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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Fighter Subclass - Reaver



WilliamHuggins
2018-10-09, 08:58 AM
Hello people, I was thinking of trying my hand at homebrewing one or two subclasses for my next campaign, as I have only homebrewed items and monsters for our previous campaign which is close to ending, and thankfully none of the items seemed to cause any issues other than forcing me to up the challange ratings and hitpoints a little bit.

Anyway, I would appreciate it a lot if some of you could make a comment on its features, I am still under 10 posts despite being a silent reader for years so I will try to link it with spaces I hope it will not be a problem, if not I could edit the post and copy paste everything in.

htt ps://ww w.dndbeyond.com/characters/subclasses/60157-reaver

I want to comment about some of my worries and the process of how I tried to balance the abilities.

1- Spellcasting; Do you think warlock spell list with only 3 schools is too restrictive? The schools are the ones with low spell count but I think the choice of spells itself seems kind of good for a fighter that is supposed to be a melee fighter, like hex, shadow blade, mirror image, I thought about cutting out illusion school and instead giving a few spells from any school option like EK, but I am not sure. Also do you think having warlock spell list without the pact magic is weird/wrong?

2- I looked at EK features while building the subclass, and weirdly I found out that, EK kinda has no ribbon ability, almost everything looks like it has a combat use, even weapon bond is not entirely ribbon, so I kind of did not make any ribbon ability, but I am inclined towards remaking Frightening Appearance (level 3) into an ability with less combat use, maybe something like when you force an opponent to make a wisdom saving throw you can give it disadvantage by sacrificing some hitpoints.

3- Frightening Appearance; I think the effects of the ability itself is pretty tame, and sacrificing hitpoints is always considered bad, but I think i might have allowed it to be used too many times between short rests, Oath of Conquest's channel divinity is once per short rest but AOE, still while making the ability I assumed that paladins would get 2 uses of channel divinity at later levels like clerics do, but looking at it now I think I might nerf it if I am going to keep the ability. Again I might change this ability to the one I mentioned in my second article. Also this ability might be "meh" for polearm master and TWF builds, but it compliments the GWM builds that do not also have polearm master very well as it gives their bonus action a use after hex and when they do not crit/kill something.

4. Blood Frenzy; Of course I compared this one to barbarian rage while trying to balance it, It is once per short rest and has some downsides so I decided damage bonus should be higher than rage, but also it is only a subclass feature and it is not a class defining feature like rage, so I wanted to make it a bit less powerful than rage by giving it a downside and an activation condition.

5. Consume Spirit; This one is kind of like long death monks lvl 3 ability but you do not have to kill the creature yourself, I assumed it would be okay at this level considering its scaling is mediocre and I can always nerf the healing amount. I might completely remove the second part of this feature If I get the idea that feature is too loaded, but I am not sure, at max level it equals to one 3rd and one 4th level slot while at 3rd level it is only one 1st level slot, per day, and it also sacrifices hit points.

6. Eldritch Fervor; EK has interaction between its spells and attacks, but I did not want this subclass to feel too much like it, but still I needed a way to reward spellcasting at least a little bit so the player would not feel too bad every time they cast a spell that is not hex, but I also wanted to add a twist to it and make it a choice between a defensive benefit vs an offensive benefit, I think by the nature of the game, most of the time the offensive part of it will see use.

7. Leashed Frenzy; Did not want to have the subclass be overwhelming by having too many unique feature count, and seeing EK has a feature that kinda enhances a previous one so I chose to go that way, at such high level I wanted to remove/reduce limitations on one of the features that I think will be most fun to play with.

8. I did not think about multiclassing while building this up, I would still like to hear if you have any concerns about synerg/dipping problems, but multiclassing does not effect me much as my players are understanding and they would be okay with it if I were to say I am not comfortable with multiclassing and ban it for this subclass.

Thank you in advance.