One D&D, er Players’ Handbook Playtest 8 released on DnD Beyond. This UA includes the Monk, Druid and Barbarian classes. You also get the Warrior of the Hand, Circle of the Moon, and Path of the World Tree subclasses, respectively.
Monk
The Players’ Handbook Playtest 8 Monk is a sight to be seen. I’ve already got players who are excited about the changes. This is, in no small part, due to the capstone class feature, Body and Mind. This feature increases your Dexterity and Wisdom scores by 4. It also raises the maximum to 26 for those stats. Additionally, the monks martial arts die starts at a d6 instead of a d4, and ends at a d12, instead of d10. There are a few other tweaks along the way that make the monk even more powerful, but those are the two biggies.
Druid
A level 20 Druid gets some nice goodies as well. If they start a combat with no Wild Shapes left, they get one. They also gain the ability to convert Wild Shape uses into spell slots. This can be done once per long rest. The number of Wild Shapes expended this way gives you 2 levels of spell slot per use. Under the new Players’ Handbook Playtest rules a druid also only ages 1 year for every 10 that pass. This is, of course, all a bit of a nerf compared to the endless Wild Shapes of the current druid class capstone.
Barbarian
For the barbarian, the capstone is mostly unchanged. The stat cap goes from 24 to 26 maximum. The big change here is that Brutal Critical has been replaced with Brutal Strike. Brutal Strike allows you to forgo the advantage from Reckless Attack. You instead deal an extra d10 of damage. This starts at level 9. It becomes 2d10 at level 17. You also get to push the target or reduce the targets movement speed by 15 feet. I think this will be another popular change from the Player’s Handbook Playtest.
I’ll be back to look at those subclasses later. Need some nasty monsters or famous faces for your game?
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