Evaluating the Villainous Subclasses from the Dungeon Master's Guide

 One of the exciting things that come with new rules-expansion books like Xanathar's or Tasha's or with campaign setting books like Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica or Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is that we get new subclasses (technically Eberron: Rising from the Last War did bring three new subclasses, though they were for a new class.)

Recently, Tasha's consolidated many of these by publishing the entire Artificer class and the various subclasses from Ravnica, Theros, and a couple from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (though not all - some of those were reprinted in Xanathar's, and some didn't really warrant reprinting) in a setting-agnostic book. (Sadly we didn't get Exandria/Wildemount's Chronurgist, Graviturgist, or Echo Knight, which are all cool).

But one thing that is easy to forget is that even when 5th Edition was just its core three books, there were subclasses that were not found in the Player's Handbook. These options, the Death Domain Cleric and the Oathbreaker Paladin, are designed for villainous NPCs.

Now, I don't know about other DMs, but I tend to prefer to use or make simpler stat blocks over making a full character sheet for NPCs, even villains. Player characters are complex because the assumption is that the player is focusing their entire attention on piloting that one character. DMs need to run a whole bunch of different monsters. I think that's why, in recent adventures and books, we've seen spellcaster monsters given innate spellcasting with a handful of spells instead of a huge array of spells with different spell slots. It's just a lot easier to run that way.

So, building out an entire PC-like NPC with these subclasses is maybe a little much, and so I don't really imagine most people are going to use these subclasses for their initial purpose.

But, they are also fully functional (well, we'll get to that) subclasses for existing classes. Why not just let players try them out. After all, a player character can be of an evil alignment. Why not let them be a paladin who has forsaken their oath or a cleric devoted to a god of death?

I also like to play with shades of grey - what if the paladin had previously had an Oath of Conquest? Might they have broken their oath not because of a fall to evil, but a desire to break with a corrupt order? I recognize that Oathbreakers are meant to be more the bad kind of oathbreaking, and that Oath of Redemption might be a better fit for such a character. Still, I kind of like to play in an environment in which necromancy and such is not inherently evil - it's just how you use it.

So, if we want to make these subclasses playable, let's actually evaluate how they stack up.

Death Domain Clerics:

First off, domain spells. Death domain gets false life, ray of sickness, blindness/deafness, ray of enfeeblement, animate dead, vampiric touch, blight, death ward, antiflife shell, and cloudkill. I don't know that I'd say any of these is game-breakingly amazing. Clerics already have a fantastic spell list. Animate dead is certainly flavorful, and blight is a nice high-damage spell.

Next, death clerics get proficiency in martial weapons. Notably, they don't also get heavy armor, so you might be better served going with a dex-based weapon and not worry too much about getting high strength.

Then, we get the big level 1 bonus: Reaper. You learn one additional cantrip from the necromancy school (Toll the Dead's probably a good option) and if you cast a necromancy cantrip that targets only one creature, you can have it target two creatures if they're within 5 feet of each other. Consider also that Spare the Dying is a necromancy cantrip, and you can use this to stabilize two allies who are unconscious at a time (if they're next to one another.)

Level 2, death clerics get their special channel divinity option, which is Touch of Death. When you hit a creature with a melee attack (weapon or spell) you can use this to deal necrotic damage equal to 5 + twice your Cleric level (so 7 at level 2, and 45 at level 20.) This is a pretty huge boost to damage.

At level 6, your necrotic damage (which is kind of a theme here) from spells and the aforementioned channel divinity ignores resistance. Necrotic resistance isn't super common, but this is certainly not a bad thing to have, if a bit limited in scope.

At level 8, your divine strike bonus deals necrotic damage, unsurprisingly. Weirdly, the previous feature doesn't seem to cause this damage to ignore resistance. As usual, you get 1d8 extra damage per turn, and it upgrades to 2d8 at level 14.

Finally, at level 17, you get improved Reaper, which works the same but now counts for necromancy spells of 1-5th level as well. It will still consume material components for each target, but it's just one spell slot and one casting time. Note here that resurrection magic tends to be necromancy - meaning if two of your allies go down in a fight and they're next to one another, you could get both back up in a single turn. Likewise, you could blight two enemies standing next to one another.

The Death Cleric certainly feels focused on damage-dealing. I think that the Inescapable Destruction (ignoring resistance) feature is a little light, but Reaper and Improved Reaper have a ton of potency.

Now, let's look at the Oathbreaker.

At level 3, we'll start with oath spells. Oathbreakers get hellish rebuke, inflict wounds, crown of madness, darkness, animate dead, bestow curse, blight, confusion, contagion, and dominate person. I think Hellish Rebuke here is pretty cool. Inflict wounds is a bit odd because, as a paladin, you'd probably rather just hit them with a weapon instead of doing a melee spell attack.

You also get your two channel divinity options. The first is Control Undead. You can force an undead creature with a CR lower than your level to make a wisdom save, and if they fail, they have to follow your commands for 24 hours (or until you use this again.) This is actually pretty freaking cool - it's a concentration-free dominate monster (that admittedly only works on lower-CR undead.) Enlisting a vampire spawn to fight for you is pretty good. But even better is that you could send one to spy on their master for you. Hell, you could have one open up all the curtains in the castle right before sunrise!

The other Channel Divinity option is Dreadful Aspect. This causes all creatures within 30 feet of you that you choose to have to make a Wisdom save or be frightened for 1 minute, and they only get to repeat the save once they get more than 30 feet away from you. This is a pretty powerful effect as well.

At level 7, you get Aura of Hate. And this one gets a little tricky. You and any fiends or undead within 10 feet (30 feet at level 18) gain a bonus to melee weapon damage rolls equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1.) (And the bonus doesn't overlap with other Oathbreakers.) On one hand, this is actually huge - if my Vengeance Paladin had this, she'd get a total bonus of +10 to every hit between strength, her +2 weapon, and her +3 charisma. However, it says that all fiends or undead get this - meaning that if you're fighting fiends or undead, you're actually enhancing their ability to hurt you. I think if this were designed for players, there'd be something like an "allied fiends and undead" qualifier. And, certainly, if you use Animate Dead or that Control Undead ability, this will help it. On its own, though, it's a fantastic bonus to the paladin him or herself.

At level 15, they get Supernatural Resistance, which gives you resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. There are actually many monsters that do not have magic weapons, so this is a pretty huge bonus.

Finally, at level 20, you get Dread Lord. Once per long rest as an action, you can power yourself up for 1 minute with an aura of gloom. Any bright light within 30 feet becomes dim light. And if an enemy that is frightened by the paladin starts its turn in the aura, its takes 4d10 psychic damage (remember Dreadful Aspect?) In addition, the paladin and any creatures they choose are in darker shadow, so creatures who rely on sight get disadvantage on attacks against them. But wait, that's not all: on your turn while this is up, you can use a bonus action to attack a creature with the shadows. You make a melee spell attack against the target (if it's in the aura,) dealing 3d10 + your charisma modifier necrotic damage to them.

So, actually, yeah, the Oathbreaker has some really powerful features. Aura of Hate is amazing as long as you're not fighting fiends or undead, where it can potentially become more of a liability.

One thing I'll note is that when it comes to Clerics and Paladins, these are two classes that are very strong in general, relying less on subclasses for their power (I think the Ranger is the exact opposite - baseline they're kind of blah but then you get things like Gloomstalkers and suddenly you can see the appeal.) For what they bring to the class, I think the Oathbreaker is the more dramatically cool one. Death clerics primarily benefit from the power of Reaper and Improved Reaper, but you're a cleric, so you'll be fine.

9.1 First Impressions

 I hadn't played WoW for about 3 months before today. I say this even though 9.0 was an excellent opening patch to an expansion. It's just that, since Shadowlands' launch in November, we've waited this long for the first (of what I hope is the normal number) update due to, well, the plague really gumming up the works.

That delay was understandable, but it also meant that I was burned out on what we had and didn't want to feel totally burned out by the expansion. So I took a break and focused my gaming nerdiness on D&D and, recently, a return to MTGA (I'll confess I'm a sucker for the Forgotten Realms crossover and splurged on the pre-order 50 packs).

But with 9.1, we've finally got new stuff to do.

And boy is there a lot to do in the first day. I spent several hours entirely on my main today just playing through the initially available quests. These center primarily on a battle in Ardenweald and the discovery of Korthia (with one annoying bug that forced me to repeat a quest, though thankfully it worked the second time.)

The patch also did what I always find exciting when we're in a new and different environment - it tied things back to the familiar bits of WoW lore. In some ways, Shadowlands has felt a little similar to Mists of Pandaria, in which we traveled to a very different place where the history and specifically the conflicts in that history seemed all-new. But just as Mists eventually revealed its connection to the Titans and the Old Gods, we're seeing some familiar faces (and not just dead people) in the story here.

Let's go into spoiler territory.

Worldbuilding vs. Storybuilding in D&D

 I have a confession:

I love worldbuilding.

I get a rush when I figure out a region of my world, when I draw a map and I start filling in place names on that map. When I write the history of the countries in that world, the profound, mythological history of it. My homebrew world for D&D has effectively undergone three separate apocalyptic events, and that's not even counting the massive wars waged against the Angel of Death that happened at the start of the technologically advanced civilization whose apocalyptic fall led to a thousand-year period known as the "Reign of Madness" before any semblance of civilization was able to come back... 20,000 years ago.

How likely is it that any players are going to need to know that entire history to make it through a campaign? Pretty low. At best, they'll realize something's pretty odd about the fact that the name of the capital city of a fallen empire is the same as the Angel of Death's, or they'll wonder why one wasteland in a remote corner of the world seems to be entirely paved in concrete.

One of my goals in future campaigns I run is to really focus on the player characters. I believe it was Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 who made the, what now seems obvious, point that stories begin with characters. If you're writing a screenplay or a novel, you don't write out an entire story and then come up with characters to go through it.

D&D is a collaborative storytelling process on top of being a strategy game. When a player comes up with their character, the DM should try to create an adventure that helps that character go through their story.

I think this is one way in which published adventures can give new DMs the wrong lessons. Published adventures, by their nature, have to be a story into which any character can be plugged in. Likewise, video game RPGs have to carve out a route for the story to go. Complaints about the resolution to Mass Effect, for instance, had fair critiques along with unfair ones - there are only so many ways that they could have planned for different endings.

Worldbuilding is one of the great appeals to fantasy and science fiction. Those of us who are drawn to the genre are looking for something that goes beyond rich characters and their arcs. Unfortunately, historically, these genres have often been seen as skimping on these broader literary elements (sometimes fairly, sometimes prejudicially). While I think their numbers have thinned in the past several decades, there are certainly those who instinctively look down on "genre" stories, and assume they'll be garbage.

I will say that "literary fiction," meaning novels and such that are not colored by genre tropes or conventions (though I'd argue that by defining themselves in such a way, they are in fact their own genre) sets itself a more difficult goal. A science fiction story with a really fascinating premise can be a compelling read even with flat characters. But if you're reading a story about a woman struggling to reconcile with her father as he's dying of Alzheimer's (to pick a stereotypical "serious literature" story) you can only achieve greatness through relatively fewer avenues - such as the cleverness of your prose and the compelling complexity of your characters. So, in a way, I can see how those works that manage to be memorable and compelling reads deserve a great deal of praise.

But genre fiction does not rule these factors out. There is nothing preventing you from telling a story about very complex characters with beautiful prose that also happens to take place in a world of zombies and dragons and magic.

Sorry, going a little too much into my "writing blog" mode and less my "games blog" one. How does this relate to D&D?

Well, the simple point stands that you should build a campaign around the characters you have. This, in part, requires an investment by the players. And to be clear: know your audience. There are plenty of people who play D&D more for the strategy game elements - they want to construct a crazy multiclass Gloomstalker/Assassin hybrid who does almost a hundred damage in the first round of combat, and that's their point of engagement.

Actually, a brief tangent: this is one thing that games as an artistic medium have that other media don't. Plenty of art critics have dismissed games as not being art because of their interactive elements, though I suspect that this reason is less of a reason than an excuse to dismiss games as a medium. After all, there's plenty of performance art and theater that involves audience participation. Much as fantasy has its genre tropes as license to explore non-realistic settings and premises, which "literary fiction" does not, games as a medium have an additional axis along which they can be judged as successes or failures of the form.

But, back to the D&D discussion:

Perhaps because I put so much effort into worldbuilding, I consider it, in its own way, a worthwhile artform. But that might just be because I enjoy doing it. I don't regret the gallons of virtual ink that I've spilled fleshing out that world, but the extent to which it will be useful, per se, in running games, is questionable.

There was no way that I was going to start running D&D without creating my own world. The Forgotten Realms and the other established settings are fine, even great, but I want to have my own space to work in.

But I guess, as advice to myself or anyone who has similar proclivities, it's more important for the players to have a good time dealing with the adventure that they've set out on than for them to uncover every tiny detail of your world.

On the other hand, if you, as a DM, you can introduce elements to players to build their adventurers around.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

 It's funny to me that I think D&D has become far more central to my nerd tastes than Magic: the Gathering. But I started playing Magic in 1994 (not consistently for those 27 years, to be clear) and only started with D&D about six years ago. So, for the vast majority of the time that I knew Magic, I would have been pretty unexcited about the upcoming Magic set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.

Now, however, I've been playing two campaigns set in the Forgotten Realms for a couple years now, and while it's not my favorite D&D setting, I think it's pretty exciting and fun to see all these things from D&D showing up in Magic (especially given that I've been running a D&D game set in Ravnica for over a year.)

I gave in and pre-ordered the 50 pack bundle for MTGA for the upcoming set, which releases on Arena on July 8th. The bundle comes with a Planeswalker card for Lolth. For those unfamiliar, Lolth is basically big bad evil goddess for elves. She's worshipped by the drow (dark elves - though WotC has been trying to move away from the idea that dark-skinned elves are inherently evil, and has specified that it's actually just one drow culture built around worshipping this spider-elf-murder-demon-god,) and she lives in one of the outer planes known as The Abyss, which is the plane of demons, and is associated with the chaotic evil alignment (in contrast to the Nine Hells, where lawful evil devils live).

Anyway, it looks like the flashy new mechanic coming with the set will be "Venture into the Dungeon." You pick a dungeon to go with your deck that lives in the Command zone (familiar to folks with Companions or who play the Commander format.) The dungeon, of which there seem to be three that are all named after dungeons you can explore in 5th Edition published adventures (unless there are more they just haven't showed off yet) is basically a flow chart of different rooms with flavorful names. Each time you Venture into the Dungeon, you progress to the next room of the dungeon, sometimes choosing between multiple options, and each room will have some effect like "gain two life" or "draw a card" or "sacrifice a creature." The Tomb of Annihilation dungeon, for example, has a rather punishing option on one side of the dungeon that forces you to sacrifice permanents and discard a card, but it skips you far closer to the end of the dungeon, where you get to summon a powerful legendary creature token, which would take a couple more "ventures" to get to if you go the other way.

Many cards use venture into the dungeon as a keyword. Others will sometimes get buffed if you've completed a dungeon, such as a creature that gets double strike if you've completed a dungeon at any point earlier in the game.

I suspect that the approach to this set was a top-down one, which honestly seems to produce some really fun sets. This is also, I believe, the only time we've had flavor text on basic lands, which are worded like a dungeon master describing a new location you've come to.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited for the set.

Mercer's Gunslinger vs. the PHB's Battlemaster

 Coming to D&D from World of Warcraft, I approached the Fighter with a somewhat limited expectation. In WoW, the Warrior is the closest equivalent class - it's the no-frills martial expert, without any holy magic like a paladin or a dark necromancy like a death knight. You're just the one who wears heavy armor and overwhelms enemies with a combination of strength and skill. WoW's warrior also incorporates thematic elements of D&D's Barbarian, mostly in that its primary resource is Rage, and the Fury subclass implies a kind of berserker/barbarian vibe, even if you're still covered head to toe in thick steel.

It didn't even occur to me until long after I'd started running a D&D game that you could build a dexterity, ranged-weapon-based Fighter. I had thought of Rangers as covering that ground (similarly, WoW had conditioned me to think of Rogues as a melee class, so it took one of my players, a Wood Elf Rogue, favoring his longbow to make me reassess that one.)

When Critical Role began as a streamed show instead of a home game that Matt Mercer ran for his voice actor friends, they transitioned from Pathfinder's first edition to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, and the success of that show is partially credited for 5th Edition's explosive popularity.

Taliesin Jaffe's character, Percy, was a Gunslinger in their Pathfinder game, a class built around the archetype of a wild west gunfighter. However, there was no such thing in 5th Edition, so Matt Mercer put together a Fighter subclass to best match the mechanics of the Pathfinder gunslinger.

Due to Percy's popularity as a character, I've played in two games in which people have played the Gunslinger subclass. But something has always bothered me: I think the Gunslinger might be just plain worse than a Battlemaster, one of the original Fighter subclasses in the Player's Handbook.

The big thing is that the Gunslinger introduces misfires - meaning that your gun can jam if you roll too low on an attack roll. You need to spend some of your action economy to try to clear the jam in the middle of combat, and if you fail, the gun becomes broken and needs to be repaired during a rest before it's used again. This, I believe, was a feature of firearms in earlier editions of D&D. Firearms have always been an optional rule so that groups need not introduce elements that break the sense of immersion in the medieval fantasy world they're exploring (of course, as I've made clear, I love anything that breaks the normal rules of fantastical medievalism, but that's me.)

Since 5th Edition has no inherent rules for misfires, it means that a subclass built around firing guns paradoxically is... kind of the worst at firing guns. A Wizard with no proficiency in firearms could pick up a musket and fire without fear of breaking it (even if they are less likely to hit something,) while someone whose entire fighting style is built around them risks a catastrophic failure with every pull of the trigger. That seems really odd.

But I thought I'd put the two subclasses up side-by-side and see how they compare. If you built a Battlemaster who specializes in the use of firearms, how similar would you be to a Gunslinger?

Both subclasses center around having alternate options that you can use with your attacks, expending a resource to add various effects or damage. I'm not going to get into every Battlemaster Maneuver, but I want to see, essentially, if you could more or less recreate the Gunslinger as a Battlemaster build.

To be clear, this is not a critique of Mercer's translation - he wasn't trying to build a new subclass, only trying to as accurately as possible translate an existing one built for a different game system. And Percy was a freaking beast in that campaign.

So, let's go through the subclass features.

Battlemasters:

Level 3:

First off, you get proficiency in artisan tools of your choice - nothing enormous, but nice.

Next, you learn 3 maneuvers, which you can use with your 4 superiority dice, which recharge on a short rest. The dice are d8s, but they go up in both die and number at certain levels.

There are a huge number of maneuvers, which we'll compare with Trick Shots when we finish listing the two subclass' features.

The key with these maneuvers is that the ones that work in combat allow you to choose to use them after you've rolled to hit. One 

Level 7:

You just learn two new maneuvers and get 5th superiority die to spend.

You also get "Know Your Enemy," which lets you observe a creature for a minute, you get to compare whether they're superior or inferior to you in various statistics like hit points, strength score, armor class, etc.

Level 10:

Two more maneuvers (we're up to 7 now) and the dies become d10s.

Level 15:

Two more maneuvers (9 of them now) and you get a 6th die.

Also, if you roll initiative without any superiority dice left, you regain one.

Level 18:

Your superiority dice become d12s.

Gunslingers:

Level 3:

Obviously, you get Firearm proficiency. If your DM requires special proficiency for firearms, this could be a big help, though I'd probably allow players to use downtime to train with them.

You also get proficiency with tinker's tools. You get to craft ammunition at half the cost, repair damaged firearms, or even make your own new firearms (this one's pretty open-ended and DM-dependent.)

You then get trick shots, which you spend Grit Points on. You get Grit points equal to your Wisdom modifier, with a minimum of 1, which are regained on a short or long rest, or if you get a Natural 20 on an attack roll or deal a killing blow on a creature (of significant threat, DM's discretion.)

There are eight trick shots to choose from, and you learn two of them at level 3. These need to be declared before the attack is made, and you can only use one per attack.

Level 7:

You get to add your proficiency bonus to your initiative rolls, and you can stow a firearm and draw another as a single item interaction.

Level 10:

You can spend a grit point to attempt to repair a misfired (but not broken) firearm as a bonus action.

Level 15:

You can reload a firearm as a bonus action. This one's odd, as the rules in the DMG are that this is normally what reloading requires.

Level 18:

You crit on a 19 or 20, and you get a grit point back on a 19 or 20. Additionally, you get Hemorrhaging Critical, where if you score a crit, the target takes half the damage again from that hit at the end of its next turn.

    Trick Shots Versus Maneuvers:

One of the huge advantages the Battle Master has over the Gunslinger is that they can wait to see if they hit before expending superiority dice. This means that a die is never wasted, and you can even wait for a critical hit to double up the damage. You also have no need for high Wisdom as a Battlemaster. Here are the Trick Shots you can learn, along with roughly equivalent maneuvers:

Bullying Shot: You can use the powerful blast and thundering sound to shake the resolve of a creature. When you make a Charisma (Intimidation) check, you can expend a grit to gain advantage.

    The Commanding Presence maneuver (out of Tasha's) works similarly, allowing you to add a superiority die's roll to a Charisma (Intimidation), (Persuasion,) or (Deception) check. This will, on average, be a better bonus than advantage. (Which on average increases the roll's result by between 3 and 4, while a d8's average roll is 4.5).

Dazing Shot: When you make an attack, you can attempt to dizzy the opponent. If you hit, the creature takes normal damage and has to succeed on a Con save or suffer disadvantage on attacks until their next turn.

    Not quite the same, but Goading Attack will add your Superiority die's damage to the attack and give the creature disadvantage on attacks against those other than you if they fail a wisdom save. If you're far enough away from a melee opponent, this could effectively be the same.

Deadeye Shot: You can expend a grit to get advantage on an attack.

    Precision Attack is a bit similar, letting you add your superiority die's roll to the attack roll, which, as we saw with Commanding Presence, will likely be a better bonus.

Disarming Shot: You can expend a grit point with an attack to force the target to succeed on a Strength save or drop something in their hand, and push it up to 10 feet away from them.

    Disarming Attack works almost precisely the same way, except you add the superiority die's roll to the damage, but the item also lands at their feet.

Forceful Shot: You can expend a grit point with an attack to force them to make a strength save or be pushed back 15 feet from you.

    Pushing Attack: This is almost precisely the same, except you add the damage of the superiority die to the attack's damage. The one downside is that the creature must be Large or smaller, so no pushing Giants or Ancient Dragons.

Piercing Shot: When you make an attack you can spend a grit point to attempt to fire through multiple opponents. This adds +1 to the gun's misfire score for the initial attack. Then, if you hit, you make another attack roll with disadvantage to try to hit every creature in a line behind the initial target within your first range increment. (Only the initial attack roll can misfire.)

    This one there's not really any equivalent to. The closest is Sweeping Strike, but that requires it be a melee attack.

Winging Shot: You can expend a grit point with an attack to force them to succeed on a Strength save or be knocked prone.

    Very similar to Pushing Attack, Trip Attack works almost exactly the same except that you add the superiority die's roll to the damage and the target has to be Large or smaller.    

Violent Shot: You can expend one or more grit points. Each point spent increases the gun's misfire score by 2, but also lets you roll an additional damage die.

    There's no obvious equivalent here, but most Battlemaster maneuvers add damage anyway, making this one a bit redundant.

Overall, I think that the maneuvers are going to be better in general, and they're also safer to use, as you only have to declare them after you've hit.

So, how would I evaluate these?

Gunslingers certainly get a few extra bonuses that are more impressive than the Battlemaster's Know Your Enemy feature. Proficiency on Initiative is great (given how D&D combat tends to last only a couple rounds) and the level 18 bonuses - both the crits on 19s and the extra 50% damage on crits (which is magnified by the fact that the damage itself is a crit) are pretty awesome.

But I think the central feature, the Trick Shots, are just not as good overall as Maneuvers. And while the fact that you can earn back grit points in combat is very cool, I still think a Battlemaster is likely to overall have more of them per short rest, unless the Gunslinger has a lot of Wisdom to spare.

I also like that the Battlemaster's maneuvers improve as they level up.

The Gunslinger also introduces the idea of misfires to firearms, which is nowhere to be found in any 5th Edition rules. This, if you've ever watched Critical Role or played with a Gunslinger, is a huge downside. And no other martial class has anything like it (I played with making critical misses punishing in my first campaign until I realized that they overly penalized Fighters).

Naturally, I think that the misfire system is meant to balance the power of Firearms versus PHB-found ranged weapons like Crossbows or Bows. But I actually think that it punishes them too much, especially as the Gunslinger document comes with alternate stats for firearms that reduce most of the to single-die weapons - a 1d10 Pepperbox is only doing on average one more damage than a 1d8 Longbow, but you don't have to worry about rolling a nat 1 or a nat 2 on a longbow totally messing you up for the rest of the fight.

Granted, modern and futuristic weapons start to deal way more damage - a revolver does twice the damage of a longbow before adding Dexterity, and I've written several posts about how to balance that out (even if, in a co-op game like D&D, balance is not as important as you might think - as long as players are not super competitive over their damage output).

I don't write all this to poo-poo anyone who wants to play a Gunslinger Fighter. The class fantasy is incredibly fun, especially if you want to be the misfit who shoots six-guns in a world with swords and shields and dragons. But I do think you should look at the Battlemaster as an alternative.

The Battlemaster is clearly a very popular Fighter subclass, such that in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything they pushed the idea of expanding its concepts like Maneuvers to other subclasses and even other classes, and proposed several builds even as they were pitching two new subclasses.

I strongly suspect that we'll get some version of Maneuvers as a baseline feature to the 6th Edition Fighter, and could see it just becoming one of the defining features of the class (a class that is actually a bit lacking in defining features). But I'd definitely recommend trying out a Battlemaster Build that just happens to fight with guns if you want to play a Gunslinger. It'll probably work pretty well.

Looking at the Armorer Artificer's Infiltrator Mode

 While I think I probably ought to play a full-caster in my next campaign, I'm certain that at some point I want to play an Armorer Artificer. But the primary appeal for that subclass, to me, is to do something similar to what I've been doing in my longest-running campaign as a player - tanking. My Eldritch Knight Fighter is built to push his Armor Class as high as possible - once he gets his gear back after a rather painful trip to the Nine Hells, he has a baseline AC of 22, which he can push to 27 with the Shield spell (which is the main thing he spends spell slots on.) He's there to be a piece of unbreakable iron.

And the Armorer build I tend to play around with is similar - the go the full tanking route with Guardian Mode.

But, of course, the Armorer also comes with Infiltrator Mode, which is less of a tank and more along the lines of, well, Iron Man. Here's how it breaks down:

At level 3, Infiltrator mode increases your movement speed by 5 feet and gives you advantage on stealth checks. Note that this only cancels out disadvantage from wearing heavy armor or other armor types that impose disadvantage on stealth - but it also means that there's no way you can truly be given disadvantage on these checks.

Still, to take full advantage, I think a true Infiltrator Build will want to use a Breastplate, unless you somehow have +5 to Dexterity (you could also take Medium Armor Master and go with Half Plate).

Finally, we have the Infiltrator's built-in weapon. The Lightning Launcher is a ranged weapon that has a 90 foot normal range and a long range of 300. It deals a d6 of lightning damage (which you add your Intelligence to because this is a weapon, and you get to use intelligence to attack with your built-in weapons) and once per turn, if you hit with the weapon, you can deal an extra d6.

So, in practice, you'll be doing 2d6+Int (+1 if you have Enhanced Weapon on it) at levels 3 and 4, and then 2d6+Int+1 and then 1d6+Int+1 at level 5. This is roughly equivalent to hitting with a greatsword (made of lightning) followed by a shortsword, from range. And that's honestly not terrible.

At level 14, when you get your final Armorer subclass features, the Lightning Launcher gets the following upgrades:

First off, hitting a target with the Lightning Launcher lights it up a little like guiding bolt - it shines light around itself and the next attack roll against it has advantage. This also gives the target disadvantage on attacks against you. Furthermore, if someone hits it while its glowing like this, it takes an extra 1d6 lightning damage.

The result, thus, is that if you hit both turns, you get the following:

1d6+Int+2 + 1d6 (the latter as your "once a turn" bonus) and then:

1d6+Int+2 + 1d6 (the bonus for hitting it while it's glowing.)

And then an effective additional 1d6 lightning assuming a friend then hits it.

Because the extra effect happens every time you hit, not just once per turn, you basically get advantage on your second attack, as well as giving an ally advantage (if you're right ahead of your party's Rogue in initiative, they'll love you.)

Effectively, if all your attacks (and an ally's) are hitting, at level 15 you're 5d6+4+2xInt by default.

Now, I don't think this will quite match up with, say, a Fighter shooting three longbow shots (if they have a +2 longbow, that'll be 3d8+3xDex+6) but it's not that far off, and the advantage of course makes critical hits nearly twice as likely. That's not to mention how the bright light they shine with will make it great against enemies that hide or try to go invisible, and the disadvantage on attacks against you will make you more likely to avoid getting hit with reprisals.

While I think a Guardian-based Armorer is probably going to focus more on survivability - by level 15 you can stack up enough buffs to give you an AC of 25 - an Infiltrator might look to different focuses. Naturally, enhanced weapon seems an obvious choice (repeating shot, which I believe is the only other ranged weapon infusion, is pretty useless for a weapon that doesn't require ammunition). I think either Winged Boots or Slippers of Spider Climbing (though why use the latter when you can get the former?) would be great to let you get out of reach of enemies and have total freedom on the battlefield. Gloves of Missile Snaring could be useful to keep yourself safe while up in the air. Armor of Magical Strength is also a great option if you intend to stay airborne, as you can just "nope" out of being knocked prone, which could be disastrous if you're high up. Homunculus Servant could also be useful as a scout to accompany you if you need to sneak somewhere.

Now, to what extent can you build to be able to use both options?

I think a Guardian Armorer is going to really want to use plate armor, unless you have a +3 or higher to Dex and the Medium Armor Master feat (which makes Half Plate strictly better as, with the feat, you don't get disadvantage on stealth and it will, again with the feat, give you an AC of 18.) Barring that, you could consider holding onto both a set of Plate and a Breastplate. Given that you need to spend a long rest switching your armor model anyway, which is also what it takes to transfer infusions, you can simply spend that long rest moving all your infusions to the other suit when you need to swap modes.

The big downside is that carrying around a Breastplate and a set of full Plate means lugging around 85 lbs of armor (not to mention raising the 1,900 gold to buy both sets). Given the Armorer's freedom to ignore heavy armor strength requirements, you might have fairly low Strength, in which case 85 lbs might be over half what you can carry. This is, of course, assuming your DM actually cares about carry weight.

Anyway...

Still, a Guardian will probably want to use melee cantrips like Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade, while an Infiltrator will get no use out of them. Granted, you don't need damage cantrips thanks to your ranged lightning launcher (unless you want something that uses a saving throw incase you find yourself with foes in melee).

Higher-level spells for Artificers can of course be swapped out, so no worries there.

I think the main thing is infusions. If you want a super-tanky Guardian mode, you'll want to learn a bunch of defensive infusions like Enhanced Defense, Repulsion Shield, Cloak of Protection, and Ring of Protection. If you intend to be far away from your foes, you might not really need any of those.

Still, generally Artificers learn twice as many infusions as they can have at a time, and Armorers get to do two additional infusions by level 9. So You could just learn those, share things like Enhanced Weapon and Winged Boots with your Guardian Mode, and maybe learn the ones we talked about a few paragraphs ago to reserve for Infiltrator Mode.

I guess the last question is proficiencies. Having a Stealth proficiency will of course make the Infiltrator more of an... infiltrator. That's not generally an Artificer proficiency, so you'll want to either pick up a background with it or pick a race that gets some bonus proficiencies.

Ultimately, though, I think you can pull off a Tank/Sneak hybrid build for the Armorer without sacrificing too much for one or the other (unless you get into multiclassing.) There aren't quite as many infusions you need to make a decent sneak, and you can still probably learn most if not all of them.

While the Guardian has a really obvious role as a group's tank, the Infiltrator gets to do a bit of decent damage, but I think that the level 15 constant-advantage-generation is probably the really huge thing you bring. Granted, a successful Faerie Fire does the same thing, but you're never going to run out of Lightning Launcher hits (and you can also do Faerie Fire.)

The class is new enough that I haven't really seen anyone playing these in streams, and I haven't been playing in adventurer's league since early 2020, so I'm curious to see how many people are focusing on the Infiltrator side of the subclass.

But the very fact that there's a subclass that can flip every day between two very distinct roles is pretty damn cool in my view.

9.1 Chains of Domination Coming June 29th

 Finally.

World of Warcraft has been in a bit of a lull. Normally, this doesn't happen until the end of an expansion, when the final patch has come out but the next expansion is still in the works. But that's a sort of normal, expected part of the cycle, when it's reasonable for most people who enjoy the game to take a break from it.

Shadowlands had a great opening - an exciting premise, great stories being told, and overall a strong launch with myriad systems to keep oneself entertained for months.

But it was more than just months. Shadowlands has been out for the better part of a year, and as strong as that 9.0 launch was, no single patch could keep us entertained for this stretch of time.

So, it's with a great sense of excitement, and, frankly, relief, that I share this: 9.1, Chains of Domination, is finally coming, and it's coming real soon! In just twelve days, we'll be arriving in the land of Korthia and fighting to hopefully free Anduin from his bonds that force him to serve the Jailer.

Obviously, the long delay is due to the difficulties in working around the Covid pandemic. While that plague is still very much a thing, thanks to the availability of the vaccine, it does look like we're starting to bounce back. And while I worry that California's re-opening and dropping of mask mandates is a little premature, hopefully we'll continue to see case numbers drop and, among other things, Blizzard will be able to get back into full swing.

Personally, I haven't played a whole lot of WoW in recent... months. And honestly, it makes me a little sad, as I actually love the expansion so far. But even with Wrath of the Lich King and Legion, I did eventually take some extended breaks when there was no new content to play.

Point is, it's about damn time. I sure hope that 9.2 comes faster!

Nintendo News out of E3 - Metroid Dread and Breath of the Wild 2

 First, as a disclaimer, this isn't going to be a comprehensive list of all the announcements coming from Nintendo.

First off, there's a new teaser for the direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. BotW was massively popular, and so it's not a terrible shock to see a direct sequel (though it didn't come as rapidly as Majora's Mask did after Ocarina of Time.) The new teaser shows the land of Hyrule uprooted, resembling a bit more of the open skies of Skyward Sword, where islands of land float in the air, and Link flies between them.

As I've said before, I find myself feeling somewhat out of touch about Breath of the Wild, as I ultimately thought the game failed to deliver a satisfying experience - I guess I like a little more plot and a little more specificity in the dungeon environments and monsters to fight. And I hated how the weapons broke after five uses, and how tedious cooking was.

Really, though, my biggest problem with BotW was the way that it suffered from the same problems a lot of open-world games do - too much of it felt generic. Every dungeon had the same aesthetic, every mini-puzzle-dungeon could have been swapped for any other location, with the same ancient-sci-fi look inside. And while the expansive world was breathtaking, every corner of it had the same Bokoblins, Moblins, and Lizalfos, perhaps in different colors.

But I'm an old fogey who hasn't really loved a main console release of a Zelda game since Twilight Princess, so what do I know?

I'd love to do discover that BotW2 will address some of these issues, but we'll see.

Next, we've got Metroid Dread. Dread is not the announced-but-slowly-coming Metroid Prime 4. Instead, it's a return to the series' side-scrolling roots, but with a fully modern graphical style. Apparently a big part of the game involves Samus outrunning some nigh-indestructible robots called "EMMI," while exploring an alien world.

The footage looks pretty good, and at least what was playable at this announcement looked fairly solid.

Obviously, there are a ton of other stories coming out of E3, but these seemed to warrant mention.

Setting Books Galore Incoming

 In a series of tweets by Ray Winniger (who is the overall lead on D&D - he's a bit less public-facing than folks like Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford) we've gotten a bit of news (or reiteration) that's pretty exciting:

In addition to the announced books coming in the late summer and fall, there are two unannounced campaign setting books being worked on that are going to be "reviving" classic settings. This would likely include the long-rumored Dragonlance book, but also leave a slot open. For one, led by Chris Perkins, the manuscript is apparently nearly complete, whereas the other is just "ramping up in earnest," but these two are in production, which I believe means that they're practically guaranteed to see release.

In addition to these two projects, there are two brand new settings (that Winniger specified were not Magic: the Gathering worlds) that are in early development, as well as a return to a setting they've touched on in 5th edition but would be returning to.

The big caveat for these three projects is that things in early development get abandoned all the time, so he stressed that any of these three projects might not see the light of day.

So, how to interpret all of that?

Well, of course, this is all going to be speculation, but let's take a look:

First off, the confirmed two "classic" settings.

Again, Dragonlance seems a shoo-in. Unless there's some other setting that's particularly focused on dragons, the draconic subclasses and variant races seem to point there. I know that Krynn (the name of the world of Dragonlance) does have something a bit different from Dragonborn with the all-villainous Draconians, but I imagine (particularly with D&D moving away from any race of humanoids being "pure evil") that we might see a development of the Dragonborn in that setting.

Now, as for the other confirmed one, I'll confess that my knowledge of older settings is a bit limited. Personally, the ones that would get me most excited are Planescape and Spelljammer, as I'm always eager to break from the medieval, relatively mundane worlds of standard fantasy (one of the big reasons I love Ravenloft).

But, there are plenty of popular settings that aren't quite so outlandish. I won't pretend to have much of a conception of things like Beta World or Birthright, but I could see something like Dark Sun or Greyhawk getting a release (though the latter might be in a different category.)

Personally, I'd be happy for them to kind of alternate between the more grounded settings like Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance with the more planar-insanity stuff of Ravenloft and Planescape, which is why I'd hope to see either PS or Spelljammer follow Dragonlance.

Now, moving on to the ones in early development.

Naturally, these might be completely from the ground up, in which case I'd need to spy on Wizards of the Coast to have any clue what they're about. I do think that a new setting should have a real hook to it - frankly, the Forgotten Realms covers so many potential adventure themes (there's a reason it's the default setting) that just making another medieval/renaissance-era world with a bunch of archmages and dragons is going to be kind of redundant.

There are a couple vibes I'd like to see them try:

First off, the one I've been obsessed with lately: a western-themed world. I'm not the first person to point out that D&D actually works really well as a western, especially at low levels, where you're going from town to town, taking on bounties and clearing out mines filled with monsters. Eberron has Western-like elements, of course, but a focus on the rugged frontier would be cool.

I also think a nautical-themed world has a lot of potential. Ghosts of Saltmarsh introduced some cool concepts for running naval combat encounters, which admittedly might be a little complicated, but I think there are enough subgenres of nautical fiction and fantasy (from pirates to undersea dives to cosmic horror) that you could have a whole setting dedicated to it.

Next, what seems sort of obvious, is the Feywild. I believe 4th edition (which, if I recall correctly, codified the Feywild as opposed to the "land of faerie") had a Feywild book, so this might not count as brand new, but I do think you could do a lot with this setting (I'm eager to see the Wild Beyond the Witchlight - I'll have to see if my friend who ran the Descent into Avernus game is running it and if I should play through it before I buy the book).

I realize this might overlap a little with Spelljammer, but I'd love to see an official science-fantasy setting. Given that Star Wars was one of my (and many others') formative fantasy influences, I love the idea of a world that can include starships and demons, ray guns and wizards.

And then, of course, there's my personal favorite, the modern high fantasy - a fictional world of magic and monsters, but where you have cars and pizzerias. Think Final Fantasy VII as maybe the most popular example of such a world. The setting of Dimension 20's Fantasy High is another good example. I actually wonder if this could even be one of the projects in development. Dimension 20 is, at least from my algorithm-biased corner of the internet, probably the most popular D&D show other than Critical Role, and we saw CR release an official setting book with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, so I wouldn't be totally shocked if Fantasy High were to get an official release.

Now, moving on to the final question: which setting are they returning to?

Well, the first question is what kind of book we're talking about. If it's a campaign setting book, that would, I think, rule out almost all the settings that have gotten dedicated books. The one exception there, I think, would be the Forgotten Realms. Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is... well, it's not the best book to come out of 5th Edition. It's thin, only a couple of the subclasses in it are worth looking at, and it's just kind of underwhelming. So it might be a good idea to have a big book to really flesh out the Forgotten Realms, perhaps taking us beyond the Sword Coast, even.

Now, that being said, the Forgotten Realms have gotten plenty of fleshing-out in the various adventure books. We have gazetteers for Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate, a big write-up on Candlekeep, a lot of background on Chult and Icewind Dale - you could argue that the 5th Edition adventure books have collectively made for a big Forgotten Realms sourcebook.

To be fair, I could also imagine seeing another Exandria book. Critical Role's second campaign ended recently, and I suspect that the third one will probably take place on a different continent of that world. The first was set on Tal'dorei (which got its own 3rd party setting book) and the second was on Wildemount, so perhaps with the third campaign we'll also get a book fleshing out another continent (Marquet strikes me as a possibility - the first campaign was a bit more globe-trotting, so they spent significant time in both Issylra and Marquet, though most of the action was on Tal'dorei, whereas the second campaign was almost entirely on Wildemount.)

However, it's also possible they would be working on an adventure book set somewhere other than the Forgotten Realms (Curse of Strahd, of course, was a Ravenloft adventure several years before the Ravenloft campaign setting book came out). I actually think an Eberron adventure would be really cool, as that's a setting I wouldn't mind seeing more of.

Anyway, this is mostly speculation for 2022 at the earliest. And while we're nearly halfway through this year (holy crap) we've still got some big releases coming in 2021.

Eldritch Knight, Armorer, and Battle Smith - Comparing The High-Armor Tanks

 For whatever reason, I have a pathological urge to boost my defensive stats in most RPGs. I gravitate toward tanks in World of Warcraft (my main being a Protection Paladin) and I tend to try to get the most heavily-armored build in games where such a thing is possible. My original D&D character, a Great Old One Warlock, took Moderately Armored as his variant human level 1 feat so that I could run around with an AC of 18, instead of the 13 or so I'd get if I were wearing leather armor.

My second D&D character, which I've actually been able to play for a few years now, is an Eldritch Knight Fighter, built - you guessed it - for tanking. I invested a little more heavily in Intelligence than I really needed to at character creation (14) which left my Constitution a little low - in fact, he's only got a Con of 14 at level 12, though by the last ASI at level 19 I should have it up to 18 (I took the Tough feat at level 12) which means that he should have (if my math is correct) 244 max HP if he hits level 20, which ain't too shabby (that's more than an adult blue dragon's average health, and he's a blue dragonborn.)

But he wasn't just built for HP (a Barbarian would have been the choice to focus on that). The main thing is I wanted to pump his armor class as high as it could go.

Early in our campaign, we found a +1 shield, which he took. He also has the Defensive fighting style, which grants a +1 to AC while he's wearing armor. And then, with a suit of adamantine plate, his AC is at 22.

(Setting aside the fact that the party lost all their equipment passing through a portal to the Nine Hells and so he's currently got just an extremely non-magical flail, shield, and set of chain mail.)

However, that's not the end of it: as an Eldritch Knight, the first spell he learned was Shield. If you don't know this one (it's pretty standard, but if you haven't played a Wizard or anything similar, you might not know it) it's a reaction spell with Verbal and Somatic components (so he has to drop his weapon when he uses it) that you can use when someone makes an attack roll against you (I've always played it that you can choose to cast it after the attack roll is made and announced) that raises your AC by 5 until the beginning of your next turn.

Thus, my Fighter has an effective AC of 27, as that's the main spell he saves his spell slots for.

The ultimate goal for this character would be to get the following magic items: a +3 shield, a set of +3 plate, and a headband of intellect (that one's less important for defense.) With those, he'd have a base AC of 27, and an effective AC of 32 - becoming very difficult to hit (and significantly reducing the damage he might take from very high CR monsters that have huge attack bonuses.) (Actually, with a ring and a cloak of protection, we could get that to 29 and an effective AC of 34).

But is the Eldritch Knight the best build for this kind of insane AC chasing?

I think it might be. But I thought there were a couple other subclasses to consider (and there could very well be more - I'm just looking at the ones that have occurred to me.)

The Armorer Artificer is another clear possibility.

Armorers get to use heavy armor, and also get to ignore the strength requirements. The only reason you might want a bunch of strength would be if your DM cares much about carry weight and encumbrance. Heavy armor is heavy, and you can be proficient with it, but that doesn't make it weigh any less. But otherwise, you can mostly set aside strength for other abilities.

Now, you want high AC as an armorer? The good news is that, because you're generally just infusing mundane equipment, as long as you can earn the gold to buy a set of plate armor (which you can generally afford by mid-tier-2) you'll be able to trick it out in just this way (whereas I'm skeptical I'll ever get that +3 plate and +3 shield.)

You'll want to pick up the following infusions, and place them on these items. Remember that as an Armorer, at level 9, you get to count a single set of armor as multiple items for infusions, and also increase the number of items you can infuse by two as long as those extra two are part of your armor. The armor can be separately infused as a helmet, chest piece, boots, and weapon (your Magic Armor will have either the Lightning Launcher or Thunder Gauntlets depending on your model).

Enhanced Defense you'll put on your chest piece. This will turn your plate armor into, basically, +1 plate, and then +2 when you level up again and hit 10 (giving you 20 AC).

Repulsion Shield (which requires level 6) you'll put on a shield. In addition to the knockback effect, this also causes the shield to give a +1 bonus to AC (giving you an additional 3 AC).

Cloak of Protection goes on a cloak (you'll need to be level 10 to get this infusion) and grants you a +1 to your AC as well as all saving throws.

Ring of Protection goes on... a ring (this one requires you to be level 14) and works exactly like the Cloak of Protection, giving you +1 to AC and saving throws.

Thus an Armorer can, by level 14, with just a normal set of plate armor and a shield, have an AC of 25.

Comparing this with the Eldritch Knight, here are what I think the trade-offs are:

Purely defensively, the EK is going to be able to push their AC a little higher with Shield, though the Armorer's AC is going to be consistently higher outside of a very lucky EK with +3 armor and shield (and, of course, if they find a cloak and a ring of protection.) What's really appealing to me about the Armorer is that they need not rely at all on a DM's generosity to find this stuff.

Of course, the Armorer has the benefits of an Artificer's somewhat more effective spellcasting, including some healing spells.

And EK is going to generally have more health than an Armorer, thanks to the d10 hit die over the Artificer's d8, though using the average roll, this amounts to a total difference of 21 hit points at level 20.

That being said, the Armorer, using Guardian Mode for its armor model, gets to grant itself temporary hit points equal to its artificer level a number of times per day equal to its proficiency bonus. Unless you're really relying on other characters giving you temporary hit points, this amounts to a pretty substantial effective health increase - by level 20, that's more or less 120 extra hit points, which... yeah, is a bit more than the EK's bonus. And those temp HP don't expire until you take a long rest, so you can have them up almost all the time.

Additionally, the Thunder Gauntlet's inherent feature is a great tanking tool - giving foes disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you if you hit them.

Basically, my conclusion is that the Armorer is actually a bit better designed for truly tanking. I think the EK might have a bit higher damage output, though an Armorer who makes use of cantrips like Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade will actually be in pretty good shape there too.

Now, I thought it worth considering the Battle Smith here as well. Battle Smiths do not get access to heavy armor, but a set of half plate with at least 14 Dexterity will give them 17 AC, and they can do all the same infusions as the Armorer (though they'll be using up a greater fraction of their infusions) to bump a shield and half plate (and cloak and ring) to 24 AC. Meanwhile, though, battle-smiths, unlike armorers, have Shield as one of their specialist spells, so if they use it as much as my EK does, they effectively get an AC of 29. And, of course, a Battle Smith is not as beholden to using their own infusions to power themselves up, so there's nothing against a Battle Smith finding a +3 shield and a set of +3 half plate to make that 27 (and 32 with shield).

Now, in terms of absorbing hate and making it easier on the party, the Battle Smith I think is somewhat less well-equipped. Your steel defender can impose disadvantage on a single attack against you per round.

But without the Guardian Armor's Defensive Field and the Thunder Gauntlet's... well, "threat generation," I don't think the Battle Smith is quite as well built to be the one absorbing foes' attacks. Really, I think the Battle Smith is built more for damage output (I have a Warforged one I played in a couple of one-shots that got a laser pistol, which he then infused with repeating shot, so can to some serious damage.)

Ultimately, I think the Armorer wins overall - yes, they can't push their AC quite as high, and they don't "scale" as well with magic armors that they find (though if a player of mine found some +3 armor I might bend the rules to allow them to simply count that enchantment as the "chest piece" and infuse the other parts) but Defensive Field is actually kind of insanely powerful, and with your other free infusions you can do things like give yourself winged boots. Or even help out the rest of your party!

But hey, the Artificer as a class didn't exist when I made my fighter. And there are some cool things that a Fighter can do that an Artificer can't (not the last of which is getting two more ASIs.)

Another D&D Book is Coming Between Wilds Beyond the Witchlight and Strixhaven

 Despite the past week being a whole event of D&D announcements, this tweet by Ray Winninger let slip that in addition to the recently leaked/announced Feywild adventure book The Wilds Beyond the Witchlight (project led by Chris Perkins) and Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos (led by Amanda Hamon, who worked on Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft) there's going to be another book released between those two led by James Wyatt.

Apparently, the Strixhaven book was announced early in order to let them put out the recent Unearthed Arcana with its available-to-multiple-classes subclass options that will be one of the main features of the Strixhaven campaign setting book.

Wilds Beyond the Witchlight is coming in September, while Strixhaven is coming in November, and this as-yet-unannounced-but-confirmed other book will be coming in October.

Wyatt has worked on D&D as well as Magic: the Gathering, and was the original author of the Plane Shift articles that eventually culminated in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, which he led. He then worked with F. Wesley Schneider on Mythic Odysseys of Theros (Schneider went on to be project lead on Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, which Wyatt also contributed to.)

Wyatt has been working on D&D for a long time, so I don't know if we can explicitly pin down what we can expect the book to be, but my current theory is a Dragonlance setting book.

There are a few reasons to believe this: WotC and the Hickmans (who created the setting) just settled some legal dispute surrounding the rights to the world, which would seem to make this an opportune time to release a Dragonlance book. We also had those UAs recently that were dragon-themed, even naming some Dragonlance characters as the creators of some of the spells found within.

There was also some comment by a WotC person that I believe mentioned 3 classic campaign settings getting published this year. I'm willing to bet that that comment might have been misheard or misspoken, meaning we might be getting three settings period - and if we got Ravenloft, Strixhaven, and Dragonlance, that would add up to 3.

While this week had its Legend Lore event, in July we should be getting the D&D Celebration in September - and I think we can reasonably assume that we'll know what this third book is by then if not before.

Elden Ring Trailer and Release Date

 

Well, it's been a while, but we've finally got a new trailer for Elden Ring, the newest game from Hidetaka Miyazaki, the mastermind behind Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Elden Ring is also a collaboration with George R. R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series (which you likely know better as Game of Thrones).

In the trailer, we see some elements familiar to those of us who have played previous games from... er, From in this vein: it appears that our player character will be "The Tarnished," and there is talk of Champions and Lords, with what appears to be one of the bosses (with a typically creepy-as-hell Souls-boss design) raging at our audacity for challenging him, a Lord.

The main thing that strikes me about this is that it looks to be somewhat Souls-like in combat gameplay, but also appears to exist with in a much larger, more open world. Most of Dark Souls and Bloodborne take place in urban environments, which create claustrophobic corridors that require you to be very careful in how you proceed through them. Might we be seeing something more like "open world gameplay," Souls-style? It does appear that the protagonist summons up a rideable mount (which seems like some kind of horned horse,) which seems to point to a world large enough that such mobility is necessary, and where mounted combat can be a thing.

We don't have a ton of details on the story, but then again, given that this is a Miyazaki game, I'm sure that we'll need to piece that together on our own. In fact, Martin makes sense as a collaborator, given the density of stories-within-the-story of his Song of Ice and Fire books.

I never played Sekiro, and I'm waiting for PS5s to be A: available and B: cheaper before I get one and pick up the remake of Demon's Souls.

Elden Ring releases on January 21st of 2022 on a number of platforms.

Eberron to Exandria: Hopes for a Cross-Setting Sourcebook

 D&D takes place across many different worlds. Indeed, one of the great things about D&D is that it allows DMs to homebrew an entire world in which to set their games, with nations and gods and landscapes all designed for the kind of stories they want to tell. Many of the official settings began as homebrew ones - obviously, Exandria (of which Wildemount is one of its major continents) began life in Matt Mercer's mind, becoming the setting for Critical Role and finding publication first as a 3rd party book with the Tal'dorei Campaign Setting book and then an official WotC release with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (shortly after it was made canon with an offhanded reference to Arkhan's assistance to Vox Machina in their fight against Vecna in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus).

There are a ton of different settings for the game. In 5th Edition alone, after a few years with nothing but Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and a number of "gazetteers" in various adventure books filling in details about the Forgotten Realms, we've gotten a steady stream of them. At this point, we have the Forgotten Realms, Ravnica, Eberron, Wildemount/Exandria, Theros, Ravenloft, and the upcoming Strixhaven book, along with what I believe are two confirmed-but-not-yet-announced "classic" D&D settings coming this year (assuming there wasn't a miscommunication - though good money is on Dragonlance as a likely release some time relatively soon - not sure what the other will be, if it's not just Strixhaven.)

Now, Ravnica, Theros, and Strixhaven are imports from WotC's other headlining IP, Magic: the Gathering. So while it's fun to have adventures in that multiverse (as I've been for the past year and change) these aren't canonically linked (depending on whether Acq-Inc's brief visit there was canon). Even if we're getting a Magic set that takes place in the Forgotten Realms, I'm mostly filing these as a bit of cross-promotion and fun rather than part of the full mythos of the game.

Still, that does still give us Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Exandria, Ravenloft, probably Dragonlance soon and actually kind of Greyhawk thanks to Ghosts of Saltmarsh as settings the edition has visited.

These take place within the same multiverse (even if Ravenloft is in a far weirder corner of it,) so I wonder:

How about we get some tools to travel between them?

In fact, such tools already exist. Because most of these worlds (again, other than Ravenloft... and possibly Eberron, depending on how the retconning works out) take place on the same plane - namely the Prime Material Plane. Therefore, all you need is simple teleportation magic to bamf around from one of these to the other. If you find a sigil sequence for a teleportation circle in Zadash, it doesn't matter that you're currently in Waterdeep - you can go there.

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything was lighter on spells than Xanathar's had been, but one of its additions was Dream of the Blue Veil, a spell explicitly designed to take you to other worlds of the Prime Material Plane, which typically means other campaign settings.

Like Plane Shift, there's a handbrake here for DMs - in order to use this spell, you need a magic item from the plane in question.

In fact, I think you can almost compare this concept with the Mist Talismans from Ravenloft. Ravenloft, as a setting, is actually a collection of demiplanes that are all separated from one another by the Mists. To reliably get to another domain of dread, you'll want to find a Mist Talisman that corresponds with that domain - for example, you might find a wine bottle from the Wizards of Wine vineyard, and if you hold it while you enter the Mists, you and your allies can reliably expect to arrive in Barovia.

I've been hoping that we get some kind of planar-travel book comparable to the Manual of the Planes, which we got in 1st, 3rd, and 4th editions. But I'd love if such a book also had some guidance on how to build adventures that take players from world to world.

Sure, that's also partly what a Spelljammer campaign setting would be about (and don't let me stop them from making that!)

I think D&D, and maybe 5th Edition specifically, struggles to make adventures that can challenge a party that's very high level, like the upper teens. But one way to make a challenge that feels epic enough for a group like that is to make an adventure that has people jumping from world to world.

Now, of course, one of the things about D&D is that a particular place doesn't have to have a level range. There's nothing stopping you from sending your players to The Abyss at level 1 (in fact, do that! Just maybe don't have them fight the Demogorgon yet unless their dying and getting resurrected is part of the story you're intending to tell). So these need not be reserved for high-level groups. And obviously, every setting has creatures and situations that are an appropriate challenge for low-level parties.

I'm happy to see WotC putting out a lot of campaign-setting books (though maybe I'm just an old fart, but I'd really like to see them do a Dominaria book instead of a brand-new MTG setting like Strixhaven) and I certainly won't complain if and when we get a Dragonlance book, and I'll jump for joy if we get a Planescape or Spelljammer one. But I would really like to see some thought put to the massively epic potential for campaigns that journey across these worlds, and the mechanics of simply having people from all different worlds bumping into one another.

Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos UA Brings Subclasses That Work For Multiple Classes

 Ok, first off, I keep getting confused: according to DND Beyond, the upcoming Stirxhaven: Curriculum of Chaos is a campaign-setting book rather than a published adventure (and given that one of the features is "Story Hooks" that seems likely to not be some misinterpretation).

Second, an Unearthed Arcana dropped today with "Mages of Strixhaven," a group of five subclasses based on the five houses of the school (or five schools of the university... you get the idea). The radical new idea here - and we'll see if it makes it to print - is that each of these five subclasses is available to 2-3 different classes.

For those unfamiliar with the very recent MtG set that debuted Strixhaven as a setting, the central concept to it is that there are these five schools within the university of magic that is Strixhaven (unlike many other card sets, the set is not named after the plane it's set on, but just a specific location therein - though Arcavios is a plane we've never been to before). Like on Ravnica, the schools are based on pairs of colors, though in this case it's only "enemy" color pairs. Lorehold is the white/red school, and is focused on history and archaeology. Prismari is the red/blue school, focused on performing arts and magic as expression. Quandrix is the blue/green school, and is focused on the fundamental mathematics underlying nature and reality. Witherblossom is the green/black school, focused on biology and the natural cycles of life and death. And finally, Silverquill, the black/white school, is focused on rhetoric and debate.

So, how do these subclasses work?

As you might have guessed, there's a subclass for each school. Each of these subclasses is available as a choice for a selection of classes.

Each of the subclass features is listed with a minimum level. I think every subclass gives you all the 1+ features up front, but every time your class would normally gain a subclass feature, you pick one from your subclass that you don't have and for which you are of an appropriate level and get that.

Of course, the oddity to this is that some classes get more subclass features than others. Bards, for example, only get features at three points, meaning that two Bards with the same Strixhaven subclass might not actually have the same features once they reach a high enough level.

You only get to pick any of these subclasses once - even if you were to, say, multiclass as a Bard/Sorcerer, you can only choose a subclass available to both of those classes for one of them.

Lorehold is available to Bards, Warlocks, and Wizards.

When you first get this subclass, you get a few extra spells (Wizards simply add them to their spellbooks, while Bards and Warlocks instantly learn them without counting against their "spells known.") You also get the ability to summon an Ancient Companion - infusing a spirit of the past into a nearby statue, which animates and becomes a pet similar to a Battle Smith's Steel Defender. These come in three varieties and get different benefits based on your choice. Many of the subsequent subclass features boost the companion's abilities.

Prismari is available to Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards.

The general focus of this subclass is on granting abilities that align with one of three damage types - cold, fire, or lightning, or that enhance spells that do that sort of damage. There's also something of an emphasis on mobility, eventually granting proficiency in dexterity saving throws and other similar bonuses.

Quandrix is available to Sorcerers and Wizards.

Like with Lorehold, you gain some extra spells through this subclass. When you first take the subclass, you also gain the ability to inflict a slight penalty against enemies you hit with spells or a benefit to allies you cast spells on. There's a lot of disabling or other battlefield manipulation with this subclass, including the ability to forcibly teleport foes with a reaction within in a limited range.

Silverquill is available to Bards, Warlocks, and Wizards.

In addition to some bonus skills and cantrips, the first thing you get with this subclass is Silvered Barbs, which lets you force foes to reroll attack rolls, ability checks, or saving throws. If this causes them to fail, you get to then give a nearby ally the ability to reroll an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw within the next minute. You get to keep using this feature until it successfully causes someone to fail one of these rolls. There's a theme of darkness and light here.

Witherbloom is available to Druids and Warlocks.

Again, you gain some extra spells with this subclass. The other entry-level feature is Essence Tap, which allows you to, as a bonus action, gain one of two buffs - one that lets you change any damage you do to necrotic damage that ignores resistance, and one that lets you expend hit dice to heal as a bonus action on each turn. At higher levels you can create "brews" in a cauldron with an herbalism kit that have various benefits, and there's a general theme of using necrotic damage and healing.

    So, this is a very ambitious and unconventional concept for character subclasses. I like the idea of trying to extend these options to as many players as possible, though I'm also somewhat skeptical as to how it will work out. The classes represented in total are Bards, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards. Bards get 3 subclass features in total. Druids get 4. Sorcerers get 4. Warlocks get 4. And Wizards get 4.

So, really just Bards are the weird ones. Actually, almost every class gets 4 subclass features, while Clerics and Fighters actually get 5 (or rather, get features at five different levels.) (In fact, a lot of them get features specifically at levels 6, 10, and 14, though sometimes with a different first feature level.)

I think one thing that feels a bit off here is the way that these subclasses don't have the kind of specific flavor of certain spell classes. Granted, in most cases, it's just a tradition you're trained in, which makes a school perfect - this works for Bards, Druids, and Wizards. But Sorcerers and Warlocks have some very specific flavor to why they have one subclass or another. If you're a Warlock of Lorehold, what does that really mean? Did you make a pact with... one of your professors? To teach you some magic? For tuition money?

Ultimately I think this is built more around mechanics and theming things around the schools. And UA is the place to try out-there ideas that might not make it to print. I wouldn't be shocked if they originally wanted to make these just one more conventional subclass per school, and I'd also be unsurprised if that's what we wind up getting. Purely on flavor, I could see Prismari as Bards, Witherbloom as Druids, Silverquill as Warlocks, Lorehold as Wizards, and Quandrix as Sorcerers. Mechanically, those probably don't fit as well (at least not all of them). Maybe swap around Prismari, Lorehold, and Quandrix so that Prismari are Sorcerers, Quandrix are Wizards, and Lorehold are Bards.

But hey, if people playtest this and it works well, maybe we'll see this very odd concept work out!

Curriculum of Chaos Bringing New Characters Options, With Unearthed Arcana Preview Tomorrow

 Well, I guess WotC is giving me a birthday present, as, according to Polygon, tomorrow we'll be getting a new unearthed arcana to preview character options for the upcoming Strixhaven-set Curriculum of Chaos.

I'm honestly a little unsure of what to make of this. Typically, we've only gotten races and subclasses in campaign setting books, or ordinary rules/monster expansions. Of course, that's not 100% the precedent - Princes of the Apocalypse has the Genasi playable race in it (though they also came out in the free Elemental Evil Player's Companion along with some other races). It's possible, of course, that WotC is expanding the purview of adventure books - if the Folk of the Feywild UA means we might get new races in the upcoming Wilds Beyond the Witchlight, perhaps we'll have new things to play in Strixhaven.

Indeed, Magic's worlds tend to have a different array of playable races on each setting - Ravnica doesn't have dwarves, but they do have Loxodons. Theros doesn't have elves, but they do have centaurs. I wouldn't be surprised in the intention for this book is to give us playable versions of the humanoid races found in the Strixhaven set.

According to MTG Wiki, the plane of Arcavios is home to... ahem:

Archaics, Aven, Bear-folk, Burrogs, Demons, Djinn, Dryads, Dwarves, Efreeti, Elder Dragons, Elves, Giants, Goblins, Humans, Kor, Leonin, Lizard-folk, Loxodons, Merfolk, Minotaurs, Ogres, Rhox, Sphinx, Treefolk, Trolls, Turtle-folk, and Vampires.

Granted, there's precedent for not including every obvious playable race option in other settings. Ravnica has the Viashino, who are MTG's reptilian lizard folk. I would obviously allow players who wanted to play one to simply use the Lizardfolk stats from Volo's Guide to Monsters, even though they weren't included in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.

For those less familiar with MTG races, a few of these are recurring across multiple planes. Leonin are lion-people (whose stats were included in Mythic Odysseys of Theros). Loxodon are elephant people (seen in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica). Aven are bird-people, who can probably best be represented with the Aarakocra stats. Kor are tall humanoids with alabaster skin and white hair, the males of which sometimes have little tendrils coming off their chins, but mostly look like humans. Rhox are rhinoceros people.

(In MTG, the way these animal-people are typically represented is to simply use the animal they're based on as a creature type. So a Leonin Warrior could have the creature type "Cat Warrior," and is thus affected by any card that affects either cats or warriors.)

I think it's most likely that we'll see some of these races made into player options to fit with the setting's population.

The bigger question, though, is whether we'll be getting any new subclasses. Given that it's a school of mages, subclasses for the Wizard and Sorcerer class both make a lot of sense. Sorcerers are a class that's never gotten a setting-specific subclass. Wizards got two in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, but they were the only two that didn't see a reprint in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (the Echo Knight fighter also didn't see a reprint). And frankly, any "school" of mages seems extremely wizard-themed.

Naturally, I'll have a post about the UA when it comes out.

Wilds Beyond the Witchlight Cover Suggests a Possible Ravenloft Connection?

 Leaks all over the place!

Earlier, Amazon listed two new D&D books coming out later this year. The first was Wilds Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure, while the second was Curriculum of Chaos, what appears to be another adventure book set in the Magic: the Gathering setting of Strixhaven (the setting of the most recent card set).

Curriculum of Chaos appears to be breaking the pattern with previous MTG-crossover releases by being an adventure rather than a campaign setting, but we can talk about that later.

Instead, let's look at what appears to be the leaked cover of Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. (Just click the link to take a look.)

Perhaps a bit darker than one would expect from a Feywild book, it depicts what seems to be some kind of carnival with a motley-dressed clown and a shady figure in a top hat and suit seen above it.

It's not a ton to go on, but it's also not your classic faerie glade kind of image either.

The Feywild is, of course, a strange land with its own dangers and terrors, so a sinister side of the fey realm is to be expected. But the reason why it seems to ring a lot of bells for a D&D fan like myself is because of the existence of another carnival.

In Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, The Carnival is one of the featured domains of dread. A strange domain that can travel around, linking itself to other domains and even other planes entirely, the carnival's leader, Isolde, is an eladrin from the Feywild who traded her old carnival to a pair of Shadar-kai, who operated their own.

If you don't have Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and are otherwise unaware, Eladrin are elves native to the Feywild, their moods changing their nature and abilities, while Shadar-kai are elves who are native to the Shadowfell, typically associated with the Raven Queen, who are typically humorless and relentless in the missions they perform for their goddess, often finding tales of woe to bring back to her.

Isolde is not the darklord of her domain, but is trapped there and forced to endure the constant violent mishaps that befall her performers and audience members (it's actually her evil sword that is the darklord.) One of the great dangers (but also resources) of the Carnival is a traveling market of fey creatures that make outlandish deals with mortals.

As cool of a concept as that is, there's also this tantalizing other half to the story: who were those shadar-kai who took over the other carnival, and what have they been doing in their travels across the Feywild?

I don't think we can say with certainty that this adventure will deal with them, but it feels highly possible that it will.

The Future of the Artificer

 I love the Artificer. It might be my favorite class overall in D&D 5th Edition. Naturally, it has a few things in its favor: being the only full new class to be introduced after the launch of the edition, they were able to build it with years of experience in mind. I was very happy to see it reprinted in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, making it legal for Adventurer's League should I ever play that again, but I was even more encouraged to see the addition of the Armorer subclass - telling us that this class is not just a one-off oddity, but something that might see future support throughout the edition's lifespan.

That is to say, depending on how WotC's philosophy evolves.

Throughout 5th Edition, the philosophy WotC has used to approach its releases has always been that any new book published should stand on its own as long as the reader has the core three books - the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. Every published adventure has worked this way - if they ever use a monster from Volo's or Mordenkainen's, they always publish it in the appendix (or within the adventures in the case of Candlekeep Mysteries, which... to be honest I hope they go back to the old format.)

And I understand the reason for this: WotC does not want there to be any lockout for new books. I'm a bit of a madman in that I have nearly every 5th Edition release in my library (including two copies of Volo's because of an impulsive purchase of the limited edition cover I made not realizing I couldn't cancel my amazon order of the original.) But not everyone has the hundreds (is it up to a thousand yet?) of dollars to buy everything. Even if we get rid of every adventure book, and even all the campaign setting books to just have the universally-useful rule and monster books, if each book is 50 bucks, that's still $350 bucks for the core 3 plus Volo's, Xanathar's, Mordenkainen's, and Tasha's.

So I think it's both a morally admirable and a smart business move to avoid making more and more books "required." There's nothing stopping you from running a great D&D game with just the core three books, and the fact that you can buy any other of them and use it to run a perfectly functional campaign that's also great is fantastic.

But it does make it very hard to develop more recent ideas.

The Artificer was only able to get an additional subclass because Tasha reprinted the class in its entirety (and made a couple minor changes to make it more setting-agnostic).

So I wonder, if we get another "Everything" book at some point, will they need to fully reprint the Artificer in order to add anything to it? And thus also publish the four existing subclasses along with any new ones they come up with?

WotC has not used any titles like "Monster Manual 2" or "Player's Handbook 2" this edition, though they have in the past. I think there are a couple reasons. The first is that they're not very flavorful names. But the other is that they come with the implication that you need them for the game to function.

Could we ever see a book that adds new Artificer subclasses, the way that Xanathar's and Tasha's do with other classes, without giving you the base class? I'd be really happy to see that, but I also understand the dangers - that you create a product that not everyone can make full use of.

Still, it would be a shame for the Artificer - as awesome as it currently is - to be left to stagnate over however long 5th Edition lasts.

I'm hoping that when a hypothetical 6th Edition comes out we'll see it made one of the base classes in the Player's Handbook, but I'm also in no rush for that to happen.

    Ok, but future concerns aside, what could we imagine for the Artificer moving forward?

One of the things I think is really interesting about it as a class is how your subclass truly changes whether it's a martial class with some spells or a "pure" spellcasting class that gets by with lower-level spells.

I'm kind of curious to see if that balance remains.

One thing I think is notable about the class is that its two weapon-attack-based subclasses both get to use intelligence as the ability they use for attacking with weapons. If my paladin in Curse of Strahd dies (Ekeroth, lord of the grave, forbid) my back-up Artificer (who is a battle smith) could pick up her +2 greatsword and wield it nearly as easily (just without the great weapon fighting style.)

I'd like to see any future weapon-based Artificers have something similar. It seems like it could be one of the great benefits of playing an artificer that if you're going to be making weapon attacks, you don't have to sideline your spellcasting class. Currently, Battle-Smiths are the kings of this kind of gameplay - as long as the weapon is magical, they can use Intelligence (and artificers are well-positioned to, you know, make their weapon magical if it's not) while Armorers are limited to using their built-in weapons this way (though both built-in weapons are pretty damn good.)

Because Artificers are themed around any sort of craftsmanship or invention, they have a ton of potential for future subclasses. Frankly, the Fighter's Rune Knight could easily have been an artificer subclass (I had a concept for a Goliath Armorer whose artificer infusions are themed around carving giant runes into a suit of stone armor). The Gunsmith, from an early unearthed arcana, is an idea they could revisit.

In terms of spellcasting, I think you could play a lot with a more guile-focused subclass that creates projected illusions and that sort of thing. I even started homebrewing a subclass based on the Ghostbusters, where you get a proton pack to use as a spell focus and get a souped-up Witch Bolt (which, let's be honest, needs some souping up.)

I've also been kind of obsessed with the Western-themed part of my homebrew setting, creating monster stat blocks for infernal gunslingers and the like, and the Artificer fits very well into a Weird West/Cattle Punk environment.

Another Look at Firearm Balancing in 5E

 Guns have been part of 5th Edition from the start, but they were notably placed in the Dungeon Master's Guide, rather than the Player's Handbook. This means that it's entirely up to the DM whether guns can play a part in the campaign.

Now, for me, one of my foundational fantasy texts was the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, which I voraciously consumed starting in my senior year of high school (though I had to wait until my freshman year of college for the last two books to come out.) King's epic follows Roland Deschain, who wanders on a quest in a post-post-apocalyptic-apocalyptic world (he's the last survivor of a civilization that fell which had, itself, grown out of the ruins of another civilization) where the very laws of reality are breaking down, on a quest to save The Dark Tower, which stands at the center of all existence and serves as the lynchpin of the universe. Roland is a Gunslinger, which was basically an elite class of knights in his homeland who are all basically expected to be deadeye masters of the gun, and who are held to a strict code of honor and conduct like a samurai (well, or at least how the samurai were later romanticized.) It basically swirls together Arthurian chivalry with Leone-style westerns, with a big mix of post-apocalyptic science fiction to boot.

It really inspired my love of fantasy genre mash-ups. I've recently been watching Netflix's adaptation of Shadow & Bone, which I want to like more than I do (I think a big part of it is that I'm a nearly (my birthday's in less than a week!) 35-year-old man, and this story is very clearly aimed at a young adult audience) but I freaking love its aesthetic and production design, with a sort of late 19th/early 20th century look with steam trains and rifles but also what would be classified as sorcerers in D&D making up a powerful (and resented) elite. It's very clearly fantasy, with "grisha" gaining various talents that give them fantastical abilities, and a giant scar across the land of perpetual shadow inhabited by ravenous monsters that has divided the most powerful imperial nation in two, but it's far from medieval.

Anyway, it's for that reason that, in my homebrew setting at least (though I'll likely also do so in any Ravenloft campaign) I tend to allow the use of firearms.

But there is a fundamental issue at play with firearms: how to balance them.

Guns in 5th Edition all have higher damage dice than other ranged weapons. A pistol, the lowest-damage firearm, deals 1d10 damage, despite being a one-handed weapon, which is equivalent to a heavy crossbow, the highest-damage ranged weapon in the player's handbook, which is also heavy, meaning that it's impractical for any small races to use one (personally I kind of hate the heavy rule, as it seems needlessly punishing for small races. Oh well.)

Now, there are a couple things built in that limit their power:

The first is a sort of open question: firearms are described as martial weapons in the DMG, so you could argue that any class with proficiency in those would be able to use them, but you can also designate them as their own class. In this case, only Artificers would have automatic proficiency in them, and a character would either have to train for them or take the Gunner feat, which was introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. A feat to get these special weapons seems to me like a fair tradeoff.

The other thing to note is that firearms have a much shorter range than other ranged weapons, particularly the renaissance era ones. Pistols have a 30/90 range and Muskets have a 40/120, which means you'll really need to get very close to a target to fire without disadvantage (once again, Sharpshooter is great.) Modern weapons start to get better, but even the futuristic weapons like the laser rifle never have anywhere near the range of a longbow.

Granted, given the size of most battle maps, having a range of 150 feet versus 120 basically means that you can shoot at anything you can see. But in certain edge cases, it might make a difference. And any weapon with a normal range of 30 feet means you're likely going to find yourself having to get close enough to an enemy that they can run up and hit you on the next turn.

Firearms also come from three different eras. Renaissance weapons are pistols and muskets - the former likely implied to be something more like a flintlock. Modern weapons then give us hunting rifles, automatic pistols, shotguns, and automatic rifles. And then futuristic weapons are laser pistols, laser rifles, and antimatter rifles.

Weapons from more advanced eras do more damage. The renaissance era ones only have a single damage die - 1d10 for the pistol and 1d12 for the musket. Modern ones have two, with automatic pistols using 2d6, most of the others doing 2d8, and hunting rifles doing 2d10. Finally, the laser weapons have three damage dice, with laser pistols doing 3d6 and laser rifles doing 3d8 - they're also both radiant damage instead of piercing. And then antimatter rifles deal 6d8, which is just absurd.

Notably, only renaissance weapons and ammunition have gold costs. They're not cheap - both types of gun are hundreds of gold - but the price is set for you to easily make them available in adventuring supply stores if your setting has them.

And, of course, with a single damage die, these weapons are not so much more powerful than PHB ranged options as to break the game. A musket's average damage roll is 6.5, while a heavy crossbow's is 5.5. You get one more average damage per hit in exchange for the high cost, the potential need for special training or a feat, and the lower range.

Thus, I'm inclined to suggest that DMs can simply throw these weapons, along with their appropriate ammunition (which goes for 3g per 10 bullets) into their setting without really changing anything.

Now, there's a bit of ambiguity around futuristic weapons. According to the DMG description of them, the Energy Cells that function as ammo for a futuristic weapon contain "enough power for all the shots its firearm can make."

Futuristic firearms have the keyword "reload" with a number, so I'd think that the idea here is that you can, obviously, reload them. But in the rare instances in which these show up in published adventures (such as in Rime of the Frostmaiden,) it seems to be implied that once the gun has shot off its cell, it cannot be reloaded, and the gun is useless.

On one hand, this can be a way to balance the weapon - rather than giving the party some insanely powerful weapon that can be used indefinitely, you give them a limited-use item that they'll want to save for special circumstances.

But it also seems deeply unsatisfying - not only because I'm a hoarder, but also because it seems absurd anyone would design something that way. And given that energy cells are listed as their own item, weighing 5 oz, I must interpret that the phrasing in the DMG is meant simply to say that the energy cell contains enough energy for the gun to be fired a number of times equal to its reload count, and then must be replaced (which then makes it make sense that the antimatter rifle has a reload of 2, given how much damage each hit does.)

As a DM, you can easily limit the number of energy cells that a party comes across if you're worried the damage is too high - though an Artificer with the Repeating Shot infusion can get around that easily.

In my homebrew world's campaign, the only ranged weapon user was a Rogue. Given that most of his damage was coming from his sneak attack bonus, I wasn't terribly concerned about the extra damage of the laser pistol he used. With a sneak attack at level 8 (which I think was as high as he got,) he got a bonus of 4d6, and his weapon was dealing 3d6. And he had, I believe, +5 to Dexterity at that point. So he was doing 29.5 average damage when he got a sneak attack. With a longbow (what he was using previously - he was a Wood Elf, so he was proficient) he was doing 1d8+4d6+5, so 23.5 average damage. So basically, he got an extra six damage in every turn, which didn't feel like all that much (though I did temporarily take the gun away from him when I sent the party off on a vampire-hunting quest, which is sadly where that campaign kind of fell apart).

I think futuristic weapons should feel like something very special, and it makes sense for them to be priceless.

Modern weapons get a little trickier.

In my setting, there's a region that is inspired by the Wild West, and you can't have that without Revolvers, now can you? While automatic rifles and pistols are slightly too modern for the setting (at least for now - though they can be found used by Shadowfell-dwelling creatures called the Taheen, inspired by the aforementioned Dark Tower series,) revolvers, hunting rifles, and shotguns are all part of that Western vibe.

And they are commonplace. But are they also a little overpowered?

The thing is, ranged weapons are only used by a few character builds - battle smith artificers, ranger, rogues, some fighters... and that's about it. In my experience, I've only had really one character in an ongoing campaign built around ranged weapons (that aforementioned rogue). If someone wants to play a paladin or a barbarian, they're probably not going to abandon that entire playstyle to pick up a gun.

On top of that, game balance in D&D is not really as important as it is in some MMO like World of Warcraft. If one class or subclass or playstyle pulls ahead of another, you're not going to get benched because you, for example, chose to play a melee class.

The other, sort of soft balancing act you can play, which I've described before, is making magical firearms harder to get than other ranged weapons that are magical. Now, granted, getting magic weapons is kind of a big deal when you get into around tier 2 and start coming across foes that are either resistant or immune to nonmagical weapons, so it might seem brutally punishing to be without one. But maybe a +1 revolver isn't too hard to come across, but getting anything fancier than that is going to be a real quest.