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

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You mean the Wizard subclasses excite you or that you think the Monk is powerful?

Speaking for myself, both.

If you've got a long history with MTG, maybe. If not, it's hard to see why the symbol of the Guild of Accounting would cause skeletons to explode. Why would that sort of spellcasting accountant be able to do that, while the spellcasting accountant next to her cannot?

There is no such guild, first of all. Each guild has supernatural power, insanely powerful founders and leaders, and is tied to a strong set of ideological priorities. They’re cultures, more than they are comparable to an “accountants union”.

Pre-5E? That surprises me.

Who said anything about pre-5e?

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.

Both are, for a start, many people’s’ idea of what the basic, classic, iconic, Wizard is.

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.

Maybe go look again? They’re pretty different from eachother. The only thing they have in common is scribing spells faster and cheaper.

There is no commonality between the shield of the abjurer and the ability to control AoEs of the evoker, nor is there commonality between their later abilities.

High level Transmuters can raise the dead.

 

[Cadence]

I would like to kill Wisdom.

Give Perception to Intelligence.
Give Willpower to Charisma.

I'd almost rather go the other way and make four...

Knowledge/Recall/Psyche
Awareness/Perception/Sensitivity
Charisma/Force of Personality/Projecting Will
Will/Sense of Self/Defense against Charisma

 

[PsyzhranV2]

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.)

looks at Mage of Witherbloom

 

[Yaarel]

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.)

There are so many different kinds of "witches". What did she have in mind?

 

[Parmandur]

If you've got a long history with MTG, maybe. If not, it's hard to see why the symbol of the Guild of Accounting would cause skeletons to explode. Why would that sort of spellcasting accountant be able to do that, while the spellcasting accountant next to her cannot?

The biggest audience for Ravnica is probably long-term MTG and D&D fans. For someone like me, who comes to this purely from the D&D side, I'm not hearing anything that really explains how clerics fit in, or why they're "clerics" at all. If they were "mage medics" or something, that would help, but it still wouldn't explain why the Guild of Office Products would have power over the undead, unless there's a long detailed explanation that no one is proffering.

And none of this is to say that Ravnica is bad or people who like it are wrong, or whatever. But I submit that making it would be ideal for a MTG crossover product work for a D&D player who comes to it with no background in MTG.

My own experience was coming to Ravnica with zero MtG knowledge and very little experience with the card game: the D&D book is what got me in that door.

There is no "accounting guild" or "office supy guild: the Guilds are not trade unions, but ten powerful magical organizations vound together by a mystical Consticalled the Guildpact. Each Guild is supercharged with magic, and all characters take one of the ten Guilds as a replacement Background.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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

There are D&D bloggers who will not stop talking about witches who will be happy to give you an earful on this. There are a lot of interpretations of witches, but the warlock is only one very narrow specific one. (And there are a TON of people, inside and outside of D&D, who will happy to yell at you for hours about how warlocks are not male witches.)

Even if you wanted to say that 5E warlock = 5E witch, it would be great to have a subclass that really doubled down on that flavor. WotC certainly knows what that flavor is, as it's drenched all over Tasha's and Van Richten's.

 

[Cadence]

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.)

What would set a Witch apart?

Are there any books with options to let the Wizard have a bloodline (like Sorcerer) or pact (like Warlock) in their background, but still get new spells by studying?

There are D&D bloggers who will not stop talking about witches who will be happy to give you an earful on this. There are a lot of interpretations of witches, but the warlock is only one very narrow specific one. (And there are a TON of people, inside and outside of D&D, who will happy to yell at you for hours about how warlocks are not male witches.)

Even if you wanted to say that 5E warlock = 5E witch, it would be great to have a subclass that really doubled down on that flavor. WotC certainly knows what that flavor is, as it's drenched all over Tasha's and Van Richten's.

Is using "Witch" problematic given those IRL who refer to themselves with the term?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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

You're not going to trick me into trying to defend the Forgotten Realms or its cosmology.

There is at least a nominal notion of why clerics have been, in most editions, able to turn undead: Their gods view the undead as an affront to the divine order and give their clerics the power to turn them.

It's a lot harder to see why the Concept of Accounting would feel that way.

This has gone on a lot longer than I would have imagined. All I'm saying is I'd like to have a sentence or four, as a non-MTG player, explaining why an abstract concept that has nothing to do with the cycle of life and death would grant powers over the undead.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are so many different kinds of "witches". What did she have in mind?

The same stuff that the general public thinks of when they think "witch." Brooms, cauldrons, toads and frogs, cackling, seeing the future, transforming their victims into frogs, eating the diabetic kids they lure in with houses made out of cookie.

Transmuter gets closest, but it doesn't really focus on most of that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There is no "accounting guild" or "office supy guild: the Guilds are not trade unions, but ten powerful magical organizations vound together by a mystical Consticalled the Guildpact. Each Guild is supercharged with magic, and all characters take one of the ten Guilds as a replacement Background.

OK. I still don't understand what any of that has to do with turning the undead. Everyone's telling me I'm wrong, with no real elaboration.

I get that the badge makes sense as a magical focus, but why do they work against the undead with specific anti-undead powers?