D&D (2024) New Unearthed Arcana Playtest Includes Barbarian, Druid, and Monk

The latest Unearthed Arcana playtest packet is now live with new barbarian, druid, and monk versions, as well as new spells and weapons, and a revised Ability Score Improvement feat.

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WHATS INSIDE

Here are the new and revised elements in this article:

Classes. Three classes are here: Barbarian, Druid, and Monk. Each one includes one subclass: Path of the World Tree (Barbarian), Circle of the Moon (Druid), and Warrior of the Hand (Monk).

Spells. New and revised spells are included.

The following sections were introduced in a previous article and are provided here for reference:

Weapons. Weapon revisions are included.

Feats. This includes a revised version of Ability Score Improvement.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary includes the few rules that have revised definitions in the playtest. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in the glossary.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Can someone explain how this is NOT 6th Edition again? (Don't, that was rhetorical)

 

[Mephista]

Monks now effectively have double the ki/discipline points. That's really, really strong. And there are lot of other buffs, too, like being able to grapple with dexterity and deflect/redirect melee attacks. I wouldn't worry -- the new monk looks like a house.

Grappling has an odd limitation on a Monk. You can grab someone, but you can't carry them anywhere, as Monks tend to have low Strength, and thus carrying capacity.

I'm worried that there's a lot of other hidden qualities in Monk that make it nice in a white room, but less shiny in actual play.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Can someone explain how this is NOT 6th Edition again?

Hey, I'm trying to run a playtest on DnDBeyond, imagine how I feel trying to figure out which class changes I can even implement.

 

[Nightfly]

Can someone explain how this is NOT 6th Edition again?

Wow, we made it all the way to page 13 before someone made this comment. Nice job!

But seriously... It's really 5.5, which I suspect is what people will end up calling it.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Grappling has an odd limitation on a Monk. You can grab someone, but you can't carry them anywhere, as Monks tend to have low Strength, and thus carrying capacity.

I know Grapple says (in 2014 PHB too) that you 'drag or carry' the target, but... applying that to encumbrance rules at all makes things insufferable for high-Str people too. The 'you are Slowed while grappling someone' is meant to simulate this already.

I'd rather just not have Monks be able to use Dex to grapple people. Then the default people doing so are the strong ones, and we can just handwave that whole weight issue (because I am not calculating what a 9ft troll in armor weighs, because the answer is that it scales much faster than any Str score's encumbrance anyway, and then giants cannot move other giants either, but Push weapon mastery will still let anyone push Large critters at walking pace anyway).

 

[Parmandur]

Can someone explain how this is NOT 6th Edition again? (Don't, that was rhetorical)

In what way could it be construed as 6E...?

 

[Parmandur]

Wow, we made it all the way to page 13 before someone made this comment. Nice job!

But seriously... It's really 5.5, which I suspect is what people will end up calling it.

Nobody is going to use ".5" terminology without marketing pushing it.

 

[Zaukrie]

Can someone explain how this is NOT 6th Edition again? (Don't, that was rhetorical)

Why? Seriously. Why post this?

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Quick, divert it back!

Uhhh, Druid beast forms! I really don't like how WotC is making the DM be the bad guy if they want to restrict Druid beast access only to the PHB. I wish the rules just ballsily said 'pick from PHB, that's it, reflavor as needed'.

 

[Parmandur]

Quick, divert it back!

Uhhh, Druid beast forms! I really don't like how WotC is making the DM be the bad guy if they want to restrict Druid beast access only to the PHB. I wish the rules just ballsily said 'pick from PHB, that's it, reflavor as needed'.

Saying "only the PHB options are explicitly balanced, ask your DM for permission" seems more DM control friendly than "any Beast of the right CR will" which forces the DM to be the bad guy if they are unsure about Dinos or whatever.