Unearthed Arcana 11/4

[jaappleton]

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/class-feature-variants

I. CALLED. THIS. WEEKS. AGO.

[Xihirli]

Wait, Rangers didn’t get Dominate Beast?
Did they just forget?

[Daphne]

So more spells for free is a class "variant"? :smallconfused:

[Theaitetos]

OMG, sorcerers gained SOOOOO much! They can replace spells at long rests like Wizards! No more torturing yourself over spell choices! :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:
Sorcerers have a new metamagic to change elemental damage types on spells, for 1 sorcery point! Thunder Meteor Swarm has a Power Level over 9000!

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e9/6c/a2/e96ca243cc8dde21f0cfe038722c4b78.jpg

Edit: Wow, Warlocks are getting even more. Spell replacement feature, some new spells (Greater Invisibility, Shapechange, Weird, GATE), … and the invocations are wow²: Bladelocks can now ignore all armor proficiencies… Tomelocks can get concentration saving throws advantage… Chainlocks can finally (!!!) improve their familiars granting them attacks and infusions…

I think the Sprite is really powerful if you give it the saving throw power: His ranged +6 attack (with advantage due to invisibility) can poison people on your spell save DC then. All of that as a bonus action! But a flying Sea Horse/Octopus/Quipper is really stylish. :smallcool:

Let's hope most of this stuff makes it into the next rulebook!

[stoutstien]

Most of this seems very haphazard and mostly flat out upgrades.

I'd like to see real alternative class features that offer meaningful choice.

[GorogIrongut]

So yeah... Big changes available.
My gut instincts are:
1. The barbarian got shafted. It's changes are a waste of time.
2. The bard got some good changes but none of them were crazy overpowered.
3. The cleric got some gentle but good changes. And here we see the beginning of the oversharing of Aura of Vitality. Good changes but not overpowered.
4. Druids got a little more of a bump than clerics. Better spells. Interesting changes to wild shaping. All in all, stronger than the bump that clerics got, but still not overbearingly so.
5. Fighters got a needed bump. Though honestly... it was more of a bump to Battle Masters. The other fighter subclasses were essentially nerfed in comparison despite now getting a very limited access to maneuvers.
6. Monks were given some options that make them more customizable. You can build your monk a little more the way you want to. Which is something I'm all for. Not sure I'd call it a significant power jump.
7. Paladins... I mean seriously. They got given cantrips which is long overdue. But by adding Spirit Guardians to their spell list... you just ramped up their power level seriously. That and they get guidance. Which means they make clerics, who didn't get any significant boost, now less necessary.
8. And now for the star of this whole UA... I LOVE the changes to the Ranger. It maintains the same power level... but makes them more playable in the paradigm of 5e. So much more interactive without a carte blanche handwaving that occurred with the most recent Rev. Ranger. Great changes. Can't really express how much I like these changes.
9. Rogue had very little added to it. But what they did add was excellent. An already excellent class with a good change. One paragraph changes count.
10. Sorcerors were simultaneously boosted and nerfed. The new metamagics are sick. Having access to the new spells is okay... Still does nothing for overall spells known. Spell Versatility mitigates this slightly... but I'm not sure it's enough. Especially seeing as every major spellcaster got it.
11. Warlocks got a great boost. One that made the other Pacts more viable and interesting. Some of them are so good as to be an invocation tax. But it makes more ways of playing a warlock viable. So I'm all for it.
12. Wizards were mostly left alone. Which is as it should be.

[8wGremlin]

First impressions. Very good lots of needed changes. Will look over this in detail later

[Skyblaze]

My two favorite classes (fighters and sorcerers) got well needed upgrades, so happy to try them out.

Though someone correct me if I am wrong, if any monk (potentially) has the ability to select marital weapons, whats the point of Kensei?

[jaappleton]

Warlocks get quite a few new Invocations.

Blade Pact users get a wonderful way to wear armor, so hexblade isn’t the only option anymore

Chain wielders get.... Man. Using YOUR spell DC for their abilities? That can get crazy.

Don’t like all of them getting access to Greater Invisibility when that’s supposed to be an Archfey thing.

Do like Paladins getting Spirit Guardians!

And Clerics get a decent lv8 alternative. So you aren’t pigeonholed into Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting anymore, that’s nice.

And Clerics now get Wall of Light.... but still no Sunbeam. Damnit.

[jaappleton]

My two favorite classes (fighters and sorcerers) got well needed upgrades, so happy to try them out.

Though someone correct me if I am wrong, if any monk (potentially) has the ability to select marital weapons, whats the point of Kensei?

The hell was the point of Kensei before this?

I say that only half joking.

[Skyblaze]

Wait, Rangers didn’t get Dominate Beast?
Did they just forget?

They do, last spell on page 7.

[Ravinsild]

Oh MAN this is so exciting! Everything I was reading I kept saying "Wow, that's cool!" over and over. I especially love the new fighting styles, plus a lot of the alternate feature feel really neat and help add flavor.

I really enjoy the Warlock's new invocations for one. You can finally wear heavy armor as a Warlock and be a real front line fighter with the Eldritch Armor invocation, Pact of the Fiend with the Blade Pact boon feature and this invocation, and so many more combos. This is really exciting!

Pact of the Chain got more exciting as well, as did Pact of the Tome. These really beef up the Warlock to be interesting. I enjoy this.

The ranger changes are so good I don't even have the words and Ranger was already my favorite class. I'm so amped I want to trash all my current characters and play rangers in every campaign now aaaaaaaaaa

The only thing that bothers me is that they still didn't fix beast master. The scaling isn't quite right, IMO and unless you pick a beast of air or earth you don't get good action economy. I think the one thing that could have stayed from revised ranger AND been improved upon was the way the beast companion got your proficiency to a bunch of stuff to make it tougher over the campaign. AC 12 ain't gonna cut it at level 11+

[jaappleton]

RANGERS HUNTER’S MARK DOES NOT REQUIRE CONCENTRATION!

Wow. Wow that’s.... Alrighty! Not gonna complain about that!

[Skyblaze]

RANGERS HUNTER’S MARK DOES NOT REQUIRE CONCENTRATION!

Wow. Wow that’s.... Alrighty! Not gonna complain about that!

Just saw that...thats going to be dangerous if someone feels like dipping into warlock (or magic initiate). Hunters mark + hex.

[jaappleton]

Just saw that...thats going to be dangerous if someone feels like dipping into warlock. Hunters mark + hex.

Hunter’s Mark + Arcane Weapon (Artificer)

AW stays on your Weapon. If you used Hex, you’d need another bonus action to move the effect of Hex just like you’d need to for Hunter’s Mark.

[Theaitetos]

Oh, everyone got Spell Versatility and that applies to cantrips as well. Isn't that kind of against all the things the designers used to say about cantrips "being fixed in your mind from years of training"? :smallconfused:

Not that I'm against it, but it kinda feels weird that you no longer have to chose cantrips carefully. I'd be in favor of toning cantrip replacement down to "when you gain a level in this class" instead of "when you finish a long rest". :smallsigh:

Anyway, if this becomes official, they need to make some changes to subclass spell lists: If every warlock gets Greater Invisibility and Flaming sphere, the Archfey & Celestial patrons need replacements there. If every Sorcerer gets spell versatility, the Divine Soul needs clarification on whether cleric spells can be taken as well.

[Magic Myrmidon]

This looks more like a "Here's some ideas for 5.5" than class feature variants. Which I would like, honestly. Just hope it would catch on quickly.

[GlenSmash!]

The Tireless option for Rangers makes a 1 level dip really tempting for anyone playing a Berserker.

Also how did Berserker not get an alternate Class feature??

[jaappleton]

The Tireless options for Rangers makes a 1 level dip really tempting for anyone playing a Berseker.

Also how did Berserker not get an alternate Class feature??

Because it’s class features, not archetype features that are getting alternatives.

[Emongnome777]

Ranger spells added includes Aid in the 1st level spell list. Must be a typo / mistake.

[EdenIndustries]

I'd be in favor of toning cantrip replacement down to "when you gain a level in this class" instead of "when you finish a long rest". :smallsigh:

Isn't that what it already is? At least based on the version of the document I'm seeing:

"Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can
replace one cantrip you learned from this
Spellcasting feature with another cantrip from
the wizard spell list."

Edit: Oh I see you're referring to the Spell Versatility feature of the spontaneous casters, nevermind!

[Daphne]

Because it’s class features, not archetype features that are getting alternatives.

There's a variant for Beast Master.

[GlenSmash!]

Because it’s class features, not archetype features that are getting alternatives.

Besides Beastmaster, Battlemaster is also a focus for these changes over other Fighter subclasses.

[Spiritchaser]

Spell versatility adds more to sorcerers than to anyone else, simply because, with such limited options they had such difficulty covering off other options or flexing into different roles A much needed change which is appreciated.

I still feel that the spell list needs a few more options here, and I really would modify some metamagic powers but this one simple change is huge.

[Daphne]

Does Magical Inspiration works for every target of an AoE spell? That would be way more than most other uses.

[Theaitetos]

Edit: Oh I see you're referring to the Spell Versatility feature of the spontaneous casters, nevermind!

On second thought, I changed my mind about toning it down, for two reasons:
First, you can only change one spell per long rest, so if you change a cantrip you can't change a higher level spell.
Second, it's very fair and lore-friendly in comparison with wizards: Wizards memorize a lot, and their cantrips are deeply embedded in their minds, so they cannot change their cantrips unless they gain a level. On the other hand they can change all their prepared spells every long rest. Spontaneous casters don't memorize much, so cantrips should be dealt with in the same way as their other spells.

[Lyracian]

Just saw that...thats going to be dangerous if someone feels like dipping into warlock (or magic initiate). Hunters mark + hex.
I think replacement features is a great way to go rather than more new sub classes. Some of them might need a bit better balance though.

I read Spell Versatility on the Bard and thought great moving them a little closer to Cleric. Then I saw other casters getting the same power and it no longer seemed special.

[Trandir]

Why most of these alternative features are just buffs?

[Waterdeep Merch]

I was feeling exasperated just looking at this thing.

Then I read it. And messages my players- I'm allowing everything here, effective immediately.

I like these ideas, a lot. I hope they expand on this in whatever future publication this goes to. A 5Extra (5.5?) is possibly the best chance we're going to get at truly fixing the bits that bug everyone.

My only glaring issue is they still haven't touched two-weapon fighting.

[Yakk]

So, Barbarian can trade Danger Sense for 2 expertise.
They can trade fast movement for a 15' reaction shift.

Every full caster gets new spells. Every list caster can swap a spell every night. Every prepared caster can swap a cantrip every level. Every fighting style gets some mediocre options (but not bad as a 2nd one) and ability to swap out every level.

Rangers and Paladins can swap a fighting style for Druid and Cleric cantrip access.

Bards inspiration works on magic.

Clerics can burn divinity for a 1st level spell slot, and get a patch on their d8 damage ability. They get elemental weapon.

Druids can burn a wild shape for a temporary familiar. Also get Revivify level 3 spell.

Fighters get a Battlemaster-based fighting style (ie, like dueling). And Superiority dice get more options and overnight swap out.

Monks get to pick their monk weapons. Also, whenever they spend ki, they can do a "free half flurry", and get two minor ki abilities.

Rangers get a Natural Explorer swap, which is really good and flavorful. They can also swap Favored Enemy for concentration-free Hunter's Mark. They get Revivify (at level 10), Awaken and Dominate Beast. Primal Awareness is a bunch of 1/day spells they get as bonus instead of the old "radar" thing. Hide in Plain Sight swaps for a 1/day bonus action 1 turn invisiblity. The Beast ranger companion can be a primal spirit (that looks like an animal) that can be resurrected and can attack as a bonus action.

Rogues can aim.

Sorcerers get some new good uses for sorcery points.

Warlocks get a new pact, and some nice pact-specific invocations.

[ImperiousLeader]

Some solid stuff here. The expanded spell lists alone can be just added without any issues. I like a lot of what I'm seeing, heck, I more of less offer the versatility options here as a DM, I let my players respec if necessary. I still need to digest some of these new features, but my initial read is pretty positive.

[samcifer]

My two favorite classes (fighters and sorcerers) got well needed upgrades, so happy to try them out.

Though someone correct me if I am wrong, if any monk (potentially) has the ability to select marital weapons, whats the point of Kensei?

I thought as I read that part that yeah, it makes Kensei obsolete. Sorcs finally get Flaming Sphere (I know, it's not that great a spell) so yay! Also being able to change spells gets rid of the possibility of building a sorc wrong. I love it as well as the mms for changing elemental damage and gaining temp HP.

[Aett_Thorn]

While some of these changes seem like straight up power boosts, and others seem like they make subclasses subpar (looking at you, Kensei Monks), did anyone else notice the boost to 4e Monks? Being able to make a bonus action attack after you use Ki during your action allows 4e Monks to make an unarmed strike after using one of their spells, which is really nice.

On other aspects of this, I like that Sorcs can now change element types, I am still annoyed at the lack of elements besides fire being added to their list. Seriously, what do I need to do to get more acid spells added to their list?

[micahaphone]

The new Warlock Subclass, pact of the Talisman, it seems they accidentally wrote in what the Invocation directly above it instead of giving it an ability. Look at the invocation Protection of the Talisman and the Pact of the Talisman, both on page 12.

[Millstone85]

Though someone correct me if I am wrong, if any monk (potentially) has the ability to select marital weapons, whats the point of Kensei?
The hell was the point of Kensei before this?The kensei is underappreciated, but these changes to the base class would definitely make it pointless.


This looks more like a "Here's some ideas for 5.5" than class feature variants. Which I would like, honestly. Just hope it would catch on quickly.I share that sentiment.

[malachi]

While some of these changes seem like straight up power boosts, and others seem like they make subclasses subpar (looking at you, Kensei Monks), did anyone else notice the boost to 4e Monks? Being able to make a bonus action attack after you use Ki during your action allows 4e Monks to make an unarmed strike after using one of their spells, which is really nice.

On other aspects of this, I like that Sorcs can now change element types, I am still annoyed at the lack of elements besides fire being added to their list. Seriously, what do I need to do to get more acid spells added to their list?

Spend 1 Sorcery Point per spell with the new metamagic, apparently.

[Aett_Thorn]

The new Warlock Subclass, pact of the Talisman, it seems they accidentally wrote in what the Invocation directly above it instead of giving it an ability. Look at the invocation Protection of the Talisman and the Pact of the Talisman, both on page 12.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Protection of the Talisman seems like it applies to Saving Throws, while the other is for skills.

[Daphne]

id anyone else notice the boost to 4e Monks? Being able to make a bonus action attack after you use Ki during your action allows 4e Monks to make an unarmed strike after using one of their spells, which is really nice.

I did! Good change, I always thought the fact that you couldn't blend martial arts with the elemental disciplines the biggest letdown of the subclass.

[Frozenstep]

did anyone else notice the boost to 4e Monks? Being able to make a bonus action attack after you use Ki during your action allows 4e Monks to make an unarmed strike after using one of their spells, which is really nice.

Noticed and appreciated. There's a lot here, some of it might be overtuned, but there are some real winners.

I like Aim for rogue. No longer is the sneaky archer the only way to play a ranged rogue.

Kensei monks got hurt hard here. They should have gotten something to help compensate for the loss of one of their only advantages (actually, they should have gotten something either way). They need the ability to replace a flurry attack with one strike with your kensei weapon or something.

[MaxWilson]

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/class-feature-variants

I. CALLED. THIS. WEEKS. AGO.

Whoa, way more power creep than I would have expected. Pretty much everybody has Aura of Vitality under these rules, and Druids also get Revivify(!) and sort-of Find Familiar(!!).

Valor Bards are happy to get Enlarge/Reduce without spending magical secrets on it, but I'm sad bards still don't get Danse Macabre.

Not sure how I feel about these rules overall. In principle they're fine, I guess, but they will have a drastic impact on class choices. I suspect a game under these rules would feel like a 5.5E more than 5E, but then again that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Edit: weird that Rangers get Aid as a first level spell. It's 2nd level for everybody else. Probably it's just an error.

[Misterwhisper]

Some thoughts:

So now a fighting style for fighter, ranger, and Paladin gives you better unarmed damage than a monk at level 5 or even higher if 2 handed.

More reason to never play a kensei, good, the subclass sucked. Also why would someone ever use that healing unless they were about to rest?

Why would anyone play a melee rogue again?

Most warlock invocations are just a waste of space nobody will take. So I get charged ANOTHER feat tax to play any blade pact warlock not a Hexblade...

Fighter just seemed like, “ok we know everyone just plays a battlemaster so here everyone get a dip”

New book casters all get new spells and can now switch out on level up, fine kind of nice.

Ranger is all good changes.

Rest is meh.

[Theaitetos]

On other aspects of this, I like that Sorcs can now change element types, I am still annoyed at the lack of elements besides fire being added to their list. Seriously, what do I need to do to get more acid spells added to their list?

Same. Yet it's been like that even before Fifth Edition.

But now you can finally cast a FireAcid Wall to stop your enemies. I like that it doesn't shed any light, so if it's dark, your enemies run right through a nice acid wash. :smallbiggrin:

The Investiture of Fire & Ice spells are extremely powerful now, imo. They still give you immunity to fire/ice and resistance to ice/fire, but you can deal any damage type you want with the attack options. Especially Investiture of Fire is strong, giving you strong nova abilities with your preferred element:



• You are immune to fire damage and have resistance to cold damage.
• Any creature that moves within 5 feet of you for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there takes 1d10 fire damage.
• You can use your action to create a line of fire 15 feet long and 5 feet wide extending from you in a direction you choose. Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 4d8 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.


Fighting elementals like salamanders just got easy: Get immunity to fire, and blast them with cold.

[jaappleton]

Some thoughts:

So now a fighting style for fighter, ranger, and Paladin gives you better unarmed damage than a monk at level 5 or even higher if 2 handed.

More reason to never play a kensei, good, the subclass sucked. Also why would someone ever use that healing unless they were about to rest?

Why would anyone play a melee rogue again?

Most warlock invocations are just a waste of space nobody will take. So I get charged ANOTHER feat tax to play any blade pact warlock not a Hexblade...

Fighter just seemed like, “ok we know everyone just plays a battlemaster so here everyone get a dip”

New book casters all get new spells and can now switch out on level up, fine kind of nice.

Ranger is all good changes.

Rest is meh.

We found it, folks!

We found a UA that Whisper doesn’t totally hate!

[Kane0]

Oh boy. Lots to work through here. It almost reads as the kernel of a revised-5e.

Proficiency/Cantrip/Spell/Maneuver Versatility: Solid QoL improvements. These fall into that 'reasonable DM' category for me, things that are easily already allowed in a home game but less so in, say, AL.

Barbarian Expertise: Lovely, but poor Ranger
Instinctive Pounce: I'm not really seeing much benefit here?

Extra Bard list spells: Yay! Not sure how necessary it is, but nice
Magical Inspiration: Spend die to improve spell damage/healing. Bard spells aren't known for their damage output but the healing is nice. Still not sure how necessary it is, I don't recall many complaints about Bards power and healing potential.

Extra Cleric list spells: Clerics need Smites why? I don't think they need them.
Channel your Power: No. Clerics do not need spell recovery.
Blessed Strikes: This I approve of, and think all domain weapon-or-cantrip damage bonuses should have been like this (each domain getting their own damage type and die size)

Extra Druid list spells: I like these ones, they appear appropriate.
Wild Companion: Nice touch. For once it isn't trodding all over the Beastmaster, although i'd set the duration to one hour instead of scaling.

Superior Technique: Get one BM manuever as a FS, that's cool. One d6 per short rest is pretty bad though.
Extra maneuvers: These are all great options, but they don't solve the problem of a BM taking the ones they really want at level 3 and then having nothing to look forward to at later levels that are better. Imagine being a warlock with invocations that don't get better as you level up. This also applies to the AA.
Specifically: Silver Tongue and Sudious Eye are great though be careful of stacking bonuses; and Snipe giving Thrown weapons some love is appreciated but I think this is the wrong place to put that love. We are already making rules alterations, just let Thrown weapons count as ammunition for being drawn.

Monk weapons: A lot of words to change not very much. We can have some ranged monk weapons now but still no two handed ones. What is the phobia here?
Ki-fueled strike: Nice, I approve
Distant Eye: Again nice, ranged weapon monk love gets a thumbs up from me
Quickened Healing: Possibly a bit too much, but it's a reasonably high cost so I'll take it.

Blessed Warrior: It could be argued that pallys really don't need the boost, but I kinda saw this coming
Pally extra spells: Spirit guardians. Is this because cleric took a few smites, some sort of inter-class trade deal? I suppose Pally is the 'aura' class so sure whatever.
Channel your power: Please no, paladins do not need short-rest smite recovery.

Canny: Woohoo!
Roving: Woohoo!
Tireless: Woohoo!
Favored Foe: Damnit you broke the streak. It's not bad per se, just... lazy.
Druidic Warrior: A much better fit than Blessed Warrior
Extra ranger spells: I'm seeing a pattern with the smites, but otherwise good.
Primal Awareness: A convoluted way of getting the ranger access to more spells. You don't need to do it this way, but at least it's better than the PHB feature.
Fade Away: Too little, too late. Level 10 is not the place for one-turn, 1/rest invisibility. You know the perfect place to put in a good stealth feature? Deft Explorer.
Beast of the X: These look pretty good actually, I like them. A bit clunky in some places but I'll grant credit where it's due, the BM using one of these is no longer totally laughed at by the Artificer, Fire Druid, mounted pally and whatever else.

Cunning Action Aim: You're helping yourself as a bonus action. I suppose it's handy and not too much of a power boost.

Sorcerer list extra spells: lol, Flame Blade and Vampiric Touch. But seriously, considering what the other classes got on their lists this is pitiful. C'mon guys, we know you're Wizards of the Coast but at least try to be a little less transparent about it.
Font of Magic options: Nice little touches, the steep costs keeps them from getting out of hand.
Metamagic Options: Elemental spell should have been a FoM option really, but again beggars can't be choosers. Oh by the way, you know what would be nice? Metamagic Versatility just like we now have for almost everything else.

Lock list extra spells: Animate Dead, oh my...
Pact of the Talisman: Because this should have been mentioned before all the invocations that key to it. It's nice actually, basically Guidance but only if you aren't proficient.
Bond of the Talisman: Nice
Chain Master's Fury: Nice
Eldritch Armor: Nice, though perhaps overlaps a little too much with the Mage Armor invoc
Eldritch Mind: Nice as an alternative to the Resilient feat, possibly too good without a level pre-req
Far Scribe: Nice
Gift of the Protectors: Personally I think this function would be better under the Chain Pact
Investment of the Chain Master: Nice
Protection of the Talisman: Nice
Rebuke of the Talisman: Nice
Where's the Blade pact love? Oh right, all wrapped up in the Hexblade... grumble grumble...

Wizard list extras: Only four, good. Also appreciated that we're skipping the wizard pretty much entirely here.

Blind Fighting: Nice, fits much better here than as a high level Ranger feature
Interception: This is really strong, that die size should be toned down
Thrown weapon fighting: We were so close, so close! Barbarians, Rogues and switch-hitters will hate you forever but everyone else is a little happier, except when they want a real fighting style instead of shoring up a deficiency
Unarmed fighting: Nice


Overall, I'm pretty pleased with these revisions as a whole. There are bits I'm not sure about and bits I really don't like but for the amount there it's in the minority.

[Misterwhisper]

We found it, folks!

We found a UA that Whisper doesn’t totally hate!

I have a deep hatred of power creep is my main problem.

[Kane0]

I have a deep hatred of power creep is my main problem.

I wouldn't classify that as a problem.

[Rukelnikov]

I didn't have time to fully read it so I just skimmed it (or the thread which i didn't read at all), and I don't have time for a full dissertion right now, but in short: I LOVE IT.

@jaappleton: You sure called it!!!

[Daphne]

I like Instinctive Pounce, from a a very old UA (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/modifying-classes):


Note that Fast Movement serves three important purposes: getting the barbarian to the front line of a battle quickly, preventing the barbarian’s rage from ending because an enemy is not nearby, and encouraging the barbarian to stay out of heavy armor.

I think it's a more flavorful implementation than just +10 movement. Although it's lacking armor restriction.

[Misterwhisper]

We found it, folks!

We found a UA that Whisper doesn’t totally hate!

I can finally play a monk with a rapier without having to be a kensei and I can play an unarmed barbarian without multiclassing.

I am very cool with it all.

Now if they would just make a duelist class or subclass.

[Foxydono]

Oh boy. Lots to work through here. It almost reads as the kernel of a revised-5e.

Proficiency/Cantrip/Spell/Maneuver Versatility: Solid QoL improvements. These fall into that 'reasonable DM' category for me, things that are easily already allowed in a home game but less so in, say, AL.

Barbarian Expertise: Lovely, but poor Ranger
Instinctive Pounce: I'm not really seeing much benefit here?

Extra Bard list spells: Yay! Not sure how necessary it is, but nice
Magical Inspiration: Spend die to improve spell damage/healing. Bard spells aren't known for their damage output but the healing is nice. Still not sure how necessary it is, I don't recall many complaints about Bards power and healing potential.

Extra Cleric list spells: Clerics need Smites why? I don't think they need them.
Channel your Power: No. Clerics do not need spell recovery.
Blessed Strikes: This I approve of, and think all domain weapon-or-cantrip damage bonuses should have been like this (each domain getting their own damage type and die size)

Extra Druid list spells: I like these ones, they appear appropriate.
Wild Companion: Nice touch. For once it isn't trodding all over the Beastmaster, although i'd set the duration to one hour instead of scaling.

Superior Technique: Get one BM manuever as a FS, that's cool. One d6 per short rest is pretty bad though.
Extra maneuvers: These are all great options, but they don't solve the problem of a BM taking the ones they really want at level 3 and then having nothing to look forward to at later levels that are better. Imagine being a warlock with invocations that don't get better as you level up. This also applies to the AA.
Specifically: Silver Tongue and Sudious Eye are great though be careful of stacking bonuses; and Snipe giving Thrown weapons some love is appreciated but I think this is the wrong place to put that love. We are already making rules alterations, just let Thrown weapons count as ammunition for being drawn.

Monk weapons: A lot of words to change not very much. We can have some ranged monk weapons now but still no two handed ones. What is the phobia here?
Ki-fueled strike: Nice, I approve
Distant Eye: Again nice, ranged weapon monk love gets a thumbs up from me
Quickened Healing: Possibly a bit too much, but it's a reasonably high cost so I'll take it.

Blessed Warrior: It could be argued that pallys really don't need the boost, but I kinda saw this coming
Pally extra spells: Spirit guardians. Is this because cleric took a few smites, some sort of inter-class trade deal? I suppose Pally is the 'aura' class so sure whatever.
Channel your power: Please no, paladins do not need short-rest smite recovery.

Canny: Woohoo!
Roving: Woohoo!
Tireless: Woohoo!
Favored Foe: Damnit you broke the streak. It's not bad per se, just... lazy.
Druidic Warrior: A much better fit than Blessed Warrior
Extra ranger spells: I'm seeing a pattern with the smites, but otherwise good.
Primal Awareness: A convoluted way of getting the ranger access to more spells. You don't need to do it this way, but at least it's better than the PHB feature.
Fade Away: Too little, too late. Level 10 is not the place for one-turn, 1/rest invisibility. You know the perfect place to put in a good stealth feature? Deft Explorer.
Beast of the X: These look pretty good actually, I like them. A bit clunky in some places but I'll grant credit where it's due, the BM using one of these is no longer totally laughed at by the Artificer, Fire Druid, mounted pally and whatever else.

Cunning Action Aim: You're helping yourself as a bonus action. I suppose it's handy and not too much of a power boost.

Sorcerer list extra spells: lol, Flame Blade and Vampiric Touch. But seriously, considering what the other classes got on their lists this is pitiful. C'mon guys, we know you're Wizards of the Coast but at least try to be a little less transparent about it.
Font of Magic options: Nice little touches, the steep costs keeps them from getting out of hand.
Metamagic Options: Elemental spell should have been a FoM option really, but again beggars can't be choosers. Oh by the way, you know what would be nice? Metamagic Versatility just like we now have for almost everything else.

Lock list extra spells: Animate Dead, oh my...
Pact of the Talisman: Because this should have been mentioned before all the invocations that key to it. It's nice actually, basically Guidance but only if you aren't proficient.
Bond of the Talisman: Nice
Chain Master's Fury: Nice
Eldritch Armor: Nice, though perhaps overlaps a little too much with the Mage Armor invoc
Eldritch Mind: Nice as an alternative to the Resilient feat, possibly too good without a level pre-req
Far Scribe: Nice
Gift of the Protectors: Personally I think this function would be better under the Chain Pact
Investment of the Chain Master: Nice
Protection of the Talisman: Nice
Rebuke of the Talisman: Nice
Where's the Blade pact love? Oh right, all wrapped up in the Hexblade... grumble grumble...

Wizard list extras: Only four, good. Also appreciated that we're skipping the wizard pretty much entirely here.

Blind Fighting: Nice, fits much better here than as a high level Ranger feature
Interception: This is really strong, that die size should be toned down
Thrown weapon fighting: We were so close, so close! Barbarians, Rogues and switch-hitters will hate you forever but everyone else is a little happier, except when they want a real fighting style instead of shoring up a deficiency
Unarmed fighting: Nice


Overall, I'm pretty pleased with these revisions as a whole. There are bits I'm not sure about and bits I really don't like but for the amount there it's in the minority.
Good observations, I agree completely.

[FilthyLucre]

More options are always welcome.

[Greywander]

Blessed Strikes: This I approve of, and think all domain weapon-or-cantrip damage bonuses should have been like this (each domain getting their own damage type and die size)
I agree. I've found myself wishing you could simply choose between Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting instead of being locked in based on subclass, and the option to do both is quite nice. It does close a loophole where Potent Spellcasting increases the damage of Word of Radiance against every target, so YMMV. Most features like Potent Spellcasting that have been written since Word of Radiance, Thunderclap, and such were released have included some kind of clause that only let it apply to one target per turn (see the Celestial warlock's Radiant Soul feature). Personally, I kind of like getting the damage bonus against every target.

[jaappleton]

Eldritch Armor is great because Mage Armor relies on Dex.

Many Bladelocks want to be STR focused, but between Charisma, Con, Dex for AC.... not many points left to toss into Strength.

This solves that, and grants you armor proficiency, AND has the wonderful bonus because now ALL armor works on you.

Oh, there’s no reason for your Warlock to want Plate Armor, you can’t- OH CAN’T I?! I can indeed!

[jaappleton]

I agree. I've found myself wishing you could simply choose between Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting instead of being locked in based on subclass, and the option to do both is quite nice. It does close a loophole where Potent Spellcasting increases the damage of Word of Radiance against every target, so YMMV. Most features like Potent Spellcasting that have been written since Word of Radiance, Thunderclap, and such were released have included some kind of clause that only let it apply to one target per turn (see the Celestial warlock's Radiant Soul feature). Personally, I kind of like getting the damage bonus against every target.

What’s very interesting is that awhile back, I asked Jeremy Crawford is there’s anything wrong with swapping Potent Spellcasting and Divine Strike, so long as you also removed any Heavy Armor proficiency on a Domain that was taking Potent Spellcasting.

He said it wouldn’t break anything at all, and normally JC doesn’t respond to those sorta of things, so it seemed to essentially be their rule of thumb.

So for Clerics to get bonus damage in cantrips while retaining heavy armor is pretty interesting to me.

[Kane0]

Going over for a second skim, a lot of these changes look like a homebrew hall of fame. Which I suppose isn't that surprising, these small tweaks have been around for ages and WotC just seem to be a bit behind on the release schedule.

[Daphne]

So for Clerics to get bonus damage in cantrips while retaining heavy armor is pretty interesting to me.

Not only cantrips though, it works with any spell.

[Dienekes]

Yay, new maneuvers.

Actually, looking at them. I'm a bit amused that in my own homebrew I designed some Fighter subclasses that used the superiority dice system. But to give them a bit more flavor and out of combat usefulness I gave each of them the ability to add superiority dice to skill checks. The noble knight style one could add it to Persuasion and Intimidation. The thug to Deception and Stealth. That sort of thing. It's cool to see that being brought into the fighter class as well.

Also nice seeing Hunter's Mark essentially being made less and less of a spell. Which I'd consider how it should have been implemented originally.

[Rixitichil]

Blade Warlocks can now steal armour amazingly quickly from armouries. Huh.

[Ravinsild]

Going over for a second skim, a lot of these changes look like a homebrew hall of fame. Which I suppose isn't that surprising, these small tweaks have been around for ages and WotC just seem to be a bit behind on the release schedule.

Do you mean these are essentially just sort of agreed upon most common homebrew solutions to issues? You'd more than likely as not find these at any particular home campaign?

[Daithi]

One thing I'm glad they finally fixed was giving Planar Binding to the warlock. It always irked me that warlocks could summon demons and devils, but couldn't cast Planar Binding. It was an oversight in the original rules, so I'm glad they fixed it.

[Daithi]

Eldritch Armor is great because Mage Armor relies on Dex.

Many Bladelocks want to be STR focused, but between Charisma, Con, Dex for AC.... not many points left to toss into Strength.

This solves that, and grants you armor proficiency, AND has the wonderful bonus because now ALL armor works on you.

Oh, there’s no reason for your Warlock to want Plate Armor, you can’t- OH CAN’T I?! I can indeed!

This is one of new features I really liked. It doesn't come free though. It comes at the cost of losing an Invocation that you could have used for something else. If I'm stuck struggling over "do I want to use this feature or do I want to go with that feature" then the designers have done a good job.

[MeeposFire]

I can finally play a monk with a rapier without having to be a kensei and I can play an unarmed barbarian without multiclassing.

I am very cool with it all.

Now if they would just make a duelist class or subclass.

I hate to ask because if I am right it may burst a bubble but you could play an unarmed barbarain before (using tavern brawler if you wanted to) and the one option in this UA that involves uanrmed fighting deals with fighting styles and barbarian does not get one so they would need to multiclass to get it. So what did you get from this UA that allows barbs to fight unarmed better than before without multiclassing?

As for me I rather like these changes most of them are about making things easier to be fun and easier to fix mistakes or allow you to change your character organically as the campaign progresses. And many of the changes are just additional options for when you need to choose class abilities such as fighting styles. Heck it even gives a way for paladins and rangers to get cantrips just in a different way than how I was doing which is cool (I was jut giving them cantrips but this is almost as good).

Pretty exciting stuff and they did a fair job of spreading stuff around especially on classes that had complaints about how some things work (some of those complaints being more major like some ranger and bladelock abilities and sorcerer stuff while other stuff is much more minor but are very much appreciated). In addition I like how they are just added to the existing base classes so you get less of the "well this newer subclass is obviously so much better than the older ones because they have more experience now with the system" and now they all benefit including those of us who only have say the PHB and nothing else.

Overall very cool and I would be happy to add things like this into my games.

[MaxWilson]

10. Sorcerors were simultaneously boosted and nerfed. The new metamagics are sick. Having access to the new spells is okay... Still does nothing for overall spells known. Spell Versatility mitigates this slightly... but I'm not sure it's enough. Especially seeing as every major spellcaster got it.

Actually, the spell list change is pretty huge for Sorcerers because it means you can now get Extended Foresight without any multiclassing. If your DM is using this UA, you can now play a Divine Sorlock (Warlock 3/Divine Soul 17) and any day wherein you didn't use your 9th level spell slot, you just cast Extended Foresight on somebody (yourself or the party Sharpshooter or whomever) right before you go to bed, and now they are an atium misting they have advantage on everything until halfway through tomorrow. And you can now cast Extended Aura of Vitality for double healing, because Aura of Vitality is on the cleric list now.


While some of these changes seem like straight up power boosts, and others seem like they make subclasses subpar (looking at you, Kensei Monks), did anyone else notice the boost to 4e Monks? Being able to make a bonus action attack after you use Ki during your action allows 4e Monks to make an unarmed strike after using one of their spells, which is really nice.

Oh, good catch! There goes the one advantage the Sun Soul had over the 4E monk... overall that's fine though.

It also makes Empty Body less of an action tax, since you can now Empty Body on the first round and still Stunning Strike somebody. (And by "now" I mean "now, hypothetically, if the DM is using this UA").

[ATHATH]

there are a few minor nitpicks that I have with this UA article (sorry for the lack of capitalization in places, I'm reposting this from the Discord server that I wrote and posted this in initially):
*I feel like eldritch mind, eldritch armor, investment of the chain master, and rebuke of the talisman should have been level 3 addition features for their corresponding pact boons, not the "invocation taxes" that they currently are)
*phantasmal force is already on the bard spell list, you dummies
*while I love the new ranger changes, I feel like they should have buffed all of the beastmaster companions instead of just adding two new, stronger ones
*investment of the chain master should probably also give your familiar some extra HP or something so that it can survive being hit by a light breeze (some scaling bonuses to their attack bonus and some of their saving throw bonuses wouldn't hurt either, but I suppose that they aren't necessary)
*I'm kind of bummed that the Find Familiar spell from the Pact of the Chain ability didn't get buffed to not cost any expensive spell components when cast via that ability, but that's more of a "man, I wish that they did this too" thing than a real nitpick/complaint
*the new quickened healing option that you can spend ki points on is so laughably bad, it isn't even funny (halve its ki point cost and make it a bonus action, and it might see some use)
*seeking spell should be allowed to be used alongside other metamagic options on the same spell and/or should just be a font of magic option instead of a metamagic option
*I'd prefer it if Instinctive Pounce's ability's triggering condition was "when a creature ends its turn within half your speed of you" instead of "when a creature ends its turn within 15 feet of you" (it sounds awkward because D&D uses the "speed" stat as a measure of distance instead of, y'know, speed, but the rest of the ability does this too)
*there's an unneeded and out of place "The DC equals your spell save DC." in the description of the Beast of the Earth's Charge ability
*GOOlocks kind of got shafted by this UA's rules, because many of the spells that their patron's Expanded Spells feature is supposed to add to their spell list will... already be on it
*I've noticed a bit of favoritism for the Battlemaster in the Fighter changes. Its power bump from this UA was much larger than those of the other Fighter subclasses, and I'd have liked to have seen a patch or two for some of the Eldritch Knight's jank.
*magical inspiration+RAW magic missile is a big yikes (remember the 10th level Evoker Wizard ability+Magic Missile interaction/combo? yeah, that's now available to be exploited at level 2)
*I kind of feel like they should have made blind fighting do a bit more. For example, you can't cast most spells while blind, even if you have the blind fighting fighting style, since you can't "see" the targets of those spells. Maybe buff that fighting style to allow you to "ignore the negative effects of blindness and count/treat lines of effect from you as/like lines of sight from you (including for the purposes of "seeing" targets) for all purposes" or something. Maybe just make it give you immunity to the blinded condition? I dunno.

I will say, I absolutely LOVE this UA overall (Wizards FINALLY have native list access to Speak With Dead! Hallelujah!), and it brings some much needed buffs/changes to the various classes. This is some quality UA content right here.

[jaappleton]

I have it on good authority that Greater Invisibility on the Warlock list is going to be changed.

>_>

[Nidgit]

Generally really like the changes here, but a couple catch my eye as a bit unbalanced. Moving Hunter's Mark to Wis/LR uses and no spell consumption is great for the Ranger, but it's even better for a Monk dip. In general, the Ranger seems to lose some of its specialization- that's good to be more consistent, but it negatively impacts each Ranger's uniqueness.

Spirit Guardians for all Paladins is really strong. And on Conquest Paladins it's really, really strong. Flame Strike is pretty good too.

Eldritch Mind seems rather strong for an Invocation, but it requires 3 levels of Warlock and that's more than most dips.

I like the Sorcerer changes but they seem like a buff to Draconic Sorcerers and a very unneeded middle finger to Wild Magic Sorcerers. Elemental Spell means Draconic Sorcerers can be adding their Cha as damage to almost every damaging spell they cast while Wild Magic Sorcerers lose a bit of the uniqueness of Tides of Chaos to Empowering Reserves.

I can see Aura of Vitality making sense on Clerics, but it feels like too much for a Druid. On the other hand, the Wild Companion variant is pretty minor and loses its shine after 8th level.

While WotC was doing all this, I wish they would have tweaked some capstones too. Empowering early levels is all well and good but it just encourages more multiclassing if the capstones aren't worth reaching.

[MaxWilson]

Magical Inspiration: Spend die to improve spell damage/healing. Bard spells aren't known for their damage output but the healing is nice. Still not sure how necessary it is, I don't recall many complaints about Bards power and healing potential.

Actually the benefit goes to whomever you gave a damage die to, which means that all wizards just became Nuclear Wizards (if these rules are in play). d12 Bardic Inspiration = d4+d12+1 Magic Missile, which means an average of 70 HP of damage from a single casting of Magic Missile V even if you're just a bog-standard Transmuter or something.

That was probably not intended by whoever wrote the UA.


We are already making rules alterations, just let Thrown weapons count as ammunition for being drawn.

+1, yes.


Distant Eye: Again nice, ranged weapon monk love gets a thumbs up from me

Should have called it Zen Archery instead though.


Blade Warlocks can now steal armour amazingly quickly from armouries. Huh.

And from dead enemies. :D


One thing I'm glad they finally fixed was giving Planar Binding to the warlock. It always irked me that warlocks could summon demons and devils, but couldn't cast Planar Binding. It was an oversight in the original rules, so I'm glad they fixed it.

It's... not really fixed, in the sense that they still can't upcast it, and upcasting Planar Binding is where the main use of the spell is at.

It would be fixed for real if they said you could take lower-level spells as Mystic Arcana and get them automatically upcast.


*the new quickened healing option that you can spend ki points on is so laughably bad, it isn't even funny (halve its ki point cost and make it a bonus action, and it might see some use)

On the contrary, it's a great thing to dump all of your extra ki into right before you take a short rest.


*people (and by "people" I mean Warlocks (eldritch blast and/or scorching ray time, baby)) are gonna start dipping Ranger 1 for an almost resource-less +1d6 damage bonus on each of their attacks if they spend a bonus action marking each of their targets first (remember, Hunter's Mark can last for up to an hour under normal conditions), and that's a bit spooky (I'd recommend making the ability recharge on a short rest but automatically ending the concentration-less Hunter's Mark spells from the ability when the targets of said spells die, so you can't pre-cast it on a rat, kill the rat, and then pop down a bonus action "not technically casting a spell" ability in combat later)

Hunter's Mark doesn't work on Eldritch Blast or Scorching Ray. It only affects on weapon attacks.


I can see Aura of Vitality making sense on Clerics, but it feels like too much for a Druid. On the other hand, the Wild Companion variant is pretty minor and loses its shine after 8th level.

It won't matter anyway for a druid--they already have Healing Spirit, which is better than Aura of Vitality in almost every way unless you're trying to heal constructs or undead. But Revivify is probably a bit much on druids, too.

[Emongnome777]

Too bad they didn’t rework the ranger capstone. Love the rest, though. Only wished the ignore difficult terrain feature from the UA ranger could’ve made it in here somehow. Oh well, still good stuff.

[Scarytincan]

Haven't read all replies so maybe someone already caught this, but by my reading it doesn't gut kensei because you have to already be proficient with the weapon no? So can't pick longsword, can't pick a two handed weapon so no bows... Can do sling which I like...

[ATHATH]

Hey, so, uh, a Ranger 1/Light Cleric 3+ build looks kind of spooky:
Before heading into the dungeon, cast your concentration-less Hunter's Mark on a rabbit or something and kill it. When you next encounter an enemy that you don't want to exist anymore, use your bonus action to mark that enemy with your Hunter's Mark and then cast (a WIS-based) Scorching Ray at them (on the same turn, since using that bonus action ability of Hunter's Mark doesn't technically count as "casting a spell with a bonus action") for +1d6 damage per ray. You can then do this again without casting a new Hunter's Mark spell, by the way (the spell lasts for up to an hour normally). If you want to get silly/theoretical, throw in an Action Surge from a Fighter 2 dip while you're at it (although I wouldn't recommend delaying your spellcasting progression even further for that).

This build also doesn't require you to get very MAD, since the Cleric class just needs a 13 in WIS (your primary casting stat) to multiclass and the Ranger class just needs a 13 in WIS and a 13 in DEX (you might as well go for 14 DEX to make the best use out of the medium armor that Ranger gives you proficiency in) to multiclass. Sadly, Rangers don't get proficiency in CON saving throws by default, but hey, most other casters don't either.

This was possible before with normal Hunter's Mark or Hex (Fiendlocks even get both Hex and Scorching Ray without multiclassing), but normal Hunter's Mark/Hex requires your concentration, which meant that casting a ritual spell (or any spell with a casting time longer than 1 action) would require you to dismiss your nHM/Hex spell (and set it up again later if you wanted to use it again). Taking damage would also force a concentration check, and if you failed that concentration check, you'd have to set up nHM or Hex again mid-combat to do the combo (which can be annoying, since you can't cast a standard action spell on the same turn that you actually cast nHM or Hex as a Bonus Action).

[Misterwhisper]

I hate to ask because if I am right it may burst a bubble but you could play an unarmed barbarain before (using tavern brawler if you wanted to) and the one option in this UA that involves uanrmed fighting deals with fighting styles and barbarian does not get one so they would need to multiclass to get it. So what did you get from this UA that allows barbs to fight unarmed better than before without multiclassing?

As for me I rather like these changes most of them are about making things easier to be fun and easier to fix mistakes or allow you to change your character organically as the campaign progresses. And many of the changes are just additional options for when you need to choose class abilities such as fighting styles. Heck it even gives a way for paladins and rangers to get cantrips just in a different way than how I was doing which is cool (I was jut giving them cantrips but this is almost as good).

Pretty exciting stuff and they did a fair job of spreading stuff around especially on classes that had complaints about how some things work (some of those complaints being more major like some ranger and bladelock abilities and sorcerer stuff while other stuff is much more minor but are very much appreciated). In addition I like how they are just added to the existing base classes so you get less of the "well this newer subclass is obviously so much better than the older ones because they have more experience now with the system" and now they all benefit including those of us who only have say the PHB and nothing else.

Overall very cool and I would be happy to add things like this into my games.

I meant without having to multiclassing monk.
Fighter 1, Barbarian x is on the way.

[MaxWilson]

Hey, so, uh, a Ranger 1/Light Cleric 3+ build looks kind of spooky:
Before heading into the dungeon, cast your concentration-less Hunter's Mark on a rabbit or something and kill it. When you next encounter an enemy that you don't want to exist anymore, use your bonus action to mark that enemy with your Hunter's Mark and then cast (a WIS-based) Scorching Ray at them (on the same turn, since using that bonus action ability of Hunter's Mark doesn't technically count as "casting a spell with a bonus action") for +1d6 damage per ray.

Illegal. Hunter's Mark only adds damage to weapon attacks.

[ATHATH]

I don't suppose that we could get spell buffs too in the next UA? Flame Blade is just... so bad.

[ATHATH]

Illegal. Hunter's Mark only adds damage to weapon attacks.
Ahhhhhh, nevermind, then.

[hellgrammite]

Overall pretty happy about this. Just mention the Ranger since that got a bit more of an overhaul.

Ranger gets Deft Explorer, which is solid and works well within 5e mechanics.

Fade Away is pretty meh. I mean invisibility for a turn is nice, but you lose all ambush capabilities you got with hide in plain sight.

Here is how I would reword it:

Fade Away
You can use a bonus action to magically become invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying. You can remain invisible up to 1 hour, as long as you do not move or take an action. Once you move, take an action or reaction, the invisibility will end at the start of your next turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest

[Kane0]

Do you mean these are essentially just sort of agreed upon most common homebrew solutions to issues? You'd more than likely as not find these at any particular home campaign?

I mean many of these things have been proposed and commonly accepted in the past. For example changing skill profs/cantrips known/fighting styles when you level up, a throwing fighting style (as much as I dislike it), self-healing with Ki, Martial arts attack without the attack action, swapping favored enemy for a mark/quarry feature, swapping favored terrain for expertise, elemental damage swapping metamagic, attack rerolling metamagic, turning pact familiar more combat companion with extra invocations, etc.

Case in point. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?555697-Houserules-and-homebrew)

Edit: Also its worth saying that this is the most exciting UA i’ve seen in a long time, or at least the most excited i’ve been.

[MaxWilson]

Overall pretty happy about this. Just mention the Ranger since that got a bit more of an overhaul.

Ranger gets Deft Explorer, which is solid and works well within 5e mechanics.

Fade Away is pretty meh. I mean invisibility for a turn is nice, but you lose all ambush capabilities you got with hide in plain sight.

Not entirely. You lose a hard-to-use +10, but you gain a compensating easy-to-use +2-6 from Deft Explorer, and of course you've still got Pass Without Trace. You're still going to be top-notch at ambushes, and so will your whole party because Pass Without Trace rocks.

So basically you lose a redundant feature and get a 1/short rest, bonus action, one-round free-Disengage-plus-Dodge-plus-advantage. It's not terrible!

===============================================


I mean many of these things have been proposed and commonly accepted in the past. For example changing skill profs/cantrips known/fighting styles when you level up, a throwing fighting style (as much as I dislike it), self-healing with Ki, Martial arts attack without the attack action, swapping favored enemy for a mark/quarry feature, swapping favored terrain for expertise, elemental damage swapping metamagic, attack rerolling metamagic, turning pact familiar more combat companion with extra invocations, etc.

Case in point. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?555697-Houserules-and-homebrew)

You're not wrong, but if you want to grok the difference between homebrew and what happens when WotC puts corporate weight behind an idea, read Homesteading the Noosphere (http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/index.html#id2764205) and then try thinking of each DM's campaign as a separate clone of an open-source git repo "owned" by WotC. In principle there's no reason anyone couldn't fork it and make their own changes, but Homesteading the Noosphere may yield some insight into why that doesn't happen much in practice. It helped me, anyway.

[hellgrammite]

Not entirely. You lose a hard-to-use +10, but you gain a compensating easy-to-use +2-6 from Deft Explorer, and of course you've still got Pass Without Trace. You're still going to be top-notch at ambushes, and so will your whole party because Pass Without Trace rocks.

So basically you lose a redundant feature and get a 1/short rest, bonus action, one-round free-Disengage-plus-Dodge-plus-advantage. It's not terrible!

What do you think of my fix though? You didn't note that in the post. My fix keeps a good combination of both the old ability and new ability I think.

[Scarytincan]

Also not really a fan of all palis getting SG. And very nervous about the concentration less hunter's mark being the birth of a new explosion of 1 level dips. Wish the unarmed fighting style had a way of working itself into a pure monk build, or at least some kind of grappling benefit (prof to starting /escaping grapples?).

Still holding out hope for a capstone version of one of these...

But yes overall really like this one.

[MaxWilson]

What do you think of my fix though? You didn't note that in the post. My fix keeps a good combination of both the old ability and new ability I think.

Oh, sorry... [rereads] I like your fix. As you say, it's a good balance. +1, would incorporate. I hate purely-combat-focused abilities and your fix has a lot of potential for ghosty rangers outside of combat.

[Kane0]

You're not wrong, but if you want to grok the difference between homebrew and what happens when WotC puts corporate weight behind an idea, read Homesteading the Noosphere (http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/index.html#id2764205) and then try thinking of each DM's campaign as a separate clone of an open-source git repo "owned" by WotC. In principle there's no reason anyone couldn't fork it and make their own changes, but Homesteading the Noosphere may yield some insight into why that doesn't happen much in practice. It helped me, anyway.

Oh yeah of course, there is a massive difference in exposure and traction between common 'brew and even UA. I was just pointing out that none of this is exactly new, it's now just recognized/endorsed and will probably come to a proper release soon.

[ATHATH]

Fade Away
You can use a bonus action to magically become invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying. You can remain invisible up to 1 hour, as long as you do not move or take an action. Once you move, take an action or reaction, the invisibility will end at the start of your next turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest
Ooh, I like this version.

[Mikal]

I thought as I read that part that yeah, it makes Kensei obsolete. Sorcs finally get Flaming Sphere (I know, it's not that great a spell) so yay! Also being able to change spells gets rid of the possibility of building a sorc wrong. I love it as well as the mms for changing elemental damage and gaining temp HP.

You still need proficiency with the weapon to use it with this option- so it’s useful for multi class characters or those who have features or feats giving them expanded access to weapon. Otherwise a pure class monk will still use kensei to long sword it up

[Rowan Wolf]

Favored Foe could make for some interesting Barbarian multiclassing as concentration-less hunters mark, removed exhaustion from Tireless and Berserker's bonus action attack and Rage damage. A shame that the Whirling blades fighting style (from the Happy Fun Hour) did not make it into this round.

[Luccan]

Overall, I like it. I'm a bit concerned about the Unarmed Fighting Style being better than monk unarmed until level 11 (5 if you use a shield or are holding a torch).

[MaxWilson]

Overall, I like it. I'm a bit concerned about the Unarmed Fighting Style being better than monk unarmed until level 11 (5 if you use a shield or are holding a torch).

Even longer if you are willing to grapple first and then pull the other guy apart for d8+d4+Str per attack.

But personally I think that is okay. It's the difference between Jeet Kune Do and MMA.

[Millstone85]

Haven't read all replies so maybe someone already caught this, but by my reading it doesn't gut kensei because you have to already be proficient with the weapon no? So can't pick longsword, can't pick a two handed weapon so no bows... Can do sling which I like...There are ways to gain additional weapon proficiencies. Even if feats and multiclassing are forbidden, you get to use Martial Arts as a longsword-wielding elf or a warhammer-wielding dwarf.

It doesn't entirely negate the kensei, but considering how it is already an unpopular subclass...

[MaxWilson]

Oh yeah of course, there is a massive difference in exposure and traction between common 'brew and even UA. I was just pointing out that none of this is exactly new, it's now just recognized/endorsed and will probably come to a proper release soon.

Agreed, that will probably happen.

[Rowan Wolf]

Even longer if you are willing to grapple first and then pull the other guy apart for d8+d4+Str per attack.

But personally I think that is okay. It's the difference between Jeet Kune Do and MMA. I think that it would be d6+d4+Str as grappling requires one hand free then that hand would then be in use.

[8wGremlin]

Interesting interactionS

Revived rogue, action, aim cunning action, bolt from the grave. Now with advantage.

Make it an elf for triple advantage shenanigans

Or

draconian Sorcerer 3 + tempest cleric for lightning blade (flame blade) shenanigans

Or

Sea sorcerer elemental shenanigans

[MaxWilson]

I think that it would be d6+d4+Str as grappling requires one hand free then that hand would then be in use.

Good point.

[nickl_2000]

Has anyone else noticed that you can use the hand crossbow for monks now? It’s an interesting change.

[jaappleton]

Ranger 1 / Monk is a solid build, with the Hunter’s Mark being non-Concentration for Wis Mod / Long Rest.

Normally you’d have to dip Ranger a bit more to get so many uses of the spell. One level? Not bad, not bad at all.

[MaxWilson]

Has anyone else noticed that you can use the hand crossbow for monks now? It’s an interesting change.

Is there a practical difference between it and a sling, except for being more expensive and harder to get proficiency in?

[Max_Killjoy]

Is there a practical difference between it and a sling, except for being more expensive and harder to get proficiency in?

Not sure if the rules cover it, but try using a sling indoors, or in a thick forest, or by surprise...

[Ravinsild]

a throwing fighting style (as much as I dislike it)

Why do you dislike the Throwing Weapons fighting style? What does it not address that you would prefer, or how would you do it differently? Just curious, because I'm just excited it exists at all now, haha. Even if unofficially it feels good to have the option to possibly make a thrown weapon fighting person. Sucks it's not baseline though...what about Rogues? :/ Maybe Rogues want to be the Gambit/Judeau archetype of throwing knives...

[jaappleton]

Why do you dislike the Throwing Weapons fighting style? What does it not address that you would prefer, or how would you do it differently? Just curious, because I'm just excited it exists at all now, haha. Even if unofficially it feels good to have the option to possibly make a thrown weapon fighting person. Sucks it's not baseline though...what about Rogues? :/ Maybe Rogues want to be the Gambit/Judeau archetype of throwing knives...

Just reword Archery to work with thrown weapons. I simply don’t see the need for a new style strictly for Thrown weapons.

[nickl_2000]

Is there a practical difference between it and a sling, except for being more expensive and harder to get proficiency in?

None really, but a sling wasn’t considered a monk martial arts weapon before. Just a weapon that they have proficiency in. Now they can have it and the sling and do monk damage with them.

You could absolutely have a monk who uses XBE and SS now if you wanted.

[WadeWay33]

So this may be a stupid question, but do they add these new spells to the ‘spells known’ lists for classes such as bard or Sorcerer?

[Foxhound438]

Recording my hot takes as I read the thing...

Survival instincts is neat. It's powerful enough to honestly contend with danger sense, but not by any means strictly better.

Pounce is neat. I would probably skip that one as well, though, as a reaction is pricey on a class that really wants to pick up polearm master (at least in my book).

So it looks like all casters just get more spell options? I don't hate it, but at the same time giving every class more spells brings you one step closer to giving every class all the spells, and at that point there's hardly a point to having different classes. Slippery slope, I know, but on a smaller scale this still homogenizes the casters.

If the "enhancement" ones are actually just extra text on features, no cost, then some of this stuff is probably capable of getting out of hand. Magical inspiration is probably an example of something being okay, but it feels like it should be a subclass feature like the combat inspiration of a valor bard... In any case, it seems hard to break outside of munchkiny "I roll once and multiply by X" interpretations of magic missile.

Spell swapping on learned casters is probably something that should have been built in in the first place

Harness divine power seems inherently balanced, as channel options often feel like they have like a 1st or 2nd level spell's power in the first place. Being able to pick a domain with less universally useful channels and still get something out of the resource is cool.

Blessed strikes is situationally worse for the divine strike clerics, but being able to apply to any spell rather than just cantrips makes me think this is almost a strict upgrade in the long run. That said, I don't think 4 damage a turn is going to usurp the "sorcerer king" :smallbiggrin:

As a huge fan of find familiar and a not huge fan of wild shape, wild companion is great in my book.

Looking at the fighting style options, they're all pretty cool. Unarmed fighter seems perhaps dangerous when paired with a monk dip, as you can get d8 melee's 3-4 times a turn, but barring that I think this is an okay answer to the long desired "brawler" option. There's a maneuver choice that plays very well with it, and we may finally have a good grappler build, and as a cherry on top a throwing weapon style that works.

I guess I can tear out kensai from my Xanathar's guide.

Ki fuelled strike is interesting, I guess it can just be seen as an extension of martial arts? A 4e or shadow monk can cast a spell and then hit someone, but otherwise until you hit 18th level it doesn't do much.

Distant eye is meh, I can take a feat for that or just run fast enough for that to not matter

quickened healing is probably never worth it, for half the cost you can just dodge on a bonus action rather than gaining like 2hp

Don't care too much for blessed warrior, cantrips are usually bad and I'd rather make my attacks better

Spirit guardians on paladin list is straight gas, but I wonder how many DM's would allow it for too long. I guess it's only half as good as it can be on a cleric at any given time, but it's still strong on your tank.

*replaces natural exp- * DEAL. I'LL TAKE IT.

*replaces favored ene- * DEAL.

Fixing ranger companions is cool. A little extra health is nice, though it's now only a bit more tanky than a wizard with a 12 in con, so it's still shaky.

Cunning action Aim is probably a strong dip target for certain builds. Note that it neither has to be a weapon attack nor a ranged attack, it can be anything, just at the cost of sitting still, which is what a lot of classes end up doing in combat.

Hey, things to do with sorcery points! I'll take it. The metamagic that swaps elements is pretty cool, if nothing else on a thematic level.

Shapechange on warlocks is potentially neat.

I like chain master's fury, largely for the fact that a lot of the time it's going to be throwing your familiar under the bus, which is a pretty funny thing for a warlock to do anyway. Bonus hot take, investment of the chain master with this makes sprite a very strong option, as you can have it attack every turn to try to OHKO something with your increased save DC, on your bonus action.

Eldritch armor means strength bladelock is easier to pull off (or on, I guess)


Not gonna lie, this is the first UA in quite a while that seems mostly great. New stuff means there's some power creep for sure, but it looks like it's mostly balanced in some level of opportunity cost- even most of the enhancement features are in an either-or situation to existing stuff, like you're not just getting extra invocations for free, and a lot of this is on resources or things that are undertuned to begin with. 10/10.


And Clerics now get Wall of Light.... but still no Sunbeam. Damnit.
Aw, c'mon, man!

[Ravinsild]

Just reword Archery to work with thrown weapons. I simply don’t see the need for a new style strictly for Thrown weapons.

This is a valid point! Overall I'm kind of confused on how it all works anyway. If we are two-weapon fighting throwing weapons does that work? Dual-Wielding axes and throwing them one after the other?

Also I've come across a "problem"...

The Favored Foe feature doesn't do anything else aside from what it does, whereas Favored Enemy gains additional features at level 6 and 14, IIRC. I've heard a criticism of Ranger is it's the only class with dead levels, or at least dead levels are an issue for it? This further exacerbates the issue as you get everything at level 1 and then nothing at all once again for level 6 and 14. Has anyone else noticed this or is bothered by this?

[jaappleton]

....Wait a minute.

Did Clerics really not have Power Word Heal before this?!

EDIT: The most underrated thing about this might be the spells added to the Druid list. For Moon Druids, Fire Shield is excellent. For casters, spells like Thunder Step and Cone of Cold are solid options the standard list was terribly lacking. And Protection From Evil & Good! Excellent spell.

[Ravinsild]

I think one of my favorite changes is Revivify to Druids at level 3. I know some people said it's OP or something, but I genuinely just love support roles/healer roles, I loved 4e, I love WOW and I love dedicated resto druids from WoW, so for me this is a welcome welcome change.

I KNOW in 5e in combat healing is something of a waste, more damage = better, etc, etc....but resto druid is <3 and it feels awesome to be able to go full support IF you choose to.

[Kane0]

The Favored Foe feature doesn't do anything else aside from what it does, whereas Favored Enemy gains additional features at level 6 and 14, IIRC. I've heard a criticism of Ranger is it's the only class with dead levels, or at least dead levels are an issue for it? This further exacerbates the issue as you get everything at level 1 and then nothing at all once again for level 6 and 14. Has anyone else noticed this or is bothered by this?

Yep, lazy for more than one reason.

[Ganryu]

Holy crap... I am in love with this unearthed Arcana. I squee'd. They need to make this into some future official print!


Only three things I'm hesitant on:

Eldritch armor, heavy armor prof is hard to get!
Sorcerer's getting advantage on checks far too easily
Warlocks with Animate dead...

But overall I love this.

[MaxWilson]

Also I've come across a "problem"...

The Favored Foe feature doesn't do anything else aside from what it does, whereas Favored Enemy gains additional features at level 6 and 14, IIRC. I've heard a criticism of Ranger is it's the only class with dead levels, or at least dead levels are an issue for it? This further exacerbates the issue as you get everything at level 1 and then nothing at all once again for level 6 and 14. Has anyone else noticed this or is bothered by this?

I could have sworn their other new feature got bumps at levels 6 and 14.

[Ignimortis]

Why even pick Kensei now? The main reason anyone plays them is to be a monk swordfighter, and if you can do that without Kensei, then all the other features are pretty underpowered because all of Kensei hinges on having a weapon that does more damage than fists before level 17. If those features make it into the current campaign I'm in, I'll have to do a rebuild...

[Tvtyrant]

Ranger's new companion can take an action using their bonus action, that is great! Also elementals are arguably as cool or cooler then animals.

[Kane0]

Though someone correct me if I am wrong, if any monk (potentially) has the ability to select marital weapons, whats the point of Kensei?

The hell was the point of Kensei before this?

I thought as I read that part that yeah, it makes Kensei obsolete.

More reason to never play a kensei, good, the subclass sucked. Also why would someone ever use that healing unless they were about to rest?

It doesn't entirely negate the kensei, but considering how it is already an unpopular subclass...

Why even pick Kensei now? The main reason anyone plays them is to be a monk swordfighter, and if you can do that without Kensei, then all the other features are pretty underpowered because all of Kensei hinges on having a weapon that does more damage than fists before level 17. If those features make it into the current campaign I'm in, I'll have to do a rebuild...

Kensei should have been a Fighter subclass, change my mind.

The heal isn't great as a combat option nor is it an efficient use of Ki, but it's a fantastic way to save on Hit Die and reduce reliance on other party members for healing over the course of a full adventuring day. Like Second Wind.

[Blood of Gaea]

A Battlemaster Fighter with the new Unarmed Fighting Style and Restraining Strike Maneuver seem like they would combine into a gnarly grappler.


Make a d6 or d8+str mod attack, make a free grapple with your maneuver (adding the maneuver die to the grapple attempt), restrain them on a success, then proceed to wail on the restrained enemy with 1d6+1d4+Str. And don't forget them being restrained gives you advantage as well (and unlike prone, your ranged allies get it too!).

Heck, to toss salt in the wound, follow up with a Commander's Strike to let your Rogue Sneak Attack with advantage, because why not.

[Scarytincan]

There are ways to gain additional weapon proficiencies. Even if feats and multiclassing are forbidden, you get to use Martial Arts as a longsword-wielding elf or a warhammer-wielding dwarf.

It doesn't entirely negate the kensei, but considering how it is already an unpopular subclass...

Which locks u into races u may not want or a very crappy feat. If you were already looking at those races then great! If not...

I mean ya it's not my favorite subclass either but, but deff being dramatic and /or misreading the UA to say it makes kensei obsolete imo

[Spectrulus]

I am glad to see WOTC caught up to my table's homebrews. I can see this turning into a Player's Handbook 2, like when they tried to fix 3.5 with PHB2 before 4e 5e launched.

[T.G. Oskar]

Well...color me impressed. Alternative Class Features? On my 5e? Took 'em a while...

Since everybody's weighing on them, how about I do?
Barbarian: Don't get too much; a shame because Path of the Berserker needs some love. (Like - replace the extra attack for an increased critical hit chance while raging?) Strangely enough, they get a source of Expertise, even though they're not a class that really depends on skills, and the skills they get are somewhat weird: Animal Instinct (for those who loved the Beastmaster movies), Medicine, Perception (the one I do agree on) and Survival. Oh, and Nature. On the other hand, Instinctive Pounce is cool but replaces Fast Movement, which is just as cool. I prefer the mobility.
Verdict: Wha?

Bard: Props for giving them more spells. Love the addition of Mass Healing Word, but it's so weird that they didn't give 'em the Bless spell. I know that has a too definitive divine flavor, but Bards with Bless rock it real good. Color Spray as an early spell and eventually Mirror Image and Heroes' Feast were sorely missed from 3e, and I for one am glad to see them back. Also: Mind Spike. As for the actual class features...Spell Versatility is pretty great, particularly for Bards. Magical Inspiration, on the other hand, should have remained a trait for a subclass, because otherwise they should have added the damage to weapon attacks as well, and that's the Valor Bard thing.
Verdict: Yay for new spells, but what were they thinking about Magical Inspiration?

Cleric: I don't care about the smiting spells (don't use them; War Clerics will love them, though, as well as Tempest Clerics), but...are my eyes deceiving me? Aura of Vitality!?!?!??!? Dear gods, the Cleric's last excuse for not being a healbot is already lost. (On the other hand; I don't mind that Paladins don't have it as an exclusive spell, since it was already hard to see that spell in play anyways...) Their recovery mechanic with the Channel Divinity Harness Divine Power isn't that amazing, but at least it gives you more uses to your CD by recovering spells like Bless, Guiding Bolt or Healing Word/Cure Wounds, which is great. As for Blessed Strikes...at first I got a knee-jerk reaction, but I see how it works. For example: if you as a Life Cleric tend to use a lot of cantrips (say, Sacred Flame), it's a good way to increase the damage you deal every turn; on the other hand, if you wade in battle, it's a direct nerf (because you don't get the 2d8 from Divine Strike by 14th level). It's nice, though, that you can choose it as an option, rather than force the change. Also: Wall of Light! Yay!
Verdict: "Come with me if you want to be healed." Also: Wall of Light, yay!

Druid: Wild Companion expands, rather than replaces, Wild Shape? Are we going with the "bear riding a bear while summoning a bear cavalry" thing again? (Granted; it doesn't grant you the ability to actually get a bear companion, but it does feel like it; you can be a cat, riding a cat, while having a horde of cats surrounding you, which can be pretty fun in any case). Also: Druids also get Aura of Vitality? Oh boy, it's a great day for Circle of Shepherd Druids everywhere! Enlarge/Reduce is great, Revivify is...a thing?, and we get more Cold damage spells, yay! (Also: Fire Shield).
Verdict: Winter is coming. Also, the Cat Cavalry has arrived.

Fighter Battlemaster: Yep, WotC realized that Battlemaster needs some love. Personally, I like the options - Ambush, Silver Tongue and Studious Eye let you use your superiority dice out of combat, while Brace is a much superior Opportunity Attack (sure, it doesn't play well with Sentinel, but you get extra damage instead). Superior Technique seems to be tailor-made for Champions, though: get it as your first or second Fighting Style, get Martial Adept as one of your feats, and enjoy as you get two uses of up to three maneuvers while keeping your Improved Critical and 1/2 proficiency to Initiative checks. PDK still sucks. Oh well.
Verdict: So WotC gave up and figured the Battlemaster was the Warlord, no?

Monk: Arguably the one I believe got buffed the worst. I mean - sure, everyone's worrying about Monk Weapons and how they make Kensei pointless, but do consider that their weapons become magical AND get an enhancement bonus, plus it's still the best way to do Zen Archery (particularly now that they have Distant Eye. Quickened Healing is for when you aren't an Open Hand Monk, and since it's an action, it can be part of your use of Patient Defense or Step of the Wind to reposition, so I don't see it as something bad; that said, they could have added the Monk's Wis modifier as extra healing. Ki-Fueled Strike is arguably the best boon they got, as they can use their ki powers and still contribute with attacks from their best weapons without problem. Heck: Ki-Fueled Strike always ensures you're spamming Stunning Strike, since it can be used as part of a melee weapon attack (and your unarmed strikes count as one), which you can always do with your bonus action. Should mingle well with Fangs of the Fire Snake, since the extended reach also applies to the bonus action Unarmed Strike (also with Water Whip)
Verdict: Until 5th level, a Fighter punches better than you, and until 11th level, the Fighter still punches as well as you.

Paladin: D-do my eyes deceive me not? WARDING BOND AS A PALADIN SPELL!!?!??!?!?!?!?

[CENTER]GOD IS IN HIS HEAVEN!

ALL IS RIGHT IN THE WORLD!!

PRAISE THE SUN! PRAISE THE SUN!/CENTER]

...ahem, you may figure out how excited I am to hear this. I always considered Warding Bond as a must-have Paladin spell, and after pestering WotC for a long time to add it, they did! But then...they also added Spirit Guardians!? Holy mother of all that's Good and Sacred, the Paladin is now best tank ever! (Spirit Guardians to keep everyone close, then some form of lockdown with Sentinel, Polearm Master and Tunnel Fighter, and eventually even War Caster for some advantage-on-concentration spells goodness... Yep; the Paladin just became a black hole of lockdown.) Feel kinda bad that the unique spells of the Crown Paladin got spread to everyone, but the Crown Paladin still has its stuff (the CD options are pretty dope, IMO; it's just the other class features that are kinda meh.) Also: Paladins get cantrips now!?!?!? Sure, it's by replacing your Fighting Style, which can be a pain (no more Tunnel Fighting, no more Duelist), but Guidance as a cantrip means the Paladin can do tons of stuff now. (And don't get me on with Mark of Sentinel + Guidance: with decent Dex, the Paladin will pretty much ALWAYS go first.) I don't feel so miffed about the new option for Channel Divinity, which is the same for the Cleric, as getting a free smite per short rest is basically what you do when you multiclass into Warlock, and it's for minimum damage anyways. Actually, I'd dare say the Paladin got the best buffs. Oh, and wait...Dawn and Flame Strike? Boi, Paladins got blasting spells now!
Verdict: Hallelujah! Hosanna in the heavens, for the Warriors of Light are now the most badass ever!

Ranger: ...Wow. Ranger got some love. Still, there's a few things that could get some work. For starters, Favored Foe is devoid of inspiration, since it's just Hunter's Mark for free. Personally, I would have cut the middleman and just say that they could spend a bonus action to study their opponent and declare it their quarry, allowing them to deal an extra amount of damage for up to 1 minute. Stalker's Prey (from the Monster Slayer conclave) already does that, and it's not broken in any case (even though it's 1/turn). Bit of a shame that you have to wait until 15th level to get Hunter's Mark to apply to your Beast Companion as well. Canny is painful: you get Expertise on ONE skill, and you can only get this option ONCE, unlike the Barbarian which gets Expertise on five skills (more than the Bard OR Rogue, which are the de-facto skill monkey classes; come on, just give the Ranger Expertise already!) Roving and Tireless are fun, though, because you get climbing and swimming skills, and you get a lot more tolerance to exhaustion (note that you no longer need to sleep, since the level of exhaustion you'd gain is lost with a short rest now). The new spells that Rangers get, on the other hand...wow, they make little sense! Warding Bond? I absolutely love it for Paladins, but Rangers aren't tanks! And Tongues? I mean...sure, Entangle is pretty fun as a trap spell, and adding some Smite spells to a class that could use some more melee love is great, and Enhance Ability is awesome as a support spell for a class that's expected to use a lot of skills, and Death Ward is pretty chilling for a Ranger to have because it prevents death, but...I don't see a Ranger deserving Greater Restoration. Aid, sure, but no Lesser Restoration. YMMV on Revivify. But wait! There's more! Primal Awareness is a pretty awesome change to Primeval Awareness, where instead of getting some supernatural senses, you get a ton of free utility spells that are actually useful, such as Detect Magic (you know where spell effects originate upon!), Speak with Animals (now you know what animals want!), Beast Sense (and see what animals see! And hear what animals hear! And can you SMEEEEEELLL...what the animal...is sniffing.), Locate Creature (no evil will escape your sight) and eventually Commune with Nature (for when you need to ask nature to tell you where you need to be railroaded).
And finally, the benefit to the Beastmaster: the Beasts of Air and Earth. While I would have loved to see more love for the other beasts, it's still a good way to beef them up. Good that they learned their lesson with the Wildfire Druid (because that Wildfire Spirit was a great way to deal with a companion creature; if you notice it closely, each beast has essentially the same stats as the Wildfire Spirit), and rekindles the Ranger as a Primal character (remember 4e? The love/hate relationship with it? Oh wait, it was the hate relationship. Good times...) Beasts of Earth aren't as beefy (I would have expected higher AC, but they don't get as much as the Beast of Air) or deal that much damage (unless they Charge), which is kind of a shame because why wouldn't you choose a Beast of Air? I mean, between better AC, 1 extra damage and Flyby, and considering that most of the flying companions you get are pretty weak, it's actually a much better version than any of them. I could see a bit more work to differentiate them, or instead, use these "beasts" as a "template" for existing animals, so you can get a spiffy hawk or a badass panther.
Verdict: So, does that mean we don't have to use the Revised Ranger anymore? Right? Right!?

Rogue: What, only one thing? Wait, you can get Sneak Attack for free now!? Oh boy.
Verdict: Simple, easy and to the point.

Sorcerer: Don't see why people say that Sorcerers didn't get that much love. Sure, they still lack Evard's Black Tentacles, or Armor of Agathys, or Arms of Hadar, or Hunger of Hadar, or Wall of Force, or Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or Dawn, or...well, you get the idea, but at least they got Primal Savagery! (1d10 acid damage counts for something, right?) And Flesh to Stone, and Fire Shield, and Vampiric Touch! ...Alright, so they didn't get as much love as others with their spells, but that's basically because Sorcerers haven't been as defined as other classes do. (And personally, the Wizard knows a lot of spells that should have been Sorcerer spells. Where's Wings of Flurry, WotC!?) As for uses of Sorcery Points, Empowering Reserves is fun (did you know dispel checks, initiative checks and Telekinesis use ability checks?), and Elemental Spell is downright hilarious. (Storm Sphere with the element the enemy is weakest? Investiture spells? Love the idea.) Also, they get some of that spontaneous spellcaster love with the ability to replace a spell every long rest. Sure, it's not "change your entire spell selection every day", but the thought is what counts.
Verdict: Still the red-headed stepchild, but at least they didn't get sucker-punched as the Monk.

Warlock: Now, HERE'S where I feel a class got a lot of love. A new pact boon (Pact of the Talisman), which is basically a free Guidance magic item (since you can give it to any one you feel like it). Not only that, all Pacts got some love: Pact of the Tome now has two Truename apps (one full of Death Pacts and the other one basically acting like WhatsApp) PLUS essentially free War Caster (though you can ignore it and get War Caster anyways), Pact of the Chain now has a...familiar that can fight and is slightly better at what it does? and Pact of the Blade gains...free enchanted armor. Meaning they can wear something like Armor of Invulnerability if they want to. Spells they got are...meh, though it's a shame that you can't change your Mystic Arcana; if there was a class that could have enjoyed the ability to switch certain spells, the Warlock was first in line.
Verdict: I'mma get an iBook of Shadows and give it the SendChat and Anti-Death Note apps.

Wizard: Just four spells!? That said, they get basically all needed divination spells, so it's more fun for those few (...heh...) Diviners out there.
Verdict: I was a Diviner before it was cool.

Overall: I like the direction. Most of these options basically expand what you can do with the classes, and serve as general power boosts. The Monk got some nice buffs but got the shaft with the new Fighting Style options, and the Sorcerer still remains the red-headed stepchild, but there's a ton of improvements all around. I'm especially happy with the Paladin, who got a sweet boost with the new spells, and with the option to get cantrips instead of a Fighting Style, you can play a pretty different kind of blessed warrior. It definitely does feel like an option to renew the classes for an eventual refresh of this edition (which probably means a new book reprint? 5.5? 5e Essentials? Advanced D&D 5e?), but it's great that we see it beforehand, and can place our opinions on it.

Blind Fight is pretty simple, but underwhelming: you don't get disadvantage if you can't see the creature, but you still need to know where it is, and a DM can easily stop you from doing anything. Interception is fun; it's basically the same power as Deflect Missiles, and essentially what you get when you use the Parry ability as a DM for some of your monsters/NPCs, but for allies, and instead of trying to negate the attack, it works when the ally is hit, which is much more efficient; I love this Fighting Style. Thrown Weapon Fighting gives some love to a much-neglected class, and the damage boost is fun, though I would have loved a range extension instead (because 30 ft. with a Javelin as your short range won't cut it when you're fighting against a Dragon 120 ft. away)

Which...leads to Unarmed Fighting. IMO, they jumped the board on this one. Fighters, Paladins and Rangers now get to deal more damage than a Monk when unarmed, even though they don't get bonus action attacks or Flurry of Blows...except as follows. By 11th level, a Monk deals 1d8 with its unarmed strikes; a Fighter gets three attacks overall with Extra Attack, a Paladin gets Improved Divine Smite and a Ranger already had Hunter's Mark like 9 levels ago. The Monk's slight boost to damage won't compare to the Paladin or Ranger, but it does compare to the Fighter. By 20th level, the Monk gets 1d10 damage with unarmed strikes, but the Fighter gets 4 attacks and has its bonus action free (plus it doesn't depend on Ki to activate Flurry of Blows). And that's without going with subclasses. That said - the main range of levels where everybody plays is roughly between 3rd and 11th level, so the feature will remain relevant always. It doesn't fit either with the options of certain races, which allow you to deal 1d4 with your unarmed strikes by means of having claws or something like that; they also get the shaft. Heck - the Dragonborn gets the shaft because the Dragon Hide feat becomes entirely worthless (you can get a better armor, and your unarmed strikes are better, by choosing the right class).

I'd nerf the Barbarian's Survival Instincts to work like Canny. In exchange, I'd give the Path of the Berserker a revamp to their Frenzy so that, when they fly into a Rage, they can make a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, so that they could use their Brutal Critical a LOT more. Since there's already ways to get bonus attacks (equipping a second weapon, Polearm Master), this feature would redeem the Path of the Berserker from its detractors.

Bards could get the ability to spend 2 uses of Bardic Inspiration to grant an Inspiration die to a number of creatures of your choice equal to your Charisma modifier at the same time. That could be its 5th level ability, in addition to recharging Bardic Inspiration uses as a short rest.

Clerics should get Healing Spirit. That way, you no longer need to multiclass into Druid, unless you really love the Light Cleric/Shepherd Druid interaction.

Druid's Wild Companion would replace Wild Shape, instead of enhance it. You get Find Familiar for free, except you can choose a beast creature from any beast of CR 1/4 or lower without the ability to fly or swim (1/2 CR and no ability to fly by 4th level, and eventually up to beasts of CR 1 by 8th level). That's it. Circle of the Moon and Circle of Wildfire Druids would need to keep Wild Shape nonetheless, but the other creatures don't (and actually, Wild Companion would work wonders with Circle of the Shepherd, as it'd count as a summoned beast for purposes of their subclass features).

Monks of the Way of the Four Elements should get more new stuff. Also; get more discipline powers. Four ain't enough.

Rangers would get Hunter's Quarry instead: as a bonus action, you designate a creature as your quarry. When you make your first successful attack against your quarry during your turn, you deal an extra 1d8 points of damage. At 6th level and again at 14th level, you can choose one creature type (or two races of humanoids) to count as your Favored Enemies; against them, you ALWAYS get Hunter's Quarry bonuses. Your Hunter's Quarry damage increases by 1d8 at those levels. That way, by 14th level, you'd be dealing 3d8 once per turn against an opponent. Hunter's Quarry would mingle well with Colossus Strike, Dread Ambusher and to an extent Planar Warrior and Stalker's Prey; however, it'd have a sweet synergy with Beastmasters because their beast companions would also get the Hunter's Quarry extra damage, so Beastmasters would end up dealing 3d8 extra damage with their attacks AND their beast's attacks. Also, I'd give them Expertise at 6th and 10th level, and lower Vanish to 10th level, so that Hiding as a bonus action makes sense (alternatively, why not lower it to 6th level and make it even MORE relevant?)

Sorcerers should get a wider repertoire of spells, including some Wizard-exclusive spells like Evard's Black Tentacles and Warlock-exclusive spells like Hunger of Hadar.

Warlocks would get the ability to replace their Mystic Arcana as part of a long rest, but only one, and only after an hour of meditaiton with their patron. Likewise, they'd get their patron-granted spells for free, rather than having to choose them as part of their spell selection. And...finally, make it so that they get one extra spell per short rest, so they start with 2 spells, and end up with 5 spells.

Bards, Monks and Sorcerers should get an ability that restores all uses of their Bardic Inspiration, Ki or Sorcery Points immediately, and if they lack more than half of their resource, for 1 minute they recover 1 use each level. This would be their "boss" power.

Rangers would add their Wisdom to attack and damage rolls against their quarry (as well as their favored enemies). Simple, easy, brutal.

[Yunru]

So Ranger 1 is now a Frenzy Barbarian's must-have. Did not see that coming.

[Scarytincan]

None really, but a sling wasn’t considered a monk martial arts weapon before. Just a weapon that they have proficiency in. Now they can have it and the sling and do monk damage with them.

You could absolutely have a monk who uses XBE and SS now if you wanted.

If they have a way to get prof in xbow. Gotta be prof first.

[CheddarChampion]

I've noticed Pact of the Talisman stacks with Jack of All Trades.
That's more or less full proficiency with skills, depending on level.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Everyone is saying the monk's Quickened Healing is useless, but wouldn't it actually be a straight buff to a monk's staying power, as right before a short rest you can burn any excess ki you have to heal up? Getting an extra 2d6 healing or whatever on a short rest for a resource you're about to fully replenish anyway doesn't seem like a bad deal.

[Sception]

I really like the paladin changes. Spirit guardians is maybe an unneeded buff, but it feels on theme. Cantrip access is quite welcome to help enhance the magical feel of the class.

Harness Divine Power is especially welcome. An over-reliance on daily resources is a chronic frustration of the class, one compounded whenever your party takes a short rest sooner than expected and tour one notable short rest feature, channel divinity, goes to waste because you hadn't used it. This mitigates that by letting you convert an unused CD into a first level spell slot so at least it doesn't go to waste.

It isn't a significant power boost because most oaths gave CDs which are better than a single first level spell slot anyway, so in general you would have been better off using the CD normally, this just provides a weak-but-not-meaningless alternative for if the right opportunity never presented itself.

It's mostly just a great quality of life improvement. Personally, I still would prefer a completely revised system replacing divine smite, improved divine smite, and all the smite spells with a short rest smite pool plus learned abilities that let you burn daily spell slots to enhance those basic smites with extra damage or rider effects, but that's more of a rewrite than this ua seemed to be aiming for, and other classes needed the in depth attention more.

[Telwar]

This is surprisingly good. While I'm not a big fan of 5e, I do play it, and I don't see anything in here I don't like, and a lot that looks like it's really useful.


....Wait a minute.

Did Clerics really not have Power Word Heal before this?!

I know, right?

[Foxhound438]

Frankly, I'm not too worried about monks becoming obsolete in the wake of unarmed fighting style. Dealing X-Billion damage was never their niche in the first place.

Also, take note that if you start grappling a creature, you no longer have two hands free, so I guess if you're going for a grappler build keep that in mind.

[Ignimortis]

Kensei should have been a Fighter subclass, change my mind.

And how do I play my anime swordsmen then? Monk's the only way to run on walls and make lots of attacks before level 11.

[Daithi]

The Ranger's new Tireless feature is really good.

It grants 1d10+WIS mod in temporary hit points, plus you can use these temp h.p. a number of times equal to your WIS mod. With a 20 WIS this is on average 52.5 hit points per day, and it comes into play at 1st level. Any WIS based classes should seriously consider a level of this new Ranger.

As a side note, the added bit that about reducing exhaustion levels by 1 level now allows any race to become a coffeelock.

[Yunru]

The Ranger's new Tireless feature is really good.

It grants 1d10+WIS mod in temporary hit points, plus you can reuse these temp h.p. a number of equal to your WIS mod. With a 20 WIS this is on average 52.5 hit points per day, and it comes into play at 1st level. Any WIS based classes should serious consider a level of this new Ranger.

As a side note, the added bit that about reducing exhaustion levels by 1 level now allows any race to become a coffeelock.
Forget the coffee locks, RANGER FRENZY BARBARIANS!
...
Still have their main feature made pseudo-redundant by PAM.

But at least it's not terribad once they... MC into Ranger.

[MeeposFire]

I meant without having to multiclassing monk.
Fighter 1, Barbarian x is on the way.

Ah ok that makes sense. I just wanted to be sure I did not miss something about the barbarian stuff.

[Kane0]

And how do I play my anime swordsmen then? Monk's the only way to run on walls and make lots of attacks before level 11.

Give the fighter-kensei ki progression slower than a monk (like EK gets slower casting progression) and a selection of ki powers to choose from. Battlemaster maneuvers, spells known, the new RK Runes, 4e monk disciplines, etc already follow the same pattern. Wall running, extra attacks, attack deflection, whatever kungfufighting powers you can think of.
You can also use the exact same template for some ToB moves.

[Pex]

Way Cool!

I took special notice that Blade Pact warlocks have the option of being able to wear armor without needing to be a Hexblade. They'd still need ST or DX, but it's nice to see.

Elemental Spell for the win for Sorcerers, especially Dragon Sorcerers.

Paladins and Rangers can have cantrips. Nice. Paladins can have a range attack if it's important enough. They're still better off in melee smiting, but it's there. I see lots of Toll The Dead and Guidance combos.

Several fun new maneuvers for Battle Masters. Now getting a new maneuver is something to look forward to instead of getting the garbage you didn't want at 3rd level, garbage being whatever your personal taste.

[dragsaw]

Is there a reason the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster dont get spell versatility? It seems weird.

[jas61292]

I feel like I'm one of the only people who is not a big fan on this UA. Yeah, I like some of the ideas here, and a few I think are looking overdue, but for the most part, these are not class feature variants, as the title suggests. Instead, it's mostly power creep buffs.

Trading out poorly worded Ranger features for cool useful utility? Awesome.

Straight buffing the flexibility of every single caster at no cost? No thank you

While I like some of the ideas, and have no issue with there being new maneuvers, fighting styles or invocations to pick from, if you are not tarading in a feature to get a replacement, that is typically not something I want in the game.

[Hytheter]

Eldritch Armour sounds great except that Bladelocks already have way too many invocations they want to use.


And how do I play my anime swordsmen then? Monk's the only way to run on walls and make lots of attacks before level 11.

I mean presumably you'd give a Fighter Kensei some comparable abilities. Plus most of the Monk's "lots of attacks" are punches anyway, Fighters get the same amount of actual sword strikes.

[Yunru]

Is there a reason the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster dont get spell versatility? It seems weird.

Because they pick from the Wizard's list, and thus profit from that being improved?

[Blood of Gaea]

I feel like I'm one of the only people who is not a big fan on this UA. Yeah, I like some of the ideas here, and a few I think are looking overdue, but for the most part, these are not class feature variants, as the title suggests. Instead, it's mostly power creep buffs.

Trading out poorly worded Ranger features for cool useful utility? Awesome.

Straight buffing the flexibility of every single caster at no cost? No thank you

While I like some of the ideas, and have no issue with there being new maneuvers, fighting styles or invocations to pick from, if you are not tarading in a feature to get a replacement, that is typically not something I want in the game.
I absolutely agree. I like some of the stuff like fighting styles, but why the heck can every caster swap spells around, and why in the world did Warlock get Animate Dead and Paladin get Spirit Guardians?!

[Theaitetos]

Is there a reason the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster dont get spell versatility? It seems weird.

I guess it's because this UA focused only on class features, not subclass features.

[dragsaw]

Because they pick from the Wizard's list, and thus profit from that being improved?

I dont think thats how it works? Wizard dont get spell versatility anyway.



I guess it's because this UA focused only on class features, not subclass features.

Apart from the Battle Master.

[Ignimortis]

I mean presumably you'd give a Fighter Kensei some comparable abilities. Plus most of the Monk's "lots of attacks" are punches anyway, Fighters get the same amount of actual sword strikes.

I fluffed mine as pommel strikes, mostly. But it'd be nice to give someone other than Monks monk-like abilities.

[rbstr]

A thing everyone seems to be missing wrt. Monk weapons and Kensei:
You have to be proficient to take something as a monk weapon. And the wording to me seems that you have to pick the weapons at monk level 1. So for your long sword or whatever you've either got to bring the proficiency via background/race or via your first class. Or you have to be kensei.
And the Kensei, regardless of what people wanted the class to be, really doesn't care so much about the non-monk weapons it enables. It works basically as well with weapons the monk already has.

[Fnissalot]

Does the new beastmaster pet still get to add proficiency to it's stats like the PHB version? If no, it is pretty crappy still.

[Hytheter]

A thing everyone seems to be missing wrt. Monk weapons and Kensei:
You have to be proficient to take something as a monk weapon. And the wording to me seems that you have to pick the weapons at monk level 1. So for your long sword or whatever you've either got to bring the proficiency via background/race or via your first class. Or you have to be kensei.

Yeah, I actually like this because it gives those racial weapons a bit more reason to exist. Like, of course dwarven monks practice hammer-based martial arts.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Thank you for posting it here.

The monk, cleric and warlock changes will help our party, this is what was missing.

[MeeposFire]

I dont think thats how it works? Wizard dont get spell versatility anyway.




Apart from the Battle Master.

Well battlemaster was more back door since the main class was given an option to take maneuvers even without being a battlemaster so the fact it gives the battlemaster more options could be seen much as how those other sublcasses now would get new spells to pick when they level up from this UA.

Also I believe the other poster was not referencing spellcasting versatility at all rather that poster was referencing how say an eldritch knight gets access to for example speak with dead because of this UA where before an EK could not ever choose to pick up that spell by its class. That is a benefit (though in this case not a huge one) to the EK but not one that was necessarily for the EK and was not directly mentioned in the UA.

[T.G. Oskar]

I absolutely agree. I like some of the stuff like fighting styles, but why the heck can every caster swap spells around, and why in the world did Warlock get Animate Dead and Paladin get Spirit Guardians?!

Because some spells made sense in those lists, Warlocks could cast Animate Dead in 3.x, and Spirit Guardians is a spell that makes sense to Paladins?

For a longer explanation: it's a way to make other classes have spells that suit their needs. Bards lacked Mass Healing Word, but it's a spell that makes sense to them, because they're not the best healers, but make damn good emergency healers nonetheless. Clerics gaining Aura of Vitality makes sense, because they're mostly healers. Paladins gaining Spirit Guardians makes sense to them, because that spell is a brutally effective Lockdown spell that works for their purpose as tanks: they're already formidable damage dealers with Smites, but in case you wanted more tanking power (without having to take the Oath of the Crown, which has this spell on its list), there it is.

As for Warlocks gaining Animate Dead: that's basically a holdover of the 3rd Edition, as they had an invocation that allowed them to use Animate Dea at-will. The caveat is that, unless they had the material component to consume, the undead creature they summoned was temporary, lasting for around an hour at best. This was before Warlocks gained the flavor of having different patrons other than fiends, such as fey or even celestials. Getting Animate Dead as a spell is essentially a nod to that. Do note that, because they recover their spell slots on a short-rest, they can't devote all their spell slots to create an undead army, but they still have spells left after a short rest so they are oddly appropriate for an undead guerrilla build.

...But yeah, some spell swaps don't make sense. You can argue that Clerics get Smite spells for Forge, Tempest and War Clerics to have fun, but that's what Domain spells are for. I don't mind the inclusion of many spells to the lists of certain classes, but they should be important to the overall function of the class: that's why Mass Healing Word and Bless for Bards is a must, as well as Aura of Vitality and Healing Spirit for Clerics, Cone of Cold and Mass Healing Word for Druids, Warding Bond and Spirit Guardians for Paladins, Haste and Entangle for Rangers, Evard's Black Tentacles and...well, whatever good spell Sorcerers get, and so on. Notice that I added one spell that isn't on the revision for every class but Paladin; that is because I feel they could make a better revision that adds those spells, but they're on the right path.

[Appleheart]

This is fantastic.

Sure, some specific replacements/enhancements are not my cup of tea, but I absolutely love the general approach to class feature augmentations.

They have been talking for a long time about effectively patching PHB classes, with Ranger obviously being the poster boy for this problem, and this seems like a very viable and valid way to approach this, and a system that once implemented they can keep adding to across multiple books. The general scope of having setting and campaign specific options for feature replacements could also be a very cool option.

As for this UA specifically, the Ranger especially seems like the big winner. The new BM pet feature still seems significantly worse than Revised Ranger, and other pet summon options though, so I'd still run with a different version there. The base class options are really cool though. The cantrip fighting style option, same for Paladin, is especially cool for opening up great new playstyles. A shillelagh-using Ranger could be very cool!

[Citadel97501]

Damn I want to try this with a multi-class Undying Rogue + Blade Warlock :) Greater invisibility & Full Plate with Necrotic Blasts, Force Blasts, and Pact Weapons?

Warlock:
Holy crap, are some of those Invocations much cooler than other options although I am very concerned about the Imp or the Sprite's poison attacks having your save dc's. Seriously, DC 16 or DC 17 by level 3 is really scary. Oh and I love the pact of the talisman :) slowly growing better saves, skill check buffs, and deadly psychic damage if you dare to strike me. Warlock's with Full Plate & Greater Invisibility? What the hell, that is grotesque...

Paladin
Blessed Warrior is incredibly good, as it nullifies the need for multi-classing for ranged attacks. Oh and who thought that adding another smite per short rest was a good idea, seriously that is extremely deadly (Harness Divine Power)?

Monk
Ki Infused Strike this is a nice improvement but the monk still needs a lot of work.

Ranger
So many improvements that actually move this class strongly up the optimization list in my eyes. I also love the expertise on a skill, and the movement buff. Bard, Ranger, Rogue for massive expertise in skills while climbing up a wall in the dungeon to make some sniper positions.

[D-naras]

Holy crap, are some of those Invocations much cooler than other options although I am very concerned about the Imp or the Sprite's poison attacks having your save dc's. Seriously, 17 at level 2 is really scary. Oh and where is the Pact of the Talisman from I haven't seen that one yet?

Pact of the Talisman is right after the Invocations. Your patron grants you a talisman that you can wear or give away. Whoever wears it, adds 1d4 to any unproficient ability check. Pretty cool and a nice, neutral rp choice for those that don't want swords or imps or be a bookworm type.

[Anymage]

I feel like I'm one of the only people who is not a big fan on this UA. Yeah, I like some of the ideas here, and a few I think are looking overdue, but for the most part, these are not class feature variants, as the title suggests. Instead, it's mostly power creep buffs.

Trading out poorly worded Ranger features for cool useful utility? Awesome.

Straight buffing the flexibility of every single caster at no cost? No thank you

While I like some of the ideas, and have no issue with there being new maneuvers, fighting styles or invocations to pick from, if you are not tarading in a feature to get a replacement, that is typically not something I want in the game.

The spellcaster buffs come in two main forms. Expanding spell lists, and letting list casters swap spells more freely. (You also have halfcasters getting cantrips and preparation casters being able to swap cantrips on level up, but neither of those seems like too big a deal.)

The list caster change is a little too strong, as suits UA. There should be some way for a player to swap out an option that isn't working for them anymore, but being able to completely change your loadout with a couple weeks worth of downtime is a bit much. I wonder what's a good way to mechanically codify "if a player isn't really liking their choice, or if a MC ability or magic item makes a choice redundant, they should be able to change it" without giving too much in-universe permissiveness.

Spell lists expanding, again I have a feeling that this is overshooting to get broad impressions down first. I have a feeling that they'll do more with subclasses to give more spell breadth without being too free with giving everybody all the cool tools.


Is there a reason the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster dont get spell versatility? It seems weird.

EKs/ATs don't often come up in discussions of things that really need fixing. The core philosophy of letting people more freely swap something out for something of identical power/utility should hold, but it's understandable that the specific subclasses slipped people's minds.

[Makorel]

Does Spirit Guardians work with Find Steed's double-self casting effect? I want to say the answer was no but I forget why.

[Kane0]

The list caster change is a little too strong, as suits UA. There should be some way for a player to swap out an option that isn't working for them anymore, but being able to completely change your loadout with a couple weeks worth of downtime is a bit much. I wonder what's a good way to mechanically codify "if a player isn't really liking their choice, or if a MC ability or magic item makes a choice redundant, they should be able to change it" without giving too much in-universe permissiveness.


On level up works most of the time, but in other cases downtime seems appropriate. Part of a long rest is right out (unless we're talking fighters with fighting styles or something).

[Makorel]

What level is the Hunter's Mark cast from Favored Foe? It doesn't specify.

[MeeposFire]

Meh being able to change yoru spells like that does not strike me as too powerful rather it just makes it more fun and less of a problem if you do not like your choices. The big thing about power is that most of the time the important bit is what you can do right now in the situation you are in and not what you can do weeks later. Yes it is great that I can change out all of my combat related spells so I can go planes hopping but considering I may need to go right now or even tommorrow means that the feature cannot make a sorcerer into what a wizard can do.

What it does do is let those sorcerers actually choose niche spells and not feel like they are killing their spells known. You can now choose that spell with a real niche use but know that if you really need to you can change it out later for something a bit more generally useful.

I would cation people about getting too wound up about things like "power creep" and "overpowered" these things do happen but I do find people on some boards tend to get into this mindset that some changes are much more impressive than they are.

While not here (it was on the old WotC boards) a good example was when the favored soul came out in 3.5. At the time it came out there was a lot of people complaining about the obvious power creep and how the class was way too over powered as it was like the sorcerer but it got armor, weapons, great saves, more spells known, and CLASS FEATURES. After the furor died down eventually the common consensus was that the favored soul was still roughly as good as a sorcerer and was less powered than the druid, wizard, and of course cleric from the PHB and so the furor was not really warranted. You also saw something similar at the start of 3e where lots of people thought the monk was overpowered because it got so much stuff compared to other classes but that eventually changed to it being seen as being really weak once people got a better idea of how the game worked.

This showed off at least two things.

1. people had a tendency to way overvalue class abilities as compared to their actual overall influence on the game. As an example the favored soul had three good saves which otherwise only the monk had which was a very nice perk but in the end did nto make the favored soul really any more potent than any other so called tier 2 class (to borrow late 3.5e board terminology).

2. sometimes it becomes clear that adding stuff to a class would not over power a class because the abilities are not that powerful or the class really could use the boost or both. In this example the favored soul would show that that giving a sorc style class features in addition to its spell casting would not over power (dependent of course on what those features are). The sorc did not NEED any new class abilities but it would not become overpowered compared to the rest of the game if it did receive abilities in line with what the favored soul was getting.



I am not saying that people are wrong that they see things as being over powered at this time but I would cation them to really think about it and stew over it and remember that the power range is probably wider than you might think. As an example yes giving wizards access to speak to dead does make them more powerful than before but not in such a way that I think it changes anything important and further it is the sort of classic spell that I think a wizard should be able to do. To me that is a win and maybe you might call that power creep but I would just call it a change that makes the game slightly better.

[Sindal]

Does this sound like a neat addition to foes to allow its scaling?

-at levels 6 and 14, you can mark up to 2 and 3 targets respectively when using hunters mark in this way. You can move any number of your targets around with a bonus action, provided they have died.

- using this feature at lvl 6 emulates are casting hungers mark with a lvl3 slot and a lvl5 slot at 14

[Hytheter]

- using this feature at lvl 6 emulates are casting hungers mark with a lvl3 slot and a lvl5 slot at 14

I'd make it once per day instead of Wis-based and have it scale like you're saying. 8-24 hour no concentration Hunter's Mark sounds pretty decent to me.

[BarneyBent]

Does Spirit Guardians work with Find Steed's double-self casting effect? I want to say the answer was no but I forget why.

You can’t be affected by two of the same spell effects. However, in such a situation, you experience the stronger spell effect, so it would arguably give you “advantage” on damage rolls. Given that the variance on 3d8 is pretty low it will have a fairly small effect on total damage but still useful.

Edit: crunched the numbers and it would boost the damage from 13.5 to an average of 15.75, a boost of about 17%. Nothing to sneeze at, especially given it applies to potentially every damage roll. Upcasting would increase the raw bonus but it would be a smaller bonus relative to the base average.

Probably most useful is it becomes really difficult to roll damage lower than a 7 or 8, so you know that each turn you’re going to do something that will hurt. Definitely a power boost, more than I expected.

[bronzemountain]

I can finally play a monk with a rapier without having to be a kensei and I can play an unarmed barbarian without multiclassing.

I am very cool with it all.

Now if they would just make a duelist class or subclass.

Wow! Drunken Master monk with a rapier suddenly becomes an all time great swashbuckler/duelist. Good AC, fast attacks (flurry), stunning flourishes, parries that divert attacks onto your enemies, fast and light on your feet, running up walls onto chandeliers, balancing on railings. And ethereal projection, like swashbucklers have always done.

Okay, maybe not that last part. But it's really really awesome and lets you dodge some of the 'why is this wuxia movie in my gothic fantasy' issues that some people encounter.

[Sindal]

I'd make it once per day instead of Wis-based and have it scale like you're saying. 8-24 hour no concentration Hunter's Mark sounds pretty decent to me.

Oh right!
If the spell lasts for 8 hours, you can just use your bonus action to move it to instead of 're' casting it.

That makes sense.

[Millstone85]

I mean - sure, everyone's worrying about Monk Weapons and how they make Kensei pointless, but do consider that their weapons become magical AND get an enhancement bonus, plus it's still the best way to do Zen Archery (particularly now that they have Distant Eye.All good points. I may have gone "No, my kensei!" too soon. :smallsmile:

[jaappleton]

Couple things:

The new Ranger fighting style, Druidic Warrior, forgoes normal fighting style bonuses in lieu of granting access to Druid cantrips. This means you can nab Shillelagh without spending an ASI or dipping, so you can be pretty SAD as a Ranger with a Quarterstaff and still have an OK ranged option via another cantrip.

Clerics Blessed Strikes isn’t quite as good as you may think for weapon attacks: Divine Strike scales at both lv8 and lv14, but Blessed Strikes is a boost only at level 8. Still a solid option for Domains that DO get Divine Strike that want to use Cantrips as opposed to weapons, but not vice-versa.

Ranger can now cast Hunter’s Mark, not requiring Concentration. Barbarians can’t cast spells while Raging, and can’t Concentrate while Raging. But they can use stuff like Armor of Agathys by casting it before Raging. Now they can cast Hunter’s Mark if they dip Ranger, and use it in a similar way. And.... I think they can even more HM as a bonus action because it’s not casting it at that point. They can cast HM, then Rage the following turn and be able to move HM on subsequent bonus actions.

[Dork_Forge]

Couple things:

The new Ranger fighting style, Druidic Warrior, forgoes normal fighting style bonuses in lieu of granting access to Druid cantrips. This means you can nab Shillelagh without spending an ASI or dipping, so you can be pretty SAD as a Ranger with a Quarterstaff and still have an OK ranged option via another cantrip.

Clerics Blessed Strikes isn’t quite as good as you may think for weapon attacks: Divine Strike scales at both lv8 and lv14, but Blessed Strikes is a boost only at level 8. Still a solid option for Domains that DO get Divine Strike that want to use Cantrips as opposed to weapons, but not vice-versa.

Ranger can now cast Hunter’s Mark, not requiring Concentration. Barbarians can’t cast spells while Raging, and can’t Concentrate while Raging. But they can use stuff like Armor of Agathys by casting it before Raging. Now they can cast Hunter’s Mark if they dip Ranger, and use it in a similar way. And.... I think they can even more HM as a bonus action because it’s not casting it at that point. They can cast HM, then Rage the following turn and be able to move HM on subsequent bonus actions.

Blessed Strikes doesn't scale, but it does now apply that bonus damage to ALL damaging spells instead of just cantrips.

[Sindal]

Wait.
The rangers current capstone applies to favoured enemies only. If you dont have a favoured enemy, how does it work?

Does it trigger on hunters mark enemies?

[Damon_Tor]

I think that it would be d6+d4+Str as grappling requires one hand free then that hand would then be in use.

There are edge cases, like the simic hybrid or the loxodon, which can grapple without using their hands.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Wait.
The rangers current capstone applies to favoured enemies only. If you dont have a favoured enemy, how does it work?

Does it trigger on hunters mark enemies?

It says that favoured foe is replacing favoured enemy.

If it replaced it in one place it should replace it in the other because the original exist no more.

[Willie the Duck]

Is there a reason the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster dont get spell versatility? It seems weird.

EKs/ATs don't often come up in discussions of things that really need fixing. The core philosophy of letting people more freely swap something out for something of identical power/utility should hold, but it's understandable that the specific subclasses slipped people's minds.
I agree that the likely explanation is it wasn’t thought of/considered high priority. But along with this:

...But yeah, some spell swaps don't make sense. You can argue that Clerics get Smite spells for Forge, Tempest and War Clerics to have fun, but that's what Domain spells are for.
Points out that I think that they went about this backwards. Mind you, I like a lot of what I see here, but they could have simply called the whole thing a general optional rules update and then made updates wherever they thought worked best, rather than almost exclusively put them into base class revisions (plus maneuvers and invocations). The new cleric spells that really should be updated domain spells for Forge/Tempest/War? Yes, they should have just updated those domains. EKs and ATs not getting spell versatility? They probably could have gotten by with a single entry about spell swapping (with a little wordsmithing for the nuances between classes) and not needed to make a separate entry for each class (and thus omitted or forgotten a few). Everyone realized that thrown weapons were barely tolerable because of the difficulty in drawing them? You could make a fighting style to fix it or just update the rules on thrown weapons, and the choice of the later really seems like a decision based around the type of fix they decided they were doing.

Eldritch Armour sounds great except that Bladelocks already have way too many invocations they want to use.
I generally agree, except that ‘you have all the options in the world, and never enough selections to do everything you want’ seems to sum up the Warlock design ethos, so this at least fits.

[Ravinsild]

Pact of the Talisman is right after the Invocations. Your patron grants you a talisman that you can wear or give away. Whoever wears it, adds 1d4 to any unproficient ability check. Pretty cool and a nice, neutral rp choice for those that don't want swords or imps or be a bookworm type.

Yeah it really helps the "class fantasy" of having a support type Warlock, especially those who love to go Celestial. You can really be like an alt-cleric at that point.

[xp3ngu1nkn1gh7x]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

[jaappleton]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

Shadow Monk's spells, and Four Elements spells.

[jas61292]

Shadow Monk's spells, and Four Elements spells.

While I'm not a fan of most of the features here that are just bonuses, this is actually one I really like because of how it buffs Four Elements Monks. I recently had a fellow player play one, and their biggest complaint was this. Not that the spells cost too much, but that by casting them, you forgo your bonus action stuff. With this, Four Elements Monks are now much closer to parity with the other subclasses.

[jaappleton]

While I'm not a fan of most of the features here that are just bonuses, this is actually one I really like because of how it buffs Four Elements Monks. I recently had a fellow player play one, and their biggest complaint was this. Not that the spells cost too much, but that by casting them, you forgo your bonus action stuff. With this, Four Elements Monks are now much closer to parity with the other subclasses.

Hard agree.

Its an excellent way to fix a major issue with 4 Elements.

[Daphne]

What if some of the enhancements are just playtest of possible subclass features?

[Dork_Forge]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

Four Element and Shadow's spells, Empty Body, triggering Quivering Palm, the new healing ability (which is why I think people are underestimating it), Sun Soul Spells, Long Death's capstone. It is a pretty significant boost depending what subclass you are (and a decent one in general).

[Hytheter]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

The new quickened healing feature, for one. Beyond that there's subclass features like Shadow Arts, various Four Elements powers, Wholeness of Body and such. There's also edge cases like if you use an action which allows an attack but isn't the attack action - for example, Booming Blade - or if you're using the attack action but for some reason not using a monk weapon, you can use Stunning Strike or Kensei's Deft Strike to trigger the bonus punch.

edit: got ninja'd hard.

[Ravinsild]

I just want to say I love the direction they are taking the Ranger. It feels really good.

I think that Favored Foe, Deft Explorer and Primal Awareness in addition to the ability to change 1 spell per long rest makes them feel like a nature themed primal class but it also gives them what I think the class fantasy of the Ranger is, which is adaptability and versatility. They are now far better able to adapt to the situation at hand.

- Expertise in Survival, or Stealth or what-have-you depending on how you want to play it allows for more customizability
- Climbing and/or Swimming speed I feel impacts the exploration part of the game without just hand-waving it. You can climb better than any PC now, or swim, and you can get to where others cannot as easily.
- The ability to just be tough makes for a valuable front line tank as well as unable to get tired, that speaks of natural resilience, I love this.
- The ability to swap a spell per long rest really alleviates some of the Rangers issues and allows them to better adapt and prepare for the day ahead, I love this.

In addition to all of the above the free spells they gave Ranger loosens up what spells they're now able to take. Since Hunter's Mark is baked into Favored Foe you can now more easily pick a flavorful spell, plus Primal Awareness gives a ton of free spells and all of these cast be cast without expending a spell slot a number of times per day, which allows room for different types of spells like support spells, and really helps flavor out the Ranger. I feel before every Ranger basically, essentially, took the same few spells over and over and over.

I think the spells specifically given to Primal Awareness really do what it did anyway but better in some cases and with a more versatile function. I just love it.

They really feel like a FIGHTER + DRUID now, which I think is a huge win.

I feel like Melee Rangers saw some love here with enhanced tanking ability and even smite spells, the Ranged variants continue to stay strong, and overall things like Entangle and such feel like they have some "trap" spells and features.

I think they nailed it. I would only ask for perhaps scaling on Favored Foe, as well as possibly reworking the Capstone. Not to mention I feel like these additional options (including Fighting Style) really adds a ton of flavor and additional ways to play a Ranger from a hand-axe throwing Half-Orc, to a more druid-like Ranger (the cantrips fighting style feels really cool).

The only thing I’d love to see is a retroactive addition of bonus spells to Hunter and Beast Master to reach parity with the other subclasses.

[GlenSmash!]

I meant without having to multiclassing monk.
Fighter 1, Barbarian x is on the way.
So Ranger 1 is now a Frenzy Barbarian's must-have. Did not see that coming.

Forget the coffee locks, RANGER FRENZY BARBARIANS!
...
Still have their main feature made pseudo-redundant by PAM.

But at least it's not terribad once they... MC into Ranger.


Ranger can now cast Hunter’s Mark, not requiring Concentration. Barbarians can’t cast spells while Raging, and can’t Concentrate while Raging. But they can use stuff like Armor of Agathys by casting it before Raging. Now they can cast Hunter’s Mark if they dip Ranger, and use it in a similar way. And.... I think they can even more HM as a bonus action because it’s not casting it at that point. They can cast HM, then Rage the following turn and be able to move HM on subsequent bonus actions.

Yup. I'm planning my Ranger 2(Tireless, Hunter's Mark, Unarmed Fighting Style)/Berserker right now. Frenzy becomes a once per short rest ability, THP is even better with Rage and I'll punch like a Madman with Rage damage and Hunter's Mark damage.

This is the Wilderness Warrior I've always wanted to play.

[Scarytincan]

triggering Quivering Palm,


Wholeness of Body and such.

Neither of these actually cost ki during said action, though I would personally rule it allowed anyway. I did overlook the new healing one triggering it tho, but personally I'd probably only really use that on a short rest anyway. Still good to note however...

[Garresh]

So for beasts of earth and air, do they get (con + wis + 5) x ranger level, or is it con + wis +(5 x ranger level)?

Also, I'm totally giving a ranger player in a game I'm DMing revised ranger AND this together. She's new and we got a few players running optimized sharpshooters, so I'm okay with a little bit of OP since she's not multiclassing.

[Mehangel]

I have for a long time believed that spellcasting paladins should have access to 1-2 cleric cantrips, and spellcasting rangers should have access to 1-2 druid cantrips. I am so glad that this UA rectifies that.

[Lupine]

Have to say, I really don't like what they did with the favored foe. Hunter's mark is decent, I guess, but I'd much rather they simply allow the ranger to change their favored enemy on a long or short rest. (For their text: "This would be representative of the ranger taking the time to study the enemy before the fight, and preparing to focus on that creature's weakness")

The rest of the ranger is good.

[KorvinStarmast]

RANGERS HUNTER’S MARK DOES NOT REQUIRE CONCENTRATION!

Wow. Wow that’s.... Alrighty! Not gonna complain about that!While I like that, I wonder what exploits that opens up. Can't dig around with this until the weekend, but I do like this.
Oh, everyone got Spell Versatility and that applies to cantrips as well. Isn't that kind of against all the things the designers used to say about cantrips "being fixed in your mind from years of training"? :smallconfused: Yes. I am pretty sure that I don't like this, but I think this may have been done to mitigate people falling into the Witch Bolt trap, etc. But oer al, it's bloat that isn't necessary. (But how about they fix witch bolt instead?)

This looks more like a "Here's some ideas for 5.5" than class feature variants. Yes, it does.

Ranger spells added includes Aid in the 1st level spell list. Must be a typo / mistake. Yes.

Whoa, way more power creep than I would have expected. Yes, but I wonder if every edition of D&D is doomed to fall into that trap?

[Reevh]

I like a lot of the things in there, especially the ability to trade out cantrips.

But Paladins getting Spirit Guardians? What the hell are they thinking?

[Protolisk]

For those wondering if the Ranger's capstone still works if you switch to Favored Foe, the answer was likely yes.

Favored foe: "You can call on your bond with nature to mark a creature as your favored enemy for a time: you know the hunter’s mark spell..."

Foe Slayer: "Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies."

RAW is muddy as it isn't explicit, but RAI, yes, the hunter's marked enemy "should" be a favored enemy, and thus counts. If this comes to print (which i hope it does, to be honest, I like virtually everything I see), they should clarify this.

Perhaps the only way this became a slight nerf: before you could always do Foe Slayer on any of your favored enemies. Now, it's solely a Hunter's Mark buff. Still, it's level 20, and was barely worth much to start with. But since Hunter's Mark is concentrationless now, its a give and take.


I like a lot of the things in there, especially the ability to trade out cantrips.

But Paladins getting Spirit Guardians? What the hell are they thinking?

Oath of the Crown Paladins already had it, at no cost tho their spells known no less. What were they thinking then?

Similarly, Golgari Warlocks with Animate Dead, before this gave it to all of them. Although they could have an army of undead, the actual logistics of it probably wouldn't fly anyway.

Further, this brings to mind a few issues I have that they didn't touch on. If choices that used to be immutable completely, like Fighting Styles and Cantrips, or mostly immutable for only on level up, like Spells for "known" casters, I wonder if that means they'd be more open to adding Metamagic to be less immutable. Changing on level up at least, though a long rest swap doesn't seem too entirely out of place.

Lastly, with the thought of Warlocks just flat getting spells to their spell list that were on their subclasses expanded lists, I wonder if they'll change the way Warlocks work from their subclass spells, too. To my knowledge, all sources of extra spells are actually extra spells, and not just "expanded" options. Cleric domains, Paladin oaths, Ranger magic from subclasses (and the new version of Primal Awareness spells), Land Druid circle spells, they outright make them not count as spells known/prepared. Why is Warlock left out the loop? With the fact that Greater Invisibility could be added to the standard list, it being on the Archfey's "expanded" list is now a dud.

[Damon_Tor]

My Thoughts on the fighter so far:

Brace: Excellent, probably going to be triggered much more often than Riposte and thus far more valuable. Note the movement doesn't have to be willing, and falling would count. I think the intention of the rule is when an enemy, who is not within 5 feet of you, moves so that he is within 5 feet of you, but that's not what it actually says. Any movement of a creature within 5 feet of you would trigger this ability, including trying to move around you. And as noted, the movement doesn't have to be willing, so you can trigger this yourself by grabbing the guy and dragging him 5 feet. So for the right build this is just a free attack. They need to tighten up the wording.
Restraining Strike: Wow, okay. Remember what I said about being able to trigger the Brace attack yourself with a grapple before? Also, this is a straight improvement on both Brawler and Grappler as feats, replacing them both on a grappling build. In addition to the fighting style (and I'll get to that) it looks like the grappling fighter is straight up the correct way to fighter now. Note: the bonus action occurs "immediately after you hit" not "immediately after you take the attack action" which means you can ABSOLUTELY use this after the first attack and before the second.
Snipe: Straight up bonus action ranged attack with bonus damage. Damn, that's... that's pretty strong. Too bad the grappler can't really make good use of this. Oh wait, he can, can't he? Grapple one guy as a human shield then while he struggles throw spears at his pals. Ahahaha, okay, that's pretty great.
Blind Fighting: Pretty niche, but a great way to have consistent advantage using smoke clouds as cover. You've got to build around it (or have a wizard pal willing to cast pyrotechnics for you all the time) but if you do it's very strong.
Interception: There's no limit on how many people with this fighting style can use it to reduce the damage from one attack. And interestingly, the fighter can absolutely use it to protect himself. So if a line of fighters are standing shoulder to shoulder in a phalanx formation, a fighter that gets attacked can use his own reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10+proficiency, and each of the two guys standing to his sides can use their reactions to reduce it by another 1d10+proficiency each. It works on ranged attacks and melee attacks, spell attacks and weapon attacks. That plus not actually needing a shield, and this is really stepping pretty hard on the toes of the protection fighting style, to the point where I think it's pretty clear this is intended to replace it.
Thrown Weapon Fighting: I want to love it. I don't. It doesn't fix enough of the core problems with throwing as a fighting style. Drawing the weapon as a part of the attack is just a band-aid for the worst part of the mechanics, and the +1 to damage is just not enough to make up for the problems with attempting to make throwing your "thing".
Unarmed Fighting: The unarmed damage: who cares? Monks dipping fighter to get (much) better damage dice is... well, it's a terrible situation they've set up with this, but a fighter isn't likely to care because a fighter has no incentive to use his unarmed strikes. So for a fighter this is just a ribbon. The real ability to take note of is the free 1d4 damage you get on a successful grapple AND the free 1d4 damage that grapple adds to all your attacks while you're grappling that guy.

So a level 5 grappler-based battlemaster's turn looks like:

Attack 1: Swing your longsword with both hands using Menacing Attack, 1d10+1d8+Str Damage, he's afraid of you which will tank his athletic rolls to resist your grapple
Bonus Action: Grapple the guy, restraining him and dealing 1d4 damage
Attack 2: Swing your longsword with one hand and with a maneuver of your choice, 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Move 5 feet dragging the guy with you, triggering Brace as a reaction. 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Total: 1d10+5d8+3d4+4Str damage.

Pretty brutal.

[CheddarChampion]

So for beasts of earth and air, do they get (con + wis + 5) x ranger level, or is it con + wis +(5 x ranger level)?
I read it as (Con+your Wis)+(5 x ranger level).
But I think they meant (Con+your Wis+5)xranger level. That's a lot of HP.

If one of my players uses it, it will be (Con+5)x character level.

Of note, beast of air shows d6's for HD while beast of earth is d8's, but both get 5 HP per ranger level?
I'm pretty sure beast of air is supposed to have 4 HP per level, not 5.


Attack 1: Swing your longsword with both hands using Menacing Attack, 1d10+1d8+Str Damage, he's afraid of you which will tank his athletic rolls to resist your grapple
Bonus Action: Grapple the guy, restraining him and dealing 1d4 damage
Attack 2: Swing your longsword with one hand and with a maneuver of your choice, 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Move 5 feet dragging the guy with you, triggering Brace as a reaction. 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Total: 1d10+5d8+3d4+4Str damage.

Pretty brutal.
I'd go with Disarming Attack for attack #2. If you pull it off, your target is now restrained, grappled, and doesn't have a weapon to hit you with (maybe).

[KorvinStarmast]

I have a deep hatred of power creep is my main problem. I don't like it either. Fix bugs, don't bloat the power ...
Eldritch Armor is great because Mage Armor relies on Dex. Many Bladelocks want to be STR focused, but between Charisma, Con, Dex for AC.... not many points left to toss into Strength. Yeah, this was all that was needed for Pact of Blade. Hex blade was never really needed, IMO. (I'll stop now)

One thing I'm glad they finally fixed was giving Planar Binding to the warlock. It always irked me that warlocks could summon demons and devils, but couldn't cast Planar Binding. It was an oversight in the original rules, so I'm glad they fixed it. Agree.

Ranger's new companion can take an action using their bonus action, that is great! Also elementals are arguably as cool or cooler then animals. Aye.
I can see this turning into a Player's Handbook 2, Please, no, not that. :smallyuk:
Barbarian: Don't get too much; a shame because Path of the Berserker needs some love. Still do.

Bard: Didn't need any boosts, honestly. They are fine as is.
Cleric: Wall of Light, yay!My other comments on clerics will have to wait for this weekend.

Druid: Wild Companion expands, rather than replaces, Wild Shape? Are we going with the "bear riding a bear while summoning a bear cavalry" thing again? Hey, why not? :smallbiggrin:
Fighter Battlemaster: Yep, WotC realized that Battlemaster needs some love. Personally, I like the options At first blush so do I, but I need to fiddle around with this a little bit ...

Monk: No comments.


Paladin:

Verdict: Hallelujah! Hosanna in the heavens, for the Warriors of Light are now the most badass ever! Yeah, but did they need it? I guess this move maybe is to convince more paladins to play the good guy ... not sure.


Ranger: ...Wow. Ranger got some love. Yes, and I'll comment later .. but some good things happened there.

Rogue: What, only one thing? Wait, you can get Sneak Attack for free now!? Oh boy.
Verdict: Simple, easy and to the point. ROgue didn't need much change, IMO.


Warlock: Pact of the Tome now has two Truename apps (one full of Death Pacts and the other one basically acting like WhatsApp)
I'mma get an iBook of Shadows and give it the SendChat and Anti-Death Note apps. Yes, I like those Tome Lock features but they do cost an invocation ...


Wizard: Just four spells!? That said, they get basically all needed divination spells, so it's more fun for those few (...heh...) Diviners out there.
Verdict: I was a Diviner before it was cool. WIzards didn't need anything.

I like some of the ideas here, and a few I think are looking overdue, but for the most part, these are not class feature variants, as the title suggests. Instead, it's mostly power creep buffs. Yep.

Wow! Drunken Master monk with a rapier suddenly becomes an all time great swashbuckler/duelist. Could be fun. Inigo Montoya has finally arrived. :smallbiggrin:

they could have simply called the whole thing a general optional rules update and then made updates wherever they thought worked best, rather than almost exclusively put them into base class revisions (plus maneuvers and invocations). They threw a lot of spaghetti noodles at the wall. A few of them stick, but a lot of them need to be swept up off the floor and discarded.

Oh, wait, the dog's eaten them.

[Hytheter]

So a level 5 grappler-based battlemaster's turn looks like:

Attack 1: Swing your longsword with both hands using Menacing Attack, 1d10+1d8+Str Damage, he's afraid of you which will tank his athletic rolls to resist your grapple
Bonus Action: Grapple the guy, restraining him and dealing 1d4 damage
Attack 2: Swing your longsword with one hand and with a maneuver of your choice, 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Move 5 feet dragging the guy with you, triggering Brace as a reaction. 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Total: 1d10+5d8+3d4+4Str damage.

Pretty brutal.

Then Action Surge :P

Your reading of Brace probably won't last until release though.

[Monster Manuel]

Does the new beastmaster pet still get to add proficiency to it's stats like the PHB version? If no, it is pretty crappy still.

The new Ranger companion options are an enhancement, rather than a replacement, so all of the details of the existing Companion rules apply (prof bonus to stats, etc) . Basically, the only "new" ability that the ranger gets is "you can choose a Primal Beast as a Companion. Here's the statblock for a Primal Beast". Almost nothing changes in the class description... all the good stuff they get is attached to this new creature introduced in this UA.

For instance, the Ranger companion says that the companion's HP equal "the HP number in its' stat block, or 4Xranger level, whichever is higher". The Primal Beast's HP number in its' stat block is "Ranger's wisdom mod, plus beast's con mod, plus ranger lvlx5". Which means that the Primal Beast's HP number in the stat block will ALWAYS be higher than 4xRanger level.

You still have to take an action to command it to attack, except these particular creatures get an ability that lets them make one of their special attacks when their master uses a bonus action to command them to do so. Rather than just changing the beastmaster ranger so that they can use a bonus action to make any companion attack. You can't resurrect just any beast companion with a 1st level spell slot, it's just these 2. It's a stealth boost to the ranger by buffing a creature, not the ranger...it's kind of brilliant, in a weirdly convoluted way.

But what it DOES do is make an easily errata-able change to the existing ranger, by publishing these two Primal Beasts somewhere, and not having to go back and re-work the entire class in already printed books or adventures.

You could still take a wolf as a companion, instead of a primal beast, but there's not remotely any mechanical reason to want to do that. Especially since you can just say your Beast of the Earth looks like a wolf.

[Dork_Forge]

The new Ranger companion options are an enhancement, rather than a replacement, so all of the details of the existing Companion rules apply (prof bonus to stats, etc) . Basically, the only "new" ability that the ranger gets is "you can choose a Primal Beast as a Companion. Here's the statblock for a Primal Beast". Almost nothing changes in the class description... all the good stuff they get is attached to this new creature introduced in this UA.

For instance, the Ranger companion says that the companion's HP equal "the HP number in its' stat block, or 4Xranger level, whichever is higher". The Primal Beast's HP number in its' stat block is "Ranger's wisdom mod, plus beast's con mod, plus ranger lvlx5". Which means that the Primal Beast's HP number in the stat block will ALWAYS be higher than 4xRanger level.

You still have to take an action to command it to attack, except these particular creatures get an ability that lets them make one of their special attacks when their master uses a bonus action to command them to do so. Rather than just changing the beastmaster ranger so that they can use a bonus action to make any companion attack. You can't resurrect just any beast companion with a 1st level spell slot, it's just these 2. It's a stealth boost to the ranger by buffing a creature, not the ranger...it's kind of brilliant, in a weirdly convoluted way.

But what it DOES do is make an easily errata-able change to the existing ranger, by publishing these two Primal Beasts somewhere, and not having to go back and re-work the entire class in already printed books or adventures.

You could still take a wolf as a companion, instead of a primal beast, but there's not remotely any mechanical reason to want to do that. Especially since you can just say your Beast of the Earth looks like a wolf.

I think the intention is just like find familiar, a spirit becomes an animal to avoid the whole finding an animal and getting it killed, it's an odd way of patching the Beast Master but seems like a nice way to not change the phb.

[Dork_Forge]

My Thoughts on the fighter so far:

Brace: Excellent, probably going to be triggered much more often than Riposte and thus far more valuable. Note the movement doesn't have to be willing, and falling would count. I think the intention of the rule is when an enemy, who is not within 5 feet of you, moves so that he is within 5 feet of you, but that's not what it actually says. Any movement of a creature within 5 feet of you would trigger this ability, including trying to move around you. And as noted, the movement doesn't have to be willing, so you can trigger this yourself by grabbing the guy and dragging him 5 feet. So for the right build this is just a free attack. They need to tighten up the wording.
Restraining Strike: Wow, okay. Remember what I said about being able to trigger the Brace attack yourself with a grapple before? Also, this is a straight improvement on both Brawler and Grappler as feats, replacing them both on a grappling build. In addition to the fighting style (and I'll get to that) it looks like the grappling fighter is straight up the correct way to fighter now. Note: the bonus action occurs "immediately after you hit" not "immediately after you take the attack action" which means you can ABSOLUTELY use this after the first attack and before the second.
Snipe: Straight up bonus action ranged attack with bonus damage. Damn, that's... that's pretty strong. Too bad the grappler can't really make good use of this. Oh wait, he can, can't he? Grapple one guy as a human shield then while he struggles throw spears at his pals. Ahahaha, okay, that's pretty great.
Blind Fighting: Pretty niche, but a great way to have consistent advantage using smoke clouds as cover. You've got to build around it (or have a wizard pal willing to cast pyrotechnics for you all the time) but if you do it's very strong.
Interception: There's no limit on how many people with this fighting style can use it to reduce the damage from one attack. And interestingly, the fighter can absolutely use it to protect himself. So if a line of fighters are standing shoulder to shoulder in a phalanx formation, a fighter that gets attacked can use his own reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10+proficiency, and each of the two guys standing to his sides can use their reactions to reduce it by another 1d10+proficiency each. It works on ranged attacks and melee attacks, spell attacks and weapon attacks. That plus not actually needing a shield, and this is really stepping pretty hard on the toes of the protection fighting style, to the point where I think it's pretty clear this is intended to replace it.
Thrown Weapon Fighting: I want to love it. I don't. It doesn't fix enough of the core problems with throwing as a fighting style. Drawing the weapon as a part of the attack is just a band-aid for the worst part of the mechanics, and the +1 to damage is just not enough to make up for the problems with attempting to make throwing your "thing".
Unarmed Fighting: The unarmed damage: who cares? Monks dipping fighter to get (much) better damage dice is... well, it's a terrible situation they've set up with this, but a fighter isn't likely to care because a fighter has no incentive to use his unarmed strikes. So for a fighter this is just a ribbon. The real ability to take note of is the free 1d4 damage you get on a successful grapple AND the free 1d4 damage that grapple adds to all your attacks while you're grappling that guy.

So a level 5 grappler-based battlemaster's turn looks like:

Attack 1: Swing your longsword with both hands using Menacing Attack, 1d10+1d8+Str Damage, he's afraid of you which will tank his athletic rolls to resist your grapple
Bonus Action: Grapple the guy, restraining him and dealing 1d4 damage
Attack 2: Swing your longsword with one hand and with a maneuver of your choice, 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Move 5 feet dragging the guy with you, triggering Brace as a reaction. 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Total: 1d10+5d8+3d4+4Str damage.

Pretty brutal.

I think Thrown Weapon fighting is a great start for people wanting to go with that theme and not get punished for it. What problems do you think are left? It solves the mechanical issue of drawing weapons and provides a damage buff, combined with Snipe it looks like it makes a throwing character not only viable but somewhat competitive.

[jaappleton]

Don't think anyone brought it up yet:

One of the absolute best things about this UA is the change to Fighting Style.

The fact that you can swap your fighting style when you level up is absolutely HUGE.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I'm actually okay with the overall premise of power creep so long as it's specifically utilized to empower weak or wonky classes and mechanics, and this stuff does that for the most part. Rather, I think they ought to creep a little further. The monks could really use a little more oomph overall (and the Four Elements in particular, of course), the Frenzy barbarian is desperate for some rest, and is there nothing we can do for the Champion that wouldn't overcomplicate it for the people that like it for its simplicity?

[Grey Watcher]

Reads to me like they wanted to do a Ranger Overhaul and the brainstorming for that generated ideas for other classes. That and making some common house rules quasi-official (eg Spells Known casters being able to modify their choices at level up), and they figured they'd just make it a grab bag of stuff for all classes.

Putting <Adjective> Smite spells on spell lists other than the Paladin's feels like diluting what makes Paladin really distinct from a Fighter/Cleric multiclass.

Sorcerers changing their spell loadout on long rests feels off. I always figured each arcane caster had a special trick that the others don't: Wizards can reconfigure themselves daily, Warlocks can recharge on a short rest, and Sorcerers can tweak their magic on the fly, both the spell slots (Sorcery Points) and the spells themselves (Metamagic). (That Bards don't have any such edge over the others in spellcasting itself represents their somewhat less specialized nature.) Giving "reconfigure on long rest" to Sorcerers feels like breaking that distinction to me. But this is probably just me projecting something onto the design that wasn't intended, so I guess... whatever?

[Morty]

The enhancement to Rogue's Cunning Action makes dealing sneak attacks at range easier... but it wasn't ever exactly difficult in this edition. Hide actions and adjacent allies worked quite well. This mostly makes it more boring, because at least running around and having to make stealth checks injected some excitement into ranged combat as a rogue. Now you can just stay put, aim and shoot.

[Blood of Gaea]

Yes, I like those Tome Lock features but they do cost an invocation ...
That true, but on the other hand it's looking like a Celestial Tomelock can be a pretty seriously good support build.

Bonus action healing? Check.
The entire party gets a get out of death free card? Check.
Pass out THP every short rest? Check.
And you're still a normal Warlock.

[Frozenstep]

is there nothing we can do for the Champion that wouldn't overcomplicate it for the people that like it for its simplicity?

The addition of new fighting styles and ability to change them out is already something since champion gets two fighting styles.

[Gignere]

The enhancement to Rogue's Cunning Action makes dealing sneak attacks at range easier... but it wasn't ever exactly difficult in this edition. Hide actions and adjacent allies worked quite well. This mostly makes it more boring, because at least running around and having to make stealth checks injected some excitement into ranged combat as a rogue. Now you can just stay put, aim and shoot.

I agree to a certain extent but the new aim reduces your movement to 0 so you’re trading defense for offense so it’s still a tactical choice.

The old way was move, BA hide, shoot for SA, move behind cover again. Of course in situations where you can’t hide aim does provide a reliable method to sneak attack.

I also feel it’s a way to equalize some of the rogue subclass to the arcane trickster since they already had a bonus action to advantage ability, along with familiar help action abuse.

So I like it.

[Monster Manuel]

We've brought up what a huge buff the Elemental Spell metamagic is to the Investiture spells, but we need to think about how they actually interact.

My assumption is that the metamagic can only be applied when the spell is cast (based on rulings around other metamagics)...so you could cast an Investiture of Fire spell metamagicked to do Lightning Damage instead of fire, but you have to make that call and spend the SP up-front...you could not decide halfway into the duration of the spell that now I would like to spend 1SP and do acid damage, thank you very much.

Also, all aspects of the spell that are dependent on a damage type would have to be applied consistently. So, again using investiture of flame as an example, you are now immune to lightning damage and resistant to cold, enemies take lightning damage when they approach, and you can shoot a line of lightning. You could not pick and choose.

I'm struggling to come up with another spell that has multiple aspects that tie into a particular elemental damage type, but presumably there might be some, and these limits would apply there, too.

This sound like a reasonable reading of the spell/metamagic interactions?

[Gignere]

My thoughts not covered by other thoughtful posts is that sorcerer now definitely need to get more metamagic, 4 over 20 levels is nowhere near enough, for most games it’s really 3.
Particularly the elemental metamagic is basically almost a requirement for nearly all sorcerer builds.

[Sigreid]

Personally, I think the best toy in there is the blind fighting fighting style. If it was me, I'd make it fighter only though. Give them an edge over the others.

[Bloodcloud]

I'm actually okay with the overall premise of power creep so long as it's specifically utilized to empower weak or wonky classes and mechanics, and this stuff does that for the most part. Rather, I think they ought to creep a little further. The monks could really use a little more oomph overall (and the Four Elements in particular, of course), the Frenzy barbarian is desperate for some rest, and is there nothing we can do for the Champion that wouldn't overcomplicate it for the people that like it for its simplicity?

i wouldn't be suprised if next ua is subclass alternate features.

Besides, more and better fighting style is a bit of a stealth buff on the champion.

[Damon_Tor]

I think Thrown Weapon fighting is a great start for people wanting to go with that theme and not get punished for it. What problems do you think are left? It solves the mechanical issue of drawing weapons and provides a damage buff, combined with Snipe it looks like it makes a throwing character not only viable but somewhat competitive.

The biggest problem is simply the fact that it's almost strictly inferior to using a projectile weapon. +1 damage closes the gap between the damage, and free drawing of the weapons solves that issue, but projectile weapons still have better range, better feat support, +2 to attack rolls (because the thrower uses his fighting style just for damage and action efficiency parity) and thrown weapons have the same problem with magic weapons that dual wielders do, but exponentially worse. Snipe does nothing to make this comparison any more favorable because projectile users get to use it too.

[Max_Killjoy]

Thrown weapons generally ARE less effective than bows, crossbows, slings, etc -- it's a simple matter of mechanical advantages.

[Dork_Forge]

The biggest problem is simply the fact that it's almost strictly inferior to using a projectile weapon. +1 damage closes the gap between the damage, and free drawing of the weapons solves that issue, but projectile weapons still have better range, better feat support, +2 to attack rolls (because the thrower uses his fighting style just for damage and action efficiency parity) and thrown weapons have the same problem with magic weapons that dual wielders do, but exponentially worse. Snipe does nothing to make this comparison any more favorable because projectile users get to use it too.

Ahh, so you're looking at it from a standpoint of why would I when ranged weapons are better optimisation wise.

I look at it more as this is something people find cool and want to play, and this helps facilitate that. Is it going to be the best DPR compared to a CBE/SS build? Of course not, but that wasn't the purpose of the style and comparing feat availability doesn't really seem a fair comparison either (though on the feat side of things there is interaction with existing feats, like PAM).

The magic weapon issue is valid, but the game doesn't assume magic items in its design and if you wanted to play something like this (or a lot of more niche builds) then you rely on cooperation with your DM a fair bit. Though comboing the style with the Artificer's returning weapon could certainly be interesting for a spear and shield build.

[Bloodcloud]

Overall this looks really great. It's reasonnable power creep where needed mostly. The ranger fixes are great really.

Warlock with animate dead, however, is a problem to me. I'd keep it within an invocation to impose some limits.

[strangebloke]

Thrown weapons generally ARE less effective than bows, crossbows, slings, etc -- it's a simple matter of mechanical advantages.

Yeah I'm in the minority that think that a 'weapon-thrower' archetype is super stupid and shouldn't be supported as a primary playstyle. Every edition that has had it its been cheesy and goofy as heck, and there's not a strong basis for a 'thrower' in fantasy fiction. At most you will sometimes have a knife-juggler sort, and rogue knife-throwers already work just fine mechanically.

[Ravinsild]

Do any of you guys know who Rexxar is? If not I can provide video evidence, but maybe it's not necessary. The crux of my question is this: How does two-weapon fighting interact with throwing? Assuming you want to dual-wield hand-axes and also throw them, can it be attack bonus action attack where the attack is thrown using regular two-weapon fighting rules or is this just not a thing?

Basically how do I do this: https://youtu.be/7SDdVEFgczM?t=59

According to raw I guess it just works?

Two-Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.

If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.


Yeah I'm in the minority that think that a 'weapon-thrower' archetype is super stupid and shouldn't be supported as a primary playstyle. Every edition that has had it its been cheesy and goofy as heck, and there's not a strong basis for a 'thrower' in fantasy fiction. At most you will sometimes have a knife-juggler sort, and rogue knife-throwers already work just fine mechanically.

Oh yeah well tell that to this guy!

https://youtu.be/_anDLgrR2Tc?t=63

Also Native American tomahawk throwers could be a fantasy to play. Viking dual-wielding axes. Literally Gambit from X-Men who throws stuff great. Judaeu from Berserk.

Also Troll Spearthrower was something I wanted to play in World of Warcraft but that's still not a supported thing:

https://youtu.be/DMx5EFaLTBc?t=20

Honestly what I wouldn't give for an Azerothian style Troll in D&D. I can't think of anything like them.

[Yakk]

The magic weapon issue is valid, but the game doesn't assume magic items in its design and if you wanted to play something like this (or a lot of more niche builds) then you rely on cooperation with your DM a fair bit.
*nod*, like a bracer that creates +1 daggers which poof at the end of the turn if you aren't holding them.


Sorcerers changing their spell loadout on long rests feels off.
Not the entire loadout -- just one spell.

[Pex]

Clerics Blessed Strikes isn’t quite as good as you may think for weapon attacks: Divine Strike scales at both lv8 and lv14, but Blessed Strikes is a boost only at level 8. Still a solid option for Domains that DO get Divine Strike that want to use Cantrips as opposed to weapons, but not vice-versa.



Even if Blessed Strike becomes an official thing the idea is it's optional, so clerics with Divine Strike may continue to use it normally if it suits their fancy.

The juicy part is Blessed Strike works with Spiritual Weapon.

[Throne12]

They should change the kensi where you can use the heavy and special weapons. So the new ability in this UA dont crap all over the kensi.

[jaappleton]

Even if Blessed Strike becomes an official thing the idea is it's optional, so clerics with Divine Strike may continue to use it normally if it suits their fancy.

The juicy part is Blessed Strike works with Spiritual Weapon.

My eyes just went wide. Ooooh that's so good.

And spirit guardians!

[Reevh]

Oath of the Crown Paladins already had it, at no cost tho their spells known no less. What were they thinking then?


Good question. It's an absurdly powerful damage spell that is only typically balanced by the fact that it's given to clerics, who aren't otherwise damage powerhouses like Paladins.

[Ravinsild]

Is nobody else vibing on how Ranger finally feels like Fighter + Druid? Do people even like Druids? lol

[Yunru]

While I like that, I wonder what exploits that opens up.

First one that comes to mind for me is dipping Warlock to pick up Hex. It's a slow build-up, but for opening strikes it's pretty useful, since you can mark the target out of combat.

[Hytheter]

The biggest problem is simply the fact that it's almost strictly inferior to using a projectile weapon. +1 damage closes the gap between the damage, and free drawing of the weapons solves that issue, but projectile weapons still have better range, better feat support, +2 to attack rolls (because the thrower uses his fighting style just for damage and action efficiency parity) and thrown weapons have the same problem with magic weapons that dual wielders do, but exponentially worse. Snipe does nothing to make this comparison any more favorable because projectile users get to use it too.

There is one possible use case though - projectile users are dex only, but a thrower could use Strength, and also only requires one hand. Heavy Armour, a shield, a hand that frequently empties itself for grappling opportunities... There's some possibilities there, I think. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but at least it's something.

Really is a shame that no d8 thrown weapons exist. Trident probably should be, but alas, they elected to make it worthless instead.

[T.G. Oskar]

I like a lot of the things in there, especially the ability to trade out cantrips.

But Paladins getting Spirit Guardians? What the hell are they thinking?


Yeah, but did they need it? I guess this move maybe is to convince more paladins to play the good guy ... not sure.

...I know it was obvious from the beginning, but why the hate about Paladins getting Spirit Guardians?

For starters; as mentioned, the Oath of the Crown Paladin has both Warding Bond and Spirit Guardians (and also Guardian of the Faith). At no moment I hear the Oath of the Crown being absurdly broken; in fact, it's usually the opposite. The only thing I can take now is that you can combine Spirit Guardians with the Oath of the Ancients' Aura of Warding or the Oath of Conquest's Aura of Conquest.

I mean: sure, Spirit Guardians is a pretty awesome spell, since it combines a form of Lockdown (reduced mobility) with decent DoT, all on a package that prevents friendly fire. Thematically, making it a Cleric spell seems a bit...odd? After all, you do expect a Cleric to be on the frontlines, but not as a frontliner; instead, it either heals or delivers divine wrath through spells (like Flame Strike, or Dawn...and I don't see people bothered that the Paladin got those) Paladins, on the other hand, have competition for their spell slots, in particular Smites, but also actual spells that are either part of the Cleric spell list (Bless), crossed over (Aura of Vitality, which is 3rd level) or are unique to the Paladin (Crusader's Mantle), all of which require concentration.

Speaking from personal experience, but I've rarely used Spirit Guardians as a Life Cleric. I used it only ONCE, when I was surrounded by a group of Yuan-Ti, and coupled with Divine Strike and high AC it was great. After that...I've barely been surrounded by people, ever (mostly because I stay behind, mostly because the Monk usually goes first and has stellar defenses, and mostly because I think the DM only seeks to surround me when everyone else is dead and I'm out of spells, probably because of Spirit Guardians). So...yeah, I can see its utility, but I'd expect to see the spell in use with a proper frontliner, and the Paladin does that.

And yeah: I understand that people here consider the Paladin is TOO strong, but by making them one-trick ponies (essentially, by spending all their spell slots on Smites; hence, the comment of "why give the Paladin a short-rest rechargeable smite?", particularly since that's the secondary purpose of MC'ing into Warlock). Considering that ALL of their spell slots are essentially meant to become Smites, wouldn't adding them any other spell turn redundant?

In short: while I'm aware of the general thought of what makes Paladins...strong? OP? ...I don't see the addition of Spirit Guardians as something that will snap the game in half. (And the comment I made was because of Warding Bond, because of course that's my favorite spell that I haven't used with the Cleric.) Or the ability to Harness Divine Power - after all, either you use your CD, or you don't, and I presume something like Guided Strike will be used a lot more than recovering spell slots.


Yes, I like those Tome Lock features but they do cost an invocation ...

True, but it makes you think about what invocations to add, instead of just going Agonizing Blast automatically. The Tomelock invocations are actually pretty cool, and makes the Book of Shadows have a lot more flavor than just a glorified spellbook.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Weird use of all this with an otherwise useless old subclass-

Go new ranger first, at least two levels. Cap your Strength at character creation, get a 14 Dex if you can. High Con and Wis are optional but a good idea. 15/14/13/9/13/8 would be my run of it in point buy, adjust as needed for your race, get that Strength to a 16. Grab Unarmed Fighting Style, Canny under Deft Explorer with Athletics expertise.

Now jump into barbarian for at least five levels. Go ahead and take Primal Instincts, this will give you a ton of versatility out of combat. Then comes the weird part- go Battlerager. Yes, Battlerager, that really underwhelming subclass from SCAG that nobody even remembers.

Everything's online where you want at level 7. You can go straight barbarian for 5 levels first if you're worried about viability early, or ranger to 5 and barbarian to 3 if you like that mix (I do). Just make sure you get Extra Attack.

When raging, your grapples are done at +10 with advantage when you first get all this up and deals 1d4+3 upon first contact. Your supreme noogies are dealing 1d6+1d4+6 per attack, with an extra 1d6 if you got Hunter's Mark off before you started wrasslin'. Plus a 2d4+6 (1d6 extra for Hunter's Mark!) bonus action attack! On the first turn you start doing this, your damage is around 28.5 (35.5 with Mark) with a grapple that you almost cannot fail, and the same applies to your Reckless'd attacks. On subsequent turns against the same target, you're looking at 34 (44.5 with Mark) as you grind them against your mammoth, spiked chest. At level 7.

8 if you decided you wanted to head ranger 5 first for smoother progression.

Now just get an ally to cast Enlarge on you for the really big fights!

[Sception]

Paladin
Blessed Warrior is incredibly good, as it nullifies the need for multi-classing for ranged attacks. Oh and who thought that adding another smite per short rest was a good idea, seriously that is extremely deadly (Harness Divine Power)?.

Harness Divine Power uses your channel divinity. Most oaths already have channel divinities that are significantly better than a first level spell slot, whether used for spells or smiting, so I don't personally see it as a significant increase in the class's deadliness. Mostly it's just an outlet to get at least some use out of your channel divinity in case your party takes a short rest before you've found a use for your normal options. And I guess a valid use for a CD for the one or two oaths that do lack a decent option there, but even in that case where it is an upgrade, I'd still say that's completely reasonable.

[Theaitetos]

Further, this brings to mind a few issues I have that they didn't touch on. If choices that used to be immutable completely, like Fighting Styles and Cantrips, or mostly immutable for only on level up, like Spells for "known" casters, I wonder if that means they'd be more open to adding Metamagic to be less immutable. Changing on level up at least, though a long rest swap doesn't seem too entirely out of place.

Yes:


My thoughts not covered by other thoughtful posts is that sorcerer now definitely need to get more metamagic, 4 over 20 levels is nowhere near enough, for most games it’s really 3.
Particularly the elemental metamagic is basically almost a requirement for nearly all sorcerer builds.

I think it's OK to have the last metamagic as a "capstone", but they could make the metamagics exchangeable whenever you get a new one. Twinned is really strong with low-level spells, but the increasing sorcery point costs makes it less efficient with high-level spells, so being able to change it would make you more likely to take it early as one of the first metamagics.


Lastly, with the thought of Warlocks just flat getting spells to their spell list that were on their subclasses expanded lists, I wonder if they'll change the way Warlocks work from their subclass spells, too. To my knowledge, all sources of extra spells are actually extra spells, and not just "expanded" options. Cleric domains, Paladin oaths, Ranger magic from subclasses (and the new version of Primal Awareness spells), Land Druid circle spells, they outright make them not count as spells known/prepared. Why is Warlock left out the loop? With the fact that Greater Invisibility could be added to the standard list, it being on the Archfey's "expanded" list is now a dud.

Agreed.



Sorcerers changing their spell loadout on long rests feels off. I always figured each arcane caster had a special trick that the others don't: Wizards can reconfigure themselves daily, Warlocks can recharge on a short rest, and Sorcerers can tweak their magic on the fly, both the spell slots (Sorcery Points) and the spells themselves (Metamagic). (That Bards don't have any such edge over the others in spellcasting itself represents their somewhat less specialized nature.) Giving "reconfigure on long rest" to Sorcerers feels like breaking that distinction to me. But this is probably just me projecting something onto the design that wasn't intended, so I guess... whatever?

I thought it was strong at first too, but upon thinking it over I changed my mind: Exchanging a single spell for another spell of the same level isn't exactly a "reconfigure". When you realize there's a lot of fire enemies coming tomorrow you can for example change Firebolt to Ray of Frost or Fireball to Lightningbolt, but not both and this is it. A wizard can still rain on your parade with all the cold/lightning/thunder/… spells he has prepared for today.


there's not a strong basis for a 'thrower' in fantasy fiction


https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/12/123441/3439021-thor-s-hammer-throw-o.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/RnYsNwj1semA/giphy.gif

https://www.dieharddesigns.com/cool-stuff/images/zNBC974-BND1.jpg

https://howtoplayboomerang.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/throwing-boomerang.png

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l8WyXv7hQvE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://geekandsundry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TheGlaive1.jpg

https://static3.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/batman-batarang1.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y85G7dr-u4U/maxresdefault.jpg

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qIXruLXPkxs/UAkaVF6-gsI/AAAAAAAABoo/6xzZp-gDR6I/s1600/mortal+kombat+sub+zero+vs+scorpion+wallpaper+backg round+midway+fighting+game.jpg

:smallwink:

[Belac93]

Important New Monk Clarification:

The new monk weapons ability doesn't give you automatic proficiency like the Kenshi does. You have to already have proficiency in a weapon to take it as a monk weapon.

This does not let your average monk use a longsword or battleaxe as a monk weapon, unless they're multiclassing or are an elf.

I've seen so many people making this mistake.

[Willie the Duck]

Thrown weapons generally ARE less effective than bows, crossbows, slings, etc -- it's a simple matter of mechanical advantages.

Yeah I'm in the minority that think that a 'weapon-thrower' archetype is super stupid and shouldn't be supported as a primary playstyle. Every edition that has had it its been cheesy and goofy as heck, and there's not a strong basis for a 'thrower' in fantasy fiction. At most you will sometimes have a knife-juggler sort, and rogue knife-throwers already work just fine mechanically.

Well, yes, but 'unarmed guy who fights with/against armed guy' or 'swashbuckler alongside knights in plate mail' are also 'cheesy and goofy' (by which I assume is close to 'laughably unrealistic, if you think about it') except that there are people who want to play that archetype.

[Throne12]

I like they add new fighting styles but I wish they add a fighting style for Versatile weapons.

[Sigreid]

Important New Monk Clarification:

The new monk weapons ability doesn't give you automatic proficiency like the Kenshi does. You have to already have proficiency in a weapon to take it as a monk weapon.

This does not let your average monk use a longsword or battleaxe as a monk weapon, unless they're multiclassing or are an elf.

I've seen so many people making this mistake.

Maybe, but I already will let players work with me on their weapon proficiencies and monk weapons. I dont consider it a problem.

[Reevh]

...I know it was obvious from the beginning, but why the hate about Paladins getting Spirit Guardians?

For starters; as mentioned, the Oath of the Crown Paladin has both Warding Bond and Spirit Guardians (and also Guardian of the Faith). At no moment I hear the Oath of the Crown being absurdly broken; in fact, it's usually the opposite. The only thing I can take now is that you can combine Spirit Guardians with the Oath of the Ancients' Aura of Warding or the Oath of Conquest's Aura of Conquest.

I mean: sure, Spirit Guardians is a pretty awesome spell, since it combines a form of Lockdown (reduced mobility) with decent DoT, all on a package that prevents friendly fire. Thematically, making it a Cleric spell seems a bit...odd? After all, you do expect a Cleric to be on the frontlines, but not as a frontliner; instead, it either heals or delivers divine wrath through spells (like Flame Strike, or Dawn...and I don't see people bothered that the Paladin got those) Paladins, on the other hand, have competition for their spell slots, in particular Smites, but also actual spells that are either part of the Cleric spell list (Bless), crossed over (Aura of Vitality, which is 3rd level) or are unique to the Paladin (Crusader's Mantle), all of which require concentration.

Speaking from personal experience, but I've rarely used Spirit Guardians as a Life Cleric. I used it only ONCE, when I was surrounded by a group of Yuan-Ti, and coupled with Divine Strike and high AC it was great. After that...I've barely been surrounded by people, ever (mostly because I stay behind, mostly because the Monk usually goes first and has stellar defenses, and mostly because I think the DM only seeks to surround me when everyone else is dead and I'm out of spells, probably because of Spirit Guardians). So...yeah, I can see its utility, but I'd expect to see the spell in use with a proper frontliner, and the Paladin does that.

And yeah: I understand that people here consider the Paladin is TOO strong, but by making them one-trick ponies (essentially, by spending all their spell slots on Smites; hence, the comment of "why give the Paladin a short-rest rechargeable smite?", particularly since that's the secondary purpose of MC'ing into Warlock). Considering that ALL of their spell slots are essentially meant to become Smites, wouldn't adding them any other spell turn redundant?

In short: while I'm aware of the general thought of what makes Paladins...strong? OP? ...I don't see the addition of Spirit Guardians as something that will snap the game in half. (And the comment I made was because of Warding Bond, because of course that's my favorite spell that I haven't used with the Cleric.) Or the ability to Harness Divine Power - after all, either you use your CD, or you don't, and I presume something like Guided Strike will be used a lot more than recovering spell slots.



True, but it makes you think about what invocations to add, instead of just going Agonizing Blast automatically. The Tomelock invocations are actually pretty cool, and makes the Book of Shadows have a lot more flavor than just a glorified spellbook.

The ability to do 3d8 radiant damage (and still does half on a save) in a fairly large AOE every round for up to 10 rounds while also slowing your enemies for the cost of only a level 3 spell slot is an incredibly powerful spell, balanced by the relatively low damage of other cleric spells. When you put a spell that powerful on a class like the Paladin who already has some of the best damage in the game and incredible utility, and by the way, superior concentration saves thanks to their aura, it's too much. I'd argue it's too much on the Oath of the Crown too.

Compare a Spirit Guardians to a fireball. A fireball does 8d6 damage, an average of 28, in a slightly larger area, but hits your friends and it's a damage type that's one of the most likely to be resisted. Spirit Guardians does 3d8, which is 13.5 average damage, so after only two rounds it has almost done enough damage to catch up with fireball, and it has the ability to move with the character, and is a damage type that's exceedingly unlikely to be resisted. I've had combats where I did 8 rounds of Spirit Guardians damage on my Forge Cleric. And once you cast it, you don't have to use any further actions to continue to do that damage as you chase enemies around the battlefield.

On a cleric, you pair that with maybe a Toll the Dead and a Spiritual Weapon. Powerful when all taken together? Yes. But a paladin can deal great weapon damage, boosted by improved divine smite and divine smite. Plus you're a freaking paladin.

[Reevh]

Harness Divine Power uses your channel divinity. Most oaths already have channel divinities that are significantly better than a first level spell slot, whether used for spells or smiting, so I don't personally see it as a significant increase in the class's deadliness. Mostly it's just an outlet to get at least some use out of your channel divinity in case your party takes a short rest before you've found a use for your normal options. And I guess a valid use for a CD for the one or two oaths that do lack a decent option there, but even in that case where it is an upgrade, I'd still say that's completely reasonable.

Yeah, I'm currently playing a conquest paladin. No way it's worth giving up a 30 foot AoE fear effect for a level 1 spell slot. Unless I'm about to short rest anyway.

[Throne12]

Thrown weapons generally ARE less effective than bows, crossbows, slings, etc -- it's a simple matter of mechanical advantages.

Ya but your forgetting javelins and spears. They suck if you wanted to play that way. There are many examples of javelin or spear thrower.

[Hytheter]

:smallwink:


I can't speak for all of them, but a lot of those examples aren't really doing thrown weapons as their primary shtick. Batman isn't all about batarangs, he's a punchy guy who occasionally throws batarangs. Leonidas is more of a formation fighter than a javelin thrower (and the scene that GIF is from is noteworthy for the fact that he basically misses and dies shortly afterwards). Link is something of a generalist but he favours the sword and bow, and it's not like he uses the boomerang for sustained rate of fire. Thor only throws because he has a magic weapon that enables it. :P

Throwing stuff is part of their kit but I wouldn't exactly call them thrown-weapon fighters.

Not that I think that's a reason to dismiss the concept altogether.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The ability to do 3d8 radiant damage (and still does half on a save) in a fairly large AOE every round for up to 10 rounds while also slowing your enemies for the cost of only a level 3 spell slot is an incredibly powerful spell, balanced by the relatively low damage of other cleric spells. When you put a spell that powerful on a class like the Paladin who already has some of the best damage in the game and incredible utility, and by the way, superior concentration saves thanks to their aura, it's too much. I'd argue it's too much on the Oath of the Crown too.

Compare a Spirit Guardians to a fireball. A fireball does 8d6 damage, an average of 28, in a slightly larger area, but hits your friends and it's a damage type that's one of the most likely to be resisted. Spirit Guardians does 3d8, which is 13.5 average damage, so after only two rounds it has almost done enough damage to catch up with fireball, and it has the ability to move with the character, and is a damage type that's exceedingly unlikely to be resisted. I've had combats where I did 8 rounds of Spirit Guardians damage on my Forge Cleric. And once you cast it, you don't have to use any further actions to continue to do that damage as you chase enemies around the battlefield.

On a cleric, you pair that with maybe a Toll the Dead and a Spiritual Weapon. Powerful when all taken together? Yes. But a paladin can deal great weapon damage, boosted by improved divine smite and divine smite. Plus you're a freaking paladin.

Up front damage is more valuable than damage over time, on account of not being hit by a dying creature. And while Spirit Guardians is no doubt great, paladins have very few spell slots to take advantage of it, and their amazing smites are diminished every time you have to use a higher level spell slot like this. Chances are good that any player using Spirit Guardians isn't going to be smiting much during that combat, as SG is an attrition spell while smites decidedly are not.

[Protolisk]

Thrown weapons generally ARE less effective than bows, crossbows, slings, etc -- it's a simple matter of mechanical advantages.

A bonus, however, is that they don't need a feat to effectively fight in melee compared to shooters.

[malachi]

The ability to do 3d8 radiant damage (and still does half on a save) in a fairly large AOE every round for up to 10 rounds while also slowing your enemies for the cost of only a level 3 spell slot is an incredibly powerful spell, balanced by the relatively low damage of other cleric spells. When you put a spell that powerful on a class like the Paladin who already has some of the best damage in the game and incredible utility, and by the way, superior concentration saves thanks to their aura, it's too much. I'd argue it's too much on the Oath of the Crown too.

Compare a Spirit Guardians to a fireball. A fireball does 8d6 damage, an average of 28, in a slightly larger area, but hits your friends and it's a damage type that's one of the most likely to be resisted. Spirit Guardians does 3d8, which is 13.5 average damage, so after only two rounds it has almost done enough damage to catch up with fireball, and it has the ability to move with the character, and is a damage type that's exceedingly unlikely to be resisted. I've had combats where I did 8 rounds of Spirit Guardians damage on my Forge Cleric. And once you cast it, you don't have to use any further actions to continue to do that damage as you chase enemies around the battlefield.

On a cleric, you pair that with maybe a Toll the Dead and a Spiritual Weapon. Powerful when all taken together? Yes. But a paladin can deal great weapon damage, boosted by improved divine smite and divine smite. Plus you're a freaking paladin.

Spirit Guardians is a 3rd level spell. Paladins get it at lvl 9.
At level 9, both clerics and wizards have 5th level spells, which includes Dawn (4d10 radiant, save for half, can move w/in 60 ft of you as a BA). Alternately, the cleric's casting it for 5d8 dmg.

Wis save or 3d8 from the Paladin vs Con save or 4d10 from the cleric (and doesn't need to be in the thick of melee).
OR
Wis save or 3d8 from the Paladin vs Wis save or 5d8 from the cleric.

EDIT:

A bonus, however, is that they don't need a feat to effectively fight in melee compared to shooters.

Pulling out a rapier in your right hand while holding your bow in the left costs a feat?

[Ravinsild]

The ability to do 3d8 radiant damage (and still does half on a save) in a fairly large AOE every round for up to 10 rounds while also slowing your enemies for the cost of only a level 3 spell slot is an incredibly powerful spell, balanced by the relatively low damage of other cleric spells. When you put a spell that powerful on a class like the Paladin who already has some of the best damage in the game and incredible utility, and by the way, superior concentration saves thanks to their aura, it's too much. I'd argue it's too much on the Oath of the Crown too.

Compare a Spirit Guardians to a fireball. A fireball does 8d6 damage, an average of 28, in a slightly larger area, but hits your friends and it's a damage type that's one of the most likely to be resisted. Spirit Guardians does 3d8, which is 13.5 average damage, so after only two rounds it has almost done enough damage to catch up with fireball, and it has the ability to move with the character, and is a damage type that's exceedingly unlikely to be resisted. I've had combats where I did 8 rounds of Spirit Guardians damage on my Forge Cleric. And once you cast it, you don't have to use any further actions to continue to do that damage as you chase enemies around the battlefield.

On a cleric, you pair that with maybe a Toll the Dead and a Spiritual Weapon. Powerful when all taken together? Yes. But a paladin can deal great weapon damage, boosted by improved divine smite and divine smite. Plus you're a freaking paladin.

This is a valid point, however I would argue 3rd level spell slots are a far more precious commodity for half-casters than full casters. You have like 2 at level 10 and there's a LOT of tasty spells aside from this you can pull from.... As a Paladin it's a hard choice due to limited slots what to cast, and almost all their spells seem like concentration, and these only come back on a long rest. It's a weighty decision, not just something you can shoot from the hip willy nilly.


I can't speak for all of them, but a lot of those examples aren't really doing thrown weapons as their primary shtick. Batman isn't all about batarangs, he's a punchy guy who occasionally throws batarangs. Leonidas is more of a formation fighter than a javelin thrower (and the scene that GIF is from is noteworthy for the fact that he basically misses and dies shortly afterwards). Link is something of a generalist but he favours the sword and bow, and it's not like he uses the boomerang for sustained rate of fire. Thor only throws because he has a magic weapon that enables it. :P

Throwing stuff is part of their kit but I wouldn't exactly call them thrown-weapon fighters.

Not that I think that's a reason to dismiss the concept altogether.

Well did you look at any of my examples?

[Theaitetos]

*nod*, like a bracer that creates +1 daggers which poof at the end of the turn if you aren't holding them.

All it would require is changing the warlock's Pact of the Blade summon from action to bonus action (homebrew?): Throw weapon (action), dismiss it (already no action required), summon it (bonus action). Since you can make any weapon your pact weapon, you can use a hammer or trident or dagger… and you have a great thrower.

Speaking of warlocks, I really like the new Pact of the Talisman, but I think it's still too weak compared to the other pact boons. They should definitely add some features (either without invocation, added to other invocations, or rarely as an invocation) to make it scalable with level and versatile in application, for example:

functions as a spellcasting focus
creature wearing it is a valid target for your spells, even while outside regular spell range/sight
creature wearing it is a valid target for your spells with "range: self" (like Shield or Absorb Elements)
replace d4 rolls on throws/checks with "your proficiency" or "your spellcasting modifier"
magic item enhancement (storing additional charges for your wands, rings, …)
copy magic item feature of a (common/uncommon/…) item depending on your level
"phylactery" applications (Gift of the Protectors & Far Scribe invocations, or revive wearer even without body or diamonds)


:smallcool:

[Reevh]

Up front damage is more valuable than damage over time, on account of not being hit by a dying creature. And while Spirit Guardians is no doubt great, paladins have very few spell slots to take advantage of it, and their amazing smites are diminished every time you have to use a higher level spell slot like this. Chances are good that any player using Spirit Guardians isn't going to be smiting much during that combat, as SG is an attrition spell while smites decidedly are not.

A level 3 divine smite does 4d8 damage. 8d8 when used on a crit. You'd have to hit 2 enemies to do 6d8 with a Spirit Guardians in the first round. If there are 3 enemies, and there probably are if you're using Spirit Guardians, you'll beat out that Divine Smite's damage in one round, without having to hope for a crit. Generally speaking it will last more than one round, and ultimately do a lot more than that Divine Smite. It's seriously worth NOT Diving Smiting so that you can use this, unless a particularly bad boss has to die _right now_. I'm not saying those situations don't come up, but Spirit Guardians lasts for a minute. You don't have to cast very many of them in an adventuring day for it to be an extremely potent spell. Too potent for a paladin, imo.

[Zalabim]

You may have accurately predicted the timing of this UA, but I'm been foretelling the coming of alternate class features for every class for literally years. Still feels a bit smaller in scope than I envisioned.
For my direct comments
Barbarian: Instinctive Pounce can be triggered by allied movement as well. Seems useful for a more tactically minded barbarian, so the name feels very off to me. I'm generally surprised they didn't come up with any other improved, modified, or alternate options for things like Feral Instinct, Reckless Attacks (what about games that use flanking?), and Brutal Critical.

Bard: Magical inspiration feels a little inappropriate, as adding damage to Attacks is a valor bard special, and adding damage to area damage rolls is quite a bit more powerful. Adding the die to healing is also awkward because it requires someone else to cast the healing spell. I think this one is a miss for theme, if not for power.

Cleric: A lot of people overlook that Blessed Strikes works on any spell, and not just cantrips. It is limited to just one enemy per your turn, but it can be triggered by damage you deal off-turn. It's a solid competitor with the existing feature.

Druid: I'm actually fine with Wild Companion. Giving it Wild Shape's duration makes it feel a lot fairer than just free Find Familiar, which is the impression I started with.

Fighter: Ability check maneuvers are all fine. Bait and Switch feels like a reach for where to put the die result, but I like the maneuver. Might make more sense as a general movement option. Brace does need the wording cleaned up, but i like the image of it. Snipe should be renamed Cheap Shot. It's also incredible, probably inappropriate as it allows a bonus action attack with no care for what you use your Action on. On the one hand, that's a great evolution from 'berserker is strong because frenzy doesn't require you to attack.' On the same hand, draw and throw a net as a bonus action before or after you whatever you want. I don't mind giving up the bonus damage die for that. Cheap. Shot. In fact:

Cheap Shot:As a bonus action, you can expend one superiority die and make a weapon attack. You can draw a weapon as part of making this attack. If you hit, add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Monk: Picking monk weapons opens up for racial monks, multiclassed monks, and even monks with darts and slings as monk weapons (like my halfling monk would totally take.) Still have to be a kensei to use longbows, as well as a bunch of other good features later on.

Ki-fueled Strike is good for shadows, four elements, long death capstone (which honestly still costs too much ki), and the new ability too, though... Quickened Healing I love not for active use but for increased passive healing. Take multiple short rests to channel your Ki into recovery, much like the fighter's second wind. Theme feels great and I don't care if someone never actually uses it. Feedback also combines with the new channel divinity as a dump for short rest abilities into a longer-term resource if you rest with resources left over, even though it's probably only 1 or 2 HP per ki.

Paladin: No additional comments.

Ranger: Deft Explorer is fine if the replacement for Favored Enemy is good. Canny is fine, but I'd like the ranger to have more than one expertise over time and it seems like that's something that could be added to each feature. I.E. Canny: You get one more skill, two more languages, and expertise for one of your skills. Roving: You get +5 speed, climbing, swimming, and expertise for one of your skills. Tireless: You get temp hp, faster exhaustion recovery, and expertise for one of your skills.

Primal Awareness is solid, though I suspect only one free cast of detect magic will feel weird and having to spend slots to cast more to be painful. Ritual Casting is the normal solution but maybe doesn't fit here?

Part of what the replacement for Favored Enemy lacks is an improvement to cover level 6/14. Earlier benefits from wisdom at least helps the mechanics of Foe Slayer look useful, but it still needs a reasonable target acquisition to keep it. More than just ranger capstone could use alternatives anyway.

Beast of the Earth feels a little undertuned compared to the Beast of the Air that covers most anything you'd want in a flying companion. It can deal more damage on a charge, but has lower attack bonus, lower AC and no other ability like grapple/restrain, swallow, disengage, reach, etc. It's not as good a skirmisher, nor as good at stand-and-fighting.

Rogue: I like the trade-off/option for Aim. It feels right.

Sorcerer: Font of magic options are fine, but I think it's still missing something interesting for level 2. Metamagic options are fine, but they do need more picks to justify taking the lesser metamagics. I still think a variant where sorcerers learn more spells instead of picking metamagic and have metamagic spells on their spell list would be ok.

About Sorcerer Spell Versatility in particular: What about making that a Font of Magic option instead/also?

Warlock: I love the book of names-based invocations. I like the talisman pact boon. I approve of Eldritch Armor, and see Eldritch Mind right next to it as very fitting. It helps dodge the incentive to take pact of the blade for better AC and ignoring the weapon, since there's similar combat invocations for all pacts. Eldritch Armor lets any race jump to heavy armor proficiency, but still requires strength to not be slowed, or the medium armor races can still take the half-feat for heavily armored, but the best part is that Eldritch Armor does not give shield proficiency. That's the other part of not incentivizing taking it just for AC+EB that most suggestions jump right into. I still think pact of the blade itself could get a small bonus towards using the weapon before invocations, especially with the Pact of the give-it-away Talisman. I really like each of the new invocations.

Wizard: Much like the UA, I'm including this but not saying much.

Fighting Styles: All good, except as mentioned below.

Unarmed Fighting is 1d6 because 1d4 is less than dueling's +2 damage, and then +1d4 damage on/when grappling is a nice touch to the brawler style, but dueling+grappling would deal 1d8+2 damage already. Shield plus unarmed grappling does 1d6+1d4 with +2 AC, worth it for the shield, but does only work while grappling. The dueling style can pick up a shield in a no-grappling fight, but the unarmed master is kinda stuck with it. 1d8 when using both hands is even more unarmed damage, but also means no shield (and not currently grappling), and +1 damage is not really worth -2 AC, is it? I think that makes it the worst use of two free hands and a fighting style in combat, under-taking the previous winner, TWF. It's more of a consolation prize than a real threat to the monk's E-peen ego.

Now hopefully I've said enough. I read all the spell stuff, but really don't care about all the spell stuff. Here's my quote responses.

Have to say, I really don't like what they did with the favored foe. Hunter's mark is decent, I guess, but I'd much rather they simply allow the ranger to change their favored enemy on a long or short rest. (For their text: "This would be representative of the ranger taking the time to study the enemy before the fight, and preparing to focus on that creature's weakness")

The rest of the ranger is good.
The problem with this is that Favored Enemy doesn't otherwise do anything. I'm not sold on the free Hunter's Mark either. It's fine, but I think there's still something better out there.

We've brought up what a huge buff the Elemental Spell metamagic is to the Investiture spells, but we need to think about how they actually interact.

My assumption is that the metamagic can only be applied when the spell is cast (based on rulings around other metamagics)...so you could cast an Investiture of Fire spell metamagicked to do Lightning Damage instead of fire, but you have to make that call and spend the SP up-front...you could not decide halfway into the duration of the spell that now I would like to spend 1SP and do acid damage, thank you very much.

Also, all aspects of the spell that are dependent on a damage type would have to be applied consistently. So, again using investiture of flame as an example, you are now immune to lightning damage and resistant to cold, enemies take lightning damage when they approach, and you can shoot a line of lightning. You could not pick and choose.

I'm struggling to come up with another spell that has multiple aspects that tie into a particular elemental damage type, but presumably there might be some, and these limits would apply there, too.

This sound like a reasonable reading of the spell/metamagic interactions?
The strictest read is actually that you can only apply the metamagic when you cast a spell that does damage when you cast the spell. In any case, only the type of damage dealt changes, not any other instance of the element keyword.

The biggest problem is simply the fact that it's almost strictly inferior to using a projectile weapon. +1 damage closes the gap between the damage, and free drawing of the weapons solves that issue, but projectile weapons still have better range, better feat support, +2 to attack rolls (because the thrower uses his fighting style just for damage and action efficiency parity) and thrown weapons have the same problem with magic weapons that dual wielders do, but exponentially worse. Snipe does nothing to make this comparison any more favorable because projectile users get to use it too.
The bonus from the fighting style is clearly too small at just +1 damage just on thrown attacks. That said, actually using throwing weapons has a few options going for it. It can use TWF, so you can get a bonus action attack with no other class features, and they can be used one-handed so you can use a shield and make ranged attacks. They're also often equally effective in melee range (with the notable exception of Darts, but not Nets. Nets are equally effective in melee =P)

Yeah I'm in the minority that think that a 'weapon-thrower' archetype is super stupid and shouldn't be supported as a primary playstyle. Every edition that has had it its been cheesy and goofy as heck, and there's not a strong basis for a 'thrower' in fantasy fiction. At most you will sometimes have a knife-juggler sort, and rogue knife-throwers already work just fine mechanically.
I dare you to say that to Norman, the greatest warrior alive, once known as Thor, and at another time (if my memory doesn't deceive me) "the Hurler." If Mighty Max is too obscure, then let's just say I want this for my warrior that is as strong of arm as he is weak of stomach.

[Lupine]

Don't think anyone brought it up yet:

One of the absolute best things about this UA is the change to Fighting Style.

The fact that you can swap your fighting style when you level up is absolutely HUGE.

I like the idea of being able to switch proficiency much more. It allows the players to modify for what the DM is doing, rather than the other way around.

[Kane0]

Thinking about my current party, now at level 5:

Zealot Barbarian: No real changes, she's not going to be using either option.
Trickery Cleric: She actually uses Duplicity pretty often (because i'm lenient in what it can do) so I don't see CD being used much but she's going to love those spells and blessed strikes (she uses Sacred Flame and a crossbow in equal amounts).
Dragon Sorcerer: Will probably look at Elemental spell because he's a pyromaniac, and will definitely abuse the **** out of Empowering Reserves when seducing random NPCs. The rest will probably be skipped over.
Beastmaster Ranger: He's a traditionalist, but this has the potential to shake everything up for him. Assuming he even reads the doc I don't think he will give up his fighting style, but he's going to be very tempted by Deft Explorer and Favored Foe. The extra spells would interest him the most, and the new companion is an instant take.
Ancients Paladin: Probably won't opt for cantrips but CD for a 1st level slot is a no brainer, especially since he has Entangling Strike.




Speaking of warlocks, I really like the new Pact of the Talisman, but I think it's still too weak compared to the other pact boons. They should definitely add some features (either without invocation, added to other invocations, or rarely as an invocation) to make it scalable with level and versatile in application, for example:

functions as a spellcasting focus
creature wearing it is a valid target for your spells, even while outside regular spell range/sight
creature wearing it is a valid target for your spells with "range: self" (like Shield or Absorb Elements)
replace d4 rolls on throws/checks with "your proficiency" or "your spellcasting modifier"
magic item enhancement (storing additional charges for your wands, rings, …)
copy magic item feature of a (common/uncommon/…) item depending on your level
"phylactery" applications (Gift of the Protectors & Far Scribe invocations, or revive wearer even without body or diamonds)



Some great ideas here I must say. I reckon you could add the casting focus functionality to the base boon and make at least three invocations (target for self spells, function as magic item, 'phylactery applications').

[Waterdeep Merch]

A level 3 divine smite does 4d8 damage. 8d8 when used on a crit. You'd have to hit 2 enemies to do 6d8 with a Spirit Guardians in the first round. If there are 3 enemies, and there probably are if you're using Spirit Guardians, you'll beat out that Divine Smite's damage in one round, without having to hope for a crit. Generally speaking it will last more than one round, and ultimately do a lot more than that Divine Smite. It's seriously worth NOT Diving Smiting so that you can use this, unless a particularly bad boss has to die _right now_. I'm not saying those situations don't come up, but Spirit Guardians lasts for a minute. You don't have to cast very many of them in an adventuring day for it to be an extremely potent spell. Too potent for a paladin, imo.

Oh, I'm not saying it's a bad spell at all, it's a very nice spell when the situation warrants it. Just that 4d8+your weapon damage twice up front (plus another smite if you want it) is going to be better than Spirit Guardians if it kills a creature immediately where Spirit Guardians wouldn't for the three rounds it would take to equal the same. Getting to spread that damage is only useful if it can kill the entire room off faster than you could otherwise manage it by going creature-to-creature, and the problem is more obvious if all of those creatures are attacking you while you're busy trying to kill them all at the same time versus one less striking you and the party each round as you knock them off.

The damage isn't why you cast Spirit Guardians. You might as well smite if that's what you're after.

[Gignere]

Oh, I'm not saying it's a bad spell at all, it's a very nice spell when the situation warrants it. Just that 4d8+your weapon damage twice up front (plus another smite if you want it) is going to be better than Spirit Guardians if it kills a creature immediately where Spirit Guardians wouldn't for the three rounds it would take to equal the same. Getting to spread that damage is only useful if it can kill the entire room off faster than you could otherwise manage it by going creature-to-creature, and the problem is more obvious if all of those creatures are attacking you while you're busy trying to kill them all at the same time versus one less striking you and the party each round as you knock them off.

The damage isn't why you cast Spirit Guardians. You might as well smite if that's what you're after.

Just one quibble on your fascinating debate SG lasts 10 minutes not 1 minute. You can if you’re a bit reckless or already mapped out the lair/stronghold/dungeon (arcane eye ftw) use one spell slot for a few maybe even every fight of a dungeon crawl.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Just one quibble on your fascinating debate SG lasts 10 minutes not 1 minute. You can if you’re a bit reckless or already mapped out the lair/stronghold/dungeon (arcane eye ftw) use one spell slot for a few maybe even every fight of a dungeon crawl.

It's not bad, but as you mentioned, risky. When you first get this option (level 9), you can cast this spell a grand total of twice a day. That's 20 minutes, assuming you don't lose concentration. You'll get a lot of mileage out of it, but you're also giving up your best nova attacks to soften up targets in a handful of encounters. Which can be a good idea if:

1.) You have another party member doing something similar. Maybe not a constant effect like it, but some way of spreading lots of AoE damage around you to take advantage of the softened HP.
2.) You're of a much, much higher level and thus a level 3 spell slot doesn't actually mean much anymore. I'd say when you first get access to 5th level at 17, but it really depends on how confident you are about resource management.
3.) You desperately need the area denial that SG represents, which is the real reason most people cast it in the first place.

Spirit Guardians halves the speed of any enemies that enter it or start their turns there. This is an important distinction, since they aren't under the effects of any difficult terrain. If you are in a situation with plenty of difficult terrain or, more often, have a party member that can create it (Web or Evard's Black Tentacles especially), you can reduce any enemy movement to an absolute crawl. They can't blitz your back lines, and they have to just sit there while your party methodically takes them out one at a time.

The damage is just gravy.

[Lupine]

The problem with this is that Favored Enemy doesn't otherwise do anything. I'm not sold on the free Hunter's Mark either. It's fine, but I think there's still something better out there.

I guess what I want for ranger is a fighter who can prepare for combat with a certain type of enemy, and again a bonus to hit/to damage them.

Kind of like the TV show grimm, if you've ever seen it. I imagine the rangers as having large reserves of knowledge they can use to take down whatever they are fighting, even if they don't have a particularly strong fighting or spell casting ability.

Really, I just don't like how they built ranger, and if I had control, there is a lot that I would change. Ultimately, the UA isn't the redesign that I think is necessary for the class, and I guess I'm really just sharpshooting things I don't like in an attempt to foster my own redesign.

On that note, I also don't think the damage for the beasts scales well, but again, I could be alone in that.

[Hytheter]

I like they add new fighting styles but I wish they add a fighting style for Versatile weapons.

Definitely! Personally I'd like to see something that lets you don or doff a shield more quickly, or otherwise give incentive to change grip regularly.

[Lupine]

Definitely! Personally I'd like to see something that lets you don or doff a shield more quickly, or otherwise give incentive to change grip regularly.

Or something that would allow you to swing while wearing a shield, perhaps with a penalty to hit.

[Zalabim]

There is one possible use case though - projectile users are dex only, but a thrower could use Strength, and also only requires one hand. Heavy Armour, a shield, a hand that frequently empties itself for grappling opportunities... There's some possibilities there, I think. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but at least it's something.

Really is a shame that no d8 thrown weapons exist. Trident probably should be, but alas, they elected to make it worthless instead.
Speaking of throwing and grappling. That's it. Throw creatures you grapple.

Pulling out a rapier in your right hand while holding your bow in the left costs a feat?
One character is using up to heavy armor a shield. The other character is using up to medium armor and no shield. Which one is fighting effectively in melee?

A level 3 divine smite does 4d8 damage. 8d8 when used on a crit. You'd have to hit 2 enemies to do 6d8 with a Spirit Guardians in the first round. If there are 3 enemies, and there probably are if you're using Spirit Guardians, you'll beat out that Divine Smite's damage in one round, without having to hope for a crit. Generally speaking it will last more than one round, and ultimately do a lot more than that Divine Smite. It's seriously worth NOT Diving Smiting so that you can use this, unless a particularly bad boss has to die _right now_. I'm not saying those situations don't come up, but Spirit Guardians lasts for a minute. You don't have to cast very many of them in an adventuring day for it to be an extremely potent spell. Too potent for a paladin, imo.
Waterdeep basically covers this, but I still want to go into more depth. First of all, Spirit Guardians lasts up to 10 minutes. It's fantastic for a grueling gauntlet encounter, but probably still only one fight if you actually explore or investigate after finishing battle. Second, the cost isn't just one 3rd-level spell slot, it's one action and one 3rd-level spell slot. As you say, the paladin is already a devastating damage dealer, and that's an opportunity cost when it comes to casting spells instead of attacking. Also, divine smite doesn't miss (and can crit as you said) while Spirit Guardians allows saves and takes time. During that time, tactical sense is to avoid the paladin and not bunch up on the paladin. It's a great spell for disrupting or punishing enemy positions. Enemies have a good excuse to flee from you as fast as possible, which can be at full speed if they're able to get out of the Spirit Guardians' area, so position and difficult terrain are your allies in determining if you can hold the line or break it.

The exact nature of the opportunity cost is going to vary depending on your character, but for a paladin more focused on defense and support, you can probably still deal 2d8+10 (16 Str, 20 Cha, dueling style) with your attack action, then 4d8 with the smite. Such a character breaks even after 2-3 victims. This can shoot up sharply with level and build, so at level 11 an offense focused paladin may be dealing 2d6+1d4+3d8+21 (20 Str, PM+shield, dueling style) when attacking, plus 4d8 for the smite, and it takes 5-6 victims for them to break even.

[Rukelnikov]

I agree with many things being said in this thread, this looks like the seed for a 5.5, though I seriously doubt they are gonna do it, wish they would though.

Regarding power creep, I think its only power creep when the strongest gets stronger, otherwise its catching up. While there may be some power creep in this UA, I see much more instances of catching up.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet, is that Ranger's Fade Away invis doesn't go away on attack, so it can be used as a BA advantage on attacks for the rest of the turn. Yeah the name may suggest it being used otherwise, but I know how I would use that 1 turn Greater Invisibility.

Regarding the blanket versatilities, for skills I seriously dislike it, for spells... meh, cantrips are ok, leveled spells maybe should only be a Sorcerer thing, for combat styles maybe Fighters should get the ability to change style on a long rest.

Also about combat styles, there are too many, and the most you can get without multiclasing is 2, give us some options for getting additional combat styles, a feat that grants one as one of its benefits is a no brainer.

[jaappleton]

I like the idea of being able to switch proficiency much more. It allows the players to modify for what the DM is doing, rather than the other way around.

The ability to swap your fighting style is amazing for published adventures, because they have a set list of magic items.

No Archer in the party? Sucks nobody can truly maximize that +2 Longbow. Nobody uses a sword and shield? Find the Sunblade? Such a shame the Paladin took Greatweapon Fighting and not Dueling.

This fixes that, in a huge way!

[Lupine]

The ability to swap your fighting style is amazing for published adventures, because they have a set list of magic items.

Noted. I personally run only my own home made adventures, and am the DM for my group. This simply didn't occur to me.

[Gignere]

The ability to swap your fighting style is amazing for published adventures, because they have a set list of magic items.

No Archer in the party? Sucks nobody can truly maximize that +2 Longbow. Nobody uses a sword and shield? Find the Sunblade? Such a shame the Paladin took Greatweapon Fighting and not Dueling.

This fixes that, in a huge way!

I guess I tailor the loots to the party even when using published materials. I even once dropped a holy avenger axe just because the Paladin of the party was a dwarf and he used nothing but axes even passing up better weapons to stick with an axe.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I guess I tailor the loots to the party even when using published materials. I even once dropped a holy avenger axe just because the Paladin of the party was a dwarf and he used nothing but axes even passing up better weapons to stick with an axe.

That makes you a good DM, but the poor AL adventurers really needed this to fix how strict the loot can be.

[Vorpalchicken]

I hate to be the one sour Sally in the group but I am really not impressed. The new features seem to be inconsequential, broken, or toe -stepping (especially spells, not counting when they didn't realize certain spells were already on class lists.)

I feel like nothing that needed to be fixed got fixed. (I think high level Rangers are the ones that need help for example. Giving low level Rangers treats only encourages dips.)

Yes swapping options is good but I was already allowing that.

[Sindal]

I hate to be the one sour Sally in the group but I am really not impressed. The new features seem to be inconsequential, broken, or toe -stepping (especially spells, not counting when they didn't realize certain spells were already on class lists.)

I feel like nothing that needed to be fixed got fixed. (I think high level Rangers are the ones that need help for example. Giving low level Rangers treats only encourages dips.)

Yes swapping options is good but I was already allowing that.

Fair.
Though a general concencus people didn't even like the low level treats. So we gotta start somewhere :D

[Gignere]

Fair.
Though a general concencus people didn't even like the low level treats. So we gotta start somewhere :D

Also UA is play test, generally what gets actually published is scaled back or comes online at a higher level. Like I could totally see the no concentrate hunter’s mark get shunted to level 6 ranger ability instead of level 1. Even the temp hps might turn into something that scales with ranger level instead of being so front loaded.

[Kane0]

More class features I'd like to see treated with alternatives and extensions:

Bard Countercharm
Cleric Divine Intervention
Fighter Indomitable
Monk Tongue of Sun and Moon
Ranger Camouflage and Vanish
Sorcerer Metamagic Versatility
Warlock Mystic Arcanum
And pretty much all the capstones

[Fnissalot]

I hate to be the one sour Sally in the group but I am really not impressed. The new features seem to be inconsequential, broken, or toe -stepping (especially spells, not counting when they didn't realize certain spells were already on class lists.)

I feel like nothing that needed to be fixed got fixed. (I think high level Rangers are the ones that need help for example. Giving low level Rangers treats only encourages dips.)

Yes swapping options is good but I was already allowing that.

Level 1 phb rangers are horrible. There is no reason to start playing one at first level, unless you are sure you will level up before the first fight. They needed a fix for that as well as for tier 3 and 4

Edit not related to quote:
Even if the beast hp is equal to (your Wis+beast con +5)*level, the beast has only either +1 or +2 in con and you will rarely max out Wis as rangers. At best it is 12*level which is good but not broken. I would even think the beast of Earth is a bit weak compared to the air one. I am looking forward to them adding one of water and one of fire.

[Kane0]

Even if the beast hp is equal to (your Wis+beast con +5)*level, the beast has only either +1 or +2 in con and you will rarely max out Wis as rangers. At best it is 12*level which is good but not broken. I would even think the beast of Earth is a bit weak compared to the air one. I am looking forward to them adding one of water and one of fire.

You could trade in your fighting style for Shillelagh and/or a damage cantrip, allowing you to focus more on Wis. The beast is actually pretty beastly even if you don't invest a lot in Wis though.

[Evaar]

Level 1 phb rangers are horrible. There is no reason to start playing one at first level, unless you are sure you will level up before the first fight. They needed a fix for that as well as for tier 3 and 4

Edit not related to quote:
Even if the beast hp is equal to (your Wis+beast con +5)*level, the beast has only either +1 or +2 in con and you will rarely max out Wis as rangers. At best it is 12*level which is good but not broken. I would even think the beast of Earth is a bit weak compared to the air one. I am looking forward to them adding one of water and one of fire.

I don't think the intent is that they are representative of the elements. You might get a water one for a swim speed, but it seems like the intent was ground beasts versus flying beasts. Fire isn't really an environment.

[Fnissalot]

You could trade in your fighting style for Shillelagh and/or a damage cantrip, allowing you to focus more on Wis. The beast is actually pretty beastly even if you don't invest a lot in Wis though.
I think, statistically, going ranged with the archery style or melee with duelist would end you up with more damage than going druid cantrips+wisdom. It is a nice trade-off and choice for the player. Both options are good for different reasons. I.e. I like it.

I don't say that the beast is bad, just that pushing it that far would neither be bad or broken.