#it suddenly becomes a cantrip when used specifically on me

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #40: Hassan of the Cursed Arm

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re building one of the old men of the mountain and king of “he’s a really nice guy despite every aspect of his appearance”, Hassan of the Cursed Arm. Surprisingly, Hassan is not a rogue, but a monk/warlock mix thanks to the titular arm. 

Originally, this build gave you a weapon with reach to act as your cursed arm, but that puts a lot of strain on a character that already needs multiple stats to work properly. I still think slapping someone from across the room is funny though, so I’m including both the original and variant build in the spreadsheet. I’ll also bring up the differences in the level-by-level breakdown below the cut when they come up.

(EDIT: This one required a bit of fixing up, but I’m too lazy to completely rewrite everything. This has less to do with Tasha’s and more to do with me suddenly remembering whips exist and don’t have the Special tag. Just focus on dexterity, and you’re good.)

Race and Background

Despite his looks, Hassan is a Human, giving him +1 to all abilities. He’s also an Acolyte, a much nicer and less accurate title than his real one “Cult Leader”. This gives him proficiency with Insight and Religion. He also gets the Shelter of the Faithful feature, meaning he can perform religious rites and receive free healing and care at temples related to his god. This makes sense, considering you’re the second highest rank in the cult, and the first highest only shows up to kill you.

Stats

Your Dexterity is your best stat, you’re nimble and really good with throwing daggers. Everyone you’ve met generally agrees you’re a pretty nice guy, probably because of your high Charisma. You’re a major religious figure, so your Wisdom is pretty high. You also lead a bunch of assassins, and if you couldn’t tell when they show up to meet with you that would be pretty embarrassing. We’re not dumping Constitution, because we’re not masochists, which means our last stat is Intelligence. You learned enough to summon and forcibly amputate a demon, and that’s all the schooling you needed. Finally, dump Strength. You’re pretty wiry, but we just don’t need it for this build.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: As a monk, you get proficiency in Acrobatics, Stealth, and Strength and Dexterity Saves. For a religious figure, you lead a pretty active lifestyle.

First level monks get Unarmored Defense, meaning your AC is equal to 10 plus your dex mod plus your wis mod. You also learn Martial Arts, letting you use your martial arts die in place of your normal damage for unarmed attacks and attacks with monk weapons, as well as use dexterity for those attacks. You can also use your bonus action to make an unarmed attack if you use your action to attack with a monk weapon.

Also important to note, your monk weapons can scale their damage with your Martial Arts, which will improve your throwing knives and cursed arm a bit.

2. Monk 2: At second level, you get a number of Ki points equal to your monk level. You regain spent ki points on short rests, and can use them to add options to your bonus action. Flurry of Blows lets you attack twice, Patient Defense lets you dodge, and Step of the Wind doubles your jump distance and lets you disengage or dash. You also get Unarmored Movement, adding 10′ to your movement when you aren’t wearing armor.

You can also make a Dedicated Weapon at the end of a short rest, turning any one weapon you choose into a monk weapon pretty much indefinitely. Spend a little quality time with your arm, get to know it.

3. Monk 3: At this level you can Deflect Missiles, reacting to reduce ranged attack damage. If the damage is reduce to 0, you can also spend 1 ki point to throw it back at an enemy. 

At this level, you also become a Way of the Shadow monk. At this level you can spend 2 ki points to cast Darkness, Darkvision, Pass without Trace, or Silence without material components. You also gain Minor Illusion as a cantrip. Smashing out the lights with some throwing daggers also works, but a lot of creatures have darkvision naturally, so you’ll need something to fall back on.

4. Warlock 1: We’ve got the Hassan, but no Cursed Arm. It’s time we fixed that. We’re not sure why the demon you tore an arm from rewarded you with supernatural powers, but we’re not complaining. At first level, fiend warlocks get the Dark One’s Blessing, meaning you gain temporary hit points equal to your charisma modifier plus your warlock level when a hostile creature is reduced to 0 HP. You also learn some Pact Magic, limited spell slots you regain on short rests. You use charisma to cast spells. At this level that includes Mage Hand because you couldn’t reach far enough as is, Eldritch Blast as a magical stand-in for all those throwing knives, Hex to curse your enemies, and Expeditious Retreat to bolster your already impressive movement skills.

5: Warlock 2: Second level warlocks learn Eldritch Invocations, little ways your patron shows you they care. You get Devil’s Sight and Agonizing Blast, which grants you darkvision even in magical darkness and extra damage for your “throwing knives”. You can also cast Sense Emotion; assassination requires manipulation as much as murder.

6. Warlock 3: At third level you get your pact boon, specifically your Pact Weapon, any melee weapon that you want, though since this is supposed to be your arm you should keep it consistent. Whips are good, use that. You can unwrap your arm as an action, and counts as magical for resistance and immunity’s sake. You can also turn other magical weapons into your pact weapon if you really want, but again, this is supposed to be your arm. I know you’re already playing fast and loose with limb ownership, but there needs to be limits.

You also learn how to make a Shadow Blade, a finesse weapon that gives you advantage in the shade.

7. Warlock 4: Use your first ASI to become a Martial Adept, giving you one d6 to use two maneuvers from the battle master list. You regain the die on short rests. Your maneuvers are Evasive Footwork, which adds 1d6 to your AC while you’re moving, and Lunging Attack, which adds 1d6 and 5′ of reach to a single attack. Congrats, you can now slap someone from fifteen feet away.

At this level you learn the spell Cloud of Daggers, letting you set up very painful traps. You also learn how to cast the cantrip Poison Spray. Poison isn’t your gimmick, but it’s important to be flexible. Being flexible also isn’t your gimmick, but... you know what I mean.

8. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks don’t get any more features, but they do get another invocation: Improved Pact Weapon. When attacking with your pact weapon, add 1 to the attack and damage rolls. You can also use the weapon as a spellcasting focus. Honestly this invocation is so useful you may want to swap out an invocation for it at third level.

You can also cast the spell Gaseous Form, turning a willing creature into a cloud of smoke for up to an hour. The spell’s great for infiltration and is the closest thing you’ll have to a spirit form. You aren’t truly incorporeal, though: you only resist nonmagical damage.

9. Warlock 6: You have the Dark One’s Own Luck, and can add 1d10 to an ability check or save you make once per short rest. You can also cast Spider Climb at this level so you can sneak into a building without having to become a cloud.

10. Warlock 7: You get another invocation, Ghostly Gaze. This allows you to concentrate like you would a spell and see through objects up to 30′ away. This is especially powerful given a number of spells require line of sight to be used.

Shadow of Moil is not one of those spells, though. With this spell, you don a cloak of shadows, heavily obscuring yourself and dimming the light around you. You also retaliate to being attacked with tendrils of darkness.

11. Warlock 8: Use your next ASI to round out your Wisdom and Charisma for better spell saves and AC. If you’re using the variant build, round out your Constitution and Charisma instead.

Regardless, you also learn how to Summon Greater Demon. They’re still a bit miffed about the whole “ripping off their arm” thing, so you’ll have to convince it to work for you, otherwise it will turn on your party. You’ll need someone’s blood to do it, but that’s still much better than ripping off your own arm.

12. Monk 4: There’s still a couple things we want from the monk class, so lets take a break from demon summoning for a bit. At this level, you can Slow Fall, reducing falling damage by five times your monk level. Given the amount of climbing and flying you’ve been doing, you’ll definitely want this.

You also get another ASI. Bump up your Dexterity to improve the damage you can do with your pact weapon.

13. Monk 5: Fifth level monks get an Extra Attack, letting you make two attacks in a single attack action. You also have the ability to perform a Stunning Strike, spending 1 ki point to ruin your DM’s attempts at balancing encounters. Your martial arts die also become a d6, slightly increasing your power when you’re caught without a weapon. Which is never, so it’s not that useful.

14. Monk 6: Sixth level monks get Ki-empowered Strikes, making your unarmed strikes magical, just like your arm already is. You can also move an extra 5′ per round, and learn how to Shadow Step, spending an action to teleport from one area of dim or darker light to another, so long as it’s within 60′ and you can see it. (This is one of those things that’s a lot better with Ghostly Gaze.) After teleporting, you have advantage on your next melee attack, meaning you can pop into your target’s inner sanctum, snap their neck, and then pop out with any guards none the wiser.

15. Warlock 9: Your next invocation, Otherworldly Leap, lets you cast Jump at will for free. This is another good mobility option, as well as being a vital component to Posing Dramatically In The Moonlight, a mandatory part of being an assassin.

You can also cast Infernal Calling, which is kind of like Summon Greater Demon, but you don’t have to worry about the demon betraying you if you have its talisman. I’m pretty sure its arm counts for this purpose, but that’s up to your DM.

16. Warlock 10: Tenth level fiendlocks get Fiendish Resilience, giving you resistance to damage of one type from weapons that aren’t silvered or magical. You can swap your resistance types at the end of short rests. I’d recommend bludgeoning for a proper Protection from Wind.

17. Warlock 11: At eleventh level, warlocks get their first Mystic Arcanum. Your spell slots stay at fifth level, but you get a sixth level spell you can cast once per long rest.

This level, pick up Psychic Crush from Unearthed Arcana. There isn’t a spell that lets us grab a person’s heart, so we’ll have to settle for grabbing their brain.

18. Warlock 12: At this level you get your last ASI and last invocation. Bump up your Strength (or Charisma if you’re doing the variant build) and pick up the Eldritch Spear invocation to have a lot more range on your throwing knives.

19. Warlock 13: For your seventh level Mystic Arcanum, grab Finger of Death. You should have five of these already, but this lets you deal a lot of guaranteed damage to a creature. Just try not to get the final blow with this-explaining the zombie it makes would be a headache.

20. Warlock 14: Your final level gives you the ability to Hurl (creatures) Through Hell. After hitting a creature with an attack, you can send them on a guided tour through the lower planes until the end of your next turn. When they come back, they take 10d10 psychic damage if they’re not a native of those planes. You can only use this feature once per long rest. This and Psychic Crush are about as close to your Delusional Heartbeat as we can get. Neither can cause instant death, but let’s be honest it’s not like your NP does it that often either.

Pros: You’re very good at infiltration missions. You’re very fast, and have a bevy of mobility options available to you, from flight to climbing walls to straight up teleportation. You’re also tough to hit, with multiple ways of obscuring yourself from ranged fighters. You’re also able to perform hit and run tactics without using your bonus action thanks to your arm’s range, saving your disengaging actions for something else.

Cons: You have a low constitution, meaning that the rest of your build being melee focused isn’t the best idea. This also means you have bad concentration saves, which is bad if you’ve got a buff spell on you to escape, and worse if your concentration is keeping a demon in check. Like all warlocks, you also have the issue of limited spell slots, so most of the time you’ll be relying on just your throwing knives and invocations, without much of a safety net if things go wrong. 

Your best abilities don’t have saves though, so if you stick to the shadows and avoid that guy whose arm you stole you should be fine.

Next up: MGS 3: Snake Eater

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 19

The Ties That Bind

The penultimate Fantasy High: Sophomore Year episode is upon us and not a moment too soon. Seems a little counter-intuitive to seek comfort from these objectively wild current events we’re experiencing from a fictional Nightmare Forest but we know what we’re about so let’s jump back in and start with the death of a beloved main character.

Yay.

Rewinding back to two episodes ago, last we saw Kristen, she got stabbed through by a skeletal unicorn and died. We pick back up there and, as she’s dying, she feels a sense of pain, betrayal, and anger--very similar emotions to what Brennan told her the goddess was feeling with her Nat 20 Religion Check. Kristen gets a vision of the goddess being destroyed in cracks of lightning by her own followers--the same vision Fig saw in the dream scrying pool when she scry-ed on Kristen last week--and then she wakes up on the chapel floor.

She’s not...dead exactly. But she’s not super alive either. She’s bleeding, but more oozing blood than the normal mechanical way of bleeding out because her heart isn’t beating. There’s a hole in her chest and, within it, her heart is crushed. Her skin is pale because the blood isn’t pumping through it properly anymore. Her breathing isn’t regular. And a piece of her finger tip (the piece taken by her friends for a possible Revivify) is missing.

She sees evidence of her friends having been in the room--footprints and the smashed wall--and to place this in the timeline, she can’t remember Fabian right now. When she checks her crystal, she sees it’s been 90 minutes since they walked into the forest. She does Cure Wounds on herself to stop the blood from dripping. Then she heads out towards the forest, passing the Oracular Pool Fig used in the last episode as she goes. She stops as she sees it and something in her heart glows with golden light. When she looks into the pool, she sees the sun reflected in the pool (and also Fig’s boot prints leading up to it). That’s weird because it is super not a Sol/Helio aligned Chapel/Area they’re in. She also sees the moon reflected and she feels like she’s being called in. It doesn’t necessarily feel safe but it feels like she might get some answers and also she already died today so how much worse can it get? She dives in and come up and when she does, she’s suddenly in the outer planes. Specifically, she’s in Elysium which is like the Neutral Good heaven. She hears a voice that she mistakes for her dad’s because of the major dad energy she’s getting from it: You can come home.

As she walks, she finds herself--as Kristen weirdly often does for some reason--in the presence of gods. Specifically, Sol (god of the Sun) and Galakaya (goddess of the Moon and his sister as we find out). Helio is also there, like the screw-up son of a CEO, hanging out in his office. Both of them are good gods but not neutral good so Kristen gets the sense that they brought her here to have a neutral place to talk to her. 

Kristen is hilariously nonplussed by being personally Uber-d to heaven by arguably the biggest gods in the pantheon and when she is asked to take a walk with Helio so she can get some important information, she’s like, “Nooooo, can literally anyone else do it?” Galakaya agrees to do it instead. 

They take a lap and she asks about Tracker. Galakaya says that Tracker isn’t dead but she’s in major danger. Then, she changes the subject. Has Kristen ever wondered where her spells have been coming from when she’s been between gods? Because, as Galakaya says, doubt is nothing. She reveals that even though Kristen rejected him, Helio has been providing Kristen spells this entire time. He sent the philosophers and the grad students to be her spirit guardians. Kristen rejected him but not the light. Galakaya likens it to a child running away from home to the front yard. Kristen isn’t too far gone. She can still come back to the fold. And, if she doesn’t want to be Helio’s champion, she can be hers instead and become a Moon Cleric, which would still be keeping it in the family. But that’s the problem Kristen has with it. Helio to Galakaya? It seems like more of the same--especially the way she’s been acting, like she would fit right in at a brunch table with Arianwyn and Anguin. Except, when Tracker comes up, Kristen notices she gets a little snarly, almost like a tic she’s trying to keep under control. 

Kristen asks for her pitch, and it’s basically the same deal she was getting with Helio but with different window dressing. The Moon, sisterhood, and unquestioning obedience. Galakaya can’t see into Sylvere to check on Tracker like Kristen asks but if she had a Champion, say Kristen, she could send her all kitted up with new powers. She says she wants the Nightmare King dead more than anyone seeing as the Nightmare King killed her baby sister (the Mystery Goddess). She calls her baby sister sweet and sometimes confused, seeing as she thought destroying her name would make her more powerful. But Kristen knows that’s not what happened. It was her followers who destroyed her name as she desperately warned them not to. Some chicanery is going on.

She says she will take the job as Galakaya’s champion and when she makes like she’s going to pray to her to seal the deal, she instead reaches out to the mystery goddess again. The golden light in her chest disappears and is replaced with cool shadow. She feels shock from the goddess, that Kristen would still choose to reach out to her after she died at her hand. The goddess says, emotionally, “I’m sorry, I’m just so scar--” But, before she can finish the word, Galakaya grabs Kristen by the shoulder and snaps her out of it, face snarling and wolfed out. After a second, she composes herself and seems almost embarrassed that Kristen saw that, which makes Kristen realize what’s going on with her. Tracker is a cleric of Galakaya, but knowing Tracker, she wouldn’t worship someone so reeking of high elven prim and proper-ness. And she also knows what the number one rule of godhood is: As above, so below. Galakaya has basically been claimed as a high elven goddess. Which means that the vast majority of her followers aren’t like Tracker. They’re snooty high elves. Which means so is she and her wolf part is still there, but it’s buried and distasteful to her now. 

Which, coincidentally, is how Kristen feels about this entire godly family. She “respectfully declines” both of their offers. And by “respectfully declines” I mean she socks Helio in the face and makes a run for it. Sol, full of rage, says, “I told you that kid was trash! Now get her!” The philosophers on Sol’s payroll look at each other and instead mob him (why is the literal sun god so easy to 1v1?) and help Kristen escape. As she does, Helio calls out after Kristen something she kind of already sensed upon arriving in Elysium. Most people are a soul in a body. But Kristen, at the moment, is a soul *as* a body. If she dies again, with no god to intercede for her, she’s dead-dead. No afterlife. But that’s not enough to make her stay. She keeps running and makes it to the pool. For the first time, she feels herself fully cut off from her spells. 

Back in the cave in Sylvere, Kristen chats with the Philosophers. They tell her they were working for Sol so they couldn’t tell her what the deal was but they were always rooting for her. One of the philosophers quotes her own words back to her: Doubt can’t be a belief but it can be a practice. And as she says this, she turns Kristen’s Shepherd's Crook cool and metallic and turns it into a question mark. She can’t hold doubt in her heart but she can hold it in her hand (stats for the Staff of Doubt below; also what a sick line from Brennan).

She knows that to get to the center of the forest where she needs to be, she has to follow her fear, so she goes in the direction she doesn’t expect to find Tracker. 

Shifting gears, we find Gorgug and Fabian at the mouth of the cave (and no longer high on duskmoss) in their floating rock island surrounded by the others. They see that there are other openings and decide to check them to see if they can find any of their friends. They spend a good two hours, tied together and climbing this rock face which is some extremely solid male bonding. When they reach the cave they were aiming for, they find Baxter, riddled with arrows they know to be Sandra-Lynn’s. He’s dying but not dead. I am outraged at Brennan until I learn a fact that I don’t think has come up until now: Artificers get spell slots. Which means that Gorgug has Cure Wounds. He only cures him for 3 points but that’s enough to stabilize him at least so we can all stop sharpening the pitchforks. However, Baxter is clearly dejected and confused. He has no idea why Sandra-Lynn would suddenly turn on him. So maybe the pitchforks are still called for.

They want to leave Baxter in the cave so he can rest up but, on a 1 Animal Handling, Baxter absolutely demands to follow them. It’s faster than climbing at least. They do so.

And we switch again, this time to the Abernants. 

Adaine is still trapped in a prison orb and barred from doing most of her spells. She can, however, do the Message cantrip and Aelwyn is still in the room along with Anguin. She Messages Aelwyn and asks, What’s going on? Why is she working with their parents still? Aelwyn replies that she doesn’t like her parents but she does love them. Doesn’t Adaine? “They don’t love me,” Adaine shoots back. Aelwyn parrots back ideology that she’s clearly learned from her parents: Love has to be earned. What value does something that hasn’t been earned have? Adaine, fresh off of therapy and with full knowledge of Aelwyn’s broken psyche, fully calls her out. She is so closed off to love, to everything that abjuration is her school of magic. Aelwyn tries to wave her off but Adaine, very seriously, says, “I don’t love our parents but despite the fact that you have not earned it, I do love you.” Aelwyn fully dissociates (and I’m not far behind). 

Adaine notices that Anguin is readying some kind of Sending spell and that he’s wearing a sword that he usually doesn’t have. He tells Aelwyn to ransack her sister’s brain for the info they need from her while he prepares her punishment. Aelwyn, clearly in a slight panic, tries to (not at all) casually persuade Anguin to just leave Adaine in the orb, unharmed, when they are done with her. She tries to do it in a, “This isn’t worth our time,” kind of way but betrays herself when she blurts out, “She’s a baby!” Anguin raises a hand at her and she flinches, apologetically casting Detect Thoughts on Adaine who has already (via Message) said she’d support her no matter what she did. 

Enter, Adaine’s Mindscape: A series of interconnected rooms--and her Aelwyn’s rooms--repeated over and over. Adaine has her surface thoughts be all of her memories of Aelwyn *almost* being nice to her and then pulling back at the last second for fear of her parents. Aelwyn doesn’t press deeper than these thoughts and says that if Adaine’s goal was to humiliate her then she’s done so. But that’s not what Adaine wants. She wants to rebuild their relationship. They’re gonna be sisters for the rest of their quasi-immortal lives. These memories suck but they can make new ones.

And then, through a window, Aelwyn sees another memory. The memory of herself in the hot-tub post Calethriel Tower rescue mission. She doesn’t remember this because of the events in the memory itself. Adaine went into her mind and, at her written instructions, reboot her memory and personality. They’re able to Inception themselves into Adaine’s memory of Aelwyn’s mind and they walk through it. Aelwyn is confronted with the knowledge that this is how she is and that Adaine knows this. Siobhan, from her sniper perch, gets the kill order from Brennan to take the shot directly into my chest.

“Would you be my big sister? I would really, really love to have you as a big sister.”

So now it’s both Kristen and me who have crushed hearts this episode. 

Aelwyn fully loses concentration on the spell and snaps out of it. When Anguin asks for the information, she, on full glassy-eyed autopilot, says she didn’t find it. Anguin decides to go for the nuclear option, readying a bolt of magic to throw at Adaine. “Prepare to be better, dear, sweet daughter.”

The magic races at her, ready to do something Stepford-ian to her mind I’m sure, but, suddenly, Aelwyn steps forward, still out of it but following her true, deeply buried but natural protective instincts. Protective magic covers Adaine and the spell is Counterspelled. 

Adaine quickly dispels her orb but then it’s Anguin’s turn and he goes for Aelwyn. Adaine attempts to return the favor she has just been given and Counterspells but Anguin Counterspells her Counterspell and Lightning Bolts Aelwyn. The second before she’s hit, Aelwyn looks at Adaine and says, “I’m sorry”. She goes down. 

Adaine’s turn.

And, if you recall, Adaine just received two boons: A bonus to her Strength score and a little spell called Adaine’s Furious Fists. 

And, my dude, if Adaine has ever been furious in her life, it’s now. 

5th Level. And it’s a strength saving throw but, just to be certain of her success, Adaine gives her undoubtedly weak father her 4 Portent roll. That’s 10d10 damage.

77 points of damage.

She charges forward at Anguin.

“Guess what bitch? I’m strong now.”     

And she full Dragon Ball Z energy punches her dad, dealing more than double his max HP. You know what that means? Ding Dong the bitch is FULLY DEAD. 

Deed done, she rushes to Aelwyn’s side and gives her her 11 portent roll for her first death save (super clutch use of a mediocre portent). Then, on an 18 Medicine check, stabilizes her without the need for any more checks. Aelwyn is immediately weepy about how she doesn’t deserve the kindness she’s being shown. Adaine, again, gently says that love isn’t about deserving or not deserving, though she definitely doesn’t deserve the crappy situation she’s in right now. And, maybe when this is over, she can exchange her bed for a bunk bed and Aelwyn can move in? If Aelwyn wasn’t crying before, she super is now, and spilling her guts. She’s the one who sank she ship the previous elven oracle was on, she worked for Kalvaxus and Kalina--things Adaine is willing to attribute to being under the thumb of evil, abusive people but that Aelwyn seems desperate to atone for. She gives Adaine an important piece of information for their mission: In the past, heroes going after the Nightmare King have failed because they failed to undo all five curses. They need to make sure they do that.

Adaine gives Aelwyn the tincture she has on her, freeing her from Kalina’s influence, and then Aelwyn gives her one more piece of information before she slips into unconsciousness. Before Aelwyn had the previous Oracle killed, she was sure that Adaine was going to be the next Oracle and she told Kalvaxus that. Why was she sure? Because the elf that becomes the next Oracle is always the most skilled Diviner alive at the time.

“I love you too,” Adaine replies.

Then she nicks the dope sword (and 30 gp) off her dad’s corpse, leaves Aelwyn there to rest, and goes to find her friends.

And, speaking of, let’s pop over to see how Riz and Fig are doing.   

In a word, bad.

They’re still tied up and cornered by the skeletal unicorn who says they’re captured and soon their friends will be too. Nightmare Fig shows up with Baby (who is shortly tied up as well) and reveals herself to actually be this many-armed, snake-woman demon. A whole army of demons show up, ready to start wrecking house as soon as they’re ordered to. 

Fig wants to try and use her lighter to set her bonds on fire and Riz wants to use his spy-watch to laser her bonds off. They both fail but Riz notices they’re not being stopped from trying. It’s like the demons want them to escape so they have an excuse to chase and kill them. He also notices a jiggling from his briefcase.

At the same time, Fig gets a Sending from Bill saying he just hawked all of Gorthalx’s stuff, including the six suits of magic armor. But, wait a minute. There were seven suits. On a Nat 1, she thinks Bill is screwing her over.

But then.

All of a sudden. 

Riz’s briefcase of holding springs open and out pops a figure in gleaming gold Pride Armor. The armored figure, holding a brilliantly gold halberd, cleaves through some demons and the raises his visor showing that it’s none other than the chosen one himself--GILEAR! You see, the Deadly Sin armor feeds on its respective sin in the user and consumes them, but, as Gilear puts it, he has no pride. 

He absolutely wrecks house, killing demon after demon. Riz records it on his tie-camera for posterity. Gorgug and Fabian on Baxter see the commotion and fly down, seeing the tail end of the fight. Gilear kills the last of the demons then gets spit out of the armor like it’s an Iron Man suit, fully dead. Again. He may have had no pride when he put the armor on but watching himself kick ass have him just enough to be fatal.

Fig gets free from her bindings and, on a 27 with Bardic from Fabian, beats the 25 DC she needs to make an illusory diamond (which turns into a real one) of high enough quality to cast Revivify. She does so, after a heartfelt statement about being proud to be like him and a sick lick on her bass.

Gilear comes back up and we learn that he’d been hiding in RIz’s briefcase with the armor since they sent him away because it was the only way he could think of to be useful to them and protect Fig. Fabian and Riz (along with the audience) also unfortunately learn that Gilear is hung like a horse when they fail their saves to look away quickly enough. 

Adaine rushes in with her new sword and the information that she killed her dad which everyone congratulates her for. She then ritual casts Identify on the sword. Aelwyn told her earlier that it’s the sword that belongs to whoever the current Oracle is and she also learns it’s called the Sword of Sight, it can be used as an arcane focus, and was made by Fabian’s Grandad (full stats below). 

Riz gets the footage from his tie onto his crystal and posts it on Fig’s account which has got to be the wildest social media account on Magic Facebook.

The Bad Kids are mainly reunited, but let’s get back to the final missing member. 

Kristen, alone in the woods, starts using her blood to draw a picture of the Mystery goddess. She hears a creepy voice say, “Be careful what you give a face,” and some other ominous stuff. But Kristen ignores it as she lies prostrate in front of her drawing because she understands something extremely important. 

As above, so below.

Galakaya is worshiped primarily by stuck up high elves, so she has become that.

If Kristen is now the only follower of the Mystery goddess and she says that she’s real and she’s good then as above, so below. The math checks out.

The bloody image changes to a beautiful woman’s face. The Mystery goddess. She says she only ever wanted to comfort her followers and tell them that the night itself was nothing to fear. Kristen sees flashes of the chained Court of Elders--the representatives of the five races who worshiped the Mystery Goddess and were convinced to destroy her name (ignoring her warnings not to). Among them are the unicorn and the decaying elf Adaine saw in her Scry. 

Fear of the NK breaks her out of the vision and she finds herself surrounded by Twilight (that she’s generating) with Tracker in front of her, fully wolfed out with a bloody muzzle. Tracker is going feral, all, “You’re so selfish, everything is always about you.” Something is going wrong with her. Now, good news/bad news:

Good News: Kristen is fully committed to this Mystery Goddess so she gets her spells back and she is now a Twilight Domain Cleric.

Bad News: She goes Invisible (eliciting a, “Why are you running? I knew you would leave me. Why won’t you accept me like I am?” from Tracker) and tries to cast Greater Restoration but all she needs is a 4 and she rolls a 3. Tragic. 

She finds that she is insubstantial still and is whisked away from a snarling and lamenting Tracker. As she is traveling, she sees the face of the Nightmare King who asks why she would follow a dead goddess whose path is just going to make her life harder. Kristen feels a pang of doubt and fear that she has just done exactly what her religious upbringing warned her against and put herself and her friends in grave danger for no reason by straying from the path, but then she has another classic Kristen-ism: Everyone is basic and wrong. She’d rather follow a goddess who is like, “Hey y’all, I also don’t have it all figured out but I will for sure do all I can to help you navigate it,” than a god who demands unquestioning faith and loyalty. And with that, she finds herself floating above her friends.

She feels the pull of her missing finger bone in Adaine’s pocket and she feels like it might be impossible for her to fully, properly, come back but on the other hand, she’s died like three times at this point. What does impossible even mean? She gets the sense that she can cast Raise Dead on herself and she does so. 

Welcome back to the Bad Kids, St. Kristen Applebees of [REDACTED], halo aglow, newly reattached finger shedding a bit of light.

(“That’s hot for being gay,” Ally says about Kristen’s new glow.)

Everyone hugs everyone and catches up everyone on everything. Kristen heals up Baxter for 20 HP and gets a +2 bump on her Intelligence mod for her ordeals in the forest. They all make a plan to get everyone in one place so Kristen can put some of her new AoE healing spells to use. Fig wants to go on Baxter to get Ayda. Adaine, bringing us full circle, invites Fabian on a rescue mission to get her sister. 

And we take a break. 

Deep breath y’all. 

Detention

Brennan for Cursing us With Knowledge About Gilear’s Penis

@allsevenmaidens put this very reasonable request in and I have to concur because what’s the alternative? Giving Anguin this spot AGAIN? Like, I don’t even want to give him the satisfaction of being the best of the worst. Adaine gave him the death penalty which is what he deserves and all he’s gonna get. 

So, Brennan gets this spot for forcing me to hear the words “Gilear” and “hung like a horse” in the same sentence.  

Honor Roll

Gilear for Kicking SERIOUS Ass

Listen, SO many Honor Roll-worthy moments happened this episode. Kristen’s Amazing As Above, So Below moment. Aelwyn finally stepping up to protect Adaine. Adaine absolutely obliterating Anguin in a single punch. 

But, at the end of the day, I have to give it to Gilear “Just a Guy” Faeth for cramming himself and a suit of cursed armor into a mostly airless briefcase out of desperate need to do whatever he could to help protect his daughter and her friends who are basically demigods. He truly is the Anti-Anguin and I’m so glad Riz got that on tape for posterity. Way to go man. 

Random Thoughts

I already wrote so many words and we have a five hour finale tomorrow so I’m going to try and keep this section brief. 

We’re staring down the barrel of the last episode (coming Friday at 8PM EST) and I want to say this now rather than later: thanks for reading these and leaving nice comments in the tags and stuff like that. I’m not always the most confident person and the support really means a lot.

We’re also staring down the barrel of a global crisis right now so, you know, be nice to yourself and escape through fiction when you need to, reach out to people, and eat a vegetable if you can. Read a 5000 word recap of an episode you presumably already watched. Whatever you need to do.

The Staff of Doubt has ten charges and can cast the following spells at the cost of the amount of charges listed: Detect Magic (1), Lesser Restoration (2), Dispel Magic (3), Banishment (4), Greater Restoration (5).

The Sword of Sight gives +1 to attack and damage rolls. It gives a base 12 AC which bumps Adaine’s to 15. It lets her cast Divination cantrips as bonus actions. She gets to take the Dodge action when she casts a Divination spell. And she gets no disadvantage on attacks on Invisible creatures (seems very useful against Kalina possibly).   

EDIT: I forgot to say! Gorgug saying very sincerely to Kristen, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” “there” being, “at her most recent death” broke me. 

Where in the World is Ragh Backrock? We have at least an approximate idea of where the rest of the hirelings are but nothing on Ragh. I’m concerned. His vision was asking Gorgug if he was his dad. Maybe it has something to do with that?

Very curious about what the mechanics of the final confrontation will be. What Aelwyn said seems like it could be setting up for some shenanigans. Plus, there are still all the hirelings to worry about.  

Another question, I feel like we still have almost no idea what’s going on with the NK. Half of me is almost expecting some kind of Te Fiti/Te Ka situation. On another day I might try to speculate and play detective but that’s not where I’m at today so I’m just gonna leave it at that.

I feel like Kristen is always negging deities to their faces. Like, girl. Her Axe/Dove metaphor was *chef’s kiss* though. Anyway, when (hopefully) Tracker is back to normal, I hope Kristen has a take that’s different than, “I met your goddess and she sucked.”

Kristen makes me feel bad for Helio. He’s just a surfer dude who likes corn, OK. He never did anything to her except give her magic! 

Didn’t have a good place to mention this earlier but Fig alerted Bill to their situation and location so if there’s a Bill Ex-Machina next ep, it’s not out of nowhere. 

(Also, just a small point of order, Gorgug did say he had a bone from Kristen last ep but so did Adaine. Doesn’t really matter but just wanted to explain the mismatch with my last recap). 

Making everyone roll a save to not see Gilear’s dick is so funny. As was Zac invoking danger sense to roll with advantage. 

“I cast Spare the Dying on Gilear’s Penis.”

“I am no man,” from LOTR but instead it’s Gilear saying, “I have no pride.”

“Drink deeply Gilear.”

Why is Kalina working for the NK? She’s supposed to be the Mystery Goddess’s familiar, right? Just another thing that doesn’t add up. Where’s that puzzle piece we’re missing?

The thought of Baxter being so confused and dejected and fatally injured, not understanding what he did so wrong to have his mistress riddle him with arrows makes me wanna throw down with Brennan IRL. Also, I’m Concerned about Sandra-Lynn.  

I need to say this on the record. Ally Beadsley does some bonkers things in D&D that I could not even begin to understand but that As Above So Below Gambit was Galaxy Brained. 

You knew this was coming. Abernant Time Bay-Bee (the abridged version because I need to get this out before Friday)!

First off, I am very happy to say that basically exactly what I predicted/hoped for in my last recap for this scene is what happened, with Anguin making Aelwyn cast Detect Thoughts on Adaine. And basically EVERYTHING I had on my Abernant Sisters Reconciliation checklist was checked. The Detect Thoughts. The pointing out that they’re gonna live for a long time and do they want to do it at each other's throats? Aelwyn finally stepping up to the plate and leaning into her Abjurative Instincts in a positive way and shielding Adaine from their father. And then the stuff that I wanted so bad but didn’t know it. The bunk beds moment? The “I love you too” moment. “She’s a baby!” I mean, “Will you be my big sister?” F off Siobhan. That was beautiful. 

A little concerned about Adaine having left Aelwyn unconscious so close to where their mom is but I am glad she remembered to cure her of Kalina. 

When Brennan said, “In Aelwyn’s last moment,” for a second I thought he meant she was about to be perma-dead and my heart legit stopped. 

I was up until about 2 AM last night, popping bottles with @camwritery (my Abernant Sisters confidant) about Brennan and Siobhan giving us everything we wanted and I’m going to get yelled at by her if I don’t mention something I said while we were talking. Last week, during the fireside chat, all of the players talked about what future lives/jobs they’d want for their characters. I posited the same question for Aelwyn and offered my answer--CPS Case Worker. Because, like, think about it. She is an extremely protective person. She wants to atone for what she did and failed to do for Adaine. When she gets all the therapy she needs, she’s going to be equipped with deep, personal knowledge of what abuse looks like/what it can do to a child and an extremely long lifespan. Can’t you see an adult Aelwyn, in the living room of a well appointed house, speaking cordially to some high class A-hole with his terrified kid sitting next to him, trying not to say anything or do anything that will get them punished and Aelwyn does a surface level Detect Thoughts at the same time so she can mentally kneel before the kid and tell them, “I’m on your side. You can be honest with me. I’m here to protect you. I promise. Don’t be scared.” This is all I want for her.   

This episode Fig rolled one Nat 1 and Gorgug rolled two but one was cancelled with advantage. No Nat 20s were rolled.    

[juicemitio]

Alright I went to Louisville Galaxycon and saw Travis and Clint twice, for their worldbuilding workshop and their Q&A. Here's some interesting stuff I learned (I didn't include stuff they talked about that's pretty common knowledge or they talked about on the last ttazz)

Graduation 

Fitzroy was originally going to be a jock that was weak bc he no longer had a team, Travis told Griffin that that didn't really work for the world so they reframed it as him training to be a hero, was great academically and behaviorally, but had a problem no one had seen before and no one felt like dealing with. It specifically wasn't "barbarian fails bc he can't keep his rage in check," it was that no one was willing to deal with his magic so they shipped him off

Someone asked Travis to explain fitzroy's magic, so from the DM's mouth- he's a barbarian subtype with elemental magic which has a random effect while raging, which we haven't seen yet (path of the wild soul if you want to look it up and see what he can do) and he took a feat which gives him the ability to cast 3 cantrips of his choosing. What I thought was interesting was that Travis described Fitz's magic using the word "elemental" twice, even though that isn't specifically stated in the path of the wild soul entry

Travis knows Argo's secret and is very excited about it 

Clint has a pirate fiction book he reads every night before they record to get into the headspace to play Argo, he told us the name but I forgot it 

There is one small little concept that made the whole of graduation make sense to Travis and is what the arc will be about, and he only figured it out a few days before recording. Obviously he didn't tell us what it was

Originally it was going to start with everyone starting at age 11 and slowly killing the other kids off, but Justin didn't feel comfortable playing a game surrounded by kids dying 

The accounting scene is already one of Travis' all time favorite taz scenes

The pegasus scene informed Travis on exactly how he was going to treat the firbolg

Also Travis referred to Justin's character exclusively as "the firbolg," which means "master firbolg" is solely a thing going on with the npcs in the game which I find hilarious. They just all decided to give him a dope title bc he deserves it, meanwhile no one will call Fitzroy "sir"

To Fitzroy, social threats are an extremely real and serious thing, like the Biggest thing to him (we were talking about what characters found threatening in the workshop, for context)  

There's some big concept/idea that comes up in the next episode that travis almost let spill and had to quickly stop himself from saying it

Someone mentioned eating breakfast in their question in the workshop and Travis goofed on it for a second, then said "cereal world" suddenly, and Clint had to pick up the question bc Travis had to take a second to make a note of it in his phone 

Travis started brainstorming graduation in March and they recorded the first episode in October, and his main job in that time was working on graduation 

Before Buckminster was adapted for graduation he could not fight at all, if he got into a fight he would die, he poured everything into charisma and could talk his way out of any fight (even the big bad of the game he crit 20d his check and the big bad walked away from the fight) 

Travis is really into psychology and how if you assign a label to someone they're going to act more like it (ie you tell a kid they're amazing and smart and talented and they become more like that, you tell a kid they're annoying and dumb and a problem they become more like that), and how that was a major contributor to play into hero/villain/sidekick/henchperson dynamics, you get assigned this arbitrary title of good/evil/subservient and you become like that to fit the role, and then the inevitable pushing against that mold

Travis is fully aware of his story being compared to harry potter and he doesn't care bc it's apt (people in a school arbitrarily divided into four groups and one of them is the Bad One), also he knows people describe it as "sky high meets Harry Potter meets my hero academia" and he actually finds that really flattering bc he thinks that sounds cool and like something he'd want to watch 

On that note, Travis is a self-identified Slytherin and he's always upheld that the reason Slytherin is depicted in a bad light is bc Rowling decided she didn't like them, and he's always sympathized with the idea of a first year Slytherin working their ass off following the rules and doing their work and getting points, and Dumbledore rewards three idiots for breaking like every rule and pulls the trophy away from you. This was a big inspiration for graduation, of one group getting a bad rep and being portrayed as evil for literally no reason 

Amnesty

Clint & Travis's favorite scene they've ever done together was Ned & Aubrey's final scene together 

Aubrey and Dani do move in with each other at the end of amnesty

Balance

Travis' main emotion around taz is pride and he's most proud of the scene in stolen century with the spirits in the robots, bc they had to record it a second time bc it got way too dark and ended in a really grim way and about 20 min after they finished they all decided that they weren't happy with it, that it didn't fit the tone, he's really proud they didn't just leave it be and they took the second pass at it to make it right

I'm pretty sure he's talked about wanting to kill Magnus off at the beginning before but he mentioned that it was only at the end of petals to the metal he actually realized he wanted Magnus to live, bc Hurley had to sacrifice herself to save Magnus bc Magnus had been so reckless, that hit Travis really hard. Travis realized that Magnus' recklessness was getting people hurt and so Magnus did too, so Magnus become a bit more cautious and took up rogue training to try not to get anyone killed again 

Dust

Dust wasn't designed to be anything more than a one off and the workload was completely unsustainable, the document of notes for dust was about 100 pages and only about 10% of it got used

The reason Travis loved it so much was bc it was a mystery and he found it really fun

Commitment

Clint would love to revisit commitment, but probably not in podcast form bc he didn't find himself really being in the moment as much bc of all the different things he had to keep track of, he'd like to see a comic adaptation/continuation if possible

It was based of a comic he wrote that never got published bc the company producing it failed (he still cashed his paycheck) so he reused it bc he still liked it a lot, it was about how America was founded as a monarchy instead of a democracy and what that changed in the usa's (united sovereignty of america's) history, and how people now were fighting to establish a democracy. Also there were cowboys and spaceships and other cool stuff he put in there bc he liked it

General adventure zone

The reason why they're are able to do romantic relationships w/o being weirded out by it (they joke about it but they don't actually care) is bc it's never done in an explicit or sexual way and since it's the decision the characters would make to pursue the relationship then that's the decision they make. He reframed it as it wouldn't be weird if a family were writing a script together and there was a romance and one person wrote lines for one character and the other wrote lines for the other. He did mention that two siblings playing characters in a relationship as actors on screen wouldn't be cool though

They sometimes get comments that some of the stuff they do is "fanservice," but they feel that they owe their success to their fans and they owe some to them 

They are both aware of and proud that Justin is the best at character creation, Clint specifically really was talking about how Justin's strong suit is definitely character creation and characterization

General mcelroy stuff

They walked pretty close to me when they entered the stage room for the q&a and like… they're short, like shorter than you think

Travis referred to his unborn child as "baby dod" (I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure) which I looked up and is a nickname for George, and given with their older kid being named Barbera and nicknamed BeBe and Travis talking before about how he and his wife like classic names with cool nicknames it makes sense

Travis had an earing in his right ear, I didn't get to see his left ear and I couldn't tell if it was an actual piercing or a fake, it looked really good though. Also his tinted glasses look a lot cooler irl than they do in pictures

Clint told the teenage mutant Ninja turtle story with the signatures that griffin told on mbmbam, but Clint remembered it as happening at King's Island, not Disney. This story was prompted by the question of the biggest lie he ever told his kids, and he only came clean about this a few months ago

Travis told a story about how he finished a videogame when he was younger and was so excited that he picked up a plastic knife, yelled "throwing knife!" threw it directly at Griffin who dodged it and it hit and shattered a window

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Balancing Homebrew Classes

I get a lot of questions about homebrewing so I decided to make a big ole list of things to look at when making a subclass or even a class for D&D 5e. I've learned a lot from making my own brews and getting critique from others and reworking my own work, and I think everyone can benefit from these. As you are going through your finished homebrew, check for these:

image credit: Randy Gallegos

Balance Your Features

Action Economy

Players get several different types of actions each turn: movement, an item interaction, a bonus action, a reaction, and an action. There are several potential problems when it comes to assigning abilities to these different types of actions. On one hand, you could put too many options on one action type. If every feature in a subclass costs one action, the player has potential bonus actions and reactions it isn't using. Also, if this is a subclass, be aware that you are competing with other features of the base class.

A rogue subclass that has a ton of bonus action features won't be able to use them if it's using its Cunning Action every turn. The rogue also has its Uncanny Dodge taking up its reactions. This leaves very few actions to deal with as far as a subclass goes, which is why the book's subclasses either offer passive features or spells (for the trickster).

The competition for actions can also be a good thing, but try to limit it to two distinct options. Players shouldn't have to choose between a hundred options each round when you could give them two choices. In the case of the rogue, "do I use my reaction for this attack of opportunity, or wait in case I need Uncanny Dodge later?" Two very different options for one action that can lead to very different outcomes.

Ability Score Economy

Keep an eye on how many ability scores your class cares about. A good class really should only care about two of them. If you introduce a third one, make sure it's tertiary and does not require as much effort to make it good, yet not breakable if the player ramps up to 20 in that stat. For instance, my Commander fighter subclass during fighter week was really reliant on CHA for a class that needs STR and CON to be good. When this was pointed out to me, I have since reworked the class entirely to not need saving throws, and instead gains a number of uses based on WIS plus a flat number. This means that even a fighter with no WIS still gets to use the abilities, but rewards the player for having a few extra points. Since the features no longer have saves, the player isn't punished for having a low tertiary score.

Compare Similar Mechanics

The most basic way to check your classes is to compare it to other existing mechanics, but some people forget to do this. There are a few classes I made that essentially gave other classes a ranger's animal companion. To do that, I made sure to look at the ranger's companion feature when making those classes.

Compare Average Damage

Compare the damage output against the damage of similar classes. What matters most is damage per round, which you should usually assume takes place over 1 minute. You can use this link to calculate damage per round for fighting classes, as compiled by Kryx. There are some parts of the tables I still don't understand, but in general this is very helpful.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d-9xDdath8kX_v7Rpts9JFIJwIG3X0-dDUtfax14NT0/edit#gid=2091322934

It doesn't contain spellcasters (except for the bladelock) but I have a quick way I judge a caster's damage output. A spellcaster ideally will be frontloading its most powerful spells with some cantrips between. Assume that the class in question casts its highest level damaging spell once followed by a cantrip the next round, then the next-highest level damaging spell the next turn, then a cantrip, etc. until 1 minute (10 rounds) passes. Use the average damage for each spell and cantrip. Add all those averages together and divide by 10 to get the average damage that the character did over that minute. Overall, spellcasters tend to have a higher average damage than fighting classes, but they become balanced thanks to their limited number of slots each day. Simply because a creature has access to Cone of Cold doesn't mean it can cast it every single round. Bear that in mind and compare to existing classes.

Check Drawbacks

Honestly, I dislike drawbacks in homebrews unless it's for a thematic reason. There shouldn't be a downside to something to gain an upside that is far beyond what another similar class could accomplish. Instead, that upside should simply be balanced appropriately for the situation. Drawbacks can always be negated somehow, so make sure they either can't be worked around or ensure the effect is fully balanced. For instance, paying health can simply mean spending hit dice during a rest unless you also reduce their hit point maximum.

I was making a class that gave offerings for magical power, so I had it apply effects similar to a sorcerer's metamagic to their spells in return for a sacrifice of gold each time. However, a player's wealth very much depends on the DM. I ended up using a chart based on a character's average wealth as they leveled based on treasure hoards to help choose how much gold it should cost. In the end, I decided that it should probably cost no more than a typical Potion of Healing but the effect applied to the spell shouldn't be too much more powerful than a sorcerer's abilities. Even if the character did have limitless wealth to use the effect on every spell, it shouldn't be enough to break the game.

image credit: Sandro Rybak

Edit Your Text

Be Concise

Make sure your wording is detailed and specific, and yet short and succinct. Keep an eye out for sentences that could be interpreted in a different way. Ensure the antecedent is clear. I recently noticed a spell I made referred to "creatures on the side of the wall you designate." I meant for the caster to choose a side of the wall, not choose which creatures get affected, but it could have been interpreted both ways. Careful wording helps prevent players from absolutely busting your homebrew.

Being concise also helps overly wordy things become easier to understand. I guarantee that few players will actually read through your entire homebrew if it's too wordy and doesn't get the point across quick. In my future edits of my classes, I have since removed a lot of the different options that were available for things like the Xammux wizard from my wizard week, which wanted to be a hundred different classes complete with evil flesh grafting rules. Distill your class down to its essence.

What also doesn't hurt is summarizing a feature with a sentence before defining the rules, cluing players into why the rules are that way. "A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame." Okay so it deals an area of fire damage. Got it.

Check Syntax

Try to use similar terminology that Wizards uses in their classes. I still sometimes use terminology from 3rd edition because that's what I grew up with. For instance I will sometimes say Handle Animal instead of Animal Handling when referring to the specific skill. Just as well, I often refer to skill checks when they are technically ability checks that just happen to use a skill. I should be saying Strength (Athletics) check, not just an Athletics check. Even though it's easier to say out loud or in-game, and on Tumblr posts I will often do so to make things easier for myself, it's not technically correct. Look at similar existing spells and class features to figure out your wording.

image credit: James Ryman

Test Your Class

Theoretical Stress Test

It is difficult to always run numbers and playtest if you are working mostly by yourself (like me), but there are some intense examples you can test your class against to see if it can be easily integrated into the game. Imagine each of the following for your class:

Imagine the whole party was composed of this class. Would its features still be balanced or is there a way to break them? Has the damage become absurd or awful?

Imagine the class in the ideal party, with a cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard. Have your class replace any one of them and see if the party can still function. If it can't, the class might still need balancing to be useful.

Imagine someone is multiclassing into this class after 5 levels of Fighter, or some other class that grants an Extra Attack by then. Basically, does your class become unbalanced if you give them an extra attack? Keep in mind that 5 levels is still an investment, so it usually won't be a problem, but if the class has an extremely powerful ability that gets even MORE powerful if you can attack more than once in a turn, it might need balancing.

Imagine another class multiclasses by dipping a few levels into your class. While you usually want the class's earliest ability to be their "schtick" that they use very often, you have to make sure it's not so powerful that other classes can become overpowered by taking only 3 or so levels in your class. For instance, during Sorcerer Week I made a swarm hivemind subclass that essentially became a swarm, granting it resistance to physical damage. It made sense flavorfully, but someone pointed out that if a Fighter or other combat class dipped into it, they would suddenly have the resilience of a barbarian for almost no cost, in addition to all those spells. I tried fixing it and left it up but in the book compilation I'm making I actually ended up removing it to replace it with a new class.

Try thinking of other ways to test the limits of the homebrew. Chances are someone out there will want to be able to min-max your class so you have to be ready for anything.

Self-Playtest

While it's unfeasible to playtest every single thing you make in large focus groups with detailed data collection, especially if you are by yourself and make a bunch of it like I do, you can always run through a self-playtest. All you have to do is play the class or mechanic in question in turn order against enemies of an appropriate challenge rating. Use turn order and run through the mechanic precisely as you wrote it. Check what happens if a check is failed OR succeeded to cover all your bases.

For the spells that I make, I will imagine the entire process of the spell from casting to effect (usually more for spells with a duration). Use props for minis if it's easier. This helps the distinctions for "start of turn" and "end of turn" effects become more clear. For instance, if I have a disabling spell that requires an initial save and then give the creature a new save at the start of each of their turns, the creature might fail their initial save but then pass their start-of-turn save, meaning they will never have a single round inhibited by the spell! I might get rid of the initial save or change the recurring saves to happen at the end of the creature's turns, so the creature will at least lose one turn on a failed save.

[zeheal-dnd]

Lulu Get’s Her Angelic Guide (Game I Play In)

Lulu starts her adventure with her squirrel companion, heading into the forests to see if she could survive there. But it wasn’t a true forest, it was more of a tree farm style while the ocean calls out to her. So heading to the ocean then seeing that the forest isn't as natural as it could be, she looks at her tree rat with a small grin. "So, we are going to try a coastal and underwater lifestyle for a bit. Think you're up to try new things?"

His nose twitches, “ Uh... I’m smart I can’t swim”

"I know I brought you down with me into the lake. Don't you wanna at least try? I can allow us to breathe underwater."

“That lake had an underground cavern that houses a Kraken. This is the ocean.”

"You can just hold onto me again, give me drag to get stronger at swimming."

“Then go get the blue guy.” He is referencing the water gensai pugilist in the group, who is a dumbass with a heart of gold.

"He is too much of a city person, plus it's been a bit since it was just me and you."

“Fine but no underwater caves.”

"If there is one, I'll go in by myself." When they finally get into the ocean, she decided to smile and look for a good camping spot.

He looks at her, “And I’d be by myself?!”

"Would you rather come with me into the caves of darkness underwater?" He shudders visibly at the thought.

"Look, we will be fine. Just gonna find a camping spot then head out to catch dinner tonight."Will she be using spells? Probably, but only when the normal, animal hunting way is ineffective. So she will go investigate a place for camping, then explore what is calling her for a little with the tree rat but if it gets to much head back to land. After half an hour of searching, she finds a small alcove where she could mane camp. She'll let the squirrel set up on land while she explored the ocean for a while.

As she enters the water and submerges herself, she hears nothing. No call, only silence. Bringing her head up, she sees if it has changed direction. While the only thing she sees is an almost endless expanse of blue. Closing her eyes, she heads back underwater with the ability to breath it and gets on the ground. Putting a large rock on her lap, she meditates under the water. Funny thing, as she goes up for air, she doesn’t seem to move, she seems to stay fixed under the sea

Putting her hands against the top to see if it feels like floating ice over her. Not letting her head up only, or everything at all. But it is only water. Taking a breath in, she swims back down to get a better look around. Something was keeping her under, and now she needed to find what. As she descends deeper, the color of the water slowly gives way from bright blue to the darker blacks of the deep ocean.

Thank goodness for dark vision, a water breathing spell that lasts 24 hours, and no adults to tell her not to go explore that. She keeps swimming, but slowing her pace and keeping at an angel to dash back up. Even carrying a larger rock to help sink faster, or even run against the ground. Eventually, she’s completely surrounded by black with no sigh of up or down, she’s all alone in an underwater abyss. Deciding to stop, she tries to feel where there seems to be a pull, or even a calling again.

She feels next to nothing as she waited. Keeping the rock close, she does carve herself a small seat in the sand under her feet to meditate in. Lulu keeps her eyes closed for what feels like hours before she feels a presence near her.

Keeping her eyes shut, she listens out for what could be coming near her. Tilting her head towards it. It sounds like it is swimming around her, noises of a swimming thing keeping close but moves away after a bit. 

Slowly Lulu opens one eye, then the other only to be met with darkness. Well, beyond what she can see down here. As she opens her eye she sees a black carp swimming hear her. Tilting her head, she looks at it then up and around her. That’s the only thing she sees near her. A black carp with white eyes swimming around

Leaning forward, onto her stomach looking closely at the thing, her hand wandering around it. Not trying to catch it, but more...playing with it. It stops swimming and just stares at her, eyes unblinking.

"Do I need to follow you?" she asks it. It didn’t respond, only silence followed it. So she reached out to try and touch it. When she does, the water feels heavier as she begins to feel the pressure that comes from being near the bottom of the ocean. Looking around, she closes her eyes again to try and focus on her surroundings. Her hand was still going for the fish.

Her hand touches smooth stone. After opening her eyes she finds herself in a temple entrenchedHalf sunken in the ocean floor. Lulu heads up to the surface of the temple, looking around if further in was that way or deeper into the water. The temple seems to be buried in the sand and rock with only what appears to be a window of a steeple as the only means of entry Heading up into it, she squeezes herself into the window and dives down deeper afterward.

Lulu enters an antechamber that, while dark, has several murals and reliefs carved into its walls. It was a good thing she could see in the dark. She searches into them, looking them over slowly and crawling along the walls closely to let it all sink in. Seeing what can only be described as chaos. Forms of monstrous creatures fighting these large humanoid figures. They seem to tell a story involving a war between the gods and their first children.

Pulling back, she tries to see from further away from the full picture. This place was old, very old. In the oldest age, after the gods tamed the primordials, they created various planes, one of which was this one. Their first children were made in their image, but soon the dark voices of the primordials tempted them and the children went mad, slaughtering one another in a maddening stupor. The gods had no choice but to seal their children away and resolved to start again.

Looking at the primordials, she sees if she can understand the faces. Or recognize anything really from all the adventuring they've done. They’re all faceless. She sees if it continues down a specific pathway, or what other ways there were around here. They do, and she followed the paths the murals continued down.

The gods were aware of their first children’s strength, so they placed divine and celestial as guardians to their prison. Over time the God’s second children cafe into being, more diverse and tempered, they seemed to love in harmony and revelry with their creators until the prison’s guardians raised an objection.

Lulu keeps seeing if more details pop up, tracing her fingers along with the celestial carvings before continuing down her way.

There was a split between the divine who stood by the decision to allow free will in their second children and those who expressed that such an allowance would be detrimental. In the end, it was the latter who withdrew from the plane, leaving the gods fewer in number. Heading up, she follows down and keeps her finger against the wall, only withdrawing when something stood out.

The remaining gods stayed, nurtured, and taught their children in all they knew. During this arcane age, magic flourished until one mortal did the unthinkable and ascended to godhood. As the gods were distracted, the first children, who had been whispering into the ears of their younger siblings, finally made their move and in one moment the gate was opened and the first children swarmed onto the plane.

Now she was picking up, swimming faster and around the place. She didn't pay attention to anything that happened, becoming more and more engrossed into the wall carvings.

The gods and the second children fought against the hoard of the first, but over time their children began to tire. Even when the divine who left returned to battle the hoard, the numbers of the first children were overwhelming. It wasn’t long before the Draconic Io was slain and eviscerated by the hoard.

Lulu kept her eyes shut, knowing that her heart was pounding. She looked back from where she came, but like any good book, she had to know how this ends.

From the corpse of the dragon rose three. The eldest emerged and with its six wings, used its breath to turn its enemies to ash. The middle was born but seemingly never lived simply released a miasma of death and disease. While the youngest, born with 5 heads fought with the gods and unleashed the power of the primal energies. Those who wounded the middle were suddenly killed while those who wounded the eldest and youngest were quickly felled by the dragons who arose from their spilled blood. Yet this wasn’t enough to stop the hoard.

Her eyes lingered over the drawing. Timant, that much she could figure out. Yet, the other two are not ones she recognized. Maybe the six wings, but the middle was a new one. As far as she was aware anyways.

It was then the mortal who had ascended stepped forth and placed her hand on the middle born dragon. Soon after the gods and divine gathered their forces and surviving children and retreated, as the divine-mortal weaves a spell of death. When they returned, the place itself was dead, with the divine mortal and the middle born dragon alive on it. In total, the gods had lost over 3/4 of their second children.

How long has she been down here? There was no light, and she had no way to start a fire being under water. Beyond a little puff from a cantrip that will be put out immediately. Where was she? Yet continued on.

It didn’t take the gods too long to breathe new life over the dead form of the plane, but a new problem arose, the tainted blood of the first children had corrupted sections of the place and some of the divine as well. Taking a preemptive move, the returned divine quickly struck down the corrupted and banished their essences to the planes. The eldest dragon instead banished its younger sibling to the realm of the returned divine. Once again the gods and returned divine were at an impasse.

"Cycles cycles always with the cycles," she mumbled.

This time they agreed, the children of the gods are always strengthened by their presence. If these children were to survive, all divine must leave to protect the children from themselves and from threats beyond. They all left the plane and used part of their power to create a divine gate. A measure that would prevent powerful entities from traversing the planes. After a time the second children recovered and began to rebuild.

"They are...going to try and go after them again?" she mumbled, continuing on. Time, time, how much time has passed? Not like she could swim really fast as a humanoid.

The murals end as she comes to a large cylindrical room. Looking around, she summons up another lantern fish to be a sort of small animal torch to look around with. As the fish lights up, it suddenly swims away as darkness begins to sweep through the temple.

Lulu backs up some, keeping her back to the wall as she steeled her will against the darkness. She feels an ominous feeling come from the deepest part of the abyss before the coy fist emerges and swims towards her before stopping.

"You brought me here..." she mumbled, reaching out towards the coy again.

The atmosphere feels like it condescends as Lulu hears telepathically, “Brought? No. I never brought you here Illura, you sought me out on your own accords.”

"Last that I remember, I reached out to touch the fish and hit a stone. And I wasn't near it," she says, withdrawing looking around.

“Minds of the second children are sometimes overwhelmed by our proximity. You saw my essence and swam down, and down, and down.”

"And what, are you going to crush me?" she asked.

“That would accomplish nothing.”

"Fair enough," she says, pushing herself off the stone wall and out into the center more.

“The more apt question is why to seek me out?”

"I'm curious, wondering why you kept calling my name. Has to be for some reason."

“Your essence felt mine as I stirred. To make sense of it, your mind made it sound like I was calling you.”

"Could be because I am seeking something I don't have. Or my curiosity to try and find out who you are."

“Regardless of the why, here you are.”

"Here I am." Silence came, prompting her to continue with, “So what now? Are you going to show me who you are?"

“Are you?”

"This is who I am, I can shape change but that's about it."

“This is who you think you are, not who you truly are. A young seed, before such a time where we know what you truly are.”

"If you're talking about my mom, then there is that too. I haven't looked into my dad yet, but honestly, I don't care."

“Are you not more than your ancestors?”

"I am who I am, my heritage be damned."

“In the coming months that will be tested.”

"I figured as much. People are more than who their parents are."

The fish fades away but the darkness remains, “Soon you must help decide the fate of an entire plane against that of a few lives, and when your world is out to the torch, you must pass through the shadow of death before you can inspire life.”

"I don't wanna die, but I will make sure that people will survive. I don't plan on being more than what I can do, beyond looking to improve. I'm no inspiration, I'm just a druid."

She feels her eyes get heavy, as she closes them for a second, she opens them to the same blue sea where she started her descent, but her lungs are on fire. As she swims up, she’s suddenly thrust up at rapid speed before she breaks the surface to get some air.