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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[FitzTheRuke]

It's not even that far back and the analogy did not even go far. You are tilting at windmills by creating an entirely new analogy to attack...

The original exchange was this:

• 1: Resting and refreshing for a night at least is something that happens in real life. Being refreshed after a boxing fight simply because it is over does not.
• 2:A boxing match is filled with short rests, as are a lot of other sporting events. Like they literally sit down and get patched up.
• 3:yeah, that is why in round 12 boxers are as fresh as in round 1… sure, they can catch a breath, but the recharge is very limited

In "2" you made a bad real world comparison to a rest type that has no real world comparison outside of possibly video game checkpoints and cheat codes. Even then the fact that the gm analog(video game level designer) tends to be the one deciding where it is appropriate for a checkpoint rules out one. The other fits perfectly to a T because the player can usually use a cheat code as often as they want with the game doing nothing to prevent a player from reusing the cheat code every encounter/room. That quick ding ding breather in no way results in a round 12 boxer being the equal to their performance in round 1. We know that because fights eventually end and boxers can't go on forever.


You lose the ability to "do a right hook" as you did with all your everything in round one when you are now in round twelve throwing your umpteenth with sweat in your eyes an hour later. The chest code inspired design of short rests does not analogize well to real world activities because we aren't living in a d&d based reality or some cultivation genre work of fiction.

And yet everyone flipped out in 4e when Martial classes had Encounters and Dailies citing limited-use martial abilities were "unrealistic".

 

[Incenjucar]

There are of course ways to thread the needle. Give martials something like the 4E psion system. Using major muscle-busting techniques knocks down their abilities a bit, with a daily limit on adrenaline surges to overcome those limits, like a more tactical version of rage, and maybe allow them to burn hit dice to bring their strength back up instead of hit points.

As a bonus, this gets quite cinematic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet everyone flipped out in 4e when Martial classes had Encounters and Dailies citing limited-use martial abilities were "unrealistic".

For good reason, as far as I'm concerned, although "flipped out" is probably too strong a term for me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

because they are designed for a SR recharge, on LR they would be different.

Show me a long rest model for physical stamina based resources that makes more sense as daily recharge.

Take the Warlock for example, two spells per SR with an expectation of 2 SR per day.
Give it 6 spells and get rid of the SR recharge and all you did is gain flexibility and remove the power dependency on when and how often you get SRs. To me that is nothing but benefits.

Cool what’s that got to do with any of the examples I listed?

Recharge per SR should die

No.

I never said it is realistic, only that it is more realistic

It isn’t, though. It is less realistic. The only thing it could be even be reasonably arrived to be more realistic then, is getting everything back on a short rest. No 5e character does that. Maybe one person here is arguing for anything like that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Playtest ain't over. Still plenty of time to make Sneak Attack and Second Wind spells.

They already are. All game mechanics are "spells". Just like all mechanics are "channels". Just like all mechanics are "maneuvers".

All mechanics are the ability to roll, add, substract, and/or change the results of a dice roll against a number a certain number of times. And then the designers put a tag on each type that is meant to represent something in the narrative story that these mechanics are trying to convey. And if you have certain mechanics tagged in such a way that you can put them in a chart of power levels and only use them a few times per tagged "period of time"... the story calls those mechanics "spells" and they represent "magic" in the story.

But every one of us can add, subtract and/or change those tags all we want, in addition to Wizards of the Coast. If you wanted to put the "spell" tag on Second Wind and then use the power level chart to determine when you could use it... you could. Voila, Second Wind is now a "spell". Likewise, if you wanted to pull Pass Without Trace OUT of the power level "spell" chart, take off the "spell" and "magic" tags, and instead give it to the Ranger to just use 2 times per day... you could do that too. And then when that mechanic of the Ranger giving +10 to the party's Stealth checks, they no longer represent "magic" or a "spell" within the narrative story... they are just an ability the Ranger uses a couple times per day via their own ingenuity.

And this is precisely why I have always been completely unconcerned with all the talk about "too much magic" in D&D. Because if it really mattered... I could just pull any and all mechanics I wanted out of whatever bucket of tags and usages they were in and put them in a different bucket with different tags and usages. Give the Rogue some Discipline Points and only be able to use Sneak Attack as many times per long rest as the number of DPs, and now Sneak Attack is some sort of quasi-mystical ability. Take the Bard, select certain Bard spells that you can strip the "spell" and "magic" tags off of and turn them into abilities that can be used by spending Superiority Dice a la the Battlemaster, and now that plus Inspiration gives you a Warlord. Wildshape that doesn't turn you into an animal but instead gives you game mechanics that represent an animal's abilities you can begin using, and you now have a character more like a Monk than a Druid.

People get so beholden to what WotC gives them that the idea that you can take a couple hours out of your day to strip a car's body off of its chassis and put a new, different car's body on top of it completely seem to flummox people. And they just stick with everything the don't like, rather than take the time to turn them into the things they do. I just don't understand it.

 

[tetrasodium]

And yet everyone flipped out in 4e when Martial classes had Encounters and Dailies citing limited-use martial abilities were "unrealistic".

The rejection of 4e went beyond martials specifically being part of the same ADEU recharge cycle that all other classes hooked into.

Now in 5e the system is back to being attrition based and there are a couple classes that nope out of it if they can dig in refusing to move forward while demanding any amount of rests that the rules are structured to eventually give unless the GM behaves adversarially*.

*as noted earlier.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That was a long walk to take frustration over the change of everyone but the martials over to spells into another Ruling over Rules rant.

Can we never just criticize the text?

I can write fanfiction to fix The Flash too, but that doesn't make the movie any better standing on its own two.

 

[Remathilis]

And yet everyone flipped out in 4e when Martial classes had Encounters and Dailies citing limited-use martial abilities were "unrealistic".

The problem was it created a weird scenario where my "secret technique" attack worked exactly once per encounter and my "super-secret technique" worked exactly once per day. Martial abilities should be stamina driven in that you can spam the same attacks until your resource pool (discipline, rages, superiority dice) depletes OR can be used at will (cunning strike, weapon mastery). Ideally, using my secret technique exhausts my resource pool a little, my super-secret technique depletes it a lot, and I cannot use them again until I rest.

It was never that martial abilities shouldn't have a limit, but that structuring the limit to "specific action per combat/day" was a bad way of modeling that.

 

[Incenjucar]

The problem was it created a weird scenario where my "secret technique" attack worked exactly once per encounter and my "super-secret technique" worked exactly once per day. Martial abilities should be stamina driven in that you can spam the same attacks until your resource pool (discipline, rages, superiority dice) depletes OR can be used at will (cunning strike, weapon mastery). Ideally, using my secret technique exhausts my resource pool a little, my super-secret technique depletes it a lot, and I cannot use them again until I rest.

It was never that martial abilities shouldn't have a limit, but that structuring the limit to "specific action per combat/day" was a bad way of modeling that.

Yeah, even 4E fans who accepted it still joked about it. It worked, but there were better ways to achieve the same end.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I can write fanfiction to fix The Flash too, but that doesn't make the movie any better standing on its own two.

But if you spend every day watching and re-watching The Flash even though you don't like it... whose fault is that? Your time would indeed be better spent doing one of those Topher Grace "re-edits" of the Prequels to create something you end up enjoying rather than just keep using the crappy thing and being annoyed that you are.

If you don't like what WotC is giving you but you use it anyway because... reasons?... it's hard to feel sympathy for you. And if I keep pointing it out to you... oh well! That's what happens when we post on a public message board.