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.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Generally, you don't fix problems with "here's a feat".

First off, the feat does not make you any better at those Athletics checks the game wants you to make. Nor does it circumvent having to do them.

Second, the solution "just use Acrobatics" is because the problem wasn't that a Rogue can't swim or climb. The solution is because the game makes that too expensive. Asking you (and let's ignore what the feat does for a second) to take a feat is also expensive, so it doesn't fix the issue.

---

Athletic heroes like rogues and fighters should be able to pop 'round the battlefield, neither being forced to take "the other's" physical skill just for basic movement - and more importantly, put precious ability points in an ability you're taking only because the game doesn't allow you basic movement with just one skill and ability.

(If you do like your Dex-build to do "pure strength stuff" such as grapple and make strength saves and lift gates and outcarry a pack mule, then by all means have at it and take Strength. But you shouldn't need to just in order to move just because the battlefield happens to feature fun three dimensional layouts, where your fantastic movement abilities are weirdly shut down by elevation differences. Especially since mundane jumping and swimming is nearly always eclipsed by magic when it really matters anyway. It's not that you gain particularly fantastic abilities. You mostly just patch niggling inabilities in your otherwise great repertoire of physical prowess)

If you already allow your Rogues to use Acrobatics to swing ropes or parkour their way up, you're halfway there. You just need to let go of the "well that's because there was alternative ways to pure climbing" mentality and realize that strength is part of all manners of elevation changes.

There is no such thing as "because there's steps and ropes you don't need Strength, you can do it with pure Dexterity." The distinction is silly, but more to the point, it's meaningless - it doesn't serve any useful purpose and indeed, all it accomplishes is cases where a Rogue player is shut down by some rules technicality.

Instead just embrace that martials are physically fit people. Some use one game stat and its associated skill; others use the other game stat and its associated skill. The simplest way of making the game work is to just say yes, and let people use either Athletics or Acrobatics interchangeably in the vast majority of cases

What you could do to incentivize doubling down on both Athletics and Acrobatics is use the "you have both the tool and the skill so you gain advantage" rule and say that if you're proficient in both, that's advantage.

It would mean that those of you arguing it's possible to think of an athletic hero without him being acrobatic, or an acrobatic hero without her being athletic, gains some satisfaction; all the while we solve one basic dilemma with how the vanilla rules work: there's just not enough incentive to take both Athletics (and Strength) and Acrobatics (and Dexterity). At least if you were assured of advantage (and didn't have to rely on making up fantastic descriptions for your DM to grant you advantage) it would be a small perk; maybe enough to justify taking both in some cases.

I'd still use only Strength for extended climbs (what is not "moving around the battlefield"). Other than that, I agree.

I like the advantage Idea if both skills apply.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't find anything about the game and how it is balanced strange, confusing or perplexing. I do find that your take on it makes further discussion uninteresting to me. Instead of just not replying to your posts, I'm giving you my reason why.

You don't need to. You just stop replying to them. If you're going to walk away, then walk away. There is no reason for an announcement that you've lost interest. If you keep replying to me, then you didn't mean it.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

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...

If your problem is an "odd kink", it sounds like you're assuming something not in the rules, or are inventing it. The rules do not say that a Dex-build PC is stopped cold if they have to climb a rope.

1. It's pretty much a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to climb a rope. Even with a -1 total modifier, a PC with a Strength of 8 has a 55% chance to succeed and will eventually climb up. Even the Wizard will eventually climb up. If the DM wants it harder, they will make the climb higher and require more ability checks to give more opportunities for failure. But the DM is inventing a scenario to make it harder.
2. With Ability Checks, you get to keep rolling until you succeed. The game does not say you only get one roll and are stymied if it fails. If a DM uses this house rule, they are actively trying to make it harder.

Just because real world athletes and martial artists do both Strength Training, Agility Training, as well as Endurance Training, and can actively increase their abilities with sustained effort and training, it doesn't mean that those abilities overlap to the same effect. If they want to be good at each, they train at each. A gymnast or parkour enthusiast might have good strength and dexterity to handle different challenges in their routines/activities. But a Dex-only character who doesn't focus on Strength, like a pick-pocket or a card shark or a twitch gamer, will have a harder time climbing a rope. Their Dex doesn't help them, and it shouldn't.

Dex and Str and Con should not be distilled down into "Roll a Physical Check" nor should the mental abilities be distilled down to "Roll a Mental Check", making ability scores and skills not matter. If you dump Strength, and don't select a class or subclass that gives you a climb speed, don't complain that your character sucks at something you didn't invest in.

If you are stuck with the standard array, the answer isn't "remove any differentiation between abilities so you can fulfill your physical fantasies without investing in them." The answer is "pick what you want to be good at, using the limitations the DM sets forth." If the DM is down with the heroes being "Renaissance Folk" where a character can be incredible at all abilities, then they should allow for higher ability scores because the "standard array" does not allow for that fantasy. Ability score generation is the manipulatable dial to allow for such builds. But don't expect the standard array to represent a non-standard level of broad excellence.

 

[CapnZapp]

If your problem is an "odd kink", it sounds like you're assuming something not in the rules, or are inventing it. The rules do not say that a Dex-build PC is stopped cold if they have to climb a rope.

You are inventing a straw man here. You are saying "CapnZapp doesn't realize DC 10 checks are easy for anyone as you level up".

Stop it.

Obviously I am discussing under the assumption we are discussing checks with level-appropriate difficulties. If you never subject your characters to anything more than DC 10, good for you, but that's not what I'm assuming here.

(That ends my participation in that particular derail - if you need to keep discussing DC 10 checks, feel free, but don't expect a reply from me)

To be clear: a Rogue should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter (and vice versa), including movement in three dimensions.

Then you regurgitate the old "but realism" objections, which I'll ignore.

D&D has chosen to separate Strength and Dexterity as wholly independent "variables", as if you could envision a character with 18 in one but a 3 in the other. This causes a bug in the system where you need to spend an inordinate amount of effort just to not weirdly suck at specific "heroic movement" task.

You should not need to spend that many resources (ability points spent towards gaining mostly what you already have: i.e. attack and damage bonuses, taking a skill) to gain so little (plugging the gaps in your movement suite).

The solution is simple: if a Rogue wants to heroically move about the battlefield, you stop worrying if this movement happens to include elevation changes, and you just let the player make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check!

The same if a Fighter needs to balance across a tightrope, for example. Demanding that this hero should invest points in Dexterity for which he gains no attack, damage or defense benefit is... insane. The only realistic scenarios are 1) your players just give up and accustom themselves to the weird fact that some martial heroes just can't dance or 2) you make the exceedingly simple and easy change and just let them use Athletics!

Under no circumstances is it reasonable to demand that these martials should double down on both Strength and Dexterity simply to plug the holes in their basic movement repertoire. (Again, if they're looking for other benefits above and beyond battlemap positioning, such as a Rogue wanting to Grapple or a Fighter wanting to make Dex saves, it's fair to ask them to make the investment)

 

[tetrasodium]

You are inventing a straw man here. You are saying "CapnZapp doesn't realize DC 10 checks are easy for anyone as you level up".

Stop it.

Obviously I am discussing under the assumption we are discussing checks with level-appropriate difficulties. If you never subject your characters to anything more than DC 10, good for you, but that's not what I'm assuming here.

(That ends my participation in that particular derail - if you need to keep discussing DC 10 checks, feel free, but don't expect a reply from me)

To be clear: a Rogue should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter (and vice versa), including movement in three dimensions.

Then you regurgitate the old "but realism" objections, which I'll ignore.

D&D has chosen to separate Strength and Dexterity as wholly independent "variables", as if you could envision a character with 18 in one but a 3 in the other. This causes a bug in the system where you need to spend an inordinate amount of effort just to not weirdly suck at specific "heroic movement" task.

You should not need to spend that many resources (ability points spent towards gaining mostly what you already have: i.e. attack and damage bonuses, taking a skill) to gain so little (plugging the gaps in your movement suite).

The solution is simple: if a Rogue wants to heroically move about the battlefield, you stop worrying if this movement happens to include elevation changes, and you just let the player make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check!

The same if a Fighter needs to balance across a tightrope, for example. Demanding that this hero should invest points in Dexterity for which he gains no attack, damage or defense benefit is... insane. The only realistic scenarios are 1) your players just give up and accustom themselves to the weird fact that some martial heroes just can't dance or 2) you make the exceedingly simple and easy change and just let them use Athletics!

Under no circumstances is it reasonable to demand that these martials should double down on both Strength and Dexterity simply to plug the holes in their basic movement repertoire. (Again, if they're looking for other benefits above and beyond battlemap positioning, such as a Rogue wanting to Grapple or a Fighter wanting to make Dex saves, it's fair to ask them to make the investment)

Not all forms of movement through a battlefield are the same. Geralt storming forcefully like brienne of tarth Is an entirely different form of movement than what someone else doing it with cunning and grace like Arya stark or Wash. Treating both styles as the same devalues each to the point of mundanity

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

You are inventing a straw man here. You are saying "CapnZapp doesn't realize DC 10 checks are easy for anyone as you level up".

Stop it.

Obviously I am discussing under the assumption we are discussing checks with level-appropriate difficulties. If you never subject your characters to anything more than DC 10, good for you, but that's not what I'm assuming here.

(That ends my participation in that particular derail - if you need to keep discussing DC 10 checks, feel free, but don't expect a reply from me)

To be clear: a Rogue should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter (and vice versa), including movement in three dimensions.

Then you regurgitate the old "but realism" objections, which I'll ignore.

D&D has chosen to separate Strength and Dexterity as wholly independent "variables", as if you could envision a character with 18 in one but a 3 in the other. This causes a bug in the system where you need to spend an inordinate amount of effort just to not weirdly suck at specific "heroic movement" task.

You should not need to spend that many resources (ability points spent towards gaining mostly what you already have: i.e. attack and damage bonuses, taking a skill) to gain so little (plugging the gaps in your movement suite).

The solution is simple: if a Rogue wants to heroically move about the battlefield, you stop worrying if this movement happens to include elevation changes, and you just let the player make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check!

The same if a Fighter needs to balance across a tightrope, for example. Demanding that this hero should invest points in Dexterity for which he gains no attack, damage or defense benefit is... insane. The only realistic scenarios are 1) your players just give up and accustom themselves to the weird fact that some martial heroes just can't dance or 2) you make the exceedingly simple and easy change and just let them use Athletics!

Under no circumstances is it reasonable to demand that these martials should double down on both Strength and Dexterity simply to plug the holes in their basic movement repertoire. (Again, if they're looking for other benefits above and beyond battlemap positioning, such as a Rogue wanting to Grapple or a Fighter wanting to make Dex saves, it's fair to ask them to make the investment)

Stop what? I'm not inventing a straw man. I am questioning your very assertion.

A Rogue should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter (and vice versa), including movement in three dimensions.

You are advocating for distilling all movement-based challenges into one ability that the PC is good at, and that realism arguments don't matter. In fact, your suggestion is about making Dexterity more of a Super ability. It seems to me that you want to min/max, pumping Dex, and dumping Str, and in order to ignore RAW penalties for dumping Strength, you advocate for replacing Str with Dex checks. That is literally changing the rules to enable min/maxing. It's also a gamist preference that I think breaks more than it fixes. I am fine with some gamist design, but this is off the mark for me. I don't mean the following as a straw man, but to better explain how I see your position, this is what your argument sounds like to me:

"A Sorcerer should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics, or Dexterity and Acrobatics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter or a Rogue in combat, including movement in three dimensions. They are inherently magical, after all." Can a Sorcerer use their Force of Personality to succeed at crossing a challenging 3D battlefield just by rolling a Charisma (Intimidation) check to look impressive doing so?

That is how I see your argument. It makes little sense to me. Hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity doesn't help you climb if your level of physical strength makes it hard to do a single pull up. You may succeed, but it is because of your effort (a successful D20 Test) despite your challenges. As an aside, I will say that I do think that Acrobatics as a pure Dexterity skill is a bit of a misnomer, because actual acrobats also have Strength training, which is the real reason why they can jump and climb pretty well. Note that the rules for Acrobatics don't mention anything about climbing or jumping for distance:

​

Acrobatics. Your Dexterity (Acrobatics) check covers your attempt to stay on your feet in a tricky situation, such as when you’re trying to run across a sheet of ice, balance on a tightrope, or stay upright on a rocking ship’s deck. The DM might also call for a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to see if you can perform acrobatic stunts, including dives, rolls, somersaults, and flips.​

For me, climbing is a Strength check, but following the RAW variant rule in the PHB, if the battlefield warrants it, like racing up a great pine tree to see who reaches the eagle nest first (with lots of branches and handholds that can be both boons and barriers), I may say make a Strength (Athletics or Acrobatics) check. I won't ask for an Athletics (Str) or an Acrobatics (Dex) check. The Ability is first, not the Skill. Being trained in a Skill can enhance the Ability Check.

The rules as written work just fine. You assert they are a bug. I disagree. The people you are debating against are not "unreasonable" or crazy or insane if the rules as written make sense to them.

*edited an unintended inflammatory word out.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You are inventing a straw man here. You are saying "CapnZapp doesn't realize DC 10 checks are easy for anyone as you level up".

Stop it.

Obviously I am discussing under the assumption we are discussing checks with level-appropriate difficulties. If you never subject your characters to anything more than DC 10, good for you, but that's not what I'm assuming here.

(That ends my participation in that particular derail - if you need to keep discussing DC 10 checks, feel free, but don't expect a reply from me)

To be clear: a Rogue should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter (and vice versa), including movement in three dimensions.

Then you regurgitate the old "but realism" objections, which I'll ignore.

D&D has chosen to separate Strength and Dexterity as wholly independent "variables", as if you could envision a character with 18 in one but a 3 in the other. This causes a bug in the system where you need to spend an inordinate amount of effort just to not weirdly suck at specific "heroic movement" task.

You should not need to spend that many resources (ability points spent towards gaining mostly what you already have: i.e. attack and damage bonuses, taking a skill) to gain so little (plugging the gaps in your movement suite).

The solution is simple: if a Rogue wants to heroically move about the battlefield, you stop worrying if this movement happens to include elevation changes, and you just let the player make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check!

The same if a Fighter needs to balance across a tightrope, for example. Demanding that this hero should invest points in Dexterity for which he gains no attack, damage or defense benefit is... insane. The only realistic scenarios are 1) your players just give up and accustom themselves to the weird fact that some martial heroes just can't dance or 2) you make the exceedingly simple and easy change and just let them use Athletics!

Under no circumstances is it reasonable to demand that these martials should double down on both Strength and Dexterity simply to plug the holes in their basic movement repertoire. (Again, if they're looking for other benefits above and beyond battlemap positioning, such as a Rogue wanting to Grapple or a Fighter wanting to make Dex saves, it's fair to ask them to make the investment)

1. DC 10 checks never get irrelevant. DC goes not up per level. Ever raising them is a relict of the past and actually hurts martial characters overall, as they fall more and more behind. At some point, martials with +9 in a check should just succeed.
Also, there is aoptional rule in the DMG that allows every proficient character to succeed a DC 10 checks.
Also the old take 20 rule is still present in the form: assume characters eventually succeed if there is enough time and an actual chance to succeed at the task. So someone with just str 10 can climb DC20 walls given enough time.

2. I think using athletics and str to balance is stretching it a bit far. We have come to such a challenge. And the solution was quite simple: the rogue used the fallen tree trunk to cross the chasm. The barbarian just climbed down and up on the other side. I think it is a bit lazy to have everyone use the same soultion for a different problem.

At that point, just fold dex and str into a single stat and call it a day.

 

[Pauln6]

To be clear: a Rogue should not need to invest in Strength and Athletics to match the movement abilities of a Fighter (and vice versa), including movement in three dimensions.

Yeah I'm not sure I agree with your assumptions. Rogue subclasses include investigators, there is even a courtier subclass in Level Up. Fighter subclasses have very few acrobatic builds unless you build a Battlemaster one. It seems to me that what you are suggesting is something more suited to a subclass ability (possibly even an optional class ability in Tasha's) or, as discussed previously, a Feat.

I do think fighters should have better battlefield movement options, such as imposing disadvantage on opportunity attacks against them (and at higher levels, against adjacent allies), and maybe allowing a half their movement if they sacrifice one of their attacks, on top of the bonus action attack from charging, but I still like the ability to invest in different types of build with different types of investment.

Climbing a rope using dexterity could easily be added to a level 3 subclass ability for tricksy rogue builds.

 

[Kobold Stew]

1. With Ability Checks, you get to keep rolling until you succeed. The game does not say you only get one roll and are stymied if it fails. If a DM uses this house rule, they are actively trying to make it harder.

This is not true. It is a DM's call as to whether repeated rolls are possible in a given case.

DMG p. 237 (my emphasis):
Sometimes a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so; the only real cost is the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at that task. However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one.
In other cases, failing an ability check makes it impossible to make the same check to do the same thing again. For example, a rogue might try to trick a town guard into thinking the adventurers are undercover agents of the king. If the rogue loses a contest of Charisma (Deception) against the guard's Wisdom (Insight), the same lie told again won't work. The characters can come up with a different way to get past the guard or try the check again against another guard at a different gate. But you might decide that the initial failure makes those checks more difficult to pull off.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If your problem is an "odd kink", it sounds like you're assuming something not in the rules, or are inventing it. The rules do not say that a Dex-build PC is stopped cold if they have to climb a rope.

1. It's pretty much a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to climb a rope.

FALSE
Seriously, this drives me up the wall. Does no one actually read the rules of the game?!

Player's Handbook, Page 182 under Special Types of Movement, sub-divided under Climbing, Swimming and Crawling.

Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you're climbing, swimming, or crawling. You ignore this extra cost if you have a climbing speed and use it to climb, or a swimming speed and use it to swim. At the DM's option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check. Similarly, gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check.

Do you somehow think that a rope is a slippery surface? Or maybe that a rope which is nothing BUT handholds is somehow a surface with few handholds? There is no athletics check for climbing a rope. None. Zero. Unless you as the DM insist on it. There is also not a check for climbing a tree, or a rough cliff face, or a crumbling wall. You people need to stop bringing 3rd edition rules into this, and pay attention to 5e's rules. It's been a flipping decade at this point.