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]

That's hardly a "good chunk". Your games, and petty lunchroom DM's out to kill their friends... so, yeah, some, but not representative.

TIL the majority of TSR era modules isn’t representative of D&D and Garry Gygax was a petty lunchroom DM

Most games the PC's win, because who wants to show up to get sand kicked in your face by a friend who holds all the power in the relationship?

Excuse you, don’t make assumptions about the way I run my games. Just because I account for the possibility of the PCs failing doesn’t mean I “kick sand in the players’ faces.”

I feel if you believe this, you simply haven't looked far enough behind the curtain and thought about your own biases and actions while DM'ing.

I think if you hear “the players winning isn’t inevitable” and you assume the person saying it is a “petty lunchroom DM” who “kicks sand in players’ faces,” it’s you who needs to examine your biases.

You tils the axis when designing challenges, adventures, and the off-screen actions of the antagonists, allies, etc. You determine the odds, and how the story unfolds if the adventure goes off what was previously written, even moreso if you are improvising on the spot. Your own biases play into that, even subconsciously.

Yes, obviously. And I create challenges that are difficult but fair, with the goal not to thwart the players, but to give them the opportunity to become heroes.

If the players win, it's because you wrote a win condition that is achievable. The zen is accepting that it doesn't matter, and it's fun anyways.

And the players do win, much of the time. Sometimes, they don’t. Not because winning wasn’t possible, but because winning and losing were both possible, and this time, the outcomes of their decisions and the results of the dice led to them losing. As you say, it’s fun either way.

 

[Rikka66]

Most games the PC's win

Most games the PC's ends up in whatever void all fictional characters in unfinished stories go to.

Personally I feel that doing it very short term might be OK if the circumstances logically warrant it (this is the Star Trek episode where Troi loses her telepathic powers and has to deal with that, the situation is resolved in the end of the episode) but of course in the long term it cannot work, the character cannot remain depowered.

It goes without saying. I don't think anyone was imaging a scenario where a player goes without a class the rest of the campaign. It's another reason the player and DM should discuss this ahead of time; like with PC death having the "rules" down ahead of time means the player can get back into the game faster.

 

[Hatmatter]

They created the whole Oathbreaker subclass for Paladins but didn't bother to make a similar one for Clerics or Warlock... it feels like a missed opportunity...

That is a very good idea for at least a warlock subclass...I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Faolyn]

I guess a Cleric could just be taken up by another God and just switch domain?

I suppose it depends on how hungry the gods are for worshipers.

Of course, even if you have a world where "gods need prayer, badly" isn't the case, you could still have some deities who would gladly take up clerics for other purposes.

For Warlock... we talked about the Blood Mage who drains their HP so maybe that Forsaken Warlock can basically try to squeeze every bit of magic left in them by spending their hit dice? Like, becoming a Warlock has fundamentally changed them so they're not a normal human anymore, but without the power and support of the Patron they sort of endanger themselves doing magic now?

Could be. Another way of thinking about it is, they don't have a patron shielding them from the raw magic anymore (gods give their followers refined magic), so the patron-less warlock would be at danger of harming themselves (represented by draining hp) whenever they cast a spell.

 

[TwoSix]

Wasn't there a prestige class in the 3E Book of Vile Darkness for ex-clerics? Grossly overpowered, as I recall.

"FACE NOW THE POWER OF ATHEISM!"

Ur-Priest, which also got republished in Complete Divine. It was grossly overpowered, especially in the right combination, but every prepared caster was grossly overpowered in 3.5, so that isn't saying much.

I was a component of one of my favorite 3.5 builds, Bard 7/Mindbender 1/Ur-Priest 2/Sublime Chord 2/Mystic Theurge 8.

 

[ph0rk]

This is question for Warlock players.

According to the mechanics, the Patron has no say, in the Warlock class features.

The only thing that is debatable, is the Pact Boon, whose wording of "for loyal service", might imply the ability to remove it if unloyal.

Interpreted this way, the DM (not you) controls 1) your Familiar, 2) your Weapon Proficiency, 3) your extra Cantrips.

Are you ok with this?



Keep in mind, "loyal service" can mean many things, depending on who or what you choose as your Patron. If the Patron is the mage college, it might mean "studying diligently".

If my DM signals they're going to be a jerk about the patron (I pick the patron, not them), I'd probably go to a different table.

But: the class proficiencies section does not specify the DM picks. Anything regarding character creation where the DM makes the choice for the player is clearly spelled out - and this isn't. So, they don't.

 

[Weiley31]

The 3PP 5E book, The Red Opera: Last days of the Warlocks, actually has a Pactless Warlock subclass. And yes I believe it is for said Warlocks who broke their pacts.

 

[Rabulias]

So, it's a different Elric (as there are multiple ones, and the other died)?

So if a PC dies, just tell the player that somewhere out in the multiverse an alternate version of their PC in an parallel reality succeeded where they failed, and is living happily ever after!

 

[ph0rk]

The 3PP 5E book, The Red Opera: Last days of the Warlocks, actually has a Pactless Warlock subclass. And yes I believe it is for said Warlocks who broke their pacts.

That would be a nice thing to include if and when the crunch about losing a patron was added; a bit like oathbreaker paladins.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was a component of one of my favorite 3.5 builds, Bard 7/Mindbender 1/Ur-Priest 2/Sublime Chord 2/Mystic Theurge 8.

That's a character who's been through some stuff. If you had to role play all that out (and obviously, most theoretical builds never worried about that), you've have a bard who reached into more dangerous magics, lost faith in the gods as a result and then came to a deeper belief and faith on the far side of that. That could be a pretty great and mature arc, in addition to being a combat monster.