D&D 5E [Unearthed Banana] Alternative Class Features

[NotAYakk]

Inspired by UA, my go at it. Design notes in italic.

Barbarian

These changes are aimed at two things.

The first, and probably most important, is to remove the low-level Barbarians dependency on Great Weapon Master to put out damage. The synergy with reckless attack is simply so large that it crowds out other options.

The second part is to address the 9-19 level problem, where every single feature is so lackluster that advice is generally to stop advancing as a Barbarian at level 8.

Reckless Weapon Master
Starting at 3rd level, when raging and making a reckless attack, you can take a -5 penalty to hit in exchange for a +10 bonus to damage on a strength-based melee attack. You may not also use the Great Weapon Master similar feat feature on the same attack.

This opens up small barbarians, two-weapon barbarians and sword-and-board barbarians damage-wise. GWM grants out-of-rage/reckless damage and the bonus action followup.

Reckless Critical (Alternative to Brutal Critical 9, 13 and 17)
Starting at 9th level, while Raging and making a Reckless Attack, you score a critical hit on a 19-20 and deal 1 extra die of weapon damage.

This increases to 3 extra dice at level 13 and 6 extra dice at level 17.

The old Brutal Critical was very weak. This both gives the Barbarian the much-coveted 19-20 crit range, and grants about 2 DPR per level from 9 to 19 instead of a fraction of a point.

With 19-20 crit range, d12 weapon die, and 2.5 attacks/round, each crit die is worth about 3 DPR. 19-20 crit range itself is worth about 1.5 DPR with a d12 weapon and 2.5 attacks/round (but also scales with extra damage dice, like holy weapon/flame tongue/etc, and Great Weapon Master.)

So this grants 4.5 DPR at level 9, 6 DPR at level 13 and 9 DPR at level 17, for about +19.5 DPR from level 9 to 17.

The old feature granted 1.5 DPR at level 9, 13 and 17 under similar assumptions, which was anemic.

This does cost you critical dice while not raging and making a reckless attack.

Inner Rage (Improvement to Persistent Rage)
Starting at 15th level, you always have advantage on Strength, Charisma(Intimidation) checks, Strength saves, and saves against being Charmed or Frightened.

The first half is a half ribbon and half mechanical social/exploration feature. The second half makes the high level Barbarian a bit less easy to gimped by mental magic. These are all things that would be reasonable to be good at if you have a reserve pool of rage within you at all times to tap into.

Unstoppable (Replacement for Indomitable Might)
Starting at level 17, the minimum value you can roll on a d20 when you make a Strength check or save, a Constitution check or save, a Wisdom or Charisma save, or a Charisma(Intimidation) check is the value of the attribute in question, before modifiers.

Indomitable Might as a 18th level feature was a bit of a joke. This is serious -- you are going to be able to say "no" to certain situations, or simply state "yes". A L 20 barbarian with 24 strength athletics trained barbarian is going to have a check and save of 37 -- this is veto levels of check/save. And at 17 levels into Barbarian, being able to simply say "no, you aren't going to trap me with something I can muscle through" is a reasonable ability. Ginormous Abomination of a T-Rex grabs you with their mouth? You just muscle your way out, automatically.

The Barbarian remains vulnerable to intelligence saves, and high wis/cha saves that aren't charm or fear (like banishment); this provides a save floor; without further investment, it doesn't help against "epic" level monster wis or charisma saves. With investment (14 stat, proficiency gives a min save of 22) it can.

 

[NotAYakk]

Monk

This aimed to address a few problems with the monk.

The first change, to Martial Arts, deals with the monk's "enhance unarmed attacks" issue without requiring a bunch of "monk only weapons" provided by a DM.

The second change is to deflect missiles; I consider the change to be a fun ribbon.

The third changes are aimed at high level monks. First, the capstone of Monks is disappointing to most, and the 15th level feature was a pure ribbon. So make both have some heft and use.

Martial Arts (Enhancement)

You may choose a magical monk weapon you are attuned to that you possess, and can use its magic to boost your unarmed strikes. Apply its enhancement bonus to unarmed attack hit and damage, as well as any on-hit effects like flame tongue or alternative damage types like sun blade. You may choose to attune to a monk weapon that does not regularly require attunement to use this feature.

This comes from 4e, where a monk could use any weapon or a Ki focus to boost their abilities. Note that the monk can keep a sword in the scabbard and still get this benefit. This means that DMs don't have to provide "enchanted fistwraps" or equivalent to give Monks enhancement bonuses to damage and to-hit; any "monk weapon" should do.

Deflect Missiles (Enhancement)

When you spend 1 Ki point to attack with this feature, you regain your reaction spent catching it. This allows you to deflect as many missiles as you have Ki to spend.

Inspired by martial arts movies, if you have 20 Ki and they have a 5% hit chance, you can stand in a hail of 400 arrows and emerge unhurt. As noted, I consider this to be a fun ribbon; being focus fired by mass archers isn't a something you balance a feature around.

Ki (Enhancement)

Starting at level 15, you can spend 2 Ki points to do two of the base features as a bonus action, but not the same feature twice.

This should be very fun without a massive power boost. The base L 15 feature is basically a ribbon; with this, you can use your maneuver and defence features without tanking your damage output.

Eternal Meditation (Alternative class feature to Perfect Self)

You have reached a state of eternal meditation. At 20th level, every turn the first Ki you spend is not deducted from your Ki points.

This both ensures that a monk never runs out of Ki to spend, and also lets the monk spend a bit more Ki in an epic battle. The old feature was epically useless; you'd have to finish an epic battle where the monk runs itself dry, then have the DM throw another moderate encounter at the party; dramatically, that probably doesn't happen much at 20. This one produces the same "I'm never out of fuel" feel, but does so in a way that Monks will actually use.

This does mean that a Monk with a self-healing Ki ability can self heal to full in a few minutes without burning any resources. I'm actually ok with that; this is level 20.

 

[NotAYakk]

Wizard

This is in response to the increased versatility of the other arcane spellcasting classes. The second feature is aimed at the ridiculous fact that some wizards MC a constitution-save class at 1st level for no other reason than improved concentration...

Spellbook Versatility
1st-level wizard feature (enhances Spellcasting)

During a short rest, a Wizard may change one spell they know for another spell in their spellbook.

In addition, a wizard may attempt to cast an unprepared spell directly from their spellbook. This takes 1 minute or 2x the standard casting time (whichever is longer), and expends a spell slot as normal.

Perform an intelligence(arcana) check with a DC equal to 10 plus twice the spell's level. On a failure, the slot is expended without casting the spell successfully.

This gives Wizards two ways to leverage their spellbook for flexibility; the short rest is reliable, while the directly from spellbook means they can try a utility spell when they are desperate.

By default there is always a chance of failure, until 20 int and +6 proficiency, when level 1 spells are auto-success. So wizards will probably still leave mage armor as a spell prepared if they want it up every day.

Arcane Concentration
1st-level wizard feature (enhances Proficiencies)

Wizards can add their proficiency bonus to Constitution saving throws when they are saving to maintain concentration on a Wizard spell.

I restricted this to Wizard spells, to avoid dip-addiction or having to put it at a medium level (the real benefit is at high levels, when that sweet +6 bonus makes DC 10 rolls much, much easier to succeed at). I just dislike the "well, if you make a level 20 wizard, actually make them a figher 1 first, because con + armor proficiency is better than the wizard capstone" style issues. This dilutes that a bit.

 

[Fezardio]

Inspired by UA, my go at it. Design notes in italic.

Barbarian

These changes are aimed at two things.

The first, and probably most important, is to remove the low-level Barbarians dependency on Great Weapon Master to put out damage. The synergy with reckless attack is simply so large that it crowds out other options.

The second part is to address the 9-19 level problem, where every single feature is so lackluster that advice is generally to stop advancing as a Barbarian at level 8.

Reckless Weapon Master
Starting at 3rd level, when raging and making a reckless attack, you can take a -5 penalty to hit in exchange for a +10 bonus to damage on a strength-based melee attack. You may not also use the Great Weapon Master similar feat feature on the same attack.

This opens up small barbarians, two-weapon barbarians and sword-and-board barbarians damage-wise. GWM grants out-of-rage/reckless damage and the bonus action followup.

Reckless Critical (Alternative to Brutal Critical 9, 13 and 17)
Starting at 9th level, while Raging and making a Reckless Attack, you score a critical hit on a 19-20 and deal 1 extra die of weapon damage.

This increases to 3 extra dice at level 13 and 6 extra dice at level 17.

The old Brutal Critical was very weak. This both gives the Barbarian the much-coveted 19-20 crit range, and grants about 2 DPR per level from 9 to 19 instead of a fraction of a point.

With 19-20 crit range, d12 weapon die, and 2.5 attacks/round, each crit die is worth about 3 DPR. 19-20 crit range itself is worth about 1.5 DPR with a d12 weapon and 2.5 attacks/round (but also scales with extra damage dice, like holy weapon/flame tongue/etc, and Great Weapon Master.)

So this grants 4.5 DPR at level 9, 6 DPR at level 13 and 9 DPR at level 17, for about +19.5 DPR from level 9 to 17.

The old feature granted 1.5 DPR at level 9, 13 and 17 under similar assumptions, which was anemic.

This does cost you critical dice while not raging and making a reckless attack.

Inner Rage (Improvement to Persistent Rage)
Starting at 15th level, you always have advantage on Strength, Charisma(Intimidation) checks, Strength saves, and saves against being Charmed or Frightened.

The first half is a half ribbon and half mechanical social/exploration feature. The second half makes the high level Barbarian a bit less easy to gimped by mental magic. These are all things that would be reasonable to be good at if you have a reserve pool of rage within you at all times to tap into.

Unstoppable (Replacement for Indomitable Might)
Starting at level 17, the minimum value you can roll on a d20 when you make a Strength check or save, a Constitution check or save, a Wisdom or Charisma save, or a Charisma(Intimidation) check is the value of the attribute in question, before modifiers.

Indomitable Might as a 18th level feature was a bit of a joke. This is serious -- you are going to be able to say "no" to certain situations, or simply state "yes". A L 20 barbarian with 24 strength athletics trained barbarian is going to have a check and save of 37 -- this is veto levels of check/save. And at 17 levels into Barbarian, being able to simply say "no, you aren't going to trap me with something I can muscle through" is a reasonable ability. Ginormous Abomination of a T-Rex grabs you with their mouth? You just muscle your way out, automatically.

The Barbarian remains vulnerable to intelligence saves, and high wis/cha saves that aren't charm or fear (like banishment); this provides a save floor; without further investment, it doesn't help against "epic" level monster wis or charisma saves. With investment (14 stat, proficiency gives a min save of 22) it can.

Unstoppable sounds really interesting, but I’m not quite understanding. Would you be able to describe it in greater detail, please?

 

[NotAYakk]

Unstoppable sounds really interesting, but I’m not quite understanding. Would you be able to describe it in greater detail, please?

Suppose you have a Charisma of 12.

Whenever you roll a Charisma save and the d20 is under 12, treat it as a 12. So your min save is 13.

If you have a 20 strength, your min save is 31, becausr any d20 under 20 becomes a 20. (in fact you autosave with a 31; no need to roll)

If you have a 24 strength, your min save is 37. This is functionally the same as 31; you have (by design) broken bounded accuracy on strength saves.

You become unstoppable by strength based saves.

I edtend this to all non-intelligence based saves. For this to work on high level monsters, you need other investments in the stat. A barbarian with 14 cha and proficiency in it has a min save of 22; enough that non-epic-tier enemies cannot banish them. Throw in a 19 cha item (attunement) and they become effectively banish-immune (29 min save). This is intended; getting such "perfect" saves is a large investment and you cannot get it for every save.

We apply this to strength and con checks, and all non-int saves.

The barbarian had this ability for strength checks in the vannila 5e. I just extended it.