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.

 

[Cadence]

I imagine a big part of this is that, for most players, this is entirely out of the blue. Guardinals were never the best-known, Egyptomania is long gone - the recentish movies didn't help, the living systems that use it are off-limits, and the other usages are pretty obscure knowledge for most people, PLUS the whole furry dichotomy thing.

They make all the sense in the world to me, but I get why most people would need more context to care. Maybe if they were introduced in a big adventure involving guardinals, animal lords, and other old school ideas brought to new life, then people could see Oh that's why this is cool.

Given how popular Aarakocra were after I just bought all the DnD Beyond races, alphabetical order powers alone might help quite a bit

 

[Neonchameleon]

Fair enough. Who  are they trying to appeal to with the ardling?

The weird thing is I could see exactly who they were trying to appeal to with the Ardling 1.0. A mostly female target audience who does want to play sparkly angelic animal people*. It's a race pitched at ten year old girls (and people who remember being ten year old girls) - which is fine, and there's plenty pitched at ten year old boys in D&D but I doubt there are any 10 year old girls on this board and only a few who remember being ten year old girls. And it's one case where the polling should be dumped because the target audience has so little overlap with poll respondents.

Shifters again have their target audience. Shifters aren't animal people. They're werewolves and other lycanthropes cut down to fit within the design space allowed by 3.5 LA+0 humanoid races (and should absolutely be tuned up for One D&D with the full transformation coming at level 5)

Ardling 2.0? This new take on race appears to me as if someone went to a Furry convention and tried to make a generic race to represent Fursonas starting with the common feature that the furries at the convention are almost all humans wearing masks on their head so the race is humanoid body, animal mask.

* For anyone who's watched Wednesday Ardling 1.0 would be Enid Sinclair's first choice of PC race.

 

[Faolyn]

The weird thing is I could see exactly who they were trying to appeal to with the Ardling 1.0. A mostly female target audience who does want to play sparkly angelic animal people*. It's a race pitched at ten year old girls (and people who remember being ten year old girls) - which is fine, and there's plenty pitched at ten year old boys in D&D but I doubt there are any 10 year old girls on this board and only a few who remember being ten year old girls. And it's one case where the polling should be dumped because the target audience has so little overlap with poll respondents.

You know, I have absolutely no idea if I would have gone for an aardling at the age of 10. (I will forevermore spell it with two As.). My first character was at the age of 14, and I played a half-elf because I really wanted to play an elf but didn't want to go fully non-human for my first try.

* For anyone who's watched Wednesday Ardling 1.0 would be Enid Sinclair's first choice of PC race.

Hah! Probably, yeah.

 

[Mecheon]

My own limited survey says the triceratops headed one hits a lot of the approx. 13 yo boys range. (It may well hit other ages and non-boys too, but they weren't in the room when I asked).

We really do need Saurials back

... Also T-rex and dromaeosaur ones. And the flying ones to not be plucked and have their pycnofibers

 

[Henadic Theologian]

We really do need Saurials back

... Also T-rex and dromaeosaur ones. And the flying ones to not be plucked and have their pycnofibers

I think Saurials will be saved for the next FR Setting book, because they are one of the few races to have their start in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[JEB]

I think Saurials will be saved for the next FR Setting book, because they are one of the few races to have their start in the Forgotten Realms.

Dragonbait has a statblock in Tomb of Annihilation, so they certainly have some idea of how they should work in 5E (and One D&D shouldn't be a radical leap).

 

[Parmandur]

Have you checked out reddit? Because the posters on the D&D subreddits are all about balance.

The D&D Reddits are small compared to the D&D Beyond subscriber base.

 

[Parmandur]

we were "hobbling together" 1E, 2E, 3/3.5 "willly-nilly"

I agree, balance is certainly less of a factor for us.

Honestly, willy-nilly hobbling is a big part of the fun of tabletop gaming for me. If I want slick and polished, I'll play a computer game.

 

[Yaarel]

Only if they know nothing about what furries like.

What do furries like?

 

[Incenjucar]

What do furries like?

Fursonas' animal components are almost always continuous across the entire character unless limited to only a few features like ears and eyes. A full animal head on a full human body is usually only going to come up if it's a direct reference to mythology. The stark division between animal and human is closer to a mermaid than to a sahuagin, and few would call mermaids furries/scalies.