DnD 5e UA Subclass Concepts
With the sheer onslaught of new content we’ve gotten from Wizards of the Coast recently, I felt it’d be fun to throw out my own ideas for potential subclass ideas. Some are admittedly a little more fleshed out than others, but it’s still a fun exercise just to flex my creativity.
Cybertronics: Perhaps too much of a retread of Warforged, the base concept is an Artificer who has replaced parts of their body with artificial substitutions.
Interfacer: Geared towards spying and information gathering, the interfacer is a hacker who is skilled at disabling security, causing machinery to malfunction, and can turn a building’s security cameras into their eyes on the inside. But might rely too heavily on a technologically advanced world.
Hero’s Soul: Your body is host to a legendary warrior. Upon raging, you surrender control of your body to this paramount champion, allowing you to fight like a demigod.
Bleeding Heart: Rather than only gaining power through rage, a Barbarian with a Bleeding Heart can form an attachment to mementos as they level up that remind them of intense emotions, with each emotion having different benefits at different levels. So, you could have a memento for every powerful emotion, or you could choose to only keep mementos that trigger a single powerful feeling, such as fear, sadness, or joy.
Wilderness: Your song has the ability to attract the attention of woodland critters, and beast creatures will be less hostile toward you. At higher levels, your song can soothe even the most savage beast, making one intelligent creature passive toward you once per long rest.
Humor: Laughter is the best medicine, and keeping the morale and vitality of your allies high is the primary concern of this bardic subclass. A successful performance check will revitalize friendly creatures. When you’re not lifting your friends’ spirits with your gambols, you’re making yourself a distracting target so that your friends won’t get hurt as much with you around.
Love
Sea
Fire
Shadow/Darkness
Evil
Plague
Music
Secrets
Fate/Destiny
Luck
Chaos
Time
Unity: You have literally become one with nature. You select a terrain and bond so deeply that the world has started to live in you. Whether birds nest in your hair, barnacles and coral has begun to sprout out of your body, or your hair has turned into leaves, your bond with nature has reached the pinnacle.
Menagerie: As you level up, certain parts of your body will be given the option to permanently morph into having bestial traits. For example, you might choose the predatory eyes of a hawk, the keen smelling of a dog, the superb hearing of a cat, or the gills of a fish as a facial mutation.
Xenomorph: Very similar to the Menagerie, except instead of looking like a freaky gene spliced chimeric beast, you instead become more and more alien until you look like something out of Lovecraftian horror.
Shaman: Your spirit animal is given shape through your understanding of magic, and it aids you in ways a physical animal could not.
Achilles: You have trained like a Greek hero and have honed the mythic power of the gods. You are stronger and tougher than is normal for your race at the cost of having a weak spot that expands the chances for enemies to land a crit on you.
Dragon Knight: At level 1, the dragon is a tiny creature that can ride on your shoulder and try to help you in a fight. By level 20, it will be a full-sized mount that you can ride on. As you level up, you can decide where to focus its training, whether you want it to throw its weight around, focus on its breath attack, or make its scales sturdier and more resilient. How you train your dragon will determine the kind of fighting style that works best for you.
Mystic: Your enlightenment and understanding of the universe has become so sagely that you have learned to convert your ki into spell slots. Casting with Wisdom, you have learned how to tap into the Wizard’s spell list of 5th level or lower spells.
Animal Style: Choose an animal’s martial arts style between Tiger, Monkey, Snake, Crane, Mantis, and Dragon. Tigers hit harder and more ferociously, Monkies are more agile and excel in mobility, Snakes strike faster and are more adept at stunning and can cause poison conditions, Cranes have superior balance and can fly short distances, Mantises are better at not getting hit and going unnoticed, and Dragons are better adept to fighting large groups of enemies on their own.
Fairytale Knight: Able to resist magical damage, magical charms or fears, and being adept at slaying magic-users and dragons makes this the quintessential hero in story-telling. Of course Remove Curse is among their subclass spells.
Reaper: You have sworn an oath to the laws of death, which are finite and absolute. You roam the land ending the lives of those whose time has come to perish. This subclass is neither intrinsically Good or Evil, as it can be used as a normal part of the natural order, or for carnage and murder.
Vigilante: Donning a mask and cowl, you bring about justice outside of the law.
Pack Bond: You forge a bond with an animal companion of your choosing. While in the wild, you can attempt to tame other animals of the same kind with your Animal Companion serving as the Pack Leader. Among wild groups of your Animal Companion, you and your traveling companions will be trusted enough to be welcomed in their dens, receive a share of their hunt, and be protected by them from other hostile creatures.
Viper: An expert in poison and disguises, the Viper is a stealthy killer who uses poison and pragmatic tricks to put their opponents at a disadvantage during a fight. What they lack in sheer power they make up for by having ways of weakening their foes.
Tomb Raider: You’re an experienced graverobber who has developed a knack for exploring ancient temples. Your past adventures have given you a keen eye when detecting traps, solving puzzles to advance through dungeons, and the ability to set up camp inside a dungeon without being at risk of hostile encounters.
Infernal: Your power comes from a Fiend ancestor.
Fey: Your power comes from a Fey ancestor
Entombed: Your power comes from an Undead ancestor.
Demigod: Unlike the Divine Soul Sorcerer, you are the literal progeny of an actual deity. Select a Cleric Domain your divine parent belongs to and receive unique features through your divine birthright.
Nature: You have made a pact with a powerful force of nature, be they a Nature God, an elemental, or a powerful druid, you are given the ability to harness the forces of nature in return for protecting nature with your life.
Shadow Society: Rather than getting your power from an extra-dimensional being, your power was granted by a group of mortal castors to use you to do their dirty work. In return for your service, they have given you a portion of their power.
Artifact: This patron isn’t sentient. Rather, it is simply a powerful magical relic which you use to channel energy from in order to cast your spells. While this subclass comes without the burden of indentured servitude to a usually malevolent being, the artifact can be lost or stolen, and with it, your powers.
Arcane Lore: When you choose this subclass at 2nd level, select another casting class. Whenever you have the option to learn a Wizard spell, you can select a spell from that class’ spell list. You may only select one spell list to select from and they become Wizard spells for you.
I hope this was fun for you guys. And if any of these suggestions really sound interesting, I might just turn them into proper Homebrew posts. I’ve already covered the Love Domain Cleric, so I’m not opposed to covering others in the future. Which ideas were your favorites, and are there some that you’d love to try and use in a future campaign?
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