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So I just had a play session with an exemplar and spent a few hours talking about it. Exemplar is really cool! Things that came up in the following discussion that have helped mold my opinion of exemplar.
1. (According to my mathy friend this argument is less mine) they perform above curve compared to other martials of similar role (I think they did the math in comparison to barb) so something to bring their DPR more in line with other martials. I'm not exactly sure how to do this as I'm not a math wizard.
2. My thought is give exemplar a focus on simple weapons and give them medium armor. This prevents the sentinel feat tax for exemplars not wanting to use dex.
But why simple weapons only? Now they wouldn't be trapped in simple but I think the idea of a weapon with a divine nature that only they can bring out really sells it. Feats let you have twinned weapons, give them the thrown trait (or improve it), and I think it would be cool if exemplar leaned into that with more feats giving their simple weapons features that only they can bring out along with crazy abilities to go with it!
On top of this it gives an emphasis to ancestry weapon feats. You are THE goblin exemplar with the MYTHICAL DOGSLICER or a Dwarf with your divine sparked clan gun. Or this unassuming shortbow which can actually fire up to 300 feet in its first range or something crazy like that! I think this restriction would add to the fantasy of a godly weapon that only you can use to its full power.
3. Less numbers more cool s!%#. When I saw the exemplar hitting for big numbers it was cool. But I think it is cooler to get to do unique and interesting things. Smash the battlefield so that there is difficult terrain, being able to scoop up all your fellow martials with your titan bracers and carry them into battle! Being able to hold a person down because only you can pick up your weapon. Along with things you get later like the Teacher of Heroes which leans on a more int/wisdom skill character (unless you want to only identify like planar creatures). Along with features they get that give free feints or domain spells that pull from charisma.
I think reasons to take these and support these routes and an emphasis on cool divine feeling stuff vs numbers.
Love to hear your own experiences with exemplar. Also want to know what y'all think and how you've been feeling about exemplar on your own ends!
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I do love the idea of Exemplar being the simple weapon class that can bring them in line with martial weapons and do cool stuff with them. It really fits the theme of reaching mythical status while coming from simplicity.
Simple weapons only would feel bad for anyone who wants to use any other weapon.
... In fact, all the examples of cool weapons the OP brings up (dogslicer, shortbow, clan pistol) are all martial anyways.
Simple weapons only would feel bad for anyone who wants to use any other weapon.
... In fact, all the examples of cool weapons the OP brings up (dogslicer, shortbow, clan pistol) are all martial anyways.
Oh snap I didn't notice that just about all bows are martial weapons. It is crossbows and such that are simple. I'd probably solve that by giving access via a ranged oriented option or giving them specific bow access.
The Clan pistol and dogslicer examples were meant to be in related to increasing the value of ancestry weapon proficiency feats for exemplars. You are the exemplar of your ancestry and thus would take the associated feat to break out of the simple weapons. My apologies for not being clear there!
I do see your point though as it is a small category. Though the key idea of it is that they would take these simple weapons and make them incredible! A longspear is d6 and reach. When you pick it up it becomes a d6 with reach, and can be thrown, and has an innate returning property, and and and. The idea being once it is in your hands it would explode with traits.
Being limited to only simple weapons would kill my interest in the class, frankly. It's good that they have the option to choose a simple weapon without cost but I don't want to play an Exemplar that isn't using a d12.
Yeah. Looking more into it that is fair. I thought the idea was thematic and flavorful but a lot of weapons I was thinking of on a more basic level aren't actually simple weapons. Maybe picking weapon groups you have access to or just 'you have proficiency with your ikon' or a customized weapon that you would build up from a template while leveling but I feel that would also over complicate the process.
Unfortunately yeah that idea wouldn't work! To the chopping block it goes.
Mostly during discussions with the players at the table the idea come from yeah "exemplar just kind of hits like a truck it is comedic how they out paced the other martials."
I want them to feel really cool (look at #3 for what I mean) but I don't want them to invalidate other classes at the table. But someone more math oriented will need to figure out those ratios!