School of Scrolls

And now the third subclass release from Broken Knives: The School of Scrolls wizard subclass.

You can access the subclass on dmsguild.com here.

Here on the blog we'll discuss some of the thought and design processes behind the class and why we've made the design decisions we've made.

So what's the basic idea of the subclass? The School of Scrolls is a wizard based on a simple idea of a wizard that has scrolls on him at all times. In fact one point in the design process he was going to use exclusively scrolls instead of a spellbook.

Part of the description we gave the artist was:

“Bundles of scrolls hang from his belt in several places. On his back he carries an open backpack filled to overfull with scrolls. In one hand he holds a scroll that is unfurled and flapping in the wind.”

The 2nd level feature, Scroll Savant, is the cornerstone ability of the class allowing them to make limited versions of spell scrolls tied to their Arcane Recovery ability. It was loosely based on one of the abilities of the 5E Artificer draft.

The other 2nd level feature, Scroll Adept, allows the wizard to sometimes preserve an important spell scroll by casting it from a spell slot instead of consuming it. We wanted this wizard to also get some bonuses to using traditional spell scrolls.

The 6th level feature, Drafting Expert, is a cool ability that essentailly allows the wizard to use his allies actions as a way to cast his spells by giving them one of his draft scrolls. It also gives him one free draft scroll per day.

The 10th level feature, Scroll Master, allows them to use spell scrolls from any class.

The 14th feature, Speed Reader, allows them to use a spell scroll as a bonus action once per long or short rest.

We also want to not only give the players options, but to give the subclass some substance in the world. To that end, we included a brief description of Darian the Studious, a School of Scrolls NPC in Waterdeep. His description also includes an adventure hook that a DM might use. We also detail how the School of Scrolls might fit in the world of Ravenloft.

We look forward to any feedback!

Slime Dungeon

Here is an older map I drew that is formatted for roll20.net. It's 3 areas of a large dungeon/sewer filled with caustic slime. There is a duplicate image of the final dungeon room, filled with slime so you can change up the encounter on your players. When I ran it, the devious slaad priest released the caustic slime when the players had turned the tide on the enemies. The slime damaged the players and caused them to think about their movements, and make decisions about how to spend their precious heals. If you have another idea for the slime, drop me a note in the comments.

Slime Dungeon - Color

Alternate Dropbox link
Slime Dungeon - Color

College of Harmony Bard Updated

We updated and released the College of Harmony subclass for Bards on dmsguild.com today. Below is a list of changes we made. If you have downloaded the subclass already, make sure you get the updated file. If you haven't, head over to dmsguild.com and check it out.

College of Harmony - 1.1 Changelog:

Expert Manipulator - changed this feature to work on ability checks not saving throws.

Quick Tongue - Ultimately the ability to use any cantrip with this feature was deemed too powerful (cough Eldritch Blast cough). We've changed it to be more in line with the intention of the ability.

Wellspring of Inspiration - We wanted this bard to have more use of bardic inspiration, but this ability essentially made it where the bard never ran out of of inspiration.