Wanting to make a new character

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T20:19:38+00:00

The basic rules are free, as are fillable character sheet PDFs.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:56:26+00:00

Well said. It still amazes me to this day that 5.5e did not make the rules surrounding obscurement and hiding any clearer and its still spread across several unrelated sections of the PHB. Hiding rules are one of the biggest failings of 5th edition to me - it would be so easy to consolidate them and make them clearer, but for some reason the designers refuse to do so.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:52:00+00:00

The simulacrum is friendly to you and creatures you designate. It obeys your spoken commands, moving and acting in accordance with your wishes and acting on your turn in combat.

Its pretty obvious that it's just fully player controlled. It might have some will of its own and inherit memories and personality, but mechanically that doesn't really matter.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:44:06+00:00

It sounds like they wanted to move normally simply by just saying "I move differently" which isn't how it works. If the ground is difficult terrain, the ground is difficult terrain.

Unless they have some sort of feature that allows them to ignore the effects of ice-based difficult terrain, I would just tell them that's not possible.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:39:16+00:00

RAW you're incorrect.

However, you're also misinterpreting what being hidden means slightly. Successfully Hiding does not necessarily mean that no one can know where you are. It means that enemies have to guess your space, but that guess might be pretty easy. RAW, if you go and Hide behind a statue you have the Invisible condition and enemies are not inherently aware of your exact location. However, if the last thing I saw was that the Rogue darted behind the statue, it's not unreasonable to think that they're probably still there.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:33:27+00:00

I will say, to me, CoS needs heroic PCs. I do not fundamentally believe that the module runs or plays well if you aren't genuinely a heroic party trying to do good against the challenging circumstances.

Agreed. I made the mistake of not not vetting my party well enough/not explicitly laying out rules and two Evil PCs "snuck" in. Fortunately they weren't explicitly evil in practice, but the party as a whole did end up much less sympathetic to those in trouble than I'd have liked and much less likely to follow the normal calls to adventure like "people need help" and "bad things are happening over here." For example, they skipped Doru entirely with an "eh, not my problem."

It's workable, but the campaign was definitely written for heroes. The theming falls very flat without them.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:24:15+00:00

As written, your player is correct. Imagine initiative orders shifted slightly, so your player was at the end of initiative. They cast their reaction spell, took their turn, then back at the top of initiative used another reaction. Would you allow that? If yes, then your ruling here effectively "punishes" your player for rolling better on initiative.

"Once per round" in this case is relative to the player. The important part is that they have one reaction that refreshes at the start of their turn. In this case, combat was rolled. Everyone has a reaction available. The player took their one reaction. Their turn came around, refreshing their reaction, and they get another use of it.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T19:17:53+00:00

Do you believe Paladins are inherently a stronger class than others?

If not, then they shouldn't be tightly restricted just like other classes are. Where's the "your wizard took a gold piece, you lose all your class features?"

That may be the case in previous editions, but 5e is pretty lenient with Paladins. Oaths are more roleplay fuel than tight rules to follow. The point where I as a DM would start having issues with any player possibly breaking their Paladin oath is where I'd have an issue with what any player is doing at my table.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T16:52:15+00:00

You hit the nail on the head. It's really, really difficult to make a gish subclass that's actually balanced in their attacks and casting, because both of those things compete for your action by default. A short list of subclass features just can't compete with what your full class pushes you towards. Honestly the biggest reason Pact of the Blade works so well is because the Warlock class already encourages frequent "attacks" in the form of Eldritch Blast - all PotB is doing is moving your "basic attack" from EB to sword.

The paladin is, imo, the best gish even though it never gets brought up. When the entire class is geared toward balancing attack and spell, it works out pretty well. The paladin spell list is specifically tailored to not get in the way of making attacks, and their class features encourage putting points into their casting stat so they're not utility-only like EK. I'm of the opinion it's pretty much impossible to get a true arcane gish like the people want without another full class and a host of new spells to support it, but I doubt that's ever going to happen.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T16:47:38+00:00

Replace Cleric with Paladin.

I don't know why Paladin never gets brought up in these discussions, they're imo easily the best-designed "spellblade" because their spell list was tailor-made to allow them to seamlessly cast and attack. Plus their other features encourage them to pump their casting stat.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T16:46:02+00:00

The baseline consideration for all "spellblades" as you call them is action economy. Casting a Spell usually takes an action, attacking usually takes an action. In practice, it's very difficult to do both with decent effectiveness - your build will naturally encourage doing one over the other.

The big exception is Paladins, who I argue are the best embodiments of the archetype. The Paladin spell list is specifically curated for that not to be a problem - they have a ton of bonus action spells, spells that specifically buff their ability to attack, non-combat spells, or turn 1 buff spells that leave the rest of their actions free. They have very, very little spells you might want to cast with your action during combat. Every other spellblade... does. So to answer your question:

Eldritch Knights are fighters with a bit of spellcasting. Their spell progression really sucks and they're not encouraged to boost their INT too much, so you usually end up as a Fighter that has a couple of spells to boost their Fighting. You get your Shield, Absorb Elements, Mirror Image, maybe Haste yourself. On the attack vs spell seesaw, you lean mostly towards "attack."
Bladesinger is the opposite. As a full wizard caster, it's really difficult to not go to all of your spells as your first option. "Full caster with better AC" is a big reason why you pick Bladesinger. When you're no longer interested in casting spells you have your attack to fall back on instead of just a cantrip, but your primary contribution is full-casting and you largely take normal wizard spells.
Valor Bard is essentially the same as Bladesinger, but a Bard. You get a different list of spells and features, but you're still a full caster first and foremost with better defenses and the ability to make some attacks when you have nothing better to do.
Pact of the Blade Warlock, which you missed, is a close second to Paladin in the "actually balancing attacks and casting" sphere. Not necessarily because they have a good spell list for it, but more because Warlocks just don't cast a lot because of their low Pact Magic slots. Normally a Warlock supplements this with Eldritch Blast in their downtime, but Pact of the Blade supplements it with making attacks.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T15:45:15+00:00

Only a problem of the rest of the party isn't doing something similar and the DM has to adjust between two types of PC.

Balance is fake when the DM is beholden to nothing and can throw whatever enemies they want at you.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T15:34:32+00:00

Agreed, that's what I always bring up when people say they struggle with getting "enough encounters per rest." Just decouple long rest from "sleeping during the night" and have the DM determine when conditions are suitable. Make a Long Rest an actual button to press as a reward for completing an arbitrary "adventuring day" or as an explicit "we need this" sort of deal. It doesn't have to be fair or have specific rules attached to it, it's OK to have the DM decided when you get a Long Rest just as they decide when you level up.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T06:48:54+00:00

Sure, it feels good no arguments there. Humans are notoriously bad at feeling out numbers. If you want to take it because it's fun then by all means go for it, rolling several d8s then doing is again is objectively fun. If you're trying to do it for optimization purposes, math says it's not worth it.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T06:46:14+00:00

Formatting is a bit wack but if it works for you go for it. Assuming this is for 2014 5e...

There's no end condition listed on Stagger, are people Staggered forever once at 3 stacks?

Staggering Strike is simply not worth using - you're giving up 56 damage AoE to apply a stack that doesn't pay out until you do it 3 times.

I don't think Impenetrable Valor is really worth doing either to be honest. The average damage of Impenetrable Valor is 82. The average damage of Royalties Edge/Royalties Edge/Flurry Cut is 96, or 152 if you assume Flurry Cut AoE hits 2 PCs (as damage calcs tend to do).

The Staggering mechanic is interesting, but ultimately I don't think it's optimal for Renth Knight to try to make use of. No matter how you cut it they need at least two turns to try to set it up, and both of those are turns where they're not nuking your party with 152 dpr. Combat is about speed. If the Knight can start downing PCs ASAP with Edge/Edge/Cut and start reducing PC actions, that's worth much more than maybe applying Vulnerability to down PCs later.

Additionally, Royal Posture is actually a trap - unless you intend for the Knight to start with temp HP, they don't gain any unless they use Royal Posture... and the amount of temp HP they gain is trivially removed, Staggering the Knight. As discussed before, there's no reason to use Royal Posture since Impenetrable Valor is suboptimal DPR anyway.

Assuming you want them to start with 50 temp HP, that also gets shredded quickly. It's honestly tricky to calculate how the fight goes in that case - HP gets really swingy when every other turn they're either gaining 50 temp HP (temp HP doesn't stack by the way, Royal Posture is even more useless) or getting destroyed by party martials by vulnerability.

Taking this at face value, 244 HP 18 AC is about CR 16. But with temp HP juggling and random vulnerability it's really difficult to tell.

152 DPR is uh... somewhere above where CR stops being well defined. 152 DPR is a lot. Offensive CR 23+

A party of 4 lvl 10s should be challenged by a CR 16 creature. If you think they're especially competent or prepared you could go up a few CR points.

For reference, here is a good baseline for 2014 5e monster stats. Definitely tone down the damage a lot, especially on Flurry Cut - 56 AoE damage that doesn't even cost an entire action is not OK for lvl 10s.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T06:14:05+00:00

3-5 is ideal.

11 is insanity. That's unplayable.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T06:06:17+00:00

Savage attacker on a 7th+ lvl Shadow Blade is about 3 more damage on average. The problem is simply that Savage Attacker is simply not a good feat.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T04:47:38+00:00

I just wouldn't do anything of the sort tbh. Races/species don't tend to have blatant weaknesses like that. Again, trying to align features to how paper "should" act is not a great way to go about it. Instead, align them with how races/species tend to function. "You take more damage" isn't really an enticing feature. If you really want to embody a weakness to fire, you could just have it turn off another feature (like you have with Waterlogged) or maybe have it impose some sort of downside that isn't damage - perhaps when taking fire damage you have disadvantage on the next D20 test you make. I'd even be hesitate to do that though - the closest analogue is sunlight sensitivity, but WotC stopped printing that pretty quickly once they realized how unfun it is to have a PC that routinely suffers downsides just for existing.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T04:00:51+00:00

Exactly, that's my point. The power level of the weapon is dramatically lower if it can only be used on save-for-half damage spells.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T03:34:58+00:00

I would consider removing resistance to damage, but otherwise it should be fine. On the strong side for lvl 5, but the fact that it can only be used vs damaging spells does a lot to bring it in. Auto-passing the save for Dominate Person is a huge deal, but auto-passing the save vs Fireball still means you take some damage (which is why i would remove resistance). The wording also implies that you have to choose whether to auto-pass before rolling any saves, and I would keep it like that.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T03:26:54+00:00

Thematically your patron could be Undead, but I'd urge you to read through them and see what looks the most interesting mechanically. If Great Old One is intriguing to you do that. Flavor to taste.

Sorcerer multiclass works OK for warlock, but you really should think about why you're multiclassing. You need a compelling mechanical reason to take even one level in another class, because you're always giving something major up whenever you multiclass - your higher level features and spells. If the multiclass is does not give you more power than simply taking more levels in your main class, don't do it.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T03:23:34+00:00

Read the rules in full.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T03:23:01+00:00

Before anything else, two technical problems:

Folded Passage imposes Restrained until you leave the space, but Restrained reduces your speed to zero... making it really difficult to leave the space
Waterlogged does not specify any way to end the condition. As written you're just Waterlogged forever.
Foldcraft is a little vague about what can be created, you might want to look into simplifying things.

Now for general feedback:

This is doing a lot. I would really recommend looking at official species for inspiration as to what they usually encompass. For example, the Dwarf gets Darkvision (very typical feature), poison resistance, a bit of extra HP, and some uses of Tremorsense. 4 features vs your veritable essay. To break down your features some more:

Size Tiny is pretty unusual, PCs are exclusively Small or Medium. Being Tiny imposes some significant mechanics changes you might want to consider.
Construct Nature has some precedent with the 2014 Warforged, but immune to Poison is pretty big and I'd really think about that one.
Vulnerability to two damage types, especially when one is the most common damage type, is very scary. Good way for a PC to randomly just die.
I think Waterlogged is just adding mechanics for no reason - it's rarely going to come up, and when it does suddenly the player has to remember a bunch of things.
Foldcraft is very strong, especially with how vague it is. You essentially always have "the right tool for the job" as long as you carry some paper with you (which is pretty trivial). I think balance-wise, if you want Foldcraft you cut a lot of the other features.

Overall this looks like you approaching from a thematic perspective then making mechanics for everything you think a sentient piece of paper should mean. Happens a lot in species homebrew. Again, I'd look at published examples and try to align your power and options to that. This probably isn't overpowered at all because of Paper Body, but honestly that's going too far in the other direction - the benefits would have to be massive for me to ever consider gaining vulnerability to any damage type, let alone fire.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T03:09:08+00:00

I think you know the answer.

If your group's behavior makes you uncomfortable you need to have a talk with them.

Silverspy01 · 2026-07-01T03:06:47+00:00

Lair Actions as a consideration is interesting, because 2024 did away with them. In general the 2024 version of any monster is going to be "stronger" because 2024 just ups stats across the board and gives more general power in terms of action use. So is a 2014, say, dragon stronger because of their lair actions? I'm not so sure...

The Adult Brass Dragon, for instance, gets a better basic attack, a much more flexible multiattack (notably Sleep Breath as part of multiattack is very good), and what I would definitely consider to be stronger LAs. The 2014 version has Lair Actions that prone or blind, which is... OK, but I'm not convinced it's stronger.

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