Designer Insights from Unearthed Arcana: Underdark Options

The three subclasses are thematically and mechanically interesting, but underpowered. 

Path of Unlight

- Their Radiant Rage should also reduce damage taken by their Rage Damage Bonus (after Weakness/Resistance are applied, min. 1 damage taken). That gives a significant increase to their survivability compared to other Barbarian subclasses. 

- Brilliant Rage is also underwhelming. I'd like to see it do "a number of d12s equal to your Rage Damage Bonus" to justify spending a use of Rage to do it more than once a day. 

Quote from tgbatista93 >>

LEVEL 14: DOOM OF UNLIGHT You can curse your enemies with corrosive Unlight, and the only escape from the curse is physical violence or an explosive death. When a creature takes Radiant damage from a spell you cast, you can take a Reaction to curse that creature with Unlight. The creature makes a Constitution save against your spell save DC. On a failure, the creature is cursed. Until the curse ends, the target suffers the following effects:

• The target emits Bright Light in a 20-foot radius. • Attack rolls against the target have Advantage. • At the start of each of the target’s turns, it takes Radiant damage equal to your character level.

• The target has Advantage on Strength checks and melee attack rolls. 

Why would i want to curse a target and give them advantages? souldn't it be disavantages? 

 

 I’m too puzzled by this. Maybe is an error, because why would you give your target an advantage to melee rolls, when a successful attack can finish the curse? 🤨

This UA had two memes going through my head:

1) My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

2) "What the hell was that?!" -Krusty the Clown

I am absolutely dumbfounded by what I read. All of the subclasses could be boiled down to a single feat, or small feat trees. Minus the illithid feats, this almost feels like leftovers from the 2013 D&D Next playtest, without any revisions whatsoever, and put out as if they were coherent 5.5 subclasses.

That seems like an excessive reaction...

Wow, this UA is a flaming dumpster fire, and I'm not exaggerating or being dramatic. I agree this is the team's first real serious failure in design ideas. We don't need another Wizard subclass so soon after Arcana Unleashed plus the 3rd party content also adding more subclasses. Asking a Wizard to give up one of their paltry d6 hit die reminds me when Wizard only got 1d4 hit dice and then only added 1 HP per level after level 1, or something like that. At higher levels, the Wizard can lose half their HP in a single hit, so giving up any HD for anything but healing is suicidal. Maybe this subclass should be moved to Warlock. And yes, Mind Blast is heavily underbaked for a 6th level spell. That damage is paltry even with a 60-foot cone and not needing a spell slot. Also, creating a *second* and separate Psychic Die pool to track on top of the Psion's Psychic Die is poor design. Call it something else or make them additive, otherwise the Psion becomes the worst class I've ever seen in this game. And please clean up the d6/d8/d10/d12 mistake in the Mind Flayer feats. That's just sloppy editing. Me, I'm gonna take Mind Blast and mod it so it fits my modded version of Psion to create more unique NPCs. Maybe I'll combine it with my modded Hunter's Mark to make things even more interesting. Take this UA back to the design table, WotC. Psion was janky; this one needs to start over.

 House Agent Rogue is very very flavorful, and I could see it working well for a group playing something like Wild Beyond the Witchlight, where combat isn't expected and you can find a way to turn most opponents friendly towards you -- especially if their goal is to kill the Hourglass Coven, since they could talk and make deals with them then get use out of it's backstabbing features.

However... The ill-defined rules of the Influence action make it hard to see this getting use in a game that has more unfriendly antagonists. Most DM's could simply rule that what you're asking runs counter to a monster's alignment, and prevent you from making use out of several features.

The big one, however: This class does absolutely nothing to actually make you better at the social side of DND.

The spells provided are fine enough, but you don't get any sort of method for making better use of Charisma or making the Influence checks easier. Say there was a corrupt merchant that your party wanted you to get close with, your only method for doing so will either be your base stats or Charm Person, and I don't think I need to elaborate on how Charm Person is one of the most DM-dependant spells in the entire game. Some Dungeon Masters make Charm Person an active detriment to cast on people, even if they're evil or otherwise immoral, because of creatures knowing they're charmed!

Personally, what I would want to see is an ability to Influence creatures to do specific things for you, without it being tied to the baggage of a spell. The subclass getting Charm Person and Suggestion can generally fulfill the same ideas, but the amount of DM arguing and the intricacies of it being a magic action makes them tough to take for a class that might already be hesitant to take stat-dips for limited spellcasting.

Perhaps instead of Influencing as a bonus action, they could have their Influence action act similarly to the spells provided? Suggestion is already just a stronger, more consistent version of the Influence action, so perhaps the House Agent's Influence could simply act identically to Suggestion? That would allow your party to have a non-magical way of navigating difficult social encounters, while also giving the Rogue a niche that a Bard can't fulfill in the same way.

Just spitballing here. Not sure how balanced something like that would be, but I like charismatic rogues and I would want them to be able to fulfill that fantasy of being such a smooth talker that people will do even unreasonable things for them.

I've seen a couple people saying Mind Blast and the House Agent's Back Stab are underpowered, but consider what the Stunned Condition does:

While you have the Stunned condition, you experience the following effects.

• Incapacitated. You have the Incapacitated condition.
• Saving Throws Affected. You automatically fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Advantage.

And then the Incapacitated condition stacks on top of that:

While you have the Incapacitated condition, you experience the following effects.

• Inactive. You can’t take any action, Bonus Action, or Reaction.
• No Concentration. Your Concentration is broken.
• Speechless. You can’t speak.
• Surprised. If you’re Incapacitated when you roll Initiative, you have Disadvantage on the roll.

So you're stealing a turn from an enemy (or every enemy in a 60ft cone who fails their saving throw), and giving your entire party advantage on attacks against them, and disrupting any spells they were focusing on, and giving them all disadvantage on any number of Fireballs or other spells with a strength/dexterity save, and since they can't take reactions your party has freedom of movement over the battlefield.

I'm not necessarily saying it's perfectly balanced; that's what the UA process is for. But Mind Blast could absolutely trivialize a major combat encounter if you play it right.

Personally prefer to see older poor subclasses updated instead of this.
Storm Sorcerer needs some love. Weapon focused Monk.
Tempest Cleric.
Drakewarden Ranger? Dragon patron Warlock? Dragon Knight paladin?

IMO, this feels like responding to loud, incoherent feedback over longer than just 2 years.

The last few Unearthed Arcana have felt like simultaneous band-aids & over-corrections to the mistakes in Xanathar's & Tasha's.

The current team are so concerned w/being OP that they're dipping into UP to avoid backlash, while also being inconsistent.

It's also about time that, sorry as I am to admit it, Rogues get an Optional Class Feature at Level 6 to tone down the spam that dilutes the quality of feedback w/whatever is used to summarize all the genuine bits you get after filtering the rage, spam & worse.

It has been woefully disappointing being a fan of the Rogue class in 5.5E, The base class is sorely ill-equipped at keeping pace as is, but they're constantly saddled with some of the most perplexing and confounding subclass designs that have lacked any sort of personality, innovation or punch. The House Agent falls victim to that same trap yet again.

Level 3 basically amounts to getting Magic Initiate (Wizard) and a skill. This cannot really be taken seriously as any sort of defining class identity. It lacks any personality nor does it fulfil the flavor text it sets out to be. Why would I play this over the Arcane Trickster that basically does all of this better and is more versatile since you can also take the Friends cantrip and the Find Familiar spell and have an owl. Yes I know this is spider themed for Drow and Underdark stuff, but let's be real why wouldn't you just play a Drow AT or Warlock? Why isn't this whole class built around having a super spider spy? 

Level 9 is yet another Cunning Strike feature that will never see the light of day, just like the rest of them, because they've been voted into the game by a community that's never touched a rogue at any level. Then we get some niche, cumbersome way for "The Class That Always Has Advantage" to get Advantage because that was necessary I guess. This is a core rogue subclass design problem in 5.5E. Doubling down on the few things they're capable at, while not improving any other facet of their ailing kit. Not to mention both these subpar features are gated heavily around enemies being charmed. Hopefully you don't run into any rival Drow with Fey Ancestry (which is all of them) in this Underdark campaign. It's an uphill battle with too many pain points when you could just actually do your damage or wait til you have the Knock Out strike option in your base class which ignores all of this set up. 

Level 13 you're finally a poor man's Pact of the Chain Warlock a dozen levels after they've already been doing it for the cost of one or two invocations regardless of their subclass pick (and we're literally getting a Vestige Warlock soon which is a even better distillation of this fantasy.) We also get a way around the disadvantage on the influence action, as if you're high Cha score, Expertise and Reliable Talent wouldn't muscle past that (not counting spells, magic items and features you or your party have in spades at tier 3 that would also be aiding you). This is barely even a ribbon feature. At level 13, half way through tier 3 mind you, when rogues are routinely struggling with anything other than needlessly blowing skill checks out of the water, we make one rarely seen check slightly easier.? This is bleak.

At level 17 if you're still playing a flat rogue (which whatever, I don't think it's worth it, but your choice) you once again get a dead Cunning Strike option to bloat your class and no substantial or unique feature. You already have so many better options both before you get this feature and also with the feature now that you can just charm anyone with a Bonus Action. This baffling design.. At least at level 17, three levels away from the pinnacle of power when Wizards are moving mountains, you can finally ignore the famous drawback of the Friends cantrip. This isn't a capstone this is a cry for help

There's really no salvaging this subclass as is, because it's barely anything. Rogues already have a 1/3rd caster class that's much more versatile and they're also able to overkill most skill checks even with disadvantage because that's what they do. That's their one trick. This subclass doesn't even really prep you for that role. and most players are smart enough to take Expertise in Persuasion and have Cha secondary to achieve this fantasy. I do it with the rogue all the time and have a better subclass to boot. And I know until 6E we're never getting past the core issues of the rogue - terrible tier 3 and 4 features and scaling, suboptimal gameplay mechanics like Cunning Strikes taking up too much design space, and terrible subclass feature spacing - so we at least need strong, flavorful and innovative subclasses, and we're just not seeing that post 2024 PHB. 

Listen we all know there's a million things you can do here - you could make a super spider spy familiar subclass for the rogue. You could make a Cha/Pact Magic rogue. These aren't even innovative, but they'd at least be fun and effective and work better within the 5.5E ruleset which this subclass seems really shaky on understanding the basic concepts of.

Quote from DeaddyMez >>

Just some thoughts

Unlight doing radiant (light damage) makes no sense in general. 

Imaskarcanist needs to tread lightly around the healing aspect. Wizards should never have that capability IMO.

 Unlight is explicitly described as a kind of light magic capable of infecting and burning other creatures from within. How does it dealing Radiant damage make no sense?

I also don't see why Wizards can't be given some limited healing abilities so long as they can't be exploited by some of their other features, like Spell Mastery.

Quote from ClicheRasin >>

This was supposed to be a reply but d&d beyond is bad

 Then why are you using it? And what was this supposed to be a reply to?

Quote from MilliRabbit >>

Imaskarcanist: I feel like this needs to be a Cleric or Sorcerer. The healing is counter to the concept of Wizards not being healers. 

Unlight Invigoration is fine for Temp HP personally. However, the advantage to Strength Checks is weak. Maybe add INT Modifier to their Strength checks instead of Advantage since Barbarians can essentially already get Advantage.

 I've never heard of a concept that Wizards aren't healers. I don't see why they can't be given some limited healing abilities so long as they can't be exploited by some of their other features, like Spell Mastery.

I'm also not sure how Advantage is weaker than a single-digit bonus, but I also don't know how to run the numbers to test that. I also think your point about how "Barbarians can essentially already get Advantage" is irrelevant, since no other class can gain Advantage on Strength checks nearly as easily as Barbarians.

Quote from MetalSentinel >>

And yes, Mind Blast is heavily underbaked for a 6th level spell. That damage is paltry even with a 60-foot cone and not needing a spell slot. Also, creating a *second* and separate Psychic Die pool to track on top of the Psion's Psychic Die is poor design. Call it something else or make them additive, otherwise the Psion becomes the worst class I've ever seen in this game. And please clean up the d6/d8/d10/d12 mistake in the Mind Flayer feats. That's just sloppy editing. Me, I'm gonna take Mind Blast and mod it so it fits my modded version of Psion to create more unique NPCs. Maybe I'll combine it with my modded Hunter's Mark to make things even more interesting. Take this UA back to the design table, WotC. Psion was janky; this one needs to start over.

 Mind Blast also stuns anything that fails its save, and as alleged_DM pointed out, the Stunned condition can easily cripple something; it stops you from taking actions, Bonus Actions, or Reactions, it prevents you from concentrating or talking, it imposes Disadvantage on your Initiative rolls, it makes you automatically fail Strength and Dexterity saves, and it gives all attack rolls against you Advantage. Also, the Mind Flayer path is designed for any class, not just the Psion, and thus shouldn't rely on any one class for Psionic Energy Dice; for that manner, none of the Psionic Energy Dice are additive. Furthermore, the d6/d8/d10/d12 "mistake" is almost certainly not a mistake, since these feats are meant to build on each other and that just reinforces it.

Quote from RecordiconKnok >>

Quote from MilliRabbit >>

Imaskarcanist: I feel like this needs to be a Cleric or Sorcerer. The healing is counter to the concept of Wizards not being healers. 

Unlight Invigoration is fine for Temp HP personally. However, the advantage to Strength Checks is weak. Maybe add INT Modifier to their Strength checks instead of Advantage since Barbarians can essentially already get Advantage.

 I've never heard of a concept that Wizards aren't healers. I don't see why they can't be given some limited healing abilities so long as they can't be exploited by some of their other features, like Spell Mastery.

I'm also not sure how Advantage is weaker than a single-digit bonus, but I also don't know how to run the numbers to test that. I also think your point about how "Barbarians can essentially already get Advantage" is irrelevant, since no other class can gain Advantage on Strength checks nearly as easily as Barbarians.

 

 It's older edition lore people are desperate to preserve like it matters to gameplay.

Because some people didn't learn their lesson when Disney bought Star Wars & axed the old lore.

After reviewing the various comments, this is the solution I came up with for the Path of Unlight.

Path of Faerzress

(Unchanged) Level 3: Radiant Rage

Level 6: Faerzress Revelation

• You have proficiency in the Perception skill, if you lack it. If you already have proficiency in the Perception skill, then you gain Expertise in that skill.
• While your rage is active, you have Blindsight with a range equal to that of the Bright Light provided by your Radiant Rage.
• You have Resistance to Radiant damage.

(Unchanged) Level 10: Radiant Infection

Level 10: Blinding Brilliance

• As a Bonus Action, you unleash a burst of blinding brilliance. Choose a number of creatures you can see within the Bright Light created by your Rage, up to a number equal to your Proficiency Bonus. Each creature must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 + your Strength modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failure, the creature has the Blinded condition until the end of your next turn. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a Long Rest, unless you expend a use of your Rage (no action required) to restore your use of it.

Level 14: Brilliant Rage

• The aura of your Faerzress is bolstered. While your Rage is active, you shed Bright Light in a 30-foot radius.
• When you use Blinding Brilliance, you can instead choose all creatures you can see within the Bright Light created by your Rage, and those creatures also take Radiant damage. On a failed save, the creatures takes 2d12 Radiant damage (3d12 at 16th level) and has the Blinded condition until the end of your next turn. On a succes, the creature takes half damage only.

Adjusted the Imaskarcanist final ability this way

• Removed Curse giving Advantage to Strength checks and melee attack rolls.

Adjusted the Tadpole Host feat as follows:

• Mind Sliver: You learn the Mind Sliver cantrip. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for this spell. You can also cast this cantrip as a Bonus Action a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

This is similar to the Sacred Flame ability of Spellfire Adept.

Note that Psionic Overload can be used to give the Mind Sliver a boost of damage when the target fails their save and takes damage, effectively giving 2d6 damage twice a day if the feat is taken at 4th level.

Adjusted the Full Ceremorphosis feat when selecting Mind Flayer Spells as follows:

Mind Flayer Spells: You always have the Detect Thoughts, Levitate, and Mind Blast spells prepared. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can cast these spells without expending a spell slot by expending a Psionic Energy Die. You can also cast these spells using any spell slots you have of an appropriate level.

• Mind Blast can only be cast using a expending Psionic Energy Die once. You regain the ability to cast it in this way after a Short or Long Rest.

This avoids the potential of having 4 6th-level Mind Blasts used in a single combat at 12th level. Note that spell slots could still be used to cast it additional times, but thats only one additional use for a full caster.

The Psion UA release doesn't include the following text (included in Psi Warrior and Soulknife text). I would this include it in the Psion release, so as not to be unbalanced with Mind Flayer feats.

• Any features in this class that use a Psionic Energy Die use only the dice from this class. Some of your powers expend a Psionic Energy Die, as specified in a power's description, and you can't use a power if it requires you to use a die when your Psionic Energy Dice are all expended.

It would be nice to be able to use Psionic Energy Die from any source for other sources (is use Soulknife Die to power Mind Flayer feat features). A solution might be to make these adjustments:

• To find your total Psionic Energy Die pool, add half of the Die provided from additional sources to the pool of die from the first source (example: Psion, Psi Warrior, Soulknife, Mind Flayer feats)
• On a Short Rest, you regain one expended Psionic Energy Die to this pool.
• You may use a Psionic Energy Die from this pool to power any feature that requires it.
• You use the highest Psionic Energy Die size gained from any of your sources.

Example using these guidelines of a 9th level Psion Metamorph (8d8) with the feat Tadpole Host (4d6):

• The Psionic Energy Die pool would have 10 (8+2) die. The Die size would be d8's.
• These could be used for a Tadpole Host feature (+1d8 psionic damage) or for a Psion feature.

Example using these guidelines of a 5th level Psi Warrior (6d8) / 4th level Soulknife (4d6) with the feat Tadpole Host (4d6):

• The Psionic Energy Die pool would have 10 (6+2+2) die. The Die size would be d8's.
• These could be used for a Tadpole Host feature (+1d8 psionic damage) or for a Psi Warrior or Soulknife feature.