Dungeons & Dragons Debuts Overhauled Warlock, Weapons Mastery System in Latest One D&D Playtest

By Christian Hoffer

Wizards of the Coast has made some significant changes to its Warlock class in the latest One D&D playtest. Today, the D&D design team released a 50-page Unearthed Arcana playtest for One D&D, the upcoming major rules revision to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition that will be released in 2024. The playtest included overhauls for five classes – the Fighter, Barbarian, Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock – and debuted a new Weapon Mastery system that provides most martial weapons with special secondary abilities that can only be accessed by certain classes or feats. 

One of the most significant changes in the playtest is to the Warlock, which saw its mechanically unique version of spellcasting dumped in favor of a more standardized system. Currently, Fifth Edition provides Warlocks with access to Cantrips and a handful of spell slots at a set level that goes up at time. Warlocks could regain these spell slots during a short rest, but were generally limited to a small amount of impactful spells during combats. In the new system, the Warlock is a "half-caster" with access to a standard array of spell slots like other half-casters. Several fundamental Warlock spells like Eldritch Blast and Hex are also now specifically tied to the Warlock in order to prevent various popular but overpowered builds that use those spells. 

The Fighter class's updates mainly relate to the use of the Weapon Mastery system, which provides access to a number of secondary weapon abilities. These abilities range from Cleave, which allows players to make a second attack roll against a creature directly adjacent to the one they're attacking, to Sap, which inflicts disadvantage on a target's next attack roll. Fighters can eventually swap out Weapon Mastery features or even choose which Weapon Mastery feature they use on individual attacks. 

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Meanwhile, the Wizard class has somehow become even more powerful, with the ability to permanently alter and modify spells thanks to several new abilities that grow over time. 

You can check out the full playtest over on D&D Beyond. 

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