[3.5 Magic System] The Codices of Spellshaping

[DonQuixote]

So, in February of this year 2011, I started on a system of magic predicated on the Tome of Battle system of martial adepts. The goal was to create simple, blast-centric magic-users that still possessed versatile and interesting abilities.

The Spellshaping project now consists of over six base classes, twenty-two prestige classes, 336 "arcane formulae," and various other pieces of material. Said materials can be found here. (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?board=64.0) Normally, I would simply re-post it on these forums, but the sheer volume is such that I feel it more prudent to simply open a discussion thread that links to the existing sub-forum.

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STATUS: While the spellshaping material was in the middle of a system-wide revision, the unfortunate truth is that I got burned out, life happened, and my group migrated systems. I do still keep my private messages on the forum linked to my primary e-mail account, though, so I'll try to respond to questions or problems with something approaching alacrity. If anyone wants to continue and complete the revision, feel free to take a stab at it. A .zip of the source files and other materials is available here. (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3QF4xlozShjNnhwek1rbWl3MGM)
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It's a lot of material, but it's fairly easy to understand if you're familiar with the Tome of Battle. Essentially, Major Formulae function as Strikes, while Minor Formulae function as Boosts. Spellshape attacks--spell-like abilities that resemble a warlock's eldritch blast--are used in place of melee attacks for the purpose of shaping (initiating) formulae (maneuvers).

In general, spellshape attacks and arcane formulae are ranged touch attacks and subject to spell resistance. However, in some cases--the powers of Blustering Gale, Crushing Stone, Natural Balance, and Roaring Tide, to be specific--the spellshape attacks are instead normal ranged attacks, but are not subject to spell resistance. In such cases, you use your shaper level in place of your base attack bonus when making your attack.



Please, post any feedback, comments, or suggestions that you have. I want to make this system the best that it can be, and I can only do that if people tell me what is wrong with it. Pretty much any feedback given will be addressed--or, at the very least, responded to--as soon as I see it. I check in on this thread every day, so don't worry about being missed.

[bindin garoth]

Hey, just wanted to say this is a great homebrew! :smallbiggrin:. I actually started using the first codex (elemental adapt/lavamancer) a while ago on a php here. If you want to see here is the IC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154395&page=37) link, I start on page 33.

So far it is working out excellent, the lavamancer is doing a great job of keeping up! (It's a gestalt game btw, I'm gestalted with binder). I haven't found anything significant in terms of needing to be changed or anything.

Actually quick question though, if a lavamancer uses his shape molten rock ability on the ceiling, would that cause drips of magma to fall below and cause damage?

[DonQuixote]

Heh. Amusingly enough, Elemental Adept/Lavamancer is also the only spellshaping build I've gotten the chance to play. It's fun.

In terms of Shape Molten Stone, the idea of the ability is that you're shaping stone by melting it. The analogy would be blowing glass, not liquefying a bucket of sand. Given that you can create a spike of molten stone that doesn't slowly melt into a puddle of lava, such a spike from the ceiling would, logically, also not drip. The stone is cooling after you use the ability, not continuing to flow.

[bindin garoth]

Ah ok that makes sense. Bump of great justice! :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Also, how about a sound based circle?

[gkathellar]

Ooh, there's more stuff! And you have your own subforum! And BG is all pretty now! Squee!

As an aside, Bruce Lee has a quote which might be good for the opening of the Savant's entry: "All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge."

[Amechra]

That's not BG.

BG kinda... died, and minmaxboards is the reincarnation.

[DonQuixote]

Sound-based circle is interesting. I've had the idea several times, but decided not to for reasons that...

...that...

...that I can no longer remember. Huh.

Looks like I'll be writing a sound-based circle at some point in the future! It will be named Screeching Roc because I love puns.

In terms of the Bruce Lee quote, that would almost make more sense for a savant/anchorite fusion class, given that savants deal primarily with knowledge of the external, while anchorites draw upon the knowledge of the self.

[bindin garoth]

Well if you need someone to bounce of ideas just send me a PM!

[DonQuixote]

I emerge from the abyss with a few tidbits!

Firstly, some errata has been done in the posts, but not yet to the Codex I PDF. Specifically:

The elemental adept's elemental companion now scales with shaper level and gets an extra attack--though its elemental aura no longer causes your spellshape attacks and formulae to deal extra damage.
The elemental adept's Elemental Empowerment ability has been tidied up and updated to reflect changes...not terribly recent ones, either. It had slipped past me for a while, there.
The elemental adept's Elemental Magic class feature has been tweaked slightly to give you the ability to use your element's associated domain spells as spell-like abilities, once per day each.
The impulse mage's rules text is slightly more clear about recovering formulae.
Precise Shaper and Tactical Shaper no longer leave out spellshape attacks that are made as ranged attacks, but not ranged touch attacks.
Spellshape Study now has a nice, pretty line break.
Some formatting stuff with some of the formulae has been tidied up.


Secondly, some points have been raised over on the Minmax thread, and I wanted to see what people thought about them. Leaving aside the stylistic and philosophical questions, two major points remain. The arguments made have been placed in spoilers beneath their summaries.


Should the impulse mage be allowed to ignore arcane spell failure from light armor?

The Impulse Mage should be proficient and able to wear light armor. Every character in D&D is expected to be able to use at least light armor because it is a mandatory part of the games expectations for the combat RNG.

...getting to add an extra stat to armor is a feature that is thrown around all over the place and it is almost always accompanied by the ability to just also wear light armor. Swordsage does it in the book you are trying to replicate and he wears light armor. When designers give out an extra stat to AC bonus it is to help lightly armored characters use their shtick and be just as effective as at least medium armored characters. In DnD Armor is a standard so not wearing armor is a big loss, this is one of the primary reasons why a good Swashbuckler class has never really been done. Armor has very few negatives, huge positives, and was a conceptual standard for the designers when making the game. So the name for characters who don't wear armor is not "Fencer" but "NPC".
Are spellshapers incapable of performing in high-level play?

The classes you've made here simply are not able to enter high level combat excepting only the spellsage. There are three reasons for this: Lack of range, Lack of versatility, and Lack of Buffs. The first problem is simple, the range on spellshaping effects is usually about 45 feet or so on average, generally capping at 60. That just isn't enough to compete with real high level monsters. By 10th level these characters are mages with mage saves, mage armor, and mage hp who are expected to get up close and personal with things like Fire Giants. They just can't cut it. It also means mobile threats like ranged fliers can completely shut them down by just staying out of a 40 foot bubble. Most ranged characters are effective out to much farther range so this is a considerable problem. Second is lack of versatility. Thinking of ranged fliers again the only class that could let you easily handle fliers is the Spellsage. The Spellshaping classes entire flight abilities are relegated to a couple of air maneuvers which means your average character has a good chance of being without. Besides flying the class has no answer for lots of tactical problems that can arise because while they look like spellcasters they actually more resemble archers in terms of actual tactical diversity. They shoot and that's about it. Steps should be taken if you want the classes to be able to operate at high level to give them effects they can apply to themselves to troubleshoot problems. Which leads directly to a Lack of Buffs. This one is simple. All high tier classes can buff. Even Tome of Battle characters have buffs in the form of various stances that they can activate to modify their characters abilities. Spellshapers just don't have this which means they're out of place in the "Big Dog leagues" of D&D classes. The Spellsage can choose Buff spells which let him compete. A spellsage can have by 8th level Stoneskin, Fly, Invisibility, and Shield. Letting him prepare for equal leveled opponents. I think that with increased average range to their abilities, an ability to buff in some fashion, and some access to tactical effects like spells or innate abilities the Spellshaping classes would be absolutely on par with the best material out there. I think that adding these effects and changes is something you should at least consider.

I have no doubt that your classes would do really nicely in the beginning 5 levels or so but then they will start losing ground and they won't stop until whatever campaign ends. And to your two points about range and buffs; In range I actually added up the average range of powers in the Shocking Current Discipline which I chose at random. The average range all totaled for ranged powers is 56 feet, so I was under by 10 with my guess. I still believe the point stands perfectly however that the class suffers from a lack of good ranged options. If you are trying to emulate the Warlock then I would recommend including things to improve their actual ranged capability, as the Warlock has a single effect which makes all his attacks 400 feet long. As to buffs I will assume you know more than I. I don't feel like they have enough powerful buff capability but despite my fondness for testing rigor I'm not gonna go through every maneuver. The maneuvers I've seen on my read through tend to be not quite powerful enough for the characters level, situational, possessing a short duration, and need to be pre-chosen for encounters which means taking up space from directly effective combat choices. So your flight troubleshooting maneuver and your teleportation troubleshooting maneuver both compete with space with your awesome doing-things maneuvers. And magic flight or teleportation items do exist, but yes you are correct. Melee characters WERE screwed forever in 3.5. Famously so. It was all anyone really ever talked about. We even had phrases for it. DMF: Dumb melee fighter comes to mind. High level monsters didn't have to interact with fighter characters that just swung swords, you really had to bring a lot more to the fight or else you literally couldn't play in the big leagues. And the idea that this imbalance is in any way fixed by the idea of making every 1oth level barbarian spend 27,000 gold of his total 49 on some boots of flying and a cape of the mountebank is pretty offensive. I mean at that point your really talking about a huge handicap being put onto what are already the worst and least performing classes in the game.


What say you all on these points? I'm not necessarily looking for blind support on my side of the issue, I really need all the opinions that I can get on this one. I have precious little experience with anything above level ten, so I can't say that I fully understand how power scales over the course of the leveling process.

[bindin garoth]

1. Sure.

2. Will give a more detailed reply when I get a chance.

[gkathellar]

The one thing you seem to be missing is some kind of illusion-based circle. Are there plans for anything along those lines?

[DonQuixote]

So, because I lack a reason not to, I'm probably going to end up giving light armor to the Anchorite, the Impulse Mage, and the Savant. So, yeah.

In addition, the person who raised the questions about versatility and adaptability has said that metashaping feats--which he had not investigated--looked like they might go a lot of the way to addressing those questions. Thus, formatting and organization are going to be changed somewhat. Metashaping feats will be first introduced in Codex I, with Extend, Maximize, Persistent, and Quicken being moved to that text. This is pretty much entirely organizational. There will also be some new metashaping feats added to Codex II to compensate, but they are not yet written.

A mechanical change that IS going to be made is that all classes--except for the spellsage--will be receiving the ability to change their prepared formulae once per encounter as a swift action. This lets you avoid getting caught with your pants down, without completely removing the purpose behind preparing formulae.

Some minor errata has been administered, primarily in cleaning up a few feats. Edgewalker Knight's Service of the Suppliant ability got reworked slightly, making it a 1/encounter swift action.



The one thing you seem to be missing is some kind of illusion-based circle. Are there plans for anything along those lines?

The problem is that spellshapers are mostly based on attacks. Illusions--at least as I understand them--involve creating effects. It's much more likely that I'll slip in illusions as effects in other circles, as is currently the case with Brilliant Dawn and Glimmering Moon.

Thing is, what would single-target illusory attacks do? Well, first of all, there's the question of the spellshape attack. Would it be an illusion? If so, do they get a Will save to disbelieve the attack? Then, we move onto what the effects would be. Probably penalties of various sorts...or, in other words, what a lot of formulae already do. Basically, the only difference between an illusion-based circle and any other circle would be thematic, rather than mechanical. And it would involve a non-standard attack form, which is something that I really, really shy away from.

So, no, I don't see an illusion-based circle happening any time soon. Am I saying that I'll never do such a thing? No, I'm not. But I feel like adapting illusions to spellshaping would involve abandoning a lot of what makes illusions illusions.

It's worth noting that pretty much no circle is based on one of the schools of magic--with the possible exception of Devouring Shadow being based thematically on Necromancy. There's no Transmutation or Abjuration circle, nor is there an Enchantment spellshape attack.

[bobthe6th]

fey damage! make it do a good bit more damage then other schools, but make it affecting and a will save.

[DonQuixote]

That...more or less flies entirely in the face of my professed preference for standardized attacks. A circle with a spellshape attack that deals significantly more damage than the other circles is not a thing that's going to happen. Ever.

In terms of news, a bit of errata has been pushed. Mostly the stuff I was talking about with moving some metashaping feats to Codex I. However, the Unseen Impetus formula Marionette has been replaced by a minor formula that causes your kinetic blast to knock creatures prone.

In addition, the ability to change your prepared formulae once per encounter has been added, and the impulse mage's progression has been tweaked slightly, sliding the number of prepared formulae and the number of formulae that occur to you closer together.

The Codex I PDF has been updated with all of the recent errata and can be found here. (http://www.mediafire.com/?dli44309kpstnt6) All of the errata is also up on the subforum, but I know that some people prefer PDFs.

[bobthe6th]

Then perhapce a illusionist shaper class? Gets esentialy SA, that is mind affecting/ fear affect with a will to negate. then you get the bonus damage without throwing the spell circles out of wack. Add some fluff and there you go!

[Garryl]

An illusion circle could deal nonlethal damage (since you only think it hurts).

[DonQuixote]

Hrm...! That could actually do it. My initial concerns about things being immune to nonlethal damage were assuaged when I realized that most things with such immunities are also immune to mind-affecting abilities.

Nonlethal will probably be a component of any illusory spellshaping, if such comes to pass. Don't really know right now, though, since I still have a crapload of work to do before I can even think about writing new material.

[Pyromancer999]

Looks interesting, or at least what I've seen of it does. Anyways, only suggestion I have to make so far is that Spellshape attacks should deal more damage, maybe progressing more like a Warlock's Eldritch blast, or at least add 1-2 more dice to the attack. After all, at 19th-20th level, the Warlock's Eldritch Blast is dealing 9d6 damage, while a standard Spellshape attack is dealing 5dx. Still, just my opinion. This is a really interesting idea.

[DonQuixote]

Between Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape focus, you can pop it up to 7d_. A lamen that adds another 1d_ is pretty cheap, putting you at 8d_.

Moreover, most of your damage is generally going to be coming from formulae. Sure, at 17th level, your fireblast only deals 5d6 damage...but if you shape Incinerating Blast and then Undying Flames, you're going to deal 18d6+17 points of damage. Plus the actual effect of Undying Flames.

[The-Mage-King]

This looks interesting. Reading over it now.

[DonQuixote]

Just to keep everyone up to date, a few new feats were added to off-set the feats that were moved to Codex I. Empower Formula, Fortify Formula, and Heighten Formula mimic the metamagic feats of similar nomenclature, while Metashaping Focus allows you to reduce the degrees of metashaping feats a few times per day.

[vasharanpaladin]

This system needs more Brilliant Dawn + Devouring Shadow PrCs. :smallbiggrin:

[DonQuixote]

All righty, I'll put that on the to-do list. Prestige classes combining Brilliant Dawn and Devouring Shadow. They shall occur!

[radmelon]

I took the time to read through the entire thing, and I must say, this IS FREAKING AWESOME! I have never seen such a complete project made by one person. I especially liked the PrC that turns you into The Slender Man. Genius.

[NineThePuma]

I'm not going to be able to read this whole thing, for a variety of reasons, and am currently sort of... sitting with my mouth agape, in awe.

I do, however, have a minor complaint/request: There's no "basic description of the Circles" like there is for the Disciplines in ToB. (See page 41-42 of ToB for what I mean, or page 8 for ). I want to get into it, I really do, but there's a TON of material, and I don't have the liberty to spend an afternoon reading it.

Could you provide a brief (somewhat fluffy) description for each circle?

As an example, here's Desert Wind's description.

DESERT WlND
Speed and mobility are the hallmarks of the Desert Wind discipline. Desert Wind maneuvers often involve blinding flurries of blows, quick charges, and agile foot work. Some maneuvers from this school, however, draw power from the supernatural essence of the desert and allow an adept practitioner to scour his foes with fire.
The key skill for Desert Wind maneuvers is Tumble. Weapons associated with Desert Wind include the scimitar, light mace, light pick, falchion, and spear.

[The-Mage-King]

Er... Nine? Yes, there are (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=848.0) descriptions. (Scroll down about halfway)

[NineThePuma]

... I totally missed that :smallredface: IN MY DEFENSE, they aren't called out in the Index.

[DonQuixote]

Hrm. I didn't think demand for the summaries would necessarily be high enough to list them in the Index. Should I go ahead and do that?

[The-Mage-King]

Probably a link to the "Spellshaping Basics" would be best. Saves some space, and all that.

[GuyFawkes]

Wow. Just. Brilliant. *slow clap*

Need more time to go into all of it, but the general idea of the project is, for the lack of a word, brilliant.

[SamBurke]

WOAH. This is bookmarked, because it'll take me ages to look through that...

AND I CAN'T WAIT.

[Wyntonian]

Ok.... it took me a while to look at this. I figured it was just another magic system, nothing to get excited about.


After reading it, I am excited.

I'm going to be playing a Stoichen Air Elemental Adept in a PbP here in a little bit, and I'm about as excited about this as I've ever been about a new subsystem. I'm also considering giving this written-in support in my worldbuilding project (see sig), pending your permission.

This is truly excellent work. Well done.

[DonQuixote]

Probably a link to the "Spellshaping Basics" would be best. Saves some space, and all that.

I updated the table of contents for Codex I to include links to the various bits of the rules and noted which one has the descriptions of the circles.


I'm also considering giving this written-in support in my worldbuilding project (see sig), pending your permission.

Of course permission is granted! All of this stuff is completely open to whatever uses people have for it.


I'm thrilled to hear so much excitement coming in. I'm incredibly excited about writing this stuff, and it's refreshing to get that sort of energy back.

[NineThePuma]

I, personally would like to provide a touch of feedback.

I'm building a Dragonheart Adept for a PbP game, and I suffer a lot from (for lack of a better term) Cool Thing Syndrome. I've got too few Formula/Maneuvers known/prepared, in my honest opinion. You can build yourself as a caster or as a melee, but Gishing is hard.

It's also a baseline improvement over the DFA, but that's not always a bad thing.


How does Tactical Spellshaper affect my Spellshape Breath Weapon

[DonQuixote]

I mean, Dragonheart Adept was, on one level, intended to do what Dragonfire Adept tried to do, just better. So, the improvement is somewhat intentional.

In terms of maneuvers/formulae known/prepared, how badly do you feel the pressure? Part of the problem here is that you get invocations, formulae, and maneuvers. I don't want there to be so many abilities that you can just do everything. On the other hand, it's quite entirely intended to gish well. So, what numbers would feel right? This is actually a pretty important question to get down to figuring out, since the current plan is to write a generalist spellshaper/initiator class in the near future.

Tactical Shaper would logically double the extent of your breath weapon. However, Precise Shaper does absolutely diddly jack for you, so it's a two-feat investment.

[NineThePuma]

Part of the problem, I think, is that prerequisites exist. Tiger Claw is very prerequisite heavy, enough that if you get into it, it's going to end up taking a significant chunk of your maneuvers. It's also hard to get into later.

Combine with the... Slightly awkward recharge, you can't focus on Martial exclusively. The Spellshape Breath Weapon also adds some awkwardness, though the AoE is quite nifty. Especially with a Debuffing Circle. I'm combining Perfect Freeze with Eternal Moment, so it's going to be pretty awesome.

But, to refocus. The armor proficiency is a bit low; Scales help, but weapon proficiency is also low, so you'd be focusing on your natural weapons, and those don't deal nearly enough damage. Your spellshaping is also low, because your Spellshape attack has a cooldown, which bites into your capacity to refresh maneuvers. It's still Tier 3, but I would argue that it suffers from Master of None at low levels.

Of course, me NOT focusing on Tiger Claw and instead focusing on my secondary discipline in order to grab more Swift Action maneuvers and also getting Minor Formula a bunch might have an effect.

[DonQuixote]

Part of the problem, I think, is that prerequisites exist. Tiger Claw is very prerequisite heavy, enough that if you get into it, it's going to end up taking a significant chunk of your maneuvers. It's also hard to get into later.

Okay, so I looked at the Tiger Claw prerequisites. Anything up through 6th level only requires you to know two maneuvers. So, what I'm thinking is that I might bump up formulae/maneuvers known at 1st level to 10. If you take all the 1st-level Tiger Claw maneuvers and all the 1st-level formulae from both of your circles, that still lets you pick up two maneuvers from your second discipline. After that, since you gain one formula or maneuver each level--and you can swap them out at even-numbered levels--it's not particularly difficult to pick up a third Tiger Claw maneuver and thereby meet the maneuvers known prerequisites for the entire discipline. Similarly, meeting prerequisites for your spellshaping circles and your second discipline should be pretty easy.

Formulae/Maneuvers prepared will not be changed, but I'm hoping that the next change will make it less awkward.


Combine with the... Slightly awkward recharge, you can't focus on Martial exclusively. The Spellshape Breath Weapon also adds some awkwardness, though the AoE is quite nifty. Especially with a Debuffing Circle. I'm combining Perfect Freeze with Eternal Moment, so it's going to be pretty awesome.

But, to refocus. The armor proficiency is a bit low; Scales help, but weapon proficiency is also low, so you'd be focusing on your natural weapons, and those don't deal nearly enough damage. Your spellshaping is also low, because your Spellshape attack has a cooldown, which bites into your capacity to refresh maneuvers. It's still Tier 3, but I would argue that it suffers from Master of None at low levels.

So, I'm thinking that, at 4th level, a shiny new class feature will be added. It will allow you to channel your spellshape attack through your natural weapons in the same manner that a spellshape champion does. However, this is only available while your breath weapon is recharging.

In addition, you'll get a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls with your natural weapons. This will increase by +1 for every three initiator levels you gain beyond 4th, to a maximum of +6 at 19th level.

Hopefully, that will serve to both make your natural attacks less pitiful and to make the juggling of formulae and maneuvers less awkward.

Thoughts?

[NineThePuma]

I think my issue is that, at level 1, you're going to need to pick up at least two maneuvers from Tiger claw if you want to have more than just Sudden Leap. I'm not planning to be TWF, so that leads into me being less keen on grabbing wolf fang strike. But that boost removes my having to pick between circles (the two I picked are both very good, though I think I'd want Searing Flame for better damage.

That would work quite well, I think. I might drop it from Enhancement to Attack and Damage and instead make it elemental damage matching your primary circle? Of course, this is because Necklaces of Natural Attacks exist, but that might push damage too high.

[DonQuixote]

Changes are up. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1480.0)

Hrm. If ten maneuvers/formulae isn't enough...well, that runs into problems. Thing is, there are other disciplines that only have two 1st-level formulae. If I gave you eleven maneuvers/formulae known, it would be possible--depending on your discipline choices--to have more "known" than are actually available.

I'm going to leave the bonus as an enhancement for now. Thing is, a standard Necklace of Natural Attacks only applies to one natural attack. Adding it to multiple attacks requires multiplication of the price. The equivalent cost for a +5 enhancement bonus to all six of your natural attacks would be over 300,000 gp. As it is now, you can get a Necklace of Natural Attacks that just gives you special properties--of which there are a lot--and only apply it to your most favored attacks...without penalizing your other attacks too severely.

[NineThePuma]

Ooh, yeah. That's a good point.

Also: I'd like to motion that you remove any references to "maximums" because otherwise RAW dms will stop those featuresfrom scaling into epic.

[DonQuixote]

Agh, I always forget about epic. Okay, that one's going to take me a while--I have to sniff out all the mentions of maximums, then gratuitously remove them. Right now, I'm in the middle of compiling a PDF, so take this as OFFICIAL ERRATA until I get around to doing that.



In the case of any ability, class feature, or other part of the spellshaping material that scales by shaper (or initiator) level and references a "maximum" value--for example, many spellshape attacks mention a maximum amount of damage at 17th level--these maximums are intended to be used only in non-epic play. Epic characters continue to advance at the same rate that they did before reaching these "maximums." For example, a 21st-level elemental adept has a fireblast attack that deals 6d6 points of fire damage, even though fireblast is said to reach its maximum damage of 5d6 points of fire damage at 17th level. Similarly, an anchorite's spellshape aura bonuses continue to advance beyond 20th level, and a dragonheart adept's enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls continues to increase by +1 every three levels.

Epic Elemental Companions:
In the case of an elemental adept's elemental companion, the penalty associated with the elemental's Elemental Aura ability increases by 1 for every six shaper levels the adept gains beyond 17th level.

In addition, at every two levels higher than 19th (21st, 23rd, 25th, and so on), the elemental gains +2 bonus Hit Dice and a +1 increase to its Strength score. At every four levels higher than 19th (23rd, 27th, 31st, and so on), the elemental gains a +2 increase to its Constitution score and an additional bonus, depending on its type: an earth elemental gains a +2 increase to its existing natural armor, while air, fire, and water elementals gain +2 Dexterity.

Finally, at every ten levels higher than 19th, the elemental's damage reduction increases by 5 (damage reduction 15/- at 29th level, 20/- at 39th level, and so on).

This ruling is immortalized here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=848.msg5396#msg5396), in the "Notes on the Rules of Spellshaping" section.

Other Update: Because it was difficult to find, the Idiosyncratic Shaper alternative class feature has been re-posted in all the base class threads.



PDF Progress Update (12/29/11): I'm forcing myself to work on the Codex II PDF, bit by bit, and I've gotten into a fairly decent pace. It should not take more than a few days for me to finish it, though I'm currently being hampered even more than usual due to the necessity of applying for summer internships.

Post-PDF Projections: The first thing that I'm going to try to get up will be the as-of-yet-unnamed generalist spellshaper/initiator, whose entire existence is currently shrouded in mystery. I'm sorting through a bunch of ideas, so we'll see how that turns out.

After that, I'm going to put up the also-as-of-yet-unnamed fire-based spellshaper. It is basically my gift to myself, existing simultaneously as a callback to the origins of this project (a pyromancer class) and an exploration of the different things that I can do with my favorite element (which is fire). It will start with access to Searing Flame, then gain additional circles in a way similar to the anchorite. These additional circles will all be automatically reshaped, as with the dragonheart adept.

The next thing that I hope to write--and these are all hopes, mind you, I have no idea how much of this will actually be feasible--will be a new circle. Screeching Roc, a sound-based circle. Yes, it is a pun. No, I have no regrets.

After that--jeez, this is a long To-Do list--I'm planning to post some new options for the elemental adept, as it is currently one of the most limited classes.
The first set of options will be alternatives to the current secondary circles (Shocking Current, Deteriorating Corrosion, Brilliant Dawn, and Perfect Freeze). This variant will result in the following elemental circle combinations: Blustering Gale/Unseen Impetus, Crushing Stone/Screeching Roc, Searing Flame/Shocking Current, and Roaring Tide/Deteriorating Corrosion.
The second addition will be the creation of the paraelemental adept, who draws his power from the paraelemental planes of cold, magma, ooze, and smoke. I haven't decided on the exact circle combinations that will be granted, but I do know that I'm going to have rules for ice, magma, ooze, and smoke elemental companions.
Finally, new feats will be added that are designed to be taken by an elemental adept's elemental companion. I haven't fleshed these out much, but they'll include the ability to change size as a full-round action. I'm also hoping to let elemental companions play with formulae somehow, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Next, I'm going to attack the idea of writing an illusion-based circle that deals nonlethal damage. I have no idea whether I'll succeed in writing this--of all the ideas listed here, it's the one that I'm least sure will happen. No promises here, but I'll at least look into it.

Finally, I'm planning to write a prestige class or series of prestige classes that combines the powers of Brilliant Dawn and Devouring Shadow. I don't know much about what I'm going to do with this one yet, except that I'll almost certainly let you adjust the ambient light level as a supernatural ability.

[Mathias1313]

First off.. just wow... I am so incredibly impressed with your work. I plan on integrating into my upcoming games and of thought about using the Codices as a basis for a team bad guys that I think will confuse the hell out of the PC's. :smallsmile:

I do however have a 2 quick questions:
1)Concerning the Anchorites Spellshape Aura, all of the abilities are based off Shaper lvls, which I love, however the number of active auras at once is dependent on Anchorite lvl. I bring this up because the Ardent SoulShaper, which is The Prestige class for the Anchorite, does not stack with Anchorite for the number of active auras. Unless the Ardent SoulShapers class fearture SoulShape Aura is suppose to imply this, if so could we clarify a bit plz?

2)Concerning the Heart of the Legion Ardent Soulshaper class feature. Is the damage split before any DR or resistance of the targeted person is considered or after. Likewise if I had DR10/- and my mage friend got hit for 20 dam by a longsword, I fortify the mage and thus take the 10 dam... is it negated by my DR or do I just take the damage because I fortified him?

Any clarifications would be appreciated.

Once again kudos to you sir for such fine work. I understand that some may see it as either too weak or too powerful, I myself prefer to think of it as flavourful and interesting.

[DonQuixote]

1)Concerning the Anchorites Spellshape Aura, all of the abilities are based off Shaper lvls, which I love, however the number of active auras at once is dependent on Anchorite lvl. I bring this up because the Ardent SoulShaper, which is The Prestige class for the Anchorite, does not stack with Anchorite for the number of active auras. Unless the Ardent SoulShapers class fearture SoulShape Aura is suppose to imply this, if so could we clarify a bit plz?

Anchorite auras scale with shaper level so that your class features do not become irrelevant. However, the ability to project multiple auras, and to change between auras more quickly, is something that you must give up in order to pursue a prestige class. This is entirely intentional. Remember, the ardent soulshaper is open to any spellshaper that can project a spellshape aura, not just anchorites.



2)Concerning the Heart of the Legion Ardent Soulshaper class feature. Is the damage split before any DR or resistance of the targeted person is considered or after. Likewise if I had DR10/- and my mage friend got hit for 20 dam by a longsword, I fortify the mage and thus take the 10 dam... is it negated by my DR or do I just take the damage because I fortified him?

This has now been errataed for clarity: "Damage reduction and energy resistances or immunities do not apply to damage taken from fortifying an ally." Also, note that the damage that would be dealt is divided among the characters, not the damage that would be taken.

For example, let's say that person A is going to take 100 damage. Persons B, C, and D decide to fortify her. Now, person A has DR 10/-, so she'd only take 90 points of damage. However, since it's the damage that would be dealt that would be divided, each character will be dealt 25 points of damage, not 22.5 damage. Now, person A's DR applies, so she only takes 15 points of damage. However, even if persons B, C, and D also have DR 10/-, they will all take the full 25 points of damage.

[DonQuixote]

What's this? (http://www.mediafire.com/?skjuqk8bxao1osa) A Codex II PDF? Madness.

[NineThePuma]

I've noticed something odd; if I'm a Fighter 18, and then take 2 levels Spellshape Champion, and have the Natural Balance circle, my spell shape attack uses my Spellshaper Level (11) in place of my BAB (20).

Was this downgrade intended?

[Re'ozul]

Having found this homebrew through The-Mage-King's looking for game thread I am deeply impressed at the level of sophistication found in it.

The amount of circles and classes for a fledgling homebrew magic-system is enormous and they all look very interesting nd seem to have their own niche.

I have to ask a question though since it came up when I made my spellshape champion.
The stipulation that the move-action meditation does not recover formulae used within the last 2 rounds seems, combined with the low number of prepared formulae for the class, greatly reduce his ability to recover in lower levels unless he only has one type of formula (either major or minor). With a mixed 4 prepared formulae, the champion would use all four within 2 rounds then have only normal actions for a round before being able to use the move action to only recover 2 formulae (as the other two are now still in the 2 round interval). As such, the champion can never recover ALL his formulae with one action unless he allows for 2 rounds of non-use between expending his last and recovering.

Compare this to the elemental adept who can recover ALL his formulae with a swift action, has an elemental companion, gets to ignore resistance and half immunities, gets immunity to poison, gets cha to damage, gets turning (with an extra option for more blasting), can get flight (if using air) and harder to resist formulae.

The Champion gets an increase in damage in the beginning (melee damage instead of the d6s) but basically has to go two handed to really get good use out of it later on (i know you can optimize melee damage to great heights, but I am talking about non-optimized use of the class). He still has to overcome SR if he channels the spellblasts, luckily this is made easier later on. I guess the "You otherwise attack with your weapon as normal" line means that if he fails to overcome SR he still gets to use standard damage, so thats at least something. Retaliatory shaping is circumstantial and further eats into the two round recovery delay. Other than that he gets some alleviation for heavier armor and a lot of stuff that makes people want to hit him, but very little direct defensive abilities.
He feels like a better aggro-drawer than the Crusader but without the delay damage option. Unoptimized I think he would die very quickly.

I haven't yet looked at the other classes much, but to me there seems to be quite a bit of distance between the usefulness of the Elemental Adept and the spellshape champion.

[DonQuixote]

I've noticed something odd; if I'm a Fighter 18, and then take 2 levels Spellshape Champion, and have the Natural Balance circle, my spell shape attack uses my Spellshaper Level (11) in place of my BAB (20).

Was this downgrade intended?

...wow, that's silly. Why did I do that? Upcoming one-word change to the physical spellshape attacks: "you may use your shaper level in place of your base attack bonus on attack rolls with..." That should do it--since "may" does not mean "must," you can use whichever is more advantageous.


I have to ask a question though since it came up when I made my spellshape champion.
The stipulation that the move-action meditation does not recover formulae used within the last 2 rounds seems, combined with the low number of prepared formulae for the class, greatly reduce his ability to recover in lower levels unless he only has one type of formula (either major or minor). With a mixed 4 prepared formulae, the champion would use all four within 2 rounds then have only normal actions for a round before being able to use the move action to only recover 2 formulae (as the other two are now still in the 2 round interval). As such, the champion can never recover ALL his formulae with one action unless he allows for 2 rounds of non-use between expending his last and recovering.

Compare this to the elemental adept who can recover ALL his formulae with a swift action, has an elemental companion, gets to ignore resistance and half immunities, gets immunity to poison, gets cha to damage, gets turning (with an extra option for more blasting), can get flight (if using air) and harder to resist formulae.

Yeah, so, the spellshape champion's recovery mechanic. I originally wanted to avoid letting you spam stuff, so I didn't want you to recover things shaped earlier in the round or in the previous round. Through late-nights, the current phrasing emerged.

However, the spellshape champion doesn't really get enough prepared formulae for that to be viable. At the same time that I make the above change to the physical spellshape attacks, I'm going to just let the spellshape champion's recovery mechanic recover all of your formulae. No restrictions. Sure, it makes the champion more spammable, but it's not like champions are the most powerful by any means.


The Champion gets an increase in damage in the beginning (melee damage instead of the d6s) but basically has to go two handed to really get good use out of it later on (i know you can optimize melee damage to great heights, but I am talking about non-optimized use of the class). He still has to overcome SR if he channels the spellblasts, luckily this is made easier later on. I guess the "You otherwise attack with your weapon as normal" line means that if he fails to overcome SR he still gets to use standard damage, so thats at least something. Retaliatory shaping is circumstantial and further eats into the two round recovery delay. Other than that he gets some alleviation for heavier armor and a lot of stuff that makes people want to hit him, but very little direct defensive abilities.
He feels like a better aggro-drawer than the Crusader but without the delay damage option. Unoptimized I think he would die very quickly.

I haven't yet looked at the other classes much, but to me there seems to be quite a bit of distance between the usefulness of the Elemental Adept and the spellshape champion.

Yeah, of the first four classes, the spellshape champion is pretty much the outlier. It wasn't one of the originals, and I wasn't entirely sure where to go with it. I think you're right--I'm going to have to add something more defensive. Any ideas? I don't have a lot of experience with melee characters. One possibility would be to replace Spellshaping Prowess with a variant of the crusader's damage pool that, instead of giving bonuses to attack and damage rolls, gives an untyped bonus to AC and spell penetration checks. Using one's pain as a means of focusing, as it were.

The current issue with damage is one that can easily be overcome with a spellheart weapon (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1783.msg17895#msg17895), since the champion can just fully manifest his channeled spellshape attack. Admittedly, that isn't part of Codex I.

---

In other minor changes, I think that I'm going to allow the Extra Prepared Formula feat to be taken multiple times, with the caveat that you cannot take the feat if it would increase your Formulae Prepared to a number greater than your Formulae Known. This has two purposes:

If you really want to spend feat slots on being able to do more at once, rather than improving things with metashaping, I really see no reason to stop you.
It has been mentioned that the Idiosyncratic Shaper (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=982.0) alternative class feature might be more worth a feat sacrifice, rather than giving up a prepared formula. This change would essentially let you take Extra Prepared Formula an additional time as a feat tax for the class feature.

For similar reasons, Formula Study will lose the "three times only" cap. You only get seven feats--eight, if you're human--and I can't think of any situation in which getting seven more formulae known would suddenly break everything.


Update: Pretty much all of this has been done now, with the exception of adding a defensive mechanic to the spellshape champion--I still haven't settled on one. PDF hasn't been updated yet, and it probably won't be until I can think of that mechanic. No reason to re-upload it twice.

[Re'ozul]

Yeah, Spellheart weapons are good if you are using a non-two-handed character. Especially a TWF oriented Dex-heavy character is very good with it. (Daggers that do 5d6). For two-handed characters they do relatively little.
A Greatsword user with 22 Str gets 2d6+9 weapon wise and 5d6 by Spellheart. Thats about the same average damage.
I like the channeling variant, especially as I want to use unseen impetus and its a nice way to circumvent the fact that the normal blast only uses d4s.

[DonQuixote]

All righty, I basically stole the crusader mechanic and gave it to the spellshape champion. For every 5 points in the delayed damage pool, she gets a +1 bonus to her shaper level and a +2 bonus to her AC. Caps at +6 and +12, respectively.

PDF update to come.

Edit: PDF update came. (http://www.mediafire.com/?8ab068u4fvr5uy3) PDFs added to the first post.

[Mathias1313]

thank you very much for the PDF for the second Codice, much appreciated.
I had a question however. Or more a clarification.
In the sections for the prepared Formulae, i notice there is no wording that disallows preparing the same Formulae multiple times.
I like this alot, I am just verifying that it was your intent. :smallwink:

[DonQuixote]

Like a maneuver, a given formula can be prepared only once at a time.

[radmelon]

This may be a problem, as if you take the Spellshape Paragon ACF for the Spellshape Champion, at 2nd level, you will have 4 formulas known, but most if not all circles only have 3 1st level formulas. What happens then?

[Re'ozul]

Having read further into the system (due to changing around the circles on my spellshape champion) I have come upon 2 more question I am in need of asking you.

1. Formulae are considered SLAs and as such provoke AoOs. Does this also apply to a spellshape champion who WILL be in melee most of the time, making it necessary to pump concentration a lot?

2. There are quite a few (very cool) Area of Effect formulas. Since they only ever specify creatures (or at least the ones I remember) do they also affect allies? Furthermore, if a spellshape champion were to use them, would he also be included in the effect? (Since he would most likely be in melee he is always in the area)

[DonQuixote]

First off, sorry for the delayed responses, but I spent all day at Disneyland with my girlfriend.


This may be a problem, as if you take the Spellshape Paragon ACF for the Spellshape Champion, at 2nd level, you will have 4 formulas known, but most if not all circles only have 3 1st level formulas. What happens then?

What happens then is that I stop being an idiot and fix that. Spellshape Paragon will now note that you do not gain a new formula known at 2nd level--though you will instead gain two new formulae known at 3rd.


Having read further into the system (due to changing around the circles on my spellshape champion) I have come upon 2 more question I am in need of asking you.

1. Formulae are considered SLAs and as such provoke AoOs. Does this also apply to a spellshape champion who WILL be in melee most of the time, making it necessary to pump concentration a lot?

Spellshape Channeling specifically notes that shaping a formula in that fashion does not provoke attacks of opportunity. So, no.


2. There are quite a few (very cool) Area of Effect formulas. Since they only ever specify creatures (or at least the ones I remember) do they also affect allies? Furthermore, if a spellshape champion were to use them, would he also be included in the effect? (Since he would most likely be in melee he is always in the area)

They would also affect allies, yes. Just as similar spells would. You're right, though, that's kind of a "Screw you" to the champion. Looks like they'll be getting the ability to ignore the negative effects of their own formulae. It will probably be made into a part of Spellshape Channeling.


I'll get those changes typed up and formalized as soon as I can, but my girlfriend is visiting me for a week, so we'll see what time I have lying around.

Update: I have the changes online now--incidentally, I extended the "immune to harmful effects" dohickey to all melee-based spellshapers--and will probably get an updated PDF up tomorrow or the next day.


Update to the Update: Updated PDFs have been posted.

[NineThePuma]

I've been toying with the Dragonheart Adept (I like dragons, so sue me), and I was curious; do you have any plans to open the Totem Dragon to Gem Dragons?

[DonQuixote]

Hey, no worries. I like dragons a ridiculous amount, too--as I've said before, the dragonheart adept is a re-imagining of my first homebrew. The entire reason I started homebrewing in the first place was that dragonfire adept and dragon shaman both left me feeling unfulfilled.

In terms of the question of gem dragon support...no, I'm not intending to move in that direction. For multiple reasons:


Gem dragons are specifically noted as being psionic in nature. While spellshaping is not Vancian casting, the flavor is intended to be sorcerous in nature.
I don't like gem dragons. For whatever reason, they just...bother me. This might have something to do with the fact that I spent my childhood reading the Dragonlance books, which has basically shaped my view of D&D dragons.
If I do gem dragons, I open a whole can of worms: the endless dragon family tree. Why not do everything in the Draconomicon? Well, I don't have an analogue for all of the breath weapons, for one thing. For another, some dragons would actually require more than one circle, meaning that you'd lose out on choices.


As always, though, I won't say that I'll never open up more totem dragon options. After all, I originally only intended to write seven circles.


On an entirely unrelated note, I've finished writing the mechanics and rules text for a new spellshaper/martial adept class. It's based on fighting with a light weapon in one hand and magic in the other, alternating between striking with your weapon and blasting with a spellshape attack. It also gets some basic magic niceness, such as prestidigitation at will and the ability to turn and counter spells. Unfortunately, I've run into a wall of writer's block with the name and fluff. So, expect that at some point in the next few days.

[bindin garoth]

Hey If you send me a PM when it's out (or beforehand :smallbiggrin:) I'll tell you what I think. I'll admit, I'm currently liking the Anchorite and it's buffing capabilities! :smallsmile:

[NineThePuma]

I've been test running a DHA, and they make AMAZING supports. Ignoring the breath weapon for now, they can fill in as a secondary melee with a long spear, using a claw to threaten adjacent. Theres an Invocation Tax (in the form of Endure Exposure, cause otherwise you're going to be blasting allies) but you can actually afford to grab, say, Gold Dragon as your Totem, pick up Brilliant Dawn, and focus your maneuvers on a secondary White Raven or Devoted Spirit. You're focusing on buffs and support; it might be worth grabbing Nature's Balance instead of Brilliant Dawn, cause that has better heals and buffs, IMO, but Brilliant Dawn fits flavor nicely. Then dump a feat to get the Nature's Balance aura for infinite healing and spend an invocation on Beguiling Influence. Pseudo-free +10 to intimidate/diplomacy/bluff on a Cha focused class? Yes please!

Unless I misremember, you can feint as a standard action to flatfoot someone against everything, and so you sit there demoralizing or feinting while initiating maneuvers and formula, and then go "BOOM, DAMAGE!" with your breath, which you overpowered the crap out of with Metabreath feats. You just need to focus on Swift Action maneuvers and formula. It's quite nice.

[DonQuixote]

I...actually had never thought about the dragonheart adept playing a support role. Huh.

The idea behind the class--in case it wasn't obvious, which it probably totally is--revolves around you becoming a dragon and doing dragon-y things. So, attacking things with natural weapons, blasting with your breath weapon, and having some generic magical goodness.

While I'm fairly confident that such a build is still fairly reasonable, I hadn't expected such a strong support element to be feasible. I'm pretty okay with it, though. The sly, manipulative wyrm is also a standard dragon type.

If I ever had the chance to play a dragonheart adept, I had assumed that I would have rolled a damage-heavy tank, designed to take hits and dragon the hell out of everything. Now, I find myself really hoping for a gestalt game in which I could run a magic-blooded dragonborn spellscale dragonheart adept (support build) // bard (with dragonfire inspiration). Possibly using my bard rewrite (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=437.0), for added buffing and self-aggrandizement. It would be the buffiest thing since vampire slaying and the dragoniest thing since Smaug.

[NineThePuma]

I think that the issue you've got is that your MAD is Strength/Charisma/Constitution and a lack of Martial Weapon Proficiency: Natural Weapons aren't sickeningly awesome unless you've got some sort of damage boost, and is pretty feat intensive if you wanna focus on them. You probably want Improved Rapidstrike for more attacks, INA for more damage, and I'm sure those are going to cut into your MetaBreath; especially since, assuming you're picking those up, you need a decent Con to pick them up.

Light armor also adds a problem, cause you're expected to have a good Dex as well, for AC; Scales helps this a lot, but that only pops off at level 4. You end up with something similar to the Monk's issues in terms of MAD. On the other hand, if you don't focus on melee your Dex and Strength can suffer slightly. Con + Cha covering your breath and formula. Use less direct maneuvers too.

My only real disappointment is that there's no way (that I can spot) to emulate the Discorporating Breath Of Bahamut. I want my disintegration breath!

[DonQuixote]

Things I could do:

Give you some of the natural attack feats as bonus feats, making your natural weapons more attractive. I'm thinking Improved Natural Attack every four levels (for a different natural weapon each time), Multiattack at 7th level, and Improved Multiattack at 14th level. You'd still need to take Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike on your own, but--given that doing so would net you a full attack that consisted of eight attacks, six of which are made at your full attack bonus--I think that such things are acceptable.

Move the natural armor part of scales to 2nd level, so you start getting your armor bonus early. At the same time, change the natural armor bonus to 1/2 initiator level + Charisma modifier.

Either not allow you to take metabreath feats, or else let you use Charisma in place of Constitution to qualify for them. Restricting metabreath would make it slightly less dragon-y, but also prevent you from destroying the world by choosing to never breathe again. Charisma for metabreath feats could arguably make some sense, since you use your Charisma to determine the save DC of your breath weapon, whereas everything else uses Constitution.

[NineThePuma]

I like the feat idea, though I'd add that if you already have the feat (like with multiattack) you can instead grab any feat you qualify for.

I like that shift to Scales; it makes DHA a bit diptastic though.

Cha to Metabreath would be fine, I think. But I'm not a crazy optimizer, so... Yeah.

[DonQuixote]

The Mage-Knight (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2737) is up. Meanwhile, I slowly lose my ability to come up with any names ever again.

Things that are going to be done in the next hour or so:

Update the Codex II pdf so that the counterspell ability of the Spellshape Paragon ACF is based off of your shaper level, rather than your class level. Edit: Done.

Actually apply some of those changes to the dragonheart adept. Edit: Also done.




Update: The spellshape champion looked so sad with so few formulae known and prepared, so I gave it more. I also changed its recovery mechanic so that you have to have hit an opponent with a melee attack in order to recover, meaning that you can't just take Spellshape Study and become an all-ranged character. Spellshape Paragon no longer gives you an additional formula at 3rd level, as it now maps perfectly to the number of formulae in a circle without that compensation. Updated PDFs to come.

1/11/12: Both PDFs updated.

[Re'ozul]

Thanks for the PM, wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

I'm not sure the increase in Formulas known/prepared for the Spallshape Champion was absolutely necessary. Though I'll have to think that over more once I have slept due to the addition of the revised recovery mechanic.

Said Mechanic is pretty interesting. It adds a bit of a gamble to the recovery.
If the Champion starts his turn with a full-attack and hits on the first he can choose to recover, if he misses he might as well continue the full attack.
The only thing I can see is this frustrating a lot of players on a bad-Luck streak since they not only won't be able to hit but also won't be able to recover Formulas. Especially as you only get one try per round to do so.
Since they aren't hitting anyway this isn't so bad for major formulas, though they will curse at their dwindling supply of minors.

Mage-Knight looks pretty good.
I like the switcheroo recovery mechanic, it encourages using both.
Mage-Knight's Guard seems weird at first but when I read onwards it seems you were going for the noble, borderline foppish Knight archetype.
Prestidigitation at-will is fun and practical (when short on cash, open cleaning business).
Forceful Blow says "Charisma instead of Strenght" in the fluff, but in the second part of the description its just a bonus.
Empowering Strike and Rebuke spell are useful, but balanced nicely to not be overpowereing. (The former due to 1/enc and the latter due to readied action).
Command Magic is interesti as its usefulness depends on you guessing correctly how harmful whatever was just thrown at you is.
Martial Mage: I think you need to specify that these don't stack with themselves.
Sense Magic: Does it work like identify? Good utility.
Arcane Sight: Very useful this one. At this point thats generally 4-6 uses. Honestly I'm not sure about this one. Its basically handing the player 4-6 3rd level spells. Probably okay though.

All the special strikes: I'd allow it for maneuvers too. While there aren't feats for those, the effect can apply the same. In the current form the advanatge is a bit onesided for a class that marries maneuvers with formulas.

Arcane Assault is good, but since it can still fail by just not hitting, I'd think it would be a better 19th level ability with 20th level being a modified Master of Strikes that also gives a second Assault.

----

I have rambled enough now. Its time to go to sleep. Especially as I am starting to catch myself staring blankly at the keyboard trying to remember how to spell words at least once per sentence.

[NineThePuma]

I respectfully suggest the Sublime Shaper rather than Mage Knight. Because it's a spell shaper who follows the sublime way.

[DonQuixote]

I respectfully suggest the Sublime Shaper rather than Mage Knight. Because it's a spell shaper who follows the sublime way.

Yes. Thank you forever. You have saved the sublime shaper from sharing the spellshape champion's fate of having a godawful name.


Thanks for the PM, wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

I'm not sure the increase in Formulas known/prepared for the Spallshape Champion was absolutely necessary. Though I'll have to think that over more once I have slept due to the addition of the revised recovery mechanic.

Said Mechanic is pretty interesting. It adds a bit of a gamble to the recovery.
If the Champion starts his turn with a full-attack and hits on the first he can choose to recover, if he misses he might as well continue the full attack.
The only thing I can see is this frustrating a lot of players on a bad-Luck streak since they not only won't be able to hit but also won't be able to recover Formulas. Especially as you only get one try per round to do so.
Since they aren't hitting anyway this isn't so bad for major formulas, though they will curse at their dwindling supply of minors.

Well, in terms of formulae known and prepared, I realized that the sublime shaper, if it split its maneuvers and formulae evenly, would still have the same number of formulae known and prepared as the spellshape champion...and then it would have maneuvers. I couldn't really reduce the numbers, though, because it would severely cripple the sublime shaper's gimmick. So, I decided to just bring the spellshape champion in line with all the other pure spellshapers.

In terms of the new recovery mechanic, it basically gets at what I tried before--the one that sucked and prevented you from recovering things from the previous two rounds. You can't recover a formula that you already shaped, so you can't just keep spamming things--and, since you have to have already made an attack, you can't recover something from last round at the beginning of your turn and then shape it again. The new recovery mechanic also addresses the concern of spellshape champions taking Spellshape Study and then living it up as ranged spellcasters in full plate.

As far as constantly missing goes, one hit is all it takes to recover every single one of your formulae. That includes attacks made as a part of shaping formulae. If you use up all of your formulae without hitting once...well, that's some improbably bad luck.


Mage-Knight looks pretty good.
I like the switcheroo recovery mechanic, it encourages using both.
Mage-Knight's Guard seems weird at first but when I read onwards it seems you were going for the noble, borderline foppish Knight archetype.
Prestidigitation at-will is fun and practical (when short on cash, open cleaning business).
Forceful Blow says "Charisma instead of Strenght" in the fluff, but in the second part of the description its just a bonus.
Empowering Strike and Rebuke spell are useful, but balanced nicely to not be overpowereing. (The former due to 1/enc and the latter due to readied action).
Command Magic is interesti as its usefulness depends on you guessing correctly how harmful whatever was just thrown at you is.
Martial Mage: I think you need to specify that these don't stack with themselves.
Sense Magic: Does it work like identify? Good utility.
Arcane Sight: Very useful this one. At this point thats generally 4-6 uses. Honestly I'm not sure about this one. Its basically handing the player 4-6 3rd level spells. Probably okay though.

All the special strikes: I'd allow it for maneuvers too. While there aren't feats for those, the effect can apply the same. In the current form the advanatge is a bit onesided for a class that marries maneuvers with formulas.

Arcane Assault is good, but since it can still fail by just not hitting, I'd think it would be a better 19th level ability with 20th level being a modified Master of Strikes that also gives a second Assault.


Addressed pretty much all of the concerns here. Chain Spellshape required some inventiveness for maneuver form, but all the others just use the mechanics of the related metashaping feat. The one thing that I did differently concerns Arcane Assault: Rather than making it the 19th level ability and giving you a second use, I just added some fun rules text: missing doesn't count as a use now.

In terms of Martial Mage, I'm not sure why you think I need to say that they don't stack. They wouldn't apply to the same things, anyway, and both require you to make an attack--preventing you from shaping a formula or initiating a maneuver until your next turn.

[Re'ozul]

I see your points, but feel the need to address several things.

Spellshape Champion (and sublime shaper) recovery Mechanic:

The Champion (if he regularly hits) can still spam minor formulae via a round of swift-standard-move so your attempt at no-spam is not absolute.

The Problem is that the sublime shaper CAN spam since he doesn't have a to-hit clause. all he needs is standard (major formula or strike ) followed by swift (boost or minor formula). The swift action automatically recovers the standard and next turn the first standard will recover the swift. That way you only have a 1 round delay for one of them and generally the sublime shaper will be able to spam stanadrd action specials while alternating swift action specials between rounds. This works every round as you didn't specify a limit on recoveries per round or any other clause.

This also allows the sublime shaper to be pure ranged if necessary if he focuses maneuvers on boosts.

I don't really think spamming is such a big problem that you need to find ways to disallow it. Furthermore, with the addition of the sublime shaper with the afforementioned recovery mechanic, there is no reason for someone to play a ranged-only Spellshape champion.

Martial Mage:

The bonus is untyped. While untyped bonuses stack, I forgot that bonuses from the same source (even if untyped) never stack. My worry was that with a full attack at level 18, if all attacks somehow hit, you would suddenly gain a +20 to all of those next round. I blame my sleepy brain.

Martial Mage & AC Bonus & Forceful Blows:

Forceful Blow basically makes the sublime shaper only dependant on Dexterity and Charisma. A Spellshape Champion Focusing on Spellheart weapons can do the same thing. The extra feat he has to pay (weapon finesse) will most likely be balance by the extra damage he does with them.

A two handed Spellshape champion though needs to concentrate on Strenght, Wisdom and Dexterity and is slightly worse off for it.

My big problem however is with Martial Mage and the AC bonus.
Mor precisely, considering increasing charisma bonuses, the shaper level increase from Martial Mage and AC bonus are generally only slightly weaker than the maximum bonus provided by Champions Resolve and Shaper's focus.
The Spellshape Champion has to get hurt quite a bit to get that kind of bonus, where as the sublime shaper just has it (AC) or can get it by hurting others instead of being hurt).
Furthermore the sublime shaper is also granted bonuses for attack and damage from Martial Mage, something the spallshape champion can only dream of.

[NineThePuma]

Yes. Thank you forever. You have saved the sublime shaper from sharing the spellshape champion's fate of having a godawful name.

I live to serve. :smallbiggrin:

[DonQuixote]

I see your points, but feel the need to address several things.

Spellshape Champion (and sublime shaper) recovery Mechanic:

The Champion (if he regularly hits) can still spam minor formulae via a round of swift-standard-move so your attempt at no-spam is not absolute.

The Problem is that the sublime shaper CAN spam since he doesn't have a to-hit clause. all he needs is standard (major formula or strike ) followed by swift (boost or minor formula). The swift action automatically recovers the standard and next turn the first standard will recover the swift. That way you only have a 1 round delay for one of them and generally the sublime shaper will be able to spam stanadrd action specials while alternating swift action specials between rounds. This works every round as you didn't specify a limit on recoveries per round or any other clause.

This also allows the sublime shaper to be pure ranged if necessary if he focuses maneuvers on boosts.

I don't really think spamming is such a big problem that you need to find ways to disallow it. Furthermore, with the addition of the sublime shaper with the afforementioned recovery mechanic, there is no reason for someone to play a ranged-only Spellshape champion.

It's not, and that's why I haven't gone horribly out of my way. I've just implemented something so that a spellshape champion can't do the exact same thing every round. While the sublime shaper can, doing so prevents her from benefiting from martial mage.

I really want the recovery mechanics, when possible, to suit the classes. The savant makes Knowledge checks, the anchorite has an easier time recovering formulae from circles if she's projecting their auras, the spellsage gets to reprepare things, the impulse mage gets them randomly, and the elemental adept...well, that one's less flavorful, I'll admit.

I wanted some way to tie the spellshape champion's recovery to melee combat, and I think that I found one that isn't too horribly painful. I may change it later to whenever you make a melee attack, rather than necessarily hit with it, but I haven't decided yet--that would technically allow you to attack the ground in order to recover formulae.



Martial Mage & AC Bonus & Forceful Blows:

Forceful Blow basically makes the sublime shaper only dependant on Dexterity and Charisma. A Spellshape Champion Focusing on Spellheart weapons can do the same thing. The extra feat he has to pay (weapon finesse) will most likely be balance by the extra damage he does with them.

A two handed Spellshape champion though needs to concentrate on Strenght, Wisdom and Dexterity and is slightly worse off for it.

My big problem however is with Martial Mage and the AC bonus.
Mor precisely, considering increasing charisma bonuses, the shaper level increase from Martial Mage and AC bonus are generally only slightly weaker than the maximum bonus provided by Champions Resolve and Shaper's focus.
The Spellshape Champion has to get hurt quite a bit to get that kind of bonus, where as the sublime shaper just has it (AC) or can get it by hurting others instead of being hurt).
Furthermore the sublime shaper is also granted bonuses for attack and damage from Martial Mage, something the spallshape champion can only dream of.

I'll point out that the spellshape champion does have the advantage of being able to wear heavy armor and use shields. Last I checked, people in heavy armor don't (can't) really care about Dexterity, so the two-handed example really would just focus on Wisdom and Strength.

In terms of shaper level bonuses from Martial Mage versus Champion's Resolve, you're realistically only going to benefit from Martial Mage if you made a melee attack in the previous round--meaning that, for all intents and purposes, we can treat it as only being up half of the time. Champion's Resolve can theoretically be up every turn.

Moreover, as far as I can see, shaper level bonuses really only benefit you for the purposes of metashaping and spell resistance checks. Only a handful of formulae actually reference your shaper level at all.

[Re'ozul]

It's not, and that's why I haven't gone horribly out of my way. I've just implemented something so that a spellshape champion can't do the exact same thing every round. While the sublime shaper can, doing so prevents her from benefiting from martial mage.

I really want the recovery mechanics, when possible, to suit the classes. The savant makes Knowledge checks, the anchorite has an easier time recovering formulae from circles if she's projecting their auras, the spellsage gets to reprepare things, the impulse mage gets them randomly, and the elemental adept...well, that one's less flavorful, I'll admit.

I wanted some way to tie the spellshape champion's recovery to melee combat, and I think that I found one that isn't too horribly painful. I may change it later to whenever you make a melee attack, rather than necessarily hit with it, but I haven't decided yet--that would technically allow you to attack the ground in order to recover formulae.

Ooooh, for some reason I had overlooked the differentiation between attack forms in Martial Mage.

I guess my main problem with this recovery mechanic is that it absolutely dictates your entire round with no possible way to deviate.
You MUST take a standard action to attack first (Or the first attack of a fullround) and if that works you then can take a move action to recover.
This makes moving battles the absolute bane of the Champion.





I'll point out that the spellshape champion does have the advantage of being able to wear heavy armor and use shields. Last I checked, people in heavy armor don't (can't) really care about Dexterity, so the two-handed example really would just focus on Wisdom and Strength.

In terms of shaper level bonuses from Martial Mage versus Champion's Resolve, you're realistically only going to benefit from Martial Mage if you made a melee attack in the previous round--meaning that, for all intents and purposes, we can treat it as only being up half of the time. Champion's Resolve can theoretically be up every turn.

Moreover, as far as I can see, shaper level bonuses really only benefit you for the purposes of metashaping and spell resistance checks. Only a handful of formulae actually reference your shaper level at all.

Just because you can wear heavy armor does not mean you have to.
I personally am not that much a fan of it unless the total of armor-bonus and max-Dex outweighs the same number on lesser variants. There are enough spells (and in fact astral essence can grant a nice bit of armor) that can up AC better than armor.

On account of Shaper's Focus being active every round...
If its active at full potential every round the Champion will be dead fast.

Okay, here is something I haven't quite figured out yet.
From the spellheart weapon description and its interaction with Spellshape champion it seems that manifesting a weapon results in only the spellshape attack being relevant for damage (plus anything that affects those).
Other factors such as Strenght bonus, power attack, weapon enhancement all would not factor in. So concentrating on Strenght would be completely useless for a TWF or one-handed+shield champion except the first few levels.
Only a two handed Champion really can get a use out of strenght and he can't use shields.

Also, spellshape attacks are based on shaper level, so you'd get a one die boost to them as well.

[DonQuixote]

Ooooh, for some reason I had overlooked the differentiation between attack forms in Martial Mage.

I guess my main problem with this recovery mechanic is that it absolutely dictates your entire round with no possible way to deviate.
You MUST take a standard action to attack first (Or the first attack of a fullround) and if that works you then can take a move action to recover.
This makes moving battles the absolute bane of the Champion.

Only if you're missing frequently. If you have a decent chance of hitting, you can just fight normally until you run out of formulae. Nobody says that you have to recover everything every round just because you can.

Edit: Also, I just changed the sublime shaper slightly. You can only recover one ability per round from shaping formulae or initiating maneuvers. A full attack lets you recover two abilities of your choice.


Just because you can wear heavy armor does not mean you have to.
I personally am not that much a fan of it unless the total of armor-bonus and max-Dex outweighs the same number on lesser variants. There are enough spells (and in fact astral essence can grant a nice bit of armor) that can up AC better than armor.

The class is designed with the assumption that you will wearing armor. The sublime shaper gets an AC bonus because it can only wear light armor. If you play a spellshape champion and choose to only wear light armor, that is your build decision. The design intent, however, is for you to be more heavily armored.

Crusaders don't get an AC bonus at all, while swordsages do. I don't think anyone has raised Cain about that.


On account of Shaper's Focus being active every round...
If its active at full potential every round the Champion will be dead fast.

Yes, but almost no other base class gets a bonus to shaper level higher than +2, anyway. I might actually decide to drop the Martial Mage bonus by 1 across the board. And see my comments on the crusader, in terms of the AC bonus--the spellshape champion actually has a leg up on official classes in this case. Heavy armor plus a possible +12 untyped bonus to AC? Makes it pretty hard to get hit more than once.


Okay, here is something I haven't quite figured out yet.
From the spellheart weapon description and its interaction with Spellshape champion it seems that manifesting a weapon results in only the spellshape attack being relevant for damage (plus anything that affects those).
Other factors such as Strenght bonus, power attack, weapon enhancement all would not factor in. So concentrating on Strenght would be completely useless for a TWF or one-handed+shield champion except the first few levels.
Only a two handed Champion really can get a use out of strenght and he can't use shields.

Also, spellshape attacks are based on shaper level, so you'd get a one die boost to them as well.

I tried to math it so that spellshape attacks stayed relatively close to weapons in terms of damage. 5d6 is supposed to map onto 2d6 + STR + Power Attack.

I don't know much about the math behind two-weapon fighting, but I WILL point out that you wouldn't benefit from it as a spellshape champion. Formulae mention "a single" attack with the relevant spellshape attack. Doesn't matter how many weapons you have.

You're right about what happens when you channel a spellshape attack through a Spellheart Weapon. The idea was to offer a stylistic choice for people who wanted to actually change the weapon into the attack.

I'm pretty sure Strength remains important, though, since you still need it to hit. Spellheart Weapons are still normal (non-touch) melee attacks.

[Amechra]

Question...

Would you mind if I made an Idiot Impulse Mage (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8218.0), just to see if I can?

[DonQuixote]

You can certainly try, but I'll point out this clause from "Advancing Spellshaping Progression" in Codex I:


However, at any level at which you gain both a new formula known and an additional formula prepared, you must apply both advancements to the same spellshaper class.

And this one from the Extra Prepared Formula feat:


However, you cannot take this feat if doing so would cause the number of formulae that you can prepare to exceed the number of formulae that you know.

If I recall how the idiot crusader works, that sort of slaps the idiot impulse mage in the face.

[Amechra]

It does.

Darn; the Idiot Crusader is just generally AWESOMELY fun to play.

Ah well, there still is Gestalt and early levels... now I just need to see if I can get the requisite Formulae known by level 3 to pull one off at that level...

This should be fun.

[Re'ozul]

Only if you're missing frequently. If you have a decent chance of hitting, you can just fight normally until you run out of formulae. Nobody says that you have to recover everything every round just because you can.

Edit: Also, I just changed the sublime shaper slightly. You can only recover one ability per round from shaping formulae or initiating maneuvers. A full attack lets you recover two abilities of your choice.

I know you don't have to. Objectively its not a bad thing within a fight, but theres just something about that irks me. Mostly the fact thats its a two-action conditional recharge.

It also makes it impossible to use some minor formulae outside of combat. My spellshape champion has glimmering moon as one of his circles. Outside of combat he could only use the invisibility formula (minor 2nd level) once. He would not be able to stay invisible by chaining it to sneak somehwere or anything like this.

These are of course minor facts, but I just can't get over the fact that the necessity for quick recovery has an interaction clause. It just feels weird that the champion can literally not recover formulae quickly on his own.



The class is designed with the assumption that you will wearing armor. The sublime shaper gets an AC bonus because it can only wear light armor. If you play a spellshape champion and choose to only wear light armor, that is your build decision. The design intent, however, is for you to be more heavily armored.

Crusaders don't get an AC bonus at all, while swordsages do. I don't think anyone has raised Cain about that.

True, but at the same time Swordsages are a 3/4th BAB class with a d8 hitdie and no equivalent to martial mage (except the bit of weapon focus).



Yes, but almost no other base class gets a bonus to shaper level higher than +2, anyway. I might actually decide to drop the Martial Mage bonus by 1 across the board. And see my comments on the crusader, in terms of the AC bonus--the spellshape champion actually has a leg up on official classes in this case. Heavy armor plus a possible +12 untyped bonus to AC? Makes it pretty hard to get hit more than once.


Actually I absolutely don't care about the increase in shaper level since, as you say, it only really has an impact in overcoming SR and as such only plays a role in later levels. Hitting as such is more important as a Champion still does normal weapon damage if he fails to penetrate SR.
On account of only getting hit once. In order for that to work you have to face an enemy that does 30+ damage in one hit but I see what you mean.

I just can never really get the appeal of heavy armor though. Its horribly expensive to make better via special materials. Its Dex modifier is so restrictive that unless your normal Dex is lower than 10 anything above a +2 item is wasted. Armor bonus is worthless against touch.
Aside from low level games where you won't face many touch-based enemies and the substantial armor bonus is good for something I never get the appeal.


I tried to math it so that spellshape attacks stayed relatively close to weapons in terms of damage. 5d6 is supposed to map onto 2d6 + STR + Power Attack.

I don't know much about the math behind two-weapon fighting, but I WILL point out that you wouldn't benefit from it as a spellshape champion. Formulae mention "a single" attack with the relevant spellshape attack. Doesn't matter how many weapons you have.

You're right about what happens when you channel a spellshape attack through a Spellheart Weapon. The idea was to offer a stylistic choice for people who wanted to actually change the weapon into the attack.

I'm pretty sure Strength remains important, though, since you still need it to hit. Spellheart Weapons are still normal (non-touch) melee attacks.

I have yet to see anyone power-attacking in my games. That is not to say that I consider your damage calculations bad. In fact, a two handed fighter without power attack can still easily keep up with spellshape damage.

Who says you need to use a formula when fully manifesting a spellheart weapon? It only mentions you need to channel through the weapon.
I found another bit of text that probably disallows TWF though:
"Once per round during your turn, you can channel a spellshape attack into a melee weapon as a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity."
The "a" would imply "one" and as such rule out two weapon fighting i guess.

With weapon finesse you don't need strenght to hit.

[DonQuixote]

I know you don't have to. Objectively its not a bad thing within a fight, but theres just something about that irks me. Mostly the fact thats its a two-action conditional recharge.

It also makes it impossible to use some minor formulae outside of combat. My spellshape champion has glimmering moon as one of his circles. Outside of combat he could only use the invisibility formula (minor 2nd level) once. He would not be able to stay invisible by chaining it to sneak somehwere or anything like this.

These are of course minor facts, but I just can't get over the fact that the necessity for quick recovery has an interaction clause. It just feels weird that the champion can literally not recover formulae quickly on his own.

Hrm. You raise a point on the out-of-combat issue. I'll postulate on it a bit later in the evening, when I'm not supposed to be working.

Edit: Postulation has now occurred. It's now just a move action to recover all your formulae, with the exception of any that you shaped in the current round. If you have not shaped any formulae in the current round, you instead recover all of your expended formulae with the exception of any that you shaped in the previous round.

Basically, you can't shape the same thing two rounds in a row.


True, but at the same time Swordsages are a 3/4th BAB class with a d8 hitdie and no equivalent to martial mage (except the bit of weapon focus).

Fair enough. I'll knock the sublime shaper down to 3/4 BAB and d8 hit dice. Kind of makes more sense that way, anyway.


Actually I absolutely don't care about the increase in shaper level since, as you say, it only really has an impact in overcoming SR and as such only plays a role in later levels. Hitting as such is more important as a Champion still does normal weapon damage if he fails to penetrate SR.
On account of only getting hit once. In order for that to work you have to face an enemy that does 30+ damage in one hit but I see what you mean.

I just can never really get the appeal of heavy armor though. Its horribly expensive to make better via special materials. Its Dex modifier is so restrictive that unless your normal Dex is lower than 10 anything above a +2 item is wasted. Armor bonus is worthless against touch.
Aside from low level games where you won't face many touch-based enemies and the substantial armor bonus is good for something I never get the appeal.

Again, though, I have--every step of the way--intended for the spellshape champion to end up wearing heavy armor. Originally, you had to scale up to it...which I ended up thinking was stupid, so I changed it.


I have yet to see anyone power-attacking in my games. That is not to say that I consider your damage calculations bad. In fact, a two handed fighter without power attack can still easily keep up with spellshape damage.

Who says you need to use a formula when fully manifesting a spellheart weapon? It only mentions you need to channel through the weapon.
I found another bit of text that probably disallows TWF though:
"Once per round during your turn, you can channel a spellshape attack into a melee weapon as a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity."
The "a" would imply "one" and as such rule out two weapon fighting i guess.

I mean, the spellshape champion was never intended for skirmishing or flashy tactics. It was always supposed to be the warrior, tank-y type. I had pretty much always envisioned it wearing heavy armor and carrying a shield, with a miscellaneous weapon in the other hand.


With weapon finesse you don't need strenght to hit.

Right, but, again, my vision of the class has always been of it being in heavy armor. You generally don't put much into Dexterity if you're wearing heavy armor, so you don't tend to pick up Weapon Finesse.


I'm not trying to say that you can't play a lightly armored, Dexterity-based spellshape champion. It's just that my vision for the class is...well...somewhat different.

[Re'ozul]

That change to the recovery mechanic makes it perfectly fine in my eyes.

Since the other stuff is basically just a matter of your concept based design decisions versus my personal opinions on sensibility its useless to debate over those.

I'll most likely look at circles next. I can already say that I consider Glimmering Moon, Brilliant Dawn and Natural Balance a bit stronger than the others.
Astral Essence and Eternal Moment though are also very interesting.

[NineThePuma]

I just wanna say that I'm going through and adapting The Codices to my campaign setting, and they're having to get split into MtG colors. So far, it looks pretty cool. Some of the colors ended up with "too many" circles, so I shuffled them off to somewhere else.

Black: Devouring Shadow, Deteriorating Corrosion
Blue: Roaring Tide, Eternal Moment, Glimmering Moon
Green: Astral Essence, Nature's Balance
Red: Searing Flame, Shocking Current, Crushing Stone,
White: Brilliant Dawn, Blustering Gale,

Which leaves Perfect Freeze and Unseen Impetuous without a slot, though I might go with PF on Black and Unseen Impetus on White.

May I ask for your input?

[DonQuixote]

I think that some (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=47599) cards (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=43500) imply (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=73571) where Perfect Freeze would be.

And Unseen Impetus could be argued for White. It doesn't really make much sense anywhere else, so sure.

I think that the only one of your assignments that I wouldn't be too sure on is Glimmering Moon as blue. Madness (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=12406) has (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=34222) its (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=31867) place (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=79168). Though, to be fair, it can sometimes be ambiguous (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83597).

[NineThePuma]

Yeah, Perfect Freeze as Blue is something I saw, but didn't want to overload Blue with.

However, that's a good point on the madness.

Another tough one is Blustering Gale, because Air is typically Blue in nature; I gave it to White because white was seriously lacking.

[DonQuixote]

The Flamespeaker (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2801.0) is up because nobody is allowed to doubt what my favorite element is. (No, it is not water.)

[Ralasha]

Codex I file is missing. Just thought I would bring that to your attention.

[radmelon]

Are you planning to make base classes devoted to other circles?

[DonQuixote]

Codex I file is missing. Just thought I would bring that to your attention.

This right here is why I shouldn't try to update links when I'm tired. What actually happened was that, when I pasted the new url into the tag, I accidentally included some of the characters from the old link.


Are you planning to make base classes devoted to other circles?

Honestly, I have no idea. The problem is that if I go down that path far enough, I'd have to write fourteen base classes. The flamespeaker was really a return to the beginning of the system--and, if I'm quite honest, a bit of a present to myself.

We'll see, but I wouldn't necessarily hold your breath. If it does happen, it will be after I attempt the remaining stuff on my to-do list, which includes:


Screeching Roc - A sound-based circle and an unapologetic pun.
Elemental Adept Options - Alternative secondary elemental circles, paraelemental adepts, and feats desgined for elemental companions.
Fleeting Image - An illusion-based circle.
One or more prestige classes based on combining Brilliant Dawn and Devouring Shadow.


Bear in mind, as I've said before, that I'm going to be attempting these things and there is no guarantee of success. I include this disclaimer primarily for the purpose of discussing the new circles--the other two things are more or less certain, though they might be tweaked.

[Ralasha]

How about a Universal Caster? More limited, but more versatile.

[radmelon]

Frankly, I'd rather see the stuff on the list already before the focused base classes. They seem much more interesting. I was asking merely out of curiosity.

[Re'ozul]

Ohhhh, new class:

General Feel: A monk and a barbarian one day found a baby Azer and raised him.
The feel is fun. It takes two of the lesser classes, strips away some abilities leaving a balanced rest, and forges it in fire.

Blaze: Well, its firey rage...

Burn: Look at me glow. The extra die of damage is good considering its just fire (until later). Burning people are also fun. But: Does the "people who attack you are damaged" part to just the 1d6 from Burn or full spallshape damage?

Flame's Blessing: Monk AC bonus, good.

Searing touch: So its an iterative touch attack? Actually pretty nice.

Secret of flame: I guess one of the first things people will choose are circles that usually deal half elemental half untyped and get the minor fomula that allows to do full untyped. Thats the only actualy exploit I can see and its a very minor one. I like the image it creates in my head:
"Why did you choose to learn this? I can do it already."
"You use brute bludgeoning force, I use fire."
"So?"
"EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH FIRE!"

Burning Grace: I don't quite get the logic of the enemy being hrut when you fail a saving throw. Wouldn't it make more sense if you made the save?

Control Fire: Awesome.

Elemental Command: Why water subtype? Wouldn't cold subtype be more logical?

Burning Glare: Maybe a maximum Range? Otherwise I can see a lot of sniping shenanigans happening.

Devoted Pyromancer: New Battle strategy. Ignite torch, throw into middle of battle, start control flame and increase fire as much as possible. Very good this one. Can be very fun.

Shape of flame: While very well thought out, I can't really see the big use.

Flamewalker: When you have to ge somewhere fast. I feel reminded of the Floo-Network in Harry Potter.

Lesser Ascension: Does your immunity overcoming ability also overcome your own?

Searing Aura: Ouch.

Flaming Brilliance: What about things that are hurt by daylight?

Veins of Fire: Doesn't that hurt? I love elemental based healing. Volcanoes are now this characters favourite battleground.

Flamebreak: Nothing to say about this. Its well balanced and is a great mook-killer.

Master Pyromancer: More Dakka.

Undying Flame: Phylactery free, conditional immortality? Very nice. The "must be near open flame" bit is probably not necessary since even a torch can work.

Greater Ascension: Personally I would associate cold with fatigue and exhaustion and fire with daze and stun (or fright and panic due to "OH **** I'M ON FIRE").

Incinerating Blaze: Can't touch this ... without burning yourself.

Overall a very nice thematic build. This guy would be a monster in close combat though sadly won't work too well with other melee people unless they keep their distance.

[DonQuixote]

How about a Universal Caster? More limited, but more versatile.

What exactly do you mean by a Universal Caster, in this case? Someone who has access to all the circles? You'd still be limited by your formulae known and the prerequisites, meaning that you'd effectively have to choose circles like a spellsage would.

Not saying that it's not an interesting idea, just that I need a little more of an idea of what you're suggesting.


Ohhhh, new class:

[Lots of stuff about the flamespeaker]

Burn just deals the burn damage to creatures hitting you, not your searing touch damage as well.

The idea behind Burning Grace is that your connection to fire is so powerful that even attacking you with magic is dangerous. I might change it after some thought.

Burning Glare now has a 60-foot range.

Elemental Command now lets you turn creatures with the cold or water subtypes.

The Devoted/Master Pyromancer abilities now note that they don't cause you to overcome your own resistance or immunity.

Shape of Flame is flavorful and situational. Need to listen in on a conversation? Get there ahead of time and hide in the fireplace. Need to get through a wall with a small hole in it? Turn into fire and squeeze through. Just a fun thing to have.

You can now suppress Searing Aura if you need to hang out with melee buddies.

Flaming Brilliance isn't sunlight, it's just brighter than sunlight. If things are specifically harmed by the sun, it doesn't matter how bright your flashlight is.

[Ralasha]

Flaming Brilliance isn't sunlight, it's just brighter than sunlight. If things are specifically harmed by the sun, it doesn't matter how bright your flashlight is.What if it's a UV flashlight? :smalltongue:

Not just someone that can cast from all circles necessarily... more... someone that can cast anything... but not as often or as well.

[vasharanpaladin]

The Flamespeaker (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2801.0) is up because nobody is allowed to doubt what my favorite element is. (No, it is not water.)

Dis class ain't burny enuff! You's muckin' about! :smallamused:

[DonQuixote]

Not just someone that can cast from all circles necessarily... more... someone that can cast anything... but not as often or as well.

Not sure exactly how to handle that, rules-wise--you can't know every formula, as that will play merry hell with everything, but you can't not "know" any formulae for the same reason. And you can't choose your formulae "known" each day, as that would play hell with your ability to qualify for prestige classes. Hrm. I'll put some thought into it, though.

In other news, dragonheart adept and sublime shaper were tweaked slightly in order to cripple a horrifying, horrifying build.

[NineThePuma]

What build was that?

[DonQuixote]

Mwahaha. I now have a simple, Cha-focused Idiot Impulse Mage. Disciple of the Circles really goes well with it, since you have so many refreshed formulae that you can't use them all no matter what you do. This is just a first draft, leaving as many of your choices open as possible. More specific versions could be made better.


Ability Scores:
Cha >>> Con/Dex > Int > Str/Wis

Alignment:
Any Lawful

Classes:
Dragonheart Mage 1
Sublime Shaper 1
Impulse Mage 1
Dragonheart Mage 2
Sublime Shaper 2
Edgewalker Knight 1
Edgewalker Knight 2
Edgewalker Knight 3
Edgewalker Knight 4
Elemental Channeler 1
Unseen Master 1
Disciple of the Circles 1
Disciple of the Circles 2
Disciple of the Circles 3
Disciple of the Circles 4
Disciple of the Circles 5
Disciple of the Circles 6
Disciple of the Circles 7
Disciple of the Circles 8
Disciple of the Circles 9

Feats:
Circle Focus (one of the elemental circles)
Circle Focus (Unseen Impetus)
Precise Shaper
Mobile Shaper
Other good feats for your open slots include Quicken Spellshape and Extend/Persistent Formula, and maybe a divine feat for your turn/rebuke attempts
You also get Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat

Skills:
Conc 8
K Arc 8
K Plane 8
Spellcraft 8
K Religion 8
(all of the above are class skills to all of your base classes and most of your PrCs, which generally give 4+ skills/level)

Circles:
Searing Flame, or one of the other dragon totem circles as appropriate
Devouring Shadow
Unseen Impetus
2 more
*And another circle related to your element via Elemental Channeler

Disciplines:
Tiger Claw
Devoted Spirit
2 more

7+3 formulae occuring
SL 18th, IL 13th
BaB 2+1+4+6=13
Fort 3+0+0+4+0+0+6=13
Ref 0+3+2+1+0+0+6=12
Will 3+3+2+4+2+2+6=22
Cha to saves
Cha as luck to one save (Dark One's Own Luck invocation)
Cha+1 to natural armor
Cha to AC
Cha +5 to AC

Each round, you recover 10 formulae and 2 maneuvers/formulae
Each round you spend...
1 formula on a major spellshape (Standard/Full-round)
1 formula on formula level to AC
1 formula (4th or higher) on a 50% miss chance
1 formula on 10x formula level to speed
1 formula on teleporting 5x formula level
possibly 1 formula on Greater Disciple's Strike
1 formula on formula level to saves
possibly 1 formula on a minor formula (Swift)
possibly 1 formula on 7x formula level healing (Move)

You can also cast Invisibility at will on self (24 hour duration), can move unattended objects, get a spellshape aura according to your dragon's circle (45 ft. radius), have Imp Evasion and regular Mettle (which should see regular use with those saves), unlimited self-healing, +9 attack/damage on all melee spellshape attacks, turn/rebuke (3+Cha per day), darkvision 60', immunity to fear, poison, and disease, 4xCha pool of lay on hands (that replenishes when you attack with withering hand), healed by positive and negative energy, Elemental Shape 1/day, Prestidigitation and Detect Magic as SLAs, immunity to the negative effects of your formulae (all negative effects), don't provoke AoOs for spellshapes and formulae, a pair of claws, a breath weapon, 4 1st-level stances, 4 1st-level maneuvers, a few higher level Devoted Spirit maneuvers (depending on when you take the Edgewalker Knight levels), and +1 to initiative.



This build. Note how it had Charisma to its AC three times.

[NineThePuma]

And what did you change to kill it?

[DonQuixote]

Scales was broken into a normal AC bonus, like that received by swordsage and sublime shaper. Said AC bonus--and the one on sublime shaper--was noted as not stacking with similar effects.

Sublime shaper's guard now only applies to your sublime shaper formulae.

[SamBurke]

Hrm... I may use this in a PF game, actually!

What'd you change to cripple that build? I was thinking about using those as some dips...

[DonQuixote]

Dragonheart Adept: Scales is now two abilities, one of which gives you Charisma to AC as a generic AC bonus ability--so it doesn't stack with Sublime Shaper's AC bonus. The AC bonus is now noted as not stacking with that from disciple of the circles. There's also the natural armor bonus equal to 1/2 your class level.

Sublime Shaper: The AC bonus is now noted as not stacking with that from disciple of the circles. The Sublime Guard ability only applies to your Sublime Shaper formulae.

Battle Sage: The AC bonus is now noted as not stacking with that from disciple of the circles.

Disciple of the Circles: Disciple's Strike now functions with all spellshape attacks made through spellshape hand.

The general idea is that I'm not breaking anything that any of the classes do, I'm just keeping you from stacking too many things.

There's a new Codex II PDF, incidentally, containing those last two changes.

General Update: I've begun poking around for Screeching Roc ideas. We'll see what I come up with, and how readily it can be turned into a circle.

Update to the Update: Seventeen ideas so far, with all the easy options for inspiration exhausted. By which I mean that I've already looked at every spell with the [Sonic] descriptor. I also feel like there aren't enough minor formulae thus far--only three possibilities at the moment, and I want to have closer to five or six.

[gparali]

Hello.

Firstly, I would like to say that your work is amazing and that I will surely try it when I make a new character.

Now, onto the questions. I mainly want to ask some things about the dragonheart adept.

1) How does the breath weapon and lamen interact? Can you use them together?
If you can, does the lamen property affect all those who failed their Ref saves?

2) how does the breath weapon interact with breath feats? (Races of the dragon). Can you use them? Mainly asking about the entangling Exhalation feat.

3) What happens if you use a formula and metabreath feats together.
ex. Lingering Breath: Do people who enter the cloud suffer only normal spellshape attack damage? Do they suffer both damage and are subject to the effects of the formula?

4) If i have the Endure exposure invocation. Can i make my allies completly immune to my formulas? Does it affect only damage or all the effects (like the debuffs or creation of difficult terrain)

5)I guess draconic empowerment affects only one attack? ex. only one of your claws?

Sorry for any grammatical or other errors.
Some of the questions are simple and i can guess the answer but i want to make sure.
Thanks!

[bindin garoth]

Update to the Update: Seventeen ideas so far, with all the easy options for inspiration exhausted. By which I mean that I've already looked at every spell with the [Sonic] descriptor. I also feel like there aren't enough minor formulae thus far--only three possibilities at the moment, and I want to have closer to five or six.

Few ideas:
-Minor: The caster creates a highly dense sound wave around them, giving them a deflection bonus to ac.
-Major: The formula causes the floor around the target to shatter, creating difficult terrain.
-Minor: Creates a sound wave that resonates with the weapons of your allies, granting them all a bonus to damage rolls.
-Minor: All of your [spellshape attack] become much more forceful, pushing any enemy hit back 5ft (fort negates).

[DonQuixote]

1) How does the breath weapon and lamen interact? Can you use them together?
If you can, does the lamen property affect all those who failed their Ref saves?

Lamens apply to spellshape breath weapons, yes. The effects of a lamen are applied to your spellshape attacks--as a dragonheart adept, your spellshape breath weapon is treated as being a spellshape attack that has been modified with Sculpt Spellshape.

For pretty much all purposes, a creature that fails its save against a Sculpted Spellshape (or spellshape breath weapon) is treated as having been hit by your attack. Creatures that make their saves, of course, are treated as not having been hit.

Amusingly--and this is something that I'm pretty much entirely okay with, so it's going to stay--the text reads "Creatures that fail their save," not "Creatures that take full damage." As such, Improved Evasion does not allow you to just ignore the effects of such a formula.


2) how does the breath weapon interact with breath feats? (Races of the dragon). Can you use them? Mainly asking about the entangling Exhalation feat.

Technically yes, as it is a breath weapon. However, hilariously, you don't get the dragonblood subtype until level 10.


3) What happens if you use a formula and metabreath feats together.
ex. Lingering Breath: Do people who enter the cloud suffer only normal spellshape attack damage? Do they suffer both damage and are subject to the effects of the formula?

I would say no, but this gets into very vague territory. Thing is, my internal flavor interpretation is somewhat inconsistent on the question of whether a formula alters the nature of a spellshape attack or whether the spellshape attack is simply a component of the formula.

Again, I'm going to come down on the "no" side here, simply because it messes too much with how formulae work. The feat specifies that creatures that enter the area are subject to the effects of the breath weapon. Your formulae are technically distinct from your spellshape breath weapon--as indicated by your ability to channel them through melee attacks. If the breath lingers after the formula is shaped, it's just the damaging part of the breath--the magic has already been discharged.


4) If i have the Endure exposure invocation. Can i make my allies completly immune to my formulas? Does it affect only damage or all the effects (like the debuffs or creation of difficult terrain)

Again, they're immune to the effects of your breath weapon. If they are in the area, they take no damage and are not affected by the formula--since that is, at the moment, associated with the breath weapon. However, if a formula causes secondary effects, the ally will still be affected by those, just as they would be if you shaped the formula through a melee attack.


5)I guess draconic empowerment affects only one attack? ex. only one of your claws?

Which part? The enhancement bonus applies to everything. Channeling a spellshape attack, however, can only be done through a single attack--which doesn't really matter, since formulae specify that you make only one attack.


Few ideas:
-Minor: The caster creates a highly dense sound wave around them, giving them a deflection bonus to ac.
-Major: The formula causes the floor around the target to shatter, creating difficult terrain.
-Minor: Creates a sound wave that resonates with the weapons of your allies, granting them all a bonus to damage rolls.
-Minor: All of your [spellshape attack] become much more forceful, pushing any enemy hit back 5ft (fort negates).

Already toying with some of these, though I'm going to apologize for not letting you break the floor. Much as I want to--shatterfloor is a [Sonic] spell, after all--I'm going to let Crushing Stone keep that toy.

I've started assigning levels to things and polishing up the effects. Everything's still in shorthand, of course, and I haven't started adding damage or any formatting. Still, some sneak peeks:

2 - Inner Ear Problems - Major, Spellshape Attack - Fort negates - Must make Balance check or move at half speed, 20% miss chance on all attacks. Creatures with immunity to critical hits are unaffected.

3 - Noise-Cancelling Headphones - Minor - Immunity to sonic and language-dependent mind-affecting abilities, take 1/2 damage from sonic effects.

6 - Terrible Pitch - Major, Spellshape Attack - Fort negates - Deal damage to self and creatures in 10-foot radius whenever speaking or casting spells with verbal components.
6 - Seriously, To Hell With Your Inner Ear - Major, Spellshape Attack - Fort negates - Must make Balance check to move, move at half speed even on a successful check, 50% miss chance on all attacks. Creatures with immunity to critical hits are unaffected.

9 - I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream - Major, Spellshape Attack - Fort negates - Deafened, cannot speak or make any sounds, take sonic damage each round from internal resonating. Each round, must make Fortitude save or be nauseated. Sickened even on successful save. On failed save, periodic damage increases. After X rounds (when effect ends), explode in cacophony that deals sonic damage to self and creatures within 10-foot radius. Damage is based on number of failed saves.

[gparali]

ok

so, and sorry for sticking with the same matter:

1) As far as lingering breath goes, people who enter the cloud just suffer the base spellshape attack damage

and

2) Using endure exposure allies would be immune to the damage but not secondary effects.
Do secondary effects include everything beyond damage or just things like the green slime created by "Vitriolic flood" or the pools of acid created by "Corrosive sludge" and "Acrid Pool"?

Thanks

[DonQuixote]

1) As far as lingering breath goes, people who enter the cloud just suffer the base spellshape attack damage

Yes, plus any non-formula effects that increase said damage. Spellshape Focus, for instance, or an appropriate lamen. Technically, any lamen effects would also apply, so there you go.

This ruling is kind of weird to do, as it lies in one of those amusing areas that were Not Meant To Be. Formulae are modeled off of a system that uses melee attacks, which are generally an instantaneous thing. I then built a way for you to affect an area with your "attacks," since I figured that you are a magic-user, for crying out loud. I then adapted this to a dragon-y class, which brought in the breath weapon feats. I'm pretty sure that nobody at Wizards of the Coast ever said "But what if they apply Lingering Breath to one of their maneuvers?"

Technically, I suppose that I could rule against using metabreath and breath channeling feats on your spellshape breath weapon, but it feels kind of silly to do so. Given that you only get seven feats, I can't see it being that huge of a problem.

One thing that I will clarify about metabreath feats, though, is that Quicken Breath does not apply to formulae. It specifies that you can use your breath weapon as a free action, which is nice, but that doesn't change the shaping action of your formulae.


2) Using endure exposure allies would be immune to the damage but not secondary effects.
Do secondary effects include everything beyond damage or just things like the green slime created by "Vitriolic flood" or the pools of acid created by "Corrosive sludge" and "Acrid Pool"?

Basically, allies immune to the effects of your breath weapon are not directly affected by any formulae attached to that breath weapon. They are not treated as being hit by your spellshape attack for any purposes. However, they are not immune to effects created by formulae. The examples you listed are good...well...examples, yes. For another example, let's look at Plague of Lunacy--a seventh-level Glimmering Moon formula. If your spellshape attack hits, your target becomes confused for five rounds. Your allies are unaffected by this. They do not find anything to be confusing--except, possibly, issues related to how one defines existence, reality, and life.

However! Plague of Lunacy has an additional effect: "Anyone the victim touches while confused must also make a Will save at the formula’s DC or become confused for five rounds as well. Each additional victim can then pass on the madness for as long as he is confused." Endure exposure does not protect allies from this effect, just as it doesn't protect them from the green slime or allow them to walk casually through difficult terrain created by one of your formulae.

[DonQuixote]

So, the beginning of the semester slapped me in the face with a workload, so development of Screeching Roc slowed dramatically in the middle of last week. However, as of today, I've figured out what all the formulae will do, so I only have to name them and type everything up in non-shorthand.

Secondly! My girlfriend playtested a flamedancer last night, and she raised an interesting point. Entering as a swordsage/spellshape champion, she had four readied maneuvers and four prepared formulae. However, recovering maneuvers took a full-round action, while recovering formulae was a move action. Moreover, advancing as a flamedancer gives you three more maneuvers readied and two more formulae prepared, making recovery incredibly painful, even at higher levels.

Is there any reason that I shouldn't hand the sublime shaper's recovery mechanic to flamedancers and edgewalker knights? It would specify that you cannot recover any maneuvers or formulae in any other way in a round in which you benefited from it, obviously.

The one potential problem would be crusaders and impulse mages, but I think that--as written--choosing to recover a maneuver by shaping a formula (or vice versa) would simply prevent you from doing the "big refresh" that re-scrambles your maneuvers and formulae.

[NineThePuma]

Is there any reason that I shouldn't hand the sublime shaper's recovery mechanic to flamedancers and edgewalker knights? It would specify that you cannot recover any maneuvers or formulae in any other way in a round in which you benefited from it, obviously.

The one potential problem would be crusaders and impulse mages, but I think that--as written--choosing to recover a maneuver by shaping a formula (or vice versa) would simply prevent you from doing the "big refresh" that re-scrambles your maneuvers and formulae.

I don't see a particular reason not to.

And it wouldn't stop the big refresh, because the big refresh is based on you not having any maneuvers to "grant" from the "ungranted" pile. Technically, you could have all your maneuvers unexpended and go through the "big refresh" -- For crusaders anyway.

I'm messing with the Sublime Shaper, and I think Rebuke Spell could use a tweak; instead of making it exactly as counter spelling (which is, like, a crappy thing to do), change it to an immediate action maybe?

[DonQuixote]

Well, I've given anyone who wanted to object the chance to do so, and I've heard only affirmative responses, so I'm going to plunge ahead with doing so!


And it wouldn't stop the big refresh, because the big refresh is based on you not having any maneuvers to "grant" from the "ungranted" pile. Technically, you could have all your maneuvers unexpended and go through the "big refresh" -- For crusaders anyway.

Actually, the way that I've worded it, I think it might:


You may not recover maneuvers or formulae in any other way in which you recover an ability in this way.


If, at the end of your turn, you cannot be granted a maneuver because you have no withheld maneuvers remaining, you recover all expended maneuvers, and a new pair of readied maneuvers is granted to you.

Note that it specifies that you "recover" the maneuvers. Whereas, if you had benefited from Sublime Shaping, you cannot do so. This results in you not getting the big refresh, but it does not break everything--at the end of your next turn, if you didn't benefit from Sublime Shaping, the recovery mechanic will trigger again.



I'm messing with the Sublime Shaper, and I think Rebuke Spell could use a tweak; instead of making it exactly as counter spelling (which is, like, a crappy thing to do), change it to an immediate action maybe?

An excellent point. I'll do so in the near future--this coincides with a friend building a savant/dreamwalker and me building an elemental adept/spellforge warsmith, so I've been bumping into a few minor tweaks to make. This one has now been added to my "Errata To-Do" document.

[NineThePuma]

Does one of the Circles have teleports?

[DonQuixote]

Shocking Current has Arc Trail and Storm Leap, but no circle has a dedicated teleportation progression.

Technically, of course, anyone with Sculpt Spellshape and Shaper's Stride is capable of a certain level of teleportation--nowhere does it say that the sculpted spellshape has to deal damage to a creature for you to teleport into its area.

[NineThePuma]

.... Awesome. I just built something vaguely resembling Meepo. Except a lack of clones. Which I might be able to fake... or find a way to get Body Outside of Body working without disrupting this whole thing too badly.

[DonQuixote]

Not sure who Meepo is, but I think the only "clone" thing you can do within the spellshaping material would be taking one level in elemental adept (earth) and carving your earth elemental to look like you. A quick lick of paint may also be necessary.




Elemental Adept - Elemental Companion - Add an enhancement bonus to AC equal to 1/4 master's shaper level to "Devotion" ability.
Elemental Adept - Elemental Companion - Add an enhancement bonus on attack rolls equal to 1/4 master's shaper level to "Elemental Strike" ability.
Spellshape Champion - Break up "Armor Mastery" ability, splitting its benefits over several levels.
Corrosive Blade - Remove "Skirmishing Shaper" ability
Darkened One - Change duration of "Dominate Soul" ability to five rounds, with a save each round to end the effect.
Edgewalker Knight - Change "Knight's Oath" ability to just let you shape all formulae in armor. It's just easier that way.
Edgewalker Knight and Flamedancer - Add "Sublime Shaping" ability
Elemental Channeler - Increase daily uses of "Elemental Shape" ability to equal your class level.
Flamedancer - Change enhancement bonus on fire blade to 1/4 shaper level (rather than 1/2 class level)
Hand of Death's Chill - Clean up wording on "Touch of Chill Death" ability
Unseen Master - Put a limit on "Concealed Stride" and "Unfettered Sight" abilities. Why did you think that was a good idea, again?
Unseen Master - Remove Mindsight feat from "Telepathy" ability.
Unseen Master - Change daily uses of "Alter Memory" ability to once per day.
Woodspeaker - Add a paragraph break in "Nature's Rejuvenation" ability.
Woodspeaker - Change "Call Brambles" ability to have no daily limit, add dismissal, make move action.
Woodspeaker - Change "Call Healing Spore" ability to once per encounter.
Woodspeaker - Change "Body of the Forest" ability to give you traits and change your type, rather than giving you a template.




Spellshape Paragon - Clarify that, because you do not learn a new formula at 2nd level, the number of formulae you know at all higher levels is reduced by 1 (to a maximum number of formulae known of 21)
Spellshape Paragon - Change "rebuke spell" ability to immediate action.
Heighten Formula - Add: "In addition, major formulae that add damage to your spellshape attacks add an extra two dice of damage for each level by which you heighten the formula."
Spellforge Warsmith - Change enhancement bonuses to 1/4 shaper level (rather than 1/2 class level)
Spellforge Warsmith - Change the "Spellforge Armor" ability to grant immunity to the appropriate damage type (as by Spellshape Paragon), rather than dealing retributive damage.
Wildheart Mage - Add to "Fey Transformation" ability, making the tenth level in the class more compelling (especially for caymir)



Sublime Shaper - Change "rebuke spell" ability to immediate action

[gparali]

Just a question. Since your inspiration is ToB, is there a reason your Circles don't include immediate action effects like the ToB?

Keep up the good work!

Edit: Just came to me, an unarmed variant of the Sublime Shaper would make a pretty good character from Avatar the Last airbender :smallsmile:

[DonQuixote]

A part of the caster/melee balance seems to be predicated on casters being squishy. If melee characters are better defending themselves (see: Counters), it gives them a slight edge.

That's the excuse. The actual reason is that I couldn't easily come up with counter ideas, based on the fact that the spellshapers are usually not supposed to be engaged in close combat.

[DonQuixote]

Screeching Roc (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3095.0) is up.

[Amechra]

Well, I recently found this piece of awesome again. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19525490/Blade_Scholar_%28new_martial_adept_base_class%29)

This could very well be used for a Spellshaper who can "cast anything", methinks.

[SamBurke]

That.... is a really, really, good school. That's what I expected out of all of them, actually: some good attacks, with more uses than just damage. Nicely done.

[DonQuixote]

Well, I recently found this piece of awesome again. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19525490/Blade_Scholar_%28new_martial_adept_base_class%29)

This could very well be used for a Spellshaper who can "cast anything", methinks.

It's certainly a good starting place! I'll keep poking around at the idea.


That.... is a really, really, good school. That's what I expected out of all of them, actually: some good attacks, with more uses than just damage. Nicely done.

Oh, huzzah! I was actually uncertain of this circle--it felt like I recycled too many things. Good to hear that it's not absolutely horrible!


In errata-cycle news, I've finished writing up all the errata in my Word documents. I'll start PDF-ing and updating the forum posts tomorrow.

Update: All errata has been applied, updated, and posted.

[gparali]

I am making a Sublime Shaper as an enemy for some PCs and a question came up. You can use iterative attacks with spellshaping attacks. What about two weapon fighting. Can, for example, a sublime shaper fight with a sword in one hand and withering touch on the other? What about using withering touch on both hands?

Edit: Also, what about a monk/shaper or a shaper with natural attacks. Can he use his natural weapons to attack and channel withering touch?

[gparali]

Edit: Damn server

[DonQuixote]

I am making a Sublime Shaper as an enemy for some PCs and a question came up. You can use iterative attacks with spellshaping attacks. What about two weapon fighting. Can, for example, a sublime shaper fight with a sword in one hand and withering touch on the other? What about using withering touch on both hands?

Withering hand is not a weapon, technically. It's a weapon-like spell-like ability. It doesn't exist until you shape the attack, so you are not treated as having the weapon until you take the attack option to shape it. You are never actually wielding two weapons for any length of time beyond the span of the actual attack, so I'd rule that it doesn't count for Two-Weapon Fighting. This is the same logic behind the fact that you cannot use withering hand to initiate martial maneuvers, as well as the fact that you do not threaten nearby squares with it.

You cannot make withering touch attacks with both hands for the same reason that you can't throw your sword to your other hand really quickly for an extra attack. It's the same attack form.


Edit: Also, what about a monk/shaper or a shaper with natural attacks. Can he use his natural weapons to attack and channel withering touch?

No. You can only channel a touch spell through natural weapons or unarmed strike if you're holding the charge. However, since withering hand is a spellshape attack, not a spell, you cannot hold the charge.

[SamBurke]

Would you ever make multi class feats for these classes? For example, making them viable weapons for a monk's Flurry of Blows?

[DonQuixote]

Certainly not something that I'll rule out, though I don't have any plans at the moment. I'll note that my attempt to write a spellshaper/monk prestige class ended up turning into the Disciple of the Circles.

Incidentally, I wrote a lot of stuff for the elemental adept (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=851.msg38483#msg38483). Because I can.

[DonQuixote]

Well, with Screeching Roc and the new elemental adept options done, looks like I'm going to begin trying to throw together Fleeting Image, the illusion circle.

Now, I want to preface this one, since I have absolutely no idea if I'll be able to complete it. We're talking about twenty-one single target, weaponized illusion effects. If anyone has any suggestions of spells for me to look at, that would surely help. As it is, I'm about to base a circle of formulae on a school of magic that I've never been particularly drawn to. Should be interesting.

Also, because pretty much everyone I know is playing an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, it looks like there's going to be a prismatic circle at some point in the future. God help me.

[NineThePuma]

Meepo is a DotA character.

Meta shaping feats. Can they be used in conjunction with just your Spellshape attack?

[DonQuixote]

Hrm. Technically, as written, they can't. After reading your post, I started thinking about how to make it work. I bumped into a few problems.

Thing is, degrees. They're there to keep metashaping in check. Now, your spellshape attacks technically do have levels--a spellshape attack is the equivalent of a spell with a level equal to 1/2 your shaper level (round down). This means that, with degrees in play, you'd only be able to apply a 1st-degree metashaping feat to a spellshape attack at level 20.

So, if I allowed you to apply metashaping feats to spellshape attacks, I'd have to address that problem first. Then we get into issues associated with applying some metashaping feats to spellshape attacks. Remember, spellshape attacks are attack actions, so you can get iterative attacks with them. Elemental adept gets three attacks from its base attack bonus, and builds getting up to four attacks would surely not be difficult. Hence some of the problems with...

Quicken Spellshape
A free extra attack each round, which has no verbal or somatic components? Not exactly broken, but it makes me uneasy.

Maximize Formula and Empowered Formula
Maximum/empowered damage on all of your attacks in a full attack? Again, makes me uneasy.

Sculpt Spellshape and Related Feats
So, with your attack actions, you can just blow up everything. Extra crazy with Shaper's Stride, which would let you move across the battlefield while doing it. Sort of an area-of-effect dervish. Feels more breakable than the earlier ones. Especially since you could use Shaper's Stride to move roughly 1,200 feet in a single round.

Chain Spellshape
Hoo boy, this one is long.
It's not that hard to work your way to four attacks, so you can feasibly get to the point at which your full attack deals 20d6 damage--four 5d6 touch attacks, no saving throw. Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape Focus bring that up to 28d6, and an empowering lamen gets you to 32d6. Now, that's a build pretty much devoted entirely to damage, so...okay, let's accept that.

But let's say that you're committed to this. You take Circle Focus (Searing Flame or Crushing Stone) and take a level in lavamancer. You also take Precise Shaper, Improved Spellshape Critical, and Greater Spellshape Critical. You then upgrade to a volatile empowering surge lamen. Now, you take Chain Spellshape.

Your full attack consists of four touch attacks, each of which deals 8d6 points of fire damage and threatens critical on a roll of 10-20. Now, this itself doesn't bother me--after all, that's a full-round action, four attack rolls, and takes up most of your character advancement decisions. It's also fire damage, and I'm fairly certain that the options that give you the ability to flat-out ignore immunity to fire would also prevent you from reaching the full four attacks. Okay, so it's a lot of damage. That's...acceptable.

However, you also picked up Chain Spellshape. So, that's four attacks against one creature and up to twenty creatures within 30 feet of it. Assuming no crits and average damage rolls, that's 112 damage in a 30-foot area that only hits creatures you want it to. Now, assume that half of those were criticals--that bumps it up to 168 damage each, with an additional 56 next round. If you throw in Incinerating Blast and Solar Radiance, that's another 164 damage--which, fortunately, isn't multiplied on a crit. Let's also say that you started as an elemental adept and have a +10 Charisma modifier, just because.

That's a total of 428 damage, in one full-round action. Since we assumed that you started as an elemental adept, you also get to deal a "mere" 306 damage next round while you recover your Incinerating Blast, then another 428 damage the next round. That's a total of 1,162 (mostly) fire damage, over three rounds. Easily repeatable. That averages 387 damage per round, or 775 damage over two rounds.

Why did I calculate damage over two rounds? Comparative purposes. The mailman sorcerer build has a two-round maneuver called the "Surge of Fortune Shuffle." Over two rounds, you deal 810 fire damage to a single target, over two touch attacks. This requires at least 21st level, and costs a 9th-level spell slot, a 7th-level spell slot, and some experience.

Now, it's close, right? The spellshaper build does less damage, admittedly a level lower, but who's counting? The problem is that Chain Spellshape feat that you picked up. Whereas the mailman's maneuver affects only a single target, you're affecting pretty much everything that you want in a 30-foot area. While you don't have his crazy bonuses to your attack rolls or your checks to overcome SR, you're hitting about twenty more enemies than he is.

I don't have a problem with something like this against a single target, since damage is fairly easy to optimize and you've most likely been putting a decent amount of your resources into this. However, when you start chaining the full attack, it gets out of hand. Quickly.


Technically, I could fix all of this by changing spellshape attacks to standard actions, rather than attack actions. However, I like the idea of magical attacks actually being attacks, and this feels like I'd be sacrificing that for little gain.

In the end, being able to put metashaping on spellshape attacks would either require me to change several aspects of the system or severely restrict what metashaping feats you could apply to your attacks. I like the feel of the system as it is now, so I'd prefer not to do that. And, looking at the metashaping feats, I'm honestly not sure what would be left if I applied the sorts of restrictions that I feel would be necessary.

[NineThePuma]

Ah. Yes, there are issues. I hadn't thought about that. I was more trying to keep my build low level, but in retrospect, you're right that it would be too powerful.

[DonQuixote]

Status update time.

I've come up with a few ideas for Fleeting Image, though--amusingly--almost none of them involve actually creating images. Mostly, it's deceit and suchlike--though I'm very amused by one formula, which calls for a Will save against disbelieving in your own existence. The 9th-level formula, incidentally, might end up being a rip-off and a cop-out--essentially a shadow conjuration for formulae that lets you mimic any other formula if your target fails their Will save.

After looking at it briefly, I think I'm actually going to abandon the prismatic circle idea. It's just...too much. It would effectively be seven new circles in one, and I'm pretty sure that I'd run out of ideas long before completing 147 different effects. So, yeah, no.

I've also been bouncing around some ideas for more character options for the other base classes, along the same lines as the recent elemental adept material. We'll see if anything results from that.

[radmelon]

Yeah, I was somewhat suspicious of the prismatic circle myself.

[Mathias1313]

Love all the new updates. love all your work so far, keep it up man. :)
everyone I have shown this too so far has been very enthusiastic about it.

I have a couple of question and possibly some ideas for you to mull over.

1- In the Screeching Roc Circle (which I love btw) the harmonious hum line of formulae give a % miss chane and do damage if the opponent misses. The the opponent only suffer the damage when they miss due to the % miss chane or anytime they miss on an attack.

2- For the SpellForge Warsmith under Spellforge weapon it states the weapon is wielded as a Light weapon always but then you go on to say that you can use power attack normally, but power attack doesnt work with light weapons. I was wondering if maybe you could choose upon creation of the weapon wether to wield it as a light weapon, 1-handed weapon or even a 2-handed weapon instead thus opening up different options of playstyle.

3- I noticed you have a particular affinity for fire as there seems to be more content with firebased themes. I was wondering if you could do some more focused prestiges with the other elements. Particularily i was thinking it would be interesting if you made a Prestige class based on Gaara from Naruto. Basically have a Spellshaper specializing in Crushing stone with a focus on Sand. thought it would be pretty cool.

Anyway thanks again for all the hard work and I hope you continue expanding on the awesome idea.

[DonQuixote]

Love all the new updates. love all your work so far, keep it up man. :)
everyone I have shown this too so far has been very enthusiastic about it.

I have a couple of question and possibly some ideas for you to mull over.

1- In the Screeching Roc Circle (which I love btw) the harmonious hum line of formulae give a % miss chane and do damage if the opponent misses. The the opponent only suffer the damage when they miss due to the % miss chane or anytime they miss on an attack.

Every time they miss with a melee attack. Enjoy. Errata: Now only when they miss due to the miss chance.


2- For the SpellForge Warsmith under Spellforge weapon it states the weapon is wielded as a Light weapon always but then you go on to say that you can use power attack normally, but power attack doesnt work with light weapons. I was wondering if maybe you could choose upon creation of the weapon wether to wield it as a light weapon, 1-handed weapon or even a 2-handed weapon instead thus opening up different options of playstyle.

It's being switched to being wielded as a one-handed weapon, as there's no actual reason for it to work like a light weapon. The spellforge warsmith is designed to be run with weapon and shield, though, so a two-handed option isn't going to be built in. If you want to wield your one-handed weapon with two hands, go for it. However, bear in mind that it was intended--and is going to be made more clear in an upcoming build--that you do not add your Strength modifier to damage rolls with spellforge weapons.


3- I noticed you have a particular affinity for fire as there seems to be more content with firebased themes. I was wondering if you could do some more focused prestiges with the other elements. Particularily i was thinking it would be interesting if you made a Prestige class based on Gaara from Naruto. Basically have a Spellshaper specializing in Crushing stone with a focus on Sand. thought it would be pretty cool.

Anyway thanks again for all the hard work and I hope you continue expanding on the awesome idea.

No idea what Gaara is, and I can't build it if I don't know it. Also, Crushing Stone is specifically rock, not sand--the effects don't make sense for something as fluid and non-rigid as sand.


----


Updated: PDFs have been updated with the changes to the lavamancer and the spellforge warsmith.

[Mathias1313]

Thanks for the clarification on my first 2 points. :)

Gaara is just a guy that manipulates sand to attack and defend myself, I thought it would be interesting.

I understand that Crushing stone is itself stone based and not sand, I was more inferring that you a prestige class could be made that maybe combined Crushing stone with another Circle to create a prestige class based on sand.. similar to what you did with Crushing Stone and Searing Flame and the Lavamancer, thats all.

Anyway, keep up the good work man.

[DonQuixote]

See, the thing about that is that spellshaping isn't manipulation. It's the same reason that I've never really cottoned onto the idea of using spellshapers to mimic ___benders from Avatar. Thing is, if you're controlling unknown substance X in one of those systems, you need to have unknown substance X first.

Spellshapers? They totally just create it. A rockslam attack conjures a boulder that does not last after the attack is made. The exact flavor that you use is up to you, but I tend to think of it as the conjured object breaking up into the magic that formed it in the first place. So, you can't use rockslam to build a fortress, and it's entirely up to the DM to decide whether or not you can extinguish fires with surging jet.

A spellshaper with access to Crushing Stone and Searing Flame can temporarily create rocks and fire wherever he is--even when underwater, you can make a Spellcraft check to use magical fire effects. A fire bender, however, can't do much underwater, and Gaara (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228015) would probably not be able to do much on top of a snowy mountain. Unless he brought sand with him, but then you have to deal with encumbrance and blah.

I'm also not entirely alongside the idea of a sand spellshape attack. With Gaara, fighting with sand sort of makes sense, but only because he forms it into rigid structures. In order to model that with spellshaping, you'd have to say that you pack the sand into an incredibly rigid and dense form--something like a boulder, in fact...and we're back to just using rockslam.


----


Status Updates: As I said last night, new PDFs have been posted with changes to the lavamancer and the spellforge warsmith. The spellforge warsmith stuff was pretty much just errata to the spellforge weapon, changing it to work how I actually meant it to work.

The lavamancer, however, got a facelift. Shape molten stone now gives you eight cubes per shaper level, rather than class level. Pool of magma is gone, since it pretty much only rewarded you for being in melee, which you didn't want to do anyway. Instead, you now get a Counter that lets you grant yourself or an ally total cover from one attack. Wall of magma was taken away, but your newly-increased amount of shape molten stone should let you create walls easily, anyway. Lava burst and volcanic flow were swapped around and changed slightly, and a tremor ability replaced the now-pointless augmentation of your pool of magma at 5th level. Finally, surging eruption was completely changed. Again.

Looking Forward: Concepts for Fleeting Image are coming along decently--I have eighteen formula ideas already, so only a few more and I can start writing. No clue when that will be done, mind you, but it doesn't look entirely impossible.

After that, I'm thinking of writing more character options for the other three Codex I base classes--possibly the Codex II ones as well, if I can come up with ideas. There are some fun ideas bouncing around with the Codex I classes, such as an impulse mage ACF that is built around listening to your darker impulses and a spellshape champion feat chain that lets you full attack with formulae.

[Mathias1313]

had a quick question for you man. I am currently making a build for an upcoming game and I am building an Anchorite and something came up.
His class has no Special ability called Spellshape Attacks like all the other base classes have, and I thought that meant that they dont get the spellshape attacks and instead have the Auras but under the Chosen Circle ability it states that they gain the knowledge of the Spellshape attack associated with the circles.

So the question is do they get Spellshape attacks?
Or doe they just get the Spellshape attacks granted from chosen circles after first lvl?

Thanks for thehelp and all the great work man.

[DonQuixote]

From the Chosen Circle text:


Each chosen circle grants you knowledge of its associated spellshape attack and the ability to learn arcane formulae from that circle.

Whenever you gain a chosen circle, including those two you gain at 1st level, you learn the associated spellshape attack. The way in which anchorites gain access to circles makes it impossible for them to have a 1st-level "spellshape attacks" ability, as it would quickly become outdated.

It would, of course, be impossible to be a spellshaper without spellshape attacks. It is specifically noted in the rules on learning formulae that you must know the relevant spellshape attack in order to learn a formula that modifies a spellshape attack. Not having any spellshape attacks would mean that you'd be more or less incapable of learning formulae.

[Garryl]

The Spellshape Attacks ability should probably be there for consistency, even if it's something like:
Anchorites learn a number of spellshape attacks based on the circles to which they have access, similar to other spellshapers, as described in the Chosen Circle ability.

[DonQuixote]

Hrm. It doesn't seem that critical to me, but I suppose I can slip it in next time I errata Codex II.

[DonQuixote]

So, sanity has imploded. Despite them being user-created, the codices were removed from MediaFire for a violation of either the Terms of Service or the Acceptable Use Policy.

I'll be putting new content on hold while I figure out how to get them up without this happening again.

Edit: My current suspicion is that I put a little too much effort into getting them to look like actual sourcebooks. Later tonight, I'm going to try putting them back up with a description that notes them as user-created.

[NineThePuma]

I'm allowed to think this is hilarious, right?

[Re'ozul]

While funny in a facepalm sense, it could also be construed as an insult.
"We don't believe you are capable of creating something like this."

[radmelon]

Consider it a compliment to your organizational skills.

[DonQuixote]

I'm allowed to think this is hilarious, right?

Oh, entirely. After the shock passed, my main reaction was a combination of incredulous disbelief and mirth.


While funny in a facepalm sense, it could also be construed as an insult.
"We don't believe you are capable of creating something like this."

Meh, I'm more inclined to think that they're a bit trigger-happy after watching MegaUpload implode. Someone probably mistakenly reported it, and they took it down because the person working the desk doesn't actually play D&D. Note that the file isn't named "[Homebrew] The Codex of Spellshaping," so I can forgive the uninitiated for assuming piracy.


Consider it a compliment to your organizational skills.

Indeed! I did go out of my way to make it look real. I certainly didn't expect this sort of outcome, though.


Incidentally, I've re-uploaded the codices, this time with descriptions noting them to be player-created content. Hopefully, this won't happen again.

[DonQuixote]

So, the PDFs are staying up thus far. Huzzah!

The fact that I haven't had much time has kept me from actually looking at Fleeting Image again. This has a decent amount to do with my still-vague grasp on illusions, coupled with a certain level of intimidation factor. I have, however, been toying a bit with character options to write after I finally get Fleeting Image done. I'm planning on two more ACFs for every base class, as well as feats designed with specific base classes in mind. For example, there is probably going to be a spellshape champion feat chain that ends up letting you full attack as a part of shaping a formula.

In terms of actual things that have happened, I've been doing a lot of one-shots with friends recently, and it came to light that the dragonheart adept was just silly. It got way too much AC too quickly, had too many maneuvers and formulae, and just had way too much going for it. The notion came up that it may have been head-and-shoulders above any other spellshaper class.

So, I've restricted your options for secondary disciplines, removed its stances, removed the Charisma bonus to AC, and lowered its formulae/maneuvers known by 4. We'll see how it runs now.

[Xipe]

The amount of effort put into this work is just... astounding! I love the system introduced in the Tome of Battle, and this just makes it more awesome.

I must say that, at first, I was a bit skeptical about the Sublime Shaper: since he has to split his abilities between maneuvers and spellshaping, I feared that it would be difficult to make him efficient at one thing or another, but after some consideration I now think he is, well, Sublime! :smallbiggrin:

Incidentally, while meditating about the SS, I may have come up with a very competent lockdown build. Do you mind if I post it here? (I would like to check whether this particular combination of feats, class features and a stance is valid or broken, so this may be of general interest if the combination hasn't been noticed yet.)

In any case, bravo! Keep up the good work!

[DonQuixote]

Ah! Sorry for the late response--I've been focusing on papers and such this week, so I haven't had much time to check in on the thread.

Glad to hear that it's working out so well! And, sure, I'd love to look over the build.


Looking Forward: In terms of new material, Fleeting Image has sort of fallen off of my radar, due to the aforementioned work. I'm getting a break soon, though, so I should be able to push it forward again.

However, the fragmentary nature of my time means that I have been continuing to poke at the character options ideas. I know that I've been a bit slower than usual, and I apologize for that. Hopefully, the dip in productivity won't last much longer.

[DonQuixote]

So, I've actually reached the point with some of the Spellshape Champion stuff that it looks like those character options will go up before Fleeting Image does. There's also going to be some Spellshape Champion errata going up at the same time. To give you an idea of what's coming, here's a quick, poorly-worded summary.


Errata: Hit Die changed to d12, Champion's Threat ability removed, Armor Mastery abilities combined and moved to level 7, Enduring Champion ability moved to level 18.
New Alternative Class Feature 1: Give up medium and heavy armor and all shields, lose Daunting Presence, Armor Mastery, and Vigilant Combatant abilities - Gain a scaling dodge bonus to AC (capping at +5), the Uncanny Dodge ability, Fast Movement 10 ft., and Acrobatic Skill Mastery.
New Alternative Class Feature 2: Give up familiar - Receive an intelligent magic weapon that allows you to fully manifest spellshape attacks and possesses a scaling lamen bonus. The weapon also has a few 1/encounter abilities that involve sacrificing prepared formulae.
New Feat 1: Prerequisite: Spellshape channeling class feature, base attack bonus +6 - If you miss with a single melee attack made as a part of shaping a formula, can attempt a second attack with a -5 penalty.
New Feat 2: Prerequisite: New Feat 1, base attack bonus +11 - Whenever you would make a single melee attack with a channeled spellshape attack as a part of shaping a formula, you can increase the shaping action to a full-round action to instead make a full attack. You must target the same creature with all of your attacks. Cannot be used with Retaliatory Shaping.
New Feat 3: Prerequisite: New Feat 2, retaliatory shaping 3/day - When making a full attack as a part of shaping a formula (see New Feat 2), you can choose to also move up to your speed. However, you must move at least 5 feet between each attack, and you cannot return to a square you just exited. You can target multiple creatures with this full attack, applying the effects of the formula against each creature struck by your attack. Cannot be used with Retaliatory Shaping.
New Feat 4: Prerequisite: Champion's resolve class feature, retaliatory shaping 1/day - Whenever you make an attack with your retaliatory shaping ability, if there is any damage in your Champion's Resolve pool, you can choose to take that damage immediately (losing the Shaper's Focus bonuses) in order to gain a bonus on your attack and damage rolls with your retaliatory attack equal to the damage that had been in the pool.



Update 2/29/12: New PDFs posted, including the above errata to Spellshape Champion. In addition, Anchorite now has a listed "Spellshape Attacks" ability.

[DonQuixote]

The new Spellshape Champion stuff (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=854.msg48591#msg48591) is up.

[Mathias1313]

Wanted to bump this so it stays fresh in everyones minds as it is absolutely amazing work.
Also ty for the Spellshape Champ options.

Cant wait to see what else you come up with man.

[DiBastet]

Bumping it up, for the very same reason.

[DonQuixote]

Okay, so I was planning to actually finish up writing Fleeting Image this week, but I got sidetracked by having to actually spend time with the family. So, that didn't happen yet. Possibly on the plane this weekend, though!

After that--or possibly before, given my track record--it will be time for new Impulse Mage options! There's going to be an ACF to restrict yourself to three circles, two of which must be Devouring Shadow and Glimmering Moon, in order to get Hexblade stuff. A second ACF will allow you to trade the Uncanny Dodge and Evasion progressions for a monk's Fast Movement and some magic manipulation stuff.

Haven't figured out new Impulse Mage feats yet, but one of them will be an Extra Granted Maneuver knock-off.

[Welknair]

I have read through the majority of both of your PDFs and am astounded. On occasion I entertained the possibility of trying to make a fix to drop primary casters down to tier 3, but I never got around to it. And now it seems like you've beaten me to it, and done a marvelous job! Next time I run a D&D game, I will almost certainly use this. Nice work!

[DonQuixote]

Glad to hear it! Always good to hear that people are finding it useful.

I completely failed to finish Fleeting Image on the plane, and my girlfriend is visiting for this week, so I probably won't get to work on it until late this weekend. However, I only have three effects left to figure out before I begin the actual formal write-up, so it realistically shouldn't take too long--since, this time, I doubt that the upcoming character options post will distract me quite as much.

Edit: Incidentally, apologies about the slower posting speed lately. It's been a busy few weeks.

[Garryl]

Given how often Fleeting Image doesn't get finished, it remaining but a fleeting image would be deliciously meta.

[DonQuixote]

Well, I've figured out the last three effects, so now it's just a question of finding the time to write it all up!

[DonQuixote]

Fleeting Image (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4073.0) happened.

[radmelon]

Dang it, and I was just about to go for a walk. Looks like I'm not doing anything productive today.

[NineThePuma]

Awesome! =D

I'm a little disappointed, because spell shaping codices officially handles more concepts than ToB as of Fleeting Image.

[DonQuixote]

I'm a little disappointed, because spell shaping codices officially handles more concepts than ToB as of Fleeting Image.

I was actually worried about this myself, but I think that the formulae ended up being not too different from the non-illusion ones. I could be far off the mark, but I feel like I managed to get the feel of illusions without leaving the actual mechanics of spellshaping.

[NineThePuma]

Nah, I'm disappointed in ToB.

[DonQuixote]

Ahh, gotcha.

Also, pushed some errata. Lunatic Delusion (the Glimmering Moon formula) has been cleaned up. A lavamancer's volcanic blast now has a critical threat range of 18-20. Spellforge warsmiths can no longer completely ignore energy immunity, and the warsmith's assault ability now properly notes that it increases the shaping action of a formula to a full-round action.

New PDFs are up, accordingly.

[radmelon]

Still reading through new circle, and the first thing that pops out is that "False Success" is incredibly powerful. An effective -infinity to the target's next roll? The delusion of success is just icing on the cake.

[DonQuixote]

Hrm. The automatic failure is taken from an existing spell of about the same level, so I didn't think too much of it. Perhaps it is a little excessive, though.

Unfortunately, the actual effect is rather dependent on the target failing a roll, so I'm not sure what to do. Give me a day or two to think about it.

[Mathias1313]

Great work on the new Circle, i like it alot.. especially the Non-Lethal Damage, good idea.

I just wanted to point out you want to change some of the wording on Illusory Legion. It states " A shadowy swordfighter appears in each square covered by this formula's area" which is ok cause the area is 10ft radius which is equal to 4 swordfighters, however if you use Sculpt SpellShape on it the number of swordfighters is crazy.
So at lvl 8 (lvl of Formulae - 3+1 for scultp spell doubled which I am pretty sure is how the MetaShape feats work) I can do a line 120ft long that gives me 60 Swordfighters. Now granted from the description of the Formulae it does not look like they can move burt even still this can be quite potent with the other area options of Sculpt Spell.

Something to think about.
other than that, great job man, keep on with the awesome Homebrew. :)

[DonQuixote]

Illusory Legion cannot be modified by the Sculpt Spellshape feat.


Sculpt Spellshape [Metashaping]
Benefit: You can modify a formula that modifies a spellshape attack by shaping your spellshape attack in such a way that it affects an area, rather than a single target. You can sculpt your spellshape attack into either a cylinder (10-foot radius, 30 feet high), a 40-foot cone, four 10-foot cubes, a ball (20-foot-radius spread), or a 120-foot line. When shaping a spellshape attack as a cylinder, set of four cubes, or ball, the attack has a range of Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level).

The important clause here is "a formula that modifies a spellshape attack."

[Mathias1313]

Well then..... :)
Serves me right for not double checking my facts. Thats pretty sweet then. thanks for the quick reply man.

[DonQuixote]

Spellshaping elementals happened. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4090.0)

(Also, as a result, a new option for the elemental adept.)

Edit: They've been tweaked around a bit, and they now increase in size as they advance.

[NineThePuma]

Neat!

What about a spell shaping Undead Fey creature as a monster? =3

[DonQuixote]

Neat!

What about a spell shaping Undead Fey creature as a monster? =3

Interesting. Can't decide whether it would be a fey with undead traits or an undead with fey traits. Probably the former, if only because it fits more neatly with the Devouring Shadow fluff.

I'll add it to the list!

[NineThePuma]

Devouring Shadow with Gibbering Moon and Fleeting Image, a sort of dark trickster spirit who drains away souls?

(I make fluff sometimes, but ideas are what I'm best at)

[DonQuixote]

Basically in keep with what I was thinking, yeah. Interesting interplay with the Dark Impulses ACF that is next on my writing list.

Unfortunately, given the way that my to-do list is prioritized, we probably won't see more spellshaping creatures for a while. Here's the list as it currently stands, in order:

Impulse Mage alternative class features and feats
Spellsage alternative class features and feats
Anchorite alternative class features and feats
Savant alternative class features and feats
Spellsoul Armor character race
Cambian character race
Living Spellshape character race
Spellsoul Armor spellshape champion racial substitution levels
Cambian impulse mage racial substitution levels
Living Spellshape spellsage racial substitution levels
Brilliant Dawn/Devouring Shadow prestige class
Brilliant Dawn/Setting Sun prestige class
Darkened Watcher monster
Spellsoul Golem monster
Spellshaping Undead Fey monster

I try to stick to doing things in order, unless they become relevant for some reason. For instance, I'm going to start playing in a new campaign next week. I'm going to be playing Pliny the Elder, so I wanted to do a magma paraelemental adept...and, having just re-done normal elementals, I wanted to write up a way to have my redone magma paraelemental as my companion. Things got slightly out of hand, and thus elemental shapers happened.

Similarly, the reason that the spellshape champion options happened is that, having already conceived of them, I knew that I was going to be using them to stat out some encounters. In order to use them, I had to write them out, so they went up.

The other thing that can cause things to shift priority is if I have a lot of ideas for something low in the priority queue and no ideas for something higher up. It's possible that the races might start to trickle out before the spellsage options, as I can't really think of any other alternative class features for that class. I'll try to stick to the order, as I've said, but I honestly can't say that I know what the spellsage will be getting.

It doesn't help that my mind keeps going places like suggesting implementing the alchemical elementals (sylphs, gnomes, salamanders, and undines) in some fashion. Especially since three out of the four already exist in D&D, and none of them are elementals.

[DonQuixote]

New impulse mage options have been added. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=852.msg57778#msg57778)

[DonQuixote]

Elemental adept received an overhaul.

[NineThePuma]

Changelog plz? Or is it posted somewhere?

[DonQuixote]

Elemental Adept Changes (3/27/12):
The Elemental Companion no longer gains the elemental aura, greater elemental aura, or overpowering elemental aura abilities.
Elemental Empowerment moved to 4th level. Wording received touch-ups. Now costs only one turn/rebuke attempt.
Devoted Adept no longer grants you immunity to disease and poison.
New class feature: Sense Elements. 7th level.
New class feature: Elemental Magic. 8th level.
Elemental Adaptation no longer gives you an elemental subtype. However, each chosen element grants you a different energy immunity.
Call the Elements has been revised.
New class feature: Elemental Travel. 13th level.
Wrath of Elements has received touch-ups to the wording. Now costs only one turn/rebuke attempt per additional target.
REMOVED: The former class feature bearing the name "Elemental Magic."
New class feature: Blessing of the Elements. 17th level.
Additional formulae now learned at 18th and 19th levels.

Stoichen Changes (3/27/12):
All racial spell-like abilities have had their daily uses increased to 3/day
Earth-blooded stoichen now get soften earth and stone as their racial spell-like ability.
The Stoichen Elemental Adept racial substitution levels have received several changes, in keeping with the changes to the Elemental Adept base class. Specifically, the elemental aura of the Elemental Scion class feature has been replaced with several new abilities.

General Changes (3/27/12):
The "Elemental Command" feat has been removed.

I think that's all of it...

[DonQuixote]

New race went up. Spellsoul Armor. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4247.0) Just in case you ever wanted to play a floating breastplate or something.

Looking at the volume of the online-only materials, I'll probably be collecting them into a PDF at some point. Because, apparently, I hate having free time?

Edit: So, the point has been raised by two friends that spellshapers deal too much damage. To what extent should I tone down the extra damage from formulae, and how should I tweak Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape focus to compensate?

[mrcarter11]

While you likely hear this often by now, figured I'd let you know I may get a chance to play a sublime shaper here soon. It's a solo combat based game. Also, I just want to say, I love your project and I'm very glad you posted it here.

[DonQuixote]

While you likely hear this often by now, figured I'd let you know I may get a chance to play a sublime shaper here soon. It's a solo combat based game. Also, I just want to say, I love your project and I'm very glad you posted it here.

Always good to hear from people who enjoy the material! I have to say that--apart from completely ruining my time-management abilities--writing the Codices of Spellshaping has been a fun experience, with pretty much no downsides. I'm glad so many people find the material interesting!



On the topic of that damage problem, I'm thinking that I'll change Spellshape Focus to require shaper level 3rd and Greater Spellshape Focus to require shaper level 12th. In addition, I'll go back and cap formula damage at one die per formula level--though certain formulae will deal less than that.

Seem legitimate?

[Mathias1313]

I'm not sure about the whole too much damage thing. If you were to compare the spellshapers with say a Wizard or Sorcerer, the Wiz/Sor pump out much more damage. I think it is a perpective thing more than anything else. Besides you have created a Blaster system that is good at what it does.... Blasting. You should be doing a fair amt of damage, I think you have created a balanced and competitive system.

BTW, A PDF for all the other updates a classes would be awesome... so ty in advance. :)

[DonQuixote]

Hrm. What I'm hearing online seems to be that the damage isn't too over the top, so I suspect that I'll just make the changes to Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape Focus and call it a day? Lessens the ridiculous at 1st level, at least. I might also remove the bonus damage on 1st level formulae, to prevent you from mowing too many things down.

In terms of a third PDF, it will probably happen at some undefined point in the future. Trouble is, there's a lot of stuff on my To-Do List, which is all going to be written before that PDF comes together. First, the character options for spellsage, anchorite, and savant--which are stumping me. Then, another two races and their racial substitution levels. Then some prestige classes, monsters, items...

It's a lot!


Edit: So, after a brief amount of discussion with one of the friends in question--the first time I'd actually gotten to talk to one of them about it--I realized another potential part of the problem. I always play elemental adepts. And I always have high Charisma.

Spellshape Attunement, you're on the chopping block as soon as I figure out what to replace you with.



Edit Edit: So, some errata is going to be pushed as soon as I have time to throw the PDFs together. Here's a summary:

Classes:
Elemental Adept: Spellshape Attunement is being replaced by Attuned Adept, which grants you the benefit of a constant endure elements effect and immunity to the harmful effects of the Elemental Plane of your chosen element.
Feats:
Spellshape Focus: Now requires shaper level 3rd.
Greater Spellshape Focus: Now requires shaper level 12th.
Formulae:
General: All 1st-level major formulae are losing any extra damage that they added to your spellshape attacks.
Items:
Lamens: The volatile lamen enhancement is being replaced by an ability that allows you to expend prepared formulae in order to gain a bonus on attack and damage rolls with your spellshape attacks.

With that, I think it will no longer be possible to deal 5d6+7 damage in one round at level 2.

[DonQuixote]

Errata went up.

There was totally something else I was going to say, suggest, or talk about...but I'm so sleep-deprived that I forgot what it was.

[NineThePuma]

... We need a circle for paranoia/insomnia.

[DonQuixote]

... We need a circle for paranoia/insomnia.

So, the next race I'm planning to write--the cambians, named for their emotional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humours) nature--have a weird relationship with sleep. See, when they sleep, they lose a lot of emotional context from their memories. Every cambian wakes up brand-new, unaffected by the stress or joy of yesterday. They still have memories, mind you, and they still have continuing emotional attachments, but the emotional turmoil of the day is forgotten.

This is because they feel all emotions incredibly intensely. If a cambian goes for 24 hours without getting at least 4 hours of sleep, he takes a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom from the sheer emotional overload and has to make a Will save every time he takes an aggressive action or become frenzied. While sleep deprived, he also has to make a Will save every time he fails an attack roll or skill check or become confused for one round.

'Course, because of the unusual way in which their minds work, their memories can't be altered by any means short of wish or miracle. Additionally, a cambian receives a new saving throw against any ongoing mind-affecting effects after a full-night's sleep. On a successful save, the effect is ended. Oh, and they don't dream.

Once per day, they get to reroll one attack, save, or check because they're so damn lucky. Additionally, once per day, they can enter an intense emotional state that grants them +2 Charisma, but imposes a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom.

Guess what their favored class is.



(In other news, I just tweaked the elemental shapers and changed how they work as elemental companions. Everything should be better now.)

[NineThePuma]

Guess what their favored class is.

Sublime Shaper! :smallcool::smallbiggrin:

[The-Mage-King]

Guess what their favored class is.

Cloistered Cleric?

[DonQuixote]

Sublime Shaper! :smallcool::smallbiggrin:


Cloistered Cleric?

Okay, I walked right into that one.

I still need to figure out actual bonuses to give them. Their base stat modifiers are +2 Charisma, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom. Which means that the emotional outburst puts you at +4 Charisma, -4 Intelligence, -4 Wisdom. If you go without sleep, you really don't want to do that, since it would put you at a total -6 Intelligence, -6 Wisdom.

[DonQuixote]

Elemental Adept received some quality-of-life changes, most notably some clarifications regarding the restrictions it faces on formulae known. (Yeah, half of your formulae have to be from your elemental circles. Not half of your formulae known of each formula level.) Also, elemental travel is now at will.

New Codex I PDF, accordingly.

[Empedocles]

First of all: new fan, huge fan. I only recently began looking through the first Codex, and I love what I see. Honestly, it's a huge pity that WoTC never published this (I like pictures with my 3.5 material :smallredface:).

I do have 1 very nitpicky thing about a basic spellshaping ability: the spellshape attacks. That is, that they don't scale well. At 1st level, being able to deal 1d6 points of fire damage with a fireburst as a ranged touch attack is pretty awesome. If you roll decently, you can kill a goblin in one hit, for example. At 17th level, dealing 5d6 points of damage with a ranged touch attack isn't even worth thinking about doing.

Other then that, I'd like to suggest some sort of infernally based spellshaper. Awesome material!

[radmelon]

Don't forget that most formulas, which you should be using with every spellshape attack under most circumstances, adds more damage to the attack. This extra damage helps bring it up to a better-scaled value.

[DonQuixote]

First of all: new fan, huge fan. I only recently began looking through the first Codex, and I love what I see. Honestly, it's a huge pity that WoTC never published this (I like pictures with my 3.5 material :smallredface:).

My God, the number of times I've considered saving up money and commissioning artists....

Ludicrously expensive, though. Still tempting.


I do have 1 very nitpicky thing about a basic spellshaping ability: the spellshape attacks. That is, that they don't scale well. At 1st level, being able to deal 1d6 points of fire damage with a fireburst as a ranged touch attack is pretty awesome. If you roll decently, you can kill a goblin in one hit, for example. At 17th level, dealing 5d6 points of damage with a ranged touch attack isn't even worth thinking about doing.

As Radmelon pointed out, the spellshape attacks themselves aren't the core of your damage. With, say, Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape Focus, as well as an empowering lamen (Codex II weapon enhancement analogue), you can get up to a base 8d6 at 17th level. As an attack action, mind you, so you can full attack with it.


Other then that, I'd like to suggest some sort of infernally based spellshaper. Awesome material!

Hrm...originally, I was shying away from association with particular alignments, but--given the system flavor that I've been cooking up in my brain--it might not be that unreasonable for there to be a Faustian-pact spellshaping class. Hmmmmm.

[The-Mage-King]

My God, the number of times I've considered saving up money and commissioning artists....

Ludicrously expensive, though. Still tempting.


One word to think about.

Kickstarter.

That's all. :smalltongue:



Hrm...originally, I was shying away from association with particular alignments, but--given the system flavor that I've been cooking up in my brain--it might not be that unreasonable for there to be a Faustian-pact spellshaping class. Hmmmmm.

Would that be base or PrC? Either way, if you do that, think you'll use a bit of Binder-like stuff?

[mrcarter11]

Vilpich: Just as a quick example of what radmelon pointed out. Using Searing Flame as an example against the other common blaster of d6's, warlock.

At level 17, warlock can pump out 8d6 per attack. Which is average to 28 points of damage. Now, he'd have access to Utterdark Blast as well though. Which is a fort save or 2 negative levels, instilling a -2 to most everything. However fort saves are also commonly the strongest save.

Now for the spellshape attack, at level 17, it's 5d6. Now at this level we'd have access to level 9 major formula, but we'll stick to level 8. You shape Consuming Flames into your attack, and now your at the same 8d6 that the warlock is. Comsuming flames also though targets a Reflex save or -4 to attacks and saving throws. And any time in the next three rounds that they miss an attack or fail a save, they take another 3d6 of damage.

Now, nearly ever Warlock takes Utterdark, so it's fair to include. The spellshaper example didn't use any actual class though, so class features could easily feed into the damage as well. Also the feat, Spellshape Focus seems like a feat ever shaper should take, at least in terms of blasting. And the Spellshape example doesn't use any minor formula.

In the end, the spellshape attack comes out ahead in effectiveness, and even in damage, assuming just a bare bones approach like I did.


Now, @DonQuixote
I was building a Sublime Shaper, and while I do like the class a lot, it's class features chain of each other, amazingly well perhaps to well?

Assuming the shaper picks an even mix of formula and maneuvers, then they open the encounter with a ranged formula attack, now once the enemy charges, or moves to attack, they are melee range. The Sublime Shaper then at level 8, get Martial Mage, Empower Maneuver, and Heighten Maneuver, that turn when the use a maneuver. If the enemy is still alive when it's their turn again, they 5' step backwards, and shape an attack and gain every benefit again..

Was this intended?

[DonQuixote]

I was building a Sublime Shaper, and while I do like the class a lot, it's class features chain of each other, amazingly well perhaps to well?

Assuming the shaper picks an even mix of formula and maneuvers, then they open the encounter with a ranged formula attack, now once the enemy charges, or moves to attack, they are melee range. The Sublime Shaper then at level 8, get Martial Mage, Empower Maneuver, and Heighten Maneuver, that turn when the use a maneuver. If the enemy is still alive when it's their turn again, they 5' step backwards, and shape an attack and gain every benefit again..

Was this intended?

Well, note that the Empower and Heighten can each only be used once per encounter. So, the only thing you're keeping is Martial Mage, which is primarily intended as incentive to keep alternating between maneuvers and formulae.

Might be worth shortening the range for their spellshape attacks, though, such that, unlike normal spellshapers, a Sublime Shaper's spellshape attacks have a range of only 15 feet.

Can't decide at the moment whether it makes any appreciable difference.

[Empedocles]

One word to think about.

Kickstarter.

That's all. :smalltongue:




Would that be base or PrC? Either way, if you do that, think you'll use a bit of Binder-like stuff?

Just want to say...I think a kickstarter would be successful. I know I'd contribute, and the only reward I'd possibly want would be codices with art!




Hrm...originally, I was shying away from association with particular alignments, but--given the system flavor that I've been cooking up in my brain--it might not be that unreasonable for there to be a Faustian-pact spellshaping class. Hmmmmm.

Doesn't necessarily have to be completely alignment based. For example, the warlock isn't always evil, nor is the dread necromancer. A spellshaper like this wouldn't have to be a villain. Just an antihero.

[DonQuixote]

One word to think about.

Kickstarter.

That's all. :smalltongue:


Just want to say...I think a kickstarter would be successful. I know I'd contribute, and the only reward I'd possibly want would be codices with art!

So, I haven't actually put any research into artists at the moment--which I'd need to do before I started up the fundraiser. That'd probably take me a good month or two, since I'm fairly picky. I also know very little about the commissioning process and whatnot, so I'd need to be looking into any legal aspects.

On top of that, each version of Codex I gets, at most, forty downloads. Over the two Codices, we have three races, six base classes, one set of alternative class features, two sets of feats, three racial substitution levels, fourteen circles, and twenty-two prestige classes. Even if we nix the feats, alternative class features, and feats, that's forty-five pieces of art. At that point, each person is paying for a complete piece of art, which--I imagine--runs at roughly fifty dollars. As popular as the codices may be, that's still a serious financial investment.

Finally, at the moment, I don't have a lot of time on my hands. We're nearing the end of the semester, and I'm looking for internships for the summer. Managing a fundraiser and being in contact with artists would be a lot to deal with, in terms of time and energy.

Man, if my uncle hadn't died this summer, I'd totally commission from him. He did the cover art for the Codices. They're actually portraits of my first D&D character ever. Codex I features his first draft, Codex II features the refinement, and I'm thinking of using the final version for the cover of the PDF that collects the online material.


Would that be base or PrC? Either way, if you do that, think you'll use a bit of Binder-like stuff?


Doesn't necessarily have to be completely alignment based. For example, the warlock isn't always evil, nor is the dread necromancer. A spellshaper like this wouldn't have to be a villain. Just an antihero.

Probably a base class, since I tend to prefer doing "source-of-power" classes as base, rather than prestige. Not sure if I'd use binder stuff--it really depends on what I decide.

In terms of alignment, it certainly wouldn't be evil-only. What I meant there was that I shied away from having things associated with SOURCES that were either good or evil. That's why there's no "good" or "evil" circle. Devouring Shadow toes the line, but a completely virtuous person can wield its powers without fear--it's all in how you do it.

Of course, I have no idea when this would happen, since I have basically no free time these days, and I have a bunch of other stuff that I want to write. Two races, their substitution levels, character options for three other base classes, some new prestige classes, some more monsters...it's a long list.

[DonQuixote]

New spellsage options (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=853.msg60157#msg60157). One of which may be a feat that can be taken by anyone with one level in a spellshaper class...because I wanted it on my non-spellsage characters. Still, thematically appropriate for the spellsage, so I see no problem with it.

Edit: Fixing something with the new spellsage options made me realize a problem with the Spellshape Paragon Codex II spellshape champion ACF. New PDF with the fix. (The counterspelling ability no longer caps at a +10 bonus.)


Edit Again: The cambian (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4346.msg60239#msg60239) race has been added.

[DonQuixote]

Another new race (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4370.0). Living spellshapes, for all your magical ooze needs.

A lot of credit on this one goes to my roommate, who's been building an ooze race for her own homebrew system. The Primitive Vision and Amorphous Body abilities are pretty much entirely stolen from her ooze race.

[DonQuixote]

...well. Huh.

I finally got around to explaining what spellshaping actually is. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4373.0) Wasn't expecting to do that tonight.

[mrcarter11]

Is there any chance we'll ever see an ACF or perhaps a class itself that combines Spellshaping and TWF. I'd love to see a Spellshape Champion ACF that allows use between two blades or something similar, thoughts?

[DonQuixote]

The main problem with adding two-weapon fighting spellshaping is that, unless I just felt like laughing for a week straight, I would probably have to let it make an attack with each weapon when shaping a formula.

This gets into problems because of spellheart weapons and the spellstorm lamen property. As a standard action, you'd be able to make three attacks and shape a formula, and those three attacks would all be doing spellshape attack damage. At 20th level, with Spellshape Focus, Greater Spellshape Focus, an empowering lamen, and the Incinerating Blast minor formula, that lets you toss out 33d6+60 damage in addition to a formula. Remember, standard action.

[mrcarter11]

I had to a lesser degree considered what this would mean, damage wise. Hm, guessing that's a no then. Well, can't blame Me for asking. :smallredface:

[DonQuixote]

Well, I won't say that it will never happen--the last thing that I said would never happen was an illusion circle--but it doesn't look like something that's going to happen before the things on my to-do list:

New anchorite options
New savant options
Prestige class based on combining Brilliant Dawn and Devouring Shadow
Prestige class based on combining Brilliant Dawn and Setting Sun
Spellshaping monsters:
Brilliant Archon
Darkened Watcher
Genie, Spellshaping
Dao of the Crushing Stone
Djinni of the Blustering Gale
Efreeti of the Searing Flame
Marid of the Roaring Tide
Living Formula
Screeching Roc
Spellsoul Golem
Spellshaping Undead Fey Thing
Infernal spellshaping base class

[Epsilon Rose]

New anchorite options
New savant options
...
Infernal spellshaping base class

Ooh, that looks like a fun thing.

That and maybe some spellsoul armor friendly acfs for things other than spellshape champion (always counting as wearing heavy armor is a bit a downer).

Also, for some reason, I feel like suggesting an option of some sort of option (acf, feat, base class, prc) that lets shapers channel through ranged weapons. It's probably not all that relevant most campaigns but it could be fun if you could get your hands on a really long range weapon or find yourself in a modern setting where sniper rifles and automatics are available.

[DonQuixote]

That and maybe some spellsoul armor friendly acfs for things other than spellshape champion (always counting as wearing heavy armor is a bit a downer).

This is indeed a possibility! I'm planning to do a racial sweep at some point--give stoichen the option to be descended from Paracelsus' elementals, let masked ones have specific types of masks, that sort of thing--and this one might well go in. Of course, spellsoul attunement means that a suit of spellsoul armor can take levels in any spellshaping class without worry, but it would still be nice to not lose out on your impulse mage class features.


Also, for some reason, I feel like suggesting an option of some sort of option (acf, feat, base class, prc) that lets shapers channel through ranged weapons. It's probably not all that relevant most campaigns but it could be fun if you could get your hands on a really long range weapon or find yourself in a modern setting where sniper rifles and automatics are available.

You know, about a month ago, I had absolutely no plans of every doing a ranged weapon spellshaper. I would have sort of snuck past this comment, hoping that nobody would notice.

Of course, since then, some friends have provided me with some inspiration.

http://hellsingmania.webs.com/24.png

[Epsilon Rose]

This is indeed a possibility! I'm planning to do a racial sweep at some point--give stoichen the option to be descended from Paracelsus' elementals, let masked ones have specific types of masks, that sort of thing--and this one might well go in. Of course, spellsoul attunement means that a suit of spellsoul armor can take levels in any spellshaping class without worry, but it would still be nice to not lose out on your impulse mage class features.

I was actually thinking of the sublime sharper. As a martial class it's a perfect fit for a living armor (and I don't like the delayed damage mechanic of the champion [It didn't make sense to me with the crusader and it still doesn't, but that's my own failing]). Unfortunately, you lose out on the AC bonus and (far more importantly) forceful blows.

Also, RIP VAN WINKLE!:elan:

[DonQuixote]

I was actually thinking of the sublime sharper. As a martial class it's a perfect fit for a living armor (and I don't like the delayed damage mechanic of the champion [It didn't make sense to me with the crusader and it still doesn't, but that's my own failing]). Unfortunately, you lose out on the AC bonus and (far more importantly) forceful blows.

Whether or not the delayed damage pool makes sense to you depends entirely on how you conceive of hit points. If you see them simply as physical wounds, then, yeah, I can see that it would be difficult to swallow. On the other hand, if they're just physical wounds, I think that a high-level barbarian would consist almost entirely of holes before he fell unconscious. I tend to think of it as a combination of actual wounds and sheer ability to keep fighting. The delayed damage pool is a refusal to go down--ignoring the pain and continuing to fight in spite of it.

In terms of functionality, I'm thinking two feats--one to count as medium armor, and one to count as light armor. Similar to the warforged feats.


Also, RIP VAN WINKLE!:elan:

Yup! I have various ideas of how it's actually going to work, but they're all pretty preliminary at this point.

[Epsilon Rose]

Whether or not the delayed damage pool makes sense to you depends entirely on how you conceive of hit points. If you see them simply as physical wounds, then, yeah, I can see that it would be difficult to swallow. On the other hand, if they're just physical wounds, I think that a high-level barbarian would consist almost entirely of holes before he fell unconscious. I tend to think of it as a combination of actual wounds and sheer ability to keep fighting. The delayed damage pool is a refusal to go down--ignoring the pain and continuing to fight in spite of it.
It's not so much the justification that I have a problem with as the use. Taking damage so I have a 1 turn window to do something with some of it just seems strange to me but, like I said, that's more my own issue and I avoid the crusader for the same reasons.


In terms of functionality, I'm thinking two feats--one to count as medium armor, and one to count as light armor. Similar to the warforged feats.
I'm not all that familiar with warforged, so I don't know what bonuses they get or how there feats work, but that sounds like something of a raw deal for a spellsoul armor. It means they need to burn 2 of their feats just so they can use certain base classes (I don't think there are any other races [besides warforge] who need to do that) and and it could be problematic for characters who start at level 1. From the little I know it seems to me that spellsouls are both more ephemeral and more likely to vary in construction then warforged (what with them just being the "possessed" upper half of an armor and armor coming In a stupid number of varieties); if you're looking for a quick general fix I would suggest A) letting them choose what type of armor they're made out of and taking bonuses and penalties as appropriate (possibly letting them pay for alternate materials and constructions techniques), B) Expand attunement to cover all spellshaper class features or C) [if the're getting fewer bonuses then warforged] make them count as wearing the most beneficial type of armor for class features (after all, it is basically their skin and it makes sense that they'd know how to move in it). Personally, I favor A and B, but I don't really know how they'd effect overall balance. :/

[DonQuixote]

I'm not all that familiar with warforged, so I don't know what bonuses they get or how there feats work, but that sounds like something of a raw deal for a spellsoul armor. It means they need to burn 2 of their feats just so they can use certain base classes (I don't think there are any other races [besides warforge] who need to do that) and and it could be problematic for characters who start at level 1. From the little I know it seems to me that spellsouls are both more ephemeral and more likely to vary in construction then warforged (what with them just being the "possessed" upper half of an armor and armor coming In a stupid number of varieties); if you're looking for a quick general fix I would suggest A) letting them choose what type of armor they're made out of and taking bonuses and penalties as appropriate (possibly letting them pay for alternate materials and constructions techniques), B) Expand attunement to cover all spellshaper class features or C) [if the're getting fewer bonuses then warforged] make them count as wearing the most beneficial type of armor for class features (after all, it is basically their skin and it makes sense that they'd know how to move in it). Personally, I favor A and B, but I don't really know how they'd effect overall balance. :/

Oh, no, it wasn't going to be a two-feat chain. I meant two separate feats, which can only be taken at 1st level. One lets you count as light armor, one lets you count as medium armor. The question is going to be one of what material you are made of--certain metals are lighter than others.

To address your suggestions:

(A) gets shot down because suits of spellsoul armor are all made from full plate. They're actually less likely to vary in construction than warforged are, as an individual warforged can be made in different styles--just look at the various "warforged" monsters that exist. The only variance between suits of spellsoul armor is the style of the armor. Not the type, mind you, but the aesthetics.

(B) is far too nepotistic for me. The thing that you'll notice about the races is that none of them say "You can only take levels in spellshaping classes." Man, would I like to say that! It would make balance a hell of a lot easier. However, it would also be pretty darned silly. Spellsoul Attunement is there primarily because you're made of the stuff--using it shouldn't pose a problem for you. It doesn't extend to spells because they're more complex than formulae and spellshape attacks. The justification just doesn't logically extend to everything a spellshaper can ever do--and, if it did, there's no reason that it wouldn't extend to everything anyone can ever do.

(C) runs into the problem suits of spellsoul armor don't get fewer bonuses than warforged do. Warforged have only a +2 armor bonus, which imposes a 5% spell failure chance and does not cause them to be treated as though they were wearing armor for the purpose of class features. They also have a 25% resistance to critical hits and a slam attack.

By contrast, a suit of spellsoul armor gets a +8 armor bonus, though it is treated as wearing heavy armor. It has only a 15-foot movement speed, but it also ignores all difficult terrain ever and cannot be tripped. At 10th level, it also begins to air walk at will. Finally, it can meld magical equipment into its body, preventing such things from being removed through disarm checks or sundering. Letting them also treat themselves as though they were wearing the most beneficial type of armor would make them a mite bit too powerful for my tastes.


I'm going to stick with the feat option.

[vasharanpaladin]

...well. Huh.

I finally got around to explaining what spellshaping actually is. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4373.0) Wasn't expecting to do that tonight.

Minor quibble with their spellshape feature. Are they supposed to be able to be descended from, say, the lavamancer's volcanic blast?

[DonQuixote]

Tweaked the wording to specify "one of the basic spellshape attacks," rather than leaving it ambiguous.

So, no, you can't be a living volcanic blast.

[NineThePuma]

:smallfrown:

[vasharanpaladin]

Tweaked the wording to specify "one of the basic spellshape attacks," rather than leaving it ambiguous.

So, no, you can't be a living volcanic blast.

Just as I suspected would be the case. :smallcool:

[DonQuixote]

:smallfrown:

Don't look at me like that! I can't go around handing out prestige class features as racial features...!

[radmelon]

Yeah, that would be kinda over the top.

[DonQuixote]

Also, to be fair, you can be a living rockslam, take levels in lavamancer, and be a humanoid made of rock and stone that spits magma. Possibly cooler.

[DonQuixote]

Stoichen (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=988.msg62998#msg62998) and spellsoul armor (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4247.msg63001#msg63001) racial feats are up, and I'm toying with some other ideas for racial feats. Probably won't be too many of these, but I really, really wanted to let stoichen be descended from Paracelsus' elementals.

Incidentally, the erdom, salamander, sylph, and undine are totally going to be among the spellshaping monsters that get written, under the header "Primeval Elementals." The only one of those that isn't one of Paracelsus' elementals is the erdom, and that's because "gnome" was taken. ("Salamander" is technically also taken, but I'm going to deal with that by defining the Monster Manual salamanders as imperfect descendents of the original elemental salamander.)

New material is going to be generally slow for the next couple of weeks, though. End of the semester and finals. So it goes.


Edit: Also changed the living spellshape slightly, since it's supposed to actually be blind. Also futzed around with its ability score adjustments to compensate more for its size.


Edit Edit: Played around with the blindness some more, since I realized that normal blindness left the living spellshapes completely immune to all illusions forever.


Edit The Third!: Fixed an oversight that allowed you to benefit from multiple lamens at once. New Codex II PDF has the errata.

[DonQuixote]

New Codex I PDF, fixing a few typos. More notably, adjusted spellshape channeling so that it actually allows you to shape formulae with your hands full. Yeah, previously? Nothing actually let you use your weapon for the somatic components. Oops.

Incidentally, I am totally still alive. The recent drought has a lot to do with a horrendous history research paper that I've been having to work on. The to-do list still stands, and new material will resume as soon as I have time again.

[DonQuixote]

My desire to not write final papers has led to racial feats for masked ones (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=987.msg71028#msg71028). Spoo-ooky.

Edit: It's also worth noting that masked ones qualify for a good number of the darkness-related feats in Drow of the Underdark, since said feats don't actually require you to be a drow.

[vasharanpaladin]

Hm... does removing the mask from a masked one Darkened One 10 trigger a San check? :smallamused:

[Arbitrarious]

This is some amazing stuff, I love it. The amount of work you put in and the content you made is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for continuing to work on this!

I am a little concerned about the balance of some of the formula. Wrath of Stone is a solid blast of damage and an AoE stun. Even a guaranteed 1 round aoe stun is awesome. Throw on a possible 2-5 turn stun and it is amazing, possibly too amazing. I compare it the the 9th level searing flame formula and I am a little underwhelmed. Is it just me?

[DonQuixote]

Hm... does removing the mask from a masked one Darkened One 10 trigger a San check? :smallamused:

"YEARGH OH GODS IT DOESN'T HAVE A FACE! Oh, wait, it's just a mask. And, underneath it, we find...YEARGH OH GODS IT DOESN'T HAVE A FACE! WHAT IS EVEN THE PURPOSE OF THE MASK?"


This is some amazing stuff, I love it. The amount of work you put in and the content you made is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for continuing to work on this!

I am a little concerned about the balance of some of the formula. Wrath of Stone is a solid blast of damage and an AoE stun. Even a guaranteed 1 round aoe stun is awesome. Throw on a possible 2-5 turn stun and it is amazing, possibly too amazing. I compare it the the 9th level searing flame formula and I am a little underwhelmed. Is it just me?

Wrath of Stone is very difficult to use in situations in which your party members are anywhere near your target. Plus, a decent number of things are flat-out immune to stunning.

Not to say that my balance is perfect and that any objection is incorrect, of course. Just that I'm not sure in this case. If you want to test it out and give me the results in play, I'll happily change it if the results lean that way.

[radmelon]

"YEARGH OH GODS IT DOESN'T HAVE A FACE! Oh, wait, it's just a mask. And, underneath it, we find...YEARGH OH GODS IT DOESN'T HAVE A FACE! WHAT IS EVEN THE PURPOSE OF THE MASK?"


That was pretty much what I thought when I read the decription, and that combo came to mind. Then I thought of a humerous scooby-doo ripoff where they spend 15 minutes straight taking the mask off the villain, and there's another one always underneath.

[Arbitrarious]

Wrath of Stone is very difficult to use in situations in which your party members are anywhere near your target. Plus, a decent number of things are flat-out immune to stunning.

Not to say that my balance is perfect and that any objection is incorrect, of course. Just that I'm not sure in this case. If you want to test it out and give me the results in play, I'll happily change it if the results lean that way.

It's true that it isn't exactly melee friendly, but it's a heck of an opening move depending on what's on the field. I was actually running the PDFs by my DM when he noted the AoE incapacitate moves. It'll be a while before we are high enough level to see it, but I will happy to give you any feedback from the play sessions. Keep up the excellent work!

[DonQuixote]

The question of whether spellsoul armor might be too powerful has been raised. It hinges upon the fact that, as they cannot be tripped, they completely ignore most lockdown builds. Does this actually feel like a tool that is too powerful for players to have? I don't tend to think of DMs throwing lockdown builds at players, but I'm also fairly new to the game.

Incidentally, I AM still alive, but I've had a busy week. New material should be back in production soon.

[DonQuixote]

Added the Ashbound Oracle (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5290.0). Not exactly new, but it hadn't actually been officially posted and it probably hasn't been seen by everyone.

[DonQuixote]

So, I expected that, over the summer, I'd have a lot of free time to work on the spellshapers. I projected finishing my to-do list by the beginning of August, and that I'd have the third PDF finished by the time I headed back for my last year of college.

I'm having to re-evaluate this time scale. I'm working for a PR firm, which is taking up a decent amount of my time during the week. I'm still playing D&D Thursday nights--we're doing the D&D Next playtest this week--which also eats up a sizeable chunk of time. On top of that, being home means that I'm exposed to all manner of distractions. I can finally play Skyward Sword, for example. For another example, I'm currently in the middle of finally watching Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Finally, I was having issues with some of the new material even when I did have time. The Anchorite character options are tough, since one of them needs to replace the auras--meaning a new effect for every circle. I've done some poking at it, but it's still pretty daunting. If you take a daunting task, then factor in less free time and a myriad of distractions, you end up with a lot of difficulty in getting things done.

I am not, however, abandoning the spellshapers by any means. I'm planning to review and heavily modify the Ashbound Oracle sometime in the vaguely near future, as editing will take less work and time than actually writing from scratch. Hopefully, that will start getting my head back in the game, and I'll be able to get to work on that to-do list. I apologize for the delay in new material, and thank you all for your patience.

[DonQuixote]

Reduced the Sublime Shaper's Formulae and Maneuvers known and prepared.

Edit: Also, modified the Ashbound Oracle slightly. Swapped out the gaze attack for an AC bonus, increased the base attack bonus to full, and doubled the number of rounds per day you can use Fire Sight.

----

I am planning to update the Codex II PDF with clarification changes to the savant, but work this summer has been playing hob with my schedule. I still have a list of things to add to the body of work--I just need to figure out how to find time to do them.

[DonQuixote]

So, new Codex PDFs are going to be going up tonight, as I've found a handful of errors and loopholes that need to be fixed.

More importantly, I finally wrote that ranged weapon spellshaper (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6075.0). So, you know, that's nice.

http://hellsingmania.webs.com/24.png

Command Projectile (Su): When you reach 4th level, you gain the ability to exert your will on projectiles that you fire. As a free action following a ranged attack, you can choose to command your projectile, keeping it aloft and allowing it to follow impossible trajectories.

A commanded projectile is not destroyed, even if it hits its target. Instead, it remains in the air under your command. You can make attacks and channel spellshape attacks and formulae through the projectile as though you were firing it normally, except that you determine range, cover, and other combat modifiers as though you were firing the projectile from any square adjacent to the projectile's most recent target.

You may only command one projectile at a time, and you can only maintain control for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. Maintaining control of a commanded projectile is a free action. You can abandon a commanded projectile at any time as a free action, destroying the projectile in the process.

Here's hoping it's not terrible.

Edit: New PDFs, containing typo fixes and clarity errata for the Anchorite, the Savant, and the Spellshape Champion. Also, a minor change to the Sculpt Spellshape feat and a not-so-minor change to the Inescapable Slumber formula, which is now called Inescapable Nightmares.

[DonQuixote]

Finally wrote an anchorite alternative class feature (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=983.msg28287#msg28287). Let me tell you, coming up with a setup to replace the auras was obnoxious, given that they're tied to the recovery mechanic.

I am slightly worried that I shot all semblance of balance in the face this time, so anyone with a better sense of these things is invited to tell me exactly how horribly I screwed the pooch on this one.

Edit: Posted a new Codex I PDF. Turns out that spell-like abilities aren't subject to damage reduction, even if they deal damage normally associated with physical weapons. I fixed it so that lashing zephyr, rockslam, thornspike, and surging jet are noted as being subject to damage reduction, as they were always intended to be.

In addition, I got up the other anchorite alternative class feature (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=983.msg92121#msg92121), for everyone who loves animal companions.

Finally, sirpercival took a stab at a spellshaping/meldshaping combination prestige class (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6162.msg91709#msg91709). I have a very tenuous understanding of how incarnum works, but it certainly looks interesting to me!

[DonQuixote]

Things are starting to get moving over here again. We have two (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=984.msg92856#msg92856) new (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=984.msg92857#msg92857) alternative class features for the Savant, as well as updates to both Codices, fixing some shenanigans with Circle Focus letting you get a spellshape aura from a circle from which you knew no formulae. Shenanigans, I tell you.

More to the point, I'm building up steam on working in general. After this week of writing alternative class features, I'm already starting work on new prestige classes, the first of which is going to bring a spellshaping analogue to the prismatic spells. Hurrah for new things!

[DonQuixote]

That new prestige class I mentioned is up. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6293.0)

[vasharanpaladin]

Aww, I was hoping for a full circle... :smallfrown:

EDIT: Love it, though. Now I just need a slaad-like race to go with it~ :smallamused:

[DonQuixote]

Aww, I was hoping for a full circle... :smallfrown:

EDIT: Love it, though. Now I just need a slaad-like race to go with it~ :smallamused:

I did try that, briefly. The problem was that every formula had to have seven components, which meant that the prismatic circle would essentially consist of seven other circles--or 147 formulae.

Given that I had already written all of the fire (red), acid (orange), and electricity (yellow) effects that I could think of...well, let's just say that the prismatic circle would basically just have pre-generated prismatic formulae, rather than letting you choose your own.

Most of the ideas that I had for the circle made it in, anyway. Iridescent Curse and Chromatic Veil were both originally going to be minor formulae--and, hey, they still are! I think the only thing that I left out was the ability to choose the color of your prismatic blast for one round--which would have been pretty crazy.

Edit: Some changes have already been made to the Chromatic Initiate. Most notably, Opalescent Body was moved to 10th level, with Chromatic Wall being added to take its place.

[DonQuixote]

There's a new Codex I PDF, with big news for any elemental adepts in the audience. I completely rehauled elementals (and paraelementals), and elemental adepts (and paraelemental adepts, if you're using that web material) now use the revised elementals for companions, summoning, and anything else.

In addition, elemental shapers are no longer valid elemental companions. There will later be a feat that allows you to have an elemental shaper for your elemental companion. I just haven't figured out all the logistics of that yet.

Edit: There's a new Codex I PDF, containing a bit of clarification on the non-touch-attack spellshape attacks, as well as a change to the elemental adept capstone. And a fix to the Searing Blast formula, which was supposed to be a swift action all along.

Edit Again: New PDFs of both codices. That once-per-encounter swift action that most spellshaper could take to change their prepared formulae now leaves all formulae expended, rather than recovering all of them. You still have to deal with recovery mechanics, people!

Also, the physical damage spellshape attacks now grant you a bonus on your attack rolls equal to 1/2 your shaper level, rather than just letting you use your shaper level in place of your base attack bonus.

[DonQuixote]

The-Mage-King wrote a beautiful prestige class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251466).

Also, I finally remembered to put things written by other people into the "Materials Only Available Online" index in the first post.


Also also, general subsystem news! Once I finish my current to-do list--which consists of one base class, racial feats for three races, feats geared specifically towards the anchorite and the savant, two prestige classes, and about sixteen monsters--a reckoning will come. During this reckoning, I will scour my brain for anything that has been forgotten. Any ideas that remain unwritten.

If I find that there is nothing more to write, I will then go over all the material, revising it. The anchorite will be switched to spellshape aspects, the magic items introduced in Codex I will be changed such that they are crafted with the Craft Spellshape Items feat, and a myriad of other changes will be made. I suspect that some existing alternative class features might be abolished or made unrecognizable during this process. During this revision process, I'm also going to be going over spellshaping material written by other people, vetting it, and editing it for inclusion. I'll probably try to work closely with the original creators on this one, and credit will be given on that "Credits" page that exists at the front of every codex.

Once this revision is complete, the revised materials will be combined into a single PDF:
Chapter One - Fundamentals of Magic
Chapter Two - Races
Chapter Three - Base Classes
Chapter Four - Character Options
Chapter Five - Spellshaping
Chapter Six - Circles and Formulae
Chapter Seven - Prestige Classes
Chapter Eight - Spellshape Items
Chapter Nine - Monsters

[DonQuixote]

Bauglir wrote a thing (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6515.0).

Also, I'm putting the existing to-do list on hold to work on some non-combat abilities for spellshapers. A feat will allow you to take the incantations associated with one circle. I've come up with about 7/8 of the abilities, so we'll hopefully get somewhere soon!

[DonQuixote]

Spellshaping now includes incantations! (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6613.0) Hooray!

Current plan is to evaluate things, then dive into the revision and the rest of the To-Do List simultaneously.

[DonQuixote]

Okay, I've officially begun the revision process. I've currently revised the caymir, the stoichen, the anchorite, the elemental adept, and the spellshape champion. All racial substitution levels, class-or-race-specific feats, and alternative class features have also been revised. Here, have them in list form:

Races
Caymir (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=986.0)
Stoichen (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=988.0)
Classes
Anchorite (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=983.0)
Elemental Adept (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=851.0)
Spellshape Champion (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=854.0)

Now, why have I provided links, rather than PDFs? Well, this revision is going to culminate in me making one, massive Spellshaping PDF. As such, it would be pretty inefficient of me to stop what I was doing every five minutes to update the old PDFs.

As a result, I will no longer be updating the Codex I and Codex II PDFs. I will instead be focusing on revising and updating the material, so that I can present the giant PDF all the sooner.

Once I decide on a format, I'll be posting an index of the revised material in the first post of this thread.

[NineThePuma]

If I may ask, why the revision?

(You might have said already, but I've only been tangentially paying attention to this thread.))

[DonQuixote]

Well, it has a lot to do with my decision to compile all the existing spellshaping material into one PDF. That's actually at the heart of the decision to go forward with the revision. In bringing all this stuff together, I get the opportunity to change things about the earlier material to suit later developments. For example, I folded the Choice of the Devoted alternative class feature into the base elemental adept. I couldn't do that before because the Screeching Roc circle wasn't in Codex I. Another example would be the anchorite revision, which swaps out the spellshape auras for a more monk-like feel. I couldn't do that before because a lot of material referenced the anchorite's auras. However, by revising the system, I can do things like install numena (the new name for spellshape auras) right into the core rules.

Also, it has historically been the case that August is just the month of revision. Last August, I rewrote most of the formulae. This August, I'm bringing all the material together and rewriting the bits that need to be rewritten.

[DonQuixote]

Updated cambian, living spellshape, impulse mage, and spellsage. Now, I just need to do masked one and savant, and the races and base classes will be complete.

Then, I just need to do feats, system fluff, circles, prestige classes, items, and monsters.

Hoh, boy, it's going to be a busy fall.


Oh, I added an index of links to the revised material to the first post. Technically, all the old links still work, so I'm keeping them up for now. The revised material is simply flagged as such.

[DonQuixote]

All the races and base classes are done, as are the feats. First post has been updated accordingly.

Next up, I'm going to clarify the core rules chapter, as well as clean up some spotty bits of fluff. I'm basically trying to get everything possible done before moving into actually revising the individual circles, since I know that's going to be one of the longer parts of the process.

Apologies for the sporadic updates. My final year at college is proving to be...rather work-intensive.

[DonQuixote]

CRISIS MODE ENGAGED!

So, for those of you who weren't aware, MinMax recently...imploded. That means that there are a lot of dead links in my first post, especially to revised material. Well, I can't help with the online material that hasn't yet been revised, but I am going to be a swell guy and pass out the .docx file of my revisions. Find it here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/8plh3kdaer0xohy/Complete%20Codex.docx). I recommend downloading it, rather than viewing online, since it takes a while to load on Dropbox and the text gets mangled.

Since I haven't actually posted a progress update in a while, the rules chapter has been completed and I'm almost halfway done with circle revisions. I make no promises about my productivity in the coming semester. While I only have class twice a week, I am a college senior on the way to graduation. So I might still be dealing with a massive workload and what have you.

Edit: Have another Dropbox link. (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ymf18kmz9lsjbb3/adPBUM6A0n) Yep, caches of not-yet-revised web enhancement materials. Don't forget to download both the .html file and the file folders for each page that you need.

[NineThePuma]

That's irritating.

Hope we can get Minmax back up.

[radmelon]

Is there any news as to why it went down?

[DonQuixote]

Apparently, it was taken down by the host because some spyware or hackers managed to worm their way in somewhere and cause the site to redirect mobile uses to...less than savory websites.

Just to check, are the dropbox links working? More importantly, you guys can't edit the online versions, correct? The last thing I need is someone laughing as they delete everything from the revised document.

[radmelon]

We can't edit them unless you've put them in a folder that is shared with us, I think. So it should be safe. Make a backup, just in case I'm talking out my posterior.

[NineThePuma]

Might see if I can talk a GM into letting me use this in a game. I'm disappointed that BG/MM went down.

Is the Draconic Class in the stuff still available, or is it gone?

Found it, thanks!

[chaos_redefined]

How much has changed since the two Codex PDFs? I notice some of the circles in the docx are missing there formulae, but the PDFs seem to be complete (even if they are no longer up to date).

[sirpercival]

Hey DonQ, I submit to you: The (WIP) Sage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14545157&postcount=34), a spellshaper-meets-zelda base class.

[DonQuixote]

How much has changed since the two Codex PDFs? I notice some of the circles in the docx are missing there formulae, but the PDFs seem to be complete (even if they are no longer up to date).

The .docx only contains the materials that have actually been revised. If I haven't actually rewritten it yet, it's not in the .docx. Use the PDFs for such things.

A lot of the changes have been to base classes and races, bringing things into the core rules so that, for example, elemental adepts can get their elemental incantations for free. Feats and suchlike were standardized and codified, and the rules chapter was rewritten.

In terms of formulae, I've been removing formulae that feel clunky, don't go well with the direction spellshaping ended up taking, or create problematic rules scenarios. I don't want anything to be a straight save-or-die, for instance...which I only later realized meant that paralysis and the like had to go as well. For another example, Shocking Current needs to be revised so as to not tread on Screeching Roc's toes. Stuff like that.

It got bogged down last semester, when I was more or less constantly working. My schedule is a bit lighter this semester, so hopefully I'll be able to focus on getting things done.



Hey DonQ, I submit to you: The (WIP) Sage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14545157&postcount=34), a spellshaper-meets-zelda base class.

Just so long as I don't have to marry a fish.

[chaos_redefined]

Was there any thoughts on how the anchorite can pick up level-appropriate abilities from the circles he picks up later in the game?

[DonQuixote]

Was there any thoughts on how the anchorite can pick up level-appropriate abilities from the circles he picks up later in the game?

This is why anchorites get two new formulae known, rather than one, at the levels at which they get new circles. This allows you to pick up a 1st-level and a formula of up to 3rd level (Prerequisite: One formula). At the next even-numbered level, you can then trade in a different formula for a formula of up to 5th level (Prerequisite: Two formulae) in addition to learning a new formula of up to 7th level (Prerequisite: Three formulae).

At 5th level, getting a 1st-level and a 3rd-level formula already gives you a formula of the highest level that you can use. At 10th level, the level itself is even, meaning that you can already get a 5th-level formula--again, the highest level that you can use. Only 15th level has any issue, with you only being able to grab a 1st-level formula and a 3rd-level formula, but you'll be able to get up to a 7th-level formula at your next level, which is only one level below the highest level that you can use.

While these numbers are assuming that you go all in with your new circle, there's nothing forcing you to do so. You don't actually lose access to your older formulae, so you can still use the level-appropriate abilities that you already had. You'll just have a bit of a learning curve with the new circle, which I find to be acceptable. Also bear in mind that you gain access to a new meditative aspect simply for picking up a new chosen circle, as well as the ability to take feats and meet prerequisites related to the circle.

At no point will the anchorite have any ability that allows it to ignore "formulae known" prerequisites. If there's really a strong demand for it, I might put in something about exchanging known formulae for formulae from the new circle of the same level or lower, but that's about it. That also gets really klunky and awkward fairly quickly, but I'll poke at it if the masses demand.

[chaos_redefined]

I was thinking more along the lines of a few formulae with no prerequisites. Weaker, to make up for it, but it gives people access without feeling bad for taking first level maneuvers at 10th/15th level.

It also makes dipping spellshaping more of an option. (As stands, you've made dipping out of spellshaping a decent option, but not dipping into.)