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After I released both the Fathom Horror and the latest draft of the Ancient Dragon, I had a gradual realization that this material was the least future-proofed it could be. As can be seen in earlier drafts of both patrons, invocations found in Unearthed Arcana had changed the face of how certain warlocks functioned and their power level, and I attempted to accommodate those changes in the material I produced.
Ultimately, I decided just not to touch either option until Xanathar's Guide to Everything came out and included the finalized version of those UA options. What followed was a grueling waiting game on my part, both for Xanathar's, and to see how its invocation options were inevitably received.
Now that some of the hubbub around the new book has died down, I finally feel comfortable in continuing the revision cycle on these warlock options. The Fathom Horror is first up, because I love it so dang much, but expect the Ancient Dragon to be close behind!
All that in mind, let's see what all this time waiting led me to change:
CHANGELOG:
- Jellify has been tweaked slightly, to keep the ooze it creates from being able to eat metal.
- Removed Anchor of Drowned Sailors and Aquatic Adaptation invocations, as both conflicted with new material present in Xanathar's.
- Anchor of Drowned Sailors is now a sidebar rule, synergizing with Improved Pact Weapon found in Xanathar's.
- Young Sea Drake has been rebalanced, tweaking its HP, making its Torrent Breath an at-will ability, and allowing it to share its Marine Camouflage with whoever it is riding.
- All invocations have been made patron-agnostic, meaning that any warlock with the right features can now use these invocations!
CONCERNS:
- Still unsure of how the young sea drake feels. Monster math has always been a weakpoint of mine.
WHAT I LEARNED:
- When a class' whole game is about to change, maybe wait before releasing content for it. That's why I still haven't released a single ranger option. =/
Probably my favourite warlock pact of yours.
ReplyDeletePutting a time limit on the ooze and removing the corrode metal ability has cut down on the cheesiness you can get away with, with Jellify. I can't really think of any way to abuse it, per se, but it's still a very strong ability.
The "new" anchor ability is a lot more streamlined, nice to see it working off another pact ability.
I haven't got XGtE yet, why does Aquatic Adaptation conflict with the material in it?
Torrent breath really should be a strength saving throw, STR is the saving throw for forced movement abilities. The damage from the serpent is kind of too much though, at level 10 the chances are torrent breath is dealing 15 damage per hit which is roughly 2d10+4. Obviously it can't do as much damage as a 2d10+4 ability, but it also won't deal low damage either. I'd suggest making it 1/2 level + CHA modifier, or just 1d10 + CHA (Which is essentially an extra target with Eldritch Blast and the agonising blast contrip, bringing it in line with other Warlock abilities.)
I feel like marine camouflage should be limited to underwater areas and maybe swamp areas.
As it stands, with one pact you get a solid source of extra damage, constant forced movement - a rare thing in 5E - that pushes almost as well as Repelling blast AND effectively near constant advantage on stealth.
Each of these features isn't too much, but together it adds up to a VERY powerful pact.
>I haven't got XGtE yet, why does Aquatic Adaptation conflict with the material in it?
DeleteGift of the Depths overlaps pretty significantly. Not exactly the same thing, but close enough that I don't want to homebrew something so dramatically similar.
>Torrent breath really should be a strength saving throw
Reasonable, yeah. Can see that.
>I'd suggest making it 1/2 level + CHA modifier, or just 1d10 + CHA
Also reasonable. Damage definitely should be brought in line with similar abilities.
>I feel like marine camouflage should be limited to underwater areas and maybe swamp areas.
This I'm less on-board with. It'd make its use very contingent on where the game is set, to the point that the ability would probably be either non-functional or fully functional depending on the campaign itself.
I can understand not wanting to make marine camouflage terrain dependent.
DeleteMaybe make it so that it gives you advantage until you fail your first check and refreshes if you begin you turn in 3/4 cover or are heavily obscured and aren't seen by a hostile creature.
Kind of like the mimetic skin gene mod in XCOM: Enemy Within, if you've ever played that.