D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Shows Us The New Druid & Paladin

WotC has released the fourth One D&D playtest document. This 29-page PDF includes the druid and the paladin with Circle of the Moon and Oath of Devotion subclasses.

Druid. The Druid class and Circle of the Moon subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Paladin. The Paladin class and Oath of Devotion subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Feats. Several revised feats appear here for your feedback, with more revised feats coming in future articles.

Spells. More spells are ready for playtesting, with a focus on smite spells, Find Familiar, and Find Steed.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary has been updated again and supersedes the glossary in previous Unearthed Arcana articles. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in that glossary, which defines game terms that have been clarified or redefined for this playtest or that don’t appear in the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

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[Micah Sweet]

Do we know that for sure? I mean, it's not that I don't believe it, but I've been on a lot of published adventures.

WotC did a study on it a while back, but the balance may have shifted since then.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That’s not true. It’s actually split about half and half.

Fair enough. Still don't want the game built around WotC's published adventures.

 

[Parmandur]

i mean...as you just pointed out, it came into popularity in the last 5ish years... and every developer I know the name of started playing long before that... so that DOES show they are likely to be out of touch...

Justice Arman is a Senior Designer at WotC, and he started playing in 201e with 3.5, then began DMinijg with 5E in 2014. Makenzie de Aramas, Assoaciate Designer ar WotC, started playing in 2018 after watching Critical Role, and by 2022 was one of the talking heads in the OneD&D announcement video.

Perkins and Crawford have been around the block, but a lot of the people doing the heavy lifting on the 2024 vook actually started with 5E. That's how long it's been around, and how successful talent feeding programs like the DMsGuild have been.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But, even in high level adventures, and, again, I'm willing to look across editions here, Plane Shift just doesn't come up. I've got a shelf full of Dungeon adventures for 3e, yet, again, despite having tons of high level adventures, Plane Shift isn't a thing. 5e adventures? Nope. Even the ones that go higher level like Candlekeep (where all the planar travel, which there is quite a bit of, is handled within the adventure) or Dungeons on the Mad Mage or various other 3rd party offerings as well.

Look, I get that a given group might be using it. Infinite monkeys and all that. But, I'm fairly willing to put money on the idea that if Plane Shift were removed from the PHB, very, very few people would even notice. It's one of those kinda weird vestigial hangers on that fills the books. It's there because it isn't really causing any problems, but, OTOH, it's also pretty much ignored most of the time.

Kind of like gnomes.

Why would it ever feature in a published adventure?

It’s a spell that lets players decide on thier own initiative to travel the planes.

 

[clearstream]

My issue with planeshift, and other some other spells, is that makes certain campaigns require certain classes.

Like, what if your party is a monk, paladin, rogue, barbarian, and fighter?

Following the rules (PHB6, PHB185): players say what their characters do. One possible implication is that the party without plane shift are unlikely to say that they plane shift. As DM, let go of whatever preexisting plans you had that required the party to have plane shift, and let them follow their interests. In any case, it's not up to DM to say what player characters do.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah. Even so, I certainly wouldn't want the game designed around the published adventures as a base. Most gamers play homebrew.

What I have been hoping for are more published campaign resources, rather than adventures. I found OotA good value, for instance, but not because of the through-line of the adventure, but because of the maps, peoples and upheavals that player characters had the option to become involved with.

 

[James Gasik]

Following the rules (PHB6, PHB185): players say what their characters do. One possible implication is that the party without plane shift are unlikely to say that they plane shift. As DM, let go of whatever preexisting plans you had that required the party to have plane shift, and let them follow their interests. In any case, it's not up to DM to say what player characters do.

Ideally, at least. But I play with DM's who will purchase an adventure path and seek to run it. So while the players could say "we don't want to go on this adventure", lol, there might not be much game to play until the DM decides what they want to do next.

 

[Hussar]

Fair enough. Still don't want the game built around WotC's published adventures.

Dude, you don't want this game at all. No matter what they say, you don't want this game.

 

[Hussar]

Why would it ever feature in a published adventure?

It’s a spell that lets players decide on thier own initiative to travel the planes.

So, basically, it's a spell that tells the DM, "Sorry, we don't want to do whatever it is you've got planned. We want you to create adventures on the fly because we want to randomly jump to various planes for ... reasons."

Yeah, not a surprise I've never seen it used. Again, sorry, but, how often have you seen it used? I'll more than willing to bet dollars to donuts that it's almost never used as a travel spell by players. It's one of those vestigial spells that gets kept in the game, not because it's actually used by players, but, because it's not annoying enough to take out.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are tons of groups out there that are using Plane Shift routinely. But, I'm very, very much willing to take that bet. I find it endlessly baffling that people are so resistant to the idea that there are things in the PHB that aren't really seeing the light of day and probably should get pushed out in favor of stuff that actually MIGHT get used at the table.

But, hey, tradition for the win I guess.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

So, basically, it's a spell that tells the DM, "Sorry, we don't want to do whatever it is you've got planned. We want you to create adventures on the fly because we want to randomly jump to various planes for ... reasons."

Yeah, not a surprise I've never seen it used. Again, sorry, but, how often have you seen it used? I'll more than willing to bet dollars to donuts that it's almost never used as a travel spell by players. It's one of those vestigial spells that gets kept in the game, not because it's actually used by players, but, because it's not annoying enough to take out.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are tons of groups out there that are using Plane Shift routinely. But, I'm very, very much willing to take that bet. I find it endlessly baffling that people are so resistant to the idea that there are things in the PHB that aren't really seeing the light of day and probably should get pushed out in favor of stuff that actually MIGHT get used at the table.

But, hey, tradition for the win I guess.

PC's randomly traveling to another plane isn't fundamentally different than the PC's randomly heading out into the wilderness. In either case it's up to the DM if they want to run an adventure there or just treat it as downtime.

Plane shift lets high level PC's take the fight to extraplanar adversaries without relying on the adventure handing them a method to travel there. It and similar spells like Teleport should probably be on every class spell list considering how they allow the PCs to approach adventures in new ways, this shouldn't be gated to the wizard.