This is the first in a series of subclasses that i will be developing with the intent of more engaging complex mechanics and deeper story/lore/roleplaying elements aimed at veteran players. I would love to hear any feedback good and bad, although i know there's quite a bit of reading involved. the class is currently version 0.1 which i consider playable but not complete so keep that in mind.
CD: Torment spirit is fine, I'd add inorganic to take radiant damage as well.
CD: Executioner's Judgment is... a lot. I recomend making it more similar to hunter's mark. Bonus action. Lasts until next long rest. Drop the narcotic punishment. The soul capturing aspect should be granted at a higher level, as it is too strong for a level 3 ability. The Holy symbol takes one of 2 forms, but those 2 forms are never described.
Oath spells, why would a paladin dedicated to the punishment of humanoids and evil spirits have dominate beast? Strongly recommend changing this. No other problems.
Divine Shackles is very unclear about it's timing and cost. First it says "as a reaction" then it says "any enemy." Duration of the ability is also not stated. And flee is a very general term that is not part of the rules language. I recommend changing "flee" to "cannot willingly move to a space more than 30 feet from you" *see oath of the crown.
Warden's Vigilance might be weakened by a DM's style (for example if they have enemies roll stealth against your passive perception). I can't think of a good fix without it being overpowered with the observant feat.
Manifest prison is an instant fortress (minus damage dealing capability) with damage immunity. You didn't specify activation time. And duration is infinite as long as you concentrate? So if your race doesn't have to sleep, permanent obstacle? What is the purpose of this ability? Is it to capture enemies inside? Because you already have an ability for that.
Eternal Servatude, wild shape, but for anything you've killed. So ancient dragon, demon Lord, tarrasque? And what is the idea behind being able to turn into things you have judged as evil?
I like the theme behind this paladin, but mechanically, it needs work. The level 15 and 20 abilities in particular spike in power and blur in theme.
First off, thank you for posting this. It's an interesting idea that feels like a natural continuation of the more complex classes introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Now for some notes:
1. For the sake of simplicity (and because there is a lot going on in this subclass) I would limit the torment spirit ability to either psychic or radiant damage. As far as I can tell, very few undead have resistance to psychic damage, but if you'd prefer sticking with the divine angle, I would just make living and dead both take radiant damage.
2. Executioner's Judgement could probably use some simplification. The biggest problem I see with it right now, is that it feels like a high risk, low reward maneuver. The souls in the divine prison don't seem to have any use until 20th level, but if you mark a creature, there's a chance that not killing that creature will kill you. And the only way to unmark a creature is to break your oath, but the current wording makes it sound like breaking your oath would still deal the 5d10 necrotic damage because you're still failing your god.
3. I'm a bit confused by the wording of Divine Prison. I don't understand what my potential options are for the shape it could take. If the Divine Shackles and Warden's Vigilance are the options, I would just add some flavor text about the shape of the prison and how it enables these abilities.
4. For the Eternal Servitude ability, I would probably change the wording on how often the souls can be used. A 7 day period can be hard to measure in game unless the DM and players are really keeping track, and saying that each soul can be used once every 7 days means a paladin could go through several powerful forms one after another. I would either put a limit on the number of souls the paladin can have in the divine prison, or limit the use of the ability instead of each soul.
5. As an editorial note, watch out how many times you use "channel divine energy" to avoid any confusion with the actual channel divinity abilities.
6. Love the forcecage-like ability at 15th level, especially because paladins don't normally have spells that powerful. Again, I would definitely put a limit on it's use, probably once per long rest.
7. Excellent spell list choices, perfect for capturing ne'er-do-wells.
Hope these help you out in revising and refining this subclass!
Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate the time you took to read it. i was a little confused at some of the feedback at first as i believe i had addressed most of those things in the class itself however it appears the options for Divine Prison aren't showing for you? they show for me but when i log out and look they don't appear. do you know what might be causing this they are pretty integral to the class and need to be displayed at all times
For now i will post links to screen caps of the options until i can figure out why they don't show
This makes much more sense now! XD Thanks for posting the screenshots. A few quick notes on the divine prisons. Because the gemstones and cells require very specific circumstances to be destroyed and basically anyone who tried would end up dead before the could accomplish it, I would just nix being able to destroy them at all. I would just say if the Headman's Axe or Warden's Key gets destroyed, it all gets destroyed. Also, for the number of souls the prison can contain, I'd just reword it as "The prison can contain a number of souls equal to half your paladin level rounded down (minimum of 1)." I know that editing notes are late stage stuff, but for the sake of readability and clarity the phrasing in the text is a little confusing.
I'll have to take some more time later to reread the divine prisons and see if I can give you any more feedback, but for now I hope that helps!
The prison isn't designed to be absolute, and I wanted to include the provison for some late game story options for dms to maybe have some followers of one of the creature attempt to inflitrate and free the soul. I would like to keep the provision for something similar but I can see where you're coming from the circumstances are very specific and it is aimed at lategame as such that any early game attempt would surely fail. Perhaps it needs to be a little more accessible or more risk/reward.
I do have to be careful in centering the power around this concept as I want it to be a core function but not overpowered but I also dont want to limit the viability of the class should souls be released, as having all your viability suddenly dissapear in the lategame would make your character useless.
And yes I do need to do a lot of editing, I kind of rushed releasing it so I could get some feedback on the core mechanics so most things don't have any sort of polish and some things are filler. I will work on readability for the next version.
Thanks again for your feedback! :)
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Goodmorning all,
This is the first in a series of subclasses that i will be developing with the intent of more engaging complex mechanics and deeper story/lore/roleplaying elements aimed at veteran players. I would love to hear any feedback good and bad, although i know there's quite a bit of reading involved. the class is currently version 0.1 which i consider playable but not complete so keep that in mind.
You can find it Here
Thankyou :)
CD: Torment spirit is fine, I'd add inorganic to take radiant damage as well.
CD: Executioner's Judgment is... a lot. I recomend making it more similar to hunter's mark. Bonus action. Lasts until next long rest. Drop the narcotic punishment. The soul capturing aspect should be granted at a higher level, as it is too strong for a level 3 ability. The Holy symbol takes one of 2 forms, but those 2 forms are never described.
Oath spells, why would a paladin dedicated to the punishment of humanoids and evil spirits have dominate beast? Strongly recommend changing this. No other problems.
Divine Shackles is very unclear about it's timing and cost. First it says "as a reaction" then it says "any enemy." Duration of the ability is also not stated. And flee is a very general term that is not part of the rules language. I recommend changing "flee" to "cannot willingly move to a space more than 30 feet from you" *see oath of the crown.
Warden's Vigilance might be weakened by a DM's style (for example if they have enemies roll stealth against your passive perception). I can't think of a good fix without it being overpowered with the observant feat.
Manifest prison is an instant fortress (minus damage dealing capability) with damage immunity. You didn't specify activation time. And duration is infinite as long as you concentrate? So if your race doesn't have to sleep, permanent obstacle? What is the purpose of this ability? Is it to capture enemies inside? Because you already have an ability for that.
Eternal Servatude, wild shape, but for anything you've killed. So ancient dragon, demon Lord, tarrasque? And what is the idea behind being able to turn into things you have judged as evil?
I like the theme behind this paladin, but mechanically, it needs work. The level 15 and 20 abilities in particular spike in power and blur in theme.
Hey Ob1wan!
First off, thank you for posting this. It's an interesting idea that feels like a natural continuation of the more complex classes introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Now for some notes:
1. For the sake of simplicity (and because there is a lot going on in this subclass) I would limit the torment spirit ability to either psychic or radiant damage. As far as I can tell, very few undead have resistance to psychic damage, but if you'd prefer sticking with the divine angle, I would just make living and dead both take radiant damage.
2. Executioner's Judgement could probably use some simplification. The biggest problem I see with it right now, is that it feels like a high risk, low reward maneuver. The souls in the divine prison don't seem to have any use until 20th level, but if you mark a creature, there's a chance that not killing that creature will kill you. And the only way to unmark a creature is to break your oath, but the current wording makes it sound like breaking your oath would still deal the 5d10 necrotic damage because you're still failing your god.
3. I'm a bit confused by the wording of Divine Prison. I don't understand what my potential options are for the shape it could take. If the Divine Shackles and Warden's Vigilance are the options, I would just add some flavor text about the shape of the prison and how it enables these abilities.
4. For the Eternal Servitude ability, I would probably change the wording on how often the souls can be used. A 7 day period can be hard to measure in game unless the DM and players are really keeping track, and saying that each soul can be used once every 7 days means a paladin could go through several powerful forms one after another. I would either put a limit on the number of souls the paladin can have in the divine prison, or limit the use of the ability instead of each soul.
5. As an editorial note, watch out how many times you use "channel divine energy" to avoid any confusion with the actual channel divinity abilities.
6. Love the forcecage-like ability at 15th level, especially because paladins don't normally have spells that powerful. Again, I would definitely put a limit on it's use, probably once per long rest.
7. Excellent spell list choices, perfect for capturing ne'er-do-wells.
Hope these help you out in revising and refining this subclass!
Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate the time you took to read it. i was a little confused at some of the feedback at first as i believe i had addressed most of those things in the class itself however it appears the options for Divine Prison aren't showing for you? they show for me but when i log out and look they don't appear. do you know what might be causing this they are pretty integral to the class and need to be displayed at all times
For now i will post links to screen caps of the options until i can figure out why they don't show
Divine prison option 1
Divine Prison Option 2
This makes much more sense now! XD Thanks for posting the screenshots. A few quick notes on the divine prisons. Because the gemstones and cells require very specific circumstances to be destroyed and basically anyone who tried would end up dead before the could accomplish it, I would just nix being able to destroy them at all. I would just say if the Headman's Axe or Warden's Key gets destroyed, it all gets destroyed. Also, for the number of souls the prison can contain, I'd just reword it as "The prison can contain a number of souls equal to half your paladin level rounded down (minimum of 1)." I know that editing notes are late stage stuff, but for the sake of readability and clarity the phrasing in the text is a little confusing.
I'll have to take some more time later to reread the divine prisons and see if I can give you any more feedback, but for now I hope that helps!
Thanks again for the feedback,
The prison isn't designed to be absolute, and I wanted to include the provison for some late game story options for dms to maybe have some followers of one of the creature attempt to inflitrate and free the soul. I would like to keep the provision for something similar but I can see where you're coming from the circumstances are very specific and it is aimed at lategame as such that any early game attempt would surely fail. Perhaps it needs to be a little more accessible or more risk/reward.
I do have to be careful in centering the power around this concept as I want it to be a core function but not overpowered but I also dont want to limit the viability of the class should souls be released, as having all your viability suddenly dissapear in the lategame would make your character useless.
And yes I do need to do a lot of editing, I kind of rushed releasing it so I could get some feedback on the core mechanics so most things don't have any sort of polish and some things are filler. I will work on readability for the next version.
Thanks again for your feedback! :)