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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[Maxperson]

Yeah, for a game company, the right of minorities protected is...they can go a different game or make their own?

You're saying that I can go make a D&D game of my own, market it and sell it? Because I don't think I can. If you're talking about making a completely different game, then that's not correct at all. Making or playing a completely different game 1) doesn't protect the D&D minority, and 2) isn't helpful in the slightest because we want to play D&D.

 

[Parmandur]

You're saying that I can go make a D&D game of my own, market it and sell it? Because I don't think I can. If you're talking about making a completely different game, then that's not correct at all. Making or playing a completely different game 1) doesn't protect the D&D minority, and 2) isn't helpful in the slightest because we want to play D&D.

People have been doing that since the 70's. WotC doesn't owe anyone a game exactly to their tastes, amd they cannot please everyone. Pleasing as many people as possible is a tough order as-is, takes a lot of work. Pleasing everyone is impossible, so there will always be a minority that won't get what they want.

 

[Azzy]

The only difference is scale/severity. The base concept is the same. Majority enforcing its will on minority.

I'm sorry, but that's just a terrible hot take and makes light of actual suffering.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm sorry, but that's just a terrible hot take and makes light of actual suffering.

No it doesn't since it makes no attempt at parity. You're arguing here that a speeding ticket isn't a crime(it's an infraction) just because murder is much worse. I'm not equating these things and you can't force me to be and then claim that I'm making light. Knock it off.

And by the by, the majority imposing on the minority crosses whole ranges of things from the very minor to the very major. That you go automatically to the absolute worst with my argument is pretty telling. My argument was a general statement about majorities and minorities.

 

[mamba]

In any case, ignoring a chunk of your audience is leaving money on the table.

you cannot please everyone, as the interests of people conflict with each other.

If 75% want a red cover and 25% want a green cover, what color does the cover get…

 

[Azzy]

No it doesn't since it makes no attempt at parity. You're arguing here that a speeding ticket isn't a crime(it's an infraction) just because murder is much worse. I'm not equating these things and you can't force me to be and then claim that I'm making light. Knock it off.

And by the by, the majority imposing on the minority crosses whole ranges of things from the very minor to the very major. That you go automatically to the absolute worst with my argument is pretty telling. My argument was a general statement about majorities and minorities.

"Pretty telling"? Let me remind you that you wrote:

This is the argument that basically says that minorities don't matter, and this argument extends in a far broader reach that I think people would disagree with if they thought about where it ends.

"What does the majority want? Because if a majority wants it, it can't be wrong." has been proven to be wrong throughout history.

You invited that comparison.

 

[CapnZapp]

Simple. I don't see 3E, 4E or 5E as all that different. They are all pretty much the same game foundation. Nothing really new under the sun for any of these games. Now a lot of bells, whistles and coats of paint have gotten splayed over all of them to make them appear to be radically different... but at the end of the game the foundations of Dungeons & Dragons have been the same for the last 50 years.

Every edition for 50 years has been roll a 20-sided die, add a number to it, and aim for a target number. Then rolling a smaller die and adding a number to it to cause "damage" that reduces another number a character has that we call "hit points" and when that number reaches in and around 0 the character is "dead"? And even when new things get added, like having non-weapon proficiencies or skills... its pretty much the same-- roll a 20-sided die and roll over/under a target number. Basically the entire foundation of how D&D has worked has never really changed. And spray painting the game with different colors to make them seem different has never really affected me. And which is why I always am so amused when people get so up in arms about arguing about which shade of spray paint color is being used. Hey! D&D is adding some blue! Let's now spending years on end talking about how WotC seems to think that Navy Blue is what to use, when OBVIOUSLY Navy Blue sucks and is the easy choice, when a REAL critic knows that Midnight Blue is what it should be colored.

Now... had D&D ever changed their rules to use systems found in like Vampire? Like Paranoia? Like Shadowrun? Like Cypher System? THEN we might have a discussion. D&D doing a complete 180 and going full-on dice pool mechanic based and NOW we have something possibly meaningful to discuss about the changes in Dungeons & Dragons. But arguing about whether Rangers should have their special Ranger abilities just appear in their Class Features List OR be distributed in a Spell Slot Chart? That's arguing over the color blue and not worth my time. Because WHATEVER shade of blue WotC ends up coloring parts of D&D in... I'll just re-paint it myself if I don't like it.

Sorry what?

The part of D&D where you roll a twenty sided die isn't broken and doesn't need to be fixed. How weird to want to change the basic fundament that's just working when that is not at all what people are talking about when they discuss flaws of the system.

Huh.

 

[CapnZapp]

If the question us "what will the majority of people enjoy in their game?" then obviously the majority cannot be wrong by definition.

Okay?

If you agree with me that leaving things up to "the majority" only when that suits your aims (=to not rock the boat) but never when you realize you actually need to change stuff is disingenuous, then alright.

 

[CapnZapp]

So, to clarify, you DO think D&D should be more of a live service, constantly evolving game, rather than staying relatively static?

What? No, I think D&D should be less like Monopoly.

 

[CapnZapp]

I guess it depends on how one looks at it.

I mean, 5E does have it-- we have dual-wielding (which allows for rapier and dagger), we also even have a feat that grants you additional defense while wielding the off-hand dagger (the Dual-Wielder feat that grants the +1 AC). So if anyone wants to emulate the real-life fencing of yore, it's there for them in a form and fashion.

Now granted... from a game perspective we don't ever actually see it, because the game has determined a dagger only does 1d4 damage and shortsword does 1d6. Thus for the game itself no one ever just uses a dagger because there's no mechanical reason to do so over using a shortsword in the off-hand instead. But whether or not that is the game's fault for not allowing the dagger to do the same damage as a shortsword comes down to how defined "narratively" people want the game to be.

The game could just tell us that when dual-wielding, your damage die with the offhand weapon is 1d6-- and allow all players to describe them themselves whatever it is they want the weapon to be. That would be the way we would see the traditional "real world" pairing of rapier and dagger / main gauche. Gamma World 4E did that-- the game would define a weapon that requires two hands as doing 1d12 damage (I think) and it let the player decide what type it was... whether it was a greatsword, a sledgehammer, a stop sign, a chainsaw or anything else they could think of.

But is that what most people want for D&D? Blank slates of mechanics that are not defined and rely on the participants to tell us what they represent? Maybe not. Which means all that's left is for individual tables to decide to allow that for this particular PC who is fighting rapier / main-gauche that THEIR main-gauche does 1d6 damage (because it's mechanically using the shortsword, even though it's being described and called a main-gauche.) At some point... isn't that enough? Does the game itself have to to make that call for you or can you just make that call on your own?

There's always the obvious solution "your off hand weapon needs to be one size smaller than your main hand weapon, or you're unbalanced and takes a -2 hit to all attacks". You know, the actual reason people fought that way?

But that's clearly been too obvious for years now.