I'm currently working on this new class for fun. So far I haven't seen a warlock class in Pathfinders and looked for a quick description on what warlocks are. I found that they are generally wizards who commune with spirits. (Generally evil spirits) Drawing from this, and other material, (*Cough* *cough*! Totally not supernatural!) I made a class based on gaining power through demonic contracts. So far I haven't done too much with it just some base class options. It's fully playable, and I've done what I can to make sure it's balanced.
I would greatly appreciate any critique or advice on it:
Google drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwkh0cQA6FU5MGhiVXNMLXhFZmM/view?usp=shari ng
HD d12 is definitely too much for a spellcaster.
Soul sacrifice is pushing the theme into the rules in a bad way. First, no effect in Pathfinder I can recall at the moment causes actual level loss. Any effects that were in the past were deliberately removed during the transition from 3.5. Second, it either messes up with the core assumptions of returning from death being accessible to adventurers or, in case of people playing more gritty games with little to no access to revival magic is meaningless.
Proficiences This class gets light and medium armor proficiency, but as an arcane class it suffers from arcane spell-failure. Those
Spellcasting Using Constitution to get bonus spells is bound to cause issues, especially in combination with d12 HD. Using Charisma for concentration does not help much. I found no indication which ability score is used to calculate spells' saving throw DC.
Having abilities that are powered with hit points expenditure is quite problematic and hard to balance. For comparison get a look at way the Paizo itself approached such idea with their Kineticist.
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Hit points make a rather terrible resource pool for gating abilities as there's numerous ways to replenish hit points and increase your maximum hit points. It's really easy to twink a character to cast an absurd amount of spells when hit points are the gating mechanism. This class makes it insanely easy by basing casting off of Con and giving them a ridiculous Hit Die for a caster.
The class has a lot of issues, but overall, does not have enough content. Classes need a strong central mechanic to unite the thematics and let them stand apart from other classes. Classes need a whole suite of class features to support then throughout all 20 levels. This class fails on both those fronts. When a homebrew class takes a powerful primary class feature (spell combat) and casually offers it as a talent, that's a sign to me that the designer ran out of ideas.
Designing classes is really hard. Even professional game designers screw it up sometimes.
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Needs a lot of work. I see holes in the class table. Why are you handing out clas features on a 5-level cycle? Four might work out better.
HIT DICE / HIT POINTS
D12 is reserved for some corner cases and 9 times out of 10 your should just go by BAB, which in this case would make it a d8. It seems strange to me that a character not set up to be a melee-fighting punching bag could have ore HP than a barbarian due to a d12 and a high Constitution.
SKILLS
Almost every homebrew class I see has Perception on the class list. Not saying its wrong in this case and this advice is not pointed specifically at you but at homebrew in general, but it should probably be on only half of them or so.
PROFICIENCIES
Why is the warlock proficient in armor? Arcane spell failure is a hige detractor.
DEMONIC ABILITY RECOIL
First class feature. We know nothing about the class, but now we know that if he takes damage from one of his abilities, he can save for half. Without a feature that allows him to damage himself, this ability doesn't make much sense. You, the writer, understand how all of the pieces are meant to fit together but I, the reader, do not. Help me out. Also, this seems like an ability that should be learned at a later level or not at all.
SOUL SACRAFICE
Again, this one is kind of hanging in the wind and leaves me asking "why?" Maybe Contract" should be the very first class feature. There is nothing in the class saying that he has to choose a contract, or that the chosen contract sets up things that affect everything that comes after it. There is in mention of contracts except in the class table and at the end of the document. If you were to have a class feature like this, 1st level is a very strange place. A 1st level character wouldn't be very nutritious for a demon and not really worth the effort. 1st level characters don't have the ability to bring the dead back to life. Besides, true resurrection is a 9th level spell. Why even mention it at this point?
CANTRIPS
Should be mentioned after the Spells class feature.
SPELLS
Bonus spells from Constitution, concentration checks from Charisma. What about spell DCs and the minimum ability score to cast spells of a certain level? You should probably start working on a custom spell list, instead of just robbing the magus. Its quite a bit of work, but ultimately worth it.
MAGIC IN THE BLOOD
I'm with Cyrad on this one, on using hit points as a resource to cast spells. I've toyed with the same concept myself in the past and its just an unreliable way to manage it. Depending on a character's role in the party, you might be losing HP every round, or you may end half your battles without having taken any damage. There are also ways around your intended mitigating factor: another character could have healing to spare and there are ways to get fast healing. Plus you have this tied in with Demonic Ability Recoil. At a certain point, the warlock will be able to spam low level spells (although higher level ones could remain a threat). If you want some kind of self-sacrafice spell-recharge ability, ability damage or abilty drain would be better. But there would be similar pitfalls with that too, without the proper wording.
DEMONIC TRICKS
-Energy Conversion: Thats a pretty bad return on hit points, he hasn't many spells to spare, and he's fatigued for his trouble.
-Spell Combat: I would leave this out, unless it is a central class feature, which it is not.
-Telepathy: this should probably have a minimum level. If you want some kind of thematic mitigating factor, maybe make it so he can only use it in abyssal (since you have the obvious demon thing coming on).
-Quicken Demonic Ability: What exactly is a demonic ability? Is it a contract ability? Is it a warlock spell? With HP to spare, this is almost too good at a certain point in his career. A spellcasters doesn't need two spells per turn every round. Just on the right round.
-Spell Resistance: Why is the 2d6 set at one number when the SR scales? Also, what kind of action is it to activate this ability?
-Demonic Battle Training: Is not overpowered or anything, but I certainly don't see anything in this class that says it needs combat feats, especially when getting a demonic trick only once every five levels.
-Twisted Magic: Am I to assume that he an apply any metamagic feat or just the feats he knows? Is there a limit on the adjustment to the spell level? A maximumized or quickened spell is a bit more potent than a silent or still spell.
-Demonic Defense: A brief AC bonus as a swift action is nice, but the randomness is offputting. At higher level, I can do this as often as needed and then make a simple save to reduce the damage to 1 or 2 HP.
TRUE POSSESSION
The number of HP draining features is kind of overwhelming. Its just a really unreliable resource. Thematically, I totally get it: he's sacrificing bits of his his life for power. Mechanically, its shaky. Do the ability score bonuses have a bonus type? Enhancement for example?
SERAPTIS CONTRACT
-Blood Magnetism: A 1st level auto-bleed ability seems too good, and a save DC that uses level instead of 1/2 level is strange. What is physical damage? Hit points? Ability damage? If the bleed is 1d6 per four level, then this ability does nothing at levels 1 through 3.
-Blood Healing: this is exactly this kind of effect that makes HP an unreliable resource.
BALOR CONTRACT
-Whip mastery: using a whip looks cool for a demon worshipper, but you also handing out some ability that should be higher than 1st level, considering they normally have some feat or BAB requirements.
-Vorpal Strike: Why is the one hour detail in here? So I can pass a high crit weapon off to my party member?
-Life Drinker: A 5th level spell at a heavily reduced caster level. Why not just state how many HP he regains instead?
Sorry I started skipping features. My eyes are getting tired. Keep working on this. Keep refining and improving. Think about what core concepts are important. Don't be afraid to ditch things that aren't important.
Thank you guys for input. For the confusion on some of the class abilities such as meaningless text; this is usually where I've copied then heavily edited the ability of the creature the contract is based on. I try to mostly leave the abilities close to their source material in mechanics, which is why traits are sometimes left in when I don't consider them to be too OP or unbalanced. Also there seems to be a misconception that this is a mainly spell casting class. I want this to be extremely varied in combat styles. An example is the Balor contract that makes use of melee abilities, and feats. I also included spell combat as a way of incorperating spells into melee combat to counteract not being able to use spells outside of quickened spells. Concerning the spell combat ability I have nerfed it and am debating it's removal.
Demonic Recoil, and Soul Sacrifice (Now Soul Ties) are class traits rather than abilities. These are mainly explanations of how the class works.
For the concern over the negative levels and usage of HP as a ability source. I started building this class as a brutal class that gains strong abilities in exchange for literally coughing up blood when you use abilities. I realize that some homebrew campaigns restrict revives heavily. In cases like that I leave it up to the gm to decide how to deal with it since such rules heavily rely on what the method of revival (If any) they use. I intend for this class to work in line with the standard rules on the Pathfinder reference website, and mostly ignoring homebrew rules. I do a lot of homebrew work and appreciate the difference in rules. If any homebrew GMs decide to use my class I'd be honored, and don't care in the slightest if they fiddle with the class mechanics to fit in their campaign.
The recoil damage varies heavily based on which ability you use. In end game level PCs have around 150hp-300hp and depending on what abilities you use you can take around 5-50 damage a turn. (This is in no way the max) Meaning that you have about 5-15 rounds before falling unconscious. Yes this is a cruel mechanic, but I intend for it to be brutal. Using these abilities in early game could prove fatal since this class is meant to be high risk. One of the reasons I decided on using recoil damage as a main aspect is that I haven't seen it anywhere else and thought it could provide an interesting aspect to the class. This is by no means a class for new players, and would never expect a new player to attempt using it.
For the lack of actual abilities that was pointed out. Would a second tier of demonic tricks help that as well as balance it out? I personally don't think it's a good idea but I'm just spit-balling.
I apologize if this seams hostile or rant-like, but I wanted to express my thought process when approaching this class. This is my first time making a class, and what knowledge of classes is based off of my experience as a gm/pc. This is by no means close to being finished since I'm not going to leave it with so few contract options. I appreciate the comments, and have already started the next draft of the class. If I missed anything or if there is any other problems please let me know.
Second Draft Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwkh0cQA6FU5U2oxNkdPSmxNVkE/view?usp=shari ng
How does a demonic companion ability sound? Acts as druid animal companion but changes available companions to creatures like Hellhounds, instead of the standard ones?
Not sure what you mean by "class trait." There's no such term as a class trait.
It's generally not cool for a class to permanently cripple a character in an uninteresting way. There's nothing cool or interesting about soul ties. It's just a big punch in the face. If you expect a GM to have to fix it, then that should be a sign it's a bad feature and should be removed.
Adding a second talent pool will do little to flesh out the class. You need strong central class features. A demonic companion might work, but you'd need to flesh it out more, and allowing extra options might be difficult to balance. If you go this direction, this class probably should have an alignment restriction.
Action economy benefits with spells are powerful and sought-after. One of the main draws of the warpriest and magus are precisely because they can fight and cast spells at the same time. Casually giving it out as an optional feature feels pretty ridiculous, especially for a class that you describe as not primarily a spellcaster.
I understand you're trying to make a "dark knight" mage, but it's extremely difficult to pull off because hit points make a terrible resource pool for gating abilities. I've seen tons of homebrew classes attempt this, and pretty much all of them were broken. If you want to emphasize the concept of a mage suffering for their art, then have the damage be a side effect rather than a gating mechanism.
Would a delay before recoil damage takes effect help? Example would be something like: [After a number of round equal to 1/2 the warlock's level plus his charisma modifier (minimum 1) he begins taking recoil damage based on the abilities he uses.] Or maybe instead of rounds it's the number of times he can use his abilities without recoil.
For the animal companion I'm thinking of switching it more towards the paladin's steed class feature. I'd have to heavily change it, but i feel that it would fit a bit better.
Since Soul Ties seems so heavily rejected I'll scrap it. What I meant by it being up to GM decision to change it was that it would work fine for normal revival rules but since the revival rules of some homebrew campaigns are so varied it'd be impossible to write variant rules based on all of them. Also if they just got rid of revival all together Soul Ties wouldn't even matter since it doesn't actual matter unless revival actually occurs.
I'll also scrap spell combat.
I really appreciate the help with trying to balance this. I recognize that recoil damage is a very unreliable gate but I can't really see how to do it without ripping off something like an arcane pool. Yes I could very easily do this method but am hesitant to just rip it off.
Instead of a point pool like Arcane Pool (1/2 level + ability mod), why not a point pool like the gunslinger's Grit? The size of the point pool would equal his Constitution modifier. He has few points to spend, but each one is meaningful and there would be a way to regain points during combat.
I think that would actually be the best course of action.
If you want an equivalent of the HP damage, maybe he can take a Con penalty to gain an extra point.
Good to have some more free homebrewed warlock stuff out there. ;)
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Final Draft Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwkh0cQA6FU5NXoxaWZiYkJUalU/view?usp=shari ng
I'm officially declaring that this class is finished.
I still need to develop new demonic tricks, and different contract paths. But it is finished, and playable. One of the npcs in the next session I'm GM'ing will use the class and it feels like it'll work rather well.
It's still technically version 1.0 so I'm not saying it's perfect but it's playable.
Thank you guys so much for the tips, and suggestions. It's helped a ton.
The reason I wasn't able to work on it for so long was because of finals. You guys know the drill. -_-
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Not happy with the name "Contract Pool" Though. If I get a better name I'll swap it out.