D&D General Arcane Subclasses UA Survey is up

[tombowings]

I'm disappointed. Again, every subclass is solely oriented toward combat, generally ignoring the other three pillars of play.

2014 Conjurer and Transmuter had some really fun 3rd-level abilities that have been removed in favor of combat power. Yawn.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

WotC needs to stop jerking around and reintroduce Prestige Classes. All this UA material has been done before in other editions and can be done better with homebrew. We need to see how the 5e system handles elite class hybrids. I see so many builds that are just .... all over the place and make no sense. The structure and enhanced proficiency provided by Prestige classes would be a welcomed addition to a system that IMO falls a little flat at higher levels.

The core problem is that a LOT of people hate PrCs.

Like their hatred is genuinely comparable to AM's hatred in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Even something that smells just a little too much like them will raise hackles. Anything that actually is in the same mechanical space, especially if the designers actually call it "Prestige Class(es)", will invite almost instantaneous revulsion and rejection.

Which is really a shame, because it's an extremely useful design space. But people remember just how god-awful 3e was with its PrCs, and they never, ever want to go back, no matter how useful that design space is.

 

[Kurotowa]

I've been having migraine issues, but I found a window where I felt like I could enter some semi-cogent responses. Though I chose to only submit responses on the ones I felt I had clear feedback for. So I only rated the Arcane Archer, Tattooed Warrior, and Hexblade. Arcane Archer and Hexblade got Yellows, where I highlighted what I felt the issues were. Tattooed Warrior got a red flag, because I felt the entire design of paying a high Focus Point cost for limited spellcasting was flawed.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this, since I'm seeing a lot more negative sentiment around this UA than most.

 

[Garmel]

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this, since I'm seeing a lot more negative sentiment around this UA than most.

Could the recent departure of talent at WOTC be contributing to the lack of quality in this UA?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Could the recent departure of talent at WOTC be contributing to the lack of quality in this UA?

Or the departures because of the lack of ideas.

 

[Kurotowa]

Could the recent departure of talent at WOTC be contributing to the lack of quality in this UA?

I mean, maybe. There's usually a lot of lead time before we see anything at all, even UA playtests, so it's hard to really say for sure.

Maybe the staffing changes are impacting quality control. Maybe the flood of options we're seeing means they're being wildly experimentative with the new edition and expecting half of the ideas to fail. We really don't know, we really have no way of finding out, and it feels slightly irresponsible to speculate baselessly on the topic.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I know this ship has sailed seeing as how four subclasses are already in the PHB, however, they should have gone with more thematic subclasses rather than attach themselves to the old eight schools. I’d propose the following -

Battle Mage - a master of Abjuration and Evocation magic

Beguiler - A master of Enchantment and Illusion magic

Necromancer - A master of Divination and Necromancy magic

Summoner - A master of Conjuration and Transmutation magic (this one is a bit of a stretch, but I think it can be made to work, the
name needs work too, but you get the idea)

I am also a fan of Tales of the Valiant Cantrip Master subclass. I think this would have been a better way to go, but YMMV.

the name of the third one needs workshoping.

 

[Burnside]

I feel like this UA is the first UA where a design priority was pretty clearly "only have this subclass do stuff that DNDBeyond is already coded to do."

 

[bedir than]

Could the recent departure of talent at WOTC be contributing to the lack of quality in this UA?

Considering UA go out for internal discussion and playtest well before we see it in UA I expect that Jeremy and Chris would have been involved in the process for these books that have been on the planning calendar for about a year

 

[Bladesinger]

the name of the third one needs workshoping.

Why? Necromancy was commonly used for divination purposes by speaking with the dead. D&D, of course, has expanded what they do, but this seems like a good take on them. That one seems to fit for me. The Summoner, on the other hand, yeah, that one needs work.