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View Full Version : First attempt at homebrew; Base Class Incarnum + Soul binding PEACH [D&D 3.5] [WIP]



thethird
2013-05-02, 02:07 PM
So I am throwing my hat at homebrewing, and since what I am trying to do is probably going to take a while to finish I thought that I would appreciate some feedback as I work on it. Incarnum and Pact Magic are imho two of the coolest subsystems in 3.5 so I wanted to try to mix both together and make the soulborn competent. In doing so also differentiate it from the incarnate (who has all the essentia) and the totemist (who has a lot of natural weapons/attacks).

So this is supposed to be a base class based mainly in the soulborn; I am aware of soulborn fixes (such as this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119121) or soulborn reimaginations War Soul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156441) or The Zealot (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245559)) and I am also aware of the midnight occultist (http://forum.faxcelestis.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22) that does something close to what I have in mind but with a prc. I still hope to offer a unique and competitive base class.

Since I play E6 from time to time I tried to make it a good class in E6 (I fear that it might be stronger than the binder, and that saddens me), from there updating it to 20 levels should be easy and doable, so if people show interest I will do it.

I spoilered some thoughts on the different class abilities etcetera, but I hope it is pretty straightforward.

---

~Here will be some fluff (later) mostly soulborns were tired of being the underdog and recurred to pact magic for a power boost.~


The Soulbond

Alignment: Lawful good, chaotic good, lawful evil, or chaotic evil.

Hit Die: d10

Class Skills (2 + Int Mod per level, x4 at first level): The soulbond's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str).

Soulbond

{table=head]
Level|
Base Attack Bonus|
Fort Save|
Ref Save|
Will Save|
Class Abilities|
Maximum Vestige Level|
Essentia|
Chakra Binds
1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|Soul binding (1 vestige), smite opposition (1/day)|
1|
0|
0|
2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|Incarnum augmentation, Essentia pact, Suppress sign|
1|
1|
0|
3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|Bonus feat|
1|
1|
0|
4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|soul guardian (immune to compulsion)|
2|
1|
0|
5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|smite opposition (2/day)|
2|
2|
0|
6th|
+6/+1|
+5|
+2|
+5|Chakra Binds (Crown, Feet, Hands)|
2|
2|
1|
[/table]


Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Soulbonds are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (except tower shields).

Soul binding: You can contact a vestige and make a pact with it. At 1st level you can make a pact with one vestige at a time. You use your soulbond level to determine the maximum vestige level that you can bind (as shown in the table above). Your effective binder level is equal to your soulbond level, plus any other soul binding bonus that you receive, form PrCs, binder levels or other sources, and determines the potency of the bound vestiges.

To contact a vestige, you must draw its unique seal visibly on a surface (generally the ground), making the image at least 5 feet across. Drawing a seal requires the ability to mark a surface and 1 minute of concentration, and the act provokes attacks of opportunity. A seal not used within 1 minute of its drawing loses its potency, and you must draw a new one to contact a vestige. A vestige might also have other requirements for contact, as noted in its entry (see Tome of magic pg. 16).

Once the seal is drawn you must perform a ritual requiring a full-round action to summon the corresponding vestige. During this time, you must touch the seal and call out to the vestige using both its name and its tittle. If you wish to perform an essentia pact (see below), you must offer the essentia while calling the vestige. The ritual fails if you cannot be heard (for example if you are within the are of a silence spell). Otherwise, a manifestation appears in the seal's space as soon as you finish the ritual. This image is not the actual vestige; it is merely a figment (an illusion) that cannot harm or be harmed by any creature. Creatures that interact with the image automatically recognize it as illusory. The summoned image ignores everyone but you. If you fail to address it within 1 round, it disappears. The vestige speaks in whatever language you used to call it.

To make a pact with your summoned vestige, you must make a binding check (1d20 + your effective binder level + your CHA modifier). This process requires 1 minute, but you can choose to make a rushed binding check as a full round action at a -10 penalty. The DC for this check is provided in the description of each vestige (see tome of magic pg. 16-49). You must make your perilous pact alone; others cannot aid you in any way.

Whether the binding check succeeds or fails, you gain the power granted by your vestige for 24 hours. During this time, you cannot rid yourself of the vestige unless you possess the expel vestige feat. Success or failure does, however, determine other aspects of the pact. If you fail the binding check, the vestige influences your personality and your actions, and you are said to have made a poor pact. If your binding check is successful the vestige has no control over your actions and does not influence your personality. In this case you are said to have made a good pact.

While under the influence of a vestige you must adhere to its requirements to the best of your ability. If you are conscious and free willed, and you encounter a situation in which you cannot or will not refrain from a prohibited action or perform a required one, you take -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws and checks until the vestige leaves you. If you are influenced by more than one vestige, you must act according to all their influences. If you fail to fulfill the requirement of more than one vestige, or disobey a single vestige more than once, the penalties stack.

As long as you are bound to a vestige, you manifest a specific physical sign of its presence, as given in its entry. This sign is real, not an illusory or shapechanging effect, and someone using true seeing perceives it just as it is. You can hide a sign by mundane or magical means without penalty, or you can prevent it from appearing at all if you have the suppress sign ability, but see the essentia pact ability below.

Vestiges are bound to your soul by the pact. They cannot be targeted or expelled by any means except the Expel Vestige feat, nor they can be suppressed except by an antimagic field or similar effect. As they are bound to your soul, by no mean, can you gain access to a soul chakra while you have any vestige bound.

The difficulty class for a saving throw against any supernatural power granted by a vestige is 10 + 1/2 your effective binder level + your Cha modifier.

Basically you bind vestiges as a binder, but use the table above to determine the maximum level of vestiges that you can bind. Also, you cannot gain access to a soul chakra, the bound vestiges are occupating it

Smite opposition (Su): Once per day you can channel the power of your incarnum-fueled convictions to attempt to smite a foe with a melee attack. You add your Charisma bonus (if any) to your attack roll and deal 1 extra point of damage per soulbond level. These bonuses apply only against creatures whose alignment opposes at least one component of yours, a lawful good soulbond smites chaotic and evil foes (any creature whose alignment includes either chaos or evil), while a chaotic good soulbond smites lawful and evil foes. If you accidentally smite a creature of the wrong alignment, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter, you can smite opposition one additional time per day to a maximum of five times per day at 20th level.

as the typical soulborn

Essentia: At 2nd level, you gain access to your personal pool of essentia, which can be invested into your vestiges or class features to increase their power. Your essentia pool’s size is shown on the table above. Your character level determines the maximum quantity of essentia that you can invest in any single soulmeld. As a swift action, you can reallocate your essentia investments in your vestiges or class abilities every round. If you have essentia invested in a vestige you cannot suppress its sign.


{table=head]Character level Essentia|Capacity
1st-5th | 1
6th | 2[/table]

Incarnum augmentation (Su): Your incarnum-fused soul dramatically affects your body and mind. At 2nd level, this manifests as a visible change in your appearance, as well as a particular immunity. The appearance and effects of this fusion depend on your alignment:


{table]Lawful Good:| Your eyes become orbs of solid gold in color, with no visible pupil or iris. You gain immunity to fear.
Chaotic Good:| Your irises turn emerald green. You gain immunity to paralysis.
Lawful Evil:| Your pupils display an unholy red hue. You gain immunity to exhaustion (effects that would cause exhaustion render you fatigued instead).
Chaotic Evil:| Your eyes become solid orbs of shadowy blackness, with no visible pupil or iris. You gain immunity to any penalty, damage, or drain to your Strength.[/table]

In addition you can invest essentia in this class feature, for every point of essentia so invested you can select one of the following augmentations.


{table]+5 Hit points
Energy resistance 5 (acid, cold, electricity, fire or sonic)
+1 insight bonus on saving throws
Damage reduction 1/-
+1 insight bonus to armor class
+1 insight bonus on attack rolls
+1 insight bonus on damage rolls
+2 insight bonus on initiative rolls[/table]

You can choose an ability multiple times, and their effects stack.

Incarnum defense was one of the "coolest" class features of the soulborn, yep, they don't get a lot of unique class features. So I felt bad throwing it away. Pact augmentations were also really nice on a binder, the essentia progression should keep the amount of essentia invested in this ability in check, and having it on par with a vanilla binder will lower the other soulbond abilities

Essentia pact: Offering a Vestige Essentia can make it easier to bind. Though Essentia can be invested into a Vestige, if, during the Pact-making process, you offer to have a certain minimum amount of Essentia invested in the Pact for its entire duration, the Binding DC to avoid the Vestige's influence is diminished: For every point of Essentia so offered, the DC is reduced by 5. If 2 or more Essentia is offered, the Vestige's Special Requirement is considered waived, as well.

However, making this offer means that this Essentia cannot be divested from the Vestige without incurring its wrath. If you ever voluntarily has less Essentia invested in a Vestige's Pact than was promised to it, the Soulbond is treated as ignoring its influence, which comes with its usual penalty even if the Soulbond succeeded on his Binding check.

If you are affected by a spell or similar effect which forcibly removes Essentia from the Pact, you must shift your remaining Essentia as soon as possible to return the total to at least the amount promised, or you again offend the Vestige just as if you had willingly removed it. If you no longer have enough Essentia to fulfill your obligations, you must invest all of your Essentia in the Pact until enough of your Essentia returns to be able to keep the Pact at its promised level, or the Pact ends normally. Failure to do so means being considered going back on your promise, incurring the usual penalty.

Further, whenever you take the penalty for ignoring the Vestige's influence due to not having enough Essentia in the Pact, the next time you attempt to offer Essentia in exchange for an easier binding, the Vestige will refuse. In order to return to the Vestige's good graces, you must bind the Vestige as normal, but then keep as much Essentia invested in the Pact as you had offered previously for the entire duration of the Pact, never dropping below this value (unless forced to, and again you must return the Essentia as soon as possible). If you do so, the next time he seeks to make a Pact with the Vestige, you may again offer Essentia in return for an easier deal. Binding the Vestige without keeping this minimum Essentia in the Pact means it will still refuse your offers.

Vestiges like essentia, they crave it and if you give it to them they will be happy and more willing to work with you. Of course, vestiges are to be treated with care, and they won't forget a slight easily.

Suppress sign (Ex): At 2nd level and higher, when you make a good pact, you can choose not to exhibit the physical signs that normally accompanies a pact with a vestige. You can suppress or reveal the sign at will as a swift action. You cannot suppress the sign while it has essentia invested, if you choose to invest essentia on it, while the sign is suppressed it will reveal itself as part of the action of investing essentia. With a poor pact, you gain the powers of the vestige, but you cannot suppress its sign. You show it for the duration of the pact and are influenced by it as normal.

I like the idea of being able to suppress a sign, for camouflage but I also think that it works really nicely as the vanilla manifestation of the vestige/soulmeld, so if you invest essentia into it you need to keep the sign

Bonus feat: At 3rd level you gain a bonus incarnum feat or any of the feats presented in the pact magic chapter of the tome of magic. This feat is in addition to those normally attained for gaining higher levels, but you must still meet any prerequisites for the bonus feats you choose. If a soulbond selects the Favored Vestige feat his maximum essentia capacity for that vestige increases by +1.

Both the binder and the soulborn get bonus feats, so the soulbond should also get some

Soul guardian (Su): Beginning at 4th level, you have immunity to compulsion effects as long as you are bound to a vestige.

This is stronger than the normal soul guardian, but a lawful good soulbond is already immune to fear, and a binder can choose to bind agares and be immune to fear either way, so I feel like this is okay here. Perhaps switch the fear immunity at level 2 with this

Chakra binds: Beginning at 6th level, you can bind your vestiges to your chakras, granting you new powers based on the soulmeld and the chakra chosen. Binding a vestige to a chakra closes the body slot associated with that chakra, so that you cannot also benefit from a magic item worn on the body slot associated with that chakra.
The number of chakra binds that you can have active at any one time depends on your level (see the Chakra Binds column on the table above). At 6th level, you can bind vestiges to your crown, feet, or hands chakras.
For more information on chakra binds, see page 50 of Magic of incarnum, or check this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215723).

So vestiges not only work as soulmelds (manifesting as the sign) but have specific abilities that can be unlocked via chakra binds. Sounds good enough?

Now let's go over the First level vestiges, to get an idea of where this is going

Amon the Void Before the Altar
Amon's spiteful hate keeps the Soulbond bound to him alert, even when surrounded by darkness.
Essentia: The Darkvision granted by Amon increases by 10 feet for every point of Essentia invested in his Pact. In addition within the range of your darkvision you gain see invisibility as the spell.

Chakra Bind (Crown)
With Amon bound to your crown his horns grow, surrounding your head like a crown.
If you hit with the Ram attack granted by Amon you can attempt to trip your opponent as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip you. For each point of essentia invested in Amon you gain a +2 bonus to the resulting trip attempt.

Chakra Bind (Feet)
With Amon empowering your legs they darken and become furred, as the legs of a wolf.
You are considered exceptionally stable on your feet. You gain a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground). For every point of essentia invested in Amon you gain a +2 bonus to resist bull rush or trip attempts.

Aym Queen of Avarice
Aym's greed fills you, drawing you closer to her skills and knowledge.
Essentia You gain a +2 to craft and appraise skill checks per point of essentia invested. In addition you can realize appraise skill checks untrained.
Chakra bind (Crown) Incarnum fuels the Queen's of avarice crown, sparking menacingly towards anyone who approaches you.
As a standard action, you can project a ray of fire energy from your forehead. You must make a ranged touch attack to hit a creature within 60 feet with this ray. If you hit, the ray deals 1d6 points of fire damage plus an additional 1d6 points for every point of essentia you invest in Aym.

Chakra bind (Hands) Incarnum flows from the halo on your head to your hand, lighting on fire any weapon that you might be carrying.
Your flames cover your weapons, dealing an extra 1d4 of fire damage with every physical attack, plus an additional 1d4 per point of essentia invested in Aym.


Leraje, the Green Herald.
The green herald might grant you some of her ranger skills in exchange of essentia.
Essentia: You gain a +2 competence bonus to move silently and survival checks for each essentia point invested into Leraje.

Chakra bind (Feet): Green boots form around your feet, extending up to your ankle. Passing through the foliage becomes easier, and they always seem to point on the direction of your trail.
You gain the benefits of the track feat, and gain the woodland stride druid's class feature.
For every point of essentia you invest in Leraje your land speed increases by 5 feet.

Chakra bind (hands): Green gloves form around your hands, extending up to your elbow. Ricocheting becomes much easier, almost an innate part of you.
You cain use the ricochet ability, even if the second target is not adjacent to the first, but it needs to be within 15 feet of the first target. If both targets are within the range of your precision damage (sneak attack, sudden strike, skirmish damage, etcetera) they both take the extra damage.
For every point of essentia invested in Leraje the range of the ricochet ability increases by 5 feet.

Naberius, The Grinning Hound
The grinning hound influence over you runs deeper when fed incarnum, making you more adept at your skill usage.
Essentia: For every point of essentia invested in Naberius, you gain a +2 bonus to each of your Naberius skills.

Chakra bind (crown) Two mouth sprout beside yours, the three of them grinning and showing teeth. When you speak an echo improves your oratory.
You gain a +6 bonus to perform oratory checks. In addition when you use persuasive words you can forego its normal effect and instead Inspire Courage as a 1st level Bard, but you cannot maintain the inspiration: you and your allies gain the benefit of the inspiration when you use this ability, and for 5 rounds thereafter. Each point of Essentia invested in Naberius adds +2 to your Perform (Oratory) checks, and for every three Essentia, you also add one to your Inspire Courage bonuses.

Chakra bind (Shoulders) A cloak made of the pelt of a three headed dog forms around your shoulders.
Instead of the disguise self ability normally granted by Naberius you gain the minor change shape ability, like that of a changeling. In addition you become more resistant of ability damage, any time you would take ability damage the amount of the damage is reduced by 1 point, to a minimum of 0.
Every point of essentia you invest in Naberius further reduces ability damage by an additional point, and for every two essentia invested in Naberius you also reduce ability drain by one.

Minor change shape
Minor Change Shape (Su): Changelings have the supernatural ability to alter their appearance as though using a disguise self spell that affects their bodies but not their possessions. This ability is not an illusory effect, but a minor physical alteration of a changeling's facial features, skin color and texture, and size, within the limits described for the spell. A changeling can use this ability at will, and the alteration lasts until she changes shape again. A changeling reverts to her natural form when killed. A true seeing spell reveals her natural form. When using this ability to create a disguise, a changeling receives a +10 circumstance bonus on Disguise checks. Using this ability is a full-round action.


Ronove,The Iron Maiden
As your body turns to iron under the influence of Ronove it also becomes lighter. Becoming faster and nimbler.
Essentia: For each essentia point invested in Ronove the enhancement bonus to land speed gained by Ronove's Sprint ability increases by 10 ft.

Chakra bind (Crown) The skin on your head becomes metallic and shines with an incarnum glow.
While unarmored and unencumbered you might add your Wisdom or Charisma bonus, whichever is higher, to your armor class. This bonus doesn't stack with the monk AC bonus or similar abilities. For every point of essentia invested in Ronove the AC bonus increases by one.

Chakra bind (Hands) Your fist become metallic shining with an incarnum glow and hardening to the touch.
You gain the Ki strike class feature of a monk of your soulbond level. For each point of Essentia invested in Ronove, you may increase your effective binding level by 2 for the purpose of this feature and for Ronove's Fists.

---

This is all for now, if you liked it let me know. If you didn't like it let me know. If you have a cool image that I can use let me know. If you have any idea let me know. If you wanna help let me know. Basically let me know what you think.

thethird
2013-05-02, 02:10 PM
In case this gets heated and people like it I am going to need at least another post for more vestiges. So... I am taking this one, feel free to post.

Please, post :smallbiggrin:

Rizban
2013-05-02, 03:22 PM
It's fairly reminiscent of the Midnight Occultist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157493) but in E6 form. I'll look over it more closely when I get some time, but I always like to see incarnum stuff.

thethird
2013-05-02, 04:00 PM
Yep I knew of the midnight occultist before writing this, but I wanted more of a soulborn that an incarnate (or totemist) / binder. Still the essentia pact is more or less the chakra pact of the midnight occultist. Everything else should be different.

Waker
2013-05-02, 08:12 PM
Before I critique this I have to ask, is this meant to be a base class or a PrC? If the former you need to fill out the table a bit more and if the latter you need to post class requirements.

Anyways, on with the comments.
1. The descriptions for Essentia and Incarnum Augmentation aren't bolded.
2. You don't have a list of Weapon and Armor Proficiencies for the class.
3. In Essentia Pact, it details that a character can invest up to 5 Essentia points into a vestige as part of the pact. This violates the rules of maximum essentia capacity that you have posted in the class description. You might want to post that it is an exception or include another class feature that raises the capacity for that ability specifically. In addition the ability seems a bit weak. You might want to consider adding some benefit for investing essentia into the vestige aside from just reducing or negating the binding check. Perhaps something like increasing the DC for special attacks or increasing the caster level for effects.

The Tyler
2013-05-02, 10:50 PM
Before I critique this I have to ask, is this meant to be a base class or a PrC? If the former you need to fill out the table a bit more and if the latter you need to post class requirements.

I believe it's supposed to be a base class for use in E6. That said, I'd like to see it expanded to the full 20 levels.

I don't have a lot of experience with either Incarnum or Pact magic but it definitely sounds like a fun class to play.

What's the reasoning behind the alignment restrictions?

Waker
2013-05-02, 10:57 PM
I believe it's supposed to be a base class for use in E6. That said, I'd like to see it expanded to the full 20 levels.

I don't have a lot of experience with either Incarnum or Pact magic but it definitely sounds like a fun class to play.

What's the reasoning behind the alignment restrictions?

I considered the possibility of E6 as well, but posting the essentia capacity chart is what confused me.
As for the alignment restriction, he mentioned the Soulborn, which is limited to the four extreme alignments.

thethird
2013-05-03, 04:17 AM
Before I critique this I have to ask, is this meant to be a base class or a PrC? If the former you need to fill out the table a bit more and if the latter you need to post class requirements.

Anyways, on with the comments.
1. The descriptions for Essentia and Incarnum Augmentation aren't bolded.
2. You don't have a list of Weapon and Armor Proficiencies for the class.
3. In Essentia Pact, it details that a character can invest up to 5 Essentia points into a vestige as part of the pact. This violates the rules of maximum essentia capacity that you have posted in the class description. You might want to post that it is an exception or include another class feature that raises the capacity for that ability specifically. In addition the ability seems a bit weak. You might want to consider adding some benefit for investing essentia into the vestige aside from just reducing or negating the binding check. Perhaps something like increasing the DC for special attacks or increasing the caster level for effects.

It is intended to be a base class. At the moment I only posted the first 6 levels (with the idea of it being usable in E6) but there is room for expanding it to 20 levels. That is why I posted the essentia chart, and there are some references to later levels. My bad if that wasn't clear :smallredface:

1.- Ugh. My bad.

2.- Yeah forgot that.

3.- The idea is that if you get favored vestige, it would count as expanded soulmeld capacity (well the equivalent, this guy doesn't have soulmelds), and thus enabling you to invest 5 essentia in a vestige. Since that is a big investment (and high level) and you probably can get the pact either way it works automatically.



I believe it's supposed to be a base class for use in E6. That said, I'd like to see it expanded to the full 20 levels.

I don't have a lot of experience with either Incarnum or Pact magic but it definitely sounds like a fun class to play.

What's the reasoning behind the alignment restrictions?

The alignment restrictions are those of the soulborn (which sucks hard) the incarnum "paladin". The class is heavily inspired by it, as a matter of fact it is a soulborn who has gone after vestiges for moar power.


I considered the possibility of E6 as well, but posting the essentia capacity chart is what confused me.
As for the alignment restriction, he mentioned the Soulborn, which is limited to the four extreme alignments.

Sorry for the confusion. It is not just E6 (although it should work in E6), it is intended to have 20 levels. I was just scared that if I posted the 20 levels in one go, with all the vestiges it will be a wall of text and many people would feel intimidated to give feedback.

Anyways thank you everyone for your comments.

Rizban
2013-05-03, 06:37 AM
I don't believe that giving it pacts and melds would be too powerful. If you leave the pacts, essentia, and chakra binds as they are and give it meld progression as the soulborn from the book, that would allow a player to round out his abilities quite nicely without getting too strong. Adding 1 soulmeld at 4th level up to a max of 5 at 20th is actually pretty weak. That's one reason soulborn is almost unplayable.

Waker
2013-05-03, 01:20 PM
1. Harping on the Essentia Pact again. The Favored Vestige feat can be taken multiple times but can't be applied to the same vestige more than once, so a 6th level Soulbond can still only put 2 points into a vestige. Not a problem if you take the class beyond E6, but it doesn't work if not.

2. Amon's standard power seems kinda weak. Darkvision is useful, but many races get it for free and even the Warlock invocation See the Unseen grants See Invisible. Perhaps add some bonus to Spot checks or something else. Amon's vestige in ToM gives him a fire breath, perhaps you could give him a bonus on saves vs fire attacks equal to essentia invested?

3. Aym's description is a little wonky, you have it reading as "In addition you can realize appraise skill checks as if it were a trained skill." where you could just say that you can make Appraise checks untrained. For the Hand bind, you could say that physical attacks deal an extra 1d4 points of fire damage, plus an additional 1d4 per point of essentia invested. Also her description on essentia isn't capitalized.

4. Leraje's essentia description isn't bolded.

5. Naberius's essentia description isn't capitalized. Also what are the skills that essentia investment improves? You might also want to detail exactly how the Disguise Self ability works, as everyone might not have access to books talking about Changelings. The damage/drain ability is odd, but fine.

6. Ronove's speed bonus is a bit lacking, maybe add something else like a boost to initiative? Does her Crown Chakra ability stack with normal armor?

That's all I could think of for now. Just woke up, still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

thethird
2013-05-03, 01:58 PM
I don't believe that giving it pacts and melds would be too powerful. If you leave the pacts, essentia, and chakra binds as they are and give it meld progression as the soulborn from the book, that would allow a player to round out his abilities quite nicely without getting too strong. Adding 1 soulmeld at 4th level up to a max of 5 at 20th is actually pretty weak. That's one reason soulborn is almost unplayable.

I don't want to overdo it, so for now I'll leave them at only vestiges. Still they should be able to pick soulmelds with feats (they will have bonus feats down the line).


1. Harping on the Essentia Pact again. The Favored Vestige feat can be taken multiple times but can't be applied to the same vestige more than once, so a 6th level Soulbond can still only put 2 points into a vestige. Not a problem if you take the class beyond E6, but it doesn't work if not.

It still reduces the pact DC (with only one essentia). And it will work once the class is taken down the line. I can edit that out for now, but the class is expected to go to level 20.


2. Amon's standard power seems kinda weak. Darkvision is useful, but many races get it for free and even the Warlock invocation See the Unseen grants See Invisible. Perhaps add some bonus to Spot checks or something else. Amon's vestige in ToM gives him a fire breath, perhaps you could give him a bonus on saves vs fire attacks equal to essentia invested?

Those could be options, I personally like the see invisible one (as it is harder to replicate).


3. Aym's description is a little wonky, you have it reading as "In addition you can realize appraise skill checks as if it were a trained skill." where you could just say that you can make Appraise checks untrained. For the Hand bind, you could say that physical attacks deal an extra 1d4 points of fire damage, plus an additional 1d4 per point of essentia invested. Also her description on essentia isn't capitalized.

Thanks, does seem like good ideas for what I was trying to say.


4. Leraje's essentia description isn't bolded.

Thanks


5. Naberius's essentia description isn't capitalized. Also what are the skills that essentia investment improves? You might also want to detail exactly how the Disguise Self ability works, as everyone might not have access to books talking about Changelings. The damage/drain ability is odd, but fine.

Naberius grants skills when you make a pact with him, those skills are improved.

I guess that you mean the minor change shape, I will add how it works. As a side note it is here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070314a).

I was worried about strengthening to much the healing ability of Naberius, thus I borrowed some things from the strongheart vest.


6. Ronove's speed bonus is a bit lacking, maybe add something else like a boost to initiative? Does her Crown Chakra ability stack with normal armor?

The idea was drawing the pact with Ronove closer to what a monk would do, I'll double it though. The crown chakra ability shouldn't work with armor, I'll make that explicit.


That's all I could think of for now. Just woke up, still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

Don't worry I know the feeling, thanks for the feedback.

Waker
2013-05-03, 03:03 PM
The idea was drawing the pact with Ronove closer to what a monk would do, I'll double it though. The crown chakra ability shouldn't work with armor, I'll make that explicit.
It's just that movement speed isn't a super important thing. You could keep the 5ft/essentia the same and include something about ignoring difficult terrain or maybe provide a bonus to Balance and Tumble. Those would probably get appreciated more than simply running faster.

wayfare
2013-05-21, 10:19 PM
Conceptually very interesting. good job for a first effort!