D&D (2024) One D&D Expert Classes Playtest Document Is Live

The One D&D Expert Class playest document is now available to download. You can access it by signing into your D&D Beyond account at the link below. It contains three classes -- bard, rogue, and ranger, along with three associated subclasses (College of Lore, Thief, and Hunter), plus a number of feats.

Unearthed Arcana Playtest

Unearthed Arcana Playtest Materials Get Unearthed Arcana playtest content, try it out in your game, and provide feedback! Check back regularly for ...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I hope wizards have to chose 1 school at level 1 to specialize and need to chose two schools to ban.

This is good in theory but the schools are not so tight in "effect". Better in 5e but in 3e you eventually basically had some variant version of a spells effects in many schools. No, you can't dimension door in Necromancy but you can "shadow walk", etc. Conjuration had a bunch of direct damage spells instead of just summons, walls, etc.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I can't access the material until the end of the day. Do we get the spells themselves? Most of the worst issues with Wizards are specific spells, and then the spells/long rest issue that all spellcasters have compared to classes with more always-on abilities. It's possible that wizards will get a stealth fix addressed in the spell descriptions and rest rules, and stronger 'if you find you don't get X encounters per day, try ______' advice.

The only spells we get shown are Barkskin and Guidance, both of which get changed - Barkskin becomes regenerating THP, Guidance is 1 per person per Long Rest (good changes imo).

We get the spell LIST, but they imply it's incomplete.

 

[rooneg]

The issue is simply that for whatever godforsaken reason, WotC think Rangers have to have magic. I have no idea what that reason is, but it means the entire class gets bent around being a half-caster, which doesn't fit with the pop-culture archetypes of Rangers.

The absolutely hilarious part of all of this is that WotC's own Most Important Iconic Ranger has never had this sort of spellcasting.

 

[CleverNickName]

LOL my friend, WotC didn't believe Wizards were OP in 3rd edition when LFQW was in full force. So their judgement is proven bad.

Eh, if you say so. My 3.X wizards didn't feel overpowered either, so I guess I continue to agree with WotC?

Right now Wizards are fairly balanced in combat, but OP compared to non-full-casters in the exploration/social pillars (often by negating/sidestepping issues entirely), especially at higher levels.

Eh, if you say so. I've not noticed this, but I haven't played every wizard.

MC'ing with Fighter is not letting you "keep up", it's a great way to ensure you permanently lag behind and never see the true power of a full caster. So with no insult intended, the fact that you did that suggest you don't understand the issue on a fairly basic level.

Eh, if you say so. My experience differed greatly from what you describe. So with no insult intended, I don't think this is as big of an "issue" as the Internet wants it to be.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This is good in theory but the schools are not so tight in "effect". Better in 5e but in 3e you eventually basically had some variant version of a spells effects in many schools. No, you can't dimension door in Necromancy but you can "shadow walk", etc. Conjuration had a bunch of direct damage spells instead of just summons, walls, etc.

Went all the way back to 2e. You could chose magic-user or specialist. Without specialization your spell slots were very heavily constraint.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The absolutely hilarious part of all of this is that WotC's own Most Important Iconic Ranger has never had this sort of spellcasting.

Right?!

I was trying to think, has Drizzt EVER used Ranger spellcasting, and whilst I daresay, given he's been 39 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) different books, I daresay in some he did, it's certainly not a core component of the character. Having "only" read maybe 9 or 10 Drizzt books I can't think of a single example of him casting a spell, so it if happened, it was not memorable or dramatic in those.

Similarly, Rangers in podcasts and the like very rarely seem to cast spells, and when they do, they often have them reskinned as abilities.

So yeah, that they keep pushing half-caster has how Ranger works seems really wack in 2022. Even 4E was messed up in this way, I note. 4E fixed most conceptual problems with most classes, but nope, not Ranger. Ranger got a whole bunch of weird-ass magic. There may have been a version that didn't, I forget, but the main one sure did.

 

[Undrave]

Several spells have switched spell schools; most notably, all the cure spells are now Abjuration.

Spell Schools are nonsense and I'm tired of pretending like they're not.

That's disappointing, actually. Exhaustion was an excellent mechanic that supported the exploration pillar and made it important. Now it's not really a big deal at all.

Exhaustion was WAY too punishing to be useable. The added granularity Is actually a boon, it means you get to use it more often and actually see players likely to push on with just a level or two of exhaustion, with more breathing room as their Proficiency improve. And you can now have exploration obstacle on a dial! Maybe even traps that deal Exhaustion in place of easy to replace HP.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Ranger with a spell list means they have dozens of different nature-based abilities and features to choose from and use to be whatever type of ranger they wanted. Rangers without it would get like only 6 different features at various levels across the entire 20-level span.

Personally, I'd much rather have more options available to me than less, even if I had to get that "Ew! Magic!" stench on my PC. (And just in case you didn't get it... that "Ew! Magic!" was sarcasm.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think this is as big of an "issue" as the Internet wants it to be.

It absolutely is, when you're saying "LFQW isn't an issue", all you're really saying is "I don't understand or accept balance issues!" I mean dunno what to say beyond that.

It's fine not to be interested in balance issues, but trying to play them down and imply others are making them up is crummy. Especially when you're doing it about LFQW, which is the equivalent of standing outside a burning house and telling people it's fine, it's just a bit warm lol.

 

[rooneg]

I was trying to think, has Drizzt EVER used Ranger spellcasting, and whilst I daresay, given he's been 39 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) different books, I daresay in some he did, it's certainly not a core component of the character. Having "only" read maybe 9 or 10 Drizzt books I can't think of a single example of him casting a spell, so it if happened, it was not memorable or dramatic in those.

Literally read them all, or near enough. I'm pretty darn sure he never does any sort of spellcasting that can't be explained by Drow magic abilities (i.e. Darkness, Faerie Fire, Levitate, etc).