Talk:Reaper (5e Class)

I see that this class has a lot of copied features from the Grim Reaper (5e Class). If this turns out to be another copy, it will be deleted like the Grim Reaper Variant.--Yanied (talk) 12:28, 8 April 2019 (MDT)

Addressing the claims of overpowered features

"Angel of Death, the 6th level feature, gives a fly speed for a single round. This feature is useless. The other feature, which is basically feather fall at will, is a free spell at will and could be too strong. - Flying speed for a single turn is extremely useful for exploring the world, or for reaching enemies outside of melee range. Feather fall at will could be strong, if didn't had the limitation of targeting only the target.

"Etheral Step", the 7th level feature, lets the user become Ethereal for the rest of their turn. This is both overpowered (Etherealness is a 7th level spell that requires a caster to be 13th level) and underpowered since it doesn't even last one round. Still, one movement action with Etherealness is enough to break the game by walking through walls. - check Horizon Walker ranger subclass, 7th level feature.

"Ghost Walk", the 13th level feature, has too many positive effects. Gives a weaker version of the skills above, letting the user fly at 10ft per round and quote "walk through objects" which might include walls. This ability needs to either be nerfed, or the abilities above should be axed and let "Ghost Walk" be a major feature of the class, like the Barbarian's Rage, which gets stronger as the class levels up. Check Phantom subclass for Rogue, 13th level feature.

Anastacio (talk) 06:18, 29 September 2021 (MDT)

Debating the overpowered features

Alright, in order:

Angel of Death - I said the fly speed was useless but, since there are no limits on how many times you can do this, it's not. I'll give that... which makes a stronger case for my other problem with this power, that this ability is overpowered. Feather Fall on yourself at will so long as you have a bonus action is pretty powerful. It might only affect one person, but for a none-caster class, that should be expected. Something is not overpowered because "Well, it could be more broken."

Feather fall on yourself is definitely not overpowered dude. Is basically a ribbon feature, due to the how eventual fall damage is. You can have an entire campaign were fall damage will not be relevant. Anastacio (talk) 10:53, 29 September 2021 (MDT)

Ethereal Step - The Horizon Ranger does it get it at their 7th level, but I'd refute that you're talking about the ranger. The weakest base class in the game. Now, to play devil's advocate to myself, the fact that it only lasts one turn and can't be used multiple times makes it a lot weaker. It also can't be stacked with Angel of Death since they're both bonus actions, a good nerf so you cannot fly and be ethereal at the same time. However, this still seems to be cherry-picking the best abilities of other classes without having the same drawbacks. "Ethereal Step" was fine for a ranger because rangers were hot garbage and a noob trap, with all its other abilities being so circumstantial that they'd never be used like favored terrain and favored enemy. The problem is that the Reaper as a whole has too many upsides. It has no weak abilities and only uses all the strong abilities in the base game. It'd be like giving a character the fighter's four attacks and the monk's flurry of blows, two independent strong abilities that technically are both from the main game but become overpowered when combined.

Ethereal Step is a weak ability, even on the Horizon Walker. It is circumstantially useful to get out of tough spots or to enter in a locked room, but is not that powerful at all.

About the cherry picked abilities, the abilities are not synergistic, as yourself have said bout, for example, ethereal step and ghostly walk, and ethereal step have no real synergy with any of the Reaper other abilities. Am i'm missing something? The abilities weren't be picked due to their power, but due to being thematically appropriated. Anastacio (talk) 10:53, 29 September 2021 (MDT)

Ghost Walk - Same as above. It's a powerful ability from a subclass with a circumstantial main ability, but unlike Ranger, the Phantom Rogue's main circumstantial ability is easier to activate. Still, it is not the stand-alone feature that makes this overpowered for this class, but the combination of effects. For example:

• A character could activate "Ghost Walk" to become debatably Ethereal, depending on the reading of the text.
• For the next ten minutes, they can use their bonus action to use Angel of Death to fly. This can be done by using a bonus action every turn to fly and, since Ghost Walk gives a fly speed, the character can end their turn mid-air instead of falling.
• While consuming a bonus action to do this, you should also remember that they're ethereal at this time, and now the combination of abilities is broken.

All in all, it's not the standalone abilities that break the class but the abilities working together. This is why people bother to multiclass, to get abilities that have really good synergy at the cost of their class-dependent abilities getting weaker. By putting these synergistic features in one class, you are removing the natural drawback to trying to get these two abilities, the stagnation of your main class abilities like a rogue not leveling their sneak attack or a bard not improving their Inspiration dice.

Coincidentally, I might try playing an Aarakocra Phantom Rogue for my next character just to test this combination out since Ethereal + Flying seems a fun thing to mess around with.

Point by point, ghostwalk is NOT the phantom rogue main ability, it only comes up at 13th level, Wails of the Grave is the phantom main ability.

The character does NOT become debatable ethereal. A creature only is ethereal when the text say so (such as in spells like Etherealness or Blink).

Yep, for a short duration you can really fly if you use your bonus action to do so. This is intentional, and given at a very high level. A bonus action is a precious thing though, and you must keep consuming it to be able to pull of the trick.

How synergistic abilities break the class? Flying at 13th level using constantly a bonus action is far from broken, even more so when it takes at least turns to pull of. There are more broken things on core classes, i would say the Reaper is underpowered when compared with other high damage/high mobility classes, such as the Soul Knife or even the aforementioned Phantom rogue.Anastacio (talk) 10:53, 29 September 2021 (MDT)

Rebuttle because I don't want to keep editting the same comment

My opinion on the third ability, "Angel of Death" seems to switch every time I read it. I have had several characters die from fall damage, but I then realized that was because of my DM and probably not something that everyone deals with. The ability itself as a whole is still useful (in my opinion, with my frequent falls). On your topic of "fall damage not being relevant", that can more depend on the actions of the players/dm than the setting (most of my characters that fell to their death got grabbed by a flying monster, and at that moment, feather fall as a bonus action would've been a godsend).

Ethereal step being weak though is something I will fight you over, however. I'll go in the order you presented. "Ethereal Step is a weak ability, even on the Horizon Walker. It is circumstantially useful to get out of tough spots or to enter in a locked room, but is not that powerful at all."

• Etherealness is a seventh-level spell, first off. It includes perfect invisibility(it's impossible to see you unless another creature is on the ethereal plane), flight at half speed (you're allowed to move up and down, but it costs twice the movement), and the most famous intangibility. These are all good abilities that can be exploited if used correctly.

• The problem with the Horizon Walker Ranger is that the Horizon Walker abilities are pretty good. Sure, some are very circumstantial like "Detect Portal" (Only useful if your campaign requires dimensional travel, and by third level, everything in different dimensions except the mob enemies will kill you), but the Horizon Walker itself is great. Planar Warrior's good for damage, Distant Strike gives an extra attack and mobility, and Spectral Defense... exists (Half damage for one attack, at 15th level, isn't very good when compared to other subclasses but since this subclass has so many good abilities it's fine).
• On the other hand, base game ranger. I won't go into every ability but... favored enemy, favored terrain. Two of the most infamous terrible abilities in 5e and they're stuck to the same class. Foe-Slayer is a hilariously weak ability for 20th level, giving you a max of +5 to hit or to damage for a single attack against a favored enemy. Foe-Slayer doesn't even apply to all the attacks you make in one round. This is to say, for the Ranger as a class, Ethereal Step is a great ability.

• Last point. Ethereal is good for getting out of a room and, if your DM likes puzzles, breaking puzzles. It only takes one round of movement to walk through a door, leave a trap, or avoid an ambush. This use, like "Angel of Death" (AoD), depends on your dm. If your DM doesn't do puzzles and doesn't love ambushing/locking you in a prison, this ability doesn't matter as much. If they do, you might have my DM.

"About the cherry picked abilities, the abilities are not synergistic, as yourself have said bout, for example, ethereal step and ghostly walk, and ethereal step have no real synergy with any of the Reaper other abilities."

• Correct. Ish. ...that doesn't make sense, I'll explain.
• This ability really doesn't need to exist. The Reaper class has five separate and independent abilities that give it a movement bonus (AoD, Ethereal Step, Mark of Death, Death Cloud, and Ghost Walk), six if you include the 17th level feature which just boosts and combines two previous features but isn't focused on movement.
• The synergy also isn't great as you said, my bad, but that's because the Reaper has so many features that do various flavors of the same thing. Angel of Death gives flight, Ethereal Step gives Ethereal, Mark of Death lets the user Teleport over 100 ft without requiring line of sight like most teleportation features, Gaseous Form is a great escape trick with a longer duration than Ethereal Step and makes Ethereal Step redundant, and Ghost Walk. I'll talk about Ghost Walk in its section.
• On the other hand, I'm now finding out that my arguments weren't all great and there were better points to make, so thanks. The synergy isn't good on this ability because the synergy isn't good on a single one of these abilities, thanks for pointing out a different problem with this class.

"Am i'm missing something? The abilities weren't be picked due to their power, but due to being thematically appropriated."

• Yes, but if you don't think about balance you can end up with a mess. The Ranger's base form is thematically appropriate and it's universally regarded as the worst class because, while thematic, its abilities aren't balanced. The Ranger just has the opposite problem of the Reaper, being too weak instead of too strong. Ironic, with how many abilities they share. The Reaper makes better use of the Ranger's abilities.
• The abilities I'm referring to is Ethereal Step and Death's Cloak, reskinned abilities from the Horizon Walker. I didn't mention Death's cloak because it's not very powerful, only halving the damage of a single attack, and it's actually weaker than the original version- well, alright, maybe I will talk about it.
• Death's Cloak demonstrates the correct way I think this class should've been built. It's inspired by the ability of a different class but has its own twist and limitations placed on it since it can't reduce radiant or force damage. More abilities should have had limitations and tweaks like this instead of only one of the weakest abilities from the Horizon Walker subclass.

"Point by point, ghostwalk is NOT the phantom rogue main ability, it only comes up at 13th level, Wails of the Grave is the phantom main ability."

• Correct. I said "It's a powerful ability from a subclass with a circumstantial main ability, but unlike Ranger, the Phantom Rogue's main circumstantial ability is easier to activate. Still, it is not the stand-alone feature that makes this overpowered for this class, but the combination of effects" This was god-awful phrasing on my part, and I'll fix it now.

"Ghost walk is a powerful supplementary ability for a class with a circumstantial main ability, the Rogue and their Sneak Attack. More specifically it's from one of the rogue's subclasses and its circumstantial main ability, the Phantom and their Wails from the Grave. From this description it seems like I'm either lying or saying Sneak Attack is as bad as the Ranger's circumstantial Favored Terrain & Favored Enemy, but Sneak Attack and by extension Wails from the Grave is much easier to activate. They're both circumstantial, but since the Rogue only needs advantage, they can more easily use their main ability. Ghost Walk is created to supplement this, not being the Phantom subclass's main feature. It is a powerful ability that should not be in the Reaper Class."

• Now that wasn't hard and all it took was me sitting back and thinking it through. Sorry for the confusion, my phrasing was garbage. This was meant to show where the Reaper was getting it's abilities from and that, unlike the Ranger's Ethereal Step, Ghost Walk comes from a good base class that is made better by its subclass, the rogue, while Ethereal Step comes from a class that's only made viable by its subclass.
• In addition, the Reaper is picking almost exclusively the powerful abilities of other classes and not picking the weaker ones like Whispers of the Dead from Phantom Rogue or Detect Portal from Horizon Walker Ranger. I'm not saying it should have gotten one of these verbatim, a better fit would be something like "Speak with Dead X number of times per day", but I want to outline that this class doesn't really have any weak abilities outside of Death's Cloak.

Once again, my bad.

"The character does NOT become debatable ethereal. A creature only is ethereal when the text say so (such as in spells like Etherealness or Blink)."

• Sure they do. And I quote-

... You can also move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or an object.

• Walls are objects. Therefore, I can walk through walls. Therefore, I can walk through floors. Therefore, see the problems I had with Ethereal Step.
• I wasn't saying it's 100% Etherealness as in the spell, but it can replicate the effects and it was the effects I had a problem with. It at least has drawbacks, making these things cost double movement and punishing you for stopping inside things, but it doesn't answer my problems much like you aren't.

"Yep, for a short duration you can really fly if you use your bonus action to do so. This is intentional, and given at a very high level."

• Ten minutes is plenty of time. 10 Rnds per Min, 30 Ft Movement, Move and Dash action, 6,000 ft per usage. Almost 2 miles. If you're trying to use this to reach/get into something, 6,000 ft is probably enough movement to get it.
• 13th level isn't that high. Most players will never reach this, sure, but most campaigns end at 10th level. If you get to 13th level it's likely either a one-shot or you're going to 20.
• Yes, this ability is barred at an intentionally high level... for the rogue, who originally got it. You're not answering my original problem of combining abilities from different classes to become stronger than the original classes, or in this case, creating new abilities that pair up too well. But your final point, I love your final point, cause it really names a weird problem with this class...

"A bonus action is a precious thing though, and you must keep consuming it to be able to pull of the trick."

• Funny you say that, especially when this class has 7 different features that use its bonus action. Visage of Death, Angel of Death, Ethereal Step, Mark of Death (Mark), Mark of Death (Teleport), Ghost Walk, and Form of Death. That's more than both the Phantom Rogue and the Horizon Walker Ranger, the classes that I think might have inspired this one.
• To keep to this theme, this class just has too many bonus actions. They do very similar things and don't accomplish much, so I think some of these features should be removed to instead improve the abilities it already has.
• Now, on a different note, a bonus action is a precious thing? You're mimicking flying, what other action are you going to do? Bonus actions are only used for class abilities, spells, and an extra attack if you used your standard action to attack. While this class definitely has too many bonus actions, why would you use any of the other ones while you're trying to fly?

"How synergistic abilities break the class? Flying at 13th level using constantly a bonus action is far from broken, even more so when it takes at least turns to pull of. There are more broken things on core classes, i would say the Reaper is underpowered when compared with other high damage/high mobility classes, such as the Soul Knife or even the aforementioned Phantom rogue."

1. Something being more broken doesn't excuse this class. Bear-barian is one of the best ways to play a tank, it's in the base game, and it's totally broken. This is a fallacy, stop using it.

2. Synergistic abilities break the game when they perform features better than they should at that level. See Bear-Barian. This class doesn't have great synergy all things considered, but if you want to switch topics to that argument, I won't do it here because that's a fun topic to debate that I love talking about (I am a power gamer by nature and find this stuff fascinating).

3. "...when it takes at least turns to pull of." This is D&D, everything is measured in turns. It takes turns to do literally anything. If you are saying that it takes multiple turns to pull off though, you are correct. ...I fail to see how that's a problem though. This isn't a combative usage of these skills, it's using them outside of combat to achieve better results. The mobility this offers is that of someone who can normally fly but the ability to move through objects, making this character very difficult to control for a DM and very good at derailing the central plot. This is that fascinating power gaming stuff I mentioned earlier.

4. The Reaper is underpowered... The Reaper, this class, is underpowered. That... has nothing to do with my argument, since I'm referencing the problems with this class has game-breaking outside of a combat standpoint, but I'll try my luck on this. Could be fun and it's a fun time to show my power building! I'll do it in a different comment though, cause this one's gone on for long enough.

The Viability of a Reaper

When talking about if a class is underpowered, bad, viable, good, or overpowered it's good to remember that this means a lot of things. How useful is it at low levels, since that's what most people play at? What about high levels? In combat? In social situations?

The Reaper seems to have been meant to be a combat class, but by complete accident it's a great mobility class because it has a strangely high amount of features that give it good options. I'd argue it has too many features like this, as I think having flight, Gaseous Form, a short-ranged teleport at will, a very brief Ethereal State, and a Pseudo-Ethereal state is too much for one class that's not using magic, but that's all mobility. Most people hear "overpowered" and think combat, so we're gonna go for combat.

We'll discuss this class at the level that most campaigns seem to end at with each regard, 5th for short, 12-15th for medium, and 20th for those in for the long haul. With the ground rules out of the way, let's start at 5th level!

5th level is the ending point for one-shots and small campaigns. I'm not sure we should go into race and subclass for this so I'll skip on it and focus on the main class itself, despite the fact that the main class rips a lot from other class's subclasses. Now, we have a subclass, one ability score raise, and three main class features.

Death Scythe (DS) is the main class feature, so we'll always come back to talking about it when talking about this class's viability. First off, we'll establish the basics of this ability. DS has ten feet of range, doesn't need line of sight, and could possibly be done through walls because it's not clarified. DS cannot be avoided and auto hits. It deals 1d4 per class level, which right now seems like crappy damage but will change later on. Don't worry.

Hey, we got back to talking about 5th level and back to DS! At 5th level, DS deals 5d4 per turn, can't be avoided, and has 10 feet of range. At 5th level we can use "Grim Harvest" and double DS's damage as a free action, plus, we unlocked our final ability, "Visage of Death". Visage of Death is activated on a bonus action, gives Adv on Intimidation but Disadv on all other Cha checks, and gives us a 5-foot radius of aura. Any creature that starts its turn in that aura takes Psychic Damage equal to our Con Mod. On a side note, Visage of Death hurts everyone within 5 ft of us, including allies. A nice natural nerf to this ability.

This setup can be activated in one round, dealing 5d4 + Con to one opponent if we get face to face with them. Defensively, this doesn't do much, but it encourages us to be a frontliner with Visage of Death or a secondliner, literally standing behind a tank and using DS to hit opponents without them being able to hit back. Pretty good since it can't miss. In addition we have a d6 hit die, medium armor, and no need for weapons since DS is better. Nice!

This isn't very broken, but it's still very good and definitely not underpowered. This class right now is nailing consistency with its inability to miss, small damage, and Constitution focus. Very good motiff, but it's nerfed by it's survivability. D6 hit dice is great not because of how big it is, but it serves as a natural limiter for how overconfident a Reaper can be and forces them to rely on the group. If you did want to talk subclasses, I'd recommend using the Harvester at this level since it can provide some of that durability, giving Temp Hp. Still, that's it for 5th. Next level!

12-15th level is the end of most campaigns according to Reddit, experience, and my laziness. The problem is that the average of this number is 13.5th level... which doesn't exist. 14th level just gives us darkvision and true sight, which is useful but not essential in this discussion about numbers. Instead, We'll stop at 13th level so we get a good combat ability at the last level again. Groundwork out of the way again, let's talk about the new features we get!

By 13th level, we get one subclass feature, the ability to ignore resistance and immunity to necrotic (the damage type of Death Scythe), resistant to necrotic and poison, DS now deals 13d4, and we now have 2.5 movement abilities! ...I'll explain.

Angel of Death gives us flight and Featherfall as a bonus action, two separate abilities that are both circumstantial but useful. This only applies to you, but Reaper's a fairly independent class at this point, so that makes sense. Next, Ethereal Step is a good counter if used as a readied action (Ready action= when I'm attacked, then until the end of your next turn no one can hit you. Fun cheese.), ignores difficult terrain, and lets you get into position for Visage of Death's aura of damage. All good tools, but the big one's the 0.5!

The .5 movement is the mixed ability that's also, in my opinion, the best positioning tool a Reaper gets, "Mark of Death". Mark of Death lets a Reaper pick one person in particular and teleport to them at will with a bonus action so long as you're within 120 ft. This lets you get right next to an enemy in an instant and start attacking, since it uses a bonus action and DS uses a standard action. Ironically, Mark of Death does nothing to bring them closer to death and instead brings you to them.

But I'm not complaining anymore! I'm not going! Probably! The 13th level ability is Ghost Walk, another ability that's good for setup. As a bonus action, for 10 Min all attacks against you have disadv, can fly at 10ft per round and hover. You can move through creatures and objects at half speed, and now we've got some good survivability. This is helpful because our next feature is what gets that nice synergy going.

The big ability you get by 13th level as a Reaper is..! The 11th level ability! ...what?

The 11th level ability is Death Cloud, an ability that I really should have complained about because... wow, it's busted. You can, as a standard action, enter a gaseous form that lasts 1 minute. Nonmagical damage is automatically halved, advantage on physical saves like strength, and guess what? Unlike the original spell, you can still attack using DS! Also, any enemy that ends its turn in your square needs to make a Con saving throw or gets hit by DS, taking half damage on success! You also have no limits on how many times you can use this ability so, every 10 rounds, you should reuse this ability. If you are conscious, use this. Constantly.

Now, at the end of your 13th level, you've had 3 ability score boosts. Con should be at 20 so you're constantly dealing max damage. Your turn should be-

• Wake up in the morning, Bonus Action - Visage of Death (Just keep it up at all times if you can, it might hurt anyone who gets too close but for combat it's great, lasts until you dismiss or are incapacitated)
• Standard Action - Gaseous form, Bonus Action - Ghost Walk. (All your buffs in one turn, attacks have disadv and damage is halved against you.)
• Bonus Action - Mark of Death, Standard Action - DS (Mark lets you teleport straight into the fray and ignore any attacks of opportunity, then from there you can keep using DS over and over. You can actually fly right now so you can float atop the enemies to keep as many people in range as possible at all times. Always stay in range and keep targets available)
• From here, just keep using DS over and over. Anytime someone tries to run, use Mark of Death on the first turn then Teleport on the second. Remember, you can't use the Mark and the Teleport on the same turn since both take a Bonus Action.

Additionally, since I talked about it last time, subclasses. With 13d6 + Con Hp, and your main stat being Constitution, survivability isn't an immediate problem. You've gotten better defense with Gaseous form at will halving nonmagical damage and disadvantage on attacks against you for ten minutes, so the Harvesting Archetype isn't as good but it's still pretty good. Anytime you kill something with DS (Not Grim Harvest!), you gain 1 soul that stops you from dying. Instead, you go to 1 Hp and can use the 6th level ability to heal yourself back up by using Grim Harvest. Solid survivability.

You deal 13d4 + Con (Visage) + 13d4 (Death Cloud) every round to one target. That's a lot of damage. Plus, you can use Grim Harvest to double damage once per Con Mod. Nice. Still, you'll notice that a lot of these abilities aren't very useful overall. Mark of Death is great for movement and getting into the fight, but makes Angel of Death and Ethereal Step kind of useless. More powerful, but more problems are starting to show through with what sort of feels like random features tacked on.

A subclass-less fighter with max strength at 13th level using a Greatsword and Critting on every swing deals 12d6 + 15 (2d6 becomes 4d6 on a critical + Str mod * 3 for 3 Attacks), for a total of 87 damage if the sword isn't magic. Plus, they might miss or crit fail. We deal a max of 208 with perfect rolls, can't miss, and we're not even using Grim Harvest or subclasses. So far, we've surpassed knights and kings. Now, let's surpass wizards and clerics.

At 20th level, the maximum level. We made it. Your fighting dragons and gods at this level, and guess what?

They ain't ready for you, boiiiiiiiii!

If you can't tell, this is my favorite point because anyone who says that you're underpowered has lost their marbles. Lemme explain. By 20th level you've either spent a century or five with this character or are running a one-shot. This character will only be fighting powerful things at this point, and it shows in the abilities because this point seems like it was designed to kill a god. Let's take it in order.

As a 20th level character, you have Death's Cloak which lets you use your reaction to reduce incoming damage by half. Seems pretty bad, but it covers for Gaseous Cloud's one weakness, magic. This is the final tanky option you were waiting for, except there's more to come.

Form of death is the 17th level ability, forcing a Mark of Death on all creatures within range so you can teleport around like a madman. You can use Ghost Walk without spending a usage, but it still takes an action. All creatures within 30 ft must make a Wis save or be frightened. Finally, you get resistance to all damage except radiant. Now, this is a final ability! But it's not the final ability, there's even more stuff to come!

Soul Ripper is the final form of DS and Grim Harvest. Every time you use Grim Harvest, if the creature has below 100 hp, it dies on the spot no save. If it has 100 hp or above, it takes 10d10 damage. This ability has no drawbacks, no limitations outside of Grim Harvest's preexisting limits, and I'm going to need to talk about the subclasses soon cause they are really where this whole picture comes together.

• 0 turn, things to do before combat: Bonus Action - Visage of Death, Bonus Action - Ghost Walk (Visage of Death lasts until you're knocked out, always keep it on if you can. Also, you could get a free Ghost Walk later, but Ghost Walk lasts ten minutes and by this level you can use it 6 times.)
• Standard Action - Gaseous Form, Bonus Action - Form of Death (Gaseous form lasts 1 minute but can be reapplied infinitely and reduces damage, always good to have active, and Form of Death automatically activates Mark of Death on all creatures within range. This saves us a bonus action and is great to open a fight, plus, the fear effect's a nice positive just to help us a little more. This gives double disadvantage to attack us which means even if they gain advantage, they'd still have disadvantage because one disadv cancels out one adv.)
• Bonus Action - Mark of Death (Teleport), Standard Action - DS, Free Action - Grim Harvest (And now, we've done it. Let's go to the italics to really dig into it.)

Right now, the Reaper is a juggernaut. Against normal damage and peasents, we have resistance and half all damage a second time, taking 1/4 the normal damage. We automatically hit a creature within 10 feet of us every round, dealing damage equal to our Con Mod to anyone nearby, and can step on people to inflict extra damage. We can safely occupy the same space as an enemy because of Gaseous Form, using them as cover. Plus, if we're feeling evil, we can use our reaction to halve any incoming damage and reduce normal attacks to 1/8 the normal damage. We move 120 ft per round in combat, plus our traditional movement speed. And now... the finals.

A 20th level phantom rogue can deal, with a rapier on a critical hit, 2d8 + 20d6 (sneak attack) + 5 (Dex) to one creature and half the sneak attack to two more creatures. This is a max of 141 damage to the main target, plus 70 or 71 damage to the secondary targets for a total of 281 or 283 damage. And guess what? That's garbage, what do we look like, peasants? We're 20th level, it's 300 damage or bust nerd. Get on our level.

I don't know if there's a difference between a 17th-Level Wizard and a 20th-Level Wizard in terms of spells, but I do what's important for this discussion. Damage. Max Damage. That means 9th level magic, and if we want the best we're gonna go see Fireball's big brother, Meteor Swarm. 40 Ft Radius, every creature within that range takes 20d6 fire and 20d6 bludgeoning on a failed save for technical max damage of 240 against a single target. Keep in mind though that this attack applies to everyone within a forty-foot radius, not circumference. Calculating the area and assuming every 5 foot square has a creature in it this attack targets 201 enemies, creating a technical total of 48,240 damage dealt in a single attack and I'm sorry to say that is a little outside of our wheelhouse... or is it? Que the V-Sauce music, we've got some shenanigans to pull! I said I'd be power building and by god am I gonna power build!

So, we're gonna take this from the basics then we're gonna throw in some archetypes because it's physically not possible to compete otherwise! So, first things first, We need to address what we can and can't do, and that starts with our Standard Action, Death Scythe. At this point Death Scythe has reached its peak, dealing 20d4. I think many people look down on our good buddy DS since he only deals damage in d4s, but he's quite formidable with and without the auto hit and this point. This class really should be built around DS, and I still wish some of the abilities got replaced for things that more synergized with this mentality but we'll make it work.

• As a Standard Action we can use DS to start this mess. We target one creature within range and automatically deal 20d4 of necrotic damage, ignoring resistance and immunity so there's no normal way to lower this damage.
• As a Free Action we can use Grim Harvest to double the damage of DS a number of times equal to our Constitution Modifier which is at this point +5, but in addition you might forget that every Grim Harvest also functions as a Power Word: Kill to the target, killing instantly or dealing 10d10 damage on top of the doubled DS damage.
• What may surprise you is, for the billion features we have that use our Bonus Action, not a single one deals damage. This is where a race would come in, such as minotaur which lets you deal damage as a bonus action, but no dice. No race has an attack that only applies to the bonus action, and no magic that we'll have access to (Using a feat to get 1st level or cantrip) can either... So is this it? Is there where the journey ends?

The answer is yes, obviously, but it was a blast getting there! This is the most fun I've had in forever at least, but let's delve into the actual straight-laced facts of the upper limit of the Reaper.

• Dealing 20d4 (Death Scythe) + 20d4 (Grim Harvest) + 10d10 (Soul Ripper) in the first hit, then using Death Cloud to hit a second Creature to deal a second 20d4 (Death Cloud lets us use Death Scythe anyone sharing a square with us) + 20d4 (Burn a second Grim Harvest) + 10d10 (Soul Ripper auto-activates with Grim Harvest), plus we use Visage of Death to attack nine more creatures (5 foot radius, plus the creature we share a tile with) to do our Con Mod * 9!
• This totals to 40d4 (Death Scythes) + 40d4 (Grim Harvest) + 20d10 (Soul Ripper) + 45 (Visage), for a max damage of 565 necrotic with no save or reduction to a single target, enough to even one-shot an ancient red dragon.

Now, this is a huge number obviously, astronomical even. This is some stuff back from my 3.5 days. But here's the crazier thing... this is something that you can do consistently with this class! But we'll get into that in a minute, we've got some more scary stuff to get into!

The Archetypes I promised to get into wouldn't really help the argument as seen above about who can output the most damage. Sure, we put martial classes under the table, but there's still a reason no one wants to be a 20th level fighter.

The archetype I've talked the most about is the Harvester, since it covers up Reaper's big weakness of survivability by offering healing. When playing the Harvester, your 2nd level ability "Grim Harvest" earns its name, letting you heal half of the damage when using Grim Harvest. As seen above, this would mean healing 320 Damage because you don't count the Visage of Death damage and other complications, but the central point still stands. So long as a Harvester as a Grim Harvest left, they can always get back into the game. And that's the main point of the Harvester. You're unstoppable.

What damage a Harvester doesn't heal becomes Temp Hp, meaning all that 340 points isn't going to waste. In addition to that if somehow you manage to get down to 0 hit points, if you ever killed anything with a DS between the last rest and now, you instead go to 1 hit point and can continue the fight. This means, so long as you kill one creature everytime before you die, you will always get up.

If you somehow manage to die, not go to 0 but actually die, if you have killed a creature and have their soul token or whatever you can ignore dying and instead heal equal to half your DS, for an average of 20 points. You are now physically unkillable and, if doing your job correctly, will always have a spare soul in case you need it. There's no limit on how many souls you can have at once, meaning everytime you kill a creature with DS (your primary attack) you gain one free revive. Holy crap.

And on the other end... There's an archetype I haven't talked about at all. I'm not gonna lie and pretend to be good, I took one look at it and thought it was stupid... it's called the Nemesis for god's sake, this whole class might be edgy but that just seemed to me to be a pizza cutter, all edge and no point.

This one, however... this one breaks the game wide open. If you've got a healer, man, forget Visage of Death and Harvester, get buddy-buddy with the healer, and prepare to be the scariest thing in the world. You're now the Healer's bodyguard, constantly right next to them so if things go bad you can get that sweet sweet healing... why?

The nemesis first ability is the Nemesis Bow, letting you use your Death Scythe from 60 ft instead of 10. This is a game changer and turns you from a monster tearing through the enemies one by one to a terrifying ghost on the battlefield. Anyone who runs this class needs greater invisibility ASAP, but why? Simple. With this, you can float thirty feet in the air above your prey and keep using DS without anyone knowing where you are, attacking constantly with no risk of being counterattacked. Can't hit what isn't there, and this range means you can hiding inside a building and killing people outside the building so long as you know they're there and within 60 feet of you. Get proficiency in hide and raise that Dex, cause you're turning fights into hide and seek.

And that's just the first ability! The second ability lets you use DS twice at once, two times per long rest. This is insane but doesn't need much dramatic statement, so lets instead focus on the final ability. When using Grim Harvest, you always do maximum damage.

That means that the theoretical number we came up with above, 565 to a single target? You can do that consistently to a target if you'd like to... but you could go further, and we're going to as an ending note to this comment on how busted the Reaper is by showing just how much damage the Nemesis Reaper can reeeeeaaaaally do.

20d4 (Death Scythe No. 1) + 20d4 (Grim Harvest) + 10d10 (Soul Ripper) as a Standard Action, plus 20d4 (Death Scythe No. 2) + 20d4 (Grim Harvest) + 10d10 (Soul Ripper) from the Death Surge to deal a second DS. Then, 20d4 (Gaseous Form or Death Scythe No. 3) + 20d4 (Grim Harvest) + 10d10 (Soul Ripper), and then debatably activate the second usage of Death Surge to deal another 20d4 (Death Scythe No. 4) + 20d4 (Grim Harvest) + 10d10 (Soul Ripper)... + 45 (Visage of Death, Con * 9 affected).

tldr; 160d4 + 40d10 + 45, for a grand total of 1085 necrotic damage that ignores resistance and immunity once per day. Now this... this is beautiful.

Answer

Wow, that's a lot of text, heheeh. I'll read carefully and address them later. But beforehand i want to say that i concede ground to you in many of pointed out issues and agree with the overpowering damage this class had, this was completely unintended. Death Scythe wasn't supposed to work with the gaseous form for example, but i clearly messed up.

I'll address your feedback with care and give you both answers and make adjustments on the class accordingly. Anastacio (talk) 12:06, 1 October 2021 (MDT)

I think Death-Scythe (DS) really is a great move and idea and could work. My recommendation is making the damage go up every other level instead of every level (1d4 at 1 and 2, 2d4 at 3 and 4, etc). This would make the damage very similar to the rogue's sneak attack, with the contingent that it can never miss which is pretty good.

Combining Gaseous-Form and DS isn't bad either. It's a fun combination that would give Gaseous-Form, a mostly defensive and weak power, some offensive capabilities. Plus Gaseous-Form doesn't defend against spell damage. I'd recommend giving it a limit instead of making it at will, so the Reaper has to choose when they activate it instead of refreshing their Gaseous-Form every nine rounds. Maybe run it at the same/similar rate to the Barbarian's Rage, making it a long-lasting status buff that you use for serious fights and so it still gets stronger with time.

I still think some of the other abilities are more fluff and don't need to be there, but I think this class is pretty buffed by its garbage Hit-Points. You become a great Glass-Tank and are forced to balance being offensive with not getting cocky and dying cause you dedicated too much to an attack. I would recommend switching the Reaper's armor from Medium-Light to just Light, to keep it more in line with the other Glass-Tanks, but that's just me.

The Gaseous form alleviates some of the problems but doesn't fix it all, making it a good inclusion in my opinion since it still gives the Reaper some weaknesses. But hey, I'm just an Anon. Thanks for listening. -Anonymous Mountain Chicken 08:46, 07 October 2021 (MDT)

Addressing the glaring issue with the overpowered damage

It seems like i have made a mistake. Some features that cause damage weren't supposed to be used with one another, and i'm currently fixing most of the damage related issues pointed out, because i totally agree with your concerns. I still stand by my point that the mobility features are powerful but not overpowered though. I'll remove the balance template, but feel free to add it back if you notice further issues that i have glossed over, and thanks for your helpful feedback! Anastacio (talk) 15:41, 24 October 2021 (MDT)