The last few weeks I've been working on the "Avatar," a new base class that I wanted to have be a divine warrior that's more primal than a paladin, warpriest, inquisitor, etc. The idea came about when I was thinking about how unimpressed I always am with warpriests, and that there isn't much out there, flavor-wise, that feels like a martial character that's just raw divine fury. I figured if the warpriest is a fighter + cleric, then what would an oracle + monk look like? It seemed like a fun place to try and build something like a "Chosen One" warrior, so I went for it...
Now, before I go too far, yes. Avatar is a cartoon (a darn good one, too) and a Dances With Aliens CGI-fest 3D movie extravaganza. The name has baggage, but as a scholar of Indian history and mythology, I couldn't quite find a name that fit the concept as well as this one does. I suppose "Emissary" or maybe "Scion" could work, but at some point Hinduism should be able to retake its mythology.
Thematically, I started with something I loved when I was younger: the Dervish class from Guild Wars. It was seriously my jam, and both aesthetically and in terms of gameplay it was a really fun thing for me. They also have a great mythos to them that I loved, and while playing the game you can see that every time the class enters combat the character focuses their gaze on the ground, not on their enemy, and all of their clothing had a symbolic meaning. Sweet. The ideas had been bouncing around in my head for a while, and now that I'm practically finished with my history degree I felt like it meshed well with Hindu mythology.
I wanted a holy warrior that wasn't clergy, wasn't in some monastery, and wasn't orthodox; just diluted and barely controlled divine power that still answered to their higher power. I also figured that these would be a pretty easy target for inquisitions, and that "avatars" don't necessarily have to actually be blessed by a god. They could just be a crazy person, somehow channeling divine power, or an otherwise normal cleric that's subverting the normal hierarchy (or a heretic, like Dawnflower Dervishes).
This also was a nice contrast to the normal divine class trope of following the god's rules, since the avatar could be what starts a heresy. I liked the idea of taking any aspect of a god's tenets and embodying it, or having a "Without light there is no shadow" thing: you could have a peace-bringing avatar of Gorum, simply because in order for there to be war there has to be a contrast. Since gods often work in mysterious ways, bringing peace could be a ploy by the god to allow for more mistrust (like the Cold War) that leads to more and more powerful weapons of destruction. Stuff like that.
Design-wise, I started with the oracle + monk hybrid class and borrowed the idea of the sacred weapon from warpriest, since I thought that was a good idea poorly executed. A guy/gal that's super focused on their deity's weapon seemed really fun, and I wanted a chassis that was better able to take advantage of that. The scaling damage also fit in nicely with the monk's scaling unarmed damage. I was wary at first of taking this and beefing it up to where the monk is, but in the end decided that it's fairly well balanced. It also doesn't do much for characters using the Greatest Weapon of All Time(TM) until practically never, so it really just helps out characters that have small weapons as their deity's favored weapon.
I started with 1/4 casting like a Paladin and 3/4 BAB, but this didn't work out very well and got clunky. I took away the partial casting and gave full-BAB, since I wanted frequent spell usage to be the warpriest's thing and monk is going to get full-BAB in Unchained anyways. Having full BAB and no spell list actually opened the class up a lot and let me toy with more interesting concepts, and I got to use the barbarian/bloodrager/paladin as good analogues and power comparisons. This was when I started looking at how to incorporate a pool system for casting (scrapped) and other abilities. I wanted some kind of direct mystic connection with the god that could bypass a normal devotee's prayer and feel more intimate, so I went with a rage-like ability to simulate this. The "mystic trance" felt like a nice way to balance out powers, and I kept the inherent bonuses low so that it wouldn't just feel like a barbarian. This is when the class started to feel more oracle + barbarian, but it was moving along smoothly so I went with it.
I toyed with having another type of blessings based off of subdomains to be less "orthodox," but ultimately decided this was waaaay too much work for waaaay too little mechanical nuance. I'd also have to focus in on gods more than I wanted. Instead, I went with the curses or vows that oracles and monks get, respectively, and thought that this would be an interesting route. The "dictates" I think let me mechanically show that the avatar is a less orthodox and more primal divine warrior, since these are not dependent on god or alignment, but rather on the feel. I wanted these to seem like something an avatar had that could inform build decisions and also gave matching benefits after mechanical drawbacks, to play off of the oracle curse. They're also a nice design space down the road if I wanted to add something or make a deity-specific character.
"Sublime assaul"t was my attempt (along with certain other aspects of the class) to have a "go nova" feel; whereas a barbarian is consistently performing while in a rage, the avatar can decide to end her trance and drop a bomb. This also let me throw in flurry from the monk side in a more balanced way and gave me a special attack to tack abilities onto. Since part of the inspiration was the Dervish class, their big thing was enchantments that gave an effect while they were active and when they ended. This was hard to do by just making a scad of abilities, but I think I found a nice way to sort of plug that in without it being obtrusive. It also let me make the different dictates feel a bit more unique.
"Epiphanies" were my answer to the question "How do I keep myself from having to make abilities for every single god and alignment?" They also fit nicely with the barbarian analogue, and once I decided on the mystic trance release valve for the class' power, they stuck. I liked toying with the idea of spending more rounds of mystic trance to buff up abilities, something that the barbarian rarely gets to do with rage (outside of maybe auspicious mark). This also let me control for how often the class can push out damage or abilities, and gave me design space for concepts I wanted to be in the class. The revelations from the oracle class also fit into this more ad hoc design space. This also let me do the "aspects" or transformation abilities that were fun parts of the Dervish class and have a bit more fun with the actual channeling of divine power.
Outside of that, the other abilities are pretty much stock secondary class abilities, outside of the capstone which--let's be honest--nobody ever gets to anyways.
These were kind of tricky. I didn't want the class to have a spell list, but I didn't want them to be spell-less. Having a spell or two a day as spell-like abilities, tailored to the specific dictate, felt fine and more balanced than the alternatives. This seemed like a place where I could show the class directly channeling power, but not exactly being trained to ask for certain blessings: they get what the god gives them, or they may not even be conscious of this, with the spells simply being cast down when they're most needed without much real input from the avatar.
Covenant was interesting, since I wanted one that gave a little more player choice, though I'm debating whether or not to just have a list of Minor, Moderate, and Severe sacrifices for the player to choose from. I'm pretty proud of Amnesty, since I think nonlethal is generally pretty ignored in Pathfinder, and I like the flavor it lends. It's also a bit more casty than the other ones. Exposure was my attempt to get that mobile monk feel in there, and encourage a fighting style that was a bit more dynamic than "stand and full-attack. move. wait. full-attack." Valor I popped in because I didn't want to necessarily limit or pigeonhole the class so much with the other three, and it's also a place to tinker with "tank" stuff that I've been playing around with.
There's a lot of text there that just explains my thought process going in. This is my first sort of "Alpha" draft of the class so that I can playtest it and compare it to other classes. There's probably plenty in there that's imbalanced, wonky, weird, or unplayable, but without outside input I won't get terribly far on my own.
Comments, questions, criticisms, whatever: send it at me!
Made some adjustments based off playtest feedback. Working with Dictate of Covenant a bit to make it less confusing: might scrap the "Choose your drawback!" aspect of it, since the game works best with specific mechanics than player choice things.
The Avatar is also a central figure from the Ultima series.
I'll give this a proper look-see when I get home. I like the concept, that much I'll say. I just won't be able to look at the class's abilities and stats 'til later.
The different stages of your design process which you describe in your post are still visible in your draft, which makes it somewhat confusing to read. I think it is safe to say that the closest comparison would be the paladin. I really like the idea of different Dictates that allow for character customization and I think that Sublime Assault is handled in a clever way. However, compared to other class with full BAB, this class is rather powerful. It also has too many different class features.
I'm not convinced that Exalted Weapon is really necessary, especially since the avatar already has other options to increase damage (by adding enhancements to his weapon and via his mystic trance). I would simply drop that. Also, not being restricted to the deity's favored weapon seems like a halfhearted design choice.
I don't think the spell-like abilities mentioned under Dictates (you incorrectly refer to them as spells) are necessary; the abilities you created are interesting enough. I would simply drop them (If you keep them, they need to be presented in the correct format).
I like that there is a drawback for Mystic Trance (similar to the barbarians rage), but I think dazzled doesn't fit thematically and the ramifications are rather insignificant. I would go with sickened instead.
Not all abilities are presented in the correct format. For example, dictates shouldn't be (Ex); you should address each listed ability individually (take a look at the sorceror bloodlines). Sometimes wording could be clearer and there are some other minor oversights (the saves are off, for example).
It is obvious that you put a lot of thought into this class and overall, I like the direction you took with this concept. Your avatar fits the role of a holy warrior well - it is mechanically more interesting and conceptually less restrictive than the paladin.
Thanks for reading over it! And @Inlaa, I knew Ultima was a thing but didn't know that "Avatar" featured in it. I haven't gotten much into older RPGs or any JRPGs, so that might be why.
@Amanuensis, I agree with feature bloat, but I wanted to see what pieces others thought were necessary and what felt less interesting or crucial. Many things that are still stuck in there are vestiges of the initial 3/4 BAB shell, like the Exalted Weapon. I'm glad you brought up that not being restricted to the favored weapon felt halfhearted; it was that way initially, but someone told me that I should open it up more so players wouldn't feel limited while building. I put that in as an aside, mostly, but I think I'll go back to the original. Seems more flavorful and interesting that way.
-Scaling damage was one of the first things I put in, but I'll probably remove it since the class is moving further away from the original "oracle + monk." It also would let me keep the weapon enhancements and absorb "Favored Weapon" into that. A big thing I was debating was whether to handle Sublime Assault as a 1st-level ability and let it scale from there, but I'm fond of it starting at 3rd level.
-Agreed that Mystic Trance needs a bigger drawback. Initially it wasn't going to give any bonuses and just sort of be an "energy pool" thing, but I wanted literally-channeling-your-deity's-power-through-a-trance to give some inherent bonuses. I went with dazzled since I imagined they would basically be letting the god take over. Sickened seems alright, but then it's a pretty big hit to effectiveness (bigger than fatigued after a rage, arguably) for what I intend to be a fairly minor baseline bonus. I'll fiddle with it.
-Formatting for Dictates was difficult for me, and it didn't help that halfway through I completely redid two of them and removed the fifth entirely. That's definitely a place that needs some work. As for spell-like abilities, that was a way to try to maintain some of the spellcasting stuff and make the Dictates feel even more distinct. Again, as a vestige of 3/4 BAB, I think it can go without much trouble. I've also buffed each dictate a bit since the initial drafts, so they could be lost without much trouble. Amnesty might need a bit of a boost, though, since that was intended as the Dictate with the most spellcasting.
Thanks again for the feedback! I'll make adjustments.
Alrighty, made adjustments to the class. The link in the OP will reflect the current version I'm testing:
-Removed spell-like abilities from the Dictates. They were bloat and unnecessary leftovers from the initial 3/4 BAB class.
-Removed the scaling damage from Exalted Weapon and eliminated Favored Weapon to help simplify level 1. Exalted weapon now comes online at level 4. Right now the biggest debate I'm having is whether I should overall restrict the class to their deity's favored weapon, or if that would be too limiting (without scaling damage dice) for gods like Desna who have weak favored weapons.
-Overhauled the Covenant Dictate. I wasn't liking the "choose your own drawback!" and it became unnecessarily confusing and wordy. Instead, I tried to make this suite of abilities the most straightforward but have a feel of always hitting the mark. I have a feeling it'd be good for characters that might want to dual-wield or use bows.
-Mystic Trance now sickens the character when it ends. I'm going with @Amanuensis' suggestion, though we'll see if that turns out to be a bit too much of a drawback for the ability.
-Slight adjustments here and there, mostly cleaning up wording and fixing mistakes.
Right now the biggest debate I'm having is whether I should overall restrict the class to their deity's favored weapon, or if that would be too limiting (without scaling damage dice) for gods like Desna who have weak favored weapons.
At first, I didn't notice that you used the warpriest's sacred weapon ability. The increase in damage dice is too much metagaming for my taste and it doesn't solve the problem. Inferior weapon base damage hurts probably the most at the beginning of an adventuring career and becomes less of an issue once the static bonuses start to pile up. The boost from 1d4 (starknife base damage) to 1d6 (sacred weapon damage) is not enough to make a starknife on par with a greatsword (which, in addition to high base damage, can be used two-handed for increased damage). I don't have a better solution though.
I'm not too fond of the way the game treats favored weapons in general, because I believe the concept should be tied to culture/society instead of metaphysics. A stone age civilization that venerates Desna wouldn't even know how to create a starknife. And a more militant branch of the church would be stupid not to train its warriors in other martial weapons. I'm not adverse to opening up the weapon options (and tying exalted weapon to the weapon you chose with weapon focus is not a bad solution), but that means essentially getting rid of the concept of favored weapons. Which the warpriest obviously does, and if Paizo gave up that design principle, there really is no reason for you to stick to it.
Mystic Trance now sickens the character when it ends. I'm going with @Amanuensis' suggestion, though we'll see if that turns out to be a bit too much of a drawback for the ability.
Now that you removed the increase in weapon damage dice, you could increase the bonus of mystic trance (so it maxes out at +5 at 20th level). Or you could reduce the duration of sickened to one round.
By the way, since sublime assault does end mystic trance, it is probably unnecessary to limit its use to several times per day (it is already limited to once per combat).
I like the concept of a favored weapon, but in general yeah. It could've been done better. Would've been interesting to give each god a weapon group and a single weapon from that group that they personally are focused on. Gorumites would be heavy blades, Irorans would be close weapons, etc. Then warpriest could've made any weapon from their god's weapon group a sacred weapon while maybe getting scaling damage on the god's personal favored weapon, or something like that.
The whole "favored weapon is one with weapon focus on it!" thing always felt like a bandaid for a more robust favored weapon system and full BAB, and what I noticed with warpriests is that everyone would grab the weapon they wanted to use anyways since they got weapon focus at level 1. I think leaving it how it is and making Covenant the dictate that's all about favored weapons would be fine. Flavor-wise, it's less fun and you lose a bit of the feel of building up to be the god, but then mechanically it's more open for builds. At the same time, too, Ram is a sort of iconic mythological avatar, and he uses a bow instead of Vishnu's mace.
I hadn't thought of not limiting Sublime Assault's uses per day, though once again that's likely a throwback to the 3/4 --> full BAB switch. I think it definitely could be any number of times per day, and that could certainly open up a bit of design space. I might be able to make those levels where the class does get an extra use/day scaling bonuses to Inscrutable, and make the initial bonus a little smaller.
Mystic Trance could also be buffed now, yeah. I didn't want it to just be Rage, but at this point it has a much different feel to it since it has smaller bonuses and is (or should be) deployed differently.
Thanks for the comments, they're very helpful. I've found that working on classes is a lot like writing long papers: things make so much sense to you as you make them, but you really need that outside input of "Hey, yeah, what is this?"
I'm happy with the progress, and I think it's getting closer to being ready for a character to be made out of it.
Especially in the epiphanies and aspects, there are large walls of text that are difficult to read. Also, sometimes the title of the ability is italicized and other times the entire ability is. Try to keep your font sizes consistant. There are places where it should be single-spaced, but is instead something between single-spaced and space-and-a-half. I would also make more liberal use of line returns to make sure various class features are easier to read.
The wording for mystic trance reminds me of a rage rewrite I did. Very nice.
Thanks @Ciaran! A really big part of the odd formatting, I suspect, is that I switch between my computer and my iPad to get things typed out. I made the headings a bit bigger so I could scroll through more quickly, and Aspects/Epiphanies are formatted in two columns so that I can hit them quickly and adjust them without having to scroll a lot. Line breaks are definitely something I've been intending to do, but again it's mostly for ease of access for editing. I'll go in and fiddle with stuff to make it more palatable.
What's the best way to do things like Rogue Talents/Rage Powers without using up intense amounts of space? The columns seemed to work for me, but since Dropbox shows things with page breaks there are some spots that are difficult and broken up. There's also the fact that right now I'm more concerned with the hard mechanics than necessarily making it look the best, which is something I'll work hard on when I've got some data to work with.
Yes. Mechanics first. But people are more likely to read if it's easy to read.
I use the two columns per page method, same as paizo. For talents, etc I have taken tousting the class feature with the other class features but putting all of the talents on a separate page.
I do mine on an ipad as well and have had great success with the pages app.
Very true! I'm knee-deep in other projects and stuff too, so this is mostly a spare time thing. A separate page for the Epiphanies and Aspects wouldn't be bad, though.
I've been using Word because it automatically updates the Dropbox and I haven't seen a reason to switch. I'll go in and do some formatting stuff when I have time to sit at my computer for a bit. I'll also have to check out Pages for my next project.
Made some formatting edits for readability and ease of access. Also threw in a nifty picture!
Sublime Assault no longer has a daily limit, since that's basically hard-capped anyways at 1) number of encounters and 2) rounds of mystic trance. It'll be a "nova" option, but one that can come into play as a finisher in most combats. It's a fun design space, too, so I like it having more uses per day.
Mystic Trance got a buff and now increases its bonuses at 5th and every 5 levels afterwards, with the sickened condition staying there.
Removed the "deity's favored weapon" caveat from Exalted Weapon. The Covenant dictate is going to be the one that's more restrictive in that regard, so that the other dictates can take advantage of martial weapon proficiency. Also simplifies things.
Covenant's level 1 ability is a concern, and I'm iffy on the ruling for Aspect of the Wrathful since gaze attacks usually don't do damage. Also seems like an awful lot of saving throws. The goal is to have a damaging AoE, but I may have to just use Burning Gaze's text and increase the number of targets...
Last draft and last round of playtesting before I let my players have the Avatar as a base class in my games.
Updated to the final draft. I'm now using the class in my home games, and have done some tests with it. Had my players make an avatar each with backgrounds (I rewarded them with hero points), and some of the backstories were great. One player liked that the mechanics backed up the flavor for a lot of different ideas, such that the flavor of the character could actually take precedence over a build and still work out alright. An avatar of Razmir with the Amnesty dictate was one of the more notable creations, which was fun; the character's goal was to convert as many people as possible to her "god's" cult.
In play the characters seemed to play most like bloodragers, with a little bit of slayer thrown in depending on the build and dictate. A few things were adjusted to be more interesting, balanced, or streamlined from the playtest and in response to feedback from the players. Overall, I was proud of how the class played out and the variety of builds the class can enjoy, and there were a lot of twists taken with deities' portfolios and the explanations for the builds used by their avatars.
It looks a lot better than before. The only other thing I would suggest would be to add an empty line between each class feature.
WHy did you choose to go with +1 to various and an immunity, instead of +2 to various? Not a criticism, just curious. It level 1 games are less likely to have charms/compulsions, and the various immunities rarely show up at such a low level.
This might be a bit late in the class's development for a criticism like this, but the class feels very bloated with many class features that don't really connect that much with one another. The class has three pools of abilities (dictates, epiphanies, aspects) that don't interact much with each other or the class's main feature. Compare to the bloodrager--bloodlines, rage powers, spells, and secondary features all interact with the main class feature.
I haven't gone through all the abilities with a fine comb. However, the dictates also feel really bloated and somewhat contradict each other. For example, the Mystic Beneficence gives you a huge scaling bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate, cast charm person once per day, and heal people when she knocks someone out (which, by the way, needs retooling as that's essentially an at-will healing ability and fails the bag of rats test). All four of those could have been great separate abilities. In addition, all of those abilities have little to do with one another. Diplomacy and Intimidate are seen as polar opposites in the scheme of social abilities. A charm person SLA sort of invalidates the skill bonuses, which was a huge criticism of Pathfinder Unchain's skill unlocks. Healing as a result of knocking someone out has nothing to do with the other aspects of this ability. Finally, it's awkward that this ability is labeled as supernatural, but the text calls part of it a spell-like ability. The dictate powers just feel like a swiss army knife of unrelated things. I would have liked to see dictates run off of mystic trance, similar to how the bloodrager's bloodline powers do.
However, the class generally looks pretty good and surprisingly well written and presented. I really love the general idea behind the class. I know you originally designed this as a monk/oracle, but this feels more like a bloodrager, which would have been awesome. I'd absolutely love to see a divine bloodrager. I loved the idea of a "trance" ability as an alternate take on the rage class feature. This was partially why I was a little disappointed the class didn't have more hooks on this ability. Maybe something to consider if you decide to make another draft in the future?
WHy did you choose to go with +1 to various and an immunity, instead of +2 to various? Not a criticism, just curious. It level 1 games are less likely to have charms/compulsions, and the various immunities rarely show up at such a low level.
Mostly because I didn't want it to literally be a divine barbarian, just to sort of feel like one. Two classes already give big boosts with their rage pool, so I wanted this to feel more like an enabler. It was also the fact that Dictates were gained at 1st, and I wanted to mitigate the bloat as much as possible for first level. The immunity doesn't come into play all the time, but I thought it eliminated the main weakness of a bloodrager/barbarian in a way that seemed flavorful and matched the idea; hard to control a being that thinks it's a god.
I'll definitely add in more spaces between the abilities. The column wrapping in one spot (between Exalted Weapon and Inscrutable) is driving me nuts. I'm leaving it there because I can't figure it out and don't want to spend forever trying to fix it, but the columns seem to think they're different sections.
The class has three pools of abilities (dictates, epiphanies, aspects) that don't interact much with each other or the class's main feature.
Well, the dictates don't as much, and that was intentional. I really wanted the trance itself to be a weaker ability so the dictates could have a more interesting role in the day-to-day. Once I started actually doing all of my edits it did start to look more like a divine bloodrager, but I didn't want it to end up as just a copy of the bloodrager with divine abilities. Part of why I decided to remove spellcasting entirely.
However, the other two do actually interact 100% with the trance, in that they can't be used outside of the trance, much like rage powers. They both come from the same pool, essentially, like a Rogue Talent and an Advanced Rogue Talent. More than anything the aspects are like stances. A lot of epiphanies also require the avatar to burn through rounds/day. I thought this would be interesting, since I've noticed in almost every campaign I've run that barbarians/bloodragers get to a point where they have like 20 rounds of rage left at the end of the day, even if they keep it going constantly through every fight.
For the trance, I wanted it to feel like something that wasn't just always on at all levels all the time, but something that could be used outside of combat too. That made me design it a little more as an enabler for abilities than a constant stat booster.
For example, the Mystic Beneficence...
This one originally didn't have charm person in it. That was a last-minute addition, since players weren't as jazzed about social buffs along with some free healing (which, by the way, is limited to Cha mod/day). Diplomacy and Intimidate are in there to present an avatar with the dictate as the god's delegate. I figured that gods would imbue their representative with the capacity to be both benevolent and terrifying and use whichever one best suited their situation. The spell can be easily removed here, since I think it's just me catering to the players who tested it.
I intentionally kept the dictates from running off of the trance for the reasons I cited above; I didn't want the trance itself to be overly powerful and I didn't want the class to become a copy of bloodrager, which does its cool stuff in the rage zone. I tried to let the dictates be always-on to open up a bit more design space. They could be tied 100% to trance, but then things like Exposure wouldn't work out so well, and outside of the trance the class would just be kind of a crappy fighter, since it doesn't get bonus feats or spells like the bloodrager.
Personally I think that the combination of epiphanies and aspects do push towards more focus on the trance itself. I just didn't want everything to be tied to it. I can certainly go back and "Unchain" it though =P
You did say you wanted it to feel like a divine barbarian. I can understand that you want to avoid making it feel too much like a bloodrager, but mystic trance is the main class feature and has a really cool flavor. It was a pity to not see the class revolve around it more. The name and flavor text literally says you assume a trance to become a physical representation of your deity.
The dictates that add scaling skill bonuses also feel really out of place when those are the types of abilities that go with skill classes like rangers or inquisitors.
It could be adjusted to frontload a bit more for the trance itself, and include more in the dictates that play off of being in the trance. The epiphanies and aspects are meant to chew through the trance, though, and the sublime assault only happens in the trance. It also ends it, so I didn't want the dictates to lose their power as soon as the class uses its attack. Exalted Weapon could potentially only work while in a trance, and I think that'd balance it a little more.
I believe only Amnesty gets a scaling bonus to skills and nothing else gives scaling skill bonuses (Inscrutable is a static +4), but that one in particular is meant to be a less combat-focused dictate. Conversion is kind of its thing.
Any suggestions or examples of what would be fun to see?