D&D 5e Base Class Contest XII Chat Thread

[theVoidWatches]

I'm going to give my thoughts on all the classes in the contest, because I like giving and receiving useful feedback. Hopefully I can do one of those today.

Spoiler: Enlightened Martial Artist

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First Impressions
The snazziest table in the thread, my own definitely included. The rest of the presentation is good. Dang, the whiplash is distracting.
Isn’t enlightenment already kinda the monk’s thing? Weird way to express a hybrid with...sorcerer? Must be, there’s metemagic.

Most of the abilities seem to be taken straight from Monk or Sorcerer. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s a bit limiting to the class’s identity, especially with the lack of flavor text.
The way subclasses are handled, how you can dabble in or even change them as you level up, is bizarre. Are they even subclasses? Why are they named after intelligent supernatural creatures, and also hydras? What does it mean to forget a martial arts style?
Switching between stances is cool. Reminds me of the Tome of Battle.

Ingredients
Monk+Spellcaster is a pretty standard combination; I think half of the monk prestige classes in 3.5 were some flavor of this. Or at least a lot of them. Not much to say about this incarnation, as far as that goes; it’s a monk with fewer monk abilities and sorcerer spellcasting.

The supernatural stances and style powers are neat! If only I had some idea why they existed!

Flavor
Absent, and obviously so given the mystic styles.

Fit
Tiers are fine. Though the level 11 ability is kinda weak—it’s Uncanny Dodge (a 5th-level ability), but only against spells and falling, and you need to spend ki points to use it. At least you get a new spell level OH WAIT.
The spell list seems fine. Doesn’t seem too much like the sorcerer spell list, but that’s fine.
Mystic styles don’t match the subclass growth of any other class...but they don’t match anything else about subclasses either. (Being able to pick, choose, and change mystic styles is f*ing weird.) A spontaneous-casting class automatically learning new spells from subclasses is...odd, and seems like a good way to encourage players to pick up basic proficiency in as many styles as possible.

Fun
Totally. Take a monk, mix in some spellcasting, and then channel the power of a friggin’ DRAGON! Love it.

Balance
The way Mystic Styles work makes it tricky to determine balance, but it looks okay.

Subclasses
I’m pretty sure my thoughts on them are mostly clear. They’re weird but cool.
Another point: The basic level makes what stance you’re in important if you know more than one, but Mastery makes that less important? So you go from only having one stance, to needing to decide between multiple, to that being less important?
Hydra Style is the odd man out among Styles, and Four-Headed Strike and Hydra Exemplar both seem like they give you extra attacks as long as people are stupid enough to hit you?

Presentation!
‘Sgood. Thanks for thinking about that.
There’s some typos, though, and a couple of vaguely-worded abilities (what does “grant yourself 60 feet of movement” mean?).

Conclusion
Yeah, okay, it’s cool. Mystic Styles are weird and cool. I wish it had any flavor at all. Cool.
Hopefully Paternum has the cool ideas and better explanations.

The lack of flavor text is definitely a fair criticism, and if I have time before the contest I'll try to take a pass through it and add some. I intended to do so much earlier, but various life events drew me away from the board for a while.

The basic idea is supposed to be that it's a monk that, instead of vague spiritual abilities, gets explicitly magical abilities - spells, flight, etc. Taking the anime BS that monks tend to come with to the next level.

The spell list isn't drawn from the sorcerer list, no - it's basically the spells that I thought would be easy to imagine a DHZ-esque martial artist using.

As for the Mystic Styles, that was my attempt to bring in something unique. And... yeah, they ended up a little weird mechanically. It is a little odd that at first you have to pick between them, and then you get a Mastery and picking which style is less important, but the idea is that once you've mastered a style you can use some of its techniques all the time, mixing it in with other styles. Like in ATLA, mixing aspects of other bending styles into your own. And, of course, Mastery also comes with enhancements to when you actually use that style.

I honestly didn't consider that Hydra was the only stance not named after an intelligent magical beast (and yes, Four-Headed Strike and Hydra Exemplar mean you get lots of extra attacks. The entire style is supposed to be about taking lots of damage and making lots of hits in return) - in my head, the styles have a theme separate from the creature they're based on. Dragon gets you armor and better weapons - Djinn improves your magic - Hydra is about taking damage and making more attacks - Beholder is the ranged style). Maybe the lack of intelligence is why you don't get spells from them? In any case, I don't think it's a problem - in my head these are styles learned by studying those creatures, not from those creatures. If I have time to add flavor text, I'll make that clear.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It meant to refer to that quartercaster (1/4) is slightly misleading and should probably be tiercecaster(1/3) even if it sounds worse.

I'm still confused because I can't find any place I said "quartercaster" or "1/4" anything.

In any case, I don't think it's a problem - in my head these are styles learned by studying those creatures, not from those creatures. If I have time to add flavor text, I'll make that clear.

Yeah, this strikes me as a set of problems that come from significant parts of the picture being absent.
Still a cool class, of course.

Spoiler: BerzerkerUnit and the Feral

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Also, you call the spellcasting mechanics pointless, but they serve the very real point of making this a short rest dependent caster. Similar to but critically different from, a Warlock with pact magic. By using Limit Break to cast spells you can choose to cast a lot of weak spells, or a few big spells and decide how much juice you want to spend on physical combat.

Once I realized the spell level was rounding up and not down, and I did some quick math, I must say this resolves most of my criticisms. I see the point; I'm not sure

Proficiency in all saves pops up bc it's a Monk element.

Diamond Soul
Beginning at 14th level, your mastery of ki grants you proficiency in all saving throws.

Huh.
Well. I've got some strikeouts to add to that review. Still feels weird, but now I blame WotC.

Planestrider has a combat and utility action and its there bc epic ranger types should be able to "Hunt the moon fawn through the moutains of Celestia and chase their prey through the fires of the hells." Having every tom and **** with a spell book be able to nope out of a confrontation is lame if you're the ultimate tracker.

I question the combat utility of a one-way, once-per-day interplanar transport spell.
Beyond that...I get the argument that high-level rangers should be able to hunt creatures across the planes, just as I think high-level rogues should be able to walk on air and high-level barbarians should be able to break rainbows in half. But as the game stands, they can't, which means (among other things beyond the scope of this contest) I need to read Plane Strider on its own merits.
First off, the lack of flavor text means that it isn't a "cross the planes to pursue your prey" ability—it's just a plane shift, cast once per day.
Second, out of the mess of archetypes folded into ranger, "hunter" is not one which this class really emphasizes. The only other ability which seems in that ballpark is Sight Beyond Sight, but that seems more like supernaturally honed senses than specifically being a good hunter—I mean, only one of its abilities extends beyond a stone's throw (by the feral), and that's the one least useful for tracking.

Archetypes are "Feral Children from wild or civilized areas" one is a Tarzan type, the other is the "what if Tarzan, but on the mean streets" where you're raised maybe side by side with dogs, or treated like an outcast. If there was one more it would very much be "people under the stairs" but I didn't want to put something that dark down. They're also chosen to created with a mindset similar to what we see in artificer, subclasses provide the mechanical oomph and identity of the PC.

Part of the problem is that the rest of the class made it sound like the Feral Child archetype was the flavor of the class as a whole, not just one option within a broader category. Another problem created by the lack of flavor text, I guess.

Presentation will improve eventually, but I'm unclear on the confusion about Sight Beyond Sight. The wording was specifically chosen so you don't get the benefit on Passive checks until after the Action is taken. So yes, you can use those abilities at any time, though doing so as a bonus action... (probably required a point of Limit Break to be spent) so out of combat it's a free utility, but in combat, bites into the action economy or costs points.

Two problems.
1. Specifying that a Perception check needs to be made leads to questions of "What's the Perception check for, though?" I guessed the intent was something like what you said, but I don't judge intent, I judge what I see, and what I see is an ability whose usefulness changes radically based on interpretation.
2. You didn't actually specify a duration for the higher-level abilities. Which is unfortunate, since the very similar "extend darkvision" ability absolutely does list a duration, without any language implying this duration applies to other uses of the ability.


One thing you might notice is how many of these problems are exacerbated by the lack of flavor text. I understand that this comes from the lack of time spent on this class, and I sympathize; it takes a lot of time and work to make a class that works and demonstrate the way it works.
But, again, I judge what I see. Maybe everything would make sense if the class got another draft and another week of work. But I don't have that version of the class, I have draft 1, with its barebones prose and placeholder names. Sorry.

[Fnissalot]

I'm still confused because I can't find any place I said "quartercaster" or "1/4" anything.

There is a "template quartercaster", I think it is page 5 but my phone won't show page numbers so might be a few pages off. It is pretty much right before classes to do. Anyway, good work with the analysis! Read through it again and it is a solid deconstruction of the mechanics of the classes.

[MoleMage]

I embedded some voting specifics in my voting post (made at the very end of the deadline, as is my habit). There's still several hours at least to vote (The deadline is tonight but I have a jury summons early tomorrow so I probably won't be at my computer to actually call an end until tomorrow afternoon).

Overall, my criteria, in order of weight:

1. Was the class complete? A class with missing features has to work really hard to win out over other classes. Usually this pushes a couple classes down in the rankings, but this time almost everyone was complete with maybe a feature half-written or a dead level where there shouldn't be. Largely irrelevant.
2. Does the class have a functional identity? For this contest, this meant classes that had distinct style compared to their parent classes.
3. Does the class do anything innovative? I'll be honest. I'm a sucker for new features and mechanics. I think we all are to some extent, it's why we're here, but almost all of my entries have been an exploration of a new sub-mechanic and I feel a kindred bond to other classes that attempt this.
4. Does the class have functional mechanics and features? A big one. If I can't understand how to use some feature, or if it is restrictively specific or difficult, that's a knock against your class.
5. Does the class look balanced? I'm neither great nor terrible at this particular judgment, but I try. A class that seems like it has a good power curve edges out a similarly good class that looks too strong or too weak.
6. Does the class look fun? It's entirely possible to make a class that meets all of the previous requirements and then at the table just does the exact same thing every combat round. It's low on the priority list because in my experience, people will make their own fun.

If you want a more detailed criticism feel free to send me a PM. I probably won't have time this week (again, jury summons, but also I have people coming to visit) but I can definitely get something done in the following couple weeks.