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.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's keep calm. Before the return of DS we should see more UA articles about new PC races at least.

We should worry about a right update of the crunch. The lore is easier to be fixed in our own homemade tabletop game.

Maybe we should talk about what changes we would be willing to allow in the lore. I don't worry if the prism pentad is canon or not but I miss the iconic heroes: Rikus, Neeva, Sadira, Agis, Sorak the elfling (Tribe of One trilogy) and Ryana the villichi.

My idea is to add the "mirage domains" like zones to be explored within the Gray. When the defilers starts to devastate complete regions in the "land-within-the-wind"(Feywild) these regions were "shatered and fallen" into the Gray. Some domains could be recovered and now they work like shelters for descedants of survivors of the cleasing wars who could be evacuated. Some "exotic" species can be found here: dromites, maenas, xephs, synads, elans..

 

[Parmandur]

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.

And as an example of change being possible...

Apparently at least some of the PCs in Campaign 4 will have new Subclasses custom built for them by Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins. I expect those will be at least decent.

 

[Parmandur]

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.

Yeah, if WotC started charging $79.99 fir a 256 page book the way Paizo is now, the reaction would be understandablely more intense.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

But what will all people, who kept saying Dark Sun is never coming back because D&D has "gone woke", be complaining about now?

 

[abazaba]

But what will all people, who kept saying Dark Sun is never coming back because D&D has "gone woke", be complaining about now?

That they have woked Dark Sun into an all ages friendly fairy tale setting ?

 

[Nikosandros]

But what will all people, who kept saying Dark Sun is never coming back because D&D has "gone woke", be complaining about now?

Oh, it's easy. They will say that DS has been wokefied...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And as an example of change being possible...

Apparently at least some of the PCs in Campaign 4 will have new Subclasses custom built for them by Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins. I expect those will be at least decent.

Oh wow. That's an interesting one. One thing that helps WotC is the UA of course (no accident Daggerheart is copying it with The Void, which is kind of like an upgraded version of the same concept), because a lot of times some kind of serious balance issue that was overlooked got immediately caught by the many nerds looking to find such issues because it makes them (us, me, okay yeah me) feel better about themselves when they do! They rarely have basic functionality/math issues though (usually overlooked over-synergies instead). Going forwards I hope Darrington expand the Void concept to 5E material as well.

That said, custom subclasses for specific people/characters means balance is less likely to be an issue even if there is an excessive synergy or the like, because it's quite likely the person will just refrain from using it! But I hope they put them on The Void or something before they put them in a 5E book (if they are going to, and I presume they would).

 

[Morrus]

That they have woked Dark Sun into an all ages friendly fairy tale setting ?

Careless. Please review the site rules.

 

[abazaba]

Careless. Please review the site rules.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend anyone or break any rules. I honestly thought it was a harmless response, so thank you for notifying me of that (and not outright ban me).
But now that you mentioned the site rules, I tried to find them and could not easily find them in the menu at the top of the site. So if you could point me to them, that would be appreciated.

-- edit --

I just read the (your) comment that the word woke was used as a pejorative. I did not mean any harm, and can't easily see how the use of the word was any different from for example the post right after it, which used the word 'wokefied', which did not seem to get a similar warning.

 

[Morrus]

I just read the (your) comment that the word woke was used as a pejorative. I did not mean any harm, and can't easily see how the use of the word was any different from for example the post right after it, which used the word 'wokefied', which did not seem to get a similar warning.

Gamers are usually better at following rules, especially mere minutes after reading them. Please do not challenge moderation in-thread. Again, please review the rules you literally just read.