D&D (2024) One D&D Cleric & Revised Species Playtest Includes Goliath

"In this new Unearthed Arcana for the One D&D rules system, we explore material designed for the next version of the Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents the rules on the Cleric class, it's Life Domain subclass, as well as revised Species rules for the Ardling, the Dragonborn, and the Goliath. You will also find a current glossary of new or revised meanings for game terms."

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WotC's Jeremey Crawford discusses the playtest document in the video below.

 

[Faolyn]

Meanwhile in the Dawn War pantheon the gods are a fact. They exist. Atheism is basically non-viable. The pantheon was made up about half of pre-existing deities (although The Raven Queen, Erathis, Zehir, Melora, Ioun, and Torog were all new). It then starts with them as powerful people who are forced to work together by outside threats - and then gives most of them relationships with each other. Whereas Eberron is based on the Polytheistic pantheons we've seen in the real world the Dawn War takes pretty huge and obvious inspiration from the Greek Gods inside the stories. They start from fundamentally incompatible points but both work because they commit.

My problem with the Dawn War pantheon is that the gods are all things that PCs might worship, not ones that should logically exist. I'm forever annoyed they didn't include gods of agriculture or hearth and home or things like that. They could have used Yondalla.

The Forgotten Realms gods are very badly done, but at least they remembered that not every one of them has to be PC-friendly. (Although I was in a game once that included a paladin of Chauntea.)

 

[Minigiant]

My problem with the Dawn War pantheon is that the gods are all things that PCs might worship, not ones that should logically exist. I'm forever annoyed they didn't include gods of agriculture or hearth and home or things like that. They could have used Yondalla.

The Forgotten Realms gods are very badly done, but at least they remembered that not every one of them has to be PC-friendly. (Although I was in a game once that included a paladin of Chauntea.)

The POL and Dwan War Pantheon is based around the Dawn War. The god of fire was killed. Same with the goddess of healing, god of goodness, and gods of mercy, hunting, and guardians.

Pelor is the god of agriculture in Dawn War.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Ardlings are not Aasimar and despite a whole lot of trying aasimar are not going to happen. They've been around a long time but never even come close to gnomes in popularity.

Meanwhile animal races like the tabaxi, owlin, harengon, etc. have a niche and this is trying to combine them

Your comparing a free srd/phb race with a race you had to pay for, that's like tying the Aasimar's feet behind it and blind folding it and then bragging the Aasimar lost a race with Gnomes. You can't compare free to play to pay to play races like that and get honest results.

Aasimar are the most popular race that you have to actually have to pay for (so that excludes PHB races like Gnomes, but also none PHB free races like Genasi, Goliaths, and Aacrokra).

It's literally one of the only for pay races that even remotely competes with free races at all.

Context of comparesions matter.

And Ardlings in the first one WERE literally animal faced Aasimar which is why they made the changes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Your comparing a free srd/phb race with a race you had to pay for, that's like tying the Aasimar's feet behind it and blind folding it and then bragging the Aasimar lost a race with Gnomes. You can't compare free to play to pay to play races like that and get honest results.

I'm comparing a race in the DMG to one outside core. Other arguably than the Eladrin subrace it's hard to find anything with the profile of Aasimar that's not one of the core races.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm comparing a race in the DMG to one outside core. Other arguably than the Eladrin subrace it's hard to find anything with the profile of Aasimar that's not one of the core races.

Gnomes are in the Core, they are right in the PHB.

If you mean comparing Ardlings to Aasimar, the DMG is NOT a Player resource, it's a DM resource, it's never been Player legal in AL for example, barring special dispensation, unlike later versions of Aasimar. And it still isn't free or part of the 5e SRD.

And they had to radically change the Ardling in this second playtest because folks didn't want it stepping on the Aasimar's toes.

Aasimar are very well loved and have been for years with a deep well of lore in settings like Forgotten Realms and Planescape, and to a lesser extent settings like Eberron and Wildemount.

When they did the surveys to figure out what races to include in VGtMs, Aasimar was at the top.

 

[Vaalingrade]

My problem with the Dawn War pantheon is that the gods are all things that PCs might worship, not ones that should logically exist. I'm forever annoyed they didn't include gods of agriculture or hearth and home or things like that. They could have used Yondalla.

The Forgotten Realms gods are very badly done, but at least they remembered that not every one of them has to be PC-friendly. (Although I was in a game once that included a paladin of Chauntea.)

They exist, they're just not in the PH because PH options are for player characters; is: things PCs would take.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The thing here is that the Dawn War Pantheon's approach to religion is almost diametrically opposed to that of Eberron. Eberron starts out by assuming that the gods never manifest and might not even exist, but there are a collection of them that are worshipped and that the faith provides the power. What sort of gods would be worshipped? (And you've got the classic Greek/Roman "these two gods are really the same", fitting the gods of other cultures to theirs). Eberron theology is basically polytheistic of the sort we saw in ancient societies in the real world where we're pretty sure that the gods do not in fact exist.

Meanwhile in the Dawn War pantheon the gods are a fact. They exist. Atheism is basically non-viable. The pantheon was made up about half of pre-existing deities (although The Raven Queen, Erathis, Zehir, Melora, Ioun, and Torog were all new). It then starts with them as powerful people who are forced to work together by outside threats - and then gives most of them relationships with each other. Whereas Eberron is based on the Polytheistic pantheons we've seen in the real world the Dawn War takes pretty huge and obvious inspiration from the Greek Gods inside the stories. They start from fundamentally incompatible points but both work because they commit.

Meanwhile the FR Gods either just sort of turn up or are functionaries put there by Ao to do their jobs and who get kicked out of heaven if they forget. (The Avatar Trilogy might be the worst divine worldbuilding I've seen anywhere).

The Dragonlance deities and setup isn't egregiously bad in the way I find the FR ones to be. And there's no Wall of the Faithless. The problem there is that Paladine is monumentally wrong on the nature of good and is supposedly the leader of the gods of Good. (No, the Kingpriest of Ishtar was not good, no the "balance between good and evil" is not something that needs to be maintained).

Hmm... I think a good fix for Dragonlance while keeping everything cannon is to declare Paladine to be Lawful Neutral - but who has decided to join the gods of Good because he knows that otherwise Takhsis would take over and leads them either because he's the strongest or because if he wasn't allowed to he'd take his ball and go home and Takhsis would win.

"Eberron theology is basically polytheistic of the sort we saw in ancient societies in the real world where we're pretty sure that the gods do not in fact exist."

I'm absolutely positive they do exist in fact in the real world (immaterial yes, but still very real).

I mean you do realize that across the world people still worship these ancient Gods right? Yeah maybe in different ways for various reasons, but the Gods still have their devotees, myself included.

We are still here despite the best efforts of certain parties.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

My problem with the Dawn War pantheon is that the gods are all things that PCs might worship, not ones that should logically exist. I'm forever annoyed they didn't include gods of agriculture or hearth and home or things like that. They could have used Yondalla.

The Forgotten Realms gods are very badly done, but at least they remembered that not every one of them has to be PC-friendly. (Although I was in a game once that included a paladin of Chauntea.)

Gods had exarch that fulfilled the more precise or niche concept, much like Nusemnee who was the exarch of forgiveness and redemption. The great gods, as presented, are more the gods of high concepts.

And, like mentioned, many gods were slain during the war and the portfolio are not that easily assimilated when compared to FR gods who gain and lose portfolios each week.

And since the gods are barred from acting directly in the setting, its pretty hard for any new deity to gain traction enough to gain enough power to take more domains. I think some Exarchs and the Raven Queen were the more recent examples.

As for agriculture, like in most polytheistic setting, it makes more sense to split the concept over to many gods:
Avandra during spring for a quick thawing of the earth, Pelor in summer for good crops, Sehanine during the harvest. Mellora would need some offering to keep her beasts and tempest away from the field for the season. A small donation to the priest of Tiamat to keep in check the merchant's greed when you buy your seeds or sell your production could be required, or to the themple of Zehir to avoid spoiled harvests etc

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Gods had exarch that fulfilled the more precise or niche concept, much like Nusemnee who was the exarch of forgiveness and redemption. The great gods, as presented, are more the gods of high concepts.

And, like mentioned, many gods were slain during the war and the portfolio are not that easily assimilated when compared to FR gods who gain and lose portfolios each week.

And since the gods are barred from acting directly in the setting, its pretty hard for any new deity to gain traction enough to gain enough power to take more domains. I think some Exarchs and the Raven Queen were the more recent examples.

As for agriculture, like in most polytheistic setting, it makes more sense to split the concept over to many gods:
Avandra during spring for a quick thawing of the earth, Pelor in summer for good crops, Sehanine during the harvest. Mellora would need some offering to keep her beasts and tempest away from the field for the season. A small donation to the priest of Tiamat to keep in check the merchant's greed when you buy your seeds or sell your production could be required, or to the themple of Zehir to avoid spoiled harvests etc

The problem was it wasn't clear what Exarch's were, are the Demigods, some kind of Angel like beings, Saints, lesser independent aspects of a God, etc...?

Cool idea, too poorly defined, and the FR application of the term, were they could grant divine magic themselves, but rarely did, just made it confusing.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The problem was it was clear what Exarch's were, are the Demigods, some kind of Angel like beings, Saints, lesser independent aspects of a God, etc...?

Yeah, the PoL was left pretty much undefined. It was part of its charm, but also created some weirdness.

I treated them like exalted saints, tasked to deal with the more practical or niche application of a major deity's portfolio. Demi-gods is probably too much, while angels or aspects remove a little too much agency. Lesser divine agents of some kind, I guess?