Current Events > DnD hombrew sublcass idea

(+) Yeah! (+)

Context, been playing DnD with buddies for close to a year now, we are lvl 11 and close to ending the Descent into avernus campaign.

I mentioned that I wanted to roleplay as a dark souls dude dual weilding collosal fucking shit but was swiflty shot down because rules state that colossal swords in DnD have to be two handed.
After some more discussion with our DM he mentioned that if we were to do that in the future it could work if we homebrewed some kind of barbarian that could do it if under the effects of rage or some other rules.

He later mentioned in passing that he has been working on that as a side project and I think it woudl be cool if I started working on it myself and then we can compare and combine whatever is best of both of our ideas.

So I was thinking I could add it as a sub class of barbarian, one whose sub class upgrades were tied from training for it at lvl 3 once you choose the path, upgrading to being able to do it at lvl 6 under the effects of rage, then be able to do it under normal circumstances at lvl 10 subclass progression.

Not only does that provide a cool progression towards a specific goal but you get to see your character slowly be better at it incrementally.

CONS: I would not know what to do with the lvl 6 trait once the lvl 10 trait activates.
I have no idea what to do with the lvl 3 trait so start it off. It would be nice to add two traits as numerous classes have two or three traits at lvl 3.

What say you? Any ideas? I was not able to even find any type of dicussion in reagrds to this online which surprised me, DnD has niche discussions about pretty much everything and anything.

I let one of my players wield a colossal weapon in one hand (paired with a shield) by having his character race be a Minotaur, but I was a novice to balancing and it kinda ended up that his character was broken and all the other players were stuck not having much fun in combat as a result.

Not the same thing, and it sounds like youre more knowledgeable than I ended up being about the rules and classes, but Id just make sure that you are considering the other players in the group when trying to come up with a workaround to balance this idea out.

For sure, since the game is not balanced around having two of these kinds of weapons I have been thinking on it but from what I read I can see that martial classes are indeed behind spell casters which IMO would kinda sorta balance it out methinks.

But I am trying to add balancing mechanics like being able to add your STR modifier to yoru AC while carrying dual blades but only when not wearing armor to be able to be nimble enough to protect yourself with said swords.

Jumping straight from normal dual wielding to great weapons is a big jump in base damage. Assuming Extra Attack and an Off-Hand all done with Great Swords and Great Weapon Fighting that's 6d6 damage where you can re-roll 1's and 2's, not to mention the base Strength score damage modifier being applied. That's a lot of passive damage coming online at level 5.

If it were a level 17 subclass feature then that would be fine. At that point spell casters are doing 4d10 with a cantrip or whatnot. Besides, at that point the party are basically heroes known across the continent.

One way to consider it would be to apply a negative as an offset that would make it dangerous to use. Maybe attacking that way under Rage as a Barbarian leaves one vulnerable in the same manner as if they had made a Reckless Attack. But the moment you do that it would incentivize players to just go Reckless Attack and hope for more hits and crits.

You could further hamper things by giving a consequence identical to Barbarian Berserkers using a Frenzied Rage, i.e. levels of Exhaustion. That would dampen the character for the rest of the day, and discourage abuse. But such features being considered kind of depend on the player. Certain players would refuse to touch character classes that seem self-destructive.

two bastard swords, and just pretend they're huge

not sure what you mean by "colossal swords" but as far as I know there's no such mechanic in D&D (or at least not in 5e; the one I am familiar with), so you would likely be in homebrew territory from the get-go. do you mean Heavy weapons? Two-Handed weapons?

honestly dual-wielding in 5e via the official rules is extremely underpowered, and there wouldn't be a super significant mechanical benefit for it over just using, say, a Glaive or Halberd and taking the Polearm Master feat.

two things about Barbarians specifically:
-a Barbarian's 6th-level feature is generally, primarily, for out-of-combat purposes
-wielding two weapons in the way you're describing would require training and study, meaning your idea would probably be better suited for a Fighter subclass.

DuneMan posted...

Jumping straight from normal dual wielding to great weapons is a big jump in base damage. Assuming Extra Attack and an Off-Hand all done with Great Swords and Great Weapon Fighting that's 6d6 damage where you can re-roll 1's and 2's, not to mention the base Strength score damage modifier being applied. That's a lot of passive damage coming online at level 5.

If it were a level 17 subclass feature then that would be fine. At that point spell casters are doing 4d10 with a cantrip or whatnot. Besides, at that point the party are basically heroes known across the continent.

One way to consider it would be to apply a negative as an offset that would make it dangerous to use. Maybe attacking that way under Rage as a Barbarian leaves one vulnerable in the same manner as if they had made a Reckless Attack. But the moment you do that it would incentivize players to just go Reckless Attack and hope for more hits and crits.

You could further hamper things by giving a consequence identical to Barbarian Berserkers using a Frenzied Rage, i.e. levels of Exhaustion. That would dampen the character for the rest of the day, and discourage abuse. But such features being considered kind of depend on the player. Certain players would refuse to touch character classes that seem self-destructive.

I HAVE been thinking on impairments as well, but I am also reading the other classes and not many have those. as for a lvl 17 class feature I was thinking about it but I dont think we woudl normally go for that high of a campaign as our current one will end aropund 14ish. this si why I decided it would be cool to have ti at 10th so you can work towards it and still ahve some time to use it before the thing ends.

two things about Barbarians specifically:
-a Barbarian's 6th-level feature is generally, primarily, for out-of-combat purposes
-wielding two weapons in the way you're describing would require training and study, meaning your idea would probably be better suited for a Fighter subclass.

That is the very first thing I added as the focus of my particular character, if the feat is something that has been impossible to do, it would need to be something that he has to consistently train for, not just get for free.

DuneMan posted...

At that point spell casters are doing 4d10 with a cantrip or whatnot.

Yeah but that eats their entire action. IDK where this myth that sword bois do less damage than mages came from but it is wildly inaccurate. Paladin can hit twice with a Greatsword and pop off two Smites every round while being a full tank (or dual wield and get 3 Smites per round). Barb gets free advantage and deals quadruple damage on crits. Fighter *literally* can attack four times per turn, 8 times with Action Surge, easily getting into triple digit damage every round. Also all three can use Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter to crank that damage to the sky. Yeah, they don't have massive AOE but but warriors absolutely shred individual targets.

What they're missing out on is utility compared to casters, something that dual wielding larger weapons does not mitigate.

One topic: Yeah, dual wielding Greatswords at level 6 definitely skews game balance HARD. You'd be doing 6d6 +3* Str bonus (so probably +12 total) per round compared to a similar character's 3d8 + 3* Str bonus (so also +12), a difference in average damage of 33 vs 25. Making it during Rage only is not the drawback you think it is either unless the DM is stingy with rests.

I think you're jumping the gun with that comment response.

My point was that dealing 6d6 damage + 8 or 10 from Strength at level 5 an infinite number of rounds per day is a big jump. Sure, 3rd level spells are potent indeed on level 5 casters, but said caster isn't going to be using those every round of combat.

On the topic of GWM or Sharpshooter though, those perks should get an official rework from WotC, IMO. Instead of dealing a full +10 damage the moment you pick up the perk it should be tied to a character's proficiency score. I.e. subtract a total from your attack roll equal to your proficiency bonus and if the attack connects deal extra damage equal to twice your proficiency bonus. That keeps it in line with lower tiers while providing a small buff at higher tiers: +12 damage as the cap.

I just realized that there's a lot of overlap between this idea and the second feature of the Dual Wielder feat:

You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light.

it might be worth considering tying this ability to a feat rather than a subclass. maybe restrict the feat to level 8+, have a Strength requirement, and have the Dual Wielder feat as a prerequisite

DuneMan posted...

I think you're jumping the gun with that comment response.

It was also a rebuttal to this:

orcus_snake posted...

from what I read I can see that martial classes are indeed behind spell casters which IMO would kinda sorta balance it out methinks.

TC gives the impression that getting bigger weapons will bring parity between melee and casters when the problem isn't the damage melee does at all. Melee damage, is, in fact overtuned if anything with only a bare handful of spells being able to keep up with it vs single targets. Melee builds just have a higher skill and knowledge floor to get the most out of their damage where casters just need to mostly point and click their damage. Fully optimized melee builds absolutely trivialize combat

Anyway, back to the Big Man With Big Sword power fantasy.

averagejoel posted...

I just realized that there's a lot of overlap between this idea and the second feature of the Dual Wielder feat:

You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light.

it might be worth considering tying this ability to a feat rather than a subclass. maybe restrict the feat to level 8+, have a Strength requirement, and have the Dual Wielder feat as a prerequisite

This is actually a very fair suggestion. Having to give up two ASIs (or be playing a race that gives a bonus feat and one ASI) might help make this fair. It meets the concept of gradual increase over time (progressive feats) and the concept of requiring training (learning a feat instead of a Str, Dex, or Con boost), needing 2 feats means it would come online at level 8, and it puts it more or less on par with other high damage output feats (GWM/Sharpshooter with 2 strikes for an average of 42 vs this improved dual wielder with an average of 33 but with better accuracy). Both blow the doors off a sword-and-board build with a tradeoff of lower AC

Oh, well, yeah, in terms of single target damage a Fighter will pop a lone boss enemy like a pinata. Heck, even a bunch of spells in the game are set up to make it easier for the Fighter to stab/slash things. That's also where the feats mentioned above get ridiculous, as 4 hits in a single round at level could be +40 damage.

Every BBEG should have lots of minions to counter this. If a DM is worried about a total party wipe the minions can stagger in over the course of several rounds of combat.

skimmed through all the comments because I am at work atm, but I read about the dual wield feat and we already brought up the idea but found out that while it helps with most weapons, the ultra greatswords dual weirld fantasy that I am trying to do form dark souls and elden ring would not apply here because of its properties.

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ultra_Greatsword_(5e_Equipment)

It specifies it is a two handed weapon

will respond to the rest later but it would mostly be that we are complete noobs so trivializing combat by optimization is a problem that is very far away, oen of our veterans is playing a paladin and is not doing this smite on every attack that I see people online talk about so much, I blew up my party memebrs with fireball twice by mistake as well, I don't think a little overtuned dude that can one shot a single baddie is gonna break the game, and if ti does we can of course adjust.
I do think that due to the concerns, some impairments should be added.

FOr exampel if we were to go the two feat idea, how would I be getting STR up to 19 tpo even carry an ultragreatsword in the first place? and it would also not make sense with the intense training to aquire such STR if you are not improving your statistics.

If lvl 6 is too son, and lvl 10 is like 2 months before our current campaign ends, how would you balance this?
Maybe the lvl 6 features ends in exhaustion like Frenzy.

orcus_snake posted...

I blew up my party memebrs with fireball twice by mistake as well

Evocation Wizards are a nice subclass if you want to blast your teammates, as they get a class feature that makes allies immune to spell AoE. It's perfect for when you want to make an indoor space explode in flame while 10 people are present.

orcus_snake posted...

will respond to the rest later but it would mostly be that we are complete noobs so trivializing combat by optimization is a problem that is very far away, oen of our veterans is playing a paladin and is not doing this smite on every attack that I see people online talk about so much, I blew up my party memebrs with fireball twice by mistake as well, I don't think a little overtuned dude that can one shot a single baddie is gonna break the game, and if ti does we can of course adjust.
I do think that due to the concerns, some impairments should be added.

FOr exampel if we were to go the two feat idea, how would I be getting STR up to 19 tpo even carry an ultragreatsword in the first place? and it would also not make sense with the intense training to aquire such STR if you are not improving your statistics.

If lvl 6 is too son, and lvl 10 is like 2 months before our current campaign ends, how would you balance this?
Maybe the lvl 6 features ends in exhaustion like Frenzy.

lol wielding two of those weapons is insane dude. you can't balance that in tier 1-2 of play. the Greatsword already exists in-game and serves basically the same function. you don't need the homebrew weapon for your concept to work

it can be hard to balance homebrew with the base game. it becomes chaos when incorporating more homebrew into the mix.

at that point you wouldn't be "trivializing combat by optimization", you would be trivializing it by using combinations of broken homebrew.

I still think tying this to a feat rather than a subclass is the way to go. the concept really does not fit the way barbarian subclasses work

DuneMan posted...

Evocation Wizards are a nice subclass if you want to blast your teammates, as they get a class feature that makes allies immune to spell AoE. It's perfect for when you want to make an indoor space explode in flame while 10 people are present.

Had no idea, but warlock soudned so good to me because it scaled with charisma and I wanted to be a CHA character talking ourselves out of most fights, its been pretty cool so far.

orcus_snake posted...

Had no idea, but warlock soudned so good to me because it scaled with charisma and I wanted to be a CHA character talking ourselves out of most fights, its been pretty cool so far.

Sorcerers use CHA for casting as well. The main draw for Warlocks is Invocations; and the ability to spam Eldritch Blast.

The Patron thing also opens up a wide avenue for the DM to mess with the player, unless you picked an angel or something but even then the DM could require you to act 'lawful stupid'. Most DMs would be relatively chill about it though.

Yeah my DM has not delved with the fiend patron at all unless I want to deal with her myself, she did threaten to take away my rod of the pact keeper. away from me if I acted against Zariel which is kind of annoying and causes anxiety whenever we deal with her lol.