Also you know what's messing me up? this animated item (which is basically a summon) does not require concentration to use. You could use Animate Objects, and then use this, and just have everything fly around.
About the clockwork sorcerer, I still maintain that I'd like to control order, not stymie chaos.
Trance of Order is the only feature that feels that way.
The Clockwork Soul is tied closely to the plane of Mechanus, which is about balance. Mechanus is Lawful Neutral embodied, and everything about it is supposed to be about mechanical precision and predictability.
Its ability to deny advantage or disadvantage and force straight rolls, its ability to impose a floor on its own rolls, and its ability to restore things within an area to how they ought to be are all indicative of the lore of Mechanus, which strives towards absolute precision and balance around the median. It's a machine class, not a time class or a force class. It actually works quite well in that guise.
And yeah. 'Fervor' is a word. Heh, not the one people usually use to describe me, but it's a word.
Also, @Cybermind and Mezzurah Apparently personal admissions, even when they're made to support an argument, are Not Okay. Never mind that it was my personal admission to make and I didn't share anything about anyone else, it was Not Cool. Which, ironically, kinda reinforced exactly what I said. Nevertheless, it was also starting to veer dangerously off-topic and Zoken doesn't want to dance anymore anyways, so fine. No more fun for me. Nevertheless, thank you for the kind words.
@Cyb3rm1nd It may have been a mod saying to ease off, but if that's not the case then yeah, I'd rather not have people feeling like they need to delete their posts to appease others.
Maybe. But I think if a mod did have a problem they'd just delete the offending post and sanction you.
On my quick review of Yurei's posts I don't see anything aggressive or rude - a bit forceful but that's fine, and their word choices are hilarious. I see humour not rudeness.
Debates are sometimes useful and interesting. Done well it can tax the mind to look at different perspectives, consider different things, challenges you and can even open ideas. There's a reason why schools have debate clubs.
I've learned more about some topics by arguing about them than by just reading a document. Arguments aren't always bad. Especially if the challengers can provide funny word flavouring.
-
Anyway, to be on topic. I also do hope the recurring trend of the origin spells continues and becomes a real thing. Especially if they backdate for previous classes. The Sorcs need some lovin'- they're rather sub-par compared to others. I was not interested in the Aberrant Mind purely as preference but I cannot wait to make a Clockwork Sorc.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
About the clockwork sorcerer, I still maintain that I'd like to control order, not stymie chaos.
Trance of Order is the only feature that feels that way.
The Clockwork Soul is tied closely to the plane of Mechanus, which is about balance. Mechanus is Lawful Neutral embodied, and everything about it is supposed to be about mechanical precision and predictability.
Its ability to deny advantage or disadvantage and force straight rolls, its ability to impose a floor on its own rolls, and its ability to restore things within an area to how they ought to be are all indicative of the lore of Mechanus, which strives towards absolute precision and balance around the median. It's a machine class, not a time class or a force class. It actually works quite well in that guise.
That's the thing; advantage/disadvantage technically increase predictability. Rolling 1 to 5d8 to absorb damage isn't precision, and "restoring" the situation based on one's subjective view doesn't seem to reinforce balance either.
It wasn't me PM'ing, as said before I was doing my best not to given in to a toxic mentality and make personal attacks. Yurei and I both deserve more respect than that would show either of us.
Following everyone's trend of getting back on topic, I agree the Bulwark feature is a little clunky.
The Origin Spell list is interesting, but that can lead to some interesting things. And do you do an Origin spell list for the Divine Soul?
@Yurei1453 I see. It is terribly unfortunate that someone would say that to you. Nonetheless, though we may not agree on everything (sometimes vehemently) I still value your input and look forward to reading your comments, and I hope to have many, many more of these conversations with you in the future.
...
...Back to the topic at hand, Clockwork Soul is good and made me so excited I had to change my pants. =P
Yurei's comments are never boring, and I'm excited to read them, and then debate about them.
The problem with debating (in any situation) is as soon as someone starts making good points, and no one can argue against it, they start attacking the person, not the argument. This happens to everyone, it is just a weird part of psychology, and it is especially common online because you can't actually see each other's faces and can take longer to think over your comeback. Nothing wrong with it, society just needs to work on our handling of these situations. I didn't read a bit of the last few comments, and they weren't completely personal attacks as far as I saw, but it was definitely heading there.
I like the Sorcerer's abilities. I do agree it isn't that thematic to have damage be absorbed in random numbers, and it might be better for it just to be "you take 5 less damage for every sorcery point you expend" like the bladesinger's "Song of Defense", but that would be too powerful, and I think it works okay as it is, even if it isn't as "orderly" as some of the other abilities. I think this subclass is more of a "controlled chaos" type of sorcerer instead of "perfect law", they still have to roll dice, everything is random, they're just better at controlling it than other sorcerers or any other class.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I like the Sorcerer's abilities. I do agree it isn't that thematic to have damage be absorbed in random numbers, and it might be better for it just to be "you take 5 less damage for every sorcery point you expend" like the bladesinger's "Song of Defense", but that would be too powerful, and I think it works okay as it is, even if it isn't as "orderly" as some of the other abilities. I think this subclass is more of a "controlled chaos" type of sorcerer instead of "perfect law", they still have to roll dice, everything is random, they're just better at controlling it than other sorcerers or any other class.
You could add scaling. For X SP, ignore Y damage. Increase to Y+1 at Nth level, etc.
I am finding it difficult to word my point in an insightful way, because to me it feels like the most obvious thing in the world, but the difference between a Cleric or any other class that was labelled as such with the explicit, in built mechanics intended to play around those sorts of thematics and another class (Bard is being pointed out) with the option of doing those things are night and day to me. A bard doesn't have to ever touch that kind of space, a "love" cleric is encouraged to. Easy to see why they would want to remove that sort of encouragement.
Also the whole "he wanted to dance" and "internet fisticuffs" ideas are beyond old at this point, could we please move past the idea that there's some sort of moral standing in typing words at each other? It's really just rather cringy.
I never intended any sort of moral anything, outside of calling a certain subset of people on their bullshit. Heh. I just wanted to dance and Zoken stepped up. "Dance" in this case, since the metaphor has sailed cleanly over a few heads, meaning "engage in a spirited debate", which is also known in some circles that have ghosty gals in them as Internet Fisticuffs.
Now I could start dancing again, point out how stupid it is to say "It's perfectly okay for something to have the option of being sleazy, that's not a problem whatsoever, but as soon as something superficially looks like it's supposed to be sleazy, that's absolutely godawful unacceptable and we need to riot until it gets banished to the Shadow Realm"...but I've kinda been hammering that exact point for, what? Four pages now? You say it's the most obvious thing in the world?
Clearly not, because to me it's equally blind-idiot obvious that this is either a total nonissue or deep hypocrisy, and in neither case are the Corporate Overlords responsible for dealing with it. Especially since everybody knows their only way of dealing with it is "Delete problematic thing from game."
If you're fine with that? Enjoy. It's pretty inevitable anyways. If not? Maybe think a little next time before starting an Internet riot?
I mean it is a nonissue to have options exist in a game that could be used in such a sleazy manner? But it is problematic to then encourage those elements to the forefront in something as important as a subclass? You do get it.
You skipped a step, Dray. That step being "does the subclass as initially presented encourage, reward, or require shitty behavior?"
The answer, by the way, is "no, not really, and of course not." As evinced by the fact that a significant percentage of people took a while to figure out what the Internet rioters were even talking about. Because of course brain control isn't "Love", but when a Love deity sends a cleric into the world to do their work against the hordes of darkness, a little bit of brain control is maybe the sort of tool that deity would want that cleric to have.
Or not. Because remember, everybody: brutally murdering that hobgoblin with fire, dousing him with acid, crushing his brain with psychic power, or tearing him into bloody chunks with your Bear Hands is all perfectly A-OK, but making him like you enough to maybe not want to fight you anymore is deeply sinful and absolutely in no way okay.
@Chaos: THANK you. Finally, somebody else freaking gets it. It's so incredibly upsetting that a hooting mass of nameless, faceless randomness gets to exercise the final frickin' say over what you, or me, or Mezz, or Zoken, or anybody else gets to actually play and enjoy. Every single person here is smarter and made of sterner stuff than an Internet Mob; why the hell is Wizards designing for the friggin' Internet Mob instead of for PLAYERS WHO PLAY THEIR GAME?
The subclass as presented did encourage shitty behaviour tho? It was in the name.
As to the "killing is okay" point you've made, if you really wanna talk about the spirit of debate:
And why do you think the people who were complaining are somehow NOT people who play this game? You'd be better arguing that the average person who plays this game wouldn't care about the implications of the subclass because they're unlikely to even see the UA before if/when it goes to print. The people who go online to argue about it? Those are the enfranchised players, they always are. They are the people who have a stake in what the game is like because it means more to them. Wizards other ventures understand this too, MaRo spends a lot of time talking about why MTG designs cards for more than just say, competitive play. The casual, kitchen table players matter too and in this case, those players aren't the ones who spent time to come online and fight against something they found distasteful at the least.
One thing to keep in mind is that this is still a sorcerer, someone who was just given these abilities by birth or circumstance. I imagine an element of randomness would be present even in an order-themed subclass like this, but that's just my opinion.
That true, and "imperfect control" could be interchangeable with "randomness," but if you can mimic imperfect control without randomness, I think it's worth exploring.
Could lead to nothing and what we have is the simplest solution, but still. :-D
@Drayenn Can we not rehash this please? There's already been entire pages of this thread dedicated to an argument that has gone nowhere but in circles, and the elements in question are no longer even relevant. There is zero reason to bring it back up.
...why...why do I even words...? Why do I words when no one listens?
You know what, Drayenn? You're right. You're absolutely right. I am a complete idiot for not realizing it. Absolutely every last single person who saw the Love Domain cleric immediately said to themselves, "Self, this is exactly what I've always needed but never had - explicit permission from Wizards to be a skeevy sex-offending bastard to my players and/or DM". There's no other possible way to interpret anything that was written in that document, and I am just the dumbest tiefling in Exandria for not realizing that the only possible way anyone could ever play that subclass was as a conniving ass pervert.
Thank you. You have Opened My Eyes(C). I must now take to the social media accounts I don't have to inform as many people whom I've never met as possible that they're all idiots and should agree with me, and by me I mean you, that the Love cleric was a complete disgrace that should never have been released and we need to demand that Wizards expunge it from history.
Sorry, everybody. I strike everything I have ever previously spoken on the subject. Huzzah.
I think I'm done dancing for the day. I've gotta go home and run my biweekly game in an hour anyways, and I just don't know how much more of this shit I can tolerate today. Just...ugh.
That sounds fun Yurei, good luck with the game! One of my players is holding a session 0 for his first foray as a DM fairly soon, so I'm excited to see how that goes.
As for the topic at hand, let's focus on the document that's actually available right now, shall we?
Sure, Unity Cleric should have obviously been able to alter the engine of life and create and destroy and change assets. Would have been much better.
For real tho, the same problems that apply to basically every cleric apply here. Channel Divinity is basically that one ProZD about how you can't buy ethers. My players run into situations where using their abilities makes them feel bad because they feel like they should have saved it for something else. I think if the overall power of CD went down a little but they could start out using it twice per rest, it might alleviate the burden.
Clockwork Soul is a little muddy, flavourwise. I really hope they retrofit added spells for the other Sorc classes, I might steal the "No advantage/Disadvantage" schtick for my theorized Luck Cleric because that ability is a winner, but as they go down, it just feels bad. I think the classes that have in built level scaling tend to feel samey as the game goes on as their top end abilities are a bit weaker to compensate. In this case, I'm not a fan of the proposed version of the final ability.
College of Creation is nutty. Once again, the final ability suffers, but the Note of Creation is an insane add to Bardic Inspiration which takes it from being a very minor benefit most of the time (this particular point has been talked to death amongst other, far more time invested people) into something that really feels like it represents a rush of (useful) inspiration. The flavour is still iffy I think, but god do I want to actually receive inspiration from that subclass now. The Dancing Item is sweet and very solid, I love the use of spell slot resets they've been offering lately. Fabricate stuff as a high end ability is certainly for people more creative than I but I don't think I'd ever get far enough into the class for that to matter as stepping out for a multiclass is appealing, regardless of the loss of inspiration
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Also you know what's messing me up? this animated item (which is basically a summon) does not require concentration to use. You could use Animate Objects, and then use this, and just have everything fly around.
I imagine the bard gets tired of swinging his sword so he animates it with magic so he could enjoy some nice tea or something haha.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
The Clockwork Soul is tied closely to the plane of Mechanus, which is about balance. Mechanus is Lawful Neutral embodied, and everything about it is supposed to be about mechanical precision and predictability.
Its ability to deny advantage or disadvantage and force straight rolls, its ability to impose a floor on its own rolls, and its ability to restore things within an area to how they ought to be are all indicative of the lore of Mechanus, which strives towards absolute precision and balance around the median. It's a machine class, not a time class or a force class. It actually works quite well in that guise.
And yeah. 'Fervor' is a word. Heh, not the one people usually use to describe me, but it's a word.
Also, @Cybermind and Mezzurah
Apparently personal admissions, even when they're made to support an argument, are Not Okay. Never mind that it was my personal admission to make and I didn't share anything about anyone else, it was Not Cool. Which, ironically, kinda reinforced exactly what I said. Nevertheless, it was also starting to veer dangerously off-topic and Zoken doesn't want to dance anymore anyways, so fine. No more fun for me. Nevertheless, thank you for the kind words.
Please do not contact or message me.
Maybe. But I think if a mod did have a problem they'd just delete the offending post and sanction you.
On my quick review of Yurei's posts I don't see anything aggressive or rude - a bit forceful but that's fine, and their word choices are hilarious. I see humour not rudeness.
Debates are sometimes useful and interesting. Done well it can tax the mind to look at different perspectives, consider different things, challenges you and can even open ideas. There's a reason why schools have debate clubs.
I've learned more about some topics by arguing about them than by just reading a document. Arguments aren't always bad. Especially if the challengers can provide funny word flavouring.
-
Anyway, to be on topic. I also do hope the recurring trend of the origin spells continues and becomes a real thing. Especially if they backdate for previous classes. The Sorcs need some lovin'- they're rather sub-par compared to others. I was not interested in the Aberrant Mind purely as preference but I cannot wait to make a Clockwork Sorc.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
That's the thing; advantage/disadvantage technically increase predictability. Rolling 1 to 5d8 to absorb damage isn't precision, and "restoring" the situation based on one's subjective view doesn't seem to reinforce balance either.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
It wasn't me PM'ing, as said before I was doing my best not to given in to a toxic mentality and make personal attacks. Yurei and I both deserve more respect than that would show either of us.
Following everyone's trend of getting back on topic, I agree the Bulwark feature is a little clunky.
The Origin Spell list is interesting, but that can lead to some interesting things. And do you do an Origin spell list for the Divine Soul?
@Yurei1453 I see. It is terribly unfortunate that someone would say that to you. Nonetheless, though we may not agree on everything (sometimes vehemently) I still value your input and look forward to reading your comments, and I hope to have many, many more of these conversations with you in the future.
...
...Back to the topic at hand, Clockwork Soul is good and made me so excited I had to change my pants. =P
I don't want to counter randomness with more randomness.
I may have to make a Sith Soul homebrew because they deal in absolutes. :-D
Or a Clockwork Warlock... a Warclock... Clockwarlock! Nailed it.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
Yurei's comments are never boring, and I'm excited to read them, and then debate about them.
The problem with debating (in any situation) is as soon as someone starts making good points, and no one can argue against it, they start attacking the person, not the argument. This happens to everyone, it is just a weird part of psychology, and it is especially common online because you can't actually see each other's faces and can take longer to think over your comeback. Nothing wrong with it, society just needs to work on our handling of these situations. I didn't read a bit of the last few comments, and they weren't completely personal attacks as far as I saw, but it was definitely heading there.
I like the Sorcerer's abilities. I do agree it isn't that thematic to have damage be absorbed in random numbers, and it might be better for it just to be "you take 5 less damage for every sorcery point you expend" like the bladesinger's "Song of Defense", but that would be too powerful, and I think it works okay as it is, even if it isn't as "orderly" as some of the other abilities. I think this subclass is more of a "controlled chaos" type of sorcerer instead of "perfect law", they still have to roll dice, everything is random, they're just better at controlling it than other sorcerers or any other class.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
You could add scaling. For X SP, ignore Y damage. Increase to Y+1 at Nth level, etc.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
I am finding it difficult to word my point in an insightful way, because to me it feels like the most obvious thing in the world, but the difference between a Cleric or any other class that was labelled as such with the explicit, in built mechanics intended to play around those sorts of thematics and another class (Bard is being pointed out) with the option of doing those things are night and day to me. A bard doesn't have to ever touch that kind of space, a "love" cleric is encouraged to. Easy to see why they would want to remove that sort of encouragement.
Also the whole "he wanted to dance" and "internet fisticuffs" ideas are beyond old at this point, could we please move past the idea that there's some sort of moral standing in typing words at each other? It's really just rather cringy.
Moral standing?
I never intended any sort of moral anything, outside of calling a certain subset of people on their bullshit. Heh. I just wanted to dance and Zoken stepped up. "Dance" in this case, since the metaphor has sailed cleanly over a few heads, meaning "engage in a spirited debate", which is also known in some circles that have ghosty gals in them as Internet Fisticuffs.
Now I could start dancing again, point out how stupid it is to say "It's perfectly okay for something to have the option of being sleazy, that's not a problem whatsoever, but as soon as something superficially looks like it's supposed to be sleazy, that's absolutely godawful unacceptable and we need to riot until it gets banished to the Shadow Realm"...but I've kinda been hammering that exact point for, what? Four pages now? You say it's the most obvious thing in the world?
Clearly not, because to me it's equally blind-idiot obvious that this is either a total nonissue or deep hypocrisy, and in neither case are the Corporate Overlords responsible for dealing with it. Especially since everybody knows their only way of dealing with it is "Delete problematic thing from game."
If you're fine with that? Enjoy. It's pretty inevitable anyways.
If not? Maybe think a little next time before starting an Internet riot?
Please do not contact or message me.
Yeah see, that's exactly what I meant by cringe.
I mean it is a nonissue to have options exist in a game that could be used in such a sleazy manner? But it is problematic to then encourage those elements to the forefront in something as important as a subclass? You do get it.
You skipped a step, Dray. That step being "does the subclass as initially presented encourage, reward, or require shitty behavior?"
The answer, by the way, is "no, not really, and of course not." As evinced by the fact that a significant percentage of people took a while to figure out what the Internet rioters were even talking about. Because of course brain control isn't "Love", but when a Love deity sends a cleric into the world to do their work against the hordes of darkness, a little bit of brain control is maybe the sort of tool that deity would want that cleric to have.
Or not. Because remember, everybody: brutally murdering that hobgoblin with fire, dousing him with acid, crushing his brain with psychic power, or tearing him into bloody chunks with your Bear Hands is all perfectly A-OK, but making him like you enough to maybe not want to fight you anymore is deeply sinful and absolutely in no way okay.
@Chaos: THANK you. Finally, somebody else freaking gets it. It's so incredibly upsetting that a hooting mass of nameless, faceless randomness gets to exercise the final frickin' say over what you, or me, or Mezz, or Zoken, or anybody else gets to actually play and enjoy. Every single person here is smarter and made of sterner stuff than an Internet Mob; why the hell is Wizards designing for the friggin' Internet Mob instead of for PLAYERS WHO PLAY THEIR GAME?
Please do not contact or message me.
The subclass as presented did encourage shitty behaviour tho? It was in the name.
As to the "killing is okay" point you've made, if you really wanna talk about the spirit of debate:
And why do you think the people who were complaining are somehow NOT people who play this game? You'd be better arguing that the average person who plays this game wouldn't care about the implications of the subclass because they're unlikely to even see the UA before if/when it goes to print. The people who go online to argue about it? Those are the enfranchised players, they always are. They are the people who have a stake in what the game is like because it means more to them. Wizards other ventures understand this too, MaRo spends a lot of time talking about why MTG designs cards for more than just say, competitive play. The casual, kitchen table players matter too and in this case, those players aren't the ones who spent time to come online and fight against something they found distasteful at the least.
That true, and "imperfect control" could be interchangeable with "randomness," but if you can mimic imperfect control without randomness, I think it's worth exploring.
Could lead to nothing and what we have is the simplest solution, but still. :-D
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
@Drayenn Can we not rehash this please? There's already been entire pages of this thread dedicated to an argument that has gone nowhere but in circles, and the elements in question are no longer even relevant. There is zero reason to bring it back up.
...why...why do I even words...? Why do I words when no one listens?
You know what, Drayenn? You're right. You're absolutely right. I am a complete idiot for not realizing it. Absolutely every last single person who saw the Love Domain cleric immediately said to themselves, "Self, this is exactly what I've always needed but never had - explicit permission from Wizards to be a skeevy sex-offending bastard to my players and/or DM". There's no other possible way to interpret anything that was written in that document, and I am just the dumbest tiefling in Exandria for not realizing that the only possible way anyone could ever play that subclass was as a conniving ass pervert.
Thank you. You have Opened My Eyes(C). I must now take to the social media accounts I don't have to inform as many people whom I've never met as possible that they're all idiots and should agree with me, and by me I mean you, that the Love cleric was a complete disgrace that should never have been released and we need to demand that Wizards expunge it from history.
Sorry, everybody. I strike everything I have ever previously spoken on the subject. Huzzah.
I think I'm done dancing for the day. I've gotta go home and run my biweekly game in an hour anyways, and I just don't know how much more of this shit I can tolerate today. Just...ugh.
Please do not contact or message me.
That sounds fun Yurei, good luck with the game! One of my players is holding a session 0 for his first foray as a DM fairly soon, so I'm excited to see how that goes.
As for the topic at hand, let's focus on the document that's actually available right now, shall we?
Sure, Unity Cleric should have obviously been able to alter the engine of life and create and destroy and change assets. Would have been much better.
For real tho, the same problems that apply to basically every cleric apply here. Channel Divinity is basically that one ProZD about how you can't buy ethers. My players run into situations where using their abilities makes them feel bad because they feel like they should have saved it for something else. I think if the overall power of CD went down a little but they could start out using it twice per rest, it might alleviate the burden.
Clockwork Soul is a little muddy, flavourwise. I really hope they retrofit added spells for the other Sorc classes, I might steal the "No advantage/Disadvantage" schtick for my theorized Luck Cleric because that ability is a winner, but as they go down, it just feels bad. I think the classes that have in built level scaling tend to feel samey as the game goes on as their top end abilities are a bit weaker to compensate. In this case, I'm not a fan of the proposed version of the final ability.
College of Creation is nutty. Once again, the final ability suffers, but the Note of Creation is an insane add to Bardic Inspiration which takes it from being a very minor benefit most of the time (this particular point has been talked to death amongst other, far more time invested people) into something that really feels like it represents a rush of (useful) inspiration. The flavour is still iffy I think, but god do I want to actually receive inspiration from that subclass now. The Dancing Item is sweet and very solid, I love the use of spell slot resets they've been offering lately. Fabricate stuff as a high end ability is certainly for people more creative than I but I don't think I'd ever get far enough into the class for that to matter as stepping out for a multiclass is appealing, regardless of the loss of inspiration