D&D 5e Subclass Contest Chat Thread

[DracoDei]

Does anyone have any critique on the two original spells I created for this domain?

[EDIT]
Given the one round duration of Gift of Time, I'm thinking of making it "Proficiency modifier + Wisdom Modifier per long rest", instead of just Wis. Mod. as I changed it to at nickl_2000's suggestion. This is especially true since the other abilities of the domain cover all of the physical ability scores in terms of what they require to do well*. For this reason I think it would actually be good for them to be able to dump wisdom.
*Strength for Carry the Burden and damage/to-hit on OOs, Dexterity for Mob-Halting Reflexes, and Constitution for Tanking and the capstone. Admittedly there are arguments against these all being necessary in any one build.

Am I crazy or is this actually a good idea?

I could actually power it up further, while making wisdom both more AND less important (from various points of view), by making it "Wisdom SCORE rounds per long rest" and not bringing Proficiency Modifier into it. This is even more daring of course, but... MAYBE??? Maybe allow this as a power-up if you select it at both 6th AND 8th?
[/EDIT]

I'm thinking of allowing dexterity to substitute for wisdom for Bolt of Resilient Guidance because the Archetype is looking a little M.A.D. You might end up with cleric builds that dumpstat all mental ability scores(still with Wis>Cha>Int), but... eh, why not?

If everyone, rather than just nickl_2000 could look at the questions I ask him in my response to him, I would be grateful. I'll put them in slightly larger font and Fire Brick color to help with this.

nickl_2000, In general: Thank you, especially for your simplifications! Figuring out that sort of thing is always where I struggle the most, especially since I usually don't want to change the underlying dynamics, just how I explain them.
You succeeded even with that strict standard in almost all cases!

Bastion of Defense - Skip the whole stuff about strength requirements and dwarf and all that stuff. It over complicates the ability when that is built into everything. Just give proficiency in Heavy Armor, the rest is resolved by other PhB rules.

The idea is that you have to always be ready to rush to the aid of an ally in need, or close a gap in the defenses screening the more glass cannon characters. Thus anything that slows your movement is counter to the philosophy of the Domain.

This was the fluff justification for why Grace-Gifts were limited to light armor and no shield.

Should I still drop the restriction?

Spoiler: Further of information about how Grace-Gift inspired this.

Show

Most Grace-Gift spells have 1 round durations and very short ranges (less pronounced in 5e since ranges already tend to be shorter). This is to keep them near the front lines where they are actually in danger, rather than hanging back and buffing the front-liners.

To support this they do most of their casting as bonus actions (to enable Dash, among other things). In3.x/PF they also got the Tumble skill (closest thing in 5e is the Disengage action).

In 3.x/PF even medium armor slowed you.

So... with the ranges not being super-short for most clerical buffs, with the exception of Beacon of Hope and similar "aura" spells, this might not be as needed.

-You are also proficient with Martial Reach weapons, but only when making an opportunity attack. - This seems unnessarily complicated, enough so that I often wouldn't bother having the reach weapon. Or if I did it would be a whip in one hand and something else in another.

I would have been more sanguine about just flat-out granting proficiency if the damage on reach weapons were a little lower.

Also, I wanted to add a bit more emphasis to the "Don't use the Attack Action" thing.

It isn't like reach weapons are that expensive, and you should have a decent strength score with this Domain. So by level 2 or 3 you might as well carry around a reach weapon, even if you only switch to it when you KNOW you are going to be activating Vicious Defense in your next combat. And really, you are supposed to be a Buffer/Roadblock, not DPR (except via Roadblock). At low levels not being proficient is only -10% chance to hit, and at high levels the damage on your melee attack is probably too low to matter. Or am I missing something?

Should I go ahead and just give blanket proficiency?

<SNIP>
This is a little off for 5e wording too. You don't actually prepare cantrips, you just get them and always have them ready to use. So, if you wanted to do this you say "you must choose spare the dying as one of your cantrips at level 1" and leave it at that.

Yeah, my 3.x/PF experience mislead me. I'll fix it.

Channel Divinity I honestly don't know what to do with these. The power is significant for both, but the downside sucks (at least for selfless sacrifice). Vicious Defense actually can be gotten around really, really easily. If I were to get Booming Blade, I can use that instead of an attack and still do significant damage easily, or just cast a cantrip every round. It's not all that hard to overcome this for what you end up getting.

Should I jump this up to also disallowing spells that deal damage, or even also include spells that target enemies?

Carry the Burden: <SNIP>

Gift of Time: -<SNIP>

Thanks again for these simplifications!

Nexus of Brotherhood: - So this is pretty confusing too. You pick a total of 6 people, damage is shared between each person as evenly as possible, then any remainder goes 1 point to you, 1 point to the original target, 1 point to the highest HP, etc...

Honestly this feels pretty underpowered for a capstone. At least make is so that the remainder after dividing disappears. It would simplify it, make it so much easier on the brain, and add a little power to it.

Ah, I was worried about the power level. It basically means enemies can't focus their attacks and have to deal a LOT more damage before they endanger even the weakest member of the party*. I've had someone basically say (as a compliment) that this would be the part of the story where the villain shouts "What?! Impossible?! This can not be!" (and then the hero says something about The Power of Friendship).
*And if you strategically drop a Heal on said squishy with the right timing... in parties with less of a range of hit-point totals, you substitute Mass Cure Wounds.

That having been said, yeah, I will at least have that tiny bit of damage disappear, and I could go further if people think I should.

Ways it could be further powered up:

• It can transfer damage AWAY from you, rather than just TO you.
• Increase the duration to 10 minutes or 1 hour.
• Have it refresh on a Short Rest.
• Make it a Bonus action, or even a Reaction to activate.
• If I really needed to, I could have a "ghost teammate" such that you divide by X+1 rather than X, meaning more damage is lost entirely. Maybe require that it have Y targets before you get this bonus, since the fraction of the damage disappearing is larger the fewer targets you have.
• Perhaps strongest of all: If I made transfering the damage optional on the part of the original recipient of the damage each time then that would vastly increase the damage that would need to be dealt to the party before people started hitting 0.

Which one/combination of these options should I choose? For the moment I have gone with only the first one.

*Goes off to copy-paste in most of the simplifications.*
Done, although it wasn't always direct copy-paste. I also powered up the capstone by allowing it to move damage away from you, underlined the damage in Vicious Defense so people don't miss it by thinking it is "just like Smite except for OOs", and nerfed that same ability to not allow most offensive spells. Should I drop the clarifying sentence about "thorns" and "painful buffs" in the new Vicious Defense description?

For the duration of this ability you lose the ability to use the Attack action and to cast spells that deal damage, unless they target only your allies. This last clause would most commonly be a "thorns" effect, but if you have a spell that deals damage in exchange for a powerful buff then you could cast that.