[Dreamscarred Press] New Playtest: the Highlord, a psionic leader!

[Forrestfire]

Hey all! With more of DSP's older playtests moving from "sitting for a while" to "finally released," Dreamscarred Press is moving on to some new material! Today I've got a playtest doc for a brand-new psionic class, the Highlord. This 6-level manifesting class uses their collective both for leading their allies and destroying their enemies, drawing foes into their mental network to force them to do their bidding... or merely crush their minds.

In the following document, you'll find the highlord base class, including many customization options, seven different subpaths, and an archetype! In addition, there's new feats both for the highlord and for other users of collectives, and a set of racial favored class options for the class!

To check it out, click on the image below:

(or this link)

Thanks for taking a look! We hope you enjoy.

[Deimosaur]

Excellent.

Yes. Hello. I wrote this. Forrest helped though! A lot.

This is the first class I've written for Dreamscarred Press, but I hope it won't be the last. What you're seeing here is the result of a lot of rewriting, a lot of messing around to change it from a horrible amalgamation of a tactician and a soulknife, to...well. A highlord.

There were a lot of sci-fi influences here. I'll admit it. Give a highlord a lightsaber and he could pass for a Sith lord. But I think that's hardly a bad thing.

The highlord can be a nasty tyrant, don't be too mean to your party members! Save some of that for your enemies.

Enjoy your rule over the battlefield, and let us know how it felt!

[Grand Arbiter]

Initial impression is two thumbs up, with questions/concerns in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

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Spoiler: related to Decrees:

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•For the Inspire decree I think the bolded part of this sentence is clunky/awkward and could be removed:

In addition, while this decree is active, the member of the collective affected gains temporary hit points equal to 4 + the highlord’s class level in temporary hit points at the beginning of each of their turns.

•Does the Tribute ability deny the ally the use of what they tribute? i.e. if they tribute Improved Initiative, does only the Highlord receive the +4 bonus from the feat? The Highlord's Greed Greater Decree implies the answer to normally be that the ally keeps it for use, but it is vague/unclear.

•Is Devour the Weak a requirement for the Die for Me Greater Decree?

•Can the Highlord move themself with Movement Command/Move the Masses?

Spoiler: related to Tenets:

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•Tenets of Cultivation: Blood Shield is made to damage an individual who is not a member of the collective, correct?

•Tenets of Dominance: Siphon Strength: Round up?

•Tenets of Guile: Thieving Siphon: Range?

•Tenets of Slaughter: Talents: Should telepathic punch be telekinetic punch?

•Tenets of Unity: Communal Siphon: Should psychical acceleration be physical acceleration?

Racial Favored Class options:
•Ophiduan: Should it be Charisma score instead of Charisma bonus?


Lastly, how much inspiration came from Blizzard's Starcraft games for this, because I can't help but think of a certain Character from the Legacy of the Void campaign...

[Thealtruistorc]

I can now envision next years April Augmented: A highlord-drunken master-archetype called the contact highlord.

That aside, this is pretty cool. My only issues are the lack of powers from the vitalist list (combat healing can be a very good thing, maybe as an archetype) and the fact that it does not have spirit of many (which is what makes network powers good in the first place.

[Deimosaur]

Hey, Libro. Thanks for taking a look so quickly! I'll address a little bit of this now, but I'll revisit this post more in depth later. I promise!

•Does the Tribute ability deny the ally the use of what they tribute? i.e. if they tribute Improved Initiative, does only the Highlord receive the +4 bonus from the feat? The Highlord's Greed Greater Decree implies the answer to normally be that the ally keeps it for use, but it is vague/unclear.

It does not deny the tribute from ally normally. I'll adjust the wording to be more specific.

•Tenets of Cultivation: Blood Shield is made to damage an individual who is not a member of the collective, correct?

Correct. A notable exception to the rest.

•Tenets of Slaughter: Talents: Should telepathic punch be telekinetic punch?

•Tenets of Unity: Communal Siphon: Should psychical acceleration be physical acceleration?

Oops. Yes.

Lastly, how much inspiration came from Blizzard's Starcraft games for this, because I can't help but think of a certain Character from the Legacy of the Void campaign...

I...uh, no comment? : P

I can now envision next years April Augmented: A highlord-drunken master-archetype called the contact highlord.

That aside, this is pretty cool. My only issues are the lack of powers from the vitalist list (combat healing can be a very good thing, maybe as an archetype) and the fact that it does not have spirit of many (which is what makes network powers good in the first place.

We've already gotten some feedback that lacking spirit of many is a little weird/awkward. Thanks for confirming.

[AlienFromBeyond]

I don't really understand why this is its own class instead of a Tactician archetype, like at all. Changing primary ability modifier is totally within the purview of an archetype, the Tactician already has some use of Unwilling Participant, and frankly the Tactician itself could use a little love. I don't like the extreme focus on Unwilling Participant either, it feels like an idea that seems cool in concept but lacking when actually applied. Having so many abilities that just don't work or are half effective if you aren't able to shove enemies into your Collective just feels really awful. Not to mention learning that the class is basically an attempt to shoehorn in Highlord Alarak (you even kept the name the same, that feels a bit too on the nose) into Pathfinder instead of having a more defined goal has also turned me off a lot from the class.

I would just rather play the Ghost Sovereign archetype for the Soul Waver in Drop Dead Studios's Battlemage's Handbook, though I know DSP of course is its own thing and can't design something while trying to keep the work of other 3pp in mind.

[Malroth]

You have to return to your base every 3 days or loose it? That's a very short period of time for any group even if they do posess supernatural means of travel. For a class that doesn't have it's own fast travel methods such a short duration claim would essentially amount to a class feature that reads "the local lord declares you a criminal"

[Deimosaur]

I'm going to split this up a little. Hope you don't mind.

I don't really understand why this is its own class instead of a Tactician archetype, like at all. Changing primary ability modifier is totally within the purview of an archetype, the Tactician already has some use of Unwilling Participant, and frankly the Tactician itself could use a little love. I don't like the extreme focus on Unwilling Participant either, it feels like an idea that seems cool in concept but lacking when actually applied.

The highlord and the tactician share the collective and the ability to manifest. Their concepts (outside of the shell of 'leader'), power lists and other class features are entirely different. This is much more than could be reflected in an archetype.

Having so many abilities that just don't work or are half effective if you aren't able to shove enemies into your Collective just feels really awful.

The highlord is designed to make conscription not a chore to use. Every tenet has a different way of conscripting enemies, and can resort to the normal Unwilling Participant feat if their unique method isn't suitable to a given situation. If he can't force enemies into the collective (there are a number of reasons why he may not be able to), then he can resort to supporting his party.

Not to mention learning that the class is basically an attempt to shoehorn in Highlord Alarak (you even kept the name the same, that feels a bit too on the nose) into Pathfinder instead of having a more defined goal has also turned me off a lot from the class.

The class is much more than that. They share a similar concept (psionic tyrant), but this highlord is a class with its own defining characteristics.

You have to return to your base every 3 days or loose it? That's a very short period of time for any group even if they do posess supernatural means of travel. For a class that doesn't have it's own fast travel methods such a short duration claim would essentially amount to a class feature that reads "the local lord declares you a criminal"

Okay. Seems like a good point. Numbers on highlord's mark can be adjusted.

[Tuvarkz]

Regarding the Ophiduan FCB: At level 10, it's +10 charisma score over a ML 10, so it's 25 bonus points, and four times that at level 20 for 100 PB. Lowering that down to 15 and 80 PP respectively due to Ophiduans effectively having 4 less charisma than most other highlords, it makes for a viable Ophiduan highlord with weaker save-abilities but more power points to play around with. HOWEVER, the issue is that the FCB can also be picked up via Mixed Blood trait, and that nets some of the stronger races for the class a FCB that, imo, is otherwise quite unbalanced at the later levels (5x the usual +1 PP per class level by max level).

[khadgar567]

Any ideas for eventual raynor( space marine) and kerrigan( psionic shifter class( queen b*tch of the universe)) classes? Please for raynors class fix( take back) and finish archforhe materials.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Very interesting. I'm sad I'll have to wait before an initiator archetype for this class is made. Such an archetype would hit both my favorite styles of Psionics and PoW. Hell, I have half a mind to homebrew it myself.

Two things: first, the Collective feature works differently for this class than the Vitalist and Tactician, since it rolls in a nerfed version of the Spirit of Many class feature; it took some looking up to figure out what network powers actually did before I realized they are used in almost the exact same way with the highlord, just removing the augment.

Second, a more minor one, but Affinity for Adaptation says the highlord halves the time and cost of retraining; how exactly does that work? The time I get, but retraining costs are a function of both time and level. Does that mean a fifth-level PC retraining something that usually takes four days would take two and spend 100 gp or 50 gp?

[Mehangel]

I don't really understand why this is its own class instead of a Tactician archetype, like at all. Changing primary ability modifier is totally within the purview of an archetype, the Tactician already has some use of Unwilling Participant, and frankly the Tactician itself could use a little love.

I have to agree. I am disappointed that this wasn't an archetype for the Tactician class. As an archetype it could've expanded/modified its Power List, primary ability modifier, etc.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I am incredibly disappointed that the Vitalist isn't an archetype for the Psion class. As an archetype, it could have modified its power list, primary ability modifier, etc...



I'm a huge fan of the Tactician, and would go so far as to say it's my favorite class in Psionics. This is quite different enough to stand on its own, and I would have hated to see the archetype text for all these changes.

I'll have more when I finish this coffee, but for now it seems like you're doing a lot of restating your blood power damage, to the point that if you want to make feats to empower it you might run into issues with RAW.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I could see this as an alternate class, but I think it's good on its own. And, since I never played any Starcraft II, I don't know that much about Alarak, but I was reminded of Battlefield by Blind Guardian. "We claim the land for the Highlord... God bless the land and our Highlord!

Only thing that sticks out for me is action economy of the class itself clashing with the chassis. The highlord has the resources to buff up himself of the party à la the psychic warrior/tactician it gets its powers from, or take attack actions, or force someone into their collective (the various constriptions make this easier, but its still a save that may be failed), or use a Decree, which themselves take up significant amounts of actions. Coupled with that are all the things that allow saves; Ability Focus will only get you so far.

[Alea]

I have to agree. I am disappointed that this wasn't an archetype for the Tactician class. As an archetype it could've expanded/modified its Power List, primary ability modifier, etc.

Can I ask why? I don’t get it, it seems to really be a matter of semantics whether it’s a tactician archetype or its own class, and changing everything in an archetype would be really awkward and difficult to grok, IMO. If it doesn’t really make a difference, and one way is easier to understand than the other, why shouldn’t they do it that way? Plus it seems rather different from tactician to me.

[khadgar567]

I could see this as an alternate class, but I think it's good on its own. And, since I never played any Starcraft II, I don't know that much about Alarak, but I was reminded of Battlefield by Blind Guardian. "We claim the land for the Highlord... God bless the land and our Highlord!

Only thing that sticks out for me is action economy of the class itself clashing with the chassis. The highlord has the resources to buff up himself of the party à la the psychic warrior/tactician it gets its powers from, or take attack actions, or force someone into their collective (the various constriptions make this easier, but its still a save that may be failed), or use a Decree, which themselves take up significant amounts of actions. Coupled with that are all the things that allow saves; Ability Focus will only get you so far.

you know a ballad dont counts as inspiration of class but highlord is such material that best served with capital E in alignment and alarak is the perfect bastard to be inspired after our very own red fel he is ambitious protoss with eyes on ruling entire universe, he uses his own enemy to usurp control of his faction in legacy of void and only serves the one worty to defeat him(which is hard unless you have jesus as your co pilot).

[Mehangel]

Can I ask why? I don’t get it, it seems to really be a matter of semantics whether it’s a tactician archetype or its own class, and changing everything in an archetype would be really awkward and difficult to grok, IMO. If it doesn’t really make a difference, and one way is easier to understand than the other, why shouldn’t they do it that way? Plus it seems rather different from tactician to me.

I suppose a couple of my problems with it being a stand alone class include:
1) Ultimate Psionics: It is easy enough to say, Ultimate Psionics is allowed + Psionics Augmented (when it is finally compiled into its own book). But I dont like having to list off every single DSP product allowed.
2) Tactician: It is already the Psionic Leader class, why try and re-invent the wheel; Also as mentioned before, the tactician needs some love.
3) Class Features: The Highlord's abilities aren't all that too different from those of the Tactician. It also doesn't really offer anything to the table not already provided by the Tactician.

What would make the Highlord more appealing? Without requiring an archetype, give it automatic Martial Initiating w/ upto 6th-level Maneuvers.

[khadgar567]

I suppose a couple of my problems with it being a stand alone class include:
1) Ultimate Psionics: It is easy enough to say, Ultimate Psionics is allowed + Psionics Augmented (when it is finally compiled into its own book). But I dont like having to list off every single DSP product allowed.
2) Tactician: It is already the Psionic Leader class, why try and re-invent the wheel; Also as mentioned before, the tactician needs some love.
3) Class Features: The Highlord's abilities aren't all that too different from those of the Tactician. It also doesn't really offer anything to the table not already provided by the Tactician.

What would make the Highlord more appealing? Without requiring an archetype, give it automatic Martial Initiating w/ upto 6th-level Maneuvers.

that would be nice but i prefer rules to use spheres of might so maybe drop dead studios dreamscarred press colab on ultimate battle path of might supplement( now thats a product i deffinetly buy).

[Alea]

1) Ultimate Psionics: It is easy enough to say, Ultimate Psionics is allowed + Psionics Augmented (when it is finally compiled into its own book). But I dont like having to list off every single DSP product allowed.

I would not assume that an archetype published outside Ultimate Psionics would be included in a campaign that specified only Ultimate Psionics as allowed DSP material. So you’re basically wrong if you think you can get out of listing every book that way (why not just say all DSP? or invite people to ask about 3pp books, and allow/disallow material on a case-by-case basis?)

2) Tactician: It is already the Psionic Leader class, why try and re-invent the wheel; Also as mentioned before, the tactician needs some love.

I really do not want for tactician to be the only psionic leader ever and every psionic class that wants to do any leading has to be a tactician archetype. That’s awful.

It’s also already not true, the vitalist exists, the psion can certainly do leadership if he wants to, and so on.

Finally, I also disagree that making highlord a tactician archetype would be giving the tactician any “needed love.” That wouldn’t be giving tactician any love, it would be at best giving lip-service to the idea. The highlord-as-a-tactician-archetype would be a tactician in name only if we’re going so far as to rip out almost all of the unique tactician class features, massively downgrade its manifesting ability, and introducing an entire other subsystem to the class.

3) Class Features: The Highlord's abilities aren't all that too different from those of the Tactician. It also doesn't really offer anything to the table not already provided by the Tactician.

Well, even just having skimmed the highlord, I completely disagree with your assessment, but it’s too subjective for me to actually try to convince you on that.

What would make the Highlord more appealing? Without requiring an archetype, give it automatic Martial Initiating w/ upto 6th-level Maneuvers.

I don’t personally like that idea much at all.

[Wartex1]

Man, I've been looking for something like this for a while, even trying to make my own class like it (thought it was an arcane spellcaster focused more on being very durable rather than being more support-based). From just skimming over it, it looks very good, and I'll definitely comment on it more once I read into it a bit more.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

The Zealot also barges in and lays claim to the psionic leader role. Classes can take similar roles; the hybrid classes are all about it. Why wasn't the spiritualist an archetyped summoner? The mesmerist an archetyped bard? I believe it is suitably different than the tactician. If I had to connect it, I'd say it feels like a hybrid class of the tactician and psychic warrior.

[Wartex1]

The Zealot also barges in and lays claim to the psionic leader role. Classes can take similar roles; the hybrid classes are all about it. Why wasn't the spiritualist an archetyped summoner? The mesmerist an archetyped bard? I believe it is suitably different than the tactician. If I had to connect it, I'd say it feels like a hybrid class of the tactician and psychic warrior.

The reason why the Occult classes are separate is because they are different enough conceptually and thematically to justify separate mechanics, which they definitely use to fulfill different roles and play differently enough.

For instance, the Summoner is a caster with a big beatstick attached plus very strong spelllike abilities. Meanwhile, the Spiritualist is more of s utility character with a greater emphasis on skills, excellent scouting power, and plays a more active role in melee combat.

[ComaVision]

For the Collective ability, do you lose all the benefits if you stray past Medium range? I wasn't entirely clear on that, though the improvement at level 15 seems to imply that is how it works.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I don’t personally like that idea much at all.

I mean I want an archetype of this class that has maneuvers, but I think it works fine as a base class...

For the Collective ability, do you lose all the benefits if you stray past Medium range? I wasn't entirely clear on that, though the improvement at level 15 seems to imply that is how it works.

Generally if you leave the collective's range you are ejected from the collective.

[Deimosaur]

Regarding the Ophiduan FCB: At level 10, it's +10 charisma score over a ML 10, so it's 25 bonus points, and four times that at level 20 for 100 PB. Lowering that down to 15 and 80 PP respectively due to Ophiduans effectively having 4 less charisma than most other highlords, it makes for a viable Ophiduan highlord with weaker save-abilities but more power points to play around with. HOWEVER, the issue is that the FCB can also be picked up via Mixed Blood trait, and that nets some of the stronger races for the class a FCB that, imo, is otherwise quite unbalanced at the later levels (5x the usual +1 PP per class level by max level).

The response to this might be oops.

Very interesting. I'm sad I'll have to wait before an initiator archetype for this class is made. Such an archetype would hit both my favorite styles of Psionics and PoW. Hell, I have half a mind to homebrew it myself.

I mean I want an archetype of this class that has maneuvers, but I think it works fine as a base class...

Something is in the works regarding this, but it may be a while. But it's definitely on the list of archetypes to do. I'm happy to see someone is looking forward to it.

Two things: first, the Collective feature works differently for this class than the Vitalist and Tactician, since it rolls in a nerfed version of the Spirit of Many class feature; it took some looking up to figure out what network powers actually did before I realized they are used in almost the exact same way with the highlord, just removing the augment.

Second, a more minor one, but Affinity for Adaptation says the highlord halves the time and cost of retraining; how exactly does that work? The time I get, but retraining costs are a function of both time and level. Does that mean a fifth-level PC retraining something that usually takes four days would take two and spend 100 gp or 50 gp?

First: We are actually going to be looking into baking some variant of Spirit of Many (perhaps by buffing our current Gift of Power class feature) into the highlord. The difference is something that I've seen a lot of people run into. Would you say it's jarring that it doesn't work the same way as the other networkers?

Second: I would probably want it to halve the cost only once. The highlord's expediting the retraining, but they still pay for all the days they would have spent otherwise.

I'll have more when I finish this coffee, but for now it seems like you're doing a lot of restating the damage of your blood power damage, to the point that if you want to make feats to empower it you might run into issues with RAW.

Good point. It might not be necessary to restate it per tenet.

Only thing that sticks out for me is action economy of the class itself clashing with the chassis. The highlord has the resources to buff up himself of the party à la the psychic warrior/tactician it gets its powers from, or take attack actions, or force someone into their collective (the various constriptions make this easier, but its still a save that may be failed), or use a Decree, which themselves take up significant amounts of actions. Coupled with that are all the things that allow saves; Ability Focus will only get you so far.

I think we'll have to get some more public playtesting to see how it flows with other people. I do know that each tenet has different action economies and priorities, so it should be interesting!

Relatedly, if anyone does play a highlord and has feedback for it, I'd love to know what tenet you used, and your thoughts on how it plays.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Alright, coffee imbibed... very slowly, apparently.

There is a lot going on here. Take from that what you will as I'm withholding my opinion on it, but this seems to be as much as control class as a leader class - something that the other Unwilling Participant options had to sacrifice support features for.

Conscription doesn't appear to actually cancel out Unwilling Participant's usual save, although I assume it's intended to since it calls out a Charisma-based save?

I really like the use of Psionic Focus as effectively concentration on an ability here, though I'd have to see it in action with two (or more? I'm not up to date on psionics anymore so I don't know if you can get 3 or 4) before I could really comment on what I feel on the balance.

With Bear My Burden, does this include indefinite effects, such as being staggered via nonlethal damage?

With Forceful Tribute, a single save to basically know the entire repertoire that the enemy has seems incredibly strong for the action and opportunity cost, to the point that I can see this being taken just for the secondary effect.

Relatedly, Highlord’s Greed sounds incredibly amusing to use, but it begs asking... if you take a feat that is a prerequisite, does the target lose the ability to use all further feats from the chain? For instance, would demanding PBS more or less completely shut down any archers?

Further down, in tenants: a lot more replicated text, this time most of the conscriptions seem to reproduce the Unwilling Participant DC. Group Conscription is unique in that it uses a special calculations, but the others just seem to be the DC already in place.

We are actually going to be looking into baking some variant of Spirit of Many (perhaps by buffing our current Gift of Power class feature) into the highlord. The difference is something that I've seen a lot of people run into. Would you say it's jarring that it doesn't work the same way as the other networkers?

I would rather the Collective feature itself work the same across all collective users, barring basic alterations such as levels gained and the ability score it's based on, with other additions made as unique features. That said, I didn't actually see anything different about the feature? If anything, the Spirit of Many feature itself is kinda redundant, from my reading of the Vitalist. Could someone point out the differences to me?

~

As an aside to the other posters, I certainly have my own opinions on whether or not we needed another (fourth?) collective support class, but it's far too late for that kind of feedback to be of any use. Might I suggest providing feedback to the devs that is actually useful?

[Forrestfire]

Hey, wanted to post to let people know that we've reshuffled the Highlord doc a bit; Decrees and Greater Decrees now have their own sections, to make the class easier to parse. Thanks for reading, all!

[LordOfCain]

I heard Sith Lord????

[Deimosaur]

Conscription doesn't appear to actually cancel out Unwilling Participant's usual save, although I assume it's intended to since it calls out a Charisma-based save?

Got it. We'll correct this wording a bit.

With Bear My Burden, does this include indefinite effects, such as being staggered via nonlethal damage?

With Forceful Tribute, a single save to basically know the entire repertoire that the enemy has seems incredibly strong for the action and opportunity cost, to the point that I can see this being taken just for the secondary effect.

Relatedly, Highlord’s Greed sounds incredibly amusing to use, but it begs asking... if you take a feat that is a prerequisite, does the target lose the ability to use all further feats from the chain? For instance, would demanding PBS more or less completely shut down any archers?

1) I believe so.
2) We can probably up the cost of it. But the cost does include psionic focus, needing to regain it for decrees, etc...we'll think about it, anyways.
3) I'm thinking yes. But there's several other ways to shut someone down with a decree at that level. But it's a hilarious way to do it!

Further down, in tenants: a lot more replicated text, this time most of the conscriptions seem to reproduce the Unwilling Participant DC. Group Conscription is unique in that it uses a special calculations, but the others just seem to be the DC already in place.

Got an eye on this. We'll fix it. Thanks a lot.

Edit: We have gone ahead and done this. The Conscription DCs have been cut from the wording of each tenet, since it's covered in other places and it's the same unless otherwise specified. Blood powers have gotten a similar treatment. Things should flow smoother.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Can the Tenet of Adaptation's Blood Flow be used to give up the 1d8 damage for the extra movement before you get to 2d8 blood strike?