One of the interesting innovations of the DMs Guild and Wizards of the Coast this year has been to elevate the work of a group of skilled designers. Titled the “Guild Adepts”, these designers have had early access to upcoming D&D products, and have crafted supplementary products. The latest of these releases is Xanathar’s Lost Notes to Everything Else, an 87-page pdf that covers a range of new character options and DM material, much as does Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. A third section adds material for Chult. Some of this is reprinted from previous Guild Adepts products, but having it all in one document for players and DMs is appreciated.

The book begins with a collection of 25 subclasses, providing even more options for players. Each class gets between one and three of these classes.

Subclasses are tricky. In fact, any new mechanics are tricky, and you need to playtest them before you really get a good grasp on them. That said, here are my initial impressions.

• Path of the Courageous Heart (Barbarian). A barbarian class that relies on luck and improvisation. Trades damage for accuracy, and I find the result underwhelming. Instead of attacking with a 1d12 greataxe, you get to do 1d4 damage with an improvised weapon and have +1d4 to your attack roll when raging. Mostly I’d just prefer to attack recklessly, as losing the damage is horrible. Pass. (The idea that you get better damage if your “improvised weapon” is close to a real weapon relies too much on the DM being kind to you. It’s ludicrous that you get 1d8 damage and added bonuses if the improvised weapon is “like” a longsword but isn’t actually a longsword). The class does start getting extra damage from level 5 when raging: an extra d4, and the full progression is Level 3: 1d4, Level 5: 2d4, Level 10: 3d4, Level 14: 4d4. Which leads to the strange situation that an ability may be too powerful and not powerful enough depending on which level you are and what you’re fighting. These improvised attacks never count as magical, so you’re greatly disadvantaged against demons and devils and most higher-level foes.
• Path of the Red Reaver (Barbarian). The barbarian as a vampire/blood hound. The interesting thing about this is it uses Hit Dice as a resource, and works best when at below half hit points. I miss the “bloodied” term from 4E, which would make the descriptions here more succinct. It’s an interesting subclass.
• Path of Sacred Kin (Barbarian). Barbarian as spellcaster, using the template of the Fighter and Rogue subclasses for spell progression – as you might expect, it’s a slow progression. The spells come from the Sorcerer’s list, and there’s a lot of fiddling around with what Rage means, so you lose some abilities but gain the ability to concentrate when raging. I was originally thrown by “Resistance to magical damage” but it’s defined in the Monster Manual as resistance to damage caused by magic weapons, spells, or another magical source – gaining this while losing resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage is an interesting trade-off, but also gaining a bonus to AC equal to your Strength score sets off warning bells.
• College of Discord (Bard). Wielding instruments as weapons and teleporting around the battlefield, this is likely to appeal to a lot of players who enjoy the more martial type at bard. At 14^th level, the discord bard gains the ability to create a combined haste and slow effect. It’s complicated to adjudicate but as wacky and fun as it sounds.
• College of Keys (Bard). Talks to locks and traps. Fun ideas, but you’d have to be in a very trap-focussed campaign for this to be useful, and to have no rogues in the game to upstage. It just feels a bit too one-note to me.
• College of Mourning (Bard). Specialises in easing the transition from death to life by casting animate dead. No, I don’t understand that either, but it’s a fun class. The other abilities are more appropriate.
• Entropy Domain (Cleric). Somehow, the entropy domain helps protect yourself from it. The ability to drain spell slots from casters is a good idea, though, even if I think it’s confusingly presented. Overall, I don’t think the abilities match the flavour well enough.
• Survival Domain (Cleric). No, this isn’t about surviving the wilderness – rather, it’s a domain that helps people survive combat. I think it’s misnamed. This is a new War domain, and a potent one. Although the to confuse us further the domain grants Nature and Survival skills despite them not relating to the other domain abilities. I’d happily play a cleric of this domain.
• Circle of Seasons (Druid). Underpowered, badly written, and horribly edited. I don’t understand what some of the abilities do! Expending a use of wildshape to do 1d6 damage a round to a foe, who might save against it? This is incompetent design.
• Circle of the Spiritlords (Druid). There may be something cool here, but the writing is so terrible that it doesn’t make much sense.
• Dragoon (Fighter). A fighter who is good on or off their mount. There are some nice ideas here, but it needs work. Line Breaker feels terribly overpowered. (Note to Pathfinder designers: there’s no such thing a Move action in 5E).
• Runeguard (Fighter). A fighter who augments their abilities with magical runes. Cool ideas. Uncertain balance. Horrible phrasing of some of the rules.
• Way of Atonement (Monk). I’m pretty sure this subclass is atoning for being Really Really Overpowered. Some nice ideas, but Armament of Atonement? WTF? This is not the Pathfinder RPG. (Note to designers: giving a scaling bonus of +1 to +4 on AC, Attacks, Damage and Saving throws is a bad idea. Don’t try to break Bounded Accuracy).
• Way of Empathy (Monk).
  This is a very nicely-designed class that allows a monk to aid allies at a cost to their health. I like this one. Very elegant and interesting design.
• Oath of Predation (Paladin). The predation in this case is that the paladin enforces cult mentality. It’s a strange, dangerous class, and very hard to evaluate. I don’t like it existing in D&D as a character option.
• Oath of Providence (Paladin). The rationale behind this subclass is very confused – it’s really a Paladin who is lucky and forces the enemy to be unlucky. As written, it’s a paladin who believes fate is more powerful than the gods and we’re helpless before it. Which is nonsense for how the class works as the hand of a god. Its capstone ability, as written, works only for a minute when the paladin first gains 20^th level! Some nice ideas, but could do with more development – and better editing.
• Burghal Explorer (Ranger). I had to look up Burghal. This class is a ranger of ruins, sort of. Or maybe an urban ranger. Its Grazing Strike ability is potentially overpowered, its capstone ability of Close Quarters – you gain cover when adjacent to two other creatures – is underpowered. Some nice ideas, however.
• Wasteland Wanderer (Ranger). I dislike additional bonuses to Passive Perception and Investigation. They already come from a feat. Safety in Numbers doesn’t make sense and is too complicated. It’s meant to be a hyperaware ranger of the wastelands. Whatever.
• Divine Herald (Rogue). Some of the abilities don’t make thematic sense (Guise of the Believer, I’m looking at you), but overall this is a well-constructed subclass that allows a rogue/cleric hybrid in the same way that the Arcane Trickster is a rogue/wizard hybrid.
• Fey Magic (Sorcerer). It’s a sorcerer who can also learn Druid spells. Nicely put together – may be too versatile, but should be interesting to see in play.
• The Chaos patron (Warlock). A very chaotic subclass. And a lot of fun. I don’t care so much about balance when the results are so interesting (and random). It needs better editing, though.
• The Noble Genie patron (Warlock). You gain the services of a genie who fetches spells for you, increasing your versatility. Interesting idea. Not sure about balance, but interesting.
• Beguiler (Wizard). It’s allows a wizard to gain touches of bards and rogues. And the Sneak Spell ability tells you all you need to know about the cluelessness of its designer and developer when it comes to rules. Adding your Intelligence modifier to cantrip damage is not such an amazing ability that you need two paragraphs of text to layer on restrictions that overcomplicate it. Some good ideas in the subclass.
• Mage Hunter (Wizard). It’s all in the name. And in the complicated mechanics. Somewhere. Tell me why a wizard needs a weapon, which they’ll never use because their spells are so much more powerful?
• School of Reconstruction (Wizard). Your single-target evocation spells can also heal. Which is also why this class will never see play in my games. Who needs clerics when you have this class?

If you get the impression that I think it’s a mixed bag? You’re right. And I think some of the material shouldn’t have been released in this form.

The key for getting on my good side? Elegance.

The theme of the class needs to be simply stated. The mechanics should support that theme, and be written clearly. The mechanics should also be easy to apply.

If you manage to get those all together, you’ve got a winner.

The subclasses of Xanathar’s Lost Notes? They need better editing and development. There are too many rough edges. Consider the Chaos patron ability “Tumble through Chaos”:

Starting at 6th level, you can conjure a portal to travel through the planes of chaos. You can cast dimension door with this feature without expending a spell slot or material components. However, denizens of that plane try to hamper your progress. When you use your action to use this feature in this way, you declare your intended destination and then roll 1d4 to determine how the denizens intervene. Whenever you would bring a willing creature with you, that creature always arrives at the intended destination unharmed.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. At 14th level, at the end of the turn you use this feature, you can roll 1d6 and, on a 6, you regain the use of this feature immediately.

Looks good? It’s not too bad, except:

• Dimension Door doesn’t use material components
• The Chaotic Intervention table has 6 entries, not 4.
• Rolling yet another d6 at 14^th level is a bit too much dice rolling for me.

How would I word it?

At 6^th level, you gain the ability to travel through the planes of chaos, although the inhabitants of those planes may try to impede you. As an action, you can cast dimension door without expending a spell slot. Roll 1d6 on the Chaotic Intervention table when you do so to determine the additional effects of this travel. Any willing creatures you bring with you arrive unharmed, regardless of the results of the roll. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. At 14^th level, if you roll a 6 on the Chaotic Intervention table, you immediately regain the use of this feature.

Do I need to mention that dimension door doesn’t need a spell slot? Possibly. I’m not happy with the first sentence: it doesn’t state that you’re travelling short distances in the real world by using the chaos planes; is that implied enough by what the spell does?

Editing and development are tough to do well. If you get a good editor, treat them well! It often easy to see the problems with rules text; it’s much harder to find solutions.

And I’m very hard to impress with new mechanics. I hope you’ll like the classes more than me!

I’ll have a look at more of Xanathar’s Lost Notes in the upcoming days.