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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[Vaalingrade]

This entire board right here is for vetting and discussing the new rules. What is even the point of that if we're not allowed to do that because we can just make our own?

What is even the point of WotC publishing any other books ever again?

No amount of hounding and harassment is going to stop me from critiquing the rules, so you might as well stop now.

 

[Incenjucar]

D&D has a huge chunk of mind share in the RPG space, which means it's the easiest game to find players for, and is hardly the only RPG with frustrating design issues. Windows, iOS, and Linux are are horrible in their own ways, but we don't all just go build our own OS.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

For good reason, as far as I'm concerned, although "flipped out" is probably too strong a term for me.

Yeah, that's probably bit strong for most people's actual reaction, though the internet always frames things as EXXTRREEEME.

The rejection of 4e went beyond martials specifically being part of the same ADEU recharge cycle that all other classes hooked into.

Yeah, I know. I was really only speaking to the idea that it actually makes sense that a fully martial character can sometimes use a "breather" before they can attempt their best moves over and over.

The problem was it created a weird scenario where my "secret technique" attack worked exactly once per encounter and my "super-secret technique" worked exactly once per day. Martial abilities should be stamina driven in that you can spam the same attacks until your resource pool (discipline, rages, superiority dice) depletes OR can be used at will (cunning strike, weapon mastery). Ideally, using my secret technique exhausts my resource pool a little, my super-secret technique depletes it a lot, and I cannot use them again until I rest.

It was never that martial abilities shouldn't have a limit, but that structuring the limit to "specific action per combat/day" was a bad way of modeling that.

Sure, that part was a bit overly gamey. But the core idea of taking a break every once in awhile before performing amazing feats of martial prowess was fine, and it was plenty argued against on its own! And that's not even adding in the very easy to explain fluff that your best moves won't even come up all the time (by which I mean, not everything a martial can do needs to be spammed "at will").

At any rate, I personally feel that what's "realistic" for a martial character to do (as if the game needs more than the most basic nod to realism anyway) is often placed in a surprisingly confining box considering all the amazing things that humans can actually accomplish IRL, while "magic" seems needed for everything - even things that people can actually do without magic in the real world. I can't think of a good example ATM, but I suspect someone out there knows what I mean.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, that's probably bit strong for most people's actual reaction, though the internet always frames things as EXXTRREEEME.



Yeah, I know. I was really only speaking to the idea that it actually makes sense that a fully martial character can sometimes use a "breather" before they can attempt their best moves over and over.



Sure, that part was a bit overly gamey. But the core idea of taking a break every once in awhile before performing amazing feats of martial prowess was fine, and it was plenty argued against on its own! And that's not even adding in the very easy to explain fluff that your best moves won't even come up all the time (by which I mean, not everything a martial can do needs to be spammed "at will").

At any rate, I personally feel that what's "realistic" for a martial character to do (as if the game needs more than the most basic nod to realism anyway) is often placed in a surprisingly confining box considering all the amazing things that humans can actually accomplish IRL, while "magic" seems needed for everything - even things that people can actually do without magic in the real world. I can't think of a good example ATM, but I suspect someone out there knows what I mean.

But it's a bit off to call a complete restoration with a mechanic designed to be guaranteed successful if you just keep trying a "breather", that was the point of disagreement.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

But it's a bit off to call a complete restoration with a mechanic designed to be guaranteed successful if you just keep trying a "breather", that was the point of disagreement.

I'm not following you. What's completely restoring? What's guaranteed successful? And how are you "trying" a breather? Do you mean "taking" a breather? I probably agree with you, but I don't understand your post.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not following you. What's completely restoring? What's guaranteed successful? And how are you "trying" a breather? Do you mean "taking" a breather? I probably agree with you, but I don't understand your post.

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.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

The problem was it created a weird scenario where my "secret technique" attack worked exactly once per encounter and my "super-secret technique" worked exactly once per day. Martial abilities should be stamina driven in that you can spam the same attacks until your resource pool (discipline, rages, superiority dice) depletes OR can be used at will (cunning strike, weapon mastery). Ideally, using my secret technique exhausts my resource pool a little, my super-secret technique depletes it a lot, and I cannot use them again until I rest.

It was never that martial abilities shouldn't have a limit, but that structuring the limit to "specific action per combat/day" was a bad way of modeling that.

Personally I think they should have just gone all in and explicitly made these powers abstractions of in game things. (which they probably were anyway) I know some people don't like that, but it solves the problem for me.

The in game Fighter doesn't know any of these powers per se. They don't represent discrete "secret techniques", they are abstractions of all the reasons why fictional martial heroes can't just do what they are theoretically capable of all the time -- stamina, luck, positioning, opponent skill, wind direction, etc.

If you are going to go gamey like 1x per encounter then just decouple it from exact in game parellels.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Personally I think they should have just gone all in and explicitly made these powers abstractions of in game things. (which they probably were anyway) I know some people don't like that, but it solves the problem for me.

The in game Fighter doesn't know any of these powers per se. They don't represent discrete "secret techniques", they are abstractions of all the reasons why fictional martial heroes can't just do what they are theoretically capable of all the time -- stamina, luck, positioning, opponent skill, wind direction, etc.

If you are going to go gamey like 1x per encounter then just decouple it from exact in game parellels.

I'd rather they went as far away from gamism as playability allows.

 

[CapnZapp]

It may not be outright stated, but you could easily redefine the time-lengths of rests based on the game-play loop and spatial-temporal zoom of the game in a given session/adventure/pillar of gameplay.

This is never an compelling argument.

I already know I can always change whatever I want.

What I want is specifically for the official rules to abandon the default notion "one long rest per day". If an adventure doesn't specify the pace of the plot, we should think something is missing and ask the writer what he or she intended.

Of course if the game ditches the separation between "long rest classes" and "short rest classes" that would be wicked sweet awesome.

 

[Remathilis]

Personally I think they should have just gone all in and explicitly made these powers abstractions of in game things. (which they probably were anyway) I know some people don't like that, but it solves the problem for me.

The in game Fighter doesn't know any of these powers per se. They don't represent discrete "secret techniques", they are abstractions of all the reasons why fictional martial heroes can't just do what they are theoretically capable of all the time -- stamina, luck, positioning, opponent skill, wind direction, etc.

If you are going to go gamey like 1x per encounter then just decouple it from exact in game parellels.

The problem was they were given equal design with spells which have always had distinct effects, to the point they are named after their creators sometimes. Perhaps if magic was likewise abstract, then you could have gotten that to work.