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.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I do not get WOTC's obsession with pissant damage boosts. Bleed is a whopping Cha modifier damage to one hit a couple times per rest. When the damage bump wont kill a rat, I don't want it. The preserver gives 1d4+ druid level, which is needlessly randomized by a worthless amount. Make it Wis+Level to speed play. Stop making me roll d4's!

Wasn't the whole purpose of advantage/disadvantage to make the modifiers actually worth remembering?

The damage output I've been seeing when weapon users use abilities and magic weapons add other sources of flat modifiers and extra dice of damage is wild. At least with rolling dice there is a variance. If every bonus amount from a different source had to be significant and not rolled, then they can't allow a bunch of them to stack, or it gets crazy. There was a Berserker barbarian with GWM and Savage Attacker, and a Vicious greatsword (+2d6 damage) in our campaign. This stuff adds up with multiple attacks.

When it comes to damage and healing, an additional 1d4 is not worthless. It's adding on top of what is already likely going to be an impressive amount, due to all the other modifiers the player is going to be chasing from other abilities and items.

 

[Charlaquin]

should be Restoration


Preserving still defiles, just less, so things can recover, there is no real non-defiling


yes, anyone else should still be defiling/preserving (as in defiling less)

It seems like maybe you’re responding to someone whose posts I can’t see, but I agree strongly with your half of the conversation, this is absolutely how it should work thematically. In fact, if it were up to me, casting spells normally would cause incidental cosmetic damage to the surrounding environment, and “preserving” would require restraining your own power in some way, like a reverse-upcasting mechanic. Then casting classes would have defiling subclasses that allow them to weaponize the incidental destruction caused by their spellcasting and/or “overclock” their spells at the cost of increasing the incidental environmental damage.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any world where WotC goes in that direction for official Dark Sun. The idea that you have to willingly nerf yourself just to not cause harm by using this power that the normal course of play has made you grow accustomed to having unlimited access to just doesn’t scream “fun” for a general audience. I do think that’s exactly why it should work that way, as it would truly express the thematic messaging in a visceral way through gameplay. But it’s too unpalatable for WotC’s purposes.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

One of the main characters in the Verdant Passage novel (the one where Kalak gets murderized) is Agis of Asticles, a noble who has a fairly large amount of farmland and, of course, uses slave labor to tend it. He is described as a character with a strong conscience, and makes efforts to treat his slaves well, and relies heavily on his dwarf slave majordomo to handle day-to-day tasks.

Now, it's been a long while since I read the books, so I don't recall the specifics, but at some point the noble returns to his estate to find that all his slaves are gone, except the majordomo who tells him that the templars came and took them to work on Kalak's ziggurat instead, and I think this was due to the majordomo telling on some shenanigans Agis had been up to. So Agis asks him "Why would you betray me like that? Was I not a good slave master?" to which the majordomo says "Yes, but you were still a slave master and I wanted my freedom." This causes Agis to rethink how he sees things and makes him realize that slavery is a priori bad, even with a benign owner.

I'm certain there were many slave owners who firmly believed in treating their slaves well by the standards of the time. Many were exploitive, not sadistic. Heck sometimes Slaves and Owners would fall in love, he'd free her and they got married. This is not a defence of the vile institution, just a recognition that folks are complex if you only see that bad they've done then you really never understand them, you only see the cartoon villian version.

But you know what if we file off all the edges it means you don't explore the complexity of human experience.

A serial killer could volunteer at an animal shelter because he or she relates better with dogs then people because of past trauma.

 

[wicked cool]

I wonder who didn’t want to do dark sun at wotc for this long and now it’s coming out. Somebody was saying no

 

[mamba]

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any world where WotC goes in that direction for official Dark Sun. The idea that you have to willingly nerf yourself just to not cause harm by using this power that the normal course of play has made you grow accustomed to

you could always change the baseline, the preserving casting is the one you are used to while defiling is automatically upcast

 

[mamba]

I wonder who didn’t want to do dark sun at wotc for this long and now it’s coming out. Somebody was saying no

it’s mentioned as a setting in the 2024 DMG, I don’t think it would be in there if the decision to release it had not been made by then yet, so none of the recent people.

Could also have just been a change of mind or a matter of finding the right angle for a reboot.

From almost getting killed for good in Spelljammer to being mentioned in the 2024 DMG (which was my ‘DS is coming’ moment). Whatever it was, it happened around SJ or after

 

[grimslade]

you could always change the baseline, the preserving casting is the one you are used to while defiling is automatically upcast

Changing the baseline kind is a big change to the lore of Athas. Mechanically, it is a sound and simple switch, but it definitely is a shift in tone.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I wonder who didn’t want to do dark sun at wotc for this long and now it’s coming out. Somebody was saying no

They not only didn't want to do Darksun, they wanted to destroy it, Shatterspace was originally supposed to be the Athas.

 

[Gradine]

Editor's Note: I'm lying, I hope HE DOES marry his Space Goth Elf Waifu.

I mean don't we all want to marry a Space Goth Elf Waifu?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So again we get "defilers" that don't destroy the plants and land around them when they defile during spellcasting. But this time it's implemented even worse than the 4e version, as it's locked into a single subclass, rather than being a metamagic variation (which is what it should be).

. . . You might want to actually consider what we are looking at here.
1) Dark Sun's take on arcane magic is very setting-specific, and probably unnecessary for more generic content, which is what these UA suggestions are at the moment.
2) Destroying the plants and the land's ability to sustain life in an area when you cast a spell has no mechanical weight to it. Even if the UA documents were concerned with balance, said destruction would not be a factor in these subclasses.