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2023-03-04, 09:25 PM
The Jasarker
https://i.imgur.com/asqRLqS.jpg
A human clad in white fur glares down upon a hunting party from atop a hill, paralyzing them where they stand.

A keen-eyed halfling stops to examine tracks which are nearly imperceptible under freshly-fallen snow. As he walks away, he leaves no footprints of his own.

Springing out of a snowbank, a goliath dressed in chitin and leather lunges at a passing moose several times her size. Her body glows hot as ice turns to steam around her.

Jasarkers are followers of the predators that lurk in untamed arctic climes. While most of their species prefer to hide from the chill and its myriad dangers, jasarkers embrace life in the cold, adopting the abilities of other creatures that live in ice and snow. Whether through communion, challenge, observation, or practice, jasarkers become true representatives of arctic life.

Taught by Cold
Cold environments are indifferently cruel. Low temperatures punish movement, and even breath, through an incessant sapping of heat. Ice offers the false assurance of stability, betraying trust by melting or cracking underfoot. And snow is blinding, creating false senses of depth that reward ambush predators.

Thriving in these conditions requires efficiency and keen reflexes. Jasarkers hone these skills, forcing their opponents into unwinnable situations when they get up close: either fight back on the jasarker’s terms, or attempt to escape in a way that the jasarker can punish.

Celebrants of the Hunt
Inherent in the practices of a jasarker is the sark, an outfit made from the hides or castings-off of beasts and monstrosities in the arctic, or from facsimile materials which emulate the same. A sark allows a jasarker to call upon cold magic or invoke the powers of great arctic creatures. Each sark is handmade and they are as varied as their creators: some jasarkers may decorate theirs with paint, beads, or woven fabric, while others may be plain and simple. But not only are these sarks meant to channel primal powers, they also serve as a reminder of a jasarker’s role in their environment.

Jasarkers are part of an ecosystem, just like the predators they model themselves after. There is joy in the hunt, but also purpose, and to prey too heavily is to damage that purpose. A jasarker may find themselves hunting enormous remorhazes and winter wolves for defense or to prove adulthood, but most understand that these hunts must be rare and done without waste. If the predators of the cold die out, so too will the traditions of the jasarkers.

Creating a Jasarker
The role of a jasarker in an adventure is contextual, as they are defined by their relationship to the cold (and the wild creatures that live there). Work with your DM to learn what the world looks like for your jasarker, then ask what your character’s relationship is with that world. Are they operating within the comfort of their ever-winter home, or in unfamiliar terrain where the creatures that serve as their symbols would never thrive? Are they accepted by a community, a self-taught survivor, or perhaps living in exile?

All jasarkers depend on their sarks, outfits that allow them to manifest the abilities, and even forms, of arctic creatures. How does your character view their sarks? Maybe you lavish attention upon each creation, maintaining your armor with care. Or maybe your showcase the damage from wild claws and blades proudly, maintaining your hides only so they remain functional. Do you adorn your sarks with beads, fabric, or the teeth of fallen foes, or do you leave them plain? What materials are your sarks made from? Do you use sheddings, the hides of defeated prey, or does your armor owe its form to bark and vine? Your sarks are a reflection of you, and they may change as your character’s outlook on life changes, so don’t feel like you are boxed into a single style.

Quick Build
You can make a jasarker quickly by following these suggestions. First, Constitution should be your highest ability score, followed by Strength. Second, choose the outlander background.

Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d12 per Jasarker level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d12 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per jasarker level after 1st

Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
Tools: Leatherworker’s tools
Saving Throws: Constitution, Charisma
Skills: Choose two from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival


Level

Prof.


Features

Sark HP


Sark AC Bonus



1


+2

Sarks, Basic Aspect, Boreal Endurance

5


-



2


+2

Threaten, Basic Aspect

10


-



3


+2

Honored Predator, Sark Armor

15


+1



4


+2

Ability Score Improvement

20


+1



5


+3

Greater Aspect, Sark’s Protection

25


+1



6


+3

Ferocious Strikes (1d10)

30


+2



7


+3

Honored Predator Feature

35


+2



8


+3

Ability Score Improvement

40


+2



9


+4

Primal Resilience (one use, 20)

45


+3



10


+4

Warrior's Presence

50


+3



11


+4

Grand Aspect, Sark’s Protection Improvement

55


+3



12


+4

Ability Score Improvement

60


+4



13


+5

Honored Predator Feature

65


+4



14


+5

Ferocious Strikes (2d10), Eyes On Me

70


+4



15


+5

Primal Resilience (three uses, 20/40/40)

75


+5



16


+5

Ability Score Improvement

80


+5



17


+6

Ultimate Aspect

85


+5



18


+6

Honored Predator Feature

90


+6



19


+6

Ability Score Improvement

95


+6



20


+6

Apex Predator

100


+6




Sarks
Your defining talent is the ability to create sarks, hide armors imbued with the power of the wild.

With 8 hours of time to forage, you can hunt local creatures and harvest local resources to create a sark. A sark is identical to Hide armor with the following changes: When you craft a sark, you choose Aspects for it. A functional sark grants you the benefits of all of its Aspects while you wear it.
While wearing a sark, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Whenever you take damage of a type that your sark gives you resistance to, the sark takes the same amount of damage.
Your sarks are customized to your body. You can use a bonus action during your turn to doff one sark, switch it with a new sark from your equipment, then don the new sark.
A sark has hit points based your jasarker level. While a sark has at least 1 hit point, it is functional and provides all of the benefits listed above. At 0 hit points, a sark loses all benefits except its provided Armor Class and the ability to be repaired. You can repair a sark as part of a rest using leatherworker’s tools and some natural resources. During a short rest, one sark regains hit points equal to a roll of 1d10 + your jasarker level. During a long rest, each of your sarks regains all of their lost hit points.

You may have a number of sarks equal to your proficiency bonus at one time. You can craft other hide armor with this feature, but it is too generally too low-quality to sell, and degrades into uselessness within a week without maintenance.

At level 1, each of your sarks has a single Basic Aspect of your choice. Your sarks gain an additional Basic Aspect at level 2.

Boreal Endurance
You do not need to make saving throws against the effects of extreme cold.

Threaten
At 2nd level, you learn to fight in a way that forces your opponents to either confront you or allow you to strike while they are distracted. As a bonus action, you can threaten a creature within 5 feet of you until the start of your next turn. At the start of that turn, if that creature is still within 5 feet of you and did not deal at least 1 damage to you since the end of your last turn, you may make one melee weapon attack against it without using an action.

Honored Predator
At 3rd level, you choose a predator to model your hunting style after, which is called an honored predator. Choose Remorhaz, Winter Wolf, and Yeti, each detailed at the end of the class description. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 13th, and 18th levels.

Sark Armor
Beginning at 3rd level, your sarks become more effective. While wearing a sark, you gain a bonus to armor class that increases as you gain levels as a jasarker, as shown on the Sark AC Bonus column of the jasarker table. This bonus remains even when wearing a sark with 0 hit points.

Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Greater Aspect
At 5th level, each of your sarks has a greater aspect of your choice.

Sark’s Protection
Beginning at 5th level, your sarks protect you from a greater variety of threats. While wearing a sark, you have resistance to all damage except radiant, necrotic, and psychic damage. At 11th level, this improves to give you resistance to all damage except psychic damage.

Ferocious Strikes
At 6th level, your opportunity attacks and attacks you make with the threaten feature deal an additional 1d10 damage. At level 14, this damage improves to 2d10.

Primal Resilience
Starting at 9th level, you can draw upon your sark in a moment of crisis to gain legendary protection. If you fail a saving throw and you are wearing a sark with at least 20 hit points, you can deal your sark 20 cold damage. If you do, you succeed on the saving throw instead. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

At 15th level, you can use this feature two additional times between long rests, but the hit point requirement and cold damage are 40 for these uses.

Warrior's Presnce
At 10th level, when you use your threaten feature, you can threaten any number of creatures within 5 feet of you instead of one. If you attack those creatures at the start of your next turn, make a separate attack roll for each one.

Grand Aspect
At 11th level, each of your sarks has a grand aspect of your choice. The features of grand aspects can only be used once in between long rests.

Eyes On Me
At 14th level, a creature provokes an opportunity attack from you if it makes an attack, casts a spell, or uses any other feature without either targeting you with the attack, spell, or feature, or without including you in that attack's, spell's, or feature’s area of effect. This opportunity attack occurs after the attack, spell, or feature is declared, but before it is used.

Supremacy
At 17th level, you learn to unlock the power of a grand aspect's supremacy, an ultimate expression of winter might. When you use the action of a grand aspect, you can choose to use the supremacy version of that aspect instead. The supremacy powers of an aspect are the greatest powers that a jasarker can hope to master, but they come at a price. After you finish using the supremacy of a grand aspect, the sark for that aspect drops to 0 hit points, and you cannot use the supremacy of any other aspect until you finish a long rest.

Apex Predator
When you reach 20th level, you are a true apex predator of the tundra. When you make an attack roll as part of an opportunity attack or with the threaten feature, you can forgo rolling the d20 to get a 15 on the die.


Honored Predators
The arctic is a dangerous place. Predators of the arctic ecosystem must cope with harsh temperatures and prey that is both rare and hardy. The apex predators that survive in these ecosystems have been carefully tuned for successful hunts, whether by natural selection or divine direction. Jasarkers learn the hunting techniques of these predators and craft sarks in honor of them. As a jasarker grows in skill, they adapt the abilities of their chosen predator.

Remorhaz
The remorhaz is the ultimate ambush predator. Jasarkers who honor the remorhaz adapt its ambush hunting techniques and its unique ability to create a blistering heat. Remorhaz sarks are frequently reinforced chitin from the remorhaz’s body segments, and sometimes can be made entirely from the creature’s leathery wings.
Heated Body
At 3rd level when you choose this honored predator, you can channel the remorhaz’s body heat. As a bonus action while wearing a functional sark, you can generate an intense heat for 1 minute. A creature that touches you or hits you with a melee attack takes 1d4 fire damage. This damage improves to 1d6 at 7th level, 2d6 at 13th level, and 3d6 at 18th level. (Note: this damage progression is intentionally a little wonky; scaling too quickly at low levels causes some issues)

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain expended uses when you complete a long rest.

Sense Prey
At 7th level, you gain the remorhaz’s innate perception. While wearing a functional sark, you gain tremorsense out to 60 feet. You fully perceive any creatures that you detect this way, allowing you to make attacks without suffering disadvantage against hidden or invisible creatures.

Burrower
At 13th level, when you take the dash action, you gain a burrow speed equal to your movement speed until the end of the turn. Once per turn, when you burrow out of a surface, you may force each creature within 5 feet of you to make a Dexterity saving throw against your Aspect DC or fall prone and take bludgeoning damage equal to a roll of 1d6 + your Strength modifier. If your Heated Body feature is active, creatures that fail their save also take damage from it.

Remorhaz Form
At 18th level, you can change form into the arctic’s most terrifying predator. As an action, you transform into a remorhaz as though you were affected by the spell polymorph. While in this form, you cannot benefit from your Heated Body feature. This form lasts 1 minute.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Winter Wolf
Though individually weaker than many other apex predators of the cold, winter wolves specialize in hunting as a group, isolating prey before assaulting it. Jasarkers will create hides from the fur of winter wolves, and learn to call upon bestial spirits that take the shape of these wolves in battle.
Call the Pack
At 3rd level when you choose this honored predator, you gain the ability to call upon a wolf to help you. As a bonus action while wearing a functional sark, you can call forth the spirit of a wolf. It manifests in an unoccupied space that you can see within range. This corporeal form uses the Wolf stat block (MM 341). The wolf disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the spell ends.

The wolf is an ally to you and your companions. In combat, it shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It obeys your verbal commands (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any, it takes the Dodge action and uses its move to avoid danger. Instead of the normal DC for the wolf's trip attack, use your Aspect DC.

After 1 minute this spirit disappears. You can only call on one wolf spirit at a time with this feature.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain expended uses when you complete a long rest.

Vintrsulf
At 7th level, the wolf spirit you call upon becomes stronger. It takes the form of a winter wolf, but its hit point maximum is 25 and its breath weapon can only be used once while summoned. Instead of the normal DC for their breath weapon, use your Aspect DC.

At 13th level, their hit point maximum becomes 50.

Pack Tactics
At 13th level, you can punish your prey relentlessly for missteps when alongside an ally. You have advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of your allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.

Alpha
At 18th level, you can use your Call the Pack feature as an action instead of a bonus action. If you do, you can summon and control two winter wolf spirits with a single use of the feature.

Yeti
Yetis are a dominant predator from the remote mountains. They hunt prey by pairing their incredible strength with a paralyzing gaze that freezes weaker creatures in place. Jasarkers that honor these the yetis learn to emulate both of these traits, allowing them to take on enemies through even the staunchest defenses.
Chilling Gaze
At 3rd level when you choose this honored predator, you learn to harness the paralyzing gaze of the yeti. As a bonus action while wearing a functional sark, you can target one creature within 30 feet of you. If the target can see you and is not immune to cold damage, it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your Aspect DC or become partially paralyzed for 1 minute.

A partially paralyzed creature’s speed is halved, it cannot take reactions, and it attacks one fewer time when using a multiattack action. A partially paralyzed creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If the target’s saving throw is successful or if the effect ends, the target is immune your Chilling Gaze for 1 hour.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain expended uses when you complete a long rest.

Tear Asunder
At 7th level, you add twice your proficiency bonus to Strength checks that you make to break objects or force them open.

In addition, if you make a melee weapon attack against a creature that is wielding a shield and you miss by 4 or less, you may use a reaction to attempt to batter their shield. The creature must make a Dexterity saving throw against your Aspect DC. If they fail, their shield takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. A nonmagical shield that drops to a +0 bonus is destroyed.

Eyes of Frost
At 13th level, a creature that fails its saving throw against your Chilling Gaze takes 1d6 cold damage per point of your proficiency modifier.

Freezing Gaze
At 18th level, you can intensify the paralysis caused by your Chilling Gaze. As an action, you can attempt to intensify the paralysis induced by your Chilling Gaze. If that creature fails its Constitution saving throw, it is paralyzed until the end of your next turn. This does not consume a usage of your Chilling Gaze, but you can only use it two times in between long rests.

Aspects
Aspects are manifestations of primal power tied to the sarks worn by jasarkers. When a sark has at least 1 hit point, it is functional and grants its jasarker all of its Aspects. A sark at 0 hit points is rendered nonfunctional, and its Aspects can't be used.

When you maintain your sark as part of a long rest, you can change one of its Aspects to another Aspect of the same kind (Basic, Greater, Grand).

Saving Throws
Some aspects require a target to make a saving throw. The DC of this saving throw is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier.

Basics Aspects

Cold Resistance
You gain resistance to cold damage.

Creeping Frost
At the end of your turn, if you did not use your movement this turn, you may choose to coat each surface within 5 feet of you in a slippery frost for 1 minute. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. You do not need to make a saving throw for this frost on the turn that you create it.

Eyes for the Hunt
While wearing a functional sark with this aspect, your ability to pinpoint the signs of other creatures is impeccable. You have advantage on ability checks that you make to track creatures, or to uncover traces of a creature's presence such as covered campfires, pieces of discarded food, or hidden blazes. While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through an area.

Fog Sight
You can see normally in fog, rain, and falling snow as though it were a clear day. You can also see clearly through both magical and nonmagical opaque fog or storms, such as the fog generated by the spells fog cloud and cloudkill, or the freezing rain and sleet generated by the spell sleet storm.

Glacial Orisons
You know the cantrips druidcraft, gust, and shape water. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Harden Sark
As an action, you can grant yourself a +4 bonus to your Armor Class until the start of your next turn. You don’t benefit from a shield while you have this bonus.

Harrying Strike
As an action, you can make a melee weapon attack against a creature. If you hit, you reduce the creature’s movement by 15 feet until the start of your next turn.

Ice Walker
While wearing a functional sark with this aspect, you can move across and climb icy surfaces without needing to make an ability check, and difficult terrain composed of ice or snow doesn't cost you extra movement. Additionally, divide your weight by 10 when determining whether a patch of thin ice will break beneath you.

Improved Grab
When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you may immediately attempt to grapple it without using an action.

Keen Senses
Choose two senses from hearing, smell, and sight. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on those senses.

Natural Weapon
You have claws, fangs, spines, horns, tusks, or a different natural weapon of your choice. Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, as appropriate to the natural weapon you chose, and you are proficient with your unarmed strikes. Finally, the natural weapon is magic and you have a +1 bonus to the attack and damage rolls you make while using it.

Obscuring Breath
As an action, you can breathe out a thick fog, which forms a 10-foot radius sphere around you. The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. It lasts for 1 minute or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it.

Shared Endurance
Up to ten of your companions benefit from your Boreal Endurance feature while they’re within 60 feet of you and you’re not incapacitated.

Snow Camouflage
You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in snowy terrain.

Greater Aspects
Ambush Aura
If you remain still for 1 minute, you can adjust or suppress both natural and supernatural signatures of your presence. Choose any number of the following benefits, which extend to you and any objects you are wearing so long as you do not move:

Faded Magic. You can make yourself or any object you are wearing appear nonmagical, or change your aura to match the background aura of other magical objects around you.
No Mask. You can suppress any sign of your creature type or alignment, as well as the types or alignments of objects you wear, from spells, senses, and magical effects that detect those properties, such as a paladin’s Divine Sense or the trigger of a symbol spell.
Ambience. You can suppress your body temperature and make your breathing undetectable, preventing detection from spells, senses, or magical effects that could detect you using heat, tremors, or the movement of air.

Cold Breath
As an action, you can exhale a magical blast of freezing wind in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, they take 4d10 cold damage and their movement speed is reduced by 10 feet. On a successful save, they take half as much damage and their movement speed is not reduced.

This aspect’s damage increases by 2d10 when you reach 11th level (6d10) and 17th level (8d10).

This ability has Recharge 5-6.

Dome of Ice
With 1 minute of concentration, you can conjure the walls of a shelter made of magical ice in a 10-foot cube within 10 feet of you. The shelter remains stationary until broken or you dismiss it. The walls are sturdy, and can you can make them opaque or transparent when you use this ability. If you choose, the dome may have any number of openings, which magically block out weather.

The shelter has no heating source, but naturally insulates from outside temperatures and magically keeps the air inside cool, allowing anyone inside to avoid the effects of extreme heat. This shelter can normally keep up to 10 Medium or smaller creatures safely inside. Large creatures can fit inside by squeezing, but are considered the equivalent of 4 Medium creatures for capacity. If the shelter exceeds capacity, it breaks and loses these protective features.

The structure’s walls can be damaged and thus breached. They have AC 12 and 30 hit points per 10-foot section, and are vulnerable to fire damage. The shelter lasts 8 hours unless the sark used to create it becomes nonfunctional, you don another sark, or you create another dome of ice. When the shelter breaks in any way, the walls crumble or melt and the entire shelter becomes useless.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Frost Titan
While wearing a functional sark with this aspect, you double in all dimensions, and your weight is multiplied by eight. This growth increases your size increases by one category—from Medium to Large, for example. If there isn’t enough room for you to double in size, you attain the maximum possible space available.

While in this form, you have advantage on Strength checks. Your weapons grow to match your size. While enlarged, attacks with them deal 1d4 extra damage.

Grasping Cold
As an action, choose a target within 30 feet of you. That target must make a Dexterity saving throw as you conjure ice that binds them in place. On a failed save, they take 4d8 cold damage and their speed is set to 0 until the start of your next turn. On a successful save, they take half as much damage and their speed is unaffected.

This aspect’s damage increases by 2d8 when you reach 11th level (6d8) and 17th level (8d8).

This ability has Recharge 5-6.

Guardian Sark
As an action, you conjure protective magic around you for 2 rounds. This magic is visible to any creature that can see you, but it's form is up to you. It might look like a thin shell of magical ice, a series of sigils floating in the air, or a swirl of light fog. While this magic protects you, when you would roll a saving throw, you may choose to roll a Constitution saving throw instead of the saving throw you would have rolled. Additionally, when you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

At the start of your second turn after you conjured this magic, the effect ends.

This ability has recharge 5-6, but it can't recharge while the protective magic is still in effect

Ice Weapon
As an action, you can conjure magical ice in the shape of a weapon and use it to make one weapon attack. The ice takes a form of your choice, but it is a +1 weapon with the following properties: Damage: 2d6 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage appropriate to the weapon
Weight: 5 lb.
Properties: Two-handed, thrown (20/60)
The weapon lasts for 3 rounds in most environments. In an extremely cold environment, it lasts for 1 hour. In an extremely warm environment, it lasts until the start of your next turn.

This weapon improves to a +2 weapon when you reach 11th level, and a +3 weapon when you reach 17th level.

Mighty Blows
As an action, you can make a melee weapon attack with a bludgeoning weapon. If you hit, you deal an additional 2d6 damage, and if your target is smaller than you, it must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, you push the target up to 20 feet away from you.

The damage on the melee weapon attack and the distance pushed increase by 1d6 and 10 feet when you reach 11th level (3d6, 30 feet) and 17th level (4d6, 40 feet).

Trackless Hunt
While traveling for an hour or more, you can move with a magical softness, as can up to ten companions within 60 feet of you if you are not incapacitated. Creatures that benefit from this have a +6 bonus on Dexterity (Stealth) checks and can’t be tracked by magical means, leaving behind no tracks or other traces of their passage.

Winter’s Strike
As an action, you can invest yourself with ice magic and make a melee weapon attack. On a hit, that melee weapon attack deals an additional 2d6 cold damage. Then, regardless of whether you attack, you deal 2d6 cold damage to each other creature within 5 feet of you, including yourself.

The damage on the melee weapon attack increases by 2d6 when you reach 11th level (4d6) and 17th level (6d6).

Grand Aspects
Arctic Ascendancy
As an action, you can take on the penultimate war form. For 1 minute, you gain the following benefits: You gain 50 temporary hit points. If any of these remain at the end of the duration, they are lost.
Whenever you make an attack roll or saving throw, you can roll a d6 and add the number rolled to the attack roll or saving throw.
You can attack an additional time when you take the Attack action on your turn.
When you hit a target with a melee weapon attack, you deal an extra 2d12 cold damage.
Immediately after this effect ends, you must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Supremacy: When you use this aspect’s supremacy, your ascendancy improves: You gain 100 temporary hit points instead of 50
Your melee weapon attacks deal 4d12 cold damage instead of 2d12
You have advantage on Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity saving throws
Exhausting Strikes
As an action, you wreath yourself in a life-sapping cold. For 1 minute, when you hit a creature with a melee attack, the target takes an additional 2d6 cold damage and must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target suffers 1 level of exhaustion and you lose 1 level of exhaustion, if you have any.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Supremacy: When you use this aspect’s supremacy, the cold drains energy from foes that dare to strike you. For the duration, when a creature hits you with a melee attack, it must make a Constitution saving throw or suffer a level of exhaustion and you lose 1 level of exhaustion, if you have any.

Frozen Tomb
As an action, you can conjure a mass of black ice that surrounds a Large or smaller creature within 5 feet of you. That creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 10d6 cold damage and is completely encased in ice for 3 rounds. On a successful saving throw, it takes half as much damage and is not encased in ice.

A creature encased in ice is incapacitated. It is surrounded by ice that forms a solid barrier, blocking line of sight and line of effect both in and out. At the end of the frozen creature’s turn, it can attempt a Strength saving throw. On a successful save, it breaks through the ice, ending the incapacitation and destroying the solid barrier.

The frozen tomb has AC 20 and 100 HP, and is vulnerable to fire damage. When it has 0 hit points or the duration ends, the frozen tomb is destroyed.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Supremacy: When you use this aspect’s supremacy, the tomb becomes more resilient and the ice lingers. In this case, the tomb has AC 25 and 150 HP. When a target succeeds on its Dexterity or Strength saving throw or is freed from the ice when the tomb is destroyed, that target is still restrained until the end of your next turn.

Glacial Strike
As an action, you encase a part of your body in magical ice and strike forward, making an unarmed strike. On a hit, instead of normal damage, this unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage equal to 3d10 plus your Strength modifier and creates a magical shockwave as the ice that encases you explodes. The shockwave extends out in a 30-foot cone originating on the target you struck. Each creature within the shockwave must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 6d10 cold damage on a failed save and half as much on a successful one. Your target has disadvantage on the saving throw.

If you miss, the ice remains on your arm and you can make this attack again on your next turn for 1 minute. If your use your action for anything else or do not hit a target for 1 minute, the ice shatters without effect.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Supremacy: When you use this aspect’s supremacy, your glacial strike becomes even more powerful. The unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage equal to 6d10 plus your Strength modifier, and the shockwave extends out into a 60-foot cone, dealing 12d10 cold damage. For this supremacy, your sark does not drop to 0 hit points until you have hit with the unarmed strike.

Mental Frostbite
You can invade the minds of your foes with an insidious cold. As an action, choose up to 3 creatures within 120 feet of you that you can see. Those creatures must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the cold clouds their mind and slows their instincts for 1 minute. If a target is concentrating, it has disadvantage on this saving throw.

A creature suffering mental frostbite this way loses its concentration, and can’t maintain concentration on anything for the duration. It has disadvantage on ability checks and spell attacks that use Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, and its targets have advantage on saving throws against its spells and magical effects. In addition, the creature can’t see more than 10 feet away from it, and fails any ability check that requires sight to a further range. An affected creature can repeat the saving for at the end of each of its rounds, clearing their mind of the mental cold on a success.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Supremacy: When you use this aspect’s supremacy, the sluggishness sinks deeper into their mind. A creature suffering mental frostbite can't speak or use bonus actions for the duration.

Spirits Unleashed
As an action, you call upon the spirits of ancient beasts to protect your allies and devastate your foes. Designate any number of creatures within 30 feet of you (including yoruself) that you are aware of as allies. Each ally you choose gains 10 temporary hit points for 1 hour. Each other creature must make a Dexterity saving throw against a barrage of magical ice and howling winds, taking 3d10 cold damage and 3d10 thunder damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The remnants of ice left litter the ground within 20 feet of you for 1 hour. During this time, the shrapnel functions as caltrops, with the following changes: The caltrops do not affect any creature that you designated as an ally when you used Spirits Unleashed.
The caltops deal 1 magical piercing damage and 1 cold damage instead of normal caltrop damage
The caltrops melt away in any space where at least 1 point of fire damage is dealt.
Supremacy: When you use this aspect's supremacy, the power of ancient spirits flows through you in an untamed rush. Your allies' temporary hit points increase to 20, and attack rolls they make score a critical hit on a roll of 17-20 while they are standing in a space with your magical shrapnel. Additionally, your cold and thunder damage improve to 6d10, and a creature that fails its saving throw against this effect is knocked prone and takes damage from the caltrops when it falls.

Uttercold Emanation
As an action, you call upon an utter cold, a true void of heat, so empty that even an ice devil itself would shiver. You can use this aspect only if you haven’t moved this turn, and after you use this aspect, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn. You can't use this aspect as a readied action.

Each creature within 5 feet of you other than yourself must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 12d12 cold damage, or half as much damage on a successful one, and you suffer 4d12 cold damage. If an affected target has cold resistance, ignore that resistance. If an affected target has cold immunity, it takes half of the damage instead of none.

Once you use this aspect, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Supremacy: As an action, the cold you conjure becomes so harsh, it can pierces even the most fundamental protections. The cold damage becomes 24d12, but the cold damage you suffer becomes 8d12 (this damage is dealt before the sark drops to 0 hit points). Additionally, if an affected target normally heals from cold damage, such as from the Damage Absorption property of a white dragon mask, it does not heal and still takes half of the damage.

animorte
2023-03-08, 04:08 AM
I may have left some review over here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25726776&postcount=58) just for you.

Just to Browse
2023-03-08, 11:45 PM
Design Notes

Separated by section


Goals: Flavor
I still remember sitting in my bedroom in the early 2000s leafing through the 3.0 D&D Monster Manual, reading about the Remorhaz and the Frost Worm. It was the first time the Monster Manual really felt alive to me. I pictured this tundra ecosystem, full of enormous, territorial ambush predators that each hunted with their own special adaptations.

Skip forward to 2015-ish, when I learned about the history of the word "berserker" (from which D&D got the Barbarian and it's famous Rage). It's from the Old Norse word berserkr, which itself is likely a compound of bjǫrn (bear) and serkr (coat / shirt), because Old Norse warriors would wear bear skins. According to sagas like Hrólfs saga kraka, these people would wear the fur of a bear and take on some of its more fantastic characteristics, making them incredibly dangerous fighters. A lot of that is probably mythologized, but northern european bear ceremonialism (https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1926.28.1.02a00020) has a lot of basis in fact.

Fast forward a little more to today, when I was trying to figure out something cool for an ice-themed class, and those two memories kept coming back to me. I decided to make a class that took on the missing elements of Berserkers in D&D. There's already class for "angry, shirtless rando with an axe" (the Barbarian), but I wanted a class that focused on the berserker's fabled transformative powers. To take it a step further, I didn't just want a sark-wearer who turned into a bear. I wanted a sark-wearing class that could take on the powers of giant ice worms.

The name jasarker is my attempt at a callout to the derivation of berserkr. I took the word harðliga (a general word for monsters) + sarkr and tried to make something that rolled off the tongue. The name might be better as Harthsarker or Hasarker, or something else along those lines.

Goals: Mechanics
I struggle with a blank slate, so when I want to make a class I usually give myself some initial design goals, and maybe pick a class to model my design off of. I usually try to choose 2-3 design seeds that shape my class concept before I do any real work. With flavor in mind, I started putzing around in the PHB, looking for mechanical inspiration.

First, I looked at this class's sister, the Barbarian. The Barbarian is a straightforward "ME SMASH" class with the barest minimum of resource usage. It's ostensibly meant to serve as a tank, with physical damage resistance from Rage, the highest hit die, and an incentive for enemies to hit you (in Reckless Attack), but honestly the incentives aren't really there for most enemies. Most of the time I see a Barbarian "tanking", it's against unintelligent enemies or the DM is showing the player some pity. This got me thinking: what if the jasarker was a "real" tank? How could I encourage enemies to hit you without falling back on some kind of compelled duel style mind control?

Second, the idea of wearing a sark got me to look at Hide Armor, and uh... Hide Armor is super lame. I love the idea of a dude who wears pelts, but there's no reason for a PC to ever wear this when Scale Mail is available in level 1 equipment packages. I know flavor is free and all, but it bugs me that Hide is relegated to the role of "unsellable NPC armor". On the flip side, when a particular equipment / character option / strategy is weak, that's a golden opportunity for a clever designer to use the available power budget. I decided I would try to be clever.

Finally, I've been on a kick trying to make martial characters feel better for enfranchised players without just making them casters. I tried to examine why caster classes feel so much better than martial classes, especially at higher tiers. One of the things that seems to help is the amount of power budget a caster can spend in a quick 1-round time period. Dropping a huge fireball or chain lightning is just incredibly satisfying, and it's something martial classes can't do because they don't have similarly-budgeted long rest resources. So while I didn't like spell slots for the jasarker's flavor, I did like the idea of gating power using long rests. If not in T2, then at least in T3+.

That gave me my list: Give the jasarker a true means to tank
Make Hide Armor the jasarker's primary armor somehow
Give the jasarker a long-rest resource
Has the class succeeded at these goals?.. well, you decide that.

The Mechanical Core
The mechanical core of this class centers on Threaten, a level 2 feature that defines the jasarker's combat pattern. You threaten a creature adjacent to you as a Bonus Action. At the start of your next turn, if you're still adjacent to them and they haven't hurt you since last turn, you get to attack them at no cost.

The upside here is pretty immense, hitting with a primary weapon for up to 2d6+Str (if you're a greatsword wielder) puts your DPR a good deal above other comparable bonus action attacks like PaM (1d4+Str), TWF (d6/d8+Dex or Str), and Dual X-Bows (d6+Dex). However, Threaten is pretty easy for an enemy to foil. Your threatened target can: Disengage as an action if they're not willing to fight
Disengage as a bA and continue their turn if they are a rogue, monk, or goblin
Use a powerful attack like lightning bolt, which essentially guarantees they will break your threat, or
Just attack you. They've got good odds to hit.
This is intentional. You're not supposed to get your threaten attack off most of the time. This feature allows you to generate a constant threat (hence the name), encouraging your enemy to either waste valuable resources or try to hit you, which in turn leaves your archer & mage friends safe in the backline.

To fit as a tank, the class also needed to be fairly easy to hit. Most "tanks" in 5e sport 18 AC from heavy armor and a shield, which is so hard for most low-CR creatures to hit that any intelligent enemy will generally ignore them. I needed the jasarker to be low HP, but still tanky enough to survive getting punched in the face all day. That is where sarks come in. A sark is Hide Armor, which has AC 12 + Dex (max 2). This means jasarkers will usually be at 14 AC (or 16 with a shield), a much more reasonable number in D&D's bounded accuracy world. Sarks grant you damage resistance, and take the resisted damage in your stead, which essentially acts as an additional HP buffer that also lets you ignore 1-damage pings.

I tried to find a clean implementation for Sark HP, and used the Barbarian's effective HP (since they also get damage resistance) as a guide. I ended up going with a system where your # of Sarks = Proficiency Bonus, and Sark HP = 5 x Level, which puts jasarker at +/- 20% of a Barbarian's eHP depending on the level.
https://i.imgur.com/9ScbIof.png
Barb rages were estimated as applying to 1 encounter in a 6-encounter day. The results are pretty nice, with obvious dips when the Barb gets an extra rage and bumps when the jasarker goes up in proficiency. If you weight each level by the average of its neighbors to account for the noisiness inherent in D&D games, these changes mellow out to +/- 10%:
https://i.imgur.com/KbXLnF6.png
I was pretty happy with that overall. Between Sarks & Threaten, the jasarker had a pretty solid mechanical foundation for tanking. But while HP is technically a long rest resource, it's not an exciting one. I noted above that I wanted jasarkers to be fun for enfranchised players, so I sought out another long-rest-based resource that could tie into sarks and/or the threaten action.

Enter aspects. After some experimentation, I decided I wanted to make jasarkers feel separate from spellcasters by having their rest-dependence change as they went up in tiers. I mostly just did this because I thought it was fun to play with. In Tier 1, jasarkers are martials with at-will attacks and their interesting decisions come from which sark to wear and who to Threaten. In Tier 2 they start to depend on recharge or rest effects, in Tier 3 all of their abilities became 1/LR. Then in Tier 4, they get a single powerful ability (a Supremacy) which is used 1/LR. This is the equivalent of their 9th-level spell (but not actually a 9th-level spell... jasarkers have too much going for them to get the equivalent of wish or meteor swarm).

I wanted sarks to remain the focus, so I tied aspects to sarks. This also has the nice benefit of letting jasarkers hold on to multiple "loadouts", allowing them to pick up utility without limiting their combat abilities. Most adventuring days, you won't be reduced to exactly 0 hit points, so it can pay to have a utility-focused sark with effects like Snow Camouflage, Keen Senses, and Trackless Hunt, which you put away when you enter combat (since it only takes is a bonus action to swap sarks).

I have more thoughts on aspects, so I will probably make a dedicated set of design notes for them at some point in the future.

Sark AC Bonus
Usually in D&D, characters don't scale up in terms of AC, which I find makes tanking a little less satisfying at high levels. But when you have a class that starts at 12-16 AC (instead of 16-18) and can't get magic armor, there's actually quite a bit of room to go up! By level 18 an optimized jasarker should have an (AC 20) without a shield, slightly below a person wearing +3 plate armor (AC 21).

Ferocious Strikes
Extra Attack did not feel like the proper use of power for this guy in Tier 2, so I avoided putting it in here. A lot of the power budget from removing EA went into the Greater Aspects, but the class also needed a slight buff to it's DPR, akin to the various Divine Strike / Potent Spellcasting features of the Cleric's Domains. Instead of adding to the jasarker's baseline DPR, I tried leaning into its identity and restricted the bonus damage to Threaten and Opportunity Attacks. I did bump the dice above the Cleric's usual Divine Strike, but on the whole this feature should be weaker than its counterpart.

Primal Resilience
This is the fighter equivalent of Indomitable, but legendary resistance. In my experience, Indomitable is fairly underwhelming. It's not useful in the places where you would want it, such as a powerful Aboleth attempting to mind control you, because you usually have a ~90% chance to fail those kinds of saving throws, and a re-roll isn't going to help much.

The jasarker is likely even more MAD than the fighter because it needs +2 Dex to get maximum value out of its armor, so I don't think Indomitable would feel good at all. Instead of letting jasarkers flounder around re-rolling bad Wis saves, I made this a guaranteed save in exchange for some damage to the sark. There's a little extra gameplay here too, because low-HP sarks can't be used to make the saving throw. If a foe deals enough damage to a jasarker before the jasarker's turn, they can then hit the jasarker with a high-DC save to take 'em out. This adds another incentive for intelligent enemies to hit the tank.

Warrior's Presence
This is a workhorse effect that is meant to improve Threaten. By broadening the effect into an AoE, we also reward positioning a little bit more than the level before 10.

Eyes on Me
This is a wordy one. I tried to make it as clean as possible, and I'm not sure how well I did there.

For most of the jasarker's life, they are supposed to be partially foiled by spellcasters using misty step, rogues using Cunning Action to Disengage, monsters with multiattack (who can hit the jasarker once to break Threaten, then move on to hit someone else), and anyone who just buffs themselves before attacking. In late Tier 3, these weaknesses come up a little too much to keep allowing them.

I think I could have added some clauses like "Threaten takes 10 damage to break", but I specifically wanted the jasarker to be able to hunt mobile prey, and I was looking for a higher-threat tank effect that could pull a ton of attention. This still leaves Threaten weak to lightning bolt effects that are virtually guaranteed to deal damage to the jasarker, as well as damage auras that can hurt the jasarker without an action cost.


Honored Predators
Given the design goal, it's probably no surprise that I modeled the subclasses after various arctic beasties. The Remorhaz is meant to be a "SMASH" class with tactics inspired by the great burrowers, the Yeti is a controlling class that tries to debuff & slow the fight down a bit, and the Winter Wolf is a pack hunter because winter wolves aren't actually that interesting (sadge).

On Action Costs
In my experience, one of the best ways to make a class feel strong is to offer choices that compete for the same resource. Say you have 2 cool abilities, but they both require an action. As a designer, this gives you power budget to make both abilities strong (because it will take a minimum of 2 turns to use them both). As a player, this gives you the satisfaction of knowing you have multiple cool attacks / supportive effects / whatever, and it gives you choices to make in combat.

A side note on spells: This is also the reason spells have so much power budget allocated to them: many of them demand an action and they are all drawn from the same pool of slots. In addition, the spells that make spellcasting feel broken tend to ignore both of these restrictions. They're usually low-level spell slots that don't waste your action economy in combat. They're usually long-duration buffs like mage armor, or reaction spells like absorb elements and the dreaded silvery barbs.

Jasarkers start bonus action heavy (thanks to Threaten), but their actions are mostly used for simple attacks until you get into the later tiers. In order to fit as much excitement into the subclasses as possible, I had every feature compete on bonus actions, and put it on a Prof/LR recharge. Between subclass abilities, sark-swapping, and Threaten, I think a jasarker will be hard-pressed to just stand around and spam Threaten every turn, which I'm happy about. The subclass abilities at level 3 also last for 1 minute, which is meant to reward jasarkers for getting the jump an opponent, or for buffing before walking into a room. Each feature is meant to synergize with subsequent Threatens, e.g. blocking off areas an enemy can move, reducing multiattacks, or simply punishing an enemy for hitting you.

Once jasarkers have grand aspects, the chances go up dramatically that they will have a special action to take on any given turn. As a result, I gave each subclass capstone an action-based feature.

The area in between the starter ability & the capstone ability has fewer design restrictions. I used it to fill in flavorful niches like the Remorhaz's burrowing, or to backload mechanical benefits like the Winter Wolf's hit points (which are surprisingly high).

Whither the Frost Worm?
In the first set of design notes I mentioned falling in love with the Remorhaz and Frost Worm from the D&D 3e Monster Manual. Yet, there is no Frost Worm in this class, what gives? Well, the Frost Worm was retired in D&D 4e and never made a comeback in 5e, probably because nobody else cared for it. In addition, the things that make a Frost Worm interesting are all part of other creatures nowadays. It's ability to burrow and eat stuff is something the Remorhaz already does, and its paralyzing trill was taken by the Yeti's Chilling Gaze in the 5e Monster Manual. Even with my nostalgia goggles on, I don't think the Frost Worm should come back in 5th edition or D&D One.

The Frost Worm also had a cone of cold attack, but cones of cold are everywhere on ice monsters. That obsservation is a convenient segue into my final note on subclass designs...

Design Space?
I honestly thought that the sky was the limit for jasarker subclasses when I started work on this design, but after a month or so, I've only managed to squeak out 3 subclasses. One of the biggest problems here is that there are way fewer arctic monsters than I thought there would be. You might notice that all 3 Honored Predators here are from the Monster Manual. This was something I really didn't want to do. I sifted through all the statblocks in Rime of the Frostmaiden and a couple Adventurer's League modules while hunting for arctic beasts, but I couldn't find a single ice-themed monster that hit my criteria of: (1) conceptually cool, (2) had abilities I could give to a player, and (3) wasn't undead. If I had budged on criteria #3, I'd have more conceptual space, but I consider undead creatures antithetical to the concept of an Honored Predator, which is to respect the apex predators that participates in a living ecosystem.

Some creatures could fit in the arctic, but weren't particularly interesting, like the Roc. Roc tactics involve grappling a creature, flying high into the sky, and then dropping them on the ground. It's a funny concept like one time, but it's not a particularly interesting tactic when a PC can do it. Aside from that, rocs don't really do anything cool. I also looked at Mammoths even though they aren't a predator, but they're basically Trample: The Creature. A subclass centered on these kinds of creatures would be "trample / flight + stuff that JtB makes up". Not an especially compelling pitch IMO.

The White Dragon is the one predator that was fairly compelling (with Lair Actions at least) that I chose not to use, because I decided to rule out dragons as an option. Instead, you'll find callouts to ice ice walking, mist lair action, and ice-conjuring abilities spread throughout the aspects. I could be convinced to take those back and put them in a dedicated subclass, but for now I'm kind of meh on the idea.

Outside of the above, I think the only way to add design space is to make up new monsters. I had a few ideas: A predatory elk-like creature that focuses on stealth & hunting, a creature that can transform between a beast form and a snowstorm form, a swarm of ice worms controlled by a hivemind, and a light-themed creature that can blind enemies and make an aurora borealis effect (which would do... something, idk). But adding a new monster alongside a subclass for that monster felt like cheating.

So does this class have a meaningful amount of subclass design space? It depends on your perspective. IMO there's plenty of room to grow; you just have to brew a new monster alongside your character options, which is a fair bit of work.



Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't
The central feature of this class, Threaten, is what Magic: the Gathering designers call a punisher effect (https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Punisher). The creature you threaten gets to choose how it will handle the Threaten effect, and they have a theoretically wide band of answers. They can guarantee safety by casting lightning bolt, they can use a tactic with good odds such as attacking you, or they can just ignore you and suffer the damage. Punisher effects are notoriously weaker than they look, because you can expect your foe to pick whatever option is the best for them.

Aspects are supposed to augment this strategy, by putting your opponent in truly unwinnable situations. A creature that stands still should be a prime target for an offensive aspect, and a creature that just wants to hit you should be counter-able with a defensive aspect. This should mean that jasarkers are rewarded for diversifying their sark aspects, and for wearing a sark that counters their opponents' preferred tactics most effectively. It should also mean that jasarker's do different cool things depending on their enemies, as opposed to just pushing a single Win Button in 90% of fights (here's looking at you, feeblemind).

Constitution-Scaling
It's rare to have a DC that scales with a creature's Constitution modifier. Normally I see that put some folks on edge. Constitution is a defensive state, and DCs are inherently an offensive ability, so allowing players to improve both their offense & defense with a single stat can be dangerous. However in this case, I believe it's justified for a few reasons: Constitution is actually worth less on the jasarker than many other PCs. Compared to squishies, jasarkers already start with a large pool of HP, so they get a smaller %increase from +2 Con. Compared to heavy armor warriors like paladins, jasarkers tend to have lower AC (on average 4 points lower at level 1), which gives them a smaller %eHP increase when they pump their hit points.
Hide Armor forces the jasarker into more MAD builds from the outset, because they can't neglect Dexterity the way a plate-armored PC can. Hide offers an AC of 12 + Dex (max 2), which means most jasarkers want a minimum of AC 14 on top of their higher Constitution and possibly even Strength (if they want to make their Threatens as threatening as possible).
A jasarker's core fantasy centers on durability, I want to encourage the jasarker to pump their defensive stats so they feel as much like an unkillable juggernaut as possible, but with lower returns from Constitution on average, jasarkers are incentivized to focus on their to-hit stat (Strength or Dexterity). Tying the Aspect DC to Constitution binds the jasarker to Constitution, which should help players feel like they're achieving their core fantasy.

Basic Aspects
Aspects are gated & defined by the adventuring tiers. Tier 1 (Basic) sark abilities Basic aspects are used in pairs (obtained at levels 1 & 2) and provide the basis of a jasarker's tactics in combat, so I've tried to scatter some intentional combos in there alongside a few open-ended abilities. See if you can find 'em! ("you" being the 0 people who read these design notes lol)


Tier 1 Callout - Creeping Frost: The only low-level combat aspects that doesn't require an action, this rewards you for standing still by turning your immediate area into a skating rink. This is meant to counter the usual "Stand Still and Attack" tactic that you'll see a lot of closet trolls use.

Greater Aspects
In contrast, aspects at tier 2 are meant to straddle the line between a backup ability and a high moment, so their damage scales alongside your tier, allowing them to remain competitive (hopefully) as you gain levels. Many Tier 2 sark abilities involve a recharge, so they pack a big bunch in one round, but force you to either swap sarks or fall back on your Tier 1 abilities. I like the texture this gives the usual round-to-round combat; it stands in contrast the usual martial tactic of using Extra Attack every turn.


Tier 2 Callout - Guardian Sark: This aspect (along with Harden Sark from tier 1) allows you to use Threaten and then retreat into a defensive stance. This may look strong, but you're spending an action to use this ability, and your defensive boost is short-lived. It's still a valuable aspect, because it covers jasarkers against two of their biggest weaknesses: aura damage, and save-for-half spells.

Tier 3 sarks are the only aspects gated by long rests exclusively, because they show up when spellcasters start getting 6th-level spells / mystic arcana. By matching a casters' resource usage, the jasarker can participate in similar adventuring patterns as their spellcasting friends without feeling bad. However, jasarkers get 4 1/LR abilities at level 11 compared to their caster-friends' single 6th-level spell slot, so Grand Aspects need to be a fair bit weaker than their spell counterparts. I usually achieved that with range restrictions, slightly lower damage, or by spreading effects out over several turns.


Tier 3 Callout - Glacial Strike: At each of the tiers, I intentionally added at least 2 aspects that were simple "ME SMASH" choices. I think that it's important that every class includes designs that are satisfying for less-enfranchised players and allow those players to easily optimize. In Tier 1, this was Harrying Strike and Natural Weapon. In Tier 2, it was Frost Titan and Mighty Blows. In Tier 3, it was Arctic Ascendancy and Glacial Strike. One thing I especially love about Glacial Strike is that I can gate the power of the aspect behind an attack, but the buff persists if you miss, so players don't get that disappointing moment of "oh you missed / they passed the save, sucks to be you lol" on their awesome attack that they can only use once per Long Rest.

Finally in Tier 4, jasarker's have Supremacy effects instead of a bunch of Tier 4 sark aspects, because I want to concentrate their Tier 4 power budget into a single awesome ability their their caster compatriots. The simpler abilities are mostly number upgrades, but other Tier 4 supremacies offer unique buffs and debuffs.


Tier 4 Callout - Uttercold Emanation: I wanted a meteor swarm equivalent at tier 4, a spell that just did the maximum amount of damage possible for a jasarker. Using meteor swarm itself (or a cold-damage equivalent) isn't reasonable, because the jasarker is generally a more resilient class than most casters, owing to its higher HP, AC, and Primal Resilience. I also wanted to my high-damage power to play into the jasarker's fantasy of taking hits and forcing enemies into unwinnable situations. That is what led me to the design for Uttercold Emanation. In Supremacy, it's average damage is higher than meteor swarm and it is the only ability that can pierce elemental absorption. But in exchange, you suffer a significant amount of damage, and you have to be standing absolutely still to use it. A creature can easily avoid your Uttercold Emanation if it knows about the ability by running away, though it will have to Disengage or suffer an opportunity attack from you. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Just to Browse
2023-03-08, 11:47 PM
Starting to write up the design notes for these when my brain gets too itchy. Double-posting to avoid putting my reply alongside them.


I may have left some review over here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25726776&postcount=58) just for you.

I appreciate it animorte, and good luck gettin' your submission in under the deadline!