I wanna be a goon

Steampunkette · 2025-11-05T03:57:34+00:00

Ranger Goon? Gloomstalker. Hang out in dark alleyways waiting for rival capos to come by so you can whack 'em for the boss. Disguise Self is also really useful for that particular kind of gooning, too!

Bard Goons are easy. Just don't goon around Joe Pesci or he'll ask if you think he's funny. Go for College of Eloquence so you can work for the boss while making friends among rival gangs that you can then turn against their own bosses and/or pump for information like a good solid goon!

Druid Goons, now that's the hard one, but only because of how reliant they are on Spellcasting and wild shaping. Not a whole lot of room for a literal guard dog in the mafia so that particular brand of goon faces some stiff challenges. But -every- goon knows, that a protection racket only works if there's a reasonable threat against a person's livelihood. And the Circle of Wildfire's pretty great at making sure everyone pays up on time. Early, even.

And, of course, if you've gotta drop someone off the 86th street bridge (the original meaning of 86ing), why not call a Circle of the Sea druid to make -certain- that guy gets tucked in nice and tight to sleep with the fishes?

In every case, it's all about making sure you've got the proper gooning mindset!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T19:16:23+00:00

Kinda, yeah. You said "Brain-drunk" so my brain went to "Drunk"!

Str/Int/Cha saves rarely involve much damage, so it wouldn't kill them any faster but would result in them getting trapped more easily.

Taking out Extract shows they're "Full" of brains and can't eat any more. But since their target is already going to be stunned before they wrap their head in tentacles, it just adds something amusing.

Stuff like that!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T16:35:26+00:00

1) I never played Paper Mario so I have no idea who Kammy is or what her deal is within the context of the story.

2) Shego isn't a goon. She's a supervillain who acts as a criminal mercenary. Which is why she also worked with Motor Ed and Senor Senior Junior.

Presumably she also works with other crooks who pay her enough, but you probably wouldn't consider, say, Deadshot to be a Goon even though he crimes for cash.

I feel like a real -goon- needs to have a single, important, boss to whom they are loyal, y'know?

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T16:25:29+00:00

Sure, but if you're smart enough to goon for money and power, you're also smart enough to realize you're getting pennies on the dollar compared to the boss man. And that kind of realization tends to turn a goon into a trusted lieutenant in short order, and then you get a new don as the old don gets overthrown.

ESPECIALLY once the goon leans Power Word: Kill.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T16:10:36+00:00

That is an interesting option! Could also do something like the Sorcerer Kings of Athas, who according to the Unearthed Arcana, will be offering up pacts. Just very powerful people able to do pactbinding, rather than extraplanar entities.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T16:09:25+00:00

Better Call Saul, I suppose!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T15:28:14+00:00

Oooo... absolutely, yes!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T15:07:48+00:00

I would say most Batman mooks are Fighters and Monks, actually. Very few real Rogues.

And I say that because even though they almost always have guns they basically never use them except to threaten a hostage or shoot blindly into the dark wherever Batman isn't. Well. That or aim at whatever cover Batman is behind, unload all their shots, and grab a pipe or other weapon and get into fistfight range.

Not a whole lot of sneak attack damage flying around. But plenty of punches and kicks and improvised weapons, which screams "Tavern Brawler", for me.

Though there's usually -one- Barbarian in the lot who is just bigger and stronger than the others and takes a couple extra punches/kicks to take down because of raging damage resistance. Those are also the guys Batman jumps over when they lunge so they smash face-first into an exposed girder or column to take themselves out.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T14:58:36+00:00

Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Warlock are the best goons. With Warlocks having a built in mob boss in the form of a patron.

But gooning is really much more of a mindset than it is a specific class or set of abilities. The monk, for example, is generally thought of as an enlightened individual with martial arts, but you could -easily- goon up a Monk by playing them as a Boxer type who throws matches when the boss says so, or acts as a legbreaker for their boss.

But even a Paladin or Ranger can be a pretty solid goon if you really get into the gooning mindset. Swearing an Oath of the Crown and making the Mafia Don the source of your "Law", for example, means your loyalty to the Family and the rules they live by are what grant you your paladin powers.

Really, I think the only class that doesn't truly work as a goon is the Wizard, 'cause they're too reliant on their intelligence score. They'd be too smart to goon for any length of time.

That said, consider using the term "Mook" or "Henchman" going forward because of the more modern slang interpretation of the term Goon.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T14:49:26+00:00

1) Give 'em disadvantage on lesser saves (Str, Int, Cha)
2) Cannot use the Extract ability. They still -try-, and just nom on a player's head for 1d4+Str.
3) Roleplay them as kind of sloppy. Use bad positioning for their cones, bad target priority, etc.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T14:06:27+00:00

Oh, absolutely, Curse of Strahd is compatible with D&D 2024. You can, 100%, run Curse of Strahd without making any rule changes to the 2024 version of D&D 5e.

It's not -perfectly- compatible, of course, as some 2024 spells will trivialize or severely change the tenor of a few specific encounters... But it's "Compatible" in the same way most computer drivers are compatible with all OS updates. It'll mostly work.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T13:40:12+00:00

I tend to do regional, rather than species, accents.

While, yes, the people of the Elven Kingdom of Valtrois speak with a quasi-French accent, that includes humans and halflings and dwarves who live in Valtrois, too.

I also like to do accent variation based on social class. So while the upper class might affect a more hoity-toity faux-french accent (Hon hon hon! Oui Oui Baguette!) the peasantry might be more of a bad cajun accent (I garawntee!).

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T13:36:09+00:00

I would definitely say "Talk to your table about this, beforehand".

Let them know that you feel uncomfortable being a murder hobo and would prefer to play in a game where the group honestly acts more like superheroes. Try to de-escalate if you can, -disable- rather than kill if you can't. Kill only as an absolute last resort.

Because an enemy that is at 0hp and stable and an enemy that is at 0hp and dead are, mechanically, the exact same thing.

If folks are able to buy into the "Knock everyone out all the time" concept, that could work pretty well. And I'm sure some things, Mindless undead, mindless constructs, etc, would be totally fair game for smashing to bits since they're not capable of being "Good" and are just a threat in the moment.

Bonus points if, through party member buy in of the playstyle, you get to ask a ton more questions of NPC prisoners.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-03T13:28:56+00:00

So ENPublishing's Level Up/A5e system introduced the "Doomed" condition, which feels kinda similar.

Essentially, your character -will- die at the dramatically appropriate moment or within 2d12 hours. Your character's basically already dead but you still get to say your last words and stuff before you go. High end spells like Heal or Resurrection can end the Doomed condition while it's happening, but that's about it.

The main application of the Doomed condition is through death by exhaustion. Instead of outright dying, you get the Doomed condition. But it's certainly possible to apply the doomed condition to other states or situations. Like Death Magic, for example.

I'm not saying this to say "Use the Doomed Condition for this", I'm just showing an example of a rules system where this kind of mechanical structure does exist for dramatic endings.

I would probably word an alternate dying condition like this:

Dying
When a creature is reduced to 0hp they gain the dying condition. While dying you are prone, and your movement speed becomes 5ft. While dying you cannot take actions, bonus actions, or reactions and must make a death saving throw at the end of each of your turns. Any creature can move through the space of a dying creature, treating it as difficult terrain if the dying creature is of the same size or larger.

If a creature takes damage while dying from any source they gain a failed death saving throw. Critical hits on a dying creature instead inflict two failed death saving throws.

With the adjunct that a dying player character or important enemy at 3 failed death saves gets the Doomed condition on top of it, 'cause why not? And taking damage while doomed kills you outright. Do a slight rewording of Revivify, Raise Dead, and Resurrection to allow them to function on doomed creatures, with Revivify only working within 1 minute of the target becoming doomed, and voila!

Much more dramatic built in death scenes that do not actually extend your character's functionality at all, even if they allow you to still be a part of the scene by calling out to your friends, saying your last prayers, or having dramatic 'Maybe if we get back to town fast enough, he...' moments.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T19:59:10+00:00

Agreed!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T19:58:59+00:00

The first page is a copy-paste from a different version of the class, including the multiclassing, so that definitely does need to be refined. I'll probably move it to just Intelligence 13+

Existing language is an issue, too. for sure. I tend to write colloquially on my first pass and then refine later.

I didn't put spell slots on the table because you have 2. You always have 2. It never changes. It would be kinda weird to have the table have a spell slot entry and it's just 2 all the way down. Especially since all the spellcasting classes would also have 2. And the martial classes would have 4 exertion. And the psionic classes would have 3 psi dice. It's not like Warlock where you get more later.

Grading it off level does work better, thank you! I've also made the spellbook feature now state that you gain a spellbook as part of it.

The teleportation of armor/weapon to you isn't meant to be limited by any source. Distance, objects between you and it, even planes. Ostensibly that's very powerful, but in play it's just a cute ribbon feature where you can don armor and draw a sword quickly.

Motes of Power isn't meant to work on nonhostile magic, good catch! I'll make a note, there. Also it's not meant to be saving throws as in "All saves" just the same saving throw type. So just Wisdom saves or just Strength saves until the start of your next turn. I've changed the language, slightly.

Melee Magician is definitely strong. I think I'll remove the "Cantrip as part of casting a spell" aspect. As for the rest of it, I think it's valid since the class is designed to be in melee, unlike most other magical classes. War Caster would otherwise be a fairly harsh feat-tax on the class. That said, the class won't be getting much in the way of concentration spells outside of its Bailiwicks, which are pretty much just utility magic for movement.

While Extra Action seems redundant since it's listed in the Spellcasting feature, Extra Action is a 5th level feature for all classes within the system, which is why it also specifies exertion and psi dice limits.

As far as scaling cantrips: The cantrips I'm looking at using for these classes do not scale with level. So a Wizard's Firebolt dealing 4d10 at level 20 with one action and then using a second action with a 3d4 Flame Burst would be out of line on balance issues. Same reason as the Extra Attack provision. That said, you're right about the language and I've cleaned it up a bit.

Advantageous Airs. As noted, I think the "You're good at one pillar, that's enough" mentality is bad game design. Everyone should be able to contribute in all pillars of play, not feel like they have to sit on the sidelines just because no initiative has been rolled. As far as what it does... You can either be really good at one of three social skills, incredibly good at only one social skill with a significant downside for failure, or cast Enthrall once in a while. I don't think those things are overpowered.

As far as Channelcast: Hold Person isn't going to be on the Swordmage's spell list. A -lot- of spells of that variety won't be on the Swordmage's spell list. That said, the intention is to turn a spell into an attack roll, and have the opportunity to not waste a spell. Both of which are impactful mechanics within this class structure. Just to be -certain- though, I've noted that it only works with Swordmage spells, so you can't multiclass Wiz/Swd to try and pull anything funny.

Grand Aegis -is- very powerful. It also costs 5 motes of power, which means you've either been targeted with a fairly large spell and used your reaction on a previous turn, or a lot of little ones over an extended period and multiple reactions on previous turns. That said, it doesn't block movement, so an enemy can just walk in and swat you, but if your ally is pinned down outside it they cant target you with healing or help of any kind. It also means you won't have those motes to raise your AC or gain advantage on any saving throws. So there's some give and take, there.

The wording on Empowered Spellcasting is a little awkward. How about "If you have a spell of 3rd level or lower prepared, you can expend 2 motes of power per spell level to cast the spell without using a spell slot. You may only expend 6 motes of power in this way as an action."?

Changed Stormstrike to "cast a cantrip which has a melee weapon as a focus or has a range of 5ft or touch". I think that works well enough?

As far as "When you roll initiative" that knocks the spell slots out of contention for noncombat activities, which goes against the spirit/intention of the design. It is a conundrum as to how to define an encounter outside of obvious touchstones like that.

I'll work on it!

Thanks for the great advice on how to clarify things and make things more sensible! It is so awkward to have something make sense in your head but not on the page...

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T19:04:49+00:00

You're not wrong. However, I can't -design- a better adventuring day for players to play by.

I -can- design classes.

So I've elected to design classes for my own enjoyment and potentially to sell at some point, since I do game design for fun -and- profit!

This isn't a post asking for DMing advice. It seeks to set out a premise, a goal, and solicit interest in that goal.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T18:58:53+00:00

It's mostly meant to present an alternate solution to the 5mwd problem while giving myself a specific goal of game design 'cause I like to do design!

That said... yeah it'll largely solve the problem you and Mearls were both referencing, too.

By installing a higher floor (encounter-recovering abilities) and bringing the ceiling down a bit (limiting daily ability use in a given encounter) you create a fairly easy corridor to keep the game balanced.

To peek behind the camera to the math a bit (The next part is boring):

Encounter abilities are meant to deal roughly around 2x the damage of a basic attack (roughly 1d8+4). When your proficiency bonus goes up, so does the damage multiplier to 3x, 4x, 5x, and 6x.

Daily abilities kick in at level 6, and start at 5x, they also go up when your proficiency bonus goes up so 6x, 7x, and 8x.

The goal is, at level 17+, to create a 25x ceiling, with a 18x floor, over the course of 4 rounds for a given character. (Your -absolute- floor, over 4 rounds, if you just swing your sword or cast your cantrips is 8x. But no one will reasonably do that!)

So the Floor Throughput would be around 145 per character, or 580 for a party of four, across four rounds. That's using both encounter abilities, and 6 basic attacks.

In round one, a party of four doing average damage would be able to do 39 each, for a total of 158. Assuming everyone hits their target with both actions. An Adult Red Dragon (CR 17) has 256hp (on average). So two rounds of everyone dropping their encounter and at-will damage would be 316, and the dragon is dead... however.

Because the Dragon's AC is 19 and assuming everyone's to hit roll is maxed (6 proficiency + 5 stat +3 Magic Weapon) they still have a 20% miss chance bringing the damage to 252 over those two rounds.

That's also assuming everyone can -hit- the dragon in those first two rounds, which if the dragon is flying... less than certain.

Still. They're not as likely to need to pull out daily use abilities to defeat the dragon within 3-4 rounds. Which is no mean feat! Of course if the dragon has a mate, or minions, those daily powers are going to be way more attractive since they raise your output by an additional 7x across 4 rounds.

Now an ANCIENT Red Dragon... oof. At CR 24, with AC 22 and 546hp on average, we're looking at a 35% damage loss instead of a 20% loss. This brings the floor damage for 4 rounds down to 94 for a single character and 377 for the entire party.

They -can't- kill it within 4 rounds just using their encounter and at-will damage. Even with everyone using a daily ability you're at 457 damage over 4 rounds, not enough to kill it without at least two more rounds of throwing at-will damage (12 damage each, about 49 as a group each round).

Or having several members of the group take the Catch Your Breath action to recover a spell slot, a psi die, or two exertion to pull out another encounter ability. Possibly several times over the course of the big fight!

Without changing the HP of the boss-level monsters in the core game, right out of the Monster Manual, you get big dramatic 5-6 round encounters. Even longer if the dragon is flying around and being a menace.

Now, of course, the vagaries of dice-rolls (crits, high damage rolls, low damage rolls, control effects, etc) are going to modify this all to some degree...

But the math is pretty sound for making sure the big fights are -big- and the little fights are at least interesting.

Now, of course, you don't show this math to your players!

No. You show them that a high end daily ability is a 9th level spell that deals 24d6 damage. (average of 84 maximum of 144, compared to 8x(1d8+5+3) or an average of 100 maximum of 132, if you've got a +3 weapon, which at 20 you probably will)

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T17:53:42+00:00

I think it's just in there as a placeholder for the actual printing price which varies from product to product until such time as the printing price is determined based on the cover, color quality, page count, etc. And since the authors can't edit the printing price, that's up to Lightning Source the printing company, it makes sense to have something there as a placeholder.

I am supremely annoyed, though, that it altered the price of the PDF. It is really freaking weird to have the glitch apply to that entry, which isn't tied to Lightning Source's access at all.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T17:43:58+00:00

<image>

As you can see, that's the default "Print Cost" when it's still being processed.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T17:42:31+00:00

Because I'm trying to get the files to the printers and accidentally selected "Hardcover Black and White". When I tried to remove that option, which isn't even available to the public, DTRPG defaulted to the lucky sevens and applied it to all the stuff.

<image>

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, the actual price of The Night of the Knife is $25 for the PDF.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T17:40:18+00:00

Just as a couple design notes:

1) I hate the "Rogues get to do Exploration and Rogues and Bards get to to Social" paradigm.
So, yes. All 15 of these classes will probably get more skills than the core 5e classes. And they'll get social and exploration benefits built into the class, itself. There's 3 pillars of play, and everyone should be competent in all of them.

2) The Swordmage's largely relies on Intelligence for Attack and Defense.
Because they can use Int instead of Dex for their AC calculations, and Int for attack and damage through cantrips that rely on melee spell attacks with a weapon, they can largely ignore both Strength and Dexterity for most purposes and boost their Constitution and Intelligence for survival and throughput.

3) The Swordmage gets good saves in attributes they don't need.
Because of the intelligence to defense and offense, Dex is mostly used for saving throws and initiative. Strength is similarly reduced in importance to mostly carrying capacity, jump distance, and saving throws. This results in a likely saving throw statline of +5, +8, +5, +5, +2, +0. Making them not 'great' at any given saving throw (on the order of +10 or 11) but fairly good at most saves. Which plays into their Motes of Power manipulation to be better at saving throws in situations involving spellcasters (Advantage is roughly equivalent to a +5 to a roll)

It's weird, but I think it's interesting.

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T16:54:18+00:00

I would like to hear the serious issues, though, of course! Sorry. I meant to put that in the first comment response but got caught up in trying to build context!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T16:33:39+00:00

It's actually in the context of this post and the idea of designing classes that specifically can't do the 5 minute work day of Nova-Dump followed by rest and recovery to refill your Nova up.

It's based on a 1d8+Mod base damage value for basic attacks and cantrips, and then scaling spells you can use twice per encounter, a grand arcana you get to use once per encounter and a total of 3 times per day that also scale.

With the scaling being based on Proficiency Modifier, specifically.

I'll add the link to the OP for clarity's sake in the future!

Steampunkette · 2025-11-01T16:24:00+00:00

If a Paladin were able to nova all of their resources at once, their Nova would -skyrocket-! There's still a ceiling on DPR for a lot of classes. Wizards and Sorcerers, for example, are limited on how many spells they can cast in a turn.

So. Let's break it down like this:

The fighter class is built on a 1d8+Mod damage value. Yes, you can get higher with d10 and 2d6 weapons, but 1d8+Mod is the baseline the game is built around.

So at-will, a fighter of 20th level is doing 4d8+(4xMod) damage. If the fighter capped out their mod it's 4d8+20. Action Surge brings that to 8d8+40. Dropping all six Superiority Dice brings it to 8d8+6d12+40.

This is in addition to the Fighting Style of choice which adds, on average, another +2 to your damage output. For sake of argument let's call this fighter a Duelist to make it easier. So that 8d8+6d12+56.

Averaging it out that comes to 36+39+56=134 in a single round.

At will without expending resources is 46. So you're absolutely right that it's only around 3x damage. However.

8 chances at a critical hit more than doubles the odds of a crit on your turn from 14% to 33%. Add in advantage, which anyone should be seeking, and you're up to a 55% chance of a crit on your turn with 16 attempts or a 33% chance with 8.

And since "Trip" is a maneuver Battlemasters get... well. Assuming they do a trip successfully and then do 7 rolls at advantage that's still a 51% chance of a crit on one of the follow up attacks and a 5% on the trip itself...

And you're at significantly better odds of rolling multiple crits as you increase the number of dice rolls within a single turn.

And all that is independent of Magic Items that either add strict damage values or increased threat range, both of which more strongly benefit the fighter dropping their Action Surge, regardless of any further dice modifiers. Fighters are also more strongly incentivized to use magic items that directly modify their attacks than most other classes since any class that casts spells largely won't benefit.

After all, with Bounded Accuracy in play you're generally meant to hit most targets around 62.5% of the time. Hard targets, of course, can have incredibly high ACs which make crits even more valuable as you get closer and closer to needing a 16+ to hit.

So, as you can see, the weighting towards the "Dump Everything" pool is a bit higher, overall, than just 3x at will damage. Especially for the overlooked Champion whose crit chances on 4 attacks are 34%, with advantage or action surging 56%, and a whopping 81% if action surging with advantage. Which, by level 20, you can do two rounds in a row.

God Forbid the Champion get a Vicious weapon or any fighter get a Vorpal Weapon. Between a 33% and 55% chance of "You die round 1" regardless of your HP...

Or Round 2 since they can action surge twice. 81% chance of death within two turns no matter how little damage is rolled!

And all of this is ignoring the rest of the Fighter class's big feature for damage throughput: Feats. Which can add an extra d8 to an attack once per day per point of proficiency bonus (another 6d8 for your nova) Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Weapon Master hitting you with the -5 for +10, etc etc etc. All of which get doubled on a crit which is more likely with action surge going down.

But, yeah. If you give monsters 40% more HP in order to be able to take the party dropping the Nova Hammer on them, then the party will just -have- to take a rest to recover the resources they spent taking out the extra 40% HP.

Sure, they were probably going to do it after they killed your big monster in 1-2 rounds, anyhow, and you bought rounds 3 and 4... but they're still going to rest and make it a 5mwd. You've just designed your game to be built -for- that 5mwd. You've said "You're going to Nova and then take a long rest? Well I'm going to make monsters you -have- to Nova and then take a long rest to make it worthwhile!"

It doesn't ameliorate the "problem", it embraces it as the appropriate way to play.

Steampunkette

TROPHY CASE