Class: the Circle of Life
Here’s another class, geared towards the natural cycle of life (birth, death, rebirth, etc). Kind of like a druid/cleric/necromancer with neutral alignment, and abilities like Channel Energy (Positive and Negative), Timeless Body, and the possibility of becoming a Neutral-aligned Lich at level 20.
HD: d8
BAB: 3/4
Saves: good Fortitude and Will, bad Reflex
Skills: 4 points per level
Alignment: any neutral
Armor proficiency: light armors, no shield
Weapon proficiency: as a druid’s
Abilities: Spellcasting, Channel Energy, In the Circle / Out of the Circle
Version 0.00, March 2010
First draft
Spellcasting
Same as the Cleric, with a spell list including the Cleric’s and Druid’s. The Circle of Life also chooses two Domains from the following list: Animal, Community, Death, Healing, Liberation, Protection, and Repose.
The Circle of Life can spontaneously cast Cure or Inflict spells, but all his Cure and Inflict spells are mixed: with one casting, both effects apply, on different targets (he can make two touch attacks following the spell, either in the same round if he has enough iterative attacks, or in the following round). All Cure/Inflict spells cast by a Circle of Life heal or damage 50% more HP, as if they were cast through Empower Spell (without raising the spell level). He can use the Empower Spell later to raise this by another 50%.
- at level 5, the Circle of Life can use ranged touch attacks to target creatures with his Cure/Inflict spells, with a range of 5 feet (even if it implies that the enemy is adjacent, that means the Circle of Life doesn’t have to touch him).
- at level 10, he can do this at 10 feet.
- at level 15, the range becomes 20 ft.
- at level 20, it becomes 30 ft.
His Mass Cure/Inflict spells must target the same number of creatures.
Channel Energy
Same as the Cleric’s, but the Circle of Life channels Positive and Negative Energy at the same time. He can select in the 30’ burst area which creatures are targeted by which effect, up to his Wisdom bonus, but it must be the same number. For instance, if one enemy is among three allies, two of which are in dire need of healing, the Circle of Life can send Negative Energy on the enemy and his healthiest ally (or himself) and Positive Energy on his HP-deprived allies. Or he sends Negative Energy on the enemy only, but he can heal only one ally. If the Circle of Life ever gets Selective Channelling, his Charisma bonus can be applied to both effects.
In the Circle / Out of the Circle
At 4th level, the Circle of Life gains immunity to disease.
At 8th level, he gains immunity to poisons.
At 12th level, he gains Fast Healing 1.
At 16th level, he gains either the Timeless Body ability or the ability to Reincarnate himself automatically upon his death.
At 20th level, if he chose Timeless Body, he can choose to acquire the Lich template, without losing his mind and alignment. If he chose Reincarnation, he doesn’t gain negative levels when using the ability.
Not interested? No idea? No nothing?
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It's a bit confusing as you've posted it, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.
Okay so every time it cast a cure spell it simultaneously casts an inflict spell with a separate target and vice versa? and both are empowered?
And I don't really understand the channel energy thing at all. So this guy can channel and each time he channels he can target an exact number of creatures no greater than his wisdom bonus,
So a circle of life channels with 10 guys within 30' and because he only wants to heal one he hurts one other guy? that isn't channel energy at all. Or am i misunderstanding it?
I wrote it too quickly and it probably became jostled in the end.
The main design goal of this class is to have a cleric with a True Neutral view on life: equality in everything. So, each time he harms a creature, he must heal a creature as well, and vice-versa. This the case with both spells and channelling energy.
So he achieves this balance moment to moment rather than in an overall way?In other words He channels positive and negative energy simultaneously?
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I can see the write up for the energy, but you might have to simplify spells.....
Exactly. With the cure/inflict spells, he has to touch his targets, so it has to be done one after the other. For channel energy, it can be done at the same time.
And I'll try to simplify the wording for the next update.
It could alternate day/night in the day + energy and at night -energy
[...]
Maybe balance those by element if you bring fire into the world you must bring in an equal amount of water....(what if it just happened 1d6 rounds after, w/o the COL having to do anything?)
Interesting ideas, but not ones I'll use for this class. The day/night cycle doesn't feel right next to the life/death cycle. Same with energy damage, because he has few ties with the elemental world. We could expand his philosophy to imply that harming a creature, whatever the mean used (including fire or another energy), has to be balanced by healing a creature. But I'm not going into this too much. As it is, he has to balance the use of positive and negative energy.
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You didn't answer my questions. Well you answered one of them, but not the others.
But honestly, I'm having a little trouble not seeing this as way too good, because he can target himself. So anytime he wants to hurt an enemy he casts an inflict spell and hits himself with a free cure. Since he spontaneously casts them he can throw out a hell of a lot of punishment while simultaneously recovering damage every round.
And then I'm just lost on your channel mechanic which as I'm reading it is nothing like channel energy at all, unless I'm just misunderstanding it completely, the only thing thats similar is the area/dice used. But the number of targets, the way it works, doesn't seem like channel energy at all.
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Right so,
The channel mechanic could be worked this way,
The Cleric of life channels positive energy as a cleric of their level. Whenever a cleric of life channels positive energy 1d6 rounds after the effect the cleric of life is the centre of a negative energy burst, as an evil cleric of the same level had channelled negative energy. The cleric of life may choose whether or not to include herself in the positive energy effect, but is always included in the negative energy effect.
Not sure if that clears that up or not.
Personaly I think this concept could be worked down, to a domain for clerics or a mystery for oracles. Call it the Dust to Dust domain.
Maybe even the Repose domain and something naturey would be good.
Class: the Circle of Life Advocate version 0.01
The Circle of Life Advocate is a cleric-like character whose goal is to respect the natural cycle of life (birth, death, rebirth, etc). In order to do so, he has to balance the positive and negative energies in the world (and only these energies: he has no special affinity for elemental energies). Every time he uses Positive energy, whether through spells or channelling, Negative energy is involved as well, and vice-versa. Despite this balance-keeping motto, the Circle Advocate isn’t forced to heal each time they inflict damage through other means.
HD: d8
BAB: 3/4
Saves: good Fortitude and Will, bad Reflex
Skills: 4 points per level
Alignment: any neutral
Armor proficiency: light armors, no shield
Weapon proficiency: as a druid’s
Abilities: Spellcasting, Channel Energy, In the Circle / Out of the Circle
Version 0.00, March 2010 - First draft
Version 0.01 - First update
- spellcasting: nerfed the Cure/Inflict spells to an appropriate level, reworded the description
- channel energy: simplied, reworded the description
Spellcasting
Same as the Cleric, with a list including spells from both the Cleric list and Druid list. The Circle Advocate also chooses one Domain from the following list: Community, Death, Healing, Liberation, Protection, and Repose. The Circle Advocate can spontaneously cast Cure and Inflict spells.
When cast by a Circle Advocate, the Cure/Inflict spells are mixed together: in one casting, he’s able to use both effects, in the order of his choice. For the touch spells, he has to touch two targets: one on the round he cast the spell, and the other on the following round. For the Mass spells, he has to target exactly the same number of creatures for each effect (since it’s rather powerful, all Mass Cure/Inflict spells are moved one level higher).
- at level 5, the Circle of Life can use ranged touch attacks to target creatures with his Cure/Inflict spells, with a range of 5 feet (even if it implies that the enemy is adjacent, that means the Circle of Life doesn’t have to touch him).
- at level 10, he can do this at 10 feet.
- at level 15, the range becomes 20 ft.
- at level 20, it becomes 30 ft.
Channel Energy
Same as the Cleric’s, but the Circle Advocate channels both Positive and Negative Energy at the same time, and he gains Selective Channeling at first level. He also gains a permanent +1 to Charisma every four levels.
In the Circle / Out of the Circle
At 4th level, the Circle Advocate gains immunity to disease.
At 8th level, he gains immunity to poisons.
At 12th level, he gains Fast Healing 1.
At 16th level, he gains either the Timeless Body ability or the ability to Reincarnate himself automatically upon his death.
At 20th level, if he chose Timeless Body, he can choose to acquire the Lich template, without losing his mind and alignment. If he chose Reincarnation, he doesn’t gain negative levels when using the ability.
Sure, if could be worked into a Domain, but you’d have to remove several abilities to make it fit. And work on which deity gives the domain if at all.
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Seems a touch overpowered still.
I'm currently doing a Ravenloft conversion for Pathfinder, and have done something similar to the lich thing for my changes to monk.
Timeless Body: A monk who gains this ability and reaches their appointed time of death from old age may be offered a deal of sorts from the dark powers. No direct communication with the dark powers occur, but a week before the monk’s appointed time of death from old age they know their time is near. At the moment of their appointed time of death they choose whether to remain alive. If they choose to remain alive their alignment shifts to evil and are now considered an NPC. Apply the Lich template to such an individual without the Rejuvenation supernatural ability.
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Channel Energy
Same as the Cleric’s, but the Circle Advocate channels both Positive and Negative Energy at the same time, and he gains Selective Channeling at first level. He also gains a permanent +1 to Charisma every four levels.
I don't think classes should grant stat boosts, it's fine for PrCs, but this class is really a two stat class, wisdom and charisma, and this means that he can focus on raising his wisdom because his charisma will just go up by two every four levels (1 from the channel, and 1 from levels).
Then there's the selective channeling, does he have x exclusions total, or does he exclude x from the channel positive and x from the negative. Personally as a balance factor I would say it should be x total, but then I'm still not sure how this ability should work. From what I see you channel positive energy and then channel negative, so unless you have x from each then really it's luck of the dice whether a person gets healed at all.
I don't think classes should grant stat boosts, it's fine for PrCs, but this class is really a two stat class, wisdom and charisma, and this means that he can focus on raising his wisdom because his charisma will just go up by two every four levels (1 from the channel, and 1 from levels).
Then there's the selective channeling, does he have x exclusions total, or does he exclude x from the channel positive and x from the negative. Personally as a balance factor I would say it should be x total, but then I'm still not sure how this ability should work. From what I see you channel positive energy and then channel negative, so unless you have x from each then really it's luck of the dice whether a person gets healed at all.
This class could be reworked into a prestige class, then, with prerequisites like Knowledge (religion, 7 ranks) and Divine Caster (ability to cast divine spells of level 4, and the PrC would offer increases in spell progression every two levels). Channel Energy would either work as a cleric the same level, and stack with levels of previous classes (cleric, paladin).
What do you think about making it a prestige class?
About the Channel Energy: I think Selective Channelling should apply for both Positive and Negative, otherwise it would be very difficult to use efficiently (and unwieldly for large mobs). The class has already been downgraded as it is now, no reason to gimp it further..