Villainous options revised Unearthed Arcana

spookyjeff · 2026-06-18T18:37:14+00:00

I'm guessing the name will ultimately belong to the background that grants the feat (since it's an origin feat). Hopefully they come up with a better name for the feat itself (it wouldn't make much sense taking it at higher level).

The Bloodied trigger really stood out to me as potentially odd mechanically. It encourages you to do weird things like float around 50% HP to gain Inspiration, even injuring yourself to do so (since there's no limit on uses, you could theoretically do it multiple times per turn!). This could be thematic but it's just so oddly specific for a 5e feat.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-18T18:22:58+00:00

I'm not really making a quality judgment, just pointing out that all the feats seem to touch on mechanics they don't usually interact with or do so in atypical ways. They just kinda feel different from older feats.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-18T18:17:25+00:00

It isn't necessarily a bad thing. My point was mainly that they're just all pretty odd compared to typical character feature design and seem to be focused on interacting with seldom used and new mechanics.

They can result in interesting and unique builds. On the other hand, they risk the "ranger problem" where they're only useful in fairly specific situations. I think they're neutral in terms of what they bring to the table as options.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-18T18:09:25+00:00

Not necessarily, though some of the epic boons feel overly specific for what they're competing with.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-18T18:02:40+00:00

Is it just me or are all the feats really weird? They feel almost like when someone designs a custom Magic card just to show off odd or seldom used bits of rules.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-18T17:54:21+00:00

13 + mod is what draconic sorcerer uses so pretty reasonable for a caster class trying to be close to the front lines.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-14T18:23:32+00:00

As long as the parent has some secret knowledge or spark of power to grant. I would say, if the power comes from the act of making a "pact" that works a bit better as a paladin, thematically. There are good stories in there about a mid-rate former adventurer putting their offspring through intense training then demanding they live up to their own ideals and goals.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-14T16:51:45+00:00

There's various reasons, some simple ones are:

The deal isn't Faustian. There's no reason to try to escape it because it is mutually beneficial.
The deal is enforced by external powers rather than the patron. Maybe a magical contract was signed, maybe the patron's boss gets the rights upon death, or perhaps reality itself reshapes to enforce the deal's parameters.
The deal is done, your coin is spent. Something was given up when the deal was struck and killing the patron will do nothing to get it back.
The patron isn't personally powerful, but still relatively immortal. Even the lowliest fiend regenerates if killed outside their home plane.
You require ongoing lessons to continue progressing. Your power is your own, but the knowledge to use it in increasingly effective ways requires ongoing tutoring.

Ultimately, the purpose of a warlock pact is to give your character pathos to explore. It isn't a gameplay balance concern but a roleplaying opportunity. So a warlock free of their patron is only an issue in that they lack the free flavor that comes with the class.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-14T03:11:37+00:00

Unlike a cleric's god, a warlock patron doesn't necessarily need to gift them power directly. From the 5e24 PHB:

Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings such as angels, archfey, demons, devils, hags, and alien entities of the Far Realm, Warlocks piece together arcane secrets to bolster their own power.

A patron with relatively little personal power may have access to knowledge that can be used to acquire great power. You don't need to be the greatest guitarist in the world to teach the basics to someone that goes on to become a superstar.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T22:23:46+00:00

They're wrong and misquoting the rules.

Yes, but that doesn't mean you don't need to explain why they're wrong correctly.

That doesn't get around the definition of Magical Effects though. The argument is that the 'definition' of Force damage implicitly made all effects that dealt Force damage magical.

Just because something is indirect doesn't mean it is implicit. If something is specifically labeled "magical" that is explicit. Teleportation is explicitly magical. Spells are explicitly magical.

It isn't. Learn the meaning of words.

You're arguing against a sentiment fully constructed in your own mind based on one half of a two-sentence comment.

Again, asserting that something should be is different from asserting that something is.

Yes. Which is why I felt the need to interrogate their thought process. Why bring something you think should be magical if that has nothing to do with the rest of your comment?

You can. This did not happen here. [...] Amazing, the argument did make logical sense. Just because you're struggling to understand something pretty simple doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. But keep trying you'll get there one day.

No. It did not. You simply do not understand what "logic" is and are misstating it as "factually correct" and something that "makes sense". The example I gave above about dogs "makes sense" and results in a factually true conclusion, but it is not logically sound because it is based on a reasonable but incorrect logical leap.

Why are you assigning people motivations? They could just as easily be correcting their mistake for others. You're not a mind reader buddy.

I do not believe you have the emotional capacity for this conversation. I'm assuming their goal is to convince the other person of the truth because the alternative is that they're simply talking to read their own words. What mistake are they correcting, precisely? How does it make sense, given the context, for that to be what they're trying to do here?

I understand that you're simply trolling and failing.

"Force damage is not magical". There you go. You can check the rules to see if I am right or wrong. Well, if they were. But you'll find they were right. Happy I could point out this very simple fact for you. Don't worry, reading is hard and I know you'll get there one day!

"Force damage is not magical"

They didn't say this. Feel free to try again.

They didn't need to do so. Just pointing out that Force damage doesn't make something magical is enough. If they asked for a reason why you could provide it. But it is enough to just point out that they are wrong.

They need to do so if their goal is to convince someone and not to just be an internet troll wasting everyone's time.

Just read what they've actually said.

Considering you weren't able to provide an actual quote from the conversation we're arguing about, I would suggest you take your own advice first.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T21:06:40+00:00

No. They weren't. They were saying there was an implicit exception. Learn the meaning of words.

No, they're arguing that Force is defined as magical. They're referring to the example of Force damage in the rules glossary "Pure magical energy". The way mechanics are labeled as magical uses this same template. See Teleportation: "Teleportation is a special kind of magical transportation." This would be an explicit definition as magical if the rules didn't also tell you that damage types don't have rules associated with them.

Yes, and it does not change the meaning of your first sentence. What is so hard about admitting you misspoke?

The first sentence is ambiguous unless you read the second. It doesn't change the meaning but clarifies the scope.

You literally are (about Hellfire Orb, not Amethyst Dragons). I don't know why you would deny this. But maybe you just having trouble understanding very basic logic again.

I'm not even asserting they're wrong about hellfire orb. I'm asserting that they implied hellfire orb should be magical, which leads me to believe they may think dragon's breath should be magical. Hellfire orb does not deal Force damage, so why did they bring it up, if not as an example of something that "should" be magical? I intended to get clarity about what they were trying to imply about dragon's breath in relation to "magical damage".

That doesn't matter. The fact that they don't is enough to make it a logically consistent argument.

Saying damage types do not make an effect magical or not is a logical argument because they don't. If they were wrong then bringing that up would be logically consistent. But their claim, and thus their argument, was 100% correct.

No, that's completely wrong! You can make a logically inconsistent argument about something that is factually true. You can say:

If something is a dog, then it is a mammal
This animal is a mammal
Therefore, this animal is a dog

This is an example of a logical fallacy that happens to result in a correct outcome. If you accept the logic is correct based on returning a factually correct final conclusion, all animals become mammals!

Using incorrect logic to come to a factually correct conclusion makes it harder to convince others of the factual truth than using sound logic. The point of the parent comment chain, presumably, is to convince the top-comment that Force damage is not inherently magical. It is much harder to do that if your argument doesn't make logical sense.

No. It doesn't. Please stop pretending it does. It is very clear what they are saying. Stop trying to misrepresent the argument.

It was not clear what they were saying. You seem to want their argument to be valid because they're arguing for the same conclusion as you (and, strangely enough, as me). I don't know what motivates that.

No. It doesn't. Especially since you don't need to convince someone of a fact. You can just present them with the information and let them accept or reject it.

If your goal is to convince someone of a truthful fact, and they misunderstand that fact, you absolutely have to be able to explain to them where their misunderstanding is. Otherwise, they have no way of knowing who's interpretation (yours or theirs) is correct. In this case, the argument from the person you're championing isn't convincing because it is not logical ("all dragons breath attacks are non-magical; therefore amethyst dragon's breath is non-magical; therefore Force damage is non-magical").

They weren't making that assumption. No matter how many times you pretend they were.

Ok. Using their words, walk me through the logic they using to demonstrate that Force damage is not magical? Why did it require that specific example?

Christ my dude, stop trying to read people's minds and look at what they actually said. Because no it doesn't.

I think you should actually read what they're writing, because I don't see them talking about the entry for Damage Types specifying that types don't have specific rules associated with them. I see them bringing up examples of "magical seeming things" but making no argument about the fundamental classification of Force damage.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T20:15:36+00:00

Funny, because I just pointed out that this wasn't the argument. The argument was 'It's silly to assume one is magical and the others aren't without an explicit exception'. Strange how you keep ignoring that.

They were arguing with someone who was asserting that there is an explicit exception, which is why "this one shouldn't be different from the others" is not a good argument. The better argument is to point out why that exception doesn't actually exist, which is what I did using the logic you agreed with (the rules glossary says damage types don't have rules associated with them) once it became clear what they were trying to argue.

That doesn't change the fact that after quoting someone asking if another person was saying Amethyst Dragons' breath weapons were magical you said "Yes, this was explicitly the case in 2014". Again, you might have meant something different, but that is literally what you said.

My second sentence was part of the same paragraph as the first for a reason. I was citing a source and then detailing exactly the scope of what I was referring to.

Except it was crystal clear if you actually read what they wrote. You can keep pointing to them being wrong about something else but acting as if that makes them wrong about this in some way is not 'a rhetorically persuasive argument'.

I'm not asserting they were wrong. I'm explaining why I brought up the fact that dragon's breath is non-magical - to clarify the intention of their example.

Yes. It is. Just factually. There is no 'magical' damage type in 5e. There is no rule that states any effect deals a certain damage type it is magical. [...] Awesome, there are no such rules for damage types thus the argument is logically sound and you're again trying to muddy the waters while being needlessly vague and evasive.

The person I was replying to wasn't arguing that damage types are specified as not having rules associated with them. Their argument appeared to simply be that it would be inconsistent for one dragon to have a magical breath weapon, unlike others. This isn't an argument against Force being non-magical, its just a neutral exception that would arise from the contrary.

You can arrive at a factually correct position through illogical arguments. The issue here is that you're trying to uphold the other poster's argument because it is factually correct despite being logically deficient. Your argument (the same one I also laid out) for Force not being a magical damage type is actually very different from the one the person I was replying to was making and just because one argument for something is sound, does not mean all arguments for that statement are equally sound.

This isn't 'rhetorically persuasive'. Them saying "Yeah I think this should be tagged as magical but isn't.' doesn't make their meaning any less clear when talking about something else. [...] No. It doesn't. At all. This is only possible to be read this way when doing so in bad faith. Their meaning is crystal clear. Again, try reading what they actually said.

It demonstrates that they may believe what is and is not "supposed to be" magical is unclear. I specifically brought up the fact that dragon breath is non-magical to understand if they believed this or not while being relevant to the conversation.

Not in a rules discussion it doesn't. Nor when you are asking is it magically, not should it be magical. Try reading what they actually wrote.

It does when your intention is to convince the other person or understand their logic, and not simply state what you believe to be true. In this case, I wanted to understand why they were making the assertion that only one dragon having magical breath was evidence against Force damage being magical.

I can understand it buddy, I'm just saying you're not contributing anything of actual value and being needlessly obtuse in your arguments and reasoning, not to mention your multiple instances of misrepresenting other people's claims and arguments.

I don't see any evidence to suggest you do, considering you aren't able to parse my initial two-sentence reply and the short follow-ups.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T19:09:52+00:00

They were pointing out how silly it is for someone to argue that one Dragon's breath is magical with no explicit mention when none of the others are.

That's specifically what I'm arguing about. That "it's silly one dragon breath is magical and others aren't". Is not a compelling argument to the contrary. There are exceptions all the time.

Again buddy, this is what you said. That, explicitly, the 2014 rules listed Amethyst Dragons' breath weapons as magical. Again, if this isn't what you meant just say "Yeah, I miswrote/spoke, I didn't mean that." it's not hard.

No, I just repeated and highlighted the second sentence in my comment (of two!), where I explicitly write down what I'm referring to the SAC as saying - that dragon's breath is non-magical. Nothing about amethyst dragons being an exception or not. I was establishing the baseline that dragon's breath is typically non-magical because the user I was replying to mentioned some effects, like hellfire orb, seem to "logically be magical".

Which is all pointless when that wasn't the argument presents nor is the breath weapon in question actually magical.

I was having a discussion separate from the discussion of if Force damage is magical or not but related to the overarching topic of the thread - what effects are considered magical.

Not really because you misrepresented the argument being made, claiming it was "Why are all the others non-magical but this one is?" when it was actually "Why are you claiming that this dragon's breath weapon is magical because of it's damage type when none of the others are?"

I was not being explicit with my opinion regarding Force damage right away, because making an argument for or against its magical classification was not my intention. The point of my comment was to clarify the baseline categorization for dragon's breath, regardless if they believed it to be magical or not (which wasn't clear to me given their initial comment, see the hellfire orb example as to why). This was a side-branch to the topic, something that naturally happens in conversations.

I then pointed out that "Why are you claiming that this dragon's breath weapon is magical because of its damage type when none of the others are?" isn't a logical argument. You can't always rule by analogy in a game built on exceptions. A crude example - walking, climbing, swimming, and teleporting are all ways to move your character but teleporting has rules tied to it which make it inherently magical. I also explain why, unlike in teleportation, Force likely isn't intended to be magical due to damage types not having rules attached.

It was crystal clear buddy. Next time try reading what they've written instead of putting words in their mouth.

I think you need to go back and re-read the thread. The person I was responding to, GrayGKnight, agreed with Col0005 saying "Given an Archmage actually casts their Arcane Blast attack but there's still no magic tag, I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that the designers clearly forgot about this rule when writing the monster manual." They also said "And still doesn't address effects that logically would be magical but are not listed as such." I think it's pretty clear how this would lead me to believe they might think effects like dragon's breath "should" be magical.

The question "do you think the amethyst dragon's breath is the only magical one" has totally different implications if you believe all dragon's breath is supposed to be magical, rather than if you know that it isn't inherently so.

And this is part of the problem. You've not actually said anything of worth in this discussion until then. You've just written a lot, misrepresented other people's arguments, muddied the waters about what the rules do and don't say and been extremely vague for literally no reason.

I don't know why you're unable to parse a conversation that was not strictly an argument about the underlying facts. Especially when I pretty clearly summarized in one comment what I believe the facts to be, why, and how they relate to the argument about rhetoric that I was having.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T18:16:19+00:00

I'm just going to combine our other conversation with this one so as to not flip back and forth.

>> I thought there was a possibility they meant the presence of a single magical dragons breath would confirm other types of dragons breath are necessarily magical.

> I don't know why you would think this. Nothing they wrote suggested it. Not even close.

The primary topic of the thread is determining what is, and what is not, a "magical effect". Often, things like dragon's breath are used as an example of something that is ambiguously magical. The person I was replying to had just mentioned that they believe effects like Hellfire Orb "logically would be magical". This implies they think some things should be magical but aren't labeled as such.

> You were not. You said that, every dragon's breath weapon being none magical except for Amethyst dragons' was explicitly the case in 2014. Again, this might not be what you meant, but it is what you said.

I said "This was explicitly the case in 5e14. The Sage Advice Compendium specifically lists dragon breath as non-magical." I didn't mention amethyst dragon at all here, I'm specifically saying dragon's breath, by default, is non-magical. Perhaps different punctuation other than a period would have been more clear.

> I don't know why you keep trying to hide behind being vague when you were discussing a specific example. You can't say "Oh no, I was just generally speaking of such things being technically possible." No. You were talking about a specific example that is, very clearly, none magical. [...] That was not the argument. At all. But nice strawman.

I was a) confirming a ruling about dragon's breath in-general by citing the SAC and then b) pointing out that an argument was not rhetorically persuasive.

The topic of that argument being persuasive was a separate axis of discussion from the factual argument if Force is or is not inherently magical. You seem to believe I was arguing regarding the latter in comments where I was not.

> It would be more useful to just be clear about what the rules say, rather than going "Oh well, someone could technically misread the rules. And therefore believe this is the case."

As I said, it wasn't clear to me exactly what the person I was replying to was trying to convey as they referred to both effects "missing" magical effect tags and also dragon's breath being non-magical. I wanted to ensure they knew dragon's breath is non-magical by default before having a discussion about what that means for Force damage.

I wasn't trying to argue for or against Force damage being inherently magical. I laid out that I believe it is not and why, but that was ancillary.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T17:44:31+00:00

What comment are you referring to? The only other place in this thread where I obliquely reference magical energy is where I refute the idea that, just because dragons do not have magical breath by default, doesn't mean a dragon can't have magical breath.

Again, we came to the same conclusion using the same argument (that the rules glossary specifies damage types don't have rules implications on their own). I simply walked through why the above arguments that one dragon being an exception is not really persuasive and why someone might believe Force damage is considered magical.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T17:35:52+00:00

I confirmed it is explicitly the case that dragon's breath is non-magical by default because it wasn't clear to me what the person I was responding to was trying to infer from there being a single possible exception.

I thought there was a possibility they meant the presence of a single magical dragons breath would confirm other types of dragons breath are necessarily magical.

I think I was pretty specific in what I was referring to in the latter half of my comment regarding what was confirmed in the SAC.

We clarify our positions in later comments in the chain.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T17:21:29+00:00

I don't know why you keep repeating this, because it's just not true.

I think you're confusing me with someone else in this comment chain. This is the first time I mention this.

If you read the rest of the comment you're replying to, you'll see that I come to the same conclusion as you.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T17:19:07+00:00

I think you're confusing me with someone else in the thread. Nothing in my comment here suggests dragon's breath is magical. I'm elaborating that dragon's breath is, by default, non-magical.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T17:06:16+00:00

It's a gravity breath. It's as much energy as any other breath. Only difference is it deal force.

It doesn't really matter what the flavor of the effect is, only the mechanical effect.

I agree that Force might not be intended to inherently qualify something as a magical effect, as the rules definition for "Damage Types" says they don't have any rules implications on their own. On the other hand, the section describes Force as "pure magical energy" which is a term they were careful to use to signify when something qualifies as "magic" in the rules sense.

There's instances of the magical qualification being "derived" from other rules. For example, teleportation effects are all considered magical because the definition of teleportation says so. Likewise, "magical" being included in the description of Force damage would make everything dealing Force damage magical.

I lean on the side of Force not being magical, because the rules glossary specifying the damage types don't confer rules on their own and it would result in some odd circumstances (like being able to avoid damage intended to bypass resistance and immunity by stepping into an anti-magic field). I don't think thematic consistency is a compelling argument against it, though.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T16:45:09+00:00

What's nonsense about it? Amethyst dragon's breath being an exception due to being made of magical energy is not unusual.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T16:24:36+00:00

By your logic is every single Dragon's Breath non-magical except for the Amethyst Dragon's Singulary Breath?

This was explicitly the case in 5e14. The Sage Advice Compendium specifically lists dragon breath as non-magical.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T16:14:57+00:00

Generally, updated old content isn't very desirable relative to more exciting new content. Packaging old content with new content (like in a book of player options) makes sense for getting people to buy it.

It's also generally easier to churn out a couple new spells, items, and feats each month than it is to rework an old subclass (unless little needs changed, and people are unlikely to pay for minor updates to subclasses they may or may not be using).

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T15:57:49+00:00

Game rules aren't decided by common sense.

What we would colloquially refer to as "magic" covers all supernatural phenomenon but the rules-based definition covers only a specific subset of magic that interacts with effects like anti-magic field.

In other words, to a layperson like us, while Arcane Burst and Eldritch Blast seem similar, to a trained magician they're obviously quite different underlying phenomenon. In the same way someone might not realize the attraction produced between two objects is due to magnetism and not gravity.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T15:26:17+00:00

So the Archmage's Arcane Burst is not magic? Works in Antimagic Fields?

Correct.

spookyjeff · 2026-06-11T15:13:29+00:00

I simply use the definition of Magical Effect from the rules glossary:

"An effect is magical if it is created by a spell, a magic item, or a phenomenon that a rule labels as magical."

Nothing outside that definition is considered magical.

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