Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Four New Subclasses

There's a new Unearthed Arcana from Ben Petrisor, Dan Dillon, Bill Benham, Jeremy Crawford, F. Wesley Schneider. This one has four new subclasses Path of the Beast (Barbarian), Way of Mercy (Monk), Oath of the Watchers (Paladin), Noble Genie (Warlock).

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[Weiley31]

Does anyone else get a Plague Doctor vibe from the Way of Mercy monk? They wear masks, they heal, they gas...

You now have a Plague Doctor for Ravenloft now.

 

[Gradine]

The Path of the Beast... The fey origin doesn't make as much sense to me, because I don't associate rage with fey creatures (most of the abilities are tied to rage).

Then you must not be associating with the right kinds of fey then

 

[Weiley31]

Realms Helps Creature: Ragewalker

Path of the Beast Fey option.

 

[jasper]

Call of Hunt is a Little too powerful 5 HP per critter. 25 hit points if you Con is 20. If you are running with a table of 7 who have two or more pets, companions. The two tanks choose reckless, and the two pets choose reckless. And the wizard who not casting choose reckless.
Bestial Soul As AL DM I would make the person declare what they chose at beginning of the session and after the rest.
Monk Implements of Mercy is interesting but you will have to be careful creating your PC so you don't dup the insight/medicine.
I let the number crunchers do the math on the other ones.

 

[ad_hoc]

Noble Genie: Not a big fan. The expanded spell list is pretty bland, and the low-level tether is pretty awful.

Compared to other patron's abilities at the same level it's fine. It's middle of the road for power.

Don't compare it to Hexblade because that patron is very overpowered. Fiend also has a powerful low level ability. This fits right in with the rest of the patrons though.

 

[TwoSix]

The warlock will be OP, I think. Tether to the rogue who is stealthed and sneaky ahead, and you cast spells through them. You don't even need to be in the immediate area or detected. Invisible rogue is just a conduit for you casting spells while you stay safe. Or tether to the tank and let loose all your short range devastation while you remains safely away. Lots of scenarios.

There's a fair amount of constraints on that scenario, though.

-The range is only 100'.
-The tether itself is not invisible or hidden.

Compared to other patron's abilities at the same level it's fine. It's middle of the road for power.

Don't compare it to Hexblade because that patron is very overpowered. Fiend also has a powerful low level ability. This fits right in with the rest of the patrons though.

I wasn't comparing purely to Hexblade, although since that's a published patron, the genie is already out of the bottle. (No pun intended. Ok, it was intended.) But yea, I'd like more patrons in the Hexblade range than in the Feylock range. Hexblade feels like the right amount of power, and most of the other patrons feel a bit undertuned.

 

[RSIxidor]

I think this is all pretty nice.

A little underwhelmed by the second option on the Warlock's level 14 when compared to the other two options there. Feel like the duration should be longer, but an entire minute feels too long at the same time.

 

[Weiley31]

To anybody who doesn't like Noble Genie: you don't want Will Smith as your boss?

 

[Raunalyn]

Ok, I like the Barbarian path. At first, I was looking at the attacks for Form of the Beast and thinking to myself, "Well, those SUCK!" And then I read the riders to the various attacks and changed my mind. Not bad! Bestial soul just gives you a few new movement options, but otherwise doesn't stand out. Infectious Fury is just fun! And the capstone? Holy &%$! You can turn your allies into Barbarians? NICE!!! Someone mentioned adding the ritual Speak with Animals earlier...I agree. Verdict: I'd play the hell out of this!

The Mercy Monk feels...weird. I am not keen on the mechanics, and as mentioned earlier in the thread, the cloud of fart just doesn't seem to mesh well with the concept. Verdict: I don't like it very much.

The Paladin: a few good Oath spells, but most are duds (Counterspell looks good at first, but remember that for every spell you counter, you lose a smite). Their Channel Divinity almost seems too strong, so I would have to see how it plays. Their aura grants a bonus to Initiative, which is nice but not over-powered. Vigilant Rebuke seems a little weak for a level 15 power; I think it should do damage according to spell level, but that's me. But it's capstone? Now THAT'S a capstone ability! Smack a creature not native to the plane you are on, you banish them? Holy Crap!!! Verdict: Not too shabby!

The Warlock: I'm not keen on the spells...they just don't feel very elementally influenced. Collector's vessel seems very Meh...there is some mechanical effect that can potentially be nice, but it's mostly just...meh. Elemental Resistance is a little on the boring side, but still useful. Protective Wish...uh, I'm not so sure about this one. It could be useful if you could tether an unwilling creature, though. Genie's Entertainment is a weak Maze spell, but it's not terrible. The capstone seems pretty weak, though. Verdict: Not impressed. The subclass suffers from not knowing what it wants to be.

 

[cbwjm]

The genie patron was what I was most looking forward to, I think it has some cool ideas but the whole binding a creature to you for an hour seems weird to me. I would have also liked to have seen a version that gave abilities based on the genie that you've made your pact with (I guess you could theme it by choosing a single resistance and keeping it).

I'm not sure how I feel about the barbarian and paladin subclasses but I like the idea of the plague doctor monk subclass.