Homebrew: 2 Feats and 4 Subclasses For a campaign

[Meichrob7]

I’m planning on adding some subclasses to my homebrew campaign world so the players can have access to some of the stuff NPCs will be able to do. I’d like some feedback on it but in this case all of my friends who are into DnD are going to be playing and I can’t really show them these subclasses yet without giving away some details of the campaign that are still secret to them.

Mostly looking for feedback on if things are balanced but if there’s anything that might be unfun despite being balanced I’d appreciate feedback in that aspect as well.

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Barbarian: Primal Conduit

Spellcasting: When you chose this class you also pick a circle of the land location to represent the area you gained your connection to nature. You become 1/3 caster, gaining spell slots in an identical progression to the arcane trickster or eldritch knight. Instead of a list of known spells the Primal Conduit prepares a list of spells, you prepare a number of spells from the druid spell list equal to your Wisdom Modifier + 1/2 your Barbarian level (rounded up). You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. You must prepare one spell from the list of circle spells for your chosen land, for each level of spell you have access to. At 3rd level this means one first level spell, at 7th level this means a first and second level spell, at 13th level this means a first, second, and third level spell, and at level 19 this means a first, second, third, and fourth level spell.

3rd: Ancient rage: You May replace your dexterity modifier with your wisdom modifier when calculating unarmored defense. Additionally while you may not cast spells during rage, you may attempt to hold concentration on spells already cast.

3rd: Force of nature: Whenever you make an attack while raging you may replace that attack with roots that grow up from the ground and strike using your strength modifier and dealing 1d10 damage and increase your normal attack range by 5feet. You may make grapple attempts with these roots instead of your hands, if you do enemies have disadvantage to escape.

6th: Root-bound markings: you gain tattoos that vary from vines to branches, to roots to leaves. If you use your Force of nature feature in a place where roots can not grow, they instead sprout from your tattoos. Additionally the damage dice of the roots increase to 1d12.

11th: Bringer of Life: You may meditate during a long rest and create the effects of the plant growth spell with its 8 hour cast time effect. You still gain the benefits of a long rest, and you gain certain benefits while in the area effected by the plant growth spell .
•Plants can not cause an area to count as difficult terrain for you.
•The range of your Force of nature feature is doubled.
•When you reach 15th level, the area around you has the wrath of nature spell cast on it for the next day, centered on the point where you meditated.
•When you reach 20th level, the area centered around you gains the effects of the Druid grove spell.

17th: Elderwood Halberd: You gain the ability to summon the Elderwood Halberd. It is a +3 wooden greataxe with the reach property. It can be pulled from any tree if destroyed or placed in another tree before hand. While wielding it your force of nature feature has an additional 10 foot range and gains the effects of being a +3 weapon. If you take the attack action with your Elderwood Halberd in hand you can use your bonus action to activate spell effects that normally require a full action.

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Monk: Way of the rabbit

3rd level: Acrobatic leap: Your long and high jump distance is now calculated using your dexterity stat and modifier instead of strength. Any checks related to leaping distances beyond this use your acrobatics instead of athletics. By spending 1 ki point you may cast jump targeting yourself.

3rd level: Rushing Kicks: When you use the step of the wind feature as a bonus action, you may also use flurry of blows as part of the same bonus action to make two kicks that count as unarmed attacks and do extra damage equal to half your proficiency.

6th level: Flying impact: You may use your step of the wind feature make any type of single jump without using any of your movement. If your jump would take you into the space of another creature then upon using flurry of blows you may force them to make a strength save against your Ki save DC or be pushed back 1/2 the distance of your jump. The distance pushed is halved for each size category the creature is larger than you, or doubled for each size category smaller.

11th level: Compressed Air: By spending 1 ki point you may compress the air under you and leap through the air once again. This gives you a flying speed equal to your walking speed, and counts as a jump for the purposes of class features.

11th level: Rising strike: You May spend 3 ki points to and as an action make an attack roll against any creature that is no more than two sizes larger than you. If it connects that creature is knocked up to your maximum jump height. If you then use your flying impact feature you may make three additional attacks for a total of five unarmed strikes.

17th level: Unending barrage: By spending 5 ki points you may use your Flying impact feature to make Attacks any time a leap you make takes you in range of a creature for the first time this round, this benefit lasts until the end of your turn. Once you use this feature you must finish a Long or Short rest before using it again.

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Cleric Domain: Cursed domain

Lore: By resisting the temptations and corruptions of an ancient curse through your faith and devotion to a higher being you’ve gained special abilities unique to your situation.

1st:Ancient curse: Choose 1 of 3 effects. The effects are suppressed unless a curse domain feature activated your curse, or you turn from your faith.
Curse Effects
1: Roll a d4 and gain vunurability to
(1)Slashing,(2)Piercing,
(3)Bludgeoning,(4)Nothing
2: Any healing on you during combat is half as effective.
3: Standing up from prone uses all of your movement instead of half.

1st:Curse dominance: You are
afflicted by an ancient curse, it completely suppresses all other curse effects making you immune to the effects they have, but this innate curse also can’t be removed by any remove curse effects. If your immunity to standard curses is suppressing 2 or more standard curse effects, your Ancient curse effects manifest indefinitely until the amount of suppressed curses is one or none.

2nd: Channel divinity (Shared Curse): You can use your channel divinity to force a target creature to make a wisdom saving throw against your spell save dc. If they fail they are affected by your curse and it’s effects also become active on you until the target creature is slain or you take a long rest.

6th:Primeval curse: Choose 1 of 3 new effects for your Ancient curse and gain resistance to necrotic damage. You may also change the curse effect from the Ancient curse to one of the other options available, at the end of a long rest.
Curse Effects
1: Whenever you make an attack, roll 1d6 and subtract the result from your attack roll.
2: Whenever you make a saving throw, roll 1d6 and subtract the result from your save.
3: When you become effected by this curse roll 1d6 and reduce your AC by that amount until the curse ends.

8th: Heightened Curse: You May force the enemy to make their saves against your channel divinity with disadvantage. If you do the curse effects become active on you for ten minutes, even if they succeeded on their saves. You may use this feature a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier before a long rest.

17th: Deific Curse: Whenever you activate your curse on a target creature, you may choose one additional effects of Ancient or Primeval curse to become active on both you and the target while the curse is active. You may use your channel divinity shared curse as a bonus action. If your opponent has disadvantage on wisdom saving throws due to an effect other than heightened curse, you may use the heightened curse feature to make them instantly under the effects of your curse without making a saving throw to resist. Ignoring this effect takes two legendary resistances. You may also change the curse effect from the Primeval curse feature to one of the other options at the end of a long rest.

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Feat: Reactive fighter.
+1 Dex Or +1 Con

You may make two reactions each round instead of one. These reactions must be doing different things, you can’t take a readied action twice or make two opportunity attacks against an enemy leaving your range. Both reactions are refreshed on your turn.

If you ready an attack as an action then you may make use of the Extra attack feature or similar effects when you make your readied attack.

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Feat: Big Britches
Prerequisite: Small race
+1 Str
You may use two handed weapons without disadvantage.
You have advantage on holding your weapon when making a save or check to resist being disarmed.

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The monk subclass is the one I’m least sure of, at least with it’s later features. I’m less worried about the feats but there’s a huge range of power variation in feats so I’m not totally sure my idea of what’s normal is accurate.

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Edit: Forgot to actually post the 4th subclass so here it is, this is actually one I’m fairly sure is balanced despite looking OP, simply because of how busted many other rogue subclasses are if you push them to the limits, unless you’re playing swashbuckler that is.

Rogue:Templar


Spellcasting: When you chose this class you also pick a cleric domain to represent the type of training you’ve had. You become 1/3 caster, gaining spell slots in an identical progression to the arcane trickster or eldritch knight. Instead of a list of known spells the Templar prepares a list of spells, you prepare a number of spells from the cleric spell list equal to your Wisdom Modifier + 1/2 your Rogue level (rounded up). You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. You must prepare one spell from the list of domain spells for each level of spell you have access to. At 3rd level this means one first level spell, at 7th level this means a first and second level spell, at 13th level this means a first, second, and third level spell, and at level 19 this means a first, second, third, and fourth level spell.

3rd Level: Divine Guidance. At the end of a short or long rest, your party gains the effects of the guidance cantrip except it has a duration of 8 hours before it must be used. Additionally when you cast the guidance cantrip, you may target any number of creatures within 5 feet of you.

9th level: Holy execution: You May spend a spell slot to do 1d8+ (Slot Level)d8 extra radiant damage when making a melee sneak attack. Additionally the weapon and sneak attack damage also become radiant.

13th level: Faith of many: You may cast mirror image as a bonus action using a second level spell slot and wisdom as your casting modifier. If you have at least one duplicate active when you make a melee attack, you have advantage on that attack roll.

17th level: Divine Reckoning: Your Holy execution feature is improved and now adds 4d6 + (2xSlot level)d6 to your sneak attack. Additionally if a creature is brought to below 50 health it is banished. If it is native to another plane it returns there. If it is native to the current plane it is sent to a demiplane for 1 minute or until you become incapacitated.

[jdizzlean]

The Mod Life Crisis: Moved to Homebrew forum

[BerzerkerUnit]

I’m planning on adding some subclasses to my homebrew campaign world so the players can have access to some of the stuff NPCs will be able to do. I’d like some feedback on it but in this case all of my friends who are into DnD are going to be playing and I can’t really show them these subclasses yet without giving away some details of the campaign that are still secret to them.

Mostly looking for feedback on if things are balanced but if there’s anything that might be unfun despite being balanced I’d appreciate feedback in that aspect as well.

———————————————————

Barbarian: Primal Conduit

Spellcasting: When you chose this class you also pick a circle of the land location to represent the area you gained your connection to nature. You become 1/3 caster, gaining spell slots in an identical progression to the arcane trickster or eldritch knight. Instead of a list of known spells the Primal Conduit prepares a list of spells, you prepare a number of spells from the druid spell list equal to your Wisdom Modifier + 1/2 your Barbarian level (rounded up). You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. You must prepare one spell from the list of circle spells for your chosen land, for each level of spell you have access to. At 3rd level this means one first level spell, at 7th level this means a first and second level spell, at 13th level this means a first, second, and third level spell, and at level 19 this means a first, second, third, and fourth level spell.

3rd: Ancient rage: You May replace your dexterity modifier with your wisdom modifier when calculating unarmored defense. Additionally while you may not cast spells during rage, you may attempt to hold concentration on spells already cast.

3rd: Force of nature: Whenever you make an attack while raging you may replace that attack with roots that grow up from the ground and strike using your strength modifier and dealing 1d10 damage and increase your normal attack range by 5feet. You may make grapple attempts with these roots instead of your hands, if you do enemies have disadvantage to escape.

6th: Root-bound markings: you gain tattoos that vary from vines to branches, to roots to leaves. If you use your Force of nature feature in a place where roots can not grow, they instead sprout from your tattoos. Additionally the damage dice of the roots increase to 1d12.

11th: Bringer of Life: You may meditate during a long rest and create the effects of the plant growth spell with its 8 hour cast time effect. You still gain the benefits of a long rest, and you gain certain benefits while in the area effected by the plant growth spell .
•Plants can not cause an area to count as difficult terrain for you.
•The range of your Force of nature feature is doubled.
•When you reach 15th level, the area around you has the wrath of nature spell cast on it for the next day, centered on the point where you meditated.
•When you reach 20th level, the area centered around you gains the effects of the Druid grove spell.

17th: Elderwood Halberd: You gain the ability to summon the Elderwood Halberd. It is a +3 wooden greataxe with the reach property. It can be pulled from any tree if destroyed or placed in another tree before hand. While wielding it your force of nature feature has an additional 10 foot range and gains the effects of being a +3 weapon. If you take the attack action with your Elderwood Halberd in hand you can use your bonus action to activate spell effects that normally require a full action.

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Monk Subclass: Way of the rabbit

3rd level: Acrobatic leap: Your long and high jump distance is now calculated using your dexterity stat and modifier instead of strength. Any checks related to leaping distances beyond this use your acrobatics instead of athletics. By spending 1 ki point you may cast jump targeting yourself.

3rd level: Rushing Kicks: When you use the step of the wind feature as a bonus action, you may also use flurry of blows as part of the same bonus action to make two kicks that count as unarmed attacks and do extra damage equal to half your proficiency.

6th level: Flying impact: You may use your step of the wind feature make any type of single jump without using any of your movement. If your jump would take you into the space of another creature then upon using flurry of blows you may force them to make a strength save with a DC equal to 1/4 your distance traveled, or be pushed back that many feet. The distance pushed is halved for each size category the creature is larger than you, or doubled for each size category smaller.

11th level: Compressed Air: By spending 1 ki point you may compress the air under you and for the rest of your turn may make standing high jumps even if there is no ground under you. These high jumps do not suffer from the normal penalty of making a standing jump and are instead treated as if you’d made a running high jump.

11th level: Rising strike: You May spend 3 ki points to and as an action make an attack roll against any creature that is no more than two sizes larger than you. If it connects that creature is knocked up to your maximum jump height. If you then use your flying impact feature you may make three additional attacks for a total of five unarmed strikes.

17th level: Unending barrage: By spending 5 ki points you may use your Flying impact feature to make Attacks any time a leap you make takes you in range of a creature, this benefit lasts until the end of your turn. Once you use this feature you must finish a Long or Short rest before using it again.

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Cleric Domain: Cursed domain

Lore: By resisting the temptations and corruptions of an ancient curse through your faith and devotion to a higher being you’ve gained special abilities unique to your situation.

1st:Ancient curse: Choose 1 of 3 effects. The effects are suppressed unless a curse domain feature activated your curse, or you turn from your faith.
Curse Effects
1: Roll a d4 and gain vunurability to
(1)Slashing,(2)Piercing,
(3)Bludgeoning,(4)Nothing
2: Any healing on you during combat is half as effective.
3: Standing up from prone uses all of your movement instead of half.

1st:Curse dominance: You are
afflicted by an ancient curse, it completely suppresses all other curse effects making you immune to the effects they have, but this innate curse also can’t be removed by any remove curse effects. If your immunity to standard curses is suppressing 2 or more standard curse effects, your Ancient curse effects manifest indefinitely until the amount of suppressed curses is one or none.

2nd: Channel divinity (Shared Curse): You can use your channel divinity to force a target creature to make a wisdom saving throw against your spell save dc. If they fail they are affected by your curse and it’s effects also become active on you until the target creature is slain or you take a long rest.

6th:Primeval curse: Choose 1 of 3 new effects for your Ancient curse and gain resistance to necrotic damage. You may also change the curse effect from the Ancient curse to one of the other options available, at the end of a long rest.
Curse Effects
1: Whenever you make an attack, roll 1d6 and subtract the result from your attack roll.
2: Whenever you make a saving throw, roll 1d6 and subtract the result from your save.
3: When you become effected by this curse roll 1d6 and reduce your AC by that amount until the curse ends.

8th: Heightened Curse: You May force the enemy to make their saves against your channel divinity with disadvantage. If you do the curse effects become active on you for ten minutes, even if they succeeded on their saves. You may use this feature a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier before a long rest.

17th: Deific Curse: Whenever you activate your curse on a target creature, you may choose one additional effects of Ancient or Primeval curse to become active on both you and the target while the curse is active. You may use your channel divinity shared curse as a bonus action. If your opponent has disadvantage on wisdom saving throws due to an effect other than heightened curse, you may use the heightened curse feature to make them instantly under the effects of your curse without making a saving throw to resist. Ignoring this effect takes two legendary resistances. You may also change the curse effect from the Primeval curse feature to one of the other options at the end of a long rest.

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Feat: Reactive fighter.
+1 Dex Or +1 Con
You may make two reactions each round instead of one. Both reactions are refreshed on your turn.
If you ready an attack as an action then you may make use of the Extra attack feature or similar effects when you attack as a reaction.

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Feat: Big Britches
Prerequisite: Small race
+1 Str
You may use heavy weapons without disadvantage.
You have advantage on holding your weapon when making a save or check to resist being disarmed.

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The monk subclass is the one I’m least sure of, at least with it’s later features. I’m less worried about the feats but there’s a huge range of power variation in feats so I’m not totally sure my idea of what’s normal is accurate.

Most of it looks fine. There a lot of Math in Rabbit Monk. I’d set DC to Ki DC in all instances. Compressed Air seems like a flying speed since a player could make multiple “hops” and accomplish the same task mechanically, but if you rule you can only make 1 jump as part of a move or feel it’s necessary verbiage to communicate what’s happening in game, then it’s probably fine.

Reactive Fighter is a little wonky as is due to the Ready Action. RAW, an 11th Level Fighter that Readies can make 6 attacks every round at the cost of 3 on their turn...
Move within reach of foe
Ready to attack foe at beginning of its turn
Foe turn begins, triggers ready
Fighter burns both reactions executing Ready and Extra Attacks 3x each.

It’s probably strong enough without allowing extra attacks as a reaction.

Big Britches might be, as written, dysfunctional. To my knowledge there are no 1handed or Versatile Heavy weapons and small creatures can’t wield weapons with the Two Handed property. So I’m not sure the feat currently does anything.

If you mean small creatures can wield 2h weapons without penalty, that’s a big deal and allow me to introduce you to my Great Axe wielding Kobold Fighter Barbarian...

I recently made a jumping monk of my own, there’s a thread for it here:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?617021-5e-Lancer-Monk-Archetype

And if you like it enough to throw a $1 at it for a little art and PHB style homebrewery presentation, you can do so here:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/324365/Monastic-Tradition-Way-of-the-Dragon-Spear?src=newest_in_dmg

[Amechra]

So, Way of the Rabbit...

0) I really like the concept. After some clean-up, I'd love to play one.
1) Getting the ability to cast Jump for 1 ki is a bit much. You already have Step of the Wind, after all.
2) Rushing Kicks is a bit much. Also, scaling based off of proficiency is bad unless you want your class to be dip bait. Plus, 5e generally doesn't distinguish between types of unarmed strikes. I think this could actually be fine if you just made a single unarmed strike as part of the same bonus action as Step of the Wind.
3) Flying Impact took me a while to parse. I'll come back to this later.
4) Compressed Air is cool, but needs a little bit of a tweak to be perfect.
5) Rising Strike... yikes. I really like the idea of air-juggling your opponents, but this is excessive for a Monk at 11th level. Compare this to the Way of the Drunken Fist, which gives you three extra attacks during a Flurry at 17th level, with the additional restriction that those attacks have to be against different creatures.
6) Unending Barrage feels a bit off to me - Monks don't tend to get abilities that have restrictions on them past "spend X ki".

As a general point, don't try to fix perceived damage deficits as part of a custom subclass - then everyone will take that subclass. It's better to pump up the core class instead.

[RESERVED FOR MY TAKE ON WAY OF THE RABBIT]

[Meichrob7]

Most of it looks fine. There a lot of Math in Rabbit Monk. I’d set DC to Ki DC in all instances. Compressed Air seems like a flying speed since a player could make multiple “hops” and accomplish the same task mechanically, but if you rule you can only make 1 jump as part of a move or feel it’s necessary verbiage to communicate what’s happening in game, then it’s probably fine.

Reactive Fighter is a little wonky as is due to the Ready Action. RAW, an 11th Level Fighter that Readies can make 6 attacks every round at the cost of 3 on their turn...
Move within reach of foe
Ready to attack foe at beginning of its turn
Foe turn begins, triggers ready
Fighter burns both reactions executing Ready and Extra Attacks 3x each.

It’s probably strong enough without allowing extra attacks as a reaction.

Big Britches might be, as written, dysfunctional. To my knowledge there are no 1handed or Versatile Heavy weapons and small creatures can’t wield weapons with the Two Handed property. So I’m not sure the feat currently does anything.

If you mean small creatures can wield 2h weapons without penalty, that’s a big deal and allow me to introduce you to my Great Axe wielding Kobold Fighter Barbarian...

I recently made a jumping monk of my own, there’s a thread for it here:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?617021-5e-Lancer-Monk-Archetype

And if you like it enough to throw a $1 at it for a little art and PHB style homebrewery presentation, you can do so here:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/324365/Monastic-Tradition-Way-of-the-Dragon-Spear?src=newest_in_dmg

The intent with the dc was to make it encourage you getting a running start but you’re right that it’s kind of pointless to math out a new DC when monks already have one.

In regards to the Compressed air, I think you’re probably right. I know Mike Merels has a stream where he’d go through the process of making a subclass and someone just showed me his rogue acrobat subclass that gave character a fly speed reflavored as jumps and leaps, so that’d probably be better to go with.

In regards to reactive fighter, the intent wasn’t to let someone double execute a readied attack, I don’t think that’s how it should/would play out even by RAW since I think the readied thing becomes unreasoned once you take the first reaction to do it, but if it’s vague or confusing that’s still something that should be fixed. How would you word it so that it’s more explicit in the fact that it’s not just giving you a free bonus attack action?

Also yah I totally forgot that the small race restriction was for some reason on two handed weapons not heavy ones, I’ll just change that.

[Meichrob7]

So, Way of the Rabbit...

0) I really like the concept. After some clean-up, I'd love to play one.
1) Getting the ability to cast Jump for 1 ki is a bit much. You already have Step of the Wind, after all.
2) Rushing Kicks is a bit much. Also, scaling based off of proficiency is bad unless you want your class to be dip bait. Plus, 5e generally doesn't distinguish between types of unarmed strikes. I think this could actually be fine if you just made a single unarmed strike as part of the same bonus action as Step of the Wind.
3) Flying Impact took me a while to parse. I'll come back to this later.
4) Compressed Air is cool, but needs a little bit of a tweak to be perfect.
5) Rising Strike... yikes. I really like the idea of air-juggling your opponents, but this is excessive for a Monk at 11th level. Compare this to the Way of the Drunken Fist, which gives you three extra attacks during a Flurry at 17th level, with the additional restriction that those attacks have to be against different creatures.
6) Unending Barrage feels a bit off to me - Monks don't tend to get abilities that have restrictions on them past "spend X ki".

As a general point, don't try to fix perceived damage deficits as part of a custom subclass - then everyone will take that subclass. It's better to pump up the core class instead.

[RESERVED FOR MY TAKE ON WAY OF THE RABBIT]

0) Thanks, I do agree that it needs a lot of tweaking and this is the one I was least confident in actually being ready to play, but I wasn’t sure how to change it properly since I’m not super familiar with monk subclasses.

1) The main reason I don’t think this is too bad is because jumping is still restricted by your movement, and it takes an action to cast. Out of combat this might do some wonky stuff but jump is a first level spell and it’s kinda the theme of the class so I’m okay with it having a lot of out of combat utility. But because it’s taking an action and can’t make you move further than your movement speed, I don’t think it’d be an issue in combat.

2) I agree with it being a bit much because you’re right that this is sort of an attempt to fix General monk issues with subclass abilities which shouldn’t be done because it limits choice if one option is just flat out better than others. That being said I don’t think it’s super heavy dip bait since it’s limited by Ki points which are pretty hard to frequently use if you only have a few monk levels. I think Id rather just remove the proficiency thing entirely but keep the two attacks to keep some consistency with other monk subclass features.

3) Simplified flying impact’s DC and I think that’s the most confusing aspect of it since it makes it unnecessarily wordy to explain. The “make a jump without using any movement” does have some potential to cause issues with the jump spell but I felt less worried about it since that’s after haste and fly are available to casters and when shadow monk gets their shadow step which is more limited in when you can use it but is much more powerful and doesn’t use Ki.

4) Reworded compressed air to make it simpler but not sure if I love how it turned out.

5) So in total you’re making 6 attacks at, using 4 Ki points, and potentially wasting the three initial Ki points if you miss the attack. It’s effectively a net gain of two attacks for 3 Ki points. It’s a psuedo Nova option that has some risk and is much lower in term of Ki points : attacks made than something like the standard flurry of blows.

6) Reworked Unending Barrage, it’s been very heavily nerfed and simplified because the way compressed air was changed made it far too powerful. That being said I’m not totally sure if this is an version of the ability I’m 100% satisfied with.


Anyways thanks a ton for the feedback. While I’m iffy on some individual changes I’ve had to try and make I’m really happy with how the feedback I’ve gotten has made this seem like a much more legit and balanced subclass.

[Great Dragon]

Barbarian: Primal Conduit.
I'm mentally comparing this with Wild Soul Barbarian.
Turning the Barbarian into a variant Ranger..... seems a bit much. Especially if they can trade spells daily, like a Druid.

Perhaps like the Wild Soul, while Raging they get random Spells from the Druid list, equal to 1/3 their level?

Ancient Rage: Personally, I don't like SAD character builds.
I know everyone doesn't like MAD requirements, but IMO - I honestly believe that all the Abilities should be used, as often as possible.

Perhaps something like doing an extra amount of damage equal to your Rage damage, once per turn?

Force of Nature, this wording is a little confusing and can be exploited by an experienced Player against a new DM. A simple "As an Action" might work better. One Target and a Strength Saving throw equal to 8 + proficiency + Str mod, might be easier to track.

Bringer of Life: Wrath of Nature and Druid Grove spells seems a little too Druidic.

How about the Druid version of Divine Favor as an aura while Raging?
+1d4 force damage to self and all allies within 30'?

Plants not counting as difficult terrain is nice.
Extending the range of your Force of Nature seems ok.

17th: "Wooden Halberd that can be pulled from any tree if destroyed or placed in another tree before hand."
Seems nice.

"If you take the attack action with your +3 Elderwood Halberd in hand you can use your bonus action to activate spell effects that normally require a full action."

This would be interesting. Like being able to pick one of the Wild Druid spells as a Bonus action.

Rabbit Monk the suggested changes seem fine.

Curse Domain
I need more clarification. Is this choose one of the 3 effects, and they remain until suppressed by another feature?
Or can the Cleric choose after each Long Rest?

Curse Dominance seems to imply that the Domain effects are chosen, unless the Cleric has 2 or more other standard curses in effect upon them.

Shared Curse, is interesting.

Primeval Curse: There aren't going to very many players going to interesting in playing a Subclass that is detrimental to the PC.
Swapping this out to where these can affect enemies withing 10-30 feet might be more appealing.

Heightened Curse: This is rather neat. You can force a curse on foe/s (I'd go aura, again) but if they are affected, so are you.

Deific Curse: Is appropriate for a high level Character.

The Feats already have good suggestions.

[Meichrob7]

Barbarian: Primal Conduit.
I'm mentally comparing this with Wild Soul Barbarian.
Turning the Barbarian into a variant Ranger..... seems a bit much. Especially if they can trade spells daily, like a Druid.

Perhaps like the Wild Soul, while Raging they get random Spells from the Druid list, equal to 1/3 their level?

Ancient Rage: Personally, I don't like SAD character builds.
I know everyone doesn't like MAD requirements, but IMO - I honestly believe that all the Abilities should be used, as often as possible.

Perhaps something like doing an extra amount of damage equal to your Rage damage, once per turn?

Force of Nature, this wording is a little confusing and can be exploited by an experienced Player against a new DM. A simple "As an Action" might work better. One Target and a Strength Saving throw equal to 8 + proficiency + Str mod, might be easier to track.

Bringer of Life: Wrath of Nature and Druid Grove spells seems a little too Druidic.

How about the Druid version of Divine Favor as an aura while Raging?
+1d4 force damage to self and all allies within 30'?

Plants not counting as difficult terrain is nice.
Extending the range of your Force of Nature seems ok.

17th: "Wooden Halberd that can be pulled from any tree if destroyed or placed in another tree before hand."
Seems nice.

"If you take the attack action with your +3 Elderwood Halberd in hand you can use your bonus action to activate spell effects that normally require a full action."

This would be interesting. Like being able to pick one of the Wild Druid spells as a Bonus action.

Rabbit Monk the suggested changes seem fine.

Curse Domain
I need more clarification. Is this choose one of the 3 effects, and they remain until suppressed by another feature?
Or can the Cleric choose after each Long Rest?

Curse Dominance seems to imply that the Domain effects are chosen, unless the Cleric has 2 or more other standard curses in effect upon them.

Shared Curse, is interesting.

Primeval Curse: There aren't going to very many players going to interesting in playing a Subclass that is detrimental to the PC.
Swapping this out to where these can affect enemies withing 10-30 feet might be more appealing.

Heightened Curse: This is rather neat. You can force a curse on foe/s (I'd go aura, again) but if they are affected, so are you.

Deific Curse: Is appropriate for a high level Character.

The Feats already have good suggestions.


Super appreciate the great feedback so thanks for that.

- My Barbarian Vs Wild Soul: A lot of this stuff is super old so this is actually something I’d created way before wild soul, which besides the broken combos it had seemed super underwhelming to me. The main balancing feature is imo still the fact that you can’t cast spells while raging. I think being able to cast random spells would be about as powerful but perhaps less fun, at least to the players in my group.

- Ancient Rage: This isn’t SAD as you still need Con Str and Wis a lot, and Dex isn’t a dump stat. This feature just prevents the subclass from being more MAD then other barbarians.

- Force of Nature: Im not super sure which part you think is busted so it’s hard for me to comment on it. If you mean the grapple thing then maybe? That’s an admittedly iffy area but I think it fits the play style being encouraged and plays off of other things the class does. While I could be convinced that it needed a numbers nerf, I’d probably be less inclined to fundamentally change it a ton to play off the other stuff as well as it does

- Bringer of life seems too Druidic: I mean yah. You said earlier that this was a “ranger barbarian” but it’s really supposed to be a Druid barbarian. The 1/3 spellcasting is supposed to mimic how EK and AT are the wizard equivalent of their martial classes. That being said I do dig the effect you thought up and if I do end up switching something out that’s probably one of the first things I’d consider.

- Elderwood Halberd: Again I appreciate the feedback. That one in particular plays wel with the spells you’d have around that level if you are a 1/3 druid caster. Originally it was “whenever you attack you can activate effects that normally activate as a bonus action” but that seemed either broken or confusing to word so it didn’t activate too often.


- Ancient Curse effect: its the opposite of what you said. The effects are inactive unless another cleric feature activated them. They’re by default “off” but most of your subclass features turn them “on”.

- Curse Dominance: This is one of the subclass features that could turn “on” the ancient curse effect. The feature makes you immune to curses* but if that immunity is suppressing two curses then your innate ancient curse has its own effects start to become active 24/7 until the amount of other curses your immunity is suppressing dips below two. Not sure how I could/should word that in the feature to make it more clear.

-Primeval Curse: So not sure why you’re bringing this up now when the Shared curse was the effect that’s making you harm yourself to debuff the enemy, but that’s sort of the core concept of the class. I agree that it’s not something that would be popular but I have some pretty role play heavy players who I think would enjoy how fun that can be as a story element. The main idea here is that these effects are really powerful debuffs that the players can make more use of than the enemy, making them beneficial but something you have to play around.
In terms of the aura idea I’m not sure if that’d actually be any better. As it is now the curse is line of sight against one enemy. Making it a 30ft aura means you’d have to be in close and if you’re weakening yourself that’s probably not what you wanna be doing. While it can only target one enemy you’d generally wanna save this till you’re fighting one strong opponent or the last leader of a group.

- Heightened curse: If I did go with an aura effect for the previous features I’d carry that over here, but for now I don’t think it fits super well with how you’d want to be playing the class.

[Great Dragon]

Meichrob7: Thank you for your consideration.

Being the Equal of a EK or AT class, is interesting.
The biggest thing is that the Barbarian can't cast or concentrate on spells while raging. Which is why I suggested the Wild Druid swap, which still gives a spell benefit, but doesn't negate their Rage.

If keeping the 1/3 caster perhaps having a limit of spell selection, like the EK and AT? Like maybe 1-2 spells are determined by Region, like a Land Druid's bonus spell list?

I'll comment more on the others after some sleep.

[Meichrob7]

I’m planning on adding some subclasses to my homebrew campaign world so the players can have access to some of the stuff NPCs will be able to do. I’d like some feedback on it but in this case all of my friends who are into DnD are going to be playing and I can’t really show them these subclasses yet without giving away some details of the campaign that are still secret to them.

Mostly looking for feedback on if things are balanced but if there’s anything that might be unfun despite being balanced I’d appreciate feedback in that aspect as well.

———————————————————

Barbarian: Primal Conduit

Spellcasting: [b] When you chose this class you also pick a circle of the land location to represent the area you gained your connection to nature. [b] You become 1/3 caster, gaining spell slots in an identical progression to the arcane trickster or eldritch knight. Instead of a list of known spells the Primal Conduit prepares a list of spells, you prepare a number of spells from the druid spell list equal to your Wisdom Modifier + 1/2 your Barbarian level (rounded up). You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. [b] You must prepare one spell from the list of circle spells for your chosen land, for each level of spell you have access to. [b] At 3rd level this means one first level spell, at 7th level this means a first and second level spell, at 13th level this means a first, second, and third level spell, and at level 19 this means a first, second, third, and fourth level spell.

3rd: Ancient rage: You May replace your dexterity modifier with your wisdom modifier when calculating unarmored defense. Additionally [b]while you may not cast spells during rage, you may attempt to hold concentration on spells already cast. [b]
.

Great Dragon:

Just bolding some relevant bits of the subclass. The circle of land restriction was something I’d already implemented. I don’t think it was in the original posted version and was added in during one of the revisions. If you didn’t see it that’s either because you read through before that was updated, or it’s too easy to read over because it’s in the middle of a massive text box.

In terms of the anti synergy with rage, I build in a bypass to that with the whole “you can concentrate on spells but not cast them” in that last bolded area. The idea there being that you’d cast a spell as an action and then rage turn one, and on subsistent turns you attack and use your bonus action to activate the spell effects. Or if it’s a passive thing then you don’t do anything on bonus action.

This sort of “breaking the rules of the main class” was something I wasn’t too sure of but the wild soul got released last year and it does something similar enough that I don’t feel too bad breaking the “can’t concentrate” rule.

I also like breaking the concentration rule rather than the spell casting rule since it has some implicit restrictions that it puts on our playstyle. This kind of makes the spells less of a “free power boost” which lets me give the class other effects and abilities.

I much prefer downsides that create difficult decisions rather than ones that are just consistent and built in. I think that’s my main problem with the wild soul barbarian. They made the effect something that happens “for free” just by entering rage. Because it’s “free” they’re forced to really restrict it in ways that I don’t think are super fun, mainly giving you weird magic effects instead of spells, and making you unable to choose the spell effect.

[Great Dragon]

Meichrob7. Ah. I missed that the last time I read.

Yeah, breaking the Concentration rule is better than breaking the Spell rules. I've only had one player try and play the Wild Soul Barbarian, and the Pandemic killed that game.

The "Free" magic/spells is a minor concern, but the randomness does mitigate it, imo.

Your idea can allow for a more Smart "Conan" type.
Cast the spell, then Rage, and go to town.
I am thinking that Con Saves to keep Concentration could be at Disadvantage while Raging. This way, the Barbarian's melee Resistances don't make rolling for that nearly pointless.

Looks like everything else has been addressed.
I'll see if any of my players are interested in these.

Thanks for chatting.

[Meichrob7]

Meichrob7. Ah. I missed that the last time I read.

Yeah, breaking the Concentration rule is better than breaking the Spell rules. I've only had one player try and play the Wild Soul Barbarian, and the Pandemic killed that game.

The "Free" magic/spells is a minor concern, but the randomness does mitigate it, imo.

Your idea can allow for a more Smart "Conan" type.
Cast the spell, then Rage, and go to town.
I am thinking that Con Saves to keep Concentration could be at Disadvantage while Raging. This way, the Barbarian's melee Resistances don't make rolling for that nearly pointless.

Looks like everything else has been addressed.
I'll see if any of my players are interested in these.

Thanks for chatting.

I think the concentration thing is hard to judge. The Barbarian rage makes it harder to have any individual Concentration save be too high, but you’re melee, don’t have amazing armor, and even might be recklessly attacking so you have to make quite a few more checks than the average caster.

Additionally since you can’t cast spells during rage, if you do drop concentration ever you’re locked out of spells for the rest of combat. That’s my justification for having it not be at disadvantage but it’s something I’d considered.

Like I said though it’s something that seems hard to accurately judge without playing it a ton so if you do decide to use it and find that the con saves are too reliable, feel free to retroactively change it. Obviously you can do that with any of the class features since it’d be your game, but this one in particular seems like something you’d have to figure out through playing.

Also I’d totally forgotten to actually post all the subclasses I had. Somehow one got left behind so feel free to check it out if you want. It’s a 1/3 cleric rogue. It’s a bit less unique than the Barbarian being a 1/3 caster because there’s already arcane tricksters, but it’s always boggled my mind that there was no religious assassin subclass because that just works so well as a character archetype, so I decided to make it even though it steps on the toes of AT a little.

[Yakk]

The wording is really rough.



Barbarian: Primal Conduit

Spellcasting: When you chose this class
It isn't a class. It is a primal path.

you also pick a circle of the land location to represent the area you gained your connection to nature.
Repeat the wording of the Druid circle of the land here, and then say "use the same list that the circle of the land druid uses" in a separate sentence.


You become 1/3 caster, gaining spell slots in an identical progression to the arcane trickster or eldritch knight.
No need to mention 1/3 caster here. "You gain the spell slot progression of an Eldritch Knight" if you don't want to repeat it here. (I'd just repeat it).

Instead of a list of known spells the Primal Conduit prepares a list of spells, you prepare a number of spells from the druid spell list equal to your Wisdom Modifier + 1/2 your Barbarian level (rounded up). You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. You must prepare one spell from the list of circle spells for your chosen land, for each level of spell you have access to. At 3rd level this means one first level spell, at 7th level this means a first and second level spell, at 13th level this means a first, second, and third level spell, and at level 19 this means a first, second, third, and fourth level spell.
In my opinion, 1/3 casters shouldn't be a prepared caster. Prepared casting is (a) complex and (b) more powerful than known spell casters. And 1/3 casters don't need that.

Instead, what I'd do is I'd grant you the Circle of the Land spells, plus 1 additional spell known every odd level (starting with 1 at level 3). This keeps your selection tight and on-theme.

Finally, you haven't mentioned your spellcasting ability (how you determine save DCs and spell attack rolls). I assume wisdom?

3rd: Ancient rage: You May replace your dexterity modifier with your wisdom modifier when calculating unarmored defense. Additionally while you may not cast spells during rage, you may attempt to hold concentration on spells already cast.
Don't modify another feature, especially when your modification is as complex as just saying what it now does.

Ancient Rage: Starting at 3rd level, while raging and not wearing armor or using a shield, you may calculate your AC as 10 plus your wisdom and constitution modifiers. In addition, you can maintain concentration on spells or other effects during a rage.

3rd: Force of nature: Whenever you make an attack while raging you may replace that attack with roots that grow up from the ground and strike using your strength modifier and dealing 1d10 damage and increase your normal attack range by 5feet. You may make grapple attempts with these roots instead of your hands, if you do enemies have disadvantage to escape.
First, any subclass that grants 1/3 casting should have a slow progression of additional features.

Second, this is a real mess.

Force of Nature: As a bonus action while raging, you can magically call forth roots that burst from the ground around you and follow you around, that last until the end of your rage. These roots are 10' reach natural weapons that deal 1d10 magical bludgeoning damage, and can be used to grapple or shove. While these roots are manifested, creatures have disadvantage when making grapple escape checks against you.

This has an additional action economy tax, and is mechanically tighter I think. You could also just say "when you enter a rage, you may choose to" instead of having it cost a bonus action.


6th: Root-bound markings: you gain tattoos that vary from vines to branches, to roots to leaves. If you use your Force of nature feature in a place where roots can not grow, they instead sprout from your tattoos. Additionally the damage dice of the roots increase to 1d12.
"Your skin becomes permanently marked with images of vines, branches, roots and leaves. These can manifest as scars, monochrome tattoos, or vivid skin-paint like paintings; pick when you gain this feature. When you use your Force of Nature ability, the roots can grow from not just the ground, but from the markings on your flesh. In addition, your roots now deal 1d12 damage when used as a natural weapon."


11th: Bringer of Life: You may meditate during a long rest and create the effects of the plant growth spell with its 8 hour cast time effect. You still gain the benefits of a long rest, and you gain certain benefits while in the area effected by the plant growth spell .
•Plants can not cause an area to count as difficult terrain for you.
•The range of your Force of nature feature is doubled.
•When you reach 15th level, the area around you has the wrath of nature spell cast on it for the next day, centered on the point where you meditated.
•When you reach 20th level, the area centered around you gains the effects of the Druid grove spell.

During a long rest, you may meditate and cast plant growth over 8 hours. You are aware of your surroundings while doing this meditation, and still gain the benefits of the long rest and sleep. In addition, while within the area half-mile radius of the plant growth spell:

You ignore difficult terrain caused by plants
The reach of your Force of Nature roots is increased to 20'
Starting at 15th level, when you end the long rest a Wrath of Nature spell is cast at your current location with a duration of 24 hours that does not require concentration.
Starting at 20th level, when you end the long rest a Druid Grove spell is cast at your current location.



17th: Elderwood Halberd: You gain the ability to summon the Elderwood Halberd. It is a +3 wooden greataxe with the reach property. It can be pulled from any tree if destroyed or placed in another tree before hand. While wielding it your force of nature feature has an additional 10 foot range and gains the effects of being a +3 weapon. If you take the attack action with your Elderwood Halberd in hand you can use your bonus action to activate spell effects that normally require a full action.
Is it a Halberd or a Greataxe? :)

I'd be tempted to go with a greatspear instead of an axe; make it a +3 pike.

Your description of how it can merge with/be pulled from a tree is confusing.

"Activate spell effects that usually require a full action" is also confusing. Are you saying you can cast spells that require an action to cast as a bonus action? That (a) seems a bit much, and (b) is mostly useless, because you cannot cast spells while raging.

Elderwood Thornspear: Starting at 17th level on this Path, you gain the ability to summon the Elderwood Thornspear from any tree within 10', pulling it from the wood, as a bonus action. It is a +3 wooden pike with the thrown 100'/200' property that disappears at the end of any turn you are not holding it. While manifested, it grants your Force of Nature natural weapons a +3 bonus to hit and damage and they have an additional 10' reach. If you make an attack with the Thornspear on your turn, you can make an attack with your Force of Nature natural weapons as a bonus action.

I might also get rid of the +3.

Elderwood Thornspear: Starting at 17th level on this Path, you gain the ability to summon the Elderwood Thornspear from any tree within 10', pulling it from the wood, as a bonus action. It is a magical wooden pike that deals an additional 2d8 poison damage on a hit, has the thrown 100'/200' property, and disappears at the end of any turn you are not holding it. While manifested, it your Force of Nature natural weapons deal an additional 1d12 damage and they have an additional 10' reach. If you make an attack with the Thornspear on your turn, you can make an attack with your Force of Nature natural weapons as a bonus action.

(Spear does 14.5 piercing+poison, Roots do 13 bludgeoning.)

At high level, +3 hit/damage is boring, +extra damage is both usually stronger and more fun. I made it poison, because the thorns on the spear are poisonous. I made the damage on the roots bludgeoning, because sometimes you are fighting poison-immune creatures. That lets you do a spear, root, root attack routine, as opposed to the usual spear, spear, root routine.

The pike is the inferior polearm (thanks to PAM) as it lacks the bonus action attack; this gives the PAM 1d4 extra attack as a root attack. It doesn't stack as well with GWM as PAM does, but the extra damage I grant above helps make up for that (I think most barbarians would marginally prefer the thornspear to a +3 glaive, for example). The ability to throw it is a small bonus (a ribbon); if you are next to a tree, you can throw it, use your roots locally, then bonus action draw another one from a tree.

[Great Dragon]

I think the concentration thing is hard to judge. The Barbarian rage makes it harder to have any individual Concentration save be too high, but you’re melee, don’t have amazing armor, and even might be recklessly attacking so you have to make quite a few more checks than the average caster.

Additionally since you can’t cast spells during rage, if you do drop concentration ever you’re locked out of spells for the rest of combat. That’s my justification for having it not be at disadvantage but it’s something I’d considered.

Like I said though it’s something that seems hard to accurately judge without playing it a ton so if you do decide to use it and find that the con saves are too reliable, feel free to retroactively change it. Obviously you can do that with any of the class features since it’d be your game, but this one in particular seems like something you’d have to figure out through playing.
I'll keep looking for playtesters.


Also I’d totally forgotten to actually post all the subclasses I had. Somehow one got left behind so feel free to check it out if you want. It’s a 1/3 cleric rogue. It’s a bit less unique than the Barbarian being a 1/3 caster because there’s already arcane tricksters, but it’s always boggled my mind that there was no religious assassin subclass because that just works so well as a character archetype, so I decided to make it even though it steps on the toes of AT a little.

I tend to agree that there should be something like this.
And while it might look like an AT - it's different enough to be worth looking into. I'm thinking for more Support, requiring that Healing Word is required as one of the three spells taken. Not Cure Wounds, since that would hinder the mobility of the Rogue, and tend to make the (any but Life) Cleric feel a little less needed. But I'd says that having a Bonus Action Healing spell with a 30' range to get the Cleric back up, is most definitely something that would be welcomed.