We’re no longer in the glory days of Unearthed Arcana, where twice a month we’d get a selection of new subclasses thrown at us. Not to say that all of those subclasses were good, but many people were happy to see the deluge of new content. In absence of an announcement for another Xanathar’s Guide-style player options book for 2019 (god we wish), it seems like we might not get another golden age of UA for some time. But, paying it forward for when we do, there are some subclasses we’d just love to see Crawford and Mearls give another pass to, when they get some time. If for no other reason than so we don’t need to make puppy-dog eyes at the DM every time we want to play one of them.

Sea Sorcerer

I’m quite notorious amongst my D&D group for loving this subclass. On the whole, I’m not mad about full-on spellcasters (although Sorcerers are my favourite of those), but something about this subclass speaks to me. On the whole, I think Sorcerers are the perfect class for a ‘four elemental subclasses’ motif, due to their design emphasising a limited focus on magic, and through UA, we have had one subclass for each element, even if Storm Sorcerer (wind) is the only one that’s been published so far. Thus, the Sea Sorcerer, representing water, would be a nice addition to this.

In addition, it has nice flavour in its own right. I’ve always quite liked the ‘witch’ aesthetic for a spellcaster, and while you could argue that other classes do it better (Chain Pact Warlock, for instance), there’s some validity to the ‘sea witch’ aesthetic given off by this subclass. The Curses are both flavourful and give the subclass a nice mechanical role in battlefield control that it can do without sacrificing spell choices, and also giving you the choice of just outright melting it with Lightning damage.

The higher-level subclass abilities get weirder, both flavour-wise and mechanically, as you begin to turn to liquid to protect yourself from attacks, fit through tight spaces by ‘pouring’ yourself, gain resistance to Fire damage, and eventually ignore critical hits and lose the need to eat and sleep. Sure, it’s weird, but it gives the feeling that you are fundamentally different from other mortals, that your soul is irrevocably changed, in a way that a lot of other Sorcerer subclasses do not.

Of course it’s not perfect, and it suffers from a similar downfall to the Draconic and Storm Sorcerers. There just aren’t enough spells in 5th edition that deal damage types other than Fire to make a character based around them and have any real choice. Sometimes a DM might let you change a spell’s damage type to something similar (Freezing Ray, for instance, dealing Cold damage instead of Fire), but you can’t depend on that. A Sea Sorcerer loses the majority of its mechanical kick in battle (the Curses) if it uses spells other than Cold and Lightning, and thus this can be a problem. Although, of course, nothing’s stopping rules about changing damage types (or hell, just more spells that deal different damage types) being included in the same player options supplement that would publish more subclasses. Hint hint, Wizards.

But still, for its cool ‘sea witch’ flavour, for the unique and interesting mechanics, and for how well its mechanics blend with its fluff, we here at Artificial Twenty would love to see another round of UA for the Sea Sorcerer.

Circle of Twilight Druid

Now, this is an Unearthed Arcana subclass that I actually don’t see talked about a whole lot. It might be that it just wasn’t very well-liked, or that it’s a Druid and most people seem to go for Moon or Shepherd Druids, but it didn’t seem to make as big a ripple as some other UA did. But I think there is a neat concept here.

Its flavour has a fair amount of overlap with the Grave Cleric, it’s true, in that both consider Undead to be the worst, and have features that deal in both life and death. But that never stopped the Nature Cleric, for instance, and I don’t see any harm in diversifying the lore as well as working on the mechanics in a (theoretical) second round of UA. Leave the Grave Clerics to be the ones who hate Undead on principle, and alter the Twilight Druid to instead hate any corruption of the natural world. Undead, yes, but also Fiends, Aberrations, and less specified bits of magical taint like corrupted Water Weirds. Have them be like a sort of macrophage in the world’s immune system, hunting down any poison within a natural place and purging it, to allow it to regrow naturally.

In terms of mechanics, the first UA also gave us a nice mechanical foil to the Dreams Druid. Instead of a healing dice pool, the Twilight Cleric gets a dice pool it can use to add damage to spells. This is a nice powering-up mechanic you don’t see in a lot of subclasses. I will concede, it feels a little bit overtuned, with the dice being d10s instead of the Dreams Druid’s d6s, and giving healing to nearby allies on a killing blow (a more balanced take would, in my opinion, give temporary hit points to allies upon killing an enemy), but as an idea for an ability, it’s very nice. The subclass’s other features are less damage-oriented, making the subclass a tad confused mechanically, but they all slot nicely into its theme.

So this is a subclass that I think would work better with some fairly substantial changes, admittedly, but isn’t testing this sort of thing what UA is for? With some changes to tweak its balance and to set it a bit more apart from a Grave Cleric, I really think this could be a nice alternate take on the Druid, showing the darker side of nature, and so I’d love for Crawford or Mearls to look back to this subclass.  

Stone Sorcerer

Surprise! It’s another Sorcerer, and I’m not sorry. Sorcerers have had a lot of attention in Unearthed Arcana, perhaps moreso than any other class in Fifth Edition, but that’s also left them with a lot of subclasses that never moved past UA. The Stone Sorcerer, as the Sea Sorcerer, is another one. And, perhaps fittingly, it is another of the Sorcerer subclasses that could make up a four elements theme alongside the Storm Sorcerer, in this case representing, obviously, earth.

And, catering to my tastes more obviously than the Sea Sorcerer, it’s an attempt at a ‘gish’ Sorcerer subclass. I tend to, on the whole, prefer martial characters to spellcasters, and so gishes appeal to me far more than a spell-slinger tends to. The Stone Sorcerer is an unusual gish, but with weapon and shield proficiencies (and a cool way of boosting your AC), and Paladin smite spells, it’s clearly approaching that territory.

A gish is something Sorcerers lack compared to the Bladesinger Wizard, the Hexblade, or the Valour and Swords Bard, with the closest being a Draconic Sorcerer casting Green-Flame Blade with bonus Fire damage, so this attempt is appreciated. I recently attempted my own homebrew of a gish Sorcerer, the Vanguard Soul, that was somewhat well-received, but in terms of non-homebrew, there is something of a drought.

The flavour isn’t much beyond ‘your soul has some tie to stone and metal’, but as with the Sea Sorcerer, the mechanics feel like they resonate well with that flavour. Your skin is covered with stone to boost your AC, your allies are protected likewise by the earth, and when they are attacked, you can teleport to them and attack their assailant so long as you’re on the same earth surface.

I will say that, as a gish, it has some non-traditional design, giving you only a single weapon attack and little way to boost your Attack action besides casting Smite spells. Your other source of damage is if the ally you are protecting is attacked in melee, but that’s far from reliable. Thus, it results in another character build that relies on casting Booming Blade for damage, which isn’t bad on its own, but the sheer number of builds that rely on such is a tad exhausting. This is only bolstered at 14th level, when you deal additional damage on spells, including Booming Blade.

So, while again I think some substantial changes could be made (something more to reinforce the gish concept, for instance), I think there is potential for this subclass if it was given another round of design and balancing. Can you tell I really want four elements of Sorcerer subclasses yet?

Primeval Guardian Ranger

Yes, I know the Guardian of Nature spell exists. I don’t think that necessarily precludes this subclass from existing, even if it fills a similar design space. For one thing, a Ranger has to wait for 13th level to get access to Guardian of Nature, whereas the Primeval Guardian has access to shapeshifting from 3rd level. And fundamentally, shapeshifting is cool. It is a common character fantasy, and I don’t see the need for it to be solely the domain of Druids and people with access to Polymorph. Sure, give those people the sole ability to turn themselves into animals, there’s more to work with than that.

As it stands, the Primeval Guardian subclass is perfectly functional with the sole need of some sort of limit on its shapeshifting (past a certain level, you can literally heal yourself to maximum by shifting repeatedly, resource-free), but it could be better. It seems like there’s the chance to create a more modular subclass here, with Rangers being able to shift into, if we get a bit cheesy here, some representation of their spirit, with your shifted form having traits you choose when you get your subclass abilities. Thus, instead of the wide range of forms you can shift into as a Druid, you get a single form you can turn into that’s unique and personal to you. Which can, by some interpretations, fit nicely into the Druids vs. Rangers idea of working with all of nature, and working with highly specific bits of nature.

But at its core, the idea of shifting into an ancient, inhuman form to act as a pure natural force against your foes is a solid one, and as much as I like the Xanathar’s Guide subclasses the Ranger got, it really does feel like this one could’ve been added in as well. It must be said, however, with the Guardian of Nature spell, that Mearls and Crawford have possibly put the idea to bed, but a man can always dream. Hopefully we get something else building on the shapeshifting Ranger theme in the future. I definitely think there’s some design space for it.

So, these have been four subclasses from various Unearthed Arcana articles that we hope one day will get pulled from some sort of archive and dusted off, for potential inclusion in another book. Whether they be for their cool mechanics or just awesome flavour, they struck something we liked, and feel like they’d be good ideas to revisit. What do you think? Are there any other UA subclasses you wish were official? Let us know.

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