Hey Folks-
Here's the February subclass poll, as well as the winners of the last subclass poll.
#1 Winner of the December Subclass Poll, Thug Rogue with 40 votes.
This is a pretty straight forward idea—there's others out there, but this is my take on it. The idea is that they are a brawler that specializes in exploiting advantages and beating down opponents, though cannot quite soak up the same punishment as something like a Fighter Brawler or a Way of Outcast Monk. A lot of the features are just mitigating the effect of specializing in Strength (armor, shields, etc), but they won't play like a classic Rogue.
The great at grabbing and beating folks though, which is what I wanted to make sure they had nailed down giving the theme. It'll need some tweaks for D&D 2024 users where Expertise doesn't interact with Grappling. Will put a note in for that at some point.
The 5th level feature comes from 5e++, which is why its optional, and why I didn't mind it integrating with my other content.
#2 Winner of the December Subclass Poll, Way of the Closed Fists... wait, what? That's not what won...
Let me explain. The second place winner was Way of a Thousand Fists. And I made it that. But when I posted some early looks on it, some people felt it needed more juice—more stuff.
At the same time I was also having people ask for 'what about the opposite, a Way of One Punch' or something like that.
So, after some discussions on the Discord in the Drafting Room, I decided to follow suggestions and put up mini-lightning round poll over there if I should expand the subclass into a broader concept—one that could keep most of the original features, but also cover this second concept, by being more of a Battlemaster of Monks—a 'build your own fist fighter' style approach, that can go toward either extreme.
I realize that the name theme are a bit weaker, but I think it makes up for that by letting the player have a bit more freedom. After all theme and narrative are what players bring to their character, so its probably fine if the subclass is a bit more generic if gives them all the tools they need to build a character.
Note: these have not been added to the Playtest Packet. The Playtest Packet is currently being edited. I will add these to it as soon as I get it back from editors.
For the time being, they are in a temp doc here: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-Oj3pDMH8_fj7ZOxpd-Z
February Subclass Poll
Now... onto the next poll! This poll is curated by having only classes that have 1 or fewer classes in the Playtest Packet. The current breakdown is:
Bard: 0
Barbarian: 1
Cleric: 3
Druid: 1
Fighter: 1
Inventor: 2
Monk: 3
Occultist: 2
Psion: 1
Paladin: 0
Ranger: 1
Rogue: 2
Sorcerer: 1
Spellblade: 1
Warden: 1
Warlock: 2
Warlord: 0
Wizard: 3
So that leaves Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Fighter, Psion, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Spellblade, Warden, and Warlord. Going to drop Psion from that list since development of those takes a bit longer, so it'll be restricted to another Kibbles-class Poll.
As always, you can vote for all the options you'd like to see. Poll will run for a week.