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.

Claim Unearthed Arcana now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Maxperson]

The familiar doesn't get you INSIDE a location, or let you escape super easily.

Not only that, but it doesn't have 20 strength and 20 con and enough hit points to survive a fireball. The druid mouse does.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not only that, but it doesn't have 20 strength and 20 con and enough hit points to survive a fireball. The druid mouse does.

Sylvester the Cat tried to warn us.

 

[Remathilis]

Okay, well that is really empathetic towards players who have been using their characters for years. And if druids are so amazing, why are they one of the least played classes? Let's look at tier rankings and see where druids generally place:

Moon druids: S tier at very low levels and very high levels. A-B tier for the rest. Every other druid sub-class: lower.

Not that it matters; this obviously isn't going to fly as written.

Listen, I feel your pain. But the druid should never have been able to out-tank a tank class and get level 9 magic. I agree the current druid wild shape needs a little more oomph, but the current CotM druid was too good at low level and then when they got to the level they fell behind in melee, they were at the point their spells more than made up for it.

The biggest reason why druids weren't played more was they required an absurd amount of system mastery. Their spells aren't straight forward, wild shape and conjuring required deep knowledge of the Monster Manual, and do to that they looked weaker than they are on paper. (Plus there is still an old bias against the tree hugger theme). And then even if you did all that mastery, a wizard or a sorlock still ate their lunch. This druid needs a little punch up, but a CotM druid having a 2nd level class feature called 'be a barbarian, 2/rest" was broken and I'm not sad it's gone.

 

[Maxperson]

Sylvester the Cat tried to warn us.

Rolled a 1 on that one! HE warned us about Tweety. Tom warned about Jerry.

 

[mellored]

2 - Enlarge/Reduce (okay, so you can get a tiny wildshape at 3rd level)

You need to cast it before transforming.

So you could be small from the spell, and the transform into a small, medium, or large creature.
So that doesn't work.

That said, bow druids with swift quiver anyone?

 

[Faolyn]

like what? I don't remember many if any varriant druids in 2e?

I DO remember being told that skills and powers, spells and magic, and combat and tactics mixed with the revised (black border) phb was 3e (and this is before wotc bought the game)... and when I asked how hard it is to just use the point buy to rebuild wizard or fighter (or what ever) I was told there was no reason to try...

Maybe from the Complete Book of Druids. Which had kits, but not really variants.

 

[OB1]

You need to cast it before transforming.

So you could be small from the spell, and the transform into a small, medium, or large creature.
So that doesn't work.

That said, bow druids with swift quiver anyone?

I'd certainly rule that it would carry over with the transformation, but now that I think about it, that probably isn't RAW.

 

[Hussar]

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.

So I have to pay WotC to play a Druid?

How is that not exactly proving the point that druids as written are too complicated? It’s not like you need specialized character sheets to play other classes.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Listen, I feel your pain. But the druid should never have been able to out-tank a tank class and get level 9 magic. I agree the current druid wild shape needs a little more oomph, but the current CotM druid was too good at low level and then when they got to the level they fell behind in melee, they were at the point their spells more than made up for it.

All I saw in play was the druid turning into a bear with a lot of HP who got immediately manhandled because they had an AC of 11 (12 when they could upsize to polar). The druid was not tanky at all, because the enemies never missed them like they did the AC18 paladin.

 

[Weiley31]

The adult human transforms into a mouse and its the strength of the mouse that you think is unrealistic?

No, I was trying to add a new contender to the infamous Halfling/Goliath STR 20 debate that was popular at one point on here.
I've seen Mighty Mouse so I know it's possible.