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.

 

[Remathilis]

Fair about shields.

But genie is
When you aren’t wearing Medium or Heavy armor, you gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of +1).

So that stacks.

Can add in bladesong too.
10 + Dex + Cha + Cha + Int.

15+2 Cha/15+1 Dex /15 Int
Paladin 8, 20 Cha/16 Dex/16
Bard 8, 20/20/16.
Bladesinger 4, 20/20/18
= 29 AC + Shield Spell = 34 AC.

I'm wagering they will fix the double dip rule, but if they don't your still only a bard/paladin 3 vs a 6th level character.

 

[mellored]

I'm wagering they will fix the double dip rule

possibly.

, but if they don't your still only a bard/paladin 3 vs a 6th level character.

Go Paladin or Bard 8 first.

Bard 3/paladin 3 would have.
10+3+3+3 = 19 AC, which is hardly special at level 6. Though nice to do it without a shield.

Also, I forgot 13 Str for multiclassing.
Which drops Int by 4
= 27 AC, 32 with shield.

Probably better to ignore that, get some Con, and some feats like Inspiring Leader and Resilient, and some higher level spells.

 

[DragonLancer]

How would you adapt the lore/concept of the Scion of Three subclass to somewhere not FR? I'm just trying to think how it would work for my own homebrew setting and I'm hitting a dead end.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm wagering they will fix the double dip rule, but if they don't your still only a bard/paladin 3 vs a 6th level character.

Typed bonuses would sure come in handy for this use case, huh?

 

[TwoSix]

How would you adapt the lore/concept of the Scion of Three subclass to somewhere not FR? I'm just trying to think how it would work for my own homebrew setting and I'm hitting a dead end.

Vengeful ghosts/spirits/vestiges? The Fates? Triumvirates of powerful entities are certainly a thing.

 

[michaeljpastor]

D&D has had official purple dragons since at least 2E. They breathe plasma (or psychotropic gas in 4E).

Also the Purple Dragon Knights don't actually ride purple dragons, but amethyst ones.

I think you missed my sly dig.

The Purple Worm was originally a dragon (wyrm), not a Dune worm/Lamprey knock-off.

 

[Necropolitan]

Scion of the Three should work off of Charisma, not Intelligence.

It's based on spreading fear, force of personality makes way more sense than intellect.

Plus 2/3 of the Dead Three had Charisma as their main focus (Bane for leadership/tyranny and Bhaal because insane bloodthirsty serial killer slasher villains don't tend to put their points in Intelligence or Wisdom).

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's FR-specific if it's created for FR. And the subclass doesn't make sense in most other settings.

New lore is just as valid as old lore.

Tautologies are indeed tautological, but if I dropped a pack of motorcycle-riding orcs into the postapocalyptic wasteland of Old Waterdeep and had them fought by train-building elves who only live for 1 month and die like mayflies, I wouldn't say it's FR lore, even if I went through all the effort to explain exactly how it happened, and even if it was, objectively, super cool.

Not that FR couldn't become that. It probably could. If I put that in an FR book, it literally would. It's just...not that. That's not why people love FR or play in it. That's my cool rad story about motorcycle orcs, it's not the cool rad story that the Forgotten Realms wants to tell. It's the one I want to tell.

If I'm going to run a game in FR, I want that game to be about the stories FR has to tell. I can make up new stories, sure, but if I'm choosing FR, I want FR's stories. The original PDK is embedded in FR's stories. This new one just...isn't. And that makes it a poor fit for this particular environment, to me, even if it would be perfectly fine elsewhere.

 

[Kurotowa]

I'm wagering they will fix the double dip rule, but if they don't your still only a bard/paladin 3 vs a 6th level character.

Yeah, you can dip one or two levels, but three or more is a full blown multiclass. And the cost of a full multiclass increases exponentially.

I did look at it, but Genie Paladin + Dance Bard isn't optimizing for anything but raw AC. That's a nice thought experiment, not a real character. Like, a Genie Paladin 8 / Dance Bard 3 is getting 1st and 2nd level Bard spells and a weak d6 Unarmed Strike, while giving up 3rd level Paladin spells and Radiant Strikes and Aura of Courage. That's not a good trade.

Now, if your DM breaks out the old gestalt rules? (Yes, I had that happen once in 5e when we had a particularly small party.) Then go nuts with that. But as a multiclass I don't see it working.

 

[Mecheon]

The original PDK is embedded in FR's stories.

I mean, frankly, the issue is they shouldn't have made the PDK a class to begin with back in 3E and should have just made it a title you can get as a paladin or something. Its never worked, not once.

3E's is so terrible that, even in Neverwinter Nights, an engine that smooths over a lot of the issues with 3E's classes and gives them a chance to shine, it is the genuine weakest class in the game. When "Stick with stock fighter" works better, you know stuff's rough, to say nothing about just going Champion of Torm instead if you want your fighter to do some paladin-esque stuff. The only reason it isn't the weakest subclass in 5E is due to a few subclasses existing that just sheer flat out do not function with how the game is generally run (Berserker, base Beastmaster) and due to sharing space with a far worse subclass in the Battlerager

They tried to make fetch happen and now they have to justify the thing's existence. Going back to paladin (but worse) isn't going to do that, they have to do something different, lore be damned on this one