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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Conclave of Witch-Blood [PEACH]



Artagon
2016-10-04, 03:01 PM
Conclave of Witch-blood
For the Revised Ranger UA. Simply remove the extra attack feature if using the standard ranger.

Many rangers become fanatical when on the hunt. None are more fanatical in hunting unnatural corruption than members of the remote conclave of Witch-blood. Most of the rangers of this conclave have chosen Monstrosities or Undead as their favored enemy before being chosen to enter their ranks, though some have chosen Humanoids, where users of hideous magic often rise. After completing their training and seeing the corruption in the world these rangers often choose Aberrations or Fiends for their Greater Favored Enemy.

This conclave accepts only a handful of applicants each year. Few of those survive the rigorous training and the alterations which are made to their blood over the course of several years. In order to fight the enemies of their order they have harvested the powers of their greatest enemies and imbue their twisted essence into their blood. This gives them unique speed and abilities. Sometimes it takes a monster to catch a monster.

Blood Trance
At 3rd level, when you roll initiative you may use your reaction to enter a blood trance for 1 minute. Getting healed immediately drops you out of the blood trance. While in the blood trance you gain the following abilities:
• Blood Frenzy: Immediately after you take the attack action using a light or finesse weapon, you may spend 1 hit die to make two melee attacks with a light or finesse weapon as a bonus action.
• Monstrous Reflexes: You can spend 1 hit die to take the dodge action as a bonus action on your turn.
You may only use ranger hit dice to fuel these abilities. Beginning at 7th level, if you drop out of the blood trance for any reason during combat you may re-enter it by spending 1 hit die as a bonus action.

Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Thicker than Water
At 7th level, if you are below half of your maximum hit points you may use an action to gain temporary hit points equal to three times your ranger level. You must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.

Corrupted Blood
At 11th level, you have learned how to pump your blood down the edge of your weapon. When you hit another creature with a melee weapon attack while in the blood trance you may expend 1 hit die to inject them with your corrupted blood. Your attack deals an additional 1d8 poison damage. The target must then succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. The DC for this is 8 + Proficiency bonus + Wisdom bonus.

Quickened Pulse
At 15th level, if you have no hit dice remaining when you roll initiative you may regain 2 hit dice.

Antioch
2016-10-04, 03:23 PM
I'm a big fan of this concept. I hadn't actually thought of using hit dice as a resource, but thematically it works really well and the mechanical groundwork is already laid. Color me impressed.

Artagon
2016-10-04, 04:44 PM
I'm a big fan of this concept. I hadn't actually thought of using hit dice as a resource, but thematically it works really well and the mechanical groundwork is already laid. Color me impressed.

Hi Antioch,

Thanks for the positive feedback.

If you decide to run with that concept in your own home-brews just keep in mind that healing can trivialize the loss of Hit Dice, especially if you have your own sources of healing. As such you need to build in a mechanism which takes that into account.

In this particular design I chose to force them into a stance which rewards a ranger for being melee (something I felt ranger needed), but penalizes them for getting healed. In this way the player has to really make some hard choices.. do I heal myself (or let someone else heal me) and sacrifice an extra HD to go back into stance via a bonus action? Or do I risk everything to make one last round of attacks in the hopes that I can take them down?

Artagon
2016-10-12, 01:11 PM
Shameless bump for more feedback.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-12, 01:33 PM
A reaction to rolling initiative is pretty meta. What exactly is your character reacting to?


The 7th level ability is kinda neat not really sure on the power level.

The 11th level ability is pretty buff and also worded strangely. Is it done as a reaction? Also what does the poison do, as far as I can remember there's no generic poison effect.

The 15th level ability is boring, all capstones that let you do your thing slightly longer are boring and I suggest reworking it into something more interesting.

The phrasing "expend 1 hit die" should be expanded upon and is weirdly restricting and non-thematic. Why does using these abilities not allows me to heal instead of just making me take damage when I use them?

Artagon
2016-10-12, 02:14 PM
A reaction to rolling initiative is pretty meta. What exactly is your character reacting to? Generally speaking I would relate it to the adrenaline surge caused when you realize a fight is about to commence.

The 7th level ability is kinda neat not really sure on the power level. This is the monk 'Wholeness of Body' ability retooled into temporary hit points instead of healing to prevent dropping out of your blood trance. I wanted to make sure that you had to take a fair amount of damage before you could use it because otherwise it would diminish the penalty of spending Hit Dice.

The 11th level ability is pretty buff and also worded strangely. Is it done as a reaction? Also what does the poison do, as far as I can remember there's no generic poison effect. It does not take an action to use the ability. You simply burn a Hit Die. This functions just like Smite, Superiority Dice, or Stunning Fist, none of which require an action. Here is the poisoned condition from the PHB:

Poisoned
• A poisoned creature has disadvantage on attack rolls
and ability checks.

The 15th level ability is boring, all capstones that let you do your thing slightly longer are boring and I suggest reworking it into something more interesting. I would tend to agree, though it would allow them to come back from the brink of not being able to heal anything over a long rest if they didn't use them over that combat. I wouldn't mind giving them something else here, but I do worry that I might be crippling them if I remove it. Hit Dice are a slightly more painful resource to use than Sorcery Points or Ki in that they affect more than just the class features.

The phrasing "expend 1 hit die" should be expanded upon and is weirdly restricting and non-thematic. Why does using these abilities not allows me to heal instead of just making me take damage when I use them?Expending hit dice gives you a specific level based resource that is not dependent on your class. Further, it can't be recharged simply by healing, you actually need to do a long rest to get them back. The conclave of witch-blood uses the blood within themselves to fuel their abilities. This wouldn't cause wounds the way an axe or spell would. It would essentially make you less able to fend off infection or recover quickly from a wound until your body had a chance to replenish itself. That's why it seemed thematic to me.

Responses in red. Thanks for the feedback!