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.

 

[FrogReaver]

For all the hype of being new player friendly they force a new player to build a cleric to meet the requirements of medium armor, only to give him the option of heavy armor at level 2 that due to not knowing about the choice ahead of time may mean he doesn't have the stat spread to actually benefit from heavy armor. And if he does know about it, they put him in a position of having to be way worse off at level 1 by dumping dex and using medium armor or having a crap stat spread when swapping over to heavy armor at level 2.

IMO, Heavy armor clerics are now an annoying trap! Okay, they aren't that bad, but seriously, why make them feel so jank to actually build/play starting from level 1?

Even if the argument that it's to prevent multiclass abuse, medium armor and shield prof is just as good as heavy armor due to prioritizing 14 dex which tends to be better than prioritizing 15 str. 1 less AC, 2 more initiative and dex save. (cheaper armors too).

 

[Incenjucar]

If your stats don't work with heavy armor then don't choose the heavy armor option, just like you don't grab a feat you can't use.

 

[FrogReaver]

If your stats don't work with heavy armor then don't choose the heavy armor option, just like you don't grab a feat you can't use.

Doesn't sound very new player friendly.

 

[Incenjucar]

Doesn't sound very new player friendly.

Neither is armor in general.

 

[Hussar]

I only did one Adventurer's league years ago (maybe pre-2018) and didn't know that. Do you have a favorite reference as to needing the 2018 or newer one? Or do the errata not go back all the way to the 2014 one?

What happens now if a player shows up with a 2014 PHB?


I don't think it's necessarily a standard, but it feels like it could be insightful as to how they're viewing the new version/printing/reorganization/whatnot.

It was posted earlier in this thread that if newer material contradicts older material, the newer material takes precedence. So, if you showed up with a 2014 PHB and tried to use something that had been errata'd, the newer printed PHB would take precedence.

Granted, it's not like the game has changed so incredibly radically that having a 2014 PHB would cause problems in most cases. I don't really track errata that closely, so, I'm the wrong person to ask.

My point though is that if we're insisting that the definition of "backwards compatible" is that I can use a 2014 PHB as is, in orgnanized play, then, well, that's already out the window and has been for years. The thing is, now they are flat out telling you what the changes are and that from 2024 forward, you can expect the OneD&D version to be the assumed PHB on the table.

It's not really all that unreasonable of an assumption, is it? This is not looking like a terribly enormous change. Mostly cleaning up verbiage and another kick at the cat to fix some stuff that's been considered not terribly well done for a long time. Plus, apparently, our 2024 PHB is going to have some new stuff in it too - new races at the very least. So, it's not like we're not getting some value out of new books.

 

[FrogReaver]

Neither is armor in general.

This makes 0 sense to me.

 

[Hussar]

For all the hype of being new player friendly they force a new player to build a cleric to meet the requirements of medium armor, only to give him the option of heavy armor at level 2 that due to not knowing about the choice ahead of time may mean he doesn't have the stat spread to actually benefit from heavy armor. And if he does know about it, they put him in a position of having to be way worse off at level 1 by dumping dex and using medium armor or having a crap stat spread when swapping over to heavy armor at level 2.

IMO, Heavy armor clerics are now an annoying trap! Okay, they aren't that bad, but seriously, why make them feel so jank to actually build/play starting from level 1?

Even if the argument that it's to prevent multiclass abuse, medium armor and shield prof is just as good as heavy armor due to prioritizing 14 dex which tends to be better than prioritizing 15 str. 1 less AC, 2 more initiative and dex save. (cheaper armors too).

Kinda? Since none of the cleric weapons are finesse (AFAIR) then having a low dex, high str is actually a pretty big benefit for clerics. And, come on, we're now presuming that someone is going to read the cleric entry and NOT look at anything beyond first level? I know we want to make it as easy as possible, but...

 

[Incenjucar]

This makes 0 sense to me.

The actual issue is armor stat requirements and interactions. There are multiple other ways to be able to pick up armor proficiency after level one, each faces similar issues.

 

[Parmandur]

They're not a wash at all IMO. GWM loses -5/+10 in favor of +PB damage once per turn. SS loses -5/+10 and gets no damage raiser. XBE loses bonus action attack. Ranger loses their situational extra attack features. No spiritual weapon + spirit guardians. No off-turn sneak attacks. No Steady Aim. It may be that new warrior features completely offset these nerfs, but that doesn't seem very likely based on what they've done with the rogue class.

If we actually playtested these rules and optimized characters with what we have today, DPR would be considerably lower than the 5e meta (kinda hate that term, but there you go). I hope that's a conscious design intention, but obviously it's a long way to 2024.

Per WotC own data, very very few players do any sort of optimization to any degree whatsoever. WotC is trying to make the game easy to use not appeal to a meta. 2014 rules did a pretty good job flattening the playing field, bit they seem to be plugging more holes for 2024z to make the gap between optimized and unoptimized as small as possible.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don’t understand why changes to AL rules signify anything. They get changed practically every season with new rules and new restrictions. When they implemented PHB+1 was that a new “edition” of D&D?