3 class modifications; the ki warrior, the arcane knight, and the book priest.

[Rfkannen]

One of the things introduced in the dmg of 5e was the idea of modifying classes, making alternations to classes to change them while keeping all other features. This was expanded upon when the modifying class unearthed arcana came out, giving us rules for modifying classes and giving us an example of a modified class in the spelless ranger. It let you still use the ranger features and sub-classes but got rid of the spellcasting which some players did not like.

Now personally I think these are underused, we see a lot of new homebrew subclasses and classes, but not that many modifications to the main classes. So I decided to make a few of my own to fit to a few common themes that I thought were underrepresented. How do you think I did?

ps. Just to be clear, these are add ons to the normal classes, you use all the normal class features but replace what it says to replace.


pss. What class modifications have you done?


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variant monk; Ki warrior

The domains of ki are not just for monks, their exist warriors who are trained as normal fighters, with weapons and armors and all that, who use ki just like a monk. You may be a member of a monastery that advocated the use of weaponry instead of the body or you might be a fighter who figured out the use of ki by accident, but no matter what you are, you are a ki fighter.

• Proficiency;
  Weapon; A ki warrior is proficient in simple and martial weapons
  armor; A ki warrior is proficient in light, medium, and heavy armor as well as shields
  this feature alters proficiencies and replaces unarmored defense and martial arts.
• Weapon Focus
  you may use you weapon attacks for all features that require you use unarmed strikes
• Ki flurry;
  Immediately after you take the attack action on your turn you can spend 1 ki point to make an extra weapon attack as a bonus action. If you are dual weilding then this same feature lets you do two weapon attacks.
  replaces flurry of blows
• Unarmored movement;
  now works while armored
• Fighting style;
  as phb, replaces ki-empowered strikes

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Variant paladin; Arcane knight

Not all magical knights use divine magic. Much like a paladin you have sworn an oath and are a fusion of martial and magical power, however the source of your power happens to be strict arcane lessons rather than divine magic.

• Proficiencies
• saving throws are wisdom and intelligence
• religion is replaces with arcana

• all class features that use charisma switch to intelligence
• Arcane sense,
  As an action you can use your magical ability to open yourself to seeing the magic that surrounds you. As an action, you can turn on your awareness to magic. Until your next turn you see a magical aura around any viable creature or object within 60 feet that bears magic, this ability can penetrate most barriers but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead or 3 feet of wood or dirt.
  you can use this feature a number of times equal to 1+your int modifier. When you finish a long rest, you regain all expanded uses.
• Weapon bond;
  as phb feature, replaces lay on hands
• Aura of metal strength.
  as aura of devotion but protects against frightened
• Aura of sense
  as aura of courage but effects charmed instead of frightened

• spellcasting; You have a spell book like the wizard feature, and can copy spells into like a wizard. You also cast spells from the wizard list. You share no other wizard spellcasting features (ei. You do not get the ritual casting feature.)

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Variant wizard; Book Priest.

You are a Book priest, a strange person much closer to the wizard than the cleric. Like a cleric you wield divine magic, yet the gods have not directly handed you any magic. Instead you are like a wizard, you have learned your magic from books and study. No matter what you think your magic comes from your understanding of divine magic instead of an actual gift from your god. Yet still you still manage to use divine magic just like a cleric.

• Changed spell list Use the cleric spell list instead of the wizard

• Expanded spell list; starting at second level when you pick your school, you may now treat any wizard spell of your chosen school as if it were a cleric spell.

rename schools as fit, examples;

• abjuration as protection
• conjuration as nature or matter
• divination as prophecy
• necromancy as death

[weaseldust]

Just a few comments/questions:

For the Ki Warrior, are you implicitly replacing references to unarmed attacks in the subclass features with references to melee weapon attacks, or are you intending that an Open Hand Ki Warrior still has to use, well, open hands?

Is Ki Flurry meant to use your bonus action?


I think Arcane Sight would work better as basically Detect Magic with a 60ft range, but without the ability to tell the school of magic involved, since Divine Sense is a slightly less encompassing version of Detect Evil and Good with a 60ft range. If you want to keep it as something that detects creatures, I'd include constructs, because they are animated by magic.

I don't think Weapon Bond is a fair substitute for being able to restore HP and cure disease. Maybe give the weapon some other beneficial ability on allies? It could be as simple as granting temporary HP.

The only trouble with having the Arcane Knight's aura protect against charming is that the Devotion subclass already gets an ability that does that, so you limit the desirability of taking that subclass. The obvious fix is just to change the Devotion aura so it protects against becoming frightened.

How fast do you think the Arcane Knight should add spells to their spellbook? It shouldn't be as fast as a Wizard because the Wizard list is so huge compared to the existing Paladin list. In fact, maybe the Arcane Knight should also have a cap on how many spells they can have in their book so they don't get many more spells than the Paladin?


I like the elegance of the Book Priest alteration, though the Cleric list is a lot shorter, and having lots of spells available is one of the Wizard's selling points. Maybe make it the Cleric and Druid lists added together?



On your PPS, I've been pondering how to balance giving the Fighter Cunning Action instead of Action Surge. I think a straight swap is OK at level 2, except it disadvantages two-weapon fighting. My solution is to change it so that they can use their bonus action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide, and whenever they use their bonus action for anything else, they can also Dash, Disengage, or Hide.

What I'm most unsure about is how to improve the ability at level 17 to replace the second use of Action Surge the Fighter gains then. Maybe just make it so, once per short rest, they can use their bonus action to take a full action? (There's also the question of the Eldritch Knight's teleporting ability, but you can just replace that with a once/twice per short rest ability.)

[Rfkannen]

Just a few comments/questions:

For the Ki Warrior, are you implicitly replacing references to unarmed attacks in the subclass features with references to melee weapon attacks, or are you intending that an Open Hand Ki Warrior still has to use, well, open hands?

Is Ki Flurry meant to use your bonus action?


I think Arcane Sight would work better as basically Detect Magic with a 60ft range, but without the ability to tell the school of magic involved, since Divine Sense is a slightly less encompassing version of Detect Evil and Good with a 60ft range. If you want to keep it as something that detects creatures, I'd include constructs, because they are animated by magic.

I don't think Weapon Bond is a fair substitute for being able to restore HP and cure disease. Maybe give the weapon some other beneficial ability on allies? It could be as simple as granting temporary HP.

The only trouble with having the Arcane Knight's aura protect against charming is that the Devotion subclass already gets an ability that does that, so you limit the desirability of taking that subclass. The obvious fix is just to change the Devotion aura so it protects against becoming frightened.

How fast do you think the Arcane Knight should add spells to their spellbook? It shouldn't be as fast as a Wizard because the Wizard list is so huge compared to the existing Paladin list. In fact, maybe the Arcane Knight should also have a cap on how many spells they can have in their book so they don't get many more spells than the Paladin?


I like the elegance of the Book Priest alteration, though the Cleric list is a lot shorter, and having lots of spells available is one of the Wizard's selling points. Maybe make it the Cleric and Druid lists added together?



On your PPS, I've been pondering how to balance giving the Fighter Cunning Action instead of Action Surge. I think a straight swap is OK at level 2, except it disadvantages two-weapon fighting. My solution is to change it so that they can use their bonus action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide, and whenever they use their bonus action for anything else, they can also Dash, Disengage, or Hide.

What I'm most unsure about is how to improve the ability at level 17 to replace the second use of Action Surge the Fighter gains then. Maybe just make it so, once per short rest, they can use their bonus action to take a full action? (There's also the question of the Eldritch Knight's teleporting ability, but you can just replace that with a once/twice per short rest ability.)

Good ideas for changes! I added most of them

The ones I didn't add were the weapon bond and arcane knight spell list ones. I used weapon bond because it was weaker than lay on hands, makeing up for the expanded spell list. I thought it balanced fairly well.

Oh also I think that would be a few to many spells, I mean they do have more than just the cleric list starting at level 2, I thought that would even it a bit. You still think it is not enough? Yeah I am not sure yet either, but I am not sure about giveing them 2 spell lists as well, maybe some other small feature to make up for it?

Sounds like an Simple but cool fighter change, I image letting them use the second action would work pretty well!