Race: Scarecrow [Second Draft]

The first draft of the scarecrow was remarkably on-point! Very little needed to be changed, which is something I always appreciate.

I love making D&D races in particular. There's something fun about the lore-writing, which I don't typically get to do. Races, for obvious reasons, get much more lore than general class options, and making a race gives me much more time to create a compelling reason to play that character.

Scarecrows in particular are interesting to me. Not only are they a construct race, which I adore, but they're horror-themed. They're twisted abominations of their former selves, so far-gone they've forgotten who they even were.

It's a fun character for me, personally, to play, because it begs the question: Where does the character go from here?

CHANGELOG:

• Not that much! Changed how fire vulnerability works, added a passive racial ability that literally scares crows, and a sidebar for how scarecrows and witches interact.
• New art by Doug Wright!

CONCERNS:

• Also not that much! Scarecrows, previously, were fairly balanced, and this iteration doesn't shake up that formula too much.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• I want to make another construct race! Expect more in the future!

Class: The Witch [Second Draft]

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

It's been a long time coming, but the second take on the witch is finally fully revised and ready to go!

This time, the witch has two new subclasses, several new jinxes, the inclusion of Xanathar's spells, not to mention new, beautiful art by the talented Diana Nock (@jinxville)! 

This is a full rules revision, and not a single part of the witch remains untouched. Let's give a rundown of what's been changed.

CHANGELOG:

• General reorganization of features, giving the class a more reasonable progression in line with existing classes
• Added rules for applying potions to food and drink with Imbue Potion
• Added a new feature: Fine Fettle
• Streamlined casting to be INT-only, though WIS casting exists as an optional rule
• Revised the spell list, adding Xanathar's spells and defining the witch's role as a support caster
• Added personality tables and roleplaying advice for familiars
• Coven of the Dark Moon has received a re-kit, adding undead and scarecrows to their repertoire
• Coven of the Full Moon is now the only coven that can heal, focusing strongly on doing excellent healing with low-level spells
• Coven of the Half Moon has a new low-level feature, and has had its capstone expanded significantly
• Coven of the Crescent Moon, a gish-witch, has been added!
• Coven of the Eclipse, a subclass focusing on forbidden magic and demonology, has been added!
• Added several new jinxes, and revised existing options

CONCERNS:

• Balance, as always!
• How does the class scale vs. other classes?
• How do the subclasses measure against each other?
• Is the familiar sufficiently survivable?
• Are jinxes clear in their functions? Are they well balanced against each other?

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Commission art for everything, all the time. All. The. Time.

Class: The Witch [ROUGH DRAFT]

Download a selectable-text, printsafe version here!

Man oh man, have I been looking forward to releasing this.

Just in time for Halloween, spooky/scary month culminates with the Witch, the first full class I've ever released! An impressive endeavor clocking in at 14 pages of content and three full subclasses, the witch joins the ranks of Strongholds and Merchants as one of the larger projects I've ever worked on.

The witch weaves both natural magic and the arcane, carrying on a magical tradition that harkens back to the first casters to receive magic from the gods. A witch can curse or heal, dispense potions, fly on brooms, animate their house to walk on chicken legs, and much, much more!

Let's see if I can't list off everything this class does:

FEATURES:

• Casts with INT or WIS, enabling you to play either an academic or a wild witch!
• Jinxes! Magical effects halfway between Invocations and Channel Divinities.
• Make potions with Brewcraft and Imbue Potion, two companion features for all your potable needs.
• Dark Moon, Full Moon, and Half Moon Coven subclasses, focusing on cursing and stealth, healing and inspiring, and trickery and illusions, respectively!
• Familiars as a core feature, with increased durability and the capacity to sass-talk their witch.

CONCERNS:

• Oh, so, so many. Where to start?
• Is INT/WIS casting a good idea?
• Are jinxes roughly balanced, against one another and in general?
• Is the Beast Skin jinx too derivative of the druid's Wild Shape? 
• Are the number of spells per day right? They're midway between sorcerers and wizards, but still!
• The spell list seems large, but is smaller than the wizard and missing some of their more esoteric spells. Is that reasonable?
• Are all the various subclass features balanced roughly against each other?
• Is Light of the Half Moon too powerful for what it is?
• Is Dream-Eater too similar to the GOO warlock's level 14?
• Is the idea of 1 free subclass spell per long rest a good or bad idea?
• Does the class do a good job of capturing flavor?

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Building a class is exponentially harder than a subclass in every single way. I can see why Wizards sticks to subclasses, most days of the week. 

Race: Scarecrow [ROUGH DRAFT]

Halloween is here!

Well, in 23 days, depending on when you're reading this.

In any case, this month is the perfect time for me to develop some spooky/scary character options. Previous years, I've done the Awakened Undead and the Vampire. This year, Scarecrows (and maybe something else secret, if I can get around to it)!

Scarecrows, as with their representation in the Monster Manual, are living spirits bound to constructs of wood and hay, created by nefarious practitioners of the Old Ways of magic. Used as dispensable minions, scarecrows naturally become unbound from the will of their masters upon their masters' death. Now animated abominations that wander the world, scarecrows often find some small solace in the ability to achieve a perfect disguise as an ordinary, inanimate version of themselves.

FEATURES:

• Lore, names, and backstory! All the elements of a well-rounded race writeup.
• Frighten your enemies with a glance. If it works on crows, it should work on orcs. 
• Modified Living Construct feature, to illustrate with more clarity what does and does not work on the character. 
• Never, ever worry about disease or poison, but you should probably worry about fire. 

CONCERNS:

• Though I previously gave the same feature to ghouls under the Awakened Undead, I'm still concerned that Claws may be a little much. The alternative would be to give proficiency in the sickle, and make the sickle count as a finesse weapon.
• I can't tell if the benefits this race receive are too weighty. Race balance is still hard for me.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Spooky/Scary month is apparently a thing now. Figures that my favorite time of year should have some of my favorite content!

Prestige Class: Vampire [Fourth Draft]

When the changes get smaller, the drafts get closer to completion. And this draft is full to the brim with small changes, which I take to be a good sign.

Incidentally, this is the first draft of the vampire I'd actually play. For most things I design, that's v0.2, but prestige classes are pretty special for a lot of reasons.

But about those small changes: What are they? To the changelog!

What I Changed:

• Hit dice are now d8s, in accordance with the highest hit dice given to full casters.

• Undead Fortitude no longer requires you be wielding no shield.

• Sanguine Strikes now caps the spell slots it can use at 3rd level, bringing it in line with what a paladin's Smite offers and not making the class inherently better for casters. 

• Somber Elegance is now Eyes of the Enticer, and has been rebalanced in line with other similar charm effects.

• Minor verbage changes throughout, and a sidebar added on the last page explaining the details of multiclassing.

Concerns:

• I almost feel as if I didn't change enough. Everything feels very balanced and flavorful, though, so I'm not sure what I would change. 

What I Learned:

• This is easily the most satisfying project I've worked on, now that it's nearing completion. Prestige classes are hard, balance nightmares, but I'll definitely do one again sooner rather than later. 

Prestige Class: Vampire [Third Draft]

This last round, I got feedback loud and long about how people wanted a vampire, but that the Crimson Blessings were wacky and made the vampire feel as if it had no direct progression, among a host of other gripes.

And that's great! When you have gripes, I get to fix gripes. Crimson Blessings are no more, replaced with a scaling pick-one-of-three-blessings reminiscent of the totem barbarian, and all of the other gripes have been fixed.

But wait, this sounds like I'm getting into the changelog already, and I haven't even thrown up the header yet. Let's fix that:

What I Changed:

• Well, that thing I said, above.

• Total blood points have increased, now scaling at 5/10/15 instead of 2/4/6/8/10. 

• The drawback from having no blood has been changed to levels of exhaustion instead of leaving you paralyzed in the middle of wherever, at the whims of whatever.

• Hit dice back up to 1d10, in lieu of the blessing that would let them be increased. 

• Blood drinks per target per day is now a function of the target's size, rather than its CON score.

• Somber Elegance and Blood's Vigor have been compressed into the Blessing of Blood, Lifeblood, and buffed up to a reasonable level.

• Wolf Form has been buffed, to make it an ample competitor for Mist Form and Bat Form.

• Vampiric Celerity has been folded over into Deathly Reflexes.

• Predatory Gaze has been reworked and rebalanced. It now costs an action and two blood points.

• Somber Elegance returns as a charm spell, the spiritual successor to the nix'd Dark Beckoning, built off the charm available to the vampire monster. 

• Someone pointed out this prestige class needed a level 4 stat increase, and they were completely correct. Added a variable stat increase a la the Rune Scribe's Living Rune, named it Sinister Nourishment, and made it function off of your daily consumption of blood.

• Changed Vampiric Siring to Curse of Eternity, now raises a minion from a properly prepared body, with the additional fluff power of being able to turn your friends into vampires if you can, y'know, kill them with your bite first. 

Concerns:

• I'm not 100% on how the respective options for each blessing balance against each other. If someone could look at that and tell me what they think, that'd be great. 

• Blessing of Darkness comes in at 4th level, the same time as the stat increase. It's pretty weak though, but I'm not sure if it's okay to double-up on a stat increase or not. 

• Curse of Eternity has a small mechanic that functions off of total character level, which nothing else in the game does aside from multiclass spell casting. Still, it enables you to raise a vampire spawn at a level which would be appropriate for it, and prestige classes are a little different anyway - I'm leaning towards saying it's probably okay. 

• Overall feel. Does it feel solid, like it has meaningful progression? Let me know!

What I Learned:

• Modularity is nice, but not when it comes at the expense of feeling like you're making progress. 

• A player character conjuring a minion should be assumed to conjure a CR's worth of minions equal to 1/3 of their character level (based off of create undead and similar). Thus, a level 15 character should be able to conjure CR 5 worth of creatures, or one vampire spawn. 

• All classes are "about" something. A prestige class needs to also be "about" something, and it has significantly less time and space to carry the same fluff weight a normal class has. 

• Prestige classes are still really hard. =( =( =(

Prestige Class: Vampire [Second Draft]

Prestige classes are complicated things.

Essentially, you're making an entirely new class in miniature, and expecting it to slot in near anywhere along another class' progression. Damage needs to be kept consistent with whichever class the PrC's levels will be replacing (which, ideally, is any of them), and the options afforded by the PrC have to be appealing without being imbalanced.

Basically: It's a massive pain in the ass. And yet, I love every second of it.

The Vampire is a perfect candidate for being a prestige class, being something that can apply to any character. This second draft aims to solve a few of the problems the rough draft presented, rounding out what the PrC offers and making it feel more substantial and fleshed out.

This is one of those times I fully expect to do several drafts. That in mind, let's look at our friend, the changelog.

What I Changed:

• The vampire has actual vampire spells, with the Vampiric Arcana class feature. They're all basic utility things, none of which do combat damage, but it gives the vampire a spell progression and helps round out that aspect of the character.

• Unlike anything else in 5e, you choose your casting stat out of Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. From what I can tell, PrCs in 5e are supposed to be roughly stat-agnostic, so this keeps to that particular piece of design schema without breaking too much (or getting involved in the wonky "Spell Level + 12" saves that the Rune Scribe has).

• Removed Minions of the Night, placed another Crimson Blessing at level 5 in its place. More streamlined, better use of features, and the Crimson Blessings are fun enough that this is a logical choice. 

• Changed Vampiric Siring to keep you from raising a CR 13 monster because holy fuck what was I thinking.

• Added the crimson blessings Masquerade and Vital Blood. 

• Touched up verbage here and there, to keep things working well and making sense.

Concerns:

• Does it do enough damage? Sanguine Strikes is very good at covering that particular gap, but the Vampire prestige class mostly contributes utility rather than raw combat power.

• How does it feel? Does the prestige class feel right, for what it is?

What I Learned:

• When making something from this much whole cloth, a million little mistakes pop up. It's good to have nit-picky eyes to help me spot them. 

Prestige Class: Vampire [ROUGH DRAFT]

In the latest Unearthed Arcana, it has been revealed that prestige classes are officially a thing in D&D 5e!

Well, un-officially. Sort of. The rune scribe sure looks cool, though.

In that vein, I emulated the rune scribe's design to make my own prestige class - something fitting the concept and the dark n' spooky holiday season that's almost upon us.

And so, I give you the Vampire prestige class. The longest and toughest project I've worked on to-date, and one that promises to involve even more work once you folks tear into it.

Features:

• Vampiric strengths and weaknesses! Jump on people and drink their blood in pitch darkness, but stay the heck away from running water. 

• Blood Points! A side resource that you drink blood to fill, and that you expend to fuel your vampiric powers. Just don't run out when you take a long rest. 

• Build-your-own-vampire! Crimson Blessings allow you to mix and match different vampiric powers to make a unique vampire all your own!

Concerns:

• SO MANY CONCERNS. Is it balanced? Does it work right? Is it not powerful enough / too powerful? This is the first thing I've made nearly from scratch - I really hope it works out. 

• Crimson Blessings are all roughly balanced against one another, but there exists a possibility that some are strictly better than others. 

• Vampiric Siring doesn't feel right just yet. It's a total fluff power, but still - something feels off about it. 

What I've Learned:

• Prestige classes are hard.

• Prestige classes are VERY hard.

• Prestige classes are REALLY REALLY COOL.