Dungeons & Dragons testing out even more Underdark subclasses and species

Another new Unearthed Arcana featuring Underdark options was just released, this time highlighted by three new subclasses and several interesting new species options. The new Underdark Options 2 PDF was just released, featuring three new subclasses – a Freedom Domain Cleric, a Circle of Spores Druid, and a Faerzress Sorcerer. Additionally, five new species were presented for playtesting: the Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin (creatures experimented on by illithid), kuo-toa, and myconid.

The Freedom Domain cleric is a high-Dexterity Cleric with a spell list full of movement related spells. The Freedom Domain Cleric’s Channel Divinity ends various conditions on all allied creatures within 30 feet and additionally allows those creatures to move up to their Speed by using their Reaction without provoking Opportunity Attacks. The Circle of Spores Druid is reworked from 5th Edition and includes buffs to the Halo of Spores, Fungal Infestation, and Fungal Body abilities, as well as a new feature called Explosive Burst, which causes the fungal zombies the player animates to blow up when they die. The Faerzress Sorcerer is a sorcerer mutated by faerzress, a radiation created by Lolth to shape the Underdark. These sorcerers can create Faerzress zones and can eventually laces their spells with faerzress, which prevents targets from teleporting and prevents them from casting Divination spells.

Of the five new species, the most interesting are the drider (which drew heavy inspiration from the Centaur species) and the Myconid. The drider is a Lolth-associated monster that’s a combination of a drow and a spider, while the Myconid is a sentient mushroom person. The Myconid, notably, is the first Plant species playable in 5.5E, while this marks the first time that a drider has been a player character race in official D&D books (at least from my cursory research.)

You can check out the full playtest here.

 

[Michael Blackett]

Different kinds of aboleths appeared in Dragon magazine #131, and rewritten or retconected in the module "Night Below" but these would be better for a 5.5 version of "Lords of Madness: Book of aberrations", with crunch about "biopunk grafts".

In 3e new aberrations appeared and they would deserver an update.

Could a nerfed version of draegloths become a playable specie?

Interesting for Aboleths, to be fair they do get the short end of the stick, next to Mind Flayers.

As for Draegloth, as a playable species having indergone some nerfing....

I currently crafting a mini-campaign which is a prelude to GDQ 1-7 Queen of Spiders, with Drow from House Despana and Eilservs. Am using 2e system, yet have the 3.5e Drow of the Underdark, and a third party supplement called The Compendium of the Drow in which their is a subrace of Drow which is part demon (Shưr)...

Never actually thought of attempting to look at the Draegloth as playable, seeing as there is a template in the book for Draegloth. Perhaps a Favoured Soul (?).
...
If so, figure some kind of xp increase due to all the abilities.

 

[TravDoc42]

Different kinds of aboleths appeared in Dragon magazine #131, and rewritten or retconected in the module "Night Below"

Oooh, I'll definitely check this out! Thanks!

3e new aberrations appeared and they would deserver an update.

I agree completely, there are many (avolakia, malaugryms, etc.) from this era I would LOVE to see again!!

 

[TravDoc42]

Interesting for Aboleths, to be fair they do get the short end of the stick, next to Mind Flayers.

I agree! They deserve more love!

 

[jasper]

So taking both underdark UAs together, it seems like both Faerzress and Unlight are going to be big parts of the setting book. The Faerzress Sorcerer is 100% a dud, hopefully it will either be majorly reworked or cut from the book entirely, and I don't think people were super enthusiastic about the unlight barbarian either.

To me, these seem like competing concepts, Faerzress is explicitly called out as "magic radiation" and Unlight is basically treated as light outside of the normal visible spectrum... which is also a kind of radiation. So rather than differentiating between the two, why not just say that Faerzress and Unlight are both just "radiation", and create a generic "radioactive sorceror" subclass that could be at home just as much in the Underdark of Faerun as they could be in Gamma World or the Caves of Qud? Play a radiation sorcerer in FR, everyone calls your magic "faerzress." Take the same character somewhere else, people are like "oh you're clearly a gamma mutant."

So they are reaching back to 1e and bring back ultravision and renaming unlight. When every monster can be a pc, no one can be a monster.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

So they are reaching back to 1e and bring back ultravision and renaming unlight. When every monster can be a pc, no one can be a monster.

Isn't ultravision about the receiver, not the emitter?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I gave the Fraezress Sorcerer low ratings for being such a weirdly specific subclass that isn't exciting and the low ratings to Illithidkin for being too much like the Gith species in terms of abilities

 

[jasper]

Isn't ultravision about the receiver, not the emitter?

True

 

[TravDoc42]

Given how we got drow of Lolth stats in the new Forgotten Realms books, perhaps they'll revamp stats for the duergar and svirfneblin in this book? No way to know this early, but I hope so!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Isn't ultravision about the receiver, not the emitter?

It’s supposed to be the ability to see ultraviolet, which many real world creatures, especially insects, can do.

The trouble is, the main source of UV is the Sun, so unless you have UV emitters it would be useless underground.

Infravision could at least sense differences in temperature.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I gave the Fraezress Sorcerer low ratings for being such a weirdly specific subclass that isn't exciting and the low ratings to Illithidkin for being too much like the Gith species in terms of abilities

Fair comment on both of these. I've backed this up in my feedback, as well as pointing out that kua toa should have darkvision and 5 ft of light is useless for finding your way around