D&D World of Warcraft subclasses will swap out classic class features for new abilities

The new Dungeon Masters series has previewed some upcoming subclass mechanics for the upcoming World of Warcraft D&D book. Last night, the first two episodes of Dungeon Masters premiered on D&D’s YouTube channel. This season focuses on the upcoming World of Warcraft book, with players using character options from that book and playing through an adventure inspired by the book. The first episodes revealed some teases as to how the upcoming WoW inspired subclasses will work, with Neil Newbon playing as an Oath of the Ebon Blade Death Knight. The Death Knight is a WoW class and appears to use the Paladin class as a base. Notably, the Oath of Ebon Blade has two features that replace core paladin features. Death Coil is a replacement for Lay on Hands and creates a dice pool of necrotic energy that players can inflict on foes. The size of the pool is based on a player’s Charisma modifier, with players spending an Action to force a creature within range to make a saving throw or be hit by necrotic energy. The Death Knight will also get a new spell called Rune Strike that acts as a counterpart to Divine Smite, with the spell dealing necrotic damage and dealing bonus damage to celestials.

Another new feature in the World of Warcraft book is a revamped pet system. This was partially shown off in the episode, with a Beast Master Ranger gaining the ability to assign weapon mastery features to their animal companion. This means that, when the animal companion makes a successful attack, they can inflict one of the weapon mastery effects chosen by the Ranger. The weapon mastery ability can also be swapped out with every long rest.

A video from the Insight Check YouTube channel confirmed that the Death Knight, Demon Hunter, and Evoker classes are “hero classes,” which are available to Level 3 characters and higher. These Hero Classes require players to choose a specific subclass that alters certain base features of their class. Only the Death Knight and Demon Hunter classes feature changes to their respective classes, while the Evoker changes the Draconic Sorcery subclass.

The new subclasses in the World of Warcraft were not publicly playtested before release. Instead, a secret playtest was held, with testers held by an NDA. The new World of Warcraft book comes out on November 17th.

 

[Steampunkette]

... so all Death Knights are Paladins until level 3? Weird!

(This is a joke about 5.5e moving all archetypes to level 3, even if it makes no sense for the class in question)

 

[Christian Hoffer]

... so all Death Knights are Paladins until level 3? Weird!

(This is a joke about 5.5e moving all archetypes to level 3, even if it makes no sense for the class in question)

They are defining the Death Knight as a “Hero Class” and basically telling people who want to play as a Death Knight to start your campaign at Level 3.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

... so all Death Knights are Paladins until level 3? Weird!

(This is a joke about 5.5e moving all archetypes to level 3, even if it makes no sense for the class in question)

If you played warcraft3, you would know that Athas the death knight was actually a paladin before he became a death knight... so perfectly within lore.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They are defining the Death Knight as a “Hero Class” and basically telling people who want to play as a Death Knight to start your campaign at Level 3.

Ort he DM just allows people to swap level 1 and 2 features before chosing the death knight archetype.

 

[Tigris]

... so all Death Knights are Paladins until level 3? Weird!

(This is a joke about 5.5e moving all archetypes to level 3, even if it makes no sense for the class in question)

Official recommended starting level in 5.5 is level 3 anyway. So its not a problem, unless some adversial GMs force level 1 and 2 on players.

They are defining the Death Knight as a “Hero Class” and basically telling people who want to play as a Death Knight to start your campaign at Level 3.

Well thats just repeating the normal recommendations.



This does upon up more customization in subclasses, but it is just inconsistent in what was before...

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I really hope they keep using this hero class feature going into the future, rather than never touching it again after WoW.

It has an insane amount of potential, especially for those concepts which overlap with existing classes, but are also too unique to just be made into a subclass while retaining their identity.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

They are defining the Death Knight as a “Hero Class” and basically telling people who want to play as a Death Knight to start your campaign at Level 3.

If I was running a game from level 1, and a player wanted to play one of these hero classes, I'd probs tell them to swap out the relevant abilities from the start.

Though as we've not seen the details yet, there might be something which prevents that working smoothly.

 

[Christian Hoffer]

I added some info from another channel clarifying that there are three subclasses that functionally act as Hero Classes that alter base abilities.

 

[Steampunkette]

They are defining the Death Knight as a “Hero Class” and basically telling people who want to play as a Death Knight to start your campaign at Level 3.

Sure. They defined it as a "Hero Class" in World of Warcraft, too.

If you played warcraft3, you would know that Athas the death knight was actually a paladin before he became a death knight... so perfectly within lore.

"If you played" c'mon, UngeheurLich! You know who you're talking to, here! Also not all Death Knights started as Paladins, though the more famous ones did. Arthas, Mograine, Thassarian, Koltira... all the ones who died at the Second Battle of Light's Hope Chapel.

The point remains that it means you have no choice but to play a Paladin before level 3, and then your Oath kills you and animates you as undead, I guess? "I promise to uphold the ideals of the Ebon Blade!" cough, hack, sputter

Official recommended starting level in 5.5 is level 3 anyway. So its not a problem, unless some adversial GMs force level 1 and 2 on players.

Yes. It is. Which is really bad game design.

"Oh, we have to limit level 1 power so people don't splash multiple classes for power! And also level 1 is irrelevant. And so is level 2. Unless you're a JERK of a DM who hates their players!!!"

Just design the game to work from level 1. Or make "Level 3" into level 1 and have a 17 level game.

It makes the game even harder for new players. People complained Warlocks got "Too Much to Choose" at level 1, and now to make a starting character you have to choose all of that AND MORE. Pick a struggle, WotC.

This does upon up more customization in subclasses, but it is just inconsistent in what was before...

I don't think it opens up anything. Druid archetypes were already giving alternate expenditures for Wild Shape, Paladin and Cleric archetypes were already giving alternative expenditures for Channel Divinity.

The only thing it "Opens Up" is the ability to say "You lose this class functionality entirely". And at that point why not just present it as a new class with a similar structure?

At least that way you could have Blood, Frost, and Unholy as entirely separate archetypes, rather than presumably the Oath of the Ebon Blade either trying to embody one of the three, blend the three, or provide a separate in-archetype-archetype like Totem Barbarian.

Is it more work? Yes. But it opens up WAY more design choices.