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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Paladin Oath of Blood: Final Fantasy Dark Knight 5E Conversion (PEACH)



ZenBear
2015-07-23, 12:09 AM
Another homebrew subclass! Yay! xD

This is based on the Final Fantasy Dark Knight, primary inspiration from FFXI and FFXIV off the wiki (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Knight). Rough draft, open to critique and changes if necessary. Enjoy!

Oath of Blood

Tenets:

Independence: Fight for what is true and let none command you.

Sacrifice: Dedicate your life to protecting those who cannot protect themselves, no matter the cost to yourself.

Grit: Never balk at pain or fear.

*Needs work. I’m basing these on the medieval “Black Knights” who were "a minority group of knights who refused to serve lords or kings. Instead they looted and raided, hunted bounties, or lived off the charity from the more humble folk, in much the same manner as a Japanese ronin. As they had no master, and thus no squire, they would paint their armor a signature black color to prevent rust and damage. Dark knights were considered by many a necessary evil, as they would protect villages and lesser people from invaders and bandits, but would also cause problems in the regions they dwelt in to sustain themselves.”

Oath Spells
3rd: Arms of Hadar, Bane
5th: Blindness/Deafness, Ray of Enfeeblement
9th: Bestow Curse, Vampiric Touch
13th: Blight, Evard's Black Tentacles
17th: Cloudkill, Contagion

Channel Divinity:
Souleater
When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you may use your Channel Divinity to heal yourself for half the damage dealt.

Turn Outsiders
Fiends and Celestials

Dark Arts
Starting at 7th level, any time you hit with a melee weapon attack you may use this ability to deal an additional 1d10 necrotic damage. Every time you use this ability, you must either expend one Hit Die or take 1d10 necrotic damage. You can do this at the same time as a Smite, and you may choose to change your Smite damage to necrotic instead of radiant.

Sanguine Delirium
Starting at 14th level, when you are at half your maximum health points or less, you gain advantage on melee weapon attack rolls.

Last Resort
As a free action on your turn you may activate Last Resort. For 1 minute, all damage you deal is doubled and ignores all Resistances, but you gain Vulnerability to all forms of damage. You may cancel this state as a free action at the beginning of your turn any round after the round you activate it. You cannot use this ability again until you complete a long rest.

This is intended to be a "high risk; high reward" play style. It's a rough draft I came up with while at work today. I was inspired to create it after seeing Drackolus's Homebrew: the Dark Knight (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?428811-Homebrew-the-Dark-Knight) thread.

EDIT: Added Oath spells. They're mostly debuffs, but I added some attack spells where options were lacking or it seemed especially thematic.

Ninja_Prawn
2015-07-23, 01:38 AM
I'm only familiar with the FFX-2 and Tactics:WotL Dark Knights, but this captures the feel of those nicely. And it seems balanced. Well done!


If you don’t have any Hit Dice left, you take the same damage it deals.

...Except for this. If you have to spend a HD to use the ability, it should just not work when you're out of HD. How much damage does it deal if you don't have any dice to roll?

ZenBear
2015-07-23, 08:18 AM
I'm only familiar with the FFX-2 and Tactics:WotL Dark Knights, but this captures the feel of those nicely. And it seems balanced. Well done!



...Except for this. If you have to spend a HD to use the ability, it should just not work when you're out of HD. How much damage does it deal if you don't have any dice to roll?

Thanks!

When you are out of Hit Dice you just roll a d10 and both you and your target take that much necrotic damage. I think it's reasonable. Honestly I was thinking of giving the option to not expend HD and just take the damage from the start.

Ninja_Prawn
2015-07-23, 09:43 AM
Thanks!

When you are out of Hit Dice you just roll a d10 and both you and your target take that much necrotic damage. I think it's reasonable. Honestly I was thinking of giving the option to not expend HD and just take the damage from the start.

Then you should reword the ability to something like "when you... You can use this ability to deal an additional d10 necrotic damage. Every you use this ability, you must either expend one hit die or lose d10 hit points."

Gr7mm Bobb
2015-07-23, 10:02 AM
Doesn't the use a recovery HD also use your Con modifier?

I do like ninja prawn suggestion of flat d10's.

As neat a concept as your desperate power ability is, it does seem to leave room for deliberate abuse. Deliberately injure yourself below 1/2 for the boost, grab 3 levels in rogue and then just nova some poor goon who wasn't faster on the draw. Granted as a DM I can think of a handful of ways to punish the abuse of this gambit, but I would honestly make a different ultimate. The give and take of it are on the extremes of both sides and kind of brings me to that 'rocket tag' feel that 3.x was known for.

TONS of damage is fun at first, but eventually it just leads to frustration between players and DM's in my experience.

Granted I do game with a guy who is abhorrently opposed to granted any modifier damage on weapon attacks made with the bonus action (outside of TWF style and Frenzy), including monks. It works for his gaming style because everyone has this limiter, but I do not use that in my stuff. Rambling/ranting sorry...

I would try and rework the ability a little. Maybe instead while they're at this stage of 'desperate power' they get some flat damage bonuses, the ability to shake CC, immunity to fear or something like that. The subclass is already handing out damage and has recovery methods build into the base class, so options and methods of getting that extra whoopin' power through might be better suited.

ZenBear
2015-07-23, 10:18 AM
Then you should reword the ability to something like "when you... You can use this ability to deal an additional d10 necrotic damage. Every you use this ability, you must either expend one hit die or lose d10 hit points."
Edited the wording. Thanks for the suggestion!

Doesn't the use a recovery HD also use your Con modifier?

I do like ninja prawn suggestion of flat d10's.

As neat a concept as your desperate power ability is, it does seem to leave room for deliberate abuse. Deliberately injure yourself below 1/2 for the boost, grab 3 levels in rogue and then just nova some poor goon who wasn't faster on the draw. Granted as a DM I can think of a handful of ways to punish the abuse of this gambit, but I would honestly make a different ultimate. The give and take of it are on the extremes of both sides and kind of brings me to that 'rocket tag' feel that 3.x was known for.

TONS of damage is fun at first, but eventually it just leads to frustration between players and DM's in my experience.

Granted I do game with a guy who is abhorrently opposed to granted any modifier damage on weapon attacks made with the bonus action (outside of TWF style and Frenzy), including monks. It works for his gaming style because everyone has this limiter, but I do not use that in my stuff. Rambling/ranting sorry...

I would try and rework the ability a little. Maybe instead while they're at this stage of 'desperate power' they get some flat damage bonuses, the ability to shake CC, immunity to fear or something like that. The subclass is already handing out damage and has recovery methods build into the base class, so options and methods of getting that extra whoopin' power through might be better suited.

I'm a bit confused. Are you talking about Sanguine Delirium or Last Resort? A multiclass Paladin/Rogue can never get Last Resort, so I assume that's not the one you're talking about. Sanguine Delirium (not the "ultimate" feature, that's LR) can be abused by Rogue multiclass, fair point. Being at 1/2 hp is dangerous though, so there's the high-risk high-reward I'm going for. Still, it's open for change. Perhaps +CHA to melee weapon damage? Would that be open to abuse with Warlock blade pact +CHA? My buddy suggested granting Extra Attack 2, but I thought that might be a bit too strong with more opportunities for Dark Arts/Smite.

Gr7mm Bobb
2015-07-24, 12:28 PM
Ok just realized that paladin is the funking one for progression where the subclass provides the capstone. Less confusion now.

If Dark Delirium is the capstone then I feel that it might be underwhelming. The Oathbreaker paladin offers Cha to damage AND an aura for it to boost certain types of creatures.

Why not offer something like a desperate aura? When allies within your aura are below 1/2 they receive certain advantages and can add your Cha to their damages.

My bad on the initial misunderstanding. Good stuff regardless.

ZenBear
2015-07-24, 02:52 PM
Ok just realized that paladin is the funking one for progression where the subclass provides the capstone. Less confusion now.

If Dark Delirium is the capstone then I feel that it might be underwhelming. The Oathbreaker paladin offers Cha to damage AND an aura for it to boost certain types of creatures.

Why not offer something like a desperate aura? When allies within your aura are below 1/2 they receive certain advantages and can add your Cha to their damages.

My bad on the initial misunderstanding. Good stuff regardless.

Last Resort is the capstone that provides double damage at the cost of receiving double damage. It's a gambit ability where you pray you kill your opponent with ine big nova so it doesn't kill you on the return fire.

Sanguine Delirium is the level 14 ability, which means it can be abused with Rogue multiclassing for easy Sneak Attack. It doesn't have to stack up to the Oathbreaker capstone.