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

 

[Hussar]

Oh, there's definitely patron choices that have minimal impact on their warlocks, to the extent that I think it requires a bit of extra work to explain why a Great Old One would be involved in any way with the warlock. If it's just the case that the warlock is changed by the awareness of something related to a Great Old One, "patron" is a misnomer.

No argument here.

So... I'm not quite following the issue then. If you agree that it's no problem that a warlock's patron could be totally uncaring and disinterested, then what's the issue here? Our Strixhaven Warlock, because we're playing in a Strixhaven game, is one of those kinds of warlocks that fits thematically into the Strixhaven setting. Seems pretty simple to me.

IOW, if you have a warlock with a heavily involved patron, maybe don't use that concept in the Strixhaven game. Not every character concept needs to fit into every setting.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, that never made sense to me. The patron has no power over the wadlock once the pact is made, and can't take the power away. Why would the warlock do anything for them? In what way is this a good deal for the patron?

Incidentally, I have the same issue with clerics in 4e and 5e.

The relationship is less about the Patron and more about the player character.

It is like which politician does one want to vote for?

If one politician (Patron) fails to do what one wants, then vote for an other one.

 

[Charlaquin]

But in 5e, the patron has no ability to take their patronage elsewhere. Once the vague pact is made, the warlock gets power, and the patron gets whatever the warlock wants them to get.

Eh, I don’t care how Crawford said it works, at my table a warlock’s patron can retract their boons if they feel the warlock is squandering them. Though, I’ve never had that actually happen in a game. My patrons are usually pretty distant and content to let their warlocks do as they please with their boons for the most part. Again, it’s not a contractual arrangement in my games, it’s patronage. The patron grants you boons because they want to see what you’ll do with them. And maybe once in a while they’ll suggest something specific they would like to see you do with them. Generally in a way that sounds perfectly reasonable on its face .

 

[Parmandur]

A Hermeticist, which would have elements of alchemy but would mostly be about ritual magic, including doing some rituals spells in much shorter time, and doing some non-ritual spells as rituals. This is another sort of “This could have been what the Wizard is as a class” subclass.

The one really unfortunate miss in Wizard UA for me is the Artificer attempt that fell flat, because it was a terrible Artificer replacement, but I liked it as a magic item focused Wizard.

Part of the Wizard Subclass problem is how good the core 8 are: between them, they cover most of what the average player will want to do as a Wizard, and further options are going to be more esoteric by necessity.

 

[Parmandur]

Eh, I don’t care how Crawford said it works, at my table a warlock’s patron can retract their boons if they feel the warlock is squandering them. Though, I’ve never had that actually happen in a game. My patrons are usually pretty distant and content to let their warlocks do as they please with their boons for the most part. Again, it’s not a contractual arrangement in my games, it’s patronage. The patron grants you boons because they want to see what you’ll do with them. And maybe once in a while they’ll suggest something specific they want you to do with it, generally in a way that sounds perfectly reasonable on its face.

I think it's a definite strength of the Class design that it can be played either way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The thing I love about 5E, if I had to put a finger on it, is that the rules support both the Uk'atoa (uk'atoa!) approach, or the Ravnica approach without a single rule being changed. For Ravnica and, apparently, Strixhaven, the role of gods and patrons as default is in the realm of DM ruling and Session Zero expectation setting. And hey, in my Ravnica, I can insert the hypercharged Theros Pantheon and Piety if I feel like it. More tools for the DM to build a world.

But not the classic "deal with the devil" approach, ironically.

 

[Parmandur]

But not the classic "deal with the devil" approach, ironically.

If the DM wants to, totally doable.

 

[ph0rk]

Given how many Invocations an EB spam Warlock needs to dedicate just to make that strategy competitive with a simple fighter with a bow,

One?

It doesn’t take many.

 

[ph0rk]

Eh, I don’t care how Crawford said it works, at my table a warlock’s patron can retract their boons if they feel the warlock is squandering them.

Explain how this works with a GOO lock.

 

[Charlaquin]

But not the classic "deal with the devil" approach, ironically.

If the devil didn’t make his deals seem to favor the other party significantly more than it did him, no reasonable, well-meaning person would ever take them. Nah, he’s a sneaky bastard who will make you think you’re getting something for nothing, until you’re in deep enough that he can extract the real price without scaring you away.