Tooth and Tentacle Remix [3.P] [PEACH]

[Hanuman]

Alright guys I'm off hiatus (My dance training has settled into 5 months of choreography and my RMT is all sorted and I'm finding a way to save up for it).
I've begun work on polishing the ozodrin again and have the help of Selinia to try and improve my spawn feature.

Spoiler: Archieved Responsed and Outdated System

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@Strange Movement
I think I was contemplating how it would effect puppet when I was writing that, it's really nice to have a clear perspective just looking at the words rather than how they interconnect conceptually. Thanks!

@Uncertain Shape
Philosophically I believe that a lego class should have a guiding theme but should be able to try a bunch of other concepts as the player wants, this keeps the player happy but also maintains the happiness of the table, as you don't want a player being great at every role. Classic example is Druid vs. Fighter, where the animal companion fits almost the same role. The ozodrin is not meant to be a stealth character, but it is supposed to have a deceptive element to it.
The blur effect is from this, and while an ozodrin is not intended to be a primary stealth combatant they are intended to be a disguise artist mixed with a big monstrous surprise. The two factors here are that an ozodrin's guise allows their specifics not to be noticed (in the situation where you are trying to work with the observer's perception), and that an ozodrin's true form allows a surprise psychological factor by not being discernible right away and then coming at them from an odd angle. While this perhaps does not fit a tactics game playstyle it fits the ozodrin from a cinematography playstyle.

• Changed the wording, it might have been confused with the blur spell.
• Increased AC bonus to +2
• Disguise bonus increased to (=Cha)
• Added an extra bonus to fool true-seeing and the like for 1 round.

@Rapid Form
Rephrased, let me know if there's a problem with the new phrasing!

@OW Guise
I've changed it to your suggestion because apart from a vague back-of-the-mind feeling I honestly don't remember where I was going with that.

@Shifting
The initial reasoning was that one class feature could take out 10 lines of tables and letting the player know they could shift around.
I don't see any reasoning to not add it to the tables instead as it's likely that if they are going to be playing this class they will be doing it from a laptop and the spoiler system should manage the lines anyway.
I'll do that when I have the time. Thanks.

@Flowing Shape
Fighting defensively.* Fixed.

@Sinister Image
That's a good point, I'll change it for not until there's reason to change it. Perhaps there was a point, I'll have to think on it.

@Infinite Horror
This is just the Ozodrin's way of scaling FP into epic levels, this has less than +90/L for the first 5 levels and more than +90/L for all levels after that.

@Epic Ozodrin
It's work-in-progress currently, don't expect it to be filled-in before the features start to come together a bit better.
The intent is for the ozodrin to double somewhat as an elder evil at level 35-40.

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@Feature/Level Listing
That's an interesting concept actually, I had thought several times about putting levels on each one of the class features but every time I look at the class features I can't figure out where to put it and why it's needed.

The reason why I have a small want but see no need is that while I understand PEACHing and a DM's need to cross-reference, the goal is really to have a playable class, and playable classes are cross-referenced by sheet.
Example: Player asks ECL or starting level, DM says 3 so player writes down those class features from the top table then details the CF's from the list.

I am interested to hear your feedback though, I know it's common to have them there so there's probably a few reasons for it.

@Class Benefits
Second spoiler removed until further notice, thanks.

@Innate Horror
Technically speaking this is more like a sidebar in a class feature.
The mentality behind it has several functions:

• To mitigate aberrant feat stacking to a smaller cap.
  To lower the early level bonus gains by aberrant feat stacks.
  To invent a use for Int/Wis on the ozodrin, the mentality is that an ozodrin should have a small bit of wisdom or intelligence to have some depth of character, though both are not required.

@Devour/Bio
Bag of rats is totally viable, but I should think about how to explain more odd eating habits in action equivalents for sure.
Bio's max is intended to be so small normally that a character has to invest in bio max improvement with FP/feats or will have to recharge it during combat to make more use of it.
Think of this more like a tome of battle maneuvers gained through an organ and then you have something like the pathfinder gunslinger's grit system to use it. The cap is intended to recharge through combat, if you need to burn your action economy to do this then I think that's ok.

@Budding Body
If I need to add that a character's limbs are USUALLY true limbs I'm not sure where to do that, but I'm open to suggestions.

A true limb just means a limb that can carry, use and attack with items and such, not one granted by a feat or an insectile template, ect. You could use conservative form on a set of true limbs (-9FP) then use a minor limb and long x2 (7fp) then put a tentacle on that. This would break the balance a smidge as you'd ignore the limb's length for the purpose of the tentacle's attack modifier. (Total 15'-20' (DM's interp.) reach and +0 Atk)

@Strange Physiology
Sounds good, I'll add the old rule here if I ever need to add it back!

Spoiler

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Strange Physiology (Ex): Your physiological processes become increasingly redundant.

• Gain a +4 bonus vs. Poisons, Diseases, Drugs, Ravages, Parasites and other things of similar nature.
• When you successfully resist one of the above effects roll a D% and gain a 5%/Level chance to ignore a resisted effect from effecting you again for 24 hours.
• If the effect does not grant a save roll a D% before being effected, you then have a 2%/Level chance to become immune to this effect for 24 hours.
• You may digest matter normally impossible to digest such as toxic food and non-organic objects, though you gain no Bio from these.

@Twisted Mind
I'll be doing a full overhaul of this and changing some of the effects to a feat or PrC. Consider it Work in Progress!

@Maximum Augments
Maximum augments refer to the amount of times you may add that augment to a single feature.

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@Infinite Horror
Consider that fixed once I detail epic levels.


Any more questions, comments or suggestions? I'd love to get some input on additional options, powers you want the ozodrin to have, or just clever critique!

[Magikeeper]

I have finally returned! Sort of. First round of critique:


1) The current write up suffers from unneeded references that cause more problems than they fix.
Most important:
>> Primary stomach is pretty well described. However, referring to Bag of Holding causes many issues; some covered in your description, others not. For example, as of right now any sharp object that pierces an Ozodrin’s stomach causes it to be ruined; the contents lost forever. The bag and stomach have nothing in common besides both of them being extradimensional spaces that don’t make you weigh mor... actually no, the bag even has its own weight chart that can’t be extrapolated to larger Ozodrin weights. So the only thing they have in common are that they are both extradimensional holding spaces. I suggest removing the reference, just calling it an extradimensional space, and adding rules for harming the stomach.
Please, please, please remove the bag reference.

Less important
> Strange Anatomy mentions “the construct trait”. That is could simply be removed. There are, after all, other creatures that just have an immunity chance. It's not a complicated concept that is described in more detail in the construct section (unless pathfinder is very different in this regard). By tying it to constructs you both confuse the flavor (why are we part construct?) and allow powers/items that specifically negate construct crit immunity to effect us.


OTHER STUFF:
Innate Horror
> Abberant affinity’s “Innate Horror” score being a stealth drawback is not intuitive – players don’t take the Ozodrin expecting to become LESS aberrant than before. At high levels it being a drawback is virtually certain outside of extreme stat givaways – the Ozodrin is already a melee class with cha-based powers (Str/Con/Cha at least, Dex helps) and its other ability promotes taking a large number of aberrant feats. If you want int and wis to matter, why not something like:
>> The ozodrin may add their int or wisdom modifier, whichever is higher, to the effective number of aberrant feats they possess when calculating the abilities of their aberrant feats. This ability cannot increase the effective number of aberrant feats beyond the Ozodrin’s class level.
>>> There. Int/wis becomes an option for the privileged few without nerfing anyone. Is the annoyance of being hit with a stealth nerf really worth preventing the corner situations where a player has a somewhat higher HP/AC/DV range than they otherwise would have?

Devour
>Right now Devour can be interpreted to not deal any damage, con or otherwise, if you choose to gain one bio. Changing “and heal 2…” to “and either heal 2” makes it clearer that the spilt is
[(Con) AND (Heal OR Bio)] instead of [(Con AND heal) OR (Bio) ]

Strange Movement
> The unlimited duration invisibility effect that ends if you do something besides move and speak doesn’t make much sense given how D&D views dimensional pockets. More fluff text would be needed at the very least. I also feel many DMs will make knee-jerk rulings regarding the ability's power level, even if it turns out to be okay in practice. Why was the ‘pop out of existence’ ability removed? I feel it makes more sense and has interesting uses without sounding off power level alarms.


Budding Body
> You mention “carrying features” in budding body but do not ever define the term “carrying”. The intent is rather clear – to me – but it is a good idea to be specific about these sort of things.
> Is it intended for each tentacle to have a 1-feature limit? It looks like it currently has that.

Aberrant Nature
> Why does aberrant nature cap the darkvision? Really, having 180+ foot darkvision doesn’t rain on anyone’s parade and there is an aberrant feat that grants extra dark vision. If someone has crazy amounts of darkvision they worked for it - let them enjoy this relatively minor bit of optimization. I’m fine with the darkvision eye augment being a set amount though.
>Note, the no longer aging bit at level 10 should specifically note you don’t die at the end of your lifespan. The first does not imply the second in D&D, or at least it is so common to still drop dead that DMs might assume it. EDIT: I just realized this is pathfinder. Might still be the case though.

Strange Physiology
> Strange Physiology uses ‘Your’ when it should use ‘You’.


Twisted Mind
> I would have the ‘sanity’ damage bit be an ‘If you are using the <blah> optional rules’ addition. Unless Sanity is not an optional rule in pathfinder? Otherwise this is a big turn off to DMs briefly scanning the class. It’s generally not a great idea to create homebrew that prompt DMs to take out a pen and start editing from the get-go.
> I personally liked the split of “stuff that only modifies yourself is extraordinary, because that is what you are” and “stuff the directly effects other people is supernatural”. Granted, manifest form was sorta in the middle but it felt extraordinary enough. Directly destroying other creatures' minds feels supernatural. The new twisted feels like two abilities stapled together anyway - I’d just split them.
> “Pull into nightmare” sound like a physical act and is going to confuse people.
> Healing at a rate of 1/Day is normal, no need to specify it. Unless pathfinder is different, I guess.

Rapid form
> This is the only ability that requires an Ozodrin rest for 8 hours, unless I missed something. This is not really an issue that needs to be fixed, but having it be an hour of meditation or something would still make it a plan-ahead sort of ability.

Otherworldly Guise
> This has been condensed far too much IMO. I know the original Owrtho version was kind of wordy, but this ability begs all sorts of questions.

Naught Morality
> Change ‘effects that help an alignment’ to ‘effects pertaining to alignment’ or some other description that covers ALL alignment-based effects. Right now Smite Evil has no idea what to do with the Ozodrin – it’s not an effect that ‘helps’ a certain alignment. Also, could you keep the option to use the orange-blue morality optional class feature? As an optional class feature, that is.

FEATURES – I don’t have the time right now to go into all of these, so just a few points:

> I like some of the changes, and making some of the features reasonable non-stacking effects is pretty nice. At least, I think that is the intent?

Organ
> So the Ozodrin can become bigger.. but not smaller?
> I liked pretending flesh and the ability to eat magic and the various energy types.
>> Actually, I liked flesh in general. And not just because I wrote most of the augments. :P
> +1 NA per 5 levels is sad. Unless pathfinder has greatly changed how high armor needs to be at high levels to matter, anyway.

Puppet
> The disguise check bonus for the puppets is far too low. Aberrant feats still give a disguise check penalty in pathfinder, right?

Stomach
>Stomach feature has been gutted. Some may not care, but this was probably my favorite feature. It was.. well, just really fun.

Epic
I have not checked the epic Ozodrin yet, so I don't know if it deals with what an epic PC needs. Nor do I know what epic pathfinder looks like, for that matter. I do think that this Ozodrin's version of Distorted Mind could stand to be quite a bit stronger. At the very least the nondetection effect needs to be higher than just +level IMO (unless pathfinder detection and +CL effects are very different than D&D). EDIT: Hrm, pathfinder nerfed nondetection? Interesting.

[Saidoro]

@Feature/Level Listing
That's an interesting concept actually, I had thought several times about putting levels on each one of the class features but every time I look at the class features I can't figure out where to put it and why it's needed.

The reason why I have a small want but see no need is that while I understand PEACHing and a DM's need to cross-reference, the goal is really to have a playable class, and playable classes are cross-referenced by sheet.
Example: Player asks ECL or starting level, DM says 3 so player writes down those class features from the top table then details the CF's from the list.

I am interested to hear your feedback though, I know it's common to have them there so there's probably a few reasons for it.

You're looking at one condition under which people will read your class, but there are two more rather significant ones. The first is when the player is first learning the class, they will want to know what abilities are gained at what levels so as to get a feel for how the class plays and what it does and they will not want to scroll back up to the table after every ability to check when they've moved on to the next one. The second, which is particularly important since this is homebrew, is when the GM is reading through the class and deciding whether they want to allow it in their campaign. A GM could easily just decide that the thing is too much of a hassle to read, I've seen subsystems disallowed on that exact basis before.
The list format you're using to describe the features does make this a bit trickier. The best option would probably be to make sure each feature has a short introductory paragraph like manifest does and then put it there. Alternately, you could just include the number in your formatting somewhere. So

Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

Would become

3|Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

Or something like that.(It's kinda hard to make one of these that looks good. Which I suspect is why most classes do not use a pure list format for all of their features.)

@Innate Horror
Technically speaking this is more like a sidebar in a class feature.

If it's a sidebar make it a sidebar. Honestly, I'm not too fond of the Int/Wis dependence, the Ozodrin already needs good physical abilities and good charisma and even a generous point buy will probably be getting thin by that point. Also, I think the cap is too low. A score of 14 is really the best anyone will ever be able to afford for a tertiary ability score and that only gives you three effective feats to play with. And then there's the problem of Ozodrins being less effective at using aberrant feats than are other characters, which is rather odd. Here's what I'd do, implemented as a sidebar:
"Aberrant feats with benefits based on the number of aberrant feats their user possesses cannot give a benefit beyond that which would be gained by a character with a number of aberrant feats equal to the lower of the user's hit dice or their highest mental ability score."
Then add another line to the Ozodrin about bonus form points having the same limit.

@Devour/Bio

That's fine, I've just seen far more people create bag'o rats situations accidentally than on purpose. If you're going into it with your eyes open I predict no problems.(Besides which, an Ozodrin who chows down on vermin to sate their eternal hunger is far less silly than a crusader who beats up wildlife to heal their friends.)

@Budding Body
If I need to add that a character's limbs are USUALLY true limbs I'm not sure where to do that, but I'm open to suggestions.

I seem to have miscommunicated. I wasn't concerned about what counts as a true limb, the problem I'm having is that I'm not sure why someone would want to put a feature on the end of one of their limbs as opposed to somewhere else(their body, for example). It does not seem to offer much of any benefit and I don't see why an Ozodrin should have to wait until seventh level to have a mouth open up on their forearm instead of their stomach. It's a fluff ability which implicitly constrains the descriptive options of those who don't have it.

@Maximum Augments
Maximum augments refer to the amount of times you may add that augment to a single feature.

Alright, you should put that in the class description somewhere. Tables should not be left unexplained.

[Qwertystop]

Budding Body is for reach purposes. A Mouth can only attack in the square it is in - without Budding Body, that means it can only attack when you're grappling, or when the enemy is a very different size from you. With it, it can attack adjacent squares like a normal weapon, or even go farther if you have reach on a limb or tentacle.

[Amechra]

The best place to stick levels is at the beginning of the description of what it does.

For example:

Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within. At 3rd level, ...

[Hanuman]

Spoiler: Archived - Small Improvements and Fixes

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@Primary Stomach
Changed and provided a link to it's analogies!

@Strange Anatomy
Corrected and changed, also reverted it to 5% per level unless this is considered too high.

@Innate Horror
I've removed that concept and put in a flat nerf.
This stops UA and ozodrin bonus feats (as well as every other source of exploit) from effecting LoM's originally intended balancepoints!

@Devour
Rephrased/Fixed!

@Strange Movement
I've played around with it a bit, it's a tad more wordy than my liking so I may rotate back to it, but it now has the original "time-out" effect it once had as well as a more balanced and reasonable invisibility effect that naturally excludes puppets.

@Budding Body
Changed to "Adding".

@Darkvision Cap
This is a courtesy to DM's in terms of grid management.

@Strange Physiology
Corrected, Thanks!

@Twisted Mind
Yeah that ability probably needs a full rework, don't worry about it for now.
Great points all the same

@Rapid Form
The thought process behind this is to manage quickforms during longer periods of downtime when the rest of the party is preparing spells and such and the ozodrin can crunch her build rather than squeezing it in for a dungeon circumstance and being distracted from the game in the meantime.

@Otherworldly Guise
Quick rephrase! I think it's fairly straightforward.

@Naught Morality
Changed!

@Organ/features/epic

• Smaller and Bigger are both great options! I will be sure to add those!
• Magic is yummy, as is everything else
• Ozodrin should be able to be highly armored, that being said this stacks with beastial hide, spells, ect.
• Puppet disguise is something to ponder, perhaps it is too low!
• Stomach feature isn't developed! Features currently don't have anywhere near what the end product will have... but non-feat gained features are getting pretty close to done!
• Epic is very far away from being done, I am really interested to hear what an epic ozodrin needs!

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@Level Tagging
I'll play around with different formatting options!

@Innate Horror
Removed!

@Bag-O-Rats
Here here! If you are born to eat then eat!

@Budding Body
Perfect response Qwerty!

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@Sticking Levels
Perhaps there is a better way than a full line of text


Great feedback guys! I'll continue working on the class!

Let me know what I can do to improve the class, flesh it out, ect!

[Magikeeper]

@Feat Balance – This might not apply to pathfinder, since I don’t play it, but UA bonus feats and other shenanigans make feat combos better in general. I know from personal experience in a high-op feat shenanigan game that Mass Aberrant is not so amazing that other people feel the need to jump on the boat. It’s just pretty nice, and combos with the Ozodrin so it’s an obvious choice for them.

I suppose Mass Aberrant is certainly a more obvious feat combo and the class pushes you towards it. So if flaws and such are being used and no one knows what the better feat set ups (for them) are, the Ozodrin player will luck out on account of the most obvious choice being pretty great (for them).

I do think that the place to enforce this is in optional game rules rather than in the class itself – otherwise you end up with the Ozodrin getting hit with the nerf bat while the other players get to enjoy their own UA-enabled feat combos.

Let’s look at what scaling feats we are talking about:

Spoiler

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Inhuman Vision – +1 spot and +5ft darkvision per aberrant feat. This combos well with the Ozodrin and makes their high spot checks even higher. Could be annoying if the player stumbled into this and the game as a whole is not ready for super amazing 24/7 high spot checks. Very strong when used with feat shenanigans. HOWEVER, how does this even work in pathfinder? Spot doesn’t exist anymore, so this feat would need to be rewritten anyway?

Beastial Hide - +1/2 number of aberrant feats to NA. +1 NA isn’t worth a feat – there is in fact a feat that grants it and I’ve never seen it taken (Outside maybe “highest AC ever” forum CO builds) – so we’re looking at needing at least 4 aberrant feats before this one hits ‘decent’. And I mean decent at low levels. Feat slots are a precious resource!

Durable Form - +2hp per aberrant feat. This one is great at low levels but quickly drops off in usefulness unless you have a LOT of aberrant feats. Also, there are versions of this for other combos. Why does the party psionic PC get to pile on the early feat-gained HPs and the Ozodrin can’t?

Farspawn – Are you keeping it in this version? If not, … well, I’ll need to see if the features are individually stronger in this version than in Owrtho’s before commenting further.

Warped Mind – I initially forgot this one existed. It is.. quite meh. It’s okay. In high-op it actually gets less useful as outright immunity to mind effecting effects is both highly valued and not that uncommon.

Summary
I don’t view players having more HP being a big issue for ‘Fun’, and the +NA and +MRes feats aren’t that hot, so that pretty much just leaves the +Spot feat as the one that might annoy DMs balance-wise.

@Darkvision Cap
I’m not sure what you mean by grid management. Why is 120ft more convenient?

@Puppet
I just noticed the “if cord is destroyed” rules. Are there called shots in pathfinder? If not, I would suggest removing this. Otherwise you would have to make up rules for attacking the cord and that really wouldn't be worth the hassle.

Note: The following assumes the PC is grabbing the puppet feat at around the same level the 3.5 Ozodrin grants it. Some claims obviously don't apply to early levels.
The hidden string merely becoming invisible in this version is pretty crippling. It basically sets a ceiling to your disguise check – unless you can’t use regular perception to beat invisibility in pathfinder (only +20 to the DC in 3.5 for a living moving creature). It also means you get owned by truesight (even if rest is mundane which.. is not very clear in this iteration of puppet), and have little hope of fooling any group that has access to it. Or see invisibility, which is pretty common at high levels.

Also, right now the disguise check is:
Roll + 10 - # of aberrant feats you have + ranks + Cha

and it is opposing:

Roll + Ranks + Wis + Misc

I don't know about pathfinder, but there are a lot of "Misc" +spot effects in 3.5. Some of which are not obscure at all. Several of which are common additions to run of the mill unoptimized monster manual stuff (who tend to max spot). On top of that, disguise by its nature is getting opposed by the highest spot check of any allied group it is brought against. So if only one enemy has a +8 racial bonus or something that will still foil your plan. Unless raising perception is much, much harder than raising spot in 3.5 this is not going to work very well.

The old puppets ignored aberrant feat and racial penalties, which I feel is a good idea. (It also gave a higher bonus unless imitating a specific individual you are not very familiar with)


@Distorted Mind
If nothing else, the Ozodrin should be able to suppress the constant nondetection. They might want to spring sinister image on someone, after all.

@Epic
It does not look like pathfinder has set epic rules? So I guess I’ll go with D&D experience. Now, I would guess that what happens is that most games become increasingly like high level high-op as you continue on. Is this correct? If so, I can paint a fairly vivid picture of what it is like.

I feel the original Distorted Mind was a good preparation for epic though. It provides a very much needed immunity if you don’t already have it and gives you a boost action-economy wise if you do have that immunity (or need to let someone scry on you).

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I’ll note something else though – the 3.5 Ozodrin is a very good support PC at later levels. Infiltration, sneaking around, scouting, serving as the team bus, etc. In general I found it to be a PC that is very melee-centric during the early levels and then increasingly caster-like as you head towards epic (although you could stay melee focused if you built for it). I personally liked the transition although that is just my opinion.

[Hanuman]

Spoiler: Archived - Small fixes and balance data

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@Feat Balance
Great points!

LoM's balancepoint on feat stacking is that a player will have an ab. feat whenever they would normally get one in level progression.
Ozodrin2.0 has 5 bonus feats by level 15, and has a mechanic to dismiss the extra stacking effect caused by it, and as a byproduct balances every other form of feat gain for the purposes of stacking.

@Pathfinder
Ozodrin Remix is 3.P (3.0/3.5/Pathfinder) Pathfinder is DnD3.75, the differences are not immense and the only noted changes linked to this homebrew are subtle improvements.

@Specific Feats
(Using Cap @ Level 15)

Inhuman Vision
Capped = +6/+30DV, Uncapped = +13/+60' DV

Beastial Hide
Capped = +3AC, Uncapped = +6AC

Durable Form
Capped +12HP, Uncapped +26HP

Farspawn
Capped 5/4/3 FP, Uncapped = 12/11/10/9 FP

Warped Mind
Capped +3 Saves +6PP, Uncapped +6 Saves +13PP

Are any of these feats underpowered (relative to existing feats) when capped, and which cannot be supplemented with possible features?

If the feats need a slight tweak in favor of power perhaps adding that the ozodrin considers each feat to count towards their own scaling?

Another option is to redo the feats adding a minimum stack on them, perhaps 3 feats-ish worth just to make sure an early investment is always worth it?

@Farspawn
I think the balancepoint is roughly 3FP/Feat.
When added it will have +1FP/2feat and +3FP minimum, each time you take it again it adds just +3FP.
Sound about right?

@Darkvision Cap
It's about how far encounters start from, with 120' you are 24 squares and at 180' you are 32 squares. 24x30 is a standard flipmat so 120' DV is considered around the maximum out of courtesy rather than mechanics.

@Puppet
Penalties fixed!
I think also adding some augments to make them more realistic would be a good idea, let me know if anything crosses your mind!

@Distorted Mind
I think that would be a great addition in the epic ozodrin.
Do you think mind-blank and schism are needed at level 20 or would they be a fine pickup later into epic?

@Role Transition
I happen to agree with this sentiment, but rather I see it as the ozodrin gaining more utility and role flexibility, not necessarily losing that original role.

Edit- Updates

Spoiler: Archived Updates

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+Feat

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Farspawn - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• You gain 1 Form Point for Aberrant feat you have, including Farspawn.
• This grants a minimum of 2FP and a maximum of 5FP
• You may take Farspawn multiple times, gaining only 3FP each time it is taken past the first.

*Clarified wording on Organ feature.

+Class Feature
Added Mind-Blank Immunity to the epic ozodrin (no level reference yet).

-Augment
Removed Control Organ Augment

+Augment
Added Compress Organ Augment (aka Shrink)
Added 3 Bio Effects to Compress

*Completed description section for all organ augments. (May need polish!)

*Added shifting augment and removed it from the ozodrin's class features.

*Overhaul of thread layout, allowing needed space for more text characters per section.

*Altered Twisted Mind to not apply the extended sensory input option mechanically and added a DM note for sanity damage.

*Fixed Grapple Sidebar Image

That's all for now! More updates in the next 3 days!

[Magikeeper]

@Feat Stacking (minus farspawn)
I contest the claim that the cap rule balances every other form of feat stacking. 'Balance' is relative; the more obscure a source of stacking is the more we can assume the group using it is highly optimized*. If the group is highly optimized, the comparisons change and I can start saying stuff like "the capped versions are definitely on the weak side". But is +3AC at level 15 that bad if people are just taking whatever? It's passable.

The real issue, IMO, is that 3.P Ozodrin makes feat stacking too easy. I initially had a much larger write up before I thought of a pretty simple solution to this:

> Have the extra features work like rogue special abilities. In other words, take Puppet and other such powerful class-specific feats that are too strong (to be feeding the stacking feats on top of what they grant) and make them optional class abilities chosen from a list. You can even have 'take a bonus aberrant feat' be one of the options. If a player wants to pass up on several nifty class features to feed the stack I'd say they've earned it.
>> Have special ability choice levels instead of all the extra feats 3.P Ozodrin gained over the old version.
>> Then you can remove the caps.
>> You can turn some of the old Ozodrin feats that really granted a lot for a single feat and/or mini-trees that could be turned into a single feature into new specials.
>> If you separate the specials into "basic" (Before level 10?) and "advanced" (After level 10?) you could dump Limbs and Organs into the special ability pile as well. Maybe bring flesh back as there are just so many things that made sense with it.
>> I would keep all the options besides "grab a feat" as new features. Although some features, like spawn, might have other requirements.

I will admit Inhuman Vision was already really strong uncapped so the added boost from pathfinder combining spot and listen may push it too far. But the others are fine.

*"What if only the Ozodrin player is using these sources?"
If only one player is heavily optimized the issue is that only one player is heavily optimized. They should work with their group.. although if someone is going to out-optimize their fellows +HP and (just pretty good) +AC is one of the more benign ways to do it.


@Farspawn

If you want to nerf farspawn I suggest giving the Ozodrin more FP per level. Unless the power-to-fp ratio was greatly increased from that of the 3.5 ozodrin (still haven't had time to study the current augments, sorry) my playtesting* suggests something more like.. 5/level would be appropriate? Maybe 4/level with a weaker farspawn.
> Please do not have farspawn include itself. I pushed very hard for the doesn't-include self version because of the simple reason that some players would feel pressured to take 100% farspawn. Granted, unlike the old +1/2 farspawn massing your suggestion wouldn't be optimal.

Actually, if you really want to nerf farspawn you could remove the ability to take it multiple times, have it give +1fp per HD, and give the Ozodrin class itself a base of 4fp/Level. Ozodrin already grants +1fp per aberrant feat, that's incentive enough.

*My primary ozodrin PC would have been okay with 6-7 per level but that game was insanely high-op. 4-5 is my assessment based on a much shorter game. Only mentioning this in case anyone that remembers my previous statements about my game was wondering.
------------------------------------------------------

@Darkvision
Is that a standard in premade modules? I had not heard of that before this discussion. I am willing to accept that the groups I have played with in the past were not using standard encounter distances, although I am confused how there even is such a standard in the first place. Most grids I've seen were larger than that as well.

But even assuming that, I don't see how this helps. What if it is daytime? Or someone has low-light vision and a torch? Or the area just happens to be lit? As far as I can tell, this only even comes into play as a courtesy when:
A) There is something interesting more than 120' away.
B) You are in the dark.
C) The DM would want to put whatever is 120+ feet away from you on the grid as soon as you see it.
D) The grid is standard size.
E) There is nothing important behind you - once you move forward the DM will be able to place you at one edge of the grid and the seen thing on the other.

This seems to be a lot of assumptions? How often does this come up? I mean, I can give a counter situation where more darkvision is better: What if the DM would like to not keep track of vision range in general? I.E., if you can see in the dark he'd like to just assume you see stuff. "Oh, bob can see forever. No need to count out the spaces in this room to see if there are any corners he can't see."


@Distorted mind: When you need it changes wildly from group to group - it really depends. For many groups level 20 is a little late for mindblank, but we are talking about a non-magical non-dispellable immunity. That's pretty nice. I think 20 is good because it is:
A) Possibly the final level this PC plays. In that case you want to feel pretty awesome. Twisted Mind and Naught Morality were leading up to.. a nondetection effect? And the awesome lying thing, true. I think the old version flowed better though - blanking the mind and partitioning it felt like the belonged in the same ability that give super lying. Nondetection... not so much.
B) Possibly just the final level before Epic. Players could well be multiclassing out after this. Or prestige classing. Not sure I'd want the epic levels to be more of the same.
C) A level where these powers are definitely not overpowered. Mind blank has been available for several levels already. Schism IS pretty strong but the Ozodrin is not really set up to make the most of it so I think it is fine as well. The lying stuff might well be the strongest of the granted abilities but it is really, really flavorful.

@Naught Morality
I recently noticed the old fluff text is gone. I highly suggest that fluff text make a comeback. How to RP having no alignment is unclear, and not in a good way. The way the old write up hands the player an excuse to keep acting like they used to (should they so desire) was very much intentional. I have a larger write up on this somewhere, I'll quote it when I have the time.

------------

@More General Note
I just wanted to mention that I like your update notes! They feel professional. I think the overall format of the class itself went too far in that direction, but I like how your other posts are formatted in general.

[Hanuman]

Spoiler: Archived - Balance Data

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I accept your challenge!

@Feat Stacking
-@Features
The point of having features as feats is that it gives the player the option to grab another aberrant feat instead of a feature in the scenario that they do not want any, it also allows players to buy early access to feat acquired features by sacrificing their early feats.

To change it to a pathfinderesque table-granted bonus (your rogue point) I would want/need to put aberrant feat as an option on that table making the whole system arbitrary, and personally I'm really not a fan of this option.

If a feature is too strong you simply make it's feat requisite a higher level.

-@Optimization
Q: If you feel that the Ozodrin's cap is too low to deal with optimized parties why not just add a DM note saying that the cap can be scaled up for that purpose?
Q: Why does the basic loadout (choosing what looks good from lord of madness feats) have to go toe to toe with optimized players?

-@Balancepoints/References
If you think the cap should be adjusted then tell me what it should be adjusted to and what references support this.
I have owrtho's reference which is +3Feat by level 15 (3 over cap) but that's +4.5NAC for 1 feat.
Balancepoint For NACFeats (Using Cryst--BLEEEEEP, ignoring things like Vow of Peace)

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Improved Natural Armor +1NAC
Heavy Lithoderms +1NAC
Draconic Skin +1NAC
Photosynthetic Skin +2NAC (Conditional x2)
Stone Rage +1NAC While Rage (Rage) (Conditional)
Beasthide +2NAC (Race-Granted Bonus Feat)
Beasthide Elite +2NAC (Upgrade to Above)
Dragon Rage +2NAC While Rage (Mid-Low level) (Rage)
Earth's Warding +2NAC (Duration) (Conditional) (Resource)
Elephant's Hide +7NAC (Duration) (Nonstacking) (Resource) (Midlevel)
Stone Form +4NAC (Replaces Base NAC) (Resource) (Instead of Being a Wildshape)

Granted the Ozodrin should be rewarded for using Ab. feats, and they are, Ozodrin has a class feature that grants +1FP per Ab. feat.

Personally, I think the ozodrin does nicely without that extra stack abuse, let me know what you think after reviewing this data.

@Farspawn/Power Adjustments
o.o

Well, yes the power of each feature and augment were altered across the board both up and down. If you're looking for a total "trend" I'd say it's probably more expensive to play lower level and mid level and less expensive to play higher level just because of how the Many augment allows augment stacking and such.

As far as changing it...

You are suggesting 1FP/Level for 1 feat (15FP by Level 15)
It's currently 3.2FP/Level for 10 feats (32FP by Level 15)

Each feat is worth ROUGHLY 3FP (by this I mean what you can buy with 3FP is worth ROUGHLY 1 feat), so by maximizing it you actually lower the feat's initial power and you're missing out on all 5 of the feat unlock features.

As it stands Farspawn does not make an ozodrin more powerful compared to other feats, it just gives them more play with the tools they have. (Option for those who want more FP and don't care about the other options as much.)

As far as how much FP the Ozodrin actually gets, that depends on how many of her level acquired feats she spends on aberrant feats.
Assuming all of them are spent on ab. feats you have 4/Level or higher
(3/Level Base + (11 Feats By Clvl15 = +11 ) + (CHA18 = +4))

But roughly it's going to be 3.4FP to 4.1FP per level for the first 15 levels, and if the ozodrin lacks that FP it's most likely going to be useful in another way. (Like Touch of Golden Ice (BoED) -hint-hint-)

I'd really like to see your feature builds/playtests though to see how the ozodrin may need tweaks!

@Darkvision
Problem is I probably learned about this courtesy from Fear The Boot (Outstanding podcast for DMs and often for players too) and it would take likely 50 hours of searching.
I've removed the cap because I don't have a reference as such, and because I think you're fundamentally correct in the long run, especially for the epic ozodrin.

@Distorted Mind
Super-lying sounds pretty cool, what is your interp. of the effect? I may just change it to clarify.

@Naught Morality
Added a line to give the players more knowledge of their options.

@Update Notes
Thank you kindly, the reason for the stylization is because it's more like a DnD book. I rather flavor the image of the information than turn the information into walls of text. I'll reserve that for when a fluff section is ready to be filled. If anyone wants to get started on some writing for the ozodrin's fluff just post it and I'll try and use what I can.

Edit- Updates

*Changed Jaws feat to require aberrant blood.

+Feat (Added some elemental for ya.)

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Warmth - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1 or Machine Level 1

• You gain cold resistance 5 or improve your cold resistance by 3.
• You may spend 1 Bio and deal 2 fire damage to any creature you successfully bite or are grappling with.
• You may spend 1 Bio and heal 2 Dexterity damage caused by a Cold descriptor effect.
• Once per hour you may spend 1 Bio and raise the temperature within a 15' radius around you by 10c/15f degrees for one hour.

*Tweaked Warmth Feat

*Updated introduction quote, music list (temporarily, may need grooveshark playlist) and resized image.

+Feat

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Alterable Form - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Aberrant Blood, Form Points

• You may modify your true form's body further.
• You may not alter your features with this feat and these changes do not effect your Guise.
• All changes take 1 move action to alter or undo and you may only make these changes whenever you'd normally be able to add features.
• You may remove any bodypart which grants a bonus or mechanical benefit, you then gain 1FP per bodypart (or set of body parts if they come in pairs or are granted by the same source) removed in this way.
• You may improve non-feature bodyparts as follows:
• Turn any bodypart into a feature it mechanically qualifies or over-qualifies for for 0FP.
• Turn any bodypart into a feature that causes a non-replaced loss of mechanical benefit for 1FP less than the feature cost.
• Turn any bodypart into a feature with similar mechanical benefit for 1FP.
• If one of your natural attacks deals less than 1D6 you may upgrade it's damage by 1 die stage for 1FP per upgrade.

Note: Alterable Form is a remix of Conservative Form, it has some very notable changes, please tell me if there's any major loopholes that can be abused!

[Magikeeper]

@Farspawn – You have a point. I’ve been dancing around the real issue instead of addressing it directly. High level Ozodrins did not have enough FP in the 3.5 version. At least not if the party was at least a little optimized. I am fairly certain I was not the only playtester to note this. But we never fixed the issue because farspawn was a workable bandaid. Need another 20-40fp? No problem! Farspawn has you covered. It WAS really strong for a single feat, so much so that the does-not-include-self version was made to forcibly prevent people from taking 100% farspawn because why wouldn’t you? Farspawn was basically a minor feat tax for high-level mid/high-op ozodrin. It was not an option for those who don’t care about the other options – it was the option for those that wanted their class abilities to stay up to snuff whether they liked the other stuff or not.

So, yes, my suggestion was a feat that was weaker at low levels (when Ozodrins don’t need it) and very strong at high levels (when ozodrins do need it). But that’s a roundabout way of addressing the issue.

You say that the Ozodrin needs less FP at the higher levels in this version. If this is ‘because the ozodrin can actually keep up without it now’ instead of ‘because the Ozodrin can’t spend more FP in this version anyway’, then maybe it is okay. Otherwise, the Ozodrin needs more FP at high levels. I don’t think they should have to spend all of their feats on this weaker farspawn just to keep up. But you are right that the solution shouldn’t be a stronger farspawn – we should just build it into the class this time.

…I really need to read all the augments at some point…

A different issue is that the current farspawn is too complicated for a feat that grants 3-5 FP each time you take it. Those two extra points add how many more words to the description? I also think 3 fp =/= non-tax feats*, but that doesn’t matter – if the Ozodrin’s high level fp starvation was fixed farspawn wouldn’t need to be a highly competitive feat. Just make it 3fp each time and call it a day.

* Is 3fp equal to Robliar’s gambit? Extend Spell? Leap of the heavens? Overchannel? Boost Construct? Combat Reflexes? Improved Initiative? At least if you assume those feats are being taken by PCs that are making the most of them? Better question: Is 3x farspawn worth what you can do with 3 not-farspawn feats? That’s 9fp vs all kinds of strong combinations.

@Optimization
> On 'just add a note': The hypothetical player is already requesting their DM allow a fairly complex homebrew class that uses a new system. Sometimes homebrew needs a few fixes, but this would be requiring the player to outright ask for more power. Not to fix a miswording or something, to outright ask to edit several parts of the class (assuming this trend continues) to grant them additional power. They’re already asking to play complicated homebrew! My DM is fairly easy-going about homebrew but I would feel embarrassed begging him to edit the class in that way. I imagine many DMs wouldn’t be willing to do it at all.

I feel the main goal of homebrew is to be played. But it is not official – always be aware that there is a hill our creations must climb to enter any game. In some groups that hill is a mountain, in others a small bump. But there is always a hill. We sadly do not have the luxury of expecting playgroups to do anything besides allow our creations as-is.

> As noted above, this class is homebrew. By the nature of its existence the only people who will play this class are in groups that
A) Allow homebrew
B) Delve into this forum OR had this class recommended to them by their friend(s).

This is only a small subsection of all D&D players. Alienating optimized groups, who IMO are far more likely to stumble across and allow this class in the first place, hurts this class’s chance to be played. Does specifically capping 3 feats matter that much to them? Not really, no. The initial bad taste it puts in their mouth* might stop them from reading the rest of the class but if they keep going it should be fine. However, I haven’t read all the augments yet – if this is a stance that is being taken on the class in general I feel “alienating” is the correct term.
*I mean, look at the comments on this thread. Virtually none of them had a good first impression of that nerf. And many of us already know we like the Ozodrin!

So, who IS being helped by the caps? Thanks to the problems caused by adding a bunch more aberrant bonus feats, most unoptimized and <maybe> mid-op parties. If this issue was fixed then the caps would instead only be helping parties that are using bonus feat shenanigans but aren’t actually picking good feats with them. That would be pandering to a much smaller group than optimized players, I think. Not to mention any group using those shenanigans is likely transforming into an optimized group if they aren’t already one.

> This isn’t saying you should pander solely to the optimized crowd. But it’s possible to please (nearly) everyone here. I question if what the class gains from heavy cap use is worth what it might be giving up.

> On arbitrariness – Rogues actually give ‘bonus feat’ as one of their options. It’s sort of a catch-all to ensure the player gets a choice they like, even if it isn’t as strong. Isn’t making a group of feats that are so far beyond the power level of the average feat that they are only balanced by being heavily tied to the upper levels of a specific class that packs a nerf just to justify their existence kinda arbitrary anyway? I feel this isn’t a big change – and if you have the first choice be low level enough you still get the option to speedily acquire a specific ability. The class will still function the same either way – all that changes is that you no longer have to make a sweeping nerf to official material to keep this homebrew class balanced.

I admit I often find homebrew to be superior to WoTC’s base classes and what not, but I am pretty sure that isn’t the standard impression.


@On feats that increase NA
Alright. I’ve seen high-AC builds in extreme high-op. I’ve DM’d for a high-AC build in a more mid-op sort of group. I’ve played high-level PCs, low levels PCs, etc. So my impression of that data is below. Still, my evidence is anecdotal. I’m not really that fond of bestial hide in the first place – I often had something better to do with my feats. :P
(Hitting durable form is much more painful IMO, and that’s the one with an identical psionic version)

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> Feats that grant conditional +1 NA: I would rather have Toughness at any level. Regular Toughness. Granted, reg. toughness is actually pretty nice levels 1-3. But the point still stands.

> Feats that grant +1 NA: At low levels these feats are not good. At high levels +1NA is almost annoying – it isn’t even worth the time spent calculating it (usually). In most situations I’d still choose toughness over them. Pretty sure I’ve never seen these taken. No one takes dodge for its own sake - it’s just a stepping stone for much better feats/classes. The +NA feats aren’t even stepping stones!

>Feats the grant +2NA: Okay, these can be useful at low levels. Better than toughness for some low-level PCs. Stacking them is worthwhile as well - +4AC for two feats is not bad ~lvl5, and quite strong ~lvl3. At high levels their usefulness drops off, but the truly obsessive AC optimizer might snag some. I think the guy I was DMing for might have had photosynthetic skin or something similar.

> Hypothetical feats that grant unconditional +4 NA: Overpowered at low levels, maybe okay in high-op groups. Reasonable at high levels unless it feeds into a feat chain. Totally fine if it IS a later feat in a chain.

>Feat that gives +1 NA in low level low-op games, +2-3NA at low levels in mid/high-op, +4NA at high levels or mid levels depending on optimization level, and +6 or more NA in high-level very high-op groups: I find this to be ideal. A feat that is always relevant. Well, it’s still bad if you’re only getting +1 out of it, but you know what I mean.

>Feats that grant large amounts of NA but have some sort of extra cost – I’d have to read them in more detail. May or may not be useful. The wildshape one is meh unless you can use it while IN wildshape. In which case it is a decent pick. High level druids have a lot of wildshapes to burn and +4 is quite nice at lower levels.

@Builds
I am unfortunately out of time today. I’ll give a summary of the Ozodrins I have played though:

NPC: Back before the group entered crazy high-op land I was running a game that had an Ozodrin NPC in it. She was level.. 15, I think, and wasn’t doing crazy extra feat shenanigans. Farspawn was still responsible for giving her a much needed boost. Dunno where I put her stats, unfortunately.

LowLevelGuy: A CN Ozodrin I play in an off-again on-again game that is not very optimized. He had reached level 2, might be level three now. His build is as follows:
Race: Human
Feats: Durable Form, Inhuman Vision, aberrant blood(B)
He goes all-eyes with one mouth in combat, using a longspear to get draw his foe's attention and his large HP total to tank them (I think he has 16 str, 18 Con, 16 Cha). Devour is currently out-of-combat healing via unconscious foes but it’ll be in combat soon. He might take power attack at level 3, maybe pick up the fighter-feats-count-as-aberrant-ones at level 6. He’ll have to star farspawning up at somepoint.

Primary: A CG Ozodrin I played from level 2 to level 19 over the course of a few years. The campaign should start up again in the summer. Unfortunately, the game is extremely high-op so I have to de-crazify it glean useful info. Granted, some stuff that comes up (like ‘holy cow O3.5 budding body is complicated’) can clearly be applied to general gaming. The pcs also became gestalt around level 13 thanks to some plot events. So yeah, level 19 gestalt Ozodrin/PileOfClasses with 28 feats [17 of which are aberrant], Cha 47, and ~128fp. Most party members have similar feat totals, but none of them are going aberrant. Well, I guess our living airship has aberrant feats. But it really just needed aberrant monstrosity to qualify for the [dragon] racial feats – gotta maximize that flight speed.

I am pretty sure I've played more Ozodrins than this, but not in any long games. A oneshot here or there.

@Other stuff
I'll have to get back to you later.


--------------------------------------------------
Edit:

On caps and the adjustment of them: I realize I'm not really working with you on this, but it's because your current cap level mostly achieves the goal you set out to achieve with it.

I'm arguing that goal is better achieved in other ways. The middle ground is not always the best - if you raised the cap high enough to not rain on the optimized parade it would no longer be low enough meaningfully stop anything. And if it can't meaningfully stop anything why have the cap in the first place?

Also, there already was a cap of sorts on mass aberrant. A cap that raised or lowered itself depending on how optimized the group was. That cap was "how many feats your PC has". I honestly think it was doing a good job.

[Hanuman]

Spoiler: Archived - Data, Philosophy and Build Math

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@Farspawn
-@Balance W/ Optimization
Granted, Farspawn's functionality as an optimization bandaid has been removed, it was not intended to have such. It's intended as an alternative to putting feat strength in feat effect.
I agree, the mechanics are too complicated for such a slight variance.
Honestly I don't mind lowering the initial feat take as that's the balance anyway.
I've changed Farspawn to reflect this.

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Farspawn - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• You gain 1 Form Point Per Ozodrin Level To A Maximum of 3FP.
• Alternative - With your DM's permission you may take this feat only once and remove it's maximum FP gain; The party must be optimized to allow this.

That should push the balance from 3.4FP to 5.1FP or so, pending DM approval in a case-by-case scenario and will inform the DM of the conditions where it is appropriate. Also is slimmer and reads better, thanks!

-@High Level Changes
One of the things I wanted to address is making features more vague.
Some features now state they are actually a lot of bodyparts represented as one feature, and those that may not be have the Many feature added for good measure.
This makes things read like [Feature][Many][Augments][Strike]
Let's say everything equals 1 and many equals 2, this is your normal loadout:
[Feature1][Augmentsx5]
[Feature1][Augmentsx5]
[Feature1][Augmentsx5]
[Feature1][Augmentsx5]
Total 24
OR
[Feature1][Many2][Augments5][Strike4]
Total 12

This is essentially the same thing, granted the totals are actually 72 and 36 but you can see how you wouldn't need 72FP to accomplish the same mechanics of the old loadout, nor would you need so many lines or mechanical objects to manage. All this (including quickforms) is to keep the player in the game, not in the book.



@Optimization & Balance Philosophy
While I agree with your points philosophically I think I addressed most of them in my last post, but I will rephrase.

Balancepoint, Reference, Referencepoint and such are terms for the homebrew adage "If you want to make a mechanic, find an existing reference and balance it to that." So, I challenge you to find feats that grant the same basic mechanics (HP gain, NAC, Saves, ECT) and measure up how weak the ozodrin's feats actually are because according to my research Ab. feats for the ozodrin are actually much more powerful than feats that do the same thing in generally BECAUSE they upgrade. +3NAC at level 15 is actually on-par with top other feats that do the same thing (see: last post) and it scales bonus with level for the ozodrin meaning a high power feat can be bought at level 1.
+1FP/Feat is icing on the cake.

I want to cater to optimized groups, but I don't want the ozodrin to be inherently optimized. That's called unbalanced.

-@Who is being helped by the caps
Anyone not intending to compete with other players or the campaign for more passive power.
Players are helped because it applies appropriate balance (unless ozodrins NEED those extra points in which case you need to say that directly and tell me how much (#) they need). (Leads into next point.)

-@Character "Hill"
Totally agree, but I find that DM's worth their salt are going to see the big picture of the class, they will (and have) commonly seen the stacking bonuses and have been concerned about them but it's hard to make a call when the class has so many moving parts. Putting a cap on it actually makes it appear more balanced to a DM, having a DM note on a feat saying that a player may ask for more power makes it more likely that a player will get it if the situation genuinely calls for it, and less likely they will get it if the situation does not. This keeps the DM and player happy unless one of the two are malfunctioning in a way that attempt to throw the balance.
Be open with your DM about the changes, if you need me to write your DM a note I'd be happy to. <3

@Feat Comparisons
+4 Unconditional NA does not exist and the only scenario where it is actually OK to be used is in a group that is too powerful for standard balance.
Why then should this be the default?

Toughness is actually great in pathfinder http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/genera...ghness---final , but it's still not as good as durable form is while capped.

@NPC
Was this NPC a cohort or what? The extra abilities could have been written in or granted by a level or two ahead of the game.

@Alt
Sounds pretty neat, but why does he have to go down a certain path?

@Main
That's a pretty crazy mess there!
To be perfectly honest I hadn't even considered the scenario that players were playing heavily invested ozodrin as the main class in a gestalt game over level 17. You may want to consider every aspect of this class carefully and how it translates your ozodrin character because that's pretty intense.

I see now why you are pushing so hard to lift the cap, but I currently do not agree with your previously mentioned points. Your situation is VERY specific, you have more than double the amount of feats as a regular character and you are playing them in an entirely different style and method of play, something the cap does not account for.

Honestly you need to make a call whether that rule benefits your balance in the group or not, or you need to make a detailed layout of how that all works in your group and we can come to some sort of strategy for handling slightly pre-epic gestalt.

Perhaps have a level 20 ability that removes the cap?

Would you mind posting your characters via Mythweavers or another method so I can see the application? It would help with the class.

@Other Method
Can you cite or link the rule that better handled feat stacking?

@Other Stuff
Thanks so much for the feedback, looking forward to it!

Edit- Updates

*I've gone ahead and edited Infinite Horror to remove the aberrant feat stacking limitation leading into epic ozodrin.

+Feat (x5) (Basic feature unlocks)

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Spike - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• You gain access to the Ozodrin's Spike feature.

Fin - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• You gain access to the Ozodrin's Fin feature.

Spawn - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 3

• You gain access to the Ozodrin's Spawn feature.

Stomach - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 3

• You gain access to the Ozodrin's Stomach feature.

Puppet - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 6

• You gain access to the Ozodrin's Puppet feature.

[Magikeeper]

@Those three feats

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Comparison feats: Well, first off, a human that takes aberrant feats and doesn’t take Ozodrin levels already has a leg up. Moreso if they take classes that grant open-ended bonus feats – although those are pretty rare, true. But on the other hand, most aberrant feats worth taking in the long run were the ones on the Ozodrin thread.

But let’s look for something specific:

Durable Form: Psionic Body. A psionic feat that does the exact same thing, only for [Psionic] feats. +2 HP per feat. Morever, there are many classes that give free psionic feats. Even classes that give 5 of ‘em.

Beastial Hide: No real comparison. It’s telling when my search actually brought up a thread on this very forum where asking what feats to take to raise AC prompts everyone convincing the person to use something besides feats. Most of high AC builds use some combination of spells/class features/items/high stats. Sometimes templates. I was kinda expecting at least one absurdly obscure super feat, but I guess I would already know about it if it existed. Anyway, it’s still just decent. +3 AC at level 15 is not a high-powered feat. It just isn’t. Power attack is a high powered feat. If there was a feat that gave +5 Craft(Basket Weaving), it would be the best feat for basket weaving in the game (I think?). But that wouldn’t make it high-powered.

Inhuman Vision: For people already taking aberrant feats, this probably the best +Spot feat in the game. Next best one is probably the one that lets you make an active spot check as a free action once per round. Keen Intellect might be better for high-op PCs with very high int and very low wisdom. There are a lot of magic items that boost spot though. A number of low-level spells as well.

It’s interesting the focus appears to be on bestial hide. Inhuman vision could well deserve it, and Durable form is the feat whose nerfing I’m the most put out about. Hide is just sort of bland. It was fine for what it did. It wasn’t until this discussion that I realized it seriously might be the top dog of the AC feat world. Overachievers they are not. The only one of the three that makes something possible that might otherwise not be possible for the Ozodrin (low level tanking) is durable form, IMO. Ozodrin already had the power to make really high spot checks, I mostly grab inhuman just so the party can continue to count on me rather than find ourselves in a bind when the low-level ozodrin starts shifting away from mass-eye set ups.

@Who is being helped
Yes, because of the extra feat flood! I keep noting that a problem currently exists, and that the cap solves it. I also keep noting the cap solution has consequences that could be avoided with a different solution. Then you counter by restating the problem.

@On desires to raise the cap
Eh, the level 19 PC only recently retrained in beastial hide. Not a big loss – as one would expect the vast majority of her AC comes froms items, buffs, and a couple levels from her non-ozodrin side. 87 - 8 is still 79, and touch AC is way more important anyway. Losing 34HP would be sad, and the hit to spot checks would hurt as well since no one else in the party can reliably make the checks we encounter. Her darkvision range is already massive due to templates so that’s not a big issue. The changes to various features would be a much bigger concern, cap is almost a non-issue in comparison.

The PC that would be hit the hardest from the cap would actually be the low level guy that just used a human bonus feat – going from +6hp to +2 hp would be a big deal. Not to mention eyes would no longer give a low level AC bonus anymore.

Overall though, I mostly view the cap discussion as a staging ground to debate the design philosophy behind the cap's existence. This is important since it will presumably direct the course of the entire class. I care about the cap, just not quite as much as my pages and pages of text would imply.

SOME EARLY COMMENTS ON FEATURES:

@Infinity Mouths & Tentacles
I just noticed that fine sized mouths are currently free and fine sized tentacles are a net gain of +1FP. I suspect that is… unintended.

@So much invisibility
I’ve noticed a lot of augments replace ‘is mysteriously non-existent with ‘is invisible’. The former feels more far realmian and doesn’t clash with a desire to wear serapes. The latter is like a ghost that’s really a guy with a sheet over his head.

This is also a serious issue for puppet – just making the string invisible is not good enough VS high level npcs with magic access. Doesn’t even need to be high op for that to be true. Missing string + counting as mundane was what made fooling people a legitimate possibility.

@Fin
I liked the Many “Blah” augments. Fin should have one as well!

@Spikes
So, detached spikes lose all abilities.. then the throwing spike augment doesn’t actually work. Because no spike you can throw has it. It also losses the charm of shooting spikes at people.
It looks like anything involving poison is gone, which could be its own feat/organ, but still.

@Eye
>The eyes were the catch-all for all remaining FP you didn’t know what to do with. Just dump it into eyes. There is now no low-level 1fp feature that does something in multiples of 1fp. Without a cap, anyway.
>Why does insightful eye have a cap? As written it doesn’t stack with itself. There is no benefit to
applying it more than once.

@Spawn
> Do you command them telepathically?
> How much damage do they deal?
> Can you communicate with them? They have senses, after all.
> An augment to remove the distance limit would be nice.
> What do they look like? Can you decide?
> Why does removing any spawn feature kill all spawns, even those created from different instances of the feature?
>It would probably be simpler to just give spawn str/dex/con - / int - / wis / cha. (13/10/-/-/10/10). Makes interacting with spells and buffs and stat-effecting abilities so much easier.

@Other Features
Stomach is still mostly empty
There is a noticeable lack of the old magic-eating/energy-eating/etc flesh.
Pretending Flesh is still gone as well.


@Other stuff
I'll eventually respond to the other queries.

[Hanuman]

Spoiler: Archived - Small Fixes and Outdated Responses

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@Comparison to Humans
Disagreed.
+1FP/Feat incentive and Ozo grants the throwaway prereq. The human could take another non-ab feat anyway and not miss any stacking efficiency, let's say, touch of golden ice.

@Durable Form [Psionic]
5 bonus feats at +0LA with no HD?
Sounds cheese.

@Beastial Hide
Valid argument, but +3NA for 1 feat with no prereqs is actually still good.
I'm not saying regular NA feats are good, I'm saying beastial hide is more powerful than them when stacked, even with cap.

@Feats in General
It's homebrew, why don't you just make some aberrant feats if you don't like LoM's selection?

@Cap
At this point, if the feats are underpowered compared to the feat comparisons available that are not broken or abusive please say so. Ozodrin is already quite strong but not old chedda strong.

@Low Level AC
It used to cost 6FP for +2AC, now it costs 5FP.
Humans can get toughness for 3HP then 1HP/Level after 3 anyway.
Non-issue.

@Mouth/Tentacle Small Augment
Not intended, good catch! Still had some copypaste errors on it too heh.
Fixed fully with some flavor options as well.
As for how many tentacles you have with the Many augment, I'm not discounting the possibility of infinity tentacles.

@Ghost Sheet

Flavored and crunched to your suggestion and humor.

@Fin
Changed it so Fin counts as a Many augmented feature with no mechanical bonus or cost (as per original intent) and added strike with a prereq of Razor for now just to balance out strike.

@Spike
That's due to very bad wording, I left it a bit open-ended so I could expand it later. I think this should patch it up for now.

@Eye
I'd like to hear your feedback on what would make the best feat dump.
Perhaps something that grants HP or something.
Insightful eye fixed to stack.

@Spawn
-@Telepathic
Any way you want, takes an action, has a set range and you aren't aware what they are aware of. Go nuts
-@Damage
1 + Con or Int
-@Communication
They don't act unless you make them act, so it's one-way.
-@Range
Range is set for now, I shall defer to Selinia for that call.
-@Appearance
Yes, totally up to the player.
-@Kill
It's a hard reset to prevent carry-over in any way.
-@Stats
They really aren't supposed to be that deep, more like tokens on a grid with a few numbers attached.

@Stomach
Still working on it!

@Other Stuff
Looking forward to it!

Because I feel I never properly addressed this point:

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the 'Infinite Horror' isn't nearly as useful as it seems to be. Even though your form point count will grow exponentially and rocket into the thousands after just a few level ups, your number of usable feature attacks per round and your ability to apply augmentations still scales linearly.

It's still a mind-blowingly good ability, mind, but not THAT good.

60FP boost is to lead into epic features and augments (in progress), and the scaling of 60FP is equivalent to about 20 feats worth of power. The ozodrin simply does not need a single boost like this until epic levels where the ozodrin becomes more unto a demigod or a lesser elder evil.

Spoiler: Archived - Pre RatioRemake Updates

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Edit- Updates

+Augment
Added Hive augment to Spawn feature, allowing the ozodrin to provide some minor battlefield control and some interesting flavor options.

+Feat

Spoiler: Mask

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Mask - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• As a free action you may gain or dismiss a nonmagical Disguise Self effect.
• Instead of gaining +10 Disguise you take a -5 penalty.

+Feat

Spoiler: Heavyweight

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Heavyweight - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• For the purposes of calculating carrying capacity you are treated as having a +3 bonus to strength for every 2 aberrant feats you possess.
• If you take this feat a second time, in place of the feat's normal effect you may use your Hit Die instead of your Base Attack Bonus for calculating your CMD (Pathfinder).

*Tweaked introduction flavortext.

*Balance tweaked Alterable Form, changing the damage die increase (last line) to cost 2FP instead of 1FP.

Spoiler: Alterable Form

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Alterable Form - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Aberrant Blood, Form Points

• You may modify your true form's body further.
• You may not alter your features with this feat and these changes do not effect your Guise.
• All changes take 1 move action to alter or undo and you may only make these changes whenever you'd normally be able to add features.
• You may remove any bodypart which grants a bonus or mechanical benefit, you then gain 1FP per bodypart (or set of body parts if they come in pairs or are granted by the same source) removed in this way.
• You may improve non-feature bodyparts as follows:
• Turn any bodypart into a feature it mechanically qualifies or over-qualifies for for 0FP.
• Turn any bodypart into a feature that causes a non-replaced loss of mechanical benefit for 1FP less than the feature cost.
• Turn any bodypart into a feature with similar mechanical benefit for 1FP.
• If one of your natural attacks deals less than 1D6 you may upgrade it's damage by 1 die stage for 2FP per upgrade.

+Class Feature

Spoiler: Bio Pool

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Bio Pool (Ex): You store energy with special properties.

"Bio" is a Far Realms energy that has Magic, Psionic, Spiritual and Biological properties. Despite this it is never detected nor enhanced by effects that would normally interact with these sources.

Ozodrins gain a Bio Pool with a maximum capacity of 1.

Ozodrins acquire Bio from devouring digestible matter, done in two ways:
Normal - Consume 1 Bio worth of material and gain 1 Bio in 10 minutes. This "pending bio" has maximum of your Bio pool's lowest maximum at any point of digestion.
Instant - Consume 3 Bio worth of material and gain 1 Bio instantly.

Acquiring Bio:

• Using the Devour class feature.
• Gain 1 Bio from eating a creature with 2HD, or two creatures with 1HD, ect.
• Gain 1 Bio from eating half of a creature with 4HD, or 1/3 of a creature with 6HD, ect.
• Gain 1 Bio from eating 50lbs of any organic matter or 10lbs of competently prepared food.
• Gain 1 Bio from eating 50g worth of anything you can digest that isn't organic matter.

Expending Bio
Whenever you rest your Bio is automatically converted into HP.

• 1 Bio - Move Action - Heal 2HP
• 2 Bio - Full Round Action - Heal 1 Point of Ability Damage
• X Bio - Swift Action - Use Organ's Bio Effect

^Let me know how to better word this class feature, if you think having Bio Effects cost swift actions is a good idea any anything else that stands out, thanks!

*Wrote up some level tags, let me know if any one of these looks particularly better or worse.

Spoiler: Level Tag Sampler

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Manifest (Ex): [1] You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex): [Lvl 1] You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex): [Level 1] You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within. [1]

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within. Level 1

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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1 | Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Level 1 | Manifest (Ex): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) | 1 You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) | [1] You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) | 1 - You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) | [1] - You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) | Level 1 - You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) | [Level 1] - You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest (Ex) (Level 1): You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest [Ex] - [Level 1] - You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...
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Manifest [Ex] [ 1 ] - You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.

When a creature becomes an ozodrin...


I'm up to making more samplers or specific ones if requested, feel free to post whatever you think looks good too.

Because my update format is generally unlisted I'm adapting writing the content of the tags into the spoiler, as seen with Level Tag Sampler above.

+Feat

Spoiler: Growth

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Growth - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• You must take this feat at level 1.
• You may consider yourself to have one more feat than Aberrant Affinity's scaling limitation would allow.
• Every time you gain an aberrant feat you may choose to gain 1 Skill Point or 1 Hit Point.

^Growth is intended to address human players who start off with a bonus aberrant feat that does not count towards their scaling. Pathfinder humans already have +1SKP or +1HP per level so this should add a nice thematic bonus.

*Clarified "Optional Rules", and added colors to clarify DM notes and developer notes. (Shown in 1.0 Introduction)

(Currently working on expanding stomach and fin options and working the Esoteric PrCs into feat unlocked augments.)

(In addition I'm thinking of adding the entire Bio system as optional rules, including all bio effects. I think the ozodrin benefits heavily from this optionality but I would like it if the player didn't feel pressured to use it. I'll spend some time thinking on how best to implement it, please let me know if you guys can offer any advice.)

*Added a flavor-image for the Tether Archetype and did a touchup of it's introduction (likely small re-write later).

+Feats

Spoiler: Favorite Pet and Evolved Pet

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These feats are intended to grant a strong lead-in for spawn oriented ozodrin at early level and to enhance the flavor of your spawn, giving them the ability to receive buffs, extra range and personalization.

Favorite Pet grants +3FP bonus due to it's not needing the feature and Evolved pet grants a free 2FP augment and command separation making it a VERY strong and versatile option.

Enjoy!

Favorite Pet - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1, Spawn Feature

• Once one of your basic unaugmented spawn has lived for at least 24 hours you may give it a name and consider it a "Pet".
• Your command range for a pet is 1 mile.
• Pets do not die due to spawn feature removal, it is not needed for them to live and it remains even while the FP is refunded.
• Pets are considered to have attributes: Str13, Dex10, Con-, Int-, Wis-, Cha-.
• You may only ever have one pet at a time.

Evolved Pet - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1, Spawn Feature, Favorite Pet

• As a swift action you may remove or add your pet to your Collective.
• A free pet takes -2 to all rolls and saves, but it makes those attacks and saves separate from your other spawn.
• When free your pet no longer needs actions to be commanded. It acts intuitively to the ozodrin's wishes and is not limited to the Spawn feature's command list.
• Your pet gains the attributes: Str 13, Dex10, Con-, Int3, Wis10, Cha4
• When a new pet is chosen it may have the Elite augment using the Brute or Sly options. After the 24 hour period the augment's FP is refunded. This does not allow you to have more than one elite spawn.

Spoiler: Ratio Remake Notes, Archived

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Hey guys!

Submit some pictures (any source) that clearly represents an augment, I'm going to start putting flavor pictures on things soon and I would love some fan input.

Private messaging is best but feel free to post it on the thread!

*Added an image of a tentacle chart sampling different possible tentacles. Thanks!

+Tether Feature (No augments yet!)

Spoiler: Projection (Tether Feature)

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Projection [4FP]
Appearance: Projections are forms of intangible aura, it must appear to be uniform, non-solid and cannot fool creatures into thinking the projection is something it visually duplicates.
Benefits: You gain a projection that inhabits all squares you and your features enter or occupy at any time, you may touch any object in those squares as a free action or you may make a touch attach against a creature as a standard action.
Special: You may effect anything that your projection touches as if effected by the spell Prestidigitation.

The intention behind "Projections" will be to add specific utility an some neat flavoring, giving the tether the ability to apply some effects incorporeally.

To expand on this, a 10' animat could allow a 0' projection attack with a range of 10', the animat would need to enter the square but not physically touch the target. This is similar to affixing a mouth or other 0' range feature to another feature except the projection's augments are intended to increase it's range, opening options for potential party-buffs, AoE effects, and lots and lots of flavor options.

*Started filling in 8.3 Epic Ozodrin Paths, I've decided to not make just 1 epic ozodrin but instead make a few options that the player can pick and choose from.

*Added a flavor-image for the Machine Archetype.

+Feat

Spoiler: Whispers Feat

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Whispers - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 10

• When you have a spirit eye active you gain Mindsight as the feat using the Spirit augment's range as telepathy range.

I'm rethinking the balancepoints for features/augments to a way more simplified version.
If I can get every feature/augment combo to equal 3/6/9's I can change it to 1/2/3's.
This will HEAVILY reduce the math needed to figure out builds, and by setting a minimal approach there will be no excess, solving "dump".
Ideally the cost of features and augments will all be the same, making the original system redundant.

The main issue here is that this would complicate adding FP from CHA and AB.FEATS, but I see this issue as minimal in comparison to how much it would improve how the system runs.

I've started a ratio remake and will be working on reformatting and rebalancing the ozodrin over the next week, in the meantime I've saved backups of the original balance datapoints in case the new ratios dead-end. Thanks for your patience!



Ratio Remake Notes (Work in Progress)

Spoiler: Ratio Remake Notes

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*Removed Form Point Gain from Aberrant Feats

Changed Charisma Bonus to 1/2 modifier (1FP/4cha over 10), this will maintain the new balance.

*Removed Aberrant Feat Cap

*Changed all class features to reflect the new FP ratio system remake.

*Changed Eye Feature to new FP ratio, granting multiple eyes for just one feature purchase and changing the bonuses accordingly.

*Lowered FP cost of eye augments and adjusted all of their augments and bonuses to be balanced with their new adjusted costs.

All eye augments check out, little concerned about the balance of Spirit Eye (maybe 20-30% more powerful than cost) but other than that we can do away with even having to record FP for augments, I'll work through all the features one at a time and see if this process can be repeated for all of them.

*Lowered FP cost of mouth augments and adjusted the bonuses to the new FP balance, temporary change on Small and Large, not quite sure how to balance them out properly for now.

*Adjusted FP costs on tentacle and limb augment/features and rebalanced their bonuses around, they will need some nudges here and there in the future but they're all within about 25% more or less (max) powerful than they previously were.

Spoiler: Ratio Remake Balance Data

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To simplify the changes:

Old System
3FP == Moderate CF or Feat Equivalent
3FP/Level
+1FP/ChaMod
+1FP/AbFeat
+1Ab.Feat/3Level Average

New System
1FP == Moderate CF or Feat Equivalent
1FP/Level
+1FP/per +2 ChaMod
+0FP/AbFeat (Ab. Feats moved to other bonuses.)
+1Ab.Feat Total, Unlocked Features will be made into a different system as per requested by Magikeeper

Old Balance [Level 1]
Level 1 - 3FP
Charisma 14 to 18 - 2FP to 4FP
Ab. Blood - 1FP
Ab. Feat Option - 0FP to 2FP
Average Exception Scenarios - 0FP to 2FP
Total Balance = 6FP to 12FP


New Balance [Level 1]
Level 1 - 1FP
Charisma 14-18 - 1FP to 2FP
Ab. Blood - NA
Ab. Feat Option - NA
Average Exception Scenarios - 0FP and Maybe 1FP
Total Balance = 2FP to 4FP

Features and augments will be adjusted around this concept, hopefully every augment and feature will equal 1FP in the new system.

[ZamielVanWeber]

While you do all this hard work I will sneak in with the promised PEACH of this class:

So, this is certainly a very interesting class. I do love the Far Realm (and I do mean love ). I also am a big fan of the free form shapeshifting that it offers (the only ones who can close in DnD proper are Thrall of Juiblex and Master Transmogrifist). Sadly, the first thing that strikes me when reading this is less "ooooh everything I ever wanted" and more "holy rules Batman."

With that in mind I need to point out the biggest problem with this class is the sheer value of rules hoisted upon the player early on. I understand that this is a new sub-system, but hot damn. I actually play tested this a little and feels like piloting a high level artificer without the T1 nonsense. The biggest offenders right now, for me, are the Bio Pool and the Primary Stomach.

I would recommend cleaning up the Bio Pool first. I would give it a it locked cap that resets every day. The methods of regaining bio should probably be simplified (use Devour, restart day, eat a freshly slain corpse of your size or greater.) Some other issues: You say you can gain bio from eating in-organic items of a value, and from eating creatures; golems are both.

For the primary stomach I would recommend making it more like a portable hole. It is functionally similar, but as written the primary stomach has a ton of fiddly rules, such as a constantly changing air supply based on the size of each creature swallowed, the massively large number of small creatures it can hold, and the fact a STOMACH does not injure the things inside of it is odd. Make air like a portable hole (a bit gets in when you open it and the amount if flat); I suggest making the stomach size(Level- mediums and making the size jump the normal X2 or /2 for each mod (this will make the stomach slightly larger); I will honestly let you decide on damage.

Your devour ability has two small issues: first is the fact you have to buy a bite attack, while this is one the ways you are clearly supposed to bet bio; secondly your bite attack does not damage undead/constructs while grappling. I would just regain bio (you can turn bio into health, so I am not 100% sure the extra mode is useful enough to add in there) to bites while grappling. The reason for dropping Con damage is the ability of a level 1 ozodrin to spam mouths, grapple, and unleash 3+ Con damage a round. Biting grapples should be rewarded, but they can trivialize some encounters, especially when the ozodrin has a substantial number of form points and can grapple very large creatures (think 10+ Con damage a round).

Drop the "DM" discretion line from Strange Anatomy about form altering attacks and just let them have the 5%/level immunity. At higher levels there are quite a few ways of avoiding those attacks anyways, so it isn't not a power level issue. Also make clear in Devour that artifacts are not destroyed (it makes no sense why a 2nd level character can simply destroy the Rod of Orcus when a 17th level wizard trying to do so is in incredible danger).

You may want to make unearthly power upgrade itself to Epic damage reduction at 17+, otherwise a player trying to get it would need to snag epic DR somehow to pay for a very redundant NoNA.

Swallow Whole: you did not list the multiplication for HP based on level but instead use one based on size. You will just need to clean that up.

There is a typo in features. "a list of features, by default" should be "a list of features; by default"

Edit: Blargh cut off. Lemme So fixes are above. I think there were more and a bit more nicely worded, but that is a bunch of stuff. Really at this point it is all about cleaning up the wording and a few odds and ends to streamline the core class.

[Hanuman]

Ratio Remake (Ozodrin Version 2.1)


Important Changes


Form Point Ratio

Spoiler: Form Point Ratio

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Highly reduced math and bookkeeping.

• Form Point Per Level Gain changed from 3FP to 1FP.
• Bonus FP changed from [+1FP/ChaMod and +1FP/Ab.Feat] to [+(3:1)FP/2ChaMod]
• Features and Augments adjusted and uniformed to cost 1FP each under the new ratio.

Rationale
This new balance gives incentive to high charisma ozodrins, and reduces optimization with aberrant feats.
It also makes FP dumping a non-issue, as there is no excess to be had.
It's now easier to gain maximum FP balance range but it does not require the previous complications of feat stacking and archetype funneling.

Organ Casting

Spoiler: Organ Casting

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The Bio system was intended to be a small utility and an overcharge, Organ Casting will replace that intention by introducting a modular and variable ability to cast limited spells.

• "Bio" Pool has been removed.
• Casting will first use the ozodrin's Strange Movement and when that runs out it will consume the ozodrin's hitpoints.
• Most organ augments and all bio effects have been removed.
• Each organ bought will improve the ozodrin's hitpoints by +3.
• Each organ grants 1 spell, chosen from a list of spells. Spells and domains can be unlocked further with feats, and other such things.
• Consuming a freshly slain corpse now regains 1HP per Hit Die of the creature, granting a scaling sustain mechanic to balance HP casting.
• Spells used by the ozodrin are very limited, with a maximum spell level of 6 and range and target limitations to narrow the utility potential.

Rationale
Because the ozodrin now runs on hitpoints rather than Bio it has highly improved utility at the cost of a more risky combat experience. Fast healing and other sources of infinite healing potential grant amazing utility options to the ozodrin out of combat.

Fin Remake

Spoiler: Fin Remake

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I've done an overhaul on fin and it's working really well now.

• Fin augment has been changed to grant +6 to swim. (Changing the ozodrin's profile to become more aquatic.)
• Augment to give the ozodrin a swim speed equal to it's land speed.
• Augment to give the ozodrin Sky Swim nonmagically.

Rationale
"Fin" grants a general physical profile, one feature is enough to give as many fins or aquatic looking things to the ozodrin as she wishes, granting a cheap aesthetic flavoring.
The options to gain fly and swim are now cheaper to gain the minimal A to B effect.
Because of the way that these augments are worded it grants the DM the ability to resolve flight either by reflex save or fly checks, and it grants perfect maneuverability which takes a lot of the pain out of aerial combat.

Smaller Changes


A few of the countless changes:

Spoiler: Change List

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Some of the class feature changes:

• Some class feature names have changed.
• Aberration type has been removed, opening the ozodrin's flavor options a bit.
• Primary Stomach has been changed to Portable Hole physics.
• Ozodrin bonus feats have been switched to the Unlock system.
• Twisted Mind now allows the ozodrin to grapple with gaze attacks.
• Sinister Image now has increased flavor options utilizing Enter Image.
• Infinite Horror replaced by Awakening, solving the unitilized FP issue and adding a tonne of flavor.
• "Super lying" removed and replaced by Unspeakable Presence, and while this does not have the same flavor potential it better advances the twisted mind intention at an appropriate level.

Feature/Augment Changes:
Honestly there are too many to make it worth listing, please take a look.

Things Not Fixed (For this week):

Spoiler: Things that need fixes...

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• The spells list (Level 2+) on organ casting are missing for the moment. (Accidental delete during forum software update.)
• Everything to do with archetypes are currently totally broken (OUT OF ORDER)
• Feats are not updated to the remake so know that they will be modified soon to reflect the new ratio and systems.
• Epic Ozodrin is currently not updated.
• PrC's have not been filled in.
• Stomach augments have not been expanded, but they are slowly moving up in priority.

[qazzquimby]

I actually like absurd amounts of bookkeeping, because I'm strange like that. What conversion would be necessary to port the new ozodrin's features into the old ozodrin?

[Magikeeper]

On a like-old-ozodrin-but-with-some-new-stuff: I will eventually make an updated Ozodrin for 3.5 that includes some of the ideas in this class, 'cause it does have some very neat ideas. I'm assuming Owrtho isn't coming back at this point, and the table being all messed up makes me feel better about possibly just creating a new thread linking to the old one. It'll be much more like the old class, although I hope to at least reduce some of the needlessly complex stuff (budding body).

Comments:

@Portable Hole - I already mentioned the issues with directly referencing portable hole earlier in this thread, and you seemed convinced? Then another guy wanted it to be more like portable hole, but he didn't note any of the numerous issues with direct referencing.

@Great Old One - The issue with this is not balance, but rather the power of the name. Like 'God', Great Old One is something whose meaning likely varies wildly from campaign to campaign. At the very least I think you should add a line noting that, at the DM's discretion, this ability may not be enough to qualify you as a 'true' great old one.

I do feel super-lying to yourself felt more like becoming increasing far-realmian but that might just be me.

@No Creature Type - This is more of a weakness than a strength, and I don't see how this class doesn't fit the aberration type. Ozodrin has always been the most aberration-y class I've seen, to the extent that it makes the WotC prestige classes and what-not look like posers.

Save Bonus - This now effects aberrations using regular class powers like sorcerer spells, which is why the old save bonus only effected racial abilities.

Vanilla - Leaving flavor open can be nice, but flavor was a big selling point of the original class and each iteration of this new version makes everything increasingly vague - both mechanically and fluff-wise. Owrtho erred on the side of being way too simulationist (budding body et. al.), but I feel this is swinging too far in the other direction. We might reach a point where a player can represent anything by playing this class, but that also means that the player must come up with all of their flavor on their own.

Bunches of stuff - Building on the above issue, there are a number of things where I go "That sounds fun... but how exactly does it work in game?". Example: Grappling with gaze attacks. Among other things, how does moving the grappled foe work?

Holy Links Batman! - Linking to tables and such is helpful, but there are points where the descriptions force a look-up when adding a couple words would cover the most common situations. For example, the damage a small sized bite attack deals. The new bite doesn't even use the table! Also, rather than make someone look up which attacks are primary you could just state them. There are only 3, and the Ozodrin adds a fourth! Having the reader jump through more hoops to save a little space is not a good trade-off. Linking bite AND detailing its damage for the base size (1d4) would be ideal.


FEATURES

PlayChange - It should be noted that this system reduces before-combat bookkeeping, but greatly increases the need and ability to swap powers out mid-combat (Based on a first glance-through). I'm not sure this really saves table time. These changes need to be playtested, I have no idea what the numbers need to be.

General - Text does not appear to match the table. Currently working off features that have text entries.

Eye - Perception feels like it realizes the Ozodrin has less FP now, but most of the other eye augments do not. Hardened is bizarrely useless, and I have no idea what the +1 DMG means (But even if it is +1 to everything, it is still a sad augment). I have no idea why anything besides the perception eye still has an augment limit.
Well, Spirit eye doesn't sound stackable so its cap doesn't matter, although it is vastly weaker now. Insightful Eye is just sad (although it was never very strong).

Mouth - Currently grants infinite form points via 'Small'. New bonus damage change streamlines damage calculations, not sure if it is really worth a point (didn't really bother increasing damage with old Ozodrin either though)

Tentacle - 'Small' again. All enchanted augments cost too many FP now. Why does traveling have a cap? It's like that only exists to slam down the combination with Sinister Image. There was nothing wrong with the combination with Sinister Image. :/

Organs - I'm not sure how I feel about this casting stuff.

[Hanuman]

Ozodrin 2.1 [Hotfix1]

Qazzquimby:

"What conversion would be necessary to port the new ozodrin's features into the old ozodrin?"

• If you mean Owrtho's Ozodrin then the first method would be to assume all features cost 3FP.
• The second would be to play the new ozodrin with more diversity options, that is, breaking down augments to cost 0.5 FP each (this can only apply to some features).
• I have created a feat to more suit the larger book-keeping to support that niche, let me know what else I can do

Fragment - [ Aberrant ]
Requires: Ozodrin Level 1

• A Fragment is a piece of an augment. Having a fragment counts as having the augment itself.
• Fragments have reduced stats, if the fragment does not list a concise bonus listed on the original augment then it does not grant it.
• For 1FP you may select 2 fragments from the list below, these function the same as augments in any other way.
• Gain 2 fragments for free.

Spoiler: Fragment List

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Augment Name	New Augment Ability
Darkvision	+30' DV
Perceptive Eye	+2 Perception
Insightful Eye	+5' See Invisible
Large Mouth	+1Size +1Dmg
Hooked Mouth	Bleeding1
Deceptive Mouth	+2 Speech Disguise
Trail Tasting Mouth	+3 Survival
Large Tentacle	+1Size, +1Dmg
Tail Tentacle	+2 Acrobatics
Serrated Tentacle	+1 Bleeding
Long Tentacle	+5' Reach, -1 Attack
Large Limb	+1Size, +1Dmg
Long Limb	+5' Reach, -1 Attack
Leg Limb	+1 Bullrush/Overrun
Rapid Limb	+10' Speed
Horrifying Limb	Manifest with DC+1
Battery Organ	HP = 1/2 Con
Adrenal Organ	+1 Str or Dex or Con
Listening Organ	+3 Audio Percetion
Hide Organ	+1 Natural Armor
Elemental Organ	Resist = 1/2 Level
Rail Organ	+50% Bonus Range
Delicious Spawn	Eat to Regain 3HP
Large Spike	+1Size, +1Dmg
Longshot Spike	+50' Spike Range
Plating Spike	Armor AC +1
Large Fin	+1Size, +1Dmg
Grace Fin	+10'
String Puppet	Missing 15' Cord
Trap Puppet	Manifest Feat, +1D3
Many Stomach	Split
Chamber Stomach	+50% Volume

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Magikeeper:

"Grappling with gaze attacks -- how does moving the grappled foe work?"

• Added to Twisted Mind (Ex): You may also use your gaze to Drag a creature.

"Flavor was a big selling point of the original class."

• Well that's certainly a valid point.
• The issue is that the flavor is being pulled out of the mechanics.
• The solution is to put this flavor in fluff instead.
• The decision was made because Ozodrin is the core and the archetypes are more like templates, so it makes more sense to put the flavor in fluff even though the archetypes are currently not functional.

"Portable Hole -- note any of the numerous issues with direct referencing."

• Modified Primary Stomach (Ex), let me know if this writeup is currently an issue.

"This ability may not be enough to qualify you as a 'true' great old one."

• Ozodrin 2.1 does not have DMNotes.
• I think if the DM finds that a great old one means something different to them that they will reach that conclusion on their own.
• For now it's using Pathfinder's definition and reference.

"I do feel super-lying to yourself felt more like becoming increasing far-realmian but that might just be me."

• I feel this should be a 6th level organ psi power, a feat, or an archetype ability.
• I do really like the self-disguise thing but I don't think it needs to be core.

"This now effects aberrations using regular class powers like sorcerer spells, which is why the old save bonus only effected racial abilities".

• Actually the orginal one implied abilities but RAW stated it recieved bonuses from both.
• Added a line to Aberrant (Ex) saying: "This bonus does not effect abilities gained through class levels."

"Currently grants infinite form points via Small Augment."

• Augment (1FP) + Small (1FP) grants +2 bonus FP = +0FP
• This augment is to make the feature prerequisite free to utility options such as the Air Tasting augment.
• I've added an extra line in the help section to clarify this. If anyone has a better way to word this let me know, I've worded it currently because the consice table reference is more simple.

"Linking bite AND detailing its damage for the base size (1d4) would be ideal."

• Bite, Tentacle, Slam, Claw, Talon and Sting gained by features/augments now state their damages and damage types.
• Added some damage choice options to Serrated Tentacle and Barbed Tentacle.

"This system reduces before-combat bookkeeping, but greatly increases the need and ability to swap powers out mid-combat."

• I am not sure that I agree with this, and do not know what changes to make to facilitate your wishes.
• If you have suggestions let me know and I'll try to work with them.

"Spirit eye doesn't sound stackable so its cap doesn't matter."

• Changed Spirit Eyes to reflect what you assumed it does, that is, allow all of your eyes regardless of feature to gain this effect instead of just the bit of you with the augmented eye.
• This is a buff, but it needed to be clearly worded.

"Hardened Eye Augment is bizarrely useless"

• Changed +1AC to +1 Natural Armor.
• Clarified wording to grant a feature's natural attacks +1 damage.
• 1FP is worth +2 damage or +2NAC, granting +1/+1 and allowing it to stack on other features is on-point for balance. It's strange, but it's put in to make your eyes more like beholder eyes, "hard as stone."

"I will eventually make an updated Ozodrin for 3.5 that includes some of the ideas in this class."

• I'd love to work on that with you, let me know.

"Text does not appear to match the table."

• Added Deceptive Mouth and Eldritch Fin augments to the tables.
• Synced the list order with the tables.

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Next Update:

• Ozoi Gallery
• Feat Section Repair
• PEACH Responses
• Stomach Augments
• General Improvements

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

[qazzquimby]

You frequently use bodypart, when body part is correct. I don't know if that's deliberate, because it causes a lot of red squigglies.

Under Budding Body:
"You may put any feature on a tentacle with a maximum FP cost equal to 1/3 your level on any one tentacle," is confusingly worded, thinks I.

Maybe replace with:
"You may put features on a tentacles. Any one tentacle can have up to 1/3 your level in form points
of features and augments."
I don't know if that actually helps, or if I'm even interpreting correctly.

The Jaws feat, "you" should be "your".

Your style with all the bullet point is not as clear as it could be. In some places, headings and underlaying text would be easier to follow.

Spoiler: Example from Alterable Form

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• You may modify your true form's body further.
• You may not alter your features with this feat and these changes do not effect your Guise.
• All changes take 1 move action to alter or undo and you may only make these changes whenever you'd normally be able to add features.
• You may remove any bodypart which grants a bonus or mechanical benefit, you then gain 1FP per bodypart (or set of body parts if they come in pairs or are granted by the same source) removed in this way.
• You may improve non-feature bodyparts as follows:
• Turn any bodypart into a feature it mechanically qualifies or over-qualifies for for 0FP.
• Turn any bodypart into a feature that causes a non-replaced loss of mechanical benefit for 1FP less than the feature cost.
• Turn any bodypart into a feature with similar mechanical benefit for 1FP.
• If one of your natural attacks deals less than 1D6 you may upgrade it's damage by 1 die stage for 2FP per upgrade.

"You may improve non-feature bodyparts as follows:" is an important transition, but it's listed the same way as additional information from the last section.

Note that I'm being nit-picky.

How I might write it.
You may modify your true form's body further. Whenever you would normally be able to add features, you may spend a move action to:

• Remove a non-feature body parts from you true form which grant a bonus or mechanical benefit, and gain 1FP per body part removed this way. If multiple body parts give the same function (such as having two ears which allow you to hear), all must be removed to gain 1FP. You may immediately spend that form point to grow a new feature in the removed body part's location.
  
• Turn a non-feature body part into any feature that the body part can function as mechanically (such as turning an eye into an eye feature). This costs 0FP.
  
• Increase the damage of one of your natural attacks that deal less than 1d6 damage by 1 die stage for 2FP.

That's assuming I interpreted everything correctly, which I may not have.

Not important, but why are there no longer benefits for having a billion eyes? If you stick enough eyes on, you should become immune to flanking, but here a single protruding eye does it, and a billion does nothing but +2,000,000,000 on your perception checks and lowlight vision.

Small mouths are effectively free, so you can have infinite mouths. I don't mind.

Absent limbs are strangely.. absent. I like absent limbs.


If you like, I can rewrite things when they're confusing. I don't know if anyone else has a problem with them. I could go through and tweak wording whenever it looks like it could use it, and have you look over the new version to ensure the meaning hasn't changed.

I'd also like to help with The Machine.

[Hanuman]

Ozodrin 2.1 [Hotfix2]

Ozoi Gallery (86 Images!)
(See: 1.2 Introduction for gallery link)
Suggestions of where the gallery should be located are welcome.

Qazzquimby:

"Why are there no longer benefits for having a billion eyes?"

• The Eye feature is not a singular eye anymore, it's easy to miss for veteran players but the amount of eyes the eye feature grants has no limit. (And why would it? What would be the point?)
• Eye feature has been changed in this hotfix to grant the effects of Protruding eye, and considering the usage of hair-eyes of ozoi this is pretty intuitive.
• Protruding eye has been removed.
• This also limits the stacking potential of eye features, which promotes a more streamlined build.

"How I might write it."

• Not only is rewording appreciated, suggestions in any form are going to improve this project. I'll try and work in anything you guys want into the class.
• Budding Body reworded and improved, more True-Limb emphasis made.
• Feats section has been repaired and formatted to the ratio remake:
• All requirements slimmed down and made interchangible with future archetypes.
• Feats are now more rewarding and easier to use.
• Alterable form highly modified, it was given a flat +2 Fortitude Save bonus, is easier to use and has a better array of options available despite it's slimmer profile.

"Absent limbs are strangely.. absent. I like absent limbs."

• Absent augment was replaced by the Horrifying augment, this was done to expand the flavor options of the feature.

"I'd also like to help with The Machine."

• I would love help with the machine archetype, any flavor, crunch or fluff you suggest or work on is appreciated and I'll try my best to encorperate it.

Stomach Feature

• Added an array of augments I'm happy with releasing for now, more to come.
• Stomach changed so that it can have the Hide, Iron Flesh and Elemental organ augments applied to it, and made the clear distinction that it does not gain the ozodrin's NA, DR or Resistances.
• Made general improvements to streamline the stomach and how it works.

Puppet Feature

• The maximum augments for the trap feature has been improved drastically (from 1/8 Levels to 1/3 Levels), this is a damage increase to give huge incentive for puppet play.

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Next Update:

• Archetype Gallery
• Archetype Section Repair
• PEACH Responses
• Ozodrin Organ Spells
• General Improvements

Thanks guys, things are looking good thanks to your feedback!

[qazzquimby]

Spoiler: Reformatting and rewording, first try anway.

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2.1 Class Features

Manifest (Ex) ι 1 ι You are a disguise for an ever-changing terror within.
When a creature becomes an ozodrin, their former shape becomes a form known as a "Guise", which is a disguise that contains her true self.

An ozodrin's true self can be reformed and enhanced by using a pool of "Form Points" to create "Features".

As a swift action an ozodrin may Manifest or suppress her true nature. While her true nature is manifested, all of her features are revealed and can be used.

When manifesting her true form, all creatures the ozodrin wants to affect that have a line of sight to her must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 class level + Charisma modifier) or become Shaken until the end of the encounter or longer at the DM's discretion.
If a creature succeeds their save, they become immune to the effect for 24 hours.

An ozodrin may choose to suppress any visual effect of an aberrant feat, bloodline or feature, but doing so also disables it's mechanical effect.


Features (Ex) ι 1 ι You may change your physical components.
An ozodrin has a number of form points (FP)equal to it's ozodrin class level plus half it's Charisma modifier rounded down. Ozodrin that are racially larger than medium gain a bonus to maximum FP equal to it's special size modifier.

While in your guise, you may spend spend a move action to allocate a number of form points up to 1 + 1/4 your total FP towards features or augments, and/or refund any number of features or augments.

The ozodrin gains a list of features to use, which includes the Eye, Mouth, Tentacle, Limb and Organ features by default.

All non-epic features and augments cost 1 FP each.


Natural Attacks Sidebar

Spoiler

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The ozodrin uses the following rules for Natural Attacks:
Pathfinder Natural Attacks

Natural Attacks follow special rules for an Ozodrin:

• An ozodrin cannot make more attacks with its natural attacks granted by features per round than half the sum of its class level + its Charisma modifier.
• If a feature grants a natural attack that is considered Primary on this table she may always treat it as Primary.
• Tentacles are always considered Primary for the ozodrin.
• If the ozodrin has natural attacks from sources other than its Ozodrin class levels, she may choose to use natural attacks from that source as primary natural attacks instead.
• If an ozodrin makes natural attacks and attacks with a weapon, the natural attacks are considered secondary.
• Feature sizes are always independent of the ozodrin who created it, when a feature is added it is given a set size to determine damage and other ozodrin class features.

Unnerving Grace (Ex) ι 1 ι You inspire abstract beauty as well as subtle anxiety.
You gain a bonus to both intimidate and diplomacy checks equal to half your ozodrin levels.


Aberrant (Ex) ι 1 ι You can feel yourself becoming a monster.
Gain the Shapechanger subtype and a bonus to Will Saves against Aberrations equal to your Class Level. This bonus does not effect abilities gained through class levels.


Unlock (Ex) ι 1 ι Choose your destiny.
Gain one Unlock feature.

Every time you gain an Unlock you may choose between one option listed in 4.0 Unlocks.

Devour (Ex) ι 2 ι Viciously consume pinned foes.
When using bite attacks on a pinned opponent you may ignore the attack roll penalty, the limitation on weapon number, and the limitation on attacking that all arise from pinning an opponent.

Whenever you successfully bite a pinned opponent you may deal 1 point of con damage and regain 2 hitpoints, instead of doing the bite's normal damage.

Whenever you consume a freshly slain corpse you gain 1HP per hit die of the creature.

Grappling Sidebar

Spoiler

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When playing an ozodrin please reference the Pathfinder (aka DnD3.75e) Grapple Rules, the Grappled Condition and the Pinned Condition.


Full Size Chart

Primary Stomach (Ex) ι 2 ι Your stomach is a living plane.
An ozodrin's stomach functions as an extra-dimensional space with a maximum volume of 20 cubic feet per level. The stomach is never significantly larger than its contents; it shrinks to minimize empty space.

Any number of an ozodrin's mouths can be considered an opening.

While the ozodrin is in her guise, or has no mouths, the oxygen is cut off. After this, there is enough air to support a creature for 1 minute for every creature of it's size that could fit in the stomach, after which point suffocation begins.

An ozodrin must put an eye inside her stomach to see creatures inside. Creatures touching walls gain only partial concealment.

An ozodrin's stomach counts as separate from her body and has it's own AC, DR and Resistances but she may add any feature to it as if it were her body.

A stomach may be augmented with the Stomach feature augments or the Hide, Iron Flesh or Elemental Organ feature augments.

Any object holding a semiplane or extradimensional space put into the ozodrin's stomach takes on the physics of a stomach, but cannot be augmented. This object can be removed as a full round action.

Strange Anatomy (Ex) ι 3 ι Your body no longer works like it used to.
The Ozodrin gains a 5% chance per ozodrin level to ignore critical hits, sneak attacks damage, effects that target your anatomy (such as decapitation, bone subsumption, blood drain, ect), and falling damage. Roll to determine upon each instance or attack.

She may ignore size requirements when gaining feats, but only gain their benefits when the size requirements are met.


Bizarre Grappler (Ex) ι 4 ι You are adept at grappling with creatures of any size.

• You gain the Improved Grapple and Snatch feats, even if you do not have the prerequisites.
• If you already had Improved Grapple, you instead gain a bonus Aberrant feat.
• If you already had Snatch, you instead gain a +2 untyped bonus to grapple checks.
• Your Snatch feat works, regardless of your size, for attacks made with any feature of Large or larger size.
• You ignore your negative size modifiers to grapple checks.

Unearthly Power (Ex) ι 5 ι Your body holds a strength from the far realms.
Natural weapons granted by your features gain an enchantment bonus to attack rolls equal to 1/2 your class level and bypass damage reduction as though they were magic weapons.

Strange Movement (Ex) ι 7 ι You may disappear one place and re-appear another.
As a standard action while in your true form, you may non-magically teleport to a location you can see.

You can move 5' per level total with strange movement per day, but you may split this distance over multiple uses.

When teleporting you may choose to disappear into an extra-dimensional space, using of 5' of movement per round you remain there.

If you try to teleport to a location already occupied by a solid object or creature, you are shunted automatically to the nearest open space. This uses Strange Movement distance as normal, and deals 1d4 damage per 5' beyond your daily limit.

At level 10: Effects that block teleportation do not prevent strange movement.

Swallow Whole (Ex) ι 8 ι You may consume a creature of any size.

• You gain the Swallow Whole special attack, following these rules:
  
• A mouth needs to be the same size or larger than the creature you are attempting to swallow.
• Your stomach walls gains a bonus to AC equal to your charisma modifier.
• In order to create an opening for escape damage must be dealt equal to [ 5 * Ozodrin Level * Creature's Special Size Modifier ], these wounds close 1d4 rounds after no damage is dealt to the stomach.
• A creature may choose to escape by climbing out, this requires two successful opposed grapple checks using the creature's CMD and then a DC20 climb check.

Budding Body (Ex) ι 9 ι Your tentacles may blossom into features.
You may put features on a Tentacles and True Limbs

Any one Tentacle or True Limb can have up to 1/3 your level in form points of features and augments.[/list]

[Hanuman]

Ozodrin 2.2

Machine Gallery (17 Images)

Dreamer Gallery (2 Images)


Important Changes


Feature Size Fix

Spoiler: Feature Size Fix

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Bodyparts do not have sizes, creatures have sizes.

• Features no longer are considered to have sizes, instead augments and class abilities have been changed to treat you as if you were larger than you are for certain purposes.

Rationale
I've been working on removing feature sizes for a while, it adds a layer of mechanical complexity to every feature, now that layer of complexity is only present when the ozodrin makes changes that specifically interact with it.
Additionally, it no longer "hard-sets" the flavor of larger features, they now can be any size and still accomplish the same mechanical effect, so more freedom is left to the player.

Natural Weapon Type, Spell Unity

Spoiler: Natural Weapon Type, Spell Unity

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Easier spell/power integration.

Strange Anatomy now grants the additional effect:

All of your natural weapons may be treated as any other type of natural weapon for the purposes of being effected by beneficial spells or powers.

Rationale
A lot of spells and powers target one or two types of natural weapons where as the ozodrin uses several. This is intended as a fix to that issue but also has a lot of 'quality of life' improvements for friendly spells and powers and generally improves the utility of buffs from all sources regardless of the ozodrin's feature choices.

Class Feature Changes

Spoiler: Class Feature Changes

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Better flavor adaption.

• Naught Morality changed to Beyond Morality and cut the description by putting in a link.
• Aberrant (Ex) changed to Nightmare (Ex), changing the bonus against aberrations to a bonus against fear effects.
• Twisted Mind now grants immunity to fear.

Rationale
Beyond Morality was already an effect, so I linked it and changed the name accordingly, making it more simple and concise.

Removing aberrant flavor from the ozodrin is something I do often but this one was tricky, I really like the kind of "strange friends" type flavor ozodrin get. That being said, I looked at what is most destructive to the ozodrin's archetype. I feel that fear effects humanize the ozodrin far more than any aberrant effect that makes it past it's resistance to biological effects. Confusion, insanity and other things should be welcome to the ozodrin, but why fear? It has no place in the character flavor so it was removed, honestly I would have kept the save vs. aberrations if the balance were correct.
Keep in mind the optionality is still there and an aberrant flavor archetype will be added to the Ozodrin at a later time. For now feel free not to change the effect if it doesn't suit you.

Organ Spell List

Spoiler: Form Point Ratio

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Finally functional!

The ozodrin spell/power list is functional, it contains a variety of fun things to play with.

Rationale
A lot of the ozodrin's functionality from owrtho's version has been upgraded with the spell list, augments such as Luminous have been replaced by the Light spell, with plenty of interesting yet simple solutions built in. Enjoy!

Added

• Warning Eye Augment - Grants +4 Initiative
• Precise Eye Augment - Grants Weapon Finesse and +1 to Attack Rolls with manufactured weapons.
• Armory Limb Augment - Emulate or Graft a weapon.
• Harpoon Spike Augment - Creates a tethered harpoon.
• Conversion Organ Augment - Change Elemental damage to Hellfire, Positive, Negative or Force damage.
• Whisper Skilltrick - Allows secret communication.
• Selective Invisibility - Allow creatures to see you aka mess with their heads.
• Mindscent Skilltrick - Track creatures by their thoughts.
• Innate Energies Feat - Allows improved psionic casting and grants a bigger pool for your strange movement.
• Subjective Invisibility Spell - Acts like a combination between selective invisibility skill trick and greater invisibility spell.

Changed

• Elemental Organ Augment - Now may allow untyped damage to deal elemental damage (gaze, spit, ect).
• Uncertain Shape (Ex) - Grants Greater Grapple, Removed CMD bonus.
• Snatch Feat, Large Augment, ect - Clarified to reflect feature size removal.
• Powerful Augment - Highly simplified to it's intended effect.
• Altar Stomach Augment - Now grants Graft Armor and Graft Weapon abilities to it's items.
• Haunting Organ Augment - Radically changed to reflect it's intended effect.
• Aberrant Blood - Moved to the Feat Section.

Archetypes and Current Projects

We have people working off-forums on improving the ozodrin and specifically working on the Machine and the Dreamer, I'll detail a few facts below:

• Machine, Dreamer and other radical variations will be made into Base Classes.
• Base Classes will be posted in their own threads.
• The archetype section will be left work-in-progress as a sort of draft for these projects for now, after a project is ready to move the archetype section will be cleaned.
• Once the archetype section is repaired then I'll start adding small variations to the ozodrin, including purely aberrant flavor, ozodrin that don't distort space at all, and other projects we have going.
• Tether has been renamed to Dreamer and will be reworked, it's sanctuary will be in the Dream and it will warp reality to accomplish it's varied effects.
• Currently the Machine class is the focus, it's worked on a few times a week and we have over 300 posts of feedback to sift through and work into highly concise and balanced mechanics.
• Epic paths and Mythic paths are still in the works, we're playing around with mythic ozodrins to see how it balances out in that sort of campaign. So far it's looking promising.

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Next Update:

• Machine Base Class
• General Improvements

Thanks for the patience on how messy the thread is, lots of progress to come!

[Serania]

Do Ozodrin have any proficiencies with weapons or armor that they don't produce themselves? Pretty much everyone is proficient with light armor for example.

Anyway, I was screwing around thinking about equipment and Altars and stomachs and I had the coolest series of thoughts.

What happens if you activate a decanter of endless water in your primary stomach and just let it fill up then open a mouth at the bottom with it in Geyser mode? You can spray water everywhere at a stupid rate. "Squirtle, use Water Gun!" You could open ten mouths and just flood a dungeon with several hundred cubic feet of water even.

Not cool enough? Get an Eversmoking Bottle or whatever it's called and a Mask of Gog to let you see through the smoke. Dedicate one Form Point to keeping the bottle open in a secondary stomach, connect it to your primary mouth, and voila! You can spray 100' of smoke all over the place. Shout "Ash Beast Summoning", spew smoke all over the ground, then charge out as a Huge sized Shoggoth bristling with serrated tentacles and a hundred glowing red eyes and eat someone.

If you keep your primary stomach full of water, you can drown people who go into it... or you could pick up a bit of Acid Resistance and fill it with acid. Or if you have strange physiology, keep a secondary stomach full of incredibly lethal poisons and 'drink' them into your water-filled primary stomach when you eat someone for extra insult on top of their already absurd injury.

If you could pick up immunity to fire you could keep a stomach full of lava for the 20d6 immersion damage if you want to destroy things you've eaten more thoroughly. I think Great Old Ones are immune to cold, so if there existed an item like 'Decanter of Endless Liquid Nitrogen' I'm sure that would be hilariously good fun once you've got that particular capstone.

Finally, this last one is my favorite to think about so far for the amusement value. You get into an argument with someone. They give you this big Hannibal Lecture where they tear you apart verbally. You nod along, then open your mouth and say. "A well reasoned argument. My rebuttal is an oak tree." Activate a Feather Token of Tree in your primary stomach and open wide your primary mouth. Vomit a sixty foot oak tree in their face. Because screw that guy and his fancy 'words.' You're an eldritch horror and you don't have to put up with this crap.

Also works with swan boats and anchors. If you normally store your stuff in one of your stomachs and access it by spitting it out, you could probably make a running gag out of all the weird crap an Ozodrin can cough up.

Edit: Here's a question. Can Ozodrin get something other than Hit Points/Skill Points for their level up bonus?

[Serania]

Alucard restores himself from a massive pool of souls, right? Why should not you too benefit from the eternal suffering of the damned?


How many Gnomes can you fit in a secondary stomach? 10 cubic feet could hold about four humans, but Gnomes are small sized so the square cube law suggests you might fit as many as 32 in a form fitted secondary stomach with no other augments, functioning indefinitely on their 'full life support.'

Get wounded in combat? Create some mouths in your secondary stomach, as many as you'd like to spend. The Gnomes are unconscious and pinned, with a racial average of 12 points of Constitution each. Being helpless and pinned in your secondary stomach, there is no limit on the number of bite attacks you can make upon them except the 'Class Level + Charisma Modifier' that caps the number of natural attacks an Ozodrin can make with its features in a turn. Use the second level Devour ability to eat a single point of constitution from each Gnome you attack. You deal no damage, and recover 2 hit points per mouth invested in this way, perhaps as many as 20 or 30.

You have a pool of 384 points of Constitution you can draw from. Dropping below 32 points means you will be killing some of the Gnomes, which will grant an immediate bonus of one hit point per HD, probably only one or two points, and also cost you a Gnome for every point below that threshold.

Whenever possible, attempt to rotate which Gnomes you are eating from, for every single of them will independently recover two points of Constitution per day because they spent the whole day resting. If you eat 128 hit points off them in one day and rotate properly, you'll have it all back tomorrow when they each recover two points of ability damage.

If you can make a DC 15 heal check, you can make as many as six of them heal an addition two points per day by tending to their injuries during the eight hours your fellow adventurers spend sleeping, assuming you don't have to sleep yourself by now.

If you can make a DC20 Use Magic Device check reliably or you have an extremely evil cleric or Paladin in your service or you have enough time to take 20 over and over because you do not lose a charge when failing to use a wand in Pathfinder, you can restore between 1 and 4 points of ability damage to a single Gnome with a Paladin's Wand of Lesser Restoration at a cost of 18 gold per use, or an average of 3.6 gold per hit point added back to your 'pool.' That's nearly three times as efficient in terms of gold-to-healing than a Potion of Cure Light Wounds by the way, and only barely less so than a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, while also being massively more efficient in terms of action economy.

By the way, unless you have Beyond Morality this trick is almost certainly one of the most unspeakably evil things you can ever do. An open-minded GM might let you 'hire' Gnomes for this purpose actually. A good-aligned Ozodrin might accomplish this trick just by flooding that stomach with a sedative substance that causes sweet dreams and purchasing the 'service' of Gnome commoners for a hundred gold a year per head and a contract to revive them from death if you eat one. Alternatively, a lenient GM might let you maintain neutrality just by only harvesting Gnome Death Row Inmates for this purpose. Given that you can keep unconscious subjects alive 'indefinitely' it's kind of up in the air whether they would even age during this process, in which case even twenty or thirty year contracts might be attractive to some citizens.

[Mlmiii]

How many Gnomes can you fit in a secondary stomach? 10 cubic feet could hold about four humans, but Gnomes are small sized so the square cube law suggests you might fit as many as 32 in a form fitted secondary stomach with no other augments, functioning indefinitely on their 'full life support.'

Get wounded in combat? Create some mouths in your secondary stomach, as many as you'd like to spend. The Gnomes are unconscious and pinned, with a racial average of 12 points of Constitution each. Being helpless and pinned in your secondary stomach, there is no limit on the number of bite attacks you can make upon them except the 'Class Level + Charisma Modifier' that caps the number of natural attacks an Ozodrin can make with its features in a turn. Use the second level Devour ability to eat a single point of constitution from each Gnome you attack. You deal no damage, and recover 2 hit points per mouth invested in this way, perhaps as many as 20 or 30.

Whenever possible, attempt to rotate which Gnomes you are eating from, for every single of them will independently recover two points of Constitution per day because they spent the whole day resting. If you eat 128 hit points off them in one day and rotate properly, you'll have it all back tomorrow when they each recover two points of ability damage.

If you can make a DC 15 heal check, you can make as many as six of them heal an addition two points per day by tending to their injuries during the eight hours your fellow adventurers spend sleeping, assuming you don't have to sleep yourself by now.

You don't even need to target humanoids for this to work. In fact, it's more efficient not to.

If 32 small creatures can fit in a 10' cube, then 256 tiny creatures or 2048 diminutive creatures would as well, right?

32 gnomes * 12 CON/gnome = 384 total CON
256 giant isopods * 14 CON/isopod = 3584 CON
2048 toads * 6 CON/toad = 12288 CON

Granted, it'd be far harder to find that many isopods/toads than Gnomes, but in the meantime you could just grab whatever high-health enemies you overcome. Plus, since toads and isopods are aquatic animals with short lifespans, you could conceivably set up another stomach as a spawning pool and have an endless supply of critters to feed on.

Edit: I'd like clarification on stomach augments: Mimic, in the 4.1 stomach table, says it covers 4 squares, but in the spoiler beneath, says " 20' x 20' x 20' ", which would be a 20'-tall area of 16 squares. Which is correct?

Also, with the Many augment for stomachs, is there a limit to how much volume you can move to a new sub-stomach? For example, let's say I had a secondary stomach with a chamber augment, giving me 20 feet cubed (4 layers of 16 squares). Could I separate that into two 20'x20'x10' rooms or would the stomach created by the Many augment be limited to 10' cubed?

Lastly, the Aperture augment seems to suggest that it needs Pockets in its description, but it is not listed as such in the table. Is this intentional?

[Hanuman]

Ozodrin 2.2 [Hotfix1]

Machine Gallery Updated (+44 Images!)
(Lots more to come!)

Serania:

"Do Ozodrin have any proficiencies with weapons or armor that they don't produce themselves?"

• Ozodrin do not have Light Armor Proficiency, this is intentional.
• Generally LAP doesn't effect +1 and +2 armors, the balancepoint was really intending to apply to +3 and above (ones that have more than 0ACP for the lack of LAP to double).
• To address this I reworded proficiencies and buffed Organic Outfit heavily for a huge quality-of-life improvement for armored ozodrins.

"What happens if..."

• The possibilities of this augment are staggering, and honestly for the most part untapped in creativity, I love what I'm seeing.

"Shout "Ash Beast Summoning""

• I like that effect too
• To address this I quickly strung together an organ augment called Exhaling, it's not elegant yet
  

"Can Ozodrin get something other than Hit Points/Skill Points for their level up bonus?"

• The only thing I can see other than that is using Skillpoints to buy Skilltricks?
• What did you have in mind?

"Why should not you too benefit from the eternal suffering of the damned?"

• I was looking into somehow using a well of greed in sort of a FMA "Seeing the truth" way, but I haven't spent enough time thinking on how to adapt it into a nonmythic campaign.
• Good suggestion, expect something in the next update.

"How many Gnomes can you fit in a secondary stomach?"

• Treat squares in your stomach like squares on land, this is more of a question to hash out in the non-homebrew section.
• That being said, for storage I recommend liquification or the petrification then powdering
• As an added bonus, let me pull up my old enchantment optimized list <3

Spoiler: Ozodrin Useful Enchaments

Show

(+1) Forgetful (DR316 p43): On Crit - Fort DC20 or 1 Hour Memory Loss

(+1) Last Resort (CWar p135): When grappled, you do not have the standard -4 to attack. Gain +1D6 for every size category the grappler is larger than you.

(+1) Magebane (CArc p143) +2 Attack +2d6 to arcane casters/arcane spell like ability users.

(+1) Merciful (DMG p225) +1D6, Converts damage to nonlethal

(+1) Silent Strike (DR330 p67) On hit - DC15 Will Silences 4 rounds, additional hits resets count

(+1) Stealer (DR315 p46) +4 Disarm, Weapon sticks to disarmed object as a free action

(+1) Waterborn (Eb p266) No underwater fighting penalty, if you are on land and they are in water they lose their granted concealment, if you are both underwater you gain +2 to attack and damage rolls

(+2) Domineering (PGF p119) On hit - Will DC16 or Shaken

(+2) Explosive (CWar p134) On hit - Ref 1/2 DC15 5' Splash 2d4, Splash hits self

(+2) Paralyzing (BoED p113) On hit- Will DC17 or Held, new save per round, auto-end 10 rounds

(+2) Phasing (DR330 p67) Can ignore a single object of up to 5’ thick. The ammo ignores Cover, a Shield, or Armor (in that order and only one).

(+3) Clouting (CArc p143) On hit - Fort DC19 or [Trig another FortDC19 or Stun] Knockback 10' (Knocked prone if no space)

(+3) Explosive (Ranged) (CWar p134) Ref1/2 DC15 2d4 5' Splash

(+3) Spireshard (DR315 p46) On hit - Will DC19 or disable spellcasting and spell-like abilities for 1d4 rounds, additional hits do not reset count or stack

(+3) Stalactite (Und p69) On hit - Fort DC19 Turn to Stone

(+3) Superior Dispelling (DR312 p87) - Standard - Caster Level = ECL 5' radius Dispel Magic

(+4) Brilliant Energy (DMG p224) Passes through non-living matter, so Armor and Armor Enhancement AC bonuses don’t count against this weapon. Cannot harm Undead, Constructs, & Objects-- 20' Light radius

(+4) Dancing (DMG p224) Weapon/Feature can be "loosed" and continues to fight in the same square you occupy each round for 4 rounds using it's owners BAB

(+4) Tentacle (Und p69) On crit - Fort DC21 or brain extracted

"The Gnomes are unconscious and pinned..."

• Adding in that flavor of having sort of a harvesting chamber was completely intentional, turning the ozodrin into a bag-o-rats however may be patched out later because the intention of the concept is not optimization, it's storytelling.
• It has that far realms alien-like approach and I think it goes great contextually when the party finds it's friend or the NPC contact in the dark spongy room hung from the wall or ceiling and then realize that they are IN the dungeon boss.
• The real question is: Is this mechanically abusive during combat or just a good sustain mechanic? Will DM's not treat animals as items that have a gold worth? What's the worth of a gnome?

Mlmiii:

"I'd like clarification on stomach augments: Mimic"

• Ah I see, I cannot recall if that had a balancepoint so I'm tending towards 16 squares, let me know if you think this is too much but I think the point is to shape a good portion of the stomach, if you have found ways to use this mechanically or in combat and it needs to be lowered please let us know.

"With the Many augment for stomachs, is there a limit to how much volume you can move to a new sub-stomach?"

• Yes, I've re-stated it to clarify that the intention is not to transfer space from one stomach to another but to make lots of little stomachs instead.
• Is there something this disables that you wanted?

"Aperture augment seems to suggest that it needs Pockets"

• Good catch, I've fixed the table

Organic Outfit Feat

• Added an armor swapping ability and the ability to wear and conceal existing clothing.

Exhalation Organ Augment

• Allows a Smoke, Fog or Fire effect, granting a small damage utility buff and a bit of battlefield control (currently beta testing effect).

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Machine still under construction, thanks for your patience!

[Serania]

I'm actually playing an Ozodrin in a game right now, and when I came up with the Gnome-in-a-bag abuse, the GM was actually okay with it. He ruled outright that I can only fit eight gnomes in an unexpanded stomach without overwhelming the 'keep **** alive forever' ability for balance reasons, but otherwise said I was free to do it.

I'm just ignoring the possibility of using animals or other really weak creatures as an abuse with the reasoning that my character would never sully herself by sustaining herself on the lowborn filth of the world. Gnome commoners are at least 'people.' Eating a sentient being is something that has a bit of dignity to it... just ask the guys in Vampire: The Requiem what they think of vampires who suck on rats.

For what it's worth, the GM is totally fine with the idea of me harvesting a ton of constitution points from something for an in-combat buff. Even if I can do it as part of a full attack, it means that in order to heal I have to commit to full attacking every single turn. It's a pretty high powered/unusual campaign though, so having a backup storage of HP isn't even remotely unbalancing given the circumstances. Hell, even if it was just 'heal to full hit points forever on a full attack' it wouldn't do squat to defend me against people who can whip out ridiculous nova attacks.

In terms of armor, I'm wearing +2 Mithril Field Plate of Comfort by keeping it on an Altar stomach (which is how I wear all my equipment.) It's expensive as hell obviously, but the end result is 9 Armor Class with 0 ACP.

The exhaling organ augment is a hilariously awesomely timed addition to my arsenal. I actually wound up buying the Decanter of Endless Water and not having enough cash left for the eversmoking bottle and the goggles that would let me see through its effects.

Here's a question for you: Is there any particular reason why a relatively human-shaped Ozodrin couldn't just walk around in their true form all the time and pass themselves off as a creepy human? Suppressing active abilities obviously.

And more questions I suppose. Is a creature kept swallowed in a stomach which is not a chamber (i.e., form fitting) considered pinned at all times unless they escape? That would make perfect sense to me, but I need to get that clarified before we get into a major combat encounter and I eat something which isn't dead yet.

Has anyone come up with any suggested/somewhat-optimized builds for an Ozodrin to put together with a given quantity of form points? I have 13 free without compromising my defenses or my altar, and I'm still trying to work out a feel for what an optimal arrangement of features would be. Do I want to just grow thirteen little limbs and try to swallow creatures whole by grappling with them? Do I want to grow a bunch of tentacles and attack in melee at like +15/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13/+13 for 1d4+2d6+3?

Do Ozodrin need multiattack? If I grow ten tentacles, the way I understand it is that when I make a full attack I get any primary attack I want at full bonus to hit, and every single other natural attack I have that's capable of hitting as a secondary at -5? And MultiAttack reduces the penalty to -2. How does that interact with iteratives, do I get to make two attacks with my primary if my BaB allows for me to make two attacks? I'm sure this last one especially has been explained somewhere, but even looking at all the sidebars and such on it doesn't really help some of these points for me. I think it'd really benefit from a specific example like "An Ozodrin who has five form points buys these features and has the following options when attacking in combat."

[Mlmiii]

"With the Many augment for stomachs, is there a limit to how much volume you can move to a new sub-stomach?"

• Yes, I've re-stated it to clarify that the intention is not to transfer space from one stomach to another but to make lots of little stomachs instead.
• Is there something this disables that you wanted?

It doesn't disable turning a Chambered stomach into a house, but it does make it slightly more inconvenient. Mimic is a good substitute for dividing a secondary stomach into multiple rooms, but is more FP-expensive.

Also, as a potential balancing feature for the bag-o-rats, perhaps the ozodrin who keeps the rats has to eat more to sustain their life-support? While food isn't exactly expensive (I think an entire cow costs ~10gp, despite weighing ~1000lbs.), the energy and nutrients for the imprisoned have to come from somewhere. If this ability becomes abused, the DM could just raise food prices until it's on-par with buying health potions.

[Serania]

It doesn't disable turning a Chambered stomach into a house, but it does make it slightly more inconvenient. Mimic is a good substitute for dividing a secondary stomach into multiple rooms, but is more FP-expensive.

Also, as a potential balancing feature for the bag-o-rats, perhaps the ozodrin who keeps the rats has to eat more to sustain their life-support? While food isn't exactly expensive (I think an entire cow costs ~10gp, despite weighing ~1000lbs.), the energy and nutrients for the imprisoned have to come from somewhere. If this ability becomes abused, the DM could just raise food prices until it's on-par with buying health potions.

I think it just outright requires a fiat ruling that you can't use it on creatures that don't meet some standard. Small size, or modest intelligence or something. Maybe make it so that if an un-changed bite attack would kill something then eating it's Constitution slays it outright even if you only take one point.

The GM in the game I'm in allowed it either way, but I decided I simply wouldn't ever do the thing with the rats because it's so undignified. I don't care how optimal it is, no powerfully ancient and mysterious being should sustain itself off a 'sack full of rats.'

The thing with increasing the prices of food like that is that it's totally ridiculous on the face of it. And you then have to explain why everyone else who wants food has to pay exorbitant prices and how the economy doesn't utterly collapse. Or else explain why the Ozodrin alone has to pay prices three orders of magnitude too high for food.

Maybe you can't gain more hit points in a single day from eating a creature's Con score than its entire hit point total or else it dies. A normal nonmagical rat would have like... one. If you grew fish or something in a 'spawning pool' stomach, you'd probably need to eat a bunch of them with the Swarm template applied to get even one point of Con.