New Class: The Shaper, a full BAB Martial Shapeshifter

[MasterGeese]

Here's the doc.

This started off as a Master Summoner off-shoot, which was more oriented on using Evolutions(or as they're referred to now, Alterations) to buff themself instead of their Eidolon.

Eventually I scrapped the idea of them summoning at all, and turned the concept into a full-BAB Martial class with zero armor/weapon proficiencies, but instead has pretty hefty Natural Armor/Natural attack options.

The resulting class seems reasonably balanced on paper. It's fairly MAD, needing all 3 physical stats to fight with, as well as Intelligence to drive many of its class features, but getting easy access to numerous natural attacks at level 1 gives them high damage output early on if they can hit with everything. Though they don't have weapon training, they can take alterations or feats to give their attacks an extra kick if need be. My sample builds so far seem to be keeping up at least with premade fighters/barbs, though they need to spend nearly all their Alteration points to do so. I've assumed that there would be a feat to give 1 Essence, the same way the summoner has a feat for 1 extra Evolution point. It

However at high levels, while I doubt the Shaper will be able to hit as hard as a fighter or barbarian, it has a TON of extra flexibility options thanks to Spontaneous Alterations. Ideally this would mean high-level Shapers would have something to do other than pump out as much damage/tankiness as possible.

What are your thoughts?

[Ciaran Barnes]

Is there anything that prevents the shaper from wearing armor? Non-proficiency doesn't prevent it, and there is no arcane spellcasting to discourage it. It stacks with natural armor, and then of course there's enhancement bonuses to natural armor. I say all of this because I think you should slow how quickly the shaper's natural armor bonus is gained.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

I did something similar to this as a Ranger archetype and called it the Therianthrope. Look it over for any ideas and concepts you like.

[Cyrad]

The class is actually kind of broken in that you obviously did not audit the eidolon powers to see whether or not they're balanced to put on a PC. As is, you can start a 1st level character having pounce, which isn't something feasibly available to PCs until much later levels. Worse is that you can actually give pounce to OTHER characters later! You also give at-will flight at 5th level, which is at least 3 or 4 levels before any other character usually can.

Another problem with the class is that its scope is way too low. There simply aren't many class features. You put some effort into some that it has, but there simply isn't enough.

I'm also not a fan of the class skill list. The class has Spellcraft, Knowledge (arcana), and Use Magic Device, but it's not a magical class. It doesn't even have supernatural abilities (and if they do, you should label them as such).

Also, I don't understand why you made two economies with essence and alterations. I'm guessing to make the player have to decide between having a larger pool to use extra abilities or having more alterations? I don't like that at all. You're trying to give some customization and choice, but you end up just making the player feel like they're being punished for using the class features the way they should. It would have been better just to have essence be totally separate from alterations.

[MasterGeese]

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

Is there anything that prevents the shaper from wearing armor? Non-proficiency doesn't prevent it, and there is no arcane spellcasting to discourage it. It stacks with natural armor, and then of course there's enhancement bonuses to natural armor. I say all of this because I think you should slow how quickly the shaper's natural armor bonus is gained.

Essence Armor's Active ability is an Armor bonus. Assuming an Int of 16 or so at low levels (you'll probably want to physical stats to be up to par as well) that's an equivalent bonus to wearing studded leather armor. I guess the worst part right now is that wearing armor would be largeely redundant with one of your class features unless you want to spend multiple feats to fix this. I was hoping to take a less heavy-handed approach than the druid or arcane casters where wearing armor is borderline unplayable.

[Ciaran Barnes]

The character could wear armor, and in doing so not have to spend the essence point or the standard action to gain a small armor bonus.

If you want the character to not wear armor, then change essence armor's passive ability to being an armor bonus.

[khadgar567]

nice evolutions mate

[Here4daFreeSwag]

Good to have some free stuff on both the Shaper and Therianthrope out there. ;)