So, spoiler alert here. I'm talking about what is, I think, the resolution to the plot in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. It also involves a villain with a rather famous voice actor (which probably just gave that away) and is a really big moment when the stakes and plot of Baldur's Gate 3 start to truly come into focus.
Spoilers ahead:
So, my taste in fantasy tends toward the "all in" variety. I don't like pussyfooting around, and want to see all the crazy, outlandish, big things I can.
DMing in D&D is half designing a game and half cultivating a story. I think it works best when it's a collaborative effort with your players - in the midst of my 3+ year Ravnica campaign, I actually kind of wish I had made it more player-driven rather than having a very clear structure from the get-go, and I'm planning to open things up a lot, making things more improvisational, when we hit tier four, which is probably happening in a month or two (or at least within a four to eight sessions).
I'm in "Act Two" of Baldur's Gate 3, and while there is surely some stuff to be done in the "Mountain Pass" region, even after I pretty resoundingly got Lae'zel off of team Vlaakith and on team "screw that lich queen" I think there's more to do in that creche. But most of my focus has been in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, where the figure Ketheric Thorm is being built up as a really important villain.
The Shadow Curse has left this region blighted by the planar influence of the Shadowfell. There's undead everywhere, as well as a mystical darkness that does nasty things to you if you don't have a light source nearby (thankfully the event that happened after I got the buff that let me ignore this turned out pretty well for me, combat-wise, with I believe not a single Harper dying in the attack - my roommate told me that on his playthrough, things went way, way worse).
This region of the game, analogous to the previously-explored coastal area near the Nautiloid or the Underdark region, is spooky as hell. In particular, when you go into a town (which needs its own special buff) that was ruined by the shadow curse, things feel very horror-themed.
This is still on the Prime Material Plane, but the source of the curse is a kind of planar connection to the Shadowfell. And it got me thinking: what, really, is the difference between setting this where it is versus just having us go to the Shadowfell?
And that's sort of an inconsistency in D&D - but one that I don't think is a flaw.
Planescape, which we're getting a setting box set for next month (and I'm crossing my fingers that "box set" does not make it a disappointment like the Spelljammer one was) is premised on the notion that people live amongst the planes - particularly in the Outer Planes. There's a sort of meeting of the strange and the mundane. Mortals live on, say, Mount Celestia, not as an afterlife but as a kind of hometown. Indeed, they actually do return to those planes as "petitioners" when they do die, and the afterlife, and beings like celestials and fiends are all fairly normal and familiar to them.
Likewise, the Shadowfell can be a place where people just live their lives. Even the Domains of Dread (the setting for Ravenloft) have people who just, you know, live there, despite these being places adrift in the Shadowfell that operate on pure nightmare logic (it's not clear to me to what extent WotC is still interested in non-Ravenloft parts of the Shadowfell - the 'plane of shadow' from pre-4E was more of a dark mirror to the prime material plane, while Ravenloft as currently conceived isn't necessarily a direct reflection of the material, and is more these little pocket realities).
But you can approach this a different way, as it seems BG3 does. In this case, the Shadowfell is a place of such profound power that we don't really have to visit it to feel swept up in it. Granted, we do see Halsin enter the Shadowfell and then return, and I believe we will actually go to it when progressing Shadowheart's quest. But so far, much of what I'd expect to see in the Shadowfell has already presented itself in the town around Moonrise Towers.
I've encountered two of Ketheric Thorm's family members (descendants, I think) who are profoundly over-the-top spooky, like something that would make sense to be in Halloween Town from Nightmare Before Christmas if they toned down the explicit violence a bit (I'm a little sad I biffed the performance checks to impress the bartender built like a World of Warcraft Abomination - I wonder if we could have had a friendly interaction).
Still, again, I think this inconsistency is just what allows you to run the game as you see fit. The Shadowfell is kind of a curious and interesting addition to the lore (as of 4E) as it could easily be the worst place your players ever go, or it could be relatively safe and comfortable compared to the Lower Planes. Or, it could hang mysteriously as an influence rather than a destination. You could have one campaign in which the players enter the Shadowfell in the early levels, or even start there, but you could also have one in which the entire plot is built around some evil villain trying to open a gateway to the Shadowfell and to summon forth the monstrous things from within.
The stakes of it are just what's needed for the story you want to tell.
When I first heard about Alan Wake, I was intrigued - a rather modest name for a video game, but one that centered on a writer caught in a nightmare of shadow-people. Still, I didn't get around to actually playing it until recently, after having gotten through Control, which is one of my favorite games of all time (though for the love of Ahti, why can't we get a New Game + or at least a second save file?)
Alan Wake draws clear inspiration from Stephen King, but not just in the sense that it's, well, modern American horror, but also in King's ideas about the strange way that perception and storytelling can shape reality. For a recap of the original: Alan Wake is a novelist (who writes hardboiled crime novels, his most popular character being Alex Casey, who is basically Max Payne but with Remedy Studios retaining the rights to the character) who is suffering from writer's block, and his wife takes him on a vacation to a place called Bright Falls, where they rent a cabin for him to get away from all the distractions so he can start writing again.
But things get weird: his wife falls into Cauldron Lake, and when he dives in to rescue her, he wakes up a week later in a wrecked car. As he makes his way through Bright Falls, he's assailed by "Taken," who are people that have been infected by a strange shadow that warps them in violent menaces. Weirder still is that he starts finding pages of a manuscript he's written: a story called "Departure," which describes exactly what he is going through - though not always in order. Indeed, sometimes the pages describe things that are about to happen.
As a spoiler for the end of the game - you manage to get Alice, Alan's wife, out of the lake, but to do so Alan becomes trapped in the Dark Place, the strange other plane of existence to which the lake serves as a portal.
Nine years later, Remedy's Control has a totally different story, but the AWE expansion for that game confirmed explicitly that Jesse Faden's story takes place in the same world as Alan Wake, and that he may have even had a hand in the creation of her story and thus her reality.
Now, four years after Control, Alan Wake II is finally coming. The gameplay looks different - dialing back the action aspect of the original game in favor of more slow-paced survival horror (the original always had elements of this, with dwindling ammo supplies and flashlight batteries). The game jumps between two player characters - Alan is still stuck in the Dark Place, but rather than a nightmarish Bright Falls like in the DLCs for the first game, here it's a rain-slicked city out of a noir story... and one in which it seems Alex Casey will appear as a character (after all, Alan's writing does create new realities). The other player character is a new one, Saga Andersen, an FBI agent investigating cult murders in Watery, a town near Bright Falls (that was also mentioned as the place Ahti went on vacation halfway through Control).
Now, Control's AWE expansion implies that Alan may have written the Hiss, Jesse Faden, and possibly the entire FBC into existence in the hopes that a hero like Jesse could help save him, so I have a strong feeling that the Cult of the Tree in Alan Wake II might be part of his narrative plan.
In Alan Wake, we learn artists of any sort who are near Cauldron Lake develop this reality-shaping power. An earlier artist, the poet Thomas Zane, had a similar experience to him in the 1960s, and similarly lost his girlfriend to the lake. But Zane just quickly wrote that his girlfriend, Barbara Jagger, came back, and the Dark Place filled in the details - that she came not as herself, but as an avatar of the Dark Place (also, the name Barbara Jagger is clearly a reference to Baba Yaga, especially given that the cabin the Wakes rent, which conveniently doesn't actually exist, is called "Bird Leg Cabin.") Alan realizes that using this power requires exquisite care and caution, as the power of the Dark Place will use any opportunity to twist the intent of it. Thus, he has to write the harrowing journey of "Departure" to get Alice out, and has been working on "Return" for over a decade.
So, I think that the cult murders are part of "Return," and have to be there to place Saga near the lake, and also possibly to get the FBC and Jesse Faden involved (though the degree to which the FBC plays a role in Alan Wake II hasn't been revealed in previews - while I love the easter egg, I think this is going to be Stephen King-style connections rather than a full-on Avengers-style crossover).
Just a few observations and questions:
The Cult of the Tree might have something to do with the FBC. The FBC headquarters, The Oldest House, which is where the entirety of Control takes place, is implied to have possibly been a tree before there was a modern city surrounding it, and the tree was likely Yggdrasil of Norse Myth, or the inspiration for it, especially when you consider the "Thresholds" to other realities in the Oldest House, which could be akin to the way that one can travel the nine realms along the branches and roots of Yggdrasil. (There's even some speculation that The Service Weapon was, in a previous age, Thor's hammer Mjolnir.)
Both the fictional Alex Casey and the in-world real FBI agent who is Saga's partner (whose name I can't recall) use Remedy Studios' creative director Sam Lake as their model. Lake was the model for Max Payne back in the day (in the 90s when video game studios just used the programmers and other staff when they needed models for their games). Is it possible that this agent was written into existence - maybe as a more realistic version of Alex Casey?
There's a cheapo amusement park in Watery called Coffee World. This has to have been written into existence by Alan, whose coffee thermoses are a very 2010-video-game collectable item that does nothing except possibly get you an achievement.
Saga Andersen is an FBI agent - when she arrives in Watery, despite never having been there before, people treat her as if she has lived there for years, and that they all know her. Clearly Alan is rewriting reality, but is the original reality that she lived there or that she's an FBI agent from elsewhere?
This year has been crazy for video games - an embarrassment of riches. But I'm confident that when AWII comes out, I'll be quick to get it and play it, because I think Remedy's general aesthetic is really, really consistent with my own.
So, Bloodborne is built on an assumption: that you're going to level up pretty much just one of the four "throughput" abilities - Strength, Skill, Arcane, and Bloodtinge. But at some point, I decided that as fun as the Chikage is (basically, once you get over the fear of the constantly-draining health, it's a really powerful weapon) I wanted to try to be viable with other weapons. But I realize now that I could have either Skill or Bloodtinge up at 70 or so at this level, but instead have one in the 40s and the other in the 30s.
That said, while I struggled with Ludwig, I've been making pretty steady progress through the Old Hunters after I took him down.
Indeed, really it's the first phase of Ludwig that is the wall. I only got him to his second phase twice, securing the kill on the second time (this was not the case when I first played the game in 2016 or whenever - I also didn't know you could skip the mid-fight cutscene, so it was kind of agonizing). But so far, I think the only real "walls" I've hit have been Martyr Logarius and Ludwig - and I suspect that if I weren't champing at the bit to get my hands on the Chikage I might have held off on Logarius and leveled up some more before taking him on again.
Thankfully, I found that even going into the Paleblood phase of the game, I was still able to give Alfred the invitation to Cainhurst and get his Wheel Hunter badge.
Anyway, I believe that Logarius and Ludwig are the only bosses so far that I've needed more than two attempts on (embarrassingly, I died to the Living Failures when I got greedy for staggers and visceral attacks, but I only took two attempts for Lady Maria, which felt pretty good - I just parried her a lot, and got better about dodging at the right time - though on the last phase, I'd parry her attacks but still get hit by the fire and thus be unable to get off my visceral attacks).
Once again, I'm really finding myself wishing the game were a little more open to experimentation the way that Elden Ring, and even Dark Souls III have been - you only get two Blood Rocks the whole playthrough (the item needed to upgrade a weapon to +10) so you basically need to really commit to it, and without being able to respec, your only options to correct your build are to either grind a ton or start a new character.
If I find myself starting another character after this (which I figure will happen eventually) I do think Arcane will be the way I go - it just feels the most fun, with all the different elemental gems and Hunter's Tools, though like the Bloodtinge build, you don't have a lot of support for it through maybe half the game.
I've now got the elevator to go see the Orphan of Kos, and of course I already have Laurence's Skull, so I've really got very little left to do (though I can't seem to remember how to get the Blood Rock in the Fishing Hamlet). With Skill and Bloodtinge as my high stats, I'm thinking Simon's Bowblade will be my other maxed-out weapon.
I am, of course, only playing this while I'm using some serious cleaning chemicals in my room and can't play Baldur's Gate 3. I still haven't caught up to where I was in Early Access, but it's nice that I'm accumulating XP after having hit level 5. Can't wait to get Aura of Protection!
As recent blog posts have reinforced, I adore Bloodborne, FromSoft's Gothic/Cosmic Horror reimagining of their Demon's Souls/Dark Souls gameplay formula, which released in 2015 and is considered, I think to be one of their masterpieces (I'm personally of the opinion that, when combining gameplay and story, Elden Ring is their current crowning achievement, but it is obviously standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak).
The Ravenloft setting for D&D is very different than others. While Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance are all worlds with fantastical histories, they're still basically "real" worlds, which are bound by the logic and order of a realistic world that happens to also have magic.
The Domains of Dread, which is where Ravenloft takes place, are not.
While Ravenloft pre-dates the Shadowfell as a concept in D&D, it's never been in the Prime Material Plane (which is basically "reality a mortal is typically familiar with,") and was sort of afloat in the Ethereal Plane. Even under current lore, the Domains of Dread are a part of the Shadowfell that is separate from the main version of that plane (though as the most popular part of the Shadowfell, you don't often hear much about the rest of the Shadowfell in 5E materials). This is not our baseline reality, but it's also not the realm of the gods like the Outer Planes or the elements like the, well, elemental planes.
The Shadowfell is sort of a dark mirror of the Feywild. Both are realms that have their potential for horror - a spooky, gnarled wood that is home to curse-crafting hags could very well be part of the Feywild - but the way I see it is that the Feywild is full of supercharged emotion, while the Shadowfell is cold and drained, where motivation is sapped to become more compulsive and numb.
The Domains of Dread are specifically created by the Dark Powers - mysterious entities that could be some sinister cabal or might be unknowable eldritch beings from beyond - who pluck particularly evil people from the multiverse and create ironic prisons that are a reflection of their primary prisoners. Each domain has a Darklord, who is both the ruler of the domain and its primary prisoner, and is endlessly tormented as they seek to get their heart's desire but find those attempts thwarted. But it's not only the wicked who are tormented in these realms - the living people who inhabit the Domains, either born there or brought there through the Mists, which can reach into other planes and snatch you up, are forced to contend with these nightmare realms.
In its initial form in the early '90s, Ravenloft actually had something of a "world"-like landmass - a continent called The Core that placed all the domains of dread in geographical relation to one another. 5E's Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft gets rid of this idea, instead putting the individual domains adrift in the Mists as separate little nightmare realms. This, incidentally, is something I really prefer, and whenever I hear people complaining that the book somehow "ruined" Ravenloft, I cannot take them seriously, because I hate the idea of The Core with a passion. /End Rant.
Now, each domain is stuck in an endless cycle. The domains won't let the Darklords die, perpetuating their torment. Sometimes, a group of adventurers will have to kill a Darklord in order to escape the domain, because each Darklord has a way to "close" the Mists surrounding their domain (something I interpret as not even necessarily being a conscious choice on their part). But they will always reappear after time, and continue to perpetuate the horror within their realm.
So let's look at Yharnam.
The notion of a cycle in Yharnam is certainly right there in the story: Hunters are sent to slay Beasts in the city, but those hunters then become infected with the Curse of the Beast, becoming the next threat that needs to be hunted.
This being FromSoft, you never know all the details completely, but my basic understanding of the "modern" history of the city of Yharnam is as follows:
Scholars at the old College of Byrgenwerth discovered an ancient labyrinth underground, which held the remnants of a pre-human (or proto-human) civilization called the Pthumerians. Within the "Tomb," they found a source of blood that could be used to heal any injury or illness. What that source is remains vague - I think you could possibly imagine that it involves the unborn child of Queen Yharnam, the Pthumerians' leader, who is probably called Mergo, and is likely the child of a Great One - an eldritch being from beyond familiar reality.
Discovery of that tomb led the scholars to try to contact and learn about the Great Ones, attempting to bring about an evolution of humanity - either culturally or even physiologically. Master Willem, the head of Byrgenwerth, wanted to learn more about the cosmos and the Great Ones, but to do so in a cautious and careful way (which still involved, like, adding eyes to the inside of their skulls).
But it was Laurence, one of Willem's students, who saw the potential in the Great Ones for a different path: to use the healing blood to found a religion, worshipping the Great Ones as gods and bringing fabulous prosperity to the city through the business of "blood ministration," healing sicknesses via the blood.
The biggest question, I think, if you wanted to adapt Bloodborne as a Domain of Dread, is who the Darklord would be. FromSoft sometimes makes some undeniably evil characters, but usually its primary antagonists are misguided more than evil (at least depending on your interpretation). Ravenloft's Darklords are all explicitly irredeemably evil (though as with anything D&D, DMs are free to change those rules as the story demands). I think that, given his central role, an argument could be made for Gehrman, but I think you could also argue that if he is a Darklord, it's of a different, related Domain - the Hunter's Nightmare. The evil he committed was probably the killing of Kos (if she didn't just wash up on the beach dead) or the massacre of the Fishing Hamlet. Kos and the Fishing Hamlet's role in the larger story is also pretty vague - I think the current read on it that I'd consider is that Gehrman's attack on the Fishing Hamlet probably led to Byrgenwerth's discovery of the Pthumerian Tomb - maybe finding out that Kos was a thing spurred forth the research into the Great Ones. (Was Byrgenwerth built on the ruins of the Fishing Hamlet?) Clearly, if Gehrman was the first Hunter, the Hunter's Nightmare was the fish-peoples' curse on them for his deeds. But I think it's likely this is a side-story.
Laurence, thus, to me, feels like the more obvious Darklord. The entire city feels like it's suffering because of his actions, and while he's in the Hunter's Nightmare, obviously From wasn't working step-by-step to make it all fit with Ravenloft's conventions.
We're talking about adaptation here, and so we'll need to be a little more concrete and clear in terms of how Yharnam becomes a Domain of Dread.
Laurence as the Darklord needs an act of unmitigated evil to draw him into the Mists (sometimes this act also draws the character's realm with them, or sometimes it creates a mirror of a real realm, or even a wholly new realm. In fact, the original Darklord's domain, Barovia, might well exist in a non-nightmarish form on some Prime Material World, with the OG Ravenloft setting possibly being a nightmarish facsimile of the real thing).
I think there are two potential moments to draw from here.
If we interpret that the "Holy Medium" the Byrgenwerth scholars discovered in the ancient Labyrinth was, in fact, the unborn child, Mergo, and that the healing blood was harvested from Queen Yharnam's womb (it would make sense that some body fluid nourishing a growing demigod fetus could have extraordinary healing properties). Laurence's decision to do this, robbing Yharnam of her child very much against her will and perhaps prolonging its life via the Nightmare of Mensis to keep drawing the healing blood off of it would be a profoundly evil act. (The fact that the blood also warps those who use it into werewolf-like beasts can also be explained by the fact that it was never meant to heal humans.)
However, it was this blood that allowed the Healing Church to be established in the first place. And while you could imagine the whole church only really coming about in the Domain of Dread, I don't know if I love that version of it.
Another possibility is the burning of Old Yharnam.
So, Old Yharnam - which was probably a small town or village before the big city grew around it - is, currently, filled with Beasts - there's just two humans left who have decided to guard it against other humans, reasoning that the Beasts here are just innocents who were turned and don't deserve to be shredded by Hunters.
But the history here is that a plague ravaged the town, and the Healing Church arrived to intervene, and I believe this was the first place they administered blood healing on a mass scale. No coincidence, then, that this was also where the Curse of the Beast first emerged (something the Church also tried to cover up). The thing is, the "plague" as it was called, was also treatable via Antitdotes - pills that cured poison, not infections. The plague was thus probably an intentional poisoning of the populace. And that poisoning was probably committed by the nascent Healing Church in order to give them an excuse to experiment on the people of Old Yharnam.
When the Beast Plague began to spread, they wound up burning Old Yharnam, killing tons of people, but also conveniently covering up the Church's crimes.
I think Laurence ordered the burning of Old Yharnam. And I think the fact that, in the Hunter's Nightmare, he is now rendered as an ever-burning Cleric Beast. This massacre of the Beasts of Old Yharnam is what started off the endless cycle of Hunts. And I think that this could be Laurence's point of no return. Up until this point, he's maybe done things for the Greater Good, but when confronted with the utter failure of his visions of miraculous healing and respect via piety, when it became clear that there was nothing but madness and horror to come from his Healing Church, he decided to murder hundreds of people so that he could keep going.
What is his torment, then?
Well, I think Laurence, being a Byrgenwerth scholar, wanted to pursue humanity's evolution, and thought the Healing Blood was the way to do this - to kind of hijack the Pthumerians' communion with a Great One (which one I think being open to interpretation - the Moon Presence? Oedon?) - but every effort to move forward and push humanity further has led instead to devolution, with people turning into beasts, not higher forms.
Practically speaking, I think Laurence is constantly losing his grasp on his lofty ambitions, but in being transformed into a beast, he's dangerous because of his raw, physical strength.
And if we look at the rest of the setting, we can see the way that the other dangers are reflections of Laurence. The Hunters are the embodiment of his violent sins, the Scholars embodiments of his unrestrained ambitions, the Clerics embodiments of his need for control.
While I think you could even spin it such that the Great Ones were actually the Dark Powers all along, I actually like that in Bloodborne, the Great Ones are actually benevolent in spirit - they're just so alien that their mere presence warps things in horrific ways (perhaps even when they "try to help.")
I don't think you'd have to do much to run a Ravenloft campaign in Yharnam - much as Barovia has a lot of different elements that aren't obviously tied to Strahd, but ultimately are, you can do likewise with Yharnam.
The timeline of Bloodborne is a little vague - you could certainly interpret the existence of Cainhurst Castle as pre-dating the Healing Church, for example, which is thought to be less than a century old, while Cainhurst is supposed to be a few hundred years. But time is also very weird in the Domains of Dread, and so I could imagine that people in Yharnam proper treat Laurence as a current ruling figure, but that the stolen blood that created the Cainhurst Vilebloods was stolen from the Church (and I don't know if that's even directly contradicted by the game).
In Ravenloft, you don't need to make your Darklord the "final boss" of your campaign - indeed, a lot of them have very unimpressive stat blocks that a low-level party would have an easy time defeating. Laurence would probably be tough in his beast form - I'd probably homebrew some changes to the Loup-Garou to give it fire abilities - but you could easily have a campaign focusing on taking down the School of Mensis or the Choir or dealing with some eldritch monstrosity (like Ebrietas).
The key would be to hit the notes of Gothic Horror (werewolves, ghosts, maybe vampires from Cainhurst if you want to retcon the massacre by the Executioners, witches in Hemwick, and grim inquisitors) as well as cosmic horror (all the alien monsters in the later parts of the game, the transformed scholars, and the weird shifting realities).
One thing I'd really encourage as a sort of "special system" to use in this domain is Insight. Obviously, you might not want to call it that specifically, given that that has a very specific and different meaning in D&D, but something like "Sight" or "Truth" or "Eldritch Truth" or "Awareness." I think there would be a positive and a negative associated with Insight, and probably have it be something players are gaining at different rates. Something like a successful Intelligence check could give you a point of "Awareness."
The main way I'd want it to work is that, as you gain Awareness, you can hit points where you'll see things others can't - starting with small things like hidden runes or clues - maybe you need 3 Awareness to see a button that can be used to open a treasure chest. And then, at higher levels, you start to see the sources of certain enemy's powers - like the runic items on some of the new Giants out of Bigby's. But then, for each point of Awareness (or maybe every few points,) you get penalties as well - say, to Wisdom saving throws (maybe all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws?)
Ooh, and maybe there are magic items that you can't use (or don't work at full power) if you don't have enough Awareness. So, for example, your Arcane Saw Cleaver, which could be a re-skinned Battleaxe, does an extra 1d8 force damage if you have at least 5 Awareness. But maybe at 5 you'd also be taking a -2 to Wisdom saving throws.
I like the idea that delving deeper into the Eldritch Truth makes you more vulnerable but also more powerful. I can tell you my Great Old One Warlock would be happy to amass as much as possible!
Anyway, I think this could be a lot of fun, and almost want to run a limited campaign in it.
After buying the game the day of its release, I was disappointed to discover that Baldur's Gate 3 was still in Early Access for Mac users, and so I had to wait over a month to get the full version.
Well, I've got it now!
Naturally, the biggest change is that there's more content beyond what I encountered in the early version, but there are also some other distinctions. For example, the relationship between you and the, well, other character you create during... er... character creation, is pretty different. In the early version, it was very clearly supposed to be a sort of romantically seductive character (even clad in skimpy dress, at least for those of you who are attracted to women) but in the release version, this individual is armored and portrayed as much more of a protector. I still have no idea who she is (or he, or they, depending on how you build them).
I've made a Half-Orc Vengeance Paladin, and when I realized there was some jewelry that was called something like "Barovian Fangs," I decided that his backstory would involve having escaped the Mists of Ravenloft. He's named after an important NPC in my homebrew world, and could conceivably be a version of him in the Forgotten Realms - the characters is a legendary hero who, despite taking the side of the Church in its war against the Empire (these have more specific names, but in my world there's a monotheistic church that wants to break away from a colonialist empire - hooray! - but also want to form a theocratic republic in its place - boo! Both sides have people across the alignment spectrum, and the Church's top paladin is decidedly good-aligned, and fights ferociously, even if, privately, he thinks the whole rebellion is a mistake.)
So far the only additional party member I've gotten is Karlach, who is a ton of fun. I'm given to understand Halsin can also join, though I don't have him in the party just yet.
Most of the early access content remains pretty much unchanged, so I am kind of going through a lot of familiar stuff. I'm trying in most cases to just let the rolls land as they will. I've really only done save-scumming when I'm in a fight where a TPK is pretty much inevitable. Unfortunately, I also hit a glitch where when Lae'zel died on a stairway during the Dror Ragzlin or whatever his name is fight, I couldn't use my Revivify scrolls on her even when standing right next to her, and so had to pay Withers (I sure hope that price doesn't increase each time you do it).
Anyway, I've got my main guy, Rokthar, going for a classic sword-and-board tank build (though man is the game stingy with basic heavy armor). I've got Lae'zel going with a Great Weapon Master build and the Battle Master subclass (using Precision attack - which is a little riskier than it is in the Tabletop version, as you get to see what you roll before you choose whether to spend a superiority die, so you know not to waste it if you roll, like, a natural 2). Wyll I've got going with Pact of the Blade, though still focusing on Eldritch Blast when he can. I've got to say Dark One's Blessing is a hell (pun unintended) of a good feature, as it goes off pretty frequently. Gale I went boring and picked Evocation because, well, I want to be able to drop Fireballs on my party without worrying about friendly fire. Astarion I went Arcane Trickster because it just feels right. Shadowheart, of course, is still a Trickster Cleric (I haven't re-specced anyone yet, but I could imagine giving her a new domain, possibly).
I was tempted to make an Eldritch Knight (either Lae'zel or my main character) but without the SCAG cantrips, it's a little half-baked (though Shield and Heavy Armor is amazing).
I'm intending to really stick to this run of the game and not play any alts until I've either gotten very far in it or beaten it. I'm curious but also a little nervous to play the Dark Urge origin.
Happily, the game runs very smoothly on my Mac, though I think the graphic settings are turned way down. The only problem I've run into is that you hold the Command key to highlight loot to pick up, and you use the Q key to rotate the camera counterclockwise, and at least twice, I've been searching for loot and moving the camera and have abruptly quit the game thanks to the universal "Command Q" for Quit. I think there's a way to change this, but I haven't gotten around to it (most tragically, I had an extremely clean fight against Minthara and then lost it thanks to this blunder, and while I was able to take her out again, it was a much messier fight (the first time I managed to make something of a tank wall with my main and Lae'zel and had Shadowheart's Invoke Duplicity nearby, so I was getting advantage on all my attacks with the front-liners, who were taking less damage thanks to all the disadvantage being handed out).
There are, of course, lots of nuances that you lose in a digital version of the game with no human DM. Thaumaturgy is reduced to just advantage on certain social encounter checks, for instance.
One bit of advice I'd give to players who are finding the game difficult (and not that it isn't) is to think about how many combat encounters you tend to go through between long rests in an actual D&D game. BG3 is pretty generous about letting you go back to your camp and rest (or just instantly popping a bunch of health and resources back with a short rest). In a big dungeon environment like the Goblin camp, I really don't think you're intended to do it all in a single "day."
So, I screwed up, I think: I beat Rom before I gave Alfred the invitation to Cainhurst Castle, and as such I don't think I can send him there and get the Executioner's Badge - while my Bloodtinge/Skill build is hardly going to be able to make use of Logarius' Wheel, I'm a little sad that this will prevent the acquisition of the silly cone hat, though I should double-check to ensure there's no chance I can continue this quest.
Currently the ranking "most deaths" enemy has got to be the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, the NPC-fight in the Grand Cathedral at the end of Eileen the Crow's quest. After struggling a lot on that (and having to farm blood vials - something I really hope any Bloodborne II would drop as a mechanic) I continued on through the game a little farther and leveled up some and came back and took him down.
So far, in this playthrough, I've one-shot and two-shot most bosses. I believe this is the attempt count:
Cleric Beast: 3
Father Gascoigne: 1
Blood-Starved Beast: 1
Witch of Hemwick: 1
Vicar Amelia: 1
Martyr Logarius: 4 or 5
Amygdala: 1
Shadows of Yharnam: 1
Rom, the Vacuous Spider: 2
The One Reborn: 2
Micolash, Host of the Nightmare: 2
Celestial Emissary: 1
Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos: 1
This last one I was surprised by. In previous playthroughs I'd come to Ebrietas after doing most of the DLC, and so I assumed I was far over-leveled, but while I had gotten well into the Nightmare of Mensis (I think possibly up to Mergo's Wet Nurse, though I haven't fought it yet) I hadn't done any of the DLC this time and had a pretty easy time of it. Granted, I did summon the Mensis allied Hunter, who kind of tanked her for me. Still, with these games I consider any assistance the game is willing to give you as perfectly reasonable - I'm not here to do some "dodge-free" run, and the game's plenty difficult even with help.
Logarius might not have been so difficult if I wasn't really pushing to get him down as soon as I could, given that my Bloodtinge build is pretty focused
Anyway, I haven't done a whole lot of farming this run, though when dealing with the Blood Crow I did do my old farming route of the stretch between Micolash's boss room and the top of Mergo's Loft (which I guess is a fitting place to get lots of XP given that it's really the last area of the game - prior to DLC, you'd just fight Mergo's Wet Nurse and then, depending on the ending you're going for, finish the game or fight Gehrman and then possibly the Moon Presence).
I'm not getting utterly annihilated by the Old Hunters at the start of the DLC the way I usually do if I come there earlier in a playthrough, but they're still a challenge. I'm expecting Ludwig will be pretty tough regardless, but perhaps the DLC in general will be easier with pretty much the whole main game under my belt.
I have not touched the Chalice Dungeons. I think on one of my earlier characters (maybe my first Arcane build? Which, incidentally, is probably my favorite playstyle in this game) did a lot of those, but they're just too repetitive for my tastes. If there's ever a Bloodborne II (and 8 years later, I'm skeptical) I think they could probably cut them and I wouldn't miss them.
But yeah, maybe it's Elden Ring's enormous size that is throwing me for a loop, but it does feel like Bloodborne is surprisingly quick. Consider, for example, that if you divide the game into three acts (Evening, Night, and Paleblood Sky) going from Vicar Amelia (who starts Act II) to Rom (who starts Act III) only requires a single boss between them. Yes, you can go off and do side areas like Cainhurst Castle and the Nightmare Frontier (and Hemwick if you're some kind of bizarre freak who fought Vicar Amelia before doing Hemwick) but basically you just need to clear through the Forbidden Woods and Byrgenwerth (the latter of which is hardly an "region" and more just a little circle around a building).
Anyway, still a fantastic game. I guess it just leaves me wanting more.
Today I took down Amygdala, the Shadows of Yharnam, Rom the Vacuous Spider, and The One Reborn.
The first two, I one-shot (I think they're also bosses that I one-shot on my very first playthrough. While I think, like the Witch of Hemwick, I've never died on the Shadows of Yharnam, the previous times I'd always summoned an ally, and this time I truly solo'd it, which meant having to deal with their snake abilities more). Rom took me two attempts - the first simply because I got greedy and tried to slash at her while her spider minions were still around (I know some people just go right for the kill, but I find the fight is much easier if you're diligent about taking out all the adds). The One Reborn I think I got an honest death from, simply by failing to dodge out of the... er... rain of limbs it summons sometimes.
While I think Elden Ring is the easier game, I do think that enemies telegraph their attacks more in Bloodborne - which makes sense, as your only options are to dodge or shoot them right at the perfect moment to "parry" them. As such, I've had an easier time avoiding damage on most bosses.
I think in previous playthroughs I headed to the Hunter's Nightmare earlier than this point, but I think that it's really tuned to be an endgame area (certainly by the time I've finished it in previous playthroughs, the remaining bosses were trivial). This time, I'm really trying to mostly finish off what's there in the main game before heading into the DLC, which hasn't been too bad, and also will hopefully mean that Ludwig won't utterly annihilate me over and over.
While I wouldn't want the game to just fully embrace the whole medieval fantasy aesthetic of Dark Souls or Elden Ring, I do think, now, with those games under my belt, I wish there were more build options in Bloodborne. I don't know if it was intentionally made a smaller game than Dark Souls (certainly the development time was remarkably fast - Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls III all came out one year after the other, which is something you expected from contemporary Ubisoft making Assassin's Creed games, but pretty amazing given that Bloodborne is considered by many a masterpiece, and Dark Souls III is also pretty beloved (DSII I think has gotten a critical redemption, though it's still not held up with the same respect as the original).
Elden Ring took three years from announcement to release, and there's a vast wealth of potential builds for your character (I only wish the final boss were not immune to all conditions, as it really takes a fun bleed-focused build and makes it suffer).
If we ever get a Bloodborne II, I'd love to see it given the scope of... well, it might be a lot to ask for it to be as big as Elden Ring (and arguably off-theme - a claustrophobic city is a good setting for a horror game) but I'd love to see the character options fleshed out.
One thing I'd probably do is make a distinction between the more mechanical Hunter's Tools and the more otherworldly ones, and perhaps having some kind of "Ingenuity" stat to govern the former, with Arcane or some similar notion governing the latter. Giving the player an FP-like meter to fuel stuff like special Trick Weapon abilities (similar to the Ashes of War or Weapon Arts) along with Hunter's Tools and... oh, we'll call them "Eldritch Invocations" to borrow a phrase.
It doesn't seem like From likes doing physical-damage ranged damage builds (though I am noticing that my current Bloodtinge-focused character hits pretty decently with his Evelyn pistol).
Naturally, there are tons of quality-of-life improvements that have come in subsequent games, like being able to re-spec, being able to sell "XP items" for their proper value, having the XP you need to level up shown on your Status screen, and being able to warp directly from checkpoint to checkpoint (hell, in Elden Ring, there's no reason to need a Homeward Bone or Bold Hunter's Mark equivalent because you can just warp anyway). Actually, also, just being able to rest at a lantern instead of warping back to the Hunter's Dream would also be great.
Now, I don't know how inclined From would be to revisit Bloodborne's lore and setting. Dark Souls is really the only exception so far, among the Soulsborne games, to have any direct sequels, and you could even read the plot of Dark Souls III in a meta way as a criticism of the very concept of sequels (a world that has been forced to continue on existing past its intended age is collapsing under its own weight).
But while Elden Ring is probably, ultimately, my favorite of FromSoft's games so far, I also liked how Bloodborne took the formula and explored a new genre (even if basically all of them have some Cosmic Horror elements).
Still, given all they've learned in the eight years since Bloodborne came out, I'd love to return to the gothic nightmare and gear up with my trick weapons to fight some beasts again.
Returning several years after I first played it, I've now taken down the Witch(es) of Hemwick, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief, as I downed the boss without dying (actually, that makes this playthrough pretty darn good - I've only died to Cleric Beast, having taken down Gascoigne and Blood-Starved Beast in one go each. I'm not counting on that streak continuing, especially as I get ready to take down Amelia).
I had remembered that the route from Hemwick Charnel Lane to the Witch's Abode was one of my best early-game Blood Echo-farming routes, and I now see why: the executioners that patrol near the Witch's house are worth something like 2300 echoes, at a level when I need about 5-6k to level up and everything else is dropping like 2-3 hundred.
I also think I was extremely stingy with using Coldblood Dew and the other "echo items." Sadly, unlike in Elden Ring, where you can sell the equivalent items to the blacksmith (or any vendor) for an equal value, here you get significantly more if you actually use the item, so you can't just dump them en masse in the same way (I think Dark Souls III also let you sell them for their equal value).
So, essentially, I'm still in the game's Act One, but with little to do other than fight Vicar Amelia (I suppose in theory I could let the Snatchers take me to the Hypogean Gaol - and then fight Darkbeast Paarl? I think that might be the way to get Djura to act non-hostile to you, but I may have screwed that up by already going up his tower and fighting with him).
I do find myself really wishing that we could get a Bloodborne II, largely to see how some of the gameplay enhancements that have come in DSIII and Elden Ring could be applied here.
I will say that I think the way Blood Vials work in this encourage you to be a little more liberal with them than your Crimson Tears/Estus Flask, because so many enemies drop them. It's still easy to run a deficit, especially when you hit a difficult boss, but I think it's meant to keep you going even when you've had a lot of battles and taken some hits. Again, though, I think Elden Ring's (and I think, more rarely, Dark Souls III's) ability to grant you a refreshed charge on your healing item when you defeat some groups of enemies might be more elegant.
Then again, the excess with which you slam alien blood-goo into your leg over and over during the course of the game is kind of thematic (the detail how there was a superstition about how the Curse of the Beast crept up the right leg, and so people would tie a belt around it, is kind of brilliant: obviously, it's really that you're injecting all this alien blood into your right leg, but you could imagine that the Church suppressed that truth to keep people enforcing their status quo).
I do wonder what the Witch of Hemwick fight is like on New Game Plus, if you have a very high Insight. While I still one-shot the encounter, I did get one hairy moment when three Mad Ones surrounded me, and that was when I came into the fight with only 1 Insight (though obviously I got another for seeing the boss).
Perhaps inspired by tomorrow's release of Lies of P (though given that it's also the day that the full Mac version of Baldur's Gate 3 comes out, I'll probably be playing that instead - thoug I do find myself oddly drawn to the "Steampunk Pinnochio game) I found myself drawn back to the Gothic/Cosmic Horror masterpiece that is Bloodborne.
Having now put many full (more or less - the game is enormous) clears of Elden Ring behind me, I thought I'd return to this first Souls game I ever beat.
Despite my experience, the early part of Bloodborne is still crushingly difficult. I died many times exploring Central Yharnam, and while I did eventually come across a couple of Madman's Knowledge items there, I'd already gotten to the Cleric Beast and had two halfway decent attempts at it before I went and got the full Hunter's outfit for better protection and then upgraded my Saw Spear to +2 and put a few levels into Vitality and Endurance, and I was able to take down the Cleric Beast with about half my Blood Vials remaining, which I count as a win.
I actually managed to one-shot Father Gascoigne and the Blood-Starved Beast (the latter taking advantage of Alfred's assistance - I think this playthrough I'm going to be way less precious with things like Insight - I think I never even used any of the Madman's Knowledge or Great One's Wisdom in previous runs. I also played offline before, and I'll be curious to see if I'm able to assist anyone on bosses this go around.
There are a couple things I don't love about the game, to be fair. Farming Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets isn't all that fun (I'm sort of shocked that I seem to perpetually be out of the latter) and sometimes I feel like I should put all my boss Echoes into simply replenishing these stores.
The tuning is also very different from Elden Ring. I think perhaps because Elden Ring, like Dark Souls, allows for more defensive playstyles, in this, the bosses have pretty hefty stores of HP, which requires you constantly whittle away at them, even while their attacks are (at least at this stage of the game) not the hardest to avoid. I also think it was a fantastic idea to have all players start with a huge Stamina bar in Elden Ring, as I really feel energy-starved at this stage of the game.
Also, there's just no support for Arcane or Bloodtinge builds in the early game. My intent is to ultimately go with the latter for this character, but until I can get my hands on a weapon that uses it, I'll be basically playing like a Skill build that focuses a lot on Vitality and Endurance.
But I love this game, and that love remains strong. There are definitely things I've forgotten - like how to make Djura non-hostile (I might have approached him prematurely... maybe I need to beat Darkbeast Paarl first?)
I don't know if we can ever expect to get a Bloodborne II. I'd love to see one. While I adore Elden Ring (and, frankly, prefer its aesthetic and world over that of Dark Souls) and expect that, given its success, that will be the one more likely to get a direct sequel, I'd love for FromSoft to return to this Gothic setting.
Though admittedly, it'd also be really cool to see them make a Souls-like in a new setting with a new aesthetic. I'd love a futuristic sci-fi Souls-like (and no, Armored Core VI is not that).
I'd also love to see a version of Bloodborne with the quality-of-life improvements we got in Elden Ring. You know, like a Jump button.
Now halfway through September, we're getting into spooky season. I'll be honest - I've always had a love of Halloween that makes it feel a little disappointing that we so swiftly move on to Thanksgiving and Christmas (and other winter holidays - while I'm half-Jewish, the fact that we also celebrated Christmas always allowed us to treat Hannukah as the minor holiday that it actually is).
And as often happens, my thoughts turn back to Bloodborne.
Bloodborne wasn't my first Soulsborne game - I'd gotten Dark Souls for the Xbox 360 prior to playing it, but between getting stuck on Ornstein & Smough and getting frustrated by the fact that you lost both Souls and Humanity (also, getting cursed multiple times when trying to explore the depths of the Great Tree and having to go through the whole pain of getting back to the New Londo Ruins to cleanse it) left me sort of done with that one (given how many Souls games I have under my belt now, especially with like six or seven full clears of Elden Ring, I wonder if I should go back to it). But Bloodborne, which was not really any easier at least in terms of moment-to-moment combat challenges, but there were little things, like the fact that Insight (the rough equivalent to Humanity) could only be lost if a specific kind of enemy landed its insight-draining attack on you, that helped with quality of life (also, the stat system was far simpler, which made it easier to figure out where to spend your levels - though after Elden Ring I really wonder if I'd have been better off investing more in HP in those games).
While Bloodborne is seen these days as among the best, if not the very peak of FromSoft's achievements, there were some complaints when it was new. First, there were the Chalice Dungeons, which I actually agree were too repetitive and dull, and so I've never plumbed their depths and defeated Queen Yharnam herself. Next, there were complaints that the lore and NPCs were not as complex as that of Dark Souls. Truthfully, that also might be fair. I think at this stage Elden Ring has maybe surpassed the sheer volume of lore that was found in the original Dark Souls if only because it has such a larger world in which to present that lore.
To be clear, Elden Ring is probably also going to be one of these games totally sticking in my mind, but I've played it recently enough that it still feels pretty "current," and only came out a year and a half ago.
Another game, this one being one that I came to years after it was first released, but that's utterly stuck with me, is Control.
Control is not as grand in scope, though interestingly it does incorporate some Souls-like mechanics. But I think it really spoke to my aesthetic tastes in a way that few pieces of media had done previously. For example, back in 2015 when I first got into D&D, I came up with my first character, a Warlock with a Great Old One patron, and the look and feel of the patron I came up with was far closer to the bizarre upside-down pyramid in the Astral Plane that is Control's "The Board" (or at least that is The Board's means of communicating with humanity) than any of the squishy, slimy alien beings of Lovecraft's fiction.
I have an obsession with stories that blend science-fiction and fantasy, and Control's portrayal of scientists investigating "paranatural" phenomena that would simply be magic if it were not approached in the rigorous and methodical way the FBC researchers do (invoking the corollary to Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology) is 100% my kind of thing.
It didn't hurt that Control has really satisfying gameplay. I remain, however, utterly infuriated that the game doesn't allow you to simply create a new save file without overwriting the old one, or letting you replay chapters of it without losing the progress you've made (I unlocked a lot of things after beating the primary story, and my understanding is that if I go back to the "Endgame" chapter, it simply puts you back at the point you were when you beat the main story).
Control actually sent me down the rabbit-hole of the Remedy game universe, and I went back to play Alan Wake - a game I'd been intrigued by when it came out in 2010 but didn't get around to until much later. While Alan Wake is also cool, it didn't quite grab me as effectively as Control. There was something refreshing about the fact that Alan Wake had no "progression system," some of which weighed down Control, but it also left the game feeling very on-rails. You went through the story and situation and levels as dictated by the game's designers to see the story as they wanted to tell it. I think it was just a product of its era - today's games tend to really value giving players a more open world, while this was a bit more like Uncharted (the first of which came out three years prior) in that it kept you on rails to guarantee the cinematic moments and set-pieces it wanted to show you.
I guess one thing that Bloodborne and Control have in common is their rewarding of attempts to peel back the layers of lore. Bloodborne, for example, has an option (and somewhat hidden) area called Castle Cainhurst, which ties in its strange version of vampires to the plot. In typical FromSoft fashion, recognizing certain styles of dress and certain weapons will allow you to suss out that two NPCs - one of which is a boss in the DLC - have a hereditary connection to this castle.
Similarly, in Control, if you're diligent about reading the memos found around the Oldest House and listening to the various recordings, you can discover an entire conspiracy by the "Blessed" organization that seems to be waging some kind of secret war against the FBC, while having nothing to do with the current crisis with The Hiss.
I do adore this kind of deep lore-building. Even if I largely come by the lore thanks to the greater online community, mostly via YouTube channels like VattiVidya, it really enhances my enjoyment of the game as a perfect complement to the satisfying combat.
And there we have it: the third ending to Armored Core VI complete, along with the "Stargazer" achievement, which signifies that I've truly completed every mission in the game.
Spoilers ahead:
There are two endings you can get on your first playthrough of Armored Core VI. One is grimmer, involving alien genocide and seeing your character remembered as a kind of necessary evil that ended the conflict on Rubicon by wiping the planet out (honestly, it's a bit like Leto Atredies II from God-Emperor of Dune, which is a story I think Fires of Rubicon draws a fair amount of inspiration from). The other is more hopeful, stopping the apocalyptic plan with the possibility that, with the corporations and PCA devastated, the RLF can actually secure independence and freedom for their world, and the Coral can live alongside them.
Playing a second go-round, you get the option to make different decisions than the ones you made before. Periodically (and as a new player, I definitely didn't notice these at first,) missions will be marked as "decisions," and will lock you out of the decision missions you don't pick. So, the second time you play through, you can do those missions you skipped, letting you eventually unlock every mission in the Replay Missions options.
But there are other differences. The first you'll notice is on the second playthrough. In the trivially easy "Attack the Dam Complex" or whatever it's called, when you get two superfluous Redgun allies to take on a bunch of very weak enemies (including an AC who tries to stop you but is horribly outgunned,) something changes after the first checkpoint: you get a mid-mission offer from the RLF to turn on your Redgun allies and defend the dam instead of attacking it. Now, you have to take out the Redguns there, which makes for a much more challenging mission.
Doing this (technically you can refuse this offer, which I assume will make the mission play out like it previously did) will give you a couple more missions to help the RLF. In the first of these, you rescue some RLF prisoners who were being interrogated and tortured, and you find that the spiritual/ideological leader of the RLF, Father Dolmayan, has had some kind of terrible portent of things to come. But that's about it.
However, on your third playthrough, in the mission "Survey the Uninhabited Floating City," things start off identical to how they were in the first two playthroughs: you have to deal with ECM fog that robs you of your radar and requires you to navigate through the fog. But while the version of the mission that plays out in the first two runs ends with a rematch against one of those giant attack helicopters from the introductory mission, in this version, that helicopter shows up and is immediately sundered by Dolmayan in his own AC, ranting and raving as he fights you.
I'm pretty sure that if you pick all the alternative missions you hadn't gotten before, the third playthrough will result in the third ending, and probably sees all the missions in the game unlocked, but who knows?
It's just kind of crazy. FromSoft's Soulsborne(iro-Ring?) games give you multiple endings, but as far as I know, all of them can always be attained on a single playthrough. These games have New Game +, but the difficulty goes up with each playthrough (which is why I've allowed the characters who have beaten Elden Ring to sit without starting their New Game+ until the DLC comes out and I've beaten it). ACVI doesn't officially get harder, in the sense that enemies are any tougher to take down, but some of these alternative missions will be a lot more challenging even in the early game.
And the fact that you don't just have to beat the game once to get all the missions, but twice is something I don't think I've ever encountered before. Nevertheless, I think it speaks to the quality of the gameplay that I'm still having fun two and a half ways through the game. I'm hoping I can replicate my IB-01: CEL 240 one-shot from my second playthrough, given that the first playthrough, that was the one boss that forced me to step away from the game and come back the next day.
So, as of playtest seven, we now have a list of subclasses we can expect to see in the 2024 PHB. I don't know to what degree this is subject to change, and for certain we will see some adjustments before the ones listed make it to print. But right now, these are certainly much more likely to see print than not. With the exception of the two classes that had more than four subclasses in the 2014 PHB, every subclass of the other ten PHB classes that was printed in the 2014 book will carry over (with a couple getting new names, but still thematically and mechanically linked to the old versions) along with another one or two to fill out every class' options to 4. These are:
Barbarian: Berserker, Wildheart (formerly Totem Warrior,) Zealot, and World Tree (new)
Bard: Valor, Lore, Glamour, Dance (new)
Cleric: Life, Light, War, Trickery
Druid: Land, Sea (new,) Stars, Moon
Fighter: Battle Master, Brawler (new,) Champion, Eldritch Knight
Monk: Hand (formerly Open Hand,) Shadow, Elements (formerly Four Elements,) Mercy
Paladin: Ancients, Devotion, Vengeance, Glory
Ranger: Hunter, Beast Master, Gloom Stalker, Fey Wanderer
Rogue: Assassin, Thief, Arcane Trickster, Swashbuckler
Sorcerer: Draconic, Wild Magic, Aberrant, Clockwork
Warlock: Archfey, Fiend, Great Old One, Celestial
Wizard: Evoker, Diviner, Abjurer, Illusionist
In a lot of cases, they've made big improvements to the subclasses in the revisions. In particular, subclasses that were often looked down on a underpowered or hamstrung, like the Four Elements Monk or Beast Master Ranger (which admittedly got a big glow-up in Tasha's - and the update more or less just makes that version the default) were improved a lot.
But, of course, over the 9 years of 5th Edition, a lot of these classes have gotten many more subclasses, and given the polish that we're seeing with these revisions (though to be clear, there are some where the changes have weakened them, like the Zealot's Rage Beyond Death is not nearly as cool as the older version) there are some subclasses I'd have liked to see printed here if only to get a newer, better version of them.
I need to narrow my criteria here, though. This is not a list of subclasses I simply wanted included in the PHB because I thought they fit the core fantasy of the class in an interesting way. These are also not just subclasses that I like, thematically or otherwise. In a sense, these are subclasses that I feel have strong themes that make them an appealing choice to play, but which need some mechanical enhancement to make them live up to their fantasy.
Artificers:
Alchemist: Admittedly, we knew we weren't getting the Artificer in the PHB, even though, especially as WotC has rolled back things like universal spell lists and class groups, it seems it would be all the more helpful to do so to let this class keep pace with the others in 5E. Honestly, I think that the Artificer does a pretty good job with most of its subclasses. The Alchemist, though, I think falls short in part because it doesn't really have a place to truly excel. The Artillerist is the other spellcasting subclass, but with the Eldritch Cannons, it is able to pump out a ton of ranged damage reliably, while the Alchemist is stuck in this odd place of being kinda-sorta a healer and with a kind of underdeveloped theme of boosting damage types that you could conceivably get out of various compounds brewed up with alchemy supplies.
Armorer: I adore the Armorer, but I do think it would benefit from another pass to make sure that it's fulfilling its role. This is a subclass that can be built in two very different ways. I wonder if it would be too powerful to allow the Armorer to use both its melee and ranged weapons at the same time, perhaps only granting certain bonuses to it while its armor was set into a particular mode. Furthermore, with everyone getting Weapon Masteries, let's see some applied to the Armorer's built-in weapons. (This will be a theme).
Battle Smith: Like the Armorer, they need Weapon Mastery, but otherwise they're probably ok.
Barbarian:
Storm Herald: I adore the thematics of the Storm Herald Barbarian, but it has always struggled a bit. I think an easy change to this subclass would be to let you choose the kind of storm you create each time you Rage, letting you adapt to the situation.
Beast: Likewise, I love the thematics of the Path of the Beast, but it does fall behind because of the way that its natural weapons don't scale with magical weapons or items. Generally speaking (and this is a theme,) I'd like to see any subclass that generates its own weapons find a way to keep up with peers that are getting their hands on super-powerful magic weapons.
Bard:
Whispers: Thematically, I love the College of Whispers. But two of its three subclass features are really situational, forcing Psychic Blades to really carry the weight of the subclass. As a DM, I've struggled to create opportunities for my best friend's Rakdos Whisper Bard in what has tended to be something of an action-focused, combat-heavy campaign.
Cleric:
I'll confess that I don't really have any strong urge to see any particular subclass revisited. I might have expected different picks from the PHB to make it into 2024, but I can't say that the ones I thought of needed significant reworks.
Druid:
Spores: This is another case of a subclass I think is really interesting, but it also pushes the Druid into more of a melee playstyle than they're probably really supported by. Also, giving your melee attacks extra poison damage is not so great when there are at least three creature types who are nearly all immune to poison (undead, fiend, construct).
Wildfire: I don't think this one is too underpowered, but maybe another pass at it.
Fighter:
Like the Cleric, I don't know that there are any here that are really crying out for a rework. I think the underpowered ones are also often thematically underwhelming as well. For example, thematically, why is an Arcane Archer not just an Eldritch Knight? I might take another look at the Psi Warrior, but I don't know that it's in dire need.
Monk:
Drunken Master: So, the Brawler Fighter looks like it could be a lot of fun. The problem? Everything it does is what the Drunken Master should have been able to do. The Drunken Master is a really fun concept on a thematic level, but the design doesn't really do much with it. I think you could go two directions with it: either go the Jackie Chan route, where you're doing a lot of improvised weapons and evasiveness, or you could go the Warcraft route and make the brewing and consumption of booze into a mechanical aspect - like being able to down a flammable, high-proof ale that you spit in a cone in front of you, lighting it on fire as you do.
Astral Self: The spiritual, philosophical aspect of the Monk is something that I think remains painfully unexplored, and the Astral Self was, on a thematic level, a golden opportunity to do that. But the subclass suffers tremendously by being so intensely Ki/Discipline-point dependent. A version of this that let you, you know, use your subclass even if you were drained of resources would be a great idea.
Paladin:
Honestly, there aren't a ton of subclasses for the Paladin in the first place, and I've always felt that your subclass is less impactful than it is for other classes because the Paladin itself is such a strong class overall (assuming they don't go through with the Divine Smite changes we saw in playtest six - I'd welcome some changes to allow, for example, alternative smites to be as easy to use as the main feature, but the nerf in 6 was a few steps too far).
Oathbreaker: Actually, you know what, there is one subclass I'd like to see revisited. The Oathbreaker is from the DMG, and is intended for villains, but I think that the design of D&D has moved away from giving NPCs classes and subclasses as a player would have. And I think that the idea of a Paladin should accommodate darker archetypes. I don't even think an Oathbreaker need necessarily be evil - you could make it a subclass where you found that you couldn't do what you wanted to do within the strict tenets of your oath. That might mean you abandoned virtue for selfish gain, but it could also mean that you rebelled more against the "lawful" side of the traditional paladin rather than the "good." Basically, give us a version of this subclass where we don't automatically buff hostile undead or fiends and we're most of the way there.
Ranger:
Monster Slayer: If you've read this blog, you know that I have a special place in my heart for Gothic Horror Monster Hunters, and this subclass seems built to make you the ultimate vampire/werewolf hunter. But its mechanics have always kind of lagged behind - a bunch of cool ideas, many of which are probably too situational. (Though I think that Slayer's Counter could be a really awesome ability and a great capstone if it worked on any target).
Rogue:
Inquisitve: The Inquisitive is a really cool concept for a Rogue - basically being the scene in Guy Ritchie's first Sherlock Holmes movie in which Holmes defeats a far bigger and stronger guy in a bare-knuckle boxing match because he's able to analyze all the man's weaknesses in a fraction of a second. I think the subclass is honestly not as bad as some people make it out to be, but it also has some weird, archaic design that, among other things, seems to think that you're going to be exploring a space in initiative. I'd love another, modern pass on this.
Soulknife: The Soulknife is an amazing subclass, but it's one that is going to miss out on a bunch of the new design of the Rogue due to the fact that its weapons don't actually count as any specific kind of weapon. Giving the Psychic Blades (and yes, I'm aware that that's the same name as a very different College of Whispers Bard feature) an official weapon type (clearly the off-hand one is basically a dagger - you could say the main-hand one is a shortsword) and then providing magical items that boost the attack and damage rolls of these weapons (as they've promised to do with unarmed strikes and improvised weapons) would really cement this as an awesome subclass.
Sorcerer:
Storm: I was honestly shocked to not see this included among the 2024 PHB options, as it seems like such a slam-dunk conceptually. But the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul (each losing the latter words in their names) are very popular in part because they're powerful, and powerful in part because of their bonus spells. Clearly, every sorcerer subclass should get bonus spells. Storm isn't bad, honestly, and Sorcerous Burst will give them a reliable cantrip that can deal their favored kinds of damage. So, they might not need much of a revision, to be honest.
Shadow: My only issue here is the fact that the Hound of Ill Omen doesn't scale with us. Granted, its primary purpose is simply to be near an enemy and thus impose disdavantage on its saves against our spells, but it would be nice to make this a sort of pet-subclass akin to the Battle Smith or Beast Master.
Warlock:
So, confession: I'm glad the Hexblade isn't making into the 2024 PHB. It was always a subclass that I felt was picked almost entirely for mechanical reasons and not for flavor ones, and I'm glad that Bladelocks will easily be able to play any subclass. The Genie, similarly, is totally fine and powerful enough, and I think strays just far enough outside of the "quintessential" options that I'm fine with it being left out of the PHB. The Undead is already a kind of reworking of the much less impressive Undying. I'd have really liked to see it in the PHB instead of the Celestial, but I also think it's a subclass that doesn't really need a rework. So, I don't really have a pick for a Warlock that I need to see revised. I'm fine with confining the Undying to the ash heap of history, and the ones in Tasha's and Van Richten's are plenty powerful enough as it is, as long as the broad change of Expanded Spell Lists becoming Patron Spells is applied to these as well.
Wizard:
Necromancer: The lack of the Necromancer in playtest 7 was honestly a bit of a shock. Not only is it useful to have a "dark" option for the Wizard, the subclass could also use a bit of an update, for example swapping out Undead Thralls' spell feature to use Summon Undead instead of Animate Dead (though we have yet to see how the latter spell might be redesigned). If we do see "villainous subclasses" like the Death Domain and Oathbreaker Paladin, I think there's some hope we could see this subclass presented there. But I think it's a shame we won't see this in the PHB.
So, the second playthrough of Armored Core VI went a lot faster. I think a large part of this was that I had done a fair amount of farming in the first run in order to purchase lots of weapons and other AC parts, whereas this time I had more or less gotten most of what I really wanted, and so ploughed through the actual missions.
Spoilers ahead.
So, we're probably about two months out from the next iteration of the Monk in the One D&D (or "2024 Core Rulebooks") playtest, given that we just got playtest 7 (a playtest that, while it was sort of conservative and undid a lot of changes in previous playtests, nevertheless wound up being one of the least controversially approved UAs in the playtest so far, if general internet consensus is to be believed).
I've talked about mechanical ideas for how to "fix" the Monk. I put that in quotations because I think you can play a Monk and have lots of fun with it. And I think that the internet can create feedback loops. YouTube optimizers will condemn a subclass or class or other mechanic as brokenly unusuable when it's like 10% less powerful than another option, when most players will, I think, be willing to accept that variance if it means getting to live out the fantasy they're going for by picking a class.
Game design can come in a spectrum of foregrounding mechanics versus foregrounding the story or thematics - what I usually refer to as Flavor.
Sports are basically purely mechanical games. There's no "plot" to be resolved in a game of football. But sports are also games in which the skill to play the game is not just a strategic understanding of the mechanics and how to use them to outwit your opponent, but also to physically condition yourself (or your players) to perform better than your opponent. I can decide, as a pitcher, if I want to throw a curveball or a fastball, but that tactical decision is only part one. Then I have to execute on it.
But games, going back to some of the earliest forms, like Chess, have almost always involved some kind of flavor. You could imagine a game identical to Chess that simply has arbitrary names assigned to its pieces, or purely functional one (a "diagonal" piece rather than a "bishop"). But instead, Chess becomes this abstraction that represents the clashing of armies and kingdoms in warfare.
As an RPG, D&D is of course much, much heavier on the flavor side of things. And that brings me to the point of this tangent: that mechanics need to reflect the flavor in a game like this (I'll note that a game like Magic the Gathering is one that has a ton of flavor to it, but is much more focused on the mechanical side of design by its nature).
And that brings us to this: what is the flavor of the Monk?
That's going to vary from person to person, but I think there are cultural touchstones we can all look to and agree are a big part of it.
While much of D&D's classes take inspiration from some mixture of Arthurian legend, Tolkien, and Conan the Barbarian, all being Western cultural artifacts (though Conan's stories did include people from other ethnicities, such as the Wizard Akiro, played by Mako,) the Monk is very much inspired by East Asian culture, and the traditions of Kung Fu from China.
In the West, our main exposure to these traditions grows out of the Hong Kong cinema of the 1970s, with Bruce Lee emerging as the quintessential star of the Kung Fu movie. There are many other performers who followed in his path, such as Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and Michelle Yeoh.
I will here put a big caveat that this is not an area I've studied extensively, and not a culture I'm from.
Some traditions of kung fu, most notably Shaolin kung fu, use the practice of martial arts as a spiritual exercise, part of a larger tradition of meditation and philosophy, and so the image of a Shaolin monk, and of a monastery as a place to practice martial discipline, emerges from this kind of tradition.
Practically speaking, one of the things that distinguishes a Monk as a warrior is their lack of armor. Martial arts demonstrations and competitions typically have practitioners wearing simple clothing that allows for ease of movement, and the emphasis on agility and control over one's body, along with speed, as the way one defends oneself.
While kung fu certainly includes the use (and mastery) of many kinds of weapons, many traditions also include or emphasize fighting unarmed. In some cases, the belief is that the spiritual and philosophical underpinnings to the physical control grants extraordinary effectiveness, but in a more simple way, there is care and discipline that allows the focus of strength and power to, for example, break wooden boards with one's bear fists or feet (something that is often part of a demonstration).
Especially in a game system where other non-magical (or not pure spellcaster) classes are all about using various kinds of weapons, the Monk stands in as the master of unarmed strikes (though the new Brawler Fighter starts edging in on that territory).
And here, we come to one of our first mechanical goals: A monk should be able to be as effective without using any weapons as other martial classes are with a weapon.
Now, tying into the unarmed fighting, we've also touched on how a Monk is typically seen without wearing any armor.
But beyond that, there's another trope out of kung fu movies that we should examine: our martial arts heroes are usually fighting multiple enemies at a time.
If you look at most fight scenes in these movies, unless the hero is facing off against a single powerful villain or henchman, usually they're facing off against a whole crowd of them (actually, Jackie Chan played one of the nameless swarming henchmen in Enter the Dragon, getting fought off along with like a dozen other guys by Bruce Lee). The way that they accomplish this varies depending on the fighting style or just heroic style - whether through clever improvisation or just utter mastery of their skills. (Chan in particular is famous for grabbing props and using them as weapons to fight off crowds of foes).
So, here, I think we get another mechanical goal: despite not wearing armor of any kind, our Monk should be able to hold their own against crowds of enemies, and be able to stand their ground.
Now, the kung fu movies I've mentioned that serve as major inspirations to the class are usually only fantastical in how profoundly better a fighter their heroes are than the many henchmen they churn through. In Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee never loses a fight, and if memory serves (it has been a while since I watched it,) only even really gets hurt when he faces off agains the main villain.
But D&D being a fantasy game, the supernatural aspect of the Monk can be emphasized. I won't really weigh in on metaphysical/philosophical underpinnings of real-world martial art philosophies, but in a D&D world, the supernatural should absolutely be part of the Monk's capabilities. It won't necessarily take the form of spellcasting (though I wouldn't be opposed to a Monk subclass with Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster-style access to spellcasting).
There's less of an obvious mechanical outlet here, as it really depends on what kind of supernatural effects can be achieved.
Still, I think we've now arrived at the primary things that the Monk should be able to do - they should be able to fight effectively without any weapons. They should be able to fight effectively on the front lines without wearing armor. And they should be able to wield some kind of supernatural force attained via their philosophical disciplines.
This post isn't here to suggest ways they should accomplish those goals - I've made plenty of other posts that suggest tweaks or new features in an effort to do so.
But I thought it would be worth getting the bare bones of what the class should be in mind, and then seeing what needs to stay, what can go, and what needs to be added, and what needs to be altered, to fit with these goals.
When you beat Armored Core VI, the credits roll, and then you immediately get the dialogue that follows the introductory mission in which you secure the ID of Raven. (They don't have you replay that mission).
For a while, things look the same. You're a newcomer independent merc working for one faction in one mission and then turning on them in the next. Admittedly, the context is clearer this time around - I know, for example, how Balam, Dafeng, and the Redguns are all part of one corporate faction and how Arquebus, Schneider, and the Vespers are part of the other.
But the missions are identical, and pretty easy with all the parts you've unlocked over the course of the game. While nothing's strictly better - I think they make every weapon and AC part with a certain "budget" - you certainly feel a lot more powerful when you can build an AC with dual miniguns and Stun Needles.
In the early part of my first playthrough, "Attack the Dam Complex" was a go-to credit-farming mission. If you just blow through it and take care of the mandatory objectives, it's an utter cakewalk, especially if you just skip past the RLF AC that tries to talk you out of the mission.
And in New Game Plus, it starts off identically.
And then Walter tells you he's getting a call from the RLF. That's new. They're offering to pay you double what Balam is paying you if you turn on the two ACs you've been sent with and take them out instead of destroying the dam.
You actually get the option to refuse this offer, but naturally you're going to take the new option. And with this, well, A: you get a checkpoint, and B: you get a very different mission. And what was a cakewalk becomes a quite challenging one, as the two former allied ACs now turn on you and team up.
Following that, I got a brand-new mission: I was sent to escort an RLF helicopter sending commandos on a prison break. You wind up rescuing two (trying for three, but one is dead by the time you get there) RLF officers, including Little Ziyi, who attacks you during the equivalent mission in the first playthrough.
So, clearly, the intention here is to do multiple playthroughs. You lose absolutely nothing by doing so - every mission you've completed previously is still available in Replay Missions, and you retain every part and OS Chip. Indeed, after several missions (maybe after I beat Balteus the second time, which... boy, if you use the Weapon Bay and swap between Pulse weapons and Shotguns and use a very speedy build, it's a pretty quick and easy fight) AllMind came to me with new Arena fights, which granted way more OS chips. At this point I think I have every weapon type maxed out (except perhaps melee).
The game is certainly not easy - the Coral-powered AC at the end of the penultimate chapter is really painful - but it's not terribly long. But these oddities extend the game's life significantly. There's a lot of replayability in this, which is something I've found a lot in FromSoft games (I've beaten Elden Ring on like six or seven characters).
There's no reason to make a new save file in Armored Core VI, given that doing so erases your existing one, but also, everything can be replayed. The only reason you might do so is if you make a decision between exclusive missions that you regret, but you're probably better off just playing through and doing the other decision on New Game +. I will say that I sort of wish I'd done the ruthless mercenary choices in my first playthrough so that I could do all the heroic options on this playthrough, but honestly, given the grittiness of this setting, there's no version of the story that lets you come out feeling good (I probably shouldn't feel bad for killing Cinder Carla, given how many times she committed perfidious surrender in the mission where I met her, but I kind of like the scrappy aesthetic of the RaD folks, again, even though we find out they're not quite the "anarchist junkers" that they seem to be at first.)
There's no real narrative justification for the changes in NG+, but it is kind of fun to have these weird differences pop up. The altered mission and the new mission were much bigger challenges than the stuff I was generally doing the first go around, so it injects some late-game difficulty into the early game.
Yeah, we're doing another Warlock one.
The Hexblade. It's a ubiquitous subclass in 5E. I've played one in Descent into Avernus, but I also did so making the perhaps insane choice to not go Pact of the Blade. Still, mechanically, it's still plenty powerful.
But the flavor is... lacking.
The premise of Hexblade is that you've made a pact with a sentient weapon. But there's also an implication that you're also drawing on the power of the Shadowfell. Ultimately, what I tend to find is that a lot of players just kind of pick any idea for a patron and just use the quite nice and powerful mechanics. My Hexblade Warlock had an actual Hexblade as his patron (though in the backstory I came up with, the blade was sort of a focus for a long-dead knight that was called "The Blade of the Silent City" within the Shadowfell, whose soul resided in the blade that hovered in front of her throne, where her motionless, desiccated corpse lay).
The thing is, people take this subclass, or often dip into this subclass, because it gives you a few amazing things at level 1 - the ability to use Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity for your weapon attacks, medium armor, shields, and Hexblade's Curse.
And I have said for a long time that, at the very least, the functionality of getting to use Charisma as your weapon ability should be baked into Pact of the Blade, allowing other subclasses to be able to play a Bladelock without being at a sever disadvantage compared to Hexblades.
And WotC has delivered! The form has shifted in the last two playtests involving Warlocks, but let's look at how it works in playtest 7.
Pact Boons are now Eldritch Invocations, but there's a kind of "suggested path" to take either Pact of the Blade or Pact of the Tome at 1st level. We might cover Tome later, but I think it has a less direct impact on your gameplay even if it's still quite good.
The idea of Pact of the Blade is to allow your Warlock to be a melee combatant. Let's see how well it achieves that.
Before we begin, though, we need to address a change from playtest 5. In 5, Warlocks got Medium Armor training across the board. This has been rescinded. Now, especially given that Warlocks are unlikely to invest heavily in Dexterity (especially with the change to Pact of the Blade,) I think taking Moderately Armored as a level 1 feat is a good call (actually, I just looked back to the Expert Classes UA, and realized that Lightly Armored now gives you Light, Medium and Shield training. So Moderately Armored is gone, but you get its functionality with this. Honestly, this might be a good call for Wizards and Sorcerers as well). Getting an easy 18 AC (with Scale Mail and a Shield and a modest investment of +2 to Dexterity) is probably worth your 1st level feat, and with Warlocks, you can even get more relatively easily with Lessons of the First One.
AC is good for everyone, but especially if you want to build a character who goes into melee. With a +2 to Dexterity, you'll nearly keep pace with heavy-armor wearers, only losing out when they upgrade to Plate.
Without further ado: what is the new Pact of the Blade?
Pact of the Blade is now an Eldritch Invocation that has no prerequisites. Warlocks now get an EI at level 1, and get two more at level 2, and then the progression is similar to the old version, except that we ultimately cap out at 10 total. Essentially, we get front-loaded a bit and then settle into an "every three levels" thing.
As a Bonus Action, you can conjure a pact weapon in your hand, which is a Simple or Martial melee weapon of your choice. You can also create a bond with a magic weapon that you touch. Until the bond ends, you have proficiency with the weapon, and you can use its Mastery property, and you can use it as a spellcasting focus.
When you attack with the bonded weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier for attack and damage rolls, instead of using Strength of Dexterity. You can also cause the weapon's damage to deal Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage, or use its regular damage type.
The bond ends if you use the feature's bonus action again, or if the weapon is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more, or if you die. And a conjured weapon disappears if the bond ends.
So:
The biggest thing is that the "Charisma for your weapon" thing is now part of Pact of the Blade. Bladelocks also get to play with the Mastery system, which is fun. The new damage types are further allowing them to dispense with the distinction between magical and nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. However, I think it's notable that we're not choosing when we make the bond, but actually on every attack. Radiant is probably the most reliable damage type of these three, but they're all pretty good, even if Force might make more sense.
As before, this lets you use weapons you wouldn't normally be able to use as a Warlock.
However, I think it's important to point out that Heavy Weapons now impose disadvantage if you have less than a 13 in the appropriate ability score for them. If you want to wield a Greatsword as a Bladelock, you will need to have at least 13 Strength to avoid getting disadvantage.
Ok, so that's the whole invocation. I think it does what you'd want it to, but compared with the version in playtest 5, we're missing a few features. Those are now their own invocations, so let's take a look.
Thirsting Blade requires you have 5 levels of Warlock or more and also that you've taken Pact of the Blade. We can pick this up at level 5, as we get a new invocation at this level (though we can also swap invocations when we level up).
Thirsting Blade now officially gives you the Extra Attack feature when using your Pact Weapon only. You can attack twice, instead of once, when you make the Attack action. Additionally, when you hit level 11, your Extra Attack now confers two additional attacks instead of one (for a total of 3).
And that's interesting: basically, you'll be keeping up with Fighters in terms of number of attacks, but also you'll be keeping up with Eldritch Blast. And this has always been the challenge of Pact of the Blade - when is it going to be better than Eldritch Blast? Depending on the weapon, it can now keep up at least until tier 4, when EB becomes four separate attacks. I will also note that if you get a +1 weapon, your damage with a d8 weapon will keep pace with an Agonizing Blast-enhanced Eldritch Blast, and with higher bonuses, you'll do more. With the same number of attacks, therefore, you'll start doing more damage per round (at least until level 17). While a Blastlock can keep pace with a Bladelock in terms of attack bonuses thanks to things like Wand of the War Mage or Rod of the Pact Keeper, the damage bonus of Agonizing Blast doesn't scale up with magic items.
Eldritch Smite is an invocation that requires 5th level or higher in Warlock and Pact of the Blade.
Once per turn, if you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a Warlock spell slot to deal an extra 1d8 Force damage to the target, plus 1d8 per level of the spell slot. If the creature you hit is Huge or smaller, you can knock it Prone.
So, this is unchanged. I might pick up Thirsting Blade before this just because it's more reliable damage. But I think it's also worth noting that technically this scales up higher than a Paladin's Divine Smite, which maxes out its damage as a 4th level spell. And, of course, Warlocks will get 5th level spells far sooner than Paladins.
If you need a big burst of damage, especially after you crit, this is probably pretty good. But again, even if Warlock spells are somewhat limited, I have to point out the Summon spells here. A max-level Eldritch Smite will do 6d8, or about 27 damage (54 on a crit). A 5th level Summon Undead with the Skeleton option will, when it hits, deal 26 damage per round for the same spell slot investment. (Yes, it's not quite as much because it has a chance to miss - but if we only give it a 50% chance to hit and ignore the chance to crit, that's still going to nearly match a crit Eldritch Smite after four rounds - for a spell that can last an hour.)
Lifedrinker is an invocation that requires level 9 or higher in Warlock and Pact of the Blade.
When you hit a creature with your pact weapon, the creature takes 1d6 extra necrotic, psychic, or radiant damage (your choice) and you can expend one of your Hit Dice, roll it, add your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1) and heal for that amount.
Now, this is probably a nerf from the old version, which let you add necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1) to the damage of your pact weapon, but situationally this could be better - on a crit, for instance. Or if you're fighting ghosts. The healing is potentially useful in a clutch moment, but it is of course expending a resource you'd normally use for healing.
But compared to not having this - a weapon that gets extra dice of damage is generally going to be very good. Thirsting Blade I would consider mandatory for a Bladelock build, but this one is also probably close to that level of priority. If we have a Longsword, for example, wielded one-handed (assuming we got Lightly Armored for medium armor and a shield,) by level 11 we're making three attacks around for 1d8+1d6+5 (before accounting for magical weapons,) so about 39 damage if we hit with all of them. And hey, if we've Hexed them, we're doing 49.5, compared with the "damage baseline" optimizers seem to use, which is EB+Hex, for 1d10+1d6+5 three times, or 42 damage per round. (Though you should use a Summon spell instead of Hex in most cases).
Ok, so I think the new Pact of the Blade allows you to pretty reasonably build a character who is capable of attacking well in melee. Now, what other stuff would you want to support it?
We talked about picking up Lightly Armored, which I still think is a good call (and even if you're not taking Pact of the Blade it's a pretty good idea).
The Archfey, which in playtest 7 has the ability to use Misty Step a massive number of times and gets various bonuses to that spell, makes a lot of sense as a melee combatant. Run in, attack with your pact weapon, and then Misty Step away.
Armor of Agathys has always been a strong choice for melee Warlocks. Especially when it gets upcast, not only is it doing more damage, but it's also likely surviving long enough to deal that damage a couple of times. Cast at 5th level, it's making up for the lower hit die than the one Fighters and Paladins get.
A Great Old One Warlock who goes Bladelock will now basically never have to worry about the range on Awakened Mind to get their Clairvoyant Combatant bonus.
So yeah, I think that this makes for a reasonably viable playstyle - as long as you figure out a way to get a decent AC.
