D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Document: 77 Pages, 7 Classes, & More!

There's a brand new playtest document for the new (version/edition/update) of Dungeons of Dragons available for download! This one is an enormous 77 pages and includes classes, spells, feats, and weapons.

Unearthed Arcana Playtest

Unearthed Arcana Playtest Materials Get Unearthed Arcana playtest content, try it out in your game, and provide feedback! Check back regularly for ...

www.dndbeyond.com

In this new Unearthed Arcana document for the 2024 Core Rulebooks, we explore material designed for the next version of the Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents updated rules on seven classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue. This document also presents multiple subclasses for each of those classes, new Spells, revisions to existing Spells and Spell Lists, and several revised Feats. You will also find an updated rules glossary that supercedes the glossary of any previous playtest document.

​

 

[CapnZapp]

They are really doing a lot to make you either build for combat or for spellcasting with no hybrid in between. To the point that if you don't have access to martial weapons, you might as well not carry a weapon at all.

I can't say I am fully cognizant of the changes you are clearly thinking about here. (I'm not up to speed)

Are you talking about how adding specialized moves for weapons (but only martial weapons) leaves simple weapon users behind?

Or, are you talking about things like how, to take a classic case, a D&D Cleric can attack with her mace, but as you leave the lowest levels, that gets more and more underwhelming (since the class is a full caster class, you're "supposed" to use spells and cantrips)?

I'm sure they are fully aware of how people love hybrids, like spellswords and other gish builds.

Edit: Nevermind, I read your follow-up post. Thanks for the details.

 

[CapnZapp]

Ideally, this is how I would fix it:

The way I see it, the core problem is unlimited cantrips.

You just can't expect people to pick up lumps of steel and wood when you can just pump fire rays from your fingers all day long.

Not only does this destroy verisimiltude (how do you keep someone prisoner when eventually firebolt will let you melt a hole in a stone wall) and make the game feel far too videogamey for my liking, it also clearly says "daggers and clubs are for losers".

In fact, it takes D&D in a direction where weapons are only used because they can carry plus bonuses. If you aren't focused on the biggest and baddest weapons, you can and should drop all of them permanently.

The solution: limit cantrips. It really is a watershed moment.

 

[Remathilis]

The way I see it, the core problem is unlimited cantrips.

You just can't expect people to pick up lumps of steel and wood when you can just pump fire rays from your fingers all day long.

Not only does this destroy verisimiltude (how do you keep someone prisoner when eventually firebolt will let you melt a hole in a stone wall) and make the game feel far too videogamey for my liking, it also clearly says "daggers and clubs are for losers".

In fact, it takes D&D in a direction where weapons are only used because they can carry plus bonuses. If you aren't focused on the biggest and baddest weapons, you can and should drop all of them permanently.

The solution: limit cantrips. It really is a watershed moment.

Eh. I don't mind unlimited cantrips. I have zero problem with wizards and sorcs having magical pew pews rather than crossbows. What I'm not liking is that a class like bard which has a meaningful choice between a 1d8 rapier and a 1d4 viscous mockery now has a choice between a 1d4 dagger and a 1d6 viscous mockery. Even at low levels now there is no incentive to carry weapons.

 

[tetrasodium]

Eh. I don't mind unlimited cantrips. I have zero problem with wizards and sorcs having magical pew pews rather than crossbows. What I'm not liking is that a class like bard which has a meaningful choice between a 1d8 rapier and a 1d4 viscous mockery now has a choice between a 1d4 dagger and a 1d6 viscous mockery. Even at low levels now there is no incentive to carry weapons.

I think part of that stems from not having an opportunity cost for one of the two choices there and making that choice also unbound from equipment. Those unlimited innate inbuilt self scaling cantrips unbound from a "weapon" like a vicious mockery lute / arcane staff of acid splash / reliquary of sacred flame have an inordinately large benefit and being unlimited rather than charge or slot powered takes too much pressure from spell slots

 

[Micah Sweet]

Strange.

This is a discussion where we ventilate our feedback on WotC's materials.

But somehow some opinions aren't valid, as if we must play by a set of rules where we just mimic the emotions of an uncritical consumer-happy customer.

You could apply that last sentence of yours to literally any poster's feedback if it doesn't align perfectly with what WotC ends up doing.

Why are you wasting time trying to negate and invalidate my suggestions when loads of people get a free pass on theirs? Why bring up entirely different games (I'm discussing D&D 5.5, not Level Up or GURPS or Monopoly)?

It's so useless I don't know what so say. Why aren't you responding to my suggestions with things like "I don't mind the current armor types" or "here are my ideal armor types"? You know - actually constructive discussion. If you and enough people would actually not give WotC a free pass for not giving a crap about fixing a lot of the wonkier stuff of 5E, maybe WotC would actually feel compelled to do something about it.

I've played WotC D&D from the advent of 3e to about a year ago. I think I have a fairly solid handle on what they think is important and how their priorities have changed over the years, particularly recently. I don't believe they're going to make the changes you want them to make, and I see no value in banging my head against the wall. If I want something different out of D&D, I look for something different in the vast creative world of 3pp, and/or I make it myself. That way, I actually get what I want.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The way I see it, the core problem is unlimited cantrips.

You just can't expect people to pick up lumps of steel and wood when you can just pump fire rays from your fingers all day long.

Not only does this destroy verisimiltude (how do you keep someone prisoner when eventually firebolt will let you melt a hole in a stone wall) and make the game feel far too videogamey for my liking, it also clearly says "daggers and clubs are for losers".

In fact, it takes D&D in a direction where weapons are only used because they can carry plus bonuses. If you aren't focused on the biggest and baddest weapons, you can and should drop all of them permanently.

The solution: limit cantrips. It really is a watershed moment.

I really don't care for unlimited combat cantrips, and wish WotC had never invented them personally.

 

[mamba]

I really don't care for unlimited combat cantrips, and wish WotC had never invented them personally.

to me it is just a crossbow by another name, that being said maybe the number of different cantrips and damage could be lower, but I am ok in principle

 

[Micah Sweet]

to me it us just a crossbow by another name, that being said maybe the number of different cantrips and damage could be lower, but I am ok in principle

Sure. I just prefer the crossbow. It's to me a symptom of a higher prevalence of magic in the world than I want.

 

[tetrasodium]

to me it us just a crossbow by another name, that being said maybe the number of different cantrips and damage could be lower, but I am ok in principle

Trouble is that it's a crossbow that uses a casting stat instead of a cross my fingers & hope I roll high stat. Casters used to (and still do) have access to charged wands & trinkets for those times where more than finger crossing but less than or different from spell slot options. Without that pressure on spell slots & charges that won't be available later casters wind up with not enough room for their spells to shine as spells doing whatever they do

 

[Remathilis]

Trouble is that it's a crossbow that uses a casting stat instead of a cross my fingers & hope I roll high stat. Casters used to (and still do) have access to charged wands & trinkets for those times where more than finger crossing but less than or different from spell slot options. Without that pressure on spell slots & charges that won't be available later casters wind up with not enough room for their spells to shine as spells doing whatever they do

I don't want to go down a Rabbit hole of litigating cantrips. Clearly they aren't going anywhere. My point is that the weapons for casters have lost what little utility they had from 2014. Simple Weapons are trash. They are a bunch of strength based weapons dedicated to characters who have every reason to dump strength. A bard or druid had an option beyond dagger if they wanted to carry a weapon, now they don't. That's a nerf to their choices and one to class identity.

There is a larger deeper discussion about dump stats and unlimited cantrips that could be had, but that discussion is beyond the scope of the changes WotC is willing to make. Giving classes that had access to swords their swords back should not be difficult.