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TL;DR Like demons? Critique my class idea
My goal with this class was to make a relatively high risk/high reward martial class that was flavorful and allowed for great roleplay. I've never made anything like this before and I felt that a martial class was the best starting point because at the end of the day they can never truly compete in power with full spellcasters. This is a element of the game that irritates me slightly and I'd like a martial to be a bit beefed up in flexibility.
The essence of the class is based loosely on a barbarian, but also has similarities with the warpriest, paladin and perhaps even monk and bloodrager. I wanted to get away from the huge amount of rage rounds and flexibility of rage that basically allows people to rage nearly all the time and do cheesy things like rage cycle. Instead, the "rage" equivalent of the demonbrand is harder to use and much sparser, but is more powerful and has a more epic feel when being used.
I have had the amazing fortune to be allowed to playtest my character (Baphomet reach demonbrand) by my latest GM in the first book of the Serpent's Skull adventure path. Up until 3rd level, it has played like a slightly underpowered, but very entertaining barbarian (the cleric is none-too-pleased about being associated with a demon-affiliated hombre, but begrudgingly appreciates his strength). Obviously, most of the potentially wonkey abilities come later and I've had no experience playtesting them, and this is where I would love some guidance from the community. What's too good, too bad, or too weird? What excites you, if anything? What are some glaring errors (or unclear parts) of my nomenclature?
You can find the link here:
Demonbrand First Draft
I've only been playing Pathfinder for a few months now, so try to go easy on me! I obviously haven't finished making the Demon Powers and fleshing out all of the possible Demon Lord choices, but I wanted to see some basic feedback about what I have written before I potentially waste any time going forward on something that wont work. Final note: I've never really posted anything here before, so please let me know if the link works.
Take two
This one should work. Forgot to make it the shareable version in the first post, apologies.
This is a really cool class idea. I would suggest some changes. I would remove the proficiency with their deities favored weapon or change it to demon lords as it is talked about in unholy weapon. I would also take the bonus/penalty for skills down to +/- 1 or remove the doubling during possession. This is way too good for a 1 level dip. In fact, this class is a perfect one level dip for a Bard, rogue, or a barbarian. Bards and Rogues can get +20-30 bluff at 2nd level with this class as a dip and Barbarians can put rage and possession together. Also, the flavor text doe possession makes it sound like you can't control yourself. This is a really cool class.
A few more things. This class looks like a lot of fun but it seems really strong. For the demon lords, some of them aren't demon lords. Lamashtu isn't but I'd say she's fine on there. Rovagug definitely is not a demon lord, he is debatably either a qlippoth or is linked to the Great Old Ones.
Wow...thanks for the props and the great feedback.
I definitely didn't put enough time into thinking about the possibilities with multiclassing, as it is something I have minimal experience with. How about some sort of Devotion/Curse stipulation (devotion if you are evil, curse if you are not) that prevents you from using possession if you have levels in other classes. I know this kind of thing may not have many precedents in the pathfinder system but it would be an easy way to fix these problems. Also, as far as dipping into it as your second class, I doubt many GMs would be able to rationalize you waking up one day with a hideous brand and a connection with a demon lord. Either way, I agree that the "doubling" aspect while possessed doesn't make much sense and is too ripe for abuse.
You are definitely right about Rovagug, I mainly just put him on there because I like the greataxe as a favored weapon. Does anyone know of a demon lord that has an axe as their favored weapon? I was really trying to push a butchering axe + impact weapon + vital strike build.
Aside from multi-classing, if the class itself is a bit too strong, what could be some ways to tone it back a bit? Minor changes like dropping the healing numbers slightly or getting rid of free weapon focus at 1st level come to mind.
Saving Throws
Just change these progressions to match the rangers: goof fort/ref, bad will. Two of your current progressions occur -nowhere- in Paizo classes. I imagaine you are toying with 1st level balance, but don’t bother trying this with standardized progressions.
Demon Tattoo
Is it a tattoo or a presence? I’m not clear on this. If the character literally gets a demonic tattoo, does it have to be visible to gain the bonuses? Untyped bonuses aren’t necessarily wrong, but they can be useful for balance. As written this sounds like a circumstance bonus, but this bonus type is typically only handed out by the GM as a result of an in-game situation. The weird thing about this feature is that it makes it harder for the character for Intimidate lawful and good characters. This is my opinion of course, but that seems counter to what I believe the intent fo the feature is.
Possession
Why can’t he wear armor or use a shield? Do the demons forbid it? The characters AC is going to suck badly. Not good for a melee character. Why is the duration exactly four rounds? The healing progression is odd to me, but I don’t have a suggestion to better it at this time. Why does the healing not occur when you use a bow specifically? Does it trigger with a crossbow? What about a blowgun or a sling? Perhaps you mean to say that that ranged attacks don’t count? When the character’s uses of this feature are used up, he cannot use mental-based skills until he rests. How long does he have to rest? 4 rounds? 8 hours? 8 hours would be a terrible choice. After one fight, the character is basically done role-playing. I don’t think that’s your intent.
Devotion
I don’t like it. Expect for specific cases from the earler material available for the game, the design of Pathfinder is intended to allow easy multi-classing. Assigning the morale type to the bonuses already disallows stacking it with rage, so that’s taken care of. Though I’m not sure morale is appropriate. You make this sound like a physical transformation.
Unholy Weapon
I’m not a fan. The war priest only gets something like this because he doesn’t start out with a +1 BAB. A feature like this should be a selectable option. Not the default at 1st level. Some demons have a favored weapons like dagger.
Thanks for your input Ciaran!
1) I will indeed change the saving throws to that of most martial classes, for continuity's sake.
2) This is the second time that problems with the social skill aspect has come up, and it was only meant to be a flavorful thing anyway, so ZAP! it's gone. Felt unprecedented anyway.
3) The original reason I took off the armor is because the healing is INCREDIBLY powerful and barbarians can only get a similar effect at 10th level, and only for 5 hp a time. It really makes the class feel high risk/high reward. The duration should be limited to a specific number of rounds because if it was as flexible as rage it would be wildly overpowered. I do think that the 4 is a bit arbitrary though, perhaps it could be 2 + Con modifier or something so you could jack it up later on. The healing is a bit odd, was thinking of doing it 1d6 every second level like rogue's sneak attack, but making it 1d6 every 3 + level makes it very consistent, hovering around 22% of HP each time it triggers. Had to do something about bows and range in general because if you could heal with that this would be overpowered. May just say bows are OK but you need to be 30 away or less, theoretically in harm's way. You are very right about the mental features, it should just be an hour after or something.
4) I agree about devotion, people had just pointed out that it was a strong multiclass. The morale bonus is more of a necessity so it wouldn't be so crazy with rage, but it is a mental effect as well as physical so its not too weird calling it a morale bonus.
5) I agree about the free weapon focus, it was something I've been thinking about cutting out for a while. However, the favored weapon IS actually a selectable option, with the Adaptive feature that you get for free at 4th level and can take any other number of times after that. Dagger is also a great weapon for certain builds!
Thanks for putting in the time, every opinion really helps me figure things out and I really appreciate it.
Keep on making updates and I’ll weigh in again. I only commented on the 1st level features because the foundation of the class is important. And it was getting late.
Good to have some free Demonbrandin' stuff out there for PF1e. ;)
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Nice one Here4daFreeSwag. You can be the demonbrand manager.
I've twiddled and tweaked a bit with the class to make the progression feel right, but there's still much to do. With playtesting I'm pretty happy with the first couple levels of the class. It's definitely not as a reliable as a barbarian, but still strong enough to compete, with occasional moments of high power. Obviously, still open to suggestions with that stage of the game, especially with multiclassing.
The mid-to-late game is something I don't have enough experience with and don't feel comfortable with in terms of balancing this class.
Here's the incomplete beta version of the Demonbrand
Need help with
1) demon powers - some are undoubtedly not OK, which ones are too good, too bad, or just too uninteresting? Are any of them cool/fun/right?
2) demon lord abilities - for these guys my vision was a cool little ability at 2nd level, then spell-like abilities that you can cast once a day upon entering possession at 8, 14, and 20 that last the duration of possession. I'd like them to be pretty powerful spells, maybe around the time sorcerers of an equivalent level would get them. I don't know all the spells, so it would be awesome if anyone can help with suggestions for ones that are fairly strong and are related to what the demon lord is like, without being broken. Also, since it's basically the demon casting the spell, evil ones are in (unless you think that wouldn't work).
Power gamers might take a level in monk to add some AC. This class doesn't really have anything that discourages multiclassing so that might be a problem if you don't want to see possessed ninjas or something. Paizo deals with multiclassing with level based abilities like smite, challenge, precise strike or spellcasting. Level to damage is amazing but not when you're multiclassing. Bloodragers usually don't dip, as far as I know, because of spell casting. Since Demon powers can be obtained with feats, players could afford delay unlocking some throught the class and dip. Maybe you could add a level locked demon power that adds some goodies like "Demonic Strength: 5th level, do 3x damage on next hit" I don't know anything about balance but level locking will prevent some multiclassing.
I'm afraid I don't really understand what you mean by level-locking. All of the stuff that you get, with the exception of the low-level dinky demon powers requires a certain number of demonbrand levels taken. If you dip 1 into the class, you would be stuck with one possession a day for a few rounds and be stuck on 1d6 + 1 healing which would quickly become irrelevant compared to the damage you take. Maybe I didn't make it clear with the demon powers, anything with a number next to the name requires that many demonbrand levels in order to select. It's basically exactly like rage powers for barbs. For example, getting a second level in one of the demon blood feat chains would require you to have at least 6 levels of demonbrand to even select, even with the Extra Demon Power feat option.
As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with being a possessed ninja, not convinced it would be better than just going full ninja, or just going Shax Demonbrand (you get sneak attacks and invis). Monks are a non-issue as they must be lawful and demonbrands must be chaotic. Also, unless had jacked wisdom, monks don't even get any extra AC until you have 4 levels in monk, so dipping wouldn't do anything even if you could. For most classes that use medium or even light armor, taking a level of barbarian is probably quite a bit better than taking a level of this. For classes that are dex based and unarmored, this would be a better dip than barbarian though, which is ok I think. Most of the power of the class comes with devoting many levels to it.
At the end of the day, most GMs wouldn't even buy it that you just suddenly leveled up with a demon tattoo one day, so dipping would only really work if you started as a demonbrand (unless you have a very permissive GM).
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