D&D (2024) New Unearthed Arcana Playtest Includes Barbarian, Druid, and Monk

The latest Unearthed Arcana playtest packet is now live with new barbarian, druid, and monk versions, as well as new spells and weapons, and a revised Ability Score Improvement feat.

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WHATS INSIDE

Here are the new and revised elements in this article:

Classes. Three classes are here: Barbarian, Druid, and Monk. Each one includes one subclass: Path of the World Tree (Barbarian), Circle of the Moon (Druid), and Warrior of the Hand (Monk).

Spells. New and revised spells are included.

The following sections were introduced in a previous article and are provided here for reference:

Weapons. Weapon revisions are included.

Feats. This includes a revised version of Ability Score Improvement.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary includes the few rules that have revised definitions in the playtest. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in the glossary.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You can play 4e if you want every stat to be equally relevant. You can't achieve that without stripping out quite a lot of flavour from the game.

What flavor was stripped for mechanical parity again?

 

[Pauln6]

What flavor was stripped for mechanical parity again?

In my case, it was that it was impossible port characters across from 3e to 4e without changing their stats. The flavour of the character was diluted in favour of mechanics.

Personally, I have never really felt that Dex overpowered all other abilities, in our group at least, but so many people seem to chant it that I have to believe it must be so! The pros and cons of using missiles are often discussed. Back in the day you would get one or two shots in before closing into melee (when equipping a shield was less of a chore) rather than it being a lifestyle choice. Damage output is much greater now but it does seem that if strength needs a boost, reducing the amount of damage done by smaller Dex weapons is one way to do it.

Perhaps one way to balance fighter builds would be by adding another off-hand attack? And two weapon fighting style adding a flat +3 to damage.

 

[Mistwell]

A stitch in time saves nine.

It is better to fix minor balance problems now, rather than major balance problems later.

If the number of unbalanced variables increase in the game, the chances of combos breaking the game unexpectedly increase.

Most of your "fixes" seem to be major dramatic changes to traditional and popular game elements to fix a small variation.

 

[Vaalingrade]

In my case, it was that it was impossible port characters across from 3e to 4e without changing their stats. The flavour of the character was diluted in favour of mechanics.

Numbers on a character sheet are not flavor.

 

[Pauln6]

Numbers on a character sheet are not flavor.

Not to you, perhaps. The stats are the blueprint that embody the mental image of my character. It matters to me whether their intelligence is 17 or 13 regardless of what bonus I get in any new edition. I appreciate that to many people it's all about what mechanical benefits the stats provide and that's fine for them. That's just not fine for me.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not so. If you're hyper focused on one type of combat then sure. But those strength points still help with carrying capacity, athletics, initiating a grapple, strength saves, heavy armor use, and most of the best martial weapons. Particularly if you find a magic weapon that uses strength, it's rewarded even if you have a high dex. The high dex still helps with initiative and acrobatics and ranged attacks and dex saves.

FWIW, I have never suggested players should be able to Dexterity to do "fightery" stuff, like bending bars and lifting gates. This obviously includes grappling, strength saves, weapons and armor. Not carrying capacity though. Nobody cares about carrying capacity until you get your bag of holding and... then we keep ignoring carrying capacity.

What it should not include is moving around the battlefield. Swashbuckling. Running around the battlefield. In three dimensions. Including climbing, jumping and swimming.

You just need one physical attribute for "heroic movement", which is easily accomplished by allowing players to use either Athletics or Acrobatics in most cases.

Simple rule; much better game.

 

[Pauln6]

FWIW, I have never suggested players should be able to Dexterity to do "fightery" stuff, like bending bars and lifting gates. This obviously includes grappling, strength saves, weapons and armor. Not carrying capacity though. Nobody cares about carrying capacity until you get your bag of holding and... then we keep ignoring carrying capacity.

What it should not include is moving around the battlefield. Swashbuckling. Running around the battlefield. In three dimensions. Including climbing, jumping and swimming.

You just need one physical attribute for "heroic movement", which is easily accomplished by allowing players to use either Athletics or Acrobatics in most cases.

Simple rule; much better game.

I thought that was the mobility feat?

 

[CapnZapp]

They assume rolled stats. That's the default, and I've never heard any designer claim otherwise. Have you?

No. What the designers claim are irrelevant. You can't base any balance on a system that gives you a 3 one day and an 18 the next.

Obviously we can't have a proper discussion under the assumption our stats are random. Otherwise you could legitimately argue "there's no problem because I have great Strength AND Dexterity - and I didn't have to sacrifice anything at all to get it!"

I'm discussing under the assumption stats are standard array.

 

[CapnZapp]

I thought that was the mobility feat?

I didn't.

 

[CapnZapp]

It is weird. Every other stat is seen as just naturally flowing into issues, with no major need to correct those. Low Strength is seen as a problem the DM must correct, by punishing the players.

Just to note: you're clearly having a beef, but your beef isn't my beef, and this, I feel, has nothing to do with me.

I'm arguing something simpler: that a classic Strength-based Fighter shouldn't need Dexterity and a Rogue shouldn't need Strength, not if all they want to do is run around the battlefield being the physical champions they are.

It's just too much overlap. You get so little out of it. The game already covers most of your bases (just one example: the game provides "armor" to a Strength-build so you don't need Dexterity for Armor Class).

I'm basically only straightening out the odd kink that is for a Dex build to be stopped cold by a rope they need to climb.

In a way with elves and dragons and magic and ship? Get outta here...