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.

 

[Maxperson]

This concept has not been true for 24 years now. And it has never made any sense:

Take a DC 12 lock.
The guy with a +10 bonus rolls. So the lock is beyond his ability.
The guy with - 1 on his check rolls a 13 and it is an easy one.

Please watch "the gamers" and how they try to lift a gate.

Play as you like. I already took back that it is not playing by the rules as it is just a guideline in the DMG. So feel free to ignore them.

It has made sense and is a perspective thing, which I don't think you are seeing our perspective. Regardless, though, both methods are RAW per page 237 of the 5e DMG. The DM is the one who decides if it's impossible after one attempt. Not the player. Not the dice. Not the DC. And not the bonus to the roll. The DM.

You can disagree with the method, but cannot say that it isn't RAW.

I can also say that if there was a DC 12 lock and someone had a +10 bonus, I wouldn't even ask for a roll unless monsters were coming down the hall or some other high pressure circumstance was happening.

 

[Maxperson]

This is plain wrong. A practice lock is also a lock. Come to my house and I can borrow you my set.

As I already explained before. Before I got my practice set, I opened a real padlock with two paper clips, because my 4 year old son had locked the only key on the padlock shackle. The only help I had was a you tube video and time. And I can't count how many tines I failed before it opened.

The training lock is only easier, because you can remove a rubber shell to look inside.

Exactly. In 5e there wouldn't be a roll because you would eventually just get it. No DM with a grain of salt is going to sit there and make you roll 45 times if it's inevitably going to open. There would be no roll and you open it.

There is only a roll if you can fail(not be able to do it) AND there is a meaningful consequence for failure. If you will inevitably succeed, then you cannot fail to accomplish the task, so there is no roll. If there is no meaningful consequence for failure, then even if you can fail, the DM should still not call for a roll and simply narrate success or failure, depending on the circumstances.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

If a practice lock is DC 10, there is no roll because 1) the outcome is not in doubt, and 2) there is no meaningful consequence for failure.

You're saying that players don't roll for DC10 checks because the outcome is not in doubt? And there is no meaningful consequence for failure at DC 10? What about DC 11? DC 15? Where is the middle ground between where DC 10 is an automatic success that you don't roll for, but you roll against DC 11 or DC 15, and a single failure means this moderate task is beyond your trained skill and you can't keep trying?

Because RAW in the DMG says "Very Easy DC 5" tasks are the ones where you consider not rolling. They assume that Easy (DC10), Moderate (DC15), and Hard (DC20) tasks are rolled.

Also, just narratively, the very nature of just about any non-interaction, task-based, skill challenge in just about any story suggests that if the skilled person didn't get it on the first try, they just need a little more time, and if time is of the essence, or danger is about, they should get crackin' while their allies cover them. Safecracking, lockpicking, solving a puzzle, playing music, doing a backflip, punching one of those punch-pressure meters. You get to keep trying. Not everything is a security password protocol that locks you out after 1 failure. And even those let you try 3-5 times.

It is not RAW for a DM to claim that a DC 15 task is outside your trained skill. If the DM says that a lock becomes unpickable if you fail once, that is merely a ruling, not a rule. And if another person gets to try and you don't? That doesn't make sense narratively, or in a gamist sense.

Your arguments represent rulings, not rules. You keep inventing new reasons and new goalposts to explain why your preferences are the rules. This isn't an older edition where a single failure means you don't get to roll again.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Exactly. In 5e there wouldn't be a roll because you would eventually just get it. No DM with a grain of salt is going to sit there and make you roll 45 times if it's inevitably going to open. There would be no roll and you open it.

There is only a roll if you can fail(not be able to do it) AND there is a meaningful consequence for failure. If you will inevitably succeed, then you cannot fail to accomplish the task, so there is no roll. If there is no meaningful consequence for failure, then even if you can fail, the DM should still not call for a roll and simply narrate success or failure, depending on the circumstances.

You can try to open it fast. Fail and then take your time.

Asserting that "no DM with a grain of salt" would do X is not better than calling something "badwrongfun".

So if you expect to be treated woth respect, please return the favour.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It has made sense and is a perspective thing, which I don't think you are seeing our perspective. Regardless, though, both methods are RAW per page 237 of the 5e DMG. The DM is the one who decides if it's impossible after one attempt. Not the player. Not the dice. Not the DC. And not the bonus to the roll. The DM.

You can disagree with the method, but cannot say that it isn't RAW.

I can also say that if there was a DC 12 lock and someone had a +10 bonus, I wouldn't even ask for a roll unless monsters were coming down the hall or some other high pressure circumstance was happening.

Of course. But you never know when monsters are running down the hallway. So you could allow PCs to roll. They fail and now it takes them way more time to get through. Which might not allow them to set an ambush.
So it makes a lot of sense to first let them roll and then allow them to just open it slower. Telling them, that after rolling an unlucky 2, that now they have to find a different way seems harsh.

 

[Maxperson]

You're saying that players don't roll for DC10 checks because the outcome is not in doubt? And there is no meaningful consequence for failure at DC 10? What about DC 11? DC 15? Where is the middle ground between where DC 10 is an automatic success that you don't roll for, but you roll against DC 11 or DC 15, and a single failure means this moderate task is beyond your trained skill and you can't keep trying?

Because RAW in the DMG says "Very Easy DC 5" tasks are the ones where you consider not rolling. They assume that Easy (DC10), Moderate (DC15), and Hard (DC20) tasks are rolled.

It depends on the DC, the skill of the PC and the circumstances. You are trying to blanket all DC10s into being handled one way and the game doesn't do that.

First, the DMG has no rules, but only guidelines. And the guidelines say the DM decides whether something is possible or not for ability checks, and in multiple areas of the DMG.

Second, the rules for ability checks are as follows. PHB Page 173, "The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results."

The ability check rules do not allow or disallow retries. The DMG guidelines do allow for retries, but with the caveat that the DM can rule a retry to be impossible. The DMG guidelines also add in the extra bit about only rolling if failure has meaning.

You are trying to take one section of the DMG guidelines(allows for retries), while ignoring the rest(DM decides if a retry is possible).

Also, just narratively, the very nature of just about any non-interaction, task-based, skill challenge in just about any story suggests that if the skilled person didn't get it on the first try, they just need a little more time, and if time is of the essence, or danger is about, they should get crackin' while their allies cover them. Safecracking, lockpicking, solving a puzzle, playing music, doing a backflip, punching one of those punch-pressure meters. You get to keep trying. Not everything is a security password protocol that locks you out after 1 failure. And even those let you try 3-5 times.

You only get to keep trying if the DM rules that you do. If he rules that you don't, you don't. That's what the DMG guidelines say.

It is not RAW for a DM to claim that a DC 15 task is outside your trained skill. If the DM says that a lock becomes unpickable if you fail once, that is merely a ruling, not a rule. And if another person gets to try and you don't? That doesn't make sense narratively, or in a gamist sense.

None of the DMG stuff is RAW. It's all GAW(guidelines as written) and it is GAW for the DM to declare any task as impossible for a retry. RAW does not have any rules that allow retries. See the PHB section on ability checks. There's nothing there.

 

[Maxperson]

You can try to open it fast. Fail and then take your time.

Asserting that "no DM with a grain of salt" would do X is not better than calling something "badwrongfun".

So if you expect to be treated woth respect, please return the favour.

If a DM made me roll 45 times until I finally got that natural 20 rather than just saying, "It takes you a while, but the lock eventually opens", I'd walk out of the game.

Maybe you enjoy that sort of game torture. People are into all sorts of things, but it's absolutely "badwrongfun" for me.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

First, the DMG has no rules, but only guidelines.

None of the DMG stuff is RAW.

Yeah, I see no reason to continue this conversation. We are from different universes on this.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If a DM made me roll 45 times until I finally got that natural 20 rather than just saying, "It takes you a while, but the lock eventually opens", I'd walk out of the game.

Maybe you enjoy that sort of game torture. People are into all sorts of things, but it's absolutely "badwrongfun" for me.

That is totally not what I wrote. You failed your reading check. Please roll again to read it fast and correct or just take a bit more time for an automatic success. DC was 10.

 

[Maxperson]

Of course. But you never know when monsters are running down the hallway. So you could allow PCs to roll. They fail and now it takes them way more time to get through. Which might not allow them to set an ambush.
So it makes a lot of sense to first let them roll and then allow them to just open it slower. Telling them, that after rolling an unlucky 2, that now they have to find a different way seems harsh.

Not really. Again, it's a matter of perspective.

For a lot of tables, that 2 isn't bad luck for the PC. The PC is giving it his best effort when trying to open the lock. That 2 doesn't represent him being absent minded or just plain crappy with this attempt. It represents that his best effort to open that lock just wasn't anywhere near good enough and the lock is beyond him.

You don't use that perspective, but it is a valid way to play and it is supposed by GAW(guidelines as written) which allows the DM to declare a retry to be impossible.