Cleric subclass homebrew: Pharaoh Domain - Feedback?

[Maxiboy]

Hello friends.

I have been a d&d player since last year but have recently gotten into DMing my own casual campaign. We have all agreed to being open with homebrew and have used some here-and-there, which I really appreciate since it seems to push the players' creativity with the new options they have. This has inspired me to focus more on making my own for later use in our game or even future ones.

I am a fan of ancient Egypt and the culture from the time period, so I find it nice when it makes appearances in media such as Magic: The Gathering - it has a themed set named Amonkhet, eventually leading to a sort of spin-off PDF supplement that adds new rules and options for D&D as well. I have talked to my friend about it, since we are fans of both games, and I decided on going with the idea of making a new subclass for the cleric: the Pharaoh domain.

I'm new to making homebrew, and some could say D&D in general, so I would appreciate feedback and criticism! I'm aiming for something unique and creative, but at the same time fair and balanced in its own ways. Please note that there may be references to spells that can only be found in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Pharaoh Domain Spells


Cleric Level
Spells


1st
command, false life


3rd
hold person, gentle repose


5th
bestow curse, blinding smite


7th
blight, sickening radiance


9th
dawn, danse macabre



Hierarchy's Pyramid
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain the toll the dead cantrip if you don’t already know it. When you cast toll the dead on a creature while it's not missing any hit points, it becomes charmed until the end of your next turn.

Channel Divinity: Tomb of the Ages
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to trap an enemy in magical strands of tight, blinding light.

As an action, you choose one hostile creature you can see within 10 feet of you. It must make a Constitution saving throw or become cursed until the end of your next turn. While cursed, the creature becomes wrapped in magical light force that takes the shape of a tomb, becoming blinded and petrified for the duration.

Eternal Beauty
Starting at 6th level, the Pharaoh's binding between both light and darkness strengthens. Any time you cast a spell that instantly deals radiant or necrotic damage to a creature, you may gain hit points equal to either the spell's level or half of your Constitution modifier.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with your ancient power. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d6 radiant or necrotic damage (your choice) to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d6.

Pharaoh's Mark
Starting at 17th level, when you use a spell to reduce a humanoid's hit points to 0, you can use a bonus action to force it to make a Constitution saving throw or be magically transformed into a mummy for one hour. It's total hit points become equal to your cleric level and is charmed for the duration, turning into a pile of ash afterwards. You can use a bonus action to mentally command one of more of these mummies, otherwise they stand idle. You can have a number of mummies to summon and control at once equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of one.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thank you for reading! If I'm happy with what I have so far, I may try to make more in the future! :)

[nickl_2000]

Hierarchy's Pyramid - At will charm is really, really powerful even if it is only for a round. The effect on this isn't bad, but the fact that you can do it at will. I would suggest that you all it Wisdom Mod times per long rest to fit into the pattern created by other cleric domains.


Channel Divinity: Tomb of the Ages - I was worried on the power of this at first, but then I looked back at the petrified condition. Given that they get resistance to damage while petrified it is probably okay. You are likely okay for overall power, but I would watch it in play. If it seems to be to much you can change the condition to restrained instead.


Eternal Beauty - Regaining hit points when you deal damage that can be done through a cantrip is a non-starter. You can cast Toll the Dead (which you know from level 1) against anything you like and regain to full Hit Points any time. In the case of this ability I would make it leveled spells only and you re-gain HP equal to the spell level.


Pharaoh's Mark - I like the flavor of this a lot. It is very fitting to the idea of a pharaoh and the culture, but I am a little worried that this ability will be underpowered based on the Mummy stat block at level 17+. The first thing I would do is to make the mummy completely under the control of the PC, not just charmed. Then I would make it so that the PC doesn't require a bonus action to tell the mummy what to do. That alone jumps the power of the ability for a class that will regularly have spiritual weapon out used in combat.


Overall you have a solid class here that has a lot of potential and looks fun. You need some touch ups on power, but that is normal for all homebrewers. Keep at it, and have fun with creations.

[JNAProductions]

I'm not worried about the Charm effect-while it gives you advantage on Charisma checks against them AND they cannot attack for a turn... You just attacked them for 1d8 damage. The ONLY abuse I see involves necrotic-immune creatures, who you can Charm endlessly-a simple fix would make it "When they take damage from Toll The Dead while having full HP."

I do agree that Eternal Beauty fails the bag o' rats test. Plus, it doesn't even require you to deal damage. If you get an ally that's immune to Necrotic or Radiant damage somehow, that's unlimited healing from a cantrip at no penalty.

[Maxiboy]

Thank you guys so much for the advice.

I apologize that my response is late but I have been working on this quite a bit more with the new ideas. I'm much more happy with it now - here are the updates. :)

Hierarchy's Pyramid
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain the toll the dead cantrip if you don’t already know it. When you cast toll the dead on a creature while it's not already missing any hit points, it becomes charmed until the end of your next turn.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Eternal Beauty
Starting at 6th level, the Pharaoh's binding between both light and darkness strengthens. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that instantly deals radiant or necrotic damage to a creature, you may gain hit points equal to either the spell's level or half of your Constitution modifier.

Pharaoh's Mark
Starting at 17th level, when you use a spell to reduce a humanoid's hit points to 0, you can use a bonus action to force it to make a Constitution saving throw or be magically transformed into a mummy for one hour. The creature becomes charmed and its total hit points become equal to your cleric level. In addition, you take full control over the creature's actions and can mentally command one or more of these mummies at will, otherwise they stand idle.

You can have a number of mummies to control equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of one) at once.

[MrStabby]

Firstly congratulations on a fun and thematic subclass.

Secondly, I commend your restraint. There are few outrageous things here.

All in all my impressions are:

1) Hierarchy's pyramid... I don't get what the intention is for this. Is it supposed to help diplomacy as it basically requires you to make a hostile move... why toll the dead for this? I get the light/death theme, but toll the dead is probably the best cleric cantrip. Encouraging another cantrip to see use might be better? What role are you guiding the cleric to and how does this help it fill that role?

2) Tomb of the ages. Ok, this is something I would think of as being on the strong side. It isn't that the effect is too much but rather that it is a great compliment to the clerics abilities. On a class with lots of wisdom saves forcing a con save is great. With lots of concentration effects a control effect that doesn't eat concentration is pretty good. Most of all, channel divinities tend to be a bit niche. Having something very general is nice for your short rest abilities. On the other hand there is no reason why this class shouldn't get something nice.

6) Eternal beauty, don't get the relationship between the name and the effect but whatever. I might worry about this, not from a power perspective but it seems like extra bookkeeping for a small effect.

8) divine strike. I think you lowballed this. The only subclass that uses d6 instead of d8 damage, I dont think that the choice of two types of damage justifies this (see nature cleric). I would also add that you are adding this to a domain that doesn't have martial weapons or heavy armour so you m8ght be already getting less mileage out of weapon attacks than most classes. To me the image suggest more of a boasted cantrip option than a weapon focussed one.

17) Pharaohs Mark. Yeah, a bit lacklustre. Really flavourful, but not really earth shattering. The ratio of bookkeeping to actual impact again seems a bit on the high side.

I think in terms of power you have a decent amount of space if you want to add more abilities. Adding some ribbons can be cool as well, or some niche abilities. Slower aging, advantage on saves against certification, ability to translate ancient languages.

All in all I think you have space to add a bit of crunch as well. Nothing too excessive but maybe something like another channel divinity option at 6?

Personally, I would explore something like using a CD to create a mummified servant at level 6 that scales with level. This can bring the evocative ability into the game much earlier and free up level 17. For level 17 i would look to the arcana cleric - giving further thematic spells can be cool. Sunburst, create undead, sunbeam, magic jar (for the whole eternal ruler thing) might be thematic.

You also touch on blindness in your class; it could be fun to build on this. Blindness is a necromancy spell and a result of a lot of sunlight spells so it feels that as a condition it spans both sides of the class. Abilities that benefit from advantage (attack roll spells for example) or that would reference the blind condition (you add d8 damage to damage rolls vs creatures that can't see you) might work if you wanted to build some mechanical cohesion.

I am not recommending these per se, just throwing in how I would think about these things.

One other thing to consider is how you are balancing the class. Clerics can be really powerful between levels 5 to 10 but then get less exciting when their domain stuff dries up. If you focus on comparisons with other cleric options you will mimic this. If you don't... then your class may come over as a bit over/underpowered at other levels. You probably want to be asking yourself what level(s) of play is it likely to see.

Tailoring abilities to that might help. Some will scale better than others. Say for example you were to give some kind of "wealth of the pharaohs" ability that let the cleric attuned to one more item. This would then at least scale somewhat at higher levels where a cleric might have more exciting toys.

[Maxiboy]

Hey there!
I'm very sorry for just now getting to you, I haven't been able to do so due to the site being down the past month.
Though, I greatly appreciate the feedback and criticism, here's what I have in mind in response to your points:

1) [Hierarchy's Pyramid]
Honestly, I just am a fan of Toll the Dead, and since it's known for being more powerful when used on a target that is already missing hit points, I thought it'd be a fun mechanic to give it a unique benefit for when the creature is not missing hit points as well. I didn't realize how powerful this can actually be, I think you're right when you say I should try another cantrip.
The idea was for it to be a sort of 'first strike' option - depending on the situation or encounter, it can possibly give the cleric protection for a round or even make for a simple distraction. I think it can be used creatively, but it's meant to be a settle effect since the cantrip given is strong as-is. At the same time, the feature could use a more obvious helpful effect - a fun idea was that the creature could instead take a (perhaps CON?) saving throw or be blinded until the start of the clerics next turn, if that isn't too strong.

2) [Tomb of the Ages]
I actually thought this one may have been over-powered out of all the features here, but I'm happy to hear that you think it's good! I guess you could say I went out of my comfort zone a little with staying 100% balanced, or at least trying my best to be. Maybe I could think this way more often as I continue making homebrew.

6) [Eternal Beauty]
I imagined that using magic could make the pharaoh 'stronger', due to them being known for being stylish but also having strong ties with necromancy in other media (an example that fits what I'm kinda going for is the spell: Vampiric Touch.) After looking at other subclasses I think it could use a buff to make it worthwhile; perhaps the benefits could double and instead be "you gain hit points equal to double the spell's level or your constitution modifier?"

8) [Divine Strike]
Great point. This feature is actually the one I put the least thought into admittedly; I realized that it is less powerful compared to the other domains in the end, but I thought it could maybe make up for some of the less balanced stuff such as (the initial ideas for) the lower leveled features. Since I've been focusing on making more changes to balance stuff since then, I'll definitely see if I can come up with something better.
Like you suggested, something entirely different that has better synergy that has to do with blindness or just turn it into 'Potent Spellcasting' similar to other more spell-focused domains.

17) [Pharaohs Mark]
I tried to keep it balanced by comparing it to actual spells with similar effects but you're right, I think I just got anxious and didn't want to accidentally make something too powerful since I actually never have played a character that was this high-leveled before.
Maybe I could make it stronger by increasing the time limit and giving the ability to have double the original amount at once. I also thought about adding an extra benefit where the cleric no longer has to age, similar to the monk.

Again, thank you for the rich feedback and compliments. I admit I may have been too careful with what I've come up with in some parts, but I think it's because it's just my first homebrew and I don't want to stray away from the other domains which I've taken inspiration from, such as being too different and unbalanced.
I'll see if I can make more changes with the suggestions you gave me, especially when it comes to the mid levels. :)

[Cyclops08]

Love the class. well done.
It just needs a 1950's monster movie touch. Two spells, Summon Mummy. and Create Mummy.
"Arise, Karris. Find those who defiled your tomb. Kill, Karris, KILL!"