D&D: Get Wild, Get Astral With Two New Subclasses
The Wild Soul Barbarian makes anger management magical, while Monks following the Way of the Astral Self get ready to make a Stand.
Exciting news for Barbarian and Monk players, as two new subclasses make their debut in this month’s Unearthed Arcana. Although, if you take the wide view of things, it’s exciting news for everyone because this fits in with talk of a Revised Ranger and things like the Artificer to represent a few new player options that may soon be making their way to an official book. Perhaps the upcoming Eberron hardback due out in November. Regardless of where these two subclasses might appear, they represent a very cool direction for both Barbarians and Monks, so let’s dive right on in.
via Wizards of the Coast
First things first let’s get to the Wild Soul Barbarian, which is best summarized as a magic-based Barbarian. Those on the Path of the Wild Soul are connected to the Feywild, so much so that magic saturates their bodies and emerges when they express themselves (i.e. when you rage) resulting in an unpredictable surge of energy.
At 3rd level you’ll be suffused with Lingering Magic which means you don’t have to have a Wizard in your party to detect magic. This is a nice ribbon to tie on to your class, but the real star of the show is Wild Surge, which turns your Rage into something resembling a Wild Magic surge. Whenever you Rage you erupt with magic according to the following d8 table:
This is unpredictable, and can make raging around your allies dangerous–but instead you’ll find a number of effects that encourage you to charge into where the enemies are thickest before you explode. As with anything that’s reliant upon random tables, some options will make your rage better than others–but whatever you get, you’re still Raging, which at the end of the day is where a Barbarian thrives.
The rest of the class makes you more of a support character. Magic Reserves gives you the ability to trade hit points to help creatures gain temporary hit points, or more importantly spell slots. Arcane Rebuke on the other hand lets you damage your foes when they make you take a saving throw, and at 14th level your Chaotic Fury means you can now Wild Surge as a bonus action once per round.
All in all this feels like a solid path. While I love it thematically it feels like it’s a little all over the place. Yes you gain some special powers every time you Rage, and that feels fantastic, but the rest of it feels a little passive compared to the other Paths, though Arcane Rebuke is a very strong feature.
But enough Barbarianing. Let’s take a look at the Way of the Astral Self Monk.
These Monks are straight out of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, with their strong connection to the Astral Self, which is described as follows:
A translucent embodiment of the monk’s psyche and soul. The form of an astral self reflects the mind of the monk who manifests it. Your astral self could be a humanoid knight with a helmeted face and large, muscular arms, or it could be a golden metallic form with thin arms like a modron.
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Or it could look like Star Platinum.
And if you’ve seen Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure you have a good idea of what this class is all about. If not, what are you doing with your life, go watch it–but here’s the gist: at each level you gain a new Monk feature (3rd, 6th, 11th, and 17th), you unlock a new part of your Astral Self. You start with the Arms of the Astral Self, which lets you summon some spiritual arms for 10 minutes (at the low low price of 2 ki points). You’ll want to do this because it lets you use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making Strength checks and saving throws. They also have a 10ft. reach, and deal radiant or necrotic damage–and as you might expect, you can also use your Wisdom instead of Strength/Dex for attack and damage rolls. And, you get a free bonus action attack with them that increases at 11th and 17th level.
Visage of the Astral Self builds on this, letting you spend an extra ki point to summon a magic helmet or mask that gives you advantage on Insight and Intimidation checks, as well as ultradarkvision out to 120 feet. Awakening of the Astral Self is the upgrade to both of these, and lets you deflect energy instead of arrows, deal extra damage with your astral arms, and you can be incredibly dramatic with your Voice.
At the 17th level, the Complete Astral Self is basically your final form. And while you won’t go throwing a road roller at anyone, you can burn through 10 ki points to summon an Astral Body which turns you into a magical murder machine, giving you a total of six attacks with your astral arms, extra AC, and you can devour ki from foes who drop to 0 hit points. So. It’s pretty great.
I really like this path, it’s a solid progression. I honestly wish more subclasses had this distinctive a theme to them–you can clearly feel the build each level, and each new class feature feels like it’s unlocking more power for your core ability. And it looks like you might actually have more things to spend your Ki on besides stunning fist and flurry of blows. It’s fantastic.
On the other side of it, both of these classes have very strong ties to a particular Plane. And that’s worth noting, because the planes are sort of in the air right now. These classes could be a bellwether for upcoming products, so keep your eyes peeled for more planar shenanigans, because it looks like the world of D&D is getting bigger.
Happy Adventuring!
