New Unearthed Arcana Jan2020 Subclasses Part 1

Look, I WANTED to just do 2 posts this week, but things keep happening. This time, a new playtest UA came out, with some subclasses. So let’s do a first look at those before I co back to working on the beast of the Friday post that is in the works. (Remember, doing the surveys for the Unearthed Arcana is how we get broken things fixed!)

Barbarian Beast

I think I worked on making a version of this for the Viking game. It’s probably a Barb that turns into a beast when it rages.

Getting a weapon is cool, but being able to choose each time is even cooler. And ALL THREE are awesome. Healing, Extra Attack, or Large Damage with Reach. I can think of a common reason for each one. These are not unarmed attack, but natural weapons, which is interesting.

Magic counting weapons, fine fine. What’s all this? Every short rest, do an alter self?? Frickin hell I want to play this. I probably know more about the jump rules than any DM out there, thanks to stupid Chaotica builds, and this just looks so fun! Especially with Barbarian speed boosts.

Infectious fury is crazy. It’s a combat mechanic DESIGNED for having multiple foes or having a single foe. Have we had this yet in 5e?? Does… does the ranger know? Should we tell him?

Call the Hunt seems OP, but Reckless Attack only works with Strength Attacks. So it could be devastating, and your Paladin friend wants piece, but it’s not going to push that over the limit.

Well, unless we try. The ability gives players Reckless, but they don’t have to use it, they get a anti-fear benefit, and you get Temp HP. And if the Druid does a Conjure Animals, brings out 8 bears, then turns into the bear, you call for the hunt gaining at least 45 Temp HP, giving all the bears (including druid) advantage, and you charge into the fray. That sounds pretty frikkin epic.

I want to play this, right now. It’s amazing. Its perfect as is. Gimme.

Mercy Monk

Healing monks?? All that’s left are healing fighters and healing rogues and we’ll have the full set! (WotC, I have an idea for the Healing fighter, its basically the Eldritch Knight but with the cleric spell list.)

This is the first ability I’ve seen, afaik, that does a “cure wounds” as a short rest rechargeable effect. The trade-off is it’s not great in combat. It doesn’t appear (yet) that you can juice it for more healing. You can do it as a bonus action, which is cool, but only if the target is in melee with the people you are meleeing.

Hand of Harm though, oh man! I had to check, but yes, this does proc with Stunning Strike. And at level 6, you get an ability to cause poison, so that’s neat.

Auras are such a cool feature. Shame they mostly got killed in the 4e to 5e massacres. It’s not a party friendly feature, which is important to know, and a lot of high level monsters ignore poison, but it’s a neat feature.

Healing techniques, we’re picking up a paladin gimmick! Lesser restorations in the palm of your hand! I’d feel much better about using a ki point to cure intoxication, as it’s a lot less resources than any other way to do it

Hand of mercy, huh? Let’s see, what is….

Well, my bar for “Most Powerful Ability” has been raised to new levels.

Okay, so first, you can instantly sorta-kill anything that can fail a Con Save. The only condition involved is paralyzed, so as long as Vecna isn’t immune to something like that, you can boop him on the nose and deal with him 2 1/2 weeks later.

Actually, if you are immune to paralysis, or you have a level 11 healing monk ready to take the paralysis away, you can make a creature immune to damage for 17 days. Assuming that suspended animation doesn’t trump that. I wouldn’t allow it, but I could see that being an argument.

Failing that, you can fake death perfectly now. The fact that it ends with no action required means you can wake up any time between now and 17 days, no problem. D&D is weird, because things like this should remove your awareness, but RAW, don’t. You feel all thousand years of being a statue.

I think there’s some incredibly interesting moments that can be set up with this spell. For instance, you can freeze the barbarian, stick him in the bag of holding, walk to the bad guy’s base, and open it up and unfreeze him. No air? no problem.

Yeah, this monk seems fun, in the right circumstances. Not going to be fun fighting undead, but in a world with living creatures as primary protagonists, frick yeah.

(PS: I think we may have found a subclass for Faesira?)

Watchmen Paladin

This is the anti-planar paladin. Also about spies, apparently? idk

it’s mostly meh. It’s level 15 power is interesting (free hellish rebuke on spell casters) and the level 20 power is bonkers insane (all your attacks banish, truesight, and advantage on extra planar entities. )

Yeah, no interest in this pally at all. Sorry.

Wishgranter Warlock

ANOTHER class I was trying to build, this time for Dislandia. Let’s see how I did (hint: I did poorly)

Okay, instead of doing a stream of consciousness, I read the whole thing trying to understand what was happening. I think this is a cool warlock, but I don’t know how good it is. The flavor is weird here, but that way, you can customize and season to your personal taste.

First, you can link party members to you magic lamp, allowing you to cast from their spaces and Perception a bit better. Meh? maybe some cool stuff you can do. Needs some weasel words about what spells you can cast.

Next, the tether matters! You grant an elemental resistance to another person, which is pretty neat.

okay, level 10, you can swap being hit by an attack. I don’t know if this warlock is worth taking an attack for. Maybe there is a combo? idk You also get a free banishment, that is super flavorful and isn’t actually the spell if that matters to things. Which I guess means you can stay invisible when you do it?

Level 14 gives us a Warlock’s version of Divine Intervention. It’s not amazing, but it’s probably worth it? idk. free daily legend lore is nice.

Mechanically, this doesn’t seem strong. Flavor wise, though, this is an incredible warlock, as their patron is involved in things and has a purpose that the DM can use. Unlike Hexblade who barely has a patron, this is a character you can do a bunch with, including pulling the party via plot into the lamp and consequently a different plane.

Skraz

This is a mixed bag, but I like a lot of these. I can’t wait for the next PHB to come out with all of these toys.

 

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