I was just looking at a spell list online and it says that wizards, warlocks and sorcerers are going to the same spell list. So if they all get access to the full arcane spell list doesn’t that take away wizards one big thing, having the most spell options?

I am gonna play a campaign to try One D&D and I want to experience as many changes in a class as I can. I want to play a caster and noticed that Wizard is one of, if not the, least changed classes.

So, I am going to play either Cleric or Sorcerer. I am leaning Sorcerer since I never played any long term in 5e.

What are some feature/spell/feat combos and interactions that would have changed from 5e for these classes and which of them would give me a very different experience than their 5e counterpart?

Like, isn't it kind of weird?

Outside of the subclasses we've already seen in the UA, which 5e subclasses do you want to see return in the 2024 PHB and what changes would you like to see implemented?

For me, I'd like to see the Soulknife come back with Mastery Properties for the psychic blades and a unique Cunning Strike option.

Let me know what you'd like to see.

Edit: I didn't realize that 47/48 of the subclasses had already appeared in the UAs. I suppose, the fact that they were split up over multiple UAs, made the number feel a lot smaller to me. So in that case, what subclasses would you like to see make a return in future source books? Or would you rather they only printed new subclasses and left the old stuff alone.

I have been looking at all of the one dnd UA content and building some test characters. While doing so, I found a potentially interesting combo that I am not sure how it would work. I was hoping someone could weigh in on how this situation would play out (RAW and/or RAI).

I am a warlock with the great old one patron, so I gain the Psychic Spells ability at level 3. This allows me to cast warlock enchantment spells without requiring verbal components.

I also take the pact of the tome warlock invocation. This grants me access to cantrips from any class spell list. It specifically states that these spells function as warlock spells for my character. I choose vicious mockery.

Can I now attack an enemy mentally? The spell for me would have zero required components. The description of the spell still implies that they hear the words, but is that waived due to the Psychic Spells ability? Could that be satisfied mentally via the awakened mind ability?

Assuming the answers above are yes, what would the enemy realize? Would they know who is attacking them? Unless detect magic is being cast, would anyone know I am the one attacking or doing anything out of the ordinary?

Due to busy life schedule, I haven't been keeping up with OneDnD news these last few months but now that things are finally starting to clear up for me, I was curious about all the new stuff I missed and looking around on their website and dndbeyond I didn't find any new UA.

Even the sidebar here stops at the UA released in november, so I assume they really hasn't been a new UA (tho feel free to correct me), but have there been any news about the remaster/OneDnd since then? Like some previews, sneak peaks or anything?

Title. I really like the OneDnD changes so far and i had a ton of ideas for builds to try but i havent found a single place that is recruiting/running playtests.

is there any place like such? the discord promoted in this sub isnt really creating any playtests either (as far as i seen)

Im not sure if the same in the States but wtf is going on with amazon.ca's prices on the new D&D books? The new Vecna campaign is priced at $90 and I can get it for $69 at other places. The 50th anniversary book about first edition is priced at $150 and I can get it for $100 at other places. I bought a lot of my D&D books for 5e from Amazon but honestly if this keeps up I'll find other ways to get my books for D&D in the future. Just curious if anyone would know why Amazon would be price gouging like this?

I'm already familiar with the "classic" damage reflection/retaliation/porcupine builds available in 5e, ie. those builds revolving around Armor of Agathys, Earth Genasi or Goliath races, Abjurer Wizards, Clockwork Soul or Heavy Armor Master for damage mitigation, Armorer Artificer or Ancestral Barbarian for taunting.

From what has been shown in the playtest material, do you expect some updates for those kind of builds?

Also, one thing I noticed is that now the grappled condition impose disadvantage on attack rolls except against the grappler, so grapple now can be an effective taunt mechanism.

Am I missing something else?

Given the playtests, it is likely that we will not see the artificer in the 2024 Player's Handbook, and we will still be using the version of the class and subclasses published in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything published in 2020.

Given the new rules and class balance that we are seeing in the playtests for the 2024 PHB, how much more or less viable do you feel the artificer will be? Do you think Paladins and Rangers being able to cast certain spells more means the artificer is now behind in spell slots? Will the battlesmith be behind if they can't access weapon masteries? Does increased access to temp hp make the protector cannon less good?

That are your thoughts?

Am I insane? I can't see Druid Grove in the primal list and no one seems to be talking about it. I love that spell.

My DM is allowing me to play the Playtest 7 Sorcerer (Wild Magic) and just recently let me switch to using Spell Points for spellcasting, as well as combining my Sorcery Points into the Spell Points pool.

The only complication I can see is Sorcerous Restoration. What's the most appropriate way of handling this feature when using Spell Points? I could just not use it considering the awkward conditions it involves.

I finally took a look at play test 6 and realized they definitely buffed up the Circle of the Land Druid subclass a decent amount. I think the 3rd level circle spells and 6th level natural recovery are amazing features. 10th levels Natures Ward is good and thematic….but the 3rd and 14th level abilities that use Wild Shape feel a bit underwhelming.

Land’s Aid isn’t great. Constitution is not a good stat to target for a save so you will only be doing half damage a decent amount of time. I’m also puzzled on why they didn’t allow you to add your wisdom mod to the damage and healing or at least allow you to heal multiple creatures. I think adding a secondary effect depending on your land choice would have made it much stronger and thematic. Making it a bonus action would have also worked in my opinion. At 20th level I’m not going to use my action to do 4d6 of damage in a 10 ft radius and heal one creature for the same amount, but I would do it as a bonus action. I really hope they buff this In some way.

Nature’s Sanctuary isn’t as bad but I still think they missed out on an opportunity to add different variants to the ability based off your land choice. Even making it difficult terrain for creatures of your choice would have been cool. You are giving up your action and Wild Shape for half cover and a resistance. Not bad but not great. I really hope they fix these features. Overal I think those two features need tweaked before release. Sub class is still way better than it used to be though.

So far I've noticed that the Kensei and the Monster Slayer have had major features absorbed by the main class and/or a more dominant subclass. Are there other subclasses that will essentially be vestigial in September 2024 (or otherwise need retooling)?

[edit:] Pact of the Talisman in (more) shambles.

I hear that they are reverting hex and eldritch blast back to the 2014 version, but for the life of me I cannot find what they used to do in 2014. Would anyone be able to help me out with what they used to do and how it's different than that 5e handbook we know now?

Searching the subreddit got me all the direct links except for one to playtest 4. Is that around somewhere?

Sorry and thanks.

I know that people HATE when martials are perfect, especially their damage, but hear me out.

One of the problems with martials in the 2014 version of D&D is that ranged builds are generally just better than melee builds. Ranged builds do deal slightly less damage, but the difference is so little, and the advantages of focusing on ranged damage is so great that ranged builds are generally just better than melee builds. In fact, there are only a few weapons in 5e that are really worth using at all, either a glaive/halberd, a quarterstaff/spear, or a hand crossbow.

Now this isn't as much the case with the OneDnd playtests. In the hands of a fighter, a glaive still deals more damage than a Greatsword, but it's not that much more and thr pros and cons weigh each other out. While the glaive deals more damage and has reach, it costs 3 fests to optimize and your bonus action every turn, whereas the greatsword only deals a little less damage, only needs 2 feats to optimize, keeps your BA free, and deals more damage when using action surge.

I absolutely love the way that one weapon deals more damage, but takes up more resources to do so. In tiers 3 and 4, the Hand crossbow and longbow are similar. Hand crossbow deals more damage, and both weapons require 2 feats to optimize, but the Hand crossbow needs your bonus action every turn and deals less damage when action surging.

In tiers 3 and 4, both the hand crossbow and longbow both deal less damage than the glaive and longsword as well. The damage difference is significant enough to make it worth it to build for melee, but not enough to make ranged builds completely useless. Again, damage is a factor when weighing the many pros and cons of each build.

The problem however, is that in tier 2, the Hand crossbow deals more damage than the greatsword and nearly as much damage as the glaive. The greatsword surpasses the Hand crossbow at 10th level and gains decent distance from it in level 11 onward, but most D&D adventures don't go past level 10.

I feel like the game is so close to solving the problem of the Hand crossbow, but I feel like it won't matter if you are playing CoS or something with similar leveling, because Crossbow expert is too big of a boost all at once. If the feat required you to be 8th level before you could take it, it would still surpass the greatsword in damage for 2 levels, but that's significantly less of a problem than the 6 levels it currently surpasses it in, and it's overall career damage.would be much closer to looking like that of the longbow.

I'm just tired of the most optimal weapon for martial characters being these dumb little hand crossbows, and while I would love for them to still be a viable weapon, I want there to be reason to build for other weapons without it being a nerf. How would you feel if XBE was an 8th level feat?

The 5e Monk is claimed to be broken. I have had friends play them at my table and have a blast anyway. To me Monk seemed boring as a class though, just a mobile skirmisher that did little else other than punch things in the face with an admittedly unreliable stun debuff.

But is this really the justification for making them the OP Martial in OneDnD?

Consider just base classes at Level 10 and what they have for features and abilities.

Fighter: Second Wind, Action Surge, Extra Attack

Barbarian: Rage, Extra Attack, Brutal Strike

Rogue: Sneak Attack, Cunning Action, Evasion

Monk: Extra Attack, Bonus Unarmed Strike, Deflect Attacks, Evasion, Heightened Flurry of Blows/Patient Defense/Step of the Wind

… the Monk has up to 5 attacks a turn AND potential for additional reaction damage, they can attack 3 more times over any other martial while being more mobile than a Rogue and at the same time more tanky than a Barbarian, with an incredible movement rate and enough Discipline Points to outlast the resources and nova potential of the other martials in any case I can think of … how is this balanced and why is the Monk the sacred cow of this sub?

I've posted this on posts in the past, but with all the recent threads about right rogues, I thought I might type something up.

I am on Mobile, so I apologize for any typos. A main concern I see is that rogues have no niche. I am proposing that their niche should be the best at capitalizing on opportunity. What I mean is that they should be the best at reacting to openings or mistakes in combat.

This would likely result on sneak attacks, but it doesn't have to.

For example, a mage casts a spell within range, let them attack since casting a spell is not focusing on actual combat. Maybe let them attempt to interrupt the spell (with it without sneak attack). Maybe they attempt to throw dirt and blind them for the round so they can't see to target with the spell

If an enemy is disarmed and tries to draw a weapon or pick up their weapon, they could exploit the opening with a possible sneak attack or a cunning strike feature such as tripping, etc.

If an opponent attempts to hit the rogue and misses, allow a riposte style reaction.

Try to attack a target other than the rogue while in range and they can flank to attack or maybe use their reaction to impose disadvantage or a negative modifier to the attack roll.

These are just some ideas, but I feel this would allow some tactical options, give the rogue an interesting niche, and make rogue combat more active and exciting. This could possibly be expanded to allow for special reactions for each subclass.

Anyways, please share your thoughts.

This post might be veeeery long. Though the playtest has been over, but I still want to discuss this topic again after I've seen so many posts and arguments about Rogue.

This post would not be a post about "How would I design it", but more like "What caused people arguing about Rogues, and what ways have been most suggested by players during the Playtests?"

Quick Summary

Rogue’s been suffering from lack of a clear niche. Some regards it a Martial, but some regards it a Supportive Class, while some thinks Rogue's combat power can’t make it a real Martial, while others find Rogue's utilities also can’t make it a competent supportive class, even not better than other Martials after UA7 and UA8 (Ranger, Monk, Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, even Warlock etc.).

Half of the players thinks Rogue's been competent from 5E, since Rogue has both niche. But half of the players think Rogue has been weak for not doing great on both sides, and this has been quite true after UA7 and UA8.

I believe there were many people who mentioned those things in the Survey of UA2 Rogue. Things about how Rogue’s core features can’t keep up with the new edition when other classes got buffed, and how they can’t do much during a combat. This was quite fixed after the UA6, while Rogue has got their Cunning Strike. But the niche problem came back after UA7 and UA8, and it's been even worse.

First of all, this post is not saying Rogue must be the top at all things, but it has to have a clear niche, and few core features that are unique enough and better than other classes to make players won’t ask themselves “Why should I play this class when there’re other classes that could do a better job with the same flavor?”. I'll be discussing why Rogue's been suffering from Niche Problem after UA7 and UA8 in the following.

Utility-wise

Rogue’s utility mainly comes from their skills, but there are too many classes are good at skill checks now, thus making Rogue losing their niche as a supportive class.

In UA7, Barbarian has been able to use Str for five useful skills (Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, and Survival) while raging. It not only lasts for 10-minutes now, but also provides advantage on those skills since you’re using Str on those checks.

In UA8, Fighter can even outshine Rogue’s skills before they reach Level 7 with Tactical Mind.

In my former playtest with my friends, the new Fighter with Tactical Mind, without any intentionally leaning into skills, had outpaced my Thief Rogue in skill checks before Level 7, which was a surprising result for me.

Before Level 7, Rogue only has more extra +2/+3. In many scenarios, more +2/+3 in certain skills just couldn’t compete a +D10 to any random check that you've failed. There aren't that many failed skill checks between short-rests at all, let alone it cost nothing if that D10 isn't making you pass.

What really makes me feel like my Fighter friend was outshining me is that rolling an additional D10 really makes players feel like they’re doing something, and they were so good at passing that check.

It provides players a chance to flavor the scene as something like “Expert’s Instinct” moment, rather than “oh, it’s a 5, I passed/failed”.It brings more fun, feels more active, and more exciting, but saying “you can add your proficiency in that check”, just tastes less “Expert” than a roll an additional D10 at a critical moment.

Especially it feels bad when you don’t get that extra +2 on the skill you ought to be good at but you didn’t Expertise for you don’t have that many. The only Rogue I can think of to compete this is the Soulknife Rogue. For the same reason, Soulknife Rogue has also been one of the most favored subclass among players. Above all, all these Features like Tactical Mind and the new Rage could be recovered by short-rest now.

We also have more Full-Casters and Half-Casters that had or getting Expertise and skill enhancements, while they already possess great utilities with spells. Like Bards and Rangers who possess Extra-Attacks, Pass Without Trace, Expertise, Skill-Enhancements, Fighting Styles, Spells, Rituals at the same time.

These changes are making Rogue less special in skills and making them feels mundane, since a skill check only has two results, “you succeeded” or “you failed”. There’s no difference between you exceed the DC by 3 or you exceed the DC by 10 under the current skill system.

Combat-wise

Rogue’s been facing serious problems for they lack of extra-attack and other Martials getting more features that resemble Rogue’s.

The UA8 Monk has been able to Dash, Disengage as a Bonus Action without costs, just like the Cunning Action. Deflect Attack has also been a purely better version of Uncanny Dodge, both mathematically and mechanically.

According to the calculation made by many players, Uncanny Dodge is only better than Deflect Attacks when a Rogue takes 30+ damage from one hit at level 5. For most monsters that players would be facing at level 5, that's nearly impossible to meet one.

Furthermore, Barbarian is also getting their own Strikes. Fighter has also been able to Disengage and move more as a Bonus Action, though with costs.

Above that, Rogue also has less available Weapon Masteries to choose since they're bounded to Finese Weapons, while half of the effects made by Cunning Strike could be replicated by Masteries at no costs.

The Importance of Extra-Attack

Most importantly, most Martial-related spells, magic items, and class features still only benefits multi-attacks.

Like the new Adventure Gear version of Net, and the Breath Weapon of the Dragonborn, they can replace one of the attacks from one Attack Action, but Rogue only has one attack from an Attack Action, thus making Rogue the worst Net user except for Thief, which seems odd to me.

Multi-Attacks also make Weapen Mastery Effects more reliable and versatile than Cunning Strike without costs, and some them may even stack.

The worst thing about this has been every class that isn’t a full-caster can attack twice, except for Rogue, which makes Rogue irrelevant to the half of the game, while the other half of the game are about spells, which Rogue also doesn’t have those. It just leaves no room for Rogue to optimize like other classes.

While in this case, Sneak Attack still scales too little compared to other classes since Level 5. Full-casters are getting their 3rd level spells at 5, and other classes that aren’t full-casters are doubling their DPR with extra-attack.

But Rogue only gets one D6, and controls that costs damage even more. These controls from Cunning Strike are good but not enough for them to be a competent supportive class. There were statistics made by other players about how much damage could 5e2024 Martials do, and Rogue’s been the lowest.

Even some full-casters like Bard and Wizard that have the access to the multi-attacks can even deal more damage and be a better Martial than a Rogue, despite of being a full-caster with crazy utilities.

Rogue's Niche

There has been two voices in the community about what a Rogue is. One is Rogue’s been a Martial, for obvious reason that they can’t cast and fight like a Martial.

One is Rogue’s been a supportive class for they have good skills back in 5e and they don’t have extra-attacks.

To me, Rogue still feels like a Martial both in theme and in playstyle. It is a non-caster without magical spells after all. The subclasses like the Assassin, Scout, Swashbuckler are definitely supposed to be Martials.

Suggestions

There has been a lot of suggestions about how to make Rogue find its niche.

If we’re making it a real supportive-class, most popular suggestion is making Rogue able to do more things with skills, and let them be able to fulfil extra tasks with skill checks while others can't. Make their check-results better and different from other classes.

Though, the easiest way of doing this might have been making Rogue the “physical Wizard”. Things like you can make effects that works similar to some spells by skill checks.

If we’re making it a real Martial, there’re many ways to do this:

1. Give them extra-attack.

This is the simplest way of making Rogue a Martial. Their DPR would also be acceptable since they don’t have Fighting Styles, Spells, and the access to Heavy Weapons and many Martial Weapons, thus making them unable to pick Feats like Polearm Master, Crossbow Expert, Great Weapon Master that most Martials would pick.

Luckily, Sneak Attack is not easy to trigger and scales really slow. Adding extra-attack only allows Rogue to catch up with others. But the most controversial part of this solution is that many players believe the extra-attack would eliminates the flavor of Rogue, which I totally understand. Though, I’m not against this solution.

2. Make Sneak Attack Scales every level.

This has been the simplest and the most accepted solution. All we need to do is making Sneak Attack once “per round” instead of once “per turn”, as most Rogue players have suggested and wanted.

Players are happy to see Sneak Attack becomes once per round when the damage goes up, like “you can only Sneak Attack once before the start of your next turn”. They just need their Opportunity Sneak Attack and Ready Sneak Attack to be still available when players didn’t Sneak Attack in their own turn.

3. Sneak Attack remains the same, but make Uncanny Dodge into Uncanny Riposte.

There are many players that suggested since out-of-turn Sneak Attack has been a viable playstyle since 5e2014, then why not we just make it more accessible to all players, instead of only the experienced players and specific classes.

We just need to make Uncanny Dodge able to “attack back (with a melee attack) when you get hit by an attack”. Since the requirements of a Sneak Attack are very easy to break, like attacks from the outside of their range, or face to face when the Rogue is holding a Ranged Weapon, or prone, or many things, the overall DPR would be reasonably fine. Especially it only triggers when Rogue loses its HP. It’s a kind of resource costing either.

4. Add more Sneak Attack Dices by one at certain levels.

Those levels would be like 5, 9, 11, and 17. Though I believe this is far from enough, and not fixing any problems. An extra 3.5 damage is not making Rogue catches up with what extra-attack and 3rd level spells and more spell slots could bring.

My Opinion

I prefer Rogue to be a Martial, cuz it’s been too hard to make Rogue a real competent supportive class without giving them spells or making big changes to the class and the skill system.

So far, I haven’t seen much feasible suggestions in making Rogue a supportive class with simple solutions from the community.

It’s much easier to make it a Martial. But as a Martial, their features just don't justify for its DPR being the lowest currently.

But anyway, I believe firmly that the team would take good care of Rogue. I’m really looking forward to see a better Rogue with a clearer niche.

I've done a simulation study of tankiness of the non-spellcaster base classes in 2014 vs. OneDnD. Here's a graph of the results.

The basic setup is that I take a monster from the list below, make it unkill-able (essentially, infinite hit points), and have it fight a "PC" whose level is equal to the monster CR. Most monster special abilities are represented faithfully, though there are a few simplifications. For instance, when the Purple Worm swallows you, you automatically do enough damage for it to have to save against regurgitating just before its next turn.

For each class, I had a "normal" and "defensive" version. What that means depends on the class.

The monsters used are: [DireWolf, BrownBear, AwakenedTree, BanditCaptain, KillerWhale, Owlbear, GladiatorShield, Triceratops, GiantShark, TRex, Hydra, StoneGolem, YoungRed, PurpleWorm, DragonTurtle, PitFiend, AncientWhite]. Note that this choice of monsters has some variety in number of attacks, but leans towards "big bruisers" because I wanted to minimize the number of special abilities I'd have to code for. When there is more than one monster at a given CR, I used the average rounds survived across the different monsters.

Here's some details on how I set up each class:

Barbarian: Always raging. "Normal" is using reckless attack; "defensive" isn't.

Fighter: Strength-based, AC20. "Normal" is using Second Wind at a rate to exactly use them up in a standard adventuring day; that is, 6 fights with 2 short rests. So for instance the 2014 "normal" has a 50% (3/6) chance of having a Second Wind in any given fight. "Defensive" is burning the max amount of Second Wind in every fight (which obviously wouldn't be sustainable over multiple fights).

Monk: Maxes out Dex then Wis. "Normal" is what you'd expect; "defensive" is using Patient Defense.

Rogue: "Normal" uses no defensive features outside the 2014 class. "Defensive" only exists for the new version; they're using Cunning Strike (once it's available) to force the monster to make a Con saving throw each turn, and get disadvantage on attacks if it fails.

"Martial Artist": This refers to my own homebrew Monk, based on the OneDnD version. Most of the changes don't matter here. The one that does is that my version of "Deflect Attacks" kicks in at first level, but only reduces damage by your level plus one M.A. die if you don't spend a "Focus" (ki) point; if you do spend a point (available from level 2), it reduces by an additional M.A. die. The other change is that Empty Body/Superior Defense and Body and Mind have changed and moved to optional "Disciplines", so they're not accounted for in this sim; thus, at level 20 this looks weaker than it should.

The "normal" martial artist in this sim never spends ki on Deflect Attacks; the "defensive" one always does. Note that the class design *does* have Patient Defense available, but in this sim it never uses it, because you can basically just look at the OneDnD "defensive" Monk to see how it would do if it did use it.

Lessons:

* Old Monk is trash.

* New Monk is a bit uneven. It's the same as old Monk for levels 1 and 2; then pulls ahead from levels 5-10, to where it's clearly tankier than a Barbarian on average. But then Barbarian catches up from level 11 on.

* Barbarian is Barbarian. Relentless rage is pretty great.

* Fighter isn't outstanding but decently holds its own. The upgrades to Second Wind and Indomitable are respectable.

* Rogue ... well, this is not really a fair simulation for most Rogues, because if they're face-to-face in melee every round something's going wrong. But IMO this does show that melee subclasses like Swashbuckler could really use a bit of a boost to survivability. Like, swashbuckler should be able to add +3 to AC until start of next turn as a reaction to being hit or as part of Uncanny Dodge. Or something like that.

* My homebrew Martial Artist class is pretty similar to OneDnD Monk (the difference in the Defensive version is mostly due to the way I did the sim, not the actual class features). But it's smoother: stronger at levels 1-2, but a smidge weaker at higher levels. IMO that's how it should be.

How has playing martials changed? Does it feel different. Is is more fun? Is it more difficult to play? As a dm have they felt like they have brought anything more in combat and out of combat?

Hey, has anyone tried playtesting OneDnD content in a group where not everyone is using those rules?

How do you implement everything? For example how feats and feat progression work differently for a OneDnD character but not others. Any tips on how to make it work?

Planning to build a West Marches / “Living World” D&D community for the release of one D&D, looking for interested DMs who want to collaborate, world build and create a fun community us.

Have a few great DMs involved already but looking for a few more to ensure there’s a healthy number of games from the start.

Any previous experience with west marches, community D&D events or discord moderation would be a huge plus, but anybody enthusiastic who wants to tell some fun classic fantasy stories would be welcome

Find me on discord @aballpointpen and we can have a chat about our early concept

Thanks for reading, may your players always roll low on perception

Based on what I've heard the plan for encounters are still likely to be based on casual non optimized characters and a party of four with 6 to 8 encounters a day.

It could be different as we haven't gotten more than some passing comments but I'm curious with how that aligns with this community in general.

• How many party members and encounters do you typically have in an adventuring day and what changes would you like to see to the adventuring day mechanics?

I view the adventuring day as the core driver of most balance issues as CR changes are just power ranking levels to be plugged in especially if monsters get closer to a consistent baseline.

Fey Wanderer's 11th level feature Fey Reinforcements lets you, in addition to casting it for free once per long rest, modify the Summon Fey spell each time you cast it to lose the concentration in exchange for duration shortening from an hour to a minute. I just wondered if this could be the solution for Hunter's Mark as a class feature. What are your thoughts on it, balance-wise and otherwise?

No, I’m not talking about multiclassing into fighter, fighter has some great benefits for the first few levels of it, with action surge and armor proficiency being extremely valuable.

What I’m talking about is multiclassing out of fighter! The final extra attack is locked at level 20. Why does fighter need to invest all of its levels into just fighter so it can somewhat match the damage of a caster?

Casters are extremely versatile and will always have more options than a fighter, but at least sometimes fighters do more damage. But a core part of many T4 calculations requires that last multi attack to be obtained, and locks the fighter out of multiclassing for flavor, power, and just because it seems cool to the player!

Wizards get their level 9 spell at level 17. They have a whole 3 levels to multiclass, and while the wizard capstone is nice, it isn’t necessary to have an extremely powerful character.

TLDR: Fighters, when compared level to level to casters, don’t come online in T4 until lvl 20, leaving no room for multiclassing.

I would personally lock the last extra attack for fighter at level 17 because that’s the least we can do to have a semblance of fairness when compared to something like being able to cast wish. This would allow some levels of other classes to be taken, and 3 levels of any other class isn’t going to break the fighter.

In playtest 8, a monk’s Martial Arts die can replace the native die type of a weapon. A dagger normally does 1d4 piercing, but if a monk’s MA die is a d6, it does 1d6 piercing. The idea is that the monk is so skilled that any weapon in their hands is equally deadly, and what you’re doing when you switch weapons is not chasing damage numbers, but damage types.

How ought this apply to weapon effects? I don’t think you should be able to apply the MA die to something like a wave of thunder damage, but what about the Dragon Slayer sword? The item description says it does 1d6 +1 of the weapon’s type, plus an additional 3d6 of the weapon’s type against draconic targets, which means for a short sword it would do 4d6 +1 piercing. Because the magical damage against dragons is the same type as the weapon, should the MA die be able to substitute in? It’s not an extra magical effect or another elemental damage mixed in, it’s just a more effective version of what you already have.

For example, if the MA die was a d8, should a short sword deal 1d8 + 3d6 + 1 piercing, or 4d8 piercing?

Arcane trickster is easily the best or tied for the best rogue subclass depending on who you ask. Mainly because spells. The primary benefit of Arcane trickster from levels 3-13 is 1) find familiar, 2) mage hand legerdemain shenanigans, 3) minor illusion for enhanced snsaking and 4) 2-6 casts per of low level spells (mainly disguise self, silent image, sleep, invisibility).

With access to 1st level feats, any character can take magic initiate. That means easy access find familiar and two cantrips of your choice. A human could even take it twice. Anyone can ritual cast now, so you can just keep casting find familiar if it dies. You're just missing the other leveled spells. That isn't to downplay that - spellcasting is powerful - but tricksters can't cast more than 2 second level spells until level 13.

Comparitively, how much stronger are the other subclasses when magic initiate can eat at least a bit of the trickster's lunch? I think the Swashbuckler looks quite good with how much more mobile it is than any other rogue.