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The Path of the Reaper for Barbarians
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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7568171" data-attributes="member: 12377"><p>I love the theme of this. It's actually totally sweet.</p><p></p><p>Quick feedback:</p><p></p><p> - I'd limit Reaping Blow to 1/turn to avoid someone with GWM doing a "bag of rats" trick with, I dunno, donkeys or something. E.g., round 1 = rage; kill all donkeys; get +3 to everything. Even if you don't drag 3 donkeys with you into the dungeon, I still think there <em>may</em> be a problem if the character goes after minions and racks up bonuses really fast. But I'd have to see this subclass in the hands of a decent min-maxer to really know. OTOH, the warlock's Dark One's Blessing has no such limitation. It only works on "hostile" creatures though. So an innocent donkey wouldn't get you anything.</p><p></p><p> - Also, doing +1, +2, +3 math on attack rolls can trip some people up really badly. I might do something like: "Whenever you kill a creature that has 5 or more hit points (not a construct or undead) while raging, you get a Reaper Point. When you make an attack roll, you can spend a Reaper Point to get advantage on the roll. You lose all Reaper Points when your rage ends." However, that's not quite the same as the build-up effect you were looking for. Conversely, you could try switching the damage bonus and the attack bonus. For some reason adding small numbers to damage feels easier to me, and so that could kick in at 3rd level, and then the attack bonus happens at 10th level, at which point the player is (hopefully) familiar enough with playing their character to do the math quickly. OTOH, I think the +1 to +3 bonus scale feels roughly balanced.</p><p></p><p> - I wouldn't specify "within 5 feet of you" because it eliminates polearms, and I think if a barbarian wants to shoot or throw a weapon at someone to kill them, that should count.</p><p></p><p> - The "for every two uses of this feature, +1 to saving throws" is really tricky to track. I imagine a lot of "Wait, was that my fourth kill? I think I get another save bonus." Instead, I'd make it +1 per kill, but only to certain saves (like only Wisdom and Charisma saves, for example). Or, just ditch it; it's not really required for this character concept to work properly, and this ability is already plenty powerful with just the temp HP and the attack bonus.</p><p></p><p> - Does the speed increase have a maximum? "Hey guys, I just carved my way through 10 kobolds and now I move 90 ft. per round!" I think that it's probably fine to have no maximum, because it would take a long time to really get this up to abusive levels.</p><p></p><p> - This sounds like a super attractive 3-level dip for Champion fighters (since you can still get to Fighter 17, by which point you have 3 attacks, crit range 18-20, and two Action Surges) because the benefits of Reaping Blow aren't based on your barbarian level at all. So it might be better to cap the temp HP and the bonuses to something based on your barbarian level. For example, the bonus could start out with max +2, and increase to max +3 at 10th level, and max +4 at 14th level. Capping the temp HP is a little harder; I like the idea that killing a huge foe gets you more temp HP. For symmetry with Dark One's Blessing, you could cap it at your barbarian level + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). Unfortunately, that would mean the character is hitting the cap a LOT (it's not uncommon for a creature to have twice as many HD as its CR), which may feel crummy. I don't really have a good recommendation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="77IM, post: 7568171, member: 12377"] I love the theme of this. It's actually totally sweet. Quick feedback: - I'd limit Reaping Blow to 1/turn to avoid someone with GWM doing a "bag of rats" trick with, I dunno, donkeys or something. E.g., round 1 = rage; kill all donkeys; get +3 to everything. Even if you don't drag 3 donkeys with you into the dungeon, I still think there [I]may[/I] be a problem if the character goes after minions and racks up bonuses really fast. But I'd have to see this subclass in the hands of a decent min-maxer to really know. OTOH, the warlock's Dark One's Blessing has no such limitation. It only works on "hostile" creatures though. So an innocent donkey wouldn't get you anything. - Also, doing +1, +2, +3 math on attack rolls can trip some people up really badly. I might do something like: "Whenever you kill a creature that has 5 or more hit points (not a construct or undead) while raging, you get a Reaper Point. When you make an attack roll, you can spend a Reaper Point to get advantage on the roll. You lose all Reaper Points when your rage ends." However, that's not quite the same as the build-up effect you were looking for. Conversely, you could try switching the damage bonus and the attack bonus. For some reason adding small numbers to damage feels easier to me, and so that could kick in at 3rd level, and then the attack bonus happens at 10th level, at which point the player is (hopefully) familiar enough with playing their character to do the math quickly. OTOH, I think the +1 to +3 bonus scale feels roughly balanced. - I wouldn't specify "within 5 feet of you" because it eliminates polearms, and I think if a barbarian wants to shoot or throw a weapon at someone to kill them, that should count. - The "for every two uses of this feature, +1 to saving throws" is really tricky to track. I imagine a lot of "Wait, was that my fourth kill? I think I get another save bonus." Instead, I'd make it +1 per kill, but only to certain saves (like only Wisdom and Charisma saves, for example). Or, just ditch it; it's not really required for this character concept to work properly, and this ability is already plenty powerful with just the temp HP and the attack bonus. - Does the speed increase have a maximum? "Hey guys, I just carved my way through 10 kobolds and now I move 90 ft. per round!" I think that it's probably fine to have no maximum, because it would take a long time to really get this up to abusive levels. - This sounds like a super attractive 3-level dip for Champion fighters (since you can still get to Fighter 17, by which point you have 3 attacks, crit range 18-20, and two Action Surges) because the benefits of Reaping Blow aren't based on your barbarian level at all. So it might be better to cap the temp HP and the bonuses to something based on your barbarian level. For example, the bonus could start out with max +2, and increase to max +3 at 10th level, and max +4 at 14th level. Capping the temp HP is a little harder; I like the idea that killing a huge foe gets you more temp HP. For symmetry with Dark One's Blessing, you could cap it at your barbarian level + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). Unfortunately, that would mean the character is hitting the cap a LOT (it's not uncommon for a creature to have twice as many HD as its CR), which may feel crummy. I don't really have a good recommendation. [/QUOTE]
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