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

 

[Undrave]

Oh yeah, D&D doesn't favour casters at all. It's not like there's a giant 90 pages section in the PHB dedicated to discrete rule elements for only casters no not at all. A book that's about NOTHING BUT SPELLCASTERS is totally fair!

I look forward to seeing someone better at crunching the numbers than I seeing how "balanced" all these new combinations are. It does lean into my theory that we will see an "all players are spellcasters" setting.

This is the future Wizard Players want... I guess 4e really was an anomaly in term of Caster superiority...

As a 4e fan, I do feel a little bit of schadenfreude at noticing how much easier these concepts would be to implement if they had just homogenized subclass progression.

Same here.

While I like the idea a lot, I think if 6e is going to go this route, the levels at which each class gains a subclass ability should all be the same (such as at level 1 and every odd level you only get your base class abilities, while at level 2 and every even level you get your subclass abilities.) Something like that would make it much easier to swap around sub-classes between different classes.

Or, at the very least, group classes together in ways that make it easier to swap between them. Have classes fit into broad mechanical category that allow easier swapping.

Or, dare I say it, you could even be a non-spellcaster who's part of the College. I can promise you there will be options to support that.

AH! I'll believe it when I see it.

Yeah, I don't forsee Subclasses applying to all Classes...that didn't work in the Next playtest fir some good reasons. But making Subclasses that fit bands of Classes..that is interesting.

They could classify them by play style (say "Skillmasters", "Martial", "Half-Caster" and "Full Caster"?) or by power source like in 4e (and bring back an ACTUAL distinction between Arcane, Divine and Primal.

It straight won't work.

Classes like ranger and fighter get huge combat bonuses from subclasses whereas rogues and paladin use subclasses more often to lean outside of combat and do tweaks if they stay in.

It'll be unlikely we see a lot of this outside of full casters.

Casters are all that matters anyway, right?

Yeah, I kinda share this concern. D&D has always been a strongly splat based game; that is part of its identity. And sure, being able to customise your character is nice, but at certain point having the splats in the first place just becomes awkward and superfluous. Ultimately if you want a great amount of customisation, then you shouldn't have splats, you should just have some sort of point system for building your character, buying traits and features you want.

And at that point it won't feel like D&D anymore... if the 'feel' could tank 4e, it could tank a potential 6e that's too loose with its chunks of preset progression.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Crawford is free to have his wrong opinions.

I wouldn't take away a warlock PC's abilities permanently if they went to war with their patron, but I would require a quest to get them an alternate power source or patron.

Canonically taking that off the table is wrong-headed, IMO. Critical Role, for instance, has done a great job of showing how rich a vein it can be to have a warlock's patron be a somewhat dangerous NPC everyone interacts with despite that. I don't think there's anything gained by making them into non-custodial divorced dads, just hanging around, even though they no longer have any power over the warlock.

No, I think Crawford is right. There is a class for a person who is channelling power from a powerful being, and that class is the cleric, not warlock.

 

[Parmandur]

They could classify them by play style (say "Skillmasters", "Martial", "Half-Caster" and "Full Caster"?) or by power source like in 4e (and bring back an ACTUAL distinction between Arcane, Divine and Primal.

Guck, no thanks. Combat roles and power sources were not a great idea. The 5E approach is vastly preferable. Keep it loose, keep it flexible.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And at that point it won't feel like D&D anymore... if the 'feel' could tank 4e, it could tank a potential 6e that's too loose with its chunks of preset progression.

Yes, sure, absolutely. I like games with freeform character creation, but I don't want that from D&D. I just fear that they're diluting the meaning of splats, and we end up with an awkward mess between class based and freeform system.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, the doylist answer is because the book of shadows is a common witch trope, something the warlock class tries to capture. The Wattsonian answer is because it’s a gift from the patron. It isn’t a catalogue of Arcane formulae, it’s a manifestation of the patron’s power.

Also, D&D is designed by bibliophiles.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh yeah, D&D doesn't favour casters at all. It's not like there's a giant 90 pages section in the PHB dedicated to discrete rule elements for only casters no not at all. A book that's about NOTHING BUT SPELLCASTERS is totally fair!

Don't worry: The next setting book is MUSCLE BEACH, which has no spellcasting and is all about getting totally ripped, learning how to do sick martial attacks and flexing.

(Seriously, though, martials are overdue for a lot of love from 5E.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No, I think Crawford is right. There is a class for a person who is channelling power from a powerful being, and that class is the cleric, not warlock.

Clerics tend to bring a lot of additional baggage to the table, like organized religion. Even Brutha in Pratchett's Small Gods deals with organized religion as he ponders rejecting it.

Since most of the terms of a warlock's deal with a patron are meaningless (what does it mean, for instance, if a warlock gave up their soul for their class abilities if they can still be resurrected like normal?), the actual patrons are meaningless unless there's a faucet they can turn on and off.

One of my favorite characters to DM in my long-running campaign is the party paladin, who was a paladin/cleric under 3E. But his relationship with his god and church is a very different from what the warlock is going through.

 

[Undrave]

Guck, no thanks. Combat roles and power sources were not a great idea. The 5E approach is vastly preferable. Keep it loose, keep it flexible.

I mean, if you want your subclasses to be able to straddle two different classes (or more), you're gonna need a common structure, and you're gonna need similar enough features that they can interact with the subclasses properly and if you have classes with commonality you're gonna want some kind of label to point out they can have straddling subclasses. I guess 'play style' was the wrong word, it isn't so much 'combat role' as it is a mechanical style of class building, regardless of what the actual features DO. Do you have full caster progression, half or none at all? Do you have lots of bonus to skills in your progression or not?

A Cleric and a Wizard would both be in the 'full caster' mold but I don't think they have the same 'combat roles'. A Paladin and Ranger are both Half-Caster but they wouldn't have the same role in 4e either, for exemple. The way the individual classes interact with the straddling subclass features is where the interesting bit would be.

Heck, despite being full casters, I wouldn't group Bards with the other and instead group it with Rogues! Then you could have a subclass that straddle both that either gives more magical stuff or more mundane stuff so your Bards and Rogues could either specialize or expand their repertoire.

Don't worry: The next setting book is MUSCLE BEACH, which has no spellcasting and is all about getting totally ripped, learning how to do sick martial attacks and flexing.

They barely had enough idea for a handful of maneuvers for Tasha's. I don't think they the D&D designers could come up with a whole book without spells, even if you allowed them to include alchemical products.

 

[Undrave]

Yes, sure, absolutely. I like games with freeform character creation, but I don't want that from D&D. I just fear that they're diluting the meaning of splats, and we end up with an awkward mess between class based and freeform system.

I don't know about you, but I don't know how to put into words why I like class based progression like we have in D&D... It's just... it's just neat I guess? I like it better than free form characters... Maybe it's the structure that helps you figure out what is strong or not? I dunno...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They barely had enough idea for a handful of maneuvers for Tasha's. I don't think they the D&D designers could come up with a whole book without spells, even if you allowed them to include alchemical products.

I think the best hope for martials is probably a Nentir Vale setting book, which could bring in a lot of orphaned 4E concepts under the umbrella of "oh, it's only for this setting (unless it's a big hit with fans)."