Customizing Classes
Substituting Class Features in 5e
Page 287 of the dungeon master’s guide includes the following excerpt, which talks about swapping out class features you don’t like for different ones.
The DMG elaborates further on the next page, advising that players and DMs work together to ensure that features taking the place of the removed ones are both balanced and useful to the player. However, it doesn’t provide any guidelines for how to do this. Well, I’ve got some house rules that you can use as a set of guidelines in building a character with class feature substitution.
1. Substitute with existing class features: when you remove a class feature from your chosen character class, replace it with an existing feature from a different class. Using homebrew features is fun, but if you’re not looking to spend the time required to properly develop and balance a homebrew feature, pre-existing features from other classes are already developed for gameplay.
2. Avoid vertical feature substitution: when replacing one of your class features with a feature from a different class, make sure that the new feature would normally be gained at the same class level as the feature it replaces. This will help keep a class with substitute features balanced. First level features can tip the scales of game balance as easily -if not more so- as high level features.
3. Treat substitute features as belonging to the base class: when substituting features from a different class, the new feature should grant all the mechanical functions it would normally grant to its original class to the new one. This should not extend to functions which depend upon the character possessing another specific feature. For instance, if a player wanted to substitute a fighter’s extra attack with the monk’s stunning strike. Stunning strike requires that the character have access to Ki points from the monk’s Ki feature. If the character doesn’t have the Ki feature, then they shouldn’t be able to use stunning strike. For features that reference the class table, draw from the table belonging to the feature’s original class when determining what spell slots, resources, and bonuses are granted to the character.
4. Don’t stack subclasses: some classes gain their subclass feature earlier or later than others. The subclass provides a handful features as the character gains levels in the base class, and having more than one at a time can create issues with balancing gameplay, so it’s best to limit the number of subclass features a character can have to one per base class. If a player is choosing to multi-class while substituting features of one or both of those classes, it’s best to ensure that each base class only has one subclass feature. You should treat the gaining of features from each subclass as being tied to the leveling of each base class it’s attached to, as you would classes without feature substitutions. If a subclass feature is placed in a class which gains its subclass feature at a higher level, the higher level subclass should be removed, or replaced with a feature that isn’t a subclass. In keeping aligned with guideline number 3, you should not allow a character to use a subclass feature which requires a different feature if the character doesn’t have that feature. For example, the path of the beast subclass for barbarian requires the character to use the barbarian rage feature in order to activate one of its primary subclass features. If a player chooses to substitute a fighter’s martial archetype with this subclass, it won’t activate unless they also have the barbarian’s rage feature.