D&D 5E Justification for new class options and removing current abilities.


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I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
I suppose this could go under the homebrew board, but it's not a homebrew thing, more of a discussion on class options and design.

Anyway what brings me here is a conversion of a pathfinder class. When I got my advanced class guide I wasn't expecting much out of it other than the standard options. I was in for a surprise when I read about the bloodrager. It's probably my favorite class / concept for a class ever at this point. Clearly, I want that in my 5e game. For those not in the know, a bloodrager is basically a barbarian and sorcerer hybrid. When you rage your bloodline becomes manifest and that's just so awesome. So if you had a divine bloodline you would take the form of an angel. Of course at low levels it's subtle gradually gaining powers as you advance in levels. I ported over this as a subclass of the barbarian, which was easy enough except for one thing. Going back to my example of the Angel, clearly you are going to manifest wings and be able to fly at high levels. This is fine except for the fact that the level 20 barbarian can basically rage all the time without limit.

Other than obviously being able to fly literally at any time for however long, the thing that most concerns me is that this character steps on the Oath of Vengeance Paladin's level 20 ability. Which allows flight and some other stuff but only for an hour. So im debating on whether to limit the barbarians lvl 20 rage forever. I don't necessarily know if I should when looking at overall class structure. While the paladin does only get that level 20 ability for an hour, he also has a lot of other stuff like access to spells and the paladin abilities. So those abilities might put he paladin back on par with the endless rage flight ability for the bloodrager. The other abilities that the bloodrager get are not terribly impressive just things like... lvl3 your weapon gains a specific type of damage when you attack with this (in my angel expample radiant), at 5th level you gain a resistance to necrotic damage , then the wings at level 10, level 14 you get an aura that does a bit of damage to any foe in the aura and immunity to necrotic.

Keep in mind these abilities are only present during rage. I don't really think they are overpowered in any way except for that pesky level 20 unlimited rage. Should I limit the rages back down to 6/day? maybe 8 or 10? Should I just leave the unlimited rage alone? If I DO limit it, should I just put it in the description (If you take this path you lose the ability of unlimited rage at level 20)? Any input is helpful, if you made it this far, thanks for your time reading this. Again, if this should be in the homebrew board feel free to move it there. The primary focus was about balance not necessarily my homebrew stuff.

Given that a 1st level aarakocra or tiefling can fly indefinitely, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Flight, in and of itself, is just an exploration power, one that, by 20th level, the party will be able to do in an assortment of ways if necessary. Or even better (like teleportation!).
 

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