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.

 

[CapnZapp]

And you are partially right but not completely. I hope Int gets some functionality back. I still don't see how str is more useful than it was im AD&D 2e for example, except for a fighter. Cha never mattered. Int was also not important except for spellcasters and I wis was useless too.
So at least 5e is traditional there if you look at it that way.

Dex was the uber stat: two weapon fighting, added even to heavy armor armor class. Ranged attack modifiers (2 attacks per round with bow). Bonus on initiative.

So I really don't see how 5e made everything worse.

I never said 5e made it worse.

However, d20 made sure melee builds were compensated for the greater risk of, you know, putting your head in the lion's mouth as it were.

In 5E, a party can pull off a high-mobility all-ranged approach that aims to deny melee bruiser monsters their attacks altogether.

But fantasy rpgs like D&D work best when melee is the king of damage; where players are encouraged to keep battle maps small.



(Of course in d20 any martial build, melee and ranged alike, was hopelessly outclassed by a spellcaster, but I digress. And since one of the most valuable assets of any character is their hp pool; any ranged fighter that doesn't offer up his or her hit points to the monsters do their group a great disservice - which also saves 5E from becoming a complete range-fest... but again, I'm digressing)

 

[CapnZapp]

Maybe. Actually I would like to have the power attack option for ste attacks back as a general rules variant.

Also, i'd add a point blank of 30ft for ranged attacks and beyond that: no dex bonus to damage.

I wish I could find the thread I discussed earlier. You would have a ready list of something like eleven tweaks you could choose between.

 

[Yaarel]

I feel strongly, the Athletics skill handles all mobility checks, and Acrobatics no longer exists.

Strength handles ALL mobility checks, including jump-fall and climb-balance.

Possibly, there are certain ways for Dexterity to handle ALL mobility checks instead − a kind of finesse sotospeak − for certain classes like Monk and Rogue. Maybe a feat as well, where precision enhances actual Strength.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I wish I could find the thread I discussed earlier. You would have a ready list of something like eleven tweaks you could choose between.

Nah. I am fine. I think it is balanced well enough (at least under 30 ft) . But thanks.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sorry that's a conspiracy theory.

WotC has nothing to gain by actively preventing you from using encumbrance.

They do have something to gain by deflecting people that would otherwise accuse their game for being silent on encumbrance.

There is a difference between "preventing" and designing a useless subsystem that nullifies its own reason for existing while maintaining only the functionality that encourages someone to ignore it. Even if the gm replaces the default encumbrance with something new there are still player side options like powerful build to defeat the purpose of any replacement right out of the gate. The resulting design is one where a player doesn't need to get a bag of holding from their gm in order to ignore it now.

When all of that is said and done encumbrance is not a thing that exists in isolation, any replacement carrying meaningful choices would require significant reworks elsewhere to add in elements stripped away.

That difference is "Surrre you can use encumbrance, it just won't do anything and is missing hooks that could be used when making it matter.

 

[CapnZapp]

post

Maybe you're reading too much into this.

Follow the money. WotC has zero incentive to frak around with you.

Occams razor says it's pure happenstance the encumbrance system ended up that way. Or ineptitude. Never underestimate ineptitude.

But WotC using scorched earth tactics on something most gamers don't care about and would never use either way?

Or WotC pulling of one of the most brilliant subsystem design (given the alleged goals)... on encumbrance?

Nah.

 

[Kurotowa]

While I do agree with you in general (I don’t do strict encumbrance either), if I had a player trying to wear heavy armor wjtb an 8str I would give it at least some lip service, and do a quick check of the general weapons and equipment they have.

I mean, yes and no. Yes you should put a check on that, but no you don't need to invoke encumbrance rules for it. Most Heavy armor has its own Str requirement to wear it or lose 10ft of movement speed. Just like how as of UA7, you need a Str 13 to use Heavy weapons or suffer disadvantage.

Not that it's a bad thing to do a weight check if it feels like someone's abusing their carry limits without having a Bag of Holding type item to cheat with.

 

[tetrasodium]

Maybe you're reading too much into this.

Follow the money. WotC has zero incentive to frak around with you.

Occams razor says it's pure happenstance the encumbrance system ended up that way. Or ineptitude. Never underestimate ineptitude.

But WotC using scorched earth tactics on something most gamers don't care about and would never use either way?

Or WotC pulling of one of the most brilliant subsystem design (given the alleged goals)... on encumbrance?

Nah.

That's not at all what I said. You are the one adding things. Wotc has made no secret that simplified and streamlined were huge priorities for 2014's 5e & made no indication of that changing in 2024. Those are great things to aim for, but streamlined simplicity comes at a price elsewhere, tactical elements & subsystems that impose interesting subjective choices like encumbrance are examples of that price. Wotc didn't consider them worth preserving in a meaningful fashion and just threw in something that badly checks a box while not meeting the needs of such a subsystem.

 

[Chaosmancer]

While I do agree with you in general (I don’t do strict encumbrance either), if I had a player trying to wear heavy armor wjtb an 8str I would give it at least some lip service, and do a quick check of the general weapons and equipment they have.

That said I do agree 5th is the worst edition for dumb stats in a while.

1) strength - used to affect all damage (even ranged and finesse). Now does not.
2) int - used to effect your number of skills. Now does not.

So these stats are a lot more dump-able than they used to be.

If a player at my tables has an 8 strength, they never even try to wear heavy armor. Honestly, we know there is a strength minimum for armor, most of us forget what it is, so we just say you can't wear it if you don't meet the minimum. The only strength rule we truly just ignore is encumbrance. It is nothing but a penalty for players and is too much of an annoyance.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If a player at my tables has an 8 strength, they never even try to wear heavy armor. Honestly, we know there is a strength minimum for armor, most of us forget what it is, so we just say you can't wear it if you don't meet the minimum. The only strength rule we truly just ignore is encumbrance. It is nothing but a penalty for players and is too much of an annoyance.

I do agree that it is an annoyance. But it is a house rule to ignore it.

Also one classic problem:
"The game is unbalanced because of X".
-"Did you read that rule? It makes X more balanced.
-"Yeah, but it is annoying. So we ignore it."