Scoobysniper74
2016-07-22, 05:54 PM
So, I LOVE the 5e Monk, but I am not a fan of any of 5 officially printed subclasses that WotC has put out. So naturally, I scoured the interwebs. After 2 days of on and off searching, NONE of the dozens of homebrew subclasses I found were what I was looking for. So, as an aspiring game designer, I decided to take control of my destiny and make my own subclass. I appreciate any and all feedback. Let me know if you think something is over-powered or under-powered, if it doesn't fit the theme, if its too boring, if you have any ideas to tweak it to make it better, if you don't like how I phrased, titled, or spelled anything. I am not trying to break the game - I just want to love my subclass as much as I love the Monk. As a final note, I will eventually write this up as a Google Doc and would be willing to work with artists or writers or any other designers if they are interested in collaborating with me, but for now it is just going to be a text post, with little to no flavor text included.
v1.1
The Way of the Storm
Boons of the Storm: Whenever you gain a feature from this tradition, you gain your choice of one of two passive effects.
3rd Level Feature: Ride the Lightning
Your Step of the Wind feature now allows you to take the Disengage action and the Dash action, instead of just one or the other. Your jump distance is still just doubled as normal.
Boons of the Storm:
When you are benefiting from the Dash action, you can ignore difficult terrain.
When you are benefiting from the Disengage action, you can move through enemy-occupied spaces.
6th Level Feature:
You permanently gain the following benefits:
You can now breathe while underwater.
You have a swimming speed equal to your movement speed.
You are resistant to Lightning and Thunder damage.
Boons of the Storm:
11th Level Feature: Call of Thunder
You can spend 3 ki points to cast Call Lightning. The save DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. You are considered proficient in Constitution saving throws while trying to maintain concentration on this spell. You can spend additional ki points to increase the level of the spell, as outlined on page 80 of the Player's Handbook.
Boons of the Storm:
You can use yourself as a conduit for your Call Lightning spell. This means that you can cast the spell without needing to summon storm clouds. You still gain the bonus damage if storm clouds already exist.
The damage from your Call Lightning spell ignores resistance. If a target is immune to Lightning damage, you instead treat it as if it were resistant (you do not ignore this resistance).
17th Level Feature: Storm's Herald
You gain the ability to transform into a Storm Elemental as an action. This transformation lasts 1 minute. While transformed, you gain the following benefits:
All Boons of the Storm become active, even ones you did not choose.
Immunity to Lightning and Thunder damage.
Your attacks with melee monk weapons and unarmed strikes become 30 foot ranged attacks.
Call Lightning's cost is reduced by 3 ki points.
When you use your main action to cast or activate your Call Lightning spell, you can use your bonus action to make one unarmed strike or spend a ki point to activate Flurry of Blows.
Once you use this feature, you can not use it again until after you finish a long rest.
Boons of the Storm:
Your unarmed strikes now deal an additional 1d6 Lightning or Thunder damage (your choice).
You gain a flying speed equal to your movement speed.
Notes/Concerns:
Ride the Lightning - I think this version of Ride the Lightning is pretty well balanced. I think it adds enough combat effectiveness to be valuable. It may be a bit under powered, especially considering you don't gain much combat effectiveness at 6th level.
Unnamed 6th level feature - Having a ton of trouble coming up with Boons for this level. I'm not sure if the feature is strong enough at this point.
Call of Thunder - Pretty happy with this feature. I think Lightning and Thunder resistance is rare enough that cutting through it isn't too powerful. Being able to cast it while treating yourself as the conduit is certainly convenient, but I don't think it breaks the game.
Storm's Herald - I feel like transforming into a Storm Elemental is kind of the ultimate class fantasy fulfillment. There is no ki cost to it because I feel like once/day is enough of a restriction. Note that Call Lightning doesn't become free of cost unless you only cast it as a 3rd level spell, which probably isn't going to be very effective at that point - might be too much, but its easy to just cut it.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. As I said in the intro, I am not trying to break the game here, so please let me know if you think something is too powerful or if the entire thing is overloaded, etc.
v1.1
The Way of the Storm
Boons of the Storm: Whenever you gain a feature from this tradition, you gain your choice of one of two passive effects.
3rd Level Feature: Ride the Lightning
Your Step of the Wind feature now allows you to take the Disengage action and the Dash action, instead of just one or the other. Your jump distance is still just doubled as normal.
Boons of the Storm:
When you are benefiting from the Dash action, you can ignore difficult terrain.
When you are benefiting from the Disengage action, you can move through enemy-occupied spaces.
6th Level Feature:
You permanently gain the following benefits:
You can now breathe while underwater.
You have a swimming speed equal to your movement speed.
You are resistant to Lightning and Thunder damage.
Boons of the Storm:
11th Level Feature: Call of Thunder
You can spend 3 ki points to cast Call Lightning. The save DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. You are considered proficient in Constitution saving throws while trying to maintain concentration on this spell. You can spend additional ki points to increase the level of the spell, as outlined on page 80 of the Player's Handbook.
Boons of the Storm:
You can use yourself as a conduit for your Call Lightning spell. This means that you can cast the spell without needing to summon storm clouds. You still gain the bonus damage if storm clouds already exist.
The damage from your Call Lightning spell ignores resistance. If a target is immune to Lightning damage, you instead treat it as if it were resistant (you do not ignore this resistance).
17th Level Feature: Storm's Herald
You gain the ability to transform into a Storm Elemental as an action. This transformation lasts 1 minute. While transformed, you gain the following benefits:
All Boons of the Storm become active, even ones you did not choose.
Immunity to Lightning and Thunder damage.
Your attacks with melee monk weapons and unarmed strikes become 30 foot ranged attacks.
Call Lightning's cost is reduced by 3 ki points.
When you use your main action to cast or activate your Call Lightning spell, you can use your bonus action to make one unarmed strike or spend a ki point to activate Flurry of Blows.
Once you use this feature, you can not use it again until after you finish a long rest.
Boons of the Storm:
Your unarmed strikes now deal an additional 1d6 Lightning or Thunder damage (your choice).
You gain a flying speed equal to your movement speed.
Notes/Concerns:
Ride the Lightning - I think this version of Ride the Lightning is pretty well balanced. I think it adds enough combat effectiveness to be valuable. It may be a bit under powered, especially considering you don't gain much combat effectiveness at 6th level.
Unnamed 6th level feature - Having a ton of trouble coming up with Boons for this level. I'm not sure if the feature is strong enough at this point.
Call of Thunder - Pretty happy with this feature. I think Lightning and Thunder resistance is rare enough that cutting through it isn't too powerful. Being able to cast it while treating yourself as the conduit is certainly convenient, but I don't think it breaks the game.
Storm's Herald - I feel like transforming into a Storm Elemental is kind of the ultimate class fantasy fulfillment. There is no ki cost to it because I feel like once/day is enough of a restriction. Note that Call Lightning doesn't become free of cost unless you only cast it as a 3rd level spell, which probably isn't going to be very effective at that point - might be too much, but its easy to just cut it.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. As I said in the intro, I am not trying to break the game here, so please let me know if you think something is too powerful or if the entire thing is overloaded, etc.