D&D 5E Swappable archetypes

[mellored]

Your going to have to do some fudging.

Rogues get a big level 17 feature as part of their sub-class (2 turns, double damage).

Fighter's get a big level 17 feature as their core class (2 action surges).

 

[Remathilis]

You're going to run into a lot of oddities, because a lot of subclasses NEED their base class.

Oaths, Pacts, Domains, and Circle of Land all grant additional spells known, which can play havoc on spell lists and really allow for casters to have giant doses of flexibility that was never accounted for. Or are useless to classes with no spellcasting.

Frenzied Berserkers and Totem Warriors need Rage to activate their powers.

Valor and Lore Colleges grant bonuses to Bardic Inspiration dice.

Both Domains and Oaths need Channel Divinity to use their powers.

Circle of the Moon is useless without Wild Shape.

Open Hand, Four Elements, and Shadow Way powers all activate off Ki points.

Beastmaster Share Spells is useless to nonspellcasters.

A Thief's Fast Hands is useless without Cunning Action. Mage Hand legerdemain loses a bit without CA as well.

Sorcerous Origins are useless without sorcery points to activate them.

[School] Savant is useless to casters who don't scribe spells into books. In fact, Most Arcane Traditions would be wasted on non-casters or those with limited spell selection.

So at best, your going to be re-writing or ignoring huge swaths of archetypes anyway. The only ones that might swap with no problems is Champion, Battlemaster, EK, Assassin, AT, and Hunter. And that doesn't EVEN get into balance issues.

Honestly, unless you want a lot of work, I'd keep subclasses pinned to their proper classes.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Your going to have to do some fudging.

Rogues get a big level 17 feature as part of their sub-class (2 turns, double damage).

Fighter's get a big level 17 feature as their core class (2 action surges).

Yeah, but fighter subclasses get a level 18 feature for their subclass, so I'm not all that fussed. If it seems like a big deal, bumping the subclass feature of a fighter with a rogue subclass to 18 wouldn't be difficult.

You're going to run into a lot of oddities, because a lot of subclasses NEED their base class.

Agreed, and noted when someone suggested the barbarian monk. I think in some cases we can come up with appropriate conversions (ki for instance has some amount of compatibility with spell slots, assuming that the elemental monk's abilities are at all sensibly priced)

Oaths, Pacts, Domains, and Circle of Land all grant additional spells known, which can play havoc on spell lists and really allow for casters to have giant doses of flexibility that was never accounted for. Or are useless to classes with no spellcasting.

Interestingly enough, if you look at circle of the land, warlock patrons (which is their archetype - pact is just a variation of the base class) and sorceror paths, they all seem to line up ok. It seems that their additional spells known are being treated as a feature and they are losing some class features to get them.

Frenzied Berserkers and Totem Warriors need Rage to activate their powers.

Yeah, covered. Ideally we should be able to find some sort of spell slot correlation for 'is raging'. I really like the idea of a druid spending spell slots or wildshapes to fuel totem warrior abilities. Take a look below for the equivalencies.

Valor and Lore Colleges grant bonuses to Bardic Inspiration dice.

Problematic, although they are trading off a limited base resource for an improved ability: one could argue that simply being unable to use the ability is not a great loss, as your class will have some alternative base resource instead that isn't depleted by your archetype. Loss of flexibility, but not a big hit to raw power. Take a look below for the equivalencies.

Both Domains and Oaths need Channel Divinity to use their powers.

Unlike bardic inspiration, base channel divinity usage is extremely limited. In this case moving a charge of channel divinity into the archetype instead of the base class seems like the right move.

Circle of the Moon is useless without Wild Shape.

True - I think this one relies on modifying a very specific class ability almost exclusively, so it's not really going to be swappable to from a non-druid class. Unless you were to create lower level polymorph spells or something. Take a look below for the equivalencies.

Open Hand, Four Elements, and Shadow Way powers all activate off Ki points.

Four elements powers suggest that a spell slot is worth 1 + 1 per spell level ki points. Shadow way seems to get a 1 point discount (ie - 1 ki/spell level for darkness, darkvision, pass without trace). Personally I'd be inclined to believe that the four elements numbers are too high and should be lowered! But the higher numbers seem to work better within some limits.
Open hand probably should grant flurry, because otherwise it doesn't work. I don't think that's too big a deal, given how limited flurry is.

Beastmaster Share Spells is useless to nonspellcasters.

I'm not sure this is a huge problem. TBH, I consider it a fairly weak ability even when you're a ranger.

A Thief's Fast Hands is useless without Cunning Action. Mage Hand legerdemain loses a bit without CA as well.

This is kind of down to the weird way that bonus action works. In effect, every character has a bonus action, but only some characters have a way to use it. Cunning action doesn't really grant you a bonus action, it just gives you some ways to use it. Fast hands and mage hand legerdemain do as well. There's no real dependency between them.
In other words, remove the 'granted by cunning action' wording from the archetype abilities, because it is unnecessary, and the abilities work fine.

Sorcerous Origins are useless without sorcery points to activate them.

For spellcasters, solved by allowing expenditure of appropriate spell slots, which flows through to ki expenditure.

[School] Savant is useless to casters who don't scribe spells into books. In fact, Most Arcane Traditions would be wasted on non-casters or those with limited spell selection.

... and so you're unlikely to take illusionist if you don't have illusion spells - no biggie. Savant isn't a big deal either, since money in 5th isn't a big deal. I don't think that wizard archetypes are losing abilities to gain it.

So at best, your going to be re-writing or ignoring huge swaths of archetypes anyway. The only ones that might swap with no problems is Champion, Battlemaster, EK, Assassin, AT, and Hunter. And that doesn't EVEN get into balance issues.

I honestly am not seeing any balance issues with the rogue-fighter swaps. I think ranger swaps go into that mix pretty well as well.

I think that sorceror/warlock archetype swaps work too. I even think that wizard goes into that mix without too much trouble.

I think that for most of the monk ones I really need to build a character and see how they go.

Honestly, unless you want a lot of work, I'd keep subclasses pinned to their proper classes.

Right now the biggest issues I see are rage/inspiration/wild shape equivalence to other things.

Rage starts out at something like 10 rounds per day and winds up at 30 rounds per day, assuming we average 5 round combats, which feels about right. It's also excluding level 20 where it becomes infinite.

Since ki goes from 6 rounds/day to 60 rounds/day, the consumption of ki to fuel 'works during rage' powers is pretty close: you get the benefit of activating them when they will be useful, but if you have access to multiple powers you need to activate each one separately. It's more complex to go the other way though - you gain 1 point of ki per 2 rounds of raging maybe?

Inspiration has (roughly, assuming you pump cha) 3 shots from 1st to 3rd , 4 at 4th, then ~12 at 5th, 15 at 8th, and then at 20th it increases to ~20 shots. So 2-3 ki per inspiration.

Wild shape starts at ~6 hours per day and goes up to 60 hours per day at 20th. But the value of choosing a form is far, far higher than the ability to stay in a form for a long duration, and you get ~6 shifts per day, period. Which suggests that shapeshifting costs half your level in ki and lasts for half your level in hours.

So... a 3rd level wolf totem warrior bard gets 3 inspirations per day, can buy 2 rounds of advantage for his friends by spending one, use beast sense and speak to animals as rituals, cast level 1 and 2 bard spells, gets his jack of all trades bonus and gives song of rest.

A 3rd level ranger of the moon could turn his 3 1st level spells -> 6 ki -> 3 shapeshifts, assuming we round the cost up to 2 ki for 2 hours.

A 17th level wizard of the open hand can switch out all of his spell slots for 113 points of ki. That seems problematic. OTOH, you've got wizard hit points and only a few of the monk's defenses, and you're in melee combat if you want to spend them, and your unarmed attack is fairly weak. Well, until you back it up with quivering palm (which you can basically do every single hit). That said, an open hand monk can almost do that anyway.

I think as long as you stick to converting only for resources that are lacked, then you won't hit too many problems. I think that allowing a druid to convert his wildshapes to spell slots or vice versa might be bad. And as we see from the wizard conversion, limiting conversions to match the limits of the original class might be a good safety measure (ie - you can't convert to get more than 20 ki per short rest, or 60 rage uses per day etc).

 

[Saeviomagy]

Unfortunately by their very nature, the classes which lack expendable resources get left out - no draconic bloodline fighters or wild magic rogues.

Well, actually rogues are really the only class with nothing to expend (up until 20th level, anyway): fighters have action surges, indomitable and second winds. If we price the short rest abilities at 1 ki each and indomitable at 2 ki, then they end up with ~6 ki at level 1 and with ~15 ki at level 17, which seems reasonable. An open hand fighter would effectively be getting 2 unarmed attacks with riders in exchange for an action surge, which seems a reasonable trade. I really like the idea of a shadow fighter too.

I guess rogues will just have to settle for adding battlemaster, Eldritch knight, champion, hunter, beastmaster, the warlock patrons and transmuter to their list. If they're willing to take feats or miss out on a feature or two, there's quite a lot you can get from some of the other archetypes.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

there is a D20 superhero game called Mutants and Masterminds that assigns points to everything... I would love to break down the class/subclasses so you could mix and match, but my eyes will cross

 

[mellored]

Yeah, but fighter subclasses get a level 18 feature for their subclass, so I'm not all that fussed. If it seems like a big deal, bumping the subclass feature of a fighter with a rogue subclass to 18 wouldn't be difficult.

That's my point.

A level 17 (or 5, or 11) feature is not the same level of power as a level 18 feature.

If every level was roughly equal to every other level, then it would be easy. But it's not the case.

 

[Saeviomagy]

That's my point.

A level 17 (or 5, or 11) feature is not the same level of power as a level 18 feature.

If every level was roughly equal to every other level, then it would be easy. But it's not the case.

Fighter subclasses get survivor, a maneuver dice upgrade or improved war magic at 18, while rogue subclasses get thiefs reflexes, death strike or steal spell at 17. They seem much the same power level to me.