Bards get to play the 19th Century Spiritualist, using gaming sets like Spirit Boards and Tarrokka Cards (aka Ouija and Tarot, but fantasy-style!) to call upon the spirits for tales of their lives, and then using their tales to grant (or inflict) certain effects determined at random to other targets (you get to know the effect before you choose who to give it to, thankfully.) There's even a feature that lets you basically conduct a seance, which is freaking awesome.
But Warlocks also get a freaking awesome subclass with the Undead patron. You might be thinking "hey, isn't there already the Undying?" And while I'd say that you can definitely slot a lot of undead into that one, this is very specifically necromancy and undeath-themed. And it has a feature that I think might be super overpowered, making it maybe the ultimate EB-spammer subclass, but we'll get to that.
Let's go into the features.
College of Spirits:
3rd Level:
Guiding Whispers: You gain the Guidance cantrip, which doesn't count against your other bard cantrips, and it has a range of 60 feet for you.
Spiritual Focus: You can use a candle, a crystal ball, a talking board, a tarokka deck, or a skull as your spellcasting focus. (There's more to this at level 6.)
Tales from Beyond: This is the big one: You can reach out to spirits who tell their tales through you. While you are holding your spiritual focus, you can use a bonus action to expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration and roll on the Spirits' Tales table, rolling with your Bardic Inspiration die to determine the tale told. You retain this tale in your mind until you bestow the tale's effect or finish a short or long rest.
You can use an action to choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you (including yourself) to be the target of the tale's effect. Once you do so, you can't bestow the tale's effect until you roll it again. You can only have one of these tales in mind at a time, and rolling on the Spirit's Tales table immediately ends any previous tale's effect. If the tale requires a saving throw, it uses your spell save DC.
I'm not going to write out the whole table, but the effects are all fairly useful - either to give to allies or inflict on foes. They generally get more powerful the higher the roll, which allows the ability to scale with your BI die. They include giving effects similar to Heroism or Cure Wounds, some damage abilities, etc., each with its own unique flavor such as "The Tale of the Hero" or "The Tale of the Dark Spirit."
6th Level:
Spiritual Focus: Now, when you use your Spiritual Focus to cast a spell that damages or heals, you can roll a d6 and add that to one of the damage or healing rolls.
Spirit Session: You can channel the spirits to gain insights into magic. You can conduct an hour-long ritual channeling spirits (which can be done as part of a short or long rest) using your spiritual focus. You can conduct the ritual with a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus (including yourself.) At the end of the ritual, you temporarily learn one spell of your choice from any class.
The spell you choose must be of a level equal to the number of creatures that conducted the ritual or less, and it must be of a level you can cast (which I think is covered by the proficiency bonus thing anyway, but hey, better safe than sorry, rules-wording!) and it must be in the school of divination or necormancy (hey, that includes resurrection magic!) The chosen spell counts as a bard spell for you but doesn't count against the number of bard spells you know.
Once you perform the ritual, you cant' do so again until you start a long rest, and you know the chosen spell until you start a long rest.
14th Level:
Mystical Connection: Your connection to the spirits has become semi-permanent. Whenever you use your Tales from Beyond feature, you can roll a d6 and use it instead of expending a Bardic Inspiration die. You still use your Bardic Inspiration die for the spell's effect, without expending it (I assume this means for damage or healing rolls, meaning you can only get the first six effects on the table, but with no limit to the number of times you can use the feature.)
Moving on, let's check out the Undead Patron!
Undead patrons can be liches, vampires, death knights - they list Acererak, Azalin, Lord Soth, and Strahd as possibilities.
Expanded Spell List: As with all Warlocks, your patron gives you other options for spells.
1st Level: Bane, False Life
2nd Level: Blindness/Deafness, Phantasmal Force
3rd Level: Speak with Dead, Phantom Steed
4th Level: Death Ward, Greater Invisibility
5th Level: Antilife Shell, Cloudkill
1st Level:
Form of Dread: As a bonus action, you can manifest an aspect of your patron's dreadful power for 1 minute. You gain the following benefits while transformed: You gain temp hit points equal to 1d10 plus your Warlock Level. Once during each of your turns, when you hit a creature with an attack, you can force it to make a Wisdom saving throw and if the saving throw fails, the target is frightened of you until the end of your next turn. And you are immune to the frightened condition.
You can transform in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. (They recommend that you flavor this transformation in a manner related to your patron - maybe your lich patron's crown and robes form out of shadows around you, or you gain bat-like facial features from your vampire patron.)
6th Level:
Grave Touched: Your patron's powers have a profound effect on your body and magic. You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe. In addition, when you hit a creature with an attack and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with Necrotic damage. When you are using your Form of Dread, you can roll one additional damage die when determining the necrotic damage the target takes (this is the super-overpowered part!)
10th Level:
Mortal Husk: Your connection to undeath and necrotic energy now saturates your body. You have resistance to necrotic damage. If you are transformed using Form of Dread, you instead become immune to necrotic damage.
In addition, when you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can cause your body to explode (!?) Each creature within 30 feet of you takes necrotic damage equal to 2d10 plus your warlock level (no saves!) You then revive with 1 hit point in your previous space, along with your gear, and you gain 1 level of exhuastion. Once you revive this way, you can't do so again until you finish 1d4 long rests.
14th Level:
Spirit Projection: Your body is now simply a vessel for your spirit. As an action, you can project your spirit from your body. The body you leave behind is unconscious and in a state of suspended animation.
Your spirit can remain outside your body for up to 1 hour or until your concentration is broken (as if concentrating on a spell.) When your projection ends, your spirit returns to your body or your body magically teleports to your spirit's space (your choice.) While projecting, you gain the following benefits:
Your spirit and body gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
When you cast a spell of the conjuration or necromancy school, the spell doesn't require verbale, somatic, or material components that lack a gold cost.
You have a flying speed equal to your walking speed and can hover. You can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or object.
While you are using your Form of Dread, once during each of your turns when you deal necrotic damage to a creature, you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt.
Once you use this feature, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest.
Analysis:
Both of these are a giant win for flavor. A+. There's little more perfect for a Gothic Horror campaign than a spiritualist who can conduct seances, and the College of Spirits is precisely that. Meanwhile, the Undead Patron leans into the undead vibe that the Undying patron sort of shied away from. Essentially, Undying was always kind of vague, and might have also represented just about any sort of long-lived creature, while this is totally zeroing in on what the Undying should have been.
The College of Spirits feels sort of like a Bard version of the Wild Magic sorcerer, but with much more control over its random effects. Basically, you might not roll the thing you really need in the moment, but a creative player will find a lot of ways to use the tales in interesting ways (and I really want to see players futz with flavoring how that works in the middle of a fight.) The subclass's unpredictability might make it feel less powerful, but dear lord the flavor is top shelf.
The Undead Patron I think could give the Hexblade a run for its money in terms of pure power. You are, granted, limited in the number of times you can do your Form of Dread (for dungeon-crawly campaigns you'll need to conserve it for big fights) but once you do, after level six, you basically get to crit on every single Eldritch Blast. Think about that. Every. Single. Eldritch Blast. 2d10. And if you do crit, that's freaking 4d10. On just one hit! With a cantrip! And the other features are also really good! Seriously, I've already played two warlocks but this makes me want to play another.
I desperately hope that both of these make it into a Ravenloft Campaign Setting book. They're AWESOME.
No comments:
Post a Comment