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

Interesting stuff.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The latest Unearthed Arcana column by WotC's Mike Mearls is entitled Light, Dark, Underdark! An eclectic mix of underdark-themed character options, the 4-page PDF includes two new fighting styles for fighters, paladins, and rangers; plus a new ranger archetype called the Deep Stalker, the new Shadow Sorcerer, and the Undying Light warlock pact.

Find it here.

[h=4]Original Post[/h]
The November 2, 2015 Unearthed Arcana: Light, Dark, Underdark can be found at: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/light-dark-underdark or https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/02_UA_Underdark_Characters.pdf.

Included are the close quarters shooter and tunnel fighter fighting styles, the deep stalker ranger, the shadow sorcerer, and the undying light pact warlock. Oddly the warlock and ranger only get one bonus spell per level.

 

[Remathilis]

Woot shadow sorcerer! C'mon WotC make it AL legal...

 

[jodyjohnson]

This is the first one in a while where I felt like it is something I would use.

Add Close-quarters shooter and remove Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter.

I would probably take a page from Deep Stalker and also add some bonus spells to Hunter and Beastmaster.

 

[Jester David]

Close-quarters shooter looks sooooo much better than the standard archery fighting style. You get a +1 to hit instead of just a +2 but can ignore cover and avoid disadvantage. That's pretty huge. Within 30 feet when firing at someone blocked by an ally, you effectively have a +1 to hit over the regular archery style and +4 if they have 3/4 cover. 30 feet is close, but that's a lot of bonuses to hit.

The rest seemed fairly decent. I like the deep stalker ranger more than the UA ranger they did as an ambush master.

 

[Mercule]

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

Tunnel Fighter looks over powered.

The new Ranger archetype does nothing for me, but at least they're trying things.

The Shadow Sorcerer looks awesome and I'd love to try one.

The Light Warlock looks interesting, but maybe a bit wonky.

 

[Istbor]

I am liking the sounds of it. May test it out in my home game of Out of the Abyss should anyone else fall.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

How would you interpret this bit from the tunnel fighting style:

"While in your defensive stance, you can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction"--does that mean the tunnel fighter uses his/her attack to make opportunity attacks or do they get a separate action to make opportunity attacks? Either way, it seems like the goal is allow the tunnel fighter to make multiple opportunity attacks (one with reaction, one [or more] without).

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Deep Stalker Ranger looks fine to me, even if the Ranger itself is underwhelming.

Shadow Sorcerer, I like the concept but the Hound of Ill Omen though I feel doesn't scale with level when it should, though the disadvantage to the targets saves is useful. I also don't like the fact that it apparently has a separate initiative from the PC, that adds unnecessary complications in my opinion.

Undying Light Warlock, there's something I feel that's off with the concept, is that a Warlock has to feel like they're dealing with something sort of unpleasant or at least slightly menacing. This one needs a little more of an explanation on why it's spooky like the other Warlocks and those flaws I feel don't do enough. In fact they probably should have a patron entity in my opinion.

 

[TwoSix]

If this is the level of crunch we're going to see in Year 2 of 5e, I'm pretty darn excited for the next release. Kudos to WotC, some really interesting stuff in there.