D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Shows Us The New Druid & Paladin

WotC has released the fourth One D&D playtest document. This 29-page PDF includes the druid and the paladin with Circle of the Moon and Oath of Devotion subclasses.

Druid. The Druid class and Circle of the Moon subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Paladin. The Paladin class and Oath of Devotion subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Feats. Several revised feats appear here for your feedback, with more revised feats coming in future articles.

Spells. More spells are ready for playtesting, with a focus on smite spells, Find Familiar, and Find Steed.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary has been updated again and supersedes the glossary in previous Unearthed Arcana articles. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in that glossary, which defines game terms that have been clarified or redefined for this playtest or that don’t appear in the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

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[Ruin Explorer]

Well, all I want to say is a lot of people (on this thread alone) don't agree with you.

About what?

I mean, it's quite possible for "a lot of people" to be wrong. It happens literally every day! More often someone claims "a lot" of people think something but it isn't true, or their views are more diverse and nuanced than they are being presented as.

The Druid design is just clumsy, lazy, and unevocative. It's also impossible to rationally or reasonably argue that this isn't the first time we've seen a class massively nerfed in 5E/1D&D. This is a gigantic nerf to the power of Druids, especially as the Primal spell list remains complete junk next to Arcane or Divine, like a whole tier down in power.

I mean, to be clear - if 5E Druids are still allowed and compatible with 1D&D, then I don't really see anyone much picking the 1D&D Druid. Particularly not people who actually like wildshape (including non-Moon Druids). A 5E Druid w/Tashas is basically objectively superior to this guy - and they're far from the strongest class in 5E!

And disagreeing that the Paladin is mechanically solid? That seems like actively wanting to be wrong lol. Do you like the new Paladin class lore?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So by this logic.

1. 3.0, 3.5 and Pathfinder are incompatible with each other.

yes

2. AD&D 1e and 2e are incompatible with each other.

yes

3. Black Flag, Level Up, and 5e are incompatible with each other.

I don;t know about level up and no one knows about black flagg

4. 4e and Essentials are incompatible with each other.

wrong... it is 100% addative. it at no time changed teh conditions, they way you get feats, what feats do, iy didn't duplicate spells with entire new effects///

Basically, if a book changes the abilities of a previously established class/race/whatever, it is no longer compatible.

in 2e days some DMs let you bring in 1e stuff, but most counted that as a house rule homebrew and only allowed it if they decided to... 3e to 3.5 the change was WAY harder... way less DMs would let in 3.0 haste then 2e DMs would let in a monk.
I only pl;ayed pathfinder 1e a few times... but the change to things like grrapple and such to be a different calculation (attack score or something I forget) already meant I couldn't just make a warblade and bring it in...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Oh Pelor, that makes every 2e setting that changed how classes or races work (Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, even Forgotten Realms) incompatible with each other and with Core AD&D!

ask anyone that tried to use the cross over settings... like I saw (technically made a character but didn't even make it into game) a group fall apart cause the DM said spelljammer but make from any world and 1 person was a red wzard from dragon lance and 2 otheres were from darksun and the game fell apart before we got to my birthright guy even stepping onto the ship

 

[Weiley31]

If your a 2014 character, use the 2014 one. If your new, use the new one.

Magic affects different people differently.

I mean, explain why a druid can shape shift buy a fighter can't.

They belong to different classes that aren't both named, "druid".

Well, the player of the Fighter pc didn't choose Changeling as their race.

 

[Loren the GM]

if 2 people new to D&D showed up to a game one night, one with the 2024phb, and one with the 2014 PHB and both made dwarf bards they would look like they were made with diffrent systems/editions... and not only would they be shocked to see the diffrence, but even inplay you can't use both books condition list.

I mean . . . so what if they are different? Players shouldn't worry about what is on each others sheets, they should focus on their character. They would have different abilities if one was a monk and one was a paladin, or if they had built using different druid subclasses, so why should anyone care they are different from the other?

They literally can play in the same game as each other, and something like choosing to use the revised grapple rules or the original grapple rules is as simple as stating what book you will be using from.

None of this is a problem.

 

[HammerMan]

It’s my favorite part of the game… when people point out the difference in the two editions and others complain that we shouldn’t be talking about what makes them different but the most replies are about weather or not it is different.

This Druid looks like a ground floor rewrite. I don’t get why.
The paliden got some minor tweeks (some badly needed)

Nothing wowed me but nothing upset me

 

[Sacrosanct]

So by this logic.


2. AD&D 1e and 2e are incompatible with each other.

yes

News to me. We had been mixing 1e stuff with 2e from 1989 to 2012 without issues. In fact, Skip Williams had said the entire point of 2e was to be backwards compatible with 1e. That "We wanted 1e players to keep using their stuff they paid their hard earned money on. Of course we thought about ascending AC, but we needed to make them compatible."

 

[Loren the GM]

About what?

I mean, it's quite possible for "a lot of people" to be wrong. It happens literally every day! More often someone claims "a lot" of people think something but it isn't true, or their views are more diverse and nuanced than they are being presented as.

The Druid design is just clumsy, lazy, and unevocative. It's also impossible to rationally or reasonably argue that this isn't the first time we've seen a class massively nerfed in 5E/1D&D. This is a gigantic nerf to the power of Druids, especially as the Primal spell list remains complete junk next to Arcane or Divine, like a whole tier down in power.

I mean, to be clear - if 5E Druids are still allowed and compatible with 1D&D, then I don't really see anyone much picking the 1D&D Druid. Particularly not people who actually like wildshape (including non-Moon Druids). A 5E Druid w/Tashas is basically objectively superior to this guy - and they're far from the strongest class in 5E!

And disagreeing that the Paladin is mechanically solid? That seems like actively wanting to be wrong lol. Do you like the new Paladin class lore?

The new druid solves almost everything I hated about the original 5e druid. There is still a bit of room in my opinion for a bit of tweaking, but this is probably about my favorite of the new class designs.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The way it's written, you have a 25% chance of recalling a spell, regardless of spell level.

I honestly assume that was an error and should be "at least equals"...
Otherwise it would probably be "roll a d4. On a 4 you don´t exend the spell".

 

[dave2008]

About what?

Druid

I mean, it's quite possible for "a lot of people" to be wrong. It happens literally every day! More often someone claims "a lot" of people think something but it isn't true, or their views are more diverse and nuanced than they are being presented as.

The Druid design is just clumsy, lazy, and unevocative. It's also impossible to rationally or reasonably argue that this isn't the first time we've seen a class massively nerfed in 5E/1D&D. This is a gigantic nerf to the power of Druids, especially as the Primal spell list remains complete junk next to Arcane or Divine, like a whole tier down in power.

It is possible that you are wrong too.

I like it generally; but, it needs some work. I think OB1 has some good suggestions (in the WIldshape thread) that are pretty minor but good fixes and line up with some suggestions I have had in this thread. Mostly giving the wildshape some trait options, but there was more than that. I do think the "tiny" restriction is odd, but again OB1 had a really simple fix for that.

To be clear, I am not basing my opinion of this version of the Druid vs the '14 version as I am not very familiar with the '14 version. I am just reviewing it on its own merits.

And disagreeing that the Paladin is mechanically solid?

I was talking about the Druid mostly. However, I will point out smite was nerfed a bit and you suggested it wasn't.

Do you like the new Paladin class lore?

I don't care about class lore, so I didn't read it.