sandmote
2023-09-22, 02:56 PM
This post on the homebrewery (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/A1rKCjhsbUbQ)
A while ago there was a thread talking about how the ranger's favored enemy feature exists, but that the rest of the ranger chassis doesn't really interact with any favored enemies, even thematically. The hunter subclass gets a few options at 3rd level, but there isn't much else. One of the examples listed was the general concept of how a dragon fighting ranger might be trained to fight dragons in particular, those skills would likely carry over.
So with the worry that someone already beat me to writing up an actual subclass, I wrote a take on the concept. Kind of wanted to switch so some other damage creature type, but giants feels like its be a bunch of effects which apply only against "a creature large or larger," and fiends and undead feel a bit too varied to choose individual features against the entire type (similar to why they're such strong choices for favored enemies), and the other options seemed really limited. Maybe an anti-aberration subclass with expertise on escaping/avoiding a grapple, resistance to psychic damage, and...something?
Anyway, the drakeslayer:
Drakeslayer
Dragons and drakes are powerful creatures which can easily devastate small communities when young and entire nations when in adulthood. Drakeslayers are rangers who train against dragons as archetypal destructive foes, learning techniques which are primarily designed to give them superiority in combat against dragons. Luckily, the same abilities that make striking down dragons easier are often also helpful in defeating other creatures which utilize flight, fear, breath weapons, or other draconic strategies.
Drakeslayer Magic
Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Drakeslayer Spells table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.
Drakeslayer Spells
Ranger Level Feature
3rd Absorb Elements
5th Earthbind
9th Crusader’s Mantle
13th Greater Invisibility
17th Greater Restoration Hold Monster
Greater Invisibly for the "I can't see you but I can smell you, hear your breath," sequence. Couldn't come up with a good 5th level spell, so I figured I'd let them heal good dragons after a misunderstanding.
Leap to the Dragons
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your training against the flying dragons allows you to make jumps that other find impossible. Your jump height increases by 10 feet.
Additionally, when you expend movement to make a jump of 5 feet or more, once per turn you can choose to channel the force of the jump into your next attack. Until your turn ends the end of the turn or you expend additional movement after the jump, your next melee attack deals an additional 1d8 damage of the weapon’s type on a hit.
In concept this is meant to represent jumping at something and channeling your momentum into your blow, although I'd appreciate any suggestions for making the mechanics more clearly match the theme. Yes, this is technically more powerful than colossus slayer, although I'm not sure it by much?
No Fear in the Known
At 6th level, your practice shrugging off the supernatural fear dragons cause has both made you more resistant to fear and allows you to calm the nerves of others. When you have advantage on saving throws against effects that would cause you to become frightened.
Additionally, when you are within 5 feet of a creature that can see and hear you and is frightened by an effect which ends on a successful Wisdom saving throw, you can use your action to allow the creature to make an additional saving throw against the effect causing it to be frightened, ending the effect on a success.
I know, I ended up with Steel Will+. Still, I wanted something that can help the group rather than just the ranger. It requires using your action, so there will be problems if the frightened target is dashing away.
Response to Legends
Starting at 11th level, you learn to respond to your environment during combat in the same manner as the legendary dragons. You gain an additional reaction on each of your turns, which can be used only at the end of another creature’s turn. You can use this action to either make a weapon attack or to attempt to hide from another creature. If you successfully hide from another creature and had movement remaining at the end of your last turn, you can expend up to 10 feet of that remaining movement as part of your reaction to hide. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.
To fight something with legendary actions, you must learn legendary actions, I guess. The hide one is intended to respond to the number of creature with "make a perception check" as one of their legendary actions. And the movement to make it feel less like they're spotting you and losing track of you while you're still in the same spot.
Evade Breath
By 15th level, you’re so used to evading the breath of dragons that you can resist all such effects. When you make a saving throw against an area of effect that allows you to make a Dexterity or Constitution 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.
The balance is intended to be that it only applies to areas of effect. Someone with Evasion doesn't get advantage against a cloud of poison, but someone with this feature doesn't get advantage against an arrow or a ray type spell.
A while ago there was a thread talking about how the ranger's favored enemy feature exists, but that the rest of the ranger chassis doesn't really interact with any favored enemies, even thematically. The hunter subclass gets a few options at 3rd level, but there isn't much else. One of the examples listed was the general concept of how a dragon fighting ranger might be trained to fight dragons in particular, those skills would likely carry over.
So with the worry that someone already beat me to writing up an actual subclass, I wrote a take on the concept. Kind of wanted to switch so some other damage creature type, but giants feels like its be a bunch of effects which apply only against "a creature large or larger," and fiends and undead feel a bit too varied to choose individual features against the entire type (similar to why they're such strong choices for favored enemies), and the other options seemed really limited. Maybe an anti-aberration subclass with expertise on escaping/avoiding a grapple, resistance to psychic damage, and...something?
Anyway, the drakeslayer:
Drakeslayer
Dragons and drakes are powerful creatures which can easily devastate small communities when young and entire nations when in adulthood. Drakeslayers are rangers who train against dragons as archetypal destructive foes, learning techniques which are primarily designed to give them superiority in combat against dragons. Luckily, the same abilities that make striking down dragons easier are often also helpful in defeating other creatures which utilize flight, fear, breath weapons, or other draconic strategies.
Drakeslayer Magic
Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Drakeslayer Spells table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.
Drakeslayer Spells
Ranger Level Feature
3rd Absorb Elements
5th Earthbind
9th Crusader’s Mantle
13th Greater Invisibility
17th Greater Restoration Hold Monster
Greater Invisibly for the "I can't see you but I can smell you, hear your breath," sequence. Couldn't come up with a good 5th level spell, so I figured I'd let them heal good dragons after a misunderstanding.
Leap to the Dragons
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your training against the flying dragons allows you to make jumps that other find impossible. Your jump height increases by 10 feet.
Additionally, when you expend movement to make a jump of 5 feet or more, once per turn you can choose to channel the force of the jump into your next attack. Until your turn ends the end of the turn or you expend additional movement after the jump, your next melee attack deals an additional 1d8 damage of the weapon’s type on a hit.
In concept this is meant to represent jumping at something and channeling your momentum into your blow, although I'd appreciate any suggestions for making the mechanics more clearly match the theme. Yes, this is technically more powerful than colossus slayer, although I'm not sure it by much?
No Fear in the Known
At 6th level, your practice shrugging off the supernatural fear dragons cause has both made you more resistant to fear and allows you to calm the nerves of others. When you have advantage on saving throws against effects that would cause you to become frightened.
Additionally, when you are within 5 feet of a creature that can see and hear you and is frightened by an effect which ends on a successful Wisdom saving throw, you can use your action to allow the creature to make an additional saving throw against the effect causing it to be frightened, ending the effect on a success.
I know, I ended up with Steel Will+. Still, I wanted something that can help the group rather than just the ranger. It requires using your action, so there will be problems if the frightened target is dashing away.
Response to Legends
Starting at 11th level, you learn to respond to your environment during combat in the same manner as the legendary dragons. You gain an additional reaction on each of your turns, which can be used only at the end of another creature’s turn. You can use this action to either make a weapon attack or to attempt to hide from another creature. If you successfully hide from another creature and had movement remaining at the end of your last turn, you can expend up to 10 feet of that remaining movement as part of your reaction to hide. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.
To fight something with legendary actions, you must learn legendary actions, I guess. The hide one is intended to respond to the number of creature with "make a perception check" as one of their legendary actions. And the movement to make it feel less like they're spotting you and losing track of you while you're still in the same spot.
Evade Breath
By 15th level, you’re so used to evading the breath of dragons that you can resist all such effects. When you make a saving throw against an area of effect that allows you to make a Dexterity or Constitution 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.
The balance is intended to be that it only applies to areas of effect. Someone with Evasion doesn't get advantage against a cloud of poison, but someone with this feature doesn't get advantage against an arrow or a ray type spell.