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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[Ruin Explorer]

2e probably should have been 1.5. I think the biggest change was adding the proficiency system. Most of the rest was the same or very similar to 1e.

Nah.

D&D is the "odd one out" in terms of how it uses editions in the TTRPG space.

2E should have been 2E, but 3E, 4E and 5E should all have had names which made it clear they were more than mere edition changes like other games do, where most things remain the same, just some mechanics get tweaked. To be fair 3E did kind of signal that by changing to D&D from AD&D. And 3.5E should have been called 4E, as it would have been in any other game.

(As an example of a game that did do this, we could look at Vampire. Vampire: The Masquerade 1E and 2E are similar and 2E is basically 1E but better-designed and with a bigger budget. Revised has a non-edition name because it's a bigger change, and reflects conceptual and approach changes about the setting, not just rules changes. Vampire: The Requiem has a different name because it's kind of the 4E of Vampire, changing fundamental assumptions, changing the universe/setting, and re-working a ton of stuff, whilst still keeping a lot of the concepts (there may have been a subtle 1E/2E of Requiem as well but I forget). Then we get VtM 20th Anniversary edition, which is accurately named, because it's sort of a summary of VtM ideas, but is really just sort of unifying a bunch of stuff.

The only arguably misnamed one is VtM 5th, which isn't really just an edition, but features big changes to how the rules and setting work. It's more akin to D&D 5E in some ways. Unfortunately that seems emblematic of the Paradox-era stuff - the new Hunter: The Reckoning absolutely should not be called that, because no Reckoning in the old sense is involved at all, and instead Hunters are a bunch of randos with no coherent lore. So I guess we can say Paradox have sadly learned from WotC here!)

 

[OB1]

Another small gripe/rant for the Druid. It feels like they're forcing things a bit to put them in the Priest grouping. I mean, yeah, Wildshape works similar to Channel Divinity, but I always think of Druids as Nature Wizards, not Nature Priests. And I think that just goes to the inherent issue of trying to force 12 classes into 4 groups of 4. I get why they want to do it for ease of new player introduction, but it just leads to some dissonance for me. I like that in 5e each class is really it's own unique thing, and doesn't need to be put into a box to fit with two other classes that share a primary feature.

 

[SkidAce]

The real problem with Plane Shift is that it's so difficult to plan for. How can I prep random encounters that could be anywhere on any Plane?

How did they get the material component for a specific plane?

 

[Umbran]

Seriously dude, stop martyring yourself for a moment and listen.

Mod Note:

One wonders how you thought this approach would have good results - as if anyone would respond well to this?

Let's roll back the heat on this, and reconsider this as if it were supposed to be a friendly conversation, please and thanks.

 

[Pauln6]

How did they get the material component for a specific plane?

In our case the cleric is a high level priest of Olidammara so he's just aiming for an extra planar pub crawl. I could get away with Mos Eisley styles cantina

Yes, teleport can have the same issue. Except, you never really see someone teleporting somewhere the DM did not seed into the game. And there is no expectation of imminent danger, you could find empty ruins and that is still a clue. But if you go to the Abyss, there is not only an expectation of danger, it is supposed to be THE MOST DANGEROUS. Which then feels worse when you struggle to come up with something.



Yeah, my only point was that it didn't seem like something that would shatter campaigns if Druids couldn't plane shift, or if plane shift was removed entirely (which won't happen). It just isn't something that seems to have that level of impact.

If you want it, fine, I'm not saying you couldn't keep it, but it certainly was a change that could have passed completely unnoticed by me.



Phantom Steeds don't have any hit points.

And why bother fighting bandits if you don't have to? This is part of the problem with overland travel in DnD, you can't usually have massively dangerous threats on the roads, because then the setting breaks down, but at level 15, a gang of CR 1/8 bandits isn't even a bump in the road. So, why bother with even stopping to fight them?

Oof. Yet my group do it every time. To the point of tracking any escaping bandits through the wilderness, side-tracking the main adventure.

A DM could certainly roll planar travel into an npc thing, special locations, powerful wizards, liches, etc. No sane person plane shifts to the Abyss without a good reason though.

5e Phantom Steeds have the stats of Riding Horses apart from their speed. I think it was the 3e version that had 1hp but was immune to non magical damage. Maybe you are mixing up the editions and thinking the spell is better than it really is.

 

[Maxperson]

The real problem with Plane Shift is that it's so difficult to plan for. How can I prep random encounters that could be anywhere on any Plane? Maybe there should be an app for that. My group voted for the older edition style to roll d% and you end up that many miles from your desired location. Last time they were aiming for Hochoch and ended up 100 miles inside the Dim Forest so it certainly hasn't killed overland travel.

I've never found unexpected plane shifting an issue. The inhabitants of each plane are really well known, so I can easily improvise until the session is over and then plan something for the planar journey. How often does that happen, though? Usually the players indicate via their discussions right in front of you or via questions that they are researching in game whether or not they intend to or want to go to another plane.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, teleport can have the same issue. Except, you never really see someone teleporting somewhere the DM did not seed into the game. And there is no expectation of imminent danger, you could find empty ruins and that is still a clue. But if you go to the Abyss, there is not only an expectation of danger, it is supposed to be THE MOST DANGEROUS. Which then feels worse when you struggle to come up with something.

Not until 5e anyway. 5e's massively increased miss percentages means that teleport will eventually go awry. It has twice now in my game. At least the second time the group had a plan on what to do if that happened and I didn't have to improvise much.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Another small gripe/rant for the Druid. It feels like they're forcing things a bit to put them in the Priest grouping. I mean, yeah, Wildshape works similar to Channel Divinity, but I always think of Druids as Nature Wizards, not Nature Priests. And I think that just goes to the inherent issue of trying to force 12 classes into 4 groups of 4. I get why they want to do it for ease of new player introduction, but it just leads to some dissonance for me. I like that in 5e each class is really it's own unique thing, and doesn't need to be put into a box to fit with two other classes that share a primary feature.

I disagree. Nature Priest feels 100% right to me, but I want them to have less God Flavor. They are spirit speakers, shamans, ect. I really wish DnD had never gone the route of Nature Gods, because it creates this really unsavory flavor whenever they refer to Druids as "the Old Faith" because... it isn't? It comes across as telling a follower Poseidon they are following the "old gods" when you worship Zeus, like.. no?

And I think they get this a little bit, because the OD&D Druid does MUCH better in setting up what things Druid's care about and their role in the world. The idea of the Elemental Chaos trying to tear the world BACK apart is really excellent flavor.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In our case the cleric is a high level priest of Olidammara so he's just aiming for an extra planar pub crawl. I could get away with Mos Eisley styles cantina


Oof. Yet my group do it every time. To the point of tracking any escaping bandits through the wilderness, side-tracking the main adventure.

A DM could certainly roll planar travel into an npc thing, special locations, powerful wizards, liches, etc. No sane person plane shifts to the Abyss without a good reason though.

5e Phantom Steeds have the stats of Riding Horses apart from their speed. I think it was the 3e version that had 1hp but was immune to non magical damage. Maybe you are mixing up the editions and thinking the spell is better than it really is.

I had to re-read a handful of times in responding to you "The spell ends if you use an action to dismiss it or if the steed takes any damage."

 

[Kobold Stew]

Another small gripe/rant for the Druid. It feels like they're forcing things a bit to put them in the Priest grouping. I mean, yeah, Wildshape works similar to Channel Divinity, but I always think of Druids as Nature Wizards, not Nature Priests. And I think that just goes to the inherent issue of trying to force 12 classes into 4 groups of 4. I get why they want to do it for ease of new player introduction, but it just leads to some dissonance for me. I like that in 5e each class is really it's own unique thing, and doesn't need to be put into a box to fit with two other classes that share a primary feature.

I have no problems connecting Druids with Clerics because in AD&D (1E) druids were a subclass of clerics.

That of course does not set them so for the future, but it's not a block. I think the spell list is closer to the Druid's, particularly in the place healing holds.

I'm not sure it's as radical a change as you are suggesting, though.