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Messages - DonQuixote

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 19, 2015, 01:07:54 PM »
Huh. I had actually come to the conclusion that Awakened Ally was the only one of the class features on this draft that I actually wanted to keep.

Blessings of Beasts: Well, guidance isn't happening because there's no compelling reason to take it off of the actual class list. Nothing about it seems particularly bestial to me, as opposed to generally shamanic.

Thornwhip ties in somewhat to the "Hunt" obeisance, allowing you to snag your prey and drag them back. Besides, a lot of callings have two damaging cantrips, and poison resistance and immunity are common enough that you'll want a second.

Animal Handling seems about as relevant as proficiency with artisan's tools, so nothing wrong there.

Primal Hunter: The problem that I have with this feature was really hard for me to identify, but someone else was able to put it into words for me: there's nothing about this that implies a spiritual involvement. This is the sort of thing you'd just pick up living in the wilds. Compare to the other 1st-level abilities, all which involve interacting with the subject of your calling in a magical way.

I also hadn't realized how favorably this compared to Oath of Vengeance--I had just been trying to tweak Hunter's Mark to replace the extra damage with something else. This, as it stands, is simply too good in comparison to the Vow of Enmity--and you get it two levels earlier.

If this feature stays, the prey declaration will have to be nerfed. I'd rather replace the whole thing entirely, though.

Land's Stride: A singularly unimpressive feature when compared to the other 6th-level features, and one that has nothing to do with beasts at all. I pulled it from ranger and druid to get at their shared space, but that portion of their shared space has nothing to do with beasts.

The problem that I'm realizing here is that "not!ranger" and "not!druid" aren't actually where this subclass wants to go. The shaman as a whole is already invested in protecting and preserving aspects of the natural world--doubling down on that just muddles the messaging. The subclass needs to be all beasts, all the time, and these two features are failing at that.

Child of the Wilds: This has more or less the same problem--it provides immunity to disease and poison without really trying that to beasts in any way. I feel like this subclass might actually want to be the one to break the "resistance/immunity at 10th level" trend, so this may well get the axe.

Awakened Ally: Again, this feels like the strongest part of this draft--not in terms of power, but in terms of theme and messaging. It does some good work that separates it from the actual awaken spell, including the telepathic communication and sense-sharing, as well as the fact that you can keep the beast charmed as long as you want. Significantly, it also restricts you to one charmed beast--and only works on beasts, instead of also hitting plants.

There are a number of reasons that I don't want to give out awaken as a spell on their list. First, on an aesthetic level, it just feels wrong to have a spell that takes longer to cast than it takes you to recover spells. I also like the devotion to a single beast--you don't mess with the natural order willy-nilly.

It's hardly the only 14th level ability that draws on a modified spell--see Flames of Creation or Move Across the Waters--and the differences it creates are exactly what I want from it. The diamond in this painfully rough draft.

Speak with Animals: Will remain an invocation. As you pointed out, this subclass isn't going for communing with individual beasts, but the spirits that watch over them. It would confuse the messaging a little, especially since I'm planning for the beast spirits to care more about the species than the individual--a deer spirit, for instance, might be concerned about a magical disease ravaging the wolves of the area, even though the deer are prospering, because of how the loss of a predator would adversely affect the deer.

Animal spirits should be strange and beyond animals, in the same way that dream spirits are strange and beyond humans.

Besides, speak with dead is also an invocation, for much the same reason--an individual corpse doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ancestral spirits. The shaman, regardless of calling, is a speaker.

Spell List: I've actually had some people say that they found the list disappointing--especially at first level. Beast bond was singled out as a pretty weak bonus. I'll look into reevaluating and replacing some of the spells.

Invocations: A conjure animals is planned--it was actually in an earlier draft of the general shaman--but awaken is not, for the reasons mentioned above.

Spirit Beast: Well, as said, Awakened Ally is being kept, and the subclass doesn't need to be a minionmancer. I do plan to get more of the "something larger than yourself" vibe when replacing the other three class features, but I also want to make sure I don't lean on the concept of having a spirit animal--that would drag me back to the same issues that prevented me from completing the original version of this calling. The usage of animal imagery is one of the common themes that's shared by multiple shamanic belief structures, and is something that shouldn't be tied to a single calling.

I'm honestly still conflicted on this one--a fire spirit shouldn't just be a column of fire, but, if it appears as a fox, how does that interact with the existence of beast spirits associated with foxes? An air spirit might take the form of an eagle, so what's an eagle spirit doing with itself? And it's not like these forms are static--a fire spirit might also look like a deer or a fiery bird. An earth spirit might be a mole, but it also might be a buffalo, a bear, or a sheep. Not all water spirits will be fish--some might take the form of otters, crocodiles, or frogs. And so on.

One of your points in pitching the subclass was that the speaker of beasts should care more about the bigger picture than the other callings, but I still disagree with that--all shamans should be concerned with the bigger picture to the same extent. Of course, there are no global spirits--a bear spirit is only going to be responsible for the bears within one forest, or maybe even something smaller--but all shamans will be operating on roughly the same scale. As in the Campbell quote earlier, the shaman is much more individualistic than, say, a priest, so it makes sense for her to interact with individual spirits, rather than gods by a different name.

For the time being, I'm going to put some of the Speaker of Beast spells back on the class list and give Animal Handling back to the skill list. This is a puzzle that's going to take a while to sort out, both in terms of flavor and mechanics, and I'd rather have to patch it in later than have to patch out the space made for it if I end up coming down on the side of it not fitting.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 18, 2015, 06:38:51 PM »
Putting this in a new post so Argent Fatalis sees that there was a new post in the thread: Speaker of Beasts 0.1 is mechanically complete. I still need to do the flavor pass on the calling and its obeisances, but hashing out the abilities is always the harder part, anyway. Once the flavor is complete and the mechanics are to everyone's liking, it will be moved to the main shaman PDF.

Speaking of, as it turns out, I never actually defined what that spellcasting focus was. That's now been fixed.

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Off Topic Fun / Re: Can someone explain this to me? Please?
« on: June 17, 2015, 10:33:01 PM »
No, no one can explain it. Because each person's reasoning is going to be different.

We've gone off the deep end in terms of terminology these days, with everyone fighting to have their personal terminology used. But that kind of defeats the purpose of language: standardization.

Yes, language is ever-changing, and the modern vernacular is different than it used to be, but personalized language doesn't work. It means that any form of communication is going to be bogged down by an introduction of definition-setting.

It gets really weird in certain marginalized groups. For instance, the trans community. Some people want to be referred to by their preferred gender both in terms of gender AND sex. For instance, a trans man will refer to what might be anatomically considered his "clitoris" as his "penis." Others will acknowledge the difference between the body they were born in and the gender that they actually are--a trans woman might admit that she has a penis, but wish that it could be a clitoris instead.

This makes the movement absolutely impossible to talk to with any kind of consistent messaging. Some people will say it's more important that people don't differentiate based on biology, while other people will say that they want their doctors to treat their bodies as the bodies that they are, without confusing things unnecessarily.

That may seem tangential, but it's another symptom of the modern desire for everything to be defined with regards to the self. My language, my rules. If you refer to me in a way that does not line up with the rules I have set in place, you are violating the order that I am seeking to create, and therefore threaten my authority.

It's a very bizarre phenomenon, and I look forward to watching it develop and adapt further.

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In general, you’re trying to give too many abilities, and you’re pushing your capstones too far. I can really tell that you originally wrote the class for 3.5—there’s an unspoken sense of “complexity is good” that really tends to permeate material from the system.

I definitely think there’s potential in the core mechanical concept. I think you really need to step back and figure out where your flavor is, and then approach it from the 5E side. The important thing to convert is the spirit and idea of the material, not every little mechanical nuance. Some things might get lost, and that’s fine. In fact, I'd say that it's desirable--5E combat wants to move quickly, and too many things to track is going to slow it down.

I know that I might be coming across as a little harsh here, but part of that is that I think some bits could be polished up--or even sanded off--and it would only strengthen the class. Nobody ever made something better because everyone told him how perfect it was, after all.

So, to summarize the summary: Good core mechanical idea, needs a concerted flavor push, then needs to be looked at more as an adaptation of the flavor idea to the 5E system than an adaptation of the 3.5 mechanics.

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There's the base class. I'll start going over the subclasses now.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 17, 2015, 10:14:18 AM »
With the wakefulness of morning, clarity:

The monk and the barbarian both have AC bonus abilities that use two ability scores. In the case of the monk, its two primary ability scores: Dexterity determines attack bonus and damage, while Wisdom determines save DCs. In the case of the barbarian, one of its primary ability scores and a tertiary ability score: Strength and Constitution are both more important to a barbarian than Dexterity. The barbarian is also the one that is allowed to use a shield.

This pushes me back towards AC 13 + Constitution. Charisma is your most important stat, and keying the AC ability off of it means that you will hit AC 20 incidentally, without having to think of a secondary stat. That's a little too convenient, when monks and barbarians both have to worry about two stats. Most of the resistance thus far has been on the grounds of flavor, which can probably be addressed with a new name for the invocation.

Of course, I can't actually make any changes to the document for another eight or so hours, but that's where I am at the moment.

Edit: New version of the PDF is up now, with the change back to 13+Constitution and a new name: Stand Firm.

Spell list has been tweaked slightly to make room for the Speaker of Beasts, the current draft of which can be found here.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 17, 2015, 02:48:55 AM »
Then 13+Cha it is. For now, anyway. It still feels a bit weird to me to have your casting stat be the ONLY one that comes up for AC.

And I'd be happy to take a look at the Sanguine Knight, probably tomorrow evening. I'd do it now, but, well, it's two in the morning.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 17, 2015, 02:05:01 AM »
We're at an impasse, then, as the flavor intent is for Gift of Savagery to key off of Strength, not Dexterity. I lied--I actually figured out how to do the templating switch and went ahead with it, and it's much, much cleaner. Everything looks better, since you no longer have the atrocious "or a weapon on which you have cast..." verbiage and can just say "your spiritual weapon" every time. I'm really reluctant to switch it back.

I'd much, much rather find a way to drop Dex than drop Str. The simple move would be to go to AC = 13+Con, no Dex, but that's probably too far off the wall to seriously consider. Either way, this is a gish that wants to feel closer to barbarian than to rogue. You're attacking savagely, not sneakily. I'll see if I can come up with something slightly less insane.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 17, 2015, 01:17:20 AM »
Well, you threw me off when you said "Shaman with TWF and a finesse weapon." I think I am going to go forward with this one:

I think I thought up a less hacky solution, but am too tired at the moment to actually implement it right now. Cut shillelagh entirely, then rework Gift of Savagery so that you get a melee weapon the appearance of which varies entirely. It could be a hammer, a sword, or, of course, claws. No matter what it looks like, it's a non-finesse melee weapon that is absolutely generic in every way and deals 1d10 slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing damage. All the things that currently run off of "your claws or a weapon on which you have cast elemental weapon" would be reworked to function only with this weapon. This kills the build that ignores Strength. As an added bonus, the invocations will read more cleanly.

In addition, Unrestrained Savagery, instead of giving you two attacks, could give you a bonus action attack after you use the Attack action, like monk's Martial Arts. Then Battle Frenzy gets replaced by...something...and we should be back somewhere reasonable. I might be losing lucidity at the moment, though.



On the AC question, I'm definitely feeling something that just sets your base AC, without fussing with ability scores or casting spells. When you aren't wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your Dexterity modifier. Bam, done, wrapped up.



I suppose that is true about medium armor--because light shields no longer exist. Bah. Still, there are multiple historical cultures that used shields without anything approaching what would be categorized as medium armor, so I'm inclined to let it stay.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 16, 2015, 11:19:48 PM »
Revision went up.

Okay, I didn't anticipate that you were assuming a two-weapon fighting shaman. Easy fix--all the invocations now only work if you're only wielding one weapon. I should probably change the name of Unrestrained Savagery at some point, I suppose.

However, the savagery shaman is intended to replace ranged attacking, and should be higher-damage than the sight shaman. So bear that in mind.

(Edit: On reflection, I could--and maybe should--cut shillelagh entirely. As it is, it uses up one of your cantrips to bridge a few levels and be pretty high-performance during that time.)

(Edit Edit: I think I thought up a less hacky solution, but am too tired at the moment to actually implement it right now. Cut shillelagh entirely, then rework Gift of Savagery so that you get a melee weapon the appearance of which varies entirely. It could be a hammer, a sword, or, of course, claws. No matter what it looks like, it's a non-finesse melee weapon that is absolutely generic in every way and deals 1d10 slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing damage. All the things that currently run off of "your claws or a weapon on which you have cast elemental weapon" would be reworked to function only with this weapon. This kills the build that ignores Strength. As an added bonus, the invocations will read more cleanly.)

Gave my reasons in my previous post on the AC question: I'm far more disposed towards unarmored + shield than flat unarmored, even if it means weird hoops, and the goal is specifically to avoid the creation of a magical ward. It's more likely to get scrapped entirely than go to 10+Charisma+Dexterity with no shield or a mage armor variant. Do you actually think there's a problem with it running off of Constitution instead of Charisma? I certainly wouldn't call having three stats at 20 an "easy" 22.

I suppose it could just set your AC the way mage armor does without actually casting the spell, but where would all our wonderful arguments be then?



Three new invocations happened, killing the fourth slot for space reasons:

Smoke Teller
As an action, you can seize control of the smoke from a fire or other source within 10 feet of you and form it into an image that lasts for as long as you maintain concentration on this effect. Initially, the image can be no larger than a 5-foot cube. Though it can be as detailed as you like, the image is also clearly made of smoke, and no creature will mistake it for the real thing.

While you maintain concentration on this effect, you can use your action to draw further smoke from the source, increasing the possible size of the image by 5 feet, to a maximum of a 20-foot cube. You can also use your action to change the appearance of the object or make it appear to move, though it must remain centered on the source of the smoke. When changing the image’s appearance, you can change the color of some of the smoke, though fine detail is impossible.

The smoke image lightly obscures the area within it. After you end your concentration, the smoke persists for 1 minute or until a strong wind disperses it.


Unfiltered Perceptions
Prerequisite: 7th level
You cannot be blinded or deafened unless you are seeing or hearing through another source. In addition, you can sense the presence of invisible creatures or objects within 10 feet of you that are within line of sight, though you cannot see them.


Walker of the World
Prerequisite: 7th level
Your movement speed increases by 10 feet while you are not wearing armor. In addition, you always know which way is north and, while underground, always know your depth below the surface.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 16, 2015, 07:52:05 PM »
To be honest, I'd much rather have "unarmored, but with a shield" than just unarmored. It's not like a monk, where your body is all you have--you're already wielding a weapon. I'm also not a fan of going to actually casting a spell because the feel of that is off to me--it's not a mystical barrier that you're creating, but hardiness born of your path.

Both Charisma and Constitution work fairly well for this--the first is your spirit reinforcing your flesh, the second is you just being that sturdy. I actually like it being the same stat as barbarian, since it reinforces a connection between the two.

I don't really see the mechanical argument. Simply put, nobody dumps Con, and you still want it, even with Spirit Warrior. If Spirit Warrior were sufficient to make dumping Con viable, that would be a cause to axe Spirit Warrior. Having the shield on there lets you get to AC 20 while only bother raising your Dexterity to 16 with your Constitution at 20, or your Constitution to 16 with your Dexterity at 20, or both at 18. It creates more options, not less.

Which is all fairly irrelevant, really. The mage armor suggestion would have been AC 13 + Dexterity. Having a shield and Constitution 12 gets you to that range, while allowing you to climb a little bit higher by increasing your Constitution.

Edit: Not much got done on that today, and I'm likely to prioritize replacing the invocations over it.

Still haven't decided exactly how to work in an awaken effect, though it'll probably be a mix on the gooey warlock Create Thrall ability. Probably add locate creature to the spell list as a 4th level spell, meaning that the only spell slot missing is a 5th-level spell. At that point, all that's needed is a 1st level ability and a 6th level ability, as well as two 1st level spells and a 2nd level spell to replace the spells stolen from the base shaman spell list.

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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 16, 2015, 06:37:46 PM »
All right, at a computer and making changes like a real human being!

-Spells: Honestly, I love the spell point system you have here. Very modular and warlock-esqu. In fact, I want to ask if I can snatch it for a 5e psionics system that I'm slowly building up. With how limited your spells prepared chart is, it feels rather in line with the Warlock in pretty much every regard. Subclass spells add flexibility, but are also still limited and unchangable, with only the smallest bit of choice on the player's part. Over-all, pretty good. The only thing I would change is the preparation time, as that is no longer a thing for any class. It's just assumed that the caster prepares all of their spells during the long rest, to make things a bit quicker and easier, and doesn't take extra time to prep in 5e.

Yeah, go ahead and play around with it! It actually derived from an attempt to fix Four Elements monk by making it into a proper halfcaster, but I was worried about getting things back on a short rest. I then realizing that warlock would be a good comparison point, and slowly ended up at a Ki/Pact Magic hybrid. I then realized that Four Elements monk didn't want to be a true caster, but I'd been bouncing around the idea of doing a shaman, so here we are.

On preparation time, I'd encourage you to look again:

Quote from: Cleric
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of cleric spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Quote from: Druid
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of druid spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Quote from: Paladin
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Quote from: Wizard
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of wizard spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Not sure where you got the idea that it had been removed.

-Spiritual gifts: I love the idea of the spiritual gifts. However, I feel like Savagery honestly has a few too many invocations to it... or that Sight has too few. As well, savagery might just have too many features (and features that are too powerful) as-is. For example, Shamanic Defense, which for a Warlock would be like their Armor of Shadows invocation, could easily be a general shaman feature, and is a bit powerful when compared to said warlock invocation (the max AC of Armor of Shadows is 18 for the majority of characters, Shamanic Defense can pretty consistently and easily get to AC 22 with just this and shields). I'll go over the invocations later, however.

At their base, Gift of Sight does seem a bit more powerful. Gift of Savagery does need some invocations to come online, but is incredibly good once you get them. Perhaps overly-so. One thing to note, you do not specify which attribute your claws use to attack. That would be something to specify (is it a spell attack? Are they finess weapons? Is it just a standard str melee weapon? Etc)

As said before, Savagery does go off of strength. It now specifies that you use them "as a melee weapon," and doesn't say anywhere that they have finesse.

The Gift of Savagery build intentionally requires greater investment in order to keep you from having your cake and eating it.

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Invocations

-Battle Frenzy: This invocation is hard to judge. On one hand, it basically gives the ability to maximum level TWF without any fighting style or feat support, making it rather powerful. On the other hand, as a caster you will likely be using your action for other things, and typically won't want to run into melee. Useful as-is, but potentially overpowered when compaired to the similar pact of the blade abilities on the Warlock.

As I've said before, I don't actually consider Pact of the Blade to be a good balance point, since the build required to match or exceed simple eldritch blast damage is slightly ridiculous. I actually ran through the numbers when preparing the Gift of Savagery invocations, and a Gift of Savagery shaman with elemental weapon up still does less damage on a Battle Frenzy full attack than a warlock with Agonizing Blast and hex...except for a few levels, where it's above it by 1 or 1.5 damage on average.

-Bonded senses: The duration is far too short to truly justify the opportunity cost of lost senses and actions. A bit weak compared to the other invocations.

-Bonded senses: And who said I like bonded senses? :p More seriously, the Warlock, who can get flying invisible scouts from their pact of the chain, is able to use the ability better than the Shaman, who has to find an ally or creature to go out and scout for them. This basically disables you while you attach your sight to a scouting party member, while anyone can get proficiency in stealth and this class in particular seems to be focused on dex and cha, so they can pretty much keep up with (or at least not horribly expose) a rogue scout. On top of that, making yourself more vulnerable to ambushes when a party member is already going out and scouting for you seems a bit superfluous.

Bonded Senses now dead, all hail the open invocation slot!

-Elemental empowerment: Increasing the duration of elemental weapon to a full day is a bit unnecessary, 1 hour is typically enough, and making it so that you have to re-cast it at the end of a short rest is a good way to curb spamming the incredible DPS boost the spell grants. Cutting that bit out of the invocation would likely be for the best.

It is done, though I'm a little leery. It's a pretty sizeable chunk of your spirit point pool--still a quarter at level 20 if you want the +2/2d4 version. If we're assuming two short rests a day, that's a little over five hours between rests. A shame that I can't just make the duration "until your next rest," but whatever.

...actually...why can't I? You can maintain concentration on it until you take a long or short rest. Bam.

-Entreat the spirits: Unnecessary if you are a speaker of one of the elements. Speaking to the earth, flames, water or wind is typically all one needs, and doesn't require a 10 minute cast time. However, useful for Dreams and Spirits, I suppose. It could probably be granted from level 1.

-Entreat the Spirits: Well yes, it does have some use for the elemental speakers, but not as much as a spirit or dream shaman.

I dunno, I'd definitely still take it. Then again, I'd almost always be playing a speaker of flames, and fire is much less commonly a natural formation.

-Eyes unbound: Literally an eagle barbarian's level 7 subclass ability, at the same level. I would recommend not doing that, since it is a unique martial ability at the moment. On top of that, the shaman has plenty of magical ways to scout baked into the class with spells and subclass abilities. Maybe instead making it so you can cast True seeing 1/ short or long rest and setting it to level 12 would be fitting? It would keep with the magical theme of the class more in tact.

Alternately, have it so taking the invocation removes the concentration cost from true seeing and promoting it to a level 12 invocation would also work rather well.

-Master of the Hunt: Again, a barbarian subclass feature... and again not all that necessary, given how many magical tools the class has to help it out. Not sure what you would change it with though... maybe allowing the shaman to cast Hunter's mark 1/ short or long rest?

You missed Unfettered Strength. These have also been removed.

-Mask of Beasts: Much like the warlock's invocations that require spell slots, I hate that this draws on an already quite-limited class resource. Just making it usable 1/long rest without a  spirit point cost would be good enough here. The invocation is not powerful enough to pick up otherwise.

-Rally the Ancestors: Again, cut the spellpoint cost. Just limit the level the spell is cast to 3 in this case. Nothing really all that overpowered here.

-Rewrite History: Again, spell point cost should be cut. Just limit it to the spell's base level.

-Spell invocations: Very few people up the spell invocations that require a slot on Warlock, however, because they are limited to 1/long rest, typically appear on the warlock list anyway and require the Warlock to spend one of their very limited spell slots. Spending a limited invocation on such tools to use them 1/long rest is a large cost as is, preventing the character from casting as many spells afterwords on top of that tends to kill that type of invocation dead. To be fair, I would also have suggested the same thing to WotC when they were designing the Warlock.

All right, let's try it. If I recall the casting rules correctly, I don't even need to specify the level--if you're casting without a slot or slot equivalent, you can't cast with a higher-level one.

-Mask of Many Faces: Fun and useful. Also fitting the magical scout theme the class has strongly going for it. Not sure if you were going for magical scout, but...

I wasn't, but why not. Intermediary between spirits and mortals would probably be good at gathering information.

-Pierce the Shadows: Hey, someone else gets to function when the Warlock drops darkness! Pretty good over all, though a little redundant for drow (just like Devil's Sight).

REMOVE DROW remove drow
you are the worst elf. you are the elf idiot you are the elf smell.

-Sight Beyond Sight: 1: No, you do not get to give the shaman the Sword of Omens as an invocation, bad DonQuixote. 2: More seriously holy damn that is powerful. No class or item in the game gives anyone that much blindsight, let alone truesight. I highly recommend cutting to down to 60ft at most.

Changed to match warlock's Witch Sight.

Now, on to the main event!

-Shamanic defense: Warlock wishes it had this. Instead, it has Armor of Shadows, which is far, far worse. And that is a bad thing for this ability. As mentioned above, this ability is incredibly powerful. Getting to a base of 22 AC (max dex, cha and a shield) before layering on magical defenses and healing is honestly just too powerful. Heck, unless a fighter gets magic armor+a magic shield, a fighter can only hit 21 AC by taking a fighting style and sacrificing their far more useful offensive options. I recommend a hard nerf here, and recommend that you make it like Armor of Shadows, where you can cast mage armor on yourself at will.

[snip]

-Spirit Warrior: And now we come to the other gift of savagery invocation that is honestly too powerful. To put this in perspective, before spending hit dice to replenish their HP, or burning rage to get resistance, a level 20 hill-dwarven barbarian with 24 con and who takes the average rounded-up HP method gets 305 HP. By spending 6 of the 60 spirit points they would have at this level (as there is an average of 2 short rests a day), the Shaman gets 300 hp from this invocation alone. It is honestly way too much, especially on a class that gets 9th level spellcasting like Foresight. Setting it to 2xlevel in HP instead would be far more balanced in my honest opinion, and still keep it a solid gish option.

-Shamanic Defense: There are a few things that make the Shaman too good with this (or things that the shaman has quite a bit over a barbarian). One is that they can use sheilaga on any blunt weapon or their claws to make cha attacks, so that negates the str MAD. Another is that the Shaman can cast level 1-9 spells. They can heal themselves, disable enemies and do things like get advantage on all saving throws, skills and attack rolls, while forcing disadvantage on anything targetting them (foresight). The only things a Barbarian has going for it are its HP, and Rage. Most of them will also not reach 20 dex, because they are a str/ con class and they simply don't have a use for dex as an attack stat (rage makes them attack with str). They need to increase their str and con to max as quickly as possible because those are the things they are good at. So more likely, the barbarian will have 14 dex and cap out at 19 AC by level 20.

The shaman can easily go dex/ cha and "ignore" con by putting it at a "mere" 14 with the point buy (or 16 if going half elf), using spells to supplement their relative squishiness as far as gishing is concerned. More to the point, a gish is supposed to be higher up on the risk/ reward scale, sacrificing some HP and other defenses to rely more on magic. Equaling the highest theoretical AC of a class built to be a front line, completely martial HP sponge while still having full-caster ability (and in this case the ability to heal yourself... a lot) is honestly overpowered. Especially since you are trying to match the strength of these invocations to the Warlock, who's equivalent does not get nearly as powerful. Sure their invocation isn't limited to Bladelock, but it is the best defensive invocation the bladelock can get, and the bladelock does not also get an invocation that increases their max HP. Balance wise, it should be like Armor of Shadows, which will increase their defensive capabilities, but which won't make them the flat-out best magical tank in the game at the cost of no actions spent and a single invocation (or two, with Spirit Warrior).

-Spirit Warrior: The average number of short rests/ day is 2 in most campaigns. Since you can buy the invocation each short rest, that is how I was getting 6 points spent and 300 HP (buying it before the first short rest, and then after the other two short rests). Just thought I would explain how I got that.

Shamanic Defense switched to Con, which isn't your casting stat. Now you can't ignore Con. Spirit Warrior cut down to 2 x shaman level hit points. Now the fact that you have a d8 hit die doesn't get you killed.

I'm...not sure where you're getting the idea that you can cast shillelagh on claws? Claws aren't a club or quarterstaff, last time I checked. You'd also be making a pretty sizeable sacrifice--you can't cast elemental weapon on a magical weapon, and shillelagh calls out that it makes the weapon magical. The shillelagh build is honestly for less of a damage-focused character, but one that still wants to hit occasionally.



The PDF should now be updated with these changes and the like, now featuring four gaping invocation slots. I'll set my head to come up with things to fill them. We need one invocation that's available from 1st level on, and three that open up at 7th level. Hopefully, I'll get something in fairly short order.

13
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 16, 2015, 02:07:38 PM »
On my phone, so I can't make any actual changes, and it'll be a pain to address everything. So, for now, I'm going to address a few things that I have quick answers for. I agree with most of what you've said, with the obvious exception of things I argue with here.

Gift of Savagery: It's Strength. And part of the model I was going for was to require more of an invocation investment to get the gish build up and running. So, while its invocations look better, they're also more mandatory and might keep you from getting to other interesting invocations. I may have failed to make this a compelling choice, however.

Spiritual Master: Replaced in a recent revision. Now gives you access to the entire class list (5th level and lower) for 1 minute. Once per long rest.

Channel Divinity: Speaker of Ancestors is the only calling that gets Channel Divinity. That's why it only appears within the calling, rather than in the class features list.

Deny the Untimely: Bah, I've always loved Pact of Return effects. I'll figure out some way to make it work. I'm curious, though--in what world do other classes not get resurrection, a 7th level spell, by 14th level?

Half of the point here is the prediction/bargaining angle. I'll bang away at it some more, but, if it doesn't work, I'm much more likely to go with something completely different than just give them Die Hard.

Flames of Creation: We already have a few restrictions here:

  • Object is visibly magical.
  • Object created cannot require skilled craftsmanship unless you are trained in the relevant craft.
  • Object created cannot be used as a material component of a spell.
  • Total objects created cannot exceed Charisma modifier.

I feel like the last one sort of resolves the "infinite money" issue.

Roots of the Mountain: This one was actually already fixed to just bludgeoning damage. So hah.

Invocations: I'm a little amused that you dismissed Bonded Senses when it exists as a warlock invocation. Did you miss where you can extend the duration each turn, making it effectively last as long as you want?

Elemental Empowerment: Seems fair, I'll cut that portion.

Entreat the Spirits: I'd actually disagree with your assessment of the elemental speakers not having any use for this. A speaker of seas might end up in the desert, after all, or something similar. Not to mention the fact that commune with nature gives you a range of three miles.

Totem Barbarian Invocations: Yeah, I'll cut them. They were the first three on the list because I wanted to focus more on gaining abilities than just casting different spells, but I can figure out something to replace them with.

Spell Invocations: I had included the spirit point cost to keep them somewhat balanced against warlock. Spirit Magic is already better than Pact Magic because of the granularity. The only reason these guys are 1/rest as opposed to just being normal spells is the spamming issue. I don't like it from an aesthetic perspective, but I'm under the impression that the mechanics should overrule aesthetics here.

Shamanic Defense: Not exactly unprecedented, since barbarians get this with Con. And, as a Gift of Savagery shaman, you need Strength, Constitution, Charisma, and Dexterity. This feels more like a way to address MAD than anything else. Restricted to Gift of Savagery specifically to avoid Gift of Sight shamans who think that they're hot shit. And, yes, this one is better than what warlocks can get...but is only available to the gish build. Pact of the Blade is a pretty underperforming option, and this is here in part to make sure that Gift of Savagery is somewhat viable.

Sight Beyond Sight: Interesting, since I'd swear I just grabbed true seeing for this. I'll just replace it with the warlock's Witch's Sight.

Spirit Warrior: How are you spending 6 spirit points on this? It only allows you to spend 2. You wouldn't let a monk flurry three times if they spent 3 ki points, would you? A 20th level shaman with 20 Con and 20 Cha with average rounded up HP would have 303 HP after using Spirit Warrior, and I'm still questioning whether you'd be prioritizing Con enough to get it to 20.

However, cutting it down to 2 per level is fine, and puts said shaman at 243 instead. I'll go ahead and make that change once I'm back at a computer.

14
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 15, 2015, 07:45:01 PM »
Well, I tend to try to nail down the obeisances fairly early on, since that gives sideways access to spells that otherwise might be overlooked. However, I noticed one thing about your proposed list right off the bat--the spell levels are wrong!

Like a cleric domain or a Circle of the Land druid list, the shaman lists are given by character level, not spell level. So, the spell levels should actually just be:

1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th

What I came up with today was

1st - Animal friendship, beast bond
2nd - Locate animals and plants, shatter
3rd - Dispel magic, ???
4th - Dominate beast, ???
5th - Insect plague, ???

Slotting in fly to 3rd level just means that I need to get one more spell of 4th level and one more of 5th level.

Note that, due to the shaman regaining its spells on a short rest, conjure animals is a no-go--summoning is pretty strong as it is, without you being able to rely on having it at all times. However, conjure animals could see the light of day as an invocation, in the same way that conjure elemental does. A similar argument could be made for awaken, though rather than pushing that one into an invocation, that's giving me ideas for possible class features. Commune with nature is already available to shamans with the Gift of Sight as an invocation, so that one also falls off the table.

The obeisances I have thus far aren't finalized, but I'm thinking something like "The Hunt," "Instinct," and a more concise way of saying "Natural things instead of magical or artificial things." I still haven't come up with a fourth, but, then again, I spent most of the day at work. That gives us possibilities for divination (locate spells), anti-magic and anti-object spells (dispel magic and shatter), and one that fits into what people expect from animals.



New version up, fixing some typos, adding some spells, and replacing the capstone. Roots of the Mountain (Speaker of Stones) now just gives resistance to bludgeoning damage, after I received multiple complaints about it in other places. Same link should still work.

15
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 15, 2015, 02:48:33 AM »
Fair points--I'll apply nose to grindstone over the course of the week and see if I can pull out some features for a Speaker of Beasts.

Still have absolutely no idea what I'll put on the spell list, but we can always fix it in post.

16
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 14, 2015, 02:20:12 AM »
Answering things out of order in order to make the flow of information make more sense! Starting with the straightforward mechanical comment, then moving into errant pedantry.

Really all I have to comment on is... you have access to very, very few spells readied at one time. A maximum of 5 (maybe 6 if you get a book or epic boon) prepared level 1-5 spells is very much a limiting factor, though likely a good limitation to place given how powerful some of the subclass features are.

You're not counting calling spells:



Calling Spells
Each shamanic calling has a list of spells--its calling spells--that you gain at the shaman levels noted in the calling description. Once you gain a calling spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn't count against the number of spells you can prepare each day.

If you have a calling spell that doesn't appear on the shaman spell list, the spell is nonetheless a shaman spell for you.



Assuming a +5 Charisma modifier by a reasonable level, you end up with a maximum of 15 prepared spells--the same as the maximum number of spells known by a warlock. The crucial difference here is that you only get to pick five of those spells, and from a pretty abbreviated spell list.

Also, I got the impression that they would be wis-casters from their fluff, so them being a cha caster is a bit surprising to me.

The shaman being based on Charisma instead of Wisdom is a very deliberate choice, but one that I did expect to have to defend. In the interests of full disclosure, I will admit that I do prefer playing Charisma-based characters over Wisdom-based ones, but that wasn't what motivated the decision. While D&D has generally trained us to think of anything spiritual or religions as being associated with Wisdom, that isn't really accurate in the case shamanic traditions. Campbell puts it well:

Quote from: Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God
The contrast between the two world views may be seen more sharply by comparing the priest and the shaman. The priest is the socially initiated, ceremonially inducted member of a recognized religious organization, where he holds a certain rank and functions as the tenant of an office that was held by others before him, while the shaman is one who, as a consequence of a personal psychological crisis, has gained a certain power of his own.

A shaman is not simply a priest of a religion that worships spirits instead of gods, she is one who exists halfway between the world of the spirits and the world of mortals. She speaks to and for the spirits, acting as an intermediary, but is highly individualistic. Much of her power comes from actual agreements made with spirits, rather than pure faith to a god. She's drawing on her own force of personality to wield powers that she has had to negotiate for. If that's not Charisma, I'm not sure what is. There's also the fact that the shaman is not someone who has prepared for the role and absorbed wisdom, one who has undergone a transformative experience and been chosen by the spirits, possibly out of a hat.

In terms of the D&D pedigree, I'm also fairly confident in assigning the shaman to Charisma. While the general spell list draws a lot from the druid, most of the flavor itself can be more readily linked to the sorcerer, the warlock, and the paladin. Like a sorcerer, a shaman is empowered by circumstances beyond her control, and does not necessarily have any guidance on her path. Like a warlock, a shaman makes deals in order to secure the continued supply of her power, and may be directly called upon by those who provide it for favors and services. And, like a paladin, a shaman needs to adhere to certain expected behaviors in order to maintain her connection to the forces that empower her.

My only lament is that there's no specifically animal focused shaman archetype! That would be the only request or suggestion I could come up with.

I initially had one, then realized it was strangling the base spell list and some other calling lists, as well as being a bit of a headscratcher to figure out in terms of calling features. I had been contemplating re-adding it, and then I realized that "animal spirits" would be a hell of a can of worms to open.

See, the thing is, none of the spirits are associated with currently-living beings. There's no Speaker for Humans, because their spirits are still within them as they live. If we accept the existence of animal spirits, then the logical step is to assume that their spirits are also within them as they live.

So, does a forest have a great deer spirit, made up of all the deer that have ever died? Quite possibly, but that would probably fall under the purview of ancestors. Might a different forest have a mischievous fox spirit that likes to trick travelers? Quit possibly, but that might actually be a fire spirit.

Part of the issue, of course, is that the English word "spirit" has had so many things jammed into it at this point that it gets hard to pull them apart. I confuse the issue even more with some of the class features, such as the "____speaker" abilities on the elemental callings--those heavily imply an animistic view, with each rock, fire, gust, and body of water having its own spirit. Realistically, there are probably multiple gradations of elemental spirits--the ones you deal with for your power and that might make requests of you are probably larger, greater spirits. You then have the lesser spirits of a particular iteration of an element--the spirit of a campfire, or a cool summer breeze. And probably lots of gradations between them! Ancestors would probably start out as individuals, but might eventually merge into bloodlines, but even that isn't necessarily going to be clean and straightforward. And don't even try to understand the spirits of dreams--they delight in specifically frustrating attempts to understand them.

The intent was definitely for the four elements to cover the natural world--bird spirits might be spirits of air, and so on. That's not to say I couldn't be talked into writing a Speaker of Beasts--history has shown that I'm very easy to sway on matters like this--but there is another concern that I would have to wrestle with before doing so: the druid.

See, I mentioned that I expected to have to defend the shaman as a Charisma-based caster as opposed to a Wisdom-based one.  I also expected to have to defend my reasoning behind making the shaman its own class, rather than just a Druid Circle. The two aren't actually that similar, but they tend to get conflated in modern fantasy, so I tried to create some flavor distinctions between the two. A Speaker of Beasts would veer pretty sharply into druid flavor, so I'm hesitant to do it.

That, and I couldn't come up with ten spells that all fit beasts to me.

Not only does the presentation sit really well with the pseudo-official book look via the PDF format, but the class seems pretty ironed out.

[snip]

My opinion aside, this just feels and reads like a solid class that could be found in say, the eventual potential Player's Handbook II - having not even played it yet.

Good to hear! I do tend to have a somewhat...obsessive approach to my brewing. I like to build things off of references to extant rules whenever possible, which has the side-effect of mostly keeping me away from egregious balance errors. Word is also incredibly versatile, when it isn't deciding to hate me. The last two times I opened up the .docx to fix a typo, all the formatting jumped and I had to reposition all the images.

I didn't realize that this was 5E (remember how I wasn't awake and coherent?). I haven't done more than skim through bits of the PHB so I can't give any balance advice.

No worries! We made the jump shortly after 5E hit, and haven't had cause to regret it, but I'm not going to expect you to study up on a new system just to critique things.  :P

17
This counts, right?

(click to show/hide)

18
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 12, 2015, 03:41:12 PM »
Thanks--it's good to be brewing again. Apparently, this is the first actual material that I've posted since 2013.

I do have to say, I really like 5E from the perspective of a homebrewer. The class option setup makes for a modular structure that encourages plugging ideas into existing skeletons, rather than having to build everything from the ground up.

19
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / [D&D 5E] Shaman (Class)
« on: June 12, 2015, 12:32:25 AM »
Click me.

This class came together as the culmination of a lot of things. On the one hand, I've been doing some heavy worldbuilding for a setting in which shamanism plays a pretty heavy role. On the other, I've been playing in a two-player campaign consisting of myself (Way of the Four Elements monk) and my closest non-wife friend (Circle of the Land druid).

As anyone who watched spellshaping unfold knows, I can't leave well enough alone. I tried to write a new version of Way of the Four Elements, which ended up going in a direction that I didn't quite like...but brought me to thinking about point-based casting that recovered on a short rest. Meanwhile, the themes and interactions in our campaign, combined with the worldbuilding that I was doing, pushed me to start writing something a bit different in scope and tone.

While D&D tends to have a bit of a fetish (heh) for making anything even slightly nature-relevant based on Wisdom, shamans are generally based less on hierarchical wisdom than they are on diplomacy. That's what they are--intermediaries to the spirit world. They make and uphold deals with spirits and call upon them directly. It's a much, much closer relationship than that between a cleric and a god. It was at this point that I brought warlock into the mix of influences. But the deals wouldn't necessarily be with a specific spirit--one might deal with dozens, hundreds of spirits, especially if one is an adventurer. That ended up pushing me towards paladin oaths, at which point I decided it was time to turn on the blender.

In revising the initial draft, one thing that I worried about was granularity. While the number of spells a shaman can cast of her highest spell level is generally equal to or less than the number of spell slots that a warlock has, she can cast more lower-level spells, giving her a bit of a versatility edge. I eventually addressed this by giving her more restricted spell access--ten of her spells are decided by her calling, and she only gets to prepare a relatively small number of spells from a fairly limited class spell list. More than any other caster class, the spells that a shaman has access to are determined by her character path. This ended up interacting with the obeisances--I wanted to make sure that the spells that she couldn't change had at least some variety, as well as ensuring that the various philosophical points in the obeisances were reflected. I don't know that I'm done tweaking on that front--I'm fully capable of continuing to tweak and revise a single list for months on end.

In writing the invocations, I tried to make sure that, by devoting enough of that resource, you could turn Gift of Savagery into a viable gish build. Pact of the Blade was somewhat disappointing to me in that it didn't really hexblade as much as it should have. By adding spirit point costs to some of the abilities, I figured I was draining away some of the casting in favor of martial prowess.

In general, I'm pretty happy with how this came together. The one class feature that I'm looking at replacing is the Speaker of Winds' "Stormwalker" ability. It's not that it's necessarily a problem--I'm just not happy with it for some arbitrary reason. I might write a larger fluff block about spirits and how they interact with the world and jam it in at the end of the document, but I figured that it wasn't necessary for the 1.0 version.

Note: The link now directs to the Dungeon Master's Guild.

20
[Yume Asobi] Fragments of You / Re: Green Temple III
« on: January 14, 2015, 12:33:30 AM »
I make a mental note to resume the conversation with Louise later. She does not get to hide behind monsters and try to get them to fight her battles for her.

"Okay, so what's the gimmick this time?" I ask.

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