I'd like to see if anyone is interested in playtesting my conversion of a 3.5 prestige class from the miniatures handbook: The Bonded Summoner!
The design goal was to support the flavor of the 3.5 version's concept within 5e's ruleset. The subclass requires Princes of the Apocolypse and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything for rule support.
While the features outside of the bonded elemental aren't super exciting, this subclass is quite strong when it comes to the action economy, so buffing up features to be "more interesting" would result in a wildly overpowered subclass.
Pros:
Strong offensive and defensive capabilities
Smooth-scaling pet statistics
New wizard playstyle as a frontliner at later levels, similar to a moon druid but not nearly as strong.
Expected pain points:
Class features aren't exciting enough (a consequence of doing a conversion)
Spike in DPR when the Wizard gains access to Summon Elemental on their spell list.
Inability to cast while transformed into a Myrmidon, which is intentional.
Thank you for any and all feedback and happy gaming!
Edit 1: updated subclass to version 1.2f
removed "at will" from Elemental Bond fluff description.
specified that one does not need material components to use Elemental Bond feature
Edit 2: updated subclass to version 1.3f (Nerf Bat Edition)
Renamed many subclass abilities to be more interesting
Rewrote or added fluff for each Arcane Tradition feature
Removed stun and crit Immunity, as they do not fit with 5e's design paradigms
Edit 3: updated subclass to 1.4f (Nerf Machete Edition)
Energy resistance moved to level 6.
Removed all immunities except poison. (Level 10)
Advantage on saving throws vs Paralysis (Level 10)
Added a reaction to remove specific conditions once, recharging on a short rest. (14th Level)
Reduced duration of Myrmidon to 1 hour, recharging on a long rest. (14th level)
Edit 4: Fixed typos in character sheet and published as 1.5fb
I haven't playtested this but I've read over it and have some thoughts/questions.
Firstly, I want to say I like the idea of this so please don't read these comments too negatively.
To confirm, the material components of the summon elemental spell are still required? If so, it seems highly unlikely that most 2nd lvl adventurers are going to be able to afford the 400g a pop to resummon their elemental. If the material components *are* negated, well, this is a very powerful spell to be handing out at will for no cost whatsoever, not even a spell slot.
Even using a 1st level spell slot at lvl 2 your elemental is going to have 20 hit points. A mountain dwarf barbarian at lvl 2 with a 16 in CON has 25 hit points so you're getting an at will no cost HP soak roughly equivalent to having another barbarian in the party to summon every round if you need to. Once you get 9th level spell slots you're giving the player unlimited castings of 100HP, 20AC elementals. Compare this to the number of shapechanges a Druid gets a day or the Steel Defender of an Artificer or the Ranger's Primal Companion from Tasha's. So my first suggestion would be to review the cost of the spell and the number of uses per day, perhaps even scaling them up as the character levels.
Next the Elemental Immunity feature I think is heading in the right direction but blanket poison immunity doesn't feel right. My suggestion would be to consider a condition immunity or resistance (i.e. advantage on saving throws) based on element e.g. Fire - Blinded, Water - poison/poisoned, Air - Restrained, Earth - Paralysed - This feels more flavourful to me but I don't know if this would make it stop feeling like the 3.5 class or if you think this is over powered? This change would be coupled with removing the stunned/paralysed immunity from the 10th level feature. As you have it written now, by 10th level the character would have 4 (technically 5) immunities and at 14th they gain another 3 plus no critical hits and resistance to non-magical b/p/s which...feels like a lot.
Also of note both the 14th level features feel like pretty powerful features in their own right, getting both of them feels like too much. Again, a no cost, no concentration at will polymorph that lasts for 10 hours into a creature with a minimum of 117HP seems pretty broken and way outclasses the moon druid as an example. The most flavourful one for me is the polymorph but it needs limits.
Anyway that's just some of my thoughts, I like the concept and I'd be curious to hear your reasoning for why you made the choices you did.
Edit: just noticed that the 14th level polymorph is 1/LR which feels about right so scratch my comments about the polymorph. The 2 abilities at lvl 14 still feel strong in combination tho.
Even using a 1st level spell slot at lvl 2 your elemental is going to have 20 hit points. A mountain dwarf barbarian at lvl 2 with a 16 in CON has 25 hit points so you're getting an at will no cost HP soak roughly equivalent to having another barbarian in the party to summon every round if you need to. Once you get 9th level spell slots you're giving the player unlimited castings of 100HP, 20AC elementals. Compare this to the number of shapechanges a Druid gets a day or the Steel Defender of an Artificer or the Ranger's Primal Companion from Tasha's. So my first suggestion would be to review the cost of the spell and the number of uses per day, perhaps even scaling them up as the character levels.
Thanks for the feedback!
No, material components are not needed the same way they aren't needed to cast spells from magic items or other innate abilities. I have cleaned up the language to remove ambiguity in the rule.
Regarding unlimited casts of the ability, it's limited to once per LR, and I removed the "at will" bit in the first part of the feature to eliminate confusion here.
Rule as written in class feature: The elemental you summon with this ability is always your bonded elemental, and when its hit points fall to 0 it returns to its respective elemental plane. You can dismiss the elemental as a free action. If the elemental is dismissed or killed, you cannot summon it again until completing a long rest.
The hitpoint math is to keep the arithmetic clean and easy to track through the level curve (and keep it consistent with the summon elemental spell's existing math). This ability is intended to be powerful, as it's the defining feature of the subclass. I've mathed it out over 20 levels, and the damage/HP curve isn't quite as high in practice as it looks on paper and once the elemental is dead, it's gone for the rest of the adventuring day.
Next the Elemental Immunity feature I think is heading in the right direction but blanket poison immunity doesn't feel right. My suggestion would be to consider a condition immunity or resistance (i.e. advantage on saving throws) based on element e.g. Fire - Blinded, Water - poison/poisoned, Air - Restrained, Earth - Paralysed - This feels more flavourful to me but I don't know if this would make it stop feeling like the 3.5 class or if you think this is over powered? This change would be coupled with removing the stunned/paralysed immunity from the 10th level feature. As you have it written now, by 10th level the character would have 4 (technically 5) immunities and at 14th they gain another 3 plus no critical hits and resistance to non-magical b/p/s which...feels like a lot.
Funny enough, the last person I had give me feedback thought it wasn't strong enough to just get passive resistances and some immunities.
The 14 features are a consequence of 5e's class design vs 3.5, with certain class features spread out over ten levels in 3.5 vs the class ability milestone levels of 5e.
The immunities and resistances come from the class concept in 3.5 where the caster basically becomes an elemental themselves. All of the immunities and resistances are 1-1 with the elemental stat blocks and come online when most enemies being faced have magical means of attack or magical weapons themselves. In fact, the elementals get much stronger immunities that I pruned for being over the top (looking at *you* immunity to unconscious/prone).
As someone who has had a lot of resistances at the end of the game (lvl 17+), they don't quite impact the table balance as much as you'd think seeing them all stacked up together in play.
I'd like to see some other tables play the class as is and see if it's over the top or just a tankier wizard. I'm expecting the latter. The design goal is to let a Wizard frontline with the elemental and not fear being put on a shirt.
The crit hit immunity is 100% a 3.5 holdover, equivalent to adamantine armor in 5e which melee players often have before level 7, let alone 14.
Again, a no cost, no concentration at will polymorph that lasts for 10 hours into a creature with a minimum of 117HP seems pretty broken and way outclasses the moon druid as an example. The most flavourful one for me is the polymorph but it needs limits.
The limit is that you essentially lose your ability to be a wizard while polymorphed. Myrmidons can't cast and don't really put out a lot of DPR.
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback, I hope you convince a DM (or one of your players) to give this a spin.
It is definitely an interesting idea, but it should probably hew closer to what elementals are actually like in 5e and on par with existing Sorcerers who usually adopt similarities to their element.
First, there are too many resistances and they come too early. Compare with a Sorcerer. They would get resistance at 6th and might get a feat equivalent and immunity as an 18th level ability. You can sometimes get away with one elemental resistance early but rarely conditions other than Poisoned.
Second, no elementals are immune to Stunned or negate criticals. Those should just go. They don't even reflect elementals in 5e. There are *very* few creatures in 5e with immunity to Stunned and only rarely things like Adamantine Armor negate criticals. Paralyzed immunity should be limited as well. Damage resistance may prolong a fight but immunity to abilities that shut you down entirely is quite powerful. A fight with mind flayers isn't the same if you can ignore mind blasts with impunity.
Getting immunity to one energy type is often most of a single subclass ability and is usually reserved for 18th level. Compare Storm Sorcerer's immunity to Thunder & Lightning at 18th, Pyromancer's immunity to Fire and an ability like Elemental Adept at 18th. Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers have to spend Spell Points just to get resistance at 6th. Poison immunity is a bit weaker than the other types but it's still a big gain since you can just walk through a Cloudkill.
Ways I'd propose adjusting it:
Elemental Study - No real notes. Could maybe use a flavor ribbon.
Elemental Bond - Keeping all the familiar abilities on it seems great. I'd look at using the summoning template that WotC has started using. Check out the 4th lvl spell Summon Elemental from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. At a glance, I think you can reverse the scaling it does above 4th back down to 1st (i.e. 50 hp+10/lvl for 4+ yields 40 @3rd, 30 @2nd, etc.). In lieu of dropping its AC you can just make it size small and drop its STR a point per level below 4. (edit: That is the spell you used! Nice. For some reason the tooltip made me think it was summoning the CR 5 elemental. That'll teach me to post on my phone.)
Move Elemental Resistances to 6th. That is when most subclasses start picking up resistances like that. You could also add something where you picked up a single condition immunity for 1 hour after you cast a 1st level or higher spell of a type matching your element. Something like how the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer gets their resistance, but for conditions. I'd keep it to a limited list of conditions that elementals have in 5e and only allow choice of one per spell cast. Something like Exhaustion, Paralyzed, Petrified, and Poisoned.
Drop the 10th level ability entirely as is. This ability is more in line with what Sorcerers might get at 18th and not something to pile on at 10th. Instead, this is where you could pick up more active parts of the chosen elemental. Maybe you have a limited ability to assume an amorphous form for 1 minute once per short or long rest. That would allow you to move through narrow areas without squeezing and temporarily give you your immunity to Grappled, Prone, and Restrained conditions as well as resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. It's similar to the immunities / resistances you were giving but limited and on par with something like a free casting of Gaseous Form for a short time. You might even add something little for each element on par with a cantrip. Fire can touch things to ignite them, Water can freeze water with a touch. Air gets a 20 ft fly speed. Earth can... move earth?
Elemental Body - I'd move the element immunity here and leave it at that. With the Elemental Transformation you're set at this level and the 6th & 10th level limited abilities pick up the condition immunities you wanted.
Elemental Transformation - this is a nice limited ability at an appropriate power level. 10 hour duration might be a bit long. Druids can Wild Shape for hours equal to half their level. You shouldn't be able to take a long rest as a myrmidon. 8 hours with a note that you can't rest in this form might be good. I might clarify that you can't cast spells while transformed.
I like the feel of this. It's got a great theme but I'd insist on changes like the ones I've outlined before I'd let someone play this subclass in my game.
Final note - you might also check out the Mage of Prismari subclass coming out in Mages of Strixhaven for an alternative elemental wizard to compare to.
The elemental you summon with this ability is always your bonded elemental, and when its hit points fall to 0 it returns to its respective elemental plane. You can dismiss the elemental as a free action. If the elemental is dismissed or killed, you cannot summon it again until completing a long rest.
D'oh! I swear I went back and reread that twice to make sure and I still missed it. Can I suggest you fold it into the second paragraph so it's more upfront and that way you're not repeating the info about the elemental dropping to 0 hitpoints.
The immunities and resistances come from the class concept in 3.5 where the caster basically becomes an elemental themselves. All of the immunities and resistances are 1-1 with the elemental stat blocks and come online when most enemies being faced have magical means of attack or magical weapons themselves. In fact, the elementals get much stronger immunities that I pruned for being over the top (looking at *you* immunity to unconscious/prone).
I guess the thing to remember is that 5e isn't 3.5 so a 1:1 transfer of elemental traits may not be feasible. I only played 3.5 a couple times 15 years ago but don't you get a feat every couple of levels on top of ASI with to hits of +10 or +15 pretty common relatively early?
I think you've got a great core to work with here it just needs to be toned down a little to fit in with the other published subclasses. Unless you're going for a stronger-than-published-subclass vibe which I can totally get behind, I often put things in my homebrew subclasses that I know are a touch more powerful because I want the player to feel cool when they play. Even then, making the player immune to poison, poisoned condition, a damage type of their choice, paralyzed, stunned, grappled, restrained and petrified while walking around in the nude is waaaay more than any other subclass gets and that's before you take away crits and give resistance to non-magical b/s/p. I think it's entirely appropriate that you get it for a set amount of time once per long rest when you hulk out and go elemental.
To build on what CrowKeeper said, if you wanted to keep that 10th level ability, my philosophy when giving a player options in a subclass is to make the choices meaningful but also try to avoid making one far superior over the others. You can't really get around how common fire damage is in the game for e.g. so you'd probably find a lot of players picking fire over the other elements unless they have something else to offer. I would make it resistance to the damage type and immunity to a condition that makes sense flavorwise for the chosen element. I previously suggested Fire - Blinded, Water - poison/poisoned, Air - Restrained, Earth - Paralysed which all seem like you could justify lore wise. A more interesting thing you could do would be to have them give you a new sense, you've spent so long infused with air elemental...blood I guess?... that you now have resistance to lightning and 30ft of blindsense as you detect minor shifts in the air around you, or your affinity for the earth gives you Acid resistance (a pretty uncommon damage type), resistance to stun and 60ft of tremorsense to give the player a reason to pick it over fire. Being able to breathe under water and having a swim speed of 40ft is pretty nice if situational but if it's coupled with cold resistance then it's just a straight bonus.
Anyway, somehow these keep turning into walls of text, sorry for that.
To build on what CrowKeeper said, if you wanted to keep that 10th level ability, my philosophy when giving a player options in a subclass is to make the choices meaningful but also try to avoid making one far superior over the others. You can't really get around how common fire damage is in the game for e.g. so you'd probably find a lot of players picking fire over the other elements unless they have something else to offer. I would make it resistance to the damage type and immunity to a condition that makes sense flavorwise for the chosen element. I previously suggested Fire - Blinded, Water - poison/poisoned, Air - Restrained, Earth - Paralysed which all seem like you could justify lore wise. A more interesting thing you could do would be to have them give you a new sense, you've spent so long infused with air elemental...blood I guess?... that you now have resistance to lightning and 30ft of blindsense as you detect minor shifts in the air around you, or your affinity for the earth gives you Acid resistance (a pretty uncommon damage type), resistance to stun and 60ft of tremorsense to give the player a reason to pick it over fire. Being able to breathe under water and having a swim speed of 40ft is pretty nice if situational but if it's coupled with cold resistance then it's just a straight bonus.
I do like D4N1CU5's idea of pairing resistances with conditions so you can balance the weaker resistances with more powerful conditions. The resistance alone wouldn't account for a 6h level Arcane Tradition Feature alone, but with a condition it's pretty good.
I did a scrape of monster attacks by energy type and Poison is by far the leader followed by Fire then Acid, with Cold and Lightning bring up the rear. Someone else has looked at spells and those have Fire in a big lead followed by Lightning with Acid, Cold, and Poison trailing behind. All together you're 4x as likely to deal with Poison and 2-3x as likely to deal with Fire as the others. It'd be interesting to see how afflicting conditions is distributed, but that seems like a big task. Some are clearly more powerful than others.
If we look at your Bonded Summoner as progressing on their way to becoming an Elemental Myrmidon; conveniently those creatures only have the following four condition immunities in 5e:
Paralyzed, a very powerful effect that sees some use from spells like Hold Person and creatures like Ghouls
Petrified, the most powerful effect but also the rarest
Poisoned, the weakest effect that only gives you disadvantage by itself, but often comes with more dangerous effects. Also, the most common short of Shove.
Prone, a fairly powerful effect that's also fairly common (depending on how often creatures Shove, it could be the most common), in general better than Poisoned but might be overshadowed by additional riders on the poison (knocked unconscious, etc.)
For power balance and just for matching the elemental themes maybe pairing them like this:
I've gone back and forth on how to line these up considering the power/frequency of them and just what feels right for an element. I think this sorting might work. I.e. - lightning kind of feels like something associated with paralyzing, cold & ice kind of feels like where you slip prone, acid kind of feels similar to poison... fire just gets what it gets.
For the 1.3f version, I cleaned up a lot of the language, removed the glaring 3.5isms (Stun and Crit immunity), but kept most everything else as it was. I also added a bit more fluff for the *why* of getting things like poison resistance or advantage on Sleep effects.
There's a lot of power in the action economy of this class, so having a sort of lack-luster 6th level is okay by me.
The core concept of the class is to become less mortal and more "elemental" as you level. While the traits given may seem to be a lot on paper, after DMing two 1-20 campaigns, I don't think the immunities and resistances are going to break or outshine the power curve of a 5e party, especially with the power creep introduced by the most recent additions to the game.
I think this will be my final version until I get some real table-time with it to see the subclass in action.
Thanks for your feedback, and I hope you also get to see the class in action.
That 14th level ability is still way, way, WAY too much. Not only is there a laundry list of condition immunities that would be very difficult to acquire otherwise and has no limit placed on them, that's only half the level 14 ability.The polymorph itself is too powerful. You become reflexively amorphic... but it doesn't even use your Reaction? If you've got a long comma separated list and then you add "In addition..." and proceed with another comma separated list, it's TOO MUCH.
The special improved Polymorph isn't enough for 14th? It's already WAY too powerful. The improvements over the spell include:
Doesn't take a spell slot
Doesn't require concentration
Last 10 times the regular spell
To acquire just the Resistances and Condition Immunities (they're virtually impossible to get) on another Wizard would have to have:
A Ring of Elemental Command, or something like a Red Dragon Mask. These obviously have other abilities, but they are about the only way to get immunity to an element.
That's A LOT of rare or even more rare items that require attunement just to equal a worse version of half of the 14th level abilities. What do some of the new power creep wizards get?
The War Mage can deal half their level damage to 3 guys after they use their Reaction when they are hit.
The Order of Scribes gets Advantage on Arcana checks and their spellbook can take a hit for them temporarily losing several spells that won't return for 1d6 days.
The Bladesinger that is a pretty potent Gish Wizard that only gets to add their Intelligence to melee damage only while they are using their Bladesong which comes with a bunch of limitations including a 1 minute duration and only usable a limited number of times a day.
Some classes get immunity to Poisoned, Charmed, and Frightened. Nothing comes close to that list of immunities you added. The only things that even approach that level are once a day transformations that last only 1 minute and are usually constrained to just 3 effects like a resistance, a movement buff, and a special attack. Just try to build another 14th level character that comes close to having those immunities and the free spells (without concentration or duration) and you'll see all of the crazy freebies you're handing out.
Don't underestimate the condition immunities. Most of those will incapacitate characters or severely hinder them and you're just giving blanket immunity to almost half of all conditions. The bounded accuracy of D&D 5e makes lots of lower level threats still a challenge for higher level characters. You could have a 14th level party walk into a jungle with lots of Assassin Vine and they could do some serious damage. If they have to make enough saves, they will fail some. Several party members may be Grappled, Restrained, and Poisoned, but your guy just walks through like nothing is happening. Even a Land Druid would struggle some, and that's THEIR WHOLE DEAL! Damage resistance will just let them last a little longer. What really sets up the real danger for higher level parties are the conditions. If half your party is Paralyzed they are in real danger!
Incidentally, a Moon Druid (the one that can polymorph into an elemental) just gets Alter Self, a 2nd level spell at will, as their 14th level ability. That's the power level you should be aiming for not giving 3 or more constant 4th and 5th level spell effects without concentration. The Land Druid basically gets Sanctuary (a constant 1st level spell) just against plants.
It's just WAY too much. Just because you devalue Resistances and Conditions does not make it a good practice to just give your subclass protection from all of them, on top of 3 or 4 free high level spells.
The Bonded Summoner was a prestige class in 3.5e that Wizards or Sorcerers could qualify for. You had to give up half of your caster levels to get the elemental powers. I think it fits better with a Sorcerer since they more often are granted resistances and the 18th level ability allows the capstone to be more powerful. Additionally, you can use the Sorcery points as a cost to limit powerful abilities like the immunities while still keeping them.
Hello everyone!
I'd like to see if anyone is interested in playtesting my conversion of a 3.5 prestige class from the miniatures handbook: The Bonded Summoner!
The design goal was to support the flavor of the 3.5 version's concept within 5e's ruleset. The subclass requires Princes of the Apocolypse and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything for rule support.
While the features outside of the bonded elemental aren't super exciting, this subclass is quite strong when it comes to the action economy, so buffing up features to be "more interesting" would result in a wildly overpowered subclass.
Pros:
Expected pain points:
Thank you for any and all feedback and happy gaming!
Edit 1: updated subclass to version 1.2f
Edit 2: updated subclass to version 1.3f (Nerf Bat Edition)
Edit 3: updated subclass to 1.4f (Nerf Machete Edition)
Edit 4: Fixed typos in character sheet and published as 1.5fb
I haven't playtested this but I've read over it and have some thoughts/questions.
Firstly, I want to say I like the idea of this so please don't read these comments too negatively.
To confirm, the material components of the summon elemental spell are still required? If so, it seems highly unlikely that most 2nd lvl adventurers are going to be able to afford the 400g a pop to resummon their elemental. If the material components *are* negated, well, this is a very powerful spell to be handing out at will for no cost whatsoever, not even a spell slot.
Even using a 1st level spell slot at lvl 2 your elemental is going to have 20 hit points. A mountain dwarf barbarian at lvl 2 with a 16 in CON has 25 hit points so you're getting an at will no cost HP soak roughly equivalent to having another barbarian in the party to summon every round if you need to. Once you get 9th level spell slots you're giving the player unlimited castings of 100HP, 20AC elementals. Compare this to the number of shapechanges a Druid gets a day or the Steel Defender of an Artificer or the Ranger's Primal Companion from Tasha's. So my first suggestion would be to review the cost of the spell and the number of uses per day, perhaps even scaling them up as the character levels.
Next the Elemental Immunity feature I think is heading in the right direction but blanket poison immunity doesn't feel right. My suggestion would be to consider a condition immunity or resistance (i.e. advantage on saving throws) based on element e.g. Fire - Blinded, Water - poison/poisoned, Air - Restrained, Earth - Paralysed - This feels more flavourful to me but I don't know if this would make it stop feeling like the 3.5 class or if you think this is over powered? This change would be coupled with removing the stunned/paralysed immunity from the 10th level feature. As you have it written now, by 10th level the character would have 4 (technically 5) immunities and at 14th they gain another 3 plus no critical hits and resistance to non-magical b/p/s which...feels like a lot.
Also of note both the 14th level features feel like pretty powerful features in their own right, getting both of them feels like too much. Again, a no cost, no concentration at will polymorph that lasts for 10 hours into a creature with a minimum of 117HP seems pretty broken and way outclasses the moon druid as an example. The most flavourful one for me is the polymorph but it needs limits.
Anyway that's just some of my thoughts, I like the concept and I'd be curious to hear your reasoning for why you made the choices you did.
Edit: just noticed that the 14th level polymorph is 1/LR which feels about right so scratch my comments about the polymorph. The 2 abilities at lvl 14 still feel strong in combination tho.
Thanks for the feedback!
No, material components are not needed the same way they aren't needed to cast spells from magic items or other innate abilities. I have cleaned up the language to remove ambiguity in the rule.
Regarding unlimited casts of the ability, it's limited to once per LR, and I removed the "at will" bit in the first part of the feature to eliminate confusion here.
Rule as written in class feature:
The elemental you summon with this ability is always your bonded elemental, and when its hit points fall to 0 it returns to its respective elemental plane. You can dismiss the elemental as a free action. If the elemental is dismissed or killed, you cannot summon it again until completing a long rest.
The hitpoint math is to keep the arithmetic clean and easy to track through the level curve (and keep it consistent with the summon elemental spell's existing math). This ability is intended to be powerful, as it's the defining feature of the subclass. I've mathed it out over 20 levels, and the damage/HP curve isn't quite as high in practice as it looks on paper and once the elemental is dead, it's gone for the rest of the adventuring day.
Funny enough, the last person I had give me feedback thought it wasn't strong enough to just get passive resistances and some immunities.
The 14 features are a consequence of 5e's class design vs 3.5, with certain class features spread out over ten levels in 3.5 vs the class ability milestone levels of 5e.
The immunities and resistances come from the class concept in 3.5 where the caster basically becomes an elemental themselves. All of the immunities and resistances are 1-1 with the elemental stat blocks and come online when most enemies being faced have magical means of attack or magical weapons themselves. In fact, the elementals get much stronger immunities that I pruned for being over the top (looking at *you* immunity to unconscious/prone).
As someone who has had a lot of resistances at the end of the game (lvl 17+), they don't quite impact the table balance as much as you'd think seeing them all stacked up together in play.
I'd like to see some other tables play the class as is and see if it's over the top or just a tankier wizard. I'm expecting the latter. The design goal is to let a Wizard frontline with the elemental and not fear being put on a shirt.
The crit hit immunity is 100% a 3.5 holdover, equivalent to adamantine armor in 5e which melee players often have before level 7, let alone 14.
The limit is that you essentially lose your ability to be a wizard while polymorphed. Myrmidons can't cast and don't really put out a lot of DPR.
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback, I hope you convince a DM (or one of your players) to give this a spin.
It is definitely an interesting idea, but it should probably hew closer to what elementals are actually like in 5e and on par with existing Sorcerers who usually adopt similarities to their element.
First, there are too many resistances and they come too early. Compare with a Sorcerer. They would get resistance at 6th and might get a feat equivalent and immunity as an 18th level ability. You can sometimes get away with one elemental resistance early but rarely conditions other than Poisoned.
Second, no elementals are immune to Stunned or negate criticals. Those should just go. They don't even reflect elementals in 5e. There are *very* few creatures in 5e with immunity to Stunned and only rarely things like Adamantine Armor negate criticals. Paralyzed immunity should be limited as well. Damage resistance may prolong a fight but immunity to abilities that shut you down entirely is quite powerful. A fight with mind flayers isn't the same if you can ignore mind blasts with impunity.
Getting immunity to one energy type is often most of a single subclass ability and is usually reserved for 18th level. Compare Storm Sorcerer's immunity to Thunder & Lightning at 18th, Pyromancer's immunity to Fire and an ability like Elemental Adept at 18th. Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers have to spend Spell Points just to get resistance at 6th. Poison immunity is a bit weaker than the other types but it's still a big gain since you can just walk through a Cloudkill.
Ways I'd propose adjusting it:
Elemental Study - No real notes. Could maybe use a flavor ribbon.
Elemental Bond - Keeping all the familiar abilities on it seems great.
I'd look at using the summoning template that WotC has started using. Check outthe 4th lvl spell Summon Elemental from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. At a glance, I think you can reverse the scaling it does above 4th back down to 1st (i.e. 50 hp+10/lvl for 4+ yields 40 @3rd, 30 @2nd, etc.).In lieu of dropping its AC you can just make it size small and drop its STR a point per level below 4. (edit: That is the spell you used! Nice. For some reason the tooltip made me think it was summoning the CR 5 elemental. That'll teach me to post on my phone.)Move Elemental Resistances to 6th. That is when most subclasses start picking up resistances like that. You could also add something where you picked up a single condition immunity for 1 hour after you cast a 1st level or higher spell of a type matching your element. Something like how the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer gets their resistance, but for conditions. I'd keep it to a limited list of conditions that elementals have in 5e and only allow choice of one per spell cast. Something like Exhaustion, Paralyzed, Petrified, and Poisoned.
Drop the 10th level ability entirely as is. This ability is more in line with what Sorcerers might get at 18th and not something to pile on at 10th. Instead, this is where you could pick up more active parts of the chosen elemental. Maybe you have a limited ability to assume an amorphous form for 1 minute once per short or long rest. That would allow you to move through narrow areas without squeezing and temporarily give you your immunity to Grappled, Prone, and Restrained conditions as well as resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. It's similar to the immunities / resistances you were giving but limited and on par with something like a free casting of Gaseous Form for a short time. You might even add something little for each element on par with a cantrip. Fire can touch things to ignite them, Water can freeze water with a touch. Air gets a 20 ft fly speed. Earth can... move earth?
Elemental Body - I'd move the element immunity here and leave it at that. With the Elemental Transformation you're set at this level and the 6th & 10th level limited abilities pick up the condition immunities you wanted.
Elemental Transformation - this is a nice limited ability at an appropriate power level. 10 hour duration might be a bit long. Druids can Wild Shape for hours equal to half their level. You shouldn't be able to take a long rest as a myrmidon. 8 hours with a note that you can't rest in this form might be good. I might clarify that you can't cast spells while transformed.
I like the feel of this. It's got a great theme but I'd insist on changes like the ones I've outlined before I'd let someone play this subclass in my game.
Final note - you might also check out the Mage of Prismari subclass coming out in Mages of Strixhaven for an alternative elemental wizard to compare to.
D'oh! I swear I went back and reread that twice to make sure and I still missed it. Can I suggest you fold it into the second paragraph so it's more upfront and that way you're not repeating the info about the elemental dropping to 0 hitpoints.
I guess the thing to remember is that 5e isn't 3.5 so a 1:1 transfer of elemental traits may not be feasible. I only played 3.5 a couple times 15 years ago but don't you get a feat every couple of levels on top of ASI with to hits of +10 or +15 pretty common relatively early?
I think you've got a great core to work with here it just needs to be toned down a little to fit in with the other published subclasses. Unless you're going for a stronger-than-published-subclass vibe which I can totally get behind, I often put things in my homebrew subclasses that I know are a touch more powerful because I want the player to feel cool when they play. Even then, making the player immune to poison, poisoned condition, a damage type of their choice, paralyzed, stunned, grappled, restrained and petrified while walking around in the nude is waaaay more than any other subclass gets and that's before you take away crits and give resistance to non-magical b/s/p. I think it's entirely appropriate that you get it for a set amount of time once per long rest when you hulk out and go elemental.
To build on what CrowKeeper said, if you wanted to keep that 10th level ability, my philosophy when giving a player options in a subclass is to make the choices meaningful but also try to avoid making one far superior over the others. You can't really get around how common fire damage is in the game for e.g. so you'd probably find a lot of players picking fire over the other elements unless they have something else to offer. I would make it resistance to the damage type and immunity to a condition that makes sense flavorwise for the chosen element. I previously suggested Fire - Blinded, Water - poison/poisoned, Air - Restrained, Earth - Paralysed which all seem like you could justify lore wise. A more interesting thing you could do would be to have them give you a new sense, you've spent so long infused with air elemental...blood I guess?... that you now have resistance to lightning and 30ft of blindsense as you detect minor shifts in the air around you, or your affinity for the earth gives you Acid resistance (a pretty uncommon damage type), resistance to stun and 60ft of tremorsense to give the player a reason to pick it over fire. Being able to breathe under water and having a swim speed of 40ft is pretty nice if situational but if it's coupled with cold resistance then it's just a straight bonus.
Anyway, somehow these keep turning into walls of text, sorry for that.
I do like D4N1CU5's idea of pairing resistances with conditions so you can balance the weaker resistances with more powerful conditions. The resistance alone wouldn't account for a 6h level Arcane Tradition Feature alone, but with a condition it's pretty good.
I did a scrape of monster attacks by energy type and Poison is by far the leader followed by Fire then Acid, with Cold and Lightning bring up the rear. Someone else has looked at spells and those have Fire in a big lead followed by Lightning with Acid, Cold, and Poison trailing behind. All together you're 4x as likely to deal with Poison and 2-3x as likely to deal with Fire as the others. It'd be interesting to see how afflicting conditions is distributed, but that seems like a big task. Some are clearly more powerful than others.
If we look at your Bonded Summoner as progressing on their way to becoming an Elemental Myrmidon; conveniently those creatures only have the following four condition immunities in 5e:
For power balance and just for matching the elemental themes maybe pairing them like this:
I've gone back and forth on how to line these up considering the power/frequency of them and just what feels right for an element. I think this sorting might work. I.e. - lightning kind of feels like something associated with paralyzing, cold & ice kind of feels like where you slip prone, acid kind of feels similar to poison... fire just gets what it gets.
I will review both of your posts and will hammer out changes for a 1.3 version, thanks guys!
For the 1.3f version, I cleaned up a lot of the language, removed the glaring 3.5isms (Stun and Crit immunity), but kept most everything else as it was. I also added a bit more fluff for the *why* of getting things like poison resistance or advantage on Sleep effects.
There's a lot of power in the action economy of this class, so having a sort of lack-luster 6th level is okay by me.
The core concept of the class is to become less mortal and more "elemental" as you level. While the traits given may seem to be a lot on paper, after DMing two 1-20 campaigns, I don't think the immunities and resistances are going to break or outshine the power curve of a 5e party, especially with the power creep introduced by the most recent additions to the game.
I think this will be my final version until I get some real table-time with it to see the subclass in action.
Thanks for your feedback, and I hope you also get to see the class in action.
That 14th level ability is still way, way, WAY too much. Not only is there a laundry list of condition immunities that would be very difficult to acquire otherwise and has no limit placed on them, that's only half the level 14 ability.The polymorph itself is too powerful. You become reflexively amorphic... but it doesn't even use your Reaction? If you've got a long comma separated list and then you add "In addition..." and proceed with another comma separated list, it's TOO MUCH.
The special improved Polymorph isn't enough for 14th? It's already WAY too powerful. The improvements over the spell include:
To acquire just the Resistances and Condition Immunities (they're virtually impossible to get) on another Wizard would have to have:
That's A LOT of rare or even more rare items that require attunement just to equal a worse version of half of the 14th level abilities. What do some of the new power creep wizards get?
Some classes get immunity to Poisoned, Charmed, and Frightened. Nothing comes close to that list of immunities you added. The only things that even approach that level are once a day transformations that last only 1 minute and are usually constrained to just 3 effects like a resistance, a movement buff, and a special attack. Just try to build another 14th level character that comes close to having those immunities and the free spells (without concentration or duration) and you'll see all of the crazy freebies you're handing out.
Don't underestimate the condition immunities. Most of those will incapacitate characters or severely hinder them and you're just giving blanket immunity to almost half of all conditions. The bounded accuracy of D&D 5e makes lots of lower level threats still a challenge for higher level characters. You could have a 14th level party walk into a jungle with lots of Assassin Vine and they could do some serious damage. If they have to make enough saves, they will fail some. Several party members may be Grappled, Restrained, and Poisoned, but your guy just walks through like nothing is happening. Even a Land Druid would struggle some, and that's THEIR WHOLE DEAL! Damage resistance will just let them last a little longer. What really sets up the real danger for higher level parties are the conditions. If half your party is Paralyzed they are in real danger!
Incidentally, a Moon Druid (the one that can polymorph into an elemental) just gets Alter Self, a 2nd level spell at will, as their 14th level ability. That's the power level you should be aiming for not giving 3 or more constant 4th and 5th level spell effects without concentration. The Land Druid basically gets Sanctuary (a constant 1st level spell) just against plants.
Look at the whole line of 6th level Investiture spells - Investiture of Flame, Investiture of Ice, Investiture of Stone, and Investiture of Wind. Giving a free 1/day use of a 6th level spell would be VERY powerful for a 14th level ability, and these look extremely lackluster to what you've added.
It's just WAY too much. Just because you devalue Resistances and Conditions does not make it a good practice to just give your subclass protection from all of them, on top of 3 or 4 free high level spells.
This is a bit more what I was thinking a Bonded Summoner might look like.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/1083795-bonded-summoner
The Bonded Summoner was a prestige class in 3.5e that Wizards or Sorcerers could qualify for. You had to give up half of your caster levels to get the elemental powers. I think it fits better with a Sorcerer since they more often are granted resistances and the 18th level ability allows the capstone to be more powerful. Additionally, you can use the Sorcery points as a cost to limit powerful abilities like the immunities while still keeping them.
1.4f has been posted.
1.5f posted, typos and such.