Summary of Changes

This page will include a summary of all significant changes we've made to the 5e ruleset as part of designing Elkan 5e. Where we have them, we include designer notes that we wrote at the time of designing content. At the bottom of this page, we include a changelog. We often make weekly updates on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. If you'd like to receive notifications about upcoming content or changes, you can join our Discord.

Note: This page only includes the most significant or noticeable changes.

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Ancestry and Background System

Ancestry and Background System

Overview

Rather than picking a 'race' and a 'background' as in baseline 5e rules, you now pick an 'ancestry' and a background.
Ancestries and Backgrounds are roughly the same power level as the old race and background system, so you can use our system alongside players using the old system (but you cannot mix and match between the two systems).
There are no ability score improvements linked to ancestry or background. All Elkan 5e methods of ability score generation include extra points by default, resulting in the same totals.
Now you can play a militant dwarf or a maritime kobold, mixing and matching background elements into your character to represent your setting's cultures or your character's unique upbringing.

Ancestries

Ancestries are revised, rebalanced, and sometimes expanded races from baseline 5e options.
- Human, Aasimar, Changeling, Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Goblin, Halfling, Hobgoblin, Mixed Heritage, Kobold, Minotaur, Orc, Tiefling
Ancestry is less significant than race, and only includes biological abilities.
Mixed heritage characters replace half-elves and half-orcs.
- While in baseline 5e rules only half-elves and half-orcs were possible, we felt that elves and orcs should be able to produce offspring together if they could both do so with humans, and even if not, it's possible for a half-elf and half-orc to have a child.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are 100% new, more mechanically deep than before.
- Arcanist, Cosmopolitan, Devout, Fey-Touched, Forge-Bound, Laborer, Maritime, Militant, Noble, Outsider, Wild
Cultural benefits, such as weapon training, are now written into background, which may be cultural training or specific individual training.
These typically give 2 skills (which you can choose), some other proficiencies like tools or weapons, and an active ability.
Background is now a substantial part of a character's ability set at level 1.

Class-Specific Changes

We've given all fighting styles to all classes that get one.
Classes that don't have wisdom saving throws now have at least something to help them effectively pass wisdom saves at levels 10 and higher.
Most features no longer scale to proficiency bonus or ability score modifier, to reduce odd scaling with multiclass characters.
Where we could, classes now gain subclass abilities at levels 3, 6, 10, and 14. Some classes gain more than that, and spellcasting classes gain their expanded spell list at level 1.

Fighting Styles

Fighting styles that applied to melee attacks now apply to melee and thrown weapon attacks.
Single Weapon Fighting is the new name for Dueling, and includes two-handed melee weapons. The Great Weapon Fighting style slowed down gameplay, and was both weaker than +2 damage and favored certain weapons. The +2 bonus to damage will outperform older options for two-handed weapons.
The Protection style was adjusted so that you could use it if you were wielding a melee weapon and not a shield. It has also been improved so that when you force an enemy to reroll their attack against your ally the rerolled attack targets you instead, allowing you to use your potentially higher armor class or hit points.
We adjusted Two-Weapon Fighting to be more friendly to characters that needed to use their bonus action. Now, when you take the Attack action on your turn and make at least one attack with your main-hand weapon, you can make an additional attack with your off-hand weapon as part of that Attack action. This is true whether or not you pick this fighting style. If you do not have the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, then you have disadvantage on any attacks with your off-hand weapon.

Barbarian

Most barbarian abilities have been improved or replaced with better abilities. The changes are significant.

A number of new high level abilities.
Rage no longer ends early for any reason except the barbarian's choice.
More rage uses.
Barbarians can now use dexterity based weapons without losing any abilities. Barbarians can also opt to wear armor and use constitution instead of dexterity for armor class while wearing armor. These changes will allow barbarians to invest in mental statistics without suffering too much.
Barbarians get a fighting style, as well as powerful new abilities to replaces the extra critical hit damage they used to get (which was statistically a very weak bonus).

Bard

We revised nearly every ability the bard gets.

To see how musical performance now integrates with bard spellcasting, see the Spellcasting Focus or Instruments section of Bard Spellcasting.
Bardic Inspiration now works completely differently, allowing the bard to be in control of when bardic inspiration is rolled, and making it more flexible. It also now gains more uses as you level up, rather than scaling to your charisma modifier, and always recharges at a short rest.
Wisdom saving throw proficiency instead of dexterity.
Magical Secrets has been reworked so that the spells you choose from other class lists are lower level than your bard spells, meaning that you never get 9th level spells from other classes. On the other hand, bards now get their first Magical Secrets at level 6 regardless of subclass, and get a total of 8 spells rather than 6. This should result in a bard's spell list having a more diverse selection across all spell levels.
Bards now get a subclass feature at level 10. To account for subclasses not published on Elkan 5e, we allow those using older subclasses to choose a feat instead.
Counterpoint and Limitless Inspiration are new abilites. To make room for new features, we removed one instance of Inspiration and Countercharm. An improved Countercharm is now available as a feat. If using an older bard subclass, we recommend picking Countercharm as your level 10 feat.
We also made sure Jack of All Trades applies only to skill checks. It didn't make sense to us that it would apply to a Dispel Magic attempt or initiative.

Cleric

The cleric has seen fewer changes than most of our classes.

We removed Turn Undead (which is now a feat) and replaced it with a generic Channel Divinity that allows clerics to cast more of their domain spells.
Because we moved domain features around to follow the 3/6/10/14 scheme, clerics get less at level 1, but high level clerics get their powerful domain feature earlier.
Divine Intervention was also rewritten and turned into a capstone.

Druid

The most radical change is to Wild Shape. In baseline 5e rules, druids have a limited form of animal shapeshifting as a class feature, which may or not be improved by their choice of Druid Circle. Our version instead has access to a series of spell-like magical abilities (including a limited form of shapeshifting) that allow them to manipulate their environment or provide exploration tools to themselves or their allies.
If you're looking for more animal shapeshifting, our Circle of the Shifter has powerful animal shapeshifting options. We felt that druids should not all necessarily have shapeshifting as part of their archetype, but we did want to emphasize the exploration and environmental powers they have.
Our druid gains several features previously assigned to the Circle of the Land, including Natural Recovery and the poison and disease immunity (which is gained at level 18 instead of 10).
The level 18 and 20 features are redesigned.
Abilities that come from your Druid Circle count as a use of Wild Shape if they expend a use of Wild Shape, and end any previous Wild Shape effects unless states otherwise.

Fighter

In Elkan 5e, the fighter has had a few changes.

We moved the fourth extra attack to level 17 and created a new capstone feature.
We gave fighters free combat maneuver feats, which give them combat utility functions beyond other classes. Other classes can choose them, but fighters a few earlier and for free.
The previous version of Indomitable allowed fighters to reroll failed saves. However, at high levels it was easily possible for a fighter to have a 10% chance of success, where rolling again would be unlikely to succeed. We also didn't like that an ability called Indomitable would be used up when a character fails a save. Thus, we allow the fighter to add 1d10, which is a much more substantial bonus to their chance of success than a reroll. Now, if a fighter uses Indomitable and still fails the saving throw, the ability is not consumed.
If the fighter has a very low chance of succeeding even with Indomitable, it is still best to try to roll it, because the ability is not consumed if it fails. It should also be noted that the fighter can reroll failed death saves in this way.

Monk

The monk has had an increase in their unarmed damage and was raised to a d10 hit die.
Monks can now make an additional unarmed attack with their off-hand as if it were an off-hand weapon without using a bonus action, just like our general changes to dual wielding.
The monk's ki total has been doubled and moved to a long rest recharge.
The monk also no longer uses ki to use Stunning Strike, which is now its own ability with a number of uses that scales to monk level. This prevents the monk from stunning all enemies in a fight or repeatedly trying to stun a single monster 4 times in a round. It also allows the monk to freely use ki on the other abilities without them competing.
A number of improvements to higher level abilities.

Paladin

Divine Smite is now a spell and uses normal spell rules.
In Elkan 5e, we wanted paladins to be able to use bows and other ranged weapons and still be able to use their Divine Smite. The paladin's class features now all work with ranged weapons.
Divine Smite had a minor redesign to how its damage scaling was capped, and we added a section to clarify the interaction between Divine Smite and critical hits. We also allow Divine Smite to trigger on Celestials.
The channel divinity options are replaced with 'Channel Conviction', which separates the uses of both abilities and has players choose one at level 3 and get the other at level 10.
Divine Sense now includes more types of creatures and takes only a bonus action, and has a standard 3 uses.
Lay on Hands no longer removes disease or poison until level 15, where the Cleansing Touch ability has been rewritten completely (and also given the ability to remove ability score and hit point drain).
Lastly, we rewrote some things to be more internally consistent and clear. This included renaming the Improved Divine Smite ability to Divine Strikes, so that it wouldn't seem like a smite ability.

Ranger

The ranger has been nearly completely redesigned. We wanted to keep the core identity of the ranger at first, but found that they didn't have any features that were any good in the core class. The main damage dealing feature seemed to be the Hunter's Mark spell, which did not increase in damage at higher levels. After about level 5, there was very little to look forward to.

We've improved every single ability, including adding a new level 20 feature.
Rangers now get survival as a free skill and three others, instead of just three skills. They also gain expertise at later levels.
Favored Enemy was removed and the language it granted made part of the core level 1 proficiencies.
Natural Explorer was pared down, and the ability to ignore nonmagical difficult terrain added.
The Mark for Death ability mimicks the Hunter's Mark spell, but does not require concentration, which means it doesn't compete with any of the ranger's other spells. The Mark for Death ability is slightly lower damage than Hunter's Mark when first picked up, but is more versatile, and later scales as the ranger increases in level. This can make the ranger a very powerful combatant.
Primeval Awareness now functions similarly to Locate Creature and costs a spell slot, with extra bonuses if the creature is too far to be located.
Rangers gain a climbing and swimming speed, and a movement bonus, at level 7.

Rogue

We made the damage on rogues more reliable at the cost of some survivability, and made minor edits to everything.

We changed sneak attack so that you could trigger sneak attack even if you had disadvantage on the attack roll, as long as you had a creature hostile to your target within 5 ft. of the target. This was so that effects like the poisoned or blinded condition would not nullify the rogue's ability to do significant damage entirely, potentially for entire combat encounters or longer.
We also moved Uncanny Dodge from level 5 to 15, since rogues at level 5 were inexplicably some of the hardiest characters.
We added Extra Attack to rogues at level 5, a substantial increase in damage and reliability of sneak attack. This also helps remove the strong incentive for rogues to dual-wield, since now all rogues of level 5 or higher will have more than one chance to trigger sneak attack, which means the off-hand attack from dual wielding is no longer crucial for reliable damage.
We changed the level at which rogues get most of their features to allow rogues to get their second archetype feature at level 6, as well as getting most of their important features a bit earlier.
We removed the rogue's Ability Score Improvement at level 10.
We improved the rogue's Blindsight and Stroke of Luck abilities.

Sorcerer

The biggest changes to the sorcerer class revolve around metamagic.

We added two metamagic options to flesh out the list from baseline 5e rules, gave sorcerers two more metamagic options to their total number, made them get new metamagic options and sorcerous origin features at lower levels than before, and made it so they recover up to half their sorcery point total on a short rest.
We also gave them a feature at level 9 that allows them to bolster their wisdom saves for high level play.
We created a new capstone feature to replace their old one, which we replaced by allowing level 2 and higher sorcerers to regain sorcery points on a short rest.
In baseline 5e, sorcery points could be abused to create an unlimited number of spell slots for certain multiclass characters. Our rules here prevent that: sorcerers can no longer create more spell slots on top of their usual maximum.
There's also a few minor tweaks here and there.

Warlock

We improved the spellcasting ability of warlocks and switched them to a long rest recovery system, as well as improved, simplified, and streamlined many features.

Eldritch Blast is no longer a cantrip, but a class feature that scales to warlock level. It also add the warlock's charisma modifier to damage by default.
Overhauled the spell slots for warlocks. The baseline 5e warlock regained all spell slots of up to 5th level when they finished a short rest. However, these warlocks also only have 2 spell slots until level 11. They also always casted spells at the highest level slot (up to 5th), rendering many lower level spells obsolete. By giving warlocks more spell slots of varying levels and having them restore on a long rest, the warlock has more versatility and can choose how to expend their resources without worrying about when a short rest will next come. In baseline 5e rules, warlocks gain Mystic Arcanum spells at levels 11, 13, 15, and 17. These Mystic Arcanum spells were meant to give warlocks 6th level spell slots and higher that they regained on a long rest, as opposed to all their other spells, which they recovered on a short rest. However, because our Reawakened Warlock regains ALL spell slots on a long rest, Mystic Arcanum spell slots could be combined with the main spellcasting system, which meant there was no need for these spells to have their own system.
Pact of the Chain familiars are now more powerful and have dedicated invocations to improve them.
Pact of the Warrior replaced Pact of the Blade, and synergizes well with the new Eldritch Weapon invocation, which allows any warlock to use their charisma as their ability score for all weapons.
Pact of the Tome now allows warlocks to regain some spell slots on a short rest, similar to the wizard.
A few invocations were renamed for Elkan 5e. Beguiling Influence is now called Enchantment of Aptitude, and it now gives you a choice of any two skills instead of just persuasion and deception. Book of Ancient Secrets was renamed to Book of Rituals so that it wouldn't be confused with the new Book of Magical Secrets.

Wizard

We made a few changes to wizards to make them more flexible and be more varied.

Wizard subclasses give access to all spells of a given school.
In the Elkan 5e wizard, wizards learn as many spells as before, and cannot scribe scrolls to increase that number. However, all spells in their spellbook are prepared at all times. We removed scribing scrolls to equalize wizards a bit with other casters so that they would be just as good in low magic and high magic settings, improving the consistency of balance. Also, because we allowed wizards to have all their spells prepared at all times, we couldn't let them get a number of prepared spells in the hundreds. We decided this was a good trade off, because the already large number of spells wizards could learn meant that having more prepared at once was more important than having more options to switch to at a rest.
In Baseline 5e rules, wizards get new spells in their spellbook when they go up a level, and they can add additional spells by using expensive inks to scribe consumable magic scrolls into their spellbooks permanently. However, wizards then had to choose which of their spells were actively prepared, which resulted in wizards only having about half their spells available for use on average. Additionally, the availability of magic scrolls would vary by game table, so wizards became the only casters to rely on gold and magic items to expand their spell list. Additionally, wizards would likely get all the spells they wanted on level up anyway, with any additional spells being random and sometimes not suited to their playstyle.
We added the Expertise feature at level 2 to allow wizards to keep up with rogues and bards when it came to specialized skills, especially in cases like with the Arcana skill.

Feats

Every feat is new. We provide a new list of level 1 feats, which your GM can choose to allow every player to choose from.
Combat Maneuvers are new feats which describe special moves martial characters can do in combat.
- The vast majority of them don't do more damage, but rather provide battlefield utility.
- Fighters get a few maneuvers for free.
- Manuevers have a number of uses that scale to your proficiency bonus.

Rules

Ability Scores

Ability Score generation is changed, mostly to accommodate the lack of racial ability score improvements.
Recommended Ability Scores are provided on each class page:
- Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Standard Array. Assign one of the following sets of numbers:
- 16, 14, 14, 12, 12, 8 -OR- 16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8
Rolling:
- Roll 4d6, dropping the lowest value. For example, if you roll, 5,4,4, 3, your total is 13. Repeat this six times, writing down the values you roll.
- Assign each value to ability scores of your choice.
- Add three points either to one ability score or split them up between different ability scores, up to a maximum of 17. If you rolled a 17 or 18, you can keep them, but not increase them this way.
Point Buy:
- You can spend points on your ability scores, dividing them however you want, between a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 17 for each score. You have 33 points. Use the table provided here.

Conditions

Combat

Dual Wielding: If you are holding two weapons, then you make an additional off-hand attack with your second weapon whenever you take the Attack action. However, if you do not have the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, then you attack with disadvantage on this off-hand attack.
Switching Weapons: Attackers can switch weapons either as an action or at the start of the attack action.
Thrown Weapons make attacks as ranged weapons when used at range.
The rule for casting multiple spells in a turn is this: you can only expend one spell slot per turn. If you ready a spell, that counts as a spell you cast on the turn you begin to ready it.

Conditions

New conditions include dazed, goaded, silenced, siphoned, weakened.
Some spell and ability effects are standardized as conditions: confused, dominated, drained, hasted, slowed.
Some game rules now explicitly count as conditions, including concentrating, cover, surprised.
Lightly Obscured and Heavily Obscured have been overhauled to be self-contained as conditions.
A blinded creature's speed is halved.
Deafened imposes disadvantage on dexterity saves.
Exhaustion imposes a -2 penalty to attack rolls, skill checks, saving throws, and the creature's spellcasting saving throw DC, up to -10. At 6 levels, it's lethal.
A frightened creature can approach the source of their fear if they end their turn further away.
Grappled has been fully reworked, and their are size benefits for the larger and smaller creature in a grapple. Grapples can be used to hang onto larger creatures.
The paralyzed, petrified, stunned, and unconscious conditions are all explicitly subsets of the incapacitated condition, which now reduces your speed to 0. Because we rewrote Hideous Laughter, the only effect in 5e's srd to incapacitate you without reducing your speed to 0, this should be unnoticeable.
Clarified the invisible condition.
Restrained creatures can no longer use somatic components of spells.
Slowed now imposes disadvantage on attacks instead of reducing them to one attack a round, since some creatures only had one attack.
Surprised reduces initiative by 20, rather than preventing the creature's first turn. There's also some rules for triggering surprise.

Combat

Other

All spellcasters can now use ritual casting.
Tools don't have their own checks, instead simply opening up new ways to use skills. Phased out expertise for tools, vehicles, and other proficiencies.
Medicine checks to stabilize creatures have their difficulty modified by the success or failure of death saving throws.

Other

Armor

Items

Armor

Added small shields and rolled shield proficiencies into armor proficiencies.
- Small shields allow classes that only had access to light armor to have another defensive option. We also reclassified shields as being either light or medium armor, as opposed to having their own proficiency. As far as we know, this should be perfectly compatible with old sources, because characters who could use shields always had proficiency in medium armor.
Padded Armor improved to old leather stats, leather armor is improved to the old studded leather stats. Padded becomes starting armor for light armor characters.
- In baseline 5e, the worst light armor is padded armor, and it appears as we feature it here, except that it imposes disadvantage on stealth checks. This made no sense to us, as other armor that includes padded layers did not impose this disadvantage. However, by removing the disadvantage, we made padded just as good as leather armor. However, because we wanted to remove studded leather armor, we simply gave leather armor the statistics that studded leather armor used to have (with a slight cost decrease).
- If you are using other 5e sources that reference 'padded armor', give it the statistics of leather armor as we list it here. They are identical. If other sources list 'leather armor', use the statistics of padded armor here. For example, if you create a character at level 1 that starts with leather armor, then that character should start with padded armor instead.
Removed studded leather and ring mail.
- Studded Leather armor was the best kind of light armor in baseline 5e. The problem is, there's no reason why studs on leather armor would be very useful, and there's no historical precedence for their use. It's likely that studded leather was created as fantasy armor as a misunderstanding of brigandine, which has metal plates beneath leather riveted in place, which on the outside would look like studded leather armor. Conversely, padded armor in 5e was barely in use, but realistically it would be used by most poor soldiers and beginning adventurers rather than leather. We shuffled things around.
- Ring Mail is also a fictional armor likely born of misinterpretation. It is supposed to consist of rings fixed to a leather layers, but the rings are not linked together. This was likely fabricated based on medieval depictions of chain mail, which, due to artistic style choices (or artistic incompetence) were often depicted with the chain links drawn as disconnected circles on top of leather coats, rather than as an interconnected mesh. However, these historical depictions were meant to depict chain mail over a leather or cloth padding. Since we, as designers and players of 5e have never seen a character wear ring mail, we removed it entirely. Its only function was as starting armor for characters with low strength and dexterity, and ring mail isn't even listed as a starting armor for anyone. In practice we never saw it used, so we didn't replace it.

Weapons

Removed the net from the weapons list. It will feature on a later miscellaneous equipment page.
Allowed small creatures to use Heavy weapons.
- In baseline 5e rules, the heavy property meant that small creatures couldn't wield a weapon effectively. However, we wanted halflings, gnomes, and other small races to be capable of wielding these weapons. Most of the time, you now can ignore the heavy property entirely. Melee weapons that are heavy cannot be used with a rogue's Sneak Attack.
Added Mounted and Unwieldy Properties.
- We wanted to replace the 'special' weapon property and come up with standardized names for weapon properties, even if the lance is the only mounted weapon. The unwieldy property is also new, and alongside the mounted property, replaces the special lance rules. We also wanted to add the unwieldy property to pikes as we increased their reach.
Increased reach of pikes to 15 ft.
- In baseline 5e, the reach property would only increase one's reach to 10 ft. We wanted pikes to give a greater increase in range, so we decided to indicate the weapon's new reach in parentheses. In real life, pikes are far longer than other polearms, and we wanted to reflect that.
Quarterstaffs are now two-handed weapons with a reach of 10 ft. that deal 1d8 damage, instead of versatile 1d6/1d8 weapons
Spears now have a reach of 10 ft. when used as melee weapons
Halberds can now deal either piercing or slashing damage (user's choice)
Removed Flail, Trident, and War Pick.
- None of these weapons saw widespread military use in the real world, were extremely unpopular with players, and were inferior to other weapons of the same proficiency class, so we removed them from the game rules. Flails were possibly used rarely in the real world, but their stats can be represented by a morningstar or warhammer. Tridents would be inferior to spears in real life, and perhaps the only military application was with pitchforks for peasant armies. They can be represented by a spear. War Picks were always part of a hybrid hammer-pick weapon in real life, but if you really want a dedicated pick weapon, they can be represented with the stats of a morningstar.

Weapons

Spell Schools

Changes to Spells

Here we try to document all the changes we made to spells as best we can. For changes to class spell lists, see below.

Replaced, Renamed, or Moved Spells

Chill Touch was renamed to Negative Energy Ray, and Poison Spray was renamed to Toxic Sting.
Create and Destroy Water was renamed to Rain and made into a cantrip.
Eldritch Blast is now granted as a warlock class feature and is not a spell.
Floating Disk and Illusory Script were changed from 1st level spells to cantrips.

1st

Charm replaces the old charm spells.
Find Familiar was changed to be a feat rather than a spell.
Hunter's Mark was replaced with the ranger class feature Mark For Death.
Purify Food and Drink was renamed to Purify, and now has a secondary effect on poisoned or diseased creatures.

2nd

Animate Dead is now a 2nd level spell instead of 3rd level.
Hold Creature replaces the old hold spells.

3rd

Counterspell was removed. If any user would like to submit a proposal for how to keep the spell without creating a dynamic where a single player character can block the turn of a high-level enemy spellcaster while simultaneously preventing characters from negating another's turn with a reaction, we may consider it. Of course, that's how the spell was designed, and that's why we removed it. Also, we found the spell made combat less dynamic or interesting and forced players and GMs to build entire strategies around it, and we'd prefer spells to function when they're cast. In other words, game designer David Staley is willing to die on this hill. If you still disagree, just add the spell to your game. Elkan 5e is designed to be modular like that.

5th

The dominate Spells were consolidated into Dominate.

9th

Wrath of the Reaper replaces Power Word Kill.

Cantrips

Acid Splash now targets a 5 ft. radius, rather than up to 2 adjacent creatures.
Dancing Lights no longer requires concentration, and allows the creation of words.
Eldritch Blast is no longer a cantrip, but rather a warlock class feature, and cannot be chosen as a cantrip for other characters.
Fire Bolt now has rules for igniting objects.
Guidance now requires your target to understand you.
Guidance and Resistance had their ranges increased to 30 ft., Produce Flame had its range increased to 90 ft., and Toxic Sting had its range increased to 30 ft.
Mage Hand had its functions clarified.
Message now requires a matching trinket to respond to the caster, and can be cast without a response to any creature.
Minor Illusion had its rules expanded to clarify what an illusion can do.
Prestidigitation can no longer create small objects, as that was too similar to minor illusion. It did gain the ability to open or close doors, which was previously part of Thaumaturgy.
Shillelagh now works with greatclubs and deals a d10 when two-handed.
Shocking Grasp was increased to a d10 damage die from a d8.
Spare the Dying now restores a target to 1 hit point after 10 minutes.
Thaumaturgy gained the ability to create a sound at a place within range, which has to be the caster's voice, which is similar to a function that Prestidigitation can no longer do.
True Strike is no longer concentration, can affect creatures other than the caster, and affects all their attacks for 1 round rather than one attack within the next minute.
Vicious Mockery and Guidance no longer require somatic components.

1st Level

Alarm affects a 20 ft. line, rather than a cube, and has a max mental range of 100 ft.
Animal Friendship now causes the beast to be charmed by the whole party.
Burning Hands adds 2d6 damage per spell level when cast with a higher level slot.
Charm affects creatures other than humanoids.
Color Spray completely reworked to be a save.
Command reworked and limited to preset options.
Disguise Self now uses the new illusion check rules.
Divine Favor can be cast on other creatures and upscales to affect other creatures.
False Life can target other creatures.
Goodberry no longer provides nourishment, and creates 8 berries, upcasting with 4 more berries per level.
Hideous Laughter inflicts the dazed and prone conditions rather than prone and incapacitated.
Identify no longer identifies spell effects.
Jump now has a table to reference what EXACTLY the spell does.
Longstrider can be upcast to affect multiple creatures.
Ray of Sickness no longer requires an attack roll.
Sanctuary now requires concentration.
Shield now adds +3 to AC, scaling to +5 with a 3rd level spell slot, requires a free hand, and can't be used alongside a shield.
Silent Image no longer requires the caster to use an action on each turn to move the illusion, and uses the new illusion check rules.
Sleep is completely reworked to be a single target spell with a constitution save that can be upscaled to multiple creatures.

3rd Level

Fireball now has a radius of 15 ft. instead of 20 ft.

Changes to Spell School

The following is a list of all the non-Elkan 5e original spells that had their school of magic changed.

Cantrips

Dancing Lights (Evocation -> Illusion)
Light (Evocation -> Illusion)
Message (Transmutation -> Divination)
Prestidigitation (Transmutation -> Illusion)
Thaumaturgy (Transmutation -> Illusion)

1st Level

Cure Wounds (Evocation -> Transmutation)
Healing Word (Evocation -> Necromancy)
Inflict Wounds (Necromancy -> Transmutation)
Ray of Sickness (Necromancy -> Transmutation)

2nd Level

Blindness/Deafness (Necromancy -> Transmutation)
Darkness (Evocation ->Illusion)
Flaming Sphere (Conjuration -> Evocation)
Heat Metal (Transmutation ->Evocation)
Knock (Transmutation -> Abjuration)
Magic Mouth (Illusion -> Abjuration)
Pass Without Trace (Abjuration -> Illusion)
Prayer of Healing (Evocation -> Necromancy)
Ray of Enfeeblement (Necromancy -> Transmutation)
Rope Trick (Transmutation ->Conjuration)
Spiritual Weapon (Evocation -> Conjuration)

3rd Level

Blink (Transmutation ->Conjuration)
Call Lightning (Conjuration -> Evocation)
Sending (Evocation -> Divination)
Sleet Storm (Conjuration -> Evocation)
Speak With Plants (Transmutation ->Divination)
Spirit Guardians (Conjuration -> Necromancy)
Tiny Hut (Evocation -> Conjuration)
Mass Healing Word (Evocation -> Necromancy)

4th Level

Guardian of Faith (Conjuration -> Abjuration)
Private Sanctum (Abjuration -> Conjuration)
Resilient Sphere (Evocation -> Abjuration)

5th Level

Awaken (Transmutation -> Enchantment)
Contagion (Necromancy -> Transmutation)
Hallow (Evocation -> Abjuration)
Mass Cure Wounds (Evocation -> Transmutation)
Reincarnation (Transmutation -> Necromancy)
Wall of Stone (Evocation -> Conjuration)
Wall of Force (Evocation -> Abjuration)

6th Level

Blade Barrier (Evocation -> Conjuration)
Contingency (Evocation -> Abjuration)
Eyebite (Necromancy -> Enchantment)
Harm (Necromancy -> Transmutation)
Heal (Evocation -> Transmutation)

7th Level

Divine Word (Evocation -> Enchantment)
Forcecage (Evocation -> Abjuration)
Sequester (Transmutation -> Abjuration)

8th Level

Telepathy (Evocation -> Divination)
Glibness (Transmutation -> Enchantment)

9th Level

Mass Heal (Evocation -> Transmutation)
Prismatic Wall (Transmutation -> Evocation)
Storm of Vengeance (Conjuration -> Evocation)

Changes to Spell Lists

The following is a list of all the spells from the SRD (non-Elkan 5e original spells) that were either added to or removed from certain class spell lists. This list does not list new spells, only pre-existing spells.

Bard

Gained Guidance (cantrip), Floating Disk (cantrip), Resistance (cantrip), Thaumaturgy (cantrip), Alarm (1st), Color Spray (1st), Command (1st), Expeditious Retreat (1st), Aid (2nd), Arcane Lock (2nd), Blur (2nd), Darkvision (2nd), Enlarge/Reduce (2nd), Find Traps (2nd), Magic Weapon (2nd), Mirror Image (2nd), Levitate (2nd), Rope Trick (2nd), Warding Bond (2nd), Beacon of Hope (3rd), Haste (3rd), Mass Healing Word (3rd), Remove Curse (3rd), Slow (3rd), Phantasmal Killer (4th), Telepathic Bond (5th), Heroes' Feast (6th), Instant Summons (6th), Prismatic Spray (7th), Antipathy/Sympathy (8th), Antimagic Field (8th), Prismatic Wall (9th), Time Stop (9th), Weird (9th)
Lost Plant Growth (3rd), Speak with Plants (3rd),

Cleric

Gained Negative Energy Ray (Cantrip), True Strike (Cantrip), Divine Favor (1st), False Life (1st), Magic Weapon (2nd), Sunbeam (6th), Sunburst (8th)
Lost Insect Plague (5th)

Druid

Gained Light (Cantrip), Message (Cantrip), Ray of Frost (Cantrip), Spare the Dying (Cantrip), Detect Evil and Good (1st), Feather Fall (1st), Protection from Evil and Good (1st), Ray of Sickness (1st), Aid (2nd), Alter Self (2nd), Augury (2nd), Continual Flame (2nd), Enlarge/Reduce (2nd), Gentle Repose (2nd), Misty Step (2nd), Spider Climb (2nd), Web (2nd), Blink (3rd), Clairvoyance (3rd), Create Food and Water (3rd), Feign Death (3rd), Fly (3rd), Glyph of Warding (3rd), Haste (3rd), Mass Healing Word (3rd), Nondetection (3rd), Phantom Steed (3rd), Remove Curse (3rd), Revivify (3rd), Sending (3rd), Spirit Guardians (3rd), Stinking Cloud (3rd), Tiny Hut (3rd), Fire Shield (4th), Cone of Cold (5th), Dominate (5th), Dream (5th), Passwall (5th), Flesh to Stone (6th), Freezing Sphere (6th), Wall of Ice (6th), Word of Recall (6th), Project Image (7th), Symbol (7th), Incendiary Cloud (8th)

Paladin

Gained Bane (1st), Calm Emotions (2nd), Enthrall (2nd), Gentle Repose (2nd), Prayer of Healing (2nd), Warding Bond (2nd), Beacon of Hope (3rd), Tongues (3rd), Divination (4th), Faithful Hound (4th), Greater Restoration (5th), Hallow (5th)
Lost Locate Creature (4th)

Ranger

Gained Entangle (1st), Expeditious Retreat (1st), Purify (1st), Enhance Ability (2nd), Gust of Wind (2nd), Flame Blade (2nd), Magic Weapon (2nd), See Invisibility (2nd), Spider Climb (2nd), Meld Into Stone (3rd), Revivify (3rd), Awaken (5th), Greater Restoration (5th)
Lost Locate Creature (4th), which is effectively replaced by Primeval Awareness

Sorcerer

Gained Rain (Cantrip), Thaumaturgy (Cantrip), Grease (1st), Longstrider (1st), Acid Arrow (2nd), Continual Flame (2nd), Flaming Sphere (2nd), Magic Weapon (2nd), Ray of Enfeeblement (2nd), Sending (3rd), Vampiric Touch (3rd), Control Water (4th), Fire Shield (4th), Phantasmal Killer (4th), Resilient Sphere (4th), Stone Shape (4th), Arcane Hand (5th), Contact Other Plane (5th), Dream (5th), Mislead (5th), Wall of Force (5th), Flesh to Stone (6th), Irresistible Dance (6th), Programmed Illusion (6th), Wall of Ice (6th), Antipathy/Sympathy (8th), Control Weather (8th), Feeblemind (8th), Foresight (9th), Prismatic Wall (9th), True Polymorph (9th), Weird (9th)
Lost Teleportation Circle (5th)

Warlock

Gained Message (Cantrip), Produce Flame (Cantrip), Thaumaturgy (cantrip), Bane (1st), Command (1st), Detect Magic (1st), Detect Evil and Good (1st), False Life (1st), Inflict Wounds (1st), Ray of Sickness (1st), Silent Image (1st), Sleep (1st), Arcanist's Magic Aura (2nd), Animate Dead (2nd), Augury (2nd), Blindness/Deafness (2nd), Blur (2nd), Darkvision (2nd), Detect Thoughts (2nd), Enhance Ability (2nd), Flame Blade (2nd), See Invisibility (2nd), Bestow Curse (3rd), Blink (3rd), Feign Death (3rd), Glyph of Warding (3rd), Nondetection (3rd), Sending (3rd), Slow (3rd), Arcane Eye (4th), Black Tentacles (4th), Compulsion (4th), Greater Invisibility (4th), Phantasmal Killer (4th), Secret Chest (4th), Arcane Hand (5th), Cloudkill (5th), Contagion (5th), Dominate (5th), Insect Plague (5th), Legend Lore (5th), Mislead (5th), Modify Memory (5th), Planar Binding (5th), Teleportation Circle (5th), Wall of Force (5th), Circle of Death (6th), Globe of Invulnerability (6th), Harm (6th), Instant Summons (6th), Magic Jar (6th), Programmed Illusion (6th), Sequester (7th), Symbol (7th), Teleport (7th), Antimagic Field (8th), Maze (8th), Mind Blank (8th), Gate (9th), Weird (9th)

Wizard

Gained Inflict Wounds (1st), Enhance Ability (2nd), Enlarge/Reduce (2nd), Confusion (4th), Water Walk (4th), Forbiddance (6th)
Lost Hideous Laughter (1st), Longstrider (1st), Spider Climb (2nd), Black Tentacles (4th), Contact Other Plane (4th), Dream (5th), Eyebite (6th), Irresistible Dance (6th)

Changelog

May 15th, 2024

All characters now get both an ability score improvement and a feat at levels 4, 8, 12, and 16.
All backgrounds now give a choice of level 1 feat, which means new level 1 characters all get one.
Level 19 grants each character Superior Ability, which increases an ability score to 22.
Rogues now have 'Precision Attacks' at levels 3, 7, and 11, which allow them to trade some of their sneak attack damage for secondary effects. Feats allow them to choose more options.
Paladins now have alternative smite options at levels 2, 5, 9, and 13 as class features, replacing the old smite spells. They do not require a bonus action or concentration. A feat allows them to choose more options.
Rewrote website's home page.
Added Changelog to the website, linked from home.
Barbarian: rage bonus scales to +6 rather than +4.
Barbarian: Primal Champion changed to +2 str, dex, and con to accommodate dexterity barbarians and the new Superior Ability.
Barbarian: relentless rage DC now resets on long rest.
Cleric Life Domain: Preserve Life now restores hit points equal to 4 times level rather than 5 times level.
Fighter Spellsword: Reworked and reformatted Spellstrike to be used after hitting with an attack, and standardized the number of uses to 5/long rest. Improved Spellstrike and Rapid Warding switched so spellstrike works with spells earlier
Fighter Commander: Rally and Commander's Strike now each have a 120 ft. range, up from 60 and missing a range respectively.
Monk: Martial Arts now works with all two handed weapons that aren't heavy, opening up the updated quarterstaff, shortbows, and light crossbows.
Paladin: removed level cap on smites
Rogue: Reliable Talent moved to level 11, expertise moved to level 15, Uncanny Dodge removed from level 15
Rogue: Fighting Style now granted at level 1, expertise at level 2 rather than vice versa
Rogue: poisoner's tools added as tool option
Rogue Mystic Trickster: sneak attack cannot trigger on magic missile or minor magic missile
Sorcerer: Twinned spell only works with spells with casting time of 1 action or 1 bonus action
Wizard: savant features explicitly don't allow for choosing smite spells or similar spells not on class spell lists.
Feats: Added a dozen feats or so. Focus on class specific feats.
Feats: Reworked Bodyblock
Feats: Stalwart now only grants a save proficiency
Feats: Brawler and War Cry tweaked, moved up to level 4 and 12 respectively.
Feats: level 8 maneuvers now require the extra attack feature
Spells: Acid Arrow damage reverted to a d4. Fireball radius reduced to 10 ft.
Cleaned up some navigation menus at the tops of pages

April 16th, 2024

Added 3 new spells: Ball Lightning (1st Level), Bloodlust (3rd Level), and Shockwave (4th Level)
Reworked warlock progression to grant the pact boon at level 1 and the first subclass feature at level 3.
Brute's abilities at level 3 were renamed and reworded.
The Duelist's Feint ability no longer takes a reaction, and Master Duelist was reworked.

April 9th, 2024

Added Shadowdancer monk subclass
Updated Monk
- General formatting updates
- Added Meditation at level 2, allowing for some ki recovery on a short rest
- Stunning Strike cannot be used more than once per turn
- Removed Astral Projection function from Empty Body
- Some rules clarifications
Made Arcane Recovery and Natural Recovery clearly work 1/long rest rather than 1/day
Added the Jump table as a link in the jump spell description on the website
Forge-bound background now gives the choice of vehicle proficiencies

April 1st, 2024

Added artwork to the class pages that didn't already have art. Work done by Ulisses Klysman: https://www.instagram.com/klysman37/
Draconic Breath Control now available to sorcerers with the draconic origin.
Obscured reworked and listed under conditions.
Muted renamed to Silenced

February 25th, 2024

Added Assassin roguish archetype
Added about a third of the 2nd level spells to the website
Increased the area of effect of Burning Hands to 20 ft. cone
We've finished a lot of the infrastructure for the upcoming Foundry release.

February 12th, 2024

Finished Summary of Changes page
Shield spell no longer requires a free hand.
Shadow Strike requires you to teleport to a spot on the ground.
Resistance cantrip now gives 1d4 to all saves for 1 minute or until concentration ends, instead of just one save.
Unarmored Defense for monks now works with shields.

February 5th, 2024

At the moment, we're hard at work to update our Foundry VTT module. In the meantime, we have a few things done this week.

Created this Summary of Changes page. Work is ongoing, and does not yet cover all changes to character classes, but covers everything else, consolidating information across the website into one place as a useful reference
Revised rules for breaking out of grapples and moving while frightened.
Fixed formatting inconsistencies with spells.
Added links to spells where they were missing.
Minor edits for Detect Poison and Disease (spell), One Mind (beastmaster ranger), and Volley (feat).

January 30th, 2024

1st level spells, revised and automated. Details on significant changes at the bottom of the page.
Floating Disk and Illusory Script are now cantrips. Create and Destroy Water has been reworked into a cantrip called Rain.
Fixed an issue with the warlock pact boon buttons on the website.

January 22nd, 2024

Barbarian revision, including a new feature and some streamlining.
Berserker subclass for barbarian
On the website, you can now select 'other' as your subclass, and it will give you instructions on how to use subclasses from non-Elkan sources.
Druids gain the 'Lesser Shifting' option for their wild shapes, bringing a shapeshifting option back into the base class
Fireball radius reduced to 15 ft. from 20 ft.
Dueling fighting style renamed to Single-Weapon Fighting
Thunder damage renamed to sonic damage
Tool descriptions no longer reference tool checks, only skill checks that use the tools
Added description for unarmed strikes

January 15th, 2024

Added Draconic Bloodline
Added Animate Dead, Arms of Earth, and Burning Beam spells
Bardic Inspiration split into two features (mechanically equivalent)
Druid subclasses start at level 1 for the sake of their expanded spell list
Monks now have a d10 hit die
Monk Stunning Strike progression unlinked from proficiency bonus
Monk Perfect Self now bonus action
Paladin class progression changed to gain subclass features at 3/6/10/14/20 (but still compatible with old subclasses)
Paladin's Divine Sense now a bonus action and 3/long rest
Paladin Channel Divinity renamed to Channel Conviction, each 1/short rest, gain one option at level 3, the other at level 10
Paladin: reworked Cleansing Touch as an extension of Lay on Hands, including moving some of the function of Lay on Hands to Cleansing Touch
Rangers now have the same number of spells as paladins
Rogue reverted to always getting Thieves' Tools
Expertise should no longer reference tools
Added small shields to starting equipment options for bards, rogues, and warlocks
Standardized white space on mobile site and placement of text and buttons

December 18th, 2023

Made our Trello task board public
Cleaned up old Discord channels
A lot of minor formatting
Fighters now get one combat maneuver at levels 2, 7, and 15 instead of two.
Fireball and Shield spells added to website
Tieflings now count as fiends and Aasimar count as celestials
Backgrounds now grant a few items based on the proficiencies they grant

December 11th, 2023

Properly finished combat maneuvers
Added the changeling ancestry
Changed the barbarian and monk features that increase speed to function in all armor types
Reformatted and edited several feats for QOL improvements

December 4th, 2023

Rebalanced weapons
- Darts now have a range of 30/90 instead of 20/60
- Greatclubs now deal 1d10 damage instead of 1d8
- Quarterstaffs are now two-handed weapons with a reach of 10 ft. that deal 1d8 damage, instead of versatile 1d6/1d8 weapons
- Spears now have a reach of 10 ft. when used as melee weapons
- Halberds can now deal either piercing or slashing damage (user's choice)
- Morningstars are now versatile 1d8/1d10 weapons instead of just 1d8
- The flail, trident, and war pick were removed, for reasons we outline at the bottom of https://www.elkan5e.com/weapons
Added description text for weapons to our website
Ancestry and Background features were updated to our new formatting (with no changes to their function)
Added descriptions to each class page, describing what the class is like.
The ranger's natural explorer feature is simplified
Rage now functions in heavy armor

November 27th, 2023

Set up a welcome tour for new Discord members.
Added the Life Domain for clerics
Added the Evoker Tradition for wizards
Wrote an intro and rules explanation for the feats page.
Added an expanded spell list for the Circle of the Shifter druids.
Streamlined the proficiencies granted by backgrounds.
Added an extra tool option for rogues and druids.
Diamond Soul no longer applies to death saving throws.

November 20th, 2023

Updated the Character Creation Guide, including ability score generation methods (Elkan 5e standard array, point buy, and rolling for stats)
The Distant Spell and Extended Spell metamagics were improved.
Eldritch Blast no longer counts as a spell at all, which allowed us to adjust some features to allow better integration with warlock spellcasting.
Mystic Tricksters and Spellswords can now choose warlock as their spellcasting class.
Fixed Fiend Patron expanded spell list
Fixed link issues to and from the rogue and bard page
Fixed dragonborn breath weapons to correctly list '1/long rest'

November 13th, 2023

Added a link to our Foundry VTT module on the website.
Added the Circle of the Shifter druid subclass.
Added 7 Elkan-exclusive spells.
Revamped the website's home page and returning player hub.
Spells that require a visible target now say 'visible creature' or somesuch in the target field at the top of spell descriptions.
Martial Command now targets a single ally and allows them to move up to their speed.
Fixed a whitespace issue on the fighter page.
Silence no longer counts as a ritual spell.

November 6th, 2023

Added the College of Jesters subclass to bard
Added the College of Lore subclass to bard
Revised Sorcerer to get subclass features at levels 1/6/10/14
Standardized capitalization for each class's proficiencies and items
Added an explanation of how to use recommended ability score arrays
Improved the Subtle Spell metamagic option

October 30th, 2023

Finished the Druid class
Added spellcasting progression tables to Spellsword and Mystic Trickster.
Replaced the old cantrips page with the new spells page and replaced all links to spells.
Added a list of changes to cantrips at the bottoms of the spells page.
Song of Rest now affects a maximum of 6 creatures.
Fixed an issue with white space at the bottom of the Ranger page.

October 23rd, 2023

Cleaned up the spells page's design
Added Way of the Open Hand subclass for monks
Revised monk to get subclass features at levels 3/6/10/14
Revised wizard to get access to spells of their chosen school at level 1, moved Arcane Recovery to level 2, and moved their first Arcane Tradition feature(s) to level 3
Reformatted the sorcerer and monk pages
Added the expanded spell list for Fiend patron warlocks
Rogues can now choose not to have proficiency in thieves' tools
Replaced references to 'shield' with 'large shield' and added links for items on the cleric page
Replaced the level 10 Commander feature
Clarified lack of synergy between repelling blast and familiar's blast

August 27th, 2023

Added the spell lists page.
Fixed Militant background on Foundry.
Changed some references to 'ability check' to read 'skill check'.
Added some instructions to automate consumption of Ki and Sorcery Points for certain class features in Foundry.
Improved the Commander's Rally feature.
Added the College of Noise for bards.
Added an expanded spell list for Beastmasters.
Improved the Wild and Maritime Backgrounds.
Fixed darts in the weapon chart and added Unarmed Strikes as a simple weapon.

June 6th, 2023

Rogue progression was reworked, and the page updated. Beastmaster rangers were added to the ranger page. Backgrounds have been finalized (for now)

March 13th, 2023

Several new Backgrounds are available, including Maritime, Noble, Outsider, and Wild. Lightbringer has been reworked and renamed to Devout, and Militant has received a few tweaks.

May 27th, 2022

Ranger has been updated. Mark for Death now requires a bonus action to activate. Rangers get an extra tool at level 1. They get one fewer tool and language at level 6. They get a more customizable version of Expertise at level 6. Snap Reaction has been replaced with a second instance of Expertise.

April 13th, 2022

Lightbringer culture now gives Protection from Evil and Good instead of Branding Smite

March 4th, 2022

Monk: total number of ki points is now 40, up from 30, at level 20. Perfect Self now restores 20 ki rather than all of it. Mobile version is fixed
Ranger: switched to a prepared spell list, rather than a known spell list. This allows rangers to swap their spells on a long rest. No change in number of spells.

January 27th, 2022

Beginning of formal changelog
Monk: removed Meditation at level 2, to bring ki to an entirely long-rest recharge, in line with other similar changes to other classes