Aigth back at it again with the new UA villainous subclass release, and I gotta say... It aint half bad. Hell Knight is actually playable, Titan druid is now genuinely a monster, so much so I HAD to make a character at all tiers of play for the playlets cuz I was having TOO much fun turning into a gargantuan Behemoth and js beating ts out of our human sized enemy John test dummy. Demonic sorcery got a sizable rework. The one thing im not content is WOTCS fixation on making feats and boons, js kinda... ass? They're definitely not up to par with strength of current dnd let alone, older editions where feets had a large mechanical impact on your character build. Famously 4e had the permafrost combo by using feats of the cold variant. Regardless to break this down into a mini review of what I like and what I think they should work on (I can't say I really dislike any of these anymore).
Circle of the Titan (Legally distinct Godzilla)
To start off with the running favorite Circle of the Titan Druid (full legal name which I will now refer as Kaiju druid from now on). Man the changes are a blast. It's considerably better given that they bumped up the natural AC of the forms, gave it scalled damage AND they gave them a much more consistent way to get most of its abilities off. Lets start with the positives, IT FEELS LIKE YOUR PLAYING A KAIJU, giving it Enlarge/Reduce was a great idea since it means u just have to hold concentration to maintain a bigger size wich is AWSOME, it also lead to us turning the gargantuan Kaiju into a planetary monster by stacking 5 ENLARGE on it (This was in a combat test btw, class so fun to play you genuinely start doing things like this). Most of the positives of this outweigh the negatives but id love to see some simple upgrades to fully flesh out the class.
I think the forms churn too many spell slots too quickly, Incandescent breath, Toxic Deluge and Energizing pollen are fine to be tied, but the AC boost, rampager and other stuff I think its tough. The AC boost id like to just be tied to something else, maybe proficiency? Wisdom? Passive +5? beats me but I like that its there at all. Rampager I think could definitely be a Number of times equal to your Wisdom and you deal 1d10 x Wisdom when u crush someone. Its a little sad to see the ability of Ink cloud and th telepathic link go, id like for them to be included back as they were pretty good tech options. Some extra nitpicks from me, Id love if Behemoth got a third attack at lvl 11-15, would go a long way into making it the super offensive powerhouse, and potentially allow all of them to replace one attack with the cast of their signature ability at this level. Regardless this class is super fun to play and the secret tech option is you can play Monkzilla, and do the Godzilla drop kick from that one movie (trust me I tried it and it was the most FUN thing of all time).
HELL KNIGTH (read as H E double hockey sticks Knight)
Well the Heck Knight is back in town and he's feeling himself after being upgraded from the worst subclass of all time, to viable. I still have gripes with the functioning of this class but after testing it at every tier with 4 different builds I can say it's definitely not terrible anymore. Starting with the good is I can somewhat better understand the ability this time and 1d6 (non scaling) damage applies per attack dealing an average of 39 damage at lvl 11 with a sword and a shield (5 str), so not completely terrible. The resistant to cold, fire or necrotic can be serviceable and having a 1/3 chance to apply your special effects at lvl 7 is NOT bad. now this is where my praise stops and hope that they can address some of this.
First and foremost the damage is a lil to low for my liking, and the class does not offer enough utility like a Battlemaster to be doing less damage. As such since they are bent on keeping the d6 damage I recommend that, you slowly scale up to 2d6 at lvl 7 and 3d6 at lvl 15. The damage spike becomes quite threatening with a 20% increase to damage at lvl 15 giving you 60 damage per turn utilizing the same stats as the first example. it also doubles your chances to inflict the wounds special effect, which I appreciate them changing to guarantee with an extra luck power. I think the -1 AC from devils luck should be propped up to -2 instead for a sizable dent in the AC. Even more important I saw a post that said that tying hellfire surge to Second wind would be smarter as the Hell Knight has a reason self heal and save their second winds is interesting. Also deffo would like the emanation to last 1 minute instead. The final gripe I have is that the new lvl 18 feature is genuinely good, just wish it did not self damage for seemingly no reason and it instead either damaged the creature (so it can be more offensive) or gave you advantage on your next roll (more defensive).
DEMON SORCERERY (CHARLIE CHARLIE CAME TO PLAY)
So Demonic sorcery basically got remade and it's slightly weaker but more balanced overall. That's where my praise stops for such a basic subclass. it's good that now u can cause a singularity than being the point of origin.
This class needs a lil bit more scaled damage for its things, 1d4 js docent cut it. Whip Is good but 2d10 would be nice. Also think this class needs a lil more meat. apart from that it seems fine. Its pretty good overall js pretty uninspired.
My review 9/10 (js for Kanjis)
