Zman's 5e Tweaks: Tweaks 2.0, Weapons and Armor, E10, and Monster Manual Expansion

[Zman]

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to give me feedback on my work. Some of you are familiar with my efforts and I appreciate any feedback you have given me in the past and will continue to give me. This is a new thread with all my 5e works centralized in one locations including my WIP Monster Manual Expansion.

Please, all feedback is welcome. My goals are a more balanced and varied 5e play experience with not just more viable options, but more total options available. Bump up the worst performers, notch down those viewed as too good, and ultimately create more viable play styles and options from a mechanical perspective. I don't expect nor aim for perfect balance, but easily implemented "hotfixes" that stay pretty true to the stock 5e experience. Note, I have not attempted to really balanced the Martial vs Spellcaster divide, but I have worked on the Martial vs Martial and Spellcaster vs Spellcaster concerns. Addressing Martial vs Spellcaster is much more complicated an issue and beyond the scope of my fixes.



Looking forward to your feedback, critiques, and comments.



Zman's 5e Tweaks V2.0 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByqQBH7wb0tvSmRoYWlnbWFvQjA/view?usp=sharing). Spreadsheet Analysis (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12uWo8yF3vr75KRyryeaWNbU4d0XgOYvIoYocu0NMM1o/edit?usp=sharing)

Zman's 5e Tweaks: Weapons and Armor V1.0 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByqQBH7wb0tvZFhPOU1VR2ZfcW8/view?usp=sharing)

Zman's 5e Tweaks: E10 Variant V1.0 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByqQBH7wb0tvZFdLWWxjNUZ3TTA/view?usp=sharing)

Zman's 5e Tweaks: Monster Manual Expansion V1.0 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByqQBH7wb0tvd2V6d0toc2xwaDQ/view?usp=sharing)


I've gotten a chance to playtest a good portion of my work recently and so far am very pleased with how it is going and has been received. We are running my E10 Variant and are currently approaching 10,000xp. So far I'm quite happy and believe the characters are richer, more varied, and better balanced. My E10 Variant has some kinks I think will need some addressing, but overall I quite like it as a framework for dnd 5e and recognize it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

We have...
Half Elf Paladin- Powerful Physique one handing a Maul and shield bashing.
Dragonborn Barbarian- TWFing Battleaxe/Handaxe and Multiclassed with a touch of Sorceress for more fire flavor.
Wood Elf Mood Druid- Nothing crazy here, feels better than stock for sure.
Human Battlemaster- Extra Superiority Dice with Martial Adept, otherwise nothing crazy for a Battlemaster.
Half-Orc Abjuror- Multiclassed with a level of Fighter, and pretends he is a fighter, hitting the Gish feel just right.

[Zman]

Change Log:

Tweaks Change Log:
V2.0
8-24-17 Intimidating Presense removed 1/encounter mechanic, now can only target a creature once and failure immunizes everyone.
8-24-17 Removed Heavy Armor Master's clunky legacy dr3 and replaced it with a reaction for d6 reduction from a single attack.
8-24-27 Cleaned up Powerful Build's language
8-24-17 Cleaned up Defensive Duelist/Lighting Reflexes interaction language
8-24-27 Cleaned up part of Crossbow Expert, no more point blank spellcasting
8-28-17 Fixed Typos
9-16-17 HAM Reaction to 1d6+Prof for scaleability and works against all S/P/B
9-16-17 Made Grapple's Pin better than Grapple Shove.
9-16-17 Capped Flanking at +3, clarified.
9-16-17 Added Primeval Awareness fix for spell less ranger variant
9-16-17 Adjusted Spellless Ranger's Maneuvers known and Superiority Dice.
9-16-17 Fixed Typos and Formatting
9-19-17 Clarified Close Combat Archer


Weapons and Armor Change Log:
V1.0
9-9-17 Chanced Blowgun range to 50/100, added Silent feature


E10 Variant Change Log:


Monster Manual Expansion Change Log:
V1.0
8-24-17 Fixed Spelling Errors.
8-24-17 Fixed Oni damage in different sizes and adjusted CR to 11.
8-28-17 Reduced Lizardfolk Bite damage to D4

[Waterdeep Merch]

Starting with your monsters, I'm enjoying the expanded roster quite a bit. I especially like the additional ogres, as I love using them.

One note, though- switch the 'u' and the 'e' in 'neutral'. Everything else is so polished that it sticks out like a sore thumb.

[Zman]

Starting with your monsters, I'm enjoying the expanded roster quite a bit. I especially like the additional ogres, as I love using them.

One note, though- switch the 'u' and the 'e' in 'neutral'. Everything else is so polished that it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Thanks, I'm particularly fond of my Ogre Mage myself.

I'm sure there are other things that slipped by, I honestly don't know why i mispell neutral, eternal struggle.

I look forward to anymore feedback you have. I'm curious what people think about the miniboss monsters with a single Legendary Action.

[Arvin Natsuko]

I'm starting with the Monsters and seems pretty good. Thank you for the effort.

About the Oni, seems like the weapon's damage should be double because of the large size. Other than that, Ireally like the new Oni option.

[Arvin Natsuko]

I'm in love with your Variant Rules. The exhaustion level after drop to 0 hps is brilliant.

The race and class stuff I really don't know yet. Will take more time to think about.

Again, thank you for all of this.

[Zman]

I'm starting with the Monsters and seems pretty good. Thank you for the effort.

About the Oni, seems like the weapon's damage should be double because of the large size. Other than that, Ireally like the new Oni option.

Glad you're enjoying it. The MM expansion is still a WIP, but I'm afding to it as I use monsters or inspiration strikes me.

You're absolutely right, I forgot to add the Oni's large damage and it'll bump it's CR up too I bet. Perfect, thanks.


I'm in love with your Variant Rules. The exhaustion level after drop to 0 hps is brilliant.

The race and class stuff I really don't know yet. Will take more time to think about.

Again, thank you for all of this.

Exhaustion for 0HP just makes sense and it's a good mechanic, helps curb Healing Word abuse which just breaks vermillistide.

The race stuff is pretty basic, most class stuff are small patches massaging the classes towards better balance. Feats were a big change of mine, lists of tweaks and a good number of new feats as well.

You are welcome! The more feedback I get, the more progress I make and the more polished the product becomes.

[Unoriginal]

Why give 22 CON to zombies?

[Zman]

Why give 22 CON to zombies?

Good question. My thinking was that human toughness ranges up to 20 constitution, and effectively anything above a 20 constitution is supernaturally tough. Honestly how many things are "tougher" than a shambling corpse that is simply unconcerned with damage, poison, pain, or even dismemberment. Sure, I've accounted for a good amount of that "toughness" with resistances and undead fortitude, but it seemed fitting to make them supernaturally tough as well in a constitution sense. I did up the DC for undead fortitude correspondingly as well.

Same thinking for giving Skeletons a 20 Con, while Wights only get a 16 as they are closer to a bridge to undeath.

Same thinking for why adult Trolls have a Constitution of 20-22.


It boils down to mortal toughness being framed by the Constitution 20 cap and no resistences, and what does supernatural toughness really amount to ie potentially higher con, resistances, or other abilities such as regeneration or undead fortitude.

[Desteplo]

Grappler feat is still trashed
-and being able to use dex for grapples takes away 1 of the 2 things strength could do over dex. Making dex even more superior

[Zman]

Grappler feat is still trashed
-and being able to use dex for grapples takes away 1 of the 2 things strength could do over dex. Making dex even more superior

How is it still trashed? The Grappler feat itself is now significantly better, and no longer references a rule that doesn't exist.

Yes, a dex based character can take a feat, Martial Artist, to use Dex for grappling, but that still comes at the cost of a feat, and a Str based character would have taken Grappler or Expertise and still be a better grappler. Str characters still have an advantage on Grappling.

The way I see it is I've enhanced the game by fixing a generally subpar feat, and by allowing another viable mechanic ie dex based martial artist grappler that both feels right and doesn't ruin balance.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'll have time to go over these in more depth when I get home, but I'll mention one thing- your warpick martial weapon is one that will never see use at my table, even if I chose to use your variants (which are, on the whole, pretty cool). The reason being that 2d3 damage dice. Neither my players nor I like rolling the "imaginary" dice for damage, they want clean and simple.

If you don't mind me asking, what's the idea behind it? Slightly higher average damage on a d6? For lols?

[Waterdeep Merch]

On the weapons and armor charts- a lot of this is really cool, very similar to things I've done myself. The rebalancing on the armors in particular is neat, since it would lead to a wider variety of equipment types in a game based on Dex values.

My one critique is on the improvements on the base damage on the mace. I can understand why- the real weapon is a monster in close combat and is notably better for dealing with armored enemies than more common bladed weaponry, and it really helps out melee clerics that aren't tempest or war. But from a balance perspective, this underrates martial weapons for any Strength-based sword n' board user by making it identical in damage capacity to anything from the martial list. The poor warhammer in particular can go weep softly in a corner, since it deals the same damage type too. The versatile trait isn't enough to make up for this, since it's rarely used as it is.

I don't think offering a side benefit to martial one-handers would break the game all that much if you'd prefer to keep the mace's d8. Maybe strip the side benefits off of the 'Feats' UA and make them bog standard for martial weaponry? Not the +1's, oh god no, but things like the OA buffs to swords. It would make using a longsword over a mace desirable if you can get it, and let the warhammer put down that Ben and Jerry's and rejoin the usable weapons list.

[Zman]

I'll have time to go over these in more depth when I get home, but I'll mention one thing- your warpick martial weapon is one that will never see use at my table, even if I chose to use your variants (which are, on the whole, pretty cool). The reason being that 2d3 damage dice. Neither my players nor I like rolling the "imaginary" dice for damage, they want clean and simple.

If you don't mind me asking, what's the idea behind it? Slightly higher average damage on a d6? For lols?

I appreciate you taking the time to look stuff over.

Oh, the Warpick.... Ugg. I know, 2d3 is clunky, but D3s are "real" dice as far as the rules are concerned, and the damage allows the Warpick to fill a niche. Otherwise, I have no idea how to fit it in anywhere without it being redundant. This way it is the "best" two weapon fighting weapon for strength users who don't take Dual Wielder.

Essentially, I don't like it, but it works.

[Kryx]

Hey Zman, I'm just going to take a brief look as I just got back from vacation and have some ideas I want to tackle.

GWM: There have been several threads lately that talk about making -5/+10 and its variations into a generic feature that is available to all weapons. Using -5/+10 or its variations once per turn wouldn't be fully balanced across classes most likely, but at least offering it to every build would bring a better baseline balance for this feature. I'd also suggest making it scale: use Disadvantage instead of -5 and Prof*2 instead of -10. If disadvantage is a problem then you can keep a static negative, though I'd heavily encourage not using -prof as a downward scaling feature would lose value as you level for most builds which doesn't make much sense.

"Varient Rules" should be "Variant Rules".
"Encumberance" should be "Encumbrance".

When I get more time I'll try to take a second look and see if I can steal a feat or two from you. :D

[Zman]

On the weapons and armor charts- a lot of this is really cool, very similar to things I've done myself. The rebalancing on the armors in particular is neat, since it would lead to a wider variety of equipment types in a game based on Dex values.

My one critique is on the improvements on the base damage on the mace. I can understand why- the real weapon is a monster in close combat and is notably better for dealing with armored enemies than more common bladed weaponry, and it really helps out melee clerics that aren't tempest or war. But from a balance perspective, this underrates martial weapons for any Strength-based sword n' board user by making it identical in damage capacity to anything from the martial list. The poor warhammer in particular can go weep softly in a corner, since it deals the same damage type too. The versatile trait isn't enough to make up for this, since it's rarely used as it is.

I don't think offering a side benefit to martial one-handers would break the game all that much if you'd prefer to keep the mace's d8. Maybe strip the side benefits off of the 'Feats' UA and make them bog standard for martial weaponry? Not the +1's, oh god no, but things like the OA buffs to swords. It would make using a longsword over a mace desirable if you can get it, and let the warhammer put down that Ben and Jerry's and rejoin the usable weapons list.

Thanks for taking a look. I tried to rebalance the weapons and armor list to open up a wider range of weapons and armors available.

The Mace... yep, the good old fashioned mace is kind of between a rock and a hard place. I agree that making it a d8 took some of the thunder away from the versatile Longsword, Warhammer, and Battleaxe. But, versatile is something that can come up in play, and the rest of my rules make using a Versatile weapon more viable. What is the other option? Leave it a d6 where it is inferior to spears, javelins, and quarterstaffs. Worse, as a d6 under stock 5e it is strictly inferior than spears, javelins, quartersaffs, and even handaxes.

At least this way it fills a niche on the table and isn't as good as a Martial weapon, but isn't strictly inferior to any other weapon. One goal of my rebalance of weapons is that no weapon is strictly inferior to a comparable weapon.

Is it perfect, nope. Is it a damn sight better than stock. Yep. Will those with access to only simple weapons be most often weilding maces... yet... unless they want reach and have the hand to spare for a spear, or are using dex and need a quarterstaff etc.

[strangebloke]

Equipment notes:
1. Armor tweaks in general are good. I like the simple structure of 'bad cheap option,' 'good expensive option 1,' 'good expensive option 2.'
2. A lot of these weapon options, while fine, seem redundant. How many 1-handed martial weapons that deal 1d8 do there need to be?
3. Warpick gets +2 damage from being wielded with two hands, and is also unplayable without digital dice.


Feat notes:

1. x/encounter abilities are wonky design. That's a conceit that's common in FATE, but less common in 5e. I don't like it.
2. Feat at first level is a good idea.
3. Heavy Armor Master does not need a buff. It needs to be reworked since its too good at 1st and too bad at 20th.
4. Medium armor Master is good.
5. PAM rework and GWM reworks are solid.
6. Powerful build is weird in conjunction with versatile weapon changes. Battleaxe deals only 0.5 less as a one handed weapon than the greataxe, and deals +.5 damage as a two-handed. It also explicitly lets you dual-wield two-handed weapons, which I assume is a mistake.
7. Lightning reflexes and defensive duelist have an awkward interaction in terms of verbage.
8. Crossbow expert is still weird as heck. It lets you cast ranged spells in melee and lets you duel-wield fricking crossbows. The 'make a ranged attack as a bonus action' is TWF at range, but with the fighting style built in.
9. Powerful persona and Intuitive Defense are very strong, and are therefore bad ideas. They lead to a homogenizing effect where everyone can have 16 AC or better at level 1 for a small investment.
10. Weapon Specialist should not be a half-feat IMO. It gives way too much for the cost of 1 STR or DEX.
11. Desperate Caster is really strong. A +16 to CON saves is possible to get if there's a paladin in the party. A +10 to CON isn't even that hard to get (+3 from pally, +3 from CON, +4 from prof) Even then a single level of exhaustion is not that big a deal, so you could pretty reliably get most of those spells off with no real downside.
12. Never a fan of feats that grant 1/rest abilities. Feels very fiddly and heavy on book-keeping.
13. 'Short but nimble' has a typo.(teh)

class notes:

1. bear totem doesn't need a nerf.
2. dueling fix is good.
3. GWF is still bad.
4. Unsure about monk changes. Haven't played many monks so I guess its not my business.
5. The druid changes are strange. Once again, exhaustion is a mechanic that makes me feel uneasy. I like the idea of long recovery after a tough day, but that's why I use the 1-week long rest rules.
6. rogue sneak attack touch is nice.
7. sorcerer stuff is nice.
8. Don't know much about warlocks, except that people complain about their effectiveness. Are these buffs enough?

Page 17 has a typo. 'Varient'

That's all for now.

[Unoriginal]

Good question. My thinking was that human toughness ranges up to 20 constitution, and effectively anything above a 20 constitution is supernaturally tough. Honestly how many things are "tougher" than a shambling corpse that is simply unconcerned with damage, poison, pain, or even dismemberment. Sure, I've accounted for a good amount of that "toughness" with resistances and undead fortitude, but it seemed fitting to make them supernaturally tough as well in a constitution sense. I did up the DC for undead fortitude correspondingly as well.

Same thinking for giving Skeletons a 20 Con, while Wights only get a 16 as they are closer to a bridge to undeath.

Same thinking for why adult Trolls have a Constitution of 20-22.


It boils down to mortal toughness being framed by the Constitution 20 cap and no resistences, and what does supernatural toughness really amount to ie potentially higher con, resistances, or other abilities such as regeneration or undead fortitude.

...but when an human has 20 CON, it means that they're incredibly tougher than most things, beyond the average human capacity. Same way how an human with 20 STR is stronger than an Ogre.

Giving that much CON to the undead just because they're undead doesn't make sense to me. A zombie is tough because of Undead Fortitude, not because they have more CON.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Thanks for taking a look. I tried to rebalance the weapons and armor list to open up a wider range of weapons and armors available.

The Mace... yep, the good old fashioned mace is kind of between a rock and a hard place. I agree that making it a d8 took some of the thunder away from the versatile Longsword, Warhammer, and Battleaxe. But, versatile is something that can come up in play, and the rest of my rules make using a Versatile weapon more viable. What is the other option? Leave it a d6 where it is inferior to spears, javelins, and quarterstaffs. Worse, as a d6 under stock 5e it is strictly inferior than spears, javelins, quartersaffs, and even handaxes.

At least this way it fills a niche on the table and isn't as good as a Martial weapon, but isn't strictly inferior to any other weapon. One goal of my rebalance of weapons is that no weapon is strictly inferior to a comparable weapon.

Is it perfect, nope. Is it a damn sight better than stock. Yep. Will those with access to only simple weapons be most often weilding maces... yet... unless they want reach and have the hand to spare for a spear, or are using dex and need a quarterstaff etc.
This has me thinking about the weapons list and differentiating everything in general. In practice, there's no real difference between a greatsword or a maul, though conceptually they're extremely different. I wouldn't want to screw with the damage dice (and there's only so much you could do that anyway), so that leaves any changes to be up to traits.

4e attempted something like this, but I'd rather not reintroduce martial powers. The feats UA had a couple good ideas, but the +1 to hit screws with bounded accuracy and it shouldn't take a feat to tell that these weapons do different things. Part of the problem is that resistances to specific physical damage sources (B/P or S, and not just all three) are extremely scarce. In fact, I don't think they exist in any official monster lists at all.

I'm not sure which would be easier- increasing the instances of specific B/P/S resistances or find good powers that don't screw with the flow of the game.

[Zman]

Hey Zman, I'm just going to take a brief look as I just got back from vacation and have some ideas I want to tackle.

GWM: There have been several threads lately that talk about making -5/+10 and its variations into a generic feature that is available to all weapons. Using -5/+10 or its variations once per turn wouldn't be fully balanced across classes most likely, but at least offering it to every build would bring a better baseline balance for this feature. I'd also suggest making it scale: use Disadvantage instead of -5 and Prof*2 instead of -10. If disadvantage is a problem then you can keep a static negative, though I'd heavily encourage not using -prof as a downward scaling feature would lose value as you level for most builds which doesn't make much sense.

"Varient Rules" should be "Variant Rules".
"Encumberance" should be "Encumbrance".

When I get more time I'll try to take a second look and see if I can steal a feat or two from you. :D

Thanks Kryx, I'd appreciate you giving things a read through.

Gahh, damn spelling. For some reason I struggle with some things like that, neutral too. No matter how many times I correct it when I'm on the fly I am bound to misspell it, especially when I'm typing somewhere without a spellchecker.

GWM- I recognize that making it a generic weapon feature does indeed eliminate some of the balance problems I have hesitations about implementing it for a number of reasons.

1. Making it a universal combat option is a "bigger" change.
2. Making it available to all weapons doesn't "feel" right on one regard, but it could make sense.
3. Reducing it to just once per turn, while not perfect, is significantly more balanced than stock GWM and significantly better and easy to administer is in my opinion a "better" fix. It is really quite close to stock, so people are familiar with it, and adding a once per turn restriction to it is quite easy to accomplish.

[Kryx]

2. Making it available to all weapons doesn't "feel" right on one regard, but it could make sense.
It is easily flavored as a "called shot" where a person takes aim at a specific body part. That actually alleviates that missing component for some people.

If you think it's too big I understand, though I think some of your rules touch on things more strongly than this would.


On that same topic: -10 is too strong for early levels. The brokeness of -5/+10 is quite muted again when the damage scales off double proficiency.

[Zman]

Equipment notes:
1. Armor tweaks in general are good. I like the simple structure of 'bad cheap option,' 'good expensive option 1,' 'good expensive option 2.'
2. A lot of these weapon options, while fine, seem redundant. How many 1-handed martial weapons that deal 1d8 do there need to be?
3. Warpick gets +2 damage from being wielded with two hands, and is also unplayable without digital dice.


Feat notes:

1. x/encounter abilities are wonky design. That's a conceit that's common in FATE, but less common in 5e. I don't like it.
2. Feat at first level is a good idea.
3. Heavy Armor Master does not need a buff. It needs to be reworked since its too good at 1st and too bad at 20th.
4. Medium armor Master is good.
5. PAM rework and GWM reworks are solid.
6. Powerful build is weird in conjunction with versatile weapon changes. Battleaxe deals only 0.5 less as a one handed weapon than the greataxe, and deals +.5 damage as a two-handed. It also explicitly lets you dual-wield two-handed weapons, which I assume is a mistake.
7. Lightning reflexes and defensive duelist have an awkward interaction in terms of verbage.
8. Crossbow expert is still weird as heck. It lets you cast ranged spells in melee and lets you duel-wield fricking crossbows. The 'make a ranged attack as a bonus action' is TWF at range, but with the fighting style built in.
9. Powerful persona and Intuitive Defense are very strong, and are therefore bad ideas. They lead to a homogenizing effect where everyone can have 16 AC or better at level 1 for a small investment.
10. Weapon Specialist should not be a half-feat IMO. It gives way too much for the cost of 1 STR or DEX.
11. Desperate Caster is really strong. A +16 to CON saves is possible to get if there's a paladin in the party. A +10 to CON isn't even that hard to get (+3 from pally, +3 from CON, +4 from prof) Even then a single level of exhaustion is not that big a deal, so you could pretty reliably get most of those spells off with no real downside.
12. Never a fan of feats that grant 1/rest abilities. Feels very fiddly and heavy on book-keeping.
13. 'Short but nimble' has a typo.(teh)

class notes:

1. bear totem doesn't need a nerf.
2. dueling fix is good.
3. GWF is still bad.
4. Unsure about monk changes. Haven't played many monks so I guess its not my business.
5. The druid changes are strange. Once again, exhaustion is a mechanic that makes me feel uneasy. I like the idea of long recovery after a tough day, but that's why I use the 1-week long rest rules.
6. rogue sneak attack touch is nice.
7. sorcerer stuff is nice.
8. Don't know much about warlocks, except that people complain about their effectiveness. Are these buffs enough?

Page 17 has a typo. 'Varient'

That's all for now.

Firstly, thanks for the detailed response. I'll try and respond in as much detail as I can.

Equipment
1. Thanks, I feel like this strikes a much better balance point for armor and gives Medium armor a much better place to sit and its own niche.
2. True, I tried to leave the original table mostly intact. I did combine a few options that were completely redundant. I can see having a d8 weapon for each damage type in martial, and having something finessable like the rapier around. Didn't want to upset the chart too much, just nudge it towards balance and fill missing niches.
3. The book tells us how to roll a d3 ie roll a d6 1-2 is a 1 etc. It isn't perect, but nestles itself in a nice place damageswise despite less than ideal mechanics. I considered just combining it with the war pick, but then it doesn't fill the strength two weapon fighting niche to seperate str from dex in twf.

Feats
1. Oh, Intimidating presence uses the encounter mechanic. I'll just change it to a once per target and be done with it.
2. Thanks, removing Variant human and adding 1st level feat for all seems right for more diverse characters, and isn't much stronger than Variant human was on its lonesome.
3. I've been considering just removing the DR3 as its a clunky legacy throwback. I think I'm going to replace it with a reaction ability... but haven't decided what that will be. I've considered a reaction for resistance to a bludgeoning/slashing/piercing attack, but that is too good. Inspiration just struck me, and I'm thinking reaction to reduce damage from one nonmagical bludgeoning/slashing/piercing attack by 1d6. It'll be interactive, remove a legacy throwback, and not nearly as powerful as it was at low levels.
4. Thanks, I agree.
5. Yep, it curbs most of the problems with them. I like opening them up to spears etc.
6. Battleaxe vs Greataxe comparison is more a problem with the Greataxe being a pain. It is worded a bit clunky and could be cleaned up a bit, but its arguable if it explicitly allows TWFing two handers. I will clean up its language and make that more clear. Essentially it lets you up the damage die of versatile weapons dealing their full damage one handed... but without also having the Dual Wielder feat you can't be TWFing with d10s, only d8s. In many ways when used for two weapon fighting Powerful Build is worse the Dual Wielder, but if you want to play the mountain and monkey grip a maul, go ahead.
7. I need to clean up the language, I added it to make it clear Defensive Duelist can be used with Lightning Reflexes. I made the language of Lightning Reflexes specific to avoid abuse with PAM and Sentinal, making the extra AoO specifically and AoO.
8. It is, thanks for pointing out I hadn't addressed it yet. I need to specify its ignoring disadvantage for point blank shooting is crossbows only. And I should specify you need a free hand to fire a crossbow, but the designers obviously wanted someone to be able to fire the hand crossbow with their offhand while doing other things.
9. AC 16 for a small in vestment at level 1? That means having a 16 dex and a 16 Cha or Wis and spending their level 1 feat on Powerful Persona or Intuitive Defense. There is a significant opportunity cost involved with that feat choice, and a 16 dex is not a small investment unless you are using a very generous stat method. Even that 16 dex is still AC15 in Studded Leather, or AC 16 with Mage Armor. Dragon Sorcerers with 16 Dex start with AC 16. A Lore Bard with 14 Dex can take the feat Moderately Armored for Scale and a Shield and have AC 18 for far less investment, and for less investment his AC 19 with Half Plate. To max out AC at 20 you need significant investment, likely two ASIs in a primary stat, and three ASIs in a secondary or tertiary stat at the opportunity cost of useful feats.
10. Really? Most classes get Simple Weapon Proficiency and Martial weapons is usually only about ~+1 damage per attack. I honestly don't think that is worth that much outside of niche builds. Making it a half feat and giving a +1 feels much better than the old Weapon Master feat.
11. Sure, if someone spends a ton of resources to make their Constitution Saves unbelievably high they get another spell slot for each spell level with a very minor chance of exhaustion, but is that broken? For all the work put into that it seems worth it. It doesn't grant above a 5th level slot, and action economy is still being obeyed. With my variant rules on exhaustion dropping to 0 exhaustion is more of a concern. The vast majority of the time the spellcaster will be taking a moderate risk of exhaustion when they get desperate enough to use one of those slots.
12. Yeah, it is a bit of book keeping, but there are many such abilities in 5e so when in Rome...
13. Oh, I'm sure there are more typos where that one came from! Damn fat fingers...


Class

1. No, but this "feels" right. Soulrot, Soulfire, and psychic damage shouldn't be shrugged off like fire, or bludgeoning etc. It isn't something that will come up that often, and lets necrotic and radient feel special.
2. Thanks, versatile weapons need their niche. This was the least I could do to help them.
3. Bad as in not the numerical advantage of Dueling, but better in that it no longer heavily favors Greatswords over Greataxes and other weapons, not it gives roughly and equal boost across the board instead of just plain being better for Greatswords and Mauls. At least this gives the Greataxe a little break.
4. Monks needed help in the top half of the level range. Damage wise they were the works martial like class around. Most of these changes were definitely needed, and in some ways more might have been as well. This set of fixes followed the ", simple and better not perfect" mantra.
5. Yeah, if you're using a one week long rest exhaustion will feel different, but IMO exhaustion is a good balancing mechanic that when coupled with my exhaustion on 0hp, really makes characters consider what they are doing, and risking exaustion is a real risk. In my current campaign we've had people going through the days and adventuring with a level of exhaustion and really feeling it when initiative comes around, or they are on watch, etc.
6. I feel that is RAI, and we shouldn't be looking for ways for Rogues to deal sneak attack damage multiple times per round, it was obviously balanced around once per turn.
7. Thanks, I feel it really gives them the nudge they need. Even the 2 sorcery points on a short rest is little, but it feels like enough haha.
8. There are nerfs there too. It nerfed agonizing and repelling blast which were essentially too good and annoying to have in play, while simultaneously buffing much of the rest of the class and made a bladelock far more viable. Given the other feat support I have in the game Warlocks become a much more vialbe and dynamic class. Had one in my last campaign for a while and it held up well.


Really, truly thank you for the detailed comments. I'll work on incorporating some of that, and rethink the rest.


...but when an human has 20 CON, it means that they're incredibly tougher than most things, beyond the average human capacity. Same way how an human with 20 STR is stronger than an Ogre.

Giving that much CON to the undead just because they're undead doesn't make sense to me. A zombie is tough because of Undead Fortitude, not because they have more CON.

This is really a matter of personal preference. I could say no longer being a living feeling creature and having dead flesh instead of living makes you tougher. I could have left undead fortitiute at DC5+ and kept a zombie's constitution lower and giving it another hit dice and it would have been the same. I felt this was better. Mechanically, it doesn't hurt anything.

Why not lower zombie Con down to 10 or 12 like most humans, I mean if being a zombie doesn't increase their constitution, why up it to 16?

An Ogre is a living mortal thing, its strong because its big, not really supernatural.


This has me thinking about the weapons list and differentiating everything in general. In practice, there's no real difference between a greatsword or a maul, though conceptually they're extremely different. I wouldn't want to screw with the damage dice (and there's only so much you could do that anyway), so that leaves any changes to be up to traits.

4e attempted something like this, but I'd rather not reintroduce martial powers. The feats UA had a couple good ideas, but the +1 to hit screws with bounded accuracy and it shouldn't take a feat to tell that these weapons do different things. Part of the problem is that resistances to specific physical damage sources (B/P or S, and not just all three) are extremely scarce. In fact, I don't think they exist in any official monster lists at all.

I'm not sure which would be easier- increasing the instances of specific B/P/S resistances or find good powers that don't screw with the flow of the game.

Yeah, I see what you mean. If you look at my monster list I'm using more damage type resistances in some places and plan to in more. They exist officially in the skeleton, its vulnerable to bludgeoning. I plan on adding it to more when appropriate. But, conceptually I think having the damage type diffrences is good even if it is often redundant and doesn't accomplish much. When we kill the big bad, I want a sword or an axe or a maul, not just reflavor of the month two handed great weapon that deals 2d6... I mean that is the same reason the Battleaxe and the Longsword are differentiated, its because players want an axe and a sword to be seperate.


It is easily flavored as a "called shot" where a person takes aim at a specific body part. That actually alleviates that missing component for some people.

If you think it's too big I understand, though I think some of your rules touch on things more strongly than this would.


On that same topic: -10 is too strong for early levels. The brokeness of -5/+10 is quite muted again when the damage scales off double proficiency.

Yeah, a called shot mechanic works. I agree, some of my changes are stronger than this change, but usually that is for a reason. One concern I have is an overall elevation in power level among all martials with no resource cost.

I'm not saying your idea doesn't accomplish your goals, just that my solution greatly alleviates the problems the -5/+10 causes, and does so with a much smaller splash. I'm not saying your idea doesn't work, or if I was redesigning the whole system and making 6e that I wouldn't heavily consider it.

[ZorroGames]

I have, just because it seems easier to step up/down dice in certain wargames that use the mechanic; D3, D5, D7, D9, etc., so while I am unlikely to use your rules the "odd" dice mechanic is easily solvable with a quick order to the UK or USA web stores that carry them.

[strangebloke]

9. AC 16 for a small in vestment at level 1? That means having a 16 dex and a 16 Cha or Wis and spending their level 1 feat on Powerful Persona or Intuitive Defense. There is a significant opportunity cost involved with that feat choice, and a 16 dex is not a small investment unless you are using a very generous stat method. Even that 16 dex is still AC15 in Studded Leather, or AC 16 with Mage Armor. Dragon Sorcerers with 16 Dex start with AC 16. A Lore Bard with 14 Dex can take the feat Moderately Armored for Scale and a Shield and have AC 18 for far less investment, and for less investment his AC 19 with Half Plate. To max out AC at 20 you need significant investment, likely two ASIs in a primary stat, and three ASIs in a secondary or tertiary stat at the opportunity cost of useful feats.
10. Really? Most classes get Simple Weapon Proficiency and Martial weapons is usually only about ~+1 damage per attack. I honestly don't think that is worth that much outside of niche builds. Making it a half feat and giving a +1 feels much better than the old Weapon Master feat.
11. Sure, if someone spends a ton of resources to make their Constitution Saves unbelievably high they get another spell slot for each spell level with a very minor chance of exhaustion, but is that broken? For all the work put into that it seems worth it. It doesn't grant above a 5th level slot, and action economy is still being obeyed. With my variant rules on exhaustion dropping to 0 exhaustion is more of a concern. The vast majority of the time the spellcaster will be taking a moderate risk of exhaustion when they get desperate enough to use one of those slots.
12. Yeah, it is a bit of book keeping, but there are many such abilities in 5e so when in Rome...

Since these were the points we disagreed on :P
9. I guess you're pretty much right. Giving monk class features to non-monks just feels a bit icky. Casters are pretty SAD already, which means that they are well-suited to pick up these feats and remove one of their core weaknesses. Then again, now they have more feat options...
10. Once again, yeah, probably right. The fighting styles are a much bigger deal than the proficiencies.
11. My thought was that it feels strong when you're at, say, level 9 and you have two fifth level spells and everyone else has one. Or when you're at 7th and have an extra firewall. Top-level spells typically trivialize encounters. If you're only having six encounters a day, trivializing one more is a big deal. The investment isn't actually that big, since pumping CON saves as high as possible is something many casters do anyway. I don't know, if you're taking Resilient (CON) as well as this, as well as using a paladin class feature... I guess that's a pretty huge investment.
12.Sigh... I know.

[Kuulvheysoon]

My one critique is on the improvements on the base damage on the mace. I can understand why- the real weapon is a monster in close combat and is notably better for dealing with armored enemies than more common bladed weaponry, and it really helps out melee clerics that aren't tempest or war. But from a balance perspective, this underrates martial weapons for any Strength-based sword n' board user by making it identical in damage capacity to anything from the martial list. The poor warhammer in particular can go weep softly in a corner, since it deals the same damage type too. The versatile trait isn't enough to make up for this, since it's rarely used as it is.

I don't think offering a side benefit to martial one-handers would break the game all that much if you'd prefer to keep the mace's d8. Maybe strip the side benefits off of the 'Feats' UA and make them bog standard for martial weaponry? Not the +1's, oh god no, but things like the OA buffs to swords. It would make using a longsword over a mace desirable if you can get it, and let the warhammer put down that Ben and Jerry's and rejoin the usable weapons list.


The Mace... yep, the good old fashioned mace is kind of between a rock and a hard place. I agree that making it a d8 took some of the thunder away from the versatile Longsword, Warhammer, and Battleaxe. But, versatile is something that can come up in play, and the rest of my rules make using a Versatile weapon more viable. What is the other option? Leave it a d6 where it is inferior to spears, javelins, and quarterstaffs. Worse, as a d6 under stock 5e it is strictly inferior than spears, javelins, quartersaffs, and even handaxes.

At least this way it fills a niche on the table and isn't as good as a Martial weapon, but isn't strictly inferior to any other weapon. One goal of my rebalance of weapons is that no weapon is strictly inferior to a comparable weapon.


GWM: There have been several threads lately that talk about making -5/+10 and its variations into a generic feature that is available to all weapons. Using -5/+10 or its variations once per turn wouldn't be fully balanced across classes most likely, but at least offering it to every build would bring a better baseline balance for this feature. I'd also suggest making it scale: use Disadvantage instead of -5 and Prof*2 instead of -10. If disadvantage is a problem then you can keep a static negative, though I'd heavily encourage not using -prof as a downward scaling feature would lose value as you level for most builds which doesn't make much sense.


This has me thinking about the weapons list and differentiating everything in general. In practice, there's no real difference between a greatsword or a maul, though conceptually they're extremely different. I wouldn't want to screw with the damage dice (and there's only so much you could do that anyway), so that leaves any changes to be up to traits.

4e attempted something like this, but I'd rather not reintroduce martial powers. The feats UA had a couple good ideas, but the +1 to hit screws with bounded accuracy and it shouldn't take a feat to tell that these weapons do different things. Part of the problem is that resistances to specific physical damage sources (B/P or S, and not just all three) are extremely scarce. In fact, I don't think they exist in any official monster lists at all.

I'm not sure which would be easier- increasing the instances of specific B/P/S resistances or find good powers that don't screw with the flow of the game.

So something I was thinking about on the walk home: what if you took the -5/+10 mechanic out of the relevant feats and instead imposed a system-wide ability to do -prof./+2*prof., but limited it to martial weapons? Really give the martial weapons a true distinction from the simple weapons besides a couple of extra damage points? Then you can keep increased damage die sizes, and you won't have to fear about the martial ones being outclassed, eg. mace vs warhammer.

Did you purposely not include base (bludgeoning) shield bash damage on your weapon table? Not saying that that's a bad thing, I was just curious.

Are you going to be implementing a special materials section? I've got some very minor special material rules that I use at my own table (I'm a 3.5e grognard, what can I say?). Just little things, like mithral armor not having a strength requirement and the like.

[Zman]

Since these were the points we disagreed on :P
9. I guess you're pretty much right. Giving monk class features to non-monks just feels a bit icky. Casters are pretty SAD already, which means that they are well-suited to pick up these feats and remove one of their core weaknesses. Then again, now they have more feat options...
10. Once again, yeah, probably right. The fighting styles are a much bigger deal than the proficiencies.
11. My thought was that it feels strong when you're at, say, level 9 and you have two fifth level spells and everyone else has one. Or when you're at 7th and have an extra firewall. Top-level spells typically trivialize encounters. If you're only having six encounters a day, trivializing one more is a big deal. The investment isn't actually that big, since pumping CON saves as high as possible is something many casters do anyway. I don't know, if you're taking Resilient (CON) as well as this, as well as using a paladin class feature... I guess that's a pretty huge investment.
12.Sigh... I know.

Appreciate the followup.

9. Oh, I've gone over these a couple of times in my head, haha. But thats the beauty of them, if a Caster takes one of these three feats then they are no longer SAD, they become MAD, because now they need not only their primary Int, Wis, or Cha, but also need more Dex. Dex 14 and a 20 Cha with Powerful Persona is only an AC17. A 14 Dex and medium armor proficiency hits AC19 with a shield for less resource investment. I know it feels bad giving out a monk class feature, but I did it with fighters and fighting styles. And it gives that pacifist priest you've always wanted to play becomes viable, no need to dip and hadwave away his martial arts.
10. I value a fighting style as a half feat, its less than half of what you'd get dipping fighter etc.
11. Sure it is strong, but so are many feats that are doing things a lot more than once per day when you're reusing that big spell. Not to mention it loses its values beyond level 9. You pretty much picked the feats pinacle. It is quite a bit weaker before that and after that, it only really hits its stride at the mid levels. And does take a lot to mitigate the risks. 1 Feat Desperate Spellcaster. 2 Feats bumping casting stat. 1 feat Warcaster. 1 Feat Resilient Con. That is five feats by my count, and most games will only have 3 feats at that point. And that is if you're sticking with that 14 Con or so you started the game with.
12. Personally I'm ok with them, but they can get annoying.

[Kryx]

just that my solution greatly alleviates the problems the -5/+10 causes
I don't believe it does. The feature is still very problematic at early levels.

By your own "no D&D 6.0" your charge change and a myriad of other changes are just as impactful if not more than the change I'm suggesting. I know you want smaller changes, but that reasoning seems to be being used as an excuse to avoid a change that you personally don't like (which is totally fine).

I'll provide a link to the discussion about making it a default feature (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533566-So-wait-Feats-OR-attribute-increase&p=22303785#post22303785) and then let the issue drop if you do not care to investigate that thread or speak on it further.



what if you took the -5/+10 mechanic out of the relevant feats and instead imposed a system-wide ability to do -prof./+2*prof., but limited it to martial weapons?
This is what I was suggesting (minus the martial weapons and the to hit scaling negatively as you level which is not a good feature for the vast majorty of builds).

[Zman]

I have, just because it seems easier to step up/down dice in certain wargames that use the mechanic; D3, D5, D7, D9, etc., so while I am unlikely to use your rules the "odd" dice mechanic is easily solvable with a quick order to the UK or USA web stores that carry them.

Yeah, if you really wanted to run around wielding war picks a magic marker and a dice works, or you can order actual d3s.




So something I was thinking about on the walk home: what if you took the -5/+10 mechanic out of the relevant feats and instead imposed a system-wide ability to do -prof./+2*prof., but limited it to martial weapons? Really give the martial weapons a true distinction from the simple weapons besides a couple of extra damage points? Then you can keep increased damage die sizes, and you won't have to fear about the martial ones being outclassed, eg. mace vs warhammer.

Did you purposely not include base (bludgeoning) shield bash damage on your weapon table? Not saying that that's a bad thing, I was just curious.

Are you going to be implementing a special materials section? I've got some very minor special material rules that I use at my own table (I'm a 3.5e grognard, what can I say?). Just little things, like mithral armor not having a strength requirement and the like.

I still don't like how damage output is affected when it can be applied to every attack. It has situation damage spikes that are extremely high ie multiple attacks and advantage.

I'd be far more amenable to system wide "called shot" for -prof/+2xprof if it was still limited to only one attack per turn and probably not usable on AoOs.

Purposefully, not really. I didn't want a normal buckler to require martial weapon proficiency... and didn't see the bludgeoning from a buckler in the same light as one actually meant to be weaponized. So, I guess it was mostly intentional.

Special Materials? Well, I do use some, but I treat them as magic items in their own right. So, if I every get around to putting all my magic items and item revisions to paper like my MM Expansion, they'll be right in there.

[Zman]

I don't believe it does. The feature is still very problematic at early levels.

By your own "no D&D 6.0" your charge change and a myriad of other changes are just as impactful if not more than the change I'm suggesting. I know you want smaller changes, but that reasoning seems to be being used as an excuse to avoid a change that you personally don't like (which is totally fine).

I'll provide a link to the discussion about making it a default feature (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533566-So-wait-Feats-OR-attribute-increase&p=22303785#post22303785) and then let the issue drop if you do not care to investigate that thread or speak on it further.


Can you quantify "very problematic"? It is still "better" than stock since the crit/kill BA attack can't utilize it. Sure, there is a period around levels 2-4 where Reckless Attack, Vow of Emnity, make that one attack per round better than the rest, but the difference is at least muted and the spike damage situations ie Berserker Reckless attacking are definitely better. Archery is "better" when combined with it now. PAM can't abuse it. One Extra attack hits the tables its balancing effects are felt to a greater effect. When its only one attack people feel the gamble, and people's risk aversion plays a big role as well.

One big concern I have about making it a default feature is that it does not solve the spike damage situations that advantage creates.

Its the better, not perfect argument.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Read over the rest of it. Overall, your tweaks make for a more consistent game than base 5e. There's a couple good ideas I might snatch. A lot of it's up to taste, but I don't consider that a bad thing.

E10 is an interesting twist on leveling mechanics. It's more of a dedication than simply using your other rules, but the math appears sound and it caters to a particular taste. Again, not a bad thing. I may even have a campaign idea rattling around that would be better served this way than by standard leveling. I think it would especially fit in with an Eberron game.

[Zman]

Read over the rest of it. Overall, your tweaks make for a more consistent game than base 5e. There's a couple good ideas I might snatch. A lot of it's up to taste, but I don't consider that a bad thing.

E10 is an interesting twist on leveling mechanics. It's more of a dedication than simply using your other rules, but the math appears sound and it caters to a particular taste. Again, not a bad thing. I may even have a campaign idea rattling around that would be better served this way than by standard leveling. I think it would especially fit in with an Eberron game.

Thanks for giving a once over. Stealing an idea is the sincerest form of flattery, haha.

E10 is a different animal, I'm currently running a game using the rules and man, it's going extremely well. It's capturing the kind of game I want, and really digs into what I consider the sweet spot while offering consistent and regular progression. And the characters are rich, varied, and far from cookie cutter. The biggest problem i forsee for my E10 is if someone used a method of stats generation that gives people too good of stats. Though not completely seemless, I feel this method of multiclassing offers much compared to stock 5e.

[Zman]

Change Log:

Tweaks Change Log:
V2.0
8-24-17 Intimidating Presense removed 1/encounter mechanic, now can only target a creature once and failure immunizes everyone.
8-24-17 Removed Heavy Armor Master's clunky legacy dr3 and replaced it with a reaction for d6 reduction from a single attack.
8-24-27 Cleaned up Powerful Build's language
8-24-17 Cleaned up Defensive Duelist/Lighting Reflexes interaction language
8-24-27 Cleaned up part of Crossbow Expert, no more point blank spellcasting.


Weapons and Armor Change Log:


E10 Variant Change Log:


Monster Manual Expansion Change Log:
V1.0
8-24-17 Fixed Spelling Errors.
8-24-17 Fixed Oni damage in different sizes and adjusted CR to 11.


Updated the PDFs.

Made a couple of changes based upon suggestions. Some are merely spelling corrections, a couple feat tweaks, and fixed the Oni.

I'm going to try post periodic change log updates like this highligting what has changed since the last one.

[Kuulvheysoon]

So I've had a bit more time to look through this, and I've got some opinions. WARNING - I skip over some stuff in the interests of saving time on my end - if interested, I can go more in depth with my thoughts.

I actually like most of these changes here, especially to the Human and the Half-Elf (the latter more so). In my current campaign of 6, three of the characters are half-elves, and while I'm sure that that's partly because they're CHA-heavy classes (Paladin, Sorceror and Warlock), considering that I've opened all published material for them to choose from, and they all chose half-elf?
Something's up. The human change is a good one, and it really brings out that they're supposed to be the "diverse" one.

You know how I feel about your Dragonborn changes (hint - I make the same change), but why the nerf to Half-Orcs? Is it just to make them match up with the decreased darkvision for half-elves?

I've missed the benefits of increased Intelligence at character creation, and I like seeing it brought back here.

Not much to say here, it's a big 'ole dump of feats. I like some of them, I dislike others. It seems a little unnecessary to limit Heavy Armor Master to reducing non-magic damage,
though. Your Reaction is a valuable thing, and you're only lowering the damage by 1d6 anyways.

Elven Alacrity only has one "L", not 2.

For a lot of the feats that grant spells (Drow Magic in particular), you should probably specify if they're cast using the lowest spell slot possible, or language to that effect.

Orcish Fury has two misspelt words; Immediately and Relentless. Do you really need to specify "a simple or martial weapon"? Is there some sort of abuse potential there that I'm not seeing? Also,
was your intent to allow ranged and/or attacks as your Reaction after you use your Relentless Endurance trait?

Barbarian changes make perfect sense to me, except for the change to Bear Totem. I understand that Necrotic/Radiant aren't common damage types either, but the point of Bear is to be as tough as possible.

I also use the same tweak to your first Wild Shape tweak, and the second is pretty interesting (in a good way).

Fighter-wise, I've actually changed all Fighting Styles into Fighting Stances, able to be swapped out after a long rest, similar to the Warblade abilities in 3.5e. I like the style changes, though.

I like monk getting a third attack - it just fits somehow.

The cap on Divine Smite is definitely a good idea, but you might want to toss in additional language about dealing extra damage to fiends/undead - is that counted in the 6d8 maximum? how about when you hit 11th level and get the +1d8 bonus regardless? Maybe something along the lines of "+1d8 damage per spell slot expended, to a maximum of +6d8 with a 5th level slot"?

Whirlwind Attack buff was sorely needed. Which version of the Ranger are you assuming here?

Sorceror buffs are always appreciated, and this would give them a better reason to be happy with short rests (as I can confirm that sorcerors don't give a crap about short rests ATM).

For Pact of the Blade, maybe specify that the 3 hit points granted that level are granted "1 additional hit point for each Warlock level", make it more like the Draconic Sorceror featuer in language? I'm not at all sure about the buff to Pact of the Tome; I feel as if that's already a pretty powerful pact. Repelling blast nerf was kinda needed, and I houserule the same on Agonizing blast.

I like the Breather, and I've been tossing around a notion in my head to have long rests only restore half of your total hitpoints, but have it restore all of your Hit Die. My group tends to prefer the 5 minute workday, and they're very resistant to change, especially the sorceror and ranger.

I've got to run now, but I'll cut through the rest of it later, man.

[Zman]

So I've had a bit more time to look through this, and I've got some opinions. WARNING - I skip over some stuff in the interests of saving time on my end - if interested, I can go more in depth with my thoughts.

I actually like most of these changes here, especially to the Human and the Half-Elf (the latter more so). In my current campaign of 6, three of the characters are half-elves, and while I'm sure that that's partly because they're CHA-heavy classes (Paladin, Sorceror and Warlock), considering that I've opened all published material for them to choose from, and they all chose half-elf?
Something's up. The human change is a good one, and it really brings out that they're supposed to be the "diverse" one.

You know how I feel about your Dragonborn changes (hint - I make the same change), but why the nerf to Half-Orcs? Is it just to make them match up with the decreased darkvision for half-elves?

I've missed the benefits of increased Intelligence at character creation, and I like seeing it brought back here.

Not much to say here, it's a big 'ole dump of feats. I like some of them, I dislike others. It seems a little unnecessary to limit Heavy Armor Master to reducing non-magic damage,
though. Your Reaction is a valuable thing, and you're only lowering the damage by 1d6 anyways.

Elven Alacrity only has one "L", not 2.

For a lot of the feats that grant spells (Drow Magic in particular), you should probably specify if they're cast using the lowest spell slot possible, or language to that effect.

Orcish Fury has two misspelt words; Immediately and Relentless. Do you really need to specify "a simple or martial weapon"? Is there some sort of abuse potential there that I'm not seeing? Also,
was your intent to allow ranged and/or attacks as your Reaction after you use your Relentless Endurance trait?

Barbarian changes make perfect sense to me, except for the change to Bear Totem. I understand that Necrotic/Radiant aren't common damage types either, but the point of Bear is to be as tough as possible.

I also use the same tweak to your first Wild Shape tweak, and the second is pretty interesting (in a good way).

Fighter-wise, I've actually changed all Fighting Styles into Fighting Stances, able to be swapped out after a long rest, similar to the Warblade abilities in 3.5e. I like the style changes, though.

I like monk getting a third attack - it just fits somehow.

The cap on Divine Smite is definitely a good idea, but you might want to toss in additional language about dealing extra damage to fiends/undead - is that counted in the 6d8 maximum? how about when you hit 11th level and get the +1d8 bonus regardless? Maybe something along the lines of "+1d8 damage per spell slot expended, to a maximum of +6d8 with a 5th level slot"?

Whirlwind Attack buff was sorely needed. Which version of the Ranger are you assuming here?

Sorceror buffs are always appreciated, and this would give them a better reason to be happy with short rests (as I can confirm that sorcerors don't give a crap about short rests ATM).

For Pact of the Blade, maybe specify that the 3 hit points granted that level are granted "1 additional hit point for each Warlock level", make it more like the Draconic Sorceror featuer in language? I'm not at all sure about the buff to Pact of the Tome; I feel as if that's already a pretty powerful pact. Repelling blast nerf was kinda needed, and I houserule the same on Agonizing blast.

I like the Breather, and I've been tossing around a notion in my head to have long rests only restore half of your total hitpoints, but have it restore all of your Hit Die. My group tends to prefer the 5 minute workday, and they're very resistant to change, especially the sorceror and ranger.

I've got to run now, but I'll cut through the rest of it later, man.


Hey Kuul, thanks for putting in the time and effort to go over my work, it is greatly appreciated.

Races
Glad you like them. Half Elves were just a little too good, now they'll still be the go to Charisma based class, but lose a little bit of the extras that were over the top, and they definitely fill in some of the gaps in Human. Plain human was was pretty bad and Variant Human was arguable the best race in the game. Now everyoen gets a feat like Variant Human, and regular humans fit the human variety and flexibility stereotype.

I like the Dragonborn fixes as well, the BA breath weapon is pretty potent now, and an ability that will see use, especially at lower levels. Our Dragonborn Barbarian loves it and really debates about entering rage or breathing fire.

Yeah, gave half orcs the same vision treatment as the half elves. With Dragonborn having darkvisino too it really was the default, and added a different teir that benefits from torches. Blind humans just gets old.


Feat
It definitely is a big ole feat dump, but it itself is a large part of my "tweaks" and has a pretty big impact on play.

Heavy Armor Master: I kept the nonmagic qualifier that already existed, just replaced the legacy DR3 to help balance out its dex buff. I think keeping the nonmagic qualifier is good as it gives those monsters with magic attacks a bit more use.

I'll fix that typo, thanks.

Do I need to specify that? I mean, it has a spell level, and when it is being cast without a slot there is no reason to think it can be upcast. I don't think the UA specified as much either.

Fixed those typos too, thanks. Pretty sure UA listed those requirements. I can't think of an abuse, but can't think of a reason why having them is necessarily bad. "Weapon attack" would work just as well I suppose. Yes, that was my intent, when someone would put you down and trigger it, you don't go down, but instead attack back as a reaction.

Classes
Bear Totem: Resisting soulrot and soulfire just doesn't feel right here. Not to mention how popular bear totem is. IMO it is a flavorfull minor nerf that just makes sense. They resistall all the physical damage, but not things that are more than physical.

Glad you like the wildshape tweak. Moon druid in my current campaign and I'm pretty pleased with how it is operating right now.

I kept the fighting styles, just tweaked them for better balance. I addressed the limited availability of them by offering feat access to them.

Monk needed the 3rd attack. It really didn't see the classic power jump at 11th level as was severely lacking.

Paladin. Do I need to specify that? It does say it can grant up to 6d8, then after ie situationally overriding for an extra 1d8. Ad Improved Divine Smite is a separate ability and isn't affected.

I'm using the book Ranger as the UA isn't quite official. I tried to keep my tweaks to official content and only added the racial feats because I thought overall they were decent and more feats were needed.

Yeah, Sorcerer really needed that. Not sure it was quite enough honestly, but for now it is a solid step in the right direction. +Cha Mod spells known is the real kicker.

Warlock, I tried to mimic the language of Dragon Sorcerer for the additional hit points, and had to specify 3 as you get it at 3rd level. Glad you feel the same about Repelling and especially Agonizing Blast, it was a point on contention with others when I first implemented it. Path of Tome, its just spells known, I mean the class is still heavily limited by spell slots, giving them versatility isn't a bad thing especially now that Eldritch Blast is less of a go to.

Resting. I'm a big fan of the "Breather" and the 5 min Short rest(limit 2). It narratively really helps the day flow and helps you give the short rest classes the short rests they require, without it feeling forced or having to try and justify an hour to short rest in the middle of a dungeon, or more rapid fire encounters. I definitely though DMing make the 5minute work day hard to do on but occasion. Sometimes I really stretch resources to keep my players on their toes knowing that they need to be conscious of resources.


Thanks again! Feel free to give me any more feedback you can. I'll get those typos fixed and think a little harder on the points you brought up, but it seems like we are mostly on the same page.

Edit: Apologize for the kind of crappy formatting and spelling errors, didn't have a ton of time to spend on the response.

[acemcjack]

Change Log:

Tweaks Change Log:
V2.0
8-24-17 Intimidating Presense removed 1/encounter mechanic, now can only target a creature once and failure immunizes everyone.
8-24-17 Removed Heavy Armor Master's clunky legacy dr3 and replaced it with a reaction for d6 reduction from a single attack.
8-24-27 Cleaned up Powerful Build's language
8-24-17 Cleaned up Defensive Duelist/Lighting Reflexes interaction language
8-24-27 Cleaned up part of Crossbow Expert, no more point blank spellcasting.


Weapons and Armor Change Log:


E10 Variant Change Log:


Monster Manual Expansion Change Log:
V1.0
8-24-17 Fixed Spelling Errors.
8-24-17 Fixed Oni damage in different sizes and adjusted CR to 11.


Updated the PDFs.

Made a couple of changes based upon suggestions. Some are merely spelling corrections, a couple feat tweaks, and fixed the Oni.

I'm going to try post periodic change log updates like this highligting what has changed since the last one.

Hi!
First of all, I have to say the I really like your tweaks, and that our group has incorporated them into our gameplay.

Two comments:
1. Regarding the changes you made to the Heavy Armor Master feat in the recent update, I feel the reaction doesn't make much sense fluff-wise, as I feel it shouldn't really be tied to something the character actually does.
Personally, I'd do away with all the changes and just leave it as it was originally. Alternatively, I'd scale up the die at higher levels, seeing how an average reduction of 3.5 hp a round isn't much of a benefit at higher levels. Especially when you have to waste a precious reaction for it.
2. Regarding the Close Quarters Archer feat: It's not entirely clear from the wording whether the first feature -

Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls nor does a target benefit from cover for being engaged in melee.
means that your target doesn't benefit from cover for being in melee only if you are 5 feet from him, or at any distance (similar to the Sharpshooter feat). Could you clarify your intent here?

Thanks!

[Zman]

Hi!
First of all, I have to say the I really like your tweaks, and that our group has incorporated them into our gameplay.

Two comments:
1. Regarding the changes you made to the Heavy Armor Master feat in the recent update, I feel the reaction doesn't make much sense fluff-wise, as I feel it shouldn't really be tied to something the character actually does.
Personally, I'd do away with all the changes and just leave it as it was originally. Alternatively, I'd scale up the die at higher levels, seeing how an average reduction of 3.5 hp a round isn't much of a benefit at higher levels. Especially when you have to waste a precious reaction for it.
2. Regarding the Close Quarters Archer feat: It's not entirely clear from the wording whether the first feature -

means that your target doesn't benefit from cover for being in melee only if you are 5 feet from him, or at any distance (similar to the Sharpshooter feat). Could you clarify your intent here?

Thanks!

Thanks for commenting and I'm glad your group is putting my Tweaks to good use. I'd welcome any and all feedback your group has for me.

1. Not sure I agree with your fluff argument, using your reaction to help reduce damage from an attack seems fluff fitting. The problem is the DR3 was a legacy throwback, as that kind of DR just doesn't exist in 5e and doesn't fit, so it needs something else instead. Also, it needed to be removed and toned down as the addition of allowing a +1 Dex, and its +1 Strength it is awfully close to a full feat already as each amounts to about half a feat each. So, my reaction for d6 reduction in damage is the compromise I came up with. I'm sure it'd see use, and over the course of an adventurer's life could definitey total a hefty amount of HP saved, and I bet there will be a handful of times it turns just enough of an attack away to stop the character from hitting 0. It is nowhere near as imbalancing at low levels as the DR3 is, and is instead an active ability that is weaker, but will "feel" heroic on occasion. I'm tempted to remove the non magical qualification though, and maybe it should be a d8, but I wouldn't want to push it further, or revert back.

2. As written the removal of half cover for being engaged is not contingent on being within 5ft of the target, to it removes the engaged cover bonus for any target. So in that way it works like Sharpshooters downgrading of cover, but is significantly more limited as it only applied to melee cover bonuses.


Let me know if you have any of my RAI questions and I welcome all feedback.

[Eric Diaz]

From a quick glance:

- Tweaks:
* Intelligence: like it. I agree it is a bit of a dump stat, but it seems you overcompensated. Bonus languages/tools = Int modifier would do the trick for me.
* System Shock - "Con Save DC= 1/2 Damage Taken" too punishing for high-level fighters, I think.
* Breather: don't like it, specially with 5-min short rests, feels superfluous, doesn't scale well.
* Ability Checks use 2d10 - like it, but steps steps on the "skill classes" toes. Usually thief and bards are the only ones who have decent, reliable skills. I dunno. TBH, maybe 5e would be improved by using 2d10 is all situations, even combat... But since they went with the d20 "skill challenges" or "death saves" would work better.
* Heavy Armor Master - not a fan of the reaction thing, and prefer the original overall.
* Path of the Berserker - like it, but would combine both: "If you enter another Frenzy before you've completed a Short or Long Rest, you suffer one level of exhaustion(as described in appendix A) when your rage ends.
* Flanking: seem to be a typo.... Overall, I dislike it because requires miniatures. My suggestion: flanking IS facing (ie., flanked creature chooses where to face, other creatures get advantage).
* Spellcasting While Grappled: love it. Not sure a DC 10 saving throw will be meaningful at high levels; maybe roll against the attacker's save DC.

- Weapons and Armor V1.0 - awesome. Would use.

- Do not particularly care for E10 or more orcs/goblins/skeletons etc, but many people find them useful.

- Overall: awesome stuff.

[Zman]

From a quick glance:

- Tweaks:
* Intelligence: like it. I agree it is a bit of a dump stat, but it seems you overcompensated. Bonus languages/tools = Int modifier would do the trick for me.
* System Shock - "Con Save DC= 1/2 Damage Taken" too punishing for high-level fighters, I think.
* Breather: don't like it, specially with 5-min short rests, feels superfluous, doesn't scale well.
* Ability Checks use 2d10 - like it, but steps steps on the "skill classes" toes. Usually thief and bards are the only ones who have decent, reliable skills. I dunno. TBH, maybe 5e would be improved by using 2d10 is all situations, even combat... But since they went with the d20 "skill challenges" or "death saves" would work better.
* Heavy Armor Master - not a fan of the reaction thing, and prefer the original overall.
* Path of the Berserker - like it, but would combine both: "If you enter another Frenzy before you've completed a Short or Long Rest, you suffer one level of exhaustion(as described in appendix A) when your rage ends.
* Flanking: seem to be a typo.... Overall, I dislike it because requires miniatures. My suggestion: flanking IS facing (ie., flanked creature chooses where to face, other creatures get advantage).
* Spellcasting While Grappled: love it. Not sure a DC 10 saving throw will be meaningful at high levels; maybe roll against the attacker's save DC.

- Weapons and Armor V1.0 - awesome. Would use.

- Do not particularly care for E10 or more orcs/goblins/skeletons etc, but many people find them useful.

- Overall: awesome stuff.

Firstly, thank you for taking a look and giving me feedback.

Int: If definitely was a dump stat. I definitely considered the Int mod as languages/skills, but IMO it just didn't cut it. I really wanted to prioritize non Wizards to consider 12 Int in Pointbuy. Getting a language or a skill just doesn't incentivize many people, but if they get a language and either a skill or tool, then you'll see more go for it. Remember Wizards now only get one starting skill to help mitigate giving too much to them. So far, at least in my groups, it has had the desired effect, and hasn't made Int "too good" not in the slightest, if anything it is still a dump stat, one that is harder to do and stings a bit more when done.

System Shock 1/2 Damage DC Con Save. Now, there is Instant Death where you take your entire HP total in damage from a single attack, and Massive Damage where you take half or more your max HP in a single attack, and roll a 1 on the System shock table. Instant death becomes exceedingly rare for mid to high level characters to encounter. I mean, you're talking things like a dragon's breath or a crit from something nasty. At low levles there is a good chance this isn't lethal, at high levels if you get hit with an Instant death save, you're probably not going to make it. Feels fitting, that big nasty attack stands the chance of killing even a powerful character. Now, with Massive Damage it is similar, easy to trigger at low levels, but only 1:20 chance of triggering the save, and usually easy enough to make. Good odds, but crits and high damage attacks are scary. Now, at higher levels it gets harder to trigger massive damage, and still requires the 1:20 system shock check to trigger a save or die. How does this disadvantage Fighters? I mean, by 5th level a Fighter has what ~49HP, meaning it takes a 25 damage attack to trigger the system shock roll, an unlucky 20, and then a DC13-24 save or die. It just doesn't come up that often. By 10th level a Fighter has ~94HP, meaning it takes 47 damage to trigger, an unlucky system shock, then a tough save DC24+. At that point in time we are talking about nasty, extremely rare attacks that are hitting that hard, and a 5% chance of being forced to save, and then probable death. I doubt that is something that is going to be seen in play very much, not to say it isn't possible giving any encounter with high damage attacks a hint of the fear of death. These rules were meant to be seen in play more often at lower levels, and the Massive damage rules keep the outside fear of death there for PCs through mid levels.

Breather: Its more narrative, the hero slows down for a few seconds, catches their breath, and takes the next wave of enemies. How many movies have we seen where the hero does this. Its a small amount of healing that takes place between rapid fire encounters where a short rest is not possible. I know in my session yesturday the part were facing three pretty rapid fire encounters before they had an opportunity to short rest, at level 5 they made use of a breather, and were thrilled to get it. And they needed the touch of resources honestly, and narratively a short rest just wouldn't have made much sense.

2d10 Ability Checks: Sure, everyone gets more reliable and abilities are much less swingy. What you see as a failing, I see has a feature and a design goal. Characters with decent abilities and proficiency in a skill are pretty adept at doing it and pretty damned reliable, while someone who is flailing hoping ot roll an 18 or 19 or 20 to beat that DC just isn't very likely to suceed. With decent sized groups it reduces the "I try... I try..." etc etc where unskilled character just throw dicing hoping someone rolls high. Skill become more reilaible, and proficiency, expertise, advantage, and even to a small degree ability scores matter more.

HAM: The DR3 was a legacy throwback that doesn't really fit in 5e. It has a half feat, +1 Str, and the +1 AC through dex 12 is essentially a half feat as well. Its ability needed to be weakened or HAM would have been a too good feat. IMO it'll still feel effective sacrificing reactions to shrug off damage each turn.

Path of the Berserker: Sure, you could combine them, but I'd be afraid of Frenzy spamming when a player knew they could get away with it. I use exhaustion enough as a mechanic it might be sufficiently punishing, but if people aren't using my other tweaks or are liberal enough in doling out exhaustion checks, it becomes Frenzy twice when needed with probably no consequences.

Flanking: I'll reword it, and am probably reducing it down to a max +3. It does assume a map, but is easy enough to declare theater of the mind as well. The problem with facing is fighting is dynamic, when a person engages with you you try to keep them both to your front etc, and miniatures or theater of the mind is easiest. I'll add some language making more theater of the mind friendly.

Spellcasting while Grappled: Yeah, it feels right to me and hasn't been too impactful, but grappling monsters add a more unique challenge for spell casters. You should see a giant Crocodile, haha. DC 10 just like a normal concentration check, doesn't need to scale for non Con proficient spell casters are the norm and need to weigh resilient Con or Warcaster.

Weapons and Armor: Thanks! So far I've been pretty happy with it. Have a couple minor tweaks coming, ie Blowguns getting 50' short range. Maybe some other minor changes, but so far its hitting the right stride for me.

E10 and Monsters: To each their own, haha. I love the idea of E10 and am personally not a fan of levels 11+ Dnd, so my E10 is aimed ans honing in on what I see as the sweet spot and really explore and expand it. So far, my campaign that is running it has been absolutely awesome. Moves through levels 1-5 pretty fast and then slows down to savor levels 5-10. Not completely set on how it handles ASI/Feats yet, and it needs to be used with a more conservative stat method like 27pb.


Glad you liked it, I appreciate the feedback. Makes me really consider if I can defend my choices and look for better solutions. I'll welcome any more feedback you have.

[Eric Diaz]

Glad you liked it, I appreciate the feedback. Makes me really consider if I can defend my choices and look for better solutions. I'll welcome any more feedback you have.

Keep up the good work, I'll try to read with greater detail later. Overall, many of my objections come form the fact I'm assuming high level play; if you're using E10, I think a lot of your stuff starts making more sense naturally.

[acemcjack]

Thanks for commenting and I'm glad your group is putting my Tweaks to good use. I'd welcome any and all feedback your group has for me.
You're welcome! I really appreciate your effort here. :)



1. Not sure I agree with your fluff argument, using your reaction to help reduce damage from an attack seems fluff fitting. The problem is the DR3 was a legacy throwback, as that kind of DR just doesn't exist in 5e and doesn't fit, so it needs something else instead. Also, it needed to be removed and toned down as the addition of allowing a +1 Dex, and its +1 Strength it is awfully close to a full feat already as each amounts to about half a feat each. So, my reaction for d6 reduction in damage is the compromise I came up with. I'm sure it'd see use, and over the course of an adventurer's life could definitey total a hefty amount of HP saved, and I bet there will be a handful of times it turns just enough of an attack away to stop the character from hitting 0. It is nowhere near as imbalancing at low levels as the DR3 is, and is instead an active ability that is weaker, but will "feel" heroic on occasion. I'm tempted to remove the non magical qualification though, and maybe it should be a d8, but I wouldn't want to push it further, or revert back.
I understand where you're coming from, and the DR3 may be a little too much here. However, I still think a D6 as a reaction is too little at higher levels, and would prefer something that scales with level somehow (Perhaps scaling the same way as the using healing kits with the Healer feat?)



2. As written the removal of half cover for being engaged is not contingent on being within 5ft of the target, to it removes the engaged cover bonus for any target. So in that way it works like Sharpshooters downgrading of cover, but is significantly more limited as it only applied to melee cover bonuses.

In that case, I would consider moving that part to a new bullet, because to me it reads as though it only applies to when you're 5 feet from your enemy.

BTW, I think there's a typo in the 'Grude Bearer' feat. Shouldn't it be 'Grudge Bearer'?

Anyway, thanks for the quick reply!

[Zman]

Keep up the good work, I'll try to read with greater detail later. Overall, many of my objections come form the fact I'm assuming high level play; if you're using E10, I think a lot of your stuff starts making more sense naturally.

Thanks again. I'm not saying I'm writing it for E10 with the exclusion of levels 11+, I try to make changes that are better at all or most levels, but I will prioritize the lower levels for the simple fact that players spend more time with characters levels 1-10, than 11-20. And more players spend time with characters levels 11-15 than 16-20.... and more time is spend levels 1-5 than 6-10. Basically the amound of time spend playing dnd is heavily weighted towards lower levels so I really emphasize the balance at those levels. Also, balance gets really wonky at higher levels anyways with powerful spellcasting etc, so it is harder to balance, and fine tuning balance is nigh impossible at those levels.


You're welcome! I really appreciate your effort here. :)


I understand where you're coming from, and the DR3 may be a little too much here. However, I still think a D6 as a reaction is too little at higher levels, and would prefer something that scales with level somehow (Perhaps scaling the same way as the using healing kits with the Healer feat?)


In that case, I would consider moving that part to a new bullet, because to me it reads as though it only applies to when you're 5 feet from your enemy.

BTW, I think there's a typo in the 'Grude Bearer' feat. Shouldn't it be 'Grudge Bearer'?

Anyway, thanks for the quick reply!

I'm just glad to hear others are using my work, means I'm not just doing it for my table, but for others as well. And the more feedback I get, the more polished the work becomes.

I definitely won't bring DR3 back, but I've heard the concerns about scaleability. Right now I'm planning on making it 1d6+proficiency bonus, and opening it up to all bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing. Maybe d4+prof... does that feel to piddly? It will make it more powerful at low levels, and will allow it to scale somewhat. Thoughts?

I will separate that out and clarify it.

Thanks for catching the typo!

[strangebloke]

I definitely won't bring DR3 back, but I've heard the concerns about scaleability. Right now I'm planning on making it 1d6+proficiency bonus, and opening it up to all bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing. Maybe d4+prof... does that feel to piddly? It will make it more powerful at low levels, and will allow it to scale somewhat. Thoughts?

I will separate that out and clarify it.

Thanks for catching the typo!

1d4 + prof is still pretty piddly for a reaction, imo.

A normal character only gets 3 feats/ASIs in his whole career, and this feat is only available to Heavy Armor characters already, who likely already have usages for their reaction. Let them be good!

[Daphne]

I really like your tweaks for the most part!

- Really liked the changes you've made to the elves.
- I think humans are still on the weak side, I would add something like the Human Determination feat to the base class.
- Do PCs still get skills from their background after the changes you made to intelligence? It would be too much imo. Also, what happens if the PC has a negative modifier?
- Honestly, I don't like feats, it's too much extra work. Adding more just give me more incentives to just choose to improve an ability score or take a simple feat like resilient to get proficiency on a useful save. But I know I'm in the minority and can see the appeal.
- Good changes on the Barbarian, but I do have a question: isn't frenzy too strong as a short rest ability? I changed it to a long rest ability but no one took the archetype yet for me to see it in play.
- The changes to Combat Wild Shape CR were necessary imo. Could you tell me why you added the exhaustion mechanic to wild shape though? And would it be too strong letting proficiency bonus to every damage roll?
- I can't see a reason for buffing Great Weapon Fighting.
- I didn't do the math, but are Monks really weak at higher levels? Is an additional extra attack necessary? My games usually end around 8th level, so it's not something I will use, but you got me curious...
- Reducing Ki cost for Way of the 4 Elements is a good change, did you also reduce maximum Ki spend at a discipline? I also let Way of the 4 Elements Monks get two disciplines instead of one.
- With your changes, Beast Master can't use Two Weapon Fighting...
- I don't like the nerf to Agonizing Blast, but Warlock is my favorite class after all, so I'm biased.





I definitely won't bring DR3 back, but I've heard the concerns about scaleability. Right now I'm planning on making it 1d6+proficiency bonus, and opening it up to all bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing. Maybe d4+prof... does that feel to piddly? It will make it more powerful at low levels, and will allow it to scale somewhat. Thoughts?

I will separate that out and clarify it.

Thanks for catching the typo!

I would change it to 1d6+proficiency for bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage (even magical) but remove the +1 AC from dexterity.

[Mitth'raw'nuruo]

How is it still trashed? The Grappler feat itself is now significantly better, and no longer references a rule that doesn't exist.

Yes, a dex based character can take a feat, Martial Artist, to use Dex for grappling, but that still comes at the cost of a feat, and a Str based character would have taken Grappler or Expertise and still be a better grappler. Str characters still have an advantage on Grappling.

The way I see it is I've enhanced the game by fixing a generally subpar feat, and by allowing another viable mechanic ie dex based martial artist grappler that both feels right and doesn't ruin balance.

The Grapple Feat is worse than not having it because of the 2nd paragraph

Both you are your target are restrained. Which means although they have you both have advantage and disadvantage to attacks, restraining someone in a grapple is pointless, and actually a bad idea for a grappler. You also drop your move speed to zero, which means you can't pull them into a better spot (like over yonder cliff). The only way this is slightly good is if you are grappling and casting AOE spells on your target.

What you WANT to do is grapple, SHOVE (which knocks them prone but does not break grapple). Than attacks on them have advantage, their attacks have disadvantage. They can not move OR STAND because their move speed is zero.

Shield Master ranks highly as a wanted grappler feat, if you're planning on only grabbing one person @ a time.

If also means that you can only effectively grapple one creature. Assuming you have two free hands, you can normally grapple two. If you somehow had extra limbs, the feat becomes even worse.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-%282-0%29-Grappling-in-5th-Edition

[acemcjack]

Thanks again. I'm not saying I'm writing it for E10 with the exclusion of levels 11+, I try to make changes that are better at all or most levels, but I will prioritize the lower levels for the simple fact that players spend more time with characters levels 1-10, than 11-20. And more players spend time with characters levels 11-15 than 16-20.... and more time is spend levels 1-5 than 6-10. Basically the amound of time spend playing dnd is heavily weighted towards lower levels so I really emphasize the balance at those levels. Also, balance gets really wonky at higher levels anyways with powerful spellcasting etc, so it is harder to balance, and fine tuning balance is nigh impossible at those levels.



I'm just glad to hear others are using my work, means I'm not just doing it for my table, but for others as well. And the more feedback I get, the more polished the work becomes.

I definitely won't bring DR3 back, but I've heard the concerns about scaleability. Right now I'm planning on making it 1d6+proficiency bonus, and opening it up to all bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing. Maybe d4+prof... does that feel to piddly? It will make it more powerful at low levels, and will allow it to scale somewhat. Thoughts?

I will separate that out and clarify it.

Thanks for catching the typo!

Sure thing.
I think d6 + Prof. bonus is a good start. Though I wouldn't want to make it too strong at low levels, it still scales too slow. Maybe d4 + prof. bonus + level. Assuming d4 averages at 2.5, you get:
Lvl 1: d4+2+1=4-7 (avg 5.5) /rnd
Lvl 5: d4+3+5=9-12 (avg 10.5) /rnd
Lvl 9: d4+4+9=14-17 (avg 15.5) /rnd
Lvl 13: d4+5+13=19-22 (avg 20.5) /rnd
Lvl 16: d4+6+16=23-26 (avg 24.5) /rnd
Lvl 20: d4+6+20=27-30 (avg 28.5) /rnd

It pretty much negates one attack per round. Maybe just do away with the dice altogether and make it flat (Although, now we're back to DR).
Alternatively, maybe just scale the dice (i.e. increase the die from d4 to d6 to d8 etc.) along with the Proficiency bonus, in which case you get:

Lvl 1: d4+2=3-6 (avg 4.5) /rnd
Lvl 5: d6+3=4-9 (avg 6.5) /rnd
Lvl 9: d8+4=5-12 (avg 8.5) /rnd
Lvl 13: d10+5=6-15 (avg 10.5) /rnd
Lvl 16+: d12+6=7-18 (avg 12.5) /rnd

I kinda' like this approach. It's simple, not too OP, and has the potential of still being useful at higher levels.

What do you think?

[Eric Diaz]

The Grapple Feat is worse than not having it because of the 2nd paragraph

Both you are your target are restrained. Which means although they have you both have advantage and disadvantage to attacks, restraining someone in a grapple is pointless, and actually a bad idea for a grappler. You also drop your move speed to zero, which means you can't pull them into a better spot (like over yonder cliff). The only way this is slightly good is if you are grappling and casting AOE spells on your target.

What you WANT to do is grapple, SHOVE (which knocks them prone but does not break grapple). Than attacks on them have advantage, their attacks have disadvantage. They can not move OR STAND because their move speed is zero.

Shield Master ranks highly as a wanted grappler feat, if you're planning on only grabbing one person @ a time.

If also means that you can only effectively grapple one creature. Assuming you have two free hands, you can normally grapple two. If you somehow had extra limbs, the feat becomes even worse.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-%282-0%29-Grappling-in-5th-Edition

Yeah. The best thing to do with the grappler feat is get rid of it and use the Brawny feat (UA) instead.


Here is my 2c on the subject (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2017/04/unearthed-arcana-feats-for-skill.html).

[Zman]

1d4 + prof is still pretty piddly for a reaction, imo.

A normal character only gets 3 feats/ASIs in his whole career, and this feat is only available to Heavy Armor characters already, who likely already have usages for their reaction. Let them be good!

Yeah, I think I'm going to do 1d6+Prof.


I really like your tweaks for the most part!

- Really liked the changes you've made to the elves.
- I think humans are still on the weak side, I would add something like the Human Determination feat to the base class.
- Do PCs still get skills from their background after the changes you made to intelligence? It would be too much imo. Also, what happens if the PC has a negative modifier?
- Honestly, I don't like feats, it's too much extra work. Adding more just give me more incentives to just choose to improve an ability score or take a simple feat like resilient to get proficiency on a useful save. But I know I'm in the minority and can see the appeal.
- Good changes on the Barbarian, but I do have a question: isn't frenzy too strong as a short rest ability? I changed it to a long rest ability but no one took the archetype yet for me to see it in play.
- The changes to Combat Wild Shape CR were necessary imo. Could you tell me why you added the exhaustion mechanic to wild shape though? And would it be too strong letting proficiency bonus to every damage roll?
- I can't see a reason for buffing Great Weapon Fighting.
- I didn't do the math, but are Monks really weak at higher levels? Is an additional extra attack necessary? My games usually end around 8th level, so it's not something I will use, but you got me curious...
- Reducing Ki cost for Way of the 4 Elements is a good change, did you also reduce maximum Ki spend at a discipline? I also let Way of the 4 Elements Monks get two disciplines instead of one.
- With your changes, Beast Master can't use Two Weapon Fighting...
- I don't like the nerf to Agonizing Blast, but Warlock is my favorite class after all, so I'm biased.




I would change it to 1d6+proficiency for bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage (even magical) but remove the +1 AC from dexterity.

Thanks, glad you like them!

I'm not sure, humans are significantly better than they were before, in comparison Variant human is no more and all characters get a bonus feat. They have gained skill and are good at every attribute. Sure, they don'e have a +2, but they get a total of +6 to attributes vs most races receiving +3. With the new skills they really are a solid race now.

Yes, characters still get background skills. Most character will end up with +1 skill, but any character that invests more into Int will feel like they are getting something for it. And Wizards losing one skill helps balance it outt so they don't get too much benefit.

If you don't like feats, much of my Tweaks won't be fore you. A big part of what I did was balance feats and greatly expand the list. IMO feats enhance the game and make it easier to explore different character concepts. ASIs are still good and vital for most characters.

Does Frenzy get too strong? Well, it is strong, but most of the "good" combat feats utilize a characters bonus action, this is an opportunity cost. In a feat less game it might be getting a bit too good.

I added exhaustion for bonus wild shape to give Druids risk/reward options, and to promote the use of wildshape for non combat uses. 2 per short rest was good, but many players didn't like the idea of burning one for a noncombat use. Prof to the FIRST damage roll per turn isn't OP at all, most animals just don't have much damage output, but giving the a little extra damage plays pretty well.

GWF needed internal balancing more than external balancing. It was too good for Greatswords, less good for Greataxes, and even worse for Halberts etc. This change makes it slightly better for Greatswords, and significantly better for Greataxes and Halberds et al. Overall it is a very minor buff externally, but internally it is much much more balanced and that is a good thing IMO.

Monks were pretty terrible from a damage perspective after level 11, they just never got the bump that other classes see. The ASI at 10 and third attack at 11 really bring their damage to playable levels. Check out the spreadsheet for some rough napkin math on it.

Yes, Beast Master can't use TWF... it isn't perfect, but stock it had a couple levels where the character didn't attack so its animal could. Its a rebalance focused around the opportunity cost of that BA. In this case Dualwielding with an animal companion just isn't great, but it isn't like they were dual wielding effectively before either.

Of course you don't, haha. Warlock 2 was too good of a dip, and it provided the best atwilld aamge around being ranged, granulated, and magical. Now, it is still good, you can check the math in the spreadsheet, and with the feats I've added to the game a character can still be a super effective specialized blaster like before, but now there are more vialbe other Warlock builds and the class is much more internally balanced while remaining externally balanced.


Thank you for your feedback.


The Grapple Feat is worse than not having it because of the 2nd paragraph

Both you are your target are restrained. Which means although they have you both have advantage and disadvantage to attacks, restraining someone in a grapple is pointless, and actually a bad idea for a grappler. You also drop your move speed to zero, which means you can't pull them into a better spot (like over yonder cliff). The only way this is slightly good is if you are grappling and casting AOE spells on your target.

What you WANT to do is grapple, SHOVE (which knocks them prone but does not break grapple). Than attacks on them have advantage, their attacks have disadvantage. They can not move OR STAND because their move speed is zero.

Shield Master ranks highly as a wanted grappler feat, if you're planning on only grabbing one person @ a time.

If also means that you can only effectively grapple one creature. Assuming you have two free hands, you can normally grapple two. If you somehow had extra limbs, the feat becomes even worse.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-%282-0%29-Grappling-in-5th-Edition

You are right, I wasn't thinking about shoves. I will need to address that. Man, I didn't realize just how bad the book grapple was.

I wonder if it made the target restrained, and the attacker grappled. It'd make both their speeds 0. Shove would still be better, so I'd add a qualification that if a target succeeds they become Grappled, and not freed. So a Restrained character would need to make two successful checks to free themselves. That would make it better than just normal Grappling and shoving.

[Zman]

Change Log:

Tweaks Change Log:
V2.0
8-24-17 Intimidating Presense removed 1/encounter mechanic, now can only target a creature once and failure immunizes everyone.
8-24-17 Removed Heavy Armor Master's clunky legacy dr3 and replaced it with a reaction for d6 reduction from a single attack.
8-24-27 Cleaned up Powerful Build's language
8-24-17 Cleaned up Defensive Duelist/Lighting Reflexes interaction language
8-24-27 Cleaned up part of Crossbow Expert, no more point blank spellcasting
8-28-17 Fixed Typos
9-16-17 HAM Reaction to 1d6+Prof for scaleability and works against all S/P/B
9-16-17 Made Grapple's Pin better than Grapple Shove.
9-16-17 Capped Flanking at +3, clarified.
9-16-17 Added Primeval Awareness fix for spell less ranger variant
9-16-17 Adjusted Spellless Ranger's Maneuvers known and Superiority Dice.
9-16-17 Fixed Typos and Formatting


Weapons and Armor Change Log:
V1.0
9-9-17 Chanced Blowgun range to 50/100, added Silent feature


E10 Variant Change Log:


Monster Manual Expansion Change Log:
V1.0
8-24-17 Fixed Spelling Errors.
8-24-17 Fixed Oni damage in different sizes and adjusted CR to 11.
8-28-17 Reduced Lizardfolk Bite damage to D4


Made some updates, see changelog for details. PDF has been updated.


Thank you everyone for the feedback so far, everyone's feedback makes this project better. I'm especially thankful to those who have commented that are using my tweaks in their games.

[EdenIndustries]

Hi Zman, thanks for posting all of your tweaks, there's a lot of good stuff!

I'm DM'ing a game in which a player took the Close Quarters Archer feat and was having fun with it, though after multiclassing from Fighter into Ranger and picking up the UA Close Quarters Fighter fighting style decided to drop the feat because he thought the bonus action attack was too powerful. Perhaps the feat makes more sense along with all of your tweaks, but I thought I'd give you that bit of playtested feedback anyway.

One other thing - just to confirm, in your E10 variant no one is able to get any class features beyond 10th level, correct?

[acemcjack]

Hi Zman,

Another question: How (if at all) do the SCAG Half-Elf variants fit in with the changes to the Helf-Elf in your rules (i.e. reduced darkvision and extra skills)?

Thanks!

[Kuulvheysoon]

Hi Zman,

Another question: How (if at all) do the SCAG Half-Elf variants fit in with the changes to the Helf-Elf in your rules (i.e. reduced darkvision and extra skills)?

Thanks!

Honestly, I don't really see a problem. They can trade away their Skill Versatility (1 free skill) for Keen Senses (1 fixed skill) or one of the other, more interesting powers. I'd also probably allow them to trade their skill away for the increased darkvision of their parent race.

Anything that increases diversity of characters is a good thing in my book.

[Zman]

Hi Zman, thanks for posting all of your tweaks, there's a lot of good stuff!

I'm DM'ing a game in which a player took the Close Quarters Archer feat and was having fun with it, though after multiclassing from Fighter into Ranger and picking up the UA Close Quarters Fighter fighting style decided to drop the feat because he thought the bonus action attack was too powerful. Perhaps the feat makes more sense along with all of your tweaks, but I thought I'd give you that bit of playtested feedback anyway.

One other thing - just to confirm, in your E10 variant no one is able to get any class features beyond 10th level, correct?

No problem! Glad you are enjoying them.

Well, with that fighting style and the feat, a good portion of them are redundant. Personally, I feel the UA feat is a bit too good for a fighting style, they should be closer to half a feat, and its pretty damned good.

Interesting, your player found the bonus action attack was too much. Its a d4+AbilityMod damage and uses your bonus action, it increases a CC Archer's damage a reasonable amount, but comes at the cost of often being in or near enough to melee. It seems a reasonable risk reward in my opinon.


Hi Zman,

Another question: How (if at all) do the SCAG Half-Elf variants fit in with the changes to the Helf-Elf in your rules (i.e. reduced darkvision and extra skills)?

Thanks!


Honestly, I don't really see a problem. They can trade away their Skill Versatility (1 free skill) for Keen Senses (1 fixed skill) or one of the other, more interesting powers. I'd also probably allow them to trade their skill away for the increased darkvision of their parent race.

Anything that increases diversity of characters is a good thing in my book.

Sure, essentially you've now giving up one skill instead of two, but for the most part none of those options are that vasty powerful to be unbalancing. Considering Half Elves also got a minor nerf with their eyesight, overall it should still be pretty balanced. I don't see a problem running it just as it would have worked before.

Actually, if they took Keen Senses, I'd also give them the full Elven Dark Vision as well, give up your skill of choice for Perception and better Darkvision.



Thanks again for the feedback!

[EdenIndustries]

Interesting, your player found the bonus action attack was too much. Its a d4+AbilityMod damage and uses your bonus action, it increases a CC Archer's damage a reasonable amount, but comes at the cost of often being in or near enough to melee. It seems a reasonable risk reward in my opinon.

Yeah I thought it was a reasonable risk/reward also, which is why I allowed it, but he's bulky enough with high AC from high Dex and high HP that he's typically not too worried about getting close into melee anyway.

And then sorry I think you missed my other question:



One other thing - just to confirm, in your E10 variant no one is able to get any class features beyond 10th level, correct?


Is that accurate?

Thanks!

[Zman]

Yeah I thought it was a reasonable risk/reward also, which is why I allowed it, but he's bulky enough with high AC from high Dex and high HP that he's typically not too worried about getting close into melee anyway.

And then sorry I think you missed my other question:



Is that accurate?

Thanks!

Yeah, but as an archer he is giving up what is effectively total safety that range provides, and puts himself in a risky spot. Even having good AC and HP, a 20 is a 20 haha.


I'm sorry, I did miss your question about my E10.

My E10, yes that is correct. You only advance as far as level 10 in your primary class. That is the class you start the game with, the one that determines your saves, skills, proficiencies, etc. There is no level 11, imagine every class table ends at 10. You can gain Secondary and/or Tertiary class levels by spending feats to Multiclass. This does not grant you more HP or Saves or starting skills, it might give you another skill available from Multiclassing though. Essentially, you only get the class features. You could be a Fighter 5 who had three Feats/ASIs to spend, or you could be a Fighter5/Wizard2 if you had a 13+ Int or a Fighter5/Rogue1 with a feat to spend. For spellcasting, your slots are determined by the best class, so an Eldritch Knight 6 who spent four feats to gain Wizard 3, would be determining their spell slots from Wizard, and would have access to second level spells. If that same character then never progresses Wizard Further they would want to use EK to determine spell slots when they hit 10th level.

[EdenIndustries]

I'm sorry, I did miss your question about my E10.

My E10, yes that is correct. You only advance as far as level 10 in your primary class. That is the class you start the game with, the one that determines your saves, skills, proficiencies, etc. There is no level 11, imagine every class table ends at 10. You can gain Secondary and/or Tertiary class levels by spending feats to Multiclass. This does not grant you more HP or Saves or starting skills, it might give you another skill available from Multiclassing though. Essentially, you only get the class features. You could be a Fighter 5 who had three Feats/ASIs to spend, or you could be a Fighter5/Wizard2 if you had a 13+ Int or a Fighter5/Rogue1 with a feat to spend. For spellcasting, your slots are determined by the best class, so an Eldritch Knight 6 who spent four feats to gain Wizard 3, would be determining their spell slots from Wizard, and would have access to second level spells. If that same character then never progresses Wizard Further they would want to use EK to determine spell slots when they hit 10th level.

Great, thanks for the clarification! It's definitely an intriguing idea...going through the Secondary/Tertiary classes at the cost of feats seems like a fun way to play, although I would miss a lot of those 11+ class features...definitely intriguing though!

[Zman]

Great, thanks for the clarification! It's definitely an intriguing idea...going through the Secondary/Tertiary classes at the cost of feats seems like a fun way to play, although I would miss a lot of those 11+ class features...definitely intriguing though!

No problem. It is also fun because the first levels just fly by and you really move through "basic" character advancement at a breakneck pace. You reach level 5-6 pretty damned fast, and at that point you've now had 3-4 Feat/ASI choices so should have your character fully online. By that time you should be fulfilling the character concept as you see it. A Fighter/Rogue concept could be a Battlemaster 3 who spent 3 Feats to pick up 2 levels of Rogue, or they could be an Thief3/Fighter 2. Both characters will be similar, but have a divergent specialties within the same concept. As the characters progressed further they would separate further into clearly a Fighter who knows a bit of Theiving and Backstabbing, or a Thief who knows how to fight. Or you could be a Fighter 3 with Maxed Str and a Feat, or a Rogue 3 with maxed Dex and a Feat. All the listed characters will perform similarly enough to be balanced, but there are just so many different ways they can develop.

Yeah, missing those level 11 features stings, but that is because they represent the level 11+ powerspike which really raises the game to another level and leaves the rest behind. If you pretend those levels don't exist, its harder to miss them haha. The whole E10 concept is meant to enhance and focus on what I see as the sweet spot of dnd and 5e, ie levels 5-10, but giving you consistent advancement and letting you fully explore different concepts within that sweet spot without letting the powerlevel explode like it can after level 11. Under my E10 you run levels 1-5 pretty fast and the character is much more rich and varied at that point, then the games slows down, and you spend three times as long levels 5-10ish savoring them, allowing you to get comfortable withing them, while still making consistent advancement.

[mephnick]

What do you specifically dislike about level 5 spells? Raise Dead? I run an E13 game (No 7th level spells and I grant the level 14 feature as a capstone), but never had much issue with spell-casting until level 7 spells basically destroy the game for me. Just looking for things to mull over.

[Zman]

What do you specifically dislike about level 5 spells? Raise Dead? I run an E13 game (No 7th level spells and I grant the level 14 feature as a capstone), but never had much issue with spell-casting until level 7 spells basically destroy the game for me. Just looking for things to mull over.

Hey Mephnick. Raise dead is the worst offender, you also have Reincarnate, Scrying, Conjure Elemental, Teleportation Circle, Wall of Force, and even Hold Monster. Essentially 5th level is a pretty significant level for changing how the game plays, it is where character can start doing things that IMO are better left as DM restricted rituals, plot devices, etc. A party being able to raise the dead is huge, it changes how the game plays and also really brings up some complicated questions, like "So what, the king died, just raise him." Player dies, well, that is an inconvenience... before access to Raise Dead, its crap, I died, if you can't get to me with Revivify quicky I'm a gonner.... or well, maybe we need to commence a quest to find the power or garner favor from some supernatural being to bring them back. Even the other information spells like Commune, Legend Lore, or Contact Other Plane can really change how a campaign world functions. Think what a permanent Teleportation Circle means for commerce, etc?

I'm not saying there aren't problematic spells at other levels, but IMO 5th really puts spellcasting in a world changing category with Raise Dead being the biggest offender, but far from the only problematic spell.

I heavily considered making an E8 variant, but didn't like how many classes were ending with just an ASI/Feat as their capstone, whereas lvl10 had actual abilities for people to hand their hat on.

[Dr. Cliché]

Regarding the Warlock's Agonising Blast, I think you've nerfed it in the wrong direction.

The issue is that 2 levels of Warlock (with Agonising Blast) are too strong as a dip, correct?

In this case, it seems ludicrous to nerf the entire warlock class. You haven't fixed the problem because a dip into Warlock is still exactly as good as Eldritch blast on a full Warlock.

Surely it would make far more sense for agonising Blast to be able to apply additional damage only if the user has sufficient levels in Warlock?

e.g.:
1-4 Warlock levels: Damage applied once.
5-10 Warlock Levels: Damage can be applied up to two times (if possible).
11-16 Warlock Levels: Damage can be applied up to three times (if possible).
17+ Warlock levels: Damage can be applied up to four times (if possible).

Now, there's actually an incentive for players to be full Warlocks, rather than just taking dips. Because only the dip has been nerfed - rather than the entire Warlock class.

[Zman]

Regarding the Warlock's Agonising Blast, I think you've nerfed it in the wrong direction.

The issue is that 2 levels of Warlock (with Agonising Blast) are too strong as a dip, correct?

In this case, it seems ludicrous to nerf the entire warlock class. You haven't fixed the problem because a dip into Warlock is still exactly as good as Eldritch blast on a full Warlock.

Surely it would make far more sense for agonising Blast to be able to apply additional damage only if the user has sufficient levels in Warlock?

e.g.:
1-4 Warlock levels: Damage applied once.
5-10 Warlock Levels: Damage can be applied up to two times (if possible).
11-16 Warlock Levels: Damage can be applied up to three times (if possible).
17+ Warlock levels: Damage can be applied up to four times (if possible).

Now, there's actually an incentive for players to be full Warlocks, rather than just taking dips. Because only the dip has been nerfed - rather than the entire Warlock class.

Thank you for your response.

Nerfed it? I suppose, it could be looked at as "nerf", but I am going to disagree with that. I see it as far more elegant and given the totality of my Tweaks it isn't a nerf to damage potential, but is a nerf to resource requirements to get there.

Warlock 2 is too strong of a dip? Well yes, but the problem is more complicated and nuanced as that. Externally speaking it is quite strong compared to other damage options in the game and requires a very small investment in resources, 2 levels in Warlock, and a decent Cha. That gives you full EB progression, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, and Hex. It is difficult for most other classes, even damage classes to compete with that especially when when we account for it being magical and a ranged attack. Hex is less problematic as spell slots and limited duration are somewhat self limiting for the dip. If we look at other magical blasting, like a blasting Sorcerer or a blasting Evoker we see how poor this external balance really is.

That is a question of external balance, how Warlock's blasting and its dip are compared to the rest of the game. Its quite good and has a very small investment which means its too good. If we compare magical blasting to magical blasting we see how good it really is.

Now, the bigger and different problem is a question of internal balance, or the Warlock's blasting compared to its other options. An example is the Bladelock. There is virtually no comparison here, a bladelock is significantly inferior to a blasting warlock. Sure, if you know what you are doing, you can make it work, kind of, but it is far from being on par from the stock at will damage that EB+AG+RB give you. Even compared to other spells you could cast, it is awfully hard to pick casting a spell over just using EB, especially when you can just cast Hex and EB and be done.


Why don't I think your idea is the right fix? Now, your suggestion does indeed fix the problem of people dipping Warlock to be a fantastic blaster. It is simple, and smashes those nefarious ambitions with a hammer. But, it doesn't address the external balance problems like Warlock blasting compared to other blasters, and it does nothing to address the internal balance problems, in fact, since Bladelock will often consider MCing to be competent, it actually hurts that internal class balance further.


If you look at the bigger picture of that I've done, I've added two feats that help add damage to spellcasting, one is Spellslinger which adds ability mod to damage once per spell, and volatile spellcaster which increases the die size by one, essentially adding +1 damage per die. If I did nothing to EB, EB would become even stronger and really push past the At Will DPR assumptions the game seems to have been built around. That isn't good. But, with those feats in the game other blasting, ie Evoker Blaster, can become a viable character concept. That is good. It also gives spellcasters other places to spend their feats.

What I've done to Warlock has no effect on their damage from levels 2-4, a small impact on their damage levels 5-10, and doesn't become that noticeable till levels 11+. So, the Warlock 2 dip investment is no longer as good as it was. Straight blasting warlock is still competent, but it isn't as dominating as it was before by default. The comparison between bladelock and blaster warlcik is much closer improving internal balance. And now, if a Warlock wants to excel at blasting they can, it just takes one feat to become as good as they were before, and two to truly excel and push their capabilities actually past where they were stock. So, I've nerfed default Warlock Blasting, but actually increased its potential blasting through investment.


Under my Tweaks Warlocks are still the best blasters the game has, we've improved external balance for other blasters and reduced the value of the Warlock 2 Dip. We've also greatly improved internal class balance give the class more viable options. What we have not done is gotten rid of the potential for Warlocks to be the kings of blasting, they are still out of the box the best default blaster, and with some actual resource investment they easily reign as kings.



Thanks again for your critique, this is the kind of stuff I need to be able to defend my decisions. If I can't come up with a logical and pointed answer to why I did something and how it improved internal or external balance, then that change I made runs the risk of just being arbitrary or actually counter productive.

[Dr. Cliché]

Nerfed it? I suppose, it could be looked at as "nerf", but I am going to disagree with that. I see it as far more elegant and given the totality of my Tweaks it isn't a nerf to damage potential, but is a nerf to resource requirements to get there.

I'm not seeing how it could be anything other than a straight nerf.



Warlock 2 is too strong of a dip? Well yes, but the problem is more complicated and nuanced as that. Externally speaking it is quite strong compared to other damage options in the game and requires a very small investment in resources, 2 levels in Warlock, and a decent Cha. That gives you full EB progression, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, and Hex. It is difficult for most other classes, even damage classes to compete with that especially when when we account for it being magical and a ranged attack. Hex is less problematic as spell slots and limited duration are somewhat self limiting for the dip. If we look at other magical blasting, like a blasting Sorcerer or a blasting Evoker we see how poor this external balance really is.

That is a question of external balance, how Warlock's blasting and its dip are compared to the rest of the game. Its quite good and has a very small investment which means its too good. If we compare magical blasting to magical blasting we see how good it really is.

The thing is though, Sorcerers and Evokers are both far more versatile than Warlocks.

Yes, Eldritch Blast is going to be better than their damage cantrips. But, at the same time, Eldritch Blast is basically all that Warlocks get. Other than that, they're stuck with just 2 spell slots for most of their careers (I know they recharge on a short rest, but even so).

Warlocks are far more comparable to Eldritch Archers than other spellcasters.

If you nerf their blasting such that they're barely better than other spellcasters, what's even the point of them?#



Now, the bigger and different problem is a question of internal balance, or the Warlock's blasting compared to its other options. An example is the Bladelock. There is virtually no comparison here, a bladelock is significantly inferior to a blasting warlock. Sure, if you know what you are doing, you can make it work, kind of, but it is far from being on par from the stock at will damage that EB+AG+RB give you. Even compared to other spells you could cast, it is awfully hard to pick casting a spell over just using EB, especially when you can just cast Hex and EB and be done.


But, again, why would a Bladelock be better? It's not as if Warlocks have to choose between taking Eldritch Blast or Pact of the Blade. You can't look at the difference in power between options that don't compete with one another.



Why don't I think your idea is the right fix? Now, your suggestion does indeed fix the problem of people dipping Warlock to be a fantastic blaster. It is simple, and smashes those nefarious ambitions with a hammer. But, it doesn't address the external balance problems like Warlock blasting compared to other blasters, and it does nothing to address the internal balance problems, in fact, since Bladelock will often consider MCing to be competent, it actually hurts that internal class balance further.

It seems that you want the warlock to just be no better at blasting than other blasting classes, and yet to also have none of their extra spells and versatility. :smallconfused:



If you look at the bigger picture of that I've done, I've added two feats that help add damage to spellcasting, one is Spellslinger which adds ability mod to damage once per spell, and volatile spellcaster which increases the die size by one, essentially adding +1 damage per die. If I did nothing to EB, EB would become even stronger and really push past the At Will DPR assumptions the game seems to have been built around. That isn't good. But, with those feats in the game other blasting, ie Evoker Blaster, can become a viable character concept. That is good. It also gives spellcasters other places to spend their feats.

But what you're actually doing is handing out what used to be blaster-unique abilities to any class that wants them. And, to compensate for that, you've severely nerfing a class that is built almost entirely around blasting.



What I've done to Warlock has no effect on their damage from levels 2-4, a small impact on their damage levels 5-10, and doesn't become that noticeable till levels 11+.

If you think that the extra damage isn't meaningful, why did you feel the need to remove it in the first place?

You can't have it both ways. Either the warlock's extra damage makes it broken-powerful or else it doesn't matter. If the latter (which seems to be what you're suggesting here), then there was absolutely no need to nerf it.


Straight blasting warlock is still competent

By what possible measure?

You're basically saying "Yes, I want to have a slightly better damage type on this one cantrip instead of having a ton of extra spells and spell slots each day."



Under my Tweaks Warlocks are still the best blasters the game has

By what possible measure?

You've removed the only thing that made it a good Blaster.

What's more, you've still done nothing to make it less attractive as a Lv2 dip. If anything, you've encouraged people to dump it ASAP and just grab themselves a better class.


Do what you want but I think you've badly overestimated the blasting power of a warlock and are ignoring what it pays for that blasting over other casting classes.

[Zman]

I'm not seeing how it could be anything other than a straight nerf.


A straight nerf would not allow them to be more competent than they were before. What has been nerfed is their power/Investment ratio.




The thing is though, Sorcerers and Evokers are both far more versatile than Warlocks.

Yes, Eldritch Blast is going to be better than their damage cantrips. But, at the same time, Eldritch Blast is basically all that Warlocks get. Other than that, they're stuck with just 2 spell slots for most of their careers (I know they recharge on a short rest, but even so).

Warlocks are far more comparable to Eldritch Archers than other spellcasters.


And during a "normal" day that is assumed, they will get two short rests. That means they actually have a good number of spells per day. They have 2 spell slots per short rest, so 2-6 slots per day for half their career, and significantly more the other half, and the quality of their slots is better than other spellcasting classes.

See, here we get to point of the problem. You view the Warlock as nothing more than a Blaster. There is much more to the class. If a class has only one really viable build, then that class has internal balance problems.



If you nerf their blasting such that they're barely better than other spellcasters, what's even the point of them?#



Not barely better. Under my Tweaks Warlocks are still the king of blasting. Under Stock Warlocks are amazing blasters with minimal investment, while no other class can be a competent blaster. Now, under my tweaks other classes can be competent blasters, and the Warlock can be the master of the craft for the same investment.

Again, Warlocks are more than just an Eldritch Blast platform. There is more to the class than just EB.




But, again, why would a Bladelock be better? It's not as if Warlocks have to choose between taking Eldritch Blast or Pact of the Blade. You can't look at the difference in power between options that don't compete with one another.


Better by comparison for similar investment. A Bladelock is using melee attacks instead of sitting black and blasting. They are competing styles, and not, there is nothing stopping a character from picking path of the blade and being a blaster. But, now specializing as a blaster or specializing as a bladelock are competing options both which can be explored and optimized through feat expendiatures. Stock bladelock requires a lot of investment, while blastlock requires virtually none. This means there exists better internal balance within the class.



It seems that you want the warlock to just be no better at blasting than other blasting classes, and yet to also have none of their extra spells and versatility. :smallconfused:


That is not that I want at all. I want there to be more viable options and builds in the games and want fewer default options. Under my tweaks the Warlock is still the king of Blasting, right from the get go and has the potential to focus on it to become extremely competent.




But what you're actually doing is handing out what used to be blaster-unique abilities to any class that wants them. And, to compensate for that, you've severely nerfing a class that is built almost entirely around blasting.


Blaster unique abilities? Isn't a blaster evoker a blaster? I mean they have an at will attack cantrip like firebolt, and add their ability modifier to it... Stock, they aren't competent and a trap build, now they have options and can be viable, but not quite as good as the Warlock. And again, you act like a Warlock is nothing but a blaster, and that line of limited thinking is what I think our main point of disagreement is.



If you think that the extra damage isn't meaningful, why did you feel the need to remove it in the first place?

You can't have it both ways. Either the warlock's extra damage makes it broken-powerful or else it doesn't matter. If the latter (which seems to be what you're suggesting here), then there was absolutely no need to nerf it.



Damage is meaningful, my point was that my change keeps early game Warlock damage competitive and isn't a nerf at all till 5th level, and then only when they hit with both blasts.

Please refer back to my previous post about internal vs external balance. The damage the Warlock put out wasn't "broken", but it was too good for its resource investment and caused internal and external balance problems.




By what possible measure?

You're basically saying "Yes, I want to have a slightly better damage type on this one cantrip instead of having a ton of extra spells and spell slots each day."


Again, there is more to a Warlock that just blasting.



By what possible measure?

You've removed the only thing that made it a good Blaster.

What's more, you've still done nothing to make it less attractive as a Lv2 dip. If anything, you've encouraged people to dump it ASAP and just grab themselves a better class.


Warlock is more than just a blaster. There are a lot of attractive lvl2 dips. You obviously see the Warlock as nothing more than a platform to pick up blasting.




Do what you want but I think you've badly overestimated the blasting power of a warlock and are ignoring what it pays for that blasting over other casting classes.

I've done a good amount of math on the subject, feel free to browse the spreadsheet linked in my signature. I've tried to use that damage analysis as a tool to help me construct these tweaks.

[Daphne]

A Warlock only has 6 slots/day, and if you're considering that they are going to spend at least one of them for Hex, then the class has even fewer slots. Eldritch Blast is only problematic when you're stacking it with Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast and Hex; and even then it's not that problematic before 11th level (which doesn't exist in your E10), when you get a third attack with EB. A nerf to Repelling Blast is totally justified, but is the problem Agonizing Blast or is it Hex?

- Hex consumes one of your few slots
- Eats up your concentration
- It's totally biased in favor of EB compared to Pact of the Blade, as its bonus are on a hit
- It seems to me you're balancing with Hex in mind, even though not everyone is going to actually use it (even if it is a good damage boost, it costs your concentration, which someone might want to use for something else)
If you want more variety between Warlocks then I think you should address this problem.


I also disagree that Warlocks are the only good blasters, Light and Tempest domains, School of Evocation and Draconic Origin are all viable choices. They might not have the at-will damage of a Warlock, but they have a lot more spell slots and useful features for blasting (recovering spell slots, +CHA/INT to damage, Metamagic, Sculpt Spell, Channel Divinity...).

[Zman]

A Warlock only has 6 slots/day, and if you're considering that they are going to spend at least one of them for Hex, then the class has even fewer slots. Eldritch Blast is only problematic when you're stacking it with Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast and Hex; and even then it's not that problematic before 11th level (which doesn't exist in your E10), when you get a third attack with EB. A nerf to Repelling Blast is totally justified, but is the problem Agonizing Blast or is it Hex?

- Hex consumes one of your few slots
- Eats up your concentration
- It's totally biased in favor of EB compared to Pact of the Blade, as its bonus are on a hit
- It seems to me you're balancing with Hex in mind, even though not everyone is going to actually use it (even if it is a good damage boost, it costs your concentration, which someone might want to use for something else)
If you want more variety between Warlocks then I think you should address this problem.


I also disagree that Warlocks are the only good blasters, Light and Tempest domains, School of Evocation and Draconic Origin are all viable choices. They might not have the at-will damage of a Warlock, but they have a lot more spell slots and useful features for blasting (recovering spell slots, +CHA/INT to damage, Metamagic, Sculpt Spell, Channel Divinity...).

Six high quality spell slots each day. And after 11th level that is 9. Repelling blast's 10' no save movement begins to be problematic at 5th level, at 11th level it is a serious sore spot.

My E10 is a variant, I have also and will likely also play non e10 games. My Tweaks are meant for levels 1-20, with especial care focused on levels 1-10 as they are the most commonly played levels.


I disagree that the likes of Dragon Sorcerers and Evokers are good at will blasters, far from it. At level 11/17 a Dragon Sorcerer or Evoker does an expected 14.8/18.7 against mean AC while the Warlock is doing 21.3/28.4 without Hex and 28.7/38.2 with it. Those are extremely significant differences, and that is before we factor in the inherent granularity of EB which means it is more consistently doing damage thus more likely to pick of near death enemies etc. even if they can metamagic or sculpt spells, that really doens't compare to a 10' knockback on every beam. And we can't forget how long Dragon Sorcerers and Evokers have to wait before they gain their respective bonuses.

Hex is quite powerful, but does have some downsides, takes up a spell slot, requires concentration etc. I most definitely did not write my tweaks assuming Hex was always active, I ran the numbers on all likely potential iterations. You can see them in the spreadsheet. But right now, how many Warlocks aren't Blasting, and how many of them that are blasting aren't casting Hex at the first opportunity? Not many, why, because its literally the best thing they can do most of the time, that is the problem. Sure, Hex could be nerfed, but as you said the real problem was the combination of factors. My Tweaks mitigate some of them, allow for competent specialization, and add a greater variety of viable builds and play styles which are IMO all good things.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I was catching up on stuff and ran across a thread talking about revamping Great Weapon Fighting (style), and they used the same fix you did, but their language is a bit cleaner.


When you roll damage for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding in two hands, you can roll one extra die of the weapon’s base damage dice and discard the lowest of the weapon’s base damage dice. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

Steal the wording, perhaps? Functionally, it's the same as yours (far as I can tell), just a bit clearer.

[Blacknife]

I saw your work and i have to say great work, you fix a LOT of issues in 5e (int use, feats, barbarian and more). There is stuff i didnt like the point buy you offered and some littile things. Now i wanted to ask if you like to consider- rouge is weak to comper to other classes (only in spicific levels he is usable), maybe add an extra attack at lv 5 and move the uncanny dodge to lv 6 plus the expertise. (and i would like more fixes to him). Two weapon fighting shouldnt be "at lv 8 if you have extra attack, you can attack twice with your weak hand. Its weird and unnecessary, instead do " you dont add the proficiency bonus to the attack roll in general " or something close plus balance the hex and related spells combination with two weapons fighting . The paladin is a good class, but his channel divinity have a problem, usually only one of the options are useful and the second not so much and in oath of ancient, both are bad, so please fix that .Last thing why not give more then one use of channel divinity at higher lv as a comperration to the cleric (like give second channel divinity at lv 8 and third at lv 20). Sorry for mu bad English, and thanka for the amazing work overall

[Blacknife]

Hi its me again. I thought about doing some criticism on what i think its not balance/fun.
1- sorcerer: yeah I know people say he need more spells, but the way you did it ruin all the balance (and the idea) between the wizard and the sorcerer.
A- Now the sorcerer will have more spells ready at lower levels (unless he have less cha than int of the wizard)
B- The font of magic, just a stupid excuse to make the sorcerer take a short rest, its not balance (now the sorcerer will have more spells then the wizard in lower levels), and it doesn't scale at all.
C- I thought you gonna fix the 20 lv feature, but you didnt (its weird because you fixed other features of the sorcerer).
D- instead of you did, you can focus on what make the sorcerer special (in my opinion exchange of a lot spells known for metamagic, and the ability to change spells slots in one lv to spells slot of other lv)
So make that he have 3 metamagic but can only chose two at a time and can replace one metamagic with a one he knows at short or long rest. Second you can make that he use his sorcerery points to cast spells instead of regular spell slots. And if you still want to the sorcerer to have more spells known. a- Buff the known spells for the sorcerer and the wizard (not my favorite). b- make a feat that give more spells known. c- give little buff to spells known like plus one spell or something more interesting like you always do.
2-remove "resting in armor" its not fun, unnecessary and add another rule to think about.
3- Humans, yeah I know you made you case clear but I still think you should add the feat "human determination" as part of the race (he is weak no matter the skills or the +6 to abilities, yeah he is versatile, but it not fun that he is the only one without cool features)
4- Feats for races doesn't seem balanced to me, like the ability to fly as a dragonborn, but you can prove me wrong.
5-" Spellslinger" feat, I'm not a big fan of "stealing" features from classes specially if it is a high lv feature (wizard "empowered evocation").

[Zman]

I saw your work and i have to say great work, you fix a LOT of issues in 5e (int use, feats, barbarian and more). There is stuff i didnt like the point buy you offered and some littile things. Now i wanted to ask if you like to consider- rouge is weak to comper to other classes (only in spicific levels he is usable), maybe add an extra attack at lv 5 and move the uncanny dodge to lv 6 plus the expertise. (and i would like more fixes to him). Two weapon fighting shouldnt be "at lv 8 if you have extra attack, you can attack twice with your weak hand. Its weird and unnecessary, instead do " you dont add the proficiency bonus to the attack roll in general " or something close plus balance the hex and related spells combination with two weapons fighting . The paladin is a good class, but his channel divinity have a problem, usually only one of the options are useful and the second not so much and in oath of ancient, both are bad, so please fix that .Last thing why not give more then one use of channel divinity at higher lv as a comperration to the cleric (like give second channel divinity at lv 8 and third at lv 20). Sorry for mu bad English, and thanka for the amazing work overall

Hey Blacknife, thanks for commenting! Glad you like most of what I've done.

Point Buy: Yeah, it isn't for everyone, but I just opened up the range of point buy a little bit, its mostly the same as the default.

Rogue: I don't consider the Rogue necessarily weak. It is a different animal is far from the "weakest" class in default 5e or my modified version. In what ways do you consider the Rogue weak, and what do you consider effective tweaks?

Two Weapon Fighting: The level 8 second offhand attack works well enought mathematically for balance purposes. I agree it is a bit wierd, but it was a simple fix. Yeah, it can get bit powerful with Hex and Hunter's Mark, but don't forget the inherent balancing opportunity cost to the bonus action. It requires your bonus action to cast Hex/Hunter's Mark or to move it to a new target, you also need your bonus attack for your offhand attacks. In practice this is a strong balancing factor.

Paladin: Sure, Channel Divinity could use some work, but IMO it wasn't super critical to fix that particular issue. I tried to focus on the more low hanging fruit.



Hi its me again. I thought about doing some criticism on what i think its not balance/fun.
1- sorcerer: yeah I know people say he need more spells, but the way you did it ruin all the balance (and the idea) between the wizard and the sorcerer.
A- Now the sorcerer will have more spells ready at lower levels (unless he have less cha than int of the wizard)
B- The font of magic, just a stupid excuse to make the sorcerer take a short rest, its not balance (now the sorcerer will have more spells then the wizard in lower levels), and it doesn't scale at all.
C- I thought you gonna fix the 20 lv feature, but you didnt (its weird because you fixed other features of the sorcerer).
D- instead of you did, you can focus on what make the sorcerer special (in my opinion exchange of a lot spells known for metamagic, and the ability to change spells slots in one lv to spells slot of other lv)
So make that he have 3 metamagic but can only chose two at a time and can replace one metamagic with a one he knows at short or long rest. Second you can make that he use his sorcerery points to cast spells instead of regular spell slots. And if you still want to the sorcerer to have more spells known. a- Buff the known spells for the sorcerer and the wizard (not my favorite). b- make a feat that give more spells known. c- give little buff to spells known like plus one spell or something more interesting like you always do.
2-remove "resting in armor" its not fun, unnecessary and add another rule to think about.
3- Humans, yeah I know you made you case clear but I still think you should add the feat "human determination" as part of the race (he is weak no matter the skills or the +6 to abilities, yeah he is versatile, but it not fun that he is the only one without cool features)
4- Feats for races doesn't seem balanced to me, like the ability to fly as a dragonborn, but you can prove me wrong.
5-" Spellslinger" feat, I'm not a big fan of "stealing" features from classes specially if it is a high lv feature (wizard "empowered evocation").

1. How did what I did ruin balance? Sorcerer still knows a finite number of spells, significantly lacks the flexibility in spells known etc, but has greater flexibility with metamagic and sorcery points.
1a. Sure, Sorcerer has more spells available to them on any particular day, but the Wizard has spells known and can prepare and customize from that list on a daily basis. This is far beyond what the Sorcerer can do. The Sorcerer is "stuck" with their spells with the exception of the relearning at each level. The Wizard gets to prepare spells from all of their spells known which is guarenteed to be a large number of spells by default learning, and with the ability to add spells to their book it can be an absolutely ridiculous number. That flexibility and customizability of the Wizard is often more powerful than the additional spell known the Sorc has.
1b. Give the Sorcerer something to gain on a short rest. Wizard already has the ability to regain spell slots on a short rest through Arcane Recovery and its better, now the Sorcerer gets to refresh a small amount of their Sorcery Points which adds to their flexibility schtick. Yeah, the Sorcerer is a bit of a better raw spellcaster than the wizard sub levels 4 for sure, the the Wizard has a greater flexibility and customization of their spell list through spells prepared and their spellbook. That can't be easily disounted.
1c. I didn't feel like modifying the capstone too much. IMO they are rarely ever in practice, and giving them a bit more SPs was good enough. I mean, if I was doing a deeper rewrite I would have changed much more about the capstone, but here I didn't feel it absolutely necessary.
1d. I mean, I didn't want to try and write additional metamagics, but I did want to give the Sorcerer a bit more flexibility in their spells known and give them a bit more resources for the use of their metamagics. I heavily considered giving them another metamagic known.

2. Its an optional variant rule, but I find just having it most players just choose to sleep without armor instead and it leads to some fun situations ie the Paladin with Powerful build getting surprised in the middle of the night and charging into battle with his Tower Shield while one handing a maul in his night clothes because he didn't have the minutes required to put on armor. Definitely changed up how combat can flow and it has the right feel. This is something people can just not use if they want but IMO it captures the right "feel".
3. I jsut don't 'see them as underpowered right now, and adding that default feat would push them into the too good category IMO.
4. They are based off the UA release. The flying as a dragonborn has limitations, its only turns/con mod at low levels and isn't better than fly at 5th level.
5. It didn't give away a class feature, it is additional, now an evocation wizard that takes it can actually be effective. The game needed more spellcaster feats, and blasting was by default extremely poor outside default Warlock.


Thanks again for the feedback!

[acemcjack]

Hey Zman!

Could you please explain the wording in the last part of the Spellslinger feat?
Spellslinger
Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell.
Yoru spells always seem to have a little bit extra, gain the
following benefits:
Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by
1, to a Maximum of 20.
You can add your Spellcasting modifier modifier to the
damage roll of any spell you cast. The damage bonus
applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls and
cannot be used to increase the damage dealt to a single
creature by an amount greater than your spellcasting
modifier.

I mean this part: "...cannot be used to increase the damage dealt to a single
creature by an amount greater than your spellcasting
modifier."

Thanks!

[Zman]

Hey Zman!

Could you please explain the wording in the last part of the Spellslinger feat?
Spellslinger
Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell.
Yoru spells always seem to have a little bit extra, gain the
following benefits:
Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by
1, to a Maximum of 20.
You can add your Spellcasting modifier modifier to the
damage roll of any spell you cast. The damage bonus
applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls and
cannot be used to increase the damage dealt to a single
creature by an amount greater than your spellcasting
modifier.

I mean this part: "...cannot be used to increase the damage dealt to a single
creature by an amount greater than your spellcasting
modifier."

Thanks!

It means that you only get to add your spell casting modifier once per spell per target, unlike like stock agonizing blast on eldritch blast that adds the modifier for each blast. It’s the same modifier I added to agonizing blast to balance it.

[acemcjack]

Ok, thanks!