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.

 

[mamba]

This just is simply factually not true.

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Why say something that is so easy to prove isn't true? Can you explain?

I should ask you that… it’s right there “You might be the only one of your kind in the world, but there is no reason you can’t play the character you want to play”, “It’s possible to find individual members - or even small enclaves - of <all the races that are not part of the setting>”

Contrast this with 2e’s explicit list of races and guideline "The notes given on roleplaying each race are also very important, since a character earns additional individual experience point awards when played according to these racial descriptions"

Also rule 0 means the same was true in 2E lol.

sure, they could be added, but the book did not say anything remotely like the above, which is all I did say

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah. TSR essentially designed a stealth new RPG that was both incompatible with AD&D's PHB and yet still required it for the things they didn't want to reprint.

Did you play D&D or Dark Sun in the 2e era? Comments like these make it seem very much like you did not.

We're talking about a voluntary leisure activity - game play - based around creating a shared fiction. So how can it be anything other than this?

There must have been plenty of people playing gnomes in Dark Sun during the 2nd ed AD&D days, for just this reason - no one can stop them if they want to!

Not only that… the setting has a built in explanation for the appearance of any race at all: the Pristine Tower. It’s an ancient structure that mutates beings wounded within miles of it, creating strange offshoots of the existing races. These races were collectively called the “new races”.

Honestly, I like the setting quite a bit, but I feel like anyone who really thinks that “no gnomes” or “no orcs” are vital elements of the setting is mistaken.

 

[humble minion]

I’m confused. Why would “how you get your power matters” being a core theme make it not work?

This is my very personal interpretation of course, and not everyone may agree with it, but for me the core theme of Dark Sun is always that power has a price, and how you pay that price and who you pay that price to, matters.

Defilers steal life force from others and from the world to pay for their power. Preservers skim a little off the top, but deliberately choose to handbrake themselves and limit their own power relative to defilers, in order to avoid that sort of rampant destruction. Druids draw their power from their lands, and pay for it in protection, guardianship, and the sweat and labour of cultivation and care. Clerics strike bargains with the tortured shrieking Athasian elemental spirits for power, and in return are obliged to promote and purify ‘their’ element. Templars choose to serve an evil tyrannical monster in exchange for their power, and of them is demanded obedience and the subjugation of one’s own conscience to one’s master. If a Templar can make that pact and then simply nope out while still retaining their power, for me personally it undermines that whole ‘what did you sacrifice?’ question for them.

Of course, the because this is Dark Sun the lore is inconsistent - psionicists draw upon their own inner discipline for power and give up basically nothing. But in general…

Not only that… the setting has a built in explanation for the appearance of any race at all: the Pristine Tower. It’s an ancient structure that mutates beings wounded within miles of it, creating strange offshoots of the existing races. These races were collectively called the “new races”.

If I had a player who was dead set on playing an aasimar or similar race that didn’t exist in ‘traditional’ Dark Sun, that’s 100% how I’d do it. Make them a unique Pristine Tower mutate. Of course, if the player wants to play a gnome because they love gnome culture and gnome society and have written a backstory full of their large extended gnome family of cheery wacky clockwork inventors … that would be a bigger problem. But that’s a session zero issue.

 

[pukunui]

If I had a player who was dead set on playing an aasimar or similar race that didn’t exist in ‘traditional’ Dark Sun, that’s 100% how I’d do it.

I get your overall point, but in terms of aasimar specifically, aren't they essentially what the Pyreen were? Are they meant to have all died out (except for Rajaat)?

 

[humble minion]

I get your overall point, but in terms of aasimar specifically, aren't they essentially what the Pyreen were? Are they meant to have all died out (except for Rajaat)?

I think pyreen were generally a bit more Druidic than celestial, but the lore there changed over time and editions too. But I was just using aasimar as a completely random example. Minotaurs, plasmoids, etc would all be on the same principle.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I get your overall point, but in terms of aasimar specifically, aren't they essentially what the Pyreen were? Are they meant to have all died out (except for Rajaat)?

I think there explicitly is still a small number of them around.

 

[pukunui]

I think pyreen were generally a bit more Druidic than celestial, but the lore there changed over time and editions too. But I was just using aasimar as a completely random example. Minotaurs, plasmoids, etc would all be on the same principle.

Fair enough! I'd never even heard of them until the other day, when I googled Rajaat. Someone else upthread said they were essentially aasimar. I see no reason why we couldn't have aasimar who are nature spirit-themed rather than heavenly spirit-themed.

 

[pukunui]

As an aside, this is how the Dark Sun wiki describes Rajaat: "Unlike his fellow Pyreen, who were all angelic of visage and straight of limb, Rajaat was a twisted, ugly lump of a creature who caused great disgust by his mere presence. The reactions to his twisted body soon caused his mind to fester with self-hatred and rage, until it was just as hideous as the rest of him."

If WotC chooses to include Rajaat in this new version, I'll be surprised if they stick with the above backstory. For one, it's ableist (the idea that ugly and deformed = evil). It's also kinda lazy (he becomes the world's worst bad guy because he is ashamed of his body). Hopefully they can come up with something better that focuses more on his personality and desires (his obsession with forbidden magic, his desire to "purify" Athas through genocide, etc) than on his appearance.

 

[overgeeked]

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

Man. A special edition with some Brom art? Damn. I might have to pick that up.

 

[overgeeked]

Laying here in a heat warning and I just have to say how toxic this kind of design has been.

Instead of richness and depth, and story potential Wizards has chosen fear. Fear of obnoxious DMs, and poor behavior, and the biggest game on the market is lesser for it.

Exactly. Rules can’t protect you from a bad referee.

That thought has got to be some kind of gamer meme or urban legend.