RPGBOT.Podcast

In Part I of our Starfinder 2e Tech Core review, we covered the new ancestries, the Mechanic, cybernetics, Junkomancers, armed starfish, and hoverboard shields.
Now we get to the Technomancer, emoji magic, weaponized guitars, giant robots, streamer builds, and finally, after a very long wait, actual Starfinder 2e starship combat.

Starfinder 2e: Tech Core (affiliate link)
The Technomancer is a prepared caster built around programming languages, Spell Cache, Overclock, and Jailbreak. Its programming language acts like a subclass, with options such as DPS++, FORTRN, Servo Shell, and Viper pushing the class toward weapons, defense, minions, or spell gems. The result feels less like a wizard in space and more like a caster constantly modifying systems, improving gear, and cycling through a very satisfying overclock loop.
Tech Core's new spells are pure Starfinder. There are junk spells, starship spells, Summon Giant Robot, and an entire collection of emoji magic. You can blind enemies with emojis, create slippery pools with a crying face, summon emoji weapons, or spam someone so badly they take mental damage. There's also Kill -9, which turns a Linux command into a devastating high-level spell.
The equipment gets just as weird. Chordpocalypse is an electric guitar that doubles as a weapon. The Magical Mixtape gives you the perfect soundtrack for the moment. Laserdiscs have become weapons because nobody remembers what they were for. And streamer-focused gear can literally let you ask chat for help.
Then we finally arrive at the main event: Starfinder 2e starship combat.
Tech Core introduces full tactical starship rules, including ship construction, sensor maps, headings, shields, hull points, battle stations, system damage, weapons, upgrades, and expansion bays. Starship encounters are designed to involve more than ships trading shots, with boarding actions, hazards, repairs, and internal emergencies all potentially happening at the same time.
Ships come in three main frames: the durable Bulwark, the balanced Explorer, and the fast Skirmisher. They level with the party, and battle stations give individual characters meaningful jobs aboard the ship. Gunnery handles weapons, generators support shields, pilots maneuver, magic conduits give casters access to starship spells, and scanners can identify enemy systems so the crew can target and disable them.
One of the biggest design choices is that starships do not have normal credit costs. The GM introduces them through the story, and the ship improves automatically as the party levels. That keeps the focus on customization and adventure instead of turning the campaign into Space Mortgage Simulator.
Between the Technomancer, new spells and gear, and finally a complete starship system, Part II makes Tech Core feel like the book that fully unlocks the technological side of Starfinder 2e.
And Ash finally has his starship rules.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.

Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

Starfinder 2e Tech Core is here, and apparently the answer to "How much weird science fiction nonsense can Paizo fit into one book?" is "Yes."
Starfinder 2e: Tech Core (affiliate link)
Show Notes
In Part 1 of our Starfinder 2e Tech Core review, we dig into the player-facing side of the book, starting with new ancestries, moving into the Mechanic class, and then wandering through a pile of new archetypes, companions, augments, grenades, junk magic, and deeply questionable robot design choices.
The new ancestries immediately establish the tone. Living Holograms can be advertisements, mascots, emojis, or full cartoon characters with stretchy arms, which means your next Starfinder character can technically be a homicidal cereal mascot. We also get SROs, fully customizable sentient robots, Virthani, who are basically humans after somebody turned every slider up, and the Cyborg versatile heritage for anyone who looked at their biological body and decided they could improve it with more hardware.
Then we get to the Mechanic, which Ash immediately declares to be the "Chad Inventor." The Mechanic revolves around an exocortex and lets players choose between a drone, mine, or turret setup. Each option changes how the class plays, while the Modify ability lets Mechanics temporarily improve weapons, equipment, and their technological creations without burning through a limited daily resource.
The class also gets one of the most useful pieces of adventuring technology imaginable: the custom rig. It can hold and integrate multiple toolkits, giving the Mechanic a portable collection of hacking, crafting, infiltration, and repair tools without requiring them to carry half a hardware store on their back.
From there, we explore Tech Core's new archetypes.
The Augmented archetype is for anyone who believes the appropriate number of cybernetic implants is "more." Grenadier does exactly what the name suggests, although disposable explosives can get expensive fast. Junkomancer turns garbage into magical resources and is described as less of a school of magic and more of a vibe, which may be the most Starfinder sentence ever written.
Nanocyte returns from Starfinder 1e as an archetype rather than a full class, allowing characters to control clouds of nanobots that can create cover, attack enemies, repair objects, and generally solve problems through aggressive applications of microscopic technology.
Pharmacologist gives you the ability to manufacture medical consumables and literally shoot medicine into people with syringe guns, because apparently Starfinder decided healing needed more firearms.
Shield Ace makes you better at shields. It exists.
Vehicle Pilot, meanwhile, lets characters lean heavily into hoverboards and other vehicles, including the extremely important ability to use a hoverboard as a shield because sometimes game design achieves perfection.
We also take a quick look at Starfinder 2e robot companions and animal companions, including a robot that appears to be a railgun with legs, thumbs, and a knife for reasons nobody can adequately explain.
And this is only Part 1.
Key Takeaways
Starfinder 2e Tech Core functions as a major core expansion, adding new ancestries, classes, archetypes, equipment, technology, and GM options.
Living Holograms might be the most ridiculous new ancestry in the book, with options ranging from advertisements and mascots to cartoon characters with twenty-foot stretchy arms.
SROs let players build highly customizable robot characters with modular upgrades, movement options, sensors, and physical modifications.
Virthani are highly adaptable humanoids with strong sci-fi utility and excellent support for characters built around augmentations.
The Cyborg versatile heritage dramatically increases a character's capacity for implants and opens the door to extremely augmentation-heavy builds.
The Mechanic is one of Tech Core's standout additions, offering three major playstyles through drones, mines, and turrets.
Modify gives the Mechanic repeatable, short-duration upgrades without relying on a limited daily resource.
The Mechanic's custom rig provides portable access to multiple toolkits and reinforces the class's identity as Starfinder's dedicated technology specialist.
The Augmented archetype is built around getting more mileage out of cybernetic implants and increasing augmentation capacity.
Grenadier improves thrown explosives and works well with Soldier abilities, but disposable grenades may create an ongoing equipment cost problem.
Junkomancer turns battlefield trash and scrap into magical resources, equipment, ammunition, and temporary upgrades.
Nanocyte returns as an archetype rather than a full Starfinder 2e class, using swarms of nanobots for offense, defense, repair, and utility.
Pharmacologist lets characters create medical consumables and deliver medicine or poison through syringe weapons.
Shield Ace is mechanically solid for defensive builds, even if nobody on the podcast appeared especially excited about it.
Vehicle Pilot becomes much more interesting in campaigns where vehicles actually matter, especially once hoverboards start doubling as shields.
Robot companions use mechanics similar to animal companions, allowing characters to customize robotic allies with different chassis and upgrades.
Tech Core embraces Starfinder's mixture of serious mechanics and complete nonsense, which is how we ended up discussing murderous holographic mascots, rocket fists, healing land mines, syringe guns, armed starfish, and robot railguns with knives.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.

Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

Welcome to Mechanus, the only plane in the D&D multiverse where showing up five minutes early is considered dangerously chaotic. Everything is perfectly balanced. Everything runs on schedule. The gears are the size of countries. The locals are geometrically ranked bureaucrats. And somewhere, a Modron is absolutely furious because you filled out Form 27-B instead of Form 27-B-1. This week, we visit the Plane of Mechanus, where free will is suspicious, average damage is mandatory, and the Great Modron March makes your company's mandatory team-building retreat look spontaneous. Please remain orderly. Primus is watching.

Links

2014 Dungeon Master's Guide (affiliate link)
2024 Dungeon Master's Guide (affiliate link)
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (affiliate link)
PF2 Rage of Elements (affiliate link)
Forgotten Realms Wiki - Elemental Plane of Water
Pathfinder Wiki - Plane of Water
RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes The Abyss
Arborea
Archeron
Arcadia
The Beastlands
Bytopia
Carceri
Celestia
Elysium
The Ethereal Plane
The Feywild
Gehenna
Hades
Hell Part 1
Hell Part 2
Limbo
Mechanus
Pandemonium
Plane of Air
Plane of Fire
Plane of Water
Shadowfell

Show Notes
This week on the RPGBOT.Podcast, we travel to Mechanus, D&D's Plane of Absolute Law, where enormous interlocking gears turn endlessly through the cosmos and literally everything has its proper place. If you've ever looked at the Dungeons & Dragons Outer Planes and wondered what would happen if someone turned cosmic bureaucracy into a geographic location, Mechanus has an answer.
We start with the plane itself. Mechanus is built from colossal gears, some the size of countries, rotating together with perfect precision. The gears can be inhabited on both sides, because apparently gravity understands organizational structure here too. The plane sits firmly on the lawful side of the D&D cosmology, connecting conceptually and geographically with places like Arcadia, Acheron, the Outlands, and Sigil.
Then we get to the Modrons, which is where Mechanus goes from strange to wonderfully ridiculous. Modrons exist within a rigid hierarchy governed by Primus, the supreme authority of Mechanus. Their rank determines their shape, duties, authority, and even which other Modrons they're capable of communicating with. Nobody skips the chain of command because, in Mechanus, the chain of command appears to be an actual fundamental law of reality. Even death is organized. When a Modron dies, another is promoted to replace it, the vacancy moves down through the hierarchy, and eventually Primus creates a replacement at the bottom. Somewhere in there is the most terrifying employee succession plan ever written.
We also dig into some of the optional rules for running adventures on the Plane of Mechanus in D&D 5e. The Law of Averages removes some of the randomness from damage rolls, while Imposing Order can gradually push visitors toward lawful neutral alignment. It's a wonderfully thematic way to show that Mechanus isn't just a strange place you visit. The plane itself wants you to start alphabetizing your spell components.
From there, things get bigger and stranger. We talk about Formians, the Gate Town of Automata, the power and influence of Primus, connections to Asmodeus and his Ruby Rod, and one of the greatest pieces of Modron lore in Dungeons & Dragons: the Great Modron March.
Every 289 years, enormous numbers of Modrons leave Mechanus and march through the Outer Planes for reasons that make perfect sense to them and almost nobody else. It's part pilgrimage, part cosmic census, part military parade, and part multiversal traffic problem. We also compare Mechanus with Pathfinder's Axis, explore how law and order are represented differently across tabletop RPG cosmologies, and look at what Dungeon Masters can actually do with Mechanus in a Planescape campaign. Because beneath the jokes about bureaucracy, geometry, and extremely committed clockwork people, Mechanus is genuinely useful. It gives DMs a setting where predictability itself becomes strange, where conformity can become an environmental hazard, and where breaking the rules may be the most dangerous thing the characters can do.
So grab your paperwork, calculate your average damage in advance, and please keep all arms, legs, and chaotic alignments inside the gear at all times.
Key Takeaways
Mechanus is the D&D Plane of Absolute Law, built from enormous interconnected gears operating with perfect precision.
The environment itself reflects order, balance, symmetry, predictability, and rigid structure.
Modrons are organized into a strict hierarchy under Primus, with each rank assigned specific responsibilities and authority.
Modron communication follows the hierarchy, making their entire society one enormous supernatural organizational chart.
When Modrons die, replacements move through the hierarchy so that the system remains properly populated.
The Law of Averages optional rule makes Mechanus mechanically predictable by replacing random damage rolls with average results.
Imposing Order allows the plane itself to influence visitors toward lawful neutral behavior and alignment.
Automata is the appropriately bureaucratic Gate Town associated with Mechanus.
Formians add another highly organized civilization to the plane and provide alternatives to running every Mechanus adventure around Modrons.
The Great Modron March takes place every 289 years and sends Modrons marching across the Outer Planes on one of D&D's strangest recurring planar events.
Pathfinder's Axis provides an interesting comparison for how another major fantasy RPG approaches a plane devoted to cosmic law.
Mechanus works particularly well for Planescape adventures involving bureaucracy, cosmic mysteries, inevitability, philosophical conflicts, and characters who absolutely refuse to follow instructions.
The best thing about the Plane of Mechanus may be the contradiction at its heart: a completely predictable world can become deeply weird the moment unpredictable adventurers arrive.



Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.

Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

Welcome to the Ninth World, where civilization has ended eight times, nobody understands how anything works, and sufficiently advanced technology is mostly an excuse to point at a laser pistol and yell, "Magic!"
In this first part of our How to Play Numenera series, Randall attempts to explain a billion years of lost civilizations, Ash discovers that physics are apparently optional, and Tyler starts asking the dangerous questions about Edge. Before long, we have ancient nanotechnology, mysterious artifacts, cyphers that might explode if you hoard them, stat pools that double as hit points, and a GM who can literally bribe you with XP to make your life more interesting.
Also, we say "moist" far too many times while explaining a d20 mechanic. We regret nothing. Well, some of us regret quite a lot.
VBM.games/rpgbot 

Numenera 2-Book Set (affiliate link)

RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 1

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 2

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 3

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 4

Show Notes
We're kicking off our How to Play Numenera series with a tour of the Ninth World and the Cypher System mechanics that make this wonderfully strange science fantasy RPG work.
Randall walks Ash and Tyler through the Numenera setting, a version of Earth roughly a billion years in the future after eight unimaginably advanced civilizations have risen and disappeared. Their technology is everywhere, but the people of the Ninth World understand so little of it that ancient machinery might as well be magic. That gives Numenera its central science fantasy theme: sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
We dig into the Steadfast, the Beyond, and the increasingly strange places beyond civilization, along with the remnants left behind by previous worlds. Those remnants include reusable artifacts, one-use cyphers, mysterious oddities, and massive ancient structures that the characters may have absolutely no idea how to operate. Sometimes the players know they have discovered an elevator. Their characters definitely do not.
From there, we get into how to play Numenera and the Cypher System core mechanics. Tasks have difficulty levels from 0 to 10, with the target number determined by multiplying the difficulty by three. Instead of piling bonuses onto a d20 roll, characters make challenges easier through training, specialization, assets, and Effort.
Effort introduces one of Numenera's most interesting resource-management decisions. Might, Speed, and Intellect are not simply ability scores. They are pools that power abilities, fuel Effort, and absorb damage. Spend too aggressively and you may discover that the resource you just used to succeed is also the thing keeping your character alive.
Then there's Edge, which reduces the cost of spending points from those pools. Naturally, Tyler immediately begins investigating whether enough Edge will allow him to achieve his ultimate character build: the Edge Lord.
We also explore one of the signature Cypher System RPG mechanics, GM intrusions. The GM can offer XP to introduce an unexpected complication, while players can spend XP to reject intrusions, reroll critical checks, create temporary skills, trigger player intrusions, or advance their characters. The goal is not simply to punish players. A good GM intrusion makes the story more interesting, creates new opportunities, and occasionally puts something cool behind the wall that just collapsed on you.
By the end, we've covered the Numenera setting, cyphers and artifacts, task difficulty, Effort, Edge, stat pools, XP, GM intrusions, player intrusions, and the basics of character advancement. It's a surprisingly streamlined system hiding underneath one of the strangest tabletop RPG settings we've explored.
Key Takeaways
Numenera takes place on Earth roughly one billion years in the future, after eight previous civilizations have risen and disappeared.
The Ninth World mixes science fiction and fantasy by treating incomprehensibly advanced technology like magic.
Numenera includes artifacts, one-use cyphers, oddities, and enormous remnants of ancient civilizations.
The Cypher System uses a d20, but characters generally reduce task difficulty instead of adding large numerical bonuses to rolls.
Task difficulty ranges from 0 to 10, with the target number equal to the difficulty multiplied by three.
Training, specialization, assets, and Effort can ease difficult tasks and bring otherwise impossible rolls within reach.
Might, Speed, and Intellect are resource pools used for abilities and Effort, but they also function as your character's health.
Damage normally reduces Might first, followed by Speed and then Intellect. If all three pools reach zero, things have gone very badly.
Edge reduces the cost of spending points from a stat pool and becomes increasingly powerful as characters advance.
In the Cypher System, the GM generally does not roll dice. Players make both offensive and defensive rolls.
GM intrusions let the GM introduce complications in exchange for XP, turning unexpected problems into part of the game's advancement economy.
XP can be spent on rerolls, player intrusions, temporary skills, and permanent character advancement, creating a constant choice between helping yourself now or saving for later.
Numenera encourages creativity over strict simulation. Sometimes the explanation really is, "Ancient technology did it."
Most importantly, never tell the RPGBOT Discord you are trying to keep the math "moist." They cannot be trusted with that information.

Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.

Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

Welcome back to the Underdark, where the mushrooms are telepathic, the fish can invent gods, and magical radiation apparently has the terrifying power to give you a headache and ruin your wine. This week, Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 gives us a Freedom Cleric that desperately wants you to move around, a Spores Druid that has discovered the tactical value of exploding zombies, and a Faerzress Sorcerer built around creating a 40-foot cube of mild inconvenience. We also get playable Driders, almost-Mind-Flayers, god-making fish people, communal mushroom skills, and several moments where Ash seriously considers personally redesigning the Sorcerer. So grab your darkvision, protect the cheese from magical radiation, and try not to stand too close to the zombies. We're going back underground.
UA Underdark Options

Accompanying Blog Post

RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes

UA Underdark Options 1

Show Notes
Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 takes us back below the surface for another batch of D&D 5e playtest subclasses and playable Underdark species. This time we're looking at the Freedom Domain Cleric, Circle of Spores Druid, Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer, Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa, and Myconid.
The Freedom Domain Cleric starts with a promising idea: a high-Dexterity cleric built around mobility, escaping restraints, breaking debilitating conditions, and helping allies get out of trouble. Invoke Liberty can remove conditions and reposition the party without provoking opportunity attacks, while Unencumbered Grace turns the Cleric into something resembling a shield-carrying monk. Unfortunately, the later features lean heavily on difficult terrain, movement bonuses, and Dexterity checks, leaving us wondering when the subclass is supposed to get its next interesting button to push.
Then we get the revised Circle of Spores Druid, and things get significantly better. Wizards addresses several long-standing complaints about the D&D Circle of Spores by improving its action economy and making Symbiotic Entity a bonus action. Halo of Spores now provides value whether the enemy succeeds or fails its save, and Fungal Body remains delightfully creepy.
But Explosive Burst is where things get wonderfully ridiculous. As written, an undead creature you created explodes when it dies. That wording potentially includes creatures created with Animate Dead, which immediately inspires the completely reasonable strategy of surrounding an enemy with injured zombies and starting a fungal chain reaction. Is that probably getting rewritten before publication? Yes. Is exploding an army of disposable zombies extremely funny? Also yes.
Unfortunately, the Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer brings the mood crashing back down. The subclass revolves around creating areas of Faerzress that interfere with divination, long-distance teleportation, and a handful of other magical effects. The problem is that most enemies simply do not care. Instead of dangerous magical radiation, the subclass frequently feels like it has created a large zone where somebody might have trouble scrying on you.
There are pieces worth saving. The concept of an Underdark radiation Sorcerer has potential, and the discussion quickly turns toward mutations, crystal growths, radiant damage, exhaustion, and other mechanics that could make Faerzress actually feel hazardous. As presented, though, the subclass spends a lot of time solving problems that rarely appear in combat.
The playable species in Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 fare considerably better. Deep Imaskari blend human traits with Faerzress mutations and radiant abilities. Driders finally offer the opportunity to crawl across ceilings as a giant spider person. Illithidkin provide telepathy, psychic resistance, and a collection of appropriately Mind-Flayer-adjacent abilities.
Kuo-toa may be the standout simply because Deific Manifestation is wonderfully strange. Their familiar can borrow actions, reactions, or traits from other familiar options, opening the door to creations like weapon-wielding weasels and other tiny violations of common sense. It feels exactly like the sort of bizarre mechanical playground Kuo-toa deserve.
Finally, the Myconid gives D&D players a playable mushroom creature with telepathy and Skill Meld, allowing a group to share a skill or tool proficiency after a long rest. Sharing Stealth, Perception, or another useful proficiency with the whole party is mechanically interesting and perfectly fits the communal Myconid fantasy, even if letting Myconids speak normally raises some questions.
By the end, our feelings on this D&D Unearthed Arcana are all over the Underdark. Circle of Spores feels close to ready, especially once Explosive Burst gets clarified. The Freedom Domain Cleric has a worthwhile theme but needs more interesting features. Faerzress Sorcery needs considerably more work, but magical radiation, mutations, crystals, and Underdark corruption could still become a fantastic Sorcerer concept.
The ideas are here. Some of them just need to be dug up, dusted off, and exposed to slightly more dangerous radiation.
Key Takeaways
The Freedom Domain Cleric has a strong concept built around mobility, condition removal, and escaping restraints, but several later abilities feel too passive or situational.
Invoke Liberty is the highlight of the Freedom Cleric and could provide useful party repositioning in addition to condition removal.
Circle of Spores Druid gets meaningful D&D 2024 improvements, particularly the bonus-action Symbiotic Entity and revised Halo of Spores.
Explosive Burst could potentially create hilarious zombie chain reactions unless its wording is narrowed to Fungal Infestation zombies.
The revised Circle of Spores is the subclass the hosts felt was closest to being ready for publication.
Faerzress Sorcery struggles because its central zone interferes with abilities that many D&D monsters and encounters never use.
The Faerzress Sorcerer concept could be much stronger if it leaned into magical radiation, mutation, radiant damage, crystals, poisoning, or exhaustion.
Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa, and Myconid add some genuinely unusual playable Underdark species options.
Kuo-toa Deific Manifestation offers particularly entertaining familiar customization and plenty of room for player creativity.
Myconid Skill Meld lets characters temporarily share skill or tool proficiencies, reinforcing the species' communal identity.
Underdark Options 2 has several strong themes, but the episode's recurring message is simple: keep the concepts, improve the execution, and please make magical radiation more threatening than spoiled wine.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.

Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati