Community Based Monster Classes: Come in and help out!

[bladesmith]

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• Strength bonuses coupled with full BAB is something of a no-no. Look at Giants & Purple Worm as examples of what you're aiming for with a more brutish monster.
• Ok, some stuff in the 'Remorhaz body' stuff is cribbed from purple worm. Makes sense.
• I do not like, however, burrow at low HD. It has many of the same problems that flight does (circumventing many challenges, ability to evade any bad situation, enemy doesn't have the tools to deal.)
• Heat:
  
  • Arguably too strong at 2nd level, for a virtual non-action (you can use a swift action to activate it as combat opens, then it's just free damage thereafter). Consider that some/most of the enemies you fight will have only 2 HD... meaning enemies are liable to kill themselves before they kill the Remorhaz.
  • Further, it doesn't specify any duration or limit in uses, so you can keep it on all day.
  • It doesn't specify the enemy has to successfully attack the Remorhaz, meaning missed attacks would still prompt the damage.
  • The line "Any creature that hits the Remorhaz with an unarmed strike or natural weapon are subject to this damage." seems to imply (but doesn't state outright) that only these weapons prompt the damage, however, the bonus at 6HD implies otherwise, while the bonus at 11HD turns it around again. It's very confusing.
  • The damage advances with levels, which means it doesn't scale after you've taken the 6th level in the class. Refer to HD instead?
  • The 16HD bonus doesn't specify how much heat damage the creature takes.
  • Finally, it's encouraged for creature creators to move away from major passive abilities and emphasize active stuff. Actions the player has at their disposal.
• I'd rather you came up with original material rather than crib from the Purple Worm, as you did in Flexible.
• Ambush:
  
  • Says it is a 2nd level ability in the text, but is a 3rd level ability on the table.
• Cobra strike is good. I like.
• Pyroclastic Belch:
  
  • Unusual that you're straying from Remorhaz' flavor by making it worse in the creature's natural environment. The steam variant of Pyroclastic Belch (which uses ice/snow) is arguably worse than the alternatives... even though it is an arctic creature. (Lower damage, lesser range. You get AoE, but it's kinda meh)
  • Compare to a dragon's breath weapon. The ice based variant is essentially the same, but usable every round without recharge time. The non-ice variant is just flat out more damage, no delay, giving you a spammable ranged attack.
• Fiery Surge:
  
  • Pretty flat-out ridiculous as far as combat potential goes. Figure you're a Remorhaz7 charging into a group early in combat. You deal standard charge damage (2d8 + 1.5xStr), 7d6 aoe damage, taking 4d6 damage for being shoved to the edge of the radius, and being knocked prone. This frees you, while your enemy is getting back on their feet, to burrow, move a distance away, and then repeat the process.
  • So you've just done, basically, 13-82 + 1.5xStr damage. 47.5 + 1.5xStr damage average. A 7HD creature is going to have, what? 53 hp? Now, I'm ignoring the effect of passing the save because I don't want to get into the math, there, but even so, you're doing a lot of this as an AoE effect.
  • I really don't like 'knocked prone' as an effect, and personally try to avoid it. It's fairly crippling (you provoke AoO's, you lose actions, you're vulnerable), and shouldn't be easy to apply.
  • I get the impression you cobbled the ability together from several other creatures (Cloud Giant? Purple Worm?), and forgot to tone down the individual effects you used to put it together.

1) Okay, moved BAB down to 3/4. You guys make a convincing argument.
2) Yeah, I'll admit that your Purple Worm inspired quite a few things on the Remorhaz, since they are somewhat similar in concept. I did move Burrow down to 3rd level, trading it with Ambush. I figure that by that level other classes are getting closer to things that make a soft-surface burrowing ability less useful. On the other hand, I think I can move it back still further if I need to. I've got an idea or two in my head that aren't quite developed yet. Lurker should help fix this.
3) Hopefully the changes to Heat will help clarify it a lot. It had some really dumb issues that I really shouldn't have let through on the first post, but I'm a terrible self-editor. Either way, I gave it uses and consequences somewhat like a barbarian's Rage, but I'm still not sure how well its balanced. As for it being a passive ability... Its the Remorhaz's signature ability. Hopefully having it be a few times/day will help it be a battle form/dramatic fight ability, but its going to be hard to drift away from passiveness while still keeping the flavor of the original. Ideas are welcome.
4) Sorry for cribbing Flexible, I probably should've asked about that first. I'll get rid of it if you would rather I not use it. On the other hand, it really fits what I'm going for with this class: Melee battlefield control.
5) I lowered the range and damage of the earth/rock use of Pyroclastic Belch, let me know if that works for you. The goal is to make each use approximately equal, while giving a creature without limbs a ranged attack option. I'm not sure if this is overdone for that, but it seemed like it might be alright to deal with flying opponents occasionally.
6) I'll admit that Firey Surge was really messed up. The image in my head looked like Castigating Strike + Explosive Fireball, so I stole the mechanics from both and mashed them together. Not exactly smart or balanced. Either way, I've modified it, so that it does less damage(equal to Heat, so 4d6 instead of 7) got rid of the knocked prone part, and played with the radius to be a little less silly. I also added the use/day that I forgot on the first iteration. Hopefully, that will make the Remorhaz's alpha strike a bit less broken, and a bit more playable.

Sorry for not getting back to this very quickly. Hopefully I should be able to really work on this and get back to critiquing monsters after the holiday season.