D&D 5E: Soul Reaver Class

[echoes53]

Hey guys,

I came up with a custom class (bit of a mix between a pathfinder magus and a d&d blademage). My DM suggested i post it here to be roasted a bit before i can play it to make sure its not overly OP.

The flavor of the class is that it has no magical ability of its own and must steal and consume the souls of fallen enemies as regents to cast spells.

Im having trouble thinking of things to add at later levels (18,19,20), maybe a chance to learn a spell that an enemy knows by consuming its soul or something like that. (like that consume blood ability from pathfinder)

Let me know what you think!

P.S
Cant link the G doc so ill just link it here... hope theres enough room.

P.P.S

Oh god the formatting is making my eyes bleed...



Soul Reaver




Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per level after 1st

Starting Proficiencies
You are proficient with the following items, in addition to any proficiencies provided by your race or background.

Armor: Light Armour
Weapons: simple Weapons, single handed martial Weapons
Tools: none
Skills: Choose two from Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, History, Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion

Starting Equipment
You start with the following items, plus anything provided by your background.


(a) Scale Mail armor or (b) Leather armor and a shield
(a) one marital weapon or (b) 2 simple weapons
(a) 10x daggers or (b) A long bow and a quiver of 20 arrows
(a) An explorer's pack or (b) An adventurer's pack


Alternatively, you may start with 5d4 x 10 gp to buy your own Equipment.

Soul Reaver Table

Level
Proficiency Bonus
Max soul shards carried

Features
Spells known
1st
+2
2
Soul Reave


1st level spells
2dn
+2
3
Soul Magic


3rd
+2
6
Lesser Soul Mend,



2nd level spells
4th
+2
7
Medium Armor Proficiency


5th
+3
9
Lesser Empower weapon



3rd level spells
6th
+3
10
Extra Attack


7th
+3
11

Greater Soul Mend,
4th level spells
8
+3
12
Heavy Armor Proficiency


9
+4
14
-


5th level spells
10
+4
15
Greater Empower Weapon


11
+4
16
Superior Soul Mend,


6th level spells
12
+4
16
Extra attack (2)


13
+5
17
-
7th level spells
14
+5
17
Ultimate Soul Mend,


15
+5
18
Superior Empower weapon,


8th level spells
16
+5
18
-


17
+6
19
-
9th level spells
18
+6
19
-


19
+6
20
-


20
+6
20
Ultimate Empower weapon


NOTE: Soul Reaver start with 0 soul shards

Spellcasting
Soul Reavers possess no mana of their own and must rely on consuming the souls of their slain enemies to fuel their spells. Each spell cast consumes one shard per spell level. Since a Soul shard must be crushed in order for a Soul Reaver to cast a spell, all spells can be counted as having a semantic component. If The soul reaver is put into a situation where they cannot reach for a Soul shard, then they may not cast a spell.
Casting a spell consumes soulshards regardless of effect. Soul Reavers have access to any spell from their spell list without preparing as long as they are high enough level to cast it.

Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your Spells, since the power of your magic relies on your ability to project your will into the world. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when Setting the saving throw DC for a spell you cast and when Making an Attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier
Spell Attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Soul Reave:
At 1st level, the Soul Reaver gains the ability to harvest a portion of the souls of their slain opponents and store them in the form of crystals. These crystals retain the memories and personality of their past selves, have a vague understanding of their surroundings and may carry a conversation when held by the soul reaver. The maximum amount of soul shards which a Soul Reaver may possess at any given time can be found in the table above. A soul shard may only be harvested if the target is killed with a melee attack or a touch spell, or if a natural 20 is rolled on an attack roll. In the event of a soul shard being harvested on a crit of natural 20, the target takes an additional 1d4+1 damage. The number of soulshards harvested per kill is equal to half the number of hit dice of the entity killed however only one shard may be harvested per roll of natural 20.
A Soul Reaver may only harvest souls from sentient creatures.


Three times per day Soul Reaver may choose to use a portion of their own soul to power a spell at the cost of 1d4+1 health to gain the equivalence of 1 soul shards. This effect can only be used for the equivalent of one soul shard per spell and cannot be used in conjunction with Soul Mend.

Soul Magic:
The Soul reaver Gains the ability to cast spells with their offhand while wielding a melee Weapon. If the Soul Reaver has more than one attack, they may use one in order to cast the spell. Spells cast under threat of melee take a -2 to hit their target. A soul Reaver may only cast one spell per turn.

If using this ability with a 2 handed weapon, any attacks made with the weapon have a -2 chance to hit when a spell has/is cast in the same turn.

Soul Mend:
Consume Soul shards to recover health, Soul reaver may take a standard action to consume a number of soul shards in order to recover some hitpoints for themselves. Higher levels of Soul Mend are unlocked as the soul reaver levels up.

Minor Soul Mend (Unlocked at Level 3)- Consume 2 Soul shards to Recover 2d4+2 health.
Greater Soul Mend - Consume 4 Soul shards to Recover 4d4+4 health.
Superior Soul Mend - Consume 6 Soul shards to Recover 8d4+8 health.
Ultimate Soul Mend - Consume 8 Soul shards to Recover 8d4+8 health.

Empower Weapon:
A soul reaver may use soul shards to empower their Melee weapon for 1 hour. This is a standard action, an empowered weapon is counted as a magical weapon. Only one empowerment may be present at a time.

Letter Empower Weapon (1 Soul shards): +1 hit OR 1d4 extra damage per hit.
Greater Empower Weapon (2 Soul shards): +2 hit OR 1d6 extra damage per hit.
Superior Empower Weapon (4 Soul shards): +3 hit OR 1d8 extra damage per hit.
Ultimate Empower Weapon (8 Soul shards): +4 hit OR 1d10 extra damage per hit.

Armor Proficiency:
Soul Reavers start with proficiency with light armours at 1st level and will not suffer from spell failure when wearing them. Standard Dex penalties continue to apply.

At 4th Level, Soul Reavers gain proficiency with medium armours and will not suffer from spell failure when wearing them. Standard Dex penalties continue to apply.

At 12th Level, Soul Reavers gain proficiency with heavy armours at and will not suffer from spell failure when wearing them. Standard Dex penalties continue to apply.

Spell List[edit]
A soul reaver can only learn Conjuration, Evocation, and Transmutation Spells from the Sorcerer's Spell List
1st: burning hands, catapult, chromatic orb, earth tremor, expeditious retreat, feather fall, fog cloud, ice knife, jump, magic missile, thunderwave, witch bolt, chaos bolt
2nd: alter self, Agnazzar's scorcher, cloud of daggers, darkness, darkvision, dust devil, earth bind, enhance ability, enlarge/reduce, gust of wind, hold person, knock, levitate, Maximilian's earthen grasp, misty step, pyrotechnics, scorching ray, shatter, Snillloc's snowball swarm, spider climb, wandering wind, web
3rd: blink, daylight, erupting earth, fireball, flame arrows, fly, gaseous form, haste, lightning bolt, Melf's minute meteors, sleet storm, slow, stinking cloud, wall of water, water breathing, water walk
4th: dimension door, ice storm, polymorph, storm sphere, vitriolic sphere, wall of fire, watery sphere
5th: animate objects, cloudkill, cone of cold, control winds, insect plague,immolation, telekinesis, teleportation circle, wall of stone
6th: arcane gate, chain lightning, disintegrate, investiture of flame, investiture of ice, investiture of stone, investiture of wind, move earth, sunbeam
7th: delayed blast fireball, etherealness, fire storm, plane shift, prismatic spray, reverse gravity, teleport
8th: earthquake, incendiary cloud, sunburst
9th: gate, meteor swarm, time stop, wish

[Composer99]

1) Can you include a plaintext version of the hyperlink to the Google document?
2) If not, I would highly recommend learning how the table functions of the text editor here work; as it is it's very difficult to determine what's going on at each level at a glance.
3) It's hard to tell, but it appears you don't have any hard cap on high level spells, aside from how many soul shards you have. That... could be really unbalanced at high levels. Unless your cap on soul shards is a limit per long rest?
4) At the same time, because you depend on collecting soul shards not just for spellcasting, but as fuel for other features, you could very well end up much weaker than classes with reliable access to spell slots, especially at higher levels.

This looks like an interesting take on the concept of harvesting soul power from defeated enemies. It's likely going to need some tinkering, though.

If time permits I'll try to go over it in more detail.