D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Document: 77 Pages, 7 Classes, & More!

There's a brand new playtest document for the new (version/edition/update) of Dungeons of Dragons available for download! This one is an enormous 77 pages and includes classes, spells, feats, and weapons.

Unearthed Arcana Playtest

Unearthed Arcana Playtest Materials Get Unearthed Arcana playtest content, try it out in your game, and provide feedback! Check back regularly for ...

www.dndbeyond.com

In this new Unearthed Arcana document for the 2024 Core Rulebooks, we explore material designed for the next version of the Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents updated rules on seven classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue. This document also presents multiple subclasses for each of those classes, new Spells, revisions to existing Spells and Spell Lists, and several revised Feats. You will also find an updated rules glossary that supercedes the glossary of any previous playtest document.

​

 

[Vaalingrade]

Me too! Seems fitting as we move into the D&D Beyond era.

We can agree that D&D going to the Pay Forever model is a bad thing. I just don't think removing ongoing support is a positive.

 

[TwoSix]

We can agree that D&D going to the Pay Forever model is a bad thing. I just don't think removing ongoing support is a positive.

Oh, sure. I don't like removing support for any edition. It shouldn't require secret backchannels to get your hands on the 4e character builder, just as an example.

 

[DEFCON 1]

OR using a rapier with an off-hand dagger - how is that missing from 5e?

I guess it depends on how one looks at it.

I mean, 5E does have it-- we have dual-wielding (which allows for rapier and dagger), we also even have a feat that grants you additional defense while wielding the off-hand dagger (the Dual-Wielder feat that grants the +1 AC). So if anyone wants to emulate the real-life fencing of yore, it's there for them in a form and fashion.

Now granted... from a game perspective we don't ever actually see it, because the game has determined a dagger only does 1d4 damage and shortsword does 1d6. Thus for the game itself no one ever just uses a dagger because there's no mechanical reason to do so over using a shortsword in the off-hand instead. But whether or not that is the game's fault for not allowing the dagger to do the same damage as a shortsword comes down to how defined "narratively" people want the game to be.

The game could just tell us that when dual-wielding, your damage die with the offhand weapon is 1d6-- and allow all players to describe them themselves whatever it is they want the weapon to be. That would be the way we would see the traditional "real world" pairing of rapier and dagger / main gauche. Gamma World 4E did that-- the game would define a weapon that requires two hands as doing 1d12 damage (I think) and it let the player decide what type it was... whether it was a greatsword, a sledgehammer, a stop sign, a chainsaw or anything else they could think of.

But is that what most people want for D&D? Blank slates of mechanics that are not defined and rely on the participants to tell us what they represent? Maybe not. Which means all that's left is for individual tables to decide to allow that for this particular PC who is fighting rapier / main-gauche that THEIR main-gauche does 1d6 damage (because it's mechanically using the shortsword, even though it's being described and called a main-gauche.) At some point... isn't that enough? Does the game itself have to to make that call for you or can you just make that call on your own?

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Yeah, I do remember being surprised at first that martials had dailies when I first read the books. Eventually I chalked it up to more along the lines of, "The opportunity to best use this trained-technique does not come up all the time". After all, a daily is not actually used every day. Some days you'll rest having not used it, and some days you won't even get into combat - ultimately it'll be pretty random. Twice a week? Essentially "now and then".

Yeah, I thought of all 4e martial powers as essentially player buttons that signified when the narrative time was right where the actions/effect could be done given the Character's situation, mental state, fatigue ,what they had for breakfast, whatever.

All editions of D&D actually have a lot of abstractions and don't think too hard about it moments that I was not really bothered after adopting that paradigm.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, I thought of all 4e martial powers as essentially player buttons that signified when the narrative time was right where the actions/effect could be done given the Character's situation, mental state, fatigue ,what they had for breakfast, whatever.

They were.

But that ironically didn't fit the narrative that was formulated that they were trying and failing at 3e's simulationism and was therefore bad and wrong.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I thought of all 4e martial powers as essentially player buttons that signified when the narrative time was right where the actions/effect could be done given the Character's situation, mental state, fatigue ,what they had for breakfast, whatever.

All editions of D&D actually have a lot of abstractions and don't think too hard about it moments that I was not really bothered after adopting that paradigm.

And that's fine, if you want a game where mechanical choices are driven by narrative and story beats. But a lot of people don't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I guess it depends on how one looks at it.

I mean, 5E does have it-- we have dual-wielding (which allows for rapier and dagger), we also even have a feat that grants you additional defense while wielding the off-hand dagger (the Dual-Wielder feat that grants the +1 AC). So if anyone wants to emulate the real-life fencing of yore, it's there for them in a form and fashion.

Now granted... from a game perspective we don't ever actually see it, because the game has determined a dagger only does 1d4 damage and shortsword does 1d6. Thus for the game itself no one ever just uses a dagger because there's no mechanical reason to do so over using a shortsword in the off-hand instead. But whether or not that is the game's fault for not allowing the dagger to do the same damage as a shortsword comes down to how defined "narratively" people want the game to be.

The game could just tell us that when dual-wielding, your damage die with the offhand weapon is 1d6-- and allow all players to describe them themselves whatever it is they want the weapon to be. That would be the way we would see the traditional "real world" pairing of rapier and dagger / main gauche. Gamma World 4E did that-- the game would define a weapon that requires two hands as doing 1d12 damage (I think) and it let the player decide what type it was... whether it was a greatsword, a sledgehammer, a stop sign, a chainsaw or anything else they could think of.

But is that what most people want for D&D? Blank slates of mechanics that are not defined and rely on the participants to tell us what they represent? Maybe not. Which means all that's left is for individual tables to decide to allow that for this particular PC who is fighting rapier / main-gauche that THEIR main-gauche does 1d6 damage (because it's mechanically using the shortsword, even though it's being described and called a main-gauche.) At some point... isn't that enough? Does the game itself have to to make that call for you or can you just make that call on your own?

My equipment list just has a main gauche with its own properties, just like everything else on the list does.

 

[Pedantic]

Yeah, I thought of all 4e martial powers as essentially player buttons that signified when the narrative time was right where the actions/effect could be done given the Character's situation, mental state, fatigue ,what they had for breakfast, whatever.

All editions of D&D actually have a lot of abstractions and don't think too hard about it moments that I was not really bothered after adopting that paradigm.

Violating causality between player decision making and character action is about the worst immersion-sin in my personal experience, but it's variable tastes all the way down.

They were.

But that ironically didn't fit the narrative that was formulated that they were trying and failing at 3e's simulationism and was therefore bad and wrong.

That's a silly way to formulate the complaint. The disappointed user there was expecting that kind of diegetic grounding/simulation and ability design, and didn't get it. You had player who didn't even have the language to ask for anything else, because that was normative at the time, and a completely implicit, assumed design goal. If the game wanted to sell them something else, it had a lot more groundwork to do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Violating causality between player decision making and character action is about the worst immersion-sin in my personal experience, but it's variable tastes all the way down.


That's a silly way to formulate the complaint. The disappointed user there was expecting that kind of diegetic grounding/simulation and ability design, and didn't get it. You had player who didn't even have the language to ask for anything else, because that was normative at the time, and a completely implicit, assumed design goal. If the game wanted to sell them something else, it had a lot more groundwork to do.

Yeah, 4e did a terrible job IMO telling you what they were trying to do, let alone why we should want it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If the game wanted to sell them something else, it had a lot more groundwork to do.

Like telling them in a book literally called Worlds of Design?

If only they did that...