Thoughts on the Forgotten Realms Subclasses UA

You may wonder what this is if you read the previous blog post. This is actually the kind of content I want to be able to post. I want to have an opinion, be moved to write about it, and post it. The formalized process and the schedule are the things that work against me, but I’m not going to stop having opinions. The difference is, I’m not going to open up various other subclasses and do a deep analysis to make sure I’m shoring up my points. I may be wrong or off the cuff, and if I am, I hope you let me know.

This discussion first came up on the THAC0 with Advantage Discord, so please, if you haven’t already, consider joining our Patreon, joining our Discord, and listening to the podcast. I’d appreciate it. This is a slightly edited version of my thoughts after being asked about the most recent Unearthed Arcana, looking at the subclasses that might be included in this Fall’s Forgotten Realms releases.

The Subclasses

Bard: College of the Moon. I actually like the College of the Moon. It has a nice mechanical call back to 1e Bards and the Moonshaes, which was very tied to the druidic-themed bards of that era. It kind of steps on the College of Spirits with tying abilities to “stories,” but that’s not that weird for a bard, just not something we’ve seen framed that way outside of the College of Spirits.

Cleric: The Knowledge Domain. This revision doesn’t bother me except for one thing (mechanically), and that’s Unfettered Mind, which means Intelligence checks will be largely pointless for this character after 6th level unless they’re extremely difficult. That feels too early for that kind of ability, and it leans back into that problem of showing that a class or subclass is good by just not having the class need to roll for anything.

Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight. Even if you want to have a fighter subclass that’s a dragon rider, I think you still have some awkwardness with the 7th-level ability because being allowed to use a medium dragon as a mount, even though it’s too small, feels like you’re awkwardly riding something, and to me that feels less cool than feeling like you’re a competent dragon rider riding something that can be ridden. I’m still trying to work out the hesitance to make it large at 7th-level, since the statistics are still keyed to the character, not to an existing stat block. Its not even like it interacts with emanations much, which would be wider with a large creature than a medium one. 15th level before you can picture your character riding a properly sized dragon doesn’t feel good to me.

Paladin: Oath of Noble Genies. Oath of the Noble Genies is a conceptual issue for me, regardless of lore. I think a paladin’s oath is about DOING something for a reason or stopping something for a reason. There are a number of oaths, a lot of them 3rd party, that do what this subclass does, where it doesn’t play with the core fantasy of a paladin. “I have sworn an oath to do genie stuff and oppose non-genie stuff.” I don’t get a strong roleplaying vibe from that.

In fact, one of the big selling points of the 5e paladin is that they are so devoted to doing a thing, championing a CAUSE, that they don’t necessarily have a specific deity, and the gods just kind of say, “yup, that’s a champion of THING, they need these powers.” But this is “I think these genies need to be followed, so I serve them,” which doesn’t feel like a paladin oath to me.

Ranger: Winter Walker. The problem I have with the Winter Walker is that you are a ranger from the scary cold, hunting scary things that live in the cold. And you do extra cold damage. That’ll show those yetis, cold light walkers, and white dragons who’s boss. By that, I mean someone who doesn’t do extra cold damage that those creatures can ignore. Yes, if you take this ranger and adventure in non-cold environments, but it’s a weird disconnect that they’re less effective in their native terrain because of this.

Sorcerer: Spellfire Sorcery. The Spellfire Sorcerer actually does what I would expect from the setting material it’s drawn from. It’s not as powerful as most spellfire wielders have been portrayed, but it does what they do, in a toned-down manner, and when they get higher level, they can start looking more like the raw, elemental channelers of the Weave that they’re supposed to be. I’m kind of cool with that.

Rogue: Scion of the Three. My issue with the Scion of the Three will sound like a setting issue, but it’s almost more of a marketing issue. The italicized text might as well say this subclass exists because Baldur’s Gate III made over a billion dollars. One of the things I saw lauded in various places about the 2024 Player’s Handbook’s character creation process was “ask to see if an evil character is okay.” It feels weird to actively encourage not just nuanced evil characters but someone kind of revels in murder as a player character option.

The Lore Behind the Subclasses

Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight. The Purple Dragon Knights have nothing to do with amythest dragons. It’s very weird that in the designer videos, it seems to bother them that there wasn’t a more direct thematic tie between calling an order of knights “The Knights of the X Dragon” and literally giving them powers based on that dragon type. That makes it feel like the expectation of everything in the setting is that there will be a very obvious game-related reason for every name, without any symbolism or nuance. Is it going to be a problem if the Red Wizards of Thay aren’t all literally red?

I don’t think works as a dragonrider knight as well as it could, but it has nothing to do with Cormyr as a Purple Dragon Knight. It’s taking something intrinsically Cormyrean and trying to say, “Yeah, maybe these were kind of related to Cormyr, but now they’re not associated with a single country and are all about working with amethyst dragons.” That’s even weirder because why are amethyst dragons more likely to bond with a knightly order than other dragon types, other than coopting an existing name?

Gold, Silver, Bronze, Red, and Blue have all been associated with dragon riders and militaries in other settings, but Amethyst dragons are obsessed with multiple realities and collecting obscure knowledge. Other than trying to make the name of the subclass painfully obvious, there is no reason to make this a class associated with the knighthood of Cormyr. If anything, if you REALLY wanted to connect this to the Realms or Baldur’s Gate III, make this a class tied to, but not limited to, Githyanki, and make sure you can use red dragons and maybe a few other types as well, with this subclass. I know they won’t go this route because it’s more obscure, but if you really wanted an order of dragon-riding knights to serve as a basis, Impiltur has traditionally had dragon riders in its history. But Impiltur is even further away from the Sword Coast and less commonly mentioned than Cormyr.

Cleric: Knowledge Domain. It’s minor, but the marketing-driven lore bothers me. In the description of the Knowledge domain, the primary gods associated with Knowledge are mentioned as Asmodeus, Mystra, Savras, and Jergal, and then “less-common divinities” like Deneir, Oghma, and Azuth are mentioned. The introduction is contradicted because Oghma and Gond were mentioned up front, but then the rest of the description walks all of that back.

Jergal is an obscure deity that many people in the Realms don’t even remember. He has a role in Baldur’s Gate III, but the narrative doesn’t imply that Jergal is a major deity, even in Baldur’s Gate III. It’s very careful to frame him as an obscure god who gave his power to Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul in the distant past. Oghma, Deneir, and Azuth are all much more well-known deities. Yes, people may know who Jergal is from Baldur’s Gate III, but if they were paying attention, they’re probably going to wonder why he’s so well known now all of a sudden.

Paladin: Oath of Noble Genies. There are genies in the history of Calminshan. The genies Calim and Memnon both formed nations in the region and went to war with one another. The region and its cities still bear their names, but they were bound into a gem before Calimnshan was formally founded. Neither genie was particularly well regarded. In the 4e era, Memnon and Calmin were freed, went back to war with one another, installed genasi as leaders in the region, and generally treated the humans of the region pretty badly.

We haven’t seen much of Calimnshan in the 5e era, but we know Calim and Memnon were overthrown and banished back to the elemental chaos/elemental planes. Basically, it was the same broad reboot that the rest of the Realms received, so we just generally know that Calimnshan is being pieced back together, probably in a manner that looks similar to what it looked like in the late 3e era . . . maybe.

That gives us a few issues with having well-known and established paladins with an Oath to serve genies:

• Its unlikely they would be drawing power from all four genie types when there was only a Djinn and an Efreet involved in the region
• Servants of these genies aren’t likely to be working with one another since Calmin and Memnon have constantly been at war with one another
• Servants of both genies would probably be seen as oppressors in this era, given that the genies put genasi in charge and specifically enslaved or oppressed the humans of the region

I know they may not want to play up Djinn and Efreet being in an eternal war—I don’t know—but that doesn’t mean Calmin and Memnon wouldn’t have been at war, establishing separate, competing empires in the region in ancient times. They may not want to play up genasi enslaving humans in the name of the genie lords, but it would be strange to try to change Calim and Memnon from generational villains to revered rulers.

Rogue: Scion of the Three. There is no reason that a rogue that is supernaturally invested in murder would be a “Scion of the Three” and not just a “Scion of Bhaal.” Even if you want to lean into the Baldur’s Gate III storyline, three distinct, contentiously allied faiths were working together. You had a Chosen of Myrkul, a Chosen of Bane, and a Chosen of Bhaal, not a champion of all three. It’s not just design dictated by marketing; it’s design that’s only engaging with the surface level of the game rather than its actual content. 

Ranger: Winter Walker. The Winter Walker ranger leans heavily into being a ranger from a cold land beset by vague cosmic horrors and undead, which is the theme of Rime of the Frost Maiden, but it’s never been a theme of Icewind Dale before that. It’s fine as a theme for that adventure, but it becomes this strange thing where a type of ranger has emerged that caters to a state that has only existed in Icewind Dale for a decade? If this is the new “theme” of Icewind Dale, what does the place look like when you resolve Rime of the Frost Maiden? If you aren’t playing that adventure, is it the default that Auril always imposes eternal winter unless you play through those events? It feels like we’re only going to get this new theme, which was the consequence of Auril being trapped there and causing the eternal winter in recent years.

I understand they want very distinct, easily communicated themes, but those themes feel very thin and very obviously tied to very specific, singular storylines. Icewind Dale does have a theme of having lost places that are difficult to find because of the weather and being the corner of the world where people go to lose themselves. That theme ties into Honor Among Thieves, and Honor Among Thieves even flies in the face of Icewind Dale, which is a horror setting.

Without Auril and the eternal winter, it’s still pretty damn cold most of the time, and we’ve established the following about the region:

• Outcasts and people wanting to start over live in Ten Towns
• The Lord’s Alliance established a prison in the region because it sequesters undesirables far away from most of the Sword Coast, and only daring, charming, movie-worthy heroes would manage to escape
• Because of the remote location, ancient civilizations have ruins there that have gone unexplored, which has been a theme both in Rime of the Frost Maiden and the Icewind Dale video games

It’s also just a wee bit strange that the description of the Winter Walker implies that there may be multiple fallen cities from Netheril in the city, which kind of seems like overkill, given that there weren’t that many Netherese flying cities to begin with.

Broader Lore Thoughts

I understand wanting to have clear themes, but there are clear themes and thin, single-note regions. It seems strange that not only is Icewind Dale being limited to cold/horror themes but also that Cold Walker rangers are so focused on being “Icewind Dale” rangers that an order of rangers with those competencies isn’t framed as having additional origins like Vaasa or the Great Glacier. This is even stranger when you have the opposite problem with the Purple Dragon Knights being taken from specific to Cormyr to being a broader organization across Faerun.

I’m not sure what’s driving these kinds of decisions except to ruthlessly design so that something can only be a single thing. Even then, it’s strange that the single thing for one subclass is “you’re from this one region,” and the single thing for this other subclass is “you can’t be from just one region.”

I’ve said this several times, but I will revisit something I’ve said before, across multiple editions. As much as I love the aspects of the Realms that appeal to me, if you are remaking large parts of the Realms to fit broader D&D concerns, then don’t use the Realms; make a new setting that can hold your new assumptions. If you want to use Baldur’s Gate III to sell books, then you should realize that Baldur’s Gate III had substance because it used the texture that already existed in the setting, not because it redefined large sections of the setting and ignored other aspects.

There is a big difference between “See, Jergal is a thing you recognize from Baldur’s Gate III” and “Jergal has the position he has in the story because of the backstory of Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul, that’s been circulating since at least AD&D 2e products.” I’m not calling for a devotion to extreme minutia. Canon for the sake of canon is bad, and it keeps people from engaging with the setting. However, continuity has to be more than identifying proper nouns for it to have any meaning. It’s not easy to find that middle ground, but that’s why the people in the industry who can do it manage to make their work shine.

Tales of the Valiant, Roll20, and Shard Tabletop

You may or may not have heard that Roll20 had determined that they aren’t going to develop a character sheet for Tales of the Valiant. This may not seem like a big deal, but that means they aren’t going to support Tales of the Valiant in their character builder, and they aren’t going to create the new stat blocks to show up in a character sheet for the new monster stat blocks.

Effectively, nothing fully Tales of the Valiant will be coming to the platform. Yes, this would be disappointing if you want to use Roll20, but can’t you just adapt? First, if you’re like me, you’ve got seven products you backed on Kickstarter with Roll20 add-ons.

Now, that may sound back, but one of those Kickstarters is still in the process of being produced, so that’s only five products behind. All of that is pretty aggravating. But there are a few mitigating factors, which don’t have anything to do with Roll20.

Mitigating Factor Number 1

Shard Tabletop and KoboldPress offer a subscription service for access to Kobold Press’ library on the VTT. For someone like me, who is extremely invested in the Roll20 version of these products, this is a major thing, as we’ll get to in a moment.

• Kobold Press: Player’s Subscription
• Kobold Press” Game Master Subscription

Mitigating Factor Number 2

Kobold Press is allowing people to reassign their VTT options, translate their VTT add-ons to store credit or request a refund. None of this is Kobold Press’s fault, so please don’t take any of this frustration as being directed at them.

Roll20 and Implementations

It feels to me like Roll20 announced this quietly on their Discord, and then left it to Kobold Press to break the news to everyone, which sucks since Kobold Press wasn’t the entity that dropped the ball.

Roll20 has been slowly dropping the ball on many “near 5e” conversions over the last few years. They’ve failed to set up a separate compendium and specialized character sheet for Esper Genesis. They’ve failed to implement a sheet for multiple Essence20 games (G.I. Joe, Transformers) properly.They also wholly fumbled the rollout of the Everyday Heroes line of products. Yes, I know; in the meantime, the owner of that particular product line has set fire to as much goodwill as they could . . . however . . . that has nothing to do with the fact that Roll20 couldn’t deliver.

Roll20 recently announced their plans for Demiplane integration, which includes sharing content for some companies across what you own on Demiplane and what you own on Roll20, as well as creating a “crosswalk” that will allow users to use the character sheet from Demiplane on Roll20.

Demiplane’s character builder was designed to be more modular and agile when dealing with implementing various game elements. One of the games they’ve mentioned trying to work this crosswalk with is Marvel Multiverse RPG.

That’s good because the Demiplane version of the character sheet for Marvel Multiverse RPG is much better than the Roll20 version. The character builder is miles ahead, because it’s hard to understand why you have to make decisions on the Roll20 sheet, and it’s harder to modify existing sheets.

I say all of this not because I’m not highly annoyed at Roll20, but because I want to be fair and point out that they have a lot of irons in the fire. All that said, anything 5e adjacent would be sacrificed on the altar of getting the 2024 character sheet to work.

Personal Axes to Grind

It’s not the first time I’ve had something I backed get either nuked or delayed for multiple years because it was more important to chase big money than to fulfill a promise by an RPG-related company, and I guess that’s “normal” in capitalism, but its never fun to know you aren’t the priority.

Especially when you did spend a not insignificant amount of money on a project that may not make the company as much money as another project, but still cost you the same amount regardless of their return on investment. But I’m letting a wee bit of my annoyance at another situation to bleed in.

The last thing I wanted to touch on is my current investment. A few years back, I looked at Shard Tabletop, and even though I didn’t do a deep dive until recently, even back then, I was convinced a dedicated 5e SRD site was much better for running the game than an “everything” site.

Decision Points

From the time I looked at it then, to now, Shard has only gotten better at implementing how 5e games should run. I don’t expect that they will work for everyone, but for how my brain works and for how I play and run games, I’m much happier with how Shard works.

However, when I was ramping up to move my games online, one of the considerations I had to make was how all the material I wanted to use would interact. Despite liking the interface on Shard better, I opted for Roll20, because I couldn’t get official WotC material on Shard.

I could get more of my 5e 3rd party material to work natively with WotC D&D material, so I felt like, ultimately, I wanted to go with the less ideal interface for greater flexibility. So, even though I was tempted to go with Shard for my Kobold Press purchases, I didn’t.

My current campaign is a 2014 5e game set in Kobold Press’s Midgard setting, where most of the players have options from extended 3e WotC products, so it’s not like I haven’t benefited from having all of that working together on one site.

But, if Tales of the Valiant, despite being similar and compatible, is going to be a system that is only fully supported on another site, I want access to everything I can currently use with 5e. Thankfully, the Shard Tabletop Kobold Press subscription allows this.

On Digital “Ownership”

I would much rather “own” everything I “own” on the site where I use the material. I can’t count on Kobold Press or Shard infinitely offering the subscription model, and once it’s gone, that’s a lot of material that I don’t have access to anymore.

Insert [the risk of any particular digital platform closing and you loosing access to things you’ve purchased], I know, I know. But a subscription being discontinued feels like a more immediate concern than an entire site disappearing. The thing that crystallized my frustration at this situation was putting everything from Kobold Press that I own in Roll20 into a spreadsheet and seeing what it would cost me actually to own all of that material on Shard. That comes to almost $900. Ouch.

I know it’s a risk you take in the modern era, with so much content that exists “virtually” or as a service. I’m happy that Shard Tabletop and Kobold Press do offer the subscriptions they offer, so I can run games on the site with all of the things I’m used to using.

But wow, do I wish I could go back to me a few years ago, starting to ramp up my online game materials and tell past me, “no, you can’t keep everything on one platform, so you may as well go with the platform you enjoy using rather than the one with more options.”