Hello, one and all. So I already posted this over at Giant in the Playground and I figured it'd be interesting to see what, if anything, the esteemed patrons of the Paizo boards have to say about this class I've cobbled together.
It's rather in the nature of being a hybrid class, drawing on both the witch, oracle, alchemist and summoner for its flavor and abilities. The "Theory and Practice" ability was pretty much cribbed straight off of the awesome bard ACF presented in Rite Publishing's "101 Simple Archetypes". Anyway, the idea was to create a sort of eldritch researcher type class what goes on a mysterious occult quest, is a bit of a skill monkey and gets to brew evolutionary draughts to boost his allies. Any and all comments're welcome. If people seem to think the class is balanced, I may end up playing one of these fellows in an upcoming game this weekend!
So, without further ado:
Interesting.
I find this class very flavorful. I especially liked the applied theory feature (the aloof professor showing off his erudition) and would have preferred if you had built more on that.
While I understand that this class does not have any spells and needs some special features, I think you give out too much revelations and hexes (as much as oracle and witch combined, if I'm not mistaken). I would reduce the number and make an option to take either of these every even level or so.
Eldritch draught is too powerful. Evolutions are a lot better for characters with class levels than they are for the summoner's eidolon.
Giving a fighter reach, pounce, damage reduction and energy immunity seems like an obvious choice. Increasing the wizard's intelligence is a no-brainer (no pun intended). Also, you get a lot of evolution points. At 7th level, the evolutions last for several fights and once you reach 14th level, you have them basically all day. This needs to be addressed. I could imagine
- restricting the evolutions to the alienist or increasing the cost for other creatures,
- increasing the cost of evolutions/reducing the pool,
- creating a nerfed evolution menu with lesser powers,
- also, requiring the alienist to learn certain draughts (similar to an alchemist's extract book).
Despite my criticism, I really like your ideas and I hope you get to play this class.
Thank you very much for reading and critiquing!
I may consider scaling back the revelations and hexes, though as things stand now they do rather make up the backbone of the class, and unless I can come up with some more smaller class features to fill up empty levels (e.g. if I just give them a choice between a hex and revelation every other level) I may need to keep that as is.
I definitely think you may have some very valid points about the evolutions, which are indeed the class feature I was the less sure about.
What if I
a) removed the Improved and Greater Draughts class features? They didn't really feel that necessary to begin with anyway.
b) also removed the Eldritch Vapors ability, so that you'll end up spending a lot more eldritch pool points if you wanna deck out the whole party
...?
If I did those two things, I don't think also forcing them to have an "extract book" full of evolutions and/or reducing the size of the eldritch pool would be necessary. The game I'll be playing in, for instance, would start at level 5. With say an 18 Intelligence I'd be looking at an eldritch pool with 16 points. That's 16 evolution points spread out over an entire day, each only lasting 5 minutes, to both buff myself and the whole party. I'm not saying it isn't plenty, I'm just not sure I'm convinced it's too much.
I really do appreciate your suggestions, though, and if people still think the class'd be way too powerful with the above changes, what I'd consider next would be creating a sort of "draughts known" column, meaning you basically learn a new draught every level (or maybe you'll know like 15 at level 20) and at every new level you get the option of upgrading all your known draughts (adding only, not changing evolutions) so that they're using your maximum evolution point number for that level. Just floating that idea out there in case it feels like further restrictions are in order.
Alright, here is a preliminary updated version. I'd be interested to hear whether people think the power level needs to be brought down further beyond this point:
I removed Improved Draughts, Greater Draughts and Eldritch Vapors. I gave them one more Theory and Practice at 3rd level, and I added a few more uses of Fleeting Revelations and a new ability called Eldritch Recall. If this is not sufficient I may consider merging the hex and revelation class features, though I am somewhat loathe to do so, or else put in a "draughts known" mechanic as mentioned above. Lastly, if people think the Fleeting Revelations or Eldritch Recall abilities are any sort of power concern, I could easily imagine ditching one or both of them altogether.
EDIT: Argh! I just realized I double-posted without due cause. I thought a longer period has passed between my two posts. Apologies for the clutter.
EDIT II: Perhaps just removing the "dangling" revelation and hex at 1st level would be sufficient? That'd mean you wouldn't gain access to your second mystery until level 7, and you'd end up with 10 hexes and 5 revelations at level 20.
So this is a combined bump and an update, I guess. I got some feedback from GiTP as well, and I sort of did a rehaul of the whole class. We have recipes for eldritch draughts now. We have hexes and revelations combined into epiphanies. We have a fleeting epiphany slot that can be changed out daily from level 3, plus once more at 7, 11, 15 and 19. We have theory and practice from level 1 and onward. Them's the major changes I think. Hope to hear what people think. It feels more balanced now in my view, and more like a "real" class than just a cobbled-together combination of disparate class features. Hopefully the overall power level has also been brought down. Anyway, any and all feedback is highly welcome!
Hello. First, I like the idea of this class. Very cool, dark, and spooky.
I especially love Reason Prevails. That to me, if a fantastic feature.
This would make a great class for a horror game. I like it a lot.
Your third incarnation of it is the best I think. It really hammers out the problems of the others.
Cheers. Thanks a whole bunch for reading this thing. That's nice to hear. The version I'll be playing tomorrow will probably not have the recipes for the eldritch draughts, as the GM knows I am not likely to abuse having access to the full range of evolutions each time I create a draught, but if we find that scope of choice problematic we'll likely just reinstate the recipes, possibly adding one's Int mod to how many one knows; seems a bit dull just knowing a single recipe at 1st level. Anyway, that'll be it for this one I think unless someone else comes in and notices some glaring flaw I've missed.
This is f***ing awesome. Cool flavor and solid mechanics. I really love classes with supernatural abilities, but without spell and this seems to be an excellent alternative to the Investigator. Nice work.
Why thank you; you are exceedingly kind for saying so. I'm glad this harmonized with someone else besides myself.
Yeah this all basically came about from my originally wanting to play an investigator or an inspired chemist (the alchemist archetype) and finding both options lackluster.
I love supernatural abilities but I hate vancian casting (and ain't even that fond of spell pool-style casting either). Warlocks were awesome. Hexes are awesome. It just seems a far better fit for most of the literary role models I have for the supernatural, to just sort of have one or a few weird, unearthly abilities you can call upon.
Just as a design philosophy side note, I will say that evolutions have both pros and cons regarding applying them to PCs rather than eidolons. They can be more powerful, yes, but there're also limitations of which evolutions are useful when you only get them a few minutes at a time. Sure, if you wanna optimize for combat (i.e. max out your natural attacks, yadda yadda) you have that bit cut out for you. Though I will note that an eldritch draught is a polymorph effect, so you can't go slapping evolutions on your wildshaped druid buddy. Considering the flavor of the class, though, I was more concerned with brewing up a draught to get +8 to Disguise, Bluff and Sense Motive and do some investigative work for a few hot minutes at a sip; but that sort of thing'll eat through your eldritch pool in no time.
Took a stab at creating three archetypes for these guys if that might tickle anyone's fancy:
The Grotesque - Because buffing others is for wimps, I guess?
The Mortician - Because who doesn't want undead minions?
The Taxonomist - Because I dunno you like wanna catch 'em all or something?
Any comments would be welcome!
EDIT: For the sake of completion, here is the version of the alienist these archetypes are modifying:
It's basically the same as the last version posted in this thread, except it's lost the recipe class feature. Currently playtesting a mortician and so far not being restricted to recipes when making my draughts hasn't been a problem. Then again, it's only helping to buff my allies so the only one who would be complaining is the GM. He thinks it's fine though since I still need to spend 1 minute to prepare each draught, meaning I can't dream up evolutions on the spot mid-combat.
Tiny bump with an updated version of the taxonomist here:
Might be playing one of these in yet another upcoming game.
Oh, I have, and commented on it too. Rather a different approach from mine, but I like the antiquarian a lot.
Oh, I have, and commented on it too. Rather a different approach from mine, but I like the antiquarian a lot.
I think the Alienist and the Antiquarian need to have a sit-down for tea, followed by a page-by-page comparison of our personal copies of the Necronomicon. Afterward, we can embark on an expedition together that will leave one of us dead and the other hopelessly insane.
But seriously, I think every class feature you borrowed and applied was a cohesive and comprehensive fit for what a Lovecraftian protagonist would be. Epiphany is a nice touch in including hexes and revelations. I think we both made viable "dabblers of dark and forgotten arts". Well done, Gears. I tip my hat to you.
Cheers. Yeah, I'll hopefully be posting two major and far more "original" classes I've been slaving away on on these fora quite soon, but sometimes I think these little 'mash-up' classes are rather fun to create, especially if they end up playable.
In the end I tend to make classes more because I disagree with a lot of Paizo's design philosophy and I just think they'd be fun to play rather than as some sort of creative statement. All I can say is that thus far in my playtest having a guy who buffs people by injecting them with mutative serums has gone down a treat as opposed to playing like a bard or a buffer cleric. But my group has rather a twisted sense of fun, then again. Anyway, thanks for reading and glad you liked it.
Meh. That guy sold out to HBO. :P
He's a nambly pansy, too.
You have interesting ideas, a class all about mutating himself or others, but I can't say I like the execution. Eldritch pool is way too powerful. You should make your own list of evolutions rather than use the eidolon's (a broken class feature in its own right). As written, the alienist can make everyone in the party grow wings at 2nd level, letting them fly three levels before any other class can. That's a big benchmark no-no. In addition, the alienist gets a ton of points. The other class features don't really impress me. Most of them are just stealing hexes and mysteries from the witch and oracle.
I expected an investigator that deals with eldritch abominations and cults worshipping Dark Tapestry gods. Instead, I got a mad scientist that mutates people and steals primary class features from other classes.
Cheers for reading and critiquing, Cyrad. I rather disagree with you on a few of your points, but to a large extent that just boils down to some differences in design philosophy and taste. I mostly created this class for fun since its mechanics were the sort I like to play, but rarely find expressed in Paizo's material. I'll be uploading some far more "original" classes in the near future, hopefully. For now though, since the alienist is running smooth in our home games, I don't think I need to solicit any further commentary. Thanks a lot for reading all the same. Peace!
I expected an investigator that deals with eldritch abominations and cults worshipping Dark Tapestry gods. Instead, I got a mad scientist that mutates people and steals primary class features from other classes.
Stealing or borrowing class features is perfectly fine, so long as it fits with a character's theme. As for your use of the word "expected", no one owes you anything. Your expectations do not entitle you to get what you want from a content contributor. If you want something different, I challenge you to homebrew it. This challenge is your chance to show us all what you expected. The gauntlet is thrown. I wish you luck. Happy homebrewing :)
Stealing or borrowing class features is perfectly fine, so long as it fits with a character's theme. As for your use of the word "expected", no one owes you anything. Your expectations do not entitle you to get what you want from a content contributor. If you want something different, I challenge you to homebrew it. This challenge is your chance to show us all what you expected. The gauntlet is thrown. I wish you luck. Happy homebrewing :)
I expected an investigator that deals with eldritch abominations and cults worshipping Dark Tapestry gods. Instead, I got a mad scientist that mutates people and steals primary class features from other classes.
No! Not another one! I'm already working on two classes ontop of my thesis and have been neglecting the Blazing 9.
My comment was largely that the class was advertised as a "Lovecraftian detective" and the actual class doesn't fit the description it conveys.