| DrJoeScience |
I would love to get some feedback and role playing experiences from the following home rule class - based on the monk, and having a similar theme and role, may I present the veil dancer
Respected and feared across the entire Sultancy, indeed, the Great Sphere itself, are the honoured veil dancers. This secretive organisation is recognised and honoured wherever they go under the Burning Sun. They frequently form key operatives in spying or diversion for the Holy Army, and their clandestine, ‘black ops’, missions are the stuff of true legend. They do, however, occasionally perform very public services when called on. Adding to their enigma and mystery is that they can go completely unarmed, dressed in nothing more than common clothes, perhaps appearing as nothing more than an old woman in rags, and yet prove in a moment once more why they are considered to be among the most deadly assassins and warriors in history.
Clad only in seven pieces of cloth, these individuals strive for a perfection of mind, body, and soul through sacred and secretive meditation and martial techniques. Through use of their personal energy, or Sah (‘breath’), they are able to perform incredible feats of physical prowess. This includes animating inanimate cloth, such that a simple shawl in their hands can sunder steel, a rope belt pierces a wooden shield like a spear, or the curtains nearby leap about becoming an impassable sea of motion only the veil dancer herself can safely pass. While there is no gender requirement for becoming a veil dancer, traditionally, and all veildancers currently living, are female.
Role: Veil dancers make great skirmishers, doing little damage individually (usually), but excelling in combat feats such as tripping, disarming, and delaying adversaries. Their swift movement and battlefield control abilities makes them valuable allies, more especially whenever cloth is to found.
Alignment: Veil dancers tend to be lawful good, but neutral good or lawful neutral are allowed. History records few instances of veil dancers turning to evil, though some ‘rebellious good’ ones are spoken of. No penalties accrue for becoming another alignment, but the individual cannot gain more levels in veil dancer until the three iconic alignment requirements are met. Those that turn to evil are typically hunted down en-masse and hounded till death, or preferably, repentance.
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills
The veil dancers class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Fly (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (law) (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Stealth (Dex), Use magic device (Cha).
Skill Ranks at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Table: The Veil Dancer
Level Base Attack Bonus Fort/Ref/Will Special Veil dancer Damage Fast Move-ment
1st +0 +2 AC bonus, Veil dancer damage (bludgeoning), Acolyte of the cloth, Dancers damage reduction 1d6 +0 ft.
2nd +1 +3 Speaker of the weave, Combat charisma, Veil dancer damage (slashing), Bonus feat 1d6 +0 ft.
3rd +2 +3 Evasion, Fast movement, manoeuvre training, Veil dancer damage (piercing) 1d6 +10 ft.
4th +3 +4 Sah pool, Veil dancer damage (magic), Animate cloth, Web of threads 1d8 +10 ft.
5th +3 +4 Dancer’s leap, Master of the weave (difficult terrain)
1d8 +10 ft.
6th +4 +5 Bonus feat, Weaver of magic (item craft feat), Veil dancer damage (cold iron) 1d8 +20 ft.
7th +5 +5 Wholeness of body, Master of the weave (entangle), Veil dancer damage (silvered) 1d8 +20 ft.
8th +6/+1 +6 Improved evasion, Evermoving,
1d10 +20 ft.
9th +6/+1 +6 Master of the weave (web), Veil dancer damage (mithril) 1d10 +30 ft.
10th +7/+2 +7 Bonus feat,
1d10 +30 ft.
11th +8/+3 +7 Veil dancer damage (good), Conjure cloth. 1d10 +30 ft.
12th +9/+4 +8 Weave step, Master of the weave (animate)
2d6 +40 ft.
13th +9/+4 +8 Veil dancer damage (lawful) 2d6 +40 ft.
14th +10/ +5 +9 Bonus feat, Veil dancer damage (ghost touch)
2d6 +40 ft.
15th +11/ +6/+1 +9 Master of the weave (absorb), Rider of the cloth. 2d6 +50 ft.
16th +12/+7/+2 +10 Veil dancer damage (adamantine) 2d8 +50 ft.
17th +12/+7/+2 +10 Master of the weave (prismatic spray) 2d8 +50 ft.
18th +13/ +8/+3 +11 Bonus feat
2d8 +60 ft.
19th +14/ +9/+4 +11 Veil dancer damage (epic) 2d8 +60 ft.
20th +15/+10/+5 +12 Grandmaster of the weave 2d10 +60 ft.
Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Veil dancers are proficient in simple weapons, usually as a result of the culture they grew up in. While they are proficient with whips, they may not use them unless they are made entirely of cloth. Their special abilities are only available for use with cloth weapons, unless otherwise mentioned. They usually carry around a dagger just in case.
Veil dancers cannot wear armour. They are not proficient in shields. When wearing normal clothing that restricts their dancing in any way, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a veil dancer loses her acolyte of the cloth bonuses, veil dancer damage, dancer damage reduction, and fast movement.
AC Bonus (Ex): The veil dancer adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her AC and CMD. This bonus to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the veil dancer is flat-footed. She loses these bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless, when she wears anything other than padded armour, when she carries a shield, or when she carries a medium or heavy load.
Acolyte of the cloth: The veil dancer’s focus their training on both dancing, and dealing death using nothing more than magically enchanted clothing. Thus, while they are certainly not prohibited from wearing clothing made of metal, leather, or even stone (for disguise sake), they are typically uncomfortable when they do. They also do not get any acolyte of the cloth bonuses, veil dancer damage, dancer damage reduction, or fast movement if such attire restricts their dancing. They can wear jewellery items of any material without penalty, and frequently do.
As their level improves they gain the ability to turn their clothing into deadly weapons. Their clothes operate as magical weapons at 1/4th their veil dancer level. So at level 16 their cloth weapons are considered +4 weapons for resolving attacks, damage and overcoming DR.
While they can wear or wield anything cloth available, they traditionally carry seven kinds of cloth, each usable as a different weapon. They are considered proficient at this weapon, but may not actually use anything other than their cloth versions – they are not considered proficient in the classical version of the weapon (unless stated in a separate class or race description). While the restrictions below apply to such things as range increments, damage is applied as per the veil dancer damage below.
• A long sleeved dress (or padded armour) – capable of making slashing attacks as a scimitar.
• A thick cloak – which can be used to generate difficult terrain around them.
• A rope belt – which can function as a whip, allowing trip and grapple attempts, or shortspear.
• A fine, decorative, thread – used for deadly missile attacks, treat as a shiruken.
• A fine veil – which can be thrown as a javelin which does slashing damage.
• Decorative, tightly woven ribbon boots (often with wooden soles) – function as clubs, worn or wielded. Can also be traded out for a belt or marginally functional dress.
• Thick undergarments – last resort clothing, can perform as items above.
Thus, while they can wield simple weapons, they prefer not to. They can, also, create magical weapons out of clothing at the normal cost. For example, Nethrul the level 4 veildancer purchases a +1 flaming cloth belt for 4000gp plus 300 gp for the masterwork materials of the belt. Thereafter she can use any rope belt to perform trip and grapple attempts, and her belt operates as a whip that overcomes magic, bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage reduction. If, however, she brings out her flaming belt it will do all that and attack and damage at +1, with another 1d6 fire damage.
Veil dancer damage (Su): This supernatural ability counts only with the veil dancer’s cloth weapons, and represents the veil dancers growing mystical powers at animating simple cloth. While they usually use their own clothing, they can literally pick up, steal, or potentially animate any piece of cloth nearby (attended items get the usual saving throw). After use the cloth reverts to its natural state. Veil dancers can pre-prepare special cloth or threads with permanent magical abilities (such as keen or flaming) using their own, or another’s, weaver of magic ability (see below).
While being wielded, the cloth weapons have a hardness equal to cloth – ie, 0. They do, however, magically possess a damage reduction equal to the veil dancer’s current level, and hit points equal to double that number. Unattended, they are as normal cloth.
If the veil dancer has monk levels, this ability stacks with monk’s unarmed damage, as if the veil dancer had continued in monk classes.
At level 1, veil dancers learn how to fold and handle any piece of cloth so that it can be used as a simple club, doing thus bludgeoning damage.
At level 2, this ability develops to the point where the extra-long sleeves of their robes (or any piece of cloth for that matter, such as a table cloth) can be used as slashing weapon, as per a scimitar. When wielded by a veil dancer, the cloth can slice through such things as stone and metal, being considered steel for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance and hardness (ie, 10).
At level 3, they develop the ability to use rope and threads as piercing weapons, with standard rules for reach, number of hands required, range increments and crit ranges. They can also use a rope (or equivalent) as a long or short spear. They can throw individual threads as per daggers, and they traditionally prefer to carry about a small line of decorative threads for the purpose. They have little difficulty piercing hardwood doors clean though with this ability.
Furthermore, they are ready to arm themselves at short notice. As a move equivalent action, they can magically alter any unattended cloth items (attended cloth items receive the normal saving throw) to form a weapon. They can pull the threads from any nearby item (or roll up sheets into ropes) for their piercing attacks, roll up one piece of clothing to form a club, or use a piece of clothing to operate as a normal sword.
At level 4, their cloth weapons are considered magical (+1) for the purposes of attack, damage and overcoming damage resistance. This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) any other magical powers and properties the cloth may have due to weaver of magic ability, or such spells as greater magic weapon. They must have at least 1 Sah point (see below) for this and any further abilities to function.
At level 6, their cloth weapons wound fey as easily as any human, granting them cold iron ability (but, obviously, not transmuting the clothing into any form of actual iron).
At level 7, their cloth damages demons and lycanthrope as easily as humans, gaining the silvered ability for overcoming damage reduction.
At level 9, their impressive devotion results in their cloth weapons being considered mithril for the purpose of overcoming DR and Hardness, ie, 15.
At level 11, the innate goodness of their hearts imbues their weapons with the good trait for overcoming damage reduction. If they are not good aligned, there is no measurable benefit.
At level 13, their pure obedience to law lawful manifests in their cloth weapons as the lawful ability for overcoming damage reduction. If they are not lawful, there is no benefit.
At level 14, their cloth damages ghosts as easily as humans, gaining the ghost touch ability when attacking incorporeal beings.
At level 16, their absolute devotion to cause resonates within their soul, granting their threads the adamantine property for overcoming damage reduction and hardness.
At level 20, if they haven’t built cloth weapons of a +6 total bonus already, any cloth weapon they now wield is treated as epic for overcoming damage reduction.
Dancer’s damage reduction: Due to the magical nature of their clothing, the veil dancer has a damage resistance equal to their veil dancer level, which is overcome by chaotic weapons. This ability is only functioning while the veil dancer is in brisk motion, i.e., dancing, has no armour other than padded and is carrying nothing more than a light load.
Speaker of the weave (SA): AKA ‘weave whisperer’, this mystical ability allows veildancers to create standard clothing and cloth- based equipment out of anything that could reasonably be woven into threads, and is sufficiently large. While the raw materials are magically cleaned and purified, the item will carry over any particular weaknesses or benefits of the base material. For example, clothing and equipment (rope) has been woven from spider silk, while previously blocked pathways have been cleared. Beaten flax can be formed into robust bedding, or a demon’s hair into fire proof gloves. Legends speak of epic veil dancers who have even woven items from dreams, lies or rainbows.
Also, the veil dancer cannot transmute materials with this skill (ie, they do not spin straw into gold). The veil dancer must first roll a profession – weaver or profession seamstress check, the result representing the final quality of the item they have made.
• 1 or less. It does not work.
• 2-5. The item is poor and breaks after its first use.
• 6-10. The item is crude, but functions effectively. Even complete strangers will mutter encouragement to your obviously unschooled efforts.
• 11-15. The item is of standard quality. It does not stand out, and hardly anyone mentions it unless you designed motifs or images that they recognise.
• 16-20. The item is of good quality, and functions effectively. Kind hearted individuals with profession (seamstress or weaving) will compliment your efforts.
• 21-30. The item is of masterwork quality, and gets noticed by non-professionals as a keen example of the skills involved.
• 31-40. The item is of masterwork quality, and is a glorious example of the skill. Its price is ten times the base items worth, and royalty will seek your skill.
• 41-50. Otherworldly powers are clearly manifest in this artwork of exquisite creation. It gains a free, continuous level 1 orizon (usually light to make it glow). Thieves from other continents may covet your items, and it is generally worth a hundred times the base items cost.
• 51+. Divinity itself is manifest in the perfection of your creation. Choose from the following effects: 1/ It is sentient. 2/ It can cast a first level cleric spell (your choice) x1 per day. 3/ It can cast a first level sorcerer spell (your choice) x1 per day. It is worth a thousand times the normal price for such an item (ie, a blanket, 2sp, of DC 51+ can be sold for 100gp as is – no extra embroidery or magical abilities added). Interdimensional messengers may be sent to implore you to use your magic on their behalf.
A normal needle (knitting or sewing) is a required material component for this ability, and it requires a full round action per item (beds, for example, have several items). The DC increases by 20 if you want to do it all in swift action, which may seem useless, but grandmaster veil dancers have used this power to weave up a coat from materials lying around, and then used that coat to choke the life out of their enemies.
Bonus Feat: At 2nd level and every 4 levels thereafter, a veil dancer may select a bonus feat. These feats must be taken from the following list: Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows, Dodge, at 6th level the following feats are added to the list: Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Grapple, Improved Trip and Mobility. At 10th level, the following feats are added to the list: Snatch Arrows, Agile Grappler (not grappled while grappling, Spring Attack. At 14th level, the following feats are added to the list: Improved Critical (cloth only), Shape Spell, and Whirlwind Attack. A veil dancer need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them.
Combat Charisma (Ex): Using a combination of esoteric training regimes, raw magic, and mystical dance, the veil dancer may use her charisma bonus in the place of her dexterity when resolving ranged attacks, and in the place of strength for calculating melee attacks.
Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level or higher, a veil dancer can avoid damage from many area-effect attacks. If a veil dancer makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a veil dancer is wearing light armour or no armour. A helpless veil dancer does not gain the benefit of evasion.
Fast Movement (Ex): At 3rd level, a veil dancer gains an enhancement bonus to her land speed, as shown on Table above. A veil dancer in anything other than cloth armour or carrying a medium or heavy load loses this extra speed. Remember fast movement from other classes or abilities stack.
Manoeuvre Training (Ex): At 3rd level, a veil dancer uses her veil dancer level in place of her base attack bonus when calculating her Combat Manoeuvre Bonus. Base attack bonuses granted from other classes are unaffected and are added normally.
Sah Pool (Su): At 4th level, a veil dancer gains a pool of Sah points, supernatural energy she can use to accomplish amazing feats. The number of points in a veil dancer’s Sah pool is equal to 1/2 her veil dancer level + her Charisma modifier. As long as she has at least 1 point in her Sah pool, she can make a Sah strike, explained under ‘veil dancer damage’. Without at least 1 Sah point, the veil dancer can only do piercing, bludgeoning and slashing damage (plus whatever bonuses are previously woven into her cloth via weaver of magic abilities, see below).
By spending 1 point from her Sah pool, a veil dancer can make one additional attack at her highest attack bonus when making a full round attack. In addition, she can spend 1 point to increase her speed by 20 feet for 1 round. Finally, a veil dancer can spend 1 point from her Sah pool to give herself a +4 dodge bonus to AC for 1 round. Each of these powers is activated as a swift action. A veil dancer gains additional powers that consume points from her Sah pool as she gains levels.
The Sah pool is replenished each morning after 8 hours of rest or meditation; these hours do not need to be consecutive. By the mystical laws of the multiuniverse, Ki and Sah pools may be pooled.
Web of threads: As an immediate interrupt action, veil dancers can command all threads in one piece of garment or material to explode outwards in random directions. Attended or held magical items receive the standard saving throw. This ability destroys the object, though the carefully gathered threads can usually be sold for half price again. If the item is being worn at the time, and it is at least half the creatures size (ie, a shirt, and not a sock) the wearer must make a saving throw as if under the effects of the web spell (see entry). If the item was Large (ie, a curtain, or a section of carpet) it is able to affect anyone in the usual area of a web spell. Aside from destroying the enemies clothing, this spell has saved a falling veil dancer more often than has been counted.
Dancers leap (Ex): At 5th level, a veil dancer adds her level to all Acrobatics checks made to jump, both for vertical jumps and horizontal jumps. In addition, she always counts as having a running start when making jump checks using Acrobatics. By spending 1 point from her Sah pool as a swift action, a veil dancer gains a +20 bonus on Acrobatics checks made to jump for 1 round.
Master of the weave: From level 5 as a standard action, and for the cost of a Sah point, the veil dancer can command every unattended cloth item within a 30’ radius to animate for a number of rounds equal to her charisma modifier. Maintaining the effect is a free action, magical abilities the cloth have are negated during the spell, and the cloth thereafter magically reverts to its previous form. If there is insufficient cloth in the area, and the veil dancer cannot provide them from her own clothing or abilities, this spell may fail or only affect an area equivalent to the cloth available (typically, a 10 foot square per medium creatures outfit). The exact effect can be decided by the dancer herself, and each five foot square within may have a different ability, yet the veil dancer must take appropriate feats if she wants to learn how to exclude allies from this effect. The DC is 10 + ½ the veil dancer’s level + the veil dancers charisma.
At level 5, this makes all terrain difficult terrain.
At level 7, the entire terrain is under the effect of an entangle spell.
At level 9, the entire terrain is under the effect of a web spell.
At 12th level, as well as the abilities mentioned above, the veil dancer can also animate a single piece of medium clothing - usually their own cloak – as a ‘cloth’ elemental. Treat this as an earth or air elemental (depending on the will of the veil dancer and the thickness of the weave) with at least as many hit dice as the veil dancer has, and of the largest size appropriate to that hit dice (see bestiary). It is under the complete control of the veil dancer, but will act on its own. The caster level is equal to the veil dancer’s levels.
At 15th level, once per day, the veil dancer can use a standard action to absorb and effectively dispel any area affect spell whose area overlaps with her own maser of the weave area. If the point of origin is within the area of her master of the weave area, the spell may be dispelled entirely. She must succeed on a profession (seamstress of weaver) equal to the spellcraft to dispel as per normal. Only one spell may be dispelled in this manner, and it results in no measurable damage to the cloth if it succeeds.
At level 17, the entire area functions as a prismatic spray spell when first activated, using the area of the veil dancer ability and affecting all creatures in the area (unless appropriate feats such as spell shaping) are taken.
Weaver of Magic: At 6th level veil dancers can weave special runes using mystical materials into their clothing or other cloth possessions to give them any benefit or power usually conferred on normal weapons (within normal restrictions). Fire resistance is a very common choice. For example, Saffron the level 9 veil dancer finds a +2 flaming dagger. Using her mystical powers she draws it out into ultra-fine threads which she weaves into her clothing. With the help of a wizard friend (who has the ‘craft magical items’ feat and is willing to work for free), she weaves the threads into her handkerchief at no cost (having raw materials and a talented, generous friend already at hand). Her handkerchief now functions as a +2 flaming weapon with the same statistics as a +2 flaming dagger when she or any other veil dancer wields it. Otherwise, it functions as a handkerchief.
Wholeness of Body (Su): Veil dancers are really fit. At 7th level or higher, a veil dancer can heal her own wounds as a standard action. She can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to her veil dancer level by using 2 points from her Sah pool.
Improved Evasion (Ex): At 8th level, a veil dancer’s evasion ability improves. She still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless veil dancer does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.
Evermoving (Ex): At 9th level, a veil dancer is immune to grapple unless swallowed – all that dancing is really starting to pay off.
Conjure cloth (Su): Veil dancers are well aware that their greatest vulnerability is not having any clothing around. Usually they make their own using their speaker of the weave ability, but at times that is not enough. At 11th level veil dancers can conjure in an adjacent square from the multiverse a five foot cube of random, non-magical, generally unwanted cloth – most of it from local sources. This is enough to power every ability the veil dancer has. They can use this ability as many times per day as their charisma modifier. As with most conjure spells, the cloth remains indefinitely after the spell is cast.
Weave Step (Su): At 12th level or higher, a veil dancer can slip magically between articles of unattended cloth, as if using the spell dimension door. Using this ability is a move action that consumes 1 point from her Sah pool. Her caster level for this effect is equal to her veil dancer level. She cannot take other creatures with her when she uses this ability, and this ability will not work unless there is unattended cloth at both ends. Acolytes new to this ability typically take some of threads of the exiting cloth with them, colouring their normal clothes several times until they gain a level of experience.
Rider of the cloth (Su): at 15th level the veil dancer can animate any ten foot square of fabric to become a functioning magic carpet. The spell lasts for as many hours as they have veil dancer levels, and has DR and hit points as described in acolyte of the cloth.
Grandmaster of the weave: At 20th level, a veil dancer no longer becomes fatigued while dancing, and can make any profession (weaver or seamstress) as a move action. At this level, her Sah pool jumps up to become equal to her charisma plus her entire veil dancer level. Also, her connection with the magic of the universe is such that she no longer ages or takes penalty for aging, as with the monk or druid ability.
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I recommend putting this is Google Drive or Dropbox. It's difficult to read a giant block of unformatted text. This also allows you to change it.
I skimmed over it and read some of the first abilities. I'm seeing some issues that raise a red flag already.
Base Attack Bonus: If this is a combat class, why do they have a 3/4 BAB instead of a full BAB? That's like creating a class that can only cast 6th level spells and presenting them as a full caster on par with the wizard.
Saves: I'm not a fan of giving them 3 good saves.
Skills: I think the class skill list is way too good. They have some of the best class skills in the game, and I can't think of any good reason why they would have some of them. Having too good of a class skill list on a non-skill monkey homebrew class has been a pet peeve of mine.
Acolyte of the Cloth: This needs completely rewritten. It's way too complicated and it botches a lot of core game mechanics. It's also awkward that the class will lose class features for wearing non-magical clothing. Magical clothing is not available in the equipment list, and wondrous items will be way too expensive and rare for a 1st level character to purchase. The class basically forces your character to be naked at 1st level.
I'm also surprised that a class all about dancing that is called the "veil dancer" has absolutely no abilities involve dancing or using the Perform (dance) skill. And yet, there's an ability that uses Profession (seamtress)!