#Thorns & Quills Wild Compendium

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tropic hill
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Working on a big book of character options related to plants and beasts. Going to dump most of the things I'm working on in here in no particular order

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So far I've added 3 classes up to level 5:

the Lycan, an instinctual pure shape-shifting martial character focused on primal senses, wild-shaping and simple weapons
the Menagerist, a friend-to-all beast-tamer that manages hordes of ferocious animals and provides logistical boons
the Wildwright, a short-rest caster ecoterrorist with a tiered invocations system, centered around plants and the environmental disasters that killed them

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I've added my Agathion beastfolk race to it, and I've created a Lycanthrope lineage that steals one of its traits in hybrid form, as well as rules for lycanthropy that allow you to end up as Agathion race, Lycanthrope lineage, werebeast under the DM's control or fully cured

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I've written down a lot of vague subclass ideas but I'm not terribly excited to work on those because I just don't like the base-game classes. Maybe I'll design them to slot into laserllama's alternate classes... something to think about another time.

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The flavor page is really outdated because I changed the direction I went into with the class at some point. "Menagerist Menagerie" was just not it for the subclasses.

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I've gone through a lot of names for this one. I don't want to call it the shifter because I know laserllama is working on their own too, but i'm worried the name is confusing because I've also created both a lycanthrope lineage and a section of lycanthropy rules. I'm going to be renaming this to Therian again.

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For both the Lycan and Menagerist I need to start working on my own collection of beast templates sooner than later but I also don't terribly feel the need to reinvent the wheel when I think laserllama has already done a very good job at making these critters versatile in their Compendium of Beasts.

I was thinking about creating general templates that you could mix-and-match, similar in breadth to the Clades (like a "Titan" would cover hippos, rhinos, elephants, brontosauruses if those are there. Why not)

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This is the longest class by far so far by merit of being a short-rest caster. The meat of their stuff is in their Seeds of Power, tiered invocations...

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I liked the idea of making a single, "catch-all" beastfolk race with modular traits that you could pick-and-mix from to approximate the animal you most wanted to embody. A later race refers back to the Adaptive Physiology and Primal Senses (the Lycanthrope lineage). I think it ended up ahead of the Detect Balance power curve if you make a werebat.

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Lycanthrope Lineage

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I really really hate werewolf races that give you immense power (like immunity/resistance to b/p/s) in exchange for the "drawback" of attacking your allies sometimes, because you're immediately making your drawback your allies' problem while you yourself get to reap all the benefits of lycanthropy.

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So I tried to lay it on reaaally thick that you're still in control. Sometimes an embarassing transformation happens, but you're in control of your actions even if your body won't listen to you.

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Lycanthropic Curses

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fervent acorn
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Honestly the lycan interests me the most but admittedly I haven't taken that close of a look at it. Also the name is just throwing me a bit off.

tropic hill
# tropic hill # Lycanthropic Curses

Four potential endings, and increasingly higher-level spell requirements to get rid of it as it progresses, starting out as a simple disease and quickly becoming a curse. Turns you into a stable hybrid Agathion, an unstable Lycanthrope, a werebeast under the DM's control or has you literally beat the beast out of your own body to return to normal.

tropic hill
fervent acorn
tropic hill
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I return to my roots... Therian was the original name, but I still think it fits much better now that I'm making other content that's properly lycanthrope-related. Yeah, good call there, thanks for thinking with me!

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I really like the idea of dual-purpose cantrips like these. But I need to do a lot of balancing with them. I fell in love after Laserllama gave all of the elemental transmutation cantrips (mold earth, shape water etc) a combat effect

I think eating up concentration makes the bonus action ones relatively balanced in most cases - the opportunity cost you are paying both by spending one of your very limited cantrips on something and by wasting your concentration on it, even if losing concentration isn't as big of a deal as it would be otherwise.

fervent acorn
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No prob, kinda wondering how you ultimately allow the player to deal with therianthropy as a class thing, having some extra feats for it could be cool or having some weird variants, like a solwolf that can turn during the day and gets hurt by gold like I have seen on the ua reddit a time. Yorrving made something like that and it is cool as shit, playing around with theriantropy can be very creative.

tropic hill
fervent acorn
# tropic hill Reverse werewolf sounds so fucking sick? I love that. I'm trying not to tie too ...

Sounds sick, and yeah adding too many drawbacks does make stuff a bit of a chore to play, having that sweetspot that allows you to emulate the power of a theriantrope without utterly gimping the character or making it a suicidal decision to include in a party.

Also, feat idea, a level 4 or 8 fest that basically turns you into a dire or greater version of your therian form. Like the loup garou for example.

tropic hill
# tropic hill # Lycanthropic Curses

I definitely want to make more detailed narrative lycanthropic curse progression too. This was just kind of the essential stuff and me trying to squeeze it all onto a single page. I think I'll work more debilitating effects into the active curse progression

tropic hill
tropic hill
# fervent acorn Sounds sick, and yeah adding too many drawbacks does make stuff a bit of a chore...

Fuck yeah I wanna add racial feats. I love that. But I'm a little unsure what you mean, Therian is the class and Lycanthrope lineage is the race.
I'd definitely be up for giving them racial feats that let you shift form as a bonus action and increases the max CR of your beast form, so long as it still visually resembles their infected beast, just becomes a dire version. Maybe I'll add some sidebar about extra strength you get as a Lycanthrope playing a Therian because they're kind of antisyngergistic/overlap

fervent acorn
fervent acorn
tropic hill
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Well, yeah, the therian is a therianthrope class! And I also made a separate lycanthrope race, and they kind of overlap

fervent acorn
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Ah fair, could always make it a racial class if you feel they overlap too much, racial classes can be really fun.

tropic hill
# fervent acorn Ah fair, could always make it a racial class if you feel they overlap too much, ...

Yeah! I think they both have a reason to exist.

I'm a therian myself (as in, i believe i am an animal), and getting to play characters that can freely shapeshift into just one particular animal without necessarily being a combat thing, like with the Lycanthrope lineage, feels really euphoric.

Then the Therian class is also really fun, but leans a lot more into the combat fantasy of that constant shapeshifting, like that tiefling girl in Honor Among Thieves. Simple weapons, natural weapons, grappling and shoving and unarmed strikes.

And then having both would be really fun, but unfortunately they do overlap since you'd be getting the ability to wild shape twice. I'll make sure to add an extra note that gives you a little power boost if you do use that class-race combo, to make up for the wasted feature.

tropic hill
# tropic hill # Lycanthrope Lineage

@primal delta Summoning you here too because I'd really like to have your eyes on what I'm working on too (if that's okay 👉👈)
No pressure to check it out, just think your thoughts are super valuable

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I think tomorrow I might start work on a number of Wild Fighting Styles which are centered around using the environment and simple weapons or unarmed strikes. I'm really doing everything in my power to put off working on the subclasses for phb classes 😔

fervent acorn
primal delta
primal delta
# tropic hill # Wild Cantrips

Fangs and Howl are really interesting (and yet again we must play a game together), quite simple combat effects and a built in utility options instead of going "dm may I" for a creative application that should frankly be allowed

primal delta
primal delta
primal delta
tropic hill
tropic hill
primal delta
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Making niche stuff pull double duty with a more generic use case

tropic hill
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I wanted to go through all the cantrips and try to make them similar to this someday. I think I already have the pairings somewhere

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I'm worried I was falling into making the combat parts of the cantrips a bit too niche too, but maybe that's okay given the amount of choices?

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Still finding stuff to do that's not subclasses :D

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I have like 4 different wild shaping rules throughout this thing. I should really make a consistent Shapeshifting Rules segment somewhere and then just refer back to it

primal delta
fervent acorn
tropic hill
icy notch
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Hello there! I thought I'd look at the cantrips.

Resin Glob is cool, but I think I'd drop the added layer. That feels easy to forget.

Windshear is interesting. I wonder if this could consume Gust's other effects.

Bramble The detonation feels a bit much. It's a bonus action cantrip that deals damage when you get hit. That's pretty good all on it's own before we get to the Grip effect or the detonation.

Verglas That's got more uses and is stronger than Ray of Frost. I think that needs another look.

Fossilize....Petrify on a cantrip???

Drought Maybe. Following cantrips it feels like it should just reduce the healing by a set number.

tropic hill
# icy notch Hello there! I thought I'd look at the cantrips. *Resin Glob* is cool, but I t...

Thank you for all the feedback!

I agree the resin glob stacking might be hard or annoying to track - I wanted to still have the option for people who wanted to like, threaten to kill someone narratively, or something. I might change it to just dealing... poison/acid (?) damage, or something, if you use it on someone who's already coated.

For Windshear, possibly? It is meant to just be a different take on Gust, but I think cantrips like Prestigiditation do too much and too vaguely, and I prefer creating like, one specific clear use case that doesn't deal damage and one that does, in these cantrips, over more "mother may I" DM-dependent effects? I'm not sure if I'm making sense!

You're right, Bramble's Wrath is excessive. I'll change that around some, either to only work against the first attack altogether or to just be consistent lower damage.

Verglas also tries to do too much, I agree. I think it's the second cantrip I worked on and I didn't really have the stuff clearly fleshed out. I'll tinker around with it more, but for now i've removed the object damage immunity and sized the die down to a d4 (from a d8).

Yes, I really want Fossilize to work for gorgon type characters. I thought the Sleep-style HP threshold might make it okay since you could much more easily just stab creatures to death at the point where this becomes usable (and is useless if you roll low), but It might be best to just only allow them to do this on corpses, or to think of something different entirely.

Love the idea of a flat reduction for Drought. Implemented it immediately - any healing reduced by an amount equal to spellcasting mod, instead of halved.

fervent acorn
icy notch
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Or for Drought it could increase at cantrip levels. Like 1d8 damage and -2 healing upt to 4d8/-8.

icy notch
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My issue with Fossilize is it can't be fixed for many levels. So if you face a 1 CR Apprentice Wizard or Druid Pup with it they can remove a PC from the game relatively easily. No Cure Wounds or healer's kit is going to fix it.

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Firefly's Lament "A space" is not a defined unit of measure. AoE, damage and blinded, a really good condition? Too much. I'm ambivalent about the scoutflies. It's feels tangential when the other Skill boost cantrips are single use, and the damage effect is so potent. I think this is too much. Even if you dropped the damage from Phosphor Flash it would still be riding a bit high in power for a cantrip, imo.

Corrosion Oxidize is going to really depend on how magic items work in your world. I wouldn't allow it to work on them. I always hesitate to add in item HP as too common a tool. Also I never get why the armor heals itself after the acid damage. If I was using durability I'd allow this. Without it, I probably wouldn't. YMMV.

icy notch
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Shed Antlers So I don't think I've ever been more curious about what a spell does than right now. You don't pull the Implement from your head? Unusable! I'm not sure about the magical attack and damage bonus on upcast. How's Shillelagh do it?

Wave Crash No bonus action damage cantrips. Any bonus action cantrip that deals in damage modifiers your action. It doesn't modify your movement. See Shillelagh or Magic Stone. Also I see no wave or crashing really in here.

Quake Again, damage without action is too strong for a cantrip, imo. Tremor sense as a whole cantrip would be pushing it, but I could see it as it's concentration.

Fangs An cheaper Goodberry? No thank you. Though we may have different definitions of "inedible". Apparently we aren't the only ones to differ it seems. In the interest of clarity I think I'd remove the word "inedible substance" and stick with the rest of your description. Which is a little better.
Man, I want to bite someone with these, not make a strange beartrap. That should be 1d6 at most since it's an AoE on a cantrip.

icy notch
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Howl Compared to other cantrips it blends two of them. So that's an issue, unless you're reworking all cantrips. Rattle sounds like it should be psychic. You have 1d8 in the explanation and the appropriate 1d6's in the At Higher Levels.

Awaken Instincts This is like a free Disengage. Quarry feels like a leveled spell for the potential damage. What Dominate Monster is 6th level? I'd say this is 3rdish because it has no limits on the creature type, and if it was just beasts or humanoids then it would be 2nd....AS A BONUS ACTION???

Claws ...I mean Primal Savagery. Burrow is still a big deal. What's with the casting time of an attack?

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I get the reasoning behind making these dual use cantrips, but I think they raise the power of casters significantly and I'd be worried about the balance of this and non-casters for utility moments.

tropic hill
icy notch
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I like the concept, and it feels like it could be a cantrip, but the execution is strong.

tropic hill
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I am consolidating some existing cantrips into these, too, I'd like to try and pair them all up sometime - I know the overlap with Primal Savagery and Message and whatnot exists, but I still think the execution is different enough to have them exist simultaneously. I was toying around with merging Message and Mind Sliver, for instance, as a more subtle way to go about stuff, if i ever get to taking on the whole suite of cantrips

icy notch
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I can see that with Message and Howl, especially if some are Wizard and some are Druid, but Primal Savagery is kind of weak compared to this, at least if you have Extra Attack.

primal delta
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I get shig but primal savagery has always been a feels bad for me

tropic hill
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I know bonus actions that deal damage usually require an action as well - that's a totally valid concern, and that's why I tried to make all of these both very situational and slapped concentration on there. Not because it'd matter very much if you lost concentration - it's only a cantrip and a bonus action one at that, you can just do it again - but to prevent you from concentrating on anything else, something that will make it unappealing in the hands of most casters. I understand that the damage being very situational makes them a bit swingy when it comes to balancing around them, and stuff like Awaken Instincts' d12 is particularly scary...

But also, all Awaken Instincts really does is let you encourage it to attack one of your own allies within its range, and if it does, it doesn't take d12 damage. Most things that would waste their turn by making a melee attack don't want to have enemies within their melee reach, or they'd have a good enough Intelligence score to more easily avoid the saving throw. I understand it breaks a lot of design convention - that's kind of the goal for this suite of cantrips - I'm just looking for a way to do that without significantly upsetting the balance, and i do think the sanity checks are helping with that!

Thanks for all the back-and-forth, it's super helpful and motivating to get a fresh perspective

icy notch
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So you pick which ally the monster attacks? That sounds like a problem waiting to happen.

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I appreciate the back and forth too.

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The damage with bonus action makes it really strong in those early levels where you don't always have a spell to concentrate on, and druids are kind of front line, especially at those levels.

fervent acorn
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Also kinda wondering if we could get a doc at some point for some of this stuff? Being able to have a personal read of the class stuff could help us pick up on any irregularities or mistakes.

tropic hill
# icy notch So you pick which ally the monster attacks? That sounds like a problem waiting ...

I don't speak for everyone, of course, but getting to stay in the frontlines and take attacks is my favorite part of being a martial (i know casters are better at it for some reason 😔). I'd very much appreciate an ally using a little bonus action nudge to keep that creature on me, or suffer doubly for choosing another target. That's why I felt comfortable giving it a d12, because it felt so easy to avoid

icy notch
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Yeah, but it's the choosing who they attack. Sometimes it's fine, but if someone goes down and it's not the "monster" that chooses but you, can lead to a real table issue.

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Even if they go down later it can lead to some bad feelings at the table.

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Also if you choose a creature that they can't actually get to it feels like a bit of a cheap shot to balance the increased damage around.

tropic hill
tropic hill
icy notch
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That's better, or that moving towards it as much as possible lets them ignore the damage.

icy notch
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I wonder about it being more of a buff than a debuff.

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There's maybe a way to do it where you're "suggesting" an enemy makes a melee attack, or at least goes through the motion of trying to, but don't designate a target or force that attack to avoid cheese.

tropic hill
# icy notch My issue with *Fossilize* is it can't be fixed for many levels. So if you face ...

I understand that Fossilize is too disruptive in the hands of NPCs. I thought making it reversible by remove curse would make it okay, since revivify also comes online at 3rd level, but you'd still be skipping the death saving throws... might be able to fix that by specifying a creature that makes death saving throws isn't affected, but this cantrip might be much too lofty a dream overall.
I'd better just change the first effect to be explicitly usable on dead creatures, and have the second be much less swingy/debilitating, maybe just creating a rock in your hand and throwing it at people by petrifying the air, maybe it confers disadvantage on concentration saving throws on hit as it partally petrifies... iunno, I want to add secondary effects to all of these. I'll go back to the drawing board with it

tropic hill
fervent acorn
tropic hill
# icy notch *Firefly's Lament* "A space" is not a defined unit of measure. AoE, damage and ...

I'm not sure I understand what you mean in regards to Scoutflies. Guidance and Charm are the other skill boost cantrips, right? I'd rather have a wider assortment of consistent buffs for particular skills than catch-all general ones like Guidance or Charm, especially in dual-purpose cantrips like these.

For Phospor Flash, it's not intended to be aoe, at least not the harmful effect - it's meant to target a single 5ft-by-5ft space much like the '14 chill touch does, but I later changed the wording away from inside a creature's space to also allow you to use it as a signal flare. I know blinding is debilitating, but hence I tried again to make it situational through the bright light disadvantage, very hard-to-land save and the relatively lower damage

Oxidize I'll specify doesn't work on magic items either, I don't know why I thought of artifacts but not that. It's intended as something to help you and your allies get through prison bars or a wall or something. And yeah, the AC reduction being temporary is mostly to stop it from stacking, but I might just choose to reduce the damage to 1d4 and then have it stack 1-at-a-time until repaired (normal armor) or recovered (natural armor) like with those rust ooze thingies. I think an 1 AC reduction is impactful across every tier anyway because of bounded accuracy and whatnot

icy notch
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Yes, Guidance and Friends. I don't mind that.

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I don't think WotC balances around which save. I think it's always the thematic one.

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The language about that space was unclear.

tropic hill
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Yeah, I can definitely read it interpreting it as affecting the whole area 🙂‍↕️

icy notch
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-1 AC is impactful, but it's a lot more impactful to PC's than enemies when it's a lingering issue. You need to make sure you have repair options, especially outside Mending so you're just finding another way to boost casters past martials.

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I personally don't like item damage unless I choose it with something like a Rust Monster, or I'm running something more survival like Dark Sun.

tropic hill
# icy notch *Shed Antlers* So I don't think I've ever been more curious about what a spell d...

Shed Antlers' flavor text is a bit all over the place, yes. It was initially meant to be like, extracting metal from your own blood, I did the "it appears in your hand" as like a, mechanical explanation of where you create the item, and then I was wondering what in the fuck metal was doing in my wild compendium so I changed it to the skin-hardening thing and then later thought the antler would be a cool name for it and...well, I'll try to tie the flavor together better. The names need a lot of work across the cantrips anyway, most of them are just placeholders I never bothered to fix.

Shillelagh doesn't scale, but it's placed on an existing weapon so you can get your hands on a magical one as you ascend through the tiers. Also lets you use your spellcasting mod and doesn't take concentration, I think these can be distinct enough. It's also a bonus action damage cantrip because of the caltrops 😔

Wave Crash needs a rename too. Pressure Flow might be the laziest I could possibly do there, I need to sit down and give these proper names. I hoped this would be okay as a bonus action damage cantrip similarly because even if the condition is much easier to fulfill (still risk getting AOO'd and losing conc) the damage was the lowest I could get away with.

For Quake I'll double-specify that the tremorsense only works on moving objects/creatures and not on still objects/terrain. Again for Fracture I thought it'd be okay if it were conditional, but it might be a bit too synergistic with something like Windshear which let you knock people on difficult terrain prone as a subsequent action. Wanted to create synergy with martials shoving others within range, not with themselves 😔 I think the range is a bit too high anyway, it's also making difficult terrain on top of everything (including for yourself but i'm still going to reduce that to 5ft)

Fangs isn't intended to let you eat like, literally anything, but I'll remove the normally inedible substance to make that super clear - the food needs to be suitable were it not poisoned or rotten, or something. Will workshop it!

Might just have the 10-ft-cone be an actual bear trap and have this be like, a single-target big bite melee attack that might, give you some hp up to a certain low amount if yours isn't already higher

icy notch
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Iirc Shillelagh'24 scales, but that depends on what version you're running.

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Inedible is mostly the right word, but it also gets used for things that you just could never eat, so it ends up confusing.

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I'd say temp HP. HP on a cantrip needs serious limitations and probably no alt usages.

tropic hill
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Yeah, itd be like, you can only use it to heal up to a very low % of your health. As in you don't get any health at all if your own health is already higher. Temp hp is probably better and more straightforward 🙂‍↕️

icy notch
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The only healing cantrip I've seen that I'd consider is one that uses your HD to heal without the Con bonus.

tropic hill
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i've spent the past few days revisiting the cantrips and the balance around them. i've not actually updated the cantrips yet but i've been doing a lot of writing and analysis about existing cantrips, but i'm doing it in a bit of a vacuum, so i am going to dump some of my thoughts here

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mostly looking into design conventions, why they are there, and if they can be broken

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this has sapped most of my creative energy and i'm mostly just excited to get back to thinking of new things but it's good to have a baseline

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most of my time was spent combing through the MM and figuring out which monsters resist what saving throws at which CR, trying to take note of trends and whatnot, taking into account why going through every single MM entry individually might be flawed and not represent actual play

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i ended up finding figures by... it was hard to track down the exact person but i think it's form of dread? which seemed to roughly correspond to my own findings. monsters are expected to 60% fail for Wis and Dex, 65% fail for Cha, 70% fail for Int, 50% fail for Str and 55% fail for Con

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that's the average overall. at lower CRs, most creatures have lower strength and relatively higher dexterity - mostly because they're just little guys. very few have saving throw proficiencies, so their saves are mostly based purely on their attributes

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then at higher CRs the inverse is true. everything is a giant that has a wealth of strength and constitution, while dexterity is often in the negatives, offset only by high-pb saving throw proficiencies

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sooo that's kind of annoying to balance around. can hardly change save type as you gain levels. maybe strength save cantrips can scale more aggressively than others

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giving guaranteed-damage cantrips a thought too. did the math and average damage-wise 1d10 should become 1d8 if it still deals half damage on a failed save. 2d4 to avoid rounding down frustration, probably with some more drawbacks. damage riders exist but they're usually on attack rolls, shit like cleric 8's potent spellcasting will just get halved along with the other damage. blessed strikes might not but clerics are also the guys who get spiritual weapon

know that's sort of an evocation wizard feature - empowered cantrips - but they still get to pull it off with the higher-damage ones

tropic hill
# tropic hill i ended up finding figures by... it was hard to track down the exact person but ...

also important to note that it's generally super easy to predict what a creature's strong and weak saves will be. spellcasters and aberrations have good int, extraplanar outsiders have good charisma, undead have shit charisma, the bigger they are the better their con/str and worse their dex, and the inverse is true for smaller. beasts are dumb. humanoids are all around average.

so you could simply choose not to use cantrips with a certain saving throw against a creature you suspect will be very strong against it, which brings me to the opportunity cost i've been thinking a lot about. i'm still not sure I even understand what the term means

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so... cantrips, right? you get very few, so you need to choose carefully. you have 5 at level 20 as a full-caster, and you need to give up your fighting style as most half-casters (except artificer). most wizards will take some variety of fire bolt, toll the dead and prestigiditation, safe if a bit boring options

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especially when compared to spells, which you get many, many more of across your adventuring career, especially as a prepared caster

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and a spell that sits unused really isn't as big of a waste as a cantrip that sits unused - "leveled spells should be more powerful!", sure, because they consume spell slots, but you're not spending any spell slots on a spell you're not casting

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that's why i think it's okay for cantrips to be more powerful than leveled spells, even in tier 1, in specific niche situations, and also why i think cantrips should get that niche use on top of a more general combat use

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also about cantrip aoes. word of radiance, sword burst and thunderclap suck so bad. in a white room situation where you're surrounded by like 8 mephits digging into you it far outdamages every other cantrip, sure, but the odds of you being in that situation and not already being dead is going to be very small.

balance math stupidly assumes that everything that could hit two or more targets will deal its full damage to at least two. that might be true for long-range, large-area, choose-your-point spells like Fireball that can be precisely placed to affect as many enemies as possible without harming yourself or your allies (even though Fireball does NOT follow that balance math in its damage, lol, that girl needs to be 5th level), but it's absolutely not true for tiny aoes originating from yourself that require you to run into the threaten range of monsters (and often take opportunity attacks respositioning yourself optimally).

i think it's ok to increase the area or damage for that reason.

tropic hill
# tropic hill that's why i think it's okay for cantrips to be more powerful than leveled spell...

biggest example for this for me is guidance as opposed to borrowed knowledge and enhance ability, both 2nd-level. in most situation if you have the action to cast enhance ability you might as well use the help action and grant advantage without cost, and that advantage doesn't stack. borrowed knowledge is almost pointless, the person in the party with proficiency will generally already be the one making the check. guidance is infamously good for a cantrip, but universally so - i only want to make ones that have niche, clearly laid-out effects in specific situations

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i don't like prestigiditation, druidcraft or thaumaturgy (especially prestigiditation). it's trying so hard to make itself useful because it has to compete against combat cantrips within limited choices, and in doing so these cantrips become so incredibly broad that they just allow the caster to trivialize a ton of things. they're also very "mother may I"-style DM dependent, as the effects are not clearly laid out, potentially resulting in frustration between the player and the DM when expectations don't align. i want to provide clear mechanical benefits for the social or exploration pillar for the non-combat aspect of these dual-purpose cantrips

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finally, action cantrips scale to somewhat keep up with a fighter's extra attack. bonus action damaging cantrips should scale much slower, if at all

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not finally at all. i don't know why i said that

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most full-casters will happily spam bonus action cantrips every turn if they get a chance to - they don't have very many other consistent bonus action options, or those lock them out of spellcasting as an action (eg. misty step). this means that bonus action cantrips need a higiher cost to avoid just becoming free action economy for the already-overtuned full casters

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that's why i keep settling on concentration, even if they're not particularly powerful effects. that locks full casters out of concentrating on more powerful spells. it also makes the bonus action damage more conditional.

at lower levels, they only have very few spell slots, which means that the high-value-for-a-spell-slot long-lasting effects of concentration spells become all the more valuable to them.

at higher levels they'll have a very big suite of powerful concentration spells and not being able to use those is a big cost to pay

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it should make it better in the hands of half-casters and martials who pick it up through feats, fighting styles or races, and worse in the hands of full-casters who have better things to spend their cocnentration on

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i know i'm breaking a lot of design conventions, but i feel like this is the best way to do so responsibly

icy notch
tired gorge
# tropic hill # Lycanthropic Curses

in "early stages" it says "Ffter" instead of "After"

I'm surprised that when the curse first awakens, having people near you makes it easier to resist rather than harder. I'd expect the beast within would smell the presence of potential food nearby and grow stronger rather than weaker. I could see the idea of you having a stronger desire to resist it because you don't want friends to be hurt, but I feel like the opposite is both more realistic and more "classic". The ol "chain yourself up alone in an abandoned cottage" strat

icy notch
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# tropic hill that's why i keep settling on concentration, even if they're not particularly po...

I think there's more nuance here that you're suggesting. At lower levels that concentration cantrip could easily be active for half your encounters or more, really swinging the balance towards them over an action one.

At high levels you may never use them meaning they've become obsolete, which I think is also against your goals here.

I don't mind them being better in the half-or-less casters, but consideration has to be made for how that changes those classes compared to one who doesn't take them. Eg: Does that empower the EK to a point where it's far beyond other Martial Archetypes?

icy notch
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As a different view, and something that sometimes gets missed, I see cantrips as starter spells. A place to introduce mechanics and starting school spells, so Guidance is a (slightly) early Bless, or Bladeward is an early Mage Armor (It doesn't always work great!) I'd like to see that played into more, (and while we're wishing) see more unified mechanics for spell schools.

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For example Claw, Fangs and Howl play into this a bit with Druids and their wildshape.

tropic hill
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i'll revisit cantrips soon, a lot of useful feedback to get through 🙂‍↕️ just felt inspired by the april fools event and wanted to dump a quick concept for a spider race

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Spider People

Venom Glands. When you deal piercing damage, or deal damage with an unarmed strike, you can choose to convert all of that damage into poison damage and deal 1 additional piercing damage. You can only use this feature once per instance of damage.

You learn the Mending cantrip, weaving or secreting silk to patch or bind. You don’t need to provide material components for the spell.

You have a climbing speed of 20ft.

Subrace: Venomfang

Versatile Venom. Whenever you deal poison damage, you can choose to convert that poison damage into acid or necrotic damage instead, including that of the Venom Glands feature.

Potent Venom. When you deal poison, acid or necrotic damage to a creature, you can impose one of the following effects on it based on the damage type:
Poison: The creature must succeed on a DC 8 + PB + con Constitution saving throw or be Poisoned until the start of your next turn.
Necrotic: The creature cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn.
Acid: The creature’s speed is lowered by 10ft until the start of your next turn.
You can use this feature an amount of times equal to your proficiency bonus, after which you need to complete a long rest to use it again.

Resilience. You gain resistance to poison damage, and have advantage on saving throws made to resist the poisoned condition.

Subrace: Weaver

You gain the ability to cast the following spells innately, using your Constitution modifier as spellcasting ability modifier:
1st level: Alarm (1/long rest)
3rd level: Snare (1/long rest)
5th level: Web (1/long rest)
You can’t use spell slots to cast these spells unless you also learn them through your class.

You produce 10ft of silken rope per day, storing it in an internal reservoir that holds an amount of foot equal to 10 * your character level. As an action, you can extract any length amount of silken rope from your reservoir.

Web Walker. You’re not slowed down or restrained by webs, and you know the exact location of any creature in contact with a web or silken rope you are also in contact with.

Subrace: Crawler

Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed towards a creature you can see. You must end this move closer to the target than you started.

Spider Climb. You gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. You can move along surfaces, including up and down on walls and ceilings, while leaving your hands free. You don’t need to make an ability check in this way.

Ambusher. Whenever you roll for initiative, you can roll an 1d4 and add it to the check.

Subrace: Broodmother

Egg Sac. You can cast Find Familiar as a bonus action, choosing the Spider as a form, except that the duration is 1 hour and it takes concentration. You can do so an amount of types equal to your proficiency bonus, after which you need to complete a long rest to do so again.

Powerful Build. You count as one size larger for the purposes of your carry capacity and the weight you can drag, pull, and lift.

Social Spider. You have the ability to communicate in a limited manner with Beasts and creatures with the Web Walker trait. They can understand the meaning of your words, though you have no special ability to understand them in return. You have advantage on all Charisma checks you make to influence them.

Subrace: Delver

Burrow. As a bonus action, you can dig into soft earth, sand or snow at your current location. While burrowed in this way, you can’t move, you have half cover, advantage on Stealth checks, and you can make an opportunity attack against any creature that enters your melee reach. You also gain tremorsense out to 10 feet, which you can only use to detect creatures and moving objects.

You remain burrowed until you use a bonus action to surface or you are forcibly moved.

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vague concepts/ideas. tried to use ovion's DB but not sure if I did it right, delver was especially difficult. think im underselling venom glands

OD DB
Spiderpeople:
uASI +12
Cantrip +2
Darkvision 60ft +3
20ft climb speed +1
Convert piercing/unarmed to poison & one piercing +2
TOTAL 20

Crawler
Aggressive +3
Ambusher +4 (+1d4 to initiative ~= advantage on a common roll?)
Spider Climb +3 (-1; anti synergistic with base race climbing speed)
TOTAL 10 + 20 = 30

Venomfang
Versatile Venom +2 (change damage between poison, acid and necrotic, situationally useful)
Potent Venom +2? (closest to additional die of poison damage on save? attach cantrip-like effects, limited pb/lr)
Resistant +5 (Resistance to poison damage and advantage on saves vs poisoned)
TOTAL 9 + 20 = 29

Broodmother
Social Spider +2 (Speak with beasts & web walkers, but can’t understand in return)
Egg Sac +6? (find familiar pb/lr as a bonus action, but conc, only spider, and lasts 1 minute)
Powerful Build +2
Total 10 + 20 = 30

Weaver
Snare, Web +5 (Standard Delayed Magic w/o Cantrip.)
Alarm +3 (L1 spell 1/day)
Web Walker +1 (ribbon)
Silken rope production +1 (ribbon)
Total 10 + 20 = 30

Delver (eugh no clue how to rank???)
Burrowing as bonus action in sand, soil, snow. Not burrow speed, only “rooting” yourself, losing movement.
Half cover when burrowed +3 (frequently useful or powerful feature, limited)
Opportunity attack entering reach when burrowed +3 (frequently useful or powerful feature, limited)
Stealth adv when burrowed +2 (adv on situational roll)
Moving-only tremorsense 10ft when burrowed +2 (short range blindsight. still potent for melee attacks in spite of limitations)
Total 10 + 20 = 30

kind meteor
tropic hill
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yeah the trait is pretty cheap so i think i can give it to them all. i was maybe overvaluing it