Extra extra good is that it looks like the bonus action spell casting rules are being dropped (see how they instead limited action surge and quickened spell directly in those features) so thief may be the only person able to crank out stuff like double fireballs in a turn. We'll need to wait and see if that's right though.
So now meta magic quickened spell specifically says in it that you can only cast a cantrip as an action if you bonus action a leveled spell directly in that feature.
Similarly action surge now specifically doesn't allow you to cast a spell with that action.
Limits on spellcasting on a turn being put directly into the features that historically allowed for more casting implies that they may actually just remove the bonus spell casting rules from the game (I am not the only person to theorize this)
Oh cool!! So the theory being that someone could still cast Misty Step followed by Fireball - sure burning two slots but making everyone's lives easier by not having to remind new players they can't do that (for a silly reason that the rules say so).
I hope they revisit the rules for invisibility because even truesight and blindsight do not negate combat advantage/disadvantage on creatures/players with the Invisibility condition. Apparently this is even rules as intended.
This was already fixed in the playtest, though they also introduced a new issue: invisible creatures are immune to features requiring sight, regardless of truesight or blindsight.
Keep in mind that thiefs lost the ability to ignore magic item requirements, so they cannot attune to things like a staff of power anymore, thus limiting its options. Guess we’ll have to wait and see what magic items are available for thieves tl exploit.
Depending on the wording. If they go old wording, then just play a speices with spell casting or grab magic initiated at first level. If they update the wording to spell the casting feature, then yeah, it's a no-go.
But a one level ranger or wizard dip solves that
I think that would depending on if [magic action] would exclude sneak attack or not. God I hope the blade cantrips made it through without problem and or if the 2024 characters will be able to see the 2014 spell lists in beyond. blade spell dice, Sneak attack, still getting to proc nick, weapon dice, and still having a bonus action is fucking disgusting and I am here for it.
I completely agree! I think they get stellar features at every level now.
I think that a frank conversation with your DM “Will this campaign have decent magic items so I can make use of the Thief Rogues features?” will solve any issues of their features being campaign dependent. Yes, it’s *slightly* a mother may I feature, but barely, especially in official modules.
The climb speed is also awesome, giving you even MORE options of being a slippery bastard than the base class.
Staying hidden is awesome.
Having money basically be a replacement for spell slots is amazing. As long as you have expertise in arcana you will never fail a skill check for any level of scroll.
And of course their capstone is the best of all of the rogues. 2 turns on round 1 is insanity.
Climbing speed is another thing that relies on the GM. RAI expect that Athletics checks are only getting called if the surface is slippery or doesn't have easy handholds, but so many GMs are asking for rolls for any little thing.
I've seen the opposite way too often, treating a climb speed almost like spider climb, rather than as a small perk that lets a climbing character move at full speed, but subject to the same checks.
I can't count the number of times I've seen a DM ask for an athletics check for a non-climb speed character but not for one with a climb speed (and the same goes for swimming, as well).
To be fair, climbing speed is not useful for much. If it doesn't give you small things like that, DnD cats are never going to get up a tree with their 30ft climb speed but a total of -4 to Athletics.
I would think if you have a climb speed - you are better at climbing than most. That would mean lower checks.
See the cat argument.
A Thief Rogue with 10 STR and expertise in Athletics should make anything but the most ridiculous attempts at climbing. Especially by level 7.
Regrettably I don't think that works because A) artificer doesn't get an extra slot till level 10 and thief at level 13 and you can't be level 23, and B) both of these features say "you can attune to 4 items" not "you can attune to an extra item". So both features if you could somehow have both would just set your attunement slots to 4.
I mean, even if they were unified, at best both these features would be at level 10 (although the thief one may just be at 14 then) so you wouldn't get them both until level 20, and they still wouldn't stack together, and you'd also be 2 attunement slots behind a straight classed artificer who get 6 slots at level 20.
honestly putting a /s there would have probably been better. it wasn't a serious complaint just a minor joke attempt
also it's beside the point but with unified progression i think magic item adept would be at level 9
Oh I understood it was a joke I just found it to not make sense given that it wouldn't have really solved the problems of why it doesn't work.
Also, the tested unified progression put subclass levels at 3, 6, 10, and 14. Use magic device from the expert classes UA was at level 10 not 9.
I kinda assume they won't or if they do it will be a minor errata type patch to update wording.
That class is really well balanced and makes good use of the updated feats and spell enhancements.
they all benefit from improvements to cure wounds. alchemist heavily benefits to improvements to cure wounds, healing word, acid splash and poison spray. Battle smith gets huge improvements from the reworked conjure barrage and reworked smite spells.
Built in crafting rules and guidance will be a boon to general artificers level 10 crafting boost.
Artificer is honestly in a good place.
They said that past level 20 the support is feats, epic boons, and the ability to bring ability scores to 30 over time. Sorry but RAW it appears no class levels past 20.
I help one of my players building a character I would have loved to play myself :
A thief rogue with this bonus action magic item rule (at the time homeruled) multiclassing with Kibble Tasty homebrewed Inventor
Very very cinematic and resourceful
I suspect at most tables, Thieves will be absolute monsters in terms of versatility and magic item shenanigans. Imo Arcane Tricksters will also be perfectly fine due to their access to haste and the ability to hide to ensure they don't drop concentration. It's really the Assassins and the Soulknives that might struggle to keep up (in melee, Treantmonk suggested rogues might be up there for ranged damage)
The theif rogue MIGHT be the most powerful class/subclass combo in the game - obviously contingent on the item's your DM provides you.
EVEN if you only get a wand of magic missles at level 3-7; their damage is actually really solid!
3 levels of rogue for thief can spice up many builds now. WHich is good. It takes one of my strategies as a Sorcerer with Quicken and puts it on skates with unlimited use. Sure you'd be losing some benefits like sneak attack probably will never come up with the MC if you're going a caster, but even non-casters. Imagine a Eldritch Knight/THief who attacks 3 times with 1 being a cantrip then uses a wand of fireballs. That would be awesome. Or a Wizard/thief who gains light armor which means you basically don't need to pay the mage armor tax, then you just drop big spells then use a magic item potentially casting 2 big spells per turn.'
Of course as a class itself it would be interesting to see what the higher level abilities do. If they can use any magic item it makes them into a god tier scroll user.
Yep, BG3 messed with bonus action economy with the Thief and it ended up being the most broken thing ever. They gave Thief an extra bonus action that people used to Flurry of Blows or Off Hand Attack.
One D&D, there's no extra bonus action but using a scroll or wand is a ridiculous amount of extra VERY POWERFUL casting available, as long as your gold and item economy is strong.
It's comparable (arguably better) than an always on Sorcerer with Quicken doing spells at bonus action speed.
I would be very careful with getting your hopes up here.
Crawford said that as a Bonus Action you could use a Magic action to 'activate' an item.
He did not say that as a Bonus Action you can use a Magic action to 'cast a spell' through an item.
This may mean that the Thief can activate say the Immovable Rod as a Bonus Action but cannot cast with a Wand of Fireball.
You are still casting when you use a magic item that casts a spell, so I would be careful about interpreting this as getting spells as a Bonus Action.
I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't think this will work like you think it will.
Didn't come up often, but I just house ruled it always worked that way. Maybe for more involved items - like operating the mecha-lobster, cubic gates, and the like it might stretch things out, but really, I didn't see the need to have the rule that magic item activation could not be reduced.
Thief can be good *if* they have a guaranteed source of activatable magic items (without class restrictions). At least most of those replenish charges every day, so they can get by with just the one.
It is still a better class feature to have than previously throwing acid vials (that get no proficiency *and* use Str) or trying to bullshit your GM into letting you do stuff with regular gear items that don't have defined mechanics (how do you apply manacles? what is the effect of being manacled? who knows).
Use Magic Device for scrolls is not a guarantee. It's an Int check vs DC10+scroll spell level, so good luck casting anything meaningful by the lv13 point you finally get it.
>It's an Int check vs DC10+scroll spell level, so good luck casting anything meaningful by the lv13 point you finally get it.
From the latest playtest doc, it's an Arcana check. So unless they changed that for the final version, a Thief with Expertise in Arcana will be casting whatever they want.
Also keep in mind that the Bastion System allows for specific Magic Items to be gained
Extra extra good is that it looks like the bonus action spell casting rules are being dropped (see how they instead limited action surge and quickened spell directly in those features) so thief may be the only person able to crank out stuff like double fireballs in a turn. We'll need to wait and see if that's right though.
Can you elaborate on the changes to spellcasting?
So now meta magic quickened spell specifically says in it that you can only cast a cantrip as an action if you bonus action a leveled spell directly in that feature. Similarly action surge now specifically doesn't allow you to cast a spell with that action. Limits on spellcasting on a turn being put directly into the features that historically allowed for more casting implies that they may actually just remove the bonus spell casting rules from the game (I am not the only person to theorize this)
Oh cool!! So the theory being that someone could still cast Misty Step followed by Fireball - sure burning two slots but making everyone's lives easier by not having to remind new players they can't do that (for a silly reason that the rules say so).
Would activating a ring of invisibility be a bonus action?
Yep, though unfortunately, by the time you'd usually get one, so many enemies have either truesight or blindsight.
Would make for a fun NPC though :)
I hope they revisit the rules for invisibility because even truesight and blindsight do not negate combat advantage/disadvantage on creatures/players with the Invisibility condition. Apparently this is even rules as intended.
This was already fixed in the playtest, though they also introduced a new issue: invisible creatures are immune to features requiring sight, regardless of truesight or blindsight.
Good God that's idiotic if true, how does this stuff actually get from thought to screen in those offices
The whole Hide/Invisibility system needs reworking bad. It wasn't great in 2014 phb and much worse in UA
We all already know intuitively how it should work. I don't really care what the rules say about it if they are just going to be stupid about it.
Keep in mind that thiefs lost the ability to ignore magic item requirements, so they cannot attune to things like a staff of power anymore, thus limiting its options. Guess we’ll have to wait and see what magic items are available for thieves tl exploit.
Depending on the wording. If they go old wording, then just play a speices with spell casting or grab magic initiated at first level. If they update the wording to spell the casting feature, then yeah, it's a no-go. But a one level ranger or wizard dip solves that
A lot of that gets fixed with a feat like magic initiate unless they changed the spellcaster definition to something else.
Which you honestly probably want for a Blade Cantrip or something like that anyhow.
I think that would depending on if [magic action] would exclude sneak attack or not. God I hope the blade cantrips made it through without problem and or if the 2024 characters will be able to see the 2014 spell lists in beyond. blade spell dice, Sneak attack, still getting to proc nick, weapon dice, and still having a bonus action is fucking disgusting and I am here for it.
I completely agree! I think they get stellar features at every level now. I think that a frank conversation with your DM “Will this campaign have decent magic items so I can make use of the Thief Rogues features?” will solve any issues of their features being campaign dependent. Yes, it’s *slightly* a mother may I feature, but barely, especially in official modules. The climb speed is also awesome, giving you even MORE options of being a slippery bastard than the base class. Staying hidden is awesome. Having money basically be a replacement for spell slots is amazing. As long as you have expertise in arcana you will never fail a skill check for any level of scroll. And of course their capstone is the best of all of the rogues. 2 turns on round 1 is insanity.
Climbing speed is another thing that relies on the GM. RAI expect that Athletics checks are only getting called if the surface is slippery or doesn't have easy handholds, but so many GMs are asking for rolls for any little thing.
I've seen the opposite way too often, treating a climb speed almost like spider climb, rather than as a small perk that lets a climbing character move at full speed, but subject to the same checks. I can't count the number of times I've seen a DM ask for an athletics check for a non-climb speed character but not for one with a climb speed (and the same goes for swimming, as well).
To be fair, climbing speed is not useful for much. If it doesn't give you small things like that, DnD cats are never going to get up a tree with their 30ft climb speed but a total of -4 to Athletics.
I would think if you have a climb speed - you are better at climbing than most. That would mean lower checks. See the cat argument. A Thief Rogue with 10 STR and expertise in Athletics should make anything but the most ridiculous attempts at climbing. Especially by level 7.
I keep thinking about a Theif/Artificer multiclass with infused items and even more magic items attunement.
Regrettably I don't think that works because A) artificer doesn't get an extra slot till level 10 and thief at level 13 and you can't be level 23, and B) both of these features say "you can attune to 4 items" not "you can attune to an extra item". So both features if you could somehow have both would just set your attunement slots to 4.
Damn you are probably right. I thought the thief got their four attunement slot before 10.
fuck you non-unified subclass progression! \*shakes fist at cloud\*
I mean, even if they were unified, at best both these features would be at level 10 (although the thief one may just be at 14 then) so you wouldn't get them both until level 20, and they still wouldn't stack together, and you'd also be 2 attunement slots behind a straight classed artificer who get 6 slots at level 20.
honestly putting a /s there would have probably been better. it wasn't a serious complaint just a minor joke attempt also it's beside the point but with unified progression i think magic item adept would be at level 9
Oh I understood it was a joke I just found it to not make sense given that it wouldn't have really solved the problems of why it doesn't work. Also, the tested unified progression put subclass levels at 3, 6, 10, and 14. Use magic device from the expert classes UA was at level 10 not 9.
It does give me some hope for when they (hopefully) update Artificer.
I kinda assume they won't or if they do it will be a minor errata type patch to update wording. That class is really well balanced and makes good use of the updated feats and spell enhancements. they all benefit from improvements to cure wounds. alchemist heavily benefits to improvements to cure wounds, healing word, acid splash and poison spray. Battle smith gets huge improvements from the reworked conjure barrage and reworked smite spells. Built in crafting rules and guidance will be a boon to general artificers level 10 crafting boost. Artificer is honestly in a good place.
I believe the intention is to provide support for high level campaigns, both 17-20 and post-20, so you could potentially get to a L23 in a game.
They said that past level 20 the support is feats, epic boons, and the ability to bring ability scores to 30 over time. Sorry but RAW it appears no class levels past 20.
No, no class levels, but I meant support for how to DM a campaign at higher levels.
I help one of my players building a character I would have loved to play myself : A thief rogue with this bonus action magic item rule (at the time homeruled) multiclassing with Kibble Tasty homebrewed Inventor Very very cinematic and resourceful
I suspect at most tables, Thieves will be absolute monsters in terms of versatility and magic item shenanigans. Imo Arcane Tricksters will also be perfectly fine due to their access to haste and the ability to hide to ensure they don't drop concentration. It's really the Assassins and the Soulknives that might struggle to keep up (in melee, Treantmonk suggested rogues might be up there for ranged damage)
The theif rogue MIGHT be the most powerful class/subclass combo in the game - obviously contingent on the item's your DM provides you. EVEN if you only get a wand of magic missles at level 3-7; their damage is actually really solid!
I hope they don't change the prerequisite to things to be like spellcasting feature. Because wand of paralysis would be insane on a theif rogue.
3 levels of rogue for thief can spice up many builds now. WHich is good. It takes one of my strategies as a Sorcerer with Quicken and puts it on skates with unlimited use. Sure you'd be losing some benefits like sneak attack probably will never come up with the MC if you're going a caster, but even non-casters. Imagine a Eldritch Knight/THief who attacks 3 times with 1 being a cantrip then uses a wand of fireballs. That would be awesome. Or a Wizard/thief who gains light armor which means you basically don't need to pay the mage armor tax, then you just drop big spells then use a magic item potentially casting 2 big spells per turn.' Of course as a class itself it would be interesting to see what the higher level abilities do. If they can use any magic item it makes them into a god tier scroll user.
Yep, BG3 messed with bonus action economy with the Thief and it ended up being the most broken thing ever. They gave Thief an extra bonus action that people used to Flurry of Blows or Off Hand Attack. One D&D, there's no extra bonus action but using a scroll or wand is a ridiculous amount of extra VERY POWERFUL casting available, as long as your gold and item economy is strong. It's comparable (arguably better) than an always on Sorcerer with Quicken doing spells at bonus action speed.
I would be very careful with getting your hopes up here. Crawford said that as a Bonus Action you could use a Magic action to 'activate' an item. He did not say that as a Bonus Action you can use a Magic action to 'cast a spell' through an item. This may mean that the Thief can activate say the Immovable Rod as a Bonus Action but cannot cast with a Wand of Fireball. You are still casting when you use a magic item that casts a spell, so I would be careful about interpreting this as getting spells as a Bonus Action. I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't think this will work like you think it will.
Didn't come up often, but I just house ruled it always worked that way. Maybe for more involved items - like operating the mecha-lobster, cubic gates, and the like it might stretch things out, but really, I didn't see the need to have the rule that magic item activation could not be reduced.
Thief can be good *if* they have a guaranteed source of activatable magic items (without class restrictions). At least most of those replenish charges every day, so they can get by with just the one. It is still a better class feature to have than previously throwing acid vials (that get no proficiency *and* use Str) or trying to bullshit your GM into letting you do stuff with regular gear items that don't have defined mechanics (how do you apply manacles? what is the effect of being manacled? who knows). Use Magic Device for scrolls is not a guarantee. It's an Int check vs DC10+scroll spell level, so good luck casting anything meaningful by the lv13 point you finally get it.
>It's an Int check vs DC10+scroll spell level, so good luck casting anything meaningful by the lv13 point you finally get it. From the latest playtest doc, it's an Arcana check. So unless they changed that for the final version, a Thief with Expertise in Arcana will be casting whatever they want.