Homebrew Homebrewing Options: The Big, The Bad, The Beautiful

[xiphumor]

I’ve been thinking about how to homebrew character options that allow for enough variety to appeal to all stripes, but keep within reasonable bounds. A pattern I’ve observed and am starting to use as a guide is to have Big, Bad, and Beautiful options. Let me explain:

The Big: This is for those who love power and spectacle. You deal more damage, you cast bigger spells, you take up more space, you make yourself noticed. You roll to Intimidate. You cast Fireball. You Rage. You love giants and monstrosities.

The Bad: This is for the conniving, creepy, manipulative, unsettling, or just generally transgressive. While not necessarily evil, this play style leans more into less conventionally acceptable behaviors. You roll to Deceive. You sneak attack. You cast Fear. You love fiends and aberrations.

The Beautiful: This is for the benevolent and kind, those who get caught up in fantasy for the white knight and the princess. Those who want the chance to be heroes for the good they can achieve, not the powers they use to achieve it. You roll to Persuade. You lay on hands. You cast Animal Friendship. You love fey and celestials.

To give an example of how I’m using this to guide me, I’m currently working on an Ocean Druid with three options:

Leviathan: Make your creatures larger than life.

Abyssal Diver: Embrace the unsettling creatures in the darkest depths

Dazzling Array: Delight in the strange charms of coral reefs and tropical fish.

I would love feedback on this heuristic and to know if anyone has anything to add.

 

[niklinna]

Seems like a good heuristic for maximal differentiation. Is Ocean Druid an archetype, or is it a set of three archetypes with an ocean theme?

For what it's worth, I'm much more a fan of mix-and-match options than package deals. Even though they aren't the classes I gravitate to, I love the Adept & Warlock mechanically, because they are designed more as an à la carte buffet with lots and lots of choices.

I'm not as keen on other classes that merely provide "one of A/B/C" choices of class features at particular levels—especially when you can't pick an earlier one at higher levels. Same goes for archetypes. Some of the archetypes do explicitly allow you to take lower-leveled features. I don't know why the classes and archetypes aren't all designed that way, but oh well.

 

[xiphumor]

It’s an archetype with different tracks, similar to the treespeaker. My goal is to make archetypes for different biomes with one corresponding to each of the secrets of nature (and having it as a prerequisite.)

I’ve considered trying to make this one more à la carte, but it gets exhausting pretty quickly, and more importantly, the options are less evocative when they’re piecemeal. I’m already hoping to cover a wide range of things, and the central idea of the archetype gets away from me when I start staring down that kind of mess.

 

[Blue]

A couple of years ago there was a UA with a ranger (?) subclass that let you turn into a giant tree. It quite changed how the character was played. And I loved that - a subclass that isn't just a sticker that you put onto your class, but something larger that changes it more fundamentally. Moon Druid is another example.

These feel like they could do that. Give three options that play different.

If that's true, I like that.