The Gaming Den

sigma999 wrote:If I give a Half Fiend some Outsider Hit Dice, combined with the +4 stat boosts that's nothing to scoff at.

I never did like the spheres from Tome. I've said it before and I say it again.

Well, as long as the special qualities are distributed evenly, should be no problem.

Maybe I'll leave off Smite.

Ok, so instead of a level 2 conduit play a level 4 True Fiend. Is there a conceptual space that hasn't been covered? Do we really need another "Half Monster" class?

Edit: To be clear. The reason I skip over the needless stat inflation is because needless stat inflation is stupid and terrible design. If you want to have better stats than everyone else at the table, just write down the stats you want. Don't make a stupid class just so your number can be bigger than your neighbors number.

Guardinal Channeler

Hit Die: d10
BAB: Full
Saves: Good Fort and Will
Skills: 4+INT
Class Skills: Any except UMD.
Alignment: Any (Good?)
Proficiencies: Simple Weapons, Light Armor, No shields.

Guardinal Channeler does exactly what it says, and gets the power of the animal spirit celestials known as Guardinals.

Scent comes with all forms.

DR/Silver equal to half level.

Lupinal: Gain claws for 1d6+1/2 Str. Dodge missiles.

Cervidal: Gain the ability to heal 1d6hp per 2 levels to an ally with a touch 3/day. Or maybe... Remove any negative condition affecting an ally except hit point damage or death. Or, guardinals have lay on hands. MAybe a LoH at half the strength of the paladins?

Avoral: Still not sure. Flight is straight out at level 1, and so is true seeing...

Musteval: BAB to damage to any attack that would count as a sneak attack.

Ursinal: Gain the special ability of a sphere? Prestidigitation?

Leonal: ??? Seriously. Leonals get some good stuff, but none if it is appropriate for level 1.

Equinal: +10 feet run speed.

Cetaceal (pathfinder): Breath underwater. Swim speed.

I would think that you would have access to all these at first level, and you would gain new abilities for each form upon leveling. Changing forms is a standard or full round action?

Maybe pick 2 or three forms?

I think a player should have to choose a form and they are stuck with that one.

I made a superpowered class similar to this once years ago, one for each outsider type.
It could change into many varied outsider forms and gain their abilities and eventually it just became a garbled mess of stat boosts and SLAs.

Please don't fall for that.

So you're giving basic (I assume you mean basic and not intermediate or advanced) sphere access at level 1 when the class designed around spheres gets its first sphere at level 2 and true fiend has to wait til level 4 to get a sphere at all? On top of being a better healbot than a cleric or druid. On top of the sneak attack of a rogue. On top off the best chassis you could have (d12 HD, all good saves, full BAB).

I mean if that's the kind of game you want to play go ahead. But don't pretend that it's anywhere close to balanced in a low level party.

Just to give you an example of what a level 1 character is doing. I'm gunna focus on classes that also get a d10 or higher and at least 2 saves with full BAB.

Fighter: Swift action to gain combat focus. Can expend combat focus to reroll a single dice role that round. Basically if he's using a two handed weapon he's going to hit more often. But that's all he does. He wears some light armor and hits things with a great sword with slightly increased accuracy. No spheres, no healing, no swim speed. Just a chain vest and a greatsword.
Barbarian: Similar to fighter. Hits things kinda hard (+2 morale to hit and damage, +2 to saves, -2 AC while raging). Fast healing 1 (not as good as healing the whole party to full).
Knight: +1d6 damage on a single attack per round if the designated enemy doesn't attack the knight. Probably the best of the bunch because you can use it on ranged attacks.
Samurai: He gets a +1 weapon. That's seriously his entire class features at level 1.

So, your class obviously gets way more utility than every other class with a good chassis at level 1. Let's see how it does against a conduit.

Conduit: No sphere access. Shitty chassis. No heal the party to full. Your class is just better than conduit in every single way.
Rogue: You have fewer skill points, the same sneak attack, and HOLY SHIT YOUR STATS ARE A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER FOR ACTUALLY GETTING IN MELEE AND STABBING THINGS WITH SNEAK ATTACK.

Need I continue? At no point should you poach the core ability of another class. Ever. That's the defining characteristic of someone that took the class. Just stop with your lazy design and create some level appropriate effects that are not "Class X but better"

Edited somewhat.

Wiseman wrote:Edited somewhat.

Ok, here's the deal. When you build a class around bonuses people are just going to stack bonuses ad nauseum until they break the RNG/HP scaling/whatever so they can full attack the tarasque and kill it in two rounds at level 13. I'm not actually joking because I am one of those players that would rather just shit on the RNG so I have the option to make the adventure go the direction I want it to at any time. And when your "ability" is +X conditional damage... Just fuck off right there. Go play 4E. The reason people around here don't like 4E is because abilities don't actually do anything. They're just a set of numbers on a slider.

So you need to get away from the numbers on a slider approach. If your class doesn't do a new thing (a good example of this done well, was Tome of Battle. People went apeshit for that stuff because you got new and different abilities like the crusader initiative juggling or warblade whatever warblades do) then you need to stop writing and ask yourself why you're writing a new class when the hundreds of classes floating around TGD won't do.

So the big question is: What do you want your class to do?

Not what do you want to flavor it as. What unique thing in a party does it do that another class does not already cover? Another example of this would be the Knight class from Races of War. Yeah, there were other knight classes (and paladin) classes written elsewhere. What made Knight from Races of War worth the time to design and other people to read/use? The Challenge mechanic. That was a New Thing(tm) that mechanically synched up with the flavor people had been going after for a long time.

So here's the deal. What New Thing are you trying to do? I joined this board five years ago. 3E came out 10+ years ago. What are you trying to do that hasn't been covered elsewhere? You want a class that runs around unarmored and does a specific combat trick that varies from combat to combat? Use the fucking monk class. You want a class that gets a variety of "nonhuman" abilities and casts SLAs off a limited list? We've got conduit. You want something else? Fucking tell me in clear words what your mechanical design goals are. Flavor is something the player largely adds. Mechanics come from the class. I am 99% certain that you are trying to make a martial class as far as party role/contribution is concerned. And we've got dozens of complete ones laying around. Which one do you want help reflavoring?

There is no fucking reason to keep reinventing the wheel when there are racecars just laying around unused.

Well I've got nothing. This is my first time ever making a class, so I'm just screwing around with ideas for the hell of it. But then again, there's probably nothing I can do with this anyways, so fuck it.

Wiseman wrote:Well I've got nothing. This is my first time ever making a class, so I'm just screwing around with ideas for the hell of it. But then again, there's probably nothing I can do with this anyways, so fuck it.

To be clear, I'm not saying that I can't help you if you have some unique idea that we haven't already fleshed out. I'm just saying that a lot of the basic themes people usually try for are already covered in various Tome/community classes (although I'd be wary of certain posters; some people here can't design their way out of a wet bag; you know who you are). If you have a specific niche in the party you want to fill, I can help you do that. Just, you have to actually come in with a design goal and a clear idea what you want. Slap numbers on a paper and see what sticks is how you produce 5E, not shit that stays on the RNG and has distinct abilities with counterplay and tactical choices.

To combat stat inflation and RNG breaking would it help to dissect the bonuses granted from high stats and give those out as abilities?

For instance +2 damage instead of +4 STR.

Still just a straight numbers boost.

sigma999 wrote:To combat stat inflation and RNG breaking would it help to dissect the bonuses granted from high stats and give those out as abilities?

For instance +2 damage instead of +4 STR.

Hey look, we've arrived at the 4E/D&DNext design. Do you want to play that kind of game? I don't.