Needing to Finalize an Adventure Pretty Soon!

 For level 18, my part in my Ravnica-based campaign have been assembling the shards of the Golgothian Sylex, an ancient and mysterious doomsday weapon that destroyed an entire continent on the plane of Dominaria, and is the tool they need to destroy the Phyrexians' "Cosmic Key," which Elesh Norn and company are going to try to use to redirect various portal/wormholes the Mind Flayers created linking planes of the Magic the Gathering Universe with those of D&D. Essentially, the Phyrexians want to use these passages to quickly get their forces to planes they'd normally be unable to visit because of the Post-Mending barriers to planar travel for non-planeswalkers (I'll note that I came up with this plot before any of the March of the Machine stuff happened in MtG canon).

Anyway, this has been an opportunity for the party to visit other Magic planes. So far, they've gone to Theros, Innistrad, Arcavios, Ikoria, and are now on Eldraine. The last of the six shards for them to find is on New Capenna.

And I still haven't totally finalized what that adventure will be like.

Part of the premise here has been to do something a little different on each plane. Innistrad had the party forcibly split up by the Mists (Innistrad is, in my campaign, linked to the Shadowfell and thus there's a sort of quasi-Domain of Dread there). Arcavios was a series of relatively combat encounters with unconventional win conditions for each college. Theros was a journey down into the Underworld and ended with a race out of a labyrinth within Erebos' palace. Ikoria was a hunt for the Tarrasque. In Eldraine, the party has been transformed into children and must do a series of challenges in tier 1 levels (starting at level 1 and leveling up after each, and then getting restored to 18 and adulthood when finished).

So: the premise for New Capenna is that the shard was entrusted to the Maestros, who keep it as a relic of Old Capenna (while it wasn't from there, it was instrumental in fighting the old Phyrexians, who likely still control the surface far below).

On a previous planeswalk, the party's Goblin Bard came to New Capenna and Xander, the leader of the Maestros, sought to recruit him to work as an assassin for them. I do think that there's a "speed run" cheat code here - if the party contacts Xander and entertains an offer, he'll allow the party to take the shard if the bard pledges 999 years of service and agrees to be transformed into a demon in order to carry out his duties (the Bard is already a chaotic evil member of the Cult of Rakdos and both a serial killer and cannibal, so this might not be completely outside the realm of possibility - though his greatest virtue is his loyalty to the party). This service would take place post-campaign, so there's no real gameplay cost to it. I think Xander could be negotiated down to 101 years, but if the offer is either refused or not entertained at all, I need to figure out how to do this adventure.

In theory, the Museum of Old Capenna, where the shard is on display, could be run like a somewhat conventional dungeon, though given that the party is level 18, I'd need to pull some really crazy BS to prevent the party from steamrolling it.

The alternative, and the one that I'd be really curious to try, is borrowing the structure of Blades in the Dark. Specifically, it would be up for the players to decide what kind of barriers to their goal are as they choose to use various skills and abilities.

I've put a little thought into this: First off, because skills (especially at high levels) in D&D can be enormous bonuses, we'd have a system where re-using a skill would raise the DC. You might have a +13 to Arcana (which our Aritficer does - and if they use a tool that becomes +20) but eventually, the DC for using it over and over again will become prohibitive or at least risky.

We'd have clocks that need to be filled in order to progress through the heist: I imagine there's a Casing clock, an Infiltration clock, and then a secret, third clock in which the party realizes that the Shard on display in the museum is actually a fake, and the real one is down in the museum archives.

Each of these would then be put up against a Security clock. I think the penalty for failure is to have to do a High-difficulty combat encounter (which at level 18 is quite a lot). The heist has to go off in one night (otherwise the Maestros will move the shard) so I think we can put some pressure on the party having to get through multiple really tough encounters if they fail.

I think I then just need to build a map for each of the fail-state encounters (the last would probably have a fight against Xander, who I'd give the stats of Grazz't, along with several henchmen - probably Bandit Crime Lords among others).

The rising DC remains through the entire night - probably starting off with an easy 10 but going up by 5 each time it's used, and everyone's got to do their own thing (we'd basically go in initiative, even if we're doing something that takes place over the course of hours). I might make Tools also raise the DC with repeated use (the Artificer is primarily a glazier).

There are six regular players, so I think a progress clock would be in twelve segments. Failure clocks, then, I think are going to start off lenient (maybe also 12) but go down by two each time, so that the second phase (once they're actually breaking into the museum) is 10 and then searching the archives would be 8. This way, the tension rises and failure gets more likely as things go on.

Cool, I think this can work: just need to make three maps and encounters.

We'll see how it goes!

UA: Primordial Patron Warlock (+2 Invocations)

 I believe 4th Edition really centered the cosmic story of D&D on a conflict between the Gods and the Primordials, and there's an element of that as well in the ancient history of the Exandria setting (the setting for campaigns 1-3 of Critical Role, and also the setting of the campaign where I play my Wizard).

Primordials are linked to the Inner Planes, and thus very much have an Elemental theme. While we already have the Genie Patron, Genies, while they are elementals in D&D, are still very much their own thing. Here, our Primordial patrons might be embodiments of Elemental Evil.

Like the Genie, your patron will be affiliated with one of the four classical elements, but in this case, you can also swap patrons when you gain a level, owing to the capricious nature of the elements and their shifting alliances.

Notably, each element is associated with a damage type: Thunder for Air, Acid for Earth, Fire for... Fire, and Cold for Water.

Elemental Spells:

(All Patrons):

1st: Chromatic Orb

2nd: Darkvision

3rd: Elemental Weapon

4th: Summon Elemental (always taking the Elemental type of your current patron)

5th: Commune with Nature

Air:

1st: Feather Fall

2nd: Shatter

3rd: Fly

4th: Freedom of Movement

5th: Steel Wind Strike

Earth:

1st: Entangle

2nd: Knock

3rd: Plant Growth

4th: Vitriolic Sphere

5th: Wall of Stone

Fire:

1st: Burning Hands

2nd: Heat Metal

3rd: Fireball

4th: Wall of Fire

5th: Flame Strike

Water:

1st: Ice Knife

2nd: Alter Self

3rd: Water Walk

4th: Control Water

5th: Cone of Cold

    Hoo, that's a lot to go through.

    Of these, I think Air speaks to me the most, as it's pretty much all bangers (though Feather Fall will feel pretty expensive as a Warlock when you're casting it at 5th level). Of the core spells, naturally Elemental Weapon is going to be best on a Bladelock (though you could always cast it on a friend's weapon). I think there are some solid options for all patrons, though I think I'm less impressed with Water. (Earth could maybe get Spike Growth, though that overlaps a little with the Dao Genie).

Level 3:

Elemental Node:

As a magic action, you can create a 5-foot radius sphere of elemental magic centered on a point you can see within 60 feet of yourself. The magic of that node resembles your chosen element. On a later turn, you can move it up to 30 feet as a bonus action.

When it appears, each creature in the node other than you must make a Dex save against your spell save DC, taking 1d6 damage of your chosen element's type or half as much on a success. A creature also makes this save when the node moves into its space and when it enters the space or ends its turn there. The creature only makes the save once per turn.

The node lasts for 1 minute, until you dismiss it (no action required) or until you use this to make another node. You can use this feature once per short or long rest, but you can expend a Pact Magic slot to use it again. The node's damage increases by 1d6 at levels 6 and 14.

    Ok, so the damage here is quite low, but you can potentially get more out of it if you use a lot of forced movement - while you can't fully Cheese-Grate with it, you can bang it into foes and then push them back into it to double-dip during a round. This is a feature that the subclass builds on, so we'll reserve judgment a bit until we get the full picture. But as it recharges on a short rest, I think you can expect to have this available to you most fights - if you find it good enough to spend an action to create it.

    The Node also can do friendly-fire damage, which is not great. It's a very small radius, but assuming it's centered on a corner if playing on a grid, you should be able to affect four squares with it - good for hitting enemies, bad for hitting allies.

Level 6:

Elemental Haven:

Your Elemental Node protects you in the following ways:

Elemental Protection: While within the node, you gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Charisma modifier.

    Ok! Ok! This is going to be a substantial chunk of AC for a class that often struggles to have a decent AC given their limitation to Light armor (without feats or multiclassing). If I have +2 to Dex and +3 to Charisma at level 3, in Studded Leather I could get an AC of 17, which is actually respectable. Notably, we do need to spend the action to get the Node out there on our first turn, which is a bummer, and we need to ensure that we're bonus action moving our Node with us. (Hm, maybe that's the main problem with this subclass).

Elemental Teleport: As a bonus action, you can teleport into your node or the nearest unoccupied space within 5 feet of it. You can do this Cha times per long rest.

    Our bonus action is already tied into moving the node, but while the most obvious use here is to jump across the battlefield after being separated from the node, I could see using this out of combat: say we need to get across a big chasm. We can send our Node out for 9 rounds, summoning it 60 feet away and then moving it 30 feet for rounds 2-9 (total of 8 rounds) and thus it's now 300 feet away, at which point we teleport into it. It's kind of a single-passenger Dimension Door that takes a minute (and has 75% of the range). Hm. Maybe that's not that impressive.

Level 10: Primeval Protection:

You gain the following:

Elemental Fortitude: You have resistance to your patron's elemental damage type. While within your Node, you have immunity to it.

    That's cool - but I think we're going to need to talk about some issues with the need to micromanage the node in my Overall Thoughts.

Node Improvement: Your elemental Node is now a 10-foot radius sphere.

    This is great... except that it hits your friends as well. The damage is low, and clearly not the main focus of the ability, but while this is a natural upgrade to the feature, it also potentially makes your life harder.

Level 14: Elemental Harbinger

Your node grants the following new benefits:

Elemental Vortex: When you expend a Pact Magic slot while within your Elemental Node, you can attempt to pull a creature into the node. One creature you can see within 30 feet of the node must succeed on a Strength save or be pulled up to 15 feet toward the Node's center.

    Ok, that's fun, and it's no extra action to do. Warlocks are not generally going to be expending a spell slot every turn, so it's a bit more limited than it might look at first.

Node Improvement: Your elemental Node now lasts up to 1 hour.

    This is nice, given how expensive it is to set this up.

Primordial Herald: When you're within your node's area, you can cast the Planar Ally spell without expending a spell slot, speaking the name of your Patron. Once cast this way, you can't do so again until you finish 2d4 Long Rests.

    Planar Ally is one of those more loosey-goosey spells. In this case, your patron will probably send you an Elemental of some sort. The entity summoned by the spell is under no obligation to do anything, even if you offer payment for its services, though the expectation is that they will aid you for proper payment (which could be gold or other things). So yeah, this is thematically cool but A: kind of makes sense for basically any patron and B: is extremely DM-dependent.

Overall Thoughts (though wait, there's a bit more after them):

    Thematically, having a powerful Elemental patron makes a lot of sense, and while we have the (excellent) Genie patron, Genies have always been almost their own category of creature with a more specific vibe.

    Here's my problem: Building around Elemental Node is all well and good, but I think that using it in-game would be a real pain in the ass: You have to use your whole entire action to summon it at the start of combat (and it only lasts a minute, so pre-casting it is unlikely) and then you're going to be spending your bonus action every turn to move it around. It doesn't move any faster than a typical walking adventurer, so it might not even reach where you need it to each turn.

    I'd go back to the drawing board here, and probably change it so that the Warlock becomes the elemental node - that it becomes an emanation around you rather than some object to track on the map. This would require changing some of the features related to it (like the teleportation one). I'd then also either make it a bonus action to activate or even just make it one of those "at the start of your turn" no-action activations.

    I think redesigning around that notion - the Warlock being a Node of elemental power - could make this a far better subclass.

Eldritch Invocations:

Yes, we're not done yet! There are two new Eldritch Invocations to look at.

Elemental Overflow:

(Prerequisite: Level 5+ Warlock)

Choose Acid, Cold, Fire, Lighting, or Thunder. When you cast a spell that deals the chosen damage type, you can cause elemental energy to wreathe you until your next turn. When a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, that creature takes 1d4 damage of the chosen damage type. (This invocation is repeatable if you choose a different damage type each time).

    The punishment damage here isn't huge, and that's really the only benefit you're getting. And as a Warlock, you really prefer not to get hit at all. Also, to activate this, you need to regularly be casting a spell that does that damage type. Ideally a cantrip, which means something other than Eldritch Blast. I just don't see myself ever picking this, even if I'm going with Green-Flame Blade as a Bladelock.

Elemental Transmutation

(Prerequisite: Level 2+ Warlock)

Choose Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder. Once per turn, whenever you deal damage of any of the above types, you can deal the chosen damage type instead.

    I guess you could use this to activate Elemental Overflow. Honestly I think that this demonstrates one of the challenges of building an Elemental-themed Warlock - Warlocks already get a lot of the most reliable damage types - Force with Eldritch Blast and Radiant/Necrotic/Psychic with Pact of the Blade. How do you incentivize a Warlock to deal, say, Fire damage, which is so often resisted?

    Anyway, that wraps up a much shorter UA than last time (only 5 pages). Once again, these "villainous" options don't seem so villainous (Warlocks in particular are always making pacts with dangerous entities even if they're good guys).

    If these come out in a book, I wouldn't expect it until late next year at the earliest, as I think we're still waiting to even get announcements for things like the presumed Dark Sun book and a few others. I think that all three of this UA's options have at least the core of a good idea, but might need extensive redesign (particularly this one) for me to be satisfied with them.

UA: Warrior of Venom Monk

 I love 5E Monks, even if the theorycrafters say that even with the 5.5 update, they're still lagging behind in terms of power. Monks just get so many cool features (and I also think people are underselling how good Deflect Attacks is as a defensive feature, second probably only to Barbarians' Rage).

While the Monk as a class focuses on the East Asian martial arts of, like, the Shao Lin tradition, Monks more broadly speaking are, of course, people who dedicate their lives to spiritual practice, often eschewing traditional lifestyles in favor of one focused on the discipline of their practice. This does open the door to mysticism and potentially some really weird stuff.

Right off the bat, "Venom" as a theme implies Poison damage, which is notoriously one of the least reliable damage types in D&D, as multiple creature types are often fully immune to it (Undead, Fiends, Constructs). So, can they make a good subclass themed around it? And is that even what this is? Let's read through and find out.

Level 3:

Envenom Weapon

At the start of your turn, you can expend 1 Focus Point to apply a toxin produced from your blood to one Monk Weapon that you're holding. A creature that takes damage from the weapon is subjected to one of the following effects (you choose when you apply the toxin).

The toxin lasts 1 minute or until a creature takes damage from the Toxin.

Slowing Toxin: Until the start of your next turn, the target's speed is halved, it cannot take reactions, and it can take either an action or bonus action on its turn, not both.

    This is pretty strong - while not all monsters have an interesting bonus action, some - especially those higher-level legendary monsters - do, and given that this is a no-save effect, that's really potent.

Venom: The target takes Poison damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die.

    Unfortunately we cannot crit-smite with this, as we need to do this ahead of time. Is this enough damage? A Focus Point will net us an additional attack with Flurry of Blows, which at level 3 is 1d6+3, probably, which is comparable damage. By tier 3, we're doing two extra attacks for 1d10+5 (probably,) at which point this certainly falls behind (though to be fair I haven't seen the other features). We could blow a bunch of FP to get a bunch of extra damage out, but I don't know that Venom feels powerful enough to really make it an optimal choice, even if you're fighting something you're confident takes poison damage.

    Overall, I think that allowing you to spend the FP on a hit, rather than at the start of your turn, would make this a more exciting and powerful ability - not only for Crit-Smite potential but also just to make the effect more of a fun surprise. It'll suck if you apply this and then miss on that turn.

    Also, interesting that this forces the Monk to stick with a weapon - not unprecedented (see the Kensei) but it does mean that our Monk is probably going to want both a magic weapon and Wraps of Unarmed Prowess.

Potent Arsenal:

You gain a Poisoner's Kit, and you have proficiency with it. When creating a Basic Poison, you can do the work over the course of 1 day (8 hours of work). Additionally, whenever you deal Poison damage with a Monk feature or Monk weapon, you can change that damage to Acid damage.

    Bam! There we go. That's what makes this work. As long as we're not fighting Yugoloths or Black Dragons (or I guess many oozes) we are now going to be able to make everything work pretty reliably. Fantastic. Basic Poison is worth 100g, so it would typically take I believe 50g and two full work weeks to make, so this is actually amazing for turning you into a poison factory. At low levels this could honestly be a pretty solid downtime activity to generate revenue (not that a Monk needs much in the way of money, but for the party). But the main thing here is getting to do Acid damage, which is just so much more reliable than Poison.

Level 6:

Toxic Touch:

As a magic action, you can expend 1 FP to apply a potent toxin to a creature you touch. The target makes a Con save. On a failure, they are poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned, they are also affected by one of the following effects of your choice.

Intoxicant: The target is Charmed for the duration or until you or your allies deal damage to it.

Sedative: The creature falls asleep and has the Unconscious condition for the duration. Another creature can use an action to shake the creature awake and end the condition.

Truth Serum: The target can't knowingly communicate a lie for the duration.

    These are solid effects, assuming you can poison the target. I like that the Truth Serum effect gives the Monk a bit of cool utility in non-combat scenarios. I might like the duration to be a little longer, at least for the Truth Serum one, as I can imagine having to apply this several times during an interrogation to get all the right questions asked.

Level 11:

Toxin Refiner:

You gain immunity to Poison damage. When you are subjected to poison damage, your Envenom Weapon options each deal extra Poison damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die, and you can't get this benefit again until the end of your next turn. Additionally, whenever you ingest a poison, you regain a number of HP equal to a roll of your Martial Arts die.

    Thematically, I love this. Sadly, 5.5 Monks lost their poison immunity, but this gives it back. Once again, remember that we can change our Poison damage to Acid, so even if we get a big breath in the face by a Green Dragon, we can turn that poison breath into acid to strike back at them (if we're fighitng a Black dragon, well, we will stick to poison damage). Funnily enough, the "ingest poison" thing turns those Basic Poisons we're making into kind of less-powerful healing potions. I do think we need to define what it means to ingest a poison: if we're in a poisonous swamp, how much swamp water do we need to drink in order for it to count?

Toxic Blood:

Whenever a creature hits you with a melee attack roll, the attacker takes 1d6 Poison damage. I fyou are bloodied, they instead take Poison damage equal to one of your Martial Arts dice.

    Punishing attackers is actually probably good for a Monk's survival. I think they can simplify this and just have it always do your Martial Arts die. A this level that's a d10, which is only two more damage on average than a d6. If we wanted it to be more powerful when Bloodied, just make it two martial arts dice then.

Level 17:

Hallucinogenic Breath

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can expend 2 FP and replace one of your attacks with an exhalation of hallucinogenic vapors at one creature within 30 feet of you. The creature makes a Con save, and on a failure, they take Poison (or, again, Acid) damage equal to three rolls of your Martial Arts die and become Frightened for 1 minute or until they take damage. While frightened, they take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest route on each turn unless there's nowhere to move. On a success, the take half damage only.

    Real quick, obviously the initial damage doesn't break the frightened condition there. This notably circumvents immunity to the poisoned condition. The damage here is a side-feature - the main thing is that this is a single-target crowd control for potentially the entire encounter. And, notably, you can use this on multiple creatures, as using it on a second one doesn't cancel the effect on the first.

    That said, it's a Con save, so there's a fair chance they succeed against it. Still, I really like the flavor of this. Is it powerful? Is it worth 2 FP? I'm not entirely sure, though at least FP is pretty cheap by level 17. How many foes that we face are immune to being Frightened, though, at this level?

Overall Thoughts:

    I honestly think this is a pretty solid attempt at making a subclass based around Poisoning things, and accomplishes this largely by allowing you to swap in a different damage type (though weirdly, do we all think of both Poison and Acid as "green" damage types?)

    I'd love to allow you to Envenom your own unarmed strikes, as the subclass doesn't really do anything interesting with the fact that you need to fight with a weapon. But yeah, there are some cool ideas here, and overall these "villainous options" have demonstrated a lot of originality that I'm here for.

UA: Path of Lament Barbarian

 The Path of Lament is, in a word, the Banshee subclass. You are the victim of some powerful anguish and grief, and you turn to that grief to fuel your rage, inflicting fear, psychic damage, and some other specifically Banshee-like effects at higher levels.

From the start, I'll mention that this is certainly one of the "villain" subclasses that feels less outright villainous and more just dark and associated with a kind of monster - more like the Circle of Titans than the Hell Knight. You could easily play a sympathetic, good-aligned version of this. But let's get into the mechanics!

Level 3:

Banshee's Wail:

When you activate your Rage or as a bonus action while Rage is active, you can let out a doleful wail. Each creature in a 30-foot emanation of your choice makes a Con save (DC based on your Con). On a failure, they're deafened for 1 minute and take Psychic damage equal to a number of d12s equal to your Rage bonus.

You can use this Con times per long rest, and you can expend a rage to get an additional use.

    This is conceptually cool, but given that this is everything we get at level 3, I think we need more. Initially I was going to complain that a Berserker or a Zealot can get bonus damage every turn, while this is likely going to be only 3 times a day until very high levels. However, it is an AoE, which most Barbarians don't get at all. The damage is decent for what it is (3d12 is going to be 19.5, which is actually ok for a bonus action from a non-caster). The ability to regain a use from a Rage does sort of mean we can get one back on a short rest, as long as we don't need all our rages for the day.

    Still, I'd have liked something, even a ribbon feature, at level 3, beyond this.

Level 6:

Commune with the Dead:

You can cast Speak with Dead as a ritual, using Wisdom as your spellcasting ability.

    Hey, question: for spells without an attack or a DC, does a spellcasting ability ever come into play? As a feature, this is decent and thematic, and importantly is not alone at level 6.

Horrifying Strike:

Once per turn when you hit with a Strength-based attack while raging, you can try to horrify the target. The target makes a Wisdom save (again, DC based on your Con) or be Frightened until the start of your next turn.

    I think this should swap with Banshee's Wail. This makes a lot of sense as a level 3 feature, as you'll nearly always have it. Is it too powerful at level 3? Maybe. But truly, this feels like the banner, headlining feature of "the fear Barbarian." Again, it would be nice to base the DC on your Strength, but Barbarians will be pushing Con pretty heavily, so at level 6 we're probably talking a DC 14 or so.

Level 10:

Otherworldly Anguish:

You gain the following:

Deathly Wail: If a target fails its saving throw against Banshee's Wail and has HP equal to twice your Barbarian level or lower, it drops to 0 HP instead of taking damage.

    Ok, this is probably not as insane as it appears, but it's still decent. At this level, they need to be at 20 HP or below. At level 10, that's pretty close to dead anyway, but might still take more than one hit to do so, meaning that you could clear out some weakened foes (though you're unlikely to fight anything that starts off that low at this level). Consider that at this point, your Rage bonus is 3, so we'd be doing 19.5 average damage anyway, meaning there's a good chance that you'd be killing them with the psychic damage. That said, this will scale up faster and by more than your Wail's damage (which caps out at 26 on average). Again, great to use if a big AoE spell just took a lot of foes to low HP (though the damage also works well in that situation).

Impenetrable Sorrow:

You can't be possessed.

    Man, how often does that come up? Like the Circle of Pestilence giving you immunity to magical contagions (after 5.5 got rid of the idea of "diseases" as a mechanical thing) this feels extremely situational. I know that Ghosts do this, but does any other creature in the Monster Manual possess people? We can treat this like a ribbon.

Resistance:

You have resistance to Cold and Necrotic damage while raging.

    This is pretty good, though of course situational. Still, both damage types are fairly common, especially in an Undead-heavy campaign. The lack of Poison resistance is actually sort of fitting with this very incorporeal-undead theming, though maybe they could get psychic resistance?

Level 14:

Sorrow Form:

When you activate your rage, you become empowered with undeath. You gain these benefits for 1 minute or until you drop to 0 HP, and cannot activate this again until you finish a long rest:

    First off, weird that it only lasts 1 minute but is tied to Rage. And once per long rest "modes" like this in 5.5 usually have some alternate cost to reactivate them, though what might that be, "2 Rages?"

Immunities: You become immune to the Charmed and Frightened conditions and end those conditions if you have them when this is activated. You also cannot gain exhaustion levels.

    The Charm and Fear element, of course, is something Berserkers get anyway. We'll need to see more monsters that impose Exhaustion for the second part to be relevant.

Life-Draining Strike: When a creature fails its save against your Horrifying Strike, they take 2d10 Necrotic damage and you regain HP equal to the Necrotic damage taken.

    The damage here would be underwhelming if you didn't get the healing. Given that Barbarians are (at least in theory) more about soaking damage than avoiding it, healing is very good for them.

Undead: Your creature type is undead for the duration.

    I think it's actually notable here that this does make you immune to some spells, like Hold Person. It does make you vulnerable to Turn Undead, and while you won't be Frightened, you will become Incapacitated, and the "have to move away from you" element is independent of these conditions. So, just coordinate with your party Cleric, and maybe hold off on this when fighting undead (the bonus necrotic damage won't be very useful against a lot of them).

Overall Thoughts:

    I think there's a solid thematic idea to this, and the idea of tying Grief to Rage is a really potent one for roleplay opportunities. I don't see this character as being necessarily villainous, but that's fine - honestly the villain book will probably be more popular if the character options don't necessarily force you down the villainous route.

    Mainly I think that the subclass could use some "always on" feature at earlier levels - swapping Horrifying Strike and Banshee's Wail might do that (while limited by rage, 5.5 Barbarians almost never run out of Rages, so I think we're ok).

    Of all classes, Barbarian is one that I've spent the least time playing, so I'm always a little hesitant to proclaim with any great certainty how powerful this that or the other feature is. I suspect that this one won't do quite the damage of a Berserker, but the fear effect could be really powerful as a crowd control/defensive ability. And while limited, Banshee's Wail is a pretty hefty burst of AoE damage for a class that normally doesn't get to do any AoE.

    So much of the Barbarian class is about being this thick-skinned raging maniac, and I think that there's something really compelling about leaning into the emotional aspect of the class in a way that requires some vulnerability.

UA: Villainous Options 2

 Hey, we're loading up on more bad-guy player options!

We still don't know what product the options are coming with (though I've heard, I think Todd Kenreck implied that a Book of Vile Darkness might be in the works, though I don't know if that was insider information or educated speculation).

Anyway, this will be a shorter one, giving us three subclasses: the Barbarian's Path of Lament, the Monk's Warrior of Venom, and the Warlock's Primordial Patron.

I'll break them down in separate posts!

Expedition 33, A Year Later

 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, with its typically French "subtitle for a non-sequel" title, took me and many by surprise last year. My first time hearing about it was when Jacob Geller mentioned being impressed with its turn-based combat that called to mind Sekiro (the one FromSoft souls-like I've never actually played). It was relatively cheap (I think 50 bucks) and I decided to get it on a whim, despite the fact that I was not quite done with Lies of P, which I came to a couple years after it came out (and as it turned out, just a couple months before its excellent Overture DLC).

Especially given that I had found myself frustrated by Final Fantasy XVI's complete and total abandonment of any sort of RPG gameplay (especially galling given how beautifully the FFVII remake series has come up with a fantastic blend of action combat with tactical, menu-based gameplay that I think of as being definitional to the series perhaps because I am old), it was really exciting to drop into a turn-based RPG, and one that also glowed with originality.

After beating the game, I found myself pining for a game like Expedition 33, only to lament that, well, there wasn't really anything like it. Now, I'll concede that the gameplay system is arguably not wholly original - I've never played the Persona games, but I'm given to understand that there's a lot of that that inspired Expedition 33. But the world of the game is truly unlike any other, with creature design, world design, and music that I really don't think I've seen anywhere else.

The folks at Sandfall have said that they intend to make sequels, and I can very easily see the "Clair Obscur" series going on to have other entries.

The nature of the game's story, though, makes me feel that it would best make sense to take the Final Fantasy approach and have each entry be connected by themes and motifs but not by plot - perhaps allowing only the "Writers versus Painters" narrative that is vaguely hinted at in E33 carry on.

E33 (yeah, I'm abbreviating it about as much as I can) is a gorgeous game and also one of the bleakest stories I've ever seen in video games. The prologue, which establishes the stakes and the initial premise of the game, is both horrifying and gutwrenchingly sad, but as the layers are pulled back and the truth of what is actually going on comes to light, it gets even tougher. Players are left with a binary choice at the end of the game that inspires a lot of philosophical debate, and basically, there's no way to feel 100% comfortable with what choice you make unless you refuse to engage in any philosophical nuance.

The story, the art direction, the excellent vocal and physical performances, music, etc., are all extremely praiseworthy. The gameplay is also deeply satisfying, but I do feel like I need to place an asterisk here:

This is a game that you can start to break at higher levels. There is a level cap (99, fittingly three times 33, the game's main arc number) but there is no cap on Lumina (wait, did I confuse that with a similar resource in Pragmata or do they use the same word?) The game encourages you to come up with "builds," and while I think early on, when you have very limited lumina and pictos, this is a fun bit of figuring out which bits work best for you (I focused a lot on parrying, and tended to load up on stuff that benefited that) but at the extremes, you start to hit a point where characters are doing insane one-shot combos. Meanwhile, it feels like enemies (especially in the free DLC) are built based on the assumption that that is what you're doing.

Likewise, because dodging and parrying allows you to fully avoid all damage (the only exceptions are undodgeable debuffs that lower your max HP,) late game monsters have such absurdly long attack combos and deceptive parry timing, and hit so hard, that it feels like you need to have those broken builds to beat them (ok, to be fair, this was mainly just Simon in the base game - I was able to beat Clea sort of conventionally by just figuring out the parry timing, and I think she probably counts as the second-hardest boss of the base game).

To be honest, I prefer a game where the potential for power coming from a build is sort of bounded, which then imposes reasonable restrictions on how tough a foe can be (they can still be insanely tough - I have beaten Promised Consort Radahn in Elden Ring - though only once, and after the patch that nerfed him a couple weeks after Shadow of the Erdtree came out).

Still, the experience of the main story campaign, and most of the post-game stuff, was tuned really well, I thought. (I might have made it clear that there was a post-game, as I assumed the game would just end after I finished the main story and so did all that stuff first, except maybe Simon, and was thus way over-leveled for the final boss).

I also recall early on that the tutorialization of specifically Pictos and Luminas was a little confusing. And another nitpick is that I think the weapon upgrade system was a bit flawed - the final upgrade nearly doubles the weapon's power, and given that there are a finite number of items to make that final upgrade, that felt bad. In FromSoft games, which use a similar weapon upgrade system, the final upgrade isn't much more of a jump in power than any other upgrade, and that means it's easy enough to try out a bunch of weapons at just one level below, for which upgrade items are unlimited if you get enough resources (at least in Elden Ring. I think maybe in Bloodborne Bloodstone Chunks were also finite).

I haven't gone back to play through the game a second time - I believe that you can make multiple save files (something I've always lamented you couldn't do in Control, which is a very different game but one that also captured my imagination) but I've been caught between impulses to just start fresh or do NG+. And also, I don't know if I'm ready for the game to hurt me so bad again.

I do hope to see a new Clair Obscur game, and hope it will address some of the gameplay quibbles I have (though I understand that these are more matters of taste, and the folks at Sandfall might not feel the same way). Whatever the story of the next one, I hope we get the whimsical creature design, the over-the-top Frenchness, and I also hope that Gestrals will be the Moogles/Chocobos of the series, showing up in all of them, because I adore the Gestrals.

Pragmata: Hacking and Blasting Bots on the Moon

 Having heard good things but not a whole lot else, I decided to roll the dice and get Pragmata, the latest entry in what is apparently a very good year for Capcom.

In Pragmata, you play as Hugh, one of four technicians sent to the Delphi moon base to respond to some kind of technical problem. Shortly into your arrival, signs of strangeness abound: the augmented gravity is offline, there are no people, and there are signs of chaos. And then, a moonquake hits and two of your buddies are blasted into the vacuum (though everyone's in space suits, so I'm not convinced that they are dead) and then your commander gets crushed by a falling beam.

Hugh gets knocked out, but is patched up by an android who appears like a little girl. The android, a "Pragmata" that is of a separate kind of technology than the rest of the base, teams up with you to fight the base's robotic laborers who have all gone crazy and homicidal, and eventually Hugh comes up with an alternative name to her long serial number: Diana.

Gameplay works the following way: Hugh has a number of guns to shoot robots with, but in order to damage them, Diana needs to hack them. Targeting one of these bots in classic 3rd person shooter style will pull up a grid, and you'll use the face buttons (Triangle, Circle, X, and Square on a PlayStation one) to navigate through that maze until you get the robot to open up, exposing itself to attack and thus actual significant damage.

Strangely, it recalls Alan Wake, where the monsters must be exposed to light from your flashlight (or other sources) to remove the darkness shield before you can damage them. After a while, the bots will close up their armor again, so you'll need to hack them repeatedly if they're longer-lived foes like a boss. Various wrinkles appear that make hacking more complex. At base, you have a number of nodes that can increase the damage that Diana does with a hack, and you'll also get to pick up yellow upgrade nodes that can add effects when the target is hacked (these are treated like ammo - using them will consume them, but you can sometimes find them out in the field). Other complexities arise as the game goes on, including some negative ones, like barriers your hacking path cannot go through, or some enemies who get red shields that block off parts of the hacking grid.

While made on the RE engine, this game allows you faster movement options, like a thruster-assisted dodge that can assist both in navigating various jumping puzzles and also dodging out of the way of enemy attack (the third major boss, which I just beat, I managed on my first attempt to sit at just 36 out of a few thousand HP by being very good at dodging, though I did eventually fall and have to make a second attempt).

Hugh will be able to carry weapons in four categories, but he'll always have a weapon that simply recharges instead of being limited in ammo. The more specialized weapons (which are more or less high-damage, crowd control, and defensive) will only have a few shots, but you can also find more in the world.

There's a very slight Dark Souls element here, where enemies will respawn when you go back to your Shelter, the home base for Hugh and Diana, but this lets you then farm the Lumina that is used to buy upgrades.

While Hugh is fairly fast on his feet, the pace of combat is a little closer to those Survival Horror games the engine was built for, which is good because you're going to have moments where you have to pay attention to the hacking game. Figuring out when you have an opening to do so is part of the tactical gameplay you need to learn.

The base is divided into levels, but you can always come back to places you've visited (except possibly the opening prologue area). That said, after three such areas, I've gotten only one ability that opens up previously-blocked pathways, so I don't know that it's meant to be a true Metroidvania.

Story-wise, the base is exploring some substance discovered or at least developed on the moon that is some profoundly effective medium for 3D printing. The second level centers around a bizarre facsimile of Times Square built out of the stuff. While most of the enemies are pretty classic robots, it's in this area that we come across the first genuinely unnerving robot designs, which are towering humanoids with vaguely infantile proportions. The "goomba" robots are also humanoid, but are more realistically proportioned and only a little taller than Hugh.

The antagonist is IDUS, the base's controlling AI, which seems to have determined that any living human is an intruder. While it pops up (in the form of a floating holographic logo) periodically, it hasn't really demonstrated any personality other than an intent to kill Hugh.

The emotional core of the game, of course, is the bond between Hugh and Diana. Interestingly, I don't think you ever "die" in the game - Diana drags you back to the shelter and patches you up, and if you fall to a boss, there'll even be some dialogue between you about how you might do better next time. Even as Hugh is introduced as a skeptic toward "bots," he very quickly starts to treat Diana both as a person and as a child he intends to protect. Hugh mentions being single and childless, and was adopted, so he knows a thing or two about finding family outside of your bloodline. Diana has only ever existed on the moon, and knows very little about life on Earth (despite the fancy high-tech in the game, life on Earth is depicted as pretty modern - New York taxis are still yellow. Given all the talk about taking Diana to Earth when they're done here, I'm expecting some kind of tearjerker ending.

The game encourages you to play defensively. Healing items out in the world are quite rare, and while you can load up on healing cartridges, these can only be recharged back at the Shelter. You'll discover passages back to the Shelter in each level, which function a bit like your Dark Souls III bonfires, letting you warp back to the hub to upgrade things and also restore ammo and healing.

Again, exploration is rewarded because you'll find lots of items to upgrade your duo's capabilities. Your map is maybe even less useful than it is in Control - you'll want to form a mental map instead to understand the spatial relationships between the various locations. In the first level, there's a big room where you need to find five lock nodes to hack, and the exercise in one in figuring out all the tightly-packed routes you need to take to reach each node in a relatively small but vertical space.

I feel like I've been charging through the game, but I guess it's a sign that the gameplay is fun if I spent most of my waking hours today playing it. The second major boss was a fantastic set-piece, and I look forward to other epic experiences moving forward.