Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
Yeah, like I said-failing the bag of rats test at level 20 isn't a huge deal. If you're actually worried about it, maybe make it THP? Or heal up to half, with excess HP being THP?

Spoiler: Bag Of Rats Test, For Those Who Don't Know
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Can your ability be abused by carrying around a bag of rats, or similar non-dangerous creatures? In this case, yes-any time you kill a creature with an attack, you regain 2d6 HP. This means that you can top off by killing rats you carry around in a bag.


And maybe specify that you CANNOT swap your extra unarmed attacks for Shove attempts? Because as written... You can.
Oh, right. The whole danged “replace any attack with a shove or grapple attempt” thing. Just gonna add that clause, since it’s only supposed to be an unarmed attack...

Not really worried about Death Dealer potentially granting infinite out of combat healing, especially since that new cleric spell of heal all of the damage is a thing now (thanks XGtE). Gives you a use for all those squirrels, birds and butterflies that are following your level 20 hippy druid around. :P

Quote Originally Posted by Calen View Post
The major problem I see with war stance is the multi classing potential. As written now I could dip 3 to grab advantage on every attack. Coupled with a multi-attack class that is fairly powerful.

The single class logic is fairly good, drop an unarmed attack to gain advantage on the other attacks. One option, slightly convoluted might be to allow hits with your unarmed attacks to grant advantage to the next attack you make on the current turn.
It is limited to melee attacks only, so the classes that would potentially want it are Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Paladins, Swashbuckler Rogues, and those rare, weird melee Rangers. Of those, let’s look at what would work for a 3-level dip:

Classes that are questionable to level 3

-Barbarian: The Bone Armor strength advantage overlaps with Rage, and using both of those features already takes two bonus actions, so the War Trance wouldn’t be active to round 3 anyway. As well, the barbarian can already generate advantage on their attacks with Reckless Attack, and they have the HP and Resistances to deal with enemies having advantage against them, so keeping their bonus action open for things like a bonus Great Weapon Master attack, two weapon fightering, or the unarmed attack this class grants them is perfectly feasable. For the Barbarian, a 2 level dip for the Bonehunter subclass, the bone armor and the bonus action attack would be a bit better than a 3 level one.

-Melee Rangers: Well, rangers have Hunter’s Mark. And if you are building a melee ranger and you are not taking Horizon Walker, you are, in fact, doing something wrong! Rangers basically have their bonus actions reserved as is, they don’t need more competition for that precious slot.

-Monks: Flurry of blows, and their own melee attack damage progression and ki pool growth being interrupted are two relatively large reasons not to dip, along with the fact that the monk is pretty MAD already. 13 int when you already want 16 dex, wis and at least 14 con isn’t exactly the easiest thing to pick up. If stats are rolled well enough, then 1 level for a subclass and the bone armor is okay. Otherwise, probably not worth the investment.

Classes where it’s not bad, but doesn’t break anything

-The Swashbuckler Rogue: Given two-weapon fighting is effectively giving the rogue advantage on their one attack, and sneak attack is the reason why the rogue deals damage anyway. Level 3 effectively doesn’t matter as far as rogue damage is concerned, and will actually hamper sneak attack progression noticeably. A 1-2 level dip fits better, and doesn’t introduce the redundancy that TWF/ War Trance intrinsically hold.

-Paladin: Only because of the MAD problems, paladin is both here and in the next category. If you get the spare int, ignore this.

Classes where it is inarguably good

-Fighter: A fighter 11/ Legionnare 9 could very well be the best combination for this MC. 4 attacks (3 weapon, 1 unarmed), doubled when you action surge, all with advantage is really, really good. Maybe a little redundant for a Samurai, so not so good with that particular subclass, but otherwise preeeeetty good.

-Paladin with enough int: Paladins like hitting attacks, they are melee only, and Vengeance is so popular because of the targeted advantage on all attacks for a minute. If you do not mind the awful MAD here, you could probably get a lot of mileage out of a 3 level dip... even if that basically locks you into base human in a Point Buy game, and you will not be able to get Charisma up to 20 because of it and the lost ASI from multi-classing. Still, that damage will be good when it kicks in, and additional armor and never being unarmed are nice as well!

Ultimately

So then, the only classes this might actually be a problem on are either the fighter (which is probably multi-classing anyway), and the Paladin as a MAD nightmare. It’s not really game-breaking for most classes, in about the same vein as the Barbarian’s Reckless Attack. It comes a level later than Reckless, requires a bonus action (unlike reckless), and does not grant enemies advantage in return.

Over-all, I’m not concerned with it. It’s reckless attack that requires action economy instead of granting enemies advantage. Not really insane.