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As the title says. However, I'm at a bit of a rough patch as to how I'd want to proceed or quantify the remaining bits of the "class" so that it's a complete package, so I'm bringing it to the forums here to help.
This is a rough, rough, rough draft of the typical Soul Reaper. Most everything can be subject to change, but it gives you a general idea for what I'm going for.
I originally tried to make them their own class, but the more I looked at it in comparison to what already exists, the Vigilante class offers the most "open customization" chassis that I was looking for. (Sorry Fighter, you just got beaten there, too.)
Things I still need to work on before I can call this in a "ready to present" state:
-Refine and confirm the existing rules and features. Several of them seem to be okay, but there may be some things that I've missed, some options that need to be tinkered with, etc.
-Convert the existing "known" Kidou incantations into workable options, as well as the general rules for governing their effectiveness.
-Provide Zanpakutou examples and options for players to select with their character.
-More Soul Reaper Talents (I'm mostly looking for "utility" things, like to do with their Gigai, their forms, and so on).
-Other Rules, such as feats (i.e. Extra Incantation feat), items (Gigai, Soul Candy, and other implementing goodies if necessary), and so on.
-Misc. "Quality of Life" stuff.
Anyway, with these issues and concepts in mind, I'm curious as to what the messageboards has to offer in terms of ideas, critiques, and so on.
I have a lot of concerns about this archetype.
1) Dual Form is incredibly broken. It's extremely powerful as a 1st level ability and even too powerful as an at-will higher level ability. While in corporeal form, you're pretty much invincible to almost all threats at low levels and take 50% from all higher level threats that don't have ghost touch. Meanwhile, you can still do full damage to everything because you start with a free masterwork ghost touch weapon. So you're basically an unstoppable killing machine because you can kill everything while they are either helpless or struggle to harm you unless they have a situational ability to counter your incoporealness. Not to mention all the other benefits of being incorporeal, like being able to bypass difficult terrain and charge through enemies. And on top of it, you can shift as an immediate action!
2) I feel like you're bloating the scope of the project too much. You're giving special ki powers and a talent pool along with a bunch of other abilities. I advise keeping it simple. Too often, I see someone screw themselves over by making their homebrew class or archetype have way too many talent pools and ability options. Either the class ends up incomplete because they couldn't think of enough powers to fill out all the talent pools, or they make up a huge amount of abilities that turn the class into a giant mess that's impossible to balance. Keep it simple. If there's a class feature you really want, maybe consider using an existing mechanic so you don't have to start from scratch. Maybe the reaper's kidous are just qinggong monk powers so you don't have to design a big list of abilities.
3) The idea here suffers from the same problem I often see when people try to homebrew a "Super Saiyan" class or something similar. The soul reapers you see in Bleach are NOT 1st level characters. No 1st level character should be able to do the things they do. Don't give them all the abilities of a soul reaper immediately. Instead, give the abilities across the levels. Maybe they don't learn how to help souls go to the afterlife until they're a veteran. Maybe they can't do kidou until they're strong enough. A 1st level soul reaper should probably look like a slightly weaker Ichigo when he first started out.
Shinigami is more a template than a class. All the incorporeal stuff comes from the fact that they're, you know, dead people.
You're also suffering from, for some reason, making this an archetype instead of its own class. If you build it from the ground up you'll find things much, much easier. "Open customization" is exactly the opposite of what you'll get by chaining it to the Vigilante chassis.
Pathfinder classes are generally designed with a few things. My Freeform Class project broke them down, basically, into Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary abilities, which lines up very nicely with how Paizo has designed the classes.
A class should generally have 1-2 Primary abilities, a number of Secondary abilities, and a few Tertiary abilities. Primary abilities are what define the class. Weapon Training, Judgment, all of the 1st level Monk abilities taken as a package (Flurry, AC bonus, Unarmed Strike), Martial Flexibility, Sneak Attack, etc.
Secondary abilities include things like resource pools (Ki Pool, Arcane Pool, etc.), "fiddly bits" (Rogue/Slayer Talents, Discoveries, Hexes), and thematic and fairly useful abilities (Bane, Armor Training, Divine Grace, etc.).
Tertiary abilities include basically trash filler, and stuff that most people wouldn't take if given the CHOICE generally (at least over other options) but can be useful in niche situations. Stuff like Wild Empathy, Bravery, Trap Sense, Uncanny Dodge (that does not upgrade to Improved), and so on.
And then there are abilities like Spellcasting that fall outside the norm. Usually these are worth two or more Primary abilities, hence why Clerics and Wizards get jack and all in the form of class features, but are still really damn powerful.
Generally speaking the worse your chassis is, and less spellcasting you have, the more cool abilities you can fit. That's why Inquisitors and Bards get all the wonderful toys.
Now that I've lined out where I'm coming from, here's the problem with your class.
Your rough draft of the class falls pretty much like this:
Chassis: d8 HD, 3/4 BaB, 4 skills/level
Primary abilities: Zanpakutou, Dual Form, Kidou (roughly equivalent to 4 level casting, or limited access to Martial Maneuvers from Path of War), Shunpo/Advanced (arguable. Too strong for a Secondary, potentially not strong enough for a Primary).
Secondary Abilities: Soul Reaper Talents, Master of the Precipice
Tertiary abilities: Detect Spirit, Konsou
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So you see the issue. Your class has way too many powerful, character defining abilities...and what's worse is that they're ALL front loaded. There are some classes with multiple Primary abilities in the game, but none that have them all available from day 1.
And, as Cyrad says, there's no need to have them all at 1st anyway. Shunpo, for example. It is explicitly called out early in the series as an extremely advanced technique only high level Shinigami use. I'd set it as a 10th level ability to start, and increase by 10 feet every 5 levels. Caps at 30 feet, weakening it a bit (which is good).
Dual Form is basically a non-starter as written. Turning Incorporeal at 1st level? Even without the ability to pass through walls that's way too stronk.
Drop the incorporeality entirely. Shinigami are more like "invisible to muggles" anyway. They interact with physical objects basically no problem. It would be an interesting (and unique) ability to make them invisible and inaudible to NPC classes when in Shinigami form. Maybe even at higher levels moving that up to "NPC classes and anyone with less than X HD" (say, half the Shinigami's class level). So a 15th level Shinigami is invisible to 7th level characters of any class. Really strong in an abstract sense but rarely going to give a clear tactical advantage in any fight you wouldn't win instantly anyway, and has some tangible drawbacks as well (that merchant you want to buy from? Probably can't see or hear you.)
The other main issue is the Zanpakutou itself. It's waaay too vague on how its abilities are defined going into Shikai and Bankai releases. Yes, every one is unique...but that doesn't really work as a class. You might be best off statting it as almost an Eidolon, giving it a list of abilities to choose from to make each unique.
From simple 1 point "Evolutions" like an increased damage die or threat range/multiplier to more expensive ones like "Can cast a 2nd level spell at-will" or "Grants a +60 foot untyped move speed bonus to wielder".
I think I've gone on long enough though.
@ Cyrad
It's difficult to balance the factor that they are supposed to be spiritual beings, but at the same time can be corporeal as well through the technology that is created. I tried to balance it by making their incorporeality, well..."incorporeality." The benefits that they get likewise are a detriment to them when facing enemies that aren't the same "type" as them (incorporeal, corporeal, ethereal, etc). Perhaps I didn't make it explicit enough, such by saying they only deal 50% damage/have a 50% miss chance against enemies that aren't of the same "type" as they are, and by saying that they take damage from all enemies as if they were wielding magic weapons, whereas magic weapons deal full damage to them, as that's the intent I tried to convey. If that's not the conclusion we're drawing from the entry, then I'll change it to reflect that intent.
The Master of the Precipice feature negates those penalties/detriments, and instead makes it so that if you are facing an enemy of the same "type" as you, that you get bonuses against them, and since that's a 17th level ability, it makes sense that the option to go "incorporeal"/corporeal, "at-will," will be a sub-par option until the later levels, where it becomes an almost required benefit.
I should make the option to shift forms as a Standard Action/Full-Round Action, and then create talents which reduce them to Immediate Actions if the action economy is likewise an issue.
Maybe the Ki Pool I could delay for more powerful incantations (since not even Monks get Ki Pools that early, and they're most notable for them), but even the most basic of Soul Reapers are somewhat trained in Kidou (, I mean, it's even in the name, Kidou), though I could make it so that the basic stuff doesn't require Ki Points, and treat them more like Cantrips/Orisons in terms of effects, usability, and so on. Thoughts on that?
It is a very rough draft. I just want to make sure that it can function from the start and not be like the original Vigilante class, which requires levels upon levels to even function to begin with (what with its silly dual-identity gimmicks that suck nuts).
Of course, you could be right, and I'd be better off making into a subset of outsiders for a potential "Beastiary" entry. However, I'd still run into a lot of the problems that are being presented here, and other ones (such as lack of customization, you'll be running into a lot of high-powered Soul Reapers that are carbon-copies of the others, which is certainly not the case for Soul Reapers, regardless of their overall power), so help would be needed regardless.
@ Sundakan: I really did consider making the Zanpakutou function more like a Bladebound Magus sort of thing (and I may still incorporate some of those options), but it just didn't seem like it was a good enough to get the varied characterization of Soul Reapers as a whole. You got characters like Kenpachi Zaraki who can take all sorts of punishment and is one of the most powerful and bloodthirsty Soul Reapers in all of the ethereal plane, compared to characters like Soi Fon who are fast, stealthy, and function more like a hand-to-hand assassin; that's a lot of ground to cover between the two, and quite frankly, Vigilante Specialization does very little to shore that factor.
I don't think that Shunpo, a 5th level class-feature is "front-loaded." The first 20% of your adventuring career (even if it is the most commonly-played levels of a given table) means that you don't have that feature. So on that front, I think we have different definitions of what is a "front-loaded" class feature. Heck, the Finesse Training of UCRogues for 3rd level is perhaps the latest levels for what I'd consider "front-loaded," and there are other features that are equal to (or much better than) that, which are acquired much sooner (Divine Grace, Monk's AC Bonus, I'm looking at you).
Compared to those features, Shunpo is significantly less powerful, since at best it's a combat-utility option, and at worst it's an alternative form of movement. Also, I wouldn't call it "extremely powerful." At best, it's usable by the top 50% of the Soul Reapers in the Soul Society; advanced sure, but extremely powerful? I disagree.
See the first couple of paragraphs I mentioned to Cyrad in relation to the Dual Form "power level", the same argument would apply here, though you do certainly offer some interesting alternatives and concepts in relation to their "incorporeality."
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I would again like to stress that it's a rough, rough draft, so it's not like I'm not open to change. The ideas presented so far have given me a lot to think about in terms of balancing, simplifying, and so on. Keep pitching it; the more specific you are, (usually) the more helpful it is.
It's an afterlife class, mostly. Taking on undead powers temporarily without alignment damage is a high level power. They might fit in with my Land of the Dead plane.
Despite all the possible issues I really like this take on the idea behind the Shinigami. If I might offer my own take on it (much more martial than your own) maybe there is some things that might fit your own ideas as well? Mine is based mostly on the work of Krimm_Blackleaf (prolific 3.5 homebrewer who still heavily influences my work) and a wholesale lifted version of Animus from the Dreamscarred press Mystic. The class has some balance issues with some things, but yours really is making me think about how to make a different version or tweak, so maybe theres some ideas in this one that can help?
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[...]I just want to make sure that it can function from the start and not be like the original Vigilante class, which requires levels upon levels to even function to begin with (what with its silly dual-identity gimmicks that suck nuts).[...]
Out of curiosity, are you referring to the core vigilante class, or the playtest vigilante class here? It drastically impacts my opinion on the potential helpfulness of any feedback I might give.
Black Blade Magus + Repose Domain Inquisitor = Bleach Shinigami
[...]I just want to make sure that it can function from the start and not be like the original Vigilante class, which requires levels upon levels to even function to begin with (what with its silly dual-identity gimmicks that suck nuts).[...]Out of curiosity, are you referring to the core vigilante class, or the playtest vigilante class here? It drastically impacts my opinion on the potential helpfulness of any feedback I might give.
Does it really matter?
The released Vigilante class requires that you're spending over a minute doinking around between your identities. That's 10+ rounds that you're not in a combat, and since we all know that most combats are ~3 rounds a piece on average, the likelihood that you're going to be relevant in a combat because of very clunky class mechanics becomes practically non-existent. Let's just say that if you do manage to show up, that either the enemies or your party members are dead/captured, and you show up to just...you know...show up.
Yes, there are talents that reduce that time, but those aren't available for a large portion (the most likely played portion across all) of the character's adventuring career, and that's just bad design. I'm not saying there shouldn't be some later options to reduce the time, but it should still at least function on some convenience, instead of "Oh, you need a minute? Sure, we'll fight them while you mess around because your class mechanics suck."
Take a look at the Bardic Performance and Studied Target features; although they start off requiring the larger portion of your action economy, at the very least they are doing worthwhile things, and not taking rounds upon rounds to accomplish. That's proper design, because at least those features can function within the basic requirements of action economy in the course of a given combat, and the improvements are automatic, NOT requiring further investment from the character's already fairly limited resource, which likewise needs to be invested in other, more combat-oriented talents/feats, so that he doesn't fall behind other characters of the party.
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[...]I just want to make sure that it can function from the start and not be like the original Vigilante class, which requires levels upon levels to even function to begin with (what with its silly dual-identity gimmicks that suck nuts).[...]Out of curiosity, are you referring to the core vigilante class, or the playtest vigilante class here? It drastically impacts my opinion on the potential helpfulness of any feedback I might give.Does it really matter?
Yeah. I think vigilante is probably the best and most smartly designed class Paizo has created, so knowing you think essentially the opposite means I have nothing to contribute. Good luck!
10 combat rounds to change clothes?
I'm designing a 2nd level spell that turns one change of clothes into a move action. Then I'm designing a magic belt buckle that changes your outfit. Seven outfits, 6 of them being stored in an extra dimensional space.
Soul reapers don't need time to change because, magic.
10 combat rounds to change clothes?
I'm designing a 2nd level spell that turns one change of clothes into a move action. Then I'm designing a magic belt buckle that changes your outfit. Seven outfits, 6 of them being stored in an extra dimensional space.Soul reapers don't need time to change because, magic.
Yup. It takes three times as long to "change identities" than it is to clear a CR-relevant combat on average, or just as long as 3 Cr-relevant combats. Why? Because [reasons]. I suppose some identities would require more than changing clothes, but to be fair, what else could you change in terms of mundane-ness? Voice alterations, like the Dark Knight Trilogy's Batman? A lot of people would argue that takes no action at all to do, and is done as a part of anything speech-related.
Soul Reapers need some time to switch "forms," and in almost every case, requires components just like the Vigilante does, but it doesn't take an entire minute to do so, nor should it.
The Quick-Change Mask is a single-use item in Ultimate Intrigue allows switching vigilante identities as a move action. That could serve a similar role as Ichigo's Combat Pass did in the show to get you ready for action immediately. Though in his case he left his body lying around and occasionally panicked onlookers.
The only thing keeping you from using Vigilante talents when in your social identity is the fear of discovery. Just max out your Bluff, or don't leave any witnesses.
I think Bardess is closer with stock Pathfinder, though. Bladebound Magus get an intelligent sword that scales with their level and has its own pool of energy. Definitely a good start for a Soul Reaper.
Combat pass. I was trying to remember what it was called.
Necroing because.
With the full P1 rules available, Ichigo would definitely be a Phantom Blade Spiritualist/Mortal Usher! Symbolic Strike could do for his Fullbringer powers, but how to account for his Quincy half? Maybe VMC Oracle of Ancestors? Would Kon be his Decoy Familiar?
Orihime is a Silksworn Occultist, Ishida is a Royal Accuser Inquisitor (Rune domain, favored enemy: undead, favored weapon: longbow)/Deadeye Devotee Arcane Archer, Chad is a Bloody-Knuckled Rowdy/Primalist Bloodrager (Undead Bloodline + Psychopomp Totem rage powers line).
Shinigami powers are Occult, Hollow/Fullbringer powers are Arcane, Quincy powers are Divine. Ychwach himself would be a hero-god granting divine powers to his followers, that he can withdraw at will. Maybe with Souldrinker levels.