JDanton
2018-08-21, 02:00 PM
I'm not sure if this thread is better suited in the homebrew section, since it technically deals with homebrewed content but I'm posting it here because I've always got better answers from this section of the forum and this issue is more about balancing than homebrewing content, if I'm completely wrong to do so then inform me in the comment and I'll move it but for the moment here it shall stay.
Okay, now that the disclaimers out the way here is my issue; I quite recently began running a 6 player campaign using elements from the Taldorei Campaign setting, since we're all big critical role fans, for those who don't the Taldorei Campaign setting was designed by Matthew Mercer and contains a lot of homebrewed content centred around the land of Taldorei (where critical role is set). One of my players decided to roll a monk and take Way of the Cobalt Soul tradition from the campaign setting and had created an awesome character and backstory around this, everything was going fine, I worked his backstory and the Cobalt Soul into the main plot and he was really leaning heavily into the RP aspect of the subclass, that was until he actually got to use the Cobalt Soul class features. It became very apparent that the actual features of the subclass were underwhelming and severely underpowered, despite being thematically quite cool, this wasn't so much an issue at first as monks have a very powerful base toolkit, but eventually it became clear that he was much less effective than his other party members and he couldn't justify using any of the features over stunning strike. Its gotten to the point where he is incredibly frustrated and considering just rolling a new character, which would be a shame since he and the rest of the players are already heavily invested in his character arc. I've tried to fix the issue by creating some encounters specifically for his benefit (creatures with easily exploitable weaknesses, puzzles and mysteries involving lore/knowledge and various investigation scenarios to best benefit his class features) but alas he still doesn't contribute as much the others and I sympathise with his frustration.
I am left with a few potential options; I can just allow him to take the Open Hand or Drunken Master tradition and but keep him as a Cobalt Soul monk, just without the subclass to go with it, I can change his backstory completely to match a different subclass or even a completely different class (although this would be tricky since his backstory and character arc are heavily tied into the main story arc and it would be a pain to rewrite everything) or I can try to tweak/rework his existing subclass to make it more viable, preferably without hurting the thematic elements of the tradition cause I think they are really cool and important (I love Matthew Mercer and I do love this subclass it just isn't well balanced, I know that it is still being worked on by the creator but I can't wait around and hope that he fixes it before out next session)
I will propose some of my ideas for tweaks but will ultimately be referring to your guy's suggestions and ideas (I am using the most recently updated version of the class a base);
Mystical Erudition I genuinely don't have any problem with this, extra proficiencies and languages are pretty good, and work thematically with the class. While I think this feature could be more unique and have some more interesting uses I wouldn't really know what to do with it.
Extract Aspects This is the feature that is second most in need of tweaking, this feature rarely gets used and never to any great effect, which is a shame because its so cool in theory. Given that this is a limited use feature and the chances of you learning something useful from it are minimal to none, all it ends up doing is slowing down the game and making combat awkward, so the player basically never uses it. My proposed rework is to keep the trigger the same (land a hit with flurry of blows) but have it only teach you the creatures damage vulnerabilities, resistance and immunities (similar to the monster hunter ranger's Hunter sense) but also grant you advantage on intelligence checks to recall information about them (better synergy with Mystical Erudition). Finally allowing the monk to use this feature a number of times equal to there intelligence modifier would be more universally useful and simpler than gaining additional uses at certain levels. I'm also playing around with the idea of the monk dealing some addition psychic damage as they rip the knowledge straight out of the creature cause I think that would be cool, although I wouldn't know how to balance this or even if its a good idea, I'll leave it up to discussion.
Extort Truth The feature most in need of tweaking, dear god this feature is circumstantial at best and practically useless at worst which like extract aspects is a shame cause its such a cool feature in theory. This feature costs a ki point and IF the target fails the charisma save then it cannot tell a lie, its basically a single target zone of truth. The flaw with this feature comes from the fact that the target can just chose not to answer any questions, that's it, they can negate this feature by just no talking. What exactly is the point if the target knows they've been effected and can just not talk, you can't interrogate information out of people cause they can just not say anything and you can't do it subtly so that people don't notice, so what is the point exactly?! The only ways I can think to make this feature useful is to either compel the target to tell the truth to a limited number of questions or to give the feature a combat use as well; have it so that if a creature is effected by this feature they cannot hide there intent and the monk can easily read their movements, giving the target disadvantage on attacks made against the monk, or like extract aspects incorporate psychic damage somehow since its the same principal.
Mind of Mercury Extra reactions sounds great on paper until you realize that the monks only reactions are deflect missiles and opportunity attacks, for Mind of Mercury to be useful you either need to be targeted by multiple archers at once (which will only work once as they will stop shooting the monk after they catch an arrow) or if they are in combat with multiple enemies at once and they all decide to leave melee range of you (why would they do this?!). At least this feature has a niche use and becomes more useful with the next feature but that's 5 levels of being really subpar, also the ki cost is really taxing and in most cases not worth it (at least compared to stunning strike). My idea is either to give the monk a number of additional reactions per short rest (maybe equal to intelligence of dexterity modifier) that don't require ki points to use, maybe give the monk the ability to spend ki to use additional reactions after they've run out but even that is a bit complicated. Even giving the monk a number of additional free reactions per round doesn't sound too broken, just similar to legendary reactions. I dunno, I just feel like there is a better way to do this.
Preternatural Counter Kinda similar to the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway feature but its free and you make the attack when a creature misses you. This feature is kind of simple but its the first solid combat feature that the subclass gets... At level 11. Obviously combos really well with Mind of Mercury although I feel like it should have come at the same level so that Mind of Mercury could be useful for longer. I don't think this needs any reworks since its already a good ability, especially with my rework of Extort Truth since it imposes disadvantage on attacks which means that more attacks will miss, but if anyone has any great ideas for this feature I'm open to them.
Debilitating Barrage A bit costly and I don't think it requires such a convoluted trigger but goddamn, imposing damage vulnerabilities onto a target or nullifying immunity sounds like it could be really powerful and it combos really well with extract aspects, this is probably the only truly great feature in the subclass, a shame that it comes right at the end.
What are your guys thoughts, critisisms and suggestions? This is an open discussion.
Thanks in advance!
Okay, now that the disclaimers out the way here is my issue; I quite recently began running a 6 player campaign using elements from the Taldorei Campaign setting, since we're all big critical role fans, for those who don't the Taldorei Campaign setting was designed by Matthew Mercer and contains a lot of homebrewed content centred around the land of Taldorei (where critical role is set). One of my players decided to roll a monk and take Way of the Cobalt Soul tradition from the campaign setting and had created an awesome character and backstory around this, everything was going fine, I worked his backstory and the Cobalt Soul into the main plot and he was really leaning heavily into the RP aspect of the subclass, that was until he actually got to use the Cobalt Soul class features. It became very apparent that the actual features of the subclass were underwhelming and severely underpowered, despite being thematically quite cool, this wasn't so much an issue at first as monks have a very powerful base toolkit, but eventually it became clear that he was much less effective than his other party members and he couldn't justify using any of the features over stunning strike. Its gotten to the point where he is incredibly frustrated and considering just rolling a new character, which would be a shame since he and the rest of the players are already heavily invested in his character arc. I've tried to fix the issue by creating some encounters specifically for his benefit (creatures with easily exploitable weaknesses, puzzles and mysteries involving lore/knowledge and various investigation scenarios to best benefit his class features) but alas he still doesn't contribute as much the others and I sympathise with his frustration.
I am left with a few potential options; I can just allow him to take the Open Hand or Drunken Master tradition and but keep him as a Cobalt Soul monk, just without the subclass to go with it, I can change his backstory completely to match a different subclass or even a completely different class (although this would be tricky since his backstory and character arc are heavily tied into the main story arc and it would be a pain to rewrite everything) or I can try to tweak/rework his existing subclass to make it more viable, preferably without hurting the thematic elements of the tradition cause I think they are really cool and important (I love Matthew Mercer and I do love this subclass it just isn't well balanced, I know that it is still being worked on by the creator but I can't wait around and hope that he fixes it before out next session)
I will propose some of my ideas for tweaks but will ultimately be referring to your guy's suggestions and ideas (I am using the most recently updated version of the class a base);
Mystical Erudition I genuinely don't have any problem with this, extra proficiencies and languages are pretty good, and work thematically with the class. While I think this feature could be more unique and have some more interesting uses I wouldn't really know what to do with it.
Extract Aspects This is the feature that is second most in need of tweaking, this feature rarely gets used and never to any great effect, which is a shame because its so cool in theory. Given that this is a limited use feature and the chances of you learning something useful from it are minimal to none, all it ends up doing is slowing down the game and making combat awkward, so the player basically never uses it. My proposed rework is to keep the trigger the same (land a hit with flurry of blows) but have it only teach you the creatures damage vulnerabilities, resistance and immunities (similar to the monster hunter ranger's Hunter sense) but also grant you advantage on intelligence checks to recall information about them (better synergy with Mystical Erudition). Finally allowing the monk to use this feature a number of times equal to there intelligence modifier would be more universally useful and simpler than gaining additional uses at certain levels. I'm also playing around with the idea of the monk dealing some addition psychic damage as they rip the knowledge straight out of the creature cause I think that would be cool, although I wouldn't know how to balance this or even if its a good idea, I'll leave it up to discussion.
Extort Truth The feature most in need of tweaking, dear god this feature is circumstantial at best and practically useless at worst which like extract aspects is a shame cause its such a cool feature in theory. This feature costs a ki point and IF the target fails the charisma save then it cannot tell a lie, its basically a single target zone of truth. The flaw with this feature comes from the fact that the target can just chose not to answer any questions, that's it, they can negate this feature by just no talking. What exactly is the point if the target knows they've been effected and can just not talk, you can't interrogate information out of people cause they can just not say anything and you can't do it subtly so that people don't notice, so what is the point exactly?! The only ways I can think to make this feature useful is to either compel the target to tell the truth to a limited number of questions or to give the feature a combat use as well; have it so that if a creature is effected by this feature they cannot hide there intent and the monk can easily read their movements, giving the target disadvantage on attacks made against the monk, or like extract aspects incorporate psychic damage somehow since its the same principal.
Mind of Mercury Extra reactions sounds great on paper until you realize that the monks only reactions are deflect missiles and opportunity attacks, for Mind of Mercury to be useful you either need to be targeted by multiple archers at once (which will only work once as they will stop shooting the monk after they catch an arrow) or if they are in combat with multiple enemies at once and they all decide to leave melee range of you (why would they do this?!). At least this feature has a niche use and becomes more useful with the next feature but that's 5 levels of being really subpar, also the ki cost is really taxing and in most cases not worth it (at least compared to stunning strike). My idea is either to give the monk a number of additional reactions per short rest (maybe equal to intelligence of dexterity modifier) that don't require ki points to use, maybe give the monk the ability to spend ki to use additional reactions after they've run out but even that is a bit complicated. Even giving the monk a number of additional free reactions per round doesn't sound too broken, just similar to legendary reactions. I dunno, I just feel like there is a better way to do this.
Preternatural Counter Kinda similar to the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway feature but its free and you make the attack when a creature misses you. This feature is kind of simple but its the first solid combat feature that the subclass gets... At level 11. Obviously combos really well with Mind of Mercury although I feel like it should have come at the same level so that Mind of Mercury could be useful for longer. I don't think this needs any reworks since its already a good ability, especially with my rework of Extort Truth since it imposes disadvantage on attacks which means that more attacks will miss, but if anyone has any great ideas for this feature I'm open to them.
Debilitating Barrage A bit costly and I don't think it requires such a convoluted trigger but goddamn, imposing damage vulnerabilities onto a target or nullifying immunity sounds like it could be really powerful and it combos really well with extract aspects, this is probably the only truly great feature in the subclass, a shame that it comes right at the end.
What are your guys thoughts, critisisms and suggestions? This is an open discussion.
Thanks in advance!