Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Spirits Bard and Undeath Warlock

We have a new UA release with two subclasses. The College of Spirits Bard is a fortune teller or spirit medium type character with a big random effect table. Meanwhile the Undeath Pact Warlock is a a do-over of the Undying Pact Warlock.

 

[Parmandur]

Undead, Undying... neither of them have Animate Dead on their spell list so I still can't make a damned Warlock necromancer which is all I ever wanted to do with a Warlock.

Well, the Class Variants rules have you covered, and those should be finalized in the Q4 book that Crawford stumbles around the bush about in today's broadcast...

 

[Parmandur]

That isn't how it works. The British are the oppressors, the colonizers.

For the record it is also not possible to be racist towards white people.

That's...not how antiracism works...

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

That isn't how it works. The British are the oppressors, the colonizers.

For the record it is also not possible to be racist towards white people.

the solution to prejudice is not more prejudice.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's fine. I think most people agree the ability is broken without me having to do the math for everything, right? An extra damage dice on every necrotic attack you do. That's an extra dice for each blast from Eldritch Blast, and extra one for Hex, and if you have anything else that adds damage dice to a hit, it's getting doubled or quadrupled on a Critical Hit.

Doesn't work. You roll 1 additional die when determining damage, so you can't do the blast and the hex.

And even if you want to claim the hex is a seperate damage roll, it isn't tied to the attack roll then, and so wouldn't qualify.

I would let them role the extra d6 instead of a necrotic d4 from stabbing with a dagger though.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's already better than almost all other EB-spammers at the thing they specialize at, without Multiclassing. It's not just at level 20 that it's broken, its broken as soon as you get this feature.

I don’t know... Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it’s super clear-cut which is better between 1d10 force and 2d10 necrotic. A lot of stuff resists or has immunity to necrotic, and very little does to force. Like, it is probably too good, but I don’t think by that much. And the biggest problem is the synergy with Eldritch Blast. I think the best solution would just be to restrict the bonus damage to one roll against one target, just like the Celestial does with Radiant Soul .

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t know... Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it’s super clear-cut which is better between 1d10 force and 2d10 necrotic. A lot of stuff resists or has immunity to necrotic, and very little does to force. Like, it is probably too good, but I don’t think by that much. And the biggest problem is the synergy with Eldritch Blast. I think the best solution would just be to restrict the bonus damage to one roll against one target, just like the Celestial does with Radiant Soul .

It's also something they will fix the math for before publishing, if the idea proves popular enough.

 

[Charlaquin]

Undead, Undying... neither of them have Animate Dead on their spell list so I still can't make a damned Warlock necromancer which is all I ever wanted to do with a Warlock.

It’s on the expanded Warlock spell list from the class feature options UA. Which... scares me, because it’s broken AF with Warlock spell slots.

 

[ZeshinX]

....and distinguishes between the Undead and Undying Patrons story-wise by pointing out that the Undying Patron can be any immortal being and is not exclusively undead themed like this new option is:

Well as explanations go that's a mighty fine hair to split, but sure, I can go with that.

 

[Parmandur]

Well as explanations go that's a mighty fine hair to split, but sure, I can go with that.

That's what I thought listening to it...as usual with Crawford, it's a fine distinction, but he's right...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It kinda is yeah... but I feel like it's only broken with Eldritch Blast? It'd be fine with a melee attack because of the extra risk and the fact you don't get as many weapon attack as a Pact Blade Warlock compard to Eldritch Blast rays... Might be a big bump at sixth level but on the whole it'll flatten out.

With Thirsting Blade, Life Drinker, a Stength of 20, Dual-Wielder with a Lance, riding on top a mount, that gives you 3 attacks a round, you can be 10 feet away from all creatures when you do these attacks (making almost no opportunity attacks against you, so the risk is low), it's still broken. Especially if you take the feat to get the Dual Wielder Fighting Style.

That gives you 2d12+1d6+10 necrotic damage for 2 attacks, with low risk, and a fairly high bonus to hit, and 2d12+1d6+5 necrotic damage as a bonus action. In a turn, that's an average of 62 necrotic damage. It's definitely not super OP, but is powerful, as it only takes 2 Eldritch Invocations, a feat, and a spell slot for Hex.