I created a variant feature for Grim Harvest which I call Soul Reaper. You can find it here. (I've already edited portions in this post so bear with me) This contains only the descriptive text, I have not added any character sheet features such as which bonus actions are available or at what levels. I also realized after creating this thread I could have created a variant wizard subclass to achieve the same effect and to probably be more convenient than adding an extra feat to your character sheet, but this is what I've got for now.
Soul Reaper
*This is not a feat, but a variant class feature available to Wizards specialized in the School of Necromancy. A necromancer may choose this feature at level 2 in place of the Grim Harvest class feature.
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to harvest the souls from creatures you kill with your spells. This is represented by soul essence points, which allow you to create a variety of magical effects, primarily tied to your necromancy spells.
Soul Essence Points
You start with zero soul essence points. When you kill one or more creatures with a spell, you may use your reaction to gain one point of soul essence, or two points if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead, nor when killing creatures with a challenge rating of 0.
You can never have more soul essence points than twice your wizard level. When you use an ability that requires soul essence points, you can only spend up to a number of points equal to your wizard level. You lose all unspent soul essence points upon dying or when you finish a long rest.
You may spend your soul essence in the following ways:
Whenever you damage or heal with a spell, you may spend soul essence points to increase the damage or healing of that spell by twice the number of soul essence spent. The extra damage counts as necrotic damage. This does not require an action.
As a bonus action, you may extend the duration of the next necromancy spell you cast this turn. When you cast the spell, spend a number of soul essence equal to the spell's level, or 1 for cantrips, to double its duration, to a maximum duration of 24 hours. This has no effect on spells that have a duration of instantaneous or until dispelled.
As a bonus action, you may spend 4 soul essence to gain a first-level spell slot. This spell slot must be used to cast a necromancy spell and must be cast by the end of your current turn or it is wasted.
As a bonus action, you may increase the level of the next necromancy spell you cast this turn by spending 6 soul essence for each increased spell level, up to a maximum of level 6. (for example, you can spend a 2nd level spell slot and 12 soul essence to cast blindness/deafness as a 4th level spell)
As a reaction after suffering damage, you may spend soul essence points to reduce the damage taken by twice the number of soul essence spent.
As an action, you may spend soul essence points to heal all undead under your control equal to twice the number of soul essence spent.
Other utilizations for soul essence may be available at the DM's discretion.
Improved Soul Reaper
At 10th level, you now gain 1 soul essence for each creature you kill with a spell, or 2 for each creature you kill with a necromancy spell.
Greater Soul Reaper
At 14th level, you gain 1 point of soul essence any time you damage one or more creatures with a spell of 1st-level or higher, or 2 points of soul essence when you damage one or more creatures with a necromancy spell of 1st-level or higher.
Add the soul cage spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. As long as you posses the material components for soul cage, you gain the followng benefits.
You may now have a number of soul essence points up to three times your wizard level, and you do not lose unspent soul essence points in upon dying or completing a long rest.
You may spend 6 soul essence to duplicate either the Steal Life or Borrow Experience effects of soul cage without having cast the spell. While the spell is active, you may also spend 6 soul essence to gain an additional use of a soul trapped by the soul cage spell.
You may exploit the soul trapped in a soul cage to gain 4 soul essence.
Grim Harvest has a great theme, but I feel is greatly lacking in mechanical viability. Simply put, because you have to not only get the kill with a spell but also have taken damage before the kill, this feature has very limited activation while also having needed other far too risky of a variable to occur before activation to be of much use.
You're in a team. Everyone is going for the kill. Too many variables are at play to determine who actually gets that kill. You're also a wizard. You want to avoid being a target in the first place. Ideally, the wizard is hiding behind other beefy players and not getting hit at all if they can help it, and then they have to land a killing blow with a spell. The feature is further not fully utilized if you could have healed 8 hp but you're only down by 3 points. Then we've got enervation and vampiric touch, two of the most commonly used damage spells in necromancy, which also heal the caster.
My intention with this variant was to keep the theme of killing an enemy to gain some benefit from their life force while gaining more control over its utilization. "Harvesting souls" for later use is a common necromantic theme, and that idea naturally evolved into also providing more options through the use of the essence of souls.
Some sort of point system fits very well, having been established previously by many class features such as ki points, battle master maneuvers, or lay on hands. The primary difference between Soul Reaper and many other features is that in those other features, you regain all uses on a long rest, and sometimes regain all or partial use on a short rest. In the case of Soul Reaper, you have to gain the points and use them before you finish a long rest.
Because of the difficult nature of gaining soul essence and being unable to keep soul essence from one day to the next at early levels, Soul Reaper aims to grant you a decent amount at one time with slightly more powerful than normal usage. Many of the options give you twice the benefit for what you spend. It also necessitates murder, so there's that.
Losing all soul essence when you finish a long rest ties into the idea that, while soul essence is not a full soul, it is still a powerful force that is difficult to contain for extended periods without extra measures in places. Tying these extra measures to soul cage was another natural extension of the feature. Because Soul Reaper and soul cage both use your reaction, you cannot use both in the same round but you gain synergistic abilities with the spell and feature.
Gaining soul essence on any damaging spell provides more consistency at later levels when you're in an environment where landing the killing blow is even more difficult. Everyone has stronger abilities, bigger attacks and damage. Furthermore, it represents the necromancer's growing power in being to steal a portion of one's soul without having to kill it. Requiring a spell slot and not being able to use cantrips prevents infinite soul essence.
Way too overpowered for a 2nd level feature. And incredibly complicated. I'd never take this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Spellcasting is complicated, ish, to newbies. Everything else about the wizard is easy, simple and straightforward. That's kinda the raison d'etre of 5th edition: to simplify D&D and streamline it. Going back a step isn't a good idea.
And: the whole feature is overpowered. This 2nd level feature is adding more things than entire subclasses do. It's extra spell slots, extra free castings, free spells, extra uses of spell effects, and it's got a more powerful version of Extend Spell metamagic.
It's extreme.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
No more complicated than ki points or sorcery points other than you have to earn the points every day rather than refresh them every day. The features gained at level 2 are on par with battle master maneuvers which just got even more options to choose from. Everything else is a level 14 feature.
And you seem to be seriously undermining the part where it needs to be earned, and specifically through a kill. You start the day with zero soul essence. Portions which are similar to other class features are more powerful specifically because it is more difficult to gain these soul points while being far more restrictive in most cases to necromancy spells rather than ALL spells or attacks or whatever of other features.
EDIT: Double-checked to see if I missed something. The "extend spell" option works on exactly 13 necromancy spells and nothing else, you must use your bonus action on top of casting the spell, and only one of which lasts longer than 1 hour, which is gentle repose. It is not exactly game-breaking to spend 2 soul essence to extend that spell from 10 days to 20 days. Sorcerers have around 120 spells to choose from which they can extend, give or take, which costs only 1 of their sorcery points regardless of spell level and does not cost any action to do so.
The original version had the extend spell option costs twice the spell's level in soul essence and I reduced that due to how extreme that was.
It's extra spell slots, extra free castings, free spells, extra uses of spell effects,
Here you just said the same thing three times in a row to make it sound worse. And you don't get "free" anything unless you call all the things monks, sorcerers and warlocks do and whatever else "free" as well. Soul essence is a difficult to acquire resource which you must spend many points of to gain the greatest effects.
At the extreme end, a level 20 Divination Wizard using every single 2nd level or higher spell slot to cast or upcast divination spells can regain six 5th-level slots, nine 4th-level slots, twelve 3rd-level slots, fifteen 2nd-level slots, eighteen 1st-level slots. Then Arcane Recovery gives back two 5th-level slots, which means two more 4th-level slots as well.
That is a total of 62 spell slots of varying levels between 1 and 5 regained through the Expert Divination feature, and the activation cost is by simply doing what all wizards normally do, which is cast spells.
If (note that is if, not automatic) a level 20 Soul Reaper Necromancer starts the day with max soul essence, that is 60 soul essence at the start of the day. Without landing the killing blow on a creature, they can gain an additional 44 soul essence only if they use every single spell to cast a necromancy spell and successfully deal damage with each of those spells. They can use Arcane Recovery to gain ten 1st-level spell slots, and if they also successfully deal damage with another ten inflict wounds spells, then that is 20 more soul essence. At the moment we are at 124 soul essence on a given day which requires starting the day with max soul essence and successfully dealing damage with every single spell slot.
One option, you could use every single soul essence to create 1st-level spell slots. You must use your bonus action to do so, you must cast a necromancy spell, and you must use it by the end of the turn. It costs 4 soul essence, which means thirty-one 1st-level spell slots. You could then cast 31 inflict wounds, and if you successfully deal damage with all of those then you get 62 points, which turn into fifteen 1st-level spell slots, then eight slots, then four, two, and one.
After all said and done that is 61 first spell slots compared to the Diviner's 62 spell slots of various levels up to 5. Honestly, this is the first time I did that math and I thought for soul reaper it would be way more than that. Pretty cool that they came out so close. (assuming all math is correct).
Alternatively, that 124 soul essence could be used to upcast your spells. It always costs 6 soul essence per level, no matter if you upcast a 3rd into a 4th or a 1st into a 6th. In this way, you could get up to twenty upcasts. These are not "free spell slots", you still have to use the initial spell slot, and no matter how much upcast you are still only casting one spell. It must be a necromancy spell, and If it happens to be a damaging spell, you still only get 2 soul essence back if you successfully damage a creature.
It is almost 100% likely you are using these upcasts on the same spells which got you the initial pool of 124 soul essence to begin with, so you're not gaining any extra soul essence on top of that.
Because of the nature of soul essence and the ways in which it is allowed to be spent, the two extremes are mutually exclusive. Any soul essence you spend on upcasting means fewer points you can spend on regaining 1st-level spell slots and vice-versa.
Of course, you can gain more soul essence on a killing blow. If (very important if) you get the killing blow. There is also some extra math where you can gain another 24 soul essence through the use of soul cage, but I don't feel like doing that. All I know is I made sure to prevent an infinite soul essence/spell slot loop.
Note the number of soul essence you could gain in a day is reduced by up to half if you damage a creature with a non-necromancy spell, and you gain nothing if you deal no damage with a spell at all. Furthermore, there are more uses for soul essence than spell slots and upcasting, which are on par with the effects of similar class features considering the difficulty in gaining soul points and retaining them.
Edit: Forgot wizards don't get inflict wounds, I was thinking of my multiclass cleric/necromancer. But Ray of Sickness still applies.
At the extreme end, a level 20 Divination Wizard using every single 2nd level or higher spell slot to cast or upcast divination spells can regain six 5th-level slots, nine 4th-level slots, twelve 3rd-level slots, fifteen 2nd-level slots, eighteen 1st-level slots. Then Arcane Recovery gives back two 5th-level slots, which means two more 4th-level slots as well.
That is a total of 62 spell slots of varying levels between 1 and 5 regained through the Expert Divination feature, and the activation cost is by simply doing what all wizards normally do, which is cast spells.
If (note that is if, not automatic) a level 20 Soul Reaper Necromancer starts the day with max soul essence, that is 60 soul essence at the start of the day. Without landing the killing blow on a creature, they can gain an additional 44 soul essence only if they use every single spell to cast a necromancy spell and successfully deal damage with each of those spells. They can use Arcane Recovery to gain ten 1st-level spell slots, and if they also successfully deal damage with another ten inflict wounds spells, then that is 20 more soul essence. At the moment we are at 124 soul essence on a given day which requires starting the day with max soul essence and successfully dealing damage with every single spell slot.
One option, you could use every single soul essence to create 1st-level spell slots. You must use your bonus action to do so, you must cast a necromancy spell, and you must use it by the end of the turn. It costs 4 soul essence, which means thirty-one 1st-level spell slots. You could then cast 31 inflict wounds, and if you successfully deal damage with all of those then you get 62 points, which turn into fifteen 1st-level spell slots, then eight slots, then four, two, and one.
After all said and done that is 61 first spell slots compared to the Diviner's 62 spell slots of various levels up to 5. Honestly, this is the first time I did that math and I thought for soul reaper it would be way more than that. Pretty cool that they came out so close. (assuming all math is correct).
Alternatively, that 124 soul essence could be used to upcast your spells. It always costs 6 soul essence per level, no matter if you upcast a 3rd into a 4th or a 1st into a 6th. In this way, you could get up to twenty upcasts. These are not "free spell slots", you still have to use the initial spell slot, and no matter how much upcast you are still only casting one spell. It must be a necromancy spell, and If it happens to be a damaging spell, you still only get 2 soul essence back if you successfully damage a creature.
It is almost 100% likely you are using these upcasts on the same spells which got you the initial pool of 124 soul essence to begin with, so you're not gaining any extra soul essence on top of that.
Because of the nature of soul essence and the ways in which it is allowed to be spent, the two extremes are mutually exclusive. Any soul essence you spend on upcasting means fewer points you can spend on regaining 1st-level spell slots and vice-versa.
Of course, you can gain more soul essence on a killing blow. If (very important if) you get the killing blow. There is also some extra math where you can gain another 24 soul essence through the use of soul cage, but I don't feel like doing that. All I know is I made sure to prevent an infinite soul essence/spell slot loop.
I'm not going to comment on all of this... Just the beginning.
When your argument hinges on A 20th level character only casting a certain kind of spell to trigger a certain kind of ability. Your already in the weeds and not making a good comparison. There are almost no damage spells for starters in Divination. And one of them when you upcast it you do not get any kind of additional Damage. Just more duration for it. So you'd effectively have to cast it repeatedly and then drop concentration on it a huge number of times to accomplish what your saying. which is highly ineffective. This is a bad argument on almost all levels. This is made even worse when you make a system to do the same thing that is full of Damage dealing spells.
Secondly the others are right. Your one level 2 feature is doing what entire subclasses get built around (and then some). And it's more complicated than any of those subclasses and far more complicated than anything that Ki or Sorcery Points does. Just because it works only when you kill things does not justify this kind of power.
Finally, Any Upcasting Done that is not spell slots. Is effectively free spell slots. Even if you have to spend a lower level slot. It's still effectively free spell slots. Because now a lower levels spell slot is working far above it's power capacity effectively making it a free resource... Nothing in the game really works this way and it doesn't work this way for good reason.
That's... not the point of the example at all. I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt that I don't have to explain that starting with zero points every day at level 2, only gaining those points on a killing blow, compared to sorcerers or monk's that get their points refreshed every single day is a huge setback to this ability. There is no hinging on anything, I gave the extreme examples for scope because I assumed the lesser examples were obvious
Are you guys getting killing blows every single time you cast a spell?
After you get that killing blow, does spending all of those points and a bonus action for at most 4 more necrotic damage (if you were lucky to kill a creature that had enough HD or with the right spell) amount to a rogue's sneak attack every single turn?
Or one extra first-level necromancy spell (if you got the killing blow).
And literally, everything else you said is addressed in my various tweets, so I don't know what to tell you if you refuse to comment on things when it is those very things you refuse to comment on which refute everything you have said.
The comments that this one ability (it is three abilities I wrote as one. I can literally break it into separate 2nd, 10th and 14th level features.) which is equivalent to an entire subclass is patently false. You gain multiple options for a scarce resource which eats up your action economy every single turn. It is renewable under extreme and unlikely circumstances, to the extent that the abilities might be a little stronger is necessary to make up for that.
The only further restriction I considered which I didn't add was limiting the number of soul essence you can spend at once. This was going to be equal to your wizard level which would then automatically limit the level 1 spell slots to a 4th level wizard and the upcasting to a level 6 wizard, putting it on par with the Diviner in that respect.
It’s super thematic and feels amazing, but I have found too complex as well. Several things to track and keep reminding. Killing things with spells, specially single creatures, are not also the Wizards forté. The only decent Necromancy spell that causes damage came at level 5 and it’s troublesome because coletes for your Concentration (Vampiric Touch). This is a big issue for Grim Harvest as well.
I made a very simple homebrew for my 2nd level Necromancer ability: I can cast False Life as a bonus action without spending a spell slot and adding my Wizard level to the account (1d4 + 4 + Wizard level THP) proficiency times per long-rest. Once I get Undead Thralls, I can apply this benefit to two undeads as well.
I created a variant feature for Grim Harvest which I call Soul Reaper. You can find it here. (I've already edited portions in this post so bear with me) This contains only the descriptive text, I have not added any character sheet features such as which bonus actions are available or at what levels. I also realized after creating this thread I could have created a variant wizard subclass to achieve the same effect and to probably be more convenient than adding an extra feat to your character sheet, but this is what I've got for now.
Soul Reaper
*This is not a feat, but a variant class feature available to Wizards specialized in the School of Necromancy. A necromancer may choose this feature at level 2 in place of the Grim Harvest class feature.
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to harvest the souls from creatures you kill with your spells. When you kill a creature with a spell that has a single target, you may use your reaction to gain a number of soul essence equal to that creature's hit dice or equal to twice its hit dice if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead, nor when killing creatures with a challenge rating of 0. At 10th level, this effect also applies to your spells that affect multiple targets, and you gain soul essence for each creature killed.
You can only possess a maximum number of soul essence at one time equal to twice your Wizard level, and you lose any soul essence in your possession upon dying or completing a long rest.
You may spend your soul essence in the following ways:
Whenever you cast an instantaneous spell that deals damage or heals, you may spend any number of soul essence to deal extra necrotic damage equal to twice the number of soul essence spent or heal extra hit points up to twice the number of soul essence spent. This does not require an action.
As a bonus action, you may extend the duration of the next necromancy spell you cast this turn. When you cast the spell, spend a number of soul essence equal to the spell's level, or 1 for cantrips, in order to double the duration of the spell. This has no effect on spells that have a duration of instantaneous or until dispelled.
As a bonus action, you may spend 4 soul essence to gain a first-level spell slot. This spell slot must be used to cast a necromancy spell and must be cast by the end of your current turn or it is wasted. You may also instead choose to increase the level of the next necromancy spell you cast this turn by spending 6 soul essence for each increased spell level, up to a maximum of level 6. (for example, you can spend a 2nd level spell slot and 12 soul essence to cast blindness/deafness as a 4th level spell)
As a reaction after suffering damage, you may spend any number of soul essence to reduce the damage taken by twice the number of soul essence spent.
As an action, you may spend any number of soul essence to heal all undead under your control equal to twice the number of soul essence spent.
Other utilizations for soul essence may be available at the DM's discretion.
At 14th level, you add the soul cage spell to your spellbook if it is not there already, while also gaining additional functionality with the spell.
You may spend 6 soul essence to duplicate either the Steal Life or Borrow Experience effects of soul cage without having cast the spell. While the spell is active, you may also spend 6 soul essence to gain an additional use of a soul trapped by the soul cage spell. You may exploit the soul trapped in a soul cage to gain 4 soul essence.
At 14th level, as long as you possess the material components for the soul cage spell, you may now possess a maximum number of soul essence at one time equal to thrice your wizard level, and you retain all soul essence in your possession upon dying or completing a long rest.
You also gain 1 soul essence any time you damage one or more creatures with a spell of 1st-level or higher, or 2 soul essence when you damage one or more creatures with a necromancy spell of 1st-level or higher.
I updated the original post. Quoted the original version to serve as a revision update log.
Worked on some of the wording as best I could for clarity, primarily following the wording and format used for sorcery points. Will continue to update the wording and format as I go.
Instead of getting soul essence points based on a creature's hit dice, it is now a flat 1 or 2 points depending on whether or not the creature was killed with a necromancy or non-necromancy spell.
The requirement that a spell must be single-target at lower levels is removed. Any killing blow with any spell grants soul essence points, though it still accounts for only one creature killed. Level ten still allows you to gain soul essence points for each creature killed with a spell.
You can now only spend up to your wizard level in soul essence points at one time on any ability.
You can increase the damage or healing of any spell, not just instantaneous ones.
Extending a necromancy spell has a max duration of 24 hours.
It’s super thematic and feels amazing, but I have found too complex as well. Several things to track and keep reminding. Killing things with spells, specially single creatures, are not also the Wizards forté. The only decent Necromancy spell that causes damage came at level 5 and it’s troublesome because coletes for your Concentration (Vampiric Touch). This is a big issue for Grim Harvest as well.
I made a very simple homebrew for my 2nd level Necromancer ability: I can cast False Life as a bonus action without spending a spell slot and adding my Wizard level to the account (1d4 + 4 + Wizard level THP) proficiency times per long-rest. Once I get Undead Thralls, I can apply this benefit to two undeads as well.
I like this better than just making Grim Harvest grant temp HP flat out which was my original homebrew. It's all about that activation on kill, and specifically with a spell. It has such a huge risk of seeing little use, and when it does activate has quite a bit of risk to be wasted on top of that.
Here I've added that through eating up a fair bit of the necromancer's action economy you can gain quite a few cool effects that should only be slightly more powerful considering the cost compared with similar features at equivalent levels, and in some cases are actually weaker than similar features at those levels. Versatility is what brings the feature back up to par with the potential for new effects to be added later.
Soul reaper could still get wasted plenty of times before level 14. Any time you get a kill with a spell you still have to use your reaction to get the points as well as find an opportunity before your next long rest to use those points.
Are you referring to enervation and vampiric touch conflicting? I always just took enervation to be an upgrade to VT and never minded them both needing concentration. We also have spirit shroud now, though it being a bonus action to cast means its duration cannot be extended with soul reaper unless I revise the ruling so that you can extend bonus action necromancy spells for free.
I created a variant feature for Grim Harvest which I call Soul Reaper. You can find it here. (I've already edited portions in this post so bear with me) This contains only the descriptive text, I have not added any character sheet features such as which bonus actions are available or at what levels. I also realized after creating this thread I could have created a variant wizard subclass to achieve the same effect and to probably be more convenient than adding an extra feat to your character sheet, but this is what I've got for now.
Grim Harvest has a great theme, but I feel is greatly lacking in mechanical viability. Simply put, because you have to not only get the kill with a spell but also have taken damage before the kill, this feature has very limited activation while also having needed other far too risky of a variable to occur before activation to be of much use.
You're in a team. Everyone is going for the kill. Too many variables are at play to determine who actually gets that kill. You're also a wizard. You want to avoid being a target in the first place. Ideally, the wizard is hiding behind other beefy players and not getting hit at all if they can help it, and then they have to land a killing blow with a spell. The feature is further not fully utilized if you could have healed 8 hp but you're only down by 3 points. Then we've got enervation and vampiric touch, two of the most commonly used damage spells in necromancy, which also heal the caster.
My intention with this variant was to keep the theme of killing an enemy to gain some benefit from their life force while gaining more control over its utilization. "Harvesting souls" for later use is a common necromantic theme, and that idea naturally evolved into also providing more options through the use of the essence of souls.
Some sort of point system fits very well, having been established previously by many class features such as ki points, battle master maneuvers, or lay on hands. The primary difference between Soul Reaper and many other features is that in those other features, you regain all uses on a long rest, and sometimes regain all or partial use on a short rest. In the case of Soul Reaper, you have to gain the points and use them before you finish a long rest.
Because of the difficult nature of gaining soul essence and being unable to keep soul essence from one day to the next at early levels, Soul Reaper aims to grant you a decent amount at one time with slightly more powerful than normal usage. Many of the options give you twice the benefit for what you spend. It also necessitates murder, so there's that.
Losing all soul essence when you finish a long rest ties into the idea that, while soul essence is not a full soul, it is still a powerful force that is difficult to contain for extended periods without extra measures in places. Tying these extra measures to soul cage was another natural extension of the feature. Because Soul Reaper and soul cage both use your reaction, you cannot use both in the same round but you gain synergistic abilities with the spell and feature.
Gaining soul essence on any damaging spell provides more consistency at later levels when you're in an environment where landing the killing blow is even more difficult. Everyone has stronger abilities, bigger attacks and damage. Furthermore, it represents the necromancer's growing power in being to steal a portion of one's soul without having to kill it. Requiring a spell slot and not being able to use cantrips prevents infinite soul essence.
Way too overpowered for a 2nd level feature. And incredibly complicated. I'd never take this.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Plenty of complicated things in the game.
What's overpowered?
Spellcasting is complicated, ish, to newbies. Everything else about the wizard is easy, simple and straightforward. That's kinda the raison d'etre of 5th edition: to simplify D&D and streamline it. Going back a step isn't a good idea.
And: the whole feature is overpowered. This 2nd level feature is adding more things than entire subclasses do. It's extra spell slots, extra free castings, free spells, extra uses of spell effects, and it's got a more powerful version of Extend Spell metamagic.
It's extreme.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
No more complicated than ki points or sorcery points other than you have to earn the points every day rather than refresh them every day. The features gained at level 2 are on par with battle master maneuvers which just got even more options to choose from. Everything else is a level 14 feature.
And you seem to be seriously undermining the part where it needs to be earned, and specifically through a kill. You start the day with zero soul essence. Portions which are similar to other class features are more powerful specifically because it is more difficult to gain these soul points while being far more restrictive in most cases to necromancy spells rather than ALL spells or attacks or whatever of other features.
EDIT: Double-checked to see if I missed something. The "extend spell" option works on exactly 13 necromancy spells and nothing else, you must use your bonus action on top of casting the spell, and only one of which lasts longer than 1 hour, which is gentle repose. It is not exactly game-breaking to spend 2 soul essence to extend that spell from 10 days to 20 days. Sorcerers have around 120 spells to choose from which they can extend, give or take, which costs only 1 of their sorcery points regardless of spell level and does not cost any action to do so.
The original version had the extend spell option costs twice the spell's level in soul essence and I reduced that due to how extreme that was.
Here you just said the same thing three times in a row to make it sound worse. And you don't get "free" anything unless you call all the things monks, sorcerers and warlocks do and whatever else "free" as well. Soul essence is a difficult to acquire resource which you must spend many points of to gain the greatest effects.
At the extreme end, a level 20 Divination Wizard using every single 2nd level or higher spell slot to cast or upcast divination spells can regain six 5th-level slots, nine 4th-level slots, twelve 3rd-level slots, fifteen 2nd-level slots, eighteen 1st-level slots. Then Arcane Recovery gives back two 5th-level slots, which means two more 4th-level slots as well.
That is a total of 62 spell slots of varying levels between 1 and 5 regained through the Expert Divination feature, and the activation cost is by simply doing what all wizards normally do, which is cast spells.
If (note that is if, not automatic) a level 20 Soul Reaper Necromancer starts the day with max soul essence, that is 60 soul essence at the start of the day. Without landing the killing blow on a creature, they can gain an additional 44 soul essence only if they use every single spell to cast a necromancy spell and successfully deal damage with each of those spells. They can use Arcane Recovery to gain ten 1st-level spell slots, and if they also successfully deal damage with another ten inflict wounds spells, then that is 20 more soul essence. At the moment we are at 124 soul essence on a given day which requires starting the day with max soul essence and successfully dealing damage with every single spell slot.
One option, you could use every single soul essence to create 1st-level spell slots. You must use your bonus action to do so, you must cast a necromancy spell, and you must use it by the end of the turn. It costs 4 soul essence, which means thirty-one 1st-level spell slots. You could then cast 31 inflict wounds, and if you successfully deal damage with all of those then you get 62 points, which turn into fifteen 1st-level spell slots, then eight slots, then four, two, and one.
After all said and done that is 61 first spell slots compared to the Diviner's 62 spell slots of various levels up to 5. Honestly, this is the first time I did that math and I thought for soul reaper it would be way more than that. Pretty cool that they came out so close. (assuming all math is correct).
Alternatively, that 124 soul essence could be used to upcast your spells. It always costs 6 soul essence per level, no matter if you upcast a 3rd into a 4th or a 1st into a 6th. In this way, you could get up to twenty upcasts. These are not "free spell slots", you still have to use the initial spell slot, and no matter how much upcast you are still only casting one spell. It must be a necromancy spell, and If it happens to be a damaging spell, you still only get 2 soul essence back if you successfully damage a creature.
It is almost 100% likely you are using these upcasts on the same spells which got you the initial pool of 124 soul essence to begin with, so you're not gaining any extra soul essence on top of that.
Because of the nature of soul essence and the ways in which it is allowed to be spent, the two extremes are mutually exclusive. Any soul essence you spend on upcasting means fewer points you can spend on regaining 1st-level spell slots and vice-versa.
Of course, you can gain more soul essence on a killing blow. If (very important if) you get the killing blow. There is also some extra math where you can gain another 24 soul essence through the use of soul cage, but I don't feel like doing that. All I know is I made sure to prevent an infinite soul essence/spell slot loop.
Note the number of soul essence you could gain in a day is reduced by up to half if you damage a creature with a non-necromancy spell, and you gain nothing if you deal no damage with a spell at all. Furthermore, there are more uses for soul essence than spell slots and upcasting, which are on par with the effects of similar class features considering the difficulty in gaining soul points and retaining them.
Edit: Forgot wizards don't get inflict wounds, I was thinking of my multiclass cleric/necromancer. But Ray of Sickness still applies.
I'm not going to comment on all of this... Just the beginning.
When your argument hinges on A 20th level character only casting a certain kind of spell to trigger a certain kind of ability. Your already in the weeds and not making a good comparison. There are almost no damage spells for starters in Divination. And one of them when you upcast it you do not get any kind of additional Damage. Just more duration for it. So you'd effectively have to cast it repeatedly and then drop concentration on it a huge number of times to accomplish what your saying. which is highly ineffective. This is a bad argument on almost all levels. This is made even worse when you make a system to do the same thing that is full of Damage dealing spells.
Secondly the others are right. Your one level 2 feature is doing what entire subclasses get built around (and then some). And it's more complicated than any of those subclasses and far more complicated than anything that Ki or Sorcery Points does. Just because it works only when you kill things does not justify this kind of power.
Finally, Any Upcasting Done that is not spell slots. Is effectively free spell slots. Even if you have to spend a lower level slot. It's still effectively free spell slots. Because now a lower levels spell slot is working far above it's power capacity effectively making it a free resource... Nothing in the game really works this way and it doesn't work this way for good reason.
That's... not the point of the example at all. I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt that I don't have to explain that starting with zero points every day at level 2, only gaining those points on a killing blow, compared to sorcerers or monk's that get their points refreshed every single day is a huge setback to this ability. There is no hinging on anything, I gave the extreme examples for scope because I assumed the lesser examples were obvious
Are you guys getting killing blows every single time you cast a spell?
After you get that killing blow, does spending all of those points and a bonus action for at most 4 more necrotic damage (if you were lucky to kill a creature that had enough HD or with the right spell) amount to a rogue's sneak attack every single turn?
Or one extra first-level necromancy spell (if you got the killing blow).
And literally, everything else you said is addressed in my various tweets, so I don't know what to tell you if you refuse to comment on things when it is those very things you refuse to comment on which refute everything you have said.
The comments that this one ability (it is three abilities I wrote as one. I can literally break it into separate 2nd, 10th and 14th level features.) which is equivalent to an entire subclass is patently false. You gain multiple options for a scarce resource which eats up your action economy every single turn. It is renewable under extreme and unlikely circumstances, to the extent that the abilities might be a little stronger is necessary to make up for that.
The only further restriction I considered which I didn't add was limiting the number of soul essence you can spend at once. This was going to be equal to your wizard level which would then automatically limit the level 1 spell slots to a 4th level wizard and the upcasting to a level 6 wizard, putting it on par with the Diviner in that respect.
It’s super thematic and feels amazing, but I have found too complex as well. Several things to track and keep reminding. Killing things with spells, specially single creatures, are not also the Wizards forté. The only decent Necromancy spell that causes damage came at level 5 and it’s troublesome because coletes for your Concentration (Vampiric Touch). This is a big issue for Grim Harvest as well.
I made a very simple homebrew for my 2nd level Necromancer ability: I can cast False Life as a bonus action without spending a spell slot and adding my Wizard level to the account (1d4 + 4 + Wizard level THP) proficiency times per long-rest. Once I get Undead Thralls, I can apply this benefit to two undeads as well.
I updated the original post. Quoted the original version to serve as a revision update log.
Worked on some of the wording as best I could for clarity, primarily following the wording and format used for sorcery points. Will continue to update the wording and format as I go.
Instead of getting soul essence points based on a creature's hit dice, it is now a flat 1 or 2 points depending on whether or not the creature was killed with a necromancy or non-necromancy spell.
The requirement that a spell must be single-target at lower levels is removed. Any killing blow with any spell grants soul essence points, though it still accounts for only one creature killed. Level ten still allows you to gain soul essence points for each creature killed with a spell.
You can now only spend up to your wizard level in soul essence points at one time on any ability.
You can increase the damage or healing of any spell, not just instantaneous ones.
Extending a necromancy spell has a max duration of 24 hours.
I like this better than just making Grim Harvest grant temp HP flat out which was my original homebrew. It's all about that activation on kill, and specifically with a spell. It has such a huge risk of seeing little use, and when it does activate has quite a bit of risk to be wasted on top of that.
Here I've added that through eating up a fair bit of the necromancer's action economy you can gain quite a few cool effects that should only be slightly more powerful considering the cost compared with similar features at equivalent levels, and in some cases are actually weaker than similar features at those levels. Versatility is what brings the feature back up to par with the potential for new effects to be added later.
Soul reaper could still get wasted plenty of times before level 14. Any time you get a kill with a spell you still have to use your reaction to get the points as well as find an opportunity before your next long rest to use those points.
Are you referring to enervation and vampiric touch conflicting? I always just took enervation to be an upgrade to VT and never minded them both needing concentration. We also have spirit shroud now, though it being a bonus action to cast means its duration cannot be extended with soul reaper unless I revise the ruling so that you can extend bonus action necromancy spells for free.