Unearthed Arcana The Unearthed Arcana Is Back With Cleric's Unity Domain!

This week's Unearthed Arcana has reappeared, with a renamed cleric domain and a replaced cleric ability! "Unearthed Arcana presents three new subclasses for you to playtest: the College of Creation for the bard, the Unity Domain for the cleric, and the Clockwork Soul for the sorcerer."

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The Love Domain is now the Unity Domain:

"A sense of oneness shines at the heart of healthy communities, whether bound together by friendship, blood, faith, or some other uniting force. The gods of unity deepen such bonds and delight in their strength.

Clerics of these gods preside over marriages and other familial bonding customs, but they also nurture the emotional bonds of friendship and camaraderie. Their divine blessings bolster and protect allies in battle through these deep bonds and turn aside malign influences."

The Impulsive Infatuation power has been replaced with Shared Burden which allows you to distribute an ally's damage taken amongst other willing creatures.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

is there a reason everyone is only now saying planescape is coming? last I checked they've referred to mechanus in 5e material numerous times before.

It's not just Mechanus honestly... many of the other subclasses that have been released for UA seem to have ties to different planes. I've been thinking these sublasses are Planescape-y for a long time now.

 

[Panda-s1]

It's not just Mechanus honestly... many of the other subclasses that have been released for UA seem to have ties to different planes. I've been thinking these sublasses are Planescape-y for a long time now.

I mean, I did try and go back and look at the stuff that's come up in the last 6 months, but aside from a few specific options I don't really see it? I could be wrong, but also feel like people are conflating variety with Planescape (which is a setting that's a variety of settings so...)

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I mean, I did try and go back and look at the stuff that's come up in the last 6 months, but aside from a few specific options I don't really see it? I could be wrong, but also feel like people are conflating variety with Planescape (which is a setting that's a variety of settings so...)

I don't think any others mention a specific plane by name, but many seem to be thematically linked to some planes.

Barbarian: Path of the Wild Soul: Feywild
Monk: Way of the Astral Self: Astral Plane
Sorcerer: Aberrant Mind: Far Realm
Sorcerer: Clockwork Soul: Mechanus
Warlock: Lurker in the Deep: Plane of Water
Bard: College of Eloquence: Mount Celestia
Bard: College of Creation: ?
Paladin: Oath of Heroism: Beastlands
Cleric: Twilight Domain: Shadowfel
Cleric: Unity Domain: Any Lawful Plane
Druid: Circle of Wildfire: Plane of Fire
Wizard: Onomancy: ?

 

[Panda-s1]

I don't think any others mention a specific plane by name, but many seem to be thematically linked to some planes.

Barbarian: Path of the Wild Soul: Feywild
Monk: Way of the Astral Self: Astral Plane
Sorcerer: Aberrant Mind: Far Realm
Sorcerer: Clockwork Soul: Mechanus
Warlock: Lurker in the Deep: Plane of Water
Bard: College of Eloquence: Mount Celestia
Bard: College of Creation: ?
Paladin: Oath of Heroism: Beastlands
Cleric: Twilight Domain: Shadowfel
Cleric: Unity Domain: Any Lawful Plane
Druid: Circle of Wildfire: Plane of Fire
Wizard: Onomancy: ?

I mean I guess? again Planescape is a variety of settings so I honestly feel like some people are just playing a matching game here in hopes for Planescape. I mean I think it'd be really cool if they brought back Planescape, and they very well might, but idk if UA releases are actually indicative of that.

 

[Undrave]

I imagine three seconds of this sound plays whenever a Clockwork Soul sorcerer is casting

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am randomly really curious about the Immutable Form ability on the dancing object. That's an awfully specific immunity in an otherwise very generic statblock. Was there some abuse that the writer thought was important enough to try to prevent?

If I had to guess, it is to represent this item is more of a golem than an animated item? Because that is a classic Golem ability.

It might also prevent flammable items from being just burnt and destroyed by firebolts, since they would be vulnerable due to "an item not being worn or carried" might apply.




I see what people are saying about the Bard of Creation being a bit all over the place. Their level 3 ability really has nothing to do with the rest of their abilities at all. I would also say the 14th level ability is just... crap. 14*20 is 280 gold. By 14th level, if there is something I wanted or needed that cost 280 gold, I would have just bought it already, and we are far past the point where things like "did you bring a ladder/battering ram/ect" are legitimate obstacles to the party.

Their animated construct is really nice though. Bonus action to attack, which also dodges, and they have a respectable amount of hp and AC. They are an incredibly useful companion.


I like Unity, never saw Love, but glad we don't have "let me force you to love me" on the table. I think I would like to have the Cleric eventually get the ability to support multiple bonds, instead of just one. It think that would be a nice 8th level ability. Shared Burden is amazing, love that, though I do wonder how the heck it interacts with Warding Bond. Still, powerful, great thematics, and some really interesting new things to do.

For the Clockwork Sorcerer, I really can't find myself like the Bulwark of Law. I think what I would do though is have each one be a d8+sorcerers cha mod instead. That takes a lot of variability out of it, and I could see that being worth 5 sorcery points to utilize, even when you only have 6 points to work with. Trance of Order is fun, might let it refresh more often, but it does apply to everything.

Clockwork Cavalcade doesn't interest me much, it is a nice heal, but there is one thing I'm actually fascinated by: "Any damaged objects entirely in the cube are repaired. " Now, usually when we see this it is from Mending, which specifies that the magic of an item repaired this way is not restored.... but this is an 18th level ability and says nothing about that. So, could you completely restore, let us say, an artifact that was sundered? I think that has the potential to be incredibly awesome in a campaign, but it is so niche and specific I don't know if it would end up working. But, maybe you could snap a staff of power, then use this to repair it back to normal, which would be an incredibly awesome moment in my opinion.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't think any others mention a specific plane by name, but many seem to be thematically linked to some planes.

Barbarian: Path of the Wild Soul: Feywild
Monk: Way of the Astral Self: Astral Plane
Sorcerer: Aberrant Mind: Far Realm
Sorcerer: Clockwork Soul: Mechanus
Warlock: Lurker in the Deep: Plane of Water
Bard: College of Eloquence: Mount Celestia
Bard: College of Creation: ?
Paladin: Oath of Heroism: Beastlands
Cleric: Twilight Domain: Shadowfel
Cleric: Unity Domain: Any Lawful Plane
Druid: Circle of Wildfire: Plane of Fire
Wizard: Onomancy: ?

It maybe that Xanathar's Guide 2 has I title relating to the planes and a bit of a linking theme, but that doesn't make is a setting book. There are far too many subclasses (and other rule-extensions) in the new book for this to be a setting book, which typically have around 3 subclasses.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It's really odd that they seem to often include a large number of extra spells for the UA Sorcerers when having a very limited number of spells goes against the (questionable) design principle of the class. I'm perhaps a bit bitter because they dropped them completely from the published Storm Sorcerer without giving them anything to keep them up to parr with the other subclasses (they should at least be able to have access to call lightning!).

I think the new Bard subclass is pretty weak, at least in terms of the level 3 ability. Most of the subclasses get both multiple abilities at level 3 and, with the exception of the Valor Bard the ability that invariably centers around using inspiration dice is something they themselves can do. This one just adds a rider to when other players use your inspiration. Even when I've handed inspiration out to players who are actually good about using it there is a fair chance they end up saving it for a moment that never comes until it expires. There's also a chance they just roll very well or hopelessly poorly for the duration and have no use for it. I much prefer when the bard has a special way of using some of their inspiration die themselves rather than just adding a rider on other people using it.

But I guess if there's a contingent of people who just really want a Bard with a pet it serves a function. And, of course, to each their own taste.

I think the bard is more or less on par with the valor bard, except for the missing second ability.
I think something along the lines of artisan tool proficiencies would feel right.

On another note I think it is nice how fast they reaponded to feedback and swapped level 6 and 14 abilities.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On another note I think it is nice how fast they reaponded to feedback and swapped level 6 and 14 abilities.

It maybe that internal QA had already flagged the same issues and the fixes where already in the works when the UA leaked.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It maybe that Xanathar's Guide 2 has I title relating to the planes and a bit of a linking theme, but that doesn't make is a setting book. There are far too many subclasses (and other rule-extensions) in the new book for this to be a setting book, which typically have around 3 subclasses.

Seting books like Ebberon have a ton of new races (like the Dragonmrks), so if they're aren't any new of those, there's plenty of room for these.