Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Revenant Subrace, Monster Hunter, and Inquisitive

There's a new Unearthed Arcana up from WotC's Mike Mearls, and this month it looks at Gothic Options for your D&D game, supplementing the themes of the recently released Curse of Strahd. The Revenant is a new sub race which can be applied to any existing race, the Monster Hunter is a fighter archetype, and the Inquisitive is an archetype for rogues who excel at solving mysteries. "This month, Unearthed Arcana takes a look at a few new character options appropriate to gothic horror.The revenant subrace provides an interesting way to bring a character back from the dead—a useful option if you’ve lost a character in the mists of Barovia. The Monster Hunter and the Inquisitive are two new archetypes for the fighter and rogue, respectively, well suited to the challenges of Ravenloft or any other gothic horror campaign."

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[Flamestrike]

Man I was just sayin 'Investigator should be a Rogue archetype'

Thank you WoTC.

Also, loving + superiority dice to saves. Shame it took them this long.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm not so sure. Shield Expert will typically only grant advantage to 2-3 people - typically the one or two on the front line and maybe the rogue who can dart in - and then only for one round. This is blanket sneak attack for 1 minute.

Perhaps another way of limiting it would be to disallow retrying the skill check?

Perhaps we have some of the playtesters here?

The rogue is balanced under the assumption it gets SA every hit. This is a ribbon ability at best, or an option for solo/small party rogues to not suck.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I don't see a problem with Insightful Combat. If there are any other melee in the party then it doesn't add anything, except for the occasional circumstance. And it has the cost of a bonus action, which are generally more useful to rogues than they are to, say, sword and board fighters/paladins.

It's actually *less* powerful than using the Hide/Shoot cheese, because it gives Sneak Attack but not Advantage.

If this results in more rogues getting into the thick of it with melee weapons, rather than using Hide/Shoot/Hide/Shoot/Hide/Shoot, then I'm all for it.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Conceptually, I like both the Monster Hunter and the Inquisitive, but the names don't work. Monster Hunter seems to generic, when it seems to be focused on the Van Helsing style monsters in specific. I don't have a better alternative, though.

The Inquisitive, though, is clearly a detective, Sherlock Holmes style. Embrace that, call it Detective, make any necessary adjustments, and you have a great subclass.

 

[iserith]

"Inquisitive" is very clearly a nod to Eberron.

 

[phantomK9]

All in all not a bad UA, although not really a fan of the way that the Revenant has been implemented. Surely it is a neat way to accomplish this, but why would a template not be doable? Not that I hate, but something about it just doesn't feel right....*shrug*

Like the new Fighter Archetype. And yet another fighter Archetype with Superiority Dice, which to me begs the question, why can't we just have that in the Fighter core class. I worked up something a little while ago (as I'm sure others have done) maybe I'll post it to get feed back. Not a big fan of the 10th and 18 level abilities though. They seem too uninspired. I'd prefer to have some other ability there and leave the really big Superiority Dice to just the Battle Master as his main focus.

Like the Rogue Archetype. Nothing bad to say here.

 

[Beleriphon]

"Inquisitive" is very clearly a nod to Eberron.

That it is. The very first thing I thought of when I read that was Eberron.

 

[AverageCitizen]

Definitely not a fan of this revenant implementation. Frankly it shouldn't be a player option (and I do love player options). I mean, it's an undead creature returned to unlife by what amounts to a sheer force of will to complete a very specific task and should be significantly more powerful/potent. This is not something a PC should control (I do miss the 2e "becomes DM-controlled" things, like becoming a lycanthrope, vampire, revenant, etc).

I love it, and I don't get why a player can't control something like this. What is the distinction? Do you not trust players to maintain the integrity of the concept? Do you not think they should be allowed to contribute to the story in this way?

 

[Daern]

I dig the Monster Hunter. A little more dynamic and flexible than Champion, but less fiddly than Battlemaster. This is the next Fighter I'll play.
I like the Revenant idea for bringing back a dead character. The "subrace" stuff is a bit weird mechanically, but I actually see it as a way to inflict a small penalty for dying. The character returns but is not the same in terms of stats. It's similar to how a Reincarnated character has to redo their stats when they roll a different race. (A half-elf Paladin came back as a dwarf in my last campaign. It took awhile for the player to get used to it.)

 

[JRedmond]

Quick clarification here on the Revenant. I'd consider using it for my new Curse of Strahd campaign if someone dies. If there character has a subrace, when they are brought back they lose the ability score modifiers of that subrace and gains +1 CON, they also lose any subrace abilities and gain those of the Revenant. Is that correct?