Credits

Lead Designer: Taylor Reisdorf

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Editing: Kyle Srygley
Coding: Matthew Doak

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Cover Illustrator: Darek Zabrocki
Interior Illustrators: 88grzes, Aleksi, Wesley Burt,

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Based on the fifth edition rules by

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Based on the original game created by

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Drawing on further development by

 

Dungeon Master’s Workshop Team

Lead Writer: Taylor Reisdorf
Additional Contributors: Christian Cole, Matthew
   Doak, Tim Reisdorf, Brion “Bearclaw” Woods

On the Cover

A brave knight charges into danger in this vivid scene illustrated by Darek Zabrocki. This document is a love letter to the many martial heroes—both famed and unsung—whose exploits have shaped so much of RPG history.

Disclaimer: Dungeon Master’s Workshop is not responsible for any maiming, dismemberment, or other injury sustained while using the material in this book, nor are we responsible for rage-induced property destruction, soul leeching sustained whilst channelling the Shadowfell, or the consequences of punching a bear. If you experience a rage lasting longer than four hours, consult your local cleric.

Using this Content

The content of this playtest document uses material published under the Open Game License. At present, no original portion of this document is available for unauthorized use.

When playtesting of this content has been completed, many of the final rules will be officially published under the OGL. Until then, permission is only granted to copy this material for personal use.

To join the discussion and playtesting effort for this content, visit Dungeon Master’s Workshop. You can also join our Discord server. And if you would like to to support us and our work, consider becoming a patron on our Patreon.

OPEN GAME LICENSE VERSION 1.0a

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The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (“Wizards”). All Rights Reserved.

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15. COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Open Game License v 1.0a © 2000, Wizards of the Coast, LLC.
System Reference Document 5.1 © 2016, Wizards of the Coast, LLC.; Authors: Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Complete Warrior © 2022 Dungeon Master’s Workshop; Author: Taylor Reisdorf.
END OF LICENSE

Introduction

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“I cast Fist!”

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The fighter is an iconic class in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, a direct descendant of the original “fighting-man” class from the 1974 three-volume set. Like its predecessor, the fighter is not an archetype unto itself, but rather a broad category designed to represent a wide variety of martial heroes. Gallant knights, rakish swashbucklers, proud Amazons, brutish thugs, and countless other concepts can be represented by this class, making it the most versatile option in the entire game.

It also is one of the most tedious to play.

Everyone who has experience playing a fighter knows the struggle. At first, the blank canvas of the Attack action is extraordinarily liberating. While spells prescribe a great deal of flavour, the Attack action can be whatever you want—a flurry of rapid strikes, a perfectly executed counter-riposte, a brilliant combination attack, or even a series of savage blows meant to simply batter your foe into submission. An imaginative player can bring combat to life just as well as any Hollywood fight choreographer.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the sum total of your turn still boils down to the same thing every time. Other classes might utilize any number of other spells or mechanics—the druid changes their form, the wizard casts any of a dozen spells, the cleric turns a mob of undead, but the fighter just simply attacks. After a while, you find yourself recycling some of the same attack descriptions, struggling to remain creative in how you differentiate attack number 37 from attack number 36, or from attack number 35 before that. Over time, you might forget that you made the character to enact dramatic duels, not just throw dice at the other side.

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“a perfect and elegant solution”

    There have been many attempts to address the dearth of flavour inherent to martial attacks over the many editions of the game. When Advanced D&D (first edition) was released, the fighter’s two subclasses—paladin and rogue—were both magic wielders, and the class was expressly designed around using magic weapons that often came with their own interesting abilities. A third subclass, the barbarian, was added in Dragon #63. This offered an expressly nonmagical option that blended together the survivalism of the ranger, the acrobatics of the thief, and the ability to sense illusions like a paladin senses evil. In second edition, fighters (a subclass of warriors, alongside paladins and rangers) could specialize in different weapons. Like their AD&D predecessors, they were expected to gain a number of magical items that would expand their options. In third edition, feats were introduced to grant even more options. Finally, in fourth edition, martial characters were just made into martial spellcasters with ‘powers’ that were basically spells dressed with a different lampshade.

    Ultimately, none of these design philosophies were successful in giving martial characters reliable abilities that could flavour their own actions, which was why players were excited when Wizards of the Coast stumbled upon what seemed a perfect and elegant solution when playtesting what would become fifth edition.

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“combat manoeuvres”

In 2012, during the second round of “D&D Next” playtesting, Wizards of the Coast released a playtest packet including instructions for creating a fighter. The very first class feature, which was a core ability for all fighters, was Combat Superiority. Once per turn, you could use a d6 to perform a combat manoeuvre, such as Cleave, Knock Down, or Parry. All of these things could be done by any combatant, of course, but fighters could do them better.

As the playtesting continued, the Combat Superiority feature was extensively tweaked. In playtest 4, you started to gain additional superiority dice (then called ‘expertise dice’) when you reached higher levels. In playtest 5, fighters could opt to simply spend expertise dice to increase their weapon attack damage. In playtest 6, many of the combat manoeuvres were rolled into core class features, such as Ricochet and Block Missiles, which were powered by expertise dice.

Then, in playtest 9, the second-to-last playtest, it all fell apart. Spurred by questionable feedback that fighters should be more ‘beginner friendly’, the designers locked Combat Superiority behind a single martial path (then called the Path of the Gladiator), and all other fighters were back to simply hitting the Attack button every turn. A core part of the class’ identity—the solution to the problem fighters had struggled with for almost 40 years—was gone, with nothing to replace it.

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“edition 5.5”

    For years after the game’s release in 2014, players have lamented the ill-advised decision by the designers to effectively remove combat manoeuvres. Many have observed that it was precisely the opposite of the correct decision—that not only should combat manoeuvres have been a core feature of all fighters, but all martial classes. Combat maneouvres are the perfect answer to the question of how to give martial characters meaningful options on their turn without simply making them martial-flavoured spellcasters.

This was the idea that initially guided the creation of this document, and it has only grown from there. Included in this package is a complete overhaul of the combat system in fifth edition. Actions, feats, class features, and more have been revised and enhanced such that to persist in calling it “fifth edition” is not quite accurate. Just like Pathfinder has been called ‘edition 3.75’, this is edition 5.5—or, at least, the start of it.

Barbarian

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A tall human woman casts off her cloak and glares at a pack of goblins blocking the path. Suddenly, she lets out a ferocious roar and leaps forward, brandishing bestial teeth and claws.

A man in rugged leathers hefts his family’s ancestral axe. His eyes take on an ethereal glow, and ghostly figures emerge from the aether to fight by his side.

Biting his shield, a dwarf shakes off a blow that should have fractured bones. His mouth frothing, he charges into the midst of the orc warband, hacking wildly at his foes.

Barbarians are mighty combatants channelling primal power that grants them supernatural abilities. By far the most well-known of these powers is a terrifying rage. More than mere emotion, a barbarian’s rage is the churning of a storm, the bloodlust of a feral predator, the fury of ancient spirits, or some other power beyond themselves.

Whatever the source of their abilities, barbarians have a deep, spiritual power that grants them uncanny reflexes, resilience, and strength.

Ancient Traditions

Rarely do people become barbarians without initiation into an existing tradition. The rites to communion with the spirits that grant a barbarian’s powers are deeply rooted in the heritage of many cultures, often alongside core values, folklore, and time-honoured practices. Becoming a barbarian is more than learning to fight with anger, and such primal powers are never obtained without an offering of service to something greater than oneself.

Primal Power

Not every member of a society existing outside of conventional civilization is a barbarian. In many cultures, barbarians are sacred warriors and leaders blessed by patron spirits to protect and preserve their people, and their names and deeds are immortalized in song. While some of these tales wildly embellish their honourands, it is to a lesser extent than many expect.

Barbarians gain many abilities that some would call magic, and they would be right. While barbarians can’t cast spells while channelling their full might, their power is no less magical in its origin. Older barbarians often learn to channel this power in more mystical ways as shamans, but for young warriors the blessings of the barbarian are strongly focused on active usage.

Creating a Barbarian

When creating a barbarian, think about where your character comes from and why they have received these blessings. Speak with your GM about an appropriate origin for your barbarian. Are you from a nomadic  northern clan of humans who prefer a life closer to   nature, or do your people keep crops and homesteads?   Are you the first of your family to be favoured by the   primal powers, or are you the latest in a long legacy of   such warriors? Which spirit or spirits have given you  their blessing?

Quick Build

You can make a barbarian character quickly by following these suggestions. First, make Strength your highest ability score, followed by Constitution. Second, choose the Traveller background.

Class Features

As a barbarian, you gain the following class features

Hit Points

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• Hit Dice: 1d12 per barbarian level
•  Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + your Constitution modifier
•   Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d12 (or 7) + your Constitution modifier per barbarian level after 1st

Art Credit: Matt Stewart

Proficiencies

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• Armor: Light armour, shields
• Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
• Tools: None

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• Saving Throws: Strength, Constitution
• Skills: Choose two from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Persuasion, Religion, and Survival

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a greataxe or (b) any martial weapon
• (a) two handaxes or (b) any simple weapon
• An explorer’s pack and four javelins

Rage

In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armour:

• You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
• You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
• You can’t be charmed or frightened. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suppressed for the duration of the rage.
• When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until the start of your next turn.
• You can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
• You gain a bonus to the damage of weapon attacks using Strength, as well as to ability checks that use Strength, that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Bonus column of the Barbarian table.

If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging.

Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.

Once you have raged, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again. Beginning at 5th level, you can rage twice between long rests.

Unarmoured Defence

While you are not wearing any armour, you gain a natural armour bonus to your Armour Class equal to your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Cleave

Beginning at 2nd level, your attacks threaten creatures around your target. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee weapon attack, you can choose another creature within 5 feet of the original target and within your reach. If the original attack would hit the second creature, it takes damage equal to your barbarian level. The damage is the same type as the original attack. Once you deal damage using this feature, you must finish a short or long rest to do so again.

Beginning at 6th level, you can use this feature twice between rests. When you finish a short or long rest, you regain your expended uses.

Why Only 12th Level?

The classes in this document have been heavily revised and require extensive playtesting. As such, they have only been developed within the most commonly played level ranges: 1st to 12th.

As playtesting proceeds, higher level play will be revisited. This will likely include redevelopment of monster and adventure design for tiers 3 and 4 to address the problems affecting the game in this level range.

Martial Superiority

Also at 2nd level, you learn techniques that are fuelled by special dice called superiority dice.

Techniques. You learn two techniques of your choice (see Part 2, “Combat”). Many techniques enhance an attack in some way. You can only use one technique per attack. When you gain a level in this class, you can replace one technique you know with a different one.

You learn two additional techniques of your choice at 6th and 10th level.

Superiority Dice. You have four superiority dice, which are d6s. The Superiority Dice column of the Barbarian table shows when you gain additional dice. You can expend a superiority die to fuel combat techniques and certain other features. You regain all your expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest. When you reach certain levels in this class, your superiority dice increase in size: at 5th level (d8), and at 11th level (d10).

Saving Throws. Some of your techniques require your target to make a saving throw to resist the technique’s effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

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Primal Path

At 3rd level, you choose a path that shapes the nature of your rage. Choose the Path of the Berserker, the Path of the Brute, the Path of the Reaver, the Path of the Spirit Guardian, or the Path of the Stormborn, all of which are detailed at the end of the class description. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 6th and 10th levels.

Primal Surge

Also at 3rd level, you learn to channel part of your rage into a surge of speed. As part of the bonus action you take to enter your rage, you can move up to half your speed.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th and 12th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action.

Primal Speed

Starting at 6th level, your speed increases by 10 feet and your jump distance is doubled. When you reach 10th level, your speed increases by another 5 feet. You don’t gain these benefits while you wear heavy armour.

Brutal Critical

Beginning at 7th level, you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a weapon attack.

Feral Instinct

Also at 7th level, your instincts have become so honed that you have advantage on initiative rolls.

Additionally, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat and aren’t incapacitated, you can act in the surprise round, but only if you enter your rage before doing anything else on that turn. You aren’t considered surprised if you do so.

Art Credit: Aleksi

Ferocious Presence

At 9th level, you can use your action to frighten your foes with your menacing aspect. When you do so, creatures of your choice within 60 feet of you that can see or hear you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier) or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration of this effect on frightened creatures until the end of your next turn. A frightened creature repeats this saving throw at the start of its turn, ending the effect on a success. This effect also ends on a creature if it ends its turn out of line of sight or more than 60 feet away from you.

If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, it gains immunity to this effect for 24 hours.

Relentless Rage

Starting at 11th level, your rage can keep you fighting despite grievous wounds. If you drop to 0 hit points while you’re raging and don’t die outright, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead.

Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a short or long rest, the DC resets to 10.

Primal Paths

The primal power that burns in the heart of every barbarian has many sources. A blessing of protector spirits, a power hard-won by acts of great daring, the touch of elemental magic—each origin grants different abilities in accordance with its nature.

Path of the Berserker

Barbarians who walk the Path of the Berserker draw their rage from a bestial source deep within their souls, causing physical transformations when they draw on its power. The source of this power might be a primal spirit, the touch of lycanthropy, or descent from a shapeshifter, to name but a few possibilities.

Beast Form

Starting at 3rd level, when you enter your rage, you can transform into a bestial shape. Until the rage ends, you assume an animalistic appearance, manifesting the following features:

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Bite. You gain a bite attack, which is a natural weapon. Your bite attack deals 1d8 piercing damage on a hit. Once on each of your turns when you hit a Large or smaller creature with your bite, you can attempt to trip the creature as a bonus action. The target must succeed a Strength saving throw against your technique save DC or be knocked prone.

Barbarians and History

The archetype of the barbarian in tabletop RPGs comes from Norse warriors. This can be clearly seen in the subclasses presented in the Player’s Handbook: the berserker and the totem warrior.

Berserkers (from the Old Norse word berserkr, meaning “bear-shirt”) were warrior-shamans who donned the skin of a bear as a way of gaining its ferocity, as other traditions did with the skin of wolves (ulfheðnar) and wild boars (jöfurr). In battle, they were said to enter a frenzied rage called berserkergang, possibly as a result of ingesting large quantities of alcohol or perhaps certain hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Totem barbarians are also inspired by Norse religions, which featured totem animals (fylgjur) such as wolves, ravens, bears, and wild boars—many of the same animals that warriors would channel in battle. These concepts were deeply intertwined and shaped the way the ancient Norse saw and interacted with the world.

These kinds of beliefs were not isolated to the Norse. Wolf-warriors appear in the legends of Turks and Mongols, and certain Native American cultures still venerate totem animals that are the emblems of their family, clan, or tribe. It’s possible that this is the result of religious syncretism resulting from contemporary contact (Norse seafarers arrived in North America in the 11th century), or perhaps all cultures share similar notions drawn from ancient race memory.

Whatever the case, our intention with the barbarian class is to capture the universal tropes and heroic elements that provide fodder for folk tales, movies, and comic books, not to attempt to represent any particular culture or tradition. The barbarians in this document are nothing more than an archetype for players to enjoy together.

Claws. You gain razor-sharp claws on your hands, which you can use as a natural weapon if the hand is empty. Your claws deal 1d6 slashing damage on a hit. Once on each of your turns when you attack with your claws using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of the same action.

Hide. You add your Rage Bonus to the natural armour bonus granted by your barbarian Unarmoured Defence.

Bestial Senses

Also at 3rd level, your natural senses are enhanced. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.

Empowered Weapons

Beginning at 6th level, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls made with your beast form’s natural weapons. This bonus increases to +2 at 10th level. Additionally, your beast form’s natural weapons are considered magical for the purposes of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Hunter’s Instincts

Starting at 10th level, your hunting sensibilities are especially honed, granting you the following benefits:

• You can track creatures while travelling at a fast pace.
• You can move stealthily while travelling at a normal pace.
• You can make a Wisdom (Survival) check as a bonus action on your turn, provided that you can track the target of your search using hearing or smell.

 

Lycanthrope Berserkers

Not all berserkers gain their powers from a totem spirit. Many lycanthropes who learn to control their natures can manifest similar abilities to those represented in this subclass. Speak to your GM if you are interested in using this alternative origin of your power, as there may be additional considera-tions that affect the suitability of the decision.

Art Credit: Christopher Moeller

Path of the Brute

All barbarians harbour a deep fury that empowers them, granting them primal powers that push them beyond the normal limits of mortality. Barbarians who follow the Path of the Brute embrace the physical side of this power. When in a fury, you become a force of destruction on the battlefield, one that enemies can scarcely ignore.

Fighting Style

Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if something in the game lets you choose again. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace your choice with another Fighting Style option listed below. This replacement represents a shift of focus in your martial practice.

Archery. Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half cover. Additionally, when you score a critical hit with an attack using a ranged weapon, add the maximum weapon damage die twice to the damage roll rather than once.

Brawling. When you successfully grapple a creature, shove it, or knock it prone, you can deal bludgeoning damage to it equal to your Strength modifier.

Great Weapon Fighting. When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can treat the roll as a 3. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

Protection. 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 all of its attacks against that creature until the end of its turn. You must be wielding a shield to use this reaction.

Two-Weapon Fighting. When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can make the additional attack with the second weapon as part of the Attack action, instead of as a bonus action. You can only make this additional attack once per turn.

Versatile Fighting. You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls made with versatile weapons and a +1 dodge bonus to your AC while you wield a versatile weapon in two hands.

Overwhelming Fury

Starting at 3rd level, your rage is so potent that enemies struggle to ignore you in battle. While you’re raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that’s hostile to you has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you or another character with this feature. An enemy is immune to this effect if it can’t see or hear you or if it can’t be frightened.

Furious Resilience

Beginning at 6th level, you push the limits of your tenacity to new heights. If you fail a saving throw while you’re raging, you can reroll it. You must use the new roll. You can use this ability only once per rage.

When you reach 10th level in this class, you can use this ability twice per rage.

 

Improved Critical

Starting at 10th level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

Path of the Reaver

Terrifying warriors who draw strength from violence, barbarians who follow the Path of the Reaver are apex predators who believe in survival of the fittest and have little patience for weakness.

Legends say that reavers obtain their powers by ritually imbibing the blood of the most powerful creatures, such as fiends and dragons. Their ability to terrify their foes has made them the subject of horror stories told around the fire, or at the bedside of unruly children who refuse to stay put through the night. Just what is fact and what is fiction is difficult to tell, and most reavers prefer it that way.

Devour Essence

Starting at 3rd level, you learn to consume the last living energy of foes you slay. While you’re raging, if a creature within 10 feet of you is reduced to 0 hit points, you can use a reaction to gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your barbarian level.

Art Credit: 88grzes

Fearsome Aspect

Also at 3rd level, you project supernatural terror when you rage. While you’re raging, hostile creatures that start their turn within 10 feet of you or that enter that area must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier). On a failed save, a creature becomes frightened of you for 1 minute. The frightened creature can repeat this saving throw at the end of each of its turns.

Blood Frenzy

Beginning at 6th level, you become especially dangerous when you are injured. While raging, if you start your turn with fewer hit points than half your hit point maximum, you can choose to enter a frenzy that lasts until the start of your next turn. If you do so, for the duration of your frenzy, you can you roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the damage of your weapon attacks. However, whenever you take damage in a frenzy, you must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or use your reaction to attack the nearest creature. If there are multiple creatures adjacent to you, roll randomly to determine which creature you target.

 

Draconic Reavers

One way that individuals come by the powers of the reaver subclass is through draconic blood. Many with this origin have the Draconic Resilience feature detailed below, which replaces the Devour Essence feature. Speak to your GM if you are interested in using this alternative feature:

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Draconic Resilience. At 3rd level, you awaken the power of your draconic blood. You gain resistance to fire damage. Additionally, you are inured to hot environments, and you ignore the drawbacks caused by environments of extreme heat.

Art Credit: Jack Frin

Aura of Fury

Starting at 10th level, you exude a menacing aura while raging. The aura extends 10 feet from you in every direction, but not through total cover.

If a creature is frightened of you, its speed is reduced to 0 while in the aura, and that creature takes psychic damage equal to half your barbarian level if it starts its turn there.

Path of the Spirit Guardian

Many barbarians hail from cultures that commune with the spirit world. Through great devotion, they learn to summon mighty ancestors, powerful spirits of nature, or other entities from beyond. When a barbarian who follows this path rages, mighty allies are evoked from the spirit world to render aid.

Barbarians who follow this path are stalwart champions who excel in defending their allies and resisting harmful magic. They are often disdainful of arcane spellcasters, viewing their art as a profane affront to the natural order, and even holding magic items in reserved suspicion.

Spirit Aura

Starting at 3rd level, spectral warriors appear when you enter your rage. While you’re raging, you and friendly creatures within 5 feet of you gain a +2 cover bonus to your AC. Additionally, as a bonus action on your turn, you can cause all creatures benefiting from this effect (including yourself) to gain 4 temporary hit points.

The temporary hit points increase when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 6 at 5th level and 8 at 11th level.

Voice of the Ancients

At 3rd level, your connection with ancient spirits allows you to speak with great purpose. Whenever you make a Charisma check, you gain a bonus to the check equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of +1).

Additionally, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion.

Spiritual Warding

Beginning at 6th level, the power of your guardian
spirits shields you from harmful magic. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and
other magical effects, and you have resistance to damage from spells.

Spiritual Communion

At 10th level, you learn to consult with the spirits that guide you. You can cast augury without expending
spell points, beseeching your spiritual allies for an
omen. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Once you cast this spell, you can’t do so again until
you finish a short or long rest.

Path of the Stormborn

Few forces can match the power of a storm. It is hardly surprising, then, that those touched by the raw essence of elemental planes can gain a spark of magic that can nourish a barbarian’s rage. Those who follow the path of the Stormborn gain a mantle of primal magic when they rage, allowing them to tap into the power of nature to create devastating effects.

Storm Aura

Starting at 3rd level, when you enter your rage, you manifest an aura of violent primal power. The aura extends 10 feet from you, but not through total cover.

Your aura activates when you enter your rage, and you can activate it again on each of your turns as a bonus action. Each time you activate your aura, you can choose one of the effects detailed below. If an effect of your aura requires a saving throw, the DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier.

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Lightning. When you activate this effect, you can choose one creature you can see in your aura. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw. The target takes 1d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 2d6 at 6th level and 3d6 at 10th level.

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Surge. You cause powerful winds to batter nearby creatures. Each Large or smaller creature other than you that enters or starts its turn in your aura must succeed a Strength saving throw or treat the space of your aura as difficult terrain. Additionally, ranged weapon attacks made against you until the start of your next turn have disadvantage.

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Swell. You raise yourself off the ground with powerful winds, giving yourself a flying speed equal to half your walking speed. If you are still aloft at the end of this movement, you fall unless you have some other means to keep yourself airborne.

Art Credit: CadadAid

Elder Speech

Also at 3rd level, you are infused with the power of elemental air. You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its dialects: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran.

Stormheart

Beginning at 6th level, you gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage. Additionally, when you succeed a saving throw against an effect that deals lightning or thunder damage, you take no damage even if the effect would deal half damage on a successful save, and you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your barbarian level.

Storm’s Fury

Starting at 10th level, your storm aura lashes out in response to attacks. When a creature hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to deal lightning or thunder damage (your choice) to the attacker. The damage equals your barbarian level. A Large or smaller creature that takes this damage must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, you can push it in a straight line up to 10 feet away from you.

 

Other Storms

The abilities presented for the stormborn barbarian are the most commonly seen examples of their power, but they are hardly the only expression of a storm's power. Scalding sandstorms, mighty windstorms, and bitter snowstorms all make their mark on barbarians.

At the GM’s discretion, the abilities presented here can be adapted to suit elements other than lightning and thunder, such as fire or cold.

Art Credit: Gantian

 

Fighter

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A human in gleaming plate armour rides a mighty warhorse into a throng of orcs, her sword flashing silver and red. She raises her shield to deflect a spear, answering the attack in kind.

A dwarf in heavy mail leaps from atop a large boulder, his axe bearing down at the ogre’s head. His companion, a half-elf in rugged leathers, nimbly rolls out of the ogre’s reach before turning and unleashing a barrage of arrows from his bow.

Snarling in rage, a half-orc upturns a table, scattering cards and chips all over the tavern floor. His cheating opponent and both his friends, each sporting a bloodied nose or lip, abruptly turn and flee.

All of these heroes are fighters, perhaps the most diverse class of characters in the worlds of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Elite guards, brave gladiators, bandit leaders, and hardened mercenaries—as fighters, they all share an impressive mastery of weapons and armour and a deep understanding of the art of war.

Well-Rounded Warriors

Though fighters learn the basics of all combat styles—wielding axes, bows, blades, and more—they often specialize in a certain style of combat. Some become peerless archers, others duellists and fencers of the

Art Credit: Stefan Kopinski

highest degree, and some even learn to augment their martial skills with magic. Many fighters become known for their innovations with certain types of weapons, attracting students—and challengers—from abroad. Regardless of their focus, all retain a general proficiency with all forms of war.

Combat Specialists

Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen’s army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and other figures who spend their lives training and fighting are fighters.

Fighters are among the most common kinds of adventurers. Hired as guards, monster slayers, or some other dangerous profession, they stumble into larger schemes that form the substance of epic stories told around the fire.

Creating a Fighter

As you create your fighter, think about two related elements of your character’s background: Where did you get your combat training, and what sets you apart from the mundane warriors around you? Were you favoured by your mentor, gaining the benefit of more focused training? Did you study under a knight, either as a squire or in a formal academy?

What drove you to this training in the first place? Was your homeland threatened or your family murdered? Did you take up the way of the sword as a way to escape the limits of life on a farm, or are you following a proud family tradition?

Consider your armaments. A good sword might cost a month’s wages, while a suit of sturdy mail armour might be a whole year’s earnings. How did you come by these valuable items?

Class Features

As a fighter, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

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• Hit Dice: 1d10 per fighter level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
• Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per fighter level after 1st

Proficiencies

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• Armor: All armour, shields
• Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
• Tools: None

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• Saving Throws: Strength, Constitution
• Skills: Choose two skills from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) mail armour or (b) leather armour, longbow, and 20 arrows
• (a) a martial weapon and a shield or (b) two martial weapons
• (a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts or (b) two handaxes
• (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack

Fighting Style

Beginning at 1st level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. Additional options are presented in other supplements. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.

When you gain a level in this class, you can replace a Fighting Style option you know with another option available to fighters, representing a shift of focus in your martial practice.

Ambusher

When you hit a surprised creature with a weapon attack roll, the creature takes an extra 1d6 damage.

Archery

Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half cover. Addition-ally, when you score a critical hit using a ranged attack weapon, you add twice the normal bonus to the damage roll, instead of your normal bonus damage.

Brawling

When you successfully grapple a creature, shove it, or knock it prone, you can deal bludgeoning damage to it equal to your Strength modifier.

Defence

You treat the armour bonus of physical armour as 2 higher. If you are carrying a shield but wearing no armour, the shield’s AC bonus increases by 1.

When you reach 11th level, these bonuses increase by another 1.

Duelling

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

When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can treat the roll as a 3. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

Mobile Fighting

While you are wielding only light weapons and not wearing medium or heavy armour or carrying a shield, your movement speed increases to 30 feet if you are Small or 35 feet if you are Medium, unless it was already higher. Additionally, opportunity attacks made against you have disadvantage.

Polearm Fighting

While you are wielding a weapon with the reach property, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter your reach.

Protection

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 all of its attacks against that creature until the end of its turn. You must be wielding a shield.

Two-Weapon Fighting

When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can make the additional attack with the second weapon as part of the Attack action, instead of as a bonus action. You can only make this additional attack once per turn.

Versatile Fighting

You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls made with versatile weapons and a +1 dodge bonus to your AC while you wield a versatile weapon in two hands.

Second Wind

Also at 1st level, you learn to draw on deep reserves of stamina and willpower to drive yourself on where lesser combatants might fall. As a bonus action on your turn, you can regain hit points equal to 1d10 + your fighter level. Once you use this feature, you must complete a short or long rest before you can use it again.

The number of hit points you regain increases by 1d10 when you reach 11th level in this class.

Action Surge

Starting at 2nd level, you can momentarily push yourself beyond your normal limits. On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and possible bonus action.

Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

 

Martial Superiority

Also at 2nd level, you learn techniques that are fuelled by special dice called superiority dice.

Techniques. You learn three techniques of your choice (see “Combat”). Many techniques enhance an attack in some way. You can only use one technique per attack. When you gain a level in this class, you can replace one technique you know with a different one.

You learn two additional techniques of your choice at 6th and 10th level.

Superiority Dice. You have four superiority dice, which are d6s. The Superiority Dice column of the Fighter table shows when you gain additional dice. You can expend a superiority die to fuel combat techniques and certain other features. You regain all your expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest. When you reach certain levels in this class, your superiority dice increase in size: at 5th level (d8), and at 11th level (d10).

Saving Throws. Some of your techniques require your target to make a saving throw to resist the technique’s effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

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Martial Archetype

At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you strive to emulate in your combat styles and techniques. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th and 10th level.

 

Ability Score Increase

When you reach 4th level, and again at 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action.

The number of attacks increases to three when you reach 11th level in this class.

Remarkable Athlete

Also at 5th level, you unlock deep reserves of potential within yourself, gaining abilities that strain mortal limits. You gain the following benefits:

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Athletic Supremacy. You gain proficiency in Athletics if you do not already have it, and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability checks you make that use that skill.

Explorer. You have advantage on Constitution saving throws made to resist exhaustion from engaging in a forced march.

Sprinter. When you take the Dash action on your turn, you can move an additional number of feet equal to your proficiency bonus × 5.

Art Credit: Den Y.H.

Indomitable

At 9th level, when you make a saving throw, you can spend one superiority die to draw on your deepest reserves of strength. You add the number you roll on your superiority die to the result of your save. You can choose to spend one of your superiority dice after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined.

Resilient

At 11th level, when an attacker that you can see hits you with a weapon attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by an amount equal to your fighter level.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Martial Archetypes

Different fighters choose different approaches to perfecting their fighting prowess. The martial archetype you choose to emulate reflects your approach.

 

Archer

Archers embrace the adage that he who lives by the sword dies by he who lives by the bow. Over years of rigorous training, archers master the art of ranged combat, learning to rain death from above.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, or Survival. Alternatively, you gain proficiency in one of those skills and learn one standard language of your choice.

Deadeye

Also at 3rd level, your aim becomes deadly. As a bonus action on your turn, you can take careful aim at a creature you can see that is within range of a ranged weapon you’re wielding. Until the end of this turn, your ranged attacks with that weapon gain two benefits against the target:

• You ignore half and three-quarters cover.
• On each hit, the weapon deals additional damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus.

You can use this feature three times. You regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.

Crackshot

Beginning at 7th level, your aim is so precise that all of your ranged weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20. Additionally, when you roll damage for a ranged weapon attack, you can treat any 1 on a damage die as a 2.

      Volley

   At 10th level, you can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and you make a separate attack roll for each target.

Battlemage

Battlemages are individuals who blend martial mastery with careful magic, mastering techniques similar to those practiced by trained mages. They learn a comparatively small number of spells and lack the deep reserves of more dedicated spellcasters, but in the fusion of sword and spell they find a rare and spectacular power.

Art Credit: GreyHues

Spellcasting

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you awaken your latent arcane abilities and learn to cast spells.

Cantrips. You learn three cantrips of your choice from the battlemage spell list. You learn an additional battlemage cantrip of your choice at 10th level.

Spell Points. The Battlemage Spellcasting table shows how many spell points you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a number of spell points equal to the level of the spell. You regain all expended spell points when you finish a long rest.

For example, if you know the 1st-level spell burning hands and are able to cast spells of 1st or 2nd level, you can cast burning hands using 1 or 2 spell points.

Spells Known of 1st-Level and Higher. You know three 1st-level spells of your choice from the battlemage spell list (see appendix).

The Spells Known column of the Battlemage Spellcasting table shows when you learn more battlemage spells of 1st level or higher. Whenever you finish a long rest, you can replace one of the battlemage spells you know with another spell of your choice from the battlemage spell list. The new spell must be of a level no higher than your maximum spell level.

Spellcasting Ability. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your battlemage spells, since you learn to use magic through careful study of arcane laws and forces. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a battlemage spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

 

Bonded Weapons

Also at 3rd level, you learn to forge a magical bond between yourself and a weapon or shield. You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. The weapon must be within your reach throughout the ritual, at the conclusion of which you touch the weapon and forge the bond.

You can have only two bonded weapons at a time. If you attempt to bond with a third weapon, you must break the bond with one of your current bonded weapons as part of the ritual.

Bonding with a weapon grants the following benefits:

Magic. The weapon is magical.

Bound. You can’t be disarmed of your bonded weapon unless you are incapacitated. Additionally, you can summon the weapon to your hand as a bonus action on your turn, provided it is on the same plane of existence.

Spellcasting Focus. Your bonded weapon works as a spellcasting focus for your battlemage spells. Additionally, if your bonded weapon is magical, any enhancement bonus it adds to your weapon attack and damage rolls is also added to your spell attack rolls and spell save DC while you wield it.

Combat Magic

Beginning at 7th level, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn, you can cast one of your battlemage cantrips in place of one of the attacks. You cast this cantrip as through you were 1st level.

Arcane Strike

At 10th level, you learn to blend your magical and martial prowess more efficiently. When you hit with your bonded weapon on your turn, you can expend 1 spell point to deal 2d6 force damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage.

Brute

Brutes are simple warriors who rely on rough tactics and dirty tricks. Expert pugilists and unconventional thinkers, brutes are among the most resourceful and cunning fighters.

Pugilism

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your practice of unorthodox fighting styles grants you the following benefits:

• Your improvised weapons and unarmed strikes use a d6 for damage. This damage increases to a d8 at 10th level.
• When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike on your turn, you can attempt to grapple the target as a bonus action.

 

Dirty Fighting

Starting at 3rd level, when you take the Attack action on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks to use one of the following options of your choice:

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Blinding Attack. You throw sand in your target’s eyes, dash a stein of ale across their face, angle the glare of a reflective surface, or some other trick that disorients your foe. Choose one target within 5 feet of you. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw against your technique save DC or be blinded until the start of your next turn.

Hobble. You strike at a sensitive place in a bipedal creature’s anatomy. The creature must be within 5 feet of you. The target must make a Constitution saving throw against your technique save DC. On a failed save, the target takes damage equal to your Strength modifier and its walking speed is reduced to 0 until the start of your next turn.

Slam. One creature you are grappling must make a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (its choice) against your technique save DC. On a failed save, the target takes damage equal to your Strength modifier and falls prone.

Art Credit: Wesley Burt

Swap. One creature you are grappling must make a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (its choice) against your technique save DC. On a failed save, you swap places with the target.

Battle Instincts

Beginning at 7th level, your perception of danger is exceptionally well honed. You have advantage on initiative rolls. Additionally, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat, you can act during the surprise round, but only to take the Dodge action.

Vicious Critical

Starting at 10th level, when you score a critical hit with a weapon attack, you gain a bonus to that weapon’s damage roll equal to half your fighter level.

Cavalier

Cavaliers excel in mounted combat. Typically of noble extraction and raised in a courtly setting, they are equally adept in the arts of war and diplomacy, able to trade barbs as adroitly as they trade blows.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, History, Insight, Intimidation, or Persuasion. Alternatively, you gain proficiency in one of those skills and learn one standard language of your choice.

Bonded Mount

At 3rd level, you form a bond with a domesticated mount, such as a warhorse or a gryphon, with a challenge rating not more than one third your level. It takes 1 week to form the bond. This bond grants many benefits to yourself and the mount. You can be bonded to only one mount at a time; if you attempt to bond with another mount, your bond with your current mount ends.

While bonded with a mount, you gain the following benefits:

• Mounting or dismounting your mount costs you only 5 feet of movement, rather than half your speed.
• You have advantage on saving throws to avoid falling off your mount.
• When you ride your mount at least 30 feet in a straight line toward a creature and hit it with a melee weapon attack on the same turn, you add your mount’s Strength modifier to the weapon damage roll.

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Additionally, your mount gains the following benefits:

• While you are mounted, your mount adds your proficiency bonus to its AC, ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws as long as you aren’t incapacitated.
• Whenever you finish a short or long rest, your mount gains a number of temporary hit points equal to twice your fighter level, which last for 24 hours.

Art Credit: hell Artist

Fight as One

Starting at 7th level, you have trained so extensively with your mount that you act as one in battle.

While you ride on your bonded mount, it has advantage on saving throws and can’t be charmed or frightened. Additionally, when you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your attacks and direct your mount to make an attack instead.

Cavalier’s Strike

At 10th level, when you ride your mount at least 30 feet in a straight line toward a creature and hit it with a melee weapon attack on the same turn, you can deal additional damage equal to your fighter level. The damage is the same as the weapon—either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.

You can deal this additional damage only once per turn, and only a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses of this feature when you finish a long rest.

Champion

The following is the revised version of the Champion archetype found in the standard rules.

Battlefield Superiority

Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you fight with an overwhelming intensity. As a bonus action on your turn, you can give yourself advantage on melee weapon attack rolls until the end of your turn. When you do so, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your fighter level.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to half your proficiency bonus, rounded up. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Menacing Mark

Also at 3rd level, you can harry your foes, foiling their attacks and punishing them for not focusing on you. When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can mark the creature until the end of your next turn. This effect ends early if you mark another creature, are incapacitated, or you die, or if someone else places a mark effect on the target (such as a ranger’s Hunter’s Mark).

While it is within 5 feet of you, a creature marked by you has disadvantage on any attack roll that doesn’t target you. In addition, if a creature marked by you deals damage to anyone other than you, you can use your reaction to make a special melee weapon attack against it. You have advantage on the attack roll, and if it hits, the target takes extra damage equal to your fighter level. The damage is the same as the weapon—either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.

You can make this special attack a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Additional Fighting Style

At 7th level, you can choose a second option from the Fighting Style class feature.

Swift Strikes

At 10th level, you learn to trade accuracy for swiftness in your attacks. If you take the Attack action on your turn and have advantage on an attack roll against one of your targets, you can forgo the advantage for that roll and make an additional weapon attack against that target as part of the same action. You can do this only once per turn.

Templar

Stalwart defenders against the threat of unnatural magic, templars are dispatched to hunt down rogue spellcasters and dangerous creatures that would threaten innocent lives.

Mage Slayer

Starting at 3rd level, you learn to deliver swift reprisal to those who dare wield magic in your presence. Creatures within your reach that you can see that use their action to cast a spell or teleport provoke an opportunity attack from you. The attack is resolved before the spell or

teleport is completed.

Additionally, when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, it has disadvantage on any saving throw it makes to maintain concentration on a spell.

Monster Hunter

Also at 3rd level, you have honed your skills at fighting otherworldly creatures. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed, and when you hit a fey or fiend with a melee weapon attack, it takes an additional 1d6 damage. The damage increases to 2d6 at 11th level.

Additionally, you learn Infernal and Sylvan.

Unyielding Warrior

Beginning at 7th level, your mental and physical resilience against magic grants you resistance to damage from spells.

Spellcasting Harrier

At 10th level, your attacks have the chance to thwart your enemies’ magic. When you use your reaction to attack a creature casting a spell or teleporting, the attack deals extra damage equal to your fighter level on a hit,

 

and the creature must succeed a spellcasting ability check against your technique save DC, or its spell or teleport fails and is wasted.

Warlord

Warlords embody leadership on the battlefield, issuing orders and bolstering allies on the front line. To a warlord, combat is about more than just the numbers and equipment of each side, and they excel in discovering and exploiting weaknesses in their enemies.

Inspiring Command

Starting at 3rd level, you learn to guide your allies in the midst of battle. When a creature within 30 feet of you makes an ability check, attack roll, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to expend one superiority die and add the number rolled to the result. You can do so after the roll is made, but before the GM determines the result.

When you command a creature in this way, it also gains 5 temporary hit points. The number of temporary hit points increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 10 at 10th level and 15 at 15th level.

Art Credit: Magalli Villeneuve

Combat Leader

Starting at 7th level, you and allies within 30 feet of you gain a bonus to initiative rolls equal to your Intelligence modifier, unless you are incapacitated.

Siege Master

Also at 7th level, you add your proficiency bonus to attack rolls made using siege equipment.

Hammer and Anvil

At 10th level, you become an expert in exposing a target’s weakness for others to exploit. When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can use a bonus action to order an ally within 10 feet of the creature to make a special melee weapon attack against it, provided the creature is within reach of that ally’s weapon. This special attack is made with advantage.

Flavour to Taste

The fighter class is so broad that to represent every possible expression of its theme is impossible. For every tradition included here, there are any number that could not be included for want of space.

The subclasses included above were chosen because they represented a playstyle and archetype that can be easily adapted to different cultures, environments, and game types. Cavaliers work with low fantasy warhorses just as well as they do with high fantasy gryphons. A Wuxia campaign might reflavour the Champion archetype as the Samurai, with the Battlefield Superiority feature renamed to Fighting Spirit. The Brute and the Warlord basically exist in every culture around the world.

You can reflavour these archetypes as you need to represent whatever you need for your game world. Just because it doesn’t have the right name doesn’t mean it can’t be what you’re looking for.

Rogue

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Slipping between shadows in the darkened alley, a halfling clad in dark leathers signals to her companions, alerting them to the pack of wererats lurking beyond a cluster of weather-beaten crates.

A grizzled human, his face heavily scarred from a lifetime of fights, lightly runs a swatch of oiled leather along a long dagger. The metal, though scored by many deftly parried blows, already has a polished shine, but the substance that now coats it carries a more potent touch.

A young half-elf hangs lazily from the gable of a roof, securely fastened to the chimney stack by a rope tied around their waist. With the slightest twist of their wrist, the half-elf slides their blade through the window crack and gently severs the wire connected to an alarm bell.

Rogues are experts in moving quietly and unseen, whether it be through forests or alleyways, and seizing on any advantage in battle to defeat their enemies. Versatile and resourceful, rogues excel in finding solutions to just about any problem, making them invaluable companions.

Skill and Precision

Rogues devote considerable time and effort to mastering a wide variety of skills and talents, gaining unparallelled expertise in their many talents. Whether it’s picking locks, sneaking around, scaling walls, or disarming traps, rogues are experts without peer in their chosen disciplines.

In combat, rogues learn to make the most of an enemy’s weaknesses, striking at vulnerable places and evading reprisal instead of overcoming it. A rogue would rather make a precise strike that ends the fight quickly than engage in a drawn-out battle. As they grow in skill, rogues learn to avoid danger with almost preternatural reflexes gained through equal parts physical training and a sixth sense for trouble.

Drive and Determination

Many who become rogues embody the worst stereotypes of the class: assassins, thieves, and charlatans driven by desperate circumstances into a criminal life. Not all rogues are scoundrels, however. Many make a living as scouts, investigators, and royal spies, serving on the right side of the law.

What unites rogues is the talents they develop, not the manner in which those talents are used. As adventurers, rogues can be selfish treasure seekers just as easily as they can be scholars who’ve learned some tricks on their many expeditions.

Art Credit: Simon Klinz

Creating a Rogue

As you create your rogue character, consider the character’s specialties and how they intersect with the law. Are you a cutpurse who has graduated to bigger risks without heed for the legalities of your endeavours? Or are you a minor noble who’s been charged to conduct espionnage for the Crown? Is it duty and idealism that drives you, or greed and excitement?

What was the reason you became a rogue? Was it a natural progression of your lifestyle, or were you called to a higher purpose? Did you have a mentor, or are you self-taught?

Quick Build

You can create a rogue quickly by following these suggestions. First, make Dexterity your highest ability score, followed by Intelligence or Charisma, depending on whether you want to be a shrewd mastermind or a fast-talking scoundrel. Second, choose the criminal background.

Class Features

As a rogue, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

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• Hit Dice: 1d8 per rogue level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
• Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per rogue level after 1st

Proficiencies

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• Armor: Light armour
• Weapons: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, and shortswords
• Tools: Thieves’ tools

Rogues in the World

As with ‘fighter’, ‘rogue’ isn’t a job title claimed by anyone who isn’t being facetious. Though the skills you possess may overlap with those of other rogues, there is no common identity between members of this class that would create any social solidarity. There are no guilds for rogues as there are for goldsmiths, merchants, or other profes-sions, and announcing yourself as a rogue to the mayor or king is likely to be taken as either flippant or humorous, depending on the circumstances. Rogues don’t think of themselves as rogues, but rather as scouts, spies, thieves, assassins, burglars, or whatever other profession they practise—legitimate or not.

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• Saving Throws: Dexterity, Intelligence
• Skills: Choose four from Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception. Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Performance. Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a shortsword or (b) two daggers
• (a) a shortbow and quiver of 20 arrows or (b) a shortsword
• (a) a burglar’s pack, (b) a dungeoneer’s pack, or (c) an explorer’s pack
• Leather armour, two daggers, and thieves’ tools

Expertise

At 1st level, choose two of your skill proficiencies, or one of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves’ tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.

At 6th level, you can choose two more of your proficiencies (in skills or with thieves’ tools) to gain this benefit.

Sneak Attack

Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe’s distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a light, finesse, or a ranged weapon, or natural weapons if you have any.

You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.

The amount of the extra damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Sneak Attack column of the Rogue table.

Thieves’ Cant

During your rogue training, you learned thieves’ cant, a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows thieves’ cant understands such messages. It takes four times longer to convey such a message than it does to speak the same idea plainly.

In addition, you understand a set of secret signs and symbols used to convey short, simple messages, such as whether an area is dangerous or the territory of a thieves’ guild, whether loot is nearby, or whether the people in an area are easy marks or will provide a safe house for thieves on the run.

Cunning Action

Starting at 2nd level, your quick thinking and agility allow you to move and act quickly. You can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.

Martial Superiority

Also at 2nd level, you learn techniques that are fuelled by special dice called superiority dice.

Techniques. You learn two techniques of your choice (see part 2, “Combat”). Many techniques enhance an attack in some way. You can only use one technique per attack. When you gain a level in this class, you can replace one technique you know with a different one.

You learn two additional techniques of your choice at 6th and 10th level.

Superiority Dice. You have four superiority dice, which are d6s. The Superiority Dice column of the

 

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Rogue table shows when you gain additional dice. You can expend a superiority die to fuel combat techniques and certain other features. You regain all your expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest. When you reach certain levels in this class, your superiority dice increase in size: at 5th level (d8), and at 11th level (d10).

Saving Throws. Some of your techniques require your target to make a saving throw to resist the technique’s effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

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Roguish Archetype

At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you emulate in the exercise of your rogue abilities. The options are all detailed at the end of the class description. Your archetype choice grants you features at 3rd level and then again at 9th level.

Steady Aim

Also at 3rd level, you can use your bonus action to designate a target of your aim. If you do, the next attack roll you make on the current turn ignores half and three quarters cover, and any disadvantage you would have on the roll is negated.

You can use this bonus action only if you haven't moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn.

Ability Score Increase

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th and 12th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Uncanny Dodge

Starting at 5th level, when an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.

Evasion

Beginning at 7th level, you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

Tricks of the Trade

At 10th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.

Intuitive Combatant. While you are wearing light or no armour and not wielding a shield, you gain a dodge bonus to your AC equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1).

    Nimble. Opportunity attacks made against you are made with disadvantage.

Opportunist. Whenever a creature within 5 feet of you is hit by an attack made by a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to make a weapon attack against that creature.

Ruthless. Whenever you deal Sneak Attack damage to a creature and roll a 1 on damage die, you can treat the result as a 2 if the target is below its hit point maximum.

Reliable Talent

By 11th level, you have refined your chosen skills until they approach perfection. Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

Roguish Archetypes

Rogues have many features in common, including their emphasis on perfecting their skills, their precise and deadly approach to combat, and their increasingly quick reflexes. But different rogues steer those talents in varying directions, embodied by the rogue archetypes. Your choice of archetype is a reflection of your focus—not necessarily an indication of your chosen profession, but a description of your preferred techniques.

Assassin

Anyone can kill, but assassins have turned the grim business into an art. More than merely hired knives, assassins are all but invisible, achieving their goals before extracting unnoticed. Sometimes they are even able to make deaths seem accidental in order to avert suspicion.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with the disguise kit and the poisoner’s kit.

Deadly Strikes

Also at 3rd level, you learn to make the most of an opponent’s vulnerability. You have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that haven’t taken an action yet in combat. Additionally, any hit you score against a surprised creature is a critical hit.

Expert Infiltrator

At 9th level, you have mastered the art of infiltration, granting you the following benefits:

• You have advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks made to convince creatures that you are a specific individual, provided you have observed the creature for at least 1 hour and spent at least 1 hour using a disguise kit to craft a disguise.
• Other creatures have disadvantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to find weapons you have concealed on your person.

Daredevil

Leaping rooftop to rooftop, staring down a fearsome demon, crossing blades with an undead knight—daredevils are intrepid heroes who revel in danger and play fast and loose with their lives. In battle, you fight with an almost reckless fervour, overwhelming your opponents with your insuperable spirit.

Fearless

At 3rd level, you are inured to the deleterious effects of fear. You have advantage on saving throws made to resist or end the frightened condition.

Second-Storey Work

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain the ability to climb faster than normal; climbing no longer costs you extra movement.

In addition, when you make a running jump, the distance you cover increases by a number of feet equal to your Dexterity modifier.

Relentless Attacker

At 9th level, you learn to channel the adrenaline of battle into offensive power. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to make one melee weapon attack.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

 

Duellist

Not all warriors are clad in heavy armour wielding a large axe or heavy hammer. You have honed your fighting talents to exploit your opponent’s every imperfection and imbalance, making you especially dangerous in single combat. In addition to martial prowess, you also learn to weaponize your personal charm and confidence, making you a potent force in social environments.

Duellist’s Challenge

As a bonus action on your turn, you can mark a creature as your foe for 1 minute. This effect ends early if you mark another creature, are incapacitated, or you die, or if someone else places a mark effect on the target (such as a ranger’s Hunter’s Mark). While the target of your mark is within 5 feet of you, you can use your Sneak Attack against that creature as long as you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll and you aren’t flanked. You can still only use your Sneak Attack once per turn.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Panache

Starting at 3rd level, your confidence bolsters you in battle. You gain a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Charisma modifier.

Additionally, when you make a Wisdom saving throw, you can choose to gain a bonus to the total equal to your Charisma modifier. You can decide to gain the bonus after you roll, but before the GM determines the outcome of the saving throw. Once you gain this bonus, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Art Credit: Alex Kola

 

Rakish Charm

At 9th level, you have learned to channel your personal magnetism on the battlefield. At the beginning of each of its turns, the target of your Duellist’s Challenge must make a Charisma saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier). On a failed save, it has disadvantage on attack rolls against creatures other than you, and can’t make opportunity attacks against targets other than you. A creature that succeeds its saving throw becomes immune to this effect for 24 hours.

Scout

You are skilled in moving without notice, allowing you to reconnoitre safe paths and potential threats for your companions. Rogues who embrace this archetype are most commonly at home in the wilds among frontier folk, but their skills are just as valuable in more urban environments.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Nature and Survival skills if you don’t already have it.

Skirmisher

Also at 3rd level, you learn to strike and escape reprisal. When you hit hit a creature with a melee weapon attack during your turn, that creature can’t make opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn.

Superior Mobility

At 9th level, you learn to move more swiftly without compromising your stealth. Your walking speed increases by 10 feet. If you have a climbing or swimming speed, this increase applies to that speed as well. Additionally, you can move stealthily while travelling at a normal pace.

Shadowdancer

  You have been initiated into the ways of the shadow-    dancer, an ancient practice of channelling the darkness of the Plane of Shadow to enhance your movements and attacks. Talented shadowdancers eventually learn to flit  between shadows, bypassing areas of light that would  reveal their presence.

Armour of Shadows

Starting at 3rd level, when you deal necrotic damage to a creature, you can gain a number of temporary hit points equal to half your rogue level. While the temporary hit points last, shadows coalesce around you in a 10-foot radius, turning bright light into dim light and dim light into darkness. The temporary hit points fade after 1 minute.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Shadow Strike

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you learn to strike with the power of the Shadowfell. When you deal Sneak Attack damage to a creature, you can choose to make half of that damage (rounded down) necrotic damage instead of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.

Shadow Step

At 9th level, you gain the ability to leap between shadows. When you are in dim light or darkness, you can use a bonus action to teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccpied space you can see that is also in dim light or darkness. You then have advantage on the first weapon attack you make before the end of the turn.

Other Archetypes

Rogues are the martial class that required the least amount of revision. Aside from the archetypes adjusted here, there are many available in the standard rulebooks that are perfectly compatible with the enhanced version of this class.

Art Credit: Ryan Pancoast

Combat

THIS CHAPTER PRESENTS A NUMBER OF revisions and additional sections to the standard rules. It is divided into four sections: alternative general combat rules, revised AC rules, additional actions in combat, revised mounted combat rules, and expanded combat techniques available to martial characters.

You may use some, all, or none of these tools, and feel free to customize how they work to match your group’s tastes. For best results, it is recommended that you use all the rules presented here as they are written before making any adjustments based on play experience.

Combat

For most tables, combat is the most important pillar of gameplay. Almost every character class is designed around how they operate in combat, and few adventure sessions conclude without at least one battle.

The alternative rules in this chapter cover the following aspects of combat.

Critical hits are some of the most exciting moments in combat, but their random nature can leave players disappointed. A simple alternative rule is presented below to make them more reliable.

Delay is a new action option intended to offer greater versatility in combat for those who wish to act at specific times but don’t want to take the Ready action.

Flanking is a variant rule described in the standard rules and is considered by many GMs to have too disproportionate an effect to be included. A simple alternative is presented below to allow for meaningful yet balanced positioning choices.

Surprise is an often misunderstood and underutilized game mechanic. New rules are presented below to replace the standard rules with a surprise round that is intended to be more convenient and consistent.

Two-weapon fighting is a staple of fantasy. The rules presented here are meant to compliment changes to the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style available to many classes and ultimately make this area of gameplay more enjoyable.

Unarmed attacks receive some helpful clarification to improve their consistency across different tables.

Unseen attackers and targets receive some clarification regarding the persistence of their penalties in different situations.

Wounded is a new condition suffered when a creature is reduced to 0 hit points, and is intended to incentivize adventurers to keep their friends from going unconscious.

Critical Hits

When you score a critical hit, you deal extra damage against the target. Roll all the attack’s damage dice and add the total to the maximum possible damage of the attack, not counting your ability modifier.

For example, if you score a critical hit with a dagger, roll 1d4 for the damage as normal, add your relevant ability modifier and then add another 4. If the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue’s Sneak Attack feature, add the maximum of those dice as well.

Delay

Before you start your turn in a round, you can choose to delay, provided you are not incapacitated. Choose an initiative count lower than your current one. For the remainder of the encounter, or until you delay again, you take your turn on that initiative count.

Delaying doesn’t allow you to avoid a harmful effect, nor extend a beneficial one. Effects that cause you to suffer a penalty on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw made before the end of your turn persist until you finish taking your turn in a round. Likewise, effects that would grant you a bonus on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, or which grant you invisibility, temporary hit points, or some other benefit, last only until your original position in the initiative order.

For example, if you hit a creature with guiding bolt on your previous turn and delay your turn, the window to attack that target with advantage closes at your original initiative count. However, if you failed your saving throw against vicious mockery in the previous round and delay your turn, you still suffer disadvantage on your next attack roll this round.

Flanking

When two or more allied creatures are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, that enemy is flanked and suffers a –2 penalty to its AC.

When in doubt about whether two creatures flank an enemy on a grid, trace an imaginary line between the centres of the creatures’ spaces. If the line passes through opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, the enemy is flanked.

Combat Step by Step

    1. Determine surprise. The GM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised.

2. Establish positions. The GM determines where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers’ marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the GM figures out where the adversaries are—how far away and in what direction.

3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants’ turns.

4. Surprise round. Those creatures who are not surprised can move their speed or take an action, in initiative order.

5. Begin normal rounds. Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order. When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends and the next one begins.

Surprise

If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Any combatants aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round. In initiative order, combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents can move their speed or take an action, such as the Attack or Cast a Spell action. If you take the Attack action in the surprise round, you only make one attack, no matter how many attacks you can normally make. A surprised creature doesn’t get to act in the surprise round and isn’t counted as having taken a turn until it can act during a regular round.

If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs. When the surprise round ends, creatures are no longer surprised.

Two-Weapon Fighting

When you take the Attack action and attack with a natural weapon or a melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand, provided that weapon has the light property or is a natural weapon. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.

If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.

Unarmed Attacks

Natural weapons such as fists appear on the Weapons table and count as weapons. If you make an unarmed strike, you can use any feature that is contingent on making a melee weapon attack. Everyone is proficient with unarmed strikes.

Unseen Attackers and Targets

When you have disadvantage on a ranged attack roll against a target, you can’t gain advantage on the attack roll as a result of being unseen. For instance, you don’t negate the disadvantage you have for attacking an invisible creature when you step into an area affected by the darkness spell.

Wounded

When you fall to 0 hit points, you are wounded. While wounded, the following effects apply:

• You gain 1 level of exhaustion, which persists until this wound is lost.
• If you have more than 1 wound, you subtract 1 from death saving throws for each additional wound affecting you beyond the first.

Finishing a long rest reduces the number of wounds a creature suffers from by 1, provided that the creature has been tended by someone proficient with healer’s kits or received magical healing from a spell of 1st level or higher.

Armour Class

Your Armour Class (AC) represents how well your character avoids being wounded in battle. Things that contribute to your AC include the armour you wear, the shield you carry, your Dexterity modifier, and other benefits that may only be temporary in nature.

Your base AC equals 8 + your Dexterity modifier. When you gain a bonus to your AC, you add it to this number. As usual, bonuses of the same type don’t stack; only the highest bonus applies. For example, a draconian who wears hide armour won’t change their AC because their natural armour bonus is superior to the armour bonus provided by their equipment.

The different AC bonuses are described below.

Armour

Armour bonuses are the most common addition to most characters’ AC. There are two principal ways to gain an armour bonus: physical armour and natural armour.

Armour

The most common source of an armour bonus is a physical set of armour. This could be anything from a sturdy leather coat to a customized suit of full plate armour. Spells like mage armour also confer an armour bonus.

Natural Armour

Some creatures with tough hides, scales, or supernatural physiologies have an armour bonus from their natural armour.

Shield

Characters can gain a shield bonus from wielding a shield, such as a buckler or roundel, or from certain spells like the shield spell.

You can’t benefit from a shield bonus to your AC while you are incapacitated, unable to move, if your speed is 0, or if you are surprised.

Cover

A cover bonus is gained when you have cover from your attacker, as described in the standard rules. Cover bonuses also apply to Dexterity saving throws.

Dodge

A dodge bonus represents an increase in a character’s ability to redirect or move away from danger. A fighter with a dodge bonus might parry blows more effectively, while a rogue with a dodge bonus may be better at simply avoiding attacks altogether.

You can’t benefit from a dodge bonus to your AC while you are incapacitated, unable to move, if your speed is 0, or if you are surprised.

Untyped

Certain bonuses are too specific or unique to fall within an existing category or warrant having one of their own. The profane blessings a fiend bestows on its cultists, the deadly panache of a master duellist, and the preternatu-ral insight of an adept are all examples of this.

Unlike other AC bonuses, untyped bonuses stack with each other, unless they are from the same source. If an AC bonus doesn’t specify a type, it is untyped.

Actions in Combat

The following section expands on action options creatures can use on their turn.

Climb On

A creature can’t grapple a target more than one size category larger than itself, but it can jump onto such a target by grappling.

The GM determines if you can climb on a creature and what special requirements might exist. For instance, certain creatures may not have an anatomy that supports simply grabbing on somewhere and can only be climbed on from specific locations or at certain angles. You can’t climb on a creature unless you have at least one free hand.

If all the necessary conditions are met, you make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the target’s Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If you win the contest, you successfully move into the target creature’s space and cling to its body. While in the target’s space, you move with the target and have advantage on attack rolls against it.

Object Interaction

The standard rules expressly permit a single free object interaction on your turn, which is taken in tandem with either your action or your movement. For example, you can open a door as you move through it, or draw a sword as part of the Attack action. Any further object interactions require your action.

While this is a simple and convenient frame-work, it is simply not sufficient in practice. Closing a door that you just opened shouldn’t require that you sacrifice your action, nor should drawing your second weapon in order to engage in two-weapon fighting.

In these rules, additional object interactions don’t require your action. Instead, they cost 5 feet of movement. If your speed is 0, you can’t interact with an object other than your free object interaction for that turn. You don’t gain additional object interactions if you take the Dash action.

    You can move around within the larger creature’s space, treating the space as difficult terrain. The larger creature’s ability to attack you depends on your location, its appendages, and other factors at the GM’s discretion. It can attempt to dislodge you as an action—knocking you off, scraping you against a wall, or grabbing and throwing you—by making a Strength (Athletics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (your choice).

Dash

A creature can move the extra movement it gains from the Dash action (described in the standard rules) as part of the action or any other time it might use its movement. For instance, a creature that readies the Dash action can use the additional movement when the readied action is triggered.

Disarm

Sometimes you want to deprive a target of a certain item, such as a weapon or a focus, in its grasp.

Make a special weapon attack contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If you win the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item. You have advantage on your attack roll if the target is smaller than you are, or disadvantage if it is larger. You also have disadvantage on your attack roll if the defender is holding the item with two or more hands.

If you are able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, you can replace one of them with this attack.

Overrun

You can use the Overrun action to move through an unwilling creature’s space by forcing your way past.

Make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the Strength (Athletics) check of the space’s occupier. You have advantage on this check if you are larger than the creature, or disadvantage if you are smaller. If you win the contest, you can move through the creature’s space once this turn.

If you are able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, you can replace one of them with this attack.

Ready

Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn so that you can act later in the round using your reaction.

You must decide the type of action you wish to ready, such as the Attack action or the Cast a Spell action. At the GM’s discretion, you can ready another kind of action not detailed in the rules, such as kicking down a door or pulling a lever.

At any point before the start of your next turn, you can use your reaction to take that action. Remember that you can take only one reaction per round.

When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action. Additionally, if you take damage while holding a spell, you must succeed on a Constitution saving throw as though you were concentrating on the spell, otherwise the spell dissipates without taking effect.

Tumble

You can attempt to tumble through an unwilling creature’s space, ducking and weaving their attacks.

Make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check of the occupier of the space (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you can move through the hostile creature’s space once this turn.

If you are able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, you can replace one of them with this action.

Mounted Combat

The following rules replace or compliment those presented in the standard rules for mounted combat.

Combat Statistics

While you are riding a mount trained to accept a rider, such as a domesticated horse or donkey, the mount adds half your proficiency bonus to its AC and saving throws, provided you have proficiency in Animal Handling.

Contingent Bonus Action Timing

When a bonus action is paired with an action, such as the Grappler feat’s bonus action shove attack, you can take the bonus action before or after the action. However, if you become unable to use the action after taking the bonus action, your action is wasted.

Controlling a Mount

A controlled mount shares your turn. It uses its movement and action as you direct it. Any movement the mount takes while you ride it reduces your speed on that turn (to a minimum of 0).

A controlled mount can take the Overrun action (see the Actions in Combat section above), in addition to the other action options specified in the standard rules.

While mounted on a Large or smaller creature, you count as occupying the same space as your mount.

Combat Techniques

Combat techniques encompass a wide range of specialized manoeuvres perfected through countless hours of practice. They are more than the typical strikes, parries, and ripostes that combatants rely on in battle; they are signature skills that define a warrior’s fighting style.

You learn combat techniques if a class or other feature, such as the Martial Genius feat, allows you to. Those features also grant you the superiority dice needed to fuel combat techniques. You can’t learn a combat technique more than once.

If a requirement is given for the technique, you must meet the requirement in order to learn it.

Bashing Attack

When you hit a creature with a melee weapon that doesn’t have the light or finesse property, you can expend a superiority die to attempt to knock the target back. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and if the target is no more than one size category larger than you, it must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, you push the target up to 5 feet away from you.

Charging Strike

Prerequisite: Cavalier

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When you are mounted and your mount moves at least half its speed in a straight line toward a creature you then hit with a melee attack, you can expend a superiority die to allow your mount to attempt the Overrun action against that creature. If the mount wins the contest and moves through the target’s space, the target takes damage equal to the number rolled on the superiority die and is knocked prone.

Cleaving Attack

When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to strike another creature with the same attack. Choose another creature within 5 feet of the original target and within your reach. If the original attack roll would hit the second creature, it takes damage equal to the number you roll on the superiority die. The damage is the same type dealt by the original attack.

Commander's Attack

Prerequisite: Warlord

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When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks to direct one of your companions to strike instead. When you do so, choose a friendly creature who can see or hear you and expend one superiority die. That creature can immediately use its reaction to make one weapon attack, adding the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Countershot

Prerequisite: Archer

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When a projectile enters the normal range of a ranged or thrown weapon you are wielding, you can use your

 

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reaction and expend one superiority die to attempt to deflect it with your own thrown weapon or projectile. If the weapon has the loading property, it must be loaded to use this technique. Roll the superiority die; the projectile’s target or a creature in the projectile’s path gains a cover bonus to their AC or saving throw against the projectile, possibly causing it to miss. Using this technique with a weapon with the ammunition property expends one piece of ammunition.

Certain missiles, such as a ballista bolt or a giant's thrown rock, may be too heavy to be deflected in this way. The GM determines if a missile can be deflected.

Covering Fire

When you take the Attack action on your turn and only attack with a shortbow or longbow, you can expend one superiority die to lay down covering fire. Roll the die; one creature of your choice within the normal range of your weapon adds the number rolled to their AC as a cover bonus until the start of your next turn. Attackers outside the normal range of your weapon or that have total cover from you ignore this bonus.

If you cease wielding a shortbow or longbow or are incapacitated, the creature no longer benefits from the increase to its AC.

Art Credit: Simon Gocal

Curve Shot

Prerequisite: Archer

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When you make a ranged weapon attack with a shortbow or longbow, you can expend a superiority die and cause the arrow to curve around obstacles, potentially allowing you to target a creature behind total cover. This attack has a maximum range equal to the weapon’s normal range. At any point along the projectile’s trajectory, you can cause it to alter its course by up to 45 degrees to the left or to the right over a 5-foot stretch of its course. Each such alteration halves the attack’s maximum distance (rounding down to the nearest 5-foot increment). At the GM’s discretion, the curve can be the result of the projectile ricocheting off a flat surface, such as a wall. If you hit, add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Debilitating Strike

When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can expend a superiority die to stun your target. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target’s speed is halved and it deals only half damage with weapon attacks that use Strength. The effect ends at the start of your next turn.

Defensive Stance

You can expend a superiority die to take the Dodge action as a bonus action. Roll the die; you gain a dodge bonus to your AC equal to the number rolled until the start of your next turn.

Deflect

While you are wielding a shield, you can expend a superiority die and use a reaction to deflect a weapon attack that hits you or a creature within 5 feet of you. Roll the die and reduce the damage by the number rolled.

Disarming Strike

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to disarm the target. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, it drops one object of your choice it is holding, which lands at its feet. The target has advantage on the saving throw if it is holding the item in two hands.

Disrupting Attack

Prerequisite: Templar

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When you make a melee attack against a creature concentrating on a spell, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to disrupt their spellcraft. The target's Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on the spell through the hit is reduced by the number rolled.

 

Distant Strike

When you make an attack with a ranged or thrown weapon, you can expend one superiority die to ignore disadvantage imposed from attacking at long range. If your attack hits, add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Distracting Attack

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to distract the creature from your allies. Add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and the next attack roll against the target by an attacker other than you has advantage on the attack if the attack is made before the start of your next turn.

Executing Strike

When you hit an incapacitated or prone creature with a weapon attack, you can expend a superiority die and add the result to your attack roll. If the total of the attack roll exceeds the target’s current hit points, the creature drops to 0 hit points.

Expert Cavalier

Whenever you make an ability check that uses the Animal Handling skill, you can expend a superiority die and add it to the roll. You can use this technique after you roll, but before you know if you succeed or fail.

Fierce Attack

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can expend a one superiority die and use a bonus action to attempt to frighten nearby creatures. Roll the die and choose a number of hostile creatures within 10 feet of you up to the number rolled. The chosen creatures must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.

Intercepting Strike

When a hostile creature you can see moves into your reach, you can expend a superiority die to make a weapon against it using your reaction. If you hit, add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll. You can’t use a combat technique with this attack.

Keen Strike

When you make a weapon attack and roll a 19 on the d20, you can expend one superiority die to treat the attack as a critical hit. Add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

If you would already critically hit on a roll lower than 20, you can use this technique when you roll a number on the d20 that is 1 lower than would normally score a critical hit for you, to a minimum of 17.

Light Step

Whenever you make an ability check that uses the Stealth skill, you can expend a superiority die and add it to the roll. You can use this technique after you roll, but before you know if you succeed or fail.

Lunging Strike

When you make a melee weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to increase your reach for that attack by 5 feet. If you hit, you add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Master Survivalist

Whenever you make an ability check that uses the Survival skill, you can expend a superiority die and add it to the roll. You can use this technique after you roll, but before you know if you succeed or fail.

Manoeuvring Strike

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to manoeuvre one of your allies to a better position. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and one friendly creature of your choice who can see or hear you can use its reaction to move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks from the target of your attack.

Menacing Aspect

Whenever you make an ability check that uses the Intimidate skill, you can expend a superiority die and add it to the roll. You can use this technique after you roll, but before you know if you succeed or fail.

 

Mobile Strike

When you hit a target with a weapon attack, you can expend a superiority die to foil its reprisal. Add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and your movement doesn’t trigger opportunity attacks from the target until the end of your turn.

Parry

When a creature damages you or a friendly creature within your weapon’s reach with a melee attack, you can use your reaction and expend one superiority die to reduce the damage by the number you roll on your superiority die + your Dexterity modifier. You must be wielding a melee weapon in order to parry.

Pinning Attack

When you hit a target no more than one size category larger than you with ranged weapon attack using a heavy crossbow, light crossbow, longbow, or shortbow, you can attempt to inhibit its movement. Add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and the target must succeed a Dexterity saving throw or have its walking speed halved until the end of its next turn. This doesn't affect other types of movement, such as swimming or flying.

Point Blank Shot

When you make a ranged weapon attack against a creature within 5 feet of you, you can expend one superiority die and make the attack without disadvantage. If the attack hits, add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Art Credit: Anna Podedworna

Rally

Prerequisite: Warlord

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On your turn, you can use a bonus action and expend one superiority die to bolster the resolve of your companions. When you do so, choose any number of friendly creatures who can see or hear you. Each creature gains a number of temporary hit points equal to the superiority die roll + your Charisma modifier.

Rapid Strike

As a bonus action, you can expend one superiority die and make a weapon attack. You can draw the weapon as part of this attack. If you hit, add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll. You can’t use a combat technique with this additional attack.

Regroup

When you take the Dodge action on your turn, you can expend one superiority die and gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the superiority die roll + your level.

Riposte

When a creature misses you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction and expend one superiority die to make a melee weapon attack against that creature. If you hit, you add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll.

Siege Strike

When you make a weapon attack against an object or structure, you can expend a superiority die to deal additional damage. Roll the die and add twice the number rolled to the attack’s damage.

 

Staggering Strike

When you hit a Huge or smaller creature with a weapon attack using a weapon with the heavy property, you can expend a superiority die to attempt to stagger it. Add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the end of its next turn.

Superior Athlete

Whenever you make an ability check that uses the Athletics or Acrobatics skill, you can expend a superiority die and add it to the roll. You can use this technique after you roll, but before you know if you succeed or fail.

Taunting Strike

When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend a superiority die to taunt the target. Add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or have disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes before the end of its next turn if it targets a creature other than you.

Tripping Strike

When you hit a creature no more than one size category larger than you with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to knock the target down. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.

Warding Manoeuvre

When you or a creature you can see within 5 feet of you is hit by a melee weapon attack, you can expend a superiority die to fend off the strike. Roll the die and add the number rolled to the target’s AC against that attack. If the attack still hits, the target has resistance against the attack’s damage.

Art Credit: David Palumbo

Customization

This chapter presents a number of revisions and additional sections to the standard rules. It is divided into two sections: multiclassing and feats.

You may use some, all, or none of these tools, and feel free to customize how they work to match your group’s tastes.

Multiclassing

The rules below compliment the ones presented in the standard rules.

Martial Superiority

Your combat superiority is determined by your combined levels in all martial classes. Once you have superiority dice from more than one class, use the rules below. If you multiclass but have superiority dice from only one class, you follow the rules described in that class.

Combat Techniques Known. You determine what combat techniques you know individually for each class, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. For example, if you are a fighter 5/barbarian 2, you would know three combat techniques based on your levels in the fighter class and two combat techniques based on your barbarian class. If you subsequently gain a level in fighter, you would learn an additional two combat techniques available to the fighter class.

Superiority Dice Pool. You determine your total number of superiority dice by adding together your levels in barbarian, fighter, and rogue. If you have the College of War feature, you also add your levels in bard to this total. Use this total to determine your total number of superiority dice by consulting the Superiority Dice Pool table.

Superiority Die Size. If you have superiority dice from multiple sources, your superiority dice are all the same size. The size is the largest of the sizes you are able to use.

For example, if you are a 4th-level fighter/1st level barbarian who takes another level in barbarian, you gain an additional superiority die, but the dice would remain d6s instead of increasing to d8s, as they would if you had gained a level in the fighter class.

Superiority Dice Pool

Total Level	Superiority Dice
3rd–4th	4
5th–8th	5
9th–12th	6
13th–16th	7

Feats

A feat represents a talent or an area of expertise that gives a character special capabilities. It embodies training, experience, and abilities beyond what a class provides.

You gain one feat at 1st level. Whenever your class gives you the Ability Score Improvement feature, you can forgo increasing your attributes to take an additional feat of your choice, chosen from the list below.

To take a feat, you must meet any prerequisite specified in the feat description. If you ever lose a feat’s prerequisite, you can’t use that feat until you regain the prerequisite. You can take each feat only once, unless the feat’s description says otherwise.

Academician

Prerequisite: Intelligence 13 or higher

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You are an expert in your chosen field of research. You gain you the following benefits:

• Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Choose one of the following skills with which you have proficiency: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion. When you make an Intelligence check using the chosen skill, you add twice your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.

Alertness

Prerequisite: Proficiency in Perception

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You are always on the lookout for danger, granting you the following benefits:

• You are proficient in Dexterity checks made to determine initiative.
• You are never surprised while you are not incapacitated.
• Other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being hidden from you.

Agile

Prerequisite: 4th level, Dexterity 13 or higher

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You have pushed your coordination and reflexes to new heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency in Dexterity saving throws or Acrobatics (your choice).
• When you make a Dexterity check, you can reroll the die and use either result. You must decide to do so before the GM determines the effects of the roll. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Arcanist

Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell

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Your study of the arcane arts is especially deep, granting you the following benefits:

• You gain proficiency in the Arcana skill. If you are already proficient with the skill, you add twice your proficiency bonus to ability checks you make using that skill, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
• You learn one metamagic option of your choice, which you can use without expending spell points. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest. You can also use this metamagic option with any spell points you have. Whenever you gain a level, you can replace your metamagic option with another one of your choice.

Athletic

Prerequisite: Proficiency in Athletics

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Through extensive physical training, you have gained the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Standing up from prone uses only 5 feet of your movement.
• You only need to move 5 feet on foot to perform a running long jump or running high jump.

Attentive

Prerequisite: Proficiency in Perception

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You have developed your powers of observation to exceptional heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Intelligence or Wisdom score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive Intelligence (Investigation) scores while you are not incapacitated.
• You are able to read lips. If you can see a creature’s mouth and it is speaking a language you understand, you can interpret what it is saying without hearing its voice.

Bludgeoner

Prerequisite: 4th level, Strength 15 or higher

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You are especially talented at striking your enemies where they are weak, granting you the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Once per turn, when you hit a creature that is no more than one size category larger than you with a melee weapon attack that deals bludgeoning damage, you can push it 5 feet away from you to an unoccupied space.
• When you score a critical hit on a creature with a melee weapon that deals bludgeoning damage, attack rolls against that creature gain advantage until the start of your next turn.

Bonus Feat

The feat options presented here are balanced for every character receiving one free feat at 1st level. Speak to your GM to confirm that they allow feats.

Brawny

Prerequisite: 4th level, Strength 13 or higher

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You have pushed your physical power to new heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency in Strength saving throws or Athletics (your choice).
• You count as if you were one size category larger for the purpose of determining your carrying capacity.

Brutal Fighter

Prerequisite: Strength 13 or higher

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When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon, you can reroll the die. You must use the new result, even if it’s also a 1 or a 2.

Clever

Prerequisite: 4th level, Intelligence 13 or higher

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You have pushed your mental faculties to new heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• When you would be forced to make a Dexterity saving throw, you can make an Intelligence saving throw instead.
• When you make an Intelligence check, you can reroll the die and use either result. You must decide to do so before the GM determines the effects of the roll. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Combat Caster

Prerequisite: 4th level, the ability to cast at least one spell

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You have practised using magic in the midst of combat, granting you the following benefits:

• Your ranged spell attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.
• When you cast a spell that requires you to make an attack roll, you double the spell’s normal range, to a maximum of half the spell’s long range.
• When a hostile creature’s movement provokes an opportunity attack from you, you can use your reaction to cast a spell at the creature, rather than making an opportunity attack. The spell must have a casting time no longer than 1 action and must target only that creature.

 

Combat Expertise

Prerequisite: Proficiency with martial weapons

---

You have expanded your martial prowess and gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You learn one Fighting Style option of your choice from the fighter class. As normal, you can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once. Whenever you gain a level, you can replace this feat’s Fighting Style choice with another one from the fighter class that you don’t have.

Combat Medic

Prerequisite: Proficiency with healer’s kits

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You are capable in battlefield medicine, gaining the following benefits:

• When you use a healer’s kit to stabilize a dying creature, that creature also regains 1d4 hit point.
• As an action, you can spend one use of a healer’s kit to tend to a creature and restore a number of hit points equal to 1d6 + your proficiency bonus + the creature’s total number of Hit Dice. The creature can’t regain hit points from this feat again until it finishes a short or long rest.

 

• During a long rest, you can tend to a number of creatures equal to 1 + your proficiency bonus. At the end of that rest, those creatures regain an additional number of Hit Dice equal to your proficiency bonus.

Crossbow Master

Prerequisite: 4th level, Dexterity 15 or higher

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Thanks to extensive practice with crossbows, you gain the following benefits:

• You can load a crossbow as a bonus action. If you have the Extra Attack feature, you can also reload a crossbow in place of one attack when you take the Attack action.
• Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls with a crossbow.
• You can use two-weapon fighting when one of the weapons you hold is a hand crossbow.

Diehard

Prerequisite: Constitution 13 or higher

---

You are especially hard to keep down. You gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You have advantage on death saving throws.

 

 

Dual Wielding

Prerequisite: 4th level, Dexterity 15 or higher

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Your mastery of fighting with two weapons grants you the following benefits:

• You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light or natural weapons.
• You add your ability score modifier to damage rolls of the second weapon.
• You gain a +1 shield bonus to your AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand.

Dungeoneer

Inured to the dangers of ancient ruins and subterranean locales, you gain the following benefits:

• You have advantage on saving throws made to avoid or resist the effects of traps.
• You have resistance to the damage dealt by traps.
• You can move normally while squeezing through a smaller space, and other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you for being in a smaller space.

Elemental Mastery

Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell

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You have learned to empower your magic when dealing with a specific type of element. Choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. You gain the following benefits:

• Spells you cast ignore resistance to damage of the chosen type.
• When you roll damage for a spell that deals damage of the chosen type, you can treat any 1 on a damage die as a 2.
• When you take damage of the chosen type, you can use your reaction to halve that damage. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Expert Rider

You and your mount fight as one. While you are mounted and aren’t incapacitated, you gain the following benefits:

• While you ride your mount, it can take the Dash action as a bonus action.
• When a creature attacks your mount, you can force the attack to target you instead, provided you are within the attack’s reach.
• If your mount is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, and only half damage if it fails.

Art Credit: Raymond Minnaar

 

Expert Defender

Prerequisite: 4th level

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You have trained extensively to maintain superiority over your area of the battlefield, granting you the following benefits:

• When you hit a target with a melee weapon attack, its speed is halved until the start of your next turn, provided it is not more than one size category larger than you. A creature can only be affected by this once per round.
• Creatures within 5 feet of you that you can see provoke an opportunity attack from you when they attack a target other than you, unless the attacker’s target also has this feat.

Fleet

You have pushed your speed and agility to the limits, gaining the following benefits:

• Your walking speed increases by 10 feet.
• When you take the Dash action, difficult terrain doesn’t cost you extra movement until the start of your next turn.
• Opportunity attacks made against you have disadvantage.

Fortuitous

You are unusually fortunate.

When you make an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can choose to gain advantage on the roll. Alternatively, if you are attacked, you can impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You can choose to gain advantage or impose disadvantage after the d20 is rolled, but before the outcome is determined.

Once you have used your luck, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Grappling Expert

Prerequisite: Strength 13 or higher

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You are an expert at grappling in combat, granting you the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike on your turn, you can use a bonus action to attempt to grapple the target.
• When you take the Attack action and attack a creature you are grappling, you can use a bonus action to attempt to shove that creature. If you win the contest, you knock the target prone.

 

Hardy

Prerequisite: 4th level, Constitution 13 or higher

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You have pushed your physical resilience to new heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency in Constitution saving throws or advantage on Constitution ability checks (your choice).
• When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Constitution saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

Heavy Armour Expertise

Prerequisite: 4th level, proficiency with heavy armour

---

You have learned to move and carry yourself while wearing heavy armour, gaining the following benefits:

• You treat the armour bonus of medium and heavy armour as though it were halved when determining the penalty for wearing cumbersome armour.
• When you suffer a critical hit while you are wearing heavy armour, you can use your reaction to turn that hit into a normal hit. Any effects triggered by a critical hit are cancelled.

Art Credit: u/Excellent-Put-1320

 

Heavy Armour Proficiency

You have learned to move and carry yourself while wearing heavy armour, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with heavy armour.

Initiate

You gain a divine revelation, allowing you to tap the power of the gods.

You learn two cleric or druid cantrips of your choice. In addition, you learn one 1st-level cleric or druid spell. You can cast that spell at its lowest level. Once you cast it, you must finish a long rest before you can cast it again. You can also cast that spell using any spell points you have. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait.

 

Inspiring Leadership

Prerequisite: Charisma 13 or higher

---

You are an effective orator who excels at motivational speeches.

You can spend at least 1 minute inspiring your companions, shoring up their resolve to fight. When you do so, all friendly creatures who can see and hear you and who can understand you gain temporary hit points equal to your level + your Charisma modifier. A creature can’t gain temporary hit points from this feat again until it has finished a long rest.

Keen Intellect

Prerequisite: Intelligence 13 or higher

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You have focused your mind to such an extent that you have superior recall and focus. You gain the following benefits:

 

• Increase your your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You have an infallible awareness of the passage of time and your orientation relative to important locations, allowing you to precisely track time to the nearest minute and unfailingly retrace your steps within the past month. This awareness is disrupted if you are incapacitated, forcing you to re-establish it based on available information.
• When you make an Intelligence check to recall anything you have seen or heard in the last year, you treat a roll of 7 or lower on the d20 as an 8.

Light Armour Expertise

Prerequisite: 4th level, proficiency with light armour

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You have mastered movement while wearing light armour, gaining the following benefits:

• You treat the damage reduction of light armour as 1 higher.
• Wearing light armour doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
• When calculating your encumbrance, you count the weight of light armour you wear as being halved.

Light Armour Proficiency

You have learned to move and carry yourself while wearing light armour, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with light armour.

Lurker

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13 or higher

---

You have mastered moving through shadows, gaining the following benefits:

• You can try to hide when you are lightly obscured.
• Dim light doesn’t impose on your Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight.
• You have advantage on attack rolls against creatures you can see but that can’t see you, even if your position is known to your target.

Martial Genius

You have trained yourself to perform special techniques in combat, gaining the following benefits:

• You learn two combat techniques of your choice (see “Combat”). If a technique would force your target to make a saving throw to resist the technique’s effects, the saving throw equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier (your choice).

Racial Feats

No racial feats are included in this document, as the races have been significantly revised. New racial statistics and feats will be presented in a separate document.

• You gain a superiority die, which is a d6. This die is used to perform your techniques, and is expended when you use it. You regain your expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest. If you already have superiority dice, you gain one more of the same type as your other superiority dice.

Medium Armour Expertise

Prerequisite: 4th level, proficiency with medium armour

---

You have mastered movement while wearing medium armour, gaining the following benefits:

• You treat the armour bonus of medium armour as though it were halved when determining the penalty for wearing cumbersome armour.
• When wearing medium armour, the maximum Dexterity modifier you can add to your AC increases to +3.

Medium Armour Proficiency

You have learned to move and carry yourself while wearing medium armour, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with medium armour.

Perceptive

Prerequisite: 4th level, Wisdom 13 or higher

---

You have pushed your observational skills to new heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Wisdom score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws or the Perception skill (your choice).
• Being in a lightly obscured area doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks if you can both see and hear.

Persuasive

Prerequisite: 4th level, Charisma 13 or higher

---

You have pushed your personal magnetism to new heights, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• When you would be forced to make a Wisdom saving throw, you can make a Charisma saving throw instead.

 

• When you make a Charisma check, you can reroll the die and use either result. You must decide to do so before the GM determines the effects of the roll. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Polearm Expert

Prerequisite: 4th level, Strength 15 or higher

---

You excel at wielding reach weapons. You gain the following benefits:

• When you take the Attack action and attack with only a weapon with the reach property that you wield in both hands, you can use a bonus action to make a melee attack with the opposite end of the weapon at a target within 5 feet of you. The weapon’s damage die for this attack is a d4, and the attack deals bludgeoning damage.
• When you make an attack with a polearm using the Ready action, you have advantage on the attack roll.
• As a bonus action on your turn, you can increase your reach with a polearm by 5 feet for the rest of your turn, to a maximum of 15 feet.

Polyglot

You are a scholar of languages and scripts, granting you the following benefits:

 

• Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You learn three languages of your choice.
• You have advantage on Intelligence checks made to decipher messages, including coded messages, and can create written ciphers. A creature attempting to decode your messages must succeed on an Intelligence check. The DC for this check equals your Intelligence score + your proficiency bonus.

Precise Attacker

Prerequisite: 4th level, Strength or Dexterity 15 or higher

---

You have honed your aim with precision attacks, granting you the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack that deals piercing damage, you can reroll one of the attack’s damage dice. You must use the new roll.
• When you score a critical hit on a creature with a weapon that deals piercing damage, roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit. If the attack was with a ranged weapon, this benefit only applies if the creature was within the weapon’s normal range.

Quick Draw

You have honed your aim with precision attacks, granting you the following benefits:

• You gain a +2 bonus to initiative checks.
• You can draw a weapon whenever you make a weapon attack without using your free object interaction or expending movement.

Rapid Shot

Prerequisite: 12th level, Extra Attack feature

---

You can use ranged weapons with exceptional speed. When you take the Attack action and attack only with a shortbow or longbow you are wielding, you can choose to take a –2 penalty on all your attacks until the end of your turn. If you do, you can make one additional attack with the same ranged weapon.

Ritualist

Prerequisite: Intelligence or Wisdom 13 or higher

---

You’ve learned how to cast a number of spells as rituals.

Choose one of the following classes: bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard. You learn two 1st-level spells of your choice from that class’ spell list. The spells must have the ritual tag. You can cast these spells as rituals, using the spellcasting ability for that class. You can also cast these spells using any spell points you have.

You record the spells you learn with this feat in a ritual book, which you must have on hand when you cast these spells as rituals. If you come across other spells in written form, you can add the spell to your ritual book if it has the ritual tag, is on the spell list for the class you chose, and isn’t of a level higher than half your level (rounded up). The process of copying the spell into your ritual book takes 2 hours per level of the spell and costs 1 gp per level, representing expenses incurred mastering the magic as well as the materials involved in recording the spell.

Sharpshooting

Prerequisite: 4th level, Dexterity 15 or higher

---

Your mastery of ranged weapons allows you to make shots others might believe impossible. You gain the following benefits:

• Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.
• You treat the normal range of a ranged weapon as being doubled, to a maximum of half the weapon’s long range.
• Once on each of your turns when you hit with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can deal an additional 2d6 damage.

Equipment Revised

The cost to copy a spell as described in the Ritualist feat, as well as other features such as Medium Armour Expertise’s cumbersome penalty, are part of a larger equipment revision that will be described in another document. Some basic information about this can be found in appendix B.

Shield Expert

Prerequisite: Proficiency with shields

---

Your have practiced extensively with shields, granting you the following benefits:

• You can don or doff a shield as a bonus action, instead of an action.
• While wielding a shield, you can add your shield’s AC bonus to any Dexterity saving throw you make against a spell or other harmful effect that targets only you, provided you aren’t incapacitated.
• If you take the Attack action while wielding a shield, you can shove a creature within 5 feet of you as a bonus action, using your shield. As usual, you can’t shove a creature more than one size category larger than you.
• If you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to take no damage if you succeed the saving throw, taking shelter behind your shield.

Slashing Expert

Prerequisite: 4th level, Strength or Dexterity 15 or higher

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You have become a master at landing cuts in the right areas, granting you the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack that deals slashing damage, you can reduce its speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn.
• When you score a critical hit on a creature with a weapon that deals slashing damage, it suffers a laceration. At the start of its next turn, it takes additional damage equal to your Strength or Dexterity modifier (your choice).

Tavern Brawling

Prerequisite: Strength or Dexterity 13 or higher

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You’ve mastered the art of fighting dirty, granting you the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.

 

• Your improvised weapons and unarmed strikes use a d4 for damage, unless you already use a larger damage die.
• Being prone does not impose disadvantage on your unarmed strikes or on ranged attacks you make with thrown weapons, nor does it grant advantage to those who make melee attacks against you.

Thespian

Prerequisite: Charisma 13 or higher

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You have mastered mimicry and drama, granting you the following benefits:

• Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You have advantage on Charisma (Deception) and Charisma (Performance) checks made to pass yourself off as someone else.
• When you engage in Charisma-based performance during downtime, you can support yourself at one lifestyle higher than would be supported by your Charisma check.

Toughness

Prerequisite: Constitution 13 or higher

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You have pushed your body to greater limits, gaining the following benefits:

• Your hit point maximum increases by an amount equal to twice your level.
• Whenever you gain a level, your hit point maximum increases by an additional 2 hit points.
• Whenever you roll a Hit Die to recover hit points, you regain 2 additional hit points.

 

Two-Weapon Rend

Prerequisite: 4th level, dual wielding

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You are especially deadly when you focus with two weapons. Once per turn, when you hit a target with two different melee weapons you hold in different hands, the target takes an additional 1d6 damage.

Weapon Expert

Prerequisite: 4th level

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Your extensive practice with weapons has granted you the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with martial weapons.
• Choose four weapons. Your attacks with those weapons score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

Wild Talent

You awaken previously unrealized magical talent.

You learn two sorcerer cantrips of your choice. In addition, you learn one 1st-level sorcerer spell. You can cast that spell at its lowest level. Once you cast it, you must finish a long rest before you can cast it again. You can also cast that spell using any spell points you have. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait.

Appendix A: Battlemage Spells

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Below is the list of spells you consult when you learn a battlemage spell. The list is organized by spell level, not character level. If a spell’s name is followed by an asterisk, it is described below.

 

Spell Descriptions

The spells are presented in alphabetical order.

Arcane Strike

Evocation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 5 feet
• Components: M (a weapon)
• Duration: Instantaneous

---

As part of the action to cast this spell, you must make a melee weapon attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. You use your spellcasting ability instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls, and the weapon is considered magical if it isn’t already.

The spell’s deals additional damage when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, you roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the damage. This increases to two additional weapon dice at 11th level and three additional weapon dice at 17th level.

Control Water

Transmutation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 30 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous or up to 1 hour (see text)

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You create a minor magical effect within range using an amount of water that fits within a 5-foot cube. Some common effects include:

• You instantaneously alter the flow of water up to 5 feet in any direction. This movement doesn’t damage creatures or objects along its new course.
• You freeze the water, provided there are no creatures in it. The water thaws in 1 hour.
• You create a harmless water effect, such as changing the colour or opacity of the water, or creating simple shapes in the water that animate as you wish. This effect can last for up to 1 hour.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three non-instantaneous effects active at one time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

At the GM’s option, you may choose an alternative effect, but it should be no more powerful than those described above. No effect of this spell should deal damage or duplicate the effects of a spell of 1st level or higher. The GM has final say on whether the spell succeeds.

Counterspell

2nd-level abjuration

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• Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you see a creature within range casting a spell
• Range: 30 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous

---

You attempt to interrupt a creature in the process of casting a spell with a casting time of 1 action or longer. Make an ability check with your spellcasting ability contested by the creature’s spellcasting ability check. If one contestant is casting its spell at a higher level than the other, it has advantage on their check. If you win the check, the creature’s spell fails and has no effect.

If multiple creatures use this spell to counter the same spell, the GM rolls on the Resonating Magic table below to determine what happens.

Resonating Magic

d%	Effect
01–33	All creatures attempting to counter the spell make their own ability checks contested by a single spellcasting ability check by the target.
34–66	Only the first creature casting counterspell makes an ability check, and it is made with advantage.
67–99	Only the first creature casting counterspell makes an ability check, and the contesting ability check made by the target is made with advantage.
100	All spells fail and each creature casting a spell takes 7 (2d6) psychic damage for each level of the triggering spell.

Cure Wounds

1st-level evocation

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: Touch
• Duration: Instantaneous

---

You channel restorative power into a creature you touch, replenishing its vitality and healing its injuries. If the creature has 0 hit points, it gains 1 hit point and returns to consciousness. If the creature has at least 1 hit point, it regains a number of hit points equal to 2d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier.

Once a creature has regained hit points from this spell, it can’t do so again until it finishes a short or long rest.

This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, a creature with at least 1 hit point regains an additional 1d8 hit points for each spell level above 1st.

Magic Revised

The full breadth of the changes that apply to the magic system in 5.5e are substantial and will be presented in full in another document. Below are some important highlights of the changes.

Spell Points. If you have ever been frustrated that you’ve had to cast a spell at higher level for no benefit simply because you’re ‘too tired’ to cast it at a lower level (out of spell slots), this system is for you. Spell slots as a concept belong back in Second Edition along with THAC0 and other clunky mechanics. This revision uses spell points instead.

To cast a spell using spell points, you simply spend a number of spell points equal to the level at which you cast the spell. You can’t reduce your total spell points below 0.

Spell Ranges. Spells that require a ranged attack roll, such as firebolt, have a normal and a long range like ranged weapons. The ranges are as follows: close range (20/60), medium range (30/120), and long range (80/320).

Spell Changes. Many spells in the core rules are simply not well balanced or set at an inappropriate level. Many spells are significantly revised.

Minimal Components. Most spell components in the core rules are gags. For example, the talc required for see invisibility is a powder you throw onto an invisible creature to reveal its outline, and the substances needed for fireball are the ingredients for black powder. While these are certainly clever jokes, in practice they cause problems. One need only look at the confusion around what spells War Caster actually allows you to cast without a free hand to see that the rules are an inconsistent mess, and then there’s the silence spell, which is effectively a 2nd-level antimagic field because only nine spells in the entire Player’s Handbook don’t have a verbal component.

In this system, spellcasting is largely an act of silent will, and components only describe addition-al requirements. For instance, the suggestion spell has a verbal component because the caster must convey their suggestion to the target, and arcane strike has a material component because it affects a weapon.

Perceiving Magic. Just because there aren’t loud incantations and fierce gesticulations doesn’t mean that magic is subtle. Channelling mystical energies is no simple feat, and strange things are prone to happen around someone casting a spell. Open flames might change colour, excess energy might distort the air, and people in the area might experience strange sensations like chills or dread. If a spell has a casting time no longer than 1 action, a spellcaster can attempt to cast it carefully by making a spellcasting ability check contested by an observer’s passive Perception, but they can’t cast any other spells in a turn when they do so.

Dispel Magic

1st-level abjuration

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 30 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous

---

Choose one creature, object, or magical effect within range. Make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell’s level, or the DC of the magical effect. On a successful check, the effect ends. If you targeted a creature, make a separate check for each spell on the target, ending that spell on a success.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at a level higher than the level of the spell you are attempting to dispel, you have advantage on your spellcasting ability check.

Flame Breath

2nd-level transmutation

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• Casting Time: 1 bonus action
• Range: Touch
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

---

You imbue one willing creature you touch with the ability to breathe magical fire like a dragon from its mouth, provided it has one. Until the spell ends, the creature can use an action to exhale flames in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d6 damage of the chosen type on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each spell level above 2nd.

Flaming Arrows

2nd-level transmutation

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 5 feet
• Duration: 1 minute

---

You cause up to twelve pieces of ammunition within range to be limned with harmless flames. When a target is hit by a ranged weapon attack using one of these pieces of ammunition, it takes an extra 1d6 fire damage. The spell’s magic ends on a piece of ammunition when it hits or misses, and the spell ends when all pieces of ammunition have been used.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 3rd level or higher, you increase the number of pieces of ammunition you can affect with this spell by two for each spell level above 2nd.

Flash Freeze

Evocation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous

You cause one creature of that you can see within range to be covered in a layer of numbing rime. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 cold damage and have disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes before the end of its next turn.

The spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).

Gust

Transmutation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 30 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous or up to 1 hour (see text)

---

You create a minor magical effect using air within range. Some common effects include:

• One Medium or smaller creature that you choose must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 5 feet in a direction of your choice.
• One object weighing no more than 10 pounds that is not being worn or carried is pushed up to 10 feet. The push itself is harmless, but fragile items can be smashed against hard surfaces.
• You create a harmless air effect, such as causing your hair to blow, a window shutter to close, or a small cyclone of leaves to pick up. This effect can last for up to 1 hour.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three non-instantaneous effects active at one time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

At the GM’s option, you may choose an alternative effect, but it should be no more powerful than those described above. No effect of this spell should deal damage or duplicate the effects of a spell of 1st level or higher. The GM has final say on whether the spell succeeds.

Ice Bomb

1st-level conjuration

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous or up to 1 hour (see text)

---

A mote of elemental cold streaks out from your space to a point you choose within range and then erupts in a freezing sphere. Each creature in a 5-foot-radius sphere centred on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d6 piercing damage and 1d6 cold damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and its speed is not reduced.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, the cold damage increases by 1d6 for each level above 1st.

Levitate

2nd-level transmutation

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60 feet
• Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

---

You gain the ability to gently move or manipulate creatures and objects by thought.

When you cast the spell, and as an action on each subsequent round for the duration, you can exert your will on one Medium or smaller creature or object that you can see within range, causing it to move up to 30 feet in a direction of your choice. An unwilling creature that succeeds on a Constitution saving throw is unaffected. If you do not use your action to move the target on a turn, it remains in place, even if it would be left suspended in midair.

If you target a creature, that creature can only move on its turn by pushing or pulling against a sufficiently heavy or fixed object, creature, or surface within reach (such as a wall or ceiling). An unwilling creature that has secured purchase in this way can only be moved by succeeding a spellcasting ability check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) check.

When the spell ends, the target floats gently to the ground if it is still aloft.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 4th level or higher, you can lift a Large or smaller target. When you cast this spell at 6th level or higher, you can lift a Huge or smaller target.

Longstrider

1st-level transmutation

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: Touch
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

---

You touch a creature. Until the spell ends, the target’s speed increases by 10 feet and its jump distance is tripled. Additionally, it can take the Dash action as a bonus action on its turn.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each level above 1st, provided all targets are in physical contact, such as by linking hands. Additionally, when you cast this spell at 3rd level or higher, the speed of all targets increases by 30 feet instead of 10 feet.

Mage Armour

1st-level abjuration (ritual)

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: Touch
• Duration: 8 hours

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You touch a willing creature and weave a protective armour of magical force around it. Until the spell ends, the target gains a +5 armour bonus to its AC.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, the armour bonus increases by 1 for every two levels above 1st.

Magic Weapon

2nd-level transmutation

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: Touch
• Duration: 10 minutes

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You touch a nonmagical weapon. Until the spell ends, that weapon becomes a magic weapon with a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls.

This spell ends if you cast it again.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 4th level or higher, the bonus increases to +2. When you cast this spell at 6th level or higher, the bonus increases to +3.

Mental Barrier

2nd-level abjuration

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• Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you are forced to make an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma saving throw
• Range: Self
• Duration: Instantaneous

---

You call up psychic wards to protect your mind from intrusion. Until the start of your next turn, you have advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws.

Minor Arcana

Transmutation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 10 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous or up to 1 hour (see text)

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This is a minor utility spell taught to novice spellcasters for practice. You create a small, harmless magical effect within range. Some common effects include:

• You create an instantaneous sensory effect, such as a shower of sparks, a puff of wind, faint musical notes, or an odd odour.
• You instantaneously light or snuff a torch or small campfire.
• You instantaneously repair a single break or tear in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin, as long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension. (Constructs and magic items repaired in this way do not have their magic restored.)
• You create an image of an object or creature within range that lasts for 1 hour. The image must be no larger than a 5-foot cube. A successful Intelligence (Investigation) check or physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion.
• You chill, warm, or flavour up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour.
• You lift and manipulate an object up to 10 pounds within range for 1 hour.
• You cause your voice to boom up to three times as loud as normal for 1 hour.

    If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three non-instantaneous effects active at one time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

At the GM’s option, you may choose an alternative effect, but it should be no more powerful than those described above. No effect of this spell should deal damage or duplicate the effects of a spell of 1st level or higher. The GM has final say on whether the spell succeeds.

Pyromancy

Transmutation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 30 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous or up to 1 hour (see text)

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You create a minor magical effect within range using flames that fit within a 5-foot cube. Some common effects include:

• You instantaneously create or extinguish flames within the cube. Once created, the flames require fuel to be sustained.
• You double or halve the area of bright and dim light cast by the flame. The change lasts for 1 hour.
• You create a harmless flame effect, such as the appearance of shapes or patterns within the flames that animate as you wish, or changing the colour of the fire. This effect can last for up to 1 hour.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three non-instantaneous effects active at one time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

At the GM’s option, you may choose an alternative effect, but it should be no more powerful than those described above. No effect of this spell should deal damage or duplicate the effects of a spell of 1st level or higher. The GM has final say on whether the spell succeeds.

Ray of Sickness

1st-level necromancy

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous

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A ray of sickening greenish energy lashes out toward a creature within range. The target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 2d8 poison damage and is poisoned until the end of your next turn. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and is not poisoned.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each level above 1st.

 

Shape Earth

Transmutation cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 30 feet
• Duration: Instantaneous or up to 1 hour (see text)

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You create a minor magical effect within range using an amount of dirt or stone that fits within a 5-foot cube. Some common effects include:

• An area of loose earth is instantaneously shifted and deposited up to 5 feet away. The earth must move along the ground to reach its new destination, and it doesn’t harm creatures or objects along the way.
• The dirt or stone in the area becomes difficult terrain. Alternatively, if it was already difficult terrain, it becomes normal terrain. The change lasts for 1 hour.
• You create a harmless earth effect, such as shaping images or patterns (including letters) in soil or changing the colour of the stone. This effect can last for up to 1 hour.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three non-instantaneous effects active at one time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

At the GM’s option, you may choose an alternative effect, but it should be no more powerful than those described above. No effect of this spell should deal damage or duplicate the effects of a spell of 1st level or higher. The GM has final say on whether the spell succeeds.

Shield

1st-level abjuration

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• Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell
• Range: Self
• Duration: 1 round

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An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you gain a +2 shield bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack, and you take no damage from magic missile.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, the shield bonus increases by 1 for each spell level above 1st.

Thunderous Strike

1st-level evocation

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• Casting Time: 1 bonus action
• Range: Self
• Duration: 1 minute

---

The first time you hit with a melee weapon attack during this spell’s duration, your weapon rings with thunder that is audible within 300 feet of you, and the attack deals an extra 2d6 thunder damage to the target.

Additionally, if the target is a creature, it must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed 10 feet away from you and knocked prone.

This spell ends if you cast it again.

    At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, the thunder damage increases by 1d6 for each level above 1st.

True Strike

Divination cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 bonus action
• Range: Touch
• Duration: 1 minute

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You imbue one creature you touch with a glimmer of precognizance, allowing it to strike true. The next time this creature makes an attack roll during the spell’s duration, the attack ignores disadvantage and cover (except total cover).

The creature’s attack deals additional damage when you reach certain levels. At 5th level, the attack deals an extra 1d4 damage of the attack’s type on a hit. This damage increases by 1d4 at 11th level (2d4) and 17th level (3d4).

 

Wrathful Strike

1st-level evocation

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• Casting Time: 1 bonus action
• Range: Self
• Duration: 1 minute

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The next time you hit with a melee weapon attack during this spell’s duration, your weapon deals an extra 1d6 psychic damage to the target. Additionally, if the target is a creature, it must make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the spell ends. At the end of each of its turns, the creature can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on a success.

This spell ends if you cast it again.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 2nd level or higher, the psychic damage increases by 1d6 for each level above 1st.

Art Credit: Jaime Jones

Appendix B: Equipment

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While the full revision of the equipment system is too large to include in this document, some important sections are presented below in order to offer a more complete view of the revision to martial characters.

Armour and Shields

The Armour table shows the cost, weight, and other properties of the most common types of armour worn in the world.

Armour Proficiency. Anyone can put on a suit of armour or strap a shield to an arm. Only those proficient in the armour’s use know how to wear it effectively, however. Your class gives you proficiency with certain types of armour. If you wear armour that you lack proficiency with, you have disadvantage on any ability check, saving throw, or attack roll that involves Strength or Dexterity.

Armour Bonus. Armour protects its wearer from attacks. The armour you wear grants you an armour bonus to your AC. Remember that AC bonuses of the same type don’t stack.

Heavy Armour. Heavier armour interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly, stealthily, and freely. If the Armour table shows a number in the Strength column for an armour type, the armour reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

Cumbersome. If the Armour table shows “Yes” in the Cumbersome column, the wearer suffers a penalty Dexterity checks made to hide or move quietly, as well as to ability checks made to climb or swim. The penalty equals the armour’s AC bonus.

Special. Certain armour types have special features, which are described in the armour’s individual entry.

Light Armour

Made from supple and thin materials, light armour favours agile adventurers since it offers some protection without sacrificing mobility. If you wear light armour, you add your Dexterity modifier to your Armour Class in addition to the armour’s bonus.

Hide. This crude armour consists of thick furs and pelts. It is commonly worn by barbarian tribes, evil humanoids, and other folk who lack access to the tools and materials needed to create better armour. Buff coats are a version of this armour that are becoming more popular and are therefore socially acceptable to wear in many towns.

Gambeson. This armour consists of dozens of layers of cloth and batting. It quickly accumulates grime, stains, and odours, and rarely survives long campaigns. Gambesons are particularly susceptible to fire, and whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points by fire damage the armour suffers a permanent and cumulative –2 penalty to the armour bonus it provides (minimum of 0).

Highlights of Changes

The following are highlights of the many changes.

Armour Bonuses. The decision to replace base Armour Class formulas with armour bonuses is an attempt to eliminate the common confusion about determining AC. Instead of gaining multiple ways to calculate your AC, you instead gain different non-stacking bonuses filtered by type.

Armour and Magic. Spellcasters are no longer prevented from casting spells when wearing armour with which they aren’t proficient. They still suffer penalties to ability checks and saving throws, including spellcasting ability checks and Constitu-tion saving throws to maintain concentration on spells. This is in keeping with the changes to magic that will be further presented in another document.

Coinage. The relative value of different denominations of currency has been significantly changed to be more reflective of pre-modern economies as well as to make non-gold coins worth including in the game.

    Leather. Unlike soft hide armour made from leather, this leather has been boiled in oil until it is rigid, allowing it to form hard plates. Leather armour is naturally flame retardant, and while you wear it you have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that deal fire damage.

Byrnie. This short-sleeved mail shirt is light enough not to impede motion while still offering effective protection of the wearer’s vitals. It is worn over quilted layers of padding to prevent chafing. A byrnie can be concealed beneath normal clothing, requiring a DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check to notice.

Medium

Medium armour offers more protection than light armour, but it also impairs movement more. If you wear medium armour, you add your Dexterity modifier to your Armour Class, to a maximum of +2.

Brigandine. This thick leather armour features small metal plates riveted between its layers. The leather is naturally flame retardant, and while you wear it you have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that deal fire damage.

Haubergeon. A heavier form of a byrnie, haubergeons are full-sleeved shirts of mail that reach to the mid-thigh. Worn over padding to prevent chafing, it is especially resilient against edged weapons. When you are critically hit by a weapon that deals slashing damage while wearing this armour, the bonus weapon damage is halved.

    Breastplate. This armour consists of a large, fitted metal chest pieces worn with light mail or gambeson. It typically includes faulds or tassets to protect the waist. The armour is highly resilient to edged weapons. When you are critically hit by a weapon that deals piercing or slashing damage while wearing this armour, the bonus weapon damage is halved.

Heavy Armour

Of all the armour categories, heavy armour offers the best protection. These suits of armour cover the entire body and are designed to stop a wide range of attacks. Only proficient warriors can manage their weight and bulk.

Heavy armour doesn’t let you add your Dexterity modifier to your Armour Class, but it also doesn’t penalize you if your Dexterity modifier is negative.

Hauberk. Consisting of a knee-length, full-sleeved coat and chausses (leggings) made of heavy, riveted mail, a hauberk is bulky and requires a belt and specialized under-armour to distribute its weight. Like a hauber-geon, it is especially resilient to edged weapons. When you are critically hit by a weapon that deals slashing damage while wearing this armour, the bonus weapon damage is halved.

Half plate. This armour includes a cuirass, breast-plate, greaves, pauldrons, cuisses, and poleyns, all fashioned of plate, worn over thick leather or gambeson. Highly resilient to edged weapons, when you are critically hit by a weapon that deals piercing or slashing damage while wearing this armour, the bonus weapon damage is halved.

    Full plate. Consisting of shaped, interlocking metal plates covering the entire body, with buckles and straps to evenly distribute the weight. Sturdy mail protects joints and thick padding cushions blows. Highly resilient to edged weapons, when you are critically hit by a weapon that deals piercing or slashing damage while wearing this armour, the bonus weapon damage is halved.

Regional Armours

The armours presented here are named after forms that appeared in pre-modern European history. As with weapons, you can adjust the name and flavour of different armour types to match armours commonly found in other settings. For instance, a campaign influenced by ancient Rome or feudal Japan might feature lamellar (scale) armour in place of a breastplate and refer to full plate armour as lorica segmenta or tosei-gusoku. If your setting includes armour from different time periods, earlier armour types will likely be reflavoured versions of lighter armour types, as heavier armours only came about with advancements in metallurgy.

Shields

A shield is made from wood or metal and is carried in one hand. Wielding a shield grants you a shield bonus to your Armour Class. The bonus is determined by the size of the shield.

Light. The most common form of light shield is the buckler, a small, round shield is either held by the handle or worn on the forearm. Such shields are often used to deflect strikes or bind an opponent’s arm. You don’t benefit from a light shield’s bonus against ranged attacks.

Medium. Larger than light shields, this category includes basic, round targes and specialized, pointed heater shields. When you take the Dodge action while wielding a medium shield, you gain the benefit of three-quarters cover.

Heavy. Heavy shields include the large, rectangular shields used by soldiers fighting in formations. They are generally too large and unwieldy for use during a typical adventure. When you take the Dodge action while wielding a heavy shield, you gain the benefit of total cover.

Art Credit: Dmitry Masaltsev

Index

 

• actions in combat, 30–31
  • Climb On, 30
  • Dash, 30
  • Disarm, 30
  • Overrun, 31
  • Ready, 31
  • Tumble, 31
• Action Surge (fighter), 13
• Arcane Strike (fighter), 17
• armour and shields, 53–55
• armour class, 29–30
• Armour of Shadows (rogue), 27
• Aura of Fury (barbarian), 9
• Battlefield Superiority (fighter), 19
• Battle Instincts (fighter), 18
• Beast Form (barbarian), 5
• Bestial Senses (barbarian), 5
• Blood Frenzy (barbarian), 8
• Bonded Mount (fighter), 18
• Bonded Weapons (fighter), 16
• Brutal Critical (barbarian), 4
• Cavalier’s Strike (fighter), 19
• Cleave (barbarian), 3
• Combat Leader (fighter), 21
• Combat Magic (fighter), 16
• combat techniques, 28
  • list, 31–35
• Crackshot (fighter), 15
• critical hits, 28
• Cunning Action (rogue), 24
• Deadeye (fighter), 15
• Deadly Strikes (rogue), 26
• delay, 28
• Devour Essence (barbarian), 7
• Dirty Fighting (fighter), 17
• Draconic Resilience (barbarian), 8
• Duellist’s Challenge (rogue), 26
• Elder Speech (barbarian), 10
• Empowered Weapons (barbarian), 6
• Evasion (rogue), 25
• Expert Infiltrator (rogue), 26
• Expertise (rogue), 25
• Fearless (rogue), 26
• Fearsome Aspect (barbarian), 8
• feats, 37
  • list, 37–46
• Feral Instinct (barbarian), 4
• Ferocious Presence (barbarian), 5
• Fight as One (fighter), 19
• Fighting Style (barbarian), 7
  • (fighter), 13
• flanking, 28
• Furious Resilience (barbarian), 7
• Hammer and Anvil (fighter), 21
• heavy armour, See armour and shields
• Hunter’s Instincts (barbarian), 6
• Improved Critical (barbarian), 7
• Indomitable (fighter), 15
• Inspiring Command (fighter), 20
• light armour, See armour and shields
• Mage Slayer (fighter), 19–20
• martial archetypes (fighter), 15–21
  • Archer, 15
  • Battlemage, 15–17
  • Brute, 17–18
  • Cavalier, 18–19
  • Champion, 19
  • Templar, 19–20
  • Warlord, 20–21
• Martial Superiority (barbarian), 4
  • (fighter), 14
  • (rogue), 24
• medium armour, See armour and shields
• multiclassing, 37
• Menacing Mark (fighter), 19
• Monster Hunter (fighter), 20
• mounted combat, 31
• Overwhelming Fury (barbarian), 7
• Panache (rogue), 26
• primal paths (fighter), 5–10
  • Path of the Berserker, 5–6
  • Path of the Brute, 7
  • Path of the Reaver, 7–9
  • Path of the Spirit Guardian, 9
  • Path of the Stormborn, 9–10
• Primal Speed (barbarian), 4
• Primal Surge (barbarian), 4
• Pugilism (fighter), 17
• Rage (barbarian), 3
• Rakish Charm (rogue), 27
• Relentless Attacker (rogue), 26
• Relentless Rage (barbarian), 5
• Reliable Talent (rogue), 25
• Remarkable Athlete (fighter), 14
• Resilient (fighter), 15
• roguish archetypes, 25–27
  • Assassin, 26
  • Daredevil, 26
  • Duellist, 26–27
  • Scout, 27
  • Shadowdancer, 27
• Second-Storey Work (rogue), 26
• Second Wind (fighter), 13
• Shadow Step (rogue), 27
• Shadow Strike (rogue), 27
• Siege Master (fighter), 21
• Skirmisher (rogue), 27
• Sneak Attack (rogue), 23
• Spellcasting (fighter), 16
• spells, 48–52
• Spellcasting Harrier (fighter), 20
• Spirit Aura (barbarian), 9
• Spiritual Communion (barbarian), 9
• Spiritual Warding (barbarian), 9
• Steady Aim (rogue), 24
• Storm Aura (barbarian), 9
• Stormheart (barbarian), 10
• Storm’s Fury (barbarian), 10
• Superior Mobility (rogue), 27
• surprise, 29
• Swift Strikes (fighter), 19
• Thieves’ Cant (rogue), 24
• Tricks of the Trade (rogue), 25
• two-weapon fighting, 29
• unarmed attacks, 29
• Unarmoured Defence (barbarian), 3
• Uncanny Dodge (rogue), 25
• unseen attackers, 29
• unseen targets, See unseen attackers
• Unyielding Warrior (fighter), 20
• Vicious Critical (fighter), 18
• Voice of the Ancients (barbarian), 9
• Volley (fighter), 15
• wounded, 29