Death Knight: Misc Feedback

[Silverblade1234]

From Tyloris:

TylorisToday at 12:50 AM Quick notes on the blood DK:

• The aura effect from Bone Storm is really strong. It may need an AoE range reduction.
• Keeping the blood shield hp up was really hard. Just having a double spell level hp gain when you've got only a few low-level spells means that realistically you've only got a pittance of hp heading your way from it. The initial boost is good though. Perhaps you could also include runic power spent in sources of recharging blood shield?
• Summon Undead was fine, but I'd like a greater selection of undead in the future. Some creatures made specifically for that spell instead of just general undead.
• It's unclear whether or not you can use Death Coil on yourself. If the Rune of the Fallen Crusader didn't exist I'd say yes absolutely it does based on RAW, but the rune's statement that you can use it on yourself makes me wonder if it wasn't intended that you could.
• Blood Boil's damage felt a bit low.
• While I like the idea of dominate undead, it isn't very useful. Most undead have immunity to charm spells, so the only ones that would be affected by it are zombies and skeletons. So unless you come across a high-level zombie, there's little reason to dedicate one of your spell known slots to that spell. I'd suggest either dropping the spell level, allowing you to control multiple undead, or allowing the spell to bypass charm immunity.
• Also: Purgatory fits the DK's character, but frankly by level 15 it is extremely rare that a tank-based character would get reduced to 0 hp.

I don't think any of this needs to be acted on immediately (one reason I'm including it all at once), but it should be kept in mind as additional feedback and playtesting comes in. I'll add some thoughts and responses to individual points tomorrow.

[Silverblade1234]

Some additional comments on the bone storm thing:

MythMakerToday at 2:23 AM And to elaborate on Tyloris' comment on the bone storm range. We completely ruined the final encounter of the one-shot because we had 2 DKs, one used Bone Storm, the other used something else (I forgot) and they just made a meat grinder of all the low-health minion guys. It was supposed to be a boss fight with a horde of enemies and we did it in like 2-3 rounds I think?

SilverbladeToday at 2:31 AM Can you elaborate on the low-health NPCs situation? How was it different than just having multiple characters with powerful AoEs? (which are certainly numerous by that level)

TylorisToday at 2:35 AM Since they take the damage when they enter your aura or when they begin their turn there, having an NPC get dragged via death grip through one aura and into another meant that they took a guaranteed 30 + 2d6 damage (for 2 lvl 15 DKs) or half on a successful save. You could also just run past them, out of reach of their weapon attacks, and deal the damage. It didn't help that the NPCs spawned at the edge of the map, so we basically cornered the 6-12 NPCs and hit them at once. Personally, I don't have too much of a problem with it. It allows you to quickly clean up low-level mobs and focus your attacks on the tougher creatures. But it can mean that certain DM's encounters can get clearer a lot quicker than they intended.

I'll have more thoughts on this, and the other pieces of feedback, tomorrow!

[Silverblade1234]

As promised, specific comments now that I've had a minimum of sleep! Only the first point includes any recommended action.

The aura effect from Bone Storm is really strong. It may need an AoE range reduction.

I think this is a real concern, and this agrees with some of my own recent thinking on these features. I don't think the issue is the blood-specific effect (prone in this case), but I do think the AoE and damage of all the auras are probably too high. I think it would be good for all specs to reduce the aura radius to 15 feet, and the damage to 1d6 + half DK level.

Keeping the blood shield hp up was really hard. Just having a double spell level hp gain when you've got only a few low-level spells means that realistically you've only got a pittance of hp heading your way from it. The initial boost is good though. Perhaps you could also include runic power spent in sources of recharging blood shield?

Unnecessary. Blood Shield is a pretty tremendous hp boost on a d10 hp class, and it's not necessarily supposed to be kept up all the time. Moreover, I think the amount of hp coming in is actually fairly fairly competitive with the abjurer's ward--yes, the wizard has more slots, but the ward is much more limited to only recharging from abjuration spells. In practice I'd wager the DK is getting more hp back to their blood shield than the abjurer. I would wager in fact that the Blood DK is actually the most survivable of the 'tank specs' for this very reason already. I don't think a buff is needed or appropriate.

Summon Undead was fine, but I'd like a greater selection of undead in the future. Some creatures made specifically for that spell instead of just general undead.

I'm optimistic that the Scourge supplement of the Monster Manual will address this.

It's unclear whether or not you can use Death Coil on yourself. If the Rune of the Fallen Crusader didn't exist I'd say yes absolutely it does based on RAW, but the rune's statement that you can use it on yourself makes me wonder if it wasn't intended that you could.

You can, we discussed this in the chat. You are an undead you can see.

Blood Boil's damage felt a bit low.

If anything, BB damage is too high given its bonus action casting time, which people keep overlooking (and it scales extremely well). But that's valuable feedback--maybe the whole "less damage but on a BA" idea is not working out as well as intended. I wouldn't be too reactive and change it at this time, but it's something to keep in mind for the future, changing Blood Boil to something more traditional.

While I like the idea of dominate undead, it isn't very useful. Most undead have immunity to charm spells, so the only ones that would be affected by it are zombies and skeletons. So unless you come across a high-level zombie, there's little reason to dedicate one of your spell known slots to that spell. I'd suggest either dropping the spell level, allowing you to control multiple undead, or allowing the spell to bypass charm immunity.

This is also dependent on what undead we end up with after the Scourge monsters are released. I'd hold off on any changes until that time.

Also: Purgatory fits the DK's character, but frankly by level 15 it is extremely rare that a tank-based character would get reduced to 0 hp.

This is amusing to me given the earlier comment--the blood DK can't keep their blood shield up, but also won't die! But I think this is fine. It's supposed to be an "oh shit" thing, and not something that happens every long rest. And I think the base blood shield is strong enough that this feature can occur less frequently, and the overall result is balanced against the other specs.

[orjanbp]

Get the rest in as well, so we've got it

I want to clarify some of the feedback I offered earlier:

• Purgatory: This, by itself, is a good ability. The problem I have with it is in comparison to Icy Talons and Plaguelord. Those are useful at all times, while the Blood version is only useful if a monster manages to chew through all of your Blood Shield and your regular hp; a total of about 150 hit points plus whatever healing you can get from your teammates. It would be a stronger ability at earlier levels, where you are far more likely to get dropped to 0 hit points.

Let's see how DMs handle Blood Shield in future playtests, but if Purgatory winds up feeling like a bit of a dud then it could be interesting to explore some kind of offensive edge to the ability at 15th level. Give the Death Knight a kick-back when the shield bursts, instead of a free back-to-life if they die.

• Hoarding your Runic Power dice might be more of an issue for blood DKs than DKs in general. Their Dark Command ability is good, but by tying it to your Runic Power dice it incentivizes you to hoard the dice so that you can force a nasty creature you might encounter later in the day to attack you instead of your friends.
• Following that, the fact that Dark Command's bonus effect on RP damage doesn't stack with itself means that you are likely not to use it more than once.
• Functionally, the Charisma limit on number of runic power dice you can spend means that unless you build for it, you aren't going to be spending more than 2 or 3 runic dice per attack. Sure, if you've got TWF or Polearm Master you can chew through your runic power dice pretty quick. But for a blood DK...
• Basically I'm saying that the Dark Command ability should maybe be separated from RP entirely, so as not to incentivize hoarding.

Could we just straight-up incentivize the DK invoking Dark Command on the same target? Add some extra damage, up the die size, add CHA, if attacking a target already under the effect? If that doesn't then flip over to the DK focusing one target because there's more to get out of their Runic Power that way.

If anyone would actually min-max that, though, they'd probably be the vast minority. The rest would probably feel pretty happy with some extra oomph from their strikes.

[AceAzzermeen]

Revisit the strength of Icebound Fortitude in comparison to Guardian of the King. Or the other way around. They should be equal when they are on the same spell level.