Unearthed Arcana: KITS! Oh, I meant Colleges, or archetypes, maybe...

[Wilb]

Guys, its out, and seems to be full of stuff!

Discuss here!

Link: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/04_UA_Classics_Revisited.pdf

EDITS:

-Blade seems good.
-Jester seems strange, maybe OP.
-Cavalier and Scout are (maybe) gimped battlemasters with a single defining feature. Well, they get something that works like uncanny dodge...

This is a superficial description.

[TenaciousJ]

Cavalier and Scout get a lot better if you have an open feat for Martial Adept.  I'm not sure the Scout really needed to be a thing but the Cavalier helps support mounted combat a bit better.

College of Satire looks pretty strong.  Tumbling Fool won't make it to print in its current state.  It's Cunning Action on steroids.  It's very likely to become a choice between Dash, Disengage, or climb speed.  If that happens though, it probably needs a buff somewhere else, because it's kind of competing with Lore bard, and Cutting Words is damn good.

College of Swords seems a little confused about what it wants to be.  It's obviously made for two-weapon fighting, but two-weapon fighting competes with other things a bard wants to do.  It's not bad per se but it's trading mechanics for flavor, since IMO the valor bard's shield proficiency alone trumps the blade flourishes and two-weapon fighting style, especially once battle magic comes into play.

e: Not that you'd really want to play this character, but the scout makes for a possible build now with proficiency in every skill by 9th level.  This only requires Dex 13, Wis 13, and Cha 13.

Listing out specific skills for some of the places where choice is limited just to show there's no overlap.  The rogue level needs to be first unless you're getting a racial skill proficiency.

Character background gets any 2 skills.
Rogue 1 gets Athletics, Acrobatics, Deception, and Insight. (6 total)
Scout Fighter 3 gets Investigation, Medicine, and Nature. (9 total)
Knowledge Cleric 1 gets Arcana and History. (11 total)
Bard 1 gets any 1 skill from the multiclass and Lore Bard 3 gets any 3 more. (15 total)
Take Bard or Fighter to 4 for the Skilled feat to get any 3 more. (18 total)

Once you go past 18 proficiencies due to races and whatnot, the build can just achieve all proficiencies sooner.  Like a variant human could drop the 3 fighter levels, take Skilled at level 1, and take 2 levels of Warlock for Beguiling Influence instead to achieve all skills at 7.

[Wilb]

You're on point about Cavalier and Scout.

The college of satire will have rules lawyers crying to their DMs about how they should roll to see if the guy trips and falls after passing a saving throw. It is really powerful.

The college of swords ended like this probably because of the SCAG cantrips. Their existance made any "lets mix blades and swords" attempt work under a specific circumstance or be basically useless, to avoid going completely crazy when mixed together. I mean, it deliberately made its exclusive feature work only when attacking by using the attack action, to avoid interaction at all, making the college seem unfocused and strange. Well if it got an exclusive interaction between them it could be ok, but the bard spell list is open, and it could produce something unexpected later... (obviously these ramblings are not my opinion, as I believe that subclass should have BETTER blade+spell interaction than the bladesinger, and it doesn't)

[TenaciousJ]

At level 14, the level 3 Swords ability will be obsolete most of the time if the SCAG cantrips are in play.  The Valor bard would be able to leverage Battle Magic the same way and still have his shield.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Satire 14 Fool's Luck ... is weird.  The bonus
reroll part, isn't too much different from the
Shield spell, or the other Bard Inspirations.
I guess this should be better than (or could)
a Halfing Lucky Wiz Div build.

But the "after penalty" can be sat on, by a DM.
I could see some players having trouble with
the gygaxian sort.  Evil grin at the only 1/day use.
"I'm'n'a penalize you ~soon (maniacal laugh)."


Scout versus the Spell-less Ranger ... is kinda
like a :  po-tay-to versus po-tah-to, style argument.
Something for the non-C.O.-ers and younglings,
to have a years and pages long be-yotch fest.
 

[TenaciousJ]

Fool's Luck can apply to the bard himself.  Normally a bard cannot apply Bardic Inspiration to himself, and also it allows the bard to see the success or failure of the roll before choosing to use the feature.

[Childe]

Every character of mine will now be Bard 6 (Satire). Damn it.

Also, being really anal, the Satire 3 feature can net you 5 or more proficiencies. The RAI is blatantly obvious (just 3), but technically it says, "If you are already proficient with thieves' tools or in Sleight of Hand, choose another skill proficiency for each proficiency you already have," not "for each of those proficiencies you already have." So if you have 3 (Bard), one of which is thieves' tools or Sleight of Hand, then you gain proficiency in the other of the two, one other skill, and then 3 more proficiencies since you already had 3.

If you had more (via race, background), then those would get you more proficiencies too. By this method you could probably be proficient in every skill in the game (18). Bard gives you 3 (Sleight of Hand and two others), a background gives you 2 (whichever), Variant Human gives 1 (any) plus a feat (Skilled), which nets you 3 more (any). Then Satire 3 nets you 1 (any), thieves' tools and then doubles your pre-existing number of skill proficiencies: (2 x ( 3+2+1+3 )) + 1 = ( 2 x 9 ) + 1 = 18 + 1 = 19. So you actually end up with an excess skill proficiency.

Note: this is absolutely clearly not RAI. RAI is "for each of those proficiencies you already have."

The amazing thing is that line isn't even needed, although the relevant rule is buried in an obscure place in the PHB. Rather than being in the section about skill proficiencies, this little tidbit is tucked into the Backgrounds section: "If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead." While technically it would function very slightly different, the difference would go unnoticed by most players. Namely, as written for the Satire feature (assuming the RAW is adjusted to match the obvious RAI), you can trade a duplicate thieves' tools proficiency for a skill proficiency, whereas the base rule would make you trade it for a tool proficiency instead.

[TenaciousJ]

e: Misunderstood what Childe was saying.

You know you can't resist forcing the BBEG to perform Chris Farley's greatest hits.

[zioth]

The whole thing is poorly written, poorly thought out and poorly balanced. Satire is overpowered until you get to the extremely weak capstone. Scout gets you more proficiencies than rogue and almost as many as Lore Bard, for no obvious reason. Now you get four attacks per round and you're the skill monkey. Blade flourishes are potent enough that every fighter except an eldritch knight (because of MAD) should start with three levels of bard. Unnerving Flourish is just silly - it's Dominate Person for one minute per level, without needing concentration, at character level 3.