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

[Dausuul]

I see. I looked them up and all three of them are Planeswalkers though, spark and all.

By definition, any non-Arcavian attending Strixhaven must be a planeswalker*. According to Magic lore, planeswalking is the only way for living creatures to travel between planes, and they can't take passengers except in a few, very specific cases (e.g., Yanggu/Mowu). This was a major plot point during the Bolas arc, where Bolas had to go to great lengths to craft an undead army that could be transported between planes.

Presumably, the vast majority of Strixhaven students are Arcavian, but one would also expect it to attract a fair number of magic-using planeswalkers seeking to hone their skills. In D&D, of course, planar travel is much easier, so it's likely the contingent of extraplanar students would be larger than in the official M:tG continuity.

*Or else really, really old--predating the Mending.

 

[Parmandur]

By definition, any non-Arcavian attending Strixhaven must be a planeswalker*. According to Magic lore, planeswalking is the only way for living creatures to travel between planes, and they can't take passengers except in a few, very specific cases (e.g., Yanggu/Mowu). This was a major plot point during the Bolas arc, where Bolas had to go to great lengths to craft an undead army that could be transported between planes.

Presumably, the vast majority of Strixhaven students are Arcavian, but one would also expect it to attract a fair number of magic-using planeswalkers seeking to hone their skills. In D&D, of course, planar travel is much easier, so it's likely the contingent of extraplanar students would be larger than in the official M:tG continuity.

*Or else really, really old--predating the Mending.

It sounds from their description that they are trying to make the whole institution portable to other Settings, so you could use most of the material in Eberron or a homebrew without huge heavy lifting. So, they might not dwell on that too closely.

 

[humble minion]

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.

This certainly makes sense from WotCs point of view, but it's a little odd that they'd not put any of these 'plan B' feats out for UA feedback. Particularly since the last lot of feats that went to UA (the Tasha's batch) had some in there that had significant balance issues according to what seems the general consensus, and were cut from the final product as a result.

WotC seem to be happy to fly by the seat of their pants on the College feats though.

 

[Parmandur]

This certainly makes sense from WotCs point of view, but it's a little odd that they'd not put any of these 'plan B' feats out for UA feedback. Particularly since the last lot of feats that went to UA (the Tasha's batch) had some in there that had significant balance issues according to what seems the general consensus, and were cut from the final product as a result.

WotC seem to be happy to fly by the seat of their pants on the College feats though.

They don't use UA for balance concerns, that's what they do with internal and private playtests.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Feats were the Subclass powers broken out, actually.

 

[Undrave]

I would be happier if I thought the move was motivated by playtesting finding that cross class subclasses are mechanically messy or broken.

I absolutely liked the idea. Though I think it's for the best.

I’m personally not too disappointed in this particular case because I don’t think 5e classes are structured appropriately for cross-class subclasses to work well. But I feel your frustration about an innovative idea getting shut down because it didn’t poll well.

What Charlaquin said.

I think it's a neat idea that COULD work if the game had been built with that concept in mind from the start. It was always going to be too messy for 5e.

But I think it's an idea they should keep in a back pocket for the future.

 

[ECMO3]

Regarding subclass archetypes, it can organize by tier. Every tier has a subclass archetype slot. So, an archetype can plug into more than one class.

(A D&D class at Level 1 is a bit front loaded, but here Level 0 (0a and 0c) helps unpack it for a smoother advancement.)

Level	TIER	Prof	RACE	FEAT	BACKGROUND	CLASS FEATURE
0​		+0	Race
0a​	ZERO	+1				Subclass Archetype
0b​		+1		Feat
0c​		+1				Class Base
0d​		+1			Background
1​	BASIC	+2				Subclass Archetype
2​		+2		Feat
3​		+2				Class Base
4​		+2	Race
5​	EXPERT	+3				Subclass Archetype
6​		+3		Feat
7​		+3				Class Base
8​		+3			Background
9​	MASTER	+4				Subclass Archetype
10​		+4		Feat
11​		+4				Class Base
12​		+4	Race
13​	CHAMPION	+5				Subclass Archetype
14​		+5		Feat
15​		+5				Class Base
16​		+5			Background
17​	LEADER	+6				Subclass Archetype
18​		+6		Feat
19​		+6				Class Base
20​		+6	Race
21​	IMMORTAL	+7				Subclass Archetype
22​		+7		Feat
23​		+7				Class Base
24​		+7			Background

There are two problems with this. First it is not backwards compatible with what we already have in the 10 or so published books.

Second, taking 4 levels to reach the current level 1 will be a big turnoff for many people.

 

[Gradine]

Based on the interview in D&D Live, the campaign sounds very Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Edelgard did nothing wrong

 

[Gradine]

would the clip on thing work? also want do you mean more exactly?

I'm still ruminating on it. I think, ideally, themes would be level-agnostic. In trying to think about the best alternative for progression

 

[Parmandur]

Spoiler: Spoiler

Edelgard did nothing wrong

I mean, I'm Team Claude, but I can't says as you are wrong.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm still ruminating on it. I think, ideally, themes would be level-agnostic. In trying to think about the best alternative for progression

The Piety system in Theros provides an interesting parallel track, related to roleplaying rather than other traditional Leveling metrics.