Community Monster Class Competition VI: Beneath the Waves voting thread

[Mystic Muse]

GITP Community Monster Class Competition VI: Beneath The Waves

Voting Thread

You will vote for two things on this thread, the monster class from last month's competion that you think is the best, and a theme for the next contest. The deadline for this voting thread will (tentatively) be the end of this month.

Rules

1) First, you will vote for one monster class entry that you think is the best.


Contest Entries

Deep One by TheGeckoKing

Water Elemental by Hyudra

Styx Dragon, largely by myself.

If you are unsure how to judge a monster class, following these guidelines:

Originality - The monster class should be unique. It should stand out from the rest, as a class.
Playability - The monster should allow for fluid, engaging, amusing and uninterrupted play at the table.
Balance - The monster should be balanced enough that it's not going to hold the group back or dominate everything without even trying, both overall and at a given stage in its development.
Elegance - The page which details the monster for the player should look good and be easy to understand.
Flavor - Last but certainly not least, we want to preserve the flavor and the atmosphere of the monster the monster class is based off of.

Feel free to explain your vote, even using the guidelines as an explanation if you want. You can vote for your own monster class creation if you truly feel that it is the best entry. In the case of a tie, I will vote on the disputed themes.

2) Second, you will vote for the theme of the upcoming contest. I am not offering any suggestions for a theme this month; I want to see what you guys can collaborate on. I suggest offering many ideas for a theme when you post, in order to get the ball rolling. that way, others can tell you which ideas they like from your list, and add to it.

Whichever theme has the most votes by the end of the month will be used for next month's contest. In the case of a tie, I will vote on the disputed themes. In the case of no votes, I'll go with a previously suggested theme.

[Hyudra]

Deep One

Originality - It's up there. I'd give this high marks for such, given the list of powers you've provided.

Playability - There's issues here. No proficiencies, some abilities/actions aren't really specified (is corrupting saliva a standard action, for example? It's immortal and doesn't suffer age penalties, but how fast does it age?). One or two instances where abilities don't play nice with other party members (maddening moan, frenzied berserker style rage)

Balance - Serious scaling issues stand out to me. Were I giving this a rating, I'd deduct high marks for this. Many of the class features/benefits don't scale that well, with the bite, madsea spray and maddening moan standing out. This is not a class you could play from level 1 to level 20. The pushes are also a big problem (more on this under flavor).

Elegance - Pretty good. No major flaws in formatting or any of that.

Flavor - I'd knock off one or two marks here, keeping in mind that the Deep One and other mythos creatures are ones where your target audience is likely to be very invested in flavor, specifically. Some of the skills make little to no sense (Disguise, Disable Device, Craft) given the nature of the creature. There's also a mechanics to flavor translation that I suspect wouldn't work as well as you hope, Geckoking - the 'Push' is only a risk for a short time before your will save makes the Pushing relatively easy (You have a high will save, after all, which helps counter your wisdom penalty. Or you take the Force of Personality feat and ignore it), and then there's no risk. Which I imagine is something you wanted to sustain.

It's not bad. I liked the variety of powers. I'll do a review on the Styx Dragon later, and then compare the two and give my verdict.

Theme Ideas:

Mischief Maker

Marching To War

The Glades

[Hyudra]

No time for an analysis. Giving my vote to Styx dragon.

[Mystic Muse]

Since I'd hate for there to be a clear winner due to only one person voting, I'm going to vote for Hyudra's Water Elemental, since I'm technically still allowed to do that.

[WhatsWithCanada]

Oh man, it was hard to decide. All three of the entries were really well executed and interesting.

But since I have to choose one, I think I'm going to have to go with Water Elemental just barely stealing my vote.

[Mystic Muse]

I'll leave voting open until 12 AM EST.

Remember to vote for ideas for next month's contest too. My vote is going towards The Glades

[TheGeckoKing]

My vote goes to Soft Serve's Styx Dragon.
My vote for a competition theme goes to Myth and Legend.

[Hyudra]

I think we already did myth and legend, and nobody submitted anything.

[TheGeckoKing]

....er......we try it again?

[Mystic Muse]

I think we already did myth and legend, and nobody submitted anything.

"From Folklore" if I recall correctly, and you'd be right about that.

....er......we try it again?

Allowable, but inadvisable.