The sixth Playtest as part of the (take a deep breath now...) Unearthed Arcana, OneD&D 5e, 2024 Player's Handbook revision for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons has just arrived, and it is huge. At 77 pages long, it is the biggest of these proposed rule updates Wizards of the Coast has ever put forward. The previous playtestไ was also the largest ever, but this one is even bigger.
Saying there are 77 pages of new rules is slightly misleading. There's a concerted attempt to explore every line of the handbook and tune it up as required, and that leads to some significant overhauls alongside smaller tweaks. The playtest covers seven familiar classes, and various subclasses for all of them. Alongside those widespread changes, two new subclasses caught my attention. We have the Circle of the Sea for Druids, and the College of Dance for Bards. Across the weekend I'll be dancing the night away with my lute-wielding friends too, but it's the Druid subclass that I was instantly drawn to.
Whatever class is your favourite, you can probably look at some version of the Playtest rules and feel hard done to. Wizards of the Coast has taken a 'if nobody's happy, everyone's happy' view to balancing, and somewhere along the way each class has had some form of change that, at least initially, some have balked at. But Druids have seen the most significant change thus far. The most iconic part of Druids is their ability to Wild Shape, which allows them to transform into any animal at will. Aesthetically, they can still do this (within reason allowed by the DM), but rather than taking the stat block of the creature they transformed into, they are now lim꧒ited to just three: Animal of Land, Animal of Sky, and Animal of Sea.
Druid players feel as if something central to the Druid identity has been taken away from them, and despite the balance to gameplay, and the ease of knowing these stat blocks at a moment's reach, they probably have a case. With the Circle of the Sea subclass, though, they've been given something extra in exchange.
Circle of the Sea reads initially like an extension of Circle of the Land, which makes sense. The Circle of the Land gives a different set of prepared spells depending on what type of land you hail from, and Circle of the Sea applies that to the ocean, with the likes of Thunderwave, Sleet Storm, Fog Cloud, and so on. I've always thought the elemental powers should be more balanced when we have so many fire spells, and Circle of the Sea makes the most of what it has.
With thunder spells mixed in there, Circle of the Sea is built around the devastation of the ocean, and a connection with one of the most powerful natural forces on Earth. It's appropriate then that the 3rd Level Bonus Action is Wrath of the Sea. This lets you expand a use of Wild Shape in order to conjure an ocean spray around you, which can cause Thunder damage and push targets away from you, based on a number of factors, but mostly the Wisdom modifier. The 6th Level perk is less flashy but probably more useful - your Swim speed becomes equal to your regular Speed, all your Wild Shape forms can swim, and Water Breathing becomes constantly prepared.
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10th Level gives Stormborn, which is a boost for Wrath of the Sea: you gain the ability to Fly and now resist Cold, Lightning, and Thunder. Finally, the 14th Level perk again goes to Wrath of the Sea, letting you manifest the aura💞 of ocean spray around another willing creature, either giving it to them or, for two uses of Wild Shape, both arming yourselves with the spray at once.
Players have homebrewed an oceanic subclass of Druids for a while now, and this makes the idea official (assuming it takes for the full Player’s Handbook next year). New subclasses are second only to new classes for how interesting they are, in that they don't alter play the way buffs and nerfs do, but unlock entirely new opportunities to experience the game. As always, there will be some grumblings with this Playtest (I have a few myself), but Circle of the Sea is a great addition to Dungeons & Dragons, and I'm hopeful that whatever further tweaks Wizards of the Coast have in mind, we'll see fewer microscopic mechanical tweaks and more introductions of new blood in future Unearthed Arcanas.