New Unearthed Arcana Released, With 8 New Forgotten Realms-Themed Subclasses

Today, Wizards of the Coast has announced a new Unearthed Arcana playtest featuring eight new Dungeons & Dragons subclasses that will appear in the upcoming Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. The new subclasses include five classes tied to Forgotten Realms regions, as well as the return of the Knowledge Domain Cleric subclass from the 2014 Player's Handbook and the Bladesinger Wizard subclass and Purple Dragon Knight Fighter subclass from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Each of the five remaining subclasses are themed to one of the five regions explored in the Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide also coming out in November. The College of the Moon Bard subclass is tied to the Moonshae Isles, the Winter Walker Ranger subclass is tied to Icewind Dale, and the Oath of the Noble Genies is tied to Calimshan. The Scion of The Three is tied to the Dead Three (of Baldur's Gate fame). Meanwhile, Spellfire Sorcery dates back to 2nd Edition and can both heal allies and harm foes.

The eight new subclasses can be found below:

• College Of The Moon (Bard)
• Knowledge Domain (Cleric)
• Purple Dragon Knight (Fighter)
• Oath Of The Noble Genies (Paladin)
• Winter Walker (Ranger)
• Scion Of The Three (Rogue)
• Spellfire Sorcery (Sorcerer)
• Bladesinger (Wizard)

The Forgotten Realm's Players Guide comes out on November 11th.

 

[SkidAce]

How would you adapt the lore/concept of the Scion of Three subclass to somewhere not FR? I'm just trying to think how it would work for my own homebrew setting and I'm hitting a dead end.

Could be three demons relevant to the campaign.

Or three demigods.

Reduce the three gods to just one god of tyranny, violence and death, with the abilities being aspects.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Designers: "It would be cool if the Forgotten Realms had a nation with dragon-riders!"

Ormpur: "We're right here. A city-state of dragon-riders for hundreds of years. A dragon's flight away from Calimshan. No? Okay, just shoe-horn some redundant tropes into Cormyr then. That's fine. We're in the forgotten part of the Forgotten Realms, so we're used to being ignored."

Seriously, when are WotC designers going to start using the cool stuff that's already in the Realms instead of adding in extra stuff that's less cool than what's already there?

 

[michaeljpastor]

Like, a Genie Paladin 8 / Dance Bard 3 is getting 1st and 2nd level Bard spells and a weak d6 Unarmed Strike, while giving up 3rd level Paladin spells and Radiant Strikes and Aura of Courage. That's not a good trade.

Dance 10 / Looks 3 is not the way to go, I can tell you that.

 

[Mistwell]

Oath of Noble Genies: I like the theme, all the powers align with the theme, but I think it's a tad overpowered. I'd trim it back a bit. Example, they currently can use light armor with their bonus to AC from Charisma power, and I'd probably flip that to no armor. Maybe the auto-grapple and restrain Dao's Crush ability should allow for a save.

 

[Weiley31]

Could be three demons relevant to the campaign.

Or three demigods.

Reduce the three gods to just one god of tyranny, violence and death, with the abilities being aspects.

Some deities also have three aspects. Odin would be one such example IIRC.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

All it takes is a charismatic and visionary commander of the PDK to make a deal with some dragons in 1490DR (or whenever).

Queen Raedra, the Mage Royal, the Wardens of the Easter and Western Marches, and not a few others would object; it’s not the place of a commander to make deals like that.

Some dragons might take it as tacit recognition by the humans of the draconic claim over Cormyr. They would see humans riding dragons as humans serving dragons.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sorta weird to make the Purple Dragon Knight be about having a literal dragon pet when it was never anything like that before, isn’t it?

Welcome to the last 20-odd pages of the discussion lol

 

[Charlaquin]

Except that's not the lore.

It could be the lore though.

Like, sure, you can add it, but you don't get anything FR-specific there if you're just overwriting the current setting with something you like better.

It doesn’t have to replace what came before, it can simply add to it. You don’t think FR got its long, rich history by never changing anything ever, do you? A living setting like FR is constantly evolving, adding new developments. This could be one of them.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fair about shields.

But genie is
When you aren’t wearing Medium or Heavy armor, you gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of +1).

So that stacks.

Can add in bladesong too.
10 + Dex + Cha + Cha + Int.

15+2 Cha/15+1 Dex /15 Int
Paladin 8, 20 Cha/16 Dex/16
Bard 8, 20/20/16.
Bladesinger 4, 20/20/18
= 29 AC + Shield Spell = 34 AC.

Good catch, there. Should probably work like unarmored defense, giving you a new way to calculate AC rather than a bonus.

 

[Kurotowa]

Good catch, there. Should probably work like unarmored defense, giving you a new way to calculate AC rather than a bonus.

Alternative AC calculations are, I believe, all armor alternatives. That is to say, both they and armor set your AC to a fixed number plus bonuses, and they're intentionally mutually exclusive. This Genie Paladin feature is designed to supplement Light armor, so mechanically there's no way to work it as an alternative calculation. It has to be a bonus.