D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Document: 77 Pages, 7 Classes, & More!

There's a brand new playtest document for the new (version/edition/update) of Dungeons of Dragons available for download! This one is an enormous 77 pages and includes classes, spells, feats, and weapons.

Unearthed Arcana Playtest

Unearthed Arcana Playtest Materials Get Unearthed Arcana playtest content, try it out in your game, and provide feedback! Check back regularly for ...

www.dndbeyond.com

In this new Unearthed Arcana document for the 2024 Core Rulebooks, we explore material designed for the next version of the Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents updated rules on seven classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue. This document also presents multiple subclasses for each of those classes, new Spells, revisions to existing Spells and Spell Lists, and several revised Feats. You will also find an updated rules glossary that supercedes the glossary of any previous playtest document.

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[mamba]

The fandom rejects changes. Full stop. They ran into this in 4e. Then in 2014. Now again ten years later. Thank goodness the internet wasn’t a thing when 3e was released or we’d still have THAC0 and percentile strength.

in other words, thank goodness WotC did not listen to the most conservative part of their fans back then….

 

[Neonchameleon]

Magic has no basis in reality, and thus just has to be consistent, as opposed to realistic.

Magic has no more basis in reality than hit points or flying dragons.

If we're going by "reality" then sticking someone with three foot of steel should be potentially lethal with every hit. Fighters aren't "realistic" in D&D - they are walking around with cinematic durability and nerf bats as weapons.

Fighters don't live in reality and are subject to unrealistic constraints as both strengths and weaknesses. The pretense that fighters should be bound by "reality" because they live in a realistic setting is weak in low level oD&D at low level, threadbare in 5e at tier 1, and simply laughable at tier 2 in 5e

The D&D world simply is gonzo. Why do you try to force "reality" onto fighters when fighting with hit points is so starkly, visibly gonzo? The second a character can survive a critical hit from an orc with an axe with the only penalty being they can take fewer hits in future they have clearly left reality behind.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, the new document is chockablock with changes. Lots of small changes, all told, but they add up, and some are quite bold.

Yeeeeep

I gotta say though. I just think how they portray some of the classes is a little boring. Is the coolest thing a ranger can get at 13th level really Conjure Barrage? Like it's cool, you get a nice cone attack but, that's it? 7th level spells are things like forcecage, mirage arcane, firestorm, simulcrum, teleport. I'd like the ranger to have a little more pizzaz. And that really goes for every class. I just think the 11th-18th level features, including the subclass features there, are just kinda' unimpressive.

Yeah like a later level fiend warlock can drag people through hell and back

 

[Shardstone]

Exactly! Cleric's get Divine Intervention, which brings on the flavor of having a GOD come in and help you (or any celestial force) at the higher levels, and Ranger is getting Conjure Barrage...it just feels uneven.

Conjure Barrage and Volley are cool btw, I like them, but I think these levels should have two features, not one. I guess you get new spell levels though so, I suppose that is meant to count for everything.

Yeeeeep

Yeah like a later level fiend warlock can drag people through hell and back

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, I know I am close to not bothering, and it doesn’t help that this pack is so large either, the survey for the last one was a chore already

Yea, wotc are also demonstrating without question how utterly unreasonable they have been the last decade claiming that the tm can just homebrew in solutions to problems they themselves are unwilling to even test in a ua. That's especially true when they were calling the tiny steps we saw towards maybe thinking about doing something as "big change".

There has been a couple times where I sat down thinking "ik really happy about how those ribs came out" or "well I'm stuck here waiting for the inspector to sign off on the permit" with every intention of putting together a breakdown of the classes like I did for every packet so far only to decide that my excitement is dampened too much by the regressions and deliberate misses to bother.

 

[Shardstone]

in other words, thank goodness WotC did not listen to the most conservative part of their fans back then….

I agree. Against consensus, I believe that D&D's biggest enemy is the fanbase, not WotC themselves. The fanbase is comfortable with the game as it is, and because we live in an entertainment culture that is absolutely flush with content, people don't have the desire to completely reimagine something they already go to for good times. They want some improvements here and there, especially after 10 years, but they don't want to do something else entirely.

In 2023, D&D, not all TTRPGS, but D&D is what a lot of people want to do. And they want to do it like it is in 5E, because that's the way it was done when the advertising finally worked on them. And they want 5E to get better overtime, to find new ways to have fun with it, but they don't want to advance it super far into a new edition. In surveys, they might like a lot of changes, but if the changes require a lot of effort, and they're already happy with the way things are, then we just go with what's comfortable. The people will be happy with it. They were only half-interestedly asking for something new in the first place.

Third party and indie games and homebrew content are where the innovation happens for TTRPGs. If you're a fan of D&D and you want fun new mechanics, there's near 100 very high-quality splat books and setting guides and monster books and character books out there in the greater D&D ecosystem with reviews and high production values. It's time for the D&D community to finally fully embrace the art scene that's been blossoming at the fringes and stop relying on WotC, who are dedicated to exploring the current D&D framework.

 

[Remathilis]

Magic has no more basis in reality than hit points or flying dragons.

If we're going by "reality" then sticking someone with three foot of steel should be potentially lethal with every hit. Fighters aren't "realistic" in D&D - they are walking around with cinematic durability and nerf bats as weapons.

Fighters don't live in reality and are subject to unrealistic constraints as both strengths and weaknesses. The pretense that fighters should be bound by "reality" because they live in a realistic setting is weak in low level oD&D at low level, threadbare in 5e at tier 1, and simply laughable at tier 2 in 5e

The D&D world simply is gonzo. Why do you try to force "reality" onto fighters when fighting with hit points is so starkly, visibly gonzo? The second a character can survive a critical hit from an orc with an axe with the only penalty being they can take fewer hits in future they have clearly left reality behind.

What separates Taylor Swift from a D&D bard is a bard's singing can access magic.

What separates Neil 'd Grasse Tyson from a D&D wizard is that a wizard's learning and knowledge of forces of the universe can access magic.

What separates Bruce Lee from a D&D monk is that the monk can use its discipline and mastery of self to access magic.

What should separate Connor McGregor from a D&D fighter is that the fighter can use his determination and combat knowledge to access magic.

If D&D is a magical world, then everything in it should be magical (or capable of magic). That should include fighters and rogues.


(And by magic, I mean all manner of supernatural powers: spells, ki/discipline, psionics, incarnum, rage, etc.)

 

[TwoSix]

What separates Taylor Swift from a D&D bard is a bard's singing can access magic.

What separates Neil 'd Grasse Tyson from a D&D wizard is that a wizard's learning and knowledge of forces of the universe can access magic.

What separates Bruce Lee from a D&D monk is that the monk can use its discipline and mastery of self to access magic.

What should separate Connor McGregor from a D&D fighter is that the fighter can use his determination and combat knowledge to access magic.

If D&D is a magical world, then everything in it should be magical (or capable of magic). That should include fighters and rogues.


(And by magic, I mean all manner of supernatural powers: spells, ki/discipline, psionics, incarnum, rage, etc.)

I’m not sure how this happened, but we are 100% on the same page.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh undoubtedly. It’s really a brilliant strategy.

They can toss out play tests of all these different mechanics. Then when the fandom rejects the changes they can rightly say, hey we’re giving people what they want.

All these folks who complain about how “innovation” doesn’t come from WotC miss the fact that WotC absolutely is not allowed to innovate.

Innovation is not about change for the sake of change, but about iterating and improving a design for achieving an end goal. And even this latest document is full of changes.

 

[Parmandur]

And we’ll see if that survives the next pass.

Any bets?

I think the material in here has a strong chance of seeing publication. This is their first serious "we can send this to the printer once we double check our math" proposal.