D&D (2024) One D&D Cleric & Revised Species Playtest Includes Goliath

"In this new Unearthed Arcana for the One D&D rules system, we explore material designed for the next version of the Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents the rules on the Cleric class, it's Life Domain subclass, as well as revised Species rules for the Ardling, the Dragonborn, and the Goliath. You will also find a current glossary of new or revised meanings for game terms."

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WotC's Jeremey Crawford discusses the playtest document in the video below.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'll be very disappointed if they weaken the warlock relationship given that it's a big part of the thematic appeal. The other class the subclass is foundational to, of course, is the sorcerer (how do you get the power without deciding what you get the power from?)

I probably should have included Sorcerer as well, as level 3 subclasses will certainly alter the nature of that class's narrative relationship with subclass. But I think I personally might actually like discovering the nature of your sorcerous power at level 3 better. Personally I tend to start off vague and fill in backstories around that point anyway. The current set up sort of pushes the player into knowing an elaborate lineage for their sorcerer at level 1, but fantasy fiction tends to focus more on the people who have some mysterious powers but don't know their great grandmother was a dragon when the call to adventure first comes. You can still choose to play someone who knows their lineage but hasn't yet had it fully express itself.

 

[Lojaan]

Yeah. It's the "Low level clerics are mostly the same." same how fighters are.

Your connection to your god or source is too weak to express itself until level 3. I like it this way.

Yep or you gotta "prove yourself" before you get granted the good stuff

 

[mellored]

I'll be very disappointed if they weaken the warlock relationship given that it's a big part of the thematic appeal. The other class the subclass is foundational to, of course, is the sorcerer (how do you get the power without deciding what you get the power from?)

Not sure how that would be different from the cleric.

Chose your patron at 1,
Chose a deeper connection at 2
Chose the deepest connection at 3.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not sure how that would be different from the cleric.

Chose your patron at 1,
Chose a deeper connection at 2
Chose the deepest connection at 3.

Because "deeper connection" and "deepest connection" are a poor representation of what's going on.

For example let's say I chose to be a cleric of Athena at level 1. At level 2 it's not about "how is my connection deeper" but "which aspect of her do I reflect". I might reflect her aspect as a war goddess by taking the armour and shield proficiency. I might also reflect her aspect as a goddess of strategy by going for the extra magic (and with it healing) or even as goddess of wisdom with the knowledge. And there are three or four domains I can probably take for a goddess who among other things is a warrior and a weaver, and a patron of a nautical civilisation.

Likewise the Sorcerer 2 is going to be "which metamagics do you pick?" It doesn't deepen your connection so much as it reflects a possible connection and how you interact with it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I like the 9th level feature. Let's say I want my Aasimar Cleric PC, lets call him The Stranger, to go on an adventure with a Halfling companion. I don't quite know what Holy Order or Divine Domain he's going to be, he doesn't even know who he is, though he might be kinda like an elf and kinda into wands.

By the end of our tutorial adventure by the dry, wasted seas of the East where I've found the stars that the other four Aasimar messengers of the Gods were hanging about, I've decided I'm going to focus on the study of runes and use holy fire magic. You might think I'm a Wizard, but my powers are divine and related to me chanting, even if a wand helps with them. So I decide my Holy Order is going to be Scholar.

3,000 years of D&D game play (and multiple different campaigns) later, my now-8th-level Cleric has just rescued my 13 dwarf Fighter PC allies and our halfling Expert companion from three MONSTROUS TROLLS. And they were all arguing amongst themselves about how they were going to cook them -- whether it be turned on a spit or whether they should sit on the party members one by one and squash them into jelly. They spent so much time arguing the witherto's and whyfor's that the sun's first light cracked open through a boulder my Cleric broke in half with my recently acquired spell Stone Shape and Poof! And the sunlight turned them all into stone!

Now, this would be a great stopping point for the adventure that session, but the DM wants to give us one more reward, and between the XP for beating the Trolls and the XP for finding the Troll's treasure, I'll definitely reach 9th level. So we raid the Troll horde, and I find an ancient elf-blade forged in the hidden elf city of stone now sunken beneath the sea. I don't know all that, but I do know it's a pretty sweet longsword, only I'm not set up for using melee weapons, being a scholar cleric. But now my 9th level Holy Order feature kicks in, and I choose to also be a Protector. And after the Half-elven sage in the last homely house between the mountains and the sea appraises my sword as Glamdring, sword of the King, my Cleric Gandalf prompty beings cracking in goblin skulls with it and fighting off Orcs and Trolls through the rest of the campaign that lasts for another 67 years and ends with me going over the sea back into the utter west with my halfling and elf buddies. And eventually one dwarf PC comes and hangs with us, too.

You must be playing 1e if it takes that many campaign years to reach 9th level.

 

[mellored]

Because "deeper connection" and "deepest connection" are a poor representation of what's going on.

For example let's say I chose to be a cleric of Athena at level 1. At level 2 it's not about "how is my connection deeper" but "which aspect of her do I reflect".

ok..

then patron at 1
Grants aspects at 2
more aspects at 3

Still don't see much difference.

 

[Neonchameleon]

ok..

then patron at 1
Grants aspects at 2
more aspects at 3

Still don't see much difference.

Part of the point of the new system is to avoid overwhelming new players at level 1. It'll be pact boon at 2 for warlocks and metamagic for sorcerers.

But you don't actually need to pick your patron at 1 for clerics (or can pick a pantheon or general connection). I think for sorcerers they're going to have "you awaken and only find out why later" which works. I think with warlocks they'll say something like "many warlocks know who their patrons are, but in other cases they might have carried out a ritual they didn't quite understand or be granted things by a patron in the shadows. And the earliest gifts don't diverge much by patron."

 

[Marandahir]

You must be playing 1e if it takes that many campaign years to reach 9th level.

No, if I was playing 1e, I'd be either dead or an immortal myself.

Remember that in 1e, time between adventures passed in real time (i.e., real time between gaming sessions). So for 3,067 years to pass in game time either the bulk of that had to pass while I was at the table actually adventuring, in which case I'd be FAR beyond 9th level, or else I'd be dead.

Instead, my suggestion is that Gandalf does only a few things interesting between the end of The Rings of Power and the start of An Unexpected Journey. Sure, he did a lot of wandering and a lot of researching and a lot of adventuring, but they weren't high XP adventures. Tolkien's world is pretty low-magic for PC-power, so while Gandalf defintely should be an experienced adventurer alongside 1st-3rd level Dwarf Fighters and a 1st level Halfling Expert or Rogue (depending on whether Bilbo is a PC or a hireling/companion), I don't think he'd be much higher tiers yet. Meanwhile by the time he fights the Ringwraiths and the Balrog in LotR, he's clearly much higher level. He gained a lot of levels from his solo-adventurer in Dol Guldur and from all the orcs he killed in the Battle of the Five Armies…

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Quite a few of the proposed changes in recent OneD&D UA articles are pretty similar to things that I've tried out in my homebrew before (making variant types of Goliaths connected to other giant types, moving ASIs to backgrounds, level one feats connected to backgrounds, some other stuff).

 

[Weiley31]

I find it interesting that Goliaths are basically the Half-Giant expy in OneD&D.

I also find it interesting that the Goliath has the ability to make itself Large. Which you get the Advantage on STR Checks (makes sense) and the longer legs as a giant gives credence to the 5 feet added onto speed. (Not the killer app in 5E, but still neat.)

Which brings me to something else: What if you're playing as a Goliath Paladin, reach that point where your aura's range increases via leveling up occurs, and then you go Large Form? The Rune Knight can become huge eventually but has no Aura to take advantage of. Duregars can Enlarge, yet I don't hear much about Duregar Paladins in that regard strangely enough.
Do we still run into the area where Crawford's "Hahaha, silly pc, No large races due to Aura whammie jammies for you."

Or is that part "conveniently" thrown out the window for that brief moment when it occurs?