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]

You see everything as a conflict. It is not. These problems you describe simply tend not to happen.

I think they happen very, very often. It's very much like the whole "bad DM's" thing. People will argue until they're blue in the face that there aren't that many bad DM's out there. Like I said, when I polled this years ago, something like 2/3rds of respondents said they'd had at least one bad DM. And a good solid third said the majority of DM's they'd had were bad.

@Gregk mention he had something like 50 players since the 90's. Good grief, I went through more than that in my early virtual tabletop days in a single campaign. I had over a hundred different players (I was DMing two games and playing in a third) in a couple of years. The reason you don't think tends to happen is you just don't have a large enough sample size.

---------------

Edit to add:

And, yes, this is Oberoni territory. You're basically saying that this works because a "good" DM makes it work. That's the issue. If something only works if you are "good" then that's Oberoni Fallacy at work. I'm saying that this is such a bad idea because there are so many average and bad DM's out there that scar players and teach them that DM's must never gain any sort of toe hold over a character because if you give the DM so much as an inch, the DM will take a mile.

Note, I do agree that with a good DM, this will certainly work. I know it will. But, the problem is, there are far, FAR more bad DM's out there than good ones and this kind of advice is just really bad advice.

 

[Eubani]

At this point your discussion has totally hijacked the thread could one of you maybe create a new thread so actual discussion about the UA isn't suffocated by this.

 

[Hussar]

At this point your discussion has totally hijacked the thread could one of you maybe create a new thread so actual discussion about the UA isn't suffocated by this.

You don't think it's a bit late for that? How much more was there to actually say about the UA?

 

[Eubani]

You don't think it's a bit late for that? How much more was there to actually say about the UA?

Quite a bit after people get a chance to use and abuse it in actual play.

 

[TwoSix]

Quite a bit after people get a chance to use and abuse it in actual play.

Like, I guess this does happen, but who are the people who interrupt their current campaigns to roll up brand new characters to test these things?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think they happen very, very often. It's very much like the whole "bad DM's" thing. People will argue until they're blue in the face that there aren't that many bad DM's out there. Like I said, when I polled this years ago, something like 2/3rds of respondents said they'd had at least one bad DM. And a good solid third said the majority of DM's they'd had were bad.

@Gregk mention he had something like 50 players since the 90's. Good grief, I went through more than that in my early virtual tabletop days in a single campaign. I had over a hundred different players (I was DMing two games and playing in a third) in a couple of years. The reason you don't think tends to happen is you just don't have a large enough sample size.

I think you're misunderstanding the issue a bit.

I definitely agree that bad DMs exist. I've had them myself. But the sample set thing points to one of the major issues - people don't keep playing with bad DMs, because bad DMs can't be fixed. A lot of people have played with "a bad DM" or even more than one, but very few of them stick around for long. Why? Because D&D is no very little fun with a bad DM. Indeed RPGs in general are.

And again, you can't defeat bad DMs with rules. You can mitigate them a bit. You can help mediocre or poor DMs to maybe become decent or good DMs with good rules, and good advice. But actual bad DMs? It's like a band-aid on a gushing wound. The kind of guy who does what you describe will never be fixed with rules. You just have to not play with people like that.

As a result you can't build the entire game around trying to mitigate bad DMs. It's like trying to build cars entirely around dangerous/drunk drivers, because literally everything, including the stories they were allowed to tell, would have to locked down tight. If you really want to play RPGs and can't find a good DM, either become one, or play a DM-less RPG like Ironsworn (it's pretty good).

So in the end you have to look at how many sessions you're playing with bad DMs - if you keep playing much after you've realized they're "bad" in the way you describe, it's on you, not the rules. I've played with a few bad DMs, maybe three - but that's a total of like a dozen sessions, if that, as compared to thousands with mediocre-to-great DMs. Wh

Also, there's a big difference in how often one finds bad DMs online as opposed to IRL, because IRL they tended to get weeded out as people in their area learn about them, whereas online, they can always just change names/games, if they even need to do that, which they often don't because people often don't hear about them being bad.

In the end though, you can't design a game like D&D around bad DMs though. You have to assume basic good faith and competence.

 

[Cadence]

I think you're misunderstanding the issue a bit.

I definitely agree that bad DMs exist. I've had them myself. But the sample set thing points to one of the major issues - people don't keep playing with bad DMs, because bad DMs can't be fixed. A lot of people have played with "a bad DM" or even more than one, but very few of them stick around for long. Why? Because D&D is no very little fun with a bad DM. Indeed RPGs in general are.

And again, you can't defeat bad DMs with rules. You can mitigate them a bit. You can help mediocre or poor DMs to maybe become decent or good DMs with good rules, and good advice. But actual bad DMs? It's like a band-aid on a gushing wound. The kind of guy who does what you describe will never be fixed with rules. You just have to not play with people like that.

As a result you can't build the entire game around trying to mitigate bad DMs. It's like trying to build cars entirely around dangerous/drunk drivers, because literally everything, including the stories they were allowed to tell, would have to locked down tight. If you really want to play RPGs and can't find a good DM, either become one, or play a DM-less RPG like Ironsworn (it's pretty good).

So in the end you have to look at how many sessions you're playing with bad DMs - if you keep playing much after you've realized they're "bad" in the way you describe, it's on you, not the rules. I've played with a few bad DMs, maybe three - but that's a total of like a dozen sessions, if that, as compared to thousands with mediocre-to-great DMs. Wh

Also, there's a big difference in how often one finds bad DMs online as opposed to IRL, because IRL they tended to get weeded out as people in their area learn about them, whereas online, they can always just change names/games, if they even need to do that, which they often don't because people often don't hear about them being bad.

In the end though, you can't design a game like D&D around bad DMs though. You have to assume basic good faith and competence.

Now I'm wondering if the PhB should have a message about variability in DMs and what a player should do if they're not having fun or something doesn't seem right. (Things to ask the DM, things to look for, how to discuss why you're not having fun etc..).

 

[PsyzhranV2]

You don't think it's a bit late for that? How much more was there to actually say about the UA?

Not who you were responding to, but I guess I was expecting more people to be talking about the setting of Strixhaven University and the plane of Arcavios? More discussion about the setting, the characters, and how to use them.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

I think

Not who you were responding to, but I guess I was expecting more people to be talking about the setting of Strixhaven University and the plane of Arcavios? More discussion about the setting, the characters, and how to use them.

I know I've mentioned it upthread, but think the thing that's interesting me is how the classes the iconic characters are given in the minis compares with the classes on the cards, frankly. I'm assuming the WizKids' minis classes would be the classes these characters have in any "official" material.

Dina (Witherbloom): MTG Class: Druid/WizKids Minis Class: Druid
Killian (Silverquill): MTG Class: Warlock/Wizkids Minis Class: Wizard
Quintoruis (Lorehold): MTG class: Cleric/WizKids Minis Class: Artificer
Rootha (Prismari): MTG Class: Shaman/WizKids Minis Class: Bard
Zimone (Quandrix): MTG Class: Wizard/WizKids Minis Class: Wizard

The "switched" classes are most interesting to me, from a flavor-first, mechanics-second sense:
Why make Killian a Wizard for D&D when Warlock would have made equal sense--especially having read his story and knowing he's being torn between creation and destruction? (ETA: Unless there's some intent to avoid Patrons or the potential for Elder Dragon's to be patrons; conceptually, Shadix Silverquill would be a darn cool Patron choice just based on appearance aesthetic. But this thread has shown how sticky even traditional patrons can become.) Heck, mechanically, College of Whispers Bard screams "Silverquill."

I get why they made Rootha a Bard, she's the "Artsy Kid" in the story, but her mercurial nature seems sorcerer. Given the elemental connections for Prismari, I'd have put her as a Storm Sorceror.

And like I've said before, Quintorius as a Cleric made "just enough" sense since he "talks to spirits." Making him an Artificer is curious to me, especially seeing as Lorehold has an artificer in Osgir ("The Reconstructor") from their Commander deck. (ETA: Trying not to conflate MTG classes with D&D classes, just holding them up in comparison. No "sacred cows" I'm defending--they haven't statted or teased an Ardent Dustspeaker anyway.)

I guess adding the UA playtest subclasses to all of these makes the flavor more-or-less work, except that they didn't give Lorehold to Artificers, or Prismari to Bard, so I'm assuming that's a potential issue the book will resolve.

 

[Faolyn]

Is it that hard to pick a character class (or subclass) that isn't the one that your struggling DM is having a hard time with? There are a ton, each with lots of options. Or to slightly modify the one you've chosen? Or to just cut the DM slack.

I was talking about basic class abilities, like sneak attacks or smites, not some archetype from a later book or from a third party source.

Unless the DM is brand new to the job and literally has no experience, in these cases it's almost always a DM trying to nerf a player out of laziness or maliciousness.