D&D 5E The "Faster Features" Variant (+)

[DND_Reborn]

Have you played a PC to level 20, to obtain your capstone feature and rejoice in newly found power and ability, only to have the adventure... end?

Have you played many campaigns, making it to level 10 or 12 even, just to find the adventure is suddenly over, and look at those higher lofty levels with utter longing for features you've never been able to play?

Well, after a lengthy discussion on the topic with some members of my tables, I decided to try a new variant: Faster Features.

The basic idea is simple: compress the access to all the features into levels 1-10, but only the access. Proficiency Bonus, Hit Dice, and other numbers associated with features, spell slots, etc. remain "as is".

The result, of course, is those lofty features in tiers 3 and 4 are now available in levels 6-10 (well... mostly, a few exceptions exist) and you can actually use them without having to trudge all the way up (only to find the fun snatched away!) or play in over-the-top epic styles of games, which frankly don't appeal to everyone (myself included!).

Now, will this impact things such as CR and encounter building? Sure, of course it will! But since your proficiency bonus and HD remain constant, you just get a lot more you can "do". How great an impact and if this is really a good idea will have to wait until the play-test begins. But, in the mean time the first draft is ready to share and what I will present below.

A note on multiclassing: you are limited to accessing only the first 10 levels of class features you obtain combined in all your classes. For example, if by level 20 you were a Fighter 3/ Rogue 17, you would have at most 3 levels of Fighter class features but then only 7 levels of Rogue class features (you would never get: Slippery Mind, Roguish Archetype feature (final), Elusive, nor Stroke of Luck; despite having 9d6 of sneak attack ( for a 17th level Rogue). In other words, if you never get ACCESS to the class feature, you never get the "other numbers" that might be associated with it, either.

As I mentioned this is a first draft, so please treat it as such. If the idea doesn't appeal to you, I respectfully ask you to move on. If, on the other hand, you like the concept or think it has some merit, please feel free to offer suggestions, balance-issues, etc. as you see fit. Constructive feedback is always appreciated.

Here are the prototype class tables (where new features have been added, descriptions are provided, and some homebrew/house-rule tweaking of numbers is present, of course).

EDIT: All classes have been updated (10/24). The original tables were left for comparisons.

EDIT: Spell progressions for Paladins and Rangers have been increased to match full-casters. Spell slots per level were reduced to represent "half-casters". This was so spells like Find Greater Steed and Steel Wind Strike would be available for longer and could be enjoyed, as the concept of faster-features represents. It seemed ridiculous to us that a Wizard could use and enjoy a spell like Steel Wind Strike before a Ranger could, or that a Bard (via Magical Secrets) could use Find Greater Steed before a Paladin.

Spoiler: Character Level Advancement

Spoiler: Barbarian

Updated:

Spoiler: Bard

Updated:

Metamagic was expanded outside of level 10 for the final two spells to keep the known spells more reasonable at higher levels. Some features were shifted slightly to make the access more continual.

Spoiler: Cleric

Added Destroy Undead (CR 5) because Vampire Spawn are not Vampires.
Updated:

Spoiler: Druid

I've always loved the idea of a Plant wild shape, and increases the CR to 2 makes it better for non-Moon Druids. Beyond level 6 Moon Druids will still have higher CR shapes available, including plant.
Updated:

Spoiler: Fighter

Yeah, AC/Save bonus is big, but you get it later. This is a nod to AD&D when fighters had the best saves and the AC bonus increases their survivability, thus making them better at fighting.

Extra Attack (3) at level 10 was deemed too strong, and so fell outside level 10 to level 15.
Updated:

Spoiler: Monk

The added reaction to stand option makes sense to us for flavor.
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Spoiler: Paladin

Updated:

Updated:

The spell level progression was increased because it made no sense for spells like Find Greater Steed to wait until 13th level when it won't be of much use for long. This follows the philosophy of faster features--to give time to enjoy such things.

Spoiler: Ranger

Ranger will likely see a minor bump in spells known. 11 at level 20 is simply pathetic...
Updated:

Updated:

The spell level progression was increased because it made no sense for spells like Steel Wind Strike to wait until 17th level when it won't be of much use for long. This follows the philosophy of faster features--to give time to enjoy such things.

Spoiler: Rogue

Since Evasion doesn't even cost your reaction, we house-ruled it to 1/4 damage on a success. Otherwise it is too strong for us, anyway.
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Spoiler: Sorcerer

Although a couple metamagics can be combined, we liked the idea of being able to blend more--if you are willing to burn the sorcery points for it. If you can think of any really OP combos, please let me know!
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Spoiler: Warlock

Warlocks had a couple gaps that needed filling. Personally, I like the flavor of Unstoppable Caster for a Warlock and adding a second pact boon at higher levels allows the PC to expand a bit.
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Spoiler: Wizard

I'm not sold on Resilient Caster, but we liked the concept in general and plugged it in for the first draft.

Getting a second use of arcane recovery allows Wizards to exceed more at spell casting, which is their primary focus IMO.
Updated:

That's it for now. A lot to take in and review if you care to. If not, no worries, we will be play-testing it sometime in the next month or so.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Jediking]

I think this is a fantastic idea!
Will go through and try to add actual constructive criticism later

 

[aco175]

I like the initial look of it, from 5 minutes. Most of my games run to 12th level or so, so this may work. I wonder about scaling monsters to make up for the power increase, or since HP and other bonuses are on the normal track that this ma not be a big problem. You may offset this by playing with the number of HP, but I would most likely max out the monster HP.

 

[Charlaquin]

I like this a lot.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Wouldn't it make more sense to double the rate of level gain, and tack on ten (or twenty) empty levels to the post-game? Or are you specifically trying to avoid dealing with late-game HP math?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Wouldn't it make more sense to double the rate of level gain, and tack on ten (or twenty) empty levels to the post-game? Or are you specifically trying to avoid dealing with late-game HP math?

No, because then spells come more rapidly as well. And due to how much better spells tend to be over class features, it makes casters too strong comparitively (I did try an L10 variant based on that idea, so it has actually been considered).

We are also trying to reduce PC hp bloat. Other systems that we are play-testing are already in place, and this concept seems to lend itself well to them. Once I have more play-testing data on the other systems I'll post on them as well.

 

[NotAYakk]

So this is standard D&D with 1/2 HD progression, 1/2 proficiency progression, 1/2 ASI progression, 1/2 spellcasting progression, 1/2 ki points, 1/2 sneak attack dice., 1/2 rage and rage damage progression, and 2x advancement.

Then nerf extra attack(2/3) and do some minor tweaks.

That would require fewer changes than what you did, and highlights what you left advancing slowly.

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Winners include non-spellcasters, and builds whose non-spellcasting subclasses features are a significant source of power.

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Let's look at "killer archer" MC build. Gloom 3 Assassin 3 Fighter (BM) 5. Level 11, alpha-strikes for 6 auto-crit attacks.

In your system, we have Gloom 2 Assassin 2 BM 3 (level 7) with basically the same effect. You lose 1 spellcasting level progression and some ASIs.

BM 3/Bear 2/Gloom 2 is another good build here. 6 attack action surge to open fights, resist all damage, invisible in darkness to darkvision, BM maneuver dice for spice and an ASI, rage and reckless attack.

You have most of the offence of a level 11 core rules PC and you are level 7.

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Based on what you made (relatively) worse, build suggestions is to avoid:
1) Past level 3 Fighter. Just don't; it is all hot garbage. (in core 5e, past level 5 fighter is because of level 11 extra attack(3), here it is so far away you should just dip for better).
2) More than 1-2 levels of Rogue. Your main class feature is turned to crap at 1/2 comparable advancement.
3) Monks. You have no Ki. Ki is your life.
4) Be cautious of spellcasters, especially partial casters. Don't expect to do damage as a spellcaster, you'll suck at it.

Rages/day aren't big, and rage damage is small compared to reckless attack.

"3 level" remain strong; a 2 level dip does what a 3 level dip used to do pretty much (except spell slots).

The key level for martial characters is 3 where you get extra attack. Don't MC two level 3+ martial characters. At level 3, martial characters are going to be beasts, way outdamaging anyone else with raw smacks to the point of making combat trivial.

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Not sure if Hexadin still works. Paladin 1 gives you smite, Paladin 3 would get you extra attack, then hex 2 gives you great weapon-on-cha. But you really lack smite fuel.

With ASI shortage, 2 H weapons are less tempting. Paladin 1/Hex 1/Sorc X might have enough smite fuel if your game has short adventuring days.

 

[Charlaquin]

So this is standard D&D with 1/2 HD progression, 1/2 proficiency progression, 1/2 ASI progression, 1/2 spellcasting progression, 1/2 ki points, 1/2 sneak attack dice., 1/2 rage and rage damage progression, and 2x advancement.

That’s a pretty long-winded way of saying “standard D&D with 2x class feature progression.”

 

[Charlaquin]

We are also trying to reduce PC hp bloat. Other systems that we are play-testing are already in place, and this concept seems to lend itself well to them. Once I have more play-testing data on the other systems I'll post on them as well.

It’s funny that you mention that, cause my first thought looking through this was “I could see switching to fixed HP increases for levels 11-20 instead of HD + Con mod.”

 

[DND_Reborn]

That’s a pretty long-winded way of saying “standard D&D with 2x class feature progression.”

LOL that was pretty much my thought as well.

It’s funny that you mention that, cause my first thought looking through this was “I could see switching to fixed HP increases for levels 11-20 instead of HD + Con mod.”

Yeah, coming from AD&D days, we are considering +1-4 flat HP per level after 10th (d12 = +4, d10 = +3, d8 = +2, and d6 = +1).

We already don't add CON mod after level 1, so it is probably overkill to do flat HP and is why we haven't adopted it yet. shrug