Morgrave Miscellany: Anyone want to talk about it?

[Damon_Tor]

Coming from Kieth Baker, I view this book as pseudo-official for an Eberron game, and intend to allow it. I'm reading through it now, and was wondering if anyone has an interest in discussing the contents from a mechanical perspective. I'm going to just add my thoughts as they strike me.

Path of the Extreme Explorer-
A really cool Barbarian path that takes pains eliminate the "barbarian" fluff entirely. Any tough-as-nails action hero might be an Extreme Explorer, and that's pretty cool. The signature ability of these guys is the ability to apply their hit dice to any d20 roll: attacks, saves and checks, though they can take some damage when they do this. The MinMaxer in me takes note of his level 14 ability that lets them keep a hit dice they use for this ability as long as they take no damage from it, and the damage is reduced by their proficiency bonus. This means if they have a single d6 hit die (from a 1 level dip into sorcerer or wizard) once their proficiency bonus becomes +6 they can apply that hit dice to literally every d20 roll they ever make, and by then it applies to their damage rolls as well via Extreme Rush. Seems quite strong.

College of Keys-
For a bard that got stuck as the rogue. It's hilarious that they can quite literally seduce locks to open them. They are anti-trap specialists, and by level 14 they can just say "no" to all traps and locks within 30 feet, 1/short rest. A very narrow focus for my taste.

Sovereign Domain-
A domain designed for worshipers of an entire pantheon, it's all about versatility in spell selection. Their channel divinity lets them pick any spell from any domain spell list and cast it for 10 minutes. At level 17 they get to pick 5 spells from any domain list and add them to yours. It's a neat idea, but it's basically all this domain does, and I don't feel like it does it terribly well. As a pleasant and not insignificant bonus, they get to add their wisdom modifier to concentration checks.

Circle of the Arbiter-
A very interesting pseudo-wildshape, this makes you levitate, gives you temp HP equal to your max HP (that's a lot) and resistance to all damage except force and psychic. Also a "melee and ranged" (it's both at once?) spell attack option you use with the attack action, which is interesting. You get a bunch of goodies that make you... kind of a tank? Is this a tank druid? Kind of like the Moon druid but you get to cast spells all you want. There's more use of hit dice to fuel other abilities here.

The Silverbow-
Not a full subclass, this is an optional cleric-flavored expansion of the Arcane Archer, giving them the ability to choose Thaumaturgy as their cantrip and history or religion as their bonus proficiency. They get a "radiant arrow" option for their arcane shot, which deals pretty standard arcane shot damage but stuns the target until the end of your next turn on a failed con save. It's a much better option than most of the others, offering harder control and better advantage-granting as well as automatic save failure for dex and str. Oh, it also does extra damage to undead. A pretty nice boost for a subclass that needed the help.

Bone Knight-
A fighter subclass devoted to growing armor out of... your own bones? You're a 1/3 caster with rules for spell selection similar to the Eldritch Knight, but selecting from the Cleric list with a bias toward transmutation and necromancy, and using wis to cast. You get a free Skeleton Warhorse and a Skeleton minion. The skeleton gets some buffs based on your level/proficiency bonus and upgrades to a dread warrior at level 10 and generally seems like a good minion. But what's really strong here is that you get to grow your own armor and weapons from your bones at level 7.


I'm going to discuss this feature further here, because it gets silly. Okay, so you grow armor as an action that turns your AC into 10+ConMod+Proficiency. Damn, very nice. But we aren't done yet, because you can also expend a spell slot to get another +X to your AC, where X is the level of the spell slot you spent. That doesn't get too silly as a 1/3 caster, which only get slots up to level 4 (and even then only one) but consider how a multiclassed character could use this ability. A Cleric 13/Fighter 7 could make themselves a suit of +8 armor. With a shield their AC would be 31. Just all day, 31 AC, walking around.

Oh, they can also make weapons too, which maybe wouldn't be such a big deal, except they can also spend a spell slot to give the weapon +X as well. So he could make himself a +8 weapon. Because why not, right? I mean, he couldn't do both, he would have to settle for either +8 armor and a +7 weapon or vice versa. But... still. Come on man.

Also you can smite at level 15 for up to 4d10 extra damage using your spell slots. Because of course you can.

And at level 18 you can take command of... well, just huge freaking numbers of undead. Once per short rest, as an action, you can attempt to take command of any number of undead within 30 feet of you. This is a cha save vs your spell save DC, which means skeletons/zombies with their -3 cha modifiers will automatically fail against your likely 19 spell DC. Once you take command of them you retain command for 24 hours. A limitation: the total CR of the undead you control in this way can't get higher than your fighter level, but that's not much consolation: if all this guy is using the ability to do is retain control of the skeletons and/or zombies he's been collecting using his level 3 spell slots, that still lets him control 80 freaking undead at level 20. That's a huge burden to any table.

So yeah, this subclass just gets a straight up ban at any reasonable table, what's even going on here.

Vigilante-
Another fighter sublcass. There's a proficiency bonus added to AC again, 10+Con+Proficiency when unarmored. Gets pretty strong, though not as bonkers as the Bone Knight's version of it. More hitdice as a resource, which I like. This version seems more balanced than the explorer barbarian. Really nice, solid subclass overall.

Way of the Argent Fist-
A clericy/paladiny monk with a lay-on-hands analog and a turn undead analog. At level 6 you can spend 2 ki to deal 1d4 extra radiant damage on your attacks for a minute. A variety of goodies that fit thematically. Level 17 ability feels like a paladin capstone, which is cool.

Oath of Sacrament-
A cool paladin subclass that focuses on power drawn from an inner well of divine power, it's an oath to yourself or your potential or something. Turn the Suffering is a really cool Channel Divinity that lets you take a spell effect that you can save against and apply it to all creatures within 10 feet of you. So your pal could cast Hold Person on you, then on your turn you use Turn the Suffering to apply it to all the enemies around you. Pretty slick, love combos like that. All the rest of your features are pretty meh though.

Field Marshal-
Ranger subclass, feels a bit warlord-ish. Nothing I'm terribly exited about, and doesn't seem to be very good.

Divine Herald-
Rogue subclass, 1/3 caster, cleric spells, no school restrictions. A cool death-defying ability, but otherwise nothing super interesting. But hey, cleric spells.

Progenitor Spark-
A weird sorcerer subclass, but potentially potent. You have a "pet" that you can buff with sorcery points, but it doesn't seem all that useful overall. What's really cool is that whenever you cast a spell of level 1 or higher you and allies within 10 feet of you get advantage on saves and resistance to all damage for the round. I feel like this should be triggering virtually every round at high levels. You also have an ability to spend 1-5 sorcery points to temporarily learn a spell of that level from any list, and you get a free, half-power simulacrum at level 18. Very solid subclass.

I'm going to take a break from this for the night, I'll come back and review more in a bit.

[Dork_Forge]

Just skimming over at the moment as I don't have a lot of time but I get the sense that Keith shouldn't write AC formulas. Anything that involves prof+mod and allows a shield is just going to get stupid. Otherwise I like the concept of a bone knight, its different at least.

[Fable Wright]

Bone Knight, as mentioned, is a bit overpowered as a Fighter archetype.

Circle of the Arbiter is... extraordinarily meh. As an offensive power, you get 1d8+5 damage at melee or ranged, you don't have Extra Attack, you can't cast spells (since it inherits Wildshape restrictions and doesn't repeal spellcasting restrictions), it takes an action to assume the form, and two uses of Wild Shape. Hated Foes is just such a dud ability, and it's just bad.

I say this as a Druid fan. The subclass tells you what you're going to do with your action. If you're Land, you're going to cast. If you're Moon, you're going to Attack. If you're Shepherd, you're going to sit around awkwardly twiddling your thumbs while you wait for the velociraptors to be finished with the mauling. If you're Circle of the Arbiter, you're like the Shepherd, but without the velociraptors.

The Aberrant Marks section I want to call out for a moment. I don't know if it's overpowered, underpowered, or just right, but it is unquestionably cool albeit very ASI intensive. Child of Khyber getting two backgrounds plus a bit of racial bonus is something that is possibly too good, and the ability to skip to ASIs for the Aberrant Mark Feats leads to unknown balance concerns. I would adore both these things if I could trust the balance in this playtest document.

I cannot trust the balance in this playtest document.

For Path of the Extreme Explorer, and actually a lot of the HD use abilities:
"Stop hitting yourself" is a terrible gameplay feeling. Each time you burn a hit die and damage yourself, you're forcing the game to cater to more long rests than short rests, since your non-spell healing resource is getting burned through at a precipitous rate. It seems like all of these abilities were balanced around the expectation of a full set of HD and no reliance on HD for healing, which... I mean, it works for some games, but ew. It's really disruptive for the full adventuring day.

[Evaar]

I'm interested as a spectator to this conversation. What else are you liking in the book? I haven't purchased it both because it seems too underdeveloped and because I find PDFs usually just sit unread on my computer, but I'm a big Eberron fan.

Oath of Sacrament is very clearly for the Blood of Vol based on your description, so that's neat.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I bought morgrave miscellany and never went into a deep dive into it, but I really wanted the Shifter racial feats to show up in some manner. They were pretty cool and went in a direction I would call "okay" at making shifting feel like it had a substantial effect. Our DM has left them open as an option for our Shifter but they haven't (and likely won't) end up taking them, more because the first feat in the chain is pretty bad, especially now that Shifter's gain even less traits while not shifted.

Weretouched Master (Feat 1) is bad enough that it makes getting Moonspeaker (Feat 2) difficult to rationalize going for, and I think that Moonspeaker is actually quite strong.

[Damon_Tor]

Circle of the Arbiter is... extraordinarily meh. As an offensive power, you get 1d8+5 damage at melee or ranged, you don't have Extra Attack, you can't cast spells (since it inherits Wildshape restrictions and doesn't repeal spellcasting restrictions), it takes an action to assume the form, and two uses of Wild Shape. Hated Foes is just such a dud ability, and it's just bad.

I suppose you're right about casting, which, yeah, makes it really pretty bad... for a druid. As a dip for another class there's huge potential. A monk, for example, would not only gain an absurd amount of thp, but also resistance to most damage types, which means you have effectively 3x your normal hitpoint count for one encounter every short rest. I'm not entirely certain how often the levitation effect will actually benefit you: it effectively forces to to climb everywhere, but if you have a climb speed from some source or another that's not a problem. You probably won't use the spell attack much, but there's nothing that stops you from using your monk weapons and unarmed attacks.

[Dork_Forge]

I suppose you're right about casting, which, yeah, makes it really pretty bad... for a druid. As a dip for another class there's huge potential. A monk, for example, would not only gain an absurd amount of thp, but also resistance to most damage types, which means you have effectively 3x your normal hitpoint count for one encounter every short rest. I'm not entirely certain how often the levitation effect will actually benefit you: it effectively forces to to climb everywhere, but if you have a climb speed from some source or another that's not a problem. You probably won't use the spell attack much, but there's nothing that stops you from using your monk weapons and unarmed attacks.

I don't have access to the pdf, does the arbiter ability just give you thp equal to your overall max? So you can just take two levels of Druid and the rest Fighter (with the Tough feat) for some of the best meatbag defense in the game? And that is only part of the ability?

...if that's the case then that's obscenely broken, I think the highest level temp hp officially is Tensers Transformation and that would pale in comparison pretty easily. I like Keith Bakers lore, but his mechanics seem to leave a lot to be desired.

[Fable Wright]

I don't have access to the pdf, does the arbiter ability just give you thp equal to your overall max? So you can just take two levels of Druid and the rest Fighter (with the Tough feat) for some of the best meatbag defense in the game? And that is only part of the ability?

...if that's the case then that's obscenely broken, I think the highest level temp hp officially is Tensers Transformation and that would pale in comparison pretty easily. I like Keith Bakers lore, but his mechanics seem to leave a lot to be desired.

That is in fact how the mechanics work. It's like Bear Totem, except a two level dip, it recharges on a Short rest, costs a full action (not a bonus action) to use, you can use it while concentrating, and it also gives you THP = your level.

Also, note on the Sovereign domain:

It doesn't actually grant any domain spells at all unless you use your Channel Divinity to grab a spell known. To reiterate, you must use an action and burn a Channel Divinity to actually cast a Domain spell, until level 17. Pretty solid out of combat spell selection, but abysmal in combat.

On the both the lore and mechanics thing: I would like to direct you to the Dragonforged, aka the Dragonborn/Warforged OC mashup that absolutely no one asked for, and yet exists for some reason.

I really wanted to like Morgrave's Miscellany, and will happily be ripping out its Aberrant Dragonmark mechanics to see if they're usable. I was initially so hype for this supplement, but... well, I got burned by a day 1 purchase, and I will no longer be purchasing Eberron PDFs on day 1 again.

I don't want to point fingers about what went wrong, but:


Lead Designers: Keith Baker, Ruty Rutenberg
Rules Development: Ruty Rutenberg
Lead Editor: Ruty Rutenberg
Art Director: Ruty Rutenberg
Producer: Ruty Rutenberg

I am going to be checking the credits a little bit more closely in the future before purchasing things. (For fun, apparently Taliesin Jaffe of Critical Role fame was also a playtester here. Fun bit of trivia.)

[HappyDaze]

That is in fact how the mechanics work. It's like Bear Totem, except a two level dip, it recharges on a Short rest, costs a full action (not a bonus action) to use, you can use it while concentrating, and it also gives you THP = your level.

Also, note on the Sovereign domain:

It doesn't actually grant any domain spells at all unless you use your Channel Divinity to grab a spell known. To reiterate, you must use an action and burn a Channel Divinity to actually cast a Domain spell, until level 17. Pretty solid out of combat spell selection, but abysmal in combat.

On the both the lore and mechanics thing: I would like to direct you to the Dragonforged, aka the Dragonborn/Warforged OC mashup that absolutely no one asked for, and yet exists for some reason.

I really wanted to like Morgrave's Miscellany, and will happily be ripping out its Aberrant Dragonmark mechanics to see if they're usable. I was initially so hype for this supplement, but... well, I got burned by a day 1 purchase, and I will no longer be purchasing Eberron PDFs on day 1 again.

I don't want to point fingers about what went wrong, but:


I am going to be checking the credits a little bit more closely in the future before purchasing things. (For fun, apparently Taliesin Jaffe of Critical Role fame was also a playtester here. Fun bit of trivia.)

The download site says this is supposed to be getting an update shortly after the New Year. From what I've read here, I'll wait until after the update before I consider spending money on it.

[Dork_Forge]

That is in fact how the mechanics work. It's like Bear Totem, except a two level dip, it recharges on a Short rest, costs a full action (not a bonus action) to use, you can use it while concentrating, and it also gives you THP = your level.

Also, note on the Sovereign domain:

It doesn't actually grant any domain spells at all unless you use your Channel Divinity to grab a spell known. To reiterate, you must use an action and burn a Channel Divinity to actually cast a Domain spell, until level 17. Pretty solid out of combat spell selection, but abysmal in combat.

On the both the lore and mechanics thing: I would like to direct you to the Dragonforged, aka the Dragonborn/Warforged OC mashup that absolutely no one asked for, and yet exists for some reason.

I really wanted to like Morgrave's Miscellany, and will happily be ripping out its Aberrant Dragonmark mechanics to see if they're usable. I was initially so hype for this supplement, but... well, I got burned by a day 1 purchase, and I will no longer be purchasing Eberron PDFs on day 1 again.

I don't want to point fingers about what went wrong, but:


I am going to be checking the credits a little bit more closely in the future before purchasing things. (For fun, apparently Taliesin Jaffe of Critical Role fame was also a playtester here. Fun bit of trivia.)

What's the duration on it though? Wild shape lasts hours and I *think* the Spores form is ten minutes. Anything over a minute makes the action cost easily overcome (and if it uses normal Wild Shape durations or the wording allows the thp to last beyond the form... Yikes).

From what else I've read it also seems to be stuck in a previous edition mindset regarding feats, ASIs are too few for multifeat trees in 5e unless you're going V Human Fighter or there's DM handed out feats.

It's starting to sound more and more like bad homebrew mixed with bad fanfiction (was he drunk when making dragonforged..).

I'm vaguely aware of the Rutenburg fellow, I believe he was involved in the mess the Warforged was before WoTC got involved to prep it for RftLW. Which is certainly something of note, though more a cautionary one than anything else.

[T.G. Oskar]

I dunno. I'd basically ban it, if only because it doesn't feel right. Even if I don't have the book. (No account in DMs Guild, so even if I could "purchase" it for free, can't claim it. I'm going by what's in here.)

I mean, let's start with Extreme Explorer. That's one of the Prestige Classes of the original 3.5 campaign setting book. The idea behind Extreme Explorer was to increase AC, have Trap Sense, and boost your use of Action Points. While Action Points exist in a way in 5e (Hero Points, from the DMG), they're optional, so you'll have to repurpose the EE. In essence, EExplorers are super, super lucky. As a Rogue or Ranger subclass, I'd see them fit - Rogues are exceptionally lucky survivors, and allowing them to repurpose their HD is relatively decent; as Rangers, they could be given some of the survivability of Rogues. As a Barbarian!? Eh, no thanks. They could have gone the way of SCAG and just make new Totems for the Totem Warriors, using dragons instead - that way, you could deal with the Dragon Totem barbarians of Seren.

Sovereign Domain is obviously trying to emulate Sovereign Speaker, whose main schtick was to grant a lot of Domains from all the gods of the pantheon. It seems to be a rehash of the Arcana cleric, except replacing the CD for Anyspell, and the free spells from spells of other Domains. It's...cute, yeah, but it bends a lot what the devs at WotC have already done.

Bone Knight is in the wrong class. I've always seen it as a Paladin PrC to give necromancy-themed features while keeping some of the traits of the Paladin class itself. I would have worked it as an Oathbreaker modification; working Bone Armor is something that already exists in the game (see: Battlerager in SCAG), you get spellcasting, and Oathbreaker itself lends well to being a minion controller anyways. It could work as a way to allow an Oathbreaker to exist in your party without having to be Evil, and while it'd lack tenets, it'd have to be loyal to Karrnath anyways, so there's that.

Argent Fist was meant to merge Monk and Paladin, allowing them to keep their Smites and stuff while still advancing their Monk abilities. Making it a Monk subclass that gives some Paladin traits seems, for the most part, a clever way to handle it, but having Ki as a power source contrasts a lot with how the features you'd expect from the Paladin would work. I think I know how they handled the "capstone" (lemme guess; it's called "Embrace of the Silver Flame", right? If so, it's pretty cool - heal HP every turn, shed light like the Sun Soul monk, some creatures in area take radiant damage. Might be different, though - that was how it was handled in 3.5, just so you know). I'd have to see it, but it seems like a rework of the Sun Soul with a better 17th level ability, and I'd be very close to allowing it (if it were me) just because it seems tightly-fitting and easy to work with.

The rest...I don't see relations to either, which is BAD because there's a lot of stuff to work with. For example - what's with the Silverbow? I'd be half-expecting the Knight Phantom instead (as the Eldritch Knight, except maybe Abjuration and Illusion, and you get Phantom Steed earlier AND improved, in exchange for some of the class features). There's a lot of PrCs that didn't make the cut, it seems: I would have loved to see the five variants of Eldeen Rangers as a subclass (hey, if the Hunter can get away with it, why not the Eldeen ranger giving up modular abilities based on the five druidic sects?), and how they deal with the Deadgrim (I'd say it makes for a better Revived, IMO), Cyran Avenger, Silver Flame Pyromancer...heck, even some of the Dragonmarked PrCs (Black Dog, Nosomatic Chirurgeon, Sentinel Marshal, etc.) Instead...how come did the College of Keys exist? (Is it a way to work out the Silver Key?) Or the Circle of the Arbiter, or the Field Marshal, or the Vigilante, or the Progenitor Spark? (Though the last one seems to be tied to the Progenitor Dragons). Those last subclasses I mention make it feel like they were pulled out just to fill the book with subclasses for the sake of it.

Also: would like to see more of the racial feats. Specifically a once-over of what Weretouched Master and Moonspeaker do (considering they were racial PrCs - Weretouched Master was pretty awesome until it got super-nerfed because you couldn't turn into hybrids, and Moonspeaker was weird for Druids because it gave a TON of weird stuff, in specific allowing you to get more uses of Shifting by getting feats that allowed you to create items). I suspect both feats give you an additional use of Shifting per short rest and some other traits that would replicate some of the earlier Shifter feats (why do I suspect Weretouched Master is a way to justify Shifter Savagery?)

That said...just from what I looked here, it just doesn't seem right. Just Extreme Explorer and Bone Knight being in the wrong classes is a hard turn-off.

[Yakk]

That "pick any spell from any list as an action" feature is classic 3e and anti-5e design. The closest we get in 5e is bard secrets, and that is a major "locked in" choice.

[Fable Wright]

What's the duration on it though? Wild shape lasts hours and I *think* the Spores form is ten minutes. Anything over a minute makes the action cost easily overcome (and if it uses normal Wild Shape durations or the wording allows the thp to last beyond the form... Yikes).

Druid level / 2 (round down) minutes. So it is 1 minute for the 2-level dip. And... honestly, it doesn't explicitly say that the THP wear off, which means that, depending on interpretation, you can just be floating with your level in THP at all times, able to cast spells without restrictions, and only have the slight drawback of not having a very weak melee/spell attack option. That is, weaker than Shillelagh.

The horror.


From what else I've read it also seems to be stuck in a previous edition mindset regarding feats, ASIs are too few for multifeat trees in 5e unless you're going V Human Fighter or there's DM handed out feats.

In the case of Aberrant marks, it makes some sense—for the cost of two feats, or two feats and a race, you get a bit of a Sorcerer progression and +2 Constitution. Given that this takes your level 8 & 12-16 ASIs for something other than pumping your primary stats, it's a bit of a reasonable trade for access to some higher level slots.


It's starting to sound more and more like bad homebrew mixed with bad fanfiction (was he drunk when making dragonforged..).

In the immediate outrage that followed the book's release, on some forum (it was either his site or the Eberron discord server), he (a) stated that he had no involvement in the mechanics side of the book; and (b) apologized, since his name was on it and this would lead fans to believe there was mechanical rigor in the playtesting. From what I've heard the Dragonforged was a bit of a bad-OC fiasco in the book's production as well that was forced through (presumably by Rutenburg but no names were given).


I'm vaguely aware of the Rutenburg fellow, I believe he was involved in the mess the Warforged was before WoTC got involved to prep it for RftLW. Which is certainly something of note, though more a cautionary one than anything else.

Morgrave's Miscellany is his book. It just happens to have Keith Baker attached for lore.


That "pick any spell from any list as an action" feature is classic 3e and anti-5e design. The closest we get in 5e is bard secrets, and that is a major "locked in" choice.

It's technically "pick a spell from any domain" so a little restricted, but yes, it would massively slow down gameplay and is generally bad design, compounded by the fact that they don't actually have any fallback domain spells.


Also: would like to see more of the racial feats. Specifically a once-over of what Weretouched Master and Moonspeaker do (considering they were racial PrCs - Weretouched Master was pretty awesome until it got super-nerfed because you couldn't turn into hybrids, and Moonspeaker was weird for Druids because it gave a TON of weird stuff, in specific allowing you to get more uses of Shifting by getting feats that allowed you to create items). I suspect both feats give you an additional use of Shifting per short rest and some other traits that would replicate some of the earlier Shifter feats (why do I suspect Weretouched Master is a way to justify Shifter Savagery?)

Weretouched Master—half-feat. Boosts Dexterity and gives you the non-Shifting features of another subrace, which can be pretty decent. Also adds a trinket heal at when you exit your shift. So it's worth about a Climb speed (using an option provided in the book), or proficiency in a skill. Not much to write home about.

Moonspeaker—half-feat, requires Weretouched Master. Boosts Dexterity and gives you the Shifting feature of another subrace, and increases the trinket heal to a slightly-less-insulting amount.

Their crime is being both boring and just why not make one Weretouched Master feat that gives you the shifting AND non-Shifting features of another subrace? Then you could take a full ASI for the immediate benefit when it suits you, or you can get the full hybrid benefits, without being... this.

[Theodoxus]

So... bonecraft...

Bonecraft
Beginning at 7th level, your spiritual connectionwith the composition of the undead legionbestows your body with the gift to grow weaponsand armor from within you to enhance yourmartial prowess on the battlefield.
The first time you create your armor or yourweapon, you can expend a spell slot of 1st-levelor higher to increase the effectiveness of eitherone of your armaments. When you do, until theend of your next long rest or until you die, thearmor or weapons you create with this featurebecome magic items, granting a +1 bonus to ACif it’s armor or a +1 bonus to attack and damagerolls if it’s a weapon. The bonus the item gains isequal to the level of the spell slot you spent whenyou created it for the first time.

Bonecraft Armor. You can use your action toencase yourself in a suit of segmented, bonecraftarmor. When you do, your Armor Classbecomes 10 + your Constitution modifier + yourProficiency bonus. While your bonecraft armorenvelops you, you can’t benefit from wearingarmor, but if you are using a shield, you canapply the shield’s bonus as normal. You remainprotected in this way until you absorb the armor(no action required), or you die.

Bonecraft Weapon. You can use your bonusaction to graft a weapon of hardened bone fromyour body in your empty hand. You can choosethe form the weapon takes each time you growit. Your bonecraft weapon becomes brittle andbreaks if it is more than 5 feet away from you for1 minute or more. It also crumbles to dust if youuse this feature again, if you absorb the weapon(no action required), or if you die

There doesn't seem to be anything in the ability that limits you to have either armor or weapon; you can armor up and produce a weapon in the same round... no?

[Fable Wright]

There doesn't seem to be anything in the ability that limits you to have either armor or weapon; you can armor up and produce a weapon in the same round... no?

It arguably seems like you could craft both, but you could only imbue one of them with a spell slot for the bonus. So a (potential) +8 sword or a +8 armor, rather than +7 of one and +8 of the other.

[JackPhoenix]

I've bought it when it was released, read through it once, was sorely disappointed, because it looked like a pile of bad homebrew, then completely forgot I have it until I saw this thread.

I've seen actual homebrew without Keith's name attached to it (The Korranberg Chronicle stuff), and it was more balanced and more fitting with Eberron.