D&D 5E Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos No Subclasses Confirmed by James Crawford

Vael

Legend
What we need is an additional layer of design space for character building. Where is the 5e version of Themes from 4e Dark Sun?

Power creep be damned; more modular opportunities for characters above and beyond the slow trickle (if used at all) of feats would provide a space for a more unique character concepts and class-agnostic setting tropes (Dragonmarks, Guilds, Magic Schools, Knightly Orders, etc.)

I agree, character themes as an additional thing for PCs would be a good idea. Using the existing options for Char Gen are clearly getting slightly strained, not everything fits under the aegis of Lineage, Subclass or Feat.

And themes need not be for PCs. How about Monster themes. Augment all these goblins with an "Acolyte of the Demon" theme to make them scarier in combat.

Ultimately, I agree, trying to stuff new things into existing framework isn't always the best answer, give us new design space.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Gradine

The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
There's the faction bonuses in Ravnica, Dark Gifts in Ravenloft, piety and heroic boons in Theros
Toss in the Dragonmark subraces and you've got a full gamut incompatible setting-specific rules. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but I think we could have gotten here much more smoothly with a more universal modular approach.
 


Cadence

Legend
Supporter
Um, Arcavios already has a list of races that live in it:

Where did they say that? I'm pretty sure that with the exception of Liliana Vess (using the false identity of Serafina Onyx), everybody at Strixhaven is native to Arcavios.

Aren't the Kenrith's from Eldraine?
 




I'm mostly just disappointed that, because of the UA's timeframe, WotC taking a shot with these subclasses and whiffing means that there's no opportunity to whip up Ravnica-style subclasses (traditional single-class subclasses that line up with the flavor of specific factions but still work fine outside of the context of that setting and faction) to fill in missing archetypes or flavor-gaps in the various colleges.

(Suitably flashy spells being added to the Bard list - whether through new spells or, like Tasha's, through expanding access to existing options - should mostly suffice for Prismari and Silverquill, but there still isn't a particularly fitting Quandrix Druid subclass, and the Witherbloom subclass getting dropped rather than focused into either Wizard or Druid means that there still isn't a clean "come here for all your Witchy needs" option in 5E, which is, y'know, a bit of an issue for the Witch college.)

Ah well. At least the "what existing classes/subclasses make good fits for each college?" list I'd started working on before the UA might have some use again.

They were prepared for rejection, they had a plan B, which they partly spells out, each College grants a free magical feat (I assume its a college related feat from the book), which is the part they shared, but there is more too it as well, they didn't share everything, but it sounds like its Ravnica style Faction rules, with the first benifit being a free college feat.
 


Right. I was replying to the "I'm pretty sure that with the exception of Liliana Vess (using the false identity of Serafina Onyx), everybody at Strixhaven is native to Arcavios."
Um, Arcavios already has a list of races that live in it:

Where did they say that? I'm pretty sure that with the exception of Liliana Vess (using the false identity of Serafina Onyx), everybody at Strixhaven is native to Arcavios.

The Kenrith twins and Kasmina aren't native to Arcavios.
 

Remove ads

Top