Dan & Paul turn a critical eye to the new One D&D (6E) rules draft on the Expert Class group: Rogues, Rangers, and Bards!

In August 2022, Wizards announced that the next phase of major changes for Dungeons & Dragons would occur under the One D&D initiative which includes a public playtest of the next version of Dungeons & Dragons. Revised editions of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide are scheduled to be released in 2024. The first public playtest, Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins, was released on D&D Beyond on August 18. Samantha Nelson, for Polygon, commented that public playtest material should not be "considered final". Nelson wrote that spells are now grouped by "arcane, divine, or primal" power sources – terms that were previously used in 4th edition's magic system. Xavier Johnson, for Dot eSports, and Christian Hoffer, for Comicbook.com, both highlighted that this playtest release updates the critical roll mechanic to an automatic success or failure if a roll is natural 20 or 1, respectively. Hoffer wrote that the "backwards compatible" One D&D release proposes "significant changes to backgrounds and races, two of the core building blocks when creating player characters. The rules also introduce several new backgrounds, new tiefling variants, and a brand new race […]. Most notably, the proposed rules shift Ability Score Increases from being a racial trait to a Background trait".

In the October 2022 Unearthed Arcana rules draft, the D&D designers unveil the idea of "Class Groups" -- familiar to 1E players as the Primary Classes -- and give details on the revised Rogue, Ranger, and Bard classes. Plus a new shuffle in the Rules Glossary for how the core mechanics work. Are these changes good or bad, from the perspective of veteran old-school players?

• See the new website & video for One D&D here
• Read Dan's blog on the classes in 1E Unearthed Arcana here

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Editions of Dungeons & Dragons", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.