Homebrew Thread

Each party member has a backstory tied to one of three young tiefling npcs. PC builds their char to have a strong desire to protect or otherwise seek out that NPC when they go missing one day, hopping on a boat to a distant continent. You hop on a ship to chase them, and find two or more ppl with similar stories. You hop out into a rowboat and get to pick any point on the horizon to row to, to get out of the muddy beach and onto land. It's a hex crawl, first through small villages and forts with small issues. Following clues and open-worlding your asses around, you eventually get into Fieldover, the largest city for the area, and find clues that one tiefling went west to a thief town, one went east to a religious temple, and one went north for an unknown reason. Every place on the map has something interesting, angels and devils are involved, and there's tons of (apparently) western tropes that my pcs never recognise.
>a man in black, pale old white man in a trenchcoat who offers the party deals
>a drow cowboy looking for a dead elf lady
>also there's Gith, Yuan-Ti, and a huge Hobgoblin Army marching on Fieldover.

yee-haw.

Working on a underwater fantasy that can be ported with most systems but struggling on how to do submarine combat with the party as the crew.

Maybe when I get home from work.

Play a mini game of Captain Sonar

Opportunity is a small town that became a city way too fast. Loudly snuck in the halfling hills of a continent that few people had access to before, a human company bought land from the elves there and invited adventurers and entrepreneurs to visit.
In debt and stuck in the poor slums of the back of town, where more pace had to be carved out from inside a hill-basking the inner city in darkness. A halfling with glowing eyes invites you into a business of heisting magical items from others, and offers good pay to cover your rent. Whether seeking excitement, chasing late-bills, or seeking to bust a crime-rig, you're in the mix. First mission is to get in someone's shop via the sewers and steal a "sword born from blood".

In a macedonian valley, your nice hometown sits near the edge of a small territory's borders. To the west is your kingdom's old ally, now cold war rival, the old fashioned and landlocked (not to mention, massive) Riverlands. Your region has become somewhat wealthy and peaceful, with a rich port that has access to the golden ports of ThreeCrown in the east (sorry for the cliche), and the large elven forest and murky swamp shielding their northern border. To the south are dwarven mountains that separate your sphere of the world from the odd lands of the Sunny Isles.
Recently entered, or having grown up- you have been trained by locals to become an amateur in your class and are excited to take bigger deals from the various groups or individuals in town- or even in the capital. But, the world is dangerous and so are their missions. You gotta explore and fight at your own pace to be able to survive the trip from your safe valley out to the more interesting places in the world.

PS: Lore- in the ancient past the "high elves" ruled everything with crazy magic. They got too zealous, and fell down hard and were cursed, becoming the Fallen Elves (basically drow-looking) obsessed with recovering back magical glory.
The (wood elves) Guardian Elves keep out of others' affairs, seeking only to keep the Fallen out of the public eye, and away from magic.

The dwarves picked up where the elves left off and built magical empires not from their blood and books, but from rare ores and reforged elven masterpieces. They rose to wealth and power, but were brought low by dragons who stole their trophies and ate their kings.

Now Humans, more specifically the wizards of ThreeCrown, are on the dawn of discovering the magical power that will slingshot them to the power-level of high-elven magic. And thus eventually bring a new calamity upon the world.

(cont, last block from me)
PSS: Stout halflings are all about the new 'humans in charge' thing and want to rake in the easy times from being inside the protected human borders.
Lightfoot halflings want a revolution to topple the wizards' powers to make sure they don't have to suffer through said calamity, but can't revolt on their own. Try to get others to do so for them.

I've made a bunch of homebrew games, rules, systems, settings, and concepts in my many years on Veeky Forums. I'm not even trying to brag or anything, I just have a lot of material so it's hard to know where to start.

I just like this game I made; specifically designed to evoke a specific video game it's based on plus an OSR dungeon crawler feel where advancement very organically comes from the dungeon/Cooler runs. I think it works pretty well.

The trouble is this thread lacks a strong identity. If you're doing a game design thread then that makes sense, you can ask questions and help design games. But a thread for finished material and rules seems kind of just like a gallery or a place to stroke your EPeen. I'm just struggling to think of what the use of this thread may be is all.

Feels kinda railroady, did you already have people play this?

The rest seem pretty good. I liked this one: and the "sworn born from blood", The mission to get in someone's shop gave me a really strong visual of tan egglike buildings stacked on top of each other assymetrically with gree trees growing out of the windows ringed around the tops of the eggs.

Critique from the general public of Veeky Forums? There is already a game design thread so yeah, a gallery IS where critique happens.

These stand-alone threads seem to be more productive than the general for this kind of thing, ironically.

The basic concept is an alt-history setting where mankind discovered magic on the moon, current idea is in the form of a dragon that taught one of the astronauts magic. Fast forward a thousand years, the history of Earth was obviously very impacted. Leaps in scientific fields were made with the new observational methods magic brought us. Russia and US are the top-dogs, given their focus on spacefaring programs. The United Nations is the seat of human government on Earth. The entire solar system has been terraformed with powerful magic beyond the scope of normal mages, layering alternate realities to achieve a desired result. The moon and Mars haven't changed much physically, given they were the first to be terraformed, but they're habitable. Magic academy is on the moon. Anyone can become a mage, but the process is likely to kill you. Magic is space themed, modeled after the vacuum of space, the sun, cosmic principles, etc.

Terraforming has a side effect, however. Invisible and normally intangible overlaps and rips in the fabric of spacetime called bleeds act as nexuses for alternate realities, and... things come through. This is a blank check for whatever weird shit you want to do. Alien monsters, strange diseases, entire displaced chunks of reality replaced with strange places from other realities. Jupiter is notorious for its bleed mines, but the unique alt-reality resources are too valuable to abandon. Venus has an abundance of strange creatures due to bleeds that have transported entire forests and jungles, and so on.

Technology varies wildly in aesthetics and function, given that there's still serviceable advanced technology from say, 700 years ago. To reuse an example, a 1998 Ford StarMaster would be much different from the newest ship made by the UN.

>What are some obstacles you are encountering with your homebrew?
Still other races.

That one's titled WOS. And yeah, two parties so far have played. one went from level 1 to level 4, that version was a blast- a total conan party. horc fighter, humonk, drwafbarian, no spellcasters. It was a total monster-wrangling blast.

Another swing at it was done by a party starting at 5th level, and the players were much younger than the last game. They went in thinking it was a one-shot, but kept playing for months. From 5th level to 8th level, and going through mostly new characters these past few months, they love it. They describe the setting as being anxiety-inducing as every faction they learn about just makes the whole region seem like a powder-keg ready to explode. But they still have time to fuck around, and their actions have direct (and unpredicatable by me) impact on the world around them.

The whole thing is based on devils, and I took a deliberate stance on railroading for it. The road, the plot- is that the characters lose and the devils' insanely convoluted plans go off without a hitch.
It's the pc's jobs to keep that from happening, and they can do a lot of help without even knowing what's really going on.

>kobold just allied itself with a dragon
>warlock is working for a Lamia and demons may become an unsightly ally against devil threats
>sorceror murdered the party's barbarian after they fell into a cult, and is retired to rebuilding the temple said barbarian exploded.
>Druid is slowly discovering that there's some fucked up undead shit going on and they want to get to the bottom of it
>and their fighter-paladin is an antagonist from the previous arc that is seeking redemption after being un-possessed by a devil thanks to the party.

(cont, because I realize one of my lines kinda missed my point I was tryna make)

the characters' self interest is in trying to stop the plot. There's no script for how to do that, and they have so far been VERY SURPRISING in ways to thwart (sometimes not on purpose) my villains' plans.
>suck jar

I worked a little on a game set in the Novis Orbis Librarium of the blazblue/Moriverse setting. Ultimately I'm a little burnt out from the other games I'm playing at the moment.

As for Opportunity, that one is just a compilation of one-shots in a neat setting. I have hiests going all the way up to epic levels, and the party can choose any that are available to them. Many unlock later ones, but otherwise the goal is just to have fun and progress characters.

blood blade *
Frost Stronghold
Hooked Nest
Forest Maze
Science Lab
Magnificent Mansion
Stop the Ritual
Behind the horn
The Bowgun
What’s to a Name
Ice Hag
Crash Landing
Scam the Giants
Soul Battery
Study Demons
Steal a Ship
Prison Break
Platinum Hoard

I'm running it over Discord. They chose to do the Forest Gate next.

>bookmarked this to read the sessions
>didn't put the bookmark in the toolbar so forgot about it
I'm going to read it, I promise.

I want some opinions on an idea I've been kicking around a little. It basically goes that the game is a normal RPG but the combat is replaced with a card based set-and-reveal type gameplay, with combos, techniques, and special moves. Basically I'm aiming to emulate the quick, mind-games facets of fighting games in a tabletop. I know Yomi, the card game based on fighting games, is a thing, but the games go on for way too long to be viable in an RPG. Anyone think this idea is worth pursuing or is it just gonna be gimmicky and dumb? Also, if you have any suggestions to improve the core concept, I'm super open.

Could you elaborate more on how you picture it working? I don't know much about card games. It sounds interesting though.

...

The idea basically goes that 2 participants (Player vs Player, Player vs GM) engage in a battle. They have a hand of playable moves to choose from, they each choose one, place it face down, and then reveal them at the same time. The cards would have different values like "Priority" to see which move activates first and other things like damage or special effects. Moves would also be able to combo'd into each other, say when a player successfully attacks, and then uses 2 or 3 cards from their hand to make a combo for extra damage. After that combo is over and the damage is resolved, the board resets, and both players repeat the process, trying to pick moves to catch each other out and win the fight. youtu.be/-8yb0C9yZBM this is an explanation of the game "Yomi", which my idea draws some inspiration from, from Watch It Played. It's a little long but it gives you an idea of how I'd want the flow to work.

Interesting. I skipped to the middle of that video and landed on the part where he explains combo flows. I'd definitely give it a try. It seems like a potentially fun alternative to standard combat mechanics.

That's my ultimate goal, since I think standard RPG combat is both way too slow, and way too boring usually. I want to give a fun, dynamic alternative.

Just make them play speed and say that the winner lands a hit.

Post your progress in the game design general when it's up.

It's okay; the game has been running for two years on weekly sessions. I've done 6 or so session logs. I have a bit to catch up on

making it so that the first person to land a hit wins kinda invalidates a lot of other play styles in fighting games, like characters that have super armor on their moves, or even characters that have slower, stronger moves.

Make the players put down 3 or so cards at a time to simulate reactability. Each card played either hits, is countered, or moves an advantage die. In other words, you can simulate an entire string of pressure with one play. All you need after that is a simple combo system, three tiers of attacks that always combo into the next heaviest tier should do.

The challenge with this kind of a setup is you need a way to make characters feel different without creating entirely different decks. Part of the reason fighting games don't feel good as card games is because a fighting game character's toolkit is too intricate for a single card.

I'm working on a system like this for my blazblue system.

An early second industrial revolution era flat world which only recently developed the technology to explore the edges of their world, only to find that rather than simply falling off the edge into oblivion, there was an entire divergent world evolved upside-down. The players are all part of an expeditionary force, either self-funded (minimal funds maximum freedom, privately funded (moderate funding with moderate freedom), or publicly funded (maximum funding minimum freedom). The entire campaign is a march to the center of Flan (the name of the underside) as they deal with the logistics of dwindling fuel, ammo, and food (water is fairly easy to come across—it 'rains' up from the Sky-Sea daily, tracking where the moon would be on the opposite side of the planet).
The top-side is intentionally generic, with the most creative aspect being the geography, race characterization, and the gods, which are largely inspired by Crawl. As such there is no cleric class, worshiping a god is the only requirement to gain some benefit (just don't offend or abdicate your deity, there are huge consequences, that's why there are few devout followers nowadays). Of the races, I'd say Orcs are the most interesting. They once assembled the most fearsome army in the name of their extremely powerful gods and crusaded against the other gods. As punishment themselves and their three gods had curses placed upon them, one made a coward and the other made gluttonous, with the mightiest curse placed upon their chief god, a curse so deathly any weaker god would immediately perish. Anyone playing an Orc gains one random curse and one random blessing, one of each for every member of the pantheon.
The only obstacles are myself, and my tendency to procrastinate forever and work on the things that aren't actually necessary for play. I'm working hardest on the gods, because it's fun.

>3 cards
I'll be real, thats pretty smart and I hadnt thought of it before at all. How does it actually work, is it a player's first card vs the other player's first card and then the second and then the third? How does the actual "first hit" work?

You would play it out like an actual fighting game. You reveal both, and the one with the highest total frame advantage hits. This would be calculated by who has greater frame advantage from last string, + the cards speed. Frame advantage would have to be a tracker that starts at 0 and can move toward either player when they gain or lose frames.

Some of the cards you could play should represent blocking or reversals. If a medium or heavy attack is revealed against a block, then the attack costs the attacker whatever frames it costs, but doesnt get to hit. Of course, you would have to tune the numbers so that the light attacks are + on block, mediums are even or -, and heavies are always -.

In the event of a counter, you play out the rest of the three cards in your gambit as long as they combo into each other. In the event of a block, you reveal the next card, tally up the frame advantage/disadvantage from the attack, then do another double reveal. At some point you have to ready another stack of three cards.

It sounds complicated, but it's just a way to replicate the gameplay of airdash fighters.

and so this just goes until someone lands a hit. What if someone lands a hit on the very first card, isnt that a little anticlimactic?

Not really. They either get to combo off with the rest of their cards, or in the event that their next card DOESN'T combo off of their first, the other player gets another chance to block. This way it mirrors how real fighting game strings play out because sometimes you drop a combo just to try to get a "reset". Also sometimes your followup to an attack is something you chose because both are safe on block, even if they don't combo.

Ultimately I advise against using this kind of a system if you don't already understand technical fighting game decision trees, but playing gambits of three is still a decent idea.

A simpler version might forgo frame advantage and speed as a mechanic entirely and use a different condition for starting a combo.

There are five great Nations who, though the careful development of an international system of thirteen international Guilds, have remained at relative peace for sixty years. However, with the discovery of the titanic landmass far to the south, dubbed the Lost Continent, each Nation seeks to plunder it, not only for the mysterious artifacts it holds, but also for the valuable resource that enables the development of trains, factories, weapons and, more importantly, airships.

However, in an act of peace, all the nations have sworn to keep national forces away from the land outside of a token peacekeeping force. Instead, they have encouraged Companies within their borders to plunder the land in their stead. This has created a booming industry where daring company owners staff their ships with crews and hire the best of the best, Guilders from several of the Guilds and form daring expeditions into the Lost Continent, seeking adventure and fortune, all while the world waits on the edge of war.

Yes, it's steam, but I made it for my love of 19th Century Europe and exploration.

>Bonus Question
My biggest obstacle is finding people to playtest this with. I have like 70% of a finished product, and it's definitely workable, but I can't get people to get past their knee-jerk hate of steampunk and thinking this is cogfop, which I understand.

You want setting or game system pitch?

My first homebrew:

A mostly pre-industrial fantasy world (contains muzzle loaded guns and rare steam-punk elements). There are 5 great nations who are protected by Demi-god elementals. The demigods keep peace and maintain borders within their territory as the "lower races" can not be trusted to maintain peace themselves. Demi-gods protect their relic that they pass to the group thy see fit to rule. Trouble arises when one of the demigods goes missing. A Netherlord and his cult try to open a portal to enleash an evil demi-god to take the previous ones place, Local leaders believe there is a connection with the timing.

Lore sidenote: An Atlantean civilization known for tinkering make their own machine guardian. they gift their relic to an a group of natives living on nearby islands to see what happens causing a civil war between the people.

Suggestions?

>Suggestions?
Explain more about the world.

What's the system?

It's somewhat like WoD, in that it uses a number of d10's and successes but that's where the similarities end.

If anyone is interested I'd be happy to show the work. I'm also looking for people to play test. If you're interested just email me at [email protected]

What kind of stories are you looking to tell with it? How far does the steampunk aesthetic go?

set in the 70s/80s, the world has a secret magical society behind the scenes pulling strings and developing alongside humanity (think harry potter but wizards arent all morons).

the plot hook is that my players are part of the magical containment division of the FBI. Since my players all have different schedules i will run an episodic, monster-of-the-week style game.

I mostly want to tell either political intrigue or high adventure. The Company serves as a good avenue for either.

As far as the steampunk aesthetic, it's more fantasy than anything else, as the steam is caused by unobtanium basically. There are air ships, but they're more like flying naval vessels, there's fantastic chemistry, weak magic, and clockwork stuff is dedicated to pretty much only one Guild.

Doing a setting here. Brazilian, so the blog is in portuguese. The only english post is this: atmarpg.blogspot.com.br/2018/01/african-fantasy-ideas-for-adventures.html
>African Fantasy Overview

>What are some obstacles you are encountering with your homebrew?
Having enough interesting details and plot hooks for every place, at least seven or eight.

>Some things you are working hard on?
Writing down the final, oficial rules and lore of each race. Some are done already.

I shouldn't think this because it doesn't do it justice, but it sounds kinda boring. I mean, the ideas aren't bad, but it isn't grabbing attention as it should.

Give us names to latch on, little details that amuse and interest, action scenes to imagine, unique elements to impress.

Is it a setting or a novel you're aiming for?

What's the machine guardian like?

What's a netherlord?

How'd you make the galaxy map? Stuff looks really cool.

Just in photoshop. Have you read into the game? Got any critiques?

Guess I'll throw both up.

>Setting
Set in the land of Aegeos, 200 years after the fall of the Shazriq Empire and tge coming of the goddess, Pyrisia, the people of the Pyrisian Empire have rebuilt on the back of the goddess' blessing, the Fireglass, shards broken off of her pillar of crystallized fire upon the impact that destroyed the Shazriq.

To the east, the Shazriq cities have been conquered by the elves of the Dryadalis Imperium. Arrogant, selfish, and biologically immortal, they have spent the last 200 years politicking, back-stabbing, lording over their Goblin slaves, and protecting their greatest weakness: the secret that they are sterile byproducts of an alchemic experiment to create superior slaves from the Goblin tribes, forced to rely on their slaves for their continued existence. The newly crowned First Empress has other ideas, though.

Despite their Elven masters' grasp, rebellion grows among the Goblin tribes. A movement backed by the Lich Priests of Vitario, everliving creatures the bitter god of life whispered his secrets to, so they can work towards his goals in secret. Fueled by the undead remains of loved ones and tribesmen, the Goblin Rebellion works to overthrow the Dryadalis Imperium and free their people.

Meanwhile, to the south across the desert, the massive reptilian Sobki grow restless over the spreading influence of the Pyrisian Cult. Content to rule their lands in peace, knowing they had treasures the north covet, the introduction of Fireglass has begun to tip the scale and has caused unease in the Pharaoh's courts.

As the powers that be begin to prepare for the coming war, the Dwarven mercenary companies of the Northsea Consortium see an opportunity to line their pockets, and the vicious Drak'iiron Tribes hunt from the wilds, believing their slumbering dragon gods will give them the strength to crush the civilized heretics.

>Game
Aegeos: Searing Shards is a platoon-sized skirmish war game designed to be used with 28-32mm miniatures.

Players take turns activating small units of 2-6 models ranging from the trained legionnaires of the Dryadalis Imperium, to the shambling zombies of the Rebellion, to the massive devout giants of the Pyrisian Empire, to the exotic crocodilemen of the Sobki Kingdom. Using an opposed-roll dice pool system, Aegeos focuses on models combining their attacks to take down larger and more dangerous threats, while still being flexible for one-on-one clashes between troops.

>Got any critiques?
All I can tell you is that it all seems very generic. It gives me the feeling that it's very similar to something I've already read, but forgotten about entirely. Not to say that there's no redeeming qualities. The d100 system is interesting, as is the character creation, and so are the planets. The entire factions bit I don't feel qualified to comment on at all, because I couldn't make sense of any of it. That may just be because I'm retarded.

Specifically, I think you need to make it more unique. Move away from standard labels and stereotypes. Celestials that are basically space angels? Hellborne? Space orcs? Light and dark magic? Just change names and change some details, add more nuance, and that can go a long way. Also work on etymology for the planets and other things. The names, while being made up, SOUND very made up.

I'm honestly not sure that I might just be missing that this is something that's building off of something already established, that's how much feeling of sameness I'm getting.

That sounds real fuckin' neato. I'd love to try playing that.

The game is set entirely within one huge vertical city, with levels quite strictly separated from one another. Things are sold exclusively upwards, so that on a given level you can buy goods from all the levels below and your own, but not the goods of the levels above. This leads to a massive tech disparity between the levels, where level 0 is tribal shitters amazed and terrified by a musket and level 7 is crystal spires and togas tech so advanced it might as well be magic. Obviously there is some black market fuckery going on but the currency of one level is so worthless on the level above that any black market goods, while potentially ludicrously overpowered compared to what's around you, will be worth a not-so-small fortune. It is legally possible to become a citizen of the level above the one you're on, and the requirements are very simple: own or rent a property on the level, and you may live there. If however, you no longer can afford to live on a level, you're forcibly chucked down to the next one (if they can catch you). Obviously each level exploits the one below itself massively, level 1 for example has roughly pre-WWI tech and uses it to run what amount to small colonial towns on level 0, where they mine the waste products of the entire city for raw resources to process on level 1. Level 2 exerts control over level 1 by funding and backing various factions while prodding them enough to have a sporadic low scale war going on, leaving the various mining interests desperate to sell resources upwards at whatever price is possible. And so it goes. The players start submerged in sewer water on the untamed edge of level 0. The whole level is mostly underwater with islands of compressed debris dotting the sea and a ring of walkable territory around the edge. They wake up with no memories, except for one thought: the overriding desire to kill The Mayor

Wrote this up from a thread on sup/tg/ for 5e.
They're not supposed to be fought, but I did want them to have some ability to fight back when needed. The idea is that they when they're attacked, they screech, turn invisible, and flee.

Thanks, user. The game would center around the crew of a ship, and it would be about your adventures in space. You could just try to get by, take on bounties, contracts, scavenge, trade, smuggle, take on passengers, explore uncharted space, etc. Or you could be important people who are involved in the political side of things. I'm working on a trading system, a magic system that depends on a mana economy (but also has spellcrafting) and a Trade system, which would be like classes. Trades would essentially be your job. Mechanic, mercenary, pilot, mage, cook (don't underestimate good food in space), and so on.

The things that I'm tripping up on are planets and races beyond our solar system. I'm sure how far I should push the space fantasy angle.

>They wake up with no memories, except for one thought: the overriding desire to kill The Mayor

I'll look into that, making better names and making it be less generic, I'm into that stuff so that should be fun.

All in all it draws huge influence from Orion's Arm orionsarm.com, so if you've read that that could be the reason for the sameness.

I have some unfinished rules for a morale-system that introduces breaking / routing into d&d 5e.

docs.google.com/document/d/1VwXENjwjtlncSxp-G4ns3dMJtwf-TBEDlMqVhb7-Ca8/edit?usp=sharing

Opinions are welcome. I try to keep it as simple as possible, and to have as few extra rolls as possible.
Essentially, you assign baddies for encounters a Fighting Spirit-stat, which is between 1 and 10, and then you roll a d10 for each monster, at the top of the round, to see if they run away.
Except, you only roll if the balance of combat has somehow shifted for the worse, since the baddies last rolled.

Playtesting so far is one single encounter, but that was pretty fun.

Yawn.

How to unyawn it, in your opinion?

...

That's pretty nifty, so if the PCs are fucking shit up, you roll to check if any baddies tuck-tail and leave?

I made this subraces handbook awhile back. There's been a decent number of downloads, but very little discussion, unlike I had hoped.

Struggling with power creep in homebrew is a general woe. I'm making a Races Hanbook, and it's tough to be close to balanced with conversions into 5e races sometimes.

Why is the invisibility on a random roll?

>Bonus Question: What are some obstacles you are encountering with your homebrew? Some things you are working hard on?
This is for 5e.

I'm trying to figure out if the +1 HP is too much due to the AC being 18 (Breastplate + Shield), but when I tested it without the +1 these guys are super crazy glass cannons. I don't want to invalidate Hexblades or make something that's stronger than them.

Also, I'm trying to figure out if the Arcane Strike feature should have the "Once per turn" clause, I had it like that for a while, but could not justify why they needed the once per turn clause or what would break if I removed it.

Didn't want to make it too OP. My thoughts behind it were '"it's not a perfect creation, so it needs -some- limitation".

I might make the stunning scream on a normal action instead of a bonus, and make the invisibility until end of next turn, rather than 1d6.

The screech action is already both an attack and bonus action.
I can provide you with the source .docx if you want? I don't mind my homebrews being personalised and spread around, I'd be flattered.

1drv.ms/w/s!AuV3lw5bQ_9aikGsoaURwx8axJ5E
Here ya go

Essentially.
Say, a highwayman may have a base Fighting Spirit of 5 - he will never need to roll morale until his Fighting Spirit is reduced to 5 or less.
So, if he has somewhat competent leadership that is a +1 modifier, and if him and his gang outnumber the PCs that is another +1. So he starts the battle with 5+1+1 = 7

That means the PCs need to introduce at least -2 worth of negative modifiers, before he has to roll morale.
That could be:
> Losing his leader (-1 for a round, in addition to the loss of the +1 bonus the leader granted)
> Being terribly wounded (-2 in itself)
> Watching allies cut down or fleeing (-1 temporary for a round)
> etc. etc.

So, if the PCs wound the highwayman terribly on the first round, he may have to roll morale already at the top of round 2 (He now has 5+1+1-2 = 5 ) and if he rolls a 6 or higher, he runs from combat (or begins to)

My only comment would be that the sort of "domain spells" you get, on the table ought to count against spells known, and simply be extra options.
They do for warlock, they do for cleric (if I remember correctly) - and if they are simply extra spells then this class becomes a mechanically far better and more versatile option than both the PHB sorcerer-variants.

Let people sacrifice some of their magey amazingness, if they want to gish.

Also, cool homebrew. I actually really like it.

Neat.

bump

So there are a few reasons why I chose to not make those spells an expanded spell list and gave them off as bonus spells.

>One: This class does not have much melee orientated damage output before level 6 and they would need some incentive to go into melee before then when you could just be at a range casting spells with an AC of 18.
>Two: These spells are melee spells (fitting the seamless magic and might theme) and very situational ones at that (Would you cast Wrathful Smite over a Twinned Haste or Fly?) so they are not extremely powerful and warrant picking them out for your limited (15) number of spell knowns.
>Three: Sorcerers could use some extra spells, they have a weaker Wizard spell list overall, they only have 15 total by level 20 (Other full casters have around 22+ spells by then) adding an extra 5 really situational, mostly concentration based spells does not seem like it would be a bad thing for the objective of this subclass.
>Four: Wizards of the Coast have tried doing this before, though it is UA and did not make it into the final version, Storm Sorcerer did have a similar feature except their spells were much stronger/flexible (Fog Cloud, Thunder Wave, Levitate, Call Lightning, Conjure Minor Elementals, Conjure Air Elemental to name a few) and you got all 9 of them, here you only get 5 extra spells and the majority of them are very situational melee focused ones that you may not get much use out of. Officially Divine Soul Sorcerer is the closest thing as it gets 1 free spell and the entire cleric spell list as an expanded spell list, it's not the same as the 5 free spells but those spells are pretty helpful.

So I feel it balances out even though nothing does this officially. I had considered it being an Expanded spell list for quite a while, but really no one would pick most of these spells with the Sorcerer's really limited amount of spells known.

I've been doing a bit of homebrew converting from an anime RPG called Grancrest. Basic idea for the system is the players get a crest that gains levels and powers over the campaign. They are powerful encounter based abilities. I tried to keep it reasonable where maxing HP of creatures would keep it balanced some.

Its not done, this is just a draft, but what do people think of the balance? Is it too powerful so far or somewhat reasonable that good encounter design can handle it? How about even just the idea of the system