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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"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."


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

 

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It would be nice to know if the Ardling is meant to be a core race or for a future product. If it's for a future product I'd rate it differently. I'm not a fan of it being a core race. Not a fan of giving dragonborn wings.
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
There's nothing wrong with that, though. People who like a think talk about how the thing is good, and why.

Eberron's religion design is a lot more compatible with D&D, ironically, than 1E/2E's design. That's the key issue with Eberron. Eberron is a setting custom-designed to fit around D&D, specifically 3.XE. 1E and 2E had deeply confused and conflicting ideas about every single to do with deities/divinities. Nothing was consistent, nothing made sense, it was all clearly layers of whimsy from specific designers, many of whom, frankly, hadn't thought anything through, and were just spouting off half-formed thoughts as canon.

This becomes ultra-clear in 2E, with the various FR-centric god list books and Planescape, both of which work incredibly hard to try and square the circle of "How do gods work, actually?". Neither really succeeds, and a huge, huge problem is the repeated insistences from lazily-written power-trip-oriented* material for 1E where the gods definitely physically exist and definitely care about you, personally, mostly in a negative way. They also struggle with the fact that a lot of the gods from 1E have alignments which are wildly at odds with their actions/ethos. Even into 2E though you had designers randomly coming up with absolutely idiotic bollocks like the Wall of the Faithless (something Ed Greenwood has expressed his distaste for repeatedly, I note), which compounded these issues rather than helping with them.

And the amateur-hour approach is a huge problem, because it creates a situation that is both:

A) Incoherent, confusing, and obviously conflicted.

That doesn't work well when "gods are real and you can go bother them" is also true. If gods were just bad-tempered superheroes like in Greek Myth, it might work, but the confused and conflicting designer approaches mean most of them are trying to both be that, and to be some kind of Abrahamic god, and simultaneously trying to be some kind of "spirit of an idea", and it just doesn't work.

and

B) Not compelling or engaging.

Eberron chucked that all away and created a carefully-crafted set of religious/faiths that make sense, don't get in the way of adventuring, and allow for compelling intrigue, religious conflict and so on.

As others have noted, the faiths themselves aren't that amazing (they're not bad, but not amazing), but they're much better designed for D&D than the incoherent and contradictory mess that 1E/2E had. I say this as someone who owns pretty much every 1E/2E book that has anything to do with the gods, note, and who really has themselves tried to square the circle. The best you can do is ignore a lot of it and go with "Gods are just Tulpas".

* = Power-trip because either the DMs brought them in to "teach the PCs a lesson" with a being with completely OP stats, or the PCs killed them (like bedecked in Monty Haul'd magic items and level 30 or whatever) to prove how muy macho they were.
I've never tried to tear down Eberron though, just explained why its not my favorite campaign setting.
 

Remathilis

Legend
And yet warforged were one of the very few heritages not represented in MMoM. Why was that?
Because they want to sell an updated Eberron book and they will need something to get people to buy it.

The warforged is due for an upgrade in the vein of autognome and glitching. Additionally, they are going to have to redo dragonmarks to work with the 24 PHB species. And kalshatar will be along for the ride. I wager it will all be added to the appendix of a new Eberron adventure coming out after 1D is out. Get Baker to write the AP and it will sell like hotcakes.
 

Remathilis

Legend
The only thing about the Eberron gods I don't like is how much everybody crows about it, like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and thank (maybe)God WotC was brave enough to publish such a thing. Why can't something just be interesting and different without also having to be a statement?
What I like about it is it's the opposite of Dragonlance's pantheon. Krynn's gods are the True Gods and every other religion is false and incapable of divine magic. So demon cults, nature/the Green, ancestor worship, mystical energy/The Force, spirits, Old Ones, none of those things grant power in Krynn because they aren't the True Gods. In Eberron, they can and none of them are exactly right.

In a way, the Sovereign Host takes a hoot on the concept; they believe all divine power is a manifestation of the Host or their foes, the Dark Six. So whenever they encounter a religion different from theirs, they immediately rationalize it to one of their Gods: the Silver Flame is a part of Dol Arrah, Vulkoor the Scorpion God is the Mockery, etc. Of course, the other religions take offense to being told they are just worshipping another God, just in the wrong way, and the Gods themselves have never come down to set the record straight.

As a Planescape fan, I also believe that belief is power, and that's why some factions can get divine power from their beliefs. Athar famously gets power from the Great Unknown, Believers get it from the Source. Some Doomguard straight up worship Entropy, and many Dustmen worship Death itself. I also love how Ezra, goddess of the Mists in Ravenloft isn't necessarily real (and may in fact be a manifesting of the Mists or the Dark Powers) but neither stops clerics and anchorites from casting spells in Ravenloft (beyond Ravenloft, well, that's where things get dicy, even in 2e).

So to me, there is nothing wrong with either approach, though I like the options afforded by ambiguity.
 


Bill Zebub

“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
WoW, for example, has both a devil-person race - Draenei, who are good guys but have horns and hooves and are the same essential race as the Eredar, the main humanoid demons of WoW

That's the first time I've ever heard Draenei associated with devils, as opposed to just aliens.

And how are they "good guys"? $%&@ing Alliance pond scum.
 

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