4 new villain Dungeons & Dragons options, ranked

Sometimes when you play Dungeons & Dragons you want to be the villain. It's okay to be a hero, but most of the time it's completely overdone. Unearthed Arcana is here and it comes with four subclasses for the villains at your table to try out.

Villain options include the subclasses of Cleric, Druid, Warrior, and Mage. In addition to these subclasses, you are given the option to have your character follow the path of a villain. This path gives your character new villainous feats and provides a bit of story exposition to help them walk down the new villainous path they choose. Here are all the villain options in the Unearhed Arcana:

4

circle of titans

druid

As guardians of the Earth, these druids sometimes go overboard to punish those who view the land differently than they do. This awakens the Titan form that comes with this Druid subclass. Circle of the Titan brings three new Wild Shape forms to Behemoth, Leviathan, and Insectoid.

While in Titan Wild Shape, you take any elemental damage. They can be gigantic or larger, can ignore terrain issues under many conditions, and can engulf creatures when they become gigantic.

Unfortunately, this class doesn't feel very villainous and its abilities aren't as good as other druid options. The coolest part about this subclass is the new Wild Shape option, but some of these abilities can be found in other Wild Shape options you can choose from. However, the insectoid form can distribute health points to allies. There aren't many fun or villainous options here, and even the higher level abilities aren't worth the investment.

The Path of the Lich or Path of the Death Knight options included in the Unwarthed Arcana can help you create a backstory and more villainous engagement with this class choice.

3

devil's magic

wizard

Wizards gain the Demonic Magic subclass. Your demonic villain days come from the Abyss, and you will display this in your appearance as well, which will help sell your villain ideals. The evil and chaos of Abyss's plans will help push the villain in some cool role-playing directions.

Your new abilities include Demon Lash, which deals 1d4 cutting damage and pulls enemies towards you, or spends 1 magic point to give them disadvantage on attacks against you for a turn. At level 18, you can use the Summon Fiend spell without its component cost to summon a demon onto the field.

The most interesting ability is using Innate Sorcery on Abyssal Aura. This Abyssal Aura creates an emanation point that has several effects:

• Sticky Web – Creates difficult terrain that requires a creature to roll or use an action to escape.

• Caustic Ooze – Creates difficult terrain that deals acid damage on a failed save.

• Dreadful Scream – The emanation deals psychic damage.

• Enchanting Spores – Creates a highly obscured area that can charm enemies.

• Poisonous Foliage – Creates an area slightly obscured by demonic plants that deal poison damage on a failed save.

• Enervating Bones – Bones erupt from the ground, inflicting necrotic damage to targets hit.

The variety here makes these options viable for wizards who typically use the same spells for their entire level. The downside, of course, is that you have to roll, and the results you want may not be what you want. However, the variety available makes up for the randomness while maintaining the spirit of the base class. The higher your level, the more you can roll the dice twice and choose which effect you want to use.

The only downside here is that it doesn't necessarily feel villainous, like some demonic force is controlling you. The options available to apply Disadvantage are nice and it comes with an expanded spell list, but ultimately it doesn't play as powerful or uniquely as you might think.

2

hell knight

fighter

A great villain option, the Hell Knights can easily tie their backstory to the Nine Hells, as they are champions of the demons, cambions, and night hags of the Nine Hells. As an added bonus, UA has some additional options for how you became a Hell Knight. You learn hellfire, can see in magical and non-magical darkness, and can infuse weapons into hellfire weapons that deal normal or fire damage. You gain resistance to fire damage while wearing armor or a shield, and ignore fire resistance when using a weapon.

The cool part about the weapon is the added inferno and advanced wound mechanics. A built-in wound die can deal an additional d6 damage. As you level up, wounds on enemies can explode, dealing different types of damage, and some types of damage radiate from the wounds, damaging others in the area.

For even more extra damage, Action Surge can cause your armor to explode into a point of fire, dealing fire damage. The blistering wounds you leave deal an extra d6 damage when you reach level 15, and if your weapon reduces a creature's hit points to 0 at level 18, they become Lemurs of the Nine Hells.

There's a lot to this subclass, and the way it all builds on the fiery theme of the servants of the Nine Hells works very well. Your fighter has so many options for dealing extra damage that it's well worth investing in a fighter that wants to add extra damage dice to every roll. The added bonus of being able to easily slide into the vial backstory makes this a great UA addition.

1

Plague Realm

priest

Plague and Pestilence are the main aspects of this subclass, calling upon the gods of corruption, pestilence, pestilence, poison, disease, and famine. This makes it easy to incorporate subclasses as they take on key aspects of most campaign areas, and makes it easy for players to invest in creating or causing these problems as they go. As far as mechanics go, subclasses have their own spell lists. Some suspect options here include Blight, Contagion, Detect Poison, and Disease.

The real fun comes from the Channel Holy ability, Plague Blessing. Providing a roleplaying purpose through plague symptoms that help tell the player's story while also providing a level of exhaustion for combat makes this UA option one of the most interesting. Plague bursting from a creature with 0 health makes it more versatile, making it a powerful villain option.

Adding the ability to shapeshift at level 17 makes Cleric feel like a completely new and creative class. This version is a very interesting win for the villain, so it's definitely worth a try.