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.

 

[Mistwell]

Even with point buy and 2 ASIs the only way to have 20 CHA is to have 16 STR or DEX when a normal Fighter has 20 STR or DEX

You start with a 17, so it's 3 points of 4 points assigned to it by level 6. But this is why I mentioned it's likely going to be a multiclass, with a focus on Charisma, and True Strike. My guess is Swords Bard (once they update it) will be the most likely multiclass? Regardless you could have also a decent Str or Dex along with a good Chr.

so you're hugely worse than them at actually fighting. Why are you ignoring that?

I didn't. You just never responded to that part of what I said about it being multiclassing and using true strike?

You can eventually catch up at the cost of 2 Feats, a pretty huge cost when things like GWM exist.

Ignoring that ruins your entire example. You can Warlock dip if MC is allowed, but you have to account for the dip (it also means you can never use ranged weapons essentially, though you do have non-agonizing EB).

Also where are you getting the jump to 10 from? I forgot they made SW 2/SR in 2024, but AS is still 1/SR. So that should be 8 by calculations. Where are the other two from? I double-checked the 2024 Fighter but I'm not seeing it.

They get an additional use with each second wind use, and an additional use with each action surge use. At that level, fighters have 4 second wind uses and 1 action surge. Then they get a second action surge two levels later.

Yeah I made this comparison correctly, all caps-ing "in addition to" doesn't change the mechanics lol. The extra benefits from the first two are roundly inferior to BM Manuevers including the 2nd weapon mastery (both get the 1st). Only Stumble offers anything special.

I disagree. They're very similar benefits.

 

[pukunui]

Here are (some of) the details from the 2e Dark Sun Rule Book:

Spoiler: Defilers

Defiler
Ability Requirements: Intelligence 9
Prime Requisite: Intelligence
Races Allowed: Human, Elf, Half-elf

Defilers are wizards who have decided to take a faster, darker approach to mastering the use of magical spells. In the gave and take of spell casting, defilers are well versed in the taking, but give nothing in return. With every spell cast, a defiler leeches the life-energy out of the plants and soil around him, leaving a lifeless zone. Because of this, defilers can only have non-good alignments.

Just like preservers, defilers can opt to specialize.

The actual amount of damage to the environment done by a defiler casting spells depends upon the level of spell and the nature of the defiler's surroundings when he is casting it. The rules governing this process are given in Chapter 7: Magic.

In most cases, defilers are outlaws (even in the eyes of the corrupt sorcerer-kings), so they keep their magical abilities under cover. Unlike preservers who have a loose organisation in their underground, outlaw defilers tend to be loners, keeping their ambitions and powers to themselves. A sorcerer-king tolerates a select few defilers in his employ, to carry out day-to-day magical tasks that he has no patience for. These defilers are always at the beck and call of their master, and the sorcerer-king himself oversees the training of new recruits. The sorcerer-king's defilers are feared and hated far and wide. Wherever they travel, they leave behind a swath of ashen destruction.

Spoiler: Preservers

Preserver
Ability Requirements: Intelligence 9
Prime Requisite: Intelligence
Races Allowed: Human, Elf, Half-elf

The preserver is a wizard of the old, established school of magic. In the give and take of spell casting, preservers have mastered the balance. A preserver's magical spells are cast in harmony with nature. When a preserver casts a spell, there is no damage to the nearby environment.

Dark Sun preservers are treated just as the mages described in the Player's Handbook. They may specialize freely ... In all cases where the rules here don't contradict them, the rules about mages in the Player's Handbook should be used.

Spoiler: Defiling

Defiling
Defilers wield magic with no concern for their dying world: indeed, defilers are much to blame for Athas's current state. With each spell they cast, defilers draw magical energy from the life force of plants in the vicinity and channel it to their own selfish ends.

Even the sorcer-kings, however, are not the most dread users of defiler magic: the great dragon's defiler magic is so powerful that it destroys living animals as well. All magic cast by defilers up to 20th level, including all 1st through 9th level spells, destroys plant life only. Any creatures in the area, however, suffer great pain.

Casting Defiler Spells: Spells cast by defilers use all the necessary ... components. The absence of any of these precludes the successful casting of the spell. The range, duration, casting time, area of effect, and saving throws are unchanged.

When a defiler casts a spell, all vegetation in a sphere around him turns to ash. The radius of that sphere depends upon two things: the abundance of vegetation in the area, and the level of the spell cast.

The number shown is the radius, in yards, around the defiler where all vegetation is turned to ash. The effect is instantaneous with the cast of the spell.

Note that these numbers adjust for specific situations. For example, in a city, the mud pits might have no more vegetation than the stone barrens, while the gardens of the sorcerer-king will be equal to a teeming forest.

Casting Multiple Spells from the Same Location: If a defiler casts more than one spell from the same location, the radius of destroyed vegetation expands around him. Consult the Defiler Magical Destruction Table for the highest level spell cast from the location, then add one yard for every other spell cast. (Spells equal to the highest level spell are treated as additional spells.)

Effects on Living Creatures: Though only plants are destroyed within the radius, living creatures are caused great pain. Any being in the radius of a defiler's magic suffers an immediate initiative modifier penalty equal to the level of the defiler spell cast. No matter how high the resulting initiative roll, though, the pain can never keep a character from performing an action during a round. The initiative penalty only postpones when the action occurs.

Ash: The ash created by defiler magic is black and grey, completely devoid of life or life-giving elements. Nothing will grow in an area of ash for one year. The ash itself is very light and usually blows away, leaving behind a lifeless, circular scar on the ground. Even with the ash gone, though, the defiler's magic has leeched all life-giving nutrients from the soil, so that an area defiled may take many years to recover life, if it ever does.

 

[Mistwell]

Druid looks overpowered to me. That field damages foes when you move it over a foe, and when the foe moves into it or ends its turn there. You can move the field every turn. So they're going to be sweeping the battlefield every turn. Too similar to the couple of broken spells that work like that, some of which they already had to nerf.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I am familiar with the setting, but not he old mechanics. What did defiling do mechanically in AD&D. I was under the impression that magic using classes were simply banned in DS, I didn't realize there was a mechanic that let you use magic through defiling.

In the first Dark Sun box, magic-users had two types which you were locked into. Preservers or defiles, where defilers were not much more mechanically different than preservers but they got a rapidly accelerated xp advancement table.

In the second revised Dark Sun box, the magic user class was re-imagined with a table that any character could choose whether to defile or preserve at the time of casting.

Bards had spellcasting eliminate and replaced with poisons. Fairly huge nerf as poisons were really never expanded upon with enough options to replace spellcasting power.

With gods “dead”, clerics chose one of four elements. A splatbook added para-elements to choose.

Rangers spells were clerical (pick one element, no Cosmos). The paladin class was eliminated.

 

[pukunui]

In the first Dark Sun box, magic-users had two types which you were locked into. Preservers or defiles, where defilers were not much more mechanically different than preservers but they got a rapidly accelerated xp advancement table.

In the second revised Dark Sun box, the magic user class was re-imagined with a table that any character could choose whether to defile or preserve at the time of casting.

Aha. I just posted the details from the OG box set above, and as I was writing, I was like, "Huh, that's not really how I remembered it."

But I don't own the revised box set, just the original, so .... Anyway, I kinda like the revised version's take on it -- where everyone has to choose at the time. Kinda more like using the Force: do you stick with the light side or do you call on the dark side in the heat of the moment?

Preservers are kinda like Jedi, while Defilers are like the Sith.


EDIT: There was no official 3e version of Dark Sun, and the less said about the 4e version’s take on preserving and defiling the better!

 

[Demetrios1453]

No. Every piece of media does not have this issue, only those that get remade. Instead of remaking media, I'd like to see new media be made.

We have become a civilization of artistic pillagers and creative parasites. Shame on us.

We have always been a civilization of artistic pillages and creative parasites. The ancient Greek tragedies pillaged their mythic traditions mercilessly. They rewrote Homer, for goodness sake! And precisely one of Shakespeare's plays, The Tempest, is his own creation - the rest were all his takes on plays circulating around the London theater scene of the time. He gave King Lear a tragic ending - how his audience must have been shocked since it always had ended happily before in previous versions.

And these are some of the pillars of the Western literary tradition.

 

[humble minion]

Quick n easy 5.x defiling rules.

When casting an arcane spell you (not you, sorcerer-king pact warlocks…) can choose to defile or preserve.

If you choose to defile, cast as normal.
If you choose to preserve, make a concentration check, DC=8+ spell level, advantage if you’re in a particularly green/fertile area, disadvantage in a particularly desolate or previously defiled spot. If you fail, you can spend your bonus action to cast as normal, or you can choose to defile, or you can choose to not cast at all. If the spell was cast as a reaction or bonus action, you can only choose to defile or not cast. Ritual casting you can automatically succeed if you choose.

Defiling has no hard and fast mechanical effects other than killing the vegetation around you, destruction proportionate to the spell level (maybe a 5ft sphere for cantrips to level 3 spells, 10 ft for level 4-6, etc). But that sort of destruction is going to add up in world fast.

 

[dave2008]

Keep in mind that if you got hit whilst casting the spell failed and you lost the slot, also you could not change what you did that round. Anything that reduced the casting time segments was powerful.

Sure, but it isn't very thematic as "defiling" IMO.

 

[dave2008]

Nope! The AD&D 2e version has elemental-themed specialty priests (earth, air, fire, and water), wizards, druids, rangers, templars, and bards.

Defilers and Preservers are types of wizards specifically.

In the setting itself, the use of arcane magic is often illegal, and there are rules for casting spells surreptitiously (something that's much easier to do in 5e!).

EDIT: Here's what the OG 2e Dark Sun Rule Book (pp 19-20) says about defiling and preserving:

A wizard is able to capture and master magical energies. However, on Athas, magic and the ecosystem are irrevocably bound -- no one, not even a wizard, can affect one without affecting the other.

All wizards must decide at the beginning of their careers whether they are trying to work with nature or without regard for it. In Dark Sun, the means a wizard must be either a defiler or a preserver.

The defiler is a wizard who activates tremendous magical energy without regard to its effect on the environment. With the casting of each spell, a defiler destroys a portion of the world's ecosystem, rendering it dead and sterile. The means by which a defiler learns and uses magic is comparatively easy to master, so he advances quickly. A defiler can be either a noble, freeman, or slave.

The preserver attempts to use magic in concert with the environment. Learning how to wield such magic on Athas is especially difficult, so the preserver's advancement is slow. A preserver can be either a freeman or slave.

The illusionist is a specialist wizard who wields magical illusions. An illusionist can be either a preserver or a defiler, and will advance in levels accordingly. An illusionist can be from any social class.

well that is disappointing. I preferred DS when I thought magic was much less of an option. Oh well, I can always make changes if I ever want to run the setting

 

[Eubani]

Sure, but it isn't very thematic as "defiling" IMO.

It's thematic in that it is easier and quicker to cast a spell when defiling. Add in the environmental destruction it is quite thematic. Also keep in mind I am dredging this up from memories 2 odd decades old