Great but rarely seen subclass abilities?

[Yakmala]

Some subclasses are super common. Some are rarely seen. In your opinion, what's the greatest subclass ability that nobody ever sees because so few players choose the subclass the ability is attached to?

[OldTrees1]

Joke: Arcane Trickster's invisible mage hand is rarely seen.

Serious: Warlock Chain Pact familiar has some really neat options despite Tome and Blade being more popular. One option is party telepathy via a familiar router.

[Jerrykhor]

Probably Split Enchantment from Enchantment Wizard. Free twin metamagic on Hideous Laughter, Hold Person/Monster, Dominate Person, or Irresistible Dance is great.

[MrStabby]

Spell thief.

It is rarely seen because it is really high level and, from what i have seen, rogue popularity is pretty low at high level play.


The ability is not bad though - there are enough spells that can ruin someones day so simply having another counterspell option is great. It is really, really fun when an enemy takes steps to avoid counterspell by not being seen, subtle casting or whatever and the ability works anyway. Shutting out enemies like high level warlocks relying on eldritch blast is also fun.

All in all I think it is a really fun and thematic rogue ability but it is a shame it is so high level.




In a similar vein, Slayer's Counter from the monster hunter ranger is also something I haven't seen much of - for low level play Gloomstalker gets all the attention, for high level play the ranger tends to be overlooked a bit. Automatically passing a save (and not just against spells) and getting a free attack an unlimited number of times is really good. With a level this high, a potential magic weapon, potentially having advantage you can be a lot more confident landing an attack than making a tough save... and if you miss you gat to take the save anyway. I think most people think diamond soul is great; I would argue that this is broadly on par. Diamond soul has a 25% to 30% chance of turning a fail into a success for any save; I would say at high levels you are looking at about a 45% chance to make a save for a non-monk (on average accross all) and a 65% hit chance for a 30% chance to make a difference. Diamond soul works on multiple saves per turn and can be against multiple enemies, Slayer's counter does throw in an extra attack.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

3rd level Eagle Totem Barbarian ability. I had a great time playing a mobile barbarian with this, but the default seems to be Bear Totem at 3rd.

[strangebloke]

The trite answer is "any capstone ability" but realtalk? Land Druid abilities. All of them. The Dreams, Moon, and Shepherd druids are just sexier. So is the Fungal druid. They're not weak, but people really don't play druids that much to begin with and I've never seen a land druid at my table, nor have I ever had anyone even float the idea of one.


Joke: Arcane Trickster's invisible mage hand is rarely seen.

Serious: Warlock Chain Pact familiar has some really neat options despite Tome and Blade being more popular. One option is party telepathy via a familiar router.

hilariously PotC is the only one my players seem to take.

[Theodoxus]

Probably Split Enchantment from Enchantment Wizard. Free twin metamagic on Hideous Laughter, Hold Person/Monster, Dominate Person, or Irresistible Dance is great.

OMG, there's no range on that.

To Whit:
Twinned SpellWhen you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self, you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level to target a second creature in range with the same spell.

Split Enchantment
Starting at 10th level, when you cast an enchantment spell of 1st level or higher that targets only one creature, you can have it target a second creature.

Now, I'm sure RAI, it needs to be within range, but specifying it with the metamagic, but not the feature implies that it doesn't (and a decent rules lawyer could probably convince their DM of that fact).

[RogueJK]

Probably Split Enchantment from Enchantment Wizard. Free twin metamagic on Hideous Laughter, Hold Person/Monster, Dominate Person, or Irresistible Dance is great.

Good one. Also useful for Suggestion, Tasha's Mind Whip, or potentially even Dissonant Whispers through the Fey Touched feat.

[Quietus]

3rd level Eagle Totem Barbarian ability. I had a great time playing a mobile barbarian with this, but the default seems to be Bear Totem at 3rd.


The trite answer is "any capstone ability" but realtalk? Land Druid abilities. All of them. The Dreams, Moon, and Shepherd druids are just sexier. So is the Fungal druid. They're not weak, but people really don't play druids that much to begin with and I've never seen a land druid at my table, nor have I ever had anyone even float the idea of one.



hilariously PotC is the only one my players seem to take.

Amusingly, my wife has played both of these to great effect. Centaur eagle totem barbarian, DM allowed her to use a lance and shield since she is her own horse. There was nowhere on the board she couldn't reach. And she played a gnomish land druid in a homebrew game, it's the most generically druidy of druid classes, worked very well for her.

[Tanarii]

In AL back in the day:

Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer. These are great features! Flavorful and useful. But the internet has biased folks against the Ranger. Of course, there's also the valid complain they only work when you're interacting with your enemies or in your terrain. Especially for Natural explorer, moving the non-pseudo-expertise features to any natural terrain is one of the few Ranger revisions suggested by Wotc that isn't terrible.

Elemental Disciplines. Also great feature, flavorful and useful. And again, the internet seems to have biased folks against 4-elemonks. In this case, complains about not enough Ki are not justified. OTOH after XTGE showed us what elemental cantrips can do, replacing Elemental Attunement with one elemental cantrip every tier is a reasonable house rule.

IMC: almost no Champions (but their features aren't great), and low numbers of Barbarians (who have many great subclass features). It was a no feat no Multiclassing campaign, so those aren't really big surprises. But it didn't help at all that champions and barbarians were the easiest henchmen to find and hire.

Also all features over level 13. My campaign rarely featured Tier 3, and it was also low tier 3. Thats supposedly extremely common. Iirc it's also pretty much the default for most WotC hardcover adventure-arcs.

[elyktsorb]

The trite answer is "any capstone ability" but realtalk? Land Druid abilities. All of them.

I'ma have to rebuke this, as someone who has played a Land Druid.

Land's Stride? Ooh, I get to move through difficult terrain for free as a caster with a lot of concentration spells so staying away from the main combat is probably more effective anyway. I mean sure it's a thing you'll be happy to have if it ever comes up but I would not call this a great ability.


Nature's Ward is so laughably situational and has to be in the running for worst subclass ability. "You can't be charmed by elementals or fey"

Fun Fact this is about 20 creatures, about 20 Fey Creatures can inflict fear or Charmed on you, there are 0 Elementals that inflict Charm or Fear statuses.


And Nature's Sanctuary is literally a worse version of the actual spell Sanctuary as it only works on beasts and plant creatures. (Which I might add is a 1st level Cleric spell so you might as well skip grabbing lvl 14 on land druid and just multiclass into whatever cleric domain you want) and to top it off if the plant/beast makes the save they can just ignore the effect for 24 hours. At least Open Hand Monk's Tranquility is literally just Sanctuary that has to be rolled against every time any creature attacks them.



As for Subclass abilities I think are cool but are hardly ever seen, Shepard Druid's 14th level ability to summon a bunch of stuff if they go down, Open Hand Monk's 17th level Quivering Palm, and Thief Rogue's 13th level ability Use Magic Device.

[Edenbeast]

I'ma have to rebuke this, as someone who has played a Land Druid.

Land's Stride? Ooh, I get to move through difficult terrain for free as a caster with a lot of concentration spells so staying away from the main combat is probably more effective anyway. I mean sure it's a thing you'll be happy to have if it ever comes up but I would not call this a great ability.

It depends how much your druid is in their type of land. I agree those abilities are situational, but the thing about the circle of land druid are that those abilities you mention are mainly flavour and sometimes useful, however, it's basically two abilities that count: the circle spells and natural recovery. I've played, correction, still playing a coastal druid in a party with a paladin, a rogue and a bard, and I'm having a lot of fun! I've basically built my character concept around the circle spells. I focus mainly on battlefield control and some healing, and especially the 2nd level circle spells (misty step and mirror image) have been pivotal in my defensive capabilities. It's the only character that hasn't gone down in a fight yet. Natural recovery is like the wizards' arcane recovery, letting land druids recover some spells after a short rest. I think that ability alone makes the circle of land druid arguably the best divine spellcaster in the game, and on par with wizards in general. Sure, they don't have the summoning power of the shepherd druid or the shapeshifter abilities of the moon druid, but I've turned into a mouse to get out of nasty situations, or just to scout ahead, so there are still uses for that, just a different approach. I think land druids are really underappreciated compared to the other circles while actually being more versatile..

[Dalinar]

I can't speak for the metagame, but while theorycrafting a skirmisher build (highly mobile ranged DPR) I came across Scout Rogue's ability of the same name where you can move up to half your speed as a reaction when somebody ends their turn within 5 feet of you. Great for avoiding OAs, which means you can move, Cunning Action Dash, and attack that same person all in the following round, and they probably can't catch up to you (my version of the build involved Wood Elf with Infiltrator Armor from Artificer, meaning 40ft base movement speed).

Sure, it's not like PAM or Sentinel where it makes your reaction very likely to deal damage and therefore improve your DPR, but I think it's pretty cool.

[elyktsorb]

but the thing about the circle of land druid are that those abilities you mention are mainly flavour and sometimes useful

To be fair, that was pretty much the reason why I ripped into them. Flavor over substance, but Natural Recovery and your 'Land' Spells are amazing, there's no denying that.

[Katzekerl]

hilariously PotC is the only one my players seem to take.
Your players are the ones that make pets of everything IÂ’m guessing

[ImproperJustice]

The Eldritch Knight’s weapon summon ability.

Used in a lot of situations to appear unarmed or gain trust by throwing down said weapon. Or to toss a secondary weapon (since you can bind more than one), experimentally into or onto stuff.
Obviously helpful in desperate moments when an enemy is just out of reach and you have to throw your weapon at something.

Dragon Sorceror’s crazy diplomacy bonus when dealing with Dragons.
It’s probably pretty rare, but when talking to a Dragon it’s nice to have a strong bonus.

I don’t know where it falls in the spectrum, but Artificer Tool Expertise + Multi Tool means advantage on virtually every proficiency check, or an outrageously high skill check on anything that falls under a tool check:

[Jon talks a lot]

Taking a quick look, and I see some things that are probably pretty rare.

1st, as others have said, any tier 3 or 4 ability is going to be pretty darn rare.

2nd, the Zeal Domain/Tempest Domain Cleric's 6th level ability, Resounding/Thunderous Strike is pretty awesome. Whenever you deal thunder/lightning damage, you can push a creature 10 feet. It's pretty rare because most people only dip 3 into Tempest cleric and Zeal, as an amonkhet subclass. However, it's still really good. A resourceless push you can do as part of an attack is powerful and synergizes with many other classes.

3rd, the Circle of Spores Druid 2nd level ability gets absurd. The only relevant part of it is that you can expend a wild shape to gain temporary hit points equal to 4 times your druid level. At level 20, this becomes resourceless thanks to archdruid, and it then allows you to gain 80 temporary hit points as an action. Say goodbye to the unkillable moon druid, and say hello to the unkillable spore druid.

4th, the Phantom rogues 9th level ability, Tokens of the Departed, is just awesome. You can use your reaction to steal a piece of the soul of a creature that dies within 30 feet of you. You can have up to your proficiency bonus of these, and while you have one, you have advantage on constitution/death saves, and you can use them to either cast speak with dead but only ask one question or to use the Phantom rogues 3rd level ability Wails of the Grave without expending a use of it. It's a really metal ability, and I love it. Its rarely seen because it's new from TCoE.

[msfnc]

I’m playing in an Icewind Dale game presently. No session zero, all 6 PCs dumped charisma. I took Fey Wanderer for my ranger at 3, now we have a viable party face thanks to Otherworldly Glamour.

[Yakmala]

Focusing on rarely seen Rogue abilities for a moment.

Both the Thief and the Scout have a level 17 ability that I've never seen in a game (the only two Rogues I've encountered that were that high level were both Arcane Tricksters).

Both abilities are similar, in that they give the Rogue an additional chance to make a sneak attack during a turn.

For Thieves, Thief's Reflexes allows a second turn on the opening round of combat, with the second turn happening at -10 your rolled initiative. For Scouts, there is Sudden Strike, which allows an additional attack as a bonus action that can benefit from Sneak Attack, with the limitation that only one Sneak Attack per turn can be against the same target.

Which of these do you think provides the bigger benefit? In my personal opinion, while Thief's Reflexes provides a full additional turn and the ability to sneak attack the same target twice, Sudden Strike wins out in any scenario where there is more than one enemy, as it can be done every turn.

[OldTrees1]

Which of these do you think provides the bigger benefit? In my personal opinion, while Thief's Reflexes provides a full additional turn and the ability to sneak attack the same target twice, Sudden Strike wins out in any scenario where there is more than one enemy, as it can be done every turn.

Sudden Strike sounds better in general. Having a single extra turn is more flexible but it will generally be used for another sneak attack unless you are immediately trying to escape the combat.

This is similar to but better than an Arcane Trickster that picked Haste as their 3rd level spell at 14th level.

[DwarfFighter]

Some subclasses are super common. Some are rarely seen. In your opinion, what's the greatest subclass ability that nobody ever sees because so few players choose the subclass the ability is attached to?

Improved critical, obviously.

-DF

[Quietus]

Sudden Strike sounds better in general. Having a single extra turn is more flexible but it will generally be used for another sneak attack unless you are immediately trying to escape the combat.

This is similar to but better than an Arcane Trickster that picked Haste as their 3rd level spell at 14th level.

However, if you have a friendly spellcaster to cast Haste on you, the thief can potentially get four sneak attacks in the first round - if the spellcaster goes first, that is. One on their first turn, one readied action, then rinse and repeat at -10 initiative. Requires a pretty specific setup and a caster with higher initiative, but that would be deadly.

[Kidra]

3rd level Eagle Totem Barbarian ability. I had a great time playing a mobile barbarian with this, but the default seems to be Bear Totem at 3rd.
Probably less underrated, but I feel similarly about the wolf totem. Granted, you kind of need the right party to make it work bes, but good a while we had a fighter and a paladin in the group in addition to my barbarian and all three of us having advantage meant we absolutely wrecked everything. Heck, even when the paladin left we could just destroy things. Our DM is running a module and he has to adjust the hit points significantly or we literally tear through the bosses in one or two rounds.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: I wish the ability to close Necrothreads were seen more rarely.