With the UA for oneDnD/5.5e/6e being readily tested, I've been staring at my privated list of mostly finished Homebrew creations. These coming couple months are probably the last chance I have at sharing 5e homebrew before the wide internet moves on and since I put quite a bit of time and thought into them, now's a time as good as any. Each title is linked to their respective class, so just click on them to read and import a class. If you use any of these in your games, let me know how it goes!
The purple dragon knight is the one fighter subclass that deserved better. The warlord is a common fantasy, beloved by many - and while using your fighter features as support actions instead is solid as a concept, the execution could've been more powerful. This version retains many of the same features, but notably places them earlier in the levelling curve and improves them to get more bang for your buck and making them slightly less situational. You can either do the usual fighter things by improving your own offence with feats, or lean into your subclass features and improve them by boosting your charisma.
Because I find that a frontline commander fantasy is just... That much more effective when they're in the thick of it rather than standing in the backline, the range on some of these features has been reduced. This is mechanically a nerf, but a backline tactician role is better served by a bard or even wizard anyway.
The Ruffian was made mostly with the concept of a highwayman in mind, more than to fulfil a specific role. While D&D legally binds me to dissuade you from creating chaotic evil characters, who says you can't have a background as a rough and tumble no good lowlife who is trying to turn around a new leaf?
One common encounter for a D&D party is that, while travelling, they are beset by bandits. However, the archetypical bandit is not exactly a dexterous rogue with hidden daggers, but an opportunistic brute that intimidates they victims by swinging around a longsword or battle-axe. The ruffian does just that, setting ambushes and pushing their enemies around like the bullies they are.
The big, big thing to test is the synergy between PAM and SA as this makes multiple sneak attacks per round relatively easy to achieve at an early level. I could restrict this to specific weapons, but for now I'll be releasing it into the wild as is. A strength build is worse at initiative and being a rogue out of combat, so it isn't without its sacrifices.
The original goal behind the gaoler oath was to make a paladin better at tanking than the crown oath - except then I had a crazy lore idea. Some of the DNA remains, but this now works as a paladin that tries to lock its foes in place rather than trying to be a reliable tank alike the cavalier and ancestral guardian.
We achieve that in the following ways:
Your second CD is a beefed up version of Ensnaring Strike.
Confining Aura is a means to passively soft control enemies around you, even if not perfectly reliable.
Spells like Hold Person, Hold Monster, Spirit Guardians and Wall of Stone help control enemies and fit with the flavour.
Outside of combat, arcane lock, glyph of warding and faithful hound help you keep shit locked down tight.
When we succeed:
Your first CD option protects you from the enemies you want to keep near you, providing a buffer when you succeed drawing the attention of multiple foes or giving that layer of protection to your stubborn melee friend instead.
Dodge to protect our dodgy concentration saves.
Things passively take light damage from your aura and second CD, possibly spirit guardians.
My main concern here is Spirit Guardians. While flavourful, I'm not a huge fan of throwing the premier cleric set-and-dodge spell in here. I am open to suggestions, but I've found my options to be fairly limited with only Basic Rules spells available for this purpose.
The first subclass I posted on this forum was the previous version of the Feral Trance path: a barbarian that uses the abilities of beasts and monsters against them. Well, it has taken a little testing and I'm much happier with the new version. Here's a really long text block if you want to see what changed:
The feedback overall has been positive. The reception to the flavour has been great and the glee with how some of the actions are described tell me I'm onto something.
Major criticisms were: - The complexity. Many barbarian players found it overwhelming, which, well, fair enough. While adding tactical options and resource management are a key component to the design, some parts can be simplified or cut. - This path was considered absurdly powerful in the early tiers with short rest abuse. - There weren't enough non-attacking options for trance points, - As TCE has become the standard, some of the design choices have started to show their age.
CHANGELOG:
General: - Trance points no longer reset on a short rest until level 10. Trance points now also scale off of your proficiency modifier. This is a substantial nerf. However, even without feral actions you are still a barbarian, which is the strongest martial in the early tiers. Also the reset type prevents proficiency bonus multiclassing abuse. - Certain feral actions have had their cost lowered to compensate. - Wording of the limitations of Feral Action economy has been changed. You cannot use more than one instance of a Feral Action per turn. ie: you can use Claw and Constrict on your turn when you have extra attack, but you cannot use Constrict twice on the same turn. This prevents abuse cases like double stomping, double constricting, etcetera, but does allow for more creativity. - With the advent of TCE's primal knowledge, the bonus proficiencies were removed to prevent overlap. Keen Senses was moved down to level 3, with the aforementioned short rest reset taking its place at level 10. - Added Investigation to Primal Senses in line with Loxodon's keen smell. You probably still shouldn't try to put your nose near unstable alchemical conconctions, but at least you have a better chance of learning what exactly blew up in your face. - Replaced Beast of Prey with Legendary Resistance. It functions exactly how you'd expect, but has limited/random availability. Most importantly: this limits the path's complexity to that found in Feral Actions. Besides their signature abilities, subclasses like Battle Master and Arcane Archer have fairly straight forward features and, considering some of the concerns brought up, a good precedent to follow. As a small bonus, this new feature's flavour does resonate with the 14th level feral actions and rewards sticking with the barbarian class after level 14.
Feral Actions: - A number of actions requiring unarmed strikes have been changed to melee attacks to better utilise weapons for build variety. Fling, Vengeful Strike and Giant Swing were affected. - Added Regeneration and Aggressive for versatility. As a raging pile of hit points, your presence alone is battlefield control. - Removed Lunge, Bloody Rampage, Battering and Surprise Attack. Nobody picks Battering (for good reason, it is boring and weak.) Surprise Attack is silly at low levels, especially on a (MotM) Bugbear, but it also suffers from what I like to call the 'assassin clause'. - Bloody Rampage's effects were integrated into Vengeful Strike, as they were too similar to be different actions. - Lunge's effects were integrated into Pounce in order to differentiate Pounce from the new Trampling Charge. - Simplified Trampling Charge for better usability. Rather than a weird dash/difficult terrain/stomp chain, it is now simply about running up to an enemy, shoving it prone and stomping on its face. - Simplified Boulder's wording. It now merely requires a large-sized object you can lift. - (Dire) Pack Tactics no longer consumes your bonus action. Dire Pack Tactics' limit is now based on your proficiency bonus rather than your strength modifier, which is good or bad depending on when you increase STR and the prerequisite is now level 6. - Seething's use was either non-existent or suicidal with very little in between. As such, it was changed from a bonus action to when you roll initiative when you have no trance points remaining, similar to features like Ever-Ready Shot, Relentless and Tireless Spirit (but still at a hefty HP cost) and moved to 10th level. I also removed the synergy with Relentless Rage (you know who you are >:[)
Grappling. The prime means martials excerise control are grappling and shoving. Leaning into grappling, even if limited by size restrictions, can create more interesting tactical choices. - Added Damage Transfer and Crush to make grappling builds more interesting. One makes your target a living shield and the other counters teleports that rely on sight, ie Blink Dogs and Misty Step. - Removed the bonus action cost to grapple from Claw and moved the 1d4 while grappling from Feral Strike to this Feral action.
A lot of monk subclasses are... weird. Having a punch ghost is awesome, I get it, but when I think of monks I think of martial arts movies and action flicks. Which is why I've decided to steal from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and make a subclass that's about adapting to the flow of combat and using household items as deadly weapons. Welcome to the Way of the Formless.
This takes the monk and turns them into a parrying and countering machine. The subclass will take some hefty playtesting, as it is intentionally stronger than most monks. There's far too much here to go into detail in a little blurb, but if you're interested in design choices and justifications, here you go:
GOALS - Defence. Looking at a Jackie Chan movie, my guy takes a ton of punches, *just like the monk*! However, Jackie also parries, gets back up and when the going gets tough he performs crazier stunts than ever before. As the tension curve of a movie dictates, the hero survives against increasingly crazy odds. That part, frankly, is *quite unlike the monk*. So that sets one of my goals: in order to channel that kung fu movie vibe, this subclass needs to shore up some defences. - Combat superiority. Another iconic element of martial arts is the 1 versus a 100 fight. What you'll notice in these scenes is that these mooks are often the ones that take the initiative and the hero reacts to them in order to showcase their superiority in the art of fighting. - Ki. One gripe with monk design that bothers me in particular is that everything costs ki and you never have enough of it. While ki management is a core part of the monk's identity, I want to shake this up a little. - Worth playing. Let's not beat around the bush. Mechanically monks are not gr8. I'm not going to address every single issue they have, but I am looking to build a character who can carry their weight in the party.
PROCESS EXPLAINED So I lied about one thing, monk actually has a real cool defensive feature feature: deflect missiles. It doesn't come up often, but it is neat when it does. I wanted to use this idea and apply it to different types of attacks as well, of course swapping some numbers and details accordingly.
I'm straight up copying the special reaction from cavalier, which enables deflect missile and its new cousin features. At level 3(!) This would be outright broken on something like a rogue or paladin or even a GWM fighter, but lucky for us we're a monk and our unarmed reaction attacks are relatively weak. I am giving it proficiency free uses per day because of how ki-hungry monks are early on, but it will otherwise be tied to their class resource as to not be spammed infinitely.
These give us the most rudimentary tools to be the kung fu action hero; we parry and counter multiple foes in a round of combat! In order bring in a little flexibility and flair, I'm tying this up with an improvised weapon proficiency ribbon and making them monk weapons. The deadly art of stepladders is now within reach!
6th level is focused on 'fixing' one of my biggest gripes with the monk, namely the returns on stunning strike. I think this is a monk feature, but the mathematical disadvantage a monk faces due to MAD really puts a damper on it. This attempts to mitigate this somewhat.
11th level addresses the tank fallacy: if you are hard to kill but otherwise not a threat: enemies will simply ignore you. We do this with some control elements and some potentially hilarious results.
17th level I wanted to reflect that moment when the chips are down in the movie's final act. The hero is bruised, forced to face off against terrible odds. Perhaps they're scared, or a cheating opponent threw sand into their eyes, but they endure! When you think they've given it all, they pull out that last moment parry and strike!
STRENGTHS - This monk is one chunky boi/gurl/other. As long as we have free uses/ki, we can abuse our mobility without instantly dying when we get surrounded. - You can break the turn order at your whims, with more reaction opportunities than anything save a 17th level cavalier. - We're a better controller than most monks. That extra insurance on Stunning Strike means we improve substantially at this part of our job, but we also get some means to protect allies close to us. Or punched in the face. - You're looking at a top tier tavern brawler. I'd like to see the fighter throw a bottle at someone's face, overcoming magical resistance and dealing d10+DEX damage, while.running.on.the.wall.
WEAKNESSES - Multi-attack is a problem. Most of our effective HP comes from our once-per-turn mitigation. Our durability averages out when we're getting focused which can burn through our HP faster than through our Reverse Flow uses. - We're incredibly reactive. If enemies refuse to engage with us, many of our features might as well not exist. - While we might occasionally compete defensively with the likes of barbarians, we're not even close in terms of reckless + GWM DPR. - We aren't as well equipped to use our chunky martial artist to protect the party as actual tank builds who rock taunts and other such tools. - Even with the buff to Stunning Strike, spellcasters still out-control monks by miles. Like seriously, you can get Hypnotic Pattern at the same level monk gets Stunning Strike. - Magic weapons don't play nice with some of our features. Intentional, because of the fantasy I'm going for, but significant nonetheless. - We are still the most MAD class in the game and have little to no room for feats.
Strong-arm doesn't need to give athletics expertise. Many likely backgrounds for this subclass already give athletics, or give something a rogue would already pick, allowing them to swap the background skill for athletics anyway.
I want to say Waylay sounds strong, but I'm not certain of that.
Browbeat I think just needs its wording more standardized. Though if intimidation is meant to be important to the theme, it feels odd to get a frighten ability so late in progression.
Oath of the Gaoler:
I like Warden's Resilience, but expect Heavy Armor Master builds to become invincible for at least one battle per day at low levels.
I think Confining Aura needs a different trigger. Having enemies roll just to move past you might slow the game down.
Every other paladin oath gives something defensive at level 15. If you insist on keeping a debuff attack, have it triggered on an opportunity attack on an enemy that is moving toward an ally.
Path of the Feral Trance: I'm with the "too complex" crowd. If any options are similar to each other, combine them or cut one. After that, rename and reword them so that the name carries the theme on its own, and the description is just the mechanics. A list of twenty options is hard enough to get through without them each having their own fluff. Adjustments to formatting might also help a great deal. I often had trouble figuring out what was a level-restricted option and what was a general subclass feature.
Way of the Formless:
First off, I love anything that encourages improvised weapons.
Second, the descriptions are often missing what level they correspond to.
To help the Deception proficiency be a little more useful, maybe you can give it your wisdom modifier, like the Fey Wanderer ranger does with Otherworldly Glamour.
Reverse Flow: This is too strong, granting multiple defenses and attacks as one reaction at level 3. The Cavalier feature this is based on comes in at level 18, and only offers offense.
Flux of Life: Magical improvised weapons are awesome. But Stunning Strike is already often considered overpowered as-is, and doesn't need a buff.
Against the Tide: Having two ki pools is likely to confuse people. Either restore some regular ki, or make the feature resourceless with some other limitation instead.
Agree with Bob about the athletics expertise. By level 9 I've had the chance to expertise 4 skills, and if I'm playing this archetype then one of them was Athletics.
Gaoler:
I'd flip Warden's Resilience and give the damage debuff to creatures within 10 feet of you, which later expands with your aura. Everything else seems to be tied to your aura, and I like the idea of you being the source of the effect rather than just being able to throw it on someone 30 feet away and they get protection from someone 100 feet away.
I do think spirit guardians is too much, and its slowing effect in conjunction with Shackling Strike is going to make Confining Aura redundant because it will be trivial to reduce a typical target's speed to 0. In addition to stealing the cleric's thunder.
Feral Trance:
Maybe this is a me thing, but barbarians shouldn't be good at Investigation. They should be good at finding signs, but not figuring out what those signs mean outside of natural stuff that is covered under Survival.
I like it overall. I think it would be more intuitive if you just got X trance points per rage rather than tracking them through the day, but I realize this would require rebalancing a lot of other stuff.
Personally I think the number of choices is fine. You only need to look at it four times between level 3 and 20, and it's hard to picture in this format, but the lists the player will see are quite a bit shorter - at low level, you won't see any with level prerequisites, and at high level many options are already selected.
Way of the Formless:
This is kind of semantics, but I wouldn't use the term special reaction at all with Reverse Flow. I'd just call them free actions, once per turn. I know this is a departure from the cavalier wording of a similar feature, but think this would make it less confusing later when you can also use them with your reaction.
I would consider changing Fade/Bend to only be half as useful at level 3 (just defense or offense) and then getting upgraded at 11. I've done a lot of monk analysis and while I agree they need help, they need it a lot more in the 11-20 range than they do at 3. So I think stuff that's intentionally a bit overtuned should be applied at those levels.
While I also like improvised weapons, I don't feel like you give them any teeth because they are still objectively worse than your unarmed strike and you can't necessarily use Dex to swing them. I'd have them count as monk weapons at the least, and extend the magical property to all mundane monk weapons you wield.
I think you could simplify Against the Tide a lot. All uses of Reverse Flow are free during the period, and you suppress all those listed effects for the duration, in exchange for the exhaustion being guaranteed. It's already quite limited by it's trigger and daily limit - when it's used you want to make sure it's actually fun and effective. To that end, I'd probably reduce the trigger to half hp as well. By that level there are plenty of things that can easily deal over half your hp in damage, and it's possible you'd never hit that 1/3 hp window. If it still felt too string, I'd drop the resistance as you're already mitigating a lot of damage with Reverse Flow.
With the UA for oneDnD/5.5e/6e being readily tested, I've been staring at my privated list of mostly finished Homebrew creations. These coming couple months are probably the last chance I have at sharing 5e homebrew before the wide internet moves on and since I put quite a bit of time and thought into them, now's a time as good as any. Each title is linked to their respective class, so just click on them to read and import a class. If you use any of these in your games, let me know how it goes!
Banneret
The purple dragon knight is the one fighter subclass that deserved better. The warlord is a common fantasy, beloved by many - and while using your fighter features as support actions instead is solid as a concept, the execution could've been more powerful. This version retains many of the same features, but notably places them earlier in the levelling curve and improves them to get more bang for your buck and making them slightly less situational. You can either do the usual fighter things by improving your own offence with feats, or lean into your subclass features and improve them by boosting your charisma.
Because I find that a frontline commander fantasy is just... That much more effective when they're in the thick of it rather than standing in the backline, the range on some of these features has been reduced. This is mechanically a nerf, but a backline tactician role is better served by a bard or even wizard anyway.
Ruffian
The Ruffian was made mostly with the concept of a highwayman in mind, more than to fulfil a specific role. While D&D legally binds me to dissuade you from creating chaotic evil characters, who says you can't have a background as a rough and tumble no good lowlife who is trying to turn around a new leaf?
One common encounter for a D&D party is that, while travelling, they are beset by bandits. However, the archetypical bandit is not exactly a dexterous rogue with hidden daggers, but an opportunistic brute that intimidates they victims by swinging around a longsword or battle-axe. The ruffian does just that, setting ambushes and pushing their enemies around like the bullies they are.
The big, big thing to test is the synergy between PAM and SA as this makes multiple sneak attacks per round relatively easy to achieve at an early level. I could restrict this to specific weapons, but for now I'll be releasing it into the wild as is. A strength build is worse at initiative and being a rogue out of combat, so it isn't without its sacrifices.
Oath of the Gaoler
The original goal behind the gaoler oath was to make a paladin better at tanking than the crown oath - except then I had a crazy lore idea. Some of the DNA remains, but this now works as a paladin that tries to lock its foes in place rather than trying to be a reliable tank alike the cavalier and ancestral guardian.
We achieve that in the following ways:
When we succeed:
My main concern here is Spirit Guardians. While flavourful, I'm not a huge fan of throwing the premier cleric set-and-dodge spell in here. I am open to suggestions, but I've found my options to be fairly limited with only Basic Rules spells available for this purpose.
Path of the Feral Trance
The first subclass I posted on this forum was the previous version of the Feral Trance path: a barbarian that uses the abilities of beasts and monsters against them. Well, it has taken a little testing and I'm much happier with the new version. Here's a really long text block if you want to see what changed:
The feedback overall has been positive. The reception to the flavour has been great and the glee with how some of the actions are described tell me I'm onto something.
Major criticisms were:
- The complexity. Many barbarian players found it overwhelming, which, well, fair enough. While adding tactical options and resource management are a key component to the design, some parts can be simplified or cut.
- This path was considered absurdly powerful in the early tiers with short rest abuse.
- There weren't enough non-attacking options for trance points,
- As TCE has become the standard, some of the design choices have started to show their age.
CHANGELOG:
General:
- Trance points no longer reset on a short rest until level 10. Trance points now also scale off of your proficiency modifier. This is a substantial nerf. However, even without feral actions you are still a barbarian, which is the strongest martial in the early tiers. Also the reset type prevents proficiency bonus multiclassing abuse.
- Certain feral actions have had their cost lowered to compensate.
- Wording of the limitations of Feral Action economy has been changed. You cannot use more than one instance of a Feral Action per turn. ie: you can use Claw and Constrict on your turn when you have extra attack, but you cannot use Constrict twice on the same turn. This prevents abuse cases like double stomping, double constricting, etcetera, but does allow for more creativity.
- With the advent of TCE's primal knowledge, the bonus proficiencies were removed to prevent overlap. Keen Senses was moved down to level 3, with the aforementioned short rest reset taking its place at level 10.
- Added Investigation to Primal Senses in line with Loxodon's keen smell. You probably still shouldn't try to put your nose near unstable alchemical conconctions, but at least you have a better chance of learning what exactly blew up in your face.
- Replaced Beast of Prey with Legendary Resistance. It functions exactly how you'd expect, but has limited/random availability. Most importantly: this limits the path's complexity to that found in Feral Actions. Besides their signature abilities, subclasses like Battle Master and Arcane Archer have fairly straight forward features and, considering some of the concerns brought up, a good precedent to follow. As a small bonus, this new feature's flavour does resonate with the 14th level feral actions and rewards sticking with the barbarian class after level 14.
Feral Actions:
- A number of actions requiring unarmed strikes have been changed to melee attacks to better utilise weapons for build variety. Fling, Vengeful Strike and Giant Swing were affected.
- Added Regeneration and Aggressive for versatility. As a raging pile of hit points, your presence alone is battlefield control.
- Removed Lunge, Bloody Rampage, Battering and Surprise Attack. Nobody picks Battering (for good reason, it is boring and weak.) Surprise Attack is silly at low levels, especially on a (MotM) Bugbear, but it also suffers from what I like to call the 'assassin clause'.
- Bloody Rampage's effects were integrated into Vengeful Strike, as they were too similar to be different actions.
- Lunge's effects were integrated into Pounce in order to differentiate Pounce from the new Trampling Charge.
- Simplified Trampling Charge for better usability. Rather than a weird dash/difficult terrain/stomp chain, it is now simply about running up to an enemy, shoving it prone and stomping on its face.
- Simplified Boulder's wording. It now merely requires a large-sized object you can lift.
- (Dire) Pack Tactics no longer consumes your bonus action. Dire Pack Tactics' limit is now based on your proficiency bonus rather than your strength modifier, which is good or bad depending on when you increase STR and the prerequisite is now level 6.
- Seething's use was either non-existent or suicidal with very little in between. As such, it was changed from a bonus action to when you roll initiative when you have no trance points remaining, similar to features like Ever-Ready Shot, Relentless and Tireless Spirit (but still at a hefty HP cost) and moved to 10th level. I also removed the synergy with Relentless Rage (you know who you are >:[)
Grappling. The prime means martials excerise control are grappling and shoving. Leaning into grappling, even if limited by size restrictions, can create more interesting tactical choices.
- Added Damage Transfer and Crush to make grappling builds more interesting. One makes your target a living shield and the other counters teleports that rely on sight, ie Blink Dogs and Misty Step.
- Removed the bonus action cost to grapple from Claw and moved the 1d4 while grappling from Feral Strike to this Feral action.
The Way of the Formless
A lot of monk subclasses are... weird. Having a punch ghost is awesome, I get it, but when I think of monks I think of martial arts movies and action flicks. Which is why I've decided to steal from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and make a subclass that's about adapting to the flow of combat and using household items as deadly weapons. Welcome to the Way of the Formless.
This takes the monk and turns them into a parrying and countering machine. The subclass will take some hefty playtesting, as it is intentionally stronger than most monks. There's far too much here to go into detail in a little blurb, but if you're interested in design choices and justifications, here you go:
GOALS
- Defence. Looking at a Jackie Chan movie, my guy takes a ton of punches, *just like the monk*! However, Jackie also parries, gets back up and when the going gets tough he performs crazier stunts than ever before. As the tension curve of a movie dictates, the hero survives against increasingly crazy odds. That part, frankly, is *quite unlike the monk*. So that sets one of my goals: in order to channel that kung fu movie vibe, this subclass needs to shore up some defences.
- Combat superiority. Another iconic element of martial arts is the 1 versus a 100 fight. What you'll notice in these scenes is that these mooks are often the ones that take the initiative and the hero reacts to them in order to showcase their superiority in the art of fighting.
- Ki. One gripe with monk design that bothers me in particular is that everything costs ki and you never have enough of it. While ki management is a core part of the monk's identity, I want to shake this up a little.
- Worth playing. Let's not beat around the bush. Mechanically monks are not gr8. I'm not going to address every single issue they have, but I am looking to build a character who can carry their weight in the party.
PROCESS EXPLAINED
So I lied about one thing, monk actually has a real cool defensive feature feature: deflect missiles. It doesn't come up often, but it is neat when it does. I wanted to use this idea and apply it to different types of attacks as well, of course swapping some numbers and details accordingly.
I'm straight up copying the special reaction from cavalier, which enables deflect missile and its new cousin features. At level 3(!) This would be outright broken on something like a rogue or paladin or even a GWM fighter, but lucky for us we're a monk and our unarmed reaction attacks are relatively weak. I am giving it proficiency free uses per day because of how ki-hungry monks are early on, but it will otherwise be tied to their class resource as to not be spammed infinitely.
These give us the most rudimentary tools to be the kung fu action hero; we parry and counter multiple foes in a round of combat! In order bring in a little flexibility and flair, I'm tying this up with an improvised weapon proficiency ribbon and making them monk weapons. The deadly art of stepladders is now within reach!
6th level is focused on 'fixing' one of my biggest gripes with the monk, namely the returns on stunning strike. I think this is a monk feature, but the mathematical disadvantage a monk faces due to MAD really puts a damper on it. This attempts to mitigate this somewhat.
11th level addresses the tank fallacy: if you are hard to kill but otherwise not a threat: enemies will simply ignore you. We do this with some control elements and some potentially hilarious results.
17th level I wanted to reflect that moment when the chips are down in the movie's final act. The hero is bruised, forced to face off against terrible odds. Perhaps they're scared, or a cheating opponent threw sand into their eyes, but they endure! When you think they've given it all, they pull out that last moment parry and strike!
STRENGTHS
- This monk is one chunky boi/gurl/other. As long as we have free uses/ki, we can abuse our mobility without instantly dying when we get surrounded.
- You can break the turn order at your whims, with more reaction opportunities than anything save a 17th level cavalier.
- We're a better controller than most monks. That extra insurance on Stunning Strike means we improve substantially at this part of our job, but we also get some means to protect allies close to us. Or punched in the face.
- You're looking at a top tier tavern brawler. I'd like to see the fighter throw a bottle at someone's face, overcoming magical resistance and dealing d10+DEX damage, while.running.on.the.wall.
WEAKNESSES
- Multi-attack is a problem. Most of our effective HP comes from our once-per-turn mitigation. Our durability averages out when we're getting focused which can burn through our HP faster than through our Reverse Flow uses.
- We're incredibly reactive. If enemies refuse to engage with us, many of our features might as well not exist.
- While we might occasionally compete defensively with the likes of barbarians, we're not even close in terms of reckless + GWM DPR.
- We aren't as well equipped to use our chunky martial artist to protect the party as actual tank builds who rock taunts and other such tools.
- Even with the buff to Stunning Strike, spellcasters still out-control monks by miles. Like seriously, you can get Hypnotic Pattern at the same level monk gets Stunning Strike.
- Magic weapons don't play nice with some of our features. Intentional, because of the fantasy I'm going for, but significant nonetheless.
- We are still the most MAD class in the game and have little to no room for feats.
Homebrew creations:
Path of the Feral Trance Barbarian Class | Thread
Wyrmforge Artificer Class | Thread
Revised Banneret:
Seems fine to me.
Ruffian:
Oath of the Gaoler:
Path of the Feral Trance: I'm with the "too complex" crowd. If any options are similar to each other, combine them or cut one. After that, rename and reword them so that the name carries the theme on its own, and the description is just the mechanics. A list of twenty options is hard enough to get through without them each having their own fluff. Adjustments to formatting might also help a great deal. I often had trouble figuring out what was a level-restricted option and what was a general subclass feature.
Way of the Formless:
Ruffian:
Gaoler:
Feral Trance:
Way of the Formless:
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm