D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Shows Us The New Druid & Paladin

WotC has released the fourth One D&D playtest document. This 29-page PDF includes the druid and the paladin with Circle of the Moon and Oath of Devotion subclasses.

Druid. The Druid class and Circle of the Moon subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Paladin. The Paladin class and Oath of Devotion subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Feats. Several revised feats appear here for your feedback, with more revised feats coming in future articles.

Spells. More spells are ready for playtesting, with a focus on smite spells, Find Familiar, and Find Steed.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary has been updated again and supersedes the glossary in previous Unearthed Arcana articles. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in that glossary, which defines game terms that have been clarified or redefined for this playtest or that don’t appear in the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

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[UngeheuerLich]

Isn't that what Druids have been for most of their history? I remember them just being specialty priests in 2e.

clerics, druids and paladins are now speciality priests by the book.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I find it interesting that they are pulling a mechanic from the Barbarian, a certain amount of Class Specific Feature and using it to replace the amount of X=Proficiency Score.

Was eventually having six uses of X generous/too much in the end?

Probably too much to track... instead they get a recover per short rest feature.

 

[Weiley31]

A free spellslot level casting of an Oath spell is a good thing for having Oath Spells, maybe all Paladin subclasses might get that feature

Honestly, that would be a good boost to include for all Domain, Oath and Patron Spells as well.

 

[Remathilis]

How does all this not constitute a new edition, I ask you?

It's not a new edition in the same way Black Flag is backwards compatible with all of 5e.

 

[Remathilis]

I agree. Playing the Moon druid felt like being railroaded into bear druid at lower levels, and at late game a mammoth druid. The generic animal templates grants creative freedom.

Like making your land animal form an owlbear?

 

[Pedantic]

I've got a left field proposal for Wildshape; Wildshape should default to specific animal forms, that are unlocked at specific levels, like how prepared spells are laid out for all classes with defaults in the playtest packets. You can turn into a rat at this level, a bear at this level and so on, and then a list of comparable forms should be made available that a druid could pick from instead. By the end of a Druid's career, they should have something like 5-7 specific shapes they know.

That still lets you gate flying, climbing and other special movement modes/beast abilities to specific levels, but lets you preserve some thematic difference between a goat, a wolf and a bear and lets a player make a set of thematic choices about what abilities they care about, without needing a filtered spreadsheet of the MM to do it, and has the nice hook of giving you the ability to offer subclass specific forms.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not a fan of the new wildshape. Especially combined with the fact that they're doubling down on wildshape being the main core feature of druid. What if I want to play a nature themed caster not based on turning into animals?

There's more non-wildshaping in the new druid than the old one. In the new druid you can use Find Familiar and Healing Blossoms; all they have really done is replaced dead levels with upgrades to wild shape.

My worry is just how flimsy the new moon druids are

 

[Undrave]

Isn't that what Druids have been for most of their history? I remember them just being specialty priests in 2e.

True, but I'd rather see them grow apart. The Primal Power Source in 4e helped differentiate the Druid from a Nature Cleric because of their relationship with the Primal Spirits. And 4e also had the Shaman as a different non-wildshape take on the Nature Caster.

I just felt the 5e Druid was already a step backwards on the Druid/Cleric separation front and this doesn't help that.

 

[OB1]

There's more non-wildshaping in the new druid than the old one. In the new druid you can use Find Familiar and Healing Blossoms; all they have really done is replaced dead levels with upgrades to wild shape.

My worry is just how flimsy the new moon druids are

Moon druids should def get Temp HP when they use the Wildshape feature. Maybe 2 or 3x Prof bonus?

 

[dave2008]

I am happy with this... and giving them prof but tied to class makes it a little better... but I think I didn't see much short rest abilities on these classes

They are still there though (in this playtest at least). They even mention the times per proficiency bonus is an issue for some features