Roguish Archetype: The Daggermaster [ROUGH DRAFT]

Unsurprisingly, it's been a busy time for me and new content. When I take a hiatus, I usually generate a backlog of ideas that I come up with, half-finish, and then move on from before completing, because that's just kind of how my mind works. When I get back to work on my homebrew, then, it usually becomes a pretty simple task to complete my assortment of half-done ideas, give them a proper treatment, and produce some new content.

The daggermaster was a paragon path in 4e and a prestige class in 3.5, and both times (naturally) focused on using daggers to their fullest potential. In 3.5, 4e, and 5e, a dagger is usually an inferior weapon to use, strictly speaking, its utility in 5e coming mostly from the thrown property, making it an effective offhand weapon for when an enemy is just out of reach, and honestly not much else.

One of the popular conceptions of the rogue class is a character with a daggers in both hands, which is odd considering that such a build is usually suboptimal. The daggermaster has traditionally been the answer to this: part mechanical solution, part carnival knife-thrower, and part person-who-is-way-too-into-their-knives, the daggermaster has been a fan favorite in both editions immediately before 5e.

And now, with luck, I might be able to produce a viable 5e version of this beloved classic.

FEATURES:

• Use daggers for everything! Say goodbye to your thieves' tools, you won't be needing them.
• Trickshot anything you see, from the apple on someone's head to the sword in their hand. 
• Two-Weapon Fight, but only with daggers because we need to make sure you're not just using this as a convenient 3-level dip. 
• Hide knives anywhere you feel like, no one will ever find them. 
• Strike with incredible accuracy, from far, far away! Give your daggers slightly better range than a hand crossbow.

CONCERNS:

• This has a lot front-loaded at 3rd level, but most of what's there are ribbons aside from Two-Weapon Fighting and the trickshot disarm. Not sure how much that matters.
• Unerring Precision is very good. I crunched the numbers though, and it does about as much as a dual-wielding thief rogue. Less up-front, but it catches up by the 5th round of combat. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• It's nice to do something simple and knife-y after making new invocations, spells, and all those bizarre sea-themed warlock features. 

@WalrockHomebrew is now on Twitter!

In the interest of letting you all know about the newest homebrew as soon as it happens, Walrock Homebrew is now on Twitter!

Expect periodic updates whenever new content goes live, as well as occasional asides about the goings-on of the homebrew community and D&D 5e in general.

Follow us (@WalrockHomebrew) today by clicking this link!

And don't be afraid to @ me, I always love getting questions, comments, and critique.

Roguish Archetype: The Shadow-Weaver [Third Draft]

Man, have I not thought about this one in a while. One of my favorite roguish archetypes (along with the ninja), and definitely one of the ones most in need of a rework.

One of the fortunate/unfortunate things about doing this for as long as I have is that I learn so much about how things are balanced. Eventually, I start seeing the glaring mistakes earlier on, and either have to whistle and pretend they don't exist, or sigh mightily, go back, and start revising them.

What IS handy, though, is this allows me to update to more modern templates I have developed, standardizing the look of my material while I rework it from the ground up.

So how did everyone's favorite shadow-assassin-counterpoint-to-the-arcane-trickster change in this most recent iteration? Well...

CHANGELOG:

• Doubled the length of the Shadowy Organization table, and fixed some of the sillier choices. Sorry, members of the Venom Cave.
• Added Phantasmal Force to the spell list, because why wasn't that there before.
• Shrouds are no longer a smite-type ability, and instead act as a vehicle to confer Sneak Attack. Less potent than before, but also more in-line with how rogues typically scale. 
• Heart of Darkness is now Eyes in the Dark, because Heart of Darkness honestly didn't do much. It was one of those ideas that sounded better in my head, and EitD gives a good little bit of fun utility not represented by the spell list. 
• Black Agony is now Deathly Shroud, because the idea of calling in shrouds for damage needed to be represented somehow. Deathly Shroud strikes me as a more thematic ability than Black Agony's "hey you do extra damage," anyhow. 

CONCERNS:

• I basically changed everything except Gloomstride, so there's liable to be some mistakes in there. That's just how it goes, really.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Dang did I used to have a real problem letting images collide with text. Now every time I see that, it annoys the pants off of me. Revision revision revision!

Race: Awakened Undead [Fourth Draft]

Available on the DM's Guild (pay what you want) at this link!

The dead rise yet again! Just like this blog, really.

This time, they come with reinforcements in the form of two additional subraces, plenty of rules-tweaks, and updated DM's Guild friendly public domain artwork!

Lots to love here, so why don't we take a look at what's different.

CHANGELOG:

• The Bloodless feature is now a core race feature, because that made much more sense. 
• Revenant's Unnatural Vitality got a buff, no longer requiring death saving throws and instead functioning off the presence of temporary hit points. 
• Ghost's Withering Touch has been nerfed, taking away the CON-mod bonus, so very sorry, ghost monks.
• Ghosts now have resistance to being grappled, because have you ever tried to hug a ghost?
• Ghouls have been added! Bringing with them two different flavors of natural weapon and an ability/unfortunate compulsion to feed. 
• Mummies have also been added! With an additional feat it you really want to cuuuuuuuurse your foes.

CONCERNS:

• Most of these races still trend fairly strong, though they're definitely less powerful than a good deal of what Volo's offers. Looking directly at you, Yuan-Ti Pureblood. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• A few nifty Photoshop tips and tricks to make the art work better together, and that it's almost certainly time to bring some subclasses onto the DM's Guild as well!

Otherworldly Patron: The Fathom Horror [Second Draft]

This one's been kicking around in my head for a long time. Way, WAY before I did the Codex of Waves, which I honestly half-did to support this (and another) project.

It's very satisfying then to be able to finally revise it and make it into a version I'd allow in games. Doubly so because this patron also has elements of me experimenting with Unearthed Arcana modifications to the warlock, like the Eldritch Smite invocation for the Pact of the Blade, and my figuring out of what the answer to that should be for the chain pact.

All in all, I find it in a pretty nice place. The balance of it feels just about as it should, though I'm certainly not the best judge of that. Look it over and give me your thoughts, same as always, and we can make it even better.

CHANGELOG:

• Pelagic Tentacle now says what it does with flying/falling creatures, and includes an addendum to let you use it to give your falling friends a slimy, extradimensional hand.
• Brine has been made overall more useful, with the original effect being transitioned into a bonus of sorts. 
• Jellify now gives you a grey ooze friend if you kill someone with it, so go out and murder your way into having a lil' slime buddy today. 
• Anchor of Drowned Sailors applies benefits to ALL pact weapons, making it more versatile and a direct competitor with Eldritch Smite. Technically you could double up both invocations, which is great I guess if you want to blow all your spell slots in one round. 
• The Young Sea Drake has been retuned, giving it a knockback breath and almost-invisibility, neither of which cost spell slots. 
• Verbage tweaks for two spells, for clarity. Not exciting, but probably important!

CONCERNS:

• I think the balance on Brine is solid, but it may be situationally very powerful. I don't think that's important enough to make it outright overpowered, though. 
• The sea drake is essentially a pseudodragon + warlock scaling, escape abilities, and almost invisibility. I'm hoping it's useful enough in its present state to warrant an invocation. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Changing these spells kinda sucks, because now I have to go back and change them in the Codex of Waves as well. Grumble grumble grumble.

Otherworldly Patron: The Ancient Dragon [Third Draft]

Always wanted to update this one. Got into a conversation the other day that got me thinking about it, and it just kind of went from there.

One thing I didn't like about the v0.2 of this patron option was that it tried too hard to be dragon-agnostic, creating a spell list that attempted to address every type of dragon possible. What it generated was something of a bland mess that had a lot of holes and no central feel.

So, I made six spell lists instead, one for each damage type of dragon (almost; acid and poison have to share).

It was a huge pain in the butt. I hated it from a simplicity-in-design standpoint. But it was the right call, I think, to preserve the feeling of this patron.

But, of course, that's not the only thing that got changed. Changelog!

CHANGELOG:

• Diversified and reformed the spell list(s), trying to keep a central idea of dragon-ness while showing deviation across the various dragon-types.
• Moved Ancient's Breath (now Breath of the Ancients) to 1st level, and included a note saying that yes, dragonborn can and will have two different flavors of breath.
• Added Dragonscales at level 6, a shield type ability that does what I was trying to make shield do, without costing a spell slot. 
• Reworked Blood of Dragons making it less dependent on coming into contact with a specific type of damage. 
• Minor reworks to Draconic Apotheosis, to make it function with the new Blood of Dragons and Breath of the Ancients.
• Added Invocations, including the much-loved dragon chest, small buffs to the Pact of the Chain pseudodragon, a Pact of the Blade weapon, and more!

CONCERNS:

• I'm not sure of the damage ramp on Breath of the Ancients, could use another look. 
• Blood of Dragons may be too good, and also, is it clear? Could also use a look.
• The pseudodragon invocation (Dragonling) may have unintended consequences, maybe?
• Giving heavy armor to warlocks is probably an okay call, given that this invocation matches numbers with Armor of Shadows pretty well, but I'd still like to have Knight of the Beyond be looked at. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Usually, it's worth doing the big, stupid, extra-work-pain-in-the-ass thing to preserve flavor.

Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Sixth Draft]

Available on the DM's Guild (pay what you want) at this link!

The thing about making an expanded weapons list is it can (and will) just keep expanding as new ideas come up. I guarantee this sucker will be just about as long as the Strongholds project when I'm done with it. But for now, I'm happy that I can squeeze it in to four action-packed pages of content, all done up in public domain artwork and ready for the DM's Guild.

Six whole drafts, though! Can you believe it? I sure can't.

So let's see what got changed.

CHANGELOG:

• DM's Guild compliant public domain artwork!
• Minor tweak for trading expanded weapon proficiencies: the traded weapons must have the same damage dice.
• Brass knuckles are back in! Just about as good as a light hammer, without connecting to unarmed combat rules in any way (it's for the best, really).
• Added a special property for the sword sheath allowing it to be drawn with the same object interaction as the sword it's paired with.
• Changed the sap, yet again. Less rolling (hopefully) means more fun.
• Added the spiked shield and the monk's spade to the exotic weapon list! Both have been widely requested, so it's good to have them on there. 
• Added magical version of the monk's spade, the spiked shield, and the spiked chain as a little bit of bonus content.

CONCERNS:

• Spiked shield does some wacky things vis-a-vis AC and being wielded as a weapon primarily. I'm pretty sure that's okay because it costs a feat, though. 
• I'm unsure of the balance on the monk's spade, with its bonus action shove. Could use some more eyes on that. 
• Sap is always a little wacky, but I love it so it has to be in. I blame the Thief series of computer games.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Everything's an ongoing project. I just wish adding new content didn't raise so many balance concerns.