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.

 

[Pauln6]

Are you trying to imply that being skilled in a job you are highly trained for makes you more naturally intelligent than people with less job training? I mean, your entire first sentence is "look at all this range of job skills" followed with talking about "one size fits all". Seemingly with no indication of understanding that most people are of average natural intelligence, just because you have a fancy job doesn't make you intelligent, see all the lawyers who end up in the news for things like misfiling paperwork or doing other dumb things like admitting to crimes on the phone.



The very fact that you have to TRY to make them matter should be a red flag that something is imbalanced. After all, I bet you have never once had to try and make Constitution matter to the game.

And I use Intelligence regularly for Investigation or Arcana checks. But I am also fully aware that most classes get no real benefit from a higher intelligence, because while I can try and make it matter, other attributes matter without me trying and those being low is a bit more of a challenge.

Education gives no hard indication of how clever a player can be. That much is true.

You can play 4e if you want every stat to be equally relevant. You can't achieve that without stripping out quite a lot of flavour from the game. I prefer the classes and the way they synergise to be more variable.

A good DM always works to ensure that players choices remain relevant.

Life is not perfectly in balance nor is any version of DnD.

 

[Horwath]

This is wrong. You could play a monk with other arrays. I have played and DMed monks that successfully started with the default array.

there is a difference between playable and "could play",
I could now play a game with Manchester city team, that does not mean it would be a good experience for any of the parties involved.

I played a monk that had 14 int, 14 wis and 12 cha at the expense of only having 12 Con, because I wanted to have non-stereotype monk.
I quickly "re-imagined" the character with 16 Con and 16 Wis at expense of everything else. Still roleplayed it as having 14 int and 12 cha.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

there is a difference between playable and "could play"

You can say: "it is the optimal stat array for monks in your games, as 3 dump stats are not relevant in the games you play."

Stating it as an absolute truth is still wrong.

No, our monks were no only a bit playable, but perfectly fine.

No need for sacrificing everything just for 2 more constitution points. Or 1 more AC and +1 DC. If that is what makes you happy go for it. But it is still no absolute truth.

I played a monk that had 14 int, 14 wis and 12 cha at the expense of only having 12 Con, because I wanted to have non-stereotype monk.
I quickly "re-imagined" the character with 16 Con and 16 Wis at expense of everything else. Still roleplayed it as having 14 int and 12 cha.

If at your table it is fine to roleplay independant from stats, ok. Why not. But you could have found a middle ground.

 

[Horwath]

You can say: "it is the optimal stat array for monks in your games, as 3 dump stats are not relevant in the games you play."

they are less relevant for monk as monk really needs "big 3" to be as high as possible.

Stating it as an absolute truth is still wrong.

No, our monks were no only a bit playable, but perfectly fine.

if you manage combat for that array, then it's perfectly fine

No need for sacrificing everything just for 2 more constitution points. Or 1 more AC and +1 DC. If that is what makes you happy go for it. But it is still no absolute truth.

all that "little" difference adds up.


I used the monk as example as it's really MAD as a class and suffers most when spreading out the points.

As a fighter you can put 15+2 into STR or DEX, 13+1 into CON and then spend 14,12,10,8 or 14,10,10,10 between DEX(or STR), INT, WIS or CHA in any way you want without seriously reducing your primary role in party. Or reducing it at all. Some subclasses might suffer more than others if not giving 14 in the key ability for that subclass.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

they are less relevant for monk as monk really needs "big 3" to be as high as possible.

if you manage combat for that array, then it's perfectly fine

all that "little" difference adds up.

They also add up for tertiary stats. I showed in the dump stat thread that having - 1 instead of +1 on a save each turn means between +33% and +100% longer disabled time.
Of course this is true in reverse for increasing save DCs

I used the monk as example as it's really MAD as a class and suffers most when spreading out the points.

As a fighter you can put 15+2 into STR or DEX, 13+1 into CON and then spend 14,12,10,8 or 14,10,10,10 between DEX(or STR), INT, WIS or CHA in any way you want without seriously reducing your primary role in party. Or reducing it at all. Some subclasses might suffer more than others if not giving 14 in the key ability for that subclass.

I never said you can't. I want that as an option. But I just prefer standard areay as default. I think you can play any class perfectly fine with it. Especially when you get a free feat at level 1 on top in 2024.

 

[tetrasodium]

there is a difference between playable and "could play",
I could now play a game with Manchester city team, that does not mean it would be a good experience for any of the parties involved.

I played a monk that had 14 int, 14 wis and 12 cha at the expense of only having 12 Con, because I wanted to have non-stereotype monk.
I quickly "re-imagined" the character with 16 Con and 16 Wis at expense of everything else. Still roleplayed it as having 14 int and 12 cha.

The frustration you ran into that pressured the array change is a couple design choices that 5e made with niche protection and magic items, not a result of the first array. By making magic items a totally unsupported problem "optional" thing rather than an expectation baked into the math to some degree the GM was denied the ability to give just enough extra in just the right place to their players to flesh out any CharOp power spread in a way that reinforced everyone's chosen niche. By watering down well defined PC niches/niche protection you sat with a group of PCs who didn't really see any need to work with the GM in order to diversify themselves into coordinated specialized niche roles that sling shot each other with reciprocity.

The solution is to fix those elements not make the fix more difficult by further entrenching the elite array's presentation as the only acceptable minimum starting point.

 

[Mistwell]

yeah, good luck balancing that.

This is why I've said many times that balance is overrated. People fret about 5% in a game that varies by 25%. It evens out roughly but the small numbers just are not that meaningful in the grand scheme of things. You overkill the foe or have to take an extra round. You can go another encounter or have to take a rest.

I really hope that they will put point buy as default in 2024 with array just as an easy suggestion.

Rolling can be variant with disclaimer: Do it at your own peril!

Because 50 years of people successfully playing the game with rolling has shown worrying about a 5% difference here and there is more important?

 

[Yaarel]

This is why I've said many times that balance is overrated. People fret about 5% in a game that varies by 25%.

A stitch in time saves nine.

It is better to fix minor balance problems now, rather than major balance problems later.

If the number of unbalanced variables increase in the game, the chances of combos breaking the game unexpectedly increase.

 

[James Gasik]

What I've found is that the game does, in fact, function perfectly fine with rolled ability scores. However, the issue isn't whether or not rolled stats will make characters too powerful (it won't), but how it impacts balance between characters. If you have two Fighters in a party, and one has 15 Strength and the other has 19, the 15 Strength Fighter will struggle compared to the 19 Strength one.

The solution my group used for our current campaign was have everyone roll an array of 6 stats. These were the 6 arrays you could choose to use for your character (though in effect, there were only two that ended up being used- one that had a couple of high numbers and the rest lower, and one that had a more balanced set of numbers, which was used by our Monk).

Most encounters are quite challenging for us, even if a couple characters got to start with a score higher than 16 in their primary attribute.

Remember that things like AC and accuracy of attacks aren't really taken into account for CR and encounter design- it's all about damage vs. hit points. Having an 18 Strength instead of a 16 isn't going to significantly affect how much faster a given combat encounter ends, nor is being 5% better at making Athletics checks going to significantly impact a given campaign.

 

[Pauln6]

I always wondered if removing Dexterity bonuses from weapon damage would be enough to rebalance the stats. Most of rogues' damage comes from sneak attack anyway. You can add a flat bonus to crossbows based on size. It would make a fighter using light melee weapons less viable if they dump strength completely so you might need a patch for that.

I suspect that many people arguing that Dex is the uber-stat would prefer to see the other stats boosted rather than Dex nerfed.