D&D Subclass Contest IX Voting Thread

[MoleMage]

Ninth contest done, with 18 complete entries this time (the Vestige unfortunately did not have complete features). I have decided the cutoff for voting being top five is 20 entries, so we will be doing top three this round.

Simple rules. Vote for your top three picks in order. You can't vote for yourself. A number 1 vote is worth 3 points, a number 2 vote is worth 2, and a number 3 vote is worth one.

Since we had a tie last contest for theme, the next contest's theme is already selected (Calling Card). We will resume voting with a new pool randomly chosen from our future contest ideas list during contest X's voting.

Entry	Creator	1st	2nd	3rd
Paladin: Oath of Royalty	theVoidWatches	0	0	1
Cleric: Middle Management Domain	nickl_2000	2	0	0
Bard: College of the Pied Piper	Crisis21	0	1	1
Wizard: School of Grey Tactics	sengmeng	1	1	1
Monk: Way of the Swift End	RickAsWritten	0	0	0
Ranger: The Marshal	Man_Over_Game	0	1	1
Barbarian: Savage Leader	SleeplessWriter	0	0	2
Barbarian: Path of the War Chief	Kingsluger	0	1	0
Fighter: Warlord	Hawk7915	2	0	2
Sorcerer: The Fair One	Segev	1	0	0
Rogue: Arrogate	Vogie	1	2	2
Bard: College of Professors	Nicrosil	0	1	1
Ranger: Wild Guide	CircuitEngie	1	1	0
Rogue: Tacticon	BerzerkerUnit	3	2	1
Cleric: Demagogue	Rawrawrawr	2	2	1
Druid: Circle of Blood	Phhase	0	1	0
Fighter: the Knight	Blackflight	1	0	1
Barbarian: Path of the Forerunner	Ivellius	0	1	0

All classes except warlock had a completed entry this time around. That makes this our most class-diverse contest to date.

This voting thread will stay open until the end of the day on August 4th. The following day I will post with the tallied results and declare a winner, then post the next contest thread. Good luck everyone!

[theVoidWatches]

1. Hawk7915's Warlord. Probably a little OP, but in a way that benefits the other people at the table more than the person playing it, which I think is okay.

2. sengmeng's School of Grey Tactics. I'm a sucker for builds that involve invocations or similar mechanics. Gandalf is also rad.

3. BerzerkerUnit's Tacticon. I think that the vantage point thing is real neat and would love to see how it plays out.

[BerzerkerUnit]

1. Hawk7915 Warlord. I said it was immediately adoptable for my games.

2. CircuitEngie Wild Guide. I’ve put together a slew of pet classes and I liked how this one really brought the concept of mentorship to the fore.

3. SleeplessWriter Savage Leader. Feels like an Orc Warchief.

[Rawrawrawr]

1. Segev's Fair One: Really, really flavorful, with interesting mechanics to back it up. Might be a bit too complex, but it's attached to one of the simpler caster classes, so eh.

2. BerzerkerUnit's Tacticon: Vantage points and the scout familiar seem like a lot of fun to play around with.

3. Blackflight's Knight: Manages to have a decent amount of depth with a bunch of options, but keeps it intuitive by keeping those options simple and geared towards different situations.

[Phhase]

1. Rawrawrawr's Demagogue: Not just another generic inspirational martial class. You are your own god. Need I say more?

2. Vogie's Arrogate: Explicitly rewards planning and plotting your angles of attack. Preparing daring stratagems is one of my favorite things.

3. Hawk7914's Warlord: Generic inspirational martial class, but elegantly designed using Fighter's existing mechanics.

[RickAsWritten]

1. BerzerkerUnit's Tacticon - The Vantage Points are cool and the flavor-fluff-mechanics ratio is spot on.

2. Vogie's Arrogate - Apparently I only like rogues for this contest. Another one with a nice balance of flavor-fluff-mechanics.

3. Rawrawrawr's Demagogue - It's probably a bit on the strong side, but I love the idea of a cleric that is a cleric of himself. Plus I'm a sucker for sleazy religious-types. I guess I can thank Clint McElroy for that.

[Nicrosil]

1. Arrogate

2. Tacticon

3. Warlord

What can I say, I love martial classes! All of the entries were really good, but these were the three that I'd want to play in an actual game the most.

[SleeplessWriter]

1. Tacticon - Mechanically Solid and Flavorful

2. College of Professors - Just imagining the kind of roleplay shenanigans you could pull off with this gives me joy. For example, you could turn the whole party into a band using crash course, which means you could all act like you are just a harmless group of minstrels and most certainly NOT the band of cut-throat murderhobos with wanted posters ten feet away, and excuse ME but OUR halfling clearly has an eyepatch, my good town guard.

3. Arrogate - a simple and flavorful subclass that lets you act like the clever mastermind of a group of thieves and brigands who always knows when a plan is about to go sour.

[Hawk7915]

1. sengmeng's Wizard: School of Grey Tactics: +1 for the Gandalf homage, but mostly I just really dug a subclass for making a Duskblade-esque Wizard with a leader bent. Cool archetype is cool.

2. Kingsluger's Barbarian: Path of the Warchief: I just really love that level 6 feature; it feels perfect, and perfectly in-character, for a howling, frothing, wise-cracking action hero. The rest of the chassis is solid, too.

3. Vogie's Rogue: Arrogate: I don't know if it is actually all that powerful - it's a weird spot where initially the feature is clearly way stronger than a normal sneak attack, but by midlevels it falls off and is sort of bad until Focus Fire kicks in. But the overall "archetype fantasy" of playing the Ocean's 11-style criminal mastermind is super cool and substantially different from existing options. Awesome flavor.

[moonfly7]

1. Cleric of middle management
2. Marshal ranger
3. Oath of royalty
So I just got busy amd couldn't do this one, ready for the next one though.

[nickl_2000]

Lack of time requires me to keep this simple and short. So, here are the votes.


1) Cleric Domain: Demagogue
2) College of the Pied Piper
3) School of Grey Tactics

[sengmeng]

1. Domain of Middle Management.

2. Domain of the Demagogue

3. Path of the Savage Leader

[Ivellius]

Votes (this was really difficult):
1) Blackflight's The Knight Fighter Archetype. It brings back some stuff from previous editions to make what seems like a solid tank option.
2) Rawrawrawr's Demagogue Domain. I think the final feature is a little odd, but everything else feels pretty good, and I like the fluff.
3) Man_Over_Game's The Marshal Ranger Archetype. Props for incorporating one of the ranger's unique mechanical features in a more holistic way. Flanking Tactics is slightly overcomplicated, and there's a typo on Marshal's Command (should be 15th level).

Honorable mentions to the War Chief (I felt it was a somewhat better take than the Savage Leader), the Wild Guide (not super-innovative in that it's kind of just "another Beastmaster" mechanically, but it's good and thematic), and the Tacticon and Arrogate (both really interesting "leader rogue" takes; Tactical Advance was great and I liked the Arrogate overall).

Random aside: it feels weird not voting for the next contest here.

[Vogie]

Votes:
1) BerzerkerUnit's Tacticon Rogue
2) Ivellius's Path of the Forerunner Barbarian- Reminds me of the Islanders from KJ Parker's Scavenger Trilogy
3) Nicrosil's College of Professors Bard

[MoleMage]

Wow this is a lot of entries. Gonna be a tough one to call.

1. Ranger: Wild Guide. The idea of having an apprentice instead of an animal companion brings back mixed memories of the 3.5 Leadership feat, but I think this was built a little more carefully than that feat.
2. Druid: Circle of Blood. Gruesome, yet compelling. Brings a certain savagery to the table that makes it stand out in a class that tends to lean towards natural harmony.
3. Bard: College of the Pied Piper. It brings a traditional story to life in a way that is well fitted to the class and game system, though it might be a little on the strong side.

In the next couple minutes I'll have our running tally updated. Only another two and a bit days to vote!

[MoleMage]

And voting is now concluded!

In 3rd place, with 9 points, we have Vogie's Arrogate Rogue. Plan elaborate heists! Forgo sneak attack so your allies can get a hit in! Drive vehicles better!

In 2nd place, with 11 points, we have Rawrawrawr's Demagogue Domain. Become your own divinity! Grant your followers spells (or at least spell)!

And our winner for Contest IX is BerzerkerUnit's Tacticon Rogue. Scout out the battlefield! Create tactical vantage points! Uncover the world's secrets!

Congrats to our winners! Keep your eyes open in the next little while for our next contest, which will be Contest X: Calling Card.