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

 

[Weiley31]

To be fair, your probably going to need spoilers to make sense of what is going on in that movie anyway.

EVEN the Dog at the end is confused on what's going on.

 

[Kurotowa]

Don't forget about the Undeath Pact Warlock. Give em an Great Axe, the Invocation that Animates Dead, plus the UA Invocation that lets you make any armor(like Heavy) proficient and BOOM: You have a Death Knight and undead minions.

If your DM isn't the sort who'd allow an Invocation that got pruned between UA and official release, you can use the same trick I did with my above build. Start with medium armor by being a mountain dwarf, githyanki, or vhuman and upgrade with the Heavily Armored feat at 4th Level.

 

[Maxperson]

There are a lot more Elric books after that one...

That took place earlier in his life. I'm not aware of one(and I don't count the comic book) that brought him back to life after having his soul sucked out.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That took place earlier in his life. I'm not aware of one(and I don't count the comic book) that brought him back to life after having his soul sucked out.

Elric of Melniboné / The Dreaming City	(1972)
The Fortress of the Pearl	(1989)
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate	(1976)
The Weird of the White Wolf	(1977)
The Vanishing Tower / The Sleeping Sorceress	(1970)
The Revenge of the Rose	(1991)
The Bane of the Black Sword / Song of the Black Sword	(1977)
Stormbringer	(1977)
The Dreamthief's Daughter	(2001)
The White Wolf's Son

 

[Maxperson]

Elric of Melniboné / The Dreaming City	(1972)
The Fortress of the Pearl	(1989)
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate	(1976)
The Weird of the White Wolf	(1977)
The Vanishing Tower / The Sleeping Sorceress	(1970)
The Revenge of the Rose	(1991)
The Bane of the Black Sword / Song of the Black Sword	(1977)
Stormbringer	(1977)
The Dreamthief's Daughter	(2001)
The White Wolf's Son

Written after. Took place before.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Written after. Took place before.

Nope, those are in chronological order, that's why the publication dates are out of order. The Dreamthief's Daughter takes place after Stormbinger.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On another Strixhaven note, whether or not the mascots show up as something mages can summon with spells or other abilities, I hope they're statted up as familiars. 5E has way too few options for familiars, and a sourcebook on magic school seems like a great time to rectify that, much like we got expanded familiar lists in 2E and 3E wizard books.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Last year, a 5e Midnight was announced as being in the works: D&D 5E - Midnight: Legacy of Darkness announced at GenCon Online

Well that makes a lot of sense!

On another Strixhaven note, whether or not the mascots show up as something mages can summon with spells or other abilities, I hope they're statted up as familiars. 5E has way too few options for familiars, and a sourcebook on magic school seems like a great time to rectify that, much like we got expanded familiar lists in 2E and 3E wizard books.

Yup it's bizarre that 4E seemed to have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more familiar options than 5E does AND more fun ones to boot. Doesn't make any sense. So hopefully they do indeed fix that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But it's a roleplaying superior choice. And a lot of fun, which is the primary point of the game. I'll pick more fun over a mechanically superior choice every day of the week.

I wish the majority of players I've encountered felt that way, but the siren song of optimization is too strong for most...

 

[Kurotowa]

I wish the majority of players I've encountered felt that way, but the siren song of optimization is too strong for most...

Fun is in the eye of the beholder. For some people, they get a lot of fun out of optimization because of the joy of solving a complex math problem, or the joy of feeling powerful, or the joy of being a major contributor to the party's success.

Don't assume people aren't making the fun pick. Instead, try to figure out why it's the fun pick, and maybe if there's some perverse incentives pushing them to sacrifice roleplaying motivated choices for performance ones. I've had DMs who bemoan how their players fight to accrue every bonus possible, and don't notice that they're still defaulting to 3e skill DCs that the players have no chance of reliably hitting if they don't optimize like that.