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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class Pirate base class 3.5 PEACH



Teapot Salty
2014-04-18, 09:07 PM
Hey guys. First and foremost, sorry about the length of the post, but to fit all the stuff I wanted, it needed to be pretty long. Anyway, this is the first base class that I've built from scratch, and if I missed anything I would be very grateful if you pointed it out. Also, if anyone could tell me how to make a table, that would be awesome. The goal here was to make a class that felt dangerous and agile. One that would be fun to play. Since almost all my games have ships of some sort, it inspired me to make a pirate. If anyone could provide me with information as to what tier it would be in, that is also much appreciated. So without further ado: The Pirate:

Pirate



Hit die: 1d10
Full BAB
Good Reflex and fortitude saves, poor will save.

Skill points: 6+int modifier (x4 at level 1)
Class Skills: Appraise (int), Bluff (cha), Balance (dex), Climb (str), Craft (int), Diplomacy (cha), Disguise (cha), Escape artist (dex), Heal (wis), Hide (dex), Intimidate (cha), Jump (str), Move silently (dex), Profession (wis), search (int), Spot (wis), swim (str), tumble (dex), use rope (dex)

Weapon and armor proficiency: All simple weapons and all martial melee weapons. Light and medium armor.

Level 1
Skill focus
Combat Style

Level 2
Acrobat

Level 3
Wind Step +10 ft

Level 4
Skill focus

Level 5
Evasion
Uncanny Dodge

Level 6
Improved combat style

Level 7
Perfect Shot
Skill Focus

Level 8
Wind step +30 ft


Level 9
Pirates luck x1

Level 10
Skill Focus
Improved evasion
Improved uncanny dodge

Level 11
Greater combat style

Level 12
Pirates Stance

Level 13
Wind step +50 ft
Skill Focus

Level 14
Pirates Luck x2

Level 15
Captains healing

Level 16
Flawless Combat style
Skill Focus
Captains Invulnerability

Level 17
Captains skill.

Level 18
Wind step +70 ft

Level 19
Pirates Luck x3
Skill focus

Level 20
Hurricane of blades
Perfect combat style.








Class Features:
Combat Style: Choose between one handed, two weapon, and two handed styles. Each style has a passive bonus and a more active one.
One handed: Having one hand on your weapon and your other empty.
Two weapon: Having a weapon in each hand.
Two handed: Having a both hands on your weapon.
The above criteria must be met for the pirate to reap the bonuses of it’s chosen style.
The benefits improve at 6th, 11th, 16th and 20th level.

At level one, if the pirate chose one handed they get: Add the highest bonus (if positive) among your dex, intelligence or wisdom to damage rolls. You’re treated as if you had the combat expertise feat, even if you don’t have the normal prerequisites. At level six you are treated as if you had the combat reflexes feat, and you now add the second highest bonus (if positive) from among your dex, int, and wis to damage rolls. At level eleven you add all three of your dex, int and wis modifiers (if positive) to damage rolls. You also gain a bonus to ac equal to your third base attack bonus. At level 16, all bonuses to damage from ability scores (from str, dex, int, wis, or any others) are doubled. You also gain a +6 insight bonus to all combat maneuvers. (Sunder, disarm, etc.) At level 20 you all bonuses to damage from ability scores (str, dex, int, wis, or any others) are tripled instead of doubled, and you never provoke attacks of opportunity.

At level one, if the pirate chose to two weapon they get: Light weapons use your full str bonus instead of half. And you are treated as if you had the two weapon fighting feat. At level six you gain the ability to make a attack with your off hand weapon whenever you make an attack with your primary hand, so long as your number of off hand attacks do not exceed the number of off hand attacks you could make on a full attack. You may make only one off hand attack per primary attack. You are treated as if you had the improved two weapon fighting feat. At level eleven you are treated as if you had the pounce and greater two weapon fighting feats. At level 16, you are treated as if you had the two weapon rend feat, however, you may rend on every successful “parallel attack” instead of the normal activation. At level 20 your attacks also do constitution damage equal to 5+ your str modifier.

At level one if the pirate chose two handed they get: Your attacks with two handed weapons add 2x your str instead of 1.5x. You are treated as if you had power attack, even if you don’t have the normal prerequisites. At level six you gain a second passive bonus were your weapons are treated as if they were one size category larger for the purpose of determining damage, and you are treated as if you had the cleave feat. At level eleven, all attacks you make that deal damage stun the target for a rounds equal to the damage dealt. You are treated as if you had the great cleave feat. At level 16 you are treated as if you had the leap attack feat. At level 20, whenever your attacks do damage, the target must make a fortitude save (dc equal to damage dealt) or
die.



Skill focus: The pirate gains skill focus as a bonus feat at 1st level, and every 3 levels therafter.

Acrobat: A pirate may tumble any time so long as he is not wearing heavy armor. If the pirate is under a circumstance where he could tumble normally, (that is, without this feature) he gains a +4 bonus on the check.

Wind step: At 3rd level you gain the ability to wind step. Wind step is treated as a spell like ability with a 5 minute “cooldown” period. As a swift action a pirate may wind step a distance equal to or less than his movement speed +10, +30 at level 8, and +50 at level 13 and +70 at level 18. This is treated as a teleport spell except the distance caps are those above and cannot be used to move living beings other than yourself.

Evasion: Works exactly like the rogue ability of the same name except still effective in medium armor.

Uncanny Dodge: Works exactly like the rogue ability of the same name.

Perfect Shot: At level 7, your attacks have the chance of becoming perfect shots. If your attack roll exceeds a targets ac by 8, the attack deals additional damage equal to your highest base attack bonus. This ability is automatically granted by a critical hit, but is not multiplied by one.

Pirates Luck: At 9th level, a pirate gains the ability to reroll a failed save or skill check once per save or check. At level 14 the pirate may reroll twice, and at level 19, it may reroll 3 times.

Improved Evasion: Works exactly like the rogue ability of the same name.

Improved Uncanny Dodge: Works exactly like the rogue ability of the same name.

Pirates stance: At level 12 choose between the following: Agile striker, champions stance, or flying guillotine.

If you chose agile striker you gain: Whenever you move through a square adjacent to an enemy, you may make an attack against them at your highest base attack bonus.

If you chose champions stance you gain: As long as you have both feet firmly on the ground, your attacks do additional damage equal to your highest base attack bonus.

If you chose flying guillotine you gain: As long as you are in the air (not touching the ground) your attacks to +1d4/pirate level damage.

Captains healing: You heal 5 hp per round and reduce your nonlethal damage by 15 per round.

Captains invulnerability: Attacks against have a chance to miss equal to your fourth base attack bonus x 10.

Captains Skill: Once per round, you may declare that one of your attacks will use this ability. For that attack, you roll 2d20 and take the higher result for your attack roll.

Hurricane of blades: At any time you can make a full attack, you may make two full attacks instead.



So how'd I do? And as always, go nuts.

Magikeeper
2014-04-19, 12:55 PM
@tables: There are a few threads mentioning how to make a table, but if all else fails you could just go to any thread that has a table and click 'reply with quote'. Then you can just look at the quoted text, see how they made the table, and then exit the page without posting.

Actually, I'll do just that right now.

Your name here



Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special


1st
+0
+2
+0
+0




2nd
+1
+3
+0
+0



3rd
+2
+3
+1
+1



4th
+3
+4
+1
+1



5th
+3
+4
+1
+1



6th
+4
+5
+2
+2



7th
+5
+5
+2
+2



8th
+6/+1
+6
+2
+2



9th
+6/+1
+6
+3
+3



10th
+7/+2
+7
+3
+3



11th
+8/+3
+7
+3
+3



12th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+4



13th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+4



14th
+10/+5
+9
+4
+4



15th
+11/+6/+1
+9
+5
+5



16th
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+5



17th
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+5



18th
+13/+8/+3
+11
+6
+6



19th
+14/+9/+4
+11
+6
+6



20th
+15/+10/+5
+12
+6
+6




It probably would have been better for me to have quoted a class with full BAB and good fort/ref, but I'm sure you can fix that. In anycase, quoting is an easy way to learn how anyone formatted anything.

@Grammar - I would strongly recommend reading the text of this class out loud. There are a lot of really obvious grammatical mistakes, wrong words, etc.

----------------------

Now on to the class itself:

@General - Many abilities are worded in odd ways. For now I'm just going to ignore that unless it prevents the abilities from working. Comparing these abilities with other classes (such as in the hypertext srd) to get a feel for how they refer to things would be a good idea.

@Styles
One-Handed - This style is... okay. The level 11 ability is likely to be weak since it being good would mean the PC had 4+ high stats. Basing it off the third iterative is an odd choice - that would only be +1 at level 11 and it would max out at +5. +1 at level 11 is probably not even worth the time it takes to add it to your total. I'd probably just have it be based off the highest stat. Why no Charisma, btw? Are dashing pirates not a thing?

Two-Weapon - I like this style. However, the first ability does not help your off-hand weapon, which is clearly the intent. Replace 'light' with 'off-hand'. Light weapons normally use your strength bonus. The first level is very dippable, but TWF could use the help anyway. The capstone is somewhat... random. That is a lot of con damage as well - this level 20 pirate can pounce for two full attacks that deal 15+ con damage a hit. Damage becomes completely irrelevant unless the opponent is immune to con damage. Dealing.. 4 con damage a hit would still be very strong but wouldn't make damage pointless. You are unlikely to hit with every attack, after all, so 2-3 hits of 4 Con would be brutal but would still care about the rest of your damage. In practice it might be stronger as well, since it will terrify the DM less. :P

Two-Handed - Almost nothing in this style feels like a pirate to me. Moving on.. let's take this by level..
> Level one: Extremely dippable. Aside from that, alright.
> Level 6: Alright.
> Level 11: No save stun... that lasts for MINUTES?! This is basically a no-save-you-die effect. Unless the opponent is immune to stunning. This is about the level where melee should be able to murdalize mooks, but this... is too much. On the other hand, it does nothing to help against the many stun-immune foes. I think an ability that is less amazingly powerful but more universally applicable would be a better choice.
> Level 16: It is possible to pick up this feat much earlier, and it is a good feat to grab. Not to mention this style does not otherwise support charging. Odd Choice.
> Level 20: So many saves. So many. This would be fine 1/encounter.

@Stances:
Agile Striker: I like this.
Flying Guillotine: So, assuming you pick up a buff/item of flying, this is +12d4 or more damage to every strike. +1 damage/level would be more than enough enough, really.
Champion's Stance: What does this have to do with pirates? Anyway, it is fine (being +1 damage/level). It would be better to just have it be +1 damage per level though, since that is a more common thing to base stuff off of and would be exactly the same as BAB.

Other Stuff:
Captain's healing: What is the fluff behind this?

Captain's Invulnerability: Still too light on fluff. Not really sure how it fares balance-wise. Might be okay.

Windstep: So, this is a teleportation effect. Tying it to the actual spell "teleport" gives it a chance to arrive at the wrong destination, which is clearly not the intent of this ability. Also, as described it can basically be used "once per encounter". No need to describe cooldowns and such.

Grod_The_Giant
2014-04-19, 02:08 PM
Magikeeper covered the combat styles pretty well, so I'm going to skip those, except to recommend that you actually grant the feats, and that you separate out the level-by-level benefits. Something like
Two-Weapon Style: To gain the benefits of this style, blah blah blah.

At level 1, blah blah blah.
At level 6...
At level 11...
At level 16...
At level 20...

Also, while the benefits are often nice, they are almost entirely passive.


Skill focus: The pirate gains skill focus as a bonus feat at 1st level, and every 3 levels therafter.[QUOTE]
Decent.

[QUOTE]Acrobat: A pirate may tumble any time so long as he is not wearing heavy armor. If the pirate is under a circumstance where he could tumble normally, (that is, without this feature) he gains a +4 bonus on the check.
I can dig it, although I'd like that bonus to scale.


Wind step: At 3rd level you gain the ability to wind step. Wind step is treated as a spell like ability with a 5 minute “cooldown” period. As a swift action a pirate may wind step a distance equal to or less than his movement speed +10, +30 at level 8, and +50 at level 13 and +70 at level 18. This is treated as a teleport spell except the distance caps are those above and cannot be used to move living beings other than yourself.
You do not want to key this off teleport, due to the error potential. Honestly, I don't think you need to say anything beyond "once every 5 minutes, you may teleport a distance equal to your highest movement speed." (With appropriate modifiers at higher levels).


Evasion: Works exactly like the rogue ability of the same name except still effective in medium armor.
Ok. Why medium armor, incidentally? I mean, it lets you wear mithril plate, which is nice, but it doesn't seem very piratical. I dunno.


Perfect Shot: At level 7, your attacks have the chance of becoming perfect shots. If your attack roll exceeds a targets ac by 8, the attack deals additional damage equal to your highest base attack bonus. This ability is automatically granted by a critical hit, but is not multiplied by one.
...Why 8? It seems like a totally random number, and not an easy one to calculate. Why not 10? I like that it's keyed off BAB, though-- makes it multiclass friendly. Also, two wording quibbles:
"Highest BAB" is not a thing. I think you mean "full BAB."
Your wording for critical hit interactions is a bit odd. I'd suggest "This damage is not multiplied by a critical hit. Any critical hits you do score, however, are automatically Perfect Shots."


Pirates Luck: At 9th level, a pirate gains the ability to reroll a failed save or skill check once per save or check. At level 14 the pirate may reroll twice, and at level 19, it may reroll 3 times.
So... any time I fail a save or skill check, I can reroll it, up to three times? With no daily limit? Egads. Do you mean "You may use this ability only once per day for a particular skill or saving throw?"


Improved Evasion: Works exactly like the rogue ability of the same name.
I think it would then fail to function in medium armor, so you might want to note that.



Pirates stance: At level 12 choose between the following: Agile striker, champions stance, or flying guillotine.
Choices! Choices are good.


If you chose agile striker you gain: Whenever you move through a square adjacent to an enemy, you may make an attack against them at your highest base attack bonus.
Nice.


If you chose champions stance you gain: As long as you have both feet firmly on the ground, your attacks do additional damage equal to your highest base attack bonus.
That's some serious bonus damage, especially as a two-weapon fighter. You might want to change "the ground" to "a solid surface," as otherwise you couldn't use this on a ship.


If you chose flying guillotine you gain: As long as you are in the air (not touching the ground) your attacks to +1d4/pirate level damage.
Wait, I take it back. That's ludicrous bonus damage, especially given that you should be continually flying by this level.


Captains healing: You heal 5 hp per round and reduce your nonlethal damage by 15 per round.
Pirates regenerate now? Otherwise, it's probably OK for the level.


Captains invulnerability: Attacks against have a chance to miss equal to your fourth base attack bonus x 10.
You only ever have one BAB-- iterative attacks are made at a penalty, not a separate BAB. So this is at (BAB-15)*2? Which starts off at 10%, then goes up to 50%... that's some serious scaling, and probably gets too high. I'd say BAB%, for simplicity. Or maybe 5% at 16th level, +5% at every subsequent Captain level.


Captains Skill: Once per round, you may declare that one of your attacks will use this ability. For that attack, you roll 2d20 and take the higher result for your attack roll.
Nice.


Hurricane of blades: At any time you can make a full attack, you may make two full attacks instead.
Eek.

Conclusion: It's pretty good as first attempts go. There are number issues here and there, but you've introduced a fair amount of flexibility, and a handful of options beyond move and full attack, so... hmm. Assuming properly scaling numbers, this might just make tier 3, thanks to solid skills and good combat ability. My main suggestion for improvement (beyond formatting/number crunching) would be to include more stuff like Wing Step-- fancy special abilities that are unique to the class. Also, fluff-- not sure how it's a pirate.

Teapot Salty
2014-04-19, 03:01 PM
Thanks so much for the advice guys! :smallsmile: To address some of the points: For champions stance and two handed I was thinking kind off brute from ac IV, and I liked the idea of a pirate standing on a ship, wrecking havoc on mooks with a big sword. The captains healing: The fluff is the whole, "get me my red shirt so the men won't see I'm wounded" except that your just not wounded. The captains invulnerability: Grod, your probably right, on the document I have this on (my version of official document) I'll probably change it to BAB%. Thanks guys.

----------------------------
Much of your advice has now been brought into the "official" version of the class. Thanks for helping me polish!