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

 

[tetrasodium]

I wonder though if it is an evolution or just a test bed...

like todays playtest you go back to getting inspiration (now heroic advantage) for RP, before this it was on nat 1s and before that it was on nat 20's.... so is that them just seeing what we like more or is it doing away with the 20 and the 1?

Hard to say but it's quite dispiriting as a GM who was tennatively optimistic about past signs of a new leaf. A lot of my prior enthusiasm came from signs that 6e was going to be making some efforts to reverse course on the last several years of making things difficult for GMs & failing to provide them support. Yea it's great that smite is limited per turn but that was already one of the few easy thins to say no to because doing otherwise meant every player other than the paladin was converted to baggage when there was a big foe melted by multismite

 

[Minigiant]

I"m not willing to say it's lame, but I do feel it is missing some stuff...

I'm willing to.

Like I said in many topics. the 5e designers don't seem to be able to get the majority of the 5e audience. Not to sound ageist, but it seems like the design team are 50 year old late AD&D players trying to redesign 2.5e and 3.0e for their siblings' kids and grandkids.

To them clerics, druids, and paladins are healbots, bards, rogues, and rangers are tricksters and the other classes are hard forced in their class role. Basically everything people complained about in 4e but real.

To me, the massive nerfs to druids is suspicious. It feels like they don't want to give warriors any exploration or social abilities. So they have to nerf the combat power of every other class group to allow warriors to be head and shoulders above the rest of the party. So if your fighter takes a social feat, he still deal double or triple the weapon damage of a cleric.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The glossary doesn't seem to be improving & is mostly just doubling down on 2014 in so many areas problematic for the 2014 version. Find familiar remaining a no risk & effectively zero cost remote drone doesn't help matters. Kind of disappointed with that lack of progress & not sure if I'm feeling up to reading the rest of the packet let alone doing another breakdown,

Well sure! Nobody wants to pay a  cost to use their cool powers!

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm willing to.

Like I said in many topics. the 5e designers don't seem to be able to get the majority of the 5e audience. Not to sound ageist, but it seems like the design team are 50 year old late AD&D players trying to redesign 2.5e and 3.0e for their siblings' kids and grandkids.

To them clerics, druids, and paladins are healbots, bards, rogues, and rangers are tricksters and the other classes are hard forced in their class role. Basically everything people complained about in 4e but real.

To me, the massive nerfs to druids is suspicious. It feels like they don't want to give warriors any exploration or social abilities. So they have to nerf the combat power of every other class group to allow warriors to be head and shoulders above the rest of the party. So if your fighter takes a social feat, he still deal double or triple the weapon damage of a cleric.

The game has never been more popular.... And the designers are out of touch? I'll take that bet.

 

[Minigiant]

The game has never been more popular.... And the designers are out of touch? I'll take that bet.

Take the bet. It's a risky one.

A lot of the success of 5e is not design but timing and the fact that half the edition was left open for other people to design..

Just look at the 5e Monk and say they were in tune with the core 5e's demo.

EDIT: The playtest has be a godspend to them as if their first ideas would have gone in unfiltered by the public, it woulda been bad.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The game has never been more popular.... And the designers are out of touch? I'll take that bet.

i mean...as you just pointed out, it came into popularity in the last 5ish years... and every developer I know the name of started playing long before that... so that DOES show they are likely to be out of touch...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It can only be used once per turn is the big one and can't be combine with other spells I think. I don't feel like checking.

Those are generic nerfs that apply to all martial characters we've seen so far.

They're bad and dumb, because they push martials further behind full casters and make the game needlessly more complex, though, I would say.

The game has never been more popular.... And the designers are out of touch? I'll take that bet.

It's like you've never played a videogame in the 21st century. That success means designers are automatically not out of touch is pretty funny, and completely contradicted by videogame history. Many games have experienced peak popularity despite incredibly out-of-touch designers because the factors that influence success aren't closely tied to smart and responsive design. Many games with extremely clued-in and successful designers have languished in relative obscurity, too.

 

[Xamnam]

me too... and I was just getting used to 'on a nat 20/nat 1' bits

I'm honestly thinking about keeping the nat 1 version as a home rule.

 

[Minigiant]

Wait. Is the slowed condition out?

Why? WHY?

 

[ccooke]

Ugh. Reading through the last five pages of arguments with ever decreasing amounts of actual discussion on this particular packet was really not fun, especially with a headache already.

But damnit, there's a change in this one that I absolutely love, and nobody else seems to have mentioned it.

Note that in this version of the death and dying rules, if you pass three death saves you heal to 1hp and start a short rest automatically, while unconscious. In addition, when you would knock someone to 0hp with a melee attack, you knock them to 1hp, they become unconscious and start a short rest.

Why does that make me incredibly happy?

Well, consider. You're the GM and you're facing a fight - especially something at low level - that looks like it's rapidly turning into a TPK. Maybe you planned this to be hard and wanted this. Maybe you miss-statted stuff. Whatever.

"Okay, you all get knocked out. You wake up an hour or so later in <some situation. Cell, with equipment gone? Robbed and left in a ditch? Something else?>. You all have 1hp and have completed a short rest, so you can spend hit dice immediately and regain abilities as normal. What do you do?"

This version of the Dying rules sets some assumptions about what falling to 0hp means and gives some tools to the GM (and players!) that are a big upgrade on what we have in base 5e.