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AgentMaineSIGMA
2017-01-26, 03:50 PM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12frSfubZiwVsixaP3CZnbVRCWuwyGWJD_7gk4qNnXHo

My entirely too long and overly developed Megaman class from the games most people forgot. It seems pretty balanced as of now. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Kurokoi
2017-05-30, 07:54 AM
First of all, I wanna say oh my god I love this and I'm so happy someone made this into a thing. ZX gets so little recognition. I'm definitely going to use this in the future for sure.

Anyway, down to business. This definitely looks pretty good, although I'm not that knowledgeable when it comes to balance. I will say, the double mega merge ability could use some better wording. I'm still not 100% sure how it works. I'm also confused about something; under the mega merge ability it says merging uses an action, but rushed mega merge says it "can be used to reduce the mega merge from a bonus action to a free action" even though earlier it's stated that it doesn't take a bonus action but instead takes a full action.

Nothing too bad just trying to clarify.

JNAProductions
2017-05-30, 12:43 PM
HOLY CRAP I'M IN LOVE!

...

Okay. Now time to ACTUALLY READ THE DINGER DANG CLASS. :P

D8 hit die, okay.

Most people are gonna pick Dex for saves-it's a stronger save than Str.

Should have a bigger skill list.

Your Proficiency Bonus table is empty-we know what it should be, but it's still a mistake.

Megamerge actually kills you at the six minute mark. Exhaustion is FLIPPING BRUTAL.

Your ASIs should come a little earlier.

Okay, I'm not really gonna finish, because I'm going to say this.

This class is WAY TOO PUNISHING. It's not necessarily weak-it's got decent abilities. But Exhaustion absolutely CRIPPLES it.

I'd go in and work out a different balancing mechanic.

Kurokoi
2017-05-30, 05:44 PM
I'd go in and work out a different balancing mechanic.
Honestly I think just having an "amount per day equal to your X modifier" would suffice

AgentMaineSIGMA
2017-05-30, 06:25 PM
HOLY CRAP I'M IN LOVE!

...

Okay. Now time to ACTUALLY READ THE DINGER DANG CLASS. :P

D8 hit die, okay.

Most people are gonna pick Dex for saves-it's a stronger save than Str.

Should have a bigger skill list.

Your Proficiency Bonus table is empty-we know what it should be, but it's still a mistake.

Megamerge actually kills you at the six minute mark. Exhaustion is FLIPPING BRUTAL.

Your ASIs should come a little earlier.

Okay, I'm not really gonna finish, because I'm going to say this.

This class is WAY TOO PUNISHING. It's not necessarily weak-it's got decent abilities. But Exhaustion absolutely CRIPPLES it.

I'd go in and work out a different balancing mechanic.

I've been trying to think of a better system than exhaustion. I'm hesitant to change it for a few reasons though:
1. 10 minutes equates to 100 rounds. So if you stay Megamerged for that long (which there's pretty little reason to), you'll start getting penalized for it.
2: The models where it makes sense to be Megamerged for a long time (H and L; Flight and Swimming) have the hour long barrier instead.

JohnFJoestar
2018-05-30, 12:24 AM
Awesome to see another ZX fan! Totally underrated game, personally my favorite Megaman series. I'd love to play this class in the future, I have it set aside for one of the many characters I'm working on! Can't wait to try it out and see how it goes! :smallsmile:

AgentMaineSIGMA
2018-05-30, 01:56 AM
Awesome to see another ZX fan! Totally underrated game, personally my favorite Megaman series. I'd love to play this class in the future, I have it set aside for one of the many characters I'm working on! Can't wait to try it out and see how it goes! :smallsmile:

Maybe one day we’ll get our ZX 3... i’ve act debated revisiting this class as of late. I still feel like most things are balanced fairly well, but I wanna update the wording to sound better all around.

Blackbando
2018-05-30, 12:22 PM
I'm actually surprised I missed this when I was dowsing every single piece of 5e content on the forums, because I love Megaman (although I'm terrible at ZX and haven't played too much of it) and would've definitely made a comment on the balance, here, because as much as I love the concept, it's pretty busted.

Proficiencies
Personally? I'm not a huge fan of how they don't get even simple weapons. When you run out of biomerges for the day (since they're a long rest resource this is very easily possible), you're useless unless you have weapons from elsewhere (dwarf, elf, multiclass).

JNA's comment on the saves still stands; it should be Dexterity and Intelligence.

I personally think you could give it another skill or two (Intimidation sounds fun, and some int skills like History would be handy).

Light and Justice
Basically a subclass, looks fine to me.

Megamerge
15 minutes is sort of a weird duration (5e considers 1 minute a combat, 10 minutes an exploration phase, so is this 1 and 1/2 exploration phases? feels weird for a DM to track that), but I suppose I don't have much of a problem with it? I think you could get away with 1 hour for megamerges if you continue with the whole "you're pretty much useless without merges" trend, which is an acceptable fix, imo, but not the one I'd do.

Biometal Armor
Why proficiency bonus? Why not 10 + int + dex? That'd seem much more in-line with 5e to me, and also prevent wizards to become undying robots (unless they pump dex too, ofc, but that's easier said than done for a wiz).

Rushed Megamerge
Sure? This makes sense when you get M.E.G.A. Mobility, but when you get it at 2nd, your BA isn't worth much.

M.E.G.A. Mobility System
I find it weird how you get the least potent feature (+10 movement) last.

Ability Score Increase
I don't understand why you changed the regular system. Like, this one isn't even consistent. It's just kinda everywhere. WoTC put the ASIs where they are for a specific reason, so, unless you really needed specific features at those levels (seemingly you could've just put the features at those levels instead of the ASIs?), you really shouldn't mess with it.

Elemental Biometal
Now, I've mostly been giving you criticism, but I do actually really enjoy how you can sort of, exchange subclass features by changing armor. Is it the best executed way to do it? Maybe not, I'm not entirely sure, but I do like how you handled it. Anyways, good feature.

By Blade and Bullet
See above.

Double Megamerge
I don't think this is a good feature currently, but not because it's a bad idea. No, it's because currently, the Megamerges themselves have balance issues (will explain in the part of this review where I go over them).

Elemental Overdrive
Sure, works for me.

Model O
Will go in depth once I get to it.

Megamerges
Before I get into the merges themselves, let me say this; scaling damage dice by adding more is fine for spells. Adding more dice when you can get Extra Attack makes things extremely messy. Also, another issue with them is you can never get magic weapons--not as in deal magical damage, but I mean more so along the lines of a cool flame tongue or something. I'd recommend revising the weapon system a bit, but I'll go over each weapon's problems in detail for their respective merge.

Model X
Buster
A "dexterity weapon"? The term you're looking for is a "ranged weapon". Anyways, the damage is pretty crazy (it eventually goes to 10d4), and I don't think it's a good idea to make it scale like this. Also, it later just becomes radiant? Magical weapon damage is one of the best damage types in the whole game, making it radiant is usually a downgrade (although considering the more sci-fi nature of this class, perhaps new robot monsters would change that, if the MM is being ignored). Also, there's no magical or nonmagical radiant, it's just radiant.
A suggested fix I'd give for this, and all other damage type changes? Make it a BA to change types, instead of force it.

Held Shot
Eh, okay. Fun for crit fishers.

Charge Shot
See above. The damage might be a little too high (16d4 for no resource cost? yeesh), but that's more so an issue with the Megamerges in general.

Twinblast
What's the range of this? The radius? Who is 'they'? Can it affect one creature, or several?

Model Z
Saber Strike
Same deal as the buster (also why is it called saber strike while buster is just buster? is that a ZX term thing i'm just unaware of?).

Extra Attack
This actually makes Model Z way more of an issue than X: at least X can miss once and be out of damage (which, while more balanced, is a lot less fun I find). Z, however, has the advantage of extra attack. Eventually, Z pumps out 10d8 + str*2 damage per turn for no cost if it doesn't miss, and that's definitely not okay.

Swift Strike
Good feature.

Powered Strike
This is almost okay, except it has no limit on usage. You could theoretically hide behind a wall, do this, and then run into an enemy, dealing about 30d8+str*2 damage, again, for no cost. That's more max damage than meteor swarm (not by a large margin, though).

Model F
Knuckle Buster
The thing that confuses me most about this one is how it's actually balanced when the others aren't. In a way, that sort of means this one just sucks, because the others are better, but since I'm recommending you fix the system for the others (basing it closer on knuckle buster is a good idea, I'd say), this is fine.

Fefnir
Burrowing speed, not tunneling. Otherwise, seems fine.

Buster Editor
Um, why? At the same level Z is doubling it's damage, X is 1.5xng its, you give F a cantrip, which can't scale? I don't understand this in the slightest. If it at least scaled, there'd be some merit (not much, it'd still be horrible in comparison to the others), but there's not. Maybe something like, you can cast fire bolt as an action and use your bonus action to make one knuckle attack? That sounds a lot better.

Fire Wave
Eh, alright. Dull, but effective. Also, you didn't put a minimum level, so, for 2 levels, you cast it 1 level before it's minimum level?

Megaton Crush
This is a boring and utterly weak capstone. Flame strike is possibly (i believe) the lowest damage 5th level spell, you'd actually do more with Fire Wave one level later.

Model H
Exhaust Blade
Yet another acceptable damage model! I still can't comprehend why X and Z are just so much objectively better (in an OP sense) compared to these. At 17th level, it going up to 3d6 is a little iffy to me, but it's still more balanced than Z. As for the extending part, I'd recommend not rolling for the feet and not round counting. You could probably just make it have Reach and be fine. Maybe even a 15-foot reach, but that might be pushing it a little.

Aeolus
What is glide speed? Maybe you'd want something more like "You are under the effects of a feather fall spell."?

Air Dash
Permanent flight at 7th is something to be thought about, but it's definitely not as potent as, say, Extra Attack. Also, the control winds thing is... Alright. It's kinda dull, but flight works enough.

Plasma Tornado
Not really a "spell", it's a class feature. I guess you could call it magical, but it's not a spell. Also, as for the rolling feet thing, I don't think that's a good idea. Just make it a set number (5 or 10 works). It's got no rest limit, but I think the damage is low enough that it's workable.

Electric Ball
Similar opinion to Model F's capstone; not a lot of damage for a capstone, nor is it very interesting.

Model L
Dual Trident
Here we go, back to overtuned damage. The BA thing is... an interesting idea. If you just toned down the damage, you could probably not nerf it so much (no prof. to hit? yikes. the str mod part is fine though).

Leviathan
Not a huge fan of the Wisdom thing, since it means you're MAD if you've been pumping Intelligence this whole time (like anyone would, as every subclass before this has used int), and now if you wanna use this, you don't? This isn't even a subclass you can get at 1st level, it's one you can change into, so, I can't really give it a pass.

Ice Shotgun
I like this feature, a lot, actually! The fact it's a BA means it works decent with attacking (would work better with e. attack though), and the damage isn't totally busted. I think you could probably make the damage scale a bit, though.

Glacial Shield
Needs a rest limit. 26 AC consistently isn't good to have without magic items.

Hyouruu
At least it's not just a spell. Balance-wise... I'm conflicted? It is a costless auto-hit, but it's an autohit that doesn't deal as much damage as going for attacks. It's still a pretty bland capstone, though.

Model P
Kunai Barrage
Since this isn't classified as a "dexterity weapon" or any sort, one might assume it takes an action instead of an attack to use, and doesn't add any modifier. If so, I think this is one of the few times it's acceptable for the damage to scale. But, I'd assume, more likely, it's just a wording error.

Phantom
Sure.

Sneak Attack
This is reinforcing the idea I had about Kunai Barrage, and is actually possibly making this the most balanced subclass, so far.

Shadow Step
This is actually completely acceptable, and flavorful.

Boomerang Shuriken
And we end off on an acceptable capstone. It's less bland than most, and fits the theme. Overall, I think this subclass is my favorite. It still needs some work, as the whole class does, but I feel this one should probably change the least from revisions.

Model O
Oh boy, the big capstone form. The two weapons thing is interesting (and also why is this not a feature? it's currently written where flavor text would normally be).

Infinite Overdrive
Sure.

Earth Crush
This is laughably weak. Like, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but this is so weak it actually feels like a joke, considering this is part of your capstone.

Messenkou
Less weak, but still pretty weak.

Rekkouha
Better, but the lose of Overdrive makes it not worth it unless you'll die if you don't.

OVERALL
Firstly, I'd like to apologize if I seemed at all rude during this. I love all things Megaman, and homebrew, so I'm criticizing this harshly in hopes it will improve.

Now, my overall opinion of this class; it has some great potential and concepts, and can be done right. It just has issues right now, such as the damage of the weapons scaling.

Two big things I'd suggest? Give it Extra Attack as a base feature instead of a subclass one, and give it simple and martial weapons. No class should just be useless when out of resources; even casters have cantrips.

Hopefully, my advice helped you. And, hopefully, I didn't miss anything, because I just spent an hour on this review.

AgentMaineSIGMA
2018-06-01, 10:28 AM
I'm actually surprised I missed this when I was dowsing every single piece of 5e content on the forums, because I love Megaman (although I'm terrible at ZX and haven't played too much of it) and would've definitely made a comment on the balance, here, because as much as I love the concept, it's pretty busted.

Proficiencies
Personally? I'm not a huge fan of how they don't get even simple weapons. When you run out of biomerges for the day (since they're a long rest resource this is very easily possible), you're useless unless you have weapons from elsewhere (dwarf, elf, multiclass).

JNA's comment on the saves still stands; it should be Dexterity and Intelligence.

I personally think you could give it another skill or two (Intimidation sounds fun, and some int skills like History would be handy).

Light and Justice
Basically a subclass, looks fine to me.

Megamerge
15 minutes is sort of a weird duration (5e considers 1 minute a combat, 10 minutes an exploration phase, so is this 1 and 1/2 exploration phases? feels weird for a DM to track that), but I suppose I don't have much of a problem with it? I think you could get away with 1 hour for megamerges if you continue with the whole "you're pretty much useless without merges" trend, which is an acceptable fix, imo, but not the one I'd do.

Biometal Armor
Why proficiency bonus? Why not 10 + int + dex? That'd seem much more in-line with 5e to me, and also prevent wizards to become undying robots (unless they pump dex too, ofc, but that's easier said than done for a wiz).

Rushed Megamerge
Sure? This makes sense when you get M.E.G.A. Mobility, but when you get it at 2nd, your BA isn't worth much.

M.E.G.A. Mobility System
I find it weird how you get the least potent feature (+10 movement) last.

Ability Score Increase
I don't understand why you changed the regular system. Like, this one isn't even consistent. It's just kinda everywhere. WoTC put the ASIs where they are for a specific reason, so, unless you really needed specific features at those levels (seemingly you could've just put the features at those levels instead of the ASIs?), you really shouldn't mess with it.

Elemental Biometal
Now, I've mostly been giving you criticism, but I do actually really enjoy how you can sort of, exchange subclass features by changing armor. Is it the best executed way to do it? Maybe not, I'm not entirely sure, but I do like how you handled it. Anyways, good feature.

By Blade and Bullet
See above.

Double Megamerge
I don't think this is a good feature currently, but not because it's a bad idea. No, it's because currently, the Megamerges themselves have balance issues (will explain in the part of this review where I go over them).

Elemental Overdrive
Sure, works for me.

Model O
Will go in depth once I get to it.

Megamerges
Before I get into the merges themselves, let me say this; scaling damage dice by adding more is fine for spells. Adding more dice when you can get Extra Attack makes things extremely messy. Also, another issue with them is you can never get magic weapons--not as in deal magical damage, but I mean more so along the lines of a cool flame tongue or something. I'd recommend revising the weapon system a bit, but I'll go over each weapon's problems in detail for their respective merge.

Model X
Buster
A "dexterity weapon"? The term you're looking for is a "ranged weapon". Anyways, the damage is pretty crazy (it eventually goes to 10d4), and I don't think it's a good idea to make it scale like this. Also, it later just becomes radiant? Magical weapon damage is one of the best damage types in the whole game, making it radiant is usually a downgrade (although considering the more sci-fi nature of this class, perhaps new robot monsters would change that, if the MM is being ignored). Also, there's no magical or nonmagical radiant, it's just radiant.
A suggested fix I'd give for this, and all other damage type changes? Make it a BA to change types, instead of force it.

Held Shot
Eh, okay. Fun for crit fishers.

Charge Shot
See above. The damage might be a little too high (16d4 for no resource cost? yeesh), but that's more so an issue with the Megamerges in general.

Twinblast
What's the range of this? The radius? Who is 'they'? Can it affect one creature, or several?

Model Z
Saber Strike
Same deal as the buster (also why is it called saber strike while buster is just buster? is that a ZX term thing i'm just unaware of?).

Extra Attack
This actually makes Model Z way more of an issue than X: at least X can miss once and be out of damage (which, while more balanced, is a lot less fun I find). Z, however, has the advantage of extra attack. Eventually, Z pumps out 10d8 + str*2 damage per turn for no cost if it doesn't miss, and that's definitely not okay.

Swift Strike
Good feature.

Powered Strike
This is almost okay, except it has no limit on usage. You could theoretically hide behind a wall, do this, and then run into an enemy, dealing about 30d8+str*2 damage, again, for no cost. That's more max damage than meteor swarm (not by a large margin, though).

Model F
Knuckle Buster
The thing that confuses me most about this one is how it's actually balanced when the others aren't. In a way, that sort of means this one just sucks, because the others are better, but since I'm recommending you fix the system for the others (basing it closer on knuckle buster is a good idea, I'd say), this is fine.

Fefnir
Burrowing speed, not tunneling. Otherwise, seems fine.

Buster Editor
Um, why? At the same level Z is doubling it's damage, X is 1.5xng its, you give F a cantrip, which can't scale? I don't understand this in the slightest. If it at least scaled, there'd be some merit (not much, it'd still be horrible in comparison to the others), but there's not. Maybe something like, you can cast fire bolt as an action and use your bonus action to make one knuckle attack? That sounds a lot better.

Fire Wave
Eh, alright. Dull, but effective. Also, you didn't put a minimum level, so, for 2 levels, you cast it 1 level before it's minimum level?

Megaton Crush
This is a boring and utterly weak capstone. Flame strike is possibly (i believe) the lowest damage 5th level spell, you'd actually do more with Fire Wave one level later.

Model H
Exhaust Blade
Yet another acceptable damage model! I still can't comprehend why X and Z are just so much objectively better (in an OP sense) compared to these. At 17th level, it going up to 3d6 is a little iffy to me, but it's still more balanced than Z. As for the extending part, I'd recommend not rolling for the feet and not round counting. You could probably just make it have Reach and be fine. Maybe even a 15-foot reach, but that might be pushing it a little.

Aeolus
What is glide speed? Maybe you'd want something more like "You are under the effects of a feather fall spell."?

Air Dash
Permanent flight at 7th is something to be thought about, but it's definitely not as potent as, say, Extra Attack. Also, the control winds thing is... Alright. It's kinda dull, but flight works enough.

Plasma Tornado
Not really a "spell", it's a class feature. I guess you could call it magical, but it's not a spell. Also, as for the rolling feet thing, I don't think that's a good idea. Just make it a set number (5 or 10 works). It's got no rest limit, but I think the damage is low enough that it's workable.

Electric Ball
Similar opinion to Model F's capstone; not a lot of damage for a capstone, nor is it very interesting.

Model L
Dual Trident
Here we go, back to overtuned damage. The BA thing is... an interesting idea. If you just toned down the damage, you could probably not nerf it so much (no prof. to hit? yikes. the str mod part is fine though).

Leviathan
Not a huge fan of the Wisdom thing, since it means you're MAD if you've been pumping Intelligence this whole time (like anyone would, as every subclass before this has used int), and now if you wanna use this, you don't? This isn't even a subclass you can get at 1st level, it's one you can change into, so, I can't really give it a pass.

Ice Shotgun
I like this feature, a lot, actually! The fact it's a BA means it works decent with attacking (would work better with e. attack though), and the damage isn't totally busted. I think you could probably make the damage scale a bit, though.

Glacial Shield
Needs a rest limit. 26 AC consistently isn't good to have without magic items.

Hyouruu
At least it's not just a spell. Balance-wise... I'm conflicted? It is a costless auto-hit, but it's an autohit that doesn't deal as much damage as going for attacks. It's still a pretty bland capstone, though.

Model P
Kunai Barrage
Since this isn't classified as a "dexterity weapon" or any sort, one might assume it takes an action instead of an attack to use, and doesn't add any modifier. If so, I think this is one of the few times it's acceptable for the damage to scale. But, I'd assume, more likely, it's just a wording error.

Phantom
Sure.

Sneak Attack
This is reinforcing the idea I had about Kunai Barrage, and is actually possibly making this the most balanced subclass, so far.

Shadow Step
This is actually completely acceptable, and flavorful.

Boomerang Shuriken
And we end off on an acceptable capstone. It's less bland than most, and fits the theme. Overall, I think this subclass is my favorite. It still needs some work, as the whole class does, but I feel this one should probably change the least from revisions.

Model O
Oh boy, the big capstone form. The two weapons thing is interesting (and also why is this not a feature? it's currently written where flavor text would normally be).

Infinite Overdrive
Sure.

Earth Crush
This is laughably weak. Like, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but this is so weak it actually feels like a joke, considering this is part of your capstone.

Messenkou
Less weak, but still pretty weak.

Rekkouha
Better, but the lose of Overdrive makes it not worth it unless you'll die if you don't.

OVERALL
Firstly, I'd like to apologize if I seemed at all rude during this. I love all things Megaman, and homebrew, so I'm criticizing this harshly in hopes it will improve.

Now, my overall opinion of this class; it has some great potential and concepts, and can be done right. It just has issues right now, such as the damage of the weapons scaling.

Two big things I'd suggest? Give it Extra Attack as a base feature instead of a subclass one, and give it simple and martial weapons. No class should just be useless when out of resources; even casters have cantrips.

Hopefully, my advice helped you. And, hopefully, I didn't miss anything, because I just spent an hour on this review.

It’s honestly very helpful. I feel like a lot of things on this class were less specific than I could/should have made them. A lot of that comes down to discussions with the DM it was written for about the nature of certain abilities and a lack of experience at writing homebrew. Now that I’ve done a pretty fair deal of it, I feel like I’m way more equipped to come back and try again, fixing a lot of the ambiguity/balance issues. I don’t take any of the criticisms you offered personally either. A lot of the stuff was insanely overpowered or woefully underwhelming. So with your ideas, better understanding of balance, and knowledge of actual 5e terminology, I can hopefully make something a lot better.

Crim the Cold
2018-06-03, 10:23 AM
I wish I had a useful critique to add. Its a cool looking class and would be a lot of fun to play. My only problem is it reminded me that it has been 13 and a half years since the last Megaman X game was released. 1 1/2 years to go until it passes Duke Nukem Forever for the longest gap between sequels. When it passes that point I'm going to have to start boycotting Capcom games out of disappointment.

Fangs McSpicy
2019-05-19, 12:08 AM
Hey AgentMaineSIGMA, I'm curious about this homebrew D&D class you've made, but am unable to view the Google Doc you link to in the first post in this forum, as it states that you have trashed the document. Would there be anyway you could untrash the document or send a copy of it for me to save myself?

Rage
2022-07-12, 11:10 AM
I know this is super late... But... Can I get a Link To The Class?

It says that it's deleted and I kinda wanna see it.