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zegram 33
2013-02-03, 10:51 AM
The Elementalist

Both its combat and utility abilities come from calling up spirits of elements as a standard action. Spirits act like summoned creatures. The party role of an elementalist can be many and varied, depending on the area he is in. for example, positive spirits can be used as out-of battle healing with no limit and any spirits may be used to attack directly. Also personally learns a decent amount of utility magic at will.
Elementalists can get on with most classes, but tend to be disliked by the followers of gods of nature or balance, and can become outright hated by druids. note that this depends on the personality of the elementalist in question, and how well he/she treats the spirits summoned.
Note that in this description, if I refer to “elementals” or “spirits”, I mean “elemental spirits” rather than incorporeal undead or more “normal” elementals.

Hit Dice: d6
Alignment: any
Skill points: 4+int modifier per level
Class skills: Diplomacy (Cha), Gather information (Cha), handle animals (Cha), Knowledge (Arcana) (int), Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (int), Knowledge (Geography) (int), Knowledge (local) (int), Knowledge (Religion) (int), Knowledge (The Planes) (int), Spellcraft (int) Survival (wis)

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+0|+0|+2|+2|Elemental summoning
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+3|Endure elements at will
3rd|+1|+1|+3|+3|Speak with aimals at will
4th|+2|+1|+4|+4|Elemental Spell
5th|+2|+1|+4|+4|Deep summoning
6th|+3|+2|+5|+5|Speak with plants at will, control reduced to a move action
7th|+3|+2|+5|+5|Fusion
8th|+4|+2|+6|+6|Elemental Spell
9th|+4|+3|+6|+6|Commune with nature at will, improved evasion, 2 controls per round
10th|+5|+3|+7|+7|Resonance, spirit increase to 60ft
11th|+5|+3|+7|+7|summoning reduced to a move action
12th|+6/+1|+4|+8|+8|Elemental Spell
13th|+6/+1|+4|+8|+8|Deep summoning reduced to a full-round action
14th|+7/+2|+4|+9|+9|Harmony, control reduced to an immediate action
15th|+7/+2|+5|+9|+9|
16th|+8/+3|+5|+10|+10|Elemental Spell
17th|+8/+3|+5|+10|+10|3 controls per round
18th|+9/+4|+6|+11|+11|Redirect
19th|+9/+4|+6|+11|+11|
20th|+10/+5|+6|+12|+12|Unity
[/table]

Elemental spirits are a coalescing of the latent elemental energy present in all environments. They are non-sentient beings and tend to confer upon the area (or elementalist) effects as befitting that element. As a product of elemental spirits existence, though, the elementalist can only call up elemental spirits that roughly match the area you are in: for example a desert might allow earth, fire and air elementals whilst a volcano only allowed earth and fire elementals. Spirits last indefinatley (or until dismissed as a free action), and can venture up to 100ft from the elementalist.

An elementalist can be followed by a number of spirits equal to his Cha modifier.
However, whilst the elemental will follow its elementalist as a free action, to actually compel the element to do something requires action. Until 6th level this takes a standard action per elemental. At 6th level, it is reduced to a move action per elemental, and at 14th level it is reduced to an immediate action. Each elemental cannot act more than once in a round. Only one spirit can be controlled each turn, until 9th level, when 2 can be controlled per round. This increases again at 17th level, when three can be at the cost of a full-round action.


General Rules for Elemental "Habitats"
Fire: anywhere where there is a lot of “dry” heat.

Air: anywhere with strong winds, or very high altitude

Earth: large rocky or sandy outcroppings.

Nature: anywhere plants lie in abundance and largely undisturbed: forests, grasslands, etc. note that area’s such as farmland may not allow nature spirits to be summoned, depending on the setting.

Water: anywhere with an abundance of humidity. Note that temperature is not a prerequisite, so will be found just as often in steamy rainforests as in frozen wastelands.

Negative: anywhere where death abounds. Battlefields, graveyards, and
other such places. Large quantities of nearby undead allow negative elemental spirits to awaken, as well.

Positive: anywhere where a large quantity of life thrives. The life can be sentient or not, fauna or flora. As such, can often be summoned in most area’s. (but note that positive and negative elementals are rarely able to be naturally summoned side by side).


Elemental spirits are partially corporeal, gaining a 50% miss chance versus nonmagical attacks, but being affected by spells or magic weapons as normal. As they only attack via projections of elemental energy, they do not ignore ac during attacks, or gain any other benefit from partial corporeality (They can interact with their environments and be grappled normally, but as they have no limbs they cannot resist a grapple attempt, nor can they pick up objects) They take the form of a coloured ball of light hovering at head height, move at a distance of 30ft per round, and have a fly speed of 5ft per round above their default head height (except earth elementals, which instead gain 5ft burrowing speed).

Elemental spirits have a fixed 1hp per class level of the elementalist and are immune to any damage from the element they deal. As a standard action they can deal 1d4 damage per elementalist level at a range of 30ft, as a ranged touch attack.
Instead of this attack, an elemental spirit may focus its damage in an outward spread, creating a 10ft diameter burst centered on the elemental.

The type of this damage is as follows (where an elemental has two
damage types, the most effective one is chosen for each situation):

Damage types

Fire: fire
Water: cold
Air: electricity
Earth: bludgeoning
Nature: poison
Negative: negative energy
Positive: positive energy
Sonic: sonic
Acid: acid
Gravity: force
Desert: slashing
Magma: bludgeoning/fire
Swamp: poison/cold
Ice: cold/piercing
Storm: slashing/electricity
Chaos: chaotic
Law: axiomatic
Death: negative
Life: non-lethal
Anti: untyped


As the elementalists level increases, he can channel his elemental spirits to cast certain spells from there sphere of ability at will, using his Int stat for these spells. channeling a spell in this way renders the elemental unable to be channeled again for 1d4 rounds. All elemental spirits give a +1 per class level to any knowledge(geography) checks relating to the land that they were summoned from, as well as to any knowledge(the planes) checks related to their particular plane (this latter being replaced by knowledge(nature) in the case of the nature elemental spirit).
Class Abilities

Deep summoning: at 5th level,a summoner can now draw out elements that are not present in the immediate surroundings by searching them out from further afield: however, doing so takes 2 consecutive full-round actions rather than a single standard action.

Fusion: at 7th level, the elemental summoner can trigger “fusion”, allowing him to “fuse” the two elementals into a single, more potent elemental. he must concentrate for a standard action to use the fusion ability.

Terrain altering effects: many fused elementals have the ability to alter the terrain around them, bringing their elements to the forefront. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to the elementalists Cha score, or until overwritten by a different elemental effect (or dispelled). some "terrain effects" can also be quelled by controlling the weather (for example, control weather could nullify "Downpour")
Terrain changed in this way allows the associated elements to be summoned in that area, as well as any others that could naturally be summoned there.
Terrain types and rules can be found Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm), Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm) and Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm)

Improved evasion: at 9th level, elemental spirits gain the effects of the improved evasion feat.

Resonance: at 10th level, once per round, as a free action, an elemental may redirect to itself (and thus nullify)50% of the damage of an attack of the same type as it deals (ie: a fire elemental would redirect fire attacks, an earth would redirect bludgeoning attacks) as long as the target of the attack is within 10ft/class level of the elemental. Any spells or abilities that would hit multiple targets hit for half damage on all of said targets. Any additional effects that would have hit the target have a 50% chance of being completely nullified. This also effects spells (at the DM’s discretion) that fall within that element, but do not deal that type of damage (for example, earthquake would be nullified by an earth elemental 50% of the time, dispel magic by an anti-magic elemental and finger of death by a death elemental).

Harmony: 14th level: works as Resonance does, but within 5ft/class level, and absorbs all of the damage. Resonance and harmony are separate abilities and can both be used in the same turn. Since Resonance redirects the attack in its entirety, burst effects will still happen, merely centred on the elemental rather than the intended target.

Redirect: 18th level: works as Resonance and Harmony, but as well as nullifying the attack at its intended target, redirects it to another target within range of the original effect. This can be the attacker itself, or one of its allies.

Unity: at 20th level, the elementalist achieves true unity with the elements. Although they can still only control 1 elemental a turn (or two as a full-round action), they are treated as having all “basic” (non-fused) elementals with them at all times. Thus, they can use the 3 spirits they can summon naturally to provide an advanced elemental, yet still retain complete elemental coverage.


"Base" Elementals
Fire:
4th: produce flame
12th : scorching ray
8th:fireball
16th:incendiary cloud

Air:
4th: Gust of Wind
8th: Wind wall
12th: Control winds
16th:Control weather

Earth:
4th: Soften earth and stone
8th: Spike stones
12th:stone shape
16th: Transmute mud to rock, Transmute rock to Mud

Nature:
4th:Entagle
8th:command plants
12th:transport via plants
16th: control plants

Water:
4th: create water
8th: Torrent(water+ground): The earth cracks and water flows upwards in a spring. This continual flow of water will make one 10ft square per class level submerged in waist high water. This water reduces movement by 10ft, and imposes a -2 penalty to attack rolls. Outside of the 10ft squares designated, water almost immediately drains back into the earth. Allows summoning of earth and water spirits. Range 100ft from elementals.

12th:Control water
16th: control weather: only capable of summoning rain or fog

Negative:
(undead created by a negative energy elemental only last 1 round per class level, or until the negative elemental spirit is destroyed)
4th: command undead
8th: animate dead
12th: create undead
16th: create greater undead.


Positive:
4th:Glitterdust
8th : Restoration
12th: sunbeam
16th:regenerate

Fusion Elementals

These elementals are counted as two spirits with regards to an elementalists maximum summoned spirits. They are healed by taking damage of the same type they deal, and gain +1 fast healing per 4 class levels the elementalist has.

The following table show's which fusion elemental is produced by which two elementals after fusion. (if anyone has a better idea for what "nature+fire" would produce I would really appreciate advice, i thought of an "ash" or "wasteland" one, but couldnt think of a single ability for it, so yeh...)

{table]|Fire|Air|Earth|Nature|Water|Negative|Positive
Fire|-|Desert Elemental|Magma Elemental|Death Elemental| Sonic Elemental|Order Elemental|Chaos Elemental
Air|Desert Elemental|-|Gravity Elemental|Acid Elemental|Storm Elemental|Order Elemental|Chaos Elemental
Earth|Magma Elemental|Gravity Elemental|-|Forest Elemental|Ice Elemental|Order Elemental|Chaos Elemental
Nature|Death Elemental|Acid Elemental|Forest Elemental|-|Swamp Elemental|Order Elemental|Chaos Elemental
Water|Sonic Elemental|Storm Elemental|Ice Elemental|Swamp Elemental|-|Order Elemental|Chaos Elemental
Negative|Order Elemental|Order Elemental|Order Elemental|Order Elemental|Order Elemental|Death Elemental|Anti-Elemental
Positive|Chaos Elemental|Chaos Elemental|Chaos Elemental|Chaos Elemental|Chaos Elemental|Anti-Elemental|Life Elemental

[/table]

Fusion Elemental types

Sonic:
4th: shatter
8th:Blindness/Deafness
12th: power word: blind
16th:power word: kill

Gravity
4th: slow
8th: gravity manipulation: gravity changed in a 10ft area per class level, treating the area as if it was of a different type of gravity as detailed in http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm
12th: reverse gravity
16th:implosion

Acid
4th:acid arrow
8th:blight
12th:acid fog
16th: cloudkill

Desert
4th : Gust of wind
8th : Heatwave (fire+air): A blistering blast of baking air turns one 10ft square of ground into sand per class level. Allows summoning of earth, air, and fire elementals, and the uneven footing that results means that any creatures moving at more than half their base speed through this area must make a dc 15 balance check or fall prone. Range 100ft from elementals.
12th : Move Earth
16th : Whirlwind

Magma
4th :heat metal
8th :Eruption(Fire+earth): small fissures in the ground tear open and magma spouts out, turning one 10ft square of ground into magma per class level. The caster can choose for it to form a spout up to 20ft high, or a pool 1ft high per class level. A spout will recede after 1 round unless a pool is also chosen to appear in the same 10ft area. As the magma reaches the surface, it cools slightly and thus deals only 1d4 damage per turn to creatures in that area. Allows earth and fire elementals to be summoned in the area.outside of the 10ft squares indicated, magma almost immediately drains into the earth. Range 100ft from elementals.
12th :wall of fire
16th : magma burst: the magma summoned by the magma elemental’s “eruption” ability is now treated as normal (dealing 2d6 damage, and causing half of that as residual damage for 1d3 turns after leaving said magma .

Storm
4th : endure elements
8th : Downpour(water+air): causes a rainstorm to appear, pouring water down onto the target area. If inside a cave or other interior it will instead cause water to splash through cracks in the roof, pooling on the floor. Grants +1 to hide checks to all creatures within the area for every 2 caster levels. Allows summoning of air and water elements. Range 100ft from elementals. Affects one 20ft square per caster level.
12th : call lightning
16th : chain lightning

Swamp
4th : obscuring mist
8th : Miasma(nature+water): causes water to seep amongst the ground, turning one ten foot square of ground into marsh per class level. This marsh works as “deep bog” described at the http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm, preventing tumble checks and costing 20ft of movement to travel 5ft, with the option of including any non-magical disease at the summoners choice. Creatures in the marsh must make a fort save every time they are injured, DC=the diseases normal dc+the damage they took. allows summoning of water and nature. Range 100ft from elementals.
12th : contagion
16th : creeping doom

Ice
4th : chill metal, sleet storm
8th :Ice Age: the ice elemental freezes a 10ft square per class level into a sheet of solid ice (around 6 inches thick, capable of freezing water to the extent that it can be walked over). Both the ground in that area, and all objects in that area, are affected as by the “grease” spell, creatures in the area take 1d4 non-lethal damage for every turn that they remain in the area. (the non-lethal damage was meant to represent that its cold enough to be uncomfortable, but not immediately life-threatening. Thinking of taking that effect out, any thoughts?)
12th : wall of ice
16th : freezing sphere

Forest
4th : plant growth
8th : Bloom(nature+earth): causes a surge of natural energy, coating one 10ft square per class level with plants and foliage. These plants will be locally appearing, and grow to be around 5ft high, granting partial concealment to anyone within them. Allows summoning of earth and nature elementals. Range 100ft from elementals.
12th : Wall of thorns
16th : Animate plants

Death
4th : Death knell
8th : Waves of Fatigue
12th :Antilife shell
16th : Ennervation

Life
4th : animate rope
8th : raise dead
12th : animate objects
16th : Resurrection

Order
4th :Magic circle against Chaos
8th : The order elemental warps an area, turning one 10ft square per class level into an impeded magic zone
12th :Dispel Chaos
16th :Dictum

Chaos
4th : Magic circle against Law
8th : The chaos elemental warps an area, turning one 10ft square per class level into a wild magic zone.
12th : Dispel Law
16th : Word of Chaos

Anti: Elementalist gains SR +1 per class level.
4th:magic aura
8th: dispel magic
12th:greater dispel magic
16th: antimagic field

zegram 33
2013-02-06, 05:48 AM
bump?
i know its initially pretty complicated, but yeh

zegram 33
2013-02-20, 03:30 AM
bump again?

zegram 33
2013-03-05, 08:40 AM
bump for the love?

zegram 33
2013-03-10, 02:08 PM
another bump
can anyone at least tell me if theres anything overtly wrong with how i'm doing it, or just generally no interest?

JKTrickster
2013-03-10, 08:20 PM
Your title is slightly misleading - I understand how it influences the terrain and changes it, but I wouldn't say the class focuses on terrain manipulation.

Instead, it is much more focused on creating and controlling these elemental spirits. In that sense, it plays a lot like a conjurer or summoner.

Aren't the elemental spirits a little squishy though? No matter what element they are, they all have the same +1 HP per Elemental level which sounds pretty low. The Earth elemental's burrow speed should probably be bumped a bit since 5 ft. is pretty low.

Your capstone ability:


Unity: at 20th level, the elementalist achieves true unity with nature. Although they can still only control 3 elementals in one turn, they are treated as having all “basic” (non-fused) elementals with them at all times. Thus, they can use the 3 spirits they can summon naturally to provide an advanced elemental, yet still retain complete elemental coverage.


is a little unclear. You mention above that they can only control 3 elemental in one turn. But earlier you state:


An elementalist can control a number of spirits equal to his Cha modifier.


Only one spirit can be controlled each turn, until 17th level, when two can be at the cost of a full-round action.

So....what are you talking about exactly?


That's all I have for now! :smallsmile:

zegram 33
2013-03-11, 03:03 PM
ahhh, brilliant thank you :-)

the elemental spirits are pretty squishy, but as ethereal creatures they have a 50% miss chance, which helps.
That said, they were deliberatley meant to be easily killed, so that you cant have the fused elementals out ALL the time: since they all have Save or Die effects, it seemed a good preventative: you can start a battle with whatever you want, but have to sacrifice a full-round action and then some to keep it up if it gets killed.


As for the second point: Good catch! thats what happens when you switch mechanics mid-way through the class building.
The Cha mod is how many spirits he can have...following him, at once.
unity is meant to be "no change to how many you can control per turn, but you are treated as if you are always followed by all the "basic" elements at all times, leaving your cha mod slots for the advance ones.

3 in one turn is a relic from a past build of it

Thanks for your input :-)

zegram 33
2013-03-28, 05:33 AM
bump again?

darklink_shadow
2013-03-28, 06:29 AM
What do I do with this? Sure heal out of combat, and in combat I can poke for a little bit.

Once I an control my homes as a move action, my standard is used... well not attacking. Or casting. So what do I do? UMD all day?

I can't find most class features. I disagree with most of your fusion elementals.

I'll post some junk here.


Damage types

Fire: fire
Water: cold
Air: electricity
Earth: bludgeoning
Nature: poison
Negative: negative energy
Positive: positive energy
Sonic: sonic
Acid: acid
Gravity: force
Desert: slashing/fire
Magma: fire
Swamp: poison/cold
Ice: cold/piercing or cold/slashing
Storm: Col/electricity
Chaos: chaotic
Law: axiomatic
Death: negative
Life: non-lethal
Anti: untyped



Why do elementals get fast healing? They have no health to heal.

Why can't I summon elementals from their respective planes? As it is, I am likely to summon creatures that the local enemies are immune to. That's dumb. Deep summoning helps, but I think that's a flawed idea.

Drop terrain altering effects. This guy doesn't seem like the type of prick to put a magma field in a forest. And it makes no sense. Permanent terrain change? You have no respect for the elements that serve you.

You wanna make a terrainmancer? Do that. This is a summoner.

Resonance on an earth elemental makes no sense. I punch bob. Jimbo the earth elemental redirects my attack from 100ft away? How the hell?

Base elementals need balancing. Nature gets entangle where fire gets to,make torches?

Not going over all the problems there. But there are a lot. Re work the skills. Why does each elemental give it's skill? Don't tell me, explain it to your brother who doesn't play this. If it makes sense to him, you're good. If not, you done ****ed up.

I will do fused elements in next post.

darklink_shadow
2013-03-28, 06:44 AM
I can't edit this table easily, so I am typing them out.

Fire crossed with....
Fire: Blaze
Air: Desert.
Earth: Magma
Nature: Destruction
Water: Smoke
Positive: Light
Negative: Death

Air x
Air: Cloud
Earth: Sand?
Nature: Leaves
Water: Storm
Positive: Cleansing
Negative: Poison

Earth x
Earth: Stone or perhaps Iron
Nature: Roots
Water: Mud
Positive: Shielding
Negative: Curses

Nature x
Nature: Beasts
Water, swamp
Positive, healing
Negative, Entropy (chaos)

Water x
Water, ice
Positive, Vitality (buffs)
Negative, desiccation

Positive x
Positive, Good
Negative, Axiomania (strict laws)

Negative x
Negative, evil

zegram 33
2013-03-30, 12:12 PM
thanks for your input, i'll do my best at justifying and modifying my choices.

first thing is, i dont think i was really clear enough about the fluff of this class, which i will elaborate on.
its not a druid-type balance class, its kinda an antidruid i guess, in that its twisting the elements in the area to change it. it can speak to animals and plants at will as a way of showing that it can sense whats happening around it by fluctuations of elements, although possibly i should cut that and just leave "commune with nature" since thats pretty much the idea.

the idea being: every battle will start with a fused elemental, and often lead up by hanging the terrain to both weaken your enemies and allow more helpful elementals to be summoned should your current one get taken down (which is intentionally a big risk if you bring the wrong element to a fight).

secondly, after looking at it, this quote

Why do elementals get fast healing? They have no health to heal.

makes me wonder if you have a slight misunderstanding.
when i say "elementals" or "spirits" here im talking about the class specific feature of summoning "elemental spirits" which have 1hp per class level (thinking of upgrading it to 2 but they are meant to be very fragile, and do have a constant 50% miss chance on them) and NOT either norml dnd elementals or normal dnd spirits. i'm not sure if this is a point of confusion or if you just meant "they have so little health its not very helpful to fast-heal"?


Why can't I summon elementals from their respective planes? As it is, I am likely to summon creatures that the local enemies are immune to. That's dumb. Deep summoning helps, but I think that's a flawed idea.
you really shouldnt be summoning things the local creatures are immune too, since you'll always be able to summon at least two types of elemental in each area (even an active volcano could be "earth and fire").
that said, if a creature is sufficiently "elemental" that its immune to a element, the defensive powers will likely be very handy, and might be worth having one out anyway.


What do I do with this? Sure heal out of combat, and in combat I can poke for a little bit.
the 1d4/level damage is really a fallback attack, as you could usually have a spirit out with some sort of useful ability if you desired. And bear in mind that whilst most of the spells gained at 4th level are a ittle...sad, at that level dealing 4d4 damage at range every turn is still pretty good, and as that tails off the elementals get more and more powerful spells at will. EDIT: just noticed that i had it listed as 1d4/2 levels, which is a little too low)


Once I an control my homes as a move action, my standard is used... well not attacking. Or casting. So what do I do? UMD all day?
hmn... good point. I was originally going to have it as "two elementals can be controlled each turn, but only one spell can be cast each turn" at around level....9-ish. i originally dropped this for being too complicated, but would this help the class pack a more reasonable punch in combat, to be able to do a spell and then follow up with a small amount of direct damage?
Alternatively, having an elemental spirit out would make the PC capable of casting all the spells that the element currently can as a spell-like ability, seperatley from the element: so say a guy has a fire+an air element out: he could attack with either the fire or air elemental, then use any of the spells they grant him seperatley. sound like better design, or a bit fluffily unsound?


Drop terrain altering effects. This guy doesn't seem like the type of prick to put a magma field in a forest. And it makes no sense. Permanent terrain change? You have no respect for the elements that serve you.

You wanna make a terrainmancer? Do that. This is a summoner.

its not about respect for the elements, its about...modifying their effects in each area. kinda saying "i dont like how much earth there is in this desert, lets add some nature". again, i did have rules planned for fire and negative energy being "destructive" elements which tended towards evil if used in a place with lots of nature, as well as a moral requirement to turn terrain back once it was no longer needed, but that seemed to complicated and...druidy. maybe as an ACF?
but even with this current system: a good elementalist probably wouldnt drop a magma field in the middle of a forest, but he CERTAINLY wouldnt leave it there, when he could over-write it with a summoned forest.

this is a terrainomancer, but rather than just having a spell-like ability, I tied it to more versatile spirits.
again, if thats poorly recieved i could do an ACF/partial rewrite where the spirits are removed and you just kinda act as if you always have a spirit of whatever terrain is around?



Resonance on an earth elemental makes no sense. I punch bob. Jimbo the earth elemental redirects my attack from 100ft away? How the hell? this i didnt like particularly, but i couldnt think of anything else that "earth" could redirect, and losing ability makes earth DRASTICALLY weaker compared to the others. is there any way you can think of that would work? my only other though was it has a different set of reasonance etc that can have a chance to knock down anyone attacking in melee with localised earthquakes, but that seemed both over complicated and even less fair than the original ability


Base elementals need balancing. Nature gets entangle where fire gets to,make torches?
i must admit, i gave nature stronger abilities than the others at early levels to balance out the fact it can only attack with "poison" damage which about 90% of things either resist or flat-out ignore. similarly: the only low level fire spells are pretty much replicated or outclassed by the whole "1d4 damage/level" basic ability, so giving it burning hands seemed kinda meaningless.


Not going over all the problems there. But there are a lot. Re work the skills. Why does each elemental give it's skill? Don't tell me, explain it to your brother who doesn't play this. If it makes sense to him, you're good. If not, you done ****ed up.
the skills make sense as a rule (fire is bright so improves spot, air will make balancing easier by preventing any sudden winds or such) but i think i agree with you that its just unecessary faff to remember. remove pretty much that whole paragraph?

what about the actual class skills needs re-working, would you say?


whilst i appreciate all the work you put into the post onfusion elementals, i would point out that each one needs to have 4 spells/abilities that are thematic, or 3 and a terrain effect, as well as me not wanting to offer duplicates of any spell/ability in other elemental spirits.

whilst i guess there MIGHT be 4 spells/abilities relating to "leaves" or "dessication" at the correct levels of power (all the spells at each level are of roughly similar spell levels) within various splatbooks, i try and keep all my classes strictly off the SRD so anyone could play them if they so chose (although that does bring up the weird effect of this site where a lot of the classes created are never played by anyone except the people they were created for etc, but anyway, different question entirely).
thank you for your input though, and a few of the alternative abilities i proposed here SEEM like they would work better, if you agree?

EDIT: Changes made: make the fluff clearer, explicitly clarify that you can overwrite one terrain effect with another, removed skill bonuses to elementals.

darklink_shadow
2013-03-30, 12:42 PM
Here is what I think:

When I can control the buggers as a move action, let me control 2.

1d4 per level is a little poor. Your elementals have no health. Encounters appropriate to their level will have enemies that can sneeze on them to put them down. Any aoe and all your elements are down.

Don't permanently alter terrain. That's dumb and the only reason to keep it is to leave game breakers with a tool to do stupid stuff.

To be honest, resonance is weird, mechanically. Flavorful though. Let's say... earth blocks arrows?

I didn't look at class skills. Everything else is passable. What're you gonna do about constant aoe though? Just be useless that fight?

zegram 33
2013-03-30, 04:33 PM
To be honest, resonance is weird, mechanically. Flavorful though. Let's say... earth blocks arrows?

earth blocking arrows seems like a plan.


1d4 per level is a little poor. Your elementals have no health. Encounters appropriate to their level will have enemies that can sneeze on them to put them down. Any aoe and all your elements are down.

my thoughts for health are that: most AoE's will be some form of spell/elemental damage, and in that case, its entirely likely that you will have an elemental that can use the reasonance series to relocate that effect away from the other elementals, and they have a 50% miss chance against nonmagical attacks, AND complete immunity to all damage of their element.
i guess i could change that to a flat 50% miss chance against all.

i was kinda worried that...well, having a negative energy elemental out kinda nullifies everything a necromancer can do, and severeley messes up any evil clerics or such, and is native to areas where you would encounter those enemies.

but yeh, i guess most enemies you'll encounter will have some kind of melee attack that can put one spirit down per level with multiple attacks
what would you suggest?
increasing the damage for a glass cannon or the health for a bit more survivability?

(incidentally, this is the reason for control as a move action arriving so early, so when your deep summoned lads are dead, you can summon another element from the surrounding area as a standard action, then control him as a move action: you can always keep up the attack. leading on from that...


When I can control the buggers as a move action, let me control 2.

controlling 2 is fine, but im a little concerned about balance (2 lots of implosion/ reverse gravity/cloudkill per turn if you have a cha modifier of +4 seems to be a little unfair)


Don't permanently alter terrain. That's dumb and the only reason to keep it is to leave game breakers with a tool to do stupid stuff.

as for terrain...the only thing i can think of would be to slowly change dnd-mordor into a cheerful place of flower or the other way round, but, thinking about it, i guess its kinda outa-place in the rocket-tag dnd stuff (the idea was you'd open with a terrain changer to screw up your enemy and allow you to summon more of what you wanted when your current batch died, but i guess thats kinda a wasted round in real dnd)

maybe i'll take that out and flesh it out into a seperate class proper, with better restrictions.

darklink_shadow
2013-03-30, 04:44 PM
Make terrain alterations last cha rounds.

I'll make a real terrainmancer soon.

Give the elements improved evasions. Elementals need a d4 recharge time.

Even if your floaty friends are immune to deathly powerful gypsy fire, you are not. Its fine.

zegram 33
2013-03-30, 05:02 PM
done
hows that looking now?

darklink_shadow
2013-03-30, 05:15 PM
I'm on my phone so I can't look very well. Formatting needs a little ... well a lot of work.