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.

 

[Minigiant]

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

It still has most of the design skeleton of 5e.

Designers literally said there was stuff they wanted to change but could not due to backwards compatibility.

 

[mellored]

Ugh I hate the new conjure spells. I would rather it be limited to summoning a single creature with a template.

That's what the Summoning spells do. So they where already replaced.

This is just a round about way to remove the old ones.

 

[Minigiant]

That's what the Summoning spells do. So they where already replaced.

This is just a round about way to remove the old ones.

Backwards compatibility.

Nerf the old spells to the ground instead of fixing them.

 

[mellored]

And this is a good thing. If healing actually comes close to matching the round's incoming damage then combat doesn't end until spell slots are exhausted. Also it downgrades martials and tanks even further into being the glove puppets.

Tanks multiply healing.

Hit a Barbarian for 30 damage, resist, heal them for 30, and they are up 15HP.

Attack a Paladin for 30, miss half the attacks, heal for 30. And he is up 15.

 

[mellored]

Backwards compatibility.

Nerf the old spells to the ground instead of fixing them.

If you have a module with a BBEG who casts conjure animals, then nerfing it hard would ruin backwards compatibility.

Changing it at least keeps the enemy as a threat.

 

[tetrasodium]

If you have a module with a BBEG who casts conjure animals, then nerfing it hard would ruin backwards compatibility.

Changing it at least keeps the enemy as a threat.

That is a 5e ism. They didn't really include good ways for the gm to easily customize monsters and took a lot of steps to ensure there was very little room to meaningfully customize them. Because of that there is now an entire generation of DMs& players who view something like customizing monsters basically on par with cheating

 

[mellored]

That is a 5e ism.

This is 5e...

They didn't really include good ways for the gm to easily customize monsters and took a lot of steps to ensure there was very little room to meaningfully customize them. Because of that there is now an entire generation of DMs& players who view something like customizing monsters basically on par with cheating

Sure.

But that has nothing to do with fixing Conjure Animals.

I mean, I agree it's pretty round about way to do it. But it is getting fixed.

 

[Minigiant]

If you have a module with a BBEG who casts conjure animals, then nerfing it hard would ruin backwards compatibility.

Changing it at least keeps the enemy as a threat.

But that's what they did.

They nerfed the spells.

 

[Remathilis]

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

This wasn't funny the first 100 times it was posted.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

If you have a module with a BBEG who casts conjure animals, then nerfing it hard would ruin backwards compatibility.

Of course, if the module just says 'they cast conjure animals', then there was already a huge gulf between whether the DM summons 8 velociraptors or 1 cave bear. And if the module went out of its way to specifically say 'they cast conjure animals to summon 8 wolves', then the module was just naughty word with the players in the first place.