One D&D Druid and Paladin: Survey Results

Here follow my notes about the One D&D Druid and Paladin Survey Results video that Wizards of the Coast released in May 2023.

For more context and my Standard Disclaimer, check out the introduction to this series.

Paladin

Quantitatively, the Paladin overall did extremely well in satisfaction. Every feature in the class and subclass scored 70% or better. Divine Smite was the lowest at 72%. Some features scored even 90%!

Qualitatively, people seemed to like Divine Smite on unarmed strikes, but didn’t like Paladins smiting on ranged attacks as it intruded too far into another class’s identity. Feedback on Smite spells suggested ways to integrate them more deeply into the class, perhaps as Paladin exclusive features.

Druid

Knew that Druid feedback would be spicy. Wild Shape feedback fell into basically two camps — one that thinks it’s their favorite version ever, and another that says they never want to see it in print, and the latter group outnumbered the former (in a simple but not overwhelming majority). Interesting — even folks who liked the 2014 version are open to Wild Shape being easier to use. The design goal here, ultimately, is to avoid having players have to go consider a hundred stat blocks before deciding what their character should Wild Shape into. The next iteration will attempt to address this.

People liked the promise of Channel Nature, but want to see more of it. Stay tuned!

Circle of the Moon subclass feedback was both expected and surprising. One surprise — turning into an elemental wasn’t requested, but wanted to lean into the lunar theme. And wanted CotM Wild Shapes to be more resilient so that they can continue to be in melee. But also not wanting to bring back the high-level overpoweredness of the CotM Wild Shape and its effectively infinite hit point regeneration; DMs found it hard to make CotM druids feel credibly threatened. This will be reined in.

General

A few things need to have power adjusted (down). Here they offer another explicit mention that Sorcerer’s Twinned Spell metamagic needed to be nerfed (I look forward to filing some VERY harsh feedback on this, btw, as I think they are absolutely as wrong as it gets on this point). But most changes will be about making things more fun or easier to use.

What about subclasses like Arcane Archer that could be seen as letting the Fighter “eat the lunch” of another class? Subclasses are meant to either give you a taste of something that no other class has, or a taste of something another class has — as in the case of Arcane Archer. The main idea is to not have the base classes overlap too much. And where they do overlap, give the base classes something distinctive. Similar examples: Eldritch Knight and Blade Singer.