How would you fix the four most hated PHB subclasses?

[dmhelp]

I really enjoyed the Berserker thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615953-The-Berserker-gets-a-lot-of-hate-How-would-YOU-fix-it).

Along those lines I'd like to see what people would recommend as comprehensive fixes to bring Berserker Barbarians, Four Element Monks, Beast Master Rangers, and Wild Magic Sorcerers up to the other subclasses.

I think when you are getting a longer list of changes it is nice to make each change as short as possible (to decrease the wall of text). For this reason I personally would avoid "Remastered" Subclasses.

Here is my attempt (some of it borrowed from others' suggestions):

Barbarian Berserker - exhaustion from Frenzy lasts for only one hour
Monk Four Elements - Elemental Discplines (except Fangs of the Fire Snake) use a bonus action instead of an action; Fangs of the Fire Snake costs 0 base ki
Ranger - all subclasses except Gloom Stalker gain Beast Master progression with powers at levels 1, 6, 10, & 18 (Gloom Stalkers lose Ranger's Companion at level 3 after taking the subclass)
Sorcerer Wild Magic - rolling a 20 on the d20 surge check causes a power surge which increases the effective spell level by 1d6 (maximum 9th level), roll the surge check prior to determining the leveled spell effect, but wild surges still occur after the spell effect


I've gone back and forth quite a bit on how to fix Four Elements. When you lower their ki costs some people say it makes them too good of a caster and others say it still isn't competitive. The bonus action suggestion has been made on enworld.org in a few threads and I think it is pretty elegant.

I cheated a little and turned Beast Master into a Ranger buff, eliminating the subclass.

Does anyone else have some comprehensive changes for the four subclasses (the shorter the better since we are modfying four subclasses)?

[Tanarii]

Berserker:
A) one exhaustion free per long rest.
Or
B) add at 3rd level, you recover 2 levels of exhaustion on a long rest.


The former would work better in games where theres often downtime between long rests. Ie non-consecutive adventuring days.

The latter would work better in games where you face multiple consecutive adventuring days. SW5e went this route.


Wild Mage:
- Switch out the Fireball result for something like Shatter before level 5.


Beastmaster:
- when you command your beast to attack as an Action, you can use a bonus action to attack as if you attacked with one weapon in a hand per the TWF rules. (Ie you'd need two light weapons unless you had Dual Wielder)
- your beast can benefit from Hunters Mark
- when you cast ensnaring strike, your beast can be the target if it is within 30ft

4elements:
- each time you choose an Elemental option, choose one of the following cantips with Wis as your casring stat:
Gust
Mold Earth
Control Flames
Shape Water

[Amnestic]

Here is my attempt (some of it borrowed from others' suggestions):

Barbarian Berserker - exhaustion from Frenzy lasts for only one hour
Monk Four Elements - Elemental Discplines (except Fangs of the Fire Snake) use a bonus action instead of an action; Fangs of the Fire Snake costs 0 base ki
Ranger - all subclasses except Gloom Stalker gain Beast Master progression with powers at levels 1, 6, 10, & 18 (Gloom Stalkers lose Ranger's Companion at level 3 after taking the subclass)
Sorcerer Wild Magic - rolling a 20 on the d20 surge check causes a power surge which increases the effective spell level by 1d6 (maximum 9th level), roll the surge check prior to determining the leveled spell effect, but wild surges still occur after the spell effect



There's a Remastered 4 Elements homebrew that I like - here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pdYIcfHauwNDM2My1XeWFYSDA/view). It gives two of the four 'elemental' cantrips at 3rd and then the other two at sixth for the full set along with reworking its ki options.

For Wild Magic I take the DM involvement out:
-Whenever a non-cantrip is cast a d20 gets rolled. If the roll is lower than or equal to the spell level cast, it surges (so casting a 5th level spell, you surge on a 1-5 on the d20).
-They automatically surge on the next non-cantrip cast after using Tides of Chaos. They then regain the use of Tides of Chaos.
-Fireball is replaced by Slow on the surge table, it's centred on the caster and affects the caster along with 5 other targets within the area of effect chosen randomly.

This means that surges are both controlled and random at the same time - but by the player's input, not the DM's. If you want to surge your heart out you can Tides of Chaos constantly until all your leveled spells are used up. If you want to hold back you can limit yourself in which leveled spells you cast. It's still definitely a subclass you want to make sure your group is okay with and suitable for your campaign, but that's the nature of wild magic.

For Berserker I'd have the frenzy exhaustion vanish on short rests/long rests.

[Euclidodese]

I think Berserker needs to forgo the exhaustion mechanic altogether and have it's own table of negative effects, which you roll on once the rage ends. Some would be flavourful, others would be quite bad. The risk vs reward, boost now but a potentially worse effect later feel of that class is great, but Exhaustion is too heavy, and too inflexible.

Beastmaster needs to be able to revive its pet with a ritual. Its pet needs to bonus action attack (or Help) and it needs better scaling hp, ac, saves and it needs evasion for free.

For Wild Magic, the first step is for the DM to say: "The sorcerer starts ticking and sulphur-smelling smoke comes out of their ears." When the self-centred fireball is rolled. (People get really caught up on that one effect, because it can cause TPKs, but imo if your DM ever let it TPK you, that's more an issue with them than it is with this subclass.)
Next it needs to be way less DM-dependent, simply saying "Your DM can have you roll on the Wild Magic table..." is really not very helpful. The DM has a lot to remember already, this needs a proper trigger.

[Dr. Cliché]

Regarding the Berserker, what if he could spend hit dice during a short rest to remove levels of exhaustion instead of healing?

[Aett_Thorn]

For Berserker, I think that either they need one free use without exhaustion per day, or the negative effect of it is that each use lowers your Rage damage by 1 after use. If your Rage damage bonus is 0 because of this, you can no longer use it. Gives you a trade off off more damage now for less damage later.

Four Elements Monk needs to allow the Monk to be able to use all martial arts effects after using your action to cast a spell. Cast Burning Hands? You can still punch a guy or Dodge. Hold Person? You can still spend another Ki Point to flurry of blows. Also, give them more options from later books that don’t count against the PHB+1 restriction.

Wild Magic Sorc should definitely take the surge rolls out of the DMs hands and place it with the player, or at least give it fixed criteria. The DM has enough going on. The Fireball has only a 1% chance of occurring. It needs to be worried about less.

The PHB Beastmaster needs to feel better but not necessarily be better. They need to feel more like a team, and less like they are competing for actions. And that is a hard one to totally fix without being overpowered. Not too sure about this one.

[Tanarii]

For Wild Magic I take the DM involvement out:

Oh right. I've also been "house ruling" the Wild Mage for so long that I forgot this is a 'fix'.

Wild mage
- every time you cast a leveled spell you roll 1d20 to see if you trigger a surge
- the next time you cast a leveled spell after using Tides of Chaos, it's triggers a Wild Surge
- player can petition NOT to have a surge if they really want. (Usually in conjunction with a subtle spell.)

Basically, the fix is for the DM to choose to do the thing they can choose to do. I don't increase the normal chance of a surge, most sorcs will try to use Tides between every spell slot with this in place.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Barbarian - Berserker - "When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion that lasts until you've finished a short or long rest. While in a rage you ignore the effects of exhaustion." That means all levels of exhaustion caused by this are removed on a short or long rest, in addition to the one level of exhaustion normally recovered on a long rest.

Monk - Four Elements - Double the number of elemental disciplines known. The base ki point cost of every elemental discipline is reduced by one, and the maximum ki points you can spend on one based on your monk level is also reduced by one. When you spend your action to use an elemental discipline, it counts as having used the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon for purposes of the marital arts class feature and other ki abilities such as flurry of blows.

Ranger - Revised Ranger (https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_RevisedRanger.pdf) is a good start.

Sorcerer - Wild Magic - You roll the d20 every time you cast a spell of 1st level or higher. On a roll of 1, you also roll 1d4 and recover that amount of expended sorcery points or a spell slot of equivalent cost or lower (per Creating Spell Slots). That 1d4 result is also the number of times you roll for the Wild Magic Surge table, and you may choose which of those results to use (only one Wild Magic Surge occurs at a time). Addendum: "You cast fireball as a 3rd-level spell centered on yourself. You may use your reaction to choose a new target for this spell."

[Tanarii]

Barbarian - Berserker - "When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion that lasts until you've finished a short or long rest. While in a rage you ignore the effects of exhaustion." That means all levels of exhaustion caused by this are removed on a short or long rest, in addition to the one level of exhaustion normally recovered on a long rest.

This is very close to giving Frenzy on every rage without significant penalty.

There will be times when they play judges incorrectly and there is another battle or non-combat encounters where they need to make significant ability checks before he short rest. But players are fairly good at timing that kind of resource management.