Dungeons & Dragons releases Villainous Options playtest

Wizards of the Coast has released a new playtest featuring four new "villainous" subclasses, along with two more feat paths designed to transform characters into either a lich or a death knight. Today, Wizards released a new "Villainous Options" Unearthed Arcana. The new document contains four subclasses - a Pestilence Domain Cleric, a Circle of the Titan Druid, a Hell Knight Fighter, and a Demonic Sorcerer, alongside feat paths intended to slowly transform a player character into either a lich or a death knight. While previous D&D books have brought back the concept of mini-feat trees, these villainous paths are intended to be used at every opportunity a feat can be taken.

The Pestilence Domain cleric's core ability allows it to confer exhaustion levels on opponents via use of Channel Divinity. Enemies who die while having one or more Exhaustion level can explode and inflict necrotic damage on others. The capstone ability allows the Cleric to transform into a swarm of pestilence-infused pests.

The Circle of the Titan Druid has a Wild Shape ability that transforms them into various kinds of kaiju-esque monsters, which eventually become gargantuan in size.

The Hell Knight Fighter deals extra Infernal damage that varies in type depending on the ability and eventually transforms foes into minor devils upon their death.

The Demonic Sorcerer likewise grants various kinds of sorcerer abilities Abyssal effects, culminating in the ability to summon a demon to the battlefield once per day for free.

The path feats are interesting - both culminate with a feat that can only be taken at Level 12 or higher and requires a player to have at least two other feats from the feat path. Death Knights gain a pool of Death Points that fuel various abilities, while the Lich gains a Soul Jar and eventually gains the mechanical benefits of being a lich.

The playtest is open now, with a playtest survey launching next week.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One big reason Solamnic Knights weren't paladins when we met them in the original Dragonlance books is because there were no holy powers in Krynn at that time. The gods had peaced out.

That wasn’t really an issue in 1st edition, since paladins didn’t get their spells til level 9, and DL1 was 4-7. A at least one of the Solannic Knight orders got cleric spells in any case. Mostly it was to sell books. There where alternative versions of wizards and clerics in that book too, even though Dragonlance had bumbled along for three or four years using the PHB versions.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Can anyone think of an example of a female Death Knight from popular-ish media?

Anyways, as to the "why is this charisma-based?" question, I think there are two workarounds:

1. Make it player's choice as suggested
2. If they plan on releasing many feat-chain options (if the player base doesn't hate the concept) then perhaps they already have int-based and wis-based ideas in mind? I'm not entirely sure what those would be (actually Bladesinger would be a good one but that's taken)

Sally Whitemane

Sally Whitemane is a human death knight, once a priestess of the Light and the High Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade. In life, she directed the Crusade's activities from within the Scarlet Monastery's Cathedral, until her death at the hands of Lilian Voss and the adventurers. During the third...

warcraft.wiki.gg

 

[SkidAce]

Sylvannas Windrunner in WoW, Kalistra in League of Legends, Saber Alter in Fate: Heven's Fell, Joan d'Arc in Drifters.

Also, I know this is limited to my preferences, but Soulcatcher from Ten Who Were Taken in Chronicles of the Black Company.

for the Black Company example.

 

[bedir than]

I think they may have started to notice that the blandification of 5.5 has gone too far. There is a lot of roleplay fluff for the Deathknight and Lich in the UA, with tables suggesting how they go their powers, etc. Note that UA normally cuts out most of the fluff. It's included here because it's important.

The PHB may be bland, intentionally.

This ignores that the Realms books are not bland. The Feats in those books are full of narrative.
Having strong narrative postures in non-core books is the intent.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I think they may have started to notice that the blandification of 5.5 has gone too far. There is a lot of roleplay fluff for the Deathknight and Lich in the UA, with tables suggesting how they go their powers, etc. Note that UA normally cuts out most of the fluff. It's included here because it's important.

None of the flavor provided pidgeonholes it into specific classes the way limiting it to Charisma only does. And flavor-wise, if something is made to be a fallen Paladin then what exactly is a reason it cannot work with Cleric too? If it is designed for Fighter, then surely it should also work with Ranger, Barbarian or Monk, flavor-wise?

And what you call "blandification" I call a good design that actually allows creativity and experimentation.

One big reason Solamnic Knights weren't paladins when we met them in the original Dragonlance books is because there were no holy powers in Krynn at that time. The gods had peaced out.

However they were founded because of a vision sent by the gods of good, they served said gods of good, they upheld oaths of honor ... honestly they're about as paladin-ey as you can get without being the proper class.

And again, in one of Weis & Hickman novels it is pretty much said before Cataclysm they just flat out were Paladins, without saying the word itself.

 

[bedir than]

I'm taking a deep dive into Ayoub's statements at Gary Con.

I think this UA is meant for the D&D products coming out during the Season of Warlock, the video game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm taking a deep dive into Ayoub's statements at Gary Con.

I think this UA is meant for the D&D products coming out during the Season of Warlock, the video game.

That’s going to be difficult to time, as we saw with BG3 tie-ins. Not allowing for delays in video game development leads to poor quality products being released.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

what exactly is a reason it cannot work with Cleric too

Clerics become liches. It’s mentioned in the 1st edition monster manual.

it should also work with Ranger, Barbarian or Monk, flavor-wise?

Who should it, they are not knights? Different classes are different. Making all classes the same, devoid of any lore or fluff, is what blandification is. If you don’t want class choice to have any significance you can play a classless system.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Clerics become liches. It’s mentioned in the 1st edition monster manual.

Who should it, they are not knights? Different classes are different. Making all classes the same, devoid of any lore or fluff, is what blandification is. If you don’t want class choice to have any significance you can play a classless system.

1. Stop making "blandification" happen, it won't happen.
2. Let me get this straight. You look at modern Cleric, that goes to battle with armor, often heavy, swining mace with divine power and dispersing will of their god, just like a Paladin, and you think they could not make sense as a Death Knight because these are for Paladins, and instead must be a Lich because a book from 80's, when Clerics were glorified health potion dispenser, said so? Are you, by chance, an Ultramarines fan?
3. "Knight" is not a class, even if I personally believe Fighter should be renamed Knight and Monk should be renamed Fighter. If Death Knight is related to concept of Knighthood, which can be given as a reward to any character, especially that of martial persuasion, it should be avialable to every class. And if we tie it to the name while keeping Charisma requirement, then we effectively locked out one Fighter subclass that should have access to Death Knight feats - Eldritch Knight.
4. You want to know what is really bland? The utter, wasteful content bloat that would be facilitated with your insistence of keeping some vague and arbitrary demand of "class identity" rigid at all costs. We had this problem in 3.5 and it was just waste of paper to fill the space with feats, prestige classes and so on, whose only purpose was to be "cool thing X, but for class Z, instead of Y". It's a wasteful, self-indulgent and plain bad game design.

 

[kapars]

The Survey is not working for me. It opens a page to download the PDF but no link to the survey.