Base Class Contest XIV Chat Thread

[MoleMage]

Welcome to the chat thread for the forteenth Base Class Competition for D&D 5e. If you wish to say anything about the competition which is neither a submission nor a vote, then it belongs here. You do not need to be a contestant to post here. You are allowed to critique a competitor’s work and offer suggestions on how to improve their homebrew through this thread, but it is preferred if you do so through that class’ specific thread (if applicable).

Current Contest: Contest XIV: Monster Mash II

Voting Thread: Coming March 1st

Spoiler: Former Competitions

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1st contest: Who Needs Swords or Sorcery?, won by WarrentheHero with the Inventor

2nd contest: Expect a low Margin of Terror, Won by Mourne with the Sleepwalker

3rd Contest: The Elements, and not the Periodic Ones (Probably?), won By Pygmybatrider with The Shaman

4th contest: Does Not Meet Expectations, won with a tie by Molemage with the Destined and Pygmybatrider's Mesmer

5th contest: Time to Chill out, won by Molemage with the Wintreborn

6th contest: The Monster Mash, won with a three-way tie by Molemage with the Golem, theVoidWatches with the Lycanthrope, and daemonaetae with the Elemental Scion

7th contest: Remix Mastery, won by KOLE with the Ranger Remixed

8th contest: Contest VIII: Magic Without Slots, won by MoleMage with the Cultist

9th contest: It's Time for Time, won by MoleMage with the Clockwinder

10th contest: Blast from the Past, won by PairO'DiceLost with the Martial Adept

11th contest: Contest XI: Signature Creation won by MoleMage with the Chef

12th contest: Contest XII: Hybrid Vigor won by MoleMage with the Witch

13th contest: Based in Science won by Old Harry MTX with the Pilot

Spoiler: Contest Rules

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1) The class you homebrew should fit the theme. You can interpret the theme as broadly as you like without risk of disqualification, but doing so may reduce your chances of earning votes during the voting period.
2) You may only create one base class. If you create more than one class then you must choose which one to enter and remove all the others from this thread and the contest (making them invalid) . If you do not specify which one you favor by the time voting begins, all of your content is invalid.
3) When you submit your class you must create a post on this thread which either has the content or holds a link to it. You may also optionally create one other individual thread for your class on the homebrew design sub-forum. If it is found that you have revealed your class on another site or on another thread than one on the homebrew design sub-forum, your entry will be considered invalid. If you do make a specific thread for you class, please mention its involvement to the competition in that thread. If you use external formatting resources such as Homebrewery, or GMBinder it is recommended that you also create a PDF of the content and share it here.
4) You may use other homebrew content (such as feats, spells, magical items and monsters) or even features to supplement your class, provided you have permission from the original creator and provide links to the source. Failure to receive permission from the original creation will disqualify you from entry in the current contest.
5) Your class must have fully completed mechanics and descriptions for it to be valid. Entries are due by 11:59 PM Central Time on the deadline. Any submissions after this point are invalid. No changes can be made to your class while voting is taking place. Failure to comply with the previous rule will result in disqualification.
6) Any content which has been declared invalid by the rules above cannot be voted for, but you may decide to remove it from the contest and create another class instead. If you are disqualified then you are not allowed to enter any more homebrew for this competition, though you may still vote and later enter the next competition.
7) Please note that misunderstandings occur, if you break a rule which results in disqualification it might be excused if you can convince the group that it was a result of confusion over the rules.

Contests stay up for 8 weeks unless an extension is requested by participants. Voting threads then go up for 3 weeks before the next contest begins.

Spoiler: Suggested Themes

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Dragons
Heroes from Myths
Partial Casters
Divine Judgment
Other Media
Breakfast Cereal Mascots

Also note that themes that have not been used in at least six contests (anything up to Magic Without Slots) are also eligible for voting.

[BerzerkerUnit]

The Beheld
I’m Thinking out loud here:
20 levels
You get an escalating Action and/or Reaction counter/dispel feature and a conical AMF.

You start with 4 eye stalks and a small size, eyestalks are generally cantrips, you get a 9 level casting progression with a curated list from Wizard and Warlock. Pact Magic is probably the norm.

Your fly speed is 20/hover

3 subclasses
Eye Tyrant
Death Tyrant
Lucid Dreamer

[Damon_Tor]

*Reads through the last version of this contest
*Nobody made a dragon

Welp, I guess I have to step up to the plate.

[MoleMage]

*Reads through the last version of this contest
*Nobody made a dragon

Welp, I guess I have to step up to the plate.

Well that narrows down my list of potential candidates.

[BerzerkerUnit]

The Beheld is done.

It's playable, I definitely need to revisit the format and verbiage. It has a Pact magic variant that allows you to scale any of your spells all the way up to 9th by using your higher level choices, so yes, you can disintegrate 4 times in a row, but why would you ever?

Spell list is smaller, known spells is way small because I wanted to stick more towards 10 eyes is 10 spells. A lot of the early level 1 stuff evokes the upper level stuff.

I also added in some druid spells like entangle and plantgrowth and primal savagery to allow you to create more weird beholder types. Like the signature one for my hastily composed art is kind of part ooze. It doesn't have a bite, but Primal Savagery allows for a melee acid attack.

I'm actually pretty happy with the archetypes. I welcome any feedback.

[Damon_Tor]

The Beheld is done.

It's playable, I definitely need to revisit the format and verbiage. It has a Pact magic variant that allows you to scale any of your spells all the way up to 9th by using your higher level choices, so yes, you can disintegrate 4 times in a row, but why would you ever?

Spell list is smaller, known spells is way small because I wanted to stick more towards 10 eyes is 10 spells. A lot of the early level 1 stuff evokes the upper level stuff.

I also added in some druid spells like entangle and plantgrowth and primal savagery to allow you to create more weird beholder types. Like the signature one for my hastily composed art is kind of part ooze. It doesn't have a bite, but Primal Savagery allows for a melee acid attack.

I'm actually pretty happy with the archetypes. I welcome any feedback.

It's very cool overall.

The "spells known" system is a little hard to follow. Each eyestalk "knows" a single spell be it a cantrip or a leveled spell, right? So at level 1 I could know one cantrip and three leveled spells or three cantrips and one leveled spell, yes? I feel like this should be said more clearly. I'm not sure why you avoid typical spellcasting nomenclature. You call them glances and glares instead of cantrips and spells, and dance around calling them "spell slots" as well and I feel like the clarity of the class suffers for it. It doesn't help that "glance" and "glare" are similar looking words and it's easy to read quickly and forget which is which.

The class table could use an "eyestalks" column". The number of features which say something like "and you also get another eyestalk" makes it hard to follow.

The bite is a nice attack, but outside of some weird multiclass builds it seems like it's mostly a ribbon on a spellcasting class without any other use for strength. Ribbons are fine, but it makes the levels you get them feel empty. I would move this to level 1 and put something else in at level 2.

The subclasses are all very cool, well done on those.

[Damon_Tor]

I'll open up the dragon upstart for critique as well.

Right now it's too strong, and I'm aware of that. I'm going to be toning down the extra stat boosts they get as well as their extra HP to being them down to "young dragon" levels which was the balance point I've decided on.

EDIT: Changelog for the Upstart:

Removed Draconic Resilience. Reduced the Dragon Might max stats progression from 22/24/26 to 20/22/24. Removed Wing Attack. Removed the last level of Expanded Breath and pushed back levels 1 and 2. Added "Hoarder" and "Dragon Greed" which should hopefully add some excellent roleplay potential to the class.

[BerzerkerUnit]

It's very cool overall.

The "spells known" system is a little hard to follow. Each eyestalk "knows" a single spell be it a cantrip or a leveled spell, right? So at level 1 I could know one cantrip and three leveled spells or three cantrips and one leveled spell, yes? I feel like this should be said more clearly. I'm not sure why you avoid typical spellcasting nomenclature. You call them glances and glares instead of cantrips and spells, and dance around calling them "spell slots" as well and I feel like the clarity of the class suffers for it. It doesn't help that "glance" and "glare" are similar looking words and it's easy to read quickly and forget which is which.

The class table could use an "eyestalks" column". The number of features which say something like "and you also get another eyestalk" makes it hard to follow.

The bite is a nice attack, but outside of some weird multiclass builds it seems like it's mostly a ribbon on a spellcasting class without any other use for strength. Ribbons are fine, but it makes the levels you get them feel empty. I would move this to level 1 and put something else in at level 2.

The subclasses are all very cool, well done on those.

Thank you very much for the response.

Spells known does need a better explanation. The Intent is 4 cantrips at 1 and 1 more at odd levels to 9 and a bonus from Evolution. I had an early idea about having to assign powers to eyes so they could be targeted etc but 5e doesn’t generally have a system like that so I watered it down to a flavorful “lose an eye, lose a cantrip.”

Level 2 also gets your 2nd Glance slot so I thought the bite wouldn’t be so bad as a ribbon. It looks like I need to revisit the bite language to make it Unarmed Strike damage. Some of the choices I made were intended to steer interesting martial character options. Monk 2 could be interesting, able to flurry a 4d6 bite twice per combat, and if you focus on paralyzing, a 2d6 crit might be a decent option at low level and a 4d6 could definitely be at high.

The two major reasons for avoiding standard spell nomenclature is to prevent Multiclassing shenanigans (reminder: add bit about mage hand being able to activate magic items and use tools), and avoid the “trap” of pact magic format. Pact magic works well for warlocks, but here the more limited spell slots and selection I think would be too limiting, so offering the ability to freely scale like normal spells is important. But most importantly, I didn’t want the modifications to Beheld spells from Evolution to be viable with regular spellcasting.

But yeah, Eye Tyrant 3/Djinnlock X should not have permanent invisible no component Eldritch blasts that are also invisible.

I could just add “your Beheld spells” to the text but that might lose a lot of flavor... I’ll probably go back and change it in descriptions, leave glance/gaze/etc as class features and add a sidebar for fluff.

[Crim the Cold]

I have an idea that honestly is a bit of an adaptation of the idea I had for the based in science contest. Would a more futuristic class be okay for this? It also has a weird subsystem and subclass structure so I don't know how well its going to turn out.

[sengmeng]

I had the idea for the Adversary since the first Monster Mash contest, and have now almost completed it. I need an 18th level subclass feature and to actually write it a spell list (which I could probably copy/paste from someone else's psionic subclass, whatever fits vague weird mind powers), but I suppose it's safe to call it 95% playable right now. It's at least PEACHable 😂

[MoleMage]

I have an idea that honestly is a bit of an adaptation of the idea I had for the based in science contest. Would a more futuristic class be okay for this? It also has a weird subsystem and subclass structure so I don't know how well its going to turn out.

Hey if it's monstery that's good enough for me.

[Damon_Tor]

I had the idea for the Adversary since the first Monster Mash contest, and have now almost completed it. I need an 18th level subclass feature and to actually write it a spell list (which I could probably copy/paste from someone else's psionic subclass, whatever fits vague weird mind powers), but I suppose it's safe to call it 95% playable right now. It's at least PEACHable 😂

It's pretty rad.

I do question the "subclassing" system you've come up with, which is just... forced multiclassing? And how does it work if you choose, say, wizard as your past life... and then take an actual level in wizard? Do you get all the first level features... twice? I can't speak for everyone, but I don't feel like strict adherence to a subclass system is entirely necessary. If it doesn't fit your monster class then come up with other ways to create interesting options. My dragons don't have explicit subclasses either: there are the subspecies of course, and the different talents, and the maturations... all of which allow for different playstyles. None of those on their own would be a "subclass" but taken together I feel like they provide as much unique gameplay as a subclass would.

[Damon_Tor]

A few more additions to the Dragon Upstart: I added Maturations available for the metallic dragons to be able to develop their second "controller" breath weapons at level 6. The Silver Dragons' Paralyzing Breath was pretty seriously nerfed for balance reasons (1 minute of paralysis is nowhere near the effect of the other weapons. I changed it to a 1 round stun instead). The others are mostly as written in the monster's manual. So they aren't left with nothing, the chromatic dragons have access to a Maturation that upgrades the damage dice of their breath weapon to d8s.

Also, I've removed the white dragon's suite of special movement modes from the silver dragon: despite having ice breath and cold resistance, the white dragon isn't actually an "ice dragon" perse but is actually supposed to be a sort of a "cloud dragon". As such I've given them the ability to hover and a permanent feather fall effect instead of an additional movement mode.

[Damon_Tor]

Some further thoughts on the adversary:

At-will, nigh inescapable stun as an automatic rider on an attack is a really potent feature for level 1: if the stun lasts as long as the grapple does, and they cannot take actions or move (because they are stunned) then what's the counterplay here? I would push the stun back a few levels. Mind blast is also very strong, and also probably deserving a later introduction into the class. Either that or make mind blast a damage effect only at first level and add in the stun sometime later.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Some further thoughts on the adversary:

At-will, nigh inescapable stun as an automatic rider on an attack is a really potent feature for level 1: if the stun lasts as long as the grapple does, and they cannot take actions or move (because they are stunned) then what's the counterplay here? I would push the stun back a few levels. Mind blast is also very strong, and also probably deserving a later introduction into the class. Either that or make mind blast a damage effect only at first level and add in the stun sometime later.

I think a better progression for would Mindblast would be either 1/rest unless you spend a Psi die to do it again or Proficiency bonus uses per day
1st- 15 ft cone, damage and no reactions on a fail.
5th- 30 ft cone, damage no reactions and speed 0 on a fail, half damage on a save.
11th, 60ft cone, damage and stun until end of your next turn on a fail, half damage on a save.
17th, 60ft cone, damage and stun for 1 minute, half damage on a save, repeat save at end of turn.

I'd go with 3 subclasses, a rogue lite, diet wizard, and a grappler.

Incap on grapples is kind of a non starter as a general feature, but as a subclass option it's a lot more palatable. Compare to Enchanter's L2 feature, which allows you to incap a target for your action each round. Have it run on a resource like Psi Dice or just Proficiency per day Incapping grapples.

Brain Extraction as is seems to be too good. That's just such a monstrous amount of damage. Maybe look into a Intelligence damage 1/day ala Intellect Devourer?

In general, I love Mindflayers as a concept. In all honesty I kind of loathe the adversary character from the books which felt rather Mary Sue, but as a "disease" that Elderbrains are paranoid about it would be very cool. Like if an Illithid remembers what it's like to feel love, the Illithids around it might also go digging around in the residual memories of their own bodies leading to an erosion of the ordered hierarchy as they become distracted by a desire to personally experience base emotions rather than just eat them. In this light "The Adversary" becomes an enemy within every Illithid rather than some wanker that drank magic tea so he could be a saboteur.

[Damon_Tor]

I think a better progression for would Mindblast would be either 1/rest unless you spend a Psi die to do it again or Proficiency bonus uses per day
1st- 15 ft cone, damage and no reactions on a fail.
5th- 30 ft cone, damage no reactions and speed 0 on a fail, half damage on a save.
11th, 60ft cone, damage and stun until end of your next turn on a fail, half damage on a save.
17th, 60ft cone, damage and stun for 1 minute, half damage on a save, repeat save at end of turn.

I can agree with this.

Brain Extraction as is seems to be too good. That's just such a monstrous amount of damage. Maybe look into a Intelligence damage 1/day ala Intellect Devourer?

I don't think it's as bad as it looks, when you have to set it up the turn before with a successful tentacle attack (which deals about ~23 damage) AND they have to fail their int save vs the stun AND you have to maintain the grapple for a whole round thereafter (their allies would be likely to try to interfere). Think of it as a combo finisher. So the mindflayer's two turns combined deal a total of 105.5 damage under the very specific conditions that everything does according to plan: they have to succeed on three d20 rolls in a row. If any one of those rolls fail, the A rogue attacking with a heavy crossbow and sneak attack at 20th level will deal about 45.5 damage each shot, or 91 damage over two rounds, and all he has to do is meet some very basic requirements of sneak attack. And it's also relevant that the Flayer has to get into melee to do this, with a 1d8 hit die and medium armor proficiency but no shields, and no real skirmishing capability. And it only works on humanoids.

I suspect the number of times this will actually get used successfully in practice would be fairly disappointing.

I do, however, have some concerns about the ability to multiclass (or "past life") a fighter for Action Surge so you could both grapple and bore into brain on the same turn. I would include some wording that would require Brain Extraction to only be available when the Mind Flayer starts its turn grappling the target.

In general, I love Mindflayers as a concept. In all honesty I kind of loathe the adversary character from the books which felt rather Mary Sue, but as a "disease" that Elderbrains are paranoid about it would be very cool. Like if an Illithid remembers what it's like to feel love, the Illithids around it might also go digging around in the residual memories of their own bodies leading to an erosion of the ordered hierarchy as they become distracted by a desire to personally experience base emotions rather than just eat them. In this light "The Adversary" becomes an enemy within every Illithid rather than some wanker that drank magic tea so he could be a saboteur.

I've always loved the idea of a failed/partial ceremorphosis. That was the basis of a Great Old One warlock I played a while ago, and in fourth edition I homebrewed a Paragon Path out of the concept.

[sengmeng]

I can agree with this.



I don't think it's as bad as it looks, when you have to set it up the turn before with a successful tentacle attack (which deals about ~23 damage) AND they have to fail their int save vs the stun AND you have to maintain the grapple for a whole round thereafter (their allies would be likely to try to interfere). Think of it as a combo finisher. So the mindflayer's two turns combined deal a total of 105.5 damage under the very specific conditions that everything does according to plan: they have to succeed on three d20 rolls in a row. If any one of those rolls fail, the A rogue attacking with a heavy crossbow and sneak attack at 20th level will deal about 45.5 damage each shot, or 91 damage over two rounds, and all he has to do is meet some very basic requirements of sneak attack. And it's also relevant that the Flayer has to get into melee to do this, with a 1d8 hit die and medium armor proficiency but no shields, and no real skirmishing capability. And it only works on humanoids.

I suspect the number of times this will actually get used successfully in practice would be fairly disappointing.

I do, however, have some concerns about the ability to multiclass (or "past life") a fighter for Action Surge so you could both grapple and bore into brain on the same turn. I would include some wording that would require Brain Extraction to only be available when the Mind Flayer starts its turn grappling the target.



I've always loved the idea of a failed/partial ceremorphosis. That was the basis of a Great Old One warlock I played a while ago, and in fourth edition I homebrewed a Paragon Path out of the concept.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've got a lot to think about. I am more or less comfortable with this class letting you utterly demolish a single target you've managed to corner alone in 2-3 turns without even expending a spell slot or losing a hitpont; when you extract a brain as a mind flayer, you aren't a character winning a duel, you are a predator feeding on their prey. The better comparison would be the unfairness involved in a wolf chomping a rabbit. Statistically, the damages of the attacks, the range of the telepathy and darkvision, and the magic resistance all catch up to the monster manual mind flayer at level 15, while your hitpoints, psionics, and probably ability scores will be a bit higher, compared to the mind flayer in the book being a 13d8+13 for hp and a CR 7. Yes the Adversary is powerful, but by existing you're picking a fight with a steady stream of one of the most powerful monsters out there and alienating most allies. I will consider moving back mind blast, but he does need to be able to grapple and extract a brain at level one, or he'll starve 😂. But maybe I picked the wrong level to have it all come on line? And another problem, for my sensibilities at least, is plausibility: if the Adversary can't pass as a normal mind flayer, he would get found out. Does anyone think maybe he should cap at the level 15 amounts of damage and scale from even lower starting numbers, and reach them at level 20? Also like the idea of lowering the range, duration, and uses of the mind blast when he first gets it as well.

Oh and I literally am playing a great old one warlock in a campaign right now that is the opposite of the Adversary: a physically normal drow who failed to transform so he has the mind of an illithid and is loyal to the elder brain. It's an (eldritch) blast!

[BerzerkerUnit]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've got a lot to think about. I am more or less comfortable with this class letting you utterly demolish a single target you've managed to corner alone in 2-3 turns without even expending a spell slot or losing a hitpont; when you extract a brain as a mind flayer, you aren't a character winning a duel, you are a predator feeding on their prey. The better comparison would be the unfairness involved in a wolf chomping a rabbit. Statistically, the damages of the attacks, the range of the telepathy and darkvision, and the magic resistance all catch up to the monster manual mind flayer at level 15, while your hitpoints, psionics, and probably ability scores will be a bit higher, compared to the mind flayer in the book being a 13d8+13 for hp and a CR 7. Yes the Adversary is powerful, but by existing you're picking a fight with a steady stream of one of the most powerful monsters out there and alienating most allies. I will consider moving back mind blast, but he does need to be able to grapple and extract a brain at level one, or he'll starve 😂. But maybe I picked the wrong level to have it all come on line? And another problem, for my sensibilities at least, is plausibility: if the Adversary can't pass as a normal mind flayer, he would get found out. Does anyone think maybe he should cap at the level 15 amounts of damage and scale from even lower starting numbers, and reach them at level 20? Also like the idea of lowering the range, duration, and uses of the mind blast when he first gets it as well.

Oh and I literally am playing a great old one warlock in a campaign right now that is the opposite of the Adversary: a physically normal drow who failed to transform so he has the mind of an illithid and is loyal to the elder brain. It's an (eldritch) blast!

The Invocation feat from Tasha's makes a lot of these monsters a lot more viable since you can just Mask of Many Faces yourself through 90% of roleplay.

For the Illithid specifically they can disguise as a human. A Dragon might want to roll around as a dog or horse to not draw attention. Beholder... I don't know floating octopus familiar?

[Damon_Tor]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've got a lot to think about. I am more or less comfortable with this class letting you utterly demolish a single target you've managed to corner alone in 2-3 turns without even expending a spell slot or losing a hitpont; when you extract a brain as a mind flayer, you aren't a character winning a duel, you are a predator feeding on their prey. The better comparison would be the unfairness involved in a wolf chomping a rabbit. Statistically, the damages of the attacks, the range of the telepathy and darkvision, and the magic resistance all catch up to the monster manual mind flayer at level 15, while your hitpoints, psionics, and probably ability scores will be a bit higher, compared to the mind flayer in the book being a 13d8+13 for hp and a CR 7. Yes the Adversary is powerful, but by existing you're picking a fight with a steady stream of one of the most powerful monsters out there and alienating most allies. I will consider moving back mind blast, but he does need to be able to grapple and extract a brain at level one, or he'll starve 😂. But maybe I picked the wrong level to have it all come on line? And another problem, for my sensibilities at least, is plausibility: if the Adversary can't pass as a normal mind flayer, he would get found out. Does anyone think maybe he should cap at the level 15 amounts of damage and scale from even lower starting numbers, and reach them at level 20? Also like the idea of lowering the range, duration, and uses of the mind blast when he first gets it as well.

Grappling at level 1 is fine, the major problem is the stun that comes with it being too strong. And the mindflayer in the MM isn't a "level 1" mindflayer fresh from his transformation, that's a guy that's been at it a while. Maybe it takes all mindflayers a few weeks to get the stun part of the grapple right. Until they do they have to make their enemies incapacitated the old fashioned way, by getting their HP to zero.[/QUOTE]

[BerzerkerUnit]

Inspired by the Adversary's past life type feature, I added a Rebel evolution to the Beheld for PCs that want to spend their career trying to reverse their transformation. Some interesting spell choices I think but a push toward Gish in the late game.

Might flip the 14 and 10 features since they kind of break the pattern. If so 10 feature might be some sort of warp wave ala 40k Navigators to keep the pattern.

[Morphic tide]

Suppose I'll be hammering away at Bony Boys for a while, as they seem the nearest fit for a design shenanigan I'm looking to pull off. Going to start with the front half including one subclass for the moment to get something demonstrative on the floor without hammering away for two days straight trying to splatbook dive down to the TSR days looking for a solid Rogue or Druid analogue. Trying to keep the mechanics relatively simple as per the norms of 5e no matter how much it itches to go for full-bore on warping of the action economy or doom of a bajillion minions, and have basically zero grip of 5e benchmarks beyond blunt imitation so I'll be buggering something fiercely without a doubt. Probably in managing to simultaneously bork the personal capabilities and end up with too much boosting of minions.

In case it isn't readily apparent from the so-far written stuff, the design shenanigan in question is a matter of resting the 5th-level power spike on the subclass, and trying for an open-ended construction that permits far more multiclassing friendliness than normal, such as how the example so far on Spell Stitched is handing you a 3rd-level spell in a fashion that lets you immediately bail for Wizard and keep getting at least one spell per spell level "on schedule", as it were. And yes, this being split Intelligence/Wisdom is intentional, as most existing group buffs are under Charisma, so if you want to use those, you need to either go four-attribute dependent or become a back liner, definitely going to repeat this for the others in some capacity to basically browbeat people into MADness at some point in their life. Granted, two 15s and a 13 isn't actually much a stretch for point-buy...

[Damon_Tor]

I upgraded the Draconic Talents into proper subclasses.

• I got rid of Breath Weapon Savant, though the ability itself survives in spirit as the Natural Spellcaster's Explosive Cantrips ability.
• I added "Dragon Cult" which explores the dragon's uncanny ability to accumulate mortals willing to die for it.
• Notably, all three of the subclasses are keyed off of Charisma now, which leaves the class MAD by design. A dragon that neglects Str, Con, or Cha will feel it.
• Also by design, all three subclasses give the dragon some way to interact with humanoids. Naturally the Shapeshifter is the best at this: that's his whole thing, and his subclass has next to zero utility in combat compared to the others. But the Natural Spellcaster can use Disguise Self/Alter Self to look like a large dog or a horse and get by in a human city (and those spells last for 8 hours each on him when he gets to level 6). The godhead of a Dragon Cult can simply send his servants as messengers on his behalf.
• I got rid of the 4-6 recharge on the breath weapon at high levels: it was a needless addition that isn't reflected in dragons of any age category in official sources, which all recharge their breath on a roll of 5-6. However, I also increased the damage progression on the breath weapons slightly to compensate.

[Morphic tide]

Hmm... Thinking of switching Relentless Bones to level 11 and make it a bigger durability boost than the Necromancer Wizard gets, while level 7's attachment to the bump in minion count gets swapped to healing and saving throws. Overall thinking is trying to have bog-standard Skeletons be sensible at higher levels, then the beefier Undead you can get from other sources get much nastier. A lot of this is running on the possibly-wrong assumption that different sources of controlled creatures require separate Bonus Actions to control, so you can only control one source of minions per turn via Bonus Action. Even if it isn't, Fractured Orders still opens up having your minions do three things each turn, with one portion following you, then being able to divide your Bonus Action into two "control groups".

For now, I've shuffled some wording to hopefully be clearer and more direct about how it's expected to work, and am still waiting for comments on it.

[Damon_Tor]

For now, I've shuffled some wording to hopefully be clearer and more direct about how it's expected to work, and am still waiting for comments on it.

I like minion stuff more than most people, so I like what you're doing here mechanically. I'm not sure I understand what the fluff is, but that can come later.

There's got to be a better way to recover your minions than as a long rest with humanoid corpses. It's the entire basis of your class, and skeletons are fragile, so the idea that when all your boney bros are dust you've got nothing the rest of the day is pretty rough. IMO, maybe make it so you can make janky skelebros during a short rest by spending hit dice to heal them, like you're breaking off pieces of yourself to patch up your homies.

It's weird that "giving two different groups of minions different orders" is a level 10 feature rather than just something you can be expected to do. A class that's all about about controlling minions should probably just be good at controlling minions.

[Morphic tide]

I like minion stuff more than most people, so I like what you're doing here mechanically. I'm not sure I understand what the fluff is, but that can come later.

There's got to be a better way to recover your minions than as a long rest with humanoid corpses. It's the entire basis of your class, and skeletons are fragile, so the idea that when all your boney bros are dust you've got nothing the rest of the day is pretty rough. IMO, maybe make it so you can make janky skelebros during a short rest by spending hit dice to heal them, like you're breaking off pieces of yourself to patch up your homies.

It's weird that "giving two different groups of minions different orders" is a level 10 feature rather than just something you can be expected to do. A class that's all about about controlling minions should probably just be good at controlling minions.

Actually, it's giving three groups orders, since the 6th-level Follower's Orders lets you have them copy your actions, and then Fractured Orders boosts those follow-along minions further, so your action is what's mostly getting things done, you just happen to have some backup providing much of the weight. And, of course, you only actually have more than one minion to command at 7th with Relentless Bones, so you're not suffering through much non-granularity of commands.

The hit-dice "splitting" sounds like a nice way to limit it, and works in as a healing mechanic somewhat in its own right to not need a discrete feature for covering that, and gives a sensible direction for scaling durability baked right into the creation, so I'll go ahead and throw that in. Still corpse-limited and one animation per rest, but the quickly-superior health totals and healing option should cut into the issues, alongside specifically allowing the recouping of broken Undead.

As for the fluff, the idea is trying to largely generalize the "Undead Lieutenant" role that you see in a ton of the Undead. Deathlocks, Skull Lords, Wights and Ghasts at low levels, Shadows in some cases, Liches literally any time they aren't the big bad, Death Knights, Hueveca if I'm getting the spelling right, many uses of the 3.5 Spellstitched template, and on and on it goes because of just how pervasive "massive hordes of Skeletons and Zombies" is as a campaign theme. Not sure how to word that sort of thing without resorting to just blatant callouts of the genre conventions.

[Damon_Tor]

Actually, it's giving three groups orders, since the 6th-level Follower's Orders lets you have them copy your actions

The wording isn't clear on that then: I was under the impression that you had to use a bonus action to say "Do what I do" and then they do it.

[Requilac]

Hello everyone! I am willing to bet most of you probably don't remember me, but I am the person that started this contest all those years ago. It has been a while since I logged on, and I am just curious to see what direction this project has taken while I have been gone. Have there been any especially unique or interesting submissions in the past few competitions?

[MoleMage]

Hello everyone! I am willing to bet most of you probably don't remember me, but I am the person that started this contest all those years ago. It has been a while since I logged on, and I am just curious to see what direction this project has taken while I have been gone. Have there been any especially unique or interesting submissions in the past few competitions?

Good to see you again!

I think It's Time for Time had our most interesting entries overall. I especially liked the Conductor in that one. Blast from the Past also had some cool adaptations of old systems, especially the Martial Adept, and I was quite pleased with my own Totemist in that one.

And just last contest, our Based in Science theme ended up looking a whole lot like the original Who Needs Swords or Sorcery, with almost everyone having indirect attacks in some form or another.

[Requilac]

Good to see you again!

I think It's Time for Time had our most interesting entries overall. I especially liked the Conductor in that one. Blast from the Past also had some cool adaptations of old systems, especially the Martial Adept, and I was quite pleased with my own Totemist in that one.

And just last contest, our Based in Science theme ended up looking a whole lot like the original Who Needs Swords or Sorcery, with almost everyone having indirect attacks in some form or another.

I just looked through the entires in It's Time for Time, and there certainly are some interesting mechanics being used. And I will have to agree with you that that Conductor class is something real unique. That may be my favourite class in this entire competition! I never played older editions from Blast from the Past so I can't fully appreciate the content there, but the classes there do seem streamlined and well fleshed out if nothing else.

I guess it only makes sense that Based in Scene and Who Needs Swords or Sorcery would be similar. The whole idea of that latter competition was that the class would neither be based on weapon attacks or magic, which would lead people to think of more technological ways for classes to keep pace with the casters.

Thank you for keeping up this little project! I am happy to see that such good content has come from it.

[Damon_Tor]

A few more tweaks to the Dragon Upstart, mostly to the subclasses.

The Shapeshifter can now function somewhat more competently in combat without having to take his dragon form and blow his cover, due to having extra attack at 6th level. If you wanted to play as a dragon that stayed in human form nearly exclusively, you could do that. You wouldn't have the damage output of other martial characters, but the dragon's special senses and saving throw proficiency maturations would serve you very well.

The Dragon Cult had the most major changes:

• Their number of commoner followers changes from (prof mod + cha mod) to (1/2 class level + cha mod). It's a good amount of minions, but their 2d4 day respawn time and weakness discourages their casual use in combat, so I don't really consider this a major combat boost, it's more of a labor pool most of the time.
• The 1/8 CR followers they get at 6th level no longer just seek them out like the commoners do: the dragon will have to actively convert them, or have their other followers convert them, which can take 3-6 days. One thing this means: this is potentially a way you can deal with NPCs who are gatekeeping information or access to resources: send your cult to convert him... or if they refuse to listen, have your cult kidnap the troublesome NPC, chain him up with you for a bit, and give him a few days to realize that you are his new God. This won't work on every PC, as the attempt is contested by either intelligence (religion) or wisdom (insight) and if you get three failures before three successes, the NPC can't be converted.
• The CR 1/2 followers they get are no longer in addition to your others, but rather the maximum CR of your converts rises to 1/2 CR. This means that instead of having (ChaMod*CR 1/8)+(1/2ChaMod*CR 1/2) you have (ChaMod*CR 1/2) which is an increase in power while decreasing the actual number of (useful) minions on the field.