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.

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[Zaukrie]

I played all of 2014 with very little houserules (I'd say "none" but that would be wrong - in fact, "very little" is wrong if I remember that I make quite a few changes to monsters!)

But I'm since this playtest started, I've not only been playtesting (mix-n-matching 2014 and UAs) but I've also been testing my homebrew equipment list, and I've been shuffling profile cards and laying them out for Initiative (rather than rolling DEX).

...This is a long way of saying: I think I might just do a bit more homebrewing after giving 2024 a good clean try. 10-20 minute Short Rests are definitely in the cards!

I have a very long pdf I might sell someday with dozens of initiative options. One option is a deck of four cards for each PC.... Faster classes get slightly better cards. You can either play them randomly, or let PCs choose.... As you run out of cards, discard one. If your combat goes more than ten rounds, start with a full deck. It would be easy to do on a VTT for NPCs, more work in person.... But I'd give zombies worse cards, other than one, than, say quicklings, to use extreme examples

 

[Parmandur]

I would expect a proposal to change to what we have now fail, if we had started with the alternative. As it stands, the opposite is happening.

I honestly don't think that is true, based on the Next process.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The answer is that a short rest shouldn't be yeeted, it should be deemphasized.

Let me give you two examples of short rest mechanics done right: Arcane rest and the current channel divinity. Arcane rest allows a wizard to 1/day get 1/2 their class level in spell levels back. Is that a nice boon? Yes. If the wizard doesn't get a rest, is he crippled? No. Can he abuse it by spamming short rests? No. That is a good example of a short rest mechanic. The current channel divinity (and wild shape) also is good: they get 2-4 uses, and if they short rest they get a recharge. If they don't, they can still blow a spell slot to recharge it. But their primary resource (spells) are long rest, and if they don't get a short rest in that session, they also aren't crippled.

So the best way to do this is twofold: give every class a minor feature that can recharge on a short rest (or a major feature that can limitedly be recharged on a short rest) and adapt the rest to be at-will or long rest/per day. Give monks more ki points, but only give them a portion back on a short rest. Give warlock more spell slots, but then give them arcane recovery-like recharge (limited use and/or limited amount). Let sorcerers recover a few spell points or barbarians a use of rage. Make action surge like channel divinity. Give everyone a reason to short rest BUT don't cripple thier gameplay loop if they can't/don't.

Okay, so the idea would be: there's a reason for everyone to take a short rest, a benefit to be gained. But if you're worried about spending the time or you're doing "fine" on resources or you just didn't design the adventure for it, no one's really going to miss them.

That sounds about in line with the current state of a lot of tables, I'd wager.

 

[mamba]

I don't think 5e has a great recharge system for its classes, but homogenizing all of them a la 4e is even more unappealing to me. It is nakedly gamist design, and imo sacrifices nuance and flavor for mechanical efficiency.

I don’t know, I agree that this would be true with per encounter recharge, but per long rest feels a lot less gamist to me

I see no nuance and flavor in the short rests we have now, just nuisance and restriction

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t know, I agree that this would be true with per encounter recharge, but per long rest feels a lot less gamist to me

I see no nuance and flavor in the short rests we have now, just nuisance and restriction

They are a resource bottleneck thst forces choices, yes.

 

[mamba]

That sounds about in line with the current state of a lot of tables, I'd wager.

minus the everyone benefiting from it

 

[mamba]

They are a resource bottleneck thst forces choices, yes.

There is little choice involved if you can just rest whenever, which is how this seems to be handled most of the time - and then they fail as resource bottlenecks too (outside of one encounter)

The restriction I was talking about was the ability for eg Warlocks to cast 3 spells in a tough encounter, not the need for them to say ‘we rest’ after one, in order to get their recharge

 

[Parmandur]

There is little choice involved if you can just rest whenever, which is how this seems to be handled most of the time - and then they fail as resource bottlenecks too (outside of one encounter)

That's a table issue: there are ways to make it difficult or at least complicated. Not an issue with the rules per se.

 

[Stalker0]

So just to be clear, there is no world in which WOTC removes short rests for an automatic recharge. 0....zilch.....zip.

To maintain their backwards combability they just couldn't do it. Honestly they might even consider changing short rest from an hour to 5-10 minutes too much "change" for that purpose. But they definitely won't remove it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I honestly don't think that is true, based on the Next process.

I'm not so sure about that. I remember playtesting Next and having a few areas of profound disappointment when the final books came out and some things were very different. A LOT of what gets printed is NOT what gets playtested!

It's very possible that some things that get printed would score low if polled. Heck, Short Rests is a good example: Just because people didn't like the 2x15-minute, 1x1-hour rest that was playtested in Next, doesn't mean that they'd give better scores to "however many 1-hour rests you can fit into a day" that we wound up with (which, AFAIR, was never polled; though I could be wrong. This WAS a long time ago now!)