Unearthed Arcana Revived, Noble Genie and Archivist Revisited in UA

The latest Unearthed Arcana replaces the Revived, Noble Genie, and Archivist subclasses with new versions called the Phantom, the Genie, and the Order of Scribes.

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[cbwjm]

There are 5 of them.
Four are confined to adventure books. Of which one is a unique named monster, and one is just a reskin.
And the last of which are Shadows

If you expand the list to every creature published so far, there are 13 which are vulnerable to radiant damage.

If you expand that list to every vulnerability ever, there are 76 creatures which have a vulnerability out of the 1700+ that have been published so far.

Shadows make sense and if you don't have a cleric to wipe out a bunch of shadows then I'm all for the wizard throwing a radiant fireball. Those things can be scary. A regular fireball is still likely to wipe them out, if they fail the save, but a radiant fireball would be certain.

 

[Caitsith21]

It needs an attack roll so magic missile won't work for those who only roll a single die for all missiles. For eldritch blast is only applies for a single beam since it is once when you hit with an attack roll.

Thanks. Yeah and i read it again. The restriction is in the first line. And true about the attack action.
Then Monk/Genielock? XD That would count, would it not?

 

[Caitsith21]

Again with a wizard subclass that can swap elements at will? I thought they learned that lesson with the negative feedback the UA lore master got. Apparently not.
Someone at WotC must really miss his third edition Archmage PC.

Can't wait for psychic lightning bolts and frost fireballs that ignite flammable objects, poison shatters that destroy unattended objects, and radiant fingers of death that turn people into zombies! /s

Thematically i would saysombody who studies magic for 20 years should be able to alter the spell. I agree i saw what happend to the lore wizard, but is it really that potent? I understand chaning saving throws was to strong due to for example making hold person a strengh check which was literally unbreakable, but is changnig damage types really that big of a thing. Anytime you attack a non fire resistant enemy the standard fireball does the same amount of damage? And I think this is the only really good feature this subclass gets? Is it more broken then portent?

 

[Olrox17]

Thematically i would saysombody who studies magic for 20 years should be able to alter the spell. I agree i saw what happend to the lore wizard, but is it really that potent? I understand chaning saving throws was to strong due to for example making hold person a strengh check which was literally unbreakable, but is changnig damage types really that big of a thing. Anytime you attack a non fire resistant enemy the standard fireball does the same amount of damage? And I think this is the only really good feature this subclass gets? Is it more broken then portent?

I'm not that worried about this feature being too powerful. I'm worried about the hilariously unintended consequences of just swapping elements willy-nilly.
Things like:

• psychic lightning bolt and frost fireball that ignite flammable objects (how?)
• radiant fingers of death that turn people into zombies (I know, it's magic, it can do whatever, but the thematic dissonance is strong here)
• necrotic flaming sphere that ignites stuff (again, how?), and also sheds bright light!
• lightning ice storm that somehow creates difficult terrain (why?)
• poison fire shield that grants resistance to fire. Or cold. For some reason. Oh it also sheds light
• fire cone of cold that turns killed targets into frozen statues (huh?)

Also, I'm pretty sure that savvy players would use this (at will) feature to just turn everything into force or radiant damage. Efficient, and quite boring.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Thematically i would saysombody who studies magic for 20 years should be able to alter the spell. I agree i saw what happend to the lore wizard, but is it really that potent? I understand chaning saving throws was to strong due to for example making hold person a strengh check which was literally unbreakable, but is changnig damage types really that big of a thing. Anytime you attack a non fire resistant enemy the standard fireball does the same amount of damage? And I think this is the only really good feature this subclass gets? Is it more broken then portent?

I think because people prefer it being a Metamagic, with I personally agree with.

However, it being a subclass feature of just one wizard doesn't stop it from being something someone else can get, ad they do seem dead set on giving this ability to Wizards. IMO this is the best implementation of this feature so far, though I still think it should be a bit more limited, so everyone doesn't just start using Forceballs all day er'ry day.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think you could smooth out some of those rough edges with creative narrative. Cold can burn, and a crackling blue fireball sounds pretty cool. Some of it is goofy when you make the cause and effect front and center, obviously, however I think a lot of players would avoid those options for that very reason, or just not be putting the odd dichotomy at the front. It's magic right? So a little handwaving isn't the end of the world. Individual tables can always rule specific things out if its really immersion breaking for them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The other part of the damage swapping we have to keep in mind is the Sorcerer. While yes, the Wizard is using an entire subclass to get this the comparison between this and the Sorcerer metamagic is just bad.

This is one of 5 abilities gained at level 2 that have some impact, it comes online at level 2 and it is free all the time. Additionally, any damage type can be swapped to any damage type. Fire to slashing? Sure, if you have a spell that does slashing.

The Sorcerer ability costs one of their metamagics, one of two abilities they gain, it comes at level 3. It costs a limited resource ( a full third of their points at the level it comes) and it is limited to only swapping between Fire, Cold, Lightning, Acid and Thunder.

So, it happens later, costs more, is part of a more limited number of abilities (so should be higher impact) and is far weaker.

 

[Olrox17]

I think you could smooth out some of those rough edges with creative narrative. Cold can burn, and a crackling blue fireball sounds pretty cool. Some of it is goofy when you make the cause and effect front and center, obviously, however I think a lot of players would avoid those options for that very reason, or just not be putting the odd dichotomy at the front. It's magic right? So a little handwaving isn't the end of the world. Individual tables can always rule specific things out if its really immersion breaking for them.

Well, yes, almost anything can be fixed with creative narrative. I'd still prefer they wrote a less potentially goofy feature.
They could put a line at the end, saying that the DM can remove or alter some of the spell's effects if they conflict with the new damage type. Also, I'd limit the feature to a certain amount of daily uses, and limit it to only work with fire, cold, lightning, thunder and acid (like the playtest sorcerer metamagic).

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, yes, almost anything can be fixed with creative narrative. I'd still prefer they wrote a less potentially goofy feature.
They could put a line at the end, saying that the DM can remove or alter some of the spell's effects if they conflict with the new damage type. Also, I'd limit the feature to a certain amount of daily uses.

This is why we get to give feedback on UA stuff. I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea, it just maybe needs a little tidy around the edges.

 

[NaturalZero]

Being able to make wizard that can alter the damage type of spells is the greatest take-away from this. You can finally make a spell caster with a strong elemental theme from early. Want a cryomancer? Everything is cold damage. Want a dao themed guy to match the genie warlock in your party? All of your spell are "earth" spells that deal force. This is like a gift straight out of 4e.