Tome of Radiance: Mastering the Power of Love and Justice

[jamieth]

So, now that we agreed that Costume Effects are a misnomer (considering there are both Costume Costume Effects and Device Costume Effects), and considering that Enchanced Armaments class feature is gone, how about renaming them Armament Effects, which can be divided between Device and Costume? I hope would reduce the confusion.

[Snowfire]

So, now that we agreed that Costume Effects are a misnomer (considering there are both Costume Costume Effects and Device Costume Effects), and considering that Enhanced Armaments class feature is gone, how about renaming them Armament Effects, which can be divided between Device and Costume? I hope would reduce the confusion.

I'd certainly agree with that, but I think we're waiting on Sel to fully update the conversion. I think it'll be something like that (unless Champions get something entirely new to replace EAs) but we can't really be certain.

[Raineh Daze]

I'm now trying to work out if Marksman devices are meant to count as light weapons, otherwise Twinned Device is somewhat hard to use for its obvious purpose.

[Snowfire]

I'm now trying to work out if Marksman devices are meant to count as light weapons, otherwise Twinned Device is somewhat hard to use for its obvious purpose.

Considering the damage they deal, I'd be inclined to say yes, but it's not been stated as far as I can tell.

[Amechra]

Alright, I randomly decided that this would be a fun feat (plus, working on a class that could use it.)

Radiant Action [Action]
You have a surprise burst of Motes deep inside yourself that can be pulled from in times of need.
Benefit: You may spend an action point to add a number of Motes to your Mote pool according the following table. This cannot increase the number of Motes you have in your pool past the normal maximum.

{table=head]Evoker Level|Number of Motes Added
1-7|2
8-14|4
15-20|6[/table]

[sreservoir]

why not just scale as 2 + floor (EL/4)

[Amechra]

Could work...

Also, am I the only one who thinks that the Power of Friendship rules would A. be great at replacing the base Diplomacy rules, and B. be great at replacing the standard crafting rules?

For the Crafting one, you just need to transfer it over to being an Intelligence check. You could get DC reductions from using extra materials, using higher quality base stuff, using proper tools, and from having an example to work from.

I will have to muse a bit more about this...

[caledscratcher]

Well, this is a concept that I've been tossing around for a few weeks, and I figured that I might as well type it up and post it. I present, the second fan-made ToR base class, the Interceptor! (Note: This was made with Pathfinder skills and Magic Item Creation rules in mind, given that I'm more fond of Pathfinder's skills and know very little of 3.5e's Magic Item rules.)

Interceptor
"Please, stop.. I'm begging you- please don't do this to your friends. You are hurting them. I know that deep down you are not the type of guy who'll do this.." - Reedus, a proud interceptor, right before launching a glowing boar from the wall he formed to protect his supposed foes from their master.

The interceptor is an interesting magical girl, in that her powers come not from a celestial body, but from the eternally shining light of knowledge. Additionally, the onset of their devotion to light frequently comes after an exhausting pursuit of knowledge, which could have ended in quitting. However, she will experience a revelation, allowing her to see the incredible power in knowledge, the power to help - or to hurt.

Interceptors are devoted to knowledge first and their beliefs a very close second. If she strongly belives in respecting those close to you, then harming a loved one will unleash the full arsanel of intellect upon you. If she defines a good individual by the lengths by which they go to protect their friends, then ignoring an ally's plight will result in your every defense being shattered. If she despises tyrants, then the mistreatment of your subjects can only end in your demise.

Making an Interceptor:

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Abilities: An interceptor harnesses the power of the light through scholarly pursuits, so Intelligence is by far her most important ability. Second comes Constitution, for the purposes of not dying with her relatively low hit dice. Given the armaments she has access to, Dextetiry is third.

Role: An interceptor is, as with all evokers, a flexible and powerful combatant. Her ability to fuse categories of illuminations together, combined with her sigil and her multitude of weaponry, makes her an unpredictable combatant. Above all else, however, she assists her allies, being able to create armaments for those who cannot use them, increase their power by channeling luminous might, and so on and so forth.

Races: Members of any race can rise to the role of interceptor, but it is found most commonly amongst those who see intellectual pursuits as inferior to martial prowess. None know why, but it's theorized that the determination to embrace her love against all odds - the triggering event for many a future interceptor - is more frequent amongst those who are constantly denied the option by their own kind.

Alignment: Unlike most evokers, the interceptor is frequently neutral, rather than good. This is typically because idealism is just as ineffectual for a scholar as cynicism, with a realistic worldview being most beneficial. They also tend to be lawful, given the discipline needed to go against all odds in the pursuit of knowledge. However, interceptors can be of any alignment.

Starting Gold: As bard

Starting Age: Most champions come into their power early, perhaps out of the innocence of childhood. When rolling for age, roll as a Bard - but subtract the total from adult age rather than adding it (to a minimum of half an adult’s age). If rules are in place that would reduce the statistics of child characters, the champion is exempt from them.

Class Skill List: Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Dex), Knowledge (All, taken individually), Linguistics (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Hit Dice: d6
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Illuminations Known|Illuminations Readied

1st|

+0

|

+0

|

+0

|

+2

|Radiant Armaments, Merciful, Form Pearl|

4

|

1

2nd|

+1

|

+0

|

+0

|

+3

|The Power of Friendship, Radiant Sigil, Channel Luminous Might 1/day|

4

|

1

3rd|

+1

|

+1

|

+1

|

+3

|Encrypt Advanced Pearl|

5

|

2

4th|

+2

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

|Blend Illuminations (2)|

5

|

2

5th|

+2

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

|Channel Luminous Might 2/day|

6

|

2

6th|

+3

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

| |

6

|

3

7th|

+3

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

|Empower Armaments (2 Effects)|

7

|

3

8th|

+4

|

+2

|

+2

|

+6

|Channel Luminous Might 3/day, Blend Illuminations (3)|

7

|

3

9th|

+4

|

+3

|

+3

|

+6

|Empower Armaments (3 Effects)|

8

|

4

10th|

+5

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

|Conscript Armaments|

8

|

4

11th|

+5

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

|Channel Luminous Might 4/day|

9

|

4

12th|

+6/+1

|

+4

|

+4

|

+8

|Blend Illuminations (4), Empower Armaments (4 Effects)|

9

|

5

13th|

+6/+1

|

+4

|

+4

|

+8

| |

10

|

5

14th|

+7/+2

|

+4

|

+4

|

+9

|Channel Luminous Might 5/day, Artificial Cartridge|

10

|

5

15th|

+7/+2

|

+5

|

+5

|

+9

|Empower Armaments (5 Effects)|

11

|

6

16th|

+8/+3

|

+5

|

+5

|

+10

|Blend Illuminations (5)|

11

|

6

17th|

+8/+3

|

+5

|

+5

|

+10

|Channel Luminous Might 6/day|

12

|

6

18th|

+9/+4

|

+6

|

+6

|

+11

|Empower Armaments (6 Effects)|

12

|

7

19th|

+9/+4

|

+6

|

+6

|

+11

| |

13

|

7

20th|

+10/+5

|

+6

|

+6

|

+12

|Knowledge Apotheosis, Channel Luminous Might 7/day, Blend Illuminations (6)|

13

|

7

[/table]

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The interceptor is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, and with light armor, but not with any shields.

Illuminations: Infused as they are with the power of light, an interceptor is capable of crafting and calling upon powerful manifestations of radiant energy known as Illuminations. An interceptor knows a fixed number of illuminations, and may change any number of her known illuminations freely each time she gains a level in this class. To use her known illuminations, an interceptor must first prepare them – preparing illuminations is a simple process requiring five minutes of introspection, weapons drills, or some other mentally relaxing activity. Once her preparation is complete, the stargazer may choose a number of her known illuminations to ready. Readied illuminations remain readied until the stargazer prepares new ones.

Illuminations are explained more completely in their own section.

Radiant Armaments (Su): Upon awakening to the radiance within her soul, an interceptor establishes a bond with a particular weapon and suit of armor. How an interceptor finds the armaments that are hers by right varies widely; she may stumble upon them in a dream, only to awake clutching them in hand, or she might find them in the crater left behind by a falling star, but they always appear within a week of attaining her first level in this class. She may only take devices of the tricky, versatile, bolt, or marksman archetypes, and she may only take a light costume.

Radiant Armaments are described more completely in their own section.

Merciful (Ex): Whenever an interceptor deals damage with an attack or an Illumination, she may choose to deal non-lethal damage instead with no penalty to attack or damage rolls.

Form Pearl: The interceptor gains Form Pearl as a bonus feat at first level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

Power of Friendship: An interceptor is capable of swaying the alignment of captured foes, as described in the Power of Friendship section below.

Additionally, a interceptor may hasten the conversion process through the heartfelt brilliance that lies in a handmade gift. An interceptor may create an item with a Craft check with a DC equal to the DC of the redemption check. If she succeeds and presents it at the beginning of a session of redemption, she reduces the DC of the following check by 2 (if it fits the creature's interests). However, if the crafted item is something that the creature is indifferent towards, the DC is unchanged, and the DC is increased by 2 if it is something the creature would dislike. If she creates an item with special properties, the DC is shifted by up to the number of properties + the total enchantment bonus. Every property that the creature would like reduces the DC by 1 (2 if it's something they would especially like), every property that the creature is indifferent towards doesn't change the DC, and every property that the creature would dislike increases the DC by 1 (2 if it's something they would especially dislike). The DC is always shifted by an amount equal to base enchantment bonus, reducing if the creature likes the object and increasing if the creature dislikes the object. If the creature is indifferent towards the object, it isn't shifted any more because of the enchantment bonus. This may only be done once per character level.

Radiant Sigil: At 2nd level, an interceptor becomes gifted with an additional item, going hand-in-hand with her device and costume. This item is the sigil, a symbol that represents who the inerceptor is as an individual, and enabling her to channel luminous might. The three archetypes of sigil are as follows:

Accessory: The accessory is typically a pendant, circlet, or something along those lines. When the interceptor channels luminous might, it forms in a cone equal to her interceptor level * 5'.
Tattoo: The tattoo is inscribed on the interceptor's flesh, preventing it from being lost. When she channels luminous might, it forms with a range of personal, but all bonuses are multiplied by two.
Piercing: The piercing is embedded in the interceptor's skin, but can still be removed if need be. When she channels luminous might, it forms with a range of a sphere out to her interceptor level * 2.5', rounded down to the nearest 5' increment.

Channel Luminous Might (Su): At 2nd level, an interceptor can use her radiant sigil to channel an unmistakable shining power. This may be done 1/day at 2nd level, and once more per day every three levels thereafter. She may choose from any of the following effects when she activates this ability, and it lasts for a number of rounds equal to half her class level + her Intelligence modifier.
Accuracy: +2 bonus to attack rolls.
Might: +2 bonus to damage rolls.
Agility: +2 dodge bonus to AC.
Defense: +2 armor bonus to AC.
Insulation: +2 energy resistance (all types).

Encrypt Advanced Pearl (Su): At 3rd level, an interceptor gains the ability to encrypt an advanced form of a radiant pearl. Rather than holding a single illumination, it holds a number of illumination ranks up to her evoker level + (2 * her Intelligence modifier). Each rank must be from a component that is part of an illumination that she knows when she encrypts the pearl. She may put any number of ranks of a single component, up to a maximum of her Intelligence modifier. Encrypting an advanced pearl takes the same amount of time as forming a pearl, and the DC is equal to 8 + the total mote cost of all of the ranks.

When an evoker uses an advanced pearl, she evokes a single illumination, and replaces the shape or foundation component with any number of ranks of a component in the advanced pearl that is of the corresponding component type and of the corresponding base type. Alternatively, she may add any number of ranks of secondary components to the illumination. Just as with a normal pearl, the motes for those rank are provided by the pearl, and the ranks are removed from the pearl.

Any character can use an advanced pearl that contains ranks of all three component types that belong to the same base type, by using ranks from each component type.

Blend Illuminations (Su): At 4th level, an interceptor can merge two different base types of illuminations together into a much greater effect. She gains two types of blends at 4th level, and one additional type every four levels thereafter. Each blend costs a number of motes equal to the base cost of the illumination * 1.5. The types of blends are listed below:

Blast/Barrier: The interceptor hits a creature with a blast and they are treated as being affected by a single negative barrier foundation effect with cost equal to half the cost of the blast used. The space(s) that the creature occupies are treated as the interior of the barrier, and the perimeter of the area that that creature takes up is treated as the edge of the barrier.
Blast/Surge: The interceptor hits a creature with a blast and they are treated as being affected by a single negative surge foundation effect with cost equal to half the cost of the blast used.

Barrier/Blast: One square of the edge of the barrier becomes a turret, attacking any hostile creatures with a single blast foundation effect with the cascade shape, with the foundation effect's cost being equal to half the cost of the barrier used.
Barrier/Surge: The interior of the barrier provides the effects of one positive surge foundation effect with cost equal to half the cost of the barrier used, in addition to the normal effects.

Surge/Blast: For the duration of the surge, a number of affected creatures up to half the cost of the surge used gain the ability to evoke a single blast illumination with the assault shape, with the foundation effect's cost being 1. Alternatively, the number of creatures affected can be lowered, with each affected creature less than the maximum amount causing one granted illumination's foundation effect's cost to increase by 1.
Surge/Barrier: For the duration of the surge, a number of affected creatures up to half the cost of the surge being used are treated as being affected by a single negative barrier foundation effect with a cost of 1. The space(s) that the creatures occupy are treated as the interior of the barrier, and the perimeter of the area that each creature takes up is treated as the edge of the barrier. Alternatively, the number of creatures affected can be lowered, with each affected creature less than the maximum amount causing one granted illumination's foundation effect's cost to increase by 1.

Empower Armaments (Su): At 7th level, an interceptor gains the ability to empower radiant armaments. This functions as Craft Magic Arms and Armor, except that it uses her evoker level rather than her caster level, and instead of adding enhancement bonuses, it adds permanent costume effects. For every day that she works on it, she removes a number of motes from her mote pool until her next extended rest, equal to the number of motes permanently invested in that costume effect. She can add 2 permanent costume effects at 7th level, which increases to 3 at 9th level. The maximum number of permanent costume effects she can add increases by one at 12th level, and every three levels thereafter.

Conscript Armaments (Su): At 10th level, the interceptor gains the ability to use her empower armaments class feature on mundane masterwork weaponry. Said conscripted armaments have a maximum number of permanent costume effects added equal to the typical maximum -1. Conscripted armaments may be used by any creature that is proficient with that type of weapon or armor.

Artificial Cartridge (Su): At 14th level, the interceptor can use her empower armaments class feature to provide one costume effect with a cartridge boost effect that is usable for a number of consecutive rounds per day equal to her Intelligence modifier at the time of crafting. An artificial cartridge effect is treated as a single permanent costume effect.

Knowledge Apotheosis (Su): At 20th level, an interceptor forevermore becomes a Native Outsider with one alignment subtype of her choice and an Augmented subtype pertaining to her previous type, with all the traits that implies. Further, she can no longer be aged by any means mundane or magical, and will never die of old age.

Additionally, she gains four bonus item creation feats, each with a prerequisite of a caster/manifester/evoker/initiator/technician/etc. level of a maximum of 13. She ignores all other prerequisites, and uses her evoker level in place of any other levels for the purposes of those feats.. These feats may not have have more than one prerequisite of a caster/manifester/evoker/initiator/technician/etc. level. (i.e. she may not take any feat that requires a caster level of 3 and a manifester level of 5, or any other combination of two types of levels.) However, there is the exception of one of two class-category level prerequisites being evoker level.

Interceptor Components Available:

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Blast Components:

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Foundation:

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Clinging, Power, Flare

Shape:

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Chains, Explosion, Beam, Imbue

Secondary:

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Horizon, Prism, Sharpshooting, Vile

Barrier Components:

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Foundation:

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Carnage, Shadows, Shelter, Zone

Shape:

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Dominions, Borders, Strongholds

Secondary:

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Pilgrimmage, Returning, Ancients, Anchors

Surge Components:

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Foundation:

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Battles, Denunciations, Isolation, Might

Shape:

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Awakening, Bolts, Pulses

Secondary:
Amplitude, Awe, Echoes, Promises

New Item Creation Feat:

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Form Pearl
Prerequisites: evoker level 3rd
Benefit: You gain the ability to form radiant pearls. This process is much the same to scribing a scroll, and it takes the same amount of time. However, rather than storing a single spell, a pearl stores uses of a single illumination. As part of crafting a pearl, you select one illumination you know to store in it, and lose a number of motes until your next extended rest equal to the illumination's cost multiplied by the number of uses of that illumination that you put into the pearl. The maximum number of uses of an illumination that can be put in a pearl is equal to 1/4 of the mote cost multiplied by her evoker level, rounded up. Any character can make a Spellcraft check (DC 10 + stored illumination's mote cost) to evoke an illumination from a pearl, but evokers get a +2 radiant bonus on this check. Once all uses of a pearl's illumination have been used, it dissipates into luminant energy. The total cost of forming a pearl is equivalent to the half of the amount of motes expended each day * 200 gp.

As a note, I did all of the writing, most of the class abilities, all of the calculations, and most of the brainstorming over the course of the past seven hours. I took a total of about two hours of breaks, but it basically all boils down to me being downright exhausted. I'll try to stay online for an extra hour or so, so as to respond to any feedback and crit, but no promises.

[Lix Lorn]

This is interesting, but the question I ask is why is it a base class?
I mean, the position of illumination specialist is taken my stargazer...

that aside, it's really good. (the table is broken at level 7)

[Draken]

More pressingly. What is the (Ra) classification of abilities supposed to be?

[The_Admiral]

I think something happened to the Enhanced Armaments section.

[Draken]

I think something happened to the Enhanced Armaments section.

Selinia is rewriting Radiant Armaments and decided to post ahead of time an unfinished version of it, which does not include Enhanced Armaments anymore.

She just didn't erase everything properly.

[caledscratcher]

This is interesting, but the question I ask is why is it a base class?
I mean, the position of illumination specialist is taken my stargazer...

that aside, it's really good. (the table is broken at level 7)

To your question, that is mainly because I like base classes. A lot. And I'm not too great at making PrCs.

However, it isn't that much of an illumination specialist. In my mind, I saw it as a radiant artificer, with the illuminations known and readied of the champion (and a quite limited list of components available), with the blending of illuminations basically being (at least fluff-wise): "These things are so logically similar that it'd be a crime to not slam them together!"

Oh, and thank you!

More pressingly. What is the (Ra) classification of abilities supposed to be?

I probably should've bolded it in my little intro thing, but they're basically Su abilities that function in an antimagic field, because they're derived from (Ra)diance rather than standard supernatural things.

[Draken]

Hmm... That is basically (Ex), a completely extraneous new classification, really. Specially since baseline radiant power for Evoker classes is simply Supernatural.

In fact, such a classification outdoes the Stargazer's own mastery since that class only achieves such an effect with its capstone, Starlight Apotheosis.

[caledscratcher]

@Draken: Oh... well, then Su would be best then. I'll change it right now~

[sreservoir]

radiant pearls don't have a cost.

also, could you drop down to at most one nest of spoilers? it's especially bad in the illumination components, where the spoiler block takes up more space than the actual text would, but in general too much spoiler nesting makes navigation hard.

[caledscratcher]

@sresevoir: Oh, right. Both should be fixed now~

[Falcon777]

So i love this class, i love it so much. I have always adored magical girl shows, but no one else i know seems remotely interested in even reading it to see if its balanced or not. Can anyone think of any kind of advice for getting people to actually read these classes.

Ah, so I'm not the only one concerned about the extreme lengths this thread goes to emphasize the feminine pronoun and how such emphasis really likely is reducing the number people interested in this homebrew material.

My response? Remove the emphasis and include male pronouns every so often. Also change the name of the group of classes from Magical Girls to Light-wielders. One might ask how I can say this when there's a huge theme running here about fluff being important and how all of this material is inspired by heroine shows (likely mostly anime) like Sailor Moon.

My answer to the question is as thus:
1: There isn't any actual gender requirement (yet) for characters taking these classes.
2. The fluff of the feat Craft Soulbond states that one type of existing bond is that of romance. Now I know that there are quite a few people out there that would state that homosexual relationships are just as romantic as heterosexual, but the vast majority of people are at least uninterested in homosexual relationships, if not actually turned off/disgusted by such actions. As such, since the Craft Soulbond feat requires both characters to have levels in some lightwielder class, the fluff is either encouraging homosexual behavior or it allows for male lightwielders.
3. A boy cannot be a girl, magical or otherwise, and a girl cannot be a boy, magical or otherwise. This is the nature of genders.
4. Light is asexual, as in neither female nor male nor any weird transgender thingiemabob. Apart from the fluff of the classes, there's not really anything in the ToR that's actually feminine. Or rather, I could say that none of the mechanics of the ToR (yes, that includes power of friendship) are feminine.
5. The Power of Friendship theme may SEEM more feminine, but the truth is that a guy is just as capable of affecting a person as a girl is. Boys and Men in general are less social, but we aren't all socially inept.
6. Is the emphasis on the inspiration of the classes really worth turning away a largely male audience that want to play as male characters?

Ultimately it doesn't matter to me whether or not you change anything about the ToR's female emphasis as I will be attempting to play a male lightwielder stargazer who gets married to a female lightwielder champion with both characters subsequently taking the craft soulbond feat...if I can get a dm to let me play as such and if there's another player interested in said concept and willing to play the female character.

Now with that out of the way, I'll give my thoughts about the Tome of Radiance as a whole:

First off, I'm a pathfinder guy, not D&D, so when I see things like spot or hide or concentration as skills I immediately either think of the Pathfinder equivalent or I ignore them. Pathfinder conversions pretty please with sugar on top?

Champion seems a lot like a paladin, though with a much weaker emphasis on healing and striking out against undead and a lot more about cool weapons and burst light effects. I know that the armaments portion of the Tome is getting a rewrite, but I'm slightly confused about enhanced armaments: does this mean that the champion gets bonus abilities in addition to the larger number they get by default? Or is this just another way of saying that the champion gets more armament abilities? Overall, very interesting and personally I'd be more quick to play a champion than a paladin.

Stargazer is more of where it is at for me as several years ago I changed my preference from martial to magical concerning playable fantasy characters. The number of illuminations known and readied by comparison to the other lightwielder classes makes this class the "wizard" class of the group (even without the focus on int), but the sheer number of spells known by arcane classes outstrips this class by an incredibly large margin.

Given the complex nature of making illuminations (the mechanics, not the visuals), I am not qualified to say how this class could compare to a pathfinder arcane or draconic sorcerer (for overall effectiveness and blasting power respectively). I don't think anyone would realistically approach the stargazer class and attempt to compare it to a wizard, but if the stargazer cannot at the very least give a pathfinder sorcerer a run for his money, then all you are gaining by taking this class is fluff. Now don't get me wrong, the role play potential here and the sheer emphasis on light is COMPLETELY up my alley, but personally if I'm going to play a "caster," I want to be able to fill that role at least moderately well. The stargazer seems like it might be able to do that, but I honestly can't tell. Is there anyone that could look at this guide for pathfinder sorcerer optimization and compare it to the stargazer class to say whether or not a stargazer could realistically take the place of a sorcerer and still do well at the role?

Also, does Starlight Apotheosis mean that a stargazer's illuminations cannot be dispelled/disjunctioned? If so that is quite strong and goes a long way towards making a capstoned stargazer being able to compete with more traditional mages.

There's one other thing about the stargazer that kind of rubs me wrong. It seems to me that the stargazer is the "caster" class of the group, and as such a stargazer would, more than the empath or the champion, be willing to give up continually spending motes on their equipment in favor of dishing out the strongest illuminations every single turn. The sheer variety of weapons available along with the decently strong armor a stargazer can don really is the only thing it has going for it to give it any kind of melee capability; it can still do it, and probably fairly well, but that's not the focus of the class. Given that you can only spend half of your replenishable motes on any combination of illuminations per turn, that means that you have half of your motes to give to your equipment per turn.

Aaaaaaaaand then you have a bonus pool of motes (luminous reservoir) that can only be spent on illuminations...despite the fact that you cannot spend all of your regular motes each turn on illuminations anyways. What this means is that you effectively are actually being given extra motes to spend on your equipment. This seems both counterintuitive and counterproductive to the purpose of the of luminous reservoir. Perhaps a stargazer could have an ability that would let them "overcharge" their illuminations using their luminous reservoir? Or perhaps if you were to implement "meta-illumination" feats, the extra cost could be supplied by the luminous reservoir for a sorcerer-like at need change? Just some ideas.

Oh, as an aside, it seems to me that the ToR desperately needs meta-illumination feats for blaster focus characters. It's been stated ad nauseum that regular blasting in D&D and Pathfinder sucks by comparison to the other magic available and that the only real way for blaster casters to compete is to use metamagic. Now, I don't honestly know how blast illuminations compare to something like chain lightning since there already seems to be (in a manner of speaking) built in options for "meta-magic" for illuminations. However, I do see that there aren't any comparable options to at least three very important metamagic feats to a blaster caster: empower, maximize, and quicken. If there were comparable feats for a lightwielder it would go a long way towards helping a blaster heavy lightwielder, regardless of whether your character is a stargazer, a champion, an empath, or some combination/prestige class.

Ok, back to the Tome review.

The empath's multiple persona's strikes me as being a bit too close to schizophrenia to really grab my attention. Sorry.

As far as the illumination crafting system itself: very nicely done! I like it a lot. There does seem to be a distinct lack of any kind of teleportation/long range movement bonuses without taking a prestige class, which seems like an oversight. Sure, there's the aerial mage and the firekeeper, but frankly I don't want to have to take a prestige class just so that I can get from one continent to another with ease. Perhaps this is just me, but yeah, seems to be a bit of a lack there.

The radiant armaments is a very strong point for this tome. Regardless of what class you take there's a very good bit of flexibility there, which is like a deep breath after having been underwater for a long time. Even for the stargazer who is going to emphasize his illuminations over his equipment the costume and device effects are not something he can completely ignore. Well done.

The extra feats section is very interesting, though it'd be nice to see more done that could effect illuminations (coughcoughmetamagiccoughcough). I really like mortal miracle and the whole soulbond line of feats. Very nicely done.

The Power of Friendship section is quite well done, and I like how each of the base classes has their own special way of going about it (at least to a certain extent).

I'll hit up prestige classes in my next post so I don't have too many smiley faces in this one, lol.




That being said, the Tome of Radiance is very, very interesting!

[DrakeRaids]

oh god social justice warriors have made it to GITP

[Lix Lorn]

The entire point of the class was to make a d&d class based on magical girls.
If anyone is pushed away from it because they're upset by an excess of female pronouns, frankly, if it were my class, I wouldn't want them using my material anyway.

As for stargazers, you misread the mote rules. You can't spend more than (evoker level) motes on illuminations of a specific type per round, eg blasts, or surges. You can spend your maximum by using one blast, one surge.

[jamieth]

Just a couple of nitpicks, Falcon: One, I believe the "official" group name for the Tome of Radiance classes is already Wielders of Light, and was since the beginning of the new thread at least, and, two, you're factually wrong on your third point, cause, like it or not, there does exist a boy who IS a Magical Girl... and a zombie, at the same time :-)

But, yeah, that's just me being silly :-)

[Forrestfire]

One thing I'd like to mention is that from what I'm getting out of these classes, they're supposed to be balanced around the classes that aren't able to break the game in half.

So, comparing it to a sorcerer and wizard is a bit ridiculous, given that literally every class that isn't a full casting class is going to be weak compared to them. The tier system analysis of D&D 3.5 classes exists for a reason.

These classes seem to be on the power level of stuff like the ToB classes and stuff like Beguiler and Dread Necromancer. Solid tier 3, so around the power level that many people enjoy in a game, and many games end up as due to people not playing optimized full casters, and also the power level that Wizards seems to have designed the game to run at (assuming the standard blaster/healbot/meatshield/skillmonkey setup).

(If I'm misreading your post, ignore me)

[NineThePuma]

As such, since the Craft Soulbond feat requires both characters to have levels in some lightwielder class, the fluff is either encouraging homosexual behavior or it allows for male lightwielders.

Really? I hadn't noticed any such requirement myself. In fact, in one of the games I'm in my 12 year old Champion crafted a soulbond with a soulknife.

5. The Power of Friendship theme may SEEM more feminine, but the truth is that a guy is just as capable of affecting a person as a girl is. Boys and Men in general are less social, but we aren't all socially inept.

Naruto Uzumaki is a prime example of someone who has The Power Of Friendship. Defeat Means Friendship is fairly common in a number of different mediums and there's a reason it's a trope. Just because it's common to some magical girl anime doesn't mean its out of place in other genres. I mean, Buffy the vampire slayer did it, IIRC.

Given the complex nature of making illuminations (the mechanics, not the visuals), I am not qualified to say how this class could compare to a pathfinder arcane or draconic sorcerer (for overall effectiveness and blasting power respectively). I don't think anyone would realistically approach the stargazer class and attempt to compare it to a wizard, but if the stargazer cannot at the very least give a pathfinder sorcerer a run for his money, then all you are gaining by taking this class is fluff. Now don't get me wrong, the role play potential here and the sheer emphasis on light is COMPLETELY up my alley, but personally if I'm going to play a "caster," I want to be able to fill that role at least moderately well. The stargazer seems like it might be able to do that, but I honestly can't tell. Is there anyone that could look at this guide for pathfinder sorcerer optimization and compare it to the stargazer class to say whether or not a stargazer could realistically take the place of a sorcerer and still do well at the role?

Emphasis mine. I'm not an optimizer, or particularly fond of spell casters, but you're comparing the class that is the "caster" of the trio to something that it is not. Where the Stargazer is a focused blaster, they're tier 3 and being compared to the likes of the Dragonfire Adept or the Warlock in terms of position filled. Not an optimized sorcerer who has literally 8 years of work having been done in order to expand their capabilities. More if you take into account Pathfinder.

There's one other thing about the stargazer that kind of rubs me wrong. It seems to me that the stargazer is the "caster" class of the group, and as such a stargazer would, more than the empath or the champion, be willing to give up continually spending motes on their equipment in favor of dishing out the strongest illuminations every single turn. The sheer variety of weapons available along with the decently strong armor a stargazer can don really is the only thing it has going for it to give it any kind of melee capability; it can still do it, and probably fairly well, but that's not the focus of the class. Given that you can only spend half of your replenishable motes on any combination of illuminations per turn, that means that you have half of your motes to give to your equipment per turn.

You misread: they can only spend up to that value on one type: they can cast multiple types and spend the entire mote pool that way.

Oh, as an aside, it seems to me that the ToR desperately needs meta-illumination feats for blaster focus characters. It's been stated ad nauseum that regular blasting in D&D and Pathfinder sucks by comparison to the other magic available and that the only real way for blaster casters to compete is to use metamagic.

The reason blasting "sucks" is because every other option is better. Color spray, glitter dust, grease, and to a lesser extent Sleep are considered stronger spells than, say, burning hands, because the former are multi target crowd control effects, while the latter is a point blank cone of fire that means you're close enough for the enemy to hurt you. By removing the enemy's ability to act, you have not only removed them, at least temporarily from the fight, you have enabled your party to focus on other options.

As far as the illumination crafting system itself: very nicely done! I like it a lot. There does seem to be a distinct lack of any kind of teleportation/long range movement bonuses without taking a prestige class, which seems like an oversight. Sure, there's the aerial mage and the firekeeper, but frankly I don't want to have to take a prestige class just so that I can get from one continent to another with ease. Perhaps this is just me, but yeah, seems to be a bit of a lack there.

Long range teleportation is almost exclusively the province of Tier 2s and higher. As previously noted, Tome of Radiance is not aiming to compete with the Tier 2+ classes. They're being compared to the Tome of Battle classes or Incarnum. Maybe Magus or Paladin if you're looking at Pathfinder classes.

[Forrestfire]

Long range teleportation is almost exclusively the province of Tier 2s and higher. As previously noted, Tome of Radiance is not aiming to compete with the Tier 2+ classes. They're being compared to the Tome of Battle classes or Incarnum. Maybe Magus or Paladin if you're looking at Pathfinder classes.

Specifically, the only way to get it (at least in 3.5) without running a tier 2 or 1 full casting class is the Knight of the Weave, and even then it's only for the Teleport spell. Greater Teleport and Plane Shift variants are the purview of the casters or magic items made by them.

[Falcon777]

oh god social justice warriors have made it to GITP

The intent of my message was not that of "Waaaaaah, I wanna play a light wielder without having to be a girrrl," but rather one of: "Oh, hey, this guy might have a point about people not paying attention to this awesome series of classes. If he's right, what's the most likely reason? Hmmmmm...Oh, I know! Perhaps it's the extreme emphasis on the feminine pronoun! If I suggest they change it and they do, perhaps this really awesome set of classes will get more traffic and guys like me might have a better chance at actually playing one on these boards!"

The entire point of the class was to make a d&d class based on magical girls.
If anyone is pushed away from it because they're upset by an excess of female pronouns, frankly, if it were my class, I wouldn't want them using my material anyway.

See above portion.

As for stargazers, you misread the mote rules. You can't spend more than (evoker level) motes on illuminations of a specific type per round, eg blasts, or surges. You can spend your maximum by using one blast, one surge.

Thanks for pointing that out, I missed that. It still (Kind of) comes up with a similar problem, though. The point of the Luminous Reservoir ability is to give a stargazer character more mote points to spend on his illuminations. I'd have to use all three kinds of illuminations, or have points spent in my gear, before I would dip into my luminous reservoir. I suppose you could say it's there for the character to "go nova," but...well, still kind of seems like it's more there to let the character spend points on their gear instead of on their illuminations. Not that that is strictly bad...just seems kind of counterintuitive and "kind of" against the fluff of the ability.

One, I believe the "official" group name for the Tome of Radiance classes is already Wielders of Light, and was since the beginning of the new thread at least

Again, the intent wasn't to bash the feminine emphasis but rather attempt to find a way to increase traffic.

and, two, you're factually wrong on your third point, cause, like it or not, there does exist a boy who IS a Magical Girl... and a zombie, at the same time :-)

And I would disagree on the person being both a girl and a boy at the same time. But that's a discussion for another board that doesn't restrict conversations based on them being religious or political.

One thing I'd like to mention is that from what I'm getting out of these classes, they're supposed to be balanced around the classes that aren't able to break the game in half.

So, comparing it to a sorcerer and wizard is a bit ridiculous, given that literally every class that isn't a full casting class is going to be weak compared to them. The tier system analysis of D&D 3.5 classes exists for a reason.

Funny thing is that since D&D and Pathfinder belong to Wizards of the Coast and Paizo respectively, you'd think that if their game was broken (in such a way that it doesn't work) they'd fix it. Given that the game has been out for almost forty years now (forty come next year), I'd say that the developer's of the game that this thread is homebrewing for would say that their game works quite fine. However, that line of conversation is probably best suited to another, third party board.

These classes seem to be on the power level of stuff like the ToB classes and stuff like Beguiler and Dread Necromancer. Solid tier 3, so around the power level that many people enjoy in a game, and many games end up as due to people not playing optimized full casters, and also the power level that Wizards seems to have designed the game to run at (assuming the standard blaster/healbot/meatshield/skillmonkey setup).

However, considering the comparison, here's a hypothetical situation for you: I find a thread here that allows "some" homebrew according to the DM's discretion. I decide I want to play a stargazer character and go to a pretty good effort to make his background and personality fairly fleshed out.
The DM find's a cleric, a barbarian, and a bard that are also fleshed out and have their own quirks about them. However, he thinks that the game is going to be a long one and has the intention of going to multiple continents in the game, along with knowing that quite a few of the monsters he is going to throw at the players aren't going to be easy by half a measure. He's doing this because he's played with these guys before and they like a bit of a challenge. He then looks at my character and says "Nope, you're not going to be able to save your team when they need that quick extra oomph of magical power. I'll take the next guy even though he's a min-maxed wizard with little background and not much personality."

Would this situation happen all the time? Probably not, but I find it hard to believe it wouldn't happen frequently. It'd also be easy, if I actually got into the game, for the other players to mock the character for not being able to fill the "caster" role (not blaster as that is only one, very small portion of what a caster does). This problem only gets exacerbated if I start playing with an actual group in real life as they aren't so desperate to play the game they start doing so online.

Ultimately the class is going to get compared to other, more traditional magic based classes by just about anyone that seriously takes a look at it and considers whether or not they want to dm a game with a stargazer replacing their wizard/sorcerer/warlock. I'm not nearly as concerned about it as other people would be simply because I absolutely love the fluff of the whole tome, specifically how it emphasizes light as something to be grasped and used for good. But you take anyone else that prefers (if not demands) to min-max that (unlike me) doesn't have a rabid fascination with light and they likely are going to pass up the class, whether they are dming or playing.

Really? I hadn't noticed any such requirement myself. In fact, in one of the games I'm in my 12 year old Champion crafted a soulbond with a soulknife

As stated in the first post, there is no hard and fast requirement. Which is why I direct you to the statement that the intent of that portion of my original post was to find a way to increase the traffic of the thread, not to make gender equality in the thread. Also, a soulknife can have feats? That's interesting. I never much paid attention to those kinds of classes, but hey, doesn't mean they don't have their place.

Emphasis mine. I'm not an optimizer, or particularly fond of spell casters, but you're comparing the class that is the "caster" of the trio to something that it is not. Where the Stargazer is a focused blaster, they're tier 3 and being compared to the likes of the Dragonfire Adept or the Warlock in terms of position filled. Not an optimized sorcerer who has literally 8 years of work having been done in order to expand their capabilities. More if you take into account Pathfinder.

See portion of argument above about comparisons. Also, blasting is only one third of what a stargazer can do with his illuminations. If a stargazer can't effectively stand on his own two feet by giving greater focus to his barriers and his surges, then those two portions MIGHT need to be reworked.

The reason blasting "sucks" is because every other option is better.

The statement that I posted in which you are replying to with previously quoted text is stating that if evokers are going to be effective, metamagic for them very well may be needed. Why pick up a lightwielder as a player in a game for their blasts if I can pick up a sorcerer or wizard instead and they can blast just as well while still pulling out things like polymorph and telekinesis? As a dm if I specifically want to limit the magical capabilities of my players, sure I might let one of my players make a stargazer, but from a players perspective if I can blast just as well as a more traditional magical class then the only reason I'd be making a stargazer is for fluff and not any of its mechanics at all. I, personally, would rather play a class because I like the fluff AND the mechanics as well. This is the reason why I specifically asked for someone who is more knowledgeable than me to make the comparison between the two classes. If I attempted to do so, I'm a lot more likely to make a mistake and miss something that one side or the other can do and come to the incorrect conclusion that the only reason I'd want to play a stargazer over a blast focused sorcerer is the fluff about light and friendship.

Long range teleportation is almost exclusively the province of Tier 2s and higher. As previously noted, Tome of Radiance is not aiming to compete with the Tier 2+ classes. They're being compared to the Tome of Battle classes or Incarnum. Maybe Magus or Paladin if you're looking at Pathfinder classes.

Specifically, the only way to get it (at least in 3.5) without running a tier 2 or 1 full casting class is the Knight of the Weave, and even then it's only for the Teleport spell. Greater Teleport and Plane Shift variants are the purview of the casters or magic items made by them.

So, despite the fact that a stargazer or an empath or a champion cannot really do necromancy, or abjuration, or healing, or summoning, or higher end illusions, or enchanting (unless your a child of the light), or almost everything in the transumatation school, you'd limit a lightwielder from having any kind of teleportation or mount effect just because that's the "purview" of a tier 2 or higher class? My assumption was that a tier three class can either do one thing fairly well, or do a lot of things poorly. Seems kind of...restrictive...to keep a stargazer from going from one end of the world to another quickly. Especially since it'd be pretty epic to see a small group of people all appear in a radiant flash of LIGHT! But meh, it's not that big of a deal. Just a suggestion.

[sreservoir]

@sresevoir: Oh, right. Both should be fixed now~

now it ... still doesn't make sense? (is it just me, does it make perfect sense to everyone else?) could you explain what in particular the feat is supposed to do?

with the spoilers, I was complaining more about the fact that there are spoilers inside spoilers inside spoilers than the fact that the toplevel was spoilered.

Also, does Starlight Apotheosis mean that a stargazer's illuminations cannot be dispelled/disjunctioned? If so that is quite strong and goes a long way towards making a capstoned stargazer being able to compete with more traditional mages.

(Su) effects can't be dispelled or disjunctioned to begin with. stargazer capstone affects amf and maybe some corner cases.

There's one other thing about the stargazer that kind of rubs me wrong. It seems to me that the stargazer is the "caster" class of the group, and as such a stargazer would, more than the empath or the champion, be willing to give up continually spending motes on their equipment in favor of dishing out the strongest illuminations every single turn. The sheer variety of weapons available along with the decently strong armor a stargazer can don really is the only thing it has going for it to give it any kind of melee capability; it can still do it, and probably fairly well, but that's not the focus of the class. Given that you can only spend half of your replenishable motes on any combination of illuminations per turn, that means that you have half of your motes to give to your equipment per turn.

Aaaaaaaaand then you have a bonus pool of motes (luminous reservoir) that can only be spent on illuminations...despite the fact that you cannot spend all of your regular motes each turn on illuminations anyways. What this means is that you effectively are actually being given extra motes to spend on your equipment. This seems both counterintuitive and counterproductive to the purpose of the of luminous reservoir. Perhaps a stargazer could have an ability that would let them "overcharge" their illuminations using their luminous reservoir? Or perhaps if you were to implement "meta-illumination" feats, the extra cost could be supplied by the luminous reservoir for a sorcerer-like at need change? Just some ideas.

Oh, as an aside, it seems to me that the ToR desperately needs meta-illumination feats for blaster focus characters. It's been stated ad nauseum that regular blasting in D&D and Pathfinder sucks by comparison to the other magic available and that the only real way for blaster casters to compete is to use metamagic. Now, I don't honestly know how blast illuminations compare to something like chain lightning since there already seems to be (in a manner of speaking) built in options for "meta-magic" for illuminations. However, I do see that there aren't any comparable options to at least three very important metamagic feats to a blaster caster: empower, maximize, and quicken. If there were comparable feats for a lightwielder it would go a long way towards helping a blaster heavy lightwielder, regardless of whether your character is a stargazer, a champion, an empath, or some combination/prestige class.

well, there are two particular costume effects to note: the first is resplendent, which is self-explanatory; the other is primal.

consider: empower comes online at ~7th level or so if you're really trying, and, let's be liberal here, let's say you're using scorching ray so you have 2×1.5×4d6 ≈ 8d10 damage (d6×1.5 is ~d9.5 without rounding; empowered 4d6 has mean 20.75 rather than 21 due to rounding), so net mean damage is 41.5. this can be split between two targets, and is fire damage. the range is (25+7×5) = 60 ft.

so our evoker level is 7. we craft an illumination, power cascade 1 (0) sharpshooting (2) vile (5), let's say. this does 7d6 (average 24.5), which is non-impressive, but half that damage is vile, and we're not at the point yet where we hit on a 1 with half BAB yet, so that's worth something. the range is the same, and you hit one target.

let's improve that number. let's bump that up to power cascade 2 (3) sharpshooting (2) prism 1 (2) and use the primal costume effect -- let's invest 6m in it. now you can hit two targets -- the damage isn't split, mind -- with effective full BAB, and the damage is 7×(d6+2). the mean damage is 38.5, minimum 21 and maximum 56. it varies a bit less than scorching ray's 12 to 72, but the mean is only 3 less. but the BAB improvement tends to make up for that loss (if you go from "hit on a 2" to "hit on a 1", the 5.6% increase in damage makes it effectively more average damage than scorching ray). without a per-day limit, and the element can be changed with 5 min. notice. if you have multiple enemies, the illumination beats scorching ray nearly a full time over.

then note that if we want to be more efficient, we can use flare and have someone else hit it who was going to hit it anyway, and primal is +1/die/6 levels; at EL 18, our base die can be d8+3, or, if we're being really silly, being a stargazer maxxing out two primal costume elements (so all of the motes are coming out of luminous reservoir) using a +5 complex formula for a 23×(d8+6) damage promise (mean 241.5); to up to 7 targets; or, in a 100 ft. cone (which is excellent if you're good at analytic geometry), or in a 150 ft. line (uh I'm not sure why though when you could have a 100 ft. cone); or a 50 ft. radius.

at 20th level, a complex formula of 26m can hit a target on the moon and back again.

but that's just damage, though. damage isn't a caster's greatest tool.

The empath's multiple persona's strikes me as being a bit too close to schizophrenia to really grab my attention. Sorry.

it's closer DID than schizophrenia, and somewhat far away.

As far as the illumination crafting system itself: very nicely done! I like it a lot. There does seem to be a distinct lack of any kind of teleportation/long range movement bonuses without taking a prestige class, which seems like an oversight. Sure, there's the aerial mage and the firekeeper, but frankly I don't want to have to take a prestige class just so that I can get from one continent to another with ease. Perhaps this is just me, but yeah, seems to be a bit of a lack there.

empath, lesser aspect, the chariot -- dim door by 5 (600 ft./min ≈ 60 ft./round is about normal double-move speed, and increases with level), which is quite early, though slow; teleport by 10 (which is about on time, and 1000 mi./10 min ≈ 500 ft./round and going up); greater by 15.

[Falcon777]

now it ... still doesn't make sense? (is it just me, does it make perfect sense to everyone else?) could you explain what in particular the feat is supposed to do?

with the spoilers, I was complaining more about the fact that there are spoilers inside spoilers inside spoilers than the fact that the toplevel was spoilered.



(Su) effects can't be dispelled or disjunctioned to begin with. stargazer capstone affects amf and maybe some corner cases.



well, there are two particular costume effects to note: the first is resplendent, which is self-explanatory; the other is primal.

consider: empower comes online at ~7th level or so if you're really trying, and, let's be liberal here, let's say you're using scorching ray so you have 2×1.5×4d6 ≈ 8d10 damage (d6×1.5 is ~d9.5 without rounding; empowered 4d6 has mean 20.75 rather than 21 due to rounding), so net mean damage is 41.5. this can be split between two targets, and is fire damage. the range is (25+7×5) = 60 ft.

so our evoker level is 7. we craft an illumination, power cascade 1 (0) sharpshooting (2) vile (5), let's say. this does 7d6 (average 24.5), which is non-impressive, but half that damage is vile, and we're not at the point yet where we hit on a 1 with half BAB yet, so that's worth something. the range is the same, and you hit one target.

let's improve that number. let's bump that up to power cascade 2 (3) sharpshooting (2) prism 1 (2) and use the primal costume effect -- let's invest 6m in it. now you can hit two targets -- the damage isn't split, mind -- with effective full BAB, and the damage is 7×(d6+2). the mean damage is 38.5, minimum 21 and maximum 56. it varies a bit less than scorching ray's 12 to 72, but the mean is only 3 less. but the BAB improvement tends to make up for that loss (if you go from "hit on a 2" to "hit on a 1", the 5.6% increase in damage makes it effectively more average damage than scorching ray). without a per-day limit, and the element can be changed with 5 min. notice. if you have multiple enemies, the illumination beats scorching ray nearly a full time over.

then note that if we want to be more efficient, we can use flare and have someone else hit it who was going to hit it anyway, and primal is +1/die/6 levels; at EL 18, our base die can be d8+3, or, if we're being really silly, being a stargazer maxxing out two primal costume elements (so all of the motes are coming out of luminous reservoir) using a +5 complex formula for a 23×(d8+6) damage promise (mean 241.5); to up to 7 targets; or, in a 100 ft. cone (which is excellent if you're good at analytic geometry), or in a 150 ft. line (uh I'm not sure why though when you could have a 100 ft. cone); or a 50 ft. radius.

at 20th level, a complex formula of 26m can hit a target on the moon and back again.

but that's just damage, though. damage isn't a caster's greatest tool.



it's closer DID than schizophrenia, and somewhat far away.



empath, lesser aspect, the chariot -- dim door by 5 (600 ft./min ≈ 60 ft./round is about normal double-move speed, and increases with level), which is quite early, though slow; teleport by 10 (which is about on time, and 1000 mi./10 min ≈ 500 ft./round and going up); greater by 15.

Ah, the lightwielder's effects not being dispellable is very SHINY! I like that!

Concerning the blasts...hmmm. So, basically a lightwielder is very much a STRONG contender for blasting well. See, that's a good thing. Not having other kinds of magic available and still doing poorly with blasts was basically my concern with the limits of the class's ability to cast.

It's closer did than?

I think I know what you are trying to say, but it's just ever so slightly confusing.

And yeah, the whole appearing like schizophrenia caused me not to see the chariot persona thingiemabob. Seems slightly out of place considering a stargazer is observing things that are very, very far away, but hey, if Selinia wants to restrict teleportation to empaths, that's up to her.

[caledscratcher]

Okay, I don't have much of anything to say on this conversation and instead focus on res's comment on Form Pearl. It's basically Scribe Scroll mixed with Craft Wand, but for Wielders of Light. In essence you store a single illumination in a pearl, which can be used with Spellcraft to evoke such an illumination, much like a Wand, but with a lower maximum number of charges due to the motes you need to put forth. You also remove a certain number of motes from your pool for each day you work on it. Is that an alright clarification? I'd be happy to clarify more!

Oh, and with regard to the spoilers thing, I actually did remove the spoilers from the components list, in addition to the top spoiler. uvu

[sreservoir]

[QUOTE=Falcon777;15762508]Thanks for pointing that out, I missed that. It still (Kind of) comes up with a similar problem, though. The point of the Luminous Reservoir ability is to give a stargazer character more mote points to spend on his illuminations. I'd have to use all three kinds of illuminations, or have points spent in my gear, before I would dip into my luminous reservoir. I suppose you could say it's there for the character to "go nova," but...well, still kind of seems like it's more there to let the character spend points on their gear instead of on their illuminations. Not that that is strictly bad...just seems kind of counterintuitive and "kind of" against the fluff of the ability.



Again, the intent wasn't to bash the feminine emphasis but rather attempt to find a way to increase traffic.

And I would disagree on the person being both a girl and a boy at the same time. But that's a discussion for another board that doesn't restrict conversations based on them being religious or political.

that's a reference, you see.

Funny thing is that since D&D and Pathfinder belong to Wizards of the Coast and Paizo respectively, you'd think that if their game was broken (in such a way that it doesn't work) they'd fix it. Given that the game has been out for almost forty years now (forty come next year), I'd say that the developer's of the game that this thread is homebrewing for would say that their game works quite fine. However, that line of conversation is probably best suited to another, third party board.

you'd be sadly mistaken, too, for reasons of backward compatibility, and refusal to accept they own failures, more or less respectively; we have the historical evidence to back that up. but yes, that's fairly irrelevant.

However, considering the comparison, here's a hypothetical situation for you: I find a thread here that allows "some" homebrew according to the DM's discretion. I decide I want to play a stargazer character and go to a pretty good effort to make his background and personality fairly fleshed out.
The DM find's a cleric, a barbarian, and a bard that are also fleshed out and have their own quirks about them. However, he thinks that the game is going to be a long one and has the intention of going to multiple continents in the game, along with knowing that quite a few of the monsters he is going to throw at the players aren't going to be easy by half a measure. He's doing this because he's played with these guys before and they like a bit of a challenge. He then looks at my character and says "Nope, you're not going to be able to save your team when they need that quick extra oomph of magical power. I'll take the next guy even though he's a min-maxed wizard with little background and not much personality."

well, there's a cleric already, what's it doing?

Would this situation happen all the time? Probably not, but I find it hard to believe it wouldn't happen frequently. It'd also be easy, if I actually got into the game, for the other players to mock the character for not being able to fill the "caster" role (not blaster as that is only one, very small portion of what a caster does). This problem only gets exacerbated if I start playing with an actual group in real life as they aren't so desperate to play the game they start doing so online.

Ultimately the class is going to get compared to other, more traditional magic based classes by just about anyone that seriously takes a look at it and considers whether or not they want to dm a game with a stargazer replacing their wizard/sorcerer/warlock. I'm not nearly as concerned about it as other people would be simply because I absolutely love the fluff of the whole tome, specifically how it emphasizes light as something to be grasped and used for good. But you take anyone else that prefers (if not demands) to min-max that (unlike me) doesn't have a rabid fascination with light and they likely are going to pass up the class, whether they are dming or playing.

they all compare quite favourably to the warlock, because they're playing the same game at it and they're somewhat different but mostly better.

the wizard and sorcerer, in contrast, are playing rather different game.

See portion of argument above about comparisons. Also, blasting is only one third of what a stargazer can do with his illuminations. If a stargazer can't effectively stand on his own two feet by giving greater focus to his barriers and his surges, then those two portions MIGHT need to be reworked.

blasts are a point of comparison because they're quantitative and easy to compare.

barriers do things like bfc, and also illusions and short-ranged teleports, and better AMF than AMF. consider: a barricades strongholds pilgramage 1 silence barrier, placed on the same square as an enemy up to 40 ft. away, leaves an enemy without magic items, exit with either full-round action (which, trades a standard and a move for the evoker's move action) or a strength check (against DC 24+Ability, where ability bonus at this level is probably at least at least +5, so unless you have 28 str before magic items, happening ), 12 motes, attainable by stargazer 9 and widely available by 12; even the 11-mote version, for an enemy no more than 20 ft. away, is generally better than amf (it's on a move action, so it doesn't interfere with, say, a blast, and you're not making yourself useless, and it's still more effort to exit even if you can just eat the 25 ft. penalty.)

meanwhile surges do things like almost-haste (battles), spell resistance higher than the spell which is also a debuff and a temporary dispel (isolation), ability bonus which scales ridiculously fast (might), passable burst healing (resolve); with add-on mirror image (which scale slower than actual mirror image, of course, but still), to multiple allies or enemies or both (isolation bolts and isolation pulses seem like excellent ideas). also quite the host of debuffs.

evokers can do a lot of this stuff; they're limited by a) how many one can do, by illuminations know, b) how many they can do at a time, my motes and action economy. and, of course, they're plenty of stuff they can't do. most of it is probably intentionally excluded.

The statement that I posted in which you are replying to with previously quoted text is stating that if evokers are going to be effective, metamagic for them very well may be needed. Why pick up a lightwielder as a player in a game for their blasts if I can pick up a sorcerer or wizard instead and they can blast just as well while still pulling out things like polymorph and telekinesis? As a dm if I specifically want to limit the magical capabilities of my players, sure I might let one of my players make a stargazer, but from a players perspective if I can blast just as well as a more traditional magical class then the only reason I'd be making a stargazer is for fluff and not any of its mechanics at all. I, personally, would rather play a class because I like the fluff AND the mechanics as well. This is the reason why I specifically asked for someone who is more knowledgeable than me to make the comparison between the two classes. If I attempted to do so, I'm a lot more likely to make a mistake and miss something that one side or the other can do and come to the incorrect conclusion that the only reason I'd want to play a stargazer over a blast focused sorcerer is the fluff about light and friendship.

before action economy shenanigans (which evokers aren't especially good at, actually, but anyone can pull a WRT per encounter), an evoker can throw out ~2×EL×(d8+EL/6) damage per enemy for up to ≥~EL/3 enemies between resplendent and primal and flare prism blasts, potentially trading off number of enemies to hit for AOE or arbitrary range or ... uh, better to-hit or AC penalty, I guess (okay those effect are terrible), on round 1. and then still have the action left to put up a barrier or suppress EL/3 magical effects and prevent maybe 3/4 of new ones for up to EL/3 rounds trading off with ~EL/4 targets.

of course it doesn't match up to mailmanesque builds or whatever, and maxipower d6 is +5 levels for <7.75/die mean as a standard action (and okay, quicken empower for mean <5.25, which comes out to <13/CL in a round), and a primal+prism flare blast is only mean <8.5/die, but the latter doesn't stop scaling, and you're getting off two of them on round 1, and the latter is probably hitting more targets, and the latter has a better to-hit (if it matters -- it's not likely to, though), and evokers have things to do with their move and swift (very useful things to do with the move and swift actions, even).

also, no per-day limit.

they have ... duration issues, though. and can't really go splatbook diving.

So, despite the fact that a stargazer or an empath or a champion cannot really do necromancy, or abjuration, or healing, or summoning, or higher end illusions, or enchanting (unless your a child of the light), or almost everything in the transumatation school, you'd limit a lightwielder from having any kind of teleportation or mount effect just because that's the "purview" of a tier 2 or higher class? My assumption was that a tier three class can either do one thing fairly well, or do a lot of things poorly. Seems kind of...restrictive...to keep a stargazer from going from one end of the world to another quickly. Especially since it'd be pretty epic to see a small group of people all appear in a radiant flash of LIGHT! But meh, it's not that big of a deal. Just a suggestion.

no necromancy, no, no summoning nor "higher end illusions" (well, major image is basically the pinnacle to figments, so I presume you mean illusion that have ... explicit effects), and evoker's dispel is stick an AMF on it or suppress it until the duration expires, and healing is limited to hit points.

but if you really want to, stargazer can make scrolls for whatever starting at 6, and empath does, in fact, have teleportation, and they all have short-range teleports.

[Falcon777]

So I said I was going to look over the prestige classes, and then got "sidetracked" by errands that needed to be run and by the replies made to my first post subsequent to my errand run.

So, here we go:

Fashionista: hmmm, who does this remind me of...OH! I KNOW! Hello there, Erza Scarlet! Lol.

Firekeeper: Definitely seems like a throwback to the idea of the stone age, but the class definitely could be fun to play. It also kind of reminds me of a druid in a way, so that's cool.

Reedeemer of Nine: Frankly, I'm confused with this class. Is the character evil because she's doing evil things despite the fact that she thinks she's doing good things? Also seems like excellent material for a prerequisite to the night devil.

Valkarie: Amazon's HO! Not really, but that's the mental image I get when I think of this class and it's name. However, when I look at the meat of the class it makes me think of a redmage, which is cool.

Arial mage: actually, going a mile in a round, while fast, is below mach 1, assuming the temperature isn't negative 137 degrees Fahrenheit. A round is six seconds, which means that you would be traveling at 600 miles per hour. If you assume a reasonable temperature of 65 degrees, you would still need 165 miles an hour more just to reach mach 1. Of course once you've spent 12 motes on the weightless ability, then you ARE going supersonic up until the temperature reaches a little over 800 degrees Fahrenheit (which of course is ridiculous). I thought I'd point that out to you in case you'd want to increase the speed so that you are always going supersonic after your five round acceleration. (P.S. Your calculations might have been off if you had based the distance of a mile on it being 6000 feet when it is actually 5280).

Apart from that, fairly interesting class. "Say yes to flying!"

Bombardment mage: ah, here's the blaster king prestige class. If you want to blast and do it well all the time (well, as best as is possible), this class is totally for you.

Ferzien slave: an interesting class that...has some odd fluff about it, but is probably the closest you can get to a sweet awesome battle butler that does more than Alfred.

Heartwielder: "Hello, kingdom hearts, can I borrow your keyblades for a quick game? Yes? WOO HOO!" lol That being said, if you DO want to pretend you're playing kingdom hearts, this is definitely the class you want to play. Of course a truly creative player will go beyond that, but yeah, 'nuff said.

Immortal: Very nice. I like the theme of this class, though I could easily see such a character getting into an argument with a ferzien slave, especially if the latter character was serving someone who's motives were dubious. The class seems balanced, and if epic levels came into play I could see the class getting some kind of apotheosis for immortality against aging. Otherwise you've got yourself a solid defender class for the life of the character (most games don't see the death of a character by aging, so I presume the lack of agelessness isn't really a big deal).

Listener to Light: A diviner class centered around light and truth? That's something I could get behind. If I had the time to play more games, I'd probably play this one right after I got done with a game as a stargazer, which basically means that I like it more than all the other prestige classes.

Night Devil: Evil themed? Yeah, it is, and as such I'd have to say no thank you. Interesting though that the class get's bonuses against being turned back towards the light. Seems pretty fitting.

Radiant Amourer: "Hello, yes, I'm your quartermaster. I'm also a great warrior." Fairly interesting class. Basically keep yourself and your friends in good equipment, though I'm still kind of wondering how the radiant armaments compare to enchanted items. If they're weaker, this class could find itself being eclipsed by npcs with magic shops if the dm isn't careful.


All in all, this is very interesting. Is there a reason why the Child of Light prestige class isn't on the first page?