Unearthed Arcana WotC Removes Latest Unearthed Arcana

WotC has removed this week's Unearthed Arcana from its website. Not only has the article's web page itself been removed, the actual PDF has been replaced with last month's "Subclasses, Part 1" PDF (although it's URL still reads... /UA2020-Subclasses02.pdf).

The article included three new subclasses, the bardic College of Creation, the cleric's Love Domain, and the sorcerer's Clockwork Soul.

[NOTE - NSFW language follows].

I don't know if it's linked, but WotC came under criticism on Twitter for its treatment of the Love Domain. The main argument isn't that mind-control magic has no place in the game, but rather that coercive powers should not be described as "love", and that the domain might be poorly named.

People like game designer Emmy Allen commented: "It seems WotC have tried to create a 'Love' domain for clerics in 5e. By some sheer coincidence they seem to have accidentally created a 'roofie' domain instead. Nothing says 'love' like overriding your target's free will to bring them under your power."


That domain was introduced as follows: "Love exists in many forms—compassion, infatuation, friendly affection, and passionate love as a few facets. Whatever form these feelings take, the gods of love deepen the bonds between individuals."

The powers were Eboldening Bond, Impulsive Infatuation ("Overwhelm a creature with a flash of short-lived by intense admiration for you, driving them to rash action in your defense”), Protective Bond, and Enduring Unity.

Whether the criticism was a factor in the article's withdrawal, I don't know. It might be that it just wasn't ready for prime-time yet. It seems the domain itself would be better named a "control" or "charm" domain than a "love" domain, which seems to be the main thrust of the criticism on Twitter.

WotC's Jeremy Crawford commented: "The official version of the Unearthed Arcana article “Subclasses, Part 2” is still ahead of us, later this week or sometime next week. Our team will hold off on answering questions until you’ve seen the real deal!"

 

[Panda-s1]

Why should it matter that a cleric of the love domain has the ability to control one person's reaction twice per rest with their channel divinity action? That is literally the only portion of the domain that can control someone's agency.

There are plenty of spells out there: Suggestion, Mass Suggestion, Dominate Person, Dominate Monster, Confusion, etc, etc, as well as other class abilities that control someone's agency. Why should this one matter?

anyone can cast those spells for any reason, good or bad. either way the spell descriptions make no effort to frame these spells as being used for "love"

Hell, even the Battle Master's commander's strike does EXACTLY what this domain ability did before they changed the domain.

People are upset because it was the "love" domain and the ability had the word "infatuation" in it.

yeah, no, the fighter working together with the party to do combat maneuvers is not at all in the same ballpark as using your magical powers of love to mind control someone.

 

[Rikka66]

People are upset because it was the "love" domain and the ability had the word "infatuation" in it.

Yeah. They wanted a love domain based off modern, positive associations of love instead of mythological figures. I think that's fair enough. I also think it's fair if someone wanted a domain more closely associated with the myths of Aphrodite, but it's hard to make both of those groups happy with one subclass. But neither side is unreasonable.

 

[Morrus]

It's back!

Unearthed Arcana - The Unearthed Arcana Is Back With Cleric's Unity Domain!

This week's Unearthed Arcana has reappeared, with a renamed cleric domain and a replaced cleric ability! "Unearthed Arcana presents three new subclasses for you to playtest: the College of Creation for the bard, the Unity Domain for the cleric, and the Clockwork Soul for the sorcerer."...

www.enworld.org

 

[Mournblade94]

yeah, no, the fighter working together with the party to do combat maneuvers is not at all in the same ballpark as using your magical powers of love to mind control someone.

Its a game effect forcing a player to do something they don't want their character to do. Within the context of the game it really isnt different. Its a mechanical expression of control.

 

[Celebrim]

Ok, so who made that claim?

Well, I would say you did: "The complaint that was made was that giving something called the “love domain” mind control powers had unfortunate implications." So I presume you take that seriously and agree. So why does it have unfortunate implications? Why is it bothersome for "Love" to be associated with "Mind Control"?

(Note, I'm not at all arguing that it isn't or even telling you what to believe, just asking you to take seriously your own claim.)

Wait, why? Why shift the goalposts like that?

I didn't shift the goal posts at all. In Star Wars, the "Light Side" is implied to be associated with Good and heroic individuals. Likewise, the Love domain was implied to be associated with goodness. If it is problematic for the Love domain to be associated with mind control, because it implies mind control is good, why isn't it equally problematic for the the Light Side to be associated with mind control? Doesn't that have the same unfortunate implications?

Changes were made to the name of the domain and it’s precise powerset in response to that feedback. Folks who were concerned are generally now satisfied. That’s all.

I've seen both documents, and they didn't change the original domain. Based on the scale of the changes, I'm pretty sure they outright replaced the domain with another concept that had been under development.

Trying to extrapolate this to “people are claiming charm spells should be reserved for evil supplements” or “Jedi mind trick should be a dark side power” is slippery slope fallacy at best.

As a point of actual fact, I already would require a Jedi that used a Jedi mind trick to gain a Dark Side point, because it in my opinion is a Dark Side power. There is no slippery slope fallacy here. I want people to start taking seriously the argument here, to refine it, to consider the underlying philosophy behind the claim, and to start applying the logic behind it.

 

[Salthorae]

anyone can cast those spells for any reason, good or bad. either way the spell descriptions make no effort to frame these spells as being used for "love"


yeah, no, the fighter working together with the party to do combat maneuvers is not at all in the same ballpark as using your magical powers of love to mind control someone.

And anyone could have used the Infatuation ability for good or bad. The ability's description makes no effort to frame it as being used for "love", just that it's in the "love" domain.


I would say that this is just a sampling of the social media outpouring. Just look on twitter and you'll see the "backlash"

Look - I'm not 100% happy with the original UA. I think it would have much better been called the Charm Domain as has been done in pretty much all the previous iterations of it.

What I'm NOT happy with is people's exaggeration of what the ability was, their pummeling of social media to force a change that should have happened through the Survey feedback.

 

[DemoMonkey]

I find "Killing someone is ok, but doing X to them is worse" baffling regardless of what X is. And especially when X is mind control of some sort.

"It takes away their agency!"

Being dead certainly takes ALL of someones agency away. Permanently. How can taking their agency away temporarily be worse?

 

[Umbran]

I disagree with this. I'm a very empathic person in fact my real life job relies on it.

Appeal to authority is your play?

So... you are perfect, then? You do it every day, and so you can't occasionally flub it? Because, like, folks who do construction contracting for a living cannot do a shoddy job on a home improvement now and then?

If someone has an issue with one aspect of the game, the group should not feature that.

And if enough people (in the target market) have an issue with an aspect of the game, the game should not feature that. And the number of folks who have suffered assault and emotional abuse in the name of "love" is not small.

This is a tiny little aspect - one spell and a power on one cleric domain, by report. Fixing, or leaving out, that domain is not a significant harm or limitation to the rest of the community.

 

[GrahamWills]

Should a Light Side Jedi be allowed to use a Jedi Mind Trick without acquiring a Dark Side point?

Good question. As portrayed in the original, it's less of mind control than illusion -- it's a "trick" after all. But it does seem to be described as "implanting a suggestion" which is more control-y. I think in my games I'd revert to the trick nature and say that it's limited to misdirection -- it affects how you perceive the world ("there are not the droids you are looking for") rather than changing your mental agency ("you do not want to report these droids"). So with the power as it is, I'd probably go with "this is not an automatic DSP, but it's skirting the edges, so apply with care".

 

[Mr. Patient]

Regardless of how you feel about the change, a change was made to it that appears based on social media backlash.

My statement of disappointment isn't related to the domain itself, but the ability of social media backlash to influence decision making in such a rapid manner. Especially for something that is just playtest material.

I wish they had stuck to their guns and taken the feedback in their surveys as the UA mechanic is designed to work, and THEN made any changes to the domain and either re-issue in a new playtest or publish as the changed version.

Knowing what little I know about the attitudes and preferences of people like Chris Perkins, Jeremy Crawford, and Kate Welch, among others on the team, I would be extremely surprised if they were resentful at having to make this change due to feedback on social media. I think it's much more likely that they are grateful that it was pointed out to them.