D&D Subclass Contest Chat Thread 2: Joke Entries Win with Alarming Frequency

[MoleMage]

Hey everyone, checking back in after my month of hiatus and I regret to say I'm probably going to have to make that hiatus indefinite. The original impetus has not resolved yet and on top of that my wife and I are trying to get our small business up and running again after several years of mothballs. Even if I have the time to work on this (and the Base Class Contest, getting its own post as soon as I finish this one), I'd rather spend the time and energy on one of those other things. It's been a lot of fun seeing everyone's entries and writing all these subclasses for the last couple years and I hope you guys keep this running because I think it's good stuff and good community. When my life calms down a bit I might drop in and do an entry here and there still, so I'm not gone forever.

If someone does want to take over as the long-term organizer of the contest, send me a PM and I'll send you my spreadsheet that has all the themes and records and everything. Again, it's been wonderful being here with so many great designers and I hope you all continue to do this.

--MoleMage

[Old Harry MTX]

Hey everyone, checking back in after my month of hiatus and I regret to say I'm probably going to have to make that hiatus indefinite. The original impetus has not resolved yet and on top of that my wife and I are trying to get our small business up and running again after several years of mothballs. Even if I have the time to work on this (and the Base Class Contest, getting its own post as soon as I finish this one), I'd rather spend the time and energy on one of those other things. It's been a lot of fun seeing everyone's entries and writing all these subclasses for the last couple years and I hope you guys keep this running because I think it's good stuff and good community. When my life calms down a bit I might drop in and do an entry here and there still, so I'm not gone forever.

If someone does want to take over as the long-term organizer of the contest, send me a PM and I'll send you my spreadsheet that has all the themes and records and everything. Again, it's been wonderful being here with so many great designers and I hope you all continue to do this.

--MoleMage

Oh, that's sad! Hope you could come back soon as possible! You'll find us all here!

I don't know if I can take the commitment to take your place (I don't have too much free time and it would be better if someone native English speakers did it ^^), but if no one else shows up you can count on me.

[Psyche]

I will host anytime. I am not that experienced, but I have quite a few theme ideas and lots of free time.

[nickl_2000]

Hey everyone, checking back in after my month of hiatus and I regret to say I'm probably going to have to make that hiatus indefinite. The original impetus has not resolved yet and on top of that my wife and I are trying to get our small business up and running again after several years of mothballs. Even if I have the time to work on this (and the Base Class Contest, getting its own post as soon as I finish this one), I'd rather spend the time and energy on one of those other things. It's been a lot of fun seeing everyone's entries and writing all these subclasses for the last couple years and I hope you guys keep this running because I think it's good stuff and good community. When my life calms down a bit I might drop in and do an entry here and there still, so I'm not gone forever.

If someone does want to take over as the long-term organizer of the contest, send me a PM and I'll send you my spreadsheet that has all the themes and records and everything. Again, it's been wonderful being here with so many great designers and I hope you all continue to do this.

--MoleMage

Good luck with everything!

I will host anytime. I am not that experienced, but I have quite a few theme ideas and lots of free time.

You are welcome to take over. I've proven through my lousy math skills that I'm, at best, a good substitute

The contest ends on 9/19 and the voting begins, so you are welcome to set up the voting thread.

[Psyche]

On a less note, how do you like my subclass!

[nickl_2000]

Hopefully this will be the last of the reviews. I hit a real busy time in life and work, so sorry about the delay.

Spoiler: Fighter: Drinker of Life

Show

Maximized Life Force - The amount you can get to with this seems a little nuts, especially when you take things like bounded accuracy in. A 30 con you are looking at an additional 5 hp and a +16 to your con saves. That is nearly an automatic success against all but the most powerful con saves. On the other hand, it requires a massive investment in your ASIs, so we will see as I get further.

Necrotic Strike - This, combined with the other makes it super dangerous. Sure the con needs a huge investment, but based on this skill you don't need to invest in anything else outside of getting high enough for good armor.

Draining Strike - First of all, you've given a lot at level 3 already and you don't need more. Second of all, this fails the bag of rats test (meaning that you can get a repeated benefit by just carrying around a bag of rats with you that you can kill). Generally the best way to take care of this problem is by given THP instead of healing or to limit the amount of times you can do it. Once per minute is still to often. Also, once per minute is unusual in 5e, it's not something you see in anything official.

Dementor's Fear - Half Proficiency mod rounded up or down? Also, by allow this to trigger off of con, which can get to 30 you are risking breaking bounded accuracy.

Blood Frenzy - To much at level 7 here again. Level 7 is often a slower level for fighters so try not to over do it.

Okay, so here is my advice on this. Overall you are giving way to many abilities at each level. For level 3, two abilities is fine, after that only give 1 combat effective ability. Beyond that, I would drop the max con mod. A class that allows you to attack with con is good enough on it's own, you don't need to make it so someone can get to 30 with that mod.

There other thing I see here is that pretty much all abilities are based around combat. They shouldn't be. Pretty much all official fighters get something for one of the non-combat tiers of play. Lean into that somewhat.

Spoiler: Sanguine Sorcery

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Blood Ward - I would bump the THP earned from this. You are taking damage and using hit dice to gain THP equal to the roll of the hit dice. So overall the lose here is con mod for each hit dice and the damage taken. I would at least give THP equal to hit dice + con for each dice rolled. Or if not that maybe hit dice + level or something. Maybe this will get more powerful as I go along though and that will make a difference in my opinion.

Blood Magic - Seems fine, lots of cantrip for a sorcerer who gets a lot already, but I love cantrips so I'm good with it.

It's really usual to give something at level 3 for a sorcerer. That being said, this ability makes what I said in Blood Ward null and void. Ignore that entirely!

Mist Form - My only issue here is the bag of rats healing rule here, you can get a total of 30d10 necrotic healing through the use of this ability, which is pretty nutes.

Overall I really like this, it's good a good vampiric feel to it.

[Ilerien]

Spoiler: Sanguine Sorcery

Show

Blood Ward - I would bump the THP earned from this. You are taking damage and using hit dice to gain THP equal to the roll of the hit dice. So overall the lose here is con mod for each hit dice and the damage taken. I would at least give THP equal to hit dice + con for each dice rolled. Or if not that maybe hit dice + level or something. Maybe this will get more powerful as I go along though and that will make a difference in my opinion.

Blood Magic - Seems fine, lots of cantrip for a sorcerer who gets a lot already, but I love cantrips so I'm good with it.

It's really usual to give something at level 3 for a sorcerer. That being said, this ability makes what I said in Blood Ward null and void. Ignore that entirely!

Mist Form - My only issue here is the bag of rats healing rule here, you can get a total of 30d10 necrotic healing through the use of this ability, which is pretty nutes.

Overall I really like this, it's good a good vampiric feel to it.

Thank you, your review is spot-on and much appreciated! :)

The design intent was to include Con mod in Blood Ward as evidenced by the conversion table, one can't get enough THP from it to twin a 8th level spell otherwise with single instance of Blood Ward being restricted by 1d6 * prof. But I have to recheck the math.

Mist Form used to have a tweak like "if you reduce the creature to 0 HP, you can't heal more than the amount of HP it had", but I think I looked at vampiric touch and realized the lack of the same restriction in its wording. Still, there's some difference, I should get rid of it.

Regarding the 3rd level features, well... Funny thing it's a genuine mistake I failed to catch, no idea how it crept into a sorcerer subclass. I'll ponder on how to do it within the standard framework without cutting away mechanics.

[animorte]

I am also putting forth my interest in running the contest threads. I hesitated the first go round was to my lack of GitP experience in general.

I imagine I would just follow the same format as we're accustomed to.

Just quoting myself from the other thread.

[Psyche]

Me and animorte agreed. I will run the subclass and he will run the base class contest.
P.S. Animorte, you should get an avatar.

[animorte]

Me and animorte agreed. I will run the subclass and he will run the base class contest.
P.S. Animorte, you should get an avatar.

This is correct.

Haha, I will work on that. Was hoping for something custom, but we’ll see.

[nickl_2000]

This is correct.

Haha, I will work on that. Was hoping for something custom, but we’ll see.

Sounds like a plan, thanks to both of you for stepping up and working it out between the two of you. I will let you put out the voting thread then

[Old Harry MTX]

One last note about the 32nd voting thread (i write it here because I do not want to dirty it any more than I have already done).

The first themes suggested ("Louny Toones" , "Subcraft", "Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar oh my!" and probably even the paparazzi's one... ) are usually all considered inside the old "I Read this in a Book, Once", that is not limited to books, but to any source external to the game (comics, manga, movies, anime, videogames, ...) . The problem is that "I Read this in a Book, Once" was the theme of the 30th contest, so it shouldn't be in the list of the ones pickable already ^^

Anyway, it's a very generic theme, so I think there are no problems if it will be chosen again soon, but at least the list should be:
- I Read this in a Book, once
- Bigger is better
- Something else picked randomly from the list

[Psyche]

Oh, so sorry. I will fix that immediately

[Old Harry MTX]

Oh, so sorry. I will fix that immediately

Don't worry! ^^

[Old Harry MTX]

Come on guys! The deadline is tomorrow and there are still several participants who have not voted! Step forward!

[animorte]

Come on guys! The deadline is tomorrow and there are still several participants who have not voted! Step forward!

Yeah I put it in my sig hoping to get some more activity

[Damon_Tor]

The Lifeshaper Wizard is done. Filling a lore gap: so many creatures of the world are said to be the product of amoral wizards damning the consequences, but never giving us the means to leave that kind of mark in the world. As noted in the entry here, these wizards make excellent members of the Simic Combine or House Vadalis, who are canonically supposed to be able to do this sort of thing.

Balance-wise the minion here can become extremely powerful, at the cost of semi-permanently tying up your spell slots. This is a new mechanic I'm tinkering with, where a spellcaster can turn its spell slot into an effect that lasts for a very long time (potentially forever) but the slot won't recover until that effect has ended. This mechanic could hypothetically be used to make a number of spells kill game balance a little less, specifically Planar Binding and Simulacrum. If those slots remained unusable as long as the effects were extant, I feel like they wouldn't be quite so maligned.

[Notafish]

The Lifeshaper Wizard is done. Filling a lore gap: so many creatures of the world are said to be the product of amoral wizards damning the consequences, but never giving us the means to leave that kind of mark in the world. As noted in the entry here, these wizards make excellent members of the Simic Combine or House Vadalis, who are canonically supposed to be able to do this sort of thing.

Balance-wise the minion here can become extremely powerful, at the cost of semi-permanently tying up your spell slots. This is a new mechanic I'm tinkering with, where a spellcaster can turn its spell slot into an effect that lasts for a very long time (potentially forever) but the slot won't recover until that effect has ended. This mechanic could hypothetically be used to make a number of spells kill game balance a little less, specifically Planar Binding and Simulacrum. If those slots remained unusable as long as the effects were extant, I feel like they wouldn't be quite so maligned.

This class rocks - I like the concepts presented here a lot. The monster packs a big punch out of the gate, though, especially as a spellcaster's companion (unless you need to use a spell slot to keep the monster controlled - not sure if I missed something in the second level feature text). My other nitpick is that it sounds like the lifeshaper can only alter others with the Alter Self spell, which is a bummer because I would want my PC lifeshaper to go beast mode alongside their monster.

[Damon_Tor]

This class rocks - I like the concepts presented here a lot. The monster packs a big punch out of the gate, though, especially as a spellcaster's companion (unless you need to use a spell slot to keep the monster controlled - not sure if I missed something in the second level feature text). My other nitpick is that it sounds like the lifeshaper can only alter others with the Alter Self spell, which is a bummer because I would want my PC lifeshaper to go beast mode alongside their monster.

Thanks!

I tweaked the wording on the special way to cast alter self, hopefully it's clearer now that it can still be cast in the normal way.

As for the monster's strength, it's intended to be similar in strength out of the box as other similar features, like those from the wildfire druid, the battle smith artificer, and the beastmaster ranger. It pulls ahead once you get to mutate it (though that requires you feed it spell slots) but I don't think there's much to object to before 6th level.

[Notafish]

As for the monster's strength, it's intended to be similar in strength out of the box as other similar features, like those from the wildfire druid, the battle smith artificer, and the beastmaster ranger. It pulls ahead once you get to mutate it (though that requires you feed it spell slots) but I don't think there's much to object to before 6th level.

I thought the beast master, chainlock, etc needed to use an action (rather than a bonus action) to command an attack at the early levels, though?

[Damon_Tor]

I thought the beast master, chainlock, etc needed to use an action (rather than a bonus action) to command an attack at the early levels, though?

Not lately, no. Battlesmith and Wildfire Druid both command their pets as bonus actions, and the Beastmaster was updated with "optional features" that let them do the same in Tasha's, while chainlocks got an invocation that lets them do it as a bonus action as well. All at level 2 or 3 as soon as the features are selected

[animorte]

Not lately, no. Battlesmith and Wildfire Druid both command their pets as bonus actions, and the Beastmaster was updated with "optional features" that let them do the same in Tasha's, while chainlocks got an invocation that lets them do it as a bonus action as well. All at level 2 or 3 as soon as the features are selected

Can confirm, as I’ve been looking through this same information to balance my summon/construction/mount/thing/(haven’t decided yet).

[Notafish]

I am behind the times, I guess!

I probably ought to look at the Tasha's material harder, myself...

[Psyche]

Old Harry, the ranger doesn't get the indominable or second wind features.

[nickl_2000]

I am behind the times, I guess!

I probably ought to look at the Tasha's material harder, myself...

Tasha's material is a really, really good addition to the game. You may not like all of it, but there are some quality features worth adding onto your table.

[Psyche]

What is that spell that is like 4th level mirage arcane?

[Old Harry MTX]

Old Harry, the ranger doesn't get the indominable or second wind features.

In fact that's a version as a fighter subclass ^^

[MutantDragon]

What is that spell that is like 4th level mirage arcane?

Hallucinatory Terrain.

[sengmeng]

My Way of the Sumo is barebones ready. I might add more weight gain lol

[Damon_Tor]

My Way of the Sumo is barebones ready. I might add more weight gain lol

My concern would be that Monk is already MAD and then this subclass requires grapples and/or shoves to function appropriately, which means you need str as well. If this is meant to be a strength-instead-of-dex monk, it's going to need the damage resistance feature to come earlier to compensate for the lost AC.