5e Balance Tweaks

[mellored]

Just collecting the balance things i've seen or found that could use tweaks, or rewording.
About 1/2 of these are from other members of the WotC forum.

(broken)

• Simulacrum+Wish = infinite clones. Also some classes can innately regain HP, like fighters: Simulacrums cannot cast simulacrum, wish, or regain hit points outside the lab. (can't cast level 7+ spells? Maybe change wish to not remove costs?)
• Temperate (minor magic effect): "Suffered no harm in from temperatures...". Being cold shouldn't protect you from everything.

(big ones)

• Illusory Reality/Minor Conjuration: Cannot be used for material components. Otherwise free resurrections and infinite glyph of warding.
• Polearm Master: Make an Opportunity Attack with the polearm. (and not warcaster). The dev's have already said this was the intent, but it can be clarified.

(moderate ones)

• Charger: Deal extra damage equal to 2x your proficiency. This needs to scale to be useful at high level.
• Sharpshooter: -3 to hit, +6 damage. When combined with archery style+bless+foresight+precision strike+ect..., you can easily overcome the -5 to hit, and end up with extreme damage. This makes it more reasonable, while still leaving it a good combo. It slightly boost a more normal use-case.
• Martial Adept: 2 dice. Too weak otherwise.
• Beastmaster's biggest weakness is losing his pet to a stray fireball and being weak for the rest of a day, if not longer. Give beast hit dice, and more importantly a way to get his pet back though not too cheaply. It also allows you to keep the same pet, instead of having to replace dear fluffy all the time. i.e.
  Level 2: revivify beast spell.
  1 action: touch
  Component: A scrap of fur, fang, or tooth belonging to the creature. 10GP worth of powerded diamond.
  If a beast died in the last minute, it comes back to life with 1 HP. At higher level: At level 3, the beast could of died in the past day. At level 4, the beasts regenerates missing body parts. At level 5, you don't need the beasts body, it regenerates from the fur.
• Grappler: Can grapple creatures 2 sizes larger. As an attack, you can try and pin someone. One bullet point is wasted, and grapple+prone is on par with restrained, and doesn't require a feat. So this needs buffed, or perhaps just removed.
• Savage Attacker: +1 Str and... This feat is just too weak.
• Mordenkain's sword: Duration: 8 hours. Way too weak otherwise.
• Pact Blade: Can use Cha for melee attacks with the pact weapon. Bladelocks can use a bump, reducing MAD seems to be a good way.
• Elemental Monks: Need a boost... (reduce the ki cost by 1? extra ki?) Unsure of a simple solution.

(Minor ones)

• Magic Secrets: Can be retrained. Possibly can not be retrained, either way but this needs clarified.
• Medium Armor Mastery: +1 AC, no penalty to stealth. So 12 or 14 Dex people see a benefit.
• Elemental Adept: Reroll 1's. Use the new result. Bumps the damage to make it a little more worth while.
• Rangers: Replace Primeval Awareness with extra "domain" spells. Just to give the ranger a little extra.
  Beastmaster:
  3: animal friendship, speak with animals.
  5: Revivify Beast (see above), Warding Bond.
  9: conjure animals, protection from energy
  13: stone skin, dominate beast
  17: Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Awaken
  Hunter:
  3: Hunter's Mark, Primeval Awareness (as a level 1 ranger spell).
  5: Pass without a trace, locate animal or plants
  9: Nondetect, Water Walk
  13: Freedom of Movement, Locate Creature
  17:Tree Stride, Scrying.
• Fighter (Champion): Your hit dice are d12. Or some other kind of buff, crits range just doesn't add enough, particularly for those who want a simple sword & board or archery.
• Which Bolt: At higher level's, increase the initial and ongoing damage by... otherwise it's too weak.
• Lighting Arrow: each creature within 10' of the target (including the target) takes 2d8... Just to clarify it.
• Greatweapon Master: -3 to hit / +1d12 damage. Same reason as sharpshooter, though without archery style, and bigger base damage, it's doesn't need to be nerfed quite as far.
• Quicken: Can't use another non-cantrip spell or invocation. Fireball + Eldrich Blast + Agonizing blast is a bit much, particularly at high level. Removing the invocation will leave it at cantrip level.
• Crossbow Expertise: Slightly on the OP side, though i can't think of a simple fix that doesn't overnerf it....
• Greataxe: +1d12 on a crit. Gives it a more distinct flavor, and brings it closer, but still behind 2d6 mauls for normal crit-rates.

Suggestions and comments welcome.

 

[Inconnunom]

I like most of it. I'm not a fan of the fighter change. (kinda boring). I'd rather see something like an extra 1d4 damage or something added to all attacks. that is only 2.5 damage but it works well with the crits doubling damage. It puts its damage more in line with battlemaster while keeping mechanics simple.

Even something like +1 to attack and damage rolls, isn't too bad. Makes sense if they are a champion and supposed to be the pinnacle of martial training.

 

[mellored]

I like most of it. I'm not a fan of the fighter change. (kinda boring). I'd rather see something like an extra 1d4 damage or something added to all attacks. that is only 2.5 damage but it works well with the crits doubling damage. It puts its damage more in line with battlemaster while keeping mechanics simple.

Even something like +1 to attack and damage rolls, isn't too bad. Makes sense if they are a champion and supposed to be the pinnacle of martial training.

Well the champion is intended to be boring, so i aimed for a simple and boring buff.

But +1d4 damage would be reasonable as well.
I'd advoid the +1 to hit though.

 

[CapnZapp]

Suggestions and comments welcome.

Please add your reasoning that explains and motivates these changes.

For instance "feature X allows broken combo X+Y; therefore I change X into Z"

Otherwise it will be awfully hard to make a meaningful contribution.

 

[mellored]

Please add your reasoning that explains and motivates these changes.

For instance "feature X allows broken combo X+Y; therefore I change X into Z"

Otherwise it will be awfully hard to make a meaningful contribution.

Done.

 

[Inconnunom]

I disagree with Quicken changes with the invocation. If you are spending that much effort and resources to just get agonizing blast + quicken, you shouldn't also be penalized the damage reduction.

 

[mellored]

I disagree with Quicken changes with the invocation. If you are spending that much effort and resources to just get agonizing blast + quicken, you shouldn't also be penalized the damage reduction.

2 levels, not a huge investment. Particularly since you can sacrifice your warlock spells to replace your Socerer Points.

A warlock2/sorcerer 17 get's level 9 spells and high end DPR.
On the same turn.

It's not drastically overpowered (still burns your SP, which you could of otherwise), but it's above the normal.

 

[Inconnunom]

2 levels, not a huge investment. Particularly since you can sacrifice your warlock spells to replace your Socerer Points.

A warlock2/sorcerer 17 get's level 9 spells and high end DPR.
On the same turn.

It's not drastically overpowered (still burns your SP, which you could of otherwise), but it's above the normal.

That extra damage is a pittance compared to losing your capstone lvl 20 ability in either class. I think this is mountain/molehill for this situation.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like extra domain spells for the ranger. It could be tied to favoured terrain however (see druid).
I would also allow ritual casting.

If you don't tie it to favoured terrain I would allow attuning to different lands an enemies by spending downtime. Or primal awareness could be a way to fast attune to a terrain for a limited time.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I mostly agree but would swap the -5/+10 mechanic for +1 Str (GWM) or +1 Dex (SS).

I would also:

- Delete the part about not suffering disad shooting in melee for Crossbow Expert (makes melee mostly obsolete)
- Delete passive perception altogether (broken mechanic)
- Change Devil's Sight so it doesnt work in magical darkness (OP). Add another minor benefit (I like Adv on initiative rolls - he sees glimpses of the future, as well as see in normal darkness, sort of "devil's sight").