Unearthed Arcana WotC Removes Latest Unearthed Arcana

WotC has removed this week's Unearthed Arcana from its website. Not only has the article's web page itself been removed, the actual PDF has been replaced with last month's "Subclasses, Part 1" PDF (although it's URL still reads... /UA2020-Subclasses02.pdf).

The article included three new subclasses, the bardic College of Creation, the cleric's Love Domain, and the sorcerer's Clockwork Soul.

[NOTE - NSFW language follows].

I don't know if it's linked, but WotC came under criticism on Twitter for its treatment of the Love Domain. The main argument isn't that mind-control magic has no place in the game, but rather that coercive powers should not be described as "love", and that the domain might be poorly named.

People like game designer Emmy Allen commented: "It seems WotC have tried to create a 'Love' domain for clerics in 5e. By some sheer coincidence they seem to have accidentally created a 'roofie' domain instead. Nothing says 'love' like overriding your target's free will to bring them under your power."


That domain was introduced as follows: "Love exists in many forms—compassion, infatuation, friendly affection, and passionate love as a few facets. Whatever form these feelings take, the gods of love deepen the bonds between individuals."

The powers were Eboldening Bond, Impulsive Infatuation ("Overwhelm a creature with a flash of short-lived by intense admiration for you, driving them to rash action in your defense”), Protective Bond, and Enduring Unity.

Whether the criticism was a factor in the article's withdrawal, I don't know. It might be that it just wasn't ready for prime-time yet. It seems the domain itself would be better named a "control" or "charm" domain than a "love" domain, which seems to be the main thrust of the criticism on Twitter.

WotC's Jeremy Crawford commented: "The official version of the Unearthed Arcana article “Subclasses, Part 2” is still ahead of us, later this week or sometime next week. Our team will hold off on answering questions until you’ve seen the real deal!"

 

[cmad1977]

So an Enchanter that is a Cleric.
Meh.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

if you don't point out the mistakes people make they're not gonna get better. don't frame this as "persecution" when they made an actual mistake.

I never said you weren't allowed to point out their mistakes, did I?

I said if someone makes a mistake, don't forever associate them with that mistake, especially if they haven't made that mistake before, or if they show they are trying to fix that mistake.

 

[Panda-s1]

I never said you weren't allowed to point out their mistakes, did I?

I said if someone makes a mistake, don't forever associate them with that mistake, especially if they haven't made that mistake before, or if they show they are trying to fix that mistake.

okay why are you even making this argument then? all I said was "you don't need ill intentions to do something bad", not sure how you weaseled "people should be persecuted for small mistakes" from this.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

okay why are you even making this argument then? all I said was "you don't need ill intentions to do something bad", not sure how you weaseled "persecuting people for small mistakes" from this.

Because often I see that as an excuse to either stop people from doing basically anything or an excuse to hate people because reasons.

 

[Panda-s1]

Because often I see that as an excuse to either stop people from doing basically anything or an excuse to hate people because reasons.

okay and I often see "no ill intentions" as an excuse to not hold others accountable for their actions.

 

[Horwath]

I do not see any problem with "love" domain.

Every mind control / mind altering spells abilities take advantage of natural emotions.

Spell fear works because you can feel fear normally. It just uses that feeling, boosts it to level of paranoia and you are near useless in that state.

Having a spell or ability cause love towards you or someone/something else is exactly the same. You take normal feeling that occurs in a person and you use it. Same as fear. Same as sleep spell.

But somehow, it is immoral to cause love in someone and then use them to perform certain favors for you or sell you frakking plate armor at 1/4 price, but it is perfectly OK to cause sleep in someone and then slit their throats while they are asleep.


the level of hypocrisy in some people...

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

okay and I often see "no ill intentions" as an excuse to not hold others accountable for their actions.

Both of us can be right in this situation I think.

 

[Panda-s1]

Both of us can be right in this situation I think.

maybe, but I'm not the one accusing others of "persecution" here.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

maybe, but I'm not the one accusing others of "persecution" here.

Maybe because this is a hot button topic to me since I have someone who's constantly saying that kinda crap to me (hint: they're between my chair and my keyboard) so I start going off when I see that kind of thing.

 

[NotAYakk]

There is a real world problem where people literally drug people to act "friendly and compliant" and then "make love" to them. There are entire reasonably large currently active subcultures build around manipulating people into "loving" you. There are millions of people victimized by both of those groups.

And here we have a cleric of love whose specialty is magical roofies.

It doesn't even have perform marriage ceremony as a domain spell. Instead it has "magically drug target to be friendly".

It is immoral to cast sleep on someone then slit their throats. But (a) there isn't a subclass that specializes in that with a name that implies positive connotations, (b) there isn't a real world epidemic of people putting people to sleep and slitting their throats and acting as if they are doing something perfectly ok in-line with the name of the subclass, so (c) there isn't millions of real-life victims of the (b) people whose experience of the (a) feature is marred by the (b) people's actual harmful actions in real life.