Homebrew DesignRoll up your sleeves and get working: there's lots of homebrewin' to be done! Post your custom creation for critiques or review those of your peers.
I corrected the T-time earlier, because I made a slight miscalculation. (And yes, from now on, the Ts all will have the same unit of measurement. I dare you to figure it out!) Sadly also half an hour late! DRAT! Anyway, now to get on with the reinvigoration of the HOMEBREW TIER COMPENDIUM!
T - 0!
Spoiler
Enter the Special Homebrewer Feature! Everybody, welcome our new guest: WaylanderX! I promise you he totally didn’t bribe me with a bottle of cider for this!
WaylanderX is relatively new to the Homebrew scene ‘round DnDese parts, but has shown to be quite creative when it comes to the mechanics of classes. This was already evident in his first full-fledged creation, which I helped him dub the Goaler of Frostflame. The Gaoler of Frostflame is a class which starts off with decent power, but becomes even stronger at the higher levels. The downside of the class is that it has to use its lower-level abilities first, before it can use its higher-level ones. This makes combat at higher levels dangerous for the class, but luckily it has abilities it can use to speed up its magic and use higher-level abilities faster, which are generally very straightforward, but also are intended to be a lot more powerful than abilities of other classes at those same level, effectively paying for this extra power by waiting longer to be able to use them. This makes for some shaky balance when compared to classes with more traditional mechanics, but one cannot deny the originality of the class’ workings.
He recently added a summoning path, which increases its Tier from where I previously put it to Tier 3, though it yet depends on what he is going to put up for his summons, as from what I’ve heard of his ideas the Primal Chain summons are supposed to be Solar-powered. Capital.
Next up: the Spellguide. The Spellguide works by building up ‘stacks’ of layer upon layer of magic on allies and enemies, before using up these stacks to unleash magic effects on them. In a way, this makes its mechanics similar to the Gaoler’s, except it is much more focused on the effects of its stacks and being a support class overall. This makes the class more passive than most classes, but more active than a lot of other support classes, due to the management of the stacks. However, the downside of this is that stack management can be hard to keep track of, at least at first. The balance of the Beacons is questionable, mainly due to the linear progression, which at 4 stacks each can become quite much. I myself find the half-bonuses some Beacons grant needless headaches, but YMMV. The Spellguide’s Flows, which is the name for its version of Invocations, basically, are mostly improvements upon earlier-levels ones once you get to higher levels, making them mostly pretty uninteresting, whereas the unique ones amongst the Storm Flows are crazy powerful and pretty gamebreaking, making the class hard to Tier, though I’m pretty sure it falls outside of Tier 3.
Lastly, there’s the Improviser. A class that is basically McGyver.
Except this McGyver can fly as if he were Spider-Man. Shut up, Spider-Man can fly!
The gold bag cap remains overall pretty low, which means that someone who could somehow craft shapesand that only works for themselves would be able to out-perform one of the features of this class for a measly 100 gp. Its main feature though, is its Improvisational Skills. These are a few lists of abilities it can cherry pick across its levels to become someone who might be an incarnation of Link, except there’s also crowbars for Morgan Freeman, poisons for your evil Batman-style assassins, and caltrops. One of the Hookshot’s earliest abilities basically allows flight while nearby a sufficiently tall wall, while the Rope path allows ranged grappling while using your Int modifier, allowing for some controlling maneuvers. Hammer Time turns you into Thor, minus lightning (unless you get an appropriate magic weapon, maybe). The martial maneuvers may be the hardest to balance against the other paths, considering it gives something entirely different and a little more as well, with the intention of making it more competitive with other martial adepts, which might be a little out of its style, but it’s limited to a discipline that does quite fit the class. The poison path makes them viable by increasing your gold cap immensely for poisons alone, which is helpful, and it keeps poisons viable for longer by more DC increases, though that may also make them too powerful (sadly, I’m no expert on poisons, but considering how many there are in official sources, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were abuseable). Likewise, he makes caltrops more viable with its path, but one should be wary to not focus too much on this path, as caltrops are highly limited, even though they can get quite a lot better with this path. At higher levels you’ll be encountering more flying foes and caltrops will become practically useless.
EDIT EXTRA: One thing I forgot to mention earlier is the use of improvised weapons. From his personal explanations, I know WaylanderX means for this to only apply to objects that aren't normally weapons (which still can pose a problem for clubs and quarterstaves), but this wasn't entirely clear to me from its actual description, which almost makes it seem like the Improviser is proficient with everything, which is just plain too much, especially when you look at all the awesome exotic weapons. The explanation given is also somewhat weak, because then you get to the point of "if he's proficient with all improvised weapons, why not with a lot of normal weapons, too?"
As a final extra, outside of WaylanderX’ classes, I took a look at his martial discipline: Escalating Chain. The name clearly is derived from the same idea as the Chains of the Gaoler of Frostflame, as it has several maneuvers that can only be used after another maneuver earlier in the encounter, some maneuvers even requiring the use of two maneuvers before it can be initiated. These maneuvers are much more powerful than other maneuvers of their level, similar to the Mid, End and Primal Chains of the Gaoler. This proves to be rather inventive, but due to their wording, if you have ways to gain more actions, you can abuse this discipline and quickly get off the Finishing strikes, thus dealing tons of damage, ultimately making the discipline rather badly balanced.
Ultimately, I can assuredly say that WaylanderX certainly is creative with mechanics*, but really needs to beware that the balance is not endangered. Of course, I’d like to say that he’d better worry about creativity first and balance later, since otherwise you end up nipping great ideas in the bud, but the end result is what counts the most!
*You’re also kind of bad with names, bro. But you already knew that. :P
Next up: Tiering the stuff that was put into these threads (on both GitP and Minmaxboards) first and then do Operation New Tier.
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Yo Morph, thx for the reviews ^^. I should be able to do something usefull with them, especially regarding the Spellguide. I'll nerf the Storm flows a bit and see how they turn out. Also, I'll go to work to work out more original Flows ;P.
Anyway, great job and keep up the good work!
Way
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Hey, Morph Bark, just wondering, but are you going to update the explanation of the tags to include the gamechanger tag? I think I know what you're implying, but, well, you know what they say about assuming.
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My Base Class Challenge entry, the Guardian Angel, is almost completely fine-tuned (feats and ACF's are all that might be added after this point). I'd be surprised if it comes up as higher than tier 4, but I bet you'll find the mechanics and role to be unique.
Hey, Morph Bark, just wondering, but are you going to update the explanation of the tags to include the gamechanger tag? I think I know what you're implying, but, well, you know what they say about assuming.
I will do so soon. I had a wording for the tag floating around here somewhere, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sengmeng
My Base Class Challenge entry, the Guardian Angel, is almost completely fine-tuned (feats and ACF's are all that might be added after this point). I'd be surprised if it comes up as higher than tier 4, but I bet you'll find the mechanics and role to be unique.
I'll take a look at it once the contest is over.
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I shall. I'll also dig through some other contest classes (after going over classes in the Tier threads that I haven't gone over yet) and make a nice buffet.
I will begin this venture come Monday, as I'll be gone 'til Sunday lead a LARP legion.
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I shall. I'll also dig through some other contest classes (after going over classes in the Tier threads that I haven't gone over yet) and make a nice buffet.
I will begin this venture come Monday, as I'll be gone 'til Sunday lead a LARP legion.
If it's not too much trouble (there seems to be a pretty sizable line as is and I don't want to pile on), could you please take a look at my monk remake? It's a couple years old but I'm pretty proud of it and hope it hit around the balance point I was going for (I feel that it goes into overkill territory with the damage and number of immunities, but I haven't heard any complaints about it so far).
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High Tier 3 Chronoshifter[Original, Unique, Buffer, Debuffer, Healer, Magic, Expanded] (this is sort of an edge case; it treads the line between High Tier 3 and Tier 2 with a few of its powers, but I believe the price they may come at allow it to take a step back into the comfort zone of more DMs)
Tier 4 Invoker Bard[Arcane, Invoker, Buffer, Face, Sage, Scout] (this may be YMMV, but in my opinion this Bard variant definitely goes down in the Tiers; it might be Borderline 3-4, but it isn’t 3)
I know Pyromancer asked for a re-Tiering of the Dovahkiin in this thread, but then didn’t see it in the listing at all, so I must’ve forgotten to update it at some point with a few of the classes that I did a list of halfway through (like the one above). I’ll have to dig through the thread when I’m having an active moment of non-laziness to search for it and check it thoroughly. I can’t do it the way I’d normally do it, as the search function isn’t up yet.
The Fix Tiers also have a handful of new additions and the –Self tag has been added below Buffer.
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Morph Bark, can I get some explanation behind the Tier 2 ranking of my Soulknife fix? I expected Tier 3, and I can see high Tier 3, but I don't see the game breaker that's needed to go to Tier 2. Thanks.
Any word on this, Morph Bark?
Also, could you please remove the spoilers around the Fix Classes tiers? It hides them by making them look like a list of tags for the fixes, as it comes right under the heading of Tags, and the first post has a similar format to that post, except having a list of tags in its spoiler instead of classes.
Humbly requesting your tiering wisdom for my very first attempt at homebrewing.
Although I am not sure if it qualifies, as I had no clear objetive with the homebrew but to "give a little more power" to the fighter class to keep up with my IRL gaming group.
I guess it enters in the "fix" section of your list.
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Feel free to tier any of my stuff (I saw my ebon initiate on that list and smiled), but specifically I was wondering if you'd be able to tier my Invincible Iron Man class. While it is written in Pathfinder format, nothing in it would be preclude an easy shift of the skills over to 3.5 to make it a stand alone 3.5 project.
And here I thought that during my times of trouble and being unable to keep things up at the pace I had before, that this thread would lie forgotten. ;_; Thanks guys. I promise to take a look at some of these classes soon! I will likely not be able to do it at the old pace, but a pace is better than no pace!
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I know Pyromancer asked for a re-Tiering of the Dovahkiin in this thread, but then didn’t see it in the listing at all, so I must’ve forgotten to update it at some point with a few of the classes that I did a list of halfway through (like the one above). I’ll have to dig through the thread when I’m having an active moment of non-laziness to search for it and check it thoroughly. I can’t do it the way I’d normally do it, as the search function isn’t up yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyromancer999
Hmmm...if you're not going to be judging for a while, then I'd like to repeat my request for a re-tiering of the Dovahkiin, and for a tiering of and/or feedback for the Greybeard, a class I posted a short while ago, provided you can manage any or all of that.
Re-posted for your convenience.
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Newest Work: Pyromancer - My submission for Base Class Contest X
Vote here.
And here I thought that during my times of trouble and being unable to keep things up at the pace I had before, that this thread would lie forgotten. ;_; Thanks guys. I promise to take a look at some of these classes soon! I will likely not be able to do it at the old pace, but a pace is better than no pace!
I don't suppose you got my pm about the dimensional conduit morph? I know its a bit of an epic though so dont worry if you are to busy :)
And here I thought that during my times of trouble and being unable to keep things up at the pace I had before, that this thread would lie forgotten. ;_; Thanks guys. I promise to take a look at some of these classes soon! I will likely not be able to do it at the old pace, but a pace is better than no pace!
Silly Morph. We're still here appreciating what you've done and waiting for more. We haven't forgotten this thread (it's one I still look for, even if I don't have anything new to contribute to it most of the time). As you say, a [positive] pace is better than no pace
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I prefer higher powered games, do not consider magic to be "special", and want non-casters to have similar levels of utility. If you haven't clearly said what your balance goals are, my suggestions generally reflect that. I'm pretty good with other balance points too though, so if I'm offering OP advice, let me know and I'll fix that.
My Base Class Challenge entry, the Guardian Angel, is almost completely fine-tuned (feats and ACF's are all that might be added after this point). I'd be surprised if it comes up as higher than tier 4, but I bet you'll find the mechanics and role to be unique.
Going slowly over classes at a rate of two per day at the moment. Added, among others, Vector Witch and Dovahkiin. Others are currently being looked at.
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Re: Morph Bark's Homebrew Tier Compendium
That's not a natural thing for him to do, at all. Thanks bindin. 
