Unearthed Arcana Subclasses Part 2

WotC have some new class options out and all of them sound interesting. Make sure to fill out surveys for things you have opinions on.

Maker bard aka College of Creation

Apparently, it’s not a sculptor or painter subclass, which is sad.

First, Note of potential makes bardic inspiration better. Considering it was pretty good to start, this is interesting. I do like how the different notes lock the party into following a plan, as opposed to just inspiring the least incompentent of your allies each round. Advantage on the abilitiy check’s BI is amazing.

next:Animating Performance. Oh, snap! This is the sorcerer’s apprentice! This is an amazing ability! Hour duration means this is for utility, it’s got that spell refreshing thing that I think will be a key part of 5.5.

And then: Performance of Creation. This ability is super situational, but I love how it’s written. instead of “takes a minute to cast and lasts X Hours,” its “This lasts a round, but it can be extended and if you extend it X rounds it lasts Y hours.

Summary: This isn’t going to be great in a min-maxing for combat, but when I can roll into town riding a player piano, well…

This is the first bard in a long time that looks… fun. which is exciting

The Looove Healer aka Cleric of Unity

Apparently they changed the name of this class since the aborted release earlier this week. Love should be 3 syllables, btw, to pronounce it right. Anyway, probably a good idea, as it’s less rapey of a name. Actually, they are going out of their way to say “This is not a god of love or lust in ANY way.”

Anyway let’s see what…

Friggin hell, Crawford, are you TRYING to make OP clerics??? I thought rogues were your jam!

Let me read to you what the level one feature, Emboldening Bond, says in gameplay speak: “For 1 hour, as long as 2 characters are within 30 ft of each other, every turn they can choose to pretend one of their d20 rolls has Bless or Guidance (their choice), while still allowing the benefits of bless and guidance. This does not take concentration, takes an action to initialize and after that, takes no action to activate. And it can be used once a day, unless you want to just use a 1st level slot to use it again. And the cleric can die and this is still active.”

This settles it. Cleric is the best 1 level dip if you qualify for it. Sursseration is probably picking up a level of this.

Now, it’s possible this is just a really good level 1 feature, like Order Cleric, and the Channel Divinity will suck. Let’s take a gander.

Level 2: Channel Divinity Shared Burden: Spend your CD and a reaction to split the damage from an attack to an additional WIS number of creatures. Resistance and vulnerabilities apply after.

That last line is super interesting, because normally effects like this can’t be resisted. But, if Sursseration is 2 levels Unity Cleric, I can steal all but 1 point of the poison damage dealt by the green dragon and resist all of it. This ability is powerful, but not game changing. And it makes it feel like a team.

At level six, the Emboldening Bond feature lets your partner spend a reaction to grant resistance to all damage for a turn, which is neat. Level 8 stacks wisdom modifier onto cantrips, which is kinda cool, but clerics don’t have many attack cantrip options, so bonding yourself and benefiting from this feature isn’t optimal.

At level 17, Emboldening bond now stretches the entire plane, and if one member goes to 0, the other gains life bond anime powers.

So, all in all, this is a really powerful cleric. I like it, but it’s another cleric that makes us go “Light cleric, what’s that?”

Tik Tok Sorc aka Clockwork Soul

Third on our list is a new sorcerer sub class. The excuses for the mecha soul is weak. In calling it a mecha soul, I’ve come up with more flavor than what they have listed. Let’s take a look at what you get, tho.

Level 1: Clockwork magic. Some spells for free. K.

Level 1: Restore balance. CHA times a day, cancel advantage or disadvantage. I think the wording would allow a rogue sneak attack. This isn’t insanely powerful, but in certain situations, super nice

Level 6 let’s you build a shield for you or a friend to soak damage. Nothing real special to say about it, outside of the summary, so moving on.

Level 14. Okay, so you overclock your CPU and you’re… less easy to hit? and you have Reliable talent for attacks. this is… okay? Sorcs don’t have the bunch of attacks that fighters do, although this does work well with Scorching Ray (which imo is probably the best sorc spell)

Last one at Level 18: Clolkwork Calvalde lets you heal, fix things, and stop spells. It’s meh. 100 hp isn’t a ton at level 18, fix everything is cool, but that’s a flavor ribbon. Stopping spells is interesting, but stupid, as 5e has Spell-Like abilities that don’t have levels and figuring out how random DM status effects are spell level is annoying.

Summary: this isn’t a great sorc, BUT, if you want to be a Leader and not a striker, this or divine soul is right for you. I wish more ribbons were earlier, like being able to mend things in a small area that got bigger at 18 maybe? idk. I could see myself playing one, and it’s nice to have some more sorc options, but this feels liking. The flavor is phoned in.

Skraz

This UA has some fun stuff. Most of the choices aren’t amazing, but they going to be seen at tables, no question. And that  sounds like a lot of fun.

 

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