Race: Awakened Undead [Fifth Draft]

Awakened Undead! Just in time for... Christmas?

So the DM's Guild just unleashed a massive collection of new art, including a ton of new undead images, for all creators to use. This spurred me to take another look at the Awakened Undead, and I realized I've learned a whole lot about making character races since I developed them.

Thus, revision number 5! 

Lots of changes this time around, both in verbage and in presentation. Let's get started!

CHANGELOG:

• New Interior Art, including artwork from the talented Leena Lecklin (@leenadraws), whose tumblr and instagram you can find at the links provided here!
• New Racial Feats, one for every undead subrace!
• New Racial Traits for skeletons and revenants!
• Undead can now be healed and affected by humanoid spells, but only receive half-healing from most sources.
• Added a sidebar for "classic" no-healing undead, because I know that's important to lots of folks.
• Rebalanced Mummy and Ghoul, because some traits were outside the intended power balance.

CONCERNS:

• Adding healing, even half-healing, to undead was a contentious decision. I'm sure I'll make someone unhappy by doing so, but at least the half-healing trait (and the alternative sidebar rule) exist.
• I changed quite a bit. Usually that creates small errors here and there. If you see something, say something!

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Always make the most of new art when it appears on the Guild! You can do quite a lot with it!

Roguish Archetype: The Jester [Fifth Draft]

Download a selectable-text, printsafe version here!

The last time I touched this one is three years ago? My god, how time flies.

I've got a backlog of revisions due a mile long, and I'm not content to just edit old content. I've learned so much in the time I've spent doing this, and I aim to re-imagine old options, making them distinct, well-rounded, and complete!

The jester, for one, had a unique casting system that I always felt was somewhat lacking. It was very much "Here are some spells! Make the spells happen!" without any distinguishing system mechanics behind them.

No longer! The jester thematically was always about blind luck, silly situations, and grim humor over sheer utility, so I've re-imagined it as an extremely variant 1/3-caster that relies mostly on luck to determine its spell list.

I expect that this won't be a final version (woe betide me, a sixth draft?!), but it's a bold reworking that I imagine will carve more of a niche for itself than the four other jesters that have come before it.

CHANGELOG:

• Arcane Buffoonery is now Arcane Wit, which comes with a full (if decidedly different) 1/3 caster spell progression!
• Harlequin's Mask doesn't specifically reference vicious mockery, because it created weirdness whether it or Arcane Wit should be first.
• New Ability: Tumbling Fool! Get some extra mileage out of your Disengage, roll around the battlefield like a maniac.
• Cruel Comedy has been raised from 9th to 13th level, which seems like a better space given what it does.
• Most of the spells you know are completely random! But don't worry, they reset every long rest.
• Now uses a 1/3-caster version of warlock spell mechanics, instead of eluding to it sidelong like it did before.

CONCERNS:

• Oh, so very many.
• Will randomized spellcasting be fun?
• Is 1/3-caster warlock progression balanced?
• Is Arcane Wit clear in its language as to what it does?

WHAT I LEARNED:

• I guess if I need to revise my entire catalog, I might as well start right now.

Prestige Class: Vampire [Fifth Draft]

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

With April here, I'm finding myself in interesting times.

I'm starting to transition my work to the DM's Guild, meaning I'm remastering and putting the finishing touches on old favorites, modifying them to use public domain works rather than utilizing images under fair use, and updating rulesets to fix old mistakes and create finished works.

I'm also starting up a new job and a new side project or two, so my ability to produce more homebrew is slowing down substantially. Making new homebrew is always important to me, but for now expect to see a few remastered projects coming in before entirely new work starts appearing again.

This time, the Vampire gets the remastering treatment! I've always been almost-satisfied with the vampire, but after four drafts I decided it was as good as it was going to get, and I needed to let it lie.

The benefit of having half a year between drafts is I've had a good deal of time to think of finishing touches, and of what truly final tweaks the vampire needed to be an ideal prestige class offering. And on that note:

CHANGELOG: 

• Added Vampiric Quirks, a table of mostly-fluff quirks that help define your vampire and introduce additional minor weaknesses or visible traits that draw in from vampire lore while allowing your character to be distinct!
• Added a sidebar rule for Prestige Classes, because PrCs are a lot more niche of an option and require some additional explanation.
• Vampiric Arcana is now Spellcasting, allowing synergy with features, items, and similar that require the Spellcasting class feature. 
• Granted Elementals exemption from being fed upon, because it's very hard to find the blood in a fire elemental. 
• Added a sidebar explaining Sanguine Strikes / Smite synergy, because that was a question that came up often.
• Retooled Blessing of Form, tying Mist Form to the spell gaseous form, increasing the blood cost of all forms, and introducing transformation limits to Wolf Form so you can't wolf-tank a monster, drop to 0 wolf HP, then reassume your form and keep wolf-tanking it. 
• Moved Blessing of Darkness to 5th level, allowing Sinister Nourishment (the ASI ability) to stand alone at 4th. Most ASIs similarly stand alone, and it was a bad idea to double up anything at 4th level. 

CONCERNS:

• I was almost tempted to make this option entirely without Sanguine Strikes, but I dialed that back. That would be a much larger retooling that I'd need immense feedback and brainstorming on, and the end result probably just wouldn't be worth it.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Once you stockpile a lot of it, public domain art is actually surprisingly easy to make work for an option like this. 

Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Fifth Draft]

I think five drafts is just about the most I've ever done on any one project. I seem to remember my very first project being five drafts, but that hardly counts because the first draft of that one wasn't even Photoshoped.

Anyway, this particular project is currently part of the Bi-Weekly (Bi-Monthly?) Homebrew Review on reddit's /r/unearthedarcana, and true to its name, review was done and further edits needed to be made!

Plenty changed in this draft. Here's the changelog to help us sort it out.

CHANGELOG:

• Art assets removed as there just wasn't space for them. The credits are modified to reflect this.
• Gauntlet has been replaced with Kunckle, brass, with a new special property to make it more useful.
• Sap has been tweaked to make it more intuitive and less gamebreaking. 
• Scythe is no longer a finesse weapon, and now is a 1d8 reach two-handed simple weapon.
• Double Weapon has been retooled, hopefully allowing for more clarity. 
• The Ensnaring property has been removed and replaced with special properties for its related weapons. 
• Double Weapon formatting in the table has been fixed to frankly be a lot easier to read and understand.
• The Spiked Chain can now grind targets for damage, while the Kusari-Gama can now disarm, in addition to the grapples they used to do. 
• Several mechanics that inflicted Disadvantage on yourself now remove Advantage, because that seems overall more reasonable. 
• Harpoon has been buffed somewhat to make it worth taking a feat for. 
• The Punching Dagger is now the Katar, and both it and the Claw are now no longer light, but deal more damage.
• Monk weapons have been retooled to be more in keeping with monk design schema.

CONCERNS:

• When this much is changed, little side-errors start popping up. That's what I'd be on the lookout for. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Making selectable PDFs is exhausting and way more work than it should be. I'd love to do it in the future, but I definitely want to take a break before figuring it out again.