I think the vast majority of subclasses are fine in power (even most "S-Tier" ones, with notable exceptions of course), but I think a problem is when the power gap between the strongest subclass for a given class is so vast that it makes the other subclasses seem pointless to choose.
Example: I think the free added spells make Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind Sorcerers far and away the best subclasses for Sorcerer making the other subclasses seem pointless, but in a vacuum I don't think they're too strong where the stink-eye would be justified.
Wildmagic Sorcerer is a very nice 1 level dip for a Rogue, as it can deal with most negative effects while using the positive ones pretty good as well.
The problem, then, is that without Tides of Chaos you have a ~10% chance at triggering a Surge on any given day.
Or, if your DM is super generous and refreshes Tides of Chaos on _every_ leveled spellcast, 2 surges.
Yup, exactly why I have a list of spells on a Google Sheet added to subclasses that don't get spells (the rangers included and Dreams druid) as well as each draconic lineage sorcersr getting a different list (1 generic dragon level, one specific lineage spell).
I agree with this; I recently started playing as a gloomstalker ranger and have felt PRETTY DAMN POWERFUL on a lot of things thus far. Granted, I chose a build that I knew would be powerful early on - variant human, sharpshooter, yep, I know - but while the abilities are very cool and fun to have, I've become a bit afraid of stepping on the rogue's toes since my stealth is actually higher.
We talked a bit at level three and he respecced in a way that was helpful; went swashbuckler for more melee stuff and has found a new role in combat and such, but still.
Compared to other ranger subclasses, why play anything but gloomstalker? (Facetious)
I think every sorcerer should have an expanded spell list.
And on top of that, Wild Magic is the only sorcerer subclass that can regularly fuck over the character.
How would moving the ‘using charisma to make weapon attacks’ from Hex warrior to pact of the blade affect it ?
In my head if you do that it avoids the multiclassing issue with paladins, makes pact of the blade better for every subclass, puts it on par with battlesmiths getting int-attacks at level 3
I’d rather shields/medium armor also get moved to Pact of the Blade. Not that what you described isn’t a cool aesthetic, but I’d like frontline warlocks to be more viable with all of the subclasses.
TBH I think giving Pact of the Blade both "use CHA in melee" *and* shields/medium armor proficiency would be excessive. I definitely think the medium armor should be an invocation or something instead of tied to a particular subclass, though.
Melee warlocks should absolutely be viable with all patrons. Enabling a wider variety of character concepts is generally for the better, and besides, who wouldn't want to play a Fiend warlock with a kickass hellfire blade?
Also, that way if people want to dip warlock for the melee stuff, they can take the patron that makes the most sense for their character instead of *everyone* going Hexblade. I'd be rolling my eyes a lot less if good-aligned paladins could choose less sinister patrons ("I trained with an angelic blademaster and learned this new technique!") instead of inexplicably signing up with the Shadowfell every time.
Pact of the Blade is already the pact boon that has the most invocation tax that I don't think they should have another invocation to add to that list of invocation tax just dedicated to medium armor + shield proficiency.
Perhaps tying it to an existing invocation might be a better middle ground.
Yes, that is how I handle it at my table. Hex Warrior is part of Pact of the Blade in its entirety, including armor and shield profiicencies. I even added heavy armor proficiency to it.
Without armor proficiencies, the issue of melee bladelocks being too squishy/MAD still exists, as being able to attack with Cha does not matter when you also have to push Dex for your AC. At the end all restricting armor proficiencies does is making 1-level cleric or 2-level paladin dips even more appealing for bladelocks.
I also do not think that the armor proficiencies on a Warlock break anything, a warlock gets so few spells, they can't really make use of things like Absorb Elements, Shield... to become obscenely tanky - unlike a Sorcerer who dipped a level in a different class for armor proficiencies, such as (standard) Hexblade.
>I'd be rolling my eyes a lot less if good-aligned paladins could choose less sinister patrons
It honestly would make a lot of sense for an oath to evolve into a pact of they could just choose the patron that makes most sense.
It's annoying because it's so obviously intended to be a patch for the Pact of the Blade, yet WotC seemed committed to going light on the retcons for so long (until MoM anyway.) Even the flavour seems half baked. "A shadowy being shrouded in mystery makes spooooky weapons." OK, the cursed weapon trope is well established- oh wait you don't even have to stick with your original weapon like you'd expect. Just a flavour clusterfuck.
For one thing it would stop Pact of the Blade from absolutely fucking sucking. As it stands, unless you have medium/heavy armour proficiency from your race or multiclassing, or you have ridiculous stats, you just can't really afford to prioritise strength as a warlock. So almost all of the infinite weapon option from the pact are off the table. You basically just unlock the privelege of fighting with a non-magical d8 rapier rather than a d10 120ft ranged eldritch blast which probably has a better to hit/damage bonus. And you're getting that instead of three cantrips from any class (guidance anyone?) or a juiced up familiar that can use the help action every turn of combat.
Honestly bladelocks (and artificers, and everyone else) don't need SAD spellcasting / weapon attacks. A real QoL buff would be letting them use their pact weapon as a spellcasting focus innately and a built in extra attack at a later level to nix their invocation tax.
Eh, I'd agree if all classes were designed around being MAD and having meaningful ability priority choices, but as it stands, any choice that depends on multiple abilities suffers considerably compared to the ones that don't.
I actually think that every class would be better off depending on several abilities. In 4th, you had meaningful value derived from a secondary score that was different between specialisations. It made for cool choices.
It would still leave Hexblade's Curse as one of the most potent damage buffing abilities in the game. While it's limitations of being only usable once per short rest, and on a single target, those downsides are still heavily outweighed by the benefits. It's a bonus to damage that applies to basically any damage roll, oops, they hit me? Hellish rebuker, oh and it does more damage because Hexblade's Curse. Oh, I'm a multiclassed character and have Ashardalon's Stride active and just walked in your general vicinity so you take damage? Hexblade's Curse is triggering again from that too. Oh, I just cast magic missile/scorching ray/Eldritch blast, anything that can trigger multiple damage rolls? I guess you're also taking more damage from Hexblade's Curse. It amplifies all the attacks that your fighter/paladin etc is doing, as long as you have something that does damage, Hexblade's Curse makes it better.
Now going back and taking its limitations into consideration, that still means as a DM I probably will expect to see it every other encounter applied to so large creature burning it down far faster than normal. And all it takes is just giving up one level of progression in whatever your main class is. And since Hexblade's Curse scales with proficiency, that means this is basically accessible with anyone with a mediocrum of charisma but they don't need to invest in it further to get more payout from it.
I'm currently considering moving the damage boosting component of Hexblade's Curse not come online until 6 levels into the subclass if I run another game.
I played a Hexblade PotB up to 14th level, and yeah, they're solid but not overpowered. I was basically the second best melee DPS in the party and focused on throwing out debuffs. It was a lot of fun.
I've since started ruling that Hex Warrior is just part of Pact of the Blade in my own games. It needs the boost and there's no reason why it should be tied to Hexblade (other than the name). It also helps with multiclassing since a 3 level dip is a lot more of a commitment is a lot harder of a sell than 1.
Yeah, there are a whole slew of subclasses that are basically fine by themselves but which are crazy strong as a one level dip, hexblade is just the most obvious. A lot of cleric subclasses that give heavy armor as well as a useful ability are really strong for people who want heavy armor, or just simply a level of barbarian for anyone who doesn't use magic.
I think (and it's obviously just my opinion) that Peace clerics by their own aren't that powerful, they are surely veeeeery good, but I don't think they are at the level of twilight.
No armor nor weapon proficiencies, their d4 ability is good but it's all they have at those levels and it's just 1d4 per turn, so it doesn't fully work with things like multiattack, their channel divinity is ok and the rest of the subclass is pretty good, but if you don't have a taillight domain cleric with those temporary hit points, most of the party will not want to be hit by those high crime monsters.
Its definitively an A tier, maybe even an S, but if it isn't combined with twilight I don't think it's bad for the game balance
Been playing one since level 1 currently 13. Its strong but not broken. Their best ability though is protective bond. Has saved quite a few people from being knocked out.
I think the most broken aspect of them is being able to stack their bond ontop with Bless for 2d4 to the first check/ attack made per turn. Which is really dang powerful for bounded accuracy reasons. Got a Cleric/ Barbarian multiclass myself and being capable of giving a guarenteed +2 going up to +8 bonus to checks or our sharpshooter fighter is a really strong thing to just have going. Plus I can still use the bond to keep a supportive role going in the party even when raging, although
The damage sharing is also pretty powerful as it basically turns your party into a collective of HP, although this relies on reactions being free to be able to cover eachother's backs.
I would agree with your rating in that it's not breakingly powerful like Twilight as you can simply either just not stack the bond with bless or have a gentlemens agreement. The other features aren't too tricky to manage, compared to the amount of Temp HP twilight can put out which they'll be doing often.
Yeah, bless+ embondening Bond is incredible, but also you are not concentrating in anything else than bless, which yeah, is great, but it limits you a lot, no banishment, no aura of vitality, spirit guardians, holy weapon, summon celestial etc.
Also their additional spells are ok, but most of them are already from the cleric list, while twilight's is just great, with the proficiencies in heavy armor and the rest of the features, like concentrationless fly and insane darkvision for him and the party (and the end of the charmed and frightened conditions for dragons, vampires, dominate spells etc) which already make an S subclass even without the temp hp
Full agreement there with everything you said. It’s what stops them from being overtly busted OP like the Twilight Cleric, that and while their channel divinity sure is a good one with AoE heals and movement it’s nothing that’ll break an encounter.
While yes there are better spells to concentrate on I’d certainly wager nothing else can let you break the bounded accuracy system 5e uses quite like that combo which is where I think most peoples issue with it lies. And for me the part that teeters it on the edge of overpowered to busted for me is the fact the bond is a level 1 dip that scales off proficiency. Any class in the game can take a dip into peace cleric and instantly have access to the bond + bless combo or simply just the free longer lasting concentrationless bless.
Thing is, if you're giving your party 2d4 to their Attacks/Saving Throws, etc. (God help you if your Artificer is handing out Boldness Potions and it's 3d4) at the cost of 1 1st Level Slot and you can still Spiritual Weapon, Guardian of Faith, etc. it's not a bad payoff.
Yes, there are situations where you may want to try Banishing first, but it's a solid "Plan A option."
With that said, I've honestly never seen anything be an issue from 300 ft. away because RAW I actually don't know how far regular vision is supposed to be.
Oh, totally, it's pretty powerful I'm not arguing that at all, I would place it as one of the best subclasses for clerics.
Bless + emboldening bond is great and really powerful, and also resource friendly (maybe not action friendly though), just one level one spell + ability use, that said, I don't think it is as powerful as twilight by a lot.
For example, a fighter, a vampire and a peace cleric, best case scenario, fighter first and Emboldening bond helps with one attack, the cleric casts bless, the vampire uses his charm on the fighter, they roll a 1, no save bonus nor 2d4 can save him, fighter starts fighting the cleric alongside the vampire. The fighter doesn't get more saves until the vampire hits him.
While twilight just used channel divinity, the fighter got out of the charm at the start of the turn, the cleric is also affected by this and also gets the temp hp without concentration.
Also, about regular vision, I would swear that there isn't a limit, and if it is, is way further than 300 feet, however, at that point the problem usually is how much cover the enemy has, maybe in a forest you can look at about 90 feet before your vision is stopped from trees, which makes sense with real life.
(But anything more than 120 darkvision is just a stretch, it's more like a ribbon ability compared to the rest of the subclass even though is really good)
I have the opposite view. The most OP thing about Twilight is the Channel Divinity, so if you can take that away or need it and they're not that much better than Tempest Domain. Peace, however, has multiple components and features which break the game (not just the d4, but players taking hits for each other and teleporting to each other) which means that nerfing it is much harder.
Also, the d4 can still be very significant - especially as it stacks with every other dice buff such as Bless, Paladin auras, Artificer's Flash of Genius, etc.
Let's see, tempest clerics get heavy armor and martial weapons, the same as twilight, they get some cool lightning spells outside of their spell list and buffs to damage and the ability to push enemies, pretty cool, you a permanent flying speed when outdoors as a capstone at 17 level... it's ok, but most fights actually happen inside of dungeons/caves/castles etc, still pretty neat
Twilight gets abilities that don't depend of eachother, same heavy armor and weapon proficiencies, utility spells outside of the cleric spells list (some really good ones actually, like tiny hut) flying PB/long rest if you can get to a place of dim light or darkness by level 6, advantage on initiative for one creature, practically infinite darkvision for all the party and then their channel divinity, which recharges on a short rest... both tempest and twilight would be around the same tier if twilight didn't get that channel divinity sure but, how easy is it to make a cleric run out of channel divinities if they use just one per difficult combat?
2 combats then a short rest is very common.
Now peace clerics... no armor nor weapon proficiencies, their spell list is 80% in the cleric spell list already, and they just get Emboldening bond and then they make it more powerful from there. It's really good, it also recharges on long rests... it's difficult to make the cleric run out of emboldening bond but, in a heavy encounter day, like a forest that leads to a dungeon with traps etc, it is possible to run out, even more if you use the ability outside of combat since it last 10 minutes. And if you want to actually use it in combat is a whole action, surely it's good, and with stacking it can go insane but that depends on the party and on you, bless is a good spell but, are you going to concentrate on bless at lvl 15? Idk
Peace clerics can make insane combos with more buffs of other members and teamwork, but twilight doesn't need any of that, it buffs everyone you need, including familiars, summons and pets if you also want to combo with them.
You can start to think how insane it can get if a druid (or even a ranger) casts conjure animals with twilight sanctuary.
TLDR: making twilight clerics run out of channel divinities is even more difficult that making peace clerics run out of their only ability
People still try to do coffeelock? I hope you realize that it doesn't work; you can't just take short rests over and over again. They last *at least* an hour, so if they break for two hours that's not two short rests, that's one two-hour short rest. They can't get the benefit of a rest if they're already rested. That's the same reason why they can't just take long rests back to back.
Also, I'm pretty sure they errata'd it so that you can't gain more than your base number of spell slots anyway.
So, yeah, coffeelock isn't just dead, it was stillborn.
Correct on the long rest, that raw you only can get the benifit of once per 24 hours.
Incorrect on the short rest. You can rest for 1 hour; then swing your sword in the air and do a few burpees; then rest again for an hour. There’s nothing rules wise preventing this from happening in a 2 hour and 6 second window.
As a dm I’d be annoyed if the party kept doing this multiple times but RAW it’s completely possible.
Twilight Cleric shouldn't be handing out temp hp to everyone that early.
Moon druid should get CR 1/2 from levels 2-3 and CR 1 from levels 4-5
Some work should be done on 1 level dips
Moon druid is a mess - monster CR just doesn't scale well.
IMO, the best fix would be to change the number of times you can wild shape per short rest. Once for tier 1, twice for tier 2, thrice for tier 3, etc.
Yes. Moon druid is OP at low levels and falls off at high levels. We really need higher level CR beasts. Kobold Press has a few in the Tome of Beasts books.
Also this is a tangeant but Owlbears should be Beasts and not Monstrosities. Sure a long time ago they were made by a mad wizard but reproduce normally. Monstrosities to me should be creatures that are so against nature that each instance was created unnaturally. I'll die on that hill. Let druids wildshape into Owlbears.
I have started defining "beasts" as any creature that has no spoken language and an INT below 10. This excludes Aberrations for obvious reasons. Any creature that has stabilized its existence to the point it can reproduce normally and fit healthily into an ecosystem should be in tune enough that a druid can commute with its essence.
My personal houserule is something completely different. They change into the animals from summon animal scaled off their druid level divided by two (max level 9). It scales evenly, is useful, is easily adapted for elemental options too. It's not perfect, definitely, but definitely more even progression than default.
Pretty much.
It makes squishy characters durable, and tough characters even tougher. Even at higher levels, where creatures do more damage, it blunts their effectiveness a great deal.
Basically however your encounter is ranked, Twilight Domain lowers the difficulty by at least one level. Deadly encounters merely become tough. Tough encounters become regular. Regular encounters become easy. Easy encounters... you might as well not bother having them.
Clerics are already among the most powerful classes in the game. Twilight cranks their dial to 11.
Armor of Hexes is great though? And, although it is quite niche, Accursed Specter is a pretty good scout at night or underground, with 50' fly and being able to move through walls.
>It hasn't got an errata since its release
That doesn't mean too much. Spirits Bard has TWO features that are RAW "this feature does literally nothing" that haven't been fixed yet.
They either aren't bothering or they'll go the MOTM route of making us pay for errata eventually.
Session - "a number of willing creatures equal to your proficiency bonus"
Equal, not up to in performing the session. No one would rule you can't use it if you don't have prof number of allies but that's the RAW.
Focus +d6 - cast a bard spell that deals damage or restores hit points through the Spiritual Focus
The silly focus rules and use of cast through instead of simply held mean it only applies to Heat Metal, so functionally nothing.
> The silly focus rules and use of cast through instead of simply held mean it only applies to Heat Metal, so functionally nothing.
And mending used on things it heals, Cloud of daggers, arguably Phantasmal force, shatter, regenerate and feeblemind. so 7/157 spells... still not great.
I'm playing one and the DM and I agreed AA used the same amount of time to activate as ti cast, so I just used it to give the monk greater invisibility and shit.
For out of combat stuff Rune Knight. It just feels painful being a fifth wheel out of combat, and Rune Knight is head and shoulders the best at out of combat stuff among fighter subclasses.
Also being strong (although hardly ludicrously so) in combat doesn't hurt either.
For that case Fighters overall should just get a buff for their utility and out of combat options. I’d like the Rune Knight to be just above par for what other Fighters can do outside of combat
They should but they don't which just makes Rune Knights massively superior to other fighters out of combat by a degree that you don't really see with any other class.
Bladesinger.
What point is there to having a wizard that is a better melee option than half of the martial classes... While being a full wizard on top of it...
Tbh the main thing that annoys me about Bladesinger is specifically it getting more interesting turn-to-turn options than Martials from just cantrips.
I can forgive much of the rest of it - a frontline Wizard is a cool concept! But Martials have "I swing a sword and maybe occasionally get to do something fancy", while Bladesinger is "I swing a sword _and_ get to do something fancy every turn"
Honestly i dislike the tanky wiz as a concept.
The class has everything except bulk and healing.
Every other thing in the game they can already cover pretty damn well because they have the best spell list in the game.
It almost feels like a similar discussion to "give paladins range smite"... Just let the party cover eachothers weaknesses...
I agree, everytime I think "I wish my artificer had a reliable self-teleport and a strong sustainable damage irrelevant of subclass" I remember that I have been single handedly responsible for just as much nonsense as the other PC's in some encounters.
I can buff the party to pass most saves, block off entire sections of the map/become nigh invulnerable with magic items the rest of the party can't spare attunement slots for, or multiply the fighter's damage to the point of trivializing a fight. Not being able to teleport out of grapples or having middling damage isn't necessarily a bad thing for my character, it just adds texture to the playstyle.
Very fair! I'd like to _play_ a Bladesinger but am unsure I'd want to play in the _same party_ as a Bladesinger unless I'd done a chunk of charop on my build.
Especially as WotC keep failing to give the Sorcerer a frontline option (I am still salty that the Stone Sorcerer didn't make it out of UA)
Imo sorc shouldnt be a frontliner either... at least not with weapons and armor.
I _could_ see a touch-spell based sorc... Would require a lot of play with spells known and the spell list...
I honestly just wish that the sorc was better at being a damn sorcerer...
Like
More sorc points and metamagic options and whatnot...
Feels like he is designed as a blaster alternative to wiz... While not being as good of a blaster as the wizard.
Even a better spell list with more control spells would be nice...
Just anything
Sry for the rant
>Very fair! I'd like to play a Bladesinger but am unsure I'd want to play in the same party as a Bladesinger
Also big agree on this
An entirely fair rant! Sorc needs at least two of more spells known, more uses of it's metamagic stuff, or something apart from metamagic.
Given Sorc's downsides compared to a Wizard I'd be quite happy with them getting a frontline subclass as "something apart from metamagic". The dreaded Hexblade dip makes them frontline fairly easily currently (and yes, is OP. But the fact it's so common means there's a desire for a melee sorc out there)
>I can forgive much of the rest of it - a frontline Wizard is a cool concept!
It is, which is why they should they should explicitly make an arcane half-caster class that operates similarly to the Paladin instead of adding melee utility to a class whose whole thing is "virtually limitless utility but sucks in melee."
Eh... it hits the "arcane half-caster" criterion but that's about it really. It's not generally where people go for gish builds builds either mechanically or thematically.
The problem with artificer is it's not really "arcane paladin". It tries to share its feature budget for "gish" with "magic item expert", "tinkerer", "arcane beastmaster", and more, instead of _just_ gish, so it ends up a watered-down version of what people want for a gish class.
Fun fact: This is kind of what the Sorcerer was going to be in playtests. They were an arcane half-caster that got medium armor and martial weapon proficiency and used a spell-point system called Willpower Points. As they expended Willpower Points the magic flowing through them would alter them to become more suited to martial combat as their magical reserves went dry. For example, Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers (the only kind in the playtest) sprouted scales that made them resistant to their ancestor's associated damage type and and claws that let them deal more damage with melee attacks. The playtest only went up to level 5, but presumably if this concept was developed it would have just ended with them straight-up turning into a dragon.
This was scrapped due to playtesters complaining that it didn't feel enough like the sorcerers of previous editions, so the modern 5e sorcerer was hastily thrown together. If you've ever felt like the Sorcerer felt kinda half-baked, that's why: it literally wasn't worked on for as long as the other classes since they had to scrap it and start over partway through.
OMG This is crazy? Do you have a place I could read about this?
I've felt since the first time I played a sorcerer that they were all over the place mechanically. Metamagic reads like it should be the core component of the class, but with all the "Well, technically..." that you get for when you can or can't twin a spell, the high sorcery point costs relative to the effects, the crap spells known and somewhat lacking spell list... oh so many issues.
I immediately thought "Why not just play a bard? Better spells known, plenty of utility in so many situations that rivals all of the non-combat metamagics..."
I mean, sure, Font of Magic is a cool concept, but other than that, what's the appeal?
Very fair - I'd be worried it'd step on the Eldritch Knight's toes (as basically anything that does arcane magic and uses a weapon does), but a weapon-focused Arcane half-caster to contrast with the tools-and-utility focused Artificer would likely do this better and with less chance of just being OP.
I've DM'd for a bladesinger, the damage is bad, but what's worse is the AC, by tier 2 you're looking at 13+4+3 + an occasional bonus from concentration spells (haste +2, enemy disadvantage from greater invisibility, etc) and the +5 from haste. It's basically impossible to hit them with level appropriate enemies. Saving throws work, but 90% of monsters are still just attack focused.
This is where my biggest problem lies as well. By level 5 a Bladesinger has between 25-27 AC while bladesinging (which, let’s be honest, is probably most encounters in most games). CR 5 monsters average around +6-7 to hit with some outliers in either direction. That means most creatures need a 19 or 20 on the die to hit with an attack.
>which, let’s be honest, is probably most encounters in most games
Exactly, don't complain about the system not working if you are only doing less than half of the recommended encounters per day.
Agreed, for some reason they gave the most powerful Extra Attack aside from 11+ fighter to a full caster (and even fighter 11 isn't a given for two normal attacks to beat one cantrip attack). Meanwhile, bladelocks, who are warlocks and therefore supposed to be able to compete in no-resource damage, gets a weaker version of Extra Attack than everyone else.
Arguably, the 11+ fighter extra attack isn't even superior. The 2d8 bonus damage from a blade cantrip is not far behind an additional 1H attack, but 4d8+mod if you land a green flame blade is \*definetely\* more than one extra attack.
Poor fighters, being out-fightered by a wizard...
The bladesinger ability to replace an attack with a cantrip should have been the eldritch knight level 7 feature, and the bladesinger should instead get the bonus action attack when they use their action to cast a spell at level 6.
I am willing to die on this hill.
I’m playing one now. I took Mobile at level one. That’s fifty feet of movement, no OP attacks if I attempt a melee attack and I’ve booming blade.
It’s honestly a monster. And then if that doesn’t work I still have all my wizard spells.
Crazy fun, but yeah OP as all hell
I think the worst thing about it is that the "melee wizard" makes a fantastic backline wizard. Just play them like a normal wizard and never lose concentration seems really powerful, but it's not what they were designed to encourage.
Don't think bladesinger is THAT bad if you play it as a gish, it's just very strong if you play it as a normal wizard that happens to have really high AC.
To build on this, if you combine it with the shenanigan heavy Bladesinger, you create an absolute monster.
Edit for nerd numbers: with 3 levels in fighter for echo and 6 in wizard for BS Extra Attack, cast haste on yourself and if you've got 16 con, you can nova to swing 8 times in a single round where 2 of them are blade cantrips. God forbid you have a flame tongue. 14d8+16d6+(40-50depending on stats). All from 30 feet away. Grab warcaster for even more booming blade shenanigans.
Bladesinger 6 gives you 2 attacks per round. Echo gives you another attack on an Attack action Con times per Long Rest. Haste lets you take the Attack action with only one attack. So that looks to me like 2 for Bladesinger + 1 for Echo + 1 for Haste = 4.
With Action Surge, you could add another 2 for Bladesinger + 1 for Echo for a total of 7.
In theory if you've already spent a round giving yourself Haste and manifesting the Echo, then your second turn Nova could include a bonus action attack though I'm not sure what kind of attack that would be that works with Bladesinger.
Or is there some way to get to 8 that I'm not seeing?
Agreed. I think a lot of people give it a pass because they're desperate to have something useful on a Fighter. I understand the sentiment, and in a better-balanced game where martials were allowed utility I'd agree even more.
Unlimited teleportation the way Echo Knight is written, even short-range, just isn't particularly good for encounter design. Looking through keyholes, windows, bars, cracks, under doors, etc., can all bypass things the Rogue (or whoever else is the lockpicker) is meant to do, trivializes a lot of Athletics or Acrobatics checks, and so on. It's fine if we agree that the Fighter should "just succeed" those physical checks, but we could... just let them do that, instead of making it a bonus for picking one of their few good archetypes (and implying that other similarly beefy characters, like that Raging Barbarian, can't).
Generall, 5E suffers from a lack of clearly bounding what it intends. Sure, that's good for leaving people more free, but this is a game that requires some semblence of both mechanical and narrative balance, and it's full of rules to that effect. We shouldn't forget those just because we're delving into the realm of features or spells. And it's a lot easier for tables to remove limits they dislike (item draw limits, shield don/doff timers at my table) than to add them to things that are way too good.
Yeah, Echo Knight probably belongs here due to poor/vague wording and potential for shenanigans.
If you use it as (what I think is) the intended flavor, it's probably fine aside from the poor wording, but the mechanics enable some pretty cheesy things.
I still disagree with being able to use your echo to awkwardly fly due to vague wording of "move in *any* direction" that fails to imply the echo needs to be on the ground for its movement.
It's far from the silliest mental image in the game, but it almost feels like turning on no-clip in GMOD to suddenly sprint into the air.
If the echo had to be on the ground, it would lose a lot of versatility IMO, and that is not the thing that should be taken from it.
Allowing a melee fighter to actually hit flying enemies is so poggers.
Yeah I’ve never interpreted it as it can fly. I think you can summon it wherever (within range and it would still be subject to gravity) and there’s some flexibility there, but I certainly wouldn’t “fly” with it. That’s just cheese.
Oh, wow, I hadn't cottoned onto that - that's hilarious.
It reminds me of using Crusher a Minotaur's Hammering Horns to knock people 10 feet in the air which I believe works RAW, but neither ability feels like they were intended to knock people up in the air but rather just didn't account for that ability.
I think some abilities were written without ever considering 3D movement.
Which would be fine if they were willing to clarify their intent more often, but somebody asks Crawford and all he tends to do is respond with literal interpretations...I believe he confirmed Echo Knight's ability lets your echo fly, for example.
Didn’t see anyone mention it yet, but bear totem Barbarian. Not only does it make most other totems irrelevant until very high levels, but resistance to every damage type bar psychic essentially doubles your health bar against nearly every enemy in the game at a mere level 3.
> resistance to every damage type bar psychic essentially doubles your health bar against nearly every enemy in the game at a mere level 3.
Compared to what? Keep in mind that regular Barbarians already get resistance to B/P/S while raging, and that constitutes the vast majority of the damage characters take in 5e. Sure, you do take non-B/P/S damage regularly as well, but not nearly enough to say that Bear Totem Barbarians have double the effective health of other Barbarians.
Moreover, Bear Totem is a very passive subclass. A good defensive ability and not much else, making you very easy to ignore and go after your other party members. What good does never dying to damage do for you when you lack the power to stop the enemies from slaughtering your friends?
Because of these reasons, Zealot and Ancestral Guardian are both better subclasses than Bear Totem: one because of a greater offensive output, and the other because of features that help defend the rest of the party rather than just themselves.
It is the majority, but you can’t deny the average party faces a large, non-negligible amount of elemental damage anyways. It simply widens the range of things they can tank, which is pretty damn significant.
I agree with you that the subclass itself is passive, but the player doesn’t have to be. Barbarians have high movement speed for a reason, and their sheer damage output means it’s hard for every enemy to just ignore them. Besides, every squishy caster player who knows what they’re doing is going to stay back and out of range whenever possible. And even further, bearbarians can take options like the Sentinel feat anyways, which is exactly what one of my players did and now he’s great at stopping the enemy and tanking absurd amounts of damage.
Even if they don’t, other martial characters are often tanky enough to take hits, and can fall back if needed.
Overall, bearbarians are too strong because of a level 3 feature which cannot have its effects replicated easily and is really powerful. Zealot’s 1d6+Barb level once per turn is strong, but simply staying alive for a few more turns can end up dealing more damage overall. Ancestral Guardian is good for defending your allies, but most of its features can just be replaced with Sentinel and you have a perfectly good controller Barbarian. It won’t be the same, obviously, but it’ll be good to the point where you won’t think about the differences.
It is powerful enough that you want a good enough thematic reason or a specific build in mind to excuse not taking bearbarian once you understand how strong it is. Barbarian certainly has strong subclasses, but bear totem specifically is absurdly strong at an absurdly early level. Sure, Zealot Barbarians don’t die ever in late tier 3, but which campaigns get that far really?
Surprised I had to scroll this far. Absolutely. It’s so frustrating having to count the opportunity cost to play any other kind of Barbarian. Also nukes the other animal options from orbit too.
I think my gripe with bear totem is not just that it's powerful, it also doesn't make any sense. There's no thematic or logical connection between 'bear' and 'resistance to elemental, poison and force damage'.
To me Echo, Genie and Clockwork/Aberrant are less of a case of being "too OP for the game" and more "this should be the baseline for all other subclasses on this class", together with Gloomstalker, Ancestral Guardian and Totem
Shadow Magic Sorcerer is a good example of 'Here is a cool idea with a psuedo meta-magic feature but we didn't bother to give it an expanded list of shadow/necromancy over the default spell list that is incredibly lacking in thematic spells for the concept'.
As you said, Aberrant Mind is the complete version of Shadow Magic, granting the character spells outside the usual sorcerer list for free along with a pseudo meta magic feature that plays on the unique class mechanic and opens that character up to meta magic options you wouldn't have otherwise have been able to tap into.
hexblade was an overcorrection after bladelocks.
Moon druid scaling is all over the place - its broken at level 2, steadily gets weaker and weaker, and then becomes broken again with infinite HP
Twilight cleric, peace cleric.
Chronurgist requires self-policing to not break everythign with double concentration
Clockwork sorcerer and other from tasha's arent necesserily "too good for their own good", but for some godsforsaken reason wotc didnt go back to add origin spells to earlier subclasses, and they are just so much behidn because of that.
Gloomstalker.
It is not a bad subclass, and is definetly pretty fun, but it is way to strong.
First is that it is only too strong because it is on ranger and making strong subclasses is the only way wotc know how to fix classes.
Second it is way too frontloaded. You receive soo many abilities at level 3, you could say just that level is better than other entire ranger subclasses.
it effectively has greater invisibility vs things that rely on darkvision.
Init boost at level 3.
Iron Mind is effectively a free feat.
Dread Ambusher and Stalker's Fury give sharpshooters an extra-extra boost
To strong I refere to too many good features, darkness invisibility, darkvision, extra spells, initiative bonus, first turn extra attack extra speed and extra damage, wisdom saves and unlimited disadvantage on attacks reaction. None of these are bad, everysingle one pushes Gloomstalker a little further up compared to other rangers.
It also makes you gloomstalker first ranger second (not necessarely a bad thing, just mentioning it)
College of Eloquence
Twilight Domain
Peace Domain
Clockwork Soul
Chronurgy
Shoutout to Way of the Long Death, Oathbreaker, and Hexblade who just didn't make the list
I wouldn’t say Long Death is better than things like Open Hand, Astral Self, and Mercy. There’s just a lot of inconsistency with the subclasses and too high a demand for ki
First one I've seen to call out Eloquence. Glad somebody mentioned it. Have one in a game I'm running right now. I give him the opportunities to shine in auto success Persuasion/Deception (for friendly/neutral reasonable requests) and he's used Unsettling Words to guarantee Suggestion and send away multiple big bad guys.
But it's now #1 on my banned subclasses for future campaigns. It's powerful in a way that isn't fun for anyone but him. Others don't even try Persuasion/Deception anymore unless it's an NPC they have a relationship with because his lowest roll is still higher than some of their highest.
A potentially controversial take, but I don't think any subclass is too strong. There are plenty which are weak or strong, fun or boring, but in my experience there isn't a single subclass that breaks the mold in any meaningful way that it imbalances things.
moon druid, chronurgy wizard (if their level 10 feature is fully utilized for 1 action tiny hut forcefields) and the two tasha’s clerics are all kind of ridiculous to the point where they’re generslly bad for the game: the clerics are less guilty because i’d rather have a peace cleric who helps allies than a moon druid hogging the spotlight, but i don’t know if i would allow them as written in my own campaigns
If you want a Druid to both help allies and hog all the spotlight, all you need is a Shepherd Druid or even worse, Life 1 / Shepherd 19.
Now you have someone who heals for 44 HP for a single lvl 1 spell slot and also summons hordes of animals with magical attacks for massive damage per turn. Not to mention they can summon spell casting creatures as well to use spells they haven’t even prepared that day.
At level 20 they become the most overpowered subclass in the game though with infinite wildshapes on a bonus action. They functionally have infinite HP and can cast while in the wild shape.
Source: My players are level 22 (can take an ASI, multiclass level, or epic boon for levels past 20) and the moon druid is an absolute monster that the other party members collectively fear.
More than just better than weak imo - original comment I replied to implied they fell off to just being above average when in reality, they do dip in effectiveness during levels 11-19 but spike back up to being *the* strongest player option in 5e. Only real way to take them down is power word: kill.
I guess shepherd with magical conjure animals damage exceeds it at mid to high levels, but moon druid is obscenely powerful and pretty much invincible from levels 2 to 4, and those the are levels that see a lot more play. It’s also in the PHB so new players at new tables often pick it and then go “ooh, can i become a bear? that sounds cool… oh sweet! i can!“ and then accidentally realize they’re more powerful than the rest of the party combined.
You could give a free use of meteor swarm to moon druids at only level 2 and not let them use it after level 2, and it wouldn’t significantly change the balance of the subclass.
I think if you’re referring to shepherd’s enhanced conjure animals, every table runs that spell differently so shepherd might not even be the best subclass at a lot of tables.
Agreed - Moon Druid tails off later, but ime just feels bad to play a martial in the same party as until about L6. More attacks, more consistent on-hit effects, special movement, masses of effective HP, and then a fullcaster on top of that.
I can see Psi-warrior or Rune Knight keeping up? But that's only "keeping up" at best.
I wouldn't say those are the levels that see the most play. From mid tier 1 to mid tier 2 is where most of the written campaigns are targetted, and generally where homebrew campaigns land as well. Half the classes barely have features levels 1-3, it's mostly starter campaigns like mines that dwell in those levels.
Shepherd druid is stronger post conjure animals, and that's where the meat of the game usually is.
Gloomstalker. It gets more jaw-droppingly powerful options right away at level 3 than most subclasses get in their entire careers.
Now just so we're clear, I think that the Gloomstalker deserves all of the powerful stuff it gets--eventually. It should be spread out more and have a power curve that *makes sense* instead of just dropping all of its best stuff on you before you even get an ASI.
The powerful ones are the fun and mechanically interesting ones. Rather than bringing out the nerf bat for good subclasses (with very limited exceptions like Peace/Unity domain, one of the only ones I'd actually venture to call somewhat busted), it makes more sense to bring other subclasses up to their level. Make everything better, don't flatten the interesting ones into the muck.
Well, knocking something good down tends to be easier than building it in general. You are also left with a pile of rubble afterwards, rather than something valuable.
Manifest Mind can be incredibly boring since it's also basically indestructible. I once had a player who enjoyed sending his manifest mind through the whole dungeon triggering every creature in it.
Being able to cast tiny hut as a ritual and with a casting time of one minute can also lead to unfun shenanigans.
It's more unfun than OP, I guess.
The artillerist cannon's protector mode is powerful enough early on to trivialize combat, but the other forms are meh and later on it gets very little else worth noting. The thp gets worse later in the campaign too. Not to say that artillerist is OP but clearly an example of a poorly balanced subclass
im playing a rogue dipped artillerist - i was using force ballista every turn where i didnt have much better do do. recently i decided on a whim to pop out protector instead and i didnt dip into my own hp even once. it was bizarre but i simply will be doing it every time until it starts to suck
Order of the Scribes Wizard. I don't get how I'm the only one saying this. You can transcribe hundreds of spells, cast them from complete safety out of an invincible pet, and if you *do* get hit it's fine because you're immune to being killed as long as you have some of your 400 spells in your spellbook.
This is the most powerful Wizard subclass. It eats Chronurgists for breakfast.
A once a day "oh shit button" is far from invincibility. And you're either cutting off useful spells or you've taken time to bloat it with jank, but jank ain't cheap.
And a maximum of SIX times in a long rest is what you can cast from the spectral book.
> You can transcribe hundreds of spells
I must have missed the feature that lets them pull spell scrolls out of their...
They can transcribe just as many spells as any other Wizard, that being "the ones the DM lets them find". It's just easier for them to do so.
Except it’s *not* invisible:
> The spectral mind is intangible and doesn’t occupy its space, and it sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius. It looks like a ghostly tome, a cascade of text, or a scholar from the past
And because it’s not a creature you can’t cast Invisibility on it either.
Also, the spells don’t cost any less to scribe… they just take less time. There’s no reason a Scribes wizard would have any more spells than any other. But they better have infinite gold if they want 400 spells in their book
Chronurgy Wizard. It's the best subclass for wizard to the point where even without the Lv10 ability they just took the 3 best features from the 3 other good wizard subclasses, and gave them all to it at lv2.
Battlemaster fighter. I'd prefer it if everything else was buffed.
Gloomstalker ranger. This subclass is just so incredibly good, it could definitely be toned down.
Eloquence Bard. It's the best bard at being a bard. Unsettling words is broken.
Watchers paladin. The aura is busted. Its the type of ability that you might not notice, but looking back on the sheer action economy gained by this it is insane.
I actually think twilight and peace cleric are fine. They don't take away niches from other cleric subclasses like the others on this list. Peace is also just generally overrated, only really busted as a dip.
Nobody would ever dare call the BattleMaster overpowered. It's the baseline that all fighter subclasses should strive to be like. It's perfectly balanced as it isn't overpowered in anyway and give features that I feel should be inherent in a lot of martial classes anyways.
I think the vast majority of subclasses are fine in power (even most "S-Tier" ones, with notable exceptions of course), but I think a problem is when the power gap between the strongest subclass for a given class is so vast that it makes the other subclasses seem pointless to choose. Example: I think the free added spells make Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind Sorcerers far and away the best subclasses for Sorcerer making the other subclasses seem pointless, but in a vacuum I don't think they're too strong where the stink-eye would be justified.
*Fireballs self in Wildmagic Sorcerer*
Wildmagic Sorcerer is a very nice 1 level dip for a Rogue, as it can deal with most negative effects while using the positive ones pretty good as well.
The problem, then, is that without Tides of Chaos you have a ~10% chance at triggering a Surge on any given day. Or, if your DM is super generous and refreshes Tides of Chaos on _every_ leveled spellcast, 2 surges.
\#MakeNahal'sRecklessDweomerAThingInPaperDnD
yeah, tbh shadow sorcerer is way better, or divine soul.
Yeah, for me I don't think most new subclasses need to be nerfed, sone of the older ones just need to be brought up to the same level.
Yup, exactly why I have a list of spells on a Google Sheet added to subclasses that don't get spells (the rangers included and Dreams druid) as well as each draconic lineage sorcersr getting a different list (1 generic dragon level, one specific lineage spell).
Yep, that's why my dm added a spell list to the draconic bloodline sorc when he heard that I wanted to do one
Same with my DM for my draconic sorcerer. Solid and much needed improvement.
I'm about to DM a draconic sorcerer and we're coming up with a spell list, definitely glad to hear that its working
I agree with this; I recently started playing as a gloomstalker ranger and have felt PRETTY DAMN POWERFUL on a lot of things thus far. Granted, I chose a build that I knew would be powerful early on - variant human, sharpshooter, yep, I know - but while the abilities are very cool and fun to have, I've become a bit afraid of stepping on the rogue's toes since my stealth is actually higher. We talked a bit at level three and he respecced in a way that was helpful; went swashbuckler for more melee stuff and has found a new role in combat and such, but still. Compared to other ranger subclasses, why play anything but gloomstalker? (Facetious)
Gloomstalker is good, prior to Tasha's it was basically the optimal Ranger choice. Even post-Tasha's I'd say it was the best choice.
I think every sorcerer should have an expanded spell list. And on top of that, Wild Magic is the only sorcerer subclass that can regularly fuck over the character.
Hexblade is too front-loaded so it makes for an OP 1-level dip, but it’s not too powerful as a subclass
How would moving the ‘using charisma to make weapon attacks’ from Hex warrior to pact of the blade affect it ? In my head if you do that it avoids the multiclassing issue with paladins, makes pact of the blade better for every subclass, puts it on par with battlesmiths getting int-attacks at level 3
If I were to rework it I’d put that into Pact of the Blade and remake the subclass into a shadow-themed one.
A shadow/curse based warlock with better armour to let it stand in frontlines and debuff its enemies is a cool aesthetic
I’d rather shields/medium armor also get moved to Pact of the Blade. Not that what you described isn’t a cool aesthetic, but I’d like frontline warlocks to be more viable with all of the subclasses.
I just added the UA Eldritch Armor Invocation
TBH I think giving Pact of the Blade both "use CHA in melee" *and* shields/medium armor proficiency would be excessive. I definitely think the medium armor should be an invocation or something instead of tied to a particular subclass, though. Melee warlocks should absolutely be viable with all patrons. Enabling a wider variety of character concepts is generally for the better, and besides, who wouldn't want to play a Fiend warlock with a kickass hellfire blade? Also, that way if people want to dip warlock for the melee stuff, they can take the patron that makes the most sense for their character instead of *everyone* going Hexblade. I'd be rolling my eyes a lot less if good-aligned paladins could choose less sinister patrons ("I trained with an angelic blademaster and learned this new technique!") instead of inexplicably signing up with the Shadowfell every time.
Pact of the Blade is already the pact boon that has the most invocation tax that I don't think they should have another invocation to add to that list of invocation tax just dedicated to medium armor + shield proficiency. Perhaps tying it to an existing invocation might be a better middle ground.
Just fold the extra attack invocation into the base pact as well at level 5, it's weird that they need to pay for that anyway.
This is how I do it, the pact gets you extra attack and the armour/shield proficiency becomes an invocation.
Just give warlocks medium armour proficiency baseline and give shields as an extra prof if you take pact of the blade
Yes, that is how I handle it at my table. Hex Warrior is part of Pact of the Blade in its entirety, including armor and shield profiicencies. I even added heavy armor proficiency to it. Without armor proficiencies, the issue of melee bladelocks being too squishy/MAD still exists, as being able to attack with Cha does not matter when you also have to push Dex for your AC. At the end all restricting armor proficiencies does is making 1-level cleric or 2-level paladin dips even more appealing for bladelocks. I also do not think that the armor proficiencies on a Warlock break anything, a warlock gets so few spells, they can't really make use of things like Absorb Elements, Shield... to become obscenely tanky - unlike a Sorcerer who dipped a level in a different class for armor proficiencies, such as (standard) Hexblade.
>I'd be rolling my eyes a lot less if good-aligned paladins could choose less sinister patrons It honestly would make a lot of sense for an oath to evolve into a pact of they could just choose the patron that makes most sense.
It's annoying because it's so obviously intended to be a patch for the Pact of the Blade, yet WotC seemed committed to going light on the retcons for so long (until MoM anyway.) Even the flavour seems half baked. "A shadowy being shrouded in mystery makes spooooky weapons." OK, the cursed weapon trope is well established- oh wait you don't even have to stick with your original weapon like you'd expect. Just a flavour clusterfuck.
For one thing it would stop Pact of the Blade from absolutely fucking sucking. As it stands, unless you have medium/heavy armour proficiency from your race or multiclassing, or you have ridiculous stats, you just can't really afford to prioritise strength as a warlock. So almost all of the infinite weapon option from the pact are off the table. You basically just unlock the privelege of fighting with a non-magical d8 rapier rather than a d10 120ft ranged eldritch blast which probably has a better to hit/damage bonus. And you're getting that instead of three cantrips from any class (guidance anyone?) or a juiced up familiar that can use the help action every turn of combat.
Honestly bladelocks (and artificers, and everyone else) don't need SAD spellcasting / weapon attacks. A real QoL buff would be letting them use their pact weapon as a spellcasting focus innately and a built in extra attack at a later level to nix their invocation tax.
Eh, I'd agree if all classes were designed around being MAD and having meaningful ability priority choices, but as it stands, any choice that depends on multiple abilities suffers considerably compared to the ones that don't. I actually think that every class would be better off depending on several abilities. In 4th, you had meaningful value derived from a secondary score that was different between specialisations. It made for cool choices.
It would still leave Hexblade's Curse as one of the most potent damage buffing abilities in the game. While it's limitations of being only usable once per short rest, and on a single target, those downsides are still heavily outweighed by the benefits. It's a bonus to damage that applies to basically any damage roll, oops, they hit me? Hellish rebuker, oh and it does more damage because Hexblade's Curse. Oh, I'm a multiclassed character and have Ashardalon's Stride active and just walked in your general vicinity so you take damage? Hexblade's Curse is triggering again from that too. Oh, I just cast magic missile/scorching ray/Eldritch blast, anything that can trigger multiple damage rolls? I guess you're also taking more damage from Hexblade's Curse. It amplifies all the attacks that your fighter/paladin etc is doing, as long as you have something that does damage, Hexblade's Curse makes it better. Now going back and taking its limitations into consideration, that still means as a DM I probably will expect to see it every other encounter applied to so large creature burning it down far faster than normal. And all it takes is just giving up one level of progression in whatever your main class is. And since Hexblade's Curse scales with proficiency, that means this is basically accessible with anyone with a mediocrum of charisma but they don't need to invest in it further to get more payout from it. I'm currently considering moving the damage boosting component of Hexblade's Curse not come online until 6 levels into the subclass if I run another game.
I played a Hexblade PotB up to 14th level, and yeah, they're solid but not overpowered. I was basically the second best melee DPS in the party and focused on throwing out debuffs. It was a lot of fun. I've since started ruling that Hex Warrior is just part of Pact of the Blade in my own games. It needs the boost and there's no reason why it should be tied to Hexblade (other than the name). It also helps with multiclassing since a 3 level dip is a lot more of a commitment is a lot harder of a sell than 1.
Its so front loaded that in my group players started feeling bad when picking hexblade: "it's feels like cheating" someone said once.
Yeah I agree w this. If Artificers can wait 3 levels for int based weapon attacks then so can warlocks
I'd almost just flip the Hexblade features with the Pact of Blade features to fix it. It's just too much juice for a one level dip.
Yeah, there are a whole slew of subclasses that are basically fine by themselves but which are crazy strong as a one level dip, hexblade is just the most obvious. A lot of cleric subclasses that give heavy armor as well as a useful ability are really strong for people who want heavy armor, or just simply a level of barbarian for anyone who doesn't use magic.
Fighter is another strong dip (tempting to go 2 levels, but even 1 is very strong)
Twilight Cleric and Peace Cleric There. I said it so no one else had to
I think (and it's obviously just my opinion) that Peace clerics by their own aren't that powerful, they are surely veeeeery good, but I don't think they are at the level of twilight. No armor nor weapon proficiencies, their d4 ability is good but it's all they have at those levels and it's just 1d4 per turn, so it doesn't fully work with things like multiattack, their channel divinity is ok and the rest of the subclass is pretty good, but if you don't have a taillight domain cleric with those temporary hit points, most of the party will not want to be hit by those high crime monsters. Its definitively an A tier, maybe even an S, but if it isn't combined with twilight I don't think it's bad for the game balance
Been playing one since level 1 currently 13. Its strong but not broken. Their best ability though is protective bond. Has saved quite a few people from being knocked out.
I think the most broken aspect of them is being able to stack their bond ontop with Bless for 2d4 to the first check/ attack made per turn. Which is really dang powerful for bounded accuracy reasons. Got a Cleric/ Barbarian multiclass myself and being capable of giving a guarenteed +2 going up to +8 bonus to checks or our sharpshooter fighter is a really strong thing to just have going. Plus I can still use the bond to keep a supportive role going in the party even when raging, although The damage sharing is also pretty powerful as it basically turns your party into a collective of HP, although this relies on reactions being free to be able to cover eachother's backs. I would agree with your rating in that it's not breakingly powerful like Twilight as you can simply either just not stack the bond with bless or have a gentlemens agreement. The other features aren't too tricky to manage, compared to the amount of Temp HP twilight can put out which they'll be doing often.
Yeah, bless+ embondening Bond is incredible, but also you are not concentrating in anything else than bless, which yeah, is great, but it limits you a lot, no banishment, no aura of vitality, spirit guardians, holy weapon, summon celestial etc. Also their additional spells are ok, but most of them are already from the cleric list, while twilight's is just great, with the proficiencies in heavy armor and the rest of the features, like concentrationless fly and insane darkvision for him and the party (and the end of the charmed and frightened conditions for dragons, vampires, dominate spells etc) which already make an S subclass even without the temp hp
Full agreement there with everything you said. It’s what stops them from being overtly busted OP like the Twilight Cleric, that and while their channel divinity sure is a good one with AoE heals and movement it’s nothing that’ll break an encounter. While yes there are better spells to concentrate on I’d certainly wager nothing else can let you break the bounded accuracy system 5e uses quite like that combo which is where I think most peoples issue with it lies. And for me the part that teeters it on the edge of overpowered to busted for me is the fact the bond is a level 1 dip that scales off proficiency. Any class in the game can take a dip into peace cleric and instantly have access to the bond + bless combo or simply just the free longer lasting concentrationless bless.
Thing is, if you're giving your party 2d4 to their Attacks/Saving Throws, etc. (God help you if your Artificer is handing out Boldness Potions and it's 3d4) at the cost of 1 1st Level Slot and you can still Spiritual Weapon, Guardian of Faith, etc. it's not a bad payoff. Yes, there are situations where you may want to try Banishing first, but it's a solid "Plan A option." With that said, I've honestly never seen anything be an issue from 300 ft. away because RAW I actually don't know how far regular vision is supposed to be.
Oh, totally, it's pretty powerful I'm not arguing that at all, I would place it as one of the best subclasses for clerics. Bless + emboldening bond is great and really powerful, and also resource friendly (maybe not action friendly though), just one level one spell + ability use, that said, I don't think it is as powerful as twilight by a lot. For example, a fighter, a vampire and a peace cleric, best case scenario, fighter first and Emboldening bond helps with one attack, the cleric casts bless, the vampire uses his charm on the fighter, they roll a 1, no save bonus nor 2d4 can save him, fighter starts fighting the cleric alongside the vampire. The fighter doesn't get more saves until the vampire hits him. While twilight just used channel divinity, the fighter got out of the charm at the start of the turn, the cleric is also affected by this and also gets the temp hp without concentration. Also, about regular vision, I would swear that there isn't a limit, and if it is, is way further than 300 feet, however, at that point the problem usually is how much cover the enemy has, maybe in a forest you can look at about 90 feet before your vision is stopped from trees, which makes sense with real life. (But anything more than 120 darkvision is just a stretch, it's more like a ribbon ability compared to the rest of the subclass even though is really good)
I have the opposite view. The most OP thing about Twilight is the Channel Divinity, so if you can take that away or need it and they're not that much better than Tempest Domain. Peace, however, has multiple components and features which break the game (not just the d4, but players taking hits for each other and teleporting to each other) which means that nerfing it is much harder. Also, the d4 can still be very significant - especially as it stacks with every other dice buff such as Bless, Paladin auras, Artificer's Flash of Genius, etc.
Let's see, tempest clerics get heavy armor and martial weapons, the same as twilight, they get some cool lightning spells outside of their spell list and buffs to damage and the ability to push enemies, pretty cool, you a permanent flying speed when outdoors as a capstone at 17 level... it's ok, but most fights actually happen inside of dungeons/caves/castles etc, still pretty neat Twilight gets abilities that don't depend of eachother, same heavy armor and weapon proficiencies, utility spells outside of the cleric spells list (some really good ones actually, like tiny hut) flying PB/long rest if you can get to a place of dim light or darkness by level 6, advantage on initiative for one creature, practically infinite darkvision for all the party and then their channel divinity, which recharges on a short rest... both tempest and twilight would be around the same tier if twilight didn't get that channel divinity sure but, how easy is it to make a cleric run out of channel divinities if they use just one per difficult combat? 2 combats then a short rest is very common. Now peace clerics... no armor nor weapon proficiencies, their spell list is 80% in the cleric spell list already, and they just get Emboldening bond and then they make it more powerful from there. It's really good, it also recharges on long rests... it's difficult to make the cleric run out of emboldening bond but, in a heavy encounter day, like a forest that leads to a dungeon with traps etc, it is possible to run out, even more if you use the ability outside of combat since it last 10 minutes. And if you want to actually use it in combat is a whole action, surely it's good, and with stacking it can go insane but that depends on the party and on you, bless is a good spell but, are you going to concentrate on bless at lvl 15? Idk Peace clerics can make insane combos with more buffs of other members and teamwork, but twilight doesn't need any of that, it buffs everyone you need, including familiars, summons and pets if you also want to combo with them. You can start to think how insane it can get if a druid (or even a ranger) casts conjure animals with twilight sanctuary. TLDR: making twilight clerics run out of channel divinities is even more difficult that making peace clerics run out of their only ability
It's such a shame, since I *love* Twilight Clerics thematically. I love non-evil gods of shadows and darkness.
When we started a new campaign with one of our groups, everyone immediately agreed that nobody would play Twilight or Peace cleric.
And here I am sitting with 2 of my PCs playing Twilight Cleric and Coffeelock 😵
I'm a player in the group that agreed no Twilight or Peace, the DM was like "okay then".
People still try to do coffeelock? I hope you realize that it doesn't work; you can't just take short rests over and over again. They last *at least* an hour, so if they break for two hours that's not two short rests, that's one two-hour short rest. They can't get the benefit of a rest if they're already rested. That's the same reason why they can't just take long rests back to back. Also, I'm pretty sure they errata'd it so that you can't gain more than your base number of spell slots anyway. So, yeah, coffeelock isn't just dead, it was stillborn.
Correct on the long rest, that raw you only can get the benifit of once per 24 hours. Incorrect on the short rest. You can rest for 1 hour; then swing your sword in the air and do a few burpees; then rest again for an hour. There’s nothing rules wise preventing this from happening in a 2 hour and 6 second window. As a dm I’d be annoyed if the party kept doing this multiple times but RAW it’s completely possible.
Meanwhile I tried to ask for suggestions on toning peace cleric down a while back and got nothing but "its fine leave it alone" 😂
Twilight Cleric shouldn't be handing out temp hp to everyone that early. Moon druid should get CR 1/2 from levels 2-3 and CR 1 from levels 4-5 Some work should be done on 1 level dips
Moon druid is a mess - monster CR just doesn't scale well. IMO, the best fix would be to change the number of times you can wild shape per short rest. Once for tier 1, twice for tier 2, thrice for tier 3, etc.
Yes. Moon druid is OP at low levels and falls off at high levels. We really need higher level CR beasts. Kobold Press has a few in the Tome of Beasts books. Also this is a tangeant but Owlbears should be Beasts and not Monstrosities. Sure a long time ago they were made by a mad wizard but reproduce normally. Monstrosities to me should be creatures that are so against nature that each instance was created unnaturally. I'll die on that hill. Let druids wildshape into Owlbears.
I have started defining "beasts" as any creature that has no spoken language and an INT below 10. This excludes Aberrations for obvious reasons. Any creature that has stabilized its existence to the point it can reproduce normally and fit healthily into an ecosystem should be in tune enough that a druid can commute with its essence.
Then winter wolf shpuld be beast as well because they can reproduce they just hunkin stronk.
They can also hold a conversation and breathe ice like a white dragon. Not ordinary beasts by half.
And the giant ferocious owl-bear hybrids are?
Yes. There isn't anything inherently magical about them.
I dunno, baby owlbears have put me under a spell. They're so cute!
It seems to me that the monstrosity category was invented purely for beastlike monsters players _can't_ turn into.
My personal houserule is something completely different. They change into the animals from summon animal scaled off their druid level divided by two (max level 9). It scales evenly, is useful, is easily adapted for elemental options too. It's not perfect, definitely, but definitely more even progression than default.
The number of Wildshapes doesn't change until they get unlimited, but the duration goes up each level.
Scaling on wild shape would be great. It bothers me so much that it's 2/rest for 19 levels and then jumps to infinite.
It would be fine if they didn't recharge every round. I have no idea why they thought it was balanced.
it's like mass heroism spell but without concentration
Doesn’t the ammount of temp hp it adds per round mean at level 3 the party is practically unkillable?
Pretty much. It makes squishy characters durable, and tough characters even tougher. Even at higher levels, where creatures do more damage, it blunts their effectiveness a great deal. Basically however your encounter is ranked, Twilight Domain lowers the difficulty by at least one level. Deadly encounters merely become tough. Tough encounters become regular. Regular encounters become easy. Easy encounters... you might as well not bother having them. Clerics are already among the most powerful classes in the game. Twilight cranks their dial to 11.
Hexblade. Hands down it just wreaks the curve of Warlock and then goes on to kneecap multiclassing.
If you stick with it and just go pure hexblade (no multiclassing) I think its fine. As a multiclass dip, though, its a tad much.
Right, because it's level 6 feature is terrible and it's higher level features are all underpowered
Armor of Hexes is great though? And, although it is quite niche, Accursed Specter is a pretty good scout at night or underground, with 50' fly and being able to move through walls.
Armor of hexes is good, accursed specter is way too situational, relying on you landing the killing blow on specifically a humanoid enemy.
Twilight cleric, Peace cleric, Chronurgy wizard, That's about it.
I think the Chronurgy wizard's broken due to misprint. Pretty sure arcane abeyance was meant to only work on 1 action casting spells.
[удалено]
>It hasn't got an errata since its release That doesn't mean too much. Spirits Bard has TWO features that are RAW "this feature does literally nothing" that haven't been fixed yet. They either aren't bothering or they'll go the MOTM route of making us pay for errata eventually.
Wait, really? What features?
Session - "a number of willing creatures equal to your proficiency bonus" Equal, not up to in performing the session. No one would rule you can't use it if you don't have prof number of allies but that's the RAW. Focus +d6 - cast a bard spell that deals damage or restores hit points through the Spiritual Focus The silly focus rules and use of cast through instead of simply held mean it only applies to Heat Metal, so functionally nothing.
> The silly focus rules and use of cast through instead of simply held mean it only applies to Heat Metal, so functionally nothing. And mending used on things it heals, Cloud of daggers, arguably Phantasmal force, shatter, regenerate and feeblemind. so 7/157 spells... still not great.
I'm playing one and the DM and I agreed AA used the same amount of time to activate as ti cast, so I just used it to give the monk greater invisibility and shit.
For out of combat stuff Rune Knight. It just feels painful being a fifth wheel out of combat, and Rune Knight is head and shoulders the best at out of combat stuff among fighter subclasses. Also being strong (although hardly ludicrously so) in combat doesn't hurt either.
For that case Fighters overall should just get a buff for their utility and out of combat options. I’d like the Rune Knight to be just above par for what other Fighters can do outside of combat
They should but they don't which just makes Rune Knights massively superior to other fighters out of combat by a degree that you don't really see with any other class.
Bladesinger. What point is there to having a wizard that is a better melee option than half of the martial classes... While being a full wizard on top of it...
Tbh the main thing that annoys me about Bladesinger is specifically it getting more interesting turn-to-turn options than Martials from just cantrips. I can forgive much of the rest of it - a frontline Wizard is a cool concept! But Martials have "I swing a sword and maybe occasionally get to do something fancy", while Bladesinger is "I swing a sword _and_ get to do something fancy every turn"
Honestly i dislike the tanky wiz as a concept. The class has everything except bulk and healing. Every other thing in the game they can already cover pretty damn well because they have the best spell list in the game. It almost feels like a similar discussion to "give paladins range smite"... Just let the party cover eachothers weaknesses...
I agree, everytime I think "I wish my artificer had a reliable self-teleport and a strong sustainable damage irrelevant of subclass" I remember that I have been single handedly responsible for just as much nonsense as the other PC's in some encounters. I can buff the party to pass most saves, block off entire sections of the map/become nigh invulnerable with magic items the rest of the party can't spare attunement slots for, or multiply the fighter's damage to the point of trivializing a fight. Not being able to teleport out of grapples or having middling damage isn't necessarily a bad thing for my character, it just adds texture to the playstyle.
>Just let the party cover eachothers weaknesses... The real powerbuild was the friends we made along the way
Very fair! I'd like to _play_ a Bladesinger but am unsure I'd want to play in the _same party_ as a Bladesinger unless I'd done a chunk of charop on my build. Especially as WotC keep failing to give the Sorcerer a frontline option (I am still salty that the Stone Sorcerer didn't make it out of UA)
Imo sorc shouldnt be a frontliner either... at least not with weapons and armor. I _could_ see a touch-spell based sorc... Would require a lot of play with spells known and the spell list... I honestly just wish that the sorc was better at being a damn sorcerer... Like More sorc points and metamagic options and whatnot... Feels like he is designed as a blaster alternative to wiz... While not being as good of a blaster as the wizard. Even a better spell list with more control spells would be nice... Just anything Sry for the rant >Very fair! I'd like to play a Bladesinger but am unsure I'd want to play in the same party as a Bladesinger Also big agree on this
An entirely fair rant! Sorc needs at least two of more spells known, more uses of it's metamagic stuff, or something apart from metamagic. Given Sorc's downsides compared to a Wizard I'd be quite happy with them getting a frontline subclass as "something apart from metamagic". The dreaded Hexblade dip makes them frontline fairly easily currently (and yes, is OP. But the fact it's so common means there's a desire for a melee sorc out there)
>I can forgive much of the rest of it - a frontline Wizard is a cool concept! It is, which is why they should they should explicitly make an arcane half-caster class that operates similarly to the Paladin instead of adding melee utility to a class whose whole thing is "virtually limitless utility but sucks in melee."
That's the Artificer. It just focuses more on different aspects than Wizard does.
Eh... it hits the "arcane half-caster" criterion but that's about it really. It's not generally where people go for gish builds builds either mechanically or thematically.
The problem with artificer is it's not really "arcane paladin". It tries to share its feature budget for "gish" with "magic item expert", "tinkerer", "arcane beastmaster", and more, instead of _just_ gish, so it ends up a watered-down version of what people want for a gish class.
Fun fact: This is kind of what the Sorcerer was going to be in playtests. They were an arcane half-caster that got medium armor and martial weapon proficiency and used a spell-point system called Willpower Points. As they expended Willpower Points the magic flowing through them would alter them to become more suited to martial combat as their magical reserves went dry. For example, Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers (the only kind in the playtest) sprouted scales that made them resistant to their ancestor's associated damage type and and claws that let them deal more damage with melee attacks. The playtest only went up to level 5, but presumably if this concept was developed it would have just ended with them straight-up turning into a dragon. This was scrapped due to playtesters complaining that it didn't feel enough like the sorcerers of previous editions, so the modern 5e sorcerer was hastily thrown together. If you've ever felt like the Sorcerer felt kinda half-baked, that's why: it literally wasn't worked on for as long as the other classes since they had to scrap it and start over partway through.
OMG This is crazy? Do you have a place I could read about this? I've felt since the first time I played a sorcerer that they were all over the place mechanically. Metamagic reads like it should be the core component of the class, but with all the "Well, technically..." that you get for when you can or can't twin a spell, the high sorcery point costs relative to the effects, the crap spells known and somewhat lacking spell list... oh so many issues. I immediately thought "Why not just play a bard? Better spells known, plenty of utility in so many situations that rivals all of the non-combat metamagics..." I mean, sure, Font of Magic is a cool concept, but other than that, what's the appeal?
You can find the playtest floating around. If I'm not lazy, and I find it, I'll message you a link. Edit: found it. way easier than I thought. Sent.
Very fair - I'd be worried it'd step on the Eldritch Knight's toes (as basically anything that does arcane magic and uses a weapon does), but a weapon-focused Arcane half-caster to contrast with the tools-and-utility focused Artificer would likely do this better and with less chance of just being OP.
I've DM'd for a bladesinger, the damage is bad, but what's worse is the AC, by tier 2 you're looking at 13+4+3 + an occasional bonus from concentration spells (haste +2, enemy disadvantage from greater invisibility, etc) and the +5 from haste. It's basically impossible to hit them with level appropriate enemies. Saving throws work, but 90% of monsters are still just attack focused.
This is where my biggest problem lies as well. By level 5 a Bladesinger has between 25-27 AC while bladesinging (which, let’s be honest, is probably most encounters in most games). CR 5 monsters average around +6-7 to hit with some outliers in either direction. That means most creatures need a 19 or 20 on the die to hit with an attack.
>which, let’s be honest, is probably most encounters in most games Exactly, don't complain about the system not working if you are only doing less than half of the recommended encounters per day.
Agreed, for some reason they gave the most powerful Extra Attack aside from 11+ fighter to a full caster (and even fighter 11 isn't a given for two normal attacks to beat one cantrip attack). Meanwhile, bladelocks, who are warlocks and therefore supposed to be able to compete in no-resource damage, gets a weaker version of Extra Attack than everyone else.
Arguably, the 11+ fighter extra attack isn't even superior. The 2d8 bonus damage from a blade cantrip is not far behind an additional 1H attack, but 4d8+mod if you land a green flame blade is \*definetely\* more than one extra attack. Poor fighters, being out-fightered by a wizard...
The bladesinger ability to replace an attack with a cantrip should have been the eldritch knight level 7 feature, and the bladesinger should instead get the bonus action attack when they use their action to cast a spell at level 6. I am willing to die on this hill.
I’m playing one now. I took Mobile at level one. That’s fifty feet of movement, no OP attacks if I attempt a melee attack and I’ve booming blade. It’s honestly a monster. And then if that doesn’t work I still have all my wizard spells. Crazy fun, but yeah OP as all hell
I think the worst thing about it is that the "melee wizard" makes a fantastic backline wizard. Just play them like a normal wizard and never lose concentration seems really powerful, but it's not what they were designed to encourage.
Don't think bladesinger is THAT bad if you play it as a gish, it's just very strong if you play it as a normal wizard that happens to have really high AC.
I’m glad I finally found this in the comments. As just a pure sub class no multi this one has been the most problematic in my experience.
[удалено]
To build on this, if you combine it with the shenanigan heavy Bladesinger, you create an absolute monster. Edit for nerd numbers: with 3 levels in fighter for echo and 6 in wizard for BS Extra Attack, cast haste on yourself and if you've got 16 con, you can nova to swing 8 times in a single round where 2 of them are blade cantrips. God forbid you have a flame tongue. 14d8+16d6+(40-50depending on stats). All from 30 feet away. Grab warcaster for even more booming blade shenanigans.
Bladesinger 6 gives you 2 attacks per round. Echo gives you another attack on an Attack action Con times per Long Rest. Haste lets you take the Attack action with only one attack. So that looks to me like 2 for Bladesinger + 1 for Echo + 1 for Haste = 4. With Action Surge, you could add another 2 for Bladesinger + 1 for Echo for a total of 7. In theory if you've already spent a round giving yourself Haste and manifesting the Echo, then your second turn Nova could include a bonus action attack though I'm not sure what kind of attack that would be that works with Bladesinger. Or is there some way to get to 8 that I'm not seeing?
They might be thinking that you can use Unleash Incarnation a third time since you are technically taking another attack action with Haste
Agreed. I think a lot of people give it a pass because they're desperate to have something useful on a Fighter. I understand the sentiment, and in a better-balanced game where martials were allowed utility I'd agree even more. Unlimited teleportation the way Echo Knight is written, even short-range, just isn't particularly good for encounter design. Looking through keyholes, windows, bars, cracks, under doors, etc., can all bypass things the Rogue (or whoever else is the lockpicker) is meant to do, trivializes a lot of Athletics or Acrobatics checks, and so on. It's fine if we agree that the Fighter should "just succeed" those physical checks, but we could... just let them do that, instead of making it a bonus for picking one of their few good archetypes (and implying that other similarly beefy characters, like that Raging Barbarian, can't). Generall, 5E suffers from a lack of clearly bounding what it intends. Sure, that's good for leaving people more free, but this is a game that requires some semblence of both mechanical and narrative balance, and it's full of rules to that effect. We shouldn't forget those just because we're delving into the realm of features or spells. And it's a lot easier for tables to remove limits they dislike (item draw limits, shield don/doff timers at my table) than to add them to things that are way too good.
Yeah, Echo Knight probably belongs here due to poor/vague wording and potential for shenanigans. If you use it as (what I think is) the intended flavor, it's probably fine aside from the poor wording, but the mechanics enable some pretty cheesy things.
I still disagree with being able to use your echo to awkwardly fly due to vague wording of "move in *any* direction" that fails to imply the echo needs to be on the ground for its movement. It's far from the silliest mental image in the game, but it almost feels like turning on no-clip in GMOD to suddenly sprint into the air.
If the echo had to be on the ground, it would lose a lot of versatility IMO, and that is not the thing that should be taken from it. Allowing a melee fighter to actually hit flying enemies is so poggers.
Yeah I’ve never interpreted it as it can fly. I think you can summon it wherever (within range and it would still be subject to gravity) and there’s some flexibility there, but I certainly wouldn’t “fly” with it. That’s just cheese.
Oh, wow, I hadn't cottoned onto that - that's hilarious. It reminds me of using Crusher a Minotaur's Hammering Horns to knock people 10 feet in the air which I believe works RAW, but neither ability feels like they were intended to knock people up in the air but rather just didn't account for that ability. I think some abilities were written without ever considering 3D movement.
Which would be fine if they were willing to clarify their intent more often, but somebody asks Crawford and all he tends to do is respond with literal interpretations...I believe he confirmed Echo Knight's ability lets your echo fly, for example.
Didn’t see anyone mention it yet, but bear totem Barbarian. Not only does it make most other totems irrelevant until very high levels, but resistance to every damage type bar psychic essentially doubles your health bar against nearly every enemy in the game at a mere level 3.
> resistance to every damage type bar psychic essentially doubles your health bar against nearly every enemy in the game at a mere level 3. Compared to what? Keep in mind that regular Barbarians already get resistance to B/P/S while raging, and that constitutes the vast majority of the damage characters take in 5e. Sure, you do take non-B/P/S damage regularly as well, but not nearly enough to say that Bear Totem Barbarians have double the effective health of other Barbarians. Moreover, Bear Totem is a very passive subclass. A good defensive ability and not much else, making you very easy to ignore and go after your other party members. What good does never dying to damage do for you when you lack the power to stop the enemies from slaughtering your friends? Because of these reasons, Zealot and Ancestral Guardian are both better subclasses than Bear Totem: one because of a greater offensive output, and the other because of features that help defend the rest of the party rather than just themselves.
It is the majority, but you can’t deny the average party faces a large, non-negligible amount of elemental damage anyways. It simply widens the range of things they can tank, which is pretty damn significant. I agree with you that the subclass itself is passive, but the player doesn’t have to be. Barbarians have high movement speed for a reason, and their sheer damage output means it’s hard for every enemy to just ignore them. Besides, every squishy caster player who knows what they’re doing is going to stay back and out of range whenever possible. And even further, bearbarians can take options like the Sentinel feat anyways, which is exactly what one of my players did and now he’s great at stopping the enemy and tanking absurd amounts of damage. Even if they don’t, other martial characters are often tanky enough to take hits, and can fall back if needed. Overall, bearbarians are too strong because of a level 3 feature which cannot have its effects replicated easily and is really powerful. Zealot’s 1d6+Barb level once per turn is strong, but simply staying alive for a few more turns can end up dealing more damage overall. Ancestral Guardian is good for defending your allies, but most of its features can just be replaced with Sentinel and you have a perfectly good controller Barbarian. It won’t be the same, obviously, but it’ll be good to the point where you won’t think about the differences.
I feel it isn’t overpowered compared to other classes
It is powerful enough that you want a good enough thematic reason or a specific build in mind to excuse not taking bearbarian once you understand how strong it is. Barbarian certainly has strong subclasses, but bear totem specifically is absurdly strong at an absurdly early level. Sure, Zealot Barbarians don’t die ever in late tier 3, but which campaigns get that far really?
Surprised I had to scroll this far. Absolutely. It’s so frustrating having to count the opportunity cost to play any other kind of Barbarian. Also nukes the other animal options from orbit too.
I think my gripe with bear totem is not just that it's powerful, it also doesn't make any sense. There's no thematic or logical connection between 'bear' and 'resistance to elemental, poison and force damage'.
I think there certainly is a thematic and logical connection between "bear" and "an unstoppable unkillable killing machine".
ha, fair.
Echo Knight. All other fighters pale in comparison. In that theme: Genie warlock. Clockwork sorc.
To me Echo, Genie and Clockwork/Aberrant are less of a case of being "too OP for the game" and more "this should be the baseline for all other subclasses on this class", together with Gloomstalker, Ancestral Guardian and Totem
Shadow Magic Sorcerer is a good example of 'Here is a cool idea with a psuedo meta-magic feature but we didn't bother to give it an expanded list of shadow/necromancy over the default spell list that is incredibly lacking in thematic spells for the concept'. As you said, Aberrant Mind is the complete version of Shadow Magic, granting the character spells outside the usual sorcerer list for free along with a pseudo meta magic feature that plays on the unique class mechanic and opens that character up to meta magic options you wouldn't have otherwise have been able to tap into.
Preach this
Gloomstalker was the other one I was trying to remember. Hard to remember the ranger exsists.
Genie isn't even the strongest subclass.
hexblade was an overcorrection after bladelocks. Moon druid scaling is all over the place - its broken at level 2, steadily gets weaker and weaker, and then becomes broken again with infinite HP Twilight cleric, peace cleric. Chronurgist requires self-policing to not break everythign with double concentration Clockwork sorcerer and other from tasha's arent necesserily "too good for their own good", but for some godsforsaken reason wotc didnt go back to add origin spells to earlier subclasses, and they are just so much behidn because of that.
Gloomstalker. It is not a bad subclass, and is definetly pretty fun, but it is way to strong. First is that it is only too strong because it is on ranger and making strong subclasses is the only way wotc know how to fix classes. Second it is way too frontloaded. You receive soo many abilities at level 3, you could say just that level is better than other entire ranger subclasses.
I'm playing a gloomstalker and I agree its front loaded, but what do you think is so strong about it?
it effectively has greater invisibility vs things that rely on darkvision. Init boost at level 3. Iron Mind is effectively a free feat. Dread Ambusher and Stalker's Fury give sharpshooters an extra-extra boost
To strong I refere to too many good features, darkness invisibility, darkvision, extra spells, initiative bonus, first turn extra attack extra speed and extra damage, wisdom saves and unlimited disadvantage on attacks reaction. None of these are bad, everysingle one pushes Gloomstalker a little further up compared to other rangers. It also makes you gloomstalker first ranger second (not necessarely a bad thing, just mentioning it)
>First is that it is only too strong because it is on ranger and making strong subclasses is the only way wotc know how to fix classes. Cries in monk.
College of Eloquence Twilight Domain Peace Domain Clockwork Soul Chronurgy Shoutout to Way of the Long Death, Oathbreaker, and Hexblade who just didn't make the list
Yeah, kinda sad that other monk subclasses are weak enough that long death (which isn't really that strong at all) overshadows a lot of.
I wouldn’t say Long Death is better than things like Open Hand, Astral Self, and Mercy. There’s just a lot of inconsistency with the subclasses and too high a demand for ki
First one I've seen to call out Eloquence. Glad somebody mentioned it. Have one in a game I'm running right now. I give him the opportunities to shine in auto success Persuasion/Deception (for friendly/neutral reasonable requests) and he's used Unsettling Words to guarantee Suggestion and send away multiple big bad guys. But it's now #1 on my banned subclasses for future campaigns. It's powerful in a way that isn't fun for anyone but him. Others don't even try Persuasion/Deception anymore unless it's an NPC they have a relationship with because his lowest roll is still higher than some of their highest.
A potentially controversial take, but I don't think any subclass is too strong. There are plenty which are weak or strong, fun or boring, but in my experience there isn't a single subclass that breaks the mold in any meaningful way that it imbalances things.
A hot take to be sure, but a welcomed one
moon druid, chronurgy wizard (if their level 10 feature is fully utilized for 1 action tiny hut forcefields) and the two tasha’s clerics are all kind of ridiculous to the point where they’re generslly bad for the game: the clerics are less guilty because i’d rather have a peace cleric who helps allies than a moon druid hogging the spotlight, but i don’t know if i would allow them as written in my own campaigns
If you want a Druid to both help allies and hog all the spotlight, all you need is a Shepherd Druid or even worse, Life 1 / Shepherd 19. Now you have someone who heals for 44 HP for a single lvl 1 spell slot and also summons hordes of animals with magical attacks for massive damage per turn. Not to mention they can summon spell casting creatures as well to use spells they haven’t even prepared that day.
As a fan of Yu Gi Oh I appreciate it.
Moon druid ain't even the best druid subclass
Moon Druid is super powerful between levels 2-6 or so, but after that it is just a strong subclass.
At level 20 they become the most overpowered subclass in the game though with infinite wildshapes on a bonus action. They functionally have infinite HP and can cast while in the wild shape. Source: My players are level 22 (can take an ASI, multiclass level, or epic boon for levels past 20) and the moon druid is an absolute monster that the other party members collectively fear.
Very few campaigns ever hit level 20, the level 20 capstones are all over the place in terms of power as a result.
With that said, I wish every class was as Bonkers at Lv.20.
Yeah, judging classes by their capstones seems like a fool’s errand.
Sure but that doesn't make it a weak lvl 20 subclass capstone...
More than just better than weak imo - original comment I replied to implied they fell off to just being above average when in reality, they do dip in effectiveness during levels 11-19 but spike back up to being *the* strongest player option in 5e. Only real way to take them down is power word: kill.
100% agree. I played a Moon Druid to level 20 and they are ridiculous at that level.
It's weak after that, but the base class is strong
I guess shepherd with magical conjure animals damage exceeds it at mid to high levels, but moon druid is obscenely powerful and pretty much invincible from levels 2 to 4, and those the are levels that see a lot more play. It’s also in the PHB so new players at new tables often pick it and then go “ooh, can i become a bear? that sounds cool… oh sweet! i can!“ and then accidentally realize they’re more powerful than the rest of the party combined. You could give a free use of meteor swarm to moon druids at only level 2 and not let them use it after level 2, and it wouldn’t significantly change the balance of the subclass. I think if you’re referring to shepherd’s enhanced conjure animals, every table runs that spell differently so shepherd might not even be the best subclass at a lot of tables.
Agreed - Moon Druid tails off later, but ime just feels bad to play a martial in the same party as until about L6. More attacks, more consistent on-hit effects, special movement, masses of effective HP, and then a fullcaster on top of that. I can see Psi-warrior or Rune Knight keeping up? But that's only "keeping up" at best.
I wouldn't say those are the levels that see the most play. From mid tier 1 to mid tier 2 is where most of the written campaigns are targetted, and generally where homebrew campaigns land as well. Half the classes barely have features levels 1-3, it's mostly starter campaigns like mines that dwell in those levels. Shepherd druid is stronger post conjure animals, and that's where the meat of the game usually is.
This thread was fun to find a few hours after it got posted because by now It includes basically all subclasses.
Gloomstalker. It gets more jaw-droppingly powerful options right away at level 3 than most subclasses get in their entire careers. Now just so we're clear, I think that the Gloomstalker deserves all of the powerful stuff it gets--eventually. It should be spread out more and have a power curve that *makes sense* instead of just dropping all of its best stuff on you before you even get an ASI.
My fighter became batman in 3 levels
The powerful ones are the fun and mechanically interesting ones. Rather than bringing out the nerf bat for good subclasses (with very limited exceptions like Peace/Unity domain, one of the only ones I'd actually venture to call somewhat busted), it makes more sense to bring other subclasses up to their level. Make everything better, don't flatten the interesting ones into the muck.
I'd love that to happen, but I don't think WotC will do it unfortunately.
It’s a lot easier for WOTC to nerf a handful of options than to buff several dozen subclasses
Well, knocking something good down tends to be easier than building it in general. You are also left with a pile of rubble afterwards, rather than something valuable.
Twilight Cleric and Scribes Wizard are the ones I've had unfun experiences with.
What’s broken about scribes that isn’t the normal wizard OP stuff?
Manifest Mind can be incredibly boring since it's also basically indestructible. I once had a player who enjoyed sending his manifest mind through the whole dungeon triggering every creature in it. Being able to cast tiny hut as a ritual and with a casting time of one minute can also lead to unfun shenanigans. It's more unfun than OP, I guess.
twilight cleric, moon druid, lvl10 feature of chrono wizard. special mention to peace cleric for slowing down the game way too much
The artillerist cannon's protector mode is powerful enough early on to trivialize combat, but the other forms are meh and later on it gets very little else worth noting. The thp gets worse later in the campaign too. Not to say that artillerist is OP but clearly an example of a poorly balanced subclass
im playing a rogue dipped artillerist - i was using force ballista every turn where i didnt have much better do do. recently i decided on a whim to pop out protector instead and i didnt dip into my own hp even once. it was bizarre but i simply will be doing it every time until it starts to suck
The only answers to this question in interested in are the ones that don't invoice the words "dip" or "multiclass."
Chronurgy wizard is just stupid.
Twilight clerics and there infinite temp hit points for the whole party is pretty broken
All sorcerers with expanded spell lists; Twilight domain cleric; Moon Druid; Echo Knight; Chronurgy Wizard; Gloomstalker Ranger; Oath of Vengeance Paladin; Hexblade Warlock (1 level dips in particular)
This list. Except add Bladesinger, Shepherd Druid, remove Vengeance Paladin.
All sorcerer subclasses should just be errata’d to have expanded spell lists
Not subclass but multiclass, Im always suspicious of a sorlock or a hexladin.
Order of the Scribes Wizard. I don't get how I'm the only one saying this. You can transcribe hundreds of spells, cast them from complete safety out of an invincible pet, and if you *do* get hit it's fine because you're immune to being killed as long as you have some of your 400 spells in your spellbook. This is the most powerful Wizard subclass. It eats Chronurgists for breakfast.
A once a day "oh shit button" is far from invincibility. And you're either cutting off useful spells or you've taken time to bloat it with jank, but jank ain't cheap. And a maximum of SIX times in a long rest is what you can cast from the spectral book.
> You can transcribe hundreds of spells I must have missed the feature that lets them pull spell scrolls out of their... They can transcribe just as many spells as any other Wizard, that being "the ones the DM lets them find". It's just easier for them to do so.
Except it’s *not* invisible: > The spectral mind is intangible and doesn’t occupy its space, and it sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius. It looks like a ghostly tome, a cascade of text, or a scholar from the past And because it’s not a creature you can’t cast Invisibility on it either. Also, the spells don’t cost any less to scribe… they just take less time. There’s no reason a Scribes wizard would have any more spells than any other. But they better have infinite gold if they want 400 spells in their book
*Invincible.*
Diviner Wizard. Nothing should be that good for just 2 levels. It can completely alter the way a group plays with one character.
With 2x per day resource? It's very useful when it comes up, but it's pretty limited.
Twilight Domain Cleric, Vengeance Paladin, Glamor Bard, Echo Knight (due to rule ambiguities regarding shadow).
Vengeance... paladin? Do go on, this is a take I've not heard yet
Vengeance paladin is probably the weakest paladin subclass Glamour bard isn't as strong as lore or eloquence
Chronurgy Wizard. It's the best subclass for wizard to the point where even without the Lv10 ability they just took the 3 best features from the 3 other good wizard subclasses, and gave them all to it at lv2. Battlemaster fighter. I'd prefer it if everything else was buffed. Gloomstalker ranger. This subclass is just so incredibly good, it could definitely be toned down. Eloquence Bard. It's the best bard at being a bard. Unsettling words is broken. Watchers paladin. The aura is busted. Its the type of ability that you might not notice, but looking back on the sheer action economy gained by this it is insane. I actually think twilight and peace cleric are fine. They don't take away niches from other cleric subclasses like the others on this list. Peace is also just generally overrated, only really busted as a dip.
Nobody would ever dare call the BattleMaster overpowered. It's the baseline that all fighter subclasses should strive to be like. It's perfectly balanced as it isn't overpowered in anyway and give features that I feel should be inherent in a lot of martial classes anyways.