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.

 

[Michael Blackett]

@overgeeked
Taking your quote in account, bought the HB PoD with the pdf.seeing as I already got quite a few supplements already (the Will and the Way, Dragon King's for the psionicist), will be using with either OCR/Adventures Dark and Deep/or Shadowdark.

I have Shadowsun for Shadowdark, yet it isn't quite the same if you know what I mean.

 

[humble minion]

I have most of the sourcebooks of the line in pdf, and some of the adventures. Unfortunately I was only just getting into D&D (and was still very short of money to spend on it) when TSR was spiralling down the tubes in the late 90s and all this stuff was going out of print, so my physical collection is pretty limited. Revised box set, the Defilers and Preservers supplement, the Kreen sourcebook, a monstrous compendium, and Valley of Dust and Fire. Basically whatever i could get for spare change from my paper round at the clearance sales at the time. I would have liked to round it out with some of the other sourcebooks - Ivory Triangle and Earth Air Fire Water (weird obsession with paraelements notwithstanding), City State of Tyr and so on, but I'll have to be satisfied with the electronic version of those. I do have the 4e sourcebooks (paid a LOT on the secondhand market), and they are very very good too.

 

[Kurotowa]

As an aside, does anyone else suspect that the biggest initial backlash against Nu-Dark Sun will be focused on the Art?

Well, it will be here on ENworld. Most other D&D forums and reddits don't care nearly as much about art styles having changed over the last 30-40 years. That hang up is particularly strong here, thanks to a small number of loud voices.

I'll admit that in the case of Dark Sun, the art is going to be a little more interesting of a topic. As we've been discussing, so much about Dark Sun changed from book to book. Brom's art was the one throughline that really established the tone. So they've got their work cut out for them making art that's as iconic yet still updated for the present moment. But the art's been pretty good lately, IMO, so I've got hopes.

 

[SkidAce]

Brom's still alround...so theoretically....

 

[Velderan]

As an aside, does anyone else suspect that the biggest initial backlash against Nu-Dark Sun will be focused on the Art?

Considering the amount of complaining about the lack of moustaches in the 5e Dragonlance book...

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Brom's still alround...so theoretically....

I bought some novel written by him that was a retelling of Peter Pan many years ago.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

So!, about them UA Classes?

 

[Remathilis]

Brom's still alround...so theoretically....

I wouldn't mind an alternate art cover from him a la Diitrilizzi's Planescape ones

 

[mamba]

Too me, this harkens back to players who intentionally playing weak characters in a campaign or characters who can't pull their own weight.

but they are pulling their weight, the others have the same limitation.

And right there I stopped reading.

that’s unfortunate, I would not have quoted it if it hadn’t made sense. Usually I go with the first search entry, which for this would be some dictionary definition, but since there now is an AI entry above it, I went with that instead. Pretty sure it is not that different from what some dictionary would have said

 

[Remathilis]

that’s unfortunate, I would not have quoted it if it hadn’t made sense. Usually I go with the first search entry, which for this would be some dictionary definition, but since there now is an AI entry above it, I went with that instead. Pretty sure it is not that different from what some dictionary would have said

The problem is that I can't tell you if that's something that AI hallucinated or pulled from a real thinking person and I don't have the time or will to research it. So I automatically assume anything pulled from AI is probably a hallucination (regardless if it's true or if I agree with it) until other non-ai source can prove it real.