Pragmata Completed

 Pragmata is a good game.

I think that's been the general critical consensus. I've now finished it, and while in true Capcom fashion, there's some bonus content I've unlocked for having beaten the story, I've got the main thing packed up. Indeed, I even 100% all of the items in each zone (though I think there were like one or two Mini-Cabins I didn't find - but the "map complete" percentages were all 100%).

I don't want to get too much into spoilers here, but it is really interesting to me that there are only really four major characters in the story, and one is dead by the time the game starts.

As charming as the game's central relationship between Hugh and Diana is (and it really is charming,) there's a certain melancholy to the story, born in part by the fact that it all takes place on a moon base where everyone's dead. Shortly after the game begins, Hugh is the only living person on the base. (There's not a lot of talk about the actual name of the base - I think it is, hubristically enough, called Babel, and run by the Delphi corporation.)

I guess we should get into spoilers now:

Building an Alucard for Ravenloft's Strahd von Zarovich

 A couple years ago, my friend ran The House of Lament, the starter adventure in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. As a joke, initially, the character I came up with for it was Alexander von Zarovich, a dhampir rogue who was the son of infamous Darklord Strahd von Zarovich. His backstory was that he had been initially born as a means for Strahd to escape the Domains of Dread (back during Strahd's collaborations with Azalin) by essentially creating a suitable vessel to transfer his soul into while leaving his soulless body behind to remain trapped as Darklord. The experiment failed, and so Strahd transformed his son into an assassin, sent to terrorize his enemies. When Alexander accidentally killed the current incarnation of Tatyana, Strahd cast him out, banishing him to the Mists. Finding himself in Lamordia, he lived as an orphan but was taken in by a kindly adult who helped rehabilitate and de-program him, allowing him to grow into a (relatively) well-adjusted adult.

While the idea of a dhampir son of Strahd was the kind of one-shot joke character, I actually realized the concept had legs (hence the extensive backstory). I haven't had an opportunity to play this character in a larger campaign, but I could see myself doing so.

Naturally, there's some precedent from the Castlevania series, with the character of Alucard, aka Adrian Tepes, the son of Dracula and his human wife Lisa. As a Dhampir, Alucard heroically opposes his monstrous father while also being a bit of an edgelord himself.

Initially, my idea for Xander would be as a Rogue - that's how I played him in the House of Lament - but while I like that conceptually, I think A: a little frustration with the Rogue as a class and B: a desire for a more effective melee fighter has led me to consider an alternative.

Initially I thought maybe a fighter, probably a Dexterity-based one using a Rapier or perhaps dual-wielding. And then it struck me:

Bladesinger.

While I tend to prefer my Battlemages heavily armored, the Bladesinger does satisfy that definition of being a character who can use both spells and weapons (I know that "Battlemage" means other things to different people - to me I think it's kind of the less IP-specific "Gish" idea, which is best embodied in D&D with the Eldritch Knight Fighter subclass).

Not only is the Bladesinger a cool and powerful subclass, but it also, I think, fits well with the aesthetic of a vampiric warrior - vampires are rarely seen wearing armor, for example. They also tend to have magic powers, and we're going to be looking at a lot of the spells I'd choose to fit in with these themes (which also happen to go together for the most part).

I've got a build here that goes to level 10.

The 5.5 Bladesinger, from Heroes of Faerun, makes them a little less dependent on having high Dexterity, because you can now use Intelligence to attack while in your Bladesong. I do think you'll still want at least decent Dex, as it still raises your AC, initiative bonus, and of course helps with Dex saves. Potentially you could go with 15s in Int, Dex, and Con, though I tend to prefer starting with a 17 in my top stat at level 1 in 5.5 so that I can put it to 18 at level 4 with a General Feat.

Naturally, we'll be grabbing War Caster at level 4, which A: is basically what every spellcaster should take at level 4, but B: also really good given that we'll be mixing it up in melee and being able to Booming Blade as an opportunity attack.

Given the desire to have some feats in tier 3 to boost Dex and/or Con, I'm going to actually say we just push Int to 20 at level 8, rather than taking another Int-based General feat. Shadow Touched would certainly be thematic here, and there are some other Int-based feats to consider, but I have an OCD thing about capping stats.

For weapon choice, there are lots of options, because you're basically going to get a d8 weapon at best - even if you fight with a longsword, you can't use its versatile property without ending Bladesong, and given that you don't get weapon masteries, it's really just a choice of damage types. Thematically, I really feel like we've got to go with the Rapier, which just feels like the elegant vampiric weapon to pick. I could see a Whip also working, which sacrifices 2 damage on average for extra reach. That reach could be very helpful as a (somewhat) squishy Wizard, but I'm going to say let's risk it.

Now, spells:

For cantrips, the must-haves are Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade. The former is particularly good as an opportunity attack with War Caster (unless your DM is an insane stickler and says that the spell targets the weapon, rather than the target of the attack). We can start off with True Strike if we're beginning at level 1 in order to be able to attack with a weapon before we get our subclass, but we might want to just stick to the back until then. We might consider having a ranged cantrip (Mind Sliver feels on-theme and is also good) but these are going to be our bread-and-butter. Blade Ward is also a decent choice, as once we get to level 6 and get our special Extra Attack, we can pop this up to effectively increase our AC by 1d4 on each hit (though it does eat up our concentration, so this might be better if we're in a big dungeon crawl with a lot of smaller fights where we don't want to blow a high-level spell slot on something).

First level, we want to grab Shield and Mage Armor. We cannot wear armor in the Bladesong (a change from the old version) so this will be our best option for armor unless we can get something like a Robe of the Archmagi or something far later on. Remember that Bladesong doesn't change the math of how we determine our armor - it just adds our Int modifier to AC, so if we have a +2 to Dex, Mage Armor, and +3 to Int at level 3, that's a healthy 18 AC, which will be better than even heavy-armor wearers unless they have a shield or somehow snagged plate this early. I'd also take Absorb Elements, another staple. Staples like Find Familiar (feels like it should be a bat) and Identify/Detect Magic are also good - we will still be a Wizard, and people will rely on us for stuff like that. I also like Jump here, which helps with our mobility as a melee wizard and again, feels very much like a vampire thing to do.

Second level, another spell I'd take on any character, Misty Step feels particularly good for our vampire theme (doesn't Alucard have an ability in Symphony of the Night where he turns into mist to go through barred barriers?) This is such a staple spell that I have zero hesitation putting it in there. It'll also potentially help us get to foes faster. Invisibility is another good utility spell that, again, lends itself to our spooky vibes.

Third level, there are a few standard choices (I'll never not take Fireball on a Wizard,) and Fear is a really good and again, thematic choice for our big Crowd Control spell. However, we now have an interesting question: Do we take Spirit Shroud? I made a post last fall comparing this spell to Conjure Minor Elementals. The short story: Spirit Shroud is more convenient, but doesn't scale as well. Each adds damage to attacks you make if the target is within a relatively close emanation, which is really powerful when you can make lots of attacks (it pairs well with Scorching Ray,) and given that our Bladesinger can regularly make two attacks per turn starting at level 6, we can often benefit from this. Spirit Shroud is less damage, but I do think it's way more thematically on-point than CME. It also only requires a bonus action to cast it, so we can start attacking on the same turn. That said, we also need our bonus action to activate Bladesong, so we probably won't be casting it until turn 2 in combat. Now, that's not really a downside given that if we have CME, we'll probably be activating Bladesong and then casting that on turn 1 and not attacking until turn 2 anyway - with Spirit Shroud we can at least attack in a non-augmented way on turn 1. So, it really depends on A: how long your combat lasts and B: how much you can upcast your spells. While I took CME on my D&D Beyond build of the character, I might actually argue that you should go Spirit Shroud if for no other reason than it feels way more on-theme. For other 3rd level spells, I like Summon Undead - all the Summon spells are pretty good, and both add a body to the field and do pretty decent damage (Summon Undead also has great utility, as the Ghost can automatically frighten anyone they hit, and the Putrid spirit requires some set-up and for monsters that aren't immune to being poisoned, but can paralyze things).

Fourth level, Polymorph is a key one - being able to turn into a Wolf or a Bat (talk with your DM about re-skinning higher-CR beasts so you can stay on-theme) is another big vampire trope. Conjure Minor Elementals is less thematic but still great for any Wizard who makes attack rolls. Greater Invisibility can be a really strong spell for both attack and defense if you can spare the concentration.

Rounding things out at 5th level, I think we've got to take Steel Wind Strike, which is a weird sort of pseudo-AOE spell that works very well with the idea of a weapon-wielding Wizard. It plays well with Spirit Shroud/CME, and while it's limited to 5 targets, how often do you get 5 targets in a Fireball? I also grabbed Danse Macabre, which is mostly just fun but I also think not all that bad - considering that Skeletons in 5.5 now have a base attack bonus of +5, if your Int is maxed out, they'll have a +10 to hit and deal 1d6+8 damage on each attack. With five skeletons shooting bows, that's 5d6+40 damage. Against an AC of 18, that's 38.25 average damage per turn. It is dependent on how many skeletons you have access to.

In terms of gameplay, there are some arguments that even a Bladesinger should mostly play like a standard Wizard most of the time, holding back from the fray. But to that, I say: why don't you want to have fun? Truly, by level 10, we're going to be pretty resilient - with +5 to Int, Mage Armor, and still just +2 to Dex, we're going to have an AC of 20 during Bladesong that can then be bumped to 25 if we get hit thanks to the Shield spell. If we get Bracers of Defense, raise those by 2. We might even consider starting with a +3 in Dex, though I generally think a Wizard should favor Con more than Dex, as not all damage requires them to hit you with an attack, and you still only have a d6 hit die. At level 10, we can expend spell slots as a reaction to reduce incoming damage by 5 times the spell's level. I think judicious use of that feature is an important challenge for the Wizard using it - reducing the damage of a dragon's breath, for example, could make it possible for you to maintain concentration on a spell.

One of the fun things about playing this as a Dhampir is that you could, in theory, have a fight along walls and ceilings, which does feel like a fun idea for a rapier-wielding warrior. Being based in Con, and with very few ways to increase the damage, I don't think you'll be using the bite attack all that much, but that's kind of true for all dhampirs.

We will be getting an update to the Dhampir in Ravenloft: Horrors Within, though I don't know how much is likely to change (I suspect not a ton, though they seem to be presenting the Gothic Lineages as more just full-on species in their own right, so we might have some changes to Ancestral Legacy).

At level 10, we get 5 Bladesongs per long rest, so we can probably expect to have it active every fight unless we're in serious dungeon-crawl mode. If we do run out, I think we just hurl spells from afar or focus on buffing allies.

When we want to bring our A-game, we spend the first turn activating Bladesong and then going in for the attack (if we're close enough - we should have a 45-foot movement speed) with a Booming Blade on single targets or Green-Flame Blade if we can hit a secondary target. On turn two, we'll want to activate Spirit Shroud at 5th level (we always want to cast it at odd levels, given how it scales) and then attack again, now dealing 2d8 extra damage (our choice of radiant, necrotic, or cold - radiant's probably the most reliable, but thematically we might go necrotic more often than not) per hit. Again, if we are using CME instead (also at 5th level, this now adding 3d8 to our attacks - I feel like Fire damage would be the thematically appropriate one, though Cold also works. Just pick the right one for the monsters you're fighting), we'll spend our first turn setting up, getting Bladesong and CME running, and then turn two we'll use our action to either attack or if we have a target-rich environment, we can do Steel Wind Strike, hitting each foe for both the spell's 6d10 and the bonus d8s. Note that this will blow both our 5th level slots, so we should only burn both of these spells if we want to burn a lot of gas.

If we want to be a little more conservative, casting either Spirit Shroud or CME at base level is an option. Greater Invisibility is also a decent choice (assuming your foes don't have Blindsight/Truesight).

Again, we are a Wizard, so we have tons of alternatives given the situation. Fear, for example, can seriously thin the ranks if we're facing a massive horde of foes.

When facing a hard-hitting foe, we can run in, attack, and then Misty Step to avoid their strikes if we're not sure Shield will be enough to keep us safe. Also, if you want to play it extra-safe and conservative, consider Blade Ward as your concentration spell, which you can cast on turn 1 after Spirit Shrouding with your Extra Attack. This feels ideal for minor fights in a dungeon room - I'm thinking specifically the vineyard in Curse of Strahd that is overrun with Blights - each fight is trivial, but there are so many little fights there that they can chip away at your HP and resources.

Anyway, I think this could be a very fun archetype - while the Bladesinger can work in any campaign, I do think that it's a strong choice for a lithe, elegant dhampir warrior in a very gothic campaign.

Hitting Either the Midpoint Shift or Plot Point Two of Pragmata

 For those unaware, in screenwriting, the most popular and commercially viable way to structure a screenplay is the Three Act Structure. In a two-hour movie, you have the first half-hour (roughly the first 30 pages, as the general rule is that each page in a screenplay equates to a minute of screen time) as Act One, in which the characters are introduced, the premise is laid out, the plot gets going, and by the end of it, you have Plot Point One, in which your protagonist is forced to make a decision that will drive the story forward. Act Two is the meat of the story, lasting about an hour, or 60 pages, in which the protagonist encounters obstacles to their goal and either surpasses them or fails and has to find other routes to their goal. But Act Two is divided by the Midpoint Shift, which typically happens at the midpoint of both the act and the movie as a whole. The Midpoint Shift typically has some fundamental element of the story transform, either through the revelation of some new information, a change in scenery, or some event that significantly changes things. Perhaps the starkest Midpoint Shift I can think of in cinema is the one in Jaws, where the first half of the movie takes place in a Massachusetts beach resort town plagued by a man-eating shark, and the second half focuses on three men hunting said shark in a little boat out on the water.

Plot Point Two, then, marks the end of Act Two and is another major decision point for the protagonist. I've found that a Plot Point Two can often share elements with the Midpoint Shift. It's here, I think that you tend to get big revelatory twists. For instance, I think in Fight Club, the Midpoint Shift is when the Fight Club transforms into Project Mayhem, but Plot Point Two is when the narrator discovers the true nature of his relationship with Tyler Durden.

Games don't adhere to this structure in quite the same way, in part because they're meant to go longer than a feature film. And in fairness, things like major plot twists don't always come at Plot Point Two - sometimes they come right before the climax, and sometimes they're really the end of the movie, a rug-pull that the protagonist doesn't get to respond to (and might either not be aware of, or sometimes the twist is something the protagonist has always known and the rug-pull is on the audience alone).

Classically, in a video game, the climax is the final boss - the (theoretically) toughest challenge and a confrontation with the main antagonist. But outside of the tight 2-hour structure in film (something that I think Hollywood has drifted away from as they've been more comfortable making longer movies) it's sometimes not totally clear whether a major reversal is just changing the nature of the game in a Midpoint Shift kind of way, or if it's the accelerant that starts racing us to the climax like a Plot Point Two.

All that said:

In Pragmata, I've hit a major plot beat that feels like it's either the Midpoint Shift or Plot Point Two. I'm leaning toward the latter, but I don't know how much of the game I have left.

Spoilers Ahead:

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.