D&D's Physical/Digital Bundle

 Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is going to be the first release from D&D in which you can order both the physical copy and get the digital version on D&D Beyond. This is a natural outgrowth of Wizards of the Coast's acquisition of D&D Beyond, and is, I think, a step in the right direction.

However, there's a flaw: You can only get this by purchasing the physical book directly from them. D&D, along with most tabletop hobbies, have a symbiotic relationship with game stores. My own local game store, NextGen, here in Los Angeles, is a great place where I know the manager, and whenever a new D&D book comes out, I order it from there. It's where we get our minis, and it's generally a place where I like to go and hang out.

It's certainly convenient to order these books online, but I'd rather be giving my money to a store like this, which is where I've been able to play through Descent into Avernus and meet new people who are into the hobby. I want to make sure that this place can continue paying what I have to imagine is ever-rising rent and keep their doors open.

So, at least in the case of the Dragonlance book, I'll be buying it from there. (I'll confess that the absolutely awesome-looking special cover for the book is tipping the scales for me in more selfish ways.) However, I've also had the frustration of not wanting to spend 60% of the price of books I already have to unlock their content on D&D Beyond.

I think when the 2024 Core Rulebooks come out, I'll probably be taking whatever physical/digital deal they have so that, at the very least, I can have my basics covered without relying on a DM to have that content available.

My hope, though, is that in two years, WotC will have figured out a way to work with local game stores so that the store can verify our purchase and then give us the code to unlock the book's content online.

Halloween Character Builds - The Necromancer

 Halloween holds a special place in my heart. It was always my favorite holiday as a kid, perhaps because growing up in New England, it was kind of the quintessential environment for such spookiness (though I'll acknowledge here that it's a little messed up how often we tell stories about actual witches in Salem, when a bunch of innocent people were murdered by religious fundamentalists). My mother ran the neighborhood Halloween party at the local community center, and so it was always a big production around this time of year. In fact, I'm going back to the East Coast for Halloween this year because a friend of mine is getting married with a Halloween-themed wedding.

But that aside: in D&D, Necromancy is one of the eight schools of magic, but it's the one that is kind of invariably the dark and spooky one. There's a classic archetype - usually a villainous one - of a powerful spellcaster who raises the dead to fight for them.

If we wanted to play such a character (perhaps playing against type and making a heroic necromancer... or not,) where to start?

First off, let's talk class options. The School of Necromancy Wizard is probably the most obvious option - it's right there in the name. This subclass gives you two features that enhance your rapport with the undead, one specifically enhancing Animate Dead, while the other allows you to (sometimes) force an undead creature to work for you (this can technically work on a Lich that has used up its legendary resistances, but the likelihood of success if very low).

But there are a couple other options. Among Wizards, we're not going to bother looking elsewhere, but we should mention options for Warlocks and Sorcerers.

The Shadow Sorcerer is the "dark" version of the class, but we run into an issue here, which is that the dead-raising spells - and really most spells that allow you to bring in new creatures to fight on your side in battle - are not available to Sorcerers. Thus, any real "necromancy-themed" Sorcerer is going to lean more into their necrotic-damage, life-stealing spells. The only real option for Sorcerers is the 7th-level Finger of Death, which is mostly a single-target damage spell that then has a bonus of giving you a permanent zombie companion if you kill a humanoid with it.

The Warlock, however, shares the Wizard's penchant for summoning conjuration spells and dead-raising necromancy (we'll be focusing on the latter). And, as it turns out, Warlocks have ample subclasses that are associated with Undeath as a force. The first of these is the Undying - which I think was kind of a dry-run for a better subclass that I'll mention in this paragraph. Undying goes out of its way not to explicitly have your patron be an undead entity - it could be something that has just extended its life magically. So screw that one. The Hexblade, then, is an instance where the patron itself is not undead (unless it's the a spirit bound to a weapon) but the subclass' connection to the Shadowfell (the plane most associated with the undead) and the 6th level feature that lets you draw a specter out of a foe you kill. But then, the Undead patron is the most straightforward option.

The somewhat left-field option here, though, is Cleric. Surprisingly, Animate Dead and Create Undead are on the Cleric spell list (they are not, notably, on the new "Divine Spells" list). A Death Cleric would certainly make sense here, but they miss out on the newer spells.

There are only a handful of spells that raise the dead as undead (as opposed to bringing them back to true life). Animate Dead and Summon Undead are 3rd level. Danse Macabre is 5th level. Create Undead is 6th level. And then, Finger of Death is 7th, and is somewhat less of a direct undead-creating spell. Of these, Warlocks oddly don't get Animate Dead - it's not even on the Undead Warlock expanded spell list, which I found shocking.

Thus, I think we're going to conclude that, for the quintessential undead-raiser, we've got to go Necromancy Wizard (though I do think Undead Warlock is in a pretty good position as first alternate).

Now, Necromancy Wizards automatically add Animate Dead to their spellbooks at level 6 if they didn't get it at level 5, and the spell grants you a bonus zombie or skeleton (so two total when cast at 3rd level). But they also get a number of other bonuses to any undead creature that has been summoned - first, adding their Wizard level to the creatures' maximum HP, and then also allowing them to add your Proficiency bonus to the damage they deal.

So let's take a look at the various spell options you have here.

For 3rd level spells, there are Animate Dead and Summon Undead.

Animate Dead takes 1 minute to cast, so you need to do it before combat starts. It raises one zombie or skeleton (depending on the material you're working with) though, thanks to the subclass, we're getting an additional one. Upcasting the spell adds two additional undead creatures for each spell level above 3rd, making this one of the rare spells where upcasting it grants greater value than casting it at its base level (though we're going to get linear scaling thanks to the subclass). The undead creatures don't have a set duration, but after 24 hours you will lose control of them unless you cast the spell again, making them potentially hostile. We're a bit incentivized to take this thanks to our subclass, though of course many of the benefits of "Undead Thralls" extend to any undead creature created with a necromancy spell.

    You're going to be limited by the corpses you find as to which stat block you use. Skeletons officially come with armor scraps and weapons, so you might work with your DM to see what kind of attacks they can do. Skeletons in the base stat block have shortswords and shortbows, but I think a DM could reasonably change that based on what the remains you find have on them. Zombies just make slam attacks, which any creature with limbs could do. Skeletons have far lower hit points and are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage, while zombies are relatively beefy (though with a profoundly low AC) and have Undead Fortitude to potentially survive a hit. So, if you have your choice of corpses, skeletons might be better damage-dealers, while zombies can be decently effective at tanking hits, and can be used as a shield between you and the monsters.

Summon Undead is in line with the other Tasha's-introduced conjuration spells, except it's necromancy. Compared to Animate Dead, it has the following upsides: first, no corpses required, as long as you have the material component (which costs 300g). Second, the undead spirit you summon is capable of putting out a lot of damage. Third, like all these spells, it scales very effectively with spell level, especially if cast at an even level. Fourth, you have three options for which kind of undead spirit to summon. And finally, it uses your spell attack modifier to determine its attack bonus, making it far, far more effective at hitting monsters than the +3 and +4 bonuses that standard zombies and skeletons (respectively) have. However, there are downsides. For one, it's concentration. Next, it lasts at most an hour. And third, it only ever summons one creature, which means you won't be able to use it to make, say, a zombie-wall.

    With Summon Undead, you get three choices. The Skeletal spirit is the obvious choice for damage output - it does the highest damage, and the damage is necrotic (which few things resist) and it's ranged, allowing you to put it far away from the action to take potshots from afar. The only downside is the skeletal spirit has low HP, but you're hopefully going to keep it out of the fray. The ghostly spirit has to get into melee, but it has a 40 foot fly/hover speed and its attacks (which also deal necrotic damage) can also potentially frighten targets - a pretty powerful effect, with no "if you succeed on the save you become immune for 24 hours" rider. It also has incorporeal movement if you have to deal with a bunch of cover, which also makes them decent for scouting. Finally, the putrid spirit is sort of ghoul-like, and this one does slashing damage, but it also has an aura causing nearby creatures that start their turn around it to potentially be poisoned, and then its attack can trigger a second saving throw to potentially paralyze a poisoned target.

    My instinct is that the putrid spirit will be amazing when it actually manages to paralyze a creature, but that's probably going to be unusual, given the need for both two failed Con saves and a successful attack and that the monster is not immune to the poisoned condition. The skeletal spirit is probably the default choice, but if you need some crowd control, the ghostly one could be clutch.

Moving on, we'll next look at Danse Macabre. This is a 5th-level spell from Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and, on its surface, looks similar to Animate Dead, but there are some benefits and a couple of downsides. Like Animate Dead cast at 5th level, you'll get five total undead creatures (though of course Necromancers would be getting 6 from a 5th-level animate dead). The first major benefit is that it takes 1 action to cast, meaning you can do this mid-combat. You can also cast this one any Small or Medium creatures, if your campaign doesn't have you fighting humanoids all the time. Third, you get to choose whether the undead are zombies or skeletons. And finally, the biggest bonus here is that you get to add your spellcasting modifier to both the minions' attack and damage rolls.

    That last part might be the most important. At level 9, when you can first get this spell, you likely have an Intelligence of +5, giving your zombies a +8 to hit and your skeletons a +9 to hit (though if your DM insists the skeletons have to find finesse or ranged weapons to use their dexterity to attack, that's down to +2/+7 with strength-based attacks). That actually makes it far more likely that they're going to connect even with pretty heavily-armored foes. Without something like Wand of the War Mage or an Arcane Grimoire, your own spell attack bonus at this point is probably +9 anyway. The damage the minions do is also not insignificant - a zombie's slam typically does 1d6+1, but with both this spell and your subclass bonus, you're now looking at 1d6+10 (13.5 on average) coming from five different zombies (for a total of 67.5 average damage per round!)

    Something I've really come to appreciate while running high-level D&D (15 at the moment) is that one of the deadliest aspects of high-level monsters is their high attack bonuses. You can hit pretty decent ACs even at low levels, but you hit a plateau in most cases around 20. Monsters then have a very hard time hitting you, but when you start to get monsters with a +8, +9, or even a +12 to hit, sitting at 20 AC still means getting hit a pretty high proportion of the time. And with every hit is HP lost, potential spell slots for healing spells lost, and overall hinderance to the party. Animate Dead might net you an extra zombie or skeleton, but when those guys are only getting a +3 to hit, you're realistically only hitting occasionally with those against a foe that has an AC of 17 or 18. A Necromancy Wizard's zombie minion is doing 1d6+5 damage with its hit, or about 8.5 damage. But Danse Macabre is adding your spellcasting ability modifier five times to the damage, which is 25 with an Intelligence of +5, which not only makes up for losing the sixth zombie, but that's before we even get to the idea that these zombies are going to be hitting far more often.

    Of course, because Animate Dead is not concentration, you don't actually need to choose one or the other.

Next, we have Create Undead. Create Undead functions similarly to Animate Dead, in that it takes a minute to cast and you get 24 hours of control over the undead creatures, after which you need to cast the spell again to reassert control. At the base 6th level, you can make 3 ghouls from Medium or Small humanoid corpses. Ghouls' primary benefit over Zombies is that they can paralyze their targets - which, to be fair, is a pretty huge benefit, though the saving throw to resist this effect is only DC 10 - you might have better luck with the Putrid Spirit from Summon Undead. Ghouls are also more mobile and harder to hit than zombies, but they lack Undead Fortitude. When upcast to 8th level, you can raise Ghasts or Wights in place of ghouls, and at 9th level, you can summon Mummies. This starts to get very complicated, as the effects these various undead creatures can create are not all pure damage.

    Once again, we should note that without concentration, you can have this spell active along with Animate Dead. If you have plenty of corpses to use, you can amass a fairly large undead horde. But in terms of damage output in the short term, I do think that Danse Macabre might be the best option.

But, just for fun, let's consider how many minions we could raise as a 20th-level character. We'll assume we take Animate Dead as one of our Signature Spells, so we get the chance to cast 4 of these per day (and thus maintain control of that many minions). So, we'll say we cast 4 3rd-level Animate Dead spells, giving us 8 minions. Then, we cast the spell 3 times at 4th level, giving us 12 more minions (up to 20). Then, we're going to cast it twice at 5th level and reserve one slot for Danse Macabre, giving us 12 more long-term minions and 5 1-hour minions, putting us up to 37 minions. Now, we'll cast Create Undead at 6th level twice, to give us 6 ghouls, putting our minion count up to 43. We spend our 7th level spell on Create Undead as well, giving us 4 more, putting us to 47 minions. At 8th level, if we're just going for minion count, we get five more ghouls, or 52 total minions. And then at 9th level, we'll get an additional 6 ghouls, for 58 total minions.

But actually, if we didn't care about the slightly-better ghouls, and just wanted to upcast animate dead, we can skip Create Undead and just upcast Animate Dead at 6th level twice, giving us 16 more minions (total of 53) and then at 7th level we get 10 zombies, so 63. At 8th level, we've got 12 more, giving us 75. And finally, at 9th level, we're getting 14 more minions, so we now have 89. (And if we wanted to go back and replace Danse Macabre with Animate Dead, we can make that an even 90).

This is, by the way, a good way to drive your DM and your fellow players insane, as your one turn in combat will probably be more creatures' turns than the whole combat encounter would likely take, and most of them will be "and that's a 12 to hit the Tarrasque."

Practically speaking, I think that the minions from Animate Dead and, somewhat, Create Undead, might be more effective when used for non-attack actions. Often, in combat, it can be somewhat painful to have to give up a turn to, say, drag an unconscious friend out of a Cloudkill, or to try smashing some evil demonic idol on an altar to see if that does anything. Having an extra undead minion to do those things while you focus on damaging foes can really free you up. I also think that minions can be great when used to grapple enemies (though this will probably be less effective if the new grapple rules from the One D&D UAs make it live). In terms of damage output, I think Danse Macabre is probably your best bet, unless you need non-physical damage. Summon Undead, I maintain, is very good as the ultimate flexible option, not just because you can pick the minion that suits your needs, but also because you don't need to have any corpses to raise. Indeed, the real downside to Danse Macabre as an in-combat trick is that you need to have a bunch of corpses lying around.

Of all the minions you can summon, the Ghostly and Skeletal Undead Spirits you can get from Summon Undead have the quite enormous benefit of dealing necrotic damage. Of all the summoner subclasses, only Circle of the Shepherd allows you to give your summoned creatures "magical" damage to overcome resistances and immunities. The one time I cast Danse Macabre, we were fighting Yeenoghu, and while the zombies managed to work very well as a wall to prevent the demon lord from getting to the spellcasters (though I think technically under the new rules he could have walked over them because they were two sizes smaller) but their attacks did nothing to him thanks to the immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning damage. There are monsters that are immune or resistant to necrotic damage, but far fewer than nonmagical "BPS" damage.

Now, minions aside, what spells might you pick up to supplement this playstyle?

The Necromancy Wizard gets healed if they kill a creature, and gets extra healing if the spell that was cast is a Necromancy one - though this doesn't actually apply to cantrips. So, technically you can run Fire Bolt as your main cantrip. However, I think Chill Touch is still a really strong choice (arguably overpowered, as it shuts down many creatures whose longevity is built on health regeneration) along with being thematic.

The Strixhaven spell Wither and Bloom can give you a bit of healing help to your party, making it an interesting spell choice. If you want to pay forward the healing you're receiving from Grim Harvest, you can pick up Life Transference to get a pretty powerful heal at the cost of your own vitality (you effectively can heal someone for 8d8, or about 36 HP, though you're going to be taking half of that). This is another one of those "good side of necromancy" spells that could fit with a good-aligned character.

Vampiric Touch can work in the opposite way, allowing you to drain foes of HP to help heal yourself up, though as a melee spell, this might be better reserved for desperate situations.

Enervation is actually very similar to Vampiric Touch, but with a longer range, and once it connects, you can automatically continue the damage and healing, a little bit like Witch Bolt, but with twice the range, making it harder for foes to break it simply by running away.

Negative Energy Flood is an interesting option, because it can be used to give a minion temporary hit points, or if used to kill a creature, you create a... zombie who is not under your control, but also not under your enemy's control either.

Finger of Death is a pretty obvious single-target bit hit attack, dealing 7d8+30 damage on a failed Con save, or half as much on a success. So, that's an average of 61.5 damage on a failed save. If you kill a humanoid with this, you get a permanent zombie pet. This is a necromancy spell, so you would also get the Undead Thralls bonus. Honestly, though, that amount of damage, while impressive, feels a little low for a 7th-level spell (a Danse Macabre at 7th level would raise 9 zombies, who would be dealing 1d6+11 damage each, meaning 130.5 damage per round).

Weirdly, Astral Projection is a Necromancy spell, but that's the sort of spell that you pick up for plot reasons.

Circle of Death is a 6th level spell that does a Fireball's worth of necrotic damage in a sphere that's three times the radius. Personally, I think it's rare you're going to need to hit quite such an enormous area - fireball's already huge, and Circle of Death, if I have the principles of basic geometry right, should be nine times the area (or twenty seven times the space). This is, make no mistake, an absolutely gigantic area, but that means that you're also going to have a much harder time avoiding your friends, and this will generally cover the entirety of most battle maps (on Roll20, the default is a 25x25 grid of 5x5 spaces, and this would be a circle 24 spaces long and tall). As huge as that is, it's still only a Fireball's damage - 8d6. That's nothing to sneeze at (and indeed, Fireball is intentionally overpowered for a 3rd level spell) but for casting a 6th level spell - a spell level in which you only get a second slot when you hit level 20 - I feel like you could have better uses unless you're facing an army of troops besieging a castle or something and you need to kill a lot of low-level enemies.

Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting is similar, hitting a relatively small (though not tiny) 30-foot cube with 12d8 necrotic damage (average of 54 damage - which is just shy of two Fireballs' worth). This is particularly powerful against plants and specifically water elementals (as a DM I'd include any water-based elementals like Water Weirds,) who have disadvantage. But the real reason to consider this is that Constructs and Undead are unaffected by the spell. So, if you send your army of zombies at a group of foes, perhaps holding them down while your party is facing off against something outside of your 30-foot cube, you can drop this on top of all your minions without any fear.

Blight, back to lower level spells, is a single-target spell. This, likewise, can't affect Constructs or Undead, but if it hits a plant, they both make the save at disadvantage and also take max damage from the spell. The damage is only 8d8 (average of 36), but it's only a 4th level spell, making this a solid option in single-target situations or against some dangerous plant-monster like a Shambling Mound. A Fireball is still going to net you more damage if you can hit multiple foes, but this is a decent blast if you need something dead and quick.

One last necromancy spell that I think is easy to forget is Gentle Repose. This basically pauses the resurrection time limit on a dead creature for 10 days. That means that, if in the heat of battle, your Rogue dies while the Cleric is out of 3rd-level spell slots or doesn't have the diamonds to cast Revivify, you can give your party a leisurely window to fix the problem. In fact, it's a ritual spell, and there's nothing that says you can't cast it on a creature already under its effects (it's true that a creature can't be under the effects of the same spell multiple times, so I'd talk with your DM if you can keep this in effect indefinitely or if it can only give you a 10-day window). Especially in low-level play, where spell slots and gold to buy diamonds with are in short supply, this can seriously help a party member from being lost. It's also a great anti-necromancer spell, as it prevents the target from being raised from the dead, and also prevents it from decaying. We once used it on a deer to prevent the meat from going bad in my old Sunday campaign.

In terms of magic items, only Summon Undead is really going to benefit from items that boost your spell attack modifier. Most of these spells are somewhat independent of your stats, though remember that you need to be of a Wizard level that can cast those higher-level spells, meaning Create Undead requires you to have 11 levels in the class, even if some multiclass thing got you 6th level spell slots.

Anyway, there are some strong capabilities that a player can attain if they want to commit to the spookiness of Necromancy.

Speculating on Other Class Groups

 The "Expert Classes" UA introduced to us the idea of class groups. With twelve classes in the PHB (again, I'm sad that Artificers are not going to be published in it) they can fairly neatly put them into four categories of three classes each. Bards, Rogues, and Rangers are all Experts, which is reflected mechanically as their having the Expertise feature.

And I do think it helps, a bit, to carve out an identity for what those classes bring to the table. The Ranger, make no mistake, is much more powerful than it had been in 2014, but I still think you could make the argument that purely in terms of combat capabilities, it still might not outperform a Dex-based fighter with a ranged weapon.

But, what the new version of the Ranger emphasizes is that, even if they aren't keeping up in pure damage (and honestly, they're probably not that far behind) they have far more tools than the Fighter to help the party deal with myriad situations, particularly out in the wilderness. Their mobility is super-charged, and at higher levels they are better than anyone at sniffing out hidden foes (something that used to belong to the Rogue, but I think makes a lot more sense as a Ranger thing (as master hunters and trackers, Rangers feel like they should be the scissors to the Rogue's paper).

The other three groups are Mage, Priest, and Warrior.

Mage is, I think, the most obvious. The Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard have always felt like they fill somewhat similar archetypes (indeed, I don't think any two fantasy franchises can agree on what the difference between a Sorcerer and a Wizard is - in the MCU, for instance, the "Sorcerer Supreme" is 100% a Wizard by D&D terms, and the Scarlet Witch is definitely a Sorcerer).

But all three of these classes are arcane spellcasters, and I suspect will be far less limited in the schools of magic they can use. I do wonder, though, what will explicitly tie them together. One possibility I could imagine is that they might still simply learn certain spells, rather than preparing them, with Wizards having the hybrid system of preparing from among the spells they've learned in their spellbook.

Still, a drawback feels like a less fun way to tie a bunch of classes together. (Admittedly, the Arcane spell list is the most expansive, so it's more like a balancing handicap). Naturally, the Wizard and Sorcerer have historically had very similar spell lists, and can play similar roles in a group, if perhaps allowing the Wizard to have more utility while the Sorcerer has more in-combat flexibility. The Warlock, on the other hand, plays very differently from the other two thanks to Pact Magic.

So, I don't really have a great sense of what we might see with them (this could be a theme).

Priests are a little funny - Clerics and Druids make a lot of sense here, as they're both kind of spiritual spellcasters with a lot of healing spells. I assume that each will have full access to its spell list, with Clerics getting all Divine Spells and Druids getting all Primal Spells. Clerics still, I think, have a slight leg up on healing.

Now, of course, we should look at the Expert classes and recognize that within their category, there are some very different emphases. They are all experts at something, but not really the same thing - Bards are experts as social encounters, Rangers experts at exploration, and Rogues are experts in... well, they have less of a specific focus, but stuff like lockpicking and sneaking are classic choices.

The odd duck in the Priest category is the Paladin. While spiritual/divine in nature, the Paladin tends to emphasize its martial skills, and the Divine Smite mechanic (which I hope does not get changed too much) even encourages them to forgo traditional spellcasting and instead fuel their melee strikes.

If, for instance, you were to suggest that the Priest in your group could be the primary healer, I could buy that with the Cleric and the Druid, but even with things like Lay on Hands, I don't really see the Paladin as being able to play that role (there's even a better half-caster to do that, which is the Alchemist Artificer).

Paladins and Clerics, of course, share the Channel Divinity feature. I wonder, actually, if Druids might get a "Channel Nature" feature that works similarly. The default use (like a Cleric's Turn Undead) could be Wild Shape. We've seen newer Druid subclasses use the Wild Shape feature in different ways - Spores' Symbiotic Entity, Stars' Starry From, and Wildfire's Wildfire Spirit. Perhaps "Channel Nature" could make it clearer that not all Druids are going to benefit as much (at least in combat) from Wild Shape, and subclasses like Circle of the Land or whatever others they add to the PHB could use this for other things.

Finally, Warriors. Warriors are Barbarians, Fighters, and Monks. These are all fairly combat-focused classes, though of course a number of other classes fit in that category as well. I'd be tempted to say that the Extra Attack feature could be their signature thing, but of course Paladins and Rangers get that too.

What I'm curious about is if they bake in any way to significantly buff Warriors' resilience. Barbarians have Rage already. Fighters generally rely on having high AC (if they're built for melee). Monks, on the other hand, have always struggled a bit, because it feels like they want to be front-line fighters, but their AC is more in the Barbarian range, and their HP is no better than a Bard's. I'd like to see some buffs to a Monk's defensive capabilities. I'd suggested earlier that they could automatically subtract physical damage they take - like, they reduce incoming bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage by an amount equal to their proficiency bonus - to give them a niche as best to fight a mob of weaker enemies, while a Barbarian is better built for taking on the massive boss that is going to be hitting for a lot every time.

Of course, while it's certainly up for debate, there are arguments to be made that it's actually the Paladin who most effectively works as a front-line "tank." But we'll see what Warriors look like moving forward.

Ultimately, the real thing that's going to tie these together are things like magic items and other features that care about those tags. Right now, our best examples are the Epic Boons - something that, if current 5E is anything to judge by, very few people will see anyway.

This UA came out on September 29th, and the previous came out on August 18th. If we assume a similar pace, we might expect to see the next come out in early November. I suspect we're going to get all the classes first, as those are going to be needed to playtest subsequent content.

Tier 2 in Wildemount!

 Well, after over a year, our Wildemount campaign finally hit tier 2 as we got to level 5. Intentionally built to be a roleplay-heavy campaign, our milestones are built around the prophecy system that is detailed in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

Our party was also very much not built for balance - we have a Fighter (Rune Knight), two Paladins (one Oath of Redemption, one an unofficial one that's fire-themed) and two Wizards (Chronurgist and Scribes, the latter being my character).

In the fight resolving the plotline that got us to level 5, we had a rough go of it - a corrupted druid with a bunch of giant toad minions was holding two (other) paladins to power their corrupting blight, and we needed those paladins to testify on behalf of one of the characters' sisters. We just got very unlucky with attack rolls, failing to hit a bunch of AC 11 toads that didn't even have much health. As such, technically, one of the paladins died at the very end of the fight, but the DM allowed them to reroll their natural 1 death save and they got a natural 20 (while he said that this would not be a regular thing, I felt it was the right call, because the fight was actually over at that point, and you could have argued that we might be out of initiative).

Anyway, given the minions lasted way longer than they should have because of our crappy rolls, we ended that fight with every spell slot expended, every rune, channel divinity, lay on hands point, just everything spent. My wizard got knocked out toward the end of the fight, but luckily succeeded on three death saves in a row, so he stabilized and was woke up at the end.

It was hard-fought, and for me, personally, I think the only error I made (and arguably not a real error) was trying to blow the toads away with gust of wind rather than just trying to kill them quicker (this was a racial ability I used. I also put a fog cloud on top of the boss to buy us some time with the toads, preventing them from targeting anyone with spells while she was trapped in it and creating a big obstruction even when she got out). I also managed to land a Shatter on two of the toads that did nearly max damage (21) and both toads failed their save, allowing me to halve the number of monsters on the board.

We also perhaps wasted some actions trying to heal up the captured paladins, who seemed to have too many levels of exhaustion to do anything.

So, I'm hoping we don't have quite so desperate a fight again any time soon, but hitting level 5 is very nice. While I want to pick up Summon Undead, the costly material component (a 300-gold gilded skull - not consumed) is still a bit beyond my reach, so instead I took Dispel Magic and Lightning Bolt, while the other Wizard (a Fire Genasi - mine is a Triton) got Fireball and another spell TBD.

My character is a naive young Triton who basically just graduated from Wizard school (which I'm treating like college). With Wisdom as his dump stat, I've basically envisioned him as someone who will one day be a powerful, if a bit absentminded, archmage - a sort of figure like Merlin from the Disney Sword in the Stone, who would likely be a very good mentor to some kid with a heroic destiny, but right now he's the kid striving toward that destiny.

Anyway, I decided to defer to the fire-themed character to pick up Fireball, while I got the other classic, powerful damage spell. I also tend to think of lightning as blue (perhaps the result of playing a Shaman in World of Warcraft for so long) so it seemed to fit pretty well thematically (I also intend to copy the other wizard's fireball spell as soon as I can into my own spellbook). Lightning Bolt is, of course, a lot harder to hit multiple targets with (especially trying to hit more than two) but I also figure with three melee characters in our party, it might also be good to be able to weave a narrow bolt between them.

Gold and Silver Imagery in Elden Ring

 I don't know how deep I'll be able to get here, as I'm mostly going off the cuff (and procrastinating on redesigning tonight's D&D session given that one of the players whose character was going to play a prominent role in the session will be missing) but I wanted to talk about one of the key symbols in Elden Ring: Gold and Silver.

Gold is probably the element that is more obvious - the Elden Ring itself is golden, and we've got the Golden Order it represents. But there's also a fair amount of silver to be found.

Gold and Silver are, of course, culturally associated with wealth as the most prominent precious metals, used historically as currency. They're the 1st and 2nd place medals one gets in athletic competitions (bronze is kind of an odd choice for third place, as it's both an alloy and one of relatively base metals by comparison).

Symbolically, Gold and Silver are also often associated with the duality of day and night. It's actually, I believe, pure coincidence that the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size from the surface of the earth - their relative sizes and distances happening to match up in that way. But the Sun is also typically seen as golden, with sunlight having that yellow quality, while the moon - though pretty clearly chalk-white - is often associated with silver. We ascribe colors to these that are sort of interpretive, but we get a rather effective dichotomy of yellow and blue, and that's also a pattern we see a lot of in Elden Ring.

In the Lands Between, you might notice that there is no sun. The brilliant light that illuminates the day is actually, apparently, coming from the Erdtree. This is likely inspired by Tolkien's Legendarium, where Arda (the world upon which Middle-Earth is found) was first illuminated by two great lamps, but after their fall, the illumination was provided by two great trees, under whose light the elves first awoke. (Apologies if my Tolkien lore is not 100% accurate). The destruction of those trees then led to the creation of the sun, and it was under the sun that the first humans arose. (The first episode of Rings of Power has a prologue in which Galadriel, as a child, grows up under the Great Trees). (Also, if you had any doubts that Tolkien was a big influence on Elden Ring, consider the race of the "Numen" that Marika and the Black Knife assassins belong to, and compare them with the humans of Numenor from Tolkien).

Gold is tied to the Golden Order, and the Greater Will, but we can also imagine that the radiant gold that the Two Fingers promote might actually be of the same material as the sickly yellow that is the Flame of Chaos, promoted by the Three Fingers. FromSoft games often invoke elements of Cosmic Horror, obviously never as explicitly as in Bloodborne, but in their other works as well. The Chaos Flame, as a force of madness, is very Lovecraftian in nature, but even more terrifying is the notion that it may just be the other side of the same force that the Golden Order represents. If the Two Fingers and the Three Fingers were originally one Hand, it suggests the dangerous, eldritch nature of what presents itself as conventional holy divinity. Indeed, the Frenzied Flame seems to wish to melt down reality back into a single mass - while the Two Fingers reinforce a hierarchy of gods and nobles, separating reality and sorting it.

In a strange way, though, these are both paths of "gold."

The path of silver, though, is one that we can associate with the Moon, and the Stars. If you get the Age of Stars ending, you summon Ranni with a blue summoning symbol, rather than the golden one you typically use to summon allies or the red ones you use to invade others' worlds.

As laid out very well in VaatiVidya's recent video about the Eternal Cities, these locations, and their Nox inhabitants, seemed bent on subverting the will of gods and other "golden" entities, duplicating their divine magic through sorcery. The Nox created Silver Tears - amorphous blobs that could re-shape themselves into people and other creatures as needed (interestingly, the tears arguably serve a similar purpose to the Shoggoths of Lovecraft, which were made by the Elder Things, presumably, to serve as all-purpose servants). The Nox seek out the Age of Stars that Ranni ultimately brings about if you help her.

And it's also from the Eternal Cities of the Nox that the Albinaurics originally come. And let's break down that name: Albin, like the word albino, implies "white" while "auric" means golden. White gold. White gold is another name for an alloy of gold with some white metal - including silver (naturally occurring electrum is typically an alloy of gold and silver, sometimes with a little copper, making it "green gold.")

But we're all overlooking the biggest reference to silver, aren't we?

The Tarnished.

Gold, famously, does not tarnish. Golden artifacts from thousands of years ago are still brilliant and gleaming (they can still get covered in dust, of course) but Silver tarnishes - to keep it bright and shiny you need to polish and clean it regularly.

The Tarnished are descendants of Godfrey, who was divested of his grace and basically divorced by Marika, though it seems not to punish him, but instead to let him be his true self - a warrior out beyond the Lands Between, to fight and conquer. The divestment of grace is what makes them "Tarnished," but does that then imply that was left behind when the "golden grace" was removed was silver?

One thing that is very open to speculation and interpretation is Marika's motivations in Elden Ring. She seems to have set up the entire plot, but notably, when we come to actually face her, we instead see her transform into Radagon, who is the actual person we fight.

My personal interpretation is that Marika wishes to see the Golden Order undone, and for her tenure as god to end, but that Radagon does not, and wishes for her to remain the god, for him to remain Elden Lord. Though they might have been in full accord when they merged into one body (and yes, I interpret Radagon as having originally been a separate person from Marika) they parted ways, philosophically.

Given the ties between the Numen and the Nox, is it then possible that Marika was meant for some other fate? Did the Greater Will pick her as a god in order to prevent the Age of Stars? We've seen that the Shadows the Two Fingers send to guard over Empyreans (aka potential gods) can be "activated" to turn against them. Marika's was Maliketh, while Ranni's is Blaidd. And as loyal as Blaidd is to Ranni, once you slay her Two Fingers, he is compelled to attack against his will.

But back to the metals.

Completing Millicent's questline, we empower the Unalloyed Gold Needle, which for a time staves off the Scarlet Rot within Millicent (until she takes it out). Ultimately, with some kind of blessing from Miquella after we defeat Malenia, we can use this to purge the Flame of Frenzy from ourselves.

Now, let's consider a couple things: it's "unalloyed" gold, in other words, pure gold. That purity might be what keeps the Rot as bay. But it might also thus stand as a bulwark against the Flame of Frenzy, which seems bent on melting away all disparity (we might need a whole post to unpack why Melina describes an Age of Chaos primarily as one that has no more "births,"). The Unalloyed Gold stands for purity, which by definition requires separation (and yeah, we've got some old Dark Souls themes coming in here again.)

You know what you typically use to melt metals together? A crucible.

That's something that might take another post to unpack.

Broadly speaking, one of the things I find interesting about the apparent superiority of gold over silver is how it's somewhat inverted when it comes to a few bits of folklore. Gold is highly valuable, of course, but with that comes an association with avarice - King Midas destroying all he loves because of the greedy wish he made. Silver, on the other hand, is often associated with purity and holiness - silver is used to defeat monsters like werewolves (to be fair, it's also 30 pieces of silver that Judas is paid to betray Jesus in Christian tradition).

Looking at Dark Souls, there's also a bit of duality when it comes to the binary of souls and humanity. The souls one uses as a currency in that game (similar to Runes in Elden Ring) are white in color, while the dark soul of humanity is black. Elden Ring only has the single currency (Rune Arcs are the rough equivalent in terms of gameplay of Humanity) and while Runes are golden (implied to be tiny fragments of the Elden Ring) I don't know if there are any specific silver runes or rune-like things that we use. The closest I can think of are the Larval Tears that allow Rennala to rebirth us, but that seems like a stretch.

Tying into the associations with Sorcery and Miracles (silver and gold, respectively,) in Selivus' quest chain we give him Starlight Shards, which are blue, to get puppets from him (the puppets are also, unlike other spirit summons, blue in color) but when he tries to get us to trick Ranni into drinking his draught, he requires an amber shard, which could (in theory) dictate the fate of a god (which Ranni has the potential to become, as an Empyrean). Again, that duality of blue and yellow (or orange).

If we associate Silver with not just the moon, but also the stars, an irony emerges, which is that in most human folklore, the sun is seen as supreme of all the celestial objects - which makes sense, as it's the one that dictates the most about life on Earth. But once humans realized that the sun is, in fact, just the star that the Earth orbits, and is a rather middling example of one (perhaps even on the small side?) we learn that the stars are, in fact, a much bigger deal than either sun or moon.

Now, in Elden Ring, there is no sun, but the Golden Order and the Erdtree kind of stand in for that supreme presence. And yet, seen from another perspective, the establishment seems terrified at the prospect that the stars could continue and bring about a new age. Radahn, whose mind is completely gone from scarlet rot, still has at the very base of his mind the will to keep the stars from moving and fulfilling their destinies. (Which is sort of interesting, as he seems to be the only one of Rennala and Radagon's three children who are actually loyal to the Erdtree - Rykard has embraced total, brutal blasphemy, while Ranni is trying to usurp the godhead from Marika. I have no idea if Marika actually intends for Ranni to succeed, and that it's actually Ranni's father Radagon who would oppose her goal).

Anyway, the subtle richness of FromSoft's approach to lore is on full display in Elden Ring. I so hope that we can get some DLC or a sequel and see what hints the lore expands into.

A New Adventure/Campaign: Spelljammer

 The usual DM of my Sunday group has been extremely busy for several months now, and while we had started a new Spelljammer campaign after the previous one fell apart (the plot was largely centered around a PC whose player became a dad and thus was too busy to play regularly) we only got three sessions in (maybe four?) before she got busy. Then, we started doing a Kids on Bikes game, but the player who took over as GM for that one got overwhelmed with work and didn't have the energy to run things (he's a new GM too) and so, as a back-up to the back-up, I decided I could run a second (homebrew) campaign.

So I might be insane.

But we just had our first session tonight. The players wanted to start in a bit more of a space-western vibe (I'll confess I might be going a little off-tone for that by introducing a lot of "UFO conspiracy" elements) so I began the campaign with the players' ship crash-landing on a "colony world" near a tiny town in a desert region (though it's a desert with reddish-purple rock, a pale yellow sky, and floating blue cacti, to make sure you know you're on an alien world).

Their ship is a Living Ship (the players managed to beg me enough to let them get something a little fancier than the 20k ships) and so the ship itself will be able to fully repair now that the Treant built into it has been healed a little, but their Spelljamming helm has been destroyed, keeping them grounded until they can get a new one.

Thus far, they've only left the ship and headed in the direction of the town, getting attacked by an Ankheg along the route (the fight was a little tougher than it might have otherwise been because it recharged its acid spray) and then gone down a canyon where they're being attacked by Goon Balloons (and a couple of gnolls - probably going to cut down the number of gnolls given how rough the fight went and the fact that they didn't take a short rest - I don't want to TPK in the second fight).

Anyway, the party is a Giff Paladin, an Astral Elf Monk, a Autognome Cleric, and a Thri-kreen Artificer. It's pretty well balanced, and already I'm enjoying the personalities that are emerging.

Concerns for the Expert Class UA

 The feedback survey for Expert Classes doesn't go up until October 20th (during which I'll be flying to the East Coast for a friend's wedding) but I figured I'd gather some thoughts here about the various elements in the Expert Classes Unearthed Arcana playtest document - a sort of broad response as opposed to my deep-dives.

First, as a kind of general attitude I want to make clear: I'm generally in favor of change and evolution in these sorts of game systems. Given the passion that a game like D&D invokes, it can feel scary to see something that you love looking different (and while it is true that you can always just play earlier editions, I understand the anxiety people can feel that the game's community and culture will move on and that players will be forced to keep up). But I also think that the nature of this sort of long-running property is that issues do crop up, and revisions can make for a better experience. So much of what I'm seeing in these UAs is an attempt to make the game play the way it feels like it ought to play. It also seems like they're trying to make broader, more general rules to make it easier to add things to the game (also to possibly make digital gameplay easier to parse).

This post is going to focus primarily on what I am not so on board with in the UA. While I don't know if I will catch every little nitpick I have, I also want to make it clear that for the most part, I've been very happy with what I'm seeing. (I'll confess that I hate Guidance and sort of want it to stay the useless garbage they've made it into so that that cantrip never slows my games down again, but realistically it has probably been nerfed too hard. I'd prefer they just make it not a Cantrip - make it a 1st level spell that lasts for one hour on a single target). So, this may focus on the negative, but my overall impression is very positive.

I think the most shocking element here is the elimination (sort of) of class spell lists in favor of the three spell categories. I actually really like the way that the magic is divided this way for world-building. But I was initially convinced that this would be just be an additional tag on spells (or multiple tags, for those spells in multiple lists) in addition to class lists. Instead, it appears that classes will just get one of the three spell categories and then potentially have those further limited by school of magic.

    The benefits here are clear: adding new spells to the game no longer requires making new spell lists in every rules-expansion book. Likewise, adding a new class like the Artificer, you simply give them a spell list and potentially which schools of magic they can use, and you're off to the races, never having to worry about whether to include them when new spells are added.

    But the downside here is that some classes - particularly those that previously defied definition in this way - lose things, while also losing some specificity. In the first case, consider the Artificer. While very clearly an Arcane class, they also have plenty of healing spells that are not found in the Arcane list. The Bard needs a special Songs of Restoration feature to get its healing spells. Meanwhile, because the Bard's spells are simply Arcane now, there's nothing preventing a Wizard (who I will assume can take any Arcane spell) from picking up Vicious Mockery, a previously Bards-only staple. So far, the case that makes me feel worse here is the Bard, but I wonder how it's going to look when we see school limitations on Sorcerers and Warlocks (which I assume will have their selection similarly limited while Clerics, Druids, and Wizards each get their full spell lists).

    Are these dealbreakers? I don't know. The benefits here might outweigh the costs, but it'll certainly feel weird.

From that very broad concern, here I'm going to delve deep into an absolute nitpick, which is the Hunter's Multiattack feature. I'd never really looked at Conjure Barrage before, but man does that feel like an insult of a spell. A 3rd level slot for 3d8 damage in a cone? Yes, it's an enormous cone (a 60-ft cone, when you actually look at it on a map, is huge). Unless you can hit an ungodly number of targets, I just do not see this being worth the spell slot. Now, I know that Lightning Bolt and Fireball are intentionally overpowered because they're iconic spells they want the players to use. But it occurs to me that just because Conjure Barrage is a Ranger-oriented spell doesn't mean it has to be underpowered compared to other 3rd level spells - the power penalty you get as a half-caster is that you don't get this level of spell until level 9, so making it less powerful on top of that because it's not intended for a caster-first class feels like a cruel double dip (I realize that I'm talking about a spell that already exists, and for all I know One D&D might buff it,) and so, while I think the notion of "downcasting" a spell is kind of interesting and novel, the new Ranger could spend that spell slot on Call Lightning, which is probably going to do a lot more for them.

    I think I'd really consider having this feature do something closer to what it sounds like - like allowing you to, a limited number of times per day, make a single attack roll that deals normal weapon damage to everything in a cone (maybe a smaller one).

Also from the Ranger, while I really like the new Favored Enemy, the level 18 Foe Slayer feature is, still, a bit underwhelming. By switching Hunter's Mark to a d10, you only really increase the damage output of the class by about 4 per turn (assuming two non-critical hits) or 6 with the new way Light Weapons work if you're dual-wielding them.

    While technically not a capstone anymore, this does feel a bit unexciting. I was not a huge fan of the 2014 Foe Slayer, though I realized that because it could work on either attack or damage rolls, it could help you more consistently hit those tough enemies. Still, I want a little more oomph here.

One thing I failed to notice on my deep dive for the Rogue is that Sneak Attack can only happen on your turn now - which prevents you from getting a devastating opportunity attack, or the amazing synergy with a Battle Master Fighter using Commander's Strike (something the Kenrecks demonstrate very well in Heroes of the Multiverse).

    Rogues actually wind up outperforming a lot of more traditional martial classes in terms of damage if they can consistently get their sneak attack off, so I can see why WotC would want to close this loophole that grants them the potential for more than one per round. Unquestionably, this is a nerf. But is it an unfair nerf? This is the thing about this sort of game design - there's a tendency toward power creep in part because players are going to be more attracted to changes that make them more powerful. So, while I lament this change for the Rogue I one day will play (I did technically play one for two levels in the House of Lament - what started as a joke character actually wound up being one of the more compelling - and tragic - character concepts I'd come up with. Short description: he's a dhampir and his name is Xander von Zarovich. You can do the math).

Next, let's talk about the Hide Action. In some ways, the clarifications on how different ability checks should work using various actions like Study, Search, Influence (we'll get back to that one) and even Jump make these rules a little clearer and easier to adjudicate. Hiding, and thus getting to benefit from the Hidden Condition, is weird. The weirdest thing to me is that there's a universal DC, which is 15, at which point you automatically become hidden. So, does this mean that we're getting rid of passive Perception? To be fair, this will make the common Dragon legendary action "make a perception check" more useful, but it also seems weird to me that there's just one DC. It's also, I'd note, a DC that any Rogue who is merely proficient with Stealth (and doesn't have a bizarrely low Dexterity) will automatically succeed on every Hide action once they hit level 11.

    Furthermore, because the action itself is against a DC of the universe, rather than specific creatures, and grants a beneficial condition that the player must know that they either have or don't, there's another very weird consequence of the way it's worded. You only have to be behind cover or heavily obscured from anyone you can see to take the Hide action. So, cool, you hide behind a stalactite in the cave lair of the evil archdruid you're facing, and they lose track of where you are. But if that archdruid has an invisible stalker minion that is literally staring at you while you do this, you can still take that action, and once you get a success, rules as written, that invisible stalker also loses track of where you are, even if they are still staring directly at you.

    Obviously, a DM can interpret the nuances here (I'd rule that, sure, you get the benefit of being hidden from the Archdruid, but not from the Invisible Stalker, so we just treat your Hidden condition as separate conditions depending on which hostile creature we're referring to. But you can see how this sort of relies on the DM to reintroduce that nuance into the system that kind of just robs the purpose of simplifying this in the first place.

The Study action is actually very welcome, in my opinion, along with the Search action, to finally create a very clear distinction of what Perception versus Investigation do. However, as someone who tends to make high or at least decent-intelligence characters, but also just because I want that stat to mean something, I'd like to get a clearer sense of what a Study action can reveal. To me, I think that there should be actionable information that players get. 

    So often, I find that Intelligence checks (which is basically what the Study action describes) gives a bit of background information and some obscure hints to where one might go for the story, but rarely confers a mechanical benefit. I like that the major knowledge-base proficiencies (Arcana, History, Nature, Religion) each have specific creature types explicitly associated with them (I might quibble a little with Undead falling under Religion rather than Arcana, given that undead are often raised by arcane necromancers, but I also know that it's both traditional and also ties into how holy magic tends to be the most effective weapon against the undead) and I think that a successful check when studying one's knowledge about an oncoming foe should allow the players to explicitly know about things like damage resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities, condition immunities, and things like magic resistance or legendary resistance, so that they can use that knowledge to adjust their strategy. (For example: we try to figure out what we know about Dullahans, and our Paladin gets a 21 on their Intelligence (Religion) check, and thus knows perhaps one of the following facts: that they're resistant to cold, lightning, and poison damage, or that they have 2 uses of legendary resistance, or that they have Truesight, etc. Assuming Starfinder has a similar structure to 3rd edition, Intelligence used to be great for everyone because it increased the number of skill ranks you could take each level (ultimately replaced by the broad and universal proficiency system). But now, if you're not a Wizard, Artificer, or one of the subclasses that uses Intelligence, there's very little downside to dumping the stat entirely.

One of the interesting consequences of 1st level feats not having any ability score bonuses while 4th-level feats all have one is that, while you're allowed to take a 1st level feat at higher feat levels, you're sort of disincentivized to do so, as you won't be able to upgrade any of your ability scores that way. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing, but it introduces a little tension (then again, current feats some have ability score bonuses and some don't, so maybe this isn't something to make a big deal about).

Finally, I want to talk about something that is perhaps more speculative. The four class groups make a decent amount of sense, but I also can see how there is a bit of shoe-horning classes to fit those categories. For example, the Priest group is Clerics, Druids, and Paladins. I think Clerics and Druids are perfect fits for such a classification, but what about paladins? I think of the Paladin as primarily a martial class - when putting together a balanced group, Fighters, Barbarians, and Paladins can play the role of the meaty tank. But are Paladins going to be missing out on some cool martial feature that all Warriors get? Granted, looking at the Ranger, we can see that the fundamental vibe of the class hasn't changed much, and they also get access to Warrior-only Fighting Styles and Epic Boons, so perhaps there's nothing to worry about much here. On the other hand, if Warriors are meant to be good front-line combatants who, according to the UA, can "deal and endure many wounds," I'm hoping that this then means the Monk will become a hardier front-line fighter, which it always should have been.

Anyway, those are the main issues I could think of while looking at the new UA. I'm very eager to see what other classes look like.