3e Fleshwarper and Grafting conversion

[Pandyman]

I recently had the desire to convert the Fleshwarper over to 5e, since there isn't currently a viable substitute in my opinion. I know that this is a rather large task, since the grafting system as it appears in 3e won't transfer well, so it needs to either be scrapped and remade from scratch or modified intensely.

I don't want to make a complete class, because those are a lot harder to balance than archetypes of existing classes. I'm thinking of tying fleshwarper to the warlock class as a patron. Although that might not make much sense, I felt it was the best way to incorporate meaningful grafting oriented material into warlock.

Any suggestions on how to approach this other than, "don't convert the class," would be greatly appreciated. The biggest obstacle is approaching grafting in a meaningful way, without making it too powerful. Another obstacle is making a patron for it that makes sense.

Any help would be appreciated: suggestions on specific grafts and how to convert them, whether it can work with an existing class or needs its own class, or pretty much anything. I may have picked the wrong material in 3e to like, because it's probably one of the harder things to convert to 5e.

[Bloodcloud]

I would basically make a custom class on a warlock chassis. I think your instinct there was good.

Invocations become grafts. Some work as-is or almost, like mage armor at will could just becom tough skin (think draconic sorcerer AC), devil eyes are well, a devil's eyes. Blade pact boon is now actually manifesting a big claw, toothy jaw, tentacle, watever. Pact of the chain is the stitched-up familiar. Port some of the graft as invocation, and it pretty much works as is without much overhaul. Even the pacts only need light refluffing. Infernal thp is the fleshwarper absorbing the very flesh of fallen foe! Fey hair grant the Charm/fear power of the fey pact! Illithid brain implant grant thelepathy!

Invocation number is the graft maximum. Tie the invocation to a monster "part", and let your player go on harvesting and swap if he find a cool monster part.

It might work even better than the original!

[plisnithus7]

My home-brew Skinsmith class grafts monster parts to their body.
I'm not familiar with 3.5, but I'd love some feedback on this if you care to take a look.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ByBpOLjt

http://i.imgur.com/yHuIncW.png

http://i.imgur.com/33sesOM.png

http://i.imgur.com/T0bXrRe.jpg

[Pandyman]

I would basically make a custom class on a warlock chassis. I think your instinct there was good.

Invocations become grafts. Some work as-is or almost, like mage armor at will could just becom tough skin (think draconic sorcerer AC), devil eyes are well, a devil's eyes. Blade pact boon is now actually manifesting a big claw, toothy jaw, tentacle, watever. Pact of the chain is the stitched-up familiar. Port some of the graft as invocation, and it pretty much works as is without much overhaul. Even the pacts only need light refluffing. Infernal thp is the fleshwarper absorbing the very flesh of fallen foe! Fey hair grant the Charm/fear power of the fey pact! Illithid brain implant grant thelepathy!

Invocation number is the graft maximum. Tie the invocation to a monster "part", and let your player go on harvesting and swap if he find a cool monster part.

It might work even better than the original!

That's sorta what I considered doing, with the important grafts being tied to invocation slots and the lesser grafts filling the spots of patron abilities.


My home-brew Skinsmith class grafts monster parts to their body.
I'm not familiar with 3.5, but I'd love some feedback on this if you care to take a look.



It's very similar to what I'm working on right now, but i think that since it's very open ended to the types of grafts you can pick it falls in an area where it's difficult to tell if it's balanced or not because it's difficult to know off the top of my head what monsters have what abilities at what cr. So in order to tell of it's balanced I'd have to read a lot of the monster manual and then compare all the possibilities to the abilities of currently available base classes.

[plisnithus7]

The fact that grafting takes the place of just about anything else (weapons, armor, magic, etc.), the CR balance was not as important in my opinion. That and the fact that the DM has control of available creatures is one measure of safeguard.

What I've found is that, the Skinsmith can find very powerful grafts such as umber hulk armor or wyrmling dragon breath. But given the fact that they don't use weapons/armor means they are fairly limited in choices. They can search out new creatures to graft from to perform new abilities, but unless it's at a level that increases the number of grafts (mostly every other level), you are having to search, defeat, and swap out.

At first I had tried to give various types of grafts: magical, non-magical, attack-based, etc. It became to complicated and too hard to determine what type an effect was (Is a rust monster's corrosive effect magical?).

I was also a little concerned with abilities such as flying. Then I figured, giving up 1 of 3 grafts at first level to fly was a sacrifice, especially since some races now have that possibility. That leaves only a graft for AC and a graft for an attack (having to decide or melee or range).

[Pandyman]

That's part of what i'm saying is that since all the grafts beyond first level are all dm dependent the class can range anywhere from really underwhelming to incredibly powerful in comparison to other classes depending on the creatures you encounter. I think the volatile nature of the class's power combined with the lack of real control over your grafts sorta makes the class not fit in with the design philosophy for a 5e class.

The way i'm approaching the grafts is sorta similar to how you handled the level 1 precursor graft. All the options being offered to the player as a choice from a list of grafts makes it much easier to consider its balance in comparison to other classes. With all the options plainly laid out, you don't have to worry about a cheesy combination that might occur from encountering a slew of creatures whose abilities shouldn't be combined from the monster manual.

Edit: also a side note, the bear bite graft option should key off your proficiency and strength modifier to make sense.