Designer Insights from Unearthed Arcana: Underdark Options

Amazing flavor!!! Can’t stress that enough. Wizard looking at lost magic. A rouge of the dark elves of the under dark. Barbarian that gets embuded with light is all great but all of the subclasses need a total rework for anyone to play them.

for the Mind Flayer tree they also need love. They need to be stronger than the (school) Adept feats or the familiar feat in arcana unleashed for anyone to pick them. But again great flavor everyone wants to play a mind flayer. 

Mind Blast 4+/day seems very strong. Mass Int vs stun? Yikes. I'd limit it to 1/day.

The other BG3 feats (c'mon, we all know that's what they are) seem cool.

Classes are weak, but I did like them mechanically. Also people seem to forget how good find familiar is for a rogue, to trigger sneak attack and Help; if they'd give the familiar the extra max HP at lvl 3 (and fix the "you can talk as a bonus action") I think it could be an ok subclass.

Mindflayer feats are cool but need to build on themselves, increase the range of the telepathy with each feat gained, etc. 

The first feat in the tree should let you spend psionic dice on skill checks and saving throws. These feats are competing with things like GWM, they need to be more powerful.

The capstone for the feat tree is great.

That said, the subclasses are all REALLY BAD and shouldn't get anywhere near print. The flavour is fine, if a bit specific, but these are so undercooked and lacking in active features that you will feel like you don't have a subclass if you pick these. Weak and mechanically boring, sorry to say.

Disappointing because of how good all the previous UAs have been.

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

DND Staff create paths of vampirism and lycanthropy, and my life is yours!

Btw, the subclasses suck

Concept wise find these subclasses interesting. The rogue one would be a good fit for Regis with his charming ways. But agree with others what is produced just doesn't really work and looks very messy. The barbarian subclass I was hyped for after reading the article but once I read the actual features looks awful 😞 please rework that into something more impactful.

The wizard subclass looks like the only one I could see playing and testing out but still needs some tweaking.

Shame as I like the concepts but mechanically feel very underwhelming. Except maybe the wizard but that still feels like it rough around the edges.

The feats on the other hand I like. Excited to play a mind flyer and love this transformation feats tree we have seen from villainous options and feel a good way to do these transformations mechanically. I'd love to see a feat tree for vampires and werecreatures in the future.

Hey, I love that we're finally getting some mindflayer love up in here! For ages I've just been homebrewing player races for them. But please for all people who love illithid's sake, don't go with the Baldur's gate 3 lore. The Absolute illithids felt like anomilies that were tampered with netherese magic, not normal at all.
If an illithid retains it's memories then the Adversay legend and all the lore of renegades being booted out due to showing signs of memories will lose its impact. Let BG3 be their own thing and build off the current mindflayer lore. I find it way more interesting than the anomilies that make up the versions depicted in BG3. Making partialism a normal thing messes with the Emperor and Illithid Karlach. Basically, the entire message of that game. It beats the whole point of the sacrifice.

If you guys love what was done with BG3 then maybe keep retaining memories rare(partialism), and it's only exceptional characters like those taking this feat that it happens to. Everyone wins, we don't have messed up lore, and we get some cool feats.

Also, that nuke that happens when it hits 0 is almost undoubtedly gonna hit allies in melee range. Doom of unlight feels almost like youre supposed to cast it on a really reckless barbarian and let them go to town knowing that if the enemy takes them out, theyre gonna be in for it. Still really weirdly designed

First impressions: Very cool flavor, and these will probably get reworked a bit through the UA process. 

• Path of Unlight: I like the mechanical idea of dealing passive damage when hit, and I think that helps distinguish this from the Path of the Zealot. I'd need to play it at the table to see how it comes out in practice, but I could see 2 radiant damage per hit (and you have resistance to their damage) either being decent or underpowered. At low levels I could actually see it working out okay, where you're taking 5-10 damage, resisting half of it, and then dealing 2-4 right back. But I don't think it would scale well at higher tiers, where you might take 30-40 damage and only deal back 10 or so. Maybe keep that passive effect as-is, but then add either a little bit of extra radiant damage when you hit, or like an AoE reaction that weakens or blinds enemies in your Bright Light.
• House Agent: This works great when you're dealing with humanoids, but does end up being kind of situational when you're dealing with monsters that you can't charm or influence. Adding a little something extra with your spider familiar could be interesting and help House Agent stand out from not just Arcane Trickster but also Pact of the Chain Warlocks. 
• Imaskarcanist: Very interesting territory for your Wizard. Between the radiant damage and the healing/buffs for allies, I feel like an Imarskarcanist could be a decent stand-in for a cleric. The numbers on Unlight Invigoration and Unlight Restoration do feel a little underwhelming, but maybe making it the value of the expended hit point dice + intelligence modifier or wizard level would be a good fix (or giving you more ways to recover them, as another commenter suggested). Doom of Unlight is really cool; I can't think of another subclass or ability that works by overpowering your enemies like this. Pair this with some battlefield control spells and help from your allies (like pinning them in place with Slow and Push weapon masteries or Spike Growth/Web, etc.) and they're a ticking time bomb that could take out a bunch of enemies. There's some great risk/reward tactics with Doom of Unlight (and the whole subclass, really) and to me it just seems like a matter of getting the right balance. Hopefully the UA process will help fine tune this one!
• Ceremorphosis: I love everything about this. Only thing I might suggest is another feat or option that plays around with Intellect Devourers. They're such an iconic duo with Mind Flayers. Even if it was a special "familiar" statblock instead of the Monster Manual version, something like that would be a lot of fun.

The Unlight barbarian feels very undercooked. If the level 3 feature also included imbuing your melee attack with Unlight for extra Radiant damage, it would be more appealing. Blindsight at lvl 6 feels very underwhelming compared to abilities like Branches of the Tree (World Tree) or Elemental Cleaver (Giant); the Perception expertise is basically a ribbon. Causing enemies equal to your PB to burn within the radius of your light would be more interesting. 

Barbarians want to dish out damage, let the Unlight burn!

Quote from Sarigar >>

Causing enemies equal to your PB to burn within the radius of your light would be more interesting. 

 I second this! You get the 20ft Bright Light emanation right at level 3, but then it only becomes directly useful at level 14 when you can blind everybody. I feel like some little effect that deals some extra damage or inflicts a condition on people in the Bright Light would help tie the whole subclass together mechanically. (And then it could even dovetail into the Radiant Infection unlight at level 10.)

The wizard seems absolutely awesome, but the other two subclasses feel undertoned, I would recommend the barbarian of unlight to deal twice or thrice your rage damage bonus when hit, or a number of d4s equal to the rage damage bonus, but plainly the rage damage bonus feels almost like not having nothing, the rest of the abilities are cool, but I would rise the damage of the level 14 skill to 2d12+STR or Con, and then it would be pretty cool an useful to control groups of enemies.

The rogue needs to fuel up a little, the third level abilities are cool as hell and i really want to try the subclass, but it leaves little to do in combat and aren't as strong, you could add an extra ability to use in combat, or, which I would preffer, buff the already existing ones, maybe you always influence with advantage, and surely the extra proficiency should give expertise in that ability too. The spells of the insignia are cool, but quickly and easily wasted, a certain number of uses per spell, like charisma modifier, or replenish them in a short rest, would make wonders too. I would also add the familiar sight connection expand to 1000, or even only to 200 ft, but at least a little more with the level 13 ability. Finally, an extra cunning strike option in level 9 and 17 will do wonders.

This is an upgrade that the soul knife needs 

I agree with the sentiment coming from everyone else, flavor is great, subclasses bad, mind flayer good. My only complaint about these new path concepts that you guys are exploring is the fact that they are feat trees. Players are already so starved for feats that tying these transformations to feats really inhibits builds.

Of course if your DM is cool there is always the option of having these paths be reworked and done as separate from feats and as we collect more paths then there are more options for players at the table to consider, but you should really look at how Grim Hollow handled their cursed transformations and consider something like that for these paths moving forward.

I understand feat trees are easier and would be accepted at more tables than cursed transformations as done by grim hollow, but if I was a player or the GM and had a player character be infected with lycanthropy I would imagine rules more akin to cursed transformations than expecting a player to be forced to take a feat at 4th level+ to gain the effects of Lycanthropy or if they in character where going through the steps to become a lich etc.

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.

Honestly the Flavor behind these are amazing, the execution and power on the other hand feel meh. Also hoping to see some Faerzress themed subclasses if we are going to the underdark. 

I'm loving the mindflayer feats. One suggestion is at full ceremophosis they should gain the disguise self spell to cast once per day for free or via proficiency bonus (this should be not part of the ilithid spells but by default). Would allow for avoiding any rp issues in the long run. Also write in a need for brains once a month.

Conceptually fantastic, in execution underwhelming. I love the underdark, when i'm a player, i play drow. These subclass features don't do them justice. The wizard doesn't make sense flavor wise. It feels like a reskin of the celestial warlock with extra spells. I want to see more underdark options, especially if they include bregan d'aerthe, but i want them to have something good and unique for mechanics. The rogue subclass is the strongest contender, but it could do more. It doesn't have enough features to it to give it a real distinguishing shine when the parts are all there in Salvatore's books. I'm not big on martials, so I can't say much in the way of the barbarian class, I don't play those in general.

If you're going to give me underdark options, drow options, bregan d'earthe options, don't do me dirty.

Would Jarlaxle look at this and give the go ahead? Come on. You can do us better. You're on the right track, don't discard the concept, you can strengthen these into solid subclasses.

Gotta agree with everyone else and say that this is all flavor and very little substance

I think it would be pretty cool if you added a playable mind Flayer species. 

My comments from Youtube:

Path of Unlight: Radiant Rage needs to be paired with more damage mitigation. Maybe the damage to the Barbarian is reduced by the same amount.

Radiant infection needs either a damage buff or a stronger saving throw.

Brilliant Rage is really weak for level 14. A wizard at that level can cast and upcast Fireball 10 times at that level before a long rest and that's not even their strongest spell. Also, it then has to compete with even stronger spells at higher levels.

House Agent Rogue. First, the Find Familiar benefit feels really bad to read. You start with hype around getting the Find Familiar spell, then a sort of half good with the FIRST cost, and then bad by saying you can only pick a Spider. Im fine with just a Spider but the wording is a bad choice because it goes from a good to a bad instead of just nixing the whole thing and just starting and finishing strong with the spider familiar.

For the same feature, the Friends cantrip needs a buff. Maybe give it a number of castings equal to your Charisma Modifier that work even against an enemy. It already eats the Rogue's action to use. Maybe make it a Bonus Action. Or do the CHA Modifier castings for the other spells. Otherwise, the rest of the subclass' features are basically dependent on other character providing the Charmed condition.

Put Silver Tongue at level 9. Itll get more use.

Confound is solid I think since it consistently gives Charmed. Maybe buff it to be at disadvantage to end the effect or maybe swutch it to an Intelligence saving throw since the DC to the Influence action is a creature's Intelligence.

As mentioned above, some of the additional riders should be earlier for the Friends Cantrip. The amnesiac effect could be level 13.

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.

Secrets of Deep Imaskar kind of casually gives Radiant resistance plus a bunch of other bonuses while the Barbarian at the same levels gets only that. Imaskar Seal is much more potent than the Barbarian's Radiant Infection. Also, the Imaskar Seal feels like something a Ranger should get.

Doom of Unlight solidifies to me this should be a Sorcerer. Subtle spell would make this hilarious against a random enemy in a crowd. Just needs a little tweaking as a sorcerer.