I would like everyone's opinion on a new custom class that I have been working on for months for one of my players who wanted to do a pseudo Pokemon trainer feel in 5e D&D. This list is quite long and, as such, will be a bit of a slog, but I wanted to be a thorough as possible in order to truly capture the feel of being the very best like no one ever was. Any comments are appreciated as well as feedback and ways for improving. Link to the Newest Version https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/druid/11005-custom-druid-subclass-updated-circle-of-the-tamer
Circle of the Tamer
Improved Wild Shape: Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Wild Shape to transform into a beast with a Challenge Rating as high as 1 (you ignore the Max. CR column of the Beast Shapes table, but must abide by the other limitations there). Starting at 6th level, you can transform into a beast with a Challenge Rating as high as your druid level divided by 3, rounded down (For example, if you are a 9th level druid, you can Beast Shape into a beast with a CR rating of 3 or lower) Nature Bond: Starting at 2nd level, you gain proficiency with the Animal Handling skill, if you do not already have it. Additionally, your unique tie with nature allows you to alter how your Wild Shape works. You can use your Wild Shape feature to summon a creature to your aid instead of transforming into one as an action. The summoned creature is considered a physical creature, is friendly to you and your companions, will not attack anyone you do not designate unless otherwise provoked, although it must obey your commands. The summoned creature goes immediately after you in the initiative order and is considered a separate entity from you. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them (no action required by you), but if you don't issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions. The summoned creature stays around for 1 hour or until you dismiss it as a bonus action, you fall unconscious, or the creature drops to 0 Hit Points. You can only have one summoned creature at a time and you cannot use your Wild Shape feature on yourself while the creature is present, nor can you summon a creature if you are in your Wild Shape form already.
Unparalleled Tamer: At 2nd level, you gain the ability to study and further expand your repertoire of Wild Shape forms to truly be a tamer of all types of creatures. When you are exploring the world and gaining extra beast shapes (I am using the Unearthed Arcana rules for Wild Shape for clarification) you can learn about and potentially gain the following creature types to be summoned with your Nature Bond feature: Monstrosities, Oozes, Plants, and Beasts. The captured creatures must abide by any relevant rules of your Wild Shape feature, cannot have an Intelligence score higher than 6, or be a Huge or larger creature. You cannot use your Wild Shape feature to transform into these creatures, other than Beasts, but you can summon the new types of creatures through your Nature Bond feature. When you gain a new level in druid, you can pick one of the types of creatures listed above as an option instead of just a Beast as usual. You still cannot transform into the chosen creature yourself, however, you can summon them through your Nature Bond feature.
Nurtured Fury: At 6th level, you gain one additional use of your Wild Shape feature. Additionally, any creature summoned by your Nature Bond feature gains the following benefits:
Its Hit Point maximum increases by 2 times your druid level (For example, if you are a 6th level Druid, a summoned creatures maximum Hit Points increase by 12)
The damage from their natural weapons are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to non-magical attacks and damage
Animal Whisperer: At 10th level, your repertoire of collected creatures are linked to you on an almost supernatural level and can potentially learn new abilities from you. You can spend at least one hour, which can be done during the course of a short rest, giving one of your creatures from your Nature Bond feature the ability to cast one of your known spells as an innate ability that they can do from then on. At the end of the hour, choose a druid spell that you currently have prepared, that is no higher than 5th level, and one creature that you can summon with your Nature Bond feature. You then expend one spell slot no higher than 5th level that the chosen spell can be cast at and make an Animal Handling check (DC = 12 + the spell slot level). If you fail the check, you must finish a long rest before you can attempt to give the chosen creature an innate ability again. If you succeed, the creature gains the spell as an innate ability that it can use as an action on its turn without expending a spell slot or components. Once an innate ability from this feature is used, the creature cannot use that ability again until it takes a short or long rest or 'recharges' the ability at the start of its turn. At the start of each of the creature's turns, you can roll a d6. On a 5 or 6, the creature recharges and can use the ability on its turn as normal. On a 1-4, the creature cannot use the ability that turn and must wait to attempt it again. Creatures can only have two spell attached to them at a time and you can switch the abilities out by doing the process over, except failing the check does not get rid of the previous spell, nor does it add the spell to the creature. Specialized Trainer: Starting at 10th level, choose one of the following options. You cannot change this choice. Whenever you summon a creature with your Nature Bond feature, they gain the chosen benefit:
Damaging Elementalist: Choose one of the following damage types when you choose this feature: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or psychic. When you first summon a creature, you can choose to let them embody the chosen damage type. They gain resistance to the damage type and all of their melee attacks deal additional damage of the chosen type equal to double your proficiency bonus. Additionally, each type has a weakness, which your creatures gain a vulnerability to when they embody the element:
Acid creatures gain vulnerability to thunder damage
Cold creatures gain vulnerability to fire damage
Fire creatures gain vulnerability to force damage
Lightning creatures gain vulnerability to bludgeoning damage
Poison creatures gain vulnerability to radiant damage
Psychic creatures gain vulnerability to necrotic damage
Heavyweight Defense: Your creatures gain a bonus to their AC and saving throws equal to your Wisdom modifier
Shielding Fortitude: Whenever one of your creatures are first summoned, they gain temporary Hit Points equal to your druid level + double your Wisdom modifier
Almanac of Creatures: At 14th level, you gain an additional use of your Wild Shape feature. Additionally, your Unparalleled Tamer feature gains a relative boost in power as you now know how to better understand and trap creatures of various types and forms. Although captured creatures must still abide by any relevant rules of your Wild Shape feature, they can have an Intelligence score up to 10 or lower and can be a Huge or smaller creatures. You can also capture the following types of creatures: Elementals, Constructs, and Undead. Your summoned creatures can be affected by your druid spells, regardless of the description of the spell stating otherwise.
First off, I do like the flavor of the class and I think it is a really nice concept. However, I do have some serious concerns that it seems very overpowered and if that is what you're after then that's cool. I'll get to why I think it is op a bit later, first ill touch on some things that I think you need to look at first.
In Nature Bond, nowhere do you stipulate that the creature that you summoned has to abide by the same CR that is in the improved Wild Shape feature. You have also stipulated no real way of communication between creature and character as most creatures will not speak the same languages if any
I would look at making the 2nd paragraph of Unparalleled Tamer a bit clearer as I'm not entirely sure what it is getting at. As far as I can understand you can pick one of the 4 types and only summon that type of creature when you use the Nature Bond ability. Just a bit confusing as in the paragraph above it feels like you are able to summon any of the creatures that you see that are those types.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between Nature Bond where you stipulate that the beast can only stay around for an hour and the Animal Whisperer Ability where you talk about the spell being able to recharge over a short or long rest which doesn't really seem to make sense. So some clarification on that part would be very helpful
Also not sure how the Animal Whisperer works exactly do you have to do the process over and over for every single creature that you can summon or does the same spells apply to every creature? and does this go away when the creature vanishes or is it always around whenever you summon the same creature?
As for a bit of the Flavor, just so I understand are you summoning these creatures like a summoning spell or are you calling them from nature, I assume the former as if its the latter there could be lots of situations where there are none of these creatures around
With Damaging Elementalist does that allow you to pick a different damage time everytime you summon a creature or do you pick one when you choose the feature and then that is it?
Okay, on to why I think this subclass is very overpowered, please take this or leave this as you like because overpowered might be what you are going for. Just for backstory, I am currently playing a level 16 Moon Druid in my current campaign that I have been playing for the last 3 years so I have a pretty good understanding and feeling for the class. As I go through each ability i will be drawing comparisons from the other Druid subclasses (mostly the Moon, MD) as well as the Revised Ranger Beast Master (RR BM) (it can be found here if you haven't seen it before) as these are both quite similar to the subclass you have created. I'm also not really going to offer any suggestions on how to make it less op in this comment as I am not sure of the build you are going for exactly. However feel free to let me know what you thought of my comments and I'd be happy to offer suggestions where you would like them.
First, off the Improved Wild Shape, I assume you have pulled from the MD and taken away a few of the parts like bonus action transform and using spell points for recovery. This is totally fine especially compared to the other 2nd level features.
Nature Bond: Animal Handling is a nice skill but not a very used skill so no issues with it being offered here. I do like the flavor of summoning the creatures like a Pokemon trainer. However here we being to see my issues with this, in general, is that you are able to do exactly what the moon druid is able to do but 1) have absolutely no risk of damage spilling over to the character its self when the creature is reduced to 0 hit points 2) You still have the ability to use your full action to cast spells and do whatever else a Land druid might be doing while an MD goes all Beasy so you are getting the absolute best of both worlds.
To put this into even more perspective the BM gets an animal companion just like this subclass but 1) they lose the features like Extra Attack they would get from other subclasses 2) the highest CR creature they get access to is 1/2 being either a Black Bear or an Ape. This feature is giving them access to level 1 creatures from the get-go with it increasing from there. 3) The BM takes 8 hours and 25gp to recover the creature if it dies where with this subclass you can summon a new one instantly. This allows you to be more reckless with the creature and just be a damage soak for the party. With no downside at all and this increases to 3 a short rest at level 6 and 4 every short rest at level
Then at second level you get yet another feature Unparalleled Tamer (which I understand you need for the flavor that you are going for) at this point you have already go access to the same features as the MD but now you get yet another one. Now there is a reason it is Beasts and not any other because yes they would be the same CR but you start getting access to things like Rust Monsters (CR 1/2), yes they are not too hard to kill but give you access to effects that can really benefit when fighting with a party. Then at higher levels, you get effects like the Basilisk's Petrifying Gaze or more utility abilities like the Minotaur's Labyrinthine Recall and access to sense's you shouldn't get access to at 6th level such as the Purple Wormling's Blindsight and Tremorsense (this does become less of an issue if they have no way of communicating the information back to you). And yes this can slightly be addressed as they have to have seen the creature but that still means they have the chance to, like what if the druid just goes to the zoo. It might not be as easy as that but you get my point.
Nurtured Fury: again the second point is the same as what moon druids get which is fine and something needed as you go up the levels but the first, 2 * level hit points not seem like a lot but it will bump up most low-level monsters by almost a whole CR especially some of them and it is the same ability as taking the entire tough which is normally the only thing a character will get for a level, so again getting exactly what the MD gets but even more. But again this isn't too bad. The getting the Additional use of the Wild Shape though is massive that is 3 creatures every short rest ill get to this later why this is very op.
Animal Whisperer: I do like some of the flavors here and the way that you have introduced negative impacts. Some of those I feel are not fully clear so that could change this response but I'm going to run with what I understand it as (See my questions above about this, I am going with the assumption that you have to do it for each creature and they can have different spells). To me this ability is the most op of the subclass, and here is why. Let's compare this feature to what the wizard gets at 20th level,
"Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don’t count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot. When you do so, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest."
For the Wizards best feature ever they get 2 3rd level spells that they can cast once for free, here when you have given a creature spells that they can cast (not even using the Druids action) every 3rd round on average that is of 5th level or below. This is an insanely good feature, like insane!! You could set up your creatures to all have different spells and then summon them when you need a certian spell for that time (yes you have a limited summons but each creature gets 2 spells and there are some insane 5th level spells)Let me give you a few examples of how insane this actually is Mass Cure Wounds every 3rd round thats on average 17hp to everyone in the party every 3 rounds while using up no spell slots at all, that means no one would ever really die, because it mostly takes more that 3 turns for your death saving throws to come back and in that time you are able to cast it again. Hit Dice would be a thing of the past as your creature just spends every action rerolling the d6 out of combat and in 2 minutes at most everyone is back to full health all without using a single spell slot.
Or Imagen the ability to Cast Greater Restoration Every 3rd turn it would completely negate the ability of some monsters that you can just remove their effects without using a spell slot. Or even any of the conjuration spells like Conjure Elemental yes it takes a minute to cast, but your smaller summoned beast just summoned a CR 5 Elemental that gives you even more companions. Again to put this in perspective the MD gets the ability to turn into one of those elementals at level 10 But now you can have a separate creature that can summon one of those creatures for free all while you are able to be a full caster at the back doing what full casters do.
On top of that very op ability, you are giving the summoned creature buffs. I do like some of these buffs they are a bit of fun and are still powerful, but when received at the same level and an already extremely op feature it is a hell of a lot (happy to go further into these abilities but ill move on for now)
Almanac of Creatures again the additional use of Wild shape is really quite powerful. As stated above the 10th level MD can turn into a CR5 elemental once per short rest but with this ability the character at 15th level can summon 6 earth elementals every short rest, if they have taken Shielding Fortitude (assuming 20 Wis by this point) that is 126 + 30 + 25Temp with is 181 total HP which means that you could have up to 724 hitpoints your enemys have to soak up, that is more HP than most other parties have at that point in total, not to mention the addition of the healing spells on top of that.
You are also giving them additional access to some amazing creatures such as the Beholder Zombie with its eye rays and the Catoblepas with its death ray, and they can summon 4 every short rest. In comparison, the MD gets access to creatures with a few more HP and that can hit a little harder, (they can be found on this list)
Sorry for the really long feedback, take from it what you will but I hope you understand why I have said what I have said. However, if you were going for op then that is fine and stick with it, but just fair warning other people playing in the game might very easily begin to fell outshined and want a homebrew class made for them too. You will also have to most likely come up with a way to beef up encounter quite a bit to manage. But I do actually really like the flavor and the thinking behind the class it is really well put together.
Feel free to message me if you want any further clarification or assistance on what I have said and Happy Homebrewing.
I understand most of what you are telling me actually. Upon further looking at it, I can see how some features can be OP if used right and that's my fault for that and I tend to fumble words a bit so I will try to clarify in my reply before I make official changes to the post above.
For clarification on your questions first before I delve into asking for suggestions:
I don't intend for this subclass to be OP but I want the power fantasy of being a Pokemon trainer mixed with a Druid, which thematically makes the most sense. And yes I have used The Circle of the Moon archetype and the newer Beast Master from the Ranger as a sort of guideline
In regards to Nature Bond's wording, I assumed people would understand that with the improved CR from the previous feature, that they could do the same for that but I'll try to word that in. I do specify in the feature that the creature must obey your verbal command (like most conjuration spells that follow this same line of thought that when you summon a creature they can at least understand you but you would need a special spell like Speak with Animals to have them talk to you)
With the Unparalleled Tamer feature, it expands your repertoire of monsters to summon when you use your Wild Shape feature to summon a creature, it could be a Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, or Beast creature. Like with Wild Shape you can pick and choose what you want to summon as long as you know about said creature
For the disconnect between Nature Bond and Animal Whisperer, I was trying to put the rules for a normal ability like shown in the MM that requires a recharge time, I see I failed on that but it will take time to really refine that out
For the Animal Whisperer, the feature was to be used on one creature so that creature has that spell every time it is summoned. Should I change this to be a blanket ability or what?
It's like a normal conjuration spell where they are just summoned but that's really up to the DM on how they are summoned in regards to flavor
The Damaging Elementalist feature allows you to choose a new damage type each time a creature is summoned
Now for the part where I ask for your suggestions on fixing the features to be more balanced or better overall and feel free to pitch your own ideas, I am open to suggestions:
Should I keep it to two charges of Wild shape over the course of the level? I think it might be better since it is over a short rest (I forgot that part)
For the Animal Whisperer feature, should I go with a lower level spell slot (such as 1st level to start then by 20th have 3rd level spells) or change it somehow?
Any other suggestions you have?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1
Have a look at some of my suggestions below and let me know what you think
First off I would actually disconnect the summoning ability from the wild shape feature, so let the druid keep their wild shape feature for transforming themselves but then remove the improved wild shape completely as this pulls them away a bit from just being a better MD
Removing it from wild Shape allows you to play with it a bit more make it its own subclass a bit more, I would then incorporate the Increasing CR into the Nature Bond feature but i would increase the CR to druid level divide 4 or even 5. Just a small thing here but I would actually make them roll their own initiative. I would also stipulate the ability to summon as a bonus action potentially but up to you. I would definitely keep that the creature only stays around for 1 hour and the condition of multiple creatures and you cant be wild shaped at the same time I would also keep.
I would also look into changing the number of summonings to a long rest, not a short rest, this would allow you increase the number as you level up like you were trying to, if it is a short rest I would advise increasing the number, it also means they will be more cautious with their summonings
With the unparalleled trainer feature, I would keep the ability to transform into different creature types (i know I went on a rant about how that can be op but if you increase the CR divide like I suggested earlier it won't be as much of an issue). The way I would create this feature would actually to draw straight from Pokemon and actually limit the number of "captured" creatures (in that you can only have 6 Pokemon with you at a time until you go back to the PC). There are 2 ways that you could do this. The first would be something like a wizards spell book where you have a book of creatures that you see that you note down but you can only prepare a certian amount every day. So at the start of the day they would have to choose something like 4 creatures and they could only turn into one of those 4 until they prepare a new list.
The Second way you could do this would be to make it more like a Sorcerers known spell list in that they only know a certain number of creatures and they cannot prepare them each day, I would give them more creatures than i would for the prepared list but it makes it slightly more permanent. Then any time they see a creature that they have the ability and only when they see it I would then give them the option to study the creature at which point they could sub that creature in for one of the ones currently in their list.
This way also gives you the option to start with a small number of available and increase it as they level up. depending on how you want it to work and if you still find that OP you could include CR limits on each of those creature slots just like spell slots where they could only have 1 CR3 1 CR2 and 2 CR1 or something along those lines, but ill leave that up to you. If you have the time I would playtest all the options and see what works best for you.
The Nurtured Fury If you take my advice to remove the feature from the wild shape and move to long rest this is a fine spot to increase the number of summonings. I would maybe reduce the hit point Max to druid level but I'm not sure would have to do some playtesting to see what is best. And keep that the summoned creatures attacks are magical that is fine.
The way to fix my issue with the Animal Whisperer feature to me would remove the chance for them to cast spells without using resources. That is a fundamental part of 5e, it is the reason that there are no healing cantrips. So i would do something like, when you prepare your spells after a long rest you can spend some of that time imbuing your magic into your summoned animals instead. Basically, it would allow you to transfer a spell slot or a few of a certain level or below to all summoned animals that they can then use but you now lose it. Once they use the all the spell slots they have they would then not be able to use it agian until you give them more slots. This would allow animals to run into the middle of combat and cast thunderwave for example without risking yourself. But it wouldn't be game breaking. This also gives you the ability to increase the number of transferable and spell level of the slot transferable.
You also have the option to change it some more but actually make the character choose exactly what spell they will transfer with the spell slot and they have to use that slot for that spell but that is up to you, I think it will be fine if you just transfer the slot without having to choose the spell, they would just have to use a spell from your prepared spell list.
The other option that I would suggest here which gives some more flexibility is that the character could just use their action to cast a spell through the summoned animal to the point of origin of the spell would be where the animal is. This increases the number of castings through them you could do but it would also use the character's action so there are plusses and minuses.
I know currently there are a lot of things that can go up with level but it is up to you to see which ones you want to and which ones don't change.
I Still think some of the Specialized trainers are OP when you get them at the same level as Animal Whisperer. I would potentially change Damaging Elementalist to maybe be something more like the Absorb Elements Spell but maybe with only one type that you choose when summoned and with 3 or so charges. I would also change heavyweight Defense to potentially be more of a reaction thing like Shield with again a certain number of charges rather than just a static bonus.
I quite like the Almanac of Creatures if you make the changes I suggested above, however, i would seriously comb through every creature they would have access to at this point and see if any of them are game breaking and adjust the intelligence or anything else accordingly to ensure nothing can be too powerful.
Some of these suggestions could be a bit too much or still potentially still OP so take them as you will and I would definitely do some playtesting so you can really get a feel for things
If you really like the idea of making this class and think some of the suggestions I have made take away from what you were trying to build too much (i have tried to keep as much of the flavour as possible) then I would also look into creating a homebrew class that does the same thing, it will allow you a lot more flexibility to add more stuff in that adds to it with it still being balanced, it would also make the things that increase with level more manageable.
Also if your going to update the subclass with some suggestions that I have made, submit it in a new post rather than update the original, that way if others want to contribute they will be able to understand where it started and my comments about it will also make sense :P just put a link in the original post to the most current version so people don't read unnecessarily. And when homebrew subclasses are released on the site I look forward seeing this subclass build on DDB.
@ScottySkid Well I guess you are going to be my editor now XD I like some of the changes you suggested and I'll work on fixing it out, I'll send you a link to the new version in a reply so you can see it. I'll also be sure to give you credit.
Many thanks!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1
Hello everyone!
I would like everyone's opinion on a new custom class that I have been working on for months for one of my players who wanted to do a pseudo Pokemon trainer feel in 5e D&D. This list is quite long and, as such, will be a bit of a slog, but I wanted to be a thorough as possible in order to truly capture the feel of being the very best like no one ever was. Any comments are appreciated as well as feedback and ways for improving. Link to the Newest Version https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/druid/11005-custom-druid-subclass-updated-circle-of-the-tamer
Circle of the Tamer
Improved Wild Shape: Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Wild Shape to transform into a beast with a Challenge Rating as high as 1 (you ignore the Max. CR column of the Beast Shapes table, but must abide by the other limitations there). Starting at 6th level, you can transform into a beast with a Challenge Rating as high as your druid level divided by 3, rounded down (For example, if you are a 9th level druid, you can Beast Shape into a beast with a CR rating of 3 or lower)
Nature Bond: Starting at 2nd level, you gain proficiency with the Animal Handling skill, if you do not already have it.
Additionally, your unique tie with nature allows you to alter how your Wild Shape works. You can use your Wild Shape feature to summon a creature to your aid instead of transforming into one as an action. The summoned creature is considered a physical creature, is friendly to you and your companions, will not attack anyone you do not designate unless otherwise provoked, although it must obey your commands. The summoned creature goes immediately after you in the initiative order and is considered a separate entity from you. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them (no action required by you), but if you don't issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions. The summoned creature stays around for 1 hour or until you dismiss it as a bonus action, you fall unconscious, or the creature drops to 0 Hit Points.
You can only have one summoned creature at a time and you cannot use your Wild Shape feature on yourself while the creature is present, nor can you summon a creature if you are in your Wild Shape form already.
Unparalleled Tamer: At 2nd level, you gain the ability to study and further expand your repertoire of Wild Shape forms to truly be a tamer of all types of creatures. When you are exploring the world and gaining extra beast shapes (I am using the Unearthed Arcana rules for Wild Shape for clarification) you can learn about and potentially gain the following creature types to be summoned with your Nature Bond feature: Monstrosities, Oozes, Plants, and Beasts. The captured creatures must abide by any relevant rules of your Wild Shape feature, cannot have an Intelligence score higher than 6, or be a Huge or larger creature.
You cannot use your Wild Shape feature to transform into these creatures, other than Beasts, but you can summon the new types of creatures through your Nature Bond feature. When you gain a new level in druid, you can pick one of the types of creatures listed above as an option instead of just a Beast as usual. You still cannot transform into the chosen creature yourself, however, you can summon them through your Nature Bond feature.
Nurtured Fury: At 6th level, you gain one additional use of your Wild Shape feature. Additionally, any creature summoned by your Nature Bond feature gains the following benefits:
Animal Whisperer: At 10th level, your repertoire of collected creatures are linked to you on an almost supernatural level and can potentially learn new abilities from you. You can spend at least one hour, which can be done during the course of a short rest, giving one of your creatures from your Nature Bond feature the ability to cast one of your known spells as an innate ability that they can do from then on.
At the end of the hour, choose a druid spell that you currently have prepared, that is no higher than 5th level, and one creature that you can summon with your Nature Bond feature. You then expend one spell slot no higher than 5th level that the chosen spell can be cast at and make an Animal Handling check (DC = 12 + the spell slot level).
If you fail the check, you must finish a long rest before you can attempt to give the chosen creature an innate ability again. If you succeed, the creature gains the spell as an innate ability that it can use as an action on its turn without expending a spell slot or components. Once an innate ability from this feature is used, the creature cannot use that ability again until it takes a short or long rest or 'recharges' the ability at the start of its turn. At the start of each of the creature's turns, you can roll a d6. On a 5 or 6, the creature recharges and can use the ability on its turn as normal. On a 1-4, the creature cannot use the ability that turn and must wait to attempt it again.
Creatures can only have two spell attached to them at a time and you can switch the abilities out by doing the process over, except failing the check does not get rid of the previous spell, nor does it add the spell to the creature.
Specialized Trainer: Starting at 10th level, choose one of the following options. You cannot change this choice. Whenever you summon a creature with your Nature Bond feature, they gain the chosen benefit:
Almanac of Creatures: At 14th level, you gain an additional use of your Wild Shape feature.
Additionally, your Unparalleled Tamer feature gains a relative boost in power as you now know how to better understand and trap creatures of various types and forms. Although captured creatures must still abide by any relevant rules of your Wild Shape feature, they can have an Intelligence score up to 10 or lower and can be a Huge or smaller creatures. You can also capture the following types of creatures: Elementals, Constructs, and Undead.
Your summoned creatures can be affected by your druid spells, regardless of the description of the spell stating otherwise.
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1
First off, I do like the flavor of the class and I think it is a really nice concept. However, I do have some serious concerns that it seems very overpowered and if that is what you're after then that's cool. I'll get to why I think it is op a bit later, first ill touch on some things that I think you need to look at first.
In Nature Bond, nowhere do you stipulate that the creature that you summoned has to abide by the same CR that is in the improved Wild Shape feature. You have also stipulated no real way of communication between creature and character as most creatures will not speak the same languages if any
I would look at making the 2nd paragraph of Unparalleled Tamer a bit clearer as I'm not entirely sure what it is getting at. As far as I can understand you can pick one of the 4 types and only summon that type of creature when you use the Nature Bond ability. Just a bit confusing as in the paragraph above it feels like you are able to summon any of the creatures that you see that are those types.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between Nature Bond where you stipulate that the beast can only stay around for an hour and the Animal Whisperer Ability where you talk about the spell being able to recharge over a short or long rest which doesn't really seem to make sense. So some clarification on that part would be very helpful
Also not sure how the Animal Whisperer works exactly do you have to do the process over and over for every single creature that you can summon or does the same spells apply to every creature? and does this go away when the creature vanishes or is it always around whenever you summon the same creature?
As for a bit of the Flavor, just so I understand are you summoning these creatures like a summoning spell or are you calling them from nature, I assume the former as if its the latter there could be lots of situations where there are none of these creatures around
With Damaging Elementalist does that allow you to pick a different damage time everytime you summon a creature or do you pick one when you choose the feature and then that is it?
Okay, on to why I think this subclass is very overpowered, please take this or leave this as you like because overpowered might be what you are going for. Just for backstory, I am currently playing a level 16 Moon Druid in my current campaign that I have been playing for the last 3 years so I have a pretty good understanding and feeling for the class. As I go through each ability i will be drawing comparisons from the other Druid subclasses (mostly the Moon, MD) as well as the Revised Ranger Beast Master (RR BM) (it can be found here if you haven't seen it before) as these are both quite similar to the subclass you have created. I'm also not really going to offer any suggestions on how to make it less op in this comment as I am not sure of the build you are going for exactly. However feel free to let me know what you thought of my comments and I'd be happy to offer suggestions where you would like them.
First, off the Improved Wild Shape, I assume you have pulled from the MD and taken away a few of the parts like bonus action transform and using spell points for recovery. This is totally fine especially compared to the other 2nd level features.
Nature Bond: Animal Handling is a nice skill but not a very used skill so no issues with it being offered here. I do like the flavor of summoning the creatures like a Pokemon trainer. However here we being to see my issues with this, in general, is that you are able to do exactly what the moon druid is able to do but 1) have absolutely no risk of damage spilling over to the character its self when the creature is reduced to 0 hit points 2) You still have the ability to use your full action to cast spells and do whatever else a Land druid might be doing while an MD goes all Beasy so you are getting the absolute best of both worlds.
To put this into even more perspective the BM gets an animal companion just like this subclass but 1) they lose the features like Extra Attack they would get from other subclasses 2) the highest CR creature they get access to is 1/2 being either a Black Bear or an Ape. This feature is giving them access to level 1 creatures from the get-go with it increasing from there. 3) The BM takes 8 hours and 25gp to recover the creature if it dies where with this subclass you can summon a new one instantly. This allows you to be more reckless with the creature and just be a damage soak for the party. With no downside at all and this increases to 3 a short rest at level 6 and 4 every short rest at level
Then at second level you get yet another feature Unparalleled Tamer (which I understand you need for the flavor that you are going for) at this point you have already go access to the same features as the MD but now you get yet another one. Now there is a reason it is Beasts and not any other because yes they would be the same CR but you start getting access to things like Rust Monsters (CR 1/2), yes they are not too hard to kill but give you access to effects that can really benefit when fighting with a party. Then at higher levels, you get effects like the Basilisk's Petrifying Gaze or more utility abilities like the Minotaur's Labyrinthine Recall and access to sense's you shouldn't get access to at 6th level such as the Purple Wormling's Blindsight and Tremorsense (this does become less of an issue if they have no way of communicating the information back to you). And yes this can slightly be addressed as they have to have seen the creature but that still means they have the chance to, like what if the druid just goes to the zoo. It might not be as easy as that but you get my point.
Nurtured Fury: again the second point is the same as what moon druids get which is fine and something needed as you go up the levels but the first, 2 * level hit points not seem like a lot but it will bump up most low-level monsters by almost a whole CR especially some of them and it is the same ability as taking the entire tough which is normally the only thing a character will get for a level, so again getting exactly what the MD gets but even more. But again this isn't too bad. The getting the Additional use of the Wild Shape though is massive that is 3 creatures every short rest ill get to this later why this is very op.
Animal Whisperer: I do like some of the flavors here and the way that you have introduced negative impacts. Some of those I feel are not fully clear so that could change this response but I'm going to run with what I understand it as (See my questions above about this, I am going with the assumption that you have to do it for each creature and they can have different spells). To me this ability is the most op of the subclass, and here is why. Let's compare this feature to what the wizard gets at 20th level,
"Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don’t count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot. When you do so, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest."
For the Wizards best feature ever they get 2 3rd level spells that they can cast once for free, here when you have given a creature spells that they can cast (not even using the Druids action) every 3rd round on average that is of 5th level or below. This is an insanely good feature, like insane!! You could set up your creatures to all have different spells and then summon them when you need a certian spell for that time (yes you have a limited summons but each creature gets 2 spells and there are some insane 5th level spells)Let me give you a few examples of how insane this actually is Mass Cure Wounds every 3rd round thats on average 17hp to everyone in the party every 3 rounds while using up no spell slots at all, that means no one would ever really die, because it mostly takes more that 3 turns for your death saving throws to come back and in that time you are able to cast it again. Hit Dice would be a thing of the past as your creature just spends every action rerolling the d6 out of combat and in 2 minutes at most everyone is back to full health all without using a single spell slot.
Or Imagen the ability to Cast Greater Restoration Every 3rd turn it would completely negate the ability of some monsters that you can just remove their effects without using a spell slot. Or even any of the conjuration spells like Conjure Elemental yes it takes a minute to cast, but your smaller summoned beast just summoned a CR 5 Elemental that gives you even more companions. Again to put this in perspective the MD gets the ability to turn into one of those elementals at level 10 But now you can have a separate creature that can summon one of those creatures for free all while you are able to be a full caster at the back doing what full casters do.
On top of that very op ability, you are giving the summoned creature buffs. I do like some of these buffs they are a bit of fun and are still powerful, but when received at the same level and an already extremely op feature it is a hell of a lot (happy to go further into these abilities but ill move on for now)
Almanac of Creatures again the additional use of Wild shape is really quite powerful. As stated above the 10th level MD can turn into a CR5 elemental once per short rest but with this ability the character at 15th level can summon 6 earth elementals every short rest, if they have taken Shielding Fortitude (assuming 20 Wis by this point) that is 126 + 30 + 25Temp with is 181 total HP which means that you could have up to 724 hitpoints your enemys have to soak up, that is more HP than most other parties have at that point in total, not to mention the addition of the healing spells on top of that.
You are also giving them additional access to some amazing creatures such as the Beholder Zombie with its eye rays and the Catoblepas with its death ray, and they can summon 4 every short rest. In comparison, the MD gets access to creatures with a few more HP and that can hit a little harder, (they can be found on this list)
Sorry for the really long feedback, take from it what you will but I hope you understand why I have said what I have said. However, if you were going for op then that is fine and stick with it, but just fair warning other people playing in the game might very easily begin to fell outshined and want a homebrew class made for them too. You will also have to most likely come up with a way to beef up encounter quite a bit to manage. But I do actually really like the flavor and the thinking behind the class it is really well put together.
Feel free to message me if you want any further clarification or assistance on what I have said and Happy Homebrewing.
Mega Threads - Staff Quotes - Useful Resources - Homebrew FAQ - Pricing FAQ
I understand most of what you are telling me actually. Upon further looking at it, I can see how some features can be OP if used right and that's my fault for that and I tend to fumble words a bit so I will try to clarify in my reply before I make official changes to the post above.
For clarification on your questions first before I delve into asking for suggestions:
Now for the part where I ask for your suggestions on fixing the features to be more balanced or better overall and feel free to pitch your own ideas, I am open to suggestions:
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1
Have a look at some of my suggestions below and let me know what you think
First off I would actually disconnect the summoning ability from the wild shape feature, so let the druid keep their wild shape feature for transforming themselves but then remove the improved wild shape completely as this pulls them away a bit from just being a better MD
Removing it from wild Shape allows you to play with it a bit more make it its own subclass a bit more, I would then incorporate the Increasing CR into the Nature Bond feature but i would increase the CR to druid level divide 4 or even 5. Just a small thing here but I would actually make them roll their own initiative. I would also stipulate the ability to summon as a bonus action potentially but up to you. I would definitely keep that the creature only stays around for 1 hour and the condition of multiple creatures and you cant be wild shaped at the same time I would also keep.
I would also look into changing the number of summonings to a long rest, not a short rest, this would allow you increase the number as you level up like you were trying to, if it is a short rest I would advise increasing the number, it also means they will be more cautious with their summonings
With the unparalleled trainer feature, I would keep the ability to transform into different creature types (i know I went on a rant about how that can be op but if you increase the CR divide like I suggested earlier it won't be as much of an issue). The way I would create this feature would actually to draw straight from Pokemon and actually limit the number of "captured" creatures (in that you can only have 6 Pokemon with you at a time until you go back to the PC). There are 2 ways that you could do this. The first would be something like a wizards spell book where you have a book of creatures that you see that you note down but you can only prepare a certian amount every day. So at the start of the day they would have to choose something like 4 creatures and they could only turn into one of those 4 until they prepare a new list.
The Second way you could do this would be to make it more like a Sorcerers known spell list in that they only know a certain number of creatures and they cannot prepare them each day, I would give them more creatures than i would for the prepared list but it makes it slightly more permanent. Then any time they see a creature that they have the ability and only when they see it I would then give them the option to study the creature at which point they could sub that creature in for one of the ones currently in their list.
This way also gives you the option to start with a small number of available and increase it as they level up. depending on how you want it to work and if you still find that OP you could include CR limits on each of those creature slots just like spell slots where they could only have 1 CR3 1 CR2 and 2 CR1 or something along those lines, but ill leave that up to you. If you have the time I would playtest all the options and see what works best for you.
The Nurtured Fury If you take my advice to remove the feature from the wild shape and move to long rest this is a fine spot to increase the number of summonings. I would maybe reduce the hit point Max to druid level but I'm not sure would have to do some playtesting to see what is best. And keep that the summoned creatures attacks are magical that is fine.
The way to fix my issue with the Animal Whisperer feature to me would remove the chance for them to cast spells without using resources. That is a fundamental part of 5e, it is the reason that there are no healing cantrips. So i would do something like, when you prepare your spells after a long rest you can spend some of that time imbuing your magic into your summoned animals instead. Basically, it would allow you to transfer a spell slot or a few of a certain level or below to all summoned animals that they can then use but you now lose it. Once they use the all the spell slots they have they would then not be able to use it agian until you give them more slots. This would allow animals to run into the middle of combat and cast thunderwave for example without risking yourself. But it wouldn't be game breaking. This also gives you the ability to increase the number of transferable and spell level of the slot transferable.
You also have the option to change it some more but actually make the character choose exactly what spell they will transfer with the spell slot and they have to use that slot for that spell but that is up to you, I think it will be fine if you just transfer the slot without having to choose the spell, they would just have to use a spell from your prepared spell list.
The other option that I would suggest here which gives some more flexibility is that the character could just use their action to cast a spell through the summoned animal to the point of origin of the spell would be where the animal is. This increases the number of castings through them you could do but it would also use the character's action so there are plusses and minuses.
I know currently there are a lot of things that can go up with level but it is up to you to see which ones you want to and which ones don't change.
I Still think some of the Specialized trainers are OP when you get them at the same level as Animal Whisperer. I would potentially change Damaging Elementalist to maybe be something more like the Absorb Elements Spell but maybe with only one type that you choose when summoned and with 3 or so charges. I would also change heavyweight Defense to potentially be more of a reaction thing like Shield with again a certain number of charges rather than just a static bonus.
I quite like the Almanac of Creatures if you make the changes I suggested above, however, i would seriously comb through every creature they would have access to at this point and see if any of them are game breaking and adjust the intelligence or anything else accordingly to ensure nothing can be too powerful.
Some of these suggestions could be a bit too much or still potentially still OP so take them as you will and I would definitely do some playtesting so you can really get a feel for things
If you really like the idea of making this class and think some of the suggestions I have made take away from what you were trying to build too much (i have tried to keep as much of the flavour as possible) then I would also look into creating a homebrew class that does the same thing, it will allow you a lot more flexibility to add more stuff in that adds to it with it still being balanced, it would also make the things that increase with level more manageable.
Also if your going to update the subclass with some suggestions that I have made, submit it in a new post rather than update the original, that way if others want to contribute they will be able to understand where it started and my comments about it will also make sense :P just put a link in the original post to the most current version so people don't read unnecessarily. And when homebrew subclasses are released on the site I look forward seeing this subclass build on DDB.
Mega Threads - Staff Quotes - Useful Resources - Homebrew FAQ - Pricing FAQ
@ScottySkid Well I guess you are going to be my editor now XD I like some of the changes you suggested and I'll work on fixing it out, I'll send you a link to the new version in a reply so you can see it. I'll also be sure to give you credit.
Many thanks!
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/druid/11005-custom-druid-subclass-updated-circle-of-the-tamer
Here you are. Let me know how it is.
"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1