|
I'm kicking around the idea of world that is sort like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. If you're not familiar, this is a world where people's souls exist outside their bodies in the form of animals called "daemons." It's more or less a world where everyone has animal companion/familiar.
The question is, how to balance it in Pathfinder where certain classes have animal companions and others do not normally gain them. There are several archetypes like the homuncultist (alchemist), the carnivalis (rogue) and the mad dog (barbarian) that grant certain classes animal companions or familiars. There's also a few options like the animal domain or the familiar bond feat which requires characters to use up two feat slots. But I'm looking for a way to make having an animal companion or a familiar the default for every character.
Basically, I'm thinking what needs to be done is either taking something away from each class that doesn't have some kind of bond feature or adding something to those that do. For example, letting the druid have both an animal companion and a domain. Is that overkill? Would it make the druid too powerful?
Well, if everyone has familiars that is balanced enough. You could have those classes that get familiars get free familiar feats, and/or perhaps familiar archetypes without trade-offs. Druids could just have access to the more effective animal companion types to chose from and use the animal companion bonuses added to the familiar ones. I would also give familiar and companion classes more defenses against harm through the familiar.
EDIT
You might also have those classes familiars not go static like the do for grown ups in the books.
In His Dark Materials, the daemons seem to be very species-specific: Only humans have them (and [SORRY, SPOILER] only humans from this one world). So if your campaign includes player races other than human, you will need to determine whether those races have daemons, some other form of external soul (such as the bears of Svalbard seem to, with their armor), or internal souls (like humans from our world).
Depending on just how closely you want to model the daemons after the books, you might want to consider rebuilding any races that have them to make the daemon into a racial trait.
|
How about
1) Everyone gets a familiar.
2) Characters that would get a familiar from a class instead get Improved Familiar for free. They can stack it with whatever archetype they want, and apply class-derived benefits normally (like the duettist bard's performing familiar abilities). I personally would give them a 3rd level familiar right away and then let them upgrade to the 5th and 7th level choices if they want when they reach those levels - you want them to benefit from the class familiar ability right away and the 3rd level familiar abilities shouldn't be unbalanced at level 1 but the 7th level abilities might be.
3) Characters that would get an animal companion can instead have a combat-ready animal companion, adding the familiar benefits to the animal companion as Daw suggested. Remember that some of the animal companion values might be replaced by the master's BAB, saves, etc.
4) Characters that don't get an animal companion can upgrade their familiar's form to a level 1 animal companion by spending a feat. This gives you more flexibility in building characters that have exotic daemons (like if you want to model Lord Asriel as an investigator instead of a ranger). The daemon's HP, BAB, saves, etc will still scale as a familiar, so the result should be comparable to a mauler familiar. You could potentially scale it to a full animal companion with a second feat.
5) Remember that you generally don't have to take your class's familiar/animal companion so if you want to be a druid with a raven daemon and a domain, that's fine (and balanced against the vanilla bard with the songbird daemon).
6) Consider whether you're going to keep the taboo regarding people interacting directly with other peoples' daemons. This would potentially make it very difficult for those with typical daemons to deal with the stronger daemon varieties, but also limits those daemons' ability to directly protect their people.
7) You could certainly model races with different kinds of souls by ignoring these rules, but you'd have to give them traits of roughly equal value to a familiar. Alternatively, make the daemons more of a point of vulnerability so that they're not really a net benefit (eg someone can more easily affect you with mind control magic by targeting your daemon, you and your daemon have a shared pool of HP so hurting your daemon can hurt you...)
|
|
How about
1) Everyone gets a familiar.
2) Characters that would get a familiar from a class instead get Improved Familiar for free. They can stack it with whatever archetype they want, and apply class-derived benefits normally (like the duettist bard's performing familiar abilities). I personally would give them a 3rd level familiar right away and then let them upgrade to the 5th and 7th level choices if they want when they reach those levels - you want them to benefit from the class familiar ability right away and the 3rd level familiar abilities shouldn't be unbalanced at level 1 but the 7th level abilities might be.
3) Characters that would get an animal companion can instead have a combat-ready animal companion, adding the familiar benefits to the animal companion as Daw suggested. Remember that some of the animal companion values might be replaced by the master's BAB, saves, etc.
4) Characters that don't get an animal companion can upgrade their familiar's form to a level 1 animal companion by spending a feat. This gives you more flexibility in building characters that have exotic daemons (like if you want to model Lord Asriel as an investigator instead of a ranger). The daemon's HP, BAB, saves, etc will still scale as a familiar, so the result should be comparable to a mauler familiar. You could potentially scale it to a full animal companion with a second feat.
5) Remember that you generally don't have to take your class's familiar/animal companion so if you want to be a druid with a raven daemon and a domain, that's fine (and balanced against the vanilla bard with the songbird daemon).
6) Consider whether you're going to keep the taboo regarding people interacting directly with other peoples' daemons. This would potentially make it very difficult for those with typical daemons to deal with the stronger daemon varieties, but also limits those daemons' ability to directly protect their people.
7) You could certainly model races with different kinds of souls by ignoring these rules,...
I like these suggestions. Do you think there should be restrictions on what types of animal companions characters should have based on their class? For example, a rogue with a woolly mammoth doesn't make much sense.
|
|
I'd just ask players to write a sentence or two describing how their daemon's form reflects their character, and expect them to roleplay accordingly. If someone can justify their rogue having the soul of a woolly mammoth, more power to them. Conversely, that would avoid a druid taking a lion daemon (normally fine) and then playing the character as a timid pacifist.
With that in mind it might be worth rebalancing some of the familiars and animal companions, so there's not too much pressure to take the best forms. The familiars that get +4 initiative could be bumped down to +2, for example. The big cat could survive a small nerf while the bear could stand to be a better long-term choice (I suggest making it medium to start, same stats, and then growing to large at level 7).
Also, reflecting on balance I'd modify my earlier suggestion by making daemons work as level 1 familiars, as Familiar Bond but I'd still grant the benefit appropriate to the familiar's form. HD, HP, saves, and skills still scale so the daemon can still survive at high levels but their intelligence and natural armour don't improve and they don't get more special abilities. Characters with familiars both scale abilities and get Improved Familiar for free as above, which essentially means that both parties get a bonus feat. Animal companions get 1st level familiar abilities. The following feats exist:
- Improved Daemon Bond: Your daemon gains all the normal abilities available to a familiar of a wizard with a level equal to your total Hit Dice.
- Imposing Daemon: Your daemon takes the form of a larger creature. Its base statistics are of a 1st level animal companion. It gains familiar abilities normally, including using your HD, base saves, skills, and half your HP if these values are better than those of the base creature.
- Warlike Daemon (Prerequisite Imposing Daemon): Your daemon's base statistics are that of an animal companion of a druid with a level equal to your total Hit Dice.
If you really wanted to open up daemon options you could let familiar-having classes take either Improved Familiar or Imposing Daemon for free. Grumpy old wizard with a bear, anyone?
The only other balance concern would be whether combining the mauler or protector familiar archetypes with an Improved Familiar or animal companion would be OP - the issue with the protector being specifically improved familiars that have fast healing, and the mauler/animal companion issue being whether the daemon's strength would get too high.