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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Spellslinger Arcane Tradition and Two Feats



Llama513
2016-11-07, 07:41 PM
The link to the class is here: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1BB69Agl

Advice is appreciated

Artagon
2016-11-07, 08:32 PM
The link to the class is here: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1BB69Agl

Advice is appreciated

Howdy!

First of all, nice formatting. There's some pretty good stuff, and some not so good stuff here.

"Your Spell Bullets may deal piercing damage instead of their normal damage type -Your Spell Bullets deal the base weapon damage plus the damage of the spell used to create them"

Do you realize that you are giving them damage equivalent to an Eldritch Knight's War Magic without requiring them to use a bonus action? At 2nd level? Don't give them the additional damage. The extra range and option to change damage type are really really good as a second level ability.

Eldritch Archer is probably ok as is, since it has a saving throw. This ability will allow the wizard to memorize utility spells instead of damage spells and still have options when it comes to damage in combat.

Overcharge.. is Overchannel from the Evocation school 4 levels earlier, and I'm not even sure how you are doing misfires, but is it worse than taking a buttload of damage each time you use it after the first? This needs to be seriously re-thought.. at the very least it needs to be your 14th level ability, and I really want to know how misfire works for you. If it's an extra check you need to make each time you fire the weapon, that's WAY too many checks to be putting on a player imho.

Seeking Bullets is pretty powerful to be adding attack AND damage in one go. Even the Evocation School only gets damage added in.. Bladesinger only gets int added to melee damage while their bladesinging is active.. Make this damage only, and only until you use Overcharge the first time in a day.

Llama513
2016-11-07, 08:46 PM
Howdy!

First of all, nice formatting. There's some pretty good stuff, and some not so good stuff here.

"Your Spell Bullets may deal piercing damage instead of their normal damage type -Your Spell Bullets deal the base weapon damage plus the damage of the spell used to create them"

Do you realize that you are giving them damage equivalent to an Eldritch Knight's War Magic without requiring them to use a bonus action? At 2nd level? Don't give them the additional damage. The extra range and option to change damage type are really really good as a second level ability.

Eldritch Archer is probably ok as is, since it has a saving throw. This ability will allow the wizard to memorize utility spells instead of damage spells and still have options when it comes to damage in combat.

Overcharge.. is Overchannel from the Evocation school 4 levels earlier, and I'm not even sure how you are doing misfires, but is it worse than taking a buttload of damage each time you use it after the first? This needs to be seriously re-thought.. at the very least it needs to be your 14th level ability, and I really want to know how misfire works for you. If it's an extra check you need to make each time you fire the weapon, that's WAY too many checks to be putting on a player imho.

Seeking Bullets is pretty powerful to be adding attack AND damage in one go. Even the Evocation School only gets damage added in.. Bladesinger only gets int added to melee damage while their bladesinging is active.. Make this damage only, and only until you use Overcharge the first time in a day.

Thank you very much, I will clarify misfire, and how I the guns work, as I am using a system developed by Matthew Mercer for his Gunslinger Homebrew, I should have pointed that out, but so that you know misfire is a range of numbers that when you make an attack roll, if you roll a number on this range you misfire, when this occurs you miss the attack and the weapon can not be used until you spend an action to try and repair it, the DC for which is 8+ the misfire score

After looking through the Evocation Wizard, I am thinking of moving overcharge to 14th level, and changing Seeking bullets to be at 10th level, and just the INT Mod, do you think that is better?

For clarification on how guns are working for this class, the information is presented in Matthew Mercer's homebrew for the Gunslinger, the old version of which is presented here, https://www.dropbox.com/s/82o72v47ddc8lzz/Gunslinger%205E.docx?dl=0, the main change to the gun properties, is that the misfire repair dc is now 8+ Misfire score, and the explosive dc is 8+prof+dex mod

Artagon
2016-11-08, 01:55 PM
So what prevents a player from using overcharge over and over and just not using spells with an attack roll? Since the weapon only breaks when you make an attack roll and it rolls at or under the Misfire score, it seems like you could do it indefinitely.

An easy and thematic fix could be to limit it to only spells that require an attack roll, though this would dramatically limit the spells that it would apply to. This doesn't resolve the other issue though.. Dual gunfighting will ALWAYS be better, because you can fire off overcharge twice as often.

Misfire is thematic, but it might just be easier to use the existing mechanics of Over-channel, just re-theming it so that the damage you take is bleeding off of the weapon.

Another potential way to indicate the damage done to you from overcharge could be to do damage to your Hit Dice each time you use it.. So maybe 0 HD the first time you use it, the second time you use it though it could pull 2 HD (similar to the 2d12 dmg you'd take from overchannel) with an extra scaling HD loss each time you use it after that, so the third time it would be 3 HD, 4th time 4 HD, etc.. Essentially this could mean that when you are channeling that much energy through your weapon some of life-force is pulled through it. Sure, you don't take damage up front, but it WILL catch up to you.

In regard to Seeking Bullets, I'd limit it to only damage.. And since I was suggesting some nerfs to Arcane Gun, what if you make it so that they can choose between int or dex for their attack rolls with their gun as part of that ability? Since it's 'Arcane' this seems thematic to me.

Llama513
2016-11-08, 02:01 PM
So what prevents a player from using overcharge over and over and just not using spells with an attack roll? Since the weapon only breaks when you make an attack roll and it rolls at or under the Misfire score, it seems like you could do it indefinitely.

An easy and thematic fix could be to limit it to only spells that require an attack roll, though this would dramatically limit the spells that it would apply to. This doesn't resolve the other issue though.. What prevents them from hot-swapping weapons?

Misfire is thematic, but it might just be easier to use the existing mechanics of Over-channel, just re-theming it so that the damage you take is bleeding off of the weapon.

Another potential way to indicate the damage done to you from overcharge could be to do damage to your Hit Dice each time you use it.. So maybe 0 HD the first time you use it, the second time you use it though it could pull 2 HD (similar to the 2d12 dmg you'd take from overchannel) with an extra scaling HD loss each time you use it after that, so the third time it would be 3 HD, 4th time 4 HD, etc.. Essentially this could mean that when you are channeling that much energy through your weapon some of life-force is pulled through it. Sure, you don't take damage up front, but it WILL catch up to you.

My bad I forgot to add the number of times it can be used, you only have one use a long rest (unless you feel that is to limiting) , as for the spells that do not have an attack roll, I could add a roll for the attack roll, so that you check if your weapon misfires when you fire the Spell Bullet

As for the hot Swapping thing you can only have two weapons bonded, thus even if you could use the overcharge more than once, both of your Arcane Guns would be hit by the affect, however I am open to ideas for other things that I could use for the cap, or ways to tweak it, and I appreciate your advice

I like your suggestion of having it be either dex or int for anything fired through the arcane gun, as for seeking bullets, I'd prefer to keep the better to hit then damage, so If I have it add to just your attack roll, is fine to have it be both your dex and int added to your attack roll at that point, or do you fell that is to powerful

updated version: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1BB69Agl

Artagon
2016-11-08, 02:23 PM
I like your suggestion of having it be either dex or int for anything fired through the arcane gun, as for seeking bullets, I'd prefer to keep the better to hit then damage, so If I have it add to just your attack roll, is fine to have it be both your dex and int added to your attack roll at that point, or do you fell that is to powerful

There is only one ability that I can think of that a sub-class has that adds to attack roll. That's 'Sacred Weapon' for Paladin.. that ability uses a channel divinity usage to do it for 1 minute. On the other hand, it's a 3rd level ability.

It's tough to gauge how good this actually is, tbh. How often is this class actually making attack rolls? I'm torn tbh. I hate to give it such a powerful boost to attacks.. but on the other hand, attack rolls aren't really central to the class.

On the balance I'd say it's probably ok, but I'd want to see how it plays before I made a 100% commitment.

In regard to Overchannel being once per long rest, I do think that would be overly limiting.. Maybe once per Short Rest.. that way you get it back at the same time you repair the misfire range. That feels nice and clean, no more need for other limiting factors.

Llama513
2016-11-08, 02:32 PM
I like that for overcharge, and I see what you mean about the attack roll balance being hard to tell just off of the class info, without testing it

An idea was presented of rolling on the wild magic table when you roll a natural one when firing a spell bullet, what do you guys think

Llama513
2016-11-19, 07:02 PM
So I play tested the class and after play testing have made some changes, Seeking Bullet now just adds INT to the damage of attacks from the Arcane Gun, and I added a recommended range limit on the Arcane Gun, as if you are using the list from Matthew Mercer's Gunslinger the range on Bad News is much to powerful if you have full access to that range.