Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Mages of Strixhaven

An Unearthed Arcana playtest document for the upcoming Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos hardcover has been released by WotC!

"Become a student of magic in this installment of Unearthed Arcana! This playtest document presents five subclasses for Dungeons & Dragons. Each of these subclasses allows you to play a mage associated with one of the five colleges of Strixhaven, a university of magic. These subclasses are special, with each one being available to more than one class."

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It's 9 pages, and contains five subclasses, one for each the Strixhaven colleges:

• Lorehold College, dedicated to the pursuit of history by conversing with ancient spirits and understanding the whims of time itself
• Prismari College, dedicated to the visual and performing arts and bolstered with the power of the elements
• Quandrix College, dedicated to the study and manipulation of nature’s core mathematic principles
• Silverquill College, dedicated to the magic of words, whether encouraging speeches that uplift allies or piercing wit that derides foes
• Witherbloom College, dedicated to the alchemy of life and death and harnessing the devastating energies of both

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think this is a really cool approach for building a Magic Academy setting!

 

[Charlaquin]

What does it mean for the Warlock to have the "College serve as their Patron"?

Clearly they got in because of a scholarship.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At some point 5E doesn't need to hold every player's hand. If you are going to play in this setting but can't figure out how to justify one of these college subclasses as a Warlock Patron or Sorcerer Origin... then you probably should just not play a Warlock or a Sorcerer for this game. But for other people who either don't care about the justification or reasoning of a college as patron/origin, or who just want to use the mechanics of the warlock or sorcerer and keeping the fluff of a mage school student.. then these rules will work out fine. But WotC doesn't have to necessarily write out long treatises on how a person should think about matching things up if they really want to use them and have them make perfect sense. Especially considering not everyone is going to buy the explanations equally anyway.

If you want to play in Strixhaven... then use that which makes sense to you. And if something doesn't... then don't.

 

[SkidAce]

I think I posted a joint cleric or wizard subclass on here once several years ago. For runemasters.

Obviously they are spying on me. Again.

I did find the disparity of classes gaining abilities at different level vaguely discomfiting.

 

[D1Tremere]

It felt to me like for the Sorcerer and the Warlock, that the Origin and Patron were being used in two different ways - the fluff/background/story part and the mechanical part. Since they're coming to the school because they have powers, it would be really disappointing to me for them to do it any other way.

I see no reason why they couldn't do both. A sorcerer comes to the college to learn about their mystic dragon (or whatever) heritage. A person with no magic comes to the college hoping that they can use their knowledge to grant them powers through rituals or magical experiments. A person may sign a pact with the college where in they seek to further the goals of the college in exchange for magical abilities granted through arcane or divine means.

 

[Yaarel]

I use the wizard college setting for the Feywild.

A university setting is awesome for players to buy into the setting because it is so easy to explain how the characters in the party know each other, and how they can easily get themselves into the predicament of an adventure.

Also, it is a convenient environment to think of shortterm goals, while mulling some great longterm ambition.

And, in a college town, even a character who has nothing to do with the university, the students can plausibly pull into the adventure.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Well whatever else can be said for or against them, multiple-class-compatible subclass options make this book way more interesting as a potential purchase for me than an MtG corporate synergy release otherwise would be.

 

[Cadence]

I see no reason why they couldn't do both. A sorcerer comes to the college to learn about their mystic dragon (or whatever) heritage. A person with no magic comes to the college hoping that they can use their knowledge to grant them powers through rituals or magical experiments. A person may sign a pact with the college where in they seek to further the goals of the college in exchange for magical abilities granted through arcane or divine means.

I didn't read all of the Strixhaven MtG stories that closely and just had Will and Rowan in my head at their arrival (albeit seeming a bit more accomplished than most of the new arrivals). And it being a college, and not like HP, I (quite possibly wrongly) just assumed they were just inviting folks who already had shown something.

"Perhaps your sorcerer’s innate spark of elemental magic has been determinedly honed by this schooling ever since they first showed arcane potential, or your warlock eschewed their patron’s usual boons for learning these more esoteric manifestations of power." seemed to fit with it.

 

[Marandahir]

I do not like this subclass approach. While a bard, wizard and sorcerer of the College of Lorehold all may play differently, they have underlying class mechanics that do not fit this 'flexiblity'.

What does it mean for the Warlock to have the "College serve as their Patron"? They've "eschewed their patron’s usual boons for learning these more esoteric manifestations of power." If I am a Warlock and I select this College, with whom did I enter into a pact? What types of pacts would they make with me? Why? Normally, warlock pacts have some obvious paths (although you can certainly subvert expectations).

How is the college a sorcerer origin? Or a druid's circle? I can plug it in and make it work, but it will be a square peg in a round hole.

I would not take this approach. I would do a separate subclass for each of these classes devoted to the school, but specialized for the class. They might have a lot of overlap, but they'd be designed to match the design of the class, not trying to do a 'one size fits all' approach.

Clearly they got in because of a scholarship.

This is actually my biggest issue with the UA, and I intend to give WotC feedback on this. While this subclass structure works for Bardic Colleges, Druid Circles, Arcane Traditions, and even Sorcerous Origins (fits in with the Shadow Magic and Wild Magic so you have Quandrix Magic, etc), the story behind Warlock subclasses does not lend itself to magic academies. Yes, what Charlaquin said is the answer to that, but to call the academy your magical patron doesn't fit the story of the occult bargain. It also doesn't fit the nomenclature of Warlock Patrons. What would it be, The Lorehold? The Witherbloom?

Even Sorcerer is a bit awkward here. The nomenclature is fine as I said above, but the narrative of how you got your magic is not. This is supposed to be the origin of your powers, not where you study.

I do think that Arcane classes generally fit the academy themes really well:
1. Artificers are the Shop/Fine Arts/STEM students
2. Bards are the liberal arts students, especially the ones who are in the performing arts, but they dabble in the other departments in general
3. Sorcerers are the students who are Natural As and never had to study,
4. Wizards are students who studied hard to get As.
5. Warlocks are the students who slept with the teacher to get As.

To that end, I feel like WotC are trying to FORCE the above square peg of how you study magic into the round holes of how you got your magic in the first place. Bards, Druids, and Wizards definitely work by merging those two concepts, and I have no problem with them. Sorcerers sorta work if you squint. Warlocks flat out seem off here.

 

[Yaarel]

Another possibility might be one such level per tier (which could vary from archetype to archetype). Then the archetype would simply say what ability you get at each tier.

And every tier should be four levels: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20. So there are five levels to develop a specialized subclass archetype.

Even "level zero" works best as tier with four levels, that can unpack all the frontloaded abilities that go into a level 1 character. The zero-level feat is normally a setting feat, Dark Sun Psionic Talent. Because there is a zero-level archetype level, even a level 1 character will have some kind of specialization to express a character concept, without waiting for a higher level.

Finally, for players who feel mechanical diversity, it is possible to replace an entire tier with a substantial innovative mechanical option.