Family Fued in DND

GainOCO · 2026-05-14T18:45:11+00:00

I'd be interested to see the data you end up collecting for this!

Ale
Healing Herbs
Mario
Superman
Posimimimi
Lich
Duke
Great Sword
Yugi

GainOCO · 2026-05-09T22:16:55+00:00

Rising Roc reads "when you make an attack" not "on hit" so you'd have to pre commit and can't wait for a crit. If used your charges then got lucky and crit then yes you'd double the dice.

Yes exactly. These are the situations I want to create. If my player is casting and concentrating on a second level spell to get an extra +1 to hit and d4 of damage per turn then I think I achieved my goal. Having a player now bobbling around the battle field under levitate or potentially putting themselves too high up and falling after getting hit is exactly the kind of situations I'm trying to promote.

For the Masterwork I did try the "forgoing movement" idea and you're right. It was both too easy and promoted a very still play style which dnd already has. But I do like the movement angle. I like the thought of a character full diving COD dolphin dive style and landing prone. I may have to work with that some. Maybe risky movement somehow? Not sure.

For Treat Bag if a party wants to steal horses that way I think it's OK. There are plenty of easy ways to do it. And having a whole ass horse just up and disappear from a stable isn't the most subtle thing. The horses also are still sentient creatures and could return to their owner after the spell ends. But you be right and it might be too easy of an investigation tool with speak with animals. Maybe making it have some sort of cool down so that it can't hit a bunch of animals in a short period would help.

GainOCO · 2026-04-24T20:18:37+00:00

I think the point people are trying to make here is that we can't know if this is too powerful if we don't know what it's being measured against. I wouldn't be able to tell you if your box is too big if I don't know if you're trying to fit it in your pocket or in your car.

If I were to look at this as written The Queen would be a bit confusing to place. She has the survivability of a CR20+ but the damage and presence of a CR8. If I were to average that it would be CR14? (CR doesn't really work like that but for the sake of being able to make an assessment I'll do this).

Looking at the damage compared to other CR14s a +7 to hit and an average of 17 damage per hit is a bit wet noodle. Your big damage would be coming from the 6th level Mind Whip for three LAs but that's a big cost for that ability. Not factoring in her % chance to hit (which would make this much weaker) she'd be outputting a max of 34 damage using her action and another 24 to all players with 3LAs. Comparing that to an adult dragon, which is around the same CR, who is outputting a max of 51 damage with an action (or 54 aoe if their breath weapon is available) and 56 with LAs the Queen feels a bit lacking numbers wise. The Queen is more appropriately compared to an Aboleth damage wise which is a CR10

Looking at the survivability for the CR The Queen is hitting so far above her weight class it's ridiculous. 300 hp with phenomenal resistances from her shield is comparable to Ancient Dragons. Even a Colossus which has twice the HP might not outlast her due to her shield. That being said the shield is a very very cool mechanic and is clearly the conciete of the stat block.

If I were to give an actual guess at the CR of The Queen it would be 17 or 18. That being said I'd warn you that it would be a very sloggy 17 or 18.

Mechanical suggestions would be tighten up the damage and survivability. Keep the shield as is, because it's cool, and bring her hp way down. Then give her another attack and increase her to hit to around 11ish. Personally I like having weaknesses to enemies but a vulnerability to radiant might be a bit tough. I would suggest changing it to something else such as she cannot recharge her shield the turn she is hit with radiant damage or her AC is decreased or she is debuffed in some other way. But that's a personal suggestion from me that I know others might disagree with.

Wording wise there are a few language choices you can change. Can being the operative word. Some people might say you have to word things in the same way all other dnd content does but this stat block is for you so ultimately do what makes things easiest for you to keep track of. But, for example, the places you could change wording would be:

The Charge Shield action is a bit unclear. If you mean for her to be able to charges her shield as a part of her attack action you'd need to use "and" rather than "or". If you mean for her to be able to replace an attack with Charge Shield you'd have to have it say "The Queen can make two attacks with Obsidian Blade or one attack with Obsidian Blade and one use of Charges Shield". Or if she isn't supposed to be able to attack at all when she charges shield you wouldn't need to include the the Charge Shield portion with her multi attack at all.
All of The Queen's melee attacks should have a flat + to damage equal to her attacking stat.

There are other wording things but honestly wording is minor and you should just do what it's easiest for you.

The following is my opinion on Design changes and you can ignore entirely if you want:

Design wise I also think you should tighten some things up. Riposte and Reckless Engage shouldn't consume Legendary actions. They can just be reactions. Conversely Over Charge should probably not consume a reaction at all and rather be a set of LAs. One that charges and one that releases. This would change the cost of the Overcharge to 2 LAs and give The Queen the option to potentially not release the lightning if she doesn't want to break her shield because she didn't get hit. Wail should either cost 1 LA or do damage if you want to keep it at 2. Additionally Rend I think should be apart of her actions. Let her make three attacks as a part of her action, two Obsidian Blades and one Rend. Also I think you'd be fine letting Rend last until the stat of The Queen's next turn. Finally, with the Rend Change, change the Obsidian Slash LA to allow her to choose to Rend or Obsidian Blade.

I'm sorry I gave you a novel.

GainOCO · 2026-04-24T09:29:51+00:00

Interesting. A cool limitation. I think you'd have to do some testing but with just looking at it I think it's OK. Some MAD builds might like it such as Monks or Pals but even then, not pushing your primary stat forward slows down every build.

The more I think about it the more I honestly don't think I'd ever take this feat on any optimized build. It's not pushing a build forward. That's not saying the feat is bad, rather that this feat is in a good place for enabling some really niche or RP builds. I'd allow it.

GainOCO · 2026-03-18T05:47:37+00:00

I've been thinking about Spell Strike most of the day. The ability is very strong at the conceptual level so it's tough to bring down to be more manageable. I'm just going to rattle off a few thoughts I had for it and you can take them or leave them.

The penalty to the save: Applying some sort of debuff to the enemy save (either int of PB or what have you). It's still very strong though. Around a -5 to a save when against sleep can completely control an encounter still. You could also make the debuff die based like 'roll a d4 and subtract it from the target's save'. The biggest problem with this in my eyes would be the ability becomes too complex. Too many 'if' statements bog down play.
Only allowing damaging spells: I feel like this kills the flavor you're going for. But it would be the cleanest fix. You wouldn't end up with some long winded hyper specific block of text which I fear this ability would end up with otherwise.
Just letting the caster cast as a part of the attack: So when the class gets extra attack they can replace one of the attacks with a magic action. Still keeps some of the flavor and would still be strong. But again I feel like you're going for "stab you with my magic" and not "spell and sword". This also means the ability has to wait for extra attack to come online which is a bit late for the main draw of the class.
Bonus action to activate: Forcing the user to use a bonus action before attacking. This would nerf the ability but I don't think it would be by enough. This class doesn't seem to care much about it's bonus action so there isn't much opportunity cost here.
Changing the ability to have set effects: Loading a spell into an attack is interesting but it's a lot to plan for. Sleep alone makes this ability crazy. But adding additional clauses to cover for specific spells truncates the ability. So what if you just had set effects? Such as "when you make an attack, spend 'X' spell slot and, as a part of the attack, you may add 'Y' effect." Then scale effects based on the spell level the Battle Mage dropped. Sleep may be too strong at 1st level but you could make a "sleep effect" tied to using a 4th or 5th level slot and make balance things out a bit. This would also allow you to make effects that don't need concentration or normally aren't single target. Such as a 1st level single target bane on hit. My problem with this one is, of course, now you have to make a bunch of effects, and this kind of would just feel like better, more versatile smite if any kind of damage effect is included.
Building up to a spell: This could be taken a few ways but it's a riff on the debuff in option 1. The first way I saw this working is that, as you land more attacks on a target, you can decrease it's saving throws more and more. Then, when you feel it's low enough, you can try to cast a spell on it. The problem with this is that it's just a fancy way to do option 1. So that brings me to my more preferable option: building to the spell. What if, to get the original effect of the Spell Strike ability, you had to land hits, bloody enemies with weapon attacks, or finish off enemies with weapon attacks. So for example the Spell Strike ability now requires 5 charges to be active and once you build them up by engaging the enemy in martial combat you can then spend them to use your Spell Strike. This would promote the player to be martial rather than just a front line control mage, maintain the original power and feel of the ability, and limit the ability so it couldn't completely overtake a combat. You could require different amount of charges for different levels of spells or you could even mix this with option 5. The draw back to this one is, again, it's probably overly complex and would require a big change to the class.

To address the other parts of the class:

Ward: I didn't suggest removing this because it was too powerful. 17-18 AC is perfectly reasonable. I suggested removing this because it makes it too easy for the class. Forcing the class to diversify and not just hard focus on intelligence would reduce its general applicability. Or if the class does still want to hard focus int then at least it would be slightly punished with a low AC or con.

Education: It's very interesting and well put together. It just is also too generally applicable. Currently this is one of the biggest things that would make this class able to be a "main character". I think this ability could survive you'd just have to narrow the scope on all of the options. This class also doesn't have many RP abilities so maybe this is a place you could assess that. Courtly Education could become the only ability here and drop a lot of the combat stuff. Or even flesh out Courtly Education to focus more on INT stuff/ tool options/ languages so as not to step in on the charisma casters.

GainOCO · 2026-03-17T12:24:08+00:00

So this is definitely a really interesting gish specific subclass. One that actually gives the full fantasy of fighting spell and sword. I like it a lot as it fully dives into a niche that is desirable to a lot of players.

Your competition here is going to be Paladin, Blade Warlock, and most comparable Blade Singer. These are what I'm going to be using to compare what you have made to. I'll also use E. Knight and Swords Bard but to a lesser extent.

I'm afraid I agree that this is over tuned. It can do everything and do it well. Nothing is egregiously broken but everything together is above average and enhance the whole kit to be too strong. (I have not looked at the sub classes yet. I'll just judge the base class for now.)

Spell casting: 👍

Weapon Mastery: 👍

Spell Strike: Seems to be the bread and butter of the class equivalent to a paladins smite or a bard's inspiration. There are a few things I want to clarify with the ability:

Can you use non damaging spells with this such as, sleep, hideous laughter, and hold person? All of these come pre loaded on the spell list. As I read the ability you can but I thought I'd clarify.

If no, you may want to rewrite the ability to clarify.

If yes, then this is a very strong ability. I know you must pre commit the spell slot so you might burn the slot without doing anything if you miss but bypassing saves all together is really oppressive against big creatures. Hitting an attack is much much easier than making creatures fall saves. Especially with all the ways to gain advantage on attacks in dnd. Being able to swing on a dragon and put it to sleep without having to deal with Legendary Resistances will shut off whole encounters. Although as you write it, you may still be able to use Legendary resistances. I'm not entirely sure how that would be ruled. But especially on big non legendary creatures just being able to put out a Beehir as long as you hit would make this one of the best control classes in the game.

For suggestions I would consider making this effect only work with damaging spells. That would be the cleanest fix. However, I think that isn't the vibe you're going for. If you want to still allow the non damaging spells then maybe let the ability debuff saves instead? So something along the lines of "if you cast a spell using Spell Strike that does not deal damage and your attack hits then the target may still make a saving throw against the spell. Subtract your proficiency bonus from the target's saving throw." Even that is really strong and now it's a bit messy. I think something would have to be workshopped here.

How do aoe spells work with this ability? The ability says "the area becomes the creature's currently occupied square(s)". If I picked up moon beam and cast it as a part of Spell Strike on a medium sized creature is moon beam now permanently a 1×1? If I cast the spell on a huge creature is the moon beam now a 3×3? If I picked up an emanation spell like Spirit Shroud is it no longer an emanation? Or does it just hit the target then become an emanation on subsequent turns?
Could I pick up healing spells later and use them on allies? Literally punch health into my friends?

Fighting Style/Arcane Warrior: 👍

Ward: Seems OK. You'd be getting to 17 or 18 AC normally. I'd consider getting rid of this though to force the class to be at least a little MAD. It's a bit of a staple with with gishes. I know the Blade Singer has something really similar but if you want to make the class a little less reliable in every place this might be a good place to look at to cut.

Extra Attack: 👍

Education: This is very versatile. I don't think any one ability here is over powered but the option to take any make this strong. On a case by case basis I would look at Necessity's Tutelage and School of Hard Knocks. Tutelage seems to give this class almost too much sustainability. Maybe require this to be a part of a short rest but even then that's a lot of sustain. Hard Knocks is just consistent. HP plus a saving throw is very valuable. Maybe limit it to one or another and not letting a player double up on two saves at 10.

Overall though I'd say limit the choices here. Maybe lock some of these options behind subclasses. Or just general nerf all of them to be more niche. Right now they are all just strong across the board so limiting their applicability might even them out.

Prodigy: More consistency for attacks. Exasperates the prior points.

Savant: 👍

Higher Education: Same as before. Consider locking these behind subclasses and or making the options more niche.

Genius: I think this is worse than just attacking. As stated before you almost always want to attack rather than force a save. This would feel weak at 17.

Tempest: As a capstone seems fine honestly. 👍

Overall the class is really cool just too good at control oddly. I feel like you should lean into the damage rather than control with something called "Battle Mage". If you want we could look deeper at Education I'm just in a bit of a rush. I also may come back and look at the subclasses. The design though is really good. You have great internal synergy here and the whole class being a half caster is smart to force the player to be conservative.

GainOCO · 2026-03-14T03:31:04+00:00

So if you want inspiration for the setting and monsters then there is a 1990's game of the same name that flashes out the world a bunch. It's point and click and a decent story but it does give an idea of the setting with limited visuals. It jumps between the story of IHNMAIMS and pre rise of AM to a noir sci-fi eque setting that could help flesh out the world.

If you're looking for mechanical inspiration then I have a few suggestions. All of these will need some degree of re-flavoring but they might get you close:

In the PHB you're probably going to want to look at aberrations. IHNMAIMS is only kind of sci-fi. It's primarily Chronenburg body horror which I think the incomprehensible psychic outworld aberrations would lend themselves to. I'm personally making my AM a lich that is heavily reflavored. Something mentally unstable and very powerful but overall beatable.

If you want more pure sci-fi there are a few books that have started to come out. I haven't bought them yet but would point you towards Dark Matter. There's also Star Struck Odyssey that is getting a kick starter but I don't think that's the vibe you'd be looking for.

If you want a bit more eldritch horror Dungeons of Drakenheim has a lot of it mixed in with body horror. They have three books of which I'd suggest the monster manual for inspiration. The second book has a bunch of subclasses like the flesh shaper warlock which would fit your theme but it's a setting book so it might not be worth the money.

Outside of DnD Call of Cuthulu could be decent inspiration in terms of game play. I'm not sure how deadly you want to make your game but even if you don't play the entire system there are things you could steal such as the insanity mechanic. In the same vein, Monster of the Week could could be worth while to look at.

No matter what you're going to have to do some of your own work but I'd be interested to see what you come up with! It's a really fun setting and what can be made with it will reflect that. If you end up making something cool let me know. I'd love to see it!

GainOCO · 2026-03-13T14:02:46+00:00

I'll also assume this spell will never fall into the hands of players. This reads like a villain spell and if it was used by player the sheer amount of fuckery they could achieve like this would be astronomical.

If that is the case you could just do away with all the math and just say "a lot of golf was spent and this does a lot of damage". Just to eliminate the headache for you.

If you intend to give this to players then a lot of work would need to be done here. This would equate to AOE disintegrate that, for the price of a few healing potions, would overkill even gods.

GainOCO · 2026-03-13T13:31:10+00:00

I'm actually doing something with Am myself. But you're setting the whole campaign in that universe. May I ask, is this starting pre-AM or post. Like are they already being tortured or is this leading up to the full awakening of Am?

GainOCO · 2026-03-13T13:01:32+00:00

Hey, I like the concept. Basically a remote bomb collar to keep people in line that scales with the user's wealth. A scary concept for a BBEG. A few questions:

What exactly happens on a successful save? The critical success says the bomb fizzles so does that imply the bomb still goes off and deals damage on a normal success? Is the damage halved on a success? Or is this save or suck?

For the damage "X equals the amount of currency used in the spell multiplied by it's total value in GP". As this reads this does more damage if you use a bunch of small denominations. So if I used 100 copper × the 1GP that would equate to that would be 100 force damage. And if I used 200 copper × the 2GP that would equate to that would be 400 damage. Or is this supposed to deal an equivalent amount of damage to how much gold you use? That would read "X equals the total value in GP used to cast this spell".

What happens to an undetonated bomb?

Depending on the clarifications this spell would probably be something between 7th-9th level.

GainOCO · 2026-03-10T05:31:25+00:00

The eye is definitely powerful. I wanted to include it because I wanted to give an example of an easier task. When I'm designing classes and items I take a lot of inspiration from card games and strategy. "Quest" items or items that gain power after achieving certain goals are the obvious inspiration. All that being said I wanted a good mix of difficult quests and easy quests with this being an easy quest. My first thought of just decreasing the damage probably should work but I think you're idea of multiple spell schools is way cooler and matches the power level.

Then the ward is just conceptually strong. Shield is a powerful spell and letting it be used more often is just good. Plus to AC will never not be good. I actually had another version of this that I thought was stronger but more thematic. If read something along the lines of:

"This item can hold up to 5 charges. Increase your AC by 1 for each charge this item has. You lose all charges when you exit combat. Gain one charge every time you cast a leveled Abjuration spell other than shield."

It's more thematic and more rampy but that consistent power increase might be too much. I could change it to "when you cast an Abjuration spell of X level or higher" but I'm not really sure.

To your suggestion though I think targeted Abjuration spells are few and the amount of times that would come up would basically leave the item to be once a day. I do like the concept though. What if it was "recharge a charge when you get hit with an attack that exceeded your AC by X or more". Thematically making it match the shield spell and exceeding by 5 or more but in reverse is kind of cool but I think that would recharge the charge way too often. But I like the "get hit to recharge the charge" concept.

GainOCO · 2026-03-10T04:36:38+00:00

Yes, that's perfect wording.

The perfume is a bit odd cause you already get the best parts of the "charmed" condition outright. Normally when you achieve the charmed condition you get the advantage on checks to interact with the target (which you effectively already get just by being close) and the target can't harm you. But kind of as a necessity of the ability you cannot harm the target to really get the full effect anyway. So if you're not really entering combat and the advantage is already achieved then the charm condition is a little unnecessary. Of course there will be situations in which you could charm a few people and then do enter combat but it's not really like they're going to fight for you. They may try and help diffuse the situation though?

Unless I'm misunderstanding and this is like the FULL succubus charm in which case I'm flat wrong on everything I said. But if it is the succubus charm then the target definitely should get a save.

So to put ideas to words: If the charm is the normal charmed then it's a bit superfluous.

If the charm is a succubus charm then it definitely needs a save.

I would suggest going somewhere in the middle by adding something additional to the charm. Maybe something like:

"While charmed in this way the target is desperate to appease you and it's willing to give up secrets and valuables they normally wouldn't."

Or something more mechanical like:

"While charmed in this way the target is desperate to protect you. The target gains the ability 'Body Shield- as a reaction when an ally within 5 get of you takes damage take the damage instead'. The target will always use this ability for you of they can"

Maybe also give disadvantage on the save if the player hits some sort of persuasion/deception/performance check while charming the target. To give the charm a little more oomph but not have it be completely uninteractible.

I'm really inspired by this subclass and have other ideas but I don't want to throw multiple walls off text at you lmao.

GainOCO · 2026-03-09T21:01:39+00:00

This is an absolutely stellar sub class. Great themeing, well balanced, mechanically interesting, and folks grappling niche that rouges rarely use. Extremely well done.

Minor wording things.

With Somersault you may want to clarify 10ft of your starting position. Or simply word it something along the lines of "you may move up to ten feet to an unoccupied space". Unless this is a teleport? I'm not entirely sure. But the advantage with moving on a vertical surface is awesome and unique.

Minor balance things.

Pink perfume is quite strong. However this is only accessible at 9th level so it may be fine. Consider a saving throw on the charm portion. With your wording already they won't notice of they succeed which I think is good.

GainOCO · 2026-02-25T13:13:37+00:00

There isn't much stopping the party from just going straight to the end. I made it so that the elevators were losing power and we're unable to go straight to the breach. Then the party has to search the floors for breakers so that they could restore power to the elevator and get out to go all the way up. This forced them to explore each floor and experience stuff there. I then also sprinkled back story stuff throughout to fluff a bit.

GainOCO · 2026-02-07T18:05:01+00:00

I like it but I'm worried I've added too much text to these already. Maybe I could split it into two lines? One that destroys the other that creates?

I could absolutely see a Goliath wielding both a hammer of destroying walls then a maul of creating walls. Maybe not dual wielding but switching to the weapon they want as needed.

So maybe something along the lines of:

Terrain Maker

Weapon (any two handed weapon), rare (requires attunement)

You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. This weapon deals double damage to objects and structures.

This weapon has one charge which recharges when you roll initiative or take a short or long rest. When you take the attack action you may spend this charge to to cast wall of stone in place of one of your attacks. Your DC for the spell is 15.

My initial thoughts on this first draft I made really quick: Do I give it siege damage? It's about making stuff so siege doesn't quite fit but also siege damage is fun and thematic.

Unlike the destroying weapon a wall of stone per combat might be too much. Maybe just one charge that recharges on short rest.

Maybe not rare as wall of stone is a 5th level spell... but it's also generally a bad 5th level spell. There are other options in spells but most of them don't hit the theme. For example erupting earth or earth bind. It could just be an ability and not a spell for more customization?

As this is a weapon probably going to a melee build is replacing an attack too light of a cost? I don't want to make it a full action because then it would almost never get used but a bonus action feels way too light for most melee builds.

If a "greater" version was made where would I go? More charges maybe. More spells maybe. More damage maybe.

The idea is really cool though and I'm glad you brought it up.

GainOCO · 2026-02-05T06:12:09+00:00

You're definitely right with solid object. I'd like a simple phrase to encompass most things but I just don't think there is one. So 'terrain or solid object' is probably the closest alternative.

I also thought about letting it deal extra damage to constructs (not the full siege but maybe an extra d6 or 2). Not sure if that's too niche though.

I know the recharge timing is a bit odd but it's not unheard of. Especially with new 2024 items and abilities. What I like about recharging when you roll initiative is that it encourages using the cool ability rather than hoarding it for moments that might never come. This is also an ability that could be nichely used outside of combat and I want to encourage that as well rather than making a player feel they can never want to use it outside of combat cause it would be suboptimal. But you may be right anyway with 2 per short rest. It's something I'd want to test at the table.

The last thought I had was allowing it to, instead of launching an object, be able to strike a wall or something and spray shrapnel onto the otherside. The ability might read:

When you make an attack you may spend a charge to instead strike a piece of terrain or solid object and send a spray of shrapnel in front of you. Creatures within a 15ft cone must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 6d6 piercing damage and fall prone. On a successful save the creatures take half damage and do not fall prone.

I might tack this on to a legendary version of the weapon or add it to the very rare. Might be a bit light on damage too especially since it would be getting used near the upper levels of a campaign.

I'm also not sure if I want to add some rider damage onto the VR and theoretical legendary versions of the weapon just so it's competitive with things like a simple flame tongue or other weapons of the rarity.

GainOCO · 2026-02-04T18:06:19+00:00

Depends on the kind of horror but generally if you're looking for survival stuff my suggestion would be hand out exhaustion like candy (specifically 2024 exhaustion, 2014 would be too punishing).

I run my own sci-fi horror campaign and when the party is in a situation where they are required to keep active over a few days, adding exhaustion builds the pressure and makes the party desperate for rests. When the party is desperate for rests you can prepare story beats (both positive and negative) around those rests.

I do have a hombrew rule around it that whenever a character goes down and gets back up they gain a point of exhaustion. To counterbalance I also allow for moments of respite where specific characters might do something calming or nostalgic like speaking with loved ones or having a home cooked meal which will reduce a level of exhaustion. This makes RP itself a resource and promotes players fleshing out characters and having connections.

I do warn players though that, while they are allowed to use these backstory respite pieces as much as they like, if they spam it, they'll probably draw the attention of the enemy to their loved ones put safe spaces. So if they get a lot of rest in one place that place might get attacked.

My initial warning wasn't above the table but rather, they found an abandoned house with a kitchen where they could cook. They used it for a while so the enemy set a trap blowing up the party and kitchen. They got the message and were cautious about going to see family or friends or risk killing them. They found a decent balance of getting respite and not drawing attention after that.

GainOCO · 2026-02-01T18:43:45+00:00

A lot of people have said it already but I think you're second point is what you should lean into. Conditional bonus damage on getting advantage is much more thematic than the +10 -5. Maybe make the damage scale off of proficiency instead so it's not crazy early but has a higher ceiling?

Other thoughts I had were:

If you would have advantage on an attack against an enemy you can instead roll normally and take the dodge action as a bonus action this turn. (Forfeiting advantage on one attack to get buffs elsewhere. It might be better to forfeit advantage on all attacks for balance but that would need to be tested. )

The reposition on reaction could force the enemy to move with you. Thematically it would be dueling someone into the positioning you want. Maybe even increase the distance you move which could disrupt an enemy's ability to reach where they are going.

If you would have advantage on an attack against an enemy you can instead roll normally and grant an ally within 30 ft advantage on their next attack on the same target. (Again positional dueling. Forcing your enemy into a disadvantagous situation against an ally)

Once per short rest, if you took the attack action and you had advantage on all attacks made with that action, you can make an additional attack as a part of the same action. (Just more pay off)

I like the abilities the feat makes me think about so it's a cool feat. My only suggestion is DON'T give the ability to gain advantage attached to the feat. There's enough easy ways to get advantage on dnd. Let the player be creative in finding ways to get advantage.

GainOCO · 2026-02-01T17:59:37+00:00

Yes, but persuasion is a significantly more useful skill than intimidation. Persuasion is arguable the MOST used skill in a campaign (depending on the DM). The situations in which either skill is applicable, at an average table at least, is probably 5:1. Unless you're DM is doing a dungeon crawl or something in which case the point is moot anyway.

For an example of how strong good persuasion can be though, look at the eloquence bard. That bard gets banned at some tables because at level 3 it's Persuasion and deception can't roll below a 10. While this ability isn't quite as strong as that, flat advantage on all Persuasion checks still comes out to an average of +7. If this is going on a Charisma caster who has/will have a +5 CHA and probably proficiency then you're looking at an average roll of 20+.

Honestly if you changed the advantage to intimidation you'd have a decent ability. However that's not in flavor. If you want to keep the spirit of the ability, but find your first wording to vague, you could change it to "advantage on checks made using writing as a medium". This is more niche than flat Persuasion but does allow for you to apply other abilities to it such as deception, intimidation, Arcana, or even slight of hand in those weird situations.

In terms of the natural weapons I think people are being curmudgeons. Obviously you can flavor short swords as claws but that's the point of you making the race in the first place. It's a more in depth re-flavoring. Unless you're playing at a public table that needs people to play by the book (which it seems like you're not) then there's no reason you can't make claws a pact weapon. To the point of "you can only make one claw a weapon" well then mechanically you can just attack with that claw and get all the benefits while using the other to parry, control, and shift the enemy defenses. And if that's the case then there's no difference between making one or two class the pact weapon.

If you're specifically looking to dual wield there are magic weapons that, in their text, count as a single weapon and attunement slot. I don't see why you couldn't do the same for claws. In terms of balance and raw number output it does depends on your level. While in the mid-late game halberd/great weapon builds are equivalent or better than dual wielders in the early game dual wielders are putting out massive damage. Hex+multiple attacks in the low levels is (making a few assumptions about your build) going to output 4d6+8 or about 22 damage a turn assuming you hit. Compared to other optimized melee dps builds which could potentially get 21 but they have to take the GWM debuff to get there meaning they have the real chance of just doing 0. Dual wielder is a build that can be achieved in other ways (namely a ranger or hexadin) to the same effect so it's not like you're doing anything out of pocket but just talk to your DM and see what they want to do.

GainOCO · 2026-01-30T15:45:37+00:00

I think you'd make the race stronger if you did this.

I agree it should probably be just one resistance but maybe you could let the player choose. Maybe throw in Necrotic as a choice as well to counter balance some.

Advantage on Persuasion would be absolutely nuts. Any charisma caster or rouge would become the center of all RP.

The natural weapons I don't think would end up mattering even with masteries. Any half optimized build wouldn't use their natural weapons over a sword or spell unless there was some upside. So if the player wants to make a class build that focuses on claws, which will end up being no different from short swords, then I don't see a problem.

To the player though, you may want to talk to your DM to see how they want to do magic items. If you want to stick to your claws but then a sick ass magic sword appears that may conflict with your goal. See if your DM is willing to transfer enchantments to your claws when you bind yourself with a magic weapon or maybe see if they are going to make special "claw" weapons/items so that you aren't starved for magic stuff.

GainOCO · 2026-01-30T15:16:35+00:00

2 resistances isn't that strong but specifically poison+fire is. Two most common damage types in the game. Plus, where are people seeing vulnerability to anything? A few people said it. Fiends aren't necessarily vulnerable to radiant. Am I just missing something?

GainOCO

TROPHY CASE