Unearthed Arcana New UA: 43 D&D Class Feature Variants

The latest Unearthed Arcana is a big 13-page document! “Every character class in D&D has features, and every class gets one or more class feature variants in today’s Unearthed Arcana! These variants replace or enhance a class’s normal features, giving you new ways to enjoy your character’s class.”

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[Sacrosanct]

This might be my favorite UA to date!

The Aim Cunning Action option for rogues is NUTS! If you thought Sharpshooter was OP before, wait until every Sharpshooter character starts taking a 2-level dip into rogue for at-will Advantage on their -5/+10 attacks.

perhaps. But that means you delay things like getting your extra attack and ASIs by two levels, and each time you use it, you can’t move. I’m envisioning this power like an artillery piece that puts down stabilizing pillars before firing lol

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Ah also: With the new fighting styles being quite strong, it make the champion with its extra F.S way more interesting.

 

[Parmandur]

I dunno, this combined with all the new subclasses seems like a new Xanathar's to me... none of this stuff smells like a specific setting, unless it's a "meta-setting" like Planescape, MagictG or even Spelljammer which barely needs an explanation...

If they did this, the subclasses, new DM rules, and new spells, that's a book.

It's the beginning of a book: a "meta-setting" like Planescape could still easily be what this is for.

Primarily, these pages boil down to retraining rules... interesting.

 

[dave2008]

I think with this UA, 5e is getting close to the customization sweet point for me, if we had: PHB + racial feats + skill feats (UA) + Variant Features (UA). I would like to see some more variant features options though.

 

[bedir than]

I think Unarmed Fighting is OP. My back of envelope map gives that Fighter more fist-to-face damage than Monks in Tier 1 and maybe Tier 2

 

[Salthorae]

I think Unarmed Fighting is OP. My back of envelope map gives that Fighter more fist-to-face damage than Monks in Tier 1 and maybe Tier 2

Are you considering the extra Bonus Action attacks that Monks can make here? Fighter's don't get that (with unarmed strikes anyway). So they're attacking 1/round until level 5. Monks have the option of attacking at least 2/round until 5th, then 3/round.

Dunno. 3.5-4.5+Str per round vs. 2.5-5+Str or Dex seems on par to me.

EDIT - and then at 5th level, the Monk's jump up to 3.5 per hit and it can be done 2-4 times per round.

This fighting style just increases the damage from Unarmed Strikes, it doesn't let them work with things like Two-Weapon Fighting or other things.

 

[tglassy]

Love love love. This is going to be standard in my games from now on.

Giving Warlocks, Bards, and Sorcerers the ability to switch out spells everyday is a huge blessing. The added spells are a boon as well. I can finally make a Warlock Necromancer with Animate Dead! Why was this not a standard Warlock spell to begin with?

 

[Parmandur]

Are you considering the extra Bonus Action attacks that Monks can make here? Fighter's don't get that (with unarmed strikes anyway). So they're attacking 1/round until level 5. Monks have the option of attacking at least 2/round until 5th, then 3/round.

Dunno. 3.5-4.5+Str per round vs. 2.5-5+Str or Dex seems on par to me.

This fighting style just increases the damage from Unarmed Strikes, it doesn't let them work with things like Two-Weapon Fighting or other things.

Also, the Fighter with this fighting style won't have fists that are magical weapons...seems like a fantastic option for the Champion as a secondary fighting style but hardly OP.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's the beginning of a book: a "meta-setting" like Planescape could still easily be what this is for.

Primarily, these pages boil down to retraining rules... interesting.

That would make a fairly odd book... a bunch of player options, plus a whole new setting. I'd assume it would have to cut new races/classes to make room.

This smells more like a PHB2/Xanathar's3 as others have suggested, just seems like a more clear-cut explanation.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

not necessicarily a specific setting so much as fixing wrongs like the ranger & chopping off some of FR's setting baseline boundaries inflicted on classes to allow other settings to be less jarring & in need of homebrewing to fit.

I seem to gravitate towards running godless or weak gods settings and often make divine casters very rare so having reduced niche protection by power source is helpful. This was something 4E did well by allowing different "power sources" and "roles." (I'm not necessarily saying their layout was the right one, just that the logic is useful; 4E had a lot of useful conceptual thinking, regardless of what one thinks of its execution.)

I don't know that one needs to totally grid out a party like that, but it helps to think of roles in the party in both game design and when building a party and thinking also about the society at large, assuming you care about world building, which I very much like to tie into the classes. For example, in my Desert of Desolation game, the area was cursed and abandoned by the gods; divine casters are common in the original modules (which date to 1E) but felt wrong. So I borrowed some from al Qadim (excellent source material!) and made the faith of many of the tribes to be the Lawgiver, an unnamed sage from centuries ago only known to be a woman, who was explicitly not divine---indeed, much of the Law is specifically guiding followers away from gods, most of which are evil and nasty. Part of the overall story also talks of "the pharaohs and their wives" so I decided that secular power was in the hands of the pharaohs (men) and the lore was kept by the wives (women). Thus the sheik is a man while the spiritual leader of the community is a woman and typical classes would be fighter and bard, respectively. (This is world design, it doesn't really affect PCs.)

So, long story short, expanding the spell lists and making sure there are multiple ways for roles to be met is IMO a good idea. I very much like the warlock invocations, for instance. The Booklock invocations really help open that path up as a healer type character, especially for a Celestial Booklock, that really doesn't feel like a warmed over cleric.