Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: What's up next?

[JPL]

- Undead has already been covered im the Shadow bloodline

- Giant bloodline

- Serpent (Yuan-Ti) bloodline

- Generic, less flavorful Championesque bloodline

- Fey bloodline

- Celestial bloodline

- Fiendish bloodline (maybe two, for Demons and Devils)

- Genie bloodline

- Elemental bloodlines (Air already covered by the Storm Mage, so ip to three here)

- Construct bloodline (cyborg sorcerer, gramma was a Modron)

- Far Realmsian bloodline (ancestor was enslaved to Things Men Was Not Meant to Know, rubbed off a little)

Yep. All of these.

I would like to see a Cosmic Sorcerer . . . a Starbrand kind of thing, where the multiverse protects itself by gifting (sometimes unlikely) beings with magic to act as a sort of antibody.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Since a lot of the UA's seem to be asking pretty big questions about the classes/the game (evil PC options, built in fluff for fighter subclasses, guns), it seems likely that the sorcerer will ask the big question of more monstrous? I think we will see a more transformative sorcerer--something like a revised favored soul (makes you more angel-like), a fiend bloodline (makes you more like a devil or demon), tentacle bloodline...er, I mean the aberration bloodline, or a fey bloodline so your sorcerer can be like a sprite by level 20. If people curse that in the survey, we will get more things like the chaos or storm sorcerer.

It seems like there is are a couple more patron types for the warlock that could be explored (elemental, dragon, celestial?). The celestial seems like the most "big question", we don't have a lot of "good assumed" classes/subclasses (maybe the PHB paladins), but a scenario where the celestial wouldn't just gift the high Cha future PC with favored soul sorcery or paladinhood instead of warlockhood escapes me.

Before the weekly UA's I would have said "if you want to be related to a fiend, be a warlock, and if you want to get power from a dragon, be a sorcerer", but the UA's have been mixing themes around.

It is hard to say what you could do with a wizard that you can't do already with existing subclasses, so maybe the wizard will get tagged on to the warlock like the rogue to the ranger.

I assume the mystic will be after the wizard.

 

[JPL]

I think you tie the celestial warlockhood to the celestials / angels themselves. Good-aligned celestials aren't worshiped, but they can be revered, and they may have more of a direct contact with a mortal than the gods. A high Cha / low Wisdom person might need more of that hands-on contact from a celestial patron / guardian angel / patron saint.

This raises some interesting questions about non-good celestial pact warlocks. Can the bad guys somehow exploit a cosmic loophole to use angelic power as a force for evil? Do the angels agree to it as part of an inscrutable larger plan (God turning all things to good)? Is the angelic patron expressly trying to save this one warlock's soul? Is the angelic patron's own alignment starting to slip? Do we have some . . . ronin angels, who used to serve now-extinguished gods?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I think you tie the celestial warlockhood to the celestials / angels themselves. Good-aligned celestials aren't worshiped, but they can be revered, and they may have more of a direct contact with a mortal than the gods. A high Cha / low Wisdom person might need more of that hands-on contact from a celestial patron / guardian angel / patron saint.

This raises some interesting questions about non-good celestial pact warlocks. Can the bad guys somehow exploit a cosmic loophole to use angelic power as a force for evil? Do the angels agree to it as part of an inscrutable larger plan (God turning all things to good)? Is the angelic patron expressly trying to save this one warlock's soul? Is the angelic patron's own alignment starting to slip? Do we have some . . . ronin angels, who used to serve now-extinguished gods?

The ronin angel bit would work in the FR (although they have been taking their sweet time setting this up, unless there is a secret order of celestial warlocks), PoL (my favorite good 4e goddess was dead)*, and even Dark Sun (one angel cut off from the wider multiverse, giving out what power he can). As for the bad guys getting the power, that is part of the big question that I think makes this patron type likely for the UA. Could we have a chipped Spike (from Buffy) going on? You get power, but if the DM doesn't like how you use it, your PC gets ye old electric zap.....somehow that seems to fit the warlocks in a way it wouldn't for paladins. I think it is more likely that they will give us "you don't have to be good (mechanically), but the fluff will beat you over the head with goodness" just like the PHB paladin. Of course it would be nice to have a new familiar for the chainlock, but they have resisted it so far (maybe the Big Book of Crunch/Content).

* Of course in PoL, angels weren't necessarily good, and I guess you could have fallen angel patrons in just about any setting, although I don't think fallen angels elevate this up to the level of a big question for the warlock.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The core idea I feel is essential with the Warlock is that they get their power from an unsettling mysterious entity that makes people uneasy about a Warlock associating with.

So I think only fallen celestials should be the ones getting pacts if there were such a thing.

 

[Redthistle]

- Serpent (Yuan-Ti) bloodline

- Genie bloodline

- Elemental bloodlines (Air already covered by the Storm Mage, so ip to three here)

- Construct bloodline (cyborg sorcerer, gramma was a Modron)

- Far Realmsian bloodline (ancestor was enslaved to Things Men Was Not Meant to Know, rubbed off a little)

-Serpent (Yuan-Ti) bloodline. Yes, this. On that note, I'm still hoping to see a reptilian take on Shifters. 4e had a way of creating such a PC.

-Genie bloodline & Elemental bloodlines. There's a group on EN World who have been working to develop both of these ideas for a 5e version of Al-Qadim. At least one of them is currently running something of a playtest campaign. You can access some of their work by searching for Drew "MessiahMushroom" Schultz and Aaron "Quickleaf" Infante-Levy through EN World.

-Construct bloodline. <<Oh, Heart Be Still!>> Not that I like warforged or anything, but, yeah, I do.

-Far Realmsian bloodline. Great Old One for sorcerers, eh? Like the whole Cthulhu-esque thing doesn't already worry me.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The core idea I feel is essential with the Warlock is that they get their power from an unsettling mysterious entity that makes people uneasy about a Warlock associating with.

So I think only fallen celestials should be the ones getting pacts if there were such a thing.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did a fallen celestial one in the Big Book of Content, but I think the UA's are as much about "Should we go in this direction for this class?" as they are about the specific subclass options. Fallen Celestial is pretty conservative for a warlock patron. Ditto elemental. Honestly dragon is pretty conservative too, except for the fact that they were sorcerer thing instead of a warlock thing in the PHB. So "does this step on the sorcerer's toes too much?" is a good rationale for it to be there. I don't see binders or two-pact warlocks (I am proud of myself for not making a joke about "released more songs after he died"....oops, drat) as being that controversial. Of course, my predictive accuracy about the UA's has been pretty bad. Dragons, celestials, and maybe some kind of mystery pact (more or less a "pactless" warlock, where you got powers, but don't know who/what from) seem like the 3 that could stir gamers' blood for reasons other than being too strong/too weak.

 

[Ath-kethin]

The core idea I feel is essential with the Warlock is that they get their power from an unsettling mysterious entity that makes people uneasy about a Warlock associating with.

So I think only fallen celestials should be the ones getting pacts if there were such a thing.

I don't know. Celestials would be terrifying to common folk. There's a reason that the first thing every angel in the bible says upon encountering a human is "don't be afraid."

Of course, the angels described int he bible are terrifying and horrific creatures, not the pretty-human looking dudes from Renaissance art.

 

[JPL]

"I'm an angel. I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why."

"Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?"

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd really like them to reiterate that sorcerer is not about BLOOD, it is about a magical origin of many different possible stripes.

Favored soul != "divine blood", it's an origin more akin to 4e's Invokers.

Wild Magic != "chaos blood", it's an origin for your magical powers.

Storm Magic != "elemental blood", it's an origin about developing magic powers because of a supernatural catastrophe.

Dragon Magic might be dragon blood! But it might be some other dragon thing!

I want a sorcerer who, I dunno, augments their limbs with the limbs of a golem. Or gets magical powers by simply wishing for it.

Give me a psionic wild talent sorcerer!