Image credits: MTG art by Andreas Zafiratos

The Preamble

Unearthed Arcana is the system that the Dungeons & Dragons developers use to showcase and source playtesting for upcoming content for D&D. After a designated “playtest period,” players will have a chance to submit feedback via surveys on dndbeyond.com. In this post, I’ll cover the most recent Unearthed Arcana article, published on April 2nd, 2026: Villainous Options. Specifically, I will be looking at the Pestilence Domain Cleric.

Note: This post assumes you have read (or at least skimmed) the content covered in the Unearthed Arcana article linked above. If you have not read it, you may find it useful to have it open in a separate tab.

Content Warning:

The above UA and the material below contains or may contain descriptions of body horror, disease, and insects that some readers might find disturbing.

Pestilence Domain (Cleric)

I really like the concept here; and even though it’s been a few years, I think “plague” definitely hits home as an appropriate theme for a villainous character in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a Cleric of the Pestilence Domain, you worship dark gods of plague and rot. The specificity of this domain compared to the old Death Domain subclass is nice, and I appreciate that even though this subclass is a “villainous option,” the flavor text provides possible explanations for why a good or neutral character might choose to worship one of these gods. I’ll admit, I’m a little confused about why a doctor or royal taster would want to worship a disease deity, but that’s not a huge deal.

Level 3: Blight Weaver

This feature grants you two benefits. The first, Inoculated Soul, gives you Resistance to Necrotic and Poison damage and makes you immune to magical infections, while the second, Rot and Fester, lets you ignore resistance to Necrotic and Poison damage dealt by your Cleric spells and features, and when you deal one of those damage types with a Cleric spell or feature, you can swap it to the other (for example, if you cast Spirit Guardians and it would normally deal Necrotic damage, you can instead have it deal Poison damage).

I like this feature, but I don’t think it’s particularly strong. Necrotic and Poison damage are both fairly common as far as damage types go, so if you’re going to get Resistance any damage types (besides Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing), these two would be pretty high on the list of picks. However, it’s also pretty easy to get Resistance to them from other sources (4/10 species in the PHB can start with one of these Resistances).

Rot and Fester, on the other hand, is very cool in that it’s very unique (as far as official content goes), but it has a lot of problems. First of all, monsters are more likely to be flat-out immune to Necrotic and/or Poison damage than they are to have Resistance to either. Based on a quick D&DBeyond search, there are 29 monsters in the new Monster Manual that have Resistance to either or both damage types, but 126 monsters that have immunity to either or both damage types. Out of those 126 monsters, only 7 seem to have immunity to Necrotic damage but not Poison damage, and since Clerics get very few ways to deal Poison damage, this means there’s no point to using this feature in the vast majority of cases. The only time this actually becomes powerful is if you reach Level 19 and you take the Boon of Poison Mastery, which lets you deal maximum Poison damage once per turn instead of rolling; but that’s a long time to wait for your Level 3 feature to have a meaningful impact.

I think Inoculated Soul is ultimately fine, but I have some ideas for how I might change Rot and Fester. First of all, I think I would remove the ability to ignore Resistances. It sounds good if you don’t know the game, but in reality, it only affects ~6% of monsters. Instead, maybe you could extend the ability to swap Necrotic and Poison damage to the rest of your party in some way; for example, as a limited-use Reaction, or maybe you could also swap the damage of your Radiant damage spells to Poison or Necrotic. Lastly, I’d allow for you to swap the damage type of all of your spells from the Pestilence domain spell list to Poison or Necrotic (I’ll talk more about why in a second).

Level 3: Pestilence Domain Spells

This list makes sense thematically, but I don’t love it. The most exciting options here are Stinking Cloud, Giant Insect and Insect Plague. Frankly, I think Protection from Poison is a bad pick here, not only because it’s already on the Cleric spell list, but also because a Cleric of this domain might not want to cast it; at least, not if we assume that Poison damage and/or the Poisoned condition in 5.5 are also associated with disease (since actual diseases are nowhere to be found in the new rules AFAIK). I’d probably swap it out for Blindness/Deafness, or maybe Web on the theme of vermin. Speaking of the Poisoned condition, there are 120 monsters in the new Monster Manual that are immune to it; so unfortunately, Ray of Sickness, Stinking Cloud, and Contagion are still going to be hard to use to great effect.

Personally, I would love to see Conjure Animals on this list. One of the most exciting parts about the flavor text to me was the part about deities sending swarms of insects or vermin to spread disease and punish mortals; which, of course, immediately made me picture a Cleric surrounded by an army of infected rats, and now I can’t get the image out of my head (neither could the designers, as we’ll see later, but I don’t want to wait until Level 17 to bring the fantasy to life). You could do the same thing with Spirit Guardians, but I don’t think it would feel the same. That’s one of the reasons why I suggested allowing Rot and Fester to apply to all of your Domain spells, not just the ones that normally deal Necrotic or Poison. I also think not having Cloudkill is a huge missed opportunity, especially because Contagion, as thematic as it is, is already on the Cleric spell list. But personally, I’d put Cloudkill on this list over Insect Plague if it came down to it. It’s just such an obvious pick for any Poison caster.

Level 3: Plague Blessing

This one is interesting. With this feature, you can use your Channel Divinity to basically infect yourself or an ally with an airborne infectious disease that manifests in a 5-foot Emanation (cue the “social distancing” jokes) and persists for 1 minute. Each creature of your choice that starts its turn in that area must make a Constitution saving throw or gain a level of Exhaustion; which is not only very debilitating, but also super hard to remove. In case you need a refresher, here are the rules on Exhaustion in 5.5:

While you have the Exhaustion condition, you experience the following effects.

Exhaustion Levels. This condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 Exhaustion level. You die if your Exhaustion level is 6.

D20 Tests Affected. When you make a D20 Test, the roll is reduced by 2 times your Exhaustion level.

Speed Reduced. Your Speed is reduced by a number of feet equal to 5 times your Exhaustion level.

Removing Exhaustion Levels. Finishing a Long Rest removes 1 of your Exhaustion levels. When your Exhaustion level reaches 0, the condition ends.

I think this feature is awesome. It’s basically like getting to cast Bane for free every round, and if a creature fails its save multiple times, the effect of the spell becomes cumulative. I also think it’s good that the number of exhaustion levels is limited by your Wisdom modifier, so you need to either be above Level 20 or have some crazy magic items in order to kill somebody with the exhaustion from this feature. Of course, if you get a creature down to 5 exhaustion levels, killing them will be pretty darn easy anyways. To get the best use out of this feature, you would definitely want the Alert feat to get it up and running ASAP, and then I’d say you should throw it on a Monk or Barbarian with the Grappler and/or Sentinel feats to make it as difficult to escape as possible.

However, even though I think this feature is super cool, I think it does need an additional limiter: Levels of exhaustion that you apply with this feature should be easier to get rid of than regular exhaustion levels. The easiest way to implement this would be to say something like “Levels of exhaustion gained as a result of this feature are removed when the effect ends.” This gives DMs a way to deal with this feature, so they don’t instantly feel like throwing in the towel when a monster rolls really bad on this save. As long as there’s a chance of knocking the Cleric down and ending the effect, there’s a chance of the monster bouncing back and bringing the stakes back up. Plus, most of the time, it won’t matter that the levels of exhaustion ended, because unless your party is super merciful, the enemies that were affected by it will already be dead. Oh, speaking of dead, this feature ends if you are Incapacitated, but not if you are killed outright. This may have been a design oversight, but I wanted to mention it because it stuck out to me.

Level 6: Virulent Burst

Players that love the macabre know that there’s no explosion like a corpse explosion. When a creature dies within 60 feet of you, you can take a Reaction to “cause plague to burst from that creature.” The burst has a 10-foot radius, or a 20-foot radius if the creature had any levels of Exhaustion before it died. Creatures of your choice within the radius must then succeed on a Constitution saving throw or suffer one of the following effects (your choice): Putrid Shock or Toxic Infection. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, and you regain expended uses after a Long Rest.

Putrid Shock incapacitates the enemy until the end of its next turn and reduces its Speed to 0 (a lot of people forget this, but the Incapacitated condition on its own doesn’t stop you from moving). Toxic Infection, on the other hand, just deals 3d6 Poison or Necrotic damage (again, your choice). Note that there’s no “half-damage on a success;” they either take damage or they don’t. You’re basically making the choice between 1 round of Concentration-free Hypnotic Pattern or a worse Burning Hands; unless I know that 3d6 is likely to kill creatures in the area or the enemies are already Incapacitated, I’d take Hypnotic Pattern every time.

I would like some clarification here about the process of choosing the effect. Do you choose the same effect for everyone in the radius, or can you pick different effects for different creatures? For example, let’s say that the radius includes three minions and one monster that’s more of a boss. Can I deal damage to the minions and incapacitate the boss? And if you have to choose the same effect for every creature, then when do you choose the effect? Same example, but this time the boss has Legendary Resistance. She won’t use one of her Legendary Resistances to prevent 3d6 damage, but she definitely doesn’t want to be incapacitated. If I have to choose which effect beforehand, then if she fails she’ll know whether or not to use Legendary Resistance, but if I get to choose after everyone succeeds or fails, then she’ll use it to avoid being Incapacitated and I can then decide to still deal damage to her minions that failed the save. Aside from that, though, I really like this feature.

Level 17: Vermin Form

Remember when I mentioned being surrounded by rats earlier? Now you can become rats. This feature lets you use a Bonus Action to transform into a Medium swarm of Tiny creatures, such as rats, maggots, beetles, cockroaches; I mean, you could probably become bunnies too, it might just be a weird choice thematically. Strangely enough, when you enter this form you actually retain your shape and can still use your equipment, so this is more “thirty ferrets in a trenchcoat,” Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas, or that one scene in Hundreds of Beavers (go watch it if you don’t know what I’m talking about) than a traditional swarm. Regardless, while this transformation is active, you are immune to being Grappled, Paralyzed, Prone, and Restrained, and you have Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. You also get some nice movement benefits, like a Climb speed and the ability to enter and move through the spaces of other creatures. Moreover, once per turn when you enter an enemy’s space, an enemy enters your space, or an enemy ends its turn in your space, it takes Poison, Necrotic, or Piercing damage equal to your Wisdom modifier. The transformation lasts for 10 minutes (or until you are incapacitated or die), and once you use it, you have to complete a Long Rest (or expend a Level 5+ spell slot) to use it again.

I don’t know how I feel about this feature. I like how unique it is, but I don’t know if it makes sense as a Level 17 feature. It’s an interesting concept, sure, but I think “Black Death Pied Piper” is way more in line with the plague-bringer fantasy than “Worm that Walks;” and I also think this is very late in the game to be introducing something so bizarre. More importantly, I don’t think this is impactful enough for a subclass capstone. This is kind of a halfway point between the Knowledge Cleric’s Divine Foreknowledge and the War Cleric’s Avatar of Battle, but I don’t think it’s on par with either.

There are a couple of fixes I could see working for this. One option would be to allow it more times per day; I mean, there are some strong abilities here, but nothing that’s so good that it should be limited to once per encounter. I think allowing it WIS mod times per day would be entirely reasonable. Another option would be to make you become the disease, instead of the carriers. This would require more of an overhaul, but I would picture this as you becoming incorporeal, kind of like the Ringwraiths that Frodo sees when he’s wearing the Ring, and then it would also have the following changes:

• You gain a Fly Speed of 15-30 feet instead of a Climb Speed.
• You would no longer be able to deal Piercing damage with the Plague Bites benefit (which would also have to be renamed), but creatures within your space would have the Poisoned condition while in that space.

I also think it would be cool if, while this transformation was active, you could teleport to a space within 5 feet of any corpse that you target with Virulent Burst as part of the same Reaction. Maybe with these changes, this could be worth a Level 6+ spell slot after you use it for the first time.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think this theme is super cool for a villainous Cleric, and I also think there are some super exciting concepts here. However, I would definitely be a little disappointed if it went to print as-is. While it is mechanically powerful, I don’t think it comes together as an appealing whole; kind of like a meal with a delicious chicken parmesan as the main course, but Walmart-brand potato chips on the side. I won’t complain about the chicken parm (well actually, I wouldn’t eat it because I’m lactose intolerant, but you know), but I’d definitely raise an eyebrow about the meal as a whole.

My biggest problem with this subclass is that Rot and Fester is just nearly irrelevant. As mentioned previously, only 29 (roughly 6%) of monsters in the new Monster Manual will be affected by the ability to ignore Resistance to Poison/Necrotic damage, and it’ll only make sense to use Poison damage with a spell instead of Necrotic damage 1% of the time. Not to mention that the only spells you get that can deal Poison damage are Ray of Sickness and Giant Insect. But even if you can change its damage type, Ray of Sickness isn’t worth casting against monsters with Poison immunity, because every monster (or nearly every monster) that is immune to Poison damage is also immune to the Poisoned condition. And at best, switching the damage type of Giant Insect gives you 4d4 Necrotic instead of 4d4 Poison, and that’s if you cast the spell with an 8th level spell slot. Now, again, the Boon of Poison Mastery makes this feature incredible, but that’s way too high level to balance out how irrelevant it is up to that point. It really needs at least one other benefit to be a factor in the class power budget.