Unearthed Arcana 11/4

[BarneyBent]

Does Spirit Guardians work with Find Steed's double-self casting effect? I want to say the answer was no but I forget why.

You can’t be affected by two of the same spell effects. However, in such a situation, you experience the stronger spell effect, so it would arguably give you “advantage” on damage rolls. Given that the variance on 3d8 is pretty low it will have a fairly small effect on total damage but still useful.

Edit: crunched the numbers and it would boost the damage from 13.5 to an average of 15.75, a boost of about 17%. Nothing to sneeze at, especially given it applies to potentially every damage roll. Upcasting would increase the raw bonus but it would be a smaller bonus relative to the base average.

Probably most useful is it becomes really difficult to roll damage lower than a 7 or 8, so you know that each turn you’re going to do something that will hurt. Definitely a power boost, more than I expected.

[bronzemountain]

I can finally play a monk with a rapier without having to be a kensei and I can play an unarmed barbarian without multiclassing.

I am very cool with it all.

Now if they would just make a duelist class or subclass.

Wow! Drunken Master monk with a rapier suddenly becomes an all time great swashbuckler/duelist. Good AC, fast attacks (flurry), stunning flourishes, parries that divert attacks onto your enemies, fast and light on your feet, running up walls onto chandeliers, balancing on railings. And ethereal projection, like swashbucklers have always done.

Okay, maybe not that last part. But it's really really awesome and lets you dodge some of the 'why is this wuxia movie in my gothic fantasy' issues that some people encounter.

[Sindal]

I'd make it once per day instead of Wis-based and have it scale like you're saying. 8-24 hour no concentration Hunter's Mark sounds pretty decent to me.

Oh right!
If the spell lasts for 8 hours, you can just use your bonus action to move it to instead of 're' casting it.

That makes sense.

[Millstone85]

I mean - sure, everyone's worrying about Monk Weapons and how they make Kensei pointless, but do consider that their weapons become magical AND get an enhancement bonus, plus it's still the best way to do Zen Archery (particularly now that they have Distant Eye.

All good points. I may have gone "No, my kensei!" too soon.

[jaappleton]

Couple things:

The new Ranger fighting style, Druidic Warrior, forgoes normal fighting style bonuses in lieu of granting access to Druid cantrips. This means you can nab Shillelagh without spending an ASI or dipping, so you can be pretty SAD as a Ranger with a Quarterstaff and still have an OK ranged option via another cantrip.

Clerics Blessed Strikes isn’t quite as good as you may think for weapon attacks: Divine Strike scales at both lv8 and lv14, but Blessed Strikes is a boost only at level 8. Still a solid option for Domains that DO get Divine Strike that want to use Cantrips as opposed to weapons, but not vice-versa.

Ranger can now cast Hunter’s Mark, not requiring Concentration. Barbarians can’t cast spells while Raging, and can’t Concentrate while Raging. But they can use stuff like Armor of Agathys by casting it before Raging. Now they can cast Hunter’s Mark if they dip Ranger, and use it in a similar way. And.... I think they can even more HM as a bonus action because it’s not casting it at that point. They can cast HM, then Rage the following turn and be able to move HM on subsequent bonus actions.

[Dork_Forge]

Couple things:

The new Ranger fighting style, Druidic Warrior, forgoes normal fighting style bonuses in lieu of granting access to Druid cantrips. This means you can nab Shillelagh without spending an ASI or dipping, so you can be pretty SAD as a Ranger with a Quarterstaff and still have an OK ranged option via another cantrip.

Clerics Blessed Strikes isn’t quite as good as you may think for weapon attacks: Divine Strike scales at both lv8 and lv14, but Blessed Strikes is a boost only at level 8. Still a solid option for Domains that DO get Divine Strike that want to use Cantrips as opposed to weapons, but not vice-versa.

Ranger can now cast Hunter’s Mark, not requiring Concentration. Barbarians can’t cast spells while Raging, and can’t Concentrate while Raging. But they can use stuff like Armor of Agathys by casting it before Raging. Now they can cast Hunter’s Mark if they dip Ranger, and use it in a similar way. And.... I think they can even more HM as a bonus action because it’s not casting it at that point. They can cast HM, then Rage the following turn and be able to move HM on subsequent bonus actions.

Blessed Strikes doesn't scale, but it does now apply that bonus damage to ALL damaging spells instead of just cantrips.

[Sindal]

Wait.
The rangers current capstone applies to favoured enemies only. If you dont have a favoured enemy, how does it work?

Does it trigger on hunters mark enemies?

[Damon_Tor]

I think that it would be d6+d4+Str as grappling requires one hand free then that hand would then be in use.

There are edge cases, like the simic hybrid or the loxodon, which can grapple without using their hands.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Wait.
The rangers current capstone applies to favoured enemies only. If you dont have a favoured enemy, how does it work?

Does it trigger on hunters mark enemies?

It says that favoured foe is replacing favoured enemy.

If it replaced it in one place it should replace it in the other because the original exist no more.

[Willie the Duck]

Is there a reason the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster dont get spell versatility? It seems weird.

EKs/ATs don't often come up in discussions of things that really need fixing. The core philosophy of letting people more freely swap something out for something of identical power/utility should hold, but it's understandable that the specific subclasses slipped people's minds.

I agree that the likely explanation is it wasn’t thought of/considered high priority. But along with this:

...But yeah, some spell swaps don't make sense. You can argue that Clerics get Smite spells for Forge, Tempest and War Clerics to have fun, but that's what Domain spells are for.

Points out that I think that they went about this backwards. Mind you, I like a lot of what I see here, but they could have simply called the whole thing a general optional rules update and then made updates wherever they thought worked best, rather than almost exclusively put them into base class revisions (plus maneuvers and invocations). The new cleric spells that really should be updated domain spells for Forge/Tempest/War? Yes, they should have just updated those domains. EKs and ATs not getting spell versatility? They probably could have gotten by with a single entry about spell swapping (with a little wordsmithing for the nuances between classes) and not needed to make a separate entry for each class (and thus omitted or forgotten a few). Everyone realized that thrown weapons were barely tolerable because of the difficulty in drawing them? You could make a fighting style to fix it or just update the rules on thrown weapons, and the choice of the later really seems like a decision based around the type of fix they decided they were doing.

Eldritch Armour sounds great except that Bladelocks already have way too many invocations they want to use.

I generally agree, except that ‘you have all the options in the world, and never enough selections to do everything you want’ seems to sum up the Warlock design ethos, so this at least fits.

[Ravinsild]

Pact of the Talisman is right after the Invocations. Your patron grants you a talisman that you can wear or give away. Whoever wears it, adds 1d4 to any unproficient ability check. Pretty cool and a nice, neutral rp choice for those that don't want swords or imps or be a bookworm type.

Yeah it really helps the "class fantasy" of having a support type Warlock, especially those who love to go Celestial. You can really be like an alt-cleric at that point.

[xp3ngu1nkn1gh7x]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

[jaappleton]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

Shadow Monk's spells, and Four Elements spells.

[jas61292]

Shadow Monk's spells, and Four Elements spells.

While I'm not a fan of most of the features here that are just bonuses, this is actually one I really like because of how it buffs Four Elements Monks. I recently had a fellow player play one, and their biggest complaint was this. Not that the spells cost too much, but that by casting them, you forgo your bonus action stuff. With this, Four Elements Monks are now much closer to parity with the other subclasses.

[jaappleton]

While I'm not a fan of most of the features here that are just bonuses, this is actually one I really like because of how it buffs Four Elements Monks. I recently had a fellow player play one, and their biggest complaint was this. Not that the spells cost too much, but that by casting them, you forgo your bonus action stuff. With this, Four Elements Monks are now much closer to parity with the other subclasses.

Hard agree.

Its an excellent way to fix a major issue with 4 Elements.

[Daphne]

What if some of the enhancements are just playtest of possible subclass features?

[Dork_Forge]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

Four Element and Shadow's spells, Empty Body, triggering Quivering Palm, the new healing ability (which is why I think people are underestimating it), Sun Soul Spells, Long Death's capstone. It is a pretty significant boost depending what subclass you are (and a decent one in general).

[Hytheter]

I think I’m missing how Ki-Fueled Strike is supposed to work. It says if you spend a ki point as part of your action and you can unarmed strike as a bonus action. What ki feature uses an action? Most of them let you do something as a bonus action so it wouldn’t allow for the attack right? Help me out because I know I’m missing something 😅.

The new quickened healing feature, for one. Beyond that there's subclass features like Shadow Arts, various Four Elements powers, Wholeness of Body and such. There's also edge cases like if you use an action which allows an attack but isn't the attack action - for example, Booming Blade - or if you're using the attack action but for some reason not using a monk weapon, you can use Stunning Strike or Kensei's Deft Strike to trigger the bonus punch.

edit: got ninja'd hard.

[Ravinsild]

I just want to say I love the direction they are taking the Ranger. It feels really good.

I think that Favored Foe, Deft Explorer and Primal Awareness in addition to the ability to change 1 spell per long rest makes them feel like a nature themed primal class but it also gives them what I think the class fantasy of the Ranger is, which is adaptability and versatility. They are now far better able to adapt to the situation at hand.

- Expertise in Survival, or Stealth or what-have-you depending on how you want to play it allows for more customizability
- Climbing and/or Swimming speed I feel impacts the exploration part of the game without just hand-waving it. You can climb better than any PC now, or swim, and you can get to where others cannot as easily.
- The ability to just be tough makes for a valuable front line tank as well as unable to get tired, that speaks of natural resilience, I love this.
- The ability to swap a spell per long rest really alleviates some of the Rangers issues and allows them to better adapt and prepare for the day ahead, I love this.

In addition to all of the above the free spells they gave Ranger loosens up what spells they're now able to take. Since Hunter's Mark is baked into Favored Foe you can now more easily pick a flavorful spell, plus Primal Awareness gives a ton of free spells and all of these cast be cast without expending a spell slot a number of times per day, which allows room for different types of spells like support spells, and really helps flavor out the Ranger. I feel before every Ranger basically, essentially, took the same few spells over and over and over.

I think the spells specifically given to Primal Awareness really do what it did anyway but better in some cases and with a more versatile function. I just love it.

They really feel like a FIGHTER + DRUID now, which I think is a huge win.

I feel like Melee Rangers saw some love here with enhanced tanking ability and even smite spells, the Ranged variants continue to stay strong, and overall things like Entangle and such feel like they have some "trap" spells and features.

I think they nailed it. I would only ask for perhaps scaling on Favored Foe, as well as possibly reworking the Capstone. Not to mention I feel like these additional options (including Fighting Style) really adds a ton of flavor and additional ways to play a Ranger from a hand-axe throwing Half-Orc, to a more druid-like Ranger (the cantrips fighting style feels really cool).

The only thing I’d love to see is a retroactive addition of bonus spells to Hunter and Beast Master to reach parity with the other subclasses.

[GlenSmash!]

I meant without having to multiclassing monk.
Fighter 1, Barbarian x is on the way.

So Ranger 1 is now a Frenzy Barbarian's must-have. Did not see that coming.

Forget the coffee locks, RANGER FRENZY BARBARIANS!
...
Still have their main feature made pseudo-redundant by PAM.

But at least it's not terribad once they... MC into Ranger.

Ranger can now cast Hunter’s Mark, not requiring Concentration. Barbarians can’t cast spells while Raging, and can’t Concentrate while Raging. But they can use stuff like Armor of Agathys by casting it before Raging. Now they can cast Hunter’s Mark if they dip Ranger, and use it in a similar way. And.... I think they can even more HM as a bonus action because it’s not casting it at that point. They can cast HM, then Rage the following turn and be able to move HM on subsequent bonus actions.

Yup. I'm planning my Ranger 2(Tireless, Hunter's Mark, Unarmed Fighting Style)/Berserker right now. Frenzy becomes a once per short rest ability, THP is even better with Rage and I'll punch like a Madman with Rage damage and Hunter's Mark damage.

This is the Wilderness Warrior I've always wanted to play.

[Scarytincan]

triggering Quivering Palm,

Wholeness of Body and such.

Neither of these actually cost ki during said action, though I would personally rule it allowed anyway. I did overlook the new healing one triggering it tho, but personally I'd probably only really use that on a short rest anyway. Still good to note however...

[Garresh]

So for beasts of earth and air, do they get (con + wis + 5) x ranger level, or is it con + wis +(5 x ranger level)?

Also, I'm totally giving a ranger player in a game I'm DMing revised ranger AND this together. She's new and we got a few players running optimized sharpshooters, so I'm okay with a little bit of OP since she's not multiclassing.

[Mehangel]

I have for a long time believed that spellcasting paladins should have access to 1-2 cleric cantrips, and spellcasting rangers should have access to 1-2 druid cantrips. I am so glad that this UA rectifies that.

[Lupine]

Have to say, I really don't like what they did with the favored foe. Hunter's mark is decent, I guess, but I'd much rather they simply allow the ranger to change their favored enemy on a long or short rest. (For their text: "This would be representative of the ranger taking the time to study the enemy before the fight, and preparing to focus on that creature's weakness")

The rest of the ranger is good.

[KorvinStarmast]

RANGERS HUNTER’S MARK DOES NOT REQUIRE CONCENTRATION!

Wow. Wow that’s.... Alrighty! Not gonna complain about that!

While I like that, I wonder what exploits that opens up. Can't dig around with this until the weekend, but I do like this.

Oh, everyone got Spell Versatility and that applies to cantrips as well. Isn't that kind of against all the things the designers used to say about cantrips "being fixed in your mind from years of training"?

Yes. I am pretty sure that I don't like this, but I think this may have been done to mitigate people falling into the Witch Bolt trap, etc. But oer al, it's bloat that isn't necessary. (But how about they fix witch bolt instead?)

This looks more like a "Here's some ideas for 5.5" than class feature variants.

Yes, it does.

Ranger spells added includes Aid in the 1st level spell list. Must be a typo / mistake.

Yes.

Whoa, way more power creep than I would have expected.

Yes, but I wonder if every edition of D&D is doomed to fall into that trap?

[Reevh]

I like a lot of the things in there, especially the ability to trade out cantrips.

But Paladins getting Spirit Guardians? What the hell are they thinking?

[Protolisk]

For those wondering if the Ranger's capstone still works if you switch to Favored Foe, the answer was likely yes.

Favored foe: "You can call on your bond with nature to mark a creature as your favored enemy for a time: you know the hunter’s mark spell..."

Foe Slayer: "Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies."

RAW is muddy as it isn't explicit, but RAI, yes, the hunter's marked enemy "should" be a favored enemy, and thus counts. If this comes to print (which i hope it does, to be honest, I like virtually everything I see), they should clarify this.

Perhaps the only way this became a slight nerf: before you could always do Foe Slayer on any of your favored enemies. Now, it's solely a Hunter's Mark buff. Still, it's level 20, and was barely worth much to start with. But since Hunter's Mark is concentrationless now, its a give and take.

I like a lot of the things in there, especially the ability to trade out cantrips.

But Paladins getting Spirit Guardians? What the hell are they thinking?

Oath of the Crown Paladins already had it, at no cost tho their spells known no less. What were they thinking then?

Similarly, Golgari Warlocks with Animate Dead, before this gave it to all of them. Although they could have an army of undead, the actual logistics of it probably wouldn't fly anyway.

Further, this brings to mind a few issues I have that they didn't touch on. If choices that used to be immutable completely, like Fighting Styles and Cantrips, or mostly immutable for only on level up, like Spells for "known" casters, I wonder if that means they'd be more open to adding Metamagic to be less immutable. Changing on level up at least, though a long rest swap doesn't seem too entirely out of place.

Lastly, with the thought of Warlocks just flat getting spells to their spell list that were on their subclasses expanded lists, I wonder if they'll change the way Warlocks work from their subclass spells, too. To my knowledge, all sources of extra spells are actually extra spells, and not just "expanded" options. Cleric domains, Paladin oaths, Ranger magic from subclasses (and the new version of Primal Awareness spells), Land Druid circle spells, they outright make them not count as spells known/prepared. Why is Warlock left out the loop? With the fact that Greater Invisibility could be added to the standard list, it being on the Archfey's "expanded" list is now a dud.

[Damon_Tor]

My Thoughts on the fighter so far:

Brace: Excellent, probably going to be triggered much more often than Riposte and thus far more valuable. Note the movement doesn't have to be willing, and falling would count. I think the intention of the rule is when an enemy, who is not within 5 feet of you, moves so that he is within 5 feet of you, but that's not what it actually says. Any movement of a creature within 5 feet of you would trigger this ability, including trying to move around you. And as noted, the movement doesn't have to be willing, so you can trigger this yourself by grabbing the guy and dragging him 5 feet. So for the right build this is just a free attack. They need to tighten up the wording.
Restraining Strike: Wow, okay. Remember what I said about being able to trigger the Brace attack yourself with a grapple before? Also, this is a straight improvement on both Brawler and Grappler as feats, replacing them both on a grappling build. In addition to the fighting style (and I'll get to that) it looks like the grappling fighter is straight up the correct way to fighter now. Note: the bonus action occurs "immediately after you hit" not "immediately after you take the attack action" which means you can ABSOLUTELY use this after the first attack and before the second.
Snipe: Straight up bonus action ranged attack with bonus damage. Damn, that's... that's pretty strong. Too bad the grappler can't really make good use of this. Oh wait, he can, can't he? Grapple one guy as a human shield then while he struggles throw spears at his pals. Ahahaha, okay, that's pretty great.
Blind Fighting: Pretty niche, but a great way to have consistent advantage using smoke clouds as cover. You've got to build around it (or have a wizard pal willing to cast pyrotechnics for you all the time) but if you do it's very strong.
Interception: There's no limit on how many people with this fighting style can use it to reduce the damage from one attack. And interestingly, the fighter can absolutely use it to protect himself. So if a line of fighters are standing shoulder to shoulder in a phalanx formation, a fighter that gets attacked can use his own reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10+proficiency, and each of the two guys standing to his sides can use their reactions to reduce it by another 1d10+proficiency each. It works on ranged attacks and melee attacks, spell attacks and weapon attacks. That plus not actually needing a shield, and this is really stepping pretty hard on the toes of the protection fighting style, to the point where I think it's pretty clear this is intended to replace it.
Thrown Weapon Fighting: I want to love it. I don't. It doesn't fix enough of the core problems with throwing as a fighting style. Drawing the weapon as a part of the attack is just a band-aid for the worst part of the mechanics, and the +1 to damage is just not enough to make up for the problems with attempting to make throwing your "thing".
Unarmed Fighting: The unarmed damage: who cares? Monks dipping fighter to get (much) better damage dice is... well, it's a terrible situation they've set up with this, but a fighter isn't likely to care because a fighter has no incentive to use his unarmed strikes. So for a fighter this is just a ribbon. The real ability to take note of is the free 1d4 damage you get on a successful grapple AND the free 1d4 damage that grapple adds to all your attacks while you're grappling that guy.

So a level 5 grappler-based battlemaster's turn looks like:

Attack 1: Swing your longsword with both hands using Menacing Attack, 1d10+1d8+Str Damage, he's afraid of you which will tank his athletic rolls to resist your grapple
Bonus Action: Grapple the guy, restraining him and dealing 1d4 damage
Attack 2: Swing your longsword with one hand and with a maneuver of your choice, 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Move 5 feet dragging the guy with you, triggering Brace as a reaction. 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Total: 1d10+5d8+3d4+4Str damage.

Pretty brutal.

[CheddarChampion]

So for beasts of earth and air, do they get (con + wis + 5) x ranger level, or is it con + wis +(5 x ranger level)?

I read it as (Con+your Wis)+(5 x ranger level).
But I think they meant (Con+your Wis+5)xranger level. That's a lot of HP.

If one of my players uses it, it will be (Con+5)x character level.

Of note, beast of air shows d6's for HD while beast of earth is d8's, but both get 5 HP per ranger level?
I'm pretty sure beast of air is supposed to have 4 HP per level, not 5.

Attack 1: Swing your longsword with both hands using Menacing Attack, 1d10+1d8+Str Damage, he's afraid of you which will tank his athletic rolls to resist your grapple
Bonus Action: Grapple the guy, restraining him and dealing 1d4 damage
Attack 2: Swing your longsword with one hand and with a maneuver of your choice, 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Move 5 feet dragging the guy with you, triggering Brace as a reaction. 2d8+1d4+Str Damage
Total: 1d10+5d8+3d4+4Str damage.

Pretty brutal.

I'd go with Disarming Attack for attack #2. If you pull it off, your target is now restrained, grappled, and doesn't have a weapon to hit you with (maybe).

[KorvinStarmast]

I have a deep hatred of power creep is my main problem.

I don't like it either. Fix bugs, don't bloat the power ...

Eldritch Armor is great because Mage Armor relies on Dex. Many Bladelocks want to be STR focused, but between Charisma, Con, Dex for AC.... not many points left to toss into Strength.

Yeah, this was all that was needed for Pact of Blade. Hex blade was never really needed, IMO. (I'll stop now)

One thing I'm glad they finally fixed was giving Planar Binding to the warlock. It always irked me that warlocks could summon demons and devils, but couldn't cast Planar Binding. It was an oversight in the original rules, so I'm glad they fixed it.

Agree.

Ranger's new companion can take an action using their bonus action, that is great! Also elementals are arguably as cool or cooler then animals.

Aye.

I can see this turning into a Player's Handbook 2,

Please, no, not that.

Barbarian: Don't get too much; a shame because Path of the Berserker needs some love.

Still do.

Bard:

Didn't need any boosts, honestly. They are fine as is.

Cleric: Wall of Light, yay!

My other comments on clerics will have to wait for this weekend.

Druid: Wild Companion expands, rather than replaces, Wild Shape? Are we going with the "bear riding a bear while summoning a bear cavalry" thing again?

Hey, why not?

Fighter Battlemaster: Yep, WotC realized that Battlemaster needs some love. Personally, I like the options

At first blush so do I, but I need to fiddle around with this a little bit ...

Monk:

No comments.

Paladin:

Verdict: Hallelujah! Hosanna in the heavens, for the Warriors of Light are now the most badass ever!

Yeah, but did they need it? I guess this move maybe is to convince more paladins to play the good guy ... not sure.

Ranger: ...Wow. Ranger got some love.

Yes, and I'll comment later .. but some good things happened there.

Rogue: What, only one thing? Wait, you can get Sneak Attack for free now!? Oh boy.
Verdict: Simple, easy and to the point.

ROgue didn't need much change, IMO.

Warlock: Pact of the Tome now has two Truename apps (one full of Death Pacts and the other one basically acting like WhatsApp)
I'mma get an iBook of Shadows and give it the SendChat and Anti-Death Note apps.

Yes, I like those Tome Lock features but they do cost an invocation ...

Wizard: Just four spells!? That said, they get basically all needed divination spells, so it's more fun for those few (...heh...) Diviners out there.
Verdict: I was a Diviner before it was cool.

WIzards didn't need anything.

I like some of the ideas here, and a few I think are looking overdue, but for the most part, these are not class feature variants, as the title suggests. Instead, it's mostly power creep buffs.

Yep.

Wow! Drunken Master monk with a rapier suddenly becomes an all time great swashbuckler/duelist.

Could be fun. Inigo Montoya has finally arrived.

they could have simply called the whole thing a general optional rules update and then made updates wherever they thought worked best, rather than almost exclusively put them into base class revisions (plus maneuvers and invocations).

They threw a lot of spaghetti noodles at the wall. A few of them stick, but a lot of them need to be swept up off the floor and discarded.

Oh, wait, the dog's eaten them.