Artificer: Gadgeteer Specialist

While most artificers dedicate themselves to perfecting a particular invention or skill, Gadgeteers believe that it is better to be prepared for any situation than it is to be the master at a select few. As such, Gadgeteers pride themselves in having any number of tools to get out of whatever situation they find themselves in– and if they don’t have a solution, they’ll remember that failure and overcome it in the future.

Tools of the Trade

When you adopt this specialisation at 3rd level, your proficiency bonus is now doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with tinker’s tools. When you reach level 6 in this class, your proficiency bonus is tripled instead. In addition, you gain proficiency with one other type of artisan's tools of your choice.

Gadgeteer Spells

Starting at 3rd level, you always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular levels in this class, as shown in the Gadgeteer Spells table. These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don’t count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.

Gadgeteer Spells

Artificer Level 3: Identify, Unseen Servant

Artificer Level 5: Heat Metal, Wristpocket

Artificer Level 9: Conjure Barrage, Tiny Servant

Artificer Level 13: Secret Chest, Summon Construct

Artificer Level 17: Animate Objects, Arcane Hand

Gadgetry

Beginning at 3rd level, your tinkering has given you the knowledge, magic, and confidence to put your designs through the prototype phase, charging them with magic and using yourself or one of your allies as a test subject. 

You learn to craft three kinds of Gadgets, chosen from the list provided below. You learn how to craft one additional Gadget from the list when you reach levels 5 and 9. Making a Gadget does not require resources beyond scraps of metal worth at least 2 copper, unless otherwise specified.

You can create a number of Gadgets equal to your Intelligence Modifier (minimum of 1 Gadget). If a Gadget specifies that it becomes unusable after it is used, it counts as usable scrap to remake the device or make a new one. Devices can be made or taken apart and replaced during a long rest.

Gadgets: 

Blinder: This Gadget fits in one hand, and can be thrown to a point within 30 feet of you as an action. Any creatures within 5 feet of the chosen point must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC or be Blinded for one minute. At the end of each of its turns, affected creatures may make a Constitution saving throw against the same DC, ending this effect on a successful save. Once used, the Gadget becomes unusable and must be remade.

Breather: This Gadget covers the wearer’s mouth and nose. When activated, it increases the amount of time a creature can hold its breath underwater by up to 5 minutes. After this time is used up, the Gadget becomes unusable and must be remade.

Collapsible Item: To craft this Gadget, you require the normal scrap as well as a shield or weapon you want to make collapsable. Weapons with the Heavy property and any weapons that are magically indestructible cannot be used in this way. If this Gadget is replaced with another, you lose the shield or weapon used to craft it. You modify your shield or weapon to collapse in on itself, rendering it unusable but reducing its size to as small as one quarter of its original size. As a bonus action, you may collapse or extend this item to its original state. If the item gains a magical property, it can still be used while the item is collapsed, so long as it does not require the item be used to activate.

Flare: This Gadget fits in one hand, and can be thrown to a point within 30 feet of you as an action. Once the Gadget is thrown, it creates a bright light with a 20-foot-radius centred on itself, and dim light for 20 feet beyond that. This light lasts up to 1 minute, unless it is extinguished by water or smothered. Once used, the Gadget becomes unusable and must be remade.

Fog Bomb: This Gadget fits in one hand, and can be thrown to a point within 30 feet of you as an action. Once the Gadget is thrown, it creates a 15-foot-radius sphere of fog centred on itself. The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. It lasts for 5 rounds, or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it. Once used, the Gadget becomes unusable and must be remade.

Grapple Launcher: To craft this Gadget, you require the normal scrap as well as 50 feet of rope and a bow or crossbow of some kind, as well as one piece of ammunition appropriate for the weapon. You modify your weapon to launch a projectile with a thin, strong rope attached to it, with the other end of the rope attached to a winch that will retract the rope with a push of a button. As an action, you may launch the projectile at any surface, creature, or object within 45 feet of you. The bolt will catch in most surfaces, but solid metal, especially hard stone, or similarly dense surfaces have a 50% chance of failing to catch. This Gadget can still be used as a regular weapon if desired. When the ammunition catches in a surface, you can have it pull you up to 10 feet towards the chosen surface, or pull a creature or object sized Large or smaller up to 10 feet towards you. You can remove the attached projectile as a bonus action after being pulled the full length of the rope, or continue to hang from it at any point. While you are hanging off the ground or being pulled by this Gadget, your speed is reduced to 0. If you use a flying speed or are still on the ground, you can still move. You can choose to drop this gadget at any time on your turn (no action required). If you are hanging for more than a single turn, at the end of each subsequent turn, you must succeed a DC 8 Strength saving throw or lose your grip. Also, whenever you take damage while you are hanging, you must make a Constitution saving throw to keep your grip. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. This Device only works half as well if it lifts more than 1 medium, 2 small, or 8 tiny creatures at a time, and it outright fails to support more than 1 large, 2 medium, 3 small, or 14 tiny creatures.

Personal Glider: To craft this Gadget, you require the normal scrap as well as at least five square feet of fabric. This Gadget is worn on the back, and contains two wings, usually folded up. Each wing extends 5 feet to either side of you when the Gadget is activated. When you are falling and are not incapacitated, you can spend your action to activate this Gadget. You take no damage from the fall, and you can move up to 3 feet in any horizontal direction for every 1 foot you fall, at a speed of 60 feet per round. If you are subjected to a strong wind at an upward angle or a similar effect, you can take advantage of it in order to rise in the air by up to five additional feet instead, or at any point during the glide. You must spend both your action and bonus action to collapse the wings again. If you leave the glider extended, you have disadvantage on any dexterity checks and saving throws made, your movement speed decreases by 5 feet, and you can be knocked off your feet if struck by a strong wind, making a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw and falling prone on a failure.

Spring Boots: To craft this Gadget, you require the normal scrap as well as a pair of boots. You modify your boots with powerful spring mechanisms to put a true bounce in your step. While wearing these boots, the user’s walking speed increases by 10 feet, and their jump distance is increased by an additional 10 feet.

Masterful Infuser

At 5th level, your intimate knowledge of simple modifications allows you to more easily utilise your Infusions. You may Infuse one more item than the number shown in the Infused Items column of the Artificer table. In addition, you may end one of your infusions to cast a spell using any slot you would normally have access to, without expending an additional spell slot.

Juryrigger

When you reach 9th level, you’ve become adept at using anything available to you to accomplish nearly anything. You gain proficiency with improvised weapons, and improvised weapons have +1 to hit and deal +1 damage. In addition, you can now create or replace one of your Gadgets or Infusions at the end of a Short rest.

Master of Utility

At 15th level, you are truly a master of your own environment, and are almost impossible to find completely unprepared. As an action, you can activate or deactivate an object that you can see within 30 feet of you with a set function (such as any of your gadgets or mechanical traps). In addition, if a device like this is damaged in some way, you can spend your action to repair it so long as it is within reach of you. 

Unstoppable Creativity

At 15th level, you have perfected your tinkering skills. Any of your Gadgets that specify that they become unusable after being used gain an additional use before failing, and you learn how to craft any of the Gadgets on the Gadget List above. In addition, your infusions last indefinitely after your death, and you gain an additional +1 bonus any attack rolls made using a Gadget or an Infused weapon.

Free PDF available on my Patreon

Druid: Circle of Bones!

Much happier with this revised template and color.

But yes, DRUID CIRCLE OF BONES (PDF here).

Make your beast shape undead, call forth carrion to obey you as undead beast allies, and enjoy the many benefits of existing as a heretical druid balancing on the brink between life and death.

Happy Halloween, darklings...

new poll for the next brew soon.

(And don't forget, Grimdark & Dangerous is 50% off for the month of October and Psionics: Spellcasting & Specialties, my new book that revamps psionic abilities to fit 5e better, is available for purchase!)

Subclasseptember Day 18: Niche

The Politician - Homebrew Rogue Subclass

Why isn't September the 7th month of the year? Whoever designed this calendar ought to be stabbed.

"Niche" as a prompt was designed to encompass weirder subclass options, ones that probably wouldn't work in every campaign. This one, for instance, could do some absurd things in a subterfuge-heavy campaign, but might not fare so well in a dungeon crawl or a wilderness expedition. But I wouldn't be surprised to see people figure out ways to get creative with the prompt.

You see, if you enter into a pact with me, I'll grant you supreme power in exchange for your service. And you can in turn grant others supreme power in exchange for their service, and so on. It's definitely not a pyramid scheme. Don't look it up.

Druidic Circle: Circle of Ruin

I just put out an update to my Circle of Ruin!

Ever wanted to play a stone based druid, or a druidic knight, well here's the subclass for you!

A front-line warrior druid that lets you make stone armour, grants martial weapon proficiencies, and just lets you grapple and pummel your enemies if you really want!

If you grab the PDF from the link above, you also get 'Lady Ethel of Scarwood' a CR6 NPC statblock with lore and tips on how to run in combat!

Every D&D5e player needs to take a listen to this with an open mind.

Here are other links in case you don't want to listen to it through YouTube.

Dmdepression’s Domain of Chaos: The true state of all is chaos unbound!

If you wish to harness chaos as your own feel free to grab the free pdf on my patreon. Link in the reblog.

Cleric: Luck Domain

A cleric of the Luck domain works to alter the fate and fortune of those around them. Grant your allies boons of luck, and hinder your foes with misfortune.

https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NguDHe8gbsCTj2frGni

If you like what I do, consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cassbrews

Remnants of a Stash (Warlock 2/5)

Surprised we didn’t get something like this in Fizban’s, so I made it myself! Draw upon your inner dragon and get a patron that probably won’t wanna eat you.

Otherworldly Patron: The Bound Demon | Let's be honest, 'the fiend' patron is just 'the devil'

PDFs of this and more can be found over on at my Patreon here!

Anyone else dislike how the patron in the core rule book is called "The Fiend" when its totally 100% a devil? I did, but since we're all about sealing things this week, let's be a bit anime about this and bind demons inside of children and grant them unfathomable power. This would be different from a part demon which is more of a sorcerer situation.

This was slightly tricky considering canonically, each demon is different (even though mechanically there's only like 5 of them) and that of the few demons there actually are, they share very few properties. Originally I was going to make this subclass customisable, but considering this is customisation: the class, I chose against that. But considering that the high level demons are: demon lords, which are way too specific, and the balor, goristro, and marilith which are melee beat sticks, I needed to go for a more generic form of the sort of 'power' a demonic entity would give.

Demonic Endurance

A little something from our friend, the draconic sorcerer. A consistent throughline of demons is their resilience, considering they need to survive the abyss, so hit points!

Unnatural Presence

This is fun, I like the idea that animals are more innately aware of demons. I extended this to humanoids because while we may not understand it, we generally can feel something is off. But for extra flavour, there is some demon (literally, not in a my great great great great grandpappy was a demon way) in you therefore you should ping as a demon.

Envenomed Blood

Not an ability demons really have, but I felt like I needed to give more than just poison resistance since immunity to poison is the demons' thing, and devils too for some reason, but I'm just going to ignore them, so make the poison resistance from the fact that the blood is literal poison :)

Magic Resistance

I hesitated in giving a form of magic resistance, because not even the devil patron gives it while definitely having it, and I avoided telepathy for the same reason (and because it's the GOO's thing) but here we are. That said, most enemies still like to beat you to a pulp rather than to use spells even at high levels, so it's not that powerful

Abyssal Transformation

And this is me giving in and giving your the big smash, but trying my best not to invalidate any path but bladelock. But all high level demons are big and smashy, so I give you the big hurt.

And now to plug my stuff. I release homebrews weekly over on my Patreon. Anyone who pledges $1 or more per post don't have to wait a month to see them, and also help fund my being alive habit.

At the moment, they have exclusive access to the following:

It's a Trap!

Judgement Domain

The Greatwyrm Patron

Breaking and Exiting

I also have three classes, and a splatbook over on DriveThrueRPG to check out:

The Rift Binder. A class specialising in summoning monsters and controlling the battlefield.

The Witch Knight. A class that combines swords and sorcery in the most literal way.

The Werebeast. A class that turns you into a half beast to destroy your foes.

d'Artagnan's Adventurer Almanac. A compendium of races, subclasses, feats, spells, monsters and more!

Bard: College of Dubstep

Students of the College of Dubstep have learned to channel the chaotic beat of the universe into powerful and often destructive energies at their command. They are masters of drawing attention to themselves when they want to, and will quite literally blow away any critics.

Dubstep Magic

When you join the College of Dubstep at 3rd level, you learn how to channel the Beat of the universe when spellcasting.

You learn the colour spray, chaos bolt, emboldening performance, and thunderwave spells. These spells count as Bard Spells for you but do not count against the number of spells you can learn.

Dubstep Cannon

Starting at 3rd level, you gain the ability to bolster your spells with blasts of musical energy as a means of harming your enemies.

When you deal damage to a creature with a spell, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to deal an additional 1d8 thunder damage to the affected target. In addition, the creature must succeed a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be pushed 5 feet away from you. You can use this ability only once per round on your turn.

This damage increases as you gain levels in this class, increasing to 2d8 at 5th level, 3d8 10th level, 4d8 at 15th level, and 5d8 at 19th level.

Lingering Beat

Starting at 6th level, you learn to imbue your allies with the lingering rhythm of your music.

Any creatures that you’ve given a Bardic Inspiration die can roll it to add force damage equal to the roll of the die plus your charisma modifier to a successful attack. This does not expend the die, but each die can only be used in this way once.

Powerful Performance

Practice makes perfect, and your heart beats to the same tune as the magic you channel. Once you reach 6th level, when you cast a spell granted to you by your Dubstep Magic feature, you may cast it as though you did so using one slot level above the one you actually used. This feature does not allow you to cast the spell at a slot level higher than what you have access to normally.

Drop the Bass

Starting at 14th level, your mastery of control over the Beat of the universe allows you to deal devastating blows to your enemies.

When you hit a target with an attack or spell, you can choose to channel your Beat into the strike. The target takes an additional 3d8 thunder damage and must succeed a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be Deafened for 1d4 rounds.

You can use this feature twice, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest, or one use when you finish a short rest.

Here's the link to my patreon if you want to see more of my content or want to support me in making it. Also consider joining my discord!

Let's do something a little fun.

Let's run a poll to see what Halloween homebrew I write.

Poll runs for 1 day only, so reblog for a bigger sample size.

All brews from this poll will be free and posted to the blog.

I wanted to get to all of these this month but I get the feeling I won't have the time. So, vote for the one that sounds most interesting on name alone.

Subclasseptember Day 16: Weather

The Circle of Ruins - Homebrew Druid Subclass

Given their association with structures like Stonehenge, I'm surprised that this isn't already a thing.

Explicitly designed to be a tanky caster (unlike some subclasses *cough bladesinger cough*), with ways to help maintain concentration and further play into the delayed value that the Druid class already encourages. You broke my concentration on Call Lightning? Good thing I had a Moonbeam cooking that entire time. It also plays into some novel weaknesses, though - you're durable, but mobility is not exactly your strong suit. Endure as the ruins do.

Here’s a subclass all about being funny little fella. Just a goofy little dude. Hope you enjoy!

[PDF]