5.5e has already done a lot to make martial characters more enjoyable. Weapon Mastery in particular has made a noticeable difference. Martial turns feel less like simply walking up and attacking until something dies, and weapon choice actually creates more tactical decisions than it used to.

But I still think there is a lot of unexplored design space there.

I would love to see a full expansion built around martial characters with new Weapon Masteries, Fighting Styles, martial feats, weapons, armor, maneuvers, nonmagical equipment, high-level martial options, and especially more things for martial characters to do outside combat.

Not necessarily just "give Fighters spells without calling them spells," either. I would want systems that actually lean into being exceptionally skilled, strong, fast, tactical, intimidating, resourceful, or legendary without magic being the answer to everything.

So if Arcana Unleashed is effectively the big magic expansion for 5.5e, would you want a martial equivalent next?

And if so, what would you actually put in it?

More subclasses and feats?

Expanded Weapon Mastery?

A maneuver system available to more classes?

Better mundane equipment and crafting?

More out-of-combat abilities for martials?

Or do you think the 2024 PHB already did enough to close that gap?

You must work with one established villain to prevent a disaster that threatens both of you.

They cannot simply betray you immediately, because they also need the mission to succeed. However, once the danger has passed, the agreement ends and they return to being exactly who they were before.

Who would be the most effective and least disastrous temporary ally?

Jarlaxle could be useful, but every part of the agreement would probably benefit him in a way you failed to notice. Manshoon would be terrifying but extremely capable. Szass Tam might genuinely save the world if losing it interfered with his plans.

Who would you choose?

What precautions would you take before accepting their help?

The Ranger has probably been one of the most debated classes throughout 5E, so I was really curious to see whether the revised version would finally make it feel complete.

There are a lot of changes I genuinely like. The class gets more spells, better mobility, Weapon Mastery, Expertise, and free uses of Hunter’s Mark. On paper, it feels more capable and much smoother than the original 2014 Ranger.

But I’m still unsure about building so much of the class around Hunter’s Mark.

At my table, our Ranger felt great during a fight against one large monster. They marked it early, kept landing attacks, and the extra damage felt reliable without costing their limited spell slots. In that kind of encounter, Hunter’s Mark worked exactly as intended.

The awkwardness became more obvious during a fights with several weaker enemies.

The Ranger kept spending their Bonus Action to move the mark from one target to the next as enemies went down. They also considered using Spike Growth to control a narrow passage, but doing that would mean dropping Hunter’s Mark and giving up the spell that the class keeps encouraging them to use.

The general sentiment was: If another concentration spell is better here, why does so much of the class keep pointing back toward Hunter’s Mark?

That summed up my mixed feelings pretty well.

Hunter’s Mark is a useful and thematic spell, especially at lower levels. But there is a difference between giving the Ranger a reliable option and making that option feel like the central answer to how the class is supposed to play.

So how has the revised Ranger worked at your table?

Does Hunter’s Mark feel like a useful baseline, or like a tax on the Ranger’s concentration and Bonus Action?

Are Rangers actually using their other concentration spells regularly?

And overall, do you think 5.5E fixed the Ranger, even if the Hunter’s Mark design is still awkward?

Baldur’s Gate has now received several major games, but the Realms contain many other places that could support a large story with companions, factions, exploration, and meaningful choices.

You can choose one city or region for a new story-driven RPG.

Would you pick Waterdeep and its political factions? Cormyr during a succession crisis? The Moonsea with Zhentarim intrigue? The Dalelands surrounded by old ruins? The Sea of Fallen Stars? Thay? The Underdark?

My first choice would probably be the Moonsea. It has recognizable factions, dangerous cities, ancient ruins, and enough moral ambiguity to support very different player choices.

Which location would you choose?

What would the main conflict be, and which faction would inevitably become involved?

Imagine describing the identity of the setting without relying on Drizzt, Elminster, Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep, or another famous character or location.

What is the essential ingredient that makes a campaign feel like it belongs in the Forgotten Realms rather than in a generic fantasy world?

Is it the way the gods are woven into daily life? The layers of fallen civilizations beneath every kingdom? The countless competing factions? The mixture of enormous magical events and very local problems? The sense that history continues to move even when the player characters are elsewhere?

For me, it is the layered history. Almost every road, ruin, border, and political conflict seems connected to several older civilizations and grudges.

What one element would you preserve above everything else?

I completely understand why Divine Smite needed some kind of limitation in 5.5E.

In 2014, a Paladin could spend several spell slots in one turn, especially after a critical hit, and sometimes remove an important enemy before the encounter had a chance to develop.

Limiting that kind of burst damage seems reasonable.

But I’m less convinced that turning Divine Smite into a Bonus Action spell was the best way to do it.

Just the other day at my table, the Paladin used Lay on Hands to bring an unconscious ally back into the fight, then attacked and rolled a critical hit.

The player immediately reached for the extra Smite dice, then realized they had already spent their Bonus Action on Lay on Hands and could not use Divine Smite.

I’m currently DMing Curse of Strahd for a party of only three characters, so I think the player felt the restriction even more than they might have in a larger group. With so few characters, every turn and every opportunity to deal significant damage can matter a lot.

Their reaction was basically, “So I did the Paladin thing by saving someone, rolled the perfect Paladin critical hit, and now I can’t smite because both abilities use the same Bonus Action?”

It was still a good turn. They rescued another character and landed a critical hit. But it also felt strange that two of the class’s most iconic abilities were competing for the same part of the action economy.

On the other hand, I have also run encounters under the 2014 rules where a Paladin landed multiple attacks, spent several slots, and erased a boss much faster than I expected. I do not particularly miss having to design major enemies around the possibility of one enormous Smite turn.

So I can see why the limitation exists.

I’m just not sure whether Divine Smite needed to become a Bonus Action, or whether simply limiting it to once per turn would have solved the main problem without making the class feel more crowded.

How has it felt at your table?

Does the Bonus Action cost create meaningful decisions?

Does it interfere too much with Lay on Hands, feats, spells, and subclass abilities?

Does the revised Smite still feel satisfying when the Paladin lands a critical hit?

Or do you think controlling Paladin burst damage was worth the extra restriction?

A setting with this much history will inevitably contain events, characters, timelines, and cosmological changes that some DMs would rather handle differently.

I am not looking for a declaration that an entire edition is terrible. I am interested in one specific piece of lore that you deliberately rewrite, ignore, reverse, or replace when running the Realms.

It could be the fate of a city or character, the return or death of a deity, a historical event, the treatment of a particular nation, the current date, the structure of the planes, or something much smaller.

What do you change?

What do you replace it with, and why does your version work better for your campaign?