D&D 5E Uneathed Arcana

[Kae]

So Unearthed Arcana [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] Playtests are now in full swing, with now over 20 published articles regarding new archetypes, feats, prestige classes, subraces, encounter options, a new class[footnote]Even if it's not finished yet, I mean it's current max level is 10 and it's probably not balanced yet.[footnote] and even a revision of an existing class it does beg the question.

What do you guys think of Unearthed Arcana's current state?
[sup][sup]Keeping in mind that the thing is still far from finished.[/sup][/sup]

Unfortunately I haven't gotten to play it yet because we are still in the middle of a Ravenloft campaign and everyone thought it would be better to wait until our next campaign to incorporate Unearthed Arcana to our games.

That being said, I'm liking the ideas a lot, a lot of them sound super fun and other ones I just wish had been available before, especially the Inquisitive Rogue since I'm playing a Rogue on Ravenloft and that feats my playstyle way more than the other 3 archetypes, hell even before I read the thing I was trying to convince my DM of giving the Insightful Fighting feat by having Rogue throw insights in every single fight to try to determine combat styles and having him train every day in trying to spot weaknesses and reading attacks, I still haven't missed my hour of practice per day and don't have it, but basically a Rogue focused on investigation, perception, and insight is just my kind of Rogue and I need to play it.

Besides the Rogue the Warlock Otherworldy Seeker is one I like the flavor of, though I don't really like his abilities all that much, I much prefer the Great Old One for that kind of flavor and have already played a Warlock with pretty much that flavor but with a Great Old One pact, however in my DMs world that Warlock became a Demi-God so it's nice to see something that directly allows me to choose him as a Patron, it's all but inevitable that I'll end up playing this eventually to have my old character be my Patron, not that it's a bad archetype, it's abilities are actually very good but I just prefer the whole focus on reading minds and deception from the Great Old One, for fluff reasons, I liked my character to acquire knowledge by reading people's minds.

Now, the other Warlock "Patron" Undying Light sounds like a ton of fun to play, it's abilities are good, it has 2 extra Cantrips and if you cheese it with a race that grants you another one you can have a shit-ton of Cantrips, anyway the lore of being influenced by the light and becoming addicted to it sounds fun, having fear of the dark as a possible side-effect also sounds fun and the possibility of letting you start as an evil character that accidentally entered the holy plane and is slowly being "corrupted" by good sounds fun, I'd love to play it.

The Revenant sounds like an interesting new subrace if a bit too dark, but with the ability to prevent party wipes by resurrecting 24 hours later could be a good option for a healer, not to mention other useful abilities like being able to detect the person they want to protect or kill, could possibly be very fun trying to hide that you are an undead to the party, not to mention a good way of maybe keeping a character that died solo around if they meet the requirements for becoming a Revenant.

>>>>Ran out of space so it continues on the 1st Post<<<<<
[sup][sup]I mean at least it wasn't showing in full in my PC.[/sup][/sup]

 

[Kae]

Don't even get me started on the Barbarians the Shamanistic fluff of the Ancestral Guardian is pretty cool and his Ancestral Shield and abilities to summon Spirits are great but the Storm Herald and Zealot make me actually want to play a Barbarian, since it's very much not my class[footnote]Warlock and Rogue are my favourites but I also like Wizards, Sorcerers, Bards, Paladins and Trickster Clerics.[/footnote], they are like this weird cross between a Paladin and a Barbarian and I like it, though they sound a bit too powerful if you ask me, wouldn't want to fight one.

In any case, my conclusions so far, from the perspective of a player, not a DM[footnote]Because I'm sure some DMs are dying from how ridiculous some of the new archetypes seem.[/footnote] are that it looks fun and I'm looking forward to testing it but it's obvious that it still needs a lot of work, I mean I didn't even bother reading the Psionic because it's not finished.

In any case, the questions are:

What do you think of it?

Is there anything you want to try?

Will you be testing it or will you wait until it's finished?

What are things you are hoping they'll address or add with this expansion?

 

[RaikuFA]

I'd like to try it but I don't have friends or a computer.

 

[Saelune]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Do you have a link?

 

[Kae]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

I did mean the articles on the WotC site, there are over 20 articles published there regarding the Unearthed Arcana testing phase each one with a small PDFs detailing the new content, I do believe they are currently conducting a survey regarding the new Barbarian archetypes.

The content itself is currently very poorly organized for example there have been 4 new Bard Schools added but they are spread over 2 articles, 2 new Warlock Patrons[footnote]Both of which allow for less complicated Good alignments for it, though unfortunately one of them does allow for the Warlock to not be fucked by their Patron which as a Warlock player I believe to be against the class flavor but whatever.[/footnote] and one Pact Boon again spread over 2 articles, disappointingly no new options for Clerics and Paladins have been published yet.

In any case, you can find all the playtest articles here [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] if you want to read them yourself there's some neat stuff like a not quite undead Sorcerer and the return of the Cavalier, though I must admit that I much prefer the Pathfinder Cavalier since this one is just a Fighter Archetype that focuses on mounts rather than a pseudo-Paladin without the religious fluff.

 

[Saelune]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

I did mean the articles on the WotC site, there are over 20 articles published there regarding the Unearthed Arcana testing phase each one with a small PDFs detailing the new content, I do believe they are currently conducting a survey regarding the new Barbarian archetypes.

The content itself is currently very poorly organized for example there have been 4 new Bard Schools added but they are spread over 2 articles, 2 new Warlock Patrons[footnote]Both of which allow for less complicated Good alignments for it, though unfortunately one of them does allow for the Warlock to not be fucked by their Patron which as a Warlock player I believe to be against the class flavor but whatever.[/footnote] and one Pact Boon again spread over 2 articles, disappointingly no new options for Clerics and Paladins have been published yet.

In any case, you can find all the playtest articles here [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] if you want to read them yourself there's some neat stuff like a not quite undead Sorcerer and the return of the Cavalier, though I must admit that I much prefer the Pathfinder Cavalier since this one is just a Fighter Archetype that focuses on mounts rather than a pseudo-Paladin without the religious fluff.

I'd rather they just make a physical book. Volo's Monster Guide is the first real additional rules book. Too many modules.

 

[Kae]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

I did mean the articles on the WotC site, there are over 20 articles published there regarding the Unearthed Arcana testing phase each one with a small PDFs detailing the new content, I do believe they are currently conducting a survey regarding the new Barbarian archetypes.

The content itself is currently very poorly organized for example there have been 4 new Bard Schools added but they are spread over 2 articles, 2 new Warlock Patrons[footnote]Both of which allow for less complicated Good alignments for it, though unfortunately one of them does allow for the Warlock to not be fucked by their Patron which as a Warlock player I believe to be against the class flavor but whatever.[/footnote] and one Pact Boon again spread over 2 articles, disappointingly no new options for Clerics and Paladins have been published yet.

In any case, you can find all the playtest articles here [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] if you want to read them yourself there's some neat stuff like a not quite undead Sorcerer and the return of the Cavalier, though I must admit that I much prefer the Pathfinder Cavalier since this one is just a Fighter Archetype that focuses on mounts rather than a pseudo-Paladin without the religious fluff.

I'd rather they just make a physical book. Volo's Monster Guide is the first real additional rules book. Too many modules.

It's going to be a book but they are releasing it like this as a playtest, specifically for people that wish to try it out and give feedback to them regarding the balance and how interesting these things might be, some of them might even be completely dropped depending on the feedback.

But I do agree that the way they have handled additional content by spreading it across adventure modules is annoying and sub-optimal, which is why I'm excited of Unearthed Arcana which is supposedly going to be an additional rules book, I'm really hoping they also add some of the things that are currently spread across Adventure Modules to this so I don't have to be chasing down adventure modules if I want to play a Race or class Archetype that is not included in the Handbook or in the hypothetical Unearthed Arcana book.

But anyway this phase of it's publication is just a test to make balance adjustments and see what people want.

 

[Saelune]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

I did mean the articles on the WotC site, there are over 20 articles published there regarding the Unearthed Arcana testing phase each one with a small PDFs detailing the new content, I do believe they are currently conducting a survey regarding the new Barbarian archetypes.

The content itself is currently very poorly organized for example there have been 4 new Bard Schools added but they are spread over 2 articles, 2 new Warlock Patrons[footnote]Both of which allow for less complicated Good alignments for it, though unfortunately one of them does allow for the Warlock to not be fucked by their Patron which as a Warlock player I believe to be against the class flavor but whatever.[/footnote] and one Pact Boon again spread over 2 articles, disappointingly no new options for Clerics and Paladins have been published yet.

In any case, you can find all the playtest articles here [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] if you want to read them yourself there's some neat stuff like a not quite undead Sorcerer and the return of the Cavalier, though I must admit that I much prefer the Pathfinder Cavalier since this one is just a Fighter Archetype that focuses on mounts rather than a pseudo-Paladin without the religious fluff.

I'd rather they just make a physical book. Volo's Monster Guide is the first real additional rules book. Too many modules.

It's going to be a book but they are releasing it like this as a playtest, specifically for people that wish to try it out and give feedback to them regarding the balance and how interesting these things might be, some of them might even be completely dropped depending on the feedback.

But I do agree that the way they have handled additional content by spreading it across adventure modules is annoying and sub-optimal, which is why I'm excited of Unearthed Arcana which is supposedly going to be an additional rules book, I'm really hoping they also add some of the things that are currently spread across Adventure Modules to this so I don't have to be chasing down adventure modules if I want to play a Race or class Archetype that is not included in the Handbook or in the hypothetical Unearthed Arcana book.

But anyway this phase of it's publication is just a test to make balance adjustments and see what people want.

Well, I will buy it when they release it.

They also need a Psionics book.

I'd also like maybe a second DM's guide devoted to basically helping you make your own things. I was using the Elemental Evil player's PDF thing to get ideas on how to make new races, but Id like one to help fill in gaps that Volo's left, since I like the removal of level adjustments that 3.5 had. A guide for making classes and creatures would be cool too cause I like following the rules closer than I did in 3.5 but sometimes want say, stronger goblins, or weaker demons.

 

[Kae]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

I did mean the articles on the WotC site, there are over 20 articles published there regarding the Unearthed Arcana testing phase each one with a small PDFs detailing the new content, I do believe they are currently conducting a survey regarding the new Barbarian archetypes.

The content itself is currently very poorly organized for example there have been 4 new Bard Schools added but they are spread over 2 articles, 2 new Warlock Patrons[footnote]Both of which allow for less complicated Good alignments for it, though unfortunately one of them does allow for the Warlock to not be fucked by their Patron which as a Warlock player I believe to be against the class flavor but whatever.[/footnote] and one Pact Boon again spread over 2 articles, disappointingly no new options for Clerics and Paladins have been published yet.

In any case, you can find all the playtest articles here [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] if you want to read them yourself there's some neat stuff like a not quite undead Sorcerer and the return of the Cavalier, though I must admit that I much prefer the Pathfinder Cavalier since this one is just a Fighter Archetype that focuses on mounts rather than a pseudo-Paladin without the religious fluff.

I'd rather they just make a physical book. Volo's Monster Guide is the first real additional rules book. Too many modules.

It's going to be a book but they are releasing it like this as a playtest, specifically for people that wish to try it out and give feedback to them regarding the balance and how interesting these things might be, some of them might even be completely dropped depending on the feedback.

But I do agree that the way they have handled additional content by spreading it across adventure modules is annoying and sub-optimal, which is why I'm excited of Unearthed Arcana which is supposedly going to be an additional rules book, I'm really hoping they also add some of the things that are currently spread across Adventure Modules to this so I don't have to be chasing down adventure modules if I want to play a Race or class Archetype that is not included in the Handbook or in the hypothetical Unearthed Arcana book.

But anyway this phase of it's publication is just a test to make balance adjustments and see what people want.

Well, I will buy it when they release it.

They also need a Psionics book.

I'd also like maybe a second DM's guide devoted to basically helping you make your own things. I was using the Elemental Evil player's PDF thing to get ideas on how to make new races, but Id like one to help fill in gaps that Volo's left, since I like the removal of level adjustments that 3.5 had. A guide for making classes and creatures would be cool too cause I like following the rules closer than I did in 3.5 but sometimes want say, stronger goblins, or weaker demons.

Well supposedly Unearthed Arcana is going to be the Psionics book, they already have a half-developped Psionic class [https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/psionics-and-mystic-%E2%80%93-take-two] and even a an Abyssal Tiefling [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/old-black-magic] which would probably work well with the Psionic Flavor, so it seems like we will be getting that.

 

[Saelune]

I assumed you meant the articles on the WotC site, but now you make it sound like a separate product...elaborate?

I did mean the articles on the WotC site, there are over 20 articles published there regarding the Unearthed Arcana testing phase each one with a small PDFs detailing the new content, I do believe they are currently conducting a survey regarding the new Barbarian archetypes.

The content itself is currently very poorly organized for example there have been 4 new Bard Schools added but they are spread over 2 articles, 2 new Warlock Patrons[footnote]Both of which allow for less complicated Good alignments for it, though unfortunately one of them does allow for the Warlock to not be fucked by their Patron which as a Warlock player I believe to be against the class flavor but whatever.[/footnote] and one Pact Boon again spread over 2 articles, disappointingly no new options for Clerics and Paladins have been published yet.

In any case, you can find all the playtest articles here [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana] if you want to read them yourself there's some neat stuff like a not quite undead Sorcerer and the return of the Cavalier, though I must admit that I much prefer the Pathfinder Cavalier since this one is just a Fighter Archetype that focuses on mounts rather than a pseudo-Paladin without the religious fluff.

I'd rather they just make a physical book. Volo's Monster Guide is the first real additional rules book. Too many modules.

It's going to be a book but they are releasing it like this as a playtest, specifically for people that wish to try it out and give feedback to them regarding the balance and how interesting these things might be, some of them might even be completely dropped depending on the feedback.

But I do agree that the way they have handled additional content by spreading it across adventure modules is annoying and sub-optimal, which is why I'm excited of Unearthed Arcana which is supposedly going to be an additional rules book, I'm really hoping they also add some of the things that are currently spread across Adventure Modules to this so I don't have to be chasing down adventure modules if I want to play a Race or class Archetype that is not included in the Handbook or in the hypothetical Unearthed Arcana book.

But anyway this phase of it's publication is just a test to make balance adjustments and see what people want.

Well, I will buy it when they release it.

They also need a Psionics book.

I'd also like maybe a second DM's guide devoted to basically helping you make your own things. I was using the Elemental Evil player's PDF thing to get ideas on how to make new races, but Id like one to help fill in gaps that Volo's left, since I like the removal of level adjustments that 3.5 had. A guide for making classes and creatures would be cool too cause I like following the rules closer than I did in 3.5 but sometimes want say, stronger goblins, or weaker demons.

Well supposedly Unearthed Arcana is going to be the Psionics book, they already have a half-developped Psionic class [https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/psionics-and-mystic-%E2%80%93-take-two] and even a an Abyssal Tiefling [http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/old-black-magic] which would probably work well with the Psionic Flavor, so it seems like we will be getting that.

Eh...Id rather a Psionics focused book. New Psionic based races, classes, monsters, items, backgrounds, etc while expanding on what little Psionics (Mindflayers mainly) is in the base stuff.

 

[SupahEwok]

I tried out the Psionist last weekend. Did the Awakened Mind path. It... needs some work. The absolutely biggest problem is that even at level 4 my character was next to useless in combat. All I got was a cantrip to do d8 every round, none of the Awakened's current powers deal direct damage. And even at level 4, there weren't any other options for combat. Too low level to charm through mental domination, and that's like that path's only offensive power. You got a group of powers that let you reflect damage, but that requires getting your guy up in people's faces and hoping they take a swing at him. Then you got a group of powers that revolve around healing (in terms of HP it's more expensive resource wise than a cleric, for curing diseases and other status conditions, I think less), a group about divination (gives you blindsight, tremorsight, truesight), and lastly, a group of powers revolving around giving your guy temporary skill proficiency, which was nice, for the session I used it to get Performance and worm my way into a high society function as a clown. Just so that y'all know that when I'm ragging on this thing not having combat options, it's not like I'm saying D&D is only about combat. But every other class IS set to be at least 50-70% about combat, and this path... isn't.

Finally at level 5 I think there's an option for firepower, but it comes in the form of AoE charms. Which is pretty fun, but also comes *way* late for a class, and is also a one trick pony. It's this path's only offensive combat option at the moment, and spamming charms will always turn out to be brokenly OP or entirely ineffectual, due to immunities or the DM getting tired of all of his monsters always getting charmed so he starts throwing in stuff with high Int saves.

I think I can see what the designers or trying to go for. They're trying to set up a class path like Xavier/Killgrave, a telepath mindcontroller who manipulates enemies, borrows expertise from allies, sees the unseeable. But right now, it feels like an NPC class. A PC needs combat options. It also needs to put more oomph towards the beginning of the class rather than waiting until level 5 to start picking up.

As for the other path, the Immortal, I haven't played it, but I've got mixed feelings about it. It's based around the PC spending power points on personal augmentations on a round to round basis. Spend 4 points here for a +4 to AC against this attack, spend 3 points here for an additional 3d10 damage on this attack, spend 7 points here to fly up to the top of this tower. It sounds pretty great, pretty Jedi, but I worry about it only having 1 attack per round. The only offensive option this class has is adding d10's to it's attack. It's kind of like the Rogue in that regard; they each get 1 attack per round, they focus on making that 1 attack a big one. Rogue doesn't have to spend a resource on their sneak attack though, and using their sneak attack every round doesn't mean that they run out of juice for their other abilities.

'Course, the Monk has a similar deal, and the monk usually gets by if their smart with how they spend their ki points. I guess that's what's bothering me: this feels like another flavor of the monk class, rather than being it's own thing. I don't know. I'd really like to play it to see how it does on the table. One thing's for sure though, just from reading it the Immortal path is a lot more play ready than the Awakened path.

I'm a bit disappointed in that neither available path is actually what I want out of a psionic. I want a guy with kinda offbeat powers, with telekinesis and pyrokinesis. Throwing stuff around, setting it on fire, maybe add in some teleporting and polymorphing powers. But that doesn't look like it's on offer right now. Shame. They oughtta go look at The Complete Psionics Handbook from 2e. That was good stuff.