Image credits: MTG art by Peter Mohrbacher

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 Hell Knight Fighter.

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, insects, and devils that some readers might find disturbing.

Hell Knight (Fighter)

I’m so-so on the concept here. This feels kind of like MCDM’s Illrigger class as a Fighter subclass, but even if it’s not stepping on those toes, it’s still pretty darn close to the Warlock, which I don’t love. That being said, the concept makes sense in a vacuum, and it certainly fits the “villainous subclass” vibe. I have an idea for how I’d rework some of the flavor here, but I’ll talk more about that in the final thoughts. For now, let’s just dive into the features.

Level 3: Diabolical Gift

This feature grants you two benefits. Devil’s Sight functions exactly like the Warlock invocation of the same name: “You can see normally in Dim Light and Darkness—both magical and nonmagical—within 120 feet of yourself.” Devil’s Tongue is the other benefit here, and it teaches you the Infernal language or (if you already know Infernal) one other language of your choice.

Devil’s Sight and features like it are usually considered powerful because they allow you to see through the Darkness spell. In this case, though, you have no inherent ability to cast that spell (unless you’re playing a Drow), so it definitely loses some points compared to those other features. Still, it can be helpful if another member of your party (such as a Warlock or Warrior of Shadow Monk) casts that spell often, or if you need to discern color in dim or darkly-lit areas. Also, a lot of people forget that even with regular Darkvision, you still have Disadvantage on Perception checks in areas of complete darkness, but this lets you bypass that completely. Meanwhile, Devil’s Tongue is the definition of a ribbon feature, since language proficiencies rarely come up in most campaigns, but I’m glad that it’s here nonetheless.

Level 3: Hellfire Weapon

This is basically the evil version of the Devotion Paladin’s Sacred Weapon feature. When you take the Attack action, you can turn one weapon you are wielding into a Hellfire Weapon as part of that action. A Hellfire Weapon emits Dim Light in a 5-foot Emanation, and it deals either damage of its normal type or Fire damage (your choice whenever you deal damage with it). The transformation lasts for 10 minutes, but it ends early if you use the feature again, you die, the weapon is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more, or if you choose to end it (no action required). There is no limit to the number of times you can use this feature.

This feature is fine, but I don’t have much to say on the power level because it’s what I’d call either a “bookkeeping” feature: A feature that doesn’t have much power on its own, but makes the subclass and its features easier to keep track of just by its existence. In any case, what it offers mechanically is fun, although I think the part about changing the damage type to Fire damage is worded strangely, and I’d prefer if it was more like the aforementioned Sacred Weapon feature (each time you hit with it, you cause it to deal its normal damage type or Radiant damage).

Level 3: Infernal Wound

Now we’re finally into the meat of the subclass. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with your Hellfire Weapon, you can deal 1d6 extra Fire damage to the target and give the target an “infernal wound.” While wounded in this way, the target takes 1d6 Fire damage at the start of each of its turns. The wound lasts for 1 minute, but it ends early if the target regains Hit Points or the target (or a creature within 5 feet of it) uses an action to stanch the wound. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Short or Long Rest. Also important to note that the effect doesn’t stack; a creature either has an Infernal Wound or they don’t.

This feature initially made me think of the Sword of Wounding, but it’s actually more along the lines of a few free Searing Smites per Short or Long Rest, and that’s pretty good. In fact, it’s actually better than Searing Smite in a few ways, since you can do it with ranged weapons and it doesn’t cost your Bonus Action (although this subclass will encourage you to be in melee later on down the line). There’s nothing crazy powerful here, and calculating how much it affects DPR at this level requires me to make a lot of assumptions and do a lot of math I’m not very familiar with, but with some conservative estimates it’s about on par with what the Battle Master gets at this level (assuming a Constitution score of 16, which is perfectly reasonable for this level).

My biggest note would be that the wording around your “Infernal Wound die” could be cleaned up; I think you could say “You have a number of Infernal Wound dice equal to your Constitution modifier, which are d6s (minimum of 1one die). You regain all expended Infernal Wound dice whenever you finish a Short or Long Rest.” Then you could expend Infernal Wound dice to use the effect, which would make things simpler to track (IMO).

Level 7: Advanced Wounds

Whenever you roll a 6 on your Infernal Wound die, you can choose from three effects to inflict on the target. With Purulence of Minauros, each creature in a 5-foot Emanation originating from the target takes Acid damage equal to your Constitution modifier, and the target has the Poisoned condition until the start of its next turn. I have a few issues with this effect. First of all, I don’t think it’s intuitive that the original target takes the Acid damage, since Emanations don’t generally include their origin in the area of effect. I also don’t like that you can’t choose allies to be unaffected; I know it’s only 3-5 damage, but if you’ve got allies in melee with the enemy, you’ll probably be discouraged from using this. Finally, I think the duration of the Poisoned condition here is strange. I recognize that you’ll be rolling your Infernal Wound die at the start of the enemy’s turn 50-70% of the time, but for the 30-50% of rolls that happen on your turn (such as when you initially hit the target or you use your Level 10 feature), the duration will run out before it has any kind of effect. I’d rather the effect lasted until the start or end of your next turn. This would technically be a shorter duration most of the time, but it would have a better chance of actually having an effect.

Rupture of Cania is the most boring option of the three. When you use this effect, the target simply takes Force damage equal to your Constitution modifier. No monsters in the new Monster Manual have resistance or immunity to Force damage, and even among older monsters, there are very few who’d be able to resist it. It’s fine, but I’d prefer something more interesting.

Stygian Gangrene is my favorite option of the three. When you use this effect, the target takes Cold damage equal to your Constitution modifier, and it can’t take Reactions until the start of its next turn. As long as you’re not fighting creatures that resist (or are immune to) Cold damage, this is a strong go-to option. I also feel more okay with the duration here compared to Purulence, because at least this could provide you with a free Disengage from the affect creature on the turn that you use it.

This feature is fine, but I don’t love it. The big issue is that it’s unreliable. From a damage standpoint, it only increases your average damage per roll of your Infernal Wound die by 0.5-0.8 (which you’re only doing once per turn), but even ignoring the damage, most of these effects would be way more exciting if they were on-demand. I think this feature would be more compelling if you chose from these effects whenever you applied an Infernal Wound for the first time. I know that would hurt the effectiveness later on down the line with the Level 10 feature and one of the Level 18 features, but I think it would still be a worthwhile tradeoff (and it would still mean more uses of this feature over the course of a campaign).

Level 7: Hell-Forged Equipment

This feature gives you two new benefits. Fire Resistance gives you Resistance to Fire damage (who would have guessed?), but only while you are wearing armor and/or wielding a shield. Meanwhile, Unholy Fire says that damage from your weapon attacks and Fighter features ignores Resistance to Fire damage. I don’t have much to say about this feature mechanically. I think it’s important for it to be here (since the Elemental Adept feat only affects spells), but it’s not crazy good. I think it would be nice if you could choose from a few damage resistances instead of just getting Fire resistance automatically, in case you’re playing a Karlach-inspired Infernal Tiefling and don’t want to get a redundant damage resistance. Maybe if you already have resistance to Fire damage, you also get resistance to Cold or Radiant damage.

Level 10: Hellfire Surge

When you use your Action Surge, you can cause your equipment to erupt in flames, dealing 1d6 Fire damage to creatures of your choice within 10 feet of you, with a Dexterity save for half damage. Creatures that fail their save also start burning (which means they take 1d4 Fire damage at the start of each of their turns for 1 minute), so this is kind of like an AOE version of your Infernal Wound feature.

Mathematically, this is actually pretty good. Assuming creatures that fail their saves burn for at least a round and a half on average, and that you manage to catch more than one enemy in the Emanation, this puts you slightly ahead of other official Fighter subclasses at this level for damage; plus, if you roll a 6 on the damage die and you have a few creatures that are grouped up, Purulence of Minauros can potentially add your Constitution modifier to the damage multiple times.

That being said, something about this feels… off. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, other than just by the fact that when I read this feature, it feels really underwhelming. I’m actually glad I did the math on this, because if I had just gone with my gut, I would have been completely off base about the power level. I might come back to this later.

Level 15: Blister of Avernus

When you roll a 6 on your Infernal Wound die, you can roll another d6 and add it to the damage. The maximum number of d6s you can add with this feature is 3 (so up to 4d6s total). It’s not entirely clear, but based on the wording here I don’t think you can apply Advanced Wounds with this multiple times, since even though you’re rolling extra d6s, they aren’t technically your Infernal Wound die. With that assumption, let’s talk numbers.

This is going to feel really cool when you get to use it. Unfortunately, the chances of you getting to stack multiple dice are pretty slim; you only have a ~2.8% chance to get more than one extra d6, and only a ~0.4% chance to get more than two. So really, this is only an extra 0.5 points of damage on average whenever you roll your Infernal Wound die. Yikes. If you have Heroic Inspiration, you can use that to reroll one of the dice, but that still doesn’t make this meaningful.

Maybe this should be the Level 10 feature. Level 10 features for Fighters are generally pretty passive buffs, so it would feel at home with the rest of them. It’s also more appropriate for that level in terms of balance, since it’s very similar in power to features like the Battle Master’s Improved Combat Superiority or the Rune Knight’s Great Stature. Then Hellfire Surge could be moved to this level, and maybe the initial damage could be increased to one roll of your Infernal Wound die + your Constitution modifier, just to make it read as more exciting (and to guarantee that your high-level, once per rest feature always deals more than 1 point of damage).

Level 18: Hellfire Condemnation

This is actually a ribbon feature, which is pretty rare for this level. When you reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points with your Infernal Weapon or Infernal Wound feature, that creature dies, and if it isn’t revived in the next 1d4 hours, it rises as a Lemure (a little blob guy) in a layer of the Nine Hells that you choose. Moreover, a creature that you send to the Hells in this way can’t be brought back to life by any means short of a Wish spell. This is fun for flavor, and I like that it’s here; just make sure you grab the Mage Slayer feat so you don’t get Charmed and kill one of your party members by mistake!

Level 18: Infernal Bargain

Super simple upgrade. When you roll your Infernal Wound die, you can treat a roll of 1 as a 6. About 3.2 extra points of damage per roll of your Infernal Wound die since your last upgrade, so at this point the Infernal Wound die is nearly doubly as good as a regular d6. I also like that this doubles your chances of getting to use features like Advanced Wounds and Blister of Avernus. I think this feature is good, and fits well here.

Final Thoughts

Let’s talk numbers. If we look at this character’s average damage across all 20 levels, they’re only really behind the Champion and the aformentioned Eldritch Knight with Spirit Shroud, and if you give more weight to Tiers 2 and 3, then they’re just behind the Eldritch Knight. For more specific numbers, I have them at 44.51 for overall average DPR, and 43.09 for the weighted average. The Champion sits at 44.62 (overall) and 42.14 (weighted), while the EK is at 48.76 (overall) and 45.55 (weighted). Average is 44.29 (overall) and 42.4 (weighted). And that’s just factoring in single-target damage; if you spread out your Infernal Wounds and get multiple creatures in your Hellfire Surge, you could probably bump those numbers up at least a little bit; although on the flipside, I think my assumptions for Single-Target damage for this character probably err on the side of being too generous.

However, I’m really struggling to get excited about this subclass. To be fair, most of my play experience has glossed over archdevils, the nine hells, etc. because it’s a sensitive topic for a couple people at the table, but even if I was a huge fan of that lore, only a few of the features here are all that compelling. Meanwhile, there are several things I dislike about the subclass. Like I said earlier, Hellfire Surge is mechanically decent, but it doesn’t read as good. I also don’t really love that even though the subclass makes the highs a lot higher, the lows stay the same up until nearly the end of your character’s career. Doing the math on everything helped, because at least it’s mechanically powerful, but if mechanical power was all that you needed to make an exciting subclass, then I’d have very little to say in these UA reviews (or my “how to make a subclass” posts, for that matter).

One thing that feels out of place to me about this subclass is the emphasis on equipment. All the flavor is very much focused on some transactional relationship with an archdevil, but then half the features have to do with your infernal weapons and armor. It almost makes me wonder if this would be more compelling if the weapons and armor were directly tied in to the flavor in some way: Maybe you forge your contract with an archdevil in exchange for powerful equipment (or powerful upgrades to your equipment). If the devs were to take this route, it would not only make features like Hellfire Weapon and Hell-Forged Equipment feel more thematically appropriate, but it would also make the subclass feel more unique compared to an Illrigger, Paladin, or Warlock (at least, once you got the special armor). I think this would also be a very appropriate concept for a Fighter subclass, since I think of Fighters as one of the most equipment-heavy classes (with the only other contender for the top spot being the Rogue).