D&D Subclass Contest Chat Thread 2: Joke Entries Win with Alarming Frequency

[Twelvetrees]

Fire Lash - Can you grapple from 15 feet away? Also, if you are grappling someone with the whip can you also attack with it? Or can you only attack the grappled person?

All good questions. Yes, grappling from 15 feet away was intended. The Fire Lash isn't that great of a weapon, and I wanted to give some sort of beneficial feature with it. Grappling seemed appropriate.

The intent was that you wouldn't be able to attack with the whip if you were grappling with it, but I realize now that a flaming whip doing nothing to the creature it is wrapped around doesn't make a lot of sense. Added a line to clarify how targeting works when a creature is grappled by the whip.

Fear No Fire - Dex being your caster modifier is a little bit odd here. Any particular reason why you didn't use Wisdom as per the standard 5e monk ability?

I was comparing it to the Radiant Sun Bolt of the Way of the Sun Soul, which uses Dexterity. Changed to Wisdom for the sake of simplicity.

Firewalks - You are flying, but you leave footprints? This seems a little bit odd to me. I understand the intent here, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in my mind.

Would it work better if I reworded it to be something like "When you move on your turn, you can spend 2 ki points. If you do so, you can move vertically as well as horizontally. If you end your movement in midair, you fall as normal. During this movement, you leave footprints of flame..."

Spontaneous Combustion - Is the save vs Wisdom per standard Monks or Dex per everything else in this subclass? Also, I would make it so that you have to see the creature as well as being within 30 feet.

Added a save calculation. Added a sight clause as well.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Fire Lash Whip ignore fire resistance somewhere around level 6. It's a class defining feature and I would hate to not be able to use it if someone resists fire damage.

That's a good call. Added.



More reviews.

Spoiler: Totemic Demonslayer

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Could you paste the subclass into your post? Chunks of it were cut off when I tried viewing it in homebrewery.


Fiend Hunter
I would have expected Intelligence (Investigation) in there somewhere.

Lesser Totem Tattoo
Gaining a further tattoo at 5th doesn't sit well with me. It's off schedule for when rangers get subclass features, which makes this harder to keep track of and remember. It feels inelegant.

Summon Spell Dampening
While I recognize that this is a good homage to the prestige class ability, I can't imagine ever using it if I were to play a Totemic Demonslayer. The activation taking an action is a steep cost and the effects are extremely specific and unlikely to occur in the average adventure. There aren't a lot of conjuration spells that foes are likely to cast and fiends summoning other fiends will only happen if you're playing an extremely specific type of game.

I think this needs to be easier to use and to have broader effects when it is. Another option would be to move it up to be the 15th level feature and have it produce an antimagic field instead.

Greater Totem Tattoo
Like I mentioned with the lesser, gaining subclass features on non-subclass feature levels feels inelegant.

Tattoos
Not allowing these to ever be changed reads as combative. I'm aware that was the wording of the original prestige class, but it feels out of line with the current design philosophy for 5e.

Only being able to use each tattoo once per long rest is incredibly restrictive, too. For comparison, a Horizon Walker of 3rd level can do 1d8 extra force damage at the cost of their bonus action, each and every turn. A 3rd level Totemic Demonslayer with a snake tattoo can deal an extra 1d8 + double Strength modifier damage for three rounds per day. Unless there's only a handful of round of combat in a single adventuring day, the Horizon Walker comes out well ahead.

Lesser

Allosaurus
Taking a bonus action to activate a tattoo conflicts with this tattoo taking a bonus action to use its secondary attack.

Do you need both hands free to make use of the secondary attack? Or can you use the hand you're grappling with to make that attack?

Ape
Taking a bonus action to activate a tattoo conflicts with this tattoo taking a bonus action to rend.

Baboon
This is a utility feature. It's a really cool utility feature. I'd want to take it, too, but I don't think I would. Please don't make players choose between cool utility abilities or combat capabilities.

Badger
What.

It's been a while since I've seen a feature that is explicitly better than another one, but Badger is literally a better option than Sea Turtle, making Sea Turtle a trap option. Badger is also far and away the best option here, because it takes the primary schtick of the barbarian and adds it to the ranger. I suspect that Badger is the only option players would choose, were they to play a Totemic Demonslayer.

Either bring everything else up to this power level or get rid of this entirely. I'd suggest the latter.

Boar
This is awkward to activate. The player has to know they're likely going to drop to 0 hit points.

If they do, this makes them nearly unkillable. Like Badger, this is giving me a sour taste in my mouth of encroaching too much on the barbarian's territory.

Crocodile
This is cool as well! But it's also a feature that would be considered fluff in 5e, which ultimately means it's not worth taking when compared to any other option.

Deinonychus
Taking a bonus action to activate a tattoo conflicts with this tattoo taking a bonus action to use.

It also is the third tattoo I've read that seems to be a variation on the theme of "use a bonus action to make an unarmed strike that does more damage." Could those tattoos all be consolidated into one? They feel duplicative.

Dimetrodon
This is mostly utility as well. There's not much point in taking it when compared with the other options.

Sea Turtle
As explored above, a trap option when compared with Badger.

Snake
Here's the fourth "make an unarmed strike" tattoo. Oddly, this one doesn't mention a bonus action. Which means we finally see one of these that doesn't conflict with the activation cost for tattoos. And probably means this is the best option of the four.

Greater

Ankylosaurus
This is still worse than a Badger tattoo.

Giant Wasp
This requires you to be fighting fiends to ever be used. For that alone, it's unlikely to be picked. It's got one rare and slightly cheesy use case: A Totemic Demonslayer who uses a bow could use this to coat all of their arrows. If they were fighting fiends, this would suddenly become really useful.

Phanaton
Again, it feels bad as a player to have to choose between utility and combat features. This is a utility feature and has quite specific use cases for when it comes in handy, which make it unlikely to be picked.

Tabaxi
This is nigh useless. Any creature whose resistances can be beaten by silvered weapons can also be beaten by magic weapons. In addition, natural attacks aren't a thing in 5e. Assuming you mean unarmed strikes, a ranger has very little ability to make good unarmed attacks, even with the lesser tattoos this subclass adds.

Triceratops
This is a small damage spike. It's decent, but nothing spectacular.

Tyrannosaurus
Also a small damage spike, but lasts longer. Probably more useful.


Whirlwind
This outclasses Phanaton in every way except for duration. But it's a utility ability that emulates fly for a tenth of the duration and you only get it at 15th level at the earliest. This feels bad.

I think breaking away from copying the prestige class exactly into 5e would help this a lot. There are a lot of aspects of 3.5 design philosophy in this that don't fit in well in 5e. I'm left with the sense that if I choose this as my ranger subclass I wouldn't be getting much out of it other than a couple new ways to make unarmed strikes and a couple options for miniature damage spikes if I made it to really high levels.

The other impression I got was a sense of "I'm a ranger who actually wanted to play a barbarian" and that comes entirely from the Badger tattoo.

Spoiler: White Necromancy

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White Necromancy
Uh. I'm coming back to this.

Rebuke Death
This is a perfectly fine feature. It seems a little odd for a wizard, who probably doesn't have a ton of health, but it gives them a little bit of healing ability, which is cool. I like this. It's got fun potential.

Life Bond
Pedantry note: Free actions aren't a thing in 5e.

This feels really similar to Rebuke Death. I would have expected something thematically different from "sacrifice health to heal allies." I'll reiterate my earlier point: This doesn't work well with one of the lowest health classes in the game. Getting a second ability that emphasizes spending your own health to heal exacerbates that problem.

Necromancer's Sacrifice
I really want to see a feature that does something different than the ones we've already seen. This is the third variation of this sort of ability we've seen and the problems stated above are not improved by more of the same.

Enduring Sacrifice
This comes in much, much later than I would have expected and seems fairly humdrum in comparison with the sorts of features other wizard subclasses get at this level.

White Necromancy
Coming back to this. I'm not a fan of this feature. It allows a wizard to steal the spells that clerics are best known for. Stealing one or two of these spells might be okay, but this feels like way too much.

Edit: @Dualswinger, did you intend to post in the Base Class Contest thread?