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.

 

[cbwjm]

The only reason why I don't like the Bladesinger armor change is that means they can't even use Elven Chain. Which granted, isn't really the same like in previous editions due to how spells/proficiency works in 5E.

But mentally, I always associated Elven Chain as being one of the few armors Bladesingers could wear.

Yep, the elven chain wearing bladesinger is the concept that sticks in my head. I'd probably house rule it if it came up.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

College of the Moon: This seems to me like a jumble of lore and mechanics. I prefer that a subclass do one thing and do it well. Not a fan.

Knowledge Domain: Mr Spock. I like this subclass a lot more than I thought I would. Thumbs up.

Purple Dragon Knight. I like it. Not generally a fan of gem dragons but the gravity breath is a really great power to give a fighter. Rather than Rallying Surge I'd like to see some powers that lean into the psionic angle, like telepathy or telekinesis. Then again, you can pick those up through feats...

Genies: Fun idea. This goes a long way toward delivering an arcane spellsword, which the paladin is a great chassis for. Would play. On the flipside, is there anything that paladin's are not awesome at? Kind of unfair to other classes...

Winter Walker: Why was giving each subclass a rider to hunter's mark not part of the design for PHB subclasses? I mean, seriously? It's like when they started adding spell lists to rangers in Tasha's. Kind of sucks for the PHB version. I'm also not a fan of the class being a mix of cold and fear effects. Would prefer this be split into two subclasses, each focused on one or the other.

Scion of the Three: This is my kind of rogue. Although I wish they gave a larger power budget to rogue subclasses. Rogues could use a boost.

Spellfire: Feels like a bunch of random stuff just to make spellcasters moar cool. Which is very on brand for Forgotten Realms!

Bladesinger: Would play. Smart changes from the previous version.

Despite my snark, this is a very solid UA.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure what you mean. The "amethyst dragon" that the knight has raised is a "special" one - by which I mean it has its own stablock in the subclass. Do you mean, if the DM needs access to its mommy, for plot-reasons? They're in Fizbans, I think?

OK, cool, didn't see the stat block. (WotC has to stop posting these during the workday!)

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Never been much of a Forgotten Realms fan (though I'm always happy to mine it for ideas and mechanics), so I'm not going to get into the discussion on whether this version of the Purple Dragon Knight should use that name or not, but I do think that if we're going to get a dragonrider fighter subclass, it should be flexible enough to cover any kind of dragon rather than be strictly themed around an amethyst dragon.

Like, it'd be nice for a githyanki PC to have the option to choose fire damage/resistance/etc. so they can have a "red" dragon, for example.

Not that it'd be particularly hard to homebrew, but it'd be nice to have the option to customize the dragon companion to some extent baked in from the start, a la Drakewarden.

 

[mellored]

A Paladin with CME?????!!!!!!!

Doesn't matter much since they don't get higher level slots.

CME scaling is what's broken. Not the base casting.

 

[Mecheon]

It's not weird, in history or fantasy, to have a chivalric order named after a patron creature and not actually have one as a pet. It's not weird to create a character option for a campaign setting that pulls from the lore. Or "bad work".

As someone who was introduced to the PDK in Neverwinter Nights, I don't understand why it even exists as a option. Its just an order of knights, yet it keeps coming back as a seperate class or subclass

Back in Neverwinter Nights, the PDK was, genuinely, the worst class in the game. And this is a game that has D&D 3.0 versions of the classes. A stock Fighter or Monk is stronger and more useful than a PDK is, its just a worse paladin. I genuinely do not understand why they have kept this subclass running as long as they have

I mean, every D&D fan knows that “purple dragons” aren’t a thing; so when you hear “Purple Dragon Knight” your first thought is “Tell me more about these Purple Dragons!”

Purple dragons are a thing though! They're part of the trio with Yellow and Orange dragons (The salt and sodium yellow and orange dragons, not the other yellow dragons and not the Dragon Magazine exclusive Illusionist orange dragons) and they basically just use Shin Godzilla's breath weapon

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Never been much of a Forgotten Realms fan (though I'm always happy to mine it for ideas and mechanics), so I'm not going to get into the discussion on whether this version of the Purple Dragon Knight should use that name or not, but I do think that if we're going to get a dragonrider fighter subclass, it should be a flexible enough to cover any kind of dragon rather than be strictly themed around an amethyst dragon.

Like, it'd be nice for a githyanki PC to have the option to choose fire damage/resistance/etc. so they can have a "red" dragon, for example.

Not that it'd be particularly hard to homebrew, but it'd be nice to have the option to customize the dragon companion to some extent baked in from the start, a la Drakewarden.

I was going to bring this up when I do my full review of the Purple Dragon Knight. I couldn’t care less about if it breaks Forgotten Realms lore. I don’t like the setting. What I do care about is broad usability in other settings. When I created my homebrew Dragon Rider subclass (based on the Inheritance Cycle), I made it so any dragon type could be the “pet.” The Amethyst Dragon being the only option rubs me the wrong way.

In my design philosophy for subclasses, they should be generally applicable to any setting, even when designed with a specific setting in mind. Echo Knights were designed with Exandria in mind, but it’s easily reflavorable to fit a different setting (Dragonborn Echo Knight that draws on their echoes, ghost-themed Echo Knights that summon their ancestor’s spirits, etc). I made a Frost Cleric subclass once with Rime of the Frostmaiden in mind, and mentioned Auril as one of the options, but also deities/demigods in other pantheons that would work. This is part of why the Raven Queen Warlock failed, IMO. She’s too specific of a patron to base a whole subclass around.

 

[Dire Bare]

As someone who was introduced to the PDK in Neverwinter Nights, I don't understand why it even exists as a option. Its just an order of knights, yet it keeps coming back as a seperate class or subclass

Back in Neverwinter Nights, the PDK was, genuinely, the worst class in the game. And this is a game that has D&D 3.0 versions of the classes. A stock Fighter or Monk is stronger and more useful than a PDK is, its just a worse paladin. I genuinely do not understand why they have kept this subclass running as long as they have


Purple dragons are a thing though! They're part of the trio with Yellow and Orange dragons (The salt and sodium yellow and orange dragons, not the other yellow dragons and not the Dragon Magazine exclusive Illusionist orange dragons) and they basically just use Shin Godzilla's breath weapon

Heh, the Purple Dragon Knight, or the banneret, in the current 5E rules isn't that great of a class either.

Now that sounds like a fun homebrew option, the TRUE Purple Dragon Knight!!

 

[J-H]

I'm not moving to 5.24, but checked this out from curiousity anyway. They are redefining the PDK from the "You want something simple, here's a party-boosting Fighter that can be a face" to... well, my wife is playing an 11th level PDK right now in Castle Dracula.

Her response was "No, you're supposed to be making a character to kill things, not an 8 year old girl's my little purple unicorn dragon! A breath weapon that pushes enemies away isn't even helpful, and they're taking away my ability to heal the whole party."

She does not like characters with complex decisionmaking and a lot of choices to make, and the dual-wielding PDK has been perfect for her.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You keep reaching for this analogy but I don’t think it holds up because Harry Potter is a different, equally specific setting. Expecting something called a “purple dragon knight” to be a knight who rides purple dragons instead of a member of a standing army in a country with no knightly orders who killed a black dragon one time isn’t like expecting Gandalf to be a Hufflepuff, it’s like expecting a wizard to perform wizardry.

I mean, I’d be pretty confused if D&D’s green dragons weren’t really green. Or dragons.

Texas Rangers range in Texas. D&D rangers range in D&D.

The broader point that I'm using this in support of is that it's not unreasonable to expect a general audience to learn about the thing. We don't have to meet their expectations in a vacuum. We can expect people to learn that the Holy Roman Empire really was. This is a setting book. People want to learn about the setting.

Sure, but then the answers you find are disappointing. Oh, they’re not really knights, and a purple dragon is just their symbol, and the dragon it references is actually a black dragon? That’s… much less cool than I imagined, just as Waterdeep Dragon Heist being a hunt for gold someone else already stole was much less cool than I imagined it being.

There’s a lot of daylight between being obvious and being disappointing though.

If the lore is too disappointing, I think the better move is to either yeet or generic up the subclass.

We don't NEED a PDK subclass inherently, and something that redefines what a PDK is so totally isn't honoring that name. So if something that actually honors the name isn't actually interesting, we don't NEED it. Better no PDK than a PDK that isn't a PDK.

Banneret would be the "generic up" option. Much like the knowledge cleric, if the subclass fills a more general need for a more generic archetype (leader-y fighter), you can avoid concerns with disappointing lore by not really relying on it.

The practice of killing lore and taking its name is what got us a good 50% of the edition wars in 4e (if not more). I'm not binary about it, but this is an example of a place where the replacement isn't actually an upgrade, it's just an entirely different concept pretending to be something it's not.