Base Class Contest XXXXII Voting Thread

[Temotei]

Welcome to the voting thread for Base Class Challenge XXXXII, Entropy and Renewal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?540722-Base-Class-Contest-XXXXII-Entropy-and-Renewal)! Voting will consist of each voter giving a first, second, and third place vote for three separate base classes. Anyone can vote, and in fact, entrants must vote to qualify for victory.

A first place vote is worth three points, a second place vote is worth two points, and a third place vote is worth one point. You may not vote for your own class.

You are encouraged to include reason with your votes, though this is not absolutely required.

The class that ends up with the most points wins the challenge contest. Voting starts now and will continue until 23:59 (Central Standard Time USA/Canada; GMT-6) on April 13th.



Base Class
Author
1st
2nd
3rd
Total Points


Brahmin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22547038&postcount=3)
Jormengand
0
3
0
6


Usury Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22709401&postcount=15)
Malapterus
1
0
0
3


Nameless One (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22936568&postcount=16) (Tattoos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22936569&postcount=17), Spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22936658&postcount=18))
rferries
2
3
0
12


Skaberen (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22942450&postcount=19) (Associations (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22943562&postcount=20))
Morphic Tide
0
0
3
3


Animancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22945571&postcount=21)
Alabenson
2
0
0
6


Phoenixborn (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22948019&postcount=22)
sengmeng
1
0
3
6

[rferries]

1st Place- Phoenixborn
2nd Place- Brahmin
3rd Place- Skaberen

Reading these has been a treat, really wish I had put more effect into my own lore/background etc.

Brahmin - as with the Phoenixborn I think this is a very cool, "outside the box" take on Life/Death instead of simply referring to positive/negative energy or raise dead etc. (as I was guilty of myself).

Usury Mage - Great writeups and I appreciate the effort you put into making opposed domains. I found myself smiling more than once at the finance jokes too.

Skaberen - Gruesome! Plus, I wish I had read this before posting my own, it seems I've practically copied a bunch of themes from yours :smalleek:. In any event this would have been worthy of publication in Libris Mortis or similar.

Animancer - An aggressive Healer, and certainly works well with the theme of Life and Death! Also, points for being quite streamlined in a rather wordy contest.

Phoenixborn - A nice spin on the theme, elegant in its simplicity -especially the feats. Pretty cool to see a psionic take, and I admit I think it's sweet that you dedicated it to your wife.

[Alabenson]

1st - Nameless One
2nd - Brahmin
3rd- Phoenixborn

[Theseventh]

First place to Nameless one. Because wow.
Second to Bramin
Third to Phoenix. I wanted to rank it higher but it feels like it needs more meat on it's bones as a class. Still like the base idea though and would love to see some expanded stuff on it after the contest.

[Morphic tide]

Well, Rferries, your Nameless One is more an overlap with Brahmen than anything else. And didn't you say you based on on the PC from Pillars of Eternity? That's a somewhat different idea (and good for an Incarnum baselined Associate...), with

Also, if Skaberen were in a first party sourcebook, it'd be Heroes of Horror as a slippery-slope edgy semi-Hero class, alongside its inspiration in Cadaver Golems.

My own votes:

1st: Animancer, owing to pulling cast-from-HP on a healer with decent limitations, such as a functional maximum of spells per day while fueling them with HP (sure, there's a catch missing to cover Fast Healing or Regeneration and other rapid (Ex) healing, or (Su) healing for that matter, but that's more an issue of 3.X having way too many healing methods. Self-healing is decently well covered) and a spell list that makes getting those massive piles of spells not particularly problematic.

2nd: Nameless One, on account of handling ability swapping in a more streamlined way (that's harder to pull granular combinations with than what I went with) than my own Skaberen, with the Tattoos being a nice craftable option that's quite thematic (I was actually going to throw in some Graft functionality, myself) and the spell list really sells both the thematics (Embalming line is wonderful, and is damn useful for Necromancers) and the fact that the Nameless One does all the things. A minor gripe is that you didn't have Rune of Torment and other Nameless One exclusive spells be marked as such, like how Wizard and Sorcerer exclusive spells are marked.

3rd: Pheonixborn, begrudgingly, as my only issue comes from the fact that the class uses feats for the class-specific option list, making it so that Psychic Reformation becomes absurdly powerful. If it were formatted like Rogue's Special Abilities, with bonus feats being an option, then my complaints would go away (Well, except for the issue of the class being utterly locked to the "weakest" Discipline and the second most optimal for game-breaking, but that's more a product of rushed or oversimplified design than design I inherently dislike).

Brahmin isn't getting a top three place from me because it's purely an option list set, with just one actual ability inline to the class that exists solely to facilitate the option list's functionality (also, why does the "defensive" set only get Light Armor? Shouldn't the defenses scale in reverse, with the melee damage enabler getting only Light Armor then the low-BAB defensive style getting Heavy Armor?). This is quite strongly against what I consider good design, because it leaves the class with no real identity in its own right (whereas Skaberen has a fairly firm corpse-use and unnatural beatstick theme in the baseline) in much the same way Wizard has no real identity in its own right. The choice of mechanics also suffers strongly from the "Lesser, Regular, Greater X" problem, where you redo a thing with next to no changes in order to fill a role throughout levels. This results in significant bloat and, sometimes, confusion, owing to having to retype the various stuff again and again.

Usury Mage is critically flawed, as its refresh method allows it to have tripled spell slots, provided enough creatures can be drained. Without uses per day limits on the drain, it ends up being able to out-CoDzilla a Cleric at higher levels, because it gets access to Divine Power, rendering BAB a non-issue by being able to replace it with full BAB, and then they go and heal themselves while dealing damage with unlimited use no-conditions Touch Attacks dealing Xd6 at a scaling rate that makes it even better than what Clerics can usually put out in melee. And heals for damage dealt to cover for the reduction in effectiveness, with overheal reducing damage that doesn't matter when you can throw AoEs at yourself and trade your health to allies. It's... Kinda broken, in a nearly fundamental way. And not being able to grab the Extra Domain feat does nothing to solve the problem of Domain-or-spell-granting items or list-expanding PRCs.

[Temotei]

Votes tallied.

[sengmeng]

1. Animancer. Nice twist on the "cast from health" concept, more elegantly done than my own Phoenixborn, I feel. I can't see the reasoning behind the choices in the spell list and not having any customizability in the list, but that's not enough to bump it out if my first place vote.

2. Nameless One. Really cool idea for a character; essentially a clean slate in a body that has its own history. The tattoos are a decent subsystem with nice flavor too.

3. Skabaren. I like the grimness and body horror. Mostly cool in the same way as the Nameless One, but spelling and grammar bumped it down in my opinion. I know not everyone has English as their first language, but that doesn't make it easier on the reader. It's also not helpful to just let people make these mistakes when the next piece of writing they do might be their resumé.

[Jormengand]

1: Usury Mage
Death and taxes? :smalltongue:

I like the whole thing of a fixed-list caster which can recharge its magic by continually eating away at more and more of its own health. The fact that it's apparently a magical banker is funny too, I'll admit.

2: Nameless One
A solid effort although it quickly gets a little confusing. It does seem to be trying to do everything, and the spells are slightly weird (40d3?), but it seems mostly good.

3: Skaberen
Seems like a decent take on its concept.

Sorry I'm not in the mental state to say anything clever about any of this. Blargh.

[Temotei]

You really like multiples of 3, don't you? :smalltongue:

Votes tallied and voting closed.

[Jormengand]

You really like multiples of 3, don't you? :smalltongue:

Votes tallied and voting closed.

I'm more of a 4 gal myself, actually. :smalltongue:

[sengmeng]

I'm more of a 4 gal myself, actually. :smalltongue:

rferries has a better claim to that right now.

[rferries]

rferries has a better claim to that right now.

Let's all give it up for the contest winner! Woohoo! Truly, the greatest homebrewer of our times/s

Congrats to the distinguished competition! I think the ties show how hard it was to decide between all these fine submissions.

[Jormengand]

rferries has a better claim to that right now.

See, that's the thing, I can't make a joke about my multiple personalities without it flying over people's heads. :smalltongue:

[rferries]

See, that's the thing, I can't make a joke about my multiple personalities without it flying over people's heads. :smalltongue:

Hm, think I'm missing a reference! Unless you're referring to the multiple incarnations of our homebrew?

[Jormengand]

Hm, think I'm missing a reference! Unless you're referring to the multiple incarnations of our homebrew?

I have dissociative identity disorder (AKA multiple personality disorder) and am therefore actually 4 people.

[rferries]

I have dissociative identity disorder (AKA multiple personality disorder) and am therefore actually 4 people.

And to think I was debating going "Actually, the term is DID alters nowadays." earlier :smallbiggrin: (I'm a doc). Righto!