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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[Charlaquin]

Looks like Epic Boons will be in the PHB now:

View attachment 276446

Haha it’s like E6, but, uh… E20

 

[Vincent55]

I wish they had divorced the sub-classes from the classes so you could mix them with others, I would love a paladin with the Assassin subclass.

 

[Charlaquin]

The made dying a condition:

DYING [CONDITION]

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When a player character drops to 0 Hit Points, that character has the Dying condition, which replaces the following rules in the 2014 Player’s Handbook (page 197): “Falling Unconscious,” “Death Saving Throws,” and “Stabilizing aCreature.”

While Dying, you experience the following effects:

0 Hit Points. You have 0 Hit Points. If you regain any Hit Points while Dying, this condition ends on you.
Knocked Out. You have the Unconscious condition.
Death Saving Throws. At the start of each of your turns, you must make a death saving throw, a special save that isn’t tied to any ability score. You’re in the hands of fate now; roll a d20. If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. A success or failure has no effect by itself. The successes and failures also don’t need to be consecutive; keep track of both until you collect three of a kind, the effects of which are described below. When this condition ends on you, reset the number of success and failures to zero.
Rolling a 1 or 20. When you make a death save and roll a 1 on the d20, it counts as two failures. If you roll a 20, you regain 1 Hit Point.
Three Failures. On your third failure, you die.
Three Successes. On your third success, you regain 1 Hit Point. This condition ends on you as normal, but you are still Unconscious and start a Short Rest. You remain Unconscious until you regain any Hit Points or until another creature uses an action to administer first aid to you, which requires a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
Damage. If you take any damage, you suffer one death saving throw failure. If you suffer a critical hit, you instead suffer two death saving throw failures.

It’s mostly just the 2014 dying rules, presented as a condition. Only functional difference is that you can no longer make a medicine check to stabilize a dying creature (not that I’ve ever seen a player actually do that). Once you’re dying, you stay that way until you regain HP or get 3 death save successes. Also, if you get 3 successes, you “start a short rest” instead of being unconscious for 1d4 hours, and a DC10 medicine check can return you to consciousness.

Generally I like the change. If you moved everything after the first sentence under the “three successes” section up to the “0 hit points” section, it would be pretty close to perfect in my opinion.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yea, the template is essentially "Use your Wis as your attack stat, and gain Extra Attack, but no spells".

You also get 10+Wis for your AC, which is… ok. Wish it was 8+Prof+Wis instead, at least in land form.

The Moon Druid buffs to it aren't that substantial; it's essentially cantrip scaling at 10th/17th, resistance at 6th, and you can cast healing spells (the Primal list is very light on Abjurations) while in animal form. Not nothing, but certainly a major step down.

Also resistance to an elemental damage type you choose when you shapeshift, which helps compensate a bit for the loss of the old wildshape’s form HP. Thematically I like the idea of turning into an elementally-empowered version of your animal form instead of a mundane animal or an elemental. But functionally it feels pretty weak.

 

[Pauln6]

Forgive me if you're referring to something else, but this playtest does state:

and in addition, the Devotion paladin's specific Aura of Devotion is called out as a sub-effect of the Protection aura.

Admittedly, saves are a mixed bag but I am concerned that the upper level of save bonus could be as high as +10 now the cap on ability scores can be removed and stacking from other sources.

If bounded accuracy is to be preserved any at will bonuses beyond base ability scores need to be capped at +3. I'd be happier if the save bonus was available at a lower level but limited to half your proficiency bonus or half your Charisma bonus, whichever is lower. So it scales with level but still requires Charisma investment. In fact a bonus based on paladin level that is equivalent to half proficiency would be better to avoid multiclass cheese. So the bonus would effectively be +1 to +3 but only +3 at the highest level with Charisma 20. A +2 save is still awesome, just not unbalanced.

A +5 bonus to saves is huge when added to trained saves but even more so when stacked with magic items and spells.

 

[Charlaquin]

On paper, I think it’s a good idea to give Druids specific form stat blocks instead of sending them to the monster manual. But I think these three forms are way too generic. Instead of land, sea, and sky like the beastmaster companions, I think druids should have a larger selection of forms, divided by utility. Like, maybe to start you get a stealth form, a speed form, and a scout/perceptive form. Then at 5th level you gain a climbing form and a combat form; stick with the aquatic and flying forms at 7th and 9th. Not sure what to do about 11th level, but having to wait that long to get Tiny forms is a bad change in my opinion.

 

[Pauln6]

My one beef with the Paladin is the same beef I have with the 5e one. The cha to saves has been a core part of the paladins identity for a long time, it was THE reason to get high charisma as a Paladin. In 5e you don’t get it until 6th, and now it’s 7th, meaning many Paladin characters will never get that ability.

Now I respect that the power is incredible. I would be fine with “cha mod to saves, but no higher than your prof mod” or something like that. But it annoys me that paladins are only charismatic now for spell purposes (and frankly plenty of paladins can just dump charisma, use spells for smite and buffs, and not even feel it).

They can only nudge people to take Charisma. Personally, I am not a fan of the healing pool from laying on hands since it seems to make paladins much more versatile healers than clerics. Using channel divinity to cast cure wounds + Charisma bonus or restoration + Charisma bonus healing would feel fairer. The level of the spell could be based on your proficiency bonus. Clerical healing is just terrible in comparison.

 

[Charlaquin]

Oh! Really liking 2 uses, regains one use on a short rest and all on a long rest in place of prof uses, regain all on a long rest. I much prefer short rest recovery abilities over long rest, so this is a big win for me, and also isn’t as exploitable with multiclassing.

 

[Azzy]

I'm currently playing a Moon Druid in a campaign, so the first thing in this playtest I looked at was the druid. Wow! I am actively disheartened with the changes. I understand the templates to make things easier, and I'm mostly okay with them (though, like others have suggested, I'd be more onboard with them if you could modify the base form with secondary traits such as pounce, spider climb, etc.).

I generally like the expanded options of Channel Nature (not in love with the name, though) including Wild Companion (from Tasha's) and Healing Blossoms (though it's currently underwhelming). Despite these new options, most of the features of the base class revolve around Wildshaping, to my dismay, instead of adding something more interesting features. And speaking of the Wildshape ability, they make it worse: you don't gain an aquatic form until 7th level (as opposed to 4th level in the 2014 PHB), you don't gain an aerial form until 9th level (as opposed to 8th level), and, quixotically, you can't turn into a Tiny creature until 11th level! Even though I'd like to see Wildshape de-emphasized in the base class, it didn't need to be nerfed!

As to the Circle of the Moon... What the hell, WotC?! This subclass was about being able to use more powerful forms and being able to tank effectively. Now all you get is the standard Wildshape form with a bonus action Unarmed Strike. If that wasn't enough, the 6th-level Primal Strike ability is gone—nerf upon nerf. Elemental Wildshape has been changed, too—while it now comes online at 6th level (instead of 10th level), you no longer turn into an elemental, but instead gain elemental resistance/damage to attacks. Overall, this revised subclass is a major downgrade and something I wouldn't want to switch to.

 

[Weiley31]

Wait so now just being within 10ft of a 7th level Paladin allows you to a better chance to avoid being grappled. And this makes sense how?

Their deity is throwing the paladin and their party a bone by intervening in a slight/but smallish way that is barely noticeable enough to be realized or seen.