Base Class Challenge Chat Thread II

[kanachi]

Okay, went through the Dimensional Double. Hope some of this is useful!

Thank you! very kind of you to do a re-peach!

Dimensional Double:

So, the meat of the class. This is a really cool ability, and a tricky one to balance. While the mechanics are solid overall, what I'm concerned about is that the nature of the class heavily encourages casters, making it a sort of omni-theurge if played optimally. A group of casters with very specific specializations, with the lower-level ones emphasizing utility, support, or defense-piercing spells, allow you to have tremendous amounts of versatility and a truly staggering number of spells per day.

Agreed. Its very hard to balance. Not allowing items, which includes: spell books, spell components or holy symbols was one way of cutting down on the range of spell casting uber classes that would be effective. A savvy conduit would likely have a holy symbol in store, to get around this however, but a lack of spell books and components are still a lot harder to work around.

Also no two doubles can share the same class so you could only have 1 sorcerer, 1 druid, etc...

Still, I would concede that even with the above spell casters remain the most potent choice as your double. The fact they are the most potent classes anyway does not help of course.

I have toyed with the idea of putting a cap on the spells and spell like abilities which a double can manifest in "our" dimension of say... 5th level spells/spell like abilities. This would also extend on to psionics as well of course. Do you think something like that would be a good idea?

Non-casting classes, meanwhile, seem notably discouraged. The higher hit points of warriors aren't useful, and lower levels mean they'll have trouble contributing effectively. I'm a little unsure how the constant swapping in and out would work for many skill uses. Most critically, the AoO for using the ability is a strong deterrent to melee doubles (there are ways around it, of course, but it becomes a hoop you have to jump through to get an already less-optimal result). I suppose a purely damage-optimized charger or archer would be worth a slot, though.

To be honest, i wanted to avoid the conduit being able to use doubles to circumvent the need to use her own skills, hence the extremely short time which doubles are involved. So yes skill monkeys are at a disadvantage for that reason, which i believe to be a good thing as far as skills are concerned. I should probably write up something to emphasize/expand upon this however.

As for non-casters, to be honest its what i would like to try to use my doubles for, not because its the most powerful option but because its the most awesome especially when you get 5 world step and can make an uber melee attack in multiple different forms.

That being said however, i dont want doubles to act as damage sponges. That would obviously make stopping the conduit very tough.

Any idea you have are most welcome though!

Dimensional Guidance:

This is a nice ability. I don't expect it will often be worth giving up your double's actions, though since you have doubles for offense, I can imagine combining this with defensive actions to make the conduit itself a capable tank, if you can find a way to force foes to attack you.

Actually...you know what, you could make this an immediate action, and change it to, you can't activate a double on your next turn. That would make the conduit into a credible tank; if the enemies don't mount a serious enough attack against it to force it to buff its defenses, it can summon up some offense-focused double to wreak havoc.

Not a bad idea at all!

Rift Stride:

I actually really like this ability for this class, because summoning a double still gives you a use for your swift action. This gives the class something to use that on, a helpful little boost to mobility. Actually, I'm starting to realize that there really are worse things you can do than put one of your upper-slot doubles to some horrifically brutal charger. Blink 10' back (or into the air with Battle Jump?), summon the charger, guaranteed charge every turn, terrain permitting.

Yer this is one of my favorite aspects of the class as well. It also help the conduit avoid being entirely passive.

Warp Shield:

More good news for the charger-double!

This was my though also.

Riftweave Weapon:

I get the point of this ability, although to be honest, it strikes me as just another problem with non-caster doubles. As it stands, I'd more likely make sure all my doubles who use weapons, if any, use the same as my conduit, so I could buy a level-appropriate one (and GMW it up with a caster double).

Still and all, guaranteed magic weapons are a nice perk for low levels. I actually learned that the hard way recently. Shadows, bah.

Agreed, though to be honest a large part of this class is supposed to be embracing the vast differences between your doubles, sure you can be boring and make a mega build where everyone of your doubles works in perfect harmony... but where is the fun in that?!

who would not want to 5 world step where your doubles attack with a great bow, kung fu, a goliath great hammer, a whip dagger and a psi blade? it would be like having the entire cast of soul blade at your disposal.

Worlds Collide:

This is nice, although centered-on-self area attacks can be tricky to use. Would make for a nice nova move with a caster or psion double with Greater Fireburst or Energy Burst or whatever. Also pretty awesome thematically.

Yer this one was purely for the lols to be honest.

Endless Worlds:

When you first get this ability it's less than impressive. You basically get to keep your move action, although I suppose being able to target your double's location has its advantages. Once you get multi-summoning, though, it's a potent nova move.

Also not having to put yourself in the line of fire is a good boon at its first step. Still, it obviously gets way more powerful once you get to 15th level and beyond.

One of Many:

To be honest, this ability feels pointless. It's only really useful against readied actions, and if a caster has an action readied to tell your double to go home, it can probably come up with one that a save won't matter against (even a basic area attack will do - half damage is still enough to send a double away instantly).

Agreed, its not really supposed to be a mega powerful thing but it will possibly help you get your doubles into some situations a bit more easily.

5 World Step:


The capstone ability is pure awesome, and pure insanity if you have a full lineup of casters. Unloading an 8th, two 7th, and two 6th level spells in succession should be sufficient to annihilate anything even vaguely level-appropriate. And as written, I...think they might still be able to quicken, if that isn't enough (unless I misinterpreted the base ability and they don't actually get a swift action).

An all magic mega blow out is a concern as is meta magic (which i may disallow or limit).

Again I would hope that a dm or a preferably the player themselves would see the actual intention of the class and not use it as a way of simply loading up on a bazillion casters and instead have fun bashing some heads in a many different ways. However, you cant count on such things sadly so there is more tinkering to be done i fancy.

Overall

The class has a cool theme, and interesting mechanics. Really, I think it's quite solid, my only really significant complaint being that the class seems better geared towards being an omni-theurge (well, plus a beastly charger) than really going for a mix of roles. The mundane/caster disparity is going to be a problem in any mechanic that involves having access to additional character sheets, of course, but if I were to suggest any changes to the class, it would be to tweak things to make melee and skill doubles more worthwhile.

Thank you so much for going over all this!

I think the most important thing is trying to balance out the doubles you can make, which is probably best done by limiting the abilities of casters once they enter our dimension... which would make sense thematically i think. Do you think a spell level and spell like ability cap of 5th level is a good idea?

If you have any other thoughts let me know as well! :)