D&D (2024) Expert Classes - Rules Glossary

[fluffybunbunkittens]

And why would I as a caster care about removing disadvantage from shooting with someone next to me, when almost every spell I want to use targets a save and doesn't care anyway...

 

[jmartkdr2]

And why would I as a caster care about removing disadvantage from shooting with someone next to me, when almost every spell I want to use targets a save and doesn't care anyway...

Clearly you're not a warlock.

(It's basically a must-have feat for warlocks now.)

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Clearly you're not a warlock.

(It's basically a must-have feat for warlocks now.)

You mean Telekinetic is... Well, OneDnD doesn't have it yet, I guess.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm giving d20 tests a spoiler of it's own because they come up a lot. There's a lot to like but a few rough edges that are going to be really rough at the table

Spoiler: d20 tests- more good than bad

Going to inspiration on a 1 & 20 is just a 20 at this level is a great shift. As a GM it really sucks when a player rolls one or many 1's on a bad night since there's little I can do without being obvious that the hand of god is reaching down to help bob out when I didn't do that for alice or Cindy Dave on their bad nights simply because they didn't make an issue of it or whatever. This nicely gives me a "well hey it gave you inspiration at least!" card I can use to take out the sting when bob is making a note of it.
The bad parts are bad though

• Ability check: These are now explicit that they require an action.
  • As a GM that's a great shift because I often find players get salty when I say "sure you can, do you want to use your action for that?" when they ask to do stuff mid fight.
  • "The DM determines the Difficulty Class of an Ability Check and [the DM] can override a DC specified in the rules" This rider in the ability check rule is a lot bigger than it might look at first glance & it's bigger in interesting ways. Not only can the DM now bypass the check they can look at a dc x check & say that it's much less or choose to declare that it's much higher simply because the group is higher level & facing challenges that are no longer the now trivial ones they once faced.
  • There is a table of typical DCs of very easy to nearly impossible with a new task difficulty every 5 up or down the ladder. Having targets is good
    • With that said the chart needs to go beyond 30 with a 35 or 35&40. I say that because +5 from an attribute +8/10/12 from expertise is +13/+15/+17 to a roll & we have not even added magic items or any sorts of circumstance type bonuses yet. "nearly impossible" doesn't seem so impossible
      • when you need an 18 from 2d20k1+1d4+?? with advantage guidance & some kind of magic item/potion/hypothetical circumstance boost(circumstance from who knows mechanic/magic item). Already the help action & guidance alone brings that down to 14-17 on a d20 roll made with advantage. If the help action & the guidance cantrip can bring "nearly impossible" down to just shy of medium or hard it's not exactly "nearly impossible". I don't mind overriding the DCs but I'd like a little headroom even if it's the addition of a "31+ improbable/35+ extremely improbable" or something
• "attack roll": weirdly this says "Attack roll" but the attack roll is a subsection of the attack action. This should probably be changed to attack action.
  • the annoying free action of weapon (un)equip is now gone with the almost wonderfully explicit "You can equip or unequip one Weapon before or after any attack you make as part of this action". It's a nice clarification but the wording is lacking
  • The inclusion of that underlined "any" clears up any issues with drawing thrown weapons when multiple attacks are available but the solution for thrown weapons needs to be attached to thrown weapons not here. As worded it allows a cartoonish situation like a 3 attack having PC to draw a sword >strike>drop a sword & draw a mace>strike>drop mace & draw a different sword>strike. the PC is only drawing or sheathing one weapon each time but as written they are allowed to do it on "any" of their attacks. The wording should be "one" with a loophole for thrown weapons added to thrown weapons or simply omitting " any attack you make as part of" & doing the thrown weapon fix on thrown weapons.
• saving throw: not defined in glossary as far as I can tell

The vast majority of the rules in the glossary are in this but quite a few good things also have rough edges

Spoiler: The Mostly-Good

• Armor Training: /new term for armor proficiency, similar can't cast spells & disadvantage on d20 tests but now it's nicely noted in the glossary rather than tucked away in a footnote on page 144. Great change
• Artisan tools: I think they may have been defined in the last packet & they seem the same. Having a broad category for all tools makes it easier for me as a GM since there's less question if a given tool applies to a rule that interacts with artisan's tools... especially if I want a spell magic item or whatever that interacts with them as a group.
• Attack roll: It's defined, that's good. No more monsters can't grit, that's great. I'm mighty curious to see what recharge abilities wotc was excited about & thought were going to need no more crits from the GM & largely because if those abilities are the recharge 5-6 ones already present on a tiny number of monsters it's terrifying that someone thought it was justified given the extreme PC survivability.
• Arcane/Divine/Primal spell: It's nice having this defined
• [NEW] Barkskin Spell: This is great (I think?)!It's touch concentration (still)1hr duration & prof bonus THP every round to the target Even better is that with higher level spell slots it allows extra targets instead of duration.
  • 1 hour is a good duration for a buff meant to last longer than one combat since it gives a bit of time pressure but still allows some dillydallying to explore.
  • Unfortunately as a concentration spell it still limits the use & will often exempt itself from any situation where it might exert time pressure if it's not THE best concentration spell. There is no reason for concentration on prof bonus Thp/round to one target.
• Blindsight: Automatically see hidden & invisible creatures not with total cover.... I hope that this is limited to extremely short ranges like 5 or 10 feet & not a 360degree radar. Level 15 ranger can get it 30 feet & I'm not jazzed about it but assume there are going to be some readily available countermeasures by then so plonk this under goodish
• Climb speed: I like that it's spelled out & that thanks to saying that it can be used "any time situation in which your speed is usable" So I as a GM don't need to make judgement calls on if someone with climbspeed can dash or whatever.
  • I wonder if the same applies to things like barbarian/monk fast movement also boosting this? If so it should specify that it only boosts one type of movement per round or it could bump all types
• Dash: I like that it points to the rules for the move action & just says you can do a second one of them since it really cuts down on situations where the GM could run into unexpected loopholes & stuff.
• Gaming Set & musical instrument: It's a thing.
• Grappled: I still like the new mechanic but have to wonder why the grappler can drag or carry the grappled but not the other way around.
  • Why is it that Bob can grapple a giant or dragon & drag or carry it but the giant or dragon can't drag or carry the puny human they could juggle?
• Guidance: I love this change of reaction to a failed check & limited to a once per "long" rest. As a GM who usually has big groups I'm a bit sick of hearing "and I cast guidance" every time someone does basically almost anything so can't wait for this.
• Help: This breaks down into skillchecks & attack rolls.
  • The skill check help now requires both top be proficient in the same skill & notes that the helper needs to be close enough for the helpee to be assisted. I expect this too will cut down on the "and I help" where I as the GM need to repeatedly loop through tiresome "and... how does Bob help Alice on that?" prompted group brainstorming sessions over a quantum action.
  • On the attack roll I wish this had some actual requirement. I know that theoretically it costs an action, but in play at the table it costs a bonus action for bob to tell his familiar to distract anything Alice is fighting every round & the familiar has almost no chance of hitting anything ever while bob might not even have other bonus actions.
• "Heroic inspiration": "(also called inspiration)"... hmmmm.... Will we see other forms of inspiration?
• Hidden: Pretty standard stuff. You are concealed, have advantage on initiative & attacks against you are at disadvantage
• Hide: I love that it includes the stipulation of heavily obscured/3/4 cover. as a GM I'm tired of pointing out "It's an empty hallway" & similar only to get "but I'm proficient & rolled a 27!". Great change
• Incapacitated: Same as before but it breaks concentration & you can't speak.
  • Also you roll initiative with disadvantage but that seems like an extreme edge case unless fear auras & such start causing incapacitated... That would be iiinnnnterrrestinnng & make a lot of sense if it were the case.
• Invisible: It's properly defined as a condition now
  • Unseeable should include something like "when you become invisible" or this becomes a little too good... especially as long as there are familiars that can at will become invisible or we will have warlock imps robbing everything blind with impunity.
• Jump: This is a dramatic improvement. The old jump rules were worse than useless in ways that made 3.5 grapple rules seem well designed. Having thus in a glossary also means that we can quickly look them up when we need to find a rule we may have forgotten like this too. Needing to use an action in order to jump more than 5 feet is a good change since it could be clearing caltrops spike pits pressure plates or things like a grease spell.
• Long rest: I place this here under hopeful optimism. This still includes the any combat interrupts line from the last playtest but also now recovers a bold all hp all hd hp max recover & ability scores recovered (to normal).
  • That seems like it might be too good at first glance but it does not mention recovering exertion. if that is because recovering exertion is intended to be a very nontrivial thing then great.
• Magic: I think this used to be called cast a spell with some vague generalities. I like that it's a full fledged [standard] action now since things can interact with the magic action without having too many loopholes
• Climbing & swimming: It's defined as a subsection of the entirely unacceptable move entry & using your standard speed for it costs an extra foot per foot of movement. This part at least is fine
• Special speeds: Fairly straightforward with the wonderful addition of only allowing one type of movement speed on a turn. The old way was a disaster & always seemed to go about as well as saying "actually no grapple works like this..." back in 3.5
• Ritual spellcasting: Now it only needs to be prepared & no ritual caster feature is needed. I wonder if the wizard will have a feature or if the entire spellbook will count as prepared at all times... oooooo.., This could get innnnnterrrestinnng.
• Search: This actually covers a lot more than expected with a table listing example searches for insight medicine perception & survival. I like having the action carved out as an action so I as a gm can just be the exasperated one pointing out the presence of the search action when everyone goes silent or starts trying quantum "can I..." actions.
• Short sword: I had to double check TIL that apparently it was a martial weapon before & now it's a simple weapon, maybe I'm not alone in that.
• Slowed: use an extra foot of movement per foot moved disadvantage on dex saves & advantage on attacks made against you. Having this as a condition rather than a rider on everything that imposes it is a great change
• Study: much like the search action but for arcana/nature/history/investigation/religion. Notably it explicitly mentions "study your memory" among other things like a book an object a creature & so on, I love this as a gm. "That would be the study action" is a lot less hostile for the gm to say than "would you like to use your action" & if the creature is right there to see the bar for obvious stuff like resistances & maybe weak saves might even be reasonably low even for a rare never before seen by that PC creature.
• Swim speed: Not much to say, it's defined
• Teleportation: O.M.G. It's a move speed. I can't wait to see what monsters have a teleportation speed & what that speed is
• Unarmed strike: seems pretty similar to the last packet & I liked it then. I still like it

Oh good god there are some show stoppers & even something I'd class as a critica rules exploit of similar or worse severity as things like the old locate city bomb & peasant railguns.

Spoiler: The Ugly

• Attack: I covered some problems with this up in the d20 tests section & they are not insignificant ones. I really dislike the moving between attacks already present in 5e though, ironically this makes it worse by explicitly allowing it rather than allowing it by omission.
  • When bob with 40ft move speed can cut down monster A>move 15 feet to monster B>cut down monster B> move 25 feet to cut down monster C & cut it down it introduces the problem where nobody cares what the battlefield looks like & now because it's explicitly allowed I can't easily limit it as a GM. Move 5 feet after each attack sure but not up to remaining movement speed.
• Difficult terrain: At first glance this seems ok but it has a big catch.
  • "A space is Difficult Terrain for a creature if the space contains any of the following: 1Creature that isn’t Tiny 2Furniture that is Small or larger" Lemme get this straight... the BBEG is behind some mooks who are behind some piled up furniture & the PCs can cross both with a mere 20 feet of move speed and at least with how disengage works from the 2014 rules they can move the rest of their movement without provoking an opportunity attack?... I kinda feel like this reading that. Before anyone says "let your PCs be awesome", that works the same way when the Fire Giant or Tarrasque wants to walk past the warriors to geek the mage
    • I like the inclusion of snow & what are effectively deep puddles but that first part is just completely unworkable as written.
• Exhaustion 1-10: It doesn't specify how you get these. If it's the same as levelup's fatigue where you get a point each time you go down & pretty much no other circumstances . Yes it subtracts from spell sae dc & d20 tests but if a mere rest can clear it that's not so big of a penalty in big groups.
• I'm skeptical if this will matter at all unless it's almost impossible to clear (ie your level number of weeks recovering in a haven or your next levelup). I hope more details clarify recovery.
• Expertise: The glossary wording doesn't seem notably different from the 2014 wording but I hate the wording on all three instances of expertise "You gain Expertise in two of your Skill Proficiencies of your choice." Unless warrior mage & priest are going to have an expertise too they should be limited to class skills not whatever can be pulled from background or race. Even if the other class groups are going to have an expertise, they should all have it restricted exclusively to skills the class can grant. That goes double if the "ohhhh look at thaaaat my race/class/background offers a duplicate skill I don't want so obviously I'm going to choose this other skill I want even though none of them offer it" loophole is going to remain
• Fly speed: Good to be defined but I wish this included a line that noted how there was a minimum of 10 feet up & down to be used before you qualify as flying or being on the ground.
  • I say 10 feet because that's when fall damage starts & going up 5 feet then moving your speed only to fall 5 feet when the effect ends is just metagaming extra speed. As a GM I'm a bit sick of needing to tell players that flight is not ground level hover so needs vertical travel only to get salty players when they have to "waste" move speed taking flight.
• Influence: It's great that rules for influencing how NPCs see you but um...
  • seriously? dc10 to influence a hostile creature to "offer no help but does no harm"? For a charisma(or maybe wis) leaning build with proficiency that's almost "don't roll a 1 or 2" for guaranteed success. It seems that "hostile" is the wrong choice of word & there needs to be an "aggressive" or "enraged" type disposition.
• Light [weapon property]: I like that it's defined & think I even like the way it works, but the example should be with a multiattack/extra attack character to avoid primary & offhand attacks each of a character's 2/3/4 attacks. Alternately the wording is off in noting the attack action if that is intended to be allowed.
• Move: pretty much what you'd expect but I liked that the dash action & possibly others reference this instead of repeating what it does.
  • Breaking up your move being explicitly allowed as written is a terrible thing made even worse by the difficult terrain inclusion of furniture & other creatures though. As worded it allows a cartoonish hypothetical situation like a 3 attack having PC to draw a sword >strike>walk through a pile of furniture>drop sword & draw a mace>strike>ewalk through a mook>drop mace & draw a different sword> walk through a second mook>strike the bbeg. the PC is only drawing or sheathing one weapon each time but as written they are allowed to do it on "any" of their attacks & explicitly allowed to move between individual attacks in the attack action with movement explicitly allowed to move through other creatures & furniture... Lots of thing need to change in wording on related glossary entries
  • Moving around other creatures: This is entirely unacceptable. Grid map positioning obviation is not just a thing that gets noticed by reading the difficult terrain entry closely, it's actually spelled out as intended in a subsection of the move action.
• Speed 0: in a nutshell it zeroes all of your move speeds & that's probably a good thing
  • as written this introduces critically a problematic rules exploit. As written Bob can leap on a dragon > initiate a grapple to immediately stop the dragon from flying & the dragon cannot lift or drag bob inthe immediately halted flight despite flying without issue while bob was merely clinging to or standing on the dragon moments ago.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Why is it that Bob can grapple a giant or dragon & drag or carry it but the giant or dragon can't drag or carry the puny human they could juggle?

Is Bob within one size category of the dragon? If not, he cannot.

I really dislike the moving between attacks already present in 5e though, ironically this makes it worse by explicitly allowing it rather than allowing it by omission.

It has been explicitly allowed by the rules since 2014... If it wasn't in the rules, you would be severely punished for playing anything martial that wasn't an archer who can actually always get all of their attacks off.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is Bob within one size category of the dragon? If not, he cannot.

"MOVING AROUND OTHER CREATURES
During your Move, you can pass through the space of an ally, an Incapacitated creature, a Tiny creature, or a creature who is two Sizes larger or smaller than you. Another creature’s space is Difficult Terrain for you, unless that creature is Tiny. You can’t willingly end your Move in a space occupied by another creature."
"A space is Difficult Terrain for a creature if the space contains any of the following: 1Creature that isn’t Tiny 2Furniture that is Small or larger"
Those are from the playtest packet2 document.

It has been explicitly allowed by the rules since 2014... If it wasn't in the rules, you would be severely punished for playing anything martial that wasn't an archer who can actually always get all of their attacks off.

There are a lot of other things factoring in now to make it dramatically worse like the ability to draw or sheath a weapon any attack, the explicit ability to move through occupied spaces as difficult terrain if the creature in the space isn't tiny, weirdly also the explicit ability to move through the space of a creature that is two sizes larger or smaller as difficult terrain. tiny creatures don't hold a space either, they just don't count as difficult terrain.

Before you decry the blight of melee though remember all of that works the same way when the Fire Giant or Tarrasque wants to walk through the warriors to geek the mage or whatever.

We don't yet have the weapons & don't know if there will be changes like the return of sane range increments or much needed shooting into melee type rules so the ranged weapon bit is a thing out of place

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

"MOVING AROUND OTHER CREATURES"

You were talking about grappling a dragon, not running between its legs.

weirdly also the explicit ability to move through the space of a creature that is two sizes larger or smaller

This was also always the rule vs critters 2 sizer smaller/larger than you.

Before you decry the blight of melee though remember all of that works the same way when the Fire Giant or Tarrasque wants to walk through the warriors to geek the mage or whatever.

They always could if those people were 2 sizes smaller... and the frontline never had anything but GM playing the monsters dumb to make them relevant, anyway. The threat of a single opportunity attack is not exactly worrisome (and actually a bunch of wolves/goblins swarming past you is more troublesome than a lone giant, as at least you could hope to pay the Sentinel feat tax to maybe stop the latter).

 

[tetrasodium]

You were talking about grappling a dragon, not running between its legs.

I think you are focused on only one of of the glossary entries in play here & dismissing all of them because that one's not too significant. The problems related to this come up in multiple places because the glossary has multiple items that each add their own problems to the mix.

All of them are problems even if some were problems before as well Want to hold a door or narrow hallway against a bunch of small or medium sized monsters? Nope! they can move right through your space too because as a small or larger creature you as a PC only count as difficult terrain for any creature.

This was also always the rule vs critters 2 sizer smaller/larger than you.

It was not the rule not for every other creature of any size to move through the space of any small or larger creature as if difficult terrain. That's a big problem.

They always could if those people were 2 sizes smaller... and the frontline never had anything but GM playing the monsters dumb to make them relevant, anyway. The threat of a single opportunity attack is not exactly worrisome (and actually a bunch of wolves/goblins swarming past you is more troublesome, at least you could hope to Sentinel-stop the single giant).

True for the grapple from unarmed strike but there's no reason other abilities can't initiate a grapple or allow a PC to count as a larger creature, There's still a A can carry/drag B but B can't carry/drag A and all of B's movement types are zero problem though. Saying that it was broken before is hardly an excuse for explicitly shining a spotlight on the broken part or adding other stuff to amplify the problem.

 

[Lojaan]

A lot of interesting changes in here. The one that immediately caught my eye was Exhaustion. Now with 10 levels before death, with each level resulting in a -1 to all d20 tests. I wonder if being knocked unconscious and failing death saving throws will now come with exhaustion levels.

Yeah with this change I am very tempted to give my PCs a level of exhaustion if they go down in combat.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

All of them are problems even if some were problems before as well Want to hold a door or narrow hallway against a bunch of small or medium sized monsters? Nope! they can move right through your space too because as a small or larger creature you as a PC only count as difficult terrain for any creature.

If you have made yourself Large, then yes, Small creatures can move through your space because you are 2 sizes larger than them (and you can move through theirs). This is how it has worked since 2014.

MOVING AROUND OTHER CREATURES (UA2022-Expert-Classes)
During your Move, you can pass through the
space of an ally, an Incapacitated creature, a Tiny
creature, or a creature who is two Sizes larger or
smaller than you.
Another creature’s space is Difficult Terrain
for you, unless that creature is Tiny.
You can’t willingly end your Move in a space
occupied by another creature.

The change now is that they extended it to cover Incapacitated creatures (and Tiny critters regardless of your relative size).

There's still a A can carry/drag B but B can't carry/drag A and all of B's movement types are zero problem though. Saying that it was broken before is hardly an excuse for explicitly shining a spotlight on the broken part or adding other stuff to amplify the problem.

No, the new grappling rules are completely messed up, because any goblin can grab a hold of the Barbarian and drag them off, when previously his higher Str + Athletics + Rage would have actually made that practically impossible, regardless of his AC.