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.

 

[Nikosandros]

I was under the impression that you felt WotC shouldn't release a new DS book (because they won't do it" justice") and instead put it in the Guild as is and let the fans release it instead. I'm saying WotC will release it's version (and make money) and then the fans will try to fix it (and WotC will make residuals from it).

No, absolutely it wasn't my point. I was just talking about DM's Guild policy. About the rest, I agree with you.

 

[kermit4karate]

But I guess I don’t see anything in this thread eviscerating…anything really.

Really? 85 page thread and nothing in it alleging it'll be a watered-down abomination that takes liberties with ancient history?

OK, not evisceration. How about a carefully filleted trout?

 

[TiQuinn]

Really? 85 page thread and nothing in it alleging it'll be a watered-down abomination that takes liberties with ancient history?

OK, not evisceration. How about a carefully filleted trout?

How about it’s just a couple people’s opinions?

 

[kermit4karate]

How about it’s just a couple people’s opinions?

Ah, what the hell? It's fri-yay so sure!

 

[Parmandur]

I can't find a layout credit on the DDB version. It there one in the printed copy? I don't have access to it at the moment.

It's not a job seperated out, but listening to every Chris Perkins appearance on dragon Talk where he talks about what he did as Product Lead...it included final layout.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's really easy to see the difference between this new Dark Sun and anything announced by anyone OTHER than WotC though. That's for sure. Paizo's announcements are met with huge grains of salt, reasonable opinions, balanced viewpoints and a ticker-tape parade, but when WotC hints at something?? Ooh, lord, better watch out!

People react based on the relative history of companies and do so in a dynamic way.

WotC has a recent-ish history of stepping on rakes and making weird choices with settings. It's not a terrible awful history but it is a patchy and concern-inducing one.

That could change. Two good setting books in a row (say, Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun) would probably reset people to similar assumptions to with Paizo. It's not because WotC are big or something, it's because of their actual behaviour.

They're not the only company with question marks either - plenty of others cause people to have some skepticism re specific things.

WotC causes far less skepticism re balance than most 3PPs I'd suggest. Like, I wouldn't trust Matt Mercer and crew to write balanced classes/subclasses/spells for 5E based on CRs history there, whereas WotC? I'm surprised when one isn't balanced reasonably ok. So let's not have a pity party for WotC. Some things they have a history of doing well, some they don't, either could change in future.

 

[mamba]

Not like Paizo's a mom 'n pop though. They're pretty big too based on the arguments I've seen about it here. At least that's what I've been repeatedly told. Paizo almost took down the big dog at one time. That's been aggressively alleged.

10+ years ago is not now, they have what, 10% of the 5e players? Any discussion will be amplified by the size of the audience, and people that are unhappy are much more likely to say something than those that aren’t, so really no surprise here

 

[dave2008]

People react based on the relative history of companies and do so in a dynamic way.

Relative size / impact of companies too. What WotC does has a bigger impact in the TTRPG space so you get a bigger response and likely a wider range / larger number of people who care.

 

[Necropolitan]

Really? 85 page thread and nothing in it alleging it'll be a watered-down abomination that takes liberties with ancient history?

I could say that the new book will grow arms and legs, seek out and devour all previous Dark Sun books, and then erase all PDFs from the internet if you want.

But yeah, mostly people have expressed skepticism over WOTC's ability to handle Dark Sun or excitement over a new Dark Sun book coming out.

 

[Kurotowa]

Must suck being the big dog. Of course, this is true only if you ignore smaller companies that also got blowback for products (and honestly, this isn’t even blowback).

There are always haters, and haters gotta hate. Especially when they're jilted ex-fans. No one hates harder than an ex-fan.

But the thing with haters is they're just a lonely voice in the wilderness ...until enough of them gather together to form a chorus. That chorus can hit a critical mass where the haters are hating loudly enough to make themselves heard. They're loud enough and active enough they give the false impression of being a large discontent faction, and they make the discourse turn toxic and try to pressure the creators into bowing to their demands. And as a simple numbers game, it's usually only the big dog that has enough haters to hit that critical mass.

What about when there's real problems and large numbers of the audience are genuinely unhappy? In cases like that, people just walk away. They don't hang around hatewatching and criticizing every new installment. Only a very few people do that. You know there's a real problem when sales or audience numbers plummet, not when the haters gather together to form their chorus.