The second sounds better to me.
Might edit in response to critique MoleMage kindly provided here, and/or critique of other entries.
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I just edited the now renamed Adept replicator, here's what I added:
- Added option to upgrade feature from Knowledge Gained to Masterful Replication
- Added rules for spell casting using Temporary Replication
- Polished explanation for the rules of Temporary Replication
Let me know if anyone thinks I should add a way to use features like divine strike without spell slots. And please give any constructive criticism and suggestions that come to mind!
MoleMage! Thanks. No but really this is a big help. Thoughts and responses below in spoilers.
Spoiler: Forbidden Knowledge
Neat! Yeah warlock is my favorite class so far In the 10 sessions I played. Wizard seemed like it was missing something like this. I only wish I could have figured Charisma into here somewhere but figured that would make it a bit MAD. EDIT: and here I was thinking I did something unique.Quote:
Wizardlock! If you haven't been keeping up with the chat thread, this was one that I wanted to try but couldn't figure out, so I'm happy you did.
Spoiler: Boons of KnowledgeThink I'll keep them being able to get Pact of the Tome features before warlock. Gotta add that you can change it each time you get a new feature (or would level be better probably feature).Quote:
Boons of Knowledge: It's odd that you can get Pact of the Tome features one level before your lender class could. Other than that, it's a fine feature. Can you swap invocations out at any point (like when you gain a level or when you gain a new invocation?).
Spoiler: Knowledge from the ShadowsYeah, I was thinking of making it so they have to take it all from one spell list (ex. want goodberry? gotta take 2 other druid/ranger spells. Though the cantrips should probably still be any list.Quote:
Knowledge from the Shadows: Are the additional spells restricted in any way (do they have to be for levels you can cast, IE first level, or only rituals, or anything like that?). I don't necessarily agree with the additional spells on top of the cantrips; that budges in on the Bard's Magical Secrets exclusivity.
Spoiler: Guardians of KnowledgeSo the goal with this was being able to constrain targets so they can't keep moving towards/away from you. Yes empty space. No can't move through them. Would increasing the area you can summon them (ex. 30ft.) decrease the wall-ness of it? Also maybe change it so it resets every long rest or maybe half of your intelligence mod per short rest. I'm wanting to stick to short rest. Also forgot to say turn order for them.Quote:
Guardians of Knowledge: Do the tentacles have to appear in empty spaces? Can hostile creatures move through them? Since they don't deal damage, the only concern I have is that they might turn into a mini-wall too easily otherwise.
Spoiler: Bringer of MadnessI'd just reduce how often you can do it per short rest. I'm trying to stay to short rest to represent Warlocks and to not make this a bad choice for wizards who got low rolls and a sucky intelligence.Quote:
Bringer of Madness: This should probably be a long rest recharge only. Frightened isn't the strongest condition (too much is immune to it), but that duration is really good. I might even restrict this to one use per long rest (and give it level scaling instead of a spell slot requirement).
Spoiler: Trip to the the Far RealmYeah, I figured that this was balanced but it's kind of boring right? Working to try and find something more existing for a capstone ability.Quote:
Trip to the Far Realm: A weaker GOO themed version of Hurl Through Hell, so I guess it's fine for balance. I agree with the long rest recharge here.
Spoiler: Comments
Yeah I am not expecting to get top anything but I'm really excited how this turned out and it's something I can actually be proud of.Whether I get to play it or not. I like how in this contest we are all helping each other. I make sure to edit my post for some of these changes. Not great with proofreading I'm sure you see some errors in this post.Quote:
This is one of the few subclasses here that really took two distinct themes and turned them into a third, related but unique, theme, and I think that's excellent. Other than what I mentioned above I would give it a thorough proofreading, and I think you'll be in a pretty good place.
Should I make new Invocations for the subclass?
So I decided I had an idea at least as good as the Path of the Spirit Vessel, and with all this time, I thought I'd post it as well. So now my entry has the Spirit Vessel spoilered and the main portion of the Oath of Assassination (paladin plus rogue) is posted. I have the oath spells picked out, just not in the entry yet, and formatting is still left. Each pair of Oath spells is one the boosts stealth and one that enhances senses or divination.
Feedback is welcome, but moreso than specifics, which one should I go with is a more important question.
Thanks for your advice, KOLE!
I've implemented most of the changes you suggested, modified a few to make sure it's in line with the other barbarian subclasses, and made it so that Guardian of the Pack gives a pseudo-Rage effect.
It's still a little too strong, I think, but just enough that I think it'd still be acceptable.
I do agree that Beast Bond would have worked, and that's actually what my second ability was supposed to be based around. But I just *really* like the idea of a Companion having a semi-Rage.
[Edit] I had some insight and made some major changes.
Now you grant your Companion your Rage feature (and magical attacks), but doing so inflicts both of you with Exhaustion.
Additionally, the level 10 feature instead lets you Help your Companion at long ranges, as well as see one another at those distance. However, you can only use the Help on an attack if you're adjacent to one another.
Polished the Oath of Assassination amd added oath spells. Don't need a full on PEACH, just a yes or no, since I'm waffling between two entries at this point.
Personally I liked the Spirit Vessel better. I feel like tying the Rogue-y features so heavily to Channel Divinity limits the Oath of Assassination too much.
And one last feedback with two days to act on it:
Spoiler: Leywalker
Honestly, I like everything about this as a casting barbarian. I have some concerns balance wise(access to any sorcerer spell, when 1/3rd casters are usually limited, power level of Focus Strike/Bolt compared to other barbarian paths), but I like the way you handled casting in rage, the way you mimicked sorcery points and the sorts of things they can be used for, even the way you did arcane focuses.
Notes: I would make the Leyline points a static value like the source class. Charisma already figures into spell attacks and spell saving DCs and Focus Bolt, so it should still be plenty desirable without the restriction. Focus Bolt's efficiency compared to Focus Strike is much higher (4 point bolt does 8d8, compared to 5d8), though it does come at the cost of getting to use Extra Attack/Reckless Attack so that might be fine.
Well, we are getting down to the wire, and the weekend seems like it would be prime discussion time, so I'm going to pull this out of the spoiler and post it. Still rough around the edges.
I hope I can keep my brain together enough to actually make the edits I mention.
Thank you greatly for that distinction. I do, indeed, think that 5e could use use more options/complexity.
Okay.
Hardly ideal, but better than what I had, and avoids trying to create a third homebrew spell.
I have substituted Telepathic Bond for Greater Restoration as suggested.
Good to know! Was worried it would be seen as too close to "At-Will Quicken".
Yeah, variation is something I want to increase. Won't be removing anything, just putting it into spoilers.
Well, nickl_2000 seemed to be saying that I should make/keep the capstone short-rest, and other than that... Grace-Gift is built around the idea that the OOs are fighter-esque and thus can be At-Will, and that the drawbacks of the abilities substitute in for limited uses. This helps with the 1 round durations and conceptually goes with the idea that self-sacrifice only ends when the character is physically incapable of continuing. I did a research thread here towards my eventual posting of my 5e Grace-Gift. In it I said "They aren't so much 'At-Will', as they are 'until using them causes you to get sufficiently wrekt that you need some time to Ritual away some debuffs, or a Short-Rest or two to roll hitdice'".
What do people think of that as an approach to limiting "staying power/endurance"?
That wouldn't make them OP compared to, say, Life or War clerics?
I was trying to save as much "power allowance" for other things as possible.
See above about "Power allowance".
Still I think I will at least give the cantrip as a bonus. Not so sure what I will do with the armor proficiency. For now I will probably just re-phrase to be more like the druid wording as you suggested. Later I might change it to overcome the speed reduction.
Eh... they are more niche than the Channel Divinity options of other Domains, so I figured putting them both in would help compensate for that. I suppose I could move "Selfless Sacrifice" into an "Advanced Options" spoiler, but it is so short that that seems a shame.
Would people recommend a flat 1 minute? 5 minutes? 10 minutes?
Ah, I think I will go ahead and put back in the stricter restrictions that nickl_2000 advised me to remove then.
Would people recommend I double the damage they inflict on themselves instead of this? In addition?
I could bump some of the benefits up to 2nd level, but that would seem to violate some of the thinking of having anything other than strictly numerical scaling that 5e seems to avoid?
Capping the to-hit bonus at class level would technically fit the bill, but seems more complicated.
Okay, but does anyone have suggestions for which options should be prominently presented, and which should go in the spoiler?
I could do that...
I can drop that I suppose. Maybe make it (Minimum 2), although that seems like it would rarely come up.
One topic I am interested in for my long-term development:
I draw a line between 'I read an optimization thread, so now I win easily' and 'I am an actually skilled tactical thinker, I might read and/or write optimization stuff, but, if I do, it is at a level that a mere "regurgitator of stuff they read in a thread" couldn't retain well enough to use in play since it requires a deep understanding tactics". In other words, something that parallels the difference between an hacker (hat color being irrelevant) and a script-kiddie.
Given this distinction, where on the spectrum between these two extremes would people say that the "exploitability" of this ability lies?
And that wouldn't overpower it? Interesting.
Should I make the duration 1 hour, or 8 hours in that case? If I make it reset on a long rest I should probably keep it at 8 hours for everything, and maybe even bump it up to 12 hours.
Or can I get away with: "When activating this ability you may shorten the duration to 1 hour in order to also provide the target with the benefits of a See Invisibility spell for its duration." and then make the 15th level thing: "Whenever this ability grants the effects of See Invisibility it also grants the effects of True Seeing."?
Oops! Will fix.
Hmm... "expectations" I am not sure I care about in this case if that is all they are. If you mean "expectations as they support actual game balance", then I may have to reluctantly remove that.
Well, the stimulus would be "when the buff you are about to pop out would be useful." which is kinda pointless as a restriction to specify from a strictly mechanical POV.
Would it make things clearer to readers?
I'll put the other options into an "Director's Cut" spoiler.
Well, if you aren't fighting ranged attackers*, and have the Sentinel feat... although without the Sentinel feat you are still costing the attackers their action for the round to use the "Withdraw" action.
*Or, more rarely, teleporters.
Yeah, but damage has probably scaled up a lot faster than your proficiency+con. Mod., right?
That would go against my homebrewing philosophy.
Putting some of the options in spoilers is fine, but it would really help to have recommendations on WHICH stuff to spoiler.
Aaaand the voting thread is upon us! http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post23921791
One quick note: Due to the sheer number of entries, you can now pick up to five choices to vote for. See above the table of entries in the thread for more information.
...Huh. I just realized that I nearly duplicated Kingsluger's Coffee Wizard with my own entry. I don't remember reading that one first...ah well. (Still wading through the list, though--this was a huge contest.)
Don't forget to vote folks. We had a lot of entries, so we should have plenty of votes too.
That's right! Remember, the first tiebreaker is whether you voted or not; you don't want to have a top slot and miss out on your bragging rights because you forgot to vote!
On a related note, Ninja_Prawn did a pretty cool thing (or at least I thought it was pretty cool) when they ran the Slapdash contest and made a little trophy graphic with the contest name and number on it. Would you guys be interested in that for this contest? If I did do it, I would of course issue them retroactively.
So I know the contest is about over, but I just wanted to say, it's been a real privilege to actually get to compete with you guys. Each and every subclass entered in this contest is amazingly balanced and obviously crafted by someone who knows this game better than I ever will. I feel like my home brew is better just because I got to look at how it should be done. I think just about every one of these is going to be allowed in my campaigns now, and I just want to say thank you for all the help you've given me in the creation and upgrading of the adept replicator, and for being just generally an awesome community to stumble into.
I find it ironic you would feel that way considering this was my first public posting of actual homebrew for 5e... although my years of 3.x/Pathfinder homebrewing might make up for that?
I am going to be in the minority here, but one thing I would urge you to do is consider 5e's ultra-simple mechanical style to be a starting point suitable for people new to the games. Don't be afraid to keep making stuff that requires thought on the player's part.
This next part might or might not apply to your entry*, but it IS part of the philosophy I am touting:
Making a player think during character creation is acceptable.
Making them think during play is desirable.
*See prior point about lack of breadth of experience with this edition.
Does that include mine?
Does it depend on if I actually make the last round of edits I was going to before the start of the voting period got me?
Actually, I am probably going to give my top vote to yours simply because it shows the sort of high-level thinking I like to see.
Giant in the Playground forums are pretty good, yes...
So.....um, wow.
First of all, this means a lot to me, I felt like my entry to the contest wasn't really up to snuff, especially after voting started. And it made me question if I really used the theme or just did what I wanted and called it adherence. I was actually questioning my base class entry based on that thinking. I really needed to hear that.
Thanking aside, time to say some stuff. I totally agree with your philosophy, it's my own. I firmly believe that dnd 5e is simple for beginner players, and that's amazingly beautiful. Its my opinion that the complicated stuff should be the stuff we add in, and then a DM can pick and choose. Everything you said about my subclass is what I was shooting for, and I'm very happy that you believe I achieved it.
On too your subclass: any changes you make will probably improve it im sure, but I absolutely lo e it the way it is as well. My epic level follower of a god Just died and came back, and I was going to give him a new cleric subclass. This fits the bill to a T. I love it The way it is, and it's gonna surprise my players a good deal. Mostly because it's going to reveal a side of this character, whom each of them has personal reasons to hate, that isn't evil and bloodthirsty.
I would like to apologise for not giving your subclass a vote, I had so many choices, and every entry is just so awesome, that you could basically put any one in for any place after first. At least for me.
Since the contest's closing, I've decided on a revision to my Skinwalker than, unfortunately, I can't put up yet. As many have mentioned, Animalistic Smite doesn't quite feel right (more Paladin than Ranger or Druid), while Thousand Forms feels somewhat lackluster for its level. When I post it after the contest is over, Animalistic Smite will have been replaced with Thousand Forms, and Thousand Forms will be replaced with Partial Transformation - you basically get to use whichever stat is better between your own form and the form you're changing into, with the exception of health - there, you get to choose between either your ranger level times two or the target form's health.
Putting this in here to keep the voting thread cleaner. First of all sengmeng, thank you for the kind words. I think we all really appreciate hearing that our work is appreciated. My mental canon here had nothing to do with a ninja oddly enough. The spells you can cast with your Ki are all about using you mental strength and prowess to be able to affect the minds of those around you. So, invisibility in this case is actually much more like Obi-Wan in the scene where Luke, Han, Chewie, and Obi Wan are rescuing Leia. He isn't truly invisible, but he is using his strength of mind to make others not notice his presence there.
As for borrowing my ability for a different class. By all means, go ahead and do it. I write these for my own fun and for others to use them. Feel free to steal, borrow, or modify my ideas into something that works well for your campaign. My one caveat on that is that you please not use my ideas in a book you are offering for sale (including pay what you want style).
Excuse me Sengmeng, while I don't expect you to change your vote but I am going to say that my subclass was entirely with in the theme of the contest. By effectively making a deal with undead forces you gain pact magic and invocations all of which merges Warlock into a Fighter.
If you say so, I believe you. I didn't see it, is the issue. I'm sorry if my judgement seemed harsh, and I may be the only one that failed to make the connection, but as I was going through, every single other entry was more immediately clear as to what the borrowed class was. As a standalone piece of work, I thought it was much better than my assessment as an entry to the contest; my failing, I suppose, not yours, but here's the thing: I don't know you and I don't know your background with this sort of thing, but in literature, art, and contests like this, the critic is always right, because if they are honest, they aren't telling you what is, only what you made them feel. So even when they're wrong in interpretation, or didn't understand the work at all, their feedback is still valid: this work is open to being misunderstood, and at least one person missed the point. In most cases, a work must stand on its own; the author doesn't get to babysit it for all eternity. I hope this helps, and that while you should take all criticism with grace, you should also remember I'm just a guy you don't know who was drunk two days ago when he looked at your work. I should apologize for that because that's not part of being an honest critic, but your entry was more or less judged as fairly as the others.
Thought I'd have time to submit my vote over the weekend, but a lot of stuff came up. Really sorry for not voting, guys.
To be honest, though, even with 5 votes, it was still really hard to narrow it down with over 20 submissions.
It's really darn good. Like a Hitchhiker's Guide, with angels and demons.
There's a particular moment when the naming of a dog has a lot of importance. So much drama led up to that point that I was so completely floored, while asking myself why I was surprised at all.
Sorry to say that I'll have to get the results and new thread up tomorrow morning (it's evening for me presently). I was traveling today and thought I'd have my laptop up sooner than I actually did.
Alright everyone I've tallied the votes and declared our winners! The new contest should already be up here. I normally do these contests for four weeks, running from Monday to Sunday, but since I missed getting it up on Monday, I bumped this one up an extra Sunday. An extension is still available on request. Looking forward to all your leaders and commanders!
So will we be keeping just the single chat thread for every contest then?