Recent content by Kurotowa

Monks are better at grappling. However, it's hard to actually be good at it. My hard won experience with trying to play a Monk with the Grappler feat is that it's very unreliable, due to the changes to grappling. On the attacker's side, the DC is now set to spell standard, with no way to cheese...

Curving Shot is one of those ones that's really hard to model in a simple damage calculation because it has so many caveats. Yes, it can potentially turn a miss into a hit once every turn. If your Bonus Action is free, if you have a second enemy to attack, if you don't mind spreading your damage...

Hmm. A valid argument. I'm not sure I entirely agree; stronger effects with a lower DC is kind of a wash, until you're high enough level to buy Int up. And the resources to buy it up have their own opportunity cost. But I'll admit that some of my reaction is that I'm tired of classes and...

Yeah, the glaring lack of any Barbarian or Druid subclasses really stands out. Some variety of "Primal Subclasses" type UA is highly likely.

If you break it down, Accursed Shield has two elements. One is a conditional AC boost from being in melee range. This I am 100% in support of. The continual problem with old Hexblade (and Bladesinger too) was that it was recommended you take it for the AC boost and then play them as a standard...

Banishing Shot is tricky because the target is also immune to attacks while banished. So the value fluctuates wildly depending on the initiative order. Ideally you want the AA to banish the foe right before their turn, so they lose their action but none of the other PC's miss out on attacking...

This Arcane Archer is similar to Battle Master, but with a huge downside. The BM's number of Superiority Dice scales with level and the DC scales with their main stat, while the AA's number of Arcane Shot uses and their DC scales with Int. That means the AA has to dump a bunch of ASI into...

There have been books that were balanced. There have been books that were imbalanced. There have been supplements with a class I really enjoyed playing, and setting books that I absorbed carefully. But you know what book I went to again and again in my early days? The one I'd flip through for...

I need to contest this, for the record. I disagree that True Strike counts as dealing damage before it adds the 1d6 at 5th level. Until that point it's a spell that lets you make a modified weapon attack, and the spell itself isn't dealing any damage. But I admit I'm often on the more...

That is really clever and something I'll happily steal. An uncontested grapple on the carried target, meaning the flier moves at half Speed (unless they have the Grappler feat) and the carried PC has Disadvantage when attacking. That seems reasonably balanced to me, and works well with the...

Okay, so disclaimer. TTRPGs move at a slow pace. Most groups only meet once a week at most, and very often less than that. So we don't have a lot of actual play reports of people trying out the various permutations yet. This is still the early days of Revised 5e. That means most of what follows...

I was taught in a different context that dealing damage is just mitigating future damage received. Killing an enemy a round sooner means you've denied them a turn's worth of attacks against the PCs. So yes, that's effectively the same thing as denying them a turn's worth of attacks now. But the...

I don't think that's specifically it. They're all similar because Elric was one of the major foundational influences of D&D, and everyone wanted their own Stormbringer. Ebonbane is a Stormbringer, Blackrazor is a Stormbringer, Hexblade is a "Your Patron is Stormbringer" subclass. So...

Still turning over mechanical implications, but I'm looking over the Disciplines and zeroing in on Swift Precognition. The cost scales quickly with spell level, but you should be able to quicken a cantrip for only one Psionic Energy Die. And what're the Abjuration and Divination cantrips on the...

The Metamorph certainly makes my gish senses tingle with interest. It's a different direction than Bladesinger; rather than try to boost the AC to melee levels, you've got options for Reach or a ranged weapon. And the innate weapons and cantrip Extra Attack should all work with True Strike...