Dragonflight Launches November 28th!

 This blog might be in hardcore D&D mode for the next several... time. But WoW's next expansion is coming out on November 28th, which likely means that the pre-patch is going live some time in the next couple weeks.

I've been hearing good things about the expansion, though I haven't been in the Beta test myself.

After falling off during an expansion I had thought would be one of my favorites, I'm erring on the side of cautious optimism. But hey, new class expansions have historically been the best ones!

Expert Classes Unearthed Arcana Overview

 The second One D&D playtest document is out and it's an absolute feast.

Weighing in at 37 pages, this shows the revisions for the Bard, Ranger, and Rogue, along with a sample subclass (with their own revisions) for each. It also includes many new feats: 4th level feats, Fighting Style feats, and Epic Boons (aka 20th level feats). It also has a big Rules Glossary.

For this post, I'm going to talk about broad concepts and trends, and we'll delve into the specifics in later posts.

Spell Lists and Spell Preparation

The first really major thing is that, at least in the case of the Bard and Ranger, the spells they gain access to are now based not on a specific class list, but instead bounded by spell category and school.

For example: Bards have access to Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, and Transmutation spells from the Arcane spell list. Likewise, Rangers can choose any spell from the Primal spell list that is not Evocation.

While I had in fact stated otherwise analyzing the previous UA, it does look like "class spell lists" are going to be a thing of the past. But it also looks like this means that classes will use spell schools to limit what they can pick up within those lists.

Additionally, Bards and Rangers, who previously only learned a limited number of spells, now get to prepare spells after a long rest. The number of spells you can prepare is equal to your spell slots, and limited to how many spell slots of that level you have (so, for example, you'll only ever have one 9th level spell prepared at a time).

I don't know if this is going to be the plan for other "learned spells" classes like Warlocks and Sorcerers, but we'll see. Unless those classes are limited to certain schools, I feel like this would kind of take away the biggest appeal to the Wizard. But we'll have to wait until a future UA.

Class Groups

We now know the four Class Groups.

Experts: Bards, Rangers, and Rogues. Artificers are also considered Experts, which means that they can make use of any feature that requires they be an Expert, even though they aren't going to be in the PHB.

Mages: Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards

Priests: Clerics, Druids, and Paladins

Warrior: Barbarians, Fighters, and Monks

Notably, Rangers get to pick up the Fighting Style feats despite not being Warriors. I'd assume the same will be the true for Paladins. (This does not, however, apply to Epic Boons, it seems).

Subclass Features Standardized

Subclasses now all gain new features at levels 3, 6, 10, and 14. For older subclasses, you'll simply get those features at those levels, except in the case of the Bard, which had only three levels with subclass features, who will just follow the old progression.

I'm not sure how this will work for classes with 1st level subclasses (mechanically this makes more sense, but it's hard to explain lorewise how a Warlock has their power before they pick a patron).

All 4th-Level Feats Include a 1-point ASI

Technically, Ability Score Improvement is now a feat, so that's not strictly true. But every feat you get after level 1 will now give you a 1-point bonus to an ability score.

This, frankly, makes Feats way, way more appealing. You might have to slow your progression on primary stats, but you won't just flat-out miss out.

The Rest Gets more Nitty-Gritty

That's the top-level stuff. There's a ton to get into regarding the class specifics. But my impression is generally:

Bards are going to be a bit more effective, especially making Bardic Inspiration easier to use.

Rangers feel like a good and proper, powerful class (indeed, they worry it's too powerful right now)

Rogues are the most similar, which is fine because they were in good shape already.

Last Minute Hopes for Bards, Rangers, and Rogues

 Obviously, "last minute" is a bit of an understatement, given that we've got anywhere from fifteen to twenty-six months before the thing currently codenamed (guys, relax, it's a codename) One D&D is released.

But with the "Expert Classes" UA due to arrive some time tomorrow (hopefully early) I thought I'd put forth a couple ideas for what I'd like to see of these classes.

Bards:

Ok, first, confession time: I have never really gotten into the Bard. I know there are people who absolutely love them, and who swear that they're a really powerful, good class. But I have never been able to wrap my head around why they say so.

I have, at the very least, been able to run a campaign for over two years in which my best friend plays a Bard, so I now have a fair amount of second-hand knowledge. As a DM, the ways in which he manages to kick ass tend to be mass crowd-control with spells like Confusion and Hypnotic Pattern. But these aren't exclusive to the class.

Anyway, long story short, this is the class I have the least real insight to provide. Bardic Inspiration is a big deal, and at higher levels it can be quite powerful (adding a d12 can really swing a roll) though classically, players forget to make use of it.

Personally, if I had my druthers, I'd want Bards to get a fourth subclass feature level. They're the only class that only gets these features at three levels (most get subclass stuff four times, and a couple get them five times) but I also imagine this would really fly in the face of backwards compatibility.

Frankly, I also think the following redesign of Bardic Inspiration could make the class feel way more effective and powerful: Rather than as a bonus action on their turn, and lasting for 10 minutes or until used, if a Bard could give their Bardic Inspiration as a reaction when a friendly creature within range that can hear them makes a d20 test - perhaps letting the roll happen, but before the results are complete (a little more in line with the Artificer's Flash of Genius) this would make the feature way easier to use.

But that's pretty much what I've got.

Rangers:

So, Rangers got buffed in a number of ways in Tasha's, giving a lot of options that made them more versatile.

Favored Foe was a... noble idea that just fell apart in execution. I think you could potentially fix it in a few ways. The first would be to allow it to persist without requiring concentration. After all, Rangers are half-casters, and a feature that prevents them from using concentration spells that isn't, itself, a concentration spell, seems like an odd 1st-level, baseline feature.

What I'd be tempted to do is actually fold in Foe Slayer at level 1, rather than level 20. I might then borrow some of the concept of Favored Foe - namely, being able to designate someone as your foe a limited number of times per day, to keep the power of this under control.

Let's try this as an example:

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can choose to mark them as your Foe. While marked in this way, you deal additional damage with your weapon attacks equal to your Wisdom modifier, including the attack that marked it. The foe remains marked until you mark a different foe, your marked foe dies or you finish a long rest, whichever comes first. You can mark a foe in this way a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, and regain all uses of this feature when you finish a long rest.

Until higher levels, you're unlikely to see this adding more than one or two damage (though a Druidic Warrior/Shillelagh build could get a lot out of it) but it emphasizes the Ranger as a real single-target-focused character, which feels right.

As an Expert class, we know that they'll be getting Expertise (which they already effectively get on one skill with the "Canny" part of Deft Explorer form Tasha's). The Ranger, of course, is the character who should be really reliable on guiding the party through wilderness. I don't know if this will simply be accomplished by giving them more traditional Expertise or if they need something else.

Rogues:

Rogues are honestly, I think, a pretty well-designed class for the most part. In combat, missing out on Sneak Attack can be pretty devastating. I also think a lot of players don't totally understand Sneak Attack - I've had to explain numerous times that having an ally in melee with the target is only necessary if you don't get advantage on the attack.

Here, I'm eager to see, most of all, the Assassin subclass revisions. On its surface, the Assassin ought to be one of the absolute core Rogue subclasses. But the Infiltration Expertise and Imposter features are ludicrous - they're basically not features, because they explain stuff that any creative player should be able to do. Now, to be fair, Assassinate and Death Strike, the other two subclass features, are really powerful when they go off, but it feels like this should all be balanced out a bit better.

    Ultimately, of course, we're going to get a much better sense of what to expect tomorrow.

48 Subclasses, You Say?

 One of the tidbits mentioned in the Expert Classes interview between Todd Kenreck and Jeremy Crawford is that the new PHB will have 48 subclasses included.

With 12 classes, that gives us an average of four subclasses per class. But we should also bear in mind that some classes came with a lot more than that in the 2014 PHB.

Let's do a count. In the 2014, original 5th Edition PHB, we had:

Barbarians 2: Berserker and Totem Warrior

Bards 2: Lore and Valor

Clerics 7: Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, War

Druids 2: Land, Moon

Fighters 3: Battle Master, Champion, Eldritch Knight

Monks 3: Four Elements, Open Hand, Shadow

Paladins 3: Ancients, Devotion, Vengeance

Rangers 2: Beast Master, Hunter

Rogues 3: Arcane Trickster, Assassin, Thief

Sorcerers 2: Draconic Bloodline, Wild Magic

Warlocks 3: Archfey, Fiend, Great Old One

Wizards 8: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation

Total Subclasses: 40

So, that means we're looking at 8 new subclasses. Granted, it's not obvious that these subclasses are going to be brand-new. They could easily reprint some of the options from Xanathar's or Tasha's, especially the popular ones.

We're also likely to see some changes to the subclasses to go along with class changes.

As we can see, the 2014 PHB favored Clerics and Wizards pretty heavily - arguably to an absurd degree. With Wizards, I think they were sort of bound to the concept when they made a subclass for each school of magic. For Clerics, I don't know that the class necessarily needed so many subclasses, but the divine domains were also useful for world-building. If you're making a homebrew setting with its own gods, you'll want to ensure there's at least one deity for each domain. (You might notice that I didn't include the Death Cleric or Oathbreaker Paladin - because these aren't in the Player's Handbook, I'm not considering them part of this group).

Let's make the conservative assumption that every subclass in the 2014 PHB is going to be included. Thus, we have 8 additional subclasses to apply. We'll also make the assumption that they'll use existing subclasses from supplementary materials to include (something I think is less of a guarantee, but possible.)

I think the obvious thing here would be first to grant a third subclass to any class that currently only has two in the PHB. That means one for Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Rangers, and Sorcerers. That leaves just three additional subclasses to put in there.

Even though there are certainly some Cleric and Wizard subclasses I could easily see them adding, I think the options are already quite broad for these classes, so I'd assume other classes will get them.

Let's start by picking a subclass for each of the two-subclass classes.

Barbarians: While I think I might favor the Zealot here, in my play experience, I've seen more players drawn to the Ancestral Guardian. Not only does this play into the Barbarian's notion of being tied to the primordial, inherited past, it also works quite well as a "tank" option that can help protect allies, which emphasizes a major strength of the class.

Bards: There are a number of good options here. Glamour Bards fit a pretty classic Bard archetype, really emphasizing the idea of the Bard as a performer. I'd also be a little tempted to replace Valor with Swords. I also think the Eloquence Bard is really great. But I do think returning to the Glamour Bard, this subclass gives us the true Rock Star Bard, allowing Lore to be the knowledge-sponge and for Valor to be the swashbuckler.

Druids: First off, I expect Circle of the Land to be seriously re-worked, as I really don't see many people being drawn to that one. While I really like the recent Circle of Stars and Circle of Wildfire, I think that the Circle of Shepherds from Xanathar's really emphasizes a Druidic archetype that you don't get much from really any other subclass - the one who really calls upon the natural world. Shepherds is also a pretty good healer, which would be a nice strength to emphasize.

Rangers: Ok, well. Is it that it's flavorfully another classic archetype, or just that it's really powerful? I'm talking about the Gloomstalker here. Another option I'd push for would be the Monster Slayer, which I personally think is a really cool subclass at least on a conceptual level - it plays into that Witcher/Van Helsing/Solomon Kane archetype.

Sorcerer: While I'm hoping Sorcerer subclasses will all get the expanded spell concept that the Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind got, I think the obvious choice here is Storm Sorcery. Storm Sorcery is fairly iconic, and also feels like a good option for "pure magic" in a way that is not quite as unpredictable as Wild Magic.

So, that leaves three subclasses left to apply. And with a third subclass for those five classes, we can now put anyone other than Clerics or Wizards up to 4 subclasses.

Hexblade: Let's mention this off the bat. I actually think Hexblades are a problematic subclass, because they are just so, so much better at pulling off the Bladelock than any other Warlock subclass that it retroactively made the Pact of the Blade feel like it should only work for them. Now, if we roll the "Charisma for attacks and damage" and possibly the "Medium Armor and Shields" into Pact of the Blade, we then have the problem where it feels like there's very little reason to play a Hexblade Warlock. Still, it's obviously very popular, so depending on how much they're willing to change, I could see this making the cut.

Swashbuckler: The Swashbuckler is one of those subclasses that I think really embodies a truly classic archetype, and makes it almost surprising that it didn't exist in the PHB. I think this one's a bit of a no-brainer.

Kensei: Now, this one I'm not super confident about. I think the Kensei does manage to really carve out a clear niche for itself, being the "weapon monk," but I don't know how popular it is. Still, I think it could potentially be a strong hook to get people interested in the monk, especially if they're not really into the unarmed combat aspect of it.

We're obviously a long way from knowing whether any of these predictions will come true. But we should know a little more tomorrow!

Class Categories and a More Flexible Future for D&D

 In the Character Origins UA, the new concept of spell categories took shape - magic was divided into Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists. The concept had already existed to a certain extent in the lore of the game - it was clear that the kind of magic a Wizard casts is quite different from the kind of magic that a Paladin casts. The spell lists contain overlaps, of course, with Mending, for example, in both the Arcane and Divine lists.

While we still don't have the Expert Classes UA available to peruse just yet, we can now see a similar concept being introduced: Class Categories along with Spell Categories.

Like the Spell Categories, this is a new tag that does not seem to be overwriting any previous tags or categories. What it does is creates hooks on which to hang new modular game concepts in an elegant way.

In the 8 years of D&D 5th Edition, only one full class has been added to the game in officially published material. The Artificer, first published in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, and then reprinted with a few revisions and a new subclass (which happens to be my favorite sublcass) in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, is in a bit of an odd position. Because 5E has been designed under the assumption that you should never need more than the 3 core rulebooks to use any other book they've published (counting Spelljammer: Adventures in Space as a single book that happens to be in three volumes in this case,) the Artificer had to be wholly complete in both printings. While books like Fizban's Treasury of Dragons bent some of these rules (providing a new spell or two that Artificers can use,) adding a new class presents the following two problems:

First is that you cannot expand upon that class, at least not in ways exclusive to that class. We'll have to see if that remains the case when we get things like The Book of Many Things, which I assume will be the next Xanathar's/Tasha's-style rules expansion book. The class and spell categories here don't really change this fact, which is why I'm frankly disappointed that the Artificer is not seeing print in the new PHB.

However, the second problem is one that this can potentially solve: We've explicitly heard that the Artificer does count as an Expert class (note that "Expert" here is a group role - it's not meant to imply a higher difficulty or that it comes online at higher levels like old prestige classes). As such, new features that are added to the game in the 2024 PHB and beyond that serve Expert classes will also work for the Artificer.

Now, in a sense, this is philosophically similar to the very concept of classes versus subclasses. In older editions of D&D, what we'd now call subclasses were either Prestige classes or just wholly separate classes. The Avenger, in 4th Edition (I believe) is more or less what the Oath of Vengeance Paladin is today, including features like Vow of Enmity.

In a certain way, the base classes of 5th Edition have served as broad categories for the subclasses that would be published throughout the edition. They're an existing framework that allowed for the introduction of, say, new Eldritch Invocations, which anyone in the "Warlock" category could use.

Indeed, I think that the Class/Subclass system in 5E has worked out extremely well - we all know at a basic level what a Rogue can do, and each time they want to make a new flavor of Rogue, they don't have to fully go back to the drawing board.

But, as we've seen with the Artificer, even if the twelve original classes do a really good job covering the bases of the various fantasy archetypes that one could want to embody, sometimes none of them are quite the right fit, and it's useful to have some working space to allow for the creation of new classes.

What will be interesting to see is how much WotC makes use of these new capabilities. I think it possible that we might see new classes added to the game more frequently than we did in the past. I don't think that this will prevent new subclasses, but if there are places where a new class makes sense, it'll be easier to do so.

Expert Classes UA: One D&D's Second Playtest Document

(UPDATE: The UA doesn't come out until tomorrow, the 29th)

 So, caveat to begin with: as of 10:30 AM on the west coast, we don't actually have the new UA yet, but we do have the interview between Todd Kenreck and Jeremy Crawford, which has given us some details about what to expect (for readers of this blog, expect a lot of posts today).

This UA is going to focus on the three PHB "Expert" classes, which is a new category that will be used to group classes similar to the three new spell categories from the previous UA. We don't have a full list, but Bards, Rangers, and Rogues (and Artificers - though sadly they've just been confirmed as not coming in the PHB) will be considered "Experts." While this won't dictate that their gameplay features be too similar, it does mean they're all going to get the Expertise feature, and are meant to play a group role where they can reliably perform their given tasks.

The only other role I head mentioned in the interview was the "Warrior," which I imagine includes Fighters, Paladins, Barbarians, and possibly Monks. (I'd assume we'll also get Mages for Sorcerers, Warlocks and Wizards, and then maybe Mystics for Clerics and Druids, but I'm just making those latter terms up).

Class roles will serve as, for example, prerequisites for feats, or even magic items.

The UA will include a new Rules Glossary, with experiments to how certain things will work. One notable thing here is that the Critical Hit changes from the Character Origins UA have been reverted, but there will, of course, be some new things to look at as well.

Another change we're seeing is that Ritual Spells, in this UA, no longer require a class to have some special talent to cast Ritual Spells - all classes that can cast those spells can now do so ritually.

Going back to the Class Categories:

Philosophically, I think we're seeing a shift toward "future-proofing" One D&D. I've made it pretty clear on this blog that I adore the Artificer. But you'll note that a lot of older elements of the game, such as the older version of Magic Initiate, don't really interface well with the class.

By creating these broader categories like the Arcane/Divine/Primal spell lists or these class categories (to one of which the Artificer explicitly belongs) WotC is making it easier to handle the complexities of adding new classes to the game.

Anyway, once we have the document itself, you can be sure I'm going to go over it with a fine-tooth comb.

Wrath Classic and WoW Nostalgia

 I graduated from college in 2008. That summer, I drove out with one of my best friends to Los Angeles, where I still live today. I'd been playing WoW about two years - I started in September of 2006, my junior year of college, after seeing my roommate take his Orc Warlock around Durotar. While I played in the very tail end of Vanilla and then through Burning Crusade, it was Wrath of the Lich King where I became really fully engaged in WoW as a game and community.

I found my guild tanking a PUG Oculus, and after two abortive runs at Karazhan later in BC, I really learned the raid-tanking ropes in Naxxramas.

To me, Wrath will always be something special. The Scourge are my favorite WoW villains - indeed, they instilled in me an affinity for undead adversaries when I run D&D and write fantasy fiction - and this expansion was a huge part of why.

2008 was also a fairly tough time to go out into the adult world - the financial crisis struck right about as I was starting a job hunt. Wrath of the Lich King was an opportunity for me to feel a sense of control and, honestly, self-esteem in the midst of a really dehumanizing and demoralizing experience.

As a piece of art and entertainment, Wrath expanded the idea of what an MMO could be. In Vanilla and BC, it was rare for them to let NPCs really move around much - Thrall's appearance in Nagrand was exceptional (too bad the ultimate effect of his encouragement of Garrosh turned the guy into a fascist nightmare). After Illidan had been broadly advertised as the exciting antagonist of Burning Crusade only to basically never be seen by most players, Wrath made sure that every player had a personal stake in taking down Arthas - and even, thanks to the Halls of Reflection dungeon, allowed players to confront him, even if they didn't get to defeat him.

Wrath saw WoW's first cutscenes - which was actually a little against the grain, given that a lot of games at the time were playing with the idea of removing cutscenes in favor of having everything happen within uninterrupted gameplay (2004's Half-Life 2 being a prime example). The subsequent Battle of Undercity was also a remarkable use of new phasing technology (one that sadly disappeared with Catalcysm, given the massive re-work of the entire Old World).

It was also notable for a real shift in design philosophy. While Burning Crusade started to chip away at this, there was still something of an assumption going into Wrath that, for example, each tank was really only good for a particular niche. Warriors were the main tank, Paladins tanked adds, and Druids were off-tanks who would switch to cat form to DPS. With the addition of a new tank class (the first of three, eventually!) the developers pitched the Death Knight as the anti-magic tank, though when the expansion itself came out, the exciting truth emerged that every tank could perform these different roles.

While some specs lagged, a lot of options that were previously seen as "traps" suddenly became viable. The introduction of dual-spec then allowed players who mained as tanks or healers to have a much easier time playing solo (I leveled up to 80 entirely as Protection on my Paladin).

Now, I haven't really been into Classic. And honestly, I don't think I'm going to play much of Wrath Classic. I love Wrath, but I was there. I could imagine younger or newer players, who may not have even been alive when Wrath came out (and holy shit does that make me feel old) wanting to experience it. I think that the ever-changing nature of MMOs is a double-edged sword, and Classic as an ongoing project to restore the chance to experience these things is a noble one.

But I was there. And I don't think I can feel like I'm 22 again just because they come out with this expansion again.