D&D Subclass Contest XXIX Voting Thread (Open to All)

[MoleMage]

Contest 29 is done, with a staggering 13 entries this time!

Simple rules. Vote for your top three picks in order. You can't vote for yourself. A number 1 vote is worth 3 points, a number 2 vote is worth 2, and a number 3 vote is worth one. Participation is not necessary to vote! Just give the entries a read and cast your vote for your favorite!

Entry	Creator	1st	2nd	3rd
Ranger: Beastmaster	Oerlaf	0	0	0
Monk: Way of the Elements	Snowben Gaming	0	0	1
Barbarian: Path of the Berserker	MoleMage	1	0	0
Fighter: Champion	tzurk	1	1	1
Multiple: Soulknife	sengmeng	3	0	0
Artificer: Alchemist	nickl_2000	1	3	0
Fighter: Eldritch Knight	Old Harry MTX	0	0	0
Rogue: Assassin	Twelvetrees	2	1	1
Monk: Way of the Sun Soul	Amechra	0	1	0
Sorcerer: Wild Magic	ShiningStarling	0	1	2
Monk: Way of the Sun Soul	BerzerkerUnit	0	1	1
Wizard: School of Onomancy	Arkanist	0	0	0
Fighter: Banneret (Purple Dragon Knight)	Ilerien	0	0	2

Classes unrepresented in Context XXV: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Warlock. This is also the first contest in some time to include at least one class in the "Other/Multiple" category.

Themes

It's Technical carries over from last time as our previous runner up, along with four randomly rolled themes from the current valid pool. Remember you can vote for two themes; your top pick earns 2 points and your second pick earns 1. As with entries, themes don't require participation to vote. Want to see one in particular? Bring it in!

Theme	Description	1st	2nd
It's Technical	Technologically-minded subclasses	1	0
I Read this in a Book, Once	Subclasses based on other media	3	2
Scaling Strangely	Subclasses that scale from unusual values	1	0
It is Written	Destiny or prophecy	0	1
My Way is Different	Alternate or rare mechanics	2	2
Write-in: Classes mimicking other classes	(This is in the concept pool as Something Borrowed)	0	1

This voting thread will stay open until the end of the day on May 22nd. The following day I will post with the tallied results and declare a winner, then post the next contest thread. Good luck everyone!

[Damon_Tor]

1. Soulknife by Sengmeng- Unique AF and I can forgive a lot of fiddly details and balance concerns due to how interested I am in the mechanics of this thing.
2. Way of the Sunsoul by BerzerkerUnit- The Goku fantasy this subclass should have always been is realized.
3. Assassin by Twelvetrees- A tie is broken by the promise that I could be two gnomes in a trenchcoat. Well played Twelvetrees.

Next: I read it in a book once

[ShiningStarling]

3rd - Banneret by Ilerien
----I like leadership-style fighters, and I think you did it well.

2nd - Way of the Sun Soul by Amechra
----It was a tough call between the two Sun Souls, but this one won out for clarity in the end, not to mention it was just also very nice. Liked the range change, the modular nature, the magic deflection, just quite nice.

1st - Soulknife by Sengmeng
----Sengmeng, your work has polished since i was last on the forum several years ago. Love what you did with the Soulknife, I never really cared for the class back in 3.5, it was so bleh. But now, you've got it for multiple classes, and even encourage it across multiclass!? I can think of no higher mark for a homebrew than that the entire time I was reading it I was envisioning the many characters I could play with it. Well done.


As for topics, well, no clue if I'll be sticking around for it, but I'll throw my 2 cents in.


1st - I Read this in a Book, Once... bit of a cheat to use a D&D inspired book, but I would love to go to town on making a Cleric of Eilistraee from the Drizzt books
2nd - My Way is Different... We got all these Alchemists... where's the Amestran style alchemy? Equivalent exchange Transmutation Wizards babeyyyyyy. (Also applicable for the other category, but what the hey that's why this is my second pick.)

[Twelvetrees]

Subclass

1. tzurk's Champion Fighter
2. nickl_2000's Alchemist Artificer
3. Ilerien's Banneret Fighter

Theme

1. Scaling Strangely
2. My Way is Different

[tzurk]

What a lively contest! Loved reading through so many entries for this one - wish I'd found time to give everybody feedback.

1. nickl_2000's Alchemist - takes a subclass that feels lackluster in both power and flavour and dials it all the way up to where it should be. Fun, interactive and thematic.
2. Twelvetrees' Assassin - simple, elegant fix to the hoop-jumping needed to make the vanilla assassin work, with some new fun mechanics as well. Especially love that it encourages teamwork within the party where the OG assassin really pushed you towards playing a lone wolf scout ahead type character.
3. ShiningStarling's Wild Magic Sorcerer - the first few features fix the major frustration with this subclass (DM fiat) while maintaining the feel of the original. The last two features work nicely together to add something new/an element of control. Would have loved to see an expanded spell list just to keep pace with the newer sorc subclasses, even though the OG wild sorc didn't have one.

For the next one -

1. My Way Is Different
2. Not sure the best way to word this - veneer? moonlighting? class cosplaying? - you know how a lot of campaigns have a "paladin" who is secretly a warlock or a "wizard" who is a fighter with magic initiate, or how a scout rogue is in many ways rangery than a ranger. Ways to crosspollinate the feel/mechanics of separate classes via subclass features.

[nickl_2000]

1. Molemage's Barbarian Path of the Berserker Revised - The subclass that should have been the epitome of the barbarian, the most barbariany barbarian. You've re-written it to be good, enjoyable and doing what it is supposed to.
2. ShiningStarling's Wild Sorcerer - Make the Wild Sorcerer so much more playable, it takes it from a passive class super dependant on the DM for it to be fun into something that I would enjoy playing or seeing at my table.
3. BerserkerUnit's Way of the Sun Soul - I've always been a sucker for monk subclasses, and I just like the way this one is done.

[Old Harry MTX]

Hi guys! Here's my preferences!

1. Soulknife by Sengmeng
2. Alchemist Artificer by nickl_2000
3. Wild Magic Sorcerer by ShiningStarling

And here those for the next contest:

1. It's Technical
2. I Read this in a Book, Once

I also want to suggest a couple of possible themes for the next editions (for both subclasses and full classes), maybe you may like them!

1. I need a spreadsheet fo'that thing! - A class or a subclass with such complex or nested mechanics that it needs a spreadsheet (paginated like a character sheet) in order to be used easily. Unleash percentages with decimals, handfuls of virtual tokens, RNGs and non-linear relations!
2. I'm not a gestalt, but... - A class or a subclass with such a level of power that, alone, would look good in a gestalt campaign.

[Ilerien]

Subclasses:

1. Assassin by Twelvetrees
2. Alchemist by nickl_2000
3. Champion by tzurk

Themes:

1. I Read this in a Book, Once
2. It is Written

[MoleMage]

Classes real quick before I start tallying things.

1) Assassin Rogue. It's elegant, that's all I have to say.
2) Champion Fighter. It might be a little strong as it is but giving fighters a viable "default" subclass is worth a little too much.
3) Way of the Elements Monk. I was really sad to see how clobbered the base version is. This one is nicer.

Theme

1) My Way is Different
2) I Read This in a Book

[MoleMage]

Alright voting tally comes out as follows!

In 3rd place it is sengmeng with the Soulknife multi-subclass! Get the most of your multiclassing while also capturing the essence of PSYCHIC BLADES.

In 2nd place we have nickl_2000's Alchemist Artificer! Because seriously, who wrote the original alchemist?

In 1st place it is TwelveTrees's Assassin Rogue! Now you're a team player! Also, your mechanics are unambiguous and clear.


We did have a tie for 1st place, which was decided by the second tie-breaker (most 1st-place votes). I think we had a good contest all around, everyone!

And on the theme side of things, our winner was I Read This in a Book, Once, becoming our first three-time theme! My Way is Different came in a close second and will automatically be in next month's voting pool.

And our new thread is up! See it here! https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...0#post25468080

[sengmeng]

Not to be THAT guy, but I think you tallied shining starlings vote backwards.

[MoleMage]

Not to be THAT guy, but I think you tallied shining starlings vote backwards.

So I did. Give me just a second.

Alright voting tally comes out as follows!

In 3rd place it is sengmeng with the Soulknife multi-subclass! Get the most of your multiclassing while also capturing the essence of PSYCHIC BLADES.

In 2nd place we have nickl_2000's Alchemist Artificer! Because seriously, who wrote the original alchemist?

In 1st place it is TwelveTrees's Assassin Rogue! Now you're a team player! Also, your mechanics are unambiguous and clear.


We did have a tie for 1st place, which was decided by the second tie-breaker (most 1st-place votes). I think we had a good contest all around, everyone!

And on the theme side of things, our winner was I Read This in a Book, Once, becoming our first three-time theme! My Way is Different came in a close second and will automatically be in next month's voting pool.

And our new thread is up! See it here! https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...0#post25468080

Okay I made a mistake in the tallying everyone, so it looks like we had a three-way-tie for first instead of a regular one.

Our actual first place winner is sengmeng, with the Soulknife! TwelveTree's Assassin takes second, and nickl_2000's Alchemist takes third.

This is actually slightly cooler (for me personally) because this is the first time an entry in the "Homebrew/Other" category has won one of these!