Fighter HomeBrew Archtype Weapon Master (UPDATE)

[Shiryu]

Hello everyone this is my first homebrew class i was working on, i have also work my way one some more fighter classes which ill post later on and i hope you like em, feel free to give me feedback :).


Weapon Master

Fighters who emulate the archetypal Weapon master are those who trained none-stop with two-arms weapons and learn to be more than just proficient with it gaining specific bonuses depending the type of weapon. The bonuses are only applied if you hold a weapon with both hands.

Type:Piercing,Slashing,Bludgeoning.

Piercing weapons: When using a weapon that deals piercing damage, you have a bonus to hit equal to your proficiency modifier against enemies wearing medium or heavy armor or using shields.
(example: at level 4, your attacks have +2 to hit enemies wearing heavy or medium armor, or using shields. At level 5, you have +3)

Slashing Bonus: Bleed: When you hit a creature that isn't wearing medium or heavy armor with a two-handed slashing weapon, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 additional damage.


Bludgeoning (Knock Knock) : Every time you attack with a Two-handed Bludgeoning weapon enemy must do a Constitution saving throw DC 13 upon fail enemy has disadvantage on his next attack roll.
(A stunned creature drops everything held, can’t take actions, takes a –2 penalty to AC, and loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any).
(Note: None humanoid or none animal creatures such as oozes undead are immune to this effect.)

At level 7 you gain: Quick Swap and Stronger than you.

Quick Swap: Once on each of your turns, you may switch between your currently held weapon and another two-handed weapon as a free action.

Stronger than you:Your weapon attacks ignore damage resistance, and treat damage immunity as damage resistance.


At Level 10 the Bleed effect becomes a 2d4.

At level 15 you gain these bonuses

-When you score a crit hit with Slashing type weapon enemy is automatically bleeded and the bleed bonus is doubled.

-When you score a critical hit with a piercing weapon, the enemy armor or shield (your choice) gets a permanent, cumulative -2 to AC. If this would reduce the armor/shield's AC increase to +0, then the damaged item is destroyed. (This will usually destroy shields, for instance, since their bonus is +2)

-When you score a crit hit with Bludgeoning type weapon the enemy must make a CON 15 Save upon fail he falls incapacitate.


At level 18

To future warriors--

I was once but a common warrior, unremarkable in skill, unimpressive in wisdom and knowledge, hardly distinguished in the eyes of my peers. I was plagued with the base impulses of jealousy, shame and despair. My inner weakness allowed the sickness in my arm to seep slowly into the rest of my body. There was nothing left for me other than to surrender myself to time, the one thing that begins, binds, and ends all men.

But I refused to accept this dismal fate. I believed with a fierce heart that one's potential could be unlocked if only by strength of will and purpose; that my great power could emerge if I committed myself to training; that hidden skills could be discovered and developed if I listened to my soul. It was with this rekindled thirst for life that I lifted myself from obscurity, took up my weapon once again, and became the legendary warrior I am now.

Now, as I hear the death bell toll on my extraordinary life, I see that the only skill I ever needed was the one that resisted being ordinary.

I dreamt that I was dancing through the skies with my weapon, as if fate put us together in a tragically-timed waltz. I only thank the heavens for allowing me a dance with the sky. It was a beautiful dance.
- A weapon master's last words to his companions.

Master of Arms: When you attack with a two-hand weapon your weapon hit dice is doubled.

[Lalliman]

Man, there is a lot to say about this. I'm gonna be blunt with it, but please don't take it as an attack. It's just constructive criticism.

Phrasing
Your phrasing really needs work. I see that English isn't your native language, but that's not really the problem. It's that some of the feature descriptions are ambiguous and can be easily misunderstood. AC penetration, for instance, seems to say that the target's AC is reduced with every attack, until they have no armor bonus left. I assume what you actually mean is that your attacks ignore an amount of AC equal to your ability score modifier, but it took me a while to figure that out. This feature should be completely rewritten, something like: "When you attack a creature with armor, you ignore some of the AC granted by their armor, up to an amount equal to your Strength modifier or Dexterity modifier, whichever you used for the attack."

The Bleed feature should also be rewritten; it's frankly a mess and I wouldn't understand it if I didn't already know how bleeding is supposed to work. I could give you a better description, but I'll let you figure it out yourself, then you'll be wiser for it. It needs to be clear for people who've never seen the bleed feature before, so don't use ambiguous terms like "it bleeds for 1d4". Maybe check out Pathfinder for a clearly-phrased description of how bleed works.

The rest of the phrasing is understandable, but still messy. For instance, you don't do a saving throw, you make a saving throw. While writing a feature, make sure to look at similar features in the PHB and copy the way that those are written. That way you ensure that your wording is consistent with the existing material, and you can make sure you're not letting any bad English slip in. For instance, look at Stunning Strike for a way to reword the Stun feature.

Other problems
Aside from the wording, here are some problems I found.

1. The formatting is inconsistent. Some features have a name, some don't. Each feature should have its name as a header, followed by a description with "At X level..." or "Starting at X level...". That's how the PHB does it. Even if you don't want to follow the format of the PHB, be consistent with your own format.

2. Class features never have a predetermined save DC. It's always 8 + proficiency + an ability modifier.

3. Quick Swap: Unless you have Polearm Master, the chance of having a bonus action attack with a two-handed weapon is very small. You'd better just say that they can give up any of their attacks to switch to a different weapon, or that they can switch to a different weapon as a bonus action.

4. Stronger Than You: This feature is weird for two reasons. One, it raises the question of whether you need to know that the target is immune up front, or that you can roll the second die for disadvantage upon hitting the enemy and finding out that they are immune. Secondly, it implies that you deal full damage to immune targets but still half to resistant ones. It's probably better to completely change the effect to this: "Your weapon attacks ignore damage resistance, and treat damage immunity as damage resistance."

5. "Stunned and incapacitated" is double. Being incapacitated is already one of the effects of being stunned.

6. The final archetype feature for fighters comes at 18th level, not 20th.

Aaand I'll leave it at that. I'm staying away from judging the balance for now. I do think that a fighter who is encouraged to actively switch weapons is a good idea, more interesting that sticking to the same one all the time. Though I wonder, why is it only for two-handed weapons?

[Shiryu]

thanks for the feedback im gonna work on some changes righ away also to answer you question at the end well i couldnt find a name tha could be shown for two hand specialization.

[SilverStud]

Ok here we go! First off, congrats on actually completing a first draft of some homebrew. Homebrew is not easy.

Second, what follows is constructive criticism. If I use powerful language, it's because I think it is important, not because I want to hurt you. :P

For better wording on the piercing ability:

Piercing weapons: When using a weapon that deals piercing damage, you have a bonus to hit equal to your proficiency modifier against enemies wearing medium or heavy armor or using shields.
(example: at level 4, your attacks have +2 to hit enemies wearing heavy or medium armor, or using shields. At level 5, you have +3)
I changed it to proficiency bonus because most people have +3 in their primary ability at the beginning. Think about it.
Legendary magic items give +3 if you're lucky, and the DMG says only artifacts should give out +4 items.

The slashing ability seems fine. See the bludgeoning ability spoiler for discussion of save DCs on free abilities. It really should be lower than 15, especially at level 3.


Ok, this ability is overpowered like a mid-meltdown nuclear reactor. Let's take a look at what it gives you:
First, it gives a FREAKING INDEFINITE STUN. Seriously! They stay stunned until they make the save!!!! That could happen next turn, but it could also happen... never.
Second, it ignores the condition immunity of any creature immune to the "stunned" condition.

Here's a list of RAW items that cause "stunned":

Stunning Strike (Level 5 Monk feature)
Contagion (5th level spell!!!)
Divine Word (7TH LEVEL SPELL)
Symbol (7TH LEVEL SPELL)
Power Word Stun (8TH LEVEL SPELL) Also, this is the only place in the game (RAW) that grants the same kind of stun you hand out with EVERY BLUDGEONING ATTACK.

On the first point, let's look at the Monk. At level 5, the monk gets an ability called "Stunning Strike." When a monk hits someone, they can spend 1 Ki (their class resource) to have the enemy make a CON save against their Ki Save DC (8 + Proficiency + WIS Mod). If they fail, they get stunned "until the end of your (the monk's) next turn."
Compare yours: Indefinite stun, higher (at first) save DC, with no cost, and at a lower level! You're handing out a cheaper and infinitely better stun feature. Oh, and monks don't ignore immunity.

So here's the deal. If it doesn't cost a resource, then it needs to be easy to avoid.
"When you hit an enemy with a two-handed bludgeoning weapon, they must make a CON Save (DC = 8 + STR Mod), becoming stunned until the end of your next turn if they fail."
Or you can avoid the stun condition altogether.


Honestly, I think that swapping your weapon is small enough that you shouldn't have to trade attacks for it. Just make it be like
"Quick Swap: Once on each of your turns, you may switch between your currently held weapon and another two-handed weapon as a free action."
Also, follow the advice from Lalliman on the resistance/immunity feature. I think it's good, but it sorely needs rewording.

Your level 10 feature is OP as well, because of the DC improvement. So at level 20, a monk's Ki Save DC will be 18, if he maxed WIS. The problem here should be painfully obvious, but I'll say it anyway. You should not get something at level 10 that is only surpassed by a level 20 character. The experience it takes to go from 19 to 20 could take you from 1 to 9.


No problem with this bleed improvement.

Reword the piercing improvement like so:
Permanent Damage: When you score a critical hit with a piercing weapon, the enemy armor or shield (your choice) gets a permanent, cumulative -2 to AC. If this would reduce the armor/shield's AC increase to +0, then the damaged item is destroyed. (This will usually destroy shields, for instance, since their bonus is +2)

Rework the bludgeoning improvement like so:
KO: When you score a critical hit with a bludgeoning weapon, the enemy must make a CON Save (DC 15 for this one, because crit), falling unconscious for 1 minute on a fail.


Level 18:
So this feature really does remove the need to switch weapons, ever. I feel like there should be some downside, but I'm not sure what it would be. I think it is a good capstone, though. It has a nice flavor of "I mastered the weapons."

MAYBE have the player choose one weapon that they can use this feature with? Dunno.

[Lalliman]

I second SilverStud's suggestion on AC Penetration. It's not as realistic as the original, since the attack bonus could be larger than the armour bonus, but this is 5e, where usability is valued over verisimilitude. I personally wouldn't apply it to shields, since I have a hard time imagining any weapon piercing through a proper shield to hit the person wielding it, but that's your call. And making it not work on light armour is a good way to limit its power, without really undermining the concept.

I also agree with the bludgeoning ability, of course, I just didn't have time to add that myself. To nerf it, you could lower the save DC and/or replace stunning with knocking prone. For the sake of usability, it might be nice to not make it trigger on every single attack, as at high level that would result in rolling a ton of dice in one turn (3 attacks would mean 9 rolls). I'm not sure what might be a good way to do that though.

Usability is a bigger problem for bleed, actually. Stacking damage over time on potentially multiple targets is so much to keep track of and so many dice to roll. Personally I would change it into something like this.

When you hit a creature that isn't wearing medium or heavy armour with a two-handed slashing weapon, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take X additional damage.
Reason for this design: It does the same thing to bleed that 5e did to poison. Back in 3e poison dealt damage (or usually ability drain) over time, but in 5e it usually just deals a one-time amount of damage if the target fails the save. It gets rid of having to track which creatures are poisoned/bleeding. Also, the fact that it doesn't work on armoured creatures both makes sense, and puts it into contrast with piercing weapons, further encouraging you to switch weapons depending on what you're facing. Piercing vs armoured creatures, slashing vs unarmoured creatures, and bludgeoning for a more defensive style.

[Shiryu]

alright! i fix many things hope its ok now

[SilverStud]

Bruh, you seriously can't hand out an indefinite stun, especially if it happens every blunt attack. You're basically casting Power Word Stun up to three times an Action! Not even godly bards, wizards (or whoever else gets that spell) can cast it more than once a day!

And like I said, you gotta lower that DC. Abilities that cost nothing to use have to be less powerful than abilities that have a cost.

[Shiryu]

Bruh, you seriously can't hand out an indefinite stun, especially if it happens every blunt attack. You're basically casting Power Word Stun up to three times an Action! Not even godly bards, wizards (or whoever else gets that spell) can cast it more than once a day!

And like I said, you gotta lower that DC. Abilities that cost nothing to use have to be less powerful than abilities that have a cost.

oh sry i had it fixed not sure why it stayed the same