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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[Nikosandros]

Yeah, for a game company, the right of minorities protected is...they can go a different game or make their own? WotC doesn't owe anyone a particular style of D&D, they just owe their stockholders a successful product. Happily a success product is one that sparks joy for as many people as possible, but not everyone has to like it...and they won't.

And it's not like there is a lack of options out there. IMHO, this is truly a golden age of RPGs. If only I could be a teenager again...

 

[Hussar]

There's always the obvious solution "your off hand weapon needs to be one size smaller than your main hand weapon, or you're unbalanced and takes a -2 hit to all attacks". You know, the actual reason people fought that way?

But that's clearly been too obvious for years now.

Umm, but, that's not true?

You absolutely can and do fight with two equal sized weapons all the time. Two rapiers was a common fighting style after all. Watch any martial arts weapons demonstration and you'll see people using two equal sized weapons all the time. While weapons of differing sizes were also used, the notion that your "off hand" weapon has to be smaller or you are "unbalanced" is a pure D&Dism with no actual historical validity.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sorry what?

The part of D&D where you roll a twenty sided die isn't broken and doesn't need to be fixed. How weird to want to change the basic fundament that's just working when that is not at all what people are talking about when they discuss flaws of the system.

Huh.

My post was not talking about what parts of 5E were supposedly "broken"... it was a direct response to what you had asked in the part I quoted:

"I wonder how you justified and defended 3E when that was new and totally different from what AD&D people probably wanted fixed. And where were you when 4E completely changed everything about 3E, despite probably nobody wanting exactly what was offered? And what was your arguments when 5E was new, likely alienating approximately 110% of the lovers of 4E?"

You claimed 3E was "totally different" and 4E "changed everything" and 5E "alienating 110% of the lovers of 4E"... and I was just pointing out how completely incorrect those three points were.

YOU may think the changes made in 3E, 4E and 5E turned them into all-new games... but most of us who are not prone to hyperbole in this situation know that is just not true. The foundation of the game has never changed. Not once has an edition been released and made someone think "Huh... these seems more like GURPS than D&D!" And in my particular case... any surface-level changes to various rules made from edition to edition are just coats of paint that either I don't care about because they don't affect the fundamental gameplay of Dungeons & Dragons (like what skills appear in the skill list), or ones I can easily change myself if I decide I have a better idea (like what skills appear in the skill list, LOL).

I do not disagree that some people out there are so in the weeds over the game mechanics found in D&D that any changes off of what they prefer can send them spiraling... coming here onto EN World declaring the entirety of the game "broken", posting hundreds of times in hundred page threads arguing why some incredibly small facet of the game has to "fixed" otherwise the game (and its designers) is crap. But those are just not enough to convince the rest of us that you are right. The foundation of the game has been solid this entire time... it has always been D&D... and these coats of paint thrown on top with each revision and edition do not and will not affect it (other than get some players all worked up.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

To be fair you can't huck a shortsword at some jerk who's just over there

Yeah... but unless I misunderstood @FitzTheRuke 's intention with their comment... throwing your off-hand was not the issue?

It sounded to me like they were saying the rapier / dagger combo that was used in a lot of historical fencing was not something that appeared in D&D to its detriment. Which is true... most players who dual-wield won't actually ever go rapier/dagger because with the way the mechanics are designed... once you've taken the Dual-Wielder feat that allows you to dual-wield weapons that aren't Light so you can have a rapier in your main hand, there's no reason to keep using a dagger in your off-hand-- you usually will go up to rapier in your off-hand as well for the extra damage. And the game does not give us any mechanical reason to stay with historical rapier / dagger style... except if you wanted to be able to throw your off-hand dagger for some reason. But then again... in historical rapier / dagger styles, you wouldn't be using a throwing dagger in your off-hand anyway, you'd have a parrying dagger instead that you wouldn't ever throw.

So 5E completely allows rapier / dagger style to be used... but no one ever actually does because it's not mechanically beneficial. But if FitzTheRuke was actually meaning something else with their comment about 5E not having rapier / dagger in the game, then I'm not sure what the issue is and they'd need to clarify (if they'd care to.)

 

[Maxperson]

"Pretty telling"? Let me remind you that you wrote:

You invited that comparison.

Nah. It includes that, but is not about that, nor does that say or imply that the minor even remotely compares or equates to the major. He made a blanket statement that included all of it and I let him know that it was a bad generality. YOU are the only one who took it to the extreme and compared the minor to the major.

 

[Parmandur]

Okay?

If you agree with me that leaving things up to "the majority" only when that suits your aims (=to not rock the boat) but never when you realize you actually need to change stuff is disingenuous, then alright.

When does a change "need to be made"...? When the majority of users are frustrated. Hence, all the testing to find pain points and propose solutions. For a game designed to entertain people, change is only necessary when the majority of users desire it.

 

[Maxperson]

When does a change "need to be made"...? When the majority of users are frustrated. Hence, all the testing to find pain points and propose solutions. For a game designed to entertain people, change is only necessary when the majority of users desire it.

Sure. That seems like a good time to make changes. I doubt even a significant minority are frustrated with 5e(other than the glacially slow crunch release rate anyway) right now.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm just saying that what the majority wants doesn't necessarily always outweigh the minority as my example showed. The majority in my example wanted say 5.5e, but the minority were where the company wanted to go.

It's also notable and shouldn't be ignored that prior to the many many pages of adpopulum defense yesterday this thread was talking for quite a while about
how partly designing for both long rest and short rest without actually doing a good job of supporting either causes both to conflict with the needs of the other. That of course came off from how short nova rest classes are a nightmare because they mess up the long rest based attrition design for the gm thanks to bad resting design...

you cannot please everyone, as the interests of people conflict with each other.

If 75% want a red cover and 25% want a green cover, what color does the cover get…

Wotc surveys don't poll in a manner you should expect to cap at 100% on anything contentious. They ask two different questions that are usually across two entirely different packets. If 63 percent say 5 of 5 on a green cover while 58 percent say the same red and 41 percent don't particularly care strongly about either and another 36 percent strongly want yellow or blue. That doesn't really support any of those groups to make the cover rainbow striped even of another poll would show 47 percent of respondents are mildly in favor of a rainbow pattern.

Wotc's terrible surveys and application of A B testing in some areas ensure that the surveys are a useless metric for anything other than making it difficult engage in good design or fix without being clubbed by ad populum stonewalling and smokescreens.

 

[Remathilis]

Wotc surveys don't poll in a manner you should expect to cap at 100% on anything contentious. They ask two different questions that are usually across two entirely different packets. If 63 percent say 5 of 5 on a green cover while 58 percent say the same red and 41 percent don't particularly care strongly about either and another 36 percent strongly want yellow or blue. That doesn't really support any of those groups to make the cover rainbow striped even of another poll would show 47 percent of respondents are mildly in favor of a rainbow pattern.

Wotc's terrible surveys and application of A B testing in some areas ensure that the surveys are a useless metric for anything other than making it difficult engage in good design or fix without being clubbed by ad populum stonewalling and smokescreens.

Part of the problem with all the UA's has been we never see what's going on except though a glass darkly. We're given something and asked how we like it without being given greater context. The Ravinca subclasses would have made a lot more sense had we known they were for Ravinca and not Faerun. Half of the UA experience is playing guessing games trying to figure out the context of the things we're testing. It's no surprise that WotC wants to know the community vibes on a given rule, but all we get are endless debating if DPS numbers and prognostication about what the next book is going to be.

To your point though: the inspiration on a crit/fumble should have been in the same test. The survey should have asked if we liked A, B, or neither. Testing A (without knowing if there was a B) and then testing B (knowing A exists but it's too late to provide feedback) seems designed less to take the pulse of the community and more to rule out the idea that the community has secretly wanted this all along. Akin to cooking a meal, letting someone try a bite, asking how they like it, and deciding if you will ever cook that meal again based solely on that person's first impression.

 

[Incenjucar]

you cannot please everyone, as the interests of people conflict with each other.

If 75% want a red cover and 25% want a green cover, what color does the cover get…

D&D already has variant covers, sooo...