The Chainer

Restraining Training

At 1st level, you have honed your body to wield chains as natural extensions of your body. If you are already proficient in Athletics, you gain expertise in Athletics instead.

Saves

Some Chainer Callings might require an enemy to make a physical saving throw against your save DC. If they do, you use your Strength modifier when setting the saving throw DC.

Save DC = 8 + Proficiency bonus + Strength modifier

Tether Maker

At 2nd level, when you finish a long rest, you can expend 1 gp in materials to create a copy of a non-magical chain you can control. You can repeat this process at the end of a long rest until you have a combination of chains equal to the maximum amount of chains you can control at a time.

Grasping Tethers

Starting at 2nd level, your magical affinity for chains allows you to exploit clumsiness in your opponents. Whenever you attempt to grapple a target, instead of a free hand you may instead use a chain, which is magically tethered to your person. You can have a number targets grappled this way equal to the number of chains you can control. The range of a grapple made this way is equal to the range you can attack with your chains.

As a bonus action, you can attempt to grapple a target.

Chainwielder’s Calling

At 3rd level, choose a calling you follow as you strive to master the magics that tie reality together. The calling you choose grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Iron Restraint

At 6th level, your techniques with grappling others have grown more advanced as you learn to take down larger targets. When you grapple a target using a chain, you can instead devote a number of chains you can control to grappling a larger target. For Large targets use 4 chains, for Huge targets use 6 chains, and for Gargantuan targets use 10 chains.

Additionally, attacks you make with chains are considered magical for the purposes of overcoming magical resistances.

Unbreakable Grip

At 9th level, your magic infuses your chains with the fortitude of mountains. Chains you wield are immune to non-magical sources of damage, and resistant to magical sources of damage.

Suffocating Assault

At 11th level, you can use an action or bonus action to tighten the bindings on a grappled target. To do so, make another grapple check, if you succeed, the target is Restrained until the grapple ends.

Deadweight

At 13th level, you can unnaturally bolster your strength while grappling a target. While you are grappling a target, you can move up to your full movement speed. Likewise, while grappling a target, you can not be forcefully moved by magical or physical effects.

Chainer’s Deathknell

At 17th level, dark energies suffuse your body, enabling you to restrain your victims beyond their physical form. Whenever you grapple or restrain a target, they make a Constitution saving throw against your saving DC. On a fail they suffer one of the following conditions of your choice: Blinded, Deafened, Frightened, or Silenced (can not produce sound by any means) for 1 min.

Mastered Technique

At 20th level, you have fully mastered wielding chains to unnatural degrees of skill. Extend the range of chain attacks you make up to 60 ft.

Chainwielder's Calling

Different Chainers manifest their magics through a myriad of binding techniques and attacks by following a Calling. These paths can manifest in connections to the wilds, connections with the souls of dead, or duty to maintain order in the world

Elemental Bladesmith

A dwarf sweats over a set of iron chains, a fire wreathing the interlocking links. A cryomancer pulls whips of ice from the snow, a flurry of lashing links. A gnome dances in the rafters of a barn, his bladed chains biting the flesh of rats below.

Elemental Bladesmiths are Chainers who have devoted themselves to innovation and connection with the elements. While chains serve as the focus of their craft, Bladesmiths modify their tethers to overcome obstacles, and enhance them with the elemental fury of the planes.

Lesser Augmentation

At 3rd level, your tinkering with metals has allowed different attachments to be made to tethers you wield by forging them onto chains. Choose an attachment to remain forged on chains you control, these attachments are replicated when you create new chains with Tether Maker.

Weighted : Iron balls weight your tethers, knocking creatures off balance when struck. When you hit an enemy using a weighted chain, you can force the enemy to move 10 ft away from you.

Barbed : Barbed hooks stud the length of your tethers. When an enemy succeeds on a grappling check or breaks free from a grappling check against you, they take piercing damage equal to your Strength modifier.

Elemental Enchantment

At 7th level, you can imbue your tethers with magics from the elemental planes. These enchantments are replicated when you create new chains with Tether Maker.

Fire : Fire wreathes the lengths of your tethers in a hot glow. When a creature is grappled by you or ends its turn grappled, it takes 1d8 fire damage.

Lightning : Arcs of electricity jump along your tethers. When a creature is struck by your chains it is momentarily shocked, and can’t make a reaction until your next turn.

Ice : A misty frost laces the outside of your tethers. When a creature is hit by a chain you control, its movement speed is reduced by half.

Greater Augmentation

At 10th level, your forging techniques have improved to provide more complex augmentations. Choose an attachment to remain forged on chains you control, these attachments are replicated when you create new chains with Tether Maker.

Climber’s Hooks : Hooks cap the ends of your chains. When you hit a creature of size Large or larger, you can spend your bonus action to bury your hooks into the target with a magically sharpened hook. As long as a hook is buried this way, you can occupy the same space as the target by climbing onto the target with the chain as an anchor. A creature can spend an action removing this hook and take 2d6 slashing damage. While climbing a creature this way, the creature has disadvantage on melee attacks against you.

Thieves’ Claws : Mechanical claw cap your chains, opening and closing at will. When you hit an enemy using a chain you control, you can spend your bonus action forcing the creature to make a Strength save against your Chainer save DC, on a fail, one item they are holding is disarmed and brought to you if you have a free hand, or otherwise placed at your feet.

Material Enhancement

At 15th level, rather than using mundane materials of leather and iron to forge your chains, choose a material to form the makeup of your chains.

Silver : Shapechangers will revert to their true form when touching your tethers.

Electrum : Casters of your choosing may cast a touch spell along the length of your chain, and have it target anybody else who is targeting the chain as if they were touching the caster.

Adamantine : These tethers are nearly weightless in their indestructibility, giving you increased reaction times. You gain +1 to initiative rolls and once per a day can use an additional bonus action as if you had two bonus actions.

Mastery of the Forge

At 18th level, you can combine together the magic of your chains to increase their potency. At the end of a long rest you can have your chains forged together to increase their combat power.

Combining two identical chains together makes a Charged tether, which retains all the properties of the previous chains, but gets +1 to attack rolls, damage, and grappling checks made by the chains.

You can use 2 Charged tethers to make an Empowered Tether, which instead has +2 to attack rolls, damage, and grappling checks made by the chains.

You can use 2 Empowered tethers to create a Flawless tether, which instead has +3 to attack rolls, damage, and grappling checks made by the chains.

You can have no more Charged, Empowered, or Flawless chains then the number of chains you can control. If you would use multiple chains to make a grappling check against a larger target with different bonuses, use the lowest bonus of the chains used.

Mage Breaker

In a world of magic, wizards and sorcerers are a terrifying prospect to civilians, who are helpless against storms of summoned fire and the reanimated dead. When a rogue magic user needs to be put down or locked away, Mage Breakers are called in.

Disorienting Whirlwind

At 3rd level, as an action, you can swing your chains in a whirlwind above your head with a radius of 15 ft, deflecting projectiles and spells. Targets of medium or smaller in this radius gain increased AC against ranged attacks and ranged spell attacks equal to your Int. modifier.

Hold The Line

At 7th level, your tether magic has made you adept at resisting spells. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. If you would take damage from a spell or magical effect that forces a saving throw, you can use your reaction sacrifice 2 chains you control to take half damage on a fail, or on a success no damage.

Spell Shatterer

At 10th level, you can sacrifice a chain you control to break the magic of an enemy mage. You can use your reaction to cast Dispel Magic or Counterspell by sacrificing a chain you control. You can increase the level of Counterspell an additional time by sacrificing an additional chain. A Counterspell cast this way can only be cast at a level equal to your half your Chainer level.

Hold Fast

At 15th level, as an action, you can sacrifice 3 chains you control and choose an enemy you can see within 60 ft, that target makes a Wisdom save against your save DC. On a fail, that spell caster can’t spells that would teleport themselves, shift themselves to a new plane, or increase their movement speed.

Anathema to Magic

At 18th level, you have a permanent Antimagic Field surrounding you, which is strenuous on the mind, reducing the amount of chains you can control at a given moment by half your Chainer level. Magical effects produced by your chains still function in this field.

Puppeteer

Referred to as voodoo practitioners by many, Puppeteers are chainers who have taken to not just restraining, but controlling their victims’ very movements. Like a marionette on strings, a Puppeteer's victim is a willing aide once bound.

Some Chainer Callings may give you the ability to cast spells. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your Chainer spells. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a Chainer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Soul Links

At 3rd level, your experimentations with voodoo magic have taught you ways of manipulating life force. When a creature of challenge rating 1/4th CR or higher dies within 100 ft of you, you can store its fading spirit as a Soul into one chain you control that does not have life force stored this way. Alternatively, you can do the same with the corpse of a creature of 1/4th CR or higher that has been dead for less than 1 day.

If you would store the soul of a creature that has a CR higher than 1, for each CR beyond the first, that soul gains a Soul Level.

As an action or bonus action, you may expend the Soul from one chain you control to have a creature within 30 ft of you regain hit points equal to 1d6+your spell casting modifier. For each Soul Level that soul has, increase this healing by an additional 1d6 up to a maximum of 10d6.

Manic Mannequin

At 7th level, your bindings suppress the voluntary movements of your victims, replacing them with your own. At the beginning of your turn, a creature grappled by a chain you control makes a Wisdom save against your save DC. On a fail, you can replace your action by instead suffusing your tethers with dark energy and forcing the grappled creature to make an action of your choice.

Dark Interrogation

At 10th level, your experimentation with the souls of others has made you adept at extracting information from others. While a creature is grappled or restrained by a chain you control, they are treated as if you had cast a Zone of Truth centered on them. Additionally, you can probe a targets mind this way as if you had cast Detect Thoughts, the target has disadvantage on the saving throw.

Acupuncture

At 15th level, needles hidden within your chains prick at pressure points along the bodies of your foes. As an action or bonus action, you can force a target that has been grappled by a chain you control to make a Constitution save against your save DC, on a fail the target is paralyzed.

Soul Keeper’s Fury

At 18th level, you can expend up to 3 souls from chains you control and direct them at a target within 15 ft of you as an action. For each soul the target makes a Wisdom save, on a fail the target takes Necrotic damage equal to the healing that soul would normally do. If the soul has a Soul Level above 7, the target takes half that much damage on a success.

Planar Binder

Elementals, Demons, Devils: interplanar invaders preying upon the inhabitants of countless worlds, bargaining for souls or uncaringly unleashing the furious magics of their homes. Planar Binders imprison malevolent forces from beyond the veil, binding them so they are no longer a threat.

Some Chainer Callings may give you the ability to cast spells. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your Chainer spells. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a Chainer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Reality Warper

Reality Warpers are Chainers who specialize in short ranged teleportation, utilizing rapid repositioning to take down their targets. Reality Warpers walk the line between the real and unreal, constantly aware of their surroundings to attack from new angles.

Warped Movement

At 3rd level, instead of using your normal movement speed, you can instead teleport a number of feet equal to 5 + Your Int. Modifier + Your Chainer level. If an enemy is grappled by a chain control, you can teleport them along with you.

Reversed Reality

At 7th level, you can begin teleport creatures besides yourself. As an action you can choose two targets within 30 ft of you. If the target is unwilling or hostile towards you it makes an Intelligence save equal against your Chainer save DC, and automatically fails if it is grappled by a chain you control. If the target is willing, it does not have to make the save. Magically switch the locations of the two targets via teleportation.

Immaterial Presence

At 10th level, you can flicker yourself rapidly in and out of reality to avoid physical harm. If you would make a Dexterity, Constitution, or Strength save you can expend two chains you control to give yourself advantage on that save.

Advanced Teleportation

At 15th level, the distance you can teleport using Warped Movement is tripled.

Quantum Frenzy

At 18th level you gain an intuitive connection to the world and your surroundings, simultaneously memorizing every creature’s location near you. Once per a long rest as an action, choose any number of creatures within a range equal to how far your Warped Movement can teleport you. You can switch the positions of any number creatures within range using Reversed Reality. Additionally, hostile creatures within range take 3d8 force damage.

Warden

Wardens are the prison keepers of the magical world, chainers devoted to maintaining order by ensuring the most dangerous to society are kept under lock and key. Honing their magical fighting against prison riots and escaped convicts, Warden always has a situation on lock.

Weaver

Weavers are a niche form of chainer, outcasts to most societies for practicing more esoteric means of fighting. Weavers reject the artificiality of using chains as a focus, and harness the silk of spiders and cloth as the chosen tethers for their fighting style.

Some Chainer Callings may give you the ability to cast spells. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your Chainer spells. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a Chainer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Eyes Everywhere

At 15th level, spiders regard you as the pinnacle of predatory arachnids and automatically treat you as friendly, giving you advantage on persuasion checks with them, and you can talk and converse with spiders as if you spoke the same language. In addition you can sacrifice two chains made of spider silk to unleash eggs hidden within, casting Conjure Animals. You can cast this spell at higher levels by sacrificing an additional chain made of spider silk. The only animals that can be summoned this way are as follows: Giant Wolf Spider, Giant Flying Spider, Giant Spider, Ice Spider, Spider King, Ice Spider Queen, and Swarm of Spiders(treat them as if they had the typeline beast instead of swarm for the purposes of summoning).

Spider Matriarch

At 18th level, once per a long rest you can shift into the true form you have been weaving for yourself the Dark Spider Queen.

While you are transformed, the following rules apply:

Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature's bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can't use them.

When you transform, you assume the beast's hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious.

You can still cast spells granted to you by the Weaver Calling.

Dark Spider Queen

Wrangler

An archaeologist avoids goblins in the shadow of a temple, a priceless artifact crooked under his arm. A rancher fights off orcs stealing his sheep, her whip cracking with the force of thunder. An acrobat dances with her chains through a flock of bats, the squeaking of steel throwing off their echolocation.

Wranglers are frontier Chainers, braving the wilds and plundering the secrets of long dead civilizations. Specializing in disarmament and self-sufficiency, a wrangler will face any challenge that is thrown at them, and retreat when the situation calls for it.