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.

 

[Hussar]

I mean, the Drunken Fist style is an actual martial art tradition that has no connection to colonialism...or actually being drunk.

While you are 100% correct, let's be honest here and 99% of the people who look at Drunken Master monks (or whatever you wish to call them) are thinking Jackie Chan movies and not history. And the Jackie Chan movies very much reinforced the idea of the character being fueled by alcohol.

OTOH, Intox Monx are just bad. That's ... spectacularly bad and I'm usually one of the most forgiving of folks for naming conventions. Surely to heck they could come up with something better.

 

[Parmandur]

While you are 100% correct, let's be honest here and 99% of the people who look at Drunken Master monks (or whatever you wish to call them) are thinking Jackie Chan movies and not history. And the Jackie Chan movies very much reinforced the idea of the character being fueled by alcohol.

OTOH, Intox Monx are just bad. That's ... spectacularly bad and I'm usually one of the most forgiving of folks for naming conventions. Surely to heck they could come up with something better.

Oh, yeah, the new name is horrible, amd the Xanathar's Guide Subclass is a tad...obviously the movie character?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

The drunken master monk in my party was already flavoring her as more of a drug-dealing alchemist and it sucked she couldn't make her own potions, I had to homebrew stuff for that. We're both giddy over the change to the class, though part of me wishes the "brews" could also be flavored as pills, inhalants or just chewing on herbs like betel nut.

 

[Azzy]

Now I can do a D&D version of this guy...

View attachment 420951

"Cocaine is my god". Marvel what were you doing that character and dialogue?

 

[Parmandur]

"Cocaine is my god". Marvel what were you doing that character and dialogue?

Cobain, probably.

 

[Scribe]

The NPC Oathbreaker didn't have Tenets. This version does, and if you compare them to Conquest there's a decent amount of overlap. So if we go by the theory that the Conquest Paladin was to the 2014 Oathbreaker Paladin as the Grave Cleric was to the Death Cleric, then it makes a certain amount of sense to smush them together for a PC facing Oathbreaker.

I don't have your obvious attachment to the Conquest Paladin, so I think this version of the Oathbreaker is pretty cool. Decent mechanics, good flavor. And I'm pretty sure you can use the new Nystul's Magic Aura to get other PCs to qualify for Aura of Hate.

OK yeah, I was out for reasons, and just had a chance to look over the PDF, thanks for the link in your post btw, the 'article' link takes me to reddit. shudder.

Anyway...yeah I think you are right, and there is overlap, and thats just unacceptable.

I'll book it in my calendar to absolutely trash this on the survey and make sure that Conquest lives as it must, the best Paladin archetype for LN/LE Paladins.

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah so, in my view, the drunken master is kind of a racist trope

It is a trope from the original source material, not from the west, and not racist. It's an actual Chinese style of martial arts imitating the movements of a drunk person. See here. There was also a 1970s film about it, from Hong Kong.

, not the least reason being for the colonistic legacy of weaponized alcohol addiction.

It's not colonial in origin. It's disputed if it originated with the Shaolin Kung Fu (Wine Boxing) or So Chan (drunken Boxing). This puts both possible origins around the 1500s, and neither is colonial in nature.

Before you call something racist or colonial, you should probably spend the briefest of time researching the subject to see where it comes from.

 

[Kurotowa]

"Cocaine is my god". Marvel what were you doing that character and dialogue?

Well for one, he's DC not Marvel. And for two, it was ham-handed 80's anti-drug messaging. There was quite a lot of that sort of thing back then.

 

[Mistwell]

Exactly! The problem is adding and requiring an intoxicating drink. The RL fighting style is not about Intoxication.

That part is from a Chinese language film in the 1970s. Again, not colonial, or racist. You can not like it of course, but you seem to think this is some western mockery of the ancient tradition when it's not.

Someone who focuses on ecstatic meditation and practices a combat style that mimics the fluidity of a drunken person is not itself problematic. It can even be educational!

But saying that you have to drink an intoxicant, and then saying it is not about alcoholic connotations, is nothing less than the Way of the Mental Gymnast.

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

 

[Scribe]

It is a trope from the original source material, not from the west, and not racist. It's an actual Chinese style of martial arts imitating the movements of a drunk person. See here. There was also a 1970s film about it, from Hong Kong.

It's not colonial in origin. It's disputed if it originated with the Shaolin Kung Fu (Wine Boxing) or So Chan (drunken Boxing). This puts both possible origins around the 1500s, and neither is colonial in nature.

Before you call something racist or colonial, you should probably spend the briefest of time researching the subject to see where it comes from.