WoW Species: Horde

 Alignment is not really a thing in WoW, and each culture has nuance and its share of heroes and villains. But I do think that the D&D book has gotten a broad idea right: that the two factions are basically Lawful Good versus Chaotic Good.

The Horde, setting aside ancient historical, temporary Hordes in deep Orcish history, began as a truly evil organization, its primary purpose a genocidal war against the Draenei. But you could argue that that Horde, that "Old Horde" ceased to be after the Second War. The modern Horde, starting with Warchief Thrall, has mostly served as a force for good in the world. That being said, this modern Horde has already racked up quite a few "red in its ledger," so to speak. It's a complicated organization - a coalition of disparate cultures, each of which have their own heroes and villains. Even if the Forsaken generally read as the Horde's "token evil teammates," there are figures like Liliana Vess, who is a pretty straightforwardly heroic individual. Then you have the seemingly saintly Tauren, but this will include figures like Magatha Grimtotem (who, to be fair, is in exile now).

The Horde is a coalition between people who have been great hardship, and have had to carve out a home for themselves in a harsh world, and there's thus something rather admirable about the way that they help one another thrive.

Elf:

So, this is one we'll have to touch on with the Alliance post as well. There are, broadly, five elven lineages. The Blood Elves of Quel'thalas and the Nightborne of Suramar are both affiliated with the Horde. The Blood Elves were once part of the Alliance, but after the kingdom was devastated during the Third War, and they were horribly mistreated in the aftermath of that war, the Blood Elves broke away, eventually invited into the Horde by the Forsaken.

The Nightborne spent ten thousand years locked underneath an arcane barrier over their city, and were transformed by the Nightwell, their font of arcane energy that kept them alive through that time. With similar struggles and shared history, the Nightborne were brought into the Horde by the Blood Elves.

Each of these (and the other elves) are represented via an Elven Lineage option within the PHB's Elf species.

Blood Elf: You know the prestidigitation cantrip, and can swap this for a different wizard cantrip on a long rest. You also get Detect Magic at level 3 and Arcane Vigor at level 5.

    Given that Blood Elves are basically High Elves (though there are also High Elves in Azeroth who remained loyal to the Alliance, and use the standard PHB High Elf) it makes sense that they have similar traits. I don't love Arcane Vigor, but otherwise this is fine, and a great way to get something like True Strike you can use Wisdom with.

Nightborne: The range of your Darkvision increases to 120 feet. You also know the Arcane Pulse cantrip. At level 3,  you get Faerie Fire, and at level 5, you get Darkness.

    Funnily enough, the Nightborne actually look somewhat like Drow, though like Night Elves, they're way bigger than other elves. Arcane Pulse is an action cantrip that deals 1d8 force damage to creatures of your choice in a 10-foot emanation and slows them by 10 feet on a failed Con save. Notably, it doesn't scale in damage. The cantrip is also on the Wizard spell list.

Forsaken:

The Forsaken are mostly former humans who once lived in the Kingdom of Lordaeron. When the Plague of Undeath swept through this mighty kingdom, the vast majority of its people died, only to rise as undead thralls to the Lich King. But after the Lich King's will wavered, fully half of the Plaguelands regained their free will and their human minds, but in horribly decayed bodies.

Your creature type is undead, which is a first in D&D 5E.

    Notably, this does complicate some issues regarding resurrection magic, so talk with your DMs about how to handle that. Thankfully, 5.5 changed a lot of healing spells like Cure Wounds to now work on Undead (and Constructs,) but again, be sure to figure out how these resurrection spells will work with your DM.

Darkvision: You have darkvision out to 60 feet.

    Unlike the Pandaren, this feels right.

Deathly Endurance: You have resistance to Necrotic damage.

    A bit campaign-dependent, but especially at high levels, this can be quite nice.

Everlasting: You don't gain exhaustion from dehydration, malnutrition, or suffocation. You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you remain conscious.

    I think this is just like the Reborn from Ravenloft, which makes sense, as that's kind of the closest equivalent.

Touch of the Grave: When you deal damage to a creature, you can roll a number of d4s equal to your PB. You deal extra damage to the creature equal to the total rolled, and regain a number of HP equal to the extra damage dealt. You can use this once per long rest.

    So, it's not a bunch of damage, of course. We're talking 5 average to start and then 15 by level 17. These little bits of healing are also not that amazing on ourselves, given that we can't, say, pop ourselves up if we're unconscious.

    Though here's a crazy idea: if we have a non-concentration damage-over-time effect, can we use this?

Will of the Forsaken: You have advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Charmed or Frightened conditions.

    Both good conditions to avoid.

    I really think the most exciting and interesting aspect of this is just that you are undead, which has a lot of implications for various spells and other features. I will say, as a lifelong spooky boy, I do really like the Forsaken in WoW - my Horde main is an Undead Rogue (though as I wrote earlier, I'd build him as a mix of Rogue and Echo Knight Fighter in D&D).

Goblin:

The Goblins of Azeroth are widespread, and while they have historically favored the Horde, only one of the major goblin cartels is officially part of the Horde. Goblins are one of the most technological peoples of Azeroth, and have a sort of odd and unhinged aesthetic that leans heavily, heavily into a kind of mid-century kitsch. Hawaiian shirts, lawn flamingos, and lots and lots of explosives.

On a mechanical level, I believe that the Goblins are identical to the way they were presented in Monsters of the Multiverse, so while they're technically new to 5.5, they're not really a "new" species option.

Orc:

The Orcs are the founders of the Horde, and are always in a cultural struggle to reckon with their past sins and restore their pride as a people, without letting the former plunge them into stagnant despair and not letting the latter drive them into repeating the worst mistakes of the past.

Orcs are already in the PHB, and both the larger population of fel-green orcs and the uncorrupted Mag'har orcs use those stats.

Tauren:

The Tauren are hulking bovine humanoids - they're minotaurs. The Tauren have wandered the plains and savannas of Kalimdor for countless generations. Deeply tied on a spiritual level to the natural world, the Tauren have historically striven for peace. Their great physical prowess, though, has made them mighty warriors, and joined the Horde in the fight against the Burning Legion in the Third War.

Historically, the Tauren were on friendly terms with the Night Elves, but as they joined the Horde and the Night Elves aligned with the Alliance, the two peoples found themselves on opposite sides of the faction conflict, tragically turning historical friends into enemies.

While the larger part of the Tauren people live in Kalimdor, the Highmountain Tribe, founded by the great hero of the War of the Ancients, Huln Highmountain, live on the Broken Isles, and are distinguished by their moose-like antlers.

While the Tauren were transformed by the energies of the Well of Eternity (much like the Night Elves,) the Taunka are an off-shoot from Northrend that are descended directly from their ancient Yaungol ancestors (there are also still living Yaungol in Pandaria, but they are very hostile to basically everyone).

Horns: Your horns are natural weapons, which you can use to make an Unarmed Strike. These deal 1d6+Strength piercing damage instead of the standard damage.

Goring Horns: Immediately after you take the Dash action on your turn and move at least 20 feet, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a bonus action.

Hammering Horns: After you hit a creature with a melee attack as part of the attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to shove the target with an unarmed strike as long as the target is within 5 feet of you. When you shove them in this way, you can push them 10 feet instead of 5 feet.

    Notably, these three features are what the Minotaur from Monsters of the Multiverse gets. The Minotaur is a bit underwhelming of a species. But we get more here:

Tauren Lineage: You have a lineage that grants you supernatural abilities. If this calls for a saving throw, the DC is based on your choice of Strength, Constitution, or Wisdom modifier.

    Before we even start here - this is totally unique. Normally, if it's some kind of spellcasting feature, you can pick between "mental" traits, and otherwise you might expect a feature like this to only allow the use of, say, Constitution. But here, if you're playing a Strength or Wisdom-based character, you can push this DC to great levels.

Mulgore Tauren: When you take the attack action on your turn, you can replace an attack with a magiclaly empowered stomp. You cannot use this feature if you are Prone or if you are flying, climbing, or swimming. Each creature of your choice within a 5-foot emanation makes a Con save. On a failure, the creature is stunned until the end of your current turn.

    This. Is. Insane. There is no limit on uses here. It's just one turn, but it's... it's an AoE stun that even avoids friendly fire. This is really, really good.

Highmountain Tauren: As an action, you can move up to your speed without provoking opportunity attacks and can move through the spaces of other creatures. Each medium or smaller creature whose space you enter makes a Strength saving throw. On a failure, the target takes damage equal to your PB plus your Strength modifier and falls prone. A creature can only take this damage once per turn.

    Again, no limit on use. This will slightly favor Strength, thanks to the damage, but consider this: you won't ever need to take the Dash action, as this is just better. Not quite the Mulgore one, but still damned good.

Taunka: You gain a +1 bonus to AC and resistance to Cold damage.

    This isn't bad, but it's not as exciting as the other two. Also, fun fact: Taunka aren't actually a playable option in WoW, though they were established long before the Highmountain Tauren (actually, there was a Tauren Death Knight NPC who was a Highmountain, but they hadn't established the moose-antler thing yet).

Troll:

Trolls on Azeroth are very different from the standard D&D Troll, though there are "Dire Trolls," who have undergone dangerous and powerful magic to bulk them up to enormous size and strength, often at the cost of their mental faculties, which I think you could use the classic CR 5 Troll to represent.

Trolls are among the most ancient peoples of Azeroth, and their civilizations probably pre-date even the Night Elves'. However, the ancient empires are mostly in ruins, and even those old empires are divided into disparate tribes that sometimes war with one another.

Still, the profound expanse of Troll history gives them a pride and power that should not be underestimated.

The Darkspear Tribe, once the pariahs and outcasts of the Gurubashi Empire, were recruited into the Horde by Thrall, and have played a crucial role in the development of the modern Horde. Their beloved chieftain, Vol'jin, was the first non-Orc Warchief, though his tenure in that role was sadly brief.

The Zandalari Empire is the oldest of the Troll Empires, and the only one that still retains the pride and glory of its ancient history, even though it was diminished by the Sundering 10,000 years ago. Famed for its riches and its magnificent navy, the Zandalari were friendly to both the Alliance and Horde, before the evil prophet Zul turned the Empire against both factions. However, the Horde reestablished ties with them during the Fourth War, and after a devastating assault by the Alliance upon the Zandalari capital, the ancient empire is now firmly aligned with the Horde.

Finally, the Amani Empire has struggled to retain their pride after much of their territory was taken by the ancient Highborne (who would become the High Elves, and thus the Blood Elves and Void Elves as well). The foes who actually got humanity to first ally with the elves, the Amani also fought alongside the Old Horde during the Second War, only to withdraw into isolation after the Horde's defeat. Only in very recent times has there been an armistice between the Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman (during a crisis in which the Blood Elves have even allowed the Alliance to enter their capital of Silvermoon,) and while the bad blood here goes back thousands of years, there's some sense that the Amani might have a chance to establish some sort of longterm peace with their elven neighbors.

    Notably, at least as of this writing, the Amani are not a playable option in WoW, though there are "customization options" for the standard Darkspear Trolls that include forest-troll colors on a purely cosmetic level.

Bloodied Frenzy: While Bloodied, you have advantage on attack rolls.

    This is pretty cool - while you don't generally want to stay bloodied for long, getting a little damage boost when you really need those bad guys dead can be helpful. Advantage is cheap these days, of course, but I'd be curious to see how often this comes up. I probably wouldn't intentionally remain bloodied, but it can be a nice litle bonus.

Darkvision: You have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet.

    This sort of feels right even if I can't justify why they get this. Frankly, at this point, not getting darkvision on a species feels like a detriment more than getting it feels like a bonus.

Troll Healing: When you expend hit point dice after a short rest, you regain HP equal to the maximum roll of the dice plus your Consittuion modifier.

    This blows the Earthen and Pandaren features out of the water (on average, at least). Assuming this doesn't mean you can only add your Con modifier once (which would be silly,) this is nearly doubling your short-rest healing. Now, is short rest healing that big a deal? Maybe not. How often do you run out of these dice? But still, you will be far more efficient with them.

Troll Lineage: Choose one of the following lineages:

Amani Troll: When you spend Heroic Inspiration, you regain 1 expended hit point die.

    The problem with this is, given how efficient our short rest healing is, do we really need to regain them before a long rest? Maybe we need to grab something like Evocation Adept from Arcana Unleashed to find other ways to spend them.

Darkspear Troll: When you take the dash action, difficult terrain composed of ice, rubble, snow, or undergrowth doesn't cost you extra movement until the end of your turn.

    I kind of hate that this doesn't just do this for all difficult terrain. Would that be so overpowered? I think that 95% of the time, this is going to be a nothing feature.

Zandalari Troll: When you roll a 1 on the d20 for a d20 test, you gain Heroic Inspiration at the end of the current turn.

    First off, his would be great if you could combine it with the Amani trait. But more seriously, this is good! It's not quite Halfling Luck, but while you can't undo the nat 1 with the inspiration you get, it's still a nice consolation prize that could help you out the next time.

Vulpera:

The fox-like Vulpera are native to the deserts of Vol'dun, on the island of Zandalar. Primarily desert nomads, the Vulpera joined up with the Horde after the Horde helped them fend off hostile Sethrak (snake-people.)

    Just as a note: the Vulpera were popular enough, but maybe out of all playable races in WoW, they were the most briefly established before they were promoted to playable, with the exception of the Void Elves (though in that case, the Void Elves at least were former Blood Elves, so we had the gist already). Another note: the Vulpera were added in an expansion that gave us a ton of "Allied Races," which used existing player race "skeletons " (as in, the 3D model skeletons) to give essentially variants on them, like Dark Iron Dwarves, which used the same basic model as Dwarves but with charred grey skin and fiery hair. The Vulpera, though, actually use the Goblin model skeleton, even though they are not remotely related to the goblins in lore (both are short and have big ears, though!)

You are Small.

Darkvision: You have darkvision out to 60 feet.

    Oh come on! Why do these people who live in a notably bright desert have darkvision? At a certain point, why not just give everyone darkvision?

Fire Resistance: You have resistance to fire damage.

    While you'd think that these furry fox-folk would be susceptible to flames, I think this is meant more to reflect their ability to survive in extreme heat (fire resistance does prevent you from getting exhaustion in such environments).

Nose for Trouble: The first time you take damage after you roll initiative, you reduce the damage you take by your level (to a minimum of 0).

    This is really cool. And given that a lot of big scary monsters start a fight off with their most powerful offensive ability, there's a good chance that's when you want the most damage reduction. Granted, it's a flat amount, but ironically you really want to take their hardest strike first to get the best use of this.

Vulpera Nimblenss: You can move through the space of any creature a size larger than you, but can't stop in the same place.

    This is like the Halfling trait. Also, I realized that I'd been getting something wrong about 5.5 movement - that moving through an ally's space is still considered difficult terrain. Good to know, but not relevant here.

And there we go: the Horde.

I suspect that the Alliance will be a bit quicker, as you have some more familiar D&D species among is number, like Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes. But we'll also see some rather unique ones like the Worgen and Draenei.

WoW Species: The Neutral

 The D&D World of Warcraft book is now available in early access, and I've done a quick look through it. I've of course been cheating a bit using various YouTubers' previews of the subclasses, but now we can get into the nitty and the gritty.

While I'd strongly encourage you to approach the Alliance/Horde conflict however you prefer at your table (I'd be down for something of a Cold War vibe where a party can have members of both factions, and forge genuine friendships, even if there's that lingering fear and distrust - maybe only some of the party is welcome in Thunder Bluff) the Red vs Blue conflict is a foundational one to the setting as a whole.

But since the introduction of the Pandaren as a playable race in 2012, WoW has inducted a number of cultures and populations that find themselves in the Alliance and the Horde. In some cases, this reflects a stark philosophical difference between the ones who go one way or another, and in some it's just a general understanding that both factions can be good allies, and a carefully-maintained neutrality might be wise.

I'll also point out that while, in the MMO, if you play a Goblin, you're automatically a member of the Horde and affiliated with the Bilgewater Cartel, there are plenty of Goblins who happily work for the Alliance, and even one example of a Goblin who was a high-ranking and respected member of Stormwind's SI7 (their intelligence agency - a riff on the UK's MI6).

Still, there are a ton of playable species in this book, so I couldn't put them all in a single post. And given that, let's finish this preamble and get moving!

Dracthyr:

The Dracthyr are a bit like dragonborn, but the backstory is that they were specifically created by Neltharion, the Black Dragon aspect (who would eventually go insane and try to destroy the world, renaming himself Deathwing) to serve as humanoid-like super-soldiers. When he lost control of the magical artifact that kept them permanently mind-controlled, he panicked and locked them away in deep vaults, where they remained in stasis for thousands of years, eventually reawakening along with the rest of the Dragon Isles.

First off, you actually have the dragon creature type, which is a first for 5E (one could imagine a world where various PHB species have other creature types, like Goliaths as Giants, Dragonborn as Dragon, Aasimar as Celestials, and Tieflings as Fiends, but here we are).

Darkvision: You get darkvision out to 60 feet.

Gliding WIngs: When you are in your natural form and are not incapactiated, when you fall, you subtract 100 feet from the distance fallen when calculating the fall's damage, and can move up to 2 feet horizontally for every 1 foot you descend.

    This is actually, weirdly, similar to the Hadozee feature from Spelljammer, which does do a weird thing by letting you potentially get a ton of lateral movement if you can drop from high up enough. While I think this would make more sense if we could just not take fall damage, the fact that this doesn't require a reaction, and that 100 feet is pretty generous, I think this is fine.

Natural Weaponry: While you're in your natural form, your wings and tails can be used as a bonus action to make an unarmed strike to shove a creature.

    Bonus action shove - obviously a lot better on a class that doesn't need its bonus action a lot. Nothing huge, but an unlimited enhancement here.

Visage: As a magic action, you can shape-shift into a humanoid form called your visage. You choose your visage's appearance when you select this species, which remains consistent. Changing shape doesn't change your game statistics, clothing, or equipment.

    Well, doesn't change your game statistics except for these other traits. But this basically takes the idea of dragons taking on humanoid forms and lets you do it too. WoW Dragons of all stripes do this all the time (makes you wonder why there aren't any half-dragons wandering around Azeroth... I think Jaina Proudmoore even dated a dragon for a while).

Draconic Flight: When you reach level 5, you can use your natural form to fly short distances. As a bonus action, you leap into the air and gain a fly speed equal to your speed that lasts 10 minutes. You can use this once per long rest.

    This is identical to the Dragonborn feature, fittingly enough.

    While I am not a big fan of Dracthyr in the MMO (largely because in their true form, you don't actually get to see most of the gear you're wearing, for some reason - I'd be much happier with them if they just fixed that) I think this is fine, and gives us the kind of vaguely-dragonborn equivalent for Azeroth.

Earthen:

The Earthen are the ancestors of the dwarves - Titanforged constructs built to excavate the deep places of Azeroth. But some Earthen remained unaffected by the curse of flesh, and are no longer bound to the Titan Edicts that forced them to do as they were programmed to do, they're now free to adventure and learn about the world.

Despite what I just said, Earthen are actually counted as humanoid.

Azerite Surge: When you take the attack action, you can replace one of your attacks with a blast of Azerite energy in a 15-foot cone. Each creature of your choice in the cone regains 1d10 HP, and each other creatuer makes a Dex save (dc based on your Con) or takes 1d10 radiant damage on a failure or half as much on a success. Both the damage and healing increase by 1d10 at levels 5, 11, and 17. You can use this PB times per long rest.

    This is light a Dragonborn's Breath Weapon but strictly better. It avoids friendly fire and even heals friends in the cone. And the Breath Weapon got a big boost in 5.5, so this is awesome.

Darkvision: You have darkvision out to 120 feet.

    Standard for subterranean peoples.

Earthen Resilience: You have resistance to poison damage. You also have advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the poisoned condition.

    Just like a dwarf, appropriately enough, as these are basically "stone dwarves."

Ingest Minerals: You don't gain exhaustion levels from malnutrition.

    Which is a very technical way of saying you don't have to eat.

Quiet Contemplation: When you spend Hit Dice when you finish a short rest, you regain 1 additional HP per Hit Die expended.

    So, we don't get the Dwarven Resilience, but this kind of makes up for it a little. A tiny bit of extra healing.

    Again, I really think that this will be great for any character with multiattack, and even if you don't, the cone heal, while minor, is a pretty great thing for a species trait and then you have one of the best damage types as a breath attack stapled to it.

Haranir:

The Haranir are a secretive people who live underground where the roots of the various world trees of Azeroth converge, and where the planet's Worldsoul once rested. The Haranir are a kind of missing link between the elves and trolls, and I could have sworn they were the long-fabled "Dark Trolls" until this book contradicted this. Still, they share traits of both species, and are all about safeguarding the natural world and the roots of the trees.

Darkvision: You have darkvision out to 120 feet.

    Again, subterranean.

Gift of the World Tree: You have proficiency in Nature and Survival.

    Some bonus proficiencies are always nice.

Haranir Magic: You know Druidcraft and Thorn Whip. When you reach character level 3, you learn Entangle. At level 5, you learn Spike Growth. You can cast each spell once per long rest without a spell slot, or you can cast them with your own spell slots as well. You choose Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as your spellcasting ability for these spells.

    These are... good spells! Spike Growth in particular is infamous for the "cheese-grater" builds you can make with it, doing tons of damage with forced movement. But Entangle, while humble, can still be quite strong.

    The species fits quite well with the format of the D&D Elf. When we get to the Horde species, we'll look at their Troll cousins. Anyway, a really solid showing for WoW's newest playable race.

Pandaren:

The Pandaren are a species of humanoid panda-people, who fought off tyrannical mogu oppressors to build an egalitarian empire in the land of Pandaria, guided by the Wild Gods known as the August Celestials. While most were locked away by a protective mist for 10,000 years, a small group of them traversed the mists on a turtle that grew to the size of an island, only returning to their ancestral home and their distant relations after the mists parted. The Pandaren have a culture that emphasizes family, food, storytelling, and philosophy.

Bouncy: You have resistance to Bludgeoning damage from falling.

    This is probably not going to be a character-defining trait. But it's fun.

Darkvision: You have darkvision to 60 feet.

    Hey, does anyone not get darkvision? Truly, I'm not sure why they get this, other than that... it's generally nice to have.

Inner Peace: When you spend hit point dice (yeah, 5.5 changed it to that from hit dice, and I struggle to write it that way) after a short rest, you regain 1 additional HP per die expended.

    Just like the Earthen one. Not going to be much, but it's a little bonus.

Quaking Palm: When you hit a creature with a melee attack on your turn, your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks until the end of your turn.

    This is... this is fantastic. While it's not a full disengage, and we do need to land a hit, this requires no extra action, and it's unlimited in use. So, Pandaren can just move around the battlefield pretty safely.

    Again, this is one of those species that are mostly fine, and then you get that Quaking Palm, which, I'll note, does not require the melee attack to be with a weapon or unarmed strike, so if you want to hit them with a spell attack (as long as it's melee) you'll be good.

And there we have it - there aren't a ton of neutral species.

As we take a look at the faction-specific ones, I'll note that there are a fair number that are already represented in the PHB. I think we'll start off with the Horde ones, which will have more new options, though there also some little variant options, like additional origin feats for humans.

WoW Wild Shape Forms

 While I think if I ever play a Druid in a D&D campaign, I'm hoping it will be after the Circle of Titans is released in whatever book they're planning that one for (though I could also imagine going Wildfire or Stars if I wanted to focus more on spellcasting). However, the appeal of the Circle of the Moon is pretty central to the Druid fantasy - being effective at using various animal forms to fight your foes.

One of the downside, though, of the Circle of the Moon, is that the beast forms you can pick from often aren't really... ideal for a player character. In particular, your AC and your attack bonuses are often lower than you would be able to get as a comparable melee-based character.

The One D&D playtest for 5.5 back in 2023 initially presented a Druid that used, rather than existing stat blocks, a set of scaling stat blocks that would, for example, use your spell attack bonus for your attacks and also use your Wisdom to determine your AC.

However, there were two problems. The thing I felt was less of a real problem was that it shrunk down all beasts you could transform into to just a Beast of the Land, Sea, and Air (similar to what they did with the Beast Master Ranger's companions, though this change did remain through to print,) and thus you lost out on, say, picking a spider form for Spider Climb.

The bigger problem, though, was that the forms sucked. For example, that Wisdom-based AC was just, like, 10+Wis, meaning that even when you capped your Wisdom, you'd wind up with an armor class that was lower than a level 1 Fighter in chain mail.

The uproar over these saw them revert Wild Shape to its previous version, with a few changes to the way that the feature interacted with HP (giving you Temp HP instead of replacing your HP, which has both benefits and drawbacks). But I was one of a minority that felt that they gave up on this idea too soon - that they should have instead just made better stat blocks.

Well... I think we have some better stat blocks now. But are they good enough?

In WoW, Druids have just a few shapeshift forms. Bear Form is built for tanking, and actually changes your resource system so that you use Rage like a Warrior (this is nothing like D&D's Barbarian rage, but is a resource you spend on abilities that builds up as you deal damage, so there's kind of a positive feedback loop as you attack and spend rage to generate rage). Cat form is built for damage-dealing, and makes you function more like a Rogue, with a resource called Energy (which just regenerates quickly) and Combo Points (which you build up with certain attacks before spending them on a "Finishing Move"). Outside of this are just a Travel form (which can shift between a fast deer-like form for overland travel, a walrus-like form for swimming, and a bird for flying) and, for Balance Druids, a Moonkin form (think an upright owlbear with antlers).

The WoW book, which I now actually have access to myself, has given us a Cat form and Bear form. The idea is that A: you can play this like you would play these roles in WoW and B: you have a stat block that can scale with your level and remain good from 3 to 20 (these do require the Circle Forms trait from Circle of the Moon.)

But... are they good? Let's take a look:

Cat Form:

You are Large, with a speed of 40 feet.

Your AC is 13 + Wis.

    This, of course, matches what we get anyway as a Moon Druid, but is nonetheless decent. Assuming we start with a +3 and eventually get +5, we're going to find ourselves with comparable AC to someone who starts in Chain Mail and eventually gets Plate.

Most of this is what you'd expect - your Strength and Dexterity are set to your Wisdom score, so you'll be quite good with those, and you get proficiency in Stealth (so you'll be good at that.)

But how about attacks?

Well, first off, yes, you get to use your Spell Attack modifier for your attacks, which is great - you'll have a decent hit chance (and can, I think, even boost it potentially depending on how you interpret Wand of the Warmage or how a Moon Sickle works).

The Cat has a multiattack, but here we've got a little bad news:

The multiattack lets you make one Pounce attack and one use of Prowl.

Pounce is a melee attack that deals 1d10+Wis slashing damage on a hit. The damage increases to 2d10 at level 5, 3d10 at 11, and 4d10 at 17. If you had advantage on the roll, the target takes an extra 1d6 slashing and, if it's large or smaller, it is knocked prone. The bonus damage goes up at Druid levels 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, by 1d6 at each of these levels.

       This is actually really interesting: Obviously, it's inspired by a Rogue's Sneak Attack. The damage scales up in multiple ways, but by level 18, we're looking at an attack that hits for 4d10+6d6+5, or about 46 on average.

Prowl lets you move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks and then, at the end of that movement, take the Hide action.

    This is there, of course, to set up our advantage to get with Pounce. The obvious cycle we're supposed to go through is to either start off hidden and then attack, then retreat with Prowl to remain hidden until the next turn, or alternatively, we could try to hide first and then go after our foe.

    Clearly, this is meant to give us something similar to the Rogue's Cunning Action Hide/Sneak Attack. An 18th level Rogue with something like a Shortbow would hit for 1d6+9d6+5, or like 40. So this actually compares pretty favorably.

    But we will only get a single attack, meaning A: we better land it and B: we won't benefit as much from spells like Fount of Moonlight or Conjure Minor Elementals, which can grant bonus damage on each hit. Without the bonus damage, Pounce is doing just a bit better than cantrip damage (and the same if we had Potent Spellcasting).

However, beyond this multiattack, we also have Primal Wrath. Here, we can expend a spell slot to slash nearby enemies. Creatures of our choice in a 5-foot emanation make a Dex save against our spell save DC, taking 2d6 per the level of the spell plus our Wisdom in slashing damage.

    That's interesting - we're not going to be able to hit a ton of targets, though thanks to the fact that we're Large, we could get a few more (I think up to 12?). The scaling here is actually not bad, though - with 2d6 added at each level, a 2nd level version would be 4d6+Wis (probably still 3 at 3rd level) for, say, 17 damage to a few targets. It is save-for-none, though, so it's a bit risky and certainly falls off sharply compared to save-for-half effects.

Bear Form:

Again, you're Large.

Your speed is 30.

Your AC is 15+Wis

    So, we're basically getting a +2 bonus over other Wild Shape forms. That's not bad, and will let us get up to a 20 AC by the time we cap wisdom.

We have a multiattack, which allows us to do two Mangle attacks.

Mangle is a melee attack that uses our spell attack modifier to hit and deals 1d8+Wis slashing damage. The damage goes up at levels 5, 11, and 17 by 1d8.

    This is very basic, but winds up being pretty great. It's like wielding a longsword, but then also gets cantrip-style scaling. With two attacks, by the time we're 17, we'll be doing 23 with each attack, which actually gets us very precisely to what the Cat gets with the one attack by level 18.

    But unlike the Cat, we don't need to really meet any conditions for this other than landing our hits. Furthermore, spreading our damage between two attacks smooths out our damage and the pain of a miss. But even more importantly, a second attack will double the scaling of any damage-increasing concentration spells like, as mentioned above, Fount of Moonlight or Conjure Minor Elementals. This is clearly better. But we're not done.

Frenzied Regeneration is a bonus action that lets us expend a spell slot and get Temp HP equal to 5 times the spell's level.

    Given that we can cast Cure Wounds in wild shape form as a Moon Druid, I would only use this if we're desperate for healing. Note as well that we're already getting Temp HP for using Wild Shape anyway, so we shouldn't use this until all of that has been chewed through. Could be clutch, but I'm skeptical it will see much use.

Growl is a reaction we get when a creature we can se attacks a target other than us within 5 feet of us. We impose disadvantage on the triggering attack and against all other attacks against hte target until the start of our next turn if we remain within 5 feet of them.

    So, this kind of cool. We need to stick very close to the ally we're protecting, but when we do, we can make it a lot harder to hit them. This is better than the Protection Fighting Style, which I think only affects one attack.

Overall Thoughts:

    Bear Form is the clear winner here, and should be your default choice, and maybe just your default choice as a Moon Druid in general. The Cat Form is probably better-suited for infiltration and scouting, and the benefit is mainly that if you do wind up in a fight, you can defend yourself decently. But I would say for full-on battle, Bear has got to be the best choice.

    But more broadly, I think that I would recommend any Moon Druid, even in a non-Azeroth campaign, to at least include these forms in your "prepared forms" moving forward. The scaling here is just a lot better than any Beast stat blocks you can find (I think the Giant Scorpion has three attacks in their multiattack, but their attack bonus is low).

    The Cat form, appropriately enough, suffers from some of the flaws in the design of the Rogue, but again, I think it will have its uses. Maybe if we get a Tasha's-like supplement in the future, they can bring in these and perhaps add a couple others, like Bird form or Wolf form, to broaden out what Moon Druids can choose from.

The Thalmor, the Frenzied Flame, and Gnostic Horror

 The very first movie that my family got on DVD was The Matrix. My dad had gotten a G4 Macintosh that came with a DVD-ROM drive, and so what was then a new home video format had now become available to us. I had seen previews of The Matrix, but the marketing campaign for the movie cleverly kept the actual premise of the film secret, enticing viewers with its slick, stylish, mindblowing visuals (having invented "Bullet Time," a technique that put dozens of still cameras around a scene, hidden within a greenscreen environment, so that you could freeze time while the "camera" moved around the scene).

The story, of course, is well-known at this point: Neo discovers that the world he inhabits, which resembles a dreary urban 1999 with soulless office work, is actually a virtual environment operated by tyrannical machine overlords, who instead use humanity as batteries while lulling them into complacency by trapping them in this digital limbo. (My dad, ever the pedant, complained about the fact that human bodies would take far more energy to maintain than they'd put out, but I think that A: they're not a source so much as a capacitor for energy, and B: there's either an element of contempt here or a kind of "Zeroth Law" thing where the machines are technically protecting humanity by keeping them in this state.)

The movie blended a whole lot of philosophical ideas while also drawing heavily upon Anime as an inspiration at a time when the medium was far more niche in the West. After its sibling directors, the Wachowskis, both came out as trans women, though, looking back on the movie, you can see the way in which its story works as a trans allegory, a metaphor for breaking out of a rigid system of cultural expectations (including gender roles) to live as oneself - in particular, the villainous Agent Smith insistently refers to Neo as Thomas Anderson, the name that he was given at birth but not the one he chose for himself. I wouldn't learn the term Deadnaming for about two decades after seeing the movie, but this is exactly what Agent Smith is constantly doing.

Still, I don't think the movie was meant to be purely read as a trans allegory, and can be more broadly viewed as an allegory for breaking out of all manner of dehumanizing systems, from patriarchy to capitalism.

But beyond that, the central kind of fantasy of it all: that the world you know is not the real world, and that one might attain a higher level of power and wisdom by escaping into the true world beyond, is a potent one at the center of fantasy as a genre (the Matrix is obviously more sci-fi, but tonally it could be seen as a fantasy story as well).

Gnosticism is a tradition within the history of early Christianity that, of course, is a lot more complex and nuanced than I'll be able to cover here (and I'm not any authority on this anyway,) but one of the central concepts is that of the Demiurge - a being who appears to be godlike, but is actually inherently corrupt and only pretends to be the true divine creator, and the false reality that the Demiurge has created.

The Demiurge might be malicious, or might be ignorant and foolish, not even realizing that they are lying.

But the idea is that while the true creator created a pure and holy spiritual universe, that the Demiurge created physical reality, and by doing so, trapped flawless, perfect souls in profane, weak physical forms. Salvation, to the Gnostics, was achieved by discovering the truth of one's pure origins, and would allow a kind of escape from the profane physical world to ascend into the true universe beyond the material.

The Gnostics were considered heretics by the early church, but the ideas that they presented have, I think, become part of Western cultural thought, and even link up in some ways with philosophies from other parts of the world.

Surely, the world we exist in includes suffering. Quite a lot of it, in fact. Three is certainly an appeal to the idea that one could escape all of it.

But... what if they're wrong? And what if this went beyond mere philosophical speculation and into the realm of action.

To be clear, I'm not going to talk about anyone doing this in the real world, but I think we can draw some parallels once we look at two examples.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, taking place centuries after the events of the previous game, we find an Empire that has been forced into a subservient position by the neighboring Aldmeri Dominion. The Dominion has within it a kind of agency called the Thalmor, who were described by the developers as a faction that, no matter where your loyalties lay in, say, the Skyrim civil war, you were meant to hate.

They are not only a kind of secret police, but also a kind of inquisition, imposing religious laws that the Dominion had forced upon the Empire that forbid the worship of Talos, the a human who had ascended to godhood.

Why do they want to do this? Well, because Talos is evidently the lynchpin that keeps the physical universe from being destroyed.

And why would they want it destroyed?

Because they are basically Gnostic fundamentalists: they believe that the elves (or "mer,") were once free spirits that roamed the cosmos in a formless state of bliss. As long as the physical world exists, they are held back from returning to this state.

Which... makes things a bit complicated. After all, if they're right, might it actually be better to allow for this collapse of reality as we know it? The High Elves (Aldmeri) view Lorkhan, the Demiurge-like figure who helped create the world, as a villainous monster who imprisoned their souls. But humanity, or at least the Nords, revere him as the god Shor, who led humanity to fight off oppression and tyrants (notably, the elves).

The Thalmor are pretty universally hatable. It is their imposition of these religious laws upon the Empire that leads to the civil war in Skyrim. And in a modern, tolerant, secular view of the world (one that I certainly hold but is clearly not universal) it seems pretty clearly villainous to undercut the core of another peoples' culture. But the Thalmor believe that the end - in this case the end of the world - justifies the means, and that this apocalyptic fate would actually be better for everyone, and not in a "mercy kill the universe" way but a "usher in an endless golden age of spiritual freedom" way.

I think a similar concept is at work in Elden Ring.

Of all the dangerous threats in the Lands Between, the most mysterious and horror-coded is the Frenzied Flame. There's no one single demigod or faction associated with it - it wasn't until the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that we got a proper boss aligned with the Flame.

But if we follow the path that leads to the Three Fingers, and we get Hyetta to serve as our Finger Maiden for them (even if we wind up using Miquella's Needle to cleanse ourselves of it and thus have our cake and eat it too - too bad Melina never shows up again to let us explain how we accomplished this,) she explains that the belief associated with the Frenzied Flame is that, at the beginning of time, there was the One Great, but that the One Great divided itself, no longer held together in wholeness and allowing for different things to emerge from the fractured whole.

Hyetta claims this was a mistake, and that all suffering and pain has been a result from this fracturing. The Flame of Frenzy, though, will melt everything down, ridding the world of all that divides and distinguishes, and restore the One Great to its original, undifferentiated form.

I think that this idea runs parallel to that Gnostic idea. In this case, the One Great is sort of both divine creator and demiurge, but we might say that the part of the One Great that remained in a position of divine authority, the Greater Will, is really playing this role of Demiurge.

So, the Frenzied Flame is this force that works toward the reconstitution of that original One Great. But... it does so in a manner of pure horror.

One of the things that I've always felt was really fascinating about the Flame is that we don't really see a lot of people talking about it. It seems to arise in places of despair - the tomb of the wandering merchants is where the Three Fingers can be found, but we also see how Midra's Manor was once a beautiful place that was burned by the Hornsent Inquisition, its master impaled with a truly horrifying torture implement (how is he not dead with that thing going directly through his brain?) But even little minor places, like the village on the Weeping Peninsula (not sure what they're despairing about, but the name of the landmass doesn't imply it's the happiest place) or the Leyndell soldiers trapped on the slopes of Mt. Gelmir, resorting to cannibalism as they're cut off from reinforcements and supplies - these are all places where the Frenzied Flame has power. (Oh, I forgot the place up on the Consecrated Snowfield. No clue what is going on there, actually.)

But the point is, there are these weird parallels with the Golden Order. One might even see how the Shamans' ability to amalgamate with others' bodies might be viewed in this manner. The Law of Regression - is that a little hidden nod to the Frenzied Flame within the Golden Order?

What is interesting is that in all of these cases, there is this feeling of a crime or mistake that has ruined things - that the imposition of a physical world was an evil act.

And this goes in pretty stark contrast with the more widespread and popular conceptions of creation - that the world's birth was a good thing, and that the fact that everything exists is good, even if there are flaws in it. And likewise, isn't the classic heroic fantasy narrative about saving the world from destruction?

When Melina makes her last plea to the Tarnished not to take on the Frenzied Flame, she speaks specifically of how it will prevent "births," which I find pretty interesting given that it's not a word we hear elsewhere in the game, as far as I know. What she specifically means is, of course, open for debate (this is FromSoft, so everything's always open for debate). But I think this is an appeal to the idea that the physical world allows for new possibilities, for new ideas and things and people to arise.

There's something appealing, certainly, to an endless and eternal state of perpetual bliss. But by complicating things, by making a world of texture and color and distinctions, we actually have something - we have meaning.

Swashbuckler Rogue

 The only reprint that sticks with its original name, the Swashbuckler is actually one of the most iconic rogue archetypes. In the One D&D playtest for 5.5, they originally planned to have the Swashbuckler as the PHB's fourth Rogue subclass, and as much as I like the Soulknife, I do think that this is far more of an obvious, core Rogue fantasy that really deserves to be one of the basic options.

This is the Rogue who doesn't hide in the shadows, but walks into the false-king's banquet hall pointedly holding a poached deer. It's the most classically-heroic Rogue, potentially, though typically in the role of a scrappy underdog. Through wit, charm, cunning, and rakish audacity (so to speak,) they make fools of their foes.

Now, because this is appearing in the WoW book, let's give a little history of the Outlaw spec, which began its life under a different name.

In WoW, all three Rogue specs dual-wield melee weapons - there's no ranged Rogue, and they're the only pure-melee class that cannot perform the tank role (Hunters and Shamans each have a melee spec, but they're more often fighting at range). Furthermore, the other two specs, Subtlety and Assassination, fight only with daggers, while these Rogues fight with a larger array of weapons - swords, maces, axes and fist weapons.

When WoW came out, the spec was called simply "Combat," and while it was, actually, often the best spec (back when the balance of the game was far worse and certain specs were truly just better than others,) its flavor was... you fight with larger weapons.

However, come the Legion expansion in 2016, Combat was renamed to Outlaw, embracing a far more specific and flavorful identity, and changing up a lot of its abilities, including incorporating a pistol that the Rogue would draw and fire to use certain abilities (not equipped as a piece of gear, the pistol was more of just a visual for the abilities). Outlaw can be interpreted as having more of a pirate/swashbuckler vibe, though there's also a bit of a Wild West gunslinger (with a bit of a gambling theme - true to both archetypes).

A spec I avoided like the plague because it was so boring prior to this, Outlaw is actually very fun now, and while I still love Subtlety best, I do have a secondary Rogue character in WoW who goes Outlaw.

Now: the D&D subclass, however, does not appear to be in anyway pulling on the WoW spec for its mechanics. This looks to be almost purely a revision of the existing subclass that was last seen in Xanathar's.

Let's get into it!

Level 3:

Fancy Footwork:

When you make a melee attack against a creature, it can't make opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn, whether you hit or miss.

    This is, I think, unchanged, but also strongly enables you to get up into melee as a Rogue. With your bonus action no longer needed to disengage (unless you get up in front of multiple foes) you free it up for either a dash (to get back away from that enemy you just attacked) or to make an off-hand attack (though thanks to weapon mastery, we're probably not worried as much about that, though we might if we get the Dual Wielder feat), or have some other thing to do. It makes us very mobile, which is great.

Rakish Audacity:

You get a bonus to your Initiative rolls equal to your Charisma modifier. You can also use Sneak Attack without advantage if you're within 5 feet of a target and no other creatures are within 5 feet of you and you don't have disadvantage.

    Again, I think this is unchanged.

    Rogues can afford to be fairly "SAD" (single ability score dependent) and so you can actually manage to have a decent Charisma. It's already a Dexterity-focused class, so you'll have a pretty good initiative bonus anyway, and if you get something like Alert, even better.

    Now, the second part here is the real boon: We can basically always get sneak attack. While it might be hard to do if we want to strike a foe surrounded by its allies, I think we can usually find a space to stand where we'll only have one foe within melee range. If that space is within 5 feet of an ally, then we're probably getting Sneak Attack anyway because they're also likely within 5 feet of our target.

    The only bad scenario here is if we can only get into melee with a foe while an ally is just out of reach of the foe. But that's pretty unlikely, and so what I think this means is that we can be very confident we'll get sneak attack - if we're going into melee.

    Again, I think this is identical to the old version, but this is another feature that I think makes this subclass a popular choice for 3-level Rogue dips.

Level 9:

Panache:

You gain two new Cunning Strike options.

    Just as a note: I love the idea of Cunning Strikes. But I do think that their deep flaw is just that Rogues are already struggling to keep up in terms of damage, and so sacrificing damage for utility feels a bit unfair when you have, say, Battle Master Fighters getting utility on top of damage with their maneuvers. If Sneak Attack did significantly more damage (some have suggested even letting it scale every level, so you have a d6 for each Rogue level) this might work out better. But that's not this subclass' fault, nor is the fact that their second subclass feature doesn't come online until level 9.

Goad (1d6): The target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they have disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than you until the end of its next turn.

    So, this is a taunt, though with a save to avoid it, unlike what, say, Ancestral/Spiritual Guardians or Armorers get. The real question, though, is... do you want to taunt a foe? Rogues do have one solid defensive reaction, but it only halves incoming damage. Here, though, I think this becomes far better if we are fighting from range, where they won't even be likely to be able to target us in the first place.

Awe (3d6): Creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you make a Wisdom save or become Charmed until the end of your next turn.

    An AoE charm can be very good, defensively. Hard to use outside of combat, of course, given that you have to land a sneak attack. A real flavor win, though, as this feels like a great thing to use when you're alone in a room full of enemies and have to beat a hasty retreat.

Level 13:

You get even more Cunning Strike options:

Invigorate (2d6): One creature within 30 feet adds 1d6 to their attack rolls and saving throws until the end of its next turn.

    This is kind of fascinating. I believe (again, the wording here isn't precisely what's printed in the video I'm using as a source) you could target yourself with this. But if you have an ally concentrating on a really important spell, or you have some friend who has some really great buff to their attacks, this could wind up being very nice to hand out. We lose 7 damage, but that might be made up for by this bonus.

Parrying Stance (2d6): You add 1d6 to your AC until the start of your next turn.

    Especially given the melee focus on this subclass, getting a way to boost AC will be nice. While by level 13 we should hopefully have capped our Dex (even with three General Feats, if we start with 17 we will be there) and thus we should have comparable AC to someone in half-plate, a little extra is certainly nothing to say no to. But this really is a weighed choice between better survival and a chunk of our damage.

Level 17:

Master Duelist:

Immediately after using Sneak Attack, make another attack against the same target, provided you're within 5 feet of it and no other creatures are within 5 feet of you.

    This looks pretty good, but we have to temper our expectations a bit: that second attack can't trigger Sneak Attack by definition. Also, if we miss on our attack, we don't get this. I do think that this really, really encourages a Swashbuckler to dual-wield, and even take the dual-wielder feat, which is already pretty helpful for any Rogue.

Overall Thoughts:

    I think this subclass is fine, and good, even, but we do have to grade on a curve for Rogues. If we pumped the Rogue up a little bit (and moved the second subclass feature to, like, level 6) it'd be amazing.

    I think you can potentially get the same kind of Errol Flynn-like swashbuckling flavor with, say, a Valor Bard and might actually feel like you're pulling the whole archetype off even better that way. But if you do want to play a Rogue, I think this is going to be a good choice that does enable a lot of what you're looking for.

Path of the Spiritual Guardian Barbarian

 The Ancestral Guardian Barbarian was introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. While perhaps overshadowed by the Zealot, which wound up in the 5.5 PHB, this has also long been a pretty well-established and effective subclass. Notably, Ancestral Guardians are one of a handful of subclasses across any class that is built to truly play a "tank" role in a group.

I actually have a ton of familiarity with the original version of this subclass, because one of my players in my 6-years-and-counting Ravnica campaign plays one. And I will tell you: he might not put out the most damage (though with an artifact weapon that deals an extra 2d8 damage along with other benefits, he's no slouch) what he does do very well is protect his allies. The key is, not only does he impose disadvantage on attacks against other targets than himself, but the soft-taunt debuff also extends damage resistances, to the point where, especially if the monster is doing any non-bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage, they truly do less damage to anyone else.

The subclass is renamed here as Spiritual Guardian, which I guess just broadens out which spirits you might call upon. What I will say is that in the Ravnica game, I have had NPCs talk to the Barbarian and refer to him as a Shaman, because he literally is one - having a connection to unseen spirits upon whom he can call for aid, which is more or less the actual definition of a shaman. So, ironically, while I don't think the Barbarian is the best class to emulate a WoW Shaman, in this case at least the subclass literally has you play a shaman using the real-world definition.

Now, the rough concept of this subclass is to make it work for WoW's Enhancement Shaman. Don't get hung up on this too much: it's nothing like Enhancement. Actually, honestly, the Elements Barbarian is closer to what Enhancement feels like, while to get a real Elemental Shaman feel you'd want to go with something like a Circle of the Land Druid and focus on elemental damage types like lightning and fire, or maybe even just go with an Evoker Wizard (or a Genie Warlock, actually). The "ancestral spirits" theme of Shamans is really secondary to its "primordial elements" theme in WoW. And while Elemental and Restoration Shamans can both take the "Farseer" Hero Talents (a system that works as a kind of secondary subclass that is role-agnostic) that do actually have ancestor spirits appear and fight alongside you, Enhancement is the one spec that doesn't get this option.

So, really, even more than other suggested subclasses, we should kind of set aside the WoW of it all and truly treat this as its own, setting-agnostic option. I'm also going to try to take it on its own merits, in part because while I see the Ancestral Guardian in play, I'm not often looking at all of its features laid out in front of me. Naturally, my experience with the subclass will color my impression of this one. Will this be like the new Grave Cleric, where it would be good if we didn't have a better version that existed previously? Or will this one shine and actually be an improvement over something that's already solid? Or maybe it will be just a lateral move.

Let's get into the features.

(Credit here goes to the Dungeon Dudes, using their video ranking the WoW subclasses.)

Level 3:

Spiritual Protectors:

When raging, when you hit with a weapon or unarmed strike, you can choose one effect:

Distract: The target has disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than you or another Barbarian with this feature until the start of your next turn.

    The key change here (other than having two other options to use) is that this no longer imparts resistance to the damage of those attacks if the monster decides to go after your friends regardless. That actually does wind up being a pretty big nerf to this, as a monster might still decide they'd rather risk disadvantage to hit a target that will take full damage from their attack rather than hitting the Barbarian.

    It's very unlikely you'll have two Spiritual Guardians in the same party, but then, my party has two Storm Sorcerers. Obviously, this is the standard "soft taunt" that you see with Armorer Artificers and Cavalier Fighters, though I don't think they have carve-outs for others of their subclass. However, if you do have one of those two characters in your party, you should both blanket the target with disadvantage. I will say this is less exciting if you're using a weapon with Sap, though it does apply to all attacks.

Hinder: You can apply the Slow weapon mastery in addition to another mastery.

    Slow doesn't stack up, but if you really need to keep a foe from fleeing, this can help. Indeed, combining Distract and Hinder will help you lock down foes and keep them from hurting your friends (though if you slow them enough that they can't get to your friends, Distract is kind of redundant). Probably the most situational choice.

Strike: You deal an extra 1d4 of your choice of Cold, Fire, or Lightning damage.

    Ok, this is interesting. it's not a ton of damage, of course, but unlike other Barbarian damage buffs at 3rd level, this is going to apply to all attacks. You thus get slightly more value out of it if you're dual-wielding or can weaponize your bonus action through something like Polearm Master. 1d4 ain't much, but it's not nothing either when you can apply it to every attack. And this also gives you a good option when you just want to pour out as much damage as you can.

    Generally, I think the taunt has taken a nasty nerf, but the existence of these other options does make this a bit interesting, and not strictly worse. What it does is push this subclass a little away from the tank archetype - not fully away, but lets you play one that is more about damage.

Level 6:

Spirit Shield:

While raging, you can use a reaction when another creature within 30 feet takes damage to reduce the damage they take. Roll d6s equal to your rage bonus, and reduce the damage by the number rolled.

    I think this is the same as the old version (the math on how much you reduce might be different,) but this is going to help you mitigate what damage does go through. (Actually, now that I check, the damage mitigation scales up slightly faster, as you'd get d6s added at levels 10 and 14, while the rage bonus goes up faster than that).

Level 10:

Consult the Spirits:

Once per short or long rest, you can cast Augury or Clairvoyance without a spell slot or material components. The sensor for Clairvoyance takes the form of an invisible ancestor spirit.

    This is unchanged. It's also only rarely impactful. It's not that these spells aren't good, but this is a pure utility boost, and doesn't do anything for you in combat. Now sure, giving Barbarians stuff to do outside of combat is great, but you're not going to feel much of an impact here at this level.

Level 14:

Spirits' Fury:

Once per turn, when you roll an 18-20 on the d20 while making a melee weapon attack as part of the attack action, you can make one additional attack with the same weapon.

    This is a totally different feature from the old version, which would let you deal force damage to the attacker that triggered Spirit Shield. But what do we think of this? Well, first off, I do think this is the one real nod to Enhancement Shamans, who imbue their weapons (they always dual-wield) with elemental magic, most famously "Windfury," which lets their attacks trigger additional attacks that hit at the same time. Baseline, this is going to be going off about 15% of the time, though if we're always using Reckless Attack (or getting advantage some other way,) we'll have a 27.75% chance of triggering this, and with two attacks, that becomes a 48.8% chance. If we're dual-wielding with a Nick weapon, it can become a 62% chance to get it (though we'd prefer to get this on our main-hand attack, as we probably don't have the Two Weapon Fighting Style.)

    So this actually has a decent chance to happen, though I suspect you'll be very sad if you go through a few combats without seeing it trigger. I think I'd have to see it in play to get a feel for how fun it is for this to go off versus how frustrating it is when you never see it happen.

Overall Thoughts:

    My gut tells me that this is a bit like the Grave Cleric revamp, though less of a nerf when you break it all down. The big elephant in the room here is that the World Tree Barbarian is probably the best "tank" Barbarian - while that doesn't have any taunt-like feature, it is probably overall better at protecting allies. And this version, losing the blanket resistance it imparts to anyone the target hits, truly loses its most potent tanking feature. (As a DM, I'll often think "why even bother going after someone else if I'm getting disadvantage and doing no more damage on a hit than I would to the Barbarian?" which is precisely how a tanking feature should work.)

    So yeah, I don't think this is necessarily bad, but by pushing the subclass away from tanking and a bit more toward damage-dealing, it loses some of its identity. Now, the math on said damage-dealing is a bit of a question mark. I suspect that it's not going to keep up with Berserkers or Zealots, though, meaning that you're sort of straddling the "pump damage out" and "protect allies" roles, while D&D generally rewards specialization.

Oath of the Holy Paladin

 My "main," the character that I prioritize in WoW, bringing him first into any new expansion or patch content, eager to get him leveled up to the current level cap and then geared up as best I can in the current season fastest, is a Paladin. While I generally play Protection, the tank-focused spec, most - especially as they've leaned into allowing tanks to deal decent damage so that it's not that tedious to "solo" on them (while WoW has a lot of group-focused content, a lot of the game can be played on your own, especially with the introduction of Delves in the previous War Within expansion) - I have also had a fair amount of experience playing as a Retribution Paladin, their DPS spec.

Having played this character since my first days in WoW 20 years ago, and having spent about 19 of those years with this character firmly as my "main," you might ask me: how's the healing spec?

And my answer would be... No clue. I've never healed a dungeon on him.

See, in WoW, group roles are much more clearly delineated than they are in D&D. While healers do have damaging abilities (in part to help them when soloing,) their real, primary focus, is on casting healing spells to keep the party up. You're expected to keep every character at max HP, or as close as you can, and only if things are going very smoothly do you ever turn your attention to the bad guys.

This means that the game of a healer is very different than that of a tank or DPS character. DPS characters just try to most efficiently kill the enemies, while tanks will work to ensure that all the enemies are focused on them through a mechanic called Threat - but the way that tanks generate threat is by... damaging enemies. So ultimately, if you're used to playing a melee DPS character, tanking isn't really all that different, except that because the enemies are paying attention to you, you need to be the one pulling them into proper positions, as well as more closely monitoring your own HP and using damage-mitigation abilities to help your healer keep you alive.

Healers, though, are playing this weird triage/whack-a-mole game that I have never, in 20 years, gotten the hang of (largely I'm sure due to the fact that I don't really enjoy it and thus don't get practice).

I put all this forth to say that healing is very different in WoW as compared to D&D. D&D healing spells, even after the buffs in 5.5, are more about slowing down the gradual draining of HP over the course of a day, and often it's more efficient for a healer, be they a Cleric, Druid, or in this case, Paladin, to kill monsters rather than top up their allies. After all, if you do a Cure Wounds for 15 HP, and then the monster does 20 damage to your target, would it not have been better to hit that monster and potentially killed it before it could hurt your friend?

Now, the Paladin has always had a bit of healing available to them in D&D. In 5E, they both have a fair number of healing spells like the Cleric that they can prepare, but also their Lay on Hands pool, a predictable and very flexible healing feature that can be perfectly titrated to the amount of healing that is optimal for the situation (such as slapping a friend with just 1 HP to get them up if they're still making death saves during a fight).

Now, here's another nuance:

In WoW, your spec can change a lot of the fundamental ways your class works. Since 2012's Mists of Pandaria, which revamped how specs and talents worked (there another major revamp in 2022's Dragonflight, but these changes remain,) a Holy Paladin has, for example, more Mana to spend on healing spells.

In D&D, though, subclasses (even the big Death Knight and Demon Hunter ones) really can't mess with some of the class fundamentals (for one thing, it'd be a nightmare for multiclassing,) which means that Paladins are always going to be a half-caster. This means that they won't have any kind of resurrection magic until level 9, and won't get something like Greater Restoration until tier 4. And with slower spell progression, even their basica healing spells like Cure Wounds can't be upcast as much. Like the Alchemist Artificer, this kind of hamstrings them in comparison to something like a Cleric to be a really dedicated healer.

So, can this subclass make up for it? With all that preamble out of the way, let's take a look:

Oath Spells:

1st: Cure Wounds, Healing Word

2nd: Lesser Restoration, Prayer of Healing

3rd: Dispel Magic, Mass Healing Word

4th: Aura of Life, Death Ward

5th: Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

    This is a healer's toolkit for sure. It's not terribly exciting given that these are all spells a Paladin could prepare anyway - while that "frees up" a bunch of other Paladin spells... you could have prepared those instead anyway. This will, obviously, make sure that you're always packing a ton of heals. Is it maybe redundant? Yes. Will these spells come in handy? Sure.

Level 3:

Beacon of Light:

As a magic action, you can expend a Channel Divinity to wrap an ally within 60 feet in holy energy. For 1 minute, any time you heal a creature other than the affected ally with a spell or your Lay On Hands, the chosen ally also regains half as many HP.

    Note here that you can't actually target yourself with this, as it's an "ally," and I think the game defines that as someone other than yourself (while "a willing creature" would include yourself). This lets you do a kind of half twin-spell for a minute on healing spells. I think the ideal use case here is actually out of combat. You pop this and then start running Aura of Vitality (another spell that's actually really great outside of combat) and then put this on the person who needs the most healing, then go around healing all less-injured allies. To maximize this in combat, you'd need to be healing kind of every turn and then also hope that the target actually needs that healing each turn.

    As an out-of-combat heal-booster, this is actually pretty sweet, though.

Level 7:

Lightbringer's Aura

Whenever you cast a spell or use Lay on Hands to restore hit points to a Bloodied creature within your Aura of Protection, the creature regains an extra 1d6 HP.

    Now, the good thing here is that you're more likely to be healing allies if they are bloodied. Once again, though, this becomes insane when you're out of combat. There is nothing stopping you, if you aren't worrying about 6-second-to-6-second intervals, from just hitting an ally for 1 point of Lay on Hands at a time, which means that this turns, again, out of combat Lay On Hands, from a pool equal to 5 times your level into a pool equal to basically 4.5 times your level, which makes it far more efficient at healing. Just... only out of combat. If you're pumping in 15 points of LOH, this winds up boosting it to 18.5 average, so rather than a 350% increase, it's only a 23% increase.

Level 15:

Infusion of Light:

Whenever you cast a spell that deals Radiant damage, you refresh your Lay on Hands pool by a number of HP equal to the total rolled for the spell's Radiant damage, up to a maximum of 5 times your Paladin level.

    Given that your max LOH pool already is 5 times your Paladin level, this feels redundant unless this could push you over your max, which I don't think it would.

    But this is actually a really cool idea: If you use Divine Smite on a crit (and Divine Smite, remember, is now a spell, and of course it always did Radiant damage,) you could get a whole lot of LOH back. Now, there is a sight bonus action traffic jam here, but if you healed a friend for your full 45 LOH pool on turn 1, and then you do a 3rd level divine smite, that's going to look like 18 (or 22.5 against a fiend or undead target) LOH back to you.

    Genuinely, this is a very cool idea, and the ability to recuperate your LOH does help a bit with the fact that you're still a half-caster.

Level 20:

Holy Deliverance:

As a bonus action, you can imbue your Aura of Protection with holy power for 10 minutes (or until you end this for some reason). You can do this once per long rest, or restore a use by expending a 5th level spell slot. You gain the following benefits:

Healing Power: Whenever an ally starts its turn Bloodied in the aura, that creature regains HP equal to your Charisma modifier plus your proficiency bonus.

Sunlight: The aura is filled with Bright Light that is sunlight.

    By level 20, you would really prefer not to let anyone go unconscious, but this will prevent friends from having to roll death saves. More to the point, it's going to give them a moderate heal. How big of a heal? Well, at best we're looking at 11, or possibly 12 if we go for a second epic boon that boosts Charisma. That's not very much healing, to be honest. Also, sadly, Healing Power doesn't work with Lightbringer's Aura because this isn't a spell.

    So while it's not as bad as the Death Knight level 20 ult in that it actually does something on its own, I can't say it's the most exciting thing.

Overall Thoughts:

    There's a cool idea here: building a subclass that can make a Paladin act as a true full healer. The problem, again, as I said in the preambles, is that "true full healers" aren't really a thing in D&D. Even a Life Cleric is probably going to be doing some offensive stuff unless they're fully RPing as a pacifist.

    The best idea in this subclass is Infusion of Light, which rewards the Paladin for doing what the class is best at (smiting the hell out of monsters) by letting it do what it is decently good at (healing) more. But that doesn't come until level 15.

    Truly, I do think that this is a good healer, if you're talking about healing as specifically "restoring hit points," but it thrives after the battle, not during it. And other things a healer wants to do, like removing conditions or protecting allies from taking damage in the first place, are not really something this subclass gives you, at least not at a time that makes up for the slow spell progression.

    Funnily enough, while this was before even my time (I only played at the tail end of Vanilla WoW,) there was apparently a time in the early days, when the very first raid, Molten Core, was current, when people would bring Paladins into their raid purely to buff everyone outside of combat, and then have them leave and hop onto other characters who were better-optimized. So, here, that "these guys are useful when we're not fighting anything" identity is actually preserved.

    (Blizzard got a lot better at balancing the game over the years, and all three Paladin specs have had their moments as the top-tier performers in their respective roles.)

    I will say, though: given that D&D Clerics get to wear serious armor and wield big old weapons, I really feel like if you truly want to play a heavily-armored healer-warrior... just go with a Life Cleric?

    So far, to be honest, the only WoW subclass that has blown me away is the Mystic Brews Monk, and while some are doing really interesting things, I again feel that the desire to replicate WoW gameplay in D&D holds a lot of the design back. Mystic Brews shares nearly nothing in common with the Brewmaster Monk from WoW on a mechanical level, but it captures the flavor (so to speak) of the spec excellently.

    Much as I feel that 5.5 would have benefitted a bit with a less slavish devotion to rules established in 2014, I think this book might have benefitted a bit by striking out on its own with new mechanical ideas inspired by WoW's lore and vibes more than its game mechanics. And, look, that is a bit of this to an extent.

    Also, to bring some perspective here: this is a truly unique Paladin subclass that is doing something very different than other Paladins do, and I applaud that. But it's also evidence that I would love a design for half-casters that allows subclasses to turn them into full-casters, which I think would be a bold new avenue for subclass design that would also really help with a lot of subclasses that seem to gesture toward that without actually accomplishing it.

    We're nearly done with our WoW subclass round-up, and by Tuesday I should actually have access to the book myself. For now, thanks again to Insight Check for posting all of this. I believe the only ones we have left are the reprints/revisions, the Swashbuckler and Spiritual Guardian (formerly Ancestral Guardian).