UNEARTHED ARCANA: UNDERDARK OPTIONS - We're unenlightened!!!

Welcome to the Underdark, where the sun doesn't shine, everyone wants to murder you, and Wizards of the Coast has apparently decided what this place really needed was more light. Sorry, Unlight. Totally different. We've got a glowing Barbarian who can't turn off the high beams, a Rogue whose subclass starts working sometime around retirement age, a Wizard with healing powers and questionable workplace safety practices, and finally a perfectly reasonable solution to all of these problems: put a tadpole in your skull and become a Mind Flayer. Somehow, that's the part we liked.

Show Notes

This week, we head underground to dig through the latest Unearthed Arcana: Underdark Options, featuring three new subclasses, a Ceremorphosis feat path, and the Mind Blast spell.

First up is the Path of Unlight Barbarian, a character who rages so hard they become a walking lantern. There are some genuinely useful ideas here, including radiant retaliation, blindsight, and the ability to make enemies glow, but the damage numbers struggle to keep up and several abilities feel strangely dependent on fighting invisible creatures. Worse, your Barbarian apparently has no dimmer switch, so raging in the Underdark turns you into a thirty-foot beacon advertising free adventurers to every monster nearby.

Then we meet the House Agent Rogue, built around charm, betrayal, and stabbing people who thought you were their friend. The fantasy is great. The mechanics are considerably less cooperative. Several of the subclass's signature abilities depend on creatures being friendly or charmed, but the tools needed to make that happen reliably either arrive far too late or don't interact with the rules the way the subclass seems to expect. By level 17, the House Agent can finally do much of what we wanted it to do at level 3. That is one hell of an onboarding process.

The Imaskari wizard fares better mechanically. It can convert elemental damage to radiant damage, spend Hit Dice to hand out temporary hit points, heal allies, remove conditions, and eventually curse enemies with Unlight until they explode. There are some strong ideas here, particularly the bonus-action healing and restoration options, but the subclass feels like several different concepts sharing an apartment because none of them could afford rent alone.

And then somebody finally releases the tadpoles.

The Path of Ceremorphosis is easily the most interesting material in the UA. It lets characters gradually embrace Illithid abilities through a feat tree, picking up Psionic Energy Dice, telepathy, defensive abilities, tentacles, and eventually full Ceremorphosis. At the end of the path, you can become an aberration, gain Mind Flayer abilities, and choose between eating brains or spellcasting.

Choose spellcasting.

Mind Blast alone makes the decision pretty easy. A massive cone, an Intelligence save, psychic damage, and the stunned condition is an incredibly nasty combination. With Psionic Energy Dice potentially letting a high-level character use it repeatedly without spending normal spell slots, this is also the part most likely to receive a visit from the balance hammer before publication.

Overall, Underdark Options is a mixed bag. The Barbarian looks salvageable with better scaling and stronger flavor. The Rogue probably needs to go back to the drawing board. The Wizard works, but doesn't inspire much excitement. Ceremorphosis, however, feels like exactly the kind of weird, dangerous character option the Underdark should be giving us.

The Underdark is full of Drow assassins, Illithids, Umber Hulks, ancient civilizations, horrific monsters, political intrigue, poisons, spiders, and things with entirely too many tentacles. There is plenty of material here.

We're just still trying to figure out why everyone is so excited about Unlight.

Key Takeaways

• Path of Unlight Barbarian has some solid ideas, but weak damage scaling and mandatory glowing hold it back.
• The subclass's reliance on blindsight and revealing invisible enemies can become very campaign-dependent.
• House Agent Rogue has a fantastic betrayal fantasy, but its mechanics don't reliably support that fantasy.
• Several important House Agent abilities arrive far too late, with some of the subclass finally functioning properly around level 17.
• The Imaskari wizard is probably the strongest of the three subclasses mechanically, especially as a secondary healer.
• Spending Hit Dice for bonus-action healing and condition removal gives the Wizard some excellent action economy.
• Unlight still feels underdeveloped as a concept. The hosts wanted something stranger and more distinctly Underdark.
• Ceremorphosis is the highlight of the UA and continues the promising idea of character paths built through feat trees.
• Some Ceremorphosis options are niche, especially the tentacle and brain-eating mechanics.
• Mind Blast is extremely powerful thanks to its large area, Intelligence save, and ability to stun.
• Repeated Mind Blasts fueled by Psionic Energy Dice look strong enough that they may need adjustment.
• The hosts generally liked the villainous path concept and want to see more options built around it.
• Final verdict: mixed bag. The subclasses need work, but becoming a Mind Flayer is apparently a perfectly reasonable career move.

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Meet the Hosts

• Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

• Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

• Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.

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