Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Returns to Monthly With Some Revised Subclasses

the fighter’s Sharpshooter subclass was, by far, the least popular

No one in their right mind liked that abomination. A terrible concept from the start.

 

[Al2O3]

I really like the current UA. For those I care about they are great improvements and seem promising even for material I thought beyond hope. After seeing this I guess they might even make a warlord I like at some point (e.g. as an UA at some point after the next book with crunch is published).

The Arcane Archer seems like a good contender to the revised ranger when it comes to convincing me to play a ranged non-caster. There is one thing I would like to change:
Instead of turning normal arrows into +1 arrows I would like to conjure arrows from thin air, counting them as magic for overcoming resistances. Maybe make the last part an improvement at level 7 as a sort of ribbon ("you learn to keep some of the magic in the arrow"). This is mostly me disliking the bookkeeping and having to pay for ammunition when Eldritch blast is free.

Barbarians as defenders took me a couple of seconds to accept, but if I want to play a tank it might work really well. Seems really fun to combine with someone marking or similar (giving the enemy disadvantage vs everyone and everyone resistance vs a lot of damage).

Blade flourish should be fine after another set of feedback and polish. I need to check PHB chapter 5 before I understand what weapons a Kensei can and cannot use. Otherwise it looks great to me. It might be a hard choice between that and the Sun Soul for my favourite monk.

The sorcerer is still a Sorcerer. The things I find fun in the game do not work well with more than 1 level of sorcerer (but I do love that one level on my current Swashbuckler 5/Dragon sorcerer 1).

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[BookBarbarian]

Barbarians as defenders took me a couple of seconds to accept, but if I want to play a tank it might work really well. Seems really fun to combine with someone marking or similar (giving the enemy disadvantage vs everyone and everyone resistance vs a lot of damage).

Now I've always thought that Barbarians in this edition make great Defenders. Reckless Attack gives really good incentive for a Monster to attack the Barbarian instead of another party member, and Rage gave them great survivability, *but* Paladins were even better Defenders due to Auras making the other party members have better survivablity. Now Spirit Shield functions in a way similarly to the Auras by buffing the party members, but instead of having to have the Party members near the paladin, you can just have the Barbarian go Near the Monster.

 

[Al2O3]

Now I've always thought that Barbarians in this edition make great Defenders. Reckless Attack gives really good incentive for a Monster to attack the Barbarian instead of another party member, and Rage gave them great survivability, *but* Paladins were even better Defenders due to Auras making the other party members have better survivablity. Now Spirit Shield functions in a way similarly to the Auras by buffing the party members, but instead of having to have the Party members near the paladin, you can just have the Barbarian go Near the Monster.

I agree. Maybe "accept" was the wrong word. It was more me going "huh? Those features are strange on a barbarian" and then a couple of seconds later going "ah, right! Barbarian as defender. Well, that makes sense then."

I still sort of view barbarians as animals with winter fur in spring, except instead of winter fur they have excessive hit points. That is what attracts me to playing them.

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[Chaosmancer]

Wouldn't the Goliath's Spirit Shield and Stone's Endurance compete for the same Reaction? I guess you could use Stone's Endurance when not raging as long as you haven't used it already since your last rest.

Let's go with that instead of me forgetting that Stone's Endurance takes a reaction

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I like it because it gives the low level Kensei a choice: more damage by making all your attacks with your weapon, or more AC. It mimics the choice a fighter has between a shield or a two-hander.

It also gives the high level Kensei a reason to keep their weapon around when their martial arts die equals or exceeds their weapon die.

It also mimics real-world martial arts weapon training (IME). The weapons are taught as an extension of the art, not a replacement of it. Sai forms, for instance, still include things like kicks in them. This part of the Kensei actually just serves to reinforce that the character, herself, is still a weapon. If you want to go with a purely weapon-focused mastery, then you should pick the Fighter. All of which doesn't mean the balance couldn't be shifted to prefer weapon attacks a bit more, but I don't know how I'd do that, mechanically.

Would it be acceptable if the Way of the Open Hand monk's primary 3rd level ability only functioned if one of the attacks they made was with a weapon rather than unarmed?

This is exactly the same issue. Of all monk subclasses, Way of the Open Hand is the one that should be most able to gain all of their subclass benefits even if they eschew weapons entirely. And of course, they can.

Kensei, or "sword saint" is all about their weapon. Now, as a monk, if they use their bonus Martial Arts attack, or their Flurry of Blows, they are already going to be making unarmed attacks all the time anyway (it would be nice if they could avoid that, but this isn't what I'm complaining about). The wording of this ability (and I can't but think it is intentional due to the precision) requires them to make more unarmed attacks than any other monk in order to benefit from that ability. Not just an unarmed attack, but more. (They can't even benefit from the ability and make a weapon attack on the same round until 6th level when they get Extra Attack!) Absurd, and I hope that anyone who agrees brings it up in the survey.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I agree. Maybe "accept" was the wrong word. It was more me going "huh? Those features are strange on a barbarian" and then a couple of seconds later going "ah, right! Barbarian as defender. Well, that makes sense then."

I still sort of view barbarians as animals with winter fur in spring, except instead of winter fur they have excessive hit points. That is what attracts me to playing them.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using EN World mobile app

Oh yeah. I like my Barbarians able to take a beating. It's stupid how much value I place on that d12 hit die.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Let's go with that instead of me forgetting that Stone's Endurance takes a reaction

I actually had to look up the EE Player's Companion PDF to make sure.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Would it be acceptable if the Way of the Open Hand monk's primary 3rd level ability only functioned if one of the attacks they made was with a weapon rather than unarmed?

This is exactly the same issue. Of all monk subclasses, Way of the Open Hand is the one that should be most able to gain all of their subclass benefits even if they eschew weapons entirely. And of course, they can.

Kensei, or "sword saint" is all about their weapon. Now, as a monk, if they use their bonus Martial Arts attack, or their Flurry of Blows, they are already going to be making unarmed attacks all the time anyway (it would be nice if they could avoid that, but this isn't what I'm complaining about). The wording of this ability (and I can't but think it is intentional due to the precision) requires them to make more unarmed attacks than any other monk in order to benefit from that ability. Not just an unarmed attack, but more. (They can't even benefit from the ability and make a weapon attack on the same round until 6th level when they get Extra Attack!) Absurd, and I hope that anyone who agrees brings it up in the survey.

I think a Kensei should be able to Flurry with their Kensei weapon. That would pretty much solve my problems with it.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Although now I kinda want to make an Ancestral Guardian barbarian whose ancestors are just a**holes and think it's funny when their descendants get themselves killed.

Perhaps the Barbarian will be barred from Valhalla if he lets his friends do the lion's share of the fighting, so his Ancestor's are really pulling for him by getting the Monsters to eat his face instead of anyone else's.

Yeah there is a bit of a disconnect between the flavor text, and what is in my opinion a great set of mechanics.

 

[Xeviat]

Would it be acceptable if the Way of the Open Hand monk's primary 3rd level ability only functioned if one of the attacks they made was with a weapon rather than unarmed?

Only if the base monk had abilities which specifically key off of weapons ... oh wait ...

This is exactly the same issue. Of all monk subclasses, Way of the Open Hand is the one that should be most able to gain all of their subclass benefits even if they eschew weapons entirely. And of course, they can.

Kensei, or "sword saint" is all about their weapon. Now, as a monk, if they use their bonus Martial Arts attack, or their Flurry of Blows, they are already going to be making unarmed attacks all the time anyway (it would be nice if they could avoid that, but this isn't what I'm complaining about). The wording of this ability (and I can't but think it is intentional due to the precision) requires them to make more unarmed attacks than any other monk in order to benefit from that ability. Not just an unarmed attack, but more. (They can't even benefit from the ability and make a weapon attack on the same round until 6th level when they get Extra Attack!) Absurd, and I hope that anyone who agrees brings it up in the survey.

They're still using their weapon; they're just using it for defense instead of offense. Make 2 attacks with your weapon, or make one attack with your weapon, block some attacks, and still kick someone in the face.

It's a trade off. Like I said, a trade off between Greatsword vs. Longsword and Shield. Heck, the Soul Knife got a similar "bonus action for twf, or bonus action for +2 AC".

Now, if your complaint is that it's functionally the only ability they get at this level, then yes, I fully agree. Best case, they use something like a longsword in two hands for 1d10 damage; this is only +1 damage more than the quarterstaff they were already probably using. They can also sort of flurry with ranged attacks, which is cool, but not really much; it's just making their ranged about as good as their melee. So, when the ability is functionally +1 damage or -2 damage and +2 AC, I can see the reason someone would complain.