School of Sawblades
As a member of the School of Sawblades, you have specialized in the reliable deadliness of sawblades. Some members of the School of Sawblades are bloodthirsty sadists, while others simply seek to compensate for the weaknesses of their summoning spells or their finite ability to cast powerful spells. Regardless, you know one important thing: spells are finite, but sawblades are everlasting. Go forth and slice!
Saw Savant:
Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, when you or a creature you have summoned or animated deals bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, you can choose to replace the damage type with magical slashing damage. When you change the damage type in this way, be creative in how you describe it: a creature summoned with Summon Fey may have a glowing chainsaw instead of a nonmagical longsword, or objects animated with Animate Objects may transform into spectral hand saws for the duration.
Sawblade Spread:
Also at 2nd level when you choose this school, you can magically conjure weaponized circular attack sawblades. As an action, you can make a ranged spell attack and launch a sawblade at a creature or object within 120 feet: on a hit, the enemy takes 1d10 magical slashing damage. The sawblade is nonmagical, but vanishes one hour after being created.
This ability can create and launch more sawblades when you reach higher levels; you can choose to create two sawblades at 5th level, three at 11th level, and four at 17th level. You must distribute these extra sawblades among multiple creatures or objects; the same target cannot be targeted with multiple sawblades.
Spinnier Saws:
Starting at 6th level, when you or a creature you summon deal slashing damage to a creature, you can choose to deal extra slashing damage equal to your intelligence modifier. A creature can only take this extra damage once per turn.
More Sawblade:
Starting at 10th level, if you cast a spell that uses concentration and only summons one creature or animates one object, that one creature gains access to your Sawblade Cast action while it is summoned. It uses your spell attack bonus for its attack rolls and can create as many sawblades at a time as you can.
Omega Sawblade:
Starting at 14th level, you can summon an avatar of bloodlust. As an action, choose a point within 60 feet of you. A Large sized, blood-soaked circular sawblade of doom appears there, hovering four feet off the ground. It acts on your initiative count and takes its turn immediately after you and any creatures that you have summoned.
The sawblade has truesight to a range of 60 feet and is immune to all damage. Whenever the sawblade takes a turn, it flies 40 feet towards the nearest creature that it can see; this can include you. The sawblade can slice through all barriers and objects with ease, including a wall of force or similar magical barrier, which is destroyed instantly upon touching the sawblade. If a Wall of Force, Forcecage, or similar barrier is within 60 feet of the sawblade, it will prioritize destroying that barrier over other creatures.
The sawblade can enter the spaces of other creatures, and it ignores difficult terrain. When the sawblade enters a creature’s space, that creature must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or take 5d12 magical slashing damage, or half as much on a successful saving throw. If this kills a creature and the sawblade has not moved 40 feet on this turn, the sawblade keeps moving towards the next nearest creature until it has moved a total of 40 feet. Otherwise, it stops moving. When the sawblade kills a creature, that creature is sliced in half. Objects not worn or carried that enter the sawblade’s space are also sliced in half.
The sawblade lasts for one minute or until there are no more living creatures it can see (it lacks object permanence), and you can only summon it once per long rest. You are unable to end this effect early by any means; cower in fear!
Optional Killmangler Rule
If you are using Elizzyviolet’s Killmangler Fighter subclass, the omega sawblade regards Killmanglers as a trusted friend and will not attempt to slice them in half. This protection does not extend to allies of a Killmangler.
FAQ
“Where did you get the art?”
The art was found on the Mega Man 2 wiki and the copyright is held by Capcom. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Mega_Man_2/Weapons
The chainsaw penguin stock photo can be found here and is owned by Getty Images: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/3d-penguin-with-a-chainsaw-gm520444083-49902122
“Isn't the second level 2 feature basically just Eldritch Blast, especially at 6th level where it gets an Agonizing Blast equivalent?”
Warlocks tend to almost never aim their Eldritch Blast rays at different targets: they will happily let you fill this multiple target niche while they pump out 2d10+10+2d6 on a single target every round with Agonizing Blast and Hex. In practice, the party's warlock should still have the better option since focus fire tends to be more effective.
"Why make this subclass?"
I like summoning spells, especially the Tasha's ones: however, the weapon attacks of most summons are nonmagical! This makes all summoning spells good at lower levels but bad at higher levels when resistance or immunity to nonmagical damage is more common. So, by equipping all your summoned creatures with magical chainsaws, this problem should be fixed.
I originally intended this to be a class that gave multiple unlimited-use action options to the wizard to give them some reliability after they ran out of spell slots, but it eventually turned into more of a summoning focus.
"Do your summoned creatures benefit from the Slasher feat if you have it?"
The Slasher Feat is really good for the Sawblade Spread, since you can slow up to 4 creatures at once depending on level. However, RAW it does not confer this same benefit to creatures you summon, so they can't use their chainsaw swords or their own Sawblade Spread to do this.
...At the same time, if a player asked me to allow them to let their summons benefit from this feat, I would allow it just because it's really cool. If you're a DM, you should totally allow this too. It's the best feat thematically for this wizard and also it doesn't boost INT, likely making it weaker than just a flat +2 intelligence ASI bonus or one of the many good intelligence-boosting half-feats out there.
"Why does the Omega Sawblade destroy walls of force, and why does it prioritize them over other creatures?"
I hate the "microwave" strategy of trapping someone in a Wall of Force or Forcecage and then just trapping them in there with a deadly magical effect: maybe it's excusable with Forcecage since it's a super high level spell and seems to have been built with this strategy in mind, but it tends to be boring if the enemy has no means of escape and is underwhelming and useless if the enemy can teleport out. It's not a terribly fun strategy for most tables and I don't like encouraging it. So, I guess the Omega Sawblade hates this strategy too?
"The sawblade theme is stupid. I hate it."
bold words for someone within omega sawblade range
