So, we’ve re-entered that time. That beautiful, glorious time when Wizards of the Coast appear to be gearing up to release a new player options book. It’s not quite as great as the lead-up to Xanathar’s Guide to everything, where every couple of weeks we got a fresh helping of new content, but it’s not far off. The Unearthed Arcanas are spaced further apart, but they’re containing more options. And who can forget the optional rules UA we got, which could totally revamp a lot of the game? 

In short, it seems like we’re building up to something big. And yes, Mythic Odysseys of Theros is coming out, which promises to use some of that UA, but only two, and they were two of the earliest. As far as Unearthed Arcana goes, the Oath of Heroism (now Glory) Paladin and the College of Eloquence Bard didn’t move earth (or Theros, I suppose), but with a round of tidying up, I’m sure they’ll be a welcome addition to the game.

So, given all the other subclasses we’ve gotten, from the giant-infused and quite possibly OP Rune Knight Fighter, to the undead, death-laser, thematically confused Revived Rogue, to the Iron-Man-In-D&D Armourer Artificer, we’ve got quite a selection of playtest content. And, as always, with this sort of thing, some of it is good, some of it is less good (guess my opinion on the Rune Knight and Revived). But in this fresh batch, when it’s good, it seems to be really good. So below, we’ll discuss four of the best subclasses to come out of the recent UAs.

Barbarian – Path of the Beast

The Wild Soul Barbarian was, to put it gently, a controversial one. Within minutes of its release, the internet was alight with conversations about whether it was horrifically overtuned, too unreliable, or too unreliable but that was the point. Everyone agreed that exchanging Barbarian HP for spell slots was OP, but that was about where the agreement ended.

With the second go at a new Barbarian subclass, however (not that we’re not holding out hope for the Wild Soul), the consensus seems to be that they got it pretty damn right this time. Let’s start with the obvious. Playing as a werewolf or other not-quite-human monster is a pretty popular class fantasy, and there’s been very little way to do so in 5e that isn’t either homebrew, or very OP (looking at you, Lycanthropy rules). With the Bite and Claws, and the climbing speed, and all of that fun stuff, the Path of the Beast gives you something that can easily be flavoured as being a lycanthrope, without breaking your party balance wide open. Sure, the execution is a bit more Teen Wolf than Curse of Strahd’s werewolf pack, but Teen Wolf had a solid two good seasons out of six total, so that’s not too bad.

I’ve also seen people going interesting places with the Bite beast form that apes being a Vampire without the painfully powerful rules for it in the Monster Manual. I’m gonna guess they ignore the bit about the ‘bestial snout’, given that everyone has collectively decided that vampires are sexy. I’ve run Curse of Strahd, they are.

Mechanically, there’s a lot to recommend as well. The core mechanic of the Beast Forms is both flavourful and powerful, without being OP or just a variation of ‘you do a bit of extra damage’ (the Zealot is cool, but that is its most boring feature). In particular, they each give you something different. The Claws deal less damage, but make an extra attack (beautiful for maximising that Rage damage, and getting more Brutal Criticals). The Tail gives you the flavour of being a scorpion-man, which I’m sure people dig, and gives you the best polearm in the game that also leaves your hands free (d12 Reach, with Brutal Criticals), and the Bite deals less damage, being a d8, but heals you. This allows you to trade out damage for even more sustainability, without marrying you to it like the Bear Totem does. In short, for a core mechanic, it’s one of the best I’ve seen for a subclass.

The other features are a little mechanically all over the place (one gives you utility, one gives you an extra spurt of damage or some battlefield control, and one gives you a buff ability of all things), but they feel thematically like they’re tapping into a source of bestial power within you, and they feel good. I guess, to put it in Magic the Gathering terms, it feels like a subclass that was designed top-down, from the thematics, rather them bottom-up, from the mechanics. And they’re good features, giving you some flexibility that other Barbarian subclasses don’t have. Want to stand upside-down on the ceiling and sting someone 10ft away with your tail, causing him to lash out and attack his neighbour? You can do it with this subclass. Want to rally your pack around you, letting them all strike with reckless abandon, fuelled by your rage and fuelling you in return? You can do that at 14th level. It’s pretty sweet.

In short, filling a much-desired class fantasy (with some flexibility besides), as well as solid and enjoyable mechanics make the Path of the Beast one of the best UA subclasses we’ve had recently, and if it were published as-is tomorrow, I don’t imagine we’d hear many complaints. Fewer than the Hexblade, certainly.

Druid – Circle of Stars

I’ll admit, part of the reason behind this article is that I’d talked my friends to death about how much I loved the Stars Druid and I decided to go vent some of that verbiage out into the internet. Which is weird, because I honestly don’t like Druids all that much. Neither the Circle of the Moon, nor Land, appeal to me, and neither does the beloved Circle of the Shepherd. I’ve actually written in defense of the Dreams Druid before on this blog (check out Five Underrated Subclasses That Are Better Than You Think), and the Spores has a certain gothic, rot-ish appeal, but this is the first one that gave me a solid character idea as soon as I read it. And by ‘character idea’ I do mean ‘accent’, but that’s besides the point.

The flavour is good. Stars have always been a part of nature (when you stretch the definition and think in terms of a Middle Ages peasant who doesn’t study astronomy), and especially in the sort of rural, hippie communes I like to imagine Druids live in, they’d fulfil a lot of functions. A map, a calendar, prophecy. Something to stare at before significant events. Something to discuss to try and show off to the pretty boy you’re talking to. All sorts. So it makes sense that you’d have Druids who swore their Circle by them.

And it just so happens that doing so gives you the ability to take on the form of constellations. Neat. Honestly, this bit is why I’m shocked it’s not in Theros, a setting where the stars and especially constellations have always been major deals. But you take on the power of stars, first embodying their aspects, and then wielding their starlight as a weapon.

The mechanics themselves are also cool. Much like the Beast Barbarian, you get a choice of three forms to take when you use your primary mechanic (options are the theme of this latest batch of UA, and I’m here for it). One boosts your healing pretty significantly actually (you can use it to bring up two people with a first-level Healing Word, for instance), one gives you a bonus action spell attack with your Wisdom (and the cool flavour of being an Orion-like Archer), and the other is less interesting but heavily powerful, giving you the ability to effectively Take 10 on Wisdom, Intelligence, and Concentration saving throws. That third one is the only one I’m a bit hesitant about, given it allows you to auto-pass most Concentration checks, but I’ve rarely seen a Druid that doesn’t take Warcaster anyway, maybe this’ll lighten the feat tax and allow for some more diverse builds. It’s not like there isn’t an opportunity cost for taking it.

The other abilities are all pretty delightfully flavourful – aside from the one that gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing, and I give that one a pass. You get the ability to cast the pretty fantastic Guiding Bolt or Augury without using a spell slot, for Wisdom mod times per day (non-concentration damage is usually one of the Druid’s weaknesses) as long as you use a star map to do so. You get a sort of less reliable Bardic Inspiration, where you get dice you can use to bolster an ally or impair an enemy, depending on how the stars (conveniently represented by a d6) prophesise your future. And you can throw a Star Nuke from orbit as the only way to be sure, complete with moving your allies out of the way first. Like the Beast Soul, there’s no one mechanical focus, but the features are all good in their own right, and build to a satisfying flavour.

So whether you want to control the battlefield in the form of a Dragon Constellation, aid the party with your Healing Chalice, or just shoot everything in sight with a Star Bow (my personal choice), the Circle of Stars Druid has the mechanics and flavour for you. And without any features that stand out as useless or solidly overpowered, it seems the design team got it fairly release-ready the first try.

Warlock – Lurker in the Deep

This is from one of the earliest Unearthed Arcana that make up this latest batch, and it seems to have gone somewhat overlooked. This seems to be because the word ‘psionic’ was used a few times in its companion, the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, which triggered every argument imaginable. Whether it really counted as ‘psionic’, whether this was a sign of new psionic subclasses just being reflavoured magic or indeed, a sign of the apocalypse itself. Which of course spiralled off into whether the Mystic was horrifically OP or just very OP, whether it needed a second go, and whether Wizards had really betrayed all the fans of psionics.

But we’re not here to get into that. We’re here to look at the Aberrant Mind’s cooler and less controversial cousin, the Lurker in the Deep Warlock, which really deserved more love. For one thing, it, much like the Path of the Beast, fulfils a gap in a popular class fantasy. Warlocks seem suited to below-the-sea beasties, whether that’s because of Lovecraft’s fondness of populating the oceans with the unknown, the storytelling potential of a drowning sailor being made an offer he cannot refuse, or just because the sea is full of terrifying shit. But until now, there’s been no Patron perfectly suited to that. The Great Old One was used as a stand-in, typically (and to be fair, works for Cthulhu just fine), or, in some cases, the Hexblade (because it’s just good).

But now there’s one ready-made for it. And it should be welcomed because, let’s face it, people love Cthulhu. A fact that I’m sure makes H.P. Lovecraft’s stomach turn, but I’m okay with that. People love Cthulhu, and they also like Kraken and Leviathans and Davy Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean. 

And mechanically, it manages to dig out new ground in the Warlock formula (which typically involves a social ability, a defensive one, an offensive/control one, and a second defensive one), and carve out a niche for itself. You get to summon tentacles that act like discount Spiritual Weapons that don’t use up spell slots and apply a movement debuff, giving the Warlock a bit more presence on the battlefield than just blasting. You can talk to aberrations telepathically – regardless of the wealth of literature suggesting that’s a terrible idea. You can protect your allies, summon the jaws of your patron to swallow your enemies, and at high levels, teleport your party or unleash the full wrath of your patron on them (although if Cthulhu only did 6d10 at his most ineffably furious, I’d be underwhelmed).

In short, the Lurker in the Deep Warlock gives you a lot more presence than a Warlock is expected to have, even without casting. It has some flexible features (the tentacles can be used for both offense and defense, for instance), without anything coming off as grotesquely overpowered. Even discounting the Hexblade, it’s probably not drastically above the median for a Warlock. So what are you waiting for, Wizards? Give us carte blanche to make a pact with some calamari.

Druid – Circle of Wildfire

Yes, yes, I know. Two Druids in one article. The Wildfire Druid never quite rocked my world in the way the Stars Druid with, it didn’t tap into that one bit of my brain that becomes seized with the urge to create new characters that I’ll never get a chance to play. But this isn’t a list of the Four New UA Subclasses I Really Really Really Like (if it were, the Armourer Artificer or the Twilight Cleric would be in here), and the Wildfire Druid was an early standout in this batch of Unearthed Arcana. 

It does two particularly good things, one flavour, and one mechanical. The flavour touch is putting a unique spin on a relationship with nature. In an ideal world, every Druid subclass would have this, but the relationship with nature a lot of them have is somewhat vague or generic. The Circle of the Land, Shepherd and Moon all have a fair amount of thematic (but definitely not mechanical) overlap, whereas the Dreams Druid’s connection to nature is a bit of a stretch. Wildfire, on the other hand, takes the approach of embodying the destruction found in nature. Forest fires, lightning strikes, earthquakes, animal stampedes. Nature is destructive, and the Wildfire Druid displays this nicely.

On the mechanical front, it does what I think should be a priority for all Druid subclasses, much like Bardic Inspiration for Bard subclasses: it gives a new use for Wildshape. As a feature, Wildshape is a bit underused on Land, Dreams, and Shepherd. Spores makes use of it, as does Moon, and I like the current trend of subclasses having other uses. Imagine if Land instead used Wildshapes to regain spell slots, or buff its spells.

So the Wildfire Druid using Wildshape for a new purpose is a nice mechanical touch. And it uses it well. The UA Artificer was the first time the 5e design team really nailed a pet (in the Battle Smith’s Iron Defender), and thank god they’ve started to apply its design principles (with differences, obviously) to a variety of classes. The Wildfire Druid’s pet is thematic and powerful, without being the only thing the subclass is good for, or the only thing it has room for in its power budget. Its attacks are strong at first, but don’t scale too much (which is fine given it’s a bonus action), and it grows at later levels, buffing the Druid while it’s active. Their other features are nice, and thematic, without being grotesquely OP, and the capstone is a nice one. Another theme in this UA has been the ‘come back from being knocked out once’ feature, so it may begin to feel overused, but it works on the Wildfire Druid,

The only real complaint I have is that it gets some healing buffs that seem a little out of place with a theme around destruction, and its spell list includes Raise Dead. Leave the healing speciality to other subclasses, I say, and let this one focus on setting fire to everything. But janky subclass spells aren’t the end of the world, and I’m sure the Wildfire Druid would slot in nicely if published soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article, and are enjoying the latest round of Unearthed Arcana as much as we are. What do you think of the four subclasses in this list? Any others you think could be published tomorrow and be fine? Feel free to let us know in the comments. And as always, please like, subscribe, check out our other articles, and tell your friends!

If you’ve enjoyed this article, perhaps you’d like to take a jaunt through some other UA discussion with Four Unearthed Arcana Subclass We’d Love to See Get Another Go

Likewise, if you’re looking for more character building discussion, check out Four Gish Multiclasses to Show They’re Not All Hexblade Paladins