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Funinyourgame
2012-04-29, 07:49 PM
Hello everyone, for a while I'm into DoT character (damage over time) but fail too find one that fits the idea.

To give you more details, I'm not looking for a poison user, I'm more looking for a class that can do almost nothing for the first 2 rounds, but after he is one a the worst ennemy you can find.

Some example of what he could do (they are just idea don't get work-up about how OP they can be):
-Reduce BAB by 2 each turn for 5 turns (stack with itself) can put the ennemy at -4 with other things
-Deal 1 dmg per turn they go up by 2 each turn for 5 turns
-Ability dmg per turn
-take out spells slots (per turn or each time caster use it)
That's pretty much what I can explain (don't have anymore idea)

Its pretty much to help me find something or if I should work on it myself (with your help)

Thank you and have a nice day :smallcool:

Xechon
2012-04-29, 08:45 PM
Fluff would be easier to deal with, and a rewording of your goals would be nice (as is, its kinda confusing and choppy; elaborate). Are you looking for a homebrew, or a core/splatbook build?

None of the mechanics you have posted are overpowered as it, by the way. Depending on what you want on the side, it might get that way, but much more detail is needed for assistance.

bobthe6th
2012-04-29, 08:56 PM
My razor was built as a einhander class with DoT as its main shtick...
the problem you run into is that DoT has to stack really quickly, as combats last a few rounds as a rule...
but a spell thief would get you the spell loss...

but abilaty damage per round is broken on many levels. abilaty damage is really easy to go overboard with as almost everything has a dump stat(less then 10) and a few hits to that could drop them. additionaly con is HD damage per 1-2 points, a casters casting stat can quickly render them unable to do level apropriate things quickly, and a hit to dex/str can disable a creatures combat abilaties.

Funinyourgame
2012-04-29, 09:42 PM
So to explain I will give you an in-game saying from this class:

*So my attack succed so my ability lvl 11 say you got a 10% to miss your attack*
Next turn
*So now the 10% go up to 20%...Ho and dont forget that your BAB got down to +12 instead of +16, the dmg you just recieve go up to 6, you lose 2 more AC and you lose another 5ft. mouvement. So guys, should I add something else before next round?*

Hope it helps you understand how this class could work, have a nice day :smallcool:

Empedocles
2012-04-29, 09:51 PM
Whatever you come up with, the mechanics will likely come out easily, but then require a lot of fine tuning.

I'm more concerned about the fluff. Without poison (fluff) how do you intend on justifying the abilities>

Funinyourgame
2012-04-29, 10:32 PM
Simple, put pressure point on your hammer do some internal damage (like broken ankle to slow and to more you use it the worst it get or hit behind the head too blur the vision) put a little magic in the corner and there you go DoT class that affect almost anything.

Hammer is nice to have but its only there for style like the quaterstaff or the trowing hammer. So I think take the Hammer and give a more precise use that can still affect construct or skeleton is intersting. See most of the creature that or immune to precise dmg is due to non-exsitant organs, but this class attack your bones if you don't have the brain to attack. And since its intern, first its nothing, but to more it goes the worst it gets (if you use a broken arm but you don't know its broken what do you think it gonna happen to it?)

I hope you get what the class will be or what to look for if its what you wanted to do.

Thank you for your tiem and have a nice day :smallcool:

Kellus
2012-04-29, 10:45 PM
Actually, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this is a much better way to go about designing a class than starting with arbitrary fluff. Literally any fluff could be fit to this depending how you want to portray the idea, but by starting with an un(der)used mechanical concept instead you actually have a shot at creating a class people will actually want to play. Unfortunately a lot of cool ideas or neat concepts for classes that people write because they like the flavour have nothing especially interesting going on mechanically, which leads to the question, 'why do we need this?'.

I can think of a couple mechanical methods you could use for this concept, but I'd suggest thinking about the concept of momentum in D&D battles, and how to best create a character that can generate it for his team and keep it going. I'd also suggest not sticking to just number bonuses and penalties, because those get very boring very fast. You want things more along the lines of:

• Changing or moving terrain or positioning to give home field advantage to your team
• Field effects that hamper enemy ability use or bolster your team's
• Status conditions and neat effects. There's a lot of effects that don't see much use, and being able to do stuff like reliably knock people prone, blow them away, light them on fire, inflict fear, and so on could easily portray a character who is not especially threatening until he manages to get on a roll.

So yeah, a 'slow starter' could be a really interesting class to design as well as to play! :)

Grod_The_Giant
2012-04-29, 10:50 PM
So to explain I will give you an in-game saying from this class:

*So my attack succed so my ability lvl 11 say you got a 10% to miss your attack*
Next turn
*So now the 10% go up to 20%...Ho and dont forget that your BAB got down to +12 instead of +16, the dmg you just recieve go up to 6, you lose 2 more AC and you lose another 5ft. mouvement. So guys, should I add something else before next round?*

Hope it helps you understand how this class could work, have a nice day :smallcool:

Hmm... it's an interesting idea, but... well, speaking as a DM? I would probably frown on something like this. Not because of balance, or fluff, or anything of that nature, but simply because it would be an absolute, unmitigated pain in the butt to have a player run one of these. One or two sets of penalties is doable, if annoying; a class who's entire schtick is stacking increasingly worse status effects? I'd have to spent a significant amount of time each round recalculating the entire stat block. Those penalties aren't going to apply themselves. It only gets worse if there are multiple monsters of the same type, some with penalties and some without

I'm not saying it's not a good idea, just that the implementation as you're looking at it now is... clunky? A penalty like Sickened is easy to remember, since it's basically a -2 to all d20 rolls. A penalty like you described...well...

Sorry if I sound overly negative; I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just...nervous.

Funinyourgame
2012-04-29, 11:08 PM
Hmm... it's an interesting idea, but... well, speaking as a DM? I would probably frown on something like this. Not because of balance, or fluff, or anything of that nature, but simply because it would be an absolute, unmitigated pain in the butt to have a player run one of these. One or two sets of penalties is doable, if annoying; a class who's entire schtick is stacking increasingly worse status effects? I'd have to spent a significant amount of time each round recalculating the entire stat block. Those penalties aren't going to apply themselves. It only gets worse if there are multiple monsters of the same type, some with penalties and some without

I'm not saying it's not a good idea, just that the implementation as you're looking at it now is... clunky? A penalty like Sickened is easy to remember, since it's basically a -2 to all d20 rolls. A penalty like you described...well...

Sorry if I sound overly negative; I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just...nervous.

I do understand your point (I've been a DM few times) but the point of this class IS to make thing difficult for the monster, Its also the job of a player to be sure the DM don't forget anything, its a class based on cofindence the DM have with his players. But you are also right too much nombers soo way to hard so I think stop at for or five number debuff wich are easy to calculate lie BAB and HP.

I'm getting on something, I think trap inside the monster would be nice (hard time again for DM but read me out). The rhino is always charching, if he don't he is good has dead, you hit so so the next time he charge he do a blance check or fell and a fortitude save or fell dazzed. Things like that sounds nice to me don't you think?

BTW: thank you for your quick feedback really apreciate :smallbiggrin:

Grod_The_Giant
2012-04-29, 11:25 PM
BTW: thank you for your quick feedback really apreciate :smallbiggrin:

No problem. I think maybe what you might want is something like a hexblade, but with progressive debuffs. Like, sickened->nauseated->helpless, with a save at each point to stop it from getting worse. No more than one or two debuffs per monster, but with plenty of variety, for fun's sake. Does that sound about right?

Funinyourgame
2012-04-30, 12:42 AM
It does sound exactly what I'm looking for, just gonna put some usual thing in it like poison use and some weird effect like automate reroll for he heck of it too see if It can be used it this class.

Gonna work on it very soon, thank you very much everyone for you time and hope to see your feedback in my class when its gonna be posted.

P.S.: Can close this thread if you think you need, I have all the info I nedded to start, thanks again. :smallcool:

ericgrau
2012-04-30, 02:40 AM
The average fight is 5 rounds and I think most fights are determined in about 3 rounds so:


To balance damage per round, I'd match it up with normal damage divided by 3. In short fights it won't be that great, in long fights it will be devastating.
To balance penalties per round, I'd say a -6 is decent. So I'd say -2 per round. Maybe -1 to -3 scaling since debuff spells vary too. But -4 in one round is harsh right away, not something you want for this concept.
Ability penalties likewise needs -2 for a -1 modifier, so -4 per round give or take. Note that if you let abilities drop below 1 it makes a huge difference in power, since this becomes a knockout ability rather than a d20 roll penalty. Especially on cha because it gets dumped the most, or con because 0 con kills. Either don't let it go below 1 or reduce the damage enough to keep it fair.


Like anything else new if you're afraid of abuse like PCs finding ways to prolong fights then you can err slightly on the weak side. Such as dividing by 4 or 5 instead. But even 5 is pushing it because it would be hard for PCs to ever do well with that. A well made ability should be good some of the time. If it dominates all else 100% of the time or is always worse than all else then it ruins balance.

Temotei
2012-04-30, 06:37 AM
. . . I'd suggest thinking about the concept of momentum in D&D battles. . .

Going off of this idea, you could have one ability chain into another at some point. I did this with one of my base classes where he would be able to use one ability, attack, use the other ability if he hit, attack, etc. with bonuses gained with each attack that hit. On the same note, you could have your damage over time ability apply, then allow another one to be used at some penalty or with an attack roll attached, etc. Momentum is a really cool concept in D&D and I think it would work with this concept really well.

Funinyourgame
2012-04-30, 11:24 AM
The average fight is 5 rounds and I think most fights are determined in about 3 rounds so:


To balance damage per round, I'd match it up with normal damage divided by 3. In short fights it won't be that great, in long fights it will be devastating.
To balance penalties per round, I'd say a -6 is decent. So I'd say -2 per round. Maybe -1 to -3 scaling since debuff spells vary too. But -4 in one round is harsh right away, not something you want for this concept.
Ability penalties likewise needs -2 for a -1 modifier, so -4 per round give or take. Note that if you let abilities drop below 1 it makes a huge difference in power, since this becomes a knockout ability rather than a d20 roll penalty. Especially on cha because it gets dumped the most, or con because 0 con kills. Either don't let it go below 1 or reduce the damage enough to keep it fair.


You got a valide point about how fast "some" encounter can end, but if it takes you 3 turn to finish an encounter then yes this is is not good, this class is getting powerfull at 3rd round, but I'm not an idiot, their will be class ability that will let you boost your DoT for less round or give you more round in exchange of some dmg. Also if your encounter is easy enough to end in 3 rounds ask your DM to make it more chalenging next time, you will understand how usefull this class can become.

TemoTei: I already tought about 1 or 2 class ability they can be use in synergy with another, just need to figure out what will it be

Rainbownaga
2012-05-02, 07:36 PM
What bothers me is the potential encouragement of "hit and run" tactics. Canny players may try to attack an opponent, run away until the 'poison' stacks up and then finish combat with an awesome advantage (or just leave them to die if you include a true DoT). It won't always be possible, but with player creativity, it may well happen a lot.

Also what about NPCs? If the players win, do the conditions go away? Do they go away once the poisoner dies, or do they have to take some time to rest? Is there a simple magical/non-magical way of negating the escalating effects?

However you play it, it's bound to change the dynamics of combat encounters considerably (not that this is a bad thing).

Funinyourgame
2012-05-06, 08:49 PM
For Rainbownaga: This class have a maximum for turn (has any DoT class in any game) its not endless. Most of them will do nothing if you succed your Fortitude save or can go away with a magical healing.

For now The class have already 3 hability if you wich to see its construction.http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13184857#post13184857

Have a nice day :smallcool:

Yitzi
2012-05-06, 09:20 PM
the problem you run into is that DoT has to stack really quickly, as combats last a few rounds as a rule...

Or it could be designed to work with more defensive builds, in which case combat will last longer (such does require the existence of solid defenses against magic, though.)

ericgrau
2012-05-07, 10:38 AM
I don't mean that the average fight is over in 3 rounds; it's over in 5. I mean that the remaining 2 rounds are usually "cleanup" (few foes remaining which are easy to kill) so the damage done in the 4th and 5th round doesn't matter very much. And in general the earlier you kill a foe the less damage he does to you; waiting until the very end of the fight is worse than killing him earlier. So 1/5th normal damage each round would usually be weak unless you have some way to force the combat to last longer than average.

There's also a good chance that your ally will want to contribute to damaging your target since focusing attacks on one foe is usually a good strategy; but that means you won't get very many rounds of damage against him. In fact 1v1 the average individual foe dies in about 2.5 rounds (even though the entire fight against multiple foes lasts 5 rounds). With a party focusing attacks it's less than that. Or you might tell the party to leave one foe alone so your DpT can work, but then you also get the drawbacks of unfocused attacks.

Yitzi
2012-05-07, 10:59 AM
I don't mean that the average fight is over in 3 rounds; it's over in 5. I mean that the remaining 2 rounds are usually "cleanup" (few foes remaining which are easy to kill) so the damage done in the 4th and 5th round doesn't matter very much. And in general the earlier you kill a foe the less damage he does to you; waiting until the very end of the fight is worse than killing him earlier. So 1/5th normal damage each round would usually be weak unless you have some way to force the combat to last longer than average.

It's not that hard to make combat last longer than average with good defensive abilities. Also, it would probably be more like 1/3 or 1/2 normal damage each round in that case.


Or you might tell the party to leave one foe alone so your DpT can work, but then you also get the drawbacks of unfocused attacks.

DoT is the very epitome of "unfocused attacks", and would have to be stronger to compensate. No question about that.

dspeyer
2012-05-08, 10:26 AM
Just playing with this...

Matador

If you can't kill it, hurt it.

Prerequisites:
Sneak attack: 3d6
Combat expertise and any ambush feat
Bluff: 4 ranks


{table]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Sneak Attack|Bleed
1st|1|0|2|0|Bleed, Ole||+1d4
2nd|2|0|3|0|ambush feat|+1d6|
3rd|3|1|3|1|bleed power||+1d6
4th|4|1|4|1|ambush feat, bleed power|+1d6|
5th|5|1|4|1|ambush feat, bleed power, easy ambush||+1d8[/table]
HD: d8
Skills: 4+int
Class Skills: Bluff, Hide, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Search, Spot

Bleed (ex): When you make a successful sneak attack, you may decrease the damage by 1d6 to leave a wound that bleeds. Ever afterwards, until your victim dies, receives magical healing, rests for the night or receives a dc 15 heal check, he loses hp equal to you bleed damage. This damage is considered continual, so (for example) any attempt to cast a spell while bleeding requires a concentration check based on the most recent damage taken.

Ole (ex): When an enemy charges you, you may make a bluff check to convince him you are somewhere else. If your bluff check exceeds his attack roll, he attacks empty air and you get an attack of opportunity against which he is flat-footed. You cannot do this if you yourself are flatfooted or immobile.

Ambush Feat: Gain a free ambush feat. You must meet the prerequisites.

Bleed Power: As with ambush feats, you may do less bleed damage to cause other ongoing harm. Unlike ambush feats, you may choose how many dice of bleed damage to give up, and the impact of the power scales accordingly. You choose which bleed power to use (if any) and how much of it when you make the attack, and it takes effect on you turn ever after. At each level you gain a bleed power, choose from the following:
Hamper attack: decrease BAB by the number of bleed dice you sacrificed. Cannot decrease BAB below half of its original.
Bleed strength: take 2 points of strength damage per die sacrificed. Cannot reduce strength below 4.
Bleed dexterity: take 2 points of dexterity damage per die sacrificed. Cannot reduce dex below 4.
Bleed magic (su): lose one spell slot or prepared spell (victims' choice) of level equal to dice sacrificed. Cannot lose last spell or slot of that level. If the victim has no spells of that level or only one spell, lose a lower level spell.
Painful distraction: the victim takes a penalty of 5 per die on all concentration checks (including those taken to cast a spell while bleeding).


Easy Ambush (ex): decrease the cost of all ambush feats by one die, to a minimum of one die.