UNDERDARK OPTIONS 2 UA - It's magical radiation. Everybody knows that, Ash.

Welcome back to the Underdark, where the mushrooms are telepathic, the fish can invent gods, and magical radiation apparently has the terrifying power to give you a headache and ruin your wine. This week, Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 gives us a Freedom Cleric that desperately wants you to move around, a Spores Druid that has discovered the tactical value of exploding zombies, and a Faerzress Sorcerer built around creating a 40-foot cube of mild inconvenience. We also get playable Driders, almost-Mind-Flayers, god-making fish people, communal mushroom skills, and several moments where Ash seriously considers personally redesigning the Sorcerer. So grab your darkvision, protect the cheese from magical radiation, and try not to stand too close to the zombies. We're going back underground.

UA Underdark Options

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RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes

UA Underdark Options 1

Show Notes

Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 takes us back below the surface for another batch of D&D 5e playtest subclasses and playable Underdark species. This time we're looking at the Freedom Domain Cleric, Circle of Spores Druid, Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer, Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa, and Myconid.

The Freedom Domain Cleric starts with a promising idea: a high-Dexterity cleric built around mobility, escaping restraints, breaking debilitating conditions, and helping allies get out of trouble. Invoke Liberty can remove conditions and reposition the party without provoking opportunity attacks, while Unencumbered Grace turns the Cleric into something resembling a shield-carrying monk. Unfortunately, the later features lean heavily on difficult terrain, movement bonuses, and Dexterity checks, leaving us wondering when the subclass is supposed to get its next interesting button to push.

Then we get the revised Circle of Spores Druid, and things get significantly better. Wizards addresses several long-standing complaints about the D&D Circle of Spores by improving its action economy and making Symbiotic Entity a bonus action. Halo of Spores now provides value whether the enemy succeeds or fails its save, and Fungal Body remains delightfully creepy.

But Explosive Burst is where things get wonderfully ridiculous. As written, an undead creature you created explodes when it dies. That wording potentially includes creatures created with Animate Dead, which immediately inspires the completely reasonable strategy of surrounding an enemy with injured zombies a