D&D (2024) New Unearthed Arcana Playtest Includes Barbarian, Druid, and Monk

The latest Unearthed Arcana playtest packet is now live with new barbarian, druid, and monk versions, as well as new spells and weapons, and a revised Ability Score Improvement feat.

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WHATS INSIDE

Here are the new and revised elements in this article:

Classes. Three classes are here: Barbarian, Druid, and Monk. Each one includes one subclass: Path of the World Tree (Barbarian), Circle of the Moon (Druid), and Warrior of the Hand (Monk).

Spells. New and revised spells are included.

The following sections were introduced in a previous article and are provided here for reference:

Weapons. Weapon revisions are included.

Feats. This includes a revised version of Ability Score Improvement.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary includes the few rules that have revised definitions in the playtest. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in the glossary.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

This is one of those situations where I bet the designers do not have anything set in stone and are just checking to see how most of us feel/need our flavor and mechanics to be for these Conjure spells. They've given us one idea and depending on how we respond, they will either keep going with it and finessing it (like for instance eventually perhaps putting a 'celestial being' within the Conjure Celestial column of light, if that gets enough queries/pushback)... or they will come up with some other new idea for how to do these spells that aren't AoEs.

The biggest thing right now for them is trying to figure out what we as players feel we want or need for 'conjurations' versus 'summons'. From my perspective... Summoning creatures means actually bringing real creatures to our location to do stuff for us... whereas Conjuring creatures means creating creatures or creature-like things/effects at our location to do stuff for us. So for me... these AoE effects are relatively okay because "creating" things means they can take whatever kind of form we as the conjurers give them-- so these "creatures" could be exactly like the real things... or they could be larger or smaller; they could be solid or liquid or gaseous or incorporeal; they could be different colors, different speeds, have different actions than a "normal" creature of that type; etc. etc. We conjurers are creating them, we can make them look and act however we'd like.

That being said... I also wouldn't have an issue if WotC went in the direction that others have said here in making these Conjured creatures be for out-of-combat effects instead, while leaving Summoned creatures as actual in-combat-use spells. So a Conjured Woodland Being wouldn't have a statblock of some creature to use in a fight... but instead there would be some Exploration or Social bonus or effect we would gain and the flavor of that effect comes out of some woodland creature hopping and skipping off to do it. Like maybe it's a scouting effect, like kind of Druidic version of the Wizard's Arcane Eye spell or something (both being 4th level spells) but instead of an invisible eye flying around, there's some incorporeal "raven" doing the same sort of thing instead. And the other Conjuration spells all have other magical effects.

To me, it doesn't really matter what they do. If the Summon spells do single creatures for melee combat better and more balanced now, then use the Conjures for AoEs or non-combat related things and we just accept that the thematics of the word 'Conjure' for these spells might not be the best choice but just a necessary one.

I'm not sure I agree with the pushback against the use of the word "conjure" - I mean, ALL spells essentially "conjure" something, in that they cause some effect to appear. To narrow it down (which I agree is important), they ought to conjure spirits, which these do, if only in the fluff.

Again, my only suggestion to the designers (aside from perhaps a balancing pass) would be to make the fluff of there being some sort of spirit-creature conjured a little less nebulous. We don't want it to "feel" too much like it's just a harmful energy burst. We've got enough of that sort of spell.

OTOH, yeah, I'd be fine with them becoming out of combat utility spells, but then, they'd really need to do some work on the other two pillars to make that worthwhile. Which I hope they do anyway.

 

[Nightfly]

Are there any pregen characters online that use the playtest rules? I can't find any with Google, but I thought someone here might have a lead.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Are there any pregen characters online that use the playtest rules? I can't find any with Google, but I thought someone here might have a lead.

They haven't made official ones or anything.

 

[CapnZapp]

Both were started by Neonchameleon. Probably, either you or he has the other on their Ignore list.

I had him - and have just unignored him. I find the way the Ignore list forces the person being ignored to not see you to be weird and annoying, especially as I use the IL as a "don't let myself get into too many slap fights" button.

Per
https://www.enworld.org/threads/privacy-controls-two-way-blocking.678229/

We now have the ability for mutual blocking (again!) -- if you ignore somebody, you are also (optionally) able to block them from seeing your content.

That said, there is one exception. If you start a thread, your initial post is not ignored. This allows people to block each other but doesn't give them the ability to kick them out of threads in which they may be engaged in conversation with other people (plus also the people I block can still read the news page).

Has this changed?

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Oh my gods they fixed the Monk.

Barb and Druid look ready to ship as well.

This Monk design was a KO punch. It reallly got me good. I am even going to be ok with the Druid changes (I was a fan of the templates.)

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

And that won't work because if you like the OG Conjure Spells, your going to hate these Spells.

And as the designers have said, the 2014 versions are still viable. So as long as your DM agrees that those older spells are awesome, they are still viable. If the DM disallows the 2014 versions, they likely agree with the designers that there was something wrong with the original design, and the designers gave DMs an out.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

And as the designers have said, the 2014 versions are still viable. So as long as your DM agrees that those older spells are awesome, they are still viable. If the DM disallows the 2014 versions, they likely agree with the designers that there was something wrong with the original design, and the designers gave DMs an out.

Will AL league allow you to choose which type to use?

 

[Horwath]

Will AL league allow you to choose which type to use?

probably not.
maybe at first, but they need to promote the new books.

 

[Clint_L]

Will AL league allow you to choose which type to use?

Very doubtful. I suspect they will settle on the version that is most current. AL is all about consistency.

 

[Parmandur]

Will AL league allow you to choose which type to use?

AL is just one random campaign, it isn't official rules.