New Sub-Classes in Knuckleheads & Other Such Curiosities

[micahaphone]

I really like the new spells and I'm confused why they didn't use these for the various subclass' domain lists, as those lists really prove that there's not enough cold themed spells. Everyone getting Elemental Weapon (cold only) could've been any of these.

The new spells:

Auroral Winds: 4th level, like hunger of hadar with northern lights & wind. radiant damage, loud noise, speed reduction.

Brittle: 1st level, bonus action, 1 minute concentration, curse a non magical weapon, next time it's used the attacked must make a dex saving throw or their weapon breaks

Buffeting Eddies: 2nd level, this is the Warding Wind spell, 5ft radius, can do a gust push while concentrating on it.

Chardalyn Hide: 7th level, conc for an hour. A willing creature gets nonmagical b/p/s resistance and adv on spell saves, disadvantage to hit them on spell attacks. Stoneskin+, but is it worth a 7th level?

Charm Elemental: 3rd level. This is charm beast/monster but for elementals.

Climbing Spikes: 1st level, 8 hour duration. advantage on climbing/balance checks, ignore difficult terrain from ice/deep snow

Conjure Compass: 1st level, ritual. turn a small stone into a compass

Freezing Blast: 2nd level, 30 ft line, con save for 2d10 cold damage or half damage on save. the spell area becomes slippery difficult terrain for a minute. dex save or fall prone when entering the area.

Frozen Flame: 2nd level, ritual. For 8 hours, a fire continues to radiate heat and light without consuming fuel and heavy winds can't extinguish it.

Heart of Ice: 4th level, reaction to taking cold damage. Gain cold immunity until your next turn, regain hp equal to half the cold damage you should've taken.

Hibernate: 6th level, one willing creature can sleep for an hour to get the benefits of a long rest. you can only benefit from this once per long rest

Ice Barrage: cantrip, 90 ft range, shoot a 2d4 piercing damage ice shard. Higher levels create more shards.

Icicle Trap: 2nd level, 10 min casting time, indefinite duration. trap a doorway, ceiling or overhang, 4d6 piercing damage, dex save for half. can set exemptions from triggering the trap.

Invigorate: 4th level, for 8 hours 3 cretaures gain advantage on saving throws against exhaustion

Leomund's Tinier Tent: 1st level, ritual. it's Tiny Hut but only for the caster.

Shackling Smite: 2nd level, extra 3d8 cold damage, str save or become restrained. creature makes str save at the end of its turns to try to break free

Shivering Touch: 3rd level, conc for 1 min. Make a melee spell attack, making a creature bone cold. while affected, disadvantage on dex saves or attacks. Con saves at the end of its turns to try and dispel the effect.

Snilloc's Single Snowball: 1st level, 3d6 cold damage dex save for half.

Snow Shoes: 2nd level, 1 hour duration. A creature can walk in snow without sinking in, auto success on ability checks to move across or climb icy/snowy surfaces. Snowy difficult terrain costs no extra movement. Leave no tracks and can't be nonmagically tracked.

Thaw: 1st level, melt 3 10 ft cubes of ice/snow instantaneously. Can instead target a creature made of ice/snow, 3d6 fire damage or con save for half.

Winter's Mantle: 4th level, conc 1 minute. Create a 30 ft aura on yourself, allied creatures make saves against cold damage with advantage, and deal an extra d4 cold damage with every weapon attack.

[MaxWilson]

I would say 'yes'. A flat con save proficiency (plus advantage on concentration checks when in Primal State) is almost universally better than IntMod to concentration checks (only while bladesinging).

I believe the 6th level features end up with comparable damage (your example required no investment on the Primal's part, but a 2nd level slot and concentration for the Bladesinger), the 10th level features are roughly equivalent and I'd probably edge out the 14th level feature to Bladesinger slightly.

Bladesinger's already viewed as one of the 'better' wizard subclasses even if you never hit anything in melee because of its armour profs and the defensive power of bladesong. Primal seems to take those a step further. Is it "broken"? Nah, but it does seem oddly powerful. Top tier subclass just from the con save proficiency at 2nd level.

On the other hand, giving me an excuse to run around as a wizard lightning punching every enemy in the face is pretty cool.

IMO the biggest advantage Primal Wizard has over Bladesinger is the fact that you're not restricted from using two-handed weapons or wearing medium/heavy armor or shields. That's a huge difference and in conjunction with Con Dave proficiency and advantage is IMO is what makes it overpowered, especially as a multiclass e.g. Primal 2/Artillerist X.

It's not necessarily more broken than the stuff WotC puts out (Ravnica, Chronurgist, Hexblade, Healing Spirit v1.0, Simulacrum), but it's definitely an outlier.

[Unoriginal]

Who thought Frozen Flame was a good idea?

"Yeah fuel is super-rare in Icewind Dale, but how about a 2nd-lvl ritual spell that let you forget all about it?"

Doesn't help that the Frostmaiden volume explicitly mentions how about 1 out of 100 inhabitants is a caster with enough power to use that spell.

This supplement really seems to be an exercise of "let's get those ideas out of our system".

[jojosskul]

Who thought Frozen Flame was a good idea?

"Yeah fuel is super-rare in Icewind Dale, but how about a 2nd-lvl ritual spell that let you forget all about it?"

Doesn't help that the Frostmaiden volume explicitly mentions how about 1 out of 100 inhabitants is a caster with enough power to use that spell.

This supplement really seems to be an exercise of "let's get those ideas out of our system".

I was considering allowing spells/subclasses in the upcoming Icewind Dale game I'm running, but everything that isn't marked as AL legal doesn't seem very well thought out, let alone playtested. I'm going to take the backgrounds, travel conditions, and random encounters, but I'm leaving everything else out. But yeah any town with a population of more than 100 not needing to worry about reliable fuel/heat sources takes a lot of the desperation of the situation out.

[Unoriginal]

I was considering allowing spells/subclasses in the upcoming Icewind Dale game I'm running, but everything that isn't marked as AL legal doesn't seem very well thought out, let alone playtested. I'm going to take the backgrounds, travel conditions, and random encounters, but I'm leaving everything else out. But yeah any town with a population of more than 100 not needing to worry about reliable fuel/heat sources takes a lot of the desperation of the situation out.

Are the random encounters nice/interesting?

[jaappleton]

I bought this.

.....The content here varies from 'okay' to outright bad.

If people saw this in UA, they'd be ripping it apart for how broken it is.

I hope the creators see this, because I need them to know this: Hire an editor. It looks cheap, and honestly, some of the features leave the reader with far more questions than answers.

Warlock
Animal Spirits - Beasts Resilience and Beasts Savagery scales very oddly. Just scale it off either Proficiency Modifier or Charisma modifier, don't get weird with it.
Animal Spirits - Full of Spirits is a capstone where literally all you get is a climb speed and swim speed. Wow. Way to motivate the player to stick with it til the capstone, huh?

Fighter
This thing is just outright far too narrow in scope and anyone who picks it will feel a Fighter with no subclass outside of one combat like every 9 sessions.
Big Game Hunter - So the level 3 features only work VS Large or larger size creatures. And the damage, 1d6, is once per turn. So... Literally worst than the base PHB Ranger Hunter.
Big Game Hunter - Level 7 lets you use a reaction to turn a critical hit against you into a normal hit. However, since there's other features in the game like this (Grave Domain), there's no mention of what happens to any additional effects which occur strictly during a critical hit. Additionally, there's zero limits to how often you can do this. None.
Big Game Hunter - Level 10 lets your allies use their reaction to make an attack when you Action Surge. Fine, not bad. Also literally the only feature not dependent on fighting big creatures.
Big Game Hunter - Level 15 nets that extra damage die on every attack, rather than once per turn. But... still only VS Large and larger creatures.

I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead right to something straight out of D&D Wiki with how rough it is, the Primal Wizard.
You essentially get Bladesong but keying off your Intelligence modifier for your number of uses per long rest. You also get proficiency on Constitution saves starting at 2nd level. Gee, this isn't ripe for abuse. Is there any feature in the game that grants a saving throw proficiency as a subclass feature prior to 7th level? And they figured to give them Con save proficiency, fairly unanimously the most important one possible for spellcasters, at 2nd level. There was no issue with this? Nobody raised and hand and question this decision making? No restrictions like Bladesong has like shields, anything more than Light armor, two handed weaponry... nothing.

There's lots of other more than questionable content here. Cold Domain that's immensely poorly worded... Use your channel divinity to set your AC to 18. Alright, but pretty much every wording of how to calculate AC makes mention of whether or not wielding a shield would also confer the +2 bonus, but there's nothing here. It mentions becoming as strong as plate armor but that's fluff, there's no mechanics to it.

Honestly, there's some decent ideas here sprinkled throughout (I quite like the Dirty Fighting Monk concept), but this needed to have been really put through the ringer by someone willing to rip it to shreds. Seems like whomever that had look at it just wanted to pat the designer on the head and say 'good job' instead of actually critiquing it.

Legitimately, I want my $15 back.

[jojosskul]

Are the random encounters nice/interesting?

A lot of them are. I'll probably pick and choose the ones I want to use, there's a cool Christmas themed one that's going into whatever game session is closest to Christmas for sure. A lot of them serve as good jumping off points for some improv'd side missions. A lot of them in just a few paragraphs have quite a few different outcomes that could happen, which is well in line with the hardcover.

I hope to run this multiple times, and expect almost every aspect to play out differently every time. The random encounters are very much in that same vein.

[Edea]

Wait, what...so, why is WotC making third-party material sanctioned for AL use?

I thought this was actual content? I can just write whatever I want myself and call it 'third-party material'. Are they saying you can pay WotC to get your homebrew published or something? Excitement retracted.

[Amechra]

I can just write whatever I want myself and call it 'third-party material'.

That's what DM's Guild is, and to be entirely fair to the people writing this book, they never claimed that this was an official supplement:

The frozen wastes are as inhospitable place as you can find. Subzero temperatures. Driving winds. Chest deep snows. Hungry predators. And between all that? A lonely death. But still, those few who prepare for it manage to survive where all others fall. Ready yourself. The blizzard comes.

Knuckleheads & Other Such Curiosities: A Travelers’ Guide to Icewind Dale contains new arctic themed subclasses, backgrounds, spells and magic items for players; new monsters, afflictions, herbs, terrain, and weather rules for the DM. In addition, we offer over 60 random encounters and expanded encounters to augment your Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign and full-length adventures legal for the D&D Adventurers League Forgotten Realms and Oracle of War Eberron campaigns!

Those chapters pre-approved for use with D&D Adventurers League campaigns are marked with the DDAL medallion. Other rules content (Chapters 2 and 5) may be used with campaign documentation.

[jaappleton]

Wait, what...so, why is WotC making third-party material sanctioned for AL use?

I thought this was actual content? I can just write whatever I want myself and call it 'third-party material'. Are they saying you can pay WotC to get your homebrew published or something? Excitement retracted.

They've done this before. I can't say for certain if it was the first time, but my earliest knowledge of it happening is from Tomb of Annihilation. Essentially, that happened right around the same time as the launch of the DMs Guild. In an effort to generate content for it, WOTC hired asked people they'd subcontracted before to create some content that'd be considered AL Legal to toss up on DMs Guild. You'd still need a special certification via AL League to play it at an AL table, and (allegedly) someone in the WOTC design team actually glanced over it before signing off on it.

Content from it included the Entropy Domain Cleric, which... Also was not worth spending money on.

[Edea]

Ugh...forehead, meet desk.

Guess I'm back to waiting for Tasha's; really thought that sorcerers getting a full bonus spell list was finally an 'official' thing.

[Hellpyre]

Hibernate: 6th level, one willing creature can sleep for an hour to get the benefits of a long rest. you can only benefit from this once per long rest

Man, I'd need to see the wording on this, because as described it cleared itself, so 1-hour LRs forever. Even if not, Rope Trick long rests seems like a problem. Overall, my impressions of the balance are...poor.

[x3n0n]

Wait, what...so, why is WotC making third-party material sanctioned for AL use?

I thought this was actual content? I can just write whatever I want myself and call it 'third-party material'. Are they saying you can pay WotC to get your homebrew published or something? Excitement retracted.

I was kind of confused as well.

As far as I can tell from comments here, it sounds like the AL-pre-approved parts are good: monsters, encounters, 2 adventures, pre-fab backgrounds.

The subclasses and spells apparently serve to get a wider audience (than AL DMs), but they apparently weren't tested nor edited rigorously: high-end homebrew from respected authors; see below.

If I understand correctly, (some of?) the authors are deeply involved in the running of AL. Presumably they have confidence that these are not totally gamebreaking, so they are ok making them available for one season, locked behind a charity donation (by which you can acquire a certificate allowing you to use some content from the book).

So no, we can't push our own homebrew into AL, but people who have built a strong relationship with the AL organization may be able to use their own homebrew as a promotional tactic. I wish the player-facing content had been more polished, so as to justify it.

[micahaphone]

Man, I'd need to see the wording on this, because as described it cleared itself, so 1-hour LRs forever. Even if not, Rope Trick long rests seems like a problem. Overall, my impressions of the balance are...poor.

Here's the full thing, excuse my formatting. For some reason I can't copy/paste from the pdf on my phone.

Hibernate
6th level enchantment
casting time: 1 minute
range: 30 ft
components: V S M (pinch of sand)
Duration: Conc, 1 hour

With a casual wave of your hand, a willing creature of your choice that you can see within range falls unconscious for the spell's duration. The spell ends on a target early if it takes damage or someone uses an action to shake or slap it awake. If a target remains unconscious for the full duration that target gains the benefit of a long rest and it can't be affected by this spell again until it finishes a long rest.



--------------
So you're not getting a long rest, you're getting the benefits of a long rest. that's how they avoid a self-cleansing limitation.

[x3n0n]

That's what DM's Guild is, and to be entirely fair to the people writing this book, they never claimed that this was an official supplement:

The original blurb didn't call out which chapters were pre-approved; they added that clarification afterward.

Perhaps my expectations were set too high: Exploring Eberron is by all accounts very good and relatively balanced as far as player options, and it's also on the DMs Guild as community content, as a super-duper bestseller.

Then this comes out, with this text in the preview: "Chapter 2. Take advantage of subclasses themed to artic [sic] environments and particularly suited for playing Rime of the Frostmaiden or season 10 of the D&D Adventurers League Organized Play campaign."

I think it's reasonable to have hoped that the content in that chapter was up to "excellent homebrew" standards, given that it's suggested as being "suited for play" in season 10 AL.

[micahaphone]

Ugh...forehead, meet desk.

Guess I'm back to waiting for Tasha's; really thought that sorcerers getting a full bonus spell list was finally an 'official' thing.

Tasha's would be the perfect spot to include extra stuff for sorcerers, as they can "class variants" it to include domain spells for the previous subclasses released. TBH I wish UA or wotc would try out a sorcerer with only 1 bonus spell per level, see if that is less scary to crawford & the rest.

[Hellpyre]

Hibernate
6th level enchantment
casting time: 1 minute
range: 30 ft
components: V S M (pinch of sand)
Duration: Conc, 1 hour

With a casual wave of your hand, a willing creature of your choice that you can see within range falls unconscious for the spell's duration. The spell ends on a target early if it takes damage or someone uses an action to shake or slap it awake. If a target remains unconscious for the full duration that target gains the benefit of a long rest and it can't be affected by this spell again until it finishes a long rest.



--------------
So you're not getting a long rest, you're getting the benefits of a long rest. that's how they avoid a self-cleansing limitation.

The benefits of a long rest thing doesn't prevent it (otherwise Catnap, for example, wouldn't refresh abilities that you can't use again "until you finish a short or long rest"), but the ordering of it should do so, if you get the long rest and then the so-to-speak 'immunity debuff'. Although if they are simultanious it gets a bit more iffy. The concentration is probably more important overall to it, versus Catnap, since you can't use it on yourself, or on multiple creatures in the party at once.

EDIT: Also forgot that you explicitly can't get the benefits of a long rest more than once per 24 hours. So now I'm really uncertain that this spell will ever actually do anything.

[x3n0n]

Interestingly, one of the authors says (via comments on the dmsguild product page) that the wizard's Primal State is meant to be reached without using an action, and that they intended the "melee spell attack" to include the SCAGtrips, even though they're technically spells that cause you to make a melee weapon attack.

[MaxWilson]

Warlock
Animal Spirits - Beasts Resilience and Beasts Savagery scales very oddly. Just scale it off either Proficiency Modifier or Charisma modifier, don't get weird with it.
Animal Spirits - Full of Spirits is a capstone where literally all you get is a climb speed and swim speed. Wow. Way to motivate the player to stick with it til the capstone, huh?

The rest of the subclass is quite strong though, and it's not like WotC's own warlock capstones are uniformly great.

Beast Spirit Armor of Agathys immediately gives you improved AC and resistance to magical and nonmagical BPS, all in one round. Conjure Animals upcasts well, and then you can immediately give all of those animals advantage via Beast's Savagery, then do it again with Eldritch Blast next round.

If anything the Beast Spirit patron is too strong rather than too weak. GOO warlock would kill to have features this strong.

Big Game Hunter is weak at low level, pretty strong by level 15. +d12 to every attack you make against a Large+ creature is probably a larger total bonus to DPR than Sharpshooter grants, once you factor in accuracy. Very good at killing dragons, giants, etc.

Interestingly, one of the authors says (via comments on the dmsguild product page) that the wizard's Primal State is meant to be reached without using an action, and that they intended the "melee spell attack" to include the SCAGtrips, even though they're technically spells that cause you to make a melee weapon attack.

Wow. So it's meant to be even more broken than it is by RAW. No way would I allow this subclass.

The monsters look fine though. Mostly reskinned MM monsters but Frost Giant Berserker is interesting, and some of the Fey are too. (Unseelie is gross but pretty tough for CR 1.)

[micahaphone]

Interestingly, one of the authors says (via comments on the dmsguild product page) that the wizard's Primal State is meant to be reached without using an action, and that they intended the "melee spell attack" to include the SCAGtrips, even though they're technically spells that cause you to make a melee weapon attack.

I'll admit I thought the SCAGtrips would be part of it but I forgot they're not technically melee spell attacks. God that "attack with a melee weapon" vs "melee attack" all that stuff just makes my head spin.

Absolutely hog wild that entering the primal state doesn't take even a bonus action. I still don't fully understand the theming of this subclass - it's for frontline wizardry, but why primal magic is frontline wizardry isn't 100% with me. I figure "primal" magic would be elemental or plant/animal in theme if anything, sort of a theurge but for druid.

[Edea]

Absolutely hog wild that entering the primal state doesn't take even a bonus action. I still don't fully understand the theming of this subclass - it's for frontline wizardry, but why primal magic is frontline wizardry isn't 100% with me. I figure "primal" magic would be elemental or plant/animal in theme if anything, sort of a theurge but for druid.

NGL, it looks like an attempt by the designer to get everything they want, and exactly how they want it, for their personal Wizard character in this setting.

Also a 'primal wizard' is a druid, lmao.

[micahaphone]

NGL, it looks like an attempt by the designer to get everything they want, and exactly how they want it, for their personal Wizard character in this setting.

Also a 'primal wizard' is a druid, lmao.

Normally I'd spot wish fulfillment homebrew by some "and everyone thinks you're really cool and likes you" or "at level 6, the demon inside you can manifest at your side"

[Unoriginal]

NGL, it looks like an attempt by the designer to get everything they want, and exactly how they want it, for their personal Wizard character in this setting.

Also a 'primal wizard' is a druid, lmao.

In my setting, a primal wizard would either be a natural philosopher attempting to replicate the marvels Sorcerers and Clerics are capable of through researching and studying rituals or a craftsperson who works with and try to discover formulas to create items of powers.

A funny thing in said setting is that druidism is actually younger than gods making Clerics out of mortals, as the gods were the ones to create the mortals and always had a reason or two to empower some of them, while it took a while for mortals to figure out the connection to nature and its spirits.

[WhiteKyubey]

Can you clarify some stuff about Raging Hearth Barbarian? I like this concept, giving warm for the party in ice desert, but numbers look strange.

lvl 3 is just +1d4 fire damage..so it's like zealot extra damage, but 1d4 instead of 1d6+half barb lvl and with worse damage type?

lvl 6 fire/cold resistances - are they always on, or just while raging?

[micahaphone]

Can you clarify some stuff about Raging Hearth Barbarian? I like this concept, giving warm for the party in ice desert, but numbers look strange.

lvl 3 is just +1d4 fire damage..so it's like zealot extra damage, but 1d4 instead of 1d6+half barb lvl and with worse damage type?

lvl 6 fire/cold resistances - are they always on, or just while raging?

Sure!

Path of the Raging Hearth
Barbarian path
The barbarians of the world are known best for
protecting their friends and families through
aggression, killing enemies made of flesh and
blood before they attack. From ferocious beasts
to encroaching harbingers of corrupt civilization,
most barbarians solve problems with the sharp
edge of a blade. Barbarians from the lands of ice
and snow still protect their clans with weapons;
the weather and other natural obstacles, however,
are just as dangerous as savage beasts. Barbarians
tasked with the protection of their clans must be
prepared to deal with all sorts of danger, whether it
be marauding yetis or sudden ice storms. The fire of
survival burns strong within them and they spread
that heat to their clanmates.

Surge of Heat
When you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain
the ability to channel fire through your attacks. For
the duration of your rage, the first attack that hits
on each of your turns does an additional 1d4 fire
damage. At 11th level, the fire damage increases
to 1d8

Flame-Souled
Beginning at 6th level, you gain resistance to cold
and fire damage while you are raging. In addition,
allies within five feet of you gain resistance to cold
damage while you rage as well.

Spark of Life
Beginning at 10th level, as a reaction, you can
expend one use of your rage to provide comfort
and healing to your allies within 30 feet. When
you expend the rage, the chosen creature can
immediately spend a number of hit dice up to your
Constitution modifier (minimum 1) to regain hit
points as if it had taken a short rest. Alternatively,
the creature can remove one level of exhaustion
instead of spending hit dice to regain hit points.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until
you finish a short or long rest.

Spiritual Conflagration
Starting at 14th level, if you are reduced to 0 hp,
your inner flame explodes in an aura around you.
You are at 1 hp instead. In addition, creatures you
choose within 30 feet gain temporary hit points
equal to half your barbarian level. Once you use this
feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long
rest.

[WhiteKyubey]

Sure!

Path of the Raging Hearth
Barbarian path

Thanks a lot!

[Hellpyre]

Sure!

Snip

Yikes. That is...not great. The level 14 feature is used automatically, so it is going to be worse than Relentless Endurance (unless the triggering hit would have killed you instantly, I suppose. Great for skydiving.) in almost any situation. The only ability that seems solid is the level 10 ability, which unfortunately doesn't actually work. It uses a reaction without a trigger, which given the experience of the designers I would have hoped someone would catch

[Fnissalot]

It is an interesting thing, publishing-wise. I see it as more official than the planeshift compendiums which were made by WotC staff outside of work, but less official than tortles which were similarly released? I cannot find that they done this before? Haven't found this much al-legal character options in anything not written by WotC?

[jaappleton]

It is an interesting thing, publishing-wise. I see it as more official than the planeshift compendiums which were made by WotC staff outside of work, but less official than tortles which were similarly released? I cannot find that they done this before? Haven't found this much al-legal character options in anything not written by WotC?

They did it before for Tomb of Annihilation.

[Fnissalot]

They did it before for Tomb of Annihilation.

Oh, is there a link to it or what is that document called?