3PP Release New Release: Single-Class Synergy, Volume 4: Arcane Power

[Timespike]

Volume 4 of Single-Class Synergy is now available! This volume covers the artificer, bard, and sorcerer first-party classes and the elementalist and warcaster third-party classes. The warcaster is from Steampunkette's newest release: Martial Artistry.

For those who haven't seen the previous threads corresponding to the earlier releases in the series: I chose the name single-class synergy because the feat chains work very much like multiclass synergy feats do in terms of progression: they have level-based prerequisites, build on each other, let you do more and/or different things with your class resources and reward investment into the chain.

This installment is up on Drivethru for $7 right now.

Disclaimer: this is an affiliate link. If you purchase through this link, I may receive a small kickback from DrivethruRPG. Your price will not be affected.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/pro...olume-4-arcane-power-a5e?affiliate_id=3134022

 

[Selganor]

Three things I noticed with my first glance at Artificer...

They still "need" out of class help to get proficiency with improvised weapons.

They still don't get a way to be proficient in ALL tools like the D14/24(?) Artificer is.
A5E artificers get lots of tool proficiencies (most Field Discoveries give some, too) but according to Murphy's Law there is more than 50/50 chance that you'd "need" a tool proficiency for something important that you don't have.

Third thing... The third boost of Engineering expertise die probably falls flat. You are at 1d4 since level 1, probably get to d6 or d8 anyway so you'd be at d10 at 4th and then d12 at 8th so the additional expertise die probably doesn't give you anything and the limit still is d12.
Maybe raise the passive Engineering effect of Expertise dice from the base of +3 (or maybe allow every die type above d12 - since you might get more with Engineering specialties - for a second Expertise die starting at d4 again and use the higher of those two dice)

 

[Pedantic]

Nice! Just a small formatting thing, the warcaster crit bonuses probably should be indented once to differentiate them from the maneuver below.

 

[Timespike]

Nice! Just a small formatting thing, the warcaster crit bonuses probably should be indented once to differentiate them from the maneuver below.

They're separate bullet points - I'm not sure I'm grasping why you think they need further differentiation? Can you explain in a little more detail what's giving you difficulty?

 

[Timespike]

Three things I noticed with my first glance at Artificer...

They still "need" out of class help to get proficiency with improvised weapons.

They still don't get a way to be proficient in ALL tools like the D14/24(?) Artificer is.
A5E artificers get lots of tool proficiencies (most Field Discoveries give some, too) but according to Murphy's Law there is more than 50/50 chance that you'd "need" a tool proficiency for something important that you don't have.

Third thing... The third boost of Engineering expertise die probably falls flat. You are at 1d4 since level 1, probably get to d6 or d8 anyway so you'd be at d10 at 4th and then d12 at 8th so the additional expertise die probably doesn't give you anything and the limit still is d12.
Maybe raise the passive Engineering effect of Expertise dice from the base of +3 (or maybe allow every die type above d12 - since you might get more with Engineering specialties - for a second Expertise die starting at d4 again and use the higher of those two dice)

I'm sorry that specific feat chain didn't do it for you - the improvised weapon thing feels more like the thing a person who is specifically resourceful in a fight gets - it's way more Jackie Chan than Tony Stark to my mind (to use some pop culture references).

As far as the engineering expertise thing goes, I think capping out at a d12 expertise die is a perfectly reasonable ceiling; A5E is intended to be a bit more swingy than O5E, which is why a lot of things that were initially static bonuses are now dice instead. You're still rolling 1d20+1d12+4+INT mod at that point. That's going to give you an excellent chance of success for most reasonable DCs (and even some unreasonable ones).

Regarding the tool set proficiency - tool sets have a bit more impact than musical instruments or gaming sets, so I felt it was appropriate to give out some more, but not everything; the A5E artificer is a different enough beast from the O5E one where I didn't feel comfortable handing out every tool set in the game like that.

 

[Pedantic]

They're separate bullet points - I'm not sure I'm grasping why you think they need further differentiation? Can you explain in a little more detail what's giving you difficulty?

The formatting suggests that selecting a Cutting Omens maneuver is also an option when you crit, there's nothing that pulls you out of the list implied by the first feature.

Taking out the context, you end up with:

• Whenever you score a critical hit with a cantrip,
  choose one of the following:
• Your speed...
• You gain...
• You gain...

It's not immediately clear the first two options are the bonus on crit, and the last one is a permanent feature.

 

[Timespike]

The formatting suggests that selecting a Cutting Omens maneuver is also an option when you crit, there's nothing that pulls you out of the list implied by the first feature.

Taking out the context, you end up with:

It's not immediately clear the first two options are the bonus on crit, and the last one is a permanent feature.

Oh! I was looking at the wrong feat. Yes, that's just a straight-up formatting error you've found. I will get that fixed (I'll probably add the fix at the same time I get the Foundry module). I'm glad I asked, thank you!