Apparently I am one of few who likes the revived rogue as roleplaying concept and from a mechanical standpoint, too.
His Bolts from the Grave ability is really strong, he can sneak attack twice per round: first he uses his Cunning Action and fire that sneak attack bilt, then he can ready his action to sneak in the enemy turn again. Really strong ranged character with a lot of damage and great kiting abilities.
No ones arguing its not good, mechanically and character building. Most just don’t like that it makes absolutely no sense, me included
Giant Rune Knight seems rushed - there’s the core of a good idea here, but it feels somewhat slapdash in how it’s been constructed. Perhaps it’s because I’m currently running a SKT campaign, but the giant connection seems really tenuous and vaguely forced - “hey, I saw some runes on a cave wall, and now I know rune magic! Something many giants are barely aware of!” - particularly when many other races also use runes. Why giant runes, rather than dwarf runes? I think it could work, but needs a lot of polish. Even if I’m really tempted to build a kobold rune knight, where a random overnight growth spurt of ~6” on a original height of 24” could be entertaining
Of the three, I’m most fond of swarmkeeper, both mechanically and lorewise. The only thing that initially comes to mind is the warlock’s cloak of flies - if my ranger is covered in a swarm of wasps/stirges/cats/pigeons, surely there’s a similar effect on Charisma checks? I’d also suggest that scuttling eyes should be detaching a member of your current swarm rather than forming a new/different creature from the spirit of the swarm. To some extent, that seems nitpicky, but that feature feels clunky as written
I’m with everyone else saying that the Revived is a nice racial or feat-set idea, but a confusing rogue.. Why rogue? If I was a dyspraxic clanky cleric in my past life, why am I now a dexterous sneaky rogue? It also doesn’t really gel with how I understand resurrection/reincarnation magic works in-game. You could retool it as an rogue that’s got a bit too intertwined with death magics and can now call on these powers, but the character themselves being revived just isn’t landing for me.
When first reading the bolt ability it seems really strong but then I realised it triggers immediately after the cunning action so it’s not as useful.
If you are in melee and use cunning action to disengage the bolt triggers before you move so the attack would be at disadvantage, it makes the hide option practically impossible to use as it triggers an attack after you hide which then reveals your position. The only way to use it in melee is to use your action to disengage, move away then use bonus action dash.
The problem with the Rune Knight is that it is way to specific to Forgotten Realms lore. WotC has apparently made it a rule that rune magic and giants must be connected in all their content, no questions asked. I feel that DMs who want to allow this subclass in their world have to either have giants or reskin the giant-related features, or change them completely). If this subclass is made official, I feel like WotC needs to drop the giant theme.
The Revived is just weird. It feels completely out of place as a rogue subclass. Or even being a subclass at all. It probably deserves to be made to a background instead.
Runes and giants should not be related. I get it in lore, but there is a time and place to relate runes to giants, and that is in the flavor text, not the abilities. Remove the giant types from the descriptions of the runes and instead replace them with a word, like PROTECTION for hill giant, or KNOWLEDGE for storm giant. And remove the ability to grow large. If you want a "giant" fighter subclass, make one, but runes are a fairly common trope of norse magic, and arbitrarily connecting them to giants because thats what the forgotten realms do is kinda unfair to anyone developing their own setting. Or hell, make runes a wizard subclass. You know, the people who actually use runes in mythology?
Or a bard thing - Viking poets were legendary for their sagas and ability to use words and runes to brutal effect. The giant connection makes sense for the Giant Soul Sorcerer subclass, but here it seems like careless flavouring. With a giant-agnostic approach to rune magic, you could bring in things like bindrunes, Druidic runes and Druid approaches to runecarving...
Or a bard thing - Viking poets were legendary for their sagas and ability to use words and runes to brutal effect. The giant connection makes sense for the Giant Soul Sorcerer subclass...
Not that the Giant Soul was exactly an interesting concept.
I'm loving most of what I see in these three archetypes, and I'm loving all this new content!
My main concerns are with the Rune Knight being overpowered.
1. Most martial classes tend to add damage dice to one attack per round. Giant Might adds 1d6 to every attack. To my eye, this blows Battle Master out of the water (who could add superiority d8's to a couple attacks for two turns, and then he's out). Brute adds 1d4 to each attack and doesn't get 1d6 until 10th. Giant Might is a bit like an uber Hex spell that can't be countered and doesn't require a bonus action to switch targets. I guess I was just surprised at this. And it's on top of all of the special abilities of Rune Magic.
2. Rune Magic again surprised me at the power. I found them all creative and interesting, but definitely powerful. Haug gets you the barbarian's rage with no limitations. Stein is an uber hold person (only one save). And Uvar is just crazy; handing out advantage and disadvantage for a minute. wow.
And I share others' discomfort/disappointment with the connection to giants. It looks like it provided the fabric on which to weave mechanics together with theme, but I'm not wild about it. Plus it requires some rewriting/rethinking to fit it into other settings (for those who don't use giants this way).
Also as others have noted, the rune magic should require the object providing the rune power be in use for the power to be accessed.
Rune Magic also suffers from a flaw in the mechanics that it's implied that you're scraping runes into the objects. The runes lose their magic when you long rest. So... seems like you'd either be making deeper and deeper scrapes into your stuff or covering them in the runes; you can handwave that away pretty easily, but it's still slightly awkward.
Overall, though, it was exciting to read this and the others. Very cool to think about the tactics you could employ as well as the stories you could tell with these themes.
I really don't understand the criticism that these are coming too fast or that they are being worked on at the expense of other things. Just bad logic and unnecessary comments. Same with the "lazy" criticisms; none of these strike me as poorly thought-out or hastily slapped together.
I really don't understand the criticism that these are coming too fast or that they are being worked on at the expense of other things. Just bad logic and unnecessary comments. Same with the "lazy" criticisms; none of these strike me as poorly thought-out or hastily slapped together.
Just to clarify, all I was saying was that the giant flavor of the subclass shouldn't overlap with the features. Like Bunsenburner03 said, that needs to stay in the flavor text.
I feel like these three, and especially the Fighter and Rogue, have extremely specific flavor text. All the UA up until now fid a pretty good job at having lots of flavor leeway (the cleric maybe a little too much) but these feel like they backtraCk that design philosophy
I feel like these three, and especially the Fighter and Rogue, have extremely specific flavor text. All the UA up until now fid a pretty good job at having lots of flavor leeway (the cleric maybe a little too much) but these feel like they backtraCk that design philosophy
Which now that i think about it is kinda funny cause that’s exactly what they DIDNT do with the entire Artificer class, but to a fault
the artificer class was either never going to have enough flavor text, and require you to make your own (you know, roleplay?), or have too much flavor text and basically create a character for you.
No ones arguing its not good, mechanically and character building. Most just don’t like that it makes absolutely no sense, me included
GiantRune Knight seems rushed - there’s the core of a good idea here, but it feels somewhat slapdash in how it’s been constructed. Perhaps it’s because I’m currently running a SKT campaign, but the giant connection seems really tenuous and vaguely forced - “hey, I saw some runes on a cave wall, and now I know rune magic! Something many giants are barely aware of!” - particularly when many other races also use runes. Why giant runes, rather than dwarf runes? I think it could work, but needs a lot of polish. Even if I’m really tempted to build a kobold rune knight, where a random overnight growth spurt of ~6” on a original height of 24” could be entertainingOf the three, I’m most fond of swarmkeeper, both mechanically and lorewise. The only thing that initially comes to mind is the warlock’s cloak of flies - if my ranger is covered in a swarm of wasps/stirges/cats/pigeons, surely there’s a similar effect on Charisma checks? I’d also suggest that scuttling eyes should be detaching a member of your current swarm rather than forming a new/different creature from the spirit of the swarm. To some extent, that seems nitpicky, but that feature feels clunky as written
I’m with everyone else saying that the Revived is a nice racial or feat-set idea, but a confusing rogue.. Why rogue? If I was a dyspraxic clanky cleric in my past life, why am I now a dexterous sneaky rogue? It also doesn’t really gel with how I understand resurrection/reincarnation magic works in-game. You could retool it as an rogue that’s got a bit too intertwined with death magics and can now call on these powers, but the character themselves being revived just isn’t landing for me.
How long does it take before this is added to the character builder?
Usually under a week, it seems
When first reading the bolt ability it seems really strong but then I realised it triggers immediately after the cunning action so it’s not as useful.
If you are in melee and use cunning action to disengage the bolt triggers before you move so the attack would be at disadvantage, it makes the hide option practically impossible to use as it triggers an attack after you hide which then reveals your position. The only way to use it in melee is to use your action to disengage, move away then use bonus action dash.
The problem with the Rune Knight is that it is way to specific to Forgotten Realms lore. WotC has apparently made it a rule that rune magic and giants must be connected in all their content, no questions asked. I feel that DMs who want to allow this subclass in their world have to either have giants or reskin the giant-related features, or change them completely). If this subclass is made official, I feel like WotC needs to drop the giant theme.
The Revived is just weird. It feels completely out of place as a rogue subclass. Or even being a subclass at all. It probably deserves to be made to a background instead.
Runes and giants should not be related. I get it in lore, but there is a time and place to relate runes to giants, and that is in the flavor text, not the abilities. Remove the giant types from the descriptions of the runes and instead replace them with a word, like PROTECTION for hill giant, or KNOWLEDGE for storm giant. And remove the ability to grow large. If you want a "giant" fighter subclass, make one, but runes are a fairly common trope of norse magic, and arbitrarily connecting them to giants because thats what the forgotten realms do is kinda unfair to anyone developing their own setting. Or hell, make runes a wizard subclass. You know, the people who actually use runes in mythology?
Or a bard thing - Viking poets were legendary for their sagas and ability to use words and runes to brutal effect. The giant connection makes sense for the Giant Soul Sorcerer subclass, but here it seems like careless flavouring. With a giant-agnostic approach to rune magic, you could bring in things like bindrunes, Druidic runes and Druid approaches to runecarving...
the only book this would make sense for is another sword coast book.
Not that the Giant Soul was exactly an interesting concept.
I think most giant related things are just not good or inteand they keep trying it.
Well, yeah - but uninspired-if-logical is a different problem to uninspired-and-slapdash!
giant soul wasnt terrible. this is just tacking giants on for no reason
I'm loving most of what I see in these three archetypes, and I'm loving all this new content!
My main concerns are with the Rune Knight being overpowered.
1. Most martial classes tend to add damage dice to one attack per round. Giant Might adds 1d6 to every attack. To my eye, this blows Battle Master out of the water (who could add superiority d8's to a couple attacks for two turns, and then he's out). Brute adds 1d4 to each attack and doesn't get 1d6 until 10th. Giant Might is a bit like an uber Hex spell that can't be countered and doesn't require a bonus action to switch targets. I guess I was just surprised at this. And it's on top of all of the special abilities of Rune Magic.
2. Rune Magic again surprised me at the power. I found them all creative and interesting, but definitely powerful. Haug gets you the barbarian's rage with no limitations. Stein is an uber hold person (only one save). And Uvar is just crazy; handing out advantage and disadvantage for a minute. wow.
And I share others' discomfort/disappointment with the connection to giants. It looks like it provided the fabric on which to weave mechanics together with theme, but I'm not wild about it. Plus it requires some rewriting/rethinking to fit it into other settings (for those who don't use giants this way).
Also as others have noted, the rune magic should require the object providing the rune power be in use for the power to be accessed.
Rune Magic also suffers from a flaw in the mechanics that it's implied that you're scraping runes into the objects. The runes lose their magic when you long rest. So... seems like you'd either be making deeper and deeper scrapes into your stuff or covering them in the runes; you can handwave that away pretty easily, but it's still slightly awkward.
Overall, though, it was exciting to read this and the others. Very cool to think about the tactics you could employ as well as the stories you could tell with these themes.
I really don't understand the criticism that these are coming too fast or that they are being worked on at the expense of other things. Just bad logic and unnecessary comments. Same with the "lazy" criticisms; none of these strike me as poorly thought-out or hastily slapped together.
Just to clarify, all I was saying was that the giant flavor of the subclass shouldn't overlap with the features. Like Bunsenburner03 said, that needs to stay in the flavor text.
I feel like these three, and especially the Fighter and Rogue, have extremely specific flavor text. All the UA up until now fid a pretty good job at having lots of flavor leeway (the cleric maybe a little too much) but these feel like they backtraCk that design philosophy
Which now that i think about it is kinda funny cause that’s exactly what they DIDNT do with the entire Artificer class, but to a fault
the artificer class was either never going to have enough flavor text, and require you to make your own (you know, roleplay?), or have too much flavor text and basically create a character for you.
cant use sneak attack twice one of the prerequisites is "provided you havent used sneak attack"
And sneak attack can only proc once per turn already so yeah. One time. Its not better its just different