"Find X" Spells and the Future of Conjuration in One D&D

 In the Druid and Paladin One D&D playtest UA, we got new versions of the Find Steed and Find Familiar spells (as in Tasha's, Druids can now temporarily get a familiar with one of their class features). Much like the model from Tasha's "Summon X" spells, these no longer have you dig out a stat block from the Monster Manual, but instead having scaling stat blocks that come with the spell.

So, let's look at the familiar and steed options. Notably, Clerics will now be able to cast Find Steed, though Paladins get it prepared for free and can cast it for free as an action once a day, while Clerics will be forced to spend the spell slot and the 10 minutes.

So, let's look at these two spells.

Find Familiar has the same cast time and components. The one major nerf that appears here is that you can't harmlessly dismiss them into an extraplanar space for easy storage (the stat block has some of this functionality, but it's less flexible). However, one buff is that the familiar can now attack if you spend your reaction on its turn to command it to (it shares initiative with you but acts immediately after you do). There is also no longer any distance limit on being able to view things through the Familiar's eyes. The familiar also now scales up as you cast it with higher-level spell slots, which we'll see when we look at the stat block. When you cast the spell, you choose to conjure a Celestial, Fey, or Fiend, and you also choose whether it's an Air, Land, or Water creature.

Let's look at its stats:

The creature is a Tiny Celestial, Fey, or Fiend with a Neutral alignment. (You choose the type when you conjure it).

Its AC is 10 + 1 per spell level, and an additional 2 if it's a Land beast (so at base level, we're looking at AC 11 or 13 - but if you wanted to spend a 9th level slot, you could get an AC of 19 or 21. Considering that the Familiar remains indefinitely, a tier 4 character could cast this right before they go to bed on an uneventful day to have a super powerful familiar.

Its HP is 2 + 2 per spell level, so 4 at 1st level up to 20 at 9th level.

The Familiar has a 30 ft movement speed, gaining an equal Climb speed if it's a Land familiar, Swim speed if it's a Water familiar, and Fly speed if it's an Air familiar.

The familiar has 60-ft darkvision and a passive Perception of 12. It also has 120 foot telepathy, but only with you.

Water familiars, unsurprisingly, are amphibious.

Extradimensional Escape is a feature they get that recharges on a long rest. If the familiar would drop to 0 hit points, it instead drops to 1 and vanishes into an extradimensional space for 1 hour or until you summon it as a Magic action.

It has the following attack: Otherworldly Scratch, which uses your spell attack modifier to hit and deals 1 + the level of the spell's damage, doing radiant damage if it's a celestial, psychic if it's fey, or necrotic if it's a fiend.

As before, it can use its reaction to serve as the source of a touch-range spell you cast if it's within 120 feet of you.

So, you're never going to be able to do a ton of damage with the familiar, but it can serve as a decent scout. Notably, it seems Pact of the Chain Warlocks will have further ways to customize the familiar, though we of course don't know the full extent of it.

To a large extent, this seems to work pretty much like most creatures you'd pick as a familiar, though it doesn't have the perception of a Raven that I might prefer. But I like how these stat blocks allow for a lot of creative customization. Right now my Wizard has a Wallaby familiar, where I'm using the Hare stat block, but I think the "Familiar of the Land" might be better for it.

Find Steed previously had the problem that the Warhorse stat block was just too obviously better than any other option. Now, thanks to the flexibility of the "Otherworldly Steed" stat block, you can come up with all manner of crazy concepts (frankly, I still want to have a Paladin who summons up a motorcycle, which might be a little outside this realm, but maybe a kind DM would allow it). Again, of note, Clerics can now cast this spell, though they don't get the bonuses that basically take away any reason a Paladin wouldn't cast it.

The steed shares your initiative, functioning as a controlled mount, though if you're incapacitated, it takes its turn immediately after yours and acts independently, focused on protecting you. (There's no new definition for mounted combat, so in this case it won't be making attacks - we'll look at some of the special abilities it can use in combat). Like the Familiar, the steed can scale up if you upcast the spell.

Let's look at this stat block:

The Steed is a Large Celestial, Fey, or Fiend. It has an AC equal to 10 + 1 per spell level, meaning a minimum of 12, maxing out at 15 for Paladins or 19 for Clerics.

The Steed has HP equal to 5 + 10 per spell level, so minimum of 25, maxing out at 55 for Paladins or 95 for Clerics.

The steed has a speed of 60 feet, and if cast at 4th level or higher, it also gets a flying speed of 60 feet. (Essentially, Find Greater Steed has been rolled into this spell).

The Steed gets Life Bond, which means if you ever regain hit points from a spell of 1st level or higher, the Steed regains equal HP if it's within 5 feet of you.

It has one attack, which is Otherworldly Maul, which uses your spell attack modifier to hit and deals 1d8 + the spell's level of radiant, psychic, or necrotic damage, depending on if it's a Celestial, Fey, or Fiend, respectively. As a reminder, as a controlled mount, unless this changes, the steed won't make these attacks unless you're unconscious.

The Steed also has the following bonus actions. Here, I'm really curious to see if the rules for mounted combat change, though each of these could potentially be useful in helping the Steed defend you should you go unconscious. Each of these bonus actions recharges on a long rest, and the ability you get depends on the steed's creature type.

Fey Steeds get Fey Step, which allows them to teleport, along with their rider, up to 60 feet away. (Useful in any scenario, but definitely useful if you remain in the saddle after going unconscious - the Steed can teleport you to the Cleric).

Fiend Steeds get Fell Glare, which forces a targeted creature within 60 feet to make a Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened until the end of your next turn.

Celestial Steeds get Healing Touch, allowing them to touch another creature and restore 2d8+ the spell's level hit points to the target. Again, useful any time, but especially when you're unconscious.

    So, if we compare this to the Warhorse, generally the "standard" choice for Find Steed, we're looking at, when cast at 2nd level, slightly higher AC (12 rather than 11) and more HP (25 versus 19). The Warhorse hits harder with 2d6+4, compared to 1d8+2, but these attacks are only rarely going to matter. Now, on one hand, you can buy Barding for a Warhorse, which could potentially give it much higher AC, though at DM's discretion, you could do the same for this.

I think overall we can consider this a buff.

The "Summon X" spells found in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything have made conjuring minions a lot simpler than it used to be, and looking at these spells, along with the new Wild Shape, I have to imagine that this will be the model for conjuration in general moving forward.

What's the ultimate takeaway here, though? I know that in the past I've seen some clever plays where, for example, someone used Conjure Fey to get a Sea Hag, who can wipe out creatures that fail their saves with ease. Likewise, there's the classic "conjure a bunch of sprites which then all cast polymorph."

So, I think the simplification of a lot of these abilities is going to upset a lot of the mix-maxers and theorycrafters, but on the other hand, I think that the game becomes a lot smoother to run using these versions.

The one thing I'll be monitoring very closely, though, is whether we get any Conjuration or Necromancy spells that summon multiple creatures. This can, yes, slow things down, but sometimes the real benefit of these spells is the ability to put a lot of bodies on the floor - I remember using Danse Macabre on a fight against Yeenoghu and while none of my zombies could actually hurt the demon lord (doing only nonmagical bludgeoning damage,) they were able to form an impassable wall behind which the ranged characters could hide and chuck Eldritch Blasts and the like at our foe.

Still, I'm overall a big fan of this change in direction for these sorts of spells. Again, while I'm waiting on the outcry over the nerf to Wild Shape (that comes with a lot of buffs) I'm still overall very positive on the changes coming in One D&D.

One D&D Paladin Playtest

 Ok, having just done the Druid in a somewhat haphazard way, I'm going to break this down in a more systematic way. The broad takeaway here is that I think the Paladin has been tweaked without losing its core features. Divine Smite and Aura of Protection more or less work the same way.

At 1st level, you get Lay on Hands, which appears nearly identical, except it no longer cures diseases. Now, that being said, I haven't seen much reference to diseases in One D&D's documents, and as it stands, it's never been a major part of 5th Edition either, so I would not be shocked if the concept has just slipped to the cutting room floor. You still get 5 x your paladin level as a pool of HP to restore, and can use any of them to heal people up, spending 5 to cure the poisoned condition.

Paladins now get spellcasting at 1st level and get cantrips. Notably, unlike the Ranger, whose access to the Primal spell list allowed all spells other than Evocation, Paladins get full access to the Divine spell list, meaning that their spell options are identical to the Cleric, only capping out at 5th level rather than 9th.

At 2nd level, you get Divine Smite, which works similarly with the following changes: first off, fiends and undead no longer take an extra 1d8 of radiant damage from this. Second, you can only Smite once per turn, and cannot use it on a turn you cast a spell - note that you can still, by this wording, smite on an opportunity attack. But you can't charge up a Thunderous Smite and then unleash a Divine Smite on top of it if you happen to crit. I think I'd classify this as a nerf, but a relatively gentle one. You still get to see whether you hit (and whether you crit) before you choose to smite. The one minor buff here is that there's no cap on the Smite's damage. You can now do a 5th level smite for 6d8 damage. Also, of note, you can now use Divine Smite on Unarmed Strikes, which is a lot of fun - punch someone for a burst of radiant damage. (In theory, this could also be used when just grappling or shoving a target.)

(EDIT): Hold up: something I didn't even notice until watching the interview with Jeremy Crawford: you can now use Divine Smite with a ranged weapon. This is an absolute game-changer, allowing Paladins to go with a dex-focus and fight from range. If you ever wanted to be some kind of holy gunslinger, this allows you to do so. This is, honestly, huge, despite being a fairly simple thing.

Also at 2, you get a Fighting Style despite not being a Warrior class. Unsurprising.

At 3rd level, you get Channel Divinity, which works similarly to the new Channel Nature and should be seen as a model for how the Cleric's Channel Divinity will be changed. You get a number of these based on your class level, starting with 2 and eventually getting 4. You regain one charge on a short rest and all charges on a long rest. The universal use of this is Divine Sense, which is now a bonus action and lasts for 10 minutes. This makes it a bit more useful of an ability, but it's now competing significantly with other features for that resource, so we'll see.

At 3, you get your subclass, which we'll cover after the general class.

At 5th level, you get Extra Attack, but also Faithful Steed. Find Steed is now always prepared for you and doesn't count against your prepared spells. You can also cast it once for free per day as an action, which is freaking awesome. Note here that Find Steed, like most spells and features of its kind, now has special stat blocks (which also gain different abilities if you choose Fey, Fiend, or Celestial forms).

At 7th level, you gain Aura of Protection, which works the same as it did, thought it doesn't extend through total cover and it explicitly says that multiple paladins can't stack their auras (sad news for my Wildemount game, in which our party has two paladins with the interception fighting style, making them great characters to sandwich the wizards between).

At 9th level, all paladins gain a new Channel Divinity option, which is Abjure Foes, which is an aciton to target a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier, which must each make a Wisdom saving throw, becoming Frightened and Dazed on a failure or just Dazed on a success, ending if they take damage. Note: Dazed means you can either move or take an action, but not both, and can't take Bonus Actions or Reactions. Honestly, this feels like a really powerful "let's get the hell out of here" ability, given that even on a success, you've robbed foes of opportunity attacks.

At level 11, you get Radiant Strikes, which is the same as Improved Divine Smite but has a way less confusing name. This only works if you attack with a Simple or Martial weapon, but I think is identical to its earlier incarnation.

At 13, you get Aura of Courage, which now officially alters your Aura of Protection to grant immunity to the frightened condition and suppression of existing effects. Same feature, slightly later.

At 15, you get Restoring Touch, which lets you spend 5 points of lay on hands to remove the Blinded, Charmed, Dazed, Deafened, Frightened, Paralyzed, or Stunned condition (like with poison, you don't restore hit points this way).

At 17, your auras expand to 30 feet.

And at level 18, you regain a use of Channel Divinity when you roll initiative.

All right, so, before we take a look at Oath of Devotion, let's talk about the general paladin stuff here. Overall, I think we're seeing something that's much more of a tweak than an overhaul. Divine Smite has seen a slight nerf, but one that I think is not going to upset anyone too much - it's still a very powerful ability that has the potential to be just as satisfying as it has been. Restoring Touch is perhaps more limited than the old Cleansing Touch is, but overall, the class doesn't feel like it's really lost anything. Abjure Foes is a new feature that I think will be a welcome tool in any paladin's arsenal. Really, I'm glad that the redesign didn't force Paladins into more of a spellcasting/healing route. Notably they're the only Priest who doesn't (at least class-wide) have healing as a Channel Divinity option, though they retain Lay on Hands. I will say that I don't know if they can really be considered a main healer the way that the Cleric or Druid can.

Now, let's look at Oath of Devotion:

First off, you get Oath Spells, similar to before. The list is slightly different:

1st level: Protection from Evil and Good, Shield of Faith

2nd level: Aid, Zone of Truth

3rd level: Aura of Vitality, Blinding Smite

4th level: Guardian of Faith, Staggering Smite

5th level: Commun, Flame Strike

So, we lose Sanctuary, Lesser Restoration, Beacon of Hope, Dispel Magic, and Freedom of Movement, in favor of Shield of Faith, Aid, Aura of Vitality, Blinding Smite, and Staggering Smite.

However, there's one big buff to Oath Spells, which is that you can cast one of your Oath Spells for free each day. As half-casters, and particularly given how much you tend to use your spell slots on Divine Smite, getting to use one of these for free is quite nice. I think the spell choices are also pretty decent, if I'm a little skeptical of the Smite Spells (in contrast with Divine Smite).

At 3rd level, you get Sacred Weapon. This works the same as it did with one major bonus: it's now a bonus action. Sacred Weapon's action requirement in existing D&D was always a real pain - a fight starts and you have to spend a full turn to give yourself a modest bonus to your attack rolls. Actually, I lied - the other bonus is that you can now cause your weapon to deal radiant damage when you hit (you can also choose to deal normal damage if that's situationally more useful). 

At 6th level, you get Smite of Protection. Now, when you hit with a Divine Smite, you can cause yourself or an ally within 30 feet of you to gain temp hit points equal to 1d8 plus the level of the spell slot expended for the smite. I think this is a cool way to add some "healing" to your not-very-healing-focused class. Protecting your allies by smiting your foes is a very paladin kind of thing to do.

At 10th level, you get Aura of Devotion, which is like Aura of Courage but for Charm effects, similar to the old version.

At 14, you get Holy Nimbus, which lets you gain a bunch of benefits as a bonus action for 1 minute once a day, or you can spend a 4th level spell slot or higher to do it multiple times.

While in your Holy Nimbus, enemies that start their turn in your Aura of Protection take radiant damage equal to your proficiency bonus plus your Charisma modifier. Your aura is also filled with bright light that counts as sunlight (sucks to be you, vampires).

So, let's compare this with the old Oath of Devotion: First off, you don't get Turn the Unholy anymore. Abjure Foes can kind of take that place at higher levels, but you'll need a Cleric if you want to turn undead. Smite of Protection more or less replaces Purity of Spirit, though it's a totally different feature. Purity of Spirit is actually an insanely powerful feature in the right campaign - indeed, it means that a 2014 Devotion paladin can carry around the Demonomicon of Iggwilv with no downside or risk.

Holy Nimbus has definitely gotten nerfed, but on the other hand, you're getting it at level 14, so that was kind of inevitable. On the other hand, being able to activate it as a bonus action and use it multiple times a day is quite nice.

I definitely think the Paladin changes are going to be less controversial than the Druid ones, because the class looks pretty similar to how it did in the 2014 PHB. And rightly so - the paladin is one of the best-designed classes in 5E, and is a whole lot of fun to play.

One D&D Druid Playtest

 Today, the UA for Druids and Paladins in the One D&D playtest just dropped. It's a pretty substantial document (I'm only about 75% through it myself, but wanted to write this while I still had the details of the classes in mind) with two classes and other things. Let's get into it:

First off, there's no longer the weird "you can wear medium armor, as long as it's not metal" thing. Now, you simply get armor training in light armor and shields, so you might want to get that Dexterity up (or take the feat for better armor).

As I predicted earlier, Druids will be getting "Channel Nature" to complement the Cleric's and Paladin's Channel Divinity. These priestly "Channel" abilities will all work the following way: You get a number of them based on your class level (maxing out at 4 at high levels) and regain 1 use on a short rest and all of them on a long rest. This is in contrast to the previous Cleric playtest, where they just got a number equal to their proficiency bonus per long rest - something they decided to change given that it would be easy to get a ton of these abilities even if you only multiclassed in a single level of the class.

Druids' initial use of Channel Nature is, of course, Wild Shape. This feature has changed significantly, becoming far more streamlined but also much less flexible. (I'll be honest and say I think I like the change - it's actually very similar to a homebrewed subclass I made a few months ago). Wild Shape now uses one of three scaling stat blocks. Animal of the Land is the first you get, with an attack that does 1d8+Wisdom damage, and you get multiattack at level 5, along with a climbing speed at that level. Animal of the Sea comes at level 7 and Animal of the Sky comes online at level 9, trading lower damage dice for the ability to swim or fly, respectively.

The enormous change here is that your Wild Shape forms no longer have their own hit points - you'll retain the same hit points in both forms, meaning that you can't endlessly tank massive damage by shifting into new forms (also, you won't ever get infinite wild shapes anyway, but we'll handle that later). In Animal of the Land form, you use your own ability scores but you replace your Strength and Dexterity with your Wisdom. In the other two forms, you only replace Dexterity with Wisdom (but their attacks are evidently "finesse" attacks, so it winds up fine). Also, you don't change creature type when you do this, despite appearing like an animal (as such, I think there's zero problem with going Owlbear in this mode - "animal" can encompass more than just beasts).

Now, each of these forms can come in Small, Medium, or Large size, and I think you just choose based on the animal whose form you want to take. You might then ask: "what if I want to turn into a sneaky rat and scout out ahead?" Well, at level 11, you can make any of these a Tiny form, however, your damage is halved and you can stay in the form no longer than 10 minutes (normally it's a number of hours equal to half your druid level).

At level 13, you gain Alternating Forms, which allows you to swap between your current Wild Shape and your normal form as a bonus action without spending a new use of Channel Nature.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, at 2nd level, you get Nature's Aid, which gives you two new Channel Nature options. The first is Healing Blossoms, where you conjure a spectral flower to bloom in a 10-foot radius sphere within 30 feet of you, which then heals a total amount of HP equal to a number of d4 rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier, distributed as you choose. The other use is Wild Companion, which allows you to cast Find Familiar without material components (and, while it doesn't say this, I assume also no spell slot) as an action, though your familiar only lasts until you finish your next long rest and it's automatically a Fey creature.

Moving forward again, Beast Spells comes at level 17 and now lets you perform verbal and somatic components in Wild Shape form, and lets you ignore free material components. Archdruid, now coming at level 18, now encompasses the Timeless Body feature (aging at 1/10th the speed you normally would) and rather than giving you infinite Wild Shape charges, now causes you to regain a Channel Nature use when you roll initiative. No totally ignoring spell components, as it did in the 2014 PHB.

Ok, before we get into the Circle of the Moon, let's do some analysis.

The first thing I think is noteworthy is that they've made Wild Shape a potential combat option for all druids. With the shape now scaling with a lot of your statistics, it'll be a decent option in a lot of cases. But if you really want to be more of a Primal Spellcaster, you can stick to that option and use the other Channel Nature options instead.

That being said, I think that the fact that Wild Shape no longer uses its own hit points is an enormous nerf to the power of that ability. Mind you, nerfs aren't necessarily a bad thing - sometimes they're necessary for balance - and the ability for a Druid to get, effectively, a massive number of hit points to chew through before you can actually start damaging them again was perhaps overpowered. I think that the distance between a Moon druid's use of the ability and other druids' has been shrunk, though as we'll see with that subclass, it'll be clear that Moon is still the way to go if you really want to focus on it.

Like the Cleric, Druids now come packing some healing capability regardless of what spells they choose, which is appropriate for the Priest class group. Personally, I think Tiny Critter could come way, way earlier.

Now, let's look at Circle of the Moon:

First off, because Wild Shape is now pretty viable for any Druid, and isn't based on CR, your base Wild Shape options are the same, but you get some enhancements to them.

At 3rd level, you get Combat Wild Shape, which allows the following:

You can now cast Abjuration spells while in Wild Shape as long as the spell doesn't require material components. Note that healing spells like Cure Wounds are now considered Abjuration.

Quick Attack lets you use an Unarmed Strike as a bonus action while transformed. Now, this is actually very interesting, because unless they've changed it, Unarmed Strikes now also include grapples and shoves. But, at the least, you'll be able to add a bit of damage (in Animal of the Land at least you'll be using Wisdom to determine your Strength, so this could be a nice 6-point hit eventually).

Finally, you get Swift Transformation, which lets you Wildshape as a bonus action or a "magic action," (aka an action) but only once a turn (I think it'd be very rare to need to do it twice in a turn).

At 6th level, you get Elemental Wild Shape. When you take on your Wild Shape form, you choose Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder. While in the form, you get resistance ot that damage type and your Bestial Strike (the main attack) does that type of damage or its normal damage, choosing each time you hit (which could be useful if you're, say, fighting a red dragon and want the fire resistance but know that fire damage won't hurt the dragon).

At 10th level, you get Elemental Strike, which causes your Bestial Strike to do an extra 1d6 of your chosen element when you hit. This goes up to 2d6 when you hit level 17.

At level 14, you get Thousand Forms, which lets you cast Alter Self at will.

So, there's a lot to unpack. No more elemental forms, but also kind of yes? As a point of comparison, let's look at two level 10 Moon Druids, one using the 2014 rules and one using this version.

The 2014 one expends two Wild Shapes to get into Fire Elemental form. Now, they've got an AC of 13, 102 hit points (on top o their normal HP), a speed of 50 feet, two attacks per turn with a +6 to hit, which deal 2d6+3 (average of 10) fire damage and ignite the target, causing them to take 1d10 fire damage per turn unless they douse it. They also have immunity to fire and poison damage and resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Creatures that hit them take 1d10 fire damage and the elemental can enter other creatures spaces, causing them to burn for 1d10 when they enter the creature's space and ignite, as with the attack.

The new version takes on, say, Animal of the Land. We'll assume our level 10 druid has 20 Wisdom by now. They now have an AC of 15, their normal hit points (so, effectively zero extra). They have a speed and climb speed of 40 feet. They have a +9 to hit (or more with something like a Moon Sickle) and attacks that do 1d8+1d6+5 (average of 16 per hit) damage per hit (the 1d6 must be fire damage). And resistance to fire damage.

The takeaway here is, I think, that the new version is significantly more capable on offense, at least by conventional means, but there's a huge nerf to the defensive utility of Wild Shape. But that might be fine - you can now just think of this as a choice of combat modes - do you want to be on the front lines in a wild form, or at the back hucking spells.

What I think these changes have really done is make Wild Shape a more broadly usable feature for all subclasses, while nerfing the historically high-powered Moon Druid. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that players will no longer have to fumble for the Monster Manual to pick out specific stat blocks, which should make gameplay easier.

Reverting the old power of Wild Shape, if they decided to do it, could be as simple as just giving the Animal forms their own hit points.

Now, I haven't perused the entirety of the Primal Spell list, so I don't know if there are any big changes there. The one thing of note is that Find Familiar now allows you to attack with the familiar if you use your reaction on their turn (which immediately follows yours,) though the damage isn't huge.

I suspect we'll see a lot of discussion and debate around Wild Shape (I haven't yet seen the interview video with Jeremy Crawford to see how he addresses that).

Next up, we'll look at the Paladin, which is one of my favorite classes in 5E, and see how it does.

One D&D Playtest Gearing Up Again

 I don't know if the OGL debacle (something that, I think it's important to remember, was a corporate-level decision and not one from the game development side) is why we've had a bit of a gap between One D&D playtests or not, but it looks like we're gearing up for more. D&D released Todd Kenreck/Jeremy Crawford video outlining some of the thoughts and ideas around the Cleric survey response.

The big takeaways:

First off, try as they've done, the Ardling is just not fitting into the PHB, and so they've decided to pull it out and possibly save it for some release with more context (if they're tied to the upper planes, I'd think a Planescape book would make sense, though I imagine the upcoming one is probably past the point in development where they could throw something like that in there). However, the new multi-faceted Goliath is looking very likely to make it into the new PHB, with sub-species (and I think they're sticking with species as the new name for race) for each of the "True Giants," (Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire, Cloud, and Storm, with the established ones fitting into the "Stone" category).

It also looks like the "Jump" action will not go forward as it was described in previous UAs - something I think is wise. The idea of having to use your action to jump on one hand did mean you could get more movement in a turn, but it also meant you couldn't leap across a crevasse and attack the monster on the other side of it on the same turn. There will be a changelog in future UAs, which should be good.

The intent in the future for the playtest is going to be bigger documents but less frequently - rather than doing a single class like they did with the Cleric, we'll probably be seeing things grouped similarly to the Experts. The next document, which we're likely going to see in the next few days, will round out the "Priest" class group and give us the Druid and the Paladin.

Now, I'm curious to see how this looks.

Both the Druid and Paladin are historically popular and powerful classes. Here are thoughts I have about what we might see with them.

Druids, I think, might get something like "Channel Nature," akin to Channel Divinity. This could then have its default use be Wild Shape, but frees up a lot of subclasses to use it in other ways, which more recent subclasses already do (the Wildfire Druid's summoning the Fire Spirit, the Spore Druid using Symbiotic Entity, and the Stars Druid getting their Starry Forms).

Paladins I absolutely love as they are, but they're also certainly a very powerful class. I can imagine that, if the mechanic is left more or less intact, we'll at least see the name of "Improved Divine Smite" changed, given that even if the ability deals d8s of radiant damage, it's otherwise an entirely separate mechanic from Divine Smite. The change to when subclass features show up is also going to be pretty interesting, as the current level 20 feature for paladins is their subclass "ult," which would now come at level 14. Will that require nerfing those abilities? I also wonder if they'll give paladins a class-wide use for Channel Divinity.

In theory, Priests are all supposed to be capable of being primary healers, which is something the Cleric can clearly do, and the Druid also does quite well. What I'd worry about is if they try to push Paladins too far in that direction, they might lose what I consider their real appeal - both mechanically and lore-wise - as the stalwart tank. A Paladin who gives up martial strength for greater healing capabilities starts to look indistinguishable from a Cleric.

I'm sure that, like the Ranger, we'll see the Paladin get access to a number of feats from the Warrior group, but it will be good to see that confirmed.

Anyway, I'm eager to see what comes next. I can't wait to see what they have in mind for Warlocks and Monks, in particular, though those are both in separate class groups, so it'll be a little while before we see them. I hope that we'll get all the base classes out soon and then can start looking at subclasses.

March of the Machine's Implications for the MTG Story

 I'll put this caveat here that I don't follow the Magic the Gathering story super closely, but I kind of absorb it from wikis and YouTube videos, and occasionally the short fiction they publish on the website.

There was a several-year build up to War of the Spark, which saw Nicol Bolas (the one Elder Dragon Legend I ever got, even if it was just the Chronicles version) attempt to restore the godlike planeswalking power he'd had before The Mending by harvesting the planeswalker sparks of as many planeswalkers as he could lure to Ravnica. Given that this was a plot based entirely around killing planeswalkers, it came as a bit of a surprise that only a handful of established planeswalker characters died - most notably Gideon Jura, who tanked the lethal curse baked into Liliana's pact so that she could turn the Dreadhorde against the dragon. A lot of people complained that the stakes, which had seemed to be elevated so high, wound up feeling sort of lower.

Now, the plot also brought about huge changes to Ravnica, which might be the most popular plane, such as the fact that a lot of guilds have been totally reshaped - as a side note, the Ravnica D&D campaign I'm running has an Orzhov Cleric who now wants to kill the Obzedat Council, and while that's not really what my campaign is supposed to be about, I've been trying to figure out if I should introduce Kaya as an NPC and let that play out in-game as it did in canon, though with my party helping.

Still, following the conclusion of that plot 4 years ago (dear lord, time is weird) we're now gearing up for a new climactic arc-conclusion.

I will say, all of this seems to be much faster-paced than I remember older plot arcs, but on the other hand, I'm older. If you consider the original Phyrexian invasion plot to have started with Tempest Block in 1997, its conclusion with Apocalypse would have come after four years in 2001. We could say the current Phyrexian plot officially got going with Vorinclex's arrival on Kaldheim, which was in 2021, so... ok, yeah, that's only two years.

Anyway, very swiftly, the body count has racked up significantly. Not only was everyone's favorite Task Mage killed, but we've now seen a number of long-established characters compleated by the Phyrexians. The longstanding immunity Planeswalkers have to compleation (which, incidentally, is a major plot point in my D&D campaign) has been overcome, and so we've got beloved characters like Ajani and Nissa now playing for team body horror.

This kind of bleak, sweeping wipe-out of canon characters did, of course, happen once before in the past. In Invasion Block, the primary heroes of the past several sets were put through the freaking abattoir. Sure, Urza dying to destroy Yawgmoth for good (and so far it looks like that, at least, stuck) made sense, but we also lost Gerard, Hannah, and a number of other established figures. Basically, when the dust settled, there were only a few characters still around. The subsequent Odyssey Block introduced new characters as a new focus for MTG's story, though after the subsequent Onslaught Block, they decided instead to start jumping from plane to plane each year (and after War of the Spark, they'd start jumping from set to set - something I'm not 100% happy with, as it means we don't get to really become invested in any of these new worlds and plane-based mechanics tend to get swept away in favor of eternal deck archetypes - Kamigawa Neon Dynasty had a lot of cool ideas around Vehicles, but subsequent sets didn't really give us anything to develop that theme with).

That being said, I also think that MTG is a much bigger brand now, and as with all comic-book-like endless narratives, I'm always going to be a bit skeptical about their decision to truly kill off a character for good.

So, I see a couple possibilities for the aftermath of this plotline:

First, the Phyrexians have figured out a way to get to other planes without being planeswalkers. The Mending did bring Planeswalkers down to a power level where they could become cards, sure, but I think the total ban on non-planeswalkers traveling to other planes has been kind of stultifying for the story. We could never have something like the Weatherlight's journeys today (honestly, if there's one compleation I'm most upset by, it's that ship,) and I think it would be cool to have mere legendary creatures actually become recurring, plot-relevant characters once again. I think keeping Planeswalkers to just powerful individuals but then letting others journey between worlds could introduce some really cool new plot possibilities - I mean, just off the top of my head, wouldn't it be cool if House Dimir started planting agents on other worlds?

Second, I wonder if there's some redemption for any of the compleated planeswalkers. Phyrexia is a horrifying and implacable foe, but they've already established that while it's not clear that any Phyrexians are "good," so to speak, at the very least there are figures like Urabrask who are capable of resisting the hive-mind tendencies of Phyrexia and even tolerating the existence of un-compleated people. As it stands, any of the planeswalkers we've seen get turned have swiftly fallen in step with Elesh Norn's agenda of total conquest and conversion, but is it possible that some of them might simply develop new agendas that aren't entirely contradictory to more heroic characters' desires?

Third: is this the end of Phyrexia? I somehow doubt that they'd be willing to ever totally wipe out the Phyrexians. It came really close at the end of Invasion Block, with the destruction of Yawgmoth and even the original plane of Phyrexia, but then Karn had to accidentally bring a drop of oil to Argentum (I believe within the Mirari?) Again, we have to think of this in terms of comic book continuity. In any other medium, eventually bringing the Phyrexians back for a third time (arguably a fourth if you count Antiquities as their first appearance) would feel repetitive, but give it a decade or two and I'm sure that people will feel ready to face them again. I do, however, think that MTG needs to develop some new multiplanar threats (something that the first possibility could help establish).

Anyway, we've only gotten one card-art preview of March of the Machine, which seems to depict Thalia, from Innistrad, riding a legendary frog (can't recall the name, but he's summoned as a token) from Kamigawa, and possibly in Ravnica, which would seem to lend credence to possibility 1's likelihood.

Metroid Prime, Two Decades Later

 In November of 2002, I was in my Junior year of high school, and I got what I believe was my second Metroid game. I was first introduced to Samus Aran thanks to the surprise hit that was Super Smash Bros. in 1999 for the N64, which got a follow-up a mere two years later in the clearly far-higher-budget Super Smash Bros. Melee, which would remain the gold standard of the series I think until Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Anyway, I was familiar with Mario and Link, Donkey Kong, Yoshi (there were a lot of Mario-adjacent characters in it) and Kirby, etc. But I'd was unfamiliar with Samus other than the single screenshot of Super Metroid on the back of my SNES-Donkey Kong Country bundle that was my first game console. Samus quickly became my favorite character in Smash Bros, and so I decided to try out Super Metroid, and loved it.

And then, they announced Metroid's long-awaited transition to 3D, having missed the N64 generation entirely outside of Samus' appearance in Smash Bros. Rather than a 3rd person action-platformer, they made it a 1st person shooter and... somehow it worked?

Metroid Prime works just like a Metroid game, except that it's in a 3D world and you see things from Samus' POV. One of the charming touches of that choice is that they really make you feel like you're inside the helmet - when there's a flash of bright light, you can see Samus' face reflected in her visor, and things like condensation or electrical interference with her HUD will pop up.

Anyway, there's now a remaster of the game on the Switch. While I don't believe there's any really intense gameplay rebalancing, there are two major elements: the graphics are fully updated, which makes it look like a modern game, and the controls have what has become the standard two-stick control for first person shooters - the left stick for movement and the right for aiming.

I haven't yet unlocked any of the alternate beam weapons, so I don't know how I'll be switching between them, but so far the Pro Controller has been a great way to play the game (the standard JoyCons are too small for my big hands, and cause me to cramp).

I believe I selected the easier difficulty level, so I hesitate to remark on its challenge. I still dread the frost-elemental boss in Phendranna Drifts that gave me so much trouble back in the day, but I also have 20 more years of gaming under my belt. If I could one-shot Malenia on my most recent Elden Ring playthrough (albeit with an overpowered build) I should be ok, right?

I actually never finished Metroid Prime 1 or 2 - I only finished the 3rd one. So perhaps I'll finally put that notch on my belt.

First Look at Project Black Flag

 Kobold Press, which collaborated with Wizards of the Coast on some early 5th Edition books and has also produced the massive Tome of Beasts and Creature Codex (and Tome of Beasts 2) books, along with many others, was one of the 3rd party companies that announced their intention to build their own RPG system in the wake of the OGL fiasco. While I haven't written One D&D off, I'm also eager to see the RPG world diversify, and I've been curious to see what these other companies have cooking.

Project Black Flag is the codename for Kobold Press' new RPG system, and there's a free PDF of its initial playtest packet out via this link. I recommend taking a look.

My impressions are fairly positive if a little surprised to see how similar it is to the existing 5th Edition system, but I wanted to point out some of the differences that I think are really notable:

First, you can generate ability scores basically the same way, and then you can add a +2 to any score that's 16 or lower and a +1 to any score that's 17 or lower, which means no one starts with a 20 in their main stat. Point buy and the standard array no longer allow for the +2/+1 bonuses, but those are incorporated into them. The Standard Array is now 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, and 8 - which is a little more rigid, given that currently, you can put you +1 bonus to whatever stat you give the 15 and your +2 to whatever you give the 14 so that you get two +3 modifiers at level 1.

Point buy now has a maximum score to take of 18, and still uses a table where higher scores are harder to come by. So, for example, if I were playing a Rogue and really only wanted to max out my Dex and maybe get some decent Con, I could get Dex to 18, Con to 14, and then put 10s in Int, Wis, and Str, and have an 11 to Cha. If I wanted a broader spread for a Paladin, I could take 16 in Str, 14s in Con and Cha, maybe a 12 in Dex and then, say, a 9 in Int and a 10 in Wis.

The next change I think is actually really cool is the division between Lineage and Heritage. Lineage is the new name or race, and specifically refers to your inherited physical traits - things like a Dwarf's resistance to poison or an Elf's Trance ability. Heritage, then, is the culture you grew up in, and kind of takes the place of "sub-race."

However, because your Heritage is purely cultural, you don't actually have to be a member of that Lineage to pick it. While Elves in this have the Cloud and Grove Heritages (more or less High Elves versus Wood Elves,) if you were a Human raised by Wood Elves, you could take the Human Lineage traits and the Grove Heritage traits. This is also suggested as a way to represent mixed ancestry - if you're a half-elf/half-dwarf, you might physically represent your elfishness in your Lineage while your have all the training and culture of your Fireforge Dwarf heritage.

Backgrounds are fairly similar, and come with a "Talent," which is the equivalent of a Feat. Talents come in different categories - Magic, Martial, and Technical. Like in 5E, you can choose them instead of an ability score improvement at certain levels (we don't have the classes yet, so I don't know if the frequency is different here).

The talents are a little more streamlined - Armor Training, for example, basically works as Lightly Armored, Moderately Armored, and Heavily Armored and you can take it multiple times if you really want your Wizard to wear plate. My general sense is that these talents are a little stronger - for example, the equivalent of Tough not only gives you the +2 bonus to HP for each level but also increases your hit die by one step (for example, giving your Fighter a d12 hit die) though my little quibble here is that it doesn't seem to be retroactive, meaning that you need to take this early if you want to benefit fully.

It's interesting, and closer to 5E than I expected it to be. I'll be curious going forward to see how this develops.