One D&D

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This article or section contains opinions shared by all and/or vast quantities of Derp. It is liable to cause Rage. Take things with a grain of salt and a peck of Troll.

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail. Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

One D&D is the latest attempt by Wizards of the Coast to revamp the soon-to-be 10-year-old 5th Edition and change some rules. The full release will launch in 2024, commemorating the 50th anniversary of this long-running franchise. Playtesting for it began in August 2022, and will likely continue with monthly documents until release.

The main premise for this edition (and the reason why it's using One as a title) is that WOTC plans on not only releasing books, but also an online database that will always be updating. This is (supposedly) so that players don't have to suffer having to wait for years for errata, plus avoiding some of the pain of having to buy both a book and digital rules.

However, this came with massive blows such as the OGL being put under threat for a good bit and the game deciding to emulate the skubtastic microtransactions found in video games. As such, many think One D&D will be the death of the franchise (or at very least revert all the goodwill and success the franchise has gained with 5E), though whether this will actually come to pass remains to be seen.

Backwards compatibility

In numerous interviews, the WOTC team repeatedly said that One D&D stuff would be backwards compatible with old 5e stuff. This was likely told to the public to prevent a massive edition war and D&D exodus. WOTC doesn't want the players to think it will be 6e and suffer a repeat of 4th edition, after all.

In the interim, will it actually be compatible with 5th edition? Well, rather than thinking about it as jumping from 3e to 4e, a jump from 3e to 3.5e would be a better comparison. For player options, 3.5 was much better and more desirable than 3. 3e stuff was still usable, but 3.5 was an upgrade, and so it seems that OneD&D will do the same thing. OneD&D's goal seems to be revamping character creation and making minor tweaks to the mechanics to give the system some much needed freshness. Of course, right now most releases are just first drafts, so there is a lot to criticize before the final release.

On the adventure side, since 5e isn't a very technical terminology-heavy game, often just pointing the DM to the rulebook about how to resolve a situation will do. It is highly unlikely that anything in an adventure book would break, unless stuff like the orc statblock or the stunned condition or Dexterity Saving Throws are no longer in the game. We'll see in time.

Differences from 5e

Playtest 1: Character Origins

Races Species

Races no longer provide stat boosts, likely WOTC's attempt to decouple genetic lineage and ancestries from influencing how a character is built. At least this makes the message clear as opposed to the way they did it in Tasha's, which reeked of having it both ways.

• Humans are now even stronger than ever, not only gaining the extra skill, but also taking the Variant Human's extra feat as well as gaining Inspiration Heroic Advantage on a long rest. Humans also can be medium or small size as they now acknowledge dwarfism is a thing.
  • Curiously, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are gone, but that's because the document explicitly tells you that you can make any scion of two Humanoid races by taking the crunch of one of the parents and fluffing the visual aspects however you prefer - the given example is the child of a Gnome and a Halfling, using the latter's rules with the former's pointed ears (That is, until Jeremy Crafword stated that they removed the half-races because the term is "inherently racist").
• Ardlings are pretty much furry Aasimar, being resistant to radiant damage and having limited flight. There are different subraces, but all that changes are which spells they learn as innate spells as they level up.
• Dragonborn remain the same as they have been in the CRB with some of the updates Fizban's provided. Sadly, the subrace variations didn't seem to make it, as they gain no other abilities and all breath weapons now spread out in cones.
• Dwarves lost their subraces but remain pretty strong despite it. While they retain their resistance to the poisoned condition and tool proficiencies, they now improve their HP by 1 each level and have a limited form of Tremorsense as opposed to the situational skill bump Stonecunning used to have.
• Elves remain pretty much the same as ever. High Elves now lost their weapons training, Drow lost their day-blindness and Wood Elves lost their hiding perk, but now all three of them have innate cantrips and spells as they level up. This is particularly effective for the High Elf as they can swap out their innate cantrip with each long rest.
• Gnomes as a whole didn't get changed but the subraces did. Forest Gnomes' ability to talk to animals is now a spell-like ability that can only be used a few times a day while Rock Gnomes now have two innate cantrips at the cost of their situational skill perk.
• Halflings have also lost their subraces, but gained advantage on Stealth checks on top of all their other abilities.
• Orcs are available, retaining their MotM abilities.
• Tieflings are the only race to have outright lost stuff even when compared to their CRB selves. Gone is the default fire resistance and innate spells besides the Thaumaturgy cantrip. While there are subraces available, they only provide new innate spells, including a cantrip and a thematically-linked resistance, intended to represent which underworld they descended from.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are a lot more critical to a character's development, as they are now what provides the stat boosts that formerly would have just attributed to races, meaning that it's now the upbringing that defines a character rather than heredity. In addition, instead of the vaguer narrative abilities, each background now automatically provides a feat, language, and tool proficiency. Building your own custom background is the default but UA provides some pre-made examples if you can't decide:

• Acolyte +2 Wis +1 Int. Gives the Magic Initiate (Divine) feat, giving you a bonus Divine spell to cast, which might be handy for paladins.
• Artisan +2 Int +1 Cha. Gives the Crafter feat, not only providing proficiency with several different tools but also makes crafting faster and more efficient.
• Charlatan +2 Cha +1 Dex. Gives the Skilled feat so it's a decent all-rounder to take for a ton of skills.
• Criminal +2 Dex +1 Int. Gives the Alert feat to not only improve Initiative (Only adding +Proficiency bonus instead of full advantage) as well as the ability to swap Initiatives with someone else if you're feeling greedy (or charitable).
• Cultist +2 Int +1 Cha. Gives the Magic Initiate (Arcane) feat, giving you a bonus Arcane spell to cast.
• Entertainer +2 Cha +1 Dex. Gives the Musician feat, not only providing proficiency with multiple instruments but also the ability to give allies Inspiration Heroic Advantage after a rest.
• Farmer +2 Con +1 Wis. Gives the Tough feat for more HP.
• Gladiator +2 Str +1 Cha. Gives the Savage Attacker feat to re-roll weapon damage once per turn.
• Guard +2 Str +1 Wis. Gives the Alert feat to not only improve Initiative (Only adding +Proficiency bonus instead of full advantage) as well as the ability to swap Initiatives with someone else if you're feeling greedy (or charitable).
• Guide +2 Wis +1 Dex. Gives the Magic Initiate (Primal) feat, giving you a bonus Primal spell to cast, which might be handy for rangers.
• Hermit +2 Wis +1 Con. Gives the Magic Initiate (Primal) feat, giving you a bonus Primal spell to cast, which might be handy for rangers.
• Laborer +2 Con +1 Str. Gives the Tough feat for more HP.
• Noble +2 Cha +1 Int. Gives the Skilled feat so it's a decent all-rounder to take for a ton of skills.
• Pilgrim +2 Wis +1 Con. Gives the Healer feat for some non-magical healing.
• Sage +2 Int +1 Wis. Gives the Magic Initiate (Arcane) feat, giving you a bonus Arcane spell to cast.
• Sailor +2 Dex +1 Wis. Gives the Tavern Brawler feat to provide improved unarmed combat and ways to use improvised weapons.
• Soldier +2 Str +1 Con. Gives the Savage Attacker feat to re-roll weapon damage once per turn.
• Urchin +2 Dex +1 Wis. Gives the Lucky feat for some re-rolls to impose upon yourself or the enemy.

Other changes

• Rolling ability checks, attack rolls, or saving throws are now classified as d20 Tests. A DM can warrant a player making a d20 test as long as the DC is not less than 5 (so trivial that failing would make you look incompetent) or 30 (an impossible task you can only accomplish by breaking the game).
• Rolling a nat 1 on a d20 Test is an automatic fail. Everyone already thought it was a thing, so the devs decided to embrace it.
• Rolling a nat 20 on a d20 Test is an auto success (but doesn’t bypass limitations on the test, such as range and line of sight, (looking at you bard)). It also gives the player a point of inspiration.
• Inspiration is being more encouraged as a mechanic, with more ways to get it like rolling a nat 20, and you can give another player inspiration if your single slot is full.
• Spell attack rolls don't benefit from critical hits (for now).
• Monsters no longer roll critical hits for attacks. (That is what the recharge mechanic is for.)
• Like Pathfinder 2e, spells available are divided into three main lists (Arcane, Divine, and Primal) rather than each class having its own list. PCs will draw most of their spells from one of the three based on class, with additional spells added from the race, feats, and additional class abilities.
  • However, the Experts UA did reveal that the spell lists for the individual classes will be more restricted, with some classes being forbidden from prepping spells from specific schools in the place of the class-specific lists.
• The incapacitation condition also adds the following penalties: Your concentration is broken, you can't speak, and you have disadvantage on initiative checks if you are incapacitated when it starts.
• If a long rest was 1 or more hours in before being interrupted, the PCs gain the benefit of a short rest.
• Combat immediately resets the 8 hours needed to gain the benefit of a long rest instead of part of the 1 hour of strenuous activity.
• Reintroduced the Slowed Condition: Creature must spend 2 feet of speed to move 1 foot, attack roll hit with advantage, and they roll Dexterity saving throws at disadvantage.
• Clarified Unarmed Strikes are not Weapon attacks. Also, Grapple and Shove are additional options when an Unarmed Strikes hit instead of choosing to inflict damage. Now Grapple and Shoves scale off (Str + Proficiency) vs (enemy AC) instead of Athletics vs enemy Athletics or Acrobatics. There will likely be more options for the monk.
• Grappled Condition now: prevents you from change(?) (probably polymorph or misspelled charge? Didn’t list it in the glossary), have disadvantage on attacks not against grappler, the grappler gains the slowed condition (see above) while dragging the enemy they grappled. Escaping a grapple uses a Dexterity or Strength saving throw instead of Athletics or Acrobatics.
  • The Druid/Paladin playtest clarified this a bit to mean that the condition locks your speed to 0 and that this cannot change.
• Athletics and Acrobatics have been nerfed, as they are no longer used to make or escape a grapple. RIP using expertise to be grapple king.

Playtest 2: Expert Classes

Bard

• Bardic Inspiration's uses per day are now capped by proficiency rather than Charisma.
  • Bardic Inspiration can also be used as a budget healing spell rather than augmenting a healing spell.
  • Bardic Inspiration can now only be used as reactions, cutting down on the prep time of casting and hoping it'll see some use in some set period of time.
• Song of Rest has been axed, but now the Bard has certain spells (Healing Word, Restoration, and their variants) as spells that are always prepped.
• College of Lore doesn't give you free reign on bonus skills anymore, restricting you to Arcana, Nature and Religion (unless you already got one of them, then you can just pick whatever you want)
  • Rather than crib extra spells from other classes, the level 6 feature lets you re-roll Bardic Inspiration.

Ranger

• Fighting Styles are now considered feats, and while the Ranger picks up one as part of their class features, more can always be taken as bonus feats.
• Rangers gain cantrips by default rather than getting them via a fighting style. Also helping things is that they actually get casting from the start instead of needing to wait a level, though it's not as many slots as a full-caster would have available.
• A lot of the Tasha's revamps to the Ranger are now default, which is a sizeable step up.
  • Hunter's Mark is now a spell that's always prepped, with the added bonus of not needing to concentrate after casting it. At level 18, it bumps up to dealing 1d10 extra damage.
  • Roving boosts speed by 10 feet, but only outside of heavy armor.
  • Primeval Awareness has been absolutely axed.
  • Nature's Veil now expends spell slots. But y tho?
• Hunter's bonus damage to wounded enemies is now the only choice, because nobody really bothered with the other two. Same goes with the subclass' capstone only being halved damage for a reaction.
  • Level 6 now lets you identify some key features of an enemy you target with Hunter's Mark.
  • Rather than an extra stack of multiple attacks at level 10, you instead always get Conjure Barrage as a prepped spell that can go in any spell slot, though it deals less damage if used as a level 1 or 2 slot.

Rogue

• Thieves' Cant provides proficiency in an extra language.
• Sneak attack is now once per Round rather then per turn, meaning you can no longer get sneak attack on attacks of opportunity or other tricks to gain out-of-turn attacks from party members, and now only works when taking the attack action so Arcane Tricksters can no longer use booming or green flame blade and get sneak attack.
• Level 13 provides a new feature that grants advantage to attacks against enemies engaged with your friends - aka, advantage on sneak attacks.
• Thief now grants an actual climb speed rather than just no movement penalties to climbing.
  • Supreme Sneak now grants advantage on all Stealth checks regardless of movement, but now does not work when wearing anything heavier than light armor.
  • Use Magic Device now provides an extra attunement slot, the chance to use a magic item without wasting a charge and the ability to use scrolls despite being a non-caster if you pass an Arcana check.
  • Thief's Reflexes now provide a second reaction to use on the stuff Rogues do, but only for a few times a day.
  • The ability for a Thief to use an object as a bonus action or use magic items without usual restrictions is gone.

Other Changes

• Classes in general have gone back to categorization with the AD&D groupings of Warrior, Expert, Priest and Mage.
  • Experts are all tied to their usage of Expertise. Notably, the Artificer is included in the Experts group as well, though any expectations of a full rewrite are low.
  • Priests are all tied to their usage of Channeling powers.
  • Warriors are all tied to their usage of Weapon Mastery (see below).
• Ability Score Increase is now a feat, though its purpose is identical to before.
  • To make the decision between stat boosts or feats less of an extreme trade-off, the majority of feats now grant a minor stat bump.
• Each class now gains an Epic Boon feat, which provides some super endgame buff at level 20.
• The additional attack from using two light weapons is now part of your attack action instead of eating your bonus action. Dear god...Dual-Wielding is actually viable...!
• Charger now gives a boost to Dash distance (not really necessary unless you have some means to dash as a bonus action, such as a Roguish Action), the attack bonus from charging now deals extra damage or the shove instead of the hit bonus.
• Great Weapon Master loses its Power Attack abilities, instead providing proficiency to damage on one attack each turn.
• Heavy Armor Master now reduces damage by Proficiency, which is a serious upgrade.
• Medium Armor Master doesn't help with Stealth.
• Protection Fighting Style now gives a flat -2 to an enemy attack, which is a straight downgrade to the original version's disadvantage.
• Polearm Master restricts applicable weapons to those with Heavy and Reach, barring this from being used on Spears and Quarterstaves and thus being used with shields or the Duelist and Protection fighting styles. More importantly, the ability to whack things that enter engagement range doesn't count as an Opportunity Attack, thus breaking any synergy with Sentinel.
• Ritual Caster no longer ties the casting ability of these spells to the class it was taken from, plus it gives you a 1/day ability to cast a ritual as if it were a normal spell.
• Sharpshooter no longer works as a ranged power attack, but only gets no penalties for shooting at long range.
• Shield Master now forces enemies you attack to make a Strength save or else get shoved or knocked down, which is...a bit naff to any character that isn't maining Strength (i.e. Clerics)
• The Spells Known column seems to have been axed, which now breaks the cap of what spells can be prepped each day. How this will affect the Wizard, which was notorious for the broken number of spells that they can learn via writing into their spellbook, is yet to be determined.
  • At least for the former the Spells Known class, reminiscent of older additions but still way more flexible, you can only prepare a number of spells of each level equal to the number of the spell slots you have for that level. This will mean by 5th level a bard can only have a max of 4 different 1st level spells and 3 different 2nd level spells prepared for that adventure day.
  • Disregard, cocks, etc. Turns out that now only the Sorcerer and Warlock have a Spells Known section. Why is beyond us.
• Guidance now uses a reaction to cast instead of requiring concentration, but it now cannot affect any one target more than once a day. retconned as of the Cleric & Revised Species doc.

Playtest 3: Cleric & Revised Species

Cleric

• Generally got a lot shifted around in some attempt to mirror other classes.
  • Domains are now selected at level 3 like other classes instead of being picked out at creation.
  • Channel Divinity now works at level 1, with your default options being Turn Undead and a second ability that's essentially Cure/Inflict Wounds except not as a spell, healing or dealing d8xProficiency HP.
    • Turn Undead now dazes those that fail the save (except they can still run away). While it can no longer out-right eradicate lesser undead as you level up, it does deal more damage to all undead as it levels up.
    • Channel Divinity now has a number of uses a day equal to Proficiency bonus rather than a fixed number based on progression. With the new Channel Divinity feature, this has become absolutely necessary if you want to be anything close to a healer.
  • Level 2 gives them a sort-of variant to what Fighting Styles used to be, giving an option between heavy armor and martial weapon proficiency, two skills and +Wis to any checks using those skills, or an extra cantrip and the ability to recover a use of Channel Divinity each short rest. You get to pick a second at level 9.
    • This is likely to separate the domains from certain locked archetypes, or other weird ideas like Life Clerics wearing heavy armor despite being medics or Forge Clerics getting heavy armor but no martial weapons.
• Blessed Strikes is now default to the class rather than a domain-exclusive deal.
• Divine Intervention now has a cooldown of 2d6 days rather than a week, with the capstone feature shortening the cooldown to 2d4 days.
• Due to being activated later, Life Domain's first Channel Divinity (the big pool of healing) gets punted further down the progression line.
  • This similarly goes without saying, but Cure Wounds is no longer on the domain spells list, and thus makes the domain no longer an absolute auto-pick for a healbot. Life Domain still puts a lot more mileage into heals though.

Species

With all the other hubbub about the terminology of Race, it was a bit odd that Wizards, who spearheaded this whole PC movement of divesting from the idea of Race being an absolute identifier, still used the term (or maybe it isn't odd because we've seen how lazy they are). Instead, they're being renamed into Species.

• Ardlings: Here on account to their utterly underwhelming reception in the first playtest. All of them now have proficiency in Perception and an innate divine cantrip, and now each subrace has special features that aren't spells (Climb speed and bonus unarmed damage, vestigial wings for Feather Fall and advantage on Athletics checks to jump, increased Dash speed, or water breathing, swim speed and Cold resistance).
  • In exchange for this, they lost their flight and radiant resistance, making them even more like furries.
• Dragonborn: Here on account of Wizards forgetting some other features Fizban's gave. Now Breath Weapon's damage scales differently (not necessarily better) and can be either line or cone without being trapped to either. On top of that, they can actually fly for ten minutes each day when they reach level 5 with spectral wings that appear to be made from the same energy as their breath weapon.
• Goliath: The only new species in the list. Lost advantage on Athletics, but Wizards felt so addicted to Powerful Build that they forced it into advantage to escape Grappled. Goliaths also gain a special power based on their subrace of giant as well as the ability to effectively use Enlarge as an innate ability once per day after level 5.

Other Changes

• You can fail the Banishment spell willingly, and the permanent banish effect of the Banishment now works on Aberration, Celestial, Elemental, Fey, or Fiend creatures, even if native to your current plane, sending them to a random location associated with a plane associated with their type, but they now get 10 chances to break out, you can't permanently banish other planar creatures that are not of the listed creature types.
• Barkskin no longer gives a flat AC16, instead giving THP every turn. On one hand, this makes it a lot less viable on any self-buffing Druid, but on the other hand, this is a lot more usable for any beatsticks, including rangers.
• Prayer of Healing now lets others benefit from a short rest on top of the HP recovery.
• Resistance is now a reaction, making it actually usable.
• Spiritual Weapon requires concentration.

Playtest 4: Druid & Paladin

Druid

• Lost proficiency in medium armor. While it's true that you couldn't use most of them anyways due to the non-metal clause, hide armor was still a great take for any casting-focused druids and the devs approved "house rules" to make equivalents out of sufficiently-tough animals.
  • Interestingly, any rules that bar you from using metal armor and metal weapons are suspiciously absent.
• Being a "Priest" class, Druid gain the Channel Nature ability, which covers Wild Shape as well as a slotless use of Find Familiar (Which Tasha's did offer) and an AoE healing bubble so you aren't cheesing out goodberry. While Wild Shape does improve, the others are pretty much stuck to what they are, which is shitty on the healing.
  • Wild Shape has been radically altered so you aren't just transforming into various animals from the bestiary. Instead, you're stuck with some generic forms. One one hand, this is convenient since you're no longer trawling through books for that one ideal form, but these forms also lack any of the versatility one might expect from, say, PF2E's Wild Shape.
    • These generic forms do make use of your basic stats with the exception of altering your Dexterity (and Strength for the land form) to be equal to your Wisdom, making it easier to calculate things. On the downside, their attacks are all locked to what you get with no way of improving them without using Magic Fang and their AC is shit since they're so low and only add Wis to it while their HP is stuck without any boosts. RAW, this also loses out on any racial abilities, skills or save proficiencies you had. Oh, and all the interesting utility you generally actually used Wild Shape for? Locked behind frustrating and often-high level requirements, taking the ability from useless-in-combat-after-a-few-levels-but-endlessly-useful-out-of-it if you weren't part of the Moon Circle to just plain useless for large chunks of the early game.
    • Also annoying is how the tiny form, which is usually used for scouting, is trapped behind level 11. For only ten minutes at a time while any other form lasts for hours, yet not for druid Find Familiar. Seriously, was a bunch of druids turning into spiders in order to listen in on a conversation that big of an issue, but a spider Familiar is not?
• Since Wild Shape now has radically different restrictions on it, Circle of the Moon needed to be revamped.
  • While Wild Shape is still faster, they also now have two new perks to draw you in at level 3: Being able to cast abjuration spells while transformed and...the ability to make an unarmed attack as a bonus action? On one hand, it's cool to let them deal a bit of extra damage and it lets you grab after biting things, but that's it since normal punches are garbage without the Tavern Brawler feat or a Monk multiclass. And no, this isn't an easy way to get Multiattack, that's still gated to level 5 and the healing when changing is now tied to the base class.
  • Rather than being able to shapeshift into elementals at level 6, you get the ability to make your other shapes deal elemental damage of a chosen type while also gaining resistance to that type. Level 10 makes those attacks deal bonus damage of your chosen type.

Paladin

• Also deemed a "Priest" class, which at least keeps to the theming.
• Lay on Hands and Divine Smite both are not considered part of Channel Divinity due to the class not even getting access to it until level 3.
  • Smite can now be used on ranged weapons, but it now can't be used on the same turn you cast a spell so you can't stack on the damage. It's also no longer considered part of the same attack, which makes it uncertain if the damage doubles on a crit.
  • You know what is considered a use of Channel Divinity? Divine Sense, aka that one only fluffy feature to tell whether someone's a fiend. At least now it makes you a radar for celestials/fiends/undead.
  • Level 9 gives another subclass-agnostic power that forces a number of enemies equal to Charisma bonus within 60 feet to make a Wisdom save or be dazed and stunned for a minute (or just dazed if they pass). This used to be something tied to Oaths, but it's now universal.
  • Restoring Touch (that one late-game ability to cure conditions) is now tied to Lay on Hands, costing some of the potential HP healed.
  • Remember how the Cleric got an ability to restore a use of Channel Divinity through a certain feature? You get the ability to regain a use whenever you roll Initiative as a capstone class feature.
• Similar to the Ranger, Paladins do know how to cast from the start but their casting power is limited.
• Level 5 gives Find Steed as an always-prepped spell that can be cast 1/day without eating a slot. Cool, I guess.
• Aura of Protection and all related auras are all able to work even when you're unconscious. Duty unto death and all that.
• Rather than improving smite damage at level 11, you instead get to deal additional radiant damage on your attacks. Kickass.
• Oath of Devotion's bonus spells aren't as support-based, losing spells like Lesser Restoration and Freedom of Movement but gaining spells like Staggering Smite and Blinding Smite.
  • Level 6 lets any Smites you deal also grant Temp HP to a nearby ally, which is way more handy. The old aura to resist charmed is now shuffled to level 11.
  • The capstone ability's radiant damage to any foes inside it now deals damage equal to Proficiency Mod + Charisma Mod, which for most Paladins is a straight downgrade from the original 10 damage. Its use remains 1/day, but you can sacrifice a level 4 or higher spell slot in order to reuse it.

Other Changes

• One might notice that the Druid and Paladin's channeling powers are rather limited compared to the Cleric's from last playtest - this is intentional, because Wizards viewed tying it to proficiency bonus being far too kind for multiclassing. They also capped it off much sooner at 4/day with no way to improve it.
• Epic Boons also allow you to improve a stat by 2 so long as it doesn't put the stat above 30. Not that there's any way for anyone to do that.
• Banishing Smite now forces the enemy to make a Charisma save to resist being banished without any HP restriction. The banished foe can make another save each turn to break free. Its damage also scales by if it's upcast.
  • Blinding Smite, Staggering Smite, Thunderous Smite and Wrathful Smite also have this same damage boost for upcasting.
  • Due to the generalized spell lists, this means that the Cleric also has access to smite spells...and do them better thanks to their spell scaling.
• Branding Smite is now called Glimmering Smite, being otherwise identical aside from being classed as a Transmutation spell.
• Find Familiar no longer calls some magical version of a mundane animal of smaller outsider, instead giving a singular template for all familiars. While its typing isn't that significant, what does is whether it's land-based (giving a climb speed and extra AC), sea-based (giving a swim speed and the ability to breathe water), or air-based (giving s fly speed).
  • While the familiar can attack using your casting attack modifier and dealing damage based on what type of creature it is, the damage is as pathetic as you'd expect. Just settle with casting spells through it.
• Find Steed similarly no longer calls an otherwise ordinary horse, instead summoning some magical horse that's either Celestial, Fey or Fiendish. Each subtype not only influences the kind of damage the horse does but also gives it a special daily ability.
• Grabbing and Shoving no longer require attack rolls, but instead force the enemy to make an Athletics or Acrobatics check against DC 8+Prof+Str Mod. Welp, that was fun while it lasted.
  • The grabber can now move around, though at a slower speed because they're dragging their target along unless the target is much smaller.
• Inspiration - that is, the GM-issued metacurrency for re-rolls - is being renamed to Heroic Advantage, likely to help avoid confusion with Bardic Inspiration. It's also no longer issued for rolling nat 1s.

Playtest 5

tl;dr, martial classes get some nice tweaks that fix a few of their core issues and the new issues raised aren't major, warlock lost most of its key selling points, and sorcerer, despite a few nice metamagic buffs and one nice unique spell, mostly cries in the ditch as the buffed wizard smugly eats its lunch.

Barbarian

• Rages got buffed. They now last up to ten minutes, and you can keep them going by forcing saves or spending a bonus action if for some reason you can't put out an attack, which makes them easier to sustain without having to contrive reasons to hurt yourself if you're in a fight but not in a position to either deal or take damage and don't want to lose it.
  • Level 13 makes this condition irrelevant as you can keep rages going for the full length without wasting bonus actions, etc.
  • Primal Knowledge still gives an extra skill at level 2, but it now also lets you use Strength for certain skills when raging. These skills are are... a bit eclectic as aside from obvious ones like Athletics and Intimidate, you can also use Strength for Survival and even stealth. Because the big angry man happens to know how to be deathly silent while screaming in rage. But hey, gives the class some utility out-of-combat and synergizes well with the reworks to rage.
• Feral Instinct now gives advantage on all Dex saves at the cost of the old bonus to avoid surprise.
• Brutal Critical replaces the extra damage die with extra damage equal to your level.
• Relentless Rage doesn't give you a measly hit point just to cheat death, but a remarkably healthy recovery so you don't drop the instant the enemy hits you again.
• Infinite Rage is gone, but on level 17 you can recover a rage at the beginning of each battle, making it functionally equal.
• Path of the Berserker no longer uses exhaustion! HOORAY THE CLASS IS FUCKING USABLE NOW!
  • Using Reckless Attack now lets you deal Rage damage x d6 extra damage on a hit.
  • Mindless Rage now actually ends Charmed and Frightened instead of just stalling them.
  • Intimidating Presence, while activating later, now scares a number of enemies in an AoE. Even better, the save DC uses your Strength, something you'll absolutely be maxing out. Unfortunately, it's now once per Long Rest to compensate and still costs an action.

Fighter

• Persuasion is added to the skill list, continuing the class's march away from the 3.X "worst skill list in the game" pit of shame.
• Second Wind gets more uses per day off the rip, but at the cost of only recharging on a Long Rest. This isn't terrible early game, and doesn't make a gigantic different late game, even considering the extra uses they can be put to, but expect to really feel that pinch mid-game when you're getting the worst of both worlds, especially since the rework to later abilities turned Second Winds into a currency that need to be expended. And unlike the Cleric or Druid, powerful game-defining spellcasters, you never get any ability to get them back on a short rest ever, because what the game really needs is to nerf all the muscle classes while buffing spellcasters, again.
• Action Surge can now only be used for certain actions. Fortunately, they're all ones you'd already be doing 95% of the time anyways, most notably using Attack to make your bundle of extra Extra Attacks, but it still reduces the ability's overall utility, most notably in making it very difficult to use items and the like.
• Level 7 lets you swap out a weapon's Weapon Mastery trait for another that it can qualify for every time you hit with it. At the very least, it's a neat bonus trick to rely on, but you're stuck choosing between one or the other until level 13, when you can pick both traits.
• Indomitable grants a bonus equal to fighter level on the reroll, taking it from mediocre to actually really strong, although it still only recharges on a Long Rest...
  • Level 17 isn't really a second use of Indomitable, but it kinda is since you can only use it after using up Indomitable. It requires you to spend a Second Wind, gaining the hitpoints as normal, which might be useful if you're being hit by a breath weapon and might actually die if it you don't make the save. And remember, you only get four of 'em a day tops, ever.
• Champion also gives you a floating skill proficiency slot off the fighter list that you can swap whenever you finish a long rest, giving the subclass a fair bit of extra oomph.
  • Level 6 lets you gain Heroic Advantage once per battle if you don't already have it.
  • The capstone ability retains the regeneration at half health effect, and also lets you crit death saves with the same expanded range as your attacks.

Sorcerer

• Still no ritual casting, lol, cry harder.
• Wizards has heard your complaints about your class's tiny number of spells known! They have heard your desire for richly-thematic bloodline spell lists analogous to cleric domains! And they have seemingly decided... that you can go fuck yourself with those "domain spells" if you like them so much, because they're going to do something completely different and just give every sorcerer a list of new spells, almost exclusively mediocre and random combat-focused spells instead.
  • Chaos bolt and sorcerous burst are always-prepped spells at level one, doubling down on the "chaotic" aspects of the sorcerer class at the expense of everything else. The latter is a new ranged cantrip that deals weak damage, but rolling max damage lets you roll another die for extra damage and - more importantly - can be any damage type you want. (In practice, this still mostly makes it a poor man's eldritch blast out of the gate, but hey, you're still a full caster, it's kind of funny when you hit the jackpot, especially when it scales up a few levels and that "roll extra damage on 6s" thing starts coming into its own, and the warlock's been brutally nerfed anyway.) The former is the same old derpy luck-based wacky nonsense it's always been; people who love wild magic zaniness will love having it on tap and people who can't stand that shit may as well not have the extra spell prepped at all.
  • Sorcerous vitality is a new exclusive always-prepped 3rd level spell that lets you heal yourself without needing to bother your cleric or paladin. Not that it does much, but hey, still more than the wizard's likely to get, and you can clear out a couple of conditions. (Since, unlike fellow "end condition" spell lesser restoration of the same level it doesn't actually cure diseases or poisons, it's an open question what happens if you try to end the poisoned condition on yourself with the poison still in your body...)
  • Arcane eruption is a new exclusive always-prepped 4th level spell that is an AoE spell that deals damage and, curiously, one of the damage die can also be used to determine a condition you can inflict on your victims. Yet more doubling-down on chaotic wackiness; it deals sub-fireball damage and, while choosing the damage type almost makes up for that against a lot of enemies and the conditions it can potentially inflict are potentially extremely strong, they only last for a turn at best, only apply when the creature fails the same, and the save in question is Constitution... the strongest save most monsters and pre-built NPC enemies have.
  • Sorcery incarnate is a new exclusive always-prepped concentration spell up to a minute that offers free advantage on all spellcasting attack rolls, the ability to stack metamagic on spells, and a cute little 1d4 dribble of sorcery points when activated. An incredibly strong spell with a ton of powerful buffs well-tailored to the class that suffers from the class it's built around still having religiously-unaddressed problems rather than any deficiencies in and of itself. In general, what the sorcery buffs should have been.
• Sorcerous Restoration comes online a good bit sooner, which is to say that, instead of your capstone, it comes in on level 15 of a class that needed it at level 2 to compete with the wizard's better version of it and still offers a flat 4 sorcery points instead of scaling. Still... progress? Sorcery incarnate gives you a very poor man's version of the benefit at level 9, alleviating some of the pain.
• A new capstone now giving you a daily use of wish - one that can instead use a lesser spell slot if you're using it to copy another spell and can never fail. Single-handedly fixes all your spell list problems right there; just try to avoid accidentally overloading and making it impossible to ever cast wish again.
• Lots of metamagic tweaks, mostly for the stronger.
  • Careful Spell now makes your allies outright immune to any AoE damage you cause on a spell, a welcome change.
  • Distant Spell adds 30 x sorcerer level feet to the spell's range rather than doubling. A big buff in most ways that matter by the time you even have metamagic.
  • Extended Spell now grants advantage on any concentration checks to sustain a spell in addition to the duration increase still doubling.
  • Heightened Spell costs less and now gives disadvantage to all saves the chosen target makes, which is nice and makes it a bit more competitive with eating the same number of points for a spell slot.
  • Quickened Spell has wording that requires it to be used first instead of, potentially, after a cantrip. (This is presumably to make it less confusing for players who didn't read the "one non-cantrip spell per turn" rule.)
  • Subtle Spell now also removes any non-critical (read: stuff that actually costs a lot) material components to a spell, making the subtle spell in question, you know, actually subtle.
  • Twinned Spell, once one of the most popular and powerful metamagic options, was nerfed to shit. Instead of targeting a second person with a single-target spell for a reasonably scaling price, it now lets you spend Sorcery Points to copy a spell you spent a slot on last round at a slightly more efficient rate than spending a bonus action to do the same thing. Not completely useless, but when a ton of other choices got stronger...
• Draconic Sorcery (Bloodlines are no longer because...racism issues, I guess) now lets you add Charisma to your AC instead of a fixed AC bump so you have more use from your cheesed casting stat.
  • Elemental Affinity can now be used on any sort of damage type since you don't exactly need to pick what kind of dragon you were born from. This also gives you resistance to that type.
  • Level 10 lets you use Sorcerous Burst as a cone attack, letting you hit multiple foes but trapping you to one damage type.
  • Draconic Wings now works as part of Sorcery Incarnate and gives an AoE Burst attack, which is alright but much less useful than semi-permanent flight the rest of the time.

Warlock

• Spellcasting has been completely reworked; now you gain spells like a paladin or ranger instead of the old Pact Slots mechanic. Presuambly, this is to prevent multiclassing abuse. In practice, this now means that the major draw of the warlock class has been removed and replaced with fucking nothing, because if you want to play any arcane class except wizard that's clearly a "you" problem. (And it's not like the gaping flaws in the classes people multiclassed warlock to try to patch have gone anywhere).
• Eldritch blast and hex are treated as always-prepped spells and only scale with warlock level so nobody else can hijack them via spell lists. Excellent change right there, despite everything else.
  • Hex, already mediocre and overrated, now only deals the extra damage once per turn. Sad. Oh, and remove curse can end it early, if for whatever strange reason that's easier than just killing the warlock who cast it or beating them up 'til they blow concentration.
• All pacts are now not only represented as specific cantrips, all of them also have alternative primary stats, which can make for some wild dip builds.
  • Pact weapon can still bond with an existing weapon, and conjures one that lasts for 24 hours as an action if you don't have one on hand. (It works on anything without Heavy.) The weapon now gets Returning if it also has Thrown, so you can cheese out throwing weapons, themselves buffed by rules changes, and it scales to gain Extra Attack for free instead of having to blow invocations on it. Even better is that the class now has Medium armor proficiency baked in, so you're even better suited for it.
    • Its unique invocation now deals an extra d6 necrotic damage instead of extra necrotic damage equal to charisma modifier, although you then regain hitpoints equal to the damage dealt, which is nice, if not enough to save it from mediocrity.
    • Since its casting stat can be either Wis or Cha, you can now make a Cleric/Warlock just as easily as you can make a Paladin/Warlock, though with the changes and tweaks neither's really that desirable.
  • Pact familiar now summons a generic familiar that you can always communicate with. Offers a much wider variety of options and creature types, but these choices are generally cosmetic aside from strange corner cases and damage types. It keeps most of the old familiars' blend of flight, invisibility (though it needs to spend an action on it every turn to stay invisible), and high-powered Darkvision, actually scales for shit, has not-quite-proficiency on all ability score checks and saves (an incredible dark horse benefit), and gains some old benefits you used to have to spend invocations on for free as you level up! Unfortunately, it also keeps the old Chain's bizarre fixation on making the familiar into a combat partner; none of the upgrades really fix the old problem of a familiar dying in a stiff breeze whenever it's actually targeted. Hell, none of them actually have any resistances or immunities anymore, meaning that, pittance of hitpoints and a point or two of AC aside, they're actually in some ways more fragile than they used to be! At least you only have to burn your reaction that you might've wanted to actually use for other important things to make it attack instead of the action you'd almost certainly rather spend on eldritch blast!
    • Its unique invocation offers extra tricks based on familiar type, doubling down on the combat stuff no one actually uses them for while offering nothing for the utility players actually use them for or the survivability that they desperately need.
    • Uses Intelligence or Charisma to cast.
  • Book of shadows represents a hard nerf to the old Pact of the Tome, but is still amazing for utility purposes even by the standards of a familiar with not-quite-proficiency in all skills. When the cantrip is cast, you gain a book that gives you two cantrips and two level 1 ritual spells from any list you see fit, and since there are no limits on how many times you can cast it this effectively means you have (almost) every cantrip and level 1 ritual in the game. At level 5, you can also add your casting stat to the cantrip's damage, which is cute, but you already have eldritch blast, although Agonizing Blast is less of an invocation tax.
    • Its unique invocation is the old "ten creatures write their names in the book and the first one to drop to zero hitpoints instead drops to one" pick from one of the later updates.
    • Drops Charisma requirements outright, casting with either Intelligence or Wisdom instead.
• Lots of Invocation reworks.
  • You get 9 invocations at max level instead of 8, but...
  • A lot of the bonus-spell invocations are replaced with Mystic Arcanum, which is now an invocation itself. This might sound handy... until you see that this is practically a 4-invocation tax, meaning a net loss of 3 invocations across 20 levels, to say nothing of how the old "spell" invocations were, you know, the good ones. Inexplicable massive late-game nerf to a class that was already widely seen as dip fodder while doing nothing to address that problem, all for the sake of unifying mechanics while putting absolutely fuckin' nothing in their place.
  • This could have been solved by folding some old "must take" Invocations into the core eldritch blast cantrip, which they of course were not.
  • Gaze of Two Minds now costs a bonus action and doesn't render you blind/deaf. You can also now cast through that target, though it's not quite clear how self-targeting spells work.
  • Hexer makes hex have an insane range on top of advantage on concentration checks. This would be totally worth it on a better spell.
  • Lesson of the First Ones gives you a bonus feat.
• Pact of the Fiend (and other pacts) now trigger on level 3 like every other subclass. They also give a set of always-prepped spells instead of expanding your spell list, which is a nice buff. You can also cast one of those spells without spending a slot daily.
  • Dark One's Blessing now works when enemies die within 5 feet of you.
  • Dark One's Own Luck can be used multiple times a day but loses the ability to recover on a short rest.
  • Fiendish Resilience loses its rather pointless weaknesses.
  • Hurl Through Hell can be used again by sacrificing a level 4+ spell slot and has a save to resist the damage.

Wizard

• Level 2 gives you advantage on any Intelligence checks you make after using the Study action, because what the arguable strongest class in the game needed was a buff to an important secondary role. The arguable strongest class in the game getting huge, powerful buffs will be a running theme throughout.
• Wizards also get a bunch of free bonus spells, that're also always considered prepared. Where the sorcerer got some mediocre random-ass bullshit that doubled-down on the "chaotic" flavor not everyone playing the class liked, the wizard got a bunch of insanely powerful "meta" spells that completely eliminate their few weaknesses while also giving them incredible ability to customize other spells, at the low-low cost of a couple of spell slots a day that it can easily afford compared to the sorcerer with its completely un-nerfed Arcane Recovery. (Note that most of the other classes with a mechanism to get resources back on a short rest had theirs removed completely.)
  • Scribe spell is an exclusive always-prepped level 1 spell that follows the same basic rules for scribing a spell into your spellbook as current rules, but meaning you need to spend a 1st level spell slot to do so, and goes into explicit detail about how the spells scribed (and therefore your entire spellbook) are completely indecipherable to anyone else unless they cast identify. Still ridiculously powerful if you do your prepwork in your off time.
  • Memorize spell is an exclusive always-prepped level 3 spell that lets you swap off one prepped spell with another you didn't prep, with an extra spell per spell level. Completely removes one of the only weaknesses to playing a wizard in one go.
  • Modify spell is an exclusive always-prepped level 4 spell that lets you tweak a single prepped spell in a ton of different ways until you cast it again or take a long rest. Very poor internal balance; most of them are more fun curiosities than powerful game changers, but the real winners are modifying indiscriminate spells to only affect enemies or allies and modifying concentration spells so that damage can't break concentration on them, both of which absolutely are. Upcasting applies extra effects at a rate of one per level.
  • Create spell is an exclusive always-prepped level 5 spell that you cast after using modify spell so you can then cast scribe spell in order to write your new spell into your spellbook and make as your own. The only thing keeping this from being broken as fuck is the cost, at 1000 gp per spell level, plus two hours per the same from scribe spell, and even then how much money and time you'll have lying around with nothing better to spend it on than custom versions of powerful concentration spells that you can only be made to stop concentrating on via death or unconsciousness will vary by table and campaign.
• Spell Mastery and Signature Spells both got bumped down several levels, which happened to a lot of things but these are incredibly powerful abilities and getting them earlier in the late-game is still woof.
• Evoker (Schools being scrapped to likely save ink for more half-hearted backtracking) now triggers on level 3 like all other subclasses and grants two free Evocation spells to your book, but is largely unchanged, with one exception:
  • Potent Cantrip now makes missed attacks deal half-damage, which makes you a lot more useful as a spell-turret.

Other Changes

• Weapons now have a special Weapon Mastery trait, which isn't really useful except for Warriors, who all tend to have access to these traits when fighting. While they're all decent additions of utility, they're still severely lacking when compared to what spells can do.
  • Mastery only works on a set number of weapons as you level up, which...isn't a major issue, but it's still really weird when you could've just had weapon groups.
  • The Light property got busted back to the useless trait it was before, which pretty much ruins every use anyone ever had for dual-wielding over Sword-n-Board or Great Weapons unless they get the relevant Mastery trait, which reinstates it.
• Death saves got re-re-reworked.

Licence shenanigans

More troubling is the possible rumors that Wizards might be outright dumping the OGL (instead of updating it like a reasonable person to assume) and thus everyone's ability to publish 5E materials on their own. Needless to say, the truth was more horrifying than anyone could have expected.

First off, all publishers are forced to publish any future supplements through DM's Guild (taking a 50% cut of the proceeds in the process) and thus require any publishers to pay Wizards for the privilege of selling on their storefront. Also, creators making more than 750k USD yearly (such as Kobold Press or Frog God Games) will have to pay royalties for any revenue they make over that amount (as in gross revenue, meaning it stacks on top of other expenses), starting in 2024. WOTC claims there are less than 20 creators worldwide even making that much dough, and nothing stops them from perhaps dropping that cap to a level that'd let them tax more publishers. More damningly, by agreeing to this new contract, you were effectively signing away the rights, trademarks and copyrights of anything you make to Wizards, who can then republish this without your permission, and they have the right to pull it from all shelves for any reason with only a scant 30 days' notice. As this absolutely nullifies the 1.0 OGL, this puts pretty much every single roleplaying game that ever dared utilize the OGL at the mercy of WotC's legal team unless they decide to strike out on their own without it.

This is considered to be such a massive slap in the face for absolutely everyone who made anything for them - which might lead to the mass exodus of 3PP developers and potentially bringing down the golden age they made merely ten years ago. Hell, if we're lucky, some madlad might even try making their own equivalent of Pathfinder and start raking up all that lost money and community support; even better if a bunch of these companies decided to make their own games just so they don't have to play by WotC's tune. Lo and behold, the leaks have had these very consequences, with companies such as MCDM and Kobold Press deciding to make their own games as soon as they're done with their 5E shit, several more have denounced this new OGL, with the lightest form of criticism being merely "We're withholding from voicing any opinions until we officially hear it from the horse's mouth". As you might note, nobody (aside from any edgy contrarians) is supporting this.

After several rounds of half-hearted backpedaling and failed attempts at appeasement, Wizards decided to call off their attempts to nullify the OGL and dropped the 5.1 SRD into Creative Commons. For the moment, the community called this a win, but those who remained rightfully suspicious of the megacorp are now waiting to see if they'll attempt something like a GSL for this game when the release comes.

Microtransaction hell

Even more troubling is that One D&D is apparently going down the same route as fucking triple-A vidya via implementing microtransactions for content smaller than book-level, all for a Virtual Tabletop that also has paid subscription tiers. Even some magic items, my god. So much for that online database being a good thing, since you're going to have to pay to access the stuff you want specifically. This is likely because in their infinite wisdom Hasbro made an ex-Microsoft employee their CEO, which is a bad idea for multiple reasons, and said CEO has stated that D&D is undermonetized even with the expensive ass books. So yeah, if the OGL wasn't enough to erode any good faith WOTC had left, this fucking did.

Fortunately, this has also become a glowing weak spot for the beast, as the corporate obsession with short-term profits has meant that they're more interested in the subscriptions to their D&D Beyond services than any other purchases because it means a consistent flow of money. Of course, the easiest way to hurt such is to cancel any subscriptions to Beyond and to stay off their shitty service once they open up the actual 3D tabletop service. Of course, this happened once the full extent for Wizards' contempt for their own consumer base was laid bare, and as a panic button, Wizards had to hide the cancel subscription button on their website, hoping that the stupids will forget this offense with time before revealing something only slightly less tyrannical. As part of their aforementioned appeasement, the suits tried to introduce a VTT policy that seemed obsessed with nonsensical aspects that mean little to a VTT, hoping to draw attention away from the real issues. While the OGL issue folded over, there was no word on how they were going to address the issues about the microtransaction-laden system, which means that any further fuckery can and most likely will take place over this as a hill they would desperately die on.