D&D (2024) Jeremy Crawford Gives an Overview of the New Unearthed Arcana

The upcoming Unearthed Arcana playtest packet for One D&D gets a preview from WotC's Jeremy Crawford. This is apparently the largest of these playtest packets so far, and the biggest Unearthed Arcana they have ever done, at 50 pages long.

It contains 5 classes, new spells, new feats, a revised rules glossary, and the new weapon mastery system.

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[overgeeked]

It’s always weird to see videos where Jeremy talks at Todd for a dozen minutes rather than let Todd actually conduct an interview.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Depends on the caster. Probably not worth it for your standard stand-in-the-back types, but a bladesinger or pact of blades warlock could potentially get a lot of use out of a Weapon Mastery feat.

I wonder if the new 2024 annavesary books will give it to subclasses like bladesinger and hexblade?

 

[Gladius Legis]

...?

Because it's amazing in practice.

A literally weaker version of the Dueling Fighting Style is amazing?

 

[LvHollow]

That's an... extreme take. I think it's more likely that new company policy forces it to pass through the sensitivity reader process.

I was a a little on rage there. But is true and most of content creators know it, the test team managger have a problem with monks. And that's it, that's the reason why core monk is okey, but all the sublcases have problems(except shadow way, quite okey).

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I wonder if the new 2024 annavesary books will give it to subclasses like bladesinger and hexblade?

Don't know about bladesinger or hexblade subclasses specifically, but the hexblade was always in large part a fix for the underwhelming default pact of blades in the '14 PHB.

Obviously still need to see what they do with the warlock for the playtest, but I'd be shocked if at least some of the hexblade's kit isn't folded into the baseline pact of blades.

EDIT: Misread your comment - thought you were wondering if the '24 PHB would include an updated bladesinger or hexblade... :/

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's not ready. I'm not sure what that says, other than it will come eventually. I'm not sure how it can't be ready at this point...... But whatever. When the new version comes, it comes. And this isn't directed at you or anyone.

Probably that they didn’t like the test of the current build as of finalizing the UA doc, so they pulled it and are holding it for the next one.

@GMforPowergamers did they just admit it’s not back compatible without adjustments?

Nope.

Well, I mean... the game is big and complicated. It will be backwards compatible for the Adventures without any adjustments (barring, perhaps, newer versions of the monsters that are printed within the adventure, though I suspect that you can just USE those). There will obviously be some adjustments to make if you want to cram an old subclass onto a new baseclass. I don' think anyone has ever denied that. They just plan to make that easy for people, with advice on how to do it.

Right, adjustments like gaining subclass features at different levels.

As in, probably, in order according to the class table of the base class being used. If you run out of subclass “levels” and the base class calls for one, you take a bonus feat. If you run out of subclass levels on the class table and have more listed in your subclass, you gain the final one at the level indicated in the subclass, even if that makes that level a double feature. People with professional editors can make that more succinct and easy to read.

but that is what a few of us have been saying. It’s not player side backwards compatibility it’s adventure and DM side.

It sounds like they are saying that outright

Nope.

I don’t think they are lying. I think people on these boards take what they say and pretend it’s going to be fully player and DM compatible when they KEEP saying it’s for adventures not for the PHB.

And it’s not “any” adjustment it’s that we keep seeing new player rules and status effects and even huge rule swaps.

I don’t think anyone has said that the entirety of both PHBs will be compatible with eachother without any adjustments.

What the design team has said is that the new phb will be compatible with existing adventures and supplements. If they are backing away from that now, that is a change, and folks would be right to be upset about it.

But so far…yeah the playtest is compatible with all existing material.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Don't know about bladesinger or hexblade subclasses specifically, but the hexblade was always in large part a fix for the underwhelming default pact of blades in the '14 PHB.

Obviously still need to see what they do with the warlock for the playtest, but I'd be shocked if at least some of the hexblade's kit isn't folded into the baseline pact of blades.

I’d be shocked if it is. Hopefully the blade pact just gives you EB as a melee spell attack while wielding your pact weapon, and you use your weapon reach and other properties like light, finesse, any mastery properties, etc.

That obviates any need for the extra attack invocation, and lets existing EB invocations work for blade pact.

Let Hexblade make you tougher and gain an extra curse and all that jazz. Keep the “attack with Cha” stuff, because no patron should ever require a specific pact to be effective.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Well, only because of insisting that it's not backwards compatible if one has to follow any conversion whatsoever, no matter how minor. AND that it's not backwards compatible even if you can play a fully-2014 made character at the same table as a fully-2024 made character.

For some, that's still backwards compatible (or at least, backwards compatible ENOUGH). For others, that's "AHA! They are LYING about compatibility!". (And others in-between!)

It seems that some people's definition of "backwards compatible" is "no changes whatsoever".

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Don't know about bladesinger or hexblade subclasses specifically, but the hexblade was always in large part a fix for the underwhelming default pact of blades in the '14 PHB.

Obviously still need to see what they do with the warlock for the playtest, but I'd be shocked if at least some of the hexblade's kit isn't folded into the baseline pact of blades.

EDIT: Misread your comment - thought you were wondering if the '24 PHB would include an updated bladesinger or hexblade... :/

Not per say the PHB, but I assume that like 3e to 3.5 over the next year or so they will resell us new versions of the old subclasses

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

What the design team has said is that the new phb will be compatible with existing adventures and supplements. If they are backing away from that now, that is a change, and folks would be right to be upset about it.

I don't know that they promised that.