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.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Thirdly, I've got to say it. Its kind of weird that you are taking a baby out to fight for you.
Like did this have to be a hatchling? I know wyrmlings have been fair game to fight for a long time. But this could have just as easily been some kind of spirit.

I prefer this -- we have enough creatures that are spirits-in-the-form-of-animals. It's nice that this actually is the animal.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Two more great overviews. Thanks.

Winter Walker Review:

Winter Walker Spells: I did have a feature like this, except it mostly gave homebrewed ice spells I made. My version did give Ice Knife at level 3, though. Pass without Trace, Ice Storm and Cone of Cold are good. Remove Curse should probably be replaced with a more thematic spell, though.

The inclusion of Pass without Trace was clever I thought (and useful, obviously). Remove Curse was a surprise.

Chilling Retribution: Why the focus on the Frightened condition in this subclass? I'm not sure how useful this is. Rangers normally get a pretty significant damage boost at this level, and I don't think the increase in Polar Strikes die size and this ability is enough.

It's interesting to see where 5.24 places defenses to the frightened and charmed condition. Putting the defense at 7 (Fortifying Soul) and the offense here at 11 is nice, I think.

Plus, ice-horror is well enough established as a subgenre that leaning into it here seems fine.

Frozen Haunt: Interesting, but again I don't like abilities that require you to expend two different resources to trigger. This should be worded more like "As a bonus action, which can be part of the same bonus action used to cast Hunter's Mark, you can adopt a snowy ghostly form." Becoming a wintery ghost is cool, I guess, but not the kind of thematic ability I'd give to a Ranger as a capstone. This would fit better for a Winter Druid subclass than for a Ranger, IMO.

You're right that this would be at home on a cold-druid, but having it here is flavorful, and I can seem becoming an abominable snow-person as being a nice capstone.

It's easily the most flavorful capstone of this particular UA.

Scion of the Three Review:
Lore: Too setting specific for my liking.

Agreed.

Bloodthirst: I actually really like this ability. The extra damage is nice, it's always good to get abilities that trigger on Bloodied. And the reaction is amazing, and limited pretty well. A Rogue with Intelligence based True Strike that focuses mostly on Intelligence to get the most out of this ability could be an interesting build.

As has been noted upthread, this creates a really interesting incentive, where the Rogue wants to be LOW on the initiative order, so that they can make the best decision about who to attack. I love that, and it will make for som efun play.

It also rewards the Alert feat, letting you as the rogue put a heavy hitter near the start of the initiative order, and you get to clean up. I really want to play with that.

Strike Fear: Definitely worth using against powerful enemies that don't have immunity to Frightened. Pretty thematic too.

This is a great ability, and will always be worth the potential +3.5 damage you give up.

 

[Kurotowa]

I was thinking of starting as Paladin and then multiclassing to Warlock to get Pact of the Blade ASAP, so you can focus on Charisma for damage. It'll set you back a level, but using Charisma for AC and weapon attacks will be great.

Yeah, if you're going to do this I don't think you want more than a one level dip in Warlock for Blade Pact. The question is, is it worth a level to go from 20 Dex 14 Cha to 14 Dex 20 Cha? Your AC and weapon attacks are the same. Your spells and aura are better. It rules out TWF, because you can't have more than one Pact Weapon, but unlike a Dex primary build you're not limited to finesse weapons.

Hmm. Spear and shield with PAM? I think that would work, but I'll have to mock up a character with it later. Edit: No, duh, you'd need a Cha boosting feat for that sort of character. Let me work through the options.

 

[Leatherhead]

I prefer this -- we have enough creatures that are spirits-in-the-form-of-animals. It's nice that this actually is the animal.

No, that's what makes it weird. The Hatchling is a living creature with a "real" biology and the intelligence of a human. If it was a true animal, it wouldn't be as weird.

 

[Remathilis]

Lore: I made an arctic ranger subclass pretty much thematically identical to this one over 4 years ago, and there's also a good amount of mechanical overlap between the UA subclass and my homebrewed one. Mine was even called the Frost Strider, which is pretty similar to Winter Walker. I'm not saying they stole my idea, just that I was able to predict a subclass idea WotC eventually published before they made it. It's happened a few times before

That was me and college of dance.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That was me and college of dance.

I also made one of those, but it wasn’t a melee warrior with monk abilities. More of a buffer/controller that moved people around the battlefield.

 

[Remathilis]

I also made one of those, but it wasn’t a melee warrior with monk abilities. More of a buffer/controller that moved people around the battlefield.

Mine was a based on the dervish dancer prc and was a more akin to a mix of college of swords and barbarian. So moving to monk isn't a huge swing, though I do miss having a scimitar.

 

[mellored]

I can't seem to find anything I like about the moon bard.

Magic Action to swap BI uses seems like a lot, and makes me use Life out of combat and stick with Mirth. Never using Gloam.
And what does Mirth have to do with failing saving throws?

Bonus action moon beam doesn't do a lot when you still need an action to move it. It also doesn't scale, even if you use higher level slots, so it becomes useless.


None of that has much to do with druids IMO.

 

[Gradine]

I was more thinking:
View attachment 394628

Now see, I was thinking...

 

[Stormonu]

After reading the comments here, I agree the PDK is a miss as it currently stands. It could be a great Fighter pet class with a name change and a small bit of work, and the PDK should be something else completely. (And they really blew it not making a fun Harper subclass after the release of D&D HAT).

Also, something that hit me. With a bit of a tweak to allow the subclass to use an action/bonus action to change the size of the pet, you could make a decent Prince Adam & Cringer/He-Man and Battlecat style character from this. I think that's something worth considering.