Okay, let's dig in.
Arcana Cleric
My estimation of the SCAG subclass was that it was fine, but a little underwhelming. The revision is overall good, with one fairly glaring exception. An interesting choice here in the revision is to focus the subclass less around "otherworldly creatures" - removing
magic circle and
planar binding, and changing the Channel Divinity to something that isn't related to creature types at all. I think that's a benefit for usability, overall. One conceptual thing that I still think is missing here is the ability to learn and cast wizard spells before capstone - I think they could stand to think bigger about that.
- Arcana Domain Spells: Generally improved. Counterspell is a wonderful addition. Bigby's Hand isn't exactly remarkable, but it'll probably see more use than Planar Binding.
- Arcane Initiate: This is mostly a ribbon, so it's fine, but there is a perhaps-unintended consequence of giving your arcana cleric expertise in Arcana: your cleric now is better at Arcana than your Wizard. Not the end of the world or anything, but big possibility for making the wizard - already a class that struggles a bit - feel more useless.
- Modify Magic: So, the feature this is replacing - Arcane Abjuration - was basically a "turn undead, but for celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends." I think this is an improvement - definitely more likely to see use, and the Tenacious Spell option is going to be very appealing (bordering on TOO good, but maybe OK).
- Dispelling Recovery: The current feature - "Spell Breaker" - is very straightforward. Heal someone's hp and you also get to end a spell affecting them (of up to the slot level you cast). That's a little niche, since "enemies that cast spells that affect you for a long enough duration that the cleric needs to heal you" is something that might not happen in a whole campaign. YEARS of gameplay can go by without this triggering. The replacement is a little more flexible (including "magical effects," in the language of Dispel Magic, which is good) but significantly more complicated. This is a miss for me; we can update the current language to include "magical effects" without roping in casting another spell. It'd be even better if we designed something for this slot that could see use at least 1/session. Maybe something that improves ally saves vs. magic.
- Arcane Mastery: Yeah, nice update to let folks change these spells.
Arcane Archer
The Xanathar's subclass has been appealing to me, but always seemed a little too niche - gotta make bow attacks to make use of the main defining mechanic. It competes a little with the Battle Master, too, since "trick shots" are handled pretty well by that subclass. I think this redesign works pretty well! It's not as huge an overhaul as the Arcana Cleric, but it does improve on the design of the previous Arcane Archer. There's one weak point, but overall OK.
- Arcane Archer Lore: Getting both skills is a good thing. Wonder why you can't get both cantrips, tho?
- Arcane Shot: Opening it up to any Ammunition weapon is fun. Now you can be a halfling sling-mage or a magical gunner. The idea of using a blowgun as your primary attack method is frankly amazing. And moving it to a unified die rather than dependent on the particular shot is good for ease of use. Diving into each of the shots...
- Banishing: Psychic damage is incoherent here. Why not Force?
- Beguiling: Good control, like the original.
- Bursting: The weakest element of this is that it's a pretty small area of effect. Probably fine, though - definitely good if you hit its niche.
- Enfeebling: The redesign is not great. Original was fairly straightforward half damage enfeeblement. Rolling a die to subtract damage is just kludgier and a lot more disappointing when you roll a 1. I'd be OK with a compromise of like, "equal to the highest roll you could make on your die" if we need to involve the die somehow.
- Grasping: I like the simplification of just being Restrained. OG had an interesting choice for the enemy, but I don't need more decision points as a DM.
- Piercing: A-OK. Remains a nice option for reliable damage.
- Seeking: Stays fun.
- Shadow: Blinded is a good simplification.
- Curving Shot: The redesign seems unnecessarily wordy and janky. The OG was fairly clear and it doesn't benefit much from the extra verbiage.
- Ever-Ready Shot: Remains nice to have.
Tattooed Monk
This is new! 3e had a tattooed monk, too, which was a cool concept with a meh execution. The main wrinkle I see with this one is that there is going to be pressure to just choose the "best" tats. A lot of potential options, but boiled down to only one or two sandouts in each tier means that you'll have tattooed monks that look the same, barring some specific contexts. (Everyone's gonna have Crane/Spider/Crescent Moon/Wave/Guardian Naga) There's also a bit of a secondary issue that comes into play with some of the tattoo options: you need to "open up" the option to use several abilities by choosing one of your Focus Point-dependent features. Which makes them nice riders, but difficult to use when you don't want to use both things.
- Magic Tattoos: Baseline. I don't super love the idea of the monk changing their tattoos at every long rest. Like, one of the things about tattoos is that they are pretty permanent! I wouldn't have a problem with this on a longer timescale (every level, say), but the tats should be part of the aesthetic and changing them every night weakens that. Overall, pretty OK with sorting these into scaling categories.
- Beast Tattoos:
- Bat: I like the Blindsight, but linking it to other Focus options seems limiting; the Dancing Lights makes less sense to me.
- Butterfly: A little on the weak side, but there's probably some fun options for Silent Image.
- Chameleon: Cool!
- Crane: Probably the most powerful option here, and a likely go-to.
- Horse: Fun.
- Spider: I like this one, even though it's basically just Flurry-dependent Sap. Syncs well with Crane.
- Tortoise: Curious to link this to life and hp, but it works.
- Celestial Tattoo:
- Comet: Seems like a bad choice...
- Crescent Moon: OK, good, and I like that it references the 3e version of this tattoo. Might be the go-to.
- Eclipse: Good! A contender.
- Sunburst: A middling option. You aren't really a healer.
- Nature Tattoo: These are all kind of the same thing. I do kind of like how the options at this level encourage you to consider what foes you'll be facing and choose the appropriate option. It's a good use of the long-rest-change feature, even though I'd prefer for this option to be a less flexible.
- Monster Tattoo:
- Beholder: Mostly about the flying, but it's so slow that you're not likely to get a lot of combat use out of it. Overall, weak.
- Blink Dog: Expensive! And dependent. Though blink dogs don't literally blink anymore.
- Displacer Beast: Same notes as for Blink Dog. This pair is a little disappointing because they're pretty flavorful. Definitely a better option than Blink Dog.
- Guardian Naga: Seems very useful! One of the top contenders.
Ancestral Sorcery
I'm fond of this, and it seems like a fairly fresh concept. A good option for a sorcerer who doesn't want to be super transformed by their magic. Some of the options are a little muddy on why having powerful ancestors helps you to do the thing, so the narrative tissue is a little thin. Also, how often do you face enemy spellcasters? A lot of the capstone features seem to assume it's at least reasonably frequently -- if not, those are going to feel weak.
- Ancestor's Lore: I like it! +CHA to INT checks makes a good Int-skill character. Just dump INT and have great INT checks anyway (or don't dump INT and rival the rogue and wizard).
- Ancestral Spells: Good mix of divinations, abjurations, and conjurations. Culls a lot from the Cleric list, which is great.
- Visage of the Ancestor: Not sure about this one. You're going to be very good at Influence (aka CHA checks) as well as INT checks, and I'm not sure of the narrative behind this. Like, it seems fine, but why is this a thing I can do?
- Superior Spell Disruption: Also not clear on the narrative here. As a feature, it's pretty niche, but I do like how it works well with Innate Sorcery.
- Ancestral Majesty: Hilarious, and a good protective ward. I'll take it!
- Steady Spellcaster: More niche than it looks, but not bad. Still not sure on the narrative here.
- Ancestor's Ward: Yeah, nice. More niche than it looks, again, but useful.
Hexblade Warlock
Okay, another go. I was OK with the last revision (but missed my spectre!). Significantly less impressed with this. In summary, the Hexblade designed here seems like a "Apply an effect and get a bunch of buffs," but I don't think that meshes with the fundamental Hexblade fiction of a curse-wielding warrior. If I
curse my enemies, I want them to be disabled, to struggle, to feel a burden. But buffing myself isn't doing that. It's making me a bigger threat, I guess, but that's not really the same kind of story. The iteration here is also off-base. It seems like they took the "Everything goes through Hex and that's too monolithic!" and decided "Oh, so if everything goes through a CURSE, that'll be better!" rather than making the subclass a little less dependent on one monolithic feature. The curse is still your definition - if you don't land your curse, you're not doing much Hexblading. The open definition of what counts as a "curse" is a significant problem.
- Hexblade Spells: Removing Magic Weapon does tighten this up a bit. Bestow Curse is better than Dispel Magic.
- Hexblade's Curse: There's an issue here. One of trying to choose a middle path that doesn't work. The use of "casting a spell using a spell slot that curses a target" is leaving the feature open to some weird interactions. Like, what if we someday have a spell that can curse multiple targets, then do I get to Hexblade's Curse all of them? "Curse" isn't a mechanical effect, it doesn't have a specific meaning, there's plenty of "curses" that aren't labelled as such (like Eyebite). The Hexblade's Curse should just be an independent effect, if it's not just going to be Hex. It's disappointing that without any extra effects, the curse doesn't actually....hinder the target in any way. "I curse you!" "OK, what penalties do I take." "Absolutely NOTHING!"
- Hungering Hex: This is fine, but it's fascinating that "give me hp when I kill you" is the most consistent throughline of the 5e hexblade's design.
- Accursed Shield: Maybe a little too good...+2 AC is nice and stackable. Given the open interpretation of what counts as a "curse," I could see folks arguing about mass-cursing a swarm of controlled rats and standing in them to always gain + infinity AC or whatever.
- Unyielding Will: This design is a little incoherent. The fact that it relies on an enemy action is a bit of a problem - there's no agency in its use. It's also got a problem with incentivizing failure. If you succeed, you deal damage, but if you fail you can choose to succeed, which means you deal damage AND get temp hp? And then, it's limited-use, so I have to decide when to use it. Someone debuff me so I can get hit and fail saving throws to win, I guess.
- Malign Brutality: Man, this is a big grab-bag of things that you'd need to keep in mind as a Warlock. I guess that was pretty true about the previous version, too, but...such a headache. The features themselves seem Fine. I'm fond of Inescapable Hex.
- Armor of Hexes: Warlock Level is definitely scaling better than 2d8 + Cha.
- Masterful Hex: More grab-bag benefits for your curse. The features here are mostly fine, but Explosive Hex doesn't seem on brand (you have one target cursed, presumably, why do you get to affect a whole area?)
Conjurer Wizard
Comparing this mostly to 2014. This version centers on the Transposition effect and upgrades it, which ain't a bad little button to press. I am still deeply disappointed in what 2024 did to conjuration
spells, but the subclass itself seems OK.
- Benign Transposition: Still fun! Lower level is welcome. This becomes very definitional for the subclass.
- Conjuration Savant: As expected, and good.
- Distant Transposition: A fine upgrade; not a game changer, but that's fine.
- Durable Summons: Good, but now there's fewer conjuration spells that this works on. Bleh.
- Focused Conjuration: Like in 2014, nice, but a little wasted on an archetype whose whole thing is getting other critters to fight for it. I'd have loved to see something else here.
- Quick Transposition: I like this upgrade a lot.
Enchanter Wizard
Comparing this mostly to 2014. Generally, design that misses the mark in what the fun of being an Enchanter is. Most of these features replace fun and flavorful options with blander, more generic, less thematically appropriate chaff.
- Enchanting Talker: This is a good feature that embodies the fiction of the enchanter.
- Enchantment Savant: Expected and good.
- Vexing Movement: This doesn't have much to do with the fiction of the enchanter. It's useful, but I don't know that "fast and evasive movement" is anything anyone playing an Enchanter really is going for.
- Reflecting Charm: Kind of bad. It relies on getting hit, which isn't something an enchanter should be really encouraged to want. Same as what it's replacing, but this is ALSO a lot less fun than Instinctive Charm. If the concern is that sometimes Instinctive Charm is useless, give Instinctive Charm a bit of psychic damage or something.
- Split Enchantment: I generally like that a lot of spells in 2024 were given higher-level options that allowed more targets. This is a nice benefit for enchanters to highlight and make use of that.
- Bolstering Belief: Enchanters don't need to be healers, I don't know why this is a capstone beyond "it'll see more use than Modify Memory." But Modify Memory is fun! A lot of potential creativity there! You wanna give me something I'll use more often, just tweak Modify Memory to have applications beyond its fun and creative ones.
Necromancer Wizard
Comparing this mostly to 2014. Similar problems to the Enchanter, but less extreme. The new features don't do much to enhance the feeling of being a necromancer, and some appealing old traits are being sidelined.
- Necromancy Savant: Good and expected.
- Necromancy Spellbook: Ah, a grab-bag option.
- Necrotic Resistance: Sure. Not....super clear how your spellbook is doing that, but all right.
- Grim Harvest: The redesign misses the mark of the narrative. It's a fine ability, but it's not exactly a "grim harvest" anymore (relying on harvesting a dying creature), it's just that casting necromancy makes you healthier. I like that it can apply to nearby creatures (since you'll often have False Life up).
- Grave Power: More grab-bags. Let's see...
- Grave Resilience: Neat, but so rarely applicable that I think it's going to be forgotten.
- Overwhelming Necrosis: Yeah, pretty important feature. Aces. I'd just use this and drop the other option.
- Undead Thralls: Really weird that you can steal some of your undead's hit points. Not, like, a problem, but not an option I see myself using at all. I'm also not totally sold on using summon undead instead of animate dead. Part of the necromancer's story is that she's animating corpses, so why am I summoning them?
- Undead Secrets: Teleporting is not necromancy thank you good night. But I like the protection from 0 hp. Weird that it isn't a reaction, though - gotta set it, so you might forget it.
- Death's Master: Bolster Undead is nice! Harvest Power suffers from the same basic issue as Grim Harvest: you're not "harvesting" anything. It's just a buff from casting necromancies. Which is fine, though not exactly very thematic. I miss Command Undead, though! Undead you bolster should be charmed by you or something
Transmuter Wizard
Comparing this mostly to 2014. Pretty good overall, but there's a few cracks in the Master Transmuter feature...
- Transmutation Savant: Good and expected.
- Transmuter's Stone: Happy to see this at a lower level! Pretty much as it was, which is fine. I do miss some Minor Alchemy, though.
- Wonderous Enhancement: A-Ok. Transmuters can be buffers as a treat.
- Split Transmutation: Like with the Enchantment option, I'm fond of it.
- Potent Stone: Totally works.
- Master Transmuter: Hold up, something screwy is going on with Panacea. I don't cure diseases with this ability named after a mythical cure for all diseases? What? Also, where's the versatile and entertaining Major Transformation?
TL;DR: C, maybe C+. There's some weird design wells they keep returning to. They're exiling some features that spark creativity in favor of narrowly-defined features overall, even if those new features really don't line up with the story the subclass is supposed to be telling. The Hexblade is a bigger mess. Abilities that rely on Counterspell or ending magical effects won't see use in every campaign. The new stuff is pretty good - tattooed monk and ancestor sorcerer are doing OK. Wizards are mostly all worse in this iteration, though there's a gem or two.
