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.

 

[Remathilis]

The Bladesinger is generic—it originated from a generic splatbook in 2e (The Complete Book of Elves) before FR swallowed it whole in 3e.

I said as much. But bladesong got integrated into FR lore more than it was in Greyhawk or Eberron.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is the worst justification to me for critizing the PDK. Lore changes in every medium. Comics go through evolutions and retcons every few years, movies and shows constantly get rebooted, hell even novels often retcon or contridict themselves if the series runs for more than a few books.

Stagnant lore is boring. WotC should 1000% look for ways to evolve their settings to be more interesting and different for each new iteration. Otherwise why bother printing anything new at all?

Not liking the PDK is totally valid.

Hell, even not liking the lore change being this drastic is valid. But to shun any form of evolution just because someone wrote a novel in 1998 just leaves everything stagnant and boring.

I feel like you're overstating @Scribe's position pretty severely here, because you are actually agreeing that his fundamental complaint is legit, whilst trying to say he's opposed to all evolution, which is patently false and not a legitimate interpretation of his post, I'd suggest.

The bolded bit is what @Scribe is actually complaining about. He's not saying "NO LORE CAN EVER CHANGE!!!". That's not something you can legit get from:

Pretty much giving up the ghost on even pretending that prior lore matters.

What he's saying there, and I am confident I can speak for him here (@Scribe correct me if I'm wrong), is precisely "I don't like the degree of lore change". That's what "not pretending that prior lore matters" really means - because no-one, I mean literally no-one outside of a few genuinely mentally unhealthy individuals, who don't even post here on ENworld, expects lore to be absolutely static from say, the 1980s to now.

But a lot of people - probably including you, about settings/lore you like/care about, absolutely do expect some real nods to prior lore, some understanding of prior lore, even if you're going to change it. If this at least acknowledged that this was a huge change to the lore, that maybe recently the Purple Dragons had gone through some big changes (but it must have been a while ago given the implication the PC is actually deviant here but that Purple Dragons riding Amethyst dragons is common), then I think we'd say "This is dumb as hell but at least it's acknowledging the continuity". When you totally re-write what an organisation even is, though, that's one of the best ways to mess up lore. Especially when it's so pathetically literalist as this! God, talk about lazy - "Purple Dragons have Purple Dragons now lolz", that's like a parody World of Warcraft patch note.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You have never read the worst novel ever published?! Lucky you.

Worst ever? It's not even in the bottom 10% of FR novels. Maybe not bottom 25%.

And that's saying something, because it is an absolutely terrible novel, but the layers of dreck beneath it! Recall the 1990s, I DARE YOU, remember 1990s FR novels, feel the 6d6 psychic damage you inflict on yourself by doing so!

 

[doctorhook]

I think you missed my sly dig.

The Purple Worm was originally a dragon (wyrm), not a Dune worm/Lamprey knock-off.

50 years of products have caused some pretty wild diversions, revisions, conflations, and evolutions in the lore! Reading that Chainmail blurb you posted, I can’t tell if they’re talking about purple worms or purple dragons or deep dragons or whatever—seems like they may have all started as the same creature?

Anyway I’m a bit more interested in the PDK lore. In my headcanon I always imagined the “Purple Dragon” was just a mythical symbol of this knightly order, with purple selected since it wasn’t one of the “main” types of dragons and didn’t bear the stigma of the other colours. But I have no idea if that's actually true in Realmslore, or if there was an actual purple dragon at some point in the story.

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

Haha I feel seen. I definitely didn’t read the whole thread, I admit that

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Worst ever? It's not even in the bottom 10% of FR novels. Maybe not bottom 25%.

The revised versions of Spellfire and its follow on books are much improved. No more heavy hand of TSR/changing the novel’s direction while it was being written.

 

[Bladesinger]

I understand why you suggest this (esp given your handle), but renaming it doesn't over-write the pre-2024 version, which is what they want to do. They certainly don't want the 2014 Bladesinger and this subclass both existing simultaneously -- that's obvious duplication and overlap, and would be a bad and confusing design choice.

The name is fixed, and so the question then becomes is this an acceptable updating of the subclass? And I think, pretty clearly, it is. Because so many people wanted (demanded) backwards compatibility, rightly or wrongly, we're now in a position where the names of subclasses can't be changed easily, especially when there is a substantial niche or conceptual overlap, as there is here.

I disagree. They renamed many subclasses, and with backwards compatibility, you can technically still play the old version if you want and with GM approval.

 

[Yaarel]

The three primary color Dragons: Red, Blue, and Green.

When a Red Dragon and Blue Dragon have a baby, it is a Purple Dragon.

Blue and Green have an Cyan baby.

Red and Green have a Yellow baby.

Complex mating customs involving all three, Red, Blue, and Green produce a White Dragon.

It remains unknown where a Black Dragon comes from.

 

[Bladesinger]

That doesn't look like a lot of reasons. ;-P

The first thing I would point out is that flavor is easier to change than rules, and bladesong is based in performance so that's not really off kilter as a bard.

The second thing I would point out is that I don't think Bardic Inspiration ruins the concept. A gish that allows other characters bonuses to attack rolls, saving throws, armor class, and damage suits the concept.

Spells is worth discussing because it depends on what a person wants out of the spells in the first place. Both classes share several spells and both classes have spells the other does not. Magical Secrets means bards can take any spell on the wizard list, but not all of them because of the different spell prep rules so wizards can still have many spells the bard would never have.

I'm curious what spells you think wizards need for your bladesinger. You can obviously house rule as you want at a table you run, but that's not really relevant to the default rules.

Song of Victory and Battle Magic are the same ability. Extra Attack is the same ability for either. Bards don't get that 10th level subclass ability, but Song of Defense prevents damage for spell slots where a bard can spend spell slots on healing spells from a much earlier level to heal damage instead of preventing it so the difference is minor.

The valor bard starts with light armor while the bladesinger starts with no armor and continues with no armor. The valor bard adds medium and a shield, which is something you're looking for. The valor bard also gains more weapon proficiencies and already has that additional skill the bladesinger picks up, but with more options. Both can use a weapon as a spellcasting focus.

The bladesinger can only use blade song three times per day, typically, at 3rd level. This can also be ended by any incapacitation effect. Bladesong grants the AC benefit, using INT for attacks, and using weapons as a spell focus so that's all lost with the loss of bladesong. This makes it a temporary gish application that the bard isn't losing out on. The only subclass advantage the bladesinger grants is INT bonus attacking when bladesong is active. Either class can pick up Shillelagh somehow.

So maybe bard isn't for you for some other reason. It's your character and I'm not going to tell you what you want. But for other people I would probably continue to advise them to use a valor bard as a gish option similar to the bladesinger wizard. The real difference comes from base class features.

My big problem with the Valor Bard is that you can't use your Bardic Inspiration on yourself. Also, you don't get 'real' Wizard spells until around 10th level.

You are correct that the 6th and 14th Levels are virtually, if not actually, the same. That, to me, is incredibly bad design choice. There should be some differences. The original Bladesinger's 14th level ability was much better. Also, only using INT to hit and Damage while Bladesong is active really doesn't solve the problems either. So, I'm not even really a part time Gish if we go over 3 encounters. The INT to hit and Damage should at the least be on all the time. This is why I believe Training in War and Song should give you light armor, one weapon that you use INT for and is a spellcasting focus for you, and choose one skill. Then add the Advantage to acrobatics while the Bladesong is active.

Honestly, the original one was better. I may just House Rule the INT thing.

 

[Azzy]

The three primary color Dragons: Red, Blue, and Green.

When a Red Dragon and Blue Dragon have a baby, it is a Purple Dragon.

Blue and Green have an Cyan baby.

Red and Green have a Yellow baby.

Complex mating customs involving all three, Red, Blue, and Green produce a White Dragon.

It remains unknown where a Black Dragon comes from.

They're just another color of dragon going through a goth phase.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

After a discussion with one of my players, I had a thought about the Bladesinger. I have always hated the fact that they changed it for anyone other than an Elf to use, especially the Lore behind it, in that it is supposed to take almost 30 years to master the basics.

If you run an AP, PC's go from level 1 to 12 in a like a month.