Class Changes for Rainfall

But what about the other casters? How are Bards, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers different without their casting? We’ll get to that in a second, but lets get through the easy stuff first. How are the non-casting classes changed?

The simple answer is not much. Barbarians have no major class changes. They do gain a new Path, the Path of the Ruins Walker, but otherwise they are no different in Rainfall. Fighters and Rogues both needed a change on their casting subclasses to fit with the magic in Rainfall. Both the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster have simply had some flavor text altered so that their magic matches up with the Enchanter instead of the non-existent Wizard. Finally, the only change for Monks is the removal of the Way of the Four Elements since it makes little sense in Rainfall. I’m still in the process of thinking about a replacement for that subclass or if it even needs one.

So on to the Bard. Bards without their casting have a much greater emphasis placed on their songs. To compensate for this, Bards gain a number of Bardic Inspiration uses equal to their level + their Charisma modifier. They also gain many new features that can make use of your Bardic Inspiration dice. These spells are based on things that bards commonly do with their spells and ties them more to their music. Song of aid can heal allies, song of resolve can remove debuffs, song of suggestion can mimic the effect of a Suggestion spell, and song of charms can, what else, charm. As a replacement for Magic Secrets, these spell-less Bards gain song of mimicry. This allows them to pick from a very small list of spells to be able to cast using their Bardic Inspiration. College of Lore is changed to give extra songs of mimicry and College of War is changed to allow you to perform a song with an attack instead of cast a spell. Finally, Bards gain a new College, the College of Voice. These Bards use their music to replicate the voice of the Preeminent and drive creatures to madness. This subclass also returns the Bard’s casting in a style similar to the Eldritch Knight as a form of Outer Magic.

Druids receive massive changes without their spell casting and also lose their Wild Shape. In place of Wild Shape Druids can use Wild Calling, allowing them to mimic creatures and influence their actions. This begins with just beasts, but expands to Monstrosities, Elementals, Aberrations, and eventually Preeminent. When mimicking a creature, other creatures see the Druid as one of their own. They can replace any check to influence that creature with animal handling and can convey information to them even if they don’t speak any language. As part of this, Druids can influence anything with a lower CR than themselves. To replace their spells, Druids gain Concoctions, potions or other alchemic substances created from plants. These allow Druids to replicate a very small number of spells and keep Druids playing very similarly to casters without having to use any magic. Their Circles are changed as well, focusing on improving the abilities of their Wild Calling or Concoctions.

The spell-less Paladin is very similar to its spell casting counterpart but with some changes to the flavor of their abilities. Their abilities generally deal with drawing from their inner resolve to push past effects and inspiring their allies to do the same. The major change is the addition of Heraldry as a replacement for spells. Heraldry allows the Paladin to select from a small selection of spells with a duration and allow them to be always active on themselves without having to be cast. This feature is still heavily in development and is being actively tested by a player in my group. There have been a lot of bugs and weird interactions with it and it definitely see some alterations in the future.

Finally, Rangers also see a similar play style to their casting version. The major feature that replaces their spells are Trick Shots. The feature works similarly to the Superiority Dice from Fighters. They can expend a use of their Trick Shot to produce a fantastic martial feat. They can bounce arrows off surfaces and around corners, can shoot weapons out of a creature’s hand, pin them to a surface with an arrow, knock projectiles out of the air with their own projectiles, and other similar features. But wait, you’re thinking, Rangers always could use melee weapons alongside ranged weapons and all these features sound like ranged weapon exclusive features. To make up for that, Rangers can now add the Thrown property to any weapon they’re wielding, allowing them to use it just like they would a throwing knife. With this, any Trick Shot can be used with both a ranged weapon or a thrown weapon.

While those are all the major class changes in Rainfall, there’s one more class to talk about: The Wiseman. This class is a brand new class added just for Rainfall. I’ve always thought a dedicated scholar type character was something that was missing from Dungeons and Dragons, so the Wiseman is my answer to that. Next time, that’s the class we’ll talk about.