D&D 5E The Duskblade?

LuisCarlos17f · Jan 10, 2020

Now I imagine the duskblade as a remake of the swordsage, a martial adept whose maneuvers are arcane arts.

And the knight as the pathfinder cavalier but with the class feature to attune special magic item (legacy by ancestors or borrowed to the chivalry order), with a game mechanic as the vestige pact magic.

Weiley31 · Jan 10, 2020

Salthorae said:
That is a good 3.5 description for their mechanics!

Oh great: Smite can be reflavored as them overloading their weapon with Arcane Energy and unleashing the backlash on fools.

Which could represent the channeling magic thru their weapons.

NotAYakk · Jan 10, 2020

Quick Duskblade:

1. Start with Paladin. Your casting stat is intelligence.
2. You lose Lay on Hands. You gain 1 level 1 spell slot, 2 Wizard cantrips at level 1, and 3 wizard spells known (2 of which must be abjuration or evocation). At level 6 and 14 you learn a new Wizard cantrip. You can use swords as arcane focuses.
3. You gain 1 wizard spell known at each class level past 1st. They must be evocation or abjuration.
4. Divine Smite becomes Dusk Smite; it deals necrotic damage.
5. At level 3, you start gaining EK non-spellcasting features on the EK schedule.
6. Divine Health is swapped for Magic Resistance (advantage on saves against spells)
7. "The spells you learn at 8th, 14th, and 20th level can come from any school of magic." is replaced with "The spells you learn at 6th, 10th, 14th and 18th level can come from any spell list." Magical Secrets Ho!
8. You lose Aura of Protection, Aura of Courage, Cleansing Touch, and Aura Improvements features (they are replaced with aforsaid Magical Secrets).
9. At 11, you gain Improved Dusk Smite; +1d8 necrotic damage on all attacks.

I think that is fun, flavorful and playable.

Weiley31 · Jan 10, 2020

NotAYakk said:
Quick Duskblade:

1. Start with Paladin.
2. You lose Lay on Hands. You gain 1 level 1 spell slot, 2 Wizard cantrips at level 1, and 3 wizard spells known (2 of which must be abjuration or evocation). At level 6, 10, 14 and 18 you learn a new Wizard cantrip.
3. You gain 1 wizard spell known at each class level. They must be evocation or abjuration.
4. Divine Smite becomes Dusk Smite; it deals necrotic damage.
5. At level 3, you start gaining EK non-spellcasting features on the EK schedule.
6. Divine Health is swapped for Magic Resistance (advantage on saves against spells)
7. "The spells you learn at 8th, 14th, and 20th level can come from any school of magic." is replaced with "The spells you learn at 6th, 10th, 14th and 18th level can come from any spell list." Magical Secrets Ho!
8. You lose Aura of Protection, Aura of Courage, Cleansing Touch, and Aura Improvements features (they are replaced with aforsaid Magical Secrets).
9. At 11, you gain Improved Dusk Smite; +1d8 necrotic damage on all attacks.

I think that is fun, flavorful and playable.

I feel like Dusk Smite would be better titled as something else. But pretty interesting. Why Necrotic though? While I feel Force would be better, I get it's a balance thing.

NotAYakk · Jan 10, 2020

Weiley31 said:
I feel like Dusk Smite would be better titled as something else. But pretty interesting. Why Necrotic though? While I feel Force would be better, I get it's a balance thing.

Yes, Force is a better damage type than Necrotic.

Really, because Dusk makes me think of Shadows, which links to Necrotic.

Note I edited in the ability to use swords are arcane focuses at level 1.

If I was making a "more real" class, I might still poach EK's stuff, but I'd leave room for a subclass.

The magical secrets thing was just me trying to get around having to think up more class features and manage their spell list. The fluff -- that they are people who tried to copy bladesingers and didn't quite get it right -- makes me think "stealing spells from yet other spots" would work.

Fenris-77 · Jan 10, 2020

I think it might be enough to let them select spells form the wizard list, but outside the two normal schools at 10/14/18. Magical secrets is a much bigger rock. Also, that seems like too many cantrips, but that's a minor quibble. On the whole I like it a lot.

NotAYakk · Jan 10, 2020

Fenris-77 said:
I think it might be enough to let them select spells form the wizard list, but outside the two normal schools at 10/14/18. Magical secrets is a much bigger rock. Also, that seems like too many cantrips, but that's a minor quibble. On the whole I like it a lot.

Sure, but then we should add a real feature at 6/10/14/18 instead of just "your spell selection isn't complete crap". And maybe even a real spell list, and not "wizard, but you suck" like an EK.

At 20, you get 22 spells, 4 of which are magical secrets (limited to 2/3/4/5 level spells each). Which you can use to poach "holy weapon" or polymorph or whatever.

Fenris-77 · Jan 10, 2020

I'd prefer a bespoke list to resusing the EK one. Perhaps not entirely different, but tailored. If you were doing subclasses you could just add subclass spells like so many others do and leave the base list as-is. Or just let them pick from an entirely different list. The Sorcerer list might be appropriate.

Or just add abilities. Cantrips as BAs or even reactions would cool. Or split the difference. Two magical secrets choices and two other abilities. Four MS secrets seems like a lot for a half caster (to me anyway).

NotAYakk · Jan 10, 2020

Go for it? My design goal was to make it easy to write, fun and flavorful. It wasn't to make a published-quality duskblade class.

A real class would need unique spells, a better connection to 3e duskblade, should throw out the smite as derivative, etc. You wouldn't start with paladin chassy at all.