New sub-system and class. (PEACH) - OG Myth-Weavers

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New sub-system and class. (PEACH)

   
New sub-system and class. (PEACH)

It's time for another class from me, but this time, it's a new one instead of a revision.

I would appreciate feedback on the class and above all, constructive criticism. Don't say "it's overpowered" and leave it at that or you will be (rightly) ignored. Give an explanation.

My desired power level is Tier 3, though I feel it is more likely going to fall closer to the Tier 4 level (without playtesting, I could not say) Ideas to improve the class are welcome.

First is the basic subsytem the class runs on:
Adrenaline system

Numbers are likely to be tweaked.

Second, the actual class.
Guardian

Have you ever considered using initiative as a means to control adrenaline? I always thought of high initiative as someone managing greater control.

Combat is said to be 90% spirit, 10% skill - therefore, much of the time it depends on luck. Just like in D&D - except, consider lowering initiative as a means to control spirit (ie. generate adrenaline).

When you say that instigators have to regulate their adrenaline, did you mean that too much adrenaline means they lose control, kind of like a frenzied berserker? Although, I'd probably just make them fall into bottom initiative.

EDIT: Or you could put the above into another class. :P

Right now, it seems like there's a lot of ways to generate adrenaline, if not too many - although, I haven't tested this.
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Quote:
Dash (Ex): Starting at level 6, a Guardian may spend 4 adrenaline to gain an additional move action. Every 4 adrenaline spent beyond this grants another move action. This ability may only be used on the Guardian’s own turn. Alternatively, the Guardian may spend 6 adrenaline to grant his mount a move action. Any combination of actions between the Guardian and Mount may be gained, but the total adrenaline spent on this ability in a single turn may not exceed the Guardian’s instigator level.
Does this include actual movement? Should be specified.

Quote:
Indomitable (Ex): In the heat of the action, a Guardian becomes more and more difficult to distract with such petty things as pain. Starting at 3rd level, all damage dealt to the Guardian is reduced by ¼ of his current adrenaline total (round down). In addition, they receive 1/10 of their current adrenaline as a bonus to all saving throws.
If you don't think that 'round down' goes without saying (the rule in 3.5e is 'always round down'), then you should say 'round down' for every fraction factored into the modifiers. This is really only about consistency.
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Quote:
Mocking Strike (Ex): At 7th level, a Guardian has a firm understanding of how to humiliate or anger just about anything. When making an attack, he may spend any amount of adrenaline. On a successful hit, the struck creature must make a Will save (DC10+ ½ Instigator level + spent adrenaline) or be forced to attack the Guardian instead of any other target. If they use an area spell or effect to attack, it must include the Guardian within its area. At the beginning of each subsequent turn (after the first turn after the failure), the creature must attempt the Will save again. Success means they may resume acting as normal while failure means the effect continues. Affected creatures are not forced to attack during this time, but if they do, they must attack the Guardian.

At level 15, this ability also offends enemies nearby the target. All enemies within a 30ft radius of the struck foe must also make the Will save (same DC) or be affected.

The additional will save is at what DC? Should the attack really do damage (or as much damage as normal melee), if it's meant to humiliate instead of wound?

Is the area of effect toggle-able at level 15? I wouldn't want to bring a whole swarm of enemies down on myself accidentally (particularly, if some of them were hiding at the time).

For simplicity, you could just make the effect last 1d4 or 1d6 rounds. If I spent something like 20 adrenaline, the enemy would probably be forced to attack me until the end of time, with no chance of diplomacy, etc.

Quote:
Shake it Off (Ex): At level 9, a Guardian can motivate himself or an ally to tough out ailments as a move action. By spending 6 adrenaline, he can suppress the effects of fatigue, exhaustion, and the sickened and nauseated conditions on himself or an ally within 60ft. These conditions are still upon the target, but they suffer none of the associated penalties or action restrictions. In addition, for every additional 3 points of adrenaline spent, they may ignore the penalties associated with a single negative level and 1 point of a penalty to each ability score. Again, the negative levels and penalties are still present, but are temporarily ignored (if a character ever has negative levels equal to or greater than his HD, he still dies, even if some are ignored). Multiple uses of this ability do not stack.

At 13th level, this ability applies to himself and all allies within range.

At 17th level, the range increases to 120 ft and will remove Daze (the Guardian can use this ability even while Dazed).
How long does this ability last for?

And may as well apply it to all effects at 17th level (apart from direct save-or-suck/die attacks, such as color spray and petrification). The only things you pretty much missed were poison, disease, other combat conditions (prone, grappled, etc.), vital conditions (dying, petrified, stunned, etc.), item curses, and enchantment.

Actually, that sounds like a lot, but shouldn't a guardian be able to survive all those things (maybe for more adrenaline)? Just my two cents.

Quote:
Instant Reactions (Ex): At 20th level, a Guardian has an almost supernatural reaction time. He gains an additional immediate action each round. He may also spend 10 adrenaline to take a standard action as an immediate action.
Not all that powerful of a capstone ability, if the guardian isn't much of a standard action user. The extra standard action counts for damage dealing and spell casting classes - correct me if I'm wrong.

Sure, the extra immediate action is useful, but the standard action seems pointless (unless spending a bigger action means you squeeze more benefit out of it; but that's not in your rules). That's all I'm saying.

A better capstone might be the ability to return from the grave once per month, or something. In fact, countering a save or die once per day (enemy casts the spell, which is ineffective and you get to hit them as a free action, ie.) could be put at lower levels. Just my opinion.
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Another Idea:
Super abilities!

Guardian loses all of his adrenaline for a super ability, such as save-or-die counter attack. Depending on what percentage of full he has, he has access to different abilities. Maybe, since he's a guardian, it has to proceed a previous event that occured.

Ie. If a player dies, he can spend all of his adrenaline (must be 90% full at least), to ressurect the ally, but this can only apply on the following round - any time thereafter, and it can't be done. So it still depends on some amount of luck, rather than planning (people don't plan to die; only sometimes, in the case of this ability, probably). And, depending on how the character dies, they might not be able to be ressurected (the spell might be like true resurrection, except that it requires an intact body, ie.).

The issue is that combats in D&D normally last 3 rounds or less. They have to be able to build it rapidly since it fuels most of their class features. They must regulate adrenaline because if they spend it, then they don't have it to fuel their other abilities. It's a resource, and resources must be regulated.

I can say I like the class you made, snakeman. Is the sub-system viable to every class, just the one with the intent of others being made for it, or something else?

I'm currently working on a second class for the sub-system, but there may be feats that let members of any class dip into it some.

@impfireball:
Move actions are move actions. How the person who got the extra action uses it is up to them (usually it would be to move, but drawing items is a possibility as well)

Thanks for pointing out the issue with the AoE on Mocking Strike I will edit it to make it a decision. The save DC for the ability doesn't change. Also, the ability does not force the target to attack the Guardian every turn, just that if it does attack, it has to be the Guardian that's being attacked.

On Shake it Off, I did forget to write down how long those penalties are suppressed for. It is meant to last until the end of the encounter.

On the capstone, it does seem a little underwhelming. Of course, Celerity for 10 adrenaline will still have its use, especially when you still have an immediate action available. Many items and feats are used by a standard action. Gestalt characters would find this ability astoundingly useful. While the base class really only has the option of using Mocking Strike as an immediate action (which would also be extremely useful), I'm not sure how much more I want to do. Bringing someone back from the dead is beyond my vision, but more likely they did something that prevented the death in the first place.

To me this class seems more like a Dip class at first glance. Pick off a bit here and a bit there and you have made certain things. 2 levels and suddenly any class that has evasion can use Mithril Full plate and still benefit from it.

However after that instant 2 second glance I notice that it is a strong class out of the gate on it's own. I would recommend dropping the Hit dice down to D10 like the fighter, as he gets all the same proficiencies, but has a lot more use in a fight.

Quote:
Nailing Shot (Ex): At level 11, a Guardian wielding a ranged weapon is considered to threaten out to ½ the wielded weapon’s range increment.
This is much to powerful, considering that once you pop a Composite bow on a Guardian he suddenly threatens a 55 foot area around himself. Give him combat reflexes and make that bow Splitting and suddenly we have an arrow storm whenever someone farts too hard. To fix this I would probably change it to this.

Nailing Shot (Ex): At level 11, a Guardian wielding a Bow or crossbow is considered to threaten out to 30 feet. A guardian wielding any thrown weapon is considered to threaten out to 20 feet or the weapons range increment whichever is shorter.


Quote:
Shake it Off (Ex): At level 9, a Guardian can motivate himself or an ally to tough out ailments as a move action. By spending 6 adrenaline, he can suppress the effects of fatigue, exhaustion, and the sickened, staggered, and nauseated conditions on himself or an ally within 60ft. These conditions are still upon the target, but they suffer none of the associated penalties or action restrictions. In addition, for every additional 3 points of adrenaline spent, they may ignore the penalties associated with a single negative level and 1 point of a penalty to each ability score. Again, the negative levels and penalties are still present, but are temporarily ignored (if a character ever has negative levels equal to or greater than his HD, he still dies, even if some are ignored). Multiple uses of this ability do not stack. The suppression lasts until the end of the encounter. If any of these conditions are applied after the use of this ability, they take effect as normal.
Removing the effects of Negative levels on another character by spending a resource like Adrenaline doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Since a negative level is more than something physical that you can force your body past. It is something that blocks part o your spirit off preventing you from using a part of your experience. Even if it still leaves the Negative level on there, it still leaves me wondering exactly how he is doing that without magic. If you allowed that part of the ability to only effect the Guardian using the ability that would fit better as a martial class ability.

Quote:
Instant Reactions (Ex): At 20th level, a Guardian has an almost supernatural reaction time. He gains an additional immediate action each round. He may also spend 10 adrenaline to take a standard action as an immediate action. By spending 20 adrenaline, he may disrupt a killing blow on an ally within his reach. His ally does not die, but he suffers the effects of the attack that would have killed his ally. The attack is treated in all ways as though it targeted the Guardian instead, including any attack rolls or saving throws, but the Guardian takes a -5 penalty to armor class and saving throws for this attack. The Guardian moves adjacent to his ally when using this ability.
This abilities second half has a situation where it is either useful, or so dangerous it would be better to jump into a vat of trolls. I am of course talking about the Coup de grace.

Two ways this goes down. 1: The coup de grace gets redirected towards the guardian who is not helpless and therefore is immune to the attack so the attack is nullified. 2: The Attack gets redirected to the guardian, but the coup de grace STILL works against him, since I cannot find a stipulation saying that it doesn't.

The only way I see that it doesn't effect him comes from this wording " The attack is treated in all ways as though it targeted the Guardian instead". Does this mean that he nullifies attacks that would not work on him, even though the attack WAS legal before it was redirected? Or does this mean that he is affected by the attack regardless of whether or not it would be legal?

These are the big things I see the other stuff that I don't like doesn't really make the class bad or overpowered, just not my style. The class is great thematically for the most part, the negative level fix on other people is the only issue in my head.

Ignoring the negative levels is the same line of thinking as ignoring fatigue: they're pushing past it, not letting inclement conditions slow them down. The fact it's on the soul more than the body has little to do with it as it is really more of a motivation.

The Coup de Gras I will have to add in specific lines for, I guess, but if you are attempting a Coup de Gras on someone who is not paralyzed/helpless, it doesn't work. The Guardian taking the attack for someone who is would not be at risk of a Coup de Gras (which would become a normal attack).





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