Unearthed Arcana June Unearthed Arcana: Druid Shepherd, Fighter Cavalier, and Paladin of Conquest

The latest Unearthed Arcana from Mearls and Crawford revisits four subclasses from earlier UA articles. "Part of the fun of playtesting is seeing how feedback and play can push a design in new directions. In this month’s Unearthed Arcana, we revisit class material that appeared in previous installments: four subclasses for various classes, along with Eldritch Invocations for the warlock. This material was all popular, and the revisions to it were driven by feedback that thousands of you provided in surveys. The updated subclasses are the druid’s Circle of the Shepherd, the fighter’s Cavalier, the paladin’s Oath of Conquest, and the warlock’s Celestial (formerly known as the Undying Light). One of the main pieces of feedback we got about the Eldritch Invocations is that most players didn’t want them exclusive to particular Otherworldly Patron options, so we’ve opened them up to more warlocks, tweaked them, and cut the least popular ones."

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[Flamestrike]

Whether the invocations are assigned to specific patrons or not doesn't matter at all to me. If they had been included and I didn't like it, I would have ignored them. If they don't include them and I decide that I want "patron-specific" invocations, I'll assign and make a list of which invocations go to which patron myself on a Word doc. It'll take all of 3 minutes. 7 if I actually type out the entire description of each one.

I don't mind neutral fluff text.

You can always call your invocation whatever you want to call it. If the invocation has a name of 'dark power of hell' then that's actually more limiting in a way.

 

[Flamestrike]

Why would I do that? There's nothing happening that needs initiative to resolve.



Maybe in your game. Not in mine, and not in Jeremy Crawford's: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford...tp://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/01/14/hex-effect/

You just hexed the Kings intelligence. Is he not thinking?

And I don't know about your game, but in my game laying a hex on someone is obvious. You are magically cursing them. Channelling the foul powers of your dark patron into them. Your eyes turn a funny colour or you hurl stream of insults at them. Whatever.

Just because an ability lacks any fluff text as what it looks like doesn't mean it doesn't look like anything. Youre free to rule in the absence of any text that says it looks like something specific that it doesn't look like anything at all, but that's up to you.

If a player in my game said he was going to lay a hex on the King, then that is an offensive action that the king gets to respond to and initiative is declared.

I'm not saying you have to run it that way. Go nuts with whatever feels right to you.

If you read what I wrote, you'll know I share this opinion--it would be better from a roleplaying perspective for Hex to nail this down one way or the other by specifying HOW you transfer the Hex, instead of just handwaving it as something you do with "a bonus action." After all, if you leave everything undefined except in terms of combat jargon ("bonus action"), you (the game designer) are just asking for DMs to interpret everything through the lens of combat, whether that is intended or not.

To be honest you're the one who is inferring that by not including any fluff text description of what laying a hex on to someone looks like that it doesn't look like anything at all.

It might be possible to conceal the fact that you're hexing someone. But I can assure you in my game if your warlock tryed to hex someone while they were looking right at them then it would be initiative time.

And also the game is kinda described through the Paradigm of combat actions within combat encounters. Zooming out a step it is next described in the framework of the adventuring day.

I'm not saying that you have to run your game in such a way with series of discrete encounters over the course of a day and all abilities described in the context of those encounters. I'm just saying that it's pretty clear that that is the inferred framework of fifth edition D&D.

You can repudiate that and allows shenanigans like bag of rats and 20 short rests in a 20 hour period if you really want to. I'm just saying I don't think that's what the designers intended the game to be.

 

[Yunru]

I'm just saying I don't think that's what the designers intended the game to be.

Did you miss that part where one of the devs are directly quoted?

 

[Flamestrike]

The Warlock is a better Paladin then the Paladin, they, should nerf the warlock smites to 1D4 instead of 1D8.

'Smite is but one class feature of many for the Paladin and warlock.

And a slot or two will have been used by many warlocks for other spells throughout the day. I have a lots of fun with armour of agathys and hex.

I'm having a lot of fun trolling my current dungeon Master with the first spell coupled with our cleric putting warding bond on me granting resistance to incoming damage. The fact I also have the heavy armour Master feat makes it even more hilarious.

I've gotten a lot of milage out of that combo. Monsters literally wailed themselves to death trying to get me.

I'm expecting a lot of immunity to cold creatures coming up soon.

 

[Corwin]

To be honest you're the one who is inferring that by not including any fluff text description of what laying a hex on to someone looks like that it doesn't look like anything at all.

It might be possible to conceal the fact that you're hexing someone. But I can assure you in my game if your warlock tryed to hex someone while they were looking right at them then it would be initiative time.

Yeah. The spell requires Verbal, Somatic and Material Components. The trifecta. I don't see how the spell can realistically be described as subtle in any way.

 

[Flamestrike]

Did you miss that part where one of the devs are directly quoted?

Which has no relevance to the post of mine you just quoted. The quote of mine was in relation to class features being described in terms of combat rounds, and combat abilities, used in a series of discrete encounters over a 6 to 8 encounter adventuring day featuring around 2 to 3 short rests.

Have another read mate.

The argument about what hex looks like (if it looks like anything at all) is a different argument. I didn't see anything from anyone that says it doesn't look like anything. Only that the creature that is subject to a Hex spell is unaware of the fact that they are hexed unless is doing something obvious to them.

I would think having your intelligence hexed would be immediately apparent. Your thinking would be quite seriously clouded and impaired all of a sudden. Magically so.

As to whether the warlocks eyes flicker maliciously at that instant, Beams of violet light sling out of his eyeballs into your skull, He gently waves his hand in the air or points at you, or gives you the evil eye is an entirely different question.

And it's one I would largely leave up to the player character of the warlock to describe what it looks or sounds like.

 

[Yunru]

If your thinking is impaired it's not going to be immediately obvious, because your thinking is impaired.

 

[Flamestrike]

Yeah. The spell requires Verbal, Somatic and Material Components. The trifecta. I don't see how the spell can realistically be described as subtle in any way.

He wasn't casting the spell. He cast it earlier on the toad. He then killed the toad and relied upon the bonus action shifting of the hex (Which has no components) to do so more sneakily.

The argument then the boils down to whether that bonus action shifting of the Hex has any actual in game representation as to what it looks or sound like. For mine that is a question left down to the discretion of the individual dungeon Master.

If he as DM is happy for it to look like nothing and be completely silent then that's up to him. I don't take the omission of any fluff text as to what it looks like from the spell description to mean that it is completely and utterly undetectable. My view is that it is just a relic of how abilities are described. As an action you do this as a bonus action you can do that.

The fluff of what those Actions and bonus actions look like is left entirely up to the DM and player.

It kind of boils down to the bag of rats argument. My view is the game is designed with a series of discrete combat encounters over the course of 6-8 encounter adventuring day, and that abilities are described within that context.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah. The spell requires Verbal, Somatic and Material Components. The trifecta. I don't see how the spell can realistically be described as subtle in any way.

You realize there's no spell being cast in the king's presence, don't you?

 

[Corwin]

[MENTION=6788736]Flamestrike[/MENTION], Ah. I must have missed that context. I just read what you said about hexing someone to their face and took it to mean casting the spell. Nevermind.