The Unearthed Arcana for the upcoming Strixhaven book just dropped, and the subclasses contained within are unique in that they are available across multiple classes. Rather than following a single standard progression, they're similar in a sense to the Warlock's eldritch invocations in that you must meet a level prerequisite to gain one.
While this certainly could mean that the D&D Beyond team just repurposes the mechanics of eldritch invocations to try to hack something like this into the existing framework, I'm hoping that instead this presents them with an opportunity to refactor that framework in a way that would allow us to start building homebrew classes in D&D Beyond.
Here's hoping, but I'm not holding my breath. Building tools for homebrewing is difficult because by definition you don't know what users might want to do with them. The homebrew options available on DDB are largely a mix-and-match solution that lets you take something existing from one thing and apply it to another, your new homebrew, thing. And for new classes, that's a pretty limited solution. Mixing up stuff from existing classes to create a new one isn't really the kind of creative undertaking we'd want.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
My guess is this won't lead to any fancy new mechanics on the back end of the Character Builder. It seems to me that the simplest way for them to implement these subclasses is to create a separate instance of each one for each of the classes eligible to take it, tweaked to be appropriate for that class. My gut says accepting the duplication in exchange for simplicity will be worth it, unless there are other new mechanics introduced in the book which change the figurative math. Going the duplication route means that as far as I can tell the only new "rule" they'd have to add is once you've taken a Strixhaven subclass in one eligible class, if you multiclass into one of the others, you can't take that subclass again.
I think the subclass open to multiple classes is neat in and of itself, but I don't see this being the road to homebrew classes. To brew a class you need to be able to homebrew class core features, and subclasses are not that.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Here's hoping, but I'm not holding my breath. Building tools for homebrewing is difficult because by definition you don't know what users might want to do with them. The homebrew options available on DDB are largely a mix-and-match solution that lets you take something existing from one thing and apply it to another, your new homebrew, thing. And for new classes, that's a pretty limited solution. Mixing up stuff from existing classes to create a new one isn't really the kind of creative undertaking we'd want.
I get where you're coming from, but I do think that you could probably cover, like, 90% of what people are looking for with homebrew classes with many of the existing homebrew options we already have. A lot of class features end up being granting bonuses, providing access to spells, offering resistances and immunities, adding skills and proficiencies, etc. e.g. things that you can already throw into homebrew subclasses and magic items. Then there are subclass features that don't really translate into any sort of mechanic that has to do with the D&D Beyond framework itself (you get advantage on some sort of specific saving throw that wouldn't actually effect a change in the character sheet, for example).
IIRC one of the challenges that was presented for homebrewing classes was that the structure of the classes themselves was essentially baked into the framework of the platform. Opening that up enough such that subclasses could be applied to multiple classes seems like it would get us closer to having some sort of homebrew class framework (which might not be perfect but would at least be something functional that people could use as an MVP).
Of course, the duplication route that someone already mentioned seems like it would be an easy, short-term fix for this, but I'd hope that their product managers would consider the very real possibility that this approach to subclasses is something that Wizards would take for future products as well and look towards a long-term solution instead. :fingers-crossed-even-more:
I think the subclass open to multiple classes is neat in and of itself, but I don't see this being the road to homebrew classes. To brew a class you need to be able to homebrew class core features, and subclasses are not that.
I don't think we'd ever be able to get to 100% "whatever you wanna do" homebrewing, but I think you could cover the vast majority of what people put into homebrew classes by repurposing existing mechanics. One popular homebrew class, for instance, is the Pugilist, which is, trivially, a monk analog — it's of course not exactly the same, but you wouldn't really need to reinvent any existing mechanics to create that, you'd basically just need to put together some mechanics that could be crafted out of the framework that already exists on the platform and then rename some things.
There are some mechanics, of course, that would be fresh and require more than just a reskinning of a similar mechanic, and in that case maybe we'd need to just have class features be "flavor text" instead of functional within the character sheet. But then again we already have features that don't actually have real functionality in the character sheet so I don't think that would be a huge problem, especially as part of an MVP.
As said above, I think they'll most likely just replicate the subclasses, one version for each core class they apply to, rather than changing any sort of back end functionality. That's how I'd do it if handed this assignment and told to get it done as quickly as possible.
As said above, I think they'll most likely just replicate the subclasses, one version for each core class they apply to, rather than changing any sort of back end functionality. That's how I'd do it if handed this assignment and told to get it done as quickly as possible.
After all, that's pretty much how they did it with feats like Resilient, Fey Touched, Magic Initiate etc. there are multiples in the selection list for each relevant class or ability score.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The Unearthed Arcana for the upcoming Strixhaven book just dropped, and the subclasses contained within are unique in that they are available across multiple classes. Rather than following a single standard progression, they're similar in a sense to the Warlock's eldritch invocations in that you must meet a level prerequisite to gain one.
While this certainly could mean that the D&D Beyond team just repurposes the mechanics of eldritch invocations to try to hack something like this into the existing framework, I'm hoping that instead this presents them with an opportunity to refactor that framework in a way that would allow us to start building homebrew classes in D&D Beyond.
:fingers-crossed:
Here's hoping, but I'm not holding my breath. Building tools for homebrewing is difficult because by definition you don't know what users might want to do with them. The homebrew options available on DDB are largely a mix-and-match solution that lets you take something existing from one thing and apply it to another, your new homebrew, thing. And for new classes, that's a pretty limited solution. Mixing up stuff from existing classes to create a new one isn't really the kind of creative undertaking we'd want.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
My guess is this won't lead to any fancy new mechanics on the back end of the Character Builder. It seems to me that the simplest way for them to implement these subclasses is to create a separate instance of each one for each of the classes eligible to take it, tweaked to be appropriate for that class. My gut says accepting the duplication in exchange for simplicity will be worth it, unless there are other new mechanics introduced in the book which change the figurative math. Going the duplication route means that as far as I can tell the only new "rule" they'd have to add is once you've taken a Strixhaven subclass in one eligible class, if you multiclass into one of the others, you can't take that subclass again.
I think the subclass open to multiple classes is neat in and of itself, but I don't see this being the road to homebrew classes. To brew a class you need to be able to homebrew class core features, and subclasses are not that.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I get where you're coming from, but I do think that you could probably cover, like, 90% of what people are looking for with homebrew classes with many of the existing homebrew options we already have. A lot of class features end up being granting bonuses, providing access to spells, offering resistances and immunities, adding skills and proficiencies, etc. e.g. things that you can already throw into homebrew subclasses and magic items. Then there are subclass features that don't really translate into any sort of mechanic that has to do with the D&D Beyond framework itself (you get advantage on some sort of specific saving throw that wouldn't actually effect a change in the character sheet, for example).
IIRC one of the challenges that was presented for homebrewing classes was that the structure of the classes themselves was essentially baked into the framework of the platform. Opening that up enough such that subclasses could be applied to multiple classes seems like it would get us closer to having some sort of homebrew class framework (which might not be perfect but would at least be something functional that people could use as an MVP).
Of course, the duplication route that someone already mentioned seems like it would be an easy, short-term fix for this, but I'd hope that their product managers would consider the very real possibility that this approach to subclasses is something that Wizards would take for future products as well and look towards a long-term solution instead. :fingers-crossed-even-more:
I don't think we'd ever be able to get to 100% "whatever you wanna do" homebrewing, but I think you could cover the vast majority of what people put into homebrew classes by repurposing existing mechanics. One popular homebrew class, for instance, is the Pugilist, which is, trivially, a monk analog — it's of course not exactly the same, but you wouldn't really need to reinvent any existing mechanics to create that, you'd basically just need to put together some mechanics that could be crafted out of the framework that already exists on the platform and then rename some things.
There are some mechanics, of course, that would be fresh and require more than just a reskinning of a similar mechanic, and in that case maybe we'd need to just have class features be "flavor text" instead of functional within the character sheet. But then again we already have features that don't actually have real functionality in the character sheet so I don't think that would be a huge problem, especially as part of an MVP.
Just my $0.02. :)
As said above, I think they'll most likely just replicate the subclasses, one version for each core class they apply to, rather than changing any sort of back end functionality. That's how I'd do it if handed this assignment and told to get it done as quickly as possible.
After all, that's pretty much how they did it with feats like Resilient, Fey Touched, Magic Initiate etc. there are multiples in the selection list for each relevant class or ability score.