Base Class Challenge Chat Thread III: Gotta 'Brew 'Em All!

[Zaydos]

Well insomnia is a thing so I looked at maneuvers some.

Desert Wind's cone abilities dealt less damage than I thought (the higher level ones being useless because they deal about 2d6/3 IL needed to get them), so I reduced the Black Wind line to [weapon], attack, attack +2d6, attack +4d6, and attack +10d6. For the 9th level maneuver well compared to other 9ths you have:

Spoiler

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Desert Wind's 100 damage in a 60-ft radius; but it's fire and Reflex halves. Fire means it'll often be useless and Reflex halves means it averages (due to Reflex being the poorest save at high levels) approximately 75 hit points or 65 against things that resist fire but aren't immune. This was averaging 52.5 + attack's normal damage (depends upon optimization could be less than Desert Wind's could be more) in a smaller area but more party friendly. As Desert Wind's strike is often called the weakest in the game I'm ok with it being better (by being not fire and attack instead of Reflex) but how much is the question.

Devoted Spirit: Attack with Heal spell rider... kind of hard to directly compare.

Diamond Mind: Double full attack on one target. This will typically be dealing multiples of the damage that Black Wind's Reign would deal but does it to 1 target and you can't move first. I'd say Time Stands Still is definitely the stronger option unless the DM throws lots of large (4+) groups that are close together.

Iron Heart: +100 damage, multiplied on crits (so +120 average). Equals out to a little more than twice the bonus damage but it's against one target.

Setting Sun: I have no idea how to judge this maneuver o_o.

Shadow Hand: Same bonus damage, but it's one target. It also deals 2d6 damage to Str and/or Dex (randomly determined) and Fort or bad thing for 1d6 rounds/2d6 Constitution damage; save also halves ability damage. I'd say Reign is better (but don't like this one to begin with).

Stone Dragon: No prereqs, attack deals 2d6 Con damage (which equates to roughly +3 damage per hit die of target). The opposite of Reign in that it's better the bigger the foe, where as Reign is better the more small foes you have. I'd take Reign first but then again this is always my 3rd or 4th choice for 9th level stance.

Tiger Claw: Full round action; odd Jump check requirement (DC is based on target's height) +20d6 damage and save versus death. Better damage (~17.5) and chance of instant death. I'd put it as flat better than the Shadow Hand except for odd hoops, and with a Strength based DC has a good chance of killing a balor in one round (in fact the best chance short of Raging Mongoose + Time Stands Still or multiple people + War Master's Charge; although Strike of Perfect Clarity has a good chance on a properly equipped character).

War Master's Charge: If you're the only melee combatant this one's pretty sad. If you have another it gets much better (better than Strike of Perfect Clarity) even if all they can do is hit (they'll still deal 50 damage and force a save vs stun if you have Leading the Charge stance) if you have say 3 other competent melee people (including Animal Companions) it gets crazy and becomes the best strike in the game. Or just go ubercharger.

So I was trying to find the balance against these, but 15d6 was probably too much (forgot the Shadow Hand one when making it), and range got reduced to 30-ft. 10d6 is only +35 damage which means in a party v 1 fight it's about the worst strike, in a party v 2 fight it's subpar (save versus suck and 2d6 stat damage might be worse than it still but), in a party v 3+ fight it's probably the best (assuming you can hit them all). It's significantly different from the cones in that it is party friendly and can actually hit scattered enemies as opposed to requiring them to be in a single arc. Should hopefully hit the spot where it's worth picking for group fights over another 9th but is questionable because it's worse against solos and you'd easily be better off with a lower level maneuver (like diamond mind's deal 4x damage). Also fixed the mistake where I listed its area as a cone.

Also lowered That is not Dead one level, and made Shield back into its original form (only helps 1 ally and specified Reflex saves at each point), removed 2 maneuvers (reducing it to only 2 higher than Desert Wind sans Stances and 4 with Stances). Will need to fiddle with Harbinger, I might go with my other idea which was just a damaging aura.

Edit On tricksters I'd say it's probably a little much, just giving them Charisma to some things gives them a role and they don't rely as heavily on inspiration points (they don't spend inspiration points for spells and get a lot more of them) so probably don't need to get more inspiration points and could probably deal with only adding half of their Charisma (to stop them spamming 6 spells round 1 at Lv 19 with 30 Charisma for one thing).

On Harbinger: Halved the damage on the echoed attacks, how does that sound?

[r2d2go]

Things

Looks good to me. And yeah, it's probably a bit too much inspiration... I'll make it half Cha.

[Carl]

Cheers R2d2go.

Made a few edits to ad the 20th add a lore focused 15th, and altered bane of kings, not got the feedback from the latest post in beside mind and body, want to hear your response to the below. Would appreciate a quick response as where running close to the deadline now and i'm in work tomorrow :(.

Just to respond:

Apocalyptic Knowledge: The issue is that i can't realistically give a skill list. Barrier Maidens can come from virtually all walks of life, they could be street smart thieve's, the tavern prostitute, a freed slave girl, a flower girl, a princess of the realm, or just about anything else you care to name. With that kind of uniform lack of background and no real training involved in the job, (it's basically up to each to figure out for themselves once they get it), there's a complete death of any kind of standardization in the kind of knowledge they'd have at level one of just about anything. Even the knowledge skills stuff i've given is more thematic than hard lore, (i can make a justification for it, but it's a bit weak, a dedicated separate "Knowledge (Apocalypse)" skill would be more appropriate, but i didn't want to try writing a new skill). But Barrier Maidens do tend to pick up a fair range of skills, (their approach to such things can be summed up as "if i need it i'll learn it").

Bane of Warriors: Sorry i thought the ability was clear in how it worked, i'll check after i finish typing to see i didn't lose a line in the editing. Basically you pick a number of feats at the start of each day/each time you change it via a full round action equal to the limit and those feats, (subject to the Barrier Aura targeting limitations), cease to function for opponents.

And yes i'm aware of how this can make a mess of builds and how picking the right feat, (power attack being the definitive example), can produce horrendously huge results. As i said that was why i wrote Inviolable Aura in the first place, to hardcap how big the disparity between the party and the other side could get, (since Martial's are the main sorts to use inter-dependent feats and thus get hit this hard, Casters and Hybrids use few if any interlocking feats so losing one isn't as big a deal).

I'm also heavily against letting the target choose because many monsters and character classes have bonus feats, that are f dubious value. Losing said feat would be of minimal effect.

That said i had another idea that might alleviate this. Not sure on exact wording, would appreciate thoughts:

"If a feat targeted is a requirement for one or more feats the target also possess, the feat is not nullified. However one feat with the affected feat as it's perquisite is nullified instead (Barrier Maiden's choice), unless it/they are prerequisite/s for one or more feats that the affected target posses, in which case one of those feats may be affected, and so on and so forth. All such immune feats must be declared up all branches of the chain starting from the initial feat before an affected feat is chosen or the immunity is lost."

Bane of Mages: Going to address your edits in reverse.

A) Changing the boost to per round based completely undoes the entire point of having it there, (namely making the dispels scale beyond the initial freebies to match the amount of magic floating around). At Low levels i don't want the feature getting too many bonus counters from enemy casting because the total spell slots available will be poor. Lucky rolls could make every spell be wasted, there's also no quicken so too many dispels could result in the encounter ending before the dispels run out. But as the levels rise these issues severely go down and it becomes more a matter of what percentage of spell stopping is balanced. 1 in 6 is really really awful at that point given this is her only real way of severely punishing mages, (most non-metamagic feats don't represent great gobs of power for mages after all). 1 in 3 on the other hand is pretty reasonable from my PoV, (that's the value at 16th, 8th is 2 in 7), it's enough you can keep them from getting important spells off, but not so many they can't contribute decently.

Yours is actually better in single magic user situation's, (1 in 2.5 without them casting a single spell), but it fails to scale to an even effect regardless of encounter size.

B) I really dislike dispel checks for this. two reasons. First because of how they work and because the barrier maiden has no caster level boosting tricks her initial failure chance is 40%, and it only drops by 5%, (against the strongest spell she can hit), at every even numbered level. So she isn't getting to the really reliable stage for a long time, limited use abilities that aren't reliable are routinely derided for their lack of usability because you just can't rely on them when it matters. I want this to be something you can rely on when it matter. Your not getting every spell so the spells you do hit should be getting stopped reliably.

Also your wording change cut out quite a few things. The ability is supposed to be able to target active spells, (like a buff spell that's active), and be decreased by them remaining in play, (at the start of each round immediately prior to rolling to recover a charge if she doesn't have one), and your can allow unlimited charges to accumulate since she rolls at the start of every round, not just rounds where she's missing a charge.

If your concern is initial burst-iness i could drop the first use not increasing the roll required and/or even star the roll at 5+ required.

Nigh Invulnerable is mostly fine. Easy to mess with (sickening cloud), but not too much of a problem.

Not sure what you mean by that...

See the World: Yeah it's a lot, but this is a class who's only other real effect in most situations is an encounter wide debuffing system, it's potent but it's limited out of combat, and it helps scale the class that tad more.

Restoration: I'll come back to the cost suggestion in a moment when i get to banefire.

Creations Champion: Gah realized i didn't specify. You can't improve retaliatory strikes damage by any means, so even if your charging with a Valours Lance on horseback with spirited charge feat, your max, (assuming high enough level and enough banked points), is 20 points. Same for crits and everything else, you also can't use it as a type for bonus damage that's based on base damage type, (so no Sneak Attack abuse). Does that change your thoughts here?

Bane of Kings hasn't been edited, gonna settle down to it when i'm done typing.

Banefire: My main concern with adding costs to the various abilities is that it's hard to justify on a theme level. Barrier Maidens aren't natural Paupers or anything, but given they've got such an important job, money tends to be a "if i really need if for something" kind of thing with them unless they come from a suitably money grubbing background. Putting expensive requirements in makes wealth an integral part of the class on a features level, and i'm not so keen on that.

Legalese: The problem is most things that could break one of her abilities tend to rely on "Bypasses all Immunities" clauses so an effect like that doesn't work very well, (it's mostly for the level 20 TBH), the only real way to bypass such things is to prevent the effect from every hitting her which generally is only guarantee-able by making her un-target-able, and the only foolproof way of doing that is to make her non-existent in all time frames. And that's damm near impossible to do in a non-abusble way that avoids legalese. I hate it too but it has given me a bit more sympathy for lawyers, (who'd have thought it).

[Zaydos]

On Apocalyptic Knowledge: Look to Expert. Give them the ability to, at 1st level, pick a list of X skills to add to their skill list. It seems to function for the varied backgrounds you're looking for.

On Bane of Warriors: Remove or heavily reduce the +(Level -4) bonus to AC. A member of most classes can get (without polymorph) 44 AC (+5 Mithral Full Plate, +5 Animated Shield, +5 Nat Armor, +5 Deflection, +1 Insight, +3 Dex) This means a Pit Fiend needs a 14 to hit or a 16 with its secondary weapons, a balor is in worse shape, and a dragon unfortunately will hit (needs a 2). A +10 to AC actually throws off the RNG pretty badly, a +16 breaks it completely. I'd say halving it might work, but look at Full BAB to hit at that level. With +10 Strength they've got a +30, +35 with a +5 weapon. You have 60 AC (because even without armor proficiency you can wear Heavy Armor and as you don't need to make attack rolls or use Dex based skill checks you have no reason not to). +8 might work (honestly probably still too much).

On Bane of Magic: R2D2go's version I might allow in a game. The current version I would not. Note also: In actual games you rarely have more than 2 enemy spells in a given round, if it's a boss. Exception when running beholders which have Su abilities which copy spells but are not spell-like so the ability does not apply anyway. And you will reliably counter 2 in the first round even at low levels and more at higher levels. And I will note that you described a 110% chance of success against the highest level spells you can hit (or a failure rate of -10%) as not very high. The easy way to deal with not having CL boosting tricks is to give them +1/4 Barrier Maiden class levels to the dispel check (giving them a +25 at 20th which is more than 50% which is actually a high enough chance of performing a random no sale on enemies as an immediate action). Also as Spell-like abilities Invocations already have equivalent spell levels for each one (such as See the Unseen being Lv 2, and Dark Foresight being a Lv 9 spell effect), and you don't want psionic powers to be equivalent to their manifester level (that's like saying it treats a spell's spell level as its caster level) they too already have power levels.

[Carl]

@Zandyos: Not got time for a huge reply as work in morning so just gonna pick a few of lines out:

Bane of Warriors is a mistype, it's supposed to be "every 5 levels thereafter"

No i described 40% failure rate as not reliable. the base dispel check DC for a first level spell is 12, her CL at that point is 4, so that's a 9+ required or 40% failure rate, every 2 levels she goes up her CL bonus to the roll goes up by 2, but the roll required for the top level spell goes up by 1 so even at 16 she has a 1 in 10 chance of failing to stop a 7th level spell. And unless i missed something a 1 will always fail so there's a hardcapped 5% fail chance regardless. I mean sure if the dispel check was something like 1 + 1/4 class level it would beyond about 8th level be really reliable.#

Also the fact that it's rare for lots of spells to be flying around doesn't make it a bad idea to make it auto scaling based on the amount of magic, (like i said r2d2go's version is actually better in that kind of limited environment, but i want to cover multiple weak as well as single strong casters so the Dm isn't constrained if he doesn't wan to be), if you think the initial burstiness is too much i did say that can be changed btw ;).

[Zaydos]

Added a feat for wrapping your fists in clothes imbued with the words of doom and punching people, because I'm too lazy to make a Monk-Gish PrC.

@Carl: Actually even in a limited environment r2d2go's is much weaker. 1) the dispel check to counterspell giving you an actual chance of failure, 2) the DC for the check only goes down for spells that get past you or at the beginning of your turn meaning the DC does not auto-reset to 0 at high levels, 3) in his your starting charge increases the DC so it is likely to not get as much. I cannot actually see any way in which his is actually stronger.

[Temotei]

malonkey1: You forgot the closing[/indent]tag in the spoiler for timeline, if you plan on finishing. Oh, and you don't need to capitalize every letter in the class name in the places I did; I only do that so others will notice and replace them with the name.

AkazilliaDeNaro: Use Magic Device is based on Charisma, not Intelligence.

sengmeng: I recommend making the rage augment names bold or in italics. I think it'd be a tad easier to read. Also, is the herald proficient with any armor or shields?

Xhosant: If you finish, don't forget the Background and Races sections in the fluff.

dragonjek: The table showing harbinger spells known has a header that says "Saves" and then "Spells Per Day." Also, why grant four martial weapon proficiencies? I feel like at that point, you might as well grant full martial weapon proficiency, since you can cover pretty much every base a normal character would want to with four (light, reach, ranged, possibly two-handed).

I think that's all I saw. I haven't completely read the entries yet, though I probably will shortly. This was just a quick glance through the classes to catch formatting/qualification things.

[Carl]

@Zaydos: Starting at 8th level the DC for a roll drops by 2 at the end of each round in his version. That means, (assuming your trying to keep a roughly constant DC), you can stop 2 spells every 5 rounds. In addition for every 5 spells cast you can stop an additional 1. Assuming 1 spell per round that works out at an extra 1 every 6th round. Or on average a total between the two of 1 spell every 1.76 rounds.

Mine at 8th need 5 spells cast to get 2 back, so at 1 spell a round that's 2 out of 7. or one every 3.5 rounds. Go to 16 and that improves to 3 spells every 5 rounds, or 3/8, which averages out at one every 2.66 rounds.

Basically a single caster not using quicken is going to get a LOT more spells stopped by his version than mine will, about 50% more in fact. Mine however lets the DM build multi-caster fights or the like if he really wants to because it stops the same percentage of spells weather there's 1 caster or 5. Which keeps it in line with the rest of the bane abilities which effect any number of opponents that wander into her aura. Even with the failure chance factored in his per round average rate is vastly higher from 8th level up.

The other problem is that Failure chance is as i've noted something i really don't like on this ability. Both for how it tends to make abilities worthless in general because the lack of reliability really hurts their ability for the player to do anything really important with them, (and with this few uses relative to incoming spells your only going to be able to afford to use it on important targets), which harshly hurts it's usefulness because it forces you to grab alternative means for dealing with the times it does fail which ends up totally negating the need for the unreliable aspect in the first place.

Thye second issue is that all the other Banes are hard kill affects, making Mages be soft feels like it's giving spellcasters a free pass. Which even if magic and martial where equal would be an awful, with them how they are it's not remotely justifiable. I know there are other complicated factors involved that mitigate this at least some but it's a point of concern.

Anyway what did you make of my proposed Warriors change?

[sengmeng]

Herald of Ragnarok is done, feats may be added (suggestions welcome, PEACHes also welcome).

[Carl]

@Temotei : Could you give me a time till deadline figure please? I'm in UK and not sure of convershion.

[Temotei]

@Temotei : Could you give me a time till deadline figure please? I'm in UK and not sure of convershion.

Sure thing. It's 2057 (8:57 p.m.) currently, which would put the deadline three days, three hours, and two minutes from now.

CST is six hours behind GMT, if that helps.

[Carl]

Many thanks, thats longer than i though there was :).

[r2d2go]

Whew. Back.

Anyway, Carl: Zaydos has me covered, mostly. Banefire - I recommend an XP cost if you're not keen on a monetary cost, at least 5000 XP to match Wish.

The intent with my edit was to be strictly worse than yours. I just reworded it and added a clause that doesn't give you double points for enemy casting, doesn't give points for continuous effects, increases DC even if you fail to counter, and forces a Dispel Check, all of which are strictly nerfs. What was your original intent?

Also, I think that it's okay if the Barrier Maiden doesn't get CL scaling with Dispel - she's getting them all the time as free actions, and usually people don't ramp too much with their CL. If you think it's too weak, just add a clause that says she doesn't increase DC if you fail to counter.

Anyway, can you review my class? I've only got one full review (Zaydos'), and I'm worried about balance.

To sengmeng: I'll look in depth at yours tomorrow (I know it's getting close but IRL takes priority, sorry).

[Carl]

Anyway, can you review my class? I've only got one full review (Zaydos'), and I'm worried about balance.

I'll reply properly later as got to go do some shopping, but sure, forgot i hadn't done that for you, thanks for the nudge.

[Xhosant]

Last 2 weeks have been too hectic, I got no other choice but to drop the Rider. Sorry!

[Temotei]

Last 2 weeks have been too hectic, I got no other choice but to drop the Rider. Sorry!

Dang. Do you plan on working on it after the contest? I'd like to see it in its FINAL FORM.

[Xhosant]

I probably will. I think I'd give Death some disease, some undead minions and a space-sharing guardian that either boosts your attacks or makes his own (more or less).

Capstone takes into play the 'each was given dominion over 1/4th of the people to kill' bit, so first time you interact with anything sentient in a class-based/boosted way, there's a 25% chance that one's under your watch, and you get some bonuses on everything numerical.

I'd use the other 3 seals as Artifacts, requiring having broken the previous seals (in other words, be a high-level Horseman, plus someone having used the previous ones), where:

The 5th calls a single-use/purpose undead/ghostly army.
The 6th can cause any and all of: shift landscape large-scale, alter natural characteristics (moon color, day's brightness, day/night cycle etc.), widespread panic, etc.
The 7th brings out large-scale targeted destruction, mostly via earthquakes and meteor.

The effects are campaign-defining (that's why they're artifacts, d'uh), trying to mimic the original's 5th-7th seal, to be used by heroes or vilains as the plot demands.

[Temotei]

I probably will. I think I'd give Death some disease, some undead minions and a space-sharing guardian that either boosts your attacks or makes his own (more or less).

Capstone takes into play the 'each was given dominion over 1/4th of the people to kill' bit, so first time you interact with anything sentient in a class-based/boosted way, there's a 25% chance that one's under your watch, and you get some bonuses on everything numerical.

I'd use the other 3 seals as Artifacts, requiring having broken the previous seals (in other words, be a high-level Horseman, plus someone having used the previous ones), where:

The 5th calls a single-use/purpose undead/ghostly army.
The 6th can cause any and all of: shift landscape large-scale, alter natural characteristics (moon color, day's brightness, day/night cycle etc.), widespread panic, etc.
The 7th brings out large-scale targeted destruction, mostly via earthquakes and meteor.

The effects are campaign-defining (that's why they're artifacts, d'uh), trying to mimic the original's 5th-7th seal, to be used by heroes or vilains as the plot demands.

Sounds pretty cool to me. Looking forward to seeing it when it's done.

And for those curious, yeah, it's 0706 here, and yeah, I've been up all night.

[Xhosant]

And for those curious, yeah, it's 0706 here, and yeah, I've been up all night.

Sleep is for the weak.

[Jormengand]

And for those curious, yeah, it's 0706 here, and yeah, I've been up all night.

Did you get lucky, though?

[Temotei]

Sleep is for the weak.

Yus. Side note: Isran always makes me laugh when he says that in Skyrim.

Did you get lucky, though?

Well, last session I rolled three 20s in a r-uh, no. Not recently.

[r2d2go]

Thank you, Carl. I've been doing a lot of reviewing but not getting a lot of reviews

Anyway, on to Herald of Ragnarok:

Spoiler: Full Review

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Miracles:

"Woooah. That is one big block of text."

That's pretty much my first reaction to this, and it's not really one you want. I would split this up into sections or different class abilities that use the same resource pool (like factotum). I'd take the following and either make it a separate ability stated to use the Miracle pool, or just add a space and bold a title so it's more readable. I also rewrote them a little bit, as to shorten them and make them more clear.`

"The most basic miracle is the berzerker rage, which is identical in function to the barbarian's rage except that the Herald also increases his base attack bonus to match his HD during his rage. It costs at least one miracle point and lasts one round per point of the character's improved constitution bonus, plus the number of miracle points spent. They are fatigued like a barbarian's rage, and can only use berzerker rage once per encounter."

I would probably increase the time gained to two or three rounds per point, at least. There's no reason for someone to spend more points on extending the rage if it's more efficient to just rage twice. This way all types of characters might want to spend extra miracles points in extending their rage, especially if they use an expensive ability.

"Miracle points are regained in two ways: combat, and leveling up. The Herald of Ragnarok's miracle point pool is completely filled whenever he takes a level in Herald of Ragnarok. He also gains one miracle point in any round in which he takes hitpoint damage, ability drain, ability damage, or level drain, and he gains one miracle point by damaging an opponent with a unarmed strike, weapon attack, or grapple check. He can only gain can only gain 1 point from each of these on any given round."

I'd put this one as with the first part, since at the moment you go from explaining the resource to an expenditure of the resource and back. The italics are what I think you mean. However, I think that makes the ability much harder to use at high levels - I might make it just "whenever he takes damage", or "whenever he takes damage, up to his class level times per encounter."

"The other way he can use miracle points is to emulate spells. Spells emulated via miracle points count as supernatural abilities and have a save DC of 10 + the Herald's Cha modifier + the level of the spell emulated. The Herald does not need material components, and suffers no arcane spell failure chance for wearing armor or carrying a shield, but he must have either a free hand or a spear or warhammer in his hand, and he must always be able to speak to call on the gods, whether or not the spell normally has a verbal component. The cost in miracle points is determined by the type of spell he is emulating. Spells that deal lightning damage, spells that deal sonic damage, and spells on the War and Strength domain lists cost one miracle point per level of the spell. Other divine spells cost two miracle points per level of the spell. The Herald of Ragnarok can only emulate spells of a level up to half his levels in Herald of Ragnarok, except at level one, when he can emulate 1st level spells. The Herald of Ragnarok cannot emulate spells during a berzerker rage. Emulated spells must come from the cleric's spell list, except where otherwise noted; spells which are on certain domain lists but not on the normal cleric spell list cannot be emulated."

Lots of notes for the spell thing. The first is that at 2nd level, the Herald is casting 2nd level spells of the cheaper type before every other casting class, and casting them every other round. He can also cast any of a cleric's 1st level spells instead. This is kind of the problem I was talking about above - it balances okay in the end, but has a crazy start and then becomes pretty meh. Capping it at regaining class level points/encounter would mean that he gets at most two spells at above full caster strength per encounter - still a lot, but low enough so that he's not breaking things.

Rage Augments:

These are mostly good. I'll just comment on ones I think are a bit questionable, but most seem pretty balanced.

Ironskin - The fact that "half damage" scales is good, but I think it might scale a bit too well. Half damage can equal absurdly high DR late game, and I'm not sure that's what you want. But it's probably not breaking anything as is, so eh. I would definitely put in a clause that it's after normal DR, though, so that it doesn't become easy to negate damage completely.

Trollblooded Rage - Fast Healing is not cheap. I know this isn't your intent, but a Herald of Ragnarok can literally let himself get bashed around a few times by his allies, then heal himself with this. Of course, he can heal himself already, but this is stronger than many healing spells. A base 18 Con Herald of Ragnarok who uses this gains FH 8 with this ability - twice as much as Greater Vigor, a 5th level spell. That rage will last 8 rounds, healing him for 64 at the same cost of half of a CLW. That's a little crazy there. I would drop it to a flat amount - even FH 5 would help. Alternatively, make it so he can only use it in combat, by only healing damage taken in the past minute.

Fenris Rage - I would almost certainly note that this is a magical enlargement effect, and thus doesn't stack with Enlarge Person and the like. Otherwise it's more powerful than it really should be (Giant Size and Greater Mighty Wallop breaks games).

Hunter's Rage - I think this is a really cool ability, but I noticed this:

"...can spend a swift action to declare one attack per round to be an automatic critical threat..."

Woah there. I understand that this is doable with a 1st level spell, but that 1st level spell is universally regarded as one of the more broken ones in existence, and it's a ranger only spell and thus is never getting more than a few castings a day. I would make this once in the entire rage or something similar. The fact is that even an unconfirmed critical threat is still an automatic hit, which means this is Quickened TrueStrike+++ every round for a whole lot of rounds.

True Berserk Rage - This is also a little questionable. I mean, "All spells and effects" is a lot of spells and effects. Then again, it is really late, and at this point spellcasters get crazy things at this point, but... still, I'd think about it.

Thunderer's Rage - Similar to Hunter's Rage, this is really cool, but this makes it a bit questionable:

"You may emulate spells that deal lightning or sonic damage during a Thunderer's rage, and you do so at +2 caster level."

If you want, you can cast Apocalypse from the Sky ten times during this rage, all without a material component cost, as long as he's got someone with Restoration and healing handy. You can also cast Thunderswarm, which is basically electric Meteor Swarm. You can also cast Lightning Ring, giving you two 5d6 Heightened Lightning Bolts as 8th level spells every turn as a free action for 1 round/2 levels. You can also cast Leonal's Roar, which is Holy Word with 2d6 sonic damage tacked on. There's a ton of junk you can do with this.

I recommend just halving the Miracle cost of using these, or capping it at 5th level spells.

Weapon Enhancement - This is mostly fine, but I might make swapping the abilities at least a standard action, if not something you do each day. Otherwise the Herald is getting Bane against every enemy he fights.

Other Weaponry Boosts - This is also fine (melee deserves nice things), but I'd like to note that at this point, you're getting the equivalent of a +12 weapon.

Looks pretty good! there's a few things that are questionable but overall pretty good.

[Carl]

Ok review time:

Spoiler: r2d2go review

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Riftwalker

The Rift brought many changes, bringing the nightmares of our world to life. We are the one good change, the only hope for civilization in the face of destruction.

In 2336, The Rift was opened, bringing in creatures humanity had only saw in their nightmares. However, a few, seemingly random people had their bodies attuned to The Rift, granting them the ability to combat the incorporeal monstrosities. By channeling their powers, they can push their bodies to supernatural limits and manipulate the world around them.

Adventures: Since the signature capability of a Riftwalker is their ability to deal with incorporeal enemies, any quest combating ghosts or other similar monsters is ideal. In a specialized setting, this is extremely easy, but an easy way to incorporate this into a standard D&D is to make a final boss incorporeal.

Characteristics: Riftwalkers have enormous amounts of options for their builds, as in a specialized setting they would be essentially the only class. As such, their characteristics vary wildly from individual to individual. The only unified characteristic of all Riftwalkers is their ability to affect incorporeal as if they were corporeal.

Alignment: Any, since they are simply the lucky (or perhaps unlucky) individuals blessed with their abilities; the entry into the class has nothing to do with the person’s morals. The Templar specialization is the exception to this - see its entry for more details.

Religion: Any – in this apocalypse, the gods are denounced, while in a standard D&D setting, these abilities are, flavorwise, granted to random individuals. The exceptions are Conduits and Templars, whos’ god of worship varies wildly. However, in a standard D&D setting, a god could grant these abilities to a champion in order to combat incorporeals; this still allows essentially any religion, but deities who despise undead, such as Pelor, will find this class even more flavor appropriate.

Background: Mostly random individuals become Riftwalkers, though those closer to the supernatural are more likely to be “chosen”. However, in a standard D&D setting, an appropriately flavorful background could be that of a divine champion: see Religion.

Races: Any, as only humans exist in the specialized setting, while any race (except perhaps incorporeals) in a standard D&D could become this class.

Other Classes: Due to extremely varied class abilities, this class could potentially support any given other class.

Role: Due to extremely varied class abilities, this class could potentially fill any role.

Adaptation: This class, at its core, simply specializes in fighting incorporeal enemies, while having abilities flavored towards this. Thus, any campaign with incorporeals can use this class, simply with lowered flavor value. See the above sections for more specific information.

GAME RULE INFORMATION
Riftwalkers have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Varies – see Specialization.
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d4
Starting Age: As Bard
Starting Gold: As Sorcerer.

Class Skills
The Riftwalker's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis) and Knowledge (The Planes) (Int) – see Specialization.

Skill Points at First Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier


Okay, few HP's, skills, poor saves, poor BAb and poor HD, there better be some serious bonus's coming :).

Class Features
All of the following are class features of The Riftwalker.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Oooookay...

All other class features go here (Use the format shown directly below if you don't know what to do.)! - Note: You should delete this line ;)

Riftwalking (Su): Simple and not especially powerful, but fluffy if i get the concept right. Cool.

Specialization (Su):

Spoiler: Bladeweaver

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Ok this starts to explain some things, never a good judge of skills lists so not gonna comment there. Proficiency's look decent for whats below.

This is ok, doesn't seem OTT.

So equivalent to 3/4 BAB, D6 HD and 6 skill points per level on average. Also what do you mean by secial qualities, you need to define this better. In fact i'd write out the void blades as a separate sub category above Bladeweaver's entry.

Some nice feat's and some nice end bonus's however your still getting 4/3 main/off-hand attacks, still getting shafted by DR, and still can't use the off-hand on standard attacks. SA helps but the maximum dice is just 5D6, which is pretty poor. It's nice but it isn't very strong.

Spoiler: Wraith

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Ok again nothing to say here too much.

Ok not bad.

Again ok, seems to be same HD and SP progression as earlier.

Rank 3: This is very nice indeed for mobility aspects.

Rank 4: Not especially powerful, but ok.

Rank 6: WOW, this is so needed and so powerful.

Rank 7: :haely: Tehehe. Awesome made awesome here.

Rank 9: Very nice in mobility terms though in many situations you can fly over. That said when does the effect start and end, Can you declare a 60ft move in a specific direction and become ethereal instantly to walk through the wall next to you, can you end move inside a wall, then declare another long move next turn to retain it?

Rank 10: is the first half of this supposed to be some kind of rules or not, not clear on whats fluff and what isn't there. Greater Manyshot is nice but not spectacular.

The biggest issue i see with this spec is the same as with Bladeweaver, ranged is really low damage per shot compared to 2-hander power attacks and Skirmisher damage doesn't let them keep up. It does have a counter to flying, but it's helpless against wind wall and the like.

Spoiler: Reaper

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Ok, again nothing to really throw up here.

Owwww, Power attack for free, it's not overpowered as such, but still whistle worthy.

SO still 3/4 BAB, but now it's D8 HD.

So Storm Trooper like ability on single attacks. Powerful, but not excessive.

Okay, now it is Free Stormtrooper, and a damage

So half stormtrooper on full attacks.

So you get a bonus large enough to offset 5 points of attack penalty, which means you can take a 10 point malus split 50/50 without hurting you to hit chances, and only the first attack takes a penalty meaning that 2 out of 3 attacks have the same to-hit chances. Now with the limited BAB that's still going to hurt your hit chances some, but it's a lot better than most others can do.

Overall this is the most powerful spec to date, throw in Leap attack and a Valours weapon and you've got a ubercharger without taking multiple classes.

Spoiler: Unleashed

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Nothing special here.

so 2 skill points per level but no HP boost.

So some serious damage and health boosts, as well as a better will save. But the player becomes a bystander whilst their charecter acts without them, noty good. It's really never a good idea to reduce the player to a mere passanger. Otherwise nothing major either way here.

Oh wait here's the BAB and HP boosts, that raises them to full BAB, also you've got skill points listed twice here. Extra health is equal to a D10 HD, but stacking with the transformation it would be equivalent to a D14 if such a thing existed.

You might ant to clarify if this stacks with Improved Critical feat, is it a change to base critial or a bonus. If it does stack this could get really powerful. Damage boost is nice.

All good except the DR, DR3/- is not very high most things will cut through that very easily.

Wow, thats a real boost to damage output.

So boosted healing over base for kills and free food and drink much of the time. Not massive but not bad.

Wow thats some really, really serious damage output.

The DR here is better if still not enough to really have a huge effect, the other bonuses will add up really well.

There are however a few issues here. A) i'd have to go through the list to be sure i found them all, but there are at least a few mind affecting spells that allow a mindless creature no save. B) There's no other form of serious spell protection in here, casters will eat this guy alive. C) Without the multi-attack feat chain the 2nd and subsequent claw attacks aren't going to hit anything because of all the penalties.

Spoiler: Bastion

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Okay, nothing much to see here i can comment on, moving on.

I presume you meant constitution modifier? Otherwise doesn't have any stand out issues.

Okay the first to provide save progression, YAY, and again the BAB progression, also awesome damage output.

Not bad not spectacular

Interesting but limited since you have to be next to a friend, also how does this interact with trips, disarms, sunders, and area affect abilities.

Is this one total, or one per weapon, i presume the former, but not sure. Overall nice when combined with the high base damage.

Cool but not overly powerful.

WOW, serious healing, very powerful.

Hmm this seems like it would cap out too low, but otherwise good.

Low final DR again but not awful.

Hmm again not spectacular but not awful.

Ok seriously powerful on some levels, but without class level fast healing hard to really get much benefit out of since your reliant on somone else to bring you back.

Overall this feels like a fixed monk as a class feature, potent, but still lacking since spellcasters can trivially evade it via flight and whilst it has some great in combat power it's out of combat punch isn't awesome. As long as it can hit stuff though this looks reasonably balanced.

EDIT: Wrote this in 2 sections. Realized when i jst came back that rank reffers to spec rank not class level, was totally misunderstanding some of this, need to be quick as it's allready 7PM here in UK and i need to edit my Barrier Maiden so i'm not gonna go back and correct it all, just bear this in mind.

Spoiler: Dragoon

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TOk agauin nothing to shout about

Whats the base damage of the breath weapon>

4 SP's D10 HD, full BAB and some bonus damage., fair.

Erm, might want to provide that info if possible.

Ohhh boy, this is like an Uberchargers wet dream. Sane on it's own but extreme otherwise.

Since i'm not familiar with the dragonfiore adept i can't comment overmuch.

By combat do you mean encounter? Either way this is a lot of potential bonus damage given +15 skill check items and the like. Just makes ubercharging even nastier.

See earlier.

Again do you mean encounter? Otherwise see comments on prior.

Ok if Reaper was an Uberchargers wet dream this is even worse TBH as it supports jump attacks much more effectively.

Spoiler: Master

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Nothing to really comment on here.

Does he need levels in a spellcasting class to use this?

Ok so he effectively can match the abilities of any 5th level caster. This is in sheer tiering terms the most powerful option to date, it won;t end encounters as rapidly as the ubercharger options, but it's got so much out of combat utility. It's probably not overpowered at anything, but it's going to heavily eclipse any other option.

Spoiler: Xeno

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Basically see my comments for the Master.

Spoiler: Conduit

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Again the comment vis a vis the Master applies.

Spoiler: Shaper

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OWWWWW. This could be insanely powerful with the right monster since they can have spellcasting capabilities innately. Also you don't state when he fist gets wildshape very clearly, could you clarify for me. Overall the most abusable so far, but balanced with a decent DM. Probably on par with the master. Bad DM and this could walk into T2, maybe even T1.

Spoiler: Trickster

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Okay nothng to comment on here.

Looks decent.

Are the A or saving throw increases equal to charisma modifier, i'd assume they are but you don't specify?

Not especially powerful, but hey it's nice.

Ohhhh, very interesting indeed.

Hmmm, this seems weak because getting major sneak attack damage is going to burn most of the points, and without a lot of burn the bonus isn;t going to be very useful. Lager bonus would be nice.

Impressive, very nice.

Intresting, again seems nice but not OTT.

Ermmm, you haven't yet defined any spellcasting for him?

Ohhh nasty, but not too excessive for the cost, though again where's his spellcasting defined.

I Like.

Without knowing what his spellcasting is i can't comment on overall power, but assuming the spellcasting is suitably weaker than the Master it should work out about the same as that i think. Good balance wise)

Spoiler: Templar

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Other than the alignment restrictions. Nice.

Ok thats a lot of features to give out. but nothing OTT there.

Are the BAB/SP/HP bonuses every odd level or every level, the later is much weaker than the former.

Cool if niche.

Is this Etheral or not? Otherwise nice if fluff mainly.

Now this is super handy.

Not exactly powerful, but far from awful. I'd look into giving the mounted combat feats for free though.

Riftbending (Su): Ok, this changes everything. Massively. You can now have 9th level full caster spells or get half that for classes other than the Master. For anything that doesn't allready get spellcasting progression this is exactly what they needed to keep up with the rest, though even CL 10 in a full caster is probably too much when added to ubercharging via the Reaper and Dragoon elements. But otherwise this really changes things around and makes the rest viable, (though Shaper despite being non-caster absolutely does not need it). I'd fold this into the specializations directly, skipping those with Psionic or spell progression allready and the Shaper. Otherwise the balance is going to be all over the place.

Hope that helped, was a bit slapdash due to time constraints.


@:Zaydos and r2d2go: Before i shoot in another reply on my barrier maiden i'd like to ask if after this contest hit's submission date if i could run some idea's by you via PM or whatever. Got another class gurgling in infancy in the back of my skull but it's a bit weird and not sure on balance points for it could use input.

Spoiler: r2d2go's reply to my barrier maiden

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I figured you where going for a less powerful version. But like i showed in the math to Zaydos, yours in the 1 caster environment is actually far more powerful than mine in terms of attempted dispels and on average will stop a lot more spells total as well.

My main issue with failure chance boils down to an effect i've observed in countless other games tabletop and otherwise, whereby if an effect is unreliable, (i.e. has a noticeable failure rate, and that failure rate cannot be countered via lots of rolls to fore law of averages), the general assumption when putting things together for players is to assume it will fail and build accordingly. Depending on how good the other options are and how bad the failure effect is this leads to the ability being marginalized at best, or trivialized at worst, because it's a nice extra but not vital at best, or completely un-needed at worst, which for a class feature this integral is not something that you want to have happen.

I think i'm gonna try hypridizing something out though.

[Carl]

Ok Barrier maiden updated, main changes besides some bugfixing are an added clause to Bane of Warriors to protect chain feats to limit build breaking by breaking several feats with one base feat removal. Culled the active effects reduction on DC for Bane of ages, raised base save DC, and culed first charge not increasing DC. Also added a DM paragraph to Divine Connection to emphasize it's uses, but make clear that it is Dm discretion only how it's used and that simple Gems et al won't do.


That any better?

[r2d2go]

Thanks for the review! I tweaked a lot of things. I'll mention those in a bit, but first, your stuff...

Ok Barrier maiden updated, main changes besides some bugfixing are an added clause to Bane of Warriors to protect chain feats to limit build breaking by breaking several feats with one base feat removal. Culled the active effects reduction on DC for Bane of ages, raised base save DC, and culed first charge not increasing DC. Also added a DM paragraph to Divine Connection to emphasize it's uses, but make clear that it is Dm discretion only how it's used and that simple Gems et al won't do.


That any better?

I think you kind of went the wrong direction with Bane of Mages. The per-round reduction was good, and the base DC was fine where it was. It would be fine if you reintroduced those - in fact, I'd recommend it.

I still don't see how mine was weaker than the old version - I don't meant Targeted Dispel, or even mimicking the spell effect. You could call the check an opposed Caster Level check for all I care - the Dispel only counters the one spell you're spending the charge on. I still recommend my wording, because it is literally strictly worse than your original - the only edits it made is that you don't always successfully counter a spell, and you only reduce DC by 1 when you fail a counter instead of reducing DC by 2. It is also stronger than your current one, but that's good - otherwise it doesn't do much. Something in between could be:

"A Barrier Maiden with this ability begins any encounter with one charge. This charge can be expended as a free action to counter any spell of 1st level or lower, making an Dispel Check with bonus equal to your class level. Every even level, the spell level limit for this counter increases by 1. Whenever the Barrier Maiden does this, and at the start of her turn each round, she makes a unmodified check with DC 0. Upon success, she regains her charge, and increases the DC by 5 for further checks. At the end of her turn, as well as whenever a spell is cast that the Barrier Maiden does not counter, the DC decreases by 1."

Anyway, on to my patch notes.

I added save bonuses to all classes, so that it actually mimics having a good save. I also added Evasion/Mettle to each class depending on their good save (saying "for only fortitude"/"for only will" for Mettle when only one was a good save).

Added miss chance effects (Blink, Displacement, Mirror Image, Greater Mirror Image) to Unleashed, got rid of natural armor and lowered Con bonus. I felt it's more in theme to use unstable miss chance over armor and health for defense.

Added Eldritch Blast for 1d6/rank on Master and Xeno, so they don't utterly suck early game.

Added 1/4 casting to Templar, for a total of 3/4 casting, as well as giving them Spirited Charge at rank 6.

Various additions to make optimizations not stack, IE making Reaper and Dragoon effects only work on an otherwise unmodified charge.

Made Rift Weapon descriptions a part of their own, instead of tying them to Bladeweaver.

[Carl]

I still don't see how mine was weaker than the old version - I don't meant Targeted Dispel, or even mimicking the spell effect. You could call the check an opposed Caster Level check for all I care - the Dispel only counters the one spell you're spending the charge on. I still recommend my wording, because it is literally strictly worse than your original - the only edits it made is that you don't always successfully counter a spell, and you only reduce DC by 1 when you fail a counter instead of reducing DC by 2. It is also stronger than your current one, but that's good - otherwise it doesn't do much.

Having a bit of trouble parsing the wording here for your meaning, tired and feeling a bit i'll atm, feel weak as a kitten so that's probably why.

What i was trying to say with your initial version was that come 8th level it was reducing the DC by 2 every round weather there was an active effect or a spell cast. Mine only reduced it on those factors so yours was getting a dispel charge, (assuming you didn't spend a charge till the DC dropped back to a reasonable level), every 2.5 rounds on average no matter what the enemy did, where's with mine if the enemy did nothing it got no charges back because it got no DC reduction. If the enemy did start slinging spells at a rate of 1 a round yours then got another dispel after 5 rounds that it could use next round. Which totals just under 3 charges in 5 rounds, or just over 3 in 6. Mine even at 16th can't match that, (it need 8 rounds to get and then expend 3 charges).

Basically in a limited environment like what you and Zaydos said would be the norm, (1 maybe 2 spells per round on occasion), you where going to be able to attempt to stop a lot more of the incoming spells, and even with the failure chance mine lacked the average was still in your favor, even if the failure chance would likely make the party care a lot less about having the ability. Anyway i'm cautious about making edits with just 2 and a bit hours to go, probs just drop the starting Dc by 5. Though i'd be happy to do some more work once voting is over .

Think i'm off to bed though . So not good right now.

[dragonjek]

I finally finished up the Harbinger, but the pieces are a bit far apart... I guess I didn't think it through when I tried to reserve a spot.

As-is, it's playable... but I'm not fast enough to convert thirty-five Aspects, with 20 Influences apiece, from loose paper sketch-notes to something that can actually be used in the time left.
I think I might have been a little too ambitious with this project.

But at least I worked the Robert Frost poem into it.

[Temotei]

Here's the voting thread.

[sengmeng]

Wow, eight entries? That's a pretty good turnout, and there were seven more in the works. Good luck, all! Glad to see the base class challenge getting so much love.

[Carl]

@Zaydos & R2d2go: Not sure if you missed it last time so thought i'd pop it in again, now the contest is in the voting stage i'd like to start working on another concept i have, but given how much awesome feedback you two have given i'd like to run some of the idea's past you two first, don't know if your up for that though.


Anyway GL everyone else .