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.

Claim Unearthed Arcana now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Loren the GM]

yes and no... you don't think it would confuse someone that wild shape druids need to borrow the monster manual when they have a pre set form? or why bark skin gives temps to one and the other gets a set AC min?

you don't think that "Everyone gets a feat at first level" or "Only variant humans do" alone would cause confusion...

what about when a condition like exhaustion applies and they both take it and suffer different effects..

then you need to modifie the character that isn't useing that book to match... so what ever one you choose one of them has to change

disagree... hard disagree

I don't think it would confuse anyone, since they would know one was playing the 2014 version and the other the 2024 version. Why would a player with a paladin be confused about the warlocks abilities? At this point 2014 and 2024 count as different classes for the same game, that happen to share a name.

Leveling has already changed through Tasha's, and has caused no confusion. I see no reason this would cause any confusion - and I'm not sure why you couldn't use the new species with the old classes if you wanted to (and the old races with the new classes, for that matter).

Exhaustion is one of those things just to pick at the table as DM - no reason it has to be class specific.

Hard disagree with your stance as well. But, I think we will go in circles forever, and this is only barely tangential to the original topic, so I'll drop out here.

 

[MockingBird]

I like the generic wild shape stats. I didn't think I would at first and looked at it side eyed. My 10 yr old daughter is playing a druid and I think the new generic stat block would be more fun for her. I can see how some don't like it though but I think it's a good move for faster game play.

 

[Vael]

Ugh. Reading through the last five pages of arguments with ever decreasing amounts of actual discussion on this particular packet was really not fun, especially with a headache already.

But damnit, there's a change in this one that I absolutely love, and nobody else seems to have mentioned it.

Note that in this version of the death and dying rules, if you pass three death saves you heal to 1hp and start a short rest automatically, while unconscious. In addition, when you would knock someone to 0hp with a melee attack, you knock them to 1hp, they become unconscious and start a short rest.

Why does that make me incredibly happy?

Well, consider. You're the GM and you're facing a fight - especially something at low level - that looks like it's rapidly turning into a TPK. Maybe you planned this to be hard and wanted this. Maybe you miss-statted stuff. Whatever.

"Okay, you all get knocked out. You wake up an hour or so later in <some situation. Cell, with equipment gone? Robbed and left in a ditch? Something else?>. You all have 1hp and have completed a short rest, so you can spend hit dice immediately and regain abilities as normal. What do you do?"

This version of the Dying rules sets some assumptions about what falling to 0hp means and gives some tools to the GM (and players!) that are a big upgrade on what we have in base 5e.

This is why I'd be betting on the design team not being out of touch. It models the way you'd want knock outs to go.

There's actually a lot of neat design in this package. I was confused by the Moon Druid getting Unarmed Strikes as a bonus action ... until I noticed that shove and grapple rules have been put in under unarmed strikes, and with a fairly clean resolution mechanic using a saving throw. There's still some frustration around natural weapons vs unarmed strikes, but there's room to grow here.

Overall, I'm pleased to see that they are experimenting and being up front with what's changing.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Love the buff to the other Smite spells, hate that this packet doesn't come with the crit change that only modifies weapon damage.

It's not a new change. The only one that included that was the first playtest packet. The two previous ones used PHB 2014 rules for critical hits, and this one simply doesn't even mention them at all.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Take the bet. It's a risky one.

A lot of the success of 5e is not design but timing and the fact that half the edition was left open for other people to design..

Just look at the 5e Monk and say they were in tune with the core 5e's demo.

EDIT: The playtest has be a godspend to them as if their first ideas would have gone in unfiltered by the public, it woulda been bad.

I am totally confused... do you mean the 4e Monk? They are at least in tune with the elements...

 

[Xamnam]

It's not a new change. The only one that included that was the first playtest packet. The two previous ones used PHB 2014 rules for critical hits, and this one simply doesn't even mention them at all.

Right, all I meant to communicate is that those crit changes back then made me think they were going to address and hopefully eliminate smite-crit-fishing, but there was no knowing if that was their intention until this specific playtest.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

One D&D didn't exist in the last Unearthed Arcana either.

It does. All previous packets reference "the One D&D Unearthed Arcana series". This new one is the first that calls it "the Unearthed Arcana series". Additionally, the previous packets had a callout titled "What's ahead in the One D&D Playtest" in the Feedback section, whereas this new one uses the title "Features of the Player's Handbook Playtest".

 

[MoonSong]

I don't have a problem with the template approach myself, but there's definitely a division in the community between "As long as I can reskin a mechanic to fit my narrative, it's fine" and "The unique mechanics are what helps shape the narrative for me."

I'm more on the second group. Though I have nothing against refluffing sometimes, I need some modelling to do it. I like it when there is more variety to choose from, and when you can tell things in the fiction apart by how they play.

 

[jerryrice4949]

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."

Me too. My group mixed 1e and 2e together will no trouble at all.

 

[see]

Me too. My group mixed 1e and 2e together will no trouble at all.

Indeed, they actually reprinted the 1st edition versions of the bard, druid, paladin, and ranger in their respective Complete Handbooks in 2e to facilitate that sort of mixing.