Dungeons & Dragons Announces Horror Subclasses Unearthed Arcana

Dungeons & Dragons has announced a new Unearthed Arcana focused on horror subclasses. The new UA, available now on D&D Beyond, introduces a mix of new subclasses and thematic subclasses from 2014 5th Edition. The full list of subclasses are as follows:

• College of Spirits Bard
• Grave Domain Cletic
• Phantom Rogue
• Shadow Sorcerer
• Heblade Patron Warlock
• Undead Patron Warlock
• Reanimator Artificer
• Hollow Warden Ranger

The Reanimator Artificer is built around creating a reanimated companion that can act in combat and explodes when it dies. The Hollow Warden Ranger adds a Wrath of the Wild feature that activates when casting Hunter's Mark and adds various emanation effects while active.

No word on what this UA is related to, but there is a mystery product coming out in October and these horror subclasses could tie into a potential Ravenloft book.

You can check out the full Unearthed Arcana here.

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

An Artificer subclass? That is unexpected.

 

[Yaarel]

My 5e vampire (must update for 2024) got split between sub classes of monk and warlock. I think it's too big for one class to own.

I meant Vampire as a new class like Artificer (like the 4e Vampire class).

 

[KoolMoDaddy-O]

I played a "reanimator artificer" in a Deadlands (Savage Worlds) game once - the reaction from other players when I first got to yell "IT'S ALIIIIVE!" was worth the investment.

I backed the Kickstarter for The Crooked Moon and recently started reading through the PDF (the hardback doesn't arrive until fall). One of the new subclasses is for barbarians called Path of the Experiment, in which you can use different serums and compounds while raging to create different bonuses or effects. You can skin it as either a Jekyll/Hyde character or a Frankenstein's monster. Lot of fun to imagine a campaign in which both the creator and the created were members of the same party.

 

[Weiley31]

I like the idea of the Hex blade getting special combat maneuvers they can use against Hexed targets.

*Low key wouldn't mind if they expanded that more and they got a battle master lite sort of list for such things *

 

[Horwath]

haha,
another ranger subclass that relies 100% on Hunter's Mark... why am I not surprised?

just delete every spell from ranger class that has Concentration tag to save some page space....

 

[Nightfly]

Even then, how often do PCs drop to 0 hp in 5e? Not that often IME. For 1d4 + 1/2 your level?

I just dropped a player to zero in tonight's game, first round. Maybe your DMs need more skill... or more cruelty.

But seriously, it's quite an indictment of how soft the death mechanics are in 5e that someone thinks that it's underpowered to bring a bleeding-out player straight back into combat with a cantrip. That would be game-breakingly powerful in most iterations of D&D.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The druid circle of spore could be dreadful if we remember the infected from the famous videogame (and now action-live serie) "the last of us" or the 2008 horror movie "splinter". Have you forgotten the yellow musk creeper?

A vampire PC is possible but not advisable. It is not only the damage by sunlight or the divine power of the rose of Guadalupe but DMs using bloodless monsters: constructs, elementals, plants, toxic abominations, incorporeal undeads..

I imagine a werebeast PC like an update of totemist shaman class from "Magic of Incarnum" and a vampire monster class may be something like the shadowcaster from 3.5 magic of incarnum.

I love vampire vs werewolf antagonism.

I miss the "deathless" monster type. It was like undead but healed by positive energy, hurt by necrotic damage and "evil clerics can turn or destroy deathless creatures as good clerics turn or destroy undead. Good clerics and paladins can rebuke, command, or bolster deathless creatures as evil clerics rebuke, command, or bolster undead".

I like the concept of "haruspex" class, like the biopunk cousin of the necromancer. Do you remember the prestige classes osteomancer, flux adept and cerebrex from Dragon #317? And let's add some touch from the biohacker class from Paizo Starfinder. Do you remember the videogame "Soul Sacrifice"?

Do you know the manghua "Virus Girlfriend: My girlfriend is a zombie"? It is like mixing Resident Evil but the isekai-style MC with a harem of monster girls.

I like some ideas from World of Darkness+Chronicles of Darkness, and from Kult: Lost Divinity.

Ravenloft is too small for campaigns style hunt of the monster of the week. Innistrad allows space for conspirancies and fights among factions.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I just dropped a player to zero in tonight's game, first round. Maybe your DMs need more skill... or more cruelty.

But seriously, it's quite an indictment of how soft the death mechanics are in 5e that someone thinks that it's underpowered to bring a bleeding-out player straight back into combat with a cantrip. That would be game-breakingly powerful in most iterations of D&D.

It's a very weak ability, and meant to just be a flavorful ribbon feature. The actual Level 3 feature is Reanimated Companion.

Jolt to Life is just a neat flavor mechanic that isn't meant to matter but will be really cool once in a blue moon

 

[WanderingMystic]

As far as a werewolf goes the Path of the Beast Barbarian along with the shifter race makes a fairly good one.

I play with a Grave cleric so we go down to 0 ho to very few sessions so he can pull the healing shenanigans they get In my friends high level (15th) campaign someone dies almost every session but their combats are brutal and epic scale.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think an Undead/Shadowfell Fizban-style book would be pretty awesome.

Yep. Sticking the Ravenloft label on it actually limits the potential market. Undead are ubiquitous enough to D&D that they warrant their own book, not one focused on a single setting.

You remember when they used to lump subclasses from two different books into one UA to disguise what upcoming books were about?