Einherjar of Pickles's page

So far you seem to have a very intriguing world, though I am a sucker for anything with the word Lovecraft associated with it (or Lovecraftian). I have homebrewed a lot of worlds and one thing I will say is that the devil is in the details. For example, if inventing a town for your world, don't get overwhelmed trying to list out every faction and the family tree of every shopkeeper there - three unique and memorable things will normally be enough to make it feel real for players.

The same holds true for settings. One thing I and most professional world builders do (Pathfinder's Golarian is no different) is draw from real life places to build the setting. You say your planet is heavy, dense jungle so study architecture and culture in Equatorial regions of IRL Earth (the Aztecs, North to Middlish Africa, and so on) to determine what sort of details, cultures, and so on exist there. If something deviates from that, be prepared with an interesting factoid as to why.

The class features are about as chaotic as the maverick himself. There is quite a bit shoved in to 1st level. Too much I would say.

I tried to shadow the class, closely, in the same way the Anti-Paladin shadows the paladin. I have been out of the class creation game for a time so I was going to start simple, using an existing template for a base. Even in Pathfinder, the Monk is very front heavy, though, presumably, balanced compared to other martial classes thanks to its lower base attack bonus.

PROFICIENCIES

That was a mistake. I left off proficiency, entirely. It should be all simple weapons and the Improved Unarmed Strike feat (to balance against the Monk beginning play with Simple Weapons and the equivalent of the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat for a number of weapons).

RIOTOUS ASSAULT

Another oversight. The maverick does suffer the same penalty to their version of flurry of blows (a -2 and progressive penalty, identical to that of the monk). Thanks for catching that as well.

CATCH OFF GUARD and DIEHARD

These exist in large part as an answer to the Monk's unarmed strike and stunning fist. From my reading of the monk they take a basic feat that any other class could take with the pre-reqs (Stunning Fist and Improved Unarmed Strike, effectively) and transform it into a class feature, of sorts, by enhancing the feat itself. Any suggestions on other feats I could use? Diehard seemed to fit "luck" more to me but I am open to other feat ideas for this.

LUCK POOL

I am not sure I understand this particular critique. The latter abilities of the class require the expenditure of luck from the pool to accomplish certain deeds, similar to those of the monk that require ki.

Instead of a "Luck Pool", why not use Panache or Sleuth Luck? You recover some of it when you crit or kill, which rewards a much more active playstyle than a pool that only depletes.

I like the idea. When I made this class, I only owned the main book but I recently got access to the Ultimate Etc series and the Gunslinger Grit/Swashbuckler Panache is intriguing. How does this system compare to Ki in terms of game balance? Is it roughly equal? It sounds like such a regenerating feature could prove overpowered but then the requirements to regenerate it according to the class features require a critical hit or a kill with the specified weapon.

Concerning the saves.

Another oversight on my part. They should have all good saves, just like their monk counterpart. I have fixed this on the doc.

Thanks for the critiques.

The big difference between NPC classes and PC classes is there is no incentive to level. No neat abilities or things to look forward to.

To use Pathfinder terminology, every level is a "dead level" for them.

One suggestion yet to be mentioned (if you don't mind going old school pre-Pathfinder): there was a book put out by Wizards of the Coast called Arcana Unearthed (or Unearthed Arcana) for 3.5 filled with alternate rules. That was the whole book. One of them replaced the standard classes with warrior, expert, and adept but gave bonus feats that allowed you to build your own class (e.g. Sneak Attack was a bonuse feat, for example).

Maybe give them bonus feats every level and limited access to class features? This could help with the boring aspect.

The Maverick

Built using the Monk as a base template in the same way a Blackguard (Anti-Paladin) closely uses the Paladin as a template, inverting many of the features. In this instance, where a Monk is beholden to discipline in order to unlock his inner potential (Lawful) the maverick is the opposite, depending entirely on luck to get by and seeming to the outside viewer to be unfit for adventure (Chaotic).

Thanks for your time.