Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Barbarian Paths and Druid Circles
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Last month, Tactical Adventures held this Wishing Well event where just about anyone could suggest archetype ideas for the Barbarian and Druid classes that will be arriving to Solasta: Crown of the Magister with its next DLC. And now, over a week after the event's deadline, we're treated to this developer blog highlighting some of the more common suggestions.
Check it out:
Barbarian Paths
Barbarians are an interesting bunch. Mighty warriors driven by their rage, overpowering their enemy through pure physical prowess and innate combat senses where Fighters shine through training and skills. You could draw similitudes to what Sorcerers are to Wizards: it's in their blood.
Most submissions we received can be regrouped in the following themes, here is a little breakdown of the most common ones (with some comments):Druid Circles
- Mountain / Stone: Unbreakable Barbarians who stand in the middle of the fight, taking blows left and right without a care. Just imagine that scene with Boromir from Lord of the Ring, but instead he doesn't die and keeps fighting (although that would be the Zealot from Xanathar's Guide - the features here are a little different) .
- Blood / Sacrifice: Barbarians who grow stronger the more injured they become, the epitome of high risk high reward.
- Strength / Might: Strength is everything to these Barbarians, who can break the ground with a stomp and throw enemies around like wet towels. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
- Dragons: Dragon Blood does not only produce Sorcerers, and these Barbarians use their Draconic features to heavily enhance their combat abilities.
- War Paint: Blessed by the shamans of their tribe, these Barbarians covered in magic war paint and tattoos often surprise enemies with strange curses and protection that one would not expect from a savage warrior.
- Leadership: Some are warriors, others are leaders - these Barbarians are both. They lead by example, jumping first into the fight, empowering and rallying their allies through their rage and powerful war cries.
- Spirits / Ancestors: Barbarians whose powers are linked to the tribe's Guardian Spirits or Ancestors. Unfortunately this theme skirts a little too close to the official Ancestral Guardian subclass featured in the Xanathar's Guide, so we had to discard the proposals linked to it.
- Pirates: Some people suggested Barbarian pirates, sailing the high seas! While the idea could be fun, Solasta: Crown of the Magister's campaign takes place far away from any ocean, and most features wouldn't work in consequence.
- Vikings: Similarly we also had some submissions for Barbarian Paths taking inspiration from the Vikings. Not a bad idea, but it just doesn't work in the current setting, sorry!
- Death: We had a few submissions for Barbarians that would grow stronger each time they would kill, with some features even giving them a little bit of Necromancer vibe.
- Brawler: What happens when you don't have Monks in your game? People submits Monk-like subclasses instead. More seriously though, this is something that could be very cool - and that we've seen a lot of homebrew out there. Some people just want the punching and kicking without the whole peace of mind and supernatural Ki package bundled with it, and I personally agree! But fighting barehanded would require a lot new set of animations, not to mention a lot of features included grappling which is just not in Solasta.
- Craziness: Barbarians whose rage goes incontrollable and unstable, leading to very strange consequences.
- Hunting: So, here's the issue with this theme - very often I found that the features submitted were pretty much Ranger features (or could be). It's not that Barbarians can't be close to nature, but here they retained very little Barbarian identity and went full Ranger-but-strong-instead-of-dexterous. Also, a lot of focus on thrown weapons - we don't have a lot of those in Solasta :(
- Animals: Unfortunate, chief. Path of the Beast is already a thing in Tasha, and the features are looking awfully similar.
- Half-Demon: This could be interesting, but we haven't introduced any demons to the Solasta setting yet. Does that mean there are none though? Who knows.
- Elements: A lot of features received there were very close to the Storm Herald (Xanathar Guide), so we had to scrap them.
- Focus / Clarity: A twist on the usual rage-fueled warrior, these Barbarians turn their rage into pure focus instead.
The Clerics of Mother Nature have arrived (though don't let them know I called them that, I don't think they'd appreciate it). Druids are full on spellcasters who trade the ability to wear metal and to shoo spooky skeletons away with the ability to turn into animals - and large ones at that.
Most submissions we received can be regrouped in the following themes, here is a little breakdown of the most common ones (with some comments):How will I know if my submission is selected?
- Sky / Space: Although both Circle of the Moon & Circle of the Stars already exist, we found a lot of interesting submissions within that thematic which strayed away from those official subclasses.
- Nature / Balance: It was obvious, everyone was expecting it, the Druid was going to get submissions with nature-related features. And some good ones at that, there were a lot of great ideas there!
- Cycle of Life: These Druids protect the cycle by nurturing life but also combatting those who keep to remain alive after their time has come. Thematically it's the creed of Maraike in Solasta, so there might be conflicts with her Clerics.
- Healing: Druids whose powers revolve around healing the land and its inhabitants, blessed by Nature herself.
- Shapeshifting: As with Nature, we know Shapeshift-enhancing features were going to be a thing. That said, a lot of them are skirting a little close to the Circle of the Moon!
- Fire: Sorry chief, Circle of Wildfire just came out in Tasha recently!
- Death / Decay: A little close thematically to the Circle of Spore from Ravnica, and also a little too close to Necromancy. We found that theme getting a little far from what we think Druids are in Solasta, not to mention our campaign is ill-suited for really evil characters.
- Spirits: Flying a little close to the Circle of Dreams!
- Dragons: Now that's interesting. While Dragons are a huge thing in Solasta, and the notion of Draconic Barbarians sounded cool - Draconic Druids don't resonate with us as much. First of all, Dragons already grant Arcane powers (Sorcerers) so having a divine spellcaster with links to Dragons must mean they worship them. But Druids, unlike Clerics, aren't really drawing power from a single deity - but rather nature itself (which is why they are a separate class from Clerics). As you can see, it gets a little complicated lore-wise when it comes to Draconic Druids.
- Martial: Druids who've been spending time at the gym getting those gains and punching fools.
Before releasing the DLC (date not yet revealed), we will announce which ideas we selected (and some personal favorites as well) in a news post just like this one – and the name or nickname you put in the Google Form will also be added to the in-game credits as Community Designer.
