D&D (2024) First playtest thread! One D&D Character Origins.

[Charlaquin]

Quick observations:

• All feats are fair game as background feats. Anyone can start with Find Familiar now, if they want.

All 1st level feats, that is. Which is a nice solution to the hypothetical problem of the “everyone gets a Feat at 1st level” rule leading to everyone taking the usual OP Feats and leaving the flavorful ones to languish. Calling it now: Feats will no longer be optional, but +2 to one ability score or +1 to two ability scores will be a repeatable 4th level Feat.

• Anyone can learn Thieves Cant.

Druidic too.

• (Really cool) There's now Common Sign Language, as a separate language.

Neat, though I wish other languages had signed equivalents as well.

• 1 language, 1 tool (not 2 and zero)

From background. Note that you also get one choice of language independent from your background, which means all PCs will be trilingual at minimum.

• feats slightly re-written. e. g. Lucky was made STRONGER!?! (it's now prof bonus number of luck points)

Well, weaker until 5th level, then equivalent until 9th. Considering most campaigns end by 10th level or so, this is probably a net nerf overall, with the potential to become a late-game buff. Seems like a good call to me. A little surprised it’s a 1st level feat though.

• Primal/Arcane/Divine spells now codified with selected spell lists (no post PHB spells?)

In the video, Jeremy Crawford explains that in the 2024 edition, every spell will be tagged as Arcane, Divine, or Primal (and in some cases more than one of the above). He also hinted that classes might grant access to spells in other ways that just the general power source lists.

• you no longer get a purse to hold your starting gold.

Probably an oversight. Or maybe they’ve decided that, much like it’s assumed that weapons come with an appropriate scabbard or other container, it will be assumed that everyone has a purse for their coins?

 

[Cadence]

It will just be called Dungeons and Dragons. In one of the videos they said their will be no more editions, just revisions to the 5e ruleset, and it is all Dungeons and Dragons from now on.

That feels like it will end up being painful down the road, so I'm wondering how long that will last.

(I'm picturing my son trying to buy Minecraft books that don't say which version...)

 

[SkidAce]

Oh I know, it's just that half-elves, especially, were always kind of defined by having their own mechanical niche, going back to have special MC options back in 1e. Then they got fun stuff like Paragon Surge in PF1, and Versatile Master in 4e. Having them now just be a reskin option feels odd.

I'm not complaining, just a different approach to get used to.

I had an entire campaign built around the premise that "Half-elves" were actually a throwback to an elder race that split into elves and humans. It explained (in game lore) why half-elves were so versatile mechanically.

Ahhh the old days....

 

[Cadence]

Probably an oversight. Or maybe they’ve decided that, much like it’s assumed that weapons come with an appropriate scabbard or other container, it will be assumed that everyone has a purse for their coins?

Since most of the players won't ever use money in their real lives... what's the magical version of a credit card?

 

[Charlaquin]

First Level (UA) Feat Ranking:
Top Tier: Lucky, Alert, Magic Initiate
Middle Tier: Healer, Tavern Brawler, Tough, Musician
Bottom Tier: Skilled, Savage Attacker, Crafter

I mostly agree, though I think Skilled could prove pretty strong. A human with Skilled as their 1st level Feat will start with 6 skills before any granted from class! Humans will be incredible skill monkeys.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Savage Attacker looks like another must have for none casters.

Absolutely not.

A bad Feat got nerfed to be a terrible Feat. Right now, it's a 1/turn reroll and use either, and it's a bad Feat.

They made it so it's 1/turn AND only if you take the Attack Action, so you can't use it on Opportunity Attacks, can't use it on Bonus Action attacks, and so on. Terrible.

Short Rest - The mechanic seems to exist but isn't detailed.

Yeah they mention it at least once, but weirdly neither it nor Long Rest are asterisked when they do (where Long Rest has an asterisk in all other appearances), and don't detail it. Safe to say it probably changed, but not to what (though I'll be shocked if it's not 5 or 10 minutes now).

Most surprising thing here was that Long Rest still heals you to full and still fills half your HD. Was really expecting the default to decrease there.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That feels like it will end up being painful down the road, so I'm wondering how long that will last.

(I'm picturing my son trying to buy Minecraft books that don't say which version...)

The sudden realization that much like 7 Days to Die, the last eight years have been Early Release.

 

[Justice and Rule]

“Soldiers learn Goblin”

“why?”

(Loads crossbow) “Soldiers learn goblin.”

Goblins are just really common in the army for the enlistment bonus. You know how much slang in the Imperial army is Goblinese? A whole lot, let me tell you.



Also these feats look, overall, a lot better. Alert stands out as being immediately more interesting than its predecessor and now allows you to be helpful for your team. Also using Proficiency bonus as allowing the Feat to advance is going to be a thing and that's good. It's something I did with Heavy Armor Master long ago, where it was 1+Proficiency Bonus.

Thinking about it more, less criticals is going to have an effect on minion hordes. A whole bunch of guys is likely to be a bit less effective now that they can't critical you... which I think is not a bad thing. I doubt we are going to be getting a bunch of low-level dudes with rechargeables, but maybe they'll find other ways of making them interesting without resorting just boosting damage. Also makes stuff that gives advantage to horde-ish foes less of a problem since you are going to get fewer damage spikes from crits.

 

[felopez]

I'm going to lay a long term bet on something we'll see when the Classes UA comes out in a month or two.

Two things struck me about the new crit scheme. One is that crits are smaller; limited to only PCs, only weapon users, and only double the weapon die. The other is that in talking about why they took crits away from monsters, he said they were emphasizing recharge abilities, that have the burst damage potential of crits and retain some uncertainty but are triggered at the DM's choosing and aren't as wildly unpredictable (and likely to gib low level characters).

So what if the new model is that PCs get burst damage capabilities that aren't tied to crits? Which spellcasters already have, really, when they choose to break out their high level spell slots. But what if this means that martial classes are going to get more impactful burst damage class features? Something that lets them break out the big guns for dramatic moments without having to crit fish.

Anyway, that's my crazy prediction.

That's just 4e martial powers, which I'm completely in favor of returning to.

 

[jasper]

I think it is because a crit can kill a 1st or 2nd level character in a very unintuitive way

I have over 362 Adventure League sessions under my belt. Twice I have Critical a 1st level pc which would have killed the pc. I Just hand waved away.