D&D Beyond Drops adds first subclass, a Shadowfell-themed Fighter

The D&D Beyond Drops program has added its first subclass as part of its October slate of releases. The Sorrow Knight is a Fighter subclass that has ties to the Shadowfell and is part of a wider slate of Shadowfell-related releases for October's major D&D Beyond Drops. The Sorrow Knight has a pool of Despairing Strike Dice that can be spent when a Fighter hits with a weapon attack. In addition to dealing extra Psychic damage, the Despairing Strike also inflicts one of several additional effects chosen by the Sorrow Knight. The range of choices for the Despairing Strike increases when a player reaches Level 10. At Level 7, the Sorrow Knight gains a limited teleport ability that can also frighten creatures within 10 feet of where the Fighter appears. At higher levels, the Fighter gains resistance to Necrotic and Psychic damage and can attune to the Shadowfell for a minute, with the ability to spend Reactions to become incorporeal when targeted by an attack and thus reduce that attack's damage to 0 and become immune to the Charmed and Frightened conditions.

Several Shadowfell-related Feats were also released with this set of content, as well as a handful of Shadowfell-related monsters.

The Sorrow Knight is the first subclass to be released via the D&D Beyond Drops program, a digital-only set of content available only to D&D Beyond subscribers. The Sorrow Knight, alongside other D&D Beyond content will be available to non-subscribers in the form of a digital release on D&D Beyond next May. It does not appear (at least at this time) that there are any plans for a physical release of the Sorrow Knight or other D&D Beyond Drops content.

 

[Minigiant]

So...#1-3 Barbarian (Berserker, Berserker, and the eldritch-horror interpretation of World Tree)
#4 Crown or (more likely) Glory Paladin
#5 Redemption Paladin
#6-7 Ancients Paladin
#8 Sorrow Knight too (isn't Ennui just existential sorrow?)
#9 Banneret, obviously. If any subclass deserves to be called the "Shame Knight", it's Banneret.

Almost want to add explanar "lantern corps" of emotional warriors in the Ethereal Plane

--

In all seriousness, I like the class idea.

My own urban fantasy game has a bunch of warriors who channel psychic power to give, mantle, and consume the emotions of Sadness, Fear, Rage, Hate, Joy, Serenity, and Love during battle. So this is my wheelhouse. Joy the Joyless an NPC in the game would be a Sorrow Knight and is linked to the plane of Undead.

 

[Minigiant]

Sometimes I think that Battlemaster Superiority Dice should have been an across fighter thing or across martial. Not all fighter subclasses get it but the ones that do use the same mechanics.

You get 3 Combat 1d8 dice and they return on a short or long rest. You can always just roll and expend one to add it as damage to a hit with a weapon or unarmed

Battlemaster turns Combat dice into Superiority Dice and you get more dice due to the milder on-hit effects.

Sorrow Knight turns Combat dice into Superiority dice and you use a tertiary abilty score due to the stronger on hit effects.

Arcane Archer turns Combat dice into Shot dice and you use a secondary abilty score due to the good on hit effects.

Superior Technique fighting style and Martial Adept feat return but only give basic Combat dice. You need a special fighter subclass to upgrade Combat dice for special use.

 

[Weiley31]

For a true edge lord you need a Lust Knight that grows tentacles when they use Action Surge

They do have a perfectly good UA feat for that, minus the action surge part.

 

[Weiley31]

I love the Battlemaster.

 

[Weiley31]

You know, I can flavour a Goliath+Sorrow Knight as a quasi Death Giant.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

Is that the actual art? Because if so, it is empirically bad. Who allowed that to pass muster?

 

[Chaltab]

Is that the actual art? Because if so, it is empirically bad. Who allowed that to pass muster?

Can I see the data on this? Exactly how many milliliters of bad is it?

 

[aco175]

Is that the actual art? Because if so, it is empirically bad. Who allowed that to pass muster?

I guess different strokes, and not in the "Whatcha talkin bout Willis' way.

 

[AlViking]

another subclass that relies on tertiary ability of the class, great...

1d8->d10->d12 for limited features is not damage scaling, it's a rounding error

make scaling matter at least something,

like: 1d6->2d6->3d6

resistance to damage comes about 8 levels too late.

I don't see the extra damage as being the point really - a fighter already has the damage part down and the bonus damage is just the frosting on the cake to keep in on par with the other subclasses. But what I like are the supernatural effects. Empathic inquiry adds a bit of out-of-combat benefit, using dreaded appearance to teleport into the midst of the enemy (and frightening them along with a bit of damage) is cool.

Could they be more powerful? Sure. But then it wouldn't be a good fit as a fighter subclass.

 

[TravDoc42]

I quite like the art!! It's nifty!