You've got questions—we've got answers! Here's how it works—each week, our Community Manager will be scouring all available sources to find whatever D&D Next questions you're asking.
There are certain business and legal questions we can't answer (for business and legal reasons). And if you have a specific rules question, we'd rather point you to Customer Service, where representatives are ready and waiting to help guide you through the rules of the game. That said, our goal is provide you with as much information we can—in this and other venues.
____________________________________
Does the skill training gained at 2nd level in the playtest refer to gaining a +1 to an existing skill or to acquiring a new skill entirely? Is the +7 maximum for skill bonuses meant to include ability bonus as well?
At 2nd level and 4th level, you get to add +1 to an existing skill (up to a maximum of +7, not including your ability bonus). Currently, the only way to obtain new skills is through the Jack of All Trades specialty, though we expect that the Skill Training feat might appear in more specialties (including ones you design yourselves) in the future.
What other sorcerer origins and warlock pacts are being considered?
For sorcerous origins, we’re looking at experimenting with lots of different directions. For example, we don’t think that the sorcerer necessarily has to be an arcane spellcaster exclusively; for instance, we’ve been thinking of adapting the Favored Soul concept (from 3rd Edition) to the sorcerer to allow you to play a divine spellcaster using the willpower mechanic.
As for warlock pacts, one of the things we want to do with the warlock is tie the pacts into our D&D lore more closely. Just as the first pact was with Verenestra, not a generic fey lord, we want to look at the powerful, non-deity beings from D&D lore as potential sources of pacts. We think it would be really nice if players could say things like, “I have a pact with Vlaakith, the Lich-Queen of the githyanki” or “I have a pact with the archon lord Raziel the Crusader.
How can we as playtesters and forum members best serve the playtest process?
We actually got this question several times at Gen Con, so I thought I’d answer it here as well. Easily the most useful things you can do are to play the game frequently and then respond to the surveys. The surveys we conduct are by far the most useful tool we have for gathering feedback from you in a directed and understandable way. So, whenever we email you a survey (such as, the one that went out with the updated packet on Friday, July 17th), make sure that you playtest in such a way that you can jump into the survey and give us the feedback we’re asking for.
Also, just as an insight we’ve picked up during our own playtests, it can be really helpful to playtest the same material multiple times. So, make sure that you’re giving the playtest multiple, thorough plays. Not only may new things that were not issues in the first play through pop up on subsequent plays, but you will end up understanding the mechanics better.
____________________________________
How can I submit a question to the D&D Next Q&A?
Instead of a single venue to submit questions, our Community Manager will be selecting questions from our message boards, Twitter feed, and Facebook account. You can also submit questions directly to dndinsider@wizards.com. So, if you’d like to have your question answered in the D&D Next Q&A, just continue to participate in our online community—and we may select yours!
