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.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, I meant, one person plays 5e fighter and another person plays One cleric. I think that could likely work too well. It might even work having one person play a 5e fighter and another person playing a One fighter, depending on the types of players and the archetypes involved--I doubt that there will be versions of every single 5e archetype, and if someone wants to play, I dunno, a psi knight, they may not be able to do so easily with the One version of the fighter.

Where on earth are you even getting this idea?

Absolutely not from any evidence of statements from the devs or from the UAs.

You will be able to play any subclass from any supplement with the appropriate class from any PHB published from 2014 to 2025.

 

[Parmandur]

If you notice in my discussions, I almost always refer to the entire run as 3e. It's only when someone will be utterly confused if I don't use 3.5 that I use it.

I'll do the same with 5e and 5.5 I'm sure.

Edit: But you're right in that most people use 3.5, so that caught on. I'm not convinced One D&D will be the same, since it's not a number and is waaaay gimicky.

To be fair, I don't think "OneD&D" is going to be on the book covers. That's the name for the testing initiative.

 

[Parmandur]

Now I am genuinely curious how they will handle the new core in 2024. Right now you can reference any printing of the book, errata just takes precedence (and there's errata online, so you don't technically need to have a newer printing on hand). But when Monsters of the Multiverse came out, and there were now multiple competing versions of the races available, they said you had to update your old DDAL characters to the new rules and couldn't use the older versions anymore.

I think it's pretty simple: the 2024 Core books will be categorized as Legacy content, so available on D&D Beyond for use if not sale, and not AL legal.

 

[Parmandur]

::blink::
If there's one "discourse" that, in my experience, has dominated D&D, and certainly 5e, it's "martial-caster balance." Players want equally good options. Players don't want "traps" that make their characters less capable than those that chose other options. Players want niche protection: If they play a rogue, they want to be the go-to guy or girl for sneaking and such. If they're a greatsword fighter, they don't want CoDzilla showing up and dishing out more damage, but also tanking damage, healing, flying, teleporting, and doing just about anything else that comes up better than they can.

I'm not saying every player cares about these things, but I'd confidently say most do, in my experience, and I think the designers over the decades have recognized it and attempted to address it, with varying levels of success. At various times during the game's history, it's been possible to mix and match some things without running afoul of normie D&D player balance concerns, definitely. That doesn't mean most people are going to have one Lore Bard with 6th-level Magical Secrets at the table alongside another that has to wait until 11th level and not run into a problem. Put it this way: I'll bet you good money they don't try to run AL that way, and I certainly wouldn't run my table that way.

You would confidently be incorrect: the overwhelming majority don't care about that sort of thing, per WotC and Beyond numbers cited over the years, and that matched my experience and observation. A small percentage pay any attention to any bit of that "discourse," which is why WotC usually just ignores it.

 

[Faolyn]

Where on earth are you even getting this idea?

Absolutely not from any evidence of statements from the devs or from the UAs.

You will be able to play any subclass from any supplement with the appropriate class from any PHB published from 2014 to 2025.

I think you were misunderstanding what I was talking about. Especially since I was talking to someone who was saying that you wouldn't be able to mix and match classes. You will, and at the least there likely will be no problems is some people prefer to play the 5e version of a class/archetype and some people prefer the One version.

 

[JEB]

I think it's pretty simple: the 2024 Core books will be categorized as Legwcy content, so available on D&D Beyond for use if not sale, and not AL legal. But

But...?

 

[Parmandur]

But...?

Yeah, not sure what I was going for there.

 

[Greg Benage]

You would confidently be incorrect: the overwhelming majority don't care about that sort of thing, per WotC and Beyond numbers cited over the years, and that matched my experience and observation. A small percentage pay any attention to any bit of that "discourse," which is why WotC usually just ignores it.

But...they don't ignore it. They've never ignored it! Like, forever! This is from Holmes' Fantasy Roleplaying Games:

In the D&D world fighters can not do magic, but magicians are so weak that they need to be protected by fighters. Clerics can heal wounds and do a lot of fighting but are no good at long distance offensives because they can not shoot arrows or throw offensive spells. The constraints of the rules practically dictate cooperation and mutual respect for the talents and weaknesses of each class, and I find it hard to believe that Gygax was not fully conscious of the principle when he wrote them.

Gygax calls this "play balance" and insists that it is not good for one character to grow too powerful with respect to the others.

This design consideration has driven edition changes!

Here's Monte Cook talking about 4e.

To make this work, the game’s design—rather than an individual GM—controls the character creation phase of the game. In other words, the game designer can’t really control what a GM throws at the PCs (although he can try, providing strict guidelines on matching character level to threat level to reward level). But he can absolutely control the way a player creates a character. The rules are very specifically designed, and the choices are very carefully balanced.

Holy Smokes! Every once in a while, I'm told I'm wrong about something that strikes me as so fundamental and obvious, it makes me question my sanity. Is this what the kids mean by "gaslighting"?

Here's a measured take from Mearls (a blog post he wrote) that recognizes that balance isn't important to everyone, but is important to a lot of players and is an important consideration in game design.

A well-balanced game means more than simply making all options equal. A well balanced game offers a lot of distinct choices and vivid options, without needlessly restricting them. That's really the trick - where does that needless line rest? 4e catches a lot of heat for this. For some people, wizard spells that obviated skills were bad because they replaced rogues in those critical situations where the rogue had a chance to shine. Others didn't care, or rarely had rogues in the party, or had enough chances for the rogue to shine that the wizard didn't steal them all.

People care. Designers know people care and try to make them happy.

Why do we do this kind of thing when we have these discussions? What's the point?

 

[Incenjucar]

Balance has always been a factor and always will be. Even asymmetric games need to balance comparable options so that they can predict the shape of the outcome to provide adequate challenges. You can't build adventures if you can't predict how they will play.

 

[Parmandur]

But...they don't ignore it. They've never ignored it! Like, forever! This is from Holmes' Fantasy Roleplaying Games:



This design consideration has driven edition changes!

Here's Monte Cook talking about 4e.



Holy Smokes! Every once in a while, I'm told I'm wrong about something that strikes me as so fundamental and obvious, it makes me question my sanity. Is this what the kids mean by "gaslighting"?

Here's a measured take from Mearls (a blog post he wrote) that recognizes that balance isn't important to everyone, but is important to a lot of players and is an important consideration in game design.



People care. Designers know people care and try to make them happy.

Why do we do this kind of thing when we have these discussions? What's the point?

The designers care about creating a fair play environment, but they know that very few gamers actually engage with that in a "metagame" sense. See the repeated statements from the designers over the years, but more key the D&D Beyond statistics are revealing.

For an example of my point, note that the designers are letting people who do care know in the playtest document that mixing old Subclasses with the new revised Classes will be balanced in the final publication.