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Hello all again, another class concept I've written up mostly just on the challenge that I couldn't make it work. For those that don't know the character Nadia or Ms. Fortune is effectively immortal in a sence, being dismembered but reput back together and able to launch limbs and extend on muscle fibers for all manner of creepypasta. I decided to make a Class for it, then while looking over my Biomancer class (that I've shared on here a good while ago previously) I thought up a prestige for combining the two because hey, they're both body manipulating weirdos.
I preface this by saying that the classes balance point is on the high end, my usually design goal is at least scrape the floor of Tier 2 levels of power if possible, this is because of personal preference in power and because this is how our group usually plays. So tell me what you think, what you think is way out of line, doesn't make sense, what you like, what you think might need buffed, all thoughts good or bad are welcome :)
To be honest, I only got to read the goremaster. Here were my notes. Some of them are "gut reactions" but those are valuable too.
Stat Distribution (full bab, d10, 4 + int, 2 good saves): I like to compare things to the fighter. You end up with 2 more skill points per level and 1 more good save. That's not a "huge" thing, but it might be worthy of looking at again.
The weapon prof are a little odd. Aren't creatures proficient with their natural weapons? Why only 1 martial weapon?
You need to add type tags [(ex) (su) (sp)].
Fast Healing: Fast healing 5 is a 20th level alchemist grand discovery. I don't know if I would put this as a 1st level ability. Maybe have a pool of points that they can use to heal themselves per day?
Life Infused: I think you might want to put the "code of conduct" in a different section.
You also begin to drift into player personality dictation ("However they greatly dislike those they feel aren’t pure to their cause.")
Copious Splatter: The fist sentence should be in your intro I think.
Dismembered: Again, part of this should be in your intro.
What is your effective caster level for Mage Hand?
Does removing your head impact your BAB at all? (see as the head can only roll and the body is effectively blind without it).
As read, the vorpal quality does nothing. Wouldn't it at least remove their head? (I know it wouldn't kill them).
For clarity, I would move the improved unarmed damage to its own class feature. Also, what if they are small or large creatures or if they have over 1d6 damage?
That is a lot of natural armor. For scale, the Savage Barbarian archetype gets +1 @ 7th level and +1 for every 3 levels thereafter. I would either cap this or have it scale similar (though 2nd level is a bit early).
Fortification: Again, for 3rd level this is pretty strong when you add in the other stuff they get (fast healing, DR, etc).
5th of Dismember!: I would just make this a straight amount of damage.
Dead Walking: How does this work with deathwatch or detect undead?
Overall: This is a very very powerful class. At low levels it won't die. I clicked on a random CR 3 monster (fire memphit) and assume you are level 3. It does 2 claws +5 (1d3+1) damage. With DR 2 (let's assume you have at least 16 Con, though with the way the class looks I'd pump to 18 or 20) and fast healing 2 if they deal max damage (without critically hitting- you do have light fortification anyway) on both attacks they would deal 8 damage and you'd heal 2 of it per round. You are also sitting on 35 HP at level 3 (took high average, max 1st level, +3 from toughness, +3 from favored class) and a minimum of +3 AC (not AMAZING but pump that con baby...) before magic items (which you should have money for seeing as you don't need armor). Stack that next to a fighter and I'd play this (for the sake of numbers) any day.
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Playing with dismemberment is an interesting idea. However, my feelings about these classes mirror the same feelings I had about your cyborg-ninja-that's-totally-not-Raiden that gets a +1 adamantine katana at 1st level as a class feature. They're broken classes that deliberately throw all balance and design sense out the window. So, I'm not sure what kind of meaningful critique or feedback I or anyone else can give you.
Playing with dismemberment is an interesting idea. However, my feelings about these classes mirror the same feelings I had about your cyborg-ninja-that's-totally-not-Raiden that gets a +1 adamantine katana at 1st level as a class feature. They're broken classes that deliberately throw all balance and design sense out the window. So, I'm not sure what kind of meaningful critique or feedback I or anyone else can give you.
Well I thank you for even looking at it regardless, while that argument is in the past it's relevant to say that I only have my own group to go on for a lot of balance, and so many of the 'abuse' of abilities (such as adamantine cutting through walls just do avoid things as you've said) just never occurs and so I don't think about it. I did actually go back and adjust things with the past class for those balance concerns (though I didn't get replies I'm sure it still exists lol) so thats mostly what I'm doing here. I much prefer to balance toward being equal to a wizard, and if it's too much dumbing it down.
I think he was saying it was a little "on the nose" and allows you to play a character rather than a class.
To be honest, I only got to read the goremaster. Here were my notes. Some of them are "gut reactions" but those are valuable too.
Stat Distribution (full bab, d10, 4 + int, 2 good saves): I like to compare things to the fighter. You end up with 2 more skill points per level and 1 more good save. That's not a "huge" thing, but it might be worthy of looking at again.
The weapon prof are a little odd. Aren't creatures proficient with their natural weapons? Why only 1 martial weapon?
You need to add type tags [(ex) (su) (sp)].
Fast Healing: Fast healing 5 is a 20th level alchemist grand discovery. I don't know if I would put this as a 1st level ability. Maybe have a pool of points that they can use to heal themselves per day?
Life Infused: I think you might want to put the "code of conduct" in a different section.
You also begin to drift into player personality dictation ("However they greatly dislike those they feel aren’t pure to their cause.")Copious Splatter: The fist sentence should be in your intro I think.
Dismembered: Again, part of this should be in your intro.
What is your effective caster level for Mage Hand?
Does removing your head impact your BAB at all? (see as the head can only roll and the body is effectively blind without it).
As read, the vorpal quality does nothing. Wouldn't it at least remove their head? (I know it wouldn't kill them).
For clarity, I would move the improved unarmed damage to its own class feature. Also, what if they are small or large creatures or if they have over 1d6 damage?That is a lot of natural armor. For scale, the Savage Barbarian archetype gets +1 @ 7th level and +1 for every 3 levels thereafter. I would either cap this or have it scale similar (though 2nd level is a bit early).
Fortification: Again, for 3rd level this is pretty strong when you add in the other stuff they get (fast healing, DR, etc).
5th of Dismember!: I would just make this a straight amount of damage.
Dead Walking: How does this work with deathwatch or detect...
Thanks for the breakdown first off!, and I'll answer each point in the same order. I do see I need to add the ability tags though looking at it again, I swore I put them on o.0
Fast Healing: I honestly am unsure how to properly balance fast healing, I'm aware that the fast healing 5 is a '20th' level power but in the games where we've for fun just given it to players it's never been all that powerful. Sure it lets them heal up after battle but our playstyle is probably bad for testing (usually just 2-3 big battles, very rarely ever a healer). So other than the out of combat ability the impact of 5hp a round (in comparison to be dealth 30 damage a round) hasn't come to a big deal. A pool might be a good idea, or purhaps something like healing their con mod in hp per minute?
Life-Infused: Yeah that line is a bit pushy, it's partly a hold over till I know how to more accuratly limit dipping into the class
Copious Splatter: You think? I suppose I could see that and Dismembered in the intro but it seemed random to add in the 'overview' of a class what a specific ability did, I'll see about rewording it.
Dismembered: I would assume anyones effective caster level would always be the level of the class giving the ability to them if they don't normall cast, but I'll specify that. No removing your head doesn't do anything besides actually of course having your head rolling around, and the body is blind but if your head can see the body can still act just like normal, noting that you can move the head 5ft you can turn it around to see. Correct the vorpal trait has no effect on them other then making their head prematurely fall off, as with any sever limb maneuvers. I probably should put unarmed as it's own thing yeah, and if they were large or something than it would deal appropriatly sided damage as any unarmed
Enduring Flesh: I see part of the problem is I neglected to change proficiencies around, I intended for them to wear only light armor with very high max dex but very low actual armor, the Natural Armor bonus is meant to be similar to a Monks AC bonus in function.
Fortification: I see light fort a lot on armors in my group by this point so I didn't think it was so bad and it fit the whole "what order do you hit" theme, but I could do something else too. Maybe just saying that someone has to roll a bit higher to confirm criticals?
5th of Dismember: With the concept of what your doing, what amount of damage would be comparable or have a good medium? 1d6 per class level maybe?
Dead Walking: I would probably say since for that time your hearts stopped your registered as 'dead' for that minute, but the second it's over you would change how it shows you immediatly.
All in all it's suppose to be a strong up front combatant, primarily focused on staying alive and doing weird things. From the couple of tests I did it won about 50% of one on one fights with equal CR monsters, doing well against bruiser types dealing with hp damage and usually very badly against save or suck effects. I can agree it's probably too strong as is, which is alright because it means theres a nice point to start tweaking
I think he was saying it was a little "on the nose" and allows you to play a character rather than a class.
In many ways it WAS to allow you to play a character, at least that TYPE of character. Heck I directly referanced Raiden in several spots lol
AH before I forget Cyrad, you may like the Biomancer a little more, I've already gone through and made adjustments and gotten some thoughts from the forums with it before, so I believe it's in a good spot.
Updates to Goremaster- Reduced Fast Healing amount to half, added ability descriptors, seperated Unarmed bonus, Reduced Proficiencies, Changed Fortification for lesser ability, lessened Undying, Attempted to make Life Infused (slightly) less player controlly but needing to prevent dipping.
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Classes are one of the hardest things to design in this game. Classes are also the easiest way to break the game if you don't understand the internal mechanisms of how the game works. At-will fast healing is a great example of this. Healing 1 hit point per round doesn't seem very powerful at a glance. However, the game's internal mechanisms assume that all healing requires using up daily or long term resources. A character that can heal to full hit points after every encounter without spending any resources breaks all game mechanics that make this assumption. If you don't understand the consequences of breaking these assumption, you risk changing the game in a way you did not intend.
I'm not saying it's bad to change the game to suit your campaign and preferences. However, you can end up causing problems you did not suspect if you don't know what you're doing. Worse is that these classes mess with the fundamental machinations of the game.
It's like a customizing a car. It's fine to swap the tires, add a new stereo, or change your gas pedal to look like a foot print. But if you're not a mechanic, messing with the engine is a really bad idea.
I much prefer to balance toward being equal to a wizard, and if it's too much dumbing it down.
Balancing content to make it on par with the most powerful or optimal case is a common mistake I see. This is not a good idea because the most powerful case may actually be too powerful. When you balance against the above advantage rather than the average, it causes power creep. You may accidentally make the content more powerful than the optimal content, which is a bad thing. A better strategy is to choose a benchmark you considered to be the most balanced case. And choose one most similar to your concept.
Balancing a martial against a wizard never strikes me as a good idea because they're radically different classes. Professional designers have been trying to balance martials against wizards for decades with mixed success. You're better off picking a martial you think is balanced and has a similar class feature structure. I'm using the bloodrager as a benchmark for my cyborg class because it also has a limited self-buffing mechanic and a bloodline-like feature.
Another issue with balancing against wizards is that many people make fallacious assumptions when they do so. It's fine to balance limited-use effects against spells. However, I've seen the faulty argument "It's fine if X class can do it at-will because a wizard can do it at the same level!" way too many times.
I think he was saying it was a little "on the nose" and allows you to play a character rather than a class.
I do agree with this, too, but it's a common issue I see with homebrew classes. If you're making the class specific to your campaign, it's not that big of a deal. However, it feels like the life gem should be an archetype or prestige class with the life gem as a class feature or an artifact that grants special abilities. The large benefit of reducing the scope of the project to a prestige class or archetype is that you don't need to build enough content to support a whole class. Instead, you can focus on the cool abilities that motivate you to homebrew it in the first place.
AH before I forget Cyrad, you may like the Biomancer a little more, I've already gone through and made adjustments and gotten some thoughts from the forums with it before, so I believe it's in a good spot.
I gave that one a closer look. I actually kind of like it. My biggest issue comes from the fact it hooks onto summoner class, which I feel wary of because it's a broken class. Prohibiting some evolutions strikes me as a good idea, but a better idea might be to just cherrypick the available evolutions rather than black list some of them. This is the approach Advanced Class Guide took with slayer and investigator talents. Cherrypicking the evolutions might also grant you enough leverage to make it a full BAB class.
Classes are one of the hardest things to design in this game. Classes are also the easiest way to break the game if you don't understand the internal mechanisms of how the game works. At-will fast healing is a great example of this. Healing 1 hit point per round doesn't seem very powerful at a glance. However, the game's internal mechanisms assume that all healing requires using up daily or long term resources. A character that can heal to full hit points after every encounter without spending any resources breaks all game mechanics that make this assumption. If you don't understand the consequences of breaking these assumption, you risk changing the game in a way you did not intend.
I'm not saying it's bad to change the game to suit your campaign and preferences. However, you can end up causing problems you did not suspect if you don't know what you're doing. Worse is that these classes mess with the fundamental machinations of the game.
It's like a customizing a car. It's fine to swap the tires, add a new stereo, or change your gas pedal to look like a foot print. But if you're not a mechanic, messing with the engine is a really bad idea.
I much prefer to balance toward being equal to a wizard, and if it's too much dumbing it down.Balancing content to make it on par with the most powerful or optimal case is a common mistake I see. This is not a good idea because the most powerful case may actually be too powerful. When you balance against the above advantage rather than the average, it causes power creep. You may accidentally make the content more powerful than the optimal content, which is a bad thing. A better strategy is to choose a benchmark you considered to be the most balanced case. And choose one most similar to your concept.
Balancing a martial against a wizard never strikes me as a good idea because they're radically different classes. Professional designers have been trying to balance martials against wizards for decades with mixed success. You're...
I agree with you on a lot of accounts (as I usually find myself doing even with your more harsh crituques), though on some of course I do disagree a bit on. I'm very aware of the games take on healing and how it's handled, and this is just play experience likely making a different viewpoint, but I've never seen healing to full after fights to be a problem normally because we don't often play with any in combat healing, and normally it's the fights themselves that actually kill people and rarely anything outside of it (we aren't really dungeon crawl types). I'm not even opposed to making it 'resource', I'm just explaining why I started it out as 'heal and forget'.
I should say I don't try to balance "exactly" at a wizards level, because balancing to a class that does everything is silly. I always at least try to aim at mid tier 2 for most classes I make, and this is a preference in power level and concept that I just perfer to lean towards out of playstyle preferance, I can of course go lower, but they tend to waver around that level. This goes doubly true for martial classes because I believe they should be allowed just as much power as some casters, purhaps not the versatility though. Yes I agree that argument is faulty in the idea, have I done this in some capacity without enough limitations on use?
As for the Life-gem being an archetype I wouldn't even have a clue what you would have it be an archetype OF, since it's main abilities are pretty out there in function. Making it a prestige class I at some point thought about, but honestly I think making it a prestige really limits the amount of things you could do and how soon you can start making how a character fights, and I don't like saying "you can do cool things till much later" unless it's something that really shouldn't be till later, but I will start thinking on if I could mash things into half the levels.
Finally thank you for taking a look at it, and while I agree the summoner is very strong (boardline broken normally, outright so in the right hands), I also really like it's concepts and how the eidolons are. I mostly chose that route because it's thematic, and the evolutions are very good as is. I sort of did cherrypick though, I didn't really find anything wrong with letting them pick the ones NOT outright disallowed, especially with the hard level limit on what point cost of evolutions you can take. Where there other evolutions that might be problematic that I missed?
I'll say that the goremaster may of course never be fully 'within balance' range in some ways, which I'm fine with as it's suppose to be a fun, weirdo class that would only be played in certain settings, but I do want to at least TRY and reign it to a decent point
What if the head doesn't have line of sight to the body? What AC does your head have? I assume rolling around at 5 feet per round doesn't afford you the same dexterity as your full form and your head isn't necessarily armored (AC = ability to avoid stuff and ability to mitigate that damage when it hits). If I was GMing a monster, I'd just have it walk over and snack on the head.
Yeah but lashing it to Con means it's extra HP and extra AC. Wis is a mental stat.
Fortification: It's fine, just not at 3rd level considering the other effects they have.
5th of Dismember: 1d6 per two? Depending on how many times per day (I assume it's at will as long as you take a full round action).
Dead Walking: Then define it in text. Stupid proof it.
A point about fast healing, and I think Cyrad was pointing this out, is what is called resource attrition. Your group is expected to have X number of resources to accomplish a task at a specific CR. Fast healing and out of combat "I'm fixed" stuff cuts into that advantage the GM has. A cleric or wand only has so many uses of cure. The fighter can take advantage of long term damage spreads rather than the x times per day spikes in damage that spellcasters have (for example).
And it seems like this is a very specific character for a very specific campaign and if that is what you built it for- that's a perfectly acceptable reason (and as a homebrew- this is totally the right place). I will say that it doesn't work as a "class" then. It is a character concept (which is fine for what you are presenting). Here is a guide I wrote for Little Red way back when on class creation. I like the core concept, but I think it needs to be broader and allow a wider range of entry.
What if the head doesn't have line of sight to the body? What AC does your head have? I assume rolling around at 5 feet per round doesn't afford you the same dexterity as your full form and your head isn't necessarily armored (AC = ability to avoid stuff and ability to mitigate that damage when it hits). If I was GMing a monster, I'd just have it walk over and snack on the head.
Yeah but lashing it to Con means it's extra HP and extra AC. Wis is a mental stat.
Fortification: It's fine, just not at 3rd level considering the other effects they have.
5th of Dismember: 1d6 per two? Depending on how many times per day (I assume it's at will as long as you take a full round action).
Dead Walking: Then define it in text. Stupid proof it.
A point about fast healing, and I think Cyrad was pointing this out, is what is called resource attrition. Your group is expected to have X number of resources to accomplish a task at a specific CR. Fast healing and out of combat "I'm fixed" stuff cuts into that advantage the GM has. A cleric or wand only has so many uses of cure. The fighter can take advantage of long term damage spreads rather than the x times per day spikes in damage that spellcasters have (for example).
And it seems like this is a very specific character for a very specific campaign and if that is what you built it for- that's a perfectly acceptable reason (and as a homebrew- this is totally the right place). I will say that it doesn't work as a "class" then. It is a character concept (which is fine for what you are presenting). Here is a guide I wrote for Little Red way back when on class creation. I like the core concept, but I think it needs to be broader and allow a wider range of entry.
I don't quuuuiete know how to handle that stuff right now, something I was hopeing to accomplish here, though I could see limbs having an AC of 10 + some portion of nat armor + size modifier.
With the Enduring Flesh that was mostly the point, they run headlong into fights and just do whatever, through limbs around and generally being all over the place. As a frontliner they would put theor leveling points in con, and it made sense that they would be tough physically and not in a 'mystic' manner.
Yeah i'd keep 5th as a full round, it's an AOE ability at will the trade off should be that it's a commited action. you think 1d6/2 levels would be enough damage to be worth it?, and I did put a notice in Dead Walking.
Hmm, I know exactly what your talking about, but the wording of "advantage the GM has" seems a bit strange. To me the GM has every advantage, it's their world, and if they want to say a wound was bad enough that your fast healing can't fix it alone then well it can't. I do think it's gameplay style differences cause I've never had issue with having full health parties almost ever combat, because they will almost always be limping away from a tough fight anyway if they win, but we also just in general play with far more martials and partial casters, and rarely ever a full caster, Wands aren't popular choices cause they are 'too magic gimmiky' for most of the players (most of them just don't like the idea of magic wands being a generic item to get in a shop). So we've used potions mainly in the past but giving a 'fast healing' item or ability isn't uncommon.
All that aside though in a way the goremaster was made for a 'setting' as i said a player challenged that you couldn't make the concept work in the game at all, and so I decided to make a class that would let you do just that. I wanted to know if it WORKED and because I figured it was too strong in general, how to tone some of it down. It might also be a difference in how we view what a 'class' is lol. I have absolutely no issue with a class (base included) being very specific in what it's designed to do and meet a specific character archetype or theme with options to adapt it there in. I like the idea of saying "I picked this class to specifically emulate this guy" instead of allways trying to adapt broader ones to the theme (which often requires several levels, a prestige, and specific items/spells to accomplish instead of just getting to play it)
Other than the Biomancer which I am mostly happy with, I admit that the class is rough, and probably in need of a lot of rules clarification and tweaking, most of my classes start being very rough around the edges, but they usually hardly resemble the beginning state once actually 'finished', so I hope that doesn't put off from looking at them and helping to get them into an ok spot.
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@Naoki00 - you could also check out Skortched Urf' Studios Bio-mancer Base Class.
@Naoki00 - you could also check out Skortched Urf' Studios Bio-mancer Base Class.
That sounds pretty interesting, though it looks like it's a casting class lol
I will say that I apologize if I seem rambly (I probably am), and I do appreciate the feedback even as i try to explain where I'm coming from, I thought I should say that since I don't think my sincerety is coming through in text form lol