Fighter Archetype
Despoiler
In the Curse-Scarred Isles, there are those born under a blackened moon, marked with misfortune from their first breath. Some warriors choose to hone that bad luck, harnessing it and turning it into a tool to plague their foes. These are Despoilers, combatants able to harness their inborn curse, using it both to enhance their own power and ruin their enemies.
As with all the Ruintouched in the Isles, Despoilers can have a wide range of outlooks and alignments. Some are pure blackguards, intent on raiding, looting, and spreading their own specific corruption. Others are nobler, seeing their bad luck as a tool and their curse as an obstacle to overcome.
Despoiler Features
| Fighter Level | Features |
|---|---|
| 3rd | Curse-Scarred, Soldier of Misfortune |
| 7th | Wielder of Curses |
| 10th | Terrible Omens |
| 15th | Armor of Curses |
| 18th | Aura of Ruin |
Curse-Scarred
When you adopt this archetype at 3rd level, your inborn curse begins to express itself in ways you can turn to your advantage. As a reaction when you fail an ability check, you can roll a d6 and add the result to the check, potentially turning it into a success. Whether you succeed or fail, you take damage equal to half the d6 result, which cannot be prevented or reduced in any way.
Soldier of Misfortune
Additionally at 3rd level, you can harness your bad luck to succeed in battle. When you hit with an attack roll, you can expend 1 Misfortune charge to add 1d12 additional damage to the attack, and curse the target to roll a 1d4 on their next attack and subtract the result from the roll. If a target is cursed multiple times, they roll all their d4's and subtract the highest result.
The first time after each of your turns when a hostile creature misses an attack roll against you, you gain 1 Misfortune charge. You can hold a number of Misfortune charges up to your proficiency bonus, and you start with 2 Misfortune charges anytime you roll initiative.
Wielder of Curses
At 7th level, your long-cursed existence gives you a facility for curses and the magic that governs them. You learn the bane, curse of weakness, bestow curse, and remove curse spells, with Intelligence as your spellcasting ability. You can cast each once without spending a spell slot, regaining the ability after finishing a long rest.
If a subclass feature refers to "one of your curses", it refers to any of these spells or your Soldier of Misfortune curse.
Terrible Omens
At 10th level, your control over the bad luck you exude increases dramatically. When you make an attack, you can expend 1 Misfortune charge to cast one of your curses instead. Additionally, when an enemy within 30 feet and under the effect of one of your curses misses an attack against you, you can make one attack against them as a reaction.
Casting a spell through Terrible Omens still expends its use, as normal.
Armor of Curses
At 15th level, you can channel your Misfortune to produce a protective shield of bad luck. As a bonus action, you can expend any number of Misfortune charges to conjure this armor.
As a reaction after a creature hits you with an attack, you can immediately apply your Soldier of Misfortune to them, inflicting damage and cursing them. After 10 minutes or once you have cursed a number of creatures equal to the charges spent, this armor fades. You can summon this armor once, regaining its use after a short or long rest.
Aura of Ruin
At 18th level, you can command a mighty curse, invoking bad luck on all those around you. As an action or automatically when you roll initiative, you can apply your Soldier of Misfortune curse (including its damage) to every creature of your choice within 60 feet, without expending any Misfortune charges.
You can invoke misfortune in this way once, regaining the ability after finishing a long rest.
All the D4's
It's strongly suggested to DMs that you disallow stacking of multiple effects that subtract a die from a creature's rolls (e.g. Soldier of Misfortune and bane). If a creature's under multiple such effects, apply whichever one's nastier.
Despoiler quirks
The following are some optional quirks for a player of this Domain to choose from.
| d6 | Quirk |
|---|---|
| 1 | You do not dream. |
| 2 | Most food just tastes like ash to you. |
| 3 | You are resigned to the inevitable end of all things. |
| 4 | Ink runs when you touch it, and metal gains a fine coating of rust. |
| 5 | You have never won a coin toss. |
| 6 | You're surprised when others have bad luck that's not your fault. |
Change Log
v0.3
- Capped Misfortune gain to 1/round.
- Clarified health loss on Curse-Scarred.
- Added bestow curse to Wielder of Curses.
- Took AC boost off of Armor of Curses and adjusted its active.
v0.2
- Finished quirks
- Updated art and license
v0.1
- Initial Draft!
Credits & References:
Despoiler created by somanyrobots Discord | Patreon
Art
- Despoiler Fighter, by Roberto Andreas
Background Image Stains
License
- © 2024 somanyrobots
5E SRD Content
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available here.
The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available here.