Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Mages of Strixhaven

An Unearthed Arcana playtest document for the upcoming Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos hardcover has been released by WotC!

"Become a student of magic in this installment of Unearthed Arcana! This playtest document presents five subclasses for Dungeons & Dragons. Each of these subclasses allows you to play a mage associated with one of the five colleges of Strixhaven, a university of magic. These subclasses are special, with each one being available to more than one class."

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It's 9 pages, and contains five subclasses, one for each the Strixhaven colleges:

• Lorehold College, dedicated to the pursuit of history by conversing with ancient spirits and understanding the whims of time itself
• Prismari College, dedicated to the visual and performing arts and bolstered with the power of the elements
• Quandrix College, dedicated to the study and manipulation of nature’s core mathematic principles
• Silverquill College, dedicated to the magic of words, whether encouraging speeches that uplift allies or piercing wit that derides foes
• Witherbloom College, dedicated to the alchemy of life and death and harnessing the devastating energies of both

 

[Charlaquin]

I've heard the MTG set this is patterned after referred to as, "Harry Potter meet Magic the Gathering."

The set is MtG’s take on the school of Mages concept. Comparisons to Harry Potter, as the most well-known and successful work in the genre, are as inevitable as comparisons of fantasy RPGs to D&D. The actual similarities between Strixhaven and Harry Potter are mostly superficial, and a natural result of both being in the same genre.

 

[Maxperson]

I guess I just cannot agree with defining a new edition or half edition or whatever as anything less than rewriting the existing classes and saying, use one or the other but not both. I never saw a single game that used Essentials but didn't allow the rest of 4e. Essentials was just part of 4e, especially in hindsight, IMO. After essentials came more content of both types, and stuff influenced by the entirety of 4e. To me it's absurd to think of Essentials as being in any way separate from 4e.

That's the simplest explanation. I therefore am highly amused that the one guy who liked your post is named Occam.

 

[Vael]

I thought Ravnican spells merely augmented your existing spell lists?

Clearly, this is only part of the player material for Strixhaven, I expect lineages and spells (possibly magic items, there were a few artifacts and equipment in the set).

And yes, one doesn't have to take the Prismari subclass to be part of Prismari college, An Artillerist Artificer, for example, is also a natural fit. Or Alchemist Artificers are a good fit in Witherbloom.

 

[Faolyn]

It feels weird that bards can't be in Prismari. I get that they don't have a ton of elemental spells, but the tone of Prismari seems perfect for them.

Likewise, it feels weird that wizards are excluded from Witherbloom. Necromancers seem like the obvious fit here

I would assume that you can be in a college even if you don't pick that particular archetype.

 

[JEB]

So the UAs this year have had a new approach to character race design (which would require a rules and lore rewrite of the core races if applied retroactively) and a new approach to subclass design (which would also suggest they're rethinking how classes work).

Plus a lot of alternative class options in Tasha's last year. Plus a clear shift in how D&D's lore is being handled (removal of alignment, treatment of character races in writing and in artwork, intentional breaks with past canon, etc.).

But they're definitely, definitely not thinking about a revised edition of the game. No way.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I find the idea of multi class subclasses extremely intriguing. Definitely worth exploring. Pity 5e probably isn't built to make it work.

Though none of these subclasses are ones I'm personally interested in. And all setting specific too.

A thug subclass which could be both rogue and fighter would be fun though.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I ran Essentials-only 4e a couple of times. Worked way better than allowing both (as did no-Essentials 4e). Yes, Essentials was fully compatible with 5e, but the game was much more cohesive with one class design philosophy or the other. Trying to combine them was just awkward.

Also, part of the reason they were compatible with one another was the liberal use of errata in 4e. If you tried to use Essentials and the original 4e core books together without any errata it would be a huge mess. Given WotC’s hesitancy to use errata this edition, I think a change on the scale of 4e to Essentials would kind of have to be a 5.5e (though I’m sure they wouldn’t call it that.)

Yeah, and I feel that 5e is reaching the similar a tad awkward mess situation like combining the core 4e and Essentials was. Like it is clear that design philosophies have shifted and the newer stuff is different from the older stuff. Irrespective of what I think of the new direction, I'd appreciate some sort of consolidation and clean-up, so that the game would be a cohesive whole with an unified design philosophy.

 

[jgsugden]

I do not like this subclass approach. While a bard, wizard and sorcerer of the College of Lorehold all may play differently, they have underlying class mechanics that do not fit this 'flexiblity'.

What does it mean for the Warlock to have the "College serve as their Patron"? They've "eschewed their patron’s usual boons for learning these more esoteric manifestations of power." If I am a Warlock and I select this College, with whom did I enter into a pact? What types of pacts would they make with me? Why? Normally, warlock pacts have some obvious paths (although you can certainly subvert expectations).

How is the college a sorcerer origin? Or a druid's circle? I can plug it in and make it work, but it will be a square peg in a round hole.

I would not take this approach. I would do a separate subclass for each of these classes devoted to the school, but specialized for the class. They might have a lot of overlap, but they'd be designed to match the design of the class, not trying to do a 'one size fits all' approach.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Cleric might not have been as cross-compatible with this scheme.

How so?

 

[dalisprime]

How so?

For one, clerics have more than 4 domain based features so getting just 4 would be a major power gap for them.