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could you fix the Undying Warlock? as the Undead has an "I'm becoming my patron" feel, the Undying feels more like an "I will never die" character, which makes them different enough.
I feel super bothered because I made an Undying fix that I got quite attached to, and the Undead one is too similar. I really wouldn't want to see both, and I'd rather give this warlock's skills to the necromancy wizard.
I like how it implies that all the powerful lich-gods have two separate warlock contracts, and they must just use the Undying one for people they need something from but really don't like.
I thought not. It's not the story a barkeep would tell you. It's a Bard legend. Darth Plagueis was a wizard, so powerful and so wise he could use the Weave to influence the living energy to create life... He had such a knowledge of magic, that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. Vast knowledge of the Weave is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic... He could save others from death, but not himself.
At least thematically, a multiclass between the two would be an interesting concept, like your patron could be the ghost of a dead author who was never able to release their work so in return for telling their stories they give you magical power
And they're both charisma classes so it's not MAD, but ya I don't know what the best LVL split would be or if it would actually be useful. Other classes that work thematically but I don't know how actually useful they'd be: phantom rogue and path of the ancestral warrior barbarian.
@@Nildread I'd take at least 5 levels in bard to improve bardic inspiration (d8, back on short rest). Overall, a 10/10 split would probably work pretty well. I'd probably mphasize warlock level 10 first, just for the survivability.
@@jacobdavis6604, it also depends heavily on the kind of warlock you're playing: bladelock or blastlock. Bladelock won't come online until warlock level 5, but you can use bard slots for Eldritch Smite. A blastlock only needs agonizing blast to be effective, which it gets at level 2.
For the warlock, they could have separated the the damage type change from the damage once per turn. I'm glad they left the wording that gave a bonus to Vampiric Touch and Inflict Wounds spells.
The 14th level ability of the Undead Warlock, this pairs really well with the invocation that lets you look through solid objects. You could dash into a mountain and look for a cave. If an ally is healing you with aura of vitality or healing spirit, you could go a long way, as long as you maintain concentration.
I understand that, although I personally prefer this style. I don't keep up to date with unearthed arcana, since I rarely run into an opportunity to use it. So this book it the first time that this stuff really exists in the game to myself, and anyone who's DM is strict about using only stuff that's in the books.
I must say, yes, the side-by-side comparisons were nice and made it more engaging to follow along with; However, his use of dndbeyond alone makes it more understandable to newer players since they're less likely to know about UA and just makes them more confused. That said, I like this change. I like how he still goes in the details on the differences between UA and published material. Remember to subscribe to NerdImmersion!
I remember when I first found Ted's content it threw my off a bit. But then it kind of became what I watched his content for aha. I get why some people might complain about it, it can seem like he's just reading nearly the same thing twice and that if he did that in prep and wrote out the differences before hand he could make a more comprehensive video. But that's not why I watch Ted. I don't watch for high quality edited things, I watch Ted because he's one of us with a camera. Yeah he could take the time to write out a script, but his content is the time he has when he's not working doing the thing we all would do anyway. Pouring over books and comparing the differences between ua and published content, the balance of classes and subclasses and races. it's just that unlike me, he records himself doing it. It's something he'd do anyway, and we're just getting to watch.
I don't see how people will get bummed out by the rng nature of the college of spirits bard feature when so many players seem to swear by the wild magic sorcerer.
Because those people don't actually like WM sorcerer they like the memey bullshit on the table like turning into a plant or TPKing the party at level 2 with a fireball casting Mage Armor first thing in the morning.
@@joelsasmad eh kinda. Which is why it's a really obnoxious subclass. But the people I'm referring to usually want surges all the time, or they want to use some d1,000,000 table or some shit where half the options are stuff like 'You become a god.' Stuff that just ends the campaign.
I feel the nerf of grave touched ability of the Undead Warlock makes a lot of sense. I feel like it's still powerfull this way, but not as gamebraking as it was in UA.
The Spirit Focus only affecting spells with material components is something that probably was not intended by Wizards. It is also something I'm sure most tables wont even know they're using wrong and even within the tables that know its limits will ignore it.
@@NerdImmersion Wait, does that mean, that any +1/+2/+3 Effekt from a focus is only used on spells with a material component? I thought this Effekt just meant, that you could not use another focus for your spells.
@@Samhain_III iirc, weapons/foci that provide+1/2/3 to spell attack/save are generally worded "while you hold/wield this item" you get the bonus. Spirits bard specifically says "when you use the focus to cast a spell" and you only *use* the focus if a spell has a material component.
Magical items that give +1 to spell attack or dc apply to spells that dont have material components, so the college of spirits healing boost would apply in the same way. It just add a M component effectively.
Tale of the clever animal appears to be useless in combat until you realize this means once they get couterspell they’re adding a bardic roll to every counterspell and dispel magic
With Spirit Projection showing damage and effects on both body and spirit means that you potentially could have a team of *unassailable* healers keeping you up while you infiltrate/attack a place. Oh and effects go both ways too, so an invisible hasted spirit with barkskin, shield of faith, beacon of hope, and whatever other concentration buffs you could stack up on one person, provided you had enough casters. The spirit wouldn't be casting the spells, so the concentration spells can't drop unless the support team was attacked. This gives me an idea for a "haunted" castle where there's a necromantic cult hiding deep within supporting their undead warlock leader - or more than one undead warlock. Heroes are continually harried by this seemingly invulnerable "ghost" as they try and either escape or find the inner sanctum where all the spellcasters are - who might not have that many spells left, as they've been using them all in support of the ghost. Would also let me go, "HA! And you guys said Chill Touch was worthless!" as the unable to regain hit points goes both ways as well.
From the way the feature is written the intent seems to be for it to apply to all spells. Otherwise I feel like they would have clarified that it only applies to spells with material components.
@@NerdImmersion It was in a 2016 Tweet that he has since deleted: www.sageadvice.eu/2016/04/09/if-attuned-to-an-instrument-of-the-bards-does-the-target-make-its-save-with-disadvantage/
Something as a DM I’d consider doing to change Necrotic Husk is that as long as you have that point of exhaustion you cannot use that ability again (maybe specify that you can’t remove it with greater restoration or just say that it must be removed via long rest)
I think with the spirits bard 6th level upgrade, its saying you can choose to cast a spell through your focus (regardless of it needing a material component or not) and get the bonus.
I feel like Grave Touched should be a two part then. The first part allowing you to switch your damage type to be done at any time making it similar to a monk's magical weapon. The additional damage die being once per turn is understandable and fine. It would otherwise be way to exploitable. I can already see a Sorlock with a quickened eldritch blast and another eldritch blast per turn. The damage potential is way too high and probably could roll through most encounters till the DM throws necrotic immunity against you just to make you switch back to normal blasting.
How I would handle what is being talked about here: 26:50. Maybe you could rewrite the undead warlocks 10th level to: "Once you use this reaction, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest that you started with no levels of exhaustion." Aka 2 long rests cooldown unless you can be targeted by a greater restoration spell or more long rests if your body/husk is more exhausted from say extreme conditions.
They changed it because this isn’t supposed to necessarily lean better towards eldritch blast like the UA, they wanted more options that could do what hexblade does for bladelocks but realized they made this ability too strong for EB. Basically many of us pointed out the potential abuse and they patched it. I’d call it a patch before a nerf since it was UA and I really don’t recommend changing it back as it was kind of dumb good.
Which is a shame, Undead had potential for the best blaster over hexblade. But now that it is nerfed, we're back to dealing the most damage with that one subclass, be it weapon or spell based.
Necrotic Husk could have instead made use of the recharge mechanic. Like “when you finish a long rest, roll a d6 and on a 5 or 6 you can use this feature again”. That way you don’t have to remember a roll you made a few in-game days ago
Honestly I was about to say you could just roll the d4 during each long rest and regain it on a 4 (or a 1, I kinda like low rolling). But it keeps tracking out of it, though I personally love abilities that require a bit more effort than a long rest to regain.
Pretty sure you can still use a spellcasting focus, even when a spell doesn't require it. Just take spellcasting focuses that adds to hit chance for example.
Well the spellcasting focii that add to hit do that regardless, if possible they state: "this can be used as a spellcasting focus" meaning if you need the focus it applies, so unfortunately it doesn't change much. A reminder spellcasting focus in the phb states under material components: A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the material components specified for a spell.
@@NerdImmersion you would logically be able to use a Spellcasting focus even if it's not required. Fire bolt or toll the dead doesn't need a material cost, but you can still cast it through your staff
@@NerdImmersion Then why would they have only regeneration be applicable. They seem to have designed it around the healing be applicable to non material spells
I mostly like the new Undead Warlock, my only problems with it are the 1d4 long rests for Necrotic Husk (just make it 1 long rest, it really isn't a big deal especially since you already get a point of Exhaustion as a negative) and the general clunkyness of Spirit Projection, first it takes your concentration, which limits your spellcasting quite a bit as a Warlock, then it specifies that your spirit doesn't have the benefits of your items since they're on your body, so fuck your magic items, spell focus/component pouch, and armor. Like, seriously wtf, plus since it's Concentration you can be knocked OUT of this form by some goblin that threw a rock at you.
Quick math on Grave Touched with one extra die once on Eldritch Blast: (Disclaimer: I might be wrong as I don't do much math as often nowadays) *Taking a target with 18 AC and a warlock with +4 CHA, you'd get +7 to hit.* That means you gotta roll 11-20 on the d20 to hit, so let's say 50% chance (or 0.5) to hit the attack and 50% not to. Eldritch Blast does 2 attacks on lvl 6. So you get 0.5(hit) * 0.5(hit) = 0.25 to hit both and 0.5(miss) * 0.5(miss) = 0.25 to miss. *That means 25% to hit both, 50% to hit only once and 25% to miss both.* If you only hit once, the extra die is a 100% (1) increase to your average damage. If you hit both, a 50% (0.5) increase since you go from 2d10 to 3d10. If you don't hit, a 0% increase. So, using the chance as weights (make chance * damage increase) to calculate the average damage increase across all combinations, we get 0.25 * 0.5(2 hits) + 0.5 * 1(1 hit) + 0.25 * 0(miss) = 0.125 + 0.5 + 0 = 0.625. *So, for this scenario, the feature increases your Eldritch Blast average damage by 62.5%.* It's not broken, but it's a lot. And that increase should actually grow as target AC increases, since your chance to miss increases, which means the chance you hit only once instead of twice also increases. The feature will certainly lose importance as you get more attacks on Eldritch Blast or more dice on attack spells, but at lower levels it's VERY powerful for something you can essentially do for free. Oh, and I'd like to remind that crits should double that extra die too 😉 EDIT: Also, I would CERTAINLY be on the lookout for a feat like Elemental Adept for necrotic damage being brought someday. I feel like this is the only thing missing for this subclass to really shine. EDIT 2: Guess what, I've been reading the book and recently got to dark gifts. Turns out Touch of Death lets you ignore resistance to necrotic damage when "you hit a target with an attack roll and deal necrotic damage". So there is your "partial" Elemental Adept (Necrotic) if you can get the DM to let you have it kk
I don’t know about the official ruling, but most DMs I’ve played with just allow you to cast non-material spells through a focus. So you may as well ask if you can use abilities regarding a focus on all spells as none of them are particularly game breaking.
The materials that are replaced with the focus are only materials that do not have a value listed in the spell (ie. Identify requires a pearl worth at least 100 gold pieces). This would not change for the feature here. Focus is the same as a component pouch as Ted already said
"An arcane focus is a special item designed to channel the power of arcane spells. A sorcerer, warlock, or wizard can use such an item as a spellcasting focus, as described in the Spellcasting section." From the wording I'd figure you can just use them when casting any spell. Though it would have no benefit normally, I can't think of a reason to not allow someone to cast all spells through their focus.
@@19superD Spellcasting Focus is a catchall for Arcane Focus, Holy Symbol and Druidic Focus. When you read each of the specific descriptions, their only function is described as replacing the cost free non consumed M components in a spell. The reason Artillerist Artificers get the extra damage on all their spells, is that their spellcasting stipulates that their tools/arcane firearm is necessary to cast any of their spells, essentially giving all Artificer spells the M requirement (so even if a spell just has S components, Artificers require tools to cast it). No other class's spellcasting stipulates that a spellcasting Focus is required for their spells, just that it can be used instead of the M components on their spells (so they can cast VS spells without equipment or components). I reckon it was an oversight by Wizards as they probably forgot how specific their previous wording is, how they got around it with Artificer. Also I would agree, its hardly broken to allow them to use it on their very limited selection of damage and healing spells (maybe Healing Word giving on average 12hp is overpowered?)
I feel like a quick fix to the Spirit Focus healing spell problem is to include any bard spell that uses Somatic or (focus replaceable) Material components. The concern was probably that they didnt want to give healing word an additional 1d6 which would be kind of busted especially early on, but by including Somatic components you get cure wounds, mass cure wounds, and so on and the damage spells are still not crazily expanded upon since vicious mockery also doesn't have somatic or material components.
Barbarian subclass I think would be cool that I made Path of the spears fury =At level 3 Fury of the eye Your furousity and might travels through the might of the things you throw. The primal skills that evolved humanity's hunting prowess continues within you. °when raging your rage bonus dmg is applied to ranged strength based attacks °you may apply your reckless attack on strength based range attack rolls Guarding strike °when raging, as a bonus action make a melee weapon attack roll against an enemy, on hit the target takes no dmg but if one size larger or less, is pushed 5 feet away from you =At level 6 Bolsterious draw °when raging, twice per round it takes no action to draw a strength based weapon Strength and stride °when raging, once per round when you move 10 feet in the direction of the target of your next attack, add 1d6 to the weapon dmg °when jumping you can increase the height or length distance by 10 feet Enhanced guarding strike °your guarding strike now does unarmed strike dmg =At Level 10 Brutal impalment °when rageing you can expand 5 feet of movement from yourself into a strength based attack. If the attack lands then a target maximum of two sizes larger is knocked back 10 feet and make a strength saving throw (8+strength+proficiency) or be knocked prone °brutal criticals apply to strength based range weapon attacks Fallen pray °When an enemy target is prone you ignore disadvantage on ranged attack rolls to that target °Guarding strike moves opponents 10 feet away and is effective against creatures two sizes larger =At level 14 Guard lord °If the target of your brutal impalement skill is knocked into another enemy. All enemies its knocked into with equal or lower AC than the attack roll takes half dmg and make brutal impalement saves °Opponents of your guarding strike must succeed a strength saving throw (8+strength+proficiency) or be knocked prone °proned creatures hit by a brutal impalement have their movement speed reduced by half until the end the round
Honestly, regarding the Guidance Feature of the new bard, I think while it sounds cool, it will in the end just be a free cantrip. (Which is still awesome, and Guidance is a great Cantrip) Since its still an action, there is basically no time you would use it in combat over the help action, even with 60 feet range, and honestly, how often do you need Ability Checks in Combat? Out of combat, the 60 feet range will barely make a difference other than in very niece situations. You can already give someone guidance and have that person walk ahead if there is a dangerous situation. a 60 feet range would mabe be usefull to help someone climb out of a pit or sth, but again, just using the help action (for example lowering a rope) would be much better. In my opinion, they should have made it so the range is just 30 feet, but you can use it as a bonus action, making it some kind of mini inspiration. That way you could actually use it to for example help someone to break a grapple or get out of sticky terrain like Web, without basically giving up your turn.
Here's a concept for you, a little homebrew for the bard if you will. Keep it rng, BUT you roll them all and keep them in a pool. The concept, is that the spirits told of several tales while you were focusing/rest, you the bard can choose which you want to use. If you use your bardic inspiration, you lose the magic of a tale you heard, but you choose. This would allow you to at least know what you're going in with.
That only works until you get dice back on a short rest. I'd say that giving them the capstone feature right away would be better. Rolling twice and pick one, and if you get the same number twice, you choose. That's a dope mechanic imo. You would then have to switch out the actual capstone for something else fairly minor.
A spell does not need a material component to be cast through a Magical Focus. A Magical Focus replaces a material component in the event that the material component does not have a cost and is not consumed or both. You can still cast healing word through a focus without issue. This means this ability affects any spell that deals damage or heals that counts as a Bard spell, such as healing word, mass healing word, cure wounds, thunderwave, shatter, so on and so forth.
Tbc for spirit projection, i dont think it needs to say that you are shunted out because the spirit form requires concentration like a spell. Taking damage of any kind, including by ending your turn in an inappropriate place, will probably just snap you back to your body instantaneously .
I suspect the intent isn't to limit the use of the Spiritual Focus to only those spells with a material component. This is because, even if you consider ALL healing spells across ALL classes, Regenerate is still the only one that would be eligible -- and you'd be adding just 1d6 to 4d8+15. I bet the intent was that a bard can _choose_ to use their Spiritual Focus together with any spell that's otherwise eligible to yield those effects (like Healing Word, Cure Wounds, and Mass Cure Wounds).
I am excited to hear what you have to say about the Unded Warlock! Only another Eldritch Blast vessel or does the extra dice from the lvl6 feature enables something else? Maybe a Pact of the Blade Greataxe or Lance user?
Considering the qualifiers are attack rolls you can do a lot of mean things with the six level but honestly there's a lot of potential in the tool kit. Like Primal savagery on a tomelock becomes extremely potent. 3d10 necrotic with a fear effect if your form is active, combined with spirit shroud you become a world beater that prevents healing that fears and makes it hard to run. Chill touch becomes extremely good to shut down healing and dealing alright damage(3d8) while again fear effect potential. Vampiric touch becomes outstanding especially at high levels when you get spirit form, 6d6 damage heal for full.Considering all the inbuilt abilities to heal and get temp hp a "hit me build" with armor of agythys and shadows of moil. Blade of disaster becomes an extremely potent kill heal spell with the capstone ability. Also let's not forget you can also mindsliver, and bane an enemy for a massive debuff to saving throws. We also haven't got to the subject of races and multiclassing, fallen aasimar is damn good with all this, you become death reaping life energy especially if you dip for grim harvest. Shadow sorc is also synergizes really well with a 1 level dip. Death cleric getting rid of resistance to necrotic is also really good to multiclass for. I don't know man there's so much to do with this subclass besides pew pew eldritch blast.
@ Yeah, my hype got the better of me stopping me from realizing the concentration conflict lol. Honestly the primal savagery popped in my head because I was thinking of shillelagh for a melee cantrip but remember primal touch was much better past level 4. Also you're right, it is basically inflict wounds on demand I didn't even realize that lol.
@@greybearddnd2417 Why on earth would you go Pact of the Blade as a Hexblade instead of any other Pact that gives more utility while you use Eldritch Blast?
As others have noticed- Yes, Magical Secrets count as Bard Spells and can be used with the Spiritual Focus of the Bard. They SHoULD be considered because a person playing a Bard can and should choose their own spells, but this would incentivise them to take damaging or healing ones that could benefit from the feature. Ted has already discounted them because that decision is player based, but I see it as a balancing tool that wizards employed to not break the class in early levels and yet still leave this as a useful feature.
I quite like the Undead Warlock and DM willing you could use elements of the class to explain a change or Race/Linage to either the Reborn or Lineage. Making it more impactful by saying that your first Use of Form of Dread, Grave Touched or Necrotic husk transformed you into a Dhampir or Reborn. I kind of like the idea of a character going down but using Necrotic Husk exploding only to reform as a Dhampir or Reborn...
I believe that the people that wrote the phb and SOMEHOW still keep writting stuff for d&d STILL don't know how spell focus works related to material and somatic components. They wrote the rules, but keep treating it as if the spell focus could somehow be used for somatic components even if there were no material - as if that "exception" was an oversight. IMHO they should just errata the phb into allowing spell focus to be used for somatic components even if the spell has no material component.
I would say just completely take away the limit from Necrotic Husk, exhaustion is plenty enough to keep people from abusing it, if they keep using it they will fully die after 6 uses. And exhaustion goes down by 1 each long rest, so the more they abuse it, the more they have to LR to fully recover from it.
It sounds like grave touched may be encouraging warlocks to use a different cantrip than just Eldritch Blast. Toll the dead/poison spray has a higher die (d12) so you would instead be dealing potentially more damage by using something other than Eldritch blast. Although I'm not sure how it would ultimately compare to agonizing blast (but you wouldn't have to choose that invocation if you leaned into this ability) Toll the dead would also fall under the Necromancy school requirement outlined in the 14th level ability, aaaand you would regain way more hit points per turn using the 14th level ability if you used toll the dead. Edit: forget what I said. It says when you hit with an attack roll.
I think a good change to the 10th level warlock feature could be that it’s once per long rest but gives two levels of exhaustion, that way you can’t keep using after each long rest and the more you do the worse you suffer.
The Grave Touched change is to bring it in line with the cleric features that is there to make a melee build function like Divine Strike. The way it was before was extremly overtuned borderline broken.
Meh. Hex blade trailed behind it only slightly at lower levels and has better damage output at higher levels. I think they could have just changed it from “an additional damage dice” to a D6 and left it as is. Or made it so you get 1 form of dread per short rest so it’s not an always on ability. As of now in terms of damage output nothing in the subclass past getting 1d10 damage per turn at level 6 actually increases your damage. Also you need a 3 way stat split to make this viable for damage and since you’re not getting heavy armor proficiency you can’t make a strength build.
The Spiritual Focus screwup (at least I think it is, your average player would expect healing word to get bonus healing from that subclass ability) is pretty bad considering there are similar issues on Alchemist artificer using an Enhanced Arcane Focus instead of alchemical tools, and every artificer spell even uses a material component for that class from their spellcasting feature! It really should read "cast a bard spell while holding your spiritual focus".
While I understand the purpose of a focus is to replace all the minor material requirements for spells, I think the majority of people use focuses and the sole way they cast their spells and that means ALL healing and damage spells that a bard casts gets the d6 as they all are cast through the focus. Unless they swap to their lyre for some reason
I think what the 14th level UA feature for the Spirit Bard meant was you roll a d6 for free to see what effect you get but when your rolling damage or Temp HP from those top 6 tales you still use your bardic inspiration die, say the warrior would still do 2d10(?) at level 14 not 2d6, limiting the amount of options you have but giving you access to those 6 for free, at least that's the way I interpreted it but the wording was extremely unclear so everyone would probably read it like you had mentioned.
For Undead Warlock Level 6 it says that changing the damage type to necrotic can be done once per turn. It DOES NOT say you can add a damage dice once per turn. It says "While you are using your form of dread, you can roll one additional damage die when determining *the* necrotic damage the target takes." If the attack was already necrotic damage, wouldn't you be able to do it for each. The "the necrotic damage" wording doesn't seem specific enough of to only limit it to necrotic damage gained from this feature. Not sure if it's intended. It still blocks a majority of use cases, but a Zealot Barbarian could roll their necrotic dice twice on their first attack, and then make their second attack deal only necrotic damage and deal the second dice of damage. Something like spirit shroud would probably be easier to optimize this with if it does work this way.
Man I want to play an undead warlock bad. A fallen aasimar tomelock or bladelock would be amazing especially if you dipped in fighter or cleric for heavy armor, or 2 level dipped into paladin for smites(Becoming the angel of death) and heavy armor or wizard for grim harvest to make healing potential stupid. However, Human variant( war caste most likely or magic initiate or shadow touched), 1st lvl shadow sorc dipp rest undead tomelock, later getting sentinel and maybe tough, might be where it's at. Primal savagery + spirit shroud+amor of agythys+cloak of flies with your dread form active turns you into an absolute world beater especially with sentinel because there would be no escape 1v1. Especially when you add death wards, and gift of the protectors and a full soul cage into the mix. Needing to drop someone potentially 4 times while they can heal or give themselves temp hp and output stupid damage while you take damage for hitting them is stupid destructive. That's not even getting into the rest of their bag of tricks like bane+mindsliver for example. Honestly I love the flavor of this subclass, just wish it had some more undead raising options in the mix. Their innovation for animate dead and a nightcaller can keep things cool with a small but weak posse till finger of death. Also finger of death plus the capstone ability makes a very good assassination build especially since it's just a feat away to get expertise in stealth. There's to much spoiling for options lol.
Thanks for the great video. For the Undead Warlock, it seems you can use the Form of Dread while using your Spirit Projection correct? I also think the 1d4 long rests for the Necrotic Husk seems clunky. I wouldn't find myself being happy having the active part of my level 10 addition of the subclass being out of commission for days.
I'm so interested in both of them honestly (with the undead Warlock i'm just imagining an innocent almost child like person turning into a Spector straight from your nightmares) I only feel that with the Warlock I would change it to be (essentially) "When you hit a creature with an attack roll and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with necrotic. While you are using your Form of Dread once per turn you can roll an additional damage die when determining the necrotic damage the target takes from the die rolled." I feel that pretty well balances the feature between being interesting still and keeping it balanced and if I ever get around to playing that class I will bring that up to DM...Also just imagine going phantom form with Spirit Projection and combining it with Form of Dread to go into a king's castle to just scare the shit out of him. I imagine the Form of Dread just looking like a Dementor from Harry Potter or just the Grim Reaper, You could probably scare him into helping your party.
The Form of Dread interaction with Grave Touched does not specify only damage dealt due to Grave Touched. This should work with any necrotic damage you are doing, such as with Hex.
I believe with the spiritual focus, as you can use it with somatic components of the spell, those spells would count under the ability. Otherwise, as you've shown there's basically no healing spells at 6th when you acquire the ability will gain the benefit for healing seems to extreme to be an oversight like that
4:20 "Now this obviously won't apply to things like Magical Secrets..." Just to clarify, the subclass feature _does_ apply to Magical Secrets, but the database search filter you set up would not pick those spells out.
I...don't think they intent for the Focus on the Spirit Bard was JUST spells that need the spell focus, but I could be wrong. For instance arcane firearm on Artillerist Artificer boosts spells like firebolt and shocking grasp even though neither needs a spell focus. Might be it was just poorly worded but I think the intent is for is to be a bonus to all damage and healing spells, otherwise it seems not good?
I'm very happy The Undead got published in this. Since I saw it in the UA, Form of Dread sounds so flavorful and cool to me. So that's all pretty hype!
I’m guessing the intention is that the focus can be used even if a spell doesn’t require a focus. I believe there are some artificer and their subclass abilities work this way, though they may be worded better
About the 14th level ability for the Undead warlock: since you can end your turn inside an object and not be pushed out AND you can teleport your body to the location of the spirit... How would that work? Would this RAW allow for eviscerating someone this way? Would both people take massive damage? Would they grow together? Or is there anything that stops this as described?
Spirits Bard: 1) Guiding Whispers: A free Guidance cantrip for a Bard is pretty nice for out of combat situations, but the 60ft. range increase seems pretty irrelevant. Guidance isn't something that will be used very often in combat if it basically only affects Dispel Magic/Counterspell checks and grapples, and Bards being a full spellcaster class have better things to use their Action/Concentration on. 2) Spiritual Focus: Flavor-wise it's cool, but a d6 added to healing/damage is very restrictive, as it only applies to certain spells and only to when you cast it. That means that concentration spells won't benefit from the d6 past the turn you cast it in. Combined that with almost no spells effectively applying to it it just doesn't seem useful. I'd rewrite it to affect spells regardless of their material components and whether the focus is used for those spells as long as you hold your focus in your hand. That would at least make it useful for instantaneous spells like Cure Wounds. 3) Tales From Beyond: The feature sounds pretty cool, but it has some drawbacks. Not only is it completely randomized, so ending up, for example, with advantage to irrelevant ability checks in combat won't feel useful or satisfying, it also consumes both your main Action AND a Bonus Action to reuse it mid-combat. And it consumes your Bardic Inspiration. All that combined with the fact that Bards as full spellcasters can both cast a stronger spell with an Action AND give out Bardic Inspiration, which will be more impactful than what they'd do with most of these completely RNG effects makes the ability feel overall kinda clunky to use more than once per combat encounter. It does have the benefit of not tapping into your spell slots, so it can help with overall spell economy throughout the day, but it still feels kinda unwieldy. Not to mention that the effects themselves also have varying degrees of strength and usefulness. 4) Spirit Session: I really don't like that this ability heavily relies on having a larger party at later levels to get all of its benefits. Of course recruiting some NPC companions is possible, and it will work fine with more numerous groups, but a 4 PC game at higher levels will essentially have to rely on always bringing henchmen and mercenaries to get something like Scrying from the ritual. It also requires the whole party to commit to the ritual for 1 hour, so it taps into their downtime, scouting, sleeping etc. just so a Bard can get the best result out of the feature. I don't know, just feels kinda unwieldy. I also wouldn't mind if the feature would grant some benefit to other members of the ritual for commiting to it, like a single use of a spell from the ritual to each partaking member. 5) Mythical Connection: Honestly, as a peak ability it doesn't feel super satisfying to merely be able to choose between two random rolls for your feature that still has the same limitations as before. It doesn't make it more powerful and it doesn't grant more versatility, just makes the feature slightly more consistent with what you'd want from the Table. I'd prefer there to be an effect like an ability to roll on the Tales Table for an effect to be used throughout the day without having to spend a Bardic Inspiration infinite or CHA amount of times until next long rest ON TOP of the effect you can gain by using your normal Tales From Beyond feature. Comparing it to peak features of other Subclasses, the creative freedom of College of Creation, combat strength of College of Glamour or versatility and flexibility of College of Eloquence, this just feels like a lackluster ability that would serve better as a level 6 minor fluff bonus to the main feature rather than its peak ability. Undead Warlock: 1) Expanded Spell List: It still sucks that Warlocks don't get these spells on top of the ones they can normally choose, but the list itself isn't all that bad. Phantasmal Force is a rather poor choice for a class with limited, permanently upcasted spell slots as it doesn't get any benefits with a level 3+ spell slot, but Bane and Blindness/Deafness do, and they are both nice features to concentrate on. Greater Invisibility, despite being a level 4 non-upcastable spell, is still also worth it, being a powerful defensive feature with offensive benefits of having all your Eldritch Blasts be rolled with advantage. 2) Form of Dread: Incredibly powerful. Using the feature grants you an average of 153 temporary hit points throughout the day at level 20, and that's definitely not a number to scoff at. Immunity to frightened condition is nice too, as well as the ability to Frighten a creature with Eldrtich Blast on top of its usual Invocation benefits. 3) Grave Touched: Both nice for flavor reasons as well as helpful with exploration scenarios in which you'd normally drown or suffocate. The nerf to the amount of times you can add extra dice to your Eldritch Blast may hurt, but honestly dealing 16d10+40 necrotic damage with a cantrip on a Sorlock would get pretty absurd, even more than it currently is. But hey, it still increases total damage dealt by Eldritch Blast by what is effectively another beam of damage, making you effectively always one stage ahead on cantrip progression in relation to other Warlocks. Transforming damage to necrotic is pretty nice for some situations overall, but I don't know how often it might be applicable with Warlock spells already mostly leaning towards necrotic damage. At least it will help with fire spells in ignoring common resistances. 4) Necrotic Husk: Necrotic Resistance/Immunity is great, but a Half-Orc racial ability with some necrotic fart to boot isn't worth an Exhaustion level AND up to 4 days of waiting for the feature to refresh. I'd abandon the 1d4 and just make it a once per long rest ability. 5) Spirit Projection: A pretty cool ability for scouting, and nice combat benefits if your body is safely secured before the fight. The biggest drawback is its concentration requirement, which greatly limits your spellcasting in that form. Funnily enough, RAW it is also possible to get stuck in a wall after teleporting your body to the spirit projection upon breaking concentration from the force damage you take to fly through said wall. The lack of requirements on Conjuration and Necromancy spells while in the spirit form is nice on paper, but very few spells will be applicable to those requirements due to the drawback of Concentration, the remainder being either situational or otherwise limited in usage (Mystic Arcanum). I'm not sure what to think about the healing you gain from Necrotic damage, or how useful it is exactly, because I don't know how it interacts with AoE spells like Arms of Hadar, Negative Energy Flood or Horrid Wilting. Still, it's somewhere between pretty good and amazing.
only one bean of EB gets converted to necrotic with grave touched since the beans are separet attacks i really don't like the new version especially since the extra damage does not scale
I think Ted mentioned it but if not I'll say it here the big difference between Published Version and UA Undead Warlock's 10th level feature Necrotic Husk is a reaction when you drop to 0 Mortal Husk just happened when you dropped to 0 I know Ted did mention that it's now creatures of your choice within 30 ft instead of all creatures within 30ft.
Hey Ted, I think you misread spirits Bard. It says that the Spiritual Focus works as your Spellcasting focus, and, at least if I remember correctly, spellcasting focus work as material AND somatic components. AKA, it's not just material spells.
No, spellcasting focuses only let you continue to make whatever gestures are required for the somatic component, they don't actually count as a somatic requirement.
I don't mind the change to the Undead Warlock's Grave Touched. I like to imagine all the Eldritch blast beams as flying skulls or something, but one of them is bigger and filler with a black necrotic energy while maybe the others are just a pale blue/white
I'm pretty sure the spiritual focus ability not simply adding a d6 to one roll of ANY damaging or healing spell you cast is simply an oversight. It feels too complex and arbitrary to only be spells you need to replace the materials for. Wizards have a bad habit in 5e of simply not understanding how some of their own rules work RAW. This is far from the first time they've released official content that needs to be clarified/errata'ed immediately.
It was definitely clarified somewhere that it was only for spells with material components I just can't track down that source and it's bugging me. But I agree, seems like a big oversight (though it made it in to the final product from the UA)
@@NerdImmersion Do you mean the playtest version or this released version? Having looked online it seems like this was a known issue in the community but never adressed. With its official release changing nothing I guess wizards either just isnt aware or thinks its fine? Honestly wouldn't put either option past them 😂
I think both of these seem like the have potential to be very fun. Warlock always seemed like a multiclass type of class to me and I was sick of seeing Hexblade everywhere.
Warlocks are in theory the most customizable class with the most options. In practice most of those options don't get used. Alot of patrons have benefits that are too weak or minor to matter, with so few spell slots for most of the game you are encouraged to rely on either cantrips and as a result become an Eldritch Blast spam or pick up a weapon, in which case you pretty much have to go Hexblade. I have two house rules I think help. I bake the Hex Warrior feature into the blade pact so that any patron can get charisma based attacks. Warlocks also get an additional slot that can only used for patron spells at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. This way a more spellcastery warlock is actually playable and the patron spell lists make them matter more.
Does the Grave Touched feature only apply to the necrotic damage from the attack you changed, or the necrotic damage you deal regardless of source? Because while it IS a bit of a downgrade from the UA being able to apply to every EB, if it applies to all of your Necrotic damage, that's still fantastic synergy with Hex.
I allow PCs to add their spellcasting focus to any spell they cast, even if there is not material component. Just because there is no material component in the spell doesn't mean, IMO, that the focus you are actively holding can't be used.
Something that I hate about necrotic husk is that it now uses a reaction ie if you don't kill your enemy you're just standing their like a idiot with 1 hp and can't use Tomb of Levistus as a fall back
After watching this I am toying with the idea of an The Undead warlock/Assassin Rogue multi class? It sounds like there is a lot of flavor there. Especially with that lvl14 ability. Not sure if it would work in the long run or not.
I understand why they did what they did to grave touched, it made undead warlock just strictly better in damage department over even hexblade, and I don't think we should try and top hexblade, that just screams power creep imho, but I do wish you could still change everything into necrotic still, just only add the extra damage once per turn
The wording says ONCE during each of your turns when you hit a creature with an attack roll and roll damage... So it sounds like, you wouldn't double the damage of your EB since each blast is rolled for separately. It seems like one of the blasts could be changed to necrotic and doubled, but the second blast would remain 1d10 force damage. If one attack roll determined the success or failure of every blast during that attack, instead of each blast needing it's own attack roll than it would be doubled, but as written, only one of the EB's would be changed and doubled.
Right... that's what I'm saying. Originally though in the UA it didn't say once. It said "In addition, when you hit a creature with an attack and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with necrotic damage."
I'm not 100% sure but is it possible that you can use the focus for any spell but that replacing the material component portion is just an added potential benefit of using the focus? Does it say you CAN'T use the spell focus for spells not requiring a material component?
The rule is that you can use the same hand that is holding a material component/focus to perform the somatic part. So you could hold your focus in one hand, have a shield in the other, and still cast a V, S, M component spell. The issue is that if you are asking a spell with no material component, then you aren't using the focus and so you need a free hand. RAW, the ability will work as Ted described, only giving healing to a casting of Regenerate. Although I would let it apply to any bard spell you cast tbh.
Tale of the Mind Bender with Monk.... that could be a stunning build right there. Even gives some extra psychic damage. Be inspiring to allies and punch enemies. >^
Re: Necrotic Husk's "deathly energy" eruption, I would have thought the exhaustion would be enough to prevent anyone from using this more than once per long rest anyway -- maybe a bit more if in dire straits -- so the "once per 1d4 long rests" restriction seems to be overkill. Even a "once per long rest" limitation might be unnecessary. That said, they did do play testing, so I wonder if someone abused this...🤔...maybe by largely sacrificing themself to deliver fatal damage?
The UA version isn't even abusable, you deal fatal damage to something and then show up with 1hp, ready to be instakilled by anything that survived or wasn't within 30ft.
The 1d4 long rests for Necrotic Husk is not the best mechanic. Definitely there to prevent abuse, but I dont think it can be reliably abused anyway. Nobody is going to purposefully try to drop to 0 hit points just to deal 2d10 + X damage. Especially when you are only getting revived for 1 hp and you take a point of exhaustion. Thats a pretty dangerous situation to be in.
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could you fix the Undying Warlock? as the Undead has an "I'm becoming my patron" feel, the Undying feels more like an "I will never die" character, which makes them different enough.
Mommy, I want Undead Warlock!
Mommy: We've got Undead Warlock at home!
Undead Warlock at home: *Undying Warlock rotting away in some corner*
I like the undying warlock. It tapers off but hey. 😅
I like that both can still exist. They are quite mechanically distinct which also makes them thematically distinct.
I feel super bothered because I made an Undying fix that I got quite attached to, and the Undead one is too similar. I really wouldn't want to see both, and I'd rather give this warlock's skills to the necromancy wizard.
@@nulllex0099 Wizard is strong enough lol
I like how it implies that all the powerful lich-gods have two separate warlock contracts, and they must just use the Undying one for people they need something from but really don't like.
I'm going to reflavour "the tale of a clever animal" into "the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise"
I've not heard of this tale
I thought not. It's not the story a barkeep would tell you. It's a Bard legend. Darth Plagueis was a wizard, so powerful and so wise he could use the Weave to influence the living energy to create life... He had such a knowledge of magic, that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. Vast knowledge of the Weave is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic... He could save others from death, but not himself.
He could actually...save people from death?
At least thematically, a multiclass between the two would be an interesting concept, like your patron could be the ghost of a dead author who was never able to release their work so in return for telling their stories they give you magical power
And they're both charisma classes so it's not MAD, but ya I don't know what the best LVL split would be or if it would actually be useful. Other classes that work thematically but I don't know how actually useful they'd be: phantom rogue and path of the ancestral warrior barbarian.
@@Nildread I'd take at least 5 levels in bard to improve bardic inspiration (d8, back on short rest). Overall, a 10/10 split would probably work pretty well. I'd probably mphasize warlock level 10 first, just for the survivability.
Nice concept!
@@jacobdavis6604, it also depends heavily on the kind of warlock you're playing: bladelock or blastlock. Bladelock won't come online until warlock level 5, but you can use bard slots for Eldritch Smite. A blastlock only needs agonizing blast to be effective, which it gets at level 2.
I love how you always seem to be the first person on the scene
For the warlock, they could have separated the the damage type change from the damage once per turn. I'm glad they left the wording that gave a bonus to Vampiric Touch and Inflict Wounds spells.
The 14th level ability of the Undead Warlock, this pairs really well with the invocation that lets you look through solid objects. You could dash into a mountain and look for a cave. If an ally is healing you with aura of vitality or healing spirit, you could go a long way, as long as you maintain concentration.
Honestly I liked more when you did side-by-side comparisons with UA. It was easier to follow.
Same honestly
Ditto
I understand that, although I personally prefer this style. I don't keep up to date with unearthed arcana, since I rarely run into an opportunity to use it. So this book it the first time that this stuff really exists in the game to myself, and anyone who's DM is strict about using only stuff that's in the books.
I must say, yes, the side-by-side comparisons were nice and made it more engaging to follow along with; However, his use of dndbeyond alone makes it more understandable to newer players since they're less likely to know about UA and just makes them more confused. That said, I like this change. I like how he still goes in the details on the differences between UA and published material.
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I remember when I first found Ted's content it threw my off a bit. But then it kind of became what I watched his content for aha. I get why some people might complain about it, it can seem like he's just reading nearly the same thing twice and that if he did that in prep and wrote out the differences before hand he could make a more comprehensive video. But that's not why I watch Ted. I don't watch for high quality edited things, I watch Ted because he's one of us with a camera. Yeah he could take the time to write out a script, but his content is the time he has when he's not working doing the thing we all would do anyway. Pouring over books and comparing the differences between ua and published content, the balance of classes and subclasses and races. it's just that unlike me, he records himself doing it. It's something he'd do anyway, and we're just getting to watch.
I don't see how people will get bummed out by the rng nature of the college of spirits bard feature when so many players seem to swear by the wild magic sorcerer.
Because those people don't actually like WM sorcerer they like the memey bullshit on the table like turning into a plant or TPKing the party at level 2 with a fireball casting Mage Armor first thing in the morning.
Probably not the same people.
@@getthegoons Is that not what the wild magic sorcerer is all about though?
@@joelsasmad eh kinda. Which is why it's a really obnoxious subclass.
But the people I'm referring to usually want surges all the time, or they want to use some d1,000,000 table or some shit where half the options are stuff like 'You become a god.' Stuff that just ends the campaign.
@@getthegoons Ah, I understand.
I feel the nerf of grave touched ability of the Undead Warlock makes a lot of sense. I feel like it's still powerfull this way, but not as gamebraking as it was in UA.
The Spirit Focus only affecting spells with material components is something that probably was not intended by Wizards. It is also something I'm sure most tables wont even know they're using wrong and even within the tables that know its limits will ignore it.
Agreed, still dumb it made it in from UA to published
@@NerdImmersion Wait, does that mean, that any +1/+2/+3 Effekt from a focus is only used on spells with a material component? I thought this Effekt just meant, that you could not use another focus for your spells.
@@Samhain_III iirc, weapons/foci that provide+1/2/3 to spell attack/save are generally worded "while you hold/wield this item" you get the bonus. Spirits bard specifically says "when you use the focus to cast a spell" and you only *use* the focus if a spell has a material component.
Seems like adding the d6 to all healing is RAI, given the lack of spells otherwise
@@jjsquidbeard4831 I agree, and would rule as such myself, seems like an obvious oversight.
Playing an Undead Pact of the Tome Warlock in a buddy's game of Curse of Strahd and so far, it's been pretty fun!
Doing the same in my friends Out Of The Abyss game
Do you play melee or ranged
@@topogigio7031 yes, but the flavor of undying goes down a completely different road, I prefer Undead to Undying
@@nikolex7 Ranged, I'm playing a caster warlock
Gonna be playing a Reborn lineage one in a few months! Really excited to see how she does x)
Magical items that give +1 to spell attack or dc apply to spells that dont have material components, so the college of spirits healing boost would apply in the same way. It just add a M component effectively.
Tale of the clever animal appears to be useless in combat until you realize this means once they get couterspell they’re adding a bardic roll to every counterspell and dispel magic
so charisma+half proficiency+bardic inspiration, thaaaats a nasty counterspeller
With Spirit Projection showing damage and effects on both body and spirit means that you potentially could have a team of *unassailable* healers keeping you up while you infiltrate/attack a place. Oh and effects go both ways too, so an invisible hasted spirit with barkskin, shield of faith, beacon of hope, and whatever other concentration buffs you could stack up on one person, provided you had enough casters. The spirit wouldn't be casting the spells, so the concentration spells can't drop unless the support team was attacked.
This gives me an idea for a "haunted" castle where there's a necromantic cult hiding deep within supporting their undead warlock leader - or more than one undead warlock. Heroes are continually harried by this seemingly invulnerable "ghost" as they try and either escape or find the inner sanctum where all the spellcasters are - who might not have that many spells left, as they've been using them all in support of the ghost. Would also let me go, "HA! And you guys said Chill Touch was worthless!" as the unable to regain hit points goes both ways as well.
Spirit Projection: you replicate your game statistics, but not your possessions; in other words, you're naked.
Don't 'Magical Secrets' spells count as Bard Spells when you choose them?
As per PH - The chosen spells __count as bard spells for you__ and are included in the number in the Spells Known column of the Bard table.
yes they do, my point was that I wasn't counting them because you can't determine what folks will choose for Magical Secrets.
Yes
The one that not count are "advance magical secrets" from the bard of the college of lorr
Healing word is very common for Bards to take
I believe you *CAN* use a spell casting focus for any spell even if is dose not have a material component.
I can't remember where it is, but Jeremy Crawford definitely expressed that it is indeed only spells that require a material component.
From the way the feature is written the intent seems to be for it to apply to all spells. Otherwise I feel like they would have clarified that it only applies to spells with material components.
@@NerdImmersion It was in a 2016 Tweet that he has since deleted:
www.sageadvice.eu/2016/04/09/if-attuned-to-an-instrument-of-the-bards-does-the-target-make-its-save-with-disadvantage/
A focus is the same as a component for mechanical purposes. If there is no component the focus would not be used as it is not required for the casting
@@spencerbryan226 but required does not mean you can't use it.
Something as a DM I’d consider doing to change Necrotic Husk is that as long as you have that point of exhaustion you cannot use that ability again (maybe specify that you can’t remove it with greater restoration or just say that it must be removed via long rest)
I think with the spirits bard 6th level upgrade, its saying you can choose to cast a spell through your focus (regardless of it needing a material component or not) and get the bonus.
In my interpretation you only NEED a focus if a spell requires a material component, but you CAN cast spells through a focus even if you dont need to
That's how I've always run business casters at my table. Having a dedicated focus can be a great RP tool for people.
I feel like Grave Touched should be a two part then. The first part allowing you to switch your damage type to be done at any time making it similar to a monk's magical weapon. The additional damage die being once per turn is understandable and fine. It would otherwise be way to exploitable. I can already see a Sorlock with a quickened eldritch blast and another eldritch blast per turn. The damage potential is way too high and probably could roll through most encounters till the DM throws necrotic immunity against you just to make you switch back to normal blasting.
How I would handle what is being talked about here: 26:50. Maybe you could rewrite the undead warlocks 10th level to: "Once you use this reaction, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest that you started with no levels of exhaustion." Aka 2 long rests cooldown unless you can be targeted by a greater restoration spell or more long rests if your body/husk is more exhausted from say extreme conditions.
I would let do it with any level of exhaustion. Why limit this?
Undead warlock is a crazy dip for a conquest paladin (because of the level 7 aura).
For sure.
archfey ain't half bad either
They changed it because this isn’t supposed to necessarily lean better towards eldritch blast like the UA, they wanted more options that could do what hexblade does for bladelocks but realized they made this ability too strong for EB.
Basically many of us pointed out the potential abuse and they patched it. I’d call it a patch before a nerf since it was UA and I really don’t recommend changing it back as it was kind of dumb good.
Which is a shame, Undead had potential for the best blaster over hexblade. But now that it is nerfed, we're back to dealing the most damage with that one subclass, be it weapon or spell based.
@@imakuniaw sure but making more broken subclasses isn't the answer. Undead is still a great option and much better than most of these other options
Necrotic Husk could have instead made use of the recharge mechanic. Like “when you finish a long rest, roll a d6 and on a 5 or 6 you can use this feature again”. That way you don’t have to remember a roll you made a few in-game days ago
Honestly I was about to say you could just roll the d4 during each long rest and regain it on a 4 (or a 1, I kinda like low rolling).
But it keeps tracking out of it, though I personally love abilities that require a bit more effort than a long rest to regain.
Pretty sure you can still use a spellcasting focus, even when a spell doesn't require it. Just take spellcasting focuses that adds to hit chance for example.
Well the spellcasting focii that add to hit do that regardless, if possible they state: "this can be used as a spellcasting focus" meaning if you need the focus it applies, so unfortunately it doesn't change much. A reminder spellcasting focus in the phb states under material components: A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the material components specified for a spell.
@@NerdImmersion you would logically be able to use a Spellcasting focus even if it's not required. Fire bolt or toll the dead doesn't need a material cost, but you can still cast it through your staff
@@orionar2461 for flavor yes, but mechanically no
@@NerdImmersion Then why would they have only regeneration be applicable. They seem to have designed it around the healing be applicable to non material spells
I mostly like the new Undead Warlock, my only problems with it are the 1d4 long rests for Necrotic Husk (just make it 1 long rest, it really isn't a big deal especially since you already get a point of Exhaustion as a negative) and the general clunkyness of Spirit Projection, first it takes your concentration, which limits your spellcasting quite a bit as a Warlock, then it specifies that your spirit doesn't have the benefits of your items since they're on your body, so fuck your magic items, spell focus/component pouch, and armor. Like, seriously wtf, plus since it's Concentration you can be knocked OUT of this form by some goblin that threw a rock at you.
Quick math on Grave Touched with one extra die once on Eldritch Blast: (Disclaimer: I might be wrong as I don't do much math as often nowadays)
*Taking a target with 18 AC and a warlock with +4 CHA, you'd get +7 to hit.* That means you gotta roll 11-20 on the d20 to hit, so let's say 50% chance (or 0.5) to hit the attack and 50% not to.
Eldritch Blast does 2 attacks on lvl 6. So you get 0.5(hit) * 0.5(hit) = 0.25 to hit both and 0.5(miss) * 0.5(miss) = 0.25 to miss. *That means 25% to hit both, 50% to hit only once and 25% to miss both.* If you only hit once, the extra die is a 100% (1) increase to your average damage. If you hit both, a 50% (0.5) increase since you go from 2d10 to 3d10. If you don't hit, a 0% increase.
So, using the chance as weights (make chance * damage increase) to calculate the average damage increase across all combinations,
we get 0.25 * 0.5(2 hits) + 0.5 * 1(1 hit) + 0.25 * 0(miss) = 0.125 + 0.5 + 0 = 0.625. *So, for this scenario, the feature increases your Eldritch Blast average damage by 62.5%.* It's not broken, but it's a lot. And that increase should actually grow as target AC increases, since your chance to miss increases, which means the chance you hit only once instead of twice also increases.
The feature will certainly lose importance as you get more attacks on Eldritch Blast or more dice on attack spells, but at lower levels it's VERY powerful for something you can essentially do for free. Oh, and I'd like to remind that crits should double that extra die too 😉
EDIT: Also, I would CERTAINLY be on the lookout for a feat like Elemental Adept for necrotic damage being brought someday. I feel like this is the only thing missing for this subclass to really shine.
EDIT 2: Guess what, I've been reading the book and recently got to dark gifts. Turns out Touch of Death lets you ignore resistance to necrotic damage when "you hit a target with an attack roll and deal necrotic damage". So there is your "partial" Elemental Adept (Necrotic) if you can get the DM to let you have it kk
I don’t know about the official ruling, but most DMs I’ve played with just allow you to cast non-material spells through a focus. So you may as well ask if you can use abilities regarding a focus on all spells as none of them are particularly game breaking.
I think the problem with that are spells like Healing Word which would make healing be 1d4 + 1d6 + your spell modifier
Why though? The only purpose for a spellcasting focus is to removal the need for a component pouch, which again is only for material component spells
The materials that are replaced with the focus are only materials that do not have a value listed in the spell (ie. Identify requires a pearl worth at least 100 gold pieces). This would not change for the feature here. Focus is the same as a component pouch as Ted already said
"An arcane focus is a special item designed to channel the power of arcane spells. A sorcerer, warlock, or wizard can use such an item as a spellcasting focus, as described in the Spellcasting section."
From the wording I'd figure you can just use them when casting any spell. Though it would have no benefit normally, I can't think of a reason to not allow someone to cast all spells through their focus.
@@19superD Spellcasting Focus is a catchall for Arcane Focus, Holy Symbol and Druidic Focus. When you read each of the specific descriptions, their only function is described as replacing the cost free non consumed M components in a spell. The reason Artillerist Artificers get the extra damage on all their spells, is that their spellcasting stipulates that their tools/arcane firearm is necessary to cast any of their spells, essentially giving all Artificer spells the M requirement (so even if a spell just has S components, Artificers require tools to cast it). No other class's spellcasting stipulates that a spellcasting Focus is required for their spells, just that it can be used instead of the M components on their spells (so they can cast VS spells without equipment or components). I reckon it was an oversight by Wizards as they probably forgot how specific their previous wording is, how they got around it with Artificer.
Also I would agree, its hardly broken to allow them to use it on their very limited selection of damage and healing spells (maybe Healing Word giving on average 12hp is overpowered?)
I feel like a quick fix to the Spirit Focus healing spell problem is to include any bard spell that uses Somatic or (focus replaceable) Material components. The concern was probably that they didnt want to give healing word an additional 1d6 which would be kind of busted especially early on, but by including Somatic components you get cure wounds, mass cure wounds, and so on and the damage spells are still not crazily expanded upon since vicious mockery also doesn't have somatic or material components.
Barbarian subclass I think would be cool that I made
Path of the spears fury
=At level 3
Fury of the eye
Your furousity and might travels through the might of the things you throw. The primal skills that evolved humanity's hunting prowess continues within you.
°when raging your rage bonus dmg is applied to ranged strength based attacks
°you may apply your reckless attack on strength based range attack rolls
Guarding strike
°when raging, as a bonus action make a melee weapon attack roll against an enemy, on hit the target takes no dmg but if one size larger or less, is pushed 5 feet away from you
=At level 6
Bolsterious draw
°when raging, twice per round it takes no action to draw a strength based weapon
Strength and stride
°when raging, once per round when you move 10 feet in the direction of the target of your next attack, add 1d6 to the weapon dmg
°when jumping you can increase the height or length distance by 10 feet
Enhanced guarding strike
°your guarding strike now does unarmed strike dmg
=At Level 10
Brutal impalment
°when rageing you can expand 5 feet of movement from yourself into a strength based attack. If the attack lands then a target maximum of two sizes larger is knocked back 10 feet and make a strength saving throw (8+strength+proficiency) or be knocked prone
°brutal criticals apply to strength based range weapon attacks
Fallen pray
°When an enemy target is prone you ignore disadvantage on ranged attack rolls to that target
°Guarding strike moves opponents 10 feet away and is effective against creatures two sizes larger
=At level 14
Guard lord
°If the target of your brutal impalement skill is knocked into another enemy. All enemies its knocked into with equal or lower AC than the attack roll takes half dmg and make brutal impalement saves
°Opponents of your guarding strike must succeed a strength saving throw (8+strength+proficiency) or be knocked prone
°proned creatures hit by a brutal impalement have their movement speed reduced by half until the end the round
Honestly, regarding the Guidance Feature of the new bard, I think while it sounds cool, it will in the end just be a free cantrip. (Which is still awesome, and Guidance is a great Cantrip)
Since its still an action, there is basically no time you would use it in combat over the help action, even with 60 feet range, and honestly, how often do you need Ability Checks in Combat?
Out of combat, the 60 feet range will barely make a difference other than in very niece situations. You can already give someone guidance and have that person walk ahead if there is a dangerous situation. a 60 feet range would mabe be usefull to help someone climb out of a pit or sth, but again, just using the help action (for example lowering a rope) would be much better.
In my opinion, they should have made it so the range is just 30 feet, but you can use it as a bonus action, making it some kind of mini inspiration. That way you could actually use it to for example help someone to break a grapple or get out of sticky terrain like Web, without basically giving up your turn.
Finally got my book today! Very excited to dig into it this week. Planning on created a medium as a character using the College of Spirits subclass :P
Gotta have to come back a bit later, very excited for this video
Here's a concept for you, a little homebrew for the bard if you will. Keep it rng, BUT you roll them all and keep them in a pool. The concept, is that the spirits told of several tales while you were focusing/rest, you the bard can choose which you want to use. If you use your bardic inspiration, you lose the magic of a tale you heard, but you choose. This would allow you to at least know what you're going in with.
That only works until you get dice back on a short rest.
I'd say that giving them the capstone feature right away would be better. Rolling twice and pick one, and if you get the same number twice, you choose. That's a dope mechanic imo. You would then have to switch out the actual capstone for something else fairly minor.
A spell does not need a material component to be cast through a Magical Focus. A Magical Focus replaces a material component in the event that the material component does not have a cost and is not consumed or both. You can still cast healing word through a focus without issue. This means this ability affects any spell that deals damage or heals that counts as a Bard spell, such as healing word, mass healing word, cure wounds, thunderwave, shatter, so on and so forth.
I like the new subclasses. I’m commenting mostly to push the algorithm. Keep up the good work brother.
On top of the latest 5e content! Thanks for the breakdown
For the bard spirit session it couldn't be a cantrip as the wording is equal to the number of creatures which means minimum 1 for a first level spell
Tbc for spirit projection, i dont think it needs to say that you are shunted out because the spirit form requires concentration like a spell. Taking damage of any kind, including by ending your turn in an inappropriate place, will probably just snap you back to your body instantaneously .
I suspect the intent isn't to limit the use of the Spiritual Focus to only those spells with a material component. This is because, even if you consider ALL healing spells across ALL classes, Regenerate is still the only one that would be eligible -- and you'd be adding just 1d6 to 4d8+15. I bet the intent was that a bard can _choose_ to use their Spiritual Focus together with any spell that's otherwise eligible to yield those effects (like Healing Word, Cure Wounds, and Mass Cure Wounds).
I am excited to hear what you have to say about the Unded Warlock! Only another Eldritch Blast vessel or does the extra dice from the lvl6 feature enables something else? Maybe a Pact of the Blade Greataxe or Lance user?
Considering the qualifiers are attack rolls you can do a lot of mean things with the six level but honestly there's a lot of potential in the tool kit. Like Primal savagery on a tomelock becomes extremely potent. 3d10 necrotic with a fear effect if your form is active, combined with spirit shroud you become a world beater that prevents healing that fears and makes it hard to run. Chill touch becomes extremely good to shut down healing and dealing alright damage(3d8) while again fear effect potential. Vampiric touch becomes outstanding especially at high levels when you get spirit form, 6d6 damage heal for full.Considering all the inbuilt abilities to heal and get temp hp a "hit me build" with armor of agythys and shadows of moil. Blade of disaster becomes an extremely potent kill heal spell with the capstone ability. Also let's not forget you can also mindsliver, and bane an enemy for a massive debuff to saving throws. We also haven't got to the subject of races and multiclassing, fallen aasimar is damn good with all this, you become death reaping life energy especially if you dip for grim harvest. Shadow sorc is also synergizes really well with a 1 level dip. Death cleric getting rid of resistance to necrotic is also really good to multiclass for. I don't know man there's so much to do with this subclass besides pew pew eldritch blast.
@ Yeah, my hype got the better of me stopping me from realizing the concentration conflict lol. Honestly the primal savagery popped in my head because I was thinking of shillelagh for a melee cantrip but remember primal touch was much better past level 4. Also you're right, it is basically inflict wounds on demand I didn't even realize that lol.
Why on earth would you go pact of blade and NOT be a hexblade?
@@greybearddnd2417 plenty of reasons. Hexblade isn't patron with good melee benefits, and multiclassing helps offset deficiencies
@@greybearddnd2417
Why on earth would you go Pact of the Blade as a Hexblade instead of any other Pact that gives more utility while you use Eldritch Blast?
As others have noticed- Yes, Magical Secrets count as Bard Spells and can be used with the Spiritual Focus of the Bard. They SHoULD be considered because a person playing a Bard can and should choose their own spells, but this would incentivise them to take damaging or healing ones that could benefit from the feature. Ted has already discounted them because that decision is player based, but I see it as a balancing tool that wizards employed to not break the class in early levels and yet still leave this as a useful feature.
I quite like the Undead Warlock and DM willing you could use elements of the class to explain a change or Race/Linage to either the Reborn or Lineage. Making it more impactful by saying that your first Use of Form of Dread, Grave Touched or Necrotic husk transformed you into a Dhampir or Reborn. I kind of like the idea of a character going down but using Necrotic Husk exploding only to reform as a Dhampir or Reborn...
Tale of the renowned duelist is a 30 foot melee attack. You just have to role-play it as a very, very, long lance.
I believe that the people that wrote the phb and SOMEHOW still keep writting stuff for d&d STILL don't know how spell focus works related to material and somatic components. They wrote the rules, but keep treating it as if the spell focus could somehow be used for somatic components even if there were no material - as if that "exception" was an oversight.
IMHO they should just errata the phb into allowing spell focus to be used for somatic components even if the spell has no material component.
I would say just completely take away the limit from Necrotic Husk, exhaustion is plenty enough to keep people from abusing it, if they keep using it they will fully die after 6 uses. And exhaustion goes down by 1 each long rest, so the more they abuse it, the more they have to LR to fully recover from it.
It sounds like grave touched may be encouraging warlocks to use a different cantrip than just Eldritch Blast. Toll the dead/poison spray has a higher die (d12) so you would instead be dealing potentially more damage by using something other than Eldritch blast. Although I'm not sure how it would ultimately compare to agonizing blast (but you wouldn't have to choose that invocation if you leaned into this ability)
Toll the dead would also fall under the Necromancy school requirement outlined in the 14th level ability, aaaand you would regain way more hit points per turn using the 14th level ability if you used toll the dead.
Edit: forget what I said. It says when you hit with an attack roll.
I think a good change to the 10th level warlock feature could be that it’s once per long rest but gives two levels of exhaustion, that way you can’t keep using after each long rest and the more you do the worse you suffer.
The Grave Touched change is to bring it in line with the cleric features that is there to make a melee build function like Divine Strike. The way it was before was extremly overtuned borderline broken.
Meh. Hex blade trailed behind it only slightly at lower levels and has better damage output at higher levels. I think they could have just changed it from “an additional damage dice” to a D6 and left it as is. Or made it so you get 1 form of dread per short rest so it’s not an always on ability. As of now in terms of damage output nothing in the subclass past getting 1d10 damage per turn at level 6 actually increases your damage. Also you need a 3 way stat split to make this viable for damage and since you’re not getting heavy armor proficiency you can’t make a strength build.
The Spiritual Focus screwup (at least I think it is, your average player would expect healing word to get bonus healing from that subclass ability) is pretty bad considering there are similar issues on Alchemist artificer using an Enhanced Arcane Focus instead of alchemical tools, and every artificer spell even uses a material component for that class from their spellcasting feature!
It really should read "cast a bard spell while holding your spiritual focus".
While I understand the purpose of a focus is to replace all the minor material requirements for spells, I think the majority of people use focuses and the sole way they cast their spells and that means ALL healing and damage spells that a bard casts gets the d6 as they all are cast through the focus. Unless they swap to their lyre for some reason
I think what the 14th level UA feature for the Spirit Bard meant was you roll a d6 for free to see what effect you get but when your rolling damage or Temp HP from those top 6 tales you still use your bardic inspiration die, say the warrior would still do 2d10(?) at level 14 not 2d6, limiting the amount of options you have but giving you access to those 6 for free, at least that's the way I interpreted it but the wording was extremely unclear so everyone would probably read it like you had mentioned.
For the Undead patron, you can take the Toll the Dead cantrip and silently cast it to kill people while stepping through walls
For Undead Warlock Level 6 it says that changing the damage type to necrotic can be done once per turn. It DOES NOT say you can add a damage dice once per turn. It says "While you are using your form of dread, you can roll one additional damage die when determining *the* necrotic damage the target takes."
If the attack was already necrotic damage, wouldn't you be able to do it for each. The "the necrotic damage" wording doesn't seem specific enough of to only limit it to necrotic damage gained from this feature.
Not sure if it's intended. It still blocks a majority of use cases, but a Zealot Barbarian could roll their necrotic dice twice on their first attack, and then make their second attack deal only necrotic damage and deal the second dice of damage. Something like spirit shroud would probably be easier to optimize this with if it does work this way.
Man I want to play an undead warlock bad. A fallen aasimar tomelock or bladelock would be amazing especially if you dipped in fighter or cleric for heavy armor, or 2 level dipped into paladin for smites(Becoming the angel of death) and heavy armor or wizard for grim harvest to make healing potential stupid. However, Human variant( war caste most likely or magic initiate or shadow touched), 1st lvl shadow sorc dipp rest undead tomelock, later getting sentinel and maybe tough, might be where it's at. Primal savagery + spirit shroud+amor of agythys+cloak of flies with your dread form active turns you into an absolute world beater especially with sentinel because there would be no escape 1v1. Especially when you add death wards, and gift of the protectors and a full soul cage into the mix. Needing to drop someone potentially 4 times while they can heal or give themselves temp hp and output stupid damage while you take damage for hitting them is stupid destructive. That's not even getting into the rest of their bag of tricks like bane+mindsliver for example. Honestly I love the flavor of this subclass, just wish it had some more undead raising options in the mix. Their innovation for animate dead and a nightcaller can keep things cool with a small but weak posse till finger of death. Also finger of death plus the capstone ability makes a very good assassination build especially since it's just a feat away to get expertise in stealth. There's to much spoiling for options lol.
Thanks for the great video. For the Undead Warlock, it seems you can use the Form of Dread while using your Spirit Projection correct? I also think the 1d4 long rests for the Necrotic Husk seems clunky. I wouldn't find myself being happy having the active part of my level 10 addition of the subclass being out of commission for days.
I'm so interested in both of them honestly (with the undead Warlock i'm just imagining an innocent almost child like person turning into a Spector straight from your nightmares) I only feel that with the Warlock I would change it to be (essentially) "When you hit a creature with an attack roll and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with necrotic. While you are using your Form of Dread once per turn you can roll an additional damage die when determining the necrotic damage the target takes from the die rolled." I feel that pretty well balances the feature between being interesting still and keeping it balanced and if I ever get around to playing that class I will bring that up to DM...Also just imagine going phantom form with Spirit Projection and combining it with Form of Dread to go into a king's castle to just scare the shit out of him. I imagine the Form of Dread just looking like a Dementor from Harry Potter or just the Grim Reaper, You could probably scare him into helping your party.
The Form of Dread interaction with Grave Touched does not specify only damage dealt due to Grave Touched. This should work with any necrotic damage you are doing, such as with Hex.
I believe with the spiritual focus, as you can use it with somatic components of the spell, those spells would count under the ability. Otherwise, as you've shown there's basically no healing spells at 6th when you acquire the ability will gain the benefit for healing seems to extreme to be an oversight like that
4:20 "Now this obviously won't apply to things like Magical Secrets..." Just to clarify, the subclass feature _does_ apply to Magical Secrets, but the database search filter you set up would not pick those spells out.
I...don't think they intent for the Focus on the Spirit Bard was JUST spells that need the spell focus, but I could be wrong. For instance arcane firearm on Artillerist Artificer boosts spells like firebolt and shocking grasp even though neither needs a spell focus. Might be it was just poorly worded but I think the intent is for is to be a bonus to all damage and healing spells, otherwise it seems not good?
I just start to play Dhampir Undead Warlock. There is a nice synergy at least in lover levels. Waiting to see if I want to multiclass later on.
I'm very happy The Undead got published in this. Since I saw it in the UA, Form of Dread sounds so flavorful and cool to me. So that's all pretty hype!
I’m guessing the intention is that the focus can be used even if a spell doesn’t require a focus. I believe there are some artificer and their subclass abilities work this way, though they may be worded better
About the 14th level ability for the Undead warlock: since you can end your turn inside an object and not be pushed out AND you can teleport your body to the location of the spirit... How would that work? Would this RAW allow for eviscerating someone this way? Would both people take massive damage? Would they grow together? Or is there anything that stops this as described?
I love the Undead Warlock, can't wait to play it!
I hate Bards but would let my player choose their abilities unless they wanted to roll.
Spirits Bard:
1) Guiding Whispers: A free Guidance cantrip for a Bard is pretty nice for out of combat situations, but the 60ft. range increase seems pretty irrelevant. Guidance isn't something that will be used very often in combat if it basically only affects Dispel Magic/Counterspell checks and grapples, and Bards being a full spellcaster class have better things to use their Action/Concentration on.
2) Spiritual Focus: Flavor-wise it's cool, but a d6 added to healing/damage is very restrictive, as it only applies to certain spells and only to when you cast it. That means that concentration spells won't benefit from the d6 past the turn you cast it in. Combined that with almost no spells effectively applying to it it just doesn't seem useful. I'd rewrite it to affect spells regardless of their material components and whether the focus is used for those spells as long as you hold your focus in your hand. That would at least make it useful for instantaneous spells like Cure Wounds.
3) Tales From Beyond: The feature sounds pretty cool, but it has some drawbacks. Not only is it completely randomized, so ending up, for example, with advantage to irrelevant ability checks in combat won't feel useful or satisfying, it also consumes both your main Action AND a Bonus Action to reuse it mid-combat. And it consumes your Bardic Inspiration. All that combined with the fact that Bards as full spellcasters can both cast a stronger spell with an Action AND give out Bardic Inspiration, which will be more impactful than what they'd do with most of these completely RNG effects makes the ability feel overall kinda clunky to use more than once per combat encounter. It does have the benefit of not tapping into your spell slots, so it can help with overall spell economy throughout the day, but it still feels kinda unwieldy. Not to mention that the effects themselves also have varying degrees of strength and usefulness.
4) Spirit Session: I really don't like that this ability heavily relies on having a larger party at later levels to get all of its benefits. Of course recruiting some NPC companions is possible, and it will work fine with more numerous groups, but a 4 PC game at higher levels will essentially have to rely on always bringing henchmen and mercenaries to get something like Scrying from the ritual. It also requires the whole party to commit to the ritual for 1 hour, so it taps into their downtime, scouting, sleeping etc. just so a Bard can get the best result out of the feature. I don't know, just feels kinda unwieldy. I also wouldn't mind if the feature would grant some benefit to other members of the ritual for commiting to it, like a single use of a spell from the ritual to each partaking member.
5) Mythical Connection: Honestly, as a peak ability it doesn't feel super satisfying to merely be able to choose between two random rolls for your feature that still has the same limitations as before. It doesn't make it more powerful and it doesn't grant more versatility, just makes the feature slightly more consistent with what you'd want from the Table. I'd prefer there to be an effect like an ability to roll on the Tales Table for an effect to be used throughout the day without having to spend a Bardic Inspiration infinite or CHA amount of times until next long rest ON TOP of the effect you can gain by using your normal Tales From Beyond feature. Comparing it to peak features of other Subclasses, the creative freedom of College of Creation, combat strength of College of Glamour or versatility and flexibility of College of Eloquence, this just feels like a lackluster ability that would serve better as a level 6 minor fluff bonus to the main feature rather than its peak ability.
Undead Warlock:
1) Expanded Spell List: It still sucks that Warlocks don't get these spells on top of the ones they can normally choose, but the list itself isn't all that bad. Phantasmal Force is a rather poor choice for a class with limited, permanently upcasted spell slots as it doesn't get any benefits with a level 3+ spell slot, but Bane and Blindness/Deafness do, and they are both nice features to concentrate on. Greater Invisibility, despite being a level 4 non-upcastable spell, is still also worth it, being a powerful defensive feature with offensive benefits of having all your Eldritch Blasts be rolled with advantage.
2) Form of Dread: Incredibly powerful. Using the feature grants you an average of 153 temporary hit points throughout the day at level 20, and that's definitely not a number to scoff at. Immunity to frightened condition is nice too, as well as the ability to Frighten a creature with Eldrtich Blast on top of its usual Invocation benefits.
3) Grave Touched: Both nice for flavor reasons as well as helpful with exploration scenarios in which you'd normally drown or suffocate. The nerf to the amount of times you can add extra dice to your Eldritch Blast may hurt, but honestly dealing 16d10+40 necrotic damage with a cantrip on a Sorlock would get pretty absurd, even more than it currently is. But hey, it still increases total damage dealt by Eldritch Blast by what is effectively another beam of damage, making you effectively always one stage ahead on cantrip progression in relation to other Warlocks. Transforming damage to necrotic is pretty nice for some situations overall, but I don't know how often it might be applicable with Warlock spells already mostly leaning towards necrotic damage. At least it will help with fire spells in ignoring common resistances.
4) Necrotic Husk: Necrotic Resistance/Immunity is great, but a Half-Orc racial ability with some necrotic fart to boot isn't worth an Exhaustion level AND up to 4 days of waiting for the feature to refresh. I'd abandon the 1d4 and just make it a once per long rest ability.
5) Spirit Projection: A pretty cool ability for scouting, and nice combat benefits if your body is safely secured before the fight. The biggest drawback is its concentration requirement, which greatly limits your spellcasting in that form. Funnily enough, RAW it is also possible to get stuck in a wall after teleporting your body to the spirit projection upon breaking concentration from the force damage you take to fly through said wall. The lack of requirements on Conjuration and Necromancy spells while in the spirit form is nice on paper, but very few spells will be applicable to those requirements due to the drawback of Concentration, the remainder being either situational or otherwise limited in usage (Mystic Arcanum). I'm not sure what to think about the healing you gain from Necrotic damage, or how useful it is exactly, because I don't know how it interacts with AoE spells like Arms of Hadar, Negative Energy Flood or Horrid Wilting. Still, it's somewhere between pretty good and amazing.
Currently playing a campaign where I'm a damphire Udead warlock. Most fun I've had playing dnd in a while
only one bean of EB gets converted to necrotic with grave touched since the beans are separet attacks i really don't like the new version especially since the extra damage does not scale
Grave touched can change poison spells. That's a big deal.
I think Ted mentioned it but if not I'll say it here the big difference between Published Version and UA Undead Warlock's 10th level feature
Necrotic Husk is a reaction when you drop to 0
Mortal Husk just happened when you dropped to 0
I know Ted did mention that it's now creatures of your choice within 30 ft instead of all creatures within 30ft.
Hey Ted, I think you misread spirits Bard. It says that the Spiritual Focus works as your Spellcasting focus, and, at least if I remember correctly, spellcasting focus work as material AND somatic components. AKA, it's not just material spells.
No, spellcasting focuses only let you continue to make whatever gestures are required for the somatic component, they don't actually count as a somatic requirement.
I don't mind the change to the Undead Warlock's Grave Touched. I like to imagine all the Eldritch blast beams as flying skulls or something, but one of them is bigger and filler with a black necrotic energy while maybe the others are just a pale blue/white
Quan Chi inspired
I'm pretty sure the spiritual focus ability not simply adding a d6 to one roll of ANY damaging or healing spell you cast is simply an oversight. It feels too complex and arbitrary to only be spells you need to replace the materials for. Wizards have a bad habit in 5e of simply not understanding how some of their own rules work RAW. This is far from the first time they've released official content that needs to be clarified/errata'ed immediately.
It was definitely clarified somewhere that it was only for spells with material components I just can't track down that source and it's bugging me. But I agree, seems like a big oversight (though it made it in to the final product from the UA)
@@NerdImmersion Do you mean the playtest version or this released version? Having looked online it seems like this was a known issue in the community but never adressed. With its official release changing nothing I guess wizards either just isnt aware or thinks its fine? Honestly wouldn't put either option past them 😂
I think both of these seem like the have potential to be very fun. Warlock always seemed like a multiclass type of class to me and I was sick of seeing Hexblade everywhere.
Warlocks are in theory the most customizable class with the most options. In practice most of those options don't get used. Alot of patrons have benefits that are too weak or minor to matter, with so few spell slots for most of the game you are encouraged to rely on either cantrips and as a result become an Eldritch Blast spam or pick up a weapon, in which case you pretty much have to go Hexblade.
I have two house rules I think help. I bake the Hex Warrior feature into the blade pact so that any patron can get charisma based attacks. Warlocks also get an additional slot that can only used for patron spells at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. This way a more spellcastery warlock is actually playable and the patron spell lists make them matter more.
Isn't Necrotic Husk just worse Searing Vengeance from Celestial?
You could twin spell that if you take sorcerer levels. Much DPS.
Does the Grave Touched feature only apply to the necrotic damage from the attack you changed, or the necrotic damage you deal regardless of source? Because while it IS a bit of a downgrade from the UA being able to apply to every EB, if it applies to all of your Necrotic damage, that's still fantastic synergy with Hex.
Would this allow Divine Smites to be increased by an extra d8? So Oathbreaker/Undead patron would be nice.
I allow PCs to add their spellcasting focus to any spell they cast, even if there is not material component. Just because there is no material component in the spell doesn't mean, IMO, that the focus you are actively holding can't be used.
At least you get to decide after you hit if you want the extra die of damage, so you can use them when you crit.
Something that I hate about necrotic husk is that it now uses a reaction ie if you don't kill your enemy you're just standing their like a idiot with 1 hp and can't use Tomb of Levistus as a fall back
The number of creatures conducting the Spirit Session is you+creatures up to prof bonus, so you could get a 7th level spell.
you are included in the number allowed, so only 6
19:24 "Starting at level 1, that's 11 temporary hit points." No, it's a _maximum_ of 11 temp HP. The expected value is only 6.5.
I agree warlocks need work.
Great video.
After watching this I am toying with the idea of an The Undead warlock/Assassin Rogue multi class? It sounds like there is a lot of flavor there. Especially with that lvl14 ability.
Not sure if it would work in the long run or not.
I understand why they did what they did to grave touched, it made undead warlock just strictly better in damage department over even hexblade, and I don't think we should try and top hexblade, that just screams power creep imho, but I do wish you could still change everything into necrotic still, just only add the extra damage once per turn
So looked it up, even with magical secrets the bard can use a total of I think it was 3 healing spells with spirit focus
The wording says ONCE during each of your turns when you hit a creature with an attack roll and roll damage... So it sounds like, you wouldn't double the damage of your EB since each blast is rolled for separately. It seems like one of the blasts could be changed to necrotic and doubled, but the second blast would remain 1d10 force damage. If one attack roll determined the success or failure of every blast during that attack, instead of each blast needing it's own attack roll than it would be doubled, but as written, only one of the EB's would be changed and doubled.
Right... that's what I'm saying. Originally though in the UA it didn't say once.
It said "In addition, when you hit a creature with an attack and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with necrotic damage."
I'm not 100% sure but is it possible that you can use the focus for any spell but that replacing the material component portion is just an added potential benefit of using the focus? Does it say you CAN'T use the spell focus for spells not requiring a material component?
Guidance at a range of 60ft instead of touch. That’s kinda cool
If the spiritual focus is an oversight, then they don't listen to UA feedback, because this was an issue then as well.
I read on the rules examples for the dnd website the focus can be used for the somatic component as well
The rule is that you can use the same hand that is holding a material component/focus to perform the somatic part. So you could hold your focus in one hand, have a shield in the other, and still cast a V, S, M component spell.
The issue is that if you are asking a spell with no material component, then you aren't using the focus and so you need a free hand. RAW, the ability will work as Ted described, only giving healing to a casting of Regenerate. Although I would let it apply to any bard spell you cast tbh.
@Nerd Immersion, The Bards option 11, 'Tale of the Angel' was two rolls + bard level which is now nerfed to two rolls + Charisma mod sadly.
You can use a magical focus when you cast any kind of spell I'm pretty sure
Yup
Tale of the Mind Bender with Monk.... that could be a stunning build right there. Even gives some extra psychic damage. Be inspiring to allies and punch enemies. >^
Does spirit session going up with proficiency bonus mean it makes it harder to conduct the session the higher your level?
Re: Necrotic Husk's "deathly energy" eruption, I would have thought the exhaustion would be enough to prevent anyone from using this more than once per long rest anyway -- maybe a bit more if in dire straits -- so the "once per 1d4 long rests" restriction seems to be overkill. Even a "once per long rest" limitation might be unnecessary. That said, they did do play testing, so I wonder if someone abused this...🤔...maybe by largely sacrificing themself to deliver fatal damage?
The UA version isn't even abusable, you deal fatal damage to something and then show up with 1hp, ready to be instakilled by anything that survived or wasn't within 30ft.
The 1d4 long rests for Necrotic Husk is not the best mechanic. Definitely there to prevent abuse, but I dont think it can be reliably abused anyway.
Nobody is going to purposefully try to drop to 0 hit points just to deal 2d10 + X damage. Especially when you are only getting revived for 1 hp and you take a point of exhaustion. Thats a pretty dangerous situation to be in.