In this text, you will find a lot of personal opinions. Please use them as ideas and not facts in arguments. I will try to summarize all of the changes going from 5e to ONE DND playtest material provided to us by the Wizards of the Coast.
DND has had five editions so far, each with its own distinct take on the game. Some upgrades, some just different approaches, and some downgrades. It’s all a matter of what you like about the game. I haven’t played earlier editions of DND, but I have played the 3rd,3.5,4th, as well as 5th edition almost since it came out. Older editions tried to cover all bases but became cluttered with rules for every situation. They tried to map out every possibility that could happen in a fight. Looking back, it was a lot of information to keep track of if you were new to playing DND. This is where the 5th edition came. It simplified a lot of rules and made it easier for new players to pick up gameplay and also allowed tactical combat on maps or in the theater of the mind.
Now it’s time for the new edition. Wizards of the Coast decided to release playtest content for a new DND edition called ONE DND with new books slated for release in 2024. The game mechanics are still in draft form and the document can be found on DnD Beyond, ONE DND – character origins. They are dropping new materials for players to try out and give their honest opinions about it. So here we are. I will go over the document for the playtest and share my thoughts about it.
ONE DND playtest document introduces some changes in:
Race:
- ability score bonuses
- new race
- section “of many worlds”
Background:
- language
- LVL 1 feat
- equipment
- feats
Rules Glossary:
- spells
- inspiration
- slowed condition
- grappled condition
- d20 test
Race
A few minor changes were made to races with the addition of one new race and one property removal. These changes make choosing a race less meaningful and are now, more about individual play style.
The big change you’ll notice is that ability score bonuses from races are gone. While I disagree with this change, I also feel that removing negative ability score modifiers was a mistake in the 5th edition. It’s my pet peeve so I’ll spare you the details for now. I prefer it to the 5e rule where they changed it so much that you can add any bonus to any race.
Another thing we have in the playtest is a new race called the Ardling, which originated from one of the upper planes or has one or more ancestors who were supernal beings. There is not much to say about it. It brings nothing new to the table. The ability to fly is not that special anymore as a few races now have it.
Reading through, you will see the part “of many worlds”. Now, this is a very good addition. DnD is mostly made for the Forgotten realms and races come with some preconceived notions from the lore, which is why it can be hard to make a character your own. The section “…of many worlds” gives you examples of races outside of this notion which gives you an opportunity to create a character for any setting.
Background
The biggest change in the playtest is the background.
This now becomes the core of your character as it should be. Here is where you get your ability score bonuses, some skill proficiency, a tool proficiency, language, a feat, and some starting gold (we don’t see yet if classes will get and bonus starting gold). You determine your character’s ability scores by choosing two of them and increasing one by 2 and the other one by 1. Alternatively, you choose three ability scores and increase each of them by 1. This means you can create any class and race combination.
As I mentioned above I am not a big fan of this (pet peeve). I believe each race should feel special and unique rather than just a different version of the same thing with a stat modifier here or there. When you remove limitations such as negative ability scores or locked ability scores, (Elf getting a +2 to dex, Orc getting a +2 to str…) each race becomes less distinct and more interchangeable. Before the 5th edition, a character such as an Orc Wizard took time and resources to play, and now, all races have the same starting points. I believe choosing a race should be an important factor in your character creation and advancement.
Language
The language section has an interesting definition of standard and rare languages. I would like to see it explored more later. Knowing a language should also have an impact on the game. This can be up to the DM but some examples would be: if you know a rare language it gives you a +1 on charisma checks with the native speakers. This gives our choice of language a mechanical benefit in the game and makes you feel special and unique.
Feat
This is the one, the big change. Opening the doors for many combinations and more interesting characters. Giving this option to players is in my opinion the best “change” from 5e. No longer will you have to play a Variant human or a custom race to get a feat on LVL 1. This is a huge plus for One DND. Getting a feat this early on in your character’s life will increase the uniqueness of your character, as it would give you some backstory material that is interesting to you.
Equipment
Having a budget to buy your starting adventurer gear is a nice addition. You can afford to buy more or less all the things you need to start an adventure and the gold that is left is your starting gold. Maybe your monk doesn’t need weapons or armor and wants to walk the world with just a bag of gold or maybe your fighter wants to invest in a special sword. This gives you more options when preparing your character for his/hers first adventure.
WotC presented some sample backgrounds as examples and they do the job of showing you what and how to combine all the things from above. There is a small downside to the new backgrounds and that is the removal of the background feature as “old” backgrounds had. These features gave a small “ability” to your character that was oddly specific. An urchin can travel through the city faster, an acolyte can find shelter in temples, and so on. This made your background interact with the world you are playing in. Used in the right times it made the character and the world feel lived in. I will personally miss this if they don’t bring it back or add something similar.
Feats
By reading the feat part of the ONE DND playtest we can see a change in the nature of feats. They are not optional anymore and have level requirements, so you won’t be able to take any feat as a background feat. I find this good for game balance and game design. Now, powerful feats can be made and locked behind a level requirement for the late game.
We can also see a list of Feats here and for the most part, they are the same as in 5e. ONE DND has a few new feats I like but there is only one I dislike and that is the Lucky feat. Even in 5e, this feat was one of the strongest and most annoying, but now it has just gotten worse. In a game where rolls of the dice decide most things, being able to reroll is a powerful thing. So powerful that you will be tempted to take it every time. Lucky gave you three re-rolls per long rest before and now it gives you between two to six depending on your proficiency modifier. Considering the new D20 Test rule (explained later in the text) this makes Lucky the most powerful feat to have. I hope they rethink this before the final release of ONE DND.
ONE DND playtest – Rules Glossary
Finally, we get to the Rules glossary. Here we can find some small and big changes to the rules from 5e to ONE DND playtest. In the file, everything is listed alphabetically but I will go from positive to negative.
POSITIVE
In my opinion, the most positive change is the separation of spells into Arcane, Divine, and Primal. They don’t explain more but small descriptions of where the power for the spells comes from. I find this a step in the right direction because in 5e we didn’t have a distinction between spell casters and spell origins. You can find a spell list for cantrips, LVL 1 spells, and their origin at the end of the document.
We move on to Inspiration. It was never defined in the rules how to get it or why. The DM is the one to decide if the inspiration is going to be awarded at the table. This keeps that open rule but adds a mechanic that players can rely on to get inspiration. “The main way a character gains Inspiration is by rolling a 20 for a d20 Test”. Now as a player even when you roll a 20 on something not quite important, at least it’s not a wasted 20. Of course, like in 5e, you can have only one inspiration at a time but now you lose it at a start of a long rest.
Another positive thing is a new condition “SLOWED”. Adding a new condition that limits your movement and affects your attack and dexterity saves, will give you more options in combat. So far we have only one way to apply it but hopefully, soon we will have more.
NEGATIVE
And now the other side of this mostly positive coin. Let us start with the grapple condition. In 5e this was a way for you to take an action away from the target. It relied on athletics, providing barbarians (with rage and advantage) and other strength-based characters with a way to keep the enemy in place. Especially spellcasters, with presumably lower strength and dexterity. Now it is an unarmed strike and it has a save at the end of a turn for free. Grapple was never a go-to move but if you had a character that was a grappler you felt useful. Now it won’t be the same. They made a bad condition, worse by doing this.
D20 test
In my opinion, the worst part of the ONE DND playtest is the D20 test.
5th edition has attack rolls, spell attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and so on. In ONE DND all this is a D20 test. And that part is more or less acceptable. Sure it simplifies an already simple system but it is not a big change by itself and especially not one to be so disliked by me and others. But the critical hit damage is just a bad change. DnD 5e rules say “All dice involved in the attack’s damage are doubled by a critical hit, but you don’t double the damage modifier.” This means, a double sneak attack and smite dice. Many tables have different house rules for crits but most of them include all the dice in the calculations. ONE DND changes this so you just double the weapon die. Nothing else. Making crits feel less special. Specifically for rogues who have only one attack per round.
This should be included as an optional rule or a variant but not make it a core rule because it will probably be home-ruled back.
Success or fail
The new rolling a 20 and rolling a 1 rule makes the worst change in any edition. Now rolling a 20 no matter your bonuses is always a success and rolling a 1 is always a fail on a D20 test. Before this applied only on attack rolls but now it applies on every roll. For example, a level 5 character can make a Demi-God fail a saving throw with a +17 in his save. And the rogues who in the late game live by their reliable talent from LVL 11 now need to worry about failing stealth rolls with +18 to it. This change is the biggest controversy for now in ONE DND playtest.
Overall, the new playtest material I’ve seen looks more like an edition upgrade than a new edition, and that’s fine. I like that they are adding more versatility in character building with feats at level 1 and that backgrounds play a bigger role in your character build. Some of the mechanical changes they made aren’t to my liking. But it’s still a playtest, and hopefully, Wizards will listen to feedback before the official release. What do you think about the playtest? What do you like or dislike about it?
