Demonic Sorcery (v2)

 Sorcerous powers can come from all sorts of places. If you get your power from the Abyss, you're... in for a rough ride (unless, I guess, you're into that, which makes sense for a Villainous subclass).

Let's check it out.

Demonic Spells:

1st: Bane, Dissonant Whispers

2nd: Spike Growth, Web

3rd: Bestow Curse, Dispel Magic

4th: Giant Insect, Hallucinatory Terrain

5th: Contact Other Plane, Modify Memory

    Some really powerful 2nd level spells here - if you can get some forced movement, Spike Growth can do a ton of damage, and of course Web is a classic.

Level 3:

When you use Innate Sorcery, you create a rupture into the Abyss, which fills a 10-foot radius sphere centered on a point within 30 feet of you. When you activate Innate Sorcery and as a bonus action while IS is active, you can choose one of the following options. Also, you can move the center of the sphere to a point within 30 feet of yourself at the start of each of your turns.

    Real quick: I think this means we could use it twice on the turn we activate Innate Sorcery. Not sure if that's intended. Also, nice that no matter how fast you go, you can always put the sphere need you (though less great if you want it farther away from you).

Demonic Lash: Make a melee spell attack against a target within 5 feet of the rupture. On a hit, the target takes 1d8 slashing damage and if it's Large or smaller, you can pull it up to 10 feet toward the center of the sphere.

    This pairs nicely with Spike Growth, and can also yoink monsters attacking you away from you.

Terrifying Screams: Each creature within the rupture must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage.

    That's a pretty tiny amount of damage. Honestly, not sure we need a saving throw against it. Maybe it should be just "equal to your Cha modifier." I think that Demonic Lash would be the one I use most of the time.

Level 6:

Abyssal Realm:

When you spend at least 1 Sorcery Point as part of a Magic Action or Bonus Action on your turn, you can pull influence from the Abyss. You create a 10-foot emanation around you or fill your Abyssal Rupture sphere with magic, taking magic from one of three layers of the Abyss.

    Sorcerer do love spending SP, so you'll probably get these effects quite often.

Gaping Maw's Frenzy: Designate a direction horizontal to you. Each creature in the area that fails a Charisma saving throw must use as much of its movement as possible to move in that direction at the start of its next turn, taking the safest route.

    This will never be a huge area, but again, it can potentially get attackers to run away from you.

Maze of Azzatar: Each creature in the area makes an Intelligence saving throw. On a failure, you gain the Invisible condition against the target until the start of your next turn.

    This is cool, though thanks to Innate Sorcery, we'll already have advantage on our attacks. Still, this can keep them from targeting us with spells and makes it harder for them to attack us - certainly useful. (And Int saves are often a good one to target).

Slime Pits' Haze: Each creature in the area makes a Con save. On a failed save, they have the Charmed or Poisoned condition until the start of your next turn.

    Con is a harder thing to target, typically, than Charisma or Intelligence, but these conditions can be quite powerful, and more broadly useful.

Level 14:

Abyssal Conduit:

You gain the following:

Rupture Expansion: The size of your Abyssal Rupture is now a 30-foot radius sphere, and it's difficult terrain for you enemies.

    A 30-foot sphere is gigantic, and will cover a huge swath of the battlefield. This is going to let you potentially hit far more targets with its effects, and the difficult terrain can really give you more control over the battlefield.

Fiendish Servant: You always have the Summon Fiend spell prepared. When you cast the spell, you can modify it to not require Concentration, but its spell duration becomes 1 minute for that casting, and you must use the Demon form for the summoned fiend. Additionally, the Fiend has advantage on attack rolls while within your Abyssal Rupture.

    Well, the rupture's enormous now, so it will probably get that pretty easily. Notably, I think you can still summon a Yugoloth or Devil if you cast this normally, which is nice if you want a ranged or at least more mobile minion. I also think the advantage should apply to it regardless of its form. Also, you could cast multiple Summon Fiends this way (there's no "it ends if you cast the spell again" rider). That's going to take a lot of high-level spell slots, but you could theoretically have one at 6th level and another at 8th, giving you 7 fiend attacks per turn, likely all at advantage.

Level 18:

Abyssal Explosion:

As a magic action, you fill a 30-foot radius sphere with an explosion of Abyssal energy. Each creature in the sphere makes a Con save. On a failure, if the creature is not a fiend, they take 8d6 force damage and are incapacitated until the start of your next turn. You can use this once per long rest, or you can spend 7 SP to restore your use of it.

    I think it must be an error that it doesn't say where you can place the sphere. I doubt this is intended to allow you to drop this in a secret fortress in Pandemonium while you're having tea in Waterdeep. This is a save for none ability, but the effect of a failure is quite powerful. The damage is fine, though low for the equivalent of a 7th level spell, but the main benefit is the incapacitation effect, which I think is well worth it.

Overall Thoughts:

    The only real challenge for this subclass is that you'll be managing a lot of pieces. The Abyssal Rupture, a Summoned Fiend, and yourself. But I think you can do some cool stuff here. It is very reliant on Innate Sorcery, but by level 7, you'll have Sorcery Incarnate, which means you'll probably not find yourself running out of uses of IS very often.

    The Abyssal Rupture is going to be small and require a lot of management until level 14, but at least it's fairly easy to orient.

That's it for the subclasses in this UA. We will, though, get some new feats to look at.

Shadow Sorcery (Horrors Within)

 While the Aberrant sorcerer has given it some competition, the Shadow Sorcerer is the OG spooky guy. (Fun fact, both of the subclasses used by Laudna in Campaign 3 of Critical Role are revised in this book).

There are some significant tweaks here from the version found in Xanathar's, but a cursory look makes them largely seem like an improvement. So, let's take a look.

Shadow Spells:

1: Bane, Inflict Wounds

2: Darkness, Pass Without Trace

3: Hunger of Hadar, Nondetection

4: Greater Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer

5: Contagion, Creation

    There are some useful spells here, but a few that aren't great - Inflict Wounds is not as good as it used to be as it's now a Con save rather than an attack (especially given Sorcerers love making spell attacks now). Notably, we will get another spell with this subclass, but it'll work differently.

Level 3:

Power of Shadow:

You gain the following:

You have Darkvision out to 120 feet and Blindsight out to 10 feet. If you cast a spell that creates an area of Darkness (like Darkness or I think Hunger of Hadar) you can see normally through the spell's darkness.

    The blindsight is new and the old version allowed you to see through the Darkness spell only, and only if you cast it using 2 Sorcery points. So, yeah, this is a buff through and through - except in the rare, rare cases where you don't have 2nd level spell slots to spare but you do have 2 SP to spend.

Strength of the Grave lets you make a Charisma saving throw if you would drop to 0 HP, the DC being 5 plus the damage taken. On a success, your HP becomes a number equal to your Charisma modifier plus your Sorcerer level. After you succeed on this save, you can't use this until you finish a long rest.

    Sorcerers be squishy, and this makes you more resilient, though at higher levels those DCs are going to start potentially being far too high to beat, like if you take a Dragon's breath or something. Notably, the old version of this didn't work if you got hit with radiant damage or a critical hit, so it's for sure a buff.

Level 6:

Beasts of Ill Omen:

You can spend 3 Sorcery points to cast Summon Beast as a bonus action and without expending a spell slot and without needing material components. The summoned creature appears as a beast made of shadow, and enemies within 5 feet of it have disadvantage on saving throws against spells you cast. When you cast the spell, you can modify it to not require concentration, but this reduces its duration to 1 minute and ends early if you cast the spell again.

    Ah! They wised up and closed the "well, I'll just keep summoning them" strategy like the Great Old One Warlock can with Summon Aberration. This is very much the equivalent of the old Hound of Ill Omen, but a pretty major overhaul.

    Notably, we don't actually have Summon Beast prepared, so we can't just spend a spell slot to upcast it at some high, good-scaling level. We're also going to have to spend the equivalent of a 3rd level spell slot worth of SP to cast it but only get it at its base 2nd level. That said, the beast will at least have attack scaling with our spell attack bonus, compared to the old version's flat +5 to hit.

    Now, there's a fiddly thing here regarding combat sequence: Summoned creatures from spells like this act on our initiative, but immediately after our turn. Thus, technically speaking, we can't summon, say, an Air beast (a Raven, naturally) and fly them in with 30 feet of fly speed, then cast our spell on the targets, and then fly it out with its remaining 30 feet and avoid opp attacks thanks to Flyby. I think a reasonably generous DM would allow this, but it'd also be reasonable to be a stickler here.

    Also of note, the Beast will have fewer HP than the Dire Wolf we got with the old version (especially because the Dire Wolf also got some bonus Temp HP). So, it's a bit more fragile if the monsters decide to target your beast.

    Sorcerers are a little less focused on concentration spells, but the option to go concentration-free is certainly a good thing to have.

Level 14:

Shadow Walk:

While in dim light or darkness, you can take a bonus action to teleport up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space that's also in dim light or darkness.

    This is unchanged. It's situational, but hopefully (especially if you're in Ravenloft) there will be lots of darkness to use. We can, of course, also cast Darkness to give ourselves at least one end of the teleport.

Level 18:

Umbral Form:

When you use Innate Sorcery, you can adopt a shadowy form to gain additional benefits while it's active. You can use htis feature once per long rest, or expend 6 Sorcery points to restore a use of it. The benefits are:

Incorporeal Movement, allowing you to move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, taking 1d10 force damage if you end your turn within a creature or object.

Shadow Resilience, which gives you resistance to all damage except force or radiant.

    Couple changes here: first, that it ties into Innate Sorcery, which wasn't a think in 5.0. Second, you get a free use of it, which is actually great. Also, the old version would end if you got incapacitated. Lastly, insanely subtle difference - the old version did a flat 5 force damage to you if you stopped inside an object, rather than 1d10.

    Naturally, the damage resistance is going to be the biggest thing, and is welcome at any level. And again, a free use is very nice.

Overall Thoughts:

Sorcerers are pretty well-off as a class anyway, and I think that this subclass gives us a nice update to the previous version. I'd totally play this.

Aberrant Sorcerer vs. Death Knight

 All right, we've been doing this with a lot of classes and subclasses that tend not to be big favorites of the optimizers in the D&D community. But what about a class that many argue is the most powerful in all of 5.5?

The Sorcerer is a pure caster, and while it doesn't have as broad a spell list as the Wizard nor as much flexibility (notably, it lacks the killer Conjure Minor Elementals) it also has tools like Innate Sorcery and Metamagic that lets you boost those spells to greater power.

I'm not picking subclasses based on the purely highest damage output, so I'm going to choose the subclass I'd probably be most eager to try (though admittedly, maybe less if I got to play my OG Goo-lock in a campaign that went higher than level 1.)

Aberrant Sorcerers have a lot of cool tools, and they and the Clockwork sorcerer kind of became the basis for what you get with a new Sorcerer subclass. They're also appropriate for a horror-themed campaign (though the Shadow Sorcerer, getting a revamp in the new Ravenloft book in a few days, is also very much in that genre wheelhouse).

Working kind of backwards, by level 10, a Sorcerer has two levels of subclass features. Mainly, an Aberrant Sorcerer will have Telepathic Speech, Psionic Sorcery, and Psychic Defenses, none of which are likely to affect open combat against a Death Knight (weirdly, Death Knights don't have Fear as a spell).

There are some damage spells we could consider using here, and of course Spells are going to be at the core of what a Sorcerer is doing.

Stat-wise, we're obviously taking whatever background we can get that gives us a boost to Charisma, and then with Point Buy and that bonus starting off at 17. Our other stats are probably not super relevant for this.

    Feats:

Generally, my go-to for any spellcaster is to get War Caster as soon as possible. Sorcerers are arguably less reliant on it thanks to their native Con save proficiency, but the two together make maintaining concentration all that much easier.

Spell Sniper is a possibility if we want to focus on attack-roll spells. Elemental Adept is probably better for a Draconic Sorcerer (unless it's redundant). I might go for Fey Touched just to get Misty Step taken care of (though grabbing Hex or Hunter's Mark is probably not as good as some other Sorcerer spells we might take instead).

I do think that pure casters are a little less Feat-dependent than martial characters. Inspiring Leader could be very good to help the party with survivability.

Still, even if not feat-dependent, there are enough good Charisma-boosting feats that we probably want to take another at level 8, meaning we'll have a 19 in Charisma at level 10, and thus a +4 to Charisma.

    Metamagic:

Quickened Spell is probably our best option here, allowing us to get a free cantrip in each time we use it (either quickening the cantrip or whatever other spell). Empowered Spell can also boost our damage a bit, though if we're doing that and Quickened Spell, we'll burn through our Sorcery Points pretty quickly. Heightened Spell can help us get over the Death Knight's magic resistance, but it's also very costly. Seeking Spell works for us if we are focusing on attack-roll spells, and we only burn the SP if we miss.

We'll have four options at this level, so definitely Quickened Spell, and I guess we can say Empowered Spell, and then we could actually just pick both Seeking and Heightened to free up spell choices.

    Spells:

This is the real core of it: what spells are we casting?

Generally, I think the usual plan for a spellcaster is to start up with some concentration spell at the start of combat that empowers them over the course of the rest of combat. So:

    Concentration Spell:

Jumping to 5th level spells, Animate Objects, Bigby's Hand, and then from our subclass, potentially Summon Aberration might be a good option. Bigby's Hand has an advantage that it's Clenched Fist attacks have us making the attack roll, so we should have perpetual advantage thanks to Innate Sorcery. While Grasping Hand is arguably the better option most of the time, that's a saving throw that the DK could use Magic Resistance and Legendary Resistance to avoid. Bigby's Hand does 5d8 (22.5 average) damage on a hit. Animate Objects I believe has optimal damage with a two large objects and one medium object. And that winds up being two instances of 2d6+3+Cha (so 14 average) and then one instance of 1d4+3, (5.5 average), which totals up to 33.5, but we wouldn't get advantage because the objects are the ones doing the attacks.

Notably, both spells will require our bonus action to activate them each turn, which actually makes Quickened Spell less exciting.

By contrast, Summon Aberration is a fire-and-forget spell (well, we do need concentration, but it doesn't take up any of our action economy). If cast at 4th level (we could do 5th level, but that only adds 2 damage per turn, and I think we can do better) the options vary a bit: I think in pure potential terms, the Mind Flayer option gives us the most damage, as while its attacks hit for less than the Slaad, it also has its Whispering Aura, which can (on a failed save) deal an extra 7 psychic damage.

But in the real world in which AoE damage flies around, your best bet is probably the Beholderkin, who can fly off 150 feet away (which can out-range the Death Knight's Hellfire Orb) and plink away at a safe distance. So let's go with that, honestly: The Beholderkin will do 1d8+7 damage on its two hits, or 11.5 average (and thus 23 average, but without the advantage we'd get with Bigby's Hand) but also just do its thing and let us pack our turn full of spells.

So, if we have the Beholderkin firing its two beams each turn, we're looking at a hit on a 12 or higher, which is a 45% hit chance, and then a 5% crit chance. Hits land for 11.5 and crits add 4.5, so 11.5x45% is 5.175 and 4.5x5% is .225, giving each attack an average damage of 5.4, and then we double that to 10.8 for our total damage per turn.

    Other Spells:

If we're using Quickened Spell, we can cast a cantrip with our bonus action each turn and sustain that for 5 turns (and then even potentially burn some lower-level slots to get some back, though dear lord the DK should be dead before that point).

    Cantrips:

In terms of Cantrips, Mind Sliver could certainly help the party some, but its damage is somewhat low. That said, the Death Knight's Int save bonus is only +1, making this a pretty good saving throw to target. With +4 to Charisma, our save DC is 16, but we also bump it to 17 with Innate Sorcery, so the DK has to get a 16 or higher to save against it. That's a 75% chance to fail, though because of Magic Resistance, it actually becomes a 56.25% chance instead. Our damage is only 7 on average, so it's roughly 4 damage on average when adjusted for failure chance. Mind Sliver does have a great knock-on effect that could really help the party, but if we're trying to be the big damage dealer, we might look at some other options.

True Strike, now actually a good spell, is an option: we can use a Light Crossbow, and this will deal 1d8+1d6+4 at this level, or a total of 12 on average. Now, if our DM wants to be really nasty, you could argue that this doesn't technically involve a Spell Attack, as we're actually just making a weapon attack using Charisma. If we do allow Innate Sorcery to affect it, though, and assume we get advantage, let's figure out what it does, damage-wise.

We'd have a +8 to hit, which would require us to roll a 12 or higher to hit an AC of 20, so it's a 45% chance. But thanks to advantage, that actually becomes a 69.75% chance and a 9.75% chance to crit. A hit is 12 on average, and the bonus crit damage is 8, so we're looking at 8.37 plus .78 for a total average damage of 9.15.

Sorcerous Burst is, of course, the Sorcerer-exclusive cantrip, and the math here becomes a little crazy. Sorcerous Burst can take on many different damage types - we could pick Thunder or Acid or Psychic to be safe, though actually any but Poison would work against this particular target.

On a hit, Sorcerous Burst does 2d8 damage, but if any wind up rolling an 8, we get to roll an additional die - up to 4 extra (thanks to our +4 to Charisma).

So, let's start with the non-explosive damage. 2d8 is 9 on average, and because it's all just dice rolls, we can lump in the crit chance, so we add the 69.75 to the 9.75 for the hit and crit chances and get 79.5%, so our average damage before the explosive dice is 7.155.

Now, here's where my nightmare begins:

On a hit (that 69.75% chance) we have two dice that can each roll an 8. There's a roughly 23% chance that one of those two dice rolls an 8. There is a 1.6% chance that both of them roll an 8. I think (I think) the way to do this is to basically take the average damage of a d8 (4.5) and multiply it by 23% and also 69.75%, and then double it to account for the two chances. I think. No, hold on. That's wrong.

Ok, instead, in this 69.75% of the time scenario, each of the dice has a 1/8 chance (12.5%) to wind up an 8. So instead, we just find 4.5 (1d8) times 69.75% times 12.5%, which comes to about 8.7%, giving us .39 damage. Then, we double it because it's two dice, so that's really .78.

Now, in those 8.7% chances, there is then a 12.5% chance that those extra dice also roll 8s, exploding for another 1d8. Ok, so that's very close to 1% of the time, which is great, because that's just .05 average damage (.045 to be precise, but rounded off).

I'm going to make an executive decision: the chance that you explode on the extra dice from a crit is going to add so little damage on average that it's negligible. We'll just take that .05, double it to .1, and say that we're now doing an extra .79 because of the exploding dice and call it a day, which means our average damage is now 7.945.

And thus, I think we set Sorcerous Burst aside and just go True Strike - assuming, again, we get to use advantage with it even though it's technically not a spell attack. (SB might scale better at higher levels, but for now, True Strike is the way).

OK! So, we've got our Concentration spell. We're burning two Sorcery Points each turn to get a True Strike off as a bonus action. What are we then burning as our main action on turns 2 onward?

    Leveled Non-Concentration Spell:

We've got some big AoE spells that probably do the most damage in general. Cone of Cold does an average of 36 damage on a failed save, but it's very hard to avoid hitting our friends with it (and we'd burn through SP if we do Careful Spell).

While spells of this ilk have the advantage of still doing half damage on a successful save, I'm tempted to look at Scorching Ray, which would benefit probably more from our Innate Sorcery than the single-point buff to our saving throws, and notably requires no management to avoid hitting allies. It also scales decently (though not as insanely as if we had Conjure Minor Elementals).

Given that we preserved our 5th level slots by casting Summon Aberration at 4th level, we'll have two of these to start with.

At 5th level, Scorching Ray does 6 beams, each of which hit for 2d6. Again, we have a 69.75% chance to hit and 9.75% chance to crit, and because it's all dice, we can just add that up together. 79.5% of 7 (the average damage for a single beam) is 5.565. Thus, a 5th-level Scorching Ray is going to do 33.39 damage.

To compare, a Death Knight has a +5 to Con saves, meaning they save on a roll of 12 or higher, so it's a 55% chance to fail, but with magic resistance, that becomes a 30.25% chance to fail. 36x30.25% is 10.89, though it's also a 69.75% (huh) chance to take 18 damage, so that adds in 12.555, meaning the average damage of a Cone of Cold is 23.445, so for sure we're sticking with Scorching Ray.

    Bringing It Together:

Ok, so, beginning of turn 1, we pop Innate Sorcery. We cast Summon Aberration, and then we Quicken True Strike. True Strike deals 9.15 damage, and the Beholderkin deals 10.8, so on turn one we've done 19.95 average damage.

Then, turn two, both of those things happen again, but now we're adding 33.39 damage from Scorching Ray, for a total of 53.34 damage.

We can do this on turn 3 as well, burning our second 5th level spell.

At turn 4 (and by this point we've dealt a sizeable chunk of the DK's HP on our own) we have to downgrade to mere 4th level Scorching Rays, which reduces our damage per turn by 5.565, so we're doing a pathetic 47.775 damage for the next two turns before we need to downgrade to mere 3rd level Scorching Rays.

    Conclusion:

Yeah, this blows the rest of my scenarios totally out of the water. Make no mistake, this is absolutely emptying the tank, but if you can come with all of these resources to a confrontation with a Death Knight at level 10, you can do this.

One other huge advantage to this is that you can do all of this from 80 feet away (the shortest range is the Light Crossbow). If your DM doesn't let you get advantage on your True Strike, Sorcerous Burst is going to be another option, or Fire Bolt, and I don't think it will affect the damage here by a huge amount. They'll also up your range to 120 feet - which will put you just within Hellfire Orb range, but if you can actually maintain that distance, you might draw fire away from your allies that way (also, Absorb Elements can help mitigate the damage somewhat.)

UA: Demonic Sorcery

 As the second-most represented fiends, I still kind of feel like demons wind up underrepresented in D&D. I think there's an assumption that, because of their chaotic nature, they must be mindless brutes and cannot be the slick, conniving schemers that Devils are. I disagree with this characterization. I have a whole rant about how law and chaos are more about institutionalism versus personalism, and how demon lords have to be very clever to make sure they maintain control of their forces, and they're careful not to anoint a successor so as to ensure that they are irreplaceable.

But yes, demons: gross, malformed, unpredictable, wild. This is chaos mixed with evil, and thus less likely the whimsical whack-a-doodle of the Wild Magic Sorcerer. Let's see how they work:

Demonic Spells:

1st level: Detect Magic, Entangle

2nd level: Misty Step, Spider Climb

3rd level: Dispel Magic, Gaseous Form

4th level: Confusion, Hallucinatory Terrain

5th level: Contact Other Plane, Hallow

    Misty Step is a spell I take on basically anyone who can get it. Detect Magic and Dispel Magic are good utility spells to have around. Confusion is helpful because it gets around Charm immunity. Some solid ones here.

Level 3:

Abyssal Rupture:

When you spend at least 1 Sorcery point as part of a Magic action or bonus action on your turn, youc an unleash one of the following effects (once per turn).

Demonic Lash: One creature within 20 feet you can see takes 1d4 Slashing damage, and if it's Large or smaller, you can pull it up to 10 feet closer to you.

    Rare that a Sorcerer wants a creature to be closer to it, but there are scenarios where it could be good.

Fiendish Carapace: Until the start of your next turn, attacks against you have Disadvantage.

    This is sure to be the default option, giving you a little more survivability as a squishy sorcerer.

Level 6:

Abyssal Aura:

(Get Ready)

When you use Innate Sorcery, you can infuse chaos into your surroundings. While Innate Sorcery is active, you warp reality in a 10 foot emanation around you. You roll a d6 to determine the effect. If it has a DC, you use your spell save DC.

You can do this once per long rest for free, or spend 2 Sorcery Points (no action required) to restore your use.

1: Sticky Webs: The area becomes difficult terrain for your enemies. Each enemy that starts their turn in the emanation must succeed on a Strength save or be restrained. They can take an action to make an Athletics check against your DC to end the effect.

2: Caustic Ooze: The area becomes difficult terrain for your enemies. Each enemy that starts their turn there takes 1d6 Acid damage and must succeed on a Dex save or fall prone. At level 11 this becomes 2d6 and at level 16 it becomes 3d6.

3: Terrifying Screams: Each enemy that starts in the emanation takes 1d6 Psychic damage and must make a Wisdom save or be frightened until the start of their next turn. The damage increases to 2d6 at 11 and 3d6 at 16.

4: Enthralling Spores: The emanation is Heavily Obscured for creatures of your choice. When you reach level 11, enemies that start in the emanation must make a Wisdom save or be charmed by you until the start of their next turn.

5: Poisonous Foliage: The emanation is lightly obscured. Each enemy that starts its turn in it takes 1d6 Poison damage and must succeed on a Con save or have the poisoned condition. Again, the damage goes up to 2d6 at 11 and 3d6 at 16.

6: Enervating Bones: Spectral Limbs erupt from the ground in the emanation. Each enemy that starts its turn in the emanation takes 1d10 necrotic damage and cannot regain hit points until the start of its next turn. The damage goes up to 2d10 at level 11 and 3d10 at level 16.

    Well, first off, I stand corrected: This is the reason to use Demonic Lash.

    Notably, you can't choose which of these features you get, but they're all at least pretty comparable in utility. They mostly avoid friendly fire (the foliage does lightly obscure things for everyone, but that just means disadvantage on perception checks). This is a Sorcerer who is going to want to be up close with foes, which means you should build accordingly.

Level 14:

Abyssal Conduit:

Your Abyssal Aura is now a 20-foot emanation. You can also roll twice on the table and pick between the effects you roll. If you roll the same number twice, you can pick any of the options.

    So, this is both a wider aura and more control over what you get, which are both good. 20 feet is still fairly close, though.

Level 18:

Fiendish Servant:

You can cast Summon Fiend without a Material Component (you also, presumably, get it prepared for free - it's not typically a Sorcerer spell, I believe). You can also cast it once for free per long rest, though when you cast it this way, you must choose the Demon form for the summoned fiend.

    I love the Summon spells, and Fiend is a very good one. The Devil version has the highest damage potential (and also both flies and has a ranged attack, so it's pretty resilient) but the Demon form is also pretty good, and since it's a free casting, this is just gravy. A free 6th level spell per day is not bad at all.

    Part of me wishes this came earlier, but I don't know that I'd want to delay Abyssal Conduit to do so.

Overall Thoughts:

    However you build this character, you need to make a Sorcerer who can stand to be close to its enemies. The Abyssal Carapace option does help a bit, but I think you might want to take other defensive features into consideration.

    The subclass puts a lot into Abyssal Aura. You'll probably want to use it each fight, but you might not always want to use it. That might be ok: we get features that don't rely on it. I think the tough thing is when you use it and get an option that you really don't want, like Poisonous Foliage when you're fighting things immune to poison. Like, say you're fighting a bunch of devils. You'll still want to use the feature because the other possibilities are good against them, but if you happen to roll a 5, you've got something that's kind of worthless. And you'll need to both spend Sorcery Points and another use of Innate Sorcery to try for a different aura on your next turn.

What Subclasses Should Get a Revision: Sorcerer

 There are a lot of classes where I'll bemoan (and the online community even more) some kind of underwhelming failure to live up to its potential. Sorcerers... have never really had that problem. They've always been one of the stronger D&D classes, despite being locked into their spells in a way that few other full casters are.

And I think that their subclasses have generally been good - I think the overall impression is that the 2014 PHB's subclasses were kind of surpassed by those that came after, to a large extent. There aren't a ton of options here, though. Also, two of the strongest subclasses (arguably the two strongest,) both from Tasha's, were inducted into the PHB.

One thing that the 2024 PHB added, which had inconsistently been part of the subclass format, was free spell preparations (I actually hate that they merged "known spells" with "prepared spells," as I think having a distinct word for them makes it clearer who gets to swap them out daily). Wild Magic doesn't, actually, get this, so it's still a bit inconsistent, but I think their Wild Magic Surge table is meant to take its place, and I assume future Sorcerers will all have one (the new Spellfire Sorcery does). Thus, every subclass could get a bit of an update in this regard. But we're going to be a little more narrow.

Thus, we're only looking at a small selection: Storm Sorcery, Divine Soul (likely just "Divine Sorcery" in the new subclass formatting,) Shadow, and Lunar.

Storm Sorcery: No

    I am intimately familiar with this subclass, as my 5+ year Ravnica game has not one, but two Storm Sorcerers (one a Vedalken member of the Izzet League whose experiments in electricity transformed her into one, and one a Loxodon member of the Gruul Clans, who channels primordial magic to fend off the ever-encroaching urbanism that threatens to consume the wild places of the city/world). My biggest complaint with the subclass was that there's not a good lightning or thunder cantrip, but with Sorcerous Burst, they now have one (except that neither of my Sorcerers have actually taken the offer to update, even though I think it's an unambiguous buff to the class). But I think that even if there are some arguments to be made about its power level, I think it works just fine.

Divine Soul: No

    Giving the entire Cleric spell list on top of the entire Sorcerer spell list to a character is... maybe too much? Honestly, beyond this feature, I don't even know if the Divine Soul is all that good. We already have the Spellfire Sorcerer as a "Sorcerer who can heal," and while it's not quite a replacement for the whole Cleric spell list, it might be a bit more in line with the right power level.

Shadow: Yes

    Ok, fine, sure. Fine. Maybe I'm too into the "dark" subclasses, and what is darker than a subclass literally named after an area of occluded light? But I think this is both rich conceptual space and also a subclass with some janky mechanics (the Hound of Ill Omen is a cool concept, but basing it all around the CR 1/4 Wolf? Maybe not). An update to this (which they have proposed in UA) would be cool to see.

Lunar: No

    I'm a bit on the fence here - this is one of the post-Tasha's subclasses that hasn't gotten a printing in a broader rules expansion book. I think it's also one that has generally been seen as fairly powerful - which is why I'd be ok just letting the existing version stand. Conceptually/thematically, I think it works just fine, though the way that the subclass references the three moons of Krynn could make it tricky in a  setting with different lunar dynamics, like Exandria's Catha and Ruidus. That said, simply referring to lunar phases kind of fixes this issue (which the subclass already does). I could be talked into a reprint of this, less for mechanical revision and more just to put it in a book with other subclasses.

Because Sorcerers can work with nearly any flavor of magic, you've got a lot to draw upon for subclasses, which means that I think that WotC could easily move on from the existing subclasses to try new ones.

Spellfire Sorcery Sorcerer

 Yeah, the format of sorcerer subclasses is a bit awkward using my convention for taxonomy here... oh well.

Spellfire Sorcery ties into the FR idea of magic, which involves the magical weave - a kind of energy field (not unlike our universe's electromagnetic or gravitational fields) where magic is the pattern and twisting of these energies within that field.

Honestly, a real "Sorcerer's Sorcerer," Spellfire actually gives you some healing capabilities, which is rare for this class.

Spellfire Spells:

1st: Cure Wounds, Guiding Bolt

2nd: Lesser Restoration, Scorching Ray

3rd: Aura of Vitality, Dispel Magic

4th: Fire Shield, Wall of Fire

5th: Greater Restoration, Flame Strike

    Recall that Cure Wounds is quite solid in 2024 rules. I will also say that, outside of big healing spells, the main reason you want a dedicated healer in your group is for things like Greater Restoration. This subclass can actually do a lot of the functions you need from such a character. Sneakily, you can also effectively add Counterspell to this list, which we'll cover at level 6.

Level 3:

Spellfire Burst:

When you spend at least 1 SP as part of a Magic action or bonus action, you can add one of the following benefits:

Bolstering Flames: You or a creature you can see within 30 feet gains temp hp equal to 1d4 plus your Charisma.

    While not a ton, this is a free add-on to what you're already doing. Note that the bonus action to turn SP into spell slots is, well, a bonus action, so I think this would count (though I don't know how often Sorcerers do the conversion that way).

Radiant Fire: One creature you can see within 30 feet takes 1d4 of your choice of Fire or Radiant damage.

    This is tiny damage, but it's free and guaranteed. Might be a good option to try to break concentration.

Level 6:

Absorb Spells:

You always have Counterspell prepared. Additionally, when a target fails its save against Counterspell, you regain 1d4 SP.

    Situational of course - only useful if you're dealing with enemy spellcasters. But major villains often are spellcasters (as are adult and ancient dragons). While counterspell isn't as powerful as it used to be, this can be a way to recharge sorcery points.

Level 14:

Honed Spellfire:

Spellfire Burst improves. You now add your Sorcery level to the temp HP granted by Bolstered Flames, and the damage of Radiant Fire goes up to 1d8.

    The temp HP here gets a pretty significant boost. The radiant fire damage is still going to be pretty pitiful for this level.

Level 18:

Crown of Spellfire:

When you use Innate Sorcery, you can gain additional benefits by infusing it yourself with the essence of Spellfire. You can use this once per long rest, but you can expend a 5th level spell slot or higher to regain a use of it. The benefits are as follows:

Burning Life Force: Once per turn when you're hit with an attack, you can expend a number of hit point dice up to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). Roll the dice, and reduce the damage you take by the total rolled.

    While not as efficient HP restoration as using this on a short rest, this can make concentration saves easier, and of course, prevent you from going unconscious.

Flight: You gain a 60 foot flying speed and can hover.

    Pretty common at this level, but not unwelcome.

Spell Avoidance: If a spell or magical effect would deal half damage on a successful saving throw, you now take only have if you fail and none if you succeed. This only works if you're not incapacitated.

    Note that this doesn't work on natural effects like Dragons' breaths. But it's still avoidance, not evasion, so it works on any magical effect regardless of which save you make. That can be huge, like taking nothing from a Lich's Chain Lightning, or Death Knight's Hellfire Orb.

Overall Thoughts:

I think if you want a no-nonsense "magic-themed" sorcerer, this is a good option (reminds me a bit of the Rune Scion or whatever it's called from Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, actually,) though the presence of healing spells also lets you play a very unconventional role for a sorcerer in your party.

I think this is pretty decent, though I don't know that it truly inspires me, personally.

UA: Defiled Sorcery

 If you had any doubts that this UA was Dark Sun themed, this and the Warlock to follow really cinch it. Dark Sun is ruled over by warring Sorcerer Kings whose magic has blighted the land. If you want a bit of that dark magic, look no further than this subclass, and become a Sorcerer King/Queen/Monarch yourself!

Defiler Spells:

1st: Inflict Wounds, Ray of Sickness

2nd: Blindness/Deafness, Ray of Enfeeblement

3rd: Bestow Curse, Vampiric Touch

4th: Blight, Hallucinatory Terrain

5th: Antilife Shell, Contagion

    So, off the bat I don't know if I'm crazy about any of these spells, except maybe Antilife Shell and Blidness/Deafness. Attack spells are obviously better now for Sorcerers thanks to Innate Sorcery.

Level 3:

Defile and Empower:

(Buckle up, this one's a big one).

Once per turn, when you roll damage for a spell you cast using a spell slot, you can roll a number of your unexpended Hit Point Dice (Hit Dice? What are we calling them these days?) up to a number equal to half the level of the spell slot expended, rounded up, and add the total rolled to one damage roll of the spell, expending the hit point dice.

Life Steal: Alternatively, instead of drawing on your own life force, you can try to steal life from another creature you can see within 30 feet. The creature makes a Con save versus your spell save DC (creatures immune to exhaustion succeed automatically). On a failure, in place of rolling your Hit Point Dice, you roll a number of the creature's unexpended hit point dice (up to half the level of the spell slot expended, rounding down, but still with a minimum of 1 die) and add the total to one damage roll of the spell, and the creature's hit point dice that you rolled are expended for them.

Once a creature fails their save against this Life Steal aspect of the feature, you can't use Life Steal again until you finish a Long Rest or expend 3 Sorcery points to use it again.

    Whoo boy, that's a lot. Flavorfully, this is freaking awesome. My reading of how this works is that if you try to use Life Steal for this, and they succeed on their save, you just don't get to empower the spell. Targeting larger creatures with Life Steal will give a better reward, but big monsters also tend to have higher Con modifiers, so it's a risk.

    As a reminder, in 2024 rules, you get all your Hit Dice/Hit Point Dice back on a long rest, rather than just half, so you can actually afford to be more liberal with this - as long as you aren't also going to need to heal up a bunch on a short rest.

    The bonus damage here is going to be decent - a bit like upcasting. If you use this with Blight, for example, you'll add 2d6 to the spell's typical 8d8. That's a little less than if you were casting Blight at 6th level. A Fireball could also add 2d6, so for the cost of your own potential healing, you could effectively upcast it to 5th level.

    The real shenanigans here is Magic Missile, which officially only uses a single roll for all of its missiles. Is that how, like, any DMs allow you to run it? Not that I've seen. But RAW, even a 1st level Magic Missile will do 1d4+1d6+1, an average of 7 per dart, or 21 guaranteed damage (ask your DM about this outside of the game before trying to pull it out in the middle of a fight, and don't be shocked if they shut it down).

    Also, as a note, if the party is willing to lend their vitality to this, they can opt to fail their saving throws. Have a Barbarian who is willing to toss a d12 or two your way?

Level 6:

Corrupted Caster:

You gain the following benefits:

Defiler's Ward: when you take a bonus action to transform Sorcery Points into a spell slot, you can roll a number of d6s equal to the level of the spell slot created, and gain Temp HP equal to the total rolled.

    My general experience has been that Sorcerers tend to convert spell slots into Sorcery Points rather than the other way around, but if you make a 5th level spell slot, you'd get an average of 17.5 Temp HP on top of the spell slot, so... a decent bonus.

Strengthened Rot: Damage dealt by your Sorcerer spells and features ignore resistance to Necrotic and Poison damage.

    Sadly, this is probably worthless. Almost no monsters are resistant to either of these damage types. Full immunity in both cases is far more common.

Level 14:

Withering Aura:

When you use Innate Sorcery, you create a 15-foot aura originating from you for the duration of Innate Sorcery, which gives the following benefits:

Defiling Shroud allows you to reduce the damage of enemies within the aura when they hit you with an attack roll by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier.

Essence Siphon lets you regain 1d4 Sorcery Points when a creature dies within the aura, but you can only benefit from this once per use of Innate Sorcery.

    Hot damn, this is good. The damage reduction doesn't take any action or have any limit, so if you get swarmed in melee (not great for a Sorcerer, but it happens,) this can potentially save you a lot of damage, and at least help out even against single big hits. The Sorcery Point restoration can be enormous: you don't have a ton of Sorcery Points to begin with. Using Sorcery Incarnate (the level 7 feature for all Sorcerers,) this could potentially make Innate Sorcery a SP-neutral feature if creatures die near you often enough.

Level 18:

Superior Defiler:

You gain the following:

Fouled Soul: You have immunity to the Poisoned and Exhaustion conditions.

    That's freaking great. Immune to Exhaustion? With the nerfing of Exhausion in 2024, more monsters can actually inflict it, and that's a scary condition. Poisoned is more common, but also less scary (and I feel like maybe less common at these high levels?)

Furthered Defilement: Your Withering Aura increases to a 30-foot emanation, and enemies within it cannot restore HP.

    Bigger aura is good. Shutting down healing is situationally good (and pairs well with the Gladiator Fighter).

Overall Thoughts:

    Conceptually, this subclass is very cool. And I do think Defile and Empower, which is the central subclass feature, has the potential to be very powerful. I also think it'd be an interesting challenge to play one of these in Dark Sun - maybe you're the child of one of the Sorcerer Kings, or you have the potential to become one. Can you be a hero when your power is so destructive?

UA: Ancestral Sorcery

 The second of two brand-new subclasses in the Arcane Subclass Unearthed Arcana, Ancestral Sorcery gives the origin of your Sorcerer abilities as a powerful ancestor. While not explicit, the obvious example is Simon, from the recent Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, a movie that was actually quite good but I don't think did very well at the box office, and thus, if there is any justice in the world, will be discovered by teenagers twenty years from now who have just started playing D&D, and will be watched in their parents' basement while they eat pizza and drink soda and become a cult classic.

The point is, Simon, played by Justice Smith, is the descendent of Elminster, the extraordinarily powerful Wizard and famed hero of the Forgotten Realms. Simon is not a Wizard, though: he's a Sorcerer, and thus has only a fleeting sense of control over his magic.

It's a fun movie. Do check it out if you haven't already. It's the kind of nerdy movie where if you do play D&D, you'll get all the deep-cut references and well-observed, subtle jokes that operate on many levels, but if you don't, it's still perfectly enjoyable as a fantasy adventure flick.

But let's talk about this subclass! Somewhat like the Arcana Domain for Clerics, this is a little bit of the "Wizard"-themed Sorcerer. That might sound like nothing given how Wizards and Sorcerers overlap so much in their aesthetics and capabilities, but we'll get into it.

Lineage Spells:

Cantrips: Guidance, Resistance

1st: Command, Protection from Evil and Good

2nd: Locate Object, Spiritual Weapon

3rd: Magic Circle, Spirit Guardians

4th: Divination, Locate Creature

5th: Legend Lore, Yolande's Regal Presence

    Admittedly, there are actually quite a few Cleric spells here, but I think the key is that it adds a lot of utility spells to a class that often wants to focus on damage spells. Getting some extra cantrips is also kind of interesting.

Level 3:

Ancestor's Lore allows you to add your Charisma modifier (minimum of +1) to any Intelligence check you make. You also gain proficiency in your choice of Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion.

    A bit like the Thaumaturge and Magician options for Clerics and Druids, respectively, this lets you actually be good at knowing about what your class does. However, this one's a bit more extensive, effectively turning any Intelligence check into a Charisma check, or even better if you also have a positive Intelligence modifier (if you have a negative, then at least it's mitigated).

Visage of the Ancestor gives you advantage on any ability check you make as part of the Influence action when your Innate Sorcery feature is active.

    This gives you a potential out-of-combat use for "Sorcerer Rage." The flavor of this is that your ancestor manifests as a spectral haze around you (and they suggest the ancestor could take various forms - like a ghostly version of themselves or perhaps a symbolic creature - like Mushu from Mulan!)

Level 6:

Superior Spell Disruption adds two more 3rd level spell beyond your Lineage spells, granting you both Counterspell and Dispel Magic. While you have Innate Sorcery active, you can cast each of those spells without expending a spell slot once per long rest, and when you do so in this way, targets of Counterspell have disadvantage on their Con save (remember that Counterspell works differently now) and you get advantage on ability checks to end ongoing spells when you use this with Dispel Magic.

    So, it's a little funny: you need to be in Innate Sorcery to do this and then also it's a limited use per day, but you still also just have these two spells prepared and can spend spell slots on them as normal. Personally, I'd drop the Innate Sorcery aspect of this, as I don't think we really need it - these features are already limited. These spells are good in any counter-magic situation, and so, getting the dice to roll more in your favor is certainly nice, though this is going to be more useful in a mage-vs-mage situation than just fighting more conventional monsters.

Level 14:

Ancestral Majesty causes Innate Sorcery to produce a 5-foot emanation magical aura. When a creature ends their turn within that emanation or enters it, you can force them to make a Charisma saving throw, and on a failure, you can make them drop prone or give them the frightened condition until the end of your next turn. They only make the save once per turn.

    We're clearly leaning into everything being tied to Innate Sorcery, and while that's a core Sorcerer feature, I don't love having everything tied to the same limited-use feature. This is clearly something that can help you out of a jam, but only if they're already right up upon you.

Steady Spellcaster prevents damage from breaking your concentration on Sorcery spells.

    ...Wait, what? Ok, I take back any worry I had about this subclass being too tied to a limited-use feature. This just... they cannot break your concentration without incapacitating you now, or I guess dispelling your spell. You get hit by an Ancient Red Dragon's breath and take 94 damage, and you're like, "nah, that Fly spell is not going anywhere." Not any specific school, not of any particular level. Just... concentration saves? Nah, we don't need to worry about that.

    This is a good feature. In case that wasn't clear. It's very, very, very good.

Level 18:

Ancestor's Ward gives you advantage on saving throws against spells while your Innate Sorcery is active. Once per use of Innate Sorcery, if you fail a saving throw against a spell, you can choose to succeed again.

    So, yeah: it really comes down to how often you're fighting creatures that actually cast spells, rather than having some other bespoke spell-like-but-not-quite-spell effect. Admittedly, I think they found a way to incorporate more genuine spells into monster design, like the part of the Adult and Ancient Dragons' multiattack. But this subclass clearly is best in a mage-vs-mage kind of campaign.

Overall Thoughts:

I think there's something solid here. The best feature doesn't come until level 14, but I think there is enough going on here that you could have a very helpful party member here. Again, this subclass is best-sutied to a campaign in which you have to deal with spellcasting adversaries, but in such a campaign, this should be very good.

Next, we'll re-re-visit the Hexblade, which is getting a second revision after its rather awful showing in the Horror Subclasses UA. At least from my initial reading, this is definitely an improvement over that one, though I suspect fans of the Xanathar's original version might still be underwhelmed.

UA: Shadow Sorcerer

 In the grand cosmology of D&D, I think the Shadowfell has always held a special allure for me - despite the fact that I think it's probably less fleshed-out than other planes. There's a giant asterisk to that, of course, which is that the entire Ravenloft setting exists within it, but Ravenloft pre-dated the official introduction of the Shadowfell, and was ret-conned to exist within it with the Shadowfell's introduction in 4th edition.

I don't know that I've ever really had my mind wrapped fully around the Sorcerer class, which has many of the same spells as Wizards, but can't be as broad in their utility, even as they bend those spells with metamagic to do things Wizards can't.

Still, the Shadow Sorcerer has always appealed to me, since I first saw it in Xanathar's. Let's see what hte proposed revamp would look like.

Shadow Spells:

Like Clerics, Paladins, and Warlocks, Sorcerers are now largely getting extra spells from their subclass. The old version of this subclass did get Darkness, but the UA version gets a full list:

1st: Bane, Inflict Wounds

2nd: Darkness, Pass without Trace

3rd: Hunger of Hadar, Summon Undead

4th: Greater Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer

5th: Contagion, Creation

    There are some pretty good ones here - Pass Without Trace makes your party far more likely to succeed at sneaking around, even if you have loud heavy-armor-wearers. Summon Undead is also quite nice for a class that doesn't get nearly as many summon spells as the other arcane spellcasters.

Level 3:

Eyes of the Dark gives you 120 feet of Darkvision and 10 feet of Blindsight. Additionally, you can see through magical darkness that are part of spells you cast.

    Ok, so let's look at the changes: the old version didn't give Blindsight, and the "see through magical darkness" only worked when you cast the Darkness spell using Sorcery points - the feature allowed you to cast it without a spell slot if you spent 2 Sorcery Points.

    The blindsight is a nice boost, though I wonder if we could just effectively give them Devil's Sight. If you had a Warlock with that invocation, you'd be in this weird place where the Warlock could see through the Sorcerer's Hunger of Hadar, but the Sorcerer couldn't see through the Warlock's.

You might notice a lack of Strength of the Grave - that will come, but not for a while.

Level 6:

Spirits of Ill Omen lets you cast Summon Undead without the material component (which costs 300 gold, which is not nothing at low-tier-2). You can also cast it without a spell slot once per long rest. Also, when you cast the spell, you can modify it to not require concentration, but it only lasts 1 minute, and ends early if you cast it again.

    Notably, this fixes what I think was an oversight with the GOO Warlock's "Create Thrall" feature in the 2024 PHB, where you can actually just cast Summon Aberration on every turn to get three (or later four) Aberrations all attacking together.

    Thematically, this is a replacement for Hound of Ill Omen. The old version simply used the Dire Wolf stats, which meant it didn't scale up when you got into higher levels. But the Hound's biggest benefits were that it would impose disadvantage on the saving throws of the target  you sent it after.

    I will say that I think this feature is probably more broadly useful, and you can 100% flavor your undead spirit as a hound if you like. (Also, while casting Summon Undead at its base level is not great, the lack of a spell slot means you could potentially cast this as your action and then quicken some other good spell, as the only rule is that you can't cast multiple spells using spell slots in a turn.

Level 14:

Shadow Walk lets you use a bonus action to teleport up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space you can see, provided you both start and end in dim light or darkness.

    This feature is unchanged. This is obviously going to be situational. You can create an area of darkness for yourself, but creating two might be harder. In a deep, dark dungeon, this is an amazing bit of free Misty Steps that go four times as far, but outdoors on a bright day, it'll be hard to use.

Level 18:

Umbral Form allows you to use a bonus action to transform for 1 minute, or until you're incapacitated. You can use the feature once for free per long rest, or spend 6 Sorcery points (no action required to spend them) to restore your use. The Umbral Form gives you Incorporeal Movement, as well as resistance to all damage except Force and Radiant, and then gives you Strength of the Grave.

Strength of the Grave works in the following way: if you would drop to 0 HP and not die outright, you can make a Charisma saving throw with a DC equal to 5 plus the damage taken, and on a success, your HP instead becomes equal to three times your Sorcerer level (so 54 at level 18, and eventually 60 at level 20).

    Let's unpack this:

    Umbral Form works very similarly to its old version (though the old version's incorporeal movement weirdly did a flat 5 damage to you if you end your turn inside an object, rather than 1d10).

    However, the really big change is that Strength of the Grave only works while you're in Umbral Form. Not only have they moved this feature all the way from level 1 to level 18 (you could have expected it to move to level 3, given that everyone has to wait until then for a subclass,) but it also mean's it's not on all the time.

    However, it's not a pure nerf - the old version could only go off once per long rest, and would be shut down if the damage included radiant damage or a critical hit. Essentially, the old version is a once-a-day potential get-out-of-jail-free card.

    In theory, you could, several times during a fight, get restored by the new Strength of the Grave, for what amounts to a pretty chunky amount of healing - even at level 18, 54 HP is quite a lot. On the other hand, enemies are hitting very hard at this level, so meeting that DC is not guaranteed (though it depends on the monster. I ran an encounter for my recently-18 party on Monday that included a Dragon Turtle, and its breath weapon did 16d6, or an average of 56 damage on a failed save, which means I don't think anyone could succeed on that DC 61 saving throw. Now, that's extreme. Still, its bite is 3d10+7+2d6, or an average of 30 damage, and a DC 35 is also very unlikely to be surmountable. Again, this is when fighting one big monster, rather than a bunch of smaller ones. (That said, we're also halving all damage except Force and Radiant, which would make these DCs far more manageable).

    Really, the toughest part of this is just not getting it until level 18.

So, overall?

I think this is a tough one. I think we're probably looking at a buff overall, though I feel like we lost some of the weirdness of the Hound of Ill Omen to get what is, again, probably a less ambiguous and more generally useful feature.

UA: New Subclasses in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide

 In something of an echo of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, among the first new books that will be coming out for "5.5" Edition is a two-book set that will be a big campaign setting book for the Forgotten Realms. While ten years of published adventures primarily in the Realms along with the aforementioned SCAG, not to mention the popular Baldur's Gate 3 computer game, and the D&D movie, probably means that anyone with any understanding of D&D beyond the surface level is well-aware of the Forgotten Realms or at least elements therein, these books will likely serve as the new definitive setting books. Will we get stuff beyond the Sword Coast, and maybe even beyond the continent of Faerun? No idea.

But, as someone who has actually never run anything in the Forgotten Realms, and who really likes setting-agnostic sourcebooks so that he can use them with his homebrew setting, the number one top appeal here is that, like SCAG, this comes with several subclasses.

And we just received the Unearthed Arcana to test said subclasses.

The subclasses are a mix of returning and brand-new. They are:

College of the Moon for Bards

Knowledge Domain for Clerics

Purple Dragon Knight for Fighters (don't worry - it looks like this is mechanically entirely different than the old one, which made the Champion seem complex and interesting)

Oath of Noble Genies for Paladins

Winter Walker for Rangers

Scion of the Three for Rogues

Spellfire Sorcery for Sorcerers

Bladesinger for Wizards

    You'll note that some of these have very specific FR themes - the "Three" likely refers to the Dead Three, the trio of allied evil gods often worshipped in Baldur's Gate, and even the college of the Moon is specifically linked to the Moonshae Isles. This, thus, might require a bit of lore-bending for other settings, but we'll look at it mechanically.

College of the Moon:

    Moon Bards weave tales of druidic magic into their Bard powers. At the core is your 3rd level feature, which lets you swap between three different "Folktales," each of which give you a different capability. You remain in this "mode" until you swap to another one.

Tale of Life allows you to expend a Bardic Inspiration die when you restore HP to a creature with a spell, adding the result rolled to the heal (no more than one BI per turn). One area of clarification that would be good to get is how this works on AOE heals, such as Mass Healing Word.

Tale of Gloam allows you to Disengage or Hide when you use your usual bonus action Bardic Inspiration feature.

Tale of Mirth allows you to, when an enemy succeeds on a saving throw within 60 feet of you, use a reaction and spend a BI die, forcing the enemy to subtract the roll of that die from their saving throw result, potentially turning it into a failure.

Given how reliant on saving throw spells Bards are, I think this last one is probably going to be your "default" option, and this is the one of these tales that I think could be a huge, clutch play - if some major enemy gets an 18 against your DC 16 spell, this could really turn the tables.

At 6th level, you get Blessing of the Moonwells, which automatically gives you the Moonbeam spell. You can cast the spell as a bonus action for free once per long rest, or by expending a 3rd level spell slot, and when cast this way, you get some extra benefits: while concentrating on it, you glow with dim light for 5 feet, and whenever a creature fails its save against the spell, another creature of your choice within 60 feet regains 2d4 HP.

Moonbeam is an ok spell, and this does a lot to buff it. I don't know that I'd rely on the healing, given that it requires the target to fail a saving throw, but making it a bonus action also means you can do plenty of other things with your turn.

Finally, at 14th level, you get Bolstered Folktales, which allows you to simply roll a d6 instead of expending a Bardic Inspiration die when you use Tale of Life and Tale of Mirth, and then, if you're using Tale of Gloam, you can teleport up to 30 feet as part of the bonus action.

This is a nice feature - basically allowing you to use the feature without ever running out. Again, getting to toss a d6 at a monster's saving throw, especially after you know what they rolled, can be very powerful.

I'll confess that I'm really bad at evaluating Bards. It's a class I can never totally wrap my head around. I feel like this is decent, but probably not blowing anyone's minds in terms of power - though that Tale of Mirth feature feels like it could be the gamechanger.

Knowledge Domain:

    The first PHB subclass to be reprinted outside the PHB following the 2024 culling of Cleric and Wizard subclasses, Knowledge is the Cleric of the mind.

From the start, the first thing one will notice is that they get more domain spells than other subclasses - 3 for each spell level of 1-5, rather than the typical 2. (Remember that Cleric subclasses come at level 3 now, so you'll be getting your 1st and 2nd level domain spells at the same time.)

Domain spells are:

1st: Command, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic

2nd: Detect Thoughts, Identify, Mind Spike

3rd: Dispel Magic, Nondetection, Tongues

4th: Arcane Eye, Banishment, Confusion

5th: Legend Lore, Scrying, Synaptic Static

    That's a mix of some really solid spells to always have prepared, some very niche ones, and a few combat bangers (I love Synaptic Static).

Beyond this, it appears there's pretty extensive changes, so let's get into them:

At level 3, you get Blessings of Knowledge, giving you proficiency in a type of Artisan's Tools as well as not just proficiency, but expertise in two of the following: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion. Damn, build yourself a Knowledge Cleric with the Thaumaturge Divine Order and you'll have the highest Arcana/Religion modifier by a large margin.

Also at 3, you get Mind Magic. You can use Channel Divinity to cast any spell on your Domain Spells list without expending a spell slot or requiring material components. That is... actually that's damn good: Scrying for just a Channel Divinity? No need to get the ivory strips and such for Legend Lore? (Also, I think this might turn the casting time into an action as well - I don't know the casting times for all those spells off the top of my head, but still pretty good). The other massive takeaway is that this means a 7th level Knowledge Cleric could potentially cast Banishment several times per day. Not bad at all.

At 6th level, you get Unfettered Mind, gaining telepathy out to 60 feet, and allowing you to simultaneously contact a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier. Also, if you make an Intelligence check and the total is lower than your Wisdom score, you can take the score instead as your total. Granted, with your expertise in two knowledge skills, this might not come up super-often, but it does mean that if you have a -1 to Intelligence, and you beef an Investigation check looking for a trap or something, you could just say "nah, that's a 16." It's not quite Reliable talent, but at the least, if you're trying to figure out some major lore reveal, you have a pretty decent floor on what you can get.

At 17th level, you get Divine Foreknowledge. As a bonus action, you can give yourself advantage on all d20 tests for an hour. You can do this once per long rest, or by expending a 6th or higher level spell slot.

So, this is almost Foresight - a 9th level spell - once per day for free, or as a 6th level spell and as a bonus action. You can only cast it on yourself, and it doesn't impose disadvantage on attackers, but still. That feels... pretty damn good. A 6th level slot is certainly not cheap, but it's a powerful effect that could be clutch.

I've got to say: I don't know if this Cleric is going to be superpowered or anything, and the 6th level feature, while cool, does not really enhance your combat power or anything. But I could imagine playing one of these and really enjoying it, smartypants know-it-all that I am.

Purple Dragon Knight:

    Ok, here we come to what, in the SCAG-version, I consider to be the least-inspired subclass in all of 5th Edition. A subclass that basically just took the three core Fighter features - Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable - and let you spread them to your party, but adding absolutely nothing new to you.

Thankfully, though, this version just utterly trashes the SCAG PDK/"Banneret" in favor of a subclass with an actual identity. And that identity is: Fighter Pet Class!

At 3rd level, we get two features, but let's start with the headliner: Purple Dragon Companion.

The Purple Dragon (likely meant to represent an Amethyst Gem Dragon, as seen in Fizban's) has a scaling stat block, and like a Beast Master's pet or a Battle Smith's steel defender, uses the typical battle pet rules - they act only if you use your bonus action. You can always revive your dragon with the expenditure of a Second Wind use (and 1 minute - so not in-combat) or as part of an hour ritual that can be made as part of a short or long rest.

The Dragon scales with your level and your Intelligence modifier, so you'll really need to work on both your main attack stat and that. Its AC is 13+ your Int and its attack modifier is 3+ your Int (which means I suspect it'll fall behind a bit at high levels - I'll probably suggest in the response to this that it'd be nice to have the dragon scale better by using your Strength or Dexterity instead). The dragon does a Rend attack that deals Force damage, as well as a 2/day Gravity Breath, which doesn't deal damage, but can push or pull targets caught in it.

Also at level 3, harkening to the diplomatic role that PDKs are supposed to play, you get Knightly Envoy, giving you one additional Language and the ability to cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual.

At 7th level, you get Dragon Rider. Your dragon grows to Medium size, and you can ride it as a mount if you're Medium or smaller, but the dragon will fall to the ground at the end of a turn if it's airborne and being held aloft only by its Fly speed. It also only takes 5 feet of movement to mount or dismount. Additionally, the Gravity Breath now deals 2d6 Force damage to creatures that fail the save against it. Finally, when you use Second Wind to regain HP, your dragon regains HP equal to 1d6+ your Fighter level, and regains a use of Gravity Breath.

One thing I'd want to be really specific about is what kind of mount the dragon is. We'd probably want it as an uncontrolled mount so that it can use its own actions. And given that it acts on your turn and not immediately after, this should work fine, as the dragon can move you before you take your action.

At 10th level, you get Rallying Surge. When you use Action Surge, up to three allies in a 30-foot emanation (which could include your dragon, I guess) can use a Reaction to either Advance or Retreat. Advancing allows them to make an attack with a weapon or Unarmed Strike, or if the ally is your dragon, they can make a Rend attack. Retreating allows them to move up to half their speed without provoking Opportunity attacks.

This is... ok, so this is actually a bit like one of the subclass' old features, but what it does is turn your Action Surge into a real battlefield-management ability. I might prefer that this be its own resource, but this ensures that Action Surge will be a really climactic moment.

At 15th level, there's Amethyst Pinnacle. The Dragon grows to Large size and both its Speed and Fly Speed increase to 40 feet, and the dragon can now remain in flight even if you're still mounted on it. Additionally, you get Tandem Attack, which allows you to trade out one of your attacks to command your dragon to attack with a Rend, or spend two of your attacks to have them do their Gravity Breath.

This is fine, but there's an issue: I think the chance that your Dragon's Rend attack is more powerful than one of your own weapon attacks is deeply, deeply unlikely. Unless you are fighting something that resists Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing damage (which is more likely in the 2025 Monster Manual, as "magical" versions of those damage types don't exist anymore), even a Shortsword is probably going to deal more damage because it'll be using your preferred stats. I think the dragon could use better damage scaling - its attacks literally don't go up at all unless you can boost your Intelligence, meaning that there's a chance that it never does.

Finally, at level 18, you get Enduring Commander, which gives both you and your dragon resistance to both Force and Psychic Damage. That's pretty cool, actually - Force is a damage type we do see in some endgame campaign bosses, like the Monsters of the Multiverse-versions of the Demon Lords, for example. You'd actually be a more effective tank against such things than a Barbarian. This is not a flashy feature, but it's a solid one.

Overall, of course, this is a massive improvement over the original PDK. I do think it steps on the Drakewarden Ranger's toes, feet, and ankles. I'd prefer a version that's not so reliant on Intelligence, but then, to be fair, Beast Masters need to heavily invest in Wisdom. The main thing is that I think I could actually imagine taking this subclass, even if realistically I'm unlikely to ever play a Fighter that isn't an Eldritch Knight or Battle Master (or maybe Rune Knight).

Oath of Noble Genies

If you want an elemental-themed Paladin, this one is all about the glory and splendor of the most powerful Genies. A paladin oath that respects the power of the elements, here's what you get:

Your Oath spells are the following:

Cantrip: Elementalism

1st: Chromatic Orb, Thunderous Smite

2nd: Mirror Image, Phantasmal Force

3rd: Fly, Gaseous Form

4th: Conjure Minor Elementals, Summon Elemental

5th: Banishing Smite, Contact Other Plane

Whoo boy, you know what I'm seeing there: even if a Paladin won't get the infamous Conjure Minor Elementals until they're 13th level, that is a spell that works quite well for characters who have Extra Attack. Upcasting it to 5th level once in tier 4 will also be quite strong (though it is still better for someone like a Valor Bard, who can upcast it to higher levels). But even if we set aside that arguably busted spell, a Paladin with Fly or Mirror Image (especially the new version of Mirror Image, which gets better if you have high AC) is not bad.

At 3rd level, you get Elemental Smite: When you cast Divine Smite, you can also expend a Channel Divinity use to cause one of four additional effects: 

Dao's Crush grapples the target (DC is equal to your spell save DC.) 

Djinni's Escape allows you to teleport up to 30 feet and take on a mist-like form, which gives you immunity to being Grappled, Prone, or Restrained until the end of your next turn.

Efreeti's Fury adds 2d4 Fire damage on top of your Smite.

Marid's Surge causes the target and each creature of your choice within a 10 foot emanation coming from you to have to make a Strength save or get knocked back 15 feet and fall Prone.

This is a bit resource-heavy, but damn if that isn't some excellent utility. Efreeti's Fury of course you'll want to save for a Crit, but I can see Marid's Surge doing a great job of opening up a hole to retreat, and Djinni's Escape is going to be a great way to get away from some sticky monster.

Also at 3rd level, when you aren't wearing Medium or Heavy Armor, you can add your Charisma modifier to your AC. You also gain proficiency in your choice of Acrobatics, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. So, that's really interesting: if ever you wanted to make a Dex Paladin, this subclass is 100% the one you want to choose. Now, the Paladin I've played had a -2 to Dex, so if I had this subclass, I'd still definitely take heavy armor. But, for example, in my Witchlight campaign, we have a Fairy Paladin, who can't wear heavy armor and fly. Indeed, now that dual-wielding Paladins are quite viable, I could very easily imagine a Dex-based one using Studded Leather and a Shortsword and Scimitar. You could easily start a Paladin character with a +3 to Dex and +2 to Charisma (or even +3, but we'll be conservative,) which would mean a 16 AC in Leather Armor. At high levels, if you maxed out Dex and got Charisma to, say, +4, even in just Studded Leather with no shield, you could have an AC 21. And you would actually stand a good chance at decent stealth checks! I will say that I prefer the aesthetic of heavy armor, but I could very much imagine this being a fun way to build.

At 7th level, you get Aura of Elemental Shielding. At the start of each of your turns, you can choose for creatures affected by your Aura of Protection to have resistance to your choice of Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage (I've rephrased this: the aura remains in effect at all times the Aura is, you can just swap the damage type each turn with no action required).

This is, just, you know, good. And fighting Fire Elementals? Now you and nearby friends are resistant. It's responsive and applies to the most common magical damage types.

At 15th level, you get Elemental Rebuke. When you are hit with an attack roll, you can take a Reaction to halve the damage (rounded down) and then you can force the attacker (there does not appear to be a restriction on being able to see them or any distance limit) to make a Dexterity saving throw (against your spell save DC). On a failure, the attacker takes 4d10+Cha of your choice of Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage. They take half damage on a success. You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier per long rest.

The retaliatory damage is fine and good, but the enormous thing here is that you have an amazing defensive feature to use against a massive hit - use this when you get crit, for example. And 4d10+Cha (likely 25 or so) is not a small amount of damage on a reaction.

Finally, your level 20 Ult is Noble Scion. As a bonus action, for ten minutes, you get a 60 foot flying speed (with hover) and when you or an ally in your Aura of Protection fails a d20 test, you can use a reaction to cause the test to succeed instead. Like other Ults, you can use this again by expending a 5th level spell slot.

That is damned good. At level 20, a failed saving throw can be massive, so being able to just, as a reaction, say "no, it succeeded," is hugely powerful. Sure, you might use this on an attack to make sure that you're damaging the final boss as much as possible, but I think the "no, I don't think I will get swallowed by the Tarrasque" reaction, for example, is really, really big.

I've got to say, of the four subclasses we've been through so far, this is the one that has me the most excited. This feels good. Possibly too good, but I'm ok with that.

Winter Walker

Gotta say, just from the name I'm already pretty excited about this one. While I've happily moved to Southern California where it's nice and warm basically all the time, in a fantasy tale, the frigid cold is a good setting for grim fantasy tales (naturally, the name evokes the White Walkers of A Song of Ice and Fire). So, let's look at what it is, mechanically:

At 3rd level, you get Frigid Explorer. This gives you the following: You have resistance to Cold damage (which, remember, also means that you don't get Exhaustion from being exposed to extreme cold) and also, when you hit a creature with a weapon, you can deal an extra 1d4 Cold damage. The target can take this damage only once per turn. The damage ignores resistance to Cold damage and goes up to 1d6 at level 11.

Couple nuances: first of all, this is just free damage. It's not a ton, but it's there, and should stack with things like Hunter's Mark or other boosts. Second, it's the creature that can only take this extra damage once per turn, meaning that if you are, say, a Dual Wielder, you could potentially hit four separate monsters and deal this damage to all of them (if you've got main hand 1, main hand 2, off hand Nick, and then off hand Bonus Action). Not enormous, but a pretty solid boost for a 3rd level feature. Ignoring Cold resistance also really helps it fit into the themes of the subclass without paradoxically hamstringing you when fighting in your preferred envrionment.

Also at 3, you get Hunter's Rime. When you cast Hunter's Mark, you gain Temp HP equal to 1d10+your Ranger level. Also, while a creature is marked by Hunter's Mark, it cannot take the Disengage action.

While I'm not always happy about features that only work when the Ranger is using Hunter's Mark, this is nice if you are using it. (I really wish the spell were just a class feature that didn't interact with the rest of your spellcasting abilities).

Finally, you have your subclass spells. These are:

Ice Knife, Pass without Trace, Remove Curse, Ice Storm, and Cone of Cold.

Nothing terrible there. Pass without Trace is a no-brainer for any Ranger, but I guess this frees up a spell option. All seems on-theme.

At 7, you get Fortifying Soul. When you finish a Short Rest, you can choose a number of creatures up to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) and they regain HP equal to 1d10 + your Ranger level and have Advantage against being Frightened for 1 hour. You can use this once per Long rest.

This feels... it feels very niche. The HP boost is cool, but the 1 hour of advantage against Fear effects feels like it's such a roll of the dice. If you know you're about to face something that will frighten party members, are you really able to take a rest before such a fight? And so soon before? And why can't we give this bonus at the end of a long rest?

At 11, we get Chilling Retribution. When a creature hits you with an attack roll, you can take a Reaction to make them make a Wisdom save. If they fail, the creature is Frightened until the end of your next turn and while Frightened, their speed is 0. You can use this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier.

This is cool, but I'd prefer a slight change: let you use this in response to an attack, rather than a hit. That way the reaction can potentially prevent the hit coming for you.

At 15, you get Frozen Haunt. When you cast Hunter's Mark, you can adopt a ghostly, snowy form. The form lasts until the spell ends. While it's up, you have Immunity to Cold damage, and when you adopt the form and at the start of each subsequent turn, each creature of your choice within a 15 foot emanation takes 2d4 Cold damage. You also have immunity to being Grappled, Prone, and Restrained, and can pass through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, taking 1d10 Force damage if you stop inside a creature or object, and getting shunted to the nearest unoccupied space if the feature ends while inside a creature or object.

You can do this once per long rest, or you can spend a 4th level spell slot to do it again. (As far as I can tell, this is in addition to your casting of Hunter's Mark).

2d4 isn't a ton of damage at 15th level, unfortunately, even if it's guaranteed damage (and AoE damage... maybe it is fair?)

I'm mixed on this subclass: flavor-wise, I adore it. It's dripping with vibes, and those vibes are extremely grim. It would be the perfect subclass for playing in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. Like so many Ranger things, including the class in general, I just worry that it's a little undertuned.

Scion of the Three:

Do you want to be the party's token evil teammate? Ok, sure, you don't have to be a bad guy, but this is the subclass related to the Dead Three. Already a pretty strong aesthetic is presenting itself, but let's look at its mechanics.

At 3rd level, you get Bloodthirst. If your Sneak Attack hits a Bloodied creature, the creature takes extra damage equal to half your Rogue level (rounded up). When an enemy you can see is reduced to 0 hit points, you can use a reaction to teleport to an unoccupied space within 30 feet of yourself, and then you can make one melee attack. You can do this a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) per long rest.

Ok, yes. Not only does this boost your damage by a bit, but so many team compositions are about finding ways to get the Rogue multiple Sneak Attacks per round. This has it built in.

Also at 3, you get Dread Allegiance. You pick between Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul. Each god grants a damage resistance and a cantrip (Intelligence to cast). You can swap your allegiance after a long rest.

Bane grants Psychic resistance and Minor Illusion

Bhaal grants Poison resistance and Blade Ward

Myrkul grants Necrotic resistance and Chill Touch.

Of these, I think Minor Illusion will be the easiest to use in most scenarios, though you might find the Poison resistance more broadly helpful.

At 9th level, you get Strike Fear. You gain an additional Cunning Strike, which is "Terrify." This costs 1d6 of your Sneak Attack and forces the creature to make a Wisdom saving throw, becoming Frightened for 1 minute on a failure (they can repeat the save at the end of each of their turns).

This makes perfect sense for the vibes here. And Frightened is a potentially really powerful effect.

At 13th level, you gain Aura of Malevolence. At the start of each of your turns, each creature of your choice within a 10 foot Emanation takes damage equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimim 1), the damage being the same kind you have resistance to via your Dread Allegiance feature. The damage ignores resistance (though the aura is inactive if you're incapacitated).

This definitely encourages you to fight in melee, which can be a risky proposition for a Rogue, but it's free, guaranteed, AoE damage that is always on, so I can't complain much.

Finally, at 17, you get Dread Incarnate: You have Advantage on attack rolls against creatures with the Frightened condition, and when you roll Sneak Attack damage, you can treat a roll of 1 or 2 on the die as a 3.

Ok, the first part is going to be very nice if your party can toss fear effects around, but you also have your Terrify Cunning Strike, so you can set this up for yourself. Let's figure out how the damage boost treats you:

Normally, a d6's average damage is 3.5. But with this change, the average damage becomes 4. So, at level 17, our Sneak Attack does 9d6, meaning we're going from 31.5 to 36, or a boost of 5.5 damage. (And 6 at level 19). Much like the new Great Weapon Fighting style, this isn't enormous, but we're also rolling way more d6s than we would with a Greatsword, so the boost is multiplied. I don't think this is a massive game-changer, but it's nice.

Like the Winter Walker, I love the vibe of this subclass - truly wicked, you can imagine this Rogue is just utterly splattered with blood in the midst of combat. I think the best features are probably the first ones, especially Bloodthirst. It might need a tune-up, but I think it's probably in pretty good shape.

Spellfire Sorcery:

The Spellfire Sorcerer gets its power directly from the Weave (the FR explanation for how magic works is that there's essentially an underlying energy field to the universe call the Weave). Thematically, you have strange magic that can act in myriad ways - both harmful and helpful.

First off, you get a number of subclass spells. These are:

1st: Cure Wounds, Guiding Bolt

2nd: Lesser Restoration, Scorching Ray

3rd: Aura of Vitality, Dispel Magic

4th: Fire Shield, Wall of Fire

5th: Greater Restoration, Flame Strike

Naturally, the notable ones here are that you get various healing and restoration spells, usually not the purview of a Sorcerer. Otherwise, there's a "radiant/fire" theme, not unlike a Celestial Warlock.

At 3rd level, you get Spellfire Burst. When you expend at least 1 Sorcery Point as a Magic action or bonus action on your turn, you can unleash one of the following effects (max once per turn). Bolstering Flames grants you or a creature you see within 30 feet Temp HP equal to 1d4 + Cha. Radiant Fire forces a creature you can see within 30 feet to make a Dex save or take 1d6 Fire or Radiant damage (your choice).

So, this is nice mainly in that it doesn't expend any more resources than you're already doing: just using Sorcery Points, which Sorcerers do most of the time anyway, will get these little bonus effects. Neither are huge, but they can help.

At 6th level, you get Absorb Spells. In addition to your subclass spells, you also get Counterspell, and if a target fails its saving throw against Counterspell, you regain 1d4 Sorcery Points. A fun little efficiency boost, though it's very, very dependent on how many spellcasters you're fighting.

At 14th level, you get Honed Spellfire, which lets you add your Sorcerer level to the Temp HP from Bolstering Flame (a massive boost) and Radiant Fire is now 3d6, up from 1d6, more or less keeping it relevant at this higher level.

Finally, at 18, you get Crown of Spellfire. As a bonus action, you gain a buff for 1 minute. Once per turn while under this effect, if you are hit by an attack roll, you can spend a number of Hit Dice up to your Charisma modifier, and reduce the damage you take by an mount equal to the roll plus your Sorcerer level. (So, if you spend the max of, say, 5d6 + 18, that's 35.5 on average). Additionally, you gain a Fly speed of 60 feet and can hover. Finally, you gain Spell Avoidance - if you're subjected to a spell or magical effect (notably a Dragon's Breath does not count, as it's not magical) that allows you to save for half damage, you instead take no damage on a success and half on a failure, as long as you're not incapaciated.

You can do this once per long rest, or you can expend 7 Sorcery Points to do it again.

This is actually a pretty cool Ult move, like a Paladin's. The spend-hit-dice feature is probably not the most efficient use of hit dice, but if you're in a really tight spot, this could be a way to avoid or mitigate some truly deadly blast of damage.

I think overall that the Spellfire Sorcerer is probably all right, and definitely letting Sorcerers use their tricksy metamagic on healing spells has some potential for fun. Thematically it's a little dull, though.

Bladesinger:

It feels like this was only just reprinted, but then I guess Tasha's was actually a while ago at this point.

Now, we've seen a lot of versions of this, but I'm going to go through each feature individually to make sure we're catching it all:

At 3rd level, we get Bladesong. As a bonus action, we enter our Bladesong, as long as we aren't wearign armor or using a shield (interesting: no armor whatsoever - this used to allow light armor). The Bladesong lasts 1 minute and ends if you're incapacitated or don armor or a shield, or if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. Or you can dismiss it, no action required. You can invoke the Bladesong Int times per long rest.

While active, the Bladesong does the following:

You gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Int modifier and your speed increases by 10 feet.

When you attack with a weapon with which you have proficiency, you can add Intelligence rather than Strength or Dexterity to the attack and damage rolls.

You can add your Intelligence modifier to your Concentration saving throws.

Let's back up: the enormous change here is that you can now use Intelligence to make your weapon attacks. I believe the earlier version allowed you to add Int to your damage rolls, but this will allow you to fully focus on your spellcasting ability and keep full pace on your weapon ability. Essentially, you get the benefits that Bladelock or an Armorer/Battle Smith does.

Also at 3rd level, you get Training in War and Song. You gain proficiency with all Melee Martial Weapons that don't have the Two-Handed or Heavy properties. You can use a Melee weapon you have proficiency with as a spellcasting focus for Wizard spells. You also gain your choice of Acrobatics, Athletics, Performance, or Persuasion.

So! While you won't be able to use a Greatsword or a Halberd, you can easily use a Longsword or a War Pick. That said, you won't be able to get a d10 die, as you still can't go Versatile. Thus, a Rapier is probably one of your best picks still. Or is it? You could also dual-wield d6 weapons, as nothing says you have to keep one hand free (and given that your weapons can be spell foci, you can still cast just fine with them).

With a reasonable +2 to Dex, and then with Mage Armor, you shouldn't have too much trouble pushing your AC up to Heavy Armor levels (with +5 to Int, that's now at 20, and 25 with the Shield spell).

At 6th level, you get Extra Attack. Much as in Tasha's, as well as what the Eldritch Knight and Valor Bard have inherited, the Bladesinger can replace one attack with a Cantrip. I think 99% of Bladesingers should pick up the new True Strike, which will work perfectly for them given that they can use Intelligence for attacks anyway.

At 10th level, you get Song of Defense. As a reaction, when you take damage, you can expend a spell slot and reduce the damage by an amount equal to 5 times the spell slot's level. So, if Shield doesn't do it, you can pick the spell slot to mitigate the ideal amount of damage. I think this is the same as from Tasha's.

At 14th level, you gain Song of Victory. If you cast a spell that has a casting time of one action, you can make an attack with a weapon as a bonus action. Note that this interacts nicely with your Extra Attack - if you cast True Strike and then make a normal attack as your Attack Action, True Strike triggers this and gives you a third attack.

The Bladesinger is a popular and powerful subclass (when I rolled really good stats for my Scribes Wizard I actually considered going this way because I could). I think that this version cuts down on some of the doubling-down that can let their numbers go crazy, but in exchange, the whole thing gets more user friendly. I think my only possible change would be to let a Wizard expend some level of spell slot to get additional uses of Bladesong. Even outside of Bladesong, the subclass has a lot going on, though.

    And there we have it! A whole bunch of subclasses reviewed.

I think my favorite is probably the Oath of the Noble Genie. In terms of flavor, I like the Winter Walker and Scion of the Three best. Most improved has to go to the Purple Dragon Knight (though it's only one of three revisions).

I'll be curious to see what others think of these subclasses, but I think it's a decent crop.