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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If your disagreement is based on "but I already allow everyone to move about how they wish" then I guess I can live with that disagreement.

No, it is based upon the rules of the game, that people keep ignoring like it is some massive blank hole in the PHB. Which frustrates me endlessly.

I once had a DM try to force me to roll athletics to climb, when my character HAD a climb speed, because they didn't want me to constantly be above the reach of melee enemies. And I think that fear of the third-dimension is what is behind so many people memory-holing how the climbing rules actually function.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No, it is based upon the rules of the game, that people keep ignoring like it is some massive blank hole in the PHB. Which frustrates me endlessly.

I once had a DM try to force me to roll athletics to climb, when my character HAD a climb speed, because they didn't want me to constantly be above the reach of melee enemies. And I think that fear of the third-dimension is what is behind so many people memory-holing how the climbing rules actually function.

It is ok to be above melee reach. What did you do while hanging on the wall?

Edit:This is the rules text you quoted in the other post:
"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."

So the DM is not wrong to ask for climb checks even if you have a climb speed. All the climb speed does is not reducing your speed when doing normal climbs that don't require checks at all.
So on slippery surfaces or one with no handholds, asking for a check seems in line.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

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.

Thanks for calling that out. I was pulling a number out of my arse based on how other DMs have ruled it for me in the past, as there was an expectation in this thread that Ability checks were necessary to move through the battlefield. But yeah, I was incorrect.

All that said, it further supports my position in that you don't need to merge Athletics and Acrobatics into one "movement check" that uses your best Ability Score if you don't need to roll in the first place.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

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.

Well, yes, but we were talking about overcoming a passable battlefield obstacle. I've had DMs that said you only ever get one shot at climbing a wall or picking any lock. I don't like that style.

 

[mellored]

Yeah. I generally liked the epic boons, though I thought they were too limited in scope and number. It was a good base idea, but they needed to expand on it, not drop it.

AFAIK, they didn't drop them.
They just moved them up to level 21.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

AFAIK, they didn't drop them.
They just moved them up to level 21.

Where they have been all the time.

 

[Pauln6]

Spoiler: eh? 5e dmg272 says this

OVERRUN
When a creature tries to move through a hostile
creature's space, the mover can try to force its way
through by overrunning the hostile creature. As an
action or a bonus action, the mover makes a Strength
(Athletics) check contested by the hostile creature's
Strength (Athletics) check. The creature attempting the
overrun has advantage on this check if it is larger than
the hostile creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller. If
the mover wins the contest, it can move through the
hostile creature's space once this turn.
SHOVE ASIDE
With this option, a creature uses the special shove
attack from the Player's Handbook to force a target
to the side, rather than away. The attacker has
disadvantage on its Strength (Athletics) check when it
does so. If that check is successful, the attacker moves
the target 5 feet to a different space within its reach.
TUMBLE
A creature can try to tumble through a hostile creature's
space, ducking and weaving past the opponent. As an
action or a bonus action, the tumbler makes a Dexterity
(Acrobatics) check contested by the hostile creature's
Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the tumbler wins the
contest, it can move through the hostile creature's space
once this turn.

I see nothing about knockdown or prone in those 5e dmg 272 entries. The 3.5 overrun rules did though, are you confusing the two or houseruling it across? I guess the 3.5 bullrush could prone the rusher if they failed badly enough but don't get the impression that you were talking about "weak" opponents failing those

Yeah I was going from my very poor memory. Plus Level Up probably has traditions that do it. Definitely some design space to improve overruns and charging for fighters there though.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It is ok to be above melee reach. What did you do while hanging on the wall?

I stood on top of the wall, I wasn't hanging off of it.

Next fight, near the same wall, the DM required all of us to be on the ground, under penalty of our allies on the wall turning on us.

Edit:This is the rules text you quoted in the other post:
"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."

So the DM is not wrong to ask for climb checks even if you have a climb speed. All the climb speed does is not reducing your speed when doing normal climbs that don't require checks at all.
So on slippery surfaces or one with no handholds, asking for a check seems in line.

Was the DM morally wrong? No. But there was no slippery surface, and it was a normal, if tall, brick wall. And that doesn't explain climbing checks for trees, which again, not slippery, not lacking handholds.

But this is similar to asking for an arcana check to attune to a magical item, or a strength check to jump a 5 ft gap when you have a strength higher than five. Technically, the DM isn't wrong to ask for those, but it seems punitive to force characters into rolls that they are not otherwise required to make. Especially when the DM approved my using a ranger with a climb speed, then seemed shocked that my archer with a climb speed would want to climb things and shoot them with a bow.

And let's take your assertion just one step away from PCs. Low Strength, climb speed, a cat statblock has a -4 strength. Even if you assume a tree only has a Climb DC of 10, that still means that a cat would fail to climb a tree two-thirds of the time. Cats, famous for being able to climb into trees, would largely be unable to climb into trees. That doesn't make a ton of sense. Same with lizards, many of whom climb rocky cliff faces consistently, and would be unable to do so.

 

[Chaosmancer]

All that said, it further supports my position in that you don't need to merge Athletics and Acrobatics into one "movement check" that uses your best Ability Score if you don't need to roll in the first place.

I agree that I don't think they need to be merged. I do still like the idea of many types of Difficult Terrain having an Athletics DC to ignore them. The idea of just ripping through brush, deep snow, mud, ect through your sheer strength, while other characters have to find other ways that slow them down appeals to me.

I also think that jumping and leaping is something that should be covered under Acrobatics. When we think of acrobatic archetypes and heroes, they are consistently leaping and performing, well, acrobatics. And yes, yes, I know that those things take strength, but so does picking a lock since it uses muscles and you need some muscle strength to do so. I think it is more useful to, instead of thinking of Strength as Muscles and Dexterity as NotMuscles, to think of them as different muscle groups. After all, this isn't the body type of a gymnast

And this isn't the body type of someone completely unathletic and unable to run or jump

But when you build these characters... it is highly likely that you aren't prioritizing all three physical stats. If it makes you feel better about your verisimilitude, just consider the average score between the three stats as a generic "how fit are they" score.

16, 13, 8 still averages to 12.3333 which is an above average physicality. And since we can't argue that anything uses your body doesn't require "strength" "precision" and "healthiness" all together, shrug it just seems like an issue where game mechanics can't quite neatly line up with both literary tropes and real-life.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I stood on top of the wall, I wasn't hanging off of it.

Next fight, near the same wall, the DM required all of us to be on the ground, under penalty of our allies on the wall turning on us.



Was the DM morally wrong? No. But there was no slippery surface, and it was a normal, if tall, brick wall. And that doesn't explain climbing checks for trees, which again, not slippery, not lacking handholds.

But this is similar to asking for an arcana check to attune to a magical item, or a strength check to jump a 5 ft gap when you have a strength higher than five. Technically, the DM isn't wrong to ask for those, but it seems punitive to force characters into rolls that they are not otherwise required to make. Especially when the DM approved my using a ranger with a climb speed, then seemed shocked that my archer with a climb speed would want to climb things and shoot them with a bow.

And let's take your assertion just one step away from PCs. Low Strength, climb speed, a cat statblock has a -4 strength. Even if you assume a tree only has a Climb DC of 10, that still means that a cat would fail to climb a tree two-thirds of the time. Cats, famous for being able to climb into trees, would largely be unable to climb into trees. That doesn't make a ton of sense. Same with lizards, many of whom climb rocky cliff faces consistently, and would be unable to do so.

You overinterpreted what I said. I never said the cat has to roll for athletics checks, nor did I know the exact situation you were in.

For the cat, trees are easy to climb as there are enough "handholds" for her claws. So no check. Perhaps more different for goats who are also known to be good climbers.

It is never a one fits all situation.