Unearthed Arcana New Year Unearthed Arcana Brings Back Those Old 2E Kits

The scout fighter looks like yet another take at a ranger, but one I'm personally more likely to use. For the Cavalier I might want some more feature related to social interaction, not just the horse part and a proficiency. Something along the lines of what the Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight got in SCAG or a new use of superiority dice.

The bard colleges seem nice, but "Tumble" might have a bit too many benefits compared to Rogue Cunning Action.

 

[Eubani]

The biggest limitation on the Battlemaster is that it shares the same chasis as the Champion, 2 very differing class approaches have too share the same core elements. I believe there should of been 2 full classes The Simple fighter with subclasses for melee, defence and range. Then the Advanced Fighter which could be built to fully utilize maneuvers and superiority dice. I also find myself asking why didnt other classes get the simple version approach as well it would be simple enough to design and balance. Maybe throughout D&D history the dumbed down fighter was some sort of revenge from designers being bullied at school?

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Complete Ranger's Handbook: Feralan was fun for a "raised by wolves" ranger, and Greenwood Ranger's "power of trees" might be cool. Oh, and a REAL Beastmaster would be nice. ;-)

I think out of all these, only the Giant Slayer got somewhat touched by the PHB Ranger. And no, no matter what some people say, the ranger was not always the "magical" class in DnD. Certainly not by 5E standards, that make it essentially a hybrid. Did they get some magical abilities? Sure they did. But far too few and at far too high levels to consider them "magicals".

As a fan of the old classes, i'd sure like to see more of them (like the guardian and the justifier) make a return. But the scout is a step in the right direction for non casting rangers.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The thing to remember about these offerings is that they are Playtests. Which means oftentimes WotC will have deliberately over-powered, under-powered, differently-powered, or just plain weird-powered things precisely so that we will comment on them come Survey Time.

The best way to get us to playtest these things and then give WotC our opinions is to deliberately provoke us. When they released the playtest packet way back when that all of a sudden added alignment restrictions to the Monk... people freaked. Which is exactly what WotC WANTED, because they needed to know whether players actually wanted alignment restrictions in the game. The comments overwhelming said 'No', so they got exactly the info they were looking for. But had they not ever added them to the Monk for that one playtest packet, they might never have known how we felt about them, because people do not tend to comment on things that aren't there.

So for these UA options... they gave the Scout a lot of frontloaded abilities, plus more skill proficiencies that puts them up and over the Ranger and Rogue. That WILL get mentioned by people come Survey Time. I'm pretty sure their response will be "No way!" Which means this Playtest article did its job. They gained information about what they can and cannot give to classes as options that they otherwise might not have known people's feelings on.

By the same token... this article will also tell them whether these "Battlemaster Variants" are found to be favorable to people. I jokingly said to Banana that these sub-classes could have been made as Prestige Classes, and I think that's quite possibly true. They could have been. But because they already just asked us our opinions on the concept of the Prestige Class in an earlier UA... now they're asking us whether Battlemaster sub-sub-classes are something we'd be interested in. And they're going to find out! A bunch of people will respond during Survey Time that they like the idea of Battlemaster sub-sub-classes... and other people will respond that they'd prefer all of these options just be rolled into the Battlemaster proper and widening the BM's scope. All information they wouldn't otherwise know until they actually gave us these articles to force us to think about and test.

Throw in other things for us to comment on (like the over-abundance of bonus action options for the Bard college) and you have an article full of things to provoke discussion and help them narrow their designs. Exactly what playtesting is supposed to do.

 

[DEFCON 1]

OH! AND ALSO! "College of Blades" sounds so much cooler than "College of Swords."

"Good morning class."
"Good morning Dr. Swordopolis"
"Welcome to Swords 101. Your first lesson: the pointy end goes in the other person. Now you."
"the pointy end goes in the other person"
"Very good! You've all earned your PHD in Swording!"

Well, see... there's the problem! Professor Connery misread it again!

It's not the College of Swords... it's the College of S Words.

 

[Queer Venger]

I really, REALLY like these. I hope to see more UA kits for other classes, specially the cleric.

 

[Simonb1]

Hi all,

I think that the scout and cavalier manoeuvres are kept separate from the BM because they are at the play test stage, not yet, if ever, at the formal release point.

On formal release they MAY be folded into the Martial Adept Feat, or less likely, in my opinion, into the BM's list of manoeuvres.

Simon

 

[Klaus]

Another thing to consider is that 5e is built on the notion of "dials": you set the complexity dial to your liking. Currently, the Fighter has an on/off switch: simple (Champion) or complex (Battlemaster). The Cavalier and Scout, as presented, offer a middle ground: they're not as complex to build as a Battlemaster (which maneuver to get? which build to aim towards?), but offer a variety of options *in play*.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Personally I'd be fine with allowing an attack with an off-hand weapon for every primary attack without requiring an action. I'd need to run the numbers, but that might bring twf into the same ballpark as two-handers, and ahead of shield wielders, and it's similar whether you use feats or not.

That is probably too much for dual wielders, assuming no feats. You increase your odds of inflicting some damage with more attacks and deal 2d6+ twice stat mod, vs 2d6 + stat mod of the two hander. My solution was to move the single offhand attack to the attack action if you took the feat or fighting style (in particular this helps rangers who had a lot of competition from spells for their bonus action). Fighters with a third attack may make a 2nd offhand attack as a bonus action. At 4 attacks they instead make a 2nd offhand as part of the attack action.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Well, see... there's the problem! Professor Connery misread it again!

It's not the College of Swords... it's the College of S Words.

Next up, the College of Therapists...

 

[Mephista]

Okay, reading through the pdf and ignoring the back posts, first impression, go!

Mmmm...... Bard goodness. The College of Swords has a ... strange background to it. I read it, and think, "Oh, hey! I'm a traveling performer? What does that have to do with blades? And how is this different from Valor? Isn't this kind of thing the domain of Backgrounds, not subclasses?" Then, I get to Proficencies and Fighting Style, and I'm all like, "Oh, hey! Dervish bard! Want!" Then, Blade Flourish, and "How can I be a two-weapon dervish if all my bonus actions are taken up by Bardic Inspiration again? This is dumb. Well, okay, these Inspirations are pretty cool, but still not usable with two weapons." And then, we go right back to the Haste-as-level-11-milestone. For the Valor bard, you can use Haste, paladin smites, and Swift Quiver. The latter two don't work with 2 weapons. While Extra Attack is about what I expect, tossing on Battle Magic again feels lazy. Can't we do something different?

And then, the Jester! Roguish bards in a nutshell, complete with a variation on Cunning Action. More bonus actions, though, clashing with Inspirations, but at least it doesn't take up your uses of Inspiration. I do have to wonder why there's this focus on finding otu the truth, though. Feels... oddly forced. Why not just have it as a thieving bard, and be done with it? With the exception of the Cunning Action, this feels like nothing more than a variation on Lore bard. Get three theif-y skills, get bonus spells, get bonus to ability check. Now, Fool's Luck is admittedly much better than Peerless Skill, since it adds to your saving throws and attacks, thought it will come back to haunt you later. We're still working on the same Vicious Mockery as the attack cantrip.

All in all, I'm a bit disappointed here. I was hoping for something new and dramatic, and it feels like just a repeat of the current two subclasses. Admittedly, there's not a lot we can do with just three subclass levels, but still! There has to be -something- more than these.

Now, onto the Fighter! Cavalier is interesting - the mounted knight. I note the fluff is significantly smaller than the bard as well. Bonus skills are nice to see, though they're not going to be ones the Fighter will have a lot of backup in the Attribute department. We also get a return of the superiority dice! And only one ability is entirely dependant on being mounted, making this a pretty good class to take if you really want moutned combat. (Never really seen it myself, though).

Scout... "Hey, remember the spell-less Ranger we posted a while back? Here's how to do it as a Fighter. Now stop complaining, you've got what you want." That's my impression. Moving on.


All in all, rather disappointing. The Cavalier is the only one that's not feeling like a repeat of other existing stuff, and works well mechanically. But how often do we have people playing mounted characters?