I appreciate that there’s a lot more to D&D Arcana Unleashed than finally being able to play as a proper Necromancer, but come on. Yes, being able to summon a dinosaur (?!) is all good and well. But being able to boss around what may as well be a skeleton butler, presumably while cackling like a supervillain? That’s too delicious.
A pair of mysticism-infused books just hit shelves, and they boast some killer options for players who want to add a dose of magic to their game. The first, D&D Arcana Unleashed, provides a host of new subclasses (including the aforementioned Necromancer), mystical backgrounds, and feats for spell-slinging fans while also offering plenty of options for Dungeon Masters. Meanwhile, D&D Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall is a high-stakes campaign for levels 11-20 that’s pitched as a wizard spy thriller.
I’ve been hands-on with both of these, and they do feel like a treasure trove for anyone wanting to play magically-themed characters – or DMs who’d like to give their world a more mystical feel. I’ve got plenty of thoughts on this below, but the TL:DR version is that Arcana Unleashed will be a worthwhile purchase if you love spellcasting characters, or want to create a homebrew world/campaign bursting at the seams with arcane shenanigans. Especially because publisher Wizards of the Coast seems to have cast ‘discount’ in honor of launch; the books are currently available at record-low prices via Amazon.
Arcana Unleashed is likely to get the most attention, and that’s fair enough. It provides eight arcane subclasses for Wizards, Clerics, Fighters, Monks, and Warlocks, not to mention magic-themed backgrounds and a host of original Feats to go with them. These feel worth the price of admission on the whole, especially due to that excellent Necromancer build. While I’ve got a soft spot for the Arcane Archer (who can use magical arrows to pull off nonsense like sending a foe to an alternate dimension for one turn), the Necromancer comes out of this particularly well.
Before now, it was harder than it should have been to create a fully-fledged Necromancer Wizard; you only got access to key Necromancy spells at a higher level. Arcana Unleashed fixes that, and it makes some clever tweaks that let you lean into those tropes right away. To begin with, it gives you the first-level ‘Find Familiar’ spell and lets you summon a zombie or skeleton with it instead. That’s huge; you no longer need to wait for the third-level Animate Dead to call on deceased corpses for aid. In addition, you can use them as a syphon to regain health. Then, at level six, you can cast Animate Dead once per long rest without expending a spell slot. I could go on, but you probably get the idea. Our own Guides Editor and all-round D&D fan Joel Franey used the Necromancer subclass in a oneshot I ran this month, and he called it the most fun he’d had with the game for a while.
When combined with a host of new spells, magic items, and patrons that can give your party direction, there’s a surprising amount here despite the book’s comparatively small size. I enjoyed leafing through the world-building section, for example; it was thought-provoking and sparked my imagination.
Speaking of which, the campaign – Deadfall – is also passing the smell test so far. I’m still knee-deep in it, but from what I’ve read it’s a fascinating deep dive into Thay that feels radically different to so much of the Forgotten Realms. As a thoroughly twisted place where mages rule with cruel abandon, it’s the perfect adventure site… and the adventure being a “spy thriller” gives it a radically different air too. As a case in point, one of the early missions reminds me of Hitman; you’ve got to take out a cadre of villains, but how you do so is up to you. Cue an Ocean’s Eleven ‘planning’ montage.
In short, I’m having a lot more fun than I’d expected with this duo of books; even though they’re shorter than many typical D&D releases, they provide endless options.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come; D&D head promises to fix “very loud, very public missteps” with “a new spirit and energy” for the game.