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View Full Version : New Variants!!! ~3.5~ PEACH



Tokuhara
2010-08-16, 10:10 AM
Primalist
Variant of: Wizard

Primalists are "savage" wizards who specialize in natural magic and have outstanding power when it comes to spell choice and are more combat-friendly, but sacrifice their familiars and abilities to be more powerful...

What you get:

+ Animal Companion as a Druid - Primalists have little need for "flimsy" animals and opt for a stronger aninal to work with them, using their Wizard level -4 (minimum of 1) for Druid levels when calculating Animal Companion
+ You can cast spells from the Druid Spell List as part of your Spells Known - Primalists are more in-tune with nature, thus cast many druid spells
+ Druidic is an automatic language for you - Primalists are the arcane equivelant to druids, often working alongside druids, thus can speak their language
+ Druid Weapon Proficiencies - You wield weapons from the druid weapon list in addition to the Wizard's list

What you give up:
+ Literacy - Primalists are in tune with nature and prepare their spells in a similar manner to clerics, thus cannot read and write, reguardless of skill points/intelligence
+ Familiar - You lose your familiar in favor of an Animal Companion
+ Summon Monster and Necromancy spells for all levels - since you are more inclined to be more "Nature Friendly," undead and most outsiders are against your code of conduct
+ School Specialization - To become a Primalist, a wizard must give up 3 schools (one must be Necromancy, and one cannot be Evocation)
+ Civilization Disdain - With the exception of the Scimitar, Primalists cannot use metal weapons and/or armor, since the Primalist is often trained by Druids.
+ Spells Known - Primalsists lose a great deal of daily knowledge vs a standard wizard and use Sorcerer's Spells Known progression over the Wizard's


Mystic Bard
Variant of: Bard

Mystic bards are talented mages, some even rivaling sorcerers and wizards for power, but are less adept at inspiring and combat.

What you gain:
^ Spells up to 9th level - Mystic Bards excell at magic, casting not only from the normal bard list, but they add the Beguiler list to their spells known

What you give up:
^ Armor Proficiencies - Since you have devoted yourself to magic, you sacrifice your ability to wear light armor and cast spells.
^ Bardic Music - Your powers of inspiration are not as persistent as those of a traditional bard. Your ability to inspire courage, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics lasts only 3 rounds after the ally can no longer hear the mystic bard sing, rather than the normal 5 rounds.
^ Spells per Day - While powerful, the Mystic Bard uses more arcane energy per casting vs their contemporaries. Use the Wizard's Spells/day progression instead of the Bard's






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More will come at a later time

Tokuhara
2010-08-16, 03:50 PM
Anybody????

Milskidasith
2010-08-16, 03:58 PM
Your primalist is a massive, massive, massive, and completely unnecessary, buff to wizards.

Mystic Bard is likewise a massive buff for no reason; it's a sorcerer, but with class features! Not only that, but the way it's worded, you don't just get new spells, but you know every spell in existence.

I can't even offer suggestions as to how to make these reasonable, because the design intent (giving the wizards even more versatility, making the bards into sorcerers with class features) isn't really a good idea.

Thinker
2010-08-16, 04:14 PM
I appreciate your efforts to add more variants. They spice up the game without adding a lot of new classes. I am guessing that several people were unsure about what sort of feedback you are looking for (i.e., power level, aesthetics, mechanics, suggestions for improvement, etc.). I will review your alternative class features and look forward to new entries.

Primalist



Variant of: Wizard

Primalists are "savage" wizards who specialize in natural magic and have outstanding power when it comes to spell choice and are more combat-friendly, but sacrifice their familiars and abilities to be more powerful...

What you get:

+ Animal Companion as a Druid - Primalists have little need for "flimsy" animals and opt for a stronger aninal to work with them.
+ You can cast spells from the Druid Spell List as part of your Spells Known - Primalists are more in-tune with nature, thus cast many druid spells
+ Druidic is an automatic language for you - Primalists are the arcane equivelant to druids, often working alongside druids, thus can speak their language
+ Druid Weapon Proficiencies - You wield weapons from the druid weapon list in addition to the Wizard's list

What you give up:
+ Literacy - Primalists are in tune with nature and prepare their spells in a similar manner to clerics, thus cannot read and write, reguardless of skill points/intelligence
+ Familiar - You lose your familiar in favor of an Animal Companion
+ Summon Monster and Necromancy spells for all levels - since you are more inclined to be more "Nature Friendly," undead and most outsiders are against your code of conduct
+ School Specialization - Primalists tend to view all magic as sacred (minus necromancy) and thus do not forgo any one school for more focus in another
+ Civilization Disdain - With the exception of the Scimitar, Primalists cannot use metal weapons and/or armor, since the Primalist is often trained by Druids.

This class variant is very, very powerful. At low levels the animal companion is as approximately as strong as a fighter and even at high levels is nearly as good as another character. I am unsure as to why the class gains new weapon choices since they remain a poor BAB class and so will never use this feature. The druid spell list addition to the already-strong wizard repertoire is potentially game-breaking. While most characters with access to level 9 spells can already rearrange the universe, this class allows it to do so with many, many new spells and increases the usefulness of an already new class. This could be offset by illiteracy since you do not mention a new method for the wizards to cast their spells (normally from a spell-book). The loss of necromancy not only doesn't make sense (druids have access to some necromancy spells, though they are rare), but also does little to limit the class's power since many of the most powerful spells are not found in this school. Also, the loss of the Summon Monster X spells is totally offset by the gain of the Summon Nature's Ally X spells. Also, the loss of specialization is not a big deal to most wizards and may even benefit elven spell casters due to racial substitution levels, though I don't remember their prerequisites. The loss of metallic weapons and armor is of no consequence to wizards.

Overall, I fail to see how this fills a niche not already filled by the druid. I think a better approach might be to select specific spells to add or remove from the wizard class. I think that simply re-fluffing the familiar or modifying the current abilities of the current familiar is enough, rather than granting an AC.


Mystic Bard



Variant of: Bard

Mystic bards are talented mages, some even rivaling sorcerers and wizards for power, but are less adept at inspiring and combat.

What you gain:
^ Spells up to 9th level - Mystic Bards excell at magic, casting not only from the normal bard list, but they add the Sorcerer/Wizard and Beguiler lists to their spells known

What you give up:
^ Armor Proficiencies - Since you have devoted yourself to magic, you sacrifice your ability to wear light armor and cast spells.
^ Bardic Music - Your powers of inspiration are not as persistent as those of a traditional bard. Your ability to inspire courage, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics lasts only 3 rounds after the ally can no longer hear the mystic bard sing, rather than the normal 5 rounds.

This class seems like the sorcerer class plus actual class features (minus the familiar). It has 3/4 BAB (useful for touch attacks), full spell-casting, and an impressive list of spells. It is definitely overpowered (and the regular bard is powerful enough to begin with).

Dead_Jester
2010-08-18, 07:26 PM
The primalist is essentially a generalist wizard that can abuse the fleshraker and gets some more battlefield control and buff spells (it doesn't need more) and gets to enjoy the greenbound and rashemi elemental summoning. If you let them prepare spells as cleric, than they become gods (if for some reason they weren't already), being able to chose spells every day from two of the best spell lists in the game, and as such is completely and utterly broken.

You could make them more balanced (if one can say a class with 9th level spells to be balanced) if you give them a much more restrictive spell list, maybe needing to drop two schools and only getting some druid spells. If the spell list is reduced, than the ability to use the cleric-like spells choosing is more balanced, but still better than normal for some one with 9th lvl arcane spells.

As for the mystic bard, Thinker pretty much summed it up. It is plainly better than a normal arcane full caster, even if it loses the familiar (which it can have for 1 feat). Giving them the beguiler spell list is only making it worse, because now they get a ton of spells at earlier levels while still maintaining the versatility of the wizard spell list. The fact that they have that and don't actually lose any buffing capabilities (most combats don't even last 5 rounds, so 4 round of bardic music is good enough) only makes this even crazier.

Honestly, these are a good idea, but both these classes need tonning down (the primalist is better than some wizards, and if not for wildshape abuse, would be better than the druid, and the mystic bard is plainly better than the wizard or sorcerer and the bard).

Tokuhara
2010-08-19, 11:45 AM
The primalist is essentially a generalist wizard that can abuse the fleshraker and gets some more battlefield control and buff spells (it doesn't need more) and gets to enjoy the greenbound and rashemi elemental summoning. If you let them prepare spells as cleric, than they become gods (if for some reason they weren't already), being able to chose spells every day from two of the best spell lists in the game, and as such is completely and utterly broken.

You could make them more balanced (if one can say a class with 9th level spells to be balanced) if you give them a much more restrictive spell list, maybe needing to drop two schools and only getting some druid spells. If the spell list is reduced, than the ability to use the cleric-like spells choosing is more balanced, but still better than normal for some one with 9th lvl arcane spells.

As for the mystic bard, Thinker pretty much summed it up. It is plainly better than a normal arcane full caster, even if it loses the familiar (which it can have for 1 feat). Giving them the beguiler spell list is only making it worse, because now they get a ton of spells at earlier levels while still maintaining the versatility of the wizard spell list. The fact that they have that and don't actually lose any buffing capabilities (most combats don't even last 5 rounds, so 4 round of bardic music is good enough) only makes this even crazier.

Honestly, these are a good idea, but both these classes need tonning down (the primalist is better than some wizards, and if not for wildshape abuse, would be better than the druid, and the mystic bard is plainly better than the wizard or sorcerer and the bard).

I made a general attempt to nerf the variants

Milskidasith
2010-08-19, 12:26 PM
I made a general attempt to nerf the variants

Mystic bard is still broken; it's a wizard with spontaneous casting and a bigger spell list with massive amounts of spells known and a better chassis.

Primalist should be a sorcerer variant if it's going to act like a sorcerer, and depending on whether or not your banned schools are for arcane spells only or all spells, it's still probably more powerful than the sorcerer.

Latronis
2010-08-19, 12:32 PM
Why not base the primalist on the Battle Sorcerer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#sorcererVariantBattleS orcerer)

Just change weapon and armour profs to match that of a druid, and let them pick their spells known from either the sorcerer or druid spell lists (with the exception of those from the necromancy school if you want to keep that)

Then exchange the familiar for the animal companion at -4 level (i like that as they can take a valuable feat slot to remove that penalty but its not inherently as useful as a druid's by default)