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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Ravager, Fighter Subclass [PEACH]



AngryJesusMan
2017-05-26, 07:00 PM
I've really been on a homebrew kick lately. Can you tell? :smallwink:

This is born out of my love of both Final Fantasy and Dragon Age. It's a class that uses the "damage to myself to deal damage to someone else" style of both the Dark Knight of FF and the Reaver of DA. Obviously, the first feature uses Divine Smite as a template. I'm terrible with system-related math, but this looks sort of balanced to me, even if it does go a little out-of-the-box at the top tier to enhance the damage that a character can deal. I could be wrong, but that's why I post this stuff here. :smallsmile: Let me know what you think, if I've done anything crazy wrong, or whatever. Thanks in advance.

Ravager

In your training and travels, you have suffered no small amount of pain and suffering in the pursuit of your goals. This pain has helped you forge a connection to the Shadowfell, a plane that focuses on the negative aspects of the material plane. Through that connection, you can channel the foul energies of that plane through your own body to enhance the suffering of your opponents.

Walking the Razor’s Edge. Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you are no stranger to the darkness that seeks to take you, but you know how to turn it away. You have advantage on the first death saving throw you make after reaching 0 hit points.

Ravage. Also at 3rd level, you learn to channel the power of the Shadowfell into your attacks. Once per turn when you hit with a melee attack, you roll 1d4 and take damage equal to the result. This damage cannot be reduced and bypasses temporary hit points. You add twice the amount of cold or necrotic damage (your choice) to the attack. As you gain levels, you can choose to increase the damage you take to 2d4 at 7th level, 3d4 at 11th level, and 4d4 at 15th level.

Intimidating Presence. Beginning at 7th level, grim energies have marked you with an indelible sense of menace. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.

Additionally, when you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one attack with an attempt to demoralize one humanoid you can see within 30 feet of you that can see and hear you. Make a Charisma (Intimidation) check contested by the target’s Wisdom (Insight) check. If your check succeeds, the target is frightened until the end of your next turn. If your check fails, the target can’t be frightened by you in this way for 1 hour. You must complete a short rest before you can use this again.

Fell Discharge. Starting at 10th level, you have learned to spill foul energy all around you. You choose to spew energy in either a radius of 10 feet or a cone of 15 feet. You roll a number of d4 up to your proficiency modifier, taking damage equal to the result. This damage cannot be reduced and bypasses temporary hit points. Each creature in the range you chose must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, a creature takes the same amount of cold or necrotic damage (your choice) that you took, or twice as much on a failed save.

Dark Attunement. At 15th level, your connection to the Shadowfell protects you from some of its energies. You gain resistance to cold or necrotic damage (your choice). When you take damage of the type that you did not choose, you can use your reaction to spend a hit die. When you do, you lose the resistance that you originally chose and gain the other resistance for 1 hour.

Life Reaver. At 18th level, you can add your own life energy to an attack when you channel the energy of the negative plane, burning it away in order to heap more misery onto your foes. You can spend a number of hit dice up to your half of your fighter level (round down) when you use Ravage or Fell Discharge. You add 1d10 extra damage to the attack for every hit die expended.

Edit 1: Added Walking the Razor's Edge and Dark Attunement, added the action type to Fell Discharge, and changed Life Reaver as suggested.

Surrealistik
2017-05-26, 07:23 PM
You need another 3rd level and 18th level feature.

Ziegander
2017-05-26, 07:29 PM
It's okay, but it doesn't really feel like a Fighter subclass to me. It feels like a Dark Paladin. As a Fighter subclass it's missing an 18th level feature.

Mechanically, Ravage feels okay, though with the nod to Final Fantasy, I was expecting some sort of mechanical nod to Final Fantasy 13 specifically, what with the Ravager (debuffer) class of characters in that game. One thing that doesn't work as intended is "bypasses temporary hit points." That doesn't actually do much of anything. Alright, it ignores THP and deals damage straight to regular hit points, but if a creature at 0 "normal" hit points has 1 or more temporary hit points, then that creature is still conscious, acting, and not dying.

I would argue that Life Reaver is over the top. You deal yourself 4d4 damage (avg 10) and sacrifice 1d10 (avg 5.5) potential healing energy to go from dealing 20 damage to 50. So for an investment of slightly more than 50% of your normal Ravage or Fell Discharge you gain a damage increase of 150%.

A couple things that need clarification: Fell Discharge - does this take an action (I assume)? Life Reaver - can you sacrifice more hit dice to deal even more damage (technically possible, but due to the wording, likely you could sacrifice as many as you want but will always deal just x5 damage)?

Recommendations: Add in another fluffy/ribbon/utility ability at 3rd level. Fighter archetypes, the published Champion included, always feel bare with just one offensive addition at 3rd level, to me. Also, maybe find a way to make Life Reaver both more and less bursty. Maybe allow the spending of a number of hit dice on a Ravage or Fell Discharge up to half Fighter level, adding double the damage of the combined total of the spent dice to the damage dealt? This allows up to 14d10 additional damage (avg 77, or a 285% damage increase), but at a much more tremendous cost (7 hit dice).

AngryJesusMan
2017-05-26, 08:09 PM
It's okay, but it doesn't really feel like a Fighter subclass to me. It feels like a Dark Paladin. As a Fighter subclass it's missing an 18th level feature.

Mechanically, Ravage feels okay, though with the nod to Final Fantasy, I was expecting some sort of mechanical nod to Final Fantasy 13 specifically, what with the Ravager (debuffer) class of characters in that game. One thing that doesn't work as intended is "bypasses temporary hit points." That doesn't actually do much of anything. Alright, it ignores THP and deals damage straight to regular hit points, but if a creature at 0 "normal" hit points has 1 or more temporary hit points, then that creature is still conscious, acting, and not dying.

I would argue that Life Reaver is over the top. You deal yourself 4d4 damage (avg 10) and sacrifice 1d10 (avg 5.5) potential healing energy to go from dealing 20 damage to 50. So for an investment of slightly more than 50% of your normal Ravage or Fell Discharge you gain a damage increase of 150%.

A couple things that need clarification: Fell Discharge - does this take an action (I assume)? Life Reaver - can you sacrifice more hit dice to deal even more damage (technically possible, but due to the wording, likely you could sacrifice as many as you want but will always deal just x5 damage)?

Recommendations: Add in another fluffy/ribbon/utility ability at 3rd level. Fighter archetypes, the published Champion included, always feel bare with just one offensive addition at 3rd level, to me. Also, maybe find a way to make Life Reaver both more and less bursty. Maybe allow the spending of a number of hit dice on a Ravage or Fell Discharge up to half Fighter level, adding double the damage of the combined total of the spent dice to the damage dealt? This allows up to 14d10 additional damage (avg 77, or a 285% damage increase), but at a much more tremendous cost (7 hit dice).


Yeah, the Dark Paladin route is one that I considered based on the FF material, but I liked the simplicity of the Reaver in DA and that's what I ran with. The Paladin seems like it would be more in-depth than what I've presented here. Mechanically because it has more features and more investment, narratively because the Paladin would likely have a lot invested in it whereas a Fighter would use it as a tool rather than a basis of faith. When I was going over it, I figured that a fighter might not care where the power came from. But you're right; the metaphysical connection does lend itself more readily to the Paladin. Maybe sister subclasses? Here I go with more homebrewing. Thanks. *shakes head, but playfully*
I... don't know how I walked right past the 18th level feature. Bizarre. Forest for the trees, I suppose.
I'll take the advice for the 3rd level ribbon. It's just something I wasn't thinking about. Thank you.
Fell Discharge - yes, it should be an action. Simple oversight.
Life Reaver - no, that wasn't the intention. I figured it was evident from the wording. "... a hit die" as opposed to "... one or more hit dice". I'll take it into consideration on my second pass.
Fantastic idea concerning Life Reaver! However, I may move that feature to 18th level. Doing something that drastic seems like it should be a pinnacle rather than a stepping stone on the path to something else. Of course that means that I have to find something else for 15th level, but it's something I can deal with.

Thank you for the feedback. I'll be back soon!

AngryJesusMan
2017-05-26, 08:10 PM
You need another 3rd level and 18th level feature.

Thank you. I was so focused on the core mechanics of the subclass that I didn't realize that I had overlooked these things.

AngryJesusMan
2017-05-27, 04:28 AM
One thing that doesn't work as intended is "bypasses temporary hit points." That doesn't actually do much of anything. Alright, it ignores THP and deals damage straight to regular hit points, but if a creature at 0 "normal" hit points has 1 or more temporary hit points, then that creature is still conscious, acting, and not dying.

Thinking about this, I feel like it's still mildly important. As an example, if my character has its actual hit points reduced from an attack or ability, then all that has to happen is to reduce those temporary hit points once and the character is down. I feel like certain abilities, like the Heroism spell, could make an ability like the one proposed here less meaningful. After all, temporary hit points don't stack. If you could repeatedly replenish temporary hit points turn-by-turn, then this sacrifice becomes far less detrimental. If the feature has to chew through constantly replenishing temp hp, it impacts the character less and becomes the default combo. Does that make sense? I just feel like ignoring temporary hit points is important to avoid shenanigans.

AngryJesusMan
2017-05-27, 09:49 AM
Bump for edits. :smallcool:

Ziegander
2017-05-27, 10:27 AM
Does that make sense? I just feel like ignoring temporary hit points is important to avoid shenanigans.

It still doesn't make sense to me. I'm not understanding what shenanigans you're looking to avoid and I don't understand how ignoring temporary hit points ever does anything useful in practice.

AngryJesusMan
2017-05-27, 12:03 PM
It still doesn't make sense to me. I'm not understanding what shenanigans you're looking to avoid and I don't understand how ignoring temporary hit points ever does anything useful in practice.

Alright, so let me set up an example to explain myself.

Heroism. A willing creature you touch is imbued with bravery. Until the spell ends, the creature is immune to being frightened and gains temporary hit points equal to your spellcasting ability modifier at the start of each of its turns. When the spell ends, the target loses any remaining temporary hit points from this spell.

To set this up, let's say a cleric casts this spell on me, and the user's spellcasting ability is 18. So at the beginning of my turns, I gain 4 temporary hit points. This is fairly important because since the cleric is maintaining concentration, they don't have to make concentration checks every time I suffer damage. Also, I'm at full hit points, just so it's fairly easy to track.

Temp hp absorbs damage from Ravage: I use my Ravage to roll a d4 and the result is a 4. I take 4 points of damage, but it's absorbed by temp hp. Important for this specific example: Nothing else hits me this round. Next round, I gain 4 more temp. I use Ravage again, and again I roll a 4. The temp hp absorbs the damage. At the end of these two turns, I am still at full hit points.

Damage from Ravage ignores temp hp: I use my Ravage to roll a d4 and the result is a 4. I take 4 points of damage and it goes straight to my actual hit points. Important for this specific example: Nothing else hits me this round. Next round, I would gain 4 more temp, but I still have the 4 I got on my previous turn, so nothing happens. I use Ravage again, and again I roll a 4. The damage goes straight to my actual hit points. At the end of these two turns, I have lost 8 hit points, but I have 4 temp hit points.

Hopefully that makes it a little more clear. It's a small difference in this example, and it won't work this way in every circumstance, but it can definitely make a difference at some point, especially when the damage you're taking from the feature increases or when temp hp increases from some spell, feature, or whatever. It seems to me that ignoring temp hp keeps the sacrificial theme of this subclass intact, even if someone is using temp hp to increase their survivability for other damage. I feel like allowing temp hp to absorb the damage from these abilities undercuts the cost of using the ability and theme of the subclass. Otherwise, you could essentially have extra damage for free on some rounds.

That said, if you were to adopt this subclass for a campaign you were running, you can run it any way you please. If you think it's better to let temp hp absorb that damage, then that's your call. But from a design standpoint, I feel like the damage needs to ignore temp hp in order to maintain the intended balance.