Lightning bolts hold significant spiritual meaning, symbolizing cleansing and purification. They are seen as a tool of divine intervention, obliterating impurities and making way for rejuvenation and fresh beginnings. They are also seen as a symbol of sudden insight or personal power. In the Lightning Bolts class, players can recast a lightning bolt before the damage goes through, as long as they have the mana to do so.
A lightning bolt’s position in front of the caster is crucial in divination, as their positions play a key role in the symbols. A creature that successfully saves against this effect is immune to it for 1 minute, after which it can be affected again. Elemental priests see nature and the natural elements as the site of divine revelation, practicing “elemental divination”.
In various cultures and mythologies, lightning bolts are often seen as symbols of divine force and change. Incorporating lightning bolt accessories into magic items requires a creature to form a bond with them before their magical properties can be used, which is called attunement.
📹 Top 5 MORE Underrated But Awesome Subclasses In D&D
With over 100 subclasses in Dungeons and Dragons 5e, some are bound to get unfairly overlooked! I’ve been told to use …
What is the meaning of bolt of lightning?
Lightning, also referred to as a bolt or thunderbolt, is defined as an abrupt electric discharge from the sky or from a cloud to the earth, accompanied by the emission of light.
What does a lightning bolt symbolize in literature?
Lightning is a powerful symbol of loss of ignorance and punishment for humans from the gods. It is often associated with terrible events and negativity in dreams. Thunderbolts, a traditional expression for a discharge of lightning, have been used throughout history as a divine manifestation. They are often found in military symbolism and semiotic representations of electricity. Lightning plays a role in many mythologies, often as the weapon of a sky and storm god.
As an unsurpassed method of dramatic instantaneous retributive destruction, thunderbolts as divine weapons are found in most mythologies. Zeus, or Jupiter, is the most familiar thunderbolt weapon in the West, used by the cyclopic children of Gaia to strike down impious criminals and divine opponents.
Is lightning a symbol of God?
Lightning is a symbol of God’s divinity and power, often used in the Bible for various purposes such as wrath, judgment, revelation, the coming of the Son of Man, the fall of Satan, and the nature of angels and the risen. In the book of Revelation, lightning is often referred to as the final judgment. In Islam, the Quran states that God shows fear and hope through lightning, raising heavy clouds and launching thunderbolts to smite those He wills. In India, the Hindu god Indra is considered the god of rains and lightning, and the king of the Devas.
The Quran also mentions how God makes clouds move gently, joins them together, and creates a stack, resulting in rain. In conclusion, lightning is a powerful symbol of God’s divinity and power, and its use in various religious contexts reflects its significance in various religious traditions.
What does the Bible say about lightning bolts?
In Jeremiah 10:13, a divine voice is described as causing a multitude of waters to rise from the earth’s ends, creating lightning with rain and bringing forth the wind from his treasures.
Does a lightning bolt represent energy?
Since the late 1980s, there have been several attempts to harvest lightning energy. A single bolt of lightning carries a large amount of energy, approximately 7 gigajoules, which is concentrated in a small location and passed in extremely short periods, requiring extremely high electrical power. It has been proposed to use the energy to generate hydrogen from water, harness the energy from rapid heating of water due to lightning, use a group of lightning arresters to harness a strike, or use inductors spaced far enough away to capture a safe fraction of the energy.
However, capturing the high power involved in a lightning bolt is impractical due to the ever-changing energy involved in each bolt, which renders ground-based rods impractical. Additionally, lightning is sporadic, making it difficult to convert high-voltage electrical power to lower-voltage power that can be stored.
In 2007, Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. (AEHI) tested a method for capturing the energy in lightning bolts, purchased from an Illinois inventor named Steve LeRoy. The method involved a tower, a means of shunting off a large portion of the incoming energy, and a capacitor to store the rest. AEHI CEO Donald Gillispie stated that they “couldn’t make it work”, but that with enough time and money, it could be scaled up.
What does ⚡ mean on BeReal?
There are six RealMojis, including an Instant RealMoji, which is a one-time live reaction to a BeReal. To create a RealMoji, tap the smiley face icon at the bottom right of your friend’s BeReal or double-tap anywhere on the BeReal. Choose the RealMoji you want to create, tap the white button to capture your reaction, and tap “Continue” to save your creation. To delete a RealMoji, follow the steps below and create a new one.
What is the divination of lightning?
Ceraunoscopy is a form of aeromancy that involves divination by observing lightning or listening to thunder. The ancient Etruscans created guides for brontoscopic and fulgural divination of the future based on the omens displayed by thunder or lightning occurring on specific days or places. The Mjölnir, a fearsome weapon capable of leveling mountains, is also mentioned in Norse mythology. In the prayer for rain, the angel that fought Jacob was a rainstorm “minister angel, mixed of fire and water”.
Other examples include extra recitings for the 2nd day of Passover and other religious practices. The ancient Etruscans also used the Rigveda, the oldest literature of the Indians, to interpret the omens displayed by thunder or lightning. The Greek word “cerauno-, kerauno- +” ( Thunderbolt, thunder, lightning) is also mentioned. The ancient Etruscans also used the Brontoscopic Calendar and Religious Practice to interpret the omens displayed by thunder or lightning.
Is a lightning bolt positive or negative?
Negative lightning transfers negative charges from the cloud to the ground, typically from lightning formed at the base. Positive lightning originates in the upper parts of the cloud and transfers positive charges to the ground. It makes up less than 5 of all strikes and is more dangerous due to larger electric fields, longer flash duration, peak charges, and the ability to strike more than 10 miles away without thunder, known as a “bolt from the blue”.
Why am I seeing lightning bolts?
Flashes in the eye are caused by a reduction or alteration in the volume of vitreous gel, which exerts pressure on the retina, the light-sensitive lining of the eye. Additionally, flashes in the eye may result from physical force applied to the retina, such as from hitting or rubbing the eyes.
What does the lightning bolt symbolize spiritually?
Lightning bolts symbolize inner strength, resilience, and the capacity to overcome adversities. They are often associated with deities and supernatural forces, serving as a symbol of divine protection in some traditions. For those with a spiritual inclination, a lightning bolt tattoo can serve as an artistic expression of their spirituality. Lightning bolts have gained prominence in tattoo fashion due to their aesthetic versatility, offering a range of designs from minimalist to elaborate and vibrant compositions. These bolts serve as a reminder of the strength and resilience that can be found in the face of adversity.
What does a lightning bolt tattoo represent?
The symbolism of lightning bolt tattoos is often associated with significant life events, flashes of insight, or sudden changes in perspective. In this context, the tattoo is frequently perceived as an indicator of personal growth, creativity, or passion.
📹 Ach and Go for Gold! Easy Farming Strat in POE 3.25 Settlers league Guide
No investment farming strat in POE 3.25 to target items that does not require map completion or scarab scaling. Red map casual …
I play a Path of the Beast Barbarian currently in a campaign and its a great time! Small correction, you can make the extra attacks with your claws as long as either of your hands are empty, you don’t need both empty. This is especially good when you go with a dual wielding build, as you can have a real weapon in one hand and still get your extra claw attack!
For Beast Barbarian I like to take the Unarmed Fighting style to never need to carry a weapon. Also maybe take a level in monk for a BA attack. If you take Way of the Ascendant Dragon with it you don’t have to go with 6 levels in Monk for your unarmed strikes to be magical and gives you 5 additional damage types (you can also make your bite claw and tail attacks dragon themed)
“Are candles scary?” May I introduce you to the Greek Lampades, whom follow Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, and carried torches, lanterns, or CANDLES that is said to drive mortals insane upon being looked at. The Lampades took great pleasure in doing this, often going out of their way in groups to play “pranks”, often causing mass hysteria and even free-for-all bloodbaths.
7:08 – Currently playing a Dragon Monk and it was EXACTLY what I have waited for. The character was originally a Brawler in Pathfinder 1 and had the Elemental Fist feat line (for fire) qnd this subclass brings that vibe. Add the Gunner Feat (or a bow if you are basic) and you can fly, unload your shots as you sail past the enemies without them being able to hit you. It is amazing.
What’s nice about Hypnotic Gaze is that it isn’t really limited at all, if the creature succeeds their saving throw or the effect ends it can’t be used on them again for a certain amount of time, but you can just try it again on a different creature, and you can do that over and over again at no cost, it’s basically an infinite mini hypnotic pattern that requires your action to keep up but DOESN’T require your concentration!
Agreed on the list there! And as a fresh D.M I update the Way of As.Dragon monk and Drake Warden from FizbanToD, alongside the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer from PlayerH.B, so ALL three of these include Gem dragon dmg/ resistance types/drake apperance aswell ( Force, Necrotic, Psychic, Radiant, Thunder ) which is obvious to me that should have been OFFICIALY updated in especially Fizban T.oD.
I got to play a way of the ascendant dragon monk for 2 sessions before the OGL thing and our group switched to Pathfinder. It was a lot of fun. The breath weapon is pretty underpowered but the flavor is so cool, and there’s a lot of potential for creativity with them since most of the abilities don’t eat your ki. My only complaint was the nerfs from the unearthed arcana. I don’t know why they did it, the UA version was not at all unbalanced.
If your DM lets you work in Simic Hybrid as something setting specific for a non-Ravnica game, the Path of Beast is a great way to explore being a weird body horror hero; Circle of Spore druid is also fun for leaning into that sort of ‘oh gross’ stuff if you get creative in describing how your spells get cast from your body and how you use spell components.
Fun Fact: You can use and maintain the Enchantment Wizard’s Hypnotic Gaze ability while Raging. Another Fun Fact is that you can use the bonus action attack from the Fathomless Warlock’s Tentacle of the Deep or from the Spiritual Weapon spell to maintain Rage if you do not take damage in a round. At level 4 (1 Barb/2 Enchantment/1 Fathomless) you can make your DM apoplectic by round 1 running up to the biggest baddie, hypnotizing them, raging to take half damage and then keeping them locked down until all the minions are dead while slapping things with your tentacle. Add in Armor of Agathys and Gift of the Gem Dragon and you can just stand there doing nothing, raging, while magic abilities dish out damage for you.
Finally, someone else appreciates ascendent dragon monks. I don’t know why people don’t use them more, as the damage selection for you unarmed attacks is great in a lot of scenarios, such as bypassing physical damage resistances or simply doubling damage against enemies that have elemental weaknesses (also the breath attack damage increases to 3 rolls of the martial arts die at lv11)
Pact of the chain Warlock + Scourge aasimar… take the Gift of The Ever Living one’s feat, and you gain damage buffs from scourge (while hurting yourself) but always get max heals from any spells or potions from the feat… basically buffs your glass cannon warlock, and means you can ignore any damage that doesn’t insta kill you by just healing and not having to worry about rolling a 1 on your heal
For beast barbarian I have a idea for a pirate dwarf I have in mind. He was once apart of a mighty army but had to leave or was kicked out (still working on that part of his backstory.) and he didn’t know anything outside of fighting so he joined a pirates crew. He learned his way around a ship and the sea fairing ways quickly and enjoyed this new life for a time till they were attacked by adventurerers paid to get rid of them. The entire crew died and he was about to drown, exhausted and severely injured he couldn’t swim any longer and his body failed him. He sank into the depths of the sea thinking this is it till he heard a voice in his head. A second chance. He made a deal with a mysterious being at the depths of the ocean and was able to live tusks to it. After recovering he eventually went back to land and swore to get revenge for his old crew but also succeed where they failed. He’ll become a pirate and a mighty one, own that doesn’t just steal and kill but also rule and become a legend. After making a deal with the being he would be able to shift parts of his body to help him in battle. The tail would be a tentacle and the claws, also tentacles but more then one. The bite a beak, ones octopuses have. Also thinking of going a few levels into fathomlees warlock for the surviving part to make sense I guess but I think I’ll just go straight barbarian.
Honestly the Path of the Beast barb jump effect can be pretty insane. You can get pretty insane hops out of that and make short work of any challenge involving a large gap. If your party needs to cross a bridge but it’s trapped or there are enemies on the other side guarding it, your barbarian can easily jump 40+ ft (20 STR+20 total result on the Athletics check) and possibly cross the gap to break their defences long enough for the rest of the party to charge in while their attention is turned toward the raging were-beast that just jumped the gorge, and that alone makes for a pretty awesome fantasy to play out.
I’m playing a level 6 Custom Lineage Beast Barbarian, having taken Tavern Brawler and Skill Expert (for Athletics expertise) and have themed around being a professional wrestler. The level 6 jumping option has been fantastic and so much fun to live into the bit – after attacking my target 3x with claws and then grappling them as a BA, I can from a standing position jump up to 20 feet into the air and come back down with them (which I flavor as a spinning pile driver) for an extra 1- to 2d6 bludgeoning damage from the fall that knocks us both prone. And then, once on the ground prone, I release the grapple to get my other half of my speed back, which I use to stand back up. It’s the best
I’ve had a blast playing an ascendant dragon monk! Took a few levels in ranger bc the party needed someone who could handle a gun, and ended up going with the drakewarden subclass for EVEN MORE DRAGON. Having a couple spells and a familiar in battle definitely rounds out some of its weaknesses, but ascendant dragon monk is worth it for flavor and cool factor alone imo.
Ill always love ascendant dragon monk because it allows you to bonus action dash 100ft up in the air, fall onto an enemy, force a dex save or split the fall damage between the two, and you can just featherfall your side of the damage away. you can use mobile to augment that movement speed and stop them from taking opportunity attacks, use mind sliver to subtract from their saving throw, or it’s also good when a party member has restrained a target with a spell.
Played recently in a oneshot with my Path of The Beast Barbarian. She was a knight in some small order dedicated to destroying undead but due to overestimating her abilities, wish to show her devotion and some misfortune she was turned into a dhampire and was forced to run and hide. Her “beast” form is basically her monstrosity form (like light version of vampire lord from Elder Scrolls) and her “class abilities” are ways to survive and thrive of her monstrous self which she learns to control. I think it’s a nice blend of class and race together 🙂 So much pleasure to create, roleplay and fight with her 🙂
I’m currently playing a path of the beast barbarian, and have found that they have a great combo with longtooth shifters, as comboing your claws with your bite allows you to make 4 attacks, and since its not two weapon fighting you still add strength to damage on the bonus action bite. Furthermore, the claws only require 1 free hand to use the extra attack, so you can use a shield and still gain the full benefit of 4 attacks without requiring the two weapon fighting style to keep up in damage. Also thematically, the combo of the long tooth shifter bite attack with the barbarian claws means you’re pretty much a full on werewolf at that point, and can truly rip and tear.
Three points- Enchantment Wizards tend to use Manacles and rope to get the best out of the Gaze so having a familiar or summon that can help with that is a must. (Note that knotting the rope you familiar wrapped them in is not going to allow a reaction) also this is not concentration effect. So. It makes a great back up if you need to pick up the last enemy that saved hypnotic pattern and is still intent on hitting you to break the spell. Knowledge domain + Soulknife means you are able to use all skills and tools and have a huge chance to be effective for 10 minutes at a time. Dragon Monk – originally they flew until the end of your next turn but they removed that because they realized that if you can slow fall. So fly dash fly up to the silly dragon (90ft at base) stunning strike them midair. And then slow fall. Not only can they do a nice amount of damage to fliers in similar fashion regularly because KI points come back on a short rest. (They are still not at par but hey you be a monk mostly to look good 🙂 )
I played a Beast Barbarian Archaeologist for Candlekeep, she wasn’t optimized, but it was a game we had maybe 3 rounds of combat over 6 sessions. Nesali had 16 Int and a +11 History check. But also, she was a barbarian… so she had tons of HP compared to the rest of the party for the rare times we had to fight. Narratively, we decided her Beast path was a yuan-ti malison mutation. I’ve also played a Dhampir Spirits Bard in some of Beth the Bard’s playtests for some adventures. It’s quite fun. And one of Nesali’s party members was a goblin spirit bard.
Hi, I’m currently playing a half-orc Ascendant Dragon monk. What attracted me to the sub class was the martial arts cries the use when fighting. They shout out things like Biff, Kapow or Sock (I save the last one for kicks), so they are doing the verbal equivalent of the 60’s Batman TV series fight scenes. That’s right, I’m playing Bat-monk! His name is Adaam Ouest and his melee weapon is a didgeridoo which doubles as a quarterstaff. Oh, and he throws polished dragon scales like batarangs.
Multi-Subclass: Defender of the Green (Tank, Lv 9) Moon Druid/Ranger Hunter We want 12, 14, 17, 8, 15, 8 for Stats to start and take 1 Con, 1 Wis at Lv. 4 Moon Druid is mostly to get the deeper pool of Wildshape for HP sponging. Any flavour of Druid works for this, really. At Ranger 2, take Defensive Fighting for +1 AC, then at 3 take Hunter for Horde Breaker. This gives you 19 AC at Level 9, without any bonuses from armour, shield, misc., 90+ HP(+2 Combat Wild Shapes) and enough slots for AoE CC spells to drive your DM (and party) insane. Throw in being a Warforged, the Warcaster Feat, a +3 between Armour and Shield and you’ve got a 23 AC, plus some nice immunities.
Hi! I discovered your articles thanks to the whole WOTC drama and really enjoy how you break down DnD into easy to understand articles. I was wondering, do you have any plans to discuss artificers in more detail? I’m thinking about creating an artificer character but I’m having trouble deciding what subclasses and/or multiclass to use for them. I think you have the expertise that would be most useful for determining good builds, or how to make “bad builds” become usable. Have a great day, and I look forward to perusal all the other articles on your website ^.^
My brother created a Simic Hybrid Beast Barbarian in our Ravnica game where the race itself offered the ability to have animal modifications as you leveled up. I don’t remember all of his abilities but i remember something giving him a gliding feature like a flying squirrel has in real life & he had these weird spider like arms (only two of them & connected to his body on his back, around where his shoulder blade’s are located). I think those allowed for him to grapple someone while also clawing their eyes out with his barbarian claw weapons. Our story was about the Nephilim of Ravnica returning. (They are a one-off set of four 4-colored Magic cards that were put inside the first Ravnica set; they are weird abominations with all of this allowing the DM to truly customize their history which stated they were like the last of a forerunner race that Niv-Mizzet & a group of other older creatures such as Ilharg, the Raze-Boar, who is printed with the God creature type that locked them away after destroying the lower forms of life the Nephilim had created. Anyways, my brother was supposedly engineered by the simic, with others like himself as a warring species used to combat the Nephilim. They pretty much grew them in vats & they all had a base race, such as Vedalken/Human/Elf but the Simic had modified their DNA to be very malleable & granted their changing body parts. I remember, he was introduced to the party while we were traversing the simic compound to see if they knew the origins of the Nephilim.
The extra cool thing about the Spirits Bard to me is that you can retain the Tale you tell until you use it or finish a rest, it doesn’t require concentration or anything to keep it in mind you just keep until it’s spent, I think it mitigates the randomness of the Wild Surge type classes by letting you decide how to use it. You can also roll it well before combat even begins and decide when in the day to use it. I’m kinda cheating in my game, I play a Spirit Bard that is also a ghost who doesn’t need to take short or long rests so long as I don’t use up all my resources, so I can just kind keep the tales for however long I want.
I play a Tabaxi way of the ascendant dragon monk, the movement speed is crazy, 45 feet ATM, double that with cats grace, then I can move 180 feet using step of the wind and still attack at the end, 270 feet if I just want to run away lol; also, I found out you can use breath of the dragon as a 20 foot circle aoe if you use your spectral wings to fly 20 feet up and fire a cone directly down, really gives some avatar vibes when you pull stuff like that off
So, something that was kinda cool my DM did. I was playing a 2nd level elven monk who was heading into the Way of the Shadow, however i ate a fish which turned me into a half-dragon, specifically Crystal Gemstone. Due to this, i went all into Dragon-based stuff, which was Ascendant Dragon Monk and Circle of the Wyrm Druid (Valda’s Spire of Secret’s). He actually let me use Crystal as my Ascendant Dragon and Wyrm subclass features, instead of the normal stuff which mainly gave Radiant as a damage type for me to use
way of the dragon monk + beast barb seems crazy. at level 6 you can do like 5d6 damage every turn. and you also get to climb up walls with grappled enemies with no check (id you have the bestial soul claws) and body slam them on the ground all while reducing your own falling speed with your level 4 monk feature. add the deflect missiles reaction to the damage resistance from raging and youre also almost impervious to the ranged attacks which are the only ones that can reach you if you camp out on high walls of ceilings. oh yeah, and you get to custom pick your elemental damage type aswell!
I played a Locothath Beast Barbarian for a while, built for grappling. There was another player who pumped into strength and Charisma, and played a barefisted Fighter/Bard as a Luchador. We actually had a few fights where we would tag in and out with Disengage and take turns soloing enemies, with the other staying just out of range and using the Help command. So much fun and nonsense
For the Beast Barbarian’s jump ability, I actually think it could be the most useful if you build around it. If you take simic hybrid for manta ray fins and grappling appendages, take magic initiate jump, expertise in athletics (to grapple), and a 2 level dip in monk for step of the wind, this is a pretty cool build. Cast jump on yourself and rage, wait until your next turn, bonus action step of the wind and dash to your enemy, grapple them (with +11 to athletics AND advantage because of rage) and jump for (3 + 5 + 10.5 + 11) x 6 at 8th level, going on average 180 feet, doing 18d6 damage knocking them prone. YOU glide 360 feet away because of the manta ray fins, while only taking 4d6 damage plus falling prone, which won’t matter because you’re 400 feet away and your enemy is hopefully dead. This is also a very cool thematic build, especially if you take rune fighter so you’re this awesome mutant hybrid with fins, tails and tentacles or claws, which would lead to some awesome character building. In the words of D&D shorts, ENJOY!
Jump at sixth level is amazing. I have a ring of jumping and tavern brawler on my Tabaxi Beast totem barbarian. I grab someone with an action, double my speed to 100ft, jump into the air and drop them off where I want them for extra fall damage. And yes, we half the speed for carrying someone, although we have sort of realised it seems a bit silly the rules don’t differentiate between me dragging a Halflings or an Ogre. Plus, it makes it easy to jump up and take flying enemies out of the sky.
I have an Ascendant Dragon monk in one of the campaigns I run and he’s awesome (and the player is clearly having a good time, which is also a huge plus!). I haven’t seen these others in play outside of a Beast barbarian in a one shot, but they all seem super fun! I might try an enchantment wizard on a villain I’m planning to run….. 😇
I had a Path of the Beast Barbarian in a game. His Name was Gordy and he was a Chef. I Like the idea of “you are what you eat” and to have a Gordon Ramsay like character was a lot of fun. He was a Half orc that would eat anything thing because he grew up in a village where they didn’t have a lot to eat. He started his travels and fell in love with cooking and had a goal to be the worlds best chef. At the end of fights he would take what he could for the fallen foe and make amazing meals with it. At the end of the game Gordy opened a restaurant called The Butcher’s Block. There he makes five star food and if you’re a rude customer, or if you’re a cook that can’t fallow orders in his kitchen Gordy might have a spot for you on his menu.
I actually am running a Paladin/Knowledge Domain Cleric right now. My spell save DC for both is junk, but those expertise have been handy. Beast Barbarian is also a favorite of mine if I want to make a character and dabble with lycanthrope. And I love the College of Spirits Bard, and was running one in a Curse of Strahd campaign before that campaign was abandoned due to a player dropping.
I play a Path of the Beast Barbarian in a game using Ravnica as a campaign setting. My character is an elf whose parents were missionaries into the rubble belt from the Selesnia. She is Gruul through and through and accidentally developed the Path of the Beast by failing to become a Druid. Her 4th level ASI went to the Ritual Castee feat so she could ritually cast some Druid spells to reflect this, and she is a lot of fun to play.
Honestly, this just cemented my love for Path of the Beast Barbarian. I never really thought of the class being that interesting (except for the Wild Magic Barbarian, which is a treat), but one of my favorite characters i ever built was a Simic Hybrid POB Barbarian/Inquisitive Rogue The backstory was that he was a genetically engineered infantry soldier for a colony (they were all based on ants). With that build you could climb or swim whenever you wanted, attack three times per turn with the claws, plus close range sneak attack damage with Insightful Fighting (From Inquisitive). So, at level 20, every turn this build could deal +50 pts of damage every round. Yes, Totem Barbarians have resistance to all damage, but with a Shield and Tail up, you could reliably shrug off most hits with 0 damage and a reach attack.
I was looking at potentially doing a College of Whispers bard with most of his spells being of the enchantment type, and almost every damage causing spell dealing psychic damage. Even though I haven’t been able to use the character in an actual game, there was so many choices for flavor/roleplay, and even mechanically that actually fit the idea of him as a character.
When people talk about good rogue subclass, three names often come up : arcane trickster, swashbuckler and soul knife. Sure, all of them are cool, but I would argue that the Phantom archetype is somewhat on the same level. It give you decent bonus in and out of combat, and is really flavorfull. One of my player wanted to play a rogue haunted by spirits, but didn’t want to use spell, so I pointed him to this subclass, and he really enjoyed it so far.
After perusal this article, I had an amazing idea for a ridiculously fun multi-class character. Loxodon Beast Barbarian/Drunken Master Monk. Form of the beast weapons are considered simple melee weapons, and therefore monk weapons, which means it can benefit from both rage and martial arts. The AC bonus from the tail can help compensate for reckless attack. The loxodon trunk acts as an unarmed weapon, and can be used as a snorkel while swimming, taking care of the big bonus of the first of the Bestial Soul effect, which leaves you free to use the second effect all the time, and when combined with level 9 unarmored movement means that the only thing you can’t do is fly. Throw in feats like Alert to compliment Feral Instinct, Mobile because you’ll be moving around a lot and the extra movement will compensate for splitting Monk levels, along with Barbarian Fast Movement, Shield Master to help with shoving and dex saves (and shields can be dropped), and Tough to compensate for splitting Barbarian levels HP. Loxodon Serenity grants advantage against being charmed or frightened, which means you’re using an action to use Stillness of Mind less often, but it’s there if you need. I’d say 11 levels of monk and 9 levels of Barbarian at max level, but long before that, you’ll be a Rampaging Pink Elephant.
One if my best PCs was a knowledge cleric. Sadly i forgot to get components before we got dropped into avernus, and… well… we never got more supplies. Still, she was the best soccer mom the team ever had. Im proud of her. She made a cameo appearance recently and gave a new group PC a tome about how to wear medium armor properly. The same tome that she used to master the wear of medium armor, which started her off with 19AC at level 1 when the game first started hehe Edit: oooo I had an enchantment wizard too! That was a one shot though. He was a clown. It was hilarious.
In retrospect it makes sense that Lae’zel would react so aggressively. This is basically a creature a full level BEYOND the most powerful variant of her people’s sworn enemy, and after being under the control of a god’s chosen with a powerful set of artifacts for the entirety of the time she’s known of its existence, she watched it turn around and end him with a single word It’d be like if you saw a the sequel to a cockroach kill your neighbor’s dog instantly just by sneezing on it or something
Playing a Beast Barb Warforged right now (in the ToA). I went the “ancient war machine way” having a command word for our wizard player that found me to activate my rage at any time or situation which I can’t refuse. Needles to say there is no command word to deactivate it. I go all way natural weapons which makes it quite scary if transformed into beast form. Yes it’s a transformer. And it’s so much fun.
Beast barbarian plus + shifter sounds like a cursing machine. You get the bite for free and can add another weapon from the beast barb. Which, considering the rules don’t say the natural weapon HAVE to be the ones you get from the feature, just that you need to be in the barb beast form, you can cause a lot of havoc once you get your hands on some multi attack features.
My favorite underdog subclass is actually for Ranger, with the Drakenwarden. Usually, if people pick Ranger, they go for Gloomstalker. The reason I like Drakenwarden so much is that I like Fire Emblem, and my favorite class from that series is the Wyvern Rider. The concept of flying around on a dragon, shooting magical arrows from the sky, and having that dragon breathe, in the case of my most recent Ranger, a blizzard on your foes is just super cool to me.
The jump skill on barbarian actually seems pretty good after reading over it again. It adds the number on top of the distance of your normal jump distance. So even with an average roll of 10, and a strength of +3 (and proficiency in athletics, cause with only 1 strength skill available anyways, why wouldn’t you have it) On average that’s at least 16 feet on top of your usual jump distance. And normal jump distance (as far as I remember) is based on your strength stat anyways. With a strength of 16 (+3) Your running long jump distance is already 16 ft. Which is already pretty far. But adding another 16 ft on top of that for a total of 32 ft (on average) means you can jump across chasms and rooftops with little effort. High jumps are a little different. They’re usually 3+ strength bonus, so usually getting beyond a total of 8 ft is usually pretty difficult. So adding 7-26 ft on top of that is ridiculous. And to make it more ridiculous, you can do it once per turn.
With Beast Barbarinan improved jumps on a 6 lvl you can grab a creature, and then jump with him, making Athletic check with advantage and on top of that you can have expertise in Athletic and up the number of foots on your jump even more. That’s a really cool “Hulk Jump” technique. Creature get full damage and barb only half.
I actually have a player using Path of the Beast Barbarian and the 6th Level ability actually isn’t as bad as you think, especially the climbing feature being able to nix any purely close range attacks in your combat that cannot fly, which is actually a pretty decent chunk of Monsters, and even a lot of Monsters that DO get ranged attacks usually only have it for that scenario happening as a backup plan that usually either misses, doesn’t do much damage(Especially if the Barbarian is raging) or both. The Jumping one can be useful if you need to get across the battlefield more quickly and your walking speed isn’t doing it and the water based one is great for if you know a potential water based combat is coming up.
Order of the scribe wizard. Change any elemental damage spell to any other element you have a spell for. Lightning fireballs. Acid lightning bolts. Etc. Combine with elemental adept feat and suddenly all spells of your adept element cannot be resisted and can’t roll lower then a 2 on damage. Wildly good.
the jump of the beast barb is actually the best option of the 3. with 18 str at level 6. you can jump 3.5 ft up without a running start and rolling the d20. if you take skill expert athletics with the beast barb ability, even if you roll a 1, you can jump 10 ft up in the air which is the minimum threshold for forcing falling dmg (1d6/2) and a dc 15 dex save or fall prone to an enemy you fall on. if you roll an 11 or higher the falling dmg goes up to 2d6/2. and this is done by just consuming part of your movement. its free dmg and chance for prone. scaling wise, at 20 str with +6 prof bonus and rolling a 20, you can jump 40 ft up for 4d6/2 falling dmg and chance for prone. so yeah climb the top turnbuckle with your beast barb and frog splash your opponent.
I played a Beast Barbarian and after I got to level 6 I used Jump most of the time, I had expertise in athletics, Boots of Striding and Leaping and a DM who ignored that you can only jump your move distance. I was leaping across whole maps and snatching flying enemies out of the air to power bomb them into the floor.
Since the barbarian doesn’t have fighting styles, they have less reservations about swapping weapons if the situation calls for it. That synergizes well with the versatility of Beast barbarian. Low on health? Whip out a shield, battleaxe and some teeth to give you a higher AC and heal a little bit. Need to do damage? Claws and dual wielding scimitars or hand axes can give you four attacks at level 5. Need to hold the line? A glaive with a tail can help keep enemies away.
I was in a campaign where the DM said that we must make a character from real life or fantasy person for example we had a barbarian playing as Ragnar Lothbrok(Viking Tv series/real person). I on the other hand told my DM that I was going to play Sherlock Holmes cause I always wanted to and this was the perfect time to. The day of session 1, I got there early to show my character to my DM and showed my Knowledge Domain Cleric and the look on their face was stunned and confusion mixed into one because they then told me that they thought I would playing a Mastermind Rogue cause it seemed like they best option. I later found out in one of the campaigns their playing in they have a Knowledge Domain Cleric which was my character but fit them better as a character.
Dwarven Beast Barbarian is the perfect way to build a Wolverine (X-Men) style character. Dwarf allows you to take the Dwarven Fortitude feat for an in-combat healing factor. Beast Barbarian gives you claws and either a climb speed or a super jump (fastball special?) Stick with it for at least 5 and not more than 9. The level 10 stuff is not Wolverine-like. From there you can go fighter (champion) or ranger (hunter), depending on how civilized or wildman you want to be. (Come to think of it, Beast Barbarian works for a Spider-Man build, too. More of a Spider-Man 2099 than a Peter Parker, but claws and climb and super-strength and danger sense and advantage on initiative checks and resistance to slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing is very superheroic. Now all you need is a web spell)
I made a lizardfolk beast barbarian/battlemaster fighter grappler. Super fun. Unarmed fighting style to upgrade claws to d8. 1st turn rage. After that attack once, bonus action grapple with advantage + superiority dice, 2nd attack knock prone, and now for my 3rd attack and all attacks after if they dont free themselves i know have advantage on all attacks and they have dis on all attacks. I play my lizarfolk like an apex hunter and when he grapples and knocks prone he essentially goes into a gator roll.
Jump on Beast Barbarian is HEAVILY underrated, since you are “adding” distance to your jump, RAW it doesn’t use up your Movemnet speed. I played one and I used it to jump 15ft over a group of golems to kill their master before they could attack me. You can nearly jump up to the top of most buildings, and you can long jump to just give you more distance when you move on a turn.
re: the Knowledge Clerics’ website divinity, cooking meals, making disguises, or doing any kind of crafting takes longer than 10 minutes, so you can’t really use this feature for that. What it does come in handy for is knowing little details that only someone trained in those professions would know, giving yourself advantage or removing disadvantage on checks that some DMs might not even allow you to make otherwise. So, doing exactly what a Knowledge Cleric is meant to do.
The best combo ever for an insane skillmonkey character would be a level in knowledge domain cleric, a level in ranger, and a level in rogue as a half elf. If you play your cards right, you should have 11 skill proficiencies between your background, race, and those classes, as well as 7 instances of expertise and 9 languages. I’ve had this idea ever since TCE came out with the new ranger who got expertise and 2 languages, but I’ve never been able to play it yet. The flavor is there too! A cleric who worships the guiding knowledge of the moon goddess Lun would be perfect to also be a ranger/rogue, traveling across the land.
I’m playing a Spirits Bard named Stanley Spinwick. His parents told him stories about family members that passed away, and he was sad that his family would never be able to tell their story. Combine that and the fact that he developed the ability to see and talk to spirits, and he decided to write the stories the spirits told him so he could publish them. Now he travels across the globe to pick up stories of those who passed or soon will pass. If you ever see a Drow with a nose ring and Pancho (that is a nose ring of disguise he is a part spider with two extra eyes and the ability to spin webs from his fingertips) wanting to hear your story be careful because it could mean your time is almost up. If you have any questions ask away.
Tbh I was playing other systems for a while and rly went off 5e once I saw how much better (not different, BETTER) other systems were. But honestly beast barbarian rly got me back into it, barbarian in general, actually. I started off a berserker barbarian, which I loved with some homebrew and naturally through lycanthropy and communing with Malar my character has switched to Path of the Beast, and it’s incredible amounts of fun, flavourful, full of a bunch of were roleplay and seriously enjoyable in combat (like leaping huge distances while graplling, climbing on walls to throw axes, and generally just being a cool creature).
I’m playing an 11th lvl beast barb in my current campaign, and i gotta say, don’t count out the jump ability. Our dm let us take a free feat, so i got one that gave me an expertise in athletics, tavern brawler to grapple as a bonus action, and aberrant dragonmark with the spell jump. With all that, with one round of setup, I can get up in an enemy’s face, swipe 3 times, grapple, move 10 feet, roll a plus 12 athletics check at advantage, and jump up a minimum of 60 feet, to a max of just under 120, dealing 6 to 12 d6 of bludgeoning to you(halved for rage) and your grapple. Different dm’s would rule on this differently, im sure, but mine is pretty chill with it.
Fathomless Warlock is also really underappreciated. Several of its features are situational and campaign dependent, but mostly the flavor ones. In combat, you essentially get a Cthulhu themed spiritual weapon that can block attacks for people, slow enemies, and be used proficiency bonus times per day without using your limited spell slots. That feature alone is so fun. You can also cast Evard’s Black Tentacles once per day without spending a slot, and cannot lose concentration on it from damage received. And besides, if a DM knows you will be taking this subclass and never adds any water to the campaign here and there so you can use some of your flavor/RP/utility features, the DM is just being mean at that point.
i love your articles and especially the ones where you describe fun and interestinf racial and calass combos that are fun to use me and my friends are just starting into dnd after wanteing to do so and our other frined is setting up as the dm and we start in about 2 weeks and we cant wait its gonna be a blast and i cant lie ive made several characters based off of your wacky combo articles casue i think they are neat love the vids thank you for getting to the point as well alot of other articles are padded with nothing burgers but yours are fun explained well and awesome
Currently playing an ASS monk in a Monster Hunter Themed campaign, I am also a Trovarian, which means I get heat metal and mold earth as racial abilities. The damage switching has mostly been used for RP flavoring so far since we havent had too many enemies with weaknesses, but the AoE has been really handy against the smaller monsters that tend to group up around the ones we actually hunt. Combined with the Tonfas as my monk weapon, Ive been the party’s frontline and secondary DPS and its been a blast.
I have played a knowledge cleric. Playing a manipulator (which I now realize this subclass is all about) wasn’t my intention, so I probably didn’t use all my potential, but it was funny at least. website divinity for professioncy was kinda useless thought, due to how my DM ruled it (I could only apply it to tasks that took less than 10 minutes for character, and virtually anything out of combat took an hour; I guess I only used it to determine that some potions were “spicy”, which we could just guess based on how we got them in the first place).
The Jump with Beast Barb is highly underrated, it’s my current Go-To form at 6th level with my Barb as with Athletics Expertise from Athletic Feat I long jump absolute bare minimum of 31feet with a nat one roll with a 10ft start, or 21 feet from a standing start. You can cover some serious ground with it.
That Path of the Beast Barbarian sounds like an awesome story element. Sadly, I can’t play DnD because of being in a small town with any of my friends from high school, either not being huge nerds like me or no longer using social media for very understandable reasons… and some being in other states or countries altogether. But if I ever get a DM to host me, that Beast Barb would be useful for this one idea I have rattling in my head. Observe: I remember my village: a tribe of huntsmen and soldiers protected by the White Wolf Mother. Every month, we’d slaughter our catch on her pedestal before the full moon to assure a better hunt next month. I never cared for it. The taste of roasted boar or rabbit stew never hurt me, but the smell of blood left me feeble. The first catch to signify my maturity into manhood, a Black Rabbit (a good omen in my village), I nearly puked after cutting the back of its neck to render its death quick and painless. Death and Killing I’ve always felt ill towards. Helping the farmers, carpenters, smith’s in their trade; I happily partook. But to see a man die before me was something of ghastly horror I could not bear, nor could I stop. The adults of my village greatly overtook me in strength, no matter what. That changed when my sister took ill. A plague by river fell upon us, and my sister, a farmhand, took ill first; though she barely noticed. Then two, then four, then thirteen; my village was overtaken in illness. They attacked her in anger, blaming the illness on her, but I couldn’t let that happen.
3:56 Hey, don’t underestimate the power of jumps, it’s like a limited fly helps barbarians to be stealthy as you don’t make noise while being midair, not mentioning Barbarians have natural advantage on strength checks because of rage, every barb wants prof. in athletics and might consider expertise or take the githyanki race for the Jump spell and even reach and grapple flying creatures.
I think it would be cool to multiclass 11 paladin oathbreaker/3 path of the beast barbarian, because oathbreakers get aura of hate +Cha mod to melee weapon attacks and all paladins get improved divine smite at 11th level, so they all stack with rage, polearm master and additional claw attacks. I know you can’t cast spells while raging, but with a fiend warhorse. animate dead and divine smite (doesn’t count as casting a spell) you could make it work Edit: Another option for burst damage instead of average round damage is 11 paladin oathbreaker/ 3 echo knight fighter, same idea but with action surge, unleash incarnation and you can add spirit shroud on top of everything and 1 level of hexblade if you need Charisma more than strength
My vote for underrated MVP subclass goes to the Arcana Domain Cleric. Arcane Initiate, Potent Cantrip, and Arcane Mastery are all fantastic abilities. I’ll touch on those in just a sec, as they deserve their own discussion. Spell Breaker is, surprisingly, situationally good when paired with the Identify spell. The only two things that I don’t like about it are that you have to use an actual healing spell (not an ability that heals), and you can only target an ally with this ability; if one could target an enemy with it, it could be hilariously good. I’d say that the weakest ability they have is their Arcane Abjuration website Divinity ability, as it only affects a creature up to a max of CR 4 by level 17, and that it only affects celestials, fey, fiends, and elementals. But being able to banish them (as per the Banishment spell), after PC level five, is certainly worth noticing for some tier 1/tier 2 fights. ============================ With that out of the way, I’ll touch on the other abilities now. Arcane Initiate and Potent Cantrip are really good for a Cleric, both in the early and in the mid game, depending on the two cantrips that the player chose. One very big problem that the Cleric has to deal with in the beginning is the lack of access to an attack roll based cantrip (ex., Firebolt, Chill Touch, Ray of Frost, etc.), once the player hits mid tier 2, and Arcane Initiate cleanly fixes that problem starting at 1st level. Potent Cantrip adds fuel to the “Arcane Initiate” fire, for obvious reasons.
I think Creation Bard is one that is neat and underrated but is really underpowered. Having extra effects to you’re Bardic Inspiration is nice but it doesn’t scale severely limiting its power. Creating a item is nice but the limit imposed on it sucks. Making an item become a Dancing Item is really neat but it doesn’t scale making it extremely weak. It has so many neat features but it is just really weak and can’t do much with them. Another underrated subclass is Horizonwalker Ranger. It has two really neat features. 1 at lvl 3 you can use a bonus action to make all your attacks against a target within 30ft of you this turn turn into Force damage and it takes an additional 1d8(2d8 at lvl 11). This is a busted feature. It lets you deal extra damage and makes it Force one of the best damage types AND there is no limit to how many times you can do it. 2 at lvl 11 whenever you take the attack action on your turn before each attack you can teleport up to 10ft to an unoccupied space you can see and if you make an attack against at least 2 separate targets you can make an additional attack at a third. As far as I’m aware this teleportation doesn’t count for your move and doesn’t trigger opportunity attacks. It also gets interesting spells as you level in it and other niche + weird abilities. I know Fey Wanderer and Gloomstalker are way more popular but Horizonwalker can be really strong.
I was looking to make a Disco Elysium themed character, knowledge cleric has such good skills, high Wisdom for all kinds of Insight, Speak w Dead always prepared, visions of the past is like Visual Calculus in the game too! Getting Observant feat to be the most detector detective! Then just roleplay as a trash-fire and you’re done!
Honestly a HUGE fan of Knowledge domain cleric. Played one once before and acted like the tank/support/utility of the group in this dark underground water world trying to learn the mysteries of where we lived. And knowledge was power there. Was a blast of a game using all sorts of tool skills to craft boats, learn lore, and create crazy contraptions for crazy antics.
I love collage of spirits bard, but the only thing is the Spiritual focus – RAW – only gives the 1d6 bonus for spells that require material components, which is terrible, as few bard spells actually have material components – I decided to rework it to not only include all spells, but feel more Spirits-y as – at the end of each long rest – you roll the d6 and subtract 1 – the spirits offering you helping or harming fortune – you then add that result to ALL your damaging spells until the next long rest – but your healing spells instead gain 6 minus the d6 result, meaning each day you wake up it could be a day to make peace or war – depending on the spirits… – also you get to reroll the d6 once (like advantage) when you gain Mystical Connections
My favorite Barbarian abuse build: Ancestral Guardian multiclassed with Rogue, especially when combined with >30 movement and/or a whip. Why? Emasculate one enemy every turn, dancing away so they can’t retaliate. Whip gives at least a chance for the occasional Sneak Attack for some extra punch, compared to using a polearm, plus allows you to have a shield or maybe even a second weapon (if the DM allows Polearm Master quarterstaff/whip abuse to guarantee enemies can’t even enter melee without avoiding your attack in the first place, go for it!).
Up to 20ft bonus on a high jump isn’t amazing on its own, but add boots of springing and striding (x3) along with a jump spell (x3) and a monks dash (x2), and you can now jump up to an astonishing 360ft high before factoring strength. 400ft high jumps are not out of the question since a +5 str mod gives a base high jump of 90ft under these modifiers. Long jumps can go even further under these constraints. Using a grapple build to take people and monsters alike sky-high and dropping them potentially maxes out fall damage t0 20d6. More importantly however, is that this lets a monkbarian leap up to flying creatures and body slam them back down to earth in the truest dragoon fighting style.
16:00 It’s like a nerfed additional magical secrets of the college of Lore bard, the only good thing is that you can change it every long rest, but as it is limited to divination and necromancy you can’t pull tricks like go cast something like find steed or goodberry that lasts at least 24 hours and can’t enjoy aura of vitality and haste… animate dead is the only spell I found to do that, but you have to maintain it everyday…
I have a knowledge cleric I want to play one day. That is, when I will be able to get on the other side of the dm screen. She is an Owlin and a bit of a Hermione/Pike mix. Nerdy but a bit annoying. Pros: Flight and stealth proficiency on top of the extra proficiencies. Contra: No Heavy armor or she can’t fly. So she is keeping her distance and heels her Allie’s from above.
A Knowledge Domain Pallid Elf seems like a potent mix for RP and social investigations, that can still hold its own in combat and be a great support if needed…(aka Heal monkey). I wonder if I could get the DM and the rest of the Party to slip me a $20 for playing one? – I will also accept first pick of the pizza slices.
I’m not super familiar with 5e, currently playing my first character as an eldritch knight, my DM expected me to try to power game my character and suggested it. I have 9 strength, 11 intellect, refuse to use metallic armor or weapons, and have no damaging spells outside of the druid cantrips shillelagh and magic stone, which I picked up using magic initiate. I am effectively a half feral halfling in leather armor who only attacks with sticks and stones, and so far am loving every minute of it.
So, a beast barbarian combined with the long toothed shifter can give you 4 attacks at level 5 for a DPR of 29.925 using reckless attack, and 21.1 DPR without using reckless attack. Keep in mind at level 5 the elite DPR baseline is 22.8 meaning you can deal over 130% the elite DPR baseline at level 5. At level 20 your reckless attack DPR is 54.145 while the elite DPR baseline is 42.5 which means you are dealing over 125% of the elite DPR baseline.
Interesting thing I noticed after perusal this article was 14 Beast Barb + 6 Shepard Druid Little backstory to how I came to this, I was wanting to recreate my Goliath Barb in 3.5, who was canonically a sheltered lad. I found on the Forgotten Realms wiki that they had a tribe culture role called the SkyWatcher, which not only fit his original story, but was also know to be a role held by a druid. My goliath was a kind-heart and far from dumb (just lacked a filter), so I tried combining these two in a combination that worked. From the Beast Barb, we’re looking at Beastial Soul and Call the Hunt. They’re covered in the article, so they don’t need much explanation. From the Shepard Druid, we’ll be looking at the Bear Totem and Mighty Summoner. Beastial Soul + Mighty Summoner = You AND your summoned pal get magical natural weapon attacks. Bear Totem + Call the Hunt = If you plant the totem first, everyone get’s temp HP and adv on strength checks and saves. Then you rage. Your party and summoned companion now get a bootleg rage, complete with a set of “Rage Damage,” WHILE YOU’RE ALREADY BENEFITTING FROM RAGE. Best Part: This is pretty much the exact inverse of roles for a Totem Barb + Moon Druid, with a very neat synergy. Enjoy!
I play with Way of Ascending Dragon Monk… AND THE CHANGING DAMAGE SAVE THE FIGHT SO MANY TIMES… Fight against Orc Boss with Barbarian Class: Elemental damage not halfed Fight against undead plants: SUPER EFECTIVE. Fight against Hulking Shadows: Only Monk, Cleric and Wizard (and Paladin using smite) can do damage on them
Unfortunately in the party we had, the knowledge cleric became redundant, which developed a meme of the subclass being useless. Especially as we had a soul knife rogue/ aberrant mind sorcerer, a bladesong Wizard/ mercy monk (a surprising strong combo), a Shadow monk/undead warlock & a Lycan Bloodhunter. Granted wisdom was all him but in our campaign those checks were rare. Luckily this opened up our communication of talking about our classes before hand going forward, but as a player it was rough to watch the cleric (apart from average cleric shenanigans) becoming redundant.
Had a beast barb in a campaign. Half orc only good at fighting I literally rolled 3 good stats and 3 average stats and the good ones went into dex, con and strength. He had an armory on his back, didn’t talk much unless to suggest killing then robbing someone. He lost his int score one time and went feral. He hit hard and fast and had about 3 separate abilities to keep him up. If the campaign actually went longer than it did I was going to have him go full shifter. Be a werebear.
I’m playing Order of Scribes wizard in a campaign and I have so many uses for their abilities. I’m obviously playing him as a scribe and a scholar so the magic pen is just constantly useful for taking notes. I legit use it as a pen. DM had us investigating a magic plague in session two and laughed his ass off when I specified I was using a regular pen, that’s how quickly it became a cornerstone of my character lol. I’m only level five but I’m really looking forward to the next level cuz I can summon the spirit of my spell book (which is alive) and cast spells as if I was in its space, super useful for spells like lightning bolt or touch spells I really don’t want to be have to be near someone to cast. And if you have a DM who would mess with your spell book the awakened spell book feature is super useful because you can just recreate it with all its spells intact which can save literally thousands of gold and days of in game time if your DM decides to be sadistic and screw with your character. Which I wouldn’t be against from a roleplay perspective I’m just sayin, it’ll neutralize that wizard real quick XD. The spell scroll feature is also gonna be super useful cuz it’s basically a free spell every day
I played the Spirit Bard as someone who used illusions to bring out the Visage of dead people to both scare people and let people including himself talk with dead loved ones. Now if you’re playing Spirits as in ALCOHOL, I say use the spirit table for drink brands with flavors that vaguely describe the effect. And the ritual gain access to a spell could just be a session of drinking Spirits.
the reason why dragon monk is not liked is because the UA was needlessly nerfed of several parts: you could double down on the flight by expending more ki to keep using it, the breath attack was 1 ki to do it again, with the 11th ability yo got both resistance and if someone was hit they could use a reaction to deal one of your martial art die to the attacker, the ranges of the 11th and 17th level aura and sight effects was 30 instead of 10, and more. There are some improvements like the ability to select another language at 3rd lvl, the 11th lvl ability is 1 ki cheaper, and the 17th gained the augmented breath. In total it lost a lot that would have still been balanced compared to the other classes