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View Full Version : Terramancer. Mostly done.



darklink_shadow
2013-03-31, 05:12 AM
Alright, I'm going to make a mage who focuses on manipulating the actual field of battle in order to influence which side wins.

I will be building this over the course of a few days. I will submit this before I finish so I do not lose my work and can continue to work on it any time I get free. This is in no way the final product, nor is it balance yet. It's mostly just ideas thrown down on paper.

Ok, PEACH or whatever. I wrote some of this while under the effects of medicine that makes me sleep and stupid while quite ill. So I might have missed something. I havent balanced this class's numericals yet. I dont know how, really.

{table=head] Level | BaB | Fort | Relfex | Will | Special
1 | +0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Bits of Earth, Suddenly Coals
2 | +1 | 3 | 0 | 3 | Grasping Roots, Desert Winds
3 | +2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Chunks of Earth, Healing Spring (1/day)
4 | +3 | ? | ? | ? | Sudden Hill, Temperate
5 | +3 | ? | ? | ? | Zone (Basic)
6 | +4 | ? | ? | ? | Artic Winds, Controlled Terrain, Healing Spring (2/day)
7 | +5 | ? | ? | ? | Spurt of Ash
8 | +6 | ? | ? | ? | Harsh Changes, Ice Ball
9 | +6 | ? | ? | ? | Earth Shell, Healing Spring (3/day)
10| +7 | ? | ? | ? | Zone (Advanced)
11| +8 | ? | ? | ? | Rough Terrain
12| +9 | ? | ? | ? | Healing Spring (4/day)
13| +9 | ? | ? | ? | Volcanic Explosion,
14| +10| ? | ? | ? | Sizzling Air, Boiling Seas
15| +11| ? | ? | ? | Zone (Crippling), Healing Spring (5/day)
16| +12| ? | ? | ? | Icetomb
17| +12| ? | ? | ? | Swirling Sand
18| +13| ? | ? | ? | Healing Spring (6/day)
19| +14| ? | ? | ? | Earth Punch, Flame Land, Chaotic Enviroment
20| +15| ? | ? | ? | Zone (Devastating), World Shift

[/table]

Terramancer saves: Saves are (10 + Level / 2 + CON)

Bits of Earth (Su): As an attack action, you can rip bits of earth, or rocks from the ground and hurl them at your foes. This works as a range attack and deals 1d6 + CON bludgeoning and slashing damage. If no suitable earth is present, (because you are flying, or under water), you instead conjure bits of earth in your hands.

Suddenly Coals (Su): You may, as an immediate action usable once per encounter, place caltrops on the ground within your level number of feet of you, rounded up to the nearest 5 ft. This causes movement to just short of the caltrops, allowing a reflex save to not step on them, but charging entities get no reflex save, and thus step on the caltrops. These caltrops deal fire damage, should they deal damage, and fade away into useless rocks after a number of rounds equal to your level plus your constitution modifier (minimum 1 round)

Grasping Roots (Su): As a standard action, designate one 10ft by 10ft square within close range. Roots grow from the ground and snare any who are within that zone. All creatures within those squares are grappled by roots with your BAB and strength equal to your CON. These roots have 5 hp and hardness 2. If a creature escapes from the roots, the roots in that square wither away. Should a square have been targetted, but not grappled anything, the roots in that square will attempt to grapple anyone who passes through their squares. This is a readied action for them. This ability can only be used once per day per two class levels.

Desert Winds (Su): As a full round action, designate a line starting in your square that extends out 30ft. Anyone caught in this line is hit by the burning hot winds of the vicious desert. On a fail fort save, any creature hit by these winds is fatigued a number of rounds equal to your con mod and take 2d6 fire damage. A successful save negates the fatigue and halves the damage.

At Level 6, this can become Artic Winds instead, which deal cold damage and slow. The damage also increased to half your class level.

Shards of Earth (Su): Your Bits of Earth ability now deals Bludgeoning, Slashing or Piercing damage chosen at the time of the attack, and deals a number of d6s of damage equal to your class level.

Healing Spring (Su): Once per day per 3 class levels, you may conjure a healing spring by spending a minute channeling. This healing spring has enough energy to heal a number of points of damage equal to 5 times your class level, or 10 times your CON score, which ever is higher. The water of this spring lasts until all charges are spent, or a minute has gone by. Being healed by this spring is a full round action.

Sudden Hill (Su): As a move action, cause a single 5' square to extend into the air 15'. Anyone standing on the square is brought up with it unless they pass a reflex save. A passed reflex save results in falling prone in an adjecent square. See splash weapon displacement rules. The character may choose to automatically fail the save. A failed save, intentional or otherwise, results in the character standing on the top of this pillar of earth. They must climb down, or jump down. You may cast thing on the same square twice, it's effects stack. At level 8, select up to 3 seperate 5' squares to be effected. At level 12, the pillars move up 30'. At 16, pick 6 squares to be effected, and the pillars move up 60'.

Temperate (Su): As a swift action, raise or lower the temperature one degree, this affects all squares within 25'. This does not stack with itself.

Zone (Su): After mastering some basic terrain effects, a Terramancer finally hits his stride. As a Full Round Action, a Terramancer may create a Zone effect. At level 5, he has access to the Basic Zones. At level 10, this improves to Advanced Zones. At Level 15, this improves to Crippling Zones. And finally at level 20, the Terramancer has master his art and can produce Devastating Zones.

A Zone is a area where the natural landscape has been replaced with a more difficult one. By designating up to his constitution modifer's worth of 5' squares, the Terramancer may turn these squares into any type of Zone he has access to. Further more, he may move any Zones he has active as a move action, or as part of a full round action to make more Zones. The Terramancer may only have his class level of active zones at once, and once he dismisses them he is fatigued for one round per round he each zone up. So if the Terramancer has 3 Zones up for 3 rounds, that is 9 rounds of fatigue. Should the Terramancer ever reach the point where he would be fatigued for more than twice his character level, his zones are dismissed and he is instead exhausted for one minute.

No two zones can occupy the same square at once.

Zones (Basic)

Desert Zone: Any creature standing in this Zone is fatigued.

Artic Zone: Any creature standing in this zone has it's movement halved. If they fail a fortitude save, they are slowed. A creature can only be thusly slowed one round per day by any single Terramancer.

Forest Zone: This area is difficult terrain as it is choked with plant life. Anyone caught in this zone who it is summoned is immbolized unless it makes a DC 15 strength check as a standard action.

Zones (Advanced):

Volcanic: Any creature who starts their turn in this zone is blinded by sulfur until they leave the square. This Zone cannot be moved.

Boreal: This Zone is 50' tall, but only 5' horizontally. Inside this zone are swirling waters that attempt to drown those inside. Each round the creature trapped inside must make a fort save or begin to drown. They may also make a Swim check to escape, with a DC equal to (Something.) Boreal zones fatigue the Terramancer twice as fast.

Jungle Zone: This Zone is actually a creature. This acts exactly like Black Tentacles, replacing your class level with Caster Level.

Zones (Crippling):

Fire: You summon the plane of fire. Any creature within this zone is treated as if it is within the Plane of Fire.

Ice: As Fire, but any damage dealth would be [Cold] instead.

Acid: As Fire, but any damage dealt would be [Acid] Instead.

Filth: Any creature in the Zone is sickened. Any sickened creature is nauseated instead. This Zone fatigues the Terramancer slowly, at half rate, rounding up after adding all zones together.

Zones (Devastating):

Void: Any creature in this Zone is Helpless, but untargetable. This Zone fatigues the Terramancer at three times the usual speed.

Terror: Any creature within this zone has it's fear level increased, but cannot leave the zone unless it makes a will save. Leaving the Zone allows the fear to fade at a rate of one stage per round.

Flux: Any creature inside this zone must make a fort save or be paralyzed, a reflex save or be immobilized, and a will save or be stunned. This Zone lasts one round, and does not fatigue the Terramancer, but also breaks his concentration, and ends all his other zones, fatiguing him appropriately.

Controlled Terrain: You may make gaps in any ability granted by this class. Those gaps are numbered to be 1 per con mod.

Spurt of Ash: As an Immediate Action, you may cause a spurt of ash to blind one creature until the end of their next turn. They get a reflex save though.

Harsh Changes: You harshly change the air, or something in the square of an enemy as a move action. The sudden drastic change allows a fort save, but should they fail they have [Fire] and [Cold] vulnerability, causing them to take 1.5 times the normal damage.

Iceball: Your Bits of Earth can now deal [Cold] damage in addition to one or two types of physical damage.

Earth Shell: You may cast Wall of Force once per day as an immediate action. This force effect lasts until the end of your next turn, but you may end it early as a free action.

Rough Terrain: As a standard action, the Terramancer designates his CONMOD number of 5' squares as "Rough Terrain." Moving through Rough Terrain is cut down to a quarter unless they pass a climb check, DC (Something) ROugh Terrain lasts for 3 rounds. At will

Volcanic Explosion: Sphere 25' in radius. All within make a fort save or stunned, and 10d6 damage. Once per encounter.

Sizzling Air: As a full round action, designate a 20ft by 20ft by 20ft cube. The air in that cube starts to warm up. After one round, if you continue to channel, the air causes anyone who continues to fly in there to become fatigued. After two rounds of channeling, the air becomes impossible to fly in. After three rounds, the air is super heated, causing 6d6 to anyone in that area. The air stays that hot for your constitution modifier times the number of rounds you channeled. You may not channel this for longer than 5 rounds.

Boiling Seas: As full round action, you make any water in a 20ft square cube boil. Anyone inside there takes 6d6 points of fire damage. The water continues to boil for your CON MOD rounds.

Icetomb: By channeling the vicious plane of frost (standard action), you can designate one target who must make a fort save or be frozen solid. They cannot be harmed while frozen solid, but they take 2d10 damage each round until either they are freed by 50 times your con mod of damage being dealt to the ice, or 1 minute transpires. Fire damage does triple damage to the ice. The creature inside takes any nonfire damage that the ice takes divided by four.

Swirling Sand: Designate a 50ft cone. All within are blinded, no save. This blindness lasts until they make a fort save, which they may make as a standard action on their turn.

Earth Punch: As an attack action, targetting AC, you may ask the earth to punch someone for you. The earth is has 50 str, and has a size category of colossal++++++++++++++++++ (that's 18 pluses.) By my calculations, it punches with a base punch of 26d6. The earth has a reach of 500 ft'. If you are not on the material plane, the ground what which ever plane you are on punches the target. If the plane you are on has no ground, cry yourself to sleep.

Flameland: After 1 minute of channel, which is interrupted by any damage, indicate a direction. Everything in a 1 mile cone in that direct is now on fire. This results in a d6 of damage every round until extinguished.

Chaotic Environment: Pick two 5' squares per con mod you have. Those squares are constantly in flux, tormenting any inside. Those inside must make a will save or become feared. They also take 15d6 typeless damage on a failed fort save.

Wolrd Shift: You can move the plates on which the world rests. This can do a lot of things, use science, and DM fiat to have fun.

darklink_shadow
2013-04-01, 07:29 AM
Ok, done with the outline, you're welcome to bother me now.

Soliloquy
2013-04-01, 08:15 AM
I am not quite sure why you didn't finish the saves.
If you don't remember how they progress, it is 0 +1/three levels, and 2 + 1/two levels.

From Suddenly coals: This causes movement to just short of the caltrops.

For desert winds and arctic winds: I see no reason why arctic winds is four levels after desert winds, and will propose a solution to this sort of thing later.

Sudden hill: this is a fine ability, but if it can be stacked, I see opportunity for gross misuse. by me.

Temperate: This ability comes after desert winds, but only increases the temperature 1 degree. I could be wrong, but it seems underpowered and rather useless except in suspiciously exact circumstances.

Zones. These seem to be supposed to be the main power of the class. However, the zones themselves are, in my opinion, too small, probably not even covering an entire room.

I recommend that you have it be more like a warlock, so that two different Terramancers can have more varied abilities, but having them usable at will.
I hope you finish this, it looks really good.

darklink_shadow
2013-04-01, 08:19 AM
Temperate helps the Terramancer not freeze to death in frostburn. And such tings.


I like the rest of your suggestions

inuyasha
2013-04-01, 08:23 AM
just to say, at level three, my dwarven terramancer with 20 constitution can use healing spring to heal 200 damage? remember, level three

sorry if i wasted your time or anything :smallwink: but i hope it was a good friendly reminder

Razanir
2013-04-01, 08:37 AM
Some formatting advice:
Finish the saves and bold class abilities in the spoiler.

Class Ability (Su): Text

not

Class Ability (Su): Text

darklink_shadow
2013-04-01, 08:52 AM
just to say, at level three, my dwarven terramancer with 20 constitution can use healing spring to heal 200 damage? remember, level three

sorry if i wasted your time or anything :smallwink: but i hope it was a good friendly reminder

Yes, yes he can. Once per day. If your guys took 200 damage and survived, you can heal your party to full. Problems? Too bad! This is not broken.

I',m not going to finish the saves right now. Anyone would know what it gets. Bolding advie will be taken as soon as I feel like it. Probably Tuesday.

Soliloquy
2013-04-01, 02:14 PM
Well, you could go with whichever is lower, instead of which one is higher. Not because it would be a broken PC, but because it would be a broken NPC, which one could easily acquire with the leadership feat.

bobthe6th
2013-04-01, 03:24 PM
I have to agree with the suggestion of at will abilities from a list rather then static abilities. (like 10 levels of 4-5 abilities at each level, were you get an ability from the level you have access to)

Also, why not just let healing spring hand out fast healing 1/increment for concentration rounds or 10, whichever is lower? Then you could make it a full round action to activate, and it would be a viable in combat healing method, rather then a free full heal out of combat(otherwise known as a wand of cure light wounds).

eftexar
2013-04-01, 03:41 PM
I second the list of abilities and in fact would suggest setting it up like the Warlock. And static damage is a bad idea for any class that doesn't cast spells.
Right now the class is kind of weak, mostly because of it's static abilities (not a whole lot of options), but also because some of it's abilities don't scale. Generally I consider about 14 class abilities (2 or 3 of which should scale), plus 12 invocations, to be considered a good balancing point.

darklink_shadow
2013-04-01, 05:19 PM
Status effects scale.

I'll re-work it so it has "Terrain Manipulation" levels next week or so. I need a lot more ideas for them in that case. And with school starting up tomorrow, and all the other work I need to get down, I won't have time to sit and muse.

bobthe6th
2013-04-01, 05:43 PM
Damage doesn't, and while damage might not be optimal, it is still nice to have some relevant effect on an opponent.

Honestly invocations are the way to go.

Just to Browse
2013-04-01, 08:29 PM
This is a hilarious and cool class that I'd probably enjoy playing. A bunch of at-will effects is definitely a good idea, contrary to what people appear to be saying, as it makes this class pretty simple to learn and easy to use as an NPC. If anything I'd suggest removing some of the at-will effects, since you could cause quite a bit of option paralysis.

My only problems are with any effects not at-will or measured by encounters. Grasping Roots is like black tentacles, so it's both overpowered and annoyingly nova-ish. If you just make it an entangle effect (perhaps quickening it later), it'll be fine.

Healing Spring is also weird, because it's a full heal every three days around the level when your party will probably have a wand of cure light wounds already, making it both somewhat redundant (if money-saving) and also fiddly. Either make this into a toggle-able fast healing buff, or just give him a small, free heal at-will.

This class has some very strong combat capacity, but not as much out-of-combat utility. If you do anything after modifying the per-day abilities, I recommend adding utilities. Stone shape, elemental scouts, speak with rocks, long-term teleports across earth, and weather control are all things I'd like to see.

eftexar
2013-04-01, 08:32 PM
I don't think anyone is saying to do limited use abilities. Invocation style casting, like the Warlock, is at will.

Just to Browse
2013-04-01, 08:36 PM
I don't think anyone is saying to do limited use abilities. Invocation style casting, like the Warlock, is at will.

I'm referring to the complaints about "static abilities". If I'm reading your posts right, your beef is that the class grants a series of at-will abilities without offering choices instead of granting a list of abilities for the terramancer to pick and choose off of. I disagree with that assertion, but if it isn't what you're saying, then go ahead and correct me.

eftexar
2013-04-01, 08:44 PM
Ah I see. I misunderstood, sorry. No you were correct, but my problem is more than simply that. Beyond the fact that without any flexibility the class ends up weaker than the Warlock, which has a similar premise, the class also faces a lack of sufficient power.

Less succinctly, because all of these abilities are in the main table and not off to the side it causes the "I can't add anything more because of clutter" syndrome, coupled with no passives to augment these options and non-scaling damage, we have a fairly weak class.

The former is opinion, but the later is a mechanical issue.

bobthe6th
2013-04-01, 08:51 PM
Some random typos. In desert wind, it says damage increases to 1/2 level at level 6... I suspect you meant it changes to 1d6/2 levels?

Also, bits of earth has no range... which is rather important.

I complain of static abilities because it means they become semi irelivent after a few levels.

Just to Browse
2013-04-01, 08:54 PM
It is a clutter, I can agree with that, but the class is definitely not weak compared to the warlock. It has crowd control, area effects, solid damage, preparatory capabilities, and functional weapon in all environments.

Things can certainly be done. It doesn't get a truly defensive ability until level 6 (spurt of ash) or a good battlefield control until level 4 (sudden hill), but it's a powerhouse of a class.

Incidentally, I've just realized it has no hit die. I assumed d6, so that's what I'm going to suggest.

Also, static abilities go irrelevant just the same as warlock invocations. That's a complaint which cannot be fixed by forcing the terramancer into some other format.

darklink_shadow
2013-04-01, 09:02 PM
Yea... d6.

Just to Browse, what exactly do you suggest? I'm not a skilled class designer or balancer. I wouldn't find significant contribution and help. But I don't want a dozen people helping. But your comments make the most sense to me.

bobthe6th
2013-04-01, 09:11 PM
Also, static abilities go irrelevant just the same as warlock invocations. That's a complaint which cannot be fixed by forcing the terramancer into some other format.

wait, The Dead Walk goes irrelevant? or Baleful Utterance?

Summon swarm Does get weaker, but it is able to get around invisibility and deal 1d6 without a roll. Other then that, when an ability is damage based it runs off eldrich blast... which scales.

Just to Browse
2013-04-01, 09:14 PM
My pleasure:

I'd recommend more utility (the stuff I wrote above), switching out the strong per-day abilities for weaker per-encounter or at-will abilities. Then you should look at your battlefield control.

Right now, the class gains a weak BFC with Suddenly Coals, but it's not all that great because you can only place them in melee range, you only get 5' coverage, and you can only do it once per encounter. I'd change that to one of the following

Once per encounter, big area, long range
At-will (with a short duration), small area, long range
At-will (with a short duration), medium area, short range


You also appear to put a larger focus on Zones, but they add a bunch more abilities to a class that really doesn't need as many. I recommend writing the definition of a Zone ability at the beginning of your class and then having every other level or so contain a Zone ability. This will allow players to use the awesome abilities you want for them without having to wait until level 5, and it'll force you to cut out some of the fat (for instance, grasping roots might as well be a zone, why not combine them) and make the class easier to use.

Bob: Baleful utterance is one of the strongest warlock invocations in the game, and it still goes under because the DC is 11 + Charisma Mod, which the warlock is likely not to be maxing since he needs to stay alive (Con), hit blasts (Dex), and will be relying on invocations. The dead walk also falls off because zombies and skeletons progress to suckage at higher levels and get no replacement.

And even if they didn't, it wouldn't be a point against the Terramancer anyways, because that means that you can hand out at-will SLAs to classes without letting them choose, and get the same result as if you had done it with a warlock.

Soliloquy
2013-04-02, 07:43 AM
Actually, Just to Browse's ideas look really good to me. If you wanted, you could do a sort of combo, taking his suggestions for the abilities, and putting the zones in earlier, but putting some choice in with the zones.