I feel like you din't actually read my post.The changes made to ebberon UA (be it races,dragonmarks or the artificer class) had little to do with system agnosticism with only a single exception as part of the warforged UA.
This is fan feelings.
Fanbase problems
I did preface it as a feeling I had....so yes?
Does that mean that it completely invalidates the thoughts/opinions?
This is a brilliant breakdown of the subclasses, and I agree with everything you said about their ability to take the control away from the DM, but there is one thing that does limit some of their abilities - these subclasses are built specifically for Strixhaven, which is essentially MTG Harry Potter. In that setting, you’re far less likely to be fighting a ton of melee warriors, and when you consider that a lot of your enemies are going to be spellcasters with much of the same power you have, some of these abilities look a lot less powerful. Essentially, these subclasses definitely break 5e D&D, but I don’t think that’s what they’re meant for. They’re meant to be played in a specific setting, and I think they work far better there. That said, I do think that many of the abilities, especially those in Lorehold, Silverquill, and Witherbloom are ridiculously gamebreaking, and most of this UA is a massive flavor loss.
I get that it is likely designed around the setting, but that makes the content even less useful to the average D&D player. Content should be designed in such a way as to be useable at a tables without regard to setting in order to sell the most books. It seems like a real waste of time and effort for little pay off.
I disagree. I think the game is now robustly supported on a agnostic level that future books should actually be more niche. I think Ravensloft is just a better book than Tasha's because the whole book is on point instead of a diffuse "miscellany about everything." A MtG Book I'd say could be even more insular. Begs the question as to whether WotC should publish books intentionally not targeted for as high level sales as say a Tasha's or Xanathar's. From that biz talk where most of the audience just took away "3 classic worlds! which?!? when?!?" I think gave some space was given for such products. I think the actual word used was "pushed the game into ways the game isn't usually played or maybe has never played" (also implying they may well be considering "not for everyone" products). This would actually open up potential products that aren't "all ages." Books for the younger are already a thing and could be more robust in that regard ... for the "grown ups" I think that's the only way Dark Sun would ever be done and done right.
With this UA, I think a useful followup UA would be the sort of antagonists these sorts of subclasses would come across in the Strixhaven to see how these classes would really play out in the world they're designed for.
This is a brilliant breakdown of the subclasses, and I agree with everything you said about their ability to take the control away from the DM, but there is one thing that does limit some of their abilities - these subclasses are built specifically for Strixhaven, which is essentially MTG Harry Potter. In that setting, you’re far less likely to be fighting a ton of melee warriors, and when you consider that a lot of your enemies are going to be spellcasters with much of the same power you have, some of these abilities look a lot less powerful. Essentially, these subclasses definitely break 5e D&D, but I don’t think that’s what they’re meant for. They’re meant to be played in a specific setting, and I think they work far better there. That said, I do think that many of the abilities, especially those in Lorehold, Silverquill, and Witherbloom are ridiculously gamebreaking, and most of this UA is a massive flavor loss.
I get that it is likely designed around the setting, but that makes the content even less useful to the average D&D player. Content should be designed in such a way as to be useable at a tables without regard to setting in order to sell the most books. It seems like a real waste of time and effort for little pay off.
Its litterally part of setting book...you know the entire thing is built for one setting.If you want it in another it can do that but game design wise it's made for the setting.
And they cannot avoid this, the "generic dnd playstyle" that is needed to design settingless does not exist.This is part of the reason PHB,XGTE,and TCOE often is slightly off with what they treat as important.Whilst setting books are practically spot in the setting.It's why content ported from setting books often makes little sense for general play.
The game needs to be built around settings most of the time.Building content without knowing what's important and what challenges their are is incredibly tough.Settings provide a lot of valueable design info.
Some of your favorite content would not exist without setting books.
It feels like they have made aggressive adjustments to UA setting material to be more setting agnostic in the past (Eberron) but I could be misremembering.
Generally once a book is out its material is considered "official" regardless of setting.
Echo Knight is Wildmounte but is still spoken about in all settings.
I feel like my greatest problem with a lot of this UA is that I've seen other setting books like Theros do a lot of work towards keeping the flavor and feel consistently in mind alongside the mechanical value and impact, aside from being system agnostic, but I'm not really seeing that here. Like a lot of people are saying, it's a little jarring and confusing that some of the supposed inspirations from MtG that these colleges center around are strangely absent (Cleric with Lorehold and Witherbloom, Prismari with Bard, etc.), and I'm not sure I follow the design value of crossclass subclasses towards a setting book. What I specifically mean by that is: when you've got things like the Piety system and Supernatural Gifts in Theros for the divinity aspects, and the Curses and Dark Gifts in Van Richten's for the horror themes, being introduced as new mechanical content to fill the concepts of the settings, what exactly is the purpose of the crossclassing for Strixhaven?
If this is the direction they want to head in to give Strixhaven's arcana a setting in 5E, fleshing out new schools and disciplines of magic, why not make some of these concepts into new spells or magic items for example? Clerics and Paladins could benefit from some arcana-leaning Lorehold spells, Bards are definitely hurting for more elemental/combat spells like Prismari could offer, Quandrix seems like the lovechild of Chronurgy and Graviturgy and could fill all sorts of niches of spells between them, Bards and Warlocks could always use an extra layer of extrapolation when it comes to social spells using Silverquill, and there's all sorts of potential for alchemy and siphoning magic to stem from Witherbloom for a slew of classes.
Maybe I'm just mistaken about the source material and this heavily leans into the people of Strixhaven more than their studies, but I still can't really understand what crossclassing lends to in the idea of this setting. If anybody has insight, please educate me on this because I'm almost strictly coming from a D&D background and nothing from MtG.
Crossclassing seems very intriguing. It makes a lot of sense for the setting. Then again, there's always the question whether things couldn't have been handled differently? Maybe turn some features into spells? Do spell lists like Ravnica backgounds did. New Feats are always interesting. Or if it comes to it, introduce a new mechanic. This is a setting specific book after all.
As it is now, crossclassing is likely ending up diluting subclass feeling and just being better for some classes than others. Or to exaggerate: Every student from a specific college is equal, just some are more equal than others. Silverquill is a good example for that. 1st lvl feature Silvery Barbs might as well read 'use this feature or cast spells this combat' for Warlocks. And the college has been designed with Warlocks in mind.
There's always going to be classes that get more mileage out of a college or a specific feature from it. And that college is kept in check for that specific class to the detriment of the other classes. And while you could design a college where every feature resonates stronger with a different main class, ending up with a crossclass subclass where each class pulls a different advantage from it.. I don't trust WotC to pull that off. 5 times in a row.
Also, what's up with the extra spells? Adding this many spells to learn casters like Warlock, Bard and Sorcerer cannot end well. I'd prefer they just add them to the spell list to be picked up as usual. Similar to Ravnica Backgrounds. I understand that it's for a college setting and learning spells makes sense, but there's a reason why learn casters can only learn a limited amount of spells.
Lorehold Warlocks are the new best gish. Take Fighter 1 then go straight through as a lorehold tomelock with a warrior companion (a former soldier turned scholar who studies the art and history of war now?). Shillelagh at Warlock 3 for CHA attacks. At Warlock 6 you get what is basically a better version of the bladesinger’s extra attack. Be a small-sized Hexblood and use your companion as a mount (perhaps the spirit of an ancient warrior beast? Like a pegasus or - Hollyphant or something?). Have the interception fighting style. Rock spirit guardians plus booming blade plus your statue buddy’s attack, plus they can use their reaction to bump your saves. Congrats, you are now awesome. Not to mention your unparalleled flexibility and access to a familiar if you took book of ancient secrets.
Treating classes as if the value of their resources and action economies are all identical and equivalent just seems really off to me. I didn't even consider how screwed Warlock might be to try to reuse some of the baseline features from Lorehold and Silverquill- spending an oh-so precious spell slot to give your poor Ancient Companion the specific construct healing it needs like trying to feed veggies to a toddler, or blowing an entire spell slot on something resembling a Luck Point to gamble on (I said earlier in my breakdown that converting a spell slot to a Luck Point is potent in the midst of action... but that was assuming that you had more than, like, three at a time and that they weren't all maxed out??).
It just extends the narrative of trying to comprehend why Wizards was so willing and eager to crowd all of these classes with their own specific needs to fit their own class and subclass features beneath the same umbrella, but leave things like Cleric out in the rain on so many things. The point I really feel like needs to be driven home is that Wizards has done the work before to hand tailor subclasses properly so that they fit an even spread of themes, so why not now? It's not unheard of to see big releases of fresh and specific subclass content to flesh things out- just not necessarily in a setting book (not really sure if we want to include SCAG in this conversation, but that has it's own history to dive into as well I suppose). ERLW virtually gave Artificer a home in 5E before Tasha's, and even then Tasha's came out swinging on top of that with roughly 25 new subclasses of a more "magical and mystical otherworldly background." Look back to things like Xanathar's and you have almost 30 new subclasses depicting all flavors of "rare and unorthodox heroes of the realms." Trying to cram the task of making 13 "mage flavored" subclasses into 5 new builds that break 5E conventions just seems bizarre and out of character to me, especially considering that half of the work is done for them already by the matter of fact that these are all caster classes anyhow.
Again, I really might just be missing some context from MtG, but I still don't understand why the dev team couldn't at least design a variety of subclasses based around a similar theme and sprinkle it equally to deserving classes. Take Prismari for example, where you have a unique fusion of arts and elements available; why not emphasize the arts in a Bard subclass, the elements in a Druid subclass, and a bit of both in a Sorcerer subclass? It's hard to even imagine why Wizard is a part of that equation in the first place, but the question still stands: why did these all get lumped together in a space that lacks equity for each of them when we KNOW that Wizards has the resources to flesh them out individually? This is a great idea for future editions, but I still really don't understand why this paradigm is so critical for this setting.
This feels really undercooked. As a player, I love me a good Gish and tend toward munchkinery so I’m predisposed toward a set of classes that seem to encourage that, but this needs a lot more mechanical thought before it’s ready even for UA. As Kazarts noted, the resource economy of wizards and warlocks is wildly different - what happens when you start stacking sorcery points into different schools? I’m guessing a wildshaped prismari druid can still use their kinetic artistry while wild-shaped - a level 2 druid can beastshape into an elk and charge across the map at 50ft per turn spraying boreal sweep as they go before ramming their final target (possibly with prone advantage) for 3d6 bludgeoning damage. That might stack up a lot of opportunity attacks, but for a low level party, it’s a game changer and A Sod to balance encounters for, especially if another party member is throwing out silvery barbs or diminishing functions.
As a DM with no real knowledge of MTG, I don’t know where to start in incorporating and balancing this into my games and worlds. If this is only workable in MTG games, then that’s a really poor sales hook for WOTC.
(further thoughts of a more flavour-inclined bent: Can you multiclass into different schools - major in sorcerous quantix with a minor in wizard lore? Are warlocks an admissions scandal waiting to happen? Does lorehold college offer additional classes in sculpting, in case you find yourself in a wilderland without any convenient statuary? Will an ancient companion inhabit my modern art sculpture “two branches and some goblin armor”? Is a Prismari wizard a true pinball wizard when using their kinetic artistry? And so on and so forth)
If a Loreholder 6 uses the Warrior ability with a cantrip that grants a weapon attack as part of the cantip, do you get a second weapon attack from the class ability? If not, do you get the extra d8?
I would assume it works the same as using a non-weapon cantrip; I don't think casting something like Green-Flame Blade would preclude you from making the additional attack.
Maybe I'm just mistaken about the source material and this heavily leans into the people of Strixhaven more than their studies, but I still can't really understand what crossclassing lends to in the idea of this setting. If anybody has insight, please educate me on this because I'm almost strictly coming from a D&D background and nothing from MtG.
It doesn't really have anything to do with MtG explicitly. It's a conscious choice to explore new mechanical design space (something 5e desperately needs more of, not less) and thematically works by creating the idea that characters with a variety of backgrounds are all training and learning the same basic concepts within the college.
The only downside I can see with this upcoming adventure/setting is well this is awesome stuff unless your a cleric or some other non full caster class nothing here for you at all. So who is gonna be frontline melee the bard or warlock, wont be any hexblades or other medium armor wearers?
I do not understand why so many people seem upset about Clerics, half-casters and martials being "left out." The subclass UA that ended up in Ravenloft was a Bard and a Warlock. The draconic subclass UA is a Monk and a Ranger. Subclasses Revisited from last June was a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Wizard. I genuinely cannot think of a single UA I've read in the last year or two that touched on every class, or even every category of class. This is normal.
Now granted, there's a possibility that the Strixhaven book will, overall, urge you away from divine casters, half-casters, and martials to really pin down that "Harry Potter with the serial numbers filed off" experience, but nothing they do can keep you from playing an Eldritch Knight or Way of Shadow Monk or Twilight Cleric or whatever else you feel like. It's so bizarre to me that people are taking umbrage that certain classes are being "ignored" or something, despite the fact that UA has never worked like that in 5e.
(and for that matter, the way the cross-class part of these is set up, there is nothing to prevent you from trying to put one of these on a Cleric or a Ranger or Paladin or Artificer, you'd just be doing without Channel Divinities on a Cleric and...I think that's it)
Clerics I think ran afoul of the way their subclass design works out, which follows a much more specific pattern than any of the other full casters do. The same is true of Paladins; I could conceivably see this cross-class formula being tweaked to accommodate Ranger and Artificer, though I do think they'd suffer as a result, as the base ranger (pre-Tasha's) is a bit weaker compared to other classes, and the Artificer is especially dependent on their subclass in order to define their role.
I will also throw in, and I may be in the minority in this, that I actually would like to see more content for campaigns that go against the typical party structure. Strixhaven as I understand it is very magic heavy, and a party of all casters makes sense in that context. Dark Sun as a setting actively discourages spellcasting, and if WotC wants to keep that aspect of the setting then they need to address parties that don't have have casters (and sorry, but reflavoring spellcasting as psionics ain't gonna cut it).
And since I've gotten started on Dark Sun, I can see this cross-class formula working for Defilers and Preservers as subclasses in that setting as well (and possibly something else called Ceruleans? Am I getting that right?)
I will also throw in, and I may be in the minority in this, that I actually would like to see more content for campaigns that go against the typical party structure. Strixhaven as I understand it is very magic heavy, and a party of all casters makes sense in that context. Dark Sun as a setting actively discourages spellcasting, and if WotC wants to keep that aspect of the setting then they need to address parties that don't have have casters (and sorry, but reflavoring spellcasting as psionics ain't gonna cut it).
I am very much aligned with you on this, and also holy crap i had never considered that this could be mechanical stage-setting for something like Dark Sun
It's usually the Monday after the UA .pdf is released, but the recent draconic one was complex and involved enough that it took several weeks, so who knows? Beyond doesn't announce a timeline, they often just announce when it's ready.
Maybe I'm just mistaken about the source material and this heavily leans into the people of Strixhaven more than their studies, but I still can't really understand what crossclassing lends to in the idea of this setting. If anybody has insight, please educate me on this because I'm almost strictly coming from a D&D background and nothing from MtG.
It doesn't really have anything to do with MtG explicitly. It's a conscious choice to explore new mechanical design space (something 5e desperately needs more of, not less) and thematically works by creating the idea that characters with a variety of backgrounds are all training and learning the same basic concepts within the college.
I still can't help but find it really weird that the decision was made to try to give all of the classes involved in these crossclass subclasses the same treatment rather than putting them under general thematic umbrellas to experiment with individually. Like, if we're talking about thematic concepts and classes, take the idea of undeath and necromancy for example; you have subclasses in Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock, and Wizard even when roughly half of those classes aren't even full casters, but they're all given equal love and attention to how their class features might interact with those themes (i.e. a Zealot Barbarian ain't flavored for raising the dead, but gets a lotta mileage out of the idea of fighting past death).
I can understand the desire for new mechanical exploration though, and I do think that WotC is taking steps in the right directions on some new content they've been releasing lately, but this is just a big step to be wanting to take- let alone in a setting book. I'm also totally "pro-rewrite" when it comes to things like... for example, curses as described in Van Richten's- taking something that could be dealt with as easily as casting a 3rd-level Remove Curse and actually making it out into something more serious and compelling. I think that it's perfectly okay for Wizards to go back and look at content that could use extra layers of polish. I DO think this whole idea of crossclass content has some major potential to influence ideas for a "5.5E," or maybe even just the next generation of D&D altogether; I'm just not certain if 5E has the structure to support such a concept, though...
Maybe I'm just mistaken about the source material and this heavily leans into the people of Strixhaven more than their studies, but I still can't really understand what crossclassing lends to in the idea of this setting. If anybody has insight, please educate me on this because I'm almost strictly coming from a D&D background and nothing from MtG.
It doesn't really have anything to do with MtG explicitly. It's a conscious choice to explore new mechanical design space (something 5e desperately needs more of, not less) and thematically works by creating the idea that characters with a variety of backgrounds are all training and learning the same basic concepts within the college.
I still can't help but find it really weird that the decision was made to try to give all of the classes involved in these crossclass subclasses the same treatment rather than putting them under general thematic umbrellas to experiment with individually. Like, if we're talking about thematic concepts and classes, take the idea of undeath and necromancy for example; you have subclasses in Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock, and Wizard even when roughly half of those classes aren't even full casters, but they're all given equal love and attention to how their class features might interact with those themes (i.e. a Zealot Barbarian ain't flavored for raising the dead, but gets a lotta mileage out of the idea of fighting past death).
I get what you're going for, but that would not and could not work for a single UA for a single book. I don't think I've ever seen a UA with more than four subs in it at a time (there may've been years ago, my memory blows), and what you're describing would be nearly as big as Tasha's subclass section. For a UA.
If we look at just Lorehold, and we say the precis is "action historians, then try to work out what the base classes were that would apply...okay, start with basically every class with an INT focus. That's Artificer, Rogue, Wizard right there. That, to some degree, would cover the "historian," but then you need to cover the "action." To my mind, that means at minimum, Fighter and Ranger (Rogue already popped up), and conceivably also Paladin and Monk, who are both concerned with tying ancient wisdom to their physical form.
That's seven out of thirteen base classes. If we don't go further than that, (arguments could be made for Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Warlock, but we already have a lot on our hands, and that would bring it to 12 out of 13 base classes, with only Sorcerer left out) that means seven subclasses for 1 of the 5 colleges. If we just take that as a base, that means a UA would probably contain as many as 35 subclasses to cover Strixhaven. Maybe less, maybe more. Let's call it between 30 and 40.
Tasha's Cauldron had two subs for every base class (and some were reprints), meaning only 26, and that was meant to be a big player options book. This would be bigger than that, as part of a setting. And that's ignoring that it is a school for magic users, meaning there's likely a chance no martials can be students. So okay, that's Fighter and Monk gone (unless you want to give them slots and make them 1/3 casters to fit the setting and intent). Down to five then. That's still 5 base classes getting a sub for one college. Multiply that by 5 colleges, that's 25, nearly as much as Tasha's again. That is absolutely infeasible in a book that's also meant to be a full setting, and (as has been indicated) at least a partial adventure.
When you're looking at the theme of death and necromancy and include Barbarian (you said Zealot, which is generally more paladin/cleric themed as just "devotion to a god," I would've thought Ancestral Guardian), Bard (Spirits), Cleric (Grave and Death), Druid (Spores), Paladin (Oathbreaker mostly), Rogue (Phantom), Warlock (Undead and Undying), and Wizard (Necromancy), you're talking about around 10 subs with that theme (ignoring Monk's Long Death and Mercy for some reason) released in countless books over the course of seven years. That's not something they're just going to plop into a single UA for a single M:tG setting book. But that's what you're asking them to do for all five Strixhaven colleges, despite that all I've talked about so far is just the first one, Lorehold. That's ignoring Prismari, Quandrix, Silverquill, and Witherbloom.
So what do you do? You look to whittle it down some. So okay, my first call would be that hey, it's a school for magic-users. Cut the martials. Bam. Barring 1/3-casting classes being created for them like EK and AT, they have no reason to be there. So that's Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, and Rogue gone. That just leaves...nine base classes. It's a UA, don't want to go too big, so screw it, drop the half-casters. That's Artificer, Paladin, and Ranger gone. Down to six base classes. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. If we do each of those for each college, that's still 30. Oh man, what if I could make these subs cross-class?! That would cut it down considerably.
Oh wait, a snag: Cleric subs are pretty uniform, and if you don't put a Channel Divinity in the sub, then their only real option to use a resource baked into the base class is Turn Undead, and there probably aren't a lot of zombies on this well-kept campus. Plus if a Cleric doesn't get Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike at 8, it's not going to match all the others in overall efficacy, so my choice is to either inflict those features (CD, PS, DS) on all five of the other full-casters through the cross-class college subs, or just nix Cleric. So Cleric is gone.
That leaves Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard getting cross-class subs, one for each college. Which is exactly what we got.
Like...I genuinely don't understand why so many people are confused or upset about the shape of the subs in this UA. Those made instant sense to me, given the setting and overall intent of the upcoming book. I wish we could get a lot more discussion about what is actually there than kvetching about a class that absolutely makes sense to leave out being left out.
Again, no UA will cover every class, and no book outside of the PHB, Xanathar, or Tasha will include stuff for every base class, that's absurd, unreasonable, and unsustainable. So accept that this UA cares about Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard. Then discuss how it works given the prerequisites and the framework it's trying to work within. Complaining that a thing doesn't do something it's not trying to is a great way to ensure you waste all of your time. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it is stupid.
I don't know about anyone else, but I am too old to waste my time on anything that utterly doomed to be unproductive.
Now, that said, these subs are largely on the stronk side (though that's normal for UA, easy to scale back than up and all that) and need some limiting factors, and I'm not 100% sold on the structure that means Bard gets less features than everyone else for no good reason, but overall, I'm pretty into what they're playing with here. Most of the changes I'd make would be making some of the elements limited-use where they're not currently, and either A) Add more features to each sub, up to a total of 7 or 8 to allow more customization from class to class and character to character and make those decisions less meaningful to take less of a dump on Bards, or leave them at the four levels of features currently and just say that when you hit a class level that would get a sub feature, you get all features for which you meet the prerequisite. Because right now, Bards are the only ones who have to make a choice as to what they get, and that irritates me because they are my favorite. Either make everyone make choices with the subs or make no one do so. As it is, the "make decisions per level" thing is just messy.
Anyway, I've talked too much about this already and need to get to work.
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I did preface it as a feeling I had....so yes?
Does that mean that it completely invalidates the thoughts/opinions?
I disagree. I think the game is now robustly supported on a agnostic level that future books should actually be more niche. I think Ravensloft is just a better book than Tasha's because the whole book is on point instead of a diffuse "miscellany about everything." A MtG Book I'd say could be even more insular. Begs the question as to whether WotC should publish books intentionally not targeted for as high level sales as say a Tasha's or Xanathar's. From that biz talk where most of the audience just took away "3 classic worlds! which?!? when?!?" I think gave some space was given for such products. I think the actual word used was "pushed the game into ways the game isn't usually played or maybe has never played" (also implying they may well be considering "not for everyone" products). This would actually open up potential products that aren't "all ages." Books for the younger are already a thing and could be more robust in that regard ... for the "grown ups" I think that's the only way Dark Sun would ever be done and done right.
With this UA, I think a useful followup UA would be the sort of antagonists these sorts of subclasses would come across in the Strixhaven to see how these classes would really play out in the world they're designed for.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
So let me see if I got this right.
Lorehold: History Majors
Prismari: Art Majors/Dance School
Quandrix: Physics Majors
Silverquill: Literature Majors
Witherbloom: Med School
I Mean pretty much Prismari probs also took alot of extra phs ed (their whole think is running) and witherbloom is also really goth.
Check out my homebrew subclasses spells magic items feats monsters races
i am a sauce priest
help create a world here
I feel like my greatest problem with a lot of this UA is that I've seen other setting books like Theros do a lot of work towards keeping the flavor and feel consistently in mind alongside the mechanical value and impact, aside from being system agnostic, but I'm not really seeing that here. Like a lot of people are saying, it's a little jarring and confusing that some of the supposed inspirations from MtG that these colleges center around are strangely absent (Cleric with Lorehold and Witherbloom, Prismari with Bard, etc.), and I'm not sure I follow the design value of crossclass subclasses towards a setting book. What I specifically mean by that is: when you've got things like the Piety system and Supernatural Gifts in Theros for the divinity aspects, and the Curses and Dark Gifts in Van Richten's for the horror themes, being introduced as new mechanical content to fill the concepts of the settings, what exactly is the purpose of the crossclassing for Strixhaven?
If this is the direction they want to head in to give Strixhaven's arcana a setting in 5E, fleshing out new schools and disciplines of magic, why not make some of these concepts into new spells or magic items for example? Clerics and Paladins could benefit from some arcana-leaning Lorehold spells, Bards are definitely hurting for more elemental/combat spells like Prismari could offer, Quandrix seems like the lovechild of Chronurgy and Graviturgy and could fill all sorts of niches of spells between them, Bards and Warlocks could always use an extra layer of extrapolation when it comes to social spells using Silverquill, and there's all sorts of potential for alchemy and siphoning magic to stem from Witherbloom for a slew of classes.
Maybe I'm just mistaken about the source material and this heavily leans into the people of Strixhaven more than their studies, but I still can't really understand what crossclassing lends to in the idea of this setting. If anybody has insight, please educate me on this because I'm almost strictly coming from a D&D background and nothing from MtG.
Crossclassing seems very intriguing. It makes a lot of sense for the setting.
Then again, there's always the question whether things couldn't have been handled differently?
Maybe turn some features into spells? Do spell lists like Ravnica backgounds did. New Feats are always interesting.
Or if it comes to it, introduce a new mechanic. This is a setting specific book after all.
As it is now, crossclassing is likely ending up diluting subclass feeling and just being better for some classes than others.
Or to exaggerate: Every student from a specific college is equal, just some are more equal than others.
Silverquill is a good example for that. 1st lvl feature Silvery Barbs might as well read 'use this feature or cast spells this combat' for Warlocks.
And the college has been designed with Warlocks in mind.
There's always going to be classes that get more mileage out of a college or a specific feature from it. And that college is kept in check for that specific class to the detriment of the other classes. And while you could design a college where every feature resonates stronger with a different main class, ending up with a crossclass subclass where each class pulls a different advantage from it.. I don't trust WotC to pull that off. 5 times in a row.
Also, what's up with the extra spells? Adding this many spells to learn casters like Warlock, Bard and Sorcerer cannot end well. I'd prefer they just add them to the spell list to be picked up as usual. Similar to Ravnica Backgrounds.
I understand that it's for a college setting and learning spells makes sense, but there's a reason why learn casters can only learn a limited amount of spells.
Lorehold Warlocks are the new best gish. Take Fighter 1 then go straight through as a lorehold tomelock with a warrior companion (a former soldier turned scholar who studies the art and history of war now?). Shillelagh at Warlock 3 for CHA attacks. At Warlock 6 you get what is basically a better version of the bladesinger’s extra attack. Be a small-sized Hexblood and use your companion as a mount (perhaps the spirit of an ancient warrior beast? Like a pegasus or - Hollyphant or something?). Have the interception fighting style. Rock spirit guardians plus booming blade plus your statue buddy’s attack, plus they can use their reaction to bump your saves. Congrats, you are now awesome. Not to mention your unparalleled flexibility and access to a familiar if you took book of ancient secrets.
Treating classes as if the value of their resources and action economies are all identical and equivalent just seems really off to me. I didn't even consider how screwed Warlock might be to try to reuse some of the baseline features from Lorehold and Silverquill- spending an oh-so precious spell slot to give your poor Ancient Companion the specific construct healing it needs like trying to feed veggies to a toddler, or blowing an entire spell slot on something resembling a Luck Point to gamble on (I said earlier in my breakdown that converting a spell slot to a Luck Point is potent in the midst of action... but that was assuming that you had more than, like, three at a time and that they weren't all maxed out??).
It just extends the narrative of trying to comprehend why Wizards was so willing and eager to crowd all of these classes with their own specific needs to fit their own class and subclass features beneath the same umbrella, but leave things like Cleric out in the rain on so many things. The point I really feel like needs to be driven home is that Wizards has done the work before to hand tailor subclasses properly so that they fit an even spread of themes, so why not now? It's not unheard of to see big releases of fresh and specific subclass content to flesh things out- just not necessarily in a setting book (not really sure if we want to include SCAG in this conversation, but that has it's own history to dive into as well I suppose). ERLW virtually gave Artificer a home in 5E before Tasha's, and even then Tasha's came out swinging on top of that with roughly 25 new subclasses of a more "magical and mystical otherworldly background." Look back to things like Xanathar's and you have almost 30 new subclasses depicting all flavors of "rare and unorthodox heroes of the realms." Trying to cram the task of making 13 "mage flavored" subclasses into 5 new builds that break 5E conventions just seems bizarre and out of character to me, especially considering that half of the work is done for them already by the matter of fact that these are all caster classes anyhow.
Again, I really might just be missing some context from MtG, but I still don't understand why the dev team couldn't at least design a variety of subclasses based around a similar theme and sprinkle it equally to deserving classes. Take Prismari for example, where you have a unique fusion of arts and elements available; why not emphasize the arts in a Bard subclass, the elements in a Druid subclass, and a bit of both in a Sorcerer subclass? It's hard to even imagine why Wizard is a part of that equation in the first place, but the question still stands: why did these all get lumped together in a space that lacks equity for each of them when we KNOW that Wizards has the resources to flesh them out individually? This is a great idea for future editions, but I still really don't understand why this paradigm is so critical for this setting.
This feels really undercooked. As a player, I love me a good Gish and tend toward munchkinery so I’m predisposed toward a set of classes that seem to encourage that, but this needs a lot more mechanical thought before it’s ready even for UA. As Kazarts noted, the resource economy of wizards and warlocks is wildly different - what happens when you start stacking sorcery points into different schools? I’m guessing a wildshaped prismari druid can still use their kinetic artistry while wild-shaped - a level 2 druid can beastshape into an elk and charge across the map at 50ft per turn spraying boreal sweep as they go before ramming their final target (possibly with prone advantage) for 3d6 bludgeoning damage. That might stack up a lot of opportunity attacks, but for a low level party, it’s a game changer and A Sod to balance encounters for, especially if another party member is throwing out silvery barbs or diminishing functions.
As a DM with no real knowledge of MTG, I don’t know where to start in incorporating and balancing this into my games and worlds. If this is only workable in MTG games, then that’s a really poor sales hook for WOTC.
(further thoughts of a more flavour-inclined bent: Can you multiclass into different schools - major in sorcerous quantix with a minor in wizard lore? Are warlocks an admissions scandal waiting to happen? Does lorehold college offer additional classes in sculpting, in case you find yourself in a wilderland without any convenient statuary? Will an ancient companion inhabit my modern art sculpture “two branches and some goblin armor”? Is a Prismari wizard a true pinball wizard when using their kinetic artistry? And so on and so forth)
If a Loreholder 6 uses the Warrior ability with a cantrip that grants a weapon attack as part of the cantip, do you get a second weapon attack from the class ability? If not, do you get the extra d8?
I would assume it works the same as using a non-weapon cantrip; I don't think casting something like Green-Flame Blade would preclude you from making the additional attack.
It doesn't really have anything to do with MtG explicitly. It's a conscious choice to explore new mechanical design space (something 5e desperately needs more of, not less) and thematically works by creating the idea that characters with a variety of backgrounds are all training and learning the same basic concepts within the college.
The only downside I can see with this upcoming adventure/setting is well this is awesome stuff unless your a cleric or some other non full caster class nothing here for you at all. So who is gonna be frontline melee the bard or warlock, wont be any hexblades or other medium armor wearers?
I do not understand why so many people seem upset about Clerics, half-casters and martials being "left out." The subclass UA that ended up in Ravenloft was a Bard and a Warlock. The draconic subclass UA is a Monk and a Ranger. Subclasses Revisited from last June was a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Wizard. I genuinely cannot think of a single UA I've read in the last year or two that touched on every class, or even every category of class. This is normal.
Now granted, there's a possibility that the Strixhaven book will, overall, urge you away from divine casters, half-casters, and martials to really pin down that "Harry Potter with the serial numbers filed off" experience, but nothing they do can keep you from playing an Eldritch Knight or Way of Shadow Monk or Twilight Cleric or whatever else you feel like. It's so bizarre to me that people are taking umbrage that certain classes are being "ignored" or something, despite the fact that UA has never worked like that in 5e.
(and for that matter, the way the cross-class part of these is set up, there is nothing to prevent you from trying to put one of these on a Cleric or a Ranger or Paladin or Artificer, you'd just be doing without Channel Divinities on a Cleric and...I think that's it)
Clerics I think ran afoul of the way their subclass design works out, which follows a much more specific pattern than any of the other full casters do. The same is true of Paladins; I could conceivably see this cross-class formula being tweaked to accommodate Ranger and Artificer, though I do think they'd suffer as a result, as the base ranger (pre-Tasha's) is a bit weaker compared to other classes, and the Artificer is especially dependent on their subclass in order to define their role.
I will also throw in, and I may be in the minority in this, that I actually would like to see more content for campaigns that go against the typical party structure. Strixhaven as I understand it is very magic heavy, and a party of all casters makes sense in that context. Dark Sun as a setting actively discourages spellcasting, and if WotC wants to keep that aspect of the setting then they need to address parties that don't have have casters (and sorry, but reflavoring spellcasting as psionics ain't gonna cut it).
And since I've gotten started on Dark Sun, I can see this cross-class formula working for Defilers and Preservers as subclasses in that setting as well (and possibly something else called Ceruleans? Am I getting that right?)
I am very much aligned with you on this, and also holy crap i had never considered that this could be mechanical stage-setting for something like Dark Sun
Any word on when these UA subclasses will be added to the D&D Beyond playtest content?
It's usually the Monday after the UA .pdf is released, but the recent draconic one was complex and involved enough that it took several weeks, so who knows? Beyond doesn't announce a timeline, they often just announce when it's ready.
I still can't help but find it really weird that the decision was made to try to give all of the classes involved in these crossclass subclasses the same treatment rather than putting them under general thematic umbrellas to experiment with individually. Like, if we're talking about thematic concepts and classes, take the idea of undeath and necromancy for example; you have subclasses in Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock, and Wizard even when roughly half of those classes aren't even full casters, but they're all given equal love and attention to how their class features might interact with those themes (i.e. a Zealot Barbarian ain't flavored for raising the dead, but gets a lotta mileage out of the idea of fighting past death).
I can understand the desire for new mechanical exploration though, and I do think that WotC is taking steps in the right directions on some new content they've been releasing lately, but this is just a big step to be wanting to take- let alone in a setting book. I'm also totally "pro-rewrite" when it comes to things like... for example, curses as described in Van Richten's- taking something that could be dealt with as easily as casting a 3rd-level Remove Curse and actually making it out into something more serious and compelling. I think that it's perfectly okay for Wizards to go back and look at content that could use extra layers of polish. I DO think this whole idea of crossclass content has some major potential to influence ideas for a "5.5E," or maybe even just the next generation of D&D altogether; I'm just not certain if 5E has the structure to support such a concept, though...
I get what you're going for, but that would not and could not work for a single UA for a single book. I don't think I've ever seen a UA with more than four subs in it at a time (there may've been years ago, my memory blows), and what you're describing would be nearly as big as Tasha's subclass section. For a UA.
If we look at just Lorehold, and we say the precis is "action historians, then try to work out what the base classes were that would apply...okay, start with basically every class with an INT focus. That's Artificer, Rogue, Wizard right there. That, to some degree, would cover the "historian," but then you need to cover the "action." To my mind, that means at minimum, Fighter and Ranger (Rogue already popped up), and conceivably also Paladin and Monk, who are both concerned with tying ancient wisdom to their physical form.
That's seven out of thirteen base classes. If we don't go further than that, (arguments could be made for Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Warlock, but we already have a lot on our hands, and that would bring it to 12 out of 13 base classes, with only Sorcerer left out) that means seven subclasses for 1 of the 5 colleges. If we just take that as a base, that means a UA would probably contain as many as 35 subclasses to cover Strixhaven. Maybe less, maybe more. Let's call it between 30 and 40.
Tasha's Cauldron had two subs for every base class (and some were reprints), meaning only 26, and that was meant to be a big player options book. This would be bigger than that, as part of a setting. And that's ignoring that it is a school for magic users, meaning there's likely a chance no martials can be students. So okay, that's Fighter and Monk gone (unless you want to give them slots and make them 1/3 casters to fit the setting and intent). Down to five then. That's still 5 base classes getting a sub for one college. Multiply that by 5 colleges, that's 25, nearly as much as Tasha's again. That is absolutely infeasible in a book that's also meant to be a full setting, and (as has been indicated) at least a partial adventure.
When you're looking at the theme of death and necromancy and include Barbarian (you said Zealot, which is generally more paladin/cleric themed as just "devotion to a god," I would've thought Ancestral Guardian), Bard (Spirits), Cleric (Grave and Death), Druid (Spores), Paladin (Oathbreaker mostly), Rogue (Phantom), Warlock (Undead and Undying), and Wizard (Necromancy), you're talking about around 10 subs with that theme (ignoring Monk's Long Death and Mercy for some reason) released in countless books over the course of seven years. That's not something they're just going to plop into a single UA for a single M:tG setting book. But that's what you're asking them to do for all five Strixhaven colleges, despite that all I've talked about so far is just the first one, Lorehold. That's ignoring Prismari, Quandrix, Silverquill, and Witherbloom.
So what do you do? You look to whittle it down some. So okay, my first call would be that hey, it's a school for magic-users. Cut the martials. Bam. Barring 1/3-casting classes being created for them like EK and AT, they have no reason to be there. So that's Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, and Rogue gone. That just leaves...nine base classes. It's a UA, don't want to go too big, so screw it, drop the half-casters. That's Artificer, Paladin, and Ranger gone. Down to six base classes. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. If we do each of those for each college, that's still 30. Oh man, what if I could make these subs cross-class?! That would cut it down considerably.
Oh wait, a snag: Cleric subs are pretty uniform, and if you don't put a Channel Divinity in the sub, then their only real option to use a resource baked into the base class is Turn Undead, and there probably aren't a lot of zombies on this well-kept campus. Plus if a Cleric doesn't get Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike at 8, it's not going to match all the others in overall efficacy, so my choice is to either inflict those features (CD, PS, DS) on all five of the other full-casters through the cross-class college subs, or just nix Cleric. So Cleric is gone.
That leaves Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard getting cross-class subs, one for each college. Which is exactly what we got.
Like...I genuinely don't understand why so many people are confused or upset about the shape of the subs in this UA. Those made instant sense to me, given the setting and overall intent of the upcoming book. I wish we could get a lot more discussion about what is actually there than kvetching about a class that absolutely makes sense to leave out being left out.
Again, no UA will cover every class, and no book outside of the PHB, Xanathar, or Tasha will include stuff for every base class, that's absurd, unreasonable, and unsustainable. So accept that this UA cares about Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard. Then discuss how it works given the prerequisites and the framework it's trying to work within. Complaining that a thing doesn't do something it's not trying to is a great way to ensure you waste all of your time. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it is stupid.
I don't know about anyone else, but I am too old to waste my time on anything that utterly doomed to be unproductive.
Now, that said, these subs are largely on the stronk side (though that's normal for UA, easy to scale back than up and all that) and need some limiting factors, and I'm not 100% sold on the structure that means Bard gets less features than everyone else for no good reason, but overall, I'm pretty into what they're playing with here. Most of the changes I'd make would be making some of the elements limited-use where they're not currently, and either A) Add more features to each sub, up to a total of 7 or 8 to allow more customization from class to class and character to character and make those decisions less meaningful to take less of a dump on Bards, or leave them at the four levels of features currently and just say that when you hit a class level that would get a sub feature, you get all features for which you meet the prerequisite. Because right now, Bards are the only ones who have to make a choice as to what they get, and that irritates me because they are my favorite. Either make everyone make choices with the subs or make no one do so. As it is, the "make decisions per level" thing is just messy.
Anyway, I've talked too much about this already and need to get to work.