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

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I actually agree with you regarding druids. To me, those are secrets learned from nature. There's no entity granting that power. A druid PC that perhaps suffered trauma and began working against nature is a good story. There was a 2e Ravenloft darklord with that backstory; it was awesome.

In my setting druids gain their power from nature spirits, they're basically shamans. So it is like clerics, but instead of gaining a lot of power from one huge 'spirit' they gain a little bit of power from multiple smaller spirits. But of course this makes it more unlikely that they would manage to piss off all of them.

 

[Hussar]

That's a rough place to be mentally; I'm sorry about whatever happened to put you in that frame of mind. I just think that taking tools away from either the player or the DM is fundamentally a mistake. I respect your position, but we'll have to agree to disagree.

Not really. It’s not anything that happened to me directly since like high school.

But of the couple of hundred players I’ve had cross my table over the past twenty years, a very significant amount of them behave this way. As in its always a surprise when a player doesn’t do this.

And, afaic, it’s due to the fact that dms abuse any excuse to start teaching their players how to play “the right way. “

 

[Yaarel]

@Crimson Longinus

The patron has nothing to do with the Weave which is already everywhere, so it is specifically the method of spellcasting for how to engage the Weave, that is in question.

It seems like Warlock makes less sense to be continuously deriving magical power from the patron. Because that implies the patron is a kind of spirit hanging around the Warlock doing the spellcasting instead of the Warlock. Mechanically, this makes the patron more like a "pet" and less like a patron.

So, either Wizard (mentor and apprentice) or Sorcerer (bodily transformation) make more narrative sense for the Warlock.



By contrast, even tho a shaman wields personal power (like psionics), I imagine there are literally nature beings who are part of the community of the shaman who help the shaman out. Shaman might be a mix of mechanics for psionic and "pets".

 

[Charlaquin]

Not really. It’s not anything that happened to me directly since like high school.

But of the couple of hundred players I’ve had cross my table over the past twenty years, a very significant amount of them behave this way. As in its always a surprise when a player doesn’t do this.

And, afaic, it’s due to the fact that dms abuse any excuse to start teaching their players how to play “the right way. “

See, my assumption would be that players make characters who are loners from faraway lands with no ties to anyone or anything because they think it’s cool. The assumption that they’re doing it because they’re afraid the DM will leverage backstory elements to “teach them how to play the right way” seems very strange, and likely born of something like that having happened to you in high school and leaving a lasting negative impression.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

See, my assumption would be that players make characters who are loners from faraway lands with no ties to anyone or anything

They do it so they don't have to be bothered learning about the setting.

 

[Charlaquin]

They do it so they don't have to be bothered learning about the setting.

That’s probably true of some players, sure.

 

[Hussar]

That’s probably true of some players, sure.

Considering most players I've seen won't even read a two page setting summary, I'd say that plays a lot into it.

But, yeah, I've just seen it far, far too often to think that it's not common. Particularly when the same players do it over and over again, even with different DM's - our group did rotate DM's for quite a while. It's honestly a really common thing to run into. And, yes, I totally believe that it's because the players refuse to allow the DM anything to hook into.

I mean, heck, the last player I had do it to me flat out refused a free house from the background for Secrets of Saltmarsh. A free house, in Saltmarsh and he just turned up his nose and flat out said nope. I've seen it over and over and over again from players and, honestly, I've made some unbelievably favorable offers to the players to get them to actually ground their characters in the setting and inevitably it's turned down.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It seems like Warlock makes less sense to be continuously deriving magical power from the patron. Because that implies the patron is a kind of spirit hanging around the Warlock doing the spellcasting instead of the Warlock. Mechanically, this makes the patron more like a "pet" and less like a patron.

So, either Wizard (mentor and apprentice) or Sorcerer (bodily transformation) make more narrative sense for the Warlock.

I definitely agree but if some GMs want to interpret it differently that's their right. Just make it clear to the player how's it going to work before they commit to the class.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Considering most players I've seen won't even read a two page setting summary, I'd say that plays a lot into it.

But, yeah, I've just seen it far, far too often to think that it's not common. Particularly when the same players do it over and over again, even with different DM's - our group did rotate DM's for quite a while. It's honestly a really common thing to run into. And, yes, I totally believe that it's because the players refuse to allow the DM anything to hook into.

I mean, heck, the last player I had do it to me flat out refused a free house from the background for Secrets of Saltmarsh. A free house, in Saltmarsh and he just turned up his nose and flat out said nope. I've seen it over and over and over again from players and, honestly, I've made some unbelievably favorable offers to the players to get them to actually ground their characters in the setting and inevitably it's turned down.

See, I've seen a lot of this sort of thing too, and most of the time, it's a symptom of players not wanting to hook into the setting, wanting to play something different from everyone else, or thinking the lone wolf archetype is cool. Paranoia born from a history of bad GMs rarely enters into it. Many players just want nothing bad to ever happen to their character, legitimately or not. It's the same reason you usually have to ban Sharpshooter and Power Attack if you dont want it in the game; you can't count on players choosing not to use them on their own.

 

[Greg K]

Considering most players I've seen won't even read a two page setting summary, I'd say that plays a lot into it.

But, yeah, I've just seen it far, far too often to think that it's not common. Particularly when the same players do it over and over again, even with different DM's - our group did rotate DM's for quite a while. It's honestly a really common thing to run into. And, yes, I totally believe that it's because the players refuse to allow the DM anything to hook into.

I mean, heck, the last player I had do it to me flat out refused a free house from the background for Secrets of Saltmarsh. A free house, in Saltmarsh and he just turned up his nose and flat out said nope. I've seen it over and over and over again from players and, honestly, I've made some unbelievably favorable offers to the players to get them to actually ground their characters in the setting and inevitably it's turned down.

Wow, in the 30+ years since I stoppped both running dungeon crawl of the week and giving no thought to setting, I have only encountered one player like that. He was the disruptive butt-kicker/powergamer who ony cared about fighting that I have mentioned in threads on problem/worst players. and I was not the GM- the other two GMs had to deal with him before he was removed.
One other player did the orphan thing once, but his character grew up in a Mageocracy where mundanes inhabited the lowest caste of society and were, essentially, "untouchables". He still gave me background hooks and goals with which to work including initially using the party to leave the island (but eventually, going to view them as his family), wanting revenge against the mages for his mother's death, and having friends and contacts in the local Thieves "guild" (a network of "street rats"). Furthermore, the intention of the player (my roommate at the time) was to serve as a guide for the party while on the island and also provide his character with a motivation to want to leave with the party.