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JNAProductions
2018-10-14, 07:29 PM
HIT POINTS
Hit Dice: 1d8
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8+Con mod
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (5)+Con mod

PROFICIENCIES
Armor: None
Weapons: All simple and all martial
Tools: Any two artisan tools

Saving Throws: Dexterity and Charisma
Skills: Pick two from Athletics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Arcana, History, Nature, Religion, Insight, Medicine, Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion.

EQUIPMENT
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
-Any one weapon, with 20 pieces of ammo if needed
-Any one melee weapon
-Any one pack

Harlequin


Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features
Movement Increase


1st
+2
Acrobatic Defense, Fighting Style
-


2nd
+2
Cunning Action, Unarmored Movement
+10'


3rd
+2
Path, Slow Fall
+10'


4th
+2
Ability Score Improvement
+10'


5th
+3
Extra Attack
+15'


6th
+3
Laughing God's Jest
+15'


7th
+3
Path Feature
+15'


8th
+3
Ability Score Improvement
+15'


9th
+4
Tumbler
+20'


10th
+4
Improved Slow Fall
+20'


11th
+4
Path Feature
+20'


12th
+4
Ability Score Improvement
+20'


13th
+5
Blur Of Color
+25'


14th
+5
Freedom Of Movement
+25'


15th
+5
Path Feature
+25'


16th
+5
Ability Score Improvement
+25'


17th
+6
Last Laugh, Perfected Slow Fall
+30'


18th
+6
Lightning Fast Reflexes
+30'


19th
+6
Ability Score Improvement
+30'


20th
+6
Path Feature
+30'



Acrobatic Defense-At level one, you may use 10+Dexterity modifier+Charisma modifier as your AC when wearing no armor and not using a shield. In addition, you gain Expertise in Acrobatics.

Fighting Style-At level one, you may also choose to gain the Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, or Two Weapon Fighting style.

Cunning Action-At level two, you may use your bonus action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide.

Unarmored Movement-At level two, your movement speed increases by the amount shown on the table. This only applies when not wearing armor or using a shield.

Path-At level three, choose to be a Troupe Master, a Death Jester, or a Solitaire. This grants you features at levels three, seven, eleven, fifteen, and twenty.

Slow Fall-At level three, you gain resistance to falling damage.

Ability Score Improvements-Usual levels, usual deal.

Extra Attack-Level five, usual deal.

Laughing God's Jest-At level six, you have perfected the art of comedic mockery. You gain the Vicious Mockery cantrip, using Charisma as your casting stat, and may use it as a bonus action on any turn when you take the attack action.

Tumbler-At level nine, you may move through other creatures' spaces without impediment. If you could not normally move through, they may attempt to grapple you as a reaction when you move through their space.

Improved Slow Fall-At level ten, you may reduce the effective distance you fall by 10' times your proficiency modifier. (So, if you fall 60' at the level you get this, it would be treated as a 20' fall.)

Blur Of Color-At level thirteen, when you Dash, you increase your move speed by twice your base, rather than only one times it.

Freedom Of Movement-At level fourteen, you are under a permanent Freedom Of Movement effect.

Last Laugh-At level seventeen, you may make an additional attack without using an action when you drop a target to 0 HP with a weapon attack. In addition, when you are dropped to 0 HP yourself or killed outright, you may immediately take a turn before beginning to die.

Lightning Fast Reflexes-At level eighteen, ranged attacks made from further than 30' away have disadvantage against you.



Troupe Master

Laugh Together-At level three, you are able to encourage others with your humour and wit. As a bonus action, you can let any one ally move up to their speed without using an action, or make a single attack as a reaction. You may use this a number of times per long rest equal to your Charisma modifier.

With Style And Grace-At level seven, you are unmatched in form. Whenever you score a critical hit in combat, all allies within 60' that can see you gain advantage on their next d20 roll, if made within the next minute.

Combined Strike-At level eleven, you may, as a bonus action, mark a target within 30' for death. Make a single attack roll against them, using your proficiency modifier and Charisma modifier. If you successfully hit, you deal no damage, but you can either force them to have disadvantage on the next save they make, grant the next attack made against them advantage, or give them vulnerability to the next instance of damage they take. Regardless of what you choose, this effect does not stack with itself and disappears after a minute passes.

Master Of The Show-At level fifteen, your Laugh Together feature now recharges on a short rest.

Speed Of The Party-At level twenty, you may grant your Unarmored Movement bonus to all allies within 60'. This applies only as long as you gain the bonus, but your friends can wear armor and still benefit.

Death Jester

Deadly Aim-At level three, you may choose to take a penalty to AC equal to your proficiency bonus until the start of your next turn to gain twice your proficiency bonus to hit with ranged weapons, instead of just one times it, until the start of your next turn.

A Terrifying Kill-At level seven, whenever you drop a target to 0 HP, all creatures of your choice adjacent to the target must make a Wisdom save, against a DC of 8+your proficiency modifier+your Charisma modifier. On a failure, they are Frightened until the end of your next turn.

Point Blank-At level eleven, you no longer have disadvantage on attack rolls with ranged weapons when an enemy is adjacent to you.

Precise Shots-At level eleven, you score a critical hit with ranged attacks any time your hit roll exceeds the targets AC by at least 6 points.

Shoot And Skulk-At level fifteen, you may Hide without using an action after making a ranged attack, so long as you were hidden while making it.

Truly Horrifying-At level twenty, your Terrifying Kill feature now applies to all creatures of your choice within 30' of the slain target.

Solitaire

Reckless Attack-At level three, you may choose to grant advantage on all attacks made against you, but gain advantage on all attacks you make with melee weapons, both lasting until the start of your next turn.

Form Of Fury-At level seven, you gain +1 to your AC when using your Unarmored Defense feature.

Blitz-At level eleven, you may Blitz as an action. You immediately move three times your normal movement speed, provoking attacks of opportunity as normal-however, if any of these attacks drop you to 0 HP or kill you, you remain at 1 HP until you finish your Blitz, after which you drop to 0 HP or die, as appropriate. Then, you may make a number of attacks against any of the targets you passed equal to the amount of opportunity attacks made against you. (For example-you run past a line of 15 Hobgoblins, all of whom make an attack of opportunity. You can then divvy up 15 attacks between the hobgoblins you passed-15 on one, one on all 15, seven on one and eight on another, etc.)

Fury In Form-At level fifteen, you gain +2 to your AC when using your Unarmored Defense, instead of just +1.

Berserk Attack-At level twenty, you may make a single attack with a melee weapon as a bonus action.

Sariel Vailo
2018-10-15, 04:27 PM
Yoooo i can play a dagger throwing character and it would be fun,heresy.

Mada
2018-10-15, 07:00 PM
Seems a bit overpowered to me.

Though I assume you're only using this for personal consumption and not planning to produce it to the world, several sets of wording need to be changed to give the implied effect if it was your plan to "Publish" this somewhere.

~~~~
Base Class
~~~~
Tumbler - I'd just make this "can move through other creatures spaces without impediment unless stated otherwise." the grapple mechanic is fiddly.

Blur of Colour + Cunning Action: You have a double dash feature and a dash is doubled feature meaning that from 13th level you can run (using the standard speed stat of 30) at 55 + 110 + 110 which is 275, was this intentional? Without having a resource to spend it's probably the fastest unaided speed that any PC and most of the monsters can reach and you can do it every turn.

In addition you've given Freedom of Movement, meaning you can SWIM at this speed to, fight underwater, can't be restrained or paralysed or slowed by magic ever. If endless mobility is the aim you're going for you probably need to tone down the defensive capabilities or the offensive one.

Last laugh should be one or the other, in my opinion, not both. Probably the second one or it will hit a little flat.

Lightning Fast Reflexes - Okay, so you've got a character who can't be restrained or slowed, can move the fastest in the game AND is impossible to hit with ranged attacks? This combination of 4 abilities means your GM needs to write every encounter around you and only you because you're untouchable by normal means.
~~~~
Troupe Master
~~~~~
Laugh Together: I like the idea of this guy being a support character. But I'd make the uses of Laugh together a separate expendable resource that's effected by some of the other abilities and make them always recharge on a short rest, giving you room for an extra feature in your level 15 slot. For any future ideas I'll call them "Laugh points"

With Style and Grace - This is craaaazy craaaazy strong for a level 7 ability. Maybe tie it in with Laugh Points so it's a resource-based mechanic. I know crits are rare but they are strong enough. Maybe restrict it to saving throws if you don't want to do that. Advantage on the entire party's next attack can be a lot of damage in a round.

Combined Strike - I'd make this a saving throw, personally. I'd also probably make it more like this but just my suggestion.
"As a bonus action, you expend a Laugh Point to make a creature within 30ft of you make a Charisma saving throw vs a DC of 8 + your Charisma Modifier + your proficiency bonus. On a failure, the creature is marked for death and a single willing creature of your within 30ft of the marked creature of may use their reaction to make a single weapon attack with against it with advantage. The marked creature has vulnerability to this attack."
~~~~
Death Jester
~~~~
I like most of this archetype and it seems mostly fair.

Precise Shots - I'd simply enhance your critical multiplier to 19 or even 18 (which is better than most people). Any low AC target such as zombies will become wet cheese going against this feature as-is.

Shoot and Skulk - This kind of works but overlaps with your Cunning Action which allows you to do it as a bonus action. I don't really have a fix for it but you might just be able to add another feature in instead.
~~~~
Solitaire
~~~~
Blitz should probably be restricted to one attack per target. Otherwise if you're combined with a cleric and you have picked up the GWM feat with the scenario you set up, you've effectively doomed every BBEG with minions by giving someone a base 150 Damage round + modifiers + dicerolls if all 15 attacks hit. Either that or each attack needs to be increasingly less-likely to hit. It's probably also a bit neater to say you take all damage after the blitz is concluded, rather than the stay at 1hp then drop to 0 or die mechanic.

Berserk Attack - This falls a little flat with everything else you have. It's primarily useful to people using two-handed weapons or bows (the latter of which doesn't really suit the archetype) because if you're dual-wielding you're already getting a bonus action attack and if you aren't you've got your vicious mockery. Maybe just make it a 3rd attack for the archetype.
~~~~

The flavour is cool and I actually like the idea of the Kamikaze Solitaire. The idea is there and it doesn't do what other classes do, though it does feel like a bit of a grab bag of monk fighter rogue.

Overall I'm against this "without using an action" mechanic because its very rare, if not unheard of in 5e. Focusing on allowing yourself or your party to maximize on your 3 actions per round economy would suit the edition better, even just some wording changes would make it feel like it had more place.

Sorry if it seemed harsh, I'd like to see this evolve but there's no reason NOT to play this if it's on the table as it stands for any 'optimisation' freaks you had. Any time I suggest homebrew stuff to my players they say "If I had this, I'd break your game like this" and that's effective feedback for me.

JNAProductions
2018-10-16, 11:10 PM
The "reaction grapple" is basically an AoO, but limited to grapples. It offers at least a chance to stop them.

275' is fast. Really fast. But... Unless your whole party can move that fast, why does it really matter? You can scout well, deliver messages fast, etc., but I don't see it breaking anything.

Freedom Of Movement is definitely stronger than that, but considering it's been available since 7th level for actual casters... It's a good feature, and will definitely be AWESOME to have when it's needed. But when it's not needed, it does nothing.

For Last Laugh, which would you recommend keeping?

Impossible to hit... With AC 20? Against another PC, you'd typically be rocking +13 to-hit (+6 Prof, +5 Dex, +2 Archery) so you hit 70% of the time normally. That drops to 48% with disadvantage. Hardly unhittable.
You ARE highly resilient, via being hard to hit, against mooks with ranged attacks. But at that level, mooks shouldn't be a threat in anything less than overwhelming numbers.



You can't depend on a crit. I'd honestly rather it be something else, I just couldn't think of anything.



Blitz-they don't HAVE to take an AoO. Against a decently informed BBEG, it's simple-tell the minions "When you see the crazy murder clown run past you, DON'T ATTACK."

Sariel Vailo
2018-10-16, 11:43 PM
Well whatever it is, i enjoy this heavy thrower class.

pygmybatrider
2018-10-17, 02:18 AM
Hey mate,

I love the concept, but it does feel too strong for a PC class as-is. I agree with pretty much everything Moba said. His critiques were fair and I think probably deserved more consideration than they received.

For example, when you say the Freedom of Movement feature is awesome when needed, but otherwise useless - sure, but you could say the same for Death Ward. A permanently-on feature that lets you straight up ignore multiple common elements of combat is too powerful for a 14th level feature in an already strong base class.

For the movement speed question, one of your subclasses has a feature that works off opportunity attacks provoked. The more speed you have, the more opportunity attacks you provoke. You could run past up to 55 hobgoblins - or 54 hobgoblins and one lich, and then stack 55 attacks on the lich and one-shot the campaign's BBEG. Sure, that specific scenario is unlikely, but there are enough issues with it to warrant a second look. If your argument is they don't have to make opportunity attacks, and you expect DMs to actually follow that rule, then this feature becomes useless and should probably be replaced.

Only getting hit 48% of the time - from something/body with a +13 to hit (i.e. CR 16+), for a very offensively-focused class, is probably a pretty big deal.

For things that Moba didn't touch on, I have a few thoughts.

- Laughing Jest is huge considering Vicious Mockery scales with level. At the level you get it, a bonus action 2d4 attack with a disadvantage rider is better than dual wielding in most cases. It becomes better than another hit with a greatsword/axe at 17. This makes Solitaire's level 20 feature pretty much redundant.

- For Precise Shots and Deadly Aim, you can grab an effective +17 modifier. 90% (I made that up but it sounds close) of the MM has an AC lower than 20, meaning you only have to roll a 9 to get the benefits of Deadly Aim.

- Horrifying Kill/Truly Horrifying and Laugh Together both feel like they should run off a class resource like Bardic Inspiration that you get limited uses of a day. If you went down that track, you could then potentially give the Solitaire something linked to that as well, maybe extra attacks ala War Cleric.

- what fighting style do you expect a Death Jester to take?

It might be useful to consider a few questions to help you work out the kinks of the class.

1. a) What are the weaknesses of the harlequin?
b) What does the harlequin attempt to achieve as class, that other classes can do better?
2. Why would you play a monk when you could play a harlequin?

I want to reiterate that I like the idea, and there are some solid and interesting mechanics in there, but it definitely needs some polish - and you've gotta be open to the idea that it needs some polish too before the polishing can start.