Speculation: Next week, or in three weeks, we'll see a special Unearthed Arcana

[jaappleton]

Follow my logic:

In an interview back in June, Mike Mearls had an interview alongside the developers of Baldur's Gate 3. They spoke about how the Ranger in the PHB doesn't translate well at all to the video game; DM dependent features, etc. And Mearls agreed, and stated that over this past summer, we'd see a playtest for tabletop of alternative Ranger features.

Interview here: https://kotaku.com/the-ranger-class-...-ba-1835659585

People took to Twitter to get a comment about this, and Jeremy Crawford responded: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/...939884544?s=20

Now, obviously, summer is over. Its October 10th as I write this. Why didn't we see the Ranger material? A little known thing happened... Unfortunately, JC had a death in the family, and took some time off over the summer. Understandable, of course.

I surmise the Ranger stuff was understandably delayed due to what happened, and that it is going to be released as part of the recent UA that's been getting released every two weeks.

We've seen a UA subclass on every class thus far, except three: Fighter, Ranger, Rogue.

My hunch tells me that the next will be Fighter and Rogue, with the final UA being a new Ranger conclave as well as the alternative Ranger features for playtest.

Now, Ranger could happen first (next week) or the last one (three weeks from now). I'd guess it'd be the last UA released as part of this run, barring some sort of "Revised Subclasses UA", which would be a new pass of some previously released ones.

[jaappleton]

Either today or tomorrow we should see a UA, based on past scheduling.

My apologies, but if I'm correct, I will absolutely be taking my victory lap

[Waterdeep Merch]

I'm all for it. I'm still not sure why we're suddenly getting flooded by UA again, but it's nice to see.

Any idea what project this is all for? Maybe something like a Xanathar's 2?

[jaappleton]

I'm all for it. I'm still not sure why we're suddenly getting flooded by UA again, but it's nice to see.

Any idea what project this is all for? Maybe something like a Xanathar's 2?

I have some ideas. I'm all about speculation, and while some of my opinions are... "informed"... This is purely speculation.

I think these are to accompany a campaign book. XGtE had us playtesting 2-3 archetypes per class leading up to it. This round of UA has been one archetype per class.

They've released two archetypes with the Ravnica book, Circle of Spores and Order Domain. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see WOTC put more archetypes into campaign books like Ravnica because that way, it gets players to also purchase the book as opposed to mostly just DMs. Purely speculative on my part.

[Waterdeep Merch]

That was my thought with the first set, but by now I'm not sure. These don't really feel like any setting that currently exists.

But maybe that's the point. I remember rumblings right before Eberron's announcement that they wanted to make an original 5e setting. Perhaps this is that lead up.

[Daphne]

I think we will get three subclasses this week, one for each remaining class.

I think these are to accompany a campaign book. XGtE had us playtesting 2-3 archetypes per class leading up to it. This round of UA has been one archetype per class

We don't know yet how many subclasses they will release in UA, right now it's pretty similar to XGE playtest: one subclass for two or three different classes.

[jaappleton]

I think we will get three subclasses this week, one for each remaining class.




We don't know yet how many subclasses they will release in UA, right now it's pretty similar to XGE playtest: one subclass for two or three different classes.

The one you linked to was an anomaly in their scheduling. The UAs were released as UA: Monk, UA: Cleric, UA: Druid, etc and each had two or three subclasses.

Wizard and Warlock were combined, and that's what gave us the Lore Wizard. In an article similar to yours, we got War Wizard.

[Beechgnome]

Is it too simplistic to think these new subclasses will lead to a manual of planes book?

I'm also seeing opposites here:

Fire Druid, Water Warlock;
Fey Barbarian, Ethereal/shadow Cleric;
Logical (Mechanus) Bard, Primal (Ysgard?) Paladin
Astral Monk, Far realm Warlock.

[Kane0]

Tell you what, it's really nice having an 'in' like jaappleton around.

[jaappleton]

I expect this weeks UA to drop tomorrow. Remember Monday was a holiday!

[LordEntrails]

I think this week's UA will actually be a feature length movie! I know there have been no reports that filming has even started (or crew selected) but I think it's all been a ploy. Instead of months of marketing hype, they are just going to release it with no notice or warning and it will take the world by storm!

err, well, if not that, then jappleton's speculation seems reasonable :)

[Mongobear]

It would be cool to get a "fixed" Revised Ranger that's balances things a bit better, and accounts for all of the current Conclaves. It's been what, like 2-3 years since it was originally released?

[Kane0]

I wonder how many years it will take before they have the guts to just tear the heart out rather than tweaking here and errataing there. Ditto for sorcerer really.

[Seclora]

It's funny, I was just thinking earlier, 'y'know it's been about two weeks since the last UA. I'll bet that one will be out this week.' Jaapleton gets all the credit for calling this though.


I'm favoring the Planes guide theory, several of these subclasses have had a definite leaning toward one plane or another so far. Fighter and Rogue seem right to me, I'm thinking upper planes rogue, lower planes fighter, so they can go against type for the rogue and make a holy sort of rogue. Maybe some kind of hellfire fighter, that would be pretty neat.

[Crgaston]

Kinda OT, but somehow I missed the thread on the 10/3/19 UA discussion, and my attempts at searching have been unsuccessful, which I attribute to my incompetence with the Advanced Search function. Was there a discussion, and if so, can someone drop a link? I'd really appreciate it.

[ImperiousLeader]

I know Fighter, Ranger and Rogue are next up in this series of UA's, but I'm hoping that we're getting another crack at Psionics. I was interested in seeing what Mearls had been cooking up in his Happy Fun Hour with relation to Psionics. And if the Fighter, Ranger and Rogue are getting Psionic subclasses, better to get Psionics first.

[Daphne]

Kinda OT, but somehow I missed the thread on the 10/3/19 UA discussion, and my attempts at searching have been unsuccessful, which I attribute to my incompetence with the Advanced Search function. Was there a discussion, and if so, can someone drop a link? I'd really appreciate it.

Default Cleric / Druid / Wizard UA Released.

[Crgaston]

Default Cleric / Druid / Wizard UA Released.

Thank you!

[jaappleton]

Todays UA is Fighter, Ranger and Rogue together.

Already made a new topic.

[jaappleton]

So.....

Called it?

I'll mark this down as half credit.

[Sparky McDibben]

Or you might get full credit. Be nifty if they released a second Revised Ranger as the next UA playtest in a couple weeks.

[Rukelnikov]

So.....

Called it?

I'll mark this down as half credit.

Yeah, you pretty much called it, you full called it if next week or 2 from now there's an ACF general UA