Hey everyone! I'm trying to create a homebrew subclass within dndbeyond for the very first time, and I could use some help. The description of ability I'm having trouble implementing is: "when you enter a rage, you can choose to overload your systems. While overloading, your melee weapon attacks deal additional lightning damage equal to your Barbarian level." Since barbarian level is a fixed value that of course changes as the player levels up, I'm confused on how to implement this. The level scaling portion doesn't seem to actually help me with this, so I was wondering if anyone knew how I could do this properly. Thanks!

So this feature will have the text description and snippet. You don't have to use the Level Scaling section as all you need is the snippet code {{classlevel}}. You could add an Action so that the feature will show up on the appropriate Action tab for it.

I did some testing with the homebrew system and found a way to add a classlevel bonus to melee weapon attacks, but it's an always on thing. They didn't used to have temporary effects on character sheets so the homebrew system didn't have a way to implement them other than equipping pseudo magic items to turn something on and unequipping them to turn something off. I made a thread here years ago on how to use that to homebrew a temporary effect system. That would be very cumbersome to do in your predicament though as you would have to make 17 different items, one for each level 3-20 adding the appropriate bonus damage to melee weapon attacks. Since your text is "when you enter a rage" everything after that is considered a temporary effect. With the 2024 rules they did add a temporary effect for Rage but I'm not finding a way in the homebrew tool to tap into that or what options to replicate that.

All that being said, if someone wants to add classlevel as a bonus to melee weapon attacks that is always in effect, what you need to do is:

• Create a feature at the starting level (in this case level 3) that:
  • Put something like "Adding {{classlevel}} bonus damage to melee weapon attacks" in the snippet.
  • Put something like "Adding your barbarian level to melee weapon attacks." in the description.
  • Feature type: Granted
  • Adds a modifier: Modifier Type: Damage Modifier Subtype: Melee Weapon Attacks Fixed Value: 3
• Create a feature at the next level up (in this case level 4):
  • Put anything in snippet and description
  • Put checks in Hide in Builder and Hide in Character Sheet
  • Feature type: Granted
  • Add a modifier: Modifier Type: Damage Modifier Subtype: Melee Weapon Attacks Fixed Value: 1
• Create a feature at the next level up (in this case level 5):
  • Put anything in snippet and description
  • Put checks in Hide in Builder and Hide in Character Sheet
  • Feature type: Granted
  • Add a modifier: Modifier Type: Damage Modifier Subtype: Melee Weapon Attacks Fixed Value: 1
• Repeat this on every level up through 20

This is the most seamless way to do this. The other way to do this replaces the feature:

• Create a feature at the starting level (in this case level 3) that:
  • Put something like "Adding {{classlevel}} bonus damage to melee weapon attacks" in the snippet.
  • Put something like "Adding your barbarian level to melee weapon attacks. When you level up, go select the newer level option in the Optional Feature Manager" in the description.
  • Feature type: Granted
  • Adds a modifier: Modifier Type: Damage Modifier Subtype: Melee Weapon Attacks Fixed Value: 3
• Create a feature at the next level up (in this case level 4):
  • Put something like "Adding {{classlevel}} bonus damage to melee weapon attacks" in the snippet.
  • Put something like "Adding your barbarian level to melee weapon attacks. When you level up, go select the newer level option in the Optional Feature Manager" in the description.
  • Feature type: Replacement
  • Put the name of the level 3 feature in Class Features to Replace
  • Add a modifier: Modifier Type: Damage Modifier Subtype: Melee Weapon Attacks Fixed Value: 4
• Create a feature at the next level up (in this case level 5):
  • Put something like "Adding {{classlevel}} bonus damage to melee weapon attacks" in the snippet.
  • Put something like "Adding your barbarian level to melee weapon attacks. When you level up, go select the newer level option in the Optional Feature Manager" in the description.
  • Feature type: Replacement
  • Put the name of the level 3 feature in Class Features to Replace
  • Add a modifier: Modifier Type: Damage Modifier Subtype: Melee Weapon Attacks Fixed Value: 5
• Repeat this on every level up through 20

The downside to this 2nd method is the player would need to have Optional Class Features turned on on the Home tab in the builder and then when leveling up make sure to go to the Optional Feature Manager and select the level appropriate version of this feature.