Subrace: Yule Elf [ROUGH DRAFT]

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Just in time for Christmas!

It's been a long time since I've done a stand-alone subrace. I had a plan to release a whole slew of elves for every environment back in the day, but got distracted halfway through and only ended up releasing two elf subraces.

This subrace is less of a serious, intended-to-feel-canon addition to what I've created, and more of a fun, seasonal offering. Who wouldn't love to play a holiday team of yule elves, banding together to rescue Santa, or to defeat their ancestral foe the Krampus once and for all?

FEATURES:

• Be small, but still an elf, owing to a lineage that involves crafty gnomish blood.
• Know all the tools, because you never know what you'll need to make before Christmas!
• Produce things on the fly, every short rest, using slightly tweaked Downtime math.
• Know who's been naughty, and who's been nice! Maybe even keep a list (checking twice is optional).

CONCERNS:

• Yuletide Crafting might be semi-abusible, but it doesn't seem that bad at first glance.
• This is the only elf subrace that gets a choice of ASI, but again I don't think that breaks balance too badly. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• When doing research for the lore I was writing, I found out that the Krampus actually harkens back to the pre-Christian Horned God common in pagan winter celebrations. That same Horned God is also considered a central figure in Wild Hunt mythology, so that seemed like a great starting-off point to write some lore!

Divine Domain: Winter [Fourth Draft]

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Winter is coming! And I can't believe it took me until the fourth draft of this to drop a Game of Thrones reference.

The Winter cleric, like the Dragoon fighter, has always been a fan-favorite that nevertheless didn't end up where I really wanted it to be. Certain abilities seemed weaker or less compelling than they should be, but the flavor and concept were strong enough to give it a lasting, endearing quality.

It wasn't a huge surprise, then, when our first Walrock-level backer on Patreon requested a revision of this domain (and another subclass, coming later)! I've always been meaning to get back to it, so I put Spooky/Scary month on hold for one project, dusted this option off, and took a fourth crack at getting it right.

So thanks @DrMoradin for requesting this project! It's been a surprising amount of fun to revise, and it was great to have your playtesting feedback to draw upon as I did so.

And if you, too, want to become a patron, you can always do so by clicking the button on the sidebar. Or the identical one right here:

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Now, let's see exactly what I did:

CHANGELOG:

• Swapped Armor of Agathys with Fog Cloud on the spell list, as AoA got very broken at spell levels higher than 5th. 
• Cold Snap has received significant changes. This ability is now a bonus action instead of an action, is a 5-foot radius AoE instead of single target, and no longer removes the target's ability to take actions on a failed save. 
• Rime has received a small buff, as the ability was somewhat lackluster before, but now also causes its targets to take your WIS modifier in extra damage from attacks until the end of your next turn. 
• Blizzard has been reworked, now scaling in damage off of storm of vengeance. Blizzard now incorporates this math as well as the improved Rime. 

CONCERNS:

• The verbage may be a little long-winded in places, might need to stealth-edit some of that later. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Now's probably a great time to do a whole slew of revisions. Especially considering all the rough drafts I just released!

Divine Domain: Winter [Third Draft]

With homebrew, my personal philosophy is to push the bounds of convention. To look at what is there in core, but to change and add to it, rather than to keep completely faithful to what already is.

But, sometimes that bites me in the ass.

And that's okay - making mistakes and learning from them is the entire reason I have a WHAT I LEARNED section, below. It pays to dissect the intense layers of math and balance within this game to determine how the whole machine works. If nothing else, it makes me appreciate the obvious dedication to building balance that went into fifth edition, and it encourages me to be more forgiving of the handful of balance mistakes 5e does make.

But, enough about mistakes. Let's see what got fixed:

CHANGELOG:

• Frost's Fortitude was tweaked significantly, and now hinges on Wisdom instead of Strength (to illustrate that it's your magic making you tougher), and now gives you access to much of the lower-end martial weaponry. 
• Cold Snap can now target objects, maximizing damage against them for multiple rounds afterward. 
• Rime has had its resistance-nullification removed. The feat Elemental Adept exists for a reason.
• Blessing of Snows is now a vanilla Divine Strike, because it seemed like this option was leaning melee overall anyway. 

CONCERNS:

• Cold Snap is still very similar to hold person, but I feel it's important to have at least one freeze-creature ability inherent to this domain. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Sometimes, more choice can actually be a bad thing. Surprising, but true. 

Divine Domain: Winter [Second Draft]

Lately, the rough drafts I've released have been really well-received, except for their mechanics. People love the themes and vision for certain class options, but (reasonably) hate the way I've done certain things.

Things like overload the last rough draft's first level with literally everything a cleric could possibly need. Whoops.

But you guys are very good at keeping my mistakes from being permanent mistakes, and the Winter cleric got a truly stellar round of criticism. Let's see what I ended up changing:

CHANGELOG:

• Added semicolon; intro is now more grammatically complete.
• Split Winter Acolyte into both itself and Frost's Fortitude, giving caster/melee options at first level similar to how the Nature domain does it. 
• Frost's Fortitude applies medium armor to Strength characters, keeping the actual AC numbers very close to what heavy armor would provide, anyway.
• Rime moved to 6th level, and now gives its target disadvantage on their first STR/DEX/CON save, rather than disadvantage on ALL the DEX saves. 
• Blizzard retooled slightly, now heavily obscures an area rather than providing half cover, and combos with itself to inflict disadvantage when re-applying Rime.

CONCERNS:

• I didn't change the level 8 ability choice at all. I know a few people raised concerns, but both options it offers are balanced, and I think having one facet of choice in the path is much more palatable than the two facets in the rough draft. 
• Blizzard is still hard to gauge, but it feels about right for a once per long rest power.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• If it seems like I shoved too many things into one feature, I probably did. 

Divine Domain: Winter [ROUGH DRAFT]

Today is Summer Solstice, a holiday for druids and beachcombers alike, the longest and (usually) hottest day of the year.

Which sounds, to me, like the perfect time to release a cleric of Winter!

Winter clerics are icy warriors and mystics that hail from the coldest parts of the world, using the chilling power of their gods to serve mankind, or to slay those weaker than themselves.

What's cool about the Winter cleric? Let's take a cold, hard look:

FEATURES:

• Ice spells, ice spells, so many ice spells.
• Play as either a melee or spell-casting cleric, with your choice of 1st and 8th level features.
• Many different ways to freeze and slow your enemies, from using your Channel Divinity to rebuking creatures with Rime.
• Conjure a powerful Blizzard! Dòng zhù, bùxǔ zǒu!

CONCERNS:

• Blizzard is probably my biggest concern right now, it's hard to tell if it's too strong, or too weak.
• Not sure about the cold resist on Winter Acolyte, but it pairs well with the "no penalties from cold environments" which should be offered early on. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Splitting a cleric domain into two paths (melee/caster) like this is interesting and makes thematic sense for this domain, and I'm curious to see what you all will think.