One D&D Archives - Tribality

UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook Playtest 7 Breakdown, Part Five

Brandes Stoddard — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 13:33:22 +0000

Is… is it possible, by some strange chance, that I’m coming to a close in this series? Sure, I’m a whole packet behind, but I’m doing my best here, folks. This time, I’m planning to finish the packet. Wish me luck. Barbarian | Fighter | Sorcerer | Warlock | Wizard Wizard The flavor text name-checks several familiar figures – Bigby, Tasha, Mordenkainen, great! – and one who is a much deeper cut to me. Yolande, it turns out, is a significant figure in Greyhawk lore just […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook Playtest 7 Breakdown, Part Four

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 14:52:28 +0000

Let’s make a deal and have that talk about UA’s latest revision of Warlocks. Today, I’ll be bringing you quotes from Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, since it’s sort of an ur-text for the whole concept. It also explains how hard it is to have a new idea in game design: “There’s nothing wise and nothing silly wasn’t thought of long ago.” Barbarian | Fighter | Sorcerer | Warlock Warlock I have a long history of opinions on this class, and I’ve made […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook 7 Playtest Breakdown, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 20:26:29 +0000

This packet dropped before I’d even finished covering its cyclopean predecessor, so I took a little time to make progress on other projects (good stuff, Under the Seas of Vodari backers!) before taking up sword and spellbook once again. This time out, the remaining five classes get a fresh draft: Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard. The spellcaster classes in particular signal a sweeping change to 5e.24’s development–we’ll get to that. Barbarian The changes noted in the change log sidebar […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook 6 Playtest Breakdown, Part Seven

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 21:57:08 +0000

The new packet came out yesterday, but I’m not covering that today. I’m still finishing up the last one, with the Rogue, new or revised spells, and anything else down toward the bottom of the packet. Let’s hit it. PH Playtest 6: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, et al. Rogue The first UA Rogue didn’t excite me, because they had narrowed Sneak Attack down to only happening on your turn, and only as part of the Attack action – no Reaction Sneak Attacking for […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook Playtest 6 Breakdown, Part Five

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 20:21:31 +0000

Illness and wanting to get that Glory of the Giants review posted have delayed my progress through this UA packet, but I’m back today, baby. Paladins, it’s your turn. PH Playtest 6: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin Paladin The previous version of the paladin was just two packets ago, and in a way it’s amazing that much has changed. I was generally positive on that earlier version. No changes to the Hit Die, weapon, armor, skill, or saving throw baselines. Lay on Hands is […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook 6 Playtest Breakdown, Part Four

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 00:32:48 +0000

Okay, we’re on to talking about Monks. As you undoubtedly know, this is the first draft of a new Monk we’ve seen in One D&D playtesting; other than the Artificer, which won’t be in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, it’s the only class still on its first round. Weird, Monks are usually better at Initiative than that! PH Playtest 6: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk Monk The 5e.14 Monk has always been a tough class for content design. On one hand, new moves for Monk […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook Playtest 6 Breakdown, Part Three

Brandes Stoddard — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 01:24:32 +0000

This time around, it’s druids, along with a new Circle of the Moon and our first look at the Circles of Land and Sea. I had… not much good to say about the previous UA Druid. PH Playtest 6: Bard, Cleric, Druid Druid There’s a lot of change going on here, down to the fundamental playstyle options. Druidic, the feature name, teaches you the Druidic language, makes Speak with Animals always prepared (I like that quite a lot), and lets […]

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UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook Playtest 6 Breakdown, Part Two

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 20:03:13 +0000

Onward to the cleric! You can find my article on the UA Bard here. As we go on, keep in mind that this is UA’s second shot at all of its classes except the Monk. Cleric For my comments on the previous iteration of the cleric, clicky clicky. Divine Order has dropped down to 1st level, as I suggested that the Holy Order feature (its predecessor) absolutely had to. They also trimmed out Scholar and shoved the most important piece […]

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UA 2023: Player’s Handbook Playtest 6 Breakdown, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 20:53:51 +0000

This new packet is a sanity-destroying beast with a huge number of reversions and new changes, so I’m going to get right to it. Seventy-seven pages. Most of the boilerplate text of previous documents is trimmed out here, presumably for the same reason. The broad change to understand going in is that every class getting subclass features at the same levels has been reverted: now all classes get their first subclass feature(s) at 3rd level, then follow their previous progression. […]

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UA 2023: Player’s Handbook – Druid and Paladin Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:55:50 +0000

January was a hell of a year, but we’re back with a new Unearthed Arcana for One D&D in the tail end of February. This time we’re looking at the other two Priest-group classes, the Druid and the Paladin, as well as more revised spells and some significant changes to the Rules Glossary. Character Origins | Expert Classes | Cleric & 3 Revised Species | Druid & Paladin No obvious changes in the opening boilerplate, but there’s a document-wide easing off of capitalizing like […]

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