U80 Preview 1 - Iconic Duergar Mindcleaver

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SteelStar

SteelStar

Senior Systems Designer
Hello, everyone! Welcome to your first look at the Duergar Mindcleaver Iconic.

If you haven't yet, we suggest you take a look at the preview for base Duergar first - It will give a better basis for understanding Duergar and this Iconic.

Mindcleavers are Duergar who tap into the power of their mind to create axes made of Psionic energy as well as empowering their own weapons. Let's take a look! As usual, many of their enhancements are shared with base Duergar; things that are different from the base Duergar are in blue.

Duergar Mindcleavers are Forgotten Realms characters.
Duergar Mindcleavers start with 1 level of Fighter (no archetype).
  • (Yes, this is the second Iconic Fighter we've done. However, they should have a pretty distinct niche relative to Purple Dragon Knight.)

+1 STR, +1 INT
  • Dwarven Stability
  • Dwarven Stonecunning
  • Weapon Familiarity: Dwarven Waraxe
  • Giant Evasion
  • Orc and Goblin Bonus
  • Poison Save Bonus
  • Spell Save Bonus
  • Enlarge Self: Transmutation SLA: For one minute, you grow in size, granting you a +5 Psionic Bonus to PRR. 6 SP, 20 second cooldown. This cancels Reduce.
  • Reduce Self: Transmutation SLA: For one minute, you shrink in size, granting you a +3% Psionic Bonus to Dodge. 6 SP, 20 second cooldown. This cancels Enlarge.
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Duergar Mindcleaver Enhancement Tree​

Cores​

  • Underdark Upbringing: +5 Max HP, +6 Max Spell Points
  • Mindcleaver Abilities: +1 INT or CON
  • Underdark Upbringing: +5 Max HP, +6 Max Spell Points
  • Mindcleaver Abilities: +1 INT or CON
  • Underdark Upbringing: +5 Max HP, +6 Max Spell Points

Tier 1​

  • Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
  • Duergar Shape I: While Enlarged, you gain a +3 Psionic Bonus to Attack. While Reduced, you gain +3 Psionic Bonus to Max Dodge and the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last for two minutes.
  • Mind Weapons: You can tap into your soul to manifest and empower weapons. This grants both the ability to conjure physical Soul Axes to wield as weapons, as well as the ability to enchant your current weapons to be more powerful.
    • This enhancement has three components:
      • Conjure Mindcleaver: Mindcleavers are Dwarven Waraxes made of force and may use your Intelligence modifier for their attack and damage. Mindcleavers share some of the properties of Flame Blade: As you level up, they become more powerful. They appear in your Weapon slot; you can see their description box as with any weapon. If you unequip your Mindcleavers, they will dissipate into nothingness and must be summoned again.
        • (As you level up, your Mindcleavers get level-appropriate versions of Impactful, Force Blast, Combat Mastery, and Destruction).
      • Conjure Dual Mindcleavers: Creates a Mindcleaver in each hand.
      • Empower with Mind: This effect changes your equipped weapons, shields & orbs to the Force material type, causes them to be treated as implements, and grants a +1 enhancement bonus. This is considered an Item Enchantment. As an object made of force, it's immune to damage from oozes & rust monsters, although any special material properties of the original weapon remain.
  • Armor Cleaver: +1/2/3 Sunder DCs
  • Forge Apprentice: You gain proficiency with Handaxes, Light Picks, Light Hammers, Throwing Axes, and Throwing Hammers, and consider them Simple Weapons.

Tier 2​

  • Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
  • Duergar Shape II: While Enlarged, you gain a +3 Psionic Bonus to Damage. While Reduced, you gain a +3% Psionic Bonus to Max Dodge. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last for three minutes.
  • Unbreakable Spirit: +1/2/3 Will Saving Throws
  • Psychic Armor: You gain +2/4/6 Force Absorption and +2%/+4%/+6% Psionic bonus to your total Armor Class.
  • Forge Familiarity: Your Arcane Spell Failure chance while wearing armor is decreased by 5%/10%/15%.

Tier 3​

  • Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
  • Duergar Shape III: While Enlarged, you gain a +5% Psionic Bonus to Fortification Bypass. While Reduced, you gain a +5 Psionic Bonus to Natural Armor. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last for five minutes.
  • Mind's Edge: Melee Sunder Attack: You conjure a Mindcleaver and send it hurtling at target foe, making an Attack roll on that target and dealing damage with your main hand Melee weapon if it hits, plus 1d4 Force Damage per Character Level to that target that scales with 100% Melee Power. In addition, the affected target must make a Will Saving Throw (14 + STR/INT mod + Sunder Bonuses) or be Sundered, losing -10% AC penalty and - 25% Fortification for 6 seconds. This ability is considered a Sunder for the purpose of other abilities.
    • (This is, functionally, a main-hand-melee attack at range.)
  • Great Weapon Aptitude: +5/10/20% Strikethrough Chance
  • Forgemaster: Axes, Picks, and Hammers in your hands become Spellcasting Implements, and no longer take item damage.

Tier 4​

  • Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
  • Duergar Shape IV: While Enlarged, you gain a +2 Psionic Bonus to Critical Confirmation and Damage. While Reduced, you gain a +10 Psionic Bonus to MRR. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last until rest or death.
  • Perfect Mindcleavers : Mindcleavers and weapons that are Empowered With Mind that you wield cause enemies to become Shaken for 6 seconds. This can apply once every 2 seconds.
  • Shattering Mind: Your Mind's Edge now explodes when it hits its target, hitting enemies in a small radius. Affected enemies also suffer the Psychic Trauma effect, which grants -3 to Will Saving Throws. Stacks 5 times. Lasts 24 seconds.
  • Invisibility: SLA. 6 SP, 12 second cooldown.
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Iconic Past Life Feats​

  • Iconic Past Life Stance: +2% Force Absorption per stack of this Past Life.
  • Passive Bonus: +1 Saving Throw vs. Illusions per stack of this Past Life
 
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Wisefreelancer

Well-known member
I really love this.

The conjured axes have really nice visuals and glow. I really hope we get an equivalent "static" version in the expansion at 36 like the shadow/flame blades.

Enlarge/reduce are relevant and impactful to the class. Having to recast every 5 mins might get a bit annoying unless you have the tier 4. Some nice tank stuff for once in a racial too with extra AC.

The point about sentient weapons is still a big issue. And the weapons want you to be able to go Int to hit and damage, but unless you forgo sentience you can't which is bad.

Could the cores 3 and 5 grant int to hit and int to damage, perhaps only with relevant weapons? Allowing conjured weapons for heroics and then the flavour to continue into epics and beyond?

Its not going to be a super over-powered option, but it will be cool and have a role as a viable option amongst existing ones for some builds.
 
S

SquireZed

Well-known member
It feels bad to be an intelligence based martial who gets a strength bonus at the cost of the constitution bonus from duergar. I would rather see +1 Str/+1 Int/+1 Con/-2 Cha (like the penalty dwarves have) so that your durability isn't worse than baseline duergar.

That said, the concept is interesting. I do think having some way to use int with sentient weapons is mandatory though, even if it's just dwarven axes or something. Otherwise you end up having to invest into Harper anyway and at that point you're basically not engaging with the concept of the iconic beyond what you could do just putting the Harper tree on a dwarf.

Forge Apprentice feels weird on a fighter. You already have those proficiencies, and while treating them as simple helps specific builds it only really makes sense to have if you switch out the fighter level with a heart. Since duergar have dwarven axe proficiency, you're always going to have a free exotic proficiency which gets you strike through *and* is one handed. It's hard to feel excited for light hammers when you can have the every dwarf's dream weapon in your hands instead.

The invisibility SLA is next to worthless on a fighter. It is iconic to duergar though. Would actually be a good spot to put intelligence to hit and damage with dwarven battleaxes to get around the "you need Harper for sentient weapons" situation.

I am a bit disappointed it's a fighter, but I'm not unhappy with the flavor or anything, I just think there's some odd choices in the tree because what works for duergar as a blank slate does not work for a duergar fighter.

Edit:

Forgot to look at the past life. It's... mediocre. Saves vs. illusion is better than nothing, but it's far behind the utility of the other saving throw bonuses besides dark bargainer. I'm not even sure what monster effects, off the top of my head, count as illusions, but at least for spells the ones I can think of are like, color spray and phantasmal killer. GCS, CS, PK, and hypnotic pattern is the full list of illusion spells that have saves, and I don't recall if I've been hit with color spray (though I do remember some prismatic effect, can't remember what spell or effect it was from). There are player features that benefit from illusion DCs which I assume would assume enemy equivalents would benefit from saves vs. illusions, but... not that many. On the flip side, enchantment is a long list of nasty effects- command, hold, dance, sleep, and so on- that I know monsters use, and I presume a lot of monster abilities with similarly effective abilities are also enchantments.

Ironically, enchantment would make sense for duergar with their history with mind flayers, since mind flayers have enchantment spell effects (don't know if mind blast is typed like a spell or not but if it is it's probably evocation or enchantment- might not be of any spell school though since it's a magical effect).
 
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azrael4h

Well-known member
Why +1 stat bonuses? This was weird on the Dhampir Iconic too, given how D20/D&D has worked in 3.x and 5.x editions.

A little surprised by another Fighter Iconic, and a psionic flavor too. Kinda hurts on my main since I don't actually need Fighter or Dragonlord lives, but I can make it work.
 
Christhemiss

Christhemiss

Maker of Builds
bugs:
cosmetic armor name is tbd
no cosmetic cloak
can only take int in the cores. no con
the shaken proc does not work
same bugs as normal duergar that i reported

things i would change:
the cores should increase in power, like 5 hp for the first, 10 for the second, 15 for the third
the mind weapons have combat mastery which is a sucky effect. give them another debuff instead
minds edge is not powerful enough. the damage should be higher and the cooldown should be lower
the aoe on shattering mind should be bigger
this race doesnt really have any big oomp class fantasy ability like the other iconics. Currently the only cool thing it has are the summoned axes (which suck), and the aoe axe attack (which sucks). I'd like to see more bonuses/benfits to using axes and/or the summoned axes
 
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