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Dovabear!

I am interested in the fluff for this class. If it is good and make sense i Think lots if the machanics Will be easyer to imagine.

In terms of flavor, I could see it going two different directions:

Incarnate: a class that represents the someone with a touch of divinity, like the favored soul. Such a class would have the ability to temporarily gain the celestial or fiendish template (are there other alignment templates out there?) with access to some spell-like abilities from the cleric spell list. I could see this having full BAB. I know we already have the oracle class, but this would be more of an adaptation in terms of the favored soul's versatility rather than being the full divine caster that uses Cha rather than Wis.

Psyker: albeit, I'm not too familiar with Dreamscarred Press's work with psionics but I see this class being sort of a pre-cognitive warrior-type. It would have an ability to "foresee" events and gain a bonus to certain rolls (attacks? maybe saves?) like the investigator class's inspiration ability. Basing its spell-like abilities off of Con would make it feel more alien or psychic-punk, but I could see going with Wis too. Its spell-like abilities would draw from illusion, enchantment, and some transportation/mobility spells.

True, there's the Soulknife, as well as Incarnum's Souborn and Totemist, but I don't care for this idea. Magic ought to be the product of a powerful mind. That's the great thing about magic: Weedy nerds don't need to put up with being pushed around by dumb jocks, because their smarts/wisdom/will gives them earth-shattering violent power that puts muscle to shame. This is why I want more than anything for magic to be real....

Oh, I definitely agree with the sentiment. Which is why I think if I'm going to go ahead with this, it needs to be Con-based and something inherent to the class, just like magic is inherent in sorcerers. The class I was thinking of before is the Kineticist and just a cursory look through the srd seems like Con-based spell-like abilities are more common for monsters than I thought.

Me, I'd like a combat character that relies on mental stats, as dumb jocks shouldn't always get to rule non-magic either...

Yeah, I thought the investigator was going to be this. Studied combat is great but you have to wait until 4th level.

I have been kicking around this concept for the past couple of days. The class would gain a progressively wider array of spell-like abilities as it gains levels and would be Str-, Dex-, or Con-based (one of these or maybe the player would have a choice among these at 1st level).

Initially, I thought that it should also be full BAB but that does not necessarily need to be the case. Also leaning toward divine spells but also could be something more focused, like fire, mentalism, mobility, etc. Since basing spells off these stats is pretty unusual for the game (I think a couple monsters use Con and maybe a class from the upcoming Occult book), I also considered psychic magic as the source.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

I know that you initially just posted for feedback but I'm curious what races you will be allowing in your campaign, DarkxInitiative?

I would advise against it.

And I would too and here's why; I had tried this before with a couple of campaigns. Both campaigns started at 1st level and mostly, I was trying to even out race options so that all my players weren't playing dwarves strictly for the mechanical benefits or simply choosing a race for darkvision.

Anyway, it overly complicated things, especially for the two new players at the table, and it did not increase anyone's enjoyment at the table.

That being the case, have you considered making this an investigator archetype rather than its own class?

You could swap-out alchemy for artifice, imbuing items one-time use magic that only you can activate. This is also the reason why I asked about wands, as this opens up options for the class using other spells rather than only having the one in the wand.

Investigator talents would also give it that extra rogue flavor you are going for.

I can kind of see a rogue/wizard hybrid coming out of this and it certainly is a different approach. Studied attack from the investigator might fit better than sneak attack depending on how you further develop this class. What are its armor and weapon proficiencies? Not sure if it is purposefully vague but what spell list does it draw from? Also, what is your reasoning for limiting arcane bond to wands?

I never liked how evil clerics essentially lose the ability to fulfill their traditional party role. How about with evil healing, the target must pass the Will save or be staggered for 1 round? This would convey that, unlike good healing, evil healing is more jarring to the healed as sinews knit themselves together and bones snaps back into place.

This option could potentially be offered as an archetype if you wanted to keep the core mechanic.

Wow, this really took off. I would suggest the following changes. With regards to the pseudodragon's progression, most animal companions start out as some kind of lesser form and gain their full functionality later. Spreading these abilities out for pseudodragon balances it out and bumping it to 7th level puts it in-line with the Improved Familiar feat.

Pseudodragon Disciple

Draconic Bloodline: The pseudodragon disciple has the draconic bloodline.

Bonus spells: sleep (3rd), see invisibility (5th), deep slumber (7th), dragon’s breath (9th), spell resistance (11th), cloak of dreams (13th), mass hold person (15th), power word stun (17th), wish (19th). These replace the bonus spells from the draconic bloodline.

Torpid Arcana: Humanoids and monstrous humanoids lose their immunity against your sleep spells, such as sleep and deep slumber. This replaces bloodline arcana.

Teamwork Feats: The pseudodragon disciple receives teamwork feats as bonus feats. He must meet the prerequisite for this feat. The pseudodragon disciple automatically grants his teamwork feats to his pseudodragon companion. This replaces bloodline feats.

Pseudodragon Companion: At 1st level, the pseudodragon disciple gains a pseudodragon as an animal companion. The pseudodragon’s alignment is the same as the caster. This ability replaces arcane bond.

Breath of the Dragon: At 9th level, the pseudodragon gains a breath weapon. This ability is the same as the sorcerer ability from the draconic bloodline, except that the breath weapon originates from the pseudodragon. This replaces the 9th level bloodline ability.

At this point, I would almost go as far as this needs to become its own bloodline, but I leave that to you.

Its actually the reverse of someone wearing heavy armor that concerns me. Say a human fighter with this feat changes in order to get closer to get closer to an orc camp. Chances are, no one in the camp has a high enough Perception to detect her. Everything now looks pretty charge-worthy, but here's the rub...

When combat starts, it comes down to action economy. Take a rogue in the same situation. She would have a ridiculous Stealth check in the rounds preceding such an encounter. However, the rogue is going to have to spend her first round changing back into a human. This means even if she wins initiative, sneak attack is off the table unless she can manage to stay hidden.

The only other instance I see this being used in combat is if the healer needs to get to someone who is down. The healer would have to sacrifice a round shapeshifting and moving (which provokes an AoO, but the AC bonus helps so she's probably not too concerned about that) to guarantee success of getting over there, as opposed to moving and healing. Now, a lot can happen in that one round, including a coup de grace if the GM is looking for blood. EDIT: Forgot that the healer would have to change back in order to cast spells, so it's more like 2 rounds.

So aside from that and scouting, the only other benefit from this is being more capable of escaping. Most Tiny animals have a speed of 20 feet and since your Tiny, you won't be carrying anything away with you (including any buddies that also need help).

I guess what I am trying to say is that sure, the bonuses are big but how useful are they really? I could see potentially making it so that characters taking the feat become Small in order to scale back the bonuses, but there aren't a lot of small animals to choose from. Increasing the size to Medium gives a decent bite attack and probably better movement, which am not really sold on for sacrificing one of the main reasons I decided to make a human character.

Some updated flavor text with the new name, along with some potential follow-up feats. The speak with animals feat just made sense, as most other shapechangers have a similar ability. I mostly anticipate the animal form to be used for scouting, and the DR feat is to keep it relevant at higher levels, as it will likely save someone from a spike trap but not from taking a critical hit from magic greataxe.

Malimorph
Quirk or curse, the strange circumstance of your birth allows you to shapeshift.
Requirements: Must be taken at 1st level, Cha 13, human.
Benefit: You can take the form of a Tiny non-flying animal whose appearance is static and cannot be changed each time you assume this form. You gain a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks to appear as this animal. Changing from human to animal shape is a standard action. This ability otherwise functions as beast shape II, and your ability scores change accordingly.
Lastly, you gain the shapechanger subtype and gain immunity to lycanthropy.

Animal Empathy
As walk among beasts, you can speak with them as well.
Requirements: Cha 15, Malimorph, human.
Benefit: While in animal form, you may speak with animals of the same type. This is a spell-like ability with a caster level equal to your character level, and you may use it for a number of minutes per day equal to your character level. These minutes do not have to be consecutive, but must be used in one-minute increments.

Resilient Form
Your animal form becomes imbued with protective magic.
Requirements: Cha 13, Malimorph, character level 3rd, human.
Benefit: You gain damage resistance 2/magic while in animal form. This damage reduction increases by 1 for every two character levels (maximum DR 10/magic at 19th level).

I just wanted to say that I think you should keep the bloodline arcana. The pseudodragon is cool, but it's barely worth the level 1 bloodline power of "natural" claws... And I would also have recommended bumping the Dragons' Breath and think the solution suggested is a fantastic idea.

The only problem is that it's not a Familiar, it's a Companion. Familiars expand what you can do with magic, allowing your magic to course through them... this is just a buddy (which is a good thing, in my opinion). So, I would recommend rewording use of "familiar" to "companion".

The reason I suggested replacing both that for a class that has a poor BAB and d6 hit dice, claws are likely only going to be used in desperate situations. That's even when you have cantrips to fall back on. Most other characters can only gain access to a pseudodragon familiar at 7th level by taking the Improved Familiar feat. Pseudodragons get SR, telepathy, immunity to paralysis and sleep which takes care of most magic you'll likely encounter at low levels and makes for a great scout. The only familiars that get even close to that without advancing in levels are ravens and thrushes. Now compare that with pseudodragon and they are all very squishy but you are getting a lot more bang for your buck. Maybe bloodline arcana is the wrong place to compensate, but it needs to come from somewhere.

Sphynx though brings up an excellent point about familiars vs. companions. Familiars are more of an extension of the spellcaster as opposed to an animal companion who is more of your sidekick. Pseudodragons definitely fit more of the latter. By upgrading the pseudodragon from a familiar to an animal companion (which makes sense because a lot of the familiar abilities are redundant for a pseudodragon anyway), then that pseudodragon starts to look a lot more robust and losing bloodline arcana might not look so bad.

It is one of the things that has kind of erked me about Pathfinder from the beginning. The introduction of alternate racial traits made up for it somewhat but it still does not quite cut the cheddar in representing the differences between the elves that wander the forests or live in tree houses and those that spend all their time in ivory towers.

On one hand, I can understand two reasons why the designers might have done this: there were way too many elves in 3E-3.5 and wilderness races can be smart too. Like you pointed out though, this misses the attuned aspect of elves and one of the few things 4E got right was recognizing these two different archetypes.

So I allow players to choose between either a +2 to Wis or Int (keep +2 Dex, -2 Con) if they are making an elf character. If we are playing in Forgotten Realms it represents the difference between moon and sun elves and wood and wild elves. If we play in Golarion, Int-elves are those that returned from Sovyrian and Wis-elves are those that managed to survive Earthfall.

Yeah, its pretty solid. Maybe reword a few things to line up more with Pathfinder rules-ese and give the new features some flashy names, then you can stick a fork in it my friend and call it done! What are you thinking about naming the archetype?

I ment to put that the Pesudodragon gains a 1/Day breath weapon that does 1D3 and and extra D3 equal to half the masters level (Energy damage equal to dragon from blood line) and the reflex save is equal to half sorcerer level + cha mod

Sorry, I missed the part about giving the pseudodragon a breath weapon... Since a sorcerer with the draconic bloodline gets a breath weapon and the damage you are giving to the pseudodragon is pretty low, what would you say just giving the psuedodragon the breath weapon you would otherwise have and follow that damage progression? It would be like if you were channeling your draconic heritage through your pseudodragon familiar.

I was about to suggest looking at Fox Shape, but that was already covered.

Seems reasonable, but I'd stick with Tiny.

Cool, thanks! I realized it got pretty wordy and Tiny animals fits the bill.

Malimorph
Quirk or curse, you are capable of changing between human and animal forms.
Requirements: Must be taken at 1st level, Cha 13, human
Benefit: You can take the form of a Tiny non-flying animal whose appearance is static and cannot be changed each time you assume this form. You gain a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks to appear as this animal. Changing from human to animal shape is a standard action. This ability otherwise functions as beast shape II, and your ability scores change accordingly.
Lastly, you gain the shapechanger subtype and gain immunity to lycanthropy.

So using Bat Shape and Fox Shape as a basis for comparison, here is what it looks like now. The stipulation that the animal form is "Small or smaller" and is "of no more than 1 HD" comes from the baleful polymorph spell.

Malimorph
Quirk or curse, you are capable of changing into an animal form.
Requirements: Must be taken at 1st level, Cha 13, human
Benefit: You can take the form of a Small or smaller non-flying animal of no more than 1 HD whose appearance is static and cannot be changed each time you assume this form. You gain a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks to appear as this animal. Changing from human to animal shape is a standard action. This ability otherwise functions as beast shape II, and your ability scores change accordingly.
Lastly, you gain the shapechanger subtype and are immune to lycanthropy.

This idea hit me so I thought I would give it a try.

Familiar: At first level the Dragon Sorcerer gain a Pseudodragon as a familiar. The Pesudodragon is the Alignment of the caster and has the color of their dragon from the blood line. At fifth level the Pesudragon has hit points equal to its masters hit points. At 10th level the Pesudodragon gains a 1/Day breath weapon that does 1D3 (Energy damage equal to dragon from blood line) and the reflex save is equal to half sorcerer level + cha mod. This ability replaces the first level ability of the Dragon blood line.

I like it! However, a pseudodragon is bit better than your standard familiar. If you drop the bloodline arcana, as well as the 1st level bloodline power, I think it that evens out.

Maybe replace or extend bloodline feats to include teamwork feats for just a little more distinction?

ummmm so its a form of hengyokai?

Admittedly, they are similar. In terms of flavor, they are not a true race onto themselves which is unlike hengeyokai. I'm not sure if 3E hengeyokai did this, but I looked them up after reading your comment and if you're referring to this version published by Rite Publishing, they are also not organized into formal clans. The feel of what I am going for with this design is more like in Cinderella where Fairy Godmother turns mice into coachmen or the witch making a goat into an innkeeper in Stardust. In the Tamora Pierce books I mentioned, crows are able to go back and forth between human and crow form, but they prefer their animal for and I wanted to limit the scope of it. I'll get more specific about that with my response to Sphynx.

In terms of crunch, they lack a hybrid form and have a wider variety of animals to choose from at character creation. They also can take advantage of all the archetypes, feats, and other options accessible by human characters, since they are human.

It's way too much. If it was limited to a single time a day and did not include gear, it might start being doable, but not at 1st level. I think you need to make a chain of feats if you want this to work at all.

1st level you could maybe pick up some animal-like options, like what a cat-folk can pick up. 3rd level feat with the 1st level feat as a prerequisite, a very restricted shape change with absolutely no bonus other than the shape changing, but with the penalties (like the -2 to strength), 5th level perhaps a feat that would let you gain the missing dex bonus... 9th level could pick up a feat to fly (wings), etc...

As is, I can't imagine any GM would let this into play. :/

Since I brought them up before, the examples in terms of rules balance I am going off of are Bat Shape for skinwalkers. Kitsune also have a similar shapechanging-granting feat in Fox Shape. It could be argued that these are also overpowered, especially Bat Shape which grants 1st level characters the ability to fly, or that these examples are only specific to different races. However, limiting the animal selection by size and specifically non-flying walks this back a little.

You also brought up feats and feat trees, which is something I also wanted to address and why I did not include gnomes or elves, who also might make sense having this feat. Two feats at 1st level is one of the biggest advantages for creating a human character. It not only gives them more options but also allows them to progress through feat trees and qualify for prestige classes much faster than other character races. By stipulating that in order to take this feat you need to take it at 1st level, you take this away and it needs to pay off.

That being said, the goal is not to be completely exploitive for choosing this feat. As it stands, it gives a big boost to AC (+4 total) and a bigger boost to Stealth checks that can be too much for rogues and other sneaky-types. This though is what is laid out under polymorph and further referenced in beast shape II. In hindsight, I probably should have just called out beast shape II in the feat description.

I am not entirely comfortable limiting it to a finite number per day, but how do you feel about a time of day? Being only able to shapechange at night could further make them feared for being lycanthropes. I also thought of playing up the curse aspect by basing it off of baleful polymorph, the exception being that they retain their mental stats and alignment while in animal form (they would then lose all extraordinary, supernatural, and special abilities while in animal form). Maybe making the transformation a full-round action if it is still OP?

The goal with this is to give players more options for playing shapeshifters aside from druids and the skinwalker. It was inspired by the Trickster books by Tamora Pierce and hoping to get a few more eyes on it for rules balance and clarity. Also not entirely sure on the name, since it applies more to humans able to change into animals than the other way around (see flavor text).

Therianthrope
Quirk or curse, you are able to change between human and animal form.
Requirements: Must be taken at 1st level, human
Benefit: As a standard action, you can take the form of a Tiny non-flying animal of your choice at-will. This is supernatural ability similar to a polymorph spell.
You gain a +4 size bonus to Dexterity but suffer a –2 size penalty to Strength while in animal form. You gain a +2 size bonus to AC and attack rolls, +8 size bonus on Stealth checks, and a –2 size penalty on CMB and CMD. You gain the movement modes (climb, swim, or burrow) of your animal form and gain a +10 bonus on Disguise checks to pass as a normal animal of your type.
All gear merges into your animal form. Constant bonuses (except those affected by changing size) remain but activation items can't be activated. Material components are not accessible while merged into your animal form and you are unable to speak or cast spells with verbal components.
Lastly, you gain the shapechanger subtype and are immune to lycanthropy.