Design Revisions

I'm taking a break from monsters to loop back to subclasses for today's post. I thought it would be interesting to look at the process of revising design and how playtesting affects it.

I have two players using the a rouge subclass I designed, and it's clear that the design is not working. I didn't even need to ask for player input. I could see during out sessions that the subclass was too complex. If a player has to stop to read a subclass ability, and that pause clearly slows the game down, you've probably made something too complex.

Here are the original, 3rd level features:

Sundered Shadow

At 3rd level, you gain the ability to expel your shadow from your side and command its actions. You can cast find familiar as an action without expending a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, the familiar you summon is a shadowy reflection of yourself. While it is summoned, you do not cast a shadow. It uses the statistics of a beast as per the spell, with the following additions.

Merge with Darkness. When you fight in concert with your shadowy reflection, it swirls around your opponent and darkens its senses. In your foe’s mind, you fade into darkness. When you apply your sneak attack damage to a target within 5 feet of your shadowy reflection, you can treat it as necrotic damage. If you do so, the target must make a Wisdom save (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier). On a failed save, you become invisible to the target until the end of your next turn.

Lurking Presence. Your shadowy reflection uses the higher of its or your bonus when making Dexterity (Stealth) checks. It also gains the benefits of your Cunning Action class feature.

Quickened Summons. You can temporarily dismiss your shadowy reflection as a bonus action. While it is dismissed in this manner, you can cause it to reappear in an open space within 30 feet of you as a bonus action.

Umbral Magic

At 3rd level, you gain the ability to manipulate and control shadows. You gain a number of shadow motes equal to your rogue level. You regain expended motes when you finish a long rest.

Shadow Step. As a bonus action while your shadowy reflection is within 30 feet of you, you can expend a shadow mote and swap places with it. You teleport to its space and it teleports to your space.

Vexing Shadow. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend a shadow mote and dismiss your shadowy reflection. Your shadowy reflection infiltrates the target’s shadow, swirling around it to distract it. While it is dismissed in this manner, attacks against the target have advantage, you increase your sneak attack damage against it by 1d10, and it has disadvantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks.

When you apply sneak attack damage to a creature while your shadow has infiltrated it, you can increase your sneak attack damage against it. When you hit the creature (including when you spend motes to infiltrate its shadow), you can increase the damage by 1d10 per mote spent and can expend motes up to your rogue level.

Umbral Escape. As a reaction when your shadowy reflection would take damage, you can expend a shadow mote and temporarily dismiss it as per find familiar. When dismissed in this way, it avoids taking damage or suffering any of the other effects of the source that triggered this feature. If the source of damage was an attack, the creature making that attack takes necrotic damage equal to your sneak attack damage.

That's a Wall of Text!

You'd think that needing six bolded subheaders in a subclass would be a clear warning sign, but at the time I was too worried about putting enough utility into the subclass. To be fair to myself, it's easier to cut than add in this stage of design. A few notes on what went wrong:

• I used find familiar as the basis for the subclass features, which is a complex spell to begin with. I then needed to add more doodads to get the familiar to do what I wanted. A lot of the complexity derives from that.

• The class lacks a clear focus on what the shadow is supposed to do. The player clearly struggled to find the cool part of the features. Complexity tends to breed a lack of clarity, as your read tries to work through sentence after sentence to find the heart of your design.

While I had to cut a lot, this example shows that revisions are much easier to handle than initial design. There's a reason why so much creative advice focuses on just doing it. Once you create something, it's far easier to iterate and get to the end.

So, what did I change? Here's the new version:

3rd Level: Sundered Shadow

You gain the ability to expel your shadow from your side and command its actions. You can cast mage hand at-will. The hand takes the form of your shadowy reflection. It peels away from you and forms a dark, misty copy of you. Once during your turn, you can command your shadowy reflection to fly up to your speed.

You gain a number of shadow motes equal to your rogue level that you can use to augment your shadowy reflection. You regain expended motes when you finish a long rest.

Shadow Scout. As an action, you can expend a shadow mote and project your senses into your shadowy reflection. For the next minute, it can move up to 120 feet away from you and you can perceive its surroundings through a telepathic link to it. This effect ends if you take damage or use an action.

Shadow Step. Once during your turn, you can expend a shadow mote and swap places with your shadowy reflection. You teleport to its space and it teleports to your space.

Vexing Shadow. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack while your shadowy reflection is within 5 feet of it, you can expend a shadow mote and become Invisible to that creature until the end of your next turn.

That's a Lot Less

As you can see, the text shrank dramatically. We went from 503 words to 220. That's a good sign! Here's how I attacked the problem.

• I started by focusing on the class's cool trick. I wanted a rogue who could send their shadow ahead as a scout to spy on creatures or reach hard to get spaces.

• I wanted the rogue to use the shadow to scout a place, slip into that place. then use the shadow to escape if needed. I also wanted the abilities to feel like a flexible tool that could solve a variety of problems if the rogue player applies some ingenuity to their features.

• Shifting from find familiar to mage hand gave me the focus I needed and removed a lot of text I wasted trying to tinker with find familiar. Using existing spells and features is a great way to keep things simple, but only if you make minimal (preferably none, or purely flavor) changes to it. Use pieces that are there, but make sure you're using the best piece for the job.

Hopefully, that clarity will come through in play. We'll show how my game goes this week!