TakeoWolfe

TakeoWolfe, 7 months ago

I don’t know why but I can’t stop laughing at Mack’s face. Sorry haha.

I never used heroforge but I’d say you did a good job on these.

TakeoWolfe, 7 months ago

Thank you, I spent a lot of time on this one. You think the stances are balanced as an at will ability? It’s what I had in mind for it to begin with to bring the bulk of the versatility since the discipline is long rest and sparing.

The original version of left handed warrior was more flavorful than this incarnation. The original played with the honor mechanic a lot and was kind of skill monkey. The weasel is a kamaitachi by the way, a trickster who delights in the pain of others.

The other subclasses I had for it I didn’t give lazy rewrites like I gave left handed warrior so they were mostly incompatible with this new version. I just wanted to push this one out because I’ve been silent for a while and needed more than one other opinion on the stances.

I think i could play with the idea of subclasses that lean into one stance over the others. I could recycle the left handed warrior and make it kami stance with the kamaitachi ally and abilities centered around it.

Anyway thank you very much.

TakeoWolfe, 7 months ago

Alright yeah, thanks for the breakdown. Currently I’m worried about current game balance even though everyone homebrews martials to have maneuvers for free anyway as of current… But this is useful feedback for me, as I think I’m in an outlier crowd who prefers combats lasting around 10 rounds but leaning towards more than less.

Fire stance I think can be tuned down to just wisdom or just prof yeah. And probably treat immunity as resistance. But I added the ignore resistance because I think by a landslide fire is the most resisted type, I might be wrong.

There are definitely options for what stats to focus on with this class, wisdom and dex as primary I think is the strongest but you can forgo wisdom entirely and go for intelligence or charisma, as long as you don’t pick the options that scale off of wisdom. And because of the heavy armor proficiency and the option to use strength for your ancestral weapon (even if it’s a longbow) you can build strength and pass up dexterity too.

TakeoWolfe, 8 months ago

topics I plan to cover in the next articles are; monster tactics, homebrewing monster actions and equipment, monster templates, and running large groups of monsters without bogging the game down, and if there is interest, using and balancing the conjure spells and animate objects that add a lot to the initiative without bogging.

thanks for reading! feel free to make any suggestions on what you’d like to see next as well.

TakeoWolfe, 8 months ago

I like your thinking. Also have you read the most recent playtest? In it second wind is the limit break resource, at later levels they can use it to ad to skill checks and gain extra movement without provoking opportunity attacks, in addition they have weapon mastery properties that are control oriented.

I’m hoping that both the brawler fighter gets better buffs to improvised weapons in the final results and that alchemists fire doesn’t change because that can be kind of crazy control for the fighter.

If you’re interested though, I was thinking about rewriting a samurai class that was effectively fighter fueled by ki with eldritch invocations. It was a little too powerful in it’s last build but faired just fine alongside the other classes I made for the game it was played in.

TakeoWolfe, 8 months ago

Yeah, I like it more than the common “make all martials battlemaster!” shout honestly. As much as I wish there were features that one could pick like a spellcaster picks their features in the form of spells.

I went all out for that game, it was set in rokugan (more like the OA Kara tur though) I made samurai, ninja, geisha, sohei, nomad, ronin, and I forgot how to spell the full caster option. It was almost as good as a fallout inspired game I ran with d20 modern a few years ago, I think I peaked with that one hahaha. It’s about time I revisit my old stuff and rewrite it honestly.

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

Thank you for your feedback.

The first version of this class I made a mathematical breakdown for because it was at first just a proof of concept for a spellcaster without spell slots. I had based it directly off of the fighter and made sure it’s damage output would not outpace the fighter, but of course between the levels 17 and 19 it did because cantrips scale at 5, 11, 17 whereas extra attacks for the fighter scale at 5, 11, 20.

While the damage was balanced against the fighter save for the problematic blade cantrips and an abuse of the wording for the classes damage boost using eldritch blast (the first version had every cantrip available to them) it outperformed the fighter by having more exploration and combat utility built into its primary attacks.

I replaced action surge with damage break, reducing the classes nova potential. I hope this will solve the issue with it outperforming the fighter. I also removed cantrips that can deal damage to multiple targets from it’s list (save for acid splash) because a merit to the fighter is that with their consistent damage they can easily take down multiple lower CR creatures at once and that’s something that shouldn’t be intruded upon by the spellslinger.

I will argue that there is no best cantrip for combat because most have effects that would make them more or less effective in different situations. Chill touch for example deals d8 damage which is not the highest damage you can get with a cantrip it prevents the target from regaining hit points, shutting down any regeneration ability. Lightning lure can pull a target into an AoE. And ray of frost can slow a target from advancing, where many monsters don’t have ranged options or have ranged options that are worse than their melee option.

I’ll continue to work on it.

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

Apologies but you are mistaken. Cantrips are not based on a specific ability score by themselves. Cantrips are spells and in each classes spellcasting section it specifies what ability score is used to cast spells from that class. Example, firebolt can be learned by sorcerer (cha) and wizard (int) and they both use their respective ability scores to calculate the spell attack modifier for firebolt.

As far as what you are saying with eldritch blast, you are probably forgetting that eldritch blast is powerful for the warlock because of agonizing blast. Furthermore, the new version of the spellslinger uses intelligence instead of wisdom and has a much reduced spell list.

Indeed at 1st level, 5th, 11th, and 20th, you should find that the spellslinger does have an ability to increase the damage of a cantrip. So their bonus damage will look like this (spell mod * x) + (2 * x) at level 1 x = 1 and x increases by 1 at levels; 5, 11, 20. At level 20 their spell mod should probably be +5 so the bonus damage would equal 28.

The reduction of crowd control options is not a concern, if you look at this caster in the manner you would a martial. Indeed that is what I intended for this class that it plays like a martial character and what crowd control options does a rogue have? Or a barbarian?

It is not just spell slots that I avoided in this class it is also spell levels. That is the intention.

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

Thank you. Sorry I posted this just before passing out for the night haha.

I went down the list of skills and had psychic characters in mind, just checked them off until I had six to choose from. For sleight of hand specifically I thought most psychic characters end up being in some capacity tricksters. But persuasion or deception would probably have been better for the list huh?

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

I’ll change it in the next update.

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

My next subclass I’m trying to figure out is kind of that. With a bonus to (all?) dexterity skills or being able to replace dex for int while in trance. And after preforming a successful attack with a ranged or finesse weapon they may break the trance to become invisible. It’s still just an idea at this point.

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

That’s interesting. In your world are there other intelligent races / species? And do each of them use magic differently or are humans an only exception?

TakeoWolfe, 9 months ago

Oh I’m really sorry I spaced on this. I got a little busy and need to prepare for a game I was invited to play.

That sounds really interesting though. It sounds like it would be a game full of really hard decisions. I don’t know if you are into video games or not but if you are you should check out triangle strategy, it’s got the same kind of political stuff going on as this setting you made.

Anyway, thank you for this interaction.

TakeoWolfe, 10 months ago

If you read this far, let me know if there is anything else you would like me to talk about. I’m thinking I’ll be here to stay.

TakeoWolfe, 10 months ago

I apologize for the time between my posts. life get’s in the way of hobbies sometimes.

if there is any other subject you would like me to discuss then let me know ok?

TakeoWolfe, 1 month ago

Make sure you checked the comparison spoilers. In most cases a ki point is worth a 1st level spell slot. Sometimes a tax is added because of the short rest regeneration (see four elements monk)

For a sorcerer 2 sorcery points can be used to create a 1st level spell slot.

In your stated multiclass character concept, it would be appropriate to:
A) instead of gaining ki points gain 2 sorcery points.
B) regenerate half sorcery points on short rest.
C) when a monk feature calls for you to spend ki points treat it as calling for twice as many sorcery points instead.
D) change monk wisdom requirements to charisma or change sorcerer to wisdom.

I would take even levels between monk and sorcerer since you do not need high level spell slots to achieve the goal

I would then also make a double subclass that accounts for your level progression.

If we assume the first two levels taken is monk your level progression would look like this.

Level 1: monk proficiencies and saves, unarmored defense, martial arts.
Level 2: ki, unarmored defense, dedicated weapon (optional Tasha feature).
Level 3: +1 spellcaster level (multiclass spellcasting table), custom subclass feature 1.
Level 4: +1 spellcaster level, font of magic.
Level 5: custom subclass feature 2, deflect missiles, ki fueled attack (Tasha).
Level 6: +1 spellcaster level, metamagic.
Level 7: asi, slow fall, quickened healing (Tasha).
Level 8: +1 spellcaster level, asi.
Level 9: extra attack, d6 martial arts, stunning strike, focused aim (Tasha).
Level 10: +1 spellcaster level, magical guidance (Tasha).
Level 11: ki empowered strikes, custom subclass feature 3.
Level 12: +1 spellcaster level, custom subclass feature 4.

I’ll leave it there because you get the idea.

There are some adjustments that could be made to the progression effectively making a custom class. See my “dead” levels, casting, and balancing post for additional guidance.

1)Move the asi growth to the normal growth.
2) space out the subclass features however you please.
3) fill out half caster class table with the features gained from the first ten levels of both sorcerer and monk.
4) retain feature scaling of monk features as if you were a single class monk.
5) use d8 hit die.
6) gain 2 sorcery points each level (regain them all on short rest).
7) male sure to get stunning strike at 5th level along with extra attack. (personally I would cap stunning strike to once per turn so it doesn’t just eat all your sorcery points)

Additionally make sure you aren’t getting features too early when you rearrange them to the table.

Some subclass ideas: Hangover: when you; become blinded, deafened, or are reduced to half your maximum hit points or lower, until the above listed conditions end you gain resistance to bludgeoning slashing and piercing damage and gain a +2 to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes not made as part of flurry of blows.

Quick cast: when using flurry of blows you may spend an additional sorcery point to replace one of your unarmed strikes with a 1st level spell (don’t consume a spell slot).

Weave into martial arts: when casting a spell with a range of longer than 5ft at a target within 5ft of you, you have advantage on the attack roll or the target has disadvantage on their saving throw.

Once you got it why don’t you show me for me to check out. I’m currently writing my own ttrpg so my ability to dedicate time to homebrewing 5e is lacking. Honestly I think the character concept sounds really fun and interesting.

Thank you for your time.