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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[Parmandur]

I do sincerely miss late 3.5. best time to be playing.

Eh, if you could afford a host of books, maybe. The bewildering array of product offering smeant that I never bought anything for 3E: anytime I was interested in a book, there were always a half dozen books I was also interested in, and they cancelled each other out and I bought nothing.

Entirety of 3E: I bought the PHB.

5E: I literally have every book.

 

[Pedantic]

Eh, if you could afford a host of books, maybe. The bewildering array of product offering smeant that I never bought anything for 3E: anytime I was interested in a boom, there were always a half dozen books I was also interested in, and they cancelled each other out and I bought nothing.

Entirety of 3E: I bought the PHB.

5E: I literally have every book.

That feels like your loss and WotC's gain? You had more choices, but opted to take none of them, and how you have less choices but get all of them. I'm not sure how the latter situation is better for you, though obviously if you're buying more books in total terms, that's great for the publisher.

I loved the stream of new experimental stuff to check out and tinker with. I just didn't have or use all of it.

 

[Parmandur]

That feels like your loss and WotC's gain? You had more choices, but opted to take none of them, and how you have less choices but get all of them. I'm not sure how the latter situation is better for you, though obviously if you're buying more books in total terms, that's great for the publisher.

I loved the stream of new experimental stuff to check out and tinker with. I just didn't have or use all of it.

If I have twenty options that all appeal to me, they are overwhelming to the point where I choose none, then I have no real options.

When I have four options that all appeal to me and I can process and bring myself to buy, I then have four options.

Four is more than none.

3.5 hosing the market with splat was not good for users, or for the company. Producing a rational amount of material at a steady pace is good for both.

 

[Hussar]

I largely agree with @paramandur. I also like the slower release rate.

But it does come at the cost that WotC cannot afford to ever produce a book that isn’t a huge seller. All the eggs in one basket and all that.

 

[Parmandur]

I largely agree with @paramandur. I also like the slower release rate.

But it does come at the cost that WotC cannot afford to ever produce a book that isn’t a huge seller. All the eggs in one basket and all that.

On the other hand, the DMsGuild exists and is a wild and crazy realm of experimentation. Much of the D&D design team now came up through that, too, making their own stuff and hustling it (Justice Armin comes to mind). Different environment in a lotnof ways than the Aughts.

 

[Hussar]

On the other hand, the DMsGuild exists and is a wild and crazy realm of experimentation. Much of the D&D design team now came up through that, too, making their own stuff and hustling it (Justice Armin comes to mind). Different environment in a lotnof ways than the Aughts.

Oh absolutely. I loves me 3pp. I use them all the time. Monsters. Adventures. All sorts of stuff.

In twenty years of the ogl, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a player try to use a non-WotC source.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh absolutely. I loves me 3pp. I use them all the time. Monsters. Adventures. All sorts of stuff.

In twenty years of the ogl, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a player try to use a non-WotC source.

My players do all the time, since long before we switched to using Level Up as our base.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh absolutely. I loves me 3pp. I use them all the time. Monsters. Adventures. All sorts of stuff.

In twenty years of the ogl, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a player try to use a non-WotC source.

Well, sure. Takes a while for that to percolate into the main game played by most people, realistically.

 

[Hussar]

My players do all the time, since long before we switched to using Level Up as our base.

Heh. I wish. I've tried. Really I have. Made stuff available. Brought stuff up. Pointed people in the direction. Nope, zero interest. I have five new races for your new PC but none of them are in a WotC book? Might as well not exist at all.

Lessee, from memory, in the past 20 ish years that I've played D&D with the OGL (and, trust me, I've used OGL material extensively - to the point of actually running The World's Largest Dungeon and my very first 3e campaigns were set in Scarred Lands.) - I've had a grippli character which was from Dragon magazine, an awakened skeleton, currently have a Pugilist character in a game, and a Lucidling (a reified dream of an aboleth). I might be forgetting something, but, that's about it.

I mean, good grief, I was running Scarred Lands, made all that material available to the players and the players just basically refused to play anything that wasn't in a WotC book. I might as well have been running Forgotten Realms. Zero interest in anything that doesn't have the WotC seal of approval.

It really is rather frustrating.

 

[Autumnal]

Especially considering I suspect most people already know 5E to completely "functional" (as in able to be used to produce a perfectly fine D&D experience), it's just not as good as they'd wish it to be.

I just wanted to note that I like this phrasing, for moving away from a good/bad binary in favor of an approach that allows for a lot of fuzziness and different axes.