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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[SkidAce]

Oh yes: plan ahead what creatures one happens to stumbe upon... how I always play it...

Alternatively..."plan a list" of creatues you have become familiar with from experience and training?

But I get yah...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Alternatively..."plan a list" of creatues you have become familiar with from experience and training?

But I get yah...

I was really fond of the idea that you just replace your druid stats. But gameplay has shown to be totally wonky. In one of our games our DM is totally afraid to show any powerful animal, after having made the mistake of letting us encounter a giant spider early on...
and after we told him that we spend our downtime conjuring animals for study purposes, it went downhill...

 

[SkidAce]

Been there....

 

[Maxperson]

That doesn't destroy bounded accuracy, it makes it work as intended. Bounded accuracy is about stopping the treadmill effect of DCs increasing at the same pace as bonuses. When you get better at something in 5e, you really are better.

This is half accurate. While the increases in spell saves, DCs and ACs for monsters don't increase at the same rate as PC bonuses, they do increase, when you get better at something in 5e only sometimes you are really getting better. Sometimes you get a bonus at the same time as the average AC of monsters goes up. That only applies to class and level increases. A bonus from armor or a weapon is a pure bonus. It's not compensated for on the DM side by the game.

 

[Pedantic]

What would you rather have... an ever-expanding PDF of errata that lists out all these small edits, changes and adjustments to the rules they wish to include (a la 4E) that you have to remember to insert into your game... or a fully-published book that puts all the small edits, changes, and adjustments together in one place?

Some players will want the former... others will want the latter.

To be fair, in a pre 4e world, primed by 3.5 this is exactly what I expected edition changes to be. I thought 4e was going to be taking some combination of like, the polymorph subschool spells, the PHB2 reworks, the "Devoted Tracker" style multiclass feats and replacing the fighter with the Warblade, then publishing a new PHB with them, declaring all the old material deprecated and starting again.

Arguably 4e and the GSL's influence on design (plus the theoretical VTT that never was completed at the time) arguably set the precedent for modern edition changes as reworkings of the core system.

 

[OB1]

While reading through this thread, at least a few people said or implied that "looking up" wild shapes is a pain.
In a pre-internet era, I would have agreed.

However, researching available wild shapes is very easy:
- If you have a D&D Beyond account, you can easily filter on beasts with the appropriate CR.
- Alternatively, you can type "5E beast CRX" into Google, and get an instant list
- Or the best option IMO, research which beasts you want to use before the game (choosing several based on their abilities, and the situations you are likely to face), have that list readily available at the table, and give a copy to the DM.

(Of course the list would include the stats of each beast)

With DDB, it's even easier than you mention. Under Extras on your character sheet, there is a section for Wildshapes that allows you to add the beasts you want to your character sheet for future use. Let's you track the HP of the creature you wildshape into and modifies the mental stats to match yours along with all it's other abilities.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Way to take the higher ground.

okay obiwan, again... this is the shape of the discussion

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You have redefined what constitutes an edition several times.

not once did I redifen it... I admit when you make points (like skills and powers) and move on... that isn't changing at all...I have been clear, I want a clear line of "this version of the game uses this rules, that version uses those rules" I even said many times it doesn't HAVE to be the word edition

 

[UngeheuerLich]

not once did I redifen it... I admit when you make points (like skills and powers) and move on... that isn't changing at all...I have been clear, I want a clear line of "this version of the game uses this rules, that version uses those rules" I even said many times it doesn't HAVE to be the word edition

Ok. So lets not call it 6e then until we see what we get in 1.5 years?

 

[Charlaquin]

While reading through this thread, at least a few people said or implied that "looking up" wild shapes is a pain.
In a pre-internet era, I would have agreed.

However, researching available wild shapes is very easy:
- If you have a D&D Beyond account, you can easily filter on beasts with the appropriate CR.
- Alternatively, you can type "5E beast CRX" into Google, and get an instant list
- Or the best option IMO, research which beasts you want to use before the game (choosing several based on their abilities, and the situations you are likely to face), have that list readily available at the table, and give a copy to the DM.

(Of course the list would include the stats of each beast)

I think the problem is less the act of looking up the stats, but the fact that the feature requires referencing a ton of stat blocks from a resource that isn’t usually player-facing.