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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[Garthanos]

The 2014 ranger gets Spells at level 2.
That's the whole point. Ranger's exploration abilities are all spells because D&D lacks exploration pillar mechanics.

What does a +4 in Survival do again? There are no rules for Survival except the optional Tracking rules in the DMG.

Expertise in Survival is nice but core doesn't do anything because there are almost no rules for Survival Checks and its use is fully based on DM fiat. DM Fiat in a community that allows spells to bypass tracking and foraging but won't let you talk to a bird or call a wolf without magic.

What's the Survival DC to tree stride?

Is that is an issue specifically with survival or more general?

 

[TrainedMunkee]

Thief's Fast Hands lets them Search as a bonus action... but trapfinding is a Study action and not a Search action...

Also Fast Hands says that disabling traps and picking locks is a Dex (Sleight of Hand) check that is also made with thieves' tools. The tool proficiency glossary entry states "If you have Proficiency in the Skill that’s also used with that check, you have Advantage on the check too. This means you can benefit from both Skill Proficiency and Tool Proficiency on the same Ability Check."

So a thief proficient in both thieves' tools and sleight of hand gets to add their proficiency bonus twice to lockpicking and trap disarming, evidently.

I noticed that also, but decided that Study is used to study a trap, not find/notice it.

 

[Minigiant]

Is that is an issue specifically with survival or more general?

It's a general issue. Only Stealth, Thieves Tools, and Perception have actually rules.

 

[Anarchclown]

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.

Also. You can't use Sleight of Hands for whatever you want. My players would unbuckle peoples belts to make them drop their pants/gear/whatever, pull their hats/helmets in front of their eyes, draw one of their weapons and throw it away etc. I realize this might come off as me being nice in my interpretation of the rules, but I figure anything that a stage magician can do in real life or a swashbuckler in fiction can do is a sleight of hand check. That is for some unfathomable reason now hardcoded into not being allowed.

Not to mention how much they nerfed the final ability. An extra turn on the first round of every combat is just incredibly much better than an extra bonus hide, disengage or dash action 2-6 times per day.

 

[darjr]

Well the last time they stopped the playtest ~6-8 months before release and a bunch of stuff didn't get properly playtest out of house.

They've said as much too. That they think there was stuff they should have tested publicly but ran out of time.

They've also recognized that may happen to some extent again.

I hope that they have time to test as much as possible.

 

[Weiley31]

I like how Dash is in this. Like I feel like instead of saying "doubles your speed", it pretty much allows you to have another move action. Which does the same thing, technically, but is a much clearer method of doing/explaining that.
I do like how you can choose the Movement Speeds that you possess. So, Aarakorca can either walk or fly. And if said Aarakorca takes the Dash Action, they can move 30 feet (a running start) and then for the bonus move action (Dash), they pretty much "Leap into the air" and start flying through the air, wings flapping.

 

[Maxperson]

I love that they made it only something to use on a failed roll, that alone will cut down on the spamming enormously (especially since, with only 1d4, you know it's not worth using if the player rolled a 2), but I feel like they may have over-corrected with the once-per-day-per-target part, since it's hard to track across a whole group and will lead to "Did I already use it on you today?" discussions that will bog down the game.

One of the first things I did in my game was tell the players that cantrips were unlimited, because they weren't being used 24/7 and if they wanted to do things like spam that 4 times a minute(one per PC), they would eventually run themselves out of power. The game didn't intend for cantrips to be spammed that often.

Plus, it makes it a really weak cantrip. When you're selecting a spell that's going to have no limits on how often you can cast it, are you really going to go for the one that, realistically, you'll only be able to use 3-4 times a day in an average-size group?

Yes, absolutely. It turns failed rolls into successful ones and it's not uncommon for the failed roll to have serious or even critical impact on the game. It may be used infrequently, but it's still extremely valuable.

 

[MarkB]

Yes, absolutely. It turns failed rolls into successful ones and it's not uncommon for the failed roll to have serious or even critical impact on the game. It may be used infrequently, but it's still extremely valuable.

It turns very marginally failed rolls into successful ones very occasionally. 1d4 is an average of +2.5 to a check, so the number of times it's even going to be a close enough fail to be worth the extra d4 is going to be minimal, and even on those occasions you still stand a strong chance of not rolling high enough - either because you rolled poorly on the d4, or because the DC wasn't within that margin in the first place. And succeed or fail, once you've given that character the d4, they're locked out for the rest of the day.

 

[Maxperson]

It turns very marginally failed rolls into successful ones very occasionally. 1d4 is an average of +2.5 to a check, so the number of times it's even going to be a close enough fail to be worth the extra d4 is going to be minimal, and even on those occasions you still stand a strong chance of not rolling high enough - either because you rolled poorly on the d4, or because the DC wasn't within that margin in the first place. And succeed or fail, once you've given that character the d4, they're locked out for the rest of the day.

I forgot about the once per day aspect. That does make it much weaker.

 

[Xamnam]

They've said as much too. That they think there was stuff they should have tested publicly but ran out of time.

They've also recognized that may happen to some extent again.

I hope that they have time to test as much as possible.

Maybe this is me being optimistic, but I recall in one of the videos they talked about the planned release schedule, and while I don't think they committed to it in definite language, my takeaway was that they were open to extending the playtesting window if they felt it necessary based on the feedback.