One D&D: Player's Handbook Playtest 5
A new Unearthed Arcana came out, and this one is the largest one yet! It combines several feedback changes from previous UA releases, as well as a ton of new content regarding classes, spells, feats, and weapons. As always, I’m going to try and condense the notable changes into something more digestible for folks! If you’re interested in condensed versions of other One D&D UA releases, you can check them out here, here, and here! If you want to read along with the actual document, you can access it with an account on D&D Beyond, or you can check out the PDF here.
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Note: I will indicate when I am listing things off verbatim from the PDF and when I am paraphrasing.
Weapons
The first section of this UA discusses changes to weapons. They have a chart featuring all available weapons, along with their properties, gold cost, and a new mastery trait for each. Here’s a few of the general changes they highlighted, largely verbatim:
Each weapon now has a Mastery property, a special property that requires a feature to unlock.
Shortsword has returned to being a Martial weapon.
The Net, which doesn’t deal damage, is now adventuring gear rather than a weapon. Additionally, instead of automatically entangling Large or smaller creatures, it instead forces a Dexterity save of DC 8 + proficiency + your Dexterity modifier. It also indicates a range of 15 ft, and Huge or larger creatures automatically succeed the save. Destroying the next and escaping it have the same properties, though it indicates an immunity to Bludgeoning, Poison, and Psychic damage, and you no longer sacrifice all additional Attacks when attacking the net.
The Trident’s damage die has changed from 1d6 to 1d8, and its Versatile die is now 1d10 rather than 1d8.
The Lance has the Heavy and Two-Handed properties rather than the Special property (which imposed Disadvantage on some of its attack rolls), and its damage die has changed from 1d12 to 1d10.
The War Pick now has the Versatile property.
The Musket and Pistol, which previously appeared in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, now appear in the Martial Weapons: Ranged table. As always, the DM oversees what is available for purchase in shops. (They appear to have separated ranged weapons by ‘simple’ and ‘martial’ in general instead of having the two categories encompass both melee and ranged weapons)
The Light property now appears in the “Weapon Properties” section rather than in the glossary. This is because they changed it where now the ‘Two Weapon Fighting’ ability can just be used by default, as long as you have two Light weapons in your hands. You do not need ‘Two Weapon Fighting’ any longer.
The Thrown property now allows you to draw a weapon as part of the ranged attack.
The new abilities of weapons, the Mastery traits, can only be accessed if a player has a feature that gives it to them, such as a Feat or class upgrade. It’s implied there are multiple ways to gain Weapon Mastery. The list of extra traits is as follows:
Cleave. For melee weapons with the Heavy property. When you hit a creature with an attack roll with the weapon, you can make a second attack roll against another creature within 5 ft within reach. If you hit with that attack roll, you deal the weapon’s damage, but do not add your modifiers, unless your modifiers are negative. You can only use this property once per turn.
Flex. For melee weapons with the Versatile property. When you hit a creature with an attack roll with this weapon, you deal the weapon’s Versatile damage, even if you’re only wielding it with one hand.
Graze. For melee weapons with the Heavy property. If you miss an attack with this weapon, you can deal damage to that creature equal to your Ability modifier with the weapon. This damage cannot be increased in any way, other than increasing your Ability modifier. The damage is the same type as the weapon.
Nick. For melee weapons with the Light property. When you make the extra attack with a Light property weapon, you can make it as part of your Attack action, instead of a Bonus Action. You can still only perform it once per turn.
Push. For weapons with the Heavy, Two-Handed, or Versatile properties. If you hit a creature with an attack with this weapon, you can push them 10 ft. from you, provided they’re no more than one size larger than you.
Sap. For weapons with no other properties (i.e. the Mace, Flail, and Morningstar.) When you hit a creature with an attack with this weapon, they have disadvantage on their next Attack roll before the start of your next turn.
Slow. Any weapon. If you hit with a weapon attack and deal damage against a creature, you can reduce their Speed by 10 ft. until the start of your next turn. If you hit with multiple attacks, the speed reduction doesn’t exceed 10 ft.
Topple. For melee weapons with the Heavy, Two-Handed, and Versatile properties. When you hit a creature with this weapon, you can force them to make a CON save, the DC equaling 9 + proficiency + Ability modifier used for the weapon. On a failure, the creature is knocked Prone.
Vex. For Ammunition and weapons with the Light, and Finesse properties. If you hit a creature with an attack and deal damage to it, you have advantage on your next attack against them before the end of your next turn.
Overall Thoughts. This does add a fun progression to getting better with a weapon, since that progression is practically nonexistent at the moment. I do think a couple of the Mastery properties, such as Sap and Vex, are capable of being extremely powerful if they’re gotten really early. That being said, it does make some of the weapons more appealing to try out instead of most folks defaulting to the same types of weapons. Giving Flails, Morningstars, and Mauls their own and pretty powerful Mastery option is great in my opinion.
Spellcasting and Feats
First, a couple of general notes:
Chaos Bolt. This spell has moved over from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and all Sorcerers get it as a bonus spell.
Eldritch Blast. This cantrip now scales only with your Warlock level, and all Warlocks get it as a bonus spell.
Hex. This spell can deal its extra damage only once per turn, and all Warlocks get it as a bonus spell.
They detail eleven spells to the game,some of them new and all of them specific to either the Wizard, Sorcerer or Warlock classes. I won’t include the word for word functions of each one here (see page 8 of the official PDF for that.) That said, I will give a brief overview of what each spell does.
Arcane Eruption. A 4th level Evocation spell for Sorcerers. An Area of Effect (AOE) spell that explodes in a 20 ft radius. On a failed CON save, it deals 6d6 damage of a type of the caster’s choosing (between Psychic, Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder, and Poison damage, half damage on a successful save) and assigning a random condition (based on a roll of a d6) depending on if they failed the save or not.
Book of Shadows. A Conjuration cantrip for Warlocks. This cantrip has an hour casting time, wherein the caster creates a book containing knowledge of two cantrips and two 1st level Ritual spells. While holding the book, the caster has access to those spells as if they’re prepared, and if they’re a 5th level warlock or higher, they can add their Warlock spellcasting modifier to their cantrip damage. Also, the book can be used as an Arcane focus. The book only disappears if the spell is cast again or the caster dies.
Chaos Bolt. This spell remains unchanged.
Scribe Spell. A 1st level Transmutation spell for Wizards. This essentially replaces the innocuous requirement for Wizards to use 50 gp of ink to write a spell in their spellbook. It functions identically to that requirement, including taking 2 hours per level of the spell transcribed.
Modify Spell. A 4th level Transmutation spell for Wizards. This allows the caster to alter one property of an existing spell, including the required components (as long as they’re not consumed), whether or not damage can break Concentration, damage type, the range (by 30 ft, provided it is not a ‘Self’ spell), making it a Ritual (if it has a casting time of 10 minutes or more), and Targets (you can make it only affect allies or enemies.) The modification lasts until the spell is cast again or your take a Long Rest, but can’t be added to the Wizard’s spellbook unless Create Spell is cast.
Create Spell. A 5th level Transmutation spell for Wizards. This allows you to add a modified spell to your Spellbook, provided you supply a 1000 gp Arcane Focus plus cast Scribe Spell within 10 minutes after casting this spell, which is another 50 gp.
Memorize Spell. A 3rd level Divination spell for Wizards. Allows you to simply switch out a prepared spell with an unprepared one. The effect lasts until you take a Long Rest or cast the spell again.
Hex. A 1st level Enchantment spell for Warlocks. This reads mostly the same as the original, however, they added a nerf where the extra 1d6 damage can only be dealt once per turn.
Pact Familiar. A Conjuration cantrip for Warlocks. This works very similarly to Find Familiar, but has a default stat block (much like other UA summon spells) where some abilities change depending on the type of creature you picked. It also, notably, can attack.
Pact Weapon. A Conjuration cantrip for Warlocks. It functions identically to the Pact of the Blade feature from previous additions, though this one specifies that at Level 5 Warlock, you can get an extra attack with this specific weapon.
Sorcerous Burst. A Evocation cantrip for Sorcerers. It deals a d6 of damage of your choosing (between the elemental damage types + Psychic), and if you roll a 6 on the damage die, you can roll another d6. These d6s have the potential to stack up to your spellcasting modifier. The base damage increases by 1d6 at higher levels.
Sorcerous Vitality. A 3rd level Abjuration spell for Sorcerers. A healing spell that restores 2d6 + your spellcasting modifier in hit points and also removes the Blinded, Deafened, or Poisoned conditions.
Sorcery Incarnate. A 5th level Transmutation spell for Sorcerers. A 1-minute concentration spell, this restores 1d4 Sorcery Points, and you gain the benefits of having advantage on all spell attacks, and being able to add two Metamagic options to spells, rather than just one.
The Feats section is pretty small, merely added a couple of Epic Boons as well as changing the Weapon Master feat to account for the Mastery abilities added to weapons. They also added a prerequisite of at least 4th level for the Weapon Master feat.
Overall Thoughts. It seems, for Warlocks, they’re focusing a lot more on making a lot of their default abilities Cantrips instead, which I don’t see much reason for beyond potentially making them available for other classes? What’s odd is, despite them streamlining the spell lists, all the spells above have a class tag on them. What I assume this means is these spells are always prepared for the given class, but are part of the Arcane list. That being said, given the material components required for certain spells, these spells appear to be exclusive to those classes.
On that note, while I’ll talk about it more when I get each of the classes, I think it’s a very strange change to make what were formally class abilities into spells. All three spellcasters featured here have had abilities just – be exclusive spells, which I’m wracking my brain to think of the reasoning for. Why not just make them class abilities? The only thing I can think of is to make their use attached to spell slots rather than something like your proficiency bonus or not having a limit at all, but for Warlock, all their exclusive spells are Cantrips, which seems really extraneous. If I were to guess, this change was made so all Warlocks have those abilities, rather than needing a particular subclass. I’ll talk about that more when we get down to Warlocks.
Barbarian
Now we get into the meat of the UA, which is the adjustments to some of the classes! I’m going to try to condense it as much as possible in terms of differences from the main class. Thankfully, much with the weapons, they gave a handy list of direct changes, listed below, largely verbatim but with some elaboration thrown in:
Rage can now be extended with a Bonus Action each round. Taking damage doesn’t extend it, but forcing someone to make a saving throw does. The focus is now on what you do, not on what’s done to you. Also, the playtest Rage can last for 10 minutes rather than 1 minute. Finally, Rage is now stopped by the Incapacitated condition.
Weapon Mastery is a new 1st-level feature, which grants one of the Mastery abilities for weapons mentioned above.
Primal Knowledge is a new 2nd-level feature, which unlocks noncombat functionality for Rage. You gain a skill proficiency of your choice. While Raging, when you make an Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, or Survival check, you can use your Strength modifier for the roll instead of the stat usually associated with the skill.
Reckless Attack is gained at 2nd level. It reads the same as previous editions.
Danger Sense has been merged with Feral Instinct, and the limitations on its use have been removed. Consequently, they’ve moved this ability to 7th level instead of 2nd.
Indomitable Might has moved from 18th level to 9th level.
Brutal Critical has moved from 9th level to 11th level, and its extra damage has been increased and now scales with your level.
Persistent Rage has moved from 15th level to 13th level.
Relentless Rage has moved from 11th level to 15th level, and rather than restoring you to 1 Hit Point, it restores a number of Hit Points equal to twice your Barbarian level. This change will help prevent the Barbarian from immediately dropping back to 0 Hit Points.
Rage Resurgence is a new 17th-level feature that restores a use of Rage whenever you roll Initiative. Because of this feature, the Barbarian doesn’t gain unlimited uses of Rage at 20th level.
Primal Champion has moved from 20th level to 18th level, and its increase was changed from 4 to 2.
Epic Boon is the same capstone given to all classes at 20th level
The included subclass for Barbarian is the Berserker subclass, the changes listed as follows:
Frenzy no longer causes you to gain a level of Exhaustion. In addition, it causes you to deal extra damage each round that you use Reckless Attack, instead of giving you a Bonus Action attack, which conflicts with Rage’s use of a Bonus Action.
Mindless Rage ends the Charmed and Frightened conditions on you rather than merely suspending them.
Retaliation has moved from 14th level to 10th level.
Intimidating Presence has moved from 10th level to 14th level, and it has been improved. It can affect a group of creatures rather than only one, your Rage extends its range, and you don’t have to spend your action to extend its duration.
Overall Thoughts. Now these are some pretty notable changes! Rage no longer needed damage dealt is a major buff for Barbs, especially when one of the main ways of countering them was just kind of just pushing them out of the battle so they could neither take nor deal damage, which is the opposite of fun. While they moved Danger Sense to 7th level, it’s still a massive buff that I’d be surprised if they kept for future installments. Just gaining Advantage on all Dexterity saves, no questions asked, is a pretty powerful ability. Primal Knowledge is a fun way to give Barbs a little more to do outside of combat, without necessarily taking the focus away. And finally, the changes to Berserker actually make it viable! Before the Exhaustion levels were such a massive detriment for so little gain that it was one of the least popular subclasses for Barbs. Removing the Exhaustion means people might actually start using it.
Fighter
This class also experienced some small but still notable changes, referenced below:
Persuasion has been added to the class’s list of skills, with an eye on the fantasy archetype of the persuasive warrior who leads others.
Second Wind can now be used more than once between Long Rests, without requiring a Short Rest. Specifically, it can be used twice per Long Rest, with another use added at 4th Level (3 uses) and 10th level (4 uses).
Weapon Mastery is added as a 1st level feature.
Action Surge is now limited to certain Fighter-themed actions. Now, they specify the ability can only be used to Attack, Dash, Disengage, or Dodge. It can be assumed this was done to remove the common multiclassing tactic of taking levels in Fighter to get Action Surge to cast more spells in a turn.
Weapon Expert is a new 7th-level feature. It allows you to switch out the Mastery property you’re using with a weapon to another Mastery property, provided it meets the prerequisites for that ability. This change ends after a Long Rest.
Indomitable now gives you a bonus to the reroll equal to your Fighter level, as opposed to only letting you reroll with normal bonuses.
Weapon Adept is a new 13th-level feature. You can now have two Mastery features active, though you can only use one at a time when attacking, and you choose which one before the Attack hits or misses.
Improved Action Surge has moved from 17th level to 15th level. Additionally, you can no longer use them twice in a row. You can only use Action Surge once per round.
Unconquerable is a new 17th-level feature, which incorporates extra-use functionality formerly part of Indomitable. When you use your Indomitable feature and still fail, you can expend a use of Second Wind to roll it again, which also allows you to heal.
Extra Attacks has moved from 20th level to 18th level. Fighters no longer get four attacks, but instead get a max of three, where the increases happen at 5th and 18th level respectively.
Epic Boon is the same capstone given to all classes at 20th level.
As expected, the included subclass for this UA is the Champion subclass.
Adaptable Victor is a new 3rd-level feature. It allows a Fighter to pick a new skill proficiency every Long Rest, which ends when a new Long Rest begins (unless that skill is picked again with this feature.)
Remarkable Athlete, one of the lower-rated Fighter features, has been replaced by Adaptable Victor and Heroic Warrior. Remarkable Athlete used to provide half proficiency to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution based checks if not already proficient. It also gave a very small bonus to running long jumps.
Additional Fighting Style has moved from 10th level to 6th level.
Superior Critical. Rather than breaking this into two different levels, Champions now get criticals on an 18-20 at level 10.
Heroic Warrior is a new 6th-level feature. You gain Heroic Advantage (formerly known as Inspiration) at the start of combat if you don’t already have one.
Survivor has been enhanced: it now also benefits your death saving throws. You have advantage on Death Saves, and if you roll a 18-20, it’s treated as a Critical Success (i.e. you rise with one hit point.)
Overall Thoughts. Fighter, in my opinion, didn’t really need a lot of changes. It was and is one of the most solid, simple classes in the game. That being said, the little quality of life improvements they made to it I think are mostly good! Much like with a lot of the changes they’ve made in the UA so far, they’ve made a lot of effort to remove common, cheesy multiclassing tactics, which I am pretty split on. On one hand, they’re making it harder to create broken combinations by just dipping one or two levels into a class. On the other hand, the time investment in multiclassing made those cheesy tactics earned (depending on the level you start at.) Much like Berserker, I’m really happy they adjusted Champion to remove the awful Remarkable Athlete ability and replaced it with some usable abilities.
Sorcerer
I’m incredibly biased when I say this class’ changes are what I was most looking forward to in UA. For me, Sorcerer was one of the most shafted spellcasters in the game, with very limited flexibility yet having one of the more aesthetically pleasing descriptions in the game. It hasn’t gotten much support over the years save for some magic items and some hinted improvements with new subclasses. Here’s the changes One D&D is proposing (mix of paraphrasing and verbatim from their sidebar):
The name of subclasses have changed to the convention of ‘x sorcery’ for consistency.
Innate Sorcery is a new 1st-level feature, giving two Sorcerer-only spells that represent the roiling magic within. You always have Chaos Bolt and Sorcerous Burst prepared.
Spellcasting gives more spells to the Sorcerer over the life of the character, now capping at 22 rather than 15. This is one of the most-requested changes to the class.
Font of Magic now has a Sorcerer level prerequisite for creating each Spell Slot. So you can’t make a 5th level slow before reaching level 9, which is something most assumed but is clarified here.
Metamagic has moved from 3rd level to 2nd level. The feature also now gives you three Metamagic options instead of two, and you get three more at 13th level. It also lets you change one of your Metamagic options after each Long Rest.
Sorcerous Vitality is a new 5th-level feature. You always have Sorcerous Vitality prepared.
Arcane Eruption is a new 7th-level feature. You always have Arcane Eruption prepared.
Sorcery Incarnate is a new 9th-level feature. You always have Sorcery Incarnate
Sorcerous Restoration has moved from 20th level to 15th level, and it now also restores some Sorcery Points when you roll Initiative.
Arcane Apotheosis is a new 18th-level feature. You always have the Wish spell prepared, and you can never lose the spell as a result of enduring the stress the spell causes after casting it. Additionally, if you use Wish to replicate a spell of 1st-8th level, you can instead use a 1st-8th level spell slot to cast it, rather than the 9th level for Wish. You can only use this function once per Long Rest.
Epic Boon is the same capstone given to all classes at 20th level
They include all Metamagic options here. I’ll only include the ones that have changed slightly from their older counterparts:
Careful Spell now prevents an affected creature from taking half damage on a successful save.
Distant Spell increases a spell’s range by a number of feet based on your Sorcerer level rather doubling the spell’s range. For most spells, this results in a greater increase than before.
Extended Spell now also makes it easier to maintain Concentration on the affected spell.
Heightened Spell now costs 2 Sorcery Points rather than 3, and it imposes Disadvantage on all
Quickened Spell now includes a clarification on how it interacts with the game’s general rule on casting Bonus Action spells. Some players read Quickened Spell as an exception to that general rule, which was not the apparent intent.
Subtle Spell now also removes the need for Material components on the affected spell, unless it consumes its Material components.
Twinned Spell has been completely redesigned. According to the authors, the older version was too powerful and basically allowed someone to cast two spells in a turn. Now, this option essentially lets you duplicate a spell you cast in the previous turn, where you pay its level in Sorcery Points (up to 5th level) as opposed to using a spell slot.
Finally, they have the Draconic Sorcery subclass, the changes to it as follows:
Draconic Resilience now gives a base AC that is 10 + your Dexterity and Charisma modifiers rather than 13 + your Dexterity modifier. This change will result in a higher AC at later levels.
Dragon Speech, formerly Draconic Ancestor, now lets you communicate with any creature that has the Dragon type. The damage type choice has moved to Elemental Affinity.
Elemental Affinity no longer charges a Sorcery Point for the Resistance. It now simply grants you the Resistance.
Draconic Exhalation has replaced Draconic Presence, a low-rated feature in the subclass. It allows you to cast the Sorcerous Burst Cantrip as a 15 ft cone, rather than a single target attack roll. The damage type must be what your chose for Elemental Affinity, and you roll a separate Attack roll for each target in the cone.
Dragon Wings now modifies Sorcery Incarnate and includes a damage option.When you cast Sorcery Incarnate, you sprout wings with a Fly speed equal to your Walk speed, and at the end of each of your turns, you can flap your wings and deal your Charisma modifier in your Elemental Affinity damage to every creature you choose in a 15 ft. radius of yourself.
Overall Thoughts. Thank the nondenominational gods they gave Sorcerers more spells. It baffled me that Sorcerers got so few spells compared to every other spellcaster in the game. To me, that was the class’ biggest weakness and I’m happy they addressed it. That being said, some of the other choices they made I’m struggling to get behind. Making several of the new abilities Sorcerers receive at certain levels just – extra spells they can cast, rather than class abilities, is very odd to me. It seems like they’re putting a lot of weight on Spell Slots as a resource, when I feel some of these spells should just be Sorcerer abilities. It feels lazy to just make them spells, even if they’re always prepared.
I agree with all the Metamagic changes except Twinned Spell, which I honestly think they should have just removed instead of giving the massively nerfed option. The change to Quickened Spell is meant to reflect the rules for Bonus Action casting, which have long been debated by rules-centric DMs.
The changes to Draconic Sorcery are mostly fine, though I question why the wings can only be manifested if you cast a specific spell. I think that takes away from the cool factor when it could just be a separate ability. Plus, as I mentioned above – I’m not a huge fan of multiple class abilities just being spells, instead of separate features.
Warlock
I’ll admit that Warlock has been a class I always say I’m going to play but never end up doing so. It’s a very popular multiclassing option, but I’ve just never had a character I wanted to use for the class. Its very unique features could be underwhelming for new players, but were a playground for experienced ones, specifically for multiclassing. Here are the changes they’ve made, which are pretty significant:
Medium Armor is now included in the class’s armor training to better support Warlocks that walk a melee-oriented path.
Pact Boon has moved from 3rd level to 1st level. It now gives you Eldritch Blast, Hex, and a spell of your choice from a group of three—all of which are now exclusive to Warlocks. The spell you choose is connected to the spellcasting ability choice you then make, which are Pact Weapon (Pact of the Blade), Pact Familiar (Pact of the Chain), and Book of Shadows (Pact of the Tome.)
Spellcasting Ability can now be chosen between two options given depending on the Pact you choose. Pact of the Blade can be Charisma or Wisdom, Pact of the Chain can be Intelligence or Charisma, and Pact of the Tome can be Intelligence or Wisdom.
Pact Magic has been replaced by Spellcasting. The most-requested change to Warlocks has been for them to be able to use their spells more often. They therefore now cap out at 15 Spell Slots instead of 4.
Eldritch Invocations now caps out at nine invocations rather than eight.
Mystic Arcanum has become an Eldritch Invocation option, which is now available as soon as 5th level. Previously the Warlock waited until 11th level to get it.
Contact Patron is a new 11th-level feature, allowing a Warlock to contact their patron directly. You always have Contact Other Plane prepared, and you can cast it once without expending a spell slot to contact your Patron, and you automatically succeed the save. You can do this once per Long Rest.
Hex Master is a new 18th-level feature. You can cast Hex at will, without expending a spell slot.
Eldritch Master has been removed, since it was based on Pact Magic.
Epic Boon is the same capstone given to all classes at 20th level.
They made changes to several of the Eldritch Evocations, which are listed here:
Beguiling Influence has been replaced by Lessons of the First Ones, which allows you to pick any Feat that is available to 1st level characters and has no prerequisites.
Mystic Arcanum has replaced Chains of Carceri, Dreadful Word, Minions of Chaos, Mire of the Mind, Sculptor of Flesh, Sign of Ill Omen, and Thief of Five Fates.
Book of Ancient Secrets has been absorbed by the new Book of Shadows spell and the Warlock’s new Spellcasting feature.
Eyes of the Rune Keeper now clarifies that it doesn’t decode secret messages.
Favor of the Chain Master is a new invocation that enhances Pact of the Chain. It adds an ability to your Familiar depending on the type of creature they are.
Gaze of Two Minds is now usable as a Bonus Action rather than an Action, it no longer applies the Blinded and Deafened conditions to you, and it allows you to cast spells from your space or the other creature’s space. Finally, it now requires 5th level.
Hexer is a new invocation that enhances Hex. It increases the range to 600 ft and gives your advantage on the Constitution saves to maintain it.
Lifedrinker now requires 9th level rather than 12th level, it deals 1d6 extra damage, and it heals you.
Repelling Blast now works on creatures that are Large or smaller.
Thirsting Blade has been absorbed by the new Pact Weapon spell.
Voice of the Chain Master has been absorbed by the new Pact Familiar spell.
Witch Sight now gives you Truesight to a range of 30 ft, and requires 15 levels in Warlock.
Finally, the document includes the Fiend Patron subclass:
Patron Spells replaces Expanded Spell List. Rather than merely expanding your spell list, Patron Spells gives you certain spells that you always have prepared. And once per Long Rest, you can cast one of those spells without a Spell Slot. The granted spells have been updated: Blindness/Deafness was replaced with Suggestion, Fireball was replaced with Fear, Fire Shield was replaced with Blight, and Hallow was replaced with Insect Plague.
Dark One’s Blessing is now also triggered by an enemy dropping to 0 Hit Points within 5 feet of you.
Dark One’s Own Luck can now be used a number of times equal to your spellcasting ability modifier rather than only once per rest.
Fiendish Resilience is no longer bypassed by magic or silvered weapons, which monsters almost never possess.
Hurl Through Hell can now be used again if you expend a Spell Slot of at least 4th level. The feature also now includes a Wisdom saving throw for the target, wherein it takes half damage on a successful save.
Overall Thoughts. These are some massive changes to Warlock. I’m pretty surprised they decided to remove the gimmick of only ever being able to cast 4 leveled spells, but it’s a super welcome change. It adds so much more flexibility to Warlocks instead of making them either melee-focused, or basically entirely relying on Eldritch Blast for the first several levels. Honestly, they somehow managed to make multiclassing into Warlock potentially just as strong by allowing players to pick their spellcasting ability, so you could potentially have new combinations. However, the changes to the spells and cantrip exclusivity probably help with balancing. I still think it’s strange that they converted the Pact abilities into Cantrips, but it’s not so much a bad change as an unnecessary one in my opinion. The mostly managed to just make Warlock a more viable option to take all the way to Level 20, instead of multiclassing to help with the often underwhelming lower levels.
Wizard
Wizards are often pointed to, other than Druids, to be the hardest class for beginners. The way they learn spells could often come across as convoluted, especially when different spellcasters had different functions for their spellcasting (which they completely eliminated now – every spellcaster prepares spells now.) Here are the changes they’ve made:
Spellcasting now allows you to use your spellbook as a Spellcasting Focus. Additionally, the chart actually indicates how many spells a Wizard learns naturally (without Scribe Spell), which is 22.
Wizard’s Spellbook is a new 1st-level feature, which consolidates spellbook rules in one place. In addition, this feature gives you a Wizard-only spell: Scribe Spell. The Spellbook largely functions the same if you consider Scribe Spell’s abilities.
Academic is a new 2nd-level feature. You have advantage on Study actions, a feature added to the Rules Glossary in the previous UA.
Arcane Recovery has moved from 1st level to 2nd level. It functions identically to older editions.
Memorize Spell is a new 5th-level feature. You always have Memorize Spell prepared.
Modify Spell is a new 7th-level feature. You always have Modify Spell prepared.
Create Spell is a new 9th-level feature. You always have Create Spell prepared.
Spell Mastery has moved from 18th level to 15th level. It functions identically to older editions.
Signature Spells has moved from 20th level to 18th level. It functions identically to older editions.
Epic Boon is the same capstone given to all classes at 20th level.
They included the Evocation subclass for this UA. Rather than calling them by schools, they’ve changed the naming convention to specific names. For this one, it’s ‘Evoker’ (which I assume means Conjurer, Abujuer, Diviner, etc for future subclasses.) There are only two changes to this subclass:
Evocation Savant now adds two Evocation spells of your choice to your spellbook.
Potent Cantrip now also works with cantrip attack rolls, not just saving throws.
Overall Thoughts. The biggest change to Wizard is basically shifting their main mechanic (copying down spells) to spells you cast rather than an ability you use. I imagine the purpose of doing this was to consolidate the way they learn and prepare spells, so it’s easier for someone new to the game to understand. I feel like this could have been done without making the abilities spells – but the purpose is probably to add a resource to expend. Needing to use spell slots to add spells to your Spell Book prevents spam, I suppose, but I feel as though the gold cost and time requirement already did that. So needing it to also require a spell slot seems like a little much. There are very few other changes to Wizard, however, which doesn’t surprise me – it was and is one of the most ubiquitous classes in the game.
Rules Glossary
The last six pages of the document go over all the rules adjustments, compiling several from previous UAs. I’m not going to go over all the rules they have listed here (as I’ve done so in my other articles) but I will notate some changes they made since then:
Death Saving Throws replaces the ‘Dying’ condition that was attempted in the previous UA. It’s unchanged beyond that, so I imagine this was just clarifying the status.
Influence, an action introduced in the previous UA, is largely unchanged, but does clarify that it’s the DM who ultimately decides whether or not the action can be used and what the DCs are for the attempt.
Truesight clarifies that illusions seen with the ability appear transparent (i.e. you know someone / something is affected by an illusion, as opposed to not being aware of the illusion at all.)
Since the three changes above are just clarifications, there isn’t much commentary to make that I haven’t already made. So, with that, we’ve shaved the 50 pages of content down to about 17! I hope I’ve made it easier to digest all the changes, and I plan to do so for future UA releases until One D&D is official. What did you think of the changes? Feel free to leave a comment! If you have things to say to WoTC regarding the changes, remember that they do open a survey a couple of weeks after each UA is released where input can be given. This has influenced future UA, you it does matter for the future of the game. Until next time – happy gaming, World Weavers!
