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Hey all, this is my first homebrew creation, a base class which revolves around treachery and betrayal.
Without further ado, I present the Facestealer: here's the Google Docs Link.
Right now, the class's capstone ability and feats are still a work-in-progress, but I believe the rest of the content is solid enough to stand on its own. Comments and criticism appreciated.
Looks good so far, quite interesting! One caveat: how useful would such a character be as a PC, I wonder? Most of their abilities would be quite useless in your average dungeon crawl.
Interesting concept. Yes I would expand the theme - I'm not seeing any archetypes yet, which for me is the true measure of the Base Class definition. It's very supernatural, and yes, very subterfuge/socially focused - how do you see this Base Class functioning in a dungeon?
* I'm concerned about Backstab - specifically "After the first backstab, enemies are treated as being of friendly attitude for the rest of the encounter for the purpose of this class feature." This confuses me - does this mean all "enemies" who didn't previously consider you a friend no do? And, given that you are attacking them, why do they still? Seeing as the ability, to target has a prerequisite of "those that regard you with a friendly attitude" there seems to be a disconnect.
I'm not sure that I'm that comfortable with the prestige class increase of Backstab instead of Sneak Attack either...
* The Betrayal/Master Betrayal suite is nice - I can see you are extending the theme a little with spelltheft etc.... I think for me this Base Class needs to not just steal faces, but true essences, abilities, powers but then you're kinda treading on the Savant Base Class (Kobold Press) that does this exact thing.
* Untouchable Master Betrayal has me just as much confused as Backstab.
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Backstab only works against enemies that regard the Facestealer with a friendly attitude. So for that first Backstab to work, the enemy needs to have a friendly attitude in the first place, so enemies that weren't friendly don't become friendly.
I made it this way so that the Facestealer wouldn't feel useless after the first Backstab in an encounter.
I think that Backstab and Sneak Attack are on equal ground, as while Backstab is definitely more powerful (it doesn't matter if the enemy is flat-footed), it is also considerably more situational. Therefore, I think it's okay to allow other classes to advance backstab damage.
I agree with you on lack of clarity though, I'll try to change the phrasing of the features.
While I abhor the class itself, I don't see any immediate balance issues. Short of some sort of (SU) that Charms, the backstab is far too situational to matter any. I think the face changing should be a lot more than a free action. Not for balance issues, just for "shifting" time. Free action is *poof* new face.
Personally, I'd think the would work a lot better as an Archetype for the Rogue class, rather than a class in itself. But to be fair, I think the same of the Ninja class. :P