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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next [Class] The Psycho! (PEACH)



RabanoDOOM
2017-02-15, 12:51 AM
Another homebrew class! After the minor disaster that was the punk, (sorry about that) I feel that perhaps some form of redemption may be in order. That redemption being a class I've been tweaking for a number of weeks now: The Psycho!

The Psycho is...well, just that. Psycho. A depraved and insane serial killer who lures prey into a false sense of security before, while brandishing little more than a small weapon, (or if you're really looking to make a mess, a big stick) brutally and mercilessly chasing them down and murdering them. If you can, please tell me what you think, what areas you see as broken or need fixing, and what sort of fixes or additions you would recommend. Also, thank you for your time!The Psycho


Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features


1st
+2
Hunger, Sadist, Unarmored Defense


2nd
+2
Too Close, Unassuming


3rd
+2
Psychosis


4th
+2
Ability Score Improvement


5th
+3
Stalker


6th
+3
Personal Touch, Innocent Facade


7th
+3
Strangle


8th
+3
Ability Score Improvement


9th
+4
Psychosis Feature


10th
+4
Ability Score Improvement


11th
+4
Nightmare Fuel, Predator


12th
+4
Ability Score Improvement


13th
+5
Psychosis Feature


14th
+5
Visceral Thrill


15th
+5
Friends With Benefits


16th
+5
Ability Score Improvement


17th
+6
Psychosis Feature


18th
+6
Murder


19th
+6
Ability Score Improvement


20th
+6
Psychological Horror



CLASS FEATURES
As a Psycho, you gain the following class features.

HIT POINTS
Hit Dice: d8
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + constitution modifier

PROFICIENCIES
Armor: Light
Weapons: Club, Dagger, Greatclub, Handaxe, and Sickle.
Tools: Any 1 Tool Kit

Saving Throws: Dexterity, Charisma
Skills: Select 3 from Athletics, Acrobatics, Deception, Intimidate, Perception, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth.

EQUIPMENT
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:


(a) a dagger (b) a handaxe or (c) a greatclub
(a) a burglar's pack or (b) an explorer's pack.
(a) a forgery kit or (b) a disguise kit or (c) thieves' tools
a dagger

Hunger
In order to use your class abilities as a Psycho, you must have killed, maliciously and by intent, at least one living being within the past 60 days. Sadist, Unassuming, Personal Touch, Innocent Facade and Murder are excluded from this rule.

Sadist
When wielding a light weapon or greatclub, and carrying no shield or other weapon in your off-hand, not only can you always treat the weapon as Finesse, but you may also add your Charisma modifier to that weapon's damage rolls.

Unarmored Defense
While wearing no armor, you have an AC of 10 + Dex Modifier + Cha Modifier.

Too Close
You may freely occupy the same space as an enemy, and are even able to end your turn in that space. When in the same space as an enemy, attacks made specifically against you (excluding the enemy) have a 50% chance of targeting the enemy, and attacks made specifically against the enemy (excluding your own) have a 50% chance of targeting you. The enemy leaving this space provokes you to make an opportunity attack, but you may leave this space without provoking any.

Unassuming
You gain advantage on all deception rolls and disadvantage on all intimidate rolls against those who aren't yet aware of your psychotic, sadistic nature. When they're made aware of your nature, you gain advantage on all intimidate rolls against them, but lose the advantage on all deception rolls.

Psychosis
You choose an archetype through which your psychotic nature manifests. You may choose to either be a Murderous Psycho or a Cold Psycho. This archetype grants features at 3rd, 9th, 13th, and 17th level.

Stalker
If an enemy below half HP attempts to leave your threatened melee space, you may use your reaction to move up to your movement speed.

Personal Touch
If you take the time to establish a relationship of trust with the enemy through at least an hour of conversation and socializing, the first attack you ever make against that enemy will be an automatic critical hit. (You may ask the DM to shorten this minimum time if you feel you've established a relationship of trust before reaching it)

Innocent Facade
NPCs that are Indifferent toward you that aren't yet aware of your true, psychotic nature are automatically considered Friendly toward you instead.

Strangle
If an enemy is below half HP and you succeed on a melee attack against it, or if an enemy is at full HP and you get a critical hit on this melee attack, you may use a bonus action and attempt a grapple. The defender has disadvantage on their contested check. If you succeed, they are considered grappled, as well as being strangled. When they're being strangled, they are incapable of speaking, and thusly, incapable of casting spells with verbal components. In addition, if the enemy has a need to breathe, they take 1d6 untyped damage both at the start of their turn and at the start of your turn. The enemy has disadvantage on attacks against you, but may attempt to break out as an action on their turn. The enemy may also attempt to break out as a reaction if you take any damage or use any of your movement. Maintaining the strangle requires an action.

Nightmare Fuel
If an enemy has survived to encounter you multiple times, the horrifying things they've seen may be enough to scare them away. If an enemy that's encountered you before meets you in an encounter again, they must succeed on a wisdom save of 10 + Your Charisma Modifier + The number of times they've encountered you. If they fail, they are Frightened.

Predator
You may use a bonus action to dash, but only if the extra movement is used to close distance between you and a Frightened enemy.

Visceral Thrill
If you successfully hit with a melee attack against an enemy capable of bleeding, you may use a bonus action to make two more attacks against that enemy, though none of these attacks are granted stat modifier damage bonuses. If the successful attack is a critical hit, this increases to three attacks.

Friends With Benefits
Too Close can now be used to stay in and occupy the same space as an ally too, with the same 50% chances applying to attacks made against you and the ally.

Murder
Any creatures subjected to the automatic critical hit given through Personal Touch must immediately make a Constitution save against a DC of 10 + Your Charisma Modifier. If they fail this save, they are killed on the spot.

Psychological Horror
Bearing witness to the extents your horrific, inhumane nature goes to can traumatize even the most hardened psyche. Once per long rest, as a standard action, you may expose up to 3 creatures who can see you and are Frightened of you to a Feeblemind effect. (The save against this is equal to 10 + Your Charisma Modifier) The creature cannot die of the damage taken from this Feeblemind effect, however, always being left at 1 HP when they would normally reach 0.



Emotionless
you are immune to the Frightened and Charmed conditions. In addition, enemies who attempt to inflict these status conditions on you will perceive their attempt as successful until proven or convinced otherwise.

Ghost
You, your identity, your thoughts, and all of your possessions are invisible to magical detection, as well as certain spells of the divination school. These spells include Detect Thoughts, Locate Object, See Invisibility, Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, Legend Lore and Scrying.

Numbness
You're so emotionally distant that you can no longer physically feel any pain, so minor scrapes and bruises mean nothing to you. If an individual damage source deals 3 damage or less to you, you may ignore that damage entirely.

Empty
Your very soul has eroded away, leaving a vacant husk in its place. You may be treated as Undead whenever being treated as such is beneficial to you, and are immune to any effects that specifically target your soul.

Hatred
Select 3 traits an enemy creature could possess. These traits must have some sort of character reasoning behind them and each trait must be approved by the DM. You gain a bonus 1d8 damage on attacks against that enemy for each of these traits they possess, and an extra 1d8 if they possess all 3. These bonuses increases to 1d10 at level 13, 1d12 at level 13, and 2d8 at level 17.

Example: Gnora the Human Psycho is an obsessive stalker to her naively unaware crush, and will kill anybody who could possibly compete with her for his love, or worse yet, try to hurt him. As such, she gains Hatred dice against female humanoids, people her crush knows, and any creature who is specifically a threat to her crush's well-being.

Enthusiastic
You gain advantage on all Initiative rolls.

Unstable
Once per long rest, when you kill an enemy with a melee attack, you may immediately move into that enemy's space and drop prone without provoking a reaction, pinning the creature's corpse and spending the rest of your turn brutally attacking it. Creatures within 35 feet who are capable of witnessing this must succeed on a wisdom save of 10 + your charisma modifier or be frightened of you. Allies have advantage on their save against this. You may continue this a number of additional rounds equal to your charisma modifier. (minimum 1) Each round that Unstable continues forces saves on creatures within 35 feet who aren't frightened of you yet. The frightened effect on the creatures ends when Unstable ends.

Sadomasochist
You may use your bonus action to choose 1 enemy you can see. When attacking this enemy, you gain a quarter of the damage you do as healing, as well as a quarter of the damage the enemy's attacks deal to you. (Both rounded up) You may use this bonus action multiple times, but may only have 1 enemy chosen at any one point in time.

RabanoDOOM
2017-02-17, 08:37 PM
Bizzity bump.

Digitalfruitz
2017-02-17, 10:31 PM
I don't know too much about 5e but this looks amazing. If you don't want to I might try to port it over to pathfinder

RabanoDOOM
2017-02-17, 10:56 PM
I don't know too much about 5e but this looks amazing. If you don't want to I might try to port it over to pathfinder

Sure, my dude, feel free! I don't know much about Pathfinder anyways, so if anyone's going to do it, it's probably best in your hands. :smallbiggrin: Actually, if you do make a Pathfinder version of this, could you upload it to the forum and link me to it? I'd love to see how it translates.

Potato_Priest
2017-02-18, 09:17 PM
This looks great!

Just a few suggestions

I don't really understand why the murderous psycho's unstable feature has a size restriction.

Sadomasochist should only function on your attacks, getting healed 1/4 of the damage of enemy attacks is super confusing. Thus, it should just be sadist. Alternatively, you could make it a choice between the two, with masochist granting resistance to a certain number of damage types of your choice.

People should be frightened by nightmare fuel if they fail their saving throw, not if they succeed.

JeenLeen
2017-02-18, 09:38 PM
The number of skill/tool proficiencies seems too high. This has as many skills as the rogue but with 2 more tool proficiencies. I would recommend decreasing it to 3 skills and 1 tool. Maybe make the tool a choice of the three you have listed, or make it 2 tools but as Disguise and Forgery. Giving thieves' tools seems to step on the rogue's toes too much. Overall, it just seems unfair to put this on the skill level of rogue, much less surpassing it.
If folk want more for how they seek their victims, they can get it through their background (including thieves' tools).
...on second thought, maybe make it any tool proficiency? That lets the player choose what the tool is, whether a means to deceive foes actively (Forgery/Disguise), get into foes when they think they are safe (Thieves), or a trade skill as a cover identity (some Artisan's tools.)

For weapon proficiencies, I'd actually recommend all simple weapons and the whip (if you want to keep whip.) Also possibly light armor, maybe even medium. The armor gives options to someone who wants to make a Strength-based psycho instead of using Dexterity and Charisma. The extra weapon proficiencies just seem more in line with how 5e works.

Would Sadist allow you to use any weapon with Sneak Attack, if you multi-classed with Rogue? If yes, this seems a powerful 1-level dip for Rogue (especially since the level 1 features don't require you to viciously kill.) I could actually see a Dexter-type character working well as mainly Rogue with one level in Psycho. And even 'unarmored defense' shouldn't be too hard even if Neutral alignment, since "maliciously with intent" is pretty easy to do in D&D if you generally fight evil cultists and thugs, in case they want the unarmored defense.

The "being in the same space" skills seems more complicated than most things 5e tries for, so I somewhat recommend against that. (It seems 5e did away with stuff like miss chance and etc., except for a couple spells.) BUT I don't think they're necessarily too powerful. Note, though, by the strict wording of the ability, if you enter the space of a foe and try to hit it, there's a 50% chance you hit yourself instead.

No real critique on the rest of the abilities, as not with time to do a thorough analysis.

RabanoDOOM
2017-02-18, 10:33 PM
The number of skill/tool proficiencies seems too high. This has as many skills as the rogue but with 2 more tool proficiencies. I would recommend decreasing it to 3 skills and 1 tool. Maybe make the tool a choice of the three you have listed, or make it 2 tools but as Disguise and Forgery. Giving thieves' tools seems to step on the rogue's toes too much. Overall, it just seems unfair to put this on the skill level of rogue, much less surpassing it.
If folk want more for how they seek their victims, they can get it through their background (including thieves' tools).
...on second thought, maybe make it any tool proficiency? That lets the player choose what the tool is, whether a means to deceive foes actively (Forgery/Disguise), get into foes when they think they are safe (Thieves), or a trade skill as a cover identity (some Artisan's tools.)

Edited. :smallbiggrin:


For weapon proficiencies, I'd actually recommend all simple weapons and the whip (if you want to keep whip.) Also possibly light armor, maybe even medium. The armor gives options to someone who wants to make a Strength-based psycho instead of using Dexterity and Charisma. The extra weapon proficiencies just seem more in line with how 5e works.

Light armor seems alright, I'll add that in. Though I'll say it right now, aside from Strangle, there isn't that much I can see you getting out of a Strength-Based Psycho. As for weapons, my thought process is that the weapons a psycho wields should be simple, brutal, and up-close-and-personal. (That's part of why I'm still kind of on the fence about the whip) It feels better to a psycho to stab someone with a knife and twist it, or take a large bat and slam their face in, than it does to just poke at them with a long stick or knock them out immediately with a mace. It's gotta be painful, and it's gotta be personal. That's my take on it, anyway. If it's really a problem, though, I'll change it.


Would Sadist allow you to use any weapon with Sneak Attack, if you multi-classed with Rogue? If yes, this seems a powerful 1-level dip for Rogue (especially since the level 1 features don't require you to viciously kill.) I could actually see a Dexter-type character working well as mainly Rogue with one level in Psycho. And even 'unarmored defense' shouldn't be too hard even if Neutral alignment, since "maliciously with intent" is pretty easy to do in D&D if you generally fight evil cultists and thugs, in case they want the unarmored defense.

Sadist only applies to light weapons, whips, and greatclubs. The best sneak attack synergy there would be with the whip, since you could get melee SA from 5 feet away, which is nice but nothing too dramatic. There's also the handaxe, which would allow you to have 1d6 with a light weapon that can also be thrown. You could also sneak attack with a greatclub, which could work a bit nicely with the right fighting style or feats, but that's about it, since it's 1d8 you'd be doing just as much damage with a rapier. That's not to say there isn't a good amount of other synergy the rogue has with the psycho, the two classes actually benefit greatly from one another, but those are the only benefits I can see from combining sadist and SA.


The "being in the same space" skills seems more complicated than most things 5e tries for, so I somewhat recommend against that. (It seems 5e did away with stuff like miss chance and etc., except for a couple spells.) BUT I don't think they're necessarily too powerful. Note, though, by the strict wording of the ability, if you enter the space of a foe and try to hit it, there's a 50% chance you hit yourself instead.

You can occupy the same space, and attacks against one have half a chance to hit the other, so I wouldn't say that's too crazy. Also, sorry about the wording, my bad, fixed it. :smallsmile:


I don't really understand why the murderous psycho's unstable feature has a size restriction.

I guess in my mind, it didn't make sense to be able to instantly climb all the way up on top of a giant dragon, and with really big creatures like that, loose interpretation could mean instantly teleporting to a central area of the corpse for stabbage. But yeah, it is a weird rule to have. Edited. :smallbiggrin:


Sadomasochist should only function on your attacks, getting healed 1/4 of the damage of enemy attacks is super confusing. Thus, it should just be sadist. Alternatively, you could make it a choice between the two, with masochist granting resistance to a certain number of damage types of your choice.

Think of it sort of like being able to choose an enemy to have resistance against, since, if you're both doing the same damage and hitting the same amount of times, it balances out into that. This is just like that, but with a bit more uniqueness and potential strategic value added onto it, so it feels more psycho-y.


People should be frightened by nightmare fuel if they fail their saving throw, not if they succeed.

Edited.


Thanks for your critiques so far, guys! :smallbiggrin: