5e Divine Prankster Domain Homebrew

[retaliation08]

This is my attempt at bringing the 3.5 Prc Divine Prankster to 5e. Please let me know what you think and offer any suggestions that you have!

Domain Spells

Cleric Level Spell
1st Charm Person, Disguise Self
3rd Invisibility, Phantasmal Force
5th Major Image, Nondetection
7th Greater Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer
9th Dream, Modify Memory

Bonus Proficiencies
When you choose this domain at 1st level you gain proficiency with one skill of your choice from Performance, Stealth, Deception, or Sleight of Hand. You also gain proficiency with Heavy armor and your Deity’s favored weapon.

Bonus Cantrip
Also at 1st level, you learn the Vicious Mockery cantrip.

Channel Divinity: Enrage Enemies
Starting at 2nd level you can use your Channel Divinity to enrage your foes with your banter.
As an action on your turn, you can perform a Divine Comedy that mocks nearby creatures. Each creature of your choice that can hear you within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. A creature that is immune to charm, has an intelligence less than 3, or that does not share a language with you automatically succeeds on the saving throw. A creature that succeeds on this saving throw is immune to this effect for the next 24 hours.
On a failed save, a creature becomes enraged by you and has disadvantage on attack rolls against creatures other than you. Enraged creatures have advantage on attacks rolls against you, and all attack rolls made against enraged creatures have advantage. This effect lasts for one minute. A creature can repeat this saving throw at the end of each of its turns or upon taking damage.

Disguise Spell
Starting at 6th level, you can weave the verbal and somatic components of your spells into your comedic speech and gestures. You have advantage on ability checks made to conceal your spell casting from onlookers.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, ou can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 psychic damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Killer Joke
At 17th level you have learned the secret of the killer joke. Whenever you deal damage to a creature with Vicious Mockery you mark their psyche with the set-up of your killer joke. When you mark a target in this way, make a Performance check opposed by the creatures Insight check. If the target creature succeeds, they immediately understand that they are in mortal peril. If able, such a creature may protect itself by stopping up its ears or otherwise renders itself incapable of hearing you.

The creature’s psyche will remain marked for a number or days equal to your cleric level or until you use an action to remove the mark. When you take this action, you may expend one use of your Channel Divinity to cast Power Word: Kill against the target so long as the target can hear you.

[JNAProductions]

Why heavy armor?

And Killing Joke is too strong. Short rest usable 9th level spell.

[retaliation08]

Why heavy armor?

And Killing Joke is too strong. Short rest usable 9th level spell.

I added Heavy armor as I was balancing gained proficiencies based on the Nature domain. I was on the fence about removing Heavy Armor and wanted to get feedback.

As for Killing Joke, I did not think it was more strong than quivering palm from the monk. Quivering palm is technically usable 5 times per short rest when learned whereas killing joke is only available three times per short rest. Killing joke also has a mechanic in place to give affected creatures a chance to prevent the outcome, which is a nerf on power word kill. power word kill is only useable on creatures with fewer than 100 current hitpoints and outright kills them. Quivering palm reduces any creature to 0 hit points making it much more diverse in its utility. It can be used more often and has less dire results in that you can take targets alive. Finally, Killing joke and Quivering Palm are both dependent on a saving throw to work, but Unlike killing joke, quivering palm actually still does damage even when the target makes its save.

Ultimately, I feel that Quivering Palm is a much more versatile and powerful ability whereas Killing joke is still strong, but would be a moral delimma to use for a good cleric in many situations, and difficult to use effectively in most others.

What do you think?

[JNAProductions]

There's no save involved in Killing Joke. In fact, as written, there's literally nothing they can do to prevent it. (Doesn't matter if you can't hear them say "Die", you still die.)

In addition, a Monk can technically use Quivering Palm 5 times per short rest. But, that's competing with Step of the Wind, Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Stunning Strike, and whatever else they can spend Ki on. This competes with your other Channel Divinities-in other words, not much competition.

[retaliation08]

The ability does require landing a vicious mockery first to mark their psyche which involved a failed wisdom save. It seems like you missed the caveat at the end where you can only cast power word kill on them "if they can hear you".

I considered making it a once per long rest ability, but then it seemed too weak to me compared to other capstones. I am still considering it. What would you suggest as a replacement?

[JNAProductions]

Ah, missed that. That being said, covering their ears takes two hands-most beings only have that many, meaning you neuter them if they understand they're in mortal peril.

And a key difference is that the failed save is from a CANTRIP-something you can do at will-whereas the Quivering Palm save is in the Palm itself.

[retaliation08]

how would you change it?

[retaliation08]

What if Killing joke reads like this:

Whenever you deal damage to an enraged creature with your vicious mockery cantrip, the creature takes additional psychic damage equal to your cleric level.

Does that seem balanced with other 5e mechanics?