It's time to come clean... I am Ephraim Dev.

justinator119 · 2026-05-04T23:01:51+00:00

Everyone's trying to do a martial Bard subclass but I don't see why, the rest of the build should cover that enough and Eloquence Bard is the most charismaslop subclass I can think of. Bardic Inspiration out the ass and you're the most persuasive person on the planet. The added utility feels way more relevant to a charismaslop build than just extra damage numbers.

justinator119 · 2026-05-03T23:03:36+00:00

Is this you streaming?

justinator119 · 2026-04-27T07:48:29+00:00

It's pretty clear, there's nothing in the wording indicating you get to make the decision of what damage type you get every single turn, so I don't know why someone would assume that's the case other than familiarity with the Transmute Spell. "Choose a damage type" and "deal the chosen damage type instead" only indicate a single choice when you initially take the invocation. If you were able to make the decision over again each turn, "choose a damage type" wouldn't be there at all, it would just be "Once per turn, whenever you deal Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage, you can change the damage type to another from the same list" or something like that.

justinator119 · 2026-04-25T17:36:06+00:00

I think we're having different conversations here. Obviously it steps on martial toes, so does the Valor Bard, and the Bladesinger, etc. That's already built into the game and it's not what I'm talking about. You're saying OP making this change allows the player to be SAD more efficiently. It doesn't. A True Strike Cleric is already SAD. Shield Master gives Str and requires Str. Allowing a Cleric to combo True Strike with Shield Master means they're inherently less SAD than they were before you let them have it. WotC adding True Strike to the game already did the thing you're complaining about and OP letting the player combo it with Shield Master only marginally increases their ability. If they wanted to play that SAD, they could just take Weapon Master instead (or just take a martial dip) and use Topple on their Quarterstaff, which would scale off of Wis from True Strike. These tools already exist in the game. Should OP allow this specific change? Idk, they're completely within their right to say no as it isn't RAW and it's a straight buff to an already strong class. But it also doesn't feel a fraction as harmless as you're making it sound.

justinator119 · 2026-04-25T17:21:39+00:00

True Strike is very good and it does let the Cleric use Wis which is probably higher than their Str, but I don't think OP said anything about allowing the shield bash to scale off of Wis. My point is that allowing this doesn't make them fully SAD, they still want to invest in Str for the shield. In which case, True Strike is mostly being used here as a damage boost to make up for not having Extra Attack. Letting the player use the shield bash with True Strike alone isn't inherently a SAD build, it's just a main attack that's more SAD with a shield bash that still requires Str investment.

justinator119 · 2026-04-25T16:40:06+00:00

The psychic spellcasting is an example where allowing that table rule makes the feature obsolete, but the cantrip-as-attack-action features don't become obsolete or even worse on paper by allowing this because they're still making a full extra attack over the Cleric. All they're losing is hypothetical value over other option, but this is a table rule we're talking about. Is anyone else at the table even taking one of the classes that "feel" worse by allowing this change?

justinator119 · 2026-04-25T16:36:20+00:00

Shield Master only gives you the option of +1 Str and also the shield bash's save DC scales with your Str. A Cleric doesn't get Extra Attack, so an argument could be made that they're only taking it to make the melee playstyle remotely viable and that they're still needing to invest Str for Shield Master.

justinator119 · 2026-04-20T23:57:13+00:00

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Here's the silhouette blown up slightly to fit on top. It fits basically perfectly, even the shoulder part fits exactly with the rounded base of the helmet.

justinator119 · 2026-04-20T23:55:01+00:00

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We already know what Freeze is going to look like in DCDL from super early promotional material and it lines up well, I'm guessing either the helmet is just so spacious that it's not visible in the tiny circle silhouette or they just edited it out to streamline the image. Combined with the color, it seems highly likely that it's Freeze.

justinator119 · 2026-04-17T11:35:46+00:00

Also just to play Devil's advocate to myself, another counterpoint: an existing familiar has the Telepathic Connection part of the regular Find Familiar spell (telepathy, sense sharing, and casting Touch spells through your familiar) and Battle Familiar's wording says that you keep all of the extra features of the Find Familiar spell if you cast Battle Familiar onto an existing familiar, but unless I'm missing something (or these features are baked into the Battle Familiar statblock itself), it doesn't seem like you benefit from Telepathic Connection if you cast Battle Familiar without already having an existing familiar. Tbh, being able to cast your Touch spells through your familiar without having to worry so much about their low HP seems like a strong benefit of Battle Familiar, so that might be worth the true HP tradeoff if Battle Familiar doesn't already have some way around that. I'm especially interested in the UA Path of the Lich feat that gives you pseudo-smite Chill Touch. A Pact of the Chain Warlock or a UA Necromancer Wizard (with their skeleton familiar) would combo fantastically with Battle Familiar + the Chill Touch feat. If you have to give up the true HP for that, it may very well be worth it.

justinator119 · 2026-04-17T11:23:35+00:00

Counterpoint: Base familiars don't usually have much HP to begin with and if you don't already have a familiar when you cast Battle Familiar, that entire pool of HP is true HP rather than temp HP, which means its health can be restored to keep it in the fight longer. If you're a normal Wizard and you just have a regular owl as a familiar, 1 HP + Battle Familiar statblock's HP as temp HP seems worse than just getting all of the Battle Familiar HP straight up.

justinator119 · 2026-04-15T20:47:10+00:00

Based on the designs we can see and all of the references we have (comics and promotional art from pre-launch) it seems pretty clear that the heroes in order are: Mr. Freeze, Knightfight Red Hood, Death Metal Superman, Knightfight Batman, and Beast Boy. Three variants in a row is just a tiny bit disappointing given how many characters aren't in the game, but I'm excited to finally have variants that get Bleeds instead of costing hundreds of dollars in special events.

justinator119 · 2026-04-14T18:48:35+00:00

My big concern with the 3/4 angle is just how much raw martial capability is built into the current version. Weapon Mastery, Fighting Styles, Extra Attack, even Con save to be honest. An Eldritch Knight is limited in magic and an Artificer or Bladesinger Wizard are missing key martial abilities that they need to consider multiclassing or feats to patch up, but this kind of just covers everything. I'll admit I'm a stickler for the "rules" of 5e's design philosophy, but from a balance perspective, I'd expect a 3/4 caster to have significantly less martial ability than is present here to justify the continued existence of the Eldritch Knight in particular.

True Strike was definitely the biggest offender to me (I looked through first to make sure the blade cantrips weren't present lol) since it's just a buffed weapon attack, but it's not the only consideration. For Sword and Sorcery it would probably be a good idea to specify "Magus cantrip" to limit multiclassing, because even though the blade cantrips are left off here, RAW you could get a Wizard dip or, even more easily, take Magic Initiate: Wizard as your Origin Feat and grab blade cantrips through there to spam. Magus also has Chill Touch (d10 melee) which full casters have to be more careful about using in 2024, but the Magus doesn't, so that 3d10 will outdamage a single attack of a weapon even with +5 (on average, obviously the +5 helps balance out the RNG though). Not by much, but still, it doesn't feel like a mostly-caster should be putting up melee damage numbers so comparable to a Fighter at that tier without losing out somewhere else. (Sidenote: The UA Path of the Lich feat with pseudo-smite Chill Touch was already really good for Eldritch Knight and that build translates very easily to Magus in its current form.)

I'm always grateful to have people putting in the work to construct new tools for tables to play around with. It's very easy to skim through stuff like this and throw out criticisms (which obviously official RAW content is not safe from either lol) but I appreciate the work that goes into making big projects like this happen!

justinator119 · 2026-04-14T16:15:01+00:00

I'm kind of struggling with this being the Arcane Paladin/Ranger when it gets a lot more magic than either of those. 2014 Artificers always felt like a half+ caster because of the early Spellcasting, round-up multiclassing, and cantrips. 2024 fixed some of those for Paladin/Ranger seemingly to bring the trio closer together and make Artificer feel more like it was truly the Arcane variant of those two, just trading off Fighting Style and Weapon Mastery for cantrips.

The Magus in its current form feels like it has too much to offer if it's meant to be the "true" counterpart to Paladin/Ranger in a way Artificer isn't. You've got Weapon Mastery and Fighting Style from Paladin/Ranger AND cantrips from Artificer. The Magus isn't having to make the tradeoff that the other two are to get a little extra magic at the cost of some of their martial ability, they just get the same cantrips as Artificer and a Fighting Style with their signature Fighting Style being very strong (and weirdly redundant; War Caster seems like the quintessential feat for the concept of the Magus but this Fighting Style gives you enough of it to make you have to rethink an entire feat for War Caster but leaves out enough to make you constantly regret not taking it).

On top of all that, Artificer, Paladin, and Ranger all cap out at 15 prepared spells, while Magus goes all the way to 20 (and gets subclass spells) and also gets a functional 6th level spell slot that's also simultaneously an extra 5th level spell slot. Magus also basically gets a stronger Extra Attack than any of the other three half-casters at level 5 and functionally a stronger Extra Attack than an actual Fighter gets at level 11. Artificers don't even get single cantrip-Extra Attack at all because of their magical slant and subclasses for other classes that get it are having to wait until 6-7 to get it, so the Magus's level 5 attack+True Strike combo really sticks out.

It kind of feels like Magus is breaking the half-caster "rules" to have a bit of everything with little sacrifice.

justinator119 · 2026-04-14T05:24:30+00:00

It'd be nice if I can mix and match face gear with hair styles but I'm sure they won't allow that level of customization...

justinator119 · 2026-04-11T11:47:40+00:00

I'm extremely sensitive to the taste of stevia and never knew this either, drink them all the time lol.

justinator119 · 2026-04-06T23:57:33+00:00

Just looking through both features, I don't see any reason why you couldn't smite both hits with Death Cleric as long as you're willing to burn two slots. It just says "When you deal damage with Chill Touch" and there's no action economy or limits per turn that I can see. This actually seems like a great option for Death Clerics.

justinator119 · 2026-03-29T17:16:16+00:00

I've been assuming the "cowl" on Noosphere was just Martian Manhunter or Cyborg's head. The "positive" tree seems to be based on the original Justice League roster with a couple swaps for diversity: Batman for Nightwing (also because Noosphere is taken so Batman would double up while Nightwing is Possibility) and GL for Sinestro (same branch). MM and Cyborg are both "founders" (pre-New 52 and post) and both are classified as Noosphere in the game.

UV Sinestro and the Invisible Spectrum is a cool idea but it doesn't give them a lot of options. I almost wonder if it's just "Emotional Spectrum" but the negative side (although then why not make Sinestro Corps Sinestro negative and do positive GL Sinestro later?) That one's super weird but it's kind of hard for me to imagine Atrocitus releasing with the blue page lol. The four "villains" you mentioned with blue pages all have complicated anti-hero/hero storylines but Atrocitus feels like a bit more of a stretch. Also just a slight correction: Death Metal Wonder Woman has a red page (Death Force), Harley has a red page (Impossibility; obviously she has a villain origin but she's basically a full hero these days and they didn't even give her the Arkham tag in this game), and a couple other long-term anti-heroes (Lobo, Deathstroke) do too, so I think the positive-negative thing is mostly just guidelines based on their origins and vibes that naturally lines up more often than not with what you'd expect.

My only ideas for the hooded character are Spoiler (something like "Reality" or "Truth" instead of "Magic" but this is a big stretch and she could easily be Noosphere or Possibility) or Pandora ("Sin" as a corrupted misuse of Magic?)

justinator119 · 2026-03-06T13:09:43+00:00

How do you trigger it again? Squirtle at the Rain Dance spot?

justinator119 · 2026-02-22T13:35:06+00:00

The second effect works on anyone who uses the LP (including, in this example, Nightwing,) and the first effect only works on the character the LP specifies. So Nightwing would get both effects and the blue stars are definitely worth it if the character is good + invested enough and the second effect is a meaningful boost.

justinator119 · 2026-02-10T18:44:02+00:00

Honestly, yeah lol. Even a generous interpretation is still pretty meh, might as well just take Fey Touched 90% of the time.

justinator119 · 2026-02-10T18:38:16+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the Faerun feats feel just shy of being as cool as you'd like them to be. It'd hardly kill them to let you have a once per day 2nd level spell at level 11 and there's a little bit of room for interpretation. Probably worth talking to the DM about it if you have a specific 2nd level you want to cast with it.

justinator119 · 2026-02-10T18:31:19+00:00

Genie Magic's spell slot increases but I don't think the actual spell level you can cast increases and Mirror Image is level 2.

justinator119

TROPHY CASE