D&D (2024) Unearthed Arcana Playtest Packet 7 Live on D&D Beyond

Wizards of the Coast posted the seventh playtest packet for the 2024 update to Dungeons & Dragons. The new playtest packet includes updated class material for the Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard classes.

Highlights for each class:

Barbarian

• New Path of the World Tree subclass and updated Berserker, Wild Heart (formerly Totem Warrior), and Zealot subclasses.
• Attack recklessly for a full round rather than just one turn.
• Path of the Wild Heart (formerly Path of the Totem Warrior) has updated options.
• Brutal Critical gets damage buffs.

Fighter

• New Brawler subclass excels at using improvised weapons and unarmed strikes.
• Tactical Mind and Tactical Shift expand the use of Second Wind.
• Studied Attacks grants advantage on an attack roll against an enemy after you've missed an attack against them.
• Battle Master and its maneuvers have been updated.

Sorcerer

• Innate Sorcery empowers your spellcasting for a limited time.
• Sorcery Incarnate and Arcane Apotheosis boost your Metamagic while Innate Sorcery is active.
• Sorcerous Restoration is available at 5th level and scales with your sorcerer level.
• Wild Magic Sorcery now more reliably allows you to roll on the Wild Magic Surge table.

Warlock

• Pact Magic is back.
• Eldritch Invocations are now available at 1st level and your options have been revised.
• Pact Boons are now invocations, and Mystic Arcanum is once again a class feature.
• Patron Spells are always prepared.
• Updated Archfey Patron, Celestial Patron, Fiend Patron, Great Old One Patron subclasses.

Wizard

• Spellcasting feature now allows you to swap out a cantrip each long rest.
• Memorize Spell is now a feature. Modify Spell and Create spell have been nixed.
• Updated Abjurer, Diviner, Evoker, and Illusionist subclasses.

Universal changes include a return to class spell lists, more features from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and update to some of the spells including arcane eruption, sorcerous burst, counterspell, and jump.

The official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube account also posted an almost 90-minute-long video doing a deep dive on the playtest packet.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

While your language is more... colorful than mine, I agree that this is bad symmetry.

I like the idea of having str requisites for heavy range weapons. It would legitimise both Strength (as an ability score) and the existence of the shortbow/light crossbow as viable (and potentially preferable) weapons.

The preq is fine, the silliness is due to the nature of STR and DEX in the game which is a fundamental issue D&D but it is not fixable without creating a new game.
To be honest heavy bows should be strength based but that ship saled in D&D long ago.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But "to magic" as an intransitive verb in the sense of "to do magic", to cast a spell, that would be technical jargon that takes some getting used to.

Yeah it's quite a thing to say your rules approach is "natural language" and then pull out serious jargon like that. Plenty of TT RPG players I know would genuinely be confused by that usage.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

It feels designed by committee to appeal (or continue to appeal) to the broadest possible group of players

I'm pretty sure that is literally what they are doing. Hasboro is a for-profit company, and appealing to the broadest possible group of players in the way to make the most money.

 

[Sumony111]

I'd certainly never pick Investigate on a Rogue unless I was intending to Expertise it and had like INT14, yeah. That's pretty doable on a Rogue because you can do DEX/CON/INT.

With Religion on a Cleric I'd generally only pick it because you have such terrible skill choices ("Choose two from History, Insight, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion" - only Insight (pretty okay) and the basically-unused Medicine goes off WIS so you're going to be sucking it up). The skill/stat alignments in 5E are DUMB AS HELL which is unfortunate.

I feel like a lot of the considerations that you dont give weight to are actually pretty accurate for my campaign.

The players spend a large percentage of their time in "civilized" areas like town, cities and their surroundings where openly carrying a weapon, other than a dagger or maybe shortsword, is going to get you in some trouble unless you are one of the authorities. There are a LOT of fights where melee end up fighting with daggers, or looking for improvised weapons where being able to capably fight unarmed is really very valuable.

Likewise my players very very often choose skills that dont correlate with their strongest attribute because it reflects what they want to play. In the case of a fighter acting as the face thats not at all uncommon, most my players seem to choose their skills based a lot more on their personality or character background than they do on whats going to be strongest. Being selectively better at those skills isnt some HUGE increase for fighters... but I bet it comes up very nearly every session I play if that rule moves forward.

Not saying my way is right, or your way is wrong or anything. Just that I think some of those assumptions do line up with the way a lot of tables play the game. Making the game better for more play styles can only help it in the long run.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I was pleased to see that too!

Disappointed they just scrapped Flex instead of trying to come up with a replacement.

Better that way than keeping it.

But yeah, I'd have loved a version of flex that improves versatile. On the other hand, every versatile weapon getting the same mastery option was a problem too.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Seems like the final class design is coming into focus...

Martials got a significant overhaul.

Spellcasters went through big changes only to end up where they started.

I'm sad that some of the boldest ideas ended up on the cutting room floor, but 2024 looks like a good iteration of the game.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

For the Wizard, these playtest features -- Modify Spell, Create Spell, and Memorize Spell -- seem like they could be the basis for a good subclass. Something like what the Order of Scribes should have been.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Seems like the final class design is coming into focus...

Martials got a significant overhaul.

Spellcasters went through big changes only to end up where they started.

I'm sad that some of the boldest ideas ended up on the cutting room floor, but 2024 looks like a good iteration of the game.

I absolutely agree.
I think overall this playtest packet looks very solid with very few outliers.
The fighter finally gets out if combat ability early on. The one stinker of weapon mastery was scrapped.

The brawler fighter (although it is not that great itself) shows how the monk could get access to weapon mastery and magic items.

The spellcasters all get some quality of life changes in spell access.

The barbarian also looks solid although they lack a short rest feature at low level... but then, the barbarian due to its HP as armor mechanics has always been short rest hungry to regain lost HP.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Making the "Pact of..." features into Invocations makes a lot of sense, instead of a Subclass like choice.

Another idea in my own SRD based game that popped up in D&D proper!

I mean my Anathemir class is still very different from the warlock, but tbh I may move closer to the warlock after 2024.

Also in my case you gain all three automatically, simply choosing which to master first, second, and third.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Still no chance of having Warlocks based on INT or WIS spell casting abilities. This is a disappointment for me, and I can’t see why it can’t be included.

Actually, the rest seems alright and, in some cases pretty good. Are these the Subclasses that they are likely to stick with for these Classes? I’m still in two minds about whether to invest in a not-a-new edition.