Dungeons & Dragons Releases New Unearthed Arcana Subclasses, Strongly Hinting at Dark Sun

Wizards of the Coast has released four new D&D subclasses for playtesting, all of which have heavy thematic ties to the post-apocalyptic Dark Sun setting. The four subclasses, released as "Apocalyptic Subclasses," include the Circle of Preservation Druid, the Gladiator Fighter, the Defiled Sorcerer, and the Sorcerer-King Patron Warlock. Although not stated outright, the Gladiator and Sorcerer-King Patron are explicit nods to the Dark Sun setting, set in a ruined world ruled by Sorcerer-Kings where gladiatorial fights were common.

The Circle of Preservation Druid creates areas of preserved land that grants buffs to those who stand upon it. The Gladiator adds secondary Weapon Mastery properties to their attacks, with bonus abilities. Notably, the Gladiator uses Charisma as its secondary stat. The Defiled Sorcerer can expend its hit dice to amp up damage to its attacks and can also steal the life of its targets to deal additional damage. The Sorcerer-King Patron gains a number of abilities tying into tyranny and oppression, with the ability to cast Command as a Bonus Action without expending a spell slot, causing targets to gain the Frightened Condition, and forcing those who attack them to re-roll successful attacks.

The survey for the subclasses goes live on August 28th.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

RAW in 2024 Warlcok does not and cannot know who their patron is before level 3

False. Before level 3 the default is that your patron isn’t specified, but no actual rule prevents deciding your patron up front.

and DM is not allowed to have them directly interact with the patron before level 10, because level ten feature specifies that before Warlock reaches this level, patron can only communicate through agents, never directly.

That is a misrepresentation of the feature.

Taking into account most games end around level 10, this pretty much removes patron from the game and turning Warlock into set of mechanical benefits, with no roleplaying consequences or expectations the patron carried with them in 2014 version.

The 2014 had no mechanical weight for the patron at all, while the 2024 version does.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That doesn't mean it's a bad rule and as designed and thus intended by the designers, the Patron is a non-entity who bears nominal effect of the plot if at all, not an NPC Warlock could interact with (tbh best part of being a Warlock).

The feature, by the way, says that “you usually contacted your patron via intermediaries”. It DOES NOT say that the patron wasn’t completely capable of waking you up in the middle of the night for an argument about the ethics of burning down a shop in the middle of Luskan because the owner was evil.

It also doesn’t say that you could not contact the patron directly before level nine. In fact, it directly allows for you to be able to by using the word “usually”. That literally means there are possible exceptions, ie that you could contact them directly, but the means to do so relied on the story/DM/your ingenuity. Just like before.

What’s more, the only thing I can find that suggest that you don’t know who your patron is, is one line in the Pact Magic feature that you are making way too much of.

It says the patrons identity is unclear, sure. The introduction says that you learned forbidden rituals and studied the nature of a type of otherworldly being in order to perform occult rituals to gain power from them. Both are flavor text, not rules.

Nothing in any of that means that you cannot know your patron at level 1, nor that your dm “isn’t allowed” to do anything at all, ever.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would like subclasses could be chosen at level 1, to feel my PC is special from the first moment. Maybe the solution could be something like an "origin feat", some bonus if you have joined to some guild or you belong to some clan or noble house. It would be mainly a bonus for certain social interactions, or a cheaper price to buy certain things.

* DS needs more variety of antagonist factions. These can't be only wild monsters, hostile barbarian tribes or bandits, and SKs+ defilers. And the city-states are relatively small for secret lairs of hidden factions like criminal guilds. Let's remember the size of urban sandboxes from videogames like "Grand Thief Auto" or "Assasin's Creed".

* How could be a "crusader" (martial adept, 3.5 Tome of Batle) in DS, maybe working like templars?

 

[SableWyvern]

* DS needs more variety of antagonist factions. These can't be only wild monsters, hostile barbarian tribes or bandits, and SKs+ defilers. And the city-states are relatively small for secret lairs of hidden factions like criminal guilds. Let's remember the size of urban sandboxes from videogames like "Grand Thief Auto" or "Assasin's Creed".

The Veilled Alliance can be allies, enemies or both.

Druids, merchants/merchant houses, outlying communities (human or otherwise), slavers. Kreen tribes. Internal noble and templar factions fighting over trade, logging rights or whatever. That's just off the top of my head and, if that's not enough, there's plenty of scope for adding your own, but the last thing I would want is so much "stuff" that there is no room left for me to make the setting my own without a lot of additional effort untangling the "canon" factions.

From what I can tell, the size of the cities has not been consistent across the editions, but there is some good fanwork out there covering reasonably large versions of the city states and discussing how they manage to feed themselves.

 

[Phantom_Miria]

Thread died down a little, so I guess I'll say some stuff I've been thinking about.

At some point early in the thread someone said something that I thought was really true: the release of new Dark Sun stuff can't actually take anything away from the old stuff, when you really think about it.
Some people are concerned because they don't see a good track record with how WotC/Hasbro has been handling older settings in the past, and as fans they naturally don't want to see stuff they like "ruined". This fear is all the more justified by the fact that Dark Sun is more explicitly in the realm of Dark Fantasy and the trend so far has been for defanging and smoothing the edge off older products, but Dark Sun shines the most thanks to its sharp edges. I share a lot of those concerns too because I'm a fan of the original Dark Sun setting, I'm a fan of darker shades of fantasy, and I think something weird must have happened with TTRPG circles for becoming so sensitive about so many random recurring topics in fiction, all while in movie and video games you see stuff like The Witcher (a setting where racism, sexism and oppression are totally systemic in society and the ambiguously moral "heroes" of the setting can't realistically do anything about it. Arguably less so than in Dark Sun!) and Games of Thrones (less racism, more rape and incest to make up for it) being highly popular with mainstream audiences.

But regardless of that, here's the thing: if Dark Sun for 5e comes out and it's everything people have been dreading for, it's everything bad people thought it would be and maybe something worse...
It'd be just a newer release that happens to be really lame. Nothing more.

The older stuff that made the setting iconic and popular enough to remain a talking point for years and years after having no official release will remain untouched in the older editions they're from. Older fans will shun the new material while newcomers might buy it only to find a mediocre product, then either forget about it or look deeper into the IP and run back into the cool stuff from the original editions. There are several really good summaries for the Dark Sun setting that are on Youtube and have hundreds of thousands of views, it's not like the stuff is hard to find. None of that stuff is going away, and if anything it might get a boost.

If Dark Sun for 5e comes out and it's absolutely terrible it doesn't matter, it's just gonna be memory holed within a couple years while the iconic stuff remains what will be thought of as "Dark Sun".
If, on the other hand, Dark Sun for 5e comes out and it's as good as it can realistically be then we get something that probably still won't compare with the breakthrough that was the original, but like with 4e it might offer new ideas and new concepts to work with.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Somebody would be happy with only the update of the crunch and the unlocking in DM Guild.

Do you remember the book "the little prince"? WotC doesn't want to sell us the "picture of a little lamb" but "the picture of a box that contains a little lamb inside".

DS is post-apocaliptic but not too dark in the sense parents can play D&D with their own children.

* The SKs should worry too much to keep the biopunk tech if they wanted to use pumping motors to extract water from underground sources

* The aspirant was a cleric variant class from Dragon #311

* How would be a DS version of the franchise "Robotix"? Could the cibertronians(transformers) to survive in the other continents from Athas? Maybe they could produce their own alternate source of energon.

* What if the Phyrexians tried to conquer Athas but they landed in the opposite side of the region of Tyr, and they were expeled by fiend armies?

* What if illithid tried to conquer the Athaspace but they failed, among other reasons, because the "outbreak" of the cult of Thoon? And also the zerns (3.5 MM IV) arrived to collect tissues for future experiments.

* What if there is a "plague" of plant-monsters (Do you remember the cartoon "Jayce and the wheeled warriors"? These would be like biopunk living machines with traits of plants and undead. They aren't affected by defiling magic or necrotic damage but they can be hurt by divine magic by sun or light clerics. And this plague could "craft" mechas that would be piloted/riden by living hammadriads who want revengue.

Or biopunk machines and vehicles that are moved by elemental spirits, like in Eberron, but these elementals were the souls of sentient mortals like humans or other species.

* What if there is a plane where arcane spellcasters, preservers or defilers, could suffer some backslash if they dare to cast an arcane spell?

* Should the tohr-kreen be reintroduced like a PC specie?

 

[JLowder]

Metaplot is a cynical ploy to try and force players to buy every product when it comes out in order to keep up.

That's only true if you take the most cynical approach possible and the products do not stand alone, if you need to buy the fiction to enjoy the games and so on. In the case of Dark Sun and the other cross-media metaplot efforts at TSR, that was simply not the case. The novels stood alone. You didn't need to read the novels to play the games. You didn't need to play the game to enjoy the novels (as shown by the fiction typically outselling the game line releases by thousands and tens of thousands of copies).

 

[JLowder]

I agree that metaplot is generally bad, but I don't think the point of it is to try to force players to keep up. What I think it is is game designers wanting to be storytellers, so that's what they do. In the specific case of D&D, I also believe that the novels generally made the company more money than the game stuff (at least in the short run) – I believe @JLowder used to work in the TSR book publishing department and discussed that in some threads – so when the needs of the novel line and the game publishing line collided, the novels tended to win.

Yes, I worked in the Book Department from 1988 to 1994 and was at one time series editor for both the Ravenloft and Realms fiction lines. I was also the go-to for RPG–fiction crossover projects, which was one reason why I got recruited to the Dark Sun team early on, immediately after Mary Kirchoff, Tim Brown, Troy Denning, and Brom had fleshed out the initial goals and creative vision. I was the editor for the first five Dark Sun novels, the Prism Pentad, and might have continued as primary Dark Sun fiction editor had the Book Department not moved away from designating series editors in late 1992/1993.

Dark Sun as a whole was a deliberate attempt to present game material, fiction, art, and graphic design with a coherent creative vision from the release of the first product. The idea was the fiction and games would be complementary, but not compulsary. To link them too tightly would have severely limited the potential fiction sales, which were assumed (correctly) from the start to have a much higher ceiling than the RPG sales. You could read the fiction without playing the game. You could play the game without reading the fiction. If you did both, the product lines had creative and aesthetic through-lines, but they stood alone just fine. The goal was not to force customers to buy everything.

Mistakes were still made--the Dark Sun novels and the metaplot probably should not have undermined the initial boxed set, for example. Not a shock, as the company and the individuals working on the various lines (even the products within the lines) were still learning how to coordinate these kinds of things. But the goal, at least for the creative teams putting the Dark Sun products together, was not to manipulate the readers and players. The continuity was more a reward for the superfans than a goad for those who were buying only the games or only the fiction.

Metaplot is neither good nor bad inherently. It all depends on how (and why, which shapes the "how") it's implemented.

In larger terms, the success of the fiction lines at TSR, with the novels selling to many more people than were buying the world-focused game material, meant the company had an interest in aligning the game products with the fiction. If someone read a Ravenloft novel and wanted to try out the RPG, it made sense to have the game material welcome them with the same Strahd they read about in Vampire of the Mists or to provide Realms players with the stats for the characters from the fiction so they could meet (or fight) Elminster or Drizzt, which explains Realms supplements such as Hall of Heroes. This wasn't always easy to pull off, and there were many missteps, but that was the idea. It's a way to use the success of the fiction to potentially grow the audience for the game and make the game more friendly for the newly RPG curious poking their heads into the game store for the first time after reading the novels.

A significant number of fans for any IP want tight continuity, and this was a growing and common sentiment in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the US TTRPG market. They want all releases across all media to tie together and to be consistent. That's still the case for some fans. You see it throughout the internet in wikis and all kinds of other manifestations of continuity-themed lore bibles.

While some fans still want tight continuity, the overall lack of tight IP continuity being implemented by WotC now makes sense in the current market. The RPG as a game concept (you tell your own story around the table, even playing in shared worlds) is more widely understood and media audiences are more sophisticated and accepting of variations between media. It was a different market in 1990. Some design giants, such as Greg Stafford, started in the earliest years of RPGs from the notion that "your Glorantha will vary" for every individual group or player, but he was way ahead of the market as a whole. Not a shock with Greg.

 

[Staffan]

Dark Sun as a whole was a deliberate attempt to present game material, fiction, art, and graphic design with a coherent creative vision from the release of the first product. The idea was the fiction and games would be complementary, but not compulsary. To link them too tightly would have severely limited the potential fiction sales, which were assumed (correctly) from the start to have a much higher ceiling than the RPG sales. You could read the fiction without playing the game. You could play the game without reading the fiction. If you did both, the product lines had creative and aesthetic through-lines, but they stood alone just fine. The goal was not to force customers to buy everything.

Mistakes were still made--the Dark Sun novels and the metaplot probably should not have undermined the initial boxed set, for example. Not a shock, as the company and the individuals working on the various lines (even the products within the lines) were still learning how to coordinate these kinds of things. But the goal, at least for the creative teams putting the products together, was not to manipulate the readers and players. The continuity was more a reward for the superfans than a goad for those who were buying only the games or only the fiction.

Thank you for your response. I do have to wonder: this concept of fiction and gaming as value-adds to one another for Dark Sun specifically, was that part of the original concept or was it something that changed along the way? I wonder because Freedom and The Verdant Passage are fairly tightly connected, and The Crimson Legion and Road to Urik are also pretty tight (Crimson Legion is about Urik trying to take advantage of Tyr no longer having a sorcerer-king and going to war, with Road to Urik being partially about recruiting troops and then actually leading them into battle in the first skirmishes of that war). But there's no connection at all between The Amber Enchantress, The Obsidian Oracle, and The Cerulean Storm on one hand and Arcane Shadows, Asticlian Gambit, and Dragon's Crown on the other, other than the covers.

A significant number of fans for any IP want tight continuity, and this was a growing and common sentiment in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the US TTRPG market. They want all releases across all media to tie together and to be consistent. That's still the case for some fans. You see it throughout the internet in wikis and all kinds of other manifestations of continuity-themed lore bibles.

I think what people want is lore, rather than continuity/meta-plot – it's just that in most cases, the two have been entwined coming from game companies. Of course, not everyone is the same, but that's the impression I get. Of course, that's coming from the gaming side – it's possible there are fiction fans who love seeing emerging plotlines instead. Personally I feel most gaming worlds have enough room to delve deep into lore without moving the timeline and thereby invalidating part of it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, I worked in the Book Department from 1988 to 1994 and was at one time series editor for both the Ravenloft and Realms fiction lines. I was also the go-to for RPG–fiction crossover projects, which was one reason why I got recruited to the Dark Sun team early on, immediately after Mary Kirchoff, Tim Brown, Troy Denning, and Brom had fleshed out the initial goals and creative vision. I was the editor for the first five Dark Sun novels, the Prism Pentad, and might have continued as primary Dark Sun fiction editor had the Book Department not moved away from designating series editors in late 1992/1993.

Dark Sun as a whole was a deliberate attempt to present game material, fiction, art, and graphic design with a coherent creative vision from the release of the first product. The idea was the fiction and games would be complementary, but not compulsary. To link them too tightly would have severely limited the potential fiction sales, which were assumed (correctly) from the start to have a much higher ceiling than the RPG sales. You could read the fiction without playing the game. You could play the game without reading the fiction. If you did both, the product lines had creative and aesthetic through-lines, but they stood alone just fine. The goal was not to force customers to buy everything.

Mistakes were still made--the Dark Sun novels and the metaplot probably should not have undermined the initial boxed set, for example. Not a shock, as the company and the individuals working on the various lines (even the products within the lines) were still learning how to coordinate these kinds of things. But the goal, at least for the creative teams putting the Dark Sun products together, was not to manipulate the readers and players. The continuity was more a reward for the superfans than a goad for those who were buying only the games or only the fiction.

Metaplot is neither good nor bad inherently. It all depends on how (and why, which shapes the "how") it's implemented.

In larger terms, the success of the fiction lines at TSR, with the novels selling to many more people than were buying the world-focused game material, meant the company had an interest in aligning the game products with the fiction. If someone read a Ravenloft novel and wanted to try out the RPG, it made sense to have the game material welcome them with the same Strahd they read about in Vampire of the Mists or to provide Realms players with the stats for the characters from the fiction so they could meet (or fight) Elminster or Drizzt, which explains Realms supplements such as Hall of Heroes. This wasn't always easy to pull off, and there were many missteps, but that was the idea. It's a way to use the success of the fiction to potentially grow the audience for the game and make the game more friendly for the newly RPG curious poking their heads into the game store for the first time after reading the novels.

A significant number of fans for any IP want tight continuity, and this was a growing and common sentiment in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the US TTRPG market. They want all releases across all media to tie together and to be consistent. That's still the case for some fans. You see it throughout the internet in wikis and all kinds of other manifestations of continuity-themed lore bibles.

While some fans still want tight continuity, the overall lack of tight IP continuity being implemented by WotC now makes sense in the current market. The RPG as a game concept (you tell your own story around the table, even playing in shared worlds) is more widely understood and media audiences are more sophisticated and accepting of variations between media. It was a different market in 1990. Some design giants, such as Greg Stafford, started in the earliest years of RPGs from the notion that "your Glorantha will vary" for every individual group or player, but he was way ahead of the market as a whole. Not a shock with Greg.

Makes sense. Prism Pentad was fun to read at least but I didn't like it when it crept into game products.

It was also a big shock as we had the original boxed set but didn't know the novels even existed circa 1995 (we started late 93 no flgs)

When I finally made it to the game store and skimmed through Dragon Kings and read the revised boxed set it was jarring.

I don't want that stuff retconned away just focus more on OBS and let individuals use it if they want. Let them get first crack at Kalak.