Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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I think the Hell Knight is rad as hell (pun intended), but missing the utility you get from a lot of other fighter subclasses. I'm absolutely down for the fiction of a bounty hunter for the hells (and not just cause I've already made a character with that backstory), but really all the subclass gives you is extra damage and some flexibility with fire vs regular damage.
That said, in 5.5, flexibility with damage type is better then 5e because they don't do "resistant/immune to nonmagic weapons", and the free devils sight is pretty good.
But when I compare it with it's closest spiritual relative in the fighter subclass family, the Rune Knight, the latter offers more for your buck than just fire damage and more of it.
I definitely want to see this subclass move forwards, but that's just what I'd like to see addressed.
Rune Knight isn't official 2024 content either, so we should really only compare it with the subclasses released in 2024.
It's better than Champion or Banneret. As you say, the damage switching is nice, although fire being resisted can be an issue.
I'd like to see it get some time at the table.
Being better than the Banneret is the lowest of bars. It's the only thing in the official books I'd consider banning, just to prevent some newer player from taking it by mistake.
At level 7 it can overcome resistance, which gives some nice versatility
Do you have a link to actually find it?
As with all Unearthed Arcana supplements, it can be found here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/ua
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Thank you but I have no idea where to look for any suplements. I can't find any title for UA or sources.
Not really sure what you mean — if you click on the link I posted, you'll be on the Unearthed Arcana page. You can also get to it via Rules -> Unearthed Arcana in the menu at the top of the site.
pronouns: he/she/they
I’m shocked nobody has brought up the Illrigger. Grant it, they aren WotC official, but they totally work in DnDBeyond. I can’t remember the price offhand, but they offer custom spells and five subclasses, each good with no clearcut best of.
i’d honestly look into it and then see if your table is ok with it.
I feel like the Illrigger more scratches the hellish paladin itch rather than the hellish fighter itch.
Oh. Ok. Fair enough.
At first glance, it's really cool. I like the theme but there really is no out of combat utility at all. I hate when Fighter subclasses only offer the "you get X damage per turn" ability and not much else.
Also who would use Rupture of Cania when Purulence of Minauros is straight up better? Yeah Force is a better damage type but that's not enough to offset the fact that the damage is the same between the two but one also does that damage as an AOE.
Because Purulence of Minauros affects all creatures within 5 feet of the target. I think the idea is that you'd use Stygian Gangrene if there are friendlies near the target, or Rupture of Cania if there are friendlies near the target and the target is resistant or immune to Cold damage.
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Yeah, Rupture is there so you generally won't whiff on getting a random proc.
Regarding the "bleh, it's only for fighting", consider that there's probably a reason why the class is called "Fighter"; the default assumption if you're taking the class is you're mostly going to be hitting things in the face. There's more than a few Fighters with secondary utility, they're allowed to also make some more pure combat models as well.
Question: What do people think of the level 18 "You straight up send your victims to the Hells" feature? It's definitely flavorful, and tbf it's too high level to come up often, but seems like it'd be an impediment to running the subclass at that stage without being the kind of hardcore Evil that doesn't play well in a typical party.
I think the whole idea behind this UA is for a not typical party. It is called “villainous” subclasses, after all. The lich feat tree has you consuming people’s souls, for a pretty trivial benefit, at level 4.
While there will be people who try and use these classes and the feat trees in a party full of Dudley Dorights, I think the whole point is to let people play as the bad guys. It’s probably meant to be a Session 0 discussion.
True, but most of the classes are relatively flexible- that’s about the only example that comes to mind of an outright evil class feature from the set, as opposed to just being unpleasant or having an evil power source.
The Illrigger is 15$ on DDB for the class and its 5 subclasses. It does include some new spells that splashes to other classes. They have some new items too, but they are extensions on the Illrigger - ala Rod of the Pact Keeper.
If you or your players want a new take on a gish, it's definitely worth consideration. But yeah, the Illrigger is more like the evil-twist Paladin than a Fighter. Honestly I find it a bit sad that the theme is so heavily implied to be evil-aligned, because the ground work and the mechanics of the Illrigger are definitely good.
(Plus adding a Booming Blade-variant with a way better trigger - the target takes an action or casts a spell - although with a worse damage type Necrotic versus Thunder, and the spell is on the Arcane spell list (Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer) that just makes all gishes better)
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As for the Hell Knight, yes it does mainly just give additional damage.
It does give Devil's Sight as if you were a Warlock aspirant, but you have no way to take direct advantage of that feature (unlike a Darkness casting Warlock) - it does mean you can pair up real nice with such a Warlock though.
I don't know if it's intentional, that's usually not the case, but the lvl 7 feature's 5 ft. self-splash of Acid (unless you use a Reach weapon) seems like an oversight. You are mostly going to have rolls of the Infernal Wound as part of the DoT at the beginning of their turn, so you wont have as much agency as to the circumstances when it triggers, which means the friendly fire on that option seems really bothersome. At that same level you do also get to ignore Fire resistance, so the lack of a Fire damage option is a bit strange.
The lvl 10 Action Surge explosion also weirdly enough says that creatures that fail takes Fire damage equal to 1 roll of your Infernal Wound Die (so a d6 - aka nothing) and they are burning. The lvl 3 feature does specifically say the target gets an Infernal Wound and doesn't really say anything about the target being on fire/burning - so the lvl 10 feature is most likely meant to be for applying Infernal Wounds en masse but it fails to state that specifically. Seems like an oversight.
Also just talking numbers, at level 10 to deal 1d6 damage in a 10 ft. emanation and apply a DoT (presumably) that deals 1d6 damage per round with a 1 in 6 or 16.7% chance to add CON damage... as a once per Short Rest... that's quite poor. Unless you fight the Goblin Horde. The main purpose would be to mass apply the Infernal Wound to get more rolls - which kinda makes your other uses of the Infernal Wound feature less worthwhile - but you can always just burn them for adding +1d6 per turn (and another roll on the gacha machine for a rider-effect) which doesn't seem like a good use of resources.
I didn't consider this initially but the bookkeeping per NPC could easily become a nightmare in situations where the AoE is actually good.
The lvl 15 feature starts the chaining of dice rolling, with the lvl 18 feature doubling your chances to "hit the jackpot".
As a scenario for a lvl 18 Fighter: You hit a creature and apply a wound, you roll a die. 1 in 3 chance to "hit the jackpot". Lets say you do, you add a rider-effect and gets to roll another d6. There's an 11% chance you "hit the jackpot" back to back. Lets say you hit that, you have now dealt a bonus of 2x [ 1d6 + CON ] damage and likely caused the target to not be able to take Reactions until the start of their next turn - giving them Poisoned condition is meaningless if they can't take Reactions as the condition doesn't last their turn through.
When it gets around to their turn there's another 33% chance to "hit the jackpot" and apply Poisoned or "no reactions"/Shock(-ing grasp).
All in all, that's a lot of dice rolling and not terribly much actually happening. Obviously there's a lot of power in applying those conditions without a save - meaning Legendary Resistance doesn't matter. Although quite a lot of high-end monsters are already immune to the Poisoned condition, and the pure damage aspect is not significant either as it scales bad. We're talking about +5-7 avg. DPR bonus per Wounded target at lvl 18.
Hmm... Like Ace_of_Rogues mentions it is fair to make rather straight forward, combat-orientated subclasses. Personally I don't find this subclass interesting, perhaps especially because it all revolves around these Infernal Wounds with little actual agency from the Fighter's part to apply them when they matter, and it adds little else to your toolbox. The Action Surge explosion adds some AoE potential - but I assume your party's spell caster will make quick work of weak masses already at the point where this can deal non-insignificant AoE damage. But if you live for the gacha or really like rolling dice, then this definitely have you covered.
For this design specifically I would like to see the lvl 18 and lvl 15 features swapped, so you gain a higher chance to apply the first rider-effect before you start adding chaining for (mostly just) damage. Another point of possible improvement could be to let the rider-effect last until the end of their next turn, so it technically works when you apply it with an attack and for the DoT it carries over to last 2 turns, with a lot of chance/risk for overlap.
Personally I find the Fighter class already a very generic but solid foundation, so I mainly look at their subclasses to add some additional flare and tools. The Hell Knight is a Champion 0.8. Why 0.8? Well the Champion is very straight forward but at least it works on different axes (plural of axis) by granting some fringe utility through ADV on Athletics checks and giving an additional Fighting Style (so you could pick up some of the utility ones like Interception or Protection) and getting Heroic Inspiration each turn gives you an additional line of defense against Saving Throws. Whereas the Hell Knight is mainly just: roll dice, do damage, maybe inflict a very temporary condition. Does it do anything else? You get Resistance to Fire damage, but otherwise no, not really.
Even the Hellfire weapon emitting Dim Light could have had some utility like diming light to darkness (to utilize your Devil's Sight), if not straight away then added later on and perhaps not permanent but temporarily. Even just diming non-magical light to Dim Light could be utilized with other mechanics, such as the Epic Boon: Boon of the Night Spirit. With Devil's Sight the fact that the Hellfire weapon emits light at all is mostly a downside to you - possible upside for your non-Dark Vision friends who wants to target you with effects (and for some reason you're outside the party's own torch light). It's flavorful but mostly bad for you, especially because you don't have a choice.