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The Living Weapon

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David Crofts Nathan

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The Living Weapon is a class for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It takes the classic trope of a creature built for war and explores what it might look like as a heroic class. Piece together your own walking death machine today with 38 different forms to choose from.

Version 1.1: Improved readability, corrected a handful of typos, added three new melee forms and one new core, changed armor options.

Version 1.2: Tightened up the wording of various forms. Added six variant base forms, these are designed to give players more out of combat options and build living weapons that have specific weaknesses.

Version 2.0: Added the Blowgun ranged form, the Crystal and Warp cores, and the Linguist variant base form. Corrected various typos and did a big readability pass to bring the class more in line with the WotC style.

Roadmap: This is pretty close to a final version. I have a player who will be playtesting the class in one of the games I'm running which should lead to some refinements, but at this point I'm just focused on sanding down the rough edges. If anyone gets the chance to test this thing out at your table feedback is very much appreciated.

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JONATHON B December 26, 2019 10:45 am UTC

PURCHASER

Hi, just here to give you a bit of feedback on your class.

Overall, a very strong showing, there's a lot of cool ideas, seems real fun to play and is basically a modular build a class, which i always love to see.

I have spotted 1 problem of note with this class however.

5 of the Core forms (Specifically the Gravity, Healing, Projector, Crystal and Warp cores) have no consistent way of doing damage whatsoever (specifically, they are lacking a damage cantrip except for the warp core, who's damage cantrip is thunderclap), this is a problem, because someone may want to stay in these forms and channel their beam over the course of a battle, only to discover that they can do barely anything with their now freed up actions at the same time as their speed has has been dramatically reduced.

It is worth noting that because you are using warlock spell-casting for this class (not a bad move in and of itself, and probably for the best overall) you can't rely on spells to...See more fill in that gap, as you have *very* few spell slots to use over the course of an adventuring day, warlocks have the same thing going on, spell slots for them are *extremely* precious and should only be used in the most optimal of ways, anything less and you are wasting an *extremely* limited resource. Bear in mind that in DnD 5th edition, even short rests aren't all that easy to come by (1 hour of rest isn't really that short in the middle of a 10 room dungeon), and there will likely only be 1 or 2 short rests that will happen in an adventuring day.

So without spells or a useful cantrip to use with their action, the consistent value of the offending cores (Gravity, Healing, Projector, Crystal and Warp) relies *entirely* on the beam alone, and from what i have read here, i don't think that the beams effects *quite* strong enough to hold all that up on their own, (except *maybe* the gravity core, and then only from 6th level onwards, leaving the early levels pretty weak for this core)

The real problem with this is that the remaining three cores get a damage cantrip, and so don't suffer this problem making them on paper, overwhelmingly better than the rest, as a result those three cores are likely the only three that anyone will take, (at least with their initial core choice)

Fortunately, fixing this is simple. its not like the offending cores actual features are themselves weak, its just that without a reliably useful cantrip to use or action to take, those features have to be a *lot* better than their competition to be actually worth using across a battle. What this means is that all you have to do is to give the offending cores a damage cantrip, and the problem should be solved.

Note on the warp core, i am aware it has a damage cantrip (thunderclap), and i think i can see what you were going for with it.
If i'm right, your intent is for the tethered target to also emit a thunderclap when you cast the cantrip, allowing for remote thunderclaps by way of tethered allies, i *really* like this concept, but with the Rules as Written, it just doesn't work, because thunderclap doesn't actually target yourself, and instead is marked with a 5 ft range. I'm sure you can just add to the beam feature to make it work this way though, and i think you should, as i think it is a *really* cool and unique way to think about dealing damage to enemies.

If this wasn't your intent, then that too is a problem, notice how thunderclap has a 5 foot range, and you have a 10 foot movement speed while channelling your beam, good luck trying to get close enough to hit *anybody* with that, i would recommend my above idea, or simply give the Warp core form a different damage cantrip with some actual range to it instead.

Thanks for listening,

Jonathan

David N December 26, 2019 6:55 pm UTC

CREATOR

Hey Jonathon,

Always good to get feedback. I actually did spend a bit of time mulling over whether or not to give the forms you mention a damage cantrip, but I just couldn't justify it. The supportive forms are designed to swing a battle specifically without dealing much in the way of damage. For the cores you mention it is a big investment in action economy to use those beams at early levels, staying in those forms and continuing to channel the beams should be something that needs to be mulled over. It's not always the wrong choice, but it is a big one. Given the sheer variety of things the class is capable of I don't necessarily want them to be sitting in a single form the entire fight. With something like the healing core it is ideally designed to fire off a heal or two, maybe set up a buff spell, and then swap over to a different form.

I don't disagree that adding a damage cantrip would make them more attractive options, but my vision of what those cores were capable of didn't...See more

JONATHON B December 27, 2019 5:59 am UTC

PURCHASER

That explains a lot, it seems what i have noticed is somewhat intentional, which is fine, i see what you were going for, i guess it just brings me back to my point that the beams abilities alone simply don't make the cut to actually do what you intended them to do, i feel like 3-5 temp hp on one or two allies for example is not enough to swing a battle, and while i might be wrong, (i admit i'm not an expert), it feels a little obvious that the temp hp would go away in a single attack! its continued presence has some value i suppose, but instead i could be doing so much more than that. I just don't think it is simply enough to swing the battle in most cases (some do get rather powerful though at higher levels, but at early levels it is a problem)

Which means we are relying on spells to create that swing effect you are going for, in and of itself not a bad idea, but the reason i have a problem with it is that it will appear very rarely, maybe once or twice per short rest, (at this point i will admit...See more my lack of experience and acknowledge that this could very easily be fine, so if these numbers are intentional then fair enough, i don't know if that is too rare or not, i'm just pointing it out)
I guess what i'm going for is that it feels like you are treating warlock spell slots wrong and relying on them too much, with such limitations, warlock spells are more of a bonus feature than one to be considered "core" at all, and should probably not be relied on for terribly much in the first place as a result, i fell like it should be thought of as an extra instead. (Note, warlocks do get around this a little bit thanks to the existence of the specific spell "hex" on their spell list, which has a potent effect across an entire battle with a single casting, i'm not seeing any equivalent strength spells available to any given form here as far as i can see, i could be wrong though)

one other issue with this is that it is a bit of a surprise to discover, while based on your response it is intentional, when i was reading the class it felt a *lot* more like an oversight, i read through things several times thinking "really? is this correct? i must be reading it wrong" so there is a lack of clarity to the fact that these support cores are supposed to be massive action economy investments, the designs intent is not really clear and it feels like a mistake, this can be easily fixed for sure though i suspect, so i find this to be a small fault.

My final argument is that i'm not sure the way these support cores work is necessarily fun, it certainly is a sudden left turn from DnD's design convention, i get that it is supposed to be an action economy cost, but doing that by just leaving a player hanging as to what to do with their action feels *Really* wrong, as a rule, players are used to having *something* remotely useful to do with their action, and just leaving players hanging when they run out of spell slots like that is probably rather jarring, i can say for sure that this is first time i've seen it in a class or subclass.

Looking at it more closely, since the slots do recover on a short rest, its probably more fine than it feels like it is, but that's the problem, reading over the cores that do this does feel rather discouraging, as now i'm relying on an extremely finite resource to obtain something that the rest the party has for free (that is, a useful action) and it doesn't make me want to go into that mode or even choose it from the get go, you only get 1 core form from the start to begin with, even if my head knows that its fine, i would still struggle to choose say the healing or projector core because i simply want what the rest of the game gives you for free anyway (which is again, a useful action each turn) You've basically made me feel like there's a hole where an action should be. and that doesn't feel nice, even if it is actually fine.
Maybe a little rearranging of things could fix this, i don't know what specifically, but if you can find a way to incorporate that action cost in a more clear and robust way as opposed to just not giving the player an action at all, or even just set expectations clearly, the problem is that players go in expecting that useful free action that they usually get only to have the rug pulled out from under them, setting expectations and letting the players know what they are choosing more clearly would probably remove the sense of discouragement and allow it to become a satisfying choice again.

These are just my thoughts and experiences though, and at this point, you probably know better than me, there are probably some things i am missing, and i admit i am not the most experienced, i just think about this stuff alot as a sort of hobby. at this point perhaps the only way to be clear is to simply test my thoughts out in practice, especially my above point about the cores feeling bad, that has the potential to be *quite* subjective, and if further comments come along and don't have find the same. problem, then i will happily accept that, for my part, i will see if i can get to testing this myself, i am most interested to see where i am right and (more likely) wrong.

Thanks for your reply, Jonathan

Rowan A June 25, 2019 11:30 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I wish to point out that the Shuriken form's ability titled Edge Case does not specify a level, though it's position in the list leads me to believe it is a 15th level ability. Additionally, on the topic of that ability, are you required to make a separate attack against each target in the line?

In all other aspects, I really like the concept of this class. It reminds of Genos from One Punch Man a little bit.

David N June 26, 2019 6:34 am UTC

CREATOR

Thanks for catching that. It's certainly meant to be a 15th level thing, I'll clarify it in the next update. It was intended that you make a separate attack against each target, I'll clarify that as well. I can see making a case for a single attack roll against all targets, but given that you'll rarely be targeting more than two with a single attack it shouldn't be that bad.

It's heavily anime/mech influenced, Genos is a solid example of what one of these might be. I have a handful of new forms in the pipeline so thanks for the feedback and stay tuned.

Rowan A June 27, 2019 4:31 pm UTC

PURCHASER

You're welcome and I look forward to it.