New Unearthed Arcana Released, With 8 New Forgotten Realms-Themed Subclasses

Today, Wizards of the Coast has announced a new Unearthed Arcana playtest featuring eight new Dungeons & Dragons subclasses that will appear in the upcoming Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. The new subclasses include five classes tied to Forgotten Realms regions, as well as the return of the Knowledge Domain Cleric subclass from the 2014 Player's Handbook and the Bladesinger Wizard subclass and Purple Dragon Knight Fighter subclass from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Each of the five remaining subclasses are themed to one of the five regions explored in the Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide also coming out in November. The College of the Moon Bard subclass is tied to the Moonshae Isles, the Winter Walker Ranger subclass is tied to Icewind Dale, and the Oath of the Noble Genies is tied to Calimshan. The Scion of The Three is tied to the Dead Three (of Baldur's Gate fame). Meanwhile, Spellfire Sorcery dates back to 2nd Edition and can both heal allies and harm foes.

The eight new subclasses can be found below:

• College Of The Moon (Bard)
• Knowledge Domain (Cleric)
• Purple Dragon Knight (Fighter)
• Oath Of The Noble Genies (Paladin)
• Winter Walker (Ranger)
• Scion Of The Three (Rogue)
• Spellfire Sorcery (Sorcerer)
• Bladesinger (Wizard)

The Forgotten Realm's Players Guide comes out on November 11th.

 

[ECMO3]

How do you arrive at that conclusion?

Bracers of Defense are Rare and give you a 15 AC (plus dex bonus)

Studded Leather +1 is Rare and gives you a 13 AC, 2 points worse and equal to what Mage Armor gives with no magic items at all.

To get a 15 with light armor, you need Legendary +3 Studded Leather.

Other items (cloak of Protection, Staff of Power, Ring of Protection) boost AC equally and you start with a higher AC with Mage Armor, additionally a Robe of the Arch Magi will start you at 15, equal to Studded +3, at the same rarity, and it stacks with Bracers of Defense.

As far as how often you see them in play, I have played a ton of 1-20 campaigns and found Bracers of Defense further often, further if you crafting you can make them relatively easily. Right now we are 10th level in one of my 2024 campaigns and the party has found 2 sets of Bracers of Defense, a ton of +1 suits of Armor of all types, and I think one set of +2 Studded that we sold. We also have had downtime and funds to craft Rare, but not Very Rare.

I have found +1 Armor often, probably more often than BOD, but that doesn't give you any higher than straight Mage Armor. +2 probably not as often as BOD and RAW +2 Armor takes far more money and time to craft than BOD. I can't recall ever getting +3 Studded Leather in any campaign I have played and we have never had the time and money to craft it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Bracers of Defense are Rare and give you a 15 AC (pluse dex bonus)

Studded Leather +1 is Rare and gives you a 13 AC, 2 points worse and equal to what Mage Armor gives with no magic items at all.

To get a 15 with light armor, you need Legendary +3 Studded Leather.

But in my games, you can walk into a shop and buy +1 armor, whereas bracers of defence, you just have to hope you get lucky and find them in a hoard somewhere. Even if you use the DMG loot tables, you are more likely to get armour than bracers.

 

[SkidAce]

But in my games, you can walk into a shop and buy +1 armor, whereas bracers of defence, you just have to hope you get lucky.

If yall want to determine which is more rare between the two, you should do an analysis of the treasure rewards charts. Its the only frequency of occurrence we have that is independent of campaign.

 

[GarrettKP]

But in my games, you can walk into a shop and buy +1 armor, whereas bracers of defence, you just have to hope you get lucky and find them in a hoard somewhere. Even if you use the DMG loot tables, you are more likely to get armour than bracers.

That’s a decision you’re making as a DM. Their argument is based on the rarity of the items in the DMG. It’s not their fault you’re making one rare item less rare than another.

 

[ECMO3]

But in my games, you can walk into a shop and buy +1 armor, whereas bracers of defence, you just have to hope you get lucky and find them in a hoard somewhere. Even if you use the DMG loot tables, you are more likely to get armour than bracers.

But +1 Armor is no better than Mage Armor. Unless you can walk into a shop and buy +2 you are not doing any better and if you can walk into a shop and buy Very Rare +2 Armor but you can't walk in and buy a rare item that is more common RAW then you really aren't using the items rarity as written.

Rolling randomly on the magic item tables will not give you more likelihood of getting armor that beats Mage Armor. It is actually the opposite.

If you are rolling on the uncommon table you can't roll anything that will even equal the AC you would have in Mage Armor.

If you are rolling a rare item you still can't beat Mage Armor and your chance of Bracers of Defense, which is a big boost to MA are 0.5%. Your chance of rolling +1 Armor is 0.75% and that is if you do not randomize the armor and just assume it is studded leather and that doesn't beat mage Armor, it just equals it.

You have to start rolling on the Very Rare table to have a chance of beating mundane Mage Armor and if you are doing that you should be rolling multiple times on the Rare table, meaning multiple chances to roll BOD.

For example if you start your game in tier 2 and are going to randomly roll items:
Chance of randomly rolling Bracers of Defense with one of your 6 Rare items (AC 15 in Mage Armor): 3%
Chance of randomly rolling +2 Armor as your Very Rare item (AC14): 0.75%

Also note I biased those results in favor of the armor by not rolling for armor type and just assuming the DM makes it studded to help you out. If you get regular Leather or worse a medium armor, well that is even worse for the old 2014 armored bladesinger.

 

[camelotcrusade]

I'm glad to see this.

I also think the genie paladin is bizarre, lore-wise. Why would all the genies be working together? The fact that they don't is the basis for a lot of lore and history. Maybe I missed when/if they changed that (my brain is basically a 2E stone tablet).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But +1 Armor is no better than Mage Armor

You can’t dispel +1 armour.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If yall want to determine which is more rare between the two, you should do an analysis of the treasure rewards charts. Its the only frequency of occurrence we have that is independent of campaign.

Indeed, but the maths is complicated by the lettered charts. I know miscellaneous magic items used to be much rarer than magic armour, but I haven’t checked the probabilities in the 5e tables as I don’t use them.

The other way to check is to count up the treasure distribution in WotC adventures.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

+1 Studded Leather is slightly better because it can't be dispelled and doesn't require a spell slot every day. Mage Armor is of course way easier to get though.

 

[ECMO3]

You can’t dispel +1 armour.

It also weighs less ... on a character that typically is going to have a low strength.