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

[Evenglare]

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.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You do not have any issue whatsoever *until* such time as you have two characters in your campaign, one of which is a Bloodrager Barbarian, and the other is an Oath of Vengeance Paladin.

If you don't have both in your game, then the 20th level ability of the OoV Paladin doesn't actually "exist", and thus it doesn't matter in the slightest that the 20th level Bloodrager Barbarian can have his angel wings all the time. His 20th level ability gets compared to nothing.

So I don't see the need to worry about it until the situation will actually come up.

 

[EdL]

And its level 20, so how long is it going to matter to the campaign?

 

[Kite474]

If the game reaches Level 20 you could just buff the Vengeance Paladins capstone ability in some way or another. Maybe he gains some special abilities for the hour?

Edit: I also share your pain with this. Converting Pathfinder classes can be a pain in the a## due to how much stronger they are compared to 5e counterparts. Case in point I don't think Ill ever brew a Summoner that would be enjoyable and balanced.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

To prevent this you could have the duration of the angelic effects be independent of raging. You could word it along the lines of "This effect lasts for X rounds. You must be raging to use this ability. The effect ends if you stop raging."

 

[Valmarius]

Totem Barbarians can already perform short bursts of flight if they follow the Eagle totem. The capability is already there (although not quite soaring around).

In fact, the totem barbarian would make an excellent starting point for this subclass. Just rename the totems to being aspects of the PCs bloodline and trade out the abilities that allow communion with nature to something more appropriate, like some limited spell/cantrip access.

 

[Xeviat]

And high level sorcerers get wings from a few of their subclasses. It's not unprecedented. There's more to the paladin's capstone than flight.

 

[dmnqwk]

Are you trying to make this an archetype, or a new class?

A lot of the time when people create homebrew they end up making them too strong because they only give abilities with far reaching benefits or combat bonuses - something like the ability to fly when raged is definitely an example of far-reaching (even if it is just when you rage) so consider restricting the choices available to the bloodrager to a specific line so those overpowered abilities (gaining the fly spell while raging is definitely in line with overpowered with no further restrictions) can be pruned.

But as the others say, dont worry if someone else has the ability, concern yourself more with "is it fair and balanced" which I would argue a fly spell when raging is not.

 

[Evenglare]

Bloodrager is not a new class, it's a barbarian subclass I made. I suppose that the indefinite rage isn't actually broken considering their (wizard's) analysis of creating a favored soul out of sorcerer, which has infinite flight earlier than the blood rager would. Im not at all concerned about my other bloodrager abilities being overpowered. If anything they are probably underpowered, but after looking at their creating new class option guide I actually don't think this is as OP as I was originally thinking. Assuming wizards can be trusted with their guidelines. I know the 20 ability isn't going to matter much, but I still feel as though I should be paying attention to it. The mentality of "oh well no one ever gets that high so we shouldn't worry about it" is probably why high level has literally never worked well in any edition prior to this and possibly not even this edition (haven't tried it out). Thanks for reply though.