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.

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[TheCosmicKid]

Hence why the question of trowe = troll or trowe = draugr or some combination of the two is unclear.

As you'll see if you read the Orkney culture website linked above, the usage is difficult to line up, but believed to be more aligned with Draugr than Troll.

That's not quite what the article says, but okay.

That said, the line between what is a Troll and what is a Draugr is much less clear in Old Norse than you make it out to be.

I haven't made any claims one way or the other about what trolls and draugs are. I just said that I don't think the words are closely related. I might similarly have said that I don't think English demon and devil are closely related -- whatever synonymy they might have is beside the point.

 

[Undrave]

I also liked how classes changed based on Djinn equipped.

Those games were just excellent all around. Couldn’t get into the third one, unfortunately.

I never felt like the Psyenergy you'd gain from the hybrid classes were worth it compared to going full on with your original element, but I think some of the nuances migh have been lost on me. Some of 'em at least looked cool, like all the plant ones.

I liked the lycanthrope character in the third and some of the new psyenergy and summons and even locations were cool, but it was never quite as magical as the first two. And we still didn't get to kick Alex' butt! Com'on!

the password system to import data was pretty fantastic and I really liked the way the second shifts your perspective to a different group for a while, that was neat.

What about multi-classing, though? The feature says, "When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot... " What's "a wizard spell" in this context? My understanding in the past is that spells are class spells if they're on that class spell list.

A 'Wizard spell' is one you gained from your levels and class features in the Wizard class.

 

[dwayne]

well i messed up and now it says i completed the thing and all i did was page back

 

[Chaosmancer]

I never felt like the Psyenergy you'd gain from the hybrid classes were worth it compared to going full on with your original element, but I think some of the nuances migh have been lost on me. Some of 'em at least looked cool, like all the plant ones.

That was my experience as well. I pretty much always mono'd if I had enough djinn, except when I was experimenting.

It think there were a few interesting summons from having the mixed djinn in the first or second, but mono element was always the most powerful way to go.

 

[lkj]

Yes and I wish it was more like Bob, (I only ever watched the TV series). That is the 10th level ability provided lore/Consult mystic sages type thing rather than a funky familiar thing. Familiar is already there for those that want it.

I think that would be an excellent bit of feedback when they do the survey.

AD

 

[Undrave]

I think that would be an excellent bit of feedback when they do the survey.

AD

My feedback will be that I like the concept of the Scribe and most of the ability, but that the Familiar stuff doesn't seem to really gel with the concept. And that they need an ability to switch prepared spells on the fly.

If they really want to run with the whole 'sentient spellbook' thing, without copying familiar, at level 14 they could let it Concentrate on a spell for you! Now that... would be insane but in a 'crazy cap stone' kind of way. Make it a once per day thing and make it do concentration checks whenever you take damage and I think it would be balanced.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

All the subclasses have problems, but IMHO, the scribe is by far the worst of all of them. (Most of them don't have many problems, just a few quirks.)

 

[Guest 6801328]

Personally, I rule that the elemental dialects are not pronounceable by non-native speakers. Ignan, for example, involves sounds like the cracks, pops, and hisses of a burning fire, and can’t be reproduced by the human(oid) tongue, but a dedicated scholar can learn to understand them.

I like that. A lot.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The specific elemental languages are said to be dialects of Primordial. The rules aren’t entirely clear on what that means - can a creature that speaks Auran but not Aquan still communicate effectively with a creature that speaks Aquan but not Auran? Can a character who speaks Primordial effectively communicate with creatures that speak the element-specific dialects? This is all just kind of left up to the DM.

Personally, I rule that the elemental dialects are not pronounceable by non-native speakers. Ignan, for example, involves sounds like the cracks, pops, and hisses of a burning fire, and can’t be reproduced by the human(oid) tongue, but a dedicated scholar can learn to understand them. “Primordial” is a sort of constructed language that is pronounceable by most humanoids. Any creature that can speak one of the 5 languages can understand the other 4, but they can only speak in the one they know. So which one a creature speaks is largely descriptive flavor.

I like that. It leads to a situation where a fire mephit and a djinni would speak to eachother in their native dialects, the mephits speaking in Ignan and the Djinni replying in Auran, without any barrier to understanding. It's a weird little thing that sets elementals apart.


tangentially, isn't djinni pronounced with a different opening sound than the common english pronounciantion of genie? Djinni like G*inny, genie like jeenee.

*not the same g as in ginny, though. not quite. more like that sound that a Z can sometimes make that sounds nothing like a normal Z.

 

[Parmandur]

I like that. It leads to a situation where a fire mephit and a djinni would speak to eachother in their native dialects, the mephits speaking in Ignan and the Djinni replying in Auran, without any barrier to understanding. It's a weird little thing that sets elementals apart.


tangentially, isn't djinni pronounced with a different opening sound than the common english pronounciantion of genie? Djinni like G*inny, genie like jeenee.

*not the same g as in ginny, though. not quite. more like that sound that a Z can sometimes make that sounds nothing like a normal Z.

Amusingly enough, the term "Genie" actually has a Latin-French-English etymology, from "genius" (a Roman term for a spirit being), and was used to translate Djinn in the 18th century when the Arabian Nights and other tales were imported because the words looked similar...

Today I learned...