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KarlMarx
2018-12-23, 07:34 PM
Otherworldly Patron: The Hero of Legend

You have made your pact with one or more of the legendary figures of epic, history, or myth, who guides you to follow in their footsteps. Perhaps you are a descendant of this patron, or perhaps you contacted their spirit by occult means. Regardless, they have empowered you with a piece of the magic that the Bards have woven into their legend.


Expanded spell list: The Hero of Legend lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a spell. The following spells are added to the Warlock spell list for you.

1
Bane, Heroism

2
Aid, Enhance Ability

3
Clairvoyance, Crusader’s Mantle

4
Arcane Eye, Guardian of Faith

5
Legend Lore, Hallow

Heroic Arms: At 1st level, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons. When attacking with a weapon with which you have proficiency, you may use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.

Hero’s Guidance: Starting at 1st level, you may give a number of allies equal to your charisma modifier within 20 feet of you 1d4 temporary hit points and advantage on their next attack roll or saving throw as a bonus action. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish either a short or a long rest.

Legendary Resilience: Beginning at 6th level, whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you makes a saving throw, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be conscious to grant this bonus. [As the Paladin's Aura of Protection, with no 18th-level improvement]

Katabasis: At 10th level, you learn how to perform an ancient ritual to contact your patron. This ritual takes 2d4 hours to complete, and cannot be conducted more than once per week. During the ritual, your spirit and the spirit of your patron or their emissary travel to a shadowy demiplane that cannot be accessed by any means besides this ritual, where you may ask them a number of questions equal to 1+your Charisma modifier about their life or journey, or about the status of places and persons of interest to them in the multiverse. This ritual otherwise functions as Contact Other Plane, but you do not risk psychic damage, insanity, or failure of the ritual, and there is no limit on the complexity of the answers they will provide, though they cannot answer any question beyond the scope of their knowledge as described above.

Crowned in Glory: By 14th level, your fame begins to rival those of the heroes you study. Once per long rest, you may take a bonus action to gain the following for 1 minute:
--You cannot be charmed or frightened, and you gain resistance to one damage type of your choice.
--You have advantage on your attack rolls, and your attack rolls are critical hits on a 19 or 20.
--When you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points, all enemies within 20 feet of you must make a Charisma saving throw (DC=your spell save DC) or be frightened for 1d4 rounds. You and all allies within 20 feet of you gain temporary hit points equal to 1d10+your Charisma modifier.

cesius
2018-12-23, 09:08 PM
Otherworldly Patron: The Hero of Legend

[I]You have made your pact with one or more of the legendary figures of epic, history, or myth. Perhaps you are a descendant of this patron, or perhaps you contacted their spirit by occult means. Regardless, they have empowered you with a piece of the magic that the Bards have woven into their legend.
Groovy.



1
Bane, Heroism

I understand why Bless didn't make it (Hero's Guidance), but I think a first level smite spell would be a better fit than Bane.



3
Clairvoyance, Crusader’s Mantle

4
Arcane Eye, Guardian of Faith

5
Legend Lore, Hallow

Is the idea with Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, and Legend Lore that the Hero of Legend is imparting information to the warlock? I reversed engineered that from Hero's Guidance and Katabasis; you may want to be more explicit about this sort of interaction between patron and warlock in the subclass description.



Heroic Arms: At 1st level, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons. When attacking with a weapon with which you have proficiency, you may use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.

This is why I though a smite would be more appropriate than Bane; I think this ability firmly establishes the subclass as a more martial one.



Hero’s Guidance: Starting at 1st level, you may give a number of allies equal to your charisma modifier within 20 feet of you 1d4 temporary hit points and advantage on their next attack roll or saving throw as a bonus action. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish either a short or a long rest.

A bonus action, one shot Bless once per short/long rest? That works well.



Legendary Resilience: Beginning at 6th level, at the end of each long rest, choose two ability scores, one physical and one mental. You and all allies within 20 feet of you gain advantage on those saving throws.

I'd make it the same as Aura of Protection to simplify the matter.



Katabasis: At 10th level, you learn how to perform an ancient ritual to contact your patron. This ritual takes 2d4 hours to complete, and cannot be conducted more than once per week. During the ritual, your spirit and the spirit of your patron or their emissary travel to a shadowy demiplane that cannot be accessed by any means besides this ritual, where you may ask them a number of questions equal to 1+your Charisma modifier about their life or journey, or about the status of places and persons of interest to them in the multiverse. This ritual otherwise functions as Contact Other Plane, but you do not risk psychic damage, insanity, or failure of the ritual, and there is no limit on the complexity of the answers they will provide, though they cannot answer any question beyond the scope of their knowledge as described above.

I love it, but the vagueness is a strength and a weakness. Unlike other class options, this requires a well-defined Patron with an at-least semi-defined history in other to answer questions "about their life or journey, or about the status of places and persons of interest to them in the multiverse."

Crowned in Glory: By 14th level, your fame begins to rival those of the heroes you study. Once per day, for one minute, you may gain the following as a bonus action[/QUOTE]
Make it once per long rest rather than day to keep it with the usual aesthetic. I'm a little confused on the wording. Is it a bonus action to activate the effect and you have it for a minute, or do you choose a minute and within that minute you can use a bonus action on your turn to gain the effect?

KarlMarx
2018-12-23, 09:56 PM
Groovy.


I understand why Bless didn't make it (Hero's Guidance), but I think a first level smite spell would be a better fit than Bane.


Is the idea with Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, and Legend Lore that the Hero of Legend is imparting information to the warlock? I reversed engineered that from Hero's Guidance and Katabasis; you may want to be more explicit about this sort of interaction between patron and warlock in the subclass description.


This is why I though a smite would be more appropriate than Bane; I think this ability firmly establishes the subclass as a more martial one.


A bonus action, one shot Bless once per short/long rest? That works well.


I'd make it the same as Aura of Protection to simplify the matter.


I love it, but the vagueness is a strength and a weakness. Unlike other class options, this requires a well-defined Patron with an at-least semi-defined history in other to answer questions "about their life or journey, or about the status of places and persons of interest to them in the multiverse."

Crowned in Glory: By 14th level, your fame begins to rival those of the heroes you study. Once per day, for one minute, you may gain the following as a bonus action
Make it once per long rest rather than day to keep it with the usual aesthetic. I'm a little confused on the wording. Is it a bonus action to activate the effect and you have it for a minute, or do you choose a minute and within that minute you can use a bonus action on your turn to gain the effect?

So my 3 main goals for the subclass were, in order, 1. (melee) combat, with a focus on engaging multiple enemies rather than the Hexblade's curse focus, 2. An "Ancient Lore" type vibe, and 3. Some additional fear/crowd-based debuffs. Bane made the spell list to help with (3), since the only other thing was Crowned by Glory's fear saves which doesn't come online until much later.

As for the Smites, Wrathful Smite would work thematically, so I guess it's a toss-up between that and Bane, which for me is decided by the fact that I want to focus a bit more on *not* singling out one enemy and smacking them till they're dead, since we already have a hexblade for that if that's how you like your warlocks. And you can't *not* have Heroism on this list

Aura of Protection's rules do probably work better for balance and simplicity, I'll edit.

As you point out, Katabasis and other aspects do mean that you'll have to flesh out this patron more than some others, but to me that fits in a bit better with the overall vibe anyway, provided DMs actually take the effort to work it into the campaign in some way. It's of course inspired by Odysseus' voyage to Hades to meet with Akilles and Aeneas' similar visit to Anchises.

Crowned by Glory is triggered by a Bonus Action and lasts for 1 minute. I'll edit that and a couple other things for clarity.

cesius
2018-12-23, 11:06 PM
So my 3 main goals for the subclass were, in order, 1. (melee) combat, with a focus on engaging multiple enemies rather than the Hexblade's curse focus, 2. An "Ancient Lore" type vibe, and 3. Some additional fear/crowd-based debuffs. Bane made the spell list to help with (3), since the only other thing was Crowned by Glory's fear saves which doesn't come online until much later.
That's a nice delineation from hexblade, a line the description along the lines of, "lesser creatures cowering awe or fear in the channeled presence of a legendary figure," would help establish it up front.

Lord Von Becker
2019-01-23, 07:30 PM
Okay, I like the ideas you've got here. I think I can help with the execution a bit, though. (Red text is changes, strikethrough is deletions. Apologies if I've overstepped; I can be overeager sometimes.)

Otherworldly Patron: The Hero of Legend

You have made your pact with one or more of the legendary figures of epic, history, or myth, who guides you to follow in their footsteps. Perhaps you are a descendant of this patron, or perhaps you contacted their spirit by occult means. Regardless, they have empowered you with a piece of the magic that the Bards have which has woven its way into their legend.
This is a bit of a nitpick, but Bards with a capital 'B' necessitates the widespread influence of that adventuring class.
(Incidentally, what about unsung heroes? That sounds like an interesting concept.)

Expanded spell list: The Hero of Legend lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a spell. The following spells are added to the Warlock spell list for you.

1st level
Bane, Heroism


2nd level
Aid, Enhance Ability


3rd level
Clairvoyance, Crusader's Mantle



4th level
Arcane Eye, Guardian of Faith


5th level
Legend Lore, Hallow



No redtext, since I was mostly just putting it into a table. (Edit: I was pretty happy with how it looked in the editor, but on display it looked bad. Sorry about that.)
Incidentally, should Spirit Guardians be on there somewhere?

Heroic Arms: At 1st level, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons.
When attacking with a weapon with which you have proficiency, you may use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.
Looks reasonable. I assume it shares this with the Hexblade. (Heavy armor would be on-theme fluffwise, but probably broken - I should just write and post my armor fixes.)

Hero’s Guidance: Starting at 1st level, you may give a number of allies equal to your charisma modifier all allies within 20 feet of you 1d4 temporary hit points, and advantage on their next attack roll or saving throw, as a bonus action.<sentence break>
Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish either a short or a long rest.
Reasoning: It flows better, and as a once-per-rest thing, letting you buff up a small army if you have one probably isn't broken. If you're worried, though, I'd still swap CHA for Warlock level, to really drive home the 'improving as a commander' thing.

Legendary Resilience: Beginning at 6th level, whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you makes a saving throw, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be conscious to grant this bonus. [As the Paladin's Aura of Protection, with no 18th-level improvement]
Hmm. Balanced, with the caveat that stackable auras can break 5E wide open. Might rename it, though - it's clearly for protecting more than just yourself, and isn't a way to give you Legendary Saves.

Katabasis: At 10th level, you gain the power to contact your patron during a long rest. When you do so, you may converse with their spirit about anything they would know, including their history, the plane of their afterlife, and the traditions they inspired or exemplified.
A righteous warrior might tell you of wars and the heavens, a chaotic priest could speak of madness and miracles, and a tyrannical wizard-king could tell you of rulers, fell sorceries, and the Nine Hells.
If a subject is within your patron's purview but beyond their personal experience, specifics are difficult to obtain. These questions must be kept simple, and you can only ask a number equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) in a single rest.

I wound up rewriting that wholesale. Not sure I should have. What do you think?

Crowned in Glory: By 14th level, your fame begins to rival those of the heroes you study. Once per long rest, you You may take a bonus action to gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
- You cannot be charmed or frightened, and you gain resistance to one damage type of your choice.
- You have advantage on your attack rolls, and your attack rolls are critical hits on a 19 or 20.
- When you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points, all enemies within 20 feet of you must make a Charisma save against your spell save DC, or be frightened for 1d4 rounds. Additionally, you and all allies within 20 feet of you gain temporary hit points equal to 1d10+your Charisma modifier.

Once you have used this feature, you can't use it again until you've finished a long rest.
Just some flow edits. I do wonder if it would be better to make the temp-HP automatic on activation, though.