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.

 

[Parmandur]

To be sure if something changed in a section of the document, check if that section has a design note. There is no design note in the glossary, so you can safely assume there is no change

They explicitly say at the beginning of the document that the Equipment, Feat, and Rules Glossary sections are unchanged and juat included for playtest reference.

 

[DaedalusX51]

I'm sorry, but making them like the tasha's spells and then still adding the tasha's spells to the PHB makes no sense to me. It's basically the same spell with minor changes to stat blocks. To me that's a waste of space compared to the interesting designs we see here. And they ARE doing what their name implies. They are conjuring animals, elementals, fey... the conjuring creatures just do a set effect. Summoning a new ally for you to use in your turn is not the only viable way to represent the conjuring fantasy. Final Fantasy does summons for decades and they are completelly different. Something not being what you are used to doesn't mean that the new thing does not make sense.

Ok I guess we can agree to disagree here as I’m not a fan of this design and if you are maybe this product is for you not me.

I had hoped that WotC was going to pull through with a product I would like to purchase but I’m not too keen on their continued inelegant design decisions.

 

[Minigiant]

Ugh hate these new conjure spells.

Should just include 1 monster in the PHB and let the DM have the option of allowing others.

Like conjure animals can always conjure 2 dire wolves and your DM can change it.

 

[Bolares]

They explicitly say at the beginning of the document that the Equipment, Feat, and Rules Glossary sections are unchanged and juat included for playtest reference.

Sure, I was just giving a way to check in any playtest document if there is a change.

 

[Kurotowa]

Ugh hate these new conjure spells.

Should just include 1 monster in the PHB and let the DM have the option of allowing others.

Like conjure animals can always conjure 2 dire wolves and your DM can change it.

That's what the Summon spells from Tasha's Cauldron are for, and according to Crawford in the video those are all making it into the PHB. Effectively, the Summon spells replace the Conjure spells, but to preserve continuity of edition they can't cut anything, so brand new spells using the old Conjure names are being introduced.

If you want to summon a wolf, you take Summon Beast. You're not going to summon two wolves because the whole point is to cut down on flooding the battlefield and turn order with extra bodies. This is a deliberate nerf because the old Conjure spells were on every optimizer's power list, and the only reason it didn't show more was because people deliberately avoided using them because they were a huge PITA.

 

[Bolares]

Like conjure animals can always conjure 2 dire wolves and your DM can change it.

For a lot of us, the fact that you could conjure multiple allies was a bad part of the spell and needed to change.

 

[Minigiant]

That's what the Summon spells from Tasha's Cauldron are for, and according to Crawford in the video those are all making it into the PHB. Effectively, the Summon spells replace the Conjure spells, but to preserve continuity of edition they can't cut anything, so brand new spells using the old Conjure names are being introduced.

If you want to summon a wolf, you take Summon Beast. You're not going to summon two wolves because the whole point is to cut down on flooding the battlefield and turn order with extra bodies. This is a deliberate nerf because the old Conjure spells were on every optimizer's power list, and the only reason it didn't show more was because people deliberately avoided using them because they were a huge PITA.

But the AOE zones ain't it, tho.

There's no need to replace the Conjure spells.

Conjure X: Conjure an X from the MM or PHB
Summon X: Summon a build-a-X statblock

For a lot of us, the fact that you could conjure multiple allies was a bad part of the spell and needed to change.

Limit it to single monsters them.

Make summoning a noncombat hunting pack of hounds or flock of birds another spell.

 

[Remathilis]

But the AOE zones ain't it, tho.

There's no need to replace the Conjure spells.

Conjure X: Conjure an X from the MM or PHB
Summon X: Summon a build-a-X statblock


Limit it to single monsters them.

Make summoning a noncombat hunting pack of hounds or flock of birds another spell.

Honestly, the Conjure X spells should have been taken out behind the shed and Old Yellerred, but backwards compatibility insists we keep them.

That said, they now match the other two conjure spells in the PHB: conjure barrage and conjure volley.

 

[Bolares]

Limit it to single monsters them.

Nevermind

 

[OB1]

Oh my gods they fixed the Monk.

Barb and Druid look ready to ship as well.