Skinwalker – Otherworldly Patron

I made this for the forums and after a second look a few days later, I decided to put it here, too. It’s made for someone, who wanted to include the druid’s wild shape feature to the warlock class and asked the forum, what would be appropriate. So I simply made up a new subclass.

The Skinwalker

The warlock made a pact with a powerful shapeshifter or beast god, like Malar of the Forgotten Realms. This pact concentrates of attaining the ability to change into various beasts. This is much like the Moon druid subclass in many cases, but overall, this subclass is less powerful in most regards.

At 1st level you get the shapeshifter subtype and can grow either claws, fangs or a horn as a bonus action. Claws go with d4 finesse and light, the bite with d6 finesse and the horn with d8. You have proficiency with all kind of natural attacks. Additionally your beasty nature allows you to roll animal handling and charisma checks with advantage, as long as you interact with beasts.

Your pact spells could be:
1st – Beast Bond (EE Player Guide), Longstrider
2nd – Pass without Trace, Moonbeam
3rd – Bestow Curse, Nondetection
4th – Locate Creature, Greater Invisibility
5th – Commune with Nature, Reincarnate

At 3rd level you have to take a new form of a pact boon, Pact of the Beast. This will be your wildshape-kinda feature, even though it is more restricted. You can only use it once per short rest and have to spend a spell slot to do so. Otherwise it works like wildshape, even though you can use it as a bonus action (but not spend spell slots to heal yourself). And even though you should name it differently, you also get the Circle Forms.

At 6th you get the Primal Strike like a Moon Druid.

At 10th level when you’re in beastform, you have resistance to non-silvered, non-magical weapons to increase the unholiness of the shapeshifting nature. Your natural weapons also count as silvered.

At 14th level you can use your form of wild shape as often as you want, as long you have spell slots. You can even change your shape when you’re still in another.

You can add some druidic spells as invocations, like speak with animals at-will, conjure animals once per day by spending a spell slot, etc. I would choose those, who would make your warlock more like a leader of a pack or an animal master.

Since Wild Shape levels with the character, the other features aren’t too impressive, but it should be a good way to embrace the beast while remaining a warlock in all other aspects. Polymorph wasn’t added for a reason, since there is already an Eldritch Invocation for this and it should be only be usable once per day, since this spell packs a lot of power.

-5 to Hit, +10 to Damage

Most players and DMs know the following feats: Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. Both feats have the ability, to take a -5 penalty on your attack roll to add +10 to the damage roll. Some DMs have a bit of trouble with these feats.

• Since most ACs of monsters aren’t that high, even with -5 to hit it’s still seems pretty accurate
• Classes who have reliable means of gaining advantage (like the barbarian) or ways to grant their allies advantage (like a lot of spellcasters with spells like Guiding Bolt, Faery Fire, etc.) or those ways to grant +hit (like the Bless spell or a Battle Master’s Precision Attack maneuver) trades the intended reliability to outright more damage potential
• Both feats overall (and especially that trait) boosts the overall combat ability of two builds (ranged weapon and two-handed weapon), while other weapon builds seems to have only subpar feats (due the more specific use of Shield Master, the somewhat lacking feeling advantages of Dual Wielder and the seemingly lack of something, which enhances your one weapon, one hand free style [try Tavern Brawler; one of the best ways to be a defender, imo])

OK, I have to admit: These feats are really good. But after seeing both in action, I don’t think, that they’re broken. It only seems that way at first, since at the beginning of a campaign, those +10 damage will kill monsters outright, however, after getting around 5th level, the monsters won’t be taken down that easily and . And remember, bounded accuracy actually makes it so, that the to hit chance decrease by 25%, unless the enemy’s AC is outright horrible.

But the farther you go, the less it means in math. At least for some classes. Of course the statistic will change, with different means to give your damage. Let’s compare the paladin and fighter: While the fighter gets another attack at 11th level, the paladin does more damage with his attacks. So the fighter gets more reliability (which means he can take the -5 while having a buffer attack left), while the paladin begins to want more of his attacks actually hit (especially under Divine Favor or another damage buff). Even though the math is the same (-5 to hit, +10 to damage), the paladin player wants all his attacks to hit, while the fighter will think, that one attack missing won’t negate the +10 damage most of the time. A ranger (hunter) with Colossus Slayer will rather try to get his bonus damage done first and then switch to the more unreliable but powerful attacks afterwards, to make most of this subclass trait.

What really makes those both feats shine early on are the other effects. Like making an attack as a Bonus Action when scoring a critical (say hallo, Champion)/killing one or ambushing enemies by shooting from far, far away. Of course these don’t seem all that powerful, until you see it in action. With the +damage the GWM is able to kill a lot of early enemies and trigger the bonus attack, while the sharpshooter can make more shots by retreating.

So, how can I think, that these feats aren’t broken? Simply, because I learned how to soften them without ruling. A special way to ensure it is: More enemies. More enemies makes more damage less important than reliability, since you need to take some of them out, otherwise the bounded accuracy will kick your ass.

As long as you don’t place them that all of them will be spellslinger-fodder, your weapon users will get a hard time, since even with all the damage and all the extra attacks, there will be more rolls, which makes a combat more statistically stable. And the joke is, that even then the XP won’t be as much, since using more enemies makes a encounter more difficult, so you won’t need as much to make it challenging.

Another reason why I don’t go WTF is because most of the real ‘unbalanced’ stuff comes from resources (Superiority Dice), risk (Reckless Attack) or teamwork. And I think teamwork should be strong, playing a game together is one of the reasons why you play D&D in the first place. Even though you should disrupt it occasionally. in the Forgotten Realms are places, where spells won’t work like the caster might think (weaveless areas and spellplague) or the setting makes it impossible to pull off (like balancing on a 2 foot width bridge).

Conclusions

If you really think, that those two feats are bad, you should simply not allow them. If you think, that the -5/+10 aren’t balances, either allow a -5/+5 variant for all other characters or simply switch it with +1 STR for GWM and +1 DEX for Sharpshooter, so the other effects stays in place.

Or maybe you’re like me as a DM and customize some of your enemies to have those feats as well or increade their accuracy/damage otherwise, so the combats will be quicker without loosing their menace.

Buying and Selling Magical Items

Anyone who plays D&D in campaigns comes to the realization, that the characters will have more gear at some point than they need. Be it due the numbers of attuneable items (I love the attunement system for the limit, normally) or because they found simply better gear and the old one is not needed anymore. Or, of course, because you, the DM, gave all these enemies some cheap magical items, for whatever reasons.

Or maybe your players wants to buy some simpler magic gear, like a Battle Axe +1 without going through all the trouble of a great adventure.

The main question remains: How do you determine the price. Of course the DMG have a table, which shows the value of a magic item, but it’s always in a range.

• Common: 50-100 gp
• Uncommon: 101-500 gp
• Rare: 501-5.000 gp
• Very Rare: 5.001 – 50,000 gp
• Legendary: 50,001+ gp

For my campaigns, I use simple pointers.

• Potions are always the least possible price
• Scrolls are twice as valuable as Potions, this is also the standard price for one-time consumables
• for every further charge of non-rechargeable consumables add a potion
• Weapons and Armor uses a special table, depending on their type (see below)
• non-combat gear is 30% of the highest possible price, if you have to attune it and 60% if you don’t have to
• 60% for attuneable combat gear and 90% for gear you don’t need to

This won’t be helpful for all items, but at least it covers a lot. For weapon and armors, I simply take the highest possible price for the rarity and takes a portion of it, depending on the type of item. Since I personally think, that a dagger is much easier to enchant than a greatsword (since it’s simply lesser you need to work on) and the power of a weapon or armor often synergies with its price.

Armor (Rare; x10 for very rare and x100 for legendary)

Here you have consider the fact, that there are some things to consider. First, the most powerful armor in each category have to be more expensive than a lesser armor of a category before, since they are less useful. And heavy armors in general are bad except the Plate Armor or if you have a sub-par Strength score. You always have disadvantage and only your STR determines the final outcome and most characters which uses heavy armor, should have STR 15 to see it through.

• Padded 501 gp
• Leather 550 gp
• Studded leather 1100 gp
• Hide 550
• Chain shirt 1100
• Scale mail 1100
• Breastplate 3500
• Half plate 4000
• Ring mail 550
• Chain mail 1500
• Splint 3000
• Plate 5000
• Shield (Common 110gp, Uncommon 550 and then use the x10 formula)

Weapons (Uncommon, rare x5, very rare x50, legendary x500)

Since most weapons aren’t as pricey as armor and there are actually reasons to have a certain weapon within your proficiencies, these should be normally less valuable. But don’t hesitate to push up the value of certain weapons, like Flametongue, which seems to be too great of a weapon for the ‘over the thumb ruling’ I provide.

• Club 101 gp
• Dagger 110 gp
• Greatclub 110 gp
• Handaxe 120 gp
• Javelin 120 gp
• Light hammer 110 gp
• Mace 120 gp
• Quarterstaff 110 gp
• Sickle 101 gp
• Spear 101  gp
• Crossbow, light 250 gp
• Dart 120 gp
• Shortbow 250 gp
• Sling 101  gp
• Battleaxe 150 gp
• Flail 150 gp
• Glaive 200 gp
• Greataxe 300 gp
• Greatsword 450 gp
• Halberd 200 gp
• Lance 150 gp
• Longsword 175 gp
• Maul 150 gp
• Morningstar 175 gp
• Pike 120 gp
• Rapier 250 gp
• Scimitar 250 gp
• Shortsword 150 gp
• Trident 120 gp
• War pick 120 gp
• Warhammer 175 gp
• Whip 110 gp
• Blowgun 150 gp
• Crossbow, hand 500 gp
• Crossbow, heavy 450 gp
• Longbow 450 gp
• Net 101 gp

Be beware

These are only quick and dirty rules for the value of items. If a player asks about a certain item, like: “How much would it be, if I want to acquire a Longsword +1?”, you can look this list up, to say: “At least 175gp, but be prepared to spend more.”

If the players asks about a “Manual of Bodily Health”, of course you’re supposed to answer in mean laughter. A permanent boost to an ability score is of course something, which isn’t measured in gold pieces, but in mercy.

Consider always the possibility to lower or raise the price, if you can or if the item is especially powerful or too specialized to be useful most of the time. You should even go over the normal limits of the category, if you think it’s doable.

And of course, it’s only the value. For selling, you should adjust it (normally half the value, but I often use reputation and such to raise or drop the selling price).

Update of the cleric’s and paladin’s overviews+BG-Campaign

Like the title says, I updated the cleric’s and paladin’s overviews. I replaced the Death Spoiler with the actual Death Domain in the DMG, which got some features changed (like no more ignoring necrotic immunity) and I added the Oathbreaker.

Seriously, the only reason I could understand why those weren’t included in the PHB would be, that they weren’t ready that time.

 

When writing the wizard’s overview, I will include the Artificer Arcane Tradition, of course. This turned out to be great, since I’m in love with resource management and this Arcane Tradition makes a lot of use of it.

 

btw, we had our first Baldur’s Gate Self-Made Campaign game session yesterday and it was great. Even though I realized, that you have to change some mechanism and events from the game (since you shouldn’t expect PCs running into someone’s else houses and asking them directly, if there is something wrong), I realized by playing it, that there are a lot of mechanism in 5e, which should be included, like cartography (and proficiency with its tools) or out of combat features, which can bypass some encounters entirely.

We got to level 3 and are currently in Beregost, even though it’s much more fast paced than the game in terms of level, it does feel right in terms of power so far. Next they want to hunt the gnolls at High Hedge, before going to Nashkel to investigate the iron shortage.

News and such

I’m moving, in April I will get into the new house. So there is still a lot to do, but at least I wanted to share something…

First of all, I share some official stuff from WotC on my side, you can download them there, too, it’s totally free, but since not all of you likes to look regularly there, I just figured, I can simply upload them here, too, and you can get it, if you want.
In this case we get the first 2 instances of Unearthen Arcana, which provides pre-rulings for Eberron and a army-combat system. I guess it might be worked over after some thought there for the hard-cover variant (especially since the Eberron races only have +1 to two abilities, which is uncommon so far).

Now I’m proud to say, that I will begin a Baldur’s Gate campaign with a new party. And that means to transfer the beloved PC-game to the P&P media in 5e! I will try to transfer my campaign notes into a self-made gaming module, which can be DMed by those, who also played and love the game or if I’m a bit skilled even those, who don’t.

Of course I know, that I’m not able to make it like the game, since the companion NPCs and the playstyle does a lot for the mood. But in the end, it’s still a strong plot, a great journey and some quite great story twists, which will make this very enjoyable, especially for those, who don’t know the games or were too weak to play them.

The plan is to make a campaign with a proud numbers of the optional quests, since you can actually take some time in most cases. I’ll try to write game reports, too, but I still have two left for Tyranny of Dragons (and the campaign will go on, too), so I won’t make promises.

This is sadly all this time, with the new campaign I have a lot to do, and moving isn’t good on your time, either. Be patient and I will make the wizard’s overview, even though I will first update my paladin and cleric overview with the options of the DMG.

Warlock – Overview

Sorry for the great delay, Christmas and other stuff kept going on and on and on and so I was pretty unmotivated to do the blog. Even though I played a lot of D&D in this time and in the end have a lot of experience to share. I won’t have much free time (at least without decreasing my time playing D&D), but at least I’ll try at least one per week.

This was definitely a really big piece of work, since I had no idea how I could make it even remotely viable. But now it’s done! Wohoo, only one more to go, even though it’ll be a lot of subclasses there… dammit. As always my personal opinion and somehow I think an overview isn’t too accurate here, since the warlock class is much harder to grasp than most other classes, since there are way more ways to customize it.

This is an overview, so I’ll just categorize each class in certain categories to see how it cuts and give a personal grading. The end-grading won’t count the multiclass-strength in (for obvious reasons) and is more like an overall impression than a mathematical derivation.

Any feature in italic is from a subclass and a abbreviation will say which one (in the warlock’s case AF for the Archfey, FI for the Fiend and GO for the Great Old One). And red features means there is a flaw or a minus in said category.

Multiclass-Strength:

• Brings Pact Magic, which is pretty useful for high class warlocks with some levels in another spellcasting class
• Invocations can bring some pretty nice basic effects, which will enhance the warlockish experience even with few levels up to the high tier
• since the warlock’s features lacks in focused power and excels in power over time, you can easily balance the focused power out by taking another class
• good combinations with every class
• the capstone isn’t to sneer at, but you won’t find it too sad not to have it until you’re in a lengthy and really difficult dungeon crawl

Offensive:

• Pact Magic: Some offensive potential here and depending on pact much more incoming. Especially the Eldritch Blast cantrip will be useful in that department.
• Eldritch Invocations:
  • Agonizing Blast: Obviously more damage.
  • Devil’s Sight: Increases the chances to make damage, especially after making it harder for a lot of enemies.
  • Eldritch Spear: Increased range means more chances to make damage.
  • Lifedrinker: Obviously more damage.
  • Master of Myriad Forms: Well, sometimes you really want claws, I think.
  • Minions of Chaos: More guys to make your damage.
  • Sculptor of Flesh: Become something to increase your offense.
  • Thirsting Blade: More attacks means more damage.
  • Witch Sight: Counters these annoying illusion defensive spells, like invisibility in any form.
• Pact Boon – Pact of the Chain: The more powerful familiars can be pretty nice, if you’re still on low-levels and cornering one guy and don’t want to waste more resources than needed. But in the end they’re still not combat material, but at least they share the functions of a normal familiar, too, like touching enemies for you.
• Pact Boon – Pact of the Blade: Warlocks aren’t good melee characters, but this pact make them decent, like a bard. It’s less about making yourself a great combatant and more about making you more diverse. And as long as you don’t have a magical weapon as a pact weapon, you can choose the right weapon at the right time and use it, regardless of what it is.
• Expanded Spell-list (FI): More offensive spells can make you a spell-slinger for a couple of turns. And if you know you have time for a short rest afterwards, you will make your wizard-buddy look at you with envy in terms of damage.
• Hurl Through Hell (FI): It’s like another offensive Mystic Arcanum. Only needs to hit with an attack, so any spell with an attack roll is fair game, too.

Resource-Management:

• Pact Magic: Spell slots which will be regained after every short rest! Cool!
• Mystic Arcanum: These don’t use up your spell slots, even though they’re powerful. A nice exception of the rule.
• Eldritch Master: Nice to have, since it shortens the time to regain spell slots once a day.
• Pact Features (AF, FI, GO): Most of them are regained at a short rest or at-will, so you can use them without too much worry.
• Pact Magic: Too less spell slots for situations, when you want to cast as much great spells as possible. And even with regaining those slots after a short rest, it’ll slow down the exploration phases, if you’re the only caster with utility spells, which consumes the resource ‘time’.
• Mystic Arcanum: This red is only compared to other main-spellcasters, since you end up with less high-level spells and can’t use higher spell slots to empower them.

Support:

• Pact Magic: Not the best spell list for this kind of work, even though the Archfey brings some neat spells and invocations can bring others.
• Eldritch Invocations:
  • Bewitching Whispers: Less enemies to worry about and more allies for all kind of usage.
  • Chains of Carcer: Lessen the enemies (even though only special types) for a round or two.
  • Dreadful Word: Another one which will decrease your enemies.
  • Mire the Mind: A genuine debuff.
  • Otherwordly Leap: Increasing your jumping distance is a standard way in dungeons to get these hovering bastards, like Flameskulls.
  • Repelling Blast: Push those enemies to the tank, which will save your back line some trouble.
  • Sculptor of Flesh: Make one enemy into a beaver, so he won’t do much until the spell ends.
  • Sign of Ill Omen: Debuff are as good as buffs and with less enemies even better.
  • Thief of Five Fates: Another debuff.
  • Witch Sight: Even if your allies can’t use it, you can at least tell them.
• Expanded Spell-list (AF): The Archfey makes it possible to learn some support and avoiding fights entirely with the Sleep spell at low levels.
• Hurl Through Hell (FI): Sometimes an enemy brings a mean aura or another nasty effect. With this you can at least get one round of breather.

Survivability:

• Pact Magic: Some defensive buffs and temporary hit points here, plus some debuffs. Nothing too directly and some of the greatest defenive buffs are missing in this spell list.
• Eldritch Invocations:
  • Armor of Shadows: Mage armor without spell slots on yourself? Be prepared 24/7!
  • Ascendant Step: Good for melee only opponents which can’t reach that high.
  • Bewitching Whispers: Make one enemy into a friend.
  • Chains of Carceri: Hold that one fiend, fey or celestial which want to slam you.
  • Eldritch Spear: Keep your distance to the danger as long as possible.
  • Fiendish Vigor: Gives you practically additional hp.
  • Mask of Many Faces: Sometimes your best bet is to take the form of an enemy, like a city guard, to survive.
  • Master of Myriad Forms: Aquatic adaptation safes lifes. And of course the ‘look like an enemy’ thing.
  • Minions of Chaos: Have something between you and your doom.
  • Mire the Mind: The slower the opponent, the faster you get away.
  • One with Shadows: Vanish if you’re not needed and there are shadows nearby, which is pretty often the case.
  • Otherwordly Leap: If you can jump over something the enemy can’t, you win. And of course you can position yourself in the first place somewhere much harder to attack.
  • Repelling Blast: Especially useful with multiple Eldritch Blasts: Push them back and move back afterwards for maximum use.
  • Sculptor of Flesh: Be either a spider, rat or bird to run away or beef up as a T-Rex!
  • Sign or Ill Omen: Disadvantage with attack rolls against you? Bought!
  • Thief of Five Fates: At least some protection… even though it’s minor.
  • Witch Sight: Those invisible ambushers will have a harder time to ambush. Invisible.
• Fey Presence (AF): Even though charm and frightened aren’t the best debuffs, you can count on it to keep you safe versus a lot of trouble. Except undead and dragons.
• Misty Escape (AF): Get damage once, be sure to survive afterwards. Teleport and invisible at the same time are two great ways to mitigate further damage.
• Beguiling Defenses (AF): While you love to charm, you hate being charmed. And not only being immune to it but to redirect it back to the sender is a very nice thing to do.
• Dark Delirium (AF): Only one opponent and again it becomes charmed/frightened, but in this version, the enemy is practically out of combat until it breaks.
• Dark One’s Blessing (FI): Killing stuff and getting temporary hit points. Since temporary hit points are as good as normal hit points when taking damage, you’ll like them.
• Dark One’s Own Luck (FI): Since it only applies to ability checks and saving throws, you will most likely use it in life-threatening situations.
• Fiendish Resilience (FI): Since you can choose the type, you can practically prepare after every short rest for the next fights. Oh, there is a green dragon out there? I should better take a poison resistance. And even for bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage it’s great, since silver or magic weapons aren’t too common.
• Hurl Through Hell (FI): Use it to single out the most annoying enemy and send it away for a round.
• Entropic Ward (GO): Even though it gives you advantage on one attack roll if it succeeds, the warlock doesn’t have a real damaging spell, which relies on an attack roll. So just use it for the disadvantage for one enemy attack.
• Thought Shield (GO): If you ever find yourself in the Underdark, you will love this ability. Resistance to psychic damage and to share the rest is a great way to combat aberrations on an even ground and of course illusions will hurt less.
• Armor Proficiency: Only light armor, which is better than no armor, but since Dexterity isn’t a main ability, you’ll feel the difference in AC.

Utility:

• Pact Magic: A decent amount of utility spells in this list and the pacts adds some more. It misses the sheer amount of the wizard, but brings some overall useful stuff. And misses long range teleportation spells entirely.
• Eldritch Invocations:
  • Ascendant Step: Levitate to places you won’t reach otherwise.
  • Beast Speech: Talk to pets and other animals to gather information.
  • Beguiling Influence: More Skill Proficiencies!
  • Bewitching Whispers: Compulsion can do that much.
  • Book of Ancient Secrets: Make your average warlock to a above average dungeon crawler by adding rituals to the mix. From any list.
  • Devil’s Sight: The better darkvision will make you a great scout… at least that’s what your party will think.
  • Eldritch Sight: At will Detect Magic without using 10 minutes for a ritual cast. You will love it.
  • Eyes of the Rune Keeper: Your DM will hate you for this, since ancient writings aren’t supposed to be read. But at least you can read any message your enemy left behind. At least unless the bloody mess made it unreadable.
  • Gaze of Two Minds: Scout ahead with two people… kinda. And of course to make an ambush and time it just right, while hiding somewhere your enemy will never see you.
  • Mask of Many Faces: Look like any humanoid you want. Like the townmaster!
  • Master of Myriad Forms: Be any humanoid you want. Like the king, after kidnapping him.
  • Misty Visions: Minor illusion for maximum usage outside of combat.
  • One with Shadows: Infiltration succeeds.
  • Otherwordly Leap: Jump to places you won’t reach without using resources.
  • Repelling Blast: You can push objects around and that makes it useful.
  • Sculptor of Flesh: Polymorph Shenanigans makes great exploration experience.
  • Visions of the Distant Realms: Like Eldritch Sight, only better. And the need for a higher warlock level.
  • Voice of the Chain Master: If you want to talk with someone without being there.
  • Whisper of the Grave: Dead people can tell you a lot. Especially concerning their deads.
  • Witch Sight: This is not the king, but a shapeshifter!
• Pact Boon – Pact of the Chain: With a familiar with several special abilities, dungeoneering and some urban strategies becomes much easier. Having an imp go invisible to follow a goon back to headquarters to get the whole band? Easy!
• Pact Boon – Pact of the Tome: Of course it depends partly on the cantrips, but since most cantrips are meant to be useful, I didn’t saw the need to put it in other categories. But the real power of this feature is due the Book of Ancient Secrets Invocation, which enhances your utility tenfold.
• Fey Presence (AF): You know, you can choose the effect to make a conversation go more smoothly?
• Dark Delirium (AF): If you want to let a guard being less on guard, don’t use drugs but dreams!
• Dark One’s Own Luck (FI): If you have that one ability check which would fail otherwise, you can use this feature after seeing the result to correct it. If you’re lucky enough.
• Expanded Spell-list (GO): Even though the new spell selection is very versatile, the most interesting options are in the utility-department, like detect thoughts.
• Awakened Mind (GO): Telepathy at-will, even if you don’t share a language. Great ability, which have a lot of possibilities, the best part is the fact, that you can organize the party in a silent manner. Or use it to deceive someone or at least get the attention.
• Create Thrall (GO): Only for humanoid targets, but if you ever need a spy, you can simply make you one. But only charmed, so it’s still less than a total control.

Grading:

Multiclass: Fantastic
Offense: Good to Great (FI)
Resource Management: Great
Support: Bad
Survivability: Decent to Good (AF, FI)
Utility: Good to Great (GO)

Overall: Good

Multiclass warlocks are pretty common in the forums, mostly because you can grasp some really nice features with only a few warlock levels when focusing on another class or instead take a few level in another class, to enhance your warlock build. This is possible, since the warlock class is much more customizable than your average class, so the customize option ‘multiclass’ just add to that strength.

One of the strengths of the warlock are the Invocations, which enhances any category you feel is lacking, but at the same time every warlock have one problem: The power of the moment. Without short rests a warlock lacks a lot of power, since he have less resources but it’s easier to regain those. So for short and hard encounters the warlock loses out against every other class, while on a long adventuring day with the common 3 short rests, he will be at least reliable and at the end have more spells left than the other arcane casters.

But first you need to get to this point, since other classes lacks the means to regain resources early in the game and you don’t want to go on an adventure, while your companions hit rock bottom of their power.  So at the start you will be underwhelming, then you become reliable and in the end it all comes down how well you build up your warlock.

I suggest the warlock class for everyone who likes having options and not too specialized. For those who wants options and be specialized, I suggest a warlock-multiclassing, which are very common these days as ideas on the forums. You can combine the warlock with any other class to make it work better in one department.

 

The wizard’s overview will have to wait, since I never got the chance to speak about the other books and want to finish the game reports of the Tyranny of Dragons campaign I’m mastering. Even though we didn’t get that far there, sadly.

Ranger Variant (without spells)

Since it came up in the wizard forum, I made a ranger variant without spells. Even though it will most likely be less powerful, it should do the job.

Additional Tool Proficiency: Traps (for setting up an complicated trap, craft a trap, hiding a trap, etc.)

Use this table instead the normal one for class traits

1st: Fighting Style, Favored Enemy
2nd: Natural Explorer, Hunter’s Action (use a Bonus Action to either disengage or set up a trap)
3rd: Ranger Archetype, Primeval Awareness (WIS-mod per day, at minimum length)
4th: Ability Score Improvement
5th: Extra Attack
6th: Favored Enemy Improvement, Skill Expertise (three skills/tools [traps would be tools, too])
7th: Ranger Archetype Feature
8th: Natural Explorer Improvement, Ability Score Improvement
9th: Land Stride, Expert Trapper (add your prof bonus on DC of traps you’re setting)
10th: Ability Score Improvement, Favored Enemy Improvement
11th: Ranger Archetype Feature
12th: Ability Score Improvement
13th: Hide in Plain Sight, Natural Explorer Improvement
14th: Favored Enemy Improvement, Vanish
15th: Ranger Archetype Feature
16th: Ability Score Improvement
17th: Favored Enemy Improvement, Natural Explorer Improvement
18th: Feral Senses
19th: Ability Score Improvement
20th: Foe Slayer

Differences:

• Some features changed their level, to keep the power-gain per level in check
• Hunter’s Action added at 2nd level, a variety of the Cunning Action of the Rogue
• Primeval Awareness got (since lacking spell slots) a per day use of the ranger’s WIS mod at the minimum length
• Skill Expertise at 6th level, since this build have some trap synergy (if you don’t have magic, go mechanical!), player gets reminded, that you could possibly say traps are tools in a sense (which got already mentioned in the tool proficiency)
• Expert Trapper added at 9th level, which makes even mundane traps pretty dangerous
• an additional Ability Score improvement at 10th level
• 5 favored enemy and 4 natural explorer overall, to increase the variety of the ranger and keep it ranger-like without too much trouble

This build suffers in the damage department of a damage focused normal ranger and even don’t have that much utility to boast around, if you consider all the possible spells which would be possible. But since spells are harder to grasp in power-level and ranger’s and that good spellcasters, I personally think the use of at-will features which will come handy every time and more specific features which doesn’t use up any resources. Especially increasing favored enemies and natural explorer makes it much more reliable, since you got a broader array of choices and more favored enemies enhances the foe slayer capstone.

Short today, won’t probably get to the warlock overview until Monday, since I got some gamedays before me (even though I try).

What makes the warlock different?

I already said, that the warlock is an entirely different class than any other. That mean, while you can somehow categorize the other classes into some generic groups (like fighter, paladin, barbarian as the front-liners, ranger and rogue as the skirmishers/artillery, bard, cleric and druid as the support/healer and sorcerer and wizard as the arcane support/blasting), the warlock might be everything and none to it.

The basic of this view follows the fact, that the warlock uses a lot of unique mechanism, while other classes has some very basic commonalities, like Extra Attack for the weapon based, spellcasting trait, etc. So this means, that despite all differences, you can get a bit of insight what these class are supposed to do.

The warlock is supposed to be a main-caster in a way, but lacks spellcasting. He uses Pact Magic, which is quite different. He isn’t as squishy as a standard wizard/sorcerer, but have the basic defense capabilities of a rogue. And with the Invocation mechanism, he can be pretty well customized on a basic level (means there will never be need for a new kind of subclasses, which would replace standard features like Pathfinder archetypes do), be it in focusing on damage, utility, spellpower or other departments.

And of course he has practically 2 subclasses, one pact which would be the real subclass and the pact boon, which doesn’t have anything to do with the pact in the first place, but will affect many builds as much if not more than the choice of fey, fiend or great old.

This makes the options of customization fourfold: Known spells, Invocations, subclass, Pact Boon. A fey warlock with the pact blade will feel much different than one with the pact tome, since the focused went from enhanced weapon damage (and the utility to use the weapon you want unless you got another item bounded) to utility-magic focused type, even though both excels in mind-affecting and tricky spells. And if you would change to the pact of the fiend instead, you got your weapon plus a bunch of offensive potential.

 

So even when writing my overview I just get the feeling, I can’t really pin down this class as good as others. Even though the cleric is problematic, since his domain will give him a huge jump and change the class focus for a great mileage, the warlock is just more complicated. And if you get into feats and other non-class dependent customization, you can do about anything with this class, even though it might not excel in it. But if a warlock would be a better fighter than the fighter, I would definitely complain about it.

But for most people who are looking forward or have already fun playing a warlock, this variety might be exactly the reason why to. Personally, I’d like to play a fey pact blade warlock, combining a charming personality, swashbuckling and a bit of useful spells, even consider to not take Eldritch Blast as a cantrip or even if I do, to ignore the Agonizing Blast Invocation, since there are so many other nice ones there.

Homebrew Genasi

This is a home-brew version of the genasi, which I wrote before the Player’s Companion: Temple of Elemental Evil. So if you want to grab the real one, you’d better download the .pdf on the Supplement page.

Since the DMG got released and we got a few peak-views, I’m pretty excited to use those few things I know. Here I tried to use the official excerpt of the DMG to create a well-known but less used race: Genasi. Much like the tiefling, but with a more elemental flair.

I’m going solely mechanical to this, since I think that those who know them, should know their fluff as well and the time I got left is going to be spend to the warlock overview (and it’s less enough).

Even if the Genasi are further categorized as Fire Genasi, Earth Genasi, etc. they share the same basic idea: The blood of elementals (means Dao, Efreeti, Marid and Djinni for exampel) combined with the blood of mortals. So we choose the same base race (genasi) and add (for now) 5 subraces, windsoul, earthsoul, firesoul, windsoul and stormsoul.

Since there are similarities origin-wise with the tiefing, I use it as a basic. Then I look into my 3e and 4e Forgotten Realms and realize, that it might be a bit difficult. But in the end I realized, that the Genasi are supposed to be a bit like elemental warriors, using magic and physical power, so I think I got a good conses.

Genasi

Ability Score Increase: +1 Intelligence

Age: Genasi matures at the same rate as humans, but live a few years longer

Alignment: Since they have a elemental nature, genasis are more leaned to a neutral alignment.

Size: Genasi are about the same size as humans, even though depending on their element their stature differs. Your size is Medium.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30ft

Languages: Common and Primordial

Subrace: Choose one of the following subraces.

Earthsoul

Ability Score Increase: +2 Strength

Elemental Resistance: You have resistance to acid damage

Earthen Legacy: You know the blade ward cantrip. Once you reached 3rd level, you can cast the thunderwave spell once per day as a 2nd-level spell. Once you reached the 5th level, you can cast the spike growth spell once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Firesoul

Ability Score Increase: +2 Dexterity

Elemental Resistance: You have resistance to fire damage

Fiery Legacy: You know the produce flame cantrip. Once you reached 3rd level, you can cast the burning hands spell once per day as a 2nd-level spell. Once you reached the 5th level, you can cast the heat metal spell once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Stormsoul

Ability Score Increase: +2 Strength

Elemental Resistance: You have resistance to lightning damage

Stormy Legacy: You know the light cantrip. Once you reached 3rd level, you can cast the witch bolt spell once per day as a 2nd-level spell. Once you reached the 5th level, you can cast the shatter spell once per day as a 3rd-level spell. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Watersoul

Ability Score Increase: +2 Constitution

Elemental Resistance: You have resistance to cold damage

Watery Legacy: You know the resistance cantrip. Once you reached 3rd level, you can cast the create or destroy water spell once per day as a 2nd-level spell. Once you reached the 5th level, you can cast the blur spell once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Windsoul

Ability Score Increase: +2 Dexterity

Elemental Resistance: You have resistance to lightning damage

Earthen Legacy: You know the mage hand cantrip. Once you reached 3rd level, you can cast the featherfall spell once per day. Once you reached the 5th level, you can cast the gust of wind spell once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

So let’s talk about some choices: Earthsoul was hard, since there are less earth-themed spells there, but after consulting the 4e power and the 3e fluff (for female earthsouls), I went with a shockwave and growing plants. Produce flame for firesoul was a hard choice, since its damage increases over the time, but since one action is creating that flame and another to throw it, it shouldn’t break anything. Not everytime the spell is cast at a higher level, since here and there I felt like overall it would be too powerful, like seeing the fire genasi, who has a pure damage based legacy (even though I did consider misty step there).

That the subrace gives a greater ability improvement is meant to be, since the element should have some physical impact.

I’m sure I like what I’ll see as the official genasi, but sometimes you just get a bit giddy in thinking about what could be. For now it’ll work. 😉

Bound to level

Since time issues and the fact, that the warlock is unlike any other class, I’ll postpone the overview for now, I try to make it happen any day, but make it so, that I first write a less time.consuming post and afterwards put some time into drafting the overview piece a piece.

For today like to talk about levels and level-bound traits. These came up when playing and after seeing some postings about it, I thought that it might still be confusing. And sometimes not even that clear.

First, I want to explain, that I will not talk about the traits, which are entirely bound to classes, where the improvements are part of the class table (like Wild Shape, Aura Improvement, Extra Attacks, etc.), but where the character level seems to be the deciding factor or at least could be.

Second, I will take on the ability score improvement trait, which is now bounded to class, instead of character level, simply because I think this is somehow viable to talk about in this post.

Third, every DM is free to make changes to it, so if you don’t feel like this is a good or logical choice, you’re free to disagree. But you should expect that others don’t agree to your disagreement and stay cool about it.

Cantrips: Taken from this site here:

With cantrips, does a MC caster use their character or class level for determining damage? A multiclass character uses character level to determine the damage of a cantrip. -J

Cantrips comes from multiple choices, starting with spellcasting classes, races (like the high elf) or feats (Magic Initiate). Since the offensive cantrips are meant to rival multiple attacks at some point, they become stronger with rising level, but why should it be character level be the basic?

OK, there are multiple ways to get them and even if a high elf isn’t needlessly a wizard, it doesn’t mean that he won’t put some work into it. Same for a ranger/wizard or other combination of caster/non/less-caster class. Even though you might suspect, that it would be illogical if the fighter picks up the wizard class after having a lot of fighter levels and have as lethal cantrips as an non-evocation wizard of the same level.

Multiclassing shouldn’t punish or reward players ideally and dishing out damage per round is somewhat crucial for staying competitive through the levels. Extra attacks are the way for melees and these don’t stack, so why would cantrips do it in any way? Counter-question: How much does it hurt? Since cantrips are still often inferior to weapon choices of weapon-focused class (at the at-will department), you often needs some basic traits of these classes to make them stronger, limiting either your options (like warlock Invocations) or the need to take some levels (like Arcane Tradition of Evocation).

I don’t really see any damage here, especially since most cantrips aren’t that reliable in comparisons to other at-will features.

Warlock Invocations prerequisite: This is a thing, which is asked quite often. Do you need the specific character or warlock level to choose those high-level invocations? RAW it doesn’t become clear, but if you look at those features, it seems kinda unfair to other classes to make this 2 level dip into warlock something which gives you some features you wouldn’t be able to get when multiclassing into another class. Jeremy Crawford answered in his twitter (source):

The intent is that a level prerequisite in a warlock invocation refers to warlock level.

Intend doesn’t needlessly means that it’s meant to be a rule. I would decide on a case to case basic here, a valor bard/blade warlock who seeks to increase the damage a bit with the Lifedrinker-Invocation might get another treatment as a paladin who seeks to do the same. It’s about how much the party might need it (if you run official modules with 3 characters, you might consider that this is within reason or if the player of the tank is leaving the party due personal circumstances and no one could otherwise be that melee-prescience).

But for the most part, I agree.

Ability Score Improvements (or feats): In 3e and 4e these were bounded to character level, now they’re not, which is bad for multiclass characters. At the beginning, a great “Why?!”-wave came around and after all that time, some don’t even tried to understand. There were a lot of change-requests, house rules and the like flowing around (like feats at 1st level, bounding the ASI at character level and such).

Before house-ruling something, I suggest trying it out first. It’s really not that bad. And there are some reasons not to be so fast to expand it:

• The team are unlikely to be composed of idiots, since they got the job in one of the greatest companies in the gaming business
  • classes aren’t design to have the ASI at character levels, which would lead to dead levels (means no benefit), if the normal ones are taken away
• Multiclassing brings other features, seems even logical that characters wouldn’t have the resources to improve abilities or learn a new feat in the meanwhile
• Most feats are terrifying strong and define characters quite strongly. In most cases, you will feel the benefits of a feat much more than the benefit of a ASI, at least that’s what I experienced so far. They can easily match up to class features in terms of benefits and are often even more overwhelming than those at the mid-levels
  • I do think, the human variant is the more D&D-like human (at least 3e upwards) and the standard is the one you only tend to use when feats are not allowed. Since feats are so strong, a lot of (PC-)Adventurers are actually human.

So why should you even expand to those without thinking things through and not even trying to use the actual rules at this point? Of course there might be good reasons, like having less PCs than normal, but I run a campaign with 3 PCs and advanced standard rules (means multiclassing allowed [nobody wants to], variant human [one] and feats [at least 2 will take a feat at 4th level instead of ASI]) and even if the start was hard, they managed.

So, that’s it. If I missed something, please feel free to comment and I’ll add it.