So I won't bore everyone with the details, but suffice to say I've been playing around with the design of a custom character for a friend to reflect an old D&D character of his, with the slightly awkward element that as a Dragonborn (D&D 4e Race) it intrinsically doesn't natively fit into Pathfinder.
Regardless, as a thought experiment I've designed the basic class card, but before I get onto fully designing the roles (which I have a few ideas for) I'd like to get some feedback on what I have already.
Name: Aurum
Male Dragonborn Cleric
SKILLS
STR: d10 ☐+1 ☐+2 ☐+3
Melee: Strength +1
DEX: d4 ☐+1
CON: d10 ☐+1 ☐+2 ☐+3 ☐+4
Fortitude: Constitution +3
INT: d6 ☐+1 ☐+2
Knowledge: Intelligence +2
WIS: d10 ☐+1 ☐+2 ☐+3
Divine: Wisdom +1
CHA: d4 ☐+1 ☐+2
POWERS
Hand Size: 5, ☐ 6
Proficient With: Light Armors, Heavy Armors, ☐ Weapons
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For your combat check, you may bury a card to use your Constitution skill + 1d8 and add the Attack and Fire traits. You may additionally bury any number of cards to add 1d6 (or 1d8) for each card buried. This counts as playing a weapon with the Ranged and Fire traits.
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Before you reset your hand, you may choose a character at your location to shuffle 1d4 random cards from their discard pile into their deck. If you do, your handsize is decreased by 1d4 (☐ -1) until the end of the turn.
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CARDS LIST
Weapon: 2 ☐ 3
Spell: 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4
Armor: 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5
Item: 2 ☐ 3
Ally: 1 ☐ 2
Blessing: 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8
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So the general idea is that his first power represents his fire breath, of which is largely taken inspiration mechanically from the Kineticist. The second ability justifies his role as Cleric, but using it with full hands risks discards, and greatly limiting his supporting options for a whole turn by potentially hampering his handsize. On the flipside, it's also a survival method, important if he's burned too much of his deck by burying for his attack power. The overall power level is supposed to be comparable to a Mummy's Mask character, roughly.
I may describe the intent (and fix up some awkward templating and use of slightly off words) later in the day, but I'm posting this quickly for now. Feedback is greatly appreciated! The big concern is the idea of treating his breath attack as "A weapon with the Ranged and Fire traits", which has a number of oddities; but I'd rather not treat it as a spell with the attack trait if possible.
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First thoughts:
Three d10s for skills is too strong, you should reduce the Wisdom die to d8 and have Divine: Wisdom +2.
Four "additional" skills all based off of different base skills is too much as well. I would drop the Knowledge skill and instead give some sort of power on one of the roles to grant Knowledge: Wisdom +2 or something.
For the fire breath, I would have it count as a Spell instead of a weapon with the ranged trait, because it's really a spell-like ability.
Second power is interesting, and I think it's pretty good, but I think it should require a discard to power... otherwise, if you have an empty hand, you can still use this power with zero consequence.
Firstly - thanks for the feedback! This is what I would consider a 'first draft', so it's particularly greatly appreciated.
I'll tackle my thoughts on each.
Three d10s for skills is too strong, you should reduce the Wisdom die to d8 and have Divine: Wisdom +2.
Agreed. I think my reasoning was the lack of a d12 was kind of made up for the fact that he won't be rolling d12s, and his various means of attack are distributed, making it a little harder to specialise during level-up to max combat rolls consistently. The flipside is that he's way too potent at passing before-you-act checks and closing locations, so I think I'll take your suggestion right on board.
It does drop his 'dice total' to lower than the suggested character building guidelines, and he still has 2 d4s, but I don't actually WANT to give him a d12, so after the d10->d8 change I'll probably leave as-is. Plenty of characters' dice only total to 40 or 42 rather than 44 anyway.
Four "additional" skills all based off of different base skills is too much as well. I would drop the Knowledge skill and instead give some sort of power on one of the roles to grant Knowledge: Wisdom +2 or something.
I didn't quite realise that subskills being based on different base skills makes them unusually good? Doesn't that mean its harder to use skill feats efficiently to improve your capabilities, making distributed subskills a weakness (rather than having 3 subskills tied to one skill like, say, Lem's Charisma)? Or is it just 'bad form' to have them all over the place?
Either way, I'll drop Knowledge then. Not particularly tied into keeping it for a role either.
For the fire breath, I would have it count as a Spell instead of a weapon with the ranged trait, because it's really a spell-like ability.
Man... keeping as a spell keeps it in line with similar powers, but I really want to treat it as a non-spell. I don't want it to be buffed by spells-matter effects (Blessing of Pharasma, etc) because I don't consider it, lore-wise, to be one at all, any more than a Dragon's Breath is. Furthermore, I don't want to give it the Magic trait, which goes hand-in-hand with all 'this counts as playing a spell' powers I can think of.
Any other suggestions?
Second power is interesting, and I think it's pretty good, but I think it should require a discard to power... otherwise, if you have an empty hand, you can still use this power with zero consequence.
Zero consequence? You'll end up with a smaller handsize for a full round of turns and for your next turn, unless I've messed up the templating. I based it off of Ak's template, I think. So if you have a starting hand size of 5, then roll a 4, you have to discard down to (or draw up to) 1 card, then that's all you have for every other player's turn, and your following turn, until you reset again.
My reasoning for this as a viable downside rather than discarding is used by analysis of (RotR) Kyra's standard healing effect. It requires a discard, but since you could just heal back the discarded cards (plus more) turn after turn, you're not truly 'hurting' yourself by healing yourself repeatedly. The ONLY downside to spending every turn healing, in the long term, is time - you're giving up an exploration to do so over and over.
By (potentially) shrinking your hand size, you limit your ability to draw more blessings and allies, even if you just 'healed' them back into your deck, and also limit your ability to have weapons or spells to fight or support encounters with. Functionally speaking, not only does this restrict the out-of-turn support you can give to other players (blessings, mostly), but it massively impacts how much you can explore on the following turn - a 1-2 card hand probably doesn't have a spare blessing/ally to throw away.
So functionally, I reasoned that the 'downside' of Kyra vs my character's effect are similar. Both get 'deck/card advantage', but will cost you time. One costs you explorations directly, the other costs you explorations implicitly by shrinking your hand, having the extra downside of possible discards and damaging your utility, but the balancing upside of - with lucky rolls - having next to no downside some of the time.
Let me know if I'm wrong on this - this is the only really 'unique' ability that I'm playing with, as opposed to the alternative-Kineticist take on Fire Breath. I wanted to allow him to act as a mobile healer that can be relied on for indefinite survival if needed (see a comparison to Ak, to a lesser degree), but slow him down massively as a consequence every time he does so, making him a 'greedy' player that risks slowing the team down and weakening his role as a support if he overuses his healing.
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Firstly - thanks for the feedback! This is what I would consider a 'first draft', so it's particularly greatly appreciated.
I'll tackle my thoughts on each.
Three d10s for skills is too strong, you should reduce the Wisdom die to d8 and have Divine: Wisdom +2.Agreed. I think my reasoning was the lack of a d12 was kind of made up for the fact that he won't be rolling d12s, and his various means of attack are distributed, making it a little harder to specialise during level-up to max combat rolls consistently. The flipside is that he's way too potent at passing before-you-act checks and closing locations, so I think I'll take your suggestion right on board.
It does drop his 'dice total' to lower than the suggested character building guidelines, and he still has 2 d4s, but I don't actually WANT to give him a d12, so after the d10->d8 change I'll probably leave as-is. Plenty of characters' dice only total to 40 or 42 rather than 44 anyway.
Four "additional" skills all based off of different base skills is too much as well. I would drop the Knowledge skill and instead give some sort of power on one of the roles to grant Knowledge: Wisdom +2 or something.I didn't quite realise that subskills being based on different base skills makes them unusually good? Doesn't that mean its harder to use skill feats efficiently to improve your capabilities, making distributed subskills a weakness (rather than having 3 subskills tied to one skill like, say, Lem's Charisma)? Or is it just 'bad form' to have them all over the place?
Either way, I'll drop Knowledge then. Not particularly tied into keeping it for a role either.
For the fire breath, I would have it count as a Spell instead of a weapon with the ranged trait, because it's really a spell-like ability.Man... keeping as a spell keeps it in line with similar powers, but I really want to treat it as a non-spell. I don't want it to be buffed by spells-matter...
The dragon breath thing is okay, if you're set on it.
I don't really see reducing hand size as that much of a negative, especially when you have an attack power available to you. If the character had to rely on weapons for fighting, it would be more detrimental, since you'd be less likely to draw a weapon. Perhaps requiring a recharge, so that you can't use the power if your hand is totally empty?
I'm generally seconding the suggestions that cartmanbeck made, with a few additional thoughts. My general process with character/role development is understanding the character. So I had to do a little research on D&D Dragonborn, though I was limited to what was available on the Internet (which yielded basic info at a wiki and a page about D&D 5e Dragonborn). That only gives information on the Dragonborn, however, and doesn't tell me much about the character, so what follows might be a bit out of sync with what you're trying to achieve (in which case you should just ignore it ;) ).
High Str makes sense based on the core Dragonborn rules (the page I checked indicates that they get a +2 bonus).
I think that everything else is negotiable, though, and much will depend upon what deity your character follows. I'm not sure if you're developing the character to work within another reality (i.e., a D&D) world or if you're developing the character to work in Golarion. Unless you're also developing blessings for some other world's deities, however, I'm assuming that the latter is the case. If so, which deity does your Dragonborn cleric serve? That should drive the core (cleric) power(s).
Not all cleric are healers. While Kyra is, she's a servant of the Dawnflower, so that's appropriate. Heggal and Tarlin from the Cleric CD also have healing powers, but they serve deities for which healing is part of the profile. Zarlova (Cleric CD) and Drelm (MM), on the other hand, don't have core healing powers.
So your Dragonborn cleric doesn't necessarily need to have the second power. In fact, I think it would be better to limit the initial cleric-ness to Divine spellcasting and use the core powers to reflect the Dragonborn nature of your character:
For your combat check, you may recharge a spell with the Attack trait to use your Constitution skill +1d8 (☐+1) and add the Fire trait. You may additionally bury any number of cards to add 1d6 for each card buried. This counts as playing a spell.
You may recharge a card to reduce Combat and Fire damage by 1 (☐2).
The adjustments I've made to the first power are intended to make the power a bit more useful (some banes are immune to the Attack trait) and also to give room for expansion (the power feats have been moved to the base damage and will allow for role-based power feats to further increase the damage). The "spell with the Attack trait" bit both limits the uses of the power (the character doesn't have an endless supply of fire breath weapon fuel built up) while also focusing the character's spell collection (you'll probably opt for Divine spells with the Attack trait).
The second power is intended to reflect the character's Dragonborn nature - presumably a Red Dragon base with light scales and resistance to fire.
You can add more cleric-ness (i.e., potential healing) to the roles. Depending on how you want to develop the roles, one role might focus on the cleric-ness and the other role might focus on the Dragonborn aspect. Or you might take the roles in entirely different directions.
Switching gears back to the skills, my suggestion with skills is to drop the Constitution to d8 (adjusting Fortitude to Con +2), keep Wisdom at d10 and Divine at Wis +2, move Knowledge under Wis +2, and swap Intelligence and Charisma (Int d4, Cha d6).
As far as the cards go, I would start spells at 5 (with feats up to 8), armors at 1 (with feats up to 3), and blessings at 4 (with feats up to 6). This would give you sufficient spells to fuel your fire breath attack and give you a reason to use the second power (you don't need a lot of armor when you have natural scales).
Okay, I did a little more thinking on this during the day and am amending my previous input a little.
My first line of thinking was in the exotic race and how that really needs to be represented through skills and powers. The example in my mind is Rooboo, the tengu monk. She has a core power that represents flying, and I would expect all tengu characters to have a similar, if not identical, power regardless of their class. It's also worth noting that Arueshalae, a winged succubus, has a similar flying power as a core power. Following this method, I think it would be important to develop the core dragonborn skills/powers that would serve as a template for other dragonborn characters, and to then add on the cleric powers.
As far as I can tell from my (limited) research, the signature powers of dragonborn characters in D&D were their breath weapon (which varied depending upon their lineage), and their damage resistance (to the same type of attack as their breath weapon).
For the breath weapon, templating a power that would work for all dragonborn characters, regardless of their class, would be a good idea. So where I previously suggested a spell with the Attack trait, I'm rescinding that idea for something a bit more generic. As a template, the power should work for a dragonborn character of any class. Whether the breath weapon attack adds to the character's combat check or becomes the combat check will lead to different outcomes. I think that augmenting the damage with other cards might be unnecessary, though, especially if you want to differentiate between the elemental power of the kineticist class and the breath weapon of the dragonborn race.
A template for the breath weapon where the the breath weapon becomes the attack might be:
For your combat check, you may recharge a card to roll your Constitution +2d4 with the Ranged and (type) traits.
Note that I've followed the format of many Attack spells for the above.
A template for the breath weapon where the breath weapon adds to the attack might be:
For your combat check, you may recharge a card to add your Constitution skill and the Ranged and (type) traits.
The above follows the example of characters like Athnul and Rooboo.
Both alternatives allow for power feats through shuffling the card vice recharging, adding additional damage (potentially dice for the first, or flat numbers for both). In addition, skill feats will create progression when the Constitution skill is chosen.
You can then look at Arueshalae from the Wrath of the Righteous AP as a model for the damage resistance:
(Type) damage dealt to you is reduced by 3.
I've used 3 simply because that is what Arueshalae used. Power feats for the power might increase the reduction to 5, then reduce (type) damage to 0. Also, since the power is focused on a single type of attack and is, therefore, weaker than Arueshalae's power, it allows for an additional cleric class power while retaining overall balance.
With those adjustments, you could then have a decent cleric class power. Much of that would really depend upon the power the character serves. If that power is a healing power, like Sarenrae, then following the model of Kyra, Tarlin, and Heggal might be in order (which includes the possibility of changing it up to taking place at the end of the turn, as you proposed). Alternately, if your worshipped power has a different focus for their portfolio, you might use some other concept, like Zarlova and Drelm.
Something that occurred to me was that you might consider a warpriest as an alternate class. I really have no idea whether or not this will work for your concept because I don't understand the character beyond the dragonborn issue, but I figured I'd throw it out there for your consideration.
Using the dragonborn template, another player might develop a dragonborn character with blue dragon lineage (lightning) or green dragon lineage (poison). The breath weapon power template might require an alternate form for some of the other dragon lineages (such as silver). Keeping the core dragonborn powers mild will allow for a class-based power to be included in the core character, allowing power feats in the roles to further increase the potency of each.
Ah, suddenly so much to respond to! (Incidentally, you're all awesome people)
Some general responses...
I don't really see reducing hand size as that much of a negative, especially when you have an attack power available to you. If the character had to rely on weapons for fighting, it would be more detrimental, since you'd be less likely to draw a weapon. Perhaps requiring a recharge, so that you can't use the power if your hand is totally empty?
It may be a playstyle thing, perhaps. Limiting the overall draw of cards - restricting my blessings for explorations and acquiring/defeating support across the table, and restricting the usefulness of utility spells when you simply won't often have the hand size to keep them until the right moment (for a RotR example - Find Traps) - seems like a great restriction to me.
Strictly speaking, you can't use the ability when your hand is totally empty; it requires the bury of a card. Requiring an additional cost is not something that I'm against; but I am reasonably set on it primarily requiring cards to be buried, as its reflective of the specific D&D setting I worked with where it was an exhausting act (mostly to balance how much more powerful I made it). In addition, shrinking your hand size limits your overall potential of your breath, as there are fewer additional cards to bury - on the flipside, emptying your hand by a powerful firebreath is a viable time to then heal.
Of course, the intent is that the firebreath is costly enough to only be utilized when you've acquired unhelpful boons to (literally) burn, or in important combats such as against henchmen or villains. With that in mind, I'm not against somehow weakening it or adding an additional downside, and somewhat push it so that it only becomes devastating when MULTIPLE cards are buried to it.
In summary - happy to change some things. I'd like the dragonbreath to be bury-based, however.
That also partially answers other questions, but moving on to Tyler's equally excellent responses...
[...] So your Dragonborn cleric doesn't necessarily need to have the second power. In fact, I think it would be better to limit the initial cleric-ness to Divine spellcasting and use the core powers to reflect the Dragonborn nature of your character: [...]
Unfortunately, I don't necessarily want the character to be defined by his Dragonborn nature, nor do I necessarily intend to create further characters based on it as a template. (With that said - as you already suggested in your posts - I do intend to have a role that leans towards his Wisdom/Divine/Spell use, and one that leans towards his Dragonborn nature, adding in damage resistances and changing your breath attack types as well as a mobility power, resembling the 'Scion of Arkhosia' Paragon Path from 4th edition, where they grow wings, etc)
For the player I am making this character (more or less as a gift) for, the Cleric nature is likely more important. Specifically, the role of healer, so that power is non-negotiable. But for the record, the intent is a Cleric of Bahamut (once again, doesn't fit neatly into Pathfinder, but closest equivalent would be Iomedae).
I do, however, realize in retrospect I don't need to treat firebreath as a weapon, so just "Ranged and Fire" traits. It already is a dice-defining ability explicity for a combat check, so there's no reason to need to treat it as playing a weapon, and in fact would give it undesirable side-effects (like allowing you to use a dagger to support your combat).
(Incidentally, I'm very familiar with the fact that not all Clerics are healers)
[...]As far as the cards go, I would start spells at 5 (with feats up to 8), armors at 1 (with feats up to 3), and blessings at 4 (with feats up to 6). This would give you sufficient spells to fuel your fire breath attack and give you a reason to use the second power (you don't need a lot of armor when you have natural scales).[...]
The intent is that the character would not be overly spell-oriented, a reasoning I am sufficiently comfortable with that I am happy to drop his wisdom die a notch. Whilst I recognize that the armor is of questionable value for a character that can both heal himself and shrink his hand size to negligible amounts (quite besides the common opinion that armor is the worst card type, especially in certain adventure paths), the overall design - regardless of its effectiveness - is that he is intended to be highly defensive, and will at times become reliant on his breath attack rather than weapons or offensive spells. In addition, spare armor can always be 'burned' for his firebreath.
Slow - healing will hinder the chance for bonus explorations - resilient but reasonably flexible with his means of attack, most closely resembling RotR Kyra. In some ways, I can recognize the comparison to Warpriest rather than Cleric (largely due to the less-than-complete focus on spells, and the ability to utilize spare armors in hand), but Cleric is going to have to be the class for, again, the purposes of reflecting the original character and the player's intent.
Finally, resilience to fire is thematically appropriate, but mostly due to power feat limitations (and card size limitations) I intend to work it into his dragonborn-themed role.
Currently, I'm at the point where I intend to reword his firebreath to remove the references to 'weapon', drop his wisdom die, and consider changing the balance of firebreath to be more of an all-in investment whilst maintaining its viability. I like where the healing power is at the moment, but have been pushed into a small area of doubt regarding its balance - is the hand shrinkage a weakness enough for 'free' healing? Could I weaken his capabilities outside of his firebreath - that requires a card investment - to further cost him for pushing his hand size low?
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Ah, suddenly so much to respond to! (Incidentally, you're all awesome people)
Some general responses...
I don't really see reducing hand size as that much of a negative, especially when you have an attack power available to you. If the character had to rely on weapons for fighting, it would be more detrimental, since you'd be less likely to draw a weapon. Perhaps requiring a recharge, so that you can't use the power if your hand is totally empty?It may be a playstyle thing, perhaps. Limiting the overall draw of cards - restricting my blessings for explorations and acquiring/defeating support across the table, and restricting the usefulness of utility spells when you simply won't often have the hand size to keep them until the right moment (for a RotR example - Find Traps) - seems like a great restriction to me.
Strictly speaking, you can't use the ability when your hand is totally empty; it requires the bury of a card. Requiring an additional cost is not something that I'm against; but I am reasonably set on it primarily requiring cards to be buried, as its reflective of the specific D&D setting I worked with where it was an exhausting act (mostly to balance how much more powerful I made it). In addition, shrinking your hand size limits your overall potential of your breath, as there are fewer additional cards to bury - on the flipside, emptying your hand by a powerful firebreath is a viable time to then heal.
Of course, the intent is that the firebreath is costly enough to only be utilized when you've acquired unhelpful boons to (literally) burn, or in important combats such as against henchmen or villains. With that in mind, I'm not against somehow weakening it or adding an additional downside, and somewhat push it so that it only becomes devastating when MULTIPLE cards are buried to it.
In summary - happy to change some things. I'd like the dragonbreath to be bury-based, however.
That also partially answers other questions, but moving on to Tyler's...
I think you misunderstood, I'm not suggesting that the fire breath power needs an additional cost, i'm saying the healing power needs a cost. Right now, you can heal yourself for 1d4 cards without any "cost" other than the reduction in hand size, which in some cases could be beneficial. I think you should require a recharge there.
I didn't misunderstand... but I did get mixed up in what I was/wasn't responding to; you're completely correct.
Now that I think about it, I do like the idea of the recharge. And I see the balance issue in particular now. I was thinking he was going to be resilient to death anyway, but it lets him play too hard and fast to have a tiny deck left and allow him to effectively be unconcerned with dumping his entire hand to a failed combat check without armor, as a heal/hand shrink combo will nullify almost any threat.
The only flipside is that, in corner cases, it almost makes it a little better, since you're less likely to have to discard down to a hand size if you simply HAVE to use it with a plentiful hand still available.
All in all, now that I think about it - I agree. I'll change that to requiring a recharge in addition to the remaining effects, thanks!
I think you misunderstood, I'm not suggesting that the fire breath power needs an additional cost, i'm saying the healing power needs a cost. Right now, you can heal yourself for 1d4 cards without any "cost" other than the reduction in hand size, which in some cases could be beneficial. I think you should require a recharge there.
I agree with Cartmanbeck, the healing is really powerful seeing as you can turn that lower hand size into a benefit in situations. Also, it doesn't require you to burn your first exploration to use. I would be careful how much I buffed this on his role cards.