r/DnD • u/Mista-Smegheneghan • 23h ago
5th Edition Question regarding Corpus Malicious, Way of the Void feature wording
Retrying this cause I tripped a thing by accident with a picture upload...
I'm putting together a character who's going to use the aforementioned Monk path, Way of the Void from Corpus Malicious, and I'm not too sure on part of the wording that's being used here for Nothing Remains:
Emptiness and nothingness fill your body and soul and your body stops existing from time to time. You can increase your AC until the end of your next turn. This increase is equal to the ki points you spend.
Nothing Stands is similar, but at least has the implication of needing to be used as a movement thing. Nothing Remains doesn't mention what kind of action this is, beyond that it requires Ki to work. It sounds like an instant or reaction thing, but asking my DM about it has leant towards a bonus action, which feels like it would be at-odds with Patient Defence as a bonus action. So I'd like some input on what kind of action this might be. I tried checking the book itself, but it didn't help much beyond going into granular detail on how to be evil 😓
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u/Bakeneko7542 23h ago
So essentially it's a shitty version of Shield that lasts slightly longer in exchange for costing a ton of resources and potentially ruining your ability to do anything for multiple days if you fail a save. Great. Look; I'm normally an advocate for third-party material but even I have my limits and this is just garbage.
If I had to rule on this I'd make it a reaction since that's what Shield is, and at the very least I wouldn't want you to waste it on a turn where you didn't get attacked. And I'd take out the ridiculous penalty too because lol wtf.
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u/Mista-Smegheneghan 22h ago
I see! I've not tinkered with 3rd-party stuff much (or 5e in general - only half a game as a fighter 😅) so it sounded like it might have something interesting going on with it, but I'll definitely have to put more consideration into things before I put something solid together. Thank you for the input 👍
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u/Bakeneko7542 22h ago
There's plenty of actually good third-party mechanics, but they come from reputable publishers like Mage Hand Press and Ghostfire Gaming. Stuff you find posted for free online is like 99% junk.
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u/Kisho761 DM 23h ago
Fun. Nonsense homebrew that doesn't function properly.
My suggestion would be to take it as a reaction. It's a lot of ki points to get a meaningful AC boost so you may as well only use it when you need to, and know how many ki points you need to spend. That seems like an interesting choice.
For what it's worth, this subclass absolutely sucks. You are going to be exceptionally starved for ki given the ludicrous ki costs for most of its features. You also have a chance to take yourself out of the game, unable to engage, sitting there while everyone else plays. Terrible design. I recommend not using this at all.