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.

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[Xohar17]

ROGUE:

You no longer get Sneak Attacks on a reaction/op attack (why?)

Evasion moves from 7th level to 9th level. Yikes.

Other than that, the base class is almost unchanged

The Subclass offered is the Thief

Second Story Work is mercifully and finally clarified as "you have a Climb Speed equal to your Speed" (which is how I have house-ruled it for years) and you can use Dex to Jump instead of Strength, making this ability actually good.

Supreme Sneak is at 6th level instead of 9th (good)

Use Magical Device is at 10th level instead of 13th (good)

Thief's Reflexes is at 14th level instead of 17th. Good, I think. This is an incredibly strong ability that basically never sees play because it came at 17th level. At 14th level, it still won't see much play, but at least a bit more. For those who don't know, this ability gives you two turns in the first round of any combat - one at your initiative, and the second at your initiative minus 10.

This version is just a straight-up upgrade for the Thief subclass in every way, but it was definitely warranted as the Thief was pretty bad in comparison to most Rogue subclasses.

It is not an upgrade, now you cant use your bonus action to use items, which was in my experience the biggest reason to choose this subclass.

 

[Xohar17]

Can we drop the Crawford minutia? This is a mostly positive packet, let's take joy in that.

I think mostly positive is a reach...

 

[Xohar17]

Unless they specify that mages can't cast in armor, getting medium and shields for one feat will be great for Sorcerers and Wizards, no need to be multiclassing or going specific races.

And seeing as it a level one feat, you can take it as a dwarf to emulate the dwarf with armor proficiency thing in base 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

That still leaves the last one to go until mid january, and we can't be sure that they will all be ready and evenly spaced.

The last 8 years aren't really relevant, as they were not really playtests. They were a popularity measure for most of that time. Get enough votes and it makes the cut. The rest of the time it was just so we can preview what is being released in books. They didn't change much or anything before releasing what they showed us.

To find the last relevant playtest we have to go back to the 5e playtesting, and that was much different.

On the contrary, the last 8 years are extremely relevant:all of those UA were the same sort of plsytest as this batch, as Crawford is at pains in the original kickoff video that the public UA are not for balance purposes. That's stoll the realm of their private playtests.

These tests are the same sort of thumbs up or thumbs down feeling tests, that's what theybare looking for by explicit statement.

 

[Parmandur]

That still leaves the last one to go until mid january, and we can't be sure that they will all be ready and evenly spaced.

Just to add, I don't expect the packets to be evenly spaced: that's part of why I think thst we are likely to see all 4 Class groups, and attendant Feats and Spells, laid out by the Holidays.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Just to add, I don't expect the packets to be evenly spaced: that's part of why I think thst we are likely to see all 4 Class groups, and attendant Feats and Spells, laid out by the Holidays.

Yeah, I'm not sure why this one was late, but I think it's pretty clear that it was. Does that mean that they will continue to be late? Maybe. Or maybe they'll be early (or on time). I think we can't expect the next one before Oct 20th, but it could be here then. Probably two weeks later, though. Who knows?

Still, there should be time to get to everything AND revisit old ones, just maybe not in separate UAs. They can throw revisits in throughout. I mean, before this packet there was a lot of speculation that we'd only get one class per packet from here on out. This packet was a heck of a lot more than that.

I mean, that's another possibility too - maybe they will be larger and less frequent than they originally intended. I wonder if this one was late because they decided to make it bigger than they originally intended.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, I'm not sure why this one was late, but I think it's pretty clear that it was. Does that mean that they will continue to be late? Maybe. Or maybe they'll be early (or on time). I think we can't expect the next one before Oct 20th, but it could be here then. Probably two weeks later, though. Who knows?

Still, there should be time to get to everything AND revisit old ones, just maybe not in separate UAs. They can throw revisits in throughout. I mean, before this packet there was a lot of speculation that we'd only get one class per packet from here on out. This packet was a heck of a lot more than that.

I mean, that's another possibility too - maybe they will be larger and less frequent than they originally intended. I wonder if this one was late because they decided to make it bigger than they originally intended.

In the video series with this second packet, Crawford speaks as though this packet was to drop the day the Survey was originally scheduled to end: I thinkntheybdelayed it to allow more time for responses, but who knows? I do expect some irregular timing over the next year or year and a half as they sort through stuff. Crawford did promise a video laying out the results of the first survey, that should price interesting.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

In the video series with this second packet, Crawford speaks as though this packet was to drop the day the Survey was originally scheduled to end: I thinkntheybdelayed it to allow more time for responses, but who knows? I do expect some irregular timing over the next year or year and a half as they sort through stuff. Crawford did promise a video laying out the results of the first survey, that should price interesting.

Crawford spoke of it as if it should have dropped when the survey ended... but that was also the second time the survey was supposed to end. They probably meant originally to drop it when the survey ended the first time, but then they extended the survey.

And it was still late after that.

 

[Parmandur]

Crawford spoke of it as if it should have dropped when the survey ended... but that was also the second time the survey was supposed to end. They probably meant originally to drop it when the survey ended the first time, but then they extended the survey.

And it was still late after that.

Based on what they were saying, I thinknthey recorded that before the extension occurred at all.

 

[cbwjm]

One other thing I like about this playtest, is that now I can run a dual wielding barbarian and not have to wait until round 2 to actually dual wield. I often ran into the bonus action issue for things which I felt should work in the fiction but didn't in the mechanics.