[3.5] Ochremancer - Balance Questions

[babus]

Right off the bat, if any of you recognize the name, I am not the one who created this class, and do not in any way mean to imply that is the case. Thank you.

Link to Page on D&D Wiki (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ochremancer_%283.5e_Class%29)

Hello. I am posting here because an associate of mine said I should take this here to ask the experts on Homebrew to revue it for balance, as I am very interested in playing one during an upcoming campaign, but am unsure as to how well it'd do in an actual game. So uh... do you think it's serviceable, and are there any obvious changes you think might need to be made?

[Jota]

The creator is actually an on-again, off-again poster on these boards (Cidolfas), so I'm sure he'd appreciate feedback if you end up using it. That said, I understand it's an earlier work, as he chose not to port it following the moves to Wikia and then away from there to DnD-Wiki.org (his profile (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/User:ThunderGod_Cid)).

My immediate thoughts are thus:

Blindsight is fantastic. It's not too readily accessible as a dip, but it's a great power to have.
Sludge Bomb is akin to the warlock's eldritch blast, though the damage scales better with level.
Caustic Slime is interesting in that you can do a lot of tunneling and whatever given time, which is interesting, but often largely dependent on the consent of your DM.
Hide in Plain Sight at two isn't that big of a deal in my mind from a mid-tier perspective, but others may disagree.
You've got a smattering of movement and defensive abilities until Mercurial Vapors, which causes nausea (awesome), but has limited usage (balancing).
More ooze-emulators later and some utility abilities. There's some discrepancies with regard to the gelatinous cube abilities compared to the actual creature entry that might be worth hammering out before you get there.


Overall, it's like a warlock, but with something more of a selected path. Damage output is solid-ish, but never close to the level rogues and barbarians can put out. I think it's reasonably balanced on a tier four-ish level, but it lacks a clear focus (not really enough skill points to be a good skill monkey, even though that's where the abilities trend).

[babus]

Yeah, I may try hitting him up on dnd-wiki to see if he's had any thoughts since then. I'll also talk to my DM about burrowing, but she's fairly laid back, so she might allow it.

I had actually been a little concerned by Superacid allowing me to outright ignore acid resistance, but considering that acid damage is my whole shtick, it's rather appropriate.

[Juhn]

I suppose it depends on where you want this class to focus. If you are looking to make it into a Skillmonkey class, more skill points is probably a good place to start...

[babus]

I managed to get in contact with the original author:


While I liked the overall flavor of the Ochremancer, I omitted it from this site because I feel that it fails to meet the demands of versatility in higher level games. While it does have the ooze-like abilities (which are nice) and decent damage abilities through Sludge Bomb, I think it lacks the sheer versatility of the warlock and as a result may not necessarily fit as a base class. If I were to redo it, it may be as a 10 level prestige class that works off of existing warlock abilities. If it were to remain a base class, ooze-themed invocation-like abilities would be useful to make each individual ochremancer distinct from others in a mechanical sense. The former option did not particularly appeal to me and I found it difficult to really come up with sufficient ideas to make the latter happen, so for now I decided to leave it where it was for those who found it satisfactory as written and move on without it for the time being. I would appreciate feedback on how it performs, especially to see if my suspicions concerning its versatility (or lack thereof) are confirmed, and I wish you the best of luck making it work if you decide to use it in your campaign.

Retooling it completely may be a bit difficult, but perhaps Juhn is right that it could use a few more skill points, or maybe Sludge Bomb could get a bonus to damage based on Constitution (as is the case with Caustic Acid) instead of the improved level progression.

Any other suggestions on bumping it up a tier?

Unless someone might be interested in taking on either of the rehauls the author spoke of?