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.

 

[Zaukrie]

I haven't looked at them myself yet, but the sorcerer that can steal peoples HD to power their magic. That doesn't sound boring in it is surface (like I said I haven't read the subclass yet).

That's the only really new thing for me. You also have to be sixth level for that to start...... Which, most campaigns end by level seven....

 

[Chaltab]

Most campaigns end by level seven....

...They do?

 

[BB Shockwave]

Can't wait to see how they play down the setting. If Dragonlance was any indicator, woo boy.

We got a sort of snippet of it in Spelljammer including a lot of monsters from the setting, such as S'surrans, Braxat, B'rogh, Gaj, and such.
I think Dragonlance was more of an adventure book than a setting book. Planescape was far better. The new Faerun books are also separate for the lore and for the player/dm stuff, so I am hopeful Dark Sun will do the same.

 

[Zaukrie]

...They do?

There was just an entire thread on this.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Well, Dark Sun-ness aside, it's a rare UA where I actually like all the subclasses. The unabashedly evil ones are probably more likely to be something I use for NPCs, but I can definitely imagine using all of them for something at some point.

As usual, the subclasses are fine, but mostly boring. I really think 5e is stuck in a very design conservative pattern, that is boring. Good thing we can still tell interesting fiction, and other companies are giving us more to work with.

As the above indicates, I don't find them boring thematically, but I do agree that the mechanical implementation is, on the whole, uninspired, plays it too safe, and requires a bunch of byzantine design verbiage to do so, and that this is a tendancy of 2024 D&D (arguably also 2014 D&D, but I think it is clearly getting worse and more ridgid in the tendencies I dislike).

For example the defiler sorcerer has the ability to empower their spells by stealing another creature's hit dice. This is an unusual enough mechanic for 5e to require a boxed note about how enemies have hit dice. But then they are afraid to do anything really interesting with it. Stealing the hit dice does not damage the creature, so it's actually irrelevant (unless you are stealing from party members for some reason) the 98% of the time that you don't confront the same enemy again after they've had opportunity for a short rest. In eight years of 5e DMing I've had enemies expend hit dice maybe twice, and I take a much more "enemies play by the same rules as players" approach than most DMs. So really this is just a once a day empowerment ability (with an option to recharge with a sorcery point fee) that they've managed to create a whole paragraph of rules to support. The point being that the designers are far too concerned about the balance they think they have, and make abilities that, even when in some way unique, end up feeling samey.

Personally I would have had it be an option to empower spells by sucking the life from the land, killing every plant and non-hostile tiny beast in a 15 foot radius or something. Let the DMs figure out what the consequences of PCs going around causing circles of wasteland and let the Players figure out goofy ways to make sucking the life out of plants and/or a random squirrel somehow work for their schemes. Keep it simple and evocative, with invitations to creativity.

 

[Necropolitan]

I'd play a bunch of these Subclasses. They look good.

 

[Zaukrie]

Well, Dark Sun-ness aside, it's a rare UA where I actually like all the subclasses. The unabashedly evil ones are probably more likely to be something I use for NPCs, but I can definitely imagine using all of them for something at some point.



As the above indicates, I don't find them boring thematically, but I do agree that the mechanical implementation is, on the whole, uninspired, plays it too safe, and requires a bunch of byzantine design verbiage to do so, and that this is a tendancy of 2024 D&D (arguably also 2014 D&D, but I think it is clearly getting worse and more ridgid in the tendencies I dislike).

For example the defiler sorcerer has the ability to empower their spells by stealing another creature's hit dice. This is an unusual enough mechanic for 5e to require a boxed note about how enemies have hit dice. But then they are afraid to do anything really interesting with it. Stealing the hit dice does not damage the creature, so it's actually irrelevant (unless you are stealing from party members for some reason) the 98% of the time that you don't confront the same enemy again after they've had opportunity for a short rest. In eight years of 5e DMing I've had enemies expend hit dice maybe twice, and I take a much more "enemies play by the same rules as players" approach than most DMs. So really this is just a once a day empowerment ability (with an option to recharge with a sorcery point fee) that they've managed to create a whole paragraph of rules to support. The point being that the designers are far too concerned about the balance they think they have, and make abilities that, even when in some way unique, end up feeling samey.

Personally I would have had it be an option to empower spells by sucking the life from the land, killing every plant and non-hostile tiny beast in a 15 foot radius or something. Let the DMs figure out what the consequences of PCs going around causing circles of wasteland and let the Players figure out goofy ways to make sucking the life out of plants and/or a random squirrel somehow work for their schemes. Keep it simple and evocative, with invitations to creativity.

Sure, I meant mechanics all the way. Hence my comments we can still tell good stories....

How sucking the life from a creature doesn't damage it is beyond me. Also, the whole point of defiling, for players, is having to make a choice about damaging the land, in a lesser evil or not way. For players.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If anything, "strongly hinting" isn't doing what they've done here justice.

RIGHT?!???!?!?!?!?!

Jesus lol.

To say Dark Sun is "confirmed" is quite an understatement.

Which is fascinating, because how long ago was it that someone high-up from WotC (Crawford, Perkins, that other guy who was even above them for a while but left? Not Winninger, the guy WotC made for the OGL 2.0 climbdown) outright stated that Dark Sun wasn't a possibility because it was too sensitive (not quite in those words)? Like 2 years? Less? I feel like it's less than 24 months.

And before that, in August 2022, just over two years ago, we got Spelljammer which contained what I cannot describe as anything but a clear aborted attempt to outright murder Athas. Like, yes they thought better of it, but we basically saw an intruder running out the count's bedroom dressed in a ninja outfit with an obviously-poisoned dagger lol.

Quite a turn-around.

All this said, the art is interesting because that ain't Athas. Pine trees? A normal sky? Metal armour? Does anyone know if this is just WotC art from another product?

Because if not, and given this is called "Apocalyptic Classes", I would be somewhat unsurprised if instead of like, a straight-up "Dark Sun Campaign Setting", were got a book called "Apocalypses" or something with a number of shorter-form apocalyptic settings for D&D, including Dark Sun as just one of them, and I'm still predicting a massively toned-down Dark Sun but... they do at least have a Defiler and a direct Sorcerer-King reference here, that's something. So maybe. I'll believe it when I see it though.

Looking at the subclasses:

Preservation Druid - Cute and potentially powerful if used well. Seems like a solid design.

Gladiator Warrior - I'm not sure this really stacks up well against most Fighter subclasses, because it caused MAD and due to the low number of limited uses and the 1/round way it works, Brutality seems to be objectively hugely worse than (like gigantically worse) than Battlemaster abilities. Indeed basically all their abilities seem to be just kinda-rubbish compared to a Battlemaster who can pretty much do all of that with a ton more bonus damage and can do more of it and isn't locked to 1/round usage. The parry is 1/long rest? For, on a good day, +3 or +4 AC - so like a really Shield spell, something an EK can do a hell of a lot more than 1/long rest, and that also a Battlemaster can do multiple times per short rest with Evasive Footwork giving +Battlemaster die to AC - which even at low levels averages +4.5 AC, and that just goes up, that scales, unlike this (that's not reactive but unlike this it applies to every attack and also gives a free Disengage, and Shield also applies to every attack after it's cast, unlike this). Even the L15 ability is rubbish next to the (very similar) BM equivalent - a BM every single turn (not even round, turn!), they a "free" use of a 1d8 BM die. But these guys just get 2 extra Brutality per short rest by having 1 each be restored by Action Surge and Second Wind.

I'm sorry anyone thinks this is good or even okay really needs to go look at Battlemaster. This is very similar to a BM, but objectively worse in almost every way. I am confident you could set up a Battlemaster, trivially, to be essentially better at everything this guy can do and have more flexibility by some margin. If I'm wrong, please tell me how!

It's so underpowered and so profoundly mechanically similar to a Battlemaster I had to check Battlemaster didn't get nerfed in 2024. But they didn't. They got buffed! Weird man. They need to buff this a lot, not just a little bit unless I totally ADHD'd my way past some important and powerful clause.

Defiled Sorcery - Interesting to have Defiler be a Sorcerer, I think that make a lot more sense as Wizard but no reason they can't have both. I'm not an expert on Sorcerers in 2024 but this seems pretty damn powerful as you can add the dice to one damage roll, but AOE spells only make one damage roll, so presumably you can cast the absolute Fireball from hell! Which is entirely appropriate! And you turbo-nuke a guy whilst making him pay for it too! In fact a lot of this seems pretty tasty, which it should be.

Sorcerer-King Patron - This seems pretty sick (complimentary). 3-5 free uses of Command as a BONUS ACTION per Long Rest yes please! That's not a bad spell at the worst of times! Decisive Edict is sick. WAIT THESE ARE BADDIES STOP BEING IMPRESSED BY THEM RUIN. But anyway seems like a decent Patron.

These all seem pretty well-designed, bordering on the OP for the latter two (which I think makes sense and should stay that way), except Gladiator, which is just like "What is a Battlemaster Fighter had fewer choices, couldn't use their abilities as much, was MAD, had much weaker choices, and just kept being Battlemaster-like but stayed worse". Odd.

 

[Perky the Dragon]

If there is going to be a Dark Sun book, I wonder what made them change their tune? Dark Sun represents pretty much everything current Wotc is set on avoiding.

Unless we're getting a family friendly version of Dark Sun...ugh...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd play a bunch of these Subclasses. They look good.

Yup. Any except Gladiator. If wanted to do literally all those things, even to RP a Gladiator, I'd just play Battlemaster. Anything this can, it can do better. Without being MAD. The only situation I see Gladiator even maybe making sense is if you were already using CHA as your attack stat, i.e. MC dipping from a CHA-attacking Warlock or something. But even then...