Dungeons and Dragons just dropped a surprise Unearthed Arcana full of even more player options inspired by the Underdark.
Unearthed Arcana: Underdark Options 2 Adds Three Additional Subclasses
Dungeons and Dragons revealed the first Underdark Options Unearthed Arcana in August and added three sublasses and a new feat path for players to experiment with. Now the team is back less than a month later with a fresh lineup of playtest materials.
Unearthed Arcana: Underdark Options 2 is available now through D&D Beyond and brings even more interesting new options to inspire new character choices. The biggest highlight of the materials for most players will be the three subclasses.
Most of these subclasses are entirely new and have not appeared in UA before. The Circle of Spores Druid, however, is an update from a previous version that appeared in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
Here is a high-level overview of each new subclass:
- Freedom Domain
- This subclass is a high-Dexterity Cleric. Some of the mechanical design of the class was borrowed from the high-Dexterity Oath of the Noble Genies Paladin designed for Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn. Previous editions—such as D&D 3e’s Freedom Domain—also had an influence on this subclass.
- The spell list was designed with one question in mind: Would this spell help in a jailbreak?
- The design team wanted the Freedom Domain’s Channel Divinity to be a low-level Freedom of Movement effect, but it was also important that this Channel Divinity be useful most of the time, even when none of the Cleric’s allies are Grappled or otherwise restricted. Design review and iteration on the design added a movement buff, ensuring that Channel Divinity is always useful.
- Circle of Spores
- This subclass originally appeared in Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and was updated in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything for use in the broader D&D multiverse. It is now updated for 5.5e.
- In an Underdark setting, the ability to use spores to reanimate corpses is most commonly associated with myconid sovereigns—and it’s possible your Druid learned this art from one such creature. Some flavor elements have been reworked for the Underdark setting to reflect this connection. These Druids also get Telepathy as part of this subclass, further tying it to myconids.
- Spreading Spores, which allowed you to create a cloud of spores up to 30 feet away from you, felt like it didn’t fit with the “get into melee and raise the dead” loop of the subclass. The team hopes Explosive Burst encourages Druids to keep themselves and their zombies in the fray.
- Faerzress Sorcery
- Faerzress, the strange radiation of the Underdark, mutates creatures exposed to it for long periods. This makes it a natural power source for Underdark Sorcerers.
- Faerzress also has a list of distinctive magical effects: blocking teleportation and scrying, enhancing Darkvision, granting mundane weapons magical properties, and more.
- The challenge for this subclass was designing cool Sorcerer abilities with a faerzress vibe, starting with the ability to create faerzress and be not just immune to the radiation’s effects but empowered by it. Adding scrying and terrain-manipulation to the spell list gave the Faerzress Sorcerer interesting options not usually available to the class. Other Sorcerer subclasses are often associated with a particular kind of damage (such as Radiant and Fire for Spellfire Sorcery); for faerzress we leaned into Lightning damage, culminating in the ability to transform into a being of pure faerzress energy.
Any D&D players can create new characters based on these subclasses right now without any additional purchase. Players will obviously need to get approval from their DM to use a playtest class at their table.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Dungeons and Dragons news and updates.
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