Player Options: Revised Design Notes
F. A. Q.
Why Was Player Options: Revised Made?
- Balance between classes
- Multiclassing vs dipping
- Other stuff i haven't typed yet lol
Why Use Player Options: Revised?
Because if you do then you won't need to worry about putting a thumb on the scale in your encounter design or DM'ing in order to resolve balance issues in the table. Also because it'll let your players build whatever mechanical character concept they want using advancement rules without unintentionally gimping themselves or overshadowing other players
Power Level
When using Player Options: Revised, the average power level of player characters will be higher than that of those in a standard game of 5th Edition. However, this increased average is due almost entirely to raising the "floor" of the weakest characters, rather than raising the "ceiling" presented by the most powerful characters.
Stated otherwise, a table using Player Options: Revised who does not spend much time worrying about optimizing character builds will have a power level more similar to what they would have if every member of the party was playing one of the more optimized classes/archetypes in the PHB (although a fully optimized character is still stronger). However, the power level of the very most optimized characters has not been increased significantly, and in some cases has even been reduced slightly.
If your players normally build and play highly optimized characters, you may not notice much of a difference in the power level of your party's characters. But if not, then it may be wise to adjust the difficult of encounters upwards somewhat to compensate.
Usage in Conjunction with Non-PHB Content
Some more powerful subclasses not contained within the Player's Handbook may be slightly more powerful than intended when used in combination with classes whose power levels have been adjusted upwards.
In general, this is due to the fact that certain subclasses seem to have been designed with the low power level of the corresponding base class in mind, and made more powerful than the PHB subclasses in order to compensate.
Of note:
- Samurai Fighters may be a bit overpowered at higher levels
- Gloom Stalker Rangers may be overpowered at early levels
- Hexblade will continue to be overpowered for specific multiclassing purposes
Latent Abilities
Latent abilities are at-will and passive abilities rewarded to characters for progressing in classes without full spell-level progression (ie, those classes incapable of casting 9th-level spells at 20th level, often referred to as "martials"). The subject is treated at length at the end of this document.
Why Buff Martials and Nerf Their Feats?
This is mostly with regard to four specific feats: Great Weapon Master, its cousin Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, and its cousin Crosbow Expert.
Basically the idea is to avoid what's called a "feat tax".
Double Ability Score Improvement?
Because level 19 sucks. By definition you're getting the things you wanted the least at 19th level because you already had 4 or more ASIs. Since there aren't feat trees in 5th ed and you just pick from the same options every time, each new choice becomes less attractive. It's like picking teams for football on the playground.
No Nerfs to Spells?
I really didn't want to go through and re-write every single spell in the entire Player's Handbook. That would make this project's text about 5 times as long as it already is. And most spells wouldn't be changed at all. I'll save that for if/when I make an entire ripoff of 5th ed using the SRD and publish it under OGL.
So instead of adjusting spells downwards, I just used the strongest spells as a target for what optimized characters of other classes should look like. Despite all the buffs to non-casters that have been included in this document, I think full casters are still ahead, but only by a little. Except paladins, they're probably equally good. Which brings me to latent abilities...
Short Rest vs Long Rest Imbalance
I'm not addressing it. I'm sticking to 5e's principles with regard to attrition-based gameplay and the concept of the "adventuring day." Yes, I'm aware that this isn't used at most tables, and yes it presents serious problems of its own. This document is not meant to buff fighters so that they can do as much damage at 5th level as a wizard casting fireball every round.
If you'd like suggestions for bypassing the concept of the "adventuring day" at your table, I advise you to check out this delightful and succinct article from ThinkDM.
What is this?
This document is part of the Player Options: Revised project, a in-development project aimed at rehauling balance for races, feats, and classes. You can find the table of contents for this project by following this link.
Fighting Styles
You adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options: Aggressor, Protector, Blessed Warrior, or Druidic Warrior.
Aggressor
You specialize in bringing the fight to the enemy. Your training grants you the following benefits:
Archery. When you roll a 1 or 2 on a weapon damage die for an attack using a ranged weapon, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2.
Dueling. When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Great Weapon Fighting. You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with melee weapons that you are wielding with two hands. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.
Two-Weapon Fighting. When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
Protector
You take a reactive approach to combat, concentrating your training on controlling the field of battle through defense and mobility. You gain the following benefits:
Defense. You gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Interception. When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.
Mariner. As long as you not wearing heavy armor or using a shield, you have a swimming speed and a climbing speed equal to your normal speed.
Blessed Warrior (Paladin)
Your martial training is only another venue for proving your devotion. You gain the following benefits:
Cantrips. You learn two cantrips of your choice from the cleric spell list. They count as paladin spells for you, and Charisma is your spellcasting ability for them.
Cantrip Versatility. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace one of these cantrips with another cantrip from the cleric spell list.
Druidic Warrior (Ranger)
You've focused your training on communing with the powers of nature, granting the following benefits:
Cantrips. You learn two cantrips of your choice from the druid spell list. They count as druid spells for you, and Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for them.
Cantrip Versatility. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace one of these cantrips with another cantrip from the druid spell list.
Design Notes
Most fighting styles are mutually exclusive. For instance, it's not possible to benefit from the Dueling and Great Weapon Fighting styles with the same attack, as they specify wielding a weapon in one or two hands, respectively.
Meantime, players are often confronted with a painful choice when they encounter a magic weapon that doesn't suit their chosen fighting style. Unfortunately neither available choice is very exciting to the player in this circumstance. It also strikes some players as boring or even implausible to spend an entire campaign attacking with the same type of weapon when their character is ostensibly a weapons expert.
On the other hand, the Defense fighting style is powerful in its own right and stacks fully with all offensive fighting styles, so it couldn't be folded in without harming balance. Instead, it became the basis for an alternate defensive fighting style. Protection is often highly desirable to inexperienced players for its flavor, but is ultimately a "trap" option. Although it stacks fully with Defense, the authors decided to include it, as its benefit is small enough that it isn't stronger than the offensive fighting styles even when combined with Defense. In addition, Mariner was folded in with updated wording so as to not stack AC on top of Defense.
This solution preserves the attractive elements of the Fighting Style decision (high commitment, inspiring to roleplaying and tactics, added personality) while fixing several outstanding problems with the existing system in one go.
Finally, the new spellcasting fighting styles added by the Class Feature Variants Unearthed Arcana are just really cool, and also powerful enough to stand on their own. As they synergize fully with all other fighting styles, they were added without being folded into either existing option.
Changelog From PHB Content
Aggressor
- Archery, Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, and Two-Weapon Fighting folded into Aggressor
- Effects of Archery and Great Weapon Fighting swapped
Protector
- Defense, Mariner (UA), and Protection folded into one fighting style: Protector
- Defense armor requirement removed.
- Protection renamed to Interception
Take Note!
The effects of the Archery and Great Weapon Fighting styles have effectively been swapped with each other. This decision was reached after many tortuous arguments about game balance. Feel free to prolong those arguments even further by emailing the authors at sigurdchalphy@gmail.com.
