Homebrew Entertainer Species Details

Curse Sorcerer Subclass

An Entertainer treats cursed energy as something greater than a weapon. It is a stage, a prop, a supporting cast, and occasionally a fully loaded cargo truck appearing from somewhere it absolutely should not have been able to fit.

Your cursed technique turns performance into reality. The more faithfully you commit to your chosen art, the more absurdly powerful your scenes become. Yet an Entertainer's greatest enemy is repetition. A stale performance is worse than failure, and nothing wounds you more deeply than realizing the audience has already seen the punchline.

Entertainer Features

Curse Sorcerer Level	Feature
3rd	Show Must Go On, Public Image, Punchline
7th	Don't Pull Your Punches, Punch Above Your Weight
13th	Packs a Punch
15th	Punch a Hole
18th	One Last Punchline

3rd Level: Show Must Go On

When you choose this subclass, choose a Stage-Art that defines the nature of your performances.

Your Stage-Art can be any recognizable artistic or performative discipline approved by your DM, such as music, dance, acting, comedy, stage magic, acrobatics, or another suitable form of performance.

Whenever you use an Entertainer feature to create a scene, its actions, manifestations, imagery, and effects must reasonably belong to the traditional identity of your Stage-Art.

For example, a guitarist might manifest enormous guitars, weaponize living musical notes, entangle creatures in guitar cords to extract unusual sounds from them, or momentarily turn something into an instrument and play it as part of the performance.

That same guitarist could not arbitrarily summon enormous iron prison bars or fill the battlefield with pink killer whales unless those elements could reasonably be justified as part of the chosen Stage-Art.

The DM has final authority over whether a scene remains faithful to your Stage-Art.

A feature that specifically states that it can exceed the normal limits of your Stage-Art is an exception to this rule.

HBB Note: I highly advise defining the exact meaning and extent of your Stage-Art with your DM before playing the subclass. It'll save both of you a lot of confusion and gameplay time later.

3rd Level: Public Image

As an Entertainer, you possess an obsessive hatred of repeating yourself.

Performing the same trick twice isn't merely unfunny. You find it humiliating.

Once you have successfully performed a scene through an Entertainer feature, you can never willingly perform that same scene again.

If you attempt to reproduce a scene that is identical or substantially similar to one you have previously performed, as determined by the DM, your Public Image shatters before that scene resolves.

The attempted scene fails, and you temporarily lose access to all features granted by this subclass until you muster your confidence again.

Finishing combat, resting, or regaining your confidence does not make a previously performed scene available again. Your original performances must remain distinct throughout your career.

A scene that violates the limitations of your Stage-Art also immediately shatters your Public Image.

Packs a Punch is an exception to the repetition restriction of Public Image. Its scenes are borrowed rather than conceived by you, so rolling or performing a Packs a Punch result you have previously used does not shatter your Public Image.

Mustering Your Confidence

Immediately when your Public Image shatters, you can attempt a DC 10 Charisma saving throw.

On a success, you immediately regain your confidence and can continue using your Entertainer features, though the scene that shattered your Public Image still fails.

On a failure, your Public Image remains shattered.

At the start of each of your subsequent turns, before using any Entertainer feature, you can repeat the saving throw. On a success, your confidence is restored.

3rd Level: Punchline

You force cursed energy to obey the logic of your performance, momentarily transforming whatever you imagine into reality.

You can use Punchline a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, to a minimum of once. You regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Starting at 7th level, your maximum number of Punchline uses increases by 1.

Before performing a Punchline, make a DC 10 Charisma (Performance) check.

On a failure, the scene fails to manifest and no use of Punchline is expended.

On a success, choose one of the following forms of Punchline: Environmental Change, Object Creation, or Direct Impact.

A use of Punchline is expended only if the resulting scene successfully affects at least one creature, such as by hitting it, damaging it, or causing it to fail a saving throw.

Adaptive Damage

Some Punchline scenes deal Adaptive Damage.

Whenever a feature deals Adaptive Damage, choose a damage type appropriate to the scene you described. The chosen damage type must reasonably correspond to the effect being performed and is subject to the DM's approval.

For example, an exploding floor might deal Fire damage, falling debris might deal Bludgeoning damage, and deafening musical resonance might deal Thunder damage.

Environmental Change

As an Action, you transform an area you can see within 60 feet into part of your scene.

You determine the size of the affected area when you describe the performance, from a single 5-foot space up to a 30-foot-radius area.

Starting at 13th level, the maximum radius increases to 60 feet.

The alteration can be as simple as a shy drizzle settling over everyone's coats or as absurd as declaring the floor to be lava or forcing several creatures into a painfully cramped metal enclosure.

If the environmental alteration deals damage but does not meaningfully impede a creature's movement, choices, or ability to act, each creature in the affected area takes Adaptive Damage according to the Punchline Damage table + your Charisma modifier.

If the scene would also restrict movement, forcibly move a creature, restrain it, alter its freedom of action, or impose another meaningful mechanical effect, choose the saving throw that most appropriately represents resisting the scene.

Each affected creature must make that saving throw against your Curse Sorcerer save DC.

On a failed save, the creature takes the Environmental Change damage and suffers the additional effect approved for the scene.

On a successful save, the creature takes no damage and suffers no additional effect.

The DM determines the reasonable extent of any secondary effect.

For example, if hidden prank boxes spring from the ground and launch creatures upward, the effect might require a Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, a creature could be launched 15 feet upward and take the scene's Bludgeoning damage. On a success, nothing happens to it.

Object Creation

As an Action, you manifest one or more Tiny or Small objects needed to perform your scene.

If the objects are used to directly harm a creature, make a melee or ranged cursed technique attack, as appropriate:

Cursed Technique Attack: your Proficiency Bonus + your Charisma modifier to hit, range determined by the scene, one target.

Hit: Force damage according to the Object Creation column of the Punchline Damage table + your Charisma modifier.

The number or appearance of objects can vary freely, but a single Object Creation scene makes only one attack unless another feature allows you to perform additional Punchline scenes.

A created object disappears immediately after completing its role or no later than 6 seconds after being manifested.

Cosmetic Props

You can manifest objects that have no mechanical effect and exist solely to strengthen the appearance, emotion, or comedy of your performance.

Such objects deal no damage, provide no cover, impede no movement, cannot manipulate other objects or creatures, and grant no other mechanical benefit.

Purely cosmetic manifestations do not expend a use of Punchline and disappear within 6 seconds.

Direct Impact

You can manifest your performance directly through your own body.

Whenever you take the Attack action, you can replace one of your attacks with the following attack:

Melee Weapon Attack: your Proficiency Bonus + your Charisma modifier to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature.

Hit: Force damage according to the Direct Impact column of the Punchline Damage table + your Charisma modifier.

Direct Impact is compatible with Extra Attack from the moment you gain this feature. If you can make multiple attacks as part of your Attack action, using Direct Impact replaces only one of them.

Although these attacks can resemble punches, kicks, headbutts, instrument strikes, dance movements, or practically anything else your Stage-Art can justify, they count as melee weapon attacks.

A Direct Impact can also produce an additional effect appropriate to its choreography.

For example, performing the nastiest dropkick in the known universe might force the target to make a Constitution saving throw against your Curse Sorcerer save DC or be hurled backward.

The exact effect, its extent, and whether a saving throw is required are determined by the DM according to the scene.

Punchline Damage

Curse Sorcerer Level	Environmental Change	Object Creation	Direct Impact
3rd	2d10	3d8	1d12
5th	3d10	4d8	2d8
10th	4d10	5d8	2d10
15th	5d10	6d8	2d12

Seamless Performance

Starting at 7th level, Environmental Change and Object Creation become compatible with your Extra Attack feature in the same way as Direct Impact.

Whenever you take the Attack action, you can replace any number of the attacks granted by that action with Punchline scenes.

Each replaced attack can independently be an Environmental Change, Object Creation, or Direct Impact.

You make only one Performance check for the Punchline scenes performed as part of that Attack action.

If at least one of those scenes successfully hits, damages, or otherwise affects a creature, you expend one use of Punchline. If none of them succeed, the use is not expended.

Practiced Performer

Also at 7th level, you gain proficiency in the Performance skill if you do not already have it.

If you are already proficient in Performance, you instead gain Expertise in Performance, which means your Proficiency Bonus is doubled for every Charisma (Performance) check you make.

Starting at 13th level, you also have Advantage on Charisma (Performance) checks made to use Punchline.

7th Level: Don't Pull Your Punches

Nothing gets to interrupt the performance.

When an attack you can see would hit you, you can use your Reaction to immediately correct your posture and anchor yourself with cursed energy.

Your AC increases by an amount equal to twice your Charisma modifier until the end of the current turn.

If you take damage while this bonus is active despite your defense, that instance of damage is reduced by half.

Immediately afterward, your Public Image shatters and the AC bonus ends.

7th Level: Punch Above Your Weight

Your devotion to your art allows your manifestations to become much larger without losing their theatrical precision.

Punch Above Your Weight uses your existing Punchline resource pool rather than having a separate number of uses.

As reflected in the Punchline feature, gaining Punch Above Your Weight increases your maximum number of Punchline uses by 1.

Whenever you use Object Creation, you can choose to create Medium or Large objects instead of being limited to Tiny or Small objects.

Doing so remains part of the same Punchline scene and does not expend an additional use beyond the use normally expended by Punchline.

All other Object Creation rules continue to apply.

A sufficiently large object can alter the surrounding terrain as part of its role. At the DM's discretion, its impact can create craters, debris, obstructions, or similar effects that turn an area of up to 15 feet into Difficult Terrain.

Punch Above Your Weight remains subject to Public Image.

Changing only superficial details does not make a repeated scene original. For example, crushing a creature beneath a massive gold ingot and later attempting the same performance with an equally massive lead ingot can still count as repeating the same scene.

13th Level: Packs a Punch

Sometimes the best performance is one that makes absolutely no sense.

You learn to temporarily borrow concepts that fall outside the normal boundaries of your Stage-Art and force them into your performance through sheer cursed energy.

You can use Packs a Punch a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, to a minimum of once. You regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

As an Action, roll 1d12 and consult the Packs a Punch table.

The corresponding creation manifests at a point you can see within 30 feet.

Whenever possible, the creation emerges from a location nobody can directly see. If no concealed location exists, a blurry mirage momentarily obscures its manifestation.

A creation can be destroyed by an obstruction or similar circumstance while it is manifesting, as described under Improvised Manifestation.

Once it successfully manifests, the creation cannot be physically stopped or interrupted until it carries out its described role or disappears.

This protection does not prevent the creation from being dispelled through Remove Curse or another qualifying effect described under Cursed Creations.

Unless an entry states otherwise, a Packs a Punch creation disappears after completing its described role or at the end of your next turn.

Whenever one of these creations makes an attack roll, use:

Cursed Technique Attack: your Proficiency Bonus + your Charisma modifier to hit.

Any saving throw required by a creation uses your Curse Sorcerer save DC.

Packs a Punch ignores the Stage-Art restrictions of Show Must Go On.

Additionally, because these performances are borrowed punchlines rather than scenes conceived by you, repeating a Packs a Punch result does not violate Public Image.

Packs a Punch

d12	Borrowed Punchline
1	Fully Loaded Cargo Truck
2	Construction Crane
3	Murder Cylinder
4	Sequential Drilling Machine
5	Trencher
6	Dump Truck
7	Jet Ski
8	Magnificent Statue
9	Travelling Meat Grill
10	Grand Piano
11	Industrial Fan
12	Wrecking Ball

1. Fully Loaded Cargo Truck

A massive cargo truck tears through a 30-foot-long, 10-foot-wide line.

Make a separate cursed technique attack against each creature in the line.

On a hit, a creature takes 3d12 + your Charisma modifier Force damage.

The truck can demolish weaker obstacles or significantly alter the terrain along its route at the DM's discretion.

When the truck reaches the end of its path or suffers a terminal collision, it explodes.

Each creature within 10 feet of the collision point must make a Dexterity saving throw.

On a failed save, it takes 2d10 + your Charisma modifier Fire damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage.

2. Construction Crane

A fully operational crane manifests and remains until the end of your next turn.

It can lift up to approximately 2,200 pounds and move the suspended load to any point within 30 feet of its original position.

The crane can extend vertically up to approximately 165 feet.

The DM determines whether a particular object can be safely grasped and manipulated by the crane.

3. Murder Cylinder

A colossal cylinder rolls slowly but with horrifying inevitability.

Choose a direction. The cylinder travels up to 15 feet.

Each creature in a 5-foot-wide line along its path must make a Dexterity saving throw with Advantage.

On a failed save, a creature takes 9d10 + your Charisma modifier Force damage.

On a successful save, it takes no damage.

4. Sequential Drilling Machine

A rapidly articulating drilling apparatus encloses one creature you can see within 30 feet, instinctively prioritizing an extremity holding a weapon or other object when possible.

Make a cursed technique attack against the target.

On a hit, the target takes 6d12 Force damage and drops one object it is holding of your choice.

The dropped object lands in its space.

5. Trencher

A massive trencher tears forward through a 30-foot-long path, shredding earth, stone, and anything unfortunate enough to remain before it.

Each creature in its path must make a Dexterity saving throw.

On a failed save, a creature takes 10d8 + your Charisma modifier Force damage.

On a successful save, the creature escapes the machine and takes no damage.

The machine can split or excavate the terrain by as much as 15 feet vertically, provided the affected material allows it, at the DM's discretion.

6. Dump Truck

A dump truck races up to 30 feet before unloading an impossible mass of debris into a 10-foot-square area.

Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw.

On a failed save, a creature takes 3d10 + your Charisma modifier Force damage, is buried beneath the debris, and is Incapacitated.

At the start of each of its turns, an Incapacitated creature can make either a Strength or Dexterity saving throw without taking an action.

On a success, it frees itself and is no longer Incapacitated.

7. Jet Ski

A jet ski manifests along with a temporary surface of cursed water beneath it and travels up to 30 feet toward a destination you choose.

If it passes directly through a creature's space, make a cursed technique attack against that creature.

On a hit, the creature takes 2d10 + your Charisma modifier Force damage.

When the jet ski reaches its destination, whether normally or because its movement ends prematurely, the water beneath it erupts into a localized tsunami.

Each creature other than you within 15 feet takes an additional 4d10 Force damage.

8. Magnificent Statue

A 13-foot-tall stone statue of yourself manifests in an astonishing pose at an unoccupied point of your choice within 30 feet.

Unlike most creations produced by this subclass, the statue deals absolutely no damage.

If a creature occupies part of the space required for the statue, that creature is gently moved to the nearest unoccupied space without taking damage.

The statue does not disappear when the feature ends.

It becomes an ordinary, nonmagical stone statue and remains there indefinitely.

Naturally.

9. Travelling Meat Grill

A travelling grill occupying a 5-foot space appears at a point of your choice within 30 feet.

It immediately begins serving what might genuinely be the finest and most succulent meat skewers ever prepared.

Each creature within 60 feet that can smell the food must make a Wisdom saving throw.

On a failed save, the creature becomes irresistibly drawn into the performance and joins the grill for an exceptionally pleasant meal.

The scene occupies only 6 seconds in actual time, but cursed energy distorts the participants' perception of time so that the meal feels like approximately 1 hour of remarkably friendly conversation, relaxation, and meat-skewer appreciation.

No affected creature perceives this temporal distortion as unnatural while it occurs.

Roll 1d6 for each affected creature to determine how many skewers it eats during the sitting.

Regardless of how many skewers it consumes, after finishing the meal the creature takes 2d8 + your Charisma modifier Force damage once as the otherwise magnificent food corrodes its soul.

You are immune to this damage.

When the 6 seconds end, the grill, food, and temporal distortion disappear. Any damage suffered remains.

10. Grand Piano

A pristine grand piano manifests directly above a point you can see within 30 feet and immediately crashes downward.

Each creature in a 10-foot-square area beneath it must make a Dexterity saving throw.

On a failed save, a creature takes 7d10 + your Charisma modifier Force damage and falls Prone.

On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and does not fall Prone.

The piano produces a remarkably clean final chord on impact before disappearing.

11. Industrial Fan

An enormous industrial fan erupts into existence and releases a catastrophic burst of air in a 30-foot cone.

Each creature in the cone must make a Strength saving throw.

On a failed save, a creature takes 5d10 + your Charisma modifier Force damage and is pushed up to 30 feet directly away from the fan.

On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and is not pushed.

The gust can extinguish exposed nonmagical flames and scatter unattended loose objects at the DM's discretion.

12. Wrecking Ball

A monumental wrecking ball swings through a 30-foot-long, 15-foot-wide line.

Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw.

On a failed save, a creature takes 6d10 + your Charisma modifier Force damage, is pushed 20 feet in the direction of the swing, and falls Prone.

On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and is neither pushed nor knocked Prone.

The wrecking ball can demolish mundane structures and obstacles along its path at the DM's discretion.

Improvised Manifestation

If a Packs a Punch creation does not have enough room to manifest normally, it manifests anyway.

The DM determines whether the creation destroys the obstructing material during manifestation or is itself destroyed by the obstruction.

If the creation survives its manifestation, physical interference cannot subsequently prevent it from completing its described role.

It can still be dispelled as described under Cursed Creations.

15th Level: Punch a Hole

You prepare the most aggressively punchy scene of your career.

You can use Punch a Hole twice. You regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

As an Action, you assume your signature stance, a recognizable pose or preparation that any hypothetical audience familiar with your work would immediately associate with you.

You stretch into the stance for an instant before releasing yourself.

Your punch springs forward at inconceivable speed toward a point within 10 feet, annihilating matter at the point of impact on an atomic scale.

Each creature other than you within a 15-foot radius of the impact takes 20d4 + your Charisma modifier Force damage.

If the affected material is capable of being destroyed in this way, the strike leaves behind a crater approximately 15 feet wide and 15 feet deep, at the DM's discretion.

18th Level: One Last Punchline

You reach the absolute peak of your Stage-Art.

Every motion possesses the fluidity and elegance of something refined beyond perfection, as though you had spent a lifetime rehearsing a performance that reality itself was waiting to see.

You can use One Last Punchline once, and you regain its use when you finish a Long Rest.

As an Action, you transform a 300-foot-radius area centered on yourself into the ideal stage for one final performance.

Every creature in the area is drawn into the performance without making an attack roll or saving throw.

For the outside world, the entire performance lasts only 6 seconds.

Within the performance, however, you distort the perception and passage of time sufficiently to give the show any subjective duration you desire, up to 5 hours.

No affected creature perceives the distortion as unnatural while the performance is occurring.

The Audience

When the performance begins, every affected creature is forced into an appropriate place within your imagined audience and compelled to witness the scene.

During the performance, creatures cannot willingly leave their assigned roles or interfere with the scene except as your performance requires.

You can choose any number of creatures from the audience to participate directly.

Each chosen creature can be assigned one role in the performance.

That role can impose one of the following effects:

• The creature takes 10d10 Force damage.

• The creature suffers one condition of your choice recognized by the game.

No attack roll or saving throw is made against either effect.

A creature can participate in only one role, can be subjected to only one effect, and can take damage from One Last Punchline only once.

The events used to impose that effect can be as elaborate, ridiculous, beautiful, violent, or nonsensical as you desire, provided the overall performance remains faithful to your Stage-Art.

Curtain Call

When the performance ends, the temporary stage and temporal distortion immediately disappear.

Creatures do not return to their previous positions or conditions merely because the performance has ended.

Damage, movement, conditions, and other consequences imposed upon them during the performance remain.

A condition imposed through One Last Punchline remains until removed by an effect capable of ending that condition or until the circumstances supporting it cease to exist, as determined by the DM.

All temporary scenery, props, environmental alterations, and other cursed manifestations created solely to construct the performance disappear when the scene ends unless a feature specifically causes them to remain.

Only 6 seconds have passed in the outside world regardless of the subjective length of the performance.

Cursed Creations

Objects, environments, creatures, machinery, and other manifestations created through your Entertainer features are constructs of cursed energy rather than genuine mundane matter unless a feature specifically states otherwise.

A creature can attempt to dispel such a manifestation through Remove Curse or another sufficiently similar magical effect, at the DM's discretion.

When it does so, the creature makes an ability check using its spellcasting ability against your Curse Sorcerer save DC.

On a success, the targeted cursed creation or ongoing manifestation immediately disappears.

On a failure, the effect remains.

This rule can dispel a successfully manifested Packs a Punch creation despite that feature's normal protection against interruption.

The DM determines whether another magical ability is sufficiently similar to attempt this contest.

Entertainer Traits

A reality-warping Curse Sorcerer who turns their chosen Stage-Art into lethal performances, conjuring impossible scenes, absurd props, devastating punchlines, and eventually forcing entire battlefields to become part of the show.