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.

 

[Remathilis]

No way WotC will publish a Setting with different metaphysical principles than the PHB and DMG: by putting this Templar Warlock out, they intend for heroic characters who are in contention with their former masters to be viable.

Part of Dark Sun's allure is that it gives the middle finger to D&D and it's assumptions. Getting Dark Sun to remember it's a part of D&D and not a special sandflake was always going to be the biggest challenge.n

 

[pemerton]

Bards get a yellow light, with assumed to be either preservers or magic reflavoured into Druidic or Psionic magic.

In my 4e Dark Sun game we treated Bards and Avengers as psionic.

 

[pemerton]

Can I ask where in the 4th Ed books this is discussed? Not doubting you at all, but I recently managed to get hold of copies of both the 4e setting book and the monster book, and this material just isn’t in there, along neither is any of the lore about the deep setting history, the origins of the sorcerer-kings etc. The name ‘Rajaat’ isn’t even in the index. Nor is ‘Borys’, and if the Dragon gets a stat block then I can’t find it.

It's in the Dragon entry in the Monster book. I was just rereading it a day or two ago, prompted by this thread.

Maybe there are some bits elsewhere as well. (EDIT: Just saw @Echohawk's post 608 - there are indeed bits elsewhere!)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In my 4e Dark Sun game we treated Bards and Avengers as psionic.

Honestly both kind of make more sense as Psionic given their abilities in 4E.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

My gut says they are going to make Athas a bit more connected to the outer planes; not so much that you can summon devils and angels with no effort but I just think there are too many player options tied to the outer planes and the current logic of D&D is not to render officially published material "non canon."

There'll be some lore to square the difference for why there are aasimar running around with fiend warlocks, but you can't stumble upon a devil cult out in the wilderness.

 

[humble minion]

No way WotC will publish a Setting with different metaphysical principles than the PHB and DMG:

I have no doubt you’re correct there, as little as I like it.

When it comes to tweaking game mechanics or experimentation or even optional rules, this is probably the least adventurous period in d&ds history. The same shaped peg must get hammered into holes of any shape, no matter how poorly it fits.

I very much doubt we’ll see defiling rules outside the subclass, for the same reason.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I know, That's the game-convenient way of dealing with the problem that WotC as a whole promotes, which I loathe because I find it against the spirit of what warlocks (and clerics and paladins) ARE.

A warlock makes a pact with their patron. Pacts bind both parties, by definition, and pacts can be broken. The patron grants the warlock/templar power, and in turn, are promised ... what? 5e basically leaves that question entirely up to the DM, which i find very weaksauce.

What else should they do? Force specific stories and make the class suck to play for most people just to satisfy a tiny group of players?


And in a meta-physical sense, IMO it makes no sense to have them be “petitioners” that have to be given power every time they do anything. While I’d prefer to move further away from the “patron grants power” narrative in the first place, even when you do have that relationship it makes the most sense for it to be an exchange that already happened rather than an ongoing one.


But what would actually be non-weaksauce would be to have the warlock be a person who stole power or gained it via forbidden/taboo rituals that no sane wizard would do, and make it a class that has expanded ritual casting, at-will spells, and as little spell slot style casting as possible.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But what would actually be non-weaksauce would be to have the warlock be a person who stole power or gained it via forbidden/taboo rituals that no sane wizard would do, and make it a class that has expanded ritual casting, at-will spells, and as little spell slot style casting as possible.

Yeah expanded ritual casting would be key, because 5E has an utterly bizarrely tiny number of spells that can be ritual cast, and hard-locks rituals to (casting time +10 minutes) which also means far less can be done with them. But even then the issue remains that 5E is balanced around combat, so you'd need to have some way to stay balanced there and also not be too dull. Maybe do like the Warlock in Dark Age of Camelot back in 2003 and have you super-slowly (i.e. ritual) cast a combat spell that's then "stored" in a limited number of slots (ironically this might end up rather similar to 5E's current Warlock in practice).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have no doubt you’re correct there, as little as I like it.

When it comes to tweaking game mechanics or experimentation or even optional rules, this is probably the least adventurous period in d&ds history. The same shaped peg must get hammered into holes of any shape, no matter how poorly it fits.

I very much doubt we’ll see defiling rules outside the subclass, for the same reason.

They put circle magic in the FR book. I doubt they will fail to give wizards a way to defile.

 

[Parmandur]

I have no doubt you’re correct there, as little as I like it.

When it comes to tweaking game mechanics or experimentation or even optional rules, this is probably the least adventurous period in d&ds history. The same shaped peg must get hammered into holes of any shape, no matter how poorly it fits.

I very much doubt we’ll see defiling rules outside the subclass, for the same reason.

It's less fear of innovation, and more that they stressed that striping a players abilities away for "story reasons" is an uncool move that a DM ought not to do.