New ‘One D&D’ Playtest Rules Crush Furry Dreams – Ardlings Gone, Druids Nerfed
Druids and Paladins are at the heart of a new set of One D&D playtest rules that seem aimed at crushing the dreams of furries.
A new One D&D playtest rules packet has dropped and with it, so have the hopes and dreams of people invested in playing animals or animal-like creatures in D&D. Because alongside the new playtest rules, came a video announcing the new D&D survey results, which reflects the last survey—well the last One D&D survey, the last survey was about the OGL—but by the numbers, it seems like Ardlings are gone.
According to the accompanying video, both the revised Goliath and revised Dragonborn are looking pretty good in terms of their new abilities. Both species have better audience approval scores.
But the furry angels, known as the Ardlings, are going to be shelved for now. The Ardlings have a lot of fans but according to Jeremy Crawford, players were confused by a “lack of context” for the new species. Which, you know, makes sense because they were an entirely new creation for One D&D, so they don’t have any context yet. There’s barely any context for anything else in the playtest rules.
The only reason an Elf or a Dwarf has context is because they have all the baggage of D&D’s past rotting away in the back corner of your mind like that plastic carton of lettuce you bought two weeks ago and have yet to crack open. You know it’s there, and that’s enough. But WotC’s cowardice aside, there is a new playtest ruleset out, and let’s take a look at that.
New One D&D Playtest Rules – Druids and Paladins
Druids and Paladins are at the heart of these new classes. We’ll be taking a much deeper dive into each of these in the coming days since both of these classes come with some major changes. Druids, in particular, will feel the sting of a nerf to their signature ability Wild Shape. They do get it earlier, starting at 1st level, and it recharges much the same way Channel Divinity does. Instead of picking from any beast stat block that fits the CR and other restrictions available to them, One D&D Druids pick from a list of three different stat blocks that can only be small, medium, or large. You don’t gain the ability to become a tiny creature (like a squirrel or insect or something) until you hit 11th level. A level most players never even see.
No more scouting around as a spider. And on top of that, Wild Shape no longer acts as a reflexive buffer of extra hit points.
Paladins, on the other hand, get their auras reworked. Gone is the 6th level ability to just buff everyone’s saving throws. And indeed, many features seem to be postponed to higher levels. This means they might get pushed out of most games, since we know that the typical game caps off around levels 8-12, with all but a few 10% pushing past the 10th-level barrier.
But there’s more than just new Paladins and Druids in the playtest packet. There are updated Epic Boons, which clearly seems to indicate that WotC is at least encouraging players to try and shoot for 20th level. Whether they’ll support that or not is anyone’s guess. So far the number of published adventures, or materials that deal with characters at level 14+ is quite small.
There are also new versions of spells and core rules updates. All of which we’ll take a closer look at in the coming days. For now, though, check out the rules for yourself.
The One D&D Druid and Paladin Playtest Rules Are Here
