The problem is, something that looks overpowered on paper but is actually fine in play isn't something that really happens - or at least, it generally only happens if you have a very specific definition of "actually fine in play" - that being that it's overpowered, but it being overpowered doesn't actually matter. These people are rightfully dismissed with the tone of "well what are you even doing here then?" There's also the occasional person showing up in homebrew forums, getting their work roasted for being horrendously broken, and going "well it's supposed to be really strong". When you do that in a homebrew forum in response to people pointing out possible issues with your content, people quickly realize you aren't actually serious about making usable homebrew. Even with the larger amount of playtesting Matt did for the Illrigger, as far as I know he hasn't really released any details on what feedback he got and how he addressed the problems with the original Illrigger - his stance on it is literally just, "we played it and it's fine". That doesn't actually address anyone's criticisms of your work. What you don't do, generally, is tell people "well we played it and it's fine". You explain how other classes get stuff of similar power level, or how it's balanced out by this downside or weakness it gets, or see if your critic is misreading your rules and thinking something works a way you didn't intend. And when someone tells you your homebrew is overpowered and it isn't, you have to actually make a case for that. And the reason for that is that when something looks overpowered, it very often is. I'm someone who spends a lot of time in homebrew groups, and this concept jumped out at me as a sort of red flag when Matt released the Illrigger video. "It looks overpowered on paper, but it's fine in play" Instead, I want to talk about why the class was designed like this and the effects that has on the game. But I'm not here to nitpick every aspect of the class's power level. I could go on like this all day - you get the point. You could play a straight hexblade, but then you wouldn't get a d10 hit die, or con save proficiency - something a hexblade has to start in sorcerer or take a feat for both things the Illrigger gets for free. Any other class that wants to use charisma for weapon attacks needs to dip hexblade, but the Illrigger gets it without sacrificing any of their progression. Not necessarily in that every feature they get is broken - in fact, I'd say that about very few of their features - but in that the whole of the Illrigger gets a lot more for a lot less effort.Ī paladin, for example, needs to draw on their spellcasting resources if they want to smite - but an architect of ruin can cast spells all day long without cutting into their smite-equivelent (baleful interdict). But what I am here to say is that whether the Illrigger is even remotely balanced depends entirely on the table you play it at, and on how your table sees balance in the first place, because regardless of your opinion of the Illrigger, it was not designed to be in line with the existing 5e classes - and Matt seems to have intended that as a feature, not a bug.Īt a glance, the Illrigger is simply better than the other classes. I'm not here to tell you the Illrigger is ridiculously overpowered and you should never ever use it because it'll break your game. Plenty of people have already done a great job of breaking down and analyzing the Illrigger, and I don't really see a need to do that again, especially since I think cluttering up this post with a dozen paragraphs of it would probably muddy the actual points I want to make. This isn't another "The Illrigger is overpowered" post.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |