Imagining Four Subclasses for Sorcerers and Warlocks

 Continuing in this series, we now know that the 2024PHB will give each class four subclass options, which means that most classes are getting expanded, while Clerics and Wizards will have their options slimmed down. Once again, all existing subclasses from all of 5E will still be available - it's up to players and DMs to decide whether one can play subclasses that don't get updated in the new Player's Handbook, but the intent is to err on the side of letting them.

We covered Wizards in the first of this series of posts, so now we're going to look at the two remaining Mage classes and see what we might do with them.

Not to be too repetitive, I nevertheless want to go over my thoughts and parameters for this discussion. 5E's approach to classes is to try to embody the broadest fantasy archetype tropes, the hope being that any future character concepts will fit within those categories (they tried initially to make the Artificer a type of Wizard, but I think wisely built another class for it when it didn't quite fit).

Subclasses, then, allow them to go in for more specific character tropes - if the classes are as broad as they can be, the subclasses zero in on more specific tropes that fall within that archetype, a sort of sub-archetype. Sometimes these subclasses are defined more along the lines of their mechanics, but they should also have distinctive fantasy identity. Even within subclasses, there needs to be enough flexibility to allow players to make the character their own and to fit it into the setting of the game (while I have a ton of respect for Matt Colville's ideas about D&D, I disagree that character classes should be deeply and specifically linked to the setting, at least in a game like D&D where part of the promise of the rules system is that you can use it to tell stories in your own, original setting).

As another note, in the previous posts (with the exception of the Wizard,) we have looked at classes where we've gotten the first look at their updated, One D&D versions. With this, we step into the unknown.

Given One D&D's conservative approach to this redesign, and WotC's insistence that this is not truly a new edition, or even a 5.5, I will assume that the basic structure of these classes will remain the same. That is to say:

I think we can assume that Sorcerers will remain a full spellcasting class that gets a lot of its uniqueness from the use of Sorcery Points to alter spells via Metamagic. And I think we can assume that Warlocks will remain unconventional full casters with a small number of easily-regained spell slots and a great deal of customization through Eldritch Invocations that allow them to trick out unlimited options like Eldritch Blast and weapon attacks to make them capable of consistently pouring out damage and utility effects even if they can only cast a small number of leveled spells in any given moment.

So, let's look at the classes.

Sorcerer:

The Sorcerer only gets two subclasses in the PHB. Draconic Sorcerers are more straightforward, and while I might argue that the connection to dragons is just a smidge too specific for a PHB subclass (though perfect for a secondary supplement like how the Rune Knight Fighter ties them to Giants), the game is called Dungeons & Dragons, and so I think there's a fair assumption that no matter the setting, dragons have some major role to play in the fantasy world no matter where you're playing.

However, if there's a subclass that I think sees more play than any other, it's Wild Magic. The Wild Magic table is so iconic that there are actually a lot of effects that tend to refer to it even if you don't have one of these Sorcerers in the party.

To take a step back, D&D is rather unusual in distinguishing Sorcerers and Wizards, and the definitions it provides are certainly not universal - in Marvel comics, Doctor Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, despite the fact that he's 100% a Wizard in D&D terms. The Sorcerer in D&D is someone who has magical powers that are inherent to them - whether through ancestry or because something happened to them. It's even possible that the Sorcerer intentionally did something to themselves to imbue them with this power. I'd even say it's possible that a Sorcerer could have made a pact with some powerful entity to do this to them, which, yes, puts them very, very close to a Warlock's wheelhouse.

Still, ultimately, Sorcery in D&D is basically like having a superpower - and it's more like the X-Men than Doctor Strange. And because I'm using superhero comic books as a reference point, it's clear that there are a massive number of ways that you can conceptualize flavors of Sorcery.

So, perhaps the challenge here is not finding four subclasses, but rather, limiting ourselves to just four that will mark out the creative boundaries of the class.

In point of fact, I actually think that the Runechild subclass from Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn works quite well to be a "standard" Sorcerer subclass, but that's from a 3rd party company, so that's right out.

Instead, I expect the Draconic Bloodline subclass will likely be presented as the "default" subclass when we get the playtest document, in part because the Wild Magic table is very cumbersome, but also because, while extremely popular, Wild Magic as a subclass is almost a "joke character" option, built less for power than for chaos at the table.

Make no mistake, though: the Wild Magic Sorcerer will also very much be printed in the 2024PHB.

So, what other space do we have to explore?

As I see it, we've got one subclass that feels like it draws its power from an ancient tradition/heritage/ancestyr, while the other feels very planar in nature - I can imagine reading Wild Magic as being the influence of the Chaotic Neutral plane of Limbo on the rest of the universe. The Clockwork Soul, from Tasha's, gives us its opposite number in a Mechanus-dervied magic.

But I think that we're not just looking for balanced symmetries here. We want to see what Sorcerers can be in a broader, multi-axial sense.

So, if we've got a planar sorcerer and a bloodline sorcerer, what next?

The elements are often tied up with magic, especially the quasi-scientific Arcane branch of magic, and so I think an elemental sorcerer makes a lot of sense. And, wouldn't you know it, we have an elemental sorcerer already in the Storm Sorcerer, which has already been printed twice. I think that's an obvious slam dunk (I also happen to be running a campaign with two Storm Sorcerers who have very different vibes, and it's a cool subclass without being overpowered - though ask me again when we hit tier 4 and both have hovering fly speeds and full immunity to lightning and thunder damage).

So, if we have a bloodline sorcerer, a planar sorcerer, and an elemental sorcerer, what does that leave us?

My initial instinct is to go dark with the Shadow Sorcerer - the token "creepy" sorcerer, but I think we cover that a lot with Necromancy Wizards and basically most Warlocks (we'll take a look at them next, of course). Shadow Sorcery would be a reasonable option, and I honestly don't put its chances far behind what I'm actually going to propose, but we're going in another direction.

Now, if you've been reading this blog regularly, you'll know of my obsession with the game Control, and its broader genre of New Weird. But there's a kind of broader trope in New Weird, Cosmic Horror, but also Stephen King-style horror, including Stranger Things, where altering the brain through scientific experiments can unlock powers that they don't fully understand, but seem to place the primacy of mind over reality. That means Psionics, and the Psionic Sorcerer is the Aberrant Mind.

The biggest mark against this is that the Aberrant Mind is relatively new - it's one of the two most recent officially published sorcerer subclasses (EDIT: forgot about Lunar Sorcery from Dragonlance). And it does also play in that dark space that the Shadow Sorcerer does, as well as being less "pure fantasy" than Shadow.

But I think you could argue that Shadow Sorcery is really a planar sorcerer in the same way that Wild Magic is. The Aberrant Mind carves out a new corner for the Sorcerer to explore (while Aberrations are affiliated with the Far Realm, that place is not precisely a plane, per se, and aberrations are certainly not inherently bound to it). So, while it may be a controversial choice, and a risky bet, I'm going to put my chips down on Aberrant Mind (with perhaps a hedged bet on Shadow Sorcery).

Sorcerer subclass predictions: Draconic, Wild Magic, Storm, Aberrant Mind (or possibly Shadow)

Warlock:

The Warlock is maybe the most successfully flavorful class in all of D&D. It oozes personality, and it sort of comes with an inherent backstory and even an inherent NPC to build into the game's story.

A Warlock's subclass merely represents their patron, and so our options are pretty much any kind of creature that is powerful enough to lend magical power to someone that strikes a bargain with them.

I'll say right now that I already know what my four are without having to think about it much.

But let me walk you through it.

The 2014PHB options for the Warlock are the Fiend, the Archfey, and the Great Old One. All of these are, I think, perfect and wonderfully illustrative of the overall vibe of the Warlock.

The Fiend is, of course, the classic - the dangerous creature who offers power in an effort to corrupt. Media is saturated with people who have made deals with the devil, or other demonic entities, with Faust as the trope codifier, but also with plenty of heroic figures who have got one over their dangerous patrons, like John Constantine, who made deals with three different demons to ensure that no two wanted the other to actually be able to claim his soul (Liliana Vess, from MTG, tried to pull that off but Nicol Bolas, the elder dragon who brokered the deal, was a step ahead of her). The fiend is so much the "classic" warlock archetype that I can only imagine this will be presented as the default subclass, and well it should be.

The Archfey is another absolute classic banger of a patron, and we have tons of literary precedent - this could be anything from a benevolent fairy godmother to something a lot more sinister like a coven of hags or like The Man with the Thistle Down Hair from the excellent Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, who is not so much malevolent as just utterly different in his moral and ethical worldview to the point that he becomes an utter menace, and is worst to the people he does his biggest kindnesses to.

The Great Old One is a less personable patron, but perhaps no better patron represents the ways in which the price of making a pact with a patron might not actually be anything the patron demands, but merely the danger of dealing with entities so much larger and more powerful than oneself. Of all the warlocks, I can see this as the most "scholarly" of the subclasses, but it doesn't have to be this way - it's up to the player writing their backstory to see how personal the relationship is (again, to reference Control, I think Jesse Faden is basically a Pact of the Blade Great Old One Warlock with The Board as her patron and the Service Weapon as her pact weapon).

So, to put it simply: the 2014PHB options are all great and should see revisions and reprinting.

That leaves the question of what the fourth subclass should be.

So, first off, let's talk tone. Of our existing subclasses, we're skewing pretty dark - Fiends and Great Old Ones sort of can't help but have a sinister tone (I'd argue that you can play a Great Old One as perhaps not so much malevolent as just weird, but there's a definite feeling of danger even if it lacks malicious intent). And Archfeys, while they can be happy and bright and friendly, are also just as capable of being evil, dark, and scary, whether with the sort of obviously sinister forms of Hags and the like, or just the capricious archfeys in the vein of Jareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth (Jareth is definitely canonical in any D&D campaign I run if players want him to be).

So, you could argue that we need a more benevolent or at least morally balanced patron. In the former case, the Celestial makes a lot of sense, while in the latter, the Genie can play in a lot of moral positions, and its evil typically not going to be the sort of soul-endangering style so much as just being some magical tyrant.

These options would certainly expand the conceptual design space for the Warlock, showing that you don't have to go dark and sinister to play in the class. Much as I talked about how Paladins shouldn't all have to have a default alignment of Lawful Good, Warlocks should also have an opportunity to not be a sinister, "dark spellcaster."

But I'm not going to go with either of those options.

We also need to address the elephant in the room, which is the Hexblade.

The Hexblade is a great, powerful subclass that really empowers a Warlock to play differently than it can with other subclasses. But I actually think it's a failure of design, or rather, in one aspect it's a failure in design while in another, it's a jarring band-aid over a flaw in the original Warlock design that I hope to see addressed in the One D&D version.

First, let's look at why I think the Hexblade fails in design on its own: The lore of the Hexblade is that it's supposed to represent a Warlock who has made a pact with a sentient magical weapon like Blackrazor or the Sword of Kas. But I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually play it that way. Fjord in Critical Role's 2nd campaign has a pact with Uka'toa, an powerful leviathan that is imprisoned beneath the ocean of Exandria, and the pact is sealed through his receipt of a magical falchion. In Dimension 20's The Unsleeping City, Sophia multiclasses into Hexblade Warlock by making a deal with the La Gran Gata, essentially the spirit of all bodega cats in New York City.

In both cases, the actual patron here is not a weapon (Sophia doesn't even really use a weapon, given that her main class is Monk). Uka'toa is very clearly a Great Old One, or even more accurately, a Fathomless patron (the Fathomless patron didn't exist when that campaign began).

Instead, basically every time I come across a Hexblade Warlock, what they're really trying to play is a Warlock who gets to act as a melee combatant. And literally, what it means to get that capability from a patron is what the Pact of the Blade option is meant to represent.

The Hexblade also feels a little garbled in terms of flavor. Most of its features are built around using its weapon, but then you have the ability to draw forth a Specter from a slain humanoid enemy, which feels like a kind of awkward nod to the way that the design of the Hexblade started with a "Raven Queen" patron subclass.

So, to sum it up, I don't think the Hexblade itself is popular as a patron - it's just that the mechanics of the subclass are popular.

But the solution is easy: just take the things that help make a Hexblade Warlock a capable melee combatant and fold them into the Pact of the Blade. If that makes Pact of the Blade a little too powerful, maybe consider bolstering the other ones. Namely, this would mean giving armor training in medium armor and shields, and then letting you use Charisma for your attacks with your Pact Weapon. Now, your Warlock can have a decent AC and can be as good with weapons as they are with spells, and you no longer have to pick this very wonky flavor background that you're probably just going to reskin anyway.

If we then eliminate the need to play a Hexblade, that still leaves us with a fourth slot.

And here, I think we need to look to iconic creature types and legendary monsters. And is there really any question?

What is the most iconic "big bad" in D&D? What monster is perfectly designed to be a terrifying and potentially recurring villain? It's the Lich. And isn't that the precise kind of creature you would make a sinister deal with?

The Undead Warlock from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft has a lot of things going for it, not the least of which is that it's mechanically sound without being overpowered, and it covers a patron archetype that feels like it's been sitting there, waiting to be used for years before the book came out (and, yes, we can acknowledge that it sort of already did with the Undying Patron, but WotC clearly felt, and I'd agree with them, that the Undying Patron did not deliver flavorfully on the promise of an Undead patron, and it's good that they reserved the more straightforward name for a much better-designed subclass).

The Undead Patron is, I think, a total no-brainer. Yes, it does continue to put the Warlock in this kind of darker space, leaving only one option to give you a straightforwardly good patron (which can also be flavored in a sinister way,) but I think the strength of the Undead patron as a complement to the existing subclasses just makes far too much sense. So that's my prediction.

Warlock subclass predictions: Fiend, Archfey, Great Old One, Undead.

With that, we've done the Mage classes, which means our last post in this series will cover the Warriors - Barbarians, Fighters, and Monks.

Imagining Four Subclasses for Druids and Paladins

 So, I've already looked at Clerics, who will be having their subclass count in the 2024PHB cut down to four (repeating here my reminder that you'll still be able to play all the 2014 subclasses if you want, though I can understand a frustration if the subclass you like doesn't get a tune-up revision next year). However, the other Priest classes have fewer subclasses in the 2014PHB, meaning that Druids, who have only two in the Player's Handbook, will be getting two more, while the Paladin, which has three, will get one addition.

We should also note that it's possible that some existing subclasses might get cut and swapped out, while at the same time some brand-new subclasses might get implemented - there has been a mention of a Bard "College of Dance" option that they're working on, so we could also potentially expect to see other new subclasses implemented here.

Still, for my purposes, I'm going to generally err on the side of assuming that we'll be keeping the existing 2014PHB subclasses in the 2024PHB, and playing with the idea of adding existing subclasses from other sources like Xanathar's or Tasha's to round out their numbers rather than creating new subclasses whole-cloth. Now, this might be the wrong approach - they might choose not to add any existing subclasses from non-PHB sources and let those live in the secondary supplement land. But it's the more conservative, more likely approach for this post's purposes.

As I've mentioned in previous posts on this subject, 5E's approach to classes has been to have the classes themselves represent broad fantasy archetypes - generalized tropes that can fit into as many fantasy settings as possible. A Rogue should be able to fit with a sneaky Halfling thief who spies on a powerful dragon, like in the classic fantasy of The Hobbit, or a smart aleck space-smuggler like in the science-fantasy of Star Wars.

Subclasses then serve to narrow those archetypes into more specific tropes. While these can still be rather broad (Swashbuckler Rogues could be anything from Robin Hood to Jack Sparrow) they take a slice of that broader archetype and try to give you a more tailored fit to your character concept.

Some subclasses get deep into specific lore that the whole class generally shies away from in the name of staying more broadly applicable - like the Rune Knight Fighter, which makes use of D&D's very specific Giant lore (which, to be fair, borrows elements of Norse myth).

But I think that the subclasses to be found in the Player's Handbook generally aim to fit the broader, more universal sub-tropes of the truly universal (or as universal as possible) overall classes. Each class comes with a "default" subclass, but really, all four of the subclasses in the PHB should also feel like the "classic" versions of these classes, reserving things like psionics for fighters or thalassic behemoths as warlock patrons for the odder supplementary sourcebooks.

So, let's get started:

The Druid is definitely a classic fantasy archetype, though you could argue that it was D&D that really popularized this notion of Druid as nature-mage. (Historically, of course, Druids were just the priests of a pre-Roman civilization in Britain.) But the Druid not only gives us a nice third option for powerful spellcasters who don't want to be associated with the quasi-scientific Arcane magic or the faith-based Divine magic, and lets us play as people tied to nature in a magical and spiritual way that doesn't take the more god-based approach to spirits and the supernatural.

The existing subclasses in the 2014PHB take two of the Druids' iconic powers and focuses on them. Circle of the Moon, which is presented in the playtest document as the Druid's default class, focuses on Wild Shape, which has become kind of the defining Druid ability in a lot of RPGs (certainly in Blizzard's two fantasy RPG franchises, Diablo and Warcraft, Druids are the "shapeshifter" class). Now, I've written at length how the apparent intent of Wild Shape in the 2024 version is good, but will need some serious reworkings and revisions, but assuming that all gets buttoned up, Circle of the Moon has historically been a popular and effective subclass to let a Druid's shapeshifting thrive as a primary mode of use (and leaves them with plenty of powerful spellcasting on top of that - anyone who watched campaign one of Critical Role or who has seen The Legend of Vox Machina knows what an absolute powerhouse their Moon Druid Keyleth is - I honestly wonder if the choice to have Doric in Honor Among Thieves be a red-headed druid with tiefling horns that resemble Keyleth's antler crown was a conscious decision).

Circle of the Moon's inclusion is no question, but it also wouldn't be one even if we hadn't been presented with it in the playtest document.

Now, Circle of the Land in the 2014PHB is meant to focus more on the spellcasting side of the class. And indeed, it does that, giving you a number of free spells (similar to later Circle spells we'd get with some, but not all subclasses) along with an extra cantrip and a copy of the Wizard's Arcane Recovery feature.

But I never seem to see people play this subclass, and I think that is, in part, because Circle of the Moon, while technically not as versatile a spellcaster, is not really very far behind but then also gets a much more powerful Wild Shape.

Premise-wise, though, I think Circle of the Land could work, even if it needs a significant mechanic rework (at level 10, you become immune to being charmed or frightened, but only by elementals and fey. Are there any elementals who use charm or fear effects?) But I could see this as being the ultimate Primal Spellcaster option.

(Mechanically, the change from "Wild Shape charges" to "Channel Nature uses" frees up some design space, but I'm mostly looking at vibes here.)

But that leaves us with two spots to fill.

Spellcasting is a broad category, so let's revisit it a little. Druids have a lot of elemental damage spells like Call Lightning or Firestorm, or elemental crowd control. While "Land" is not necessarily the best name for it, I tend to think of Circle of the Land as being the Druid that focuses on these sorts of effects. One could almost think of them as leaning into the identity of World of Warcraft's Shamans, which distinguish themselves from Druids by being more focused on the elements and the primordial forces of nature rather than the weave of organic life, as that game's Druids are.

In contrast, then, the Circle of Shepherds competes with the Conjuration Wizard as the ultimate summoner subclass. Bringing in elementals or beasts or fey to fight alongside you really fits with a classic Druid-affiliated trope - the character who calls upon all of nature to rise up against their foes. As Henry Jones Sr. in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade says, completing inventing a false quote of Charlemagne's, "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees, and the birds in the sky." While there's no Druid who actually does this in the story, the Shepherd Druid is the one leading the Ents to charge Isengard. Or, hell, it's any number of Disney Princesses who are attended upon by charming woodland creatures. Or, you know, it's Willard from the movie Willard with his swarms of murderous rats (which, to be fair, overlaps with the Swarmkeeper Ranger, but we're not assuming that one's inclusion in the PHB).

If we've got the elementalist in our Circle of the Land, our shapeshifter in the Circle of the Moon, our summoner in the Circle of the Shepherd, what is left?

Well, I'll admit here that maybe when I mentioned Circle of the Land I got the names wrong, but the Druid is a Priest class, and Priests are meant to be able to play a healer or at least preserver role (the Paladin doesn't do a ton of healing, but they seem to have options to help protect and absorb damage their allies take). Regrowth and renewal are major themes of the Druid's overall vibe - they often work to cleanse the earth and roll back the destruction that unchecked expansion of civilization wreaks on the natural world (there's a whole post to be written about how the "nature guardian" trope wasn't always thought of as positively as it is now, but given how badly our environment has suffered from human behavior, even the most extreme Druids read as ultimately working for the greater good).

Perhaps if we swapped things around a little, Circle of the Land could focus on healing and perhaps a bit of battlefield control. While Land's environment-based sub-subclasses aren't as restrictive as a 2014 Ranger's Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy (in fact, it's really just a different set of bonuses you get depending on that choice and I don't think is impacted by where your druid happens to be at any given time,) I could see a greater embrace of "place" with the class, where perhaps you can establish beneficial zones for your party on the battlefield, perhaps with an eye toward healing creatures on the land (including allied adventurers) as well as the land itself.

Then, I could imagine something like Circle of Elements, or perhaps Circle of Wrath, to represent the offensive spellcasting Druid, which focuses on pouring out damage spells and devastating foes in that WoW Shaman kind of way. Here, the focus goes more to lightning and lava, tidal waves and earthquakes, and messing foes up.

With that, I think we create a pretty broad area to play around in regarding the Druid's overall vibe. So, to be official:

Druid subclass predictions: Moon, Land, Shepherd, "Wrath"

Paladins:

Here's the thing about Paladins: they are unquestionably a popular fantasy RPG class. But can you name a single paladin that really reads as a paladin in any fantasy media that isn't a game? And no, Honor Among Thieves doesn't count. See, you might look at the righteous, selfless, just, and overall awesome guy that is Aragorn from Lord of the Rings and say "oh yeah, there's your paladin," but Aragorn is explicitly a Ranger, and I suspect that the whole D&D Ranger class is actually largely inspired by Aragorn, whose skills tend to be things like tracking and knowing the right healing herbs. Hell, you ever notice that religion as a thing doesn't really exist in Middle Earth? People are aware of God and the Valar and Maiar and all that, but there aren't any churches or temples or priests.

Now, there are plenty of knights who take oaths and take them seriously, but it sort of becomes this wishy-washy thing. Is any knight sworn to some duty a paladin? Maybe, but then, aren't some of those Fighters? The Warders in The Wheel of Time (assuming the Amazon show matches the books, which I've never read) are sworn defenders of their Aes Sedai (basically Wizards) but while they're magically bonded to them, they don't really have magic powers of their own.

But is that a problem?

Well, I think this is where the problem manifests: without a lot of clear-cut Paladins in media (actually, James Holden from The Expanse was explicitly written to be a paladin character, but he's in a hard sci-fi series, not a fantasy story, so at best he just has the personality of a paladin) there are fewer obvious tropes to point to in order to see how the class can take on different forms.

(EDIT: I realize that, in fact, there is a profoundly popular example of the paladin in one of the most popular fantasy series of all time, which is the Jedi of Star Wars. They even have their own flavor of "corrupted, fallen paladins" in the form of the Sith - Darth Vader might not be technically undead, but you could argue that his cybernetic life support is the science-fantasy equivalent thereof, reinforced by the skull-like appearance of his breathing mask, and thus Vader is actually the prototypical Death Knight. The only reason I think it's hard to translate this is that the Jedi and Sith have to kind of carry the weight of the entire supernatural aspect of Star Wars - yes, I know that in expanded universe materials there are other magical forces at work, but in the movies people actually know, the fantasy part of Star Wars is only utilized by these two orders of force-users, and thus they have to also play the role of wizards and sorcerers and clerics and monks.)

And thus, when you look at basically all the Paladin subclasses other than the "evil paladins" like the Oath of Conquest and Oathbreaker (the latter intended more for villainous NPCs than players,) there's very little deviation from the general paladin vibe.

And that's also reflected in the fact that, mechanically, my experience has been that paladin subclasses aren't as impactful as other subclasses often are. Oath Spells are all well and good except that almost all your spell slots are going toward Divine Smite (the playtest UA allowing a free casting of each Oath Spell does help to combat this a little bit, I'll admit).

Now, to be fair, I do think the PHB makes a good effort to find different overall vibes for its three subclasses.

The Oath of Devotion is obviously meant to (and is) be the "default," classic paladin archetype - someone who is bound by duty to stand up as a heroic champion of justice and all that. While the tenets of Devotion don't explicitly say you have to be Lawful Good, their meaning pretty much ensures that - "Compassion" being a not terrible definition of what it means to be good and "Duty" summing up basically what it means to be Lawful in D&D.

While they can play similar roles, I do think Oath of Vengeance provides a good counterpoint. In both cases, the character might tend toward Lawful Good, but Vengeance is concerned less with what they stand for, and more about what they stand against. Devotion's role is to stand up for compassionate duty, while Vengeance's role is to punish and destroy the wicked. Vengeance, thus, can fall into a more morally grey, "he who fights monsters" identity, though it's not forced into that role.

The last of the 2014PHB Paladin subclasses is Oath of the Ancients. And this one I always struggle to wrap my head around a little. On its surface, this is the "Druid Paladin," but I'm not entirely sure that it fits that descriptor, at least entirely. 

The tenets of the Ancients don't really say much about being a protector of the natural world, but instead just basically encourage you to be a beacon of hope and kindness to those around you - I can see it as sort of being the Neutral Good archetype compared to Devotion's Lawful Good. Mechanically, though, they get a few Druid-like abilities, like several druid spells as Oath spells, as well as a channel divinity option, Nature's Wrath.

I'm not opposed to the idea of Oath of the Ancients, but I think it needs a stronger identity to better distinguish it in flavor from Devotion. And, if they want to continue leaning into this "guardian of nature" vibe, it probably needs to be be more consistently reflected in the mechanics.

Before we talk about what other existing subclass could be added to the PHB, we've got to take a step back and really ask what the boundaries of the Paladin design space is. What, ultimately, is a Paladin?

And here I think we're hampered by the fact that the Paladin's original design in D&D was extremely narrow. In earlier editions, you could only play a Paladin if you were Lawful Good. Stray from that alignment or the tenets of your oath and the DM could just tell you you weren't a paladin anymore.

This has led to a kind of stereotype of all paladin characters being played as these stick-up-their-asses rules sticklers who will never deal with morally grey NPCs the other characters need to and are essentially the fun police.

Now, more recent editions have relaxed those restrictions, and in particular the addition of the Oath of Conquest shows that a Paladin need not be a good person to still fall under this class archetype.

Essentially, we need to define what makes a paladin a paladin, and to reject the old narrowness of that definition.

In World of Warcraft, the Death Knight class was added in 2008's Wrath of the Lich King. Death Knights in D&D are generally paladins who have fallen so far to corruption that they have become undead monsters - the very monsters that paladins are sworn to fight against. While WoW adjusted the lore to say that the undead Scourge could make Death Knights of any fallen champion, the design of the class in those early days included some references to the Paladin, such as giving Death Knights the talent "Dark Conviction," which worked the same way as the Paladin's "Conviction."

While we can expect the 2024Monster Manual to change how the Death Knight monster stat block works, the 2014MM makes no bones about the fact that the Death Knight uses paladin spells.

I'll go one further: Death Knights are not even former paladins. They're just evil, undead paladins.

Ok, so rather than continuing to beat around the bush: what makes a paladin a paladin?

A Paladin is a martial combatant who supplements their combat capabilities with divine magic, which they derive from the embrace of a philosophical worldview that they seek to live by.

Now, crucially, what this definition does is open us up to any and all philosophical worldviews, not just the ones that are lawful, good, or lawful good. In this sense, even an Oathbreaker Paladin, who has forsaken any duty or adherence to an oath they made, could be said to now adhere to a philosophy of nihilism or self-interest.

Instead of binding the Paladin to the idea of an Oath, by simply connecting the Paladin to a philosophy (and in some cases a patron deity who represents that philosophy,) we open better to philosophies that might not care about oaths. A chaotic good champion does not do anything because they swore to do it - they do it because, in the moment, trusting their instincts, they just do it.

So, I could actually see a broad reconceptualization of the Paladin as basically "philosophy warriors," and that allows for a whole lot of different philosophies to be represented. I would love, for example, to see a kind of anarchist paladin, whose philosophy sees them opposing order and structures, perhaps feeling that these things are inherently corrupting and oppressive if they're chaotic good or that they needlessly bind people from following their true natures if the character is more chaotic neutral or chaotic evil.

That being said, I don't think we're likely to see this broadening of the Paladin identity, at least in the way I've termed and explored it, in the official publications.

Of the non-DMG post-PHB subclasses for Paladins in 5th Edition, the Oath of Conquest is certainly the most different, giving us a subclass that skews Lawful Evil in its overall flavor. The presence of this subclass in the PHB would go a long way to demonstrating the versatility of the class on a conceptual level.

But I might then encourage WotC to draw broader distinctions between the PHB subclasses. Are Devotion, Ancients, and Vengeance meant to represent Lawful Good, Neutral Good, and Chaotic Good? Not... quite. While I think that the intent with the first two is to hit those segments of the alignment chart, Vengeance can fit in nearly any alignment depending on how dark you want to go with it.

There is, also, the issue of the mechanics. Again, I think that giving paladins a free use of each of their Oath spells could go a long way to making them actually using the "spellcasting" feature of their class rather than only Divine Smite.

Of the post-PHB subclasses for the Paladin I've seen in 5E, I think my favorite is actually Oath of the Watchers, but I suspect it's not really distinct enough in vibe.

So, perhaps more than any of the other classes, this one's one where I don't feel confident about my predictions, but let's just go for it:

Paladin subclass predictions: Devotion, Ancients, Vengeance, Conquest.

Next, I think we're going to possibly drop into the non-Wizard Mages before we finish things off for this round with the Warriors.

Imagining Four Subclasses for Experts

 So, while in my last post I contemplated how the Cleric and Wizard would have their subclass options in the new Player's Handbook narrowed down to four (again, if you're outraged by this, remember that you'll still be able to use any subclass published in the 2014 PHB, or Xanathar's, Tasha's, or Wildemount), but this "4 per class" change will be a positive one for every other class.

I know I've speculated on this before, but with a bit of greater knowledge about the way that classes are going to work (obviously with a bit more revision and refinement) in One D&D/2024 D&D/Nu5 or whatever we're calling it (I've literally just come up with Nu5 and already feel sick because I feel like most things with "Nu" in my experience suck. NuMetal is why there was so little good rock music when I was in high school, and why I have the music tastes of a Gen Xer who's about ten years older than I am).

So, let's talk about our parameters for figuring out what we could expect to find in the 2024PHB.

As I see it, the PHB subclasses are meant to represent the broadest, most iconic subclasses for the class. They are meant to represent the archetypes that fall into that class category, requiring them to stick to the common forms, but also demonstrate the diversity of premise within a given class.

Indeed, one of the smart decisions in the way that 5E was designed is that the classes in general have such a broad identity that many other fantasy archetypes can fit within them. Where another game might attempt to make multiple classes out of these concepts, 5E recognizes the similarities between them and finds a way to show that they're kind of facets of the same core idea. And that has meant that, while 5E only added a single new class over the course of its initial run (what I'm calling the 2014-2024 version of it) it had plenty of room for subclasses to find weirder and more idiosyncratic ideas to play with.

So, the balancing act required here is to come up with subclasses that represent classic, easily-understood or recognized archetypes, but that are also sufficiently distinct from one another to feel like you're creating a sufficiently broad space for experimentation with new subclasses in subsequent releases. I doubt it will be easy. But we can also look to the 2014 PHB as a jumping off point. I suspect (and hope) that, in a lot of cases, we'll be seeing updates to the existing 2014 PHB subclasses - all of the sample subclasses we've seen to playtest the new versions of the classes have been updates to versions in the 2014PHB, so I think it's a safe bet that we'll see at least one, and in a lot of cases, many of the existing subclasses revised and reprinted, with the exception of Clerics and Wizards' culled subclasses.

That being said, it's already been indicated that we could be seeing new subclasses, like a proposed Bard College of Dance, so there could be as-yet-unfilled holes here.

To begin, we'll look at the Expert Classes, which we got to look at first in the One D&D playtest.

Bards:

We know we'll be getting the College of Lore. Bards are advertised as the generalist support class, with a lot of ways to boost allies and confound enemies, but also as being able to do a little of everything, including some small combat capabilities. I'll argue that a Bard is not really any better than a Wizard at weapon-based combat unless they pick a subclass that supports it, but since 2014, that's been a part of their toolkit. The College of Valor certainly serves that function, giving us something more of a swashbuckler (though keep that word in mind for two classes down). Now, I'd argue that College of Swords winds up being a more interesting subclass that plays a similar role, but we could of course see Valor getting a rework to be more exciting.

However, what we're talking about with the Bard is fully doubling the subclasses available to them. The divide in the 2014PHB options clearly shows "Bard as spellcaster" and "Bard as melee combantant" as its archetypes. Among the subclasses published later, there are two other subclasses that encourage melee (Swords and Whispers - the latter being a little more Rogue-like with a Divine Smite-style mechanic) and four more that play more in the "support spellcaster" space.

The 2024 Bard does have some inherent healing capability, and I wonder if they'd push into a broader idea of the "Jack of All Trades" identity to make a healing-centric subclass. However, a healer is still, in its way, a support caster. I could imagine that we'd have, in broader terms, two melee subclasses and two caster subclasses. If the College of Dance Bard is actually real, I'd imagine it's likely to be more of a melee combatant, focusing on the fluidity of movement and possibly borrowing some of the evasiveness and grace of a Monk.

Now, one of the ironies of the 2014 PHB is that I don't think that either Valor or Lore really fit with the rock star feeling that I think most players think of with the Bard class. Valor is a trickster swashbuckler while Lore is a traveling storyteller (and, to be fair, closer in flavor to the historical traditions of Bards and Skalds - as someone who gathers up stories and lore and histories). But I think if any existing subclass seems to fit into that idea of "Rock Star," it's got to be Glamour.

Glamour could sit with Lore as one of the more spellcasting/back-row subclasses, but where Lore is gathering all of its magical secrets, Glamour could focus much more on the mental manipulation and enchantment side of things.

Bard Subclass Predictions: Lore, Valor, Glamour, "Dance"

Ranger:

Again, the 2014 Ranger has only two subclasses, and the choice is basically "do you want a pet or not?" The revised Beastmaster from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything more or less fixes the problems with the original version, so I have almost zero doubt that that will make it into the 2024PHB with minimal revisions. Perhaps the greatest fix that the Tasha's version makes is that you don't have to worry about sending a beloved pet into battle, because it's easy to get it back if it goes down (this was a big problem in Critical Role's first campaign, where Trinket was the beloved team mascot but generally didn't participate in most fights out of a fear of losing him - something the animated series I think sort of retcons to make him more awesome).

Anyway, the Hunter is the one truly confirmed subclass, whose identity is... honestly a little generic, but that's the intention behind the "default" subclasses.

I think everyone was very encouraged by the revisions to the Ranger in the Expert Class UA, as it seems to be a far more functional and powerful class than it has been. But I also think the Ranger's lack of popularity in 5E has also left me, personally, at a bit more of a loss as to figuring out the various archetypes.

I do think that part of the fantasy of a Ranger is that they're the person that you could drop into an untamed wilderness and they'd be fine. They're sort of your ideal commandos, where a Fighter is a front-line battlefield warrior, the Ranger is the one who goes behind enemy lines or treks through some span of wilderness to find the enemy base. And I do think that the Gloomstalker does kind of fit that flavor of being the deadly predator of the darkness. It also has the benefit of being a very popular subclass.

The other archetype that I personally adore is the Solomon Kane/VanHelsing figure, the sort of horror-hunter - the character who shows up when a supernatural monster is terrorizing innocents who are living in the middle of a horror story. What I really like about this archetype, and the Monster Slayer subclass that represents it, is that we actually see the Ranger in a very different potential environment. Whereas your typical Ranger is found out in the wilderness, the classic environment for the Monster Slayer is in dense urban cities or in hamlets terrorized by whatever foul creature haunts them from the abandoned castle that looms above them. But it also really ties into the "expert" notion of the class. VanHelsing in Dracula is able to lead the fight against the eponymous vampire because of his wide breadth of knowledge about what one can do against such a creature.

Ranger Subclass Predictions: Hunter, Beastmaster, Gloomstalker, Monster Slayer

Rogue:

So, unlike Bards and Rangers, the Rogue already has three subclasses in the 2014 PHB, which means that if we're happy with the original three, we only need to add one.

We know that we're getting the Thief, which is, I think, truly the iconic Rogue subclass (indeed, I think "Thief" as a class name pre-dates Rogue).

And, I think that Assassin is arguably just as iconic a Rogue subclass as Thief. While I have serious quibbles with the 2014 version on a mechanical level (the level 3 feature is great, but the 9 and 13 ones are nothing, only for the 17 one to again be great, but I think in most cases this is best as a 3-level dip) I definitely think that Assassin will make the cut with revisions to make it better.

The only downside here is that Thieves and Assassins both sit in nearby corners of the Rogue design space - the shadowy one.

The Arcane Trickster does not, I think, represent as broad and recognizable a fantasy archetype, but it gets a big boost from being both very powerful and also fitting in a high-magic setting like most D&D worlds. It also has a lot of fun ideas (of course a Rogue would get very good with Mage Hand) so I'm predicting and would be happy to see Arcane Tricksters reprinted.

That leaves only one open slot. And I think that if we're going to talk about classic archetypes, we need do no more than think of the most iconic heroic rogue in English-speaking traditions: Robin Hood. And Robin Hood is the prototypical swashbuckler, iconically portrayed by Errol Flynn and later by Cary Elwes channeling Errol Flynn. The answer here is just too obvious, isn't it? You could argue that the Swashbuckler is, in fact, the ultimate fantasy hero archetype, with so many adventure stories featuring people who fit that bill. On top of that, Swashbuckler itself contains within it plenty of other archetypes - it covers pirates, highway scoundrels, and daredevils of all sorts.

Plus, from a design standpoint, it shows that a Rogue does not always need to stalk through the shadows. This is the Rogue who makes a spectacle of an entrance and duels their foe one-on-one.

Now, the only challenge here is that the archetype shares a lot of territory with the Valor Bard. I'd argue that this is more of a case of the Valor Bard dipping its toe into the Swashbuckler's territory rather than the other way around, and the classes play sufficiently differently that I don't think it's a problem. Indeed, I think a party with a Swashbuckler Rogue and a Valor Bard would be well on its way to being a band of Merry Men.

Rogue Subclass Predictions: Thief, Assassin, Arcane Trickster, Swashbuckler

The Culling of the Wizard and Cleric Subclasses

 Let's just note here that the dire wording of the title is meant as a joke. At the Creator Summit yesterday, one of the ideas mentioned about the 2024 Player's Handbook is that every class will get four subclasses in it. For most classes, this is an upgrade - Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Rangers, and Sorcerers only had two each in the 2014 PHB, and Fighters, Monks, Paladins, and Warlocks got three. But Clerics' and Wizards' respective cups ranneth over, with 7 Cleric subclasses (8 if you count Death Clerics, but that's in the DMG, not the PHB) and 8 Wizard ones.

The vast overrepresentation of subclasses for these classes does make a little sense given their role in worldbuilding and establishing mechanics. Clerics are tied, generally, to gods, and the variety of divine domains can be a useful thing for DMs building homebrew worlds to populate their divine pantheon with (though it doesn't always work out how you expect - the Spelljammer campaign I'm running in my homebrewed cluster of worlds has a Cleric of Rastvar, who is my neutral good god of invention, scholarship, and astronomy, who went with Trickery Domain as their subclass). Wizards' subclasses in the PHB simply reflect the eight schools of magic, tying their mechanics directly to that broader rules system used to classify spells.

Those eight schools of magic go back, I believe, to 1st edition, so that's basically sacred at this point. Subsequent subclasses for Wizards have been forced to go into alternative design space.

I could imagine, actually, seeing all four of the 2024 PHB Wizard subclasses getting new names that break them away from strict ties to those schools of magic, if for no other reason than that a new player who never had the 2014 book might go "hold on, why are there evocation, necromancy, conjuration, and divination wizards, but no illusion one?"

In other words, Wizards might go in a very different direction, which could mean that none of the 2014 subclasses get reprinted.

If things were to go this way, the one exception I could imagine is the School of Necromancy - perhaps renamed, instead, as the Arcane Tradition of "Necromancer." We have two later-implemented Wizard subclasses that either are or could easily be changed to have a name that describes the type of Wizard, rather than the school to which they belong. My Wizard could be a Scribe, given his Order of Scribes subclass. One that has the Bladesinging subclass could be called a Bladesinger.

The reason I pick out Necromancer specifically is that, unlike a lot of the other Wizard subclasses, there's a very strong and established vibe and fantasy trope affiliated with that word. Evokers, Conjurers, and even Enchanters can be kind of interchangeable in fantasy (not to speak of the conflation of Wizards and Sorcerers - while the show as a bit of a mess, I loved the way that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier defined a Wizard as a Sorcerer With a Hat, after Doctor Strange was erroneously called a Wizard, even if that's precisely what he is in D&D terms).

Now, it's possible then that we'd still get some of the other popular subclasses printed under new names to match this new, less restrictive nomenclature. Divination (which I think has got to be the subclass I see the most, especially from more min-maxy players) could be a Prognosticator or Soothsayer or Augur. Evocation could be called Elementalists (though this name might better suit an as-yet nonexistent subclass that would play around with elemental damage types). Conjuration could be Summoners.

The subclasses I could imagine being more likely to fall by the wayside here, I'm largely basing on the rarity with which I tend to see them. I don't think I've ever seen someone play an Enchantment wizard. Illusion can be very powerful, but can swing to either being way too powerful or, if the DM gets sick of it, nearly powerless. Abjuration I have, actually, seen someone play, but I think most people aren't so interested in playing the defensive wizard, and I actually think Bladesingers are probably harder to kill anyway. Now, Transmutation is actually kind of the ultimate utility Wizard (and of course, I got a lot of exposure to one thanks to Critical Role's second campaign,) but one of the oddities of it is that it's basically meant to be an alchemist until they made Alchemist a subclass for Artificers. (The Transuter Stone is obviously meant to play the role of the Philosopher's Stone.)

So, here I might feel more comfortable making predictions for what the four Wizard subclasses would be. While they might change names and possibly shift identities a little, I think we can expect to have the following:

Evocation would probably stay because it's the simplest "I cast fireball" wizard subclass. Necromancy, again, I think covers a whole other major fantasy trope, and is an obvious and iconic fit. Divination is very popular, and I think also covers another big fantasy trope (the only point against this is that I think the role of future-predictor often falls to more mystical/spiritual figures with a divine vibe). Finally, perhaps I'm biased because my best friend played one in the first campaign I ever ran, but I think Conjuration is sort of the perfect "next most standard" Wizard after Evocation.

That, then, would leave Abjuration, Enchantment, Transmutation, and Illusion out in the cold. I could maybe imagine swapping Transmutation in for one of the four in the previous paragraph, but overall this looks plausible to me.

Now, let's look at Clerics.

Life Clerics we already know are in, as they're presented as the primary subclass for the class. That's also quite appropriate, as the Life Cleric is all about the most typical role the Cleric plays, which is healing.

That leaves us with six divine domains that need to be culled down to three (assuming, of course, that we don't get newer subclasses like Grave Clerics rolled into the PHB - an assumption I'm going to operate under).

And frankly, I'm not sure that any of these is quite as iconic, so this is a bit of a tough call. So, I'm going to start with the subclasses I think are more likely to be cut, rather than those more likely to be carried over.

And first on that list has got to be Nature Domain. Nature Domain is one of those subclasses that kind of borrows flavor from another class, in this case, it's the "Druidy Cleric." And certainly, there are nuances to draw about the way that gods of nature and the wilds might provide divine magic that is distinct from the primal magic of druids - essentially letting you be a cleric of the kind of god that druids would worship. But this is another subclass I've never seen anyone ever play, and I think that between the "preserving life" elements of the Life Domain and the "wrath of nature" elements of the Tempest Domain, Nature finds itself in a kind of vague in-between world that doesn't really have much of a purpose.

The next choice here is trickier, but I think that my cut would be Knowledge Domain. While not going quite as far as Nature, there's a bit of off-brand feeling to this subclass - though which class you're imitating is admittedly somewhat open to debate, with perhaps a bit of Wizard and oddly a bit of Rogue (in the Rogue-as-investigator identity). That being said, I did mention how divination magic is usually depicted in a mystical, divine manner in fantasy (I mean, it's literally DIVINation,) so perhaps this is an obvious keeper if you really play up the Knowledge Domain as a kind of oracular seer.

Now, the next one I'm sort of surprising myself by. When I first read the PHB, I had guessed that Light Domain would be the "standard" Cleric, possibly due to my background playing World of Warcraft, where The Light is the sort of classic, holy force in that game's cosmos (interestingly, among its five main types of dragons, there are distinctions made between Life and Nature). But I actually think that the classic holy spellcaster - the "white mage" in Final Fantasy terms - is the Life Domain, and can be flavored very much along that "angelic, golden light" aesthetic, which leaves Light as a Cleric that literally focuses on shining lights and such, and that's actually something I could see cutting (though they are the only Clerics who get Fireball).

That would leave Life, Tempest, Trickery, and War Domains. Again, I could see swapping one of these out for a more Oracular Knowledge domain cleric. But which one?

I've seen people playing all four of these, so I don't know that popularity would be the guide. Of these subclasses, the Trickery one seems like the least obviously Cleric-like (though, of course, one must remember that there are plenty of Trickster gods, and Invoke Duplicity is something that Loki does all the time in the MCU - and Loki is nothing if not a trickster god). War Domain, you could argue, overlaps a little with the Paladin, but on the other hand, war gods are common in fantasy (and real world mythology) and often come in both good and evil flavors (again, like in real-world mythology. Both Lawful Good Athena and Chaotic Evil Ares would be appropriate choices for the War domain) and the D&D Cleric has always been a little more martial than just representing a priest.

So, very tentatively, my guesses for what subclasses we get in the 2024 PHB are the following:

Cleric: Life, Tempest, Trickery, War.

Wizard: Conjuration, Divination, Evocation, Necromancy, with Evocation as the "standard" subclass.

In future posts, I'll do another round of predictions for other classes to see what subclasses we might find.

As a disclaimer/reminder, the Creator Summit also made mention of a College of Dance Bard subclass, which means that there's plenty of possibility that a lot of classes will get entirely new subclasses. For these particular classes, I think there's already so much there to work with, especially if they're willing to make significant reworks and changes to the mechanics, but I might toss out some ideas for other classes as to new things we might see.

Also, I don't know when we're likely to get the next UA - it's a big one, so it might take longer to come out than the previous cycle did, but perhaps that only means that the survey period will take longer. Or maybe they'll just dump a ton on us at once. They only have another year or so for these tests, so they've got to get it all out there.

Spellbooks, Spell Preparation, and Wizard Identity in One D&D

 One of the consistent patterns in the One D&D playtest is that spellcasters are all becoming prepared-spells classes.

In the current iteration of 5E, there's a mix - Artificers, Clerics, Druids, and Paladins all have full access to the entire class spell list and can pick any spells they want that they're able to cast from their list at the end of each long rest, up to a certain amount (I believe it's a number of distinct spells equal to their spellcasting modifier plus their level for Clerics and Druids and half their level for Artificers and Paladins). Meanwhile, Bards, Rangers, Sorcerers, and Warlocks (as well as 1/3 caster subclasses, the Eldritch Knight Fighter and Arcane Trickster Rogue) simply learn new spells as they hit certain levels, and can only swap one out when they level up, making these sort of long-term decisions (the Warlock Mystic Arcanum feature, which is their means of getting 6th-9th level spells, I think is technically stricter and doesn't let you swap them out at all, officially, though as a DM I'd absolutely allow one to switch it if the original choice isn't working out).

Wizards have a foot on either side of this line. While they don't have access to the entire Wizard spell list, they get a sort of mini-game that allows them to learn additional spells beyond the two free ones that they get each level (starting with six at level 1). This minigame is somewhat DM-dependent - it's up to the DM to see how much gold the party gets access to, and how frequently the Wizard can find old spellbooks or spell scrolls to add spells to their collection. A rather wizard-unfriendly campaign could see them only ever getting their two spells per level past 1, which would mean that by level 20, they would have only 44 spells (not counting cantrips). But a campaign where money is plentiful and there are free public wizard libraries in every town would allow a wizard to potentially have a full 519 spells (again, not counting cantrips).

Then, among the spells copied into that spellbook, they prepare spells the way that a Cleric or Druid would, choosing from among them each day. The Wizard has the largest spell list of all classes, but it's unlikely that they'll ever have all the spells on that list, given the cost, time, and rare opportunity required to copy each spell. (My Wizard has the Order of Scribes subclass, so the time issue is negligible - even a 9th level spell only takes 18 minutes to copy, compared to 18 hours for other Wizards.)

However, as we've seen in the One D&D playtest, every previewed spellcaster class instead gets to prepare spells after a long rest, choosing from their entire spell list (so far with restrictions based on schools of magic and one of three broad lists, though it sounds like future playtest content might still designate some iconic spells as being limited to individual classes, such as, likely, Chaos Bolt for Sorcerers).

This, then, raises the question: what does the Spellbook even do anymore?

Presumably, the Wizard will have unfettered access to the entire Arcane spell list. I don't know if Sorcerers or Warlocks will be restricted in their choice of spell schools. Warlocks, I could imagine, might not be able to get Evocation spells, given that things like Fireball are usually limited to certain Warlock subclasses. Sorcerers are tougher - I could imagine cutting Conjuration from them, given that they tend not to have as many summoning spells, but then they would also lose teleportation spells like Misty Step.

If Sorcerers get access to the whole Arcane spell list, but Wizards are still limited to picking only spells they've copied into their Spellbooks, it would have the ironic effect of sort of swapping the two classes' general role - in current 5E, Sorcerers tend to have to focus on simpler, often blastier spells, and are built to be really good at raining down magical damage on foes, while a Wizard has more of a broad spellcasting toolbox, where they can pick up useful odds and ends here and there.

If we assume that Sorcerers and Warlocks will follow the "prepare any spell your class can cast at this level" model we've seen with every other spellcaster in the playtest, I think that the functionality of the Spellbook will have to change.

But I don't think we should get rid of it. The Spellbook is so iconic to the Wizard that losing it would feel like really losing what makes the Wizard a Wizard. So, what then?

My first thought is that Wizards might be able to expand the number of prepared spells they have per day beyond what other classes can do. The Wizard's role, after all, is to be the one with a vast trove of arcane knowledge. I could see this taking two different forms:

The first is that adding a spell to your spellbook would essentially work like Domain or Oath Spells. You effectively always have that spell prepared, and it doesn't count against the spells you've prepared. Now, the challenge here is that, left as is, that would be crazy-powerful. If acquiring spells for your book happens as easily as it does in the current version of the game, you'd have over twice as many spells ready as a Cleric. To deal with that, first, you'd significantly reduce the number of spells that the player can put in their spellbook.

You can do this two ways. The first is simply removing the free spells you get when you start off at level 1 and the two you get each time you level up. Essentially, you're still preparing a bunch of spells each day (presumably using the new system where you get one spell of each level to prepare for each spell slot you have that can cast that spell, so two 1st level spells at 1st level, etc. - unless they mercifully change that back to the old formula I far prefer) but if you want to have these extra prepared spells, you've got to find them, and then spend the time and money to add them to your spellbook.

Alternatively, though, you could also build a system that works the same regardless of how much money, spell scrolls, and time your DM affords you, which would be that instead, you simply get to add a certain number of spells to your spellbook as you level up. This would, of course, remove the "Spell Pokémon" minigame element of the class (Gotta Catch 'em All!) but it would make this a predictable and fair system for all Wizards.

However, perhaps there's another use for the Spellbook.

Another option is that Spellbooks could be used to more easily swap out your prepared spells. Perhaps Wizards would be able to, over the course of a minute (perhaps a limited number of times per day,) swap out a prepared spell for something copied into their spellbook, letting the Wizard focus on their go-to spells, or perhaps "frequently useful but also frequently not useful spells" for what they put in their book. Having Knock in your spellbook will be great if you come across a locked door while wandering across the desert, but not having to have it prepared for the many days that the closest equivalent to a door you encounter is the sphincter of some Purple Worm is also great.

The purpose of the Spellbook in the current class design is to reflect the Wizard's role as a versatile spellcaster, so the massive upgrade to the versatility of other spellcasters makes it important to find a way for the Spellbook to do this job in the new environment.

Now, to be fair, for all we know Sorcerers and Warlocks will simply have to one-and-done learn spells still, and this is all moot. But given how consistent the changes have been to spellcasters (and a change that I like, because I'm generally in favor of changes that make it harder for a player to "screw up" their character because of a poor or inappropriate build choice) I can only assume that we'll be seeing Sorcerers and Warlocks get the same treatment.

Information Gleaned from the D&D Creator Summit

Yesterday, WotC hosted a bunch of D&D content creators to talk to them about One D&D and such. There was, of course, a lot of discussion about both the nightmarish PR disaster that was the OGL fiasco, and a lot of discussion about how D&D content creators have borne the brunt of a lot of the backlash for it, as well as concerns about how D&D will manage the ingrained biases and legacy of prejudice within its fantasy game, along with questions about the structure of the team and how cultural consultants doesn't really make up for the lack of diverse voices in the central authorities of these projects.

The summary I have looks like it was a kind of live feed of the conference on Enworld.org, so some of the details come through a little sketchily, but we get some details.

I don't want to gloss over the cultural and corporate stuff, but I also don't know if I have much to contribute to that conversation.

So, instead, I'll be focusing on the fun stuff - hints of design philosophy going into the updated core rulebooks.

First off, WotC insists that these are not a new edition, and not even a 5.5. They point out that 3.5 still changed things to the point where you needed conversion documents to use content produced for 3.0. The ideal here is that someone can build a character with the 2014 PHB and play it alongside a player using the 2024 one, with possibly the only change being that the 2014 character now gets an additional feat.

Likewise, the intent is that you should be able to pick up Curse of Strahd or Storm King's Thunder and run the adventure just fine - even if the Swarms of Rats or Werewolves you use for encounters in that adventure are coming from the 2024 Monster Manual and might work differently mechanically.

Broadly speaking, they acknowledge that the stat blocks in the Monster Manual just don't all actually match the CR math that they use internally or what's found in the DMG, and that the updates aim to fix that.

The PHB will have a big, easily-searched rules glossary at the back, which should not have the 2014 PHB's infuriating index problem (like redirecting you to some other entry in the index rather than just printing the damned page number). Information is going to be findable in multiple locations to make it easier to find it.

Likewise, rules that do get changed or renamed will have their old names in the glossary, and inform the reader what the thing is called (for example, we can expect that the entry for Race will say "this has been changed to now be called Species, and here's where you can find information about it").

Now, into some of the nitty gritty details:

The PHB is going to be longer, and every class is going to have four subclasses in it. This does mean that the Wizard and Cleric will have fewer subclasses in the 2024 PHB than they do in the 2014 one, but the subclasses that don't get an updated reprint will still be usable with the new versions of these classes.

I suspect this means that they will be transferring over the most popular subclasses, and those with distinct identities, with revisions. There could also be some brand new ones - they're exploring a College of Dance Bard option, though I'd guess that iconic and popular subclasses from Xanathar's and Tasha's will likely make it in. The Undead Patron from Van Richten's, for example, seems like it could be a "standard" option for Warlocks. In most cases, each class is getting more options to explore, and they also intend to have a piece of art depicting every subclass in the book to convey a visual example.

The Monk rests in this awkward place as the one class that represents cultural traditions from a non-Western culture, but in the process also engages in stereotype. Ki points are being renamed Spirit Points to let the class expand to a broader flavor and lore for the class, but the designers also acknowledged that the larger problem is that the other classes are lacking in non-European influence, the hope being that the Monk is not the "token Asian class," but rather that all classes are depicted as being able to come from cultures inspired by any real-world culture. I wish them the best of luck on threading that needle.

On a mechanical level, Monks are explicitly being given an upgrade, because they felt that their damage output was too low for what is meant to be a powerful Warrior. This is, of course, subject to playtesting.

Weapons are getting changes, the details of which are a little hazy, but the basic idea is something called Mastery - that weapons of certain types will have additional properties that some classes can make better use of. An example given is that a Wizard can attack with a dagger, but they won't be able to use its "nick" property the way that a Fighter could (though there's no detail here as to what that property does). Another example is that if you have mastery in clubs, you can slow a target down in addition to dealing your damage. This system also makes Tridents better than Spears (though how it does that remains unsaid in this particular summary of the event). Shortswords are also, evidently, back to being martial weapons, and they claim mastery will allow for "martial" classes to get use out of them that Rogues don't, while still allowing Rogues to make use of them, and... yeah, I've gotta see the details.

Another big deal is that Pistols and Muskets have been added to the PHB weapon list. The idea is that every classic D&D setting has at least these types of firearms, and the time reference for D&D is generally late-Medieval/early Renaissance, so the existence of these weapons makes sense. They're still expensive as they are in the DMG, leaving more advanced firearms for DMs to decide whether to use.

I'll say that I like this change, even if I understand the impulse by many players to want to keep firearms out of their fantasy worlds (or rather, I sympathize with those who want to limit the use of guns given our gun-saturated American culture).

Again, we'll need to learn more about how Mastery works, but the Fighter, for instance, will have a lot of flexibility in using multiple Mastery options on a weapon.

Sorcerers and Warlocks will of course be seeing the change that they only get their subclass at level 3, but the intent is to give them a little more at 1st level to make them feel distinct. Clerics, in the revamp, have Channel Divinity to feel Cleric-like despite waiting for a subclass, so Sorcerers get a little chaos magic, like getting Chaos Bolt for free. Warlocks have some kind of lower-stakes pact to make at level 1 (I wonder if this could be the Pact Boon) and all Warlocks will automatically get Eldritch Blast.

While the Arcane, Primal, and Divine spell lists are still going to be a thing, they're also going to make some spells class-exclusive, and will be noted as belonging only to that class. This seems like a good compromise, and I wonder if we'll see that applied to things like Find Steed, which is currently in the playtest much better for Clerics than it is for Paladins.

The DMG will have a section on running sessions 0s, with advice about using safety tools.

The Monster Manual is said to have nearly 500 monsters, with almost all new art. There's a greater focus on high-CR monsters and NPCs, and again, the stat blocks have been tuned to better reflect their CRs. And also, things should be easier to find - a Gelatinous Cube will be listed under G, rather than O for Ooze (that being said, I'll say I do like having all the demons together).

The DMG will include some guidance on building a campaign's structure and have new encounter building guidance. It will also contain some lore about the D&D multiverse - an example being explaining who Orcus is.

Personally, while I think that's useful, I hope there's still an attitude that encourages creation of lore - while I like having the canon stuff there to pull from, the thing I love about D&D is being able to create within it. Again, I loved the way Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft talked about Horror Genres and how to build a compelling Darklord and their Dread Domain, foregrounding the DM and players' creativity, and I'd hope the DMG leans in that direction.

There will also be some guidance on magic item rarity and how players can craft, buy, and sell them. Having clearer rules for this, especially as someone who runs a campaign with an artificer, would be very welcome.

One of the big things here is that any mechanical changes are going to be put into the SRD, which will be in Creative Commons, so no one will have to buy the books to get them - that will only be for the modular pieces like new subclasses and such.

Spells, monster CRs, and the like are not going to change so as to make sure that all of this will remain compatible with existing 5E.

The PHB will have 9 species. Orcs and Goliaths are being added to the list, while Half-Orcs and Half-Elves are being cut (though you can still make them if you like them using the 2014 book,) with the previously-explained rationale that "half-" races carry a lot of problematic baggage. As explained in the Character Origins UA, mixed ancestries are welcome, but will be mechanically represented using one species or another. Goliaths are intended to play a role that is essentially to Giants what the Dragonborn is to Dragons.

Lastly, Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse will be a box set with a 96-page gazetteer, a 96-page adventure, and a 64-page bestiary with a DM screen.

I'll say I'm glad it's longer in total than the Spelljammer set was, but I am wary that the "campaign setting" sourcebook part comes to only 160 pages in total. I don't think my dream of a Van Richten's-quality sourcebook is likely to come true, but hopefully half of the gazetteer won't just be deck plans of ships. Give me a lot of Tony DiTerlizzi art and I'll calm down a little.

Oh, actually, lastly lastly, they also announced that the next One D&D playtest document will include all six remaining PHB classes, meaning all three Warriors and all three Mages. 

Still Thinking About Control

 I'm of two minds.

One of the problems of modern gaming is the idea that everything's got to be an ongoing service. Games vie to be the one you log in to (and yes, logging in usually online) and hopefully pay some kind of subscription to generate constant income. I remember being hesitant to try World of Warcraft given the subscription fee, and while I've gotten now over sixteen years out of that game, I've also poured in I think over two thousand dollars (actually, doing the math it's just over 3k) in subscription fees and bi-annual expansion purchases.  And I think between DLC and other patch updates, a lot of games want you to keep playing them and build up a culture and streaming ecosystem around them. And I think we should have games that just end and exist as finite works of art.

On the other hand, when I really love a game, I can feel kind of sad when it's over, often feeling like I want to replay it or squeeze some more enjoyment out of it.

Control is a game that probably should just come to some final conclusion, credits roll, game over in the best sense. But the way that it's built leaves it open ended.

The game is something like a Metroidvania or a far more forgiving souls-like (the loss of Source on death, and the capturing of Control Points as both fast travel locations and health-recharge stations are not too different conceptually from dropping your Souls and finding Bonfires) but while Metroid games have you leaving the maze-like world (often as it explodes around you) when the game ends, and Souls games similarly opening the door, at least, if not pushing you through it, to New Game Plus, Control hits the ending more like an open-world game.

In a game like Skyrim, it makes perfect sense to dump you out into the world after you beat Alduin, because Elder Scrolls Games have always (ok, at least in the two I've played, which are that and Oblivion) treated the main story quest line as just one of many. I've had plenty of characters who have, instead of even worrying about that, only existed to, for example, do the Dark Brotherhood quests (which are often excellent if profoundly dark).

But the more open-world design that is so prevalent in video games these days has spread into games that don't necessarily need to be that way. Before Control, I played through God of War Ragnarok, GOW5 has an excellent, dramatic story, and I was really there mostly for the character drama that I got to play out in-game. But the game's open-world, quest-based design leaves things open - there's even a quest that you can't even complete until you've gotten past the game's ending.

Control is not an open-world game. But it also sort of is. Its primary gameplay structure is a series of missions that send you out into the Oldest House, trying to both find out what happened to player-character Jesse's brother, Dylan, and also solve the problem that is the mind-controlling and body-warping resonance known as The Hiss.

But while those missions don't feel like they're just one of many storylines to follow the way that the main quests in an Elder Scrolls game do, the world is nonetheless populated with a lot of side quests that fight or prominence in your "mission log" with the main story.

The things I love most about this game are the atmosphere and the breadcrumb worldbuilding. The opening moments, in which Jesse enters the curiously empty lobby of the massive brutalist office building of this never-before-heard-of federal agency, where the only person you meet at all is an odd janitor who speaks in literally-translated Finnish idioms who also happens to be the subject of a painting that mysteriously turns into an elevator... it had me gleefully unnerved.

And I'd love to continue living in that bizarre world. What's unfortunate is that the side-missions vary greatly in quality - as much as I adore Ahti the Janitor as an NPC, the side-missions he gives are like the most rote, basic MMO-style quests. There are some great ones, and also some awesome "futz around until you find out you can do this" things like the Luck & Probability laboratory. I remember feeling like a damned fool when I realized only after having beaten the second DLC that the framed photos of broken walls were an indication that you could smash through the wall behind and find a hidden area.

While I don't have every single last secret, I have, by most definitions, truly beaten and completed the game, and while I'll start it up again to wander the Oldest House some more, I feel a certain tension - it's fun to screw around there, but it's not as fun as when I was delving into all the weirdness of its story.

Any mystery story has the same problem: the potential of the mystery is what's fun. It's not even that I think Control's story doesn't conclude in a satisfying way (there are flaws to the story, but that's true in any story,) but I guess the sad thing is that the absolute thrill I had in the game's opening minutes is something I don't know I'll be able to experience again. That (fun) sense of sarcastically saying "oh yes, this is fine, everything's fine. The memo at the security station says we can't take smart phones or smart watches, or anything "smart" into the building, and no No. 2 Pencils either, and also nothing that is archetypal... yeah, that's fine. That elevator wasn't there before, and also, wasn't this lobby back there previously?"

The one way I have been able to get a little of that is in my roommate's playthrough, where I've had to fight my urge to give helpful advice and instead just let him just figure out the game for himself.

But getting back to the ending of the game - the open-ended "Endgame" segment, after the main story is completed, does allow you to then go back and finish the side quests, and it's a reasonable launching pad to send you off to the DLCs.

But A: I don't think either DLC works quite as well as the main game (though I definitely liked AWE better than Foundation) and B: Once those are concluded, they have their own not-as-compelling side quests to go through.

The answer here, of course, is simply to move on to another game. But I wonder what it is about Control that has be continually wanting to start it up again and play more. It might be that it's just so in tune with the kind of genre I enjoy, and it's nice to both get a game that hits that genre feel so well and also to actually have a name to describe it.

I think a New Game Plus system might have been good for Control. The strange choice to have only one save file is odd - in a game like Alan Wake, where you don't really carry any accumulated power or progress between levels, it's easy enough to just hop to a previously-completed chapter. I believe that Control lets you regain the progress you've made after jumping forward again, but it's ambiguous enough that I'm hesitant to try.

Anyway, I know a sequel is in the works, but I suspect it's a long ways off.