Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Spirits Bard and Undeath Warlock

We have a new UA release with two subclasses. The College of Spirits Bard is a fortune teller or spirit medium type character with a big random effect table. Meanwhile the Undeath Pact Warlock is a a do-over of the Undying Pact Warlock.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Anyone else feel the urge to multiclass Undead Warlock with Oathbreaker Paladin?

It has so much roleplay potential. Be a Dragonborn/Kobold Draconic Sorcerer, multiclass with the Undead Warlock. Boom! Now you're a dracolich character.

Be a Whispers Bard, multiclass into Undead Warlock with Pact of the Blade. Now, you're a shadow snatching, shapeshifting, psychic damaging, curse-binding, horrific nightmare character. This would make any race horrific. Tortle now becomes a Death Turtle. Gnomes are now sneaky mastermind assassins, occasionally murdering and replacing children of their targets. Imagine this character as a Shadar-Kai or Hollow One.

Be a zealot barbarian multiclass as undead warlock, boom!, you're a terrifying not-undead-but-not-all-alive brute swinging a giant scythe for massive necrotic damage while being nigh unhurtable (unless the foe can run away long enough for you to run out of dark anger). Any strong race works, but I'm currently picturing a black dragonborn (with a shadow dragon for a patron)

 

[Jeff Albertson]

It's like they are intentionally ignoring the design strongpoints of this game, and simply going for chaff.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So part of the playtest is to see if this class archetype avoids ethnic race-bating?

The crystal ball and tarot cards might be a bit too on the nose for Romantic Era "gypsy" stereotypes.

Maybe expand the options of divination methods to include other cultures as well?

Yeah. It seemed strange to me that just after releasing a statement about how they were going to get rid of the negative stereotypes about the Romani people in CoS, that they then released a UA with a subclass basically full of them. The Tarot cards, fortune telling, etc. I don't know how the Romani people would respond to this, and I'm certainly not speaking for them. It just kind of seemed strange to me.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Quote from the UA:

In early playtests such as this, . . .

This suggests that the book this will be published in is far off. An early playtest. That means more is coming.

Remember when WotC mentioned that they're going to put Vistani in 2 upcoming books. With the Spirits Bards, whatever book this goes in will definitely be one of the Vistani featuring books.

Maybe these UA will not make their way into Xanathar's 2.0? They could be playtests for a Ravenloft or Innistrad setting. It could explain why there are only 2 subclasses in this UA, as Setting books typically only have 2-3 subclasses in them. Both M:tG settings only had two subclasses. To me, this points to Innistrad.

Anyone else had similar thoughts?

 

[Haldrik]

Yeah. It seemed strange to me that just after releasing a statement about how they were going to get rid of the negative stereotypes about the Romani people in CoS, that they then released a UA with a subclass basically full of them. The Tarot cards, fortune telling, etc. I don't know how the Romani people would respond to this, and I'm certainly not speaking for them. It just kind of seemed strange to me.

I am guessing, they want to get a better sense of where the boundaries are and what the etiquette should be.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not sure I even know what book that is in...

Yeah. Most people seem to forget about the SCAG.

 

[Weiley31]

IKf you think that's too strong, how about if the extra die was a flat bonus? like d6?

I don't know, Force damage is better than Necrotic. Changing the Eldritch Blast damage type seems like a nerf

 

[Haldrik]

Yeah. Most people seem to forget about the SCAG.

Just the other day, I totally forgot the Arcana Cleric came from there!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Be a zealot barbarian multiclass as undead warlock, boom!, you're a terrifying not-undead-but-not-all-alive brute swinging a giant scythe for massive necrotic damage while being nigh unhurtable (unless the foe can run away long enough for you to run out of dark anger). Any strong race works, but I'm currently picturing a black dragonborn (with a shadow dragon for a patron)

Nice.

Shadow Sorcerer as a dip would be nice, too (especially with the shadow-dragon theme).

 

[Undrave]

It's like they are intentionally ignoring the design strongpoints of this game, and simply going for chaff.

what do you mean by that???