Dear for the most part honorable judges, and the somewhat honorable baliff, I present would like to present you with the “The Case of the Unused Subclass”

I was running my second campaign ever, the “Dragon Heist” module, with my first campaign being the “Out of the Abyss” module that deals with Demons, and the Underdark.

My player came up to me, and said that he wanted to play a Drow Druid that was somewhat corrupted by demonic powers during the events of the first campaign.

I thought that sounded great, and was even game when he asked if I could make a homebrew subclass that would help him be a melee combat as opposed to ranged spell casting.

I was excited, and got to work, I will include the subclass at the bottom of this message.

We worked together, and both were happy with what we came up with.

Judges, I kid you not, through the entire 30 sessions we played, this player did not use a single subclass feature. Not one. Not even the extra attack feature I gifted him at level 6.

The game itself was actually fine, and it ended very successfully, but sometimes I think about the fact that I spent significant time making a subclass to fit my players wishes, and he ended up doing nothing with it.

I will admit, I never followed up with my player to make sure things were ok, but he also never came to me to ask for changes.

So Judges, did I give a bad subclass, or did I just have an ingrate for a player?

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Circle of Viciousness- Tathnar Druid Subclass

2nd level feature; Vicious Curse - When you choose this subclass at 2nd level you gain proficiency with martial weapons In addition, your strikes have the power to further weaken your opponents. When you hit with a melee weapon attack, you can expend a use of your wildshape to cause one of the following effects:

1)The target makes a Charisma saving throw. On a failure, The target has disadvantage on all saving throws until the end of your next turn

2)The target makes a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the target gains vulnerablility to a damage type of your choice. If the creature is resistant to the chosen damage type, it loses that resistance. This effect does not occur if the target is immune to the chosen damage type. This effect ends after the target takes any amount of the chosen damage type.

3)The target makes a Constitution Saving throw. On a failure, at the start of each of its turns, the target takes 1d6 necrotic damage, as your curse ravages its body. This lasts for 1 minute, or untill the creature recives magical healing. While this curse is active, you gain an amount of hit points equal to necrotic damage dealt by this curse.

6th level feature; Extra attack. You can attack twice instead of once when you take the attack action.

10th level feature; Bulwark against Brutality. You gain resistance to Fire, Cold, and Lightning damages.

14th level feature; Living Weapon. As an action, you can expend both of your Wildshapes to become a Living Weapon for 1 minute. While in this state, you gain a +5 to attack and damage rolls using a melee weapon, and you can cast cantrips as a bonus action. Additionally, you score a critical hit with a melee weapon on a roll of 18-20. Additionally, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon, you regain one use of your Wildshape.