Unearthed Arcana Revived, Noble Genie and Archivist Revisited in UA

The latest Unearthed Arcana replaces the Revived, Noble Genie, and Archivist subclasses with new versions called the Phantom, the Genie, and the Order of Scribes.

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[Perun]

I like all three subclasses in this UA, but Order of the Scribe is the favourite. Like many, I've got slight concerns about damage swapping ability. It might be a bit powerful, but it can lead to silly combinations (bludgeoning fireball setting things of fire, psychic shatter destroying objects, etc.). Not a fan of Manifest Mind, though. There's nothing wrong with the ability, it's just weird... your book can suddenly project an intangible floating image that you can see and hear through... and cast spells through. Also, Awakened Spellbook says "you have awakened an arcane sentience within your spellbook", but doesn't say what it actually means. Does it gain an Intelligence score? Can it reason? Can you communicate with it? These seem like the information you might require at some point in time.
One With the Word is... weird. Teleportation (up to 300 feet) is nice, but it costs an action, and is limited by your proficiency modifier (+5 at 14th level) times per day. It's a nice ribbon effect. Returning from the dead is really flavourful, but not something you're going to use on a regular basis. All in all, nice, but slightly underwhelming. Perhaps if the teleportation effect could be used as a bonus action?

 

[Charlaquin]

No, Drow and Duergar are literally the same word, they're just different anglicizations of it.

They aren’t though. They refer to the same mythological creature but they are neither spelled nor pronounced the same. Just because they’re both derived from the Old Norse dvergar doesn’t make them the same word. Djinni and Genie are different spellings of the same word, like Ki, Qi, and Chi, or color and colour.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Just go watch old episodes of I Dream of Jeannie, a show about a Genie named Jeannie.

I Dream of Jeannie was the first thing I thought of, with the bottle sanctuary "full of cushions". And that is my issue, the class seems to be based on a rather silly, modern and western idea of what genies are. It's fun, but seems out of place at a serious-toned table.

 

[Shardstone]

I'm not sure why the damage changing is really anything more than flavor. How many shadows or red dragons are you guys fighting in a campaign that likely only lasts 10 levels anyhow that this is such a good feature?

And let's say they make it, like, only certain other elements, like Thunder. What is immune to thunder? How many are resistant?

Splitting hairs. Plus, WotC have said they don't balance around damage type.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not sure why the damage changing is really anything more than flavor. How many shadows or red dragons are you guys fighting in a campaign that likely only lasts 10 levels anyhow that this is such a good feature?

Lots, in my experience (along with elementals, demons, devils etc). Fireball is a top-rank AoE damage spell, apart from every other monster is immune or resistant to fire.

And let's say they make it, like, only certain other elements, like Thunder. What is immune to thunder? How many are resistant?

Very little is immune to Thunder, it's one of the best damage types (along with force, radiant and psychic).

Splitting hairs. Plus, WotC have said they don't balance around damage type.

I.e. damage types are not balanced. Some are better than others.

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm not sure why the damage changing is really anything more than flavor. How many shadows or red dragons are you guys fighting in a campaign that likely only lasts 10 levels anyhow that this is such a good feature?

It's really not that big of a deal in practice, if you are a wizard you already have access to every relevant damage type anyway, and even then you aren't as good at using them as an actual spell damage class. The only real gripe is that Sorcerer's can't do it, yet. And the Class Variant UA will fix that perceived problem shortly (it is the best received UA of all time, after all), though I still think the actual problem is that Sorcerers don't have enough true elemental spells of every type.

Even accounting for that, Wizard subclasses always get disproportional pushback, which is why only one of them (the War Mage) has ever made it out of UA.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The phantom subclass makes me to think we will see a new edition of "Heroes of Horror".

I bought my book "Heroes of Horror" with the dread necromancer and the archivist. This was in 3.5 like a divine spellcaster without armour, and gameplay about nerfing enemies. I am not interested into classes about buffing or nerfing, but I would rather a simple game mechanic of buffing-breakind and resistance-breaking (for example blessing weapons to hurt undeads).

In my setting there is a reason genies try to trick with the wishes, and it's because they are as gods in the past, they lost some mystic conflict as titanomachy and now they are forced to give wishes as humillated slaves, a divine punishment. They don't like to serve ordinary mortals, for them it is like to be punished to clean toilets. But sometimes they really help because this allows to be witness of some legendary adventures.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Lots, in my experience (along with elementals, demons, devils etc). Fireball is a top-rank AoE damage spell, apart from every other monster is immune or resistant to fire.

Very little is immune to Thunder, it's one of the best damage types (along with force, radiant and psychic).

I.e. damage types are not balanced. Some are better than others.

Especially psychic and force are problematic. They bypass just too much.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Especially psychic and force are problematic. They bypass just too much.

Yup. I include radiant because there are so many creatures who are vulnerable to it. Undead horde? My radiant fireball will sort them out!

 

[cbwjm]

Yup. I include radiant because there are so many creatures who are vulnerable to it. Undead horde? My radiant fireball will sort them out!

Which undead are vulnerable to radiant damage because I can't think of any. The only thing I know of is that radiant damage is good for keeping zombies down, that's the only reason I can think of to switch a fireball to radiant but really a fireball is probably going to be just as effective with fire damage as it is with radiant.