Unearthed Arcana New UA: 43 D&D Class Feature Variants

The latest Unearthed Arcana is a big 13-page document! “Every character class in D&D has features, and every class gets one or more class feature variants in today’s Unearthed Arcana! These variants replace or enhance a class’s normal features, giving you new ways to enjoy your character’s class.”

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[Benjamin Olson]

JOAT and Talisman should work the same way as each other. I personally think they should both work as JOAT with verbiage that makes it clear they cannot stack. Alternatively, modify JOAT to work as the Talisman does, but still don't allow stacking.



Limiting it to once between short rests would be significant enough, I think. Either that or Wis times a day.

Mostly agree, but I really wouldn't modify Jack of All Trades to fit Talisman. The Talisman is just for skill checks and my bards love their initiative and general ability check bonuses.

Heh, personally, I feel the Sorcerer lacks a reason to exist in 5e.

In 5e, the Wizard swallowed up the Sorcerer by becoming a spontaneous spellcaster. Now the Sorcerer is a ghost, an echo of a former life, and a parasitic vampiric one sucking away the Wizards metamagic.

Any glimpse of worth belongs to Psion, who is inherently and personally magical, whether a telepath, telekinete, psychometabolic shapeshifter, or simply a ‘psychic’. The Psion is the X-Men mutants.

Heh, that said.



I view Sorcerers as actually dragons, or actually elementals. Where the Psion uses the power of the mind, the Sorcerer uses the power of its body.

Personally, I prefer Psions to stay away from elemental magic (Earth-Fire, Air-Water). So by default I emphasize the elemental Sorcerers.

But even then Druids make better elementalists and alchemists.



Wizards wield external forces, moreso than ones own personal force. They have inherent magic but use it leverage impersonal forces.

Sorcerer is the class I find most poorly designed (not necessarily the worst to play, just poor from a design standpoint). Like or hate anything else about them, giving them Sorcery points at level two with no way to use them other than getting one level 1 spell slot is just a mistake, and rectifying it with a few minor alternatives is one of the things I like best about these optional rules. It is still the class I find least appealing through low levels, but with this addition at least it feels like a little more than a gimped wizard for the first tier of play. They're a lot of fun at higher levels, but it is a slog to get there.

 

[Yaarel]

What if Spell Versatility granted an extra pool of spells, equal to the caster ability. So, +4 Charisma allows the character to select four spells from the spell list. Then, after each rest, the character can swap in one of these from the pool to count it as a spell known.

Essentially, it is only one extra spell known, but the character can rotate which one it is.

 

[Garthanos]

that and they appear to have also wanted their traditional, spell-casting Ranger.

Oh you mean where you got zero magic till post name levels and that was all low level mostly useless stuff yeah I remember that... when does "traditional" kick in? (not convinced) Or is it when skills started giving you 20 percentiles of advancement and no real amount of awesome.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In fairness, the folks who liked having all that still have all that. 4e didn't disappear.

In all possible fairness, 5e was meant to be for fans of all past editions, 4e not excepted. And, more than fans of 4e, fans of all other past editions have not only their old books, but the potential for support, in perpetuity, through OGL/SRD and OSR resources. Fans of 4e are uniquely dependent on 5e for ongoing support.

 

[Don Durito]

The Ranger has spells because they didn't create the design space to distinguish martial classes in any other way.

 

[Garthanos]

The Ranger has spells because they didn't create the design space to distinguish martial classes in any other way.

Because skills were reduced to bland numbers with next to no advancement... yes that would be it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

(Although I don't get this "rings hollow" thing? You mean that it's not convincing that the game designers limited the number of maneuvers that Battlemasters begin with in accordance with design principles they stated were generally a concern in 5E? Why do you think they did it then?)

The BM gets 16 maneuvers to choose from, ever, starting at 3rd, and going through the rest of his career, there's never a new one to absorb, consider, and decide whether to learn or use. Casters face that same level of complexity, at first level, and, again with each new spell level, generally each odd level from 1st through 17th.

It is absurd to characterize the BM as 'too complex' or even complex at all, when most classes present at least an order of magnitude greater complexity, due to casting.

 

[Gradine]

Oh you mean where you got zero magic till post name levels and that was all low level mostly useless stuff yeah I remember that... when does "traditional" kick in? (not convinced) Or is it when skills started giving you 20 percentiles of advancement and no real amount of awesome.

And their current spell set is so immense and high-level and powerful?

4e's spell-less Ranger is the aberration here. I'm not saying it doesn't belong, but there on occasion seems to be this expectation that it be the default which is absolutely wild to me.

 

[tglassy]

The Spell Versatility feature, which enhances the spellcasting feature.

Enhances which Spellcasting feature? You mean the Class’ spellcasting feature? Is this the Spellcasting feature you are referring to? The same one the Spell Versatility wording refers to?


Ok, where in the Spell Versatility Feature does it say where you get this extra spell you can switch out? The first one. At your first long rest.


The interview shows the way they intended it to read, and how it was written as well. This is for those play groups, like play by post, that can go a year or more between leveling up, so that Bards, Sorcerers and Warlocks aren’t stuck with useless choices, as from a design standpoint, telling players they have to “eat their vegetables” or “Git Gud” just doesn’t make sense.

 

[Tony Vargas]

4e's spell-less Ranger is the aberration here. I'm not saying it doesn't belong, but there on occasion seems to be this expectation that it be the default which is absolutely wild to me.

Hey, something we can agree on. The foundational 0e/1e take on the ranger got spellcasting around name level. But, it was still a case of "this archetype (Aragorn) did something besides hit things with a stick, we'll have to simulate that with spellcasting." The focus on archery and TWFing was something that somehow got added too it, but it stuck pretty tenaciously and was foundational in 3e, which also made the Animal Companion & casting into things at very low level. 4e stripping away all the Aragorn, Grizzly Adams, and half-Druid-casting stuff, and focusing on just the TWF & Archery, with the nature-boy stuff limited to skills, was pretty radical.
Of course, everything in 4e was pretty radical for a cult-classic IP as tradition-bound as D&D.