Like something straight out of the Book of Vile Darkness, a new Unearthed Arcana explores four new villainous options for player characters.
It is a new Unearthed Arcana day. And this latest one takes a walk on the darker side of the path. You can tell because it’s titled Villainous Options. And for an Unearthed Arcana, I have to say this one feels like what you’d want out of a place to experiment with ideas and concepts to see if they’re worth keeping around. Or if the playerbase can’t be trusted to have nice things.
Especially since in the Villainous Options Unearthed Arcana, there are four new subclasses. Always a fun time, but WotC is also testing out the idea of a “villainous path.” That is to say, a sort of Feat Chain that represents you transforming into something beyond just a normal player character.
It’s a fantastic new idea. And I think one that bears iterating on, because since about day one of things like Liches and Death Knights existing in D&D, players have thought, “yeah but what if my guy was one of those?” It’s a question the different editions have all answered throughout the years (sometimes the answer has been, “and now the DM controls your character”). But now 5.5E looks to tackle it with a series of escalating feats.
We’ll be taking a closer look at each of the playtest subclasses, as well as the villainous paths as they’re presented in the Unearthed Arcana. But for now, here’s an overview of what you’ll find in the latest UA.
Villainous Options Unearthed Arcana – 4 Subclasses For Edgelords
All told, this is four subclasses and a couple handfuls of feats. But what flavor is gathered in each of them, starting off with the villainous Cleric option, which is the Pestilence Domain. It’s not exactly pleasant. Though, in the case of this domain, it’s not necessarily inherently villainous. There aren’t any mechanics that are “you harm innocents around you even if you don’t mean to,” but these definitely lean into the darker side of things flavorwise.
The Pestilence Domain is all about using supernatural plague and decay to erode the vitality of any who oppose them. This means you get to use insects and poisons and other things to inconvenience your foes while also giving you horrifying new ways of moving around the battlefield – like turning into a swarm of insects or rats.
Possibly my favorite of the bunch is the new Circle of the Titan Druid. This is basically what if your Druid could also be a kaiju of some kind? And honestly the question is answered pretty well here. What makes these Druids potentially villainous is that the Circle itself centers around the idea that civilizations will violate the natural world – and that in order for nature to thrive, civilization must fall.
So they become giant monsters about it. Although, it’s kind of spread out over 14 levels. At first you just become a Large monster about it. You don’t get to actually be gargantuan until you hit Level 14. You do get to pick from three different stat block types – honestly it’s very cool to see another Wild Shape in Combat focused Druid that goes in a wildly different direction from Circle of the Moon.
New Hell Knight Subclass
Fighters get a little bit more villainous with their options with the new Hell Knight subclass. I really like the way this one plays out – again, a lot of the villainy lives in the story. Hell Knights are given power by infernal beings, like Archdevils, who urge you to use your powers for their benefits. Practically speaking, this means getting a magical weapon that you can use to deal Infernal Wounds – these are devilish brands that continue to damage the target again and again, and you have new ways of doing them.
I will give this one props for having actual villainy in its mechanics. This subclass will let you condemn your enemies, making sure that when you slay a creature, it becomes a devil – and not just any devil, a Lemure, the lowest of the low. So you can turn even the most saintly person into a devil, basically damning them for eternity. And that’s the height of villainy (though there’s a lot of pain and suffering before then).
Finally there’s the Demonic Sorcery for the Sorcerer. This subclass is all about unleashing the chaotic, reality destroying/reshaping power of the demonic abyss upon the mortal plane. Whenever you use Sorcery Points you get to let the Abyss bleed into the material plane and it’s pretty fiendish – but as you gain even higher power, you become even more aligned with the Abyss, to the point where you let the local area around you become full of caustic ooze or terrifying screams that deal psychic damage to your enemies – essentially you can start to litter the world with bastions of demonic influence. For better or worse.
Paths to Villainy – As Long As Your Campaign Goes At Least To Level 12
Then there’s the villainous path options. These are, as mentioned, feat chains that let you emulate a powerful kind of evil being. In this Unearthed Arcana, we get the Death Knight and the Lich. And apparently all it takes to become one of those is to pick up three Feats.
I’m interested in the idea – I like having chains of Feats that all build towards a similar place. I don’t know if becoming a Lich is something you should start being able to do at level 4 – there’s just a little something weird about being able to create your own soul jar starting then; but again, it’s an interesting idea. And I like seeing the darker options explored. We’ll have to wait and see what book these might be in (I’m guessing an updated Book of Vile Darkness) but stay tuned for a closer look at all the mechanics!
Check out the Villainous Options Unearthed Arcana at the link below!
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