PDA

View Full Version : Base Class Challenge XI Voting Thread



Temotei
2012-04-28, 04:35 AM
Welcome to the voting thread for Base Class Challenge XI, Big Money Weave a Mighty Web (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237024)! Voting will consist of each voter giving a first, second, and third place vote for three separate base classes.

A first place vote is worth three points, a second place vote is worth two points, and a third place vote is worth one point. You may vote for your own class.

You are encouraged to include reason with your votes, though this is not required.

The class that ends up with the most points wins the challenge contest. Voting starts now and will continue until 23:59 on May 17th.

1st Place: Companion, by titanreaver
2nd Place: Enterprising Manager, by Gaiyamato
3rd Place: Treasurer, by dragonjek

{table=head]Base Class|Author|1st|2nd|3rd|Total Points
Trapsmith (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12936304&postcount=7)|unosarta|1|3|1|10
Virtuoso (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12937435&postcount=9)|zlefin|0|0|0|0
Storyteller (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12942069&postcount=10)|Tarvon000|1|3|2|11
Auretus Mercenary (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12955093&postcount=11) (Other (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12955101&postcount=12))|sengmeng|0|0|0|0
The Executioner (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12961503&postcount=13)|TheGeckoKing|1|0|1|4
Enterprising Manager (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12964756&postcount=14)|Gaiyamato|3|2|3|16
Companion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12968174&postcount=15)|titanreaver|4|3|4|22
The Treasurer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13139059&postcount=16) (Other (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13139061&postcount=17))|dragonjek|3|2|2|15[/table]

Unfortunately, the scavenger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12934892&postcount=3), quack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12935485&postcount=5), corpsecrafter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12935508&postcount=6), and Xtreme firefighter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12936493&postcount=8) are not complete, so they are ineligible for voting.

Xzoltar
2012-04-28, 07:56 AM
1st Place: Enterprising Manager (Gaiyamato)
2nd Place: Companion (titanreaver)
3rd Place: The Treasurer (dragonjek)

Merchant
2012-04-28, 09:01 AM
1st The treasurer (loved all the uses of skills for the paths and the other class features were nice. I thought it was made properly for the theme

2nd Trapsmith (just loved the mechanisms and the love for traps. You did better than I had imagined it, though a grapple trap would have been an awesome trap.)

3rd Executioner (using profession(executioner) for tome of battle stuff was quite ingenious. I liked the stance and the other class features as well. I liked the idea of him hunting down some PCs

4th(i know) Enterprising Manager ( Was my favorite for a long time but I just felt something was missing. The fluff was and flavor was there so I'm just not sure.)

EdroGrimshell
2012-04-28, 10:22 AM
1st Place: The Treasurer
2nd Place: Enterprising Manager
3rd Place: Companion

Temotei
2012-04-28, 09:43 PM
Votes tallied.

Wavelab
2012-04-29, 05:11 AM
1st Place: Enterprising Manager
2nd Place: The Treasurer
3rd Place: Companion

titanreaver
2012-04-29, 05:36 PM
1st place: the companion (I feel like it is the most versatile, and as such would allow the player to become more attached to their character)
2nd place: the enterprising manager (I liked the flavor, and my only complaint is that unless you follow all of the additional rules (which I do) it just falls a bit flat)
3rd place: story teller (I enjoy the mechanical ability to break the fourth wall, while still not being a cheat. How ever i would like to see more revisions)

brackenfur
2012-04-29, 05:51 PM
1st place: Companion (Always liked the spyness inherit here)
2nd place: Storyteller (I like classes that break the 4th wall)
3rd place: Enterprising Manager (The photo made me laugh a lot, and then the class is really different)

Lizard Lord
2012-04-29, 09:13 PM
1st place: Enterprising Manager
2nd Place: Treasurer
3rd Place: Trapsmith

Empedocles
2012-04-29, 10:08 PM
1. Storyteller. I don't care that it isn't really completed (obviously needs more revisions). This is wayyyyy cool and is extremely well done. I pray Tarvon000 comes back and completes this.

2. Trapsmith. It'd have been nice if it had more utility traps, but this is awesome for villains.

3. Companion. I like this class. Not sure why, but it is very cool... :smalltongue:

Really wish the corpsecrafter had been made :smallfrown:...

4th would go to the executioner (just saying)

Temotei
2012-04-30, 06:40 AM
Votes tallied.

dragonjek
2012-04-30, 05:08 PM
1st: Treasurer
While I may admittedly be a bit prejudiced here, I do think it fulfills the criteria best. It uses the Profession skill, is based around money, has abilities more in-line with other class abilities, and is designed around PC use.

I do feel the need to point out some of my own flaws here, though. Whenever I gave an ability increasing Profession, the ability almost always came with a second effect more directly of use to a PC. This is because, frankly, Profession hardly ever gets used when the PCs are busy going out on adventures. The last part of the class also looks a little rough (I was getting rushed, and more than a bit tired from doing all the work in just a few days). I am worried about game balance--it looks overall to be leaning a bit towards the overpowered side--I think this may be the influence of all the Pathfinder I've been reading.

I'm not as happy with it as I could be, but I think it fits best into the contest.

2nd: Companion
This class doesn't look finished. The abilities aren't described as spell-like, supernatural, or extraordinary, and the format of the work doesn't look finished. Also, they are described as being part of an organization--I thought that organizations were PrC material, not base class. There's also the "kiss" ability--it comes along with certain implications about the role of the Companion as a spy which just aren't too savory (and seem a bit crass, personally).

While I'm not fond the class concept, stat-wise they seem pretty good. I particularly like the "persona" ability, and thought the abilities associated with each persona were interesting.

It looks nice as an alternative sort of Factotum (although it would need a bit of reworking flavor-wise). However, only the "persona" ability has any connection with the Craft/Profession/Perform skills, and money doesn't otherwise play a roll in the class.

3rd: Enterprising Manager
This looks like an NPC class with stronger abilities. There isn't much here that would actually be of much use to an adventuring party. Also, many of its class abilities are things like automatically setting up businesses, having them branch out, etc--that isn't something that should be covered in class abilities, I think (although I've seen it done in official books). That doesn't seem like something that one should get by leveling up.

Overall, while I like the idea more than the Companion, I didn't think this worked too well (sorry). I can only see this class being useful in a very specialized campaign.

While it fills the money and Profession aspects of the competition, I just don't see it as a very good class for a PC (although this may be intentional)




Finally, to briefly cover the rest of the classes:

The Trapsmith, while a great idea (I like the idea of a trapping class), also doesn't seem to have much rhyme or reason in ability placement. Why is the ability to get a lightning trap so late an ability? The flavor text is also sort of low.

The Storyteller was just too 4th-wall-breaking for me to take seriously. I imagine there's a way to make a great storytelling class (I've seen a few, although I don't remember where), but the "treat the world as a story" thing is taken too literally here.

The Executioner needs more put into it to work. Why is carrying out a legal sentence to put criminals to death not-good? Why does someone who just executes people have such powers? How does someone get trained in this, and how is it different from a normal executioner? From the looks of it, this Executioner is more than just someone who carries out the sentence: how and why does someone develop such powers? There is a lot more that could be done with this class that just wasn't touched upon.

The Auretus Mercenary has two good saves, 9th level spellcasting, fair hit dice, nice skills, and good base attack bonus. They have bonus feats, proficiency with any weapon so long as they make it and superior crafting skills. Is anyone else reminded of the Lightning Warrior from the old WotC boards? Seriously unbalanced, and without much given reason for what abilities they have.

The Virtuoso looks like a better Expert, and might work for that. But the maker didn't put any effort into making it what it could have been, which he (or she?) admitted.


Sorry if this came out a little rude. I'm critical of everything (including my own work, and stuff that I actually like), so I'm not trying to be harsh. Things can only be improved once the faults and mistakes (which all things seem to have) are found and smoothed out.

Temotei
2012-05-01, 11:11 AM
Votes tallied and props to you for that post.

unosarta
2012-05-02, 07:24 AM
Wow, this is difficult to choose.

First Place: The Executioner. I felt many of the classes that came up in the contest were a little too... I don't want to be harsh here, but difficult to take seriously? It is hard to try to come up with a character for a class that is giving you power based on the metaphysical concept of gold, if that is possible to understand. Many of them were well made classes, to be certain, but they were either under powered or flavored in such a way that I couldn't really ever imagine wanting to play one. I can't really say that for the Executioner, though. I have always loved ToB, and though the flavor/archetype is really narrow, the actual class itself is pretty awesome. In addition, the archetype of the "avenging executioner" type character is pretty fantastic, so I am perfectly happy with that narrow focus. There are a lot of different ways you could take an Executioner character that still sort of fit in the concept of Executioner, and that really makes me happy.
Second Place: The Storyteller. The idea of a sort of cosmic storyteller is a really fascinating one, and I feel that this class handled it very well. The chance to use metagame knowledge, as someone who has a lot of metagame knowledge, is really awesome. I know I very often get frustrated playing lower intelligence characters, simply because it is really difficult for me to roleplay their interactions in a way that I feel is believable and still true to my style of play. I feel like an Elan like character could be fairly easily accomplished with this class, and I would still have fun playing it. The plot twist mechanic also really excites me, as a player with DMs who love to mess with their players, I could see this getting a lot of play time. I would like more Revisions, but even as it is, this is a very fun class.
Third Place: The Companion. This class has a really cool concept, but I feel that the actual execution wasn't necessarily as good as it possibly could have been. This is not to bash the creator, I think the concept and the abilities are absolutely fantastic, but a few of the abilities really stick out to me. However, over all, this class is like a 20 level Chameleon class, and it seems like it would be really fun to play. Of all of the classes, this is probably the class I would most like to play in a real game.



The Trapsmith, while a great idea (I like the idea of a trapping class), also doesn't seem to have much rhyme or reason in ability placement. Why is the ability to get a lightning trap so late an ability? The flavor text is also sort of low.
As for the lightning trap: it consistently will deal more damage to more targets than pretty much any of the other traps. log216 = 4, and then an additional time for the 1d6 damage, which means that you will end up dealing something on the order of 31d6 Electricity damage, and the lightning can arc back to the original target. No, this isn't too incredibly powerful, but the trap effects aren't really supposed to be. If you wanted a powerful effect, that would be the Spell Trap you are looking for. However, at higher levels, this will consistently deal more damage than the other Trap options that one has available to them, and ends up dealing more damage than any of the other at level Spell Traps, even. Also, the ability to be dealing this kind of damage without a save is pretty awesome, even if the target has to step on the trap (and this isn't even a problem at the level you get it, since you can shoot the target with the trap; attack roll for that kind of damage is better than every other damaging spell, basically). This becomes even more powerful with some of the Mechanisms. For instance, at level 16, with a Spread Trap Lightning Trap, with an Intelligence modifier of, say, +6 (DC 37), the trap will deal 16d6 Electrical damage to all creatures within 20 feet of the trap, which is pretty sweet. However, if one simply leaves the trap as is, if there are only two targets within 20 feet of each other, the trap will deal 21d6 damage to the activator of the trap, and 10d6 to the other target.

I actually put quite a bit of thought into this class, so I would rather you didn't make seemingly erroneous statements. :smallfrown:

ArkenBrony
2012-05-02, 06:33 PM
1st: companion
2nd: trap smith
3rd: story teller

Tarvon000
2012-05-02, 07:47 PM
1st Place: Trapsmith. Its mechanism system is original and looks fun to use, it has interesting abilities at every level, and it fits the theme of the contest perfectly.

2nd Place: Companion. I like the customizability of this class, and its persona ability in particular is very well designed, but many of the rest of the class features don't seem to fit together.

3rd Place: Treasurer. I like how this class manages to be based around money without becoming obscenely rich, since its money-earning and money-spending abilities seem to roughly cancel each other out. However, many of its abilities seem to only superficially fit with the theme of the class, particularly the spells.

Temotei
2012-05-03, 05:26 AM
Votes tallied. The companion is in the lead right now, followed by the treasurer and enterprising manager. The trapsmith and storyteller aren't far behind, though.

More good luck to everyone.

Lizard Lord
2012-05-03, 05:48 AM
Are you sure you counted my votes? I voted for trapsmith for 3rd place, but that isn't shown on the chart.

Temotei
2012-05-03, 05:59 AM
Are you sure you counted my votes? I voted for trapsmith for 3rd place, but that isn't shown on the chart.

Thanks. I recount twice at the end of every voting thread, but catching it early never hurts. I'll redo the voting count.

EDIT: Fixed. Thanks again. I missed your vote post when I tallied, for whatever reason.

Syrus31310
2012-05-05, 05:59 PM
1st: Companion

I think it calls to the companion in firefly, a much needed addition to D&D. Very roleplay heavy without being useless in combat or skills. Very neat class.

2nd: Storyteller

This is a neat idea. For those who hate the meta, it could be retooled as a mystic who predicts the future and sees omens (metagaming and plot twists respectively), although I like it as it stands.

3rd: Enterprising manager

I can't decide what I like about this, but it draws to me more than the rest. The idea of being a manager in a game, it's kinda like the companion, a different role to fill in the game that isn't there. Good addition.

Temotei
2012-05-06, 12:38 PM
Votes tallied.

Temotei
2012-05-09, 09:10 PM
We've got a little over a week left. MOAR VOTES.

Temotei
2012-05-18, 02:22 AM
This thread is closed to voting. The winner is titanreaver's companion. Congratulations.