You can always take the shove action. PHB 195.

Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.

You only need the subclass (or the feat that gives you maneuvers) if you want to do it as part of your weapon attack.

She is also a 700-year-old wizard, so she wouldn’t be inclined to give a fuck about the “social stigma” of a Tiefling child.

Too much math for 5e’s design philosophy, and with bounded accuracy it would need a crit on the strongest enemies anyway.

The actual implementation of that system could take a number of forms:

• PB/LR for every class that is proficient with the given weapon. (The most basic implementation, but also screws over pure martials in favor of half casters.)
• PB/LR for every class that is proficient, but fighters regain PB/2 uses when they use Second Wind.
• PB/LR for every class that is proficient, PB/SR for fighters, monks, and barbarians.
• PB/LR for every class that is proficient, fighters regain all uses when rolling initiative.
• Etc…

For now it’s just a fourth wall break because none of the players questioned it.

If they do ask, the lore reason is:

“DM” stands for Dunnusaidu Marudu, an ancient philosopher and the inventor of hedonism in this universe. When he died, he decided that even though he has experienced all the possible sensations that his current body and the current time period can provide, he still hadn’t had enough. He had enough followers to become a minor god, and his spirit wanders the world, possessing random people for a short while to gain new experiences. He is not malicious which is why he created this talisman that appears on those possessed by him, he usually doesn’t speak much when he does this, and he never makes major life decisions in the given body.

Reminds me of how they incorporated weapon type-specific attacks in BG3. Stealing this one for sure.

Yep, that whole weapon maneuvers system should be backported into base 5e stat, with slight modifications (i.e. they would be PB/LR instead of 1/SR, since short rests in the tabletop version are less regulated).

(Or alternatively they could auto-proc on a crit.)

If one of my players can’t make it and it’s not possible to remove their character from the group storywise (meaning I’ll have to control their character in combat), the character will immediately equip the “Talisman of Protection from DM Stupidity”. What it does is:

• When a character holding this item dies, they fall unconscious instead and disappear into a demiplane. While in this demiplane, the character is stable at 0 hit points. When the party takes a long rest, the character will reappear near a random other player character as if they had also taken a long rest.
• If the player retakes control of the character while they are still in the demiplane, the character reappears next to another player character of their choice with 1 hit point.
• If all other player characters die, the character in the demiplane will die too. If the method of their original death would have left a corpse, the corpse will reappear adjacent to a random player character’s body. Otherwise, they will disappear alongside the demiplane.

Basically, it makes them immortal unless a TPK happens.

It could be tied to per-rest. Similar to the fighters’ weapon mastery in OneDnD, switching stances could be tied to a long or short rest instead. Just call it something else, like katas. (Yeah, yeah, they are trying to move the monk away from the strictly Eastern roots, but they could give this as a flavor option.) You drill one of the katas in the morning and then you can use the basic ability associated with it for free:

• Kata of the Wildfire: aggressive stance,
• Kata of the Mountain: defensive stance,
• Kata of the Zephyr: mobile stance.

I did a bit of googling and I’ll be damned, looks like even the official Roddenberry Productions Facebook/Instagram account picked it up. OK, that’s it, I peaked, my life is all downhill from there.

Or: Monks have 3 stances: aggressive, defensive, and mobile. Switching stances costs a bonus action, and you can assume one stance freely when you roll initiative.

In aggressive stance Flurry of Blows is free.

In defensive stance Patient Defense is free.

In mobile stance Step of the Wind is free.

This way monks are not just a worse rogue, their basic abilities are now actual basic abilities.

Hey, that’s my meme!

(I don’t mind, I reaped sufficient karma on the website we don’t speak of, just funny coming across it in the wild.)

My players have been having an easy time with the enemies so far, thanks to literally half of the 6-player party being paladins with 20+ AC and a cleric with also 20+. Tomorrow they are fighting a really nasty homebrew fire giant lord with a special armor and shield, legendary actions, and legendary resistances. I gave them an out because defeat will just mean losing a bunch of newly-found magic items and being sworn to the service of said fire giant lord for 10 years, but we’ll see how much of a reality check this will be for them.

Edit: they nuked him in less than two rounds. The giant got out a fireball as a legendary action, and rolled really high… except all but one of them saved (with +2 to saves because fucking paladins) and then all but one of them also took half damage (because fucking Ancients paladin). Then he managed to do two attacks which did pretty good damage against a paladin, but not enough to take her out. Then he got out a stomp attack as a legendary action but everybody made the DEX save because, again, fucking paladins so it was useless. Then he got out a Circle of Death… that everybody managed to save against because fucking paladins, and everybody took half damage above that because, again, fucking paladins, so it did a whopping 9 damage to a bunch of them which amounted to jack fucking shit. And meanwhile he got blasted with divine smites, including a critical one (with some assist from a hexblade’s critical eldritch smite and a crit from a ranger with a powerful homebrew bow (about as powerful as a Dragon Wing bow) combined with Hunter’s Mark and Hail of Thorns).

I don’t know what I hate more, paladins or WotC’s game design philosophy. Seems like the only way to challenge a level 5+ party in combat is to make it a horrible slog through a dozen enemies. Or, y’know, the FromSoftware design philosophy of slapping down an enemy with 20000 HP and an enormous weapon that deals 20d12 damage in a 90 foot cone or a 90 foot long 15 foot wide line.

The problem with Redemption is that it’s an externally-focused oath, trying to redeem others. A conquest paladin having an “am I the baddy” moment and turning into a redemption paladin is like a douchy bully who suddenly finds Jesus then tries to convert people without apologizing for the years of bullying.

D&D needs an Oath of Atonement which would be specifically focused on making up for the shit you did as a previous less-than-moral paladin subclass (mostly conquest, sometimes revenge, occasionally crown or devotion).