New Unearthed Arcana Brings Back Five Subclasses

Five existing D&D subclasses are getting a rework in a newly released Unearthed Arcana. Four of the subclasses come from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, while the fifth is the Oathbreaker subclass for Paladins from the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

The revised subclasses are:

• Path of the Spiritual Guardian Barbarian (previously Path of the Ancestral Guardian)
• Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian
• Cavalier Fighter
• Warrior of Intoxication Monk (formerly Way of the Drunken Master)
• Oathbreaker Paladin

The Path of the Spiritual Guardian has received a revamped Spiritual Protectors ability with a choice of effects. The Storm Herald’s Storm Aura now scales with Rage damage and the Raging Storm now has redesigned environments. The Cavalier’s Unwavering Mark no longer has limited uses. The Warrior of Intoxication now has the ability to create potent drinks that grant abilities when drank. The Oathbreaker has received some updates bringing its abilities in line with the revamped Paladin’s ability.

The survey for the new subclasses opens on November 6th.

 

[Parmandur]

I was discussing potential future books on reddit, and someone threw this video short my way. It has a clip of Ed Greenwood in July having a slip of the tongue and mentioning a Ravenloft book coming soon. Which was maybe a mistake, but you put it together with the Horror Subclasses UA and the Ravenloft novel they just did and that next year is the 10th anniversary of Curse of Strahd, and it doesn't seem impossible.

So something for you to put in your permutation breakdowns, @Parmandur

I think a small book like Forge of the Artificer, similar in style and structure to it and these FR books or the Greyhawk section of the DMG, that ties into Van Richten's Guide, would make a ton of sense.

I think we could see thst, and a reprint of the Subclasses in an Everything style product.

Of course, WotC is not bound by the past and might be doing some new radical things next year: but ij terms of scale, their plans are on the level of Xanathar's and Tasha's.

 

[TrainedMunkee]

Let the battle against the BBEG commence. "Where is Trip, he's our main DPS?" "Last time I saw our Warrior of the Shroom he was back at the Lava Pits of Doom." "Well at least we got him out of the tavern this time."

 

[Weiley31]

The oathbreaker paladin can summon Cha skeletons and zombies. Great at level 3. Worthless at 10. Why don't they upscale?

Real Talk: I don't get WHY Conjure Undead doesn't even follow how the Conjure series of spells work now in the 2024 update. Like, despite how some groaned about how they are just damage spells, WoTC made a distinction between the two formats

Conjure=Damage Field ala Spiritual Guardians/Moon Beam/ETC0(Minor Elemental being a rare flip to the script, but still doesn't give ya a pet)

Summon=Does EXACTLY what it says on the tin.

Infact, IIRC, we don't have a Conjure Undead yet not was it in the PHB 2024 spell list.

So it's like, pick a lane WoTC Design team.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Warrior of feigned inebriation.

Warrior of the Feigning Gait, perhaps?

 

[Gladius Legis]

The oathbreaker paladin can summon Cha skeletons and zombies. Great at level 3. Worthless at 10. Why don't they upscale?

It's literally Animate Dead with less duration but a bonus action casting and no action whatsoever to command. That's perfectly in line for a Channel Divinity power, roughly a 3rd-level spell in power level. It's basically a 4th-level upcast Animate Dead if your CHA is 20. What are you expecting, exactly?

 

[Weiley31]

Yeah, I was toying with Acrobat, but Staggering works better .

our Warrior of the Shroom he was back at the Lava Pits of Doom."

Player: Hey, my buddy and I had an idea for the characters we want to play as in next week's Campaign.

DM: Awesome my man! Tell me, what were you thinking about?

Player: Well, for starters they are brothers who come from a far off land. And they take full advantage of the Monk's speed and agility.

DM Sounds really neat. And the family angle is an interesting touch.

Player: And so, they are trying to save the kingdom from an Evil, Fire Breathing Tortle.

DM: Tortle? You mean Dr-DON'T YOU EVEN DARE!!!

The Player and his buddy the night of the campaign:

 

[Kurotowa]

Real Talk: I don't get WHY Conjure Undead doesn't even follow how the Conjure series of spells work now in the 2024 update. Like, despite how some groaned about how they are just damage spells, WoTC made a distinction between the two formats

They're sort of boxed in, aren't they? It can't stay Control Undead, because that's not what it does anymore. It can't be Create Undead or Summon Undead, because those spells already exist and they can't have a naming collision. It would cause great confusion and hilarious multiclassing exploits. So they need a word from the English language that roughly describes what the feature does. Preferably one the players are already familiar with and that feels appropriate to the D&D milieu.

Thus, Conjure Undead. It breaks a little from the spell naming conventions, but it's not a spell and everyone immediately understands what it's doing. If you have a better idea that isn't already the name of an existing spell or feature, then by all means do submit it in the survey.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Is this a problem of the drunken master archetype, or the monk class itself? Because I don’t see this subclass as appreciably more “Asian” than the other monk subclasses—they’re all racialized. Western-style “monks” don’t do martial arts, and “Kensei” even borrows a Japanese word for its name.

Okay? What’s that got to do with what I was saying?

So if we’re pointing fingers about racism, don’t think the drunken monk is the main part of the problem; it would be the whole monk class. (This is something that “Level Up: A5E” neatly fixes, btw.)

No. No one has claimed that the Drunken Master is the main part of any problem, least of all me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Warrior of Staggering? It’s better than intoxication but I’m not sold

I like weaving, but I don’t have a great naming phrase for it yet.

 

[Xethreau]

So blame Yuen Woo-ping and Ng See-yuen. You calling them racist or colonizers?

I fear you have misunderstood my point, or perhaps my point was not well expressed. It is one thing for the Chinese-made martial arts movies to emphasize the themes of alcohol use. It is another thing for WotC, an American company based on the West Coast, to emphasize the themes of alcohol use without "the briefest of time researching the subject to see where it comes from."

Alcohol is a colonizing weapon, and to emphasize the drinking elements, censor-but-not-censor the drinking elements, and then ignore the historical basis of the fantasy fiction ARE racist and colonial moves.

I mean, man, it'd just be good to see this archetype where the drugs were optional. Is that so much to ask? It'd feel better, and it would give everyone what they wanted.