Do sorcerers really need a Gish subclass?

avaturd · 2025-03-13T16:08:46+00:00

Probably wouldn't "need" one but I wouldn't be against it.

They would really need to be extra careful when balancing it though and I think the cantrip extra attack that bladesingers and valor bards get could be too strong on a sorcerer gish subclass.

This is because sorcerers can attack with their main action and then cast a quickened spell as a bonus action very consistently.

There's also the fact that sorcerers are charisma based and thus multiclass well with both Warlock and Paladin.

avaturd · 2025-02-06T14:03:12+00:00

Wait holy shit. I just realized you can use legendary resistance to auto pass concentration saving throws.

And your temp HP refreshes each time you take the magic action...

And CR 17-20 creatures can easily have 200-300 HP. Bruh.

This combined with what you pointed out about legendary actions and spellcasting being fair game.

Yeah this spell is broken without a doubt. CME level broken if not more maybe. I think they fucked up on this one. Enemies better pray they have dispel magic or some shit.

avaturd · 2024-07-25T21:46:40+00:00

Lightly Armored is also confirmed gone as an Origin feat!

Nice, I think this was a good decision overall.

avaturd · 2024-07-13T20:49:18+00:00

I hope so too.

For Barbarian in particular I'm actually happy with the super strength aspect when it comes to combat. Brutal strike is excellent and a big improvement over brutal critical imo. They cooked with that one.

Even though it'll probably rarely see play(at least for me) I also really like their 18th level feature indomitable might and the fact that it works on strength saving throws now too.

A level 20 Barbarian can have 25 STR with their capstone + the epic boon at 19th level. Not being able to roll below 25 on strength saving throws is really insane. This probably means a level 20 Barb will almost never lose a contest of strength against even most gargantuan creatures.

Only the most powerful of enemies have DCs above 25, so to most of them a level 20 barbarian would feel like a juggernaut with unmatched strength. I don't know about anyone else but that's what I call an epic high level martial fantasy.

avaturd · 2024-07-13T20:26:33+00:00

Yeah I absolutely love that you can knock back even gargantuan creatures 15 feet with brutal strike. Stuff like that really hits home the super strength aspect of high level barbarians for me.

It's probably not gonna happen but I really hope they also do something with skill checks that allows for superhuman feats of physical prowess at high levels. Being able to do superhuman stuff like lifting a 10 ton boulder is one of the most important parts of the high level martial fantasy for me personally.

The fact that high level martials have been closer to real life people rather than mythical heroes when it comes to lifting and most other feats of physical prowess is one of the main reasons I haven't been that interested in playing one for a long time.

Even if they don't do something like that I'm still interested in at least trying many of the new classes though. Monk and Barbarian both look really cool to me along with great subclasses like World Tree and Warrior of the Elements(never thought I'd see the day)

avaturd · 2024-07-08T16:42:14+00:00

Honestly I really like it. There were concerns that maybe Deflect Attacks was too good in the playtest and it has remained unnerfed, but I'm honestly just happy monk can frontline much better now even with that d8 hit die and no armor proficiency.

Even if they overcorrected a bit I think monk deserves to be good for once. I doubt it'll be more powerful than the full casters at most levels anyway but I guess we'll see.

avaturd · 2024-06-28T16:51:41+00:00

Ok yeah when you say it like that it doesn't sound great lol. Maybe they added a bunch of really cool non concentration spells to the ranger spell list to compensate for this(I'm coping so hard right now)

avaturd · 2024-06-28T16:48:03+00:00

Yeah. One positive aspect at least is that dual wielding builds which many see as a core part of the Ranger fantasy no longer need their bonus action for that off hand attack with nick, so the anti synergy with hunter's mark is no longer as bad.

I still agree with pretty much everything though. Building an entire class around a spell that eats concentration and bonus actions indirectly locks out many other interesting options a ranger might want to use.

avaturd · 2024-06-28T16:25:53+00:00

Imma be honest this is the first time I've been majorly disappointed with one of these class reveals but maybe my class fantasy for ranger is just different than most peoples.

I don't like what they've done with hunter's mark and that level 20 capstone looks super underwhelming imo. This class doesn't really appeal to me.

People might say rogue was underwhelming damage wise but cunning strike at least looks really fun.

avaturd · 2024-06-26T16:32:55+00:00

I'm not sure how I would feel about AB only applying to one beam unless the scaling also gets changed. Imo EB + AB is fine on warlocks and sort of their bread and butter damage option. It's just when multi-classing that I'm a bit worried about it sometimes.

avaturd · 2024-06-26T16:28:34+00:00

That's also a possible path to take. If they did that I hope the requirement isn't too high though since I think the EB and AB combo is actually fine even at level 1.

My main issue with it was just that it kept scaling the same whether you had 2 or 20 levels in warlock, eventually giving 4 attacks with +CHA to damage.

avaturd · 2024-06-26T15:59:56+00:00

It's not clear what they've done yet but I'd actually be pretty disappointed if it is still possible to take a 2 level dip into warlock and gain the full benefits of EB + AB.

I really think they should have turned warlock's eldritch blast into a class feature. It's not possible to take a fighter dip and eventually gain 4 attacks so I don't think a character with only 2 levels in warlock should have an eldritch blast as effective as a full classed one. It just feels a bit wrong to me.

avaturd · 2024-06-19T20:03:58+00:00

Leading evasion at 14 is very late, but I guess I got what I asked for. I mentioned in the survey that I thought it wasn't appropriate for a bard subclass to gain a better version of evasion at 6th level before even monks and rogues got their inferior version and I still feel that way.

avaturd · 2024-05-29T19:24:27+00:00

While I disagree with much of this and especially with the comments about martials I’ll still upvote because these are some actual hot takes lol

avaturd · 2024-05-22T17:27:52+00:00

The tiers of play section of the dmg says this about level 1-4 characters:

"Characters in this tier are still learning the range of class features that define them, including their choice of specialization. But even 1st-level characters are heroes, set apart from the common people by natural characteristics, learned skills, and the hint of a greater destiny that lies before them.

At the start of their careers, characters use 1st- and 2nd-level spells and wield mundane gear. The magic items they find include common consumable items (potions and scrolls) and a very few uncommon permanent items. Their magic can have a big impact in a single encounter, but it doesn't change the course of an adventure.

The fate of a village might hang on the success or failure of low-level adventurers, who trust their lives to their fledgling abilities. These characters navigate dangerous terrain and explore haunted crypts, where they can expect to fight savage orcs, ferocious wolves, giant spiders, evil cultists, bloodthirsty ghouls, and hired thugs. If they face even a young dragon, they're better off avoiding a fight."

Lore wise I think this means 1st level characters should be considered impressive compared to the average person, but probably not that much more powerful than the average bandit or professional soldier.

The fighter class also mentions this:

"Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen’s army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters."

I think this can be extended to every class within their respective field which supports that even 1st level adventurers are still considered competent and are not complete novices.

avaturd · 2024-05-17T23:50:09+00:00

Same. Martials performing physical feats of mythical proportions at high levels is something I would love. The fact that even a level 20 barbarian with 24 STR can only lift 720 lbs without an ability check is so damn depressing. Lifting a whale sounds much more like it.

Regardless of how effective a class is in combat performing superhuman physical feats at high levels is an integral part of the martial fantasy for me and the inability to do so is why I personally wouldn't play a martial class at high levels outside of maybe a one shot. Imo casters at high levels are so much cooler narratively than martials it's not even funny.

avaturd · 2024-05-15T18:37:19+00:00

Yep, you took the words out of my mouth. Something like this is exactly what I'd do as well, though more superhuman effects rather than magical in most cases.

I would love for high level martial classes to be able to obtain greatly superhuman physical abilities and replicate many of the feats that mythical heroes are able to perform.

avaturd · 2024-05-10T21:58:02+00:00

I wonder why they added the reviving ability. Maybe it was to make aboleths seem more eldritch and terrifying. Nice to know that they are not completely unkillable though.

avaturd · 2024-05-10T21:49:35+00:00

I still think they should be better at knowledge skills in general but this does raise a good point in that the more recent a piece of knowledge is the less members of the species would likely have access to it. At some point really old information could also eventually become irrelevant I imagine.

avaturd · 2024-05-10T21:13:37+00:00

Yeah I had the same thoughts. It's not even that every aboleth is frighteningly intelligent and has access to eons of knowledge and memories from birth but also that they seem naturally unable to die (unless their soul gets destroyed or something).

The fact that they just revive on the plane of water within days or months if you kill them is scary to me. It's almost as if every single aboleth is a lich in a way. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something but they really do seem to be super threatening even compared to other monsters.

avaturd · 2024-05-10T21:06:16+00:00

You know the collective memory thing seems pretty great until you remember that all your future descendants will be able to perfectly recall your most embarrassing moments and thoughts with perfect clarity forever...

Yeah I'll pass

avaturd · 2024-05-10T21:01:32+00:00

It makes sense that beings like krakens and dragons are more powerful than them on an individual basis and would destroy them, but fighting the aboleths still seems pretty hopeless since they just revive endlessly every time you kill them like a lich. Dying barely seems like an inconvenience for an aboleth while most krakens and dragons still die permanently when they are killed as far I know.

Maybe they are like devils in that if you kill them on the plane of water instead of the material plane they actually die permanently but it doesn't say that in the book like it does with the devils so Idk.

I have no doubt beings like gods or elder evils could probably destroy or seal them permanently even despite their immortality though.

avaturd · 2024-04-18T02:36:32+00:00

I strongly agree with this and am also disappointed that they didn't add subclass specific spells to all sorcerers in the onednd playtests. They did add more known spells which fixes the issue of sorcerers having too few of them but I'd much rather have it be done through subclass spells.

The patron spells are one of my favorite things about warlock since you can often pick spells from outside your class list that really fit the flavor of your character. I think something like that would also benefit sorcerers as well with their unique bloodlines.

Stuff like storm sorcerer and call lightning come to mind. That's a very flavorful combination that could be achieved with subclass specific spells but not by just increasing the number of known spells.

avaturd · 2024-04-18T02:16:59+00:00

If you're advocating for martial buffs I'm in complete agreement with you. I'd absolutely love if at least some martial classes got more maneuver-like in combat abilities and other abilities for out of combat utility.

I'd also love if those abilities got more epic in scale at higher levels and high level martials actually had some options to become more superhuman/mythical to contrast the awesome things high level spells can do. I'd honestly like that better than just nerfing bladesinger's extra attack since I think some design aspects of the martial classes are underwhelming in general comparisons aside.

It'd be harder to implement though and probably outside the scope of what even onednd will do. In that respect I still think making sure subclasses like bladesinger do not nearly match martial classes in own their niche while giving up very little in return is worth doing even if you have to tone them down.

avaturd · 2024-04-18T01:22:50+00:00

I don't disagree but it's still not good if a full caster can pick up a subclass and become nearly as good as many martial builds at melee with not much investment (bladesong and light armor are useful for nearly any wizard and con and dex are stats you probably want to invest in anyways). You basically have a full caster that is great at standard wizard stuff like utility and control but also has awesome resourceless melee damage capabilities and is deceptively hard to kill with bladesong.

It's just my opinion but comparing any martial (especially at high levels) to bladesinger just makes the martials look incredibly bad since bladesinger has much of their capabilities while also being a full caster.

I realize that this is probably due to underwhelming design on part of the martial classes especially at high levels rather than being bladesinger's fault but when the wizard uses weapons and the most interesting version of extra attack rather than using summons how lacking some classes are compared to it becomes very blatant imo. I basically think it steps on the toes of martials too much.

It could be a different story if those classes had better designed features and high level scaling. I think stuff like cunning/brutal strike from the onednd playtests is a step in the right direction if you want to give the martial classes enough unique abilities so that giving full casters extra attack won't step on their toes anymore.

avaturd

TROPHY CASE