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

 

[TwoSix]

Is someone making you play a warlock or paladin in that scenario? If you want to play a class, and the DM is using fluff for that class that you disagree with, and if no accord can be reached, than you always have the option of...not playing with them.

Which is probably what I would do, or simply swap to another concept. But DMs who feel bound to PHB concepts are raising a big warning flag to me that my play priorities and their DM style might not mesh.

 

[Charlaquin]

No disagreement.

And, as has been pointed out, for people who don't want their patron to matter, but still want to have a patron, the Great Old One and some other patrons fit the bill pretty nicely.

But yes, it's also possible to retool the fluff of the class entirely and cut the patron out of the picture. I find that preferable to "no, I have a patron, but they never speak to me, have no impact on my life and are essentially a never-mentioned origin story."

Which, of course, brings us back to Strixhaven as an alternate power source -- maybe the warlock just reads books from the restricted section of the Biblioplexopolis and learns Things Owlkin Were Not Meant to Know (Moreso Than the Usual For Arcanists), which would be fine with me. Even then, though, as DM, I'd want what fluff to matter, in the sense that other books -- the more forbidden, the better -- would be a constant temptation to the player character, calling to him to open the book, caress the lovely pages, read the wooooords ... (We'd probably roleplay that, although if the player was cool with it, it might be a Wisdom check.)

For the record, the warlock in my campaign has a patron that he's currently unaware of (although said patron is aware of him). At some point, they will be having a "discussion." It is entirely possible some aspects of the character will change as a result of said discussion. (This is all part of the background that the player has brought to me privately and something he suggested and we further negotiated, before anyone dials 911.)

I think if we’re talking Strixhaven, assumptions about what distinguishes the various spellcasting classes in D&D lore are out the window. It’s conversion of an MtG setting using D&D’s rules; D&D lore isn’t really relevant.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Then those aren't really the players who are going to feel engaged when you require them to roleplay a narrative consequence like a warlock patron.

Much of this thread is about a clash of play styles and expectations, with many of the posters insisting that their way is the only correct one. The good news is that very few of us will ever play at the same table.

 

[TwoSix]

Much of this thread is about a clash of play styles and expectations, with many of the posters insisting that their way is the only correct one. The good news is that very few of us will ever play at the same table.

Oh, for sure. There are a lot of posters here whose posts I enjoy but I would never want to play D&D with them.

 

[cbwjm]

I see the warlock class as different depending on how I want to run them. I actually think that it would be great for a game to have the warlock slowly lose their powers after they defy their patron, not enough to lose everything at once but enough to make them think, actually, maybe I should do what they've asked, maybe they seek out a new source of power or maybe the comply. Maybe they lose their powers completely and start transitioning to another class. I know this flies against what so many want in the class, power without a price.

I also sometimes use the warlock as an occultist, they have no patron, rather the "patron" is the dark studies that they've undertaken for power and in this case there is no patron to take away their power.

In my current game, the big bad is a warlock of Mephistopheles who is making a grab for power to reclaim his soul. His power can't be taken away because part of making a pact with a patron is the contract, and he did very well in negotiating that contract so Mephisto can't directly take his power or act/send his minions against him (both patron and client are bound by these contracts). In this case, the loophole is to help the PCs since it is indirect rather than directly acting.

All of these, I think, are great ways to use the warlock though I will admit that often, I just don't care what class people are playing and any warlock is unlikely to have any great story element from their pact.

 

[Undrave]

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

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.

Basically, I would envison the 'Scholar Wizard' (let's call him that) as having a composite Savant class feature that lets them pick a specialty and then get extra spells more easily from that specialty. Heck, if I was being crazy I would actually give them more prep slots the less spell school they prep! Then there's a handful of class feature (like Sculpt Spell or Grim Harvest) that are basically "When you spend a slot on a spell of X school you get Y' features. These can be a single class feature that gives you a different effect based on your specialty. And then you just expend from there with more Scholarly features and more features that trigger when you use a spell of X school. Heck, maybe they're more like Totem Barbarians and each one can be a different school, who knows?. This in turn would lead to...

So I will re-ask my question: what specific archetypes should the wizard be getting?

Actually expanding the PHB archetypes that were duds. Necromancers for exemple are pretty uninteresting. But they can't make a NEW Necromancer with as a pet subclass because... They already have a 'Necromancer'.

Instead of giving us a few key and interesting subclasses in the PHB with room to grow (with my propose scholar as a way to tide people over for true Necromancers, Abjurer and so on) as the design team gets more mature... they rushed 8 subclass out of the gate with minimal fluff just because, cutting off a ton of archetypes from being developped as the game gained experience.

You really needed only two, maybe three, subclass in the PHB: the Scholar Wizard who is a generic wizard who picks a school specialty (maybe they can, if they so choose, pick a school they're barred from in exchange for more bonuses? That could be a fun trade off), the War Magic guy who is more of a battlefield controller who doesn't really care what school of spells he gets as long as it gets him the win (maybe this one gets to pick an Implement Mastery like in 4e and gets better armor?), and maybe an Hermetic with more focus on Rituals (expending the concept of Rituals) who is more of a utility and support caster (maybe HE gets the Diviner's Portent?), let's call him the 'Tower Wizard'. Or maybe you get a Swordmage out right away?

And then you do the real specialists with fancy names as more fully realized subclass that fully embrace their fluff.

That would also line up with some spellcasters in fiction who get exhausted by magic use and can even ruin their health doing it. Then you could have things like a blood mage sorcerer subclass that turns hit points into spell levels on the fly, which is a fun mechanic a lot of CRPGs use and which brings a meaningful tactical choice to the D&D table.

I don't know why we didn't get a CON caster. It's not like it would make Sorcerers particularly solid with their small HD. It would just make them more solid than Wizards, which would make sense if they're not just spending times reading books.

You could have a fun concept of Sorcerers who 'burn out' by using too much magic at once. It practically write itselfs, especially if you replace slots with spell points.

 

[Rikka66]

I don't know why we didn't get a CON caster. It's not like it would make Sorcerers particularly solid with their small HD. It would just make them more solid than Wizards, which would make sense if they're not just spending times reading books.

I assume it is some combination of the feedback that resulted in Warlock's remaining CHA casters instead of INT and that Sorcerer's were one of the last classes finished, which as some will point out left them seeming a bit half-baked.

 

[Minigiant]

That sounds nice, but in my experience I've found most players care far more about mechanical consequences to their actions than narrative ones.

The mechanic is that all Patrons have at least 20HD, can cast at least 5th level spells, and usually have a bunch of agents.

 

[Remathilis]

Actually expanding the PHB archetypes that were duds. Necromancers for exemple are pretty uninteresting. But they can't make a NEW Necromancer with as a pet subclass because... They already have a 'Necromancer'.

Instead of giving us a few key and interesting subclasses in the PHB with room to grow (with my propose scholar as a way to tide people over for true Necromancers, Abjurer and so on) as the design team gets more mature... they rushed 8 subclass out of the gate with minimal fluff just because, cutting off a ton of archetypes from being developped as the game gained experience.

You really needed only two, maybe three, subclass in the PHB: the Scholar Wizard who is a generic wizard who picks a school specialty (maybe they can, if they so choose, pick a school they're barred from in exchange for more bonuses? That could be a fun trade off), the War Magic guy who is more of a battlefield controller who doesn't really care what school of spells he gets as long as it gets him the win (maybe this one gets to pick an Implement Mastery like in 4e and gets better armor?), and maybe an Hermetic with more focus on Rituals (expending the concept of Rituals) who is more of a utility and support caster (maybe HE gets the Diviner's Portent?), let's call him the 'Tower Wizard'. Or maybe you get a Swordmage out right away?

So what I'm getting is "I don't have any specific ideas, but I don't like how they did what they did"

First, I'd like to address that having a subclass is with a particular theme doesn't necessarily mean that a different take on the same theme is out of the picture. The Undying and Undeath Warlocks are thematically similar, but WotC found a way to do both.

Now onto your specific suggestions. You are suggesting a scholar Wizard (which is all eight specialists smushed into one subclass, land-druid style), war magic for blasters/hybrids, A Hermetic focused on support and scribing spells, and a swordmage (which is a gish).

Hmmm... so you basically want them to rurn all eight schools into one sub, and then add war magic, scribes and bladesong to the PHB. Cool trick getting all the current wizard subs into the PHB; but now what are you putting in SCAG, Xanathar, and Tasha?

That's my point; there wizard hasn't got a lot of expansion room due to the warlock, sorcerer, bard, and artificer carving out arcane niches. Lost Lore or Magical Creation? Bard. Alchemy, golems, or tanking? Artificer. Elementalism, shadow, wild magic, or psychic? Sorcerer. Fiendish, fey, aberrant, or even celestial? Warlock.

There are some places they could go; the Wu Jen concept (with a better name) might make an interesting take on a non-specialist elementalist. I've argued witchcraft would be a good normal spellcaster-variant of warlocks. True-naming has potential, and I find shadow-magic a poor match with sorcerer (due to the limited spell selection they get).

 

[Yaarel]

I see the warlock class as different depending on how I want to run them. I actually think that it would be great for a game to have the warlock slowly lose their powers after they defy their patron, not enough to lose everything at once but enough to make them think, actually, maybe I should do what they've asked, maybe they seek out a new source of power or maybe the comply. Maybe they lose their powers completely and start transitioning to another class. I know this flies against what so many want in the class, power without a price.

I also sometimes use the warlock as an occultist, they have no patron, rather the "patron" is the dark studies that they've undertaken for power and in this case there is no patron to take away their power.

In my current game, the big bad is a warlock of Mephistopheles who is making a grab for power to reclaim his soul. His power can't be taken away because part of making a pact with a patron is the contract, and he did very well in negotiating that contract so Mephisto can't directly take his power or act/send his minions against him (both patron and client are bound by these contracts). In this case, the loophole is to help the PCs since it is indirect rather than directly acting.

All of these, I think, are great ways to use the warlock though I will admit that often, I just don't care what class people are playing and any warlock is unlikely to have any great story element from their pact.

I would never mess with the class mechanics of a Warlock player.

However I am willing to have the Patron give the Warlock a magic item, then mess with the magic item depending on the Warlocks dedication, to a similar effect.