Talk:Slayer (5e Class)

So do any DMs here think that this is a balanced class? If not, could you give suggestions for balancing it?

Let's start with slayer mark. Firstly, "per encounter" is not a demarkation used in 5e. Have it last for 1 minute, you get it back after a short rest. Secondly, what action is used to declare the mark? What is it's range? What can be a "target"? (a creature? a door?). Thirdly, I'm a but unsure about combat advantage every turn for all your attacks, I think there should be some other limitation (e.g. just your first attack each turn. Marasmusine (talk) 13:16, 27 November 2015 (MST)

I tried to edit the Slayer Mark a little bit to make it more fair for the game, so tell me what you think and if there is anything else that seems OP -- Zentp

Thanks a lot for all of your effort. I like the changes overall and I am excited to see how the class plays out. I'm going to post any issues I have or that the player has with the class in the future.

I rewrote Slayer Mark. Here is some more feedback.

Weapon Bond: Like other "kill for benefit" features, I can easily fulfil the 5 kills by, say, killing 5 worms or other trivial creature. Just scrap this requirement.

Spellcasting. Access to two class spell lists?

Kill Count. Again, kill-for-benefit problems; "enemy" and "encounter" are not things strictly defined in 5e.

Brutal Critical. Needs rewording, because a 2d6 weapon will deal less extra damage than a 1d8 weapon.

Magical Attunement. "enemy and friendly spells"? That's just "spells", then? And this is advantage on all spell saving throws?

Double Tap. Wording should be "When you make an attack against a creature marked with your slayer mark class feature, you can make an extra attack against the same creature."

Master Combat Magician. Wording needs improving, and should be clearer on what happens. If I imbue a weapon with, say, fire bolt, I roll to attack with my weapon, then do I also need to make a spell attack roll? What happens if I imbue a spell that doesn't normally target a creature (it says "any spell") How long does the weapon stay imbued for? What happens with area-of-effect spells like burning hands? Marasmusine (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2016 (MST)

Worked on the things you mentioned. Hopefully it looks a little better. Zentp (talk) 18:19, 22 January 2016 (MST)

I'm a little confused about the balancing between the 2 builds - Str, Wis, Con and Dex, Wis, Con. If I plan to make a Str build my primary stat is obviously strength, then goes wisdom, con and other abilities. In making this build I intend to use melee weapons, but when you get spellcasting at 3rd level and gain spells afterwards, the Ranger spell list doesn't seem to be that useful for a melee build. I mean, the Ranger gets a variety of damage spells which includes a ranged weapon. So, if I make a melee build I could pick those spells and try to use them because I'm proficient with all of the weapons but seemingly my primary stat is strength so it doesn't quite work out... Of course, you could still deal the same amount of weapon damage but knowing that ranged weapons require Dex, the atk. bonus, damage would be quite lower.. The cantrip list suits both of the build but the Ranger spell list for a melee build doesn't seem like a good fit to me unless you want to pick only utility spells and focus on the weapon damage itself, which I think wouldn't be quite fair/balanced looking from a Dex build standpoint. --Jacobas (talk) 04:30, 6 April 2016 (MDT)

• I'm concerned about the stacked attack roll bonuses, particularly in this edition of D&D which as done its best to remove this kind of thing. I'm getting an unrestricted and routine bonus from Kill Count (+1 or more, could be +6 given the right combat). Bloodlust gives me +3 to +10 once per "encounter" (this is a game where +1 is nice, +2 is a big deal and +3 is awesome).
• Speaking of which "encounter" is not a duration like it was in 4e (in which encounters had the 5 minute short rest demarkation)
• "no matter how small the area you are in or how close the enemy is," - you need to state exactly what the conditions are. Do you mean disadvantage from squeezing (PHB p. 192) and disadvantage from making a ranged attack in close combat (PHB p. 195)? "the correct number on hands." is implicit, you can't fire a bow with one hand anyway.
• "it has the ability to bleed" - bleeding is not an "ability". Say exactly what creatures this works on. This could simply be "living creatures", or it could be "beasts, humanoids, giants and fey". What constitutes "specific injury is healed"? Almost all creatures encountered would not be able to do this, and as written the damage stacks. I hit a creature twice, now its taking 6d6 damage per turn. It doesn't even get a saving throw. You don't "strike" critical hits, you score them.
• Sharp Eye - advantage is supposed to be a circumstantial or temporary benefit, not a permanent bonus, especially not to three skills.
• Close combat - what does this mean? Does it work like the Extra Attack feature?
• On to the Next one - needs a limit, otherwise in one turn you could attack every creature in a rank-and-file unit (20 hobgoblins? 100?)
• +Wis modifier bonus to attack rolls to all allies is a massive massive bonus. Marasmusine (talk) 05:26, 6 April 2016 (MDT)

Some more suggestions:

• "the beginning of combat, you may mark up to 3 targets with your Slayer Mark" should read "When you roll for initiative, you can use your Slayer Mark to mark up to three creatures you can see."
• Oath of the Slayer has a critical range of 17-20 on marked targets at 11th level.

The class purports to be about "hunting down and exterminating the more exotic type of creatures ", but all it seems to do is deal excessive amounts of damage. I would prefer to see some of these features replaced with stuff that deals with particular types of exotic creature, such as defending against certain types of monster attack or outmaneuvering monsters with certain types of movement. Marasmusine (talk) 08:36, 6 April 2016 (MDT)

This thing seems horrible overpowered. Compared to what class is it balanced? It just looks like taken a bunch of the powerful offensive abilities of other classes and mashing them

• advantage on attacks (something the vengeance paladin gets ... only at lvl 3)
• hunters mark (the must have damage spell for rangers) (oh, and cure wounds spell in case one wants to argue that at leas paladins can heal a bit)
• critting on 18-20 with brutal critical (blowing the fighter(champion) & barbarian out of the water) (oh, and slayer mark x3 to triple what the vengance paladin has)
• Double Tap (dispite 3 attacks being the fighter shtick)

...

and mutliclassing looks like it's done by someone who hasn't even read the PHB on multiclassing (14, 15 and a fluf requirement?? One martial weapon proficiency?? a skill proficiency ???) (and multiclass heavy armor - something not even paladins get)

Recent criticism

Some changes have been made since the suggestions and criticism above, so let's address those. As a forewarning, I'm going to be rather brutal with this criticism. Although this class has many problems at present, balance is perhaps the biggest offender, so I'll focus on that.

At 1st level, this class gets all the powerful features of a rogue, plus: martial weapons, medium armor, an entire third expertise, artisan's tools (which one? surely not all of them?), and way more powerful and expensive starting gear. It doesn't get that situational 30.5 ½ (1d6) Sneak Attack, but trades it out for what is essentially one free advantage on your attack rolls (one of the biggest boons you can get in 5e) against the big bad of every encounter. Even if for some reason someone wanted to go full rogue, why would they ever not take a level dip into this class? In other words, right out of the gate, this already just seems like an official class but better.

At 3rd level, a subclass gives you advantage on all Perception checks—no not under certain circumstances, but all of them. Always. Reminder this is widely considered the most useful skill in 5e for not dying. Oh, plus Investigation too because why not.

At 14th level you can cast all kinds of spells like cure wounds, dispel magic, fireball, or haste while still having your bonus action free to perform an overpowered weapon attack.

Not all of these class's features are overpowered. Those that aren't, however, often reek of "it works in a video game so it must work in tabletop right?" One should not get benefits for being injured; it so often rewards a player carefully pricking his fingertips with a dagger until he's just under half hit points, which is one of the most meta and mood-ruining scenes I've ever witnessed. One should not get benefits for getting a "kill" on an "enemy"; if you bring a bag of 30 hamsters into the dungeon, with Kill Count as written you can just pulverize the bag to get a +15 bonus to all attack rolls for the next minute—that's the kind of playstyle these sorts of game mechanics encourage.

Did I mention these features seem to have really poor synergy? Slayer's Mark is a 1st level feature, and seems like it would be the core shtick but unless you take the right subclass it doesn't actually improve until 15th level and then suddenly again at 16th level and 20th level. The Bonded Weapon is similarly attained at 2nd level with some fightan magic but suddenly gets a random-feeling boon only at 17th level.

Unless you're fighting a mob without any sort of boss or leader, "Double Tap" just lets you get three attacks (hello fighter), but of course with all your ridiculous hamster-killing bonuses on top of all three.

"When you strike a critical hit, you have the option at cutting off any limb of your choice, and then causing 5d6 bleeding damage at the start of their turn. The bleeding damage from cutting off a limb only stops when the wound is cauterized or magically healed." Let me try to explain how broken this is.

• You're going to be making at least three attacks per turn at this point. Realistically, you'll be making four d20 rolls, since you can effectively use your bonus action to either get free advantage or to make another off-hand attack. This same subclass essentially prevents you from ever having disadvantage, so no need to worry about factoring in that. With four d20 rolls, there is about an 18.5% chance of this happening every round. Even if you're barely trying, haven't used any of your hamster-slaughtering buffs, can't prepare at all, and don't have any buffs or magic items, there's about a 1-in-5 chance you will slice off a limb of your choice from an Ancient Red Dragon, deal 33 (3d6 + 5d6 + 5) immediate damage, impose a free ~18 damage every round until this thing dies, and in addition to all that damage you cut off any limb of your choice permanently all with only one of your three or four attacks made this round. And again, this isn't once a day or once per short rest, but every round. Even what is sometimes considered the most powerful item in the core rules, the vorpal sword, at least can't do this to legendary creatures.
• Let's say you're smart enough to cast haste on yourself before this combat starts (btw this class can do that too, because who needs a party), and that chance boosts up to about 22.6%. You could even get an opportunity attack, boosting it up to over 26%. Well into 1-in-4 chance every turn of crippling any boss at virtually no expense but luck.
• But here's the kicker. Here's the thing. If you have a decent party at this level, someone is going to be smart enough to knock the big bad prone or paralyzed or something almost always just to give everyone advantage on all of their attacks for the round. You still get to make four attacks with haste, but now you get a total 8 chances to score a nat 20. There's more than a 1-in-3 chance that at least one of your attacks is going to do more damage in an instant than all four of a 20th level fighter's attacks will do if they all hit, plus you get severed limbs where that fighter doesn't, and free extra damage in later rounds. God forbid if you get two nat 20s and cut off both legs or both arms. Oh? And that ridiculous never-ending automatic damage which in of itself is game-breaking? There's nothing to say that doesn't stack.
• Tl;dr even if you don't exploit this class's overly exploitable features, this feature alone (which by the way doesn't have a name) will probably end literally any fight prematurely while the rest of your party just sighs with annoyance that the DM actually let you use this ridiculously broken thing for so long.

I could dive into the various other overpowered subclass features but suffice to say I fear any sane person won't read the wall of text I put up, let alone more of it, and those other features don't fare that much better. There's still the question of why they don't have names and how they would greatly benefit from some improved wiki markup. - Guy 21:49, 7 September 2018 (MDT)

Trying to Balance

So, for starters, I like how the advantage for slayer's mark is restricted to the first attack roll only at least. I'm going to try and tamp it down a bit more, but eh overall idea of the mark is mostly to never let the marked target out of your capabilities. Maybe it can just be written to scale. And yes, I'm still trying to redo just the first feature so far.--Yanied (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2018 (MST)

I have edited and added extra conditions so the features should be more tempered and less overpowered. I'm going to remove the tag but a review would be appreciated.--Yanied (talk) 15:31, 28 November 2018 (MST)

Recent changes of giving advantage to all attacks, bonus damage that scales with level, and the ability to recast, once a marked creature has died is way too much of a buff in my opinion. Alone, they seem fine, but altogether seems to much. 15:48, 7 May 2019 (MDT)

Noted. I was not aware non admins could revert edits in blocs--Yanied (talk) 19:26, 7 May 2019 (MDT)

Features

Felt like the "9th level potato" thing was joke that wasn't supposed to make it past editing, so I replaced with the brutal critical thing from an older version of the page. If brutal ciritcal is supposed to be removed, please remove it form both the feature list, and the table. I did the same with extra attack as well. Coaldstone (talk) 17:51, 27 November 2018 (MST)

Yes those features were supposed to be removed. The 'Potato' is a place holder due to there not being a name yet and was supposed to be in progress.--Yanied (talk) 14:23, 28 November 2018 (MST)