5e Pls PEACH- Reaper Class (lots of inspirations)

[BerzerkerUnit]

The Reaper (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kWii79_7bL-yccjp8N4AKbkXS851qLcY/view?usp=sharing)
A dark elf wields a sickle in each hand, where blade touches flesh, gouts of horror inducing gore issue forth from even the most minor wound. Dancing between arrows, thrusts and slashes she winnows down the numbers of her foes till all is still and quiet.

Dulara saw the old man in the alley, gasping for breath, desperate for succor. Age and illness and drink had caught up to him. Despite his state he spat curses and jibes, refusing to show weakness before a woman. Receding into the shadows Dulara masked herself as a priest of the local temple, she wove magic to ease his troubled mind and with a touch, he was gone.

Across the multiverse the forces of entropy have waxed and waned in an everlasting cycle, chaos giving rise to order, order giving way to chaos. As this endless cycle perpetuates, some small fraction of mortals become caught up, becoming conduits for such forces. These select few can master terrible power over life and death.
Some gifted to light the paths of doomed, Lamplighters that travel between worlds to usher the fallen to the next phase and make room for those that will come after.
Others are Peacebringers, whose gifts can allow those close to the end to transition without fear or pain.
Reapers all, gifted in the act of driving creatures inexorably toward the final terminus awaiting us all.

How these few are empowered is a mystery, what binds them to order and chaos may be divine will, unholy intervention, or pure chance. Whatever the case, these Reapers will always walk a thorny path, drawn into conflicts where their gifts make them desirable pawns.

The question can never be will they reap, but rather when, and for whom will they raise the Reaper’s Scythe or the Headsman’s Axe.

Class features
Hit Dice: D10
Save Proficiencies: Con, Charisma
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple Weapons, Sickles, Battle Axe, Great Axe, Scythes (Glaives), Firearms (campaign dependent)
Armor Proficiency: Light Armor
Skill Proficiencies: Choose 2 from Athletics, Arcana, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Religion, Stealth
Tool Proficiency: One Gaming Set of your choice or Cooking Utensils or Weaver's Tools

Class Table: The Reaper




Level

Prof
Bonus
Class Features

Mortal
Scythe



1st

+2
Mortal Scythe, Unarmored Defense

1d10



2nd

+2
Spectral Step

1d10



3rd

+2
Subclass feature

1d10



4th

+2
Ability Score Improvement

1d10



5th

+3
Extra Attack, Resurging Specter

2d10



6th

+3
Subclass feature

2d10



7th

+3
Faces of Death

2d10



8th

+3
Ability Score Improvement

2d10



9th

+4
Phantom Scythe

2d10



10th

+4
Subclass feature

3d10



11th

+4
Spirit Vision, Rising Specter

3d10



12th

+4
Ability Score Improvement

3d10



13th

+5
Dooms Assured and Averted

3d10



14th

+5
Subclass feature

3d10



15th

+5
Eternity, Unleash Doom

4d10



16th

+5
Ability Score Improvement

4d10



17th

+6
Know Fate

4d10



18th

+6
Step of Moments

4d10



19th

+6
Ability Score Improvement

4d10



20th

+6
Endbringer

5d10


Mortal Scythe
Beginning at first level you can channel the power of death to push creatures inexorably toward their end. Often manifesting as a Grim Reaper rising from the shadow of your target or a spectral scythe whirling chaotically around you, when you hit a creature with an attack you can use a bonus action to deal 1d10 necrotic damage to them. This damage increases as you gain levels in the class, to 2d10 at 5th level, 3d10 at 10th, 4d10 at 15th, and 5d10 at 20th.

Unarmored Defense
Also at 1st level, when you are threatened you may appear to fade into shadows, flicker in and out of existence, or move in a stilted, unpredictable and unnatural fashion. When not wearing armor or using a shield you can calculate your AC as 10+Dexterity modifier+Charisma modifier.

Spectral Step
At 2nd level and beyond your ability to embrace the ephemeral allows you to momentarily assume a spectral form. At the start of your turn, when you are wearing light armor or no armor and not using a shield, you can become intangible along with your carried equipment up to your normal carrying capacity. While so intangible you are able to move through other creatures and objects as if they were rough terrain. You gain resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, and your attacks deal force damage. You remain intangible until the end of your turn, if you end your turn in another creature’s space or within a solid object you are shunted to the nearest empty space and take 2d10 force damage. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Subclass features
At 3rd level you choose between the Lamplighter, Peacebringer, and Pale Riderarchetypes. You gain additional archetype features at levels 6, 10, and 14.

ASI
At 4th you get an ASI. More at 8, 12, 16, and 19.

Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, when you take the attack action on your turn you can attack twice instead of once.

Resurging Specter
At 5th level you regain all uses of your Spectral Step after a short or long rest.

Faces of Death
At 7th level you learn to twist fate and transform your Temporal Scythe’s damage into another form such as Slashing, Fire, or Acid, etc for 1 minute. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Phantom Scythe
Beginning at 9th level, the scope of your role as a bringer of doom expands. When a creature within 10 feet of you takes damage on a turn not your own, you can use your reaction to use your Mortal Scythe Feature. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Spirit Sight
Beginning at 2nd level your attunement to spiritual forces increases allowing you to see more than mere mortals. You can cast See Invisible without components at-will.

Rising Specter
At 11th level and beyond, you gain a fly speed equal to your speed on any turn you use your Spectral Step. You must end your turn on a surface that can support your or you will fall.

Dooms Assured and Averted
At 13th level your capacity to manipulate the fates of creatures around you grows to shield your allies and hinder your foes. When a creature you can see within 10 feet makes a saving throw, after the roll but before the result is known, you can use your reaction and roll a d6 adding or subtracting the result from their total. You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your Proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Eternity
At 15th level you cease aging and all efforts to magically age you fail.

Unleash Doom
At 15th level the need to bring a creature to its ultimate end reaches an unfathomable depth. When you use your Mortal Scythe feature you can choose to forego rolling, allowing its manifestation to magnify its inescapable attack, dealing maximum damage. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a short or long rest.

Know Fate
Beginning at 17th level you can focus on a creature to ascertain its most and least likely ends. As an action you can determine if a creature you can see has resistances, immunities, or vulnerabilities and choose to learn of one category (such as its resistances) as well as whether its current hit point total is more or less than your own. Each additional action you spend in this way grants you knowledge of another category such as immunities or vulnerabilities.

Step of Moments
At 18th level even time can be shredded by your all-cutting Scythe. Once during each of your turns you may teleport as part of your movement to a place you can see. The distance teleported counts toward your normal limit of movement, you can move normally before and after you teleport provided you have movement remaining.

Endbringer
At 20th level your conduit to the forces of entropy and death is perfected and the manifestation of your Mortal Scythe may literally tear the soul from your victim and consign it to whatever eternity awaits. When you use your Mortal Scythe feature on a creature with 100 or fewer hit points you can choose to forego rolling dice and instead slay the target outright. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a long rest.

Subclasses
As a lamplighter your gifts are best suited to guiding those that have lost their path, guiding them toward a good death or back to their rightful end if undeath has diverted their soul’s journey. For those souls burning brightly in your lantern, a karmic exchange is occurring. The power they grant you is intended to uphold the natural order of transitions and they are in turn purified in some small way, perhaps avoiding simple oblivion or even escaping eternal torments.

Cantrips
You learn the Light and Sacred Flame Cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. When creature fails its saving throw against this Sacred Flame cantrip it counts as a hit for the purpose of using your Mortal Scythe feature.

Soulfire Lantern
Beginning at 3rd level you craft a Soulfire Lantern, a special device intended to shepherd souls into the afterlife. This object need not be a lantern, it can instead be a torch, candle, or similar lightbearing thing. Regardless of form, it has an AC of 18 and hit points equal to twice your class level. If it is lost or destroyed you can perform a one hour ritual on another object to transform it into a replacement. When you, do the original is rendered a mundane object of its kind.

When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points you can use your reaction to collect a soul mote. This mote ignites the lantern and will burn until you snuff it. The lantern illuminates as appropriate for its type during this time though the color of the light may vary wildly according to the nature of the soul. You can have only one Soul Mote at a time and must snuff the lantern before another can be collected. While the lantern burns you benefit from the following feature:
- Fortune of the Fallen. Once per turn, when you roll an ability check you can add 1d4 to the roll. When you have used this benefit a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus the lantern is snuffed.

On Black Wings
Beginning at 6th level you can snuff your Soulfire Lantern as a bonus action. No longer illuminated by the light of a soul being purified, the shadows can form black wings that grant you a flying speed equal to your speed for 10 minutes.

Fallen Knowledge
Beginning at 10th level you can gain greater wisdom from those souls in your lantern. While the Lantern burns you can gain proficiency in a Language, Tool, or an Intelligence or Wisdom based skill the creature had in life. Alternatively you can snuff the lantern to cast Speak with Dead on the creature without requiring the its body.

Light the Path
At 14th level your spirit awakens to the secret knowledge of the paths souls walk to meet their gods, suffer their punishments, or be reborn. As one of the living you can traverse these paths in a more limited fashion and lead your living allies. You can cast Arcane Gate without components. You can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest. Alternatively, if you have all uses of this feature available, you can expend all of them to cast Planeshift normally.
As a Peacebringer your gifts grant those near death a measure of peace, allowing them to meet their ends with dignity.

Call Home
At 3rd level after choosing this archetype you learn to soothe the hearts of those around you. As an action you can cast Calm Emotions. You can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Never Alone
Additionally at 3rd level, you can adopt familiar or more comforting visages to ease the passing of those near death. Many Peacebringers find this feature has far more diverse applications. You can cast Disguise Self without components a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Confessor’s Promise
At 6th level you master means of unburdening the dying’s mind so they leave the world without attachments. You gain proficiency in the Insight Skill. If you are already proficient you can double your proficiency bonus unless another feature provides such a benefit. Additionally, you can cast Detect Thoughts as an action requiring no components. You can cast the spell in this way twice and regain all uses after a short or long rest.

Peace of the Grave
Beginning at 10th level you can impart a measure of the peace only the dead know to allies. You can cast Meld into Stone on yourself and up to 8 willing creatures. When cast in this way you can meld into earth or stone. You can cast this spell once and regain the ability to do so after completing a long rest.

Night Parade
At 14th level your ability to surround the ailing with friends and family reaches its apex. When you use your Never Alone feature you can instead cast Seeming.

[Morphic tide]

The damage on Mortal Scythe is too high for its ease of use and lack of competition. The only thing that compares for melee rider damage is the Paladin's Divine Smite, which eats up spell slots, or the Rogue's conditional once-per-round Sneak Attack. There's nothing else in the class using up the Bonus Action or Reaction, so there's nothing better to do than pop the d10s all the bloody time.

I think the central problem with the design, overall, is that you tried to muddle through aping a lot of different series' fighting styles in one class, without thinking about what they're doing outside fighting or picking one version of an effect to avoid redundancy. Step Of Moments retaining your natural move limit makes it pointless, because Spectral Step already makes you incorporeal to ignore terrain and plenty of enemies, and the Lamplighter's On Black Wings negates a good chunk of the use-case for the two base class mobility functions it comes before.

To fix it, the first thing to do is settle on a specific niche in combat for the base class to work with. By my understanding, the "best fit" would be a fast tank that primarily amplifies damage rather than directly causing it. So rather than Spectral Step being low-level, it becomes core as a navigation bypass to get in the way, possibly per short rest uses, while redoing Mortal Scythe as adding damage to other sources. Messing with Death Saves would be a perfect way to separate from existing durability pushes, where it's that you don't stay down.

But then I don't know the whole set of inspirations you want to fit, so I don't know what "image" you have. All I know is that as-is, this "wastes" most of the space on doing the same things with slight differences.

[BerzerkerUnit]

The damage on Mortal Scythe is too high for its ease of use and lack of competition. The only thing that compares for melee rider damage is the Paladin's Divine Smite, which eats up spell slots, or the Rogue's conditional once-per-round Sneak Attack. There's nothing else in the class using up the Bonus Action or Reaction, so there's nothing better to do than pop the d10s all the bloody time.

Thank you for your feedback. I’ll try to go point by point.

The damage is explicitly lower than both rogue and Paladin. It also costs action economy (widely understood to be the most important resource) while the others do not (save maybe rogue that may have to set up a sneak by hiding). So I can’t say I agree regarding its damage. Since the class is largely limited to 2 attacks those extra dice are necessary to keep up with hunters Mark/hex TWF/PAM/CBM combos.

Sacrificed for this damage output is... defense. You are a mobile melee skirmisher, similar to the monk but with a DPR that doesn’t make eyes roll. Instead of bonus movement, over the course of your levels you get variety of movement.


I think the central problem with the design, overall, is that you tried to muddle through aping a lot of different series' fighting styles in one class, without thinking about what they're doing outside fighting or picking one version of an effect to avoid redundancy.

I think you’re overlooking a lot of nuance in the mobility features granted. There’s subtlety you either willfully ignored or missed while skimming. Flight, teleportation, and intangibility overlap in some ways but durations and requirements are all different and therefore provide options to deal with different kinds of problems. The teleports at 18 are at will but require LOS, the intangibility at 11 allows flight but only for the current turn, but does allow walking through walls. The flight for lamplighters is extended duration. Each has its applications and presents different options without being a one stop fix for every hazard.


Step Of Moments retaining your natural move limit makes it pointless, because Spectral Step already makes you incorporeal to ignore terrain and plenty of enemies, and the Lamplighter's On Black Wings negates a good chunk of the use-case for the two base class mobility functions it comes before.

On Black Wings is a subclass feature and requires you to kill someone to use it.


To fix it, the first thing to do is settle on a specific niche in combat for the base class to work with. By my understanding, the "best fit" would be a fast tank that primarily amplifies damage rather than directly causing it. So rather than Spectral Step being low-level, it becomes core as a navigation bypass to get in the way, possibly per short rest uses, while redoing Mortal Scythe as adding damage to other sources. Messing with Death Saves would be a perfect way to separate from existing durability pushes, where it's that you don't stay down.

It’s pretty clear here you came in with an expectation that wasn’t consistent with my intent so I don’t think these are viable.


But then I don't know the whole set of inspirations you want to fit, so I don't know what "image" you have. All I know is that as-is, this "wastes" most of the space on doing the same things with slight differences.

Inspirations in order: the Reaper class discussed in another thread, the FF14 Reaper Class, Bleach Shinigami, and Pyramid Head from Silent Hill. (almost forgot Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and Me Llamo Alma).


Thank you again for your thoughts and words.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Your table seemed to be unformatted, so I made one to make things clearer.




Level

Prof
Bonus
Class Features

Mortal
Scythe



1st

+2
Mortal Scythe, Unarmored Defense

1d10



2nd

+2
Spirit Sight

1d10



3rd

+2
Subclass feature

1d10



4th

+2
Ability Score Improvement

1d10



5th

+3
Extra Attack

2d10



6th

+3
Subclass feature

2d10



7th

+3
Faces of Death

2d10



8th

+3
Ability Score Improvement

2d10



9th

+4
Phantom Scythe

2d10



10th

+4
Subclass feature

3d10



11th

+4
Spectral Step

3d10



12th

+4
Ability Score Improvement

3d10



13th

+5
Dooms Assured and Averted

3d10



14th

+5
Subclass feature

3d10



15th

+5
Eternity, Unleash Doom

4d10



16th

+5
Ability Score Improvement

4d10



17th

+6
Know Fate

4d10



18th

+6
Step of Moments

4d10



19th

+6
Ability Score Improvement

4d10



20th

+6
Endbringer

5d10



I dislike the weapon proficiencies given. Firstly, you have an axe theme going on, so why include the glaive but not the halberd? Secondly, you might as well give proficiency with simple weapons since you're including three martial weapons already. After that, I don't really get the inclusion of acrobatics on the skill list. It doesn't seem particularly useful or thematic. I would rather include insight or intimidation as were listed on the original. Finally, classes don't normally give tools, and when they do, they are thematic (druids and monks giving herbalism and an artisan's tool/instrument) or required (artificers, bards, and rogues giving tools they have class features for). I don't see what a reaper would need game pieces for, and especially what they would need cookware for. These are the kinds of things a player can get through their background.

This feature does actually provide some really reliable damage across all levels. Reapers deal slightly more damage than two-weapon fighting rogues at early levels, and then slightly more than raging and recklessly attacking barbarians after 5th level. It's not an overwhelming amount, but basically this gives the best unoptimized damage of the three.

This feature would be a ribbon even if you could use it at-will, so I see no reason for the limited usage.

Am I correct in understanding that this is an always on feature? That seems a little strong.

This is a kind of boring boost to damage consistency. Like, it's just "more numbers".

Given that this just provides information, I'm surprised at how late it comes. I would give this in Tier 2.

Given that you can already fly and move through creatures and objects, this basically just lets you disengage for free? I mean, horizon walkers get something like this at 11th level. Yes, they teleport a shorter distance, but it provides about the same utility to them as this does to reapers.

This is like Unleash Doom. Just a pretty boring damage consistency boost.

Thank you for your feedback and table! (for the life of me I could never figure out where to put the text in the template here.)

I'll go point by point as best I'm able.

Weapons. If you look up the warscythe (https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2673/images/thumbnails/1192/1192-1577907260-1855632747.png) that looks more glaive than halberd to me. The statistics are identical in either case but I'll adjust the text to make the intent of Glaive as stand in for scythe clear.

Intimidation and Insight would be good choices for skills and worthy additions.

The tools are very loose references to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and a Me Llamo Alma (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4SERq0U0uc) video respectively.

Faces of Death at will would default to force or psychic. Limiting the ability to swap from necrotic keeps it a niche upgrade that you can capitalize on later with Know Fate in the rare instances a creature has a vulnerability.

You are correct in that I forgot to add a line limiting uses to Proficiency/day. I'll fix that, thank you.

Respectfully, there are a lot of features (upcasting spells, smite, sneak attack increase, GWM/SS etc) that are all just "more numbers." I had intended to add a dash of colorful language to make it seem more like a limit break, but was running short of time.

I'll note Know Fate compares directly to the Monster Hunter Ranger and Battlemaster Fighter features. For the Monster Hunter it's central to the theme, a subclass feature, and I think limited use. For the Battlemaster, it requires 1 minute to use and provides only vague info in some respects. This is an action but secondary or tertiary to the theme.

Step of the moments is at will and intended to create some round to round flexibility with positioning while avoiding hazards, traps, AoO, etc. It also looks cool. The Spectral Step is supposed to be limited to Prof/day uses and doesn't require you to see where you're going.

Endbringer is Powerword Kill after a hit as a bonus action (or when you use Phantom Scythe as a reaction). It bypasses regen, Invulnerability spells and potions etc. It's a damage boost in a very strict sense, but it has unique and potent utility in boss encounters or when something annoying or deadly needs to die.

Thank you again for all your feedback and I will do some edits shortly.

[Morphic tide]

The damage is explicitly lower than both rogue and Paladin. It also costs action economy (widely understood to be the most important resource) while the others do not (save maybe rogue that may have to set up a sneak by hiding). So I can’t say I agree regarding its damage. Since the class is largely limited to 2 attacks those extra dice are necessary to keep up with hunters Mark/hex TWF/PAM/CBM combos.
At 5th level, you have access to 2d10+2d12+2xStr damage via Mortal Scythe plus two Great Axe swings, average 24 plus twice an ability. In comparison, a Rogue has to meet requirements to get Sneak Attack damage, which at this point is 3d6, and has no Extra Attack, frequently being limited to 4d6+1d4+Dexterity, average 16.5+one ability. It does not matter that the Rogue can use feats and magic items to do somewhat more damage, because you haven't stripped access to the budget freed up.

If you want to talk feats, a 5th level Barbarian using a Halberd with Polearm Master spends the first round of combat using Rage as a Bonus Action, gets two swings at 1d10+2+Str, then further rounds have an extra 1d4+2+Str. The Reaper, from round one, gets a no-roll 2d10 Necrotic hit if they land either 1d12+Str Greataxe swing. Assuming all attacks hit, to ignore how Mortal Scythe biases DPR even more, that's 19.5+3xStr vs. 24+2xStr, which has a marginal difference when it flips at 18 vs. 20 Strength.

So yeah, you did give constraints to keep its damage in line... With optimized feat-class combinations going all in on damage at higher levels. The Reaper can have 18 Strength with Slasher and Heavily Armored in the above comparison for less than 1 DPR disadvantage, or still be up to par as a Dragonborn with Inspiring Leader. I can't take you seriously on the class's design because you're completely ignoring the concept of opportunity costs. The class features alone are readily keeping up with hard pushes for the same kind of damage.

This is not how a class is designed. This looks like haphazardly bottling a build. A class intended to be mobile picks up mobility somewhere in the first three levels so the identity is actually established before the first tier of play is done and may later acquire another that stacks with or enhances the first, or goes fully sideways into an entirely different aspect of mobility. A finalized build that's defined by mobility might ask which mobility effect to use and doesn't care when it picked them up. The reason I thought there wasn't a defined niche is that there's nothing to tie it to one in the first half of the class.

[thoroughlyS]

Weapons. If you look up the warscythe (https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2673/images/thumbnails/1192/1192-1577907260-1855632747.png) that looks more glaive than halberd to me. The statistics are identical in either case but I'll adjust the text to make the intent of Glaive as stand in for scythe clear.
I think we can both agree that when a person pictures the word "reaper" in their head, they are not envisioning a figure holding a war scythe. They are picturing a figure holding an ordinary harvesting scythe. This is because of the prolific iconography of the grim reaper, which was created as an allegory between collecting a soul at the end of its life and harvesting grain at the end of the season. And ignoring the glaive, you have included the battleaxe for some reason. This is clearly not linked to scythes, so I assumed you might be leaning more into the iconography of an executioner (https://www.google.com/search?q=executioner&hl=en&authuser=0&tbm=isch&sxsrf=AOaemvLORmA0B2GkUpA8S2iJMUiQ8whhtw%3A1639717 874853&source=hp&biw=1918&bih=927&ei=8hu8YfKfMJiwqtsPg_ef2AI&iflsig=ALs-wAMAAAAAYbwqAsyhl1XnuH6X6VPnDWSdbMrlu_cc&ved=0ahUKEwjy4NWLier0AhUYmGoFHYP7BysQ4dUDCAY&uact=5&oq=executioner&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIICAAQgAQQsQMyCAgAEIAEELEDMgUIABC ABDILCAAQgAQQsQMQgwEyBAgAEAMyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFC AAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDoKCCMQ7wMQ6gIQJzoICAAQsQM QgwFQoRpY7yxgyjJoAnAAeACAAUiIAfgFkgECMTKYAQCgAQGqA Qtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ7ABAA&sclient=img). If you're going to be including most axes, you should just include every axe. And similarly, if your going to be treating reapers as a martial, you should give them all simple weapons so players can pick a weapon they like.

The tools are very loose references to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and a Me Llamo Alma (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4SERq0U0uc) video respectively.
I don't really care if the tools are references to anything. The point is that they don't mesh with 5e's class design.

Faces of Death at will would default to force or psychic. Limiting the ability to swap from necrotic keeps it a niche upgrade that you can capitalize on later with Know Fate in the rare instances a creature has a vulnerability.
I assumed that "slashing, acid, or fire" was a near exhaustive list. I would rather have an at-will ability to pick a damage type, and just have a small list of options.

Respectfully, there are a lot of features (upcasting spells, smite, sneak attack increase, GWM/SS etc) that are all just "more numbers." I had intended to add a dash of colorful language to make it seem more like a limit break, but was running short of time.
Upcasting spells is not a feature that take up an entire level of a class's design. Neither are the scaling parts of sneak attack or divine smite. And you'll notice I didn't have a problem with mortal scythe (which has the same kind of design as sneak attack and divine smite). My problem is that unleash doom doesn't give you new ways to deal damage, or a new use for a feature, or anything. It just says that you can pretend you rolled really well a certain number of times per rest.

I'll note Know Fate compares directly to the Monster Hunter Ranger and Battlemaster Fighter features. For the Monster Hunter it's central to the theme, a subclass feature, and I think limited use. For the Battlemaster, it requires 1 minute to use and provides only vague info in some respects. This is an action but secondary or tertiary to the theme.
I'll note that it compares very poorly to the monster hunter ranger. Hunter's sense takes a single action to learn every resistance, immunity, and vulnerability whereas know fate would take multiple actions to find everything out. Furthermore, Know Fate comes 15 levels later.

Endbringer is Powerword Kill after a hit as a bonus action (or when you use Phantom Scythe as a reaction). It bypasses regen, Invulnerability spells and potions etc. It's a damage boost in a very strict sense, but it has unique and potent utility in boss encounters or when something annoying or deadly needs to die.
Optimizers agree that power word: kill is a bad spell because there isn't a good way to tell if it'll work, and if it doesn't work then it doesn't do anything.



I'd like to also point out that you have given this class five different features which scale with proficiency which just seems repetitive and starts to dip back into the troubled history of quadratic wizards.

[BerzerkerUnit]

I think we can both agree that when a person pictures the word "reaper" in their head, they are not envisioning a figure holding a war scythe. They are picturing a figure holding an ordinary harvesting scythe. This is because of the prolific iconography of the grim reaper, which was created as an allegory between collecting a soul at the end of its life and harvesting grain at the end of the season. And ignoring the glaive, you have included the battleaxe for some reason. This is clearly not linked to scythes, so I assumed you might be leaning more into the iconography of an executioner (https://www.google.com/search?q=executioner&hl=en&authuser=0&tbm=isch&sxsrf=AOaemvLORmA0B2GkUpA8S2iJMUiQ8whhtw%3A1639717 874853&source=hp&biw=1918&bih=927&ei=8hu8YfKfMJiwqtsPg_ef2AI&iflsig=ALs-wAMAAAAAYbwqAsyhl1XnuH6X6VPnDWSdbMrlu_cc&ved=0ahUKEwjy4NWLier0AhUYmGoFHYP7BysQ4dUDCAY&uact=5&oq=executioner&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIICAAQgAQQsQMyCAgAEIAEELEDMgUIABC ABDILCAAQgAQQsQMQgwEyBAgAEAMyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFC AAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDoKCCMQ7wMQ6gIQJzoICAAQsQM QgwFQoRpY7yxgyjJoAnAAeACAAUiIAfgFkgECMTKYAQCgAQGqA Qtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ7ABAA&sclient=img). If you're going to be including most axes, you should just include every axe. And similarly, if your going to be treating reapers as a martial, you should give them all simple weapons so players can pick a weapon they like.

Firstly, thank you again for your feedback.

If you'd read the fluff (and no big deal if you didn't, I asked for a PEACH which I've always understood to be a mechanics first approach, not an in-depth review of every word of text), you'd have seen a reference to the "Headsman's Axe" in the last line, Battle Axes and Great Axes fit that bill. I added battle axes as a step between terrible one handed and nothing. I could absolutely add light weapons and the assassin's dagger might not be too out of place, but really, I'd probably add guns for the Firing Squad association, though I could borrow more from Monks and allow for a class of "Reaper Weapons" but that doesn't really do anything that the discrete list doesn't accomplish. You have 2 heavy, 1 reach, 1 versatile, and something 1 handed and no matter which one you pick it will create a silhouette readily communicating the class as I have envisioned it- a cloaked figure with an implement of harvest, or a shirtless masked figure with a weapon of execution (tailor garb to taste, white suits and dresses represent death in some cultures, green stuff like the Green Knight can work too).


I don't really care if the tools are references to anything. The point is that they don't mesh with 5e's class design.
Your tone here is not the best. This is a conversation about a creative work and "I don't care" isn't going to be a great jumping off point since it characterizes your comment as unnecessarily adversarial. Paradoxically, if you are incensed enough by a rationale or explanation to actually say "I don't care" about almost anything, it's clear you do. Even more so here where you've taken the time to turn thoughts into text. With that in mind, let me reply:

Historically, authors have worked in-jokes and references into their material and it's not an issue if it can be used to serve the overall work. BUT, given that the Artificer and Bard do get tools because they serve a mechanical purpose or reinforce themes (and note: a Bard can do stand up or give speeches and never pluck a string but they get the instrument proficiencies all the same), these serve the same purpose. They are explicitly references to things related to the theme. You must kill to eat and cooking is necessary for most humanoid creatures. Even when farming Plants you are killing to eat. In DND some plants can get up and walk around and talk, and even the ones that can't can be communicated with by magic, magic that is not explicitly stated to impart the capacity for thought and reason, only to allow communication so any vegan/vegetarian argument is irrelevant. Harvest and Slaughter (in the ranching sense) are milestones of transition as is butchering, cooking, eating, etc. Fickle Fate, its role in the end of things swift or slow is often represented by games of chance. Gambling for one's life or fate is also a common trope. Adding these tools serves to reinforce the themes of the class and mechanically grant almost nothing but a little RP fodder (and out of combat utility). So I think they very much fall in line with 5e's design (as do the weapon choice, see wizard, rogue, and monk.)


I assumed that "slashing, acid, or fire" was a near exhaustive list. I would rather have an at-will ability to pick a damage type, and just have a small list of options. If your meaning was "these 3 were examples and you can change it to any type" that is the correct interpretation. What you would rather have (at-will) was weighed against the overall balance of the class. I opted for "you can change the damage to anything, some of the time" because the alternative is "it will become force almost all of the time, except when a vulnerability is present" and that strips away some of the association with Death. A feature that undermines one of the core themes doesn't sit well with me even if you think it would be more convenient (and it would certainly be more powerful). Does that mean the overall value of the class is diminished in certain campaigns? Not really, but definitely in some encounters, but no more than an evil cleric or a dragon sorcerer.

All that in mind, I did think this feature was a little wanting so a 1 minute duration is probably warranted. I don't want the player popping all 3 uses in 1 combats just to be effective and getting the shaft in fights 2-5.


Upcasting spells is not a feature that take up an entire level of a class's design. Neither are the scaling parts of sneak attack or divine smite. And you'll notice I didn't have a problem with mortal scythe (which has the same kind of design as sneak attack and divine smite). My problem is that unleash doom doesn't give you new ways to deal damage, or a new use for a feature, or anything. It just says that you can pretend you rolled really well a certain number of times per rest.
I'll note that Improved Critical for Champion Fighter does take up an entire level and has exactly the same kind of impact. Statistically it adds about the same amount of damage (since double the dice is about the same as just taking the max). Yet Champion Fighter has consistently been rated one of the most popular fighter types. That's a feature there is no guarantee you'll ever even use (since it depends on a certain caliber of hit) while this only requires a hit.

All that said, this might be a good place to do some juggling since I do want to add a minor speed buff to the class akin to Barbarian and if this feature doesn't seem to be consuming its full allotment of design space for a level, maybe it can be moved down and add the speed boost... I'll see.


I'll note that it compares very poorly to the monster hunter ranger. Hunter's sense takes a single action to learn every resistance, immunity, and vulnerability whereas know fate would take multiple actions to find everything out. Furthermore, Know Fate comes 15 levels later.

My DM has been running MH Ranger wrong. I blame the other player for not correcting him.

[QUOTE=thoroughlyS;25305194]Optimizers agree that power word: kill is a bad spell because there isn't a good way to tell if it'll work, and if it doesn't work then it doesn't do anything.

Please look at the Shield Spell. A spell most will agree is amazing. Please look at how it is run and how it has been directed to be run. Shield Adds 5 to AC. It doesn't say the attack misses or have a lot of extra words indicating you magically sense casting the spell will make the triggering attack hit or miss, only that it adds 5 to AC for a time, including against the triggering attack. We can infer that if the +5 AC will make the attack miss, it will, but you can still cast the spell even if the triggering attack would hit regardless.

However, guidance from developers has indicated you can choose to cast shield if it will make the attack miss, you don't have to gamble on its initial effect. Now, what if Hobgoblin NPC attacks with a 16 to hit your 13 AC wizard. You shield, now AC is 18, he misses, but he uses Save Face for a +5 to hit, now hits with 21. Do you say "ah, then I don't cast shield?" and he gets the use of Save Face back and you waste the two minutes of other player's lives? No. The sage advice was the wizard knows if casting shield will make the triggering attack miss as is, additional effects can then sway things a different way.

I have run Power Word Kill the same way, the player isn't gambling, they know when a target is weak enough to succumb to the effect. The additional words that the spell has no effect on a creature with more than 100 hp can be taken a couple of ways. 1 is that you're supposed to gamble, but that does make the spell terrible and doesn't line up with how we run shield. The second is that if an effect pushes a target over 100hp as it's being cast (as a readied Heal spell might) it will fail, and also that without that text it might be easy to erroneously infer it just deals 100 damage instead.

Note: a player that has saved their 9th level slot, likely through several encounters where a wish or meteor swarm would have made things a breeze for the whole party, for a climactic final confrontation to put an end to the bad guy, isn't doing anything wrong by cutting the fight short 1 round, why wouldn't you let them?


I'd like to also point out that you have given this class five different features which scale with proficiency which just seems repetitive and starts to dip back into the troubled history of quadratic wizards.

I disagree. The quadratic wizard issue occurred because in addition to more slots, the effect of spells themselves increases with level, so your 1st level Magic Missile dealt 5d4+5 at 10th level, your 3rd level slot Fireball did 20d6 and so on (not to mention the absurd stacking, non concentration durations, etc). Nothing here approaches that absurdity. An extra round of spectral step, another use of Phantom Scythe is not "round 1 initiative is rolled, contingency demiplane to the plane where I have glyph of warding x20 on panels that make me spelleffect iron-man, time stop, delayed fireball x5 metamagic into force damage, followed by planeshift target to negative energy plane where I have a Nightwalker waiting to kill them."

That said, I had intended to move another one of them to 2/short rest, however my experiences with high level play gave me pause. At low level Prof/day = 2-4 per day, at high it's 5-6/day. That is a clear scale up of power as intended. At low level 2/short rest might be 4-6 uses a day, while at higher level it might be 2 uses/day since short rests either come less frequently or multi encounter days are sidelined altogether (since a lot of encounters can be bypassed with resources available to casters). That makes those features much less powerful unless they too scale in some other way (like wildshape). Maybe Spectral Step should be Charisma uses and short rest... That feels a lot stronger, although I could lift a page from Bard, grant spectral step way earlier... Make see invis at will and move it to 11th and have spectral step go from long to short rest at a higher level...

That's feeling a little better, I want the mobility to feel a little more core to the class. I can even have the fly speed from the Spectral Step come in later too.

Thanks!

[JNAProductions]

I can agree that the tone is a little harsh, but their critique is still valid.

As it happens, I really do agree with what they’re saying.

[thoroughlyS]

First off, I just want to say that I don't mean to come across as argumentative or inflammatory in my posts.


You have 2 heavy, 1 reach, 1 versatile, and something 1 handed and no matter which one you pick it will create a silhouette readily communicating the class as I have envisioned it- a cloaked figure with an implement of harvest, or a shirtless masked figure with a weapon of execution (tailor garb to taste, white suits and dresses represent death in some cultures, green stuff like the Green Knight can work too).
The list you have is smaller than even those given for the wizards, sorcerers, and druids. Notably those classes aren't expected to use weapons and this one is. Using your logic: barbarians should also only have axes as that is the most iconic weapon they are associated with, but barbarians get all martial weapons because this game is fine with playing against type. There is no reason a barbarian can't use a whip. It wouldn't be very good, but a player could do it.

Your tone here is not the best. This is a conversation about a creative work and "I don't care" isn't going to be a great jumping off point since it characterizes your comment as unnecessarily adversarial. Paradoxically, if you are incensed enough by a rationale or explanation to actually say "I don't care" about almost anything, it's clear you do. Even more so here where you've taken the time to turn thoughts into text. With that in mind, let me reply:

Historically, authors have worked in-jokes and references into their material and it's not an issue if it can be used to serve the overall work. BUT, given that the Artificer and Bard do get tools because they serve a mechanical purpose or reinforce themes (and note: a Bard can do stand up or give speeches and never pluck a string but they get the instrument proficiencies all the same), these serve the same purpose. They are explicitly references to things related to the theme. You must kill to eat and cooking is necessary for most humanoid creatures. Even when farming Plants you are killing to eat. In DND some plants can get up and walk around and talk, and even the ones that can't can be communicated with by magic, magic that is not explicitly stated to impart the capacity for thought and reason, only to allow communication so any vegan/vegetarian argument is irrelevant. Harvest and Slaughter (in the ranching sense) are milestones of transition as is butchering, cooking, eating, etc. Fickle Fate, its role in the end of things swift or slow is often represented by games of chance. Gambling for one's life or fate is also a common trope. Adding these tools serves to reinforce the themes of the class and mechanically grant almost nothing but a little RP fodder (and out of combat utility). So I think they very much fall in line with 5e's design (as do the weapon choice, see wizard, rogue, and monk.)
Let me rephrase that. The allusion you're making does not factor into my assessment of the inclusion of tool proficiencies within the framework for 5e classes. Outside of the monk, 5e classes only give tool proficiencies related to things the class can do. You are correct that bards don't have to use instruments to inspire their allies. But bards can use instruments as spellcasting foci. So if a bard is going to be carrying around a trumpet anyway, they might as well be able to play it.

If your meaning was "these 3 were examples and you can change it to any type" that is the correct interpretation. What you would rather have (at-will) was weighed against the overall balance of the class. I opted for "you can change the damage to anything, some of the time" because the alternative is "it will become force almost all of the time, except when a vulnerability is present" and that strips away some of the association with Death.
I would rather have an at-will feature that only had a small list of options (like say fire, cold, and slashing). That said, I do acknowledge that your version is not just a ribbon, which was my original criticism.

I'll note that Improved Critical for Champion Fighter does take up an entire level and has exactly the same kind of impact. Statistically it adds about the same amount of damage (since double the dice is about the same as just taking the max). Yet Champion Fighter has consistently been rated one of the most popular fighter types. That's a feature there is no guarantee you'll ever even use (since it depends on a certain caliber of hit) while this only requires a hit.
Champion fighters are popular because they are designed to be a simple and manageable class for a beginner. If you look at design discussions, many people argue that the champion is boring, because it is.

Please look at the Shield Spell. A spell most will agree is amazing. Please look at how it is run and how it has been directed to be run. Shield Adds 5 to AC. It doesn't say the attack misses or have a lot of extra words indicating you magically sense casting the spell will make the triggering attack hit or miss, only that it adds 5 to AC for a time, including against the triggering attack. We can infer that if the +5 AC will make the attack miss, it will, but you can still cast the spell even if the triggering attack would hit regardless.

However, guidance from developers has indicated you can choose to cast shield if it will make the attack miss, you don't have to gamble on its initial effect. Now, what if Hobgoblin NPC attacks with a 16 to hit your 13 AC wizard. You shield, now AC is 18, he misses, but he uses Save Face for a +5 to hit, now hits with 21. Do you say "ah, then I don't cast shield?" and he gets the use of Save Face back and you waste the two minutes of other player's lives? No. The sage advice was the wizard knows if casting shield will make the triggering attack miss as is, additional effects can then sway things a different way.

I have run Power Word Kill the same way, the player isn't gambling, they know when a target is weak enough to succumb to the effect. The additional words that the spell has no effect on a creature with more than 100 hp can be taken a couple of ways. 1 is that you're supposed to gamble, but that does make the spell terrible and doesn't line up with how we run shield. The second is that if an effect pushes a target over 100hp as it's being cast (as a readied Heal spell might) it will fail, and also that without that text it might be easy to erroneously infer it just deals 100 damage instead.
That is not the way that all tables handle that spell. Unlike shield, the designers haven't given any indication that you're supposed to know how many hit points a monster has. The power of this feature is directly tied to how an individual DM handles player knowledge, which I would argue is bad design.

I disagree. The quadratic wizard issue occurred because in addition to more slots, the effect of spells themselves increases with level, so your 1st level Magic Missile dealt 5d4+5 at 10th level, your 3rd level slot Fireball did 20d6 and so on (not to mention the absurd stacking, non concentration durations, etc). Nothing here approaches that absurdity.
I was not meaning that your design would become incredibly powerful relative to everything else, just that it would have so many features which scaled proportionally to character level (via proficiency) which goes against 5e's core design principles.

[BerzerkerUnit]

First off, I just want to say that I don't mean to come across as argumentative or inflammatory in my posts.

No problem.




The list you have is smaller than even those given for the wizards, sorcerers, and druids. Notably those classes aren't expected to use weapons and this one is. Using your logic: barbarians should also only have axes as that is the most iconic weapon they are associated with, but barbarians get all martial weapons because this game is fine with playing against type. There is no reason a barbarian can't use a whip. It wouldn't be very good, but a player could do it.
The idea of playing against type is a valid criticism and does lean me more towards simple weapons+. Your Barbarian comment here makes no sense to me bc when I think of Barbarian I think of a much wider variety of characters, Mongolian warriors, tetsubo wielding Japanese gods, Zulu warriors. Note I’m the first to admit the Barbarian class has some more work that needs doing to be more than “insert racist stereotype” the class, but we’re getting there.

I also think Barbarian is a functional chassis if you wanted to make this a subclass, but I’d still steer clear of it.




Let me rephrase that. The allusion you're making does not factor into my assessment of the inclusion of tool proficiencies within the framework for 5e classes. Outside of the monk, 5e classes only give tool proficiencies related to things the class can do. You are correct that bards don't have to use instruments to inspire their allies. But bards can use instruments as spellcasting foci. So if a bard is going to be carrying around a trumpet anyway, they might as well be able to play it.

I’ll double check if any of the spells granted by this class require a focus. I know several can be cast without components but granting something that can be buffed to a +1 etc like the Tasha’s books and focuses etc is probably worth looking into.




I would rather have an at-will feature that only had a small list of options (like say fire, cold, and slashing). That said, I do acknowledge that your version is not just a ribbon, which was my original criticism.

Then I’ll tick that as resolved. I am happier with the 1 minute duration.




Champion fighters are popular because they are designed to be a simple and manageable class for a beginner. If you look at design discussions, many people argue that the champion is boring, because it is. That’s definitely a ymmv statement. I’m playing a Rune Knight, widely considered one of the best fighters and sure enough, the last 2 sessions of 4 have left me yawning. But I think that’s fighter design in general. I find my character compelling but their gameplay loop “attack with my sword, sometimes grapple” is dull, even when I’m doing 20+ damage a swing one handed.




That is not the way that all tables handle that spell. Unlike shield, the designers haven't given any indication that you're supposed to know how many hit points a monster has. The power of this feature is directly tied to how an individual DM handles player knowledge, which I would argue is bad design.

You should look at the update to Know Fate. There’s a deliberate synergy there for the express purpose of cutting off this debate at any table.




I was not meaning that your design would become incredibly powerful relative to everything else, just that it would have so many features which scaled proportionally to character level (via proficiency) which goes against 5e's core design principles.
I think the 5e design principles are shifting based on feedback, with more features keying to prof/day vs x/short rest etc.

That said, it did start to feel samey and I’m happier with the shifting of mobility and sensory capabilities. Breaking Spectral Step up, having it happen at lower level and raising the hit die to d10 while leaving AC in the proverbial ditch makes it feel like something that should stand shoulder to shoulder with where I want the monk to be.

Thank you again for your feedback and enjoy the weekend if I don’t hear from you before.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Subclass 3- Pale Rider

Pale Ride
Beginning at 3rd level you can use your action to designate a non hostile creature or vehicle of your size or larger as your Pale Ride. Replace the target’s statistics with the appropriate Pale Ride stat block (tbd but one is a monstrosity and the other is a construct, the construct is better but cannot operate when not mounted).
The creature or vehicle’s size increases to large or remains the same if larger.

Your Pale Ride is Charmed by you and follows your directions to the best of its ability. While you are mounted on it the Pale Ride also benefits from your Spectral Step feature. It shares your initiative but takes its turn immediately after yours.
When you take the attack action you can sacrifice one of your attacks to have the Pale Ride make an attack found in its stat block. A hit by your Pale Ride is treated as if you hit the target for the purpose of triggering your Mortal Scythe.
You can have only one creature or vehicle serve as your Pale Ride at a time.

Night’s Rider
Beginning at 6th level you can imbue your Pale Ride with rest speed and a small measure of vitality. As an action you can grant your Pale Ride Temporary Hit Points equal to your level in this class. While it retains any of these temporary hit points, its speed is increased to 100 feet. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a short rest.

Phantom Train
At 10th level you can use your action to conjure 3 Phantom Steeds as described in the spell of the same name. You can do so once and regain the use of this feature after a short rest.

Otherworldly Herald
At 14th level, heaven and hell follow with you. As an action you can cast Summon Celestial or Summon Fiend as an action. You can do so once and must complete a short or long rest before doing so again.

[BerzerkerUnit]

And here's a PDF (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kWii79_7bL-yccjp8N4AKbkXS851qLcY/view?usp=sharing)that needs to be edited with some concept/recycled art to liven up the text.

Thanks to all the feedback!

[Kategeeper]

Subclass 3- Pale Rider

Pale Ride
Beginning at 3rd level you can use your action to designate a non hostile creature or vehicle of your size or larger as your Pale Ride. Replace the target’s statistics with the appropriate Pale Ride stat block (tbd but one is a monstrosity and the other is a construct, the construct is better but cannot operate when not mounted).
The creature or vehicle’s size increases to large or remains the same if larger.


Excuse me what? Non hostile isn’t what you’re looking for fella, what you’re looking for is willing. Because this way you can make any neutral NPC into your slave and they have no way of resisting. If you have the benefit of surprise, the enemies aren’t technically aggroed to you and therefore aren’t hostile. See what I mean? Plus, you could insta charm any shopkeeper and rob them blind.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Excuse me what? Non hostile isn’t what you’re looking for fella, what you’re looking for is willing. Because this way you can make any neutral NPC into your slave and they have no way of resisting. If you have the benefit of surprise, the enemies aren’t technically aggroed to you and therefore aren’t hostile. See what I mean? Plus, you could insta charm any shopkeeper and rob them blind.

Thank you so much for your feedback!

If you look at the PDF (which has a round of edits) it's made clear it's a vehicle or creature suitable to be a mount so the above (which I would argue is a willful misinterpretation on par with "the game doesn't say my human can't have 10 arms", but I realize the whiteroom RAW of something is a popular focus for debate) wouldn't work unless maybe the shopkeep was an awakened beast of some kind.

I didn't go with willing because I didn't want the player to have to worry about an animal handling check to make Cow A in the barn willing to become a dread steed. It is absolutely within the DM's purview to say a creature not inclined to be your Pale Ride becomes hostile when you make the attempt, just as a creature that isn't hostile likely becomes so when you attack, not after you land a hit. Surprise is surprise and if you think this is the best use of your action when you have foes at your mercy it's probably worse than hold person in most instances, but I'd argue anything that would be "apprehensive on sight" is probably closer to hostile than not, even if it doesn't see you coming. That would include guard dogs, war mounts, and the overwhelming majority of sentient creatures inside their own lairs.

Note: hostile doesn't mean in combat, it doesn't mean will attack on sight. A bear in the woods might ignore you until you get within arms reach. Ach! but I do need to add a range. Thanks again!

Edit: Fixed (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kWii79_7bL-yccjp8N4AKbkXS851qLcY/view?usp=sharing)

As for robbing a shopkeeper blind, let's take a second and imagine what would happen if your 3rd grade classroom teacher showed up at your store. They'd say high, you'd remember them. Then let's say they ask to take a bunch of stuff and promise to bring it back or pay for it later. You're a shopkeep, your livelihood, maybe your family depend on your sales, would you just let someone you knew walk out with a bunch of your stuff? Or all the money in the register?

Let's say you wouldn't, because reasonable people would not, even if your old teacher seemed to have a good reason. You might spot them the cash in your pocket, you might offer to go help them with whatever, but just opening the register isn't really something a reasonable person would do. And then let's say they did take everything anyway and when you went to stop them, you just couldn't. You have the bat under the cash register, you're not afraid, maybe you're even kind of angry at them for trying to take advantage of you, but you cannot force yourself to actually take a swing at them, or try to grab them.

What do you do? Do you plead with them? Beg them to leave your stuff? follow them out into the street screaming at them to bring it back?

Note: a Charmed creature is easier to convince of things (persuasion/deception) and cannot attack you. It doesn't make them seem like they're blindly in love with you unless the specifics of the ability say so. This says it's Charmed by you and friendly to your allies. Meaning if your allies make it mad, nothing keeps it from turning on them except maybe your ability to convince it to calm down.

[MrStabby]

First of all, I am aware there are a number of comments above which I haven't read - so appologies if I am repeating. I will break down thoughts section by secion but some things have to be taken overall.



A dark elf wields a sickle in each hand, where blade touches flesh, gouts of horror inducing gore issue forth from even the most minor wound. Dancing between arrows, thrusts and slashes she winnows down the numbers of her foes till all is still and quiet.

Dulara saw the old man in the alley, gasping for breath, desperate for succor. Age and illness and drink had caught up to him. Despite his state he spat curses and jibes, refusing to show weakness before a woman. Receding into the shadows Dulara masked herself as a priest of the local temple, she wove magic to ease his troubled mind and with a touch, he was gone.

Across the multiverse the forces of entropy have waxed and waned in an everlasting cycle, chaos giving rise to order, order giving way to chaos. As this endless cycle perpetuates, some small fraction of mortals become caught up, becoming conduits for such forces. These select few can master terrible power over life and death.
Some gifted to light the paths of doomed, Lamplighters that travel between worlds to usher the fallen to the next phase and make room for those that will come after.
Others are Peacebringers, whose gifts can allow those close to the end to transition without fear or pain.
Reapers all, gifted in the act of driving creatures inexorably toward the final terminus awaiting us all.

How these few are empowered is a mystery, what binds them to order and chaos may be divine will, unholy intervention, or pure chance. Whatever the case, these Reapers will always walk a thorny path, drawn into conflicts where their gifts make them desirable pawns.

The question can never be will they reap, but rather when, and for whom will they raise the Reaper’s Scythe or the Headsman’s Axe.


OK, its fluff - its fine.







Class features
Hit Dice: D10
Save Proficiencies: Con, Charisma
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple Weapons, Sickles, Battle Axe, Great Axe, Scythes (Glaives), Firearms (campaign dependent)
Armor Proficiency: Light Armor
Skill Proficiencies: Choose 2 from Athletics, Arcana, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Religion, Stealth
Tool Proficiency: One Gaming Set of your choice or Cooking Utensils or Weaver's Tools

I think this block is interesting as it sets the tone. D10 hit die - so big but not barbarian big. More than a monk or warlock.

Con save is probably the best save, but not on a spellcaster so slightly less good.

Armour proficiency makes sense. Not massively skilled or adept with tools. The tools are interesting - gaming set makes sense as a 7th seal reference, guessing the weaver's tools are a reference to 'spinning ones fate'? Cooking utensils... drawing a blank here.



Class Table: The Reaper




Level

Prof
Bonus
Class Features

Mortal
Scythe



1st

+2
Mortal Scythe, Unarmored Defense

1d10



2nd

+2
Spectral Step

1d10



3rd

+2
Subclass feature

1d10



4th

+2
Ability Score Improvement

1d10



5th

+3
Extra Attack, Resurging Specter

2d10



6th

+3
Subclass feature

2d10



7th

+3
Faces of Death

2d10



8th

+3
Ability Score Improvement

2d10



9th

+4
Phantom Scythe

2d10



10th

+4
Subclass feature

3d10



11th

+4
Spirit Vision, Rising Specter

3d10



12th

+4
Ability Score Improvement

3d10



13th

+5
Dooms Assured and Averted

3d10



14th

+5
Subclass feature

3d10



15th

+5
Eternity, Unleash Doom

4d10



16th

+5
Ability Score Improvement

4d10



17th

+6
Know Fate

4d10



18th

+6
Step of Moments

4d10



19th

+6
Ability Score Improvement

4d10



20th

+6
Endbringer

5d10




Table - just seperating it out to keep things neat.





Mortal Scythe
Beginning at first level you can channel the power of death to push creatures inexorably toward their end. Often manifesting as a Grim Reaper rising from the shadow of your target or a spectral scythe whirling chaotically around you, when you hit a creature with an attack you can use a bonus action to deal 1d10 necrotic damage to them. This damage increases as you gain levels in the class, to 2d10 at 5th level, 3d10 at 10th, 4d10 at 15th, and 5d10 at 20th.

OK, getting to the meat of the class. 1st level should give the key abilities that say how the class should be played - i.e. a martial bonus or spellcasting or whatever. Here I see some prety big damage buffs. Not problematicaly large by themselves... but big. On the one hand, compared to rogue (as what seems the natural comparison) it is slightly less... on the other hand damage overall is likely to be higher. You get to any attack. You are not limited to a rapier as the max damage weapon like the rogue. You are not limited to weapon attacks at all - a firebolt gets the full benefit from this but this becomes insane with a warlock dip for eldritch blast. You probably get a lot of extra feat support (wood elf with a longbow and sharpshooter springs to mind). Unlike a rogue you are less restriced on how you use it (no conditons like sneak attack) bu on the other hand it takes a bonus action which was probably going to be used to grant sneak attack anyway - so maybe a bit of an advantage for mortal scythe, but not a huge one. The big, big thing is that this is on a class that gets a second attack therefore two chances to hit therefore a nice boost to average damage from the ability but also higher overall base damage anyway. Give a rogue a +2 weapon and their damage rolls get+2 per turn. This guy gets +4 (past level 5). THis is looking a very strong feature, not so much in isolation but because it can be more effecively combined.

If nothing else, this sets the expecation that the character is likely to be very damage orientated.



Unarmored Defense
Also at 1st level, when you are threatened you may appear to fade into shadows, flicker in and out of existence, or move in a stilted, unpredictable and unnatural fashion. When not wearing armor or using a shield you can calculate your AC as 10+Dexterity modifier+Charisma modifier.

So these abilities are usually pretty safe - need to keep an eye out for being SAD though as Mortal Scythe will work wonders with eldritch blast. Phrasing might be better as "not wearing armour and not wearing a shield"?




Spectral Step
At 2nd level and beyond your ability to embrace the ephemeral allows you to momentarily assume a spectral form. At the start of your turn, when you are wearing light armor or no armor and not using a shield, you can become intangible along with your carried equipment up to your normal carrying capacity. While so intangible you are able to move through other creatures and objects as if they were rough terrain. You gain resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, and your attacks deal force damage. You remain intangible until the end of your turn, if you end your turn in another creature’s space or within a solid object you are shunted to the nearest empty space and take 2d10 force damage. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

This seems... front loaded. Maybe thinking of things from a perspective of multiclassing isn't what you are after, but getting this ability multiple times per day for a charisma class just adds so much utility. Carying small allies through walls? Escaping in a manner usually associated with dimension door? Even just ending grapples. Its a cool ability but feels a bit more like a higher level ability - not a super powerful thing, but just one that fits the game better at level 13 or so. It also seems like it doesn't need an action or anything to use - guessing this is an oversight? Getting the ability to sidestep immunities/resistances, gain your own and massive mobility with no action cost puts this in a very different perspective.



Subclass features
At 3rd level you choose between the Lamplighter, Peacebringer, and Pale Riderarchetypes. You gain additional archetype features at levels 6, 10, and 14.


These wil need their own comments.



ASI
At 4th you get an ASI. More at 8, 12, 16, and 19.

Yeah, fine.




Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, when you take the attack action on your turn you can attack twice instead of once.

As previously insinuated, this makes the level 1 abilities a bit strong. Obviously not problematic in isolation.



Resurging Specter
At 5th level you regain all uses of your Spectral Step after a short or long rest.

So I don't really have a massive problem with this, as spectral step seems like the kind of thing that is only likely to be useful, like really really useful, a few times per day. Unless spectral step doesn't take an action... in which case this becomes a much bigger deal. Either way, might be worth considering there is already a level 5 power spike with extra attack.



Faces of Death
At 7th level you learn to twist fate and transform your Temporal Scythe’s damage into another form such as Slashing, Fire, or Acid, etc for 1 minute. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Is this to any damage type? Chosen at time of use? After a really front loaded 5 levels and a subclass feature, it might be time for something just a little underwhelming. Chosing it and being able to change it after a long rest would seem a little better and reward planning. Maybe select a more thematic subgroup of damage types?



Phantom Scythe
Beginning at 9th level, the scope of your role as a bringer of doom expands. When a creature within 10 feet of you takes damage on a turn not your own, you can use your reaction to use your Mortal Scythe Feature. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.
This seems OK. Yes, its a big damage boost and yes it is focussing down an enemy also under attack but it is short range, so it isn't so flexible and you are so close you might have been able to get an opportunity attack anyway.



Spirit Sight
Beginning at 2nd level your attunement to spiritual forces increases allowing you to see more than mere mortals. You can cast See Invisible without components at-will.

I presume this is the 11th level spirit vision in the table? A nice non-damage ability for the big lvl 11 power bump. I like niche thematic abilities like this.



Rising Specter
At 11th level and beyond, you gain a fly speed equal to your speed on any turn you use your Spectral Step. You must end your turn on a surface that can support your or you will fall.

I would worry about this kind of buff, but it seems a relatively minor improvement a lot of the time. Just make sure the class isn't stepping on the monk's toes with high mobility but delivering more damage and having more hit points.




Dooms Assured and Averted
At 13th level your capacity to manipulate the fates of creatures around you grows to shield your allies and hinder your foes. When a creature you can see within 10 feet makes a saving throw, after the roll but before the result is known, you can use your reaction and roll a d6 adding or subtracting the result from their total. You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your Proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

At this point I am beginning to worry a bit about bookkeeping. So many abilities on different short/longrests to track. OK, its not yet quite like the paladin, but its close. This is a powerful ability and it is making the class maybe a bit too versatile (great damage, OK toughness, protecting allies, debuffing enemies, exceptional mobility). In isolation though, nothing to worry about.



Eternity
At 15th level you cease aging and all efforts to magically age you fail.

Nice. Good wellbalanced level 15 ability.


Unleash Doom
At 15th level the need to bring a creature to its ultimate end reaches an unfathomable depth. When you use your Mortal Scythe feature you can choose to forego rolling, allowing its manifestation to magnify its inescapable attack, dealing maximum damage. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a short or long rest.

For a simple ability, this is quite hard to judge its power. 40 damage at level 15 isn't game breaking. But it is on a short rest. And it isn't tied to your initiative - if you can use your reaction with your level 9 feature you don't even ever need to land a hit yourself. There is no save, no defence... nothing. As soon as you or anyone near you hits, you can throw this down. It is like a 40 HP paladin smite. I worry that this could take a bit of fun out of some encounters. Imagine an enemy with some kind of vulnerability - any kind. Max damage of a type of your choice to which they are vulnerable can end an encounter before it starts. Still, this it the kind of thing that gets a bit of a pass at a level where people can throw things like force cages about.



Know Fate
Beginning at 17th level you can focus on a creature to ascertain its most and least likely ends. As an action you can determine if a creature you can see has resistances, immunities, or vulnerabilities and choose to learn of one category (such as its resistances) as well as whether its current hit point total is more or less than your own. Each additional action you spend in this way grants you knowledge of another category such as immunities or vulnerabilities.

I like it. Useful, restrained, thematic and with the exception of maybe the battlemaser, not really stepping on anyone's toes.



Step of Moments
At 18th level even time can be shredded by your all-cutting Scythe. Once during each of your turns you may teleport as part of your movement to a place you can see. The distance teleported counts toward your normal limit of movement, you can move normally before and after you teleport provided you have movement remaining.

Whilst this is kind of cool... it seems like we are hitting some diminishing returns here. Like earlier comments, this depends on if there is an ommited action cost to spectral step. If there is no cost - then this is a bit of an empty ability. Else it is pretty big improvement.


Endbringer
At 20th level your conduit to the forces of entropy and death is perfected and the manifestation of your Mortal Scythe may literally tear the soul from your victim and consign it to whatever eternity awaits. When you use your Mortal Scythe feature on a creature with 100 or fewer hit points you can choose to forego rolling dice and instead slay the target outright. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a long rest.

Eeesh. I know its a capstone, but this just seems like an "I get to play the game and you don't" type ability. I know its only 100HP but still, no save,no hope for a low damage roll no uncertainty, no tension effect doesn't appeal to me. Plus it seems to be perfect for generating bad feelings; someone else hits the creature with an attack and as a reaction you just declare it dead. You do somehing cooler than they could, more effectively on their turn. You are making yourself the center of attention on someone elses turn - I don't really like this ability for that reason.




So all in all (and before going into the subclasses, I think this is a bit much. It isn't really any one ability in isolation but more a feeling of "where are the dead levels?", "where are the levels where you only get a ribbon or weak ability?", or even "where are the levels where you don't get abilities that a differen class would consider prety cool?" I think that the resource pools overall are too deep meaning that you can do too much and the abilities let you not only excel at damage but also do quite a few other things as well (though it works OK for classes like the Rune Knight); this isn't a huge worry for me as a nice spread of abilities is pretty cool and I think it is the least problematic way to make a very strong character. I think it works better for a featless game without multiclassing as the feat support for his kind of martial character and interactions with other options are potentially a bit too strong.

At higher levels, I think things even out but at low levels things are a bit too front loaded I think.







Subclasses
Lamplighter

As a lamplighter your gifts are best suited to guiding those that have lost their path, guiding them toward a good death or back to their rightful end if undeath has diverted their soul’s journey. For those souls burning brightly in your lantern, a karmic exchange is occurring. The power they grant you is intended to uphold the natural order of transitions and they are in turn purified in some small way, perhaps avoiding simple oblivion or even escaping eternal torments.

Cantrips
You learn the Light and Sacred Flame Cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. When creature fails its saving throw against this Sacred Flame cantrip it counts as a hit for the purpose of using your Mortal Scythe feature.

Seems good. Flavourful and potentially quite likely to have a bigger effect on play than you might expect.





Soulfire Lantern
Beginning at 3rd level you craft a Soulfire Lantern, a special device intended to shepherd souls into the afterlife. This object need not be a lantern, it can instead be a torch, candle, or similar lightbearing thing. Regardless of form, it has an AC of 18 and hit points equal to twice your class level. If it is lost or destroyed you can perform a one hour ritual on another object to transform it into a replacement. When you, do the original is rendered a mundane object of its kind.

When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points you can use your reaction to collect a soul mote. This mote ignites the lantern and will burn until you snuff it. The lantern illuminates as appropriate for its type during this time though the color of the light may vary wildly according to the nature of the soul. You can have only one Soul Mote at a time and must snuff the lantern before another can be collected. While the lantern burns you benefit from the following feature:
- Fortune of the Fallen. Once per turn, when you roll an ability check you can add 1d4 to the roll. When you have used this benefit a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus the lantern is snuffed.

More resources to track... this time refreshing on a dead enemy. +d4 to skills is modest though, but you are probably using this almost every ability check you make. All initiative boosts are nice though.



On Black Wings
Beginning at 6th level you can snuff your Soulfire Lantern as a bonus action. No longer illuminated by the light of a soul being purified, the shadows can form black wings that grant you a flying speed equal to your speed for 10 minutes.
OK, flying speeds are usually higher level than this. And it does overlap with your ability to fly later from the base class. I feel it is both overpowered and underpowered. At level 6 it should probably be "can cast the fly spell" so it is just a bit more open to dispell magic, broken concentration etc. (with con save proficiency this should be OK).



Fallen Knowledge
Beginning at 10th level you can gain greater wisdom from those souls in your lantern. While the Lantern burns you can gain proficiency in a Language, Tool, or an Intelligence or Wisdom based skill the creature had in life. Alternatively you can snuff the lantern to cast Speak with Dead on the creature without requiring the its body.

Very cool feature.



Light the Path
At 14th level your spirit awakens to the secret knowledge of the paths souls walk to meet their gods, suffer their punishments, or be reborn. As one of the living you can traverse these paths in a more limited fashion and lead your living allies. You can cast Arcane Gate without components. You can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest. Alternatively, if you have all uses of this feature available, you can expend all of them to cast Planeshift normally.[/spoiler]

Arcane gate multiple times per day for free? Planeshift for free? More bookkeeping for free? Actually, the planeshift bit feels right but arcane gate doesn't. On the other hand, stripping ou arcane gate would leave it feeling underwhelming as a subclass capstone.

ALl in all I really love the theme of this subclass. I think the lantern is thematic and potentially quite fun. I think you should need to hold the lantern to get the benefits (including trapping a soul) to make in a more interesting tactical decision on how to use your hands and what equipment to use.





Peacebringer
As a Peacebringer your gifts grant those near death a measure of peace, allowing them to meet their ends with dignity.

Call Home
At 3rd level after choosing this archetype you learn to soothe the hearts of those around you. As an action you can cast Calm Emotions. You can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

The fluff seems to overlap quite a bit with lamplighter... Still, a flavourful starting spell.



Never Alone
Additionally at 3rd level, you can adopt familiar or more comforting visages to ease the passing of those near death. Many Peacebringers find this feature has far more diverse applications. You can cast Disguise Self without components a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.


Makes sense, though a bit surprised on the first reading. Now in terms of being a party face - this could cause some conflict. Disguise self if great for that but the only class charisma skill is intimidation. You could see a lot of an ability designed to aid soothing being used to aid intimidation. I might be temped to throw in proficiency in persuasion onto the subclass just to smooth that out.



Confessor’s Promise
At 6th level you master means of unburdening the dying’s mind so they leave the world without attachments. You gain proficiency in the Insight Skill. If you are already proficient you can double your proficiency bonus unless another feature provides such a benefit. Additionally, you can cast Detect Thoughts as an action requiring no components. You can cast the spell in this way twice and regain all uses after a short or long rest.

Fine. More bookkeeping though, and more different uses per long rest.



Peace of the Grave
Beginning at 10th level you can impart a measure of the peace only the dead know to allies. You can cast Meld into Stone on yourself and up to 8 willing creatures. When cast in this way you can meld into earth or stone. You can cast this spell once and regain the ability to do so after completing a long rest.


Hmm. I might be temped to juggle some of these abilities. Move level 6 to level 3, drop level 3, move this to level 6 bu make the spell feign death instead. Write a new level 10 ability with a bit more teeth.



Night Parade
At 14th level your ability to surround the ailing with friends and family reaches its apex. When you use your Never Alone feature you can instead cast Seeming.[/spoiler]


Yeah, this seems fine.




So the subclasses seem to be non-combat focussed, which is fine, but it does feel like in a lot of more action focussed games that characters from different subclasses would feel pretty much identical. I would suggest seeing if you could free up a little bit of space in the main class progression - take out a combat ability and use that level for something for the subclass.

Also... so much bookkeeping. Just looking at the peacebringer, by the time you hit level 20 you will have 10 different abilities to track with different recovery times and different quantities. Even a level 20 wizard tracking spells of each level, arcane recovery and signature spell use is only at 11.

I like different pools of resource for different abilities, it eocurages players to use ALL their abilities. Here, I might be tempted to combine them. Much haw a monk uses KI, hive the class a resource and power the abilities from a common resource with an appropriate cost. Maybe not all of them, but by doing this with some, you could make this just a bit simpler.

[BerzerkerUnit]

First of all, I am aware there are a number of comments above which I haven't read - so appologies if I am repeating. I will break down thoughts section by secion but some things have to be taken overall.

OK, its fluff - its fine.

Thanks again so much for your feedback! You'll see below I went point by point starting with your last. I hope you take the time to look at the Pale Rider subclass which was added later. For convenience and a less sterile reading experience there's some art included in the PDF available in the first post (just click the class name).


I think this block is interesting as it sets the tone. D10 hit die - so big but not barbarian big. More than a monk or warlock.

Con save is probably the best save, but not on a spellcaster so slightly less good.

Armour proficiency makes sense. Not massively skilled or adept with tools. The tools are interesting - gaming set makes sense as a 7th seal reference, guessing the weaver's tools are a reference to 'spinning ones fate'? Cooking utensils... drawing a blank here.

Proficiencies were chosen to really make your PC cut a particular kind of silouhette, shirtless, black bag wearing headsman or robe wearing scythe wielding grim reaper. Simple was a concession for those that need to play against type, want to throw things, or be able to fall back on a crossbow.

I think Monks should have a d10. Their AC and save spread don't warrant the weaker die, IMO.

The Cooking Utensils are a Me Llamo Alma reference. Weaver's Tools were for the Wanted movie but I did drop them since I'm not sure how one carries around a loom... maybe if you're weaving nets, hair, or baskets. Implements of Fate was a feature I added to give these mechanical weight at 3 and help balance the spellcasting aspects of the subclasses against peers.


OK, getting to the meat of the class. 1st level should give the key abilities that say how the class should be played - i.e. a martial bonus or spellcasting or whatever. Here I see some prety big damage buffs. Not problematicaly large by themselves... but big. On the one hand, compared to rogue (as what seems the natural comparison) it is slightly less... on the other hand damage overall is likely to be higher. You get to any attack. You are not limited to a rapier as the max damage weapon like the rogue. You are not limited to weapon attacks at all - a firebolt gets the full benefit from this but this becomes insane with a warlock dip for eldritch blast. You probably get a lot of extra feat support (wood elf with a longbow and sharpshooter springs to mind). Unlike a rogue you are less restriced on how you use it (no conditons like sneak attack) bu on the other hand it takes a bonus action which was probably going to be used to grant sneak attack anyway - so maybe a bit of an advantage for mortal scythe, but not a huge one. The big, big thing is that this is on a class that gets a second attack therefore two chances to hit therefore a nice boost to average damage from the ability but also higher overall base damage anyway. Give a rogue a +2 weapon and their damage rolls get+2 per turn. This guy gets +4 (past level 5). THis is looking a very strong feature, not so much in isolation but because it can be more effecively combined.

If nothing else, this sets the expecation that the character is likely to be very damage orientated.


So these abilities are usually pretty safe - need to keep an eye out for being SAD though as Mortal Scythe will work wonders with eldritch blast. Phrasing might be better as "not wearing armour and not wearing a shield"?

I talk at length later about how I don't design around MC or feats as those are optional rules. Squinting hard at everything I've put together here I see something comparable to a rogue or monk, a little better than a monk out of the gate and pulling a little farther ahead before 10. But Monks need work so I don't think I need to hamstring this for their sake.


This seems... front loaded. Maybe thinking of things from a perspective of multiclassing isn't what you are after, but getting this ability multiple times per day for a charisma class just adds so much utility. Carying small allies through walls? Escaping in a manner usually associated with dimension door? Even just ending grapples. Its a cool ability but feels a bit more like a higher level ability - not a super powerful thing, but just one that fits the game better at level 13 or so. It also seems like it doesn't need an action or anything to use - guessing this is an oversight? Getting the ability to sidestep immunities/resistances, gain your own and massive mobility with no action cost puts this in a very different perspective.

Spectral Step does not require an action. It is extremely limited use (even when it becomes a short rest mechanic). It's a handy boost for weapon damage until ~ level 5 when magic weapons are likely in play when that aspect becomes meaningless.

It does not make you immune to many things though it does allow you to avoid certain kinds of hazard and end grapples and restraint. But all of that is balanced against the inherent MADness of the class which is quite deliberate.

If you want to optimize melee you sacrifice HP, AC, or Cha. Sacrificing Cha means fewer spectral Steps which is a key feature (I should add you get minimum 1) and some aspect of your subclass.

Sacrificing any of the others means you aren't optimizing for Melee. If you optimize range you're stuck with thrown items or crossbow which will requires a feat (or MC for Thrown Style) for basic functionality @ 5+ let alone optimization. Now you're looking at a level dip or a feat which means you're delaying attack bonus or acquisition of extra attack and Short rest Spectral Step.

As I mention later, I don't design around multiclassing or feats. Those are options. If something breaks easily bc 2 levels meshes nicely with something else, this is hardly the first class to do so. The number of builds that include Hexblade Warlock 1, Warlock 2, etc, is, not surprisingly, massive. How many of those whiteroom builds see play is another story.

When I play a full caster it's because I want spells and this class doesn't provide any at 1 and 2. It's other benefits (weapons, armor prof, etc) are all terrible. The Unarmored defense at 1 is nice, but the 2 level delay for Spectral Step would be crippling for a full caster (hard to get excited about Fly and Fireball when others are getting polymorph). And without 2 attacks or a focus on weapons in general, the rest of the 1-2 kit isn't the best either.

I'm not saying there isn't a build that will be amazing, just that when built organically, these 2 levels probably wouldn't come until the end (probably stacked on a Hexblade 1 or two dip at that) which means that they will actually probably never see play.


As previously insinuated, this makes the level 1 abilities a bit strong. Obviously not problematic in isolation.

So I don't really have a massive problem with this, as spectral step seems like the kind of thing that is only likely to be useful, like really really useful, a few times per day. Unless spectral step doesn't take an action... in which case this becomes a much bigger deal. Either way, might be worth considering there is already a level 5 power spike with extra attack.

So no, it does not require an action. That does make it awesome (max 5/day till level 5, then maybe 5 per rest). I'll note, only the Lamplighter and maybe Pale Rider if you go full Pokemon with it can spec for Charisma and work. The rest likely have to sacrifice HP or AC. And Spectral Step only lasts until the end of the turn you use it, so the resistances are only applied to readied attacks or AoO on your turn.


Is this to any damage type? Chosen at time of use? After a really front loaded 5 levels and a subclass feature, it might be time for something just a little underwhelming. Chosing it and being able to change it after a long rest would seem a little better and reward planning. Maybe select a more thematic subgroup of damage types?

So you asked about ribbons later on. Think hard, what value does this have until level 17 when you can ascertain a target's vulnerabilities and resistances? This feature exists almost exclusively so that fights with vampires and their ilk aren't complete chores, it otherwise is very flavorful "I choose how you die!" but of no mechanical benefit. Necrotic is ~ as good as any other in the majority of situations and when it isn't, you can just say Force or Psychic. By letting it be "any" it allows you to capitalize on vulnerabilities, but only if you know them and the number of creatures with a vulnerability is painfully small.


This seems OK. Yes, its a big damage boost and yes it is focusing down an enemy also under attack but it is short range, so it isn't so flexible and you are so close you might have been able to get an opportunity attack anyway.

Limited use but intended to flatten damage, used when you whiffed with your own attacks. Reactions compete with some subclass options.


I presume this is the 11th level spirit vision in the table? A nice non-damage ability for the big lvl 11 power bump. I like niche thematic abilities like this.

It is Spirit Vision. It was originally @ level 2 and the Spectral Step was at 11, but that ended up being a fairly boring 1st 10 levels when the concept for the class was mobile skirmisher and the first core mobility option didn't come until 11. Notable that did line up with the FFXIV Reaper inspiration which I find very challenging to play below level 50, but since most games run 1-10, it's not good here.


I would worry about this kind of buff, but it seems a relatively minor improvement a lot of the time. Just make sure the class isn't stepping on the monk's toes with high mobility but delivering more damage and having more hit points.

After a lot of research and test play, the monk needs more hit points and its overall mobility for the majority of games is weaker than that of every rogue beginning at level 2. With that in mind, Monk is a good basis for comparison RE mobile skirmisher, but its inherent weaknesses were places I opted to give the Reaper boosts.

Example: instead of boosted speed, I granted limited incorporeal movement. Since the damage boost eats action economy, the mobility increase does not.
Compare to monk where increased speed is insignificant until later levels and their bonus Dash eats both action economy and core resource, compared to Rogue which has that mobility option all the time.

Some Monk subclasses patch this but that's a terrible solution to a core issue.



At this point I am beginning to worry a bit about bookkeeping. So many abilities on different short/longrests to track. OK, its not yet quite like the paladin, but its close. This is a powerful ability and it is making the class maybe a bit too versatile (great damage, OK toughness, protecting allies, debuffing enemies, exceptional mobility). In isolation though, nothing to worry about.

Later I provide more of an explanation for how the different recharges create some balancing factors.


Nice. Good wellbalanced level 15 ability.

Thanks!



For a simple ability, this is quite hard to judge its power. 40 damage at level 15 isn't game breaking. But it is on a short rest. And it isn't tied to your initiative - if you can use your reaction with your level 9 feature you don't even ever need to land a hit yourself. There is no save, no defence... nothing. As soon as you or anyone near you hits, you can throw this down. It is like a 40 HP paladin smite. I worry that this could take a bit of fun out of some encounters. Imagine an enemy with some kind of vulnerability - any kind. Max damage of a type of your choice to which they are vulnerable can end an encounter before it starts. Still, this it the kind of thing that gets a bit of a pass at a level where people can throw things like force cages about.

It flattens damage. Statistically it's a boost, but since you don't roll it's less of a boost than it looks (since your roll might have been great anyway). But I absolutely weighed it against 7th level features.


I like it. Useful, restrained, thematic and with the exception of maybe the battlemaser, not really stepping on anyone's toes.

Written to deliberately synergize with Endbringer and not to undermine the use of a Monster Hunter Ranger feature. It eats an action though.


Whilst this is kind of cool... it seems like we are hitting some diminishing returns here. Like earlier comments, this depends on if there is an ommited action cost to spectral step. If there is no cost - then this is a bit of an empty ability. Else it is pretty big improvement.

There is overlap in the mobility but I know below you ask where the ribbon or dead level is. This has its use but requires LOS while Spectral Step allows you to run into walls etc.


Eeesh. I know its a capstone, but this just seems like an "I get to play the game and you don't" type ability. I know its only 100HP but still, no save,no hope for a low damage roll no uncertainty, no tension effect doesn't appeal to me. Plus it seems to be perfect for generating bad feelings; someone else hits the creature with an attack and as a reaction you just declare it dead. You do somehing cooler than they could, more effectively on their turn. You are making yourself the center of attention on someone elses turn - I don't really like this ability for that reason.

It is almost word for word Power Word Kill and that's largely understood to be a terrible spell. There's a deliberate synergy with Know Fate at 17th that lets you tell if a creep has more or less HP than you (and other stuff) as an Action (meaning you sacrificed 2 attacks and a Mortal Scythe activation), so really, you'd have to combo this with another player: You Know Fate then they attack, then you reaction Endbringer. If you don't use Know Fate (and if you have more than 100 hp, even if you do), then you gamble on it doing nothing.



So all in all (and before going into the subclasses, I think this is a bit much. It isn't really any one ability in isolation but more a feeling of "where are the dead levels?", "where are the levels where you only get a ribbon or weak ability?", or even "where are the levels where you don't get abilities that a differen class would consider prety cool?" I think that the resource pools overall are too deep meaning that you can do too much and the abilities let you not only excel at damage but also do quite a few other things as well (though it works OK for classes like the Rune Knight); this isn't a huge worry for me as a nice spread of abilities is pretty cool and I think it is the least problematic way to make a very strong character. I think it works better for a featless game without multiclassing as the feat support for his kind of martial character and interactions with other options are potentially a bit too strong.

There's always a lot of banter about the martial/caster divide and a general sense that martials are boring, lacking enough options. Barbarians in particular catch a lot of flak for insufficient options, so having a Martial character that can do a lot seems like its filling a niche. Paladins have a number of resources with different timers and tracking as well as very potent persistent auras and spells (the most diverse set of options) and are celebrated as good, Rune Knight has been lauded by what seems to be the majority of the playerbase as an ideal mix, so I'm not sure I'm approaching the design process from a good angle to be receptive to this particular critique. That said, I do have to playtest it some more and if it feels to busy for me, then I will absolutely go back to the drawing board.

Also the above response may be a reaction to a misinterpretation of the comment. I do not design with multiclass or feat options in mind since they are optional. If a DM allows them (as most do) there are already no shortage of problematic combinations (Moon Druid 2 and Hexblade 1/Warlock 2 being the most egregious offenders. If "Well 2 levels of Reaper is great for everything" is the most dire issue the class faces, it will be in good company and at least diversify the power game set of builds.


Seems good. Flavourful and potentially quite likely to have a bigger effect on play than you might expect.

I'm interested in any speculation you have here.


More resources to track... this time refreshing on a dead enemy. +d4 to skills is modest though, but you are probably using this almost every ability check you make. All initiative boosts are nice though.

Probably not every check. I think up time on Soul Motes will be good, but unless the DM okays bag of rats nonsense I don't think it will be nearly 100%, especially if you're burning d4s on every check.


OK, flying speeds are usually higher level than this. And it does overlap with your ability to fly later from the base class. I feel it is both overpowered and underpowered. At level 6 it should probably be "can cast the fly spell" so it is just a bit more open to dispell magic, broken concentration etc. (with con save proficiency this should be OK).

This flight mirrors the Genie Pact feature but requires you to kill someone and sacrifice the other boosts the Lantern grants. It also costs a bonus action which diminishes DPR. Dispel Magic might work depending on the DM since this is an obviously magical effect.


Very cool feature.

Thanks!


Arcane gate multiple times per day for free? Planeshift for free? More bookkeeping for free? Actually, the planeshift bit feels right but arcane gate doesn't. On the other hand, stripping ou arcane gate would leave it feeling underwhelming as a subclass capstone.

I have played about 2 dozen characters at and above level 11. More than half have been casters and most have taken Arcane Gate and I can say in all that time the theoretical applications of the spell are not reflective of its practical applications which have consistently been "get across a hazard rather than risk death."

That's handy, but entirely utility and not very exciting. Planeshift can be a one shot straight to Tiamat's domain but only if you've had no use for that utility.


ALl in all I really love the theme of this subclass. I think the lantern is thematic and potentially quite fun. I think you should need to hold the lantern to get the benefits (including trapping a soul) to make in a more interesting tactical decision on how to use your hands and what equipment to use.

I don't know if you ever saw an Anime called Pumpkin Scissors, but I imagine the lantern to operate like the one carried by a protagonist there (though with very different mechanical effects.


The fluff seems to overlap quite a bit with lamplighter... Still, a flavourful starting spell.

I may have to revisit the text.


Makes sense, though a bit surprised on the first reading. Now in terms of being a party face - this could cause some conflict. Disguise self if great for that but the only class charisma skill is intimidation. You could see a lot of an ability designed to aid soothing being used to aid intimidation. I might be temped to throw in proficiency in persuasion onto the subclass just to smooth that out.

Notably, the Peacebringer's features, all chosen with "supernatural hospice care worker" make them amazing spies and infiltrators. I didn't put persuasion on the class list but there's no shortage of backgrounds or other means of acquiring it if you want to go Cha focused.


Fine. More bookkeeping though, and more different uses per long rest. I don't think a 2 column list for 10 features with circles or boxes to check is a bridge too far when weighed against the spellbook sheet of a wizard or spells known sheet of an Aberrant Mind or Clockwork sorcerer.



Hmm. I might be temped to juggle some of these abilities. Move level 6 to level 3, drop level 3, move this to level 6 bu make the spell feign death instead. Write a new level 10 ability with a bit more teeth.
I know you asked where the ribbon or dead levels are earlier. I'm opposed to dead levels, that's bad design. Ribbons are okay, but I prefer niche abilities that have bite when you need them.

Here, all the Reaper subclasses have utility features at 10 and that design mimics the Genie Warlock (which I consider to be close to pinnacle of design execution for the edition).




Yeah, this seems fine.





So the subclasses seem to be non-combat focussed, which is fine, but it does feel like in a lot of more action focussed games that characters from different subclasses would feel pretty much identical. I would suggest seeing if you could free up a little bit of space in the main class progression - take out a combat ability and use that level for something for the subclass. My players always find a combat application for utility features, but there was nothing "general" enough in my subclass concepts to feel like it had a place in the core class.


Also... so much bookkeeping. Just looking at the peacebringer, by the time you hit level 20 you will have 10 different abilities to track with different recovery times and different quantities. Even a level 20 wizard tracking spells of each level, arcane recovery and signature spell use is only at 11. As mentioned below, this was to insure as you level up you can't unload everything in the first encounter of a day and be stuck for the rest. Limiting some features to 1 or 2 per short rest insures they'll be available again while also limiting their impact on individual encounters.


I like different pools of resource for different abilities, it eocurages players to use ALL their abilities. Here, I might be tempted to combine them. Much haw a monk uses KI, hive the class a resource and power the abilities from a common resource with an appropriate cost. Maybe not all of them, but by doing this with some, you could make this just a bit simpler.

Alright, I'm starting with replies from the bottom up, so if my tone gets a little terse at the beginning, it's just fatigue, I do want to thank you so much for taking the time to provide your feedback.

Monk Ki is generally a frustrating feature for me, notably because it creates terrible opportunity costs for features that generally have small scale impacts on encounters. If I use step of the wind that's one less enemy I can stun or flurry or breath weapon, or elemental spell, or heal I can generate. It's also been noted that A LOT of classes get features they can use at will or several times per day or per rest where a monk will have to spend their Ki to use their features. Spell casters and paladins experience this to a limited degree deciding between spells or between smites and spells, but there are often an abundance of spell slots while Ki is painfully restricted for the first half of most campaigns.

While it may seem like a lot of bookkeeping, it can be less if you list your abilities and put a number of boxes or circles next to them. In my first draft almost every feature keyed off proficiency bonus/day, but it started to feel very same and presented the option of unloading everything in your first encounter and being stuck for the rest of the day, so I changed up some of the recharge conditions to create variety and limit the effectiveness of some features while expanding others.

[Breccia]

By the way, the Grim Reaper in real life -- near as I can tell -- appears to be a mix of the Book of Revelations (and interpretations thereof) and stories originating in the Black Death. I would assume, therefore, that such a subclass played in other campaign settings might use a weapon shape other than a scythe to fit the pantheon of their region/dimension/DM.

...but from what I remember of most D&D settings, the dieties of death mostly used scythes anyhow :P

[BerzerkerUnit]

By the way, the Grim Reaper in real life -- near as I can tell -- appears to be a mix of the Book of Revelations (and interpretations thereof) and stories originating in the Black Death. I would assume, therefore, that such a subclass played in other campaign settings might use a weapon shape other than a scythe to fit the pantheon of their region/dimension/DM.

...but from what I remember of most D&D settings, the dieties of death mostly used scythes anyhow :P

I initially put daggers on the list too for the assassin's blade, but they're included in Simple weapons anyway.