Base Class Challenge Chat Thread IV: All Your Base [Class] Are Belong to Us

[boomwolf]

I'm trying to figure out a system now, but doing one that does not utterly brake DnD on one hand and is useful on the other escapes me.

I need to carefully think what rules can and cannot be messed with, and than shoehorn it into a class system.

Bending the rules and stepping out of them as your class features is one thing, but ALTERING them-now that's a whole other story, and one would be wise to tread lightly.


I think I'll sprinkle some forth-wall breaking on there, it seems to belong.

[Xhosant]

Bending the rules and stepping out of them as your class features is one thing, but ALTERING them-now that's a whole other story, and one would be wise to tread lightly.

Stuff like 'the magic wand is a different magic wand' or 'my gnome is an elf' seem like the obvious examples, as well as misbehaving ranges/gravity or whatnot, using the opposite of your rolls and other such shenanigans. I have no idea of the core material, mind you, I just read " the rules are not constant (or sane)" and working off of that.

To the more Warhammer-minded folks:

a) is there a place where I can learn details on the magic misshaps/recomendations on where to?
b) think a perfectly melee-capable (but otherwise low-on-features) class, stacked with wizard-casting would be balanced by misshaps?

[Almarck]

So, part of the problem with trying convert a World of Darkness game line is the sheer amount of features beginning supernatural players get.

In the specific gameline I want to work with, Werewolf the Forsaken (because I never had access to Apocalypse). characters have:

4 alternate forms in addition to their original human form, all various flavors of man-beast or wolf. All of which grant them natural weapons and attribute changes of some degree. The Man-Wolf form also gives crazy mechanical buffs.
Innate regeneration mechanics. healing up bullet wounds in under an hour and regrowing lost limbs (if they focus on healing). In all forms, but strongest in Man-Wolf.
The equivalents of 1st level spells for starting characters (except not really... this is where it gets strange. Gifts are more like supernatural abilities that most of the time function like spells)
And an additional "blessing" related to lunar phase, an innate calling so to speak.

I've figured out how I want to handle the progression mechanic, but damn, level 1 is overbloated compared to most D&D games. I guess I can balance it out with "Death Rage", but I am not so sure...

Anyone got ideas on how to well, reduce the bloat? I can see Gifts being pushed back to level 3 and just making "blessings" a choice early on that has no effect until later levels, but everything else kind of has to be part of character level 1.

[Zaydos]

Done with the easy spells. Now to make creatures I guess. And then the hard spells and then actually write down how this things magic system actually works. The order of these things might be backwards.

Stuff like 'the magic wand is a different magic wand' or 'my gnome is an elf' seem like the obvious examples, as well as misbehaving ranges/gravity or whatnot, using the opposite of your rolls and other such shenanigans. I have no idea of the core material, mind you, I just read " the rules are not constant (or sane)" and working off of that.

To the more Warhammer-minded folks:

a) is there a place where I can learn details on the magic misshaps/recomendations on where to?
b) think a perfectly melee-capable (but otherwise low-on-features) class, stacked with wizard-casting would be balanced by misshaps?

The misshaps that Jormungand is using either shunt you to the plane of Chaos or actually do nothing to discourage out of combat casting (ward prevents damage to self up to half the time and out of combat healing tends to be fairly easy) while also making spells un-dispellable which greatly improves the potency of long duration buffs, so if the class has long duration buffs the mishaps are arguably a buff themselves. There is probably a mishap system which could balance what you're suggesting, but you'll have to get around the long duration buff problem or just create CoDzilla
all over again.

So, part of the problem with trying convert a World of Darkness game line is the sheer amount of features beginning supernatural players get.

In the specific gameline I want to work with, Werewolf the Forsaken (because I never had access to Apocalypse). characters have:

4 alternate forms in addition to their original human form, all various flavors of man-beast or wolf. All of which grant them natural weapons and attribute changes of some degree. The Man-Wolf form also gives crazy mechanical buffs.
Innate regeneration mechanics. healing up bullet wounds in under an hour and regrowing lost limbs (if they focus on healing). In all forms, but strongest in Man-Wolf.
The equivalents of 1st level spells for starting characters (except not really... this is where it gets strange. Gifts are more like supernatural abilities that most of the time function like spells)
And an additional "blessing" related to lunar phase, an innate calling so to speak.

I've figured out how I want to handle the progression mechanic, but damn, level 1 is overbloated compared to most D&D games. I guess I can balance it out with "Death Rage", but I am not so sure...

Anyone got ideas on how to well, reduce the bloat? I can see Gifts being pushed back to level 3 and just making "blessings" a choice early on that has no effect until later levels, but everything else kind of has to be part of character level 1.

My advice cut down on the mechanical buffs of the 4 types of wolf form, and the actual extent of healing and don't try to make a Lv 1 character the same as a starting character in the other game but instead one that thematically is resonate.

For example start their healing out as Fast Healing 1 up to half health, which is a relatively minor ability and work up from there till they can regrow lost limbs (at least if they focus on healing).

For say a wolf form you might start it out as human but 4 legged, faster movement, bite attack, and maybe scent, but primarily be useful for scouting in the wilderness where someone might not respond to a wolf like they would a person.

My own class inspired by WoD is here if you want to see how someone else handled it, but it was inspired by half-remembered bits of lore from the werewolf tcg where each character only had 2 forms (wolf or human and big bad werewolf) except metis ones which had one (and are ignored completely) and much of the rest was absent (you had a moon sign, and some characters had special abilities named gifts I think but I couldn't remember what those were) and the mechanics drew in large part on D&D's own werewolves especially for specific numbers.

[Jormengand]

The misshaps that Jormungand is using either shunt you to the plane of Chaos or actually do nothing to discourage out of combat casting (ward prevents damage to self up to half the time and out of combat healing tends to be fairly easy) while also making spells un-dispellable which greatly improves the potency of long duration buffs, so if the class has long duration buffs the mishaps are arguably a buff themselves.

Am I the only person to play in a group where you didn't have nigh-unlimited healing until at least ~15th level? Lower I guess if you have a truenamer because no-one cares about LoR, but still. Taking an amount of damage which is very similar to the number of hit points you have is meant to be a fairly big deal.

Also, halving your level for a day is also kinda a big deal unless you're about to go to bed anyway.

[Zaydos]

Am I the only person to play in a group where you didn't have nigh-unlimited healing until at least ~15th level? Lower I guess if you have a truenamer because no-one cares about LoR, but still. Taking an amount of damage which is very similar to the number of hit points you have is meant to be a fairly big deal.

Also, halving your level for a day is also kinda a big deal unless you're about to go to bed anyway.

Touch of Healing feat made staying at half health trivial, d6/level averages much less than a wizard's hit points which is a good thing because you don't want a multi-percent chance of dying whenever you cast a spell. Though it might also have to do with being used to games taking place from 8th to 12th level.

And yes that one is actually a rather effective mishap and I should have mentioned; though the wording on how you round it is odd. When first reading it seems like you intend for it to reduce 15 to 8, but then you talk about how if you're level 1 it can reduce you to 0.

[Jormengand]

Touch of Healing feat made staying at half health trivial, d6/level averages much less than a wizard's hit points which is a good thing because you don't want a multi-percent chance of dying whenever you cast a spell. Though it might also have to do with being used to games taking place from 8th to 12th level.

And yes that one is actually a rather effective mishap and I should have mentioned; though the wording on how you round it is odd. When first reading it seems like you intend for it to reduce 15 to 8, but then you talk about how if you're level 1 it can reduce you to 0.

I do... not know where that feat is from, and I am glad to say I haven't ever been in a party with that feat.

Rounding the end caster level down means rounding the final result down - 15 goes to 7.5 goes to 7, 1 goes to 0.5 goes to 0.

[Almarck]

Thanks for the advice. I'm likely going to allow the 4 extra forms thing at first level, but using anything other than normal wolf or human form would risk "Death Rage" which might end up causing the werewolf to kill his own teammates at early levels. Make it easier to resist at early levels. There's also making each form, well, less effective at early levels and have later ones just jack up the stats.

Fast healing... 1 for every 15 minutes for first level seems to be the smart choice. And have it ramp up as levels rise.

I guess after that, everything's easier to figure out.

[Beelzebub1111]

I do... not know where that feat is from, and I am glad to say I haven't ever been in a party with that feat.

Rounding the end caster level down means rounding the final result down - 15 goes to 7.5 goes to 7, 1 goes to 0.5 goes to 0.

Even so, wands of CLW are so rediculously cheap that they can be considered effectively unlimited past a certain level.

[Zaydos]

And since they haven't been mentioned yet...

Shadow Sun Ninja: Infinite out of combat healing at Lv 6, if your DM won't let you cycle negative energy through rocks to do so (not saying I blame them if they don't) it does have a 1 feat tax (Tomb-Tainted Soul) on one party member. (ToB plus potentially LM)

Binder: Lv 4 vestige can heal 1 hp/round or cure light wounds every 5 rounds. Available at Lv 6, though not worth binding until lv 8 at the earliest (there's no fun in playing a character who can only do out of combat healing). (ToM)

Dragon Totem Shaman: 1st level class feature passively heals party to half health (PHBII)

These are both a lot more resource intensive than Touch of Healing of course.

And then there's Dread Necromancer which can heal themselves to full hp out of combat with a single feat, as well as anyone else who has that feat.

[boomwolf]

Well. first draft of the Fluxer is up, a characther based on the fact the rules are subject to change, and indeed MUST be changed, in order to achive victory (I'm not kidding you, about half the cards in the game are either changing the rules, or the goal.)

I just realized just how many tables I would have to make for this class. I mean, at the very least I need 11 more tables (4 lesser, 4 moderate and 3 greater fluxations-so there is a choice what to chase.)
And each of them is going to be big x_X

[Beelzebub1111]

I'm having a little trouble wording the first three abilities, since they are intertwined, but separate enough to nesecetate separate abilities

You cast spells using mana gained from manabonds (formed once per round as a free action, and generate one mana of their color per round), your favored color determines your primary casting stat, and you get a +1 to save dc for spells of that color and an additional +1 if you use only that color to cast the spell.

[Zaydos]

~50 spells complete, and 5 creatures. I need to go back and make the spells which grant grafts/evolutions, but since I knew monster and PC grafts/evolutions would act a little different (monsters which naturally have grafts gain more from gaining additional grafts, and while the class gives you Evolutions which tend to care about how many evolutions you have monsters can gain more evolutions by having more summoned and tend to care about how many of that Evolution you have). Of course with Bioshift you could give a monster your evolutions or vice versa. I may have to check out if that breaks things. I don't think so, but... I'm gonna have to look it over when I actually finish the class.

[1pwny]

How would you guys suggest randomizing armor drops? I mean, there are 16-17 different armors on the SRD, so what kind of dice would you roll? Would you do a d20 with 18-20 reroll or something?

BTW: Zaydos, whats your schedule for changing your icon? Is it monthly? Maybe every 2 full moons?

[Zaydos]

How would you guys suggest randomizing armor drops? I mean, there are 16-17 different armors on the SRD, so what kind of dice would you roll? Would you do a d20 with 18-20 reroll or something?

If you want equal chance then yes, d20, excess numbers re-roll, possibly adding non-SRD armor (mechanus gear for example).

If you are fine with a bell curve 3-18 (3d6) gives you 16 options.

Or check the DMG's tables for random armor since there's a few (I believe there's one for non-magical loot which includes non-magic armor, and one for determining magic armor base armor).

And no schedule. I go to the pony based upon the flux of a silly message board game where it's ponies vs non-ponies and sometimes (often/usually) the ponies side needs help. I change to something else when I'm sick of the pony avatar.

[Xhosant]

How would you guys suggest randomizing armor drops? I mean, there are 16-17 different armors on the SRD, so what kind of dice would you roll? Would you do a d20 with 18-20 reroll or something?

Tool for the job: the d100 (or d1000). By assigning multiple numbers to each option, you can get 'odds', while by adding a 0 to the dice (and then multiplying the odds of each by, say, 2 or 3, as appropriate to fill the scale), you can fit as many armors as you want. A reasonable small leftover margin becomes 'reroll' or a special bonus case, if you want.

For example: 30% plate, 20% Hide, 40% Cloth. Making a table, that's '1-30->plate, 31-50->Hide, 51-90->Cloth, 91-100->reroll with exotic material (or something)

[Zaydos]

Status update: Level 1-3 creatures complete. Chopped off a few (Air Elemental for example). 15 creatures left to make. Might cut off one or two due to sheer laziness and them being relatively hard to work around (Sapphire Drake being the easier of the two). Then I have to go back through standardizing some of the rules about evolutions and grafts, removing parts of it entirely from the creatures to add it as a direct rule about evolutions/cytoplasmic grafts, and at some point type up the basic rules of casting for the class, evolutions, and grafts such as how many evolutions/grafts can be applied to a creature (balance concerns and shift in game type means unlimited isn't a good idea) and how many of the same graft/evolution (not actually sure if I'm going to do this beyond how many of the same one a creature can have via the evolve ability or when it's summoned). If I have 3 days of good progress might get the class posted (I forgot I still have to write out the class's evolutions and grafts which will be a lot of work), more likely to take about a fortnight.

Edit: 8 6 creatures left; 2 1 with grafts. Did one, decided that the other would be too op and abuse-able, might look to simulacrum for how to do it but... simulacrum is not something I want to balance off of.

[Temotei]

For those who haven't seen, Worth a Thousand Words is back if anyone is interested.

[Zaydos]

"Finished"* the summonable creatures. Now on to figuring out how to write out the mass of new rules that goes with the class (Color Identity, Gather Mana action, how their casting works, universalized rules for Graft/Evolve). I know how I want these things to function. Simic Mutationists are Blue and Green, feats can expand this, as can artifacts such as potentially the Moxen, and if they'd add mana outside their color identity to their mana pool it is colorless instead (I'm not sure if feats will let you become 4 or 5 color or if it will be harder to expand your color identity beyond 3). Gather Mana is a standard action that adds mana to your mana pool based upon your SOMETHING ABOUT MANA level, which is normally equal to your levels in Simic Mutationist + PrCs that advance its casting but can theoretically be higher if you have levels in another mana based class such as Gruul Warchanter (which counts full) or Simic Initiate (which is primarily a melee based class that uses grafts with a sublime variant for easier play with full casters and adds at either 3/4th or 1/2 levels), and the environment (if your color identity includes Green you gain additional Green mana when in a Forest). Casting functions like standard casting, with Simic Mutationist at least prepping and casting spells like a wizard (the Library in M:tG is based thematically off of Vancian magic) but you have to spend mana and you can prep spells in higher level slots to 1) heighten them, and 2) gain additional effects (similar to Augmentation in psionics and potentially 5e but I'm not familiar with its spells enough to know whether it's more just linear scaling). And the last is where I really don't know how to put it into words or the numbers. A creature which naturally evolves/gains grafts can have an amount based on their caster level or... they're all LA - and artificial creatures typically summoned from the aether so if a DM decides to throw in a naturally occuring one then they can set the maximum amount based on whatever they like. For other creatures the limit is their level in classes which grant (cytoplastic) grafts and/or evolutions plus 1/2 their level in other classes.

So I just need to figure out how to write these things up, write up the class's personal set of grafts and evolutions (as well as rules for forming grafts each day which will function similarly to shaping soulmelds, in that you shape them each morning and can change them from the full list each day; evolutions are choose once and permanently keep), add fluff (which will take a bit), and figure out what some of the abilities I have named but not written out actually do. So give it 3 days to a week.

[Zaydos]

Sorry for the double post, just thought I'd say though that I finally actually posted the Simic Biomancer. 12 posts, although many don't actually fill up the whole character limit. 5 posts of creatures, 2 posts of spells, 1 nigh empty post of unformatted feats, 1 post of new rules about Grafts/Evolutions/Mana, 1 post of class, and 1 post of Grafts. I need to actually add table of spells by level, sort spells, format creatures, make cantrips, write fluff, and add feats for guild dabbling (which will involve making ~30 more spells/creatures).

[Jormengand]

Freaking hell Zaydos.

*Goes to fill in more spells*

[Temotei]

Freaking hell Zaydos.

*Goes to fill in more spells*

This feeling / Inside me

You understand it.

[Zaydos]

This feeling / Inside me

You understand it.

If I hadn't burnt out there'd have been ~6 more grafts, 3 more spells, 4 more creatures, and 6 feats each with 6 associated spells, as well as at least one non-theurgic and non-casting PrC, and at least an Arcane-Mana Theurge (because I love theurges).

But seriously I think this is larger than Doomsayer and that thing was too big (and this is larger than I expected this to be).

On a related note if I manage to muster up the creativity to make a melee Simic class (Simic Initiate, which would come with a higher powered Sublime variant; it'd be simple since it'd just be Fighter with Grafts and Good Will save and for the variant also Warblade initiating and less feats) is it alright if I post it out of this thread and refer to Simic Biomancer... it feels dirty somehow to do so.

[Temotei]

If I hadn't burnt out there'd have been ~6 more grafts, 3 more spells, 4 more creatures, and 6 feats each with 6 associated spells, as well as at least one non-theurgic and non-casting PrC, and at least an Arcane-Mana Theurge (because I love theurges).

But seriously I think this is larger than Doomsayer and that thing was too big (and this is larger than I expected this to be).

Like, I thought the chronoshifter was a good amount of work. Then I see this and I just go whaaaaaaaa-

On a related note if I manage to muster up the creativity to make a melee Simic class (Simic Initiate, which would come with a higher powered Sublime variant; it'd be simple since it'd just be Fighter with Grafts and Good Will save and for the variant also Warblade initiating and less feats) is it alright if I post it out of this thread and refer to Simic Biomancer... it feels dirty somehow to do so.

It does feel dirty, even though this one comes first. I guess it'd be okay, like I wouldn't disqualify your entry, but it would make sense to hold out until you could post everything in one thread, wouldn't it?

But it'd probably be fine if you need to get it down right away on the forums.

[Zaydos]

Like, I thought the chronoshifter was a good amount of work. Then I see this and I just go whaaaaaaaa-

And after all that I realize I made no 6th level spells. Only things that get bonuses for being heightened to 6th level. So it should work, and unless I look back through and find a spell that really feels like it should be Lv 6 I'll leave it that way, but I do find it a little ironic.

It does feel dirty, even though this one comes first. I guess it'd be okay, like I wouldn't disqualify your entry, but it would make sense to hold out until you could post everything in one thread, wouldn't it?

But it'd probably be fine if you need to get it down right away on the forums.

It can wait, I don't really want to make more tables right now.

[Jormengand]

Transformation of Kadon: The last word in Screw You, I'm a Dragon.

[Zaydos]

Golgari Initiate (Simic) "done" (I have yet to decide whether you can take Initiate feats willy-nilly or are limited to 1, I think I'm going to go for the latter and force other means of expansion into more colors than 3 but if so I'll have to add that). Any requests for which guild (other than Boros, Rakdos, and Orzhov) I should do next?

Transformation of Kadon: The last word in Screw You, I'm a Dragon.

Does it transform you like a polymorph subschool effect or like polymorph/wild shape/alternate form? It says you can't cast spells which suggests the latter (as the former you'd lose your spellcasting anyway though it could just be noting that you do not gain the gold dragon's sorcerer spellcasting), but it also makes a point of using advanced creature stats which suggest the former as advancing a hydra to 20 hit dice changes none of the benefits you'd gain from the latter.

[Beelzebub1111]

Feeling a little intimidated, since the magic system I'm working on is kind of similar to Zaydos's class.

[Zaydos]

So anyone know what creature type a weird should be? Construct? Elemental? Aberration? Ooze? I really don't know.

Feeling a little intimidated, since the magic system I'm working on is kind of similar to Zaydos's class.

I imagine the mechanics will be rather different, and I for one am looking forward to see a different presentation; if for no other reason than I'm not sure I picked the best way to adapt MtG... although I will at some point try and justify my reasons and choices. Looking at what's there thus far it looks to be quite a different system much further from Vancian casting (mine is still a form of Vancian casting because that's the fluff used for hands and libraries in M:tG half the time). Mine is mostly stuff that already exists in D&D, sure some of its been remixed, and a lot is new material but fundamentally it's not a new system. Yours promises to be that much more, and I look forward to seeing that.

Also mine really does only work for Simic mages and would need a new class entirely for anything else. So really they're different niches.

[Almarck]

Make a unique type that covers them all in specific ways or treat separate weirds differently based on its current form and viscosity. However, for simplicity, I think keeping them as Ooze-Constructs with elemental subtypes would work the best.