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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[Zaukrie]

Wait. Is the slowed condition out?

Why? WHY?

Make sure you ask for it back!

If I had to guess, it is "too complex" to have so many conditions?

 

[bedir than]

It does. All previous packets reference "the One D&D Unearthed Arcana series". This new one is the first that calls it "the Unearthed Arcana series". Additionally, the previous packets had a callout titled "What's ahead in the One D&D Playtest" in the Feedback section, whereas this new one uses the title "Features of the Player's Handbook Playtest".

When I search the PDF of Clerics One D&D isn't there

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

If I had to guess, it is "too complex" to have so many conditions?

Given that they added a bunch of new conditions, I'm skeptical that's the reason...

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

When I search the PDF of Clerics One D&D isn't there

I don't know what to tell you. I'm looking at it right now.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

When I search the PDF of Clerics One D&D isn't there

Last paragraph of left column on the first page of that document:

If you do combine this article with any previous one, use only the rules glossary found here. In the One D&D Unearthed Arcana series, the rules glossary of each article supersedes the glossary of any previous article.

 

[cbwjm]

I do have a question about the new Wild Shape.
If I'm a Drow Druid, and I Wild Shape into a Huge Mass Spider, how can I climb on t0 the walls and what not?
Is it automatically assumed since I'm a spider, I can do spider things. Or is it a case of "Tasha's Primal Companion" feature where I could have a Wolf as my Primal Companion, but I'm not getting any of the normal perks the animal has?

Other Drow: Man, you're a spider and can't climb walls?

Drow Druid pc: SHUT UP, YOU GUYS DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!

Other Drow: Laaaaaaaaaaame.

I'm thinking of including a list of features to add to the animals, like Spider has a poisonous bite and can climb walls, wolf has a trip attack, bear might do a bear hug for more damage if both attacks at level 5+ hit, etc.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

When I search the PDF of Clerics One D&D isn't there

Also, what are you searching on? One thing I noticed was that for some reason when I did a search in Acrobat for "One D&D", one of the instances didn't show up, even though it was clearly the text "One D&D". I've seen this weird behavior in the past with some PDF documents, perhaps something to do with how the text got encoded. Sometimes, I'll copy something out of a PDF document and then when I paste it somewhere else extra spaces are there, spaces are removed, strange characters show up.

 

[Pedantic]

I'm thinking of including a list of features to add to the animals, like Spider has a poisonous bite and can climb walls, wolf has a trip attack, bear might do a bear hug for more damage if both attacks at level 5+ hit, etc.

I still think this is more easily achieved by just spelling out a list of specific while a druid could choose from.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You can chalk me down as another person that does not like the new wildshape feature. So much versatility is lost with these standard stat blocks that you can barely change. It doesn’t make me, a Druid fan, want to play this new wildshaping Druid at all. I’d rather stick to the wildshape feature from 2014.

I do like the alternate action to wildshaping, healing blossoms however.

I’d be okay with it if you could choose some secondary features.

So, first, give each beast type 3 subtypes (land and sea would be scout, protector, and predator, sky would have something other than protector I’d think)

Next, give 1 secondary trait at level 1, 2 at 5, 3 at 11, etc. these would be things like special senses, greater speed, pounce, a grapple attack, extra THP, etc.

Lastly, allow climb speed at level 1, as well as tiny forms. It’s absurd to restrict tiny forms to level 11, limit the time you can be tiny, and halve your damage. What on earth!?

 

[James Gasik]

The Druid is just absolutely terrible, WoW-inspired drivel, frankly. In the worst possible way - i.e. all the bad ideas and none of the good. It's the first 1D&D class which just trashes the existing class, rather than simply adjusting/tweaking it. It's lazy, it's unevocative, and it's not even fun. Not letting people have a tiny form until L11 is, as I said in the other thread, honestly one of the dumbest things I've ever read in a D&D product, and I've read 34 years of these things! This is trash-tier design. I almost wonder if they're intentionally trolling/checking we're awake.

Paladins have probably the dumbest lore we've ever seen for them, with a lot of vague chatter about "standing against annihilation" and "standing against oblivion", which means exactly nothing, and doesn't really seem to match up with Paladins from any edition, and particularly not with Paladin subclasses from 5E.

However, at least with Paladins they're mechanically very similar, without absolutely no drop in power (!?!? but Druids needed a huge nerf? Bizarre), and the Breaking Your Oath lore is a distinct improvement, especially in clarity.

3rd edition Druids couldn't take on Tiny forms until level 11 either.