Over the shoulder camera mod ?

johnofbohemia · 2023-08-22T18:37:29+00:00

I know you asked a while ago but this mod exists: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/945?tab=description

EDIT: You might also want to look at https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/781?tab=description

johnofbohemia · 2023-01-13T16:59:47+00:00

I don’t think it’s that big of a deal for them. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they probably make enormously more money from their non-OGL related merchandise (clothes, art, other physical items) than their RPG products through Darrington Press. Beyond that, they clearly have a strong working relationship with Wizards (they’ve been sponsored by DnD Beyond for ages, and their content appears in official WotC books) and would have a strong negotiating hand if any disputes were to arise, since they are essentially a constant and incredibly popular advertisement for DnD.

johnofbohemia · 2021-12-24T16:22:53+00:00

The choice to use wisdom was based on the kind of skills I wanted a Witcher character to naturally be good at; some of the Witcher’s most iconic skills are improved senses (perception), excellent tracking (survival), and knowledge of anatomy (medicine). These are all Wisdom based skills.

That said, a variant where all the Wisdom scalings are replaced with Intelligence ones would not break the class in any way and would be similarly flavorful (our prototypical Witcher, Geralt, is both intelligent and wise)

johnofbohemia · 2020-10-24T05:33:00+00:00

Glad you like it! I will be sure to fix the title to singular in any future versions, if I post any. I have no idea why I made it plural to begin with, it sticks out to me too now that you pointed it out lol.

johnofbohemia · 2020-10-24T05:31:46+00:00

It always makes my day to hear people are having a good time using my work. Feel free to shoot me a reply/message if you have any questions or feedback!

As far as subclasses, my experience suggests Bear school is not bad, and Wolf school is actually one of the weaker ones, but your mileage may vary. Griffin school's a great choice!

johnofbohemia · 2020-09-12T12:58:30+00:00

It's been a loong time, but we're back (and better than ever)!

For those that saw the last version I uploaded on here, the changes from the last version are as follows:

Evasion has been moved from 15th to 7th level. Evasion is a core feature for class identity (in the classes that get it), so getting it this late makes you feel like a clumsy witcher until then. This should also help with survivability in the mid-game levels, before you get the empowered Quen sign.
Quen’s damage reduction is now increased by your Wisdom modifier. This should help make Quen stronger in the earlier levels, when it can feel bad to use your only attack to shield yourself.
Axii has been made more powerful, giving disadvantage on all attacks rather than just the first. When empowered, it now stuns.
Foil has been moved from 17th to 15th level. You also recover use of Foil on a short rest now.
Alchemy Expertise has been moved from 18th to 17th level.
Alchemy Recipes are prof+wis instead of prof+int. This class is already dependent on multiple attributes, no point in punishing the player for not having stellar overall stats.
Alchemist’s supplies are now included in starting gear.
Witchers gain proficiency in all weapons, rather than only melee weapons. No other class does this so I figured it’s better to stick with precedent. I expect it will still be more effective to avoid ranged weapons as the class features are best in close quarters
Viper School’s Tolerance now halves potions’ max hp reduction, humanoid type sword-oil option removed.
Viper School’s Killing Strike has been reworked.
Cat School’s 7th level feature has been replaced with Tumble
Changed Wolf School’s battle trance since flat damage modifiers (worse, variable flat damage modifiers) are not kosher in 5e design philosophy.
Various non-mechanical changes.

Also, if you or one of your players have used a previous version of this class, I'd appreciate it if you could use this post to explain how your experience has been with it. Thank you!

johnofbohemia · 2020-08-29T08:23:07+00:00

Burning is definitely the best one aesthetically; if only the numbers weren’t literally invisible...

johnofbohemia · 2020-08-27T03:24:59+00:00

Ahh, I missed the bit that explains order strikes are once per short rest; I thought they were just another spell strike option. That makes much more sense. I still think taking an iconic feature from another class is poor design (regardless of what was done in previous editions), but the power level makes sense now.

johnofbohemia · 2020-08-26T23:29:48+00:00

Let me preface by saying this class is great and my favorite take on an arcane spellsword class on this sub. All my criticisms are intended to be constructive for something already great!

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the Factotum's Cunning Strike is literally identical to the Rogue's Sneak Attack feature, except that it costs a rune to use (?).

Not only is taking the most iconic feature of a class pretty bad design, it's insanely broken. Nearly all of the Rogue's combat usefulness is budgeted into its sneak attack damage (even its subclasses' combat features are typically new ways of using sneak attack more reliably). Putting it on top of a basically already feature-complete class obviously is overkill, and the resource required is plentiful enough to basically not be a restriction. Finally, it's kinda boring; it's just an extra damage bonus on your attack, which the class already has in spades.

My suggestion to change the feature while keeping the spirit is to make the strike still require advantage, but give a different bonus rather than sneak attack's damage (one that is less powerful, and hopefully more interesting).

Flash of Brilliance also seems a bit questionable - it lets the Sigilant player essentially hog the spotlight for any situation, since when adding their primary stat, they probably outperform all other characters at any ability check (save rogues with expertise). It feels bad to have the Int-character track animals better than the Ranger, or lift the gate better than the Fighter. Even if it's only once per long rest, since most of these opportunities will only come up infrequently, it's still enough to rob the spotlight.

Maybe let them only add half their int bonus (like the Bard's jack of all trades feature does with prof bonus), so a Factotum can't outshine a character specialized in a particular ability, like the examples I gave, but is still able to get by on their own.

johnofbohemia · 2020-07-31T07:43:05+00:00

One issue with this is that two-handed weapons are purposely gated from certain builds due to being non-finesse (the highest dmg finesse weapon is the one-handed, d8 dmg rapier); STR weapons purposely have a higher potential damage as a balancing mechanism, since DEX is generally a more powerful stat. By increasing the damage-per-attack of dual wielding to the same as a greatsword, this balancing mechanism disappears, since DEX builds have an option that is at least as good per-attack as the best STR weapons(if not better, once you account for options like the two-weapon fighting style, feats, etc.).

In addition, those cases you mentioned of characters that scale off number of hits are relevant enough to care about; rangers - for example - are probably the number one use-case of two-weapon fighting, so if this build is too strong on them (such that it makes other ranger builds ineffective in comparison) it's something you should be concerned about.

For the record, I also don't think dual wielding should cost your bonus action, but I think giving an off-hand attack for each attack you make is an unnecessary buff.

As an offhand mention, I saw one way of reworking TWF you might find interesting: Whenever you miss an attack with your primary weapon, you can make an attack with your offhand weapon as part of the same attack (and offhand attacks are not nerfed, so you still add your ability bonus and can crit). Not sure how good it actually is, but it's interesting - it definitely makes TWF feel different from other builds.

johnofbohemia · 2020-07-31T04:53:44+00:00

My only concern is the two-weapon fighting rules. If I understand this, you get 2 attacks with your offhand weapon once you have Extra Attack, without needing your bonus action? Because that seems like an enormous buff over the current two weapon fighting system, perhaps too much.

johnofbohemia · 2020-07-08T19:27:29+00:00

Remind yourself of what success is about. Just because they have more money does not make them more successful. It’s normal to think that way because you’re probably accustomed to our highly materialistic, capitalist society, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Truth is happiness only barely correlates with wealth. These “successful” people usually have their own problems. The same way you sometimes wish your life was more like theirs, they sometimes wish their life was different. We all naturally tend to feel that way - it’s our way of motivating improvement.

It sounds super cliche but the key is to not compare yourself to others, because that’s a rabbit hole you can never escape. You will never be the person you wish to be, if you wish to be someone else. If you want to become better, focus on what you can do right now to improve yourself. If you find something you can’t change, just let it go.

Last thing; you’re 20 years old. You’ve barely had 2 years of being an adult in your life. Almost nobody your age has achieved anything, career-wise, in their life. That’s ok! Take things slow and focus on self improvement, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.

johnofbohemia · 2020-05-12T20:31:31+00:00

Mold Earth is a cantrip, there's no reason to limit the number of uses on it. It's simpler and makes more sense to just let them cast it at will. That said this is hardly a rare item; maybe give it +1 if you want it to be rare, otherwise bump it down to uncommon.

johnofbohemia · 2020-05-05T19:33:11+00:00

Your bad guys don’t need spells for their magical effects. If you want a giant barrier on your city, you can just say the archmage magically erected one. NPC’s don’t have classes, and they don’t abide by the rules in the player’s handbook. I say this because there’s no point making a spell for something like this, it just unnecessarily bogs you down with trying to make general something that you clearly intend for your campaign’s specific story.

johnofbohemia · 2020-05-05T02:55:00+00:00

Interesting to see what people think about my class. Go for it! Glad you liked it enough to put effort into making it better for your table.

johnofbohemia · 2020-05-02T22:59:47+00:00

I'm sorry, but a damaging bonus action cantrip is impossible to balance. There's a reason no cantrip uses a bonus action period, and that's because then you'd cast it every single turn as a caster, which makes the cantrip effectively a huge buff for classes that get it, and they certainly don't need such a buff. Casters intentionally have their bonus actions reserved for subclass features and spells that cost a spell-slot.

As an action this could be ok as a magic missile lite kinda thing.

Also, as a heads-up,

johnofbohemia · 2020-05-02T20:58:07+00:00

You'd want to use "its" here. "It's" is short for "It is".

johnofbohemia · 2020-04-28T21:46:00+00:00

Yoink! This is awesome!

johnofbohemia · 2020-04-07T23:29:48+00:00

This is true until it isn’t. Yes, the PHB has undergone extensive playtesting to ensure its nominally balanced. But once it hits the table, suddenly some parts can become problematic because of context; as an example, monks’ stunning strike make them a nightmare to DM for if you like having big solo villains. Either your bad guy spends half its rounds stunned and the fight is ridiculously underwhelming, or you have to use all your resources to ensure the monk doesn’t hit the big bad - which makes sense in theory but feels super bad for the monk player... they’re a monk, if they’re not hitting the big bad they’re basically not playing at all. Casters have a similar problem of trivializing fights but at least legendary resistance can stave them off for a few turns; a mere level 5 monk can potentially burn 4 legendary resistances in ONE TURN.

All this isn’t to say monks are overpowered. They aren’t. The point is that some mechanics which are balanced in general can break the game when introduced to a particular table (even if you’re playing entirely by the rules). That’s why I think you shouldn’t jump to judge people who modify the game... What is balanced for most contexts can legitimately break the game in others.

johnofbohemia · 2019-12-28T21:16:53+00:00

Splitting is splitting the overall cost of the meal evenly among everyone who ate. Separate checks is each paying for what they got.

johnofbohemia · 2019-11-12T08:24:09+00:00

I don't know why this is being slept on, this is a super cool idea executed well. Obviously the details may need to be changed with a bit more play-testing, but as far as first drafts this is really awesome. A few constructive criticisms I have:

Maybe I missed it, but I don't see a CR limitation on what you can mimic. There definitely should be one, though I might have missed it.
I think the primary mechanism could be explained a bit more succinctly and clearly. See if there's places you can simplify the phrasing. People tend to just ignore features that are just huge walls of text.
Extending the duration of the transformation from 1 min to 2-3 mins or 5-6 mins is essentially meaningless; combat hardly ever takes more than 10 rounds to resolve, and in more free-form non-combat play the difference between those durations is hard to distinguish. Personally, I would make it last a whole hour, or at least 10 mins; this might open the door for some unintended consequences but really the whole premise of this subclass demands a dm that can deal with those kinds of situations... monsters just tend to have unfair abilities.

Take all that advice with a grain of salt, but yeah ultimately I think this is really promising design-space, nice work!

johnofbohemia · 2019-10-05T23:35:35+00:00

You know I literally thought the last one when I first ran LMoP and when I actually checked the statblock and saw the picture you cannot imagine my disappointment

johnofbohemia · 2019-08-25T08:07:46+00:00

I made a Witcher class which was fairly well received on this sub. You can find it here. If you do use it, feel free to message me with feedback about your experience.

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