| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
OK, so I took a bunch of notes and spent the day looking at some of the challenges presented in the comments on my first swing at a Sherlock-like detective.
What I wanted to create was a character class that behaved like the bard, but provided his buffs and bonuses through knowledge and expertise (not dancing and prancing around all the time).
My first attempt was the poorly named Abductionist. While the name makes perfect sense in the strictly grammatical use of the word (to Abduce is to use clues to infer a conclusion), in current vernacular, the name itself implied someone who specialized in kidnapping. Definitely not what I wanted.
See the comments and suggestions here - http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pamv?First-Post-Abductionist
I now introduce the Deductionist, revisited and revised based upon some terrific suggestions in the above post. He is posted here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PkjHHVXAhdCR29F70bE6JYvuxLaMwXygKQlBgGF sV0I/edit
Please feel free to comment - I really appreciated the constructive criticism the first time around!
(I decided to create a different thread because this guy is considerably different from the first version)
Thanks!
Dot.
Bump-a-gump.
Thoughts?
looks pretty frickin sweet. weirdly enough i fell in love with it when i saw intuition. The idea of intelligence based perception is just so full of win. everything else is just gravy on top.
I don't see any reason why Intuition can't simply add the INT modifier in addition to WIS. Paladins add CHA modifier to all of their saves in addition to the usual stats. Monks add their WIS modifier to AC in addition to DEX. Having one or the other effectively does nothing to make them better at it. If they focus on just high INT (which they should) they get a nice bonus, but if they have a good Wisdom (which this sort of character would normally have) they gai nthe full benefit of that as well.
Great suggestion, Big Lemon - I will take a look at that. I didn't do that the first go around because I didn't want the collection of abilities to be too powerful.
If the general opinion is that isn't too beefy, I can certainly see changing that.
+5 Toaster! Thanks for the note! I'm glad you liked it!!
Well this seems hella nifty, though I have a few niggles:
1.) When a Deductionist specializes in Unarmed Combat, does that mean they gain Improved Unarmed Strike? Because otherwise I believe everyone is considered proficient with Unarmed Strikes.
2.) In my opinion, the abilities "Subtle Clues, "Danger Sense", and "Esoteric Scholar" might be better suited to a "If he has at least one Deduction point left in his pool..." sort of abilities, much like a Gunslinger's Utility Shots and a few other Deeds.
3.) It seems that a scaling bonus/additional purpose for the Renown ability that allowed the Deductionist to gather clues from his Cohort might be both good and flavorful (much like Holmes relied on Watson to gather the information for him). He should have to use the Cohort's Perception bonus of course.
Rynjin! I dig it, dude. I changed "subtle clues" and "danger sense" to reflect they are usable as long as the Deductionist has at least 1 point of his reasoning pool remaining.
I also added a bonus where the cohort adds +4 on an Aid Another instead of the normal +2 for Knowledge and Perception tests.
Thoughts?
This, flavor wise, is the best representation of a true detective I've seen. Holmes is in a class of his own and it seems that you have made it here. Well done.
Why thanks, Arcanemuses! I put a lot of effort into it. I am very happy to hear you liked it!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just wanted to let everyone know that the Deductionist is now in print / PDF through Total Party Kill Games!
We've come a long way from the "alpha" version of the class you had a sneak peek of back in January...and I humbly say THANK YOU for your inputs and support.
It's posted up at DriveThruRPG and Paizo if you'd like to take a look.