Talk:Judoka (5e Subclass)

This was a tough one to balance. While I'd say its features are much stronger than most martial archetypes, they have to be in order to make up for essentially limiting the fighter to unarmed strikes - which, even with Martial Arts allowing a bigger damage die and the use of two-weapon fighting, are pretty weak. This would grow especially pronounced at later levels, when magic weapons start getting introduced and - crucially - nonmagical damage resistance/immunity starts showing up. The judoka doesn't use ki, so he doesn't get ki-powered strikes to even the score on that front. Not only that, but gargantuan enemies are completely immune to most of the judoka's features; they are completely reliant on their capstone to hold their own in such a fight.

Basically, the class is flavorfully where I want it, but is very easily rendered almost totally useless by certain monster attributes. That makes it kind of a gamble to play. Particularly if your DM hates you. --Aburaishi (talk) 11:15, 14 September 2018 (MDT)