Should cap stones be better?

[stoutstien]

It's probably been talked about but I couldn't find anything on it. Other than the very rare Corner cases of a DM flat-out not allowing multiclassing it seems that the game almost encourages it. I know most people never see high-level ggameplay, let alone The final Tier 17-20. Other than barbarians and Fighters most class capstone's are weaker than the level 3 abilities.
Reason this is kind of coming up is that the very first camping and I started with 5th edition came out is getting to level 17 next week. Every player besides one is a pure class.
The halfling Barbarian the only one really chomping at the bit for the Capstone.
The cleric, who is the most experienced player who's been playing with me for the last 20 odd years off and on, looks at divine intervention as a role-playing implement then and I win button the hit once a day.
The Sorcerer And Rogue act like they have nothing to look forward to in reality they don't.
The pally/ fighter is ok without it.
Crap sorry bout wall of text. My computers non operational at the moment I'm trying to do all this formatting on a phone

[Lombra]

Rogue's capstone is hella good. It recharges after a short rest and it is an "I can't fail" ability tht is wonderful both in and out of combat.

Sorcerer's capstone effectively gives 8 extra sorcery points, which is pretty good.

Fighter's capstone is really good especially when magic weapons are involved

Paladin's capstone varies depending on the oath, but all are useful.

To be honest I like the fact that capstones are not overwhelmingly powerful. This way you can multiclass without major regrets, but at the same time staying single classed still gives you powerful options.

[Dudewithknives]

Rogue's capstone is hella good. It recharges after a short rest and it is an "I can't fail" ability tht is wonderful both in and out of combat.

Sorcerer's capstone effectively gives 8 extra sorcery points, which is pretty good.

Fighter's capstone is really good especially when magic weapons are involved

Paladin's capstone varies depending on the oath, but all are useful.

To be honest I like the fact that capstones are not overwhelmingly powerful. This way you can multiclass without major regrets, but at the same time staying single classed still gives you powerful options.

The issue is that the capstones are not balanced at all.

Barbarian is great, flat 2 ac, 2 to hit, 2 damage, and 2 more HP a level and some other bonuses as well as reaching levels that nobody else can.

Bard is completely lackluster, one inspiration die is nothing impressive at all.

Fighter's 4th attack should be at level 17 not 20. Every caster gets their last level up for cantrips at 17, which is the only thing that scales like it. So why does the fighter have to wait that long for a 4th attack?

Druid Capstone is solid broken gold. Are you a caster who has one of a few kryptonite spells or can you kill me in one round? No? Then i am completely unkillable to you.
Ex. It is absolutely impossible for a rogue to ever kill a level 20 druid.

Monk capstone is better than Bard capstone, but honestly if I took Monk all the way to 20 I would feel cheated, I would so take many other classes level 1 abilities over their level 20.

Paladins get a very solid one.

Rogue one is hit and miss, literally. The skill check one is nothing impressive at all considering you got Reliable Talent almost half a campaign ago, and turning a miss to a hit is ok, but it should honestly be just letting you auto-crit once.

Cleric is far too vague, and ability that does whatever the DM wants is not well thought out. I have seen one DM give the Cleric all their spell levels back, while a different DM literally had the PC'S God's Avatar show up and wipe out an army.

Monk is kind of meh.

Warlock is ok, but is very situational.

Wizards get their capstone at level 18, Spell Mastery is just that much better than Signature Spell.

I have yet to see anyone play a Ranger more than 5 levels so can't comment on them.

[stoutstien]

I guess with Rogue the lv 11 feature the capstone seems lacking. I like the concept but I kind of wish it was once an encounter or maybe on a natural critical fail it turn automatically turns into a critical success.
Maybe I'm being too hard on sorcerer. A flat-out reduction to metamagic cost would have been cool. He is a wild magic Sorcerer And he gets lucky.

[tieren]

Monk capstone is better than Bard capstone, but honestly if I took Monk all the way to 20 I would feel cheated, I would so take many other classes level 1 abilities over their level 20.


If you play a monk for 19 levels and would rather have some other class' level 1 ability than your level 20, just take the one level in the other class and get it, whats the big deal?

[stoutstien]

The problem is you're saying that a level 1 ability is equal to or greater than a Capstone. Monk is a special case it might be tide with Bard as the weakest Capstone. It should be more along the lies that Flurry of Blows or step of the wind no longer Cost ki. The Bard Capstone honestly should be a bump in the inspiration die size and if you want a recovery mechanism it should be a lot more powerful than one.

As I stated in the first post I have nothing against multiclassing but it seems like they just flat out ran out of ideas on some of the higher-level features

[SharkForce]

rogue capstone is fine. reliable talent works on stuff you're proficient in. stroke of luck works on anything, including stuff that normally doesn't allow proficiency. need a strength check to get out of a DC 19 entangle and you dumped strength to 8? no problem. didn't take persuasion proficiency and now you've got +1 on your roll to get your friends out of jail? you absolutely *must* land a counterspell to save the party from a nearby meteor swarm? well guess who can guarantee a roll of 20 on that check, and isn't going to fail it even though they're using a level 3 slot, it's your arcane trickster friend.

now, that isn't to say that it's always worth not multiclassing... a 3-level fighter dip (or more) is awesome for a rogue, for example.

but yeah, some of the other ones are extremely underwhelming.

also, just to point out, druid capstone is only borked for moon druid. it's good for all druids, because hey, unlimited use of an ability that grants mobility, stealth, transportation, and various utility affects is great for anyone, but only moon druid is borked (and i actually recommend changing it to allow unlimited use of the baseline druid wild shape only, which is still awesome for moon druids because now they can shapeshift for flight, swimming/waterbreathing, tunneling, etc without giving up a combat use of wild shape).

[Dudewithknives]

If you play a monk for 19 levels and would rather have some other class' level 1 ability than your level 20, just take the one level in the other class and get it, whats the big deal?

The big deal is that a level 20 ability should be better than a level 1 ability.

Capstone abilities should be worked for, not getting up to and then doing something else.

Avoiding a weak capstone does not fix the weak capstone, it is just solid proof your capstone needs buffing.

[Lombra]

Monk 20 = always on Empty Body. Or Quivering Palm. I wouldn't call it bad.

Bards do look bad, I guess that having an extra d12 on an ally for saving throws isn't that bad tho.

[Nidgit]

Monk 20 = always on Empty Body. Or Quivering Palm. I wouldn't call it bad.
Exactly this. There are some extremely good Monk abilities you'll always have access to. Could it be better? Sure. Change it so Monks gain 4 ki every time they roll Initiative, not just when they're empty. Obviously you cap max ki at 20.

Bard, Cleric, and Ranger are definitely the weakest capstones to me. I think you could fix the Ranger's by allowing you to add Wis once each to both an attack roll and a damage roll instead of just choosing between them.

[sithlordnergal]

Yeah, besides the obvious Bard, Cleric, and Ranger capstones, the others seem pretty decent. While Monk's could be somewhat better, it is still a useful ability.

Which means that 9 out of 12 classes have decent capstones. And out of the three with poor capstones, the Bard doesn't really need a stronger capstons. Why? Because, they get to take any 9th level spell they want from any spell casting class at level 18. Being able to take a 9th level spell from Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, or Druid is pretty big. Especially since a Bard usually gets two 9th level spells off their own list.

[Dudewithknives]

Exactly this. There are some extremely good Monk abilities you'll always have access to. Could it be better? Sure. Change it so Monks gain 4 ki every time they roll Initiative, not just when they're empty. Obviously you cap max ki at 20.

Bard, Cleric, and Ranger are definitely the weakest capstones to me. I think you could fix the Ranger's by allowing you to add Wis once each to both an attack roll and a damage roll instead of just choosing between them.

Monk 20 should have been easy. Flurry of Blows becomes free.

[Flashy]

I'm not particularly fond of the Druid capstone just because the power level varies so much between the subclasses. A Moon Druid likely feels a lot better about single-classing all the way to 20 than a Land Druid does, which feels like it misses the point of a capstone.

[Kane0]

What I like to do:

Bard capstone: When you grant bardic inspiration you give an inspiration die to a second creature.
Monk capstone: You get the Ki when you roll initiative, not just when empty (max 20)
Fighter capstone: can use all short rest abilities (second wind, action surge, indomitable, power critical) a second time each between rests. 4th attack moved to level 17 (there are further changes I've made to fighters but not many)
Warlock: Capstone feature is an action to use, not a minute

Yet to think of a good cleric one. Maybe activate two Divinity options when they channel divinity?

[Lombra]

Monk 20 should have been easy. Flurry of Blows becomes free.

That's way worse, unflavorful, and less versatile than the current one, to be honest.

[Lombra]

Cleric's capstone is basically an extra 9th level spell, what's bad about it? It has the potential to turn campaigns over, and encourages player-DM interaction, I think it fits.

[Flashy]

Cleric's capstone is basically an extra 9th level spell, what's bad about it? It has the potential to turn campaigns over, and encourages player-DM interaction, I think it fits.

Personally? I think the problem is more that it's a culmination of the painfully mediocre second half of the cleric progression. Starting around 11th level the features largely transition from supporting a rather nifty support caster which excels in a particular speciality to an ultra-generic buffy/healy cleric which slooooowly grinds towards the capstone. They're taking a feature you've had for ten levels and saying "Okay, now you can use this ability reliably instead of rolling against an 80-90% chance that nothing happens."

It's also a little misleading to call it an extra 9th level spell slot since it takes a week to recharge.

[Cybren]

Capstones being good aren't as important as them feeling good. One of the reasons Perfect Self, for example, feels bad for monks is that they regain a small amount of a resource they normally get back on short rests anyway. It might be mechanically fine, but it's not very evocative. Especially when you compare it to what Perfect Self did in 3.5. Becoming an Outsider was cool.

[SharkForce]

Monk 20 = always on Empty Body. Or Quivering Palm. I wouldn't call it bad.

Bards do look bad, I guess that having an extra d12 on an ally for saving throws isn't that bad tho.


Exactly this. There are some extremely good Monk abilities you'll always have access to. Could it be better? Sure. Change it so Monks gain 4 ki every time they roll Initiative, not just when they're empty. Obviously you cap max ki at 20.

Bard, Cleric, and Ranger are definitely the weakest capstones to me. I think you could fix the Ranger's by allowing you to add Wis once each to both an attack roll and a damage roll instead of just choosing between them.

monk capstone is one use of those abilities... *if* you've spent all your ki already, and didn't just take a short rest.

not exciting. not really all that powerful either, particularly since you kinda need to spend ki to really get value out of the monk.

this is not to say that recharging ki is a bad capstone, just that a small amount that only kicks in in a situation where you shouldn't find yourself in regularly that will still leave you struggling to contribute effectively isn't a good capstone. if it was, say 1 ki per round, that would be an awesome capstone; start every fight with 20, have enough to be awesome in any given fight, and it would certainly make elemental monks a heck of a lot more interesting... probably too interesting though :P

(if it was recover 1 ki per round, any time you have less than 10, that might be a touch more reasonable; it lets you be more free in spending your ki, but won't allow 4 elements monk to go quite as crazy... but still lets them be a little bit crazy, which is perfectly fine because they've been struggling for the prior 19 levels and i'm still not convinced it would be overpowered)

[MeeposFire]

My change to the monk capstone was that the you get 1 ki per round on your turn up to 4 points.

Yes it is potent but hey you are level 20 and the game is essentially over and you could be fighting gods getting some potent abilities should be expected.



I agree about fighter. The level 20 is a good ability but it is not a capstone. I moved it to 17 (moved action surge part 2 to 18) so that it scales like cantrips. The new capstone is "legendary" where the fighter gains a number of abilities sort of related to their classic class feature of being a lord or lady. Gain prof in a number of skills related to that (or double prof if you have the skill already) lets you play the part. If your fighter has a home you can designate it as your lair and you gain some special lair actions and the like (sort of like legendary monsters). These end up being mostly ribbons of course since most encounters do not happen in your "lair" but if it does this will make your fighter feel really awesome. IN that description we also create some lair affects that make sense. Lastly 1/long rest your fighter can use a set of three legendary actions per round in a combat. In that one combat you are king of the fight. I also think this fits the mold of the fighter being the king of action efficiency and getting more actions than anybody else.

This is also really potent but once again level 20 so I am not that worried about it. Also this hands out nice RP abilities while also bringing back a classic fighter high level abilities but not requiring them (get yourself a castle and you can use those extra abilities that are only useful in that castle). Nobody has gotten that far yet but I have some players that are excited about it.