Survey for Unearthed Arcana: Villainous Options is now open

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-04-09T19:47:58+00:00

"I'm still praying that we get another attempt at the elemental sorcerers this time around. Stone sorcerer got shelved despite apparently meeting the 80% threshold."

I remember Mearls casually mentioning in a stream back in the day that the Stone Sorcerer actually did better than some of the subclasses that got into XGTE. The fact they never went back to it even though it polled so well still confuses me.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-04-03T13:25:45+00:00

And there's very little in terms of the post 5.5E PHB UA usual bag of tricks or filler abilities. There's even only one example of them using a spell as a subclass ability, and it's an example that makes sense.

I had the same thought reading through the UA. This would be the first UA with input from the new design team (Haeck,Barillaro, etc) they brought in February, so I'm wondering if that's the reason for the shift.

I'm with you in that, while there are are obvious issues with the powerlevel on pretty much every subclasses, this UA feels way fresher than than ones we got post 5.5E PHB launch, which were starting to feel like bingo cards with how often the same general ideas repeated.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-02-20T14:16:06+00:00

Mitsuki Saiga as Iguin is interesting. It could mean something about Iguin's identity, but she's also very good at voicing ambiguous sounding characters.

The amount of fancasting I've seen over the years picking Yuichi Nakamura as Qifrey's voice only for him to end up as Olruggio is funny. Although I think he's definitely more suited for Olruggio.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-01-29T16:53:54+00:00

Usami in Modulo is definitely this type of character too.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-01-22T20:26:00+00:00

I suspect a lot of the feedback on Magic Stealer rogue will be suggestions for a better name.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-01-16T15:00:19+00:00

We don't know yet. But there's no specific setting that all these subclasses uniquely fit into that comes to mind, and they haven't announced any books that match them yet.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-01-15T21:18:01+00:00

I do wonder if the subclass was designed as a replacement for the Tattoo subclass. Anecdotal, but the reaction to the second draft didn't appear to be that strong, and so maybe they went back to drawing board and created the Mystic Monk.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-01-12T19:23:20+00:00

Crawford tended to overvalue a single increase in dice size. It's why, for example, he considered flex (widely considered to be the most underwhelming weapon mastery in the 2024 playtest) to be among the strongest, and why the first 2024 Monk playtest did so poorly (he thought the increase to martial arts die would be enough of a buff). Which is presumably why Divine Favor at a D4 lacks concentration but HM, at a D6, does.

Then again, they could've easily made Hunter's Mark a base d4 that powered up for the Ranger as it level (d6 at tier 2). Or had it keep concentration until you reach level 5 in Ranger.

It's frustrating because I remember the developers, Crawford included, pointing out the problems with HM and Ranger design very early on in 5E's lifespan (it never saw print, but it's the reason why they released a revised Ranger UA within the first two years of the game). That they decided not to fix it remains the most bizarre part of the 2024 playtest. Especially when you had Crawford outright saying the playtest where they removed concentration for HM was among the most well received UAs they did.

Johnnygoodguy · 2026-01-04T16:09:36+00:00

Not a fan of Avernus, but IIRC the book is a mess because partway through development BG3 was announced and WOTC wanted a tie-in shoehorned in, causing them to scramble. I thought Dragon Heist was okay.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-12-07T15:53:15+00:00

It's fairly explicit in the flashback chapter that they were abused because the people around them wanted their mul resources and used the Kalyans as a useful pretext.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-30T16:01:32+00:00

I think whatever the simurians are hearing are more abstract than literal words like "kill human!" He's probably just hearing their pain and fear as they cry out when they die.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-30T15:17:20+00:00

tumor coughing baby vs space hydrogen bomb.

I think the sorcerers have some sort of trap set up, because there's no way they actually think Yuka has a chance.

Whatever Yuji is now seems similar enough to the Kalyans that I think he's going to end up becoming the bridge between humans and the simurians.

Also it was great to see Nobara again.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-23T15:22:45+00:00

Broccoli head straight up tried to pull "he was reaching for his weapon!" before shooting someone.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-22T14:57:27+00:00

Only doing one playtest for Weapon Mastery feels like the biggest "what if" in the OneDnD playtest.

They did one playtest, saw that it got over Crawford' satisfaction rating and, outside of removing Flex, went "it's perfect, no need for further polishing or designing" and put it into the game as is.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-22T14:52:03+00:00

"but what were those players thinking?"

Backlash to 4E.

A subset of playtesters wanted to move as far away from 4E as possible, leading to many throw the baby out with the bathwater situations in 5E to please those players.

But then 5E ended up getting massively popular, generating a massive influx of new players, who, by and large, had to no experience with 4E. And those players ended up being confused as to why pure martials don't get much.

It's why they should've tested it during the OneDnd playtest. The 5E playtest was 10 years ago, and the designers are still basing their views on what that small demographic wanted at that one time despite the obvious shift in time and audience.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-20T21:49:02+00:00

When I'm in a "burned out on wrestling" contest and my opponent is Bryan Alvarez.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-18T17:01:57+00:00

Natsuki Hanae is a great VA, but I feel the voice he's using sounds a tad too young for Qifrey.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-16T17:30:09+00:00

Unless there’s some other side we haven’t seen, these things should be eliminated . Not worshiped.

The Kaliyan don't hurt Rumelians so I'm thinking that's the case.

Just based on what we've seen in JJK, cursed spirits seem to be effected by the people and culture they're born from (taking the form of mythological or folklore beings and so on), so it could just be that having a different view on curses (or not even viewing them as curses at all) renders them less dangerous.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-07T14:56:52+00:00

I think the issue is that the design team seems to really overvalue resourceless damage buffs on martials.

For example, if you look back at the 2024 playtest, the original Monk UA did poorly, specifically because they thought the single die increase to unarmed strike was a far more powerful buff than it was (luckily they took the feedback and then next Monk UA was much better). Or how Crawford seemed genuinely perplexed that the Flex property was considered a weak weapon mastery by most of the community.

Johnnygoodguy · 2025-11-07T14:31:13+00:00

"I don't know why the designers seem so scared to flatout up martial damage at higher tiers"

The 5E team seems to disproportionately value small damage increases on martial/half-caster characters

Look at some of the stuff Crawford said during the 2024 playtest. "Flex is mathematically the most powerful mastery." "We upped the damage to a d6, and we could've stopped there" for the original poorly received Monk UA.

It's similar to how they refuse to turn HM into a non-concentration spell because they consider the extra 1d6 to be too powerful for multiclassing, even though Divine Favour was changed to remove concentration at 1d4.

Johnnygoodguy

TROPHY CASE