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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[Gladius Legis]

The Circle of the Shepherd appears to be a call-back to the 3.5 Spirit Shaman. Which is pretty cool though haven't gone into the specifics. I'm not really a Druid player or expert ...

Cavalier is good. Glad they kept the Superiority Dice for it, rather than change it to the failed ideas of the more recent Knight and Samurai.

Oath of Conquest is greatly improved over its last iteration, though not quite there just yet. Conquering Presence is much closer to the right idea; it should be mass fear, but now it's too identical to the Oathbreaker's CD. I would've liked the old Conquering Strike mechanic, except being able to fear everybody within 30 feet. Then it would be an evocative power. Aura of Conquest is also improved, though I still feel like it's missing something a little more constant. Scornful Rebuke is nice.

Celestial Patron seems to be improved a bit from its original draft, though haven't really dug into that one.

I like how Eldritch Smite works as far as invocations go. Strong enough to consider not MC-ing Paladin, yet not enough to outright step on the Paladin's toes (1/turn limitation accomplishes that), and makes a Bladelock a lot more viable on the whole.

 

[Gladius Legis]

So... A Battlemaster with the Mounted Combat feat makes a better Cavalier than this attempt at a Cavalier. Awkward.

A Cavalier with the Mounted Combat feat is better still at being mounted. Ferocious Charger is nice.

 

[Yunru]

I'd like Ghostly Gaze better if it weren't restricted to six seconds per short rest. That's just annoying, IMO. Make it "until you lose concentration, as if concentrating on a spell."

Agreed. It costs an action, making it mostly useless in combat, and only lasts six seconds, not nearly enough time for out-of-combat. So what's the use for it?
I suggested upping the time to 1 minute, minimum.

 

[Yunru]

A Cavalier with the Mounted Combat feat is better still at being mounted. Ferocious Charger is nice.

Ferocious Charger is awful. Although I say that because I don't believe the majority of the Cavalier should be budget Battlemaster.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I forgot to comment on the paladin! I agree with [MENTION=68748]Gladius Legis[/MENTION] about the Conquering Strike vs Conquering Presence. I don't think it makes a huge difference to be able to activate it on a successful strike. Scornful rebuke is cool, but I think it should probably require using your reaction, and should be minimum 1 rather than 0. But then again, given an ability of such a high level, maybe if it requires your reaction it should be a bit higher damage.

 

[Mercule]

Cavalier, subclass? In Spanish languange we use "caballero" for knight and cavalier.

The knight should be a "variant class", a pack of optional class features but showed like a complete 20 levels class.

In English, they actually mean the same thing. We only have both because English borrows words like some sort of linguistic kender. Knight comes from the old English word for "servant", which makes sense in a Feudal structure. Cavalier has the same Latin origin as the Spanish "caballero".

The word "cavalier" sounds slightly more elite to English-speaking (at least American) ears. This is probably because it's Latin, not Germanic, in origin. Who knows?

 

[Yunru]

Another thing I dislike about the Cavalier is that only Born to the Saddle (F3) and Control Mount (New maneuver) actually relate to being mounted, and neither of them address the issue of not being able to be mounted in certain locations.

Even just a feature that means you and your mount don't suffer penalties from squeezing would have sufficed.

 

[Moorcrys]

Looks like Hexblade is still on the list as Hexblades's Curse is still listed in two invocations.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

 

[Satyrn]

The Circle of the Shepherd appears to be a call-back to the 3.5 Spirit Shaman. Which is pretty cool though haven't gone into the specifics. I'm not really a Druid player or expert ...

It reminds me of the 4e shaman.

I also like that it's an animal focused druid to separate it from the Circle of Land Druid.

 

[Corwin]

Aspect of the Moon. Me like.