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.
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.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
It was meant as a joke, but
The Genie Warlock (not Noble Genie, that was awful) did make me excited to play it. For me, this subclass doesn't make me excited, but more pleased that they finally fixed the Undying in an awesome way. It's OP as $%&#, but with a few changes could be a very viable warlock patron choice.
Remathilis
Legend
They did.
Your practice of contacting spirits can employ
special tools. You can use the following objects as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells: a candle, a crystal ball, a talking board, a tarokka deck, or a skull.
Candles are used in all forms of divination, primarily Wiccan but not exclusively.
A talking board (aka a spirit board it Ouija Board) was popular in Victorian English spiritualism.
Tarokka decks are the stand-in for Tarot cards and used in a variety of divination rituals. I actually like the Ravenloft nod.
Skulls should need no introduction, but were popular again in occult rituals of all sorts.
That leaves the crystal ball as the final ocular tool and while it has its firm place in Carnival fortune tellers, actual crystal balls are again used in occult rituals.
So while I could see this as a chance to play a "gypsy fortune teller" motif, the first thing that popped into my head was Victorian spiritualists like the Fox sisters, mediums like John Edwards, occultists like Alister Crowley, or sensitives like Cassie Bedford.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Okay, here's this breakdown to illustrate how OP the Undead Warlock is now:
Okay, be level 20. Either get the Illusionist's Bracers (from GGtR) or multiclass into sorcerer for Quickened Spell. Then, have your Form of Dread and Hex up already, and cast Eldritch Blast as a bonus action and action. This ends up being:
8d10+8d6+20 necrotic damage with Hex, Agonizing Blast and a 20 in Charisma. With a bonus action as well, that's 16d10+16d6+40 damage. On average, 184 damage. At most, with no critical hits, 296 necrotic damage. With critical hits on all, average damage is 328 necrotic damage. With critical hits on all, maximum damage is 552 necrotic damage.
Insanely broken. You can also combine this with other magic items for an even higher damage total (imbued focuses from E:RftLW, staff of the ivory claw from EGtW).
Okay, be level 20. Either get the Illusionist's Bracers (from GGtR) or multiclass into sorcerer for Quickened Spell. Then, have your Form of Dread and Hex up already, and cast Eldritch Blast as a bonus action and action. This ends up being:
8d10+8d6+20 necrotic damage with Hex, Agonizing Blast and a 20 in Charisma. With a bonus action as well, that's 16d10+16d6+40 damage. On average, 184 damage. At most, with no critical hits, 296 necrotic damage. With critical hits on all, average damage is 328 necrotic damage. With critical hits on all, maximum damage is 552 necrotic damage.
Insanely broken. You can also combine this with other magic items for an even higher damage total (imbued focuses from E:RftLW, staff of the ivory claw from EGtW).
Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
Subclasses Part 4? How cheeky.
Anyway, the return of the Grey Box is trying to remind people that they bork the balance on playtest material, both in general and especially for multiclassing. And so you shouldn't let that impact your survey results. (Also because excessive negative feedback on anything causes WoTC to throw babies out with the bathwater instead of salvaging or tweaking things.)
Moving on!
College of Spirits
Return of the old Dirge Singer? No, it's a Hasbro in-house cross-promotion with the Ouija Board. Now if only we could convince them to do one with Transformers~
Guiding Whispers
Guidance is easily one of the best cantrips in the game, and this time it doesn't count against your spell slots and has a 60' range. However, it may be a bit overkill on a Bard who already has access to Bardic Inspiration, given that they both stack and can be done in the same round. 1d6+1d4 is an average of +6! Which can then also go on to stack with other dice and flat bonuses which conveniently ignore (dis)advantage.
I think that just giving them Toll the Dead might be a better idea, because the concept of dice stacking is problematic.
Spiritual Focus
You get a slew of new foci, one of them letting you do your best Hamlet. Then at level six you get another d6 to tack on to your damage or healing spells. Bards aren't exactly famed for their spellcasting damage potential. So it's a nice bonus. The healing side will likely get a stink-eye from Clerics once that Bard Poaches some AoE healing spells.
On the other hand (heh), most of these foci would appear to require two-hands and maybe a table to wield properly. But there is a potential fix for that: You have Spirits on your side, so maybe it should be reworked so that the spirits are partly holding this stuff for you when you wield them. Extra creepy and useful to boot.
Tales from Beyond
Continuing a trend of cramming extra abilities into the level 3 feature of a subclass (because there just isn't enough room in the "I get my cool identity and powers at level 3" format for subclasses, a regret I am sure WotC is living right now), you take a random spirit (based on inspo dice rolling, which makes it auto-scale but not in an obvious way), weave it into a story as a bonus action, then unleash that story as a normal action. You can keep the story trapped in your head till a long rest, in some kind of call back to Vancian magic. Of note, all of these powers have a 30' range.
OK, so, I hate this power. The usage is cumbersome, because you need to sink a bonus action to prime, then use your action to actually trigger the effect. And the effects are all over the place and somewhat bonkers. The Automatic Scaling as you level is a nice concept, but the implementation here makes it harder to get what you want. Need Runway or Healing of some kind? Too bad, you got another damage power thanks to your ever-bloating list of random things.
Spirit Session
A very fluffy way of getting an extra Necromancy or Divination spell of 5th level or less. Be very careful if you pick Animate Dead, because you can potentially lose access to this spell if you can't do the ritual again the next day for whatever reason. Otherwise it's kind of meh. But the other thing you get at level 6 more than makes up for that.
Mystical Connection
You can get a free use of your Tales from Beyond if you roll a 1d6. The unintended side effect of using this power is that you cap the list at 1d6 instead of 1d12 which can be really useful if you want to prime up, say, Runaway. But I still don't like the core power.
Thoughts.
I've often found myself thinking that bonus stacking, despite being something that 5e ostensibly tried to do away with Bounded Accuracy, is getting a bit out of hand with all these stacking bonus dice being thrown around.
I cannot bemoan Tales from Beyond enough. It has basically everything I hate about RNG based power design baked into it. The only thing it's lacking is an effect that just flat out harms you and your party, which will unfortunately mask it from general scrutiny, much like how the Alchemists random-brewed potion managed to make it through playtesting as it's core feature.
Over all, I wish they would have done a proper Dirge Singer instead any of this.
The Undead.
Part of WotC's dedicated efforts to make us forget the SCAG ever existed.
For the record, the Undying was some kind of non-healing support subclass which is just really weirdly implemented, it's best use being to make your own Rasputin. The Undead seems to be more of what you would expect for being the "minion" of an undead master.
Undead Expanded Spells
1st bane, false life
2nd blindness/deafness, phantasmal force
3rd speak with dead, phantom steed
4th death ward, greater invisibility
5th antilife shell, cloudkill
For comparisons sake here is the spell list from The Undying
The spells are OK. Greater Invis, Death Ward, and Bane jump out to me in particular. Given the non-Cha potential of this subclass I kind of wish there were more non-saving throw based spells added to the list.
Form of Dread
You change your appearance to that of something horrifying. You become fearless, gain some Temp HP, and can inflict fear whenever you attack something (spell or weapon). A great power in general, almost a mini-Rage. In fact, if the fear part wasn't dependent on a Wisdom Saving throw (or if that saving throw was somehow tied into your attack stat), it would be a unique instance of a non-charisma based warlock. Something that is only theoretically possible right now due to (somewhat maligned) implementation of the Blade Pact Boon. Of course, Eldritch Blast is still the best way for a Warlock to lay down multiple attacks, so it would still be a technicality at best, but a welcome one.
Grave Touched
You do the standard creepy undead treatment of no eating, drinking, or breathing. But you still have to sleep. Presumably because Vampires have to sleep I guess, but you aren't the Vampire, your master is. It's kind of a weird omission.
Anyway, the real meat of the power is that you can change your damage dice when you attack (spell or weapon, again) into necrotic damage, and add an extra damage die when you do so. That last part is a bit crazy, just add an extra damage die? When you hit someone with an Eldritch blast you deal 2d10 necro damage instead of 1d10 force? When you stab them with a greatsword you deal 3d6 necro damage (I guess you would want to use a greataxe instead)? At least I think that's what that says. You could even get your Two Weapon fighting going... Well ok probably not, because that form of combat would be crazily bonus action starved given you need one to change forms and one to drop a Hex.
Mortal Husk
Resistance to necrotic damage which becomes immunity when you hulk-out. OK.
Then if you drop to 0 HP you can explode into a necro ball for 2d10+level damage and revive yourself with 1 hp and a level of exhaustion. While the idea of a dead-mans switch is cool. The implementation of this power could potentially screw over your party, especially that healer who would need to be somewhat close to you in order to prevent you from just getting re-deaded. The 1d4 long rest cool down seems excessively prohibitive on a power that hits you with exhaustion and hurts your party to boot.
Spirit Projection
You ditch your body to become a spooky ghost, which takes up your concentration, but leaves you free to do everything else including flying around or traveling through walls. When you end your trip, you can either teleport back to your body, or have your body teleport to you, handy! Also if you are a hulked-out ghost, you can regain HP whenever you deal necro damage.
Thoughts.
I'm going to admit, I was initially skeptical about this class, but I'm more or less sold on it. Now if WotC could only commit to the idea of a non-Cha warlock to rival the Hexblade and make that fear based on whatever stat you are using to attack, (and some non-cha spell picks) it would be golden.
Anyway, the return of the Grey Box is trying to remind people that they bork the balance on playtest material, both in general and especially for multiclassing. And so you shouldn't let that impact your survey results. (Also because excessive negative feedback on anything causes WoTC to throw babies out with the bathwater instead of salvaging or tweaking things.)
Moving on!
College of Spirits
Return of the old Dirge Singer? No, it's a Hasbro in-house cross-promotion with the Ouija Board. Now if only we could convince them to do one with Transformers~
Guiding Whispers
Guidance is easily one of the best cantrips in the game, and this time it doesn't count against your spell slots and has a 60' range. However, it may be a bit overkill on a Bard who already has access to Bardic Inspiration, given that they both stack and can be done in the same round. 1d6+1d4 is an average of +6! Which can then also go on to stack with other dice and flat bonuses which conveniently ignore (dis)advantage.
I think that just giving them Toll the Dead might be a better idea, because the concept of dice stacking is problematic.
Spiritual Focus
You get a slew of new foci, one of them letting you do your best Hamlet. Then at level six you get another d6 to tack on to your damage or healing spells. Bards aren't exactly famed for their spellcasting damage potential. So it's a nice bonus. The healing side will likely get a stink-eye from Clerics once that Bard Poaches some AoE healing spells.
On the other hand (heh), most of these foci would appear to require two-hands and maybe a table to wield properly. But there is a potential fix for that: You have Spirits on your side, so maybe it should be reworked so that the spirits are partly holding this stuff for you when you wield them. Extra creepy and useful to boot.
Tales from Beyond
Continuing a trend of cramming extra abilities into the level 3 feature of a subclass (because there just isn't enough room in the "I get my cool identity and powers at level 3" format for subclasses, a regret I am sure WotC is living right now), you take a random spirit (based on inspo dice rolling, which makes it auto-scale but not in an obvious way), weave it into a story as a bonus action, then unleash that story as a normal action. You can keep the story trapped in your head till a long rest, in some kind of call back to Vancian magic. Of note, all of these powers have a 30' range.
- Beast: it's worded super weird, but when your enemy has a (non-incapacitated) friend near it, you gain advantage on Wisdom (Perception) and attack rolls against it for 1 minute.
- Warrior. It's a single melee spell attack with 2xInspo+Cha damage. A bit of boobie-prize that's nowhere near as good as the others. I really hate that kind of balance where everything is obscured by the chance you can get something meh.
- Friends. Effectively Inspo+Cha healing on two targets. Short rest healing two targets is way better than stabbing one in the right situation. Again, this is relying on RNG to obscure the power level here.
- Runaway. Up to 6 people can reaction teleport up to 30'. Hey Grey box, I know you said don't sweat the balance, but at this point I think you need some Jazzercise.
- Avenger. The target gets a mini-hellish rebuke to use their reactions on for the next 1 minute.
- Hero. Inspo+cha THP, but also 10' walking speed while they have this temp hp. The spirits foretell me of the resignment on the faces of players as they max roll their inspo dice, and get this.
- Fey. Wis VS charm or the target has to make a melee attack against a creature of your choice. HOWEVER you can't have them just take swipes at the ground or air to waste their turn if there isn't another creature in melee range. Potentially an actual dud. Just let them wiff at the very least.
- Dark Spirit. Invisibility with a side dish of Fear+Inspo necro damage on hit for one turn. The fear bit is the best part of this power.
- Giant. An AoE Warrior-ball with an added prone. It only does 2xInspo damage (half on save), but the AoE prone part of it makes up for that.
- Dragon. 3xInspo damage Fire Breath in a 30' cone. It's better than rolling another Warrior for sure.
- Celestial. This is an upgraded Friends, but with a single target.
- Unknown. INT save or take 3xInspo damage and be unable to speak for 1 minute. Potentially shutting down enemy casters.
OK, so, I hate this power. The usage is cumbersome, because you need to sink a bonus action to prime, then use your action to actually trigger the effect. And the effects are all over the place and somewhat bonkers. The Automatic Scaling as you level is a nice concept, but the implementation here makes it harder to get what you want. Need Runway or Healing of some kind? Too bad, you got another damage power thanks to your ever-bloating list of random things.
Spirit Session
A very fluffy way of getting an extra Necromancy or Divination spell of 5th level or less. Be very careful if you pick Animate Dead, because you can potentially lose access to this spell if you can't do the ritual again the next day for whatever reason. Otherwise it's kind of meh. But the other thing you get at level 6 more than makes up for that.
Mystical Connection
You can get a free use of your Tales from Beyond if you roll a 1d6. The unintended side effect of using this power is that you cap the list at 1d6 instead of 1d12 which can be really useful if you want to prime up, say, Runaway. But I still don't like the core power.
Thoughts.
I've often found myself thinking that bonus stacking, despite being something that 5e ostensibly tried to do away with Bounded Accuracy, is getting a bit out of hand with all these stacking bonus dice being thrown around.
I cannot bemoan Tales from Beyond enough. It has basically everything I hate about RNG based power design baked into it. The only thing it's lacking is an effect that just flat out harms you and your party, which will unfortunately mask it from general scrutiny, much like how the Alchemists random-brewed potion managed to make it through playtesting as it's core feature.
Over all, I wish they would have done a proper Dirge Singer instead any of this.
The Undead.
Part of WotC's dedicated efforts to make us forget the SCAG ever existed.
For the record, the Undying was some kind of non-healing support subclass which is just really weirdly implemented, it's best use being to make your own Rasputin. The Undead seems to be more of what you would expect for being the "minion" of an undead master.
Undead Expanded Spells
1st bane, false life
2nd blindness/deafness, phantasmal force
3rd speak with dead, phantom steed
4th death ward, greater invisibility
5th antilife shell, cloudkill
For comparisons sake here is the spell list from The Undying
1st false life, ray of sickness
2nd blindness/deafness, silence
3rd feign death, speak with dead
4th aura of life, death ward
5th contagion, legend lore
2nd blindness/deafness, silence
3rd feign death, speak with dead
4th aura of life, death ward
5th contagion, legend lore
The spells are OK. Greater Invis, Death Ward, and Bane jump out to me in particular. Given the non-Cha potential of this subclass I kind of wish there were more non-saving throw based spells added to the list.
Form of Dread
You change your appearance to that of something horrifying. You become fearless, gain some Temp HP, and can inflict fear whenever you attack something (spell or weapon). A great power in general, almost a mini-Rage. In fact, if the fear part wasn't dependent on a Wisdom Saving throw (or if that saving throw was somehow tied into your attack stat), it would be a unique instance of a non-charisma based warlock. Something that is only theoretically possible right now due to (somewhat maligned) implementation of the Blade Pact Boon. Of course, Eldritch Blast is still the best way for a Warlock to lay down multiple attacks, so it would still be a technicality at best, but a welcome one.
Grave Touched
You do the standard creepy undead treatment of no eating, drinking, or breathing. But you still have to sleep. Presumably because Vampires have to sleep I guess, but you aren't the Vampire, your master is. It's kind of a weird omission.
Anyway, the real meat of the power is that you can change your damage dice when you attack (spell or weapon, again) into necrotic damage, and add an extra damage die when you do so. That last part is a bit crazy, just add an extra damage die? When you hit someone with an Eldritch blast you deal 2d10 necro damage instead of 1d10 force? When you stab them with a greatsword you deal 3d6 necro damage (I guess you would want to use a greataxe instead)? At least I think that's what that says. You could even get your Two Weapon fighting going... Well ok probably not, because that form of combat would be crazily bonus action starved given you need one to change forms and one to drop a Hex.
Mortal Husk
Resistance to necrotic damage which becomes immunity when you hulk-out. OK.
Then if you drop to 0 HP you can explode into a necro ball for 2d10+level damage and revive yourself with 1 hp and a level of exhaustion. While the idea of a dead-mans switch is cool. The implementation of this power could potentially screw over your party, especially that healer who would need to be somewhat close to you in order to prevent you from just getting re-deaded. The 1d4 long rest cool down seems excessively prohibitive on a power that hits you with exhaustion and hurts your party to boot.
Spirit Projection
You ditch your body to become a spooky ghost, which takes up your concentration, but leaves you free to do everything else including flying around or traveling through walls. When you end your trip, you can either teleport back to your body, or have your body teleport to you, handy! Also if you are a hulked-out ghost, you can regain HP whenever you deal necro damage.
Thoughts.
I'm going to admit, I was initially skeptical about this class, but I'm more or less sold on it. Now if WotC could only commit to the idea of a non-Cha warlock to rival the Hexblade and make that fear based on whatever stat you are using to attack, (and some non-cha spell picks) it would be golden.
FlyingChihuahua
Hero
that's a warforged druid.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Probably, or a lance. With dual wielder you can dual wield lances while mounted, so this would be a huge boost to that.
Weiley31
Legend
Would be nice, but this maybe the closet I ever get with having a Non-Exploring Eberron Dirge Singer in 5E.
Romantic Era spiritualism, including occult secret societies and Romani reputations, sounds accurate enough.
Still.
In principle, stereotyping a Brit is just as problematic as stereotyping a Romani. I feel the class avoids being outright offensive. But it seems to be sticking its toes in to test the temperature of the water.
This is good example for: how does one be ethnically historically accurate while simultaneously avoiding reductionist stereotypes, or oppositely how does one borrow vivid flavor while simultaneously avoiding cultural appropriation?
One can see, why they want to playtest it.
Kobold Avenger
Legend
-So for the College of Spirits Tales, I think they need to go with either all of them being beneficial or all of them being harmful to the target, or they let the Bard have more control over which tale they're going to use (like roll twice, or ready for later use). While I feel it's the most interesting feature of the subclass, it does need to be tweaked. Not everyone one is a fan of Wild Magic.
-I feel the College of Spirits can fit in as both a fortuneteller of the Vistani variety or as Shamanic storyteller. Though the flavour text certainly leans towards the previous one.
-For the Undead Warlock, I'm glad they finally acknowledged that Azalin and therefore other Darklords in Ravenloft actually do exist.
-Grave Touched and Form of Dread seem to be potentially 2d10 Necrotic Damage for an Eldritch Blast.
-I feel the College of Spirits can fit in as both a fortuneteller of the Vistani variety or as Shamanic storyteller. Though the flavour text certainly leans towards the previous one.
-For the Undead Warlock, I'm glad they finally acknowledged that Azalin and therefore other Darklords in Ravenloft actually do exist.
-Grave Touched and Form of Dread seem to be potentially 2d10 Necrotic Damage for an Eldritch Blast.
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