Morph Bark's Homebrew Tier Compendium

[Morph Bark]

It actually says on there, but it's in minmax.

Ahh, alrighty. I thought "more stuff" merely meant you hadn't ported everything to GitP as well, and the ones on GitP might be updated versions since they came later. Thanks for the clear-up.

Witch
The size limitation with wildshape shouldn't be need. Since it is limited by HD the larger sizes can't be accessed until a higher character level. Unless there are larger animals with lower HD I'm not seeing.

True, though there are a handful exceptions I believe. Also, I see that you have limited the Witch to "creatures of one HD less than hers", so she'll always be a level behind on the Druid, which is good power-wise. On the other hand, did you mean for the ability to imply that it progresses even when you don't take Witch levels afterwards (and so could have a Witch 5/Something X wildshaping into 19 HD animals)?

Entropomancer
I'll have to go and fix the typo and take a look at rewording, or reordering, the shards and distortions. Concealment stacking already reworded to overlapping and reordering already done. Better now?

I'm not sure how I should reword vanishing presence. And honestly I can't remember myself how it was intended. I'm thinking either:

1. Interacting would be anything that wouldn't normally garner an observer's attention, such as just standing there or walking by them.

2. Or, it would be anything directly affecting the target(s) themselves. So you could pickpocket someone and only be noticed by them.

Better, yes. And I think out of those two 1 would be better than 2. Considering its much like a kind of stealth in effect, though, I'd say you'd best also include circumstances under which she can activate the ability. Otherwise she could be interacting with someone, stop, and instantly vanish. Perhaps make it require a move action to activate after at least a full round of no interaction with any other creature?

Ah, could we get the most recent judged classes on the OP please? Just so that I can feel special...

I don't always review classes, but when I do, I wait until I've done a bunch of them before I end up putting them on the Tiering list, if at all. It saves hassle.

[Temotei]

I don't always review classes, but when I do, I wait until I've done a bunch of them before I end up putting them on the Tiering list, if at all. It saves hassle.

If you want help, I could by adding the tiered-but-not-in-the-list classes to a copy-pasted version in a new post. Then you can just copy-paste into the OP and add/subtract any relevant tags.

[Morph Bark]

Toapat's Paladin: regarding Hymnbook, can the Paladin inscribe extra spells into the Hymnbook the way a Wizard can add spells to his spellbook? If so, what is the limit to the amount of spells it can hold (so, its page number)?


Scavenger: Can the Scavenger ever create magical or alchemical items with the Junkheap ability? (Saw that it can create magical ones from level 4 onwards.) For Improvisation I'd put a cap on it per use, as otherwise he could throw all points on a single attack. For Scavenged Magic I noticed that you have a table with Spells Known up to level 5, while potion-viable spells only go up to level 3. If there is an exception, you should note that. Improvised Efficiency: for armors it's just "category", not "size category".

Well Morph, since you seem to be chugging through these and gathering new content to yourself for tiering, I will ask again that you tier the templar and the priest. The priest might be a borderline fix despite getting a lot of new and/or different stuff, and I know those aren't high on your priority list. The templar has pretty much entirely new stuff though, and it's about as close to a pally fix as warblade is to a fighter fix.

The Priest's Undying ability seems too much at its level. Well, not in itself, but I think the cooldown on it should be longer. Plus, I find it a little odd that it comes at the same time as Immortal, rather than a level or so after it. Same goes for the Templar's Undying Faith.

Servants of the Deity is a great ability and well-balanced, but there won't be much choice in the kind of servants you can summon when it is based on ECL rather than CR.

Gate to the Heavens' text grants it at 18th level, the table at 19th level. Overall, I'd say the Priest is Tier 3, potentially Tier 2 depending on domains, so I'd put it in High 3.

Haven't read through the Avenger Styles or Vows yet. I presume the Avenger Styles are power-wise similar to a set of appropriately-leveled ToB maneuvers from a cursory look-over of a few of them, and the Vows to limit the Templar's actions and thereby lower its effective power a bit (but not enough to lower it an entire Tier, unless its from High 3 to 3 or 3 to Borderline 3-4).

I'd appreciate if you could do either my Agent or my Jack of All Blades.

Hmmm, the Jack of All Blades gives me the feel of a more spontaneous, weaker Blade Scholar (High 3). It's probably Borderline 3-4.

Alright, now that I seem to have gotten all the feedback I would normally and cleaned up everything, I'd like to see about what power my Praetor class is at so I can make adjustments.

I like Spell Storing. It's nifty. Steal Enhancement should require a touch attack to use. Abjurative Aegis has no effect until it increases something by 30%, because most buff spells grant a +4 bonus or less. The only exception (off the top of my head, that is) are energy resistances, which would get an increase of 1 or 2. Also, working with percentages is a big hassle unless you work with big numbers.

Why aren't the Specializations in the same post?

Overall, it comes across as more Fighter-y Spellthief, with a hint of Abjurant Champion. Forgot which Tier Spellthief was, exactly, though.

If you want help, I could by adding the tiered-but-not-in-the-list classes to a copy-pasted version in a new post. Then you can just copy-paste into the OP and add/subtract any relevant tags.

Thanks for the offer, Temotei, but rather not. It would add an extra dimension of expectation of "review = getting Tiered". People who ask for reviews in-thread all get equal treatment (at least I try), but the Tiering itself is also quality control in large part. I believe I've done well in that so far, but just in case I may end up looking through the Tiers in a few months' time to check if some clearly low-quality works slipped through.

If to others this feels like I'm putting you down, it's not meant for that. If a class of yours gets reviewed, but not Tiered, see it as a challenge to do better, to be more original, to really go for it. I can assure you that a push like that has gotten many other brewers far. Starting to enter in Homebrew contests is a good first step, for instance.

[Temotei]

Thanks for the offer, Temotei, but rather not. It would add an extra dimension of expectation of "review = getting Tiered". People who ask for reviews in-thread all get equal treatment (at least I try), but the Tiering itself is also quality control in large part. I believe I've done well in that so far, but just in case I may end up looking through the Tiers in a few months' time to check if some clearly low-quality works slipped through.

Fair enough.

If to others this feels like I'm putting you down, it's not meant for that. If a class of yours gets reviewed, but not Tiered, see it as a challenge to do better, to be more original, to really go for it. I can assure you that a push like that has gotten many other brewers far. Starting to enter in Homebrew contests is a good first step, for instance.

F'real.

[Zakaroth]

I remember seeing that class. In fact, at first I just thought I had already tiered it even. Black Lotus is already on my list of disciplines, which I passed on to sirpercival for his Martial Discipline Compendium, too. I like the maneuver recovery method and some of the assassin skills. The abilities mesh well and the choice of disciplines fits nicely together without giving the class a large group of them. I'd say you succeeded in making a solid Tier 3 melee skill monkey.

In the future I may also look at disciplines in depth, so Black Lotus may come up then as well.

Ahh, yeah, you even gave some feedback on the Black Lotus discipline, which helped me clean-up some of the maneuvers.
Thanks for Tier-review, good to know that the goal was met.

PS: Just read about your horrible week, sorry to hear that. Especially as the dutch higher education system gets stricter by the year. By the way, did you apply for a job at Schiphol?

[tarkisflux]

Thanks for taking a look Morph. I was aiming for 2-3, and I'm glad that you got that sense.

The Priest's Undying ability seems too much at its level. Well, not in itself, but I think the cooldown on it should be longer. Plus, I find it a little odd that it comes at the same time as Immortal, rather than a level or so after it. Same goes for the Templar's Undying Faith.

Looking back on those, I think I was going to push them back a couple of levels (for contingency parity), but then didn't do it. Guess I got distracted. Thanks for reminding me about them, I'll go shuffle some class features around.

[Edit] And those are complete now. Undying raise at 15, and undying half-rez at 18.

Servants of the Deity is a great ability and well-balanced, but there won't be much choice in the kind of servants you can summon when it is based on ECL rather than CR.

It does use CR actually. The ability triggers off of EL (Encounter Level, that funny CR math thing) instead of ECL .

Gate to the Heavens' text grants it at 18th level, the table at 19th level.

Probably an artifact from previous ability shuffling. Fixed text to 19, and thanks for catching.

Haven't read through the Avenger Styles or Vows yet. I presume the Avenger Styles are power-wise similar to a set of appropriately-leveled ToB maneuvers from a cursory look-over of a few of them, and the Vows to limit the Templar's actions and thereby lower its effective power a bit (but not enough to lower it an entire Tier, unless its from High 3 to 3 or 3 to Borderline 3-4).

I hadn't really tried for power parity with maneuvers like that, but would be pretty happy if it came out like that anyway. I may tweak them to do that explicitly actually, since it better captures the "little bit cleric (spells), little bit fighter (maneuvers), plus their own special thing (vows)" sort of mashup I was going for.

Thanks again for the quick look over .

[Tavar]

Hmmm, the Jack of All Blades gives me the feel of a more spontaneous, weaker Blade Scholar (High 3). It's probably Borderline 3-4.

I can see what you mean. The main factor is the partial initiator level, right?

Thank you, and a preemptive thanks if you get around to the Agent.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I like Spell Storing. It's nifty. Steal Enhancement should require a touch attack to use. Abjurative Aegis has no effect until it increases something by 30%, because most buff spells grant a +4 bonus or less. The only exception (off the top of my head, that is) are energy resistances, which would get an increase of 1 or 2. Also, working with percentages is a big hassle unless you work with big numbers.

Why aren't the Specializations in the same post?

Overall, it comes across as more Fighter-y Spellthief, with a hint of Abjurant Champion. Forgot which Tier Spellthief was, exactly, though.

I thought it stated that you needed to touch the enemy; I'll make it clearer, thanks.

I know that percentages are a hassle, but flat numbers would need me to have a whole paragraph of just exceptions or changes in numbers; Protection against evil was one of the biggest offenders with flat numbers (which was my original method) from 1-5 as they leveled to deflection against an alignment was a little strong. I'll see if I can find a middle ground, though.

The two specializations were moved to the second post as a side effect of me rewriting that particular feature and experimenting with additional specializations. I probably should move them back to the end of the same post.

Thanks for the assistance. I suppose ~3-4 is about where it looks to be once I get the rest of the kinks worked out, which is fine by me.

[Carl]

Don't know if you just decided you wanted to leave it till later, but just in case i thought i'd remind you about my paladin fix.

Also obligatory condolences on your horrid week, as someone who had his own high education dreams wreaked by various things my sympathies.

@Osagasu:

Make a table listing the old bonus and the new bonus after the effect...

[Ilorin Lorati]

@Osagasu:

Make a table listing the old bonus and the new bonus after the effect...

Sorting it by spell would be a nightmare (56 spells, sometimes with multiple bonuses in each spell), and sorting it by bonus type would need a 3-dimensional table (Bonus level, type, starting bonus), which isn't going to work unfortunately.

[Carl]

{table=head]Base bonus|Improvement at 3rd|Improvement at 7th|Improvement at 11th|Improvement at 15th|Improvement at 19th
1|+0|+1|+1|+2|+2
2|+1|+2|+2|+3|+3
3|+1|+2|+2|+3|+3
4|+2|+3|+3|+4|+4
5|+2|+3|+3|+4|+4
6|+3|+4|+4|+5|+5
7|+3|+4|+4|+5|+5
8|+4|+5|+5|+6|+6
9|+4|+5|+5|+6|+6
10|+5|+6|+6|+7|+7
[/table]

What's complicated about that, (as an example only, changes the bonuses to suit you).

[Ilorin Lorati]

What's complicated about that, (as an example only, changes the bonuses to suit you).

That was actually a method that didn't occur to me. C'est la vie.

Thanks for the table.

[Morph Bark]

Ahh, yeah, you even gave some feedback on the Black Lotus discipline, which helped me clean-up some of the maneuvers.
Thanks for Tier-review, good to know that the goal was met.

PS: Just read about your horrible week, sorry to hear that. Especially as the dutch higher education system gets stricter by the year. By the way, did you apply for a job at Schiphol?

Not yet, but I well might. My first priority is thinking up what education to dedicate myself to now, as there's only a week and a half left to decide on that and get to it. A job will be necessary as well to keep myself financed, though.

It does use CR actually. The ability triggers off of EL (Encounter Level, that funny CR math thing) instead of ECL .

Ah, I thought EL simply meant "Effective Level" and was interchangeably used with ECL, simply discarding the C occasionally.

The two specializations were moved to the second post as a side effect of me rewriting that particular feature and experimenting with additional specializations. I probably should move them back to the end of the same post.

I'd put it in the class abilities write-up itself, at the level you get it at. With it still being in a spoiler, it doesn't take up much reading space, but still wouldn't require scrolling away and breaking up your reading to search forth and back again where you were.

Don't know if you just decided you wanted to leave it till later, but just in case i thought i'd remind you about my paladin fix.

I might as well ask someone to collect all Paladin Fixes, considering how many people are now requesting reviews about them. Do a feature similar to Fighter Fridays.

[EdroGrimshell]

Scavenger: Can the Scavenger ever create magical or alchemical items with the Junkheap ability? (Saw that it can create magical ones from level 4 onwards.) For Improvisation I'd put a cap on it per use, as otherwise he could throw all points on a single attack. For Scavenged Magic I noticed that you have a table with Spells Known up to level 5, while potion-viable spells only go up to level 3. If there is an exception, you should note that. Improvised Efficiency: for armors it's just "category", not "size category".

Improvisation (Ex): At the start of each day, a scavenger gains a number of improvisation points equal to his class level x 10. As a free action, the scavenger may spend a number of these points up to his class level to gain a circumstance bonus of equal size to his next skill check this round and to make any skill check untrained for 1 round. This bonus never applies to skill checks that require more than one round to perform and does not allow such uses of trained-only skills to be used untrained.

This limit applies to ALL of the options. Only up to your class level can be spent at once ever.

Scavenged Magic (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, a scavenger can literally scavenge magic from his surroundings. The scavenger can then shape this magic for various purposes, however, at this level, the scavenger can only put it to use in its simplest form. The scavenger gains the ability to use prestidigitation at-will as a supernatural ability. Additionally, the scavenger selects an additional number of cantrips he can use at will equal to his Int modifier (the most common are Jolt and Mending). Finally, the scavenger can make alchemical items with their Junkheap ability.

2nd Level you can start making alchemical items.

Starting at 8th level, the scavenger can distill the magic within himself into a more usable state. This allows the scavenger to have a number of spells "prepared" with a total spell level equal to his character level which the scavenger can cast on himself as a move action, as if drinking a potion. The scavenger gains a small number of spells known that must be spells that can be made into potions and a caster level equal to their character level. It takes 5 minutes to prepare these spells and an investment of points from the scavenger's reserve equal to the spell level + 2 squared (4 for 1st level spells, 9 for 2nd level spells, 16 for 3rd level spells, etc). These distilled spells often appear as tattoos on the scavenger's body that turn into devices that provide the benefits of the spell when cast and break apart when their effect runs out. Spells of a level higher than 3rd must still meet the prerequisites for being made into potions or oils, except for the normal level restriction.

Already noted the exception in the ability.

And thanks on pointing out the typo in Efficiency.


As you can see, most of your concerns were simply missed, by no means hidden or anything, just, easy to miss on a quick read through.

[Carl]

That was actually a method that didn't occur to me. C'est la vie.

Thanks for the table.

heh, guess i explained myself poorly the first time sory. Glad to help btw.

@Morph: , not a bad idea, not sure how many requsts you've got to, but yeah a few of us have asked. Just wanted to make sure it hadn't been forgotten as you'd now done classes both before and after my post :).

Give me a few mins and i'll try to collect them all for you.

Gorgondantess's The Real Paladin

Topat's Paladin

Carl's Paladin

Alebenson's Paladin

Lix Lorn's Paladin

Drako_Beoulve's Paladin

Fayrule's Paladin

Iron Wizard's Paladin

Deepbludiver's Paladin

Zman's Paladin

Grod the Giant's Paladin

Sgt.Cookie's Paladin

Ok that seems to be all of them from the last 3 pages of discussion, which is the time period in which you where taking your break, if you want me to go back further just say :).

[eftexar]

I made some more changes to the Witch and Entropomancer. All should be better now.
Still not sure about the wording on the Entropomancer ability, but I think editing a class that's been done for a while is always more difficult than working from scratch or even on a recent project.

[edit]: And yes the shapeshifting was intended to be multiclass friendly. Unlike many lower level spells and abilities it would, without this, become obsolete with even a couple levels of multiclassing. And with the miriad of other features that would be lost I didn't think it would be a problem.

[Morph Bark]

Ok that seems to be all of them from the last 3 pages of discussion, which is the time period in which you where taking your break, if you want me to go back further just say :).

I actually meant ALL Paladin fixes I could possibly find, at least on GitP and Minmaxboards. XD But I thank you for collecting just those, too.

Tomorrow I'll likely be finding out my personal final verdict on whether or not to persue a job in the video game industry. (Here I come, Gamescom.)

[toapat]

Tomorrow I'll likely be finding out my personal final verdict on whether or not to persue a job in the video game industry. (Here I come, Gamescom.)

good luck

Spoiler

Show

also, (KaneO hasnt been updating it, i havent been on in the last 9ish months to see if he even still is on the forums (image is a hyperlink))

[Carl]

Ahh sorry Morph, the link topat provided appears to be good upto this time last year. I'll see what else i can dig up though with no forum search function it ain't going to be easy.

Also enjoy yourself :).

Ok added a bunch more to my prior post, everything that Google could find from GitP.

[Zaydos]

Paladin fixes? Here's one I made umm... 4 years ago. It's not in the OP so I think you haven't looked it over, but I'm not completely sure it is not in the kitty-cat link, though.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126988

[Milo v3]

Here's my paladin. Though it isn't in it's own dedicated thread or anything.

[Sho]

Blackguard: I really like how evocative the picture is. Nice choice. The invocations are all nice and pretty original. One thing I don't get though:

"Hit Points at 1st Level: 15 + Constitution score.
Hit Points at Each Additional Level: 6.
Hit Dice Equivalent: d10 + Constitution modifier."

Why is this? Is the class a 3.5 class, or is it for a 3.5-derivative homebrew system that includes some 4.0 mechanics?

Yes. The 4e flat HP gain was included per the basis that it used to be used in a few games my old gaming group had. Not every one does this, so I made it a point to still include the 3.5e Hit Dice. It's only that part that's really different.

[toapat]

Any news Morph?

[Morph Bark]

Gamescom was fun, though it lasted not that long. It took 1.5 hours to find a parking spot, only to discover we couldn't pay for more than 4 hours for it (not due to lack of money though) and weren't allowed to get out of the event hall, pay for more hours when the time would be up, and then get back. Did get some free League of Legends skins/champ out of it though! After that I've been busy with the search for education (Game Design would be totally my thing, but all the good schools are very strict and you need to apply in April or earlier), which I may have found in Belgium, and for which I'll be making some phonecalls tomorrow. I've also been busy helping my family set up things for a big party this weekend, as it was my parents' 25th anniversary plus both their birthday parties together (my dad's is in a few weeks and mom's was a while ago, but they are roughly 100 years old together now).

In the meantime, as this is my 100th post in this thread, I figured I'd do something special for it, such as a feature, but I don't have the time or energy after clean-up today, so here's just the introduction for now, and I'll edit in the rest later:


Mysterious Mondays

Shadow Magic has always been a bit of the odd one out amongst all magic systems. It resembles vancian casting a lot in some ways, but yet works very differently. At the same time, it shares its book with two other magic systems: Binding and Truenaming, the former of which is considered to be the most balanced magic subsystem in 3.5 and which has many fans, the latter of which is considered the worst balanced magic subsystem in 3.5 and which has many opponents. Shadow magic meanwhile has decent fluff in Tome of Magic, but neither really the strong love nor the strong hatred that the others seem to garner. Several people have built further on Shadow Magic in their homebrew however, some with a single PrC or a handful of mysteries or a feat, one or two with slightly larger projects, and then there is one man with a huge one. You might know him on the forums as Realms of Chaos.

His project, the Descent of Shadows, can be found here and is one of the biggest homebrew projects I've ever seen, especially for something that could be considered "just" a fix. (I say just, but it certainly isn't "just" a fix, clearly!) Truly, this project is amazing, and daunting to even read through it all! Luckily, for this, I didn't need to read through everything, just the necessary bits to give a decent coverage of the base class and their full workings.


EDIT: It's later!

Cultist: Fluff is very simple and prettymuch everything can be gotten from just reading the name. On the mysteries it ties that well into the crunch, by having them start out similar to divine spells (iirc, normally they're more akin to arcane ones). They never gain access to the level 7 or higher mysteries, but they got more uses of them than a Shadowcaster for each of them. Plus, Expanded Faith grants some divine spells off the Cleric list, expanding their reportoire and versatility.

Patron's Gift can be stronger when used on yourself, but only after level 4, and healing is never bad. The True Believer feat isn't a huge thing, but if you're using Relics in your campaign, it's an amazing little extra. Later on, you gain some resistances and immunities and small ways to control undead and outsiders. Not strongly so, but they're certainly useful abilities. Overall, I'm not sure about putting it in Tier 3, it depends on the mysteries, which I assume are slightly better than the ToM ones, but the Shadowcaster is already a good Tier 4, so this one is at least Borderline.

Hollow: Being an anime fan, the name of course first reminded me of Bleach, but the name is actually quite inspired for this class. Y'know, if Realms of Chaos doesn't happen to be an anime fan who took that name and gained inspiration from it to turn it into something completely different. Mechanically, they can be compared to a Shadowy Paladin, as they gain mysteries only at level 6 and are much more combat-based than they are caster-like.

Plunged Into Darkness feels rather weird on a base class (well, any class with a similar ability *AHEMWARHULK*), so I wonder as to the fluff-wise justification for it, although I do have a hunch. Exude Darkness is likewise a weird ability, but it has its uses. Moment of Clarity looks likewise useful, but its downsides FAR outstrip the benefits of it, and you can only use it "once per level",even! I sure hope for all the downsides and limited abilities to this class, it has something good later on! We'll see, won't we?

Then there's Pull of Shadows. Reading through it, I can't help but think that either the rest of the party needs to be built around playing together with a Hollow, or you want to send it into the midst of your enemies. Otherwise, this ability seems like it'll make the Hollow more of a detriment to the party than something good.

Inured to Hardship and Freed of Flesh are finally some truly beneficial things, but all passive, non-combat things. Shadowstriding is the first really great ability the Hollow has: yay, teleportation! Sadly, this only comes at level 5, a little late for something good. Then again, I did compare it to the Paladin earlier, so maybe I'm being punished for the comparison. Touched by Darkness is another cool one, and also movement-related, so the Hollow certainly will never be in need of much aid in getting somewhere in the midst of a fight. Shadow Strike is nifty, but because the damage is nonlethal and the damage bonus variable and usually not that much (though it can easily start at +7d6), its highly limited in use, due to the high amount of monsters immune to nonlethal damage. This dampens Felling Blow as well, which otherwise could've been a great ability.

Overall, the Hollow seems very weak. Their only strong point is that they can take damage instead of expending a use of a mystery, while still using that mystery. Depending on which mystery used, this can be very strong, but they do not have access to the higher level mysteries and require taking all the previous mysteries in a path if you want to get the higher-level mysteries. The class certainly won't get out of Tier 4, in the low end, tops.

Eventide Magus: Okay, wow. You get both arcane casting with some very strong spells and full shadowcasting. There's gotta be a downside, because this is like being a full-on Noctumancer from the get-go. The Twilight stuff just piles it on some more with its special sight of all sorts combined. (Not a huge thing, but something extra nonetheless.)

The Price: Oh, so there is a downside! Whew, goo--what. That's no downside. Sure, the casting check is a hassle, but you've got so many things to cast you can go with a few failures, and with a +11 on that check you can cast everything flawlessly. Ability and skill check bonuses are one of the least hard things to get together. And this just gives it all a further power boost! Tier 2, no doubt about it.

Ephemeral Watcher: Brief glance, first impression: this is the monk amongst these classes. Well, unarmed strike at least, plus there are some debilitating oaths attached to it that are a pain to deal with, but more doable than a Paladin's oaths. Still, additional mechanical penalties...

Dust to Dust. Handy! Everyone should have this for their bigtime enemies.
Armor of Darkness. MUCH better than what a Monk gets! Dang, shattering weapons even.
Ephemeral Strike seems okay, but then you see that it allows you to threaten to a range of 30 ft. OH MY! It's still not too powerful though, because it has its limitations. It's also useable per encounter rather than per day, so bonus points for that. (Also, this plus Stunning Fist = whoop-ass.) The Greater version is also, as it says, great. Good build-up.
Resist Magic seems a little out of place, especially the use of Charisma in an otherwise Wisdom-and-Dex class.
Twilight Reserve is AWESOME and would be god-like if you acquire immunity to nonlethal damage. You see, whilst with the Hollow's abilities you need to take nonlethal damage to activate an ability, with this ability the Ephemeral Watcher first does something, and then gets the damage afterwards (if not immune). The damage is not a condition to allow the ability to be activated. Nice.
Entropic Blow is cool. I hope a later ability builds a little further on it. (Strike and Assault, woo!)
Improved Armor of Darkness nitpick: standing in shadowy illumination already gives 20% miss chance, so that's nothing new.
Mantle of Shadow seems too much to me... but then again, spell resistance is a crappy thing, IMO, and should be gotten rid of.

Overall, this class looks well-made and pretty cool to play. It's not a high Tier one, because in many ways its like the Monk, but it has some good abilities that put it squarely in 4.

Midnight Seer: There's a coding error under Lore, which happens to be an ability I like. Knowledge is always good. The Seal of Shadows is an interesting way of utilizing mysteries, though this limits them severely (and due to requiring 4 mysteries of the previous level to be known first, you can only get so far as two 6th level mysteries at level 20, and as I recall they weren't that powerful, though they were good, although Realms may have introduced more powerful ones). The Glyphs are many and varied, but you can only get so many of them, and it is a lot to keep track of, and what mysteries are attached to them at a time. The amount of things to keep track of doesn't hinder a class in getting to any Tier though, and the top-Tier classes tend to all be of this sort. However, due the limitations, and how often a Glyph can be made to not function for a while due to other class abilities, as well as willfully blinding themselves, the Midnight Seer's power comes in trickles. It's ability of precognition, as well as being able to prepare actions very well, are both great, but don't weigh up against the bunch of lesser powers. I'd say it's better than the Hollow in make, but it could do with stronger mysteries and some extra, stronger class features.

In short, it looks like my verdict on the classes would be, in order "simple, but good", "terrible mechanics, only downsides, some decent fluff", "no downsides to a lot of power", "a very well-executed shadow monk" and "a promising, but power-wise lacklustre sage. It seems to me Realms of Chaos' strong point is not the classes, clearly. Seeing as he is also the creator of Xenotheurgy, I'd say his strong point lies in creating something big, new and complex with good fluff, focused on the system, but not additional components utilizing that system. I'd have to check the Xenotheurge to be sure, but then again, the Xenotheurge is the only base class for that system (that I know of) and is therefore steeped in the system, and on the other hand it's a huge project that kind of scares me.

However, Shadow Magic is not entirely done with, folks! There are some more base classes, and to be honest, I want to ask you guys... what great Shadow Magic homebrew have you found? It's time to give it more love, and I'd definitely love to give it its own subsystem subsection in the beginning of the thread with some links to a lot of mysteries, feats and of course classes!

[Realms of Chaos]

Truth be told, I could probably use some manner of editor for my longer projects in general. Any volunteers?

[toapat]

so, any news on the paladin rewrites beyond the pile we already have found here for you?

[Gnomes2169]

Morph, Eventide Magus links to the Ephemeral watcher.

[Morph Bark]

Truth be told, I could probably use some manner of editor for my longer projects in general. Any volunteers?

Could be handy, if that person would really read into everything. PEACHes from people in a thread each individually tend to focus on small bits, especially with such big projects. It's daunting to do such a big project, but also (much less so though) daunting to read through all of it! Which, incidentally, is one reason I haven't done Xenotheurgy yet.

so, any news on the paladin rewrites beyond the pile we already have found here for you?

I've gathered them up and saved them so I can do something with them later. I don't like doing features on Fixes as much as I do on other things, because much of it is doing something that I've already used and read about a lot a little bit differently. Rest assured though, I'll get to it, as well as Monk Mondays and Wizard Wednesdays.

Was also thinking about Third Party Thursdays. Are there any good 3rd party classes? I know Dreamscarred Press has some decent stuff, but that's about it. Green Ronin not so much.

[3WhiteFox3]

Could be handy, if that person would really read into everything. PEACHes from people in a thread each individually tend to focus on small bits, especially with such big projects. It's daunting to do such a big project, but also (much less so though) daunting to read through all of it! Which, incidentally, is one reason I haven't done Xenotheurgy yet.



I've gathered them up and saved them so I can do something with them later. I don't like doing features on Fixes as much as I do on other things, because much of it is doing something that I've already used and read about a lot a little bit differently. Rest assured though, I'll get to it, as well as Monk Mondays and Wizard Wednesdays.

Was also thinking about Third Party Thursdays. Are there any good 3rd party classes? I know Dreamscarred Press has some decent stuff, but that's about it. Green Ronin not so much.

I heartily recommend anything by Dreamscarred Press, their stuff is really quality work. Monte Cook's 3rd Party stuff is supposed to have some good stuff in it. I only know his stuff from Arcana Evolved which had pretty good classes.

d20pfsrd has a whole bunch of 3rd Party Pathfinder classes on their site. The only two I've looked at are the Malefactor by Total Party Kill games, which is a well-designed hexblade inspired class based around bad luck and curses. The other isn't what I'd call good, but it is interesting in it's own bizzare way, the Artificer by Adamant Entertainment.

[Network]

Truth be told, I could probably use some manner of editor for my longer projects in general. Any volunteers?

Depending on the project, I think I can do that. I have some good opinions of your homebrews in general, of Descend into Shadow in particular.

Was also thinking about Third Party Thursdays. Are there any good 3rd party classes? I know Dreamscarred Press has some decent stuff, but that's about it. Green Ronin not so much.

I suggest Mongoose's Chaos Mage and Samurai. Both have great fluff.