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.

 

[mellored]

It's pretty clear WotC believes (with reason, I'm sure) no one plays past 11th so I doubt design after that point is much of a focus.

Except all the new epic feats they just added...

 

[Reynard]

Except all the new epic feats they just added...

All 3 of them?

 

[mellored]

All 3 of them?

13 in the last playtest
So 16 total.

 

[Marandahir]

So far I don't have an issue with subclass going to 3rd level. And I like the 2nd level holy order. But I don't like the 9th level version of it. Seems lazy, to add a 9th level feature that isn't really going to be used or is appropriate. E.g., you're going with scholar at level 2. So at level 9 you finally get to wear heavy armor and use marital weapons if you choose? Seems off theme. I'd much rather see an expansion to the choice you made at level 2 instead.

View attachment 268411

I like the 9th level feature. Let's say I want my Aasimar Cleric PC, lets call him The Stranger, to go on an adventure with a Halfling companion. I don't quite know what Holy Order or Divine Domain he's going to be, he doesn't even know who he is, though he might be kinda like an elf and kinda into wands.

By the end of our tutorial adventure by the dry, wasted seas of the East where I've found the stars that the other four Aasimar messengers of the Gods were hanging about, I've decided I'm going to focus on the study of runes and use holy fire magic. You might think I'm a Wizard, but my powers are divine and related to me chanting, even if a wand helps with them. So I decide my Holy Order is going to be Scholar.

3,000 years of D&D game play (and multiple different campaigns) later, my now-8th-level Cleric has just rescued my 13 dwarf Fighter PC allies and our halfling Expert companion from three MONSTROUS TROLLS. And they were all arguing amongst themselves about how they were going to cook them -- whether it be turned on a spit or whether they should sit on the party members one by one and squash them into jelly. They spent so much time arguing the witherto's and whyfor's that the sun's first light cracked open through a boulder my Cleric broke in half with my recently acquired spell Stone Shape and Poof! And the sunlight turned them all into stone!

Now, this would be a great stopping point for the adventure that session, but the DM wants to give us one more reward, and between the XP for beating the Trolls and the XP for finding the Troll's treasure, I'll definitely reach 9th level. So we raid the Troll horde, and I find an ancient elf-blade forged in the hidden elf city of stone now sunken beneath the sea. I don't know all that, but I do know it's a pretty sweet longsword, only I'm not set up for using melee weapons, being a scholar cleric. But now my 9th level Holy Order feature kicks in, and I choose to also be a Protector. And after the Half-elven sage in the last homely house between the mountains and the sea appraises my sword as Glamdring, sword of the King, my Cleric Gandalf prompty beings cracking in goblin skulls with it and fighting off Orcs and Trolls through the rest of the campaign that lasts for another 67 years and ends with me going over the sea back into the utter west with my halfling and elf buddies. And eventually one dwarf PC comes and hangs with us, too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Having different versions of Dragonborn and Goliaths is something. It's going to confuse some ("Which is the 'right' one?"). I can see many DMs banning one version in favor of the other (probably the older version gets banned because "the new one supersedes it"). It's just not a solid choice—if you want the species in the PHB, just reprint the old ones.

That said, the new "Rune Knight, the Species" Goliath is certainly more flavorful than the old "Vin Diesel, the Species". I'm still not sold on it, though.

Ardlings... Can die in a fire. As a posted elsewhere, either put the existing celestial species (the Aasimar) in the PHB or make the new species a non-celestial anthropomorphic animal species and do something with it that's doesn't make it step on the toes of existing anthropomorphic animal species (like the tabaxi, kenku, loxodon, etc.). Personally, I'd just take the hengeyokai (from 1e-4e), call it something that's not culturally coded, and be done with it. It scratches the anthropomorphic animal itch, has a solid theme that doesn't step on the toes of existing species, and is miles more interesting than this Ardling compost.

The Cleric is good. I have few issues with the Cleric. My biggest issues is that the 7th-level Blessed Strike feature steps on the toes of the Paladin. Between that and the Smite spells being on the Divine spell list, the Paladin is being eroded. Thirdly, while I love the Holy Order feature, I do not like Clerics getting a second one. It diminishes the specialization aspect and, with only three available, it's going to cause different Cleric characters to overlap and feel samey. It this stays (and I hope it doesn't), I hope that they make a total of at least five different Holy Orders so that there's more variability in Cleric characters.

Maybe it doesn't step on the toes of the paladin. It could be quite different in the new edition. Perhaps more martially focused.

 

[Marandahir]

Maybe it doesn't step on the toes of the paladin. It could be quite different in the new edition. Perhaps more martially focused.

Is a Priest Class Group Paladin going to be more martially focused when it's not even in the Warrior class group anymore?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I like the 9th level feature. Let's say I want my Aasimar Cleric PC, lets call him The Stranger, to go on an adventure with a Halfling companion. I don't quite know what Holy Order or Divine Domain he's going to be, he doesn't even know who he is, though he might be kinda like an elf and kinda into wands.

By the end of our tutorial adventure by the dry, wasted seas of the East where I've found the stars that the other four Aasimar messengers of the Gods were hanging about, I've decided I'm going to focus on the study of runes and use holy fire magic. You might think I'm a Wizard, but my powers are divine and related to me chanting, even if a wand helps with them. So I decide my Holy Order is going to be Scholar.

3,000 years of D&D game play (and multiple different campaigns) later, my now-8th-level Cleric has just rescued my 13 dwarf Fighter PC allies and our halfling Expert companion from three MONSTROUS TROLLS. And they were all arguing amongst themselves about how they were going to cook them -- whether it be turned on a spit or whether they should sit on the party members one by one and squash them into jelly. They spent so much time arguing the witherto's and whyfor's that the sun's first light cracked open through a boulder my Cleric broke in half with my recently acquired spell Stone Shape and Poof! And the sunlight turned them all into stone!

Now, this would be a great stopping point for the adventure that session, but the DM wants to give us one more reward, and between the XP for beating the Trolls and the XP for finding the Troll's treasure, I'll definitely reach 9th level. So we raid the Troll horde, and I find an ancient elf-blade forged in the hidden elf city of stone now sunken beneath the sea. I don't know all that, but I do know it's a pretty sweet longsword, only I'm not set up for using melee weapons, being a scholar cleric. But now my 9th level Holy Order feature kicks in, and I choose to also be a Protector. And after the Half-elven sage in the last homely house between the mountains and the sea appraises my sword as Glamdring, sword of the King, my Cleric Gandalf prompty beings cracking in goblin skulls with it and fighting off Orcs and Trolls through the rest of the campaign that lasts for another 67 years and ends with me going over the sea back into the utter west with my halfling and elf buddies. And eventually one dwarf PC comes and hangs with us, too.

Well done. I'd play in that campaign.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is a Priest Class Group Paladin going to be more martially focused when it's not even in the Warrior class group anymore?

If the grouping is mostly about what spell list they cast from (if any), it's entirely possible.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I really wish they had gone with Firbolg instead of Goliath as a new PHB race.

Never going to happen. As of mid 2021 D&D Beyond statistics Goliaths and Genasi were the two races to kick the gnomes out of the ten most popular D&D races (halflings were eighth, behind the rest of the PHB but ahead of both Goliaths and Genasi). This Goliath version has taken the elemental abilities and hence at least some of the appeal of the Genasi

 

[cbwjm]

Only had a quick read so far, but first impressions, I like the Cleric’s holy order, I just wish that holy order and domain were switched around with the subclass being the holy order and the domain being a smaller part of the cleric.

Ardlings are better, they were too much like just another aasimar, better now though I still won't be having them in my games. It's more of a me thing rather than the mechanics being bad though.

Goliaths are cool, I've wanted them based on different giants for a while but never got around to homebrewing it. These changes I will be using, giants are one of three main races in my current setting so this fits in real well with it.