I'm playing a Warlock and I'm disappointed how few exclusive spells the Warlock gets as well as how many of the spooky spells are available to wizards and sorcerers at large instead of their spooky sublcasses.

It really undermines the idea that the eldritch magic of Warlocks is different and apart from the rest besides just getting less casts with faster recharges.

I get it that Wizards are the casters, but maybe they could just have access to like 60% of spells instead of like 80-90%

Oath of the Ebon Blade (Paladin → Death Knight). Death Coil replaces Lay on Hands and can either deal damage or heal Undead. Rune Strike swaps in for Divine Smite and deals Necrotic damage. You pick a Blood, Frost, or Unholy rune for your weapon, and your steed can be Undead and pass through solid objects.

Demon Hunter (Ranger). Uses an Arcane Focus and has a Fighting Style option for Warlock cantrips. Collects Soul Fragments from slain enemies to fuel spells and a damaging, healing Soul Cleave. Spectral Sight starts as 10 ft of Blindsight and scales up to 30 ft of Truesight.

Warrior of Mystic Brews (Monk). A drunken-master style. You get Performance and Brewer’s Supplies, Patient Defense also grants speed and an Unarmed Strike, and you can redirect missed attacks. You brew potions for resistances, healing, or a cone of fire, and at high level you can combine two recipes.

Oath of the Holy (Paladin). A dedicated healer. Beacon of Light passes extra healing to a marked ally. You refill Lay on Hands by dealing Radiant damage, and your capstone aura sheds sunlight and heals Bloodied allies.

Discipline Domain (Cleric → Priest). Holy Bolt damages a foe and heals an ally at once. Atonement lets your damage heal allies you recently healed, and Luminous Barrier grants Temp HP plus resistance to all damage.

Shadow Domain (Cleric → Priest). Shadowform makes it easier to Hide and boosts Psychic and Necrotic spells. Devouring Plague drains life. Dispersion is a reaction that lets you vanish for a round, then regain HP and fly away.

Swashbuckler (Rogue). Keeps Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity. Panache and Dashing Strikes are now built on Cunning Strike options such as goading, charming, and parrying. Master Duelist grants a follow-up attack after Sneak Attack.

Path of the Spiritual Guardian (Barbarian → Shaman). Spirits Distract, Hinder, or Strike on a hit, and you can shield allies. You can cast Divination spells without material components, and your capstone grants an extra attack.

Path of the Elements (Barbarian → Shaman). While raging, you cycle between ice, lava, and lightning, and each element empowers the next damage type. You can spend Rage on utility spells. Players have been debating whether this is a full rework of Storm Herald.

As much as this subreddit loves to bang the gong of about X class being useless in combat, or Y class being overpowered, or Z feat doing too much, you all have to realize that this isn't the priority of the developers.

They are just happy with classes that successfully sell a fantasy at a rudimentary table, in a good enough fashion. They don't care that there is no fighter equivalent to wall of force. It's not on the radar, and it isn't something they think about.

They also clearly don't care about the Ranger's ability to deal damage equal to other classes. They just care that the ranger can sell the fantasy of being a nature warrior with two weapon fighting or bows, and calling upon some spells for utility and some damage.

They don't care that fighters do not get a way to spend a long rest resource to charm someone, or traverse a wall. They just want the fighter to realistically be the guy who does a shitload of pushups and can contribute to the party.

If you want to homebrew fixes to this, that's great! I encourage you to get into writing and tinkering to your hearts' content!

If you are waiting for the devs to do a 180 on the direction they're clearly happy with, you will be waiting longer than Seymour waited for Phillip J Fry.

so i was reading the old 2014 dungeon master guide reading the optional rules (i was bored) and in the optional rules i find this one here:

Mark

This option makes it easier for melee combatants to harry each other with opportunity attacks.

When a creature makes a melee attack, it can also mark its target. Until the end of the attacker's next turn, any opportunity attack it makes against the marked target has advantage. The opportunity attack doesn't expend the attacker's reaction, but the attacker can't make the attack if anything, such as the incapacitated condition or the shocking grasp spell, is preventing it from taking reactions. The attacker is limited to one opportunity attack per turn.

martials ability to crow control is non existent, i always think allowing more attack of oportunity is a way to grant then a little tiny bit of presence that can just be ignore by enemie creatures, such imagine my surprise when i found this was an optional rule in the 2014 dmg XD, i this was how the UA for the cavalier (which is unlikely to leave UA) unwavering mark was rewriten maybe the subclass could be woth taking over a battlemaster with sentinel feat

so have you ever use this? i think is cool you could even give the fighter the ability to have more than one marked target and more OA either by class or subclass feature and wont break anything (i think) so did you ever used it?

Don't want to take a Sorc dip or the Metamagic Adept feat, but my Warlock is our parties Face and I'd like a way to subtle cast charm/illusion spells in a pinch as well as a quickend spell in combat here and there

Would it be overpowered to allow a fighter who took club, great club, and quarterstaff weapon masteries to be able to use all of the weapon masteries with just a quarterstaff depending on how they're holding it?

They would not be able to use more than one mastery on a single attack but could switch it up between attacks if they want.

Player doesn't want to do the weapon swapping thing and wants to just be a quarterstaff master. Essentially, a quarterstaff wielded one-handed is a club(slow), two handed baseball grip style is a great club(push) and a split grip style is a quarterstaff(topple). Instead of swapping weapons they would swap grips as needed. They argue that the quarterstaff is the same as a club/ great club damage-wise already depending on how many hands they use.

No, I don't want hominization, I don't want all classes doing the same thing, but I do want better balance in all aspects.

I dislike the idea some (not all, but some) have that "The Rogue shouldn't be as good in combat as the Fighter because they should be better at Outside it than them" and other similar things.

They don't need all to be doing Nova Burst Damage with 130+ every single round, but I want to few that every class has something they can do different from others and still be equivalent. The Rogue doesn't need to be all damage, Cunning Strike this nicely, but this could be even more, and their damage shouldn't lag behind because of it. Let me a Barbarian that uses its knowledge from its primal instincts to detect lies by sniffing, hear whispers like no one, etc.

We have 13 very inspiring concepts for classes that CAN work for both in and out of combat just as well as the other. Why can't Fighters be good outside combats? Why can't Rogues be just as good in combat as a Fighter? Same for Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Monks, Artficers (the martials and Halfcasters really)

And of course, dial back on the power of Fullcaster. Period. They have too much already.

"Ah, but if every class will be good with skills, what's left to them?" Make them the best of manipulating luck. They already do with stuff like Reliable Talent & Stroke of Luck. Make them THE "Never tell me odds, because they are always in my favor".

Hadn't realised until recently, but there's been a bunch of really good martial AOE in D&D's past. Hell, a quick google tells me that last edition the best AOE class was monks. Although it seems wizard was the most capable overall class, so I guess some things never change.

Thing that confuses me is like... why? I get the idea that there are some things martials shouldn't be good at, but whirlwinding a crowd of goblins away with a big axe doesn't seem like one of them. Maybe it's because I spent my childhood holding down B in Ocarina of Time to get Link doing spin attacks, but it really seems like good AOE should be completely within the acceptable thematic purview for martials?

And then I find out that D&D had that, and then deliberately got rid of it all. Why?

Sure, there are like fifteen kobolds should excite the sorcerer who has fireball ready. But it should also excite the barbarian with a big ass hammer, surely? That seems like good gameplay.

I’m about to join my first 2014 campaign after only ever having played using the 2024 rules, do you have some things I need to be aware of before playing the game?

I’m gonna be playing a variant human, nature domain cleric.

Bonus points if there's a PDF guide that can help me with this.

I want to be able to cook with monster parts to create meals that give a variety of effects.

Aksing because I both never played as or with a Rogue in any D&D 5e/5.5e party.

I seen in many places people saying that Rogues lag behind with damage at higher levels, but I've seen people saying that they nerfed Rogue's Sneak Attack because it was too much.

So, which is the truth? Are their damage low, too high or just fine?

EDIT: Okay, so the current consensus is "in average, yes, they CAN lack the damage of an optimized Fighter or Paladin, because their damage is very swingy thanks to only having one attack but an attack with many, MANY dice at higher levels, however if they can get to hit this attack with frequency (and even a second time with reactions), their damage levels out."

With that said, isn't then the Nick Weapon Mastery a must have for a Melee Rogue? And hidind a must have tactic for a Ranged Rogue?

EDIT: Some extra context, I play in a tble that is the middle point between "Roleplay Focused Casuals" & "Hardcore Optimizers", in that way we play whatever we want and THEN we optimize the option chosen to a point that its fun for everyone, including the players, the party and the DM.

In truth, the only dragon I've ever used against my players was a modified Half-Dragon with "Battlefield Actions" (aka actions the could use for free at the start of every round if the players don't stop it).

When I look at the stats block of each color dragon, I like the Legendary Actions, but its main turn seems very uninspired. Its just Multiattack with A) a few bland high damage attacks or B) fewer attacks + 1 spell, and the breath weapon is just a lot of damage in an area, no extra pizzazz, nothing too memorable.

Again though, the Legendary Actions has something what I was look for and I've also never used a True Dragon in combat.

I'm asking mostly because I just thought of a cool design space for Dragons that I want to try out but fear it being too much:

• Every Chromatic Breath Weapon deals an extra effect to does who fail (but maybe the breath weapon deal less damage to compensate).
• Every Rend Attack deal a lesser version of the Breath Weapon's effect.
• The terrain affected by the Breath Weapon is afflicted with a hazard. (It goes away after the Dragon regains its breath weapon)
• Instead of Legendary Resistance, they have immunity to must "shutdown" effects so long some threshold isn't met.
• (Optional for important fights) Make them Mythic Monsters... Damn, I miss Mythic Monsters...

For example, a White Dragon can 1) Leave a creature that fails its save agains its BW Restrained 2) Slows a creature with each hit of its Rend 3) Creates a spiky difficult terrain that slows and damages cretatures walking though it and 4) if the party deal enough fire damage in a single turn, the break part of its scale and so it becomes more vulnerable.

My review of Project_Lamordia on D&D Beyond. This article was written by a human (me) and no AI was used in its creation. I also did not receive a review copy from Wizards of the Coast and purchased the supplement at my own expense.

I have been happily reading Arcana Unleashed for the last couple of weeks, structuring some build ideas around the new subclasses. While doing so, I noticed a quirk about the Vestige Warlock.

The "Vestige Companion" they get from their feature of the same name is a semi-permanent summon not unlike a Familiar on crack. 80% of the subclass's features focus around it, and while I'm a fan of the flavor and mechanics tied to it, it sorta seems like putting all your eggs in one basket. If the companion gets taken out of combat (whether by falling to 0hp or getting hit by a save or suck spell) you basically lose the benefits of your subclass until the end of combat when you can safely resummon it. I am discounting the expanded spell list they get since extra spells aren't unique to this subclass, but I recognize that the Companion isn't the only thing they've got going for them.

I think the most extreme example of how detrimental this could be is if an enemy successfully casts Planar Binding on the Vestige Companion, since a couple of creative commands could make it useless to its warlock (e.g. "attack yourself every chance you get" or "flee from your allies by going as far away and fast as possible"). And because Planar Binding doesn't end when the target creature or caster dies, the warlock would be out of luck until the spell naturally wears off or someone casts Dispel Magic on it.

I cannot think of any other subclass which can be nullified like this. Paladin's and Clerics are maybe close in that they could potentially lose their subclasses through role-play proceedings like breaking their oath or defying their god, but in those circumstances the player/character would still have agency whereas Vestige Warlocks can have the utility of their features forcefully stripped from them. Even other companion classes don't have a risk of their special creatures getting hijacked to this extent since by and large they don't have spells which can affect them for nearly as long. The only similar case of a spell nullifying a class's functionality for a prolonged time that comes to mind is Befuddlement, but thats a threat multiple classes/subclasses can be taken out by, while Vestige Warlocks are on their own with this one.

At the end of the day, I realize this is a pretty niche problem to be worried about, especially given how unlikely it is for Planar Binding to be successfully cast this way in the first place with the amount of set up and failure points involved. I'm just curious if anyone else has considered this issue, or if I'm wrong in thinking the Vestige Warlock is unique in this way. I also think it's odd there is nothing in the subclass's description prohibiting this sort of thing since a warlock being able to potentially Planar Bind a direct manifestation of their patron seems like an oversight.

I understand the whole, if my AC is 14, and barkskin is cast it's now 17.

But I have taken the warlike familiar feat. Is the bonus to AC stacked onto the 17? Or is the spell still a weird, not armour, not a base calculation, and just a weird overwrite of AC?

Edit: SAC says no. But many people homebrew.

My takeaway is the spell should be worded as so "The targets AC becomes 17, unless it is already higher. The targets AC can not be lowered or increased in anyway for the duration."

RAW all it does is, If less than 17, increase to 17. RAI it nullifies modifiers for some reason, without stating it in the spell.

Update from the table: We're playing it so barkskin fills the base AC, such as a set of armour, mage armour or Unarmoured defence. Modifiers that add to ac treat the 17 as a base. Anything that gives a +x gives the +

If you're not expecting your campaign to reach level 19/20, I suggest considering allowing an epic boon earlier.

When my party hit lvl 11 I allowed everyone to take a boon without any sort of restrictions and it's been super fun. We debated the +1 or not, seeing as it's an extra feat, but I allowed it. Due to the boon being entirely extra pretty much the whole party used the +1 for a minor stat to push up a modifier from 0/1 to 1/2. It's been super fun so far, we have: combat prowess, dimensional travel, and spell recovery. The party is only 3 members and theyre all quite squishy, none are very good at optimization which I think helps with the boons not being crazy. But I dont know, even they were more optimized, I think it's a fun option for if your campaign is ending at earlier levels. A little taste of high level play.

In the future I may consider doing it at 12, it seems reasonable to just allow the choice to take it in place of a regular feat then.

It's probably worth mentioning that in general our table is pretty high power, I give out a lot of magic items and tailored rewards to the party

By resource system I'm not talking class mechanic per se, but what the features of class/subclass might use as power. For instance some are pretty simple.

1. Stat Modifier times per long rest or short rest. If it is long rest it might have a 1 use regen on a short rest. Bardic Inspiration is a perfect example that jumps from long rest to short rest at level 5.

2. Flat number of uses per long rest or short rest. If it is a long rest it might have a 1 use regen on a short rest. Action surge is once per long or short rest and gets a bump to two uses at 17.

3. Table number of uses per long rest or short rest. Might have a 1 use regen on a short rest. Think Channel Divinity (Paladin and Cleric), Rages, Second Wind, and Wild Shape. Favored Enemy doesn't get a 1/short rest regen. Sometimes this table is it's own thing, sometimes like Favored Enemy it follows PB (or psionic energy die its twice the PB for a monoclass), and sometimes like Rage it is close to PB but not exactly.

4. For non-class/non-subclass features, like species and feats you can get some PB times per long rest (like Goliath Ancestry).

5. Spell casting has multiple flavors with 1/3 casting for Monk/Rogue/Fighter subclasses, half casting, and full spell casting.

But what about the single use resources. What do you want to see more of? Monk's Focus is just a resource system. 1 point per Monk level, regens on a short rest, powers abilities. If the UA psion wasn't a spellcaster, I think this would be a fine system. (LaserLlama's Psion is fairly close to this).

What about a long rest point system like Sorcery Points. Something that is more powerful and augments other abilites?

Pact Casting is only used for one class. I think this is ripe for use on another class. Maybe a INT or WIS based one? Dungeon Dudes built their Apothecary class in their book Sebastion Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim as an INT based short rest, auto scaling up to level 5 spell slots with 1/long rest level 6-9 spells. I think a Shaman would work as a WIS based caster similarly. There are no multiclassing rules if you have "pact" slots from more than one class, so that would need to be worked out

What about new resources systems or new expressions of the systems? What do you want to see? Occasionally I see someone put up a new class that is a 2/3 caster or 3/4 caster. The get spells faster than half caster but slower than a full. They get a 6th or 7th spell slot depending on the build. You have to work out the multiclassing rules, but it might work.

What about variants on pact casting? The blood hunter has a subclass that is basically a 1/3 caster variant of a "pact caster." What about a half caster version? spells are slightly slower, they don't get the 6 and above spells, probably are martials like the Paladin and Ranger.

What ideas do you wish they'd at least explore? (Might need to follow through, the UA Mystic from 2014 was so point heavy and didn't work for many reasons).

So, Evocation Adept lets every cleric, druid, and some warlocks grab Fireball and then later Wall of Force, and then also they all get to spend hit dice to add 2d8 to that fireball's damage at level 5 and cast them better than a wizard. This is obviously stupid because the cleric and druid should not be allowed to cast Fireball, and arguably nobody should be allowed to cast Wall of Force. The other feats aren't as evil, but wizards still just probably shouldn't have Conjure Animals (especially if they and their party can abuse it), and Clerics probably shouldn't have Polymorph, and so on and so forth. A lot of people are already aware of all this, so I won't go into detail.

But then there are other Adept feats which, despite not giving you spells that are as iconic and terrifying, are still good and fun feats that don't really ruin anything or really step on anyone's toes as far as I can tell.

For example, Enchantment Adept gives you a subtle spell effect on all enchantment spells, which is a pretty good buff to the out of combat focused ones since people who pass their save or bystanders won't necessarily notice you casting it, and it prevents your in-combat ones from being counterspelled. That's a nice benefit! I'd want that on a character that used spells like Charm Person. I don't even think it encoaches too far on the Sorcerer's territory or that of people who took Metamagic Adept, since they can use subtle spell on *any* spell, just at the cost of a resource.

And then the list of spells that came with the feat made me think because overall, if I took this feat on a character who wanted to do some enchanting, I would be pretty happy with my choice since three of those spells are decent to good. But also, I got Enthrall and Dominate Beast for free on top of that, so if situations come up where they might be useful, I might as well be the first person in history to unironically cast Enthrall.

So it's a really cool feat since it 1) rewards the kind of character who would want to specialize in enchantment spells without being overpowered or a must-have for entire classes, 2) doesn't provide so much enchanting that an enchantment-based character is obsolete if someone else takes this one feat, 3) isn't the only option to get stuff like subtle enchantment spells because subtle spell metamagic exists and is more limited in use but versatile, and 4) it gives you some crappy spells for free that you wouldn't normally take or use, but you can use them when the right situation comes up.

Same with Illusion Adept. You get 2-5 new illusion spells, subtle illusion spells, and barring any really evil Hallucinatory Terrain hijinks (i forget what they are exactly but im sure they exist), you aren't getting the best illusion spells or anything that really fills an enormous hole in any particular class, you just get some decent illusions + a buff to all illusions + some situational illusion spells like Seeming that you would never take normally but might use in the right situation.

Abjuration Adept would be like this too if they gave out something less powerful than Shield for the first level pick (Metamagic Adept (Wizard) for Shield is great, we dont have to hand out 4 more spells and a temp hp thing on top of that), and then Necromancy Adept kinda sucks and is boring but at least it has none of the problems of Evocation Adept. Divination Adept is also fine. You get some divination spells and a neat rechargable ability, but someone with Augury built into their class is divining better than you, same with a divination wizard with their portents.

And then I thought, maybe Evocation Adept would be just like these other interesting feats and not really be much of a problem if the two fucked up standout spells were replaced with other stuff. Lightning Bolt is a decent spell, but usually ignored in favor of fireball; why not put it on this feat? I wouldnt say the cleric is suddenly as good of a blaster as a wizard if they had the line-shaped one instead of the 40 foot diameter death orb.

And then for Wall of Force, there are literally 3 other 5th level evocation spells in the PHB and I don't care if it's Cone of Cold, Bigby's Hand, or Destructive Wave, just get Wall of Force the hell out of there. I'll just go with Cone of Cold since druids have it already, it's a bit mediocre for its level, it's an instantaneous blast that fits with the whole evocation blasting theme unlike bigby's hand, and it's not stealing from the paladin.

I can also see arguments for swapping Shatter and/or Vitriolic Sphere for something else since those are also the highest damage instantaneous blasts of their level (ignoring pre-2024 stuff like Rime's Binding Ice which has the same damage but is better due to a bonus effect), and letting a level 4 cleric do a 5d8 shatter by spending hit dice does feel wrong despite the immense cost; Spiritual Weapon and Fire Shield would be good replacements imo, since one is taken from the cleric list and one is from the druid/wizard list.

So, maybe the final list would look like Chromatic Orb, Spiritual Weapon, Lightning Bolt, Fire Shield, and Cone of Cold. I feel like that would protect the whole "instantaneous blaster wizard/sorcerer" niche from just being slurped up by the cleric and druid, while still giving them a taste of it, and also, Spiritual Weapon being there gives wizards a nice flaming sphere sidegrade if they take this feat for the hit die to damage thing.

Then for Transmutation Adept and Abjuration Adept? Imo, just swap Polymorph for Control Water and Shield for Shield of Faith. They're still good feats despite the downgrade. Now you no longer have to worry about clerics grabbing basically Magic Initiate (Wizard) but with 4 more spells and bonus temp hp, or getting arguably the best 4th level wizard spell + up to 4 other spells some of which are great too + occasional speed boosts.

For Conjuration Adept, Entangle and Conjure Animals are tied for the best druid spells of their level, but if they were swapped for Grease and Call Lightning, I think that would be fine. but this feat is giving out +4 or +5 to your conjuration spell concentration saves too, I think the 3rd level spell is allowed to be a little mediocre. Teleportation is also more common now, so I'm not that worried about other classes getting misty step/dimension door.

Necromancy Adept is lame and boring and there are very few necromancy spells and fewer worth casting, but I think swapping Inflict Wounds for False Life and Vampiric Touch for Summon Undead would make it good enough. Actual necromancers get Animate Dead anyway, and lots of spellcasters get summon spells that are roughly equivalent to Summon Undead already, so it should be fine.

Overall, I think this kind of evens out all the Adept feats power-wise, makes none of them a must-have (even a cleric tempted by Lightning Bolt might remember how good Spirit Guardians is and change their mind and grab some other feat instead), and still keeps all of them as fun spells (except Necromancy Adept which is still boring but at least they can summon things).

So what do you all think? Is the whole idea of the Adept feats flawed and do they deserve to be sent straight to hell, or is just tweaking some of the spells enough to balance them and protect class niches while keeping them as fun feats? Are there alternate spell lists you think would be even better fixes? Do you think I should have given them even more aggressively mediocre spells when suggesting changes? And if you're planning on using this as actual homebrew for your table instead of as an interesting thought experiment, let me know.

I was just curious and wanted to gather some data. I am sure some of ya'll play multiple tables where one could be 70+% and another 10%, but I am wondering overall.

For the purpose of this question, Dungeons are Dungeons, but also caves, crypts, ruins, sewers, large temples, castles, underground complexes, etc.