The fierce and the noble: New D&D sub-classes unveiled

Wizards of the Coast are having a busy news week, the publishers of D&D first released Matthew Mercer’s Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and now have shared Unearthed Arcana.

Unearthed Arcana contains playtest material. It’s not currently official D&D, you can’t use it in D&D Adventurers League games, but if your DM gives you the okay, you can use it at home. In the past, some Unearthed Arcana, such as the Artificer, have become official D&D.

The most recent Unearthed Arcana is available for free as a 6-paged PDF download. It contains sub-classes for Barbarians, Monks, Paladins and Warlocks.

The Barbarians get access to the Path of the Beast. These warriors might have had a werewolf parent, or be descended from a powerful shapechanging druid or perhaps gifted by a fey or spirit directly. The result? Animal features, especially during rages.

A Path of the Beast Barbarian could have a Form of the Beast feature at level three which could be a snout they can bite with, chew off their victims’ flesh and regain hit points with.

Monks go the opposite direction with the Way of Mercy, learning to manipulate life force so that they can heal others.

Sometimes, though, the most merciful thing is a quick death, and these Monks are placed to do that. It’s common, though not a requirement, for a Way of Mercy Monk to wear a mask; hiding their real face with a laughing face, or skull, or crying visage instead. Hmm…

Oath of the Watchers are a sub-class for Paladins. This order vows to protect the mortal realm from all sorts of extraplanar creatures.

In addition to extra spells at level three, these Paladins gain Channel Divinity options of Watcher’s WIll to help boost saving throws for nearby creatures and Abjure the Extraplanar which has a chance of temporarily turning unworldly beings.

Lastly, rather than a scary patron, Warlocks can now make packs with The Noble Genie.

Exactly as you might expect, these Genie come with a magical vessel at level one such as an oil lamp, urn or ornate lantern. The good news is that you lose it, an hour-long ceremony can create a replacement.

You can check out WotC’s intro to this Unearthed Arcana on their site.

Creative Commons credit: traveler barbarian by Brolo.