My other submissions were more complex this time so I'll round it out with a simple DM option to spruce up your campaign's metropolitan areas: the Living Puddle!
SensesBlindsight 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), Passive Perception 10
Languages--
Challenge1/2 (100 XP)
Proficiency Bonus+2
Amorphous. The ooze can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.
False Appearance. While the ooze remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a puddle of water.
Attach. When the ooze hits an enemy with its pseudopod attack, it initiates a grapple. While the ooze is grappling an enemy in this way it cannot attack but can use its action to deal 2d6 acid damage to the grappled enemy and if the target is wearing nonmagical metal armor, its armor is partly corroded and takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. The armor is destroyed if the penalty reduces its AC to 10.
The ooze has advantage on opposed strength checks against grappled foes.
Corrode Metal. Any nonmagical weapon made of metal that hits the ooze corrodes. After dealing damage, the weapon takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to -5, the weapon is destroyed. Nonmagical ammunition made of metal that hits the ooze is destroyed after dealing damage.
The ooze can eat through 2-inch-thick, nonmagical metal in 1 round.
Actions
Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 3 (1d4 + 1) bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d4) acid damage, and if the target is wearing nonmagical metal armor, its armor is partly corroded and takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. The armor is destroyed if the penalty reduces its AC to 10.
Description
Living puddles are opportunistic eaters, devouring those unlucky enough to get stuck in the translucent ooze that makes up its body.
Often stumbled upon in the back-alleys of large cities, the living puddle has spelled death for much of the homeless populations in metropolitan areas.
Despite the danger posed by these creatures, they are very easy to avoid, so long as you know they exist.
Here is my player option, the Chess Domain cleric, which is all about commanding, buffing and maneuvering your martial allies:
Many people love playing games, and many people view chess as a game like any other. But clerics of the Chess domain, usually followers of gods of strategoy and gods of enjoyment with Caissa being the most prevalent one, view chess as more than just a game. It is the most purest of all enjoyments, and the most strict and competitive at the same time. No dice rolls are involved, no cards are shuffled and drawn and no other elements of randomness are involved, only skill and tactics count. Playing a game of chess is more than just enjoyment for a cleric of the Chess domain, it is their form of honoring their god, their form of praying. And it is their form of training for combat.
Clerics of the Chess domain are masters of tactics, both at the game table and on the battlefield. Every battlefield is a chess board for them, and every creature on it is a chess piece. With their god's blessing, they maneuver their allies to victory and allow them to mercilessly punish their foe's blunders.
Domain Spells
At each indicated cleric level, you add the listed spells to your spells prepared.
1st
bless, heroism
3rd
aid, detect thoughts
5th
mass healing word, intellect fortress
7th
freedom of movement, Mordenkainen's private sanctum
9th
skill empowerment, Bigby's hand
Tactician's Blessing
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you learn two languages of your choice and gain proficiency in two of the following skills: Deception, History, Insight, Investigation or Perception. In addition, you gain proficiency with the dragonchess set and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with the dragonchess set.
Opening Theory
While you are holding your dragonchess set, you select a number of friendly creatures equal to your proficiency bonus and choose one of the following effects, which takes place the first time initiative is rolled within the next 10 minutes:
Open Game: Until the end of the first round, an affected creature's speed increases by 10 feet and when an affected creature makes an attack roll, it can roll 1d4 and add the result to the attack roll. In addition, when an affected creature is hit by an attack during the first round, it can use its reaction to make a weapon attack against the attacker.
Semi-Open Game: All affected creatures gain temporary hit points equal to half your cleric level (minimum of 1). Until the end of the first round, when an affected creature makes an attack roll or a saving throw, it can roll 1d4 and add the result to the attack roll or saving throw.
Closed Game: All affected creatures gain temporary hit points equal to your cleric level (minimum of 1). Until the end of the first round, when an affected creature makes a saving throw, it can roll 1d4 and add the result to the saving throw. In addition, when an affected creature is hit by an attack during the first round, it can use its reaction to add its proficiency bonus to its AC against that attack, potentially causing the attack to miss.
You can also declare an opening strategy to be a gambit. In this case, all affected creatures have advantage on their initiative rolls, but until the end of the first round, all attacks against them have advantage. Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
Channel Divinity: Castling
At 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to accomplish on the battlefield, what others only can do at the game table - bring the vulnerable ones to safety and the tough, healthy ones to the front at the same time.
As a bonus action, you present your holy symbol and utter a command to two friendly creatures of your choice you can see within 30 feet of you. Both creatures immediately teleport and switch places. In addition, one of the two creatures can use their reaction to make a weapon attack against a target of your choice immediately afterwards.
Double Check
At 6th level, you learn to execute one of the most difficult maneuvers possible in chess: the double check, threatening and attacking a foe from two different sides at the same time. When you use the Help action to aid an ally in attacking a creature, you can instead help two allies attacking the same creature and the target of these attacks can be within 30 feet of you, rather than within 5 feet of you.
In addition, if an ally makes an attack with advantage due to your Help action and hits, the attack deals additional force damage equal to 1d8 plus your proficiency bonus and the target must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone.
Potent Spellcasting
Starting at 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any cleric cantrip.
Grandmaster
At 17th level, you lave learned to take full control of the battlefield to maneuver your allies to victory like a grandmaster. When you cast one of your cleric spells that targets one friendly, willing creature other than yourself, you can instead target a number of friendly, willing creatures equal to your proficiency bonus with that spell. You can cast a spell in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses when you finish a long rest.
I hope this one is fine, I had that idea for a long time as an avid chess player, but only threw that together right now :-) I don't know if its Opening Theory feature is balanced as is, but I think so considering it only lasts for one round; but on the other hand it opens the possiblity for special rewards for that character in the form of new opening options geared for specific situations like a fight against a big bad.
Here is my player option, the Chess Domain cleric, which is all about commanding, buffing and maneuvering your martial allies:
Many people love playing games, and many people view chess as a game like any other. But clerics of the Chess domain, usually followers of gods of strategoy and gods of enjoyment with Caissa being the most prevalent one, view chess as more than just a game. It is the most purest of all enjoyments, and the most strict and competitive at the same time. No dice rolls are involved, no cards are shuffled and drawn and no other elements of randomness are involved, only skill and tactics count. Playing a game of chess is more than just enjoyment for a cleric of the Chess domain, it is their form of honoring their god, their form of praying. And it is their form of training for combat.
Clerics of the Chess domain are masters of tactics, both at the game table and on the battlefield. Every battlefield is a chess board for them, and every creature on it is a chess piece. With their god's blessing, they maneuver their allies to victory and allow them to mercilessly punish their foe's blunders.
Domain Spells
At each indicated cleric level, you add the listed spells to your spells prepared.
1st
bless, heroism
3rd
aid, detect thoughts
5th
mass healing word, intellect fortress
7th
freedom of movement, Mordenkainen's private sanctum
9th
skill empowerment, Bigby's hand
Tactician's Blessing
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you learn two languages of your choice and gain proficiency in two of the following skills: Deception, History, Insight, Investigation or Perception. In addition, you gain proficiency with the dragonchess set and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with the dragonchess set.
Opening Theory
While you are holding your dragonchess set, you select a number of friendly creatures equal to your proficiency bonus and choose one of the following effects, which takes place the first time initiative is rolled within the next 10 minutes:
Open Game: Until the end of the first round, an affected creature's speed increases by 10 feet and when an affected creature makes an attack roll, it can roll 1d4 and add the result to the attack roll. In addition, when an affected creature is hit by an attack during the first round, it can use its reaction to make a weapon attack against the attacker.
Semi-Open Game: All affected creatures gain temporary hit points equal to half your cleric level (minimum of 1). Until the end of the first round, when an affected creature makes an attack roll or a saving throw, it can roll 1d4 and add the result to the attack roll or saving throw.
Closed Game: All affected creatures gain temporary hit points equal to your cleric level (minimum of 1). Until the end of the first round, when an affected creature makes a saving throw, it can roll 1d4 and add the result to the saving throw. In addition, when an affected creature is hit by an attack during the first round, it can use its reaction to add its proficiency bonus to its AC against that attack, potentially causing the attack to miss.
You can also declare an opening strategy to be a gambit. In this case, all affected creatures have advantage on their initiative rolls, but until the end of the first round, all attacks against them have advantage. Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
Channel Divinity: Castling
At 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to accomplish on the battlefield, what others only can do at the game table - bring the vulnerable ones to safety and the tough, healthy ones to the front at the same time.
As a bonus action, you present your holy symbol and utter a command to two friendly creatures of your choice you can see within 30 feet of you. Both creatures immediately teleport and switch places. In addition, one of the two creatures can use their reaction to make a weapon attack against a target of your choice immediately afterwards.
Double Check
At level 6, you learn to execute one of the most difficult maneuvers possible in chess: the double check, threatening and attacking a foe from two different sides at the same time. When you use the Help action to aid an ally in attacking a creature, you can help two allies attacking the same creature and the target of that attack can be within 30 feet of you, rather than within 5 feet of you.
In addition, if an ally makes an attack with advantage due to your Help action and hits, the attack deals additional force damage equal to 1d8 plus your proficiency bonus and the target must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone.
Potent Spellcasting
Starting at 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any cleric cantrip.
Grandmaster
At 17th level, you lave learned to take full control of the battlefield to maneuver your allies to victory like a grandmaster. When you cast one of your cleric spells that targets one friendly, willing creature other than yourself, you can instead target a number of friendly, willing creatures equal to your proficiency bonus with that spell. You can cast a spell in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses when you finish a long rest.
I hope this one is fine, I had that idea for a long time as an avid chess player, but only threw that together right now :-) I don't know if its Opening Theory feature is balanced as is, but I think so considering it only lasts for one round; but on the other hand it opens the possiblity for special rewards for that character in the form of new opening options geared for specific situations like a fight against a big bad.
Love the flavor and can tell you put alot of thought into how the abilities work and how they relate back to chess. The abilities are solid as well. The only thing that seems a little odd to me is the capstone scaling with proficiency bonus, since it is already maxed out at level 17 and wont increase further past this point.
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I was staying true to official wording, and there are ways to increase the PB past 6 with magic items (at least one of the Ioun stones can do that) or maybe a Wish spell or some other homebrew stuff, and when going into epic levels, it makes sense to scale the PB up too following the scaling used by monsters - PB 7 at CR 21 up to PB 9 at CR 30 - although of course there are no official rules for that :-) Do you think I should just say "six creatures" instead or would you replace the capstone in general?
Standard wording, and there are ways to increase the PB past 6 with magic items (at least one of the Ioun stones can do that) or maybe a Wish spell or some other homebrew stuff, and when going into epic levels, it makes sense to scale the PB up too following the scaling used by monsters - PB 7 at CR 21 up to PB 9 at CR 30 - although of course there are no official rules for that :-) Do you think I should just say "six creatures" instead or would you replace the capstone in general?
I think the capstone is fine as it is and leaving the wording for PB is probably fine. If you want my opinion, I would maybe scale it back slightly. Being able to target 6 creatures with a single-target spell 6 times per day is pretty powerful imo, especially considering you have 8th and 9th level spell slots at this point. So personally, I would either scale back the number of creatures you can target OR the number of uses to some smaller value. Another option would be to restrict the level of spells they can use this ability with (maybe something like 5th level or lower).
I dont think it needs to be pulled back too far, since it is a capstone, but I think it is a bit too powerful as it is right now. But thats just my opinion. This is your entry and others may feel differently than I do, so I will leave it up to you if you want to change anything
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Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
You are right, I scaled it back now, limiting it to 5th level and lower spells. While there are no 8th or 9th level cleric spells it would work with, something like Regenerate on the whole party with only one spell slot would have been too much :-) It already felt too much when I did that as a Divine Soul Sorcerer/Paladin, using my Simulacrum and twinned spell in one of my games... xD
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Does this help at all?
DM options:
Íllgrathr (Burrow Grub) by MilestoGo_24
Copycat+Faceless by Dragonslayer9
Razor Wire by Kaboom979
Salamander Pendant by AlexandrosThegreat
Ancient Turtle Dragon, Revised by Semako
Mimicblood by Thauraeln_The_Bold
Imaginary Bow by Nikuna297
Gorgon Minotaur (Gorgotaur) by TexasDevin
PC options:
Path of the Sumo Warrior by Kaboom979
Magnetism by Drumitch
Path of the Arms by JotaTaylor
Magic Network Engineer by Nikuna297
Bounty Hunter by MilestoGo_24
Oath of Authority by Thauraeln_The_Bold
Path of Frost by AlexandrosThegreat
Inspirational Option:
Fatal Vampirism by Drumitch
A Siege before the Solstice (A Ravenloft One-Shot Adventure) by Kaboom979
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Submission
My submission for this competition.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
I have submissions for the PC and Inspirational categories underway.... I just hope I can finish them in time.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
2-3 days left, better get a watch on and start pumping out some works!
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
Here's my PC option, a spell that lets you eliminate chaos within its area:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/1246060-equilibrium
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
You probably scared so many people away from opening the link by disguising it as a YouTube video...
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
DM Option (Indistinguishable)
Magic Item: ARCANE CHESS SET ...It looks like an ordinary chess board but when you aren't looking it makes its move!
https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4255722-arcane-chess-set
PC Option (Control)
Feat: KEG DRINKER ...it's short and simple and who doesn't like a drinking game!
https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/807917-keg-drinker
i like to create things ... Check out my magic items!
I also illustrate and paint Dungeons & Dragons and Eberron scenes, creatures, and characters https://www.albertholaso.com/illustration COMMISION ME!
Commission me! Follow me on Bluesky!
That was kinda the point
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
Just finished updating my Inspirational Option submission!
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
If you want people to judge your work, why do you want to scare them away?
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
It’s the rickroll link.
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXVIII?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
As a joke. I'm removing it now.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
Oooooooh. Gotcha
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
My other submissions were more complex this time so I'll round it out with a simple DM option to spruce up your campaign's metropolitan areas: the Living Puddle!
Amorphous. The ooze can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.
False Appearance. While the ooze remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a puddle of water.
Attach. When the ooze hits an enemy with its pseudopod attack, it initiates a grapple. While the ooze is grappling an enemy in this way it cannot attack but can use its action to deal 2d6 acid damage to the grappled enemy and if the target is wearing nonmagical metal armor, its armor is partly corroded and takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. The armor is destroyed if the penalty reduces its AC to 10.
The ooze has advantage on opposed strength checks against grappled foes.
Corrode Metal. Any nonmagical weapon made of metal that hits the ooze corrodes. After dealing damage, the weapon takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to -5, the weapon is destroyed. Nonmagical ammunition made of metal that hits the ooze is destroyed after dealing damage.
The ooze can eat through 2-inch-thick, nonmagical metal in 1 round.
Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 3 (1d4 + 1) bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d4) acid damage, and if the target is wearing nonmagical metal armor, its armor is partly corroded and takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. The armor is destroyed if the penalty reduces its AC to 10.
Description
Living puddles are opportunistic eaters, devouring those unlucky enough to get stuck in the translucent ooze that makes up its body.
Often stumbled upon in the back-alleys of large cities, the living puddle has spelled death for much of the homeless populations in metropolitan areas.
Despite the danger posed by these creatures, they are very easy to avoid, so long as you know they exist.
Sunday DM and creator of homebrew for both DMs and players. I do lots of conversions!
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Here is my player option, the Chess Domain cleric, which is all about commanding, buffing and maneuvering your martial allies:
Many people love playing games, and many people view chess as a game like any other. But clerics of the Chess domain, usually followers of gods of strategoy and gods of enjoyment with Caissa being the most prevalent one, view chess as more than just a game. It is the most purest of all enjoyments, and the most strict and competitive at the same time. No dice rolls are involved, no cards are shuffled and drawn and no other elements of randomness are involved, only skill and tactics count. Playing a game of chess is more than just enjoyment for a cleric of the Chess domain, it is their form of honoring their god, their form of praying. And it is their form of training for combat.
Clerics of the Chess domain are masters of tactics, both at the game table and on the battlefield. Every battlefield is a chess board for them, and every creature on it is a chess piece. With their god's blessing, they maneuver their allies to victory and allow them to mercilessly punish their foe's blunders.
Domain Spells
At each indicated cleric level, you add the listed spells to your spells prepared.
Tactician's Blessing
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you learn two languages of your choice and gain proficiency in two of the following skills: Deception, History, Insight, Investigation or Perception. In addition, you gain proficiency with the dragonchess set and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with the dragonchess set.
Opening Theory
While you are holding your dragonchess set, you select a number of friendly creatures equal to your proficiency bonus and choose one of the following effects, which takes place the first time initiative is rolled within the next 10 minutes:
You can also declare an opening strategy to be a gambit. In this case, all affected creatures have advantage on their initiative rolls, but until the end of the first round, all attacks against them have advantage.
Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
Channel Divinity: Castling
At 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to accomplish on the battlefield, what others only can do at the game table - bring the vulnerable ones to safety and the tough, healthy ones to the front at the same time.
As a bonus action, you present your holy symbol and utter a command to two friendly creatures of your choice you can see within 30 feet of you. Both creatures immediately teleport and switch places. In addition, one of the two creatures can use their reaction to make a weapon attack against a target of your choice immediately afterwards.
Double Check
At 6th level, you learn to execute one of the most difficult maneuvers possible in chess: the double check, threatening and attacking a foe from two different sides at the same time. When you use the Help action to aid an ally in attacking a creature, you can instead help two allies attacking the same creature and the target of these attacks can be within 30 feet of you, rather than within 5 feet of you.
In addition, if an ally makes an attack with advantage due to your Help action and hits, the attack deals additional force damage equal to 1d8 plus your proficiency bonus and the target must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone.
Potent Spellcasting
Starting at 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any cleric cantrip.
Grandmaster
At 17th level, you lave learned to take full control of the battlefield to maneuver your allies to victory like a grandmaster. When you cast one of your cleric spells that targets one friendly, willing creature other than yourself, you can instead target a number of friendly, willing creatures equal to your proficiency bonus with that spell. You can cast a spell in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses when you finish a long rest.
I hope this one is fine, I had that idea for a long time as an avid chess player, but only threw that together right now :-) I don't know if its Opening Theory feature is balanced as is, but I think so considering it only lasts for one round; but on the other hand it opens the possiblity for special rewards for that character in the form of new opening options geared for specific situations like a fight against a big bad.
Love the flavor and can tell you put alot of thought into how the abilities work and how they relate back to chess. The abilities are solid as well. The only thing that seems a little odd to me is the capstone scaling with proficiency bonus, since it is already maxed out at level 17 and wont increase further past this point.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I was staying true to official wording, and there are ways to increase the PB past 6 with magic items (at least one of the Ioun stones can do that) or maybe a Wish spell or some other homebrew stuff, and when going into epic levels, it makes sense to scale the PB up too following the scaling used by monsters - PB 7 at CR 21 up to PB 9 at CR 30 - although of course there are no official rules for that :-) Do you think I should just say "six creatures" instead or would you replace the capstone in general?
I think the capstone is fine as it is and leaving the wording for PB is probably fine. If you want my opinion, I would maybe scale it back slightly. Being able to target 6 creatures with a single-target spell 6 times per day is pretty powerful imo, especially considering you have 8th and 9th level spell slots at this point. So personally, I would either scale back the number of creatures you can target OR the number of uses to some smaller value. Another option would be to restrict the level of spells they can use this ability with (maybe something like 5th level or lower).
I dont think it needs to be pulled back too far, since it is a capstone, but I think it is a bit too powerful as it is right now. But thats just my opinion. This is your entry and others may feel differently than I do, so I will leave it up to you if you want to change anything
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
You are right, I scaled it back now, limiting it to 5th level and lower spells. While there are no 8th or 9th level cleric spells it would work with, something like Regenerate on the whole party with only one spell slot would have been too much :-) It already felt too much when I did that as a Divine Soul Sorcerer/Paladin, using my Simulacrum and twinned spell in one of my games... xD