September 30, 2024 • 11 mins
New and Improved? Wizards of the Coast is currently playtesting and tinkering with “One D&D”, which they claim will be the definitive version of Dungeons and Dragons for the foreseeable future. One edition to rule them all, and potentially in the darkness to bind them. But what exactly is it? Is this a new edition or just an update? Should you be excited or afraid? And most importantly, are they messing with your favorite character classes? Hold onto your core books and kiss your old character builds goodbye as we go through everything you need to know. Read the full blog post here: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/blogs/dnd/one-dnd-2024-core-rules Like our content? Check out our RPG dice subscriptions: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/collections/subscription-sets
Subscribe to SkullSplitter Dice Podcast on Soundwise
Subscribe to SkullSplitter Dice Podcast on Soundwise
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Despite the claims that fifth edition will only be growing
rather than updating to a new edition, D and D
is still getting a new set of core books later
in twenty twenty four. In this video, we're going to
talk about what that kind of means for the series,
as well as really dissect the idea of this not
being a five point five.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I know Watsy says that it isn't, but.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
WATSA also says a lot of stuff that they end
up going back on because it was silly to say
in the first place.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So let's discuss one D and D and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What it really is, or rather what it is as
of the time of recording. Before we get too far
into this, I want to reiterate again that at the
time of recording, WATSY has been very hesitant to confirm
or deny much of anything about One D and D.
The interviews and videos they've released have been frustratingly vague,
(00:51):
and while we can gleam quite a bit from the
unearthed Darkana play tests, we have no real confirmation on
what will make it into the final product. From those
play tests, everything we currently have is at best educated guesswork.
When it comes to what these new books are. We
don't have official names for them yet, but we know
that WATSI is working on functional replacements or upgrades for
(01:13):
the Player's Handbook, the DM's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Functionally,
these three books represent the core rules of Dungeons and Dragons,
and in any other situation we'd be considering this a
new addition. They keep promising, however, that this will be
a sort of updating or upgrading of fifth Edition rather
than a new edition, but the reality remains to be seen,
(01:35):
and when I hear those terms, they kind of sound
like the same. I mean, wouldn't a new edition theoretically
be an update or an upgrade, but anyway, fundamentally this
means a complete overhaul to character creation based mechanics and
monster designs. When it comes to when these books are
coming out, even this is quite hazy. We have multiple
(01:55):
announcements and advertisements that say all three of the new
core books will be released in twenty four, which is
uncharacteristically vague. Previous releases have given us firm release dates
months in advance, so this may be hinting at a
very late twenty twenty four release. We did get a leak, however,
an official image and tweet that was very rapidly taken
down advertises that the new Core books will be releasing
(02:18):
on May twenty first, twenty twenty four, but that date
has been scrubbed from the website entirely. We'll see if
that date was taken down because of delays or if
they were just jumping the gun on the announcement.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
A lot of.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
People are curious if they are going to need these
books in order to continue playing D and D, and
just want to bring up very quick that nothing is
ever going to stop you from playing D and D
Fifth Edition as it is right now, the books aren't
going to disappear. In all the content you already own
still works just fine. This is a good moment to
bring up the importance of physical media. You may need
(02:50):
to buy these new Core books for any new content.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Released after it, though quite obviously.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Based on what we've seen so far, they're attempting to
integrate this new content rather than.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Replace the old stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But regardless of their claims, most of what we've seen
consists of functional replacements. This means that for any adventure
paths or supplements we'll see after these new Core books
come out, they will be used for them as a foundation. I,
like others, are also curious about what's going on with
the new virtual tabletop. Watsy has been working on its
own virtual tabletop version of D and D for a
(03:22):
few years now. Virtual tabletops are typically system agnostic, but
this one will be decidedly D and D exclusive. It'll
also be the new D and D exclusive on release,
so if you're planning on booting up the shiny new
virtual tabletop, expect to need a few new books along
with it. Based on what we've seen, this new virtual
tabletop will likely be quite good, but it's also likely
(03:43):
to carry a monthly subscription fee, which you have heard
me complain about in the past if you are a
frequenter of this channel. So just keep all of this
in mind when you start considering what system to run
after the changeover.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So let's discuss what we could.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Confidently assume is changing. You'll have to take all of
this with a grain of salt once again, since it's
not actually released yet, but we can still run down
all the things that have been strongly hinted at and
how they'll affect your games, Starting with background ability score,
something they've openly talked about is switching your starting ASI
a billy score increase from a racial feature to a
(04:18):
background feature. Functionally, many builds will stay as they are,
but you'll get a lot less pressure to select specific
races for classes that use their boosted ability score. It
also makes a bit more sense that your early life
and career makes that difference rather than just what you
were born as, and helps cut down on biological determinism.
Next up are the Ardlings. It seems that asmr are
(04:41):
no more and are being replaced by the Ardlings, animal
headed celestial creatures, either born on the higher planes or
with angelic ancestors. This is frankly a weird choice, but
I highly suspect that it has something to do with
the fact that Watsea doesn't own the word asmar and
can't copyright it, but they'll own these angels animal things
(05:01):
whole cloth, So cool trade, guys. This is like when
Warhammer had to trademark their own version of Elves or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It's just so stupid.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Another change is that ability score increases are feats now,
and this is less of a change than you might think,
but the fiddly trading your ability score increase for a
feat has been made into simply gaining a feat with
the ability score increased feet as the default option. Next
up is something that I actually quite like and use
a homebrew version of in my own campaigns. It's bastions,
(05:33):
basically a base building mechanic. This will seem very familiar
to players who remember strongholds, and they seem to be picking.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Up a lot of those old ideas.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Bastions are structures that grant bonuses for resting in them
and build up special points the players can spend to
essentially gain resupplies and reinforcements. And then, of course, something
I think most of us know about, classes are getting overhauled.
Every class has been coned through and updated. Some are
functionally about the same, while some have been completely reshaped
into something new. There are far too many changes to
(06:03):
go over in this video, but I can at least
list some of the most drastic changes, such as the
fact that druids started the play test very differently, but
they seem to have settled on relatively minor changes to
how wild shape works. Druids will now get to wild
shape as a bonus action by default, but in exchange,
they'll only be able to select a few wild shape
(06:24):
options rather than having the whole Monster Manual on their roster.
I know that my Druid main wife is upset by
this choice, but I'm very curious what all of you
other Druid players out there think about this. Another thing
is that sorcerers are getting a bunch of substantial tweaks,
and the one I'm most excited for here is the
converting of your sorcery points into spells no longer takes
(06:46):
a bonus action. We're also messing a bit with the
sorcerer archetype progression, so it'll be strange to see how
they consolidate that with older sorcerer archetypes. We also have
something for the Warlocks, who are surprisingly similar to their
current state, but practically all the invocations have gotten tuned
and altered slightly. We're also getting some limited capacity to
regain spell slots, thank god, and you'll find a lot
(07:09):
of the language impact magic has been cleaned up. And
we should also probably talk about class groups. This is
sort of an internal change that won't affect play that much,
but all the character classes are getting placed into one
of four category groups Experts, Mages.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Priests, and warriors.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
This may seem familiar if you played back in the
fourth edition days, but essentially some abilities and effects would
only be usable or only apply to certain classes. A
good current example of this are those magical items that
are usable by spellcasters only. In one D and D
spellcasters will instead be the mage class group. For players,
this will only really be a guideline for what general
(07:47):
battlefield role they can expect each class to take and
what powers they can expect to gain as the class advances.
And then we have level one feats. Practically every background
printed in twenty twenty three had this already and had
to make caveats for if you're not playing this way,
It is all but confirmed that once the new books
roll around, every background will also provide a feat at
(08:08):
first level. It looks like most backgrounds will provide a
specific feat, but some will give a choice between a
short list of feet options. And then on the opposite end,
we have level twenty capstone feats. While most games don't
reach level twenty anyway, they are trying to make reaching
that high bar a bit more enticing, which good. In
addition to having a unique capstone feature, one D and
(08:30):
D will introduce epic boons, extremely powerful feats that can
only be taken at level twenty or potentially at post
twenty gameplay. Functionally, this does make your capstone feature more flexible,
but twentieth level games are so rare to begin with
that it isn't likely to make much of a difference
at your own table. That being said, Watsy has hinted
at trying to make extremely high tier play more workable,
(08:52):
so we'll see if Epic Adventures and their epic boons
stick the landing. Although I got to tell you, as
a DM, I am curious what they could really do
to make these sessions more playable. Speaking of things that
I think will only work through the use of magic
spell lists. Rather than having a unique spell list for
each class, we're now dividing all spells into three spell lists, Arcane, Divine,
(09:14):
and Primal. On one hand, this removes some of the
uniqueness of each class, but on the other it really
does streamline things quite a bit, especially if you're trying
to make a virtual tabletop out of your rules set
our Cane, Divine, and Primal do a good job of
laying out the general behind the scenes divisions we already
had anyway, and makes looking up spells much simpler. Moving
(09:35):
from spells over to good old fashioned melee, we have
weapon mastery. Every weapon category is now getting a weapon
mastery that can be unlocked through class features, mainly from
the Warrior classes. For example, the weapon mastery for great
Axes is called Cleeve, which allows you to make an
additional attack at an adjacent creature once you hit the
first one with your mighty swing. This is a fun
(09:56):
idea that gives weapons more utility and more powerful options
when in the hands of characters that are specifically trained
in them, without just locking other characters out of using
the weapons. And frankly, anything that adds this sort of
specific utilization for melee characters that can kind of turn
combat from something other than just hit with it, I
approve of any sort of additions to the game like this.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
This is a good stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I know that my tone may come across as negative
about all this stuff, but that really isn't the case.
My tone is just me being incredulous towards a company
and their corporate overlords because the last two years has
somewhat are you, the last five or six or seven
years has kind of warranted that attitude, But honestly, a
lot of this stuff that's coming to the table, I
(10:43):
really enjoy it. I do think that games like this
deserve to evolve and take new shape as better ideas form.
It's mainly just the position of it not being a
new addition that I'm confused about. So I'm taking all
of these what some would consider draft stick changes and
trying to keep a straight face about it, like no, no, no,
(11:04):
it's just fifth edition. But they're changing almost everything that
makes the old books not usable anymore. It's not something
that I can just talk about uncomplicatedly, So I apologize
if my tone is negative, but honestly, a lot of
the stuff that is coming to D and D or
one D and D I should say, I'm looking forward
to it, but why did you really? You're switching out
(11:27):
the asimars for that. Thank you all so much for watching.
I really appreciate it. Be sure to like and subscribe
because we're coming out with new content all the time.
Goes to or up to over on skull SPLITTERDCE dot com,
And if you have any thoughts on one D and D,
I would really like to hear them down in the comments.
Thanks again for watching. My name's Patrick Ferguson from skull
Splitter Dice and until next time, farewell,
Despite the claims that fifth edition will only be growing
rather than updating to a new edition, D and D
is still getting a new set of core books later
in twenty twenty four. In this video, we're going to
talk about what that kind of means for the series,
as well as really dissect the idea of this not
being a five point five.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I know Watsy says that it isn't, but.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
WATSA also says a lot of stuff that they end
up going back on because it was silly to say
in the first place.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So let's discuss one D and D and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What it really is, or rather what it is as
of the time of recording. Before we get too far
into this, I want to reiterate again that at the
time of recording, WATSY has been very hesitant to confirm
or deny much of anything about One D and D.
The interviews and videos they've released have been frustratingly vague,
(00:51):
and while we can gleam quite a bit from the
unearthed Darkana play tests, we have no real confirmation on
what will make it into the final product. From those
play tests, everything we currently have is at best educated guesswork.
When it comes to what these new books are. We
don't have official names for them yet, but we know
that WATSI is working on functional replacements or upgrades for
(01:13):
the Player's Handbook, the DM's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Functionally,
these three books represent the core rules of Dungeons and Dragons,
and in any other situation we'd be considering this a
new addition. They keep promising, however, that this will be
a sort of updating or upgrading of fifth Edition rather
than a new edition, but the reality remains to be seen,
(01:35):
and when I hear those terms, they kind of sound
like the same. I mean, wouldn't a new edition theoretically
be an update or an upgrade, but anyway, fundamentally this
means a complete overhaul to character creation based mechanics and
monster designs. When it comes to when these books are
coming out, even this is quite hazy. We have multiple
(01:55):
announcements and advertisements that say all three of the new
core books will be released in twenty four, which is
uncharacteristically vague. Previous releases have given us firm release dates
months in advance, so this may be hinting at a
very late twenty twenty four release. We did get a leak, however,
an official image and tweet that was very rapidly taken
down advertises that the new Core books will be releasing
(02:18):
on May twenty first, twenty twenty four, but that date
has been scrubbed from the website entirely. We'll see if
that date was taken down because of delays or if
they were just jumping the gun on the announcement.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
A lot of.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
People are curious if they are going to need these
books in order to continue playing D and D, and
just want to bring up very quick that nothing is
ever going to stop you from playing D and D
Fifth Edition as it is right now, the books aren't
going to disappear. In all the content you already own
still works just fine. This is a good moment to
bring up the importance of physical media. You may need
(02:50):
to buy these new Core books for any new content.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Released after it, though quite obviously.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Based on what we've seen so far, they're attempting to
integrate this new content rather than.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Replace the old stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But regardless of their claims, most of what we've seen
consists of functional replacements. This means that for any adventure
paths or supplements we'll see after these new Core books
come out, they will be used for them as a foundation. I,
like others, are also curious about what's going on with
the new virtual tabletop. Watsy has been working on its
own virtual tabletop version of D and D for a
(03:22):
few years now. Virtual tabletops are typically system agnostic, but
this one will be decidedly D and D exclusive. It'll
also be the new D and D exclusive on release,
so if you're planning on booting up the shiny new
virtual tabletop, expect to need a few new books along
with it. Based on what we've seen, this new virtual
tabletop will likely be quite good, but it's also likely
(03:43):
to carry a monthly subscription fee, which you have heard
me complain about in the past if you are a
frequenter of this channel. So just keep all of this
in mind when you start considering what system to run
after the changeover.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So let's discuss what we could.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Confidently assume is changing. You'll have to take all of
this with a grain of salt once again, since it's
not actually released yet, but we can still run down
all the things that have been strongly hinted at and
how they'll affect your games, Starting with background ability score,
something they've openly talked about is switching your starting ASI
a billy score increase from a racial feature to a
(04:18):
background feature. Functionally, many builds will stay as they are,
but you'll get a lot less pressure to select specific
races for classes that use their boosted ability score. It
also makes a bit more sense that your early life
and career makes that difference rather than just what you
were born as, and helps cut down on biological determinism.
Next up are the Ardlings. It seems that asmr are
(04:41):
no more and are being replaced by the Ardlings, animal
headed celestial creatures, either born on the higher planes or
with angelic ancestors. This is frankly a weird choice, but
I highly suspect that it has something to do with
the fact that Watsea doesn't own the word asmar and
can't copyright it, but they'll own these angels animal things
(05:01):
whole cloth, So cool trade, guys. This is like when
Warhammer had to trademark their own version of Elves or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It's just so stupid.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Another change is that ability score increases are feats now,
and this is less of a change than you might think,
but the fiddly trading your ability score increase for a
feat has been made into simply gaining a feat with
the ability score increased feet as the default option. Next
up is something that I actually quite like and use
a homebrew version of in my own campaigns. It's bastions,
(05:33):
basically a base building mechanic. This will seem very familiar
to players who remember strongholds, and they seem to be picking.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Up a lot of those old ideas.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Bastions are structures that grant bonuses for resting in them
and build up special points the players can spend to
essentially gain resupplies and reinforcements. And then, of course, something
I think most of us know about, classes are getting overhauled.
Every class has been coned through and updated. Some are
functionally about the same, while some have been completely reshaped
into something new. There are far too many changes to
(06:03):
go over in this video, but I can at least
list some of the most drastic changes, such as the
fact that druids started the play test very differently, but
they seem to have settled on relatively minor changes to
how wild shape works. Druids will now get to wild
shape as a bonus action by default, but in exchange,
they'll only be able to select a few wild shape
(06:24):
options rather than having the whole Monster Manual on their roster.
I know that my Druid main wife is upset by
this choice, but I'm very curious what all of you
other Druid players out there think about this. Another thing
is that sorcerers are getting a bunch of substantial tweaks,
and the one I'm most excited for here is the
converting of your sorcery points into spells no longer takes
(06:46):
a bonus action. We're also messing a bit with the
sorcerer archetype progression, so it'll be strange to see how
they consolidate that with older sorcerer archetypes. We also have
something for the Warlocks, who are surprisingly similar to their
current state, but practically all the invocations have gotten tuned
and altered slightly. We're also getting some limited capacity to
regain spell slots, thank god, and you'll find a lot
(07:09):
of the language impact magic has been cleaned up. And
we should also probably talk about class groups. This is
sort of an internal change that won't affect play that much,
but all the character classes are getting placed into one
of four category groups Experts, Mages.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Priests, and warriors.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
This may seem familiar if you played back in the
fourth edition days, but essentially some abilities and effects would
only be usable or only apply to certain classes. A
good current example of this are those magical items that
are usable by spellcasters only. In one D and D
spellcasters will instead be the mage class group. For players,
this will only really be a guideline for what general
(07:47):
battlefield role they can expect each class to take and
what powers they can expect to gain as the class advances.
And then we have level one feats. Practically every background
printed in twenty twenty three had this already and had
to make caveats for if you're not playing this way,
It is all but confirmed that once the new books
roll around, every background will also provide a feat at
(08:08):
first level. It looks like most backgrounds will provide a
specific feat, but some will give a choice between a
short list of feet options. And then on the opposite end,
we have level twenty capstone feats. While most games don't
reach level twenty anyway, they are trying to make reaching
that high bar a bit more enticing, which good. In
addition to having a unique capstone feature, one D and
(08:30):
D will introduce epic boons, extremely powerful feats that can
only be taken at level twenty or potentially at post
twenty gameplay. Functionally, this does make your capstone feature more flexible,
but twentieth level games are so rare to begin with
that it isn't likely to make much of a difference
at your own table. That being said, Watsy has hinted
at trying to make extremely high tier play more workable,
(08:52):
so we'll see if Epic Adventures and their epic boons
stick the landing. Although I got to tell you, as
a DM, I am curious what they could really do
to make these sessions more playable. Speaking of things that
I think will only work through the use of magic
spell lists. Rather than having a unique spell list for
each class, we're now dividing all spells into three spell lists, Arcane, Divine,
(09:14):
and Primal. On one hand, this removes some of the
uniqueness of each class, but on the other it really
does streamline things quite a bit, especially if you're trying
to make a virtual tabletop out of your rules set
our Cane, Divine, and Primal do a good job of
laying out the general behind the scenes divisions we already
had anyway, and makes looking up spells much simpler. Moving
(09:35):
from spells over to good old fashioned melee, we have
weapon mastery. Every weapon category is now getting a weapon
mastery that can be unlocked through class features, mainly from
the Warrior classes. For example, the weapon mastery for great
Axes is called Cleeve, which allows you to make an
additional attack at an adjacent creature once you hit the
first one with your mighty swing. This is a fun
(09:56):
idea that gives weapons more utility and more powerful options
when in the hands of characters that are specifically trained
in them, without just locking other characters out of using
the weapons. And frankly, anything that adds this sort of
specific utilization for melee characters that can kind of turn
combat from something other than just hit with it, I
approve of any sort of additions to the game like this.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
This is a good stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I know that my tone may come across as negative
about all this stuff, but that really isn't the case.
My tone is just me being incredulous towards a company
and their corporate overlords because the last two years has
somewhat are you, the last five or six or seven
years has kind of warranted that attitude, But honestly, a
lot of this stuff that's coming to the table, I
(10:43):
really enjoy it. I do think that games like this
deserve to evolve and take new shape as better ideas form.
It's mainly just the position of it not being a
new addition that I'm confused about. So I'm taking all
of these what some would consider draft stick changes and
trying to keep a straight face about it, like no, no, no,
(11:04):
it's just fifth edition. But they're changing almost everything that
makes the old books not usable anymore. It's not something
that I can just talk about uncomplicatedly, So I apologize
if my tone is negative, but honestly, a lot of
the stuff that is coming to D and D or
one D and D I should say, I'm looking forward
to it, but why did you really? You're switching out
(11:27):
the asimars for that. Thank you all so much for watching.
I really appreciate it. Be sure to like and subscribe
because we're coming out with new content all the time.
Goes to or up to over on skull SPLITTERDCE dot com,
And if you have any thoughts on one D and D,
I would really like to hear them down in the comments.
Thanks again for watching. My name's Patrick Ferguson from skull
Splitter Dice and until next time, farewell,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.