This is my second post about a custom character, this is the one I made for myself, I made it because I loved the flavor of so many characters already made, but there wasn't one that I felt had everything I wanted, I wanted what I call a spellsword, pretty much someone who is weighed heavy in arcane magic, but also has ninja/warrior fighting capabilities, so this is what I came up with.
SKILLS
STRENGTH D6 []+1 []+2 []+3
melee: strength +2
DEXTERITY D8 []+1 []+2 []+3
acrobatics: dexterity +1
disable: dexterity +1
stealth: dexterity +1
CONSTITUTION D4 []+1
INTELLIGENCE D10 []+1 []+2 []+3
arcane: intelligence +2
knowledge: intelligence +1
WISDOM D8 []+1 []+2
CHARISMA D6 []+1 []+2 []+3
POWERS
Hand Size 6 []7
Proficient with [X]Light Armors [X]Weapons
After you play a spell with the arcane trait, you may examine the top card of your deck; if its a spell, you may put it into your hand.
You automatically succeed at your check to recharge a spell([]or item)with the arcane trait.
Add +1([]+2)to your checks with the electricity trait.
CARD LIST Favored Card Type: Spell
Weapon 1 []2 []3
Spell 7 []8 []9 []10
Armor 1 []2 []3
Item 4 []5 []6
Ally 2 []3
Blessing X
And there is the character before role card, wanted the character to be intelligent, wise, but able to hold his own just fine in a fight even without spells, didn't care for the divine trait, due to the character trying to be half nija type themed, wanted stealth and acrobatics to be in there, didn't care for constitution, gave it ezren's spell peek ability and seoni's (if I remember correctly) arcane recharge ability, and im personally partial to electric style powers, so added the 3rd ability for the flavor, so does the character seem balanced? is the flavor good?
I would drop all the Dex skills and increase the size of the die. Probably reduce wisdom in its place.
A d8+1 gives the same average roll as a d10 (5.5 avg). Most of the time you can make Dex or related skill check. It would amount to the same thing and would use fewer skills.
Overall this feels like cherry picking all the good parts from multiple characters without taking on any of the weaknesses. As good as a sorcerer for reusing spells with the larger selection of a wizard AND the ability to wear armor AND a decent melee combatant too. Constitution as a weak stat almost never hurts you because there are so few checks that involve it.
For a character to be balanced it must have both strengths and weaknesses. I'm just not seeing the weaknesses here.
I like the idea, but it is just too good in my opinion.
Aureate wrote: I would drop all the Dex skills and increase the size of the die. Probably reduce wisdom in its place.
A d8+1 gives the same average roll as a d10 (5.5 avg). Most of the time you can make Dex or related skill check. It would amount to the same thing and would use fewer skills.
Overall this feels like cherry picking all the good parts from multiple characters without taking on any of the weaknesses. As good as a sorcerer for reusing spells with the larger selection of a wizard AND the ability to wear armor AND a decent melee combatant too. Constitution as a weak stat almost never hurts you because there are so few checks that involve it.
For a character to be balanced it must have both strengths and weaknesses. I'm just not seeing the weaknesses here.
I like the idea, but it is just too good in my opinion.
I thought this character was more balanced than the other one and didn't seem too bad, suppose im too partial to sub abilities, not sure I wanna drop the wisdom though, even with the D8 and my gf giving me a d6 +1 on checks with wisdom , it was a nightmare for us to close a location needing a wisdom 8 check, so im not sure I wanna drop to a D6 while also dropping her ability , cause them im looking at having to roll a d6 with a d4 for a wisdom 8 check >.> its awful how often that check comes up for us, my weakness I found was still in melee, I liked the ability to melee but almost never were able to do better meleeing and when I would, it would be under powered since I only had a d6
I do agree, it is more balanced than your other character. I have no idea what a Spellsword is (limited RPG knowledge), so I won't speak to which skills you chose since I don't know if they are thematic or not. The one thing I see that I would be concerned about is having both Ezren's peak/draw and Seoni's auto-recharge. Combined, I think those make for potentially an over powered combo. You'll never fail to recharge a spell and you be able to grab another spell when you play a spell.
Why not instead give him something to combine his melee and arcane? Like maybe drop the electricity power and either the peak or auto-recharge and go with:
When you play a weapon with the Melee trait, you may discard a spell to add 1d6 ([]+1 []+2) with the Electricity trait to the check.
Since you Melee is only d6+2, that it won't be OP to roll 2d6+2, especially at the cost of discarding a spell. On your role card you could expand it to have other traits be possible or to upgrade it to only require a recharge.
No blessings has to be tough. Ezren is the only one that has that and can make up for it with his exploration power. You probably don't feel the pinch of that too much in a 2 character game though.
Hawkmoon269 wrote: I do agree, it is more balanced than your other character. I have no idea what a Spellsword is (limited RPG knowledge), so I won't speak to which skills you chose since I don't know if they are thematic or not. The one thing I see that I would be concerned about is having both Ezren's peak/draw and Seoni's auto-recharge. Combined, I think those make for potentially an over powered combo. You'll never fail to recharge a spell and you be able to grab another spell when you play a spell.
Why not instead give him something to combine his melee and arcane? Like maybe drop the electricity power and either the peak or auto-recharge and go with:
When you play a weapon with the Melee trait, you may discard a spell to add 1d6 ([]+1 []+2) with the Electricity trait to the check.
Since you Melee is only d6+2, that it won't be OP to roll 2d6+2, especially at the cost of discarding a spell. On your role card you could expand it to have other traits be possible or to upgrade it to only require a recharge.
No blessings has to be tough. Ezren is the only one that has that and can make up for it with his exploration power. You probably don't feel the pinch of that too much in a 2 character game though.
sounds pretty good, a spellsword, which im limited on my knowledge too so there might be another named for it, is pretty much just a warrior, standard sword wielding, armor bearing guy, but with the addition of being heavy in magic, so that's why I chose for the character to be heavy in magic, but be able to melee, I can see taking ezren's peek ability away, I like the electricity ability for flavor, and its way low on the power level because without having an ability to give me the electricity trait, im looking at lighting touch, shock longbow (when discarded) and I believe the spell is called lightning blast, as the only things I can boost, probably will change the peek ability to maybe recharging a spell to add the electricity trait and a d4 to a combat check, sound balanced and good? forgot to mention that my spellsword, is thus named because that's what I know of it, but my character is more weighed to use dexterity weapons over melee, hence the flavor of hunting for the shock longbow
Hawkmoon269 wrote: I do agree, it is more balanced than your other character. I have no idea what a Spellsword is (limited RPG knowledge), so I won't speak to which skills you chose since I don't know if they are thematic or not. The one thing I see that I would be concerned about is having both Ezren's peak/draw and Seoni's auto-recharge. Combined, I think those make for potentially an over powered combo. You'll never fail to recharge a spell and you be able to grab another spell when you play a spell.
Why not instead give him something to combine his melee and arcane? Like maybe drop the electricity power and either the peak or auto-recharge and go with:
When you play a weapon with the Melee trait, you may discard a spell to add 1d6 ([]+1 []+2) with the Electricity trait to the check.
Since you Melee is only d6+2, that it won't be OP to roll 2d6+2, especially at the cost of discarding a spell. On your role card you could expand it to have other traits be possible or to upgrade it to only require a recharge.
No blessings has to be tough. Ezren is the only one that has that and can make up for it with his exploration power. You probably don't feel the pinch of that too much in a 2 character game though.
I also might drop knowledge on the card since the 6 different skill things seem to be an upset, I can only assume that I saw the 9 point limit, not the amount of skill limit, and made these that way, which really stealth and knowledge rarely come up in the game, I just like having them for the flavor
I tried making something similar. Its incomplete, but the feedback I got might be helpful to you. I gave it the cool sounding name "Magic Warriror." Spellsword sounds much better. Apparently this is what you would call a Magus.
Hawkmoon269 wrote: I tried making something similar. Its incomplete, but the feedback I got might be helpful to you. I gave it the cool sounding name "Magic Warriror." Spellsword sounds much better. Apparently this is what you would call a Magus. not sure if ill convert using the word magus, ive heard it before but never knew it was pretty much what I knew as a spellsword, but that's just silly flavor details, as for abilities, I can see the help, I will be altering both characters and posting their final new versions sometime today soonish I believe, it will also include their role cards
alkatrazshock wrote: Hawkmoon269 wrote: I do agree, it is more balanced than your other character. I have no idea what a Spellsword is (limited RPG knowledge), so I won't speak to which skills you chose since I don't know if they are thematic or not. The one thing I see that I would be concerned about is having both Ezren's peak/draw and Seoni's auto-recharge. Combined, I think those make for potentially an over powered combo. You'll never fail to recharge a spell and you be able to grab another spell when you play a spell.
Why not instead give him something to combine his melee and arcane? Like maybe drop the electricity power and either the peak or auto-recharge and go with:
When you play a weapon with the Melee trait, you may discard a spell to add 1d6 ([]+1 []+2) with the Electricity trait to the check.
Since you Melee is only d6+2, that it won't be OP to roll 2d6+2, especially at the cost of discarding a spell. On your role card you could expand it to have other traits be possible or to upgrade it to only require a recharge.
No blessings has to be tough. Ezren is the only one that has that and can make up for it with his exploration power. You probably don't feel the pinch of that too much in a 2 character game though.
I also might drop knowledge on the card since the 6 different skill things seem to be an upset, I can only assume that I saw the 9 point limit, not the amount of skill limit, and made these that way, which really stealth and knowledge rarely come up in the game, I just like having them for the flavor Also, keep in mind that you have 2 of the 'combat abilities' (melee, ranged, arcane, divine). Of those, looking at characters it appears that melee is the most 'expensive' of them, since I don't see a single character with melee and more than one other skill. I'd strongly consider dropping arcane to a +1, and either dropping some or all of the dex skills and/or knowledge. (I'd recommend, based on your comments: melee+2, stealth+1, arcane+1, knowledge+1)
I also agree with Hawk on the abilities. The focus of the character feels like it should be on the arcane/melee mix, so an ability that sells that would be cool. Here's another thought: have the Ezren ability activate off using a weapon in combat, instead of casting a spell.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
|
