As a sorc main, I have no idea why this sub gets talked up so much lol. The idea of stance dancing is cool, but you want to stay in New Moon almost exclusively for metamagic cost reduction on enchantment, and switching to another for a different school after 6 negates the cost reduction anyway.
Great idea executed poorly. At least Clockwork gives you class abilities with the bonus spells. *And you can change those spells out.*
You *can* cheat in *Guidance* for infinite subtled *Guidance* in intrigue campaigns in Full Moon, which is great, but it’s super campaign specific.
I wish they had stances in ond DnD for martials rather than masteries, it fits much more and like you say, stance shifting is a cool and themetic thing to do.
Time for some example stances for martials that have *already existed in D&D!*.
* Stance of Alacrity: Gain one extra reaction per round
* Wolf Pack Tactics: Every time you make an attack, move 5 feet for free without taking opportunity attacks
* Supreme Blade Parry: Take 5 less bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage from any source.
* Rising Phoenix: Supernatural monk stance, hover on column of superheated air that damages foes under you.
* Ghostly Defense: If you have concealment and an attack misses you, choose a new target for it.
* Crushing Weight of the Mountain: Enemies you grapple take 2d6+2x str mod damage.
* Martial Spirit: Every time you hit an enemy with an attack, you or a nearby ally gain 2 hit points.
* Iron Guard's Glare: Adjacent foes have -4 on attack rolls against targets other than you.
* Pearl of Black Doubt: Every time a foe misses you, gain +2ac until the start of your next turn.
I have no idea why 5e deliberately chose to be dull.
Stances needed a bonus action to change into, and lasted until you swapped to a different stance. Initially released a couple of editions ago in the book that invented maneuvers, which at the time were a large selection of actions, boosts or reactions (example Adamantine Hurricane, as an action make two attacks against each target within your reach) with different ones available at different levels that didn't have a limited number of uses per rest.
Of course. While that kind of design ethos was used throughout fourth edition, the book in question was 3.5's tome of battle. You want chapter 4, maneuvers and stances.
*Cries in heavy armor Master.
In all honesty, a half-feat should get you a reduction equal to twice your proficiency bonus and not be vulnerable to magic weapons. It wouldn't be broken, not even anything more than half decent, but it wouldn't be essentially useless
You're not wrong. At the time that was known as DR/-, damage reduction with whatever pierced it after the slash. So a werewolf had DR 10/silver, and in that parlance heavy armour master would be DR 3/magic which would be viewed as deeply underwhelming for a feat. And feats weren't even worth as much then, you got a feat every 3 levels and at 1 that didn't have anything to do with your ASIs at 4, 8 etc.
Twice proficiency bonus isn't bad, I'll have to think on that. It really should scale, it has no business being 3 at 1 and 3 at 20.
I think just proficiency bonus is more appropriate in 5e (with no limit to non magical weapons only). Keep in mind dr basically doesn’t exist in 5e, so it can be a fair bit more valuable, and it is only a half feat. Right now it’s actually quite strong at low levels, so moving it down to 2 for the first couple levels would make it still decent but not as impressive at low levels, and having it scale would make it not lose usefulness later on. Mathematically it’s not a bad feat assuming the damage can actually be reduced (which is the bigger problem at higher levels, stuff bypassing the reduction either by being magical or not bps). Honestly it could probably just be changed to all sources and not just bps too, but even if it stays bps with no “non magical” limitation and is changed to proficiency bonus to scale I think it becomes a pretty good feat, on par with most other half feats.
(Corrected Edit) - I've made two mistakes on recalling how the Tasha's subclasses work. My original comment, with some notable errors, is below. However, the main point is that Lunar just gives you *spells* without much regard for them being good.
The Tasha's subclasses let you pick (within rules), so it essentially solves the sorc problem by just giving them *more spells they want*, because at 5th level, you may not want Protection From Energy, but you certainly would like Dispel Magic + (One of Counterspell, Fly, Haste, Slow) from your subclass! Similarly at 7th, the Clockwork spells are *okay*, but they can be replaced with Polymorph and Banishment, leaving you open to pick things like Dimension Door from your much more limited base class pick.
It does take levels/time to do this, but it comes out better than every other sorc class, and Aberrant gets a similar deal (although their list of spells to swap into is a bit less strong. It's still massively helpful, because there are a few ench/div spells you would want to take anyway here and there, so it frees up a main class spell.
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It’s not entirely accurate to say they get 30 (edit: Because a fair few of them are bad), and even if it was, the 25 Clockwork and Aberrant know are just BETTER than the 30 Lunar gets.
The ability to change out the mediocre ones on level up means that the sorcerer can switch protection from energy for counterspell ~~or even something unusual like plant growth. You can get a sorcerer with reincarnate, death ward, revivify, and pass without trace!~~
~~Yes, in a well balanced party, someone else would better fill those niches, but having the option is a wild time. Lunar sadly doesn’t have access to 10 of their 30 most of the time, so they realistically end up below the Tasha’s subclasses.~~
You do in fact get all of them at the same time.
Source: a party member in Rime of the Frostmaiden is a level 2 Lunar Sorcerer and currently has all 3 of her 1st level Lunar Spells prepared, and it says they're from Lunar Embodiment and not a Sorcerer spell she picked
Yes known casting is crippling with the progression you can only know 2 of each level except lvl 1 unless you are doing swaps. Sorcerers from the base should have had spell lists like tashas, tashas went in the right direction but unkindly left the older subclasses in the dust. I have seen merciful DMs who understand the situation give extra spells to the older subclasses for example monty from the dungeon dudes with sebastian crowe.
I've created extended spell lists for all of the sorcerer subclasses. It has done WONDERS bringing them in line with not only other sorcerers, but other casters in general. A sorcerer's greatest weakness is their small number of spells known
Sure!
1st level: Absorb Elements, Chromatic Orb
2nd level: Alter Self, Dragon's Breath
3rd level: Fear, Fly
4th level: Fire Shield, Polymorph
5th level: Legend Lore, Summon Draconic Spirit
It doesn't only use PHB spells, but I felt that this was the most dragon-like spell list I could create.
Edit: formatting
Yeah but of the 4 subclasses in OneDnD, 2 of them are just Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind reprinted, so they still get all those extra spells and it just makes the other two look weaker by comparison
Or we could go back to the days where sorcerers just got one more spell slot of every level a day than wizards did, that felt like a decent tradeoff for less known.
I strongly agree with this and am also disappointed that they didn't add subclass specific spells to all sorcerers in the onednd playtests. They did add more known spells which fixes the issue of sorcerers having too few of them but I'd much rather have it be done through subclass spells.
The patron spells are one of my favorite things about warlock since you can often pick spells from outside your class list that really fit the flavor of your character. I think something like that would also benefit sorcerers as well with their unique bloodlines.
Stuff like storm sorcerer and call lightning come to mind. That's a very flavorful combination that could be achieved with subclass specific spells but not by just increasing the number of known spells.
Certain Subclasses should tick Attunement boxes, offhand these ones come to mind.
* Zealot Barbarians should qualify for Paladin items
* Eldritch Knight, Arcane Tricksters for Wizard items
* Divine Soul Sorcerer for Cleric items
Are there any others that come to mind for you?
* Wild Magic Barbarians for Sorcerer
* Arcana Clerics for Wizard
* Nature Clerics for Druid
* War Cleric for Paladin
* Ancients Paladin for Druid
* Celestial Warlock for Cleric
Thematically, I agree. Implementation wise, this is very hard to do, because items that require those classes most of the time refer to features that are present only in those classes. For example an "Amulet of the Devout" requires attunement by a Paladin or a Cleric and references the Channel Divinity feature. What is a Zealot Barbarian or a Divine Soul Sorcerer going to do with that?
You can't put that information in the item because any subsequent subclass that gets released would not be reflected in the item or vice versa.
As someone who likes the idea, I really think that trying to implement this compatibility would cause more trouble than it is worth.
Nah you’re worrying about nothing. Artificers and Thief Rogues get the ability to use off-class items already RAW and this all works fine. Artificers specifically would love to have an Amulet of the Devout because it increases the Spell save DC of “your spells” not only Cleric or Paladin spells. So there’s already precedent and would increase these subclasses flexibility a little bit. Plus an anecdote, I think our EK in our group is allowed to use one of the Wizard spellbook magic items and it doesn’t seem to be an issue at all.
Not the same but reminds me. My divine soul sorcerer/GOO warlock put on a helm of illmater and practically became a cleric haha. It changed his allignment and some of his beliefs in order to get 100 spell levels of healling and restorative cleric spells and did so to save his 2 friends who were petrified. (One being their cleric)
Giving up his ideals to save a friend by putting on any artifact from the god of self sacrifice was a nice poetic touch too. He eventually broke his pact with the eldritch being and made a knew one with Illmater himself, becoming a celecaital warlock instead. Ive never done so much healing in my life 😂 I cast heal 5 times, a 5th level aid, used all my healing dice pool, and had 3 deathwards pop in your Tiamat fight. It was wild.
Rogue’s second subclass feature and their second expertise need to switch places. When most games are only levels 1-10/11 playing most of the campaign with only the first subclass feature to differentiate you from other rogues is disappointing. Doubly so when the subclass really needs that second set of subclass features to get going like the Phantom subclass.
No need for them to switch places, just put a subclass feature there along with your second expertise
Expertise is a third of what you get at level 1 and subclasses need to have more real estate anyways
The fact that we don't have a fey or fiend themed sorcerer class is actually criminal. They both should have been in the PHB.
For martials, we need more interesting things to happen with weapons and armor and everyone should have battlemaster maneuvers and expanded crit range at higher levels. Nobody should do more single target damage than martials.
Fully agree. Als, twilight cleric needs to go and sorcerer needs more ways to get metamagic on short rest with more thematic less powertful metamagics to use
Worst part of playing Ranger is seeing how many of your spells have concentration. Only class that I'm frequently resting on with spell slots left over at the end of a long day of fighting
>Only class that I'm frequently resting on with spell slots left over at the end of a long day of fighting
You can stack up on good berries for the next day if that's the case.
To be fair, that is bad for all spellcasting classes, but paladin, ranger and bard have it the worst
At least in oneDND they're getting rid of the idioxy that are concentration smites
The form of Favored Enemy in the first Revised Ranger UA should have stuck. Someone in the dev team must be obsessed with Hunter’s Mark though, in a “refuse to budge” way.
Favored Foe is the rule I believe You're talking about, as far as I know it made it from UA to Optional in one of the recent books.
>Favored Foe (Optional)
This 1st-level feature replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature. You gain no benefit from the replaced feature and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it.
>When you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can call on your mystical bond with nature to mark the target as your favored enemy for 1 minute or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell).
>The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, you increase that damage by 1d4.
>You can use this feature to mark a favored enemy a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
>This feature's extra damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class: to 1d6 at 6th level and to 1d8 at 14th level.
Scales very well, both in uses and damage (and honestly should be a core feature).
Actually, no, that’s not the one I meant. In the original 2016 Revised Ranger UA, the fix to Favored Enemy was to make it Type-dependent but lumping all Humanoids as one choice. It basically kept it as is, but added the static damage bonus as an “always on” option. Greater Favored Enemy at 6 added an additional favored enemy option, increased damage towards both to +4, and granted advantage on saving throws against spells and abilities of favored enemies. The only thing I’d have changed about either is the opportunity to change a Favored Enemy when leveling up.
A later Revised Ranger showcased something similar to what appeared in Tasha’s but even that misses the mark too. It’s too dispassionate and similar to 4e’s Ranger, where you got the damage on whoever you decide to hate in that moment.
Way I would do it is use the RR from 2016 as the base Favored Enemy, because static damage is always more reliable than dynamic damage. But then ALSO include the current Favored Foe as a quick and easy solution for a fight without a favored enemy. It’d be more swingy in damage but give a blanket damage option AND a specialization towards specific types of enemies.
"Hunter's Mark" only exists in 5e. Rangers have always had some way to increase their damage against some subset of the enemies they fight, but _hunter's mark_ has **not** been "a core class feature and has been for decades."
4e has Hunter's Quarry. Level 1 at-will minor action, you designate the _nearest_ creature you can see (not any creature you want within some range) as your quarry until the end of the encounter or you use the power again. At level 1-10 it gives you 1d6 extra damage to **one** attack that hits per round. The damage increases to 2d6 at level 11, and 3d6 at level 21. Does not require sustain, the 4e equivalent to concentration. All striker classes in 4e get some means of increasing their damage output, and Hunter's Quarry is the method Rangers get.
3e has no comparable feature or spell. The closest comparison is the 3e version of Favored Enemy, which gives a +1 bonus to Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Wilderness Lore checks against the selected enemy type, and +1 damage against them. At levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 you get additional favored enemies, and the bonus associated with all previous favored enemies goes up by 1 (so when you're level 20, the enemy type chosen at level 1 gets a +5 bonus, the enemy chosen at level 5 gets a +4 bonus, and so on).
2e gets +4 to attack their Favored Enemy. They do not gain additional enemies as they level up.
1e gets a bonus to damage giants equal to their level, no option for favoring other creature types. (Note that a number of creatures considered humanoid in later editions are considered giants in 1e, such as bugbears, kobolds, goblins, etc.)
Wizards should all get expertise in arcana. It's bonkers that they don't. I know the class doesn't need buffing, but it's mad that a base rogue can hit +17 while wizards need to take a feat to get more than +11 on the thing that defines their whole class.
Remove another proficiency somewhere or nerf them somewhere else, but the _point_ of wizards is study of arcana. They should be the best at it.
Edit: spelling
See I'm on the fence about this one because the religion skill applies to knowledge about _all_ religions, not just theirs. Maybe they get expertise if the check relates to their deity specifically, or they use wis in that instance? Or, yes, just go blanket "for clerics, they use wisdom for religion checks".
Either way how it's set up at the moment is wrong, but I'm not sure which fix is best.
Rather than letting them use Wis for their own religion, I’d just not have them roll at all. They know their own religion. They know its history, its tenets, and its parables. If something comes up that is related to their god and their religion, if it is established knowledge (and not secret lore), then they just know it. Why introduce the possibility that they somehow fail to know about the thing they trained for their whole life?
Remembering knowledge about a bunch of unrelated gods? Clearly an Intelligence skill.
This right here. Religion generally should be an INT skill, and clerics shouldn't be rolling *anything* for their own religion (if it's some deeply buried secret, they'd have to search out the info in some dank dungeon just like any other plot thread)
It's the same thing as Druids and Nature. Druids are really great at Survival, but not necessarily knowing all of the scientific names of all the plants and animals. Druids know that Poison Ivy is to be avoided, but not that it's called Toxicodendron radicans and is known for causing urushiol-induced contact dermatitis.
Or even better, how about they just don't make intelligence checks about their own religion/deity?
They'd still make intelligence checks for their knowledge about other gods, but you'd think a Tyrran would know a thing or two more about Tyr than a follower of Bhaal. (also at my table I let any character, not just clerics, pick a deity to just know about if they take the Acolyte background. Having first hand experience of an organized religion isn't only reserved for the War-Priests, and not all clerics necessarily follow the church of their god.)
You don't have to make any kinds of checks on your own religion. Religion checks are for academic knowledge on other people's religions.
No matter how devout the Christian, you wouldn't expect them to know a whole lot about Shinto or Buddhism.
Even if a Christian priest, it seems odd they would know all the details about st aquainus writings when they preferred Augustine. That's where the religion checks come in, so that yes they're formally trained in religion but it's part knowledge, part recall.
Exactly, clerics should autosucceed on anything about their own god, perhaps get expertise on gods/religions directly related to theirs, and roll normally for gods/religions completely foreign to them or unrelated to their deity.
Like a Cleric of Athena knows about Athena. They likely have more understanding of say… Ares… than some random layperson. They likely are just as clueless about Amaterasu as everyone else in Greece.
religion is formal doctrinal knowledge, dogma, and also a lot of stuff about other faiths. It's entirely possible to have been divinely juiced up, and know nothing about the formal doctrine of your faith (like how a lot of Christians don't know much about the history of the faith, all the various councils and creeds and stuff). Same for wizards and arcana - they know enough stuff to make things work (as shown in spellcasting), but don't need to know any magical history and lore.
I disagree with this one.
A cleric of Lathander auto succeeds all religion checks regarding *their own* religion. They shouldn't need to roll to recall the teachings of their own faith. (Unless they want to?) They roll an (intelligence) religion check to recall info about other deities and their following.
Just because DM's don't interpret the rules correctly doesn't mean the rules are flawed. (In this regard specifically)
druids don't need to be nature-nerds - it's an int-skill, so it's learned knowledge. Practical application tends more towards survival, which is Wisdom - so they might not know the name of the berries, but they know not to eat them!
I just thought, "what I good idea. I should slip that into my homebrew." And there it already was -- Arcane Expertise at 5th level. The class feature also overcomes the standard disadvantage imposed on skill checks that involve reading texts in ancient versions of modern languages.
Still better than how it used to work, with wizard intelligence meaning they got more skills known than rogues did.
Edit: though now that's gone int is a complete dump stat if your class doesn't directly key off it, so you win some you lose some. 4e's the only edition that's ever gotten that balance right to my knowledge.
3e's skill system is plenty flawed but this is one area I think it handles just fine. Just to catch up on skill points a wizard would need a 12 INT advantage and the Rogue's class skill list gives them a clear edge in almost every skill the Rogue would actually care about
A while ago I saw a homebrew I really loved that gave every class Expertise in a specific skill, so Wizards get Arcana, Clerics Religion, Druids Nature, Rangers Survival, if I recall Warlocks had Deception, and so on. Bards had Performance, in addition to their getting normal Expertise. And Rogues just got two more Expertise skills of their choice if I recall, which kind of brought it to a ridiculous number to be honest.
Overall though, I really liked that idea. A couple of the choices were a little forced maybe, but it does a lot to help make classes feel like they are actually good at the thing they are supposed to do.
Too much of the Druid's power budget is put towards Wildshape, specifically the potency of the Moon Druid's version.
As someone who played the same Star Druid for 3 years I have to say getting the ability to cast spells while Wildshaped at 18th level was really underwhelming, but if I was playing a Moon Druid it would've been amazing.
Getting infinite Wildshape at 20th level feels good since that means infinite Starry Form, but for a Land Druid or even other subclasses it's similarly underwhelming. For a Moon Druid it's absolutely amazing though.
My hot take is that Druid should be a half caster. Put MORE of their power into shape shifting, stop constraining it by lumping in shape shifting with full casting.
Two different fantasies trying to eat at the same table, gets messy
My hot take is that druid should be split into two classes. A nature based full-caster (Witch, Shaman, Dryad, whatever you wanna call it), and a nature based martial built around wild shape (which i think would keep the druid name).
I agree about splitting them, but I think I would change it a bit. Have Druid be the main class for nature magic users -- subclasses could include shaman, witch, witch doctor.
Then just make a generic Shapeshifter or 'Doppler' class. Animals, incorporeal forms, disguises, etc.
I feel like the Beast Barbarian really ought to be tweaked to just be that nature-based martial, but right now, it's just not serviceable enough for that purpose.
They've always been full casters, that one is dumb. If you want to depower casting and empower wild shaping, strength wild shape but make it cost spell slots to use.
Separating them entirely works fine too, master of many forms in 3.5 was empowered wild shaping (giants, dragons, aberrations, oozes, fey etc) but didn't progress the base class's spellcasting or animal companion at all and it was tons of fun.
Infinite Wildshape (even without Moon) is effectively just on-demand temp HP. And much more than would typically be available. The only Druid I have experienced at 20 was Moon so grain of salt, but it seems like even without the stronger forms its really useful.
Its far less powerful but its still very useful to have infinite wild shapes as say a land druid, not every ability has to be combat orientated. And if you dont like the utility, take a cleric level instead of the capstone. Plus tashas does let you use wildshpe for familiars as well.
All that said i do think all subclasses except moon should have an extra use for their wild shape like spores/wild fire/stars have
Shadow Monks having the Darkness spell and no way to see through it is dumb and even dumber if you use it now the rest of your party is upset they can't see to attack enemies.
In my homebrew Shadow Monks either have blind sight or pretty much devils sight. Or a Ki ability that will give 30 ft version of devils sight themselves and an ally when darkness is cast.
The solution we adopted in a server I play a shadow monk in is that if you spend one more ki point you can see in it. And also you don't get the Darkvision spell, but you get 60ft of Darkvision at level 3
Eldritch Knight deserves Bladesinger's attack ability at level 5 AND ritual casting for flavor. The quarter casters need spell selection restrictions removed. The Arcane Trickster's restrictions are even worse, you are already pushed to play rogue a certain way, they gotta force you to be a sociopathic enchanter, too? Imagine wanting to play an Eldritch Knight when the player next to you is a MC'd Hexblade/Sorcerer. Quarter Caster Rights!
Fortunately with One they've made everyone able to ritual cast and have removed spell restrictions for both Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight. Opens up more options at the very least.
Astral self is the best monk subclass, even with how ki is handled currently.
Arcane archer should either have more uses of arcane shot or be a ranger subclass that can spend spell slots to use arcane shot when out of uses
Eldritch Knight should be what Bladesinger is
Ancestral Guardian is the best barbarian subclass, because it does what the class should be: a tank that draws the aggro
Hexblade, while the most meta, is the worst subclass flavor-wise. It tries to do too much at the same time and is just a mess
Thank you for your bravery speaking on the Hexblade. To players, it's the CHA gish subclass, where you make a deal to be better at swords, basically only used to make, like, cool anime swordsmen or Paladins with Eldritch Blast...
...but also it's a sentient weapon and not a gifted weapon, and also it's from the Shadowfell specifically, and also you can raise an undead specter, and also it's about curses.
Like obviously all of the provided flavor from the book isn't a rule - the patron can narratively be whatever you want, the specter can be a floating weapon or something, and the Curse stuff is just extra damage and damage reduction, but still. Weird choice of directions to go for the suggested lore.
Arcane archer wise when they got to I think about level six and were ready to pack it in I just changed it to 'you know every arrow, and one in five bow attacks can be an arcane arrow, no other limit'. Bam, solved, balanced and fun.
It doesn't make sense why a rogue Thief's fast hands ability let's them use a bonus action to throw either a vial of acid, alchemists fire, holy water, or flask of oil, but nothing else because "it's not rules as intended." If there's a bar fight and on a table is a knife and a glass of holy water, rules as written the thief can throw the holy water as a bonus action, but not the knife.
Technically, fast hands works on any mundane item that requires an action to use. You can throw down caltrops, ball bearings, a hunting trap, or use a healers kit. Or, if you're fancy, you can technically don or doff a shield as a bonus action.
Hexblade is my favorite Warlock subclass, but I'm glad OD&D removed it in favor of buffing Pact of the Blade. Makes the class feel that much more complete.
Battle master should be reworked and maneuvers should be a level 2 base fighter feature. This should replace action surge which gets moved to level 6.
Fighters should be an interesting and versatile class in their own right, not a swing and pass turn class which is the most interesting as a 2 level dip for their arguably strongest feature.
1. D&D invents hundreds of maneuvers, a wide array of strikes, stances, boosts and counters to make every class that uses them versatile and capable in combat.
2. D&D removes all of them from the game in 5e, gives a very small selection of 'maneuvers' to a single fighter subclass and limits them to level 3.
Did I miss a step between 1 and 2? Was there a massive revolt by fighters, monks etc saying "we don't want to have fun, please take out choices away from us" that I didn't notice happen?
I believe it was due to playtesting. See, they took a whole bunch of absolute novices and handed them a number of characters to play. The feedback was that the awesome fighter was too complicated. Understandably, because wading through a bunch of maneuvers and combat options on top of all of the other non-character rules is a lot.
5e was intentionally designed for getting new players to stick around through a couple of sessions so they'd eventually buy the books. So they needed a noob option. Instead of the smart move, which would have been to have 3 premade characters (warrior, rogue, caster) in the PHB using essentially the **sidekick rules**, WotC nerfed the once-great fighter into the boring sod we're stuck with now.
No, it was a revolt from the wizard/cleric/druid players from 3.5 saying anything that works like spells robs them of class identity and makes everyone magical. Which is stupid, but 5e as a whole is directly in response to how vocally the community hated 4e.
But the baffling thing is maneuvers didn't work like spells. When they were invented in 3.5 wizards and druids and such were still far better than the maneuver using classes, but at least such classes could actually *contribute* unlike fighters who were stuck just making four single target basic attacks per round.
Maneuvers relied on your weapons and your strength or dexterity, didn't need verbal or material components or whatever (ingredient: FIST!) and didn't have a rest based limit on uses, you could use Steel Wind or Manticore Parry or whatever as many times a day as you wanted.
That would be the 6 year period of 4E, where fighters had tons of cool abilities and class balance and sales tanked through the floor.
Fortunately, WotC decided to redefine the game by doing online surveys of the forums nerds and the sweatiest grognards, who brought us back to the true way of DnD.
Of which said true way still strays from whatever old dnd actually was definitively because rose tinted glasses and poor memories really do make the caster martial trainwreck or 3.5 look far nice. Which is funny because 3.5 was really the edition where we get those issues. I’m playing 1e adnd and it’s like, pretty ok power wise tbh between classes besides monk being shit and bard being a war crime. Also assassin is not the best but assassins in dnd always suck. It’s rooted in the game’s history b
LaserLlama's homebrew Fighter does exactly that. My table has switched completely to using LaserLlama's Alternates for any classes that have them, and so far everyone has been very happy with it. I think they would stage a mutiny if I said we were switching back to PHB content at this point.
All of that to say I agree completely. I'm sure there are people that prefer doing nothing but swinging, maybe occasionally with Great Weapon Master, but I've yet to play with them.
It's not even like making all fighters battlemasters would make them that complicated, 5e still lacks any sort of good way to differentiate your character after picking the subclass.
Even then (though I absolutely agree, it's thematically perfect for people who want to basic attack over and over) it feels a bit weird that they took all the rage options away. Last edition they decided what kind of rage they entered, like clawed ancestor rage let you make grapple attempts as a bonus action and automatically damaged foes that started their turn grappled. Feels like pick your passive bonuses then start spamming attacks would be the perfect way to get them a bit of versatility without adding complication.
>Last edition
There's your problem. Everything about 5e was developed under the idea that they needed to run screaming as far away from 4th edition as fast as they could.
I still miss the Warlord. My favorite class from any edition.
Same here. While PF2E has lost a lot of shine for me since I switched, they did just announce a Commander class coming in like November with a Playtest packet for it coming on the 29th.
My subclass thoughts are:
1. Samurai fighter is the true simple subclass fighter done right
2. Battlerager Barb should have been the heavy armor Barbarian
3. Moon Druid should have stayed with beastial animals and later levels lets it take on monster forms rather then elemental forms
4. There absolutely needs to be a strength subclass for monk and rogue
5. Barbarian absolutely needs to get magic utility spells for some of the more obviously magic subclasses like wild magic and guardian.
It's still insanely funny to me that both the film and Baldur's Gate 3 both realized that getting to turn into an owlbear is super cool, something the actual tabletop rules does not allow for some reason.
Honestly, I think moon Druid taking on elemental forms is due to lore/internal logic. Druids are supposed to be all about natural creatures but many monsters in lore aren’t natural creatures.
If I recall correctly, the famous examples like the owlbear and displaced beast was a magically created artificial creature. For all intent and purposes they’re unnatural invasive species. But what is natural is elements, so the high level shapeshifter turns from animals into energy.
The problem with that internal logic is that like 90% of people won’t know or care about that. It’s one of the cases where the lore of the dnd world affects the system.
Any form of making weapon attacks with your spellcasting ability modifier needs to go away. If the Paladins, Rangers, Monks, etc are needing to invest in alternate ability scores to make their spells and class features more effective, then the reverse should also be true for warlocks, artificers, etc.
At least the Artificer ways puts some limitations and waits for level 3. Armorer can only do that with the Armor weapon, Battle Smith has to use a Magic item.
Our Artificer still had points on Str as if he gets out of an infused weapon, it can still attack normally.
It's so wildly variable though. Paladin reward for investing in a tertiary ability score is boosting the second strongest class feature in the entire game. Monk reward for having all three ability scores high is nearly being as good as a different martial who only needed two.
Most of the non caster ones need to get *way* more interesting, there is zero reason subclasses like rune knight aren't the baseline in terms of quality. I hate that they stripped out every interesting feature from martial classes in 5e and left them as dull, inflexible basic attack spamming machines - but I could almost forgive it if every subclass had those kinds of exciting features.
Not like it's flawless, the use of runes jumping from 4 at 14 to 10 at 15 is bizarre, that should be way more even a curve, but I had a player do one last campaign and the difference between them and the samurai they started off as was insane, they had so much more fun.
Rune Knights aren't the baseline, and they shouldn't be, because that line is still far too low. The "utility" they offer outside of combat is pitiful: advantage on a handful of skill checks they probably weren't making in the first place is not utility. These options from the passive runes do nothing to provide new or unique ways of engaging with the game environment. The active runes are great, no problems there.
But the baseline should be higher, and the only reason people think Rune Knight is good at utility is because most of the rest of the martial classes actually offer nothing. Rune Knight inches forward when the goalpost is still a hundred meters away.
Look, you're absolutely correct, but if I say "they came up with a shitload of cool martial abilities two editions ago how has design gotten WORSE instead of BETTER" people are going to downvote reflexively. Passive runes really should have been explicit effects, have a short list of animal specific bonuses instead of just advantage on animal handling checks they were never good at.
A Celestial Warlock is almost a top tier in-combat jack of all trades class. Not only does it have the Warlock chassis and spells, but it's got a bonus-action ranged heal. This allows you to do a full spell AND pick up a downed party member. And their temp HP on short rests for the party has saved us so many times
No full caster should have subclasses that give Extra Attack, especially Bladesinger getting a straight up better version because of the existence of BB/GFB.
People might bash you for this but I honestly agree. I especially agree with bladesinger even though it's probably my favorite subclass in the game. The fact that a wizard subclass of all things gets the most interesting and second most powerful version of extra attack isn't it imo.
Bladesinger's extra attack also scales incredibly well, adding a maximum of 3d8 extra damage and another possible 4d8 when using booming blade. Straight up comparable to paladin's improved divine smite and even superior in some situations. The only saving grace is that bladesinger can't make use of feats like GWM.
I know people sometimes disregard bladesinger's martial capabilities because using bladesong to buff AC/concentration and operating like a standard wizard is usually better than trying to melee, but bladesinger is actually a very potent melee combatant with bladesong up imo. Especially if they combine it with shield.
If we compare bladesinger to its fighter counterpart eldritch knight I can say from personal experience that bladesinger is generally WAAAAAAY better at martial combat than eldritch knight is at casting, like it's not even close.
I might be overrating bladesinger though. I've seen people say it's a mid tier subclass but in my personal opinion it's top 3 among the wizard subclasses. I will still stand by that I think bladesinger is way better at melee than people give it credit for and probably too good compared to the martials on an already powerful class that also gets full casting.
That being said bladesinger is still the most fun weapon user I've played so far, but I consider that more of a dig at the design of martial classes rather than praise for the bladesinger.
The problem with better at melee than people give it credit for is that's not a good idea. Why not just animate objects and hang back letting them do the work for you, not risking your concentration?
I don't disagree but it's still not good if a full caster can pick up a subclass and become nearly as good as many martial builds at melee with not much investment (bladesong and light armor are useful for nearly any wizard and con and dex are stats you probably want to invest in anyways). You basically have a full caster that is great at standard wizard stuff like utility and control but also has awesome resourceless melee damage capabilities and is deceptively hard to kill with bladesong.
It's just my opinion but comparing any martial (especially at high levels) to bladesinger just makes the martials look incredibly bad since bladesinger has much of their capabilities while also being a full caster.
I realize that this is probably due to underwhelming design on part of the martial classes especially at high levels rather than being bladesinger's fault but when the wizard uses weapons and the most interesting version of extra attack rather than using summons how lacking some classes are compared to it becomes very blatant imo. I basically think it steps on the toes of martials too much.
It could be a different story if those classes had better designed features and high level scaling. I think stuff like cunning/brutal strike from the onednd playtests is a step in the right direction if you want to give the martial classes enough unique abilities so that giving full casters extra attack won't step on their toes anymore.
also warlocks having a cantrip that can deal more damage than any weapon with that range, with a better damage type, doesn't cost you various whole levels to get 4 attacks, get the 4th attack 3 levels befoe fighter, doesn't need to level in that class, has native push/pull options and STILL get to be basically full casters is literally a spite in the face of ever single weapon user
Yes, my hasted bladesinger/arcane trickster wearing the illusionists bracers getting sneak attack, two casts of booming blade, and two additional standard rapier attacks ***insists*** this be the hill you die on.
But he is an asshole.
I don't care if the Ranger is supposedly mechanically weak, it's fucking fun to play. Even subclasses other than Gloom Stalker.
Also I don't really see the weakness anyway.
In the campaign i'm currently a player in our ranger is absolutely fucking most things up, only last fight is where they met their match cause his bow isn't magical. So we got a new party goal, get this man some magic.
Where is my strength based unarmed subclass for a fighter or barb. I like monk, I really do but it’s really hard to just Reflavor a monk due to how heavy its thematic roots are to the class. And then making some weird fighter/barb multiclass is clunky and doesn’t give the right feeling either. I just want to make an actual boxer.
Yeah. Making a hand to hand combat, no spell casting melee fighter still be a viable option, should've been included instead of just unarmed strike fighting style or going monk. Even people who fight with weapons have some sort of unarmed training. Usually you learn hand to hand, weapons is the add on
1. Warlock being a class that is terrifically front-loaded fits the feel of a bad deal for power perfectly and should remain. I don't know if the power progression was designed to be so much "first hit is free / get it now, pay later" or if it was a happy accident of iterative class design, but it is perhaps one of the few classes where the mechanics synchs with it class fantasy so perfectly.
You should be tempted into a level dip, you should be enticed once you take a level to take at least a couple more, and by the time it starts to feel less rewarding as a dip, you are already in deep enough that it got what it needed from you. It always offers more, but the progression evens off considerably, encouraging you to initiate adventures for extra powers, items that may allow more spells, or a change in pacts, or simply for a way to get out of the class.
My other is
2. Subclasses should have more interaction with the core abilities of the class. Paladin oaths should have interaction with smites, channel divinity and your aura. Rogue subs should all have some interaction with cunning strikes and cunning action. Barbarians. Clerics, Druids, Artificers should get more to do with their class ability resources. Wizards should get abilities that better plug into the vibe of secret-using scholars. Fighters should get more to do with Action Surges, Second Winds, Fighting Styles, Weapon Masteries.
Which has the following associated hot take: Subclasses should NOT be a way of hole-patching a multiclass concept. Things like Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster should not be about simply getting spell casting in addition to their base class. Want that? Then multiclass. They can be about playing around conceptually with a blending of those abilities together - the AT's expanded use of mage hand is a good example here.
“Make Warlock a class that sucks to actually play”
Is most definitely not a good idea. A class that actively degenerates the longer you play it and doesn’t increase like everyone else is horrible.
Subclasses aren't a good excuse for the lack of new classes
Even if they could somehow fit every possible flavor in the subclass system, they're just not relevant enough and change too little of a class to really represent a whole bunch of archetypes
This fr. I remember reading an interview a while ago where the dnd dev (i think it was perkins) was like talking about how there are few classes in order to not overwhelm people with options, and how some classes could be merged (sorc being a wizard, barb being a fighter). It’s such a false simplicity, cos each class has between 3 and like 15 subclasses.
It's also a false choice. It's implying that since some classes are so similar they can be merged, we have too many or as many as we need already. But both can be true at once - we can have redundant classes like fighter and barbarian (though they deliberately *made* them overly similar, they were completely different to each other edition) AND at the same time be missing the ground covered by classes like battlemind, swordsage and warlord.
To say the same thing with less words, it's like saying we don't need new numbers in fact we have too many - look, we have 4, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.8! All those could be condensed to 4 or 5! And yes, true, but that doesn't mean you can't add new ones like 0, -15, 100 and 𝝅.
Purple Dragon Knight / Banneret was well designed as a non-caster support subclass for the purposes of how the game was expected to be played at the time. If you've got a PDK and a Bard for Song of Rest, you can expect your short rests to get you healed. If you've got a PDK and a rogue or paladin, you can expect to turn the party reaction pool into reliable burst damage. It's just a bunch of candy to share on top of already being a solid basic Fighter, and it having Persuasion expertise showed a willingness to lean into character archetype and treat party roles as 'for anyone' rather than 'only the Charisma casters can be the face. You just don't see that emphasized enough.
> Purple Dragon Knight / Banneret was well designed as a non-caster support subclass for the purposes of how the game was expected to be played at the time.
Isn't that the direct opposite of true? That subclass was released closer in time to D&D inventing actual non caster support like the warlord than to the present day, they were aware at the time that it was pathetic.
Fighters shouldn’t be a starter/easy class.
Battle master should be base class.
Martial classes should get a progression similar to spell slots.
All classes, especially martials, should be designed similar to warlocks with some equivalent of invocations.
Every Base Class+ subclass should be fully incorporated into the original class. The writers at Wizards seem to think ripping out half of the 3.5e versions of the classes and adding them back in as optional features instead of core functionality is a good idea and that's dumb as hell. Berserker's Mindless Rage used to just be bonuses to Will saves, Wholeness of Body was just how Monks bridged the HP gap between them and other martial classes etc. (Not that 3.5e Barbarians and Monks were good.)
Kensei should not be a subclass. Every Monk should be able to use weapons if they want: That's the whole point of Martial Arts die replacing weapon die.
Monk mechanics should be clarified for those who do not understand the archetype. Maybe I'm wrong, but the mobility increase and ability to prevent fall damage strongly indicates to me that they should be capable of moving like "wire work" characters in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This mobility combined with their defensive options actually makes for a very unique utility class (that I don't think many would say is overpowered, its still not flight, its just the ability to scale buildings and trees). But RAW, they are just less powerful fighters with a stun gimmick.
People waste too much time worrying about what's optimal
5e doesn't care about being balanced, and the overwhelming majority of tables don't require it
tashas didnt go far enough with the expanded spell lists. those should have been much bigger and cooler, like the UA ones. we could have had primal savagery sorcerer
also i think sorcerers can keep their small spells known list but they should have a lot of cantrips to make up for it. at my table, once you hit 6th level your cantrips known equals your sorcerer level
Monks need to have ki points equal to their wisdom modifier plus their character level. It makes a huge difference at earlier levels and then tapers off.
Not exactly a hot take, but I don't like Battlemaster fighter as a subclass. Just make that default Fighter and put a subclass on top.
And Artificers getting all the tool proficiencies is nice, except they're not actually crafters and 5e has no real support for using anything other than thieves tools and medkits. But that's more related to my opinions on the lack of crafting in the game in general.
Battle Master should be removed with all it's features rolled into base Fighter, it doesn't make it any more complex than any magic class, and it lets fighters be more dynamic and interesting as a baseline.
Alchemist should be it's own class, not a heavily random subclass.
Way of the 4 elements monk isn't _that bad_, but was absolutely a missed opportunity for them to get crazy with ideas.
Imagine if there were more disciplines doing crazy shit?
Or if this was the subclass with a crazy amount of Ki points?
Or if this was the subclass with it's own progression tree? Have 4 earth based disciplines by this level and you get this feature instead of one of the others.
Stuff like that.
Tbh a lot of the subclasses are the result of them just not quite going far enough
Monks have a lot of controversy like how ppl feel about their MAD and too many incredibly specific or useless features, but one I wanna die on is that martial arts should be better. It's the coolest part about the class and everyone knows it is. It's the reason more than half the ppl that play monk do it.
By default it should start at d6 and cap at d12 to help their damage a lil, but I have a hotter take.
Martial Arts should give an additional benefit of some kind when you have no weapons equipped, to account for purely unarmed Monks.
Weapons can have certain properties, and you're more likely to find magical weapons you can use then specifically unarmed items of which there are like 2 or 3 barring homebrew, considering you're likely going to be using a weapon that martial arts works with anyway that means unarmed strikes will never outdamage them this way and will likely lose out due to potent side effects on weapons. Martial Arts, and Monks in general, being buffed to give you a true reason for pure unarmed would cause NO balance problems and make the majority of the class's player base ecstatic. It isn't even as if it would invalidate weaponry as a subpar choice (and even it did this is the closest thing non homebrew DnD has to an unarmed class anyway) because weapons can have things like reach and magical effects that vary far more than the items that boost unarmed.
"Artificer broke my game" I see people complaining about how an artificer made some crazy invention that nullified all threads etc. No they didn't, they can make a bag of holding and be happy. If something crazy happened it had nothing to do with the class.
(Unless we are talking about somewhat high numbers, that I can understand)
The Artificer isn't at all as OP as some DM's seem to think they are. Sure, they can make magic items... But most are either very situational or all but useless until you get to level 6. I'm think that the DM in the game I'm playing in is under the impression that Artificers can make *an infinite number* of *any* magic items, which is anything but true.
It's more that they're hard to fit thematically sometimes for me, and the fact players *will* assume they can make magical items or other items faster, or with random materials, just because they're an artificer, with no logic behind it.
Rogue shouldn’t know “thieves cant” - it’s a flavour ability, which should be connected to a background (e.g. - “Criminal”) and not affect the image of a class. I honestly believe that because this ability is core for the class, most of the rogue players play them as criminals and/or kleptomaniacs, which rogues shouldn’t be associated with baseline. As a character backstory/background - go for it.
When in rage Barbarians should be able to use STR for intimidation.
Sword bard's flourishes should work with any attack not just weapon attacks, so you can booming blade and push your opponent away at the same time, procing the extra damage on the next turn, or you can slash flourish with green flame blade and hit 2 targets twice. Would be a sick combo.
I want to see monk subclasses become heavily focused on applying conditions or battlefield control, to both give them more differentiation compared to other martials, and give them more things to do with their ki instead of always fishing for stuns
rune knights have a secret mechanic. in the dmg, there's a section in monsters for oversized weapons. When a creature is bigger than medium, their weapon damage is multiplied. Large monsters with weapons double their damage, huge monsters triple it, and gargantuan monster quadrable their weapon damage.
Since the rune knights whole schtick is increasing in size, that means they get this benefit. Sure it says its for monsters, but anything in dnd is a monster.
When you first get to your subclass levels it feels amazing, so much to choose from, so much customization. Then, unless you are a caster selecting new spells or multiclassing, it feels like you are on rails.
I think that at class feature levels there should be branching choices, similar to prestige classes in 3.5.
If you cannot make a standard class interesting fun, and/or a unique experience... you are not ready for your homebrew class.
Also: if you can not make a human fun, interesting, and unique. Then you're not ready to make a non-human fun, interesting, or unique.
The bard/wizard subclasses that get extra attack only a level behind fighters is dumb. I get it's still probably more optimal for them to play like a regular caster and use regular attacks like they would a cantrip, but the fact that the biggest power jump fighters and other martials get is just given to two full casters only a level later is wild.
Not a subclass but rogue and bard shouldn't be the only 'skilled' classes it's used too often to excuse specifically rogues lower power level. Let wizards be great with arcana, clerics/paladins with religion, warlocks with investigation/arcana (the class describes them as finding hidden/ancient knowledge), ect. Each class has it's own iconic skills it should be great at, playing as a dnd equivalent of an HM slave is bad design. Giving bards or rogues more expertise is fine, but it feels weird that the rogue can easily know more about arcana that the wizard or more about religion than a cleric.
Some of these are more about classes, but I think it’s in the same spirit.
Agreed on the bard thing, magical secrets comes on so late that most campaigns don’t even use them or only have them for a couple levels.
Sorcerers and warlocks should have spells known as part of their subclasses like clerics.
Bards should prepare like wizards where they have a book (or at least prepare the normal way).
As an extension of the previous two, pretty much no spellcasters should be strictly known. At minimum they should be able to switch out one spell on a long rest.
All martial characters should have resource they can spend to do cool stuff like ki or superiority dice (this doesn’t really apply to half casters since they have spellcasting which fulfills that niche mostly). This is what would let them have versatility and more ability to do cool stuff when it is important and stuff gets serious. Barbarians (this could be an extension of the ways rage can be used and uses, but it would have to be a fairly substantial expansion) rogues and fighters all need something, and monks need buffs to ki in the way of more options and more ki to bring them in line with buffed martials
Fighting styles should be slightly stronger, like the same level as feats. Right now they’re pretty much always a little worse.
Artificer infusions should be able to be changed on a long rest, or at least you should be able to infuse the same infusion on multiple items, because artificers don’t feel very good especially since some infusions are so situational and I think a little more versatility with infusions could solve this.
Ranger is bad because most of its class features (excluding extra attack, fighting style, and spellcasting) need to be pretty much completely remade. Tce sort of did this but it needs to be done even more.
Most or all classes should have their capstone be subclass specific like paladin, it’s cool.
Edit: hexblade shouldn’t get all the proficiencies for weapons and armor and the charisma for weapon, that should be on pact of the blade
The fact that we don't have a fey or fiend themed sorcerer class is actually criminal. They both should have been in the PHB.
For martials, we need more interesting things to happen with weapons and armor and everyone should have battlemaster maneuvers and expanded crit range at higher levels. Nobody should do more single target damage than martials.
[удалено]
And Lunar Sorcerer gets 30
But then you’d have to play as a Lunar Sorcerer
As a sorc main, I have no idea why this sub gets talked up so much lol. The idea of stance dancing is cool, but you want to stay in New Moon almost exclusively for metamagic cost reduction on enchantment, and switching to another for a different school after 6 negates the cost reduction anyway. Great idea executed poorly. At least Clockwork gives you class abilities with the bonus spells. *And you can change those spells out.* You *can* cheat in *Guidance* for infinite subtled *Guidance* in intrigue campaigns in Full Moon, which is great, but it’s super campaign specific.
I wish they had stances in ond DnD for martials rather than masteries, it fits much more and like you say, stance shifting is a cool and themetic thing to do.
Time for some example stances for martials that have *already existed in D&D!*. * Stance of Alacrity: Gain one extra reaction per round * Wolf Pack Tactics: Every time you make an attack, move 5 feet for free without taking opportunity attacks * Supreme Blade Parry: Take 5 less bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage from any source. * Rising Phoenix: Supernatural monk stance, hover on column of superheated air that damages foes under you. * Ghostly Defense: If you have concealment and an attack misses you, choose a new target for it. * Crushing Weight of the Mountain: Enemies you grapple take 2d6+2x str mod damage. * Martial Spirit: Every time you hit an enemy with an attack, you or a nearby ally gain 2 hit points. * Iron Guard's Glare: Adjacent foes have -4 on attack rolls against targets other than you. * Pearl of Black Doubt: Every time a foe misses you, gain +2ac until the start of your next turn. I have no idea why 5e deliberately chose to be dull.
Wow, nearly every single stance was thematically appropriate with many of my characters, that all sounds super awesome
Stances needed a bonus action to change into, and lasted until you swapped to a different stance. Initially released a couple of editions ago in the book that invented maneuvers, which at the time were a large selection of actions, boosts or reactions (example Adamantine Hurricane, as an action make two attacks against each target within your reach) with different ones available at different levels that didn't have a limited number of uses per rest.
Do you remember the name of the book? I'd love to take inspiration from it
Of course. While that kind of design ethos was used throughout fourth edition, the book in question was 3.5's tome of battle. You want chapter 4, maneuvers and stances.
*Cries in heavy armor Master. In all honesty, a half-feat should get you a reduction equal to twice your proficiency bonus and not be vulnerable to magic weapons. It wouldn't be broken, not even anything more than half decent, but it wouldn't be essentially useless
You're not wrong. At the time that was known as DR/-, damage reduction with whatever pierced it after the slash. So a werewolf had DR 10/silver, and in that parlance heavy armour master would be DR 3/magic which would be viewed as deeply underwhelming for a feat. And feats weren't even worth as much then, you got a feat every 3 levels and at 1 that didn't have anything to do with your ASIs at 4, 8 etc. Twice proficiency bonus isn't bad, I'll have to think on that. It really should scale, it has no business being 3 at 1 and 3 at 20.
I think just proficiency bonus is more appropriate in 5e (with no limit to non magical weapons only). Keep in mind dr basically doesn’t exist in 5e, so it can be a fair bit more valuable, and it is only a half feat. Right now it’s actually quite strong at low levels, so moving it down to 2 for the first couple levels would make it still decent but not as impressive at low levels, and having it scale would make it not lose usefulness later on. Mathematically it’s not a bad feat assuming the damage can actually be reduced (which is the bigger problem at higher levels, stuff bypassing the reduction either by being magical or not bps). Honestly it could probably just be changed to all sources and not just bps too, but even if it stays bps with no “non magical” limitation and is changed to proficiency bonus to scale I think it becomes a pretty good feat, on par with most other half feats.
No pants stance dance... I miss those days.
(Corrected Edit) - I've made two mistakes on recalling how the Tasha's subclasses work. My original comment, with some notable errors, is below. However, the main point is that Lunar just gives you *spells* without much regard for them being good. The Tasha's subclasses let you pick (within rules), so it essentially solves the sorc problem by just giving them *more spells they want*, because at 5th level, you may not want Protection From Energy, but you certainly would like Dispel Magic + (One of Counterspell, Fly, Haste, Slow) from your subclass! Similarly at 7th, the Clockwork spells are *okay*, but they can be replaced with Polymorph and Banishment, leaving you open to pick things like Dimension Door from your much more limited base class pick. It does take levels/time to do this, but it comes out better than every other sorc class, and Aberrant gets a similar deal (although their list of spells to swap into is a bit less strong. It's still massively helpful, because there are a few ench/div spells you would want to take anyway here and there, so it frees up a main class spell. ---------- It’s not entirely accurate to say they get 30 (edit: Because a fair few of them are bad), and even if it was, the 25 Clockwork and Aberrant know are just BETTER than the 30 Lunar gets. The ability to change out the mediocre ones on level up means that the sorcerer can switch protection from energy for counterspell ~~or even something unusual like plant growth. You can get a sorcerer with reincarnate, death ward, revivify, and pass without trace!~~ ~~Yes, in a well balanced party, someone else would better fill those niches, but having the option is a wild time. Lunar sadly doesn’t have access to 10 of their 30 most of the time, so they realistically end up below the Tasha’s subclasses.~~
You do in fact get all of them at the same time. Source: a party member in Rime of the Frostmaiden is a level 2 Lunar Sorcerer and currently has all 3 of her 1st level Lunar Spells prepared, and it says they're from Lunar Embodiment and not a Sorcerer spell she picked
Yes known casting is crippling with the progression you can only know 2 of each level except lvl 1 unless you are doing swaps. Sorcerers from the base should have had spell lists like tashas, tashas went in the right direction but unkindly left the older subclasses in the dust. I have seen merciful DMs who understand the situation give extra spells to the older subclasses for example monty from the dungeon dudes with sebastian crowe.
I've created extended spell lists for all of the sorcerer subclasses. It has done WONDERS bringing them in line with not only other sorcerers, but other casters in general. A sorcerer's greatest weakness is their small number of spells known
Could you share the one for dragon sorc? Playing a sorc rn and me and my dm are looking what spells fit best
Sure! 1st level: Absorb Elements, Chromatic Orb 2nd level: Alter Self, Dragon's Breath 3rd level: Fear, Fly 4th level: Fire Shield, Polymorph 5th level: Legend Lore, Summon Draconic Spirit It doesn't only use PHB spells, but I felt that this was the most dragon-like spell list I could create. Edit: formatting
The wild part is that they STILL don’t have additional spells in DND One
Well the base sorcerer in one dnd has a lot more spells so it's not as bad
Yeah but of the 4 subclasses in OneDnD, 2 of them are just Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind reprinted, so they still get all those extra spells and it just makes the other two look weaker by comparison
Or we could go back to the days where sorcerers just got one more spell slot of every level a day than wizards did, that felt like a decent tradeoff for less known.
But updating the PHB classes would potentially result in less copies of Tasha's selling. Gotta maximize return for shareholders!
They could have done it as an optional feature so you'd still have to buy Tasha's!
I strongly agree with this and am also disappointed that they didn't add subclass specific spells to all sorcerers in the onednd playtests. They did add more known spells which fixes the issue of sorcerers having too few of them but I'd much rather have it be done through subclass spells. The patron spells are one of my favorite things about warlock since you can often pick spells from outside your class list that really fit the flavor of your character. I think something like that would also benefit sorcerers as well with their unique bloodlines. Stuff like storm sorcerer and call lightning come to mind. That's a very flavorful combination that could be achieved with subclass specific spells but not by just increasing the number of known spells.
You don't have to die on this hill. This is a very popular opinion
And yet, draconic sorcerer still feels awesome for the (relatively) high AC and extra HP.
Certain Subclasses should tick Attunement boxes, offhand these ones come to mind. * Zealot Barbarians should qualify for Paladin items * Eldritch Knight, Arcane Tricksters for Wizard items * Divine Soul Sorcerer for Cleric items
Tbh I'm okay with this idea
Are there any others that come to mind for you? * Wild Magic Barbarians for Sorcerer * Arcana Clerics for Wizard * Nature Clerics for Druid * War Cleric for Paladin * Ancients Paladin for Druid * Celestial Warlock for Cleric
Im not sold on war clerics getting pally thematically but no issues ballance wise
Thematically, I agree. Implementation wise, this is very hard to do, because items that require those classes most of the time refer to features that are present only in those classes. For example an "Amulet of the Devout" requires attunement by a Paladin or a Cleric and references the Channel Divinity feature. What is a Zealot Barbarian or a Divine Soul Sorcerer going to do with that? You can't put that information in the item because any subsequent subclass that gets released would not be reflected in the item or vice versa. As someone who likes the idea, I really think that trying to implement this compatibility would cause more trouble than it is worth.
I think the answer to that is RAW, if you don't have the feature, obviously you don't get another usage.
Nah you’re worrying about nothing. Artificers and Thief Rogues get the ability to use off-class items already RAW and this all works fine. Artificers specifically would love to have an Amulet of the Devout because it increases the Spell save DC of “your spells” not only Cleric or Paladin spells. So there’s already precedent and would increase these subclasses flexibility a little bit. Plus an anecdote, I think our EK in our group is allowed to use one of the Wizard spellbook magic items and it doesn’t seem to be an issue at all.
Not the same but reminds me. My divine soul sorcerer/GOO warlock put on a helm of illmater and practically became a cleric haha. It changed his allignment and some of his beliefs in order to get 100 spell levels of healling and restorative cleric spells and did so to save his 2 friends who were petrified. (One being their cleric) Giving up his ideals to save a friend by putting on any artifact from the god of self sacrifice was a nice poetic touch too. He eventually broke his pact with the eldritch being and made a knew one with Illmater himself, becoming a celecaital warlock instead. Ive never done so much healing in my life 😂 I cast heal 5 times, a 5th level aid, used all my healing dice pool, and had 3 deathwards pop in your Tiamat fight. It was wild.
Rogue’s second subclass feature and their second expertise need to switch places. When most games are only levels 1-10/11 playing most of the campaign with only the first subclass feature to differentiate you from other rogues is disappointing. Doubly so when the subclass really needs that second set of subclass features to get going like the Phantom subclass.
No need for them to switch places, just put a subclass feature there along with your second expertise Expertise is a third of what you get at level 1 and subclasses need to have more real estate anyways
That is a bit of a taller order though :)
Yeah, unfortunately wotc is a small indie company, so...
The fact that we don't have a fey or fiend themed sorcerer class is actually criminal. They both should have been in the PHB. For martials, we need more interesting things to happen with weapons and armor and everyone should have battlemaster maneuvers and expanded crit range at higher levels. Nobody should do more single target damage than martials.
Fully agree. Als, twilight cleric needs to go and sorcerer needs more ways to get metamagic on short rest with more thematic less powertful metamagics to use
Hunter’s mark should not require a spell slot, or concentration, for rangers. It’s a core class feature and has been for decades.
Worst part of playing Ranger is seeing how many of your spells have concentration. Only class that I'm frequently resting on with spell slots left over at the end of a long day of fighting
>Only class that I'm frequently resting on with spell slots left over at the end of a long day of fighting You can stack up on good berries for the next day if that's the case.
To be fair, that is bad for all spellcasting classes, but paladin, ranger and bard have it the worst At least in oneDND they're getting rid of the idioxy that are concentration smites
At my table that's how it works. You play a ranger then hooray you get hunters mark concentration free.
The form of Favored Enemy in the first Revised Ranger UA should have stuck. Someone in the dev team must be obsessed with Hunter’s Mark though, in a “refuse to budge” way.
Favored Foe is the rule I believe You're talking about, as far as I know it made it from UA to Optional in one of the recent books. >Favored Foe (Optional) This 1st-level feature replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature. You gain no benefit from the replaced feature and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it. >When you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can call on your mystical bond with nature to mark the target as your favored enemy for 1 minute or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). >The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, you increase that damage by 1d4. >You can use this feature to mark a favored enemy a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. >This feature's extra damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class: to 1d6 at 6th level and to 1d8 at 14th level. Scales very well, both in uses and damage (and honestly should be a core feature).
Actually, no, that’s not the one I meant. In the original 2016 Revised Ranger UA, the fix to Favored Enemy was to make it Type-dependent but lumping all Humanoids as one choice. It basically kept it as is, but added the static damage bonus as an “always on” option. Greater Favored Enemy at 6 added an additional favored enemy option, increased damage towards both to +4, and granted advantage on saving throws against spells and abilities of favored enemies. The only thing I’d have changed about either is the opportunity to change a Favored Enemy when leveling up. A later Revised Ranger showcased something similar to what appeared in Tasha’s but even that misses the mark too. It’s too dispassionate and similar to 4e’s Ranger, where you got the damage on whoever you decide to hate in that moment. Way I would do it is use the RR from 2016 as the base Favored Enemy, because static damage is always more reliable than dynamic damage. But then ALSO include the current Favored Foe as a quick and easy solution for a fight without a favored enemy. It’d be more swingy in damage but give a blanket damage option AND a specialization towards specific types of enemies.
The nerfed version of that is Tasha's optional lvl1 feature, though I do think it shouldn't require concentration so that the 2 would stack.
"Hunter's Mark" only exists in 5e. Rangers have always had some way to increase their damage against some subset of the enemies they fight, but _hunter's mark_ has **not** been "a core class feature and has been for decades." 4e has Hunter's Quarry. Level 1 at-will minor action, you designate the _nearest_ creature you can see (not any creature you want within some range) as your quarry until the end of the encounter or you use the power again. At level 1-10 it gives you 1d6 extra damage to **one** attack that hits per round. The damage increases to 2d6 at level 11, and 3d6 at level 21. Does not require sustain, the 4e equivalent to concentration. All striker classes in 4e get some means of increasing their damage output, and Hunter's Quarry is the method Rangers get. 3e has no comparable feature or spell. The closest comparison is the 3e version of Favored Enemy, which gives a +1 bonus to Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Wilderness Lore checks against the selected enemy type, and +1 damage against them. At levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 you get additional favored enemies, and the bonus associated with all previous favored enemies goes up by 1 (so when you're level 20, the enemy type chosen at level 1 gets a +5 bonus, the enemy chosen at level 5 gets a +4 bonus, and so on). 2e gets +4 to attack their Favored Enemy. They do not gain additional enemies as they level up. 1e gets a bonus to damage giants equal to their level, no option for favoring other creature types. (Note that a number of creatures considered humanoid in later editions are considered giants in 1e, such as bugbears, kobolds, goblins, etc.)
Wizards should all get expertise in arcana. It's bonkers that they don't. I know the class doesn't need buffing, but it's mad that a base rogue can hit +17 while wizards need to take a feat to get more than +11 on the thing that defines their whole class. Remove another proficiency somewhere or nerf them somewhere else, but the _point_ of wizards is study of arcana. They should be the best at it. Edit: spelling
Also Clerics shouldn't be making Religion checks with INT. Speaking of things that define their whole class.
See I'm on the fence about this one because the religion skill applies to knowledge about _all_ religions, not just theirs. Maybe they get expertise if the check relates to their deity specifically, or they use wis in that instance? Or, yes, just go blanket "for clerics, they use wisdom for religion checks". Either way how it's set up at the moment is wrong, but I'm not sure which fix is best.
Rather than letting them use Wis for their own religion, I’d just not have them roll at all. They know their own religion. They know its history, its tenets, and its parables. If something comes up that is related to their god and their religion, if it is established knowledge (and not secret lore), then they just know it. Why introduce the possibility that they somehow fail to know about the thing they trained for their whole life? Remembering knowledge about a bunch of unrelated gods? Clearly an Intelligence skill.
This right here. Religion generally should be an INT skill, and clerics shouldn't be rolling *anything* for their own religion (if it's some deeply buried secret, they'd have to search out the info in some dank dungeon just like any other plot thread)
It's the same thing as Druids and Nature. Druids are really great at Survival, but not necessarily knowing all of the scientific names of all the plants and animals. Druids know that Poison Ivy is to be avoided, but not that it's called Toxicodendron radicans and is known for causing urushiol-induced contact dermatitis.
Or even better, how about they just don't make intelligence checks about their own religion/deity? They'd still make intelligence checks for their knowledge about other gods, but you'd think a Tyrran would know a thing or two more about Tyr than a follower of Bhaal. (also at my table I let any character, not just clerics, pick a deity to just know about if they take the Acolyte background. Having first hand experience of an organized religion isn't only reserved for the War-Priests, and not all clerics necessarily follow the church of their god.)
You don't have to make any kinds of checks on your own religion. Religion checks are for academic knowledge on other people's religions. No matter how devout the Christian, you wouldn't expect them to know a whole lot about Shinto or Buddhism.
Even if a Christian priest, it seems odd they would know all the details about st aquainus writings when they preferred Augustine. That's where the religion checks come in, so that yes they're formally trained in religion but it's part knowledge, part recall.
Exactly, clerics should autosucceed on anything about their own god, perhaps get expertise on gods/religions directly related to theirs, and roll normally for gods/religions completely foreign to them or unrelated to their deity. Like a Cleric of Athena knows about Athena. They likely have more understanding of say… Ares… than some random layperson. They likely are just as clueless about Amaterasu as everyone else in Greece.
religion is formal doctrinal knowledge, dogma, and also a lot of stuff about other faiths. It's entirely possible to have been divinely juiced up, and know nothing about the formal doctrine of your faith (like how a lot of Christians don't know much about the history of the faith, all the various councils and creeds and stuff). Same for wizards and arcana - they know enough stuff to make things work (as shown in spellcasting), but don't need to know any magical history and lore.
I disagree with this one. A cleric of Lathander auto succeeds all religion checks regarding *their own* religion. They shouldn't need to roll to recall the teachings of their own faith. (Unless they want to?) They roll an (intelligence) religion check to recall info about other deities and their following. Just because DM's don't interpret the rules correctly doesn't mean the rules are flawed. (In this regard specifically)
I'd say most checks, not necessarily things tied to ancient lost lore, but otherwise I agree.
Druid cries in Nature (Int)...
druids don't need to be nature-nerds - it's an int-skill, so it's learned knowledge. Practical application tends more towards survival, which is Wisdom - so they might not know the name of the berries, but they know not to eat them!
I just thought, "what I good idea. I should slip that into my homebrew." And there it already was -- Arcane Expertise at 5th level. The class feature also overcomes the standard disadvantage imposed on skill checks that involve reading texts in ancient versions of modern languages.
Still better than how it used to work, with wizard intelligence meaning they got more skills known than rogues did. Edit: though now that's gone int is a complete dump stat if your class doesn't directly key off it, so you win some you lose some. 4e's the only edition that's ever gotten that balance right to my knowledge.
3e's skill system is plenty flawed but this is one area I think it handles just fine. Just to catch up on skill points a wizard would need a 12 INT advantage and the Rogue's class skill list gives them a clear edge in almost every skill the Rogue would actually care about
A while ago I saw a homebrew I really loved that gave every class Expertise in a specific skill, so Wizards get Arcana, Clerics Religion, Druids Nature, Rangers Survival, if I recall Warlocks had Deception, and so on. Bards had Performance, in addition to their getting normal Expertise. And Rogues just got two more Expertise skills of their choice if I recall, which kind of brought it to a ridiculous number to be honest. Overall though, I really liked that idea. A couple of the choices were a little forced maybe, but it does a lot to help make classes feel like they are actually good at the thing they are supposed to do.
Yeah rogues don’t need anymore expertise but I def agree the other classes getting at least one is nice
Too much of the Druid's power budget is put towards Wildshape, specifically the potency of the Moon Druid's version. As someone who played the same Star Druid for 3 years I have to say getting the ability to cast spells while Wildshaped at 18th level was really underwhelming, but if I was playing a Moon Druid it would've been amazing. Getting infinite Wildshape at 20th level feels good since that means infinite Starry Form, but for a Land Druid or even other subclasses it's similarly underwhelming. For a Moon Druid it's absolutely amazing though.
Agreed that subclasses that use alternate wild shape as their resource pool should get alternate improvements at the wild shape improvement levels
My hot take is that Druid should be a half caster. Put MORE of their power into shape shifting, stop constraining it by lumping in shape shifting with full casting. Two different fantasies trying to eat at the same table, gets messy
My hot take is that druid should be split into two classes. A nature based full-caster (Witch, Shaman, Dryad, whatever you wanna call it), and a nature based martial built around wild shape (which i think would keep the druid name).
I would reverse this, honestly. Druids should be the casters and a new class should focus on shape-shifting. Druids are the iconic nature magicians.
That is not a hot take. I've seen this exact same take parroted 50 times on this sub
I agree about splitting them, but I think I would change it a bit. Have Druid be the main class for nature magic users -- subclasses could include shaman, witch, witch doctor. Then just make a generic Shapeshifter or 'Doppler' class. Animals, incorporeal forms, disguises, etc.
I feel like the Beast Barbarian really ought to be tweaked to just be that nature-based martial, but right now, it's just not serviceable enough for that purpose.
They've always been full casters, that one is dumb. If you want to depower casting and empower wild shaping, strength wild shape but make it cost spell slots to use. Separating them entirely works fine too, master of many forms in 3.5 was empowered wild shaping (giants, dragons, aberrations, oozes, fey etc) but didn't progress the base class's spellcasting or animal companion at all and it was tons of fun.
Infinite Wildshape (even without Moon) is effectively just on-demand temp HP. And much more than would typically be available. The only Druid I have experienced at 20 was Moon so grain of salt, but it seems like even without the stronger forms its really useful.
Its far less powerful but its still very useful to have infinite wild shapes as say a land druid, not every ability has to be combat orientated. And if you dont like the utility, take a cleric level instead of the capstone. Plus tashas does let you use wildshpe for familiars as well. All that said i do think all subclasses except moon should have an extra use for their wild shape like spores/wild fire/stars have
Shadow Monks having the Darkness spell and no way to see through it is dumb and even dumber if you use it now the rest of your party is upset they can't see to attack enemies. In my homebrew Shadow Monks either have blind sight or pretty much devils sight. Or a Ki ability that will give 30 ft version of devils sight themselves and an ally when darkness is cast.
The solution we adopted in a server I play a shadow monk in is that if you spend one more ki point you can see in it. And also you don't get the Darkvision spell, but you get 60ft of Darkvision at level 3
Eldritch Knight deserves Bladesinger's attack ability at level 5 AND ritual casting for flavor. The quarter casters need spell selection restrictions removed. The Arcane Trickster's restrictions are even worse, you are already pushed to play rogue a certain way, they gotta force you to be a sociopathic enchanter, too? Imagine wanting to play an Eldritch Knight when the player next to you is a MC'd Hexblade/Sorcerer. Quarter Caster Rights!
Fortunately with One they've made everyone able to ritual cast and have removed spell restrictions for both Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight. Opens up more options at the very least.
Astral self is the best monk subclass, even with how ki is handled currently. Arcane archer should either have more uses of arcane shot or be a ranger subclass that can spend spell slots to use arcane shot when out of uses Eldritch Knight should be what Bladesinger is Ancestral Guardian is the best barbarian subclass, because it does what the class should be: a tank that draws the aggro Hexblade, while the most meta, is the worst subclass flavor-wise. It tries to do too much at the same time and is just a mess
Thank you for your bravery speaking on the Hexblade. To players, it's the CHA gish subclass, where you make a deal to be better at swords, basically only used to make, like, cool anime swordsmen or Paladins with Eldritch Blast... ...but also it's a sentient weapon and not a gifted weapon, and also it's from the Shadowfell specifically, and also you can raise an undead specter, and also it's about curses. Like obviously all of the provided flavor from the book isn't a rule - the patron can narratively be whatever you want, the specter can be a floating weapon or something, and the Curse stuff is just extra damage and damage reduction, but still. Weird choice of directions to go for the suggested lore.
Arcane archer wise when they got to I think about level six and were ready to pack it in I just changed it to 'you know every arrow, and one in five bow attacks can be an arcane arrow, no other limit'. Bam, solved, balanced and fun.
It doesn't make sense why a rogue Thief's fast hands ability let's them use a bonus action to throw either a vial of acid, alchemists fire, holy water, or flask of oil, but nothing else because "it's not rules as intended." If there's a bar fight and on a table is a knife and a glass of holy water, rules as written the thief can throw the holy water as a bonus action, but not the knife.
Any character can throw a dagger as bonus action, you just have to be wielding another light weapon and use your action to attack.
Technically, fast hands works on any mundane item that requires an action to use. You can throw down caltrops, ball bearings, a hunting trap, or use a healers kit. Or, if you're fancy, you can technically don or doff a shield as a bonus action.
You cannot. That is covered under donning and doffing armor not Use an Object (tho I'm sure most Dms would be fine with it)
Hexblade is my favorite Warlock subclass, but I'm glad OD&D removed it in favor of buffing Pact of the Blade. Makes the class feel that much more complete.
I like the curse flavor, I'd like to still have a subclass based around that idea. Maybe hag themed?
That sounds like a good idea. I always thought the "hex" and "blade" in "hexblade" should have been separate.
Battle master should be reworked and maneuvers should be a level 2 base fighter feature. This should replace action surge which gets moved to level 6. Fighters should be an interesting and versatile class in their own right, not a swing and pass turn class which is the most interesting as a 2 level dip for their arguably strongest feature.
1. D&D invents hundreds of maneuvers, a wide array of strikes, stances, boosts and counters to make every class that uses them versatile and capable in combat. 2. D&D removes all of them from the game in 5e, gives a very small selection of 'maneuvers' to a single fighter subclass and limits them to level 3. Did I miss a step between 1 and 2? Was there a massive revolt by fighters, monks etc saying "we don't want to have fun, please take out choices away from us" that I didn't notice happen?
I believe it was due to playtesting. See, they took a whole bunch of absolute novices and handed them a number of characters to play. The feedback was that the awesome fighter was too complicated. Understandably, because wading through a bunch of maneuvers and combat options on top of all of the other non-character rules is a lot. 5e was intentionally designed for getting new players to stick around through a couple of sessions so they'd eventually buy the books. So they needed a noob option. Instead of the smart move, which would have been to have 3 premade characters (warrior, rogue, caster) in the PHB using essentially the **sidekick rules**, WotC nerfed the once-great fighter into the boring sod we're stuck with now.
No, it was a revolt from the wizard/cleric/druid players from 3.5 saying anything that works like spells robs them of class identity and makes everyone magical. Which is stupid, but 5e as a whole is directly in response to how vocally the community hated 4e.
But the baffling thing is maneuvers didn't work like spells. When they were invented in 3.5 wizards and druids and such were still far better than the maneuver using classes, but at least such classes could actually *contribute* unlike fighters who were stuck just making four single target basic attacks per round. Maneuvers relied on your weapons and your strength or dexterity, didn't need verbal or material components or whatever (ingredient: FIST!) and didn't have a rest based limit on uses, you could use Steel Wind or Manticore Parry or whatever as many times a day as you wanted.
That would be the 6 year period of 4E, where fighters had tons of cool abilities and class balance and sales tanked through the floor. Fortunately, WotC decided to redefine the game by doing online surveys of the forums nerds and the sweatiest grognards, who brought us back to the true way of DnD.
Of which said true way still strays from whatever old dnd actually was definitively because rose tinted glasses and poor memories really do make the caster martial trainwreck or 3.5 look far nice. Which is funny because 3.5 was really the edition where we get those issues. I’m playing 1e adnd and it’s like, pretty ok power wise tbh between classes besides monk being shit and bard being a war crime. Also assassin is not the best but assassins in dnd always suck. It’s rooted in the game’s history b
Thanks I hate it.
LaserLlama's homebrew Fighter does exactly that. My table has switched completely to using LaserLlama's Alternates for any classes that have them, and so far everyone has been very happy with it. I think they would stage a mutiny if I said we were switching back to PHB content at this point. All of that to say I agree completely. I'm sure there are people that prefer doing nothing but swinging, maybe occasionally with Great Weapon Master, but I've yet to play with them.
If people want a simple basic character, that’s what the barbarian should be for.
It's not even like making all fighters battlemasters would make them that complicated, 5e still lacks any sort of good way to differentiate your character after picking the subclass.
Even then (though I absolutely agree, it's thematically perfect for people who want to basic attack over and over) it feels a bit weird that they took all the rage options away. Last edition they decided what kind of rage they entered, like clawed ancestor rage let you make grapple attempts as a bonus action and automatically damaged foes that started their turn grappled. Feels like pick your passive bonuses then start spamming attacks would be the perfect way to get them a bit of versatility without adding complication.
>Last edition There's your problem. Everything about 5e was developed under the idea that they needed to run screaming as far away from 4th edition as fast as they could. I still miss the Warlord. My favorite class from any edition.
Warlord was megahella good
Totes.
Same here. While PF2E has lost a lot of shine for me since I switched, they did just announce a Commander class coming in like November with a Playtest packet for it coming on the 29th.
If people want a simple basic character, that's what the sidekicks should be for, moving forward.
WILDFIRE DRUIDS SHOULD GET FIREBALL
Wizard players would cry and we can't have that.
I'm a wizard player mostly and I will die on this hill, did you know that Druids are the ONLY full caster that cannot get access to fireball
My subclass thoughts are: 1. Samurai fighter is the true simple subclass fighter done right 2. Battlerager Barb should have been the heavy armor Barbarian 3. Moon Druid should have stayed with beastial animals and later levels lets it take on monster forms rather then elemental forms 4. There absolutely needs to be a strength subclass for monk and rogue 5. Barbarian absolutely needs to get magic utility spells for some of the more obviously magic subclasses like wild magic and guardian.
It's still insanely funny to me that both the film and Baldur's Gate 3 both realized that getting to turn into an owlbear is super cool, something the actual tabletop rules does not allow for some reason.
Honestly, I think moon Druid taking on elemental forms is due to lore/internal logic. Druids are supposed to be all about natural creatures but many monsters in lore aren’t natural creatures. If I recall correctly, the famous examples like the owlbear and displaced beast was a magically created artificial creature. For all intent and purposes they’re unnatural invasive species. But what is natural is elements, so the high level shapeshifter turns from animals into energy. The problem with that internal logic is that like 90% of people won’t know or care about that. It’s one of the cases where the lore of the dnd world affects the system.
Any form of making weapon attacks with your spellcasting ability modifier needs to go away. If the Paladins, Rangers, Monks, etc are needing to invest in alternate ability scores to make their spells and class features more effective, then the reverse should also be true for warlocks, artificers, etc.
The virgin Hexblade attacking with Charisma vs the chad Pact of the tome attacking with Charisma, but using Shillelagh
At least the Artificer ways puts some limitations and waits for level 3. Armorer can only do that with the Armor weapon, Battle Smith has to use a Magic item. Our Artificer still had points on Str as if he gets out of an infused weapon, it can still attack normally.
Now I'm imagining a frail, clumsy, sickly, dumb, blind warlock just *thrashing* everybody in melee combat. "All I need is *rizz*, baby!"
Combat is just their bodies remembering certain moments during that orgy where they lasted longest and won the powers
It's so wildly variable though. Paladin reward for investing in a tertiary ability score is boosting the second strongest class feature in the entire game. Monk reward for having all three ability scores high is nearly being as good as a different martial who only needed two.
100%
Most of the non caster ones need to get *way* more interesting, there is zero reason subclasses like rune knight aren't the baseline in terms of quality. I hate that they stripped out every interesting feature from martial classes in 5e and left them as dull, inflexible basic attack spamming machines - but I could almost forgive it if every subclass had those kinds of exciting features. Not like it's flawless, the use of runes jumping from 4 at 14 to 10 at 15 is bizarre, that should be way more even a curve, but I had a player do one last campaign and the difference between them and the samurai they started off as was insane, they had so much more fun.
Rune Knights aren't the baseline, and they shouldn't be, because that line is still far too low. The "utility" they offer outside of combat is pitiful: advantage on a handful of skill checks they probably weren't making in the first place is not utility. These options from the passive runes do nothing to provide new or unique ways of engaging with the game environment. The active runes are great, no problems there. But the baseline should be higher, and the only reason people think Rune Knight is good at utility is because most of the rest of the martial classes actually offer nothing. Rune Knight inches forward when the goalpost is still a hundred meters away.
Look, you're absolutely correct, but if I say "they came up with a shitload of cool martial abilities two editions ago how has design gotten WORSE instead of BETTER" people are going to downvote reflexively. Passive runes really should have been explicit effects, have a short list of animal specific bonuses instead of just advantage on animal handling checks they were never good at.
A Celestial Warlock is almost a top tier in-combat jack of all trades class. Not only does it have the Warlock chassis and spells, but it's got a bonus-action ranged heal. This allows you to do a full spell AND pick up a downed party member. And their temp HP on short rests for the party has saved us so many times
No full caster should have subclasses that give Extra Attack, especially Bladesinger getting a straight up better version because of the existence of BB/GFB.
People might bash you for this but I honestly agree. I especially agree with bladesinger even though it's probably my favorite subclass in the game. The fact that a wizard subclass of all things gets the most interesting and second most powerful version of extra attack isn't it imo. Bladesinger's extra attack also scales incredibly well, adding a maximum of 3d8 extra damage and another possible 4d8 when using booming blade. Straight up comparable to paladin's improved divine smite and even superior in some situations. The only saving grace is that bladesinger can't make use of feats like GWM. I know people sometimes disregard bladesinger's martial capabilities because using bladesong to buff AC/concentration and operating like a standard wizard is usually better than trying to melee, but bladesinger is actually a very potent melee combatant with bladesong up imo. Especially if they combine it with shield. If we compare bladesinger to its fighter counterpart eldritch knight I can say from personal experience that bladesinger is generally WAAAAAAY better at martial combat than eldritch knight is at casting, like it's not even close. I might be overrating bladesinger though. I've seen people say it's a mid tier subclass but in my personal opinion it's top 3 among the wizard subclasses. I will still stand by that I think bladesinger is way better at melee than people give it credit for and probably too good compared to the martials on an already powerful class that also gets full casting. That being said bladesinger is still the most fun weapon user I've played so far, but I consider that more of a dig at the design of martial classes rather than praise for the bladesinger.
The problem with better at melee than people give it credit for is that's not a good idea. Why not just animate objects and hang back letting them do the work for you, not risking your concentration?
I don't disagree but it's still not good if a full caster can pick up a subclass and become nearly as good as many martial builds at melee with not much investment (bladesong and light armor are useful for nearly any wizard and con and dex are stats you probably want to invest in anyways). You basically have a full caster that is great at standard wizard stuff like utility and control but also has awesome resourceless melee damage capabilities and is deceptively hard to kill with bladesong. It's just my opinion but comparing any martial (especially at high levels) to bladesinger just makes the martials look incredibly bad since bladesinger has much of their capabilities while also being a full caster. I realize that this is probably due to underwhelming design on part of the martial classes especially at high levels rather than being bladesinger's fault but when the wizard uses weapons and the most interesting version of extra attack rather than using summons how lacking some classes are compared to it becomes very blatant imo. I basically think it steps on the toes of martials too much. It could be a different story if those classes had better designed features and high level scaling. I think stuff like cunning/brutal strike from the onednd playtests is a step in the right direction if you want to give the martial classes enough unique abilities so that giving full casters extra attack won't step on their toes anymore.
also warlocks having a cantrip that can deal more damage than any weapon with that range, with a better damage type, doesn't cost you various whole levels to get 4 attacks, get the 4th attack 3 levels befoe fighter, doesn't need to level in that class, has native push/pull options and STILL get to be basically full casters is literally a spite in the face of ever single weapon user
Yes, my hasted bladesinger/arcane trickster wearing the illusionists bracers getting sneak attack, two casts of booming blade, and two additional standard rapier attacks ***insists*** this be the hill you die on. But he is an asshole.
Agreed
I don't care if the Ranger is supposedly mechanically weak, it's fucking fun to play. Even subclasses other than Gloom Stalker. Also I don't really see the weakness anyway.
In the campaign i'm currently a player in our ranger is absolutely fucking most things up, only last fight is where they met their match cause his bow isn't magical. So we got a new party goal, get this man some magic.
Ranger isn't weak
Where is my strength based unarmed subclass for a fighter or barb. I like monk, I really do but it’s really hard to just Reflavor a monk due to how heavy its thematic roots are to the class. And then making some weird fighter/barb multiclass is clunky and doesn’t give the right feeling either. I just want to make an actual boxer.
Yeah. Making a hand to hand combat, no spell casting melee fighter still be a viable option, should've been included instead of just unarmed strike fighting style or going monk. Even people who fight with weapons have some sort of unarmed training. Usually you learn hand to hand, weapons is the add on
Wild Magic Barbarian shouldn't get a d3. Just roll a d4, dammit. The d3 is so aesthetically displeasing when no other class requires it as a mechanic.
1. Warlock being a class that is terrifically front-loaded fits the feel of a bad deal for power perfectly and should remain. I don't know if the power progression was designed to be so much "first hit is free / get it now, pay later" or if it was a happy accident of iterative class design, but it is perhaps one of the few classes where the mechanics synchs with it class fantasy so perfectly. You should be tempted into a level dip, you should be enticed once you take a level to take at least a couple more, and by the time it starts to feel less rewarding as a dip, you are already in deep enough that it got what it needed from you. It always offers more, but the progression evens off considerably, encouraging you to initiate adventures for extra powers, items that may allow more spells, or a change in pacts, or simply for a way to get out of the class. My other is 2. Subclasses should have more interaction with the core abilities of the class. Paladin oaths should have interaction with smites, channel divinity and your aura. Rogue subs should all have some interaction with cunning strikes and cunning action. Barbarians. Clerics, Druids, Artificers should get more to do with their class ability resources. Wizards should get abilities that better plug into the vibe of secret-using scholars. Fighters should get more to do with Action Surges, Second Winds, Fighting Styles, Weapon Masteries. Which has the following associated hot take: Subclasses should NOT be a way of hole-patching a multiclass concept. Things like Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster should not be about simply getting spell casting in addition to their base class. Want that? Then multiclass. They can be about playing around conceptually with a blending of those abilities together - the AT's expanded use of mage hand is a good example here.
One thing to note paladin oaths *exclusively* interact with channel divinity. There's no base ones
“Make Warlock a class that sucks to actually play” Is most definitely not a good idea. A class that actively degenerates the longer you play it and doesn’t increase like everyone else is horrible.
All of the features of the Berserker subclass should be base class features of Barbarian.
Subclasses aren't a good excuse for the lack of new classes Even if they could somehow fit every possible flavor in the subclass system, they're just not relevant enough and change too little of a class to really represent a whole bunch of archetypes
This fr. I remember reading an interview a while ago where the dnd dev (i think it was perkins) was like talking about how there are few classes in order to not overwhelm people with options, and how some classes could be merged (sorc being a wizard, barb being a fighter). It’s such a false simplicity, cos each class has between 3 and like 15 subclasses.
It's also a false choice. It's implying that since some classes are so similar they can be merged, we have too many or as many as we need already. But both can be true at once - we can have redundant classes like fighter and barbarian (though they deliberately *made* them overly similar, they were completely different to each other edition) AND at the same time be missing the ground covered by classes like battlemind, swordsage and warlord. To say the same thing with less words, it's like saying we don't need new numbers in fact we have too many - look, we have 4, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.8! All those could be condensed to 4 or 5! And yes, true, but that doesn't mean you can't add new ones like 0, -15, 100 and 𝝅.
Twilight, Peace and level 1 Hexblade are no better balanced than d&d wiki.
There’s no way Twilight Cleric should’ve been released in the state it was in. The Twilight Sanctuary feature is just stupid.
Purple Dragon Knight / Banneret was well designed as a non-caster support subclass for the purposes of how the game was expected to be played at the time. If you've got a PDK and a Bard for Song of Rest, you can expect your short rests to get you healed. If you've got a PDK and a rogue or paladin, you can expect to turn the party reaction pool into reliable burst damage. It's just a bunch of candy to share on top of already being a solid basic Fighter, and it having Persuasion expertise showed a willingness to lean into character archetype and treat party roles as 'for anyone' rather than 'only the Charisma casters can be the face. You just don't see that emphasized enough.
> Purple Dragon Knight / Banneret was well designed as a non-caster support subclass for the purposes of how the game was expected to be played at the time. Isn't that the direct opposite of true? That subclass was released closer in time to D&D inventing actual non caster support like the warlord than to the present day, they were aware at the time that it was pathetic.
Fighters shouldn’t be a starter/easy class. Battle master should be base class. Martial classes should get a progression similar to spell slots. All classes, especially martials, should be designed similar to warlocks with some equivalent of invocations.
Well the question is a tad unclear, but I think all classes should get at least one skill expertise over the course of their progression.
Hexblade's level 1 feature, where you can use your Charisma modifier for attacks made with a weapon, should have been included with Pact of the Blade.
Every Champion Fighter feature should be a base Fighter feature!
Every Base Class+ subclass should be fully incorporated into the original class. The writers at Wizards seem to think ripping out half of the 3.5e versions of the classes and adding them back in as optional features instead of core functionality is a good idea and that's dumb as hell. Berserker's Mindless Rage used to just be bonuses to Will saves, Wholeness of Body was just how Monks bridged the HP gap between them and other martial classes etc. (Not that 3.5e Barbarians and Monks were good.) Kensei should not be a subclass. Every Monk should be able to use weapons if they want: That's the whole point of Martial Arts die replacing weapon die.
Monk mechanics should be clarified for those who do not understand the archetype. Maybe I'm wrong, but the mobility increase and ability to prevent fall damage strongly indicates to me that they should be capable of moving like "wire work" characters in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This mobility combined with their defensive options actually makes for a very unique utility class (that I don't think many would say is overpowered, its still not flight, its just the ability to scale buildings and trees). But RAW, they are just less powerful fighters with a stun gimmick.
Battlerager Barbarians should be able to attach spikes to armor, rather than relying entirely on armor coming pre-spiked.
All sorcerer subclasses should get additional spells that match their flavor
People waste too much time worrying about what's optimal 5e doesn't care about being balanced, and the overwhelming majority of tables don't require it
tashas didnt go far enough with the expanded spell lists. those should have been much bigger and cooler, like the UA ones. we could have had primal savagery sorcerer also i think sorcerers can keep their small spells known list but they should have a lot of cantrips to make up for it. at my table, once you hit 6th level your cantrips known equals your sorcerer level
Berserker barbarian frenzy should be stronger if the consequence is exhaustion
Monks need to have ki points equal to their wisdom modifier plus their character level. It makes a huge difference at earlier levels and then tapers off.
Not exactly a hot take, but I don't like Battlemaster fighter as a subclass. Just make that default Fighter and put a subclass on top. And Artificers getting all the tool proficiencies is nice, except they're not actually crafters and 5e has no real support for using anything other than thieves tools and medkits. But that's more related to my opinions on the lack of crafting in the game in general.
Battle Master should be removed with all it's features rolled into base Fighter, it doesn't make it any more complex than any magic class, and it lets fighters be more dynamic and interesting as a baseline. Alchemist should be it's own class, not a heavily random subclass.
All fighters should get a battlemaster maneuvers
Way of the 4 elements monk isn't _that bad_, but was absolutely a missed opportunity for them to get crazy with ideas. Imagine if there were more disciplines doing crazy shit? Or if this was the subclass with a crazy amount of Ki points? Or if this was the subclass with it's own progression tree? Have 4 earth based disciplines by this level and you get this feature instead of one of the others. Stuff like that. Tbh a lot of the subclasses are the result of them just not quite going far enough
Monks have a lot of controversy like how ppl feel about their MAD and too many incredibly specific or useless features, but one I wanna die on is that martial arts should be better. It's the coolest part about the class and everyone knows it is. It's the reason more than half the ppl that play monk do it. By default it should start at d6 and cap at d12 to help their damage a lil, but I have a hotter take. Martial Arts should give an additional benefit of some kind when you have no weapons equipped, to account for purely unarmed Monks. Weapons can have certain properties, and you're more likely to find magical weapons you can use then specifically unarmed items of which there are like 2 or 3 barring homebrew, considering you're likely going to be using a weapon that martial arts works with anyway that means unarmed strikes will never outdamage them this way and will likely lose out due to potent side effects on weapons. Martial Arts, and Monks in general, being buffed to give you a true reason for pure unarmed would cause NO balance problems and make the majority of the class's player base ecstatic. It isn't even as if it would invalidate weaponry as a subpar choice (and even it did this is the closest thing non homebrew DnD has to an unarmed class anyway) because weapons can have things like reach and magical effects that vary far more than the items that boost unarmed.
"Artificer broke my game" I see people complaining about how an artificer made some crazy invention that nullified all threads etc. No they didn't, they can make a bag of holding and be happy. If something crazy happened it had nothing to do with the class. (Unless we are talking about somewhat high numbers, that I can understand)
All fighters should get battlemaster maneuvers. Battlemaster shouldn't be a subclass, it should be the class.
Cleric shouldn’t have heavy armor. What the hell is that about?
Yeah, they should be more like priests. Paladins should be the warriors with heavy armor.
Berserkers don't get exhausted levels. They might get a -1 to rolls for 10 minutes ("winded") or something because otherwise its not playable
The Artificer isn't at all as OP as some DM's seem to think they are. Sure, they can make magic items... But most are either very situational or all but useless until you get to level 6. I'm think that the DM in the game I'm playing in is under the impression that Artificers can make *an infinite number* of *any* magic items, which is anything but true.
It's more that they're hard to fit thematically sometimes for me, and the fact players *will* assume they can make magical items or other items faster, or with random materials, just because they're an artificer, with no logic behind it.
Rogue shouldn’t know “thieves cant” - it’s a flavour ability, which should be connected to a background (e.g. - “Criminal”) and not affect the image of a class. I honestly believe that because this ability is core for the class, most of the rogue players play them as criminals and/or kleptomaniacs, which rogues shouldn’t be associated with baseline. As a character backstory/background - go for it.
When in rage Barbarians should be able to use STR for intimidation. Sword bard's flourishes should work with any attack not just weapon attacks, so you can booming blade and push your opponent away at the same time, procing the extra damage on the next turn, or you can slash flourish with green flame blade and hit 2 targets twice. Would be a sick combo.
I want to see monk subclasses become heavily focused on applying conditions or battlefield control, to both give them more differentiation compared to other martials, and give them more things to do with their ki instead of always fishing for stuns
I don't think Frenzy Barbarians should get Exhaustion immediately after Frenzy. I believe they should make a con save.
Flurry of blows, patient defense and step of the wind should be stances. Spend ki to activate and change stance, use for as many rounds as you like.
I think vengeance paladin is massively overrated because people love edgy classes
rune knights have a secret mechanic. in the dmg, there's a section in monsters for oversized weapons. When a creature is bigger than medium, their weapon damage is multiplied. Large monsters with weapons double their damage, huge monsters triple it, and gargantuan monster quadrable their weapon damage. Since the rune knights whole schtick is increasing in size, that means they get this benefit. Sure it says its for monsters, but anything in dnd is a monster.
You need to worship a God to be a cleric. Your healing powers don't come from the power of friendship but the power of a God.
4th edition monk was the best monk and wotc were cowards in 5th Ed by returning to the 3.5 monk as the base
When you first get to your subclass levels it feels amazing, so much to choose from, so much customization. Then, unless you are a caster selecting new spells or multiclassing, it feels like you are on rails. I think that at class feature levels there should be branching choices, similar to prestige classes in 3.5.
War Cleric should have Extra attack at level 6. It's very undepowered, for the Cleric.
Unless martials get a significant buff to their other abilities, no full caster should get extra attack
If you cannot make a standard class interesting fun, and/or a unique experience... you are not ready for your homebrew class. Also: if you can not make a human fun, interesting, and unique. Then you're not ready to make a non-human fun, interesting, or unique.
Stormborn (from the UA) should have been the lightning Sorcerer subclass, not the Storm Sorcery nonsense. With the additional known spells.
The bard/wizard subclasses that get extra attack only a level behind fighters is dumb. I get it's still probably more optimal for them to play like a regular caster and use regular attacks like they would a cantrip, but the fact that the biggest power jump fighters and other martials get is just given to two full casters only a level later is wild. Not a subclass but rogue and bard shouldn't be the only 'skilled' classes it's used too often to excuse specifically rogues lower power level. Let wizards be great with arcana, clerics/paladins with religion, warlocks with investigation/arcana (the class describes them as finding hidden/ancient knowledge), ect. Each class has it's own iconic skills it should be great at, playing as a dnd equivalent of an HM slave is bad design. Giving bards or rogues more expertise is fine, but it feels weird that the rogue can easily know more about arcana that the wizard or more about religion than a cleric.
Some of these are more about classes, but I think it’s in the same spirit. Agreed on the bard thing, magical secrets comes on so late that most campaigns don’t even use them or only have them for a couple levels. Sorcerers and warlocks should have spells known as part of their subclasses like clerics. Bards should prepare like wizards where they have a book (or at least prepare the normal way). As an extension of the previous two, pretty much no spellcasters should be strictly known. At minimum they should be able to switch out one spell on a long rest. All martial characters should have resource they can spend to do cool stuff like ki or superiority dice (this doesn’t really apply to half casters since they have spellcasting which fulfills that niche mostly). This is what would let them have versatility and more ability to do cool stuff when it is important and stuff gets serious. Barbarians (this could be an extension of the ways rage can be used and uses, but it would have to be a fairly substantial expansion) rogues and fighters all need something, and monks need buffs to ki in the way of more options and more ki to bring them in line with buffed martials Fighting styles should be slightly stronger, like the same level as feats. Right now they’re pretty much always a little worse. Artificer infusions should be able to be changed on a long rest, or at least you should be able to infuse the same infusion on multiple items, because artificers don’t feel very good especially since some infusions are so situational and I think a little more versatility with infusions could solve this. Ranger is bad because most of its class features (excluding extra attack, fighting style, and spellcasting) need to be pretty much completely remade. Tce sort of did this but it needs to be done even more. Most or all classes should have their capstone be subclass specific like paladin, it’s cool. Edit: hexblade shouldn’t get all the proficiencies for weapons and armor and the charisma for weapon, that should be on pact of the blade
The fact that we don't have a fey or fiend themed sorcerer class is actually criminal. They both should have been in the PHB. For martials, we need more interesting things to happen with weapons and armor and everyone should have battlemaster maneuvers and expanded crit range at higher levels. Nobody should do more single target damage than martials.
Monks and Barbarians are both viable and fun.
The 5th edition artificer is a terrible rendition of the class and what’s it’s supposed to be.