Input Wanted: Brutally Blunt Opinions

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Here's the skinny, I've been spending a large percentage of what little free time I have working on base classes for D&D (a rough draft for one such class didn't seem to go over so well). Being chock full of ideas is one thing, having a sense for whether or not they are balanced is quite another. So without further delay, here's round 1 of many questons:

1) A class based on excessive use of skills at the cost of the ability to do much more than take defensive stance in combat. Does such a concept interest any players or DMs out there? If so, what traits would you expect said class to have?

2) Constitution based psuedo-caster based upon the manipulation of vitals and all but eliminating manditory party down time. Does even the concept itself scream broken and unusable?

3) A class with a 1/1 BAB and d4 hit die with many, many (Ex) and (Su) abilities that allow for unheard of feats of stealth and agility, in which to make the most of the flanking, the element of surprise, and other such situational advantages. I fear for this concept the most, seeing as how there is a geat deal of potential for non-magical offensive ability. Do you all share said misgivings?

[Were-Sandwich]

3) A class with a 1/1 BAB and d4 hit die with many, many (Ex) and (Su) abilities that allow for unheard of feats of stealth and agility, in which to make the most of the flanking, the element of surprise, and other such situational advantages. I fear for this concept the most, seeing as how there is a geat deal of potential for non-magical offensive ability. Do you all share said misgivings?

Your worried that you're making a melee class that can rival magic for offensive ability? You shouldn't be scorned, you should be applauded.

[Dan_Hemmens]

What do you mean by "eliminating mandatory downtime"?

If you mean "I use this effect and everybody's use-per-day abilities refresh, and all the spellcasters can rememorise their spells" then yes, it's broken.

[MisterRaziel]

1) Sounds boring. D&D is by nature centred around combat, and most of the skills have very little direct combat application, which means that during the big dungeon fight, this player is the one always sent out for pizza, since they're not doing much else.

As an NPC, this could be useful only if the DM insists on rolling every NPC skill. Even then, it sounds like the Super Genius from Heroes Unlimited.

In all, an interesting thought, but if it ain't broke...

2) What exactly is wrong with party downtime? It doesn't hold up the game any longer than it takes the DM to say "Okay, you set camp for the night. The next morning..."

On the upside, this could be a really useful character for huge parties where all the bases are covered. Realistically, though, this character would be in extremely high demand by everybody - they'd eliminate the need for sleep, which means that everyone from mill workers to college students to evil necromancers would do their best to capture and enslave them.

3) Now this is an excellent idea. The extremely low hit die type (while a big problem for a front-line fighter, especially in the wake of spells like blade barrier) balances out the high damage potential.

My big problem with D&D is that base damage maxes out with the greatsword - these abilities mean that your high-level wizard isn't the main damage-dealer.

[dauphinous]

I once came up with a class that had basically no combat abilities, especially at low levels. It was a support class whose primary focus was healing. I will note that there were no clerics in this particular setting, hence the need for a healer-type. It was pretty much a waste of time. The player who tried it out was so completely bored during combat that I demoted it to an NPC class. The class had all kinds of nifty abilities to choose from, if only the character could last long enough to actually get them. It sounded like a good idea, and it would have been perfect for a character in a book, but it was lousy for playing.

What I took away from the experience is this. If a class has nothing to contribute to combat besides healing, it is pointless. If all they can contribute is buffing and healing, it has potential to work in a pbp or combat-free/low game, as long as the player understands up front that the class isn't suited to combat.

[Azrael]

1) A class based on excessive use of skills at the cost of the ability to do much more than take defensive stance in combat. Does such a concept interest any players or DMs out there? If so, what traits would you expect said class to have?

2) Constitution based psuedo-caster based upon the manipulation of vitals and all but eliminating manditory party down time. Does even the concept itself scream broken and unusable?

3) A class with a 1/1 BAB and d4 hit die with many, many (Ex) and (Su) abilities that allow for unheard of feats of stealth and agility, in which to make the most of the flanking, the element of surprise, and other such situational advantages. I fear for this concept the most, seeing as how there is a geat deal of potential for non-magical offensive ability. Do you all share said misgivings?

1) Excellent idea -- people will complain that DnD = combat. The rest of us know that is not always the case. Make use of skill mastery type things and check out Exemplar

2) Warlock based off Con, basically? Interesting. Needs to have some excellent new abilities or else they're just Con based Warlocks. Not that things like Warmage haven't already crushed the concept of distinct classes...

3) Ultra Rogue? I'm thinking it's a good idea. Lots of Su, Ex and spell-likes. I'd like to hear more.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Comrade Gorby: New class designs? Off to Homebrew with ye! ;)

My 2cp:

1) It sounds like the Expert NPC class bumped to PC level. I personally agree MisterRaziel and dauphinous - if you can't do anything in combat, then it can be extremely annoying when the group does get caught in combat (Azrael is right that combat isn't everything in D&D, but a battle can take 1-2 hours quite easily, which is a long time to sit and take defensive stance).

And, in order to make up for the complete ineptitude in battle, you'd have to fork over so much that I can't but see it unbalancing a game with little or no combat (or even just the out of combat parts of another game).

My suggestion is to play around with rogue and scout variants more than anything else - both classes have plenty of skills and skill based abilities without being totally worthless in combat. In fact, they're quite useful. And if a player is really that focussed on skills, let them take exemplar.

2) A very interesting idea, but very difficult to balance. Con-based caster-types are difficult for the simple reason that, all other aspects being essentially the same, the Con caster is tougher and more survivable, often significantly. Other casters have to split between improving casting power and improving hp, this class won't.

Getting rid of downtime seems to me to involve two things: 1) resetting caster "timers" so they can rememorize or pray for new spells without resting/waiting for their normal prayer time, 2) removing the effects of sleep deprivation (fatigue and exhaustion). Again, very difficult to balance - what's to stop this class from allowing a party to refresh back to full after every battle, given a little bit of time? Also, different campaigns have different downtime. A campaign with little combat and generally one battle per in-game day at most needs this class much less than one with 3-4 battles per in-game day. Sounds very difficult to balance, but it may be possible to pull something off. I'd imagine the class would need to operate off of a lot of X/day spell-like abilities.

3) This sounds very interesting - sounds like a melee glass cannon. I'm curious to see whether it can be different enough from the rogue and ninja but also remain effective.

[Dan_Hemmens]

1) Excellent idea -- people will complain that DnD = combat. The rest of us know that is not always the case. Make use of skill mastery type things and check out Exemplar


But the fact is that it *is* the case.

There is no option to create a D&D character who does not participate in combat. You *have* to track your Base Attack Bonus and Hit Points, which *have* to increase as you level up, and your level determines the sorts of "challenges" you face, where the difficulty of a challenge is based primarily on how difficult it is to fight.

You can run a low-combat D&D game, it's just that in D&D "low combat" means "one combat per session" whereas in other games it means "one combat ever".

[Hario]

The Con-caster is iffy at best, ever heard a spell called polymorph self/other? well yeah basically someone could polymorph into a being with insane constitiution and with a perminancy spell can have tuns of free spells perday.. although I like the idea it could be unbalancing, ummm would it be arcane or divine, or other for magic purposes.. if Divine it could and would be abused...* and yes it could be divine...*

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Were-Sandwich:

Well, yeah. When folks powergame and munch, it's usually in order to attain some insane level of combat ability. What's more horrifying than a "super rogue" that's in and out in a second, leaving dead casters in her wake? Sure a save-or-die or mind altering effect will end her killing spree in a heartbeat, but still.


Dan_Memmens:

Perhaps saying "eliminating manditory downtime" was selling the product a bit hard. I'm not too sure how to explain what I'm shooting for beyond giving a sample of the concept's abilities. Whilst I am still torn as to to whether or not I should use an invocation or pseudo-power point system with this concept, I do have an fair idea of what sorts of abilities would help speed up downtime and make the party more efficient. Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about:

Blood Bond: The <class that I will from not on call Bob> can draw any number of hit points from any number of willing creatures within range of of his Blood Touch ability, and transfer them to target creature. Temporary and bonus hit points transferred to other creatures are treated as normal hit points so long as the new hit point total is not higher than the max hit points of the targeted creature.

The Bob may target himself with this ability. Creatures such as swarms, undead, constructs, and aberrations are not affected by this ability.


MisterRaziel:

1) Well, there is a little more than just skill use. the class also has a minor focus on sacrificing BAB to gain ac for himself and allies, sacrificing saves to boost the saves of allies, and sacrificing skill ranks to boost those of his allies. There was also an innate counterspelling ability that was times/day. The way the class is set up as of right now is really awkward right now though.

2) Downtime is really a bad thing most of the time, but I think it's the biggest handicap on all but a melee based, undead party. For the most part, everyone has to sleep (or meditate, accursed elves) sometime. I just think that a class that can keep a party from wasting as much time and resources as possible is an interesting approach to take to character creation. Imagine how much good a Bob could do just by patching up the minor ailments of townsfolk with a Blood Bond style ability alone.

3) For players who like to gamble a bit, what better than a melee fighter with the hit die of a wizard yet similar potential for damage output? That's what was running though my head when I started work on this idea.


Dauphinous:

I know what ya mean. A one trick pony can get old fast if it's trick is passive to boot. However, what I craft is usually for my irl gaming group. There is a good 10 of us total and 4 of us actually like playing backround chracters (healers, facemen, skillbots), choosing to shine in areas outside of fighting while the less creative among us enjoy the limelight of unrivaled combat prowess. That being the case, I am quickly coming to realise how big a misgiving low combat potential is for the majority.


Azrael:

1) Oh without a doubt on both counts. The first thing I did when making the framework for the skill monkey class was loot the skill based abilites from the Exemplar and Eidetic Memory from the Jordain Vizier. A skill based class would just not work without em.

2) Yeah, something like a warlock. Only, the Bob would be more of a support caster of sorts. All about buffing, debuffing, status control, and making the most of teammates' abilties.

3) Well, I can't say much right now, but hope the end result will please those looking to end the damage dealing tyranny of casters. :P


Comrade Gorby and Hario, I'll have a response for ye both this evening. I've got to bolt for work.

Thanks for the feedback folks, it's really proven to be really helpful and encouraging.

[Cornugon]

As everyone seems to have said, the idea for #3 is a much-needed one that I'd be very glad to see.

I can see a place for #1, but I don't think I'd make the class completely useless in battle. Rather, I think it should be made into a support class that doesn't really deal out damage but helps the party in other means. Maybe give Feinting bonuses, Flanking bonuses, and other types of 'maneuver' bonuses in combat. Hmmm, is it just me or am I describing a Bard?

#2 doesn't really appeal to me that much, as in most of my games downtime isn't really much of an issue. Generally it plays out to "find safe place, secure safe place, rest." However, the ability you listed did seem interesting and I am curious to see more of the class.

[Collin152]

The Con-caster is iffy at best, ever heard a spell called polymorph self/other? well yeah basically someone could polymorph into a being with insane constitiution and with a perminancy spell can have tuns of free spells perday.. although I like the idea it could be unbalancing, ummm would it be arcane or divine, or other for magic purposes.. if Divine it could and would be abused...* and yes it could be divine...*
You realize, of course, that no shape-changing effects can be made permenant except for Polymorph Any Object, which has already been tagged as broken.

[Fizban]

At^: thank you, I was just about to scream over that.

[Gyrfalcon]

Number 1 is pretty meh. A high intelligence bard or rogue has a huge number of skill points and most skills available to them, and still have the ability to function in a support role when combat rolls around.

So the point of Number Two is to redistribute party damage so everyone is roughly 90% HP? It could be abused slightly if someone has the fast healing trait - suck them down to 1hp to heal everyone else, wait until they regenerate up to 50%, then toss a few cure spells on one person alone. But as Gorbash Kazdar noted, most downtime (at least that I see) falls under the need for casters to regain their casting ability or travel to and from locations.

I am interested in Number 3, though I would suggest linking their abilities to being alive rather then undead. I've been building undead characters for the past few days, and any class that relies on having a low number of hitpoints to balance a huge damage output breaks entirely when all past HD become d12s.

*edit* Figures I'd post at the exact same time as the OP. *laughs*

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Comrade:

1) By defensive stance, I meant that what few combat oriented abilites are given to the class are defensive is nature. Counterspelling, ac/save boosting and the like.

And, in order to make up for the complete ineptitude in battle, you'd have to fork over so much that I can't but see it unbalancing a game with little or no combat (or even just the out of combat parts of another game).

My suggestion is to play around with rogue and scout variants more than anything else - both classes have plenty of skills and skill based abilities without being totally worthless in combat. In fact, they're quite useful. And if a player is really that focussed on skills, let them take exemplar.

2) Ah, therin lies the beauty of this pseudo-caster. This isn't something like a wizard that can nuke using his Con instead of Int for all things magical. Nor is he to be an even more tank-like CoDzilla. Blood Bond is something of a taste of the sort of thing players will be messing around with while using this class.

I have yet to work out all the spellish stuff for this class yet, but I didn't even consider playing with the fire that is refreshing allied spellcasters' spells per day. However, the fatigue/exhaustion thing I was planning on.

If anything, the Bob would have the ability to offer extra spells a day taken from a list given by the Bob and use the Bob as the material componant. I'm not sure about this approach to things though. Seems really complex.

3) Without revealing too much, I think that your description feels pretty close to the feel I'm shooting for.


Hario:

I think I've already addressed this issue, but just in case: the only abuse one should expect from this class is teammates over taxing the poor Bob like an overused battery.


Cornugon:

1) Yeah... Adam (as this class shall now be called) is really something of a 5th spot party member like the bard. Only more specialized, but far more skillfull.

2) I think I must have really sold this concept the wrong way. The point of Bob is to keep a party going while the going gets tough instead of being utterly defeated when plan a goes sour. Kinda.

3) Here's to hoping the concept doesn't burst the positive bubble that I seem to have going.



Thanks again for all the feedback folks. Knowing what to look out for is great for maintaining focus.

In any case. In regards to these three concepts, what abilities do you guys think these classes should and should not have?


Gyrfalcon:

1) True. the idea really is for those players who would much rather skip combat as much as possible anyway. I know it's not the most appealing class across the board, but it does have a happy home in my group. I do see your point though, perhaps I can pump up the combat utility of the class somewhat so that folks won't get bored.

2) Indeed, I have taken into consideration how if one character has fast healing, in effect, the whole party has a weaker version. Bob is something of a truce between casters and fighters right now because most of the abilities I've cooked up thus far help them over casters.

3) We are on the same page my friend. While one could pull off an undead version of this class, it'd gain 12s at the cost of most of the best abilities this class has to offer. Kinda like how a fallen paladin becomes a fighter without feats. :P

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Edited.

[Gyrfalcon]

Gyrfalcon:

1) True. the idea really is for those players who would much rather skip combat as much as possible anyway. I know it's not the most appealing class across the board, but it does have a happy home in my group. I do see your point though, perhaps I can pump up the combat utility of the class somewhat so that folks won't get bored.

2) Indeed, I have taken into consideration how if one character has fast healing, in effect, the whole party has a weaker version. Bob is something of a truce between casters and fighters right now because most of the abilities I've cooked up thus far help them over casters.

3) We are on the same page my friend. While one could pull off an undead version of this class, it'd gain 12s at the cost of most of the best abilities this class has to offer. Kinda like how a fallen paladin becomes a fighter without feats. :P

1) Fair enough, I read your response to Comrade, and I think the sticking issue was using 'defensive stance' which is a combat option in the description. :) As long as the class has *some* utility in combat (maybe hanging back and being annoying to get through so you can beat on the squishy mage), it'll turn out well.

2) I'll be interested to see it, of course, and giving everyone a weaker version of fast healing is sort of nice - it does give a bit more staying power in combat at least.

3) Ah good, that was my one huge concern with the concept, I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with. :)

[Hadrian_Emrys]

1) Well, aside from the counterspell-ac/save boosting, did give the class monklike unarmed damage, but when I posted it the crit I got was that it was too good as a martial character. Left me quite confused.

2) Life swapping aside, I have high hopes for this class. Between this caster that tanks and the warrior below that can't take hits, there is a good bit of pressure not to bomb the effort.

3) For one thing, the concept (as it stands as of this moment) will not have access to it's Su and whatnot abilities until level 11. Even then, being undead would completely kill one's access to said abilties. I think I should toss in a few more anti-abuse traits just to be sure folks don't milk the class for the first 10 levels.

In any case, I must ask again if anyone has any ideas for what sort of thing should be added to any of these concepts.

[kailin]

You have a stupid hat and your house is ugly!

. . . Oh, you meant brutally blunt opinions about the classes. Rrright.

I'll disagree with everyone who was unconditionally down on #1 and say it'd be a really fun class to play if and only if you put in lots and lots of skill encounters. Ones that could go badly, or could be overcome with a cunning bit of diplomacy, a bluff, a sequence of hide/move silently/tumble/open lock/sleight of hand/knowledge checks.

I've got a long-running campaign that's in the middle of its first fully city-based adventure right now, and my rogue is happier than she's ever been before, without even worrying much about the pure combats that arise. Just be sure you give the expert class a chance to shine and some abilities to help them survive the inevitable botches they'll roll (hide in plain sight ain't a bad start).

Hario is right about #2. Ban Polymorph. WotC already did. It sounds like a cool class, but I think you should follow the basic principle that all exchanges he makes lose something in transmission. For example, if he Blood Bonds 100 hp away from a group, he can Blood Bond 75 hp back in. Same with sharing ability scores, power points, and so on. If I gave him healing/buffing I'd make it at around druid level, and tweak the class from there.

I dunno about #3. I've fought a couple of super rogues. They're immensely frustrating, and all it takes is a bit of clever ambushing and they can TPK with much less trouble than a huge tank.

[Fax Celestis]

I dunno about #3. I've fought a couple of super rogues. They're immensely frustrating, and all it takes is a bit of clever ambushing and they can TPK with much less trouble than a huge tank.
...mostly because the party tank got sneak attacked in round 1 for 9d6 damage x 6 swings (for a total of 54d6).

[Hadrian_Emrys]

kailin:

0) My current house IS ugly, and I love my stupid hat. I'm just glad somebody noticed them. :P

1) The games my group plays usually involve tons of skill checks. For some odd reason, we thrive on our ability to get things done out of combat as much as possible despite how combat heavy our campaigns usually end up.

1a) Ah Hide in Plain Sight huh? I was reserving that for Chad (the super rogue class), though I can see your point about having some sort of fumble fail-safe ability or two.

2) Unless someone else were to cast Polymorph on Bob, it's not gonna happen. However, if someone else casting Poly on him is what concerns you, I can always slap limitations on abilities to null that threat here and now.

Losing something in the process of swapping ala Blood Bond is something I am torn about considering. I'd much rather cap how much can be swapped in one go, or how much one can contribute to many (or conversely, how many can contribute to one) rather than making it so that Bob is actually causing a loss to the party rather than simply allocating resources to the greatest net benefit for all.

As for heals and buffs, I don't know quite what I'm doing yet in terms of invocations, spells, and spell-likes. That being the case, I have yet to get to work on what mad spell list this class will feature. Rest assured that this class will fill it's own role in a party, not sharing any spells with any other class. I can't say for sure that some spells won't be similar to ones already in place.

3) Played well, I'm sure this class could shape up to be a horrifying BBEG or a second in command to one. That's really half the joy of crafting classes like this.


Fax_Celestis:

That's just the tip of the 'burg for Chad.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Now that you've clarified that the skill-master isn't just taking the defensive stance option (full round, solid AC boost, the typical "I have no clue what to do and delaying won't help" action), but rather is good at performing non-offensive actions (buffs, aids, so forth), I'm much more intrigued. I still lean towards "rogue or bard variant" as opposed to a full-on new class, but I've played a number of support-only bards that I greatly enjoyed. For one of those, she never actually made a normal attack on anything - the biggest offensive actions she ever took were the occasional trip or disarm, plus lots of singing and aid anothers (hooray for whip users ;D). Also the most useful out-of-combat character in the group.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

As a person who is almost always forced to play the party face (not that I mind it half the time) I have come to embrace the duty that is the face.

Alright, down to meat and bones here. I have all this in a more easily followed format on my other computer, but I seem to have left the accursed thing at work...

The class (in it's current form) has d6 hit die, all skills as class skills, 8 + Int skill points per level (there is also a feature that gives retroactive +1s to skill points per level every odd level, I am aware it's a flawed system), proficient with simple weapons but no armor or shields, all good saves, evasion/mettle and their improved forms. The BAB for the class is 1/2 but with a class feature/2 levels that offers an unnamed +1 bonus to attacks that is added to BAB for all purposes but extra attacks as well as a +1 dodge bonus to AC.

Some assorted abilities include the bonus feats expertise, improved expertise, and allied defense. This trifecta allows (over time) the class to sacrifice up to +20 to his attack to gain up to a +20 dodge bonus to AC for himself and all adjacent allies. I also nabbed the Exemplar abilities related to sacrificing skills to boost those of allies, and I cooked up a similar feature that does the same with saves.

I don't quite recall what else I added beyond the Jordain Vizier's Eidetic Memory and innate counterspell/day abilities. I think that was about it. In the end, it's rough draft form is about as attribute reliant as a monk, but even more of a menace to opposing casters.

I can't say that I am happy with the end result as it stands, thus why I was fishing for suggestions.

The monk unnarmed attack was shown to me as being overkill, the monk AC bonus added too much with the other defensive abilities, and the spell resistance... they all just had to go.

[SlyJohnny]

1) A class based on excessive use of skills at the cost of the ability to do much more than take defensive stance in combat.

You mean a Bard? :)

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I'm sure you're well aware of how much of that I got from my irl group when I announced the project... :P