Armchair Designer Spotted!

So I frequently browse D&D forums and something that often comes up is a query for special house rules people are willing to share. SOP for when I or one of my team spots a post of this sort is to toss in a link for my one-page what you need to know document I introduced at the beginning of my current campaign.

It contains a brief lore blurb as well as a few mechanical changes.

Most people react pretty positively to my change to concentration, calling it neat, innovative, and unique. But recently a fairly negative reaction was brought to my attention!

"What level are your players"

"Started at two and three, currently at level 6."

"So you haven't play tested your concentration at higher levels then?"

"I have, both with higher level creatures and in my previous campaign. 

"Since you're dancing around the question you want to ask, no, it doesn't make them op, and no, the strategy for dealing with spellcasters as a DM remains largely unchanged."

I had discussions like this in the past, and I can spot someone who takes the original design of the game as gospel fairly quickly. So I knew what was coming!

 

"Theres no possible way the answer to "is it op for spell casters to hold 3 concentration spells at once" no. You can be fine with them being op, or balance around it. But unless your players are absolutely terrible, thats incredibly powerful."

"I've already playtested it, it's already balanced against the dev's initial misgivings on having too many active effects, and these are all people very, very experienced with 5e's design (both as players and dms). Wait, one exception. My friend Kevin, playing a fighter."

By the time he finished the accusation, I'd already typed out a good half of my response. This person could not assimilate the idea that I'd found a way around the confusion and hesitation towards editing for physicians black sheep. I've gone into a video on this before so I won't rehash it here, but to sum up my position, I have two issues with concentration and that the addition. First, just about any element of fifth edition characters have a clear and precise means by which you can improve or harm them without breaking the game. Ability scores increase, your pool of hit points expands, etc. But if someone felt as if concentration was too limiting when it came to the number of active effects on the field or served as a disincentive for certain play styles, there's no easy way to change it (until I did).

 Second, concentration is a Band-Aid on active spell effects that cut them down so far that a control wizard is little different from a blast wizard. The control wizard casts haste, then fireball. The blast wizard casts fireball twice. Thanks Crawford, I really feel like Quick Ben. Fifth edition magic feels like sky room, not Dragon's dogma. That's fine though, I've come to save you all.

So, back to our friend, who seems rather determined to inform me that my game is in fact, wrong.

"Did you triple the number of attacks the fighter gets? Lol"

I think this displays most of the core issue. This guy glanced at concentration changes, and assume that all players would simply add all times regardless of damage taken, situation, number of rounds the battle is likely to last, viability of casting non-concentration spells, whether they even could cast additional concentration spells according to my rules, that spell caster is in my game were inherently three times more powerful than martial characters. Pretty embarrassing, really. I told him as much!

"All I said was you tripled something and it does make it stronger which you continue to deny. I didnt say anything about it not working for you or your players. Just the obvious fact you insist tripling something doesnt increase its power.

But hey, Im the armchair designer here, not you, who is actually doing the redesigning insisting triple power isnt an increase, so what do I know."

The response to this encapsulates just about every rebuttal necessary:

I didn't say anything about not making it stronger, the fucking point is making them stronger. 

It doesn't make them OP, and the strategy for dealing with them is largely identical (which is pretty much the definition of making them stronger). 

And "Tripling" what exactly? You can only cast 1 of these spells in a round. Sure, a spellcaster could blow through 3 of those slots, but in a 3-4 round combat that's mostly a waste. 

You could go nova in a big boss fight, in which case I'm going to use things like counterspell and force you to make con saves. 

It's not "tripling" power. Action economy, taking damage inducing concentration checks, inability to cast more than one spell in a round, various anti-magic spells and abilities creatures possess, etc are all in play. 

You haven't tested this, you haven't looked at the math behind the scenes, and you're reacting to something you found out about 30 minutes ago as if you know more about how it functions than me.

Please stop annoying me.

And, to his credit, he did!

 

Fix the Eldritch Knight?

The Eldritch Knight is something of an abomination within D&D. Just about all the martial classes have a subclass which is considered to be the magic fighting hybrid. And they all pretty universally suck. Well, maybe I shouldn't go that far. I'm relatively certain you could play a combat effective Eldritch Knight. You can take spells like shield from the get go, making you extremely hard to hit (especially if you're in something like plate armor). You can further boost your chances of survival with spells like blur, absorb elements, protection from evil and good, you get the idea. I'm not going to mention spells like haste (seeing as though you're practically never get up to that level), but hey, they're out there.

All that being said, the subclass feels disjointed. You're constantly going to choose between either casting a spell, or using your melee attacks. As you learn more about the subclass and what's optimal (not to mention your number of attacks going up) you start doing the smart thing and pretty much ignore your spells.
 

I preface the mechanical change I'm about to propose to demonstrate I'm willing to look at the subclass as being viable for combat. When people want to play a hybridized magic knight, they want to do two things. They want to in some fashion combine spellcasting and their martial abilities, or at the very least on a regular basis do spellcasting and their regular attacks within the same turn. On this basis, the Eldritch Knight doesn't fill that niche. You either cast spells, or you make physical attacks. And as previously mentioned, as the levels go up, you lean heavily in one of those directions.

I can say this now having done it, if I wanted to play a kind of magic knight I would simply mix wizard with about three levels of Battle Master fighter. I get several maneuvers that allow me to toy with the battlefield, some damage and survival enhancing abilities, and in general don't have to choose between using my core class features and spellcasting. It actually works out pretty well, and I highly recommend it to you all (even those of you who accept the mechanical change I'm about to propose).

All that being said, let's look at one abilitiy in particular.

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, when you use your action to cast a cantrip, you can make one weapon attack as a bonus action.


Now, this is pretty miserable. By the time you get this ability, you've already gotten the first of your extra attacks. If you're using any sort of heavy weapon, the damage you do with one attack will likely outclass anything you do with a cantrip. If you're not using a heavy weapon, the difference between a single physical attack and a cantrip is much smaller. As previously mentioned however, you can at this point make two attacks per round.

Just to reiterate; the fact you will not use this ability except in very specific and convoluted circumstances does not mean that the Eldritch Knight can't be effective in combat. It just suffers from one of the many instances of a class receiving poorly designed abilities (not ribbons) that pretend to change the character. Even if the class as a whole is well designed and even carries the subclass through, if the subclass's special abilities don't seem to fundamentally change the character, it'll feel lackluster.

Did that make sense?  Let me try putting it this way: the Eldritch Knight could be completely viable and even on par with the Battlemaster (as an example) levels 3-20 despite never changing from "that guy who swings his sword and casts shield". However, if those abilities he gets from 3-20 don't produce any improvements (i.e. the character actually uses them on occasion), the subclass doesn't actually grow. That's fine, unless literally any other subclass or class does grow. If another subclass actually improves over time, it's more fun to engage with (for most people).

 Now, on to the proposed change:

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, take the attack action, you can cast a cantrip as a bonus action. 

Let the harpies come. 
I'm going to try to justify this as best I can before I put any additional restrictions on it. At this level, your cantrip damage has only increased by one dice, and Int is still most likely your secondary or tertiary stat. No wizard at this point is "taking a dip" into the class, they're giving up some serious firepower to do whatever insane build the seven level deviation is for. Ditto for Warlock and Arcane Trickster. You have a decent increase in damage (probably not something that will supersede the champion) and a bit of increased utility to boot. On top of that, you can actually use this ability without feeling like a complete idiot, right?

That being said, we should definitely add a caveat. 

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, when you take the attack action, you can cast a wizard cantrip as a bonus action. 

This is just to prevent any Eldritch Blast shenanigans. The fighter gets enough feats that Magic Initiate becomes a must-have, and Eldritch Blast being what is is, Warlock is pretty sound. Also, with the release of the Hexblade, a heavy deviation into something like Eldritch Knight becomes viable (seeing as you'd only need to focus Int and Cha for your offensive abilities). 

Now, if this still seems too powerful for some reason (and there are several), we can cut it down further.

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, when take the attack action, you can cast a wizard cantrip as a bonus action. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Now we're cooking with gas. I admit, this feels punishing compared to the last example, but in actuality it's probably more balanced. These additional cantrips are now on par with something like Battlemaster Maneuvers, though perhaps a bit damaged focused. 

I can definitely see an Eldritch Knight pummeling an enemy to just a few hitpoints trying to save the Sorcerer or something, casting Shocking Grasp to let him exit safely.

A big part of this is the introduction of the SCAG, and several cantrips that allow you to make a weapon attack as part of the spell. Having unlimited access to that as a bonus action would quickly (and I really don't use this lightly) overpowered.

So, let's recap:

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, when you use your action to cast a cantrip, you can make one weapon attack as a bonus action.

This is the default ability for the Eldritch Knight. Your player will never take a second glance at it, and poor design like this turns your players off from the subclass.

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, take the attack action, you can cast a cantrip as a bonus action. 

The first proposed change. It'll see use, maybe too much use. The constant extra damage or utility from the cantrips can override the Battlemaster and Champion's abilities, making them seem like the suboptimal choice. Also fairly easy to break with multiclassing.

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, when you take the attack action, you can cast a wizard cantrip as a bonus action.

Issues with this change are identical to the last, with the exception of problems caused by multiclassing. This would be a nice ability to attach to a magic item. 

War magic:
Beginning at 7th level, when take the attack action, you can cast a wizard cantrip as a bonus action. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

The final proposed change. Less ideal as a reward in the form of magic item or simply an improvement upon an ability (though your players won't complain for getting it), but makes an excellent replacement for the Eldritch Knight's 7th level ability.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Weekend Statblock: Gael the Red

Gael the Red.jpg

So this week stat block is Gael the red. My players have an upcoming airship fight (they're being ambushed) and I wanted to have the classic tank, archer, mage combo on deck.

See if you can guess what Gael is!

Also, I adore Dark Souls III (brought a sense of beauty, loss, and wonder to what I thought was going to just be a popcorn fest) and wanted to see if I can bring Slave Knight Gael to life.

So, let's take a look at how I think he's going to perform. He's got a relatively high armor class (at least for my players at this level), and that particularly matters seeing as how he's a ranged character. Ranged characters don't generally need a high armor class, but I think he's likely to be targeted. This along with evasion (no damage on successful deck saves, halve damage on fails), greatly inflates his chances of survival long into the fight.

Whereas the tank has to be concerned about things like movement and creatures directly adjacent to him and the mage has to dish out higher-level spells while protecting themselves, the archer can fire at will. In other words, I can pick whatever targets I want and be as cruel as I want in the combat while maintaining verisimilitude.

So, let's take a look at his crossbow. Some of you may notice based on his ability score modifiers compare with his bonus to hit, he has a proficiency bonus of +4. He has a +11 to hit with the crossbow thanks to the archery fighting style. I wasn't sure as to whether to include that in the stat block but it's included here.

The crossbow is actually reasonably easy to deploy in combat want to understand how it works. Gail rolls attacks against up to three creatures, and expends up to seven pieces of ammunition It's probably best to declare how many pieces of ammunition are being fired at each creature before the attack roll is made, in the interest of fairness. Also, to freak the players out. 

Can't wait to see how he plays (and what the players do with their new magic item (should they win, that is). Expect another campaign diary and the article on the Eldritch Knight within 2 days.

Weekend Statblock: Syrnor

Time for this week's weekend statblock, the first I'm placing on the blog.

 

To give my readers here a bit of extra juice I'm going to go a bit in-depth on why I made the creature, how I made the creature, and how I think it'll perform.

Syrnor (extra).jpg

I added two stat blocks here just to save paper and have on hand. So! For the why: my players as you'll find out in the next campaign diary fled from the coastal village amidst an assault by watery creatures. The large pit billowing smoke that can be seen for miles was not there first stop after the village, but it was what they stuck with.

First thing they encountered and this was the fight that ended the night were two beholder-kin: Death Kisses. Pretty nasty fight for a six level party. Nevertheless, I thought about how cool it would be if this place was the layer of a fire themed beholder. Crazy right! Anyways, want to give him some minions that would be both useful as trash mobs in a boss fight and function as nasty encounters in their own right.

I'm not going to mention what fire Giants will be doing so far down south in my setting, just know for now that they are very much not supposed to be here. So, what would fire Giants twisted by the experiments of a mad beholder look like? These guys!

Meaty and mindless was the goal of this particular creation and I'm pretty sure I was spot on. These guys have a lot of hard-hitting abilities but low enough mental stats that I can justify playing them in sub optimal ways should the need arise to further the narrative. They have a low armor class to make up for their high hit points and immunity to fire damage. There are at least three people in my party who have the "lower your hit chance, boost your damage" feats of 5E, so this is tuned to them (much like most of what I put out). Sael shouldn't have too many issues seeing as though he's a storm sorcerer (as much as he likes using fire damage). I also like implementing various conditionals; fire drying can arbitrarily boost his damage or to hit chance but only once per turn, and if the players output enough damage of a certain type or engage in some creative spellcasting, they can take these guys down a peg out of the gate.

Something I thought of while I was writing this is Sael just hit sixth level, which means he has access to and ability that allows him to create rain within a 20 foot radius. I did write on this sheet that the head needs to be dunked specifically, and I don't I'm splitting hairs when I differentiate that and simple rainfall. At least, I hope I'm not.Also, I noticed I didn't include a save DC for the spellcasting portion or what ability score it relied on. 13, relies on charisma should be fine for a regular if not for the fact a lot of giants use constitution(?) though I may be thinking of other creatures. 18 seems hefty for what these guys can do, but they're also only 1st and 2nd level spells. The slam attacks and the eye beam are the real stars of the show.

Other than all that I don't think these guys have any particular sway against my party, they're just generic meaty fire dudes with some cool abilities. Should be fun!

Excerpt: Eyes of the Forest

From Chapter 4:

Morgan huffed. "Bit of an unnecessary show, isn't it?" The figure didn't turn. "I see no reason for you to insult my tastes, General Morbin." Morbin's nose flushed red as his skin. "What sort of hole are we in that you don't know my rank?" The vitriol oozed past is shoddy attempt at an even tone like pus from an open wound.

The figures shoulders rose and swelled swiftly as if stifling a laugh. It's cheery voice seemed at odds with the decor as he said, "Am I then the bearer of bad news?" The figure at last turned. Beady eyes stared out from a gorgeous macabre mask, every inch engraved with skulls and impressions of Deathtakers.

"General, did you really die so swiftly after your last resurrection as to not receive word of your demotion?" His shoulders rose and fell again, though no sound escaped him.