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.

 

[wizard71]

I like that the new ranger subclass doubles down on Hunter’s Mark. It almost feels like trolling by WOTC.

 

[Kurotowa]

I’m kinda bummed to see the Hexblade lose Accursed Specter.

I'm not. I played a Hexblade in a couple year campaign that went to 14th level. Can you guess how many times I activated Accursed Spectrer in that time? Zero. Zero times.

It only triggered off personal killing blows on humanoids. The DM didn't throw us up against many humanoids that campaign, didn't use a lot of minion mobs, and my Hexblade was usually dueling the boss of any encounter. So my PC got exactly zero killing blows on humanoids, and that class feature might as well not have existed for me.

Can I see how it might shine in a differently structured campaign? Of course. But that doesn't disprove how unreliable and campaign dependent it is. It's the same problem as Rangers used to have with Favored Enemy, but more so. Which is why I will shed no tears over it being gone.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You could murder a few commoners.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm not. I played a Hexblade in a couple year campaign that went to 14th level. Can you guess how many times I activated Accursed Spectrer in that time? Zero. Zero times.

It only triggered off personal killing blows on humanoids. The DM didn't throw us up against many humanoids that campaign, didn't use a lot of minion mobs, and my Hexblade was usually dueling the boss of any encounter. So my PC got exactly zero killing blows on humanoids, and that class feature might as well not have existed for me.

Can I see how it might shine in a differently structured campaign? Of course. But that doesn't disprove how unreliable and campaign dependent it is. It's the same problem as Rangers used to have with Favored Enemy, but more so. Which is why I will shed no tears over it being gone.

Kinda reads like you only read half a sentence of the post and then decided to use it as an excuse to rant, rather than making any effort to comprehend what you were reading and respond accordingly.

This also shows quite well the problem with many people’s reaction to having any sort of negative reaction to or experience with a given thing. Complete unwillingness to consider any solution other than the nuke, even when there are trivially easy solutions.

Like making it trigger on the death of the hex target.

As I literally said in the post you cherry picked a sentence from.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

I was wrong, thank goodness

 

[DavyGreenwind]

Physical!

 

[Kurotowa]

Kinda reads like you only read half a sentence of the post and then decided to use it as an excuse to rant, rather than making any effort to comprehend what you were reading and respond accordingly.

Apologies for the reading comprehension fail. That happens sometimes when my morning caffeine hasn't kicked in yet and I hit a sore spot that sends me on a rant.

 

[maceochaid]

I sometimes feel like certain character concepts and flavor veer off with legacy flavor, and I definitely think this Hexblade is one. Looking at 3.5 they are a totally different class tied closer to sorcerers, warriors with an innate ability to curse. Then in 4E they were a semi-new Warlock class to add melee capabilities, but your pact was still Fiend/Fey/Star. 5E then tried to fix the Pact of the Blade by slotting in a pact with ... something? It seemed like they couldn't decide between an intelligent item Blackrazor, or maybe the Raven Queen of the Shadowfell - whatever, it was more a mechanic fix looking for flavor. So now the Hexblade is again tripping over it's own legacy to a bizarre concept that I don't think makes sense. With spells like shield and features like harrowing blade I would drop the intelligent weapon altogether and make the patron a dead warrior of great renown, like the Vampire Kas, or the Death Knight Lord Soth.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Apologies for the reading comprehension fail. That happens sometimes when my morning caffeine hasn't kicked in yet and I hit a sore spot that sends me on a rant.

Absolutely understandable. I hope my response wasn’t excessively acerbic.

Having cleared up the issue, I’m curious what you think of the idea of the Hexblade having a wraith that can simply be summoned once per day, and can regain the wraith or heal it when your hex target dies.

Or perhaps it is summoned when you cast Hex, lasts as long as the spell, and if it dies during that time can be regained if the target dies.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I’m also glad to see Accursed Specter go, though not for any mechanical reasons. I just thought it was weird flavor-wise to have this necromantic summoning ability for a subclass about wielding a magically bonded weapon.

Talked to the GM when my character was leveling up and would gain Accursed Specter. They let me swap with a toned down version of a 2024 warlock ability that lets the hexblade misty step as a reaction when taking damage, doing a small amount of damage in a 5ft radius at the departure or arrival point (Cha bonus times per Long Rest).

The change made the character feel slightly more like a tactical warrior, though the ability hasn’t come up a lot.

For this UA version of the subclass, I think Accursed Specter would also feel a bit redundant with the new Shadow Sorcerer’s summon undead ability.