In my game world (slightly modified forgotten realms), there is a tribe of desert barbarians that worship snakes. Their tribes are led by snake shamans (druid subclass?) and their warriors emulate the sudden lunging strikes of a snake with punching daggers. I wanted this to be a player character option. I couldn't find any official material that looks like what i want. A couple key abilities are:
-lunging strike: while raging, you can move 5 feet before making an attack when using the attack action, free of opportunity attacks. this would apply to multi attack.
-If you move 10 feet or more on your turn before an attack, you have advantage on the attack roll
-Does 1d6 damage with daggers
i want these in there to encourage motion, also, they should be proficient with the poisoner's kit.
An effective combo would be: move 5 feet, use lunging strike (advantage), multi attack to lunging strike another target (advantage)
if somebody could give more ideas for thematic abilities, that would be great!
BTW this subclass is limited to human, because the tribe is all human (would make an exception if there was a good reason to do so)
-If you move 10 feet or more on your turn before an attack, you have advantage on the attack roll
I would suggest changing this feature to something similarly helpful, but not advantage. I suggest this for 2 reasons: 1)This give advantage pretty easily, which would be nightmare if one of these barbarians multiclassed into Rogue, 2) Giving an advantage option like this would discourage the barbarian from using its Reckless Attack feature, which grants advantage but comes with the penalty of other characters having advantage against you. Perhaps a modifications would be something like "If you move 10ft or more on your turn before you attack, you can add +2 to the attack roll"
For other thematic suggestions, perhaps something that aids in Grappling while they are raging (similar to the constricting motion of a snake). Maybe something like "While raging, if you successfully Grapple another creature, you can use your bonus action to make a melee attack against a creature with a light weapon you are holding." (idea is like a snake coiling around a creature and then biting it).
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multi classing to rouge is something i want to encourage using that ability (i always thought that sneak attack needed something to get consistent damage out of it), basically, if the player thinks of an idea that would make them OP, i'm cool with that. They deserve that power, because they actually put thought into their moves. Also, grappling is a cool thing, my idea is: snakes crush, players should get to do bludgeoning damage whilst grappling. also, they are able to grapple instead of attacking, which could mean a weird lunging hug attack with the lunging strike after moving 5 feet for advantage.
I would caution you in giving out advantage too easily, especially at early levels. Advantage is usually something brought about situational (or through certain spells) and is not supposed to be something occurring with every attack throughout combat because it is very powerful.
Letting a rogue have access to such easy advantage would be devastating, especially if they take the Assassin archetype as part of the multiclass. I would argue that letting a rogue have access to advantage this way will actually require the player to think about their playstyle less than before. Rather than trying to position your character in order to have an ally within 5ft of you or take other measures to gain advantage situationaly, the character could simply Cunning Action disengage, back away 10ft and then lunge forward 10ft at the same enemy and immediately have advantage. Then they could repeat this same tactic over and over again until the enemy dies and then move on to the next one. This would make combat very repetitive for that character.
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That could work, I like it. Another idea (which may be a bit messy) would be to have the damage scale with distance instead of level. Say for example, 1d4 of extra damage of the weapon's type for every 10ft moved prior to the attack. This would encourage the player to move around more and try to come up with ways to increase their movement speed as they level up (encourage the party caster to take the Haste spell, find some magic boots, take a few levels in monk, etc).
In any case, I would consider making it similar to the Charger feat, where once per turn you can make an attack as a bonus action so long as you have moved some minimum distance first. If you have moved the minimum distance required (and perhaps are raging) then you would add the bonus damage to that attack. This would limit the bonus damage to only one attack per round since its a bonus action, but would open the opportunity for 3 attacks per round total without needing to dual wield. If the player still wanted to gain advantage, then they could use their reckless attack feature.
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Mostly I would just make them monks instead of barbarians. Already get better damage with daggers and abilities that encourage movement. You could reflavor them as barbarians if you wanted, but mechanically it already has what you want.
In my game world (slightly modified forgotten realms), there is a tribe of desert barbarians that worship snakes. Their tribes are led by snake shamans (druid subclass?) and their warriors emulate the sudden lunging strikes of a snake with punching daggers. I wanted this to be a player character option. I couldn't find any official material that looks like what i want. A couple key abilities are:
-lunging strike: while raging, you can move 5 feet before making an attack when using the attack action, free of opportunity attacks. this would apply to multi attack.
-If you move 10 feet or more on your turn before an attack, you have advantage on the attack roll
-Does 1d6 damage with daggers
i want these in there to encourage motion, also, they should be proficient with the poisoner's kit.
An effective combo would be: move 5 feet, use lunging strike (advantage), multi attack to lunging strike another target (advantage)
if somebody could give more ideas for thematic abilities, that would be great!
BTW this subclass is limited to human, because the tribe is all human (would make an exception if there was a good reason to do so)
I did NOT eat those hikers.
I would suggest changing this feature to something similarly helpful, but not advantage. I suggest this for 2 reasons: 1)This give advantage pretty easily, which would be nightmare if one of these barbarians multiclassed into Rogue, 2) Giving an advantage option like this would discourage the barbarian from using its Reckless Attack feature, which grants advantage but comes with the penalty of other characters having advantage against you. Perhaps a modifications would be something like "If you move 10ft or more on your turn before you attack, you can add +2 to the attack roll"
For other thematic suggestions, perhaps something that aids in Grappling while they are raging (similar to the constricting motion of a snake). Maybe something like "While raging, if you successfully Grapple another creature, you can use your bonus action to make a melee attack against a creature with a light weapon you are holding." (idea is like a snake coiling around a creature and then biting it).
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
multi classing to rouge is something i want to encourage using that ability (i always thought that sneak attack needed something to get consistent damage out of it), basically, if the player thinks of an idea that would make them OP, i'm cool with that. They deserve that power, because they actually put thought into their moves. Also, grappling is a cool thing, my idea is: snakes crush, players should get to do bludgeoning damage whilst grappling. also, they are able to grapple instead of attacking, which could mean a weird lunging hug attack with the lunging strike after moving 5 feet for advantage.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
I would caution you in giving out advantage too easily, especially at early levels. Advantage is usually something brought about situational (or through certain spells) and is not supposed to be something occurring with every attack throughout combat because it is very powerful.
Letting a rogue have access to such easy advantage would be devastating, especially if they take the Assassin archetype as part of the multiclass. I would argue that letting a rogue have access to advantage this way will actually require the player to think about their playstyle less than before. Rather than trying to position your character in order to have an ally within 5ft of you or take other measures to gain advantage situationaly, the character could simply Cunning Action disengage, back away 10ft and then lunge forward 10ft at the same enemy and immediately have advantage. Then they could repeat this same tactic over and over again until the enemy dies and then move on to the next one. This would make combat very repetitive for that character.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
hmm yes, what about 1d4 extra damage (adding extra damage dice w/ levels)
I did NOT eat those hikers.
That could work, I like it. Another idea (which may be a bit messy) would be to have the damage scale with distance instead of level. Say for example, 1d4 of extra damage of the weapon's type for every 10ft moved prior to the attack. This would encourage the player to move around more and try to come up with ways to increase their movement speed as they level up (encourage the party caster to take the Haste spell, find some magic boots, take a few levels in monk, etc).
In any case, I would consider making it similar to the Charger feat, where once per turn you can make an attack as a bonus action so long as you have moved some minimum distance first. If you have moved the minimum distance required (and perhaps are raging) then you would add the bonus damage to that attack. This would limit the bonus damage to only one attack per round since its a bonus action, but would open the opportunity for 3 attacks per round total without needing to dual wield. If the player still wanted to gain advantage, then they could use their reckless attack feature.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
halp https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/195004-path-of-the-serpent/subclass/195004/edit
I did NOT eat those hikers.
Yeah that link wont work for anyone but a mod...
Anyway, my 2 cp is to make it a totem barbarian.
Mostly I would just make them monks instead of barbarians. Already get better damage with daggers and abilities that encourage movement. You could reflavor them as barbarians if you wanted, but mechanically it already has what you want.
but missing rage, which is important
I did NOT eat those hikers.