The second big idea is a base class based on villain Joseph Curwen from H.P. Lovecraft's short novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". Curwen, referred to as a sorcerer in the tale, works with a few friends from all around the world to perfect and then use a method for reducing human remains to "essential saltes", which are then used to call up a fully sentient shade of that creature at will.
What I propose is a class that robs graves and drags fallen foes off the battlefield to reduce them to "essential saltes". Once this is done, the player can then enslave the very spirits of the dead. Such spirits can be fonts of knowledge, representatives of the greatest thinkers of long-forgotten ages. They can also be the spirits of mighty warriors who, with the right coercion, becomes the muscle that a scholar of the occult quite simply is not. Useless saltes can always be thrown together to make a mindless abomination, of course.
This class feels like pure evil, but it need not be so. There is poetic justice in forcing the spirits of murderers and thieves to do something good for a change. Perhaps such an individual believes that forcing good acts will reduce their chances of being damned in the afterlife.
All in all, I see a great deal of exciting possibilities here.
As this class will be particularly difficult to balance and design, I'd like to gauge interest before I make a decision one way or another. I normally go forward with a concept if I think it can sell 100 copies within a year. With this one, as with the ethermancer before it, the theory work is going to require that I either a price I don't want to set or that I have resonance with the player base.
So, you've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel resonated? Well, do ya, Shadecaller?
Having all the interest in Cthulhu of a segmented Innsmouthian I have no knowledge of the character, but the concept seems cool. I don't understand why this class needs to be considered evil AT ALL.
I'm currently working on a slightly similar Reanimator Summoner Alternate/archetype that is essentially a rip-off of the Necromancer from Guild Wars' Animate Bone fiend and Animate Shambling Horror skills. So really only a combat focused approach without your nuanced skills and attached lore/flavor.
This sounds more like a serie of spells, magic items and monsters than a class, to me. But it sounds great.
But some kind of spiritual/essentiel necromancer, pehaps with 6 Spell levels and Lots of cool class abbilities also Sound great.
It's important to remember that Curwen and his fellows had no direct control over their temporarily resurrected subjects -- only the threat of the reversed incantation and whatever other mundane means of coercion and imprisonment were available.
And above all else, you must remember: do not call up that which you cannot put down! :D
@eml
Of course. You, too, can have an angry Saxon spirit end everything you spent a century building.
@cap'n
You've hit it on the head. Since when have I ever acknowledged ten-tiered spellcasting classes as a thing I can make? :)
I'm into it.
It could be like a cross between a Malconvoker, Binder, and Necromancer.
I'll look into the first one, but I did think of it as the complete inverse of pact magic.
I feel resonated. If you build this class, I will buy.
Alright, awesome. I'll keep writing this on a pad of paper while I finish up the Tainted for Amora Game and get on it. For those who haven't thrown in on that Kickstarter, there's a lot of good talent sitting there and I'm confident that at least half of what will be in the final product will be an absolute grand slam, while all the rest will be at least pretty darn good. At $10 for the PDF, considering I'd charge around $7 for my class alone, it's one of the best deals in gaming this month. Greg's got a lot invested in his bid to make a number of fantastic ideas a reality. Have at it and help the man out!
Back to the Shadecaller - It'll be a long time coming given some mechanical issues that will have me throw my notebook at a wall in frustration, as well as smaller issues. I'd expect something playable by March. I'm also open to developing a playtest document so we can make this one as good as it can be, particularly since I see it as the big release for the 1st quarter of 2014.
Here are the walls I'm seeing.
1. Random generation of stolen corpses. - Curwen steals a corpse from the graveyard. What did he get? Did he do research on the graveyard to make his search more targeted? Has there been some sort of upheaval in the area that makes it so "nine out of ten stones" are wrong? Everything from having done research on the graveyard to the size and history of the settlement to the very ALIGNMENT of the settlement (Are they lawful and, therefore, keep good records?) is going to be important here. That's right, folks. "Dig Undead" will be as complex as the 3.5 "Turn Undead".
2. Hey, I salted that high level wizard! - I've seen what happens when a level 9 party with a necromancer kills the dragon in the Slumbering Tsar. You gut the thing, raise it as a bleeding skeleton, set up a library with big armchairs for the party, build a homunculus to drive it, and nothing short of a CR 16 threatens them ever again. Though there should be some combat benefit to salting wizards rather than barbarians for use as soldiers, I simply can't give the Shadecaller a full spellcaster in a can. The easiest way to do this is to give each caster shade a pool of power points (level + spellcasting ability mod) and the ability to customize energy blasts like a very restricted ethermancer who recharges daily. Add a few specials based on parent class, of course. The issue here is it's me writing another blasted spellbook.
3. Hey, I salted a monk with a ridiculously specific build! - Just as wizards and other spellcasters must be watered down for balance's sake, each martial class must be watered down in the same fashion. I presently have no idea how to efficiently handle this one, but it'll come with time.
4. "DO AS I SAY!" - The battle of wills is going to be... interesting here. Just like dominate person, a shade will be alright with doing certain actions, but will not be alright with others. Unlike dominate person, there's no actual mind shenanigans going on. The control is simple rapport, fear, blackmail, aligned goals, or some other mundane source. There is nothing truly stopping this shade from spinning around and blasting the Shadecaller as soon as it is called up.
Though it would be unwise (and no fun) to call for rolls all the time, there needs to be a mechanic that tracks the Shadecaller's relationship with each shade and calls for a check every hour or so (Recall that Orne and Hutchingson found it to be so much easier to keep their pets dusted most of the time.) or whenever something totally against its nature is called for. Since it would be strictly possible for a Shadecaller to have a shade that came from a source many levels higher than himself, there needs to be a mechanic that gives Curwen dominance over the lesser, but there's a high chance that the level 100 Raichu that got traded to him will simply refuse his orders and then try to kill him.
5. Putting down what is called up - Rebelling shades get a saving throw against being put back in the jar. Goodbye, Curwen.
Sounds interesting so far- definitely worth the purchase if it compares to your other classes.