D&D's New Arcana Unleashed Feats Are Breaking the Game, but There's an Easy Fix

The Adept feats from Arcana Unleashed make class distinctions even more blurred

Dungeons & Dragons’ latest book, Arcana Unleashed, introduced a cornucopia of new options for players who enjoy keeping track of spell slots more than hitting monsters with a sword. Between new subclasses, spells, magical items, and factions, there is enough in Unleashed Arcana to keep even the most ambitious spellcaster entertained for a long time.

Still, one element of the book has been hotly debated by the D&D community, and not necessarily in a good way: the new Adept feats. These eight feats, one for each school of magic, grant every spellcaster access to some powerful spells that were previously limited to Wizards and Sorcerers. According to some players and Dungeon Masters, this has a potentially game-breaking effect, but there’s a very easy way to fix the issue.

The new Adept feats let everyone cast Fireball

One of the worst offenders, often mentioned in debates about the new Unleashed Arcana feats, is Evocation Adept. In D&D, evocation is the school of magic that specializes in materializing elemental energy, usually for destructive effects. Some of the strongest damage-based spells in the game belong to this school, including the iconic Fireball and the always-reliable Magic Missile.

The Evocation Adept feat is part of the so-called “half-feats”: it grants a +1 bonus to one ability score (in this case, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma), plus one or more other specific bonuses. Like all the new Adept feats, Evocation Adept grants two of these bonuses: an extended spell list and a special ability called Fueled Evocation. Both of these have been flagged as problematic for different reasons.

The Additional Spell feature grants extra spells to a character’s spell list, one for each spell level from one to five. Evocation Adept’s list includes Chromatic Orb, Shatter, Fireball, Vitriolic Sphere, and Wall of Force. It’s an impressive arsenal of damage spells; all except Shatter were previously available only to Wizards and Sorcerers.

Now, if a Druid character fancies it, they can get this feat at level four (it’s a prerequisite, along with having the Spellcasting or Pact Magic class features) and start flinging Fireballs at their enemies. To make it worse, Evocation Adept has a Fueled Evocation feature that allows a character who is dealing damage with an evocation spell to add up to two of their unspent Hit Dice to the roll, once per turn. So, the aforementioned Druid could cast a Fireball as a level three spell, dealing 8d6+2d8 damage. A Paladin or Ranger could add 2d10s, thus making the average damage of a level three Fireball cast by these classes greater than a level six one cast by a Wizard — all while wearing armor, keeping their class features, and having more hit points (HP) than a regular Wizard.

Now, imagine if every party member picked up this feat. That’s a lot of Fireballs. There is a long list of combos and min-maxed builds that can exploit this and the other Adept feats — and you will find plenty of them online — but I don’t think that’s the main issue. These new feats reflect a design philosophy that has been creeping up throughout D&D’s 5th edition and has become very prominent in the 2024 rules revision (also known as 5.5e): the homogenization of D&D.

Should Druids be able to cast Fireball?

In the current version of D&D, character class distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred: every character is able to do a little bit of everything. In Arcana Unleashed, on the same page where the new Adept feats are introduced, there is an illustration of a burly, warrior-type character holding a big hammer and, with the other hand, pointing a spell at a target (using the iconic Spirit Gun pose from Yu Yu Hakusho!). The caption reads: “Any hero can use magic to enhance their skills.” But should it really be this way?

A wider variety of character options isn’t inherently a bad thing. The structure seen in previous editions of the game was quite rigid. It was commonly understood that every party needed to have a Cleric for healing and a full arcane spellcaster (Wizard or Sorcerer), plus a couple of frontliners, to optimize their performance. In 5.5.e, these roles are still important, but seemingly every class is now able to cover multiple roles thanks to the flexibility added by feats and subclasses. Overall, it gives players more freedom during character creation.

So is there any reason to play a Wizard anymore when you can access the class’ exclusive spells without the drawbacks that used to come with them? Wizards used to be the squishiest members of a party, but they traded that for unparalleled magical might. Now, leaving the Druid example aside, you could make a Paladin with high Armor Class (AC), high HP, Extra Attack, Aura of Protection, and by level nine you can also start throwing Fireballs around. Clerics can have the usual array of healing spells and the offensive capabilities of an evocation Wizard. Sure, the Adept feats don’t grant access to spells above level five, but most campaigns never reach that character level anyway.

There is still one reason to play a Wizard or a Sorcerer, besides the thrill of casting Time Stop at least once: because you like the class. D&D isn’t a competitive game, and while optimizing a character is perfectly normal, players should be encouraged to start from a concept based on flavor and roleplay, rather than min-maxing. This is also the easiest way for DMs to prevent Arcana Unleashed feats from being abused.

Make them make sense

Let’s say one player at the table wants to play a Fireball Druid. One could easily argue that throwing around huge balls of flaming death is not exactly in line with a Druid’s vocation (plants catch fire easily, in case you didn’t know). As a DM, during session zero, you can ask players where they plan to go with their builds. If someone mentions the Adept feats, don’t panic! You can simply ask that player to “make it make sense.” How and why did this Druid become an adept of the evocation school? What happened in their life to make them pursue such destructive magic? What are their goals now that they can master the most dangerous aspects of the elements? Perhaps the Druid players should have to pick up the Circle of Wildfire subclass to make everything more coherent.

Working together to answer these questions should lead to an interesting backstory, at the very least. Then, as a DM, you can integrate that backstory into the campaign. For example, you could use the famous “knife theory” to introduce challenges and stakes: maybe the Fireball Druid lost control of their magic and burned down a village, and now there is a bounty on their head.

To be clear, this is not a “hard fix” for the perceived imbalances of the new Adept feats. Rather, it’s a “meta fix,” as it turns a potentially problematic element of the game into something positive: a good story. Stricter DMs might prefer banning these feats outright, and that’s fine too, as long as it doesn’t cause too much discontent among players.

D&D’s current design philosophy is pretty clear, and it won’t change anytime soon. The designers want to give players more options, and this will make class boundaries progressively thinner. It’s understandable if someone misses the old, distinct feeling of the game, where a Fighter was a Fighter and a Wizard could die from a single arrow, but a DM should remember that not everyone at the table necessarily feels the same. Rather than taking options away from your players, sometimes it’s enough to just ask to make them make sense.