Designer Insights from Unearthed Arcana: Apocalyptic Subclasses

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It’s time for another Unearthed Arcana playtest! This time, we’re diving into themes of survival and corruption with four apocalyptic subclasses: the Circle of Preservation Druid, the Gladiator Fighter, the Defiled Sorcery Sorcerer, and the Sorcerer-King Patron Warlock.  

You can read the full playtest packet yourself or click below for highlights from each subclass, which include designer insights from Wesley Schneider and Makenzie De Armas. 

JOSEPH WESTONAn aasimar Warlock exposes foes to the all-consuming Hunger of Hadar

Circle of Preservation (Druid)

The Circle of Preservation is a Druid subclass that focuses on conservation, protection, and restoration. Many iconic fantasy stories center on hope—on people who fight to protect the good in the world. The Circle of Preservation leans heavily into these kinds of stories.

Given that narrative framework, we wanted this subclass to be really adept at healing and protecting allies. The subclass introduces a new way to expend uses of Wild Shape, which creates an area of protected land that can buff allies in various ways. We also give you a bunch of healing, restorative, and protective spells as always prepared, to ensure you’re always ready to aid those in need.

Gladiator (Fighter)

When designing the Gladiator subclass for the Fighter, we took a lot of inspiration from video games, especially classic fighting games. The thrill of a finishing move or a perfectly timed counter is so iconic, and we wanted this subclass to deliver on that fantasy.

The Gladiator is meant to be a performer as well as a martial combatant. As such, we leaned heavily into Charisma as a secondary ability for this subclass. The subclass also needs to be brutal, yet still tactically compelling. So, its core feature, Brutality, hinges on using an additional weapon mastery property as a vehicle for different cool effects when you hit with an attack roll. Weapon mastery properties have been such a fun addition to the game, and it’s always a joy to get to play with them more in design.

Defiled Sorcery (Sorcerer)

The Defiled Sorcery subclass for the Sorcerer is all about siphoning life energy from yourself and the world around you to fuel your magic. There are a lot of ways that you can represent “life energy” as a game mechanic, and we wanted to use this subclass as an opportunity to explore alternate uses and different approaches to one such mechanic: Hit Point Dice.

A Sorcerer with the Defiled Sorcery subclass can expend their own Hit Dice to increase the damage of spells they cast. Especially ambitious Sorcerers can even attempt to drain life from another creature, using that creature’s Hit Dice in place of their own. To help mitigate the potential loss of healing capability (with this Sorcerer expending Hit Dice to power their spells rather than to heal), we gave this Sorcerer some fun defensive and battlefield-control abilities as well, to increase the Sorcerer’s survivability.

Sorcerer-King Patron (Warlock)

Warlocks who desire to command the battlefield and intimidate their enemies will find themselves right at home with the Sorcerer-King Patron subclass. For this subclass, we wanted to explore what it would be like to draw eldritch power from a tyrannical figure, and we leaned heavily into aspects of control and fear.

Like our other Warlock subclasses, the Sorcerer-King Patron subclass provides the Warlock with a handful of spells that are always prepared. There are some strong damage-dealing spells on this subclass’s list, but there are also several tactical spells, allowing this Warlock to cleverly manipulate the battlefield for their benefit. And, as you might expect, this Warlock interacts a bunch with the Frightened condition; between spells and subclass features, this Warlock has myriad ways of terrifying a foe, and at higher levels, Frightened creatures automatically fail saving throws against this Warlock’s magical commands.  

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Once you’ve read or played with these playtest materials, be sure to fill out the survey on D&D Beyond, coming on August 28, and let us know what you think.

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