In the campaign where I play a Wizard, we did no conferring with one another when making characters, which gives us a weird party: we have two Wizards, two Paladins, and a Fighter. Now, we're level 11 now and one of the Paladins has multiclassed into Warlock while the Fighter now has levels in Rogue, so we do actually have 5 classes between our five PCs.
But you'll note that the only people in the party who can cast healing spells are the Paladins, and the straight-paladin (though the character is certainly not straight in that sense - in my games, it's always the paladins, not the bards, who are the horniest) still won't get Mass Cure Wounds or Greater Restoration unless/until we hit tier 4.
Now, my character's family back home has a few artificers in it - his father and twin sister both working as engineers at Port Damali's airship docks (did I write that into my backstory to try to get us some airship adventures? Yes. Have we had any? No. And we now have teleportation magic, so it's unlikely we will). And so, I've considered taking the old Tasha's feat Artificer Adept. Unlike modern general feats, there's no ability score bonus, but if I take Resilient: Constitution at level 12, I'll have already capped Intelligence and have an 18 Con (we rolled stats and I rolled well). But this would give me access to Cure Wounds, at least.
But I have a much better idea now.
There are eight "Adept" general feats in Arcana Unleashed. Their only prerequisite is that you have Spellcasting or the Pact Magic feature.
And each gives you five spells (one for each spell level up to 5) always prepared. And that means that any spellcaster can have access to a lot of spells that were previously locked behind certain class spell lists.
Each also gives an additional feature, so we'll go through them one by one. Naturally, as General feats, they give you an ability score bonus, bumping Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.
But let's go through them:
Abjuration Adept:
Spells: Shield, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Energy, Banishment, Mass Cure Wounds.
Holy crap! I mean, holy crap. Shield on any spellcaster now! Mass Cure Wounds! Banishment! These are some amazing spells. I'm seriously tempted to take this even though I already have Shield on my Wizard, mainly so that I can do really significant amounts of healing despite being the class that's "never supposed to be able to do that."
On top of this, when you cast an Abjuration spell using a spell slot, you can grant a creature within 30 feet you can see Temp HP equal to twice the level of the spell slot.
This isn't going to do a ton when you're casting Shield, but a bonus 10 Temp HP on top of Mass Cure Wounds is going to be a bit of extra sauce. But again, the spell list here is incredible.
Conjuration Adept:
Spells: Entangle, Misty Step, Conjure Animals, Dimension Door, Conjure Elemental
Yeah, we don't have the infamous Conjure Minor Elementals here, but this is not bad. If you were taking Fey Touched mainly for Misty Step, this is going to be probably the better option.
Additionally, when concentrating on a Conjuration spell, you get a bonus to your Con saves to maintain concentration equal to the ability score increased by the feat.
That's quite nice, and makes up for things if your class doesn't have proficiency in Con saves. And this will work on any Conjuration spells, so if you're using CME or a Summon spell or the like, you'll be more likely to keep it going.
Divination Adept:
Spells: Detect Evil and Good, Mind Spike, Clairvoyance, Divination, Scrying.
Ok, some good spells that are not very combat-focused (though there's Mind Spike, which is situational).
You also can use a reaction to grand a creature you can see within 60 feet of you Advantage or Disadvantage on a D20 Test. You can do this once per long rest, but recharge the ability when you cast a Divination spell using a spell slot.
I think this is ok, but you'll need to make sure you're casting a lot of divination spells over the course of a day to get good use of it.
Enchantment Adept:
Spells: Dissonant Whispers, Enthrall, Hold Person, Dominate Beast, Modify Memory
Pretty campaign-dependent, as Hold Person gets less useful when you're fighting fiends or undead. Dominate Beast is... I doubt very useful in any campaign to be honest. Modify Memory could be really great in Deadfall, actually, and any sort of intrigue-focused campaign.
Additionally, when you cast an Enchantment spell using a spell slot, you can ignore all components except for material components that have a specified cost or are consumed.
Ah, ok, yes. This is where the power of this feat comes from. If you want to cast Suggestion without making it obvious that you cast Suggestion? Basically, if you want Enchantment spells to work the way they feel like they should? This is going to be really powerful in any intrigue-focused campaign where you want your magic to be less noticeable. Campaign-dependent, sure, but also very good in the right campaign.
Evocation Adept:
Spells: Chromatic Orb, Shatter, Fireball, Vitriolic Sphere, Wall of Force
Fireball for the masses! That's right, you get a fireball, and you get a fireball, and you get a fireball. You all get a fireball! Seriously, though, this is huge. Fireball might not be the most powerful spell in the game, but it's probably the best AoE damage spell at its weight class. And Chromatic Orb can become downright silly when upcast, while Wall of Force is situational but quite good.
Also, once per turn, if you cast an Evocation spell and deal damage, you can roll up to two unexpended hit dice and expend them, adding the total to one of the spell's damage rolls.
This is kind of like the Evoker's Overcharge feature, ish. Mainly, this will depend a lot on what counts as "one roll." Obviously, it'll be nice in AoE spells, where a Wizard or Sorcerer would effectively be able to upcast Fireball by two levels with this. If you rule that Magic Missile requires only a single d4 roll and all the missiles do the same damage, this could be enormous (on your Armorer Artificer, going from (1d4+1) x 3 to (2d8+1d4+1) x 3 would be huge. That's going from 10.5 average damage to 37.5 average damage).
Illusion Adept:
Spells: Silent Image, Phantasmal Force, Major Image, Hallucinatory Terrain, Seeming
Some solid ones, again, less combat-oriented, but really quite good options here.
When you cast an Illusion spell with a spell slot, you can do so without components except material components with a specified cost and/or that are consumed. Additionally, creatures have Disadvantage on investigation checks to discern the illusory nature of your spells.
Like Enchantment, this is going to let your Illusion spells work the way you want them to in an intrigue-filled campaign. I think the spell choices here are a little more broadly applicable.
Necromancy Adept:
Spells: Inflict Wounds, Ray of Enfeeblement, Vampiric Touch, Blight, Raise Dead
Ok, some of these spells are bad. Blight does way less damage than it should for a single-target spell, and the same is true for Inflict Wounds (which was better when it was an attack roll in 5.0). I think the number one reason to grab this (at least for spells) is to get a resurrection spell if your party doesn't otherwise have one.
Also, if you cast a Necromancy spell using a spell slot, you can roll two of your unexpended hit dice and regain HP equal to the total rolled plus the spell's level, expending the dice.
In a pinch, this could be very nice: cast Summon Undead at 4th level as a Wizard and you could heal for 2d6+4. But I don't know how often this will come up.
Transmutation Adept:
Spells: Jump, Spider Climb, Slow, Polymorph, Animate Objects
There are some real bangers here. Slow is interesting as it's the only big 3rd level crowd control spell that no creature is immune to. Polymorph is extremely versatile and can be a great way to keep a nearly-downed ally in the fight. And Jump is actually quite good in 5.5.
Also, on your turn when you cast a Transmutation spell with a spell slot, your speed increases by 5 feet times the spell's level until the end of your turn.
That's fun. Cast Polymorph and suddenly you've got an extra 20 feet of movement? That's fun.
Overall Thoughts:
Again, I think the most exciting (and possibly game-breaking?) part of these feats is letting you grab spells you'd normally not have access to based on your class. Letting anyone be a healer, or letting anyone use Fireball, is going to potentially unlock a lot of new character concepts, and might help shore up parties that aren't built for balance.
Clearly not all of these are created equal, but I do think that a lot of these feats are going to be quite attractive, even if they don't give you free castings or anything like that.
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