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]

Part of the problem with the Warlock class is it is built heavily around eldritch blast and related shenanigans. Can you do a Warlock without eldritch blast? Absolutely! But most of the most effective stuff you can do revolves around eldritch blast so you're going to be missing out.

I gotta disagree with that. Eldritch Blast spam is one possible Warlock build. And a good one, no doubt! But it’s far from the only viable way to build a warlock. Given how many Invocations an EB spam Warlock needs to dedicate just to make that strategy competitive with a simple fighter with a bow, I’d say it’s the player who only uses the Warlock as a magic-flavored archer who’s missing out.

 

[RealAlHazred]

@Whizbang Dustyboots

The Warlock can do all of the Halloween witch tropes, no? Including Polymorph other.

The Bard can do all of the witch tropes, no?

Because I want an actual witch in my games.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Witch Hazel? Broom-Hilda? I wouldn't want to piss off Granny.

Both good examples of how there's definitely a "witch" flavor and aesthetic that the general public knows and can point to quickly, but which isn't supported by a distinct premade set of playable options in D&D.

 

[Faolyn]

I am one of those who feel warlock feels far short of what I want the witch class to be. If a farmer knocks a witch down in a market, he should go home and find his cows not giving milk, maybe. Or his hair falls out. Or all of his business dealings start losing money. Or something along those lines.

If a farmer knocks a warlock down in the market, the warlock fires two or three beams of eldritch energy directly at him, vaporizing him. That doesn't feel witchy to me.

All that you need for this is a better bestow curse spell.

Use the base concept for that spell, except that the effect is mostly non-mechanical (making someone go bald), or gives them a magical flaw ("all my cows run dry"), or gives them disad on certain skills, such as "all skill rolls pertaining to running the business." Give it a short-ish duration (like a day or week) but if you cast it every day for a month or year or whatever, it becomes permanent. You can even keep it at 3rd level if you say that it doesn't effect combat or saving throws.

 

[Rikka66]

But it's been 47 years and the lack of official witches is just plain weird.

4e did it as a Wizard....alternate, essential things class thing at the tail-end of the edition, which you can take as indicator of where it at least was on Wizards priority list.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I gotta disagree with that. Eldritch Blast spam is one possible Warlock build. And a good one, no doubt! But it’s far from the only viable way to build a warlock. Given how many Invocations an EB spam Warlock needs to dedicate just to make that strategy competitive with a simple fighter with a bow, I’d say it’s the player who only uses the Warlock as a magic-flavored archer who’s missing out.

The other popular warlock build is the hexblade. Also not very witchy.

I'm not saying they didn't build a few witchy things into warlock when they made the class. But it is still very much a development of the 3.5E class, which was not supposed to be very witchy.

 

[Charlaquin]

I guess. I keep asking for explanations on how Ravnica clerics make sense and keep getting told the equivalent of "because." Maybe it's just me, but I suspect I'm not alone on this hill.

I’m not sure how “they use the symbol of their guild to channel the authority granted to said guild by a plane-wide ritual that is enforced by the maintenance of each guild’s civic duties” is the equivalent of “because.” Maybe if you find that explanation lacking you could ask more specific questions?

 

[RealAlHazred]

I have to go back to work. I did a 4-part look into witch classes in D&D from the beginning in my blog. My arguments for the class can be found in there.

 

[Undrave]

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.)

Sorcerers, who channel the power of the bloodline, should have been Constitution casters. Expressing that inner magic should be physically taxing!

lol what!? Have you ever even played a monk?

Yes and it is disappointing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I tell myself that the reason why WoTC hasn't given us a Witch class yet technically is due to Pathfinder having Witch as a class and the fact that they could view the Warlock being refluffed as a Witch.

I hope that's it, but I think it's just a legacy of sexism.