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

 

[Remathilis]

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.

There has never been a D&D caster (except one time in an odd moment with 3.0 psionics) where spellcasting wasn't tied to a mental stat. It's because Str/Dex/Con are usually good on their own, and it would be amazing to get rewarded hp AND spell-stat every ASI.

 

[Iry]

Why even play a warlock if it requires actual loyalty to the patron? That’s a cleric!

Cleric that turns against the beliefs of their god, and uses their powers to oppose said god, is also a well known trope.

 

[Parmandur]

There has never been a D&D caster (except one time in an odd moment with 3.0 psionics) where spellcasting wasn't tied to a mental stat. It's because Str/Dex/Con are usually good on their own, and it would be amazing to get rewarded hp AND spell-stat every ASI.

Sorcerersand Warlocks in 4E could use either Charisma or Constitution, IIRC.

 

[Rikka66]

Sorcerersand Warlocks in 4E could use either Charisma or Constitution, IIRC.

Warlocks could either use Charisma or Constitution, with different spells keying off different stats (or some letting you choose either). Sorcerers were Charisma only as the main stat, with two spell sources using Strength as a secondary and two using Dexterity.

 

[Charlaquin]

There has never been a D&D caster (except one time in an odd moment with 3.0 psionics) where spellcasting wasn't tied to a mental stat. It's because Str/Dex/Con are usually good on their own, and it would be amazing to get rewarded hp AND spell-stat every ASI.

4e Warlock could be built Con-based.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The 4e fighter and the slayer both fulfill the same narrative role with different mechanics. That's not a meaningless distinction, even if they are compatible.

Sure, they’re two separate classes. They’re different. Is it weird to have a ranger and a rogue in the same party.

Clerics can do anything they want, just like warlocks. Gods can't take away the power they grant in 5e any more than patrons can.

If you aren't going to do what the patron wants, and they can't stop you, why did they make the deal in the first place?

Because they assumed you’d do the thing, or because they think they can manipulate you into using the power to their ends, or for any number of other reasons depending on the patron.

Hell, not all patrons are even antagonistic!

The implication is that while the PC may think they’re directly opposing the patron, the fact that they haven’t taken the PC’s powers away indicates that maybe the patron is not so negatively impacted by the PC’s efforts.

As I get into later in this post...

If “stuff from your patron” includes spell slots, not getting more of that is pretty much equivalent to losing your powers, yes?

IMO neither should happen unless the player gives the green light.

I agree with the latter premise. Try though you might to use your patron’s power for good, bad things happen as a result of you using it. Which is why the patron doesn’t take your power away, despite having the ability to. By using it, you are advancing their goals, even if you think you’re working against them.

That makes me intensely uncomfortable in the context of imagining myself as the warlock player in that paradigm.

It seems to assume failure on the part of the PC, as a prerequisite to keep the dynamic you want. It also doesn’t allow for me to hypothetically use my power to directly physically fight my patron. Now, sometimes a patron is a creature that should be beyond even an Epic PCs ability to fight, but not always.

And the manipulation angle doesn’t even need the “patron can take your powers” angle. The Ghost Rider dynamic is that the devil has no control whatsoever over Ghost Rider, but is constantly manipulating him and turning his victories into horrors. The writers could tell a story where Ghost Rider kicks the devil’s ass and then rides out of hell doing a wheely. All the devil can do about it is send minions to harass or kill him, or mete out retribution personally. What he will more likely do is, manipulate events to make Ghost Rider need his help or need soemthing he has, and smile wide when the Rider comes calling, all cards on the wrong side of the table, and ask what he’s willin’ to pay.

I can’t see any upside to a version of that story where the devil can take Ghost Rider’s power away on a whim.

I think the wording pretty explicitly suggests that the player and the DM should work together to figure out exactly what the terms of the patronage are, and how much control the patron has. But yeah, I don’t think the default assumption is that the patron can prevent you from gaining warlock levels.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I would imagine doing in the case that a patron ever did take a warlock’s power away in actual play.

It’s another case where most folks probably run the game much more similarly than it seems in such a discussion.

Cleric that turns against the beliefs of their god, and uses their powers to oppose said god, is also a well known trope.

Sure, and a very valid PC concept. But the default cleric is one with a good-faith relationship with their god.

 

[Undrave]

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

Send another Warlock after the wayward one!

 

[Undrave]

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).

I didn't do any DEEP thinking on the queston. I suggested a Swordmage just because there's already multiple subclasses in the PHB that do the 'multiclass lite' thing like how the College of Valor bard has fightery stuff in it, the Eldtrich Knight has wizardy stuff in it and the Oath of the Ancient Paladin has druidy stuff in it... but it's not a necessity.

As for Xanathar and Tashas? I guess Xanathar could have a PROPER Necromancer as a Pet Class with a big chunk of class feature dedicated to summoning one or more skeleton minions even at early level. A Beguiler that got some Bard in it. Maybe a Transmuter who has his own take on the Druid's Wild Shape but more unnatural...

Basically, the Scholar Wizard is the one who would basically be to the Wizard what the Champion and Thief are to the Fighter and Rogue ya know? A sort of basic representation with straight forward features, but with enough flexibility that you could just about represent any of the school specialists.

But a proper Necromancer wouldn't bother with the whole 'scribes spells for cheap', they'd just HAVE those spells at appropriate levels and they'd have class features more in line with the more popular 'summoner' image of the Necromancer instead of the life siphoning thing that's the first feature the current subclass gets. Maybe those subclasses would be barred from certain taking spells of certain school past Spell Level X in exchange for more powers? I dunno, like I said, I'm spitballing not designing.

Basically, Xanathar and Tasha would just have version of the specialists that had more advanced design, for lack of a better term. Am I making sense?

There has never been a D&D caster (except one time in an odd moment with 3.0 psionics) where spellcasting wasn't tied to a mental stat. It's because Str/Dex/Con are usually good on their own, and it would be amazing to get rewarded hp AND spell-stat every ASI.

My 4e Warforged Star Pact Warlock would disagree and CON was even better back then!

 

[Yaarel]

If the magic of a Sorcerer is the Sorcerers own body and blood, Constitution makes sense as a spellcasting ability.

 

[cbwjm]

I don't think it is just the magic of the sorcerer that uses the body, many novels describe how casters (typical intelligence using casters) become drained after excessive spellcasting feeling drained. In something like 3e you could probably represent that as the spell power (spell DC) being based on intelligence (or charisma for sorcerers) and spell slots being based on constitution to represent that spellcasters require a healthy body to help channel their magic.