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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Steelshaper class + Adept background (PEACH)



StarvingGamer
2016-10-07, 11:48 PM
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Sk8ZYC40

So after not playing tabletop games for about 10 years I found roll20 and a group to play D&D with and we've been going for about half a year. Now we're taking an interlude to run a side module with new characters and my DM is letting me homebrew a class. We've been working in collaboration and now I feel like it's finally ready to be eviscerated by the masses so here is the Steelshaper.

The core concept is to be a tanky caster who happens to fight at melee range, focused primarily on CC/Utility. Fictionally the class has a flowing steel weapon they can reshape with their mind. The class features are pretty much where I want them (although I'm always open to suggestions) but I'm still struggling to decide what is and isn't too powerful for the shaper arts (spells). Any and all feedback is wholeheartedly welcomed and if you want to pitch me on ideas for new arts go ahead. I'm all ears.

Keep in mind as I am considering the class to be more a caster in melee than a melee class with spells, based on progression I'm thinking of my level 2 slots as equivalent to a caster's level 3 and my level 3 slots to be equivalent to a caster's level 6, based on the level in which you earn them.

Also when I was trying to decide on a quickbuild background for the description I realized none of the ones provided in the official materials quite fit what I see as the prototypical Steelshaper so I went ahead and made one as well, trying to be as broad as possible so it could apply to pretty much any class.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

StarvingGamer
2016-10-13, 01:50 AM
Changelog

October 18, 2016
Updated various shield-equivalent features to require a one-handed shaper weapon as opposed to a shaper weapon wielded in one hand

October 13, 2016
Absorbing steel as part of Become One is now coded as a bonus action
Various minor changes to Shaper Art description formatting
Added path-specific shaper arts, Flicker and Flowing Shield

Final Hyena
2016-10-13, 05:07 AM
The class seems to be a mix of dex (or str) and int, however multiclassing into bladesinger would be pretty nuts.

Just read this bit;

As long as you are no more than 90 feet away from it, you can summon your shaper steel to your hand. If there is a solid barrier between you and your shaper steel, you can make an Intelligence check plus double your proficiency bonus to try and break through.
I hope you have mechanised a way for that to be a boomerang style attack.

Mental Fortitude
This is quite strong because you can stack two attributes and a prof on a single save and with feats on all the good saves.
Maybe an alternative would be using an int save in place of another by spending shaper dice?
Or that you may spend a shaper die to add it onto a save?

Become one
This could use a little clarifying. What action is it for the steel to go in and out of you?
Does all the steel need to be in you to heal you?

Archetypes
Do you like sentinel pole arm? Because both archetypes seem to encourage it.
And now after reading danger zone and opportune takedown. I think you and senti-pole need to get a room. Seriously it's alright, just not in public!

StarvingGamer
2016-10-13, 10:40 PM
The class seems to be a mix of dex (or str) and int, however multiclassing into bladesinger would be pretty nuts.
It's Str/Int/Con primarily. Dex would be a major handicap to the class as only a fraction of melee weapons are finesse. Multiclassing into bladesinger would be pretty nuts though. I'll need to think about that. There may be no better way to balance it other than to say no you may not o_O.


I hope you have mechanised a way for that to be a boomerang style attack.
It's mostly there to provide you a viable way to use your shaper steel as a thrown weapon attack. It doesn't hit coming and going although there could be an interesting shaper art to be designed in there. Something worth tinkering with at least.


Mental Fortitude
This is quite strong because you can stack two attributes and a prof on a single save and with feats on all the good saves.
Maybe an alternative would be using an int save in place of another by spending shaper dice?
Or that you may spend a shaper die to add it onto a save?
It is, but as I envision the steelshaper more of a CC tank, I don't think it's entirely unwarranted. Paladins get a similar feature only they get it much earlier in levels (6th vs 13th) and they can apply it to allies as well as themselves so I don't think it's too strong.


Become one
This could use a little clarifying. What action is it for the steel to go in and out of you?
Does all the steel need to be in you to heal you?
Thanks for that. I added text to clarify that it requires a bonus action to absorb the steel into the skin. The bit about healing specifies "If you have control of your shaper steel". Do you have suggestions as to how that could be made more clear?


Archetypes
Do you like sentinel pole arm? Because both archetypes seem to encourage it.
And now after reading danger zone and opportune takedown. I think you and senti-pole need to get a room. Seriously it's alright, just not in public!
Well as a CC class, I definitely wanted to give it a bunch of different options to be sticky. That feat would certainly gel nicely with the general theme. Of course you need Str to hit and trigger arts, Int to make sure they don't save against arts, and Con to maintain all your best arts since they all require concentration and it's a melee class. There already aren't enough ASIs to go around so I think I'm ok with that level of synergy if you're taking a feat?

Thanks for reading and all the feedback! You gave me some things to think about.

Shiryu
2016-10-14, 02:06 AM
This Class will fit perfectly for my homebrew race http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502857-Homebrew-Race-Vajra-(Updated-with-new-skill) its nice idea too.

Final Hyena
2016-10-14, 07:11 AM
Thanks for that. I added text to clarify that it requires a bonus action to absorb the steel into the skin. The bit about healing specifies "If you have control of your shaper steel". Do you have suggestions as to how that could be made more clear?
I've been out of 5E for a while, is possess still a good word to choose?
If you are in possession of your shaper steel.
The confusion for me came because the sentence about it healing you came directly after the bit about being able to put it in your body. Maybe reversing the paragraphs would help (at least idiots like me)?


Well as a CC class, I definitely wanted to give it a bunch of different options to be sticky. That feat would certainly gel nicely with the general theme. Of course you need Str to hit and trigger arts, Int to make sure they don't save against arts, and Con to maintain all your best arts since they all require concentration and it's a melee class. There already aren't enough ASIs to go around so I think I'm ok with that level of synergy if you're taking a feat?
The art "danger zone" does give you multiple attack of opportunities, maybe i'm over valuing it, I just think senti-pole is pretty powerful and you are enhancing it significantly with a feature thats only weakness is being hit when the point of senti-pole is stopping anyone coming close to you.

StarvingGamer
2016-10-14, 07:33 PM
The art "danger zone" does give you multiple attack of opportunities, maybe i'm over valuing it, I just think senti-pole is pretty powerful and you are enhancing it significantly with a feature thats only weakness is being hit when the point of senti-pole is stopping anyone coming close to you.
The point of the art is more to keep enemies close. A steelshaper wants to get in the middle of it all and occupy the enemies. If you're taking 2 feats then between your 3 critical stats, you could have one at 20, one at 18, and one at 14. Also a steelshaper basically gets practically nothing in the way of damage bonuses. One AoO per opponent isn't that much. Honestly I figure you use this art and they all just dogpile on you and hit you and you lose concentration and it goes away.

The problem is if you ditch the AoOs then the art loses any threat. It can be freely ignored other than making moving slightly annoying. Not a good payoff for your mid-level spell-slot. It probably need to be playtested. I should do that.

Final Hyena
2016-10-15, 04:37 AM
danger zone doesn't require int and as I said before the whole idea of needing con is to resist people hitting you, the build is designed to stop people being able to hit you.


The point of the art is more to keep enemies close.
Unfortunately it also support the other strat.
How about using more than one aoo a round loses your movement from the next turn?

StarvingGamer
2016-10-15, 11:44 PM
danger zone doesn't require int and as I said before the whole idea of needing con is to resist people hitting you, the build is designed to stop people being able to hit you.

Unfortunately it also support the other strat.
How about using more than one aoo a round loses your movement from the next turn?

Danger Zone itself doesn't need Int but basically everything else the class does well does. I'm not sure going all-in on an art you don't get access to until 6 and even then, can only use twice a day, is worth hindering all other aspects of your gameplay. Also, while it's true the art can make it tough for enemies to hit you, the Steelshaper isn't exactly a threat. It does very low damage relative to the other classes and if you're burning concentration on maintaining Danger Zone, you're cutting yourself off from a ton of their other strong abilities. In practice, I imagine 90% of uses will end up with those within reach attacking the steelshaper, and those outside of reach just exiting the difficult terrain and ravaging the rest of the party, with zero AoOs triggered.

Spells like Hunger of Hadar create difficult terrain that also functionally blinds everything inside and deals guaranteed damage on the start of their turns and additional damage if they end in the same area. Danger zone does nothing to even fictionally justify the enemies making bad decisions. They can just bop out. A well placed HoH can deal like 12d6 guaranteed damage and completely neutralize a bunch of enemies for a turn. An equally well placed DZ would deal zero guaranteed damage and mostly likely end up with 2-3 creatures making full attacks against the shaper and the another 3 just moving slightly slower than usual out of the area and maybe being forced to make ranged attacks in lieu of melee attacks.

The purpose of the art is to make the shaper a stickier target. Immobilizing the shaper after casting would basically negate that since the enemies would be free to just run away on their next turn. At that point the art requires the feat just to have any potency which makes it a baaad art.

Of course this is all theorycrafting, maybe in actual practice it will turn out to be super busted when compared to similar effects from other classes. It certainly doesn't seem that way to me though, at least not just doing the math in my head.