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.

 

[JPL]

I've been interested in the talk of revisiting the Moonshaes and doing some kind of a Celtic / fairytale thing there. This bard scratches a particular itch --- the bard with a strong element of druid.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Indeed. I've been mocking up what you can do with it, and I see basically two branches. One is you focus on damage and use one of the TWF Finesse Paladin builds people had already been kicking around, just with a slightly better AC. The other is you really double down on the extra AC and go sword & board with Defensive Duelist, which gets up to some silly AC numbers. Maybe with the Duelist fighting style to keep your damage up a bit, maybe with the Protection fighting style if you really want to embrace the defender role.

Or you just ignore it as a ribbon, like the Barbarian's Unarmored Defense. Nothing forces you to use it, and none of the other features demand Light armor. It's an optional path.

Magic initiate druid: shillelagh, polearm master, dueling style and the shield makes for a very dangerous SAD charisma paladin

 

[Kurotowa]

Magic initiate druid: shillelagh, polearm master, dueling style and the shield makes for a very dangerous SAD charisma paladin

If you're using Light armor you're not SAD because you still want Dex secondary, and if you're using Heavy armor then there's nothing new or different about the Noble Genie subclass. Also I'm highly suspicious of the action economy of Shillelagh builds under actual play.

 

[Necropolitan]

Why does the Scion of the Three capstone only have abilities for Bane and Bhaal?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

If you're using Light armor you're not SAD because you still want Dex secondary, and if you're using Heavy armor then there's nothing new or different about the Noble Genie subclass. Also I'm highly suspicious of the action economy of Shillelagh builds under actual play.

Using the shield makes up for dumping dex, at least, though if you're taking PAM you might want to have an odd dex score so you can receive a little bump. You could manage a respectable 17 AC with 10 dex and 20 cha; other SAD paladins are squishier.

 

[Jensaarai]

WotC kinda shot themselves in the foot when they decided to have the default name be "Purple Dragon Knight", referencing stuff in FR, and then tack on below that "the generic name if you're using this in other campaign settings (i.e., what so many tables do) would be Banneret."

A pet-focused Fighter subclass sounds fun (should be with a dragonnel tho ), but I still wish we actually got to see that support-Fighter dream come to reality as well.

 

[Kobold Stew]

The problem, though, is Mage Armor doesn't fit the fantasy I want to play.

What part of Mage Armor doesn't work for you, that isn't something that's simply tied to flavour?
Or is it that the fantasy is wearing leather armor?

Also, since its 13 + Dex, it doesn't really mitigate the high AC a Bladesinger can achieve.

If we assume 14 dex, 17 Int to start (pretty safe bets, in my experience, for any wizard), and a feat at 4 that gives +1 Int, you've got (13 + 2 (DEX) + 4 (INT)) 19 AC at level 4, for the cost of a single level-1 slot.

Also, the Bladesong clearly says you can't use it in armor at all, so even if you level dip for the proficiency, you still can't use it.

You are right on this -- my bad.

 

[TwoSix]

That’s news to me.

Always glad to be a source of new information.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

IDK, I think that it would be pretty easy to describe that the PDK's alliance with the Amethyst dragons is a new thing, that just happens to be serendipitous with their name. Also that it is a subset of the PDK, not that all PDKs have dragons. Finally, I would add to the lore that the reason for the new "recruitment" drive outside of Cormyr is that not everyone is cut out to bond with a dragon, and they have potential access to more dragons than they have knights who are able to control them (leaving them primarily in the PC camp, with most NPCs still adhering to the established PDK lore).

Best of both worlds, IMO.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, are amethyst dragons going to be in the Forgotten Realms DMs book? Or will using the players book require groups to also have Monsters of the Multiverse? Historically, WotC has reprinted monsters, etc., when they weren't in the core three books.