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."

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

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

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Diviners are the School I’ve seen played the most. Abjurers kick ass, and I’ve seen half a dozen or so in play.

Pre-5E? That surprises me. I don't know that many people are invested in the fantasy of the abjurer. Likewise the diviners. Most of their fantasy is locked up in specific artifacts, like oracles or mindreaders, that the Diviner doesn't really address.

So, lose all the actual school features in exchange for what?

Most of the actual school features are pretty similar, last I looked. As I recall, there's one or two spots where they each get something customized for their spell school, similar to 3E's Master Specialist prestige class. I would assume a merged specialist subclass would look like that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Abjurer: standard wizard with better AC and the ability to shield others. If you want to play a standard wizard, go abjurer.

That really feels like a failure to me. "Standard wizard" should be its own subclass and as viable as any specialist. Abjurers should be doing something distinctive and interesting, IMO.

Ideally, I think, you should be able to tell an evoker, a necromancer, an illusionist and even and abjurer or diviner at a glance, and not just when one or two abilities get used. It's obviously easier to say this than to do it, though, given how many takes there often are on these archetypes, even within a single edition.

 

[Leatherhead]

Care to give a suggestion on what types of wizard is being impaired at this point?

Wizards with new and well designed subclasses.

Seriously, only 2 wizard schools have made it past UA. And one of those that "passed" was actually intended to be an artificer subclass that was shoehorned into being a wizard school after WotC totally bombed on the prior two wizard school attempts. The rest of the new wizard schools bypassed the process entirely, ending up with messes like Chronomancy (which is bonkers strong) and Bladesinger (which needed to be revised).

Every time wizard sublcasses get brought up, there is an inevitable chorus of "Wizards got 8 subclasses in the PHB! They should just stfu in the corner." As if wizards actually existed, and were a special interest group lobbying WotC somehow.

Personally, I've only seen 4 out of the 8 phb wizard schools played. And I'm convinced that outside of abjurer, diviner, and sometimes illusionist, people pick a wizard school because they had to pick something.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Granting members of the waste management guild the ability to magically disperse undead certainly seems like something that would be within the Guildpact’s purview.

Does it make sense for all the other guilds' clerics, though? That's my issue. Sometimes you can bang that square peg into the round hole, but not always.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Alternately, maybe it was a mistake to make three of them. Sorcerers got it when no one else prioritized Charisma in 3E. Bards got it, because sexy. Warlocks got it because ... reasons.

It'd probably be worth considering leaving only bards as Charisma-based full casters. (And, given what a weird half-a-loaf class sorcerers are now, giving that whole class a top-to-bottom reevaluation, starting with if there's a real niche for them now that wizards are much more flexible in their spellcasting and warlocks can do that all day, every day blasting thing.)

Sure, I definitely agree with most of that. I already killed sorcerers in my setting and gave their stuff to warlocks and wizards.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Personally, I've only seen 4 out of the 8 phb wizard schools played. And I'm convinced that outside of abjurer, diviner, and sometimes illusionist, people pick a wizard school because they had to pick something.

My wife wanted to play a wizard that had witch flavor. She held her nose and picked Transmuter, but not enthusiastically.

(Also, WotC: For real, give witch some sort of mechanical support. It can be a class, it can be a shared subclass for warlocks, wizards, sorcerers and druids, or whatever. But it's been 47 years and the lack of official witches is just plain weird.)

 

[Yaarel]

Sure, I definitely agree with most of that. I already killed sorcerers in my setting and gave their stuff to warlocks and wizards.

I would like to kill Wisdom.

Give Perception to Intelligence.
Give Willpower to Charisma.

Done.

Then which mage is Int and which mage is Cha, becomes mostly obvious.

Cleric is Cha (spiritual leader, maintaining relationships)
Druid is Int (protoscientist of nature)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My wife wanted to play a wizard that had witch flavor. She held her nose and picked Transmuter, but not enthusiastically.

(Also, WotC: For real, give witch some sort of mechanical support. It can be a class, it can be a shared subclass for warlocks, wizards, sorcerers and druids, or whatever. But it's been 47 years and the lack of official witches is just plain weird.)

How are warlocks not witches? Though I certainly could use a subclass for extra dedicated witchy feel.

 

[Charlaquin]

Does it make sense for all the other guilds' clerics, though? That's my issue. Sometimes you can bang that square peg into the round hole, but not always.

As much sense as it makes for every God in Faerun to grant their clerics the ability to turn undead.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

They’re much more interesting than a generic Specialist Wizard would have been.

Nah, you could have kept everything the current versions do, just present it like the Land Druid environments. Could save some space by not C&P'ing [School] Savant seven times.