Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Revenant Subrace, Monster Hunter, and Inquisitive

There's a new Unearthed Arcana up from WotC's Mike Mearls, and this month it looks at Gothic Options for your D&D game, supplementing the themes of the recently released Curse of Strahd. The Revenant is a new sub race which can be applied to any existing race, the Monster Hunter is a fighter archetype, and the Inquisitive is an archetype for rogues who excel at solving mysteries. "This month, Unearthed Arcana takes a look at a few new character options appropriate to gothic horror.The revenant subrace provides an interesting way to bring a character back from the dead—a useful option if you’ve lost a character in the mists of Barovia. The Monster Hunter and the Inquisitive are two new archetypes for the fighter and rogue, respectively, well suited to the challenges of Ravenloft or any other gothic horror campaign."

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Find the 3-page PDF here!

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[Psikerlord#]

Superiority dice to saves is probably OP, specially combo with bless, paladin etc.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I like them all. Usually I find something to nitpick in the class abilities that, in my estimation, does not fit with the overall theme of the subclass. But not in this case. I especially like the non-combat abilities of the Monster Hunter and think they do a great job of bringing the class to life. In contrast to the recent UA Cavalier and Scout, which did not feel as evocative to me.

 

[Barantor]

Simplicity wise it is easier to use the existing Battlemaster style of superiority dice than to add some weird new ability that is unique. It might not feel as unique but it makes it easier for the players to understand what is going on.

If you look at all the questions Crawford got on twitter about Swashbuckler and it's unique abilities you would understand why they would want to keep it simple in an edition that has already been praised for simplicity.

 

[Hand of Evil]

What issues do you foresee? Conflicts with holy types because they're pseudo-undead?

That plus possible rule conflicts with spells/potions, how do they heal, effected by charm, poison, damage resistances, do they get things like darkvision, stuff like that. Seems to limit them to just very specific campaigns and possible increase power of character.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Since revenant doesn't change the type of the PC (you are still humanoid), issues like heal, charm, poison, etc. are no different for them then for a nonrevenant PC. If you can heal a mountain dwarf PC, you can heal a revenant dwarf PC--it is that simple.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Since revenant doesn't change the type of the PC (you are still humanoid), issues like heal, charm, poison, etc. are no different for them then for a nonrevenant PC. If you can heal a mountain dwarf PC, you can heal a revenant dwarf PC--it is that simple.

Until I see more, I am going to say it is going to be simple but undead get some benefits and those not showing up means (at least to me) the difference between Weekend at Bernie's and Dawn of the Dead.

 

[Arilyn]

Since revenant doesn't change the type of the PC (you are still humanoid), issues like heal, charm, poison, etc. are no different for them then for a nonrevenant PC. If you can heal a mountain dwarf PC, you can heal a revenant dwarf PC--it is that simple.

I find this kills the flavour though. If you are a revenant, you should be undead. Can you be turned? Shouldn't you not eat, sleep, breathe? Healing should be a problem. The idea of a player becoming a revenant is cool, but this needed to be more thought out, and needed more than a paragraph of explanation. Also, not doing it for half-orc and half-elf seems kind of lazy. We are only getting UA every two months. Surely this could have been a little more filled out, or why bother at all?

Does anyone else picture that by the end of a brutal campaign, all the players are revenants?

 

[Blue]

My first impression is that Insightful Fighting seems a bit too powerful, most particularly when combined with Eye for Detail. And it lasts for a minute - typically the rest of the combat. It's much more powerful than the Shield Expert feat, which, while knocking the target prone, only lasts one round (assuming the target gets up). Perhaps have it automatically end after a successful Sneak Attack?

I think the big difference is that Insightful doesn't grant Advantage, it grants straight ability to use SA. They are very different abilities.

Shield master can use a bonus action every round, but your attacks and some of your ally attacks are at advantage from the proning, and the target needs to use some of their move to get up. If you have disadvantage from another source they will cancel and you still can't make a sneak attack.

Insightful Fighting takes a bonus action every time you change targets. It always gives sneak attack damage, but doesn't grant advantage to you or to any allies, nor use up half their move.

Different beasts.

 

[Blue]

I like the monster hunter fighter a lot, but between this and the scout, it sure seems like a lot of ranger-y concepts are moving into the fighter. If another subclass of the fighter turns up that gives you a pet and lets you use combat superiority dice to have your pet make an attack along side of yours.......

I see all of these as the skilled nature guy without spells, and the ranger as the skilled nature guy with spells. Since there seems to be an audience for spell-less ranger (they even put out an UA) I think that's a fine use without having to merge caster and non-caster in the same mechanical framework of class.

 

[renevq]

Looking at the Revenant as a concept for cross-race subraces, I'm thinking that that would be a good way of implementing dragonmarks in Eberron. Not as clunky as giving clear mechanical abilities with a background, while allowing dragonmarked characters starting at level 1. You could have a few base abilities like using dragonmark focus items, and giving an ability bonus and a low powered magical ability depending on the House (for example, House Cannith could replace the human's ASI with a +2 Int, and gain the ability to cast mending).