Unearthed Arcana Cast your guess for upcoming Unearthed Arcana

[Charles Rampant]

Given the way that nostalgia and embracing D&D's weird past seems to appeal to the current team, perhaps they'll surprise us all and do a Spelljammer article?

More seriously, I'm not sure yet whether the column is truly just beta-tests for books - some of it making it into a book doesn't necessarily make that its purpose. The column is obviously going to have 'excite people' as one of its main design goals, but beyond that is perhaps hard to guess. Probably clerical domains are something that we can expect, though: we all know that we could do with more of them, and their shape and size would easily allow a half-dozen with a few new spells to take up a whole column.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

Given this post, maybe they're alluding to Dragonlance content?

https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/641396011664064513

 

[delericho]

I often wonder what steps actually have to happen for an article to go from paper to internet posting that makes it so "impossible" to do on time.

I think it's a difference between internal and external constraints.

Back when they were publishing a physical magazine, they had to schedule print runs for particular dates, and it was very, very costly to delay. In practice, this meant that they worked a few months ahead, so that if something looked like it wasn't going to be ready they had time to slot something else in instead.

But internet publishing is much more flexible in this regard - they don't have a slot that they have to hit, nor do they have to coordinate everything so all the month's articles are ready at once. That means that if Mike Mearls needs a few more days to get it ready, he can take those days without taking a massive hit on cost.

On balance, I think that's all to the good. But it does have the negative side-effect that hitting a particular date is automatically a lower priority, and that makes it more likely something more important will come up. And given that Mike Mearls is responsible for the whole product line, he's probably got a plate full of important things to deal with.

 

[Mistwell]

Ranger!

"This installment of Unearthed Arcana presents a revised design of the ranger that builds on the class’s unique traits, creating a new set of class features for 1st level to 5th level. These features are designed to make the ranger feel distinct and interesting while still remaining true to its identity within the game."

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

So it sounds like they don't get spells? Primeval Awareness is, what, once a day without spells to fuel it? It's mainly a ribbon ability anyways since it doesnt give direction, closeness, and a ton of stuff will trip if anyways.

Given that they are going for a lower magic option, the ghost animal seems like it should be moved to a subclass feature, and replaced with the less showy powers already in the subclasses.

Ambuscade essentially grants Action Surge every fight (yeah, fighters can take other actions, but let's be honest - it's usually Attack), which seems like it might need a tweak.

 

[Li Shenron]

...it's that time of the month again!

The new UA article should be up any day.

What's going to be about this time?

 

[Parmandur]

Well, Mearls mentioned in the latest survey summary that the next few articles would be ambitious in scope. Maybe the full Artificer class, with subclasses; maybe Dark Sun specific material?

 

[Li Shenron]

DANG!

I checked WotC website literally just a few seconds before bumping up this thread, and now UA is already up...

 

[yoshikawa666]

Prestige classes would rock

You guessed right XD