Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Another example just to think out of the box, could be a Good-aligned Warlock with a Fiend pact. Is that impossible? The concept is clearly grounded on a Faust-ian pact. But how about a Good character who had a moment of weakness (or desperation, out of a tragedy) and sold his soul to a Fiend? Pact is made, benefits will be conferred to the PC, and the price is already paid. No need for the PC to act evil to please the Fiend, which already got his part of the deal. Maybe the PC will spend all his life regretting the pact, and yet exploiting its benefits (thinking that anyway there's no way to revert the pact) but trying to use them for a good cause.

According to the Monster Manual, when you sell your soul to a devil there is no way to get it back short of divine intervention, so the scenario you described makes perfect sense by the book. Sounds like a great way for a powerful enough devil to get a soul--just offer to make someone a warlock. Once they sign on the dotted line, you can pretty much ignore them for the rest of their insignificant mortal life, knowing your paycheck is coming in the near future (to your immortal viewpoint).

I agree that would be pretty cool as a character concept.

 

[Prism]

According to the Monster Manual, when you sell your soul to a devil there is no way to get it back short of divine intervention, so the scenario you described makes perfect sense by the book. Sounds like a great way for a powerful enough devil to get a soul--just offer to make someone a warlock. Once they sign on the dotted line, you can pretty much ignore them for the rest of their insignificant mortal life, knowing your paycheck is coming in the near future (to your immortal viewpoint).

I agree that would be pretty cool as a character concept.

There is an interesting slant on this idea in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, where the magician (warlock) in question effectively sells the soul of another to a fey lord (fey pact) and then regrets their naivety after (to some extent). Spoiler....specifically Mr Norrell needs to bring back an important persons wife from the dead but needs to petition a fey lord for the power. The fey lord offers to help but only in return for half of the life of the returned woman. Mr Norrell figures half a life is better than none and she will have many years left before being taken by the fey lord. The pact is made. The problem however is that the fey lord takes half of her life every day, well actually every night. Every night she is whisked off to the fey court to dance and party while every day she returns exhausted, needing sleep and maddened by the experience.

I could see an interesting D&D warlock pact where the bad thing happened to someone else and out of guilt the character is committed to eventually right their mistake and challenge their own patron, or make a second more dangerous pact to pay off the first.

 

[spectacle]

Good point; there's no way to make a pact with a being who's unaware of your existence. The technical term for this is "crappy writing" and it shouldn't have gotten past the PHB editors. The whole warlock section reads rather badly, IMHO.

If you're a being dwelling on the far side of reality, then common sense and logic do not apply to you and the impossible becomes possible. The description of the GOO pact highlights the crazy nature of these beings rather well IMHO

 

[Orlax]

Also for the geek and sundry witch hunter, dipping a class for tunnel fighter is just wonderful, it's just a question of which class to dip.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is a great Unearthed Arcana.

Close-Range Shooter has been long-needed, and is just really solid.

Tunnel Fighter - PRAISE WOTC! The glimmering light of 4E Fighters is seen once again!

I wouldn't have called it this, myself, but seriously, this is just about perfect - ditch the bonus action on your main turn to might OAs like it was the olden days. Totally optional. Nobody doing it who doesn't want to. Not always the best option (often bonus actions will be better used for other things). A really lovely little piece of design.

Deep Stalker Ranger - Seems very well-put-together, very thematically appropriate to the UD but perfectly usable in non-UD campaigns. Good work.

Sorcerous Origin: Shadow - Yep, yes, magic black dog, I'm all over this. Better than previous sorcerous origins, for my money.

Warlock Patron: The Undying Light - Good basic concept, not quite insane/scary enough. A bit too easy-going for a Warlock patron. Either make it a specific Positive Energy Plane being (not a Good one - a neutral one), or just make write it scarier, and make the Warlock seem like more of a dangerous idiot messing with stuff he doesn't quite understand.

Overall, great, and keeping up the quality like this may lead to me buying 5E stuff despite them still having no digital bits and bobs.

I don't think you get a free attack if someone approaches you. You only get one if someone move more than 5 feet within you reach (walking around you).

Yep, it seems pretty clear.

 

[Ahrimon]

I completely agree, it is a very good thing that the PHB doesn't get into too much details on how & why the characters get their powers. See for example Bards and Druids, the description of the origin of their spellcasting capabilities is flavorful but not too specific to the point of becoming limiting.

I do not have a problem with Great Old One warlocks needing to find a way to explain how their 'pact' works or what it really is... that's part of the fun! And if the player doesn't find an explanation, that's still ok with me, I'll take it so that the character isn't capable of fully explaining it either

I am very flexible with this stuff... In the past I used to tell Clerics players that there was even a chance their deity didn't really exist, and that the source of their spellcasting powers could be wholly in their faith. Who knows?

Another example just to think out of the box, could be a Good-aligned Warlock with a Fiend pact. Is that impossible? The concept is clearly grounded on a Faust-ian pact. But how about a Good character who had a moment of weakness (or desperation, out of a tragedy) and sold his soul to a Fiend? Pact is made, benefits will be conferred to the PC, and the price is already paid. No need for the PC to act evil to please the Fiend, which already got his part of the deal. Maybe the PC will spend all his life regretting the pact, and yet exploiting its benefits (thinking that anyway there's no way to revert the pact) but trying to use them for a good cause.

Since there are no mechanical requirements to the pact a good infernal pact is as easy as a good paladin. It's all in the story that you put together. Perhaps you got one over on that particular patron or they messed up the contract. Maybe you traded grandpa's old sword for a book that tought you the secrets of pact magic. Heck, maybe you beat a devil in a fiddle playing contest and instead of a fiddle of gold you got magic power.

 

[GobiWon]

Cool. I like the things they're playing with.

Tunnel Fighter looks over powered.

I agree. You should stick to the base design principles. When you break the one reaction rule you open up a Pandora's Box. Imagine this with polearm master.

Overall I like the article though.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've seen several posts that the tunnel fighter looks OP, and that that warlock looks OP. I'm always leery of making a call based on a skimming. Do we have any actual play examples? How often does the AoO come into play with the tunnel fighter? For example, compared to the other styles that have a meaningful impact nearly every combat round, if the tunnel fighter's ability only applies in one out of every six or seven rounds, that doesn't seem too OP to me.

 

[Minigiant]

What bugs me and im surprised i didn't notice this any sooner is the stupid revival ability is ripped straight from destiny right down to the last keystroke. This makes me a sad panda.

I noticed that.

The Traveller is evil.

 

[Kithas]

I've seen several posts that the tunnel fighter looks OP, and that that warlock looks OP. I'm always leery of making a call based on a skimming. Do we have any actual play examples? How often does the AoO come into play with the tunnel fighter? For example, compared to the other styles that have a meaningful impact nearly every combat round, if the tunnel fighter's ability only applies in one out of every six or seven rounds, that doesn't seem too OP to me.

my earlier post points out why I think the warlock is out-of-bounds.
To address the fighting style, I like the idea but it combines with sentinel and polearm master to create a scenario where you very likely NEVER get within 5' of the fighter, much less are allowed to pass within 10' of him. Making such a fighter able to easily hold a 25' area of the board while, with kiting, taking very little if any damage.