Dungeons & Dragons releases Villainous Options playtest

Wizards of the Coast has released a new playtest featuring four new "villainous" subclasses, along with two more feat paths designed to transform characters into either a lich or a death knight. Today, Wizards released a new "Villainous Options" Unearthed Arcana. The new document contains four subclasses - a Pestilence Domain Cleric, a Circle of the Titan Druid, a Hell Knight Fighter, and a Demonic Sorcerer, alongside feat paths intended to slowly transform a player character into either a lich or a death knight. While previous D&D books have brought back the concept of mini-feat trees, these villainous paths are intended to be used at every opportunity a feat can be taken.

The Pestilence Domain cleric's core ability allows it to confer exhaustion levels on opponents via use of Channel Divinity. Enemies who die while having one or more Exhaustion level can explode and inflict necrotic damage on others. The capstone ability allows the Cleric to transform into a swarm of pestilence-infused pests.

The Circle of the Titan Druid has a Wild Shape ability that transforms them into various kinds of kaiju-esque monsters, which eventually become gargantuan in size.

The Hell Knight Fighter deals extra Infernal damage that varies in type depending on the ability and eventually transforms foes into minor devils upon their death.

The Demonic Sorcerer likewise grants various kinds of sorcerer abilities Abyssal effects, culminating in the ability to summon a demon to the battlefield once per day for free.

The path feats are interesting - both culminate with a feat that can only be taken at Level 12 or higher and requires a player to have at least two other feats from the feat path. Death Knights gain a pool of Death Points that fuel various abilities, while the Lich gains a Soul Jar and eventually gains the mechanical benefits of being a lich.

The playtest is open now, with a playtest survey launching next week.

 

[Milieu]

It is fulfilling a different niche. Though I do think there's room for an avian/generic flier archetype there as a hypothetical Rodan-alike would do different things to a Mothra-alike. Likewise a few gaps as Behemoth is a bit set on being what it is and not, say, some sort of armored fighter, ala Gamera or Anguirius. Or the big ape one. Buuuut, its a good batch at the moment at least.

anyway: MOTHRA DRUID GODZILLA DRUID 10/10 NO NOTES

Gamera is really neat!
He is filled with turtle meat!
I wildshaped into Gamera!

 

[Marandahir]

My need for symmetry wants the third titan form to be called a Ziz.

And the fourth titan should be an alien space virus form in the shape of DNA, right?

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

Okay, I like Feat paths as a design idea.

But I don't see how the content of this UA will ever appeal to a majority of tables? This is essentially gaming material for evil PCs (expect maybe the Titan Druid). Back in the day, when the Book of Vile Darkness was published, NPCs were built the same way as PCs. So the content of the book made sense for the DM. Today, this is clearly player-facing. I am already meeting a lot of DMs saying: no way the Scion of Three rogue makes it to their table. I don't see Hell Knight, Demon Sorcerer or Pestilence domain making the way into actual play on a lot of tables. This feels very niche.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm just catching up on this, starting at the beginning, so other people will likely have made the same points as me. So sorry for any repetition.

The timescale makes the Ravenloft book just possible, but these don't look like last minute revisions to me. I would rate that as highly unlikely. The timescale is fine for something mid 2027 though. On the other hand, we have Soth on this year's calendar, and he is the poster boy for death knights, so maybe it relates to the Season of Champions? Champions fight villains after all. Maybe a book of Heroes and Villains? A Hero UA next month would support this idea. I did think an adventure was far more likely than another book of player options, but maybe 2026 is the Year of Subclasses? It would explain the presence of Soth in the marketing without involving either Dragonlance or Ravenloft in that case. I am coming down on this as the most likely option. (Sorry Dark Sun expectors, not this year).

Death Knight feats look like a replacement for oathbreaker/anti-paladin.

Yeah, the Paths feel like something they would want more than two options for. Hard to say when this is intended for, but could be Season of Champions or one of the first two Seasons next year.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But I don't see how the content of this UA will ever appeal to a majority of tables?

Yeah, the Paths feel like something they would want more than two options for.

Which would make something such as "Champions of Light and Darkness" more likely than Return of the Revenge of the Book of Vile Darkness Strikes Back. Featuring options for paragons of evil and good.

We are missing Angel, Dragon and Angel-with-a-pet-dragon archetypes.

Or Owlcat have taken over WotC, and everything is now has extra grimdarkness.

 

[saviirkad]

The feat paths are very interesting and directly useful for me. A sequel campaign we might do, that's sort of using the Vecna adventure as a base for a Loki/TVA-inspired race across settings to stop the lich gaining power from all his variants, has a PC who wants to become a lich herself.

Of the subclasses, not all of the flavor is for me but some do look fun and interesting. However, the Druid one is both the most interesting by a significant margin, but also the least likely to be picked by me.

I really like the star druid and wildfire druid because they provide ways to wild shape without reducing you to a lesser character. I don't mind the base class feature because it's more about giving options outside of battle.

I could certainly use the Titan forms outside of combat, but they're clearly designed for combat. I just really dislike when the main features I'm given basically boil down to either ignore them and remain useful or use them and lose your usefulness. But god damn, if they could fix that, I'd be all over that sub.

 

[Parmandur]

Which would make something such as "Champions of Light and Darkness" more likely than Return of the Revenge of the Book of Vile Darkness Strikes Back. Featuring options for paragons of evil and good.

We are missing Angel, Dragon and Angel-with-a-pet-dragon archetypes.

Or Owlcat have taken over WotC, and everything is now has extra grimdarkness.

Yes, some sort of Saint/Demigod Path seems obvious, something Draconic as well...there are some PC derived characters in D&D who have become Archfey, like Tasha, so an Archfey Path would seem plausible.

There are definitely lots of different possibilities for Tier 3 Path transformations a PC could pursue, most less Dark Side than these two examples.

 

[GarrettKP]

Also of note, there’s enough feats in the Astarion product to make a “Vampire” feat path already. Maybe whatever book this is for will reprint those with slight updates to match that formatting. Now I need a Werewolf path.

 

[Parmandur]

Also of note, there’s enough feats in the Astarion product to make a “Vampire” feat path already. Maybe whatever book this is for will reprint those with slight updates to match that formatting. Now I need a Werewolf path.

Yeah, I was thinking that they could put these options in with that Astarions material reformatted to match. Along with many less explicitly sinister Paths.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I could certainly use the Titan forms outside of combat, but they're clearly designed for combat. I just really dislike when the main features I'm given basically boil down to either ignore them and remain useful or use them and lose your usefulness. But god damn, if they could fix that, I'd be all over that sub.

The thing here is that although the Titans are niche outside combat (there are uses for turning into giant flying monsters that are strong enough to carry people and giant siege attackers) this is a druid; it has wild shape, familiars, and one of the best out of combat spell lists. When a fighter or barbarian subclass has basically no use out of combat I'm going to pass but I don't mind it so much for druids.