A couple months ago in another thread I showed everyone the Regenerator class that I was working on, but after making some significant changes (version 1 vs. current version) I didn't get any response.
So rather than resurrect a dead thread, I figured I would start a new thread to request some critiquing as I haven't heard anything from anyone since I made the changes.
For those of you who don't know, the Regenerator is a class that uses a sybiotic relationship between the PC and his brain slug (essentially) to allow the PC to 'surge' the chemical processes in his body, allowing him to perform a variety of interesting things (heal, grow wings, gain reach, grow a protective exoskeleton and so on) that can all be amplified by expending 'surge points,' the abstraction used for all the chemical goodness that goes on when these things happen.
In addition, the symbiote acts as a mentor for the PC, imparting wisdom, tactical knowledge and a variety of skills to better handle the adventuring world.
So once again, here's the new take on my Regenerator class, please let me know what you think :)
I'm having a distinct feeling of deva ju... if anyone would be willing to give me a little PEACHing I'd be super happy
One last shameful bump before I let the idea, like my dreams, die forever.
Its a very much a niche, and quite sci-fi for a medieval/fantasy game.
What happens if the character mistreats his symbiote or doesn't want it around. Also, instead of calling a new one, perhaps the character could grow a new one on his body, essentially cloning the old one?
Due to the mentor/student aspect of the design, I can't really get on board with him growing a new one if the old one dies, primarily because even if it was a clone of the original it wouldn't have the experience necessary to resume the teacher role.
Admittedly, yes, the class is a little heavy on the sci-fi side, some of that could be changed by reflavoring things (mayhaps a tiny outsider instead of an alien, after all, synthesists can fuse with outsiders, so why not another class? Or maybe surge powers are more vaguely defined on the how aspect of their design) but Paizo did also release the technology guide, so sci-fi does have official support.
Mistreating the symbiote I would consider eventually falls under the "lost" part (the symbiote eventually gets fed up and runs away) of ways to lose the partnership.
This is a great improvement over the last iterations. The time and thought you put into the class definitely shows here. I'm glad you decided to focus a bit more on the symbiote (though, it should have its own section after the class description rather than in the middle of it). However, there's so much rules bloat, here. When you have a lot of bloat, it becomes more difficult to understand and analyze the class. This is a staggering 15 pages. For this reason, I'm having a lot of trouble divining a good judgment of the class. I do notice the class gives an unusual amount of skill bonuses. I agree with Ciaran Barnes that it may better suit the class to make it more setting neutral.
Setting neutral will take a bit of effort, but I can whip that up eventually. For now, the Cloxatiern companions section has been moved (it looks so much nicer now that it's at the end, thanks for the tip Cyrad) and other minor editing has been had.
The only skill bonus that is active all the time is the bonus to some of the knowledges (and potentially heal if the player took the right boon), the others have to be bought with surge points and are situational at best (bonus to acrobatics solely to jump and bonus to any one skill that requires high intelligence for it to be remotely uesful) and seeing as surge points are a fairly limited resource, using them on skill checks is fairly hard to justify unless not a whole lot of combat is going on that day.
If you have an idea on how to cut down on some of the bloat I'd love to hear, since I agree, 15 (now 16 since things have been rearranged) pages is a bit of a read.
Thanks for the comment by the way, it's nice to see that other people think my effort has been worthwhile :)
OK. Lets see if I can restart this thing. iOS 8 just froze an app for the first time ever. Stupid iOS. Its going to be shorted this time.
What if instead of cloning itself, the symbiote is gradually imparting tangible and non-tangible parts of itself on the host, and uses this to regenerate itself. The knowledge skill bonuses support this theory. A lich has a phylactery, a Cloxatiern has its host. It also gets rid of the notion that - for some reason - a new Cloxatiern seeks out the regenerator from across the universe.
As far as becoming more setting neutral, I can think of a few creature types that would fit the bill. Aberations would cover the current alien incarnation. Elementals seems kind of cool. An aligned outsider could lead to some intersting role-playing opportunities. Depending on the creatuire type, you could have some different abilities available in the form of powers or feats (more bloat!).
A class should serve as a foundation for character concepts rather than a specific character concept in general. I went through this thought process when designing my essence reaver class. I originally sought to make a hemomancer that could steal blood from people and use it to power his abilities. Instead, I changed it to a mage that steals and manipulates energy with archetypes and options to make the flavor more specific. This ended up greatly expanding my class's design space. You could do the same by having the class focus on the general premise of having some kind of creature that empowers the class.
Why not let the player decide what the symbiote is? Depending on the type, they receive special abilities. Mechanically, it could be like a fighter with an oracle mystery or shaman spirit.
The only thing with making it so that people can choose what they want the creature that enhances them be is it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for some ideas since currently the symbiote can use surge powers as well (obviously that could be changed depending on whether it stayed as an aberration or changed to say an elemental, but then that changes around the versatility of the companion side of the class and makes less sense as to why the bonded creature can teach the regenerator how to use surge powers).
I have setting neutralized the document a bit, dumbing down the pseudo-science of the document was easy enough and made it slightly shorter, which is nice, but changing around the specific aberration species to a nebulous "otherworldly entity" reads kind of weird, especially when you get to the companion section of the document so I'm not sure how I want to rearrange things there yet. If you guys have any ideas on how to keep the companion section in there and have it make sense with various concepts I'd love to hear that, because honestly for now I can't think of anything.
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And after nearly a year of sitting on the idea and tweeking it slightly over time the regenerator has finally received the green light for a playtest come September. Before that though, I'd love to hear some more feedback and especially some critiques from people so I can finish polishing the class up. Mechanical issues and clarity issues are first and foremost my largest concern, so focusing on those would be more constructive at the moment than trying to find ways to mute the fluff further, although that is still appreciated.
And there we go, it now has a sidebar table of contents instead of technocolor compartmentalization. Thanks Add-ons! Link in the previous post (or first post, both link to the same doc) is still the one to click to view the class.
And there we go, it now has a sidebar table of contents instead of technocolor compartmentalization. Thanks Add-ons! Link in the previous post (or first post, both link to the same doc) is still the one to click to view the class.
So am I getting that the (Ex) abilities of this class are intended to be entirely biological? Shapechanging and the like are rarely (Ex) in Pathfinder. I am assuming that this class would be relatively happy in an anti-magic field as I am reading it, is that correct?
That was the intent, yes. Since everything is designed to be biological it should work fine in an anti-magic field, regardless of how fantastical some of the abilities may appear.