D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana: Wonders of the Multiverse

WotC has posted a new Unearthed Arcana featuring the Glitchling race, the Fate domain, and a handful of backgrounds, feats and spells.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore D&D character options from across the multiverse. This playtest document presents the glitchling race; the Fate Domain cleric subclass; and the gate warden, giant foundling, planar philosopher, and rune carver backgrounds. Additionally, a collection of new feats provide links to giants and other primordial forces of the planes, while a selection of new spells highlight the power of fate and chance.

Wonders of the Multiverse | Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

Explore character options related to the Wonders of the Multiverse! This playtest document presents a new race and subclass and a collection of new backgrounds, feats and spells, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[vecna00]

I was hoping for more individual faction backgrounds (with feats) if they are doing Planescape, but I wouldn't be mad at a single background.

That may need more feat diversity though...

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this.

 

[Yaarel]

Looks absolutely dire.

Rubbish.

Planescape minus everything interesting (or with it utterly minimized to the maximum degree), plus tons of awful D&D elemental Giant bollocks and Viking-style rune-carving nonsense which is a match for the Giant boredom, but a grotesque mismatch with the Planar stuff. As a "bonus" everything is utterly combat-focused, when this would be a good time to avoid that.

Two thumbs hard down.

For the record, none of the rune-casting feats are "viking style".

For the viking era, runes are a normal alphabet. The magic is in writing any intention or any mnemonic for an intention to focus on and imbue ones mind into the object.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Also I think some of you are assuming too much from so little.

 

[Weiley31]

I was gonna refluff the Auto Gnome as the Modron race, but I'm actually glad Glitchlings can pretty much solve that. Or heck, still refluff the Auto Gnome and use it as a variant Modron pick option.

 

[Mistwell]

1) While I like "Proficiency bonus times per day" as a generalization, I don't like the over-use of that mechanic. And this UA way uses that mechanic.
2) One good thing about 5e was the reduction of many many prior bonuses and penalties down to advantage or disadvantage. That sped combat up a lot. Now they seem to be adding back in tons of fiddly little bits that don't gain much but cost a lot of time. For example, adding 1d4 damage once a round on a hit proficiency bonus times per day (like CARTOMANCER) is nearly meaningless at levels even mid-levels, but adds both another die roll and another proficiency bonus times per day tracking of a power. This is going backwards on the progress 5e made to speed things up.
3) I do not like level-based feat requirements or background based feats. I also think this is adding a level of complexity which gains very little for the game over all.
4) Punishing rolling a 20 on a d20 (CHAOTIC FLARES) is a bad idea.
5) There are way too many needless "increase an ability score by +1" feats here that wouldn't have been half-feats if WOTC hadn't become so enamored of the half-feat lately. Because balancing those half-feats is causing them to turn to issue #1, being the actual unique thing it does is only available proficiency bonus times per day rather than always available like it probably would have been if it were not a half-feat.
6) Too many of these feat choices don't account for scaling with level. Many of them do a reasonable amount of damage at low levels and a meaningless amount of damage at mid and higher levels. Adding "proficiency bonus" doesn't make it scale because one extra point of something every 4-5 levels is not how scaling works in this game. 1d10+prof bonus is a whole lot at level 2, and very little at level 16. Scaling involves increasing the number of dice, not the small bonus added after the single die is thrown.
7) A lot of the "full feat" options are particularly weak and seem like half-feats without the bonus to an ability score.

 

[Weiley31]

Also, I kinda with the Temporary HP options could have better scaling at times. Imagine rolling a 1D6 for that big click energy and you just get a 1 for Temporary HP.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

6) Too many of these feat choices don't account for scaling with level. Many of them do a reasonable amount of damage at low levels and a meaningless amount of damage at mid and higher levels. Adding "proficiency bonus" doesn't make it scale because one extra point of something every 4-5 levels is not how scaling works in this game. 1d10+prof bonus is a whole lot at level 2, and very little at level 16. Scaling involves increasing the number of dice, not the small bonus added after the single die is thrown.

I think (prof bonus x die) scales reasonably well. Even it is once per day.

I agree, that prof bonus per day gets overused, and also fiddly bonuses.
I am not sure about a general non-spell power source for everyone though.
It usually becomes spell by a different name.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not really. They also are not bonuses, as you pick when to use them.

Fair enough. Not relevant to the concern.

 

[Parmandur]

Point buy logic they refuse to display so that players can figure it out.

Well, some have reverse engineered it, and Tasha's has spelled it out a bit more clearly. The basic underlying unit is HP, per Mike Mearls, for what it is worth.

 

[Parmandur]

Looks absolutely dire.

Rubbish.

Planescape minus everything interesting (or with it utterly minimized to the maximum degree), plus tons of awful D&D elemental Giant bollocks and Viking-style rune-carving nonsense which is a match for the Giant boredom, but a grotesque mismatch with the Planar stuff. As a "bonus" everything is utterly combat-focused, when this would be a good time to avoid that.

Two thumbs hard down.

Crawford made it pretty clear in the video that the Giant and Planar stuff is for different products, amd practically lampshade thst there is obvious Planescape material here. The flavor was more or less intentionally removed, but that's because they don't really test fluff in UA tandem they want some level of plausible deniability.