Shadow blade is definitely not as good for hex blades because it can't benefit from hex warrior, so it is operating off of dex, a thing you are specifically avoiding investment in.
Maddening hex is better than pole arm master, so long as you can regularly hold the spell. It's a bonus action for guaranteed damage, possibly on multiple targets.
Great weapon master would also be good but waiting till 12 or 16 won't kill ya. You can probably push GWM off till 16 and grab life drinker at 12 to double dip your charisma for damage with your pact weapon (this at the same time you put your cha to 20). Basically with a full hit round you'd apply your charisma to damage 5 times adding another 20 is cool but not 100% needed.
As well, while it is cool that you can turn out the greatsword and have a 2d6 weapon, a shield might be advisable for this guy as well in some conditions. Having either sharpshooter or GWM is advisable late in the game to really amp up damage heck the 20th level hex blade could be sporting both.
Sunday came and went for my party and holy fuck did the fights go in wildly different directions; the fight against a manticore saw the 6 person party destroy it in short order (though it did very nearly escape with the ranger's pet sheep) while the shambling mound...
Hoo boy.
The fight started off bad since the Mound was able to get a nat 20 on it's stealth check, thus (combined with an absurd 18 initiative roll) meant that i was moving faster then most of the party could react to; only the inquisitive with his observant feat was able to act and that didn't matter much after Man thing double slammed him (one of which was a crit, but I wasn't keen to murder someone on turn zero) and he was summarily swallowed whole by the monstrosity.
Things didn't get much better for the rest of the party as they tried to lash out at the thing with first fire (resisted), then cold (also resisted), then lightning (absorbed and healed back most of the damage up to this point) and the mound was mercilessly pounding away at them (2d8+4 double attack with a +7 to hit and the swallowing mechanic is really nasty) pretty much the whole time; the whole fight it only missed a single attack :snap:
Still though, they were able to crack into it when they realized it was most vulnerable to conventional damage and that the moonbeam spell was super effective due to the fact that it wasn't moving around much; further luck came from the fact that the players that were swallowed were able to escape without taking any damage before suffocation started to kick in.
Frankly, I was amazed at how much of a fight a level 5 critter by itself was able to put out for a 6 man party of level 4s.
The part that kills me is that they *met* a paladin of ilmater last session who would have been able to help them whomp the shit out of it if they'd thought to ask him for help.
And because he's taken a vow of humility he wouldn't actually want much of the reward to speak of.
The part that kills me is that they *met* a paladin of ilmater last session who would have been able to help them whomp the shit out of it if they'd thought to ask him for help.
And because he's taken a vow of humility he wouldn't actually want much of the reward to speak of.
... I perhaps should have refreshed this page before throwing a pally at the concentration talk.
Which makes it sort of official? I've never actually read it before. It's definitely a Witcher, for starters. Especially the Order of the Mutant subclass. It also seems way more focused around self harm and weakness as a tradeoff for powerful abilities. Probably a lot you could do as a min-maxer.
Which makes it sort of official? I've never actually read it before. It's definitely a Witcher, for starters. Especially the Order of the Mutant subclass. It also seems way more focused around self harm and weakness as a tradeoff for powerful abilities. Probably a lot you could do as a min-maxer.
Another great thing about Xanathar's Guide is that there are quite a few eldritch blast options to pick. You could become a real bastard of a battlefield controller by pushing, pulling, and debilitating enemies all for the price of accepting eldritch blast into your heart and as your character's MO in combat...
Christ, the Crimson Rite mechanic is needlessly wordy.
It's takes the better part of a page just to say "Choose a damage type from this list. Your weapons deal bonus damage of that type according to this chart."
It specifies a duration, but...why? It lasts until your next rest so you're never going to not have it up.
It specifies that it ends if the weapon leaves your hand, but...why? To hose you against disarm creatures? It seems like it's probably intended to keep you from buffing the whole party's weapons, but...just say that it only works for you. Your blood is powering it, and the magic doesn't work when someone else uses the weapon. There, now you don't need two separate contradictory clauses about how it ends immediately when it leaves your hand but also doesn't end until after the attack is complete if you throw it.
It specifies that you both take damage and reduce your max HP while you have it up, but...why? You're clearly supposed to have it up all the time. Just give the class a d8 hit die instead of giving them a d10 and then permanently taking 1 per level away - the current method has the same outcome but is achieved in a needlessly roundabout way.
It specifies that the elemental damage is magical...but elemental damage is already magical. You don't need to specify that. Nothing has 'resistance to nonmagical psychic damage'.
It specifies that you can use it on multiple weapons, but then you double up on the HP loss, for...some reason? Dual-wielding is already hosed enough, and it's not like the extra die of rite damage from dual-wielding's bonus action attack is gonna break the mechanic, especially since there are already plenty of ways to get a reliable bonus-action attack from a single weapon (including a feature granted by every subclass of this very class - the Predatory Strike feature for Order of the Lycan Blood Hunters, the Cruelty mutagen for Order of the Mutant, and Mystic Frenzy for Profane Soul). Again, it seems like this is mostly aimed at stopping you from buffing the whole party's weapons, but that possibility has already been excluded by the fact that it ends if it leaves your hand, so this is just a pointless hoser for two-weapon builds that were already pointlessly bad.
What an overdesigned mess.
And it keeps going!
Blood Curse of Purgation grants a saving throw against a condition. If the condition does not normally offer a save, the save DC is [???].
Blood Curse of the Marked can make your opponent lose resistance to 'your rite damage type', but you eventually get four or five of those. If I have the fire rite on one weapon, the frost rite on a second, but also know the lightning rite, will my target lose its lightning resistance? Unclear.
Blood Curse of Spell Sunder creates an opposed ability check that can force an attack to miss irrespective of the attack roll? It's essentially trying to impose double-disadvantage, but what an awkward way to do it - they attack with disadvantage, roll two dice, compare the lowest to your AC, and if that one still hits you roll a die and add your WIS mod and if it beats a target number they miss anyway. Why not just give you an AC bonus against the attack equal to your WIS mod? It works out to about the same impact on their hit chance and doesn't have you rolling dice against their dice after making them roll extra dice to see if your dice stop their dice from doing dice stuff. And of course, the DC you have to beat for the ability check is similar to, but not actually the same as, the spellcaster's spell save DC, just as the WIS check itself is similar to, but not actually the same as, a WIS save, because this ability needs to be as overcomplicated and overdesigned as possible and can't possibly achieve its goals with existing game concepts and tools.
Blood Curses in general don't work on creatures that don't have blood, in spite of the fact that taking damage to use them seems to suggest they're powered by your blood rather than the target's. Good thing the class is only built around hunting...exactly the enemy types that arguably won't have blood (at, of course, the DM's discretion).
Everything that causes you to damage yourself is built off you taking your Crimson Rite die in damage, except your actual Crimson Rite ability which uses a different and unrelated self-damage cost for no apparent reason. There are several features that want you to be below half or one-quarter of your maximum HP, clearly to synergize with all this self-damage, except whoops the Crimson Rite self-damage also reduces your maximum HP by a pretty substantial amount (especially if you are for some reason dual-wielding), which means activating that core ability actually puts you further from those 50%/25% hp breakpoints than you were when you started, and makes them harder to use because the difference between 25% hp and 'dead' gets smaller.
The whole profane soul subclass seems to be basically 'ran out of ideas, be a bladelock', and it has abilities that variously require 'a profane soul spell slot' or 'a warlock or profane soul spell slot' with no apparent rhyme or reason. It's also not clear why profane soul slots don't combine with warlock slots like other spellcaster class slots combine with each other - warlock was only held separate because they recharge at a different speed, but profane soul slots recharge at the same speed as a warlock's - there's no reason a warlock/profane soul's slots shouldn't turn into a single pool of slots the same way a cleric/wizard's slots would.
Also the writing/templating for this is like nails on a chalkboard for me. The phrase "flare the internal toxic scars" is almost physically painful, and stuff like "your blood curses become honed to the fabric of a creature's essence" is word salad that sounds like someone got clubbed with a thesaurus. Three features in a row start with "Upon reaching 10th level [...]", "When you reach 14th level [...]" and "Upon becoming 20th level [...]". Pick one template.
As per usual, it seems like most of this could probably have been solved with a simple editing pass that just...didn't happen.
I've never liked that the damage you deal to yourself with crimson right is tied to character level. It super punishes dipping the class for the 1d4 of crimson right damage.
Also yeah this thing seemed way easier to read and operate when it was the witch hunter class that geek and sundry had made for Vin Diesel.
Yeah, it's kinda hard to understand why this had to be its own class, especially since one of the orders straight up uses warlock class features. Flavorwise it seems like a cross between the warlock, ranger and paladin.
Haven't read it myself, but it sounds like something written by a Pathfinder player, if that makes any sense.
Do you mean "very flavorful but not well-designed from a gameplay perspective?"
EDIT: I just realized that this class is listed along with the officially published ones, unlike the Artificer class from a previous Unearthed Arcana. What the hell? For one thing, a class with a feature that can only work against creatures without blood *at the DM's discretion* shouldn't be officially endorsed.
Yeah, it's kinda hard to understand why this had to be its own class, especially since one of the orders straight up uses warlock class features. Flavorwise it seems like a cross between the warlock, ranger and paladin.
Haven't read it myself, but it sounds like something written by a Pathfinder player, if that makes any sense.
Do you mean "very flavorful but not well-designed from a gameplay perspective?"
Yup! Again I haven't actually read it, but the commentary on it strongly reminds me of this certain Pathfinder homebrew feel (which some of the official stuff has too) where the designer is almost apologizing for a cool idea by making it overly complicated and weighing everything down with unnecessary drawbacks.
So Denada, if you wanted to make a new class for 5E, what would it be like?
I've always been interested in the idea of a fantasy sumo wrestler-type class. I remember back in the 4E days getting advice here on how to make a Warden with a sumo wrestler kind of feel.
So Denada, if you wanted to make a new class for 5E, what would it be like?
I've always been interested in the idea of a fantasy sumo wrestler-type class. I remember back in the 4E days getting advice here on how to make a Warden with a sumo wrestler kind of feel.
I don't know, I kinda feel like unless you get really out of the box, the stuff that's already there can handle almost any character concept.
Personally I'd like to see a remake of Council of Wyrms, with the different dragon types being classes and "races" being slight variations on the general archetype. Like "Red Dragon" is your class and "brute" or "thinker" or "sneak" being your "race".
I've never liked that the damage you deal to yourself with crimson right is tied to character level. It super punishes dipping the class for the 1d4 of crimson right damage.
Also yeah this thing seemed way easier to read and operate when it was the witch hunter class that geek and sundry had made for Vin Diesel.
+damage/attack scales as attacks go up. If you could dip for bonus damage with little cost then this would be quite powerful for classes that primarily attack
I've never liked that the damage you deal to yourself with crimson right is tied to character level. It super punishes dipping the class for the 1d4 of crimson right damage.
Also yeah this thing seemed way easier to read and operate when it was the witch hunter class that geek and sundry had made for Vin Diesel.
+damage/attack scales as attacks go up. If you could dip for bonus damage with little cost then this would be quite powerful for classes that primarily attack
No i get why they did it, i just think it's an over correction to punish fighters.
Like this class gets an increased bonus die and 3 attacks, that's more than most get. In fact a fighter that dips the class won't even get their 4th attack. They are paying the full price for an ability they don't even get the full benefit of.
Like this class gets 2 attacks, then immediately hops up to a d6 of extra damage the next level. I believe a number of the bonus action 3rd attacks show up right about when the damage die hops to a d8. Then it hops up again.
small brain: run into the coffin house in CoS and fight like 6 vampire spawn and die
large brain: stealthily approach the house and retrieve the bones without triggering the fight
galaxy brain: call the cops
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Hey so what would folks recommend for a pre-done adventure for a 1st time group of folks running through D&D? I have some friends who are interested in playing with me being DM, and I haven't really kept up the adventure side of 5e beyond what I've been a player in.
small brain: run into the coffin house in CoS and fight like 6 vampire spawn and die
large brain: stealthily approach the house and retrieve the bones without triggering the fight
galaxy brain: call the cops
Calling the cops is kind of what my players did when I ran it. If I remember correctly they called the cops by, once the vampires showed themselves, going into the kitchen and catching the whole house on fire (they had also went in the daytime). So they fought 6 reskinned vampires (I gave each of the vampires a class ability and relevant equipment for a little more fun) while the guards arrived with the captain of the guard in that town, leading to a crazy ass fight that ended in all 6 vampires deaths.
Haven't read it myself, but it sounds like something written by a Pathfinder player, if that makes any sense.
Having not read this version myself either, the damage versus health trade-off actually reminds me quite a bit of the Kineticist from Pathfinder. Along with it being very convoluted to understand at first, another trait the kineticist shares.
Hey so what would folks recommend for a pre-done adventure for a 1st time group of folks running through D&D? I have some friends who are interested in playing with me being DM, and I haven't really kept up the adventure side of 5e beyond what I've been a player in.
Horde of the dragon queen is pretty serviceable; Greenest offers a good mix of opportunities for heroism, figuring out party mechanics/roles and offers a fairly straight forward series of bread crumbs to follow while still offering players enough challenge that they can't simply "face roll" their way through it.
small brain: run into the coffin house in CoS and fight like 6 vampire spawn and die
large brain: stealthily approach the house and retrieve the bones without triggering the fight
galaxy brain: call the cops
Calling the cops is kind of what my players did when I ran it. If I remember correctly they called the cops by, once the vampires showed themselves, going into the kitchen and catching the whole house on fire (they had also went in the daytime). So they fought 6 reskinned vampires (I gave each of the vampires a class ability and relevant equipment for a little more fun) while the guards arrived with the captain of the guard in that town, leading to a crazy ass fight that ended in all 6 vampires deaths.
Haven't read it myself, but it sounds like something written by a Pathfinder player, if that makes any sense.
Having not read this version myself either, the damage versus health trade-off actually reminds me quite a bit of the Kineticist from Pathfinder. Along with it being very convoluted to understand at first, another trait the kineticist shares.
we just told the cops. later that night, we were out and about and saw a huge fire coming from the direction of the house. we show up and there are 10 guards, watching the house burn while holding the bones. only 2 spawn made it out.
So I'm running Curse of Strahd for a bunch of brand new players. They had managed to survive Death House (Some lucky turns meant they avoided some of the harder encounters, and there are six of them too so they actually defeated the "boss" with only the Paladin getting knocked out, but surviving) but were now introduced to Barovia at large.
<insert early campaign stuff here>
At the end of the session I had Strahd drop in on a funeral and antagonise the immediate family of the deceased ("I am merely paying my respects."). Someone decided to attack Strahd so his pack of wolves made an appearance. After charming a PC and having a little neck nibble, Strahd grew bored and turned to leave when the party Paladin decided to taunt him. So this was my chance to really show the players how formidable Strahd is - standard behaviour in a CoS campaign. Strahd darts forward and cracks the Paladin twice across the face... and I openly rolled two natural 20s! I'll probably never do it again, but it couldn't have been more perfect. The paladin was dropped from full health to 0 in one round and Strahd made his exit, everyone else to nervous to stand in his way.
I'm looking forward to picking this game up - Strahd is going to troll them every chance he gets.
So I'm running Curse of Strahd for a bunch of brand new players. They had managed to survive Death House (Some lucky turns meant they avoided some of the harder encounters, and there are six of them too so they actually defeated the "boss" with only the Paladin getting knocked out, but surviving) but were now introduced to Barovia at large.
<insert early campaign stuff here>
At the end of the session I had Strahd drop in on a funeral and antagonise the immediate family of the deceased ("I am merely paying my respects."). Someone decided to attack Strahd so his pack of wolves made an appearance. After charming a PC and having a little neck nibble, Strahd grew bored and turned to leave when the party Paladin decided to taunt him. So this was my chance to really show the players how formidable Strahd is - standard behaviour in a CoS campaign. Strahd darts forward and cracks the Paladin twice across the face... and I openly rolled two natural 20s! I'll probably never do it again, but it couldn't have been more perfect. The paladin was dropped from full health to 0 in one round and Strahd made his exit, everyone else to nervous to stand in his way.
I'm looking forward to picking this game up - Strahd is going to troll them every chance he gets.
CoS is one of those modules where I legitimately don't feel bad flat out murdering a player; the setting is supposed to be one that wreaks of gothic horror and that one step outside of the firelight is dancing with doom. It's the darkest of the Grimm Faerie tales and old eastern european ghost stories.
Quite frankly, if you're players aren't getting terrified of the odds then they aren't having the proper Ravenloft expierience :snap:
Speaking of CoS, I got a list of the vestiges from the Amber Temple. Some are references to existing D&D characters and items, but others are brand new names. I plan to use some of them in my setting.
Shami-Amourae
Tenebrous
Savnok
Dahlver-Nar
Delban
Khirad
Zhudun
Yog the Invincible
Fekre, Queen of Poxes
Zrin-Hala, the Howling Storm
Sykane, the Soul Hungerer
Tarakamedes, the Grave Wyrm
Drizlash, the Nine-Eyed Spider
Zantras, the Kingmaker
Yrgga, the Eye of Shadows
Great Taar Haak, the Five-Headed Destroyer
Norganas, the Finger of Oblivion
Vaund the Evasive
Seriach, the Hell Hound Whisperer
Shalx
Maverus
Harkotha
Thangob
I need to record what dark gift each one grants, though.
On the topic of classes/concepts I'd like to see developed:
1. Grapple monk. Yes yes, grappling isn't as sexy as punching in terms of aesthetically pleasing combat, but having a class that can legitimately lockdown and even cripple opponents via grappling would be an interesting change of pace from what has come before, and having a character that can hip toss a dragon and then make it tap out would be super fun.
2. A shaman type character. possibly a variant for druid, It would be interesting to have one that had ties to spirits/elementals and an emphasis on using signs in the natural environment as a form of unique magic ("the wind is speaking to me, it warns that the long tooth tribe is going to lay an ambush for us before the moon breaks the horizon") as opposed to simply blasting away with magical attacks.
+1
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
So I'm running Curse of Strahd for a bunch of brand new players. They had managed to survive Death House (Some lucky turns meant they avoided some of the harder encounters, and there are six of them too so they actually defeated the "boss" with only the Paladin getting knocked out, but surviving) but were now introduced to Barovia at large.
<insert early campaign stuff here>
At the end of the session I had Strahd drop in on a funeral and antagonise the immediate family of the deceased ("I am merely paying my respects."). Someone decided to attack Strahd so his pack of wolves made an appearance. After charming a PC and having a little neck nibble, Strahd grew bored and turned to leave when the party Paladin decided to taunt him. So this was my chance to really show the players how formidable Strahd is - standard behaviour in a CoS campaign. Strahd darts forward and cracks the Paladin twice across the face... and I openly rolled two natural 20s! I'll probably never do it again, but it couldn't have been more perfect. The paladin was dropped from full health to 0 in one round and Strahd made his exit, everyone else to nervous to stand in his way.
I'm looking forward to picking this game up - Strahd is going to troll them every chance he gets.
CoS is one of those modules where I legitimately don't feel bad flat out murdering a player; the setting is supposed to be one that wreaks of gothic horror and that one step outside of the firelight is dancing with doom. It's the darkest of the Grimm Faerie tales and old eastern european ghost stories.
Quite frankly, if you're players aren't getting terrified of the odds then they aren't having the proper Ravenloft expierience :snap:
Yea our DM let us know that CoS was dangerous when we started, and if we were dumb we would die. We did end up having a couple character deaths in the game. It was pretty cool.
On the topic of classes/concepts I'd like to see developed:
1. Grapple monk. Yes yes, grappling isn't as sexy as punching in terms of aesthetically pleasing combat, but having a class that can legitimately lockdown and even cripple opponents via grappling would be an interesting change of pace from what has come before, and having a character that can hip toss a dragon and then make it tap out would be super fun.
2. A shaman type character. possibly a variant for druid, It would be interesting to have one that had ties to spirits/elementals and an emphasis on using signs in the natural environment as a form of unique magic ("the wind is speaking to me, it warns that the long tooth tribe is going to lay an ambush for us before the moon breaks the horizon") as opposed to simply blasting away with magical attacks.
You can grapple monk pretty successfully as is, can't you? Grab and jump and stuff? Obviously spells to change your size or give you advantage on athletics and stuff help, but you can get those by multiclassing or from party members. I'm not sure what you could do to improve grappling as a monk that wouldn't make it too strong. Better AC or something? In class size changing?
On the topic of classes/concepts I'd like to see developed:
1. Grapple monk. Yes yes, grappling isn't as sexy as punching in terms of aesthetically pleasing combat, but having a class that can legitimately lockdown and even cripple opponents via grappling would be an interesting change of pace from what has come before, and having a character that can hip toss a dragon and then make it tap out would be super fun.
2. A shaman type character. possibly a variant for druid, It would be interesting to have one that had ties to spirits/elementals and an emphasis on using signs in the natural environment as a form of unique magic ("the wind is speaking to me, it warns that the long tooth tribe is going to lay an ambush for us before the moon breaks the horizon") as opposed to simply blasting away with magical attacks.
You can grapple monk pretty successfully as is, can't you? Grab and jump and stuff? Obviously spells to change your size or give you advantage on athletics and stuff help, but you can get those by multiclassing or from party members. I'm not sure what you could do to improve grappling as a monk that wouldn't make it too strong. Better AC or something? In class size changing?
What I would want in this instance is the ability to grapple things bigger then yourself and to be able to have some sort of other ongoing effect; maybe choking out the critter in question so that you can force suffocation checks or being able to cripple a limb to limit down attack/move options when/if they can escape the grapple.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
With grappling I wish there were more things to do with it.
I just came up with the idea yesterday for a criminal faction whose domain is a large stronghold where the Feywild and Shadowfell bleed together and nearly overlap, creating a planar anomaly that has even let bits of the Elemental Chaos seep through. The many, many criminals who have been accepted into this organization can travel to cities throughout the coterminous region in the mortal world by using the unique pathways of both the Feywild and the Shadowfell. Within the organization are a number of leaders who serve as pact patrons for their warlock minions (therefore many of the higher ranking members have at least one level in the warlock class). Many sinister creatures from throughout the multiverse have found niches to fit in here: hags, yuan-ti, shadar-kai, demons, devils, quicklings, springheels, satyrs, yugoloths, succubi, efreets, vampires, medusae, etc. Fey creatures are most abundant, and it is believed that a forgotten archfey pierced the walls of the planes to draw forth power from the Shadowfell.
I assume there are D&D settings whose cities boast criminal underworlds filled with monstrous humanoids, right? Any leads for research I could perform.
I won't take up the torch and link *every* episode, but I'd like to remind those that are interested that Critical Role started up the new campaign last Thursday on Twitch.
Since, like me, you probably missed it, it will be available on Twitch recast and Youtube tomorrow, Jan 15, unless you are a subscriber to their Twitch channel, in which, hey, go nuts and watch it now.
Here's a clip with introductions to the new characters. Brace for it, its gonna be jarring from the 400hours of shows you've previously seen them in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caYs9admt50
I didn't watch the show, this is all I have to go off of, but my initial impressions:
Liam is playing Vax the Wizard. (My million dollar long shot hope is that he somehow becomes Balthazar Gelt (from Warhammer Fantasy) because of the Transmutation Schooling)
Sam is playing a goblin girl that I'm pretty sure is gonna be an Arcane Trickster
Laura is playing a tiefling trickery cleric that sound super chipper (its only episode 1 and people are throwing down claims she's Zara and Chashaw's daughter...)
Marisha is going full avatar Kora now as a monk
Travis is playing a warlock half orc named Ford Fjord.
Tallison is playing a tiefling blood hunter. from the description he gave, not emo, but swinging the other way as those guys you see in the bar that ''peacock'' with animal shirts, torn jeans, and such.
Ashley is now a 6'5'' aasimar barbarian. from one of the smallest characters to now one of the biggest.
Posts
Maddening hex is better than pole arm master, so long as you can regularly hold the spell. It's a bonus action for guaranteed damage, possibly on multiple targets.
Great weapon master would also be good but waiting till 12 or 16 won't kill ya. You can probably push GWM off till 16 and grab life drinker at 12 to double dip your charisma for damage with your pact weapon (this at the same time you put your cha to 20). Basically with a full hit round you'd apply your charisma to damage 5 times adding another 20 is cool but not 100% needed.
As well, while it is cool that you can turn out the greatsword and have a 2d6 weapon, a shield might be advisable for this guy as well in some conditions. Having either sharpshooter or GWM is advisable late in the game to really amp up damage heck the 20th level hex blade could be sporting both.
At a certain point, when every roll is reduced by d4, then by a d6, and also you have disadvantage and can't move... Even scary ass shit falls over
Hoo boy.
The fight started off bad since the Mound was able to get a nat 20 on it's stealth check, thus (combined with an absurd 18 initiative roll) meant that i was moving faster then most of the party could react to; only the inquisitive with his observant feat was able to act and that didn't matter much after Man thing double slammed him (one of which was a crit, but I wasn't keen to murder someone on turn zero) and he was summarily swallowed whole by the monstrosity.
Things didn't get much better for the rest of the party as they tried to lash out at the thing with first fire (resisted), then cold (also resisted), then lightning (absorbed and healed back most of the damage up to this point) and the mound was mercilessly pounding away at them (2d8+4 double attack with a +7 to hit and the swallowing mechanic is really nasty) pretty much the whole time; the whole fight it only missed a single attack :snap:
Still though, they were able to crack into it when they realized it was most vulnerable to conventional damage and that the moonbeam spell was super effective due to the fact that it wasn't moving around much; further luck came from the fact that the players that were swallowed were able to escape without taking any damage before suffocation started to kick in.
Frankly, I was amazed at how much of a fight a level 5 critter by itself was able to put out for a 6 man party of level 4s.
The part that kills me is that they *met* a paladin of ilmater last session who would have been able to help them whomp the shit out of it if they'd thought to ask him for help.
And because he's taken a vow of humility he wouldn't actually want much of the reward to speak of.
... I perhaps should have refreshed this page before throwing a pally at the concentration talk.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/classes/blood-hunter
Which makes it sort of official? I've never actually read it before. It's definitely a Witcher, for starters. Especially the Order of the Mutant subclass. It also seems way more focused around self harm and weakness as a tradeoff for powerful abilities. Probably a lot you could do as a min-maxer.
Order of the lycan is cool
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It's takes the better part of a page just to say "Choose a damage type from this list. Your weapons deal bonus damage of that type according to this chart."
It specifies a duration, but...why? It lasts until your next rest so you're never going to not have it up.
It specifies that it ends if the weapon leaves your hand, but...why? To hose you against disarm creatures? It seems like it's probably intended to keep you from buffing the whole party's weapons, but...just say that it only works for you. Your blood is powering it, and the magic doesn't work when someone else uses the weapon. There, now you don't need two separate contradictory clauses about how it ends immediately when it leaves your hand but also doesn't end until after the attack is complete if you throw it.
It specifies that you both take damage and reduce your max HP while you have it up, but...why? You're clearly supposed to have it up all the time. Just give the class a d8 hit die instead of giving them a d10 and then permanently taking 1 per level away - the current method has the same outcome but is achieved in a needlessly roundabout way.
It specifies that the elemental damage is magical...but elemental damage is already magical. You don't need to specify that. Nothing has 'resistance to nonmagical psychic damage'.
It specifies that you can use it on multiple weapons, but then you double up on the HP loss, for...some reason? Dual-wielding is already hosed enough, and it's not like the extra die of rite damage from dual-wielding's bonus action attack is gonna break the mechanic, especially since there are already plenty of ways to get a reliable bonus-action attack from a single weapon (including a feature granted by every subclass of this very class - the Predatory Strike feature for Order of the Lycan Blood Hunters, the Cruelty mutagen for Order of the Mutant, and Mystic Frenzy for Profane Soul). Again, it seems like this is mostly aimed at stopping you from buffing the whole party's weapons, but that possibility has already been excluded by the fact that it ends if it leaves your hand, so this is just a pointless hoser for two-weapon builds that were already pointlessly bad.
What an overdesigned mess.
And it keeps going!
Blood Curse of Purgation grants a saving throw against a condition. If the condition does not normally offer a save, the save DC is [???].
Blood Curse of the Marked can make your opponent lose resistance to 'your rite damage type', but you eventually get four or five of those. If I have the fire rite on one weapon, the frost rite on a second, but also know the lightning rite, will my target lose its lightning resistance? Unclear.
Blood Curse of Spell Sunder creates an opposed ability check that can force an attack to miss irrespective of the attack roll? It's essentially trying to impose double-disadvantage, but what an awkward way to do it - they attack with disadvantage, roll two dice, compare the lowest to your AC, and if that one still hits you roll a die and add your WIS mod and if it beats a target number they miss anyway. Why not just give you an AC bonus against the attack equal to your WIS mod? It works out to about the same impact on their hit chance and doesn't have you rolling dice against their dice after making them roll extra dice to see if your dice stop their dice from doing dice stuff. And of course, the DC you have to beat for the ability check is similar to, but not actually the same as, the spellcaster's spell save DC, just as the WIS check itself is similar to, but not actually the same as, a WIS save, because this ability needs to be as overcomplicated and overdesigned as possible and can't possibly achieve its goals with existing game concepts and tools.
Blood Curses in general don't work on creatures that don't have blood, in spite of the fact that taking damage to use them seems to suggest they're powered by your blood rather than the target's. Good thing the class is only built around hunting...exactly the enemy types that arguably won't have blood (at, of course, the DM's discretion).
Everything that causes you to damage yourself is built off you taking your Crimson Rite die in damage, except your actual Crimson Rite ability which uses a different and unrelated self-damage cost for no apparent reason. There are several features that want you to be below half or one-quarter of your maximum HP, clearly to synergize with all this self-damage, except whoops the Crimson Rite self-damage also reduces your maximum HP by a pretty substantial amount (especially if you are for some reason dual-wielding), which means activating that core ability actually puts you further from those 50%/25% hp breakpoints than you were when you started, and makes them harder to use because the difference between 25% hp and 'dead' gets smaller.
The whole profane soul subclass seems to be basically 'ran out of ideas, be a bladelock', and it has abilities that variously require 'a profane soul spell slot' or 'a warlock or profane soul spell slot' with no apparent rhyme or reason. It's also not clear why profane soul slots don't combine with warlock slots like other spellcaster class slots combine with each other - warlock was only held separate because they recharge at a different speed, but profane soul slots recharge at the same speed as a warlock's - there's no reason a warlock/profane soul's slots shouldn't turn into a single pool of slots the same way a cleric/wizard's slots would.
Also the writing/templating for this is like nails on a chalkboard for me. The phrase "flare the internal toxic scars" is almost physically painful, and stuff like "your blood curses become honed to the fabric of a creature's essence" is word salad that sounds like someone got clubbed with a thesaurus. Three features in a row start with "Upon reaching 10th level [...]", "When you reach 14th level [...]" and "Upon becoming 20th level [...]". Pick one template.
As per usual, it seems like most of this could probably have been solved with a simple editing pass that just...didn't happen.
Also yeah this thing seemed way easier to read and operate when it was the witch hunter class that geek and sundry had made for Vin Diesel.
Do you mean "very flavorful but not well-designed from a gameplay perspective?"
EDIT: I just realized that this class is listed along with the officially published ones, unlike the Artificer class from a previous Unearthed Arcana. What the hell? For one thing, a class with a feature that can only work against creatures without blood *at the DM's discretion* shouldn't be officially endorsed.
Yup! Again I haven't actually read it, but the commentary on it strongly reminds me of this certain Pathfinder homebrew feel (which some of the official stuff has too) where the designer is almost apologizing for a cool idea by making it overly complicated and weighing everything down with unnecessary drawbacks.
I've always been interested in the idea of a fantasy sumo wrestler-type class. I remember back in the 4E days getting advice here on how to make a Warden with a sumo wrestler kind of feel.
I don't know, I kinda feel like unless you get really out of the box, the stuff that's already there can handle almost any character concept.
Personally I'd like to see a remake of Council of Wyrms, with the different dragon types being classes and "races" being slight variations on the general archetype. Like "Red Dragon" is your class and "brute" or "thinker" or "sneak" being your "race".
+damage/attack scales as attacks go up. If you could dip for bonus damage with little cost then this would be quite powerful for classes that primarily attack
No i get why they did it, i just think it's an over correction to punish fighters.
Like this class gets an increased bonus die and 3 attacks, that's more than most get. In fact a fighter that dips the class won't even get their 4th attack. They are paying the full price for an ability they don't even get the full benefit of.
Like this class gets 2 attacks, then immediately hops up to a d6 of extra damage the next level. I believe a number of the bonus action 3rd attacks show up right about when the damage die hops to a d8. Then it hops up again.
large brain: stealthily approach the house and retrieve the bones without triggering the fight
galaxy brain: call the cops
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Calling the cops is kind of what my players did when I ran it. If I remember correctly they called the cops by, once the vampires showed themselves, going into the kitchen and catching the whole house on fire (they had also went in the daytime). So they fought 6 reskinned vampires (I gave each of the vampires a class ability and relevant equipment for a little more fun) while the guards arrived with the captain of the guard in that town, leading to a crazy ass fight that ended in all 6 vampires deaths.
Having not read this version myself either, the damage versus health trade-off actually reminds me quite a bit of the Kineticist from Pathfinder. Along with it being very convoluted to understand at first, another trait the kineticist shares.
Horde of the dragon queen is pretty serviceable; Greenest offers a good mix of opportunities for heroism, figuring out party mechanics/roles and offers a fairly straight forward series of bread crumbs to follow while still offering players enough challenge that they can't simply "face roll" their way through it.
we just told the cops. later that night, we were out and about and saw a huge fire coming from the direction of the house. we show up and there are 10 guards, watching the house burn while holding the bones. only 2 spawn made it out.
<insert early campaign stuff here>
At the end of the session I had Strahd drop in on a funeral and antagonise the immediate family of the deceased ("I am merely paying my respects."). Someone decided to attack Strahd so his pack of wolves made an appearance. After charming a PC and having a little neck nibble, Strahd grew bored and turned to leave when the party Paladin decided to taunt him. So this was my chance to really show the players how formidable Strahd is - standard behaviour in a CoS campaign. Strahd darts forward and cracks the Paladin twice across the face... and I openly rolled two natural 20s! I'll probably never do it again, but it couldn't have been more perfect. The paladin was dropped from full health to 0 in one round and Strahd made his exit, everyone else to nervous to stand in his way.
I'm looking forward to picking this game up - Strahd is going to troll them every chance he gets.
CoS is one of those modules where I legitimately don't feel bad flat out murdering a player; the setting is supposed to be one that wreaks of gothic horror and that one step outside of the firelight is dancing with doom. It's the darkest of the Grimm Faerie tales and old eastern european ghost stories.
Quite frankly, if you're players aren't getting terrified of the odds then they aren't having the proper Ravenloft expierience :snap:
Shami-Amourae
Tenebrous
Savnok
Dahlver-Nar
Delban
Khirad
Zhudun
Yog the Invincible
Fekre, Queen of Poxes
Zrin-Hala, the Howling Storm
Sykane, the Soul Hungerer
Tarakamedes, the Grave Wyrm
Drizlash, the Nine-Eyed Spider
Zantras, the Kingmaker
Yrgga, the Eye of Shadows
Great Taar Haak, the Five-Headed Destroyer
Norganas, the Finger of Oblivion
Vaund the Evasive
Seriach, the Hell Hound Whisperer
Shalx
Maverus
Harkotha
Thangob
I need to record what dark gift each one grants, though.
1. Grapple monk. Yes yes, grappling isn't as sexy as punching in terms of aesthetically pleasing combat, but having a class that can legitimately lockdown and even cripple opponents via grappling would be an interesting change of pace from what has come before, and having a character that can hip toss a dragon and then make it tap out would be super fun.
2. A shaman type character. possibly a variant for druid, It would be interesting to have one that had ties to spirits/elementals and an emphasis on using signs in the natural environment as a form of unique magic ("the wind is speaking to me, it warns that the long tooth tribe is going to lay an ambush for us before the moon breaks the horizon") as opposed to simply blasting away with magical attacks.
Yea our DM let us know that CoS was dangerous when we started, and if we were dumb we would die. We did end up having a couple character deaths in the game. It was pretty cool.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
"Who's a good boy? Who mauled that hero to itty bitty crispy bits? Was it you? Yes, it WAS you! Good boy!"
You can grapple monk pretty successfully as is, can't you? Grab and jump and stuff? Obviously spells to change your size or give you advantage on athletics and stuff help, but you can get those by multiclassing or from party members. I'm not sure what you could do to improve grappling as a monk that wouldn't make it too strong. Better AC or something? In class size changing?
Anyway bards and rogues make the best grapplers in 4e. Heroes and heels
What I would want in this instance is the ability to grapple things bigger then yourself and to be able to have some sort of other ongoing effect; maybe choking out the critter in question so that you can force suffocation checks or being able to cripple a limb to limit down attack/move options when/if they can escape the grapple.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Or did they really say... Luchador?
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/7q924k/way_of_the_squared_circle_monastic_tradition_our/
I assume there are D&D settings whose cities boast criminal underworlds filled with monstrous humanoids, right? Any leads for research I could perform.
Since, like me, you probably missed it, it will be available on Twitch recast and Youtube tomorrow, Jan 15, unless you are a subscriber to their Twitch channel, in which, hey, go nuts and watch it now.
Here's a clip with introductions to the new characters. Brace for it, its gonna be jarring from the 400hours of shows you've previously seen them in.
I didn't watch the show, this is all I have to go off of, but my initial impressions:
Liam is playing Vax the Wizard. (My million dollar long shot hope is that he somehow becomes Balthazar Gelt (from Warhammer Fantasy) because of the Transmutation Schooling)
Sam is playing a goblin girl that I'm pretty sure is gonna be an Arcane Trickster
Laura is playing a tiefling trickery cleric that sound super chipper (its only episode 1 and people are throwing down claims she's Zara and Chashaw's daughter...)
Marisha is going full avatar Kora now as a monk
Travis is playing a warlock half orc named Ford Fjord.
Tallison is playing a tiefling blood hunter. from the description he gave, not emo, but swinging the other way as those guys you see in the bar that ''peacock'' with animal shirts, torn jeans, and such.
Ashley is now a 6'5'' aasimar barbarian. from one of the smallest characters to now one of the biggest.
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