Next week, Wizards Of The Coast will drop the long awaited books Arcana Unleashed and Deadfall. Arcana Unleashed is a Gameplay Expansion book that will provide player options, world building, magic items, and a bestiary that is centered around the arcane, and Deadfall is a level 11-20 campaign that is set in the Forgotten Realms’ Rashemen and Thay, where the party will infiltrate the Red Wizards and ultimately face off against the infamous lich, Szass Tam.

Now normally, I would be talking up Deadfall because I absolutely love the Forgotten Realms and the Red Wizards of Thay. In fact, I have made a Barbarian character a while back that’s from Rashemen and has the Rashemi Wanderer background and a whole backstory centered around the Red Wizards. But because I am planning to be a player in that campaign, I’ve decided to hold off on reading the book until after the campaign is done.

And before we go further, I do want to share that I was given an early copy of these two books by Wizards Of The Coast. There was no expectations for me to provide any sort of review and there was no compensation other than receiving these books.

With that said, let’s talk about some of my personal thoughts and highlights about Arcana Unleashed then a deep dive into the Evolving Magic Items option that’s presented in the book.

Quick Highlights & Other Reviews

Before we dive into Evolving Magic Items, I did want to share some of the things I saw in the book that I thought was worth mentioning and discussing just briefly that captured my attention.

• As always, the artwork is fantastic. What I love about this book specifically is that there is a more diverse style of artwork we see here. From black to white to comic book style and stained glass window, it is truly gorgeous.
• The two subclass winners for me are the Cleric’s Arcana Domain and the Wizard’s Necromancy. Arcana Domain does a fantastic job weaving the Wizard flavor into a Cleric class that makes it really versatile and supportive that makes a lot of sense for a magic-focused theme, and the Necromancy Wizard gives a lot of exciting options for that command over the undead fantasy that makes it a strong and enjoyable experience.
• I think the Backgrounds were interesting but nothing excited me initially. They have some really great and unique examples that people can use to create interesting magical characters like Circus Trouper and a Ward that helps the less fortunate, but by and large, nothing truly stands out for me.
• There’s been a lot of complaints and concerns about General Feats and how players can get access to new spells they didn’t have access before. Some think it’s a problem – I don’t agree with that. Players don’t get a free casting or additional spell slots as a result of this feat so I think it’s fine the way it is, but some of the General Feats do give the players an ability to cast specific school spells without spell components which means they can’t be counter spelled. My favorite General Feat though is Spell Resistant which allows you to gain Resistance to a damage type and a bonus to your Saving Throws against a spell or magical effect.
• There’s a spell called Mordenkainen’s Lucubration. I’ve never seen the word “Lucubration” before and it looks way too similar to lubrication. For a lot of people. I can’t recall what the spell does but I can tell you the jokes that people have made about Mordenkainen’s Lubrication.
• My favorite spells from this book are Grave Ground and Spirit Lantern. Grave Ground just sounds cool with skeletal hands bursting out from the ground, creating Difficult Terrain and dealing Necrotic damage, and Spirit Lantern uses fragments of souls of enemies that died to give you ways to deal out damage, heal undead, or ward an ally as a Bonus Action.
• The chapters on Creating Magical Worlds and Magical Factions I think are really good for Dungeon Masters who want to utilize and lean into creating interesting magical worlds in their campaigns. What I appreciate about these chapters is how it shows a number of ways that magic can be utilized for specific interests and purposes that goes beyond “for the sake of magic”. So if you want more ideas on creating exciting and unique ideas for magic, those are good to use.
• My favorite monsters in this book are the Archmages, the Living Spells, and the Spellguards. The Archmages are very powerful and memorable (imagine being able to do Fireball and Lightning bolt both in the same turn). The Living Spells gives you a template on how you can take a favorite spell of yours and make it a chaotic energy that needs to be contended with, and Spellguards are Divination flavored bodyguards essentially. Very strong and powerful martials with the ability to tap into Divination to protect other enemies. These are ideal for Thayan Knights who protect their Red Wizard.
• Lastly, this does come with a Level 1 adventure that one could run. I don’t know if it makes sense for Wizards of the Coast to use Level 1 adventures anymore for these kinds of books. All subclasses are given at level 3 so if you really want to have players and Dungeon Masters to try out these new features, I think the default should be a level 3 adventure instead of level 1 as I think starting at that level will still be manageable to play for new Dungeon Masters and players.

If you do want to see what others have said about Arcana Unleashed, there are some great creators out there that have a lot more experience and insights and a more thorough review of the book overall:

• Mastering Dungeons interview with the lead designer of the book, Amanda Hamon
• Nerd Immersion’s Arcana Unleashed (Playlist)
• MysticArts’ “What’s in D&D Arcana Unleashed?”
• GameMasters’ “D&D Arcana Unleashed: Everything You Need to Know!”
• Insight Check’s Arcana Unleashed (Playlist)

What’s In “Evolving Magic Items”

Evolving Magic Items is a new mechanic for 5.5 that allows you as the Dungeon Master to give your players magic items that essentially can grow with their characters as they advance and level up during the campaign. Although something kind of similar already exists in Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, Evolving Magic Items is something that can be used in any setting or context (instead of having it tied to a dragon’s treasure hoard).

The book provides some good starting guidance on evolving magic items. It suggests having the magic item evolve when the player enters a new tier of play, and that it can evolve either magically or through crafting using the Crafting Magic Items rules in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. It provides guidance on what to include in an evolving magic item such as naming, rarity of the item, if attunement changes while it evolves, and how previous abilities are retained. It also provides 5 ready-made evolving magic items as well as rules and examples for making your own Evolving Magic Item.

What’s Great About It

This is something I’ve been waiting to have for a while and I’m glad we’re finally getting it. The opening statement of this section nails it on the head as to why this is needed:

“Few experiences infuse players with more wonder than their characters finding exciting magic items. Characters often grow fond of magic items that have personal significance, such as items that remind them of a beloved companion or a heroic deed.

As characters grow in power, though, that fondness can turn to frustration. A level 1 character’s beloved Uncommon item might no longer be as useful by the time that character reaches level 5. Eventually, the character might have a dilemma: abandon their favorite magic item in favor of one with less personal significance, or keep the favored item, potentially forgoing a mechanically stronger option.”

Arcana Unleashed, pg. 126

I can’t tell you how many times I really enjoyed having a magical weapon for my barbarian but when we got to a certain level I felt like I had to give something up in order to play stronger. And now, this is something that players can tell their Dungeon Masters that they want to have an item that’s significant to their characters that they can keep but watch it scale in growth. This is definitely a win for everyone.

I also appreciate seeing a Simple and Complex system for evolving a magic item. Although the Simple system may seem obvious to experience Dungeon Masters (which is basically taking an item and giving it a +1 Bonus for each tier of play), it’s good to be reminded that evolving a magic item doesn’t need to be complicated to be useful, especially for new Dungeon Masters.

The book’s guidance on Complex Evolution Steps gives a pretty straightforward process, although the language was about bit confusing about if a bonus scales up or not (after re-reading it, they’re referring to not taking an existing magic item with a bonus and increasing it within its current rarity level. So don’t take a +1 weapon that’s Uncommon a +2 weapon since that makes it Rare). It also comes with a roll table for you to use to determine what additional property the item gets at Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary status to help you create your evolving magic item (roll tables are always good either for using as is or as a source of inspiration). It also includes a few examples of how you can evolve the magic item and how to think about the narrative significance of giving it a certain property when it evolves as well, too.

What’s Missing

Although I love what’s in here, I think there were a few missed opportunities that I would have loved to see included in this book regarding Evolving Magic Items.

• Additional Narrative Guidance For Dungeon Masters. What I mean by this is to give more suggestions for Dungeon Masters on how to use narratives to engage in the Evolving Magic Items. For example, a Dungeon Master could have the magic item evolve when narratively a big moment happens in the story, or if a combat is looking rough for the party – that’s when the Dungeon Master can use that moment to have the magic item evolve instead of something that just happens automatically.
• Better Options For Roll Tables. Although I think the current roll tables aren’t bad, I do wish that the majority of the options weren’t just adding the ability to cast a certain spell once a day. I get that it’s a book about magic and the arcane so you need to have those in there, but I also think it’s an opportunity to show what other kinds of things you can add to a magic item beyond slapping a spell on it. There’s a lot of magic items that gives people different abilities or even once per long rest actions that are not spells that I think can make it far more interesting, useful, and unique.
• Reverse Engineering Existing Magic Items. I would have loved to see guidance on how to take an existing magic item and work backwards to make it evolve. For example, let’s take the Cloak of Arachnida, which is a Very Rare magic item. My campaign starts the players at Tier 1, so it would be great to give a player who just took down a Lolth devotee this Cloak as a reward. Obviously Very Rare would be too powerful at that level, but if I could break it down so that it evolves starting at Uncommon to eventually its current state of Very Rare, that would be perfect. The problem is that this Cloak has 4 different properties and now I need to figure out which property to give them at the appropriate level. I can definitely use the Roll Table and look at other magic items to figure that out, but if there was a way to do this without having to look up multiple things, that would have been perfect.
• A Template Table. I think what would have been the most useful for us is having a table that serves as a template for people to use for Evolving Magic Items. And really, the tools already exist for us to have something like this. For example, this is what a template table could look like, using just the information about magic items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide:

Rarity	Weapon/Armor	Spell Level	Save DC	Special Properties
Uncommon	+1	2-3	13-15	Uncommon Potion Property
Rare	+2	4-5	15-17	Resistances, +1 Saving Throws
Very Rare	+3	6-8	17-18	+2 Ability Score Increase

Now this is very rough. Obviously there would need to be some guardrails on this and I am not a game designer, but I only used the Dungeon Master Guide to get a table started on how one could use this to create an evolving magic item that gives a lot more variability and variety. And to be clear, I think this would be an additional feature to have in the book and not to replace the current roll tables as those are still fantastic to have and serves another purpose that is really useful.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think having Evolving Magic Items is a much needed feature and the way it is presented is fantastic. Giving ready made Evolving Magic Items is a huge benefit, even if I wished there was more, and the roll tables and evolving examples are a great help. Though there are a few things I would have loved to see, this is still a net positive for me overall and I plan to start integrating this into my campaigns I run moving forward so that I can ensure my players get a magic item that’s meaningful for them early on in the campaign.

Arcana Unleashed and Deadfall will be available worldwide on September 15th.