Hey everyone! I created the feat bellow and was wondering what you guys think in terms of balance. It’s pretty much a combination of the Flames of Phlegethos and Barbed Hide fears that were shown in an Unearthed Arcana article about racial feats a while back. Thanks for any thoughts!
Hellfire Catalyst
You learn to call on hellfire to consume your body. As an action, you can cause your body to be engulfed in hellfire or extinguish the hellfire. The flames don't harm you or your possessions and they shed bright light out to 20 feet and dim light for an additional 20 feet. At the start of each of your turns while engulfed, you deal 1d6 radiant damage to any creature grappling you or any creature grappled by you. Additionally, while engulfed, you have advantage on Charisma (intimidation) checks and you may cast the firebolt cantrip.
Seems a bit overpowered for a feat... mostly because it doesn't list a time limit for how long it lasts, or how many times it can be used per day. I think there should be some kind of condition to triggering it as well... like maybe you can only activate it after your health is below a certain threshhold, or maybe you have to spend some HP to trigger it.
Actually, I think the HP cost sounds like the best balance to it, now that I've written out a few suggestions. I'm not good at balancing that type of thing with how much HP it should cost, but it would allow the player to trigger it whenever they want... I'm sure there's a few social situations where a player wouldn't mind taking a small amount of damage to trigger it and give advantage to intimidation.
Okay, here's how I think it should work... I think it should last one minute when triggered (the length of time of a normal fight, or long enough to do really scare the shit out of someone with intimidation), and I think that a good balance to keep your player from just using it constantly is to have it cost a little more health time each time its used between short rests. Like... let's say it costs your charisma modifier in health to trigger, and each additional time you use it during the day it costs an additional. So the first cost in a day would be, say... 3 health. If you try to use it again it costs 6 health, etc., etc. That way your players would have to use it more intelligently instead of just using it willy-nilly at every opportunity.
Keep it simple, Transmorpher. That's a lot of extra bookkeeping - "did I use Hellfire Catalyst five times or six? Well? Did I, punk?"
Spysey: is this a Quest Reward feat, something designed for a specific player as part of their story? If so, then the only balancing needed is making sure that player is still in line. OTHERWISE...it's pretty heavily loaded for a feat. Advantage on a common ability check, a powerful cantrip (for which you've forgotten to specify a casting modifier for, beeteedubs), a fairly potent passive damage aura, and light.
As a general-purpose feat available for any player to pick (within reason), I'd drop the Firebolt and reconfigure the aura damage to Fire. Heh, hellfire doesn't get to deal Radiant damage, that's specifically the domain of celestial/solar entities/energy sources. You could allow the player to hurl fire a'la Produce Flame if you like (i.e. 1d6 to 30 feet, not 1d10 to 4d10 120 feet), but frankly I don't think it needs it. You're basically doing Flames of Phlegethos except trading the reroll on fire damage for advantage on Charisma-based Intimidation, and apparently requiring the user to sacrifice a bit of health rather than cast something that deals fire damage. Flames is already pretty nice, if quite narrowly focused. I'd say the light, the damage aura, and the advantage are enough for one feat.
Hey everyone! I created the feat bellow and was wondering what you guys think in terms of balance. It’s pretty much a combination of the Flames of Phlegethos and Barbed Hide fears that were shown in an Unearthed Arcana article about racial feats a while back. Thanks for any thoughts!
Hellfire Catalyst
You learn to call on hellfire to consume your body. As an action, you can cause your body to be engulfed in hellfire or extinguish the hellfire. The flames don't harm you or your possessions and they shed bright light out to 20 feet and dim light for an additional 20 feet. At the start of each of your turns while engulfed, you deal 1d6 radiant damage to any creature grappling you or any creature grappled by you. Additionally, while engulfed, you have advantage on Charisma (intimidation) checks and you may cast the firebolt cantrip.
Seems a bit overpowered for a feat... mostly because it doesn't list a time limit for how long it lasts, or how many times it can be used per day. I think there should be some kind of condition to triggering it as well... like maybe you can only activate it after your health is below a certain threshhold, or maybe you have to spend some HP to trigger it.
Actually, I think the HP cost sounds like the best balance to it, now that I've written out a few suggestions. I'm not good at balancing that type of thing with how much HP it should cost, but it would allow the player to trigger it whenever they want... I'm sure there's a few social situations where a player wouldn't mind taking a small amount of damage to trigger it and give advantage to intimidation.
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I like that idea! I think I’ll make it cost HP equal to your Charisma modifier. Thanks for the suggestion!
Okay, here's how I think it should work... I think it should last one minute when triggered (the length of time of a normal fight, or long enough to do really scare the shit out of someone with intimidation), and I think that a good balance to keep your player from just using it constantly is to have it cost a little more health time each time its used between short rests. Like... let's say it costs your charisma modifier in health to trigger, and each additional time you use it during the day it costs an additional. So the first cost in a day would be, say... 3 health. If you try to use it again it costs 6 health, etc., etc. That way your players would have to use it more intelligently instead of just using it willy-nilly at every opportunity.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Keep it simple, Transmorpher. That's a lot of extra bookkeeping - "did I use Hellfire Catalyst five times or six? Well? Did I, punk?"
Spysey: is this a Quest Reward feat, something designed for a specific player as part of their story? If so, then the only balancing needed is making sure that player is still in line. OTHERWISE...it's pretty heavily loaded for a feat. Advantage on a common ability check, a powerful cantrip (for which you've forgotten to specify a casting modifier for, beeteedubs), a fairly potent passive damage aura, and light.
As a general-purpose feat available for any player to pick (within reason), I'd drop the Firebolt and reconfigure the aura damage to Fire. Heh, hellfire doesn't get to deal Radiant damage, that's specifically the domain of celestial/solar entities/energy sources. You could allow the player to hurl fire a'la Produce Flame if you like (i.e. 1d6 to 30 feet, not 1d10 to 4d10 120 feet), but frankly I don't think it needs it. You're basically doing Flames of Phlegethos except trading the reroll on fire damage for advantage on Charisma-based Intimidation, and apparently requiring the user to sacrifice a bit of health rather than cast something that deals fire damage. Flames is already pretty nice, if quite narrowly focused. I'd say the light, the damage aura, and the advantage are enough for one feat.
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