Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Cleric, Druid, Wizard Options

In another new Unearthed Arcana (these things are coming out fast right now!) the cleric receives a new Divine Domain option: the Twilight Domain; the druid gains a new Druid Circle option: the Circle of Wildfire; and the wizard gains a new Arcane Tradition feature: Onomancy, the magic of true names.

 

[Parmandur]

How so? What was “Wild” about it?

The random spell-casting table felt very much like Wild Surge.

Hardly. No subclass concept in either world is untenable in other worlds.

True that

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

For Dragonlance I'd do a forking Paladin subclass called Oaths of the Measure. 3rd level is the Oath of Loyalty (Knight of the Crown). 7th level you can continue in Loyalty or initiate into the Oath of Courage (Knight of the Sword). At 15th Level, if you had previously initiated into Courage, you can opt to initiate into the Oath of Justice (Knight of the Rose).

For Wizards of High Sorcery, I'd do three dual specialty wizard subclasses. The School of White Magic would focus on abjuration and divination, the School of Red Magic would focus on illusion and transmutation, and the school of Black Magic would focus on enchantment and necromancy. There would be a sidebar on the effects of Krynn's moons on these types of magic, but that wouldn't be hardwired into the classes.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm guessing it recharges on the Druid's short rest because the spirit only last for 1 hour so it CAN'T take a short rest otherwise it goes POOF!

And yeah, the attack doesn't really scale with level. As a Druid you CAN have uses for your bonus action, like with Flaming Sphere or Dust Devil and other similar things... and I think some of the summon spells? Or if you want to use Magic Stone?

Quick scan of the druid spell list for spells using bonus actions look like Flaming Sphere, Heat Metal, Dust Devil. Not many. So yeah, the spirit gives the druid something else to do with their bonus action.

The damage is pretty bad though. I think the Help action would quickly become a better use of your bonus action.

Dust Devil is an interesting comparison to the spirit though. It's better in almost every way. The damage doesn't require an attack roll, scales with level, and has some defensive utility.

The spirit's utility gets better at higher levels but overall it's underwhelming to me. Great spell list, interesting alternative use of wild shape, but lackluster execution.

 

[Parmandur]

On the pages of names in Xany:

• XGtE is the most borrowed book at my table, not because of the subclasses, but because of the name list. I'm planning of buying a second just so my players would stop fighting to look first at the name table.
• 4 of my 8 players just wont start designing their character till they selected a name from the table. Its part of their process now.
• 2 on my players took my XGtE to choose the name of their new born son.

Thoses pages are an incredible resource at my table.

Now, it is anecdotes like this, and my own experience, and the continued sales success of XGtE that make me believe WotC when they say they got overall great feedback on the name tables.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

There's been this obsession with wanting a "Generalist" Wizard even though the main reason for it's existence has been rendered obsolete in 5e as all Wizards get access to all schools of magic now.

Every time some "Generalist" gets brought up: Traditions are like University degrees. And being a "Generalist" is like getting a "General Studies" degree.

 

[gyor]

Do you really think they would have put anything else on those pages other than the name lists? Instead, the book would have been shorter by those 17 pages plus more pages would have been lost, since publishing does all these kinds of books in page batches of 24 or 32, I don't remember which right now, so either 7 or 15 more pages of material would have been cut from the book as well.

And I am fine with the name lists too. In fact, if I want a Dwarf or Elf name, sometimes I will still get out the Lord of the Rings books and look through all the names in the appendices for something I like.

There was tons of stuff they could have put on those pages, hell a reprint of Volo's Guide to Monsters playable races would have been better, at least that would have had value to AL players. They could have printed a complete list of every god to appear in any FR product, they could added more subclasses, the could have added new races or subraces, they could have added monsters. I think the only reason those 17 pages of names exist is because some of the UA playtesting like mass combat rules did not pan out and they had to fill the space with something at the last minute and the list of names was the quickest, most low effort thing they could in a short period of time.

 

[gyor]

On the pages of names in Xany:

• XGtE is the most borrowed book at my table, not because of the subclasses, but because of the name list. I'm planning of buying a second just so my players would stop fighting to look first at the name table.
• 4 of my 8 players just wont start designing their character till they selected a name from the table. Its part of their process now.
• 2 on my players took my XGtE to choose the name of their new born son.

Thoses pages are an incredible resource at my table.

Your players make me sad.

 

[gyor]

It happened, some people like it, some don't. Get over it.

They are encouraging WotC to do this debuckle again. Otherwise I would move on.

 

[Leatherhead]

There's been this obsession with wanting a "Generalist" Wizard even though the main reason for it's existence has been rendered obsolete in 5e as all Wizards get access to all schools of magic now.

Every time some "Generalist" gets brought up: Traditions are like University degrees. And being a "Generalist" is like getting a "General Studies" degree.

The Schools of Magic that Wizards use are traditionally more like Philosophies than Degrees. Which is where the concept of opposing schools came from.

 

[gyor]

I think a reason why we got the tables of names as we did in Xanathar's was because Wizards identified that people were wanting and needing them; they were probably informed of this through feedback, though more closed feedback. Particularly in 5e, Wizards seems to be putting out material that everyone'll have some use for.

We got the 17 pages of names because a bunch of UA rules failed and they had to fill the space that was supposed to go to stuff like mass combat with something something else, hence that pages and pages and pages of names.