D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Includes 5 Classes & New Weapon Mastery System

The latest playtest packet for One D&D has just landed, and features five classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard) and the new Weapon Mastery system.

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 the rules on the Weapon Mastery property, updates to weapons, new and revised spells, several new feats, and five classes: Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard. You will also find an updated rules glossary that supercedes the glossary of any previous playtest documents.

Claim Unearthed Arcana now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

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[Zaukrie]

To quote the packet:

Warlocks are defined by pacts with otherworldly beings. Most Warlocks begin their search for magical power by delving into tomes of forbidden lore, dabbling in invocations meant to attract the power of extraplanar beings, or seeking out places of power where the influence of these beings can be felt. They typically learn their initial spells and boons through bargains with lesser entities or contacting distant planes.
Soon enough, though, they are drawn into a binding pact with a more powerful patron. (Some Warlocks discover, sooner or later, that this patron was pulling strings all along, using lesser beings as pawns in their schemes.)

In simple terms, Warlocks don’t necessarily get all their power from a single patron. A 1st level warlock is someone who acquired magic by seeking it out from ancient, secret, forgotten, and/or forbidden sources. At 3rd level, they find a particularly powerful source for such magic, which becomes their patron. It’s up to the player if that patron is the same entity from which they acquired their magic initially, or if they get different abilities from different sources. Maybe your warlock plays the field, and has lots of deals with lots of different entities, and the 3rd level patron is just the most powerful such entity they’ve indebted themselves to. Or maybe they discovered a magical artifact - a tome, weapon, or creature, and simply didn’t know of the source of its power at the time. Or maybe they knew it all along. Those are all valid Warlock narratives now.

I actually quite like this change. It's a fun bit of fiction. It would also explain multi-classing out after level two from a fiction standpoint.

 

[TwoSix]

I actually quite like this change. It's a fun bit of fiction. It would also explain multi-classing out after level two from a fiction standpoint.

Which is important, because I think we're going to see a lot of level 1 warlock dips.

 

[Weiley31]

I actually think this is a pretty good approach.

Ya. Spell Slots would still be locked at 5th level still. Mystic Arcanum repeats maybe made as Patron rewards for increasing your Piety/Renown score with your Patron.

 

[The Shadow]

Warlocks choose their patron at 3rd level? So what exactly is a first level warlock? Where does their magic come from? Why do they need a patron at all?

There's various ways to view it. Strictly speaking, the player chooses, not the character.

1. Your patron hasn't fully revealed itself yet. At 3rd level, you find out you've made a pact with a demon (or whatever).

2. Alternatively, you know what your patron is from day 1, but you're too small a fry to get individual attention - you just get the "starter pack", as someone else put it. At 3rd level, your patron starts to actually notice you.

3. Another possibility is that at 1st and 2nd level you're just making use of a body of lore that people preparing for pacts have access to. You're like a very minor wizard, taking advantage of the "leakage" or "penumbra" of powerful beings. To go any further, though, you need to make a pact.

 

[Weiley31]

Also: I really like the change to Brutal Critical.

 

[TwoSix]

3. Another possibility is that at 1st and 2nd level you're just making use of a body of lore that people preparing for pacts have access to. You're like a very minor wizard, taking advantage of the "leakage" or "penumbra" of powerful beings. To go any further, though, you need to make a pact.

This is probably the avenue I like the best. Warlock magic is its own little subset of Arcane practices, focused on forming power sharing contracts with spiritual entities. Pact Weapon is a little pact, so is Hex and Eldritch Blast. The stronger magic needs a bigger pact.

 

[DarkCrisis]

That's a change in spellcasting rules not class rules.

That said... would it make the character nonfunctional if you allowed it? Especially with the worse magic user and race limits?

It's in the Race description. 1E Elves can wear armor while casting spells. That's a 1E Elf. Period.

 

[billd91]

I'm currently stumped why adding a spell to a spell book should be a ritual spell in and of itself. It suggests that, if your spell book gets destroyed, you can't create a new spell book from your memorized spells without first obtaining a copy of the scribe spell ritual. Unless you had taken the very unlikely decision to memorize scribe spell, you were probably using your spell book to cast the ritual...

 

[The White Sorcerer]

So, they're keeping Cleric and Wizard subs based on domain and school, but limiting it to four in the PHB? Reeks of 4e style installmentism.

It's a big document so I haven't read all of it, but searches for the words "four" and "subclass" have not yielded an answer: where are you getting this from?

 

[Bacon Bits]

It's in the Race description. 1E Elves can wear armor while casting spells. That's a 1E Elf. Period.

Sure. You can use those rules for your character, or you can use 2e rules for your character. That's compatibility. You don't get to mix and match to powergame between the two. It means if you have one player who only has the 1e PHB, they can use that to make their character, while if another player only has the 2e PHB, they can use that to make their character. And the resulting game works. It's compatible.

It means your character is a 1e character and does everything 1e. It means you'll do 1e race, 1e class, 1e spell preparation, 1e spell selection, and 1e race-class limits. So you're limited to fighter 7/magic-user 11 instead of fighter 12/magic-user 15 like in 2e AD&D.