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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[UngainlyTitan]

I have been playing an illusionist for years, and my expectation is that school specialization will either get made into a feat (which it is in either C7d20 or Project Black Flag Tales of the Valiant, I forget which) or there will just be a single school specialist subclass, similar to 3E's Master Specialist prestige class. (I've been playing this illusionist for a long time.)

I am wondering if the second level feature will be how wizard get schools. In the cleric the second level boon is called Holy Order and you get a choice of Protection, Scholar and Thaumaturge. Perhaps the wizard will get a school feature and say you take Abjuration then you get something like Arcane Ward or something similar and another option at level 9 like Improved Abjuration

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Wait...

You can draw a new weapon every turn now, right?

Oh no.

2 if you bring a hireling to act as a caddy

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am wondering if the second level feature will be how wizard get schools. In the cleric the second level boon is called Holy Order and you get a choice of Protection, Scholar and Thaumaturge. Perhaps the wizard will get a school feature and say you take Abjuration then you get something like Arcane Ward or something similar and another option at level 9 like Improved Abjuration

That could work, too.

So yeah, lots of options, and lots of reasons to suspect traditional school-centric subclasses are headed for the dustbin of history, which is fine, since many of them have always been so very boring.

 

[Charlaquin]

During the summit, WotC compared these effects to Cantrips, so it seems a fair comparison to Magic Initiate. Honestly, Magic Initiate is probavly a lot more valuable to a Fighter than Weapon Mastery is to a Wizard, though let's see where this goes.

I don’t get the cantrip comparison. “Increase your weapon damage die from 1d8 to 1d10” would give True Strike a run for its money as worst cantrip in the game.

 

[Amrûnril]

I don’t get the cantrip comparison. “Increase your weapon damage die from 1d8 to 1d10” would give True Strike a run for its money as worst cantrip in the game.

I think the implication is that the attack as a whole, including the mastery bonus, is equivalent to a cantrip. But this still seems like a strange comparison, in that attack cantrips are already the magic equivalent of a basic attack. If anything, cantrips are already a bit weaker than basic attacks from martial characters.

 

[Incenjucar]

Flex is pretty much going to be getting a rant from me in the playtest. Self-undermining design like that really furrows my brows.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I don’t get the cantrip comparison. “Increase your weapon damage die from 1d8 to 1d10” would give True Strike a run for its money as worst cantrip in the game.

that is so true

 

[Incenjucar]

If versatile weapons had different traits based on how you wielded them, THAT would be interesting.

 

[Minigiant]

2 if you bring a hireling to act as a caddy

I mean that as a DM this will slow down combat for such a small benefit I fear I will be doing the "Oh @#$&" meme

And you can't tell someone they can't switch weapons EVERY ATTACK if it's in their power budget.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not saying that Hexblade should be merged into Pact of Blade entirely, just that there's an imbalance in the Patron-Pact dynamic there that should probably be smoothed out a bit.

For anyone wanting to make a Pact of Blades Warlock at present, the benefits for choosing the Hexblade patron heavily outweigh those for basically any other patron. Better armor/shield options, attack with CHA, a bunch of bonus smite and defensive spells, eventually gets a 50% miss chance on attacks from their hexed target by burning reactions, etc.

I definitely think Hexblade still has a place as a subclass, but it shouldn't be so heavily weighted toward benefitting a Pact of Blades character over any other pact, and a Pact of Blades character shouldn't feel like anyè Patron other than Hexblade is a less effective option. Let Pact of Blades carry most of the weight for "weapon/melee-focused warlock" and refocus Hexblade to be primarily about the "hexes and curses" angle.

I’m fine with all that. My issue is with the idea of the blade pact needing to get any of the Sam features as the Hexblade.