Meditative. Similar to Metamagic Initiate it seems like this feat is best used for monks who always need more Ki. I love the idea of a feat that helps monks, and you did a good job with it. Focused Strike looks a bit weak to me, for a monk it always competes with Stunning Strike, which also costs 1 Ki point and can stun, and Focused Aim, which allows you to spend 1 to 3 Ki points to turn a close miss into a hit - which results in a lot more over-all extra damage. Also, if we just focus on the feat, it competes with Tranquility, I always would save my Ki points from that feat to use that ability to overpower paralysis and other effects that would take my turn away. Swiftness of Action looks kinda cool, not sure about the balance aspect though (especially for sorcerers, who could cast 3 spells in a turn by quickening twice, and for some weird mutliclasses like swords bard 10 / monk x, who could use swift quiver twice on each of their turns until they run out of Ki). For a pure monk, it might cost too much Ki points especially at early levels, but will be nice to have if you really want to flurry and to use Step of the Wind. If you want to spend 4 Ki points just on your bonus actions, you could even use it to flurry twice on the same turn for a total of 6 attacks.
I meant to imply that the ki points gained from Meditative couldn’t be used to fuel Monk abilities, but I didn’t ever actually say it, so I suppose it’s impossible to not make that mistake. Additionally, the Tranquility function only affects things that reduce your options for actions to take your turn, and doesn’t remove conditions such as paralyzed. Next, I’d like to point out that classes other than Monks can use this feat, in fact I did my best to make its abilities viable to all classes, though I guess the fact that you can use Monk ki points to fuel it makes it stronger, however as you said, Focused Strike will have competition for use over Stunning Strike and will largely be useless by 6th level, meaning that Monks in fact have incentive not to take this feat. The Quickness of Action is also meant to read as only being usable once per turn if ki points are available.
I think you should absolutely alllow this feat's Ki points to fuel monk abilities, otherwise you have the same issue as with Metamagic Adept, where you have two resources with the same name, one of which can be used for everything that works with that resource and the other not - which is simply annoying for players in my opinion. Regarding Tranqulity, probably the wording needs some clarification then? Conditions like paralyzed effectlive reduce your options for actions you can take on your turn, so RAW your feat would allow one to use Tranqulity to act normally while paralyzed. With how you meant it to be read, Tranquility would help exactly against two spells: slow and Tasha's mind whip, but against nothing else since except for those spells, DnD 5e unfortunately only knows "you cannot take any actions" as a way of limiting what a player can do on their turn, which comes under names such as paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or incapacitated. Regarding Focused Strike, you could do a very simple change to make it more viable, make it deal some dice of damage instead of a fixed value - so that it can be applied on a crit. You could say it deals 1 or 2d4 damage and scales with Martial Arts dice for example. I think monks should absolutely have incentive to take that feat just like how sorcerers have incentive to take Metamagic Adept :-)
The Psion. It is based on the UA Mystic right? I know may said the Mystic was broken, I have never played one and only ever seen one played once, that character did not feel overpowered. Your Psion class looks underwhelming to me though, in terms of power? Since Mystic Recovery has unlimited uses (is that even intended?) you will enter almost every fight with all Psi points available, but you only ever get a handful of them and the only way to scale the damage of your basic disciplines and talents is to use Psi points, since their built-in scaling only increases the damage die size by one step at level 11. Maybe they could use damage scaling like cantrips? I am also wondering if the class could be a bit simplified by reducing the number of resources one has to track, since right now there are several features that can be used a specific number of times per rest. I would also move telepathy to 1st level, since any other slightly psionic-like subclass, thinking of Aberrant Mind sorcerer and Great Old One warlock here, gets it at 1st level, and the Soul Knife rogue gets it when they get their subclass at 3rd level. Maybe I am also missing something about your class...? I like the concept of the modular subclasses, although I think some additional abilities/ribbons to better define them would be nice and would make them more flavorful.
I was not originally intending it to be based on the UA mystic (I actually discovered it while doing research for the project). However, as the deadline drew closer and I didn't have ideas for a few levels I turned to the UA mystic for inspiration.
Mystic recovery was not intended to be unlimited use. I was worried about the class being underpowered, but I struggled to find ways to increase it's power. I might end up increasing the psi points per level, along with how powerful each one is when I make my version 2.0, along with cantrip-esque damage scaling. However, I do want to keep the psion different from spellcasting. The idea being that a spellcaster had a lot of spells but with limited spell slots, whereas the psion has limited psychic abilities but can use them at-will.
I will note, that though the psion is underwhelming combat wise, it makes a really good skill monkey. I'll still buff it though in my next iteration.
I'll add some features to the subclasses in addition to the psychic abilities. I agree that it makes the choices a little bland, as well as detracting from the power of the class.
Fabricator Unit. I love it. Only thing I am unsure about is why you do not allow the unit to manufacture weapons and armor? What is the difference between a blacksmith's or mason's hammer and a warhammer or light hammer, or of a potter's or woodcarver's knife and a dagger for it, they all are mundane adventuring gear after all and mechaniciallythere won't be any real difference between the tool and the weapon when used in combat. The limit of 50 GP prevents characters from crafting the more expensive armors and weapons anyways if that is what you want to prevent with the no-armor/weapons limit :-)
Hey, thanks for the nice feedback :D. Let me explain my thought process behind the decision:
The ability to craft the less expensive armor and weapons also sounds fun, like one idea that comes to mind is a simple crossbow trap, but I decided against it, because A) the mundane weapons and armor in the price range of the fabricator unit mostly consist of starter gear the PCs would already have and B) this type of gear will in most cases change the most used stats for combat which some DM's might consider a bit too gamebreaking... so I thought it either would not come up that much in the stage of the game this item is more common, or DM's might not like it especially in the stages, where this opportunity might matter a lot. So I decided against including it, because it wouldn't make much of a difference mechanically meaning not that much novelty to make an entire magic item for it.
If we played in a Campaign, where drastic changes in the required damage type (e.g. slashing instead of bludgeoning, ...) or combat range, or the frequent possibility of gear loss and replacement are regular gameplay features, fabricating Weapons or Armor might be essential and needed. But in a Setting, where the rogue can be expected to keep her flametounge or +1 dagger until she finds a better magic weapon and decides to change it, granting awesome (often magic, uncommon or more expensive) weapons and armor would be in the domain of the DM. If the type of Campaign would require this capability and provide the players with meaningful opportunities how to use their gold, I would include it. I just didn't think of a setting, where this type of gear is not common (starting equipment), relatively permanent or soon to be replaced with stuff way out of the pricing range of this magic item.
But the other reason was, C) when I came up with the idea, the main intention was to enable creative gameplay opportunities from mundane consumables and/or situational mundane items your typical party might not stock up on, like setting traps, lobbing oil or caltrops, setting up an alarm with string and bell, bag of flouring invisible foes, pole vaulting or disarming etc. With it being inspired by "what my artificer would probably want to craft sometime later in their current campaign", the crafting material supply aspect was added, as the forging of a new weapon for the barbarian or upgrading someones armor provides nice roleplay opportunities (as does the finding and keeping/collecting an assortment of different materials aspect, like a little component pouch with some pieces of different ore, broken pieces of an adamantine tool, glass shards, platinum, decorative gems, colourful clays, rare silk, wood from the special cherry tree back home etc.)
As a DM I would be really entertained by my Players marking and following a goblin or spy/rogue by fabricating and spilling a paint bucket, disarming traps in it's hideout with a pole and escaping the pit trap with a grappling hook or ladder, or supplying an unbroken vial, bottle or flask to catch a mysterious potion liquid in a laboratory they found and distracting the guarding dogs with bouncy balls. The Fabricator Unit can provide for exactly these flash of genius situations à la "wouldn't it be nice to have XYZ, why didn't I think of buying a supply of that in the last store". And granting them an expensive armor or weapon after they got creative would also feel quite rewarding (more than: congratulations, you can now afford (or find) a bunch of chalk and a ten foot pole, which you might forget was in your inventory in five weeks).
TL:DR No weapons or armor because DM's might want to reward players with such gear as awesome Loot or Quest rewards, it might not make that much of a mechanical difference compared to the provided starting equipment, AND the initial focus was enabling more frequent creative use of everything else of the mundane gear section and providing roleplay opportunities for McGyvery or crafting-artisanry-oriented Characters and creative Players.
Meditative. Similar to Metamagic Initiate it seems like this feat is best used for monks who always need more Ki. I love the idea of a feat that helps monks, and you did a good job with it. Focused Strike looks a bit weak to me, for a monk it always competes with Stunning Strike, which also costs 1 Ki point and can stun, and Focused Aim, which allows you to spend 1 to 3 Ki points to turn a close miss into a hit - which results in a lot more over-all extra damage. Also, if we just focus on the feat, it competes with Tranquility, I always would save my Ki points from that feat to use that ability to overpower paralysis and other effects that would take my turn away. Swiftness of Action looks kinda cool, not sure about the balance aspect though (especially for sorcerers, who could cast 3 spells in a turn by quickening twice, and for some weird mutliclasses like swords bard 10 / monk x, who could use swift quiver twice on each of their turns until they run out of Ki). For a pure monk, it might cost too much Ki points especially at early levels, but will be nice to have if you really want to flurry and to use Step of the Wind. If you want to spend 4 Ki points just on your bonus actions, you could even use it to flurry twice on the same turn for a total of 6 attacks.
I meant to imply that the ki points gained from Meditative couldn’t be used to fuel Monk abilities, but I didn’t ever actually say it, so I suppose it’s impossible to not make that mistake. Additionally, the Tranquility function only affects things that reduce your options for actions to take your turn, and doesn’t remove conditions such as paralyzed. Next, I’d like to point out that classes other than Monks can use this feat, in fact I did my best to make its abilities viable to all classes, though I guess the fact that you can use Monk ki points to fuel it makes it stronger, however as you said, Focused Strike will have competition for use over Stunning Strike and will largely be useless by 6th level, meaning that Monks in fact have incentive not to take this feat. The Quickness of Action is also meant to read as only being usable once per turn if ki points are available.
I think you should absolutely alllow this feat's Ki points to fuel monk abilities, otherwise you have the same issue as with Metamagic Adept, where you have two resources with the same name, one of which can be used for everything that works with that resource and the other not - which is simply annoying for players in my opinion.
Regarding Tranqulity, probably the wording needs some clarification then? Conditions like paralyzed effectlive reduce your options for actions you can take on your turn, so RAW your feat would allow one to use Tranqulity to act normally while paralyzed. With how you meant it to be read, Tranquility would help exactly against two spells: slow and Tasha's mind whip, but against nothing else since except for those spells, DnD 5e unfortunately only knows "you cannot take any actions" as a way of limiting what a player can do on their turn, which comes under names such as paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or incapacitated.
Regarding Focused Strike, you could do a very simple change to make it more viable, make it deal some dice of damage instead of a fixed value - so that it can be applied on a crit. You could say it deals 1 or 2d4 damage and scales with Martial Arts dice for example. I think monks should absolutely have incentive to take that feat just like how sorcerers have incentive to take Metamagic Adept :-)
1. I respectfully disagree. the purpose is not to give Monks more ki points, but to give characters more options.
2. You may notice that Tranquility gives two specific examples: confusion and the Gibbering ability of the gibbering mouther. A few more examples include command, the third option of bestow curse, the movement-restricting effect of compelled duel, and the target-randomizing effect of enemies abound.
3. The feat is meant to be near-equally viable for all classes. Making Focused Strike scale with Martial Arts defeats the purpose of any class other than monk to take Meditative. I made it with classes other than Monk specifically in mind. For example, a Fighter with a regular weapon might take yits feat in order to get some hits past mundane resistance. A Paladin might use this feat to set up their Thunderous Smite and Sacred Weapon in the same turn. A Lycan Blood Hunter could do the same to activate their lycanthropy and Crimson Rite in the same turn.
all in all, it’s definitely not my best work and it has its flaws. However, I stand by how I executed my intent.
Riftwalker. Again a great idea, I love the metamagics for teleport spells. The only thing I would change is the spell slot used for riftwalking. It does not make narrative sense to me that as you master your magic of riftwalking more and more you need to spend more and more of your magical enery to actually do it. Maybe simply keeping it at 1st level actually is enough considering these spell slots are also used to fuel shield, absorb elements, silvery barbs... and therefore you have to take that tradeoff into account. Also, if you want to stick more closely to how recent subclasses were designed, the number of free uses would be proficiency bonus times per long rest, not twi times per long rest and then two times per short rest - although I like that progression too, if not more than the proficiency bonus times per long rest we see so often nowadays.
I appreciate the feedback.
I did go back and forth with how to gain extra uses of Riftwalk if you wanted them. They were initially first level slots, but the ability gets quite powerful. The highest metamagics are teleporting creatures in a large area and creating sustained portals, which I think is substantially better than even the best of the 1st level spells. During playtesting, I looked at the things you could do with Riftwalk over the different tiers and asked myself what level a spell would need to be to produce a similar effect. That informed the chart.
As for the uses, I wanted to proof this against MC dip abuse. Some existing systems that work very well in this regard in my opinion is Channel Divinity and Bardic Inspiration, which give you some uses early on and then reset them more often with more level investment. While I like the proficiency bonus for scaling lots of things, in this case it would get out of hand in the same way it does for Peace Cleric.
Volcano Shield: Great concept, love the imps! I think, in regards to the spellcasting though, you would need to give it more powerful spells or effects that add to these spells; or you should improve the action economy for casting these spells. It is a legendary item, so characters are most likely at least level 17 or higher when they find it, and for characters of these levels, spending an action to cast a spell like burning hands or fireball is rarely worth it. What probably works best for a shield, an item most likely used by martial characters, is changing the casting time for all the spells to "when you take the Attack action, you can replace one of your attacks with the casting of one of the following spells" (see the Bladesinger wizard's Extra Attack). Alternatively, if you aim the item more towards casters, you could have the empowerments to fire spells apply to every fire spell they cast, not just ones they use the shield's charges for; and you could also allow the imp to hold concentration on the wall of fire for you. In general, I would probably simplify the benefits somewhat, maybe getting rid of the d4 roll, not sure though. Two other ideas I have for this item are replacing the "Enhanced Defense" reaction with a reaction that deals fire damage to the attacker and pushes them away (as you basicially use your reaction to cause the shield to fire a lava fountain at them or something) and to replace/add to the "Drenched in Water" part that when the shield comes in touch with water, it creates a massive steam explosion resulting in heavily-obscuring fog and possibly a push-back effect and/or some fire damage to everyone within 15 feet of it - this is what I would expect when lava comes in contact with water (see Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai for example).
Thanks for the feedback! It's much appreciated:)
I'll try and look more at the item and maybe update it after or during the voting if I have time.
Do you think adding the following feature would help? (In spoiler tag for brevity.)
Whenever you expend one or more charges from the Volcano Shield to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, you may choose to spend additional charges equal to half the base amount of charges (rounded down) that the spell expends. If you do so, the spells casting time becomes 1 bonus action.
This change does not permanently change the casting time of whatever spell you quickened via the Volcano Shield. Each time you want the casting time on a spell from the shield to become 1 bonus action instead of 1 action, you must spend the extra charges again regardless of whether you have done so previously.
I could also add this to the end of the "Drenched in Water Feature" if you guys think it would work better as well.
In addition, the first time the Volcano Shield is fully submerged in water, it causes a massive, fiery explosion. Each creature within a 20 foot radius sphere of the shield must make a DC 18 dexterity saving throw or take 55 (10d10) fire damage, taking half damage on a failed save. The fire damages objects in the area, and ignites all flammable objects it hits that aren't being worn or carried.
These changes would of course not effect my submission since everything in the competition, except for the voting, is already done. Feel free to tell me if these features make sense or not, I haven't updated the Volcano Shield yet and would love to hear what you guys think about these abilities/changes.
Thank you everyone for the votes. I will get started thinking about what I want to do for the categories I won. Since there was a 3 way tie for the DM category, how would you three like to handle deciding on the next theme for that category (because IIRC the consensus was we wanted each category winner to decide on the future theme)?
PS Yikes on the 12 valid votes. That's like 1/5 of the votes gone.
More like 1/7 of the total votes gone (2/14). I judged one to be a straight troll vote, and one to be of dubious enough origin to be disqualified from counting.
Congratulations, Kaboom! And thank you, Sposta and all the contestants, for another great CotFB! I look forward to the Competition of the Finest Brews X.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
Congratulations, Kaboom! :-) See you all in the next round!
I am surprised though that the Ancient Druid did not win the inspirational category. I liked that option the most of the three (besides the new spellcasting format, but Heartofjuyomk2 provided the old spellcasting as well in this thread :-D), so much indeed that I very likely will include the Eye of Ghulurak in my Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign - With a nautiloid and a stone circle, the Stones of Thruun, already there, and a village full of malformed people, it just makes too much sense... :-D And it gives the Frostmaiden something she wants to cover up with her eternal frost besides Ythryn itself.
It was awesome being in COtFB and I'm already looking forward to the next one! I'm terrible at homebrew, so just being able to see what you guys made was awesome:)
PS- I changed the Volcano Shield slightly, by adding the things I mentioned in the previous post and made a couple other slight tweaks. Thanks to everyone for the feedback!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Congratulations, Kaboom! :-) See you all in the next round!
I am surprised though that the Ancient Druid did not win the inspirational category. I liked that option the most of the three (besides the new spellcasting format, but Heartofjuyomk2 provided the old spellcasting as well in this thread :-D), so much indeed that I very likely will include the Eye of Ghulurak in my Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign - With a nautiloid and a stone circle, the Stones of Thruun, already there, and a village full of malformed people, it just makes too much sense... :-D And it gives the Frostmaiden something she wants to cover up with her eternal frost besides Ythryn itself.
Many thanks. I wish I could take credit, but I just really enjoy repackaging old 3e and 4e lore tidbits. Seriously, go to the DMs Guild and buy up as many of the older books as you can!
FYI, one of the invalid votes was a double vote on my part. I use two google accounts and got confused when the ballot was still open on the second. Sposta caught it, so there's no change to the results. Mea culpa!
Congrats to Kaboom and everyone else here. Every entry had at least one cool thing/spark of inspiration that I really liked, so thanks to all of you and to Sposta for hosting this time!
I think you should absolutely alllow this feat's Ki points to fuel monk abilities, otherwise you have the same issue as with Metamagic Adept, where you have two resources with the same name, one of which can be used for everything that works with that resource and the other not - which is simply annoying for players in my opinion.
Regarding Tranqulity, probably the wording needs some clarification then? Conditions like paralyzed effectlive reduce your options for actions you can take on your turn, so RAW your feat would allow one to use Tranqulity to act normally while paralyzed. With how you meant it to be read, Tranquility would help exactly against two spells: slow and Tasha's mind whip, but against nothing else since except for those spells, DnD 5e unfortunately only knows "you cannot take any actions" as a way of limiting what a player can do on their turn, which comes under names such as paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or incapacitated.
Regarding Focused Strike, you could do a very simple change to make it more viable, make it deal some dice of damage instead of a fixed value - so that it can be applied on a crit. You could say it deals 1 or 2d4 damage and scales with Martial Arts dice for example. I think monks should absolutely have incentive to take that feat just like how sorcerers have incentive to take Metamagic Adept :-)
I was not originally intending it to be based on the UA mystic (I actually discovered it while doing research for the project). However, as the deadline drew closer and I didn't have ideas for a few levels I turned to the UA mystic for inspiration.
Mystic recovery was not intended to be unlimited use. I was worried about the class being underpowered, but I struggled to find ways to increase it's power. I might end up increasing the psi points per level, along with how powerful each one is when I make my version 2.0, along with cantrip-esque damage scaling. However, I do want to keep the psion different from spellcasting. The idea being that a spellcaster had a lot of spells but with limited spell slots, whereas the psion has limited psychic abilities but can use them at-will.
I will note, that though the psion is underwhelming combat wise, it makes a really good skill monkey. I'll still buff it though in my next iteration.
I'll add some features to the subclasses in addition to the psychic abilities. I agree that it makes the choices a little bland, as well as detracting from the power of the class.
Thank you for the feedback!
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Hey, thanks for the nice feedback :D. Let me explain my thought process behind the decision:
The ability to craft the less expensive armor and weapons also sounds fun, like one idea that comes to mind is a simple crossbow trap, but I decided against it, because A) the mundane weapons and armor in the price range of the fabricator unit mostly consist of starter gear the PCs would already have and B) this type of gear will in most cases change the most used stats for combat which some DM's might consider a bit too gamebreaking... so I thought it either would not come up that much in the stage of the game this item is more common, or DM's might not like it especially in the stages, where this opportunity might matter a lot. So I decided against including it, because it wouldn't make much of a difference mechanically meaning not that much novelty to make an entire magic item for it.
If we played in a Campaign, where drastic changes in the required damage type (e.g. slashing instead of bludgeoning, ...) or combat range, or the frequent possibility of gear loss and replacement are regular gameplay features, fabricating Weapons or Armor might be essential and needed. But in a Setting, where the rogue can be expected to keep her flametounge or +1 dagger until she finds a better magic weapon and decides to change it, granting awesome (often magic, uncommon or more expensive) weapons and armor would be in the domain of the DM. If the type of Campaign would require this capability and provide the players with meaningful opportunities how to use their gold, I would include it. I just didn't think of a setting, where this type of gear is not common (starting equipment), relatively permanent or soon to be replaced with stuff way out of the pricing range of this magic item.
But the other reason was, C) when I came up with the idea, the main intention was to enable creative gameplay opportunities from mundane consumables and/or situational mundane items your typical party might not stock up on, like setting traps, lobbing oil or caltrops, setting up an alarm with string and bell, bag of flouring invisible foes, pole vaulting or disarming etc.
With it being inspired by "what my artificer would probably want to craft sometime later in their current campaign", the crafting material supply aspect was added, as the forging of a new weapon for the barbarian or upgrading someones armor provides nice roleplay opportunities (as does the finding and keeping/collecting an assortment of different materials aspect, like a little component pouch with some pieces of different ore, broken pieces of an adamantine tool, glass shards, platinum, decorative gems, colourful clays, rare silk, wood from the special cherry tree back home etc.)
As a DM I would be really entertained by my Players marking and following a goblin or spy/rogue by fabricating and spilling a paint bucket, disarming traps in it's hideout with a pole and escaping the pit trap with a grappling hook or ladder, or supplying an unbroken vial, bottle or flask to catch a mysterious potion liquid in a laboratory they found and distracting the guarding dogs with bouncy balls. The Fabricator Unit can provide for exactly these flash of genius situations à la "wouldn't it be nice to have XYZ, why didn't I think of buying a supply of that in the last store". And granting them an expensive armor or weapon after they got creative would also feel quite rewarding (more than: congratulations, you can now afford (or find) a bunch of chalk and a ten foot pole, which you might forget was in your inventory in five weeks).
TL:DR No weapons or armor because DM's might want to reward players with such gear as awesome Loot or Quest rewards, it might not make that much of a mechanical difference compared to the provided starting equipment, AND the initial focus was enabling more frequent creative use of everything else of the mundane gear section and providing roleplay opportunities for McGyvery or crafting-artisanry-oriented Characters and creative Players.
1. I respectfully disagree. the purpose is not to give Monks more ki points, but to give characters more options.
2. You may notice that Tranquility gives two specific examples: confusion and the Gibbering ability of the gibbering mouther. A few more examples include command, the third option of bestow curse, the movement-restricting effect of compelled duel, and the target-randomizing effect of enemies abound.
3. The feat is meant to be near-equally viable for all classes. Making Focused Strike scale with Martial Arts defeats the purpose of any class other than monk to take Meditative. I made it with classes other than Monk specifically in mind. For example, a Fighter with a regular weapon might take yits feat in order to get some hits past mundane resistance. A Paladin might use this feat to set up their Thunderous Smite and Sacred Weapon in the same turn. A Lycan Blood Hunter could do the same to activate their lycanthropy and Crimson Rite in the same turn.
all in all, it’s definitely not my best work and it has its flaws. However, I stand by how I executed my intent.
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
I appreciate the feedback.
I did go back and forth with how to gain extra uses of Riftwalk if you wanted them. They were initially first level slots, but the ability gets quite powerful. The highest metamagics are teleporting creatures in a large area and creating sustained portals, which I think is substantially better than even the best of the 1st level spells. During playtesting, I looked at the things you could do with Riftwalk over the different tiers and asked myself what level a spell would need to be to produce a similar effect. That informed the chart.
As for the uses, I wanted to proof this against MC dip abuse. Some existing systems that work very well in this regard in my opinion is Channel Divinity and Bardic Inspiration, which give you some uses early on and then reset them more often with more level investment. While I like the proficiency bonus for scaling lots of things, in this case it would get out of hand in the same way it does for Peace Cleric.
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
Do you think adding the following feature would help? (In spoiler tag for brevity.)
Whenever you expend one or more charges from the Volcano Shield to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, you may choose to spend additional charges equal to half the base amount of charges (rounded down) that the spell expends. If you do so, the spells casting time becomes 1 bonus action.
This change does not permanently change the casting time of whatever spell you quickened via the Volcano Shield. Each time you want the casting time on a spell from the shield to become 1 bonus action instead of 1 action, you must spend the extra charges again regardless of whether you have done so previously.
I could also add this to the end of the "Drenched in Water Feature" if you guys think it would work better as well.
In addition, the first time the Volcano Shield is fully submerged in water, it causes a massive, fiery explosion. Each creature within a 20 foot radius sphere of the shield must make a DC 18 dexterity saving throw or take 55 (10d10) fire damage, taking half damage on a failed save. The fire damages objects in the area, and ignites all flammable objects it hits that aren't being worn or carried.
These changes would of course not effect my submission since everything in the competition, except for the voting, is already done. Feel free to tell me if these features make sense or not, I haven't updated the Volcano Shield yet and would love to hear what you guys think about these abilities/changes.
PS-Thanks for the feedback Semako!
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Only a few hours left. Good luck everyone. Be sure to vote if you havent already
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
*With a Total of 12 valid votes in, the scores are (Total Score / Average Score):
DM’s Options — Primordial Forces
Player’s Options — Magic… But Not Spells
Inspirational Options — Unearthed Arcana
We have a 3-Way Tie for winner of the DM’s Options, and the overall championship goes to Kaboom979!!
🍾 Congratulations Kaboom979!!! 🎉
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Thank you everyone for the votes. I will get started thinking about what I want to do for the categories I won. Since there was a 3 way tie for the DM category, how would you three like to handle deciding on the next theme for that category (because IIRC the consensus was we wanted each category winner to decide on the future theme)?
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Congrats Kaboom! See you all in the next round.
PS Yikes on the 12 valid votes. That's like 1/5 of the votes gone.
More like 1/7 of the total votes gone (2/14). I judged one to be a straight troll vote, and one to be of dubious enough origin to be disqualified from counting.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Congratulations, Kaboom! And thank you, Sposta and all the contestants, for another great CotFB! I look forward to the Competition of the Finest Brews X.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
Congratulations, Kaboom! :-) See you all in the next round!
I am surprised though that the Ancient Druid did not win the inspirational category. I liked that option the most of the three (besides the new spellcasting format, but Heartofjuyomk2 provided the old spellcasting as well in this thread :-D), so much indeed that I very likely will include the Eye of Ghulurak in my Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign - With a nautiloid and a stone circle, the Stones of Thruun, already there, and a village full of malformed people, it just makes too much sense... :-D And it gives the Frostmaiden something she wants to cover up with her eternal frost besides Ythryn itself.
Congratulations Kaboom! I'm excited for the next competition!
Thanks for judging ImaSposta. This was very fun and every entry was great. :)
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Congrats Kaboom979! You did great:)
It was awesome being in COtFB and I'm already looking forward to the next one! I'm terrible at homebrew, so just being able to see what you guys made was awesome:)
PS- I changed the Volcano Shield slightly, by adding the things I mentioned in the previous post and made a couple other slight tweaks. Thanks to everyone for the feedback!
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Many thanks. I wish I could take credit, but I just really enjoy repackaging old 3e and 4e lore tidbits. Seriously, go to the DMs Guild and buy up as many of the older books as you can!
Congrats Kaboom979!
FYI, one of the invalid votes was a double vote on my part. I use two google accounts and got confused when the ballot was still open on the second. Sposta caught it, so there's no change to the results. Mea culpa!
Congrats to Kaboom and everyone else here. Every entry had at least one cool thing/spark of inspiration that I really liked, so thanks to all of you and to Sposta for hosting this time!
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
The thread for the next competition is now up https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/148601-competition-of-the-finest-brews-x
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!