Edgy Homebrew in 5e D&D

>>49779070
>I can post the whole thing if there's interest.
May as well. Sounds edgy as fuck but I actually don't mind the layout design. I get tired of the faux parchment background a lot of products do, but this has some nice accents.

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Just a heads up, this thing is 10 pages long for some ungodly reason

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This was copied almost verbatim from a Pathfinder class of the same name. Unfortunately it hasn't been balanced properly for 5E at all. GM veto should be in full effect here, do not allow the player to play this.

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And Page 10. There are also 13 pages of homebrew spells, such as:

Shadow Ball
Shadow Binding
Shadow Necromancy
Shadow Blade
Shadow Stream
Shadow Conjuration
Shadow Structure
Storm of Shadows
Shadow Courier
Shadow Evocation
Shadow Form
And many more

It's like they mashed together half of the damned classes. Half caster, invocations on a weird recharge, a shit ton of features curbed from other classes and sometimes improved, and tossing around advantage/disadvantage like candy, and there's a bunch of needlessly specific or complex feature.
Ask them what they want out of the class and point them to an official (and clean, and balanced) class of your choice.

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>>49779070
No class in 5e should be 10 pages with even more pages of custom spells and shit.

Tell your players Core-Rulebook only. Maybe Unearth Arcana, Elemental Evil, and Sword Coast Adventures if you're feeling adventurous. If you player can't make their character from these options, then their character is overly-complicated anime shit and they should find a different game to play. Don't let that shit in YOUR game.

>>49779287
OP here. This was basically my plan when I read through this myself. I was sticking to PHB, DMG, and EE. Though I am letting one player try out the new unearthed arcana that tries to fix the ranger, since he's one of the only experienced players.

I just wanted to get a second opinion, cause I pretty much hate homebrew thanks to my old DM

>>49779287
Core only isn't really necessary.
>Anything from EE besides aarakocra
>Anything from SCAG besides winged tieflings
>Newest UA Ranger
Then cutting out/refluffing other races if they don't fit in setting, but nothing outside of those pesky flying races is awful. Even those tend to be quite situational. One moment they're doing work plinking foes with a crossbow or monk techniques from just beyond reach, the next they're forced to fight from a cave, or against enemies with grounding spells/attacks.

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>>49779353
The Ranger Unearthed Arcana is great. Most of the classes in 5e are pretty great out of the box, but the poor Ranger got shafted and was widely agreed to be the worst class in the game. UA Ranger is very much in keeping with the other classes.

As far as the other UA goes, it's balanced for the most part, but give the stuff a read yourself. A few I consider dubious:

>Theurge Wizard
Basically a wizard that gets cleric domains and divine spells. Cool if you wana play a "white mage" type of character, but has the potential to be pretty overpowered because it doesn't really give up too much of it's normal wizard stuff in exchange.

>Undying Light Warlock
Literally a Sunsinger from Destiny. Around mid-level it gets an ability to revive itself from death once per long rest, which can kill alot of good tension and sense of danger in a game.

>Aarakocra/Winged Tieflings
I shouldn't have to explain why having flight without magic is broken.

>Absorb Elements Spell
Basically half damage from all elemental damage as a reaction, for a level 1 spell slot. Kinda neuters offense-oriented mages too hard when offense-mages are already weaker than most other builds.

>Booming Blade/Greenflame Blade
These spells are actually fine on their own, it's just that they're the only ones of their type (cantrips that are delivered via melee attacks) so expect to see them used like EVERY TURN on things like Bards, Eldritch Knights, ect. as they'll be the best possible option for these classes most of the time they want to attack. (As an acceptable hombrew tweak, maybe give other touch-cantrips like Frostbite and Shocking Grasp similar damage dice and allow them to be delivered via melee attacks).

>Minotaurs
Literally everyone I've seen play this race, as far back as Pathfinder, has been a collosal faggot. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's because of WoW or something. Anyway, Minotaur players are ALWAYS That Guy to the point where I swear it's some kind of secret curse or something.

>>49779465
Would you consider UA Ranger to be "too good"? I only ask because I took interest in it myself, being the party's Ranger, but I don't want to bring it up and have the other guys hear it as "My guy that has good enough Stealth that he might as well be a Rogue, can survive forever in the woods, and literally doesn't afraid of anything can't kill three dudes in one turn like Action Surge McGreatsword over here without a spell, can I try out this experimental "class fix" that made me laugh at how much the class got buffed?"

>>49779070
This is just monk+rogue+warlock, tell him to multiclass those if he really wants.

Alternatively here are some balance ideas:
>cap spells at 4th level
>Push back the "path" abilities 2 levels (3, 8, 13, 17)
>Get rid of the dice rolls of surges, just spend an action to get one
>Nighteye grants darkvision 30ft or +30ft if you already have darkvision
>Remove Umbral Spell
>Remove Pierce the Veils
>can't be assed to figure out master of shadows, just stop before level 20
>Eye of Terror Uses a Surge, just like an "art"
>Chain of Despair removes resistances, not immunites, deals 1d8 extra damage on an attack ONCE PER TURN
>Umbral Shackles only restrains targets who are already frightened
>Path of the Darkened Fortress is broken as sin, remove
>Corruption costs a bonus action
>Death attunement uses a surge
>Shadow of Death seems okay, maybe remove poisoned condition
>Empowered Elements should be an art, not free
>Remove friendly creatures, just works on you
>Shadow Avatar allows for only cantrips to be cast as bonus actions,no quickened spell for free shithead
>Entrancing Veil is once per short rest or uses a surge, further it can't effect the same creature twice
>Might just want to remove spooky arcana as it's just stealing from bard
>For the arts, remove disguising veil or just make it a once per day, remove dusk strike, entropic grasp is 1/day and a save instead of an attack roll, exposing void is an action, remove fall of night, hidden stride is for the next check not all checks for a minute, (arts that require path of dank memes should be removed too) penumbral aegis only works while in darkness and idk maybe only against 1 damage type chosen at the start of the day, shadow motion like hidden stride, shadow run until end of next round,shrouded casting is against a perception or investigate check not a saving throw, remove twisted elements, Veil of Darkness is 1/day, remove the ranged weapon ability from warp strike

Why did I just do this.

>>49779287
>started a game on Roll20, put up a thread for people interested
>say they can do anything from PHB, supplements, and UA, no MM/DMG
>guy comes with a DanDWiki Vampire class that's his character from an Elder Scrolls game
>tell him I appreciate the interest in the game but I'm not allowing homebrew stuff
>he tells me he didn't like ANY of the classes in the PHB
Some people

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>>49779721
People need to learn to fucking listen when the DM lists the restrictions.
I told my group that there were no drow, and that I don't use homebrew classes.
Next day, I get a text from a player who wants me to let him be a drow, and use this super cool homebrew class..

>>49779706
Not the person you're asking, but it's fine IMO.

>Good enough Stealth to be a Rogue
You don't have expertise, so no. Besides, Rangers are basically nature-rogues on a conceptual level.

>Can survive forever in the woods.
Yeah, so can any caster with "Create Food and Water".

>Can outdamage a fighter.
No. Just no. Nothing really keeps up with a Fighter's Action Surges, superiority dice, multiple attacks, ect. without magic.

>>49779706
I thought it seemed ok, though i need to test it personally first. But at least it isn't obviously terrible like the base game ranger, so I would call it an improvement.

>>49779713
It's a decent thought experiment, but honestly, the whole class seems beyond redemption.

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>tfw you realize Vin Diesel is the edgiest that guy edgelord with his custom created witch hunter class.

>>49781465
Vin Diesel plays a rogue you fucker

>>49779465
One of my players in 4e played a Minotaur Shaman, and it was the weirdest character I've had. Downtime was spent paying escorts/courtesans/prostitues to brush hishair for hours, swimming laps, or doing pushups. He also insisted his shaman familiar had to be walrus.

>>49779287
To be fair, it's because the class has like, five archetypes to pick from and it seems to get most of its abilities from said archetypes, which is why the write-up is so long.

>>49782252
Don't forget the entire section on what is totally not edgy fighter maneuvers, the "Arts."

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>>49779465
>>49782156
The one time I had the misfortune of being in a game with a minotaur player, he was playing a female character and spent the entire game calling every male character we came across (including our own party members) bitches and talking about how she'd crush their junk between her thighs.

As unbelievable as this sounds, I don't think the dude was actually Magical-realm'ing either. I think he thought he was legitimately being funny or playing a "strong female character" well, but responses around the table ranged from annoyed eye rolls to people "joking" about him changing characters and hoping he'd take the hint (he didn't).

I will never get this weird fucking phobia /tg/ has with not being "that guy" to the extent that they shriek and recoil from anything that might associate them with it. It's like communism during latter half of the 20th century. Whenever anything is anything remotely associated with darkness or god forbid has spikes everyone is all FUCKING EDGEY GET AWAY REEEEEE or if anything has even the slightest hint of an east asian theme it's met with howls of FUCKING WEEABOO PEDOPHILE CATBOYS REEEEEEE.

Oh and of course everyone desperately stumbling over each other to be the first to accuse everyone else that everything is magical realm fetish bait no matter how innocuous it is.

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>>49782618

>>49782646
What? It's bait that people are so desperate to not be labelled with some kind of meaningless insult that they've made words like edgey, weeaboo and magical realm so utterly meaningless a descriptor that you might as well just replace it with "gay" and be done with it.

The fucking threads that keep getting posted as well about stuff like, "Hey /tg/ this happened, am I that guy?" because they're all so desperate to not become this weird boogeyman that /tg/ has assembled like some kind of effigy of bad things.

>>49782716
So you're like, completely new here, right? Lurk moar before you start posting.

>newer players
>allowing any homebrew at all

How about new players should learn the ins and outs of a system before deciding they need to start modifying it.

>>49782733
I've been here since I got into tabletop rpgs back in 2008, if eight years isn't enough time to make observations about recent developments in board culture then I fear your standards more 'lurking moar' might be unreasonable.

>>49779070
At first look the individual features aren't unbalanced it just has far too different many class features.

>>49779070
1) Glaive doesn't fit with a Dex-focused character, especially since if a player needs to focus on DPR they can just two-hand a longsword.
2) If I were making this class, I would have defined "Shape Shadows" as a cantrip available to arcane casters, and then *maybe* made it available to Nightblades as a bonus. It just reminds me too much of Prestidigitation and its elemental siblings from PotA.
3) Shadow Surge's mechanic is clunky. It should either be X/short rest, or function like a sorcerer's or monk's points. Or even eliminate it completely and make individual Nightblade Arts function like a warlock's invocations.
4) Chains of Despair is simply, straight-up, an OP version of Hex or Hunter's Mark.
5) My eyes are pretty much glossing over now

This absolutely, positively, looks like someone wants to play a bladelock, but also wants bladelock to be much, much stronger. Just tell him to play a bladelock, and if he lags behind the rest of the team in utility you'll kick a magic item or two his way.

>>49779287
Yeah. The most "out there" homebrew class I've ever did still had "only" 5 pages, and that was because it had two different specialisations, both of which needed to have all their abilities listed and explained. 10 is way too much, especially for only one specialisation.

Plus having additional class only spells on to of that (ie. "I wanted to fit even more special abilities but ran out of space"). If you want to make homebrew spells, you probably should avoid making them all specific to one homebrew class.

>>49783093
This one has 5 different specialisations. Literally everything from page 4 onward is specialisations.

>>49779902
>>49781451
Gotcha, just making sure it wasn't buffing to the point I'd be stepping on anyone's toes any further. Having started with 3.5 I'm a pretty poor judge of power though even I can tell that Nightblade needs some damn work. Only class that needs more than four class paths is a Wizard and certainly not one that effectively grants a magic weapon at level 1.

>>49782716
Hey /tg/, I kissed a guy after the game last night, am I gay now?

>>49782988
>>49779287
>>49779241
>>49779274
>>49779713

Good points.

Class looks unbalanced. Dissatisfaction arises in your other players when they feel the same or in this player when you have to cut back on its over-specialness. Eaisest solution, cut it out now.

>>49783488
That depends, are you one of the elusive "fe-ma-les" that post on this board? Because I hear they have immunity to the "kissing dudes is gay if you get a boner" rule.

>>49783811
Well, I am a woman and I have a penis, but it's a feminine penis. If that's what you mean.

>>49783488
I want every dumb buzzword on /tg/ to be replaced with the word gay.

>>49783926
>I want it to be three years ago.

>>49783214
Ah. My eyes kind of glassed over and I missed the different paths.

Although that's still not a very good sign. Sure, clerics and wizards from the core both have tons of specialisations, but that's because domains and spell schools are treated as specialisations. While they have a lot of different domains/schools, they don't really alter the basic class a lot, just add some extra spells and give them a few extra abilities themed around the domain/school. It's quite different from some other classes where the specialisations can radically alter the way the class plays.

Sounds like your player wants to play the 'dark and edgy' antihero type and is using the whole shadow-gimmick to go with his fantasy. While I would definitely say no to the Night blade things a thematic alternative that is relatively balanced would the the Blood Hunter that Matt Mercer made for 5e. I'd take a look at that and, if it works for you, turn your player to that instead

>>49779706
I have a UA ranger in my game. has useful utility in tracking and exploration and does a lot of damage in the first round but MAN it can go down like a wet paper bag.

>>49782755
Precisely this.

>>49786555
Yeah, UA ranger is a lot better than the original, which has very situational utility, some abilities where the rules don't really mesh with the fluff (favored enemy pretty much makes you into a not-weed about the chosen enemy, learning their language and every little fact about them, but not actually giving you any bonus to fighting them), and the damage it does is lackluster at best (BM ranger in particular competes for the tilte of worst specialisation with that one monk one, and at least the other monk specialisations are good).

Although another problem the ranger has that can't be easily fixed without a very large redesign is how much of your damage is tied to the specialisations. Not a huge problem if you're using core only, but it places big constraints on designing new specialisations.
For most other classes, the specialisation abilities can be built around some theme and be more situational or flavorful without massively affecting your damage, but for ranger you have to make sure the abilities contribute to damage dealing or you end up with a very gimped specialisation.