Oh, yeah, forgot the part about not being able to buff yourself.
And i still have two little things.
Am i understanding it right that you are reserving the bigger aura (adjacent or any location) for the role?
And i think you should change Special 1 to your combat check. A combat check sounds like any combat check from anyone at any location. And i think that is not the intention. And i think the right wording would be:
Special 1: Discard (recharge) a card to add 1d6 with the acid, cold, eletricity or fire trait to your combat check.
right, right. But other than that, it looks good to you? I wonder if Flat's nearby to chime in his two cents on this. If its ready for playtest I'm gonna play it probably tomorrow (if i have time between cooking and eating) or Friday.
Yeah, i think it sounds playable.
I think i will test both versions just to see how they compare to each other.
Just have to convince my group to start a new adventure.
And i thought a bit about his role cards, one could be something like this:
Hand 5 ([]6)
Proficiency light armor, weapon
Breath Weapon: Discard ([]recharge) a card to add 1d6 ([] +1) ([] +2) with the acid, cold, electricity, or fire ([] or Magic) ([] or Force) trait to your combat check.
Aura: Once per check, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 ([]+1) ([]+2) to a check attempted by a character at your location.
[] Scales: Discard a card to reduce combat damage dealt to you by 2.
[] Greed: Add 2 ([] 4) to your check to aquire a boon with the weapon, armor or item trait.
[] Dragonic Flight: You may move at the end of your turn.
Focused on his Breath Weapon and being a Dragon(kind of).
Nice. I have no idea how many power feats the roles unlock so I don't know if that's right or too many, but it looks good. What's great for me is I'm up for soloing the play test as well as playing with my girlfriend or friends. Sunday I'll probably be starting a new game with my little brother so I can also playtest it there. Also, thanks a lot for all the help over the past day in designing this with me.
Special 2: Once per check, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 (1) (2) to a check attempted by a character at your location.
Just to clarify, the aura would affect both you and allies? If it's just allies (excluding you) it should be "another character at your location" like Lem's power; if it does affect you, then it's fine the way it is... although it would trump Lem's ability (no opinion one way or the other, just stating an observation).
Other than seconding the comment about Special 1 being "your combat check" I think it looks good.
I wouldn't fuss about the starting deck too much; it's a suggestion only. People can adjust it to fit their playing style.
I would play this character. :)
I wanted to make special 1 unique which is why he can boost himself as well as others. Yeah it trumps Lem's, and Harsk too with the aura role i have in mind, but i didn't want it to be exactly the same. Then again, the classes are different enough that even with a similar power, they provide two distinct playing experiences...
The Rulebook says 12 powerfeat boxes on the role card.
Your Welcome, it´s a lot of fun to build stuff. In addition, it is a char i want to try to, so even more motivation.
But my Dragon Shaman was a Human named Ryukan, so i change that a little bit.
I´m hoping to read your first try soon then.
If this goes over well, I have two other classes in mind I want to build since I'm too impatient to wait for Skull and Shackles to come out. Gunslinger and a Spellsword (kinda like a Magus).
Was the Spellsword the one that could store magic in his weapon and release it on a successful hit?
Yeah, i so want to play the Gunslinger wenn S&S comes out. Put without the Gun cards from S&S, i think building one will be pretty hard, or not really in the right flavour.
Oh yeah, I'd have to make guns too, but I'd build off of what i know the guns to work in the pathfinder game, and then look at the ranged weapons we have now and see how can it fit. Pistols +1d6, Rifle +1d10, Shotgun +2d6 or +1d8, not 100% which it should be. Revolver, Pepperbox Rifle, and Double-barrel Shotgun all have the ability to discard to roll combat again. Then of coarse there's the magic guns that would do extra stuff.
As for the spellsword, back in D&D 4e he was essentially a melee wizard. His sword was his focus and would cast spells from it. In here he'd have a 4 (5) (6) hand size with some weapons and spells. But his power would let him use his strength instead of int for arcane spells with the attack trait. Then maybe even aquiring arcane boons and stuff, or just magic in general. str d10; con, dex, wis d6; int d8; cha d4. Melee +3, Arcane +2, and another skill, maybe knowledge? I dunno.
So, i got a testrun yesterday, got my group to start new but had to build a new one for everyone (4 player game). That took a hole day.
We started with Burnt Offering and simulated we had done the little Basicadventure first. So everyone chose 1 skill feat and got to chose 1 non-basic boon from the Baseset or Characteraddonset.
We played a total of 3 games.
I tried the Version where spells are auras first. A total disaster, i´m glad we abondand that ship.
First of all, it´s overly complicated and if you are the last of the round, you don´t have an aura for a full round because you couldn´t play one yet.
Second, without him having Arcane or Divine and only a d4 in Int and a d6 in Wis, it´s pretty hard for him to even get a spell without a lot of buffs.
But boy, if he got a good one (i got a Holy Light), he wrecks total havoc.
I buffed myself without the help of any other player or blessing to a 30+ hit (had a little help from The Old Light).
So, definitly unplayable!
The Second game i tryed a slightly altered version of the one here (change Melee to +3 and Fort to +1. Gave him a d10 in Consti but no Perception. And changed the powerfeats a little bit, but don´t played with a powerfeat yet, so there happend nothing).
And i have to say it worked really well. Could help others, could help himself. Wasn´t overpower. It felt just really nice playing him.
But i cought myself more then one time to just buff a check to recharge a card i couldn´t need at the moment but didn´t want to throw away.
That´s a really great way to rebalance your own hand in your own turn.
The third Game went as smooth as the second. Didn´t run into any broken or overpowered situations.
Overall i think it´s save to say that we did a pretty good job.
And here is my idea for his second role card.
The wording isn´t what i want it to be, but i´m pretty sure you guys can help with that.
Auramancer:
Hand 5 ([]6)
Proficiency light armor , weapon
Breath Weapon: Discard a card to add 1d6 with the acid, cold, electricity, or fire trait to your combat check.
Aura: Once per check, you may activate your aura by recharging a card. If you do, add 1d4 ([]+1) ([]+2) ([] +3) ([] +4) to a check attempted by a character at your location ([] adjacent location).
[] Elemental Aura: When you activate your Aura for a combat check, you can add the Magic, Fire or Cold trait instead.
[] Aura of Vigor: You can activate your Aura to reduce Damage dealt to a character in your auras range by 2 ([] 3) instead. You can´t activate your Aura this way if you already activated it for that encounter.
[] Aura of Life: Instead of your first exploration in a turn, you can activate your Aura to choose a character ([] all characters) in your auras range. Shuffle 1 random card from their discard piles back in their deck.
[] My Precious: For the recharge check of an item, you get the skills Arcane: Constitution +1 and Divine: Constitution +1
What i mean with that is that he can activate his aura in 4 different ways.
Either to give bonus dice or bonus traits (not both).Either help with an encounter, or the outcome of an encounter (not both).
Either explore normal or heal a little.
I hope it´s understandable.
Healing 1 card on Aura of life feels really low to cost an explore. Maybe at least 2 cards? There will be the odd chance here or there to help more than 3 characters, but it doesn't sound broken to me that way. Heck I think you could make it 3 cards and still be about right.
My thought was, that in a 6 Player game, where everyone groups up, this would be a healing of 6, with is pretty good.
Expecialy because you don´t have to have all 6 Character in one location.
If i put it up to 2, that would be 12, and a better healer than anyone else.
Atleast like it is now, don´t know if Mass Cure is changing that.
I plaid last night too, just two players and we started on brigadoom. I plaid our final version and it worked fairly well. My girlfriend plaid the ranger so for really tight spots we would both pump up my roll. The one thing I noticed was the face I didn't use the dragon breath power. then again, I also had found a great axe and I also didn't find any monsters with an elemental weakness so overall, I didn't feel the need to use it.
I think the monster with elemental weaknesses will come later.
Only one i can recall until now is the Hell Hound.
The only times i used mine was at The Old Light.
But i had a Bastard Sword +1, so i hit them real good too.
I plan to continue playing some more tonight and tomorrow with two players and hopefully more on sunday.
My team has come together again.
I´m playing the next few adventures now.
Perhaps i have a complet playthrough of AP1 and AP2 after the Weekend.
P.S: I would love some more feedback about the rolecards.
My thought was, that in a 6 Player game, where everyone groups up, this would be a healing of 6, with is pretty good.
Expecialy because you don´t have to have all 6 Character in one location.
If i put it up to 2, that would be 12, and a better healer than anyone else.Atleast like it is now, don´t know if Mass Cure is changing that.
My experience with a 5 player game was people spread out as far as possible. At one point in our game the power would have hit a max of 4 characters.
The idea of the party stacking up in a few locations is a new one on me. Care to elaborate on why?
I normaly play 4 Player games, and for my group it´s pretty normal to have closed half of the locations in the first 3 to 4 round. (We are pretty lucky, in the last game we got a Henchman in the top and one in second from the top.)
And after you closed a few locations, you will start to group, expecially if you got lucky and have time to spare. (And i had it a few times that we knew where the Villain was, everything else was closed, so all grouped there.)
And my example with healing 6 or 12 wasn´t meant as the norm, but as the "worst" case scenario. And in my opinion, no one, under any circmustances, that is not the primary Healer (aka Kyras Healerrole), should be better than her at healing. And she can heal for 7 if she gets lucky. So if i buff the healing up to 2, and have 3 Character in 3 adjacent locations (DS in the middle) which shouldn´t be to hard to do, then he heals almost as good as a best case Kyra.
And you are right if you say a heal of 1 seems underpowered, in any 1-4 Player game it is. But changing the amount of healing according to the amount of players sounded rather strange to me. (but would solve the problem.)
I hope you can understand what i wanted to say now. 1 is weak, but having the potential to be the best healer without being the healer just seemed wrong to me. But if you can convince me otherwise, i gladly hear your suggestions. (I would love to buff him, if i didn´t have the feeling of overpowering him then.)
What about having it heal a flat amount. For instance the aura could always heal four cards, divided any way you choose among all heroes in aura range.
That´s a realy great idea, haven´t thought in that direction yet.
Hm...what would be the right wording?
[] Aura of Life: Instead of your first exploration in a turn, you can activate your Aura to choose any amount of characters in your auras range. Shuffle a total amount of 3 ([] 4) random cards from their discard piles into their decks.
Is that right?
That´s a realy great idea, haven´t thought in that direction yet.
Hm...what would be the right wording?[] Aura of Life: Instead of your first exploration in a turn, you can activate your Aura to choose any amount of characters in your auras range. Shuffle a total amount of 3 ([] 4) random cards from their discard piles into their decks.
Is that right?
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but I like "4 ([]5)". Sure it would generally tie Kyra in single target heals, but not that great when being split up into the party.
Also, might want to reword it as "Shuffle a total amount of 3 ([] 4) random cards divided up as you choose from the characters discard piles into their decks."
I think even 3 is overpowered, given that it's not limited to your currently location.
Well we defintly need a way to work in a healing aura that's weaker than the cleric but still useful while still unique to the dragon shaman... maybe 2 (3)? 1 (2) just seems to week to me... at least he 1 does. Maybe just a flat 2 that doesn't get feated up?
I thought about it quite a lot now.
And i think 3 ([] 4) would be alright.
Let me explain this. If Kyra takes the healer role (and powerfeated the healing) her minimal healing will be 4. At one location, yes.
And now comes the big but.
BUT she gets there faster. She only needs the powerfeat she gets when she gets her role card to reach this goal.
Dragon Shaman on the other hand needs at least one powerfeat more, after getting his role card to reach the 3 at different locations, 2 feats more for the same amount as Kyras minimum for different locations. (So he can reach that goal a complete adventure later.)
I´m not really sure if i understand you correctly.
Because he has to give up his first exploration too. So he can only do it on his turn, when he would have his first exploration.
To be precise, he has to lose his exploration and recharge a card.
Because of these points i´m not quite sure if you didn´t understand me, or i didn´t understand you.
So now that you guys have a working idea... let me add a couple new ideas just to mess with it... ;)
Just thinking out loud here... but to me an aura is something that should have a weak-but-wide effect, but also seems like it should be somewhat uniform. By this, I mean that if many people are in the aura, it doesn't seem right to be able to choose to apply the effects in any way you wish (ie, unevenly). Essentially, the heart of my "3 is overpowered" argument was that you could choose to pick 1 person to take the full amount of healing and ignore everyone else in the aura; this sounds more like a directed healing effect than an aura.
I thought of a few alternatives, for conversation's sake:
1) The healing effect is capped at 1 ([]2), or alternately must be spread out as as evenly as possible among eligible characters.
2) Everyone (or 1d4 characters to keep it limited) within the aura recharges 1 random card from their discard pile. ([] Each of these characters then rolls 1d4; on a roll of ([] 3 or) 4, that character may recharge an additional card.)
3) The aura is itself not a healing power, but rather buffs any healing done. In other words, "When a spell with the Healing trait is played at your or adjacent location, add 1 ([] 2) to the effect of that spell."
And finally, I was reading up on the Dragon Shaman class and I found this aura which inspired me...
Vigor: Fast healing 1 for each point of your aura bonus, but only affects characters at or below one-half their full normal hit points.
"If a character ends his turn at your current or adjacent location having fewer cards in their character deck than their hand size, he may recharge 1 ([] 2) random card from their discard pile."
Also, a quick note on the cost of activating your aura... the act of recharging a (any) card to perform a moderate amount of healing (such as 3-4 cards) is itself probably overpowered, even with the "first explore" condition.
Compare Kyra's cure-like power with this one: Kyra must discard a card with a specific trait (usually a blessing or a useful spell), whereas this is a recharge of any card (could be junk).
"Discard" is considered a more "exhausting" cost, because your character is left weaker as a result (fewer cards in your deck); "recharge" is not because it doesn't change your overall health (deck+hand), so it is a lesser cost.
Playing a spell, such as Cure, is somewhere in between, because there's a chance it will be either recharged or discarded (or banished, depending on your skills).
Ok, you got some nice points there.
So let me start. Giving everyone the same amount of heal was my first idea, 1 for everyone. But it could be overpowered (6 player game) or utterly useless (1 player game). So this wasn´t the way to good.
The next suggestion was to cap the amount of healing but distribute it like you want to. Much better than the first one, but as you mentioned, could be essential a single heal only.
1)I like the cap of 2 per person. Spreading out evenly would be a bit complicated, because if there is someone in your aura without any cards in his discard (highly unlikly but bear with me for this), you would have to heal him evenly to, so wasted potential.
2)Having a random amount of people effected by the aura just seems wrong to my. Sounds like the aura is fluctuation and not staying the same size.
3)This is a really interesting suggestion too. But acourding to what i said first, there can be games where it is utterly useless.
Healing for free if you are almost dead would be something to reward a risktaking playstyle (and that´s not my prefered playstyle, so someone else could hit his head on this one.)
And to get to your last point. Recharging anything let´s you recharge junk. You are absolutly right. The problem is, what should he recharge? There isn´t anything fitting. Weaopns, no. Armor, no. Items, no. Allys, no. Blessings would be the only thing that could be considered fitting for a recharge to heal. But he only has 4 in his deck, where Kyra has 9 out of 15 cards she could use for this (card feats not considered). So the possibility of him actually healing would be rather slim.
So, after getting my thoughts out for your post, what do you think about this?.
[] Aura of Life: Instead of your first exploration in a turn, you can activate your Aura to choose any amount of characters in your auras range. Shuffle a total amount of 3 ([] 4) random cards divided up as you choose from the characters discard piles into their decks. You can´t choose the same character more than 2 times.
Changing the recharge to a discard for the heal is a possibility too, but i would like to have The Hook Mountain Massacre first and actually playtesting the role cards befor i pass my judgment on them.
Giving everyone the same amount of heal was my first idea, 1 for everyone. But it could be overpowered (6 player game) or utterly useless (1 player game). So this wasn´t the way to good.
Actually, I wonder if healing up to 6 players for 1 card each would really be that overpowered. After all, if we are talking about power on a Role card, then we're already midway through the game, and you would need to take 2 power feats to get to that point (although I do wonder about having 1 character be the default; seems like an awfully big swing from 1 to 6; I'd almost default it to everyone, or a set number).
There are powers that are not going to be universally useful. Look at Lem, Harsk, and Valeros; all 3 have powers that are only useful to other characters.
How useful would a Dragon Shaman's aura be if you went out solo in the RPG? If the aura loses some of its usefulness in a smaller groups... I think that makes sense, actually.
As for your points about my points... all valid, and I don't disagree with any of them. I don't have a perfect solution, which is why I had 4. :)
I do like the new wording, but after my first paragraph above, I think that the recharge is probably fine.
(although I do wonder about having 1 character be the default; seems like an awfully big swing from 1 to 6; I'd almost default it to everyone, or a set number)
Could you explain what you meant with this? I can´t really grasp what you´re trying to say here.
And my thoughts about the univerally usefulness went something like this.
A power that is useful if even 1 other character is around is much better than a power that is only useful when a healer is around. (Not considering Healing Potions) Just my opinion.
And i´m totaly with you that losing usefulness in smaller groups makes sense. The problem here would be:
The Healing Aura is the only aura that effects more than 1 character at the same time. So if we consider to count in the groupsize, we had to change every other aura to reflect this, because as it is now, they wouldn´t be affected. And to be honest, i absolutly don´t feel the urge to do that.
(although I do wonder about having 1 character be the default; seems like an awfully big swing from 1 to 6; I'd almost default it to everyone, or a set number)Could you explain what you meant with this? I can´t really grasp what you´re trying to say here.
Sorry, I was referring to your original wording (emphasis mine):
[] Aura of Life: Instead of your first exploration in a turn, you can activate your Aura to choose a character ([] all characters) in your auras range. Shuffle 1 random card from their discard piles back in their deck.
When you take the first power feat (to enable the power), you get to heal at most 1 character of 1 card (total = 1 card). When you take the second power feat (to change "a" to "all"), you get to heal at most 6 characters of 1 card (total = 6 cards). If you think of this as linear change, it goes from 0 -> 1 -> 6 which is huge.
I think the right solution is what you've already done: imposing a set limit on the healing amount, spread it out to any in range, and limit each person's healing.
Ok, thanks for the explanation.
Now i understand what your intent was. I hadn´t even thought about that massive jump.
And a big thanks to anyone who contributet constructive criticsm and helped shaping him to what he is now, a playable mostly balanced character.
At least in my humble opinion.
@Bidmaron
Sorry, but i can´t take credit for that.
The concept is from Justin Harrell 615.
I just helped and hammered out the role cards.
Don't be modest, you and flat probably did more work than I did on the base class. I was more of the idea man while you guys made the ideas work. Without either of you, the dragon shaman probably wouldn't be here. So yeah, thanks a lot for helping bring my favorite class to this awesome game.
I´m not modest, i´m just honest. The idea for the character, and with this the concept is from you. I just made it playable. And Flat just hit me on the back of the head if i went astray to get me back on track.^^
If i would put up the characters i made for the rest of my group, those would be my concept. But i think at least one of those wouldn´t be appropriate for this forum, so i won´t do that.
I played a total of 8 games with him so far and didn´t run into any major problems. The only trend i figured out is that, as you mentioned befor, i don´t use his breath weapon that often (but every weapon i have is at least 1d8+1) and i sometimes used the aura solely to recharge a card i don´t need at the moment, not really to buff my roll, or the roll of another. But other than that he works great, as intented and feels really smooth and not to complicated.
So since it looks like our time here with the Dragon Shaman has come to a close, Let me post everything in one post for anyone new who sees this.
Torke the Dragon Shaman (keywords: Male, Dwarf, Dragon Shaman)
Strength d10 []+1 []+2 []+3 []+4 Melee +2
Constitution d8 []+1 []+2 []+3 Fort +2
Dexterity d6 []+1 []+2
Intelligence d4 []+1
Wisdom d6 []+1 []+2 []+3 Perception +2, Survival +2
Charisma d6 []+1 []+2
Hand 5 []6
Proficiency [x]light armor [x]weapon
Special 1: Discard ([]recharge) a card to add 1d6 acid, cold, electricity, or fire to a combat check.
Special 2: Once per check, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 ([]+1 []+2) to a check attempted by a character at your location.
Deck Layout
Weapon 3 []4 []5
Spells -
Armor 2 []3
Item 3[]4 []5
Ally 3 []4 []5
Blessings 4 []5
Dragonborn (Role) (I didn't see a possible name by this role, so i just put in the first thing that came to mind)
Hand 5 []6
Proficiency [x]light armor [x]weapon
Breath Weapon: Discard ([]recharge) a card to add 1d6 ([]+1 []+2) with the acid, cold, electricity, or fire ([]Magic []Force) trait to your combat check.
Aura: Once per check, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 ([]+1 []+2) to a check attempted by a character at your location.
[]Scales: Discard a card to reduce combat damage dealt to you by 2.
[]Greed: Add 2 ([]4) to your check to aquire a boon with the weapon, armor or item trait.
[]Dragonic Flight: You may move at the end of your turn.
Auramancer (Role)
Hand 5 []6
Proficiency [x]light armor [x]weapon
Breath Weapon: Discard ([]recharge) a card to add 1d6 with the acid, cold, electricity, or fire trait to your combat check.
Aura: Once per check, you may activate your aura by recharging a card. If you do, add 1d4 ([]+1 []+2 []+3 []+4) to a check attempted by a character at your location ([]adjacent location).
[]Elemental Aura: When you activate your Aura for a combat check, you can add the Magic, Fire or Cold trait instead.
[]Aura of Vigor: You can activate your Aura to reduce Damage dealt to a character in your auras range by 2 instead. You can´t activate your Aura this way if you already activated it for that encounter.
[]Aura of Life: Instead of your first exploration in a turn, you can activate your Aura to choose any amount of characters in your auras range. Shuffle a total amount of 3 ([] 4) random cards divided up as you choose from the characters discard piles into their decks. You can´t choose the same character more than 2 times.
[]My Precious: For the recharge check of an item, you get the skills Arcane: Constitution +1 and Divine: Constitution +1
This calls for a celebration!
Ta da!
Nice one. That´s a good celebration. The pic really suits him.
Hopefully this weekend I can give Torke some proper playtime before I start drumming up ideas for another new class (spellsword first, then maybe gunslinger). Maybe I'll think up some dragon shaman related items. Dragon bone helm for instance? no idea what it'll do but it just sounds awesome.