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sournote103
2011-08-17, 09:38 PM
I am currently writing a campaign in which there will be a character of a homebrew class of my design integral to the plot. I have written the character up through all of Heroic tier, and just need to make sure it's balanced. Keep in mind that my group is two players (who occasionally double up on characters) and a DM, so each character has to be pretty powerful, and that we tend to do more combat-oriented campaigns. All the stat-stuff is below.
Role: Controller
Power Source: Marital (I guess... Not sure what power source to use, actually... Not that it matters much)
Key Abilities: Cha, Dex, Con
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth
Weapon Proficiencies: Dagger, Katar, Spiked Gauntlet, Kukiri, Khopesh
Bonus to Defense: +1 Will, +1 Reflex
HP at L1: 13 + Con score
HP per level: 5
Surges/Day: 5 + Con mod
Trained Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Perception, Stealth, Thievery
Class Features: Good Liar, Heightened Senses, Lie Spotter, Shadow Cloak, Blade Finesse
Good Liar - You gain a +2 bonus to Bluff checks. You gain an additional +2 bonus at 11th level and an additional +2 at 21st level.

Heightened Senses - You gain a +2 bonus to Perception checks. You gain low-light vision.

Lie Spotter - Creatures take a -2 penalty to Bluff checks against you.

Shadow Cloak - You can use the Shadow Cloak power.
Shadow Cloak
Encounter • Utility, Personal
Minor Action Personal
Effect: You gain Total Concealment until you make an attack.
Special: You can use this power 2 times per encounter. Increase to three times per encounter at 11th level and to four times per encounter a 21st level.


Blade Finesse - You may use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making attack or damage rolls with a Light Blade or when unarmed.

Powers
1st Level
Shifting Form
At-Will • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Dexterity or Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity or Charisma modifier damage. Enemies take a -2 penalty to attack rolls against you until the end of your next turn.

Wily Strike
At-Will • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Dexterity or Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity or Charisma modifier damage. You may shift one square.

Spinning Blade
Encounter • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Close Burst 1
Target: All enemies in burst
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage. The target makes an Endurance check with a DC equal to your Charisma score to avoid being pushed one square.
Increase damage to 2[w] + Dexterity modifier at 11th level and to 3[w] + Dexterity Modifier at 21st level.

Shadow Mask
Daily • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Charisma modifier damage. The target becomes invisible to all enemies. You take on the appearance of the target until the end of your next turn. Enemies must make a Perception check with a DC equal to your Charisma score plus five to overcome this effect.
Sustain Minor: You retain the appearance of the target until the end of your next turn.

2nd Level
Quick Step
Encounter • Utility
Move Action Personal
Effect: Shift a number of squares equal to your move speed.

3rd Level
Fake-Out
Encounter • Shadow, Weapon, Psychic
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Charisma modifier Psychic damage. The target’s HP cannot fall to zero or below from this damage. The target is dazed until the end of its next turn.

5th Level
Shadow Slash
Daily • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature within a number of squares equal to your Charisma modifier.
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Effect: Before the attack, teleport to a square adjacent to the target.
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity or Charisma modifier damage. Enemies take a -2 penalty to attack rolls against you until the end of your next turn.

6th Level
Shadow Step
Encounter • Utility
Move Action Personal
Effect: If the square you are occupying has low light or darker, you may teleport to any un-occupied square that has low light or darker. You gain total concealment until you make a move action.

7th Level
Twin Strike
Encounter • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC, two attacks
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage per attack.

9th Level
Huge Blow
Daily • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 2[w] + Charisma modifier damage and the target is knocked prone.

10th Level
Shadow Touch
Encounter • Utility
Free Action Melee Touch
Target: One ally
Effect: The target gains partial concealment until the end of your next turn.

The idea behind the class is sort of a combination of an illusionist-type class and a Rogue. I didn't give any choices for powers simply because I only intend to have one character of this class show up EVER fro storyline reasons, so variation between members of this class is a non-issue.
I'm sure a number of these need to be re-balanced. Ideas? Concerns? Thoughts?

EDIT: Will have to add an additional at-will power in case of humans in this class.
EDIT 2: First batch of edits to powers.

Howler Dagger
2011-08-17, 10:44 PM
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage. The target makes a Fortitude check with a DC equal to your Charisma score to avoid being pushed one square.
I think you might mean Endurance check, iirc there arent fortitude checks.

Eldest
2011-08-17, 10:52 PM
Or maybe a secondary attack vs. fortitude.
Also, not that it matters, it might be a shadow power source.

Sir Homeslice
2011-08-18, 07:21 AM
Wow. This class is seriously awful.

For one, the character this is intended for sounds exactly like an NPC.

Moving on. Good Liar, Lie Spotter, and Heightened Senses are bad class features. They're boring numerical increases.

Shadow Cloak is nonsensical on a Martial character. Also catchless on-demand total concealment is really powerful.

Blade Finesse barely makes sense since class powers are already dexterity-based. Did you mean for this to work with basic attacks?

Shifting Form: Boring, no control.
Wily Strike: Boring, no control.
Spinning Blade: Becomes useless very quickly.
Shadow Mask: What? Needs better wording, it's a mess.

Quick Step. Yawn.

Fake-Out: No such thing as fear damage.Also an awful encounter power. And save ends daze on an encounter power? Haha no.

Shadow Slash: Just plain awful.

Shadow Step: Yeah sure I guess.

Twin Strike (L7): What?

Twin Strike (L9): What?

Pierce the Darkness: This is just awful.


I'm sure a number of these need to be re-balanced. Ideas? Concerns? Thoughts?
Barely any of these are balanced, they're either too weak or just make no kind of sense whatsoever.

And I'm concerned you have absolutely no idea what you are doing in the slightest.

My thoughts? This is one of the saddest most unimaginatively made classes for 4e I have ever seen. If the character this was made for was indeed an NPC, just make up his abilities whole cloth instead of conforming to a PC class power structure or wildly rip off existing monsters and Frankenstein yourself an NPC from that, adjusting the math and effects as needed.

sournote103
2011-08-18, 07:54 AM
@SheepInDisguise
Yes. That is exactly what I meant. So glad someone caught that.

@Eldest
Yeah, Shadow would probably be the best power source.

@Sir Homeslice
It's sort of for an NPC kind of thing. Out of combat, it's going to work like an NPC, but the players in my group often double up on characters, so one of them will likely end up controlling this character is combat, which would not be at all out of place with my group. In any case, I certainly appreciate your advice on how many of these could be balanced.
EDIT: Also, yes, Bade Finesse was intended to work on basic attacks.
OTHER EDIT: Some of the criticisms you had were based on some of the powers not really fitting the "controller" mold. I really picked a role more as a formality than anything else, quite honestly. It seemed to fit a bit better than Striker, Leader, or Defender.
YET ANOTHER EDIT (Wow, I keep missing details here. That's what I get for posting as soon as I get up in the morning): I think I HAVE seen Fear damage somewhere.... Maybe I'm mis-remembering... I can change it to Psychic in any case.
MORE EDITS: Oh. There were two called Twin Strike. Yeah, I should not have been copy/pasting the power card template I was using. The second one should have a different name.

Howler Dagger
2011-08-18, 09:22 AM
You might want to model the powers after the Druid melee beast form powers, seeing as you are aiming for a controller.

Eldest
2011-08-18, 09:45 AM
Controllers should have forced movement, debuffs, and (optionally) large area attacks. The first two at-wills seem like they should be for a rouge, Spinning Blade is overpowered (nobody gets 3[W] on an at-will, ever), compare to cleave, which hits two targets in melee. Shadow mask works better as an encounter or even daily, being able to essentially turn invisible is really too good. I know thats not really what it does, but it has most of the same effects.
Shadow step is really overpowered (you could go halfway across the world, if you wanted, or teleport anywhere it's night) and the total concealment until you take a move action is even worse.
You might just want to make a hybrid wizard/rouge with some ability scores swapped (maybe the rouge wants dex and int intead of dex and cha?), so you can just yoink powers that have been tested. If you want to keep this idea I'll try to help think of suggestions.

Howler Dagger
2011-08-18, 09:53 AM
You might just want to make a hybrid wizard/rouge with some ability scores swapped (maybe the rouge wants dex and int intead of dex and cha?), so you can just yoink powers that have been tested. If you want to keep this idea I'll try to help think of suggestions.
Martial power 2 has a build for dex/int that focuses on archery. It ons pg 56

MLH
2011-08-18, 10:14 AM
Shadow Mask
Daily • Shadow, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: 1 creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Charisma modifier damage. The target becomes invisible to all enemies. You take on the appearance of the target until the end of your next turn. Enemies must make a Perception check with a DC equal to your Charisma score plus five to overcome this effect.
Sustain Minor: You retain the appearance of the target until the end of your next turn.

What you wanted: John Shadoe attacks Orc 1, and thanks to a little magic, Orcs 2, 3 and 4 now believe that John Shadoe has disappeared, and their companion 1 is standing there, thus they won't attack him.

What you wrote: John Shadoe attacks Orc 1. Orc 1 is now invisible, but Orcs 2, 3 and 4 still know where he is, unless he makes an effort to hide from them. John Shadoe also looks like Orc 1 now, but the way it's written, that puts Orcs 2, 3 and 4 under no obligation whatsoever to avoid attacking him.

What you need to include: At the very least, an attack against every enemy you want to influence with this. Make it against Will, that seems a natural fit. Perception vs CHA+5 is a wholly unprecedented way of determining the length of an effect, and unnecessarily complex in a system where saving throws exist. An effect that actually mechanically does what you want.

This is by no means the whole extent of problems for this single power alone. If I were you I'd abandon this project and look for something in the existing classes.

e: Melee attack, CHA vs. AC, deal damage. Secondary attack: burst 5 centered on target, CHA vs. Will, deal psychic damage, targets treat you as an ally and the initial attack's target as removed from play (save ends). Probably not perfect but much closer to your intent.

Shadow_Elf
2011-08-19, 12:15 AM
Firstly, I want to say that I agree with all of the above posters in that this should just be statted as an NPC or monster, and if a player takes control, so be it, they are allowed to control things with a differently shaped char sheet if push comes to shove. From a practicality standpoint, you want this class to fit a very specific mold for a character you already have in mind; that is never the way to approach class design, IMHO. If you're deadset on making this a class, I recommend you restart and approach it in a more thought-out manner.

Four broad steps for class design + comments on your particular case, spoilered for length:
Step 1: Decide the broad, sweeping archetype the class is going to fulfill. From what I see, the class could broadly be described as a "Con Artist" or a "Deceiver" or a "Trickster".

Step 2: Can I accomplish a character that fits this mold using an established class? If yes, use that class. If you think no, move on to step 3. In this case, I would argue yes; you don't want him to fulfill a specific combat role, so any class that gives you the kind of flexibility out of combat that you're looking for is fair game. Assassin, Executioner, Rogue, Thief, Bard, even a Warlock or Hexblade, could fulfill the role you want with minimal effort.

Step 3: We've established that the new class has a niche, its a new niche, and that we can't fill that niche ideally with any other mix of classes. So, our next step is to find a mechanical aspect that is unique to the class; after all, if it hasn't got its own gimmick, we could just be reflavouring another class, right? Whether it is Thief Tricks, Beast Form, Rages, Executioner Poisons or Fighter Weapon Talents, from simple to complex, every class has its own mechanical schtick that makes it good at its job. It should have a handful of utility class features, a "pick your build" feature and it should have a bread-and-butter role-related feature; these are the minimums, basically.

Step 4: We have a niche, we have a mechanical gimmick or two, we have builds laid out, and we have some fluff. Now, once that is all established, is the arduous but relatively easy part; flesh it out with powers. Once those are done, you can move on to giving each build a paragon path, and maybe making some generic ones too, and some feats. Basically, this is the "we've got the basics, now do everything else" step.