(open) Heavens Above - Submission Thread (5e subclass contest)

[Just to Browse]

Welcome to the 5e Subclass Contest 42!

Congratulations to the winner of our last contest, Vogie with the The Serial Arsonist Rogue!

Our voted theme for this next contest is...

Heavens Above: Look far above to read omens, see celestials, or just move straight up.

Spoiler: Contest Rules

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• The subclass you homebrew should fit the theme. You can interpret the theme as broadly as you like without risk of disqualification, but doing so may reduce your chances of earning votes during the voting period.
• You may only create one subclass. If you create more than one subclass then you must choose which one to enter and remove all the others from this thread and the contest (making them invalid). If you do not specify which one you favor by the time voting begins, all of your content is invalid.
• When you submit your subclass you must create a post on this thread which either has the content or holds a link to it. You may also optionally create one other individual thread for your class on the homebrew design sub-forum. If it is found that you have revealed your class on another site or on another thread than one on the homebrew design sub-forum, your entry will be considered invalid. If you do make a specific thread for your class, please mention its involvement to the competition in that thread. If you use external formatting resources such as Homebrewery, or GMBinder it is recommended that you also create a PDF of the content and share it here.
• You may use other homebrew content (such as feats, spells, magical items, monsters, and base class) or even features to supplement your subclass, provided you have permission from the original creator and provide links to the source. Failure to receive permission from the original creation will disqualify you from entry in the current contest.
• Your subclass must have fully completed mechanics and descriptions for it to be valid. Entries are due by 11:59 PM Central Time on the deadline. Any submissions after this point are invalid. No changes can be made to your class while voting is taking place. Failure to comply with the previous rule will result in disqualification.
• Any content which has been declared invalid by the rules above cannot be voted for, but you may decide to remove it from the contest and create another subclass instead. If you are disqualified then you are not allowed to enter any more homebrew for this competition, though you may still vote and later enter the next competition.
• Please note that misunderstandings occur, if you break a rule which results in disqualification it might be excused if you can convince the group that it was a result of confusion over the rules.
• As a brewer, you may include non-homebrew content alongside your submission, like design rationales or the math you used to determine certain features. However, please keep this extraneous content separate from the main content, such as in a spoiler or a separate post. Reviewers aren't obligated to read these notes before voting.

Contests stay up for 6 weeks unless an extension is requested by participants. Voting threads then go up for 2 weeks before the next contest begins.

Subclass Contest Discussion Thread

Deadline: June 9th will be the deadline for this contest. The voting thread will open the following day and stay open for 2 weeks.

[MrStabby]

Hmm.

Not sure where to go with this, but a provisional placeholder for the Skystreak Acrobat, fighter subclass.

Lets add in the scaffolding as I build this thing.

Spoiler: Purpose/Role

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A fighter subclass with exeptional mobility and the ability to use that to its advantage.

Spoiler: Challenges

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OK, so the big issue here is avoiding stepping on the toes of the monk and to a cetain extent rogue. Mobile martial with dexterity focus is pretty close so ALL the other features need to set it appart.

Monk has wisdom as a secondary stat - this will be purely physical
Monk has some defensive features: evasion, buffs to saves, deflect arrows and of course unarmoured defence. This will be a bit less multi-layered in defence
Monk suffers for damage due to not working with the weapons that get the best feat support - this will therefore get some damage boosts naturally by being a fighter but will need to offer something a bit extra
Monk has stunning strike, one of the best control abilities on a martial - I can't totally forgo control or the won't be anything left to the class, but I can make it spread a little more thinly.


If an issue is sailing through the air, how does tis stand out against a caster that can cast fly?

The Skystreak acrobat is often associated with elemental cults of Air, and simply for those with a love of the open sky. It is a path of joy, of freedom and unadulterated delight in soaring through the heavens.


Physical Prowess
At level 3 the skysreak acrobat becomes adept at making powerful and eleant jumps with exraordinary physical control. Whenever they would take a strength (athletics) check other than to make a grapple they may instead make a dexterity (acrobatics) check instead. In additon dexterity not strength is used to determine their maximum jump distance. Their movement speed and jump distances increase by 5ft whilst not wearing medium or heavy armor. These increase by a futher 5ft at levels 7, 10 and 15.

Vault
Also at level 3 the Acrobat learns the secrets of incorporating their great leaps and vaults into their combat style. When taking the attack action an acrobat may replace an attack with a leap of up to their normal jumping distance. This leap does not use any of their movement allowance and does not trigger an attack of opportunity. If this leap is of greater than 10ft and if it ends next to a hostile creature you may attept to knock it off balance as if you had shoved that creature.

Stick the Landing
Your focus on acrobatics pays off with . At level 3 whenever the acrobat makes an ability check modified by proficiency in acrobatics they may add double their proficiency bonus to the roll instead. As a reaction, whenever you would take falling damage you may reduce the number of dice rolled by an amount equal to half your number of levels in this class rounded up.

Spoiler: Thinking

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So this is... not complicated, but coming under a lot of headings.

There are a few things I want to establish here.
1) flavor. You are an acrobat. Expertise in acrobatics seems a must. Likewise the ability to fall better than other characters.
2) An action or a choice. Something active to do. I fault the champion for being uninspiringly passive at this level. Vault gives a bit of extra mobility to close the distance on turns you are out of reach.
3) Setting the role as a mobile fighter. Some boost to movement speed helps show this.

Despite coming under 3 headings I don't think its as cognitively demanding as a rune knght, batte master or eldritch knight with the choices to make. I think at this level the overall power is OK as a lot of the benefits are niche and somewhat in for flavor.

I think Vault is of note being on a fighter chassis. Giving up one attack to get advantage on the others is generally not a great trade but fighter in tier 3 gets 3 attacks and it starts to look a lot better. Add in action surge and it looks better still. Of course its a small upgrade as you can, by default, still sacrifice an attack to shove an enemy and it just adds some extra mobility at this level.

Buffet
At level 7 you are lifeted aloft by the air itself. You may expend a use of your Second Wind ability to gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed for one minute. You may not use this ability if wearing meadium or heavy armor.


Reflexive Grace
Your shoves and kicks lead naturally to landing attacks in the openings they generate. At level 7 whenever you knowck an enemy prone as part of your action, you may make a single attack agains that enemy as a bonus action.

Spoiler: Thinking

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Well arcane casters have been flying for a couple of levels now if they wanted it (though with a not inconsiderable cost), so I don't feel bad about adding some limited flight. Its not free and as its tied to second wind you can only ever do it as once per short rest.

Reflexive grace is kind of important. The class has abilities around closing with enemies and a dex theme (things not working with heavier armours for example). The good close combat weapons in terms of feat support are strength based. Ranged weapons are less good for knocking enemies down. Basically, your bonus actions are going to be free without GWM or PAM and this helps (slightly) keep your damage up a bit.

Another level with two abilities, but they didn't seem to fit under one heading.

Spring to Action
Tappng into your physical reserves gives you an extra burst of speed. At level 10, whenever you expend a use of Action Surge, Indombitable or Second wind you may make a leap up to your maximum jump distance as part of using that resource. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Spoiler: Thinking

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Fighter level 10 abilities are not usually earth-shatteringly powerful (though some are cool). This isn't a big deal either. Its a set of small mobility boosts to help you bounce in and out of combat. Of possible note is using things like indobitable to move out of spell areas of effect as a reaction which may occasionally be useful

Fleet of Foot
At level 15 you have mastered being light on your feet. You may take the dodge action as a bonus action.

Spoiler: Thinking

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his is a big one. Of course with the lack of heavy (or medium) armor and given the level its at, you wil hardly be unhittable and a bonus action is a real cost... still I think this is still going to see some use.

Elemental Attunement
You harness the deeper connection you have with the elemental plane of air. You may cast each of the following spells once per day and then may not cast it again till you complete a long rest. Each requires verbal components only:
Zephyr Strike
Thunderous Smite
Gust of Wind
Warding Wind
Gasious Form
Wind Wall

Spoiler: Thinking

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I find spells carry a lot of flavor. A smattering of air themed spells feels like it should enhance the feel of the elemental connection. At this level a thunderous smite or Zephyr strike probably won't feel that special, but there are a selction of spells that are sometimes useful and other characters ae less likey to have. The once per day casting also encourges thier use - there are no spell slots to keep to use for something else. In terms of spell level you are behind Eldritch knight. In terms of freedom to chose good spells you are even further behind (as it should be)

Spoiler: Current thinking and things to be fixed

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This needs quite a bit of work still.
1) Elemental attunement comes out of nowhere. The air/sky theme has been almost entirely non-magical till this point so it seems an odd pivot that cashes with the rest of the design. Whilst balance-wise some of these could come at an earlier level without an issue, it would be loading the class with a lot of features.
2) The abilities are, at present, too niche or of marginal value. Speed and mobility is good, but there are some diminishing returns to that... and you could still play an archer to the same effect most of the time. Furthermore, feats lke mobility and fey touched let other classes get similar mobility and a subclass on top.
3) Knocking people prone as part of an attack/leap is not great (given that only the leap element is a bonus). Between things that are too big, things immune to being knocked prone, things tha flat-up pass and things where the sacrificed attack would just kill them anyway its hardly a good core of the subclass.


Fixes considered:
1) When leaping, get a damage bonus for every 5ft Jumped for that turn. Scales naturally with both increased jump distance and number of attacks. Stipulate a light weapon for this. It would even make two weapon fighting good at higher levels.
2) I need to emphasise the "above" element. At the moment a lot of the day to day features will be leaping with little vertical component. Something to add some more soraing feelings and leaping over people would be good.
3) Want to rewrite some of the descriptions to play up the elemental air theme.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Still generating ideas...

Placeholder for Heavenbolt Warrior. Fighter subclass.

Ideas: +Lightning damage vs. evil enemies.
Able to call down heavenly lightning

[sandmote]

Design notes:
The Blood Hunter is a 3rd party class which functions mostly like an arcane ranger. They're themed around the "hunter's bane," which is a dark ritual binding them to dark powers, and a main mechanic is "Hemocraft," a type of magic powered by blood that sees the character taking damage to use and strengthen their powers. The subclasses are mostly themed around evil things; there's one with a modified form of lycanthropy and another based on ingesting mutagens with nasty side effects. Its all very edgy and "brooding in a dark corner," themed. The following subclass tries to dial that back.

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Order of the Redresser
Said to trace back to a blood hunter who committed an atrocity in the search for a clever fiend and came to regret their actions, members of the Order of the Redresser take a modified form of the Hunter’s Bane which ties them to the powers of the light in addition to those of the darkness. While the details of the order’s founding change from telling to telling, blood hunters of the Order of the Redresser seek to keep their own focus and those of other blood hunters on protecting the good in the world more than destroying the evil. Even dour members of the order seek out moments of levity and happiness when they can, both to see the impact of their actions and to remind themselves of what they are fighting for.

Hunter’s Blessing
When you join this order at 3rd level, you gain access to the Hunter’s Blessing, a gift which makes it easier for you to protect yourself and others from harm, and to inflict curses on attackers.

• You can create a shield of shimmering energy as a bonus action, which grants +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws to the creature it is assigned to follow. You can summon and dismiss the shield as an action, and the shield itself only becomes visible when the creature it is following is targeted with an attack roll or makes a Dexterity saving throw.
• As a reaction when you see a creature within 60 feet targeted with an attack or make a dexterity saving throw you can transfer the shield to that creature. The shield follows the target until you dismiss the shield, you transfer the shield to a new target, or for 1 minute, after which the shield returns to you.
• The range of your blood curses increases to 60 feet.

Touch of Darkness and Light
At 7th level, you learn to channel the combined forces of the hunter’s blessing and hunter’s bane. When you use your blood maledict feature, you can cause one creature you can see other than yourself within 10 feet of the target to gain temporary hit points equal to your Blood Hunter level. If you amplify the blood curse when using this feature, the creature also regains hit points equal to your Hemocraft modifier (minimum of 1 hit point).

Purifying Rites
Also at 7th level, you have the opportunity to learn two crimson rites unavailable to Blood Hunters tied only to dark powers. You can choose either of these rites when you learn a rite at 7th or 14th level, rather than a crimson rite listed in the Blood Hunter class.

• Rite of the Cleansed. Your rite damage is acid damage.
• Rite of the Full Moon. Your rite damage is radiant damage.

Protective Branding
Beginning at 11th level, your Brand of Castigation feature creates bursts of guarding energy which protect others from the marked creature. When a creature marked by you deals damage to another creature, the damage is reduced by 1 or by your Hemocraft modifier, whichever is greater.

Blood Curse of Regret
Starting at 15th level, your blood curse can infuse a creature with horrifying regret over its past actions. You gain the Blood Curse of Regret for your Blood Maledict feature. This doesn’t count against your number of blood curses known.

Blood Curse of Regret
Prerequisite: 15th level, Order of the Redresser

As a bonus action, you choose one creature you can see within 60 feet to become wracked with guilt over its actions. The target must make a Charisma saving throw. A fiend automatically succeeds on this saving throw. On a failed save the target has disadvantage on attack rolls and is unable to maintain concentration on spells until the start of your next turn.

Amplify. If the target is a fiend, it not longer automatically succeeds on the saving throw. The target also has its movement speeds reduced to 0 until the end of its next turn.

Tide Turner
At 18th level, you can unleash a burst of power within yourself, mixing the effects of the hunter’s blessing and hunter’s bane to restore yourself and send your foes packing. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can choose to regain hit points equal to half your hit point maximum, can stand up, and can make a melee weapon attack against each creature within your reach (no action required).

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.