D&D 5E Golden Sun Djinn in 5E?

[Undrave]

Maybe you could refluff the dragon marks from Eberron as Supernatural Gifts (theros) mixing X of elemental command and figurine of wonderous powers. Then use the piety/renown system to rate the bonding of the character to the specific element.

Zephyr's spirit (supernatural gifts)
- Windwright's Intuition. When you make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check or any ability check involving navigator's tools, you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the ability check.

- Djinn's Boon. You have resistance to lightning damage.

- Headwinds. You know the gust cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

- Spells of the Djinn. If you have the Spellcasting or the Pact Magic class feature, the spells on the Mark of Zephy Spells table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class.

Mark of Zephyr Spells
Spell Level Spells
1st feather fall, fog cloud
2nd gust of wind, levitate
3rd sleet storm, wind wall
4th conjure minor elementals, control water
5th conjure elemental

Bond 3+ : Cast Featherfall Spell once per day

Bond 10 +: Resistance to falling damage

Bond 25+: Summon Wind elemental oncer per day.

Bond 50: End all passive abilities of the Djinn till next long rest. Summon an elemental Archon.

Also an interesting take! Plenty of potential.

Still feels like a straight power upgrade and puts lots of emphasis on the Djinn creatures themselves, rather than the interesting system of give and take.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Also an interesting take! Plenty of potential.

Still feels like a straight power upgrade and puts lots of emphasis on the Djinn creatures themselves, rather than the interesting system of give and take.

You are right. Its a lot of power, but we are talking about JRPG heroes: over the top powers is the name of the game
But yeah, its a little too huge a part of the character. Maybe a variant human race? But then players can change its bound element...
Unless we use the same design as the Eladrin who can change subrace after a long race, but then the power granted by the bound Djinn should be only more or less as strong as fey step...

An elemental pact warlock could work:

- At first level, a the end of a long rest, bind one Djinn. Gain known spells and 1 cantrip based on the element chosen. + one ''intuition'' stolen from a Dragonmark, as above.


Or

Modify the Echo Knight from Wildemount: Bind one elemental at 3rd level, change after a long rest. Gain a passive effect varying with the element. Instead of summoning an echo of yourself, you ''Unleash'' you Djinn. Maybe add 1/3 caster, but nerf a little the echo (no distant AoO, frex). When your Djinn (echo) is Unleashed (manifested) you dont gain the passive benefits.

At higher level, you can ''discard'' your Djinn to summon an elemental or cast Investiture of X on yourself.

 

[Undrave]

The problem is, this gets fiddly and complex quickly. Hence why doing it as a full system might be best, but it could also be really rewarding as an off the wall homebrew class in DnD too.

I agree with the Boost simply getting stronger, or mixing depending on your build, but I think the unleash actions have to be a little more unique, because I think they take the place of some of the spells and level up abilities as you go up.

I think even the "caster" version of this ends up with spellcasting more like a 2/3rds caster, to make room for the Djinn abilities and boosts. Artificer might be a good place to look for balancing that.

I was thinking I could build it like a Warlock, only 2 spell slots, the max level of which would be decided by how many total Djinn you have.

It would be fiddly but having a very limited spell list that depends on your Djinn could work. Like, you have 2 Fire Djinn and Burning Hand is in your spell list, go up to 5 and you get Fireball. 5 Djinn total is also what you need for your spell slots to be lv 3.

Caster types would get attack cantrips and more spells represented by unique Unleashes.

As you say, it'd be fiddly but certainly interesting. You'd probably need to keep a little cheat sheet of the djinn bonus and just move a marker on it to tell you what you have.

 

[Carlholl]

I'd eliminate the djinn altogether because they don't work unless you make the whole system over complicated. A simpler way it to have them grant perm boosts and that's it. You found flint here is its ability. When you rill a 17 or higher in an attack roll you can choose to treat the roll as a crit (as long as you hit) once per shirt rest. Or something like that summons would be dumb. Judgement AOE will wipe the map and the party