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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next The College of Dirgesingers



Michael7123
2015-11-16, 03:31 PM
Dirgesinger
http://i.imgur.com/wXHpqb1.jpg?1
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
-Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare,

While many bards tend to be optimistic with songs and tales about life and love, the College of Dirgesingers devotes itself to the darker aspects of song. With tales of fallen heroes, lost battles, and tragedies, they travel the land spreading misery wherever they go. While not all dirgesingers are evil, the dark nature of their knowledge often gives them a somewhat twisted, or at least solemn, view of life.
Many dirgesingers have rolls as musicians at funerals, although they are more than capable of preforming in any role any other bard could fill. Occasionally, the serve as heralds in noble courts of death obsessed cultures. They might also feel obligated to record the time and place of death of individuals in a certain area, passively watching the world sink into decay.

Expanded Spell List

Starting at third level, you may add the following spells to your bard class spell list:



Spell Level
Spells


1st
Inflict Wounds



2nd
Ray of Enfeeblement


3rd
Animate Dead


4th
Death Ward



5th
Contagion



Song of Sorrow

Also at level 3, you gain the ability to dishearten your enemies with your music, turning what would normally be inspiration into despair. Whenever an enemy makes a saving throw, you can use your reaction to expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracting the number rolled from the creature's roll. You can choose this feature before the creature makes its roll, but before the DM determines whether the saving throw succeeds or fails. The creature is immune to being charmed is immune to this effect.

Undying Requiem:

At 6th level, you gain the ability to increase the fighting abilities of undead friendly to you with your music. As an action, you can cause all undead either controlled by you or one of your allies to gain temporary hit points equal to your charisma modifier and deal extra damage equal to your proficiency modifier on all of their attacks. This effect lasts for 1 minute, and you must make a concentration check whenever you take damage to continue creating this effect. However, you may concentrate on a spell while maintaining this effect and make a concentration check for both effects with the same roll. The final round this ability is in effect, all undead affected by it gain advantage on all attack rolls for that round.

Melancholic Melody:

At 14th level, you gain the power to flood the emotions of your enemies with overwhelming regret, causing them to turn against everything they stand for and everyone they've stood with. With an action, your can force one creature that you can see within 60 feet of you to make a wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they are charmed by you for 1 minute, and attempt to to undo everything they've worked for, which will usually manifest in the form of attacking their allies. Your DM has final say on the actions they take. If they managed to kill any of their former colleagues or cause significant damage to their cause or beliefs, they will become horrified at their own actions, and become easily persuadable as they loose their sense of self. All creatures have advantage on any charisma checks against them while they remain in this state, which lasts for 24 hours. A creature immune to being charmed cannot be affected by this ability. A creature with an intelligence less than 6 is immune to this ability.

Once you use this ability, you can't use it again until you complete a long rest

Mr.Moron
2015-11-16, 04:41 PM
Expanded Spell List

Starting At level 3, you gain access to several necromancy spells. Whenever you would normally gain a new bard spell known or wish to replace a previously selected bard spell, you can choose one of these spells. These spells count as bard spells whenever you cast them.


This can be simplified to "Starting at third level, you may add the following spells to your bard class spell list: Inflict Wounds....". This removes the need to replicate the text of the general bard spell selection rules and the need for table.





Undying Requiem:

At 6th level, you gain the ability to increase the fighting abilities of undead friendly to you with your music. As an action, you can cause all undead either controlled by you or one of your allies to gain temporary hit points equal to your charisma modifier and deal extra damage equal to your proficiency modifier on all of their attacks. This effect lasts for 1 minute, and you must make a concentration check whenever you take damage to continue creating this effect. However, you may concentrate on a spell while maintaining this effect and make a concentration check for both effects with the same roll. The final round this ability is in effect, all undead affected by it gain advantage on all attack rolls for that round.



The first clause can be simplified to "Allied undead" and should refer to "on damage rolls" rather than "extra damage ... on all attacks". Reconsider requiring the psuedo-concentration. This muddles the mechanics. I think it should either consume the spell concentration slot or not at all.



Melancholic Melody:

At 14th level, you gain the power to flood the emotions of your enemies with overwhelming regret, causing them to turn against everything they stand for and everyone they've stood with. Once per long rest, you can use your action to force one creature that you can see within 60 feet of you to make a wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they are charmed by you for 1 minute, and attempt to slay all their former allies. The target of this ability is not necessarily thrown into a blind frenzy, they merely have the goal to undo everything they've worked for for that minute. If they managed to kill any of their former colleagues and have a CR equal to or less than 7, they will attempt suicide once the effect expires, horrified by their own actions. A creature with a higher CR will start feeling suicidal, but will not act on the urge unless otherwise persuaded to do so.

You regain the use of this ability at the end of your long rest.

=/. This is a huge imposition on campaign tone. I don't see the need to staple such a concrete fluff explanation on to the the frenzy effect. It adds no real utility for it either. Also: How does this interact with creatures immune to charm? How does this interact with creatures that aren't immune charm, but don't have the complex cognitive processes required to contemplate suicide?

The standard rest template is "Once you use this ability, you can't use it again until you complete a long rest".

Michael7123
2015-11-16, 05:54 PM
This can be simplified to "Starting at third level, you may add the following spells to your bard class spell list: Inflict Wounds....". This removes the need to replicate the text of the general bard spell selection rules and the need for table.

Thanks, I'll fix this.


The first clause can be simplified to "Allied undead" and should refer to "on damage rolls" rather than "extra damage ... on all attacks". Reconsider requiring the psuedo-concentration. This muddles the mechanics. I think it should either consume the spell concentration slot or not at all.
Thanks for the wording fix. As for the psuedo-concentration, I'm considering droping that, but I haven't made a final decision on that yet.


=/. This is a huge imposition on campaign tone. I don't see the need to staple such a concrete fluff explanation on to the the frenzy effect. It adds no real utility for it either. Also: How does this interact with creatures immune to charm? How does this interact with creatures that aren't immune charm, but don't have the complex cognitive processes required to contemplate suicide?


I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence. Other than that, thanks for poking the holes in this ability. I'll work on a fix.


The standard rest template is "Once you use this ability, you can't use it again until you complete a long rest".

Thanks for the feedback!

Mr.Moron
2015-11-16, 05:59 PM
I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence. Other than that, thanks for poking the holes in this ability. I'll work on a fix.


Well if the frenzy effect is just a frenzy effect you can fluff it however you want, it works in a heroic campaign, in works in villainous and gets along with most alignments.

This explicitly destroys their sense of self and turns them suicidal. Not is only suicide a heavy topic that shifts the tone of the campaign to rather dark one, the entire process is kind of well...evil as written. Even in rather gritty villain based campaign "I force people to commit suicide" might be a touch beyond the pale in terms of what is acceptable behavior.

Even Krombopulous Michael (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDr9axb7X7E)would probably tell this guy to reel it in a touch.

Michael7123
2015-11-16, 06:04 PM
Well if the frenzy effect is just a frenzy effect you can fluff it however you want, it works in a heroic campaign, in works in villainous and gets along with most alignments.

This explicitly destroys their sense of self and turns them suicidal. Not is only suicide a heavy topic that shifts the tone of the campaign to rather dark one, the entire process is kind of well...evil as written. Even in rather gritty villain based campaign "I force people to commit suicide" might be a touch beyond the pale in terms of what is acceptable behavior.

Hmmmmm. Fair point. To be fair though, you are playing a character obsessed with death themselves, in a game where you go around killing things. This ability is definitely meant to sound dark. I mean, most villain games generally involve the PC's torturing someone at some point. This is rather quick in comparison.

This archtype is kinda like the vengence paladin in as much as it's really not meant for shining heroes. You want to play a good guy, there's plenty of cool options for that. This really isn't one of them.

Having said that, I will consider reworking that. Thank you for your advice.

Michael7123
2015-11-16, 06:29 PM
Reworded the abilities based on feedback. Thank you for your help Mr. Moron.

If anyone has any issues about balance or anything else, let me know!