Wednesday, April 24, 2024

PHB24 on the Path to Finalization, with Some Revelations

 With the Unearthed Arcana process complete, and the first of the new core rulebooks due to arrive in early Fall, WotC released a video talking about coming to the final stages of editing and formatting the new Player's Handbook before it gets sent off to the printers.

While we're naturally not going to get details on every bit of text in the book, the interview (hosted as usual by Todd Kenreck and featuring Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford) did serve up some interesting details.

Naturally, we've seen different subclasses suggested and cut from various classes. I believe the plan is still to have four subclasses per class in the book - an upgrade for most, other than the Cleric and Wizard.

Previously, the design goal as stated was to have these subclasses reflect dichotomies, at least as best as they could. For example, you have Illusionists and Diviners for Wizards, those who conceal and those who reveal, and then Evokers and Abjurers, those who assault and those who protect.

At the same time, my contention has always been that the Player's Handbook options should represent the most classic, archetypal versions of these class tropes.

So, it comes as a bit of a surprise to see that the Soulknife is now being included as one of the base options for the Rogue - don't get me wrong, the Soulknife is my favorite Rogue subclass (and one that I'll be using when my Rogue hits level 3 in our Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign,) but to my mind, the Swashbuckler is the most obvious subclass among all classes to add to the Player's Handbook, being a subclass that represents an archetype that is so foundational to the fantasy genre (I realize the story of Robin Hood is not technically fantasy, but it's certainly one of the stories that set the tone for the genre, Arthurian legend being probably the other most central influence).

Now, if this means that Rogues get five subclasses, then no problem.

We had already known that the Brawler Fighter was out - I actually didn't hate it conceptually, though my biggest issue with it was that it felt like it was getting to do things that Monks should be able to - and now we know what is replacing it to fill that fourth Fighter subclass slot: the Psi Warrior.

And yes, this means that we're going to be seeing all four psionic subclasses in the PHB: the Aberrant Mind, the Great Old One patron, the Psi Warrior, and the Soul Knife.

That's really all we have revelation-wise.

Regarding the Psi Warrior, I've never been too excited by it because of the existence of the Eldritch Knight and the Rune Knight, and honestly haven't thought much about how to use it. I don't really have a sense of how popular it is. I have a few players who basically refuse to play non-spellcasters, which limits the number of people trying out martial classes (also, I run long campaigns - we're over four years into the current one, with almost surely at least one more year left in it, so the classes people picked in 2020 remain in use. At the least I've gotten a ton of exposure to Artillerist Artificers, Grave Clerics, Storm Sorcerers - we have two - Whisper Bards, and Ancestral Guardian Barbarians).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what other changes will be revealed before we have the books in hand. They have said that the Tasha's subclasses are getting some reworks, despite appearing without any changes in the playtest. I'm especially curious to see how the bonus spells for the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul turn out - I like giving Sorcerers more spells (especially some more situational utility spells, which Sorcerers usually can't afford to pick up with their level-ups) and would rather see this extended to the old subclasses than having them removed from the newer ones (especially because Aberrant Minds would need a significant rework if they didn't have their Psionic spell list).

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