D&D General Arcane Subclasses UA Survey is up

[Mind of tempest]

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.

Well one school is also called necromancery, it is confusing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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."

I’m really happy with the new PHB overall, but man between how out of date DDB is, and stuff like this….

Well, I’ve got a decade of experience homebrewing for 5e, and someone will put out a good third party SRD builder that is worth focusing on eventually. Ugh

 

[Bladesinger]

Well one school is also called necromancery, it is confusing.

We can agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Jensaarai]

the name of the third one needs workshoping.

"Spiritualist"?

 

[Corinnguard]

"Spiritualist"?

He's referring to the Summoner class. Pathfinder has a Summoner class.

Summoner – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

 

[Henadic Theologian]

If folks are worried about the Enchanter being too creepy, perhaps buff spells like Calm Emotions so it has more benifits, like healing when cast on allies.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

It's a pendulum swing. People compare the flavorful but more niche abilities for transmuter or conjurer against the equally flavorful but more potent abilities of the abjurer or diviner and it's hard to justify. 4e made everything in a class about combat and it felt overbalanced. 2014 tried to spread out noncombat features and you ended up with ranger favored enemy/terrain features. 2024 has swung the pendulum back towards features having a definitive use in combat (or a concrete effect on skills for social and exploration play).

In short, they basically said a feature that says "this is flavor/niche/rarely used isn't a feature" regardless of how much better it for the fiction.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's a pendulum swing. People compare the flavorful but more niche abilities for transmuter or conjurer against the equally flavorful but more potent abilities of the abjurer or diviner and it's hard to justify. 4e made everything in a class about combat and it felt overbalanced.

4e was the first mainline edition since 1e to make fighters competent and able to keep up out of combat - and was the first edition in the history of D&D to have fun to play rogues, which included giving them non-combat abilities that weren't just "higher number". And it was the first edition to include as core assistance for DMing complex tasks rather than just single actions (of course it was undercooked in the PHB). What it actually did and for which some people can't forgive it was ensured that some part of adventuring spellcasters' power budgets had to be spent on combat resources and that you couldn't just dominate the out of combat game as a spellcaster.

2014 tried to spread out noncombat features and you ended up with ranger favored enemy/terrain features.

Which wasn't because they were noncombat features but because they were lazily written in ways to not upset grognards. My proposal was something like:

Favoured Terrain. Due to expertise with a certain terrain you have learned skills which you have learned to apply anywhere:

• Mountain: Gain a climb speed equal to your speed
• Aquatic: Gain a swim speed equal to your speed and gain Advantage on constitution checks to hold your breath
• Forest: Gain Advantage on stealth checks
• Plains: Gain 10' on your base speed
• etc

2024 has swung the pendulum back towards features having a definitive use in combat (or a concrete effect on skills for social and exploration play).

In short, they basically said a feature that says "this is flavor/niche/rarely used isn't a feature" regardless of how much better it for the fiction.

And this after they ripped out all the support for anything not to do with combat that 4e had brought and reverted most of it to "Cast spell to solve problem and get closer to the combat".

 

[Remathilis]

4e was the first mainline edition since 1e to make fighters competent and able to keep up out of combat - and was the first edition in the history of D&D to have fun to play rogues, which included giving them non-combat abilities that weren't just "higher number". And it was the first edition to include as core assistance for DMing complex tasks rather than just single actions (of course it was undercooked in the PHB). What it actually did and for which some people can't forgive it was ensured that some part of adventuring spellcasters' power budgets had to be spent on combat resources and that you couldn't just dominate the out of combat game as a spellcaster.

Don't take my comment as a slam on 4e. But ADEU were designed to be used in combat. Some Utility powers were useful outside of combat, but the goal was that every round of combat was a chance to use your abilities. That was something 5e initially moved away from, and is now embracing again. Which is why so many features again focus on damage, healing and temp HP, battlefield movement, etc.

 

[Corinnguard]

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

While the 2024 PHB has a couple of pages that bring up the Exploration and Social Interaction pillars for 5.5e, they don't have much to go on mechanically as the Combat pillar does. So, the subclasses are more oriented to combat. As for the other two pillars, it's up to the player to role-play them during a session.

If you want to see all three pillars of gameplay in a given class/subclass, you might be better with a 5e-adjacent RPG such as Level Up.