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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[Incenjucar]

The argument "we have no right to expect D&D to be better than Windows" isn't as compelling as you think it is...

Good thing that I never said that and you're instead quoting your own misread. Natural ones, am I right?

I said nothing about rights, and rather my point was that RPGs as a category are full of problems, and building your own is a ton of work, so telling people to just use another one or make their own instead of trying to get improvements added to an existing one that's closer to what you want is a bit absurd.

 

[Cruentus]

In short, if every fight kind of wants to be played out like a BBEG fight, something is wrong

And not go the way of PF2, where exploration phases(?) makes you think they went for something this elegant but where you then get bogged down by very many complicated rules, where you can track healing and stuff in per-round increments, but where you quickly realize that if you cut through the clutter and just say "everything's back up to full after 10 minutes" you have just saved yourself a lot of administration that served absolutely zero purpose...

If I’m reading these correctly, the friction is between a game featuring “resource management/depletion” compared to one featuring “NOVA”. And I think, from a design perspective, you have to choose one or the other.

If you want every fight to be a boss fight, then you’re working on a NOVA principle. The problem with this is there is then no reason to fight ”lesser” enemies. They don’t deplete resources cause you can just 5 minute rest em back, or whatever mechanism the game provides. Which is fine, but to me, boring.

If you want to have fights that deplete resources before hitting the boss fight, then you’re designing for resource management. You have to most likely either have ”enough” slots for the character to have to use them judiciously throughout the adventuring day, or not offer the ability to recover resources except at certain points (havens, town, etc.).

edit: at the time, I thought that the “convert SR abilities into X times per day based on PB” was an interesting variant, but like everything else, I found that there were too many cases where it didn’t make sense or had carry on effects that really show that 5e, while simple, isn’t that easy to hack. And partly why I gave up on it.

I don’t think the two can really co-exist. We’re in that space now - certain classes rely on different rest cycles than other classes. Adventure design is based on particular assumptions about numbers or rests and how depleted the party might be. 4e has all classes using the same cycle and folks complained (“too samey”). 5e has different rates, and people complain. Up until 3e it was all long rests, and I’ll guess people complained? Oh, right, the 5mWD was a big one.

I’m also not sure what the answer is, but I think 2024 will not thread the needle, and will instead throw more bells, whistles, and buttons into the mix where people will be happy with “more power” and “more things to do”, but it won’t address the underlying issue. I prefer all long rest mechanics, but since I play older editions of DnD, that’s the default, and we also have a lot less levers and buttons. All IMHO, YMMV, your table may play differently, etc., etc.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If you want every fight to be a boss fight, then you’re working on a NOVA principle. The problem with this is there is then no reason to fight ”lesser” enemies. They don’t deplete resources cause you can just 5 minute rest em back, or whatever mechanism the game provides. Which is fine, but to me, boring.

You could easily have small fights allow you to build up a resource that lets you go even harder in the bigger fights.

Not to mention that this whole "regain everhything with a short rest" thing is a late addition to the discussion. What is reasonable in this game we are discussing in this thread, is for short rests to recharge some of what each class needs to do big stuff, but not all of it. X spell levels worth of spell slots, Y hp, and Z strictly short rest recharge stuff.

 

[Cruentus]

You could easily have small fights allow you to build up a resource that lets you go even harder in the bigger fights.

Not to mention that this whole "regain everhything with a short rest" thing is a late addition to the discussion. What is reasonable in this game we are discussing in this thread, is for short rests to recharge some of what each class needs to do big stuff, but not all of it. X spell levels worth of spell slots, Y hp, and Z strictly short rest recharge stuff.

Right, I get that, but to what end? Is the point to still be able to NOVA at the BBEG? Or to be able to make it further into the adventure that day? What is the design goal of that mechanism?

The classic we came up against was the Warlock. 2 Spells, maximum level, recharge both on SR. If you do 2x SR in a day, you end up with 6 max levels spells per day. But they’re SR dependent. If you do 3x PB per day Warlock spells, now you have 6 max level Warlock spells per day (at low levels), no recharge. The only difference is the former is reliant on the party, rests, and DM assistance. Why a recharge to get “some“ back, when you can have “all”, but have to manage them (A la Long Rest mechanics)? You‘re not losing anything…

And to be honest, as a Wizard player, I find Arcane Recovery to be stupid. Likely given to allow the Wizard to have some reason to take a SR (aside from healing). Wizards honestly have enough spells, rituals, and cantrips, they don’t need recharges…

edit: And this is not directed at you @doctorbadwolf but it also very often feels like the design arguments and discussions are skirting around encounter powers, daily powers, and other 4e nomenclature, and just trying to figure out how to reskin those, while not having it look or smell anything like 4e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Good thing that I never said that and you're instead quoting your own misread. Natural ones, am I right?

I said nothing about rights, and rather my point was that RPGs as a category are full of problems, and building your own is a ton of work, so telling people to just use another one or make their own instead of trying to get improvements added to an existing one that's closer to what you want is a bit absurd.

Improvements can and should be made, but expecting them to come from a company that has no financial incentive to make the changes you want is counterproductive. 3pps and homebrew can fix these problems; that's literally what they're for.

 

[tetrasodium]

If I’m reading these correctly, the friction is between a game featuring “resource management/depletion” compared to one featuring “NOVA”. And I think, from a design perspective, you have to choose one or the other.

If you want every fight to be a boss fight, then you’re working on a NOVA principle. The problem with this is there is then no reason to fight ”lesser” enemies. They don’t deplete resources cause you can just 5 minute rest em back, or whatever mechanism the game provides. Which is fine, but to me, boring.

If you want to have fights that deplete resources before hitting the boss fight, then you’re designing for resource management. You have to most likely either have ”enough” slots for the character to have to use them judiciously throughout the adventuring day, or not offer the ability to recover resources except at certain points (havens, town, etc.).

edit: at the time, I thought that the “convert SR abilities into X times per day based on PB” was an interesting variant, but like everything else, I found that there were too many cases where it didn’t make sense or had carry on effects that really show that 5e, while simple, isn’t that easy to hack. And partly why I gave up on it.

I don’t think the two can really co-exist. We’re in that space now - certain classes rely on different rest cycles than other classes. Adventure design is based on particular assumptions about numbers or rests and how depleted the party might be. 4e has all classes using the same cycle and folks complained (“too samey”). 5e has different rates, and people complain. Up until 3e it was all long rests, and I’ll guess people complained? Oh, right, the 5mWD was a big one.

I’m also not sure what the answer is, but I think 2024 will not thread the needle, and will instead throw more bells, whistles, and buttons into the mix where people will be happy with “more power” and “more things to do”, but it won’t address the underlying issue. I prefer all long rest mechanics, but since I play older editions of DnD, that’s the default, and we also have a lot less levers and buttons. All IMHO, YMMV, your table may play differently, etc., etc.

Wrt the 2e &3.x comment... Yes and no but mostly no because there were other elements that acted as a pressure valve allowing flexibility.

I covered the 2e rest rules earlier and see no reason to repeat them. They are important though. On top of that you had a much higher lethality readily available potions along with magic tools for both sides in caster/martial spread. Martials had lots of magic weapons and armor... you can still see the impact of they today with how there are so many magic swords compared to other weapons. caster, likewise with heavier types of magic armor. Casters had scrolls and wand robes etc

3.x power recovery rules were trivial but too class specific to quickly summarize. Some classes just needed a specific time of day (or sunrise/midnight & the gm if course had huge amounts of leeway over that for obvious reasons. Other classes tended to need things like A+B conditions like a good night's sleep and a period of uninterrupted study afterwards or a particular time, and a period of prayer during that time. For a lot of reasons a group almost always needed different times for different PCs and the result was that waiting for both could easily result in two or more interruptions that stop one or leave some PCs in the hole from where they were before forcing it. When the dice hit the table though they almost always encouraged some negotiation and discussion over what was reasonable or how the group could finagle some gm blessed exception for the group to have enough.

On top of that 3.x had expendable wands of cure light wounds and scrolls/wands for emergencies along with both permanent and expendable magic weapons and armor. A permanent weapon like an elemental [weapon] was obviously permanent but there were also some powerful charged ones and trinkets. Caster magic items were (and still are) almost exclusively charged or expendible with exceptions tending towards things like +1 wands while martials tended towards permanent always active gear. Consumable stuff like wands potions and scrolls cost money to buy/craft (if you could) or were limited in availability based on how often the gm might decide to give them as treasure/npc given rewards. Because players were expected to regularly upgrade their gear using those pricey consumable items recklessly would carry pain later when upgrades were now harder. That cost made nonemergency uses a risk akin to taunting the happy fun ball.


So you'd see complaints about players demanding 5mwd or gms being too stingy with some actual room for negotiation and learning for eaxh

 

[Incenjucar]

Improvements can and should be made, but expecting them to come from a company that has no financial incentive to make the changes you want is counterproductive. 3pps and homebrew can fix these problems; that's literally what they're for.

3Ps will continue to disappoint in some way just like Apple and Linux will. Complain and use 3P and understand that there will always be more problems.

 

[Micah Sweet]

3Ps will continue to disappoint in some way just like Apple and Linux will. Complain and use 3P and understand that there will always be more problems.

3pps don't disappoint any more than WotC does, and for the individual they can disappoint far less. I know they often do for me. This (imo) wrong-headed attitude that 3pps are somehow inherently worse than WotC needs to end, as it is actively hurting the health of the game and the community.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Are you accidentally posting to the wrong forum?

Spoiler: packet6

2ND LEVEL: MARTIAL DISCIPLINE
Your self-discipline and martial training allow
you to harness a well of extraordinary energy
within yourself. Your access to this energy is
represented by a number of Discipline Points.
Your Monk level determines the number of
points you have, as shown in the Discipline
Points column of the Monk table.
You can spend these points to fuel various
Martial Discipline features. You start knowing
three such features: Flurry of Blows, Patient
Defense, and Step of the Wind. You learn more
Martial Discipline features as you gain levels in
this class.
When you spend a Discipline Point, it is
unavailable until you finish a Short Rest or Long
Rest, at the end of which you regain all your
expended points.

No, I just didn't understand that you were speaking specifically about an ability of the Monk. I believe that the post that you responded to of mine was speaking more generally about Martial characters and short rests.

 

[Incenjucar]

3pps don't disappoint any more than WotC does, and for the individual they can disappoint far less. I know they often do for me. This (imo) wrong-headed attitude that 3pps are somehow inherently worse than WotC needs to end, as it is actively hurting the health of the game and the community.

Which is why I lumped 3Ps and WotC together in the "needs complaining at" category.