UA: Mystic Subclasses

 We have the first new UA of the new year! Yes, it's a whole bunch of new subclasses, and I'm very pleased to say that it is truly new subclasses - none of these are reprints or revisions of existing options.

The ones presented are the Monk's Warrior of the Mystic Arts, the Paladin's Oath of the Spellguard, the Rogue's Magic Stealer, and the Warlock's Vestige patron.

Naturally, these are all pretty magically-themed, and I wonder if we'll find them in the book with the previously-explored "Arcane Subclasses."

I'll go through each subclass in subsequent posts.

Devouring the Void: Planning out My Void Elf Demon Hunter for Next Week

 As the name of this blog implies, I have a lot of Alts.

This September, I'll have been playing WoW for 20 years, which will also be half my lifetime at that point, which is, frankly, insane (I'm anxious about the 4-0 milestone, though the terrifying state of the world is beating it as my primary source of anxiety, so that's... fun.)

Anyway, horrifying descent into totalitarianism aside, let's talk Demon Hunters!

Tuesday marks the release of the Midnight pre-patch. We know there's a stat-squish incoming (boy, remember when that was, like, a huge deal? Now it feels like it happens every other expansion. I doubt we'll get a level squish until after The Last Titan, though, where I assume we'll hit 100 and that feels like a reasonable time to go back down to 60 afterward).

There's no new class in Midnight, but we're getting roughly a third of one, finally granting Demon Hunters their third spec (I suspect Augmentation was always intended for Evokers in Dragonflight, but given how weird it is they needed more development time, hence its later launch). This will once again push the average specs per class out of a precise 3.

I haven't actually followed the development of the spec very closely, but I know that it's a short-ranged DPS spec like Devastation Evokers - you'll have some moves (and I think be able to build around them) that take you into melee only to hop back with Vengeful Retreat. It also appears that there will be a system somewhat akin to the Legion-era Shadow Priest, where you will ideally try to stay in your transformed Metamorphosis form as long as you can. I believe it will be something like a "long-term" rotational ability rather than a big damage cooldown like it is for Havoc (in fairness, Havoc has talents that allow Eye Beam to extend the duration, but you'll never get enough haste and cooldown reduction to keep it going indefinitely).

With a new spec, though, we're also getting a new Race option. Technically, there were only two playable races for Paladins and Druids in Vanilla, but Paladins got Draenei and Blood Elves in BC and then Druids got Worgen and Trolls in Cataclysm. Until the single-race Evoker (which remains the case for them) in Dragonflight, Demon Hunters were the most limited-option class in the game, with only one race per faction (similar to how Druids started out).

Now, Void Elves are getting their chance. You have to do a quest chain in K'aresh to unlock this (the spec is available immediately). I know you can start the quest line now, but the final part of it that actually unlocks the option becomes available on Tuesday.

I have two max-level Demon Hunters, my Night Elf Havoc one and my Blood Elf Vengeance one (though the latter more or less just hit 80 and has been chilling, while the Night Elf is kind of my tertiary main, after my Paladin and Death Knight).

Anyway, rather than leaping into a new spec at max level, my plan is to create a Void Elf Demon Hunter and spec them (likely her, as I already have a male Void Elf Rogue) Devourer so that I can figure out the spec over the course of leveling.

It isn't quite getting a whole new class, but it is pretty fun to get something like this. WoW has been much more generous with playable races, which makes sense given the relatively simpler balancing task (racial bonuses are usually minor enough to make them somewhat marginal except in extreme min-maxxing situations). We are, of course, getting the Haranir in Midnight, like we got the Earthen in War Within. That means, I believe that means that Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands are the only expansions to give us no other major character options (as in, Race or Class). Even without Devourer, Midnight would count given that we're getting Haranir. Though it is notable that there are more and more "neutral" races - which reflects both an in-lore reconciliation between Alliance and Horde as well as, you know, probably being easier on the developers if they only have to worry about a single new race.

Rogue Damage in D&D

 I realize that I might be biting off more than I can chew here, but let's consider the following:

The general consensus among the optimizers of YouTube is that Rogue damage falls behind compared to other Martial classes like Fighters, Barbarians, and Paladins. On a design intent level, this has always felt, if it's actually true, kind of wrong.

Balance in games is always a tricky thing - in a solo game, you could reasonably say that a build or class that leans more toward defense might sacrifice some damage to do so, but if you have a game like, say, World of Warcraft, where survivability is not really a primary concern for anyone other than a tank, it doesn't seem fair that the heavily-armored Fury Warrior would do less damage than the lightly-armored Frost Mage because the Warrior's armor isn't really doing anything to protect them if they're not the one getting hit. (For those who don't play or know about WoW, there's plenty of magical damage that gets tossed around at all players, but the characters playing the tank role should essentially always be the ones that are taking the direct physical hits from enemies and not any of the damage-dealers).

D&D's a bit different - no one is a tank, at least not in such explicit terms. Some subclasses, like Ancestral Guardians or Armorers (or Cavaliers, I think?) can at least incentivize a foe to attack them, but it's not the kind of deterministic thing it is in a game like WoW.

Rogues are a little squishier than most other martial characters - they only have a d8 hit die, and they only get light armor. While they can eventually hit equivalent ACs to medium armor, it takes longer (a level 2 Artificer who makes Smoldering Half Plate could easily get their maximum AC out of it while a Rogue needs to cap their Dexterity to get all they can out of Studded Leather).

Thus, it has always seemed to me, thematically, that a Rogue ought to be among the highest damage-dealers in the game. While a Fighter might suit up in heavy armor to endure the hordes, I think the fantasy of the Rogue is to be the one who takes the risk traveling light in order to go fast and hard to take out their foes.

Martials tend to do better in single-target situations due to the way that the game treats attacking with a weapon, of course (though often it can be demonstrated that spellcasters can overcome this intended balance) and I think the Rogue makes sense to really focus on that single-target damage anyway, striking with surgical precision (though I'll admit that this is really the "assassin" archetype, and you could argue a Swashbuckler maybe ought to be better at fending off multiple attackers, even if its subclass mechanics imply the opposite).

Rogues work differently than other martial characters. They're the only ones that don't get Extra Attack. Extra Attack does a couple things for classes that do get it, initially just doubling their damage potential, but also smoothing out bad luck. You can still miss twice on your turn as a Paladin, but if you have, say, a 60% hit chance, extra attack means there's only a 16% chance you don't hit at all on your turn.

Instead, Rogues get their damage scaling via Sneak Attack, adding a number of d6s to their damage equal to half their Rogue level rounded up.

There are conditions here that need to be met - you can never get Sneak Attack if you have any source of disadvantage (even if it's cancelled out by a source of advantage) and to get it, you either need to have advantage (pure advantage, thanks to the aforementioned clause) or have a non-incapacitated ally within 5 feet of the target.

Now, in fairness, Rogues also have numerous ways to get advantage - by level 2 they can hide as a bonus action to try to attack without being seen, or they can sacrifice their movement and bonus action to get advantage with careful aim. Lots of Rogue-friendly weapons like Shortswords and Shortbows have the Vex property, so one hit will set them up for more hits in the future.

However, in terms of game feel, I think you could argue that this creates a feel-bad situation. Rogues basically need Sneak Attack in order to feel like they're working properly, which places an onus on them that other martial characters don't have. A Barbarian will be more or less just as effective fighting some goblins out in a field as they would in a barn with a lot of posts holding the roof up. But a Rogue is going to have far fewer options for how they want to achieve their Sneak Attack if there's nothing but grass.

Rather than feeling like a cool bonus to their damage, Sneak Attack is the assumption. Rogue damage is balanced around that assumption, and that means losing it leaves the Rogue feeling broken (not in a good way).

But how good is Sneak Attack, then?

One thing I really have to hand to Sneak Attack is that it's one of the smoothest-scaling features in the game. Getting another die every two levels ramps your damage up much more granularly than, say, a Fighter getting an additional attack at 5, 11, and 20.

I'll also say that I think the theming makes sense: if we lean more into the Assassin archetype, the Rogue's goal is to hit hard with a precision attack for maximum devastating effect, rather than some mad frenzy of stabs. Fighters are the machine-gun class while Rogues are the sniper rifle class.

In a vacuum, let's see what kind of damage this come out to.

Fighters seem a good comparison. Generally considered the best martial damage-dealers, I think the Rogue actually ought to match them in power.

While the Rogue has less obvious breakpoints, we can look at those breakpoints for the Fighter:

At level 5, a Fighter gets Extra Attack, while a Rogue's Sneak Attack goes up to 3d6.

Let's assume a similar weapon loadout - the Fighter is going with a dual-wielding build (which I don't think is quite as strong for pure damage, but it also leaves them fairly capable with a ranged weapon when they need to be if they're going Dex).

    Fighter 5:

We can assume a couple things: the Fighter likely has the Two Weapon Fighting Style, and I think it makes sense that they'd take the dual-wielder feat at level 4. Their Dex is +4 at this point.

Thus, the Fighter is making three attacks that deal 1d6+4 apiece (two with the main hand, one with the off-hand scimitar) and then a fourth, bonus action attack for just 1d6. Total damage output is 4d6+12, or 26 (yes, we're ignoring the higher crit chance thanks to probably using a Vex weapon in the main hand).

    Rogue 5:

The Rogue won't get a Fighting Style. We could potentially imagine that they've taken the Dual Wielder feat as well - Rogues have more consistent need of their bonus action than Fighters, of course, but in situations where they have an ally granting Sneak Attack, they might like to have a way to weaponize it.

If we assume that such an ally is there (maybe that fighter) we can look at their damage in the following way:

Their main hand attack with a shortsword deals 4d6+4, and then they can make a scimitar attack for 1d6. Then, with Dual-Wielder, they make another Scimitar attack for 1d6. So that's basically 6d6+4, or around 25. Actually quite close.

As a note, dual-wielding on a Rogue is, in fact, quite good, because you get that many more chances to land the Sneak Attack. If you had a 60% hit chance, making these three attacks would give you a 93.6% chance to land your Sneak Attack, and that's before factoring in advantage from something like Vex.

    Fighter 11:

By this point, the Fighter has likely capped Dexterity (even if only taking General half-feats, if they start off at 17, they could hit 20 thanks to their first bonus feat at level 6). I also think it's highly likely that they'll have at least a +1 weapon, and by 11, probably two (it will also make my life easier to assume the same bonus on both weapons). Dual Wielding doesn't quite benefit from feat-stacking like a GWM/PAM build does, but they might have gotten something like Mage Slayer and then, like, Medium Armor master or something.

Anyway, the Fighter is now making three attacks with its +1 Shortsword and then a nick attack with its +1 Scimitar, followed by a bonus action attack with said scimitar. That means basically four attacks for 1d6+6 and then a single attack for 1d6+1. So, 5d6+25, which comes out to 42.5 damage.

    Rogue 11:

Likewise, we're looking at +1 weapons in both hands. Actually, Rogues and Fighters will have the same number of feats at this level, as Fighters get their first bonus feat at 6 and Rogues get their only bonus feat at 10. So we can, I think, likewise assume that Rogues are capped on Dexterity at this point.

The Rogue's Sneak Attack is now up to 5d6. So, their main attack is going to be 6d6+6 damage, and then they can make two off-hand attacks for 1d6+1 each, so we're looking at essentially 8d6+8 damage. That winds up looking like 36 damage.

That's more significantly behind the Fighter

    Fighter 20:

11 to 20 is an enormous leap. At this stage, I'd want to have, like Vicious weapons, if not crazy legendary weapons. Vicious Weapons (or Flame Tongues) scale really well with more attacks, and the Fighter would undoubtedly shoot into the stratosphere.

So, to keep this somewhat more fair for the Rogues, we're just going to use +3 weapons.

The Fighter is now making four main-hand attacks on top of their two bonus dual-wielding ones. So, 5 attacks that are doing 1d6+8 each and then a single 1d6+3 attack. That's basically 6d6+43 damage, which comes out to 64 damage.

    Rogue 20:

Sneak Attack by this point is 10d6. So, we have our main attack that deals 11d6+8, and then two off-hand attacks that deal 1d6+3, meaning a total of 13d6+14. That's 59.5 on average.

It's still behind the Fighter, though only by 5.5 points of damage.

    Nuances:

There are a few elements here that I think we need to consider.

First, in the Rogue's favor:

The fact that the Rogue can get their full sneak attack damage as long as any of their attacks hit means that we've actually been devaluing their damage slightly. If we did the full "damage per attack" rather than "damage per hit" calculations, this fact would really help the Rogue's total.

Also, Rogues benefit more from critical hits because so much of their damage comes from rolled dice. If our Fighter lands a crit, they're only adding 3.5 damage on average, while a Rogue who gets lucky with a crit (on their first hit of the turn, to be fair) could, by level 20, be adding 38.5.

But in the Fighter's favor:

Fighters have tools to deal more damage. Action Surge can give them a giant boost in damage, and while this is a limited resource, in a game where combat tends to only last a couple rounds, a higher fraction of a Fighter's turns than you might think can have action surges in them.

Fighters will benefit enormously from anything that increases the damage of an attack. If they can get Conjure Minor Elementals up (easily done with a tier 4 Eldritch Knight) they'll be able to multiply that bonus thanks to all their attacks. The same goes for vicious weapons or even just picking up the Hex or Hunter's Mark spell somehow. Rogues don't get to do this as much because they focus everything into a single attack (though our build here does, at least, give them more of a benefit from it).

And again, there are scenarios in which a Rogue's sneak attack can be shut down - if the Rogue is poisoned, say good bye to sneak attack. Underwater, there are some weapons they can still use, so it might not be so bad. If a Fighter is blinded, they're less likely to hit, but they will still deal full damage. Not so with the Rogue. And even in the regular ebb and flow of combat, a Rogue might just not be able to get the advantage they need. Technically, the 2024 rules have Hide give you the Invisible condition, which means that in theory, a foe with Truesight or Blindsight cannot be hidden from, and even someone merely under the effects of a See Invisibility spell. (Granted, I tried that briefly as a DM and now think I'll rule differently. I actually kind of like the idea of mundane beating magical detection, like how using a Disguise Kit can sometimes work better than the Disguise Self spell because there's no magical illusion to see through, just physical make-up, wigs, and prosthesis).

The point I'm trying to make here is that there's a world in which I think that the Rogue ought to deal more damage than a Fighter. I get that a Fighter, you know, fights, and that's their whole thing. A Rogue does have its powerful skill-monkey features. But I think it would be nice if a Rogue got a little boost to damage.

Walkin' Dudes and Dark Wanderers

 I was very happy when the new Monster Manual gave us some higher-CR humanoid stat blocks.

They cap out at CR 12, which technically they already did with the Archmage. But along with the Archmage, there's now the Questing Knight, the Archpriest, and the Pirate Admiral. (The Bandit Crime Lord lags behind slightly at CR 11).

The thing is, in most stories, villains are people. That's largely due to the fact that in most stories, the only really active characters with agency are human beings. But even in fantasy, there are many evil kings, evil sorcerers, or other evil people working at cross-purposes against the heroes.

In D&D, if you want a "person" as your big bad monster, and you want them to be something legendary that a high-level party will be challenged by, your best bets are generally undead like Liches or Death Knights - beings who can act very much like a person even if they aren't technically humanoid anymore.

As I've often talked about, one of the key formative texts that has influenced my tastes in fantasy is Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The ultimate villain of this epic 7-book series (with an eighth "interquel" taking place I believe between books 3 and 4 that isn't really necessary to understand the series) is the Crimson King, a demonic tyrant who is half-human and half-eldritch-abomination. But the villain we spend much more time actually seeing in the story is the Crimson King's duplicitous servant (who wishes to usurp CK's role at the last second if he can pull it off,) the Man in Black.

The Man in Black, known also as Walter O'Dim, is King's most common recurring villain, appearing under different names in different stories, but explicitly the same guy. His most famous appearance is in The Stand, in which he is known primarily as Randall Flagg, though he also goes by all sorts of other names with the initials "R. F." Given his prominence in that book in particular, Randall Flagg is probably his default name, even though we eventually discover in the final book of the Dark Tower (also called The Dark Tower) that his birth name was Walter Padick, before he learned how to use magic and basically turn it against a world that had wronged him.

Flagg's characterization in The Stand is pretty interesting: he seems to be something of a shapeshifter, and can blend in with groups that are ideologically opposed to one another, always trying to stir up violence and hatred wherever he goes. In that novel, I think King probably intended him to be some inhuman, otherworldly, demonic being, even giving one of his names as Nyarlathotep (a figure from Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, the only Great Old One that cares enough about humanity to actively hate us).

But I think that the idea here is that Flagg probably isn't human anymore, wandering so long and so far and changing himself with magic to the point that he might still look like his human self (or at least like a human) but he's almost certainly not one anymore.

His defining traits, I'd say, are that he never stays put for very long (even if he does take up residence in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas for most of The Stand) and he's a cruel bastard that sows chaos and ruin everywhere he goes.

    So, how might we approach a character like this in D&D?

First off, I think it might be wisest not to make this character your big bad. While it might be exciting to try to track them down, to hunt them and then have a good confrontation, they're basically antithetical to the idea of a lair or dungeon. The worn heels of their boots are the result of endless wandering.

Instead, I'd say that they work as a great kind of MacGuffin - a character that the players might need to chase and thus give them the impetus to travel from one location to the next. Most D&D games I've played in (well, at least the two long campaigns I've played in) haven't stuck around in the same location all that much, and are more Lord of the Rings-like travel experiences. As the opening line of the Dark Tower series says: The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed. There you go: a great way to keep the party pushing forward.

Adventures involving our Dark Wanderer would likely not really directly feature them. As another Dark Tower example, the beginning of the story (actually technically taking place prior to the opening lines, as it begins with some nested flashbacks) sees the hero, Roland (the aforementioned Gunslinger) come across a town that Flagg has corrupted by indoctrinating the town's priestess, who has then whipped the populace into a murderous fervor. Roland is forced to fight every last man, woman, and child in the town (it's a fairly dark series, as one might expect from King, especially early King). Roland doesn't even get a chance to meet the Man in Black face-to-face until the end of the first book, and their meeting is cryptic and vague. But Flagg's presence is felt there, in the hostility that greets him in the village of Tull.

One of King's favorite themes is that evil crumples when confronted - that the bad guys use fear to keep normal people complacent and compliant. Thus, I actually think it wouldn't be that crazy to simply use something like an Archmage stat block for a character like this.

The key, though, is that they're going to focus on evading the heroes as much as possible, rather than trying to kill them in a direct confrontation. Archmages have both Misty Step and Teleport, which could help them escape from a party that seeks to take them down. This is pretty consistent with Flagg as he's depicted in the Dark Tower series - he uses magic to turn Roland's bullets into duds, but he doesn't stand and fight because he'd almost certainly lose. An Archmage is actually somewhat tough (among their powers is a one-a-day 9th level Cone of Cold, which I believe does an average of 54 damage on a failed save, which ain't nothing).

But the Dark Wanderer is also a lonesome figure - they're probably not going to have a bunch of minions to protect them. Thus, they'll really prefer to lure the party into hostile situations. With their own spells, like Fly, they can go through dangerous areas with relative safety.

They're also going to likely be casting Scrying on the party frequently, which might help reinforce the idea that they remain a presence even if they're more than a day's journey away. I'd actually go out of my way as a DM to ensure that the Scrying feels like some kind of visitation. The spell itself describes the person making the saving throw as feeling that they don't know what they're saving against, only that they are made to feel uneasy, so I think having a vision of being stalked by a shadowy figure would fit the bill. Maybe the party doesn't really know what their Dark Wanderer looks like, but when saving against the Scrying spell, they see some defining feature of them - in Flagg's case, he often has glowing red eyes and cowboy boots with worn-down heels. In the Stand, in particular, he has custom buttons, like one with a smiley face with a bleeding bullet hole in the forehead.

Now, again, I think that Archmage actually works the best for something hewing quite close to the way Flagg is portrayed in the Dark Tower series. And I do think that this stat block is pretty well-suited to this kind of elusive foe.

But maybe you want to lean further into the inhuman side of things.

A Lich could perform this role, but they have far less reason to fear the party catching up with them, given they can just recover wherever their phylactery/spirit jar is hidden. I actually think a Rakshasa is an awesome recurring adversary (though arguably too powerful if they're truly intent on hunting the party, as they can planeshift right back to the same place after they die, on top of their insane magic immunity and their insane cursed touch.

An Arcanoloth can play some similarly evasive games with a party as an Archmage, and they're the same CR.

In terms of thematics, a Star Spawn Emissary could work (starting off as Lesser and only transforming if they beat that form) but I don't know that that's really what we're looking for.

Yeah, I'm actually thinking sticking to Archmage is your best bet. You can always reskin it to a different creature type if your Dark Wanderer is of a different vibe.

As always, though, I'd strongly encourage you to think outside the stat block. The kind of prophetic visions and ominous signs of the influence of a true fantasy villain aren't always covered by the game's rules. As long as these are primarily flavor and foreshadowing, there's no worry about upsetting the game balance. But I also think you can create dangerous scenarios and affliction that work on-theme.

Remember that if you make the Wanderer's primary objective when confronted by the heroes escape rather than killing the party, you can be a little nastier with those bespoke afflictions. Maybe you, like Flagg does in the 4th book, neutralize one of the heroes' primary weapons, for example. Maybe the environment shifts in some unexpected way that forces the party to focus on surviving the change (like the floor becoming quicksand) rather than pursuing.

I think it's fair game to give an Archmage any Wizard spell, and even toss in some Sorcerer or Warlock ones that Wizards don't get (which isn't a lot). For higher-level spells, be sure to match the kind of limited use that the stat block has (maybe swapping them out with spells of the same level). Archmages are assumed to have Mind Blank on them at all times, but I do feel like Maze is a fantastic one to really mess with a party.

Now, how do you ultimately deal with your Dark Wanderer?

Certainly, part of the fun of D&D is to let the players' actions dictate how things go. If they come up with the perfect plan to trap this foe and deal with them once and for all, that's probably the best scenario. But if you want to build to a set-piece encounter with them, you should figure out what their ultimate goal is. In the Dark Tower, Flagg's demise is an anticlimax meant to introduce a new, deadlier villain (though as much as I love this series, the last couple books were pretty clearly written in a rush as King was worried he would die before he finished the saga. 22 years later, he's still kicking and I kind of wish he had taken more time on it. That villain who destroys Randall Flagg is, himself, slain almost instantaneously in his own anticlimax. Actually, all the villains have pretty anticlimactic ends, which might be a point King was making but doesn't work very well, dramatically).

I'd say that, especially given that the party's going to be spending a lot of time pursuing this foe, if they can't figure out a way to ensnare them cleverly (and do try to allow for that, within reason) you should try to have this foe reach a goal and begin enacting their evil plan, to give the encounter urgency and stakes. This kind of transforms them into a stationary "dungeon boss" foe, but it's a reasonable way to end their story.

But until that final confrontation, feel free to use any trick in the book - just play fair. They already have Misty Step and Teleport, but consider spells like Project Image, Mislead, Dimension Door, Programmed Illusion, and Freedom of Movement to make them extremely hard to pin down so that they can get away from the party alive.

Further Conceptualization for How Powers Work in my TTRPG

 Once again, just to manage expectations if you're excited about this, I'm still kind of at a thought-exercise stage in the planning here.

My intent, if I were to follow through on this, would be to make a new TTRPG that plays very similarly to D&D 5E (I thought about making it a Draw Steel hack, but I really need to get some actual hours playing that game before I try kitbashing it). It'll likely use very similar mechanics, like ability scores (that's a little down the line - I'd actually love to just have the modifiers instead of the wonky 3-20 scores,) proficiency bonus, AC, HP, that kind of thing.

But one area where I'd try something that's a real departure is in how one's Powers work.

Power would be a catch-all term for things you can do on your turn, mostly by spending resources. Their closest analogue would be Spells in D&D, but with several changes:

    General Categories:

First, I'm taking inspiration from the early One D&D playtests, when they created just three master spell lists categorized as Arcane, Divine, and Primal. While this removed some of the nuance from classes - like how Artificers are Arcane spellcasters but can get healing spells that Wizards and Sorcerers can't - given that this game is starting from scratch, we don't have any previous versions of it that could be upset.

Because we're trying to shift genres from high fantasy to more of a New Weird borderland between fantasy and sci-fi (arguably leaning more toward the latter) the categories will be different, and will be based on the source of those powers. The categories, as it stands now, would be Martial Powers, which are something you gain access to through training, physical conditioning, and such, Technological Powers, which you gain via expertise with paranormal devices that you build and customize, Psionic Powers, which you gain through mind-expanding drugs and treatments and allow you to alter your environment with your thoughts, and Mutation Powers, which you gain through the warping of your physical body via mutagenic compounds or energies.

The intent in the Martial Powers is to close the "martial/caster gap" by giving mundane, weapon-based classes just as varied capabilities as the supernatural (or paranormal, as we'd call it here) classes.

These lists would be universal, so any class that has access to Technological Powers will get the same list. However, we'd also probably have fewer classes, built on the following foundation.

There's one "pure Psionic" class, the Psion, one "pure Technology" class, the Technologist, and one "pure Mutation" class, the Aberration. And there might be two "pure Martial" classes, the Soldier and Investigator. To start with, though, we'd have three "hybrid" classes: the Martial/Psionic class called the Psychonaut (or possibly Astralnaut). Then, we'd have the Martial/Technological class the Agent. And then we'd have the Martial/Mutation class, the Biohacker.

Notably, unlike the proposed Arcane/Divine/Primal spell lists, there would be no crossover here - no Psionic Power is found on the Mutation Power list, and so an Aberration and a Psion will never have the same powers.

    Resources:

Having gotten my start playing games like Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, and later Chrono Trigger, (or even, less influentially, Quest for Glory V) I was always more used to games with some kind of "Magic Points" as the fuel for your spells. There are, for sure, some advantages to D&D's spell slot system, but I'd like to at least experiment with something more along those lines.

Each kind of Power comes with its own unique resource: Martial uses Discipline, Technological uses Energy, Psionic uses Focus, and Mutation uses Integrity, each representing what gets taxed as you continue to use these powers. Each of these would have a maximum that goes up as you reach higher levels, and you recuperate them by resting (very much in line with D&D).

Hybrid classes, like the Agent, would have a lower maximum for their resources, but they'd also have two pools of resources to manage. Using arbitrary numbers, we could imagine that if a Psion has a max focus of 30, then a Psyconaut has 15 Focus and 15 Discipline.

All of the lists would have cantrip-like free options that don't cost any resources, including the Martial list (sort of like Signature abilities in Draw Steel). You probably shouldn't ever just be generically attacking, though a martial "cantrip" might just effectively be something like a weapon mastery with normal damage, much as the Slow mastery and Ray of Frost are kind of equivalent. (I haven't figured out how weapon damage works into all of this, or if this system needs something like Extra Attack).

    Power Tiers:

One of my biggest pet peeves about 5E is that spells have levels and characters have levels, and that these do not match up. You don't get 5th level spells at 5th level. So, our simple fix here is that Powers have tiers, rather than levels.

I'd envision this game only going to 10th level, but using the same basic progression as D&D, so that you'd start with Tier 1 powers, and by level 9, you'd have your most powerful, tier 5 powers. I don't have a good number yet, but I think that each class can prepare some number of powers each day, and only of tiers that they can use.

The power's tier would then determine the cost in its resource - again, I'd need to iterate a bit on the math, but my initial thought is that a power basically costs 1+ its tier, so 1st tier powers cost 2, say, Focus, while 5th tier powers cost 6.

Because you're going to be able to potentially spend all your resources on big powers, I want to ensure that there's some incentive to potentially use lower-tier powers even at higher levels to sustain yourself. (One thing about D&D's spells is that, while the damage on a Fireball doesn't go up unless you upcast it, it's still dealing more damage because your spell save DC goes up.)

For Hybrids, I'm tempted to just let them use just-as-high tier powers as the pure classes, but they'll be more constrained in their resources for those given powers. There's a danger here, of course, that Hybrids might be overpowered because they get a broader selection of powers, so we'd have to keep an eye on that.

    Thematics for Each Type of Power:

While there might be some overlap in functionality (I could see both Mutation and Technological powers restoring HP) I do want each category to have truly unique powers, to help define the class identities.

Martial:

    Martial powers would have ways for you to deal AoE damage (I think a low-tier power would be Spray-and-Pray) and then maybe some focused single-target damage. Outside of attacks, though, I think there would be some kind of momentary tactical powers, like providing covering fire (a low-damage AoE that gives your allies partial cover until your next turn) or some kind of evasive movement.

Technological:

    This would probably involve a lot of "elemental" damage, like a freezing beam or planting remote mines that can explode. As mentioned before, there might be some healing spells, and maybe something akin to the Homunculus Servant as seen in Forge of the Artificer, where you can send out a remote drone.

Psionic:

    Psionic abilities would probably have a lot of forced movement, locking down enemies with paralysis or hallucinatory illusions, and mental forcefields.

Mutation:

    Mutation abilities would probably do a lot of enhancing the body, like gaining AC from manifested scales, or giving yourself faster movement. You'd also get some offensive features like manifesting bone claws or some kind of acid-spraying gland. I think most mutations would be about enhancing yourself, but there might be some things you can grant an ally (healing might be done by spraying some kind of beneficial substance on your friends).

So, that's the general thematic pitch. The specifics are very much in the air. I think powers wouldn't be the whole thing that a class gets (otherwise there's no distinction between the Soldier and the Investigator) but it gives us a nice framework on which to build classes in a genre that doesn't have a long-established tradition of classic classes.

Speculating on D&D Books for 2026

Strangely enough, we currently don't have any announced 5E books from WotC.

I don't really know why that is - why they've chosen this particular strategy, given that in past years, we had a big line-up of upcoming publications, even years in advance.

I don't know how successful the 2024 revamp has been - I know there are a lot of people who have a bit of a kneejerk negative reaction to anything that changes what they're familiar with (not to say there can't be valid complaints about the revisions), but I suspect that if there is any friction to the adoption of the new rules it's just that 5E was so popular in the first place and tons of people have only ever played that system (technically it's my second TTRPG, as I played a bit of the Song of Ice and Fire RPG) that they don't really want to have to learn a bunch of new stuff.

Still, according to WotC the new core rulebooks sold really well, and I, personally, am a fan of most of their changes.

Anyway, last year saw the release of the Monster Manual, as well as Dragon Delves, the two Forgotten Realms books, and Eberron: Forge of the Artificer. Notably, we didn't get a long-form adventure book.

Unearthed Arcana is usually the best hint at what we can expect to come next, and I think we've got a few pretty clear categories:

Horror Subclasses suggested to me that we're going to get a new Ravenloft supplement. I suspect that, as it's a revisit to a setting already outlined in a previous 5E book (Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, which is far and away my favorite campaign setting book out of 5E) we might instead get something more along the lines of Forge of the Artificer, which is still a fairly substantial book, but rather than going into minute detail about the setting, it's more about presenting adventure ideas. I'd guess that a segment for the subclasses would probably take up around the same page count (maybe less overall) as the Artificer part of FotA, and then the rest of the book might present a few styles of adventure with perhaps some new stat blocks. Maybe it focuses on a few famous Domains like Barovia, Mordent, Lamordia, and maybe Falkovnia (though frankly, I think they could afford to skip Barovia entirely as we already have probably the most popular 5E campaign book set there). I could also see, like FotA, a revamp to the three Gothic Lineages (possibly even pulling the trigger on making Reborn truly undead... though they also kind of toyed with the idea of them being constructs, so who knows. Point is: you can now use all healing spells on those creature types).

Apocalyptic Subclasses very clearly pointed toward some kind of Dark Sun sourcebook. This is a setting that was very popular, I think, in 2nd Edition, but hasn't shown up at all in 5E yet. But we have a bunch of subclasses that go with it from UA. On top of that, I think that this would be the place where they'd introduce the Psion class. Much as Eberron gave us the Artificer, which made sense for its more technologically-advanced setting, Dark Sun has an established connection to psionics, which I think are favored because the destructive nature of arcane magic on that world. That would mean a pretty substantial player-option section (though saving a bit of room without new species - all though I think Thri-Kreen might get a reprint).

More vaguely defined are the "Arcane Subclasses," which include the four Wizard schools of magic that were dropped in the new Player's Handbook, among other ones. I don't think there's an idea campaign setting for these - the existence of magic is universal in D&D settings, and really any world of the fantasy genre overall. I'd suspect a setting-agnostic rules supplement instead for this.

If we got two setting-supplements last year (if we count both Forgotten Realms books as a single release) it's not crazy to think that we'd get two this year. A rules supplement on top of that? Could happen.

But what about adventures? Admittedly, adventures don't need as much public playtesting, and haven't historically gotten any real testing in UA. But in the early days of 5E, we got kind of themed years/season around these adventure releases. We really just haven't heard anything about them. The most recent adventure book was Dragon Delves, which tried to give us really pared-down adventures that could be completed in a session or two (I haven't run any to actually see how likely that is,) but that was the only adventure book in 2025 (though Adventures in the Forgotten Realms has, I think, somewhat more substantial adventure outlines than FotA). The last true epic campaign book we got was 2024's Vecna: Eve of Ruin.

Now, it's true that sometimes these really big adventures become too unwieldy to actually finish. If you're an adult who can play four hours a week (likely with lots of interruptions,) it can take years to actually finish one of these adventures (we're still working on Wild Beyond the Witchlight, which is theoretically one of the shorter adventures, though we have a new DM who thought it would be easier to run a combat-light campaign, while I think that combat's the easiest thing to run as a DM).

Thus, I wonder if WotC plans on releasing more short adventures as part of anthologies instead, more akin to the old school modules of AD&D.

Hopefully, some time in the next couple weeks we'll get some announcements.

An Enticing Return to Original Magic IP

 The last set I really played much of was Edge of Eternities. I actually adored that set - I love that Magic decided to go all in on sci-fi space opera, with a fun justification for it. I've always been really happiest in the borderlands between sci-fi and fantasy.

Universes Beyond started as non-Standard-legal, and I sort of shrugged at its existence, as I play primarily standard (very casually - or at least as casually as one can on Arena). One could argue that the first incursion of UB sets into standard was the Dungeons & Dragons set, but that's a grey area, as WotC owns D&D and we've already had a bit of crossover between them, such that I almost treat them as para-canonically connected (my Ravnica campaign will ultimately end as a Planescape one). The next was Final Fantasy, and especially after playing FF I-VI in 2024, I was feeling a great deal of affection for that IP.

But with Spider-Man (though weirdly scrubbed of its identity in the Arena release) and then the Avatar the Last Airbender set (a show that I really liked, having watched it along with many others when it went on Netflix around the time that the Pandemic hit) in a row, it's felt a little like these sets are robbing the game of one of my favorite of its elements - the really inventive world-building.

Having never played Lorwyn/Shadowmoor (I think I stopped playing MTGO when I got into World of Warcraft in 2006) I'm eager to check out this plane.

My understanding is that Lorwyn/Shadowmoor was kind of the first real "fairy tale" plane, and famously didn't have humans on it (humans had only actually become a creature type a few years earlier in Mirrodin). Eldraine, of course, has kind of filled that same niche, but Lorwyn certainly has its own pretty clear identity.

I was really happy to see the puppet-based intro video for the return to the plane, with a duet between the Lorwyn and Shadowmoor versions of, I assume, the same goblin (known as boggarts in Lorwyn). I remember watching it and saying "wow, this is giving real 1980s Jim Henson vibes, like Labyrinth or the Dark Crystal," only to discover at the end that the puppets had, in fact, been made and performed by the Jim Henson company.

As is my constant refrain, I do miss the block model. Lorwyn was designed as a tribal setting, where you'd build decks around, say, elves or treefolk or giants. But we don't seem to see such themes embraced as much when the themes of each set shift.

But I am certainly happy to see come back to a Magic-original setting.