So I have a group I'm DMing with almost all new players, and our Warlock wants to use the UA Raven Queen patron because she loves the flavour and everything about the raven. She also loves the idea of having a reaper style scythe and so chose blade pact to have it be even cooler with the Improved Pact Weapon invocation. Any experienced player would think, why wouldn't you go hexblade if you're going to go bladepact, it makes it so much better! BUT, she's new and I always encourage flavour over min-maxing, so we're running with it.
Thaaaat being said, she's feeling a little underwhelmed using her weapon because she rolled some shit stats and so has a -1 strength and a +1 dex, so even letting her use dex for the two handed scythe (debatably balanced) and (because of improved pact weapon) letting it be a d10, +1 weapon (arguably, unbalanced, but maybe not?) , it's all just pretty... meh. She ends up rolling a +4 (while others are at +7) and adding +2 to dmg. On top of that it takes an action to summon, which I understand is balanced against the flexibility, but she basically only wants to use the scythe anyway. So that's the dilemma.
So I made an offer, that we could create an Invocation that would allow her to use her Charisma for the weapon attack rolls and damage. This hurts a bit though, because early levels she only gets two and it means she would take out Agonizing Blast (probably the only invocation you simply always take).
What do folks think of that as a balance? I think just letting it be Cha is too broken, but I'm also not worried about this player taking over the game with power creep, so I'm more inclined to be liberal, but also, I like to run games pretty tight to the rules cause I think consistency is more fun as a player. What would you do?
This topic really should be called Using Point Buy to avoid crap stats. Why change anything else when you can just allow the player to HAVE stats that are more inline with the rest of the group?
If she’s new, I say go for it. Another thing you could do is just apply it to that weapon specifically. It’s a magic weapon and it’s ability is allowing you to use your cha stat when attacking with that weapon.
Edit: never mind don’t think my idea would work for pact of the blade.
but you could always make her earn it, perform a task or complete a quest for her patron and they bestow the ability upon them as a reward.
Seems like you could shuffle some things around to make it work. Patron: Hexblade, Pact: Chain. Keep all the Raven Queen flavor because Hexblade patron has none anyway, and reskin the familiar as a raven. They will have slightly different abilities but the concept should be intact.
That or you could let her respect into hexblade now that she knows more.
But I don't see the harm. It's a game, it should be fun. If it's not fun, fix it.
Agreed on both points, hexblade can be considered to have the raven queen as a patron. If the actual raven is an issue, it's easier to add find familiar to her spell list on dndbeyond than it is to recreate an entire subclass.
That said, the point is to have fun; bending the rules a little for that is fine, just be wary if it starts creeping into power gaming.
This topic really should be called Using Point Buy to avoid crap stats. Why change anything else when you can just allow the player to HAVE stats that are more inline with the rest of the group?
Agree here; play what you want and not feel ****** by a bad roll. But also, this is one of the cases where I like a rule Adventure League where before level 5, you can change the character class and spec*
* - Or at least I heard; I don't play AL and I don't have a citation for rule; but I still like the idea .
I actually was experimenting with a better "roll stat" idea in this campaign, where we did the 'roll 4, remove the lowest', but I also said your lowest score couldn't be lower than an 8, and everyone could change their highest score to a 17, that there was some chance, but everyone could at least walk out feeling strong at their best attribute. In general I feel it was a fun compromise, but I admittedly haven't tried straight point buy. I started with rolling and there's something about it that feels fitting.
Thanks to ye both, and yeah. Power gaming is not my concern in this campaign, at least not at all from this player. As a DM I'm always trying to find that balance between adaptable and using the rules because they're great balancing tools.
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So I have a group I'm DMing with almost all new players, and our Warlock wants to use the UA Raven Queen patron because she loves the flavour and everything about the raven. She also loves the idea of having a reaper style scythe and so chose blade pact to have it be even cooler with the Improved Pact Weapon invocation. Any experienced player would think, why wouldn't you go hexblade if you're going to go bladepact, it makes it so much better! BUT, she's new and I always encourage flavour over min-maxing, so we're running with it.
Thaaaat being said, she's feeling a little underwhelmed using her weapon because she rolled some shit stats and so has a -1 strength and a +1 dex, so even letting her use dex for the two handed scythe (debatably balanced) and (because of improved pact weapon) letting it be a d10, +1 weapon (arguably, unbalanced, but maybe not?) , it's all just pretty... meh. She ends up rolling a +4 (while others are at +7) and adding +2 to dmg. On top of that it takes an action to summon, which I understand is balanced against the flexibility, but she basically only wants to use the scythe anyway. So that's the dilemma.
So I made an offer, that we could create an Invocation that would allow her to use her Charisma for the weapon attack rolls and damage. This hurts a bit though, because early levels she only gets two and it means she would take out Agonizing Blast (probably the only invocation you simply always take).
What do folks think of that as a balance? I think just letting it be Cha is too broken, but I'm also not worried about this player taking over the game with power creep, so I'm more inclined to be liberal, but also, I like to run games pretty tight to the rules cause I think consistency is more fun as a player. What would you do?
DM YAMSLICE
That or you could let her respect into hexblade now that she knows more.
But I don't see the harm. It's a game, it should be fun. If it's not fun, fix it.
This topic really should be called Using Point Buy to avoid crap stats. Why change anything else when you can just allow the player to HAVE stats that are more inline with the rest of the group?
If she’s new, I say go for it. Another thing you could do is just apply it to that weapon specifically. It’s a magic weapon and it’s ability is allowing you to use your cha stat when attacking with that weapon.
Edit: never mind don’t think my idea would work for pact of the blade.
but you could always make her earn it, perform a task or complete a quest for her patron and they bestow the ability upon them as a reward.
Seems like you could shuffle some things around to make it work. Patron: Hexblade, Pact: Chain. Keep all the Raven Queen flavor because Hexblade patron has none anyway, and reskin the familiar as a raven. They will have slightly different abilities but the concept should be intact.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Agreed on both points, hexblade can be considered to have the raven queen as a patron. If the actual raven is an issue, it's easier to add find familiar to her spell list on dndbeyond than it is to recreate an entire subclass.
That said, the point is to have fun; bending the rules a little for that is fine, just be wary if it starts creeping into power gaming.
Agree here; play what you want and not feel ****** by a bad roll. But also, this is one of the cases where I like a rule Adventure League where before level 5, you can change the character class and spec*
* - Or at least I heard; I don't play AL and I don't have a citation for rule; but I still like the idea .
I actually was experimenting with a better "roll stat" idea in this campaign, where we did the 'roll 4, remove the lowest', but I also said your lowest score couldn't be lower than an 8, and everyone could change their highest score to a 17, that there was some chance, but everyone could at least walk out feeling strong at their best attribute. In general I feel it was a fun compromise, but I admittedly haven't tried straight point buy. I started with rolling and there's something about it that feels fitting.
Thanks to ye both, and yeah. Power gaming is not my concern in this campaign, at least not at all from this player. As a DM I'm always trying to find that balance between adaptable and using the rules because they're great balancing tools.