Unearthed Arcana New UA Paladin and Bard.

There's a new Unearthed Arcana in town! "The bard receives a new Bardic College feature: the College of Eloquence. Additionally, the paladin gains a new Sacred Oath feature: the Oath of Heroism."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Bard seems decent and the Paladin is conceptually sound, but I'm not keen on pretty much all his subclass stuff being very limited short duration buffs. I mean, Peerless Athlete is close to objectively worse than certain Rogue traits and only arguably better than the Goliath racial, overall, and it burns your CD for what is very likely to be 1 or 2 rolls (on skills where its often possible to obtain Advantage other ways) , and the crit buff is mechanically solid (so will be defended to the death by drooling optimizers) but doesn't seem to be very flavourful nor a "legendary strike" despite the name. I like the idea, but I think they should take another look at those.

 

[JPL]

I decided that the Paladin of Heroism talks like some combination of Thor, Drax, and Lothar of the Hill People. Might have them hail from Faerun's Old Empires --- maybe one of the Mighty Sons of Gilgeam the God-King?

 

[Xenonnonex]

Might have them hail from Faerun's Old Empires --- maybe one of the Mighty Sons of Gilgeam the God-King?

Give me an Old Empires supplement or give me death.

 

[Parmandur]

I decided that the Paladin of Heroism talks like some combination of Thor, Drax, and Lothar of the Hill People. Might have them hail from Faerun's Old Empires --- maybe one of the Mighty Sons of Gilgeam the God-King?

You know, GIlgamesh was Crawford's go-to Oath of Heroism example for the Dragon+ stream about this article.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Nate Stewart in January's Spoilers & Swag was asked did there would be more Magic in D&D: his response was that they hadn't known about how successful Ravnica would be early enough to pull the trigger on a 2019 Magic D&D book (!), but that more would be coming soon. They will do more Magic books for D&D eventually, whatever product these tests are for: but three UA in a row for high-magic options that read like Mana themed pairs is interesting.

Just want to put a sort-of transcript of Nathan Stewart's actual comments, as it could be interpreted as referring to setting books in general as opposed to Magic settings specifically.

(timestamp 1 hour 2 minutes)
"How was Ravnica recieved?... Ravnica by the way has been received really well, I can tell you it has been one of the best-selling adventures on D&D Beyond. Fastest selling for sure. So that's cool, we've seen great success around the thing, which we deem as being well-received. So will we be doing more? Yes you will be seeing new settings, I don't know if we'll be doing any new settings this year because of schedules, but yes we are committed to doing it. The problem is we wanted to wait and see how Ravnica was received before we committed to which, and because of its late time release on there, we couldn't like go "Yes that's awesome, put out a new one in six months," so we will be doing more but maybe not this year."

The word "Magic" actually isn't said once in that entire transcript, and although the question is about Ravnica's success, Nathan took that question and answered it like it was about setting books. I find his question of timeline especially interesting, as he says they weren't able to do a new setting in six months but were thinking about doing one that year (this was said in January, so this year 2019), which I think means at that time they were deciding whether or not to release Eberron's Last War book in 2019 (which they eventually decided to do).

That said, that doesn't mean that the next setting won't be a Magic setting. All this says is that we should expect more setting books; whether it is Planescape, something from Magic, or something else seems up-in-the-air.

 

[JPL]

You know, GIlgamesh was Crawford's go-to Oath of Heroism example for the Dragon+ stream about this article.

That's who I've been thinking about, too. Always like the idea of a character who's kind of walking around in a different movie than everyone else, and this type of character can damn near bend reality and drag everyone within his gravitational pull into a whole different genre.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I mean, Peerless Athlete is close to objectively worse than certain Rogue traits

See, I love the flavor of it, regardless of the math. I can see all kinds of situations where you might have to make an ability check every round for multiple/many rounds...or, better yet, you intentionally choose a strategy that results in that because you have the ability...and it’s just fun to do that with advantage every time.

Spend a Feat to get Expertise if you really want to crush it.

 

[Parmandur]

Just want to put a sort-of transcript of Nathan Stewart's actual comments, as it could be interpreted as referring to setting books in general as opposed to Magic settings specifically.

(timestamp 1 hour 2 minutes)
"How was Ravnica recieved?... Ravnica by the way has been received really well, I can tell you it has been one of the best-selling adventures on D&D Beyond. Fastest selling for sure. So that's cool, we've seen great success around the thing, which we deem as being well-received. So will we be doing more? Yes you will be seeing new settings, I don't know if we'll be doing any new settings this year because of schedules, but yes we are committed to doing it. The problem is we wanted to wait and see how Ravnica was received before we committed to which, and because of its late time release on there, we couldn't like go "Yes that's awesome, put out a new one in six months," so we will be doing more but maybe not this year."

The word "Magic" actually isn't said once in that entire transcript, and although the question is about Ravnica's success, Nathan took that question and answered it like it was about setting books. I find his question of timeline especially interesting, as he says they weren't able to do a new setting in six months but were thinking about doing one that year (this was said in January, so this year 2019), which I think means at that time they were deciding whether or not to release Eberron's Last War book in 2019 (which they eventually decided to do).

That said, that doesn't mean that the next setting won't be a Magic setting. All this says is that we should expect more setting books; whether it is Planescape, something from Magic, or something else seems up-in-the-air.

That's certainly one way to interpret what he said: my impression, based on listening to it several times, was that he meant Magic settings. They were probably uncertain at that time about the future of the Artificer, too.

Certainly they have said at other times that more cooperation is forthcoming. Chris Cox, their new-ish Fearless Leader, seems a big fan of crossing the streams, being a long time fan of both franchises.

 

[Kurotowa]

You know, GIlgamesh was Crawford's go-to Oath of Heroism example for the Dragon+ stream about this article.

There's certainly a lot of room in the alignment spectrum for it. Most versions of Hercules fit the Oath of Heroism, and he's not always the nicest guy, as does Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The Oath of Heroism could fit anywhere in the alignment spectrum, but I'd argue that believing in the idea of Destiny or Predetermination is philosophically lawful on many levels because it asserts the reality is orderly.

Though ones actions and attitudes can most certainly be non-lawful even if one believes such things. Just as how someone could still be lawful if they believed there was no plan at all to reality.