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PapaQuackers
2016-10-11, 11:29 AM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p6k180GSaaGJl1ryA5QNFb2OC_n8fox7K9s-qQRvZDU/edit?usp=sharing

Home brewery Link:
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1L_d39C

First draft of a thematic Fighter archetype that combines all the fun of being a samurai with the bite of winter.

Please let me know what you think.

Lalliman
2016-10-11, 11:50 AM
Weirdly specific, but very cool.

Chilling Battojutsu is crazy powerful though. Compared to the Berserker's Retaliation, it has the benefit of occurring before the triggering attack, and applies additional effects. The only downside is that your sword must be sheathed, but that's only a minor inconvenience. On your turn, you can attack and then use your object interaction to sheathe your sword. If you get attacked at any point during the ensuing round, you'll use Battojutsu and start your turn armed again. Rinse and repeat.
So point is, it's way too powerful. Best thing might be to put a 'per short rest' limit on it, otherwise you'll have to neuter it to be balanced as an at-will ability. You might also want to have a look at the wording of the Berserker's Retaliation, to clear up some ambiguities.

The rest looks alright.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-11, 11:58 AM
Darn it, that's a great point. I've mitigated by making it so you may only use this ability twice per short or long rest.

gooddragon1
2016-10-11, 11:59 AM
I once made a 3.5 class around using cold in melee. Kind of a joke class. 3.5 and 5 aren't identical, but if you want to take any parts of it that's cool :p. Cool kid (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?453194-The-Cool-Kid)

PapaQuackers
2016-10-11, 12:06 PM
That's pretty hilarious.

In line with some criticisms I've changed the 3rd and 18th level abilities quite a bit and updated the original post with a home brewery link.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-12, 11:07 AM
Made some big updates to the class to bring it in line with the EK in terms of power.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-18, 09:31 AM
Made one last pass at this class and I now believe it's ready for play testing.

Sariel Vailo
2016-10-18, 06:29 PM
i intend to use this on a world where winter is a bigger thing .

PapaQuackers
2016-10-18, 06:49 PM
Let me know how it goes! I'd be so happy to hear about if it works out and what changes might be needed.

Sicarius Victis
2016-10-18, 10:50 PM
At 3rd level, they get the ability to do cold damage with some of their weapon attacks and (possibly) give a weapon Finesse. Honestly, that feels weak. At 5th level, they get a bit of extra damage once per round, and to ignore resistance to cold damage. It's somewhat useful to be able to do cold damage, if you don't have a magic weapon to bypass resistance with, but odds are either you'll have one, or have some other way to deal damage. The extra 1d6 is nice, but not enough to really do anything. Bypassing resistance to cold damage is also nice, but only really there because you need it to make an elemental-themed character anyways.

I don't know. It just feels like they should get a bit more there.

7th level, seems nice. Fun benefits, not inherently combat abilities. Except for the second part, of course. I'm curious, when it says "by using a bonus action", do you use the ability when you hit with an attack, like Divine Smite? And it feels a bit powerful, considering it's basically Vicious Mockery but so much better. Especially since if they aren't dual-wielding, and odds are they won't be, they can use that at basically no cost every round.

10th level, again, feels fun. It can trigger off of an Attack Action, rather than it being its own action? I feel like it should be its own action, just allowing one attack. Not sure about the balance there, but the flavour feels more right. Also, considering the name, it should involve drawing the weapon you attack with. It feels weird that an ability called "[Something] Iajutsu" wouldn't involve drawing a weapon.

15th level has a neat ability, but its uses should at least have some limit. When combined with Chilling Battojutso it's effectively at-will, so long as you kill someone with it. It's neat, but not the kind of thing that should have effectively unlimited uses.

For the 18th-level feature, I just have a few quick questions. Does your reaction attack happen before or after the enemy's attack? And does using it to trigger Frost Within use up your bonus action for the next round? Actually, if it happens before the enemy's attack, does the Frost Within affect the enemy's attack that triggered Chilling Battojutsu in the first place?

That's all I have at the moment.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-19, 02:28 PM
3rd level may feel a bit small, but it allows you to bypass a lot of damage restrictions and makes you feel cool. I'm really not gonna risk loading any more power into the third level of it because that just makes it dip bait, that's why the 5th level gives you some more oomph.

7th level ability has been clarified language wise, basically you're focusing to make your weapon even colder for one round.

10th level ability is the only one that actually adds any damage in this entire archetype, so I'm not going to restrict it to forcing them to make a single attack when making 4 attacks is usually the better choice. An extra 4d8 damage a couple times of day is strong, but I don't think it's any stronger than the other fighter archetype abilities of that level barring the champion.

The capstone only triggers Frost Within, so the only way to get that extra 4d8 damage is to kill a creature. That's a pretty heavy restriction I think.

Capstone has had the language clarified.

Thanks for the feedback!

Sicarius Victis
2016-10-19, 03:32 PM
3rd level may feel a bit small, but it allows you to bypass a lot of damage restrictions and makes you feel cool. I'm really not gonna risk loading any more power into the third level of it because that just makes it dip bait, that's why the 5th level gives you some more oomph.

Alright. It doesn't let you bypass all that much, especially since an EK would have cantrips by that level, but I suppose it's not too bad. Since the 5th-level effect works all throughout the day, I suppose that's pretty useful as well.


7th level ability has been clarified language wise, basically you're focusing to make your weapon even colder for one round.

So, it's basically Vicious Mockery, but better. Considering you still get a bit less at 3rd level, that's probably a bit more reasonable than I thought before. I guess the features of this subclass are intended to pick up just a bit later than the others do. Though, that brings one question to mind. if you hit one opponent multiple times with it, do they get disadvantage for multiple attacks? Or still just one?


10th level ability is the only one that actually adds any damage in this entire archetype, so I'm not going to restrict it to forcing them to make a single attack when making 4 attacks is usually the better choice. An extra 4d8 damage a couple times of day is strong, but I don't think it's any stronger than the other fighter archetype abilities of that level barring the champion.

Good point. In my moment of stupidity, I'd forgotten that fighters got up to four attacks, rather than the two that most martials get. But since odds are you're not going to be able to trigger this more than once or twice per round anyways, I still feel like this ability should involve drawing the weapon you attack with. It just makes sense, with what the ability's name is.


The capstone only triggers Frost Within, so the only way to get that extra 4d8 damage is to kill a creature. That's a pretty heavy restriction I think.

This feature is amazing for crowd control, but I suppose it's really not all that good against one or two tough creatures. I seem to have a tendency to undervalue NPCs' hit points. After a bit more time to think on it, this ability suddenly feels a lot more reasonable.


Capstone has had the language clarified.

Alright, this feels fine to me.


Thanks for the feedback!

No problem.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-19, 03:47 PM
It says they get disadvantage on their next attack roll. So you can make 50 attacks if you want, but it won't matter because it wouldn't trigger again until they made an attack.

Sicarius Victis
2016-10-19, 05:03 PM
It says they get disadvantage on their next attack roll. So you can make 50 attacks if you want, but it won't matter because it wouldn't trigger again until they made an attack.

Then yeah, that feels reasonable.

StarvingGamer
2016-10-20, 01:19 PM
A couple things:

Iaijutsu feels very strong. Since this seems to be a finesse-leaning class, you're looking at 6 uses per short rest, easy at 10. That's basically +24d8 cold damage in an adventuring day. Compare that to a battlemaster that gets 5d10 per short rest or +10d10 per day, and no guaranteed 1d6 per turn either. Even at 20 a Battlemaster is getting a max of +16d12 which is still less damage on average.

Also the move isn't clear, do you have to expend the use before making the attack? Or can you wait to see it hit? Honestly I'd think about either reducing the damage and having it scale with level, or putting a double restriction on uses like prof uses up to a max of dex+1. Oh and I second the comments about sheathing the sword for this, since that's literally what iaijutsu is.

For Chilling Battoujutsu, do you have to use a bonus action to activate Frost Within? Or is it basically free?

PapaQuackers
2016-10-20, 01:24 PM
Iaijutsu stacks up favorable in comparison to the EK more than the Battle Master since it's not coming with anything more than raw damage and difficult terrain (which is a boon for you and a bane for everyone else, including allies). The battle-master maneuver's are much easier to use consecutively, offer more utility in their application, and do not necessarily hinder your allies.

I highly doubt you'll ever get more than one Iaijutsu off in a single fight and that has been agreed upon by most other people who have looked at the ability on the Unearthed Arcana reddit and etc.

As for the wording, it's worded exactly the same as the Pounce ability so there shouldn't be any ambiguity.

I may add the sheathed weapon part, but I honestly don't see it making much of a difference other than to y'know may it line up exactly.

The Frost Within is free on Chilling Battojutsu, you can't use bonus actions if it's not your turn. It basically equates to adding disadvantage on the attack against you.

Nifft
2016-10-20, 05:38 PM
Some mechanical thoughts...

Iajutsu: Starting at 5th level, if you hit with the first attack you make after rolling Initiative, your attack deals an extra +2d10 Cold damage. This increases to +4d10 at 10th level and +6d10 at 15th level.


Cold Temper: Starting at __ level, whenever you use your Second Wind, you can also remove one of the following conditions: ________. When you use your Second Wind, there is a palpable burst of frost around you which (has some kind of flavorful frost effects).


Maybe instead of inflicting extra Cold damage, you can choose to instead inflict vulnerability to Cold damage -- basically act as a set-up for your allies who cooperate with your theme.

StarvingGamer
2016-10-20, 05:52 PM
Except a Panther's bite isn't a finite resource so I wouldn't make that immediate connection between the two attacks. I mean, if I'm confused, that means someone else can be confused. Also I dunno, it seems real weird to specify that your weapon has to be sheathed for Battojutsu and not Iaijutsu since they're the same thing.

Nifft
2016-10-20, 08:27 PM
So, some thoughts:

Bond of Cold is okay, but I feel like there should be more bond-themed ribbons. Stuff like:
- You can call your weapon to yourself as a bonus action.
- You can repair a broken weapon using ice (which "fixes" the weapon so long as it's your bonded weapon -- the magical ice melts if you un-bond it, and it falls apart).

I don't like the Ignore Cold Resistance ability. I feel like that sort of thing should be a hard counter to the extra damage -- which means this archetype should bring more to the table than just +Cold damage.

Specifically, I'd suggest that, if the character isn't getting bonus ATTACK DEATH KILL vs. cold critters, perhaps some other type of bonus should accrue:

Boreal Courtier: You have Advantage on Intimidate, Persuasion, and Insight checks against fey, dragons, giants, and monstrosities which are native to frosty climates.

You could give that at level 3 or 5.

I really like the effect of Blizzard Iaijutsu, but the mechanic is clunky.

How about something like: when you score a critical hit, you frost everything within 20 ft., and all enemies in the area take some Cold damage.