Could this class avoid needing any magic items?

[gooddragon1]

xxxxxxxxxxxx

[Chronos]

So, this class can't do anything other than weapon combat, and has an "ability" that actually makes them worse at that. Why would anyone ever play this?

[gooddragon1]

So, this class can't do anything other than weapon combat, and has an "ability" that actually makes them worse at that. Why would anyone ever play this?

It was presented as an alternative to the christmas tree effect, I'm forwarding it because I liked it (yes I'm crazy).

[GreenETC]

I'd say no. With no skills and no way to use Magic Items, he's going to be pretty bad at doing anything not involving hitting. And you actively encourage them to never use anything but single melee weapons, as you can't use a shield, TWF, natural weapons, or a ranged weapon. Anything to get extra attacks are pointless. Smite is okay, but all it does is add damage and to hit, which they're already doing anyway, and they have no way to get more Str to make it harder to be grappled/trampled/eaten.

The antimagic field effect means that he can never get near any of his friends ever, or else turn their gear off, so nobody will want to play with him. He can't get flight unless he naturally has it, he can't be buffed by friends, he can't teleport, and there's plenty of instantaneous magic that can adversely affect him, and it only takes one round to kill an enemy.

I honestly don't think this guy would be very good at anything, as he's so easy to mitigate in combat and he's got nothing out of combat. A Wall of Iron or Transmute Rock to Mud removes him from any combat indefinitely, as his AMF can't stop instantaneous effects.

[ericgrau]

I'd prefer a class that gave x gold worth of free magic item effects, including staff effects for whatever spell you might want. But they might still buy magic items on top of that unless you prohibited it. As said this is a class that forces you to bomb yourself with a negative effect. In a world full of monsters that are often powerful in mundane ways and magical ones who can still do something to you anyway. It is not smart.

[Chronos]

In order to get rid of the "Christmas tree effect", you need to make the class good enough that it doesn't need items. Just saying "You suck, and you can't use items to fix it" won't work, because nobody would ever take that class. As it is, a plain ordinary barbarian, even with no magic items, will do better than this class of yours.


Quoth GreenETC:

...and they have no way to get more Str to make it harder to be grappled/trampled/eaten.
It's worse than that, even. Even if you have high Strength from a good roll and racial modifiers, you still don't get any benefit from it, since this class can't gain any damage bonuses other than its Smite ability.

If you want to make a character who doesn't depend on magic items, start by taking a look at the Vow of Poverty feat, and the very long list of benefits it gets you. Then, read up on why it still sucks compared to actually having items.

[gooddragon1]

In order to get rid of the "Christmas tree effect", you need to make the class good enough that it doesn't need items. Just saying "You suck, and you can't use items to fix it" won't work, because nobody would ever take that class. As it is, a plain ordinary barbarian, even with no magic items, will do better than this class of yours.


It's worse than that, even. Even if you have high Strength from a good roll and racial modifiers, you still don't get any benefit from it, since this class can't gain any damage bonuses other than its Smite ability.

If you want to make a character who doesn't depend on magic items, start by taking a look at the Vow of Poverty feat, and the very long list of benefits it gets you. Then, read up on why it still sucks compared to actually having items.

Woah guys, hold on, it's bad but it's not that bad.

1: You can use ranged weapons from my reading of it since it's to all damage rolls and attack rolls not just melee.
2: You automatically negate stuff like grapples and if you get eaten you can still do damage from the inside. My reading of it basically says the only stuff that affects you permanently is damage or death.
3: You're looking at probably +29 to hit (with the right feats) with your 4th attack and 60 damage on each attack (ignoring DR) at 20th level regardless of your physical stats.
4: You can go to sleep (not conscious/you don't need to sleep doesn't mean you can't) to be affected by teleports and whatever.
5: You can get a race with flight
6: AMF shuts down gear but also shuts down save or dies and can protect party members in some situations
7: You can even affect swarms vulnerable to acid by throwing a flask of acid and dealing area of affect damage (61 minimum at level 20)
9: It's not really ability score dependent at all so you could max Con

[Story]

Incidentally, there's no need to ban him from taking VOP, since VOP doesn't function inside an AMF anyway.

[eggynack]

2: You automatically negate stuff like grapples and if you get eaten you can still do damage from the inside. My reading of it basically says the only stuff that affects you permanently is damage or death.
Yeah, you might want that ability to be better defined. You're in serious iron heart surge territory here, and that's dangerous territory to be in.


3: You're looking at probably +29 to hit (with the right feats) with your 4th attack and 60 damage on each attack (ignoring DR) at 20th level regardless of your physical stats.
Cool, I guess? Melee is pretty terrible in general, and losing access to items means losing access to one of melee's few sources of versatility.


4: You can go to sleep (not conscious/you don't need to sleep doesn't mean you can't) to be affected by teleports and whatever.
What does "whatever" mean? It looks like it's basically just teleport, because anything non-instantaneous would go away when you wake up.


6: AMF shuts down gear but also shuts down save or dies and can protect party members in some situations
That's bad for them for the same reason it was bad for you. People would generally rather not be in a permanent AMF.

7: You can even affect swarms vulnerable to acid by throwing a flask of acid and dealing area of affect damage (61 minimum at level 20)
Woo.

9: It's not really ability score dependent at all so you could max Con
Indeed. You'll be just as ability score independent as a commoner. You guys can throw a party together.

Really, the problem is that this class is relying on this one perfect defense, except it's a defense that's nowhere near perfect. AMF doesn't even stop all magic, let alone all non-magic. Moreover, it's a class relying on a defense in a game built on offense, which is a bad place to be.

[Coidzor]

2: You automatically negate stuff like grapples and if you get eaten you can still do damage from the inside. My reading of it basically says the only stuff that affects you permanently is damage or death.

50% chance of negating grapples if they're counted as an effect or condition. I know it's a condition in Pathfinder, at least. Depending upon when in a round that check occurs, you can still experience the negative effects of being grappled.


3: You're looking at probably +29 to hit (with the right feats) with your 4th attack and 60 damage on each attack (ignoring DR) at 20th level regardless of your physical stats.

That'll be fixed as soon as this is pointed out to the creator/DM, going by the RAI of this abomination.


4: You can go to sleep (not conscious/you don't need to sleep doesn't mean you can't) to be affected by teleports and whatever.

It might. Do you have word of DM/creator on that point?


6: AMF shuts down gear but also shuts down save or dies and can protect party members in some situations

Yeah, that's not exactly a great counter-argument to "I make my allies sit with their thumbs up their asses just by getting too close to them."


7: You can even affect swarms vulnerable to acid by throwing a flask of acid and dealing area of affect damage (61 minimum at level 20)

Area of effect, and so long as the DM considers them kosher for following your BAB-derived attacks rather than doing anything screwy like limiting grenade-like weapons to one a round.


9: It's not really ability score dependent at all so you could max Con

Except there's no real point to doing so, since you can't really max Con, you can just increase it slightly.

[gooddragon1]

I got this class over PM from the dota-allstars.com website when it was still up. I kinda liked it so I saved it. I'm sure the guy is still lurking around playdota.com forums somewhere but even I don't check those forums regularly. Though to be fair he should probably have said the AMF is just continual period.

What if you took the npc warrior class and added the smite? (Reverted my change to it cuz I wonder if it can be broken)


Smite (Ex)
Add class level+3 to attack rolls (do not add any ability score modifiers to hit) and 3x class level to damage rolls (damage cannot be modified in any other way). Attacks modified in this way ignore damage reduction and incorporeal immunity to mundane weapons. You cannot apply this ability to attacks not derived from your base attack bonus (such as from rapid shot or two-weapon fighting).

[Novawurmson]

Honestly, the way you get around needing magic items is by being a class that gives you magic items for free.

Take a look at the PF Soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife) (and maybe Aegis (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/aegis)). Getting your most important purchase for a beatstick - your weapon - is an enormous boon. Obviously, items still help, but a built-in +10 weapon eases the pain enormously.

[ArcturusV]

Well... damn. I'm looking at this class and it's one of the few times I DO want to Template Stack. And I normally HATE templating. But it strikes me as something you would have to do to avoid some things just shutting you down hard.

For example making a Nezumi Devil Blooded Gravetouched Ghoul (This class). Possibly would want even more than that. Devil Blooded being 3 LA, Gravetouched Ghoul for +2 more. Least this way I can deal with certain things like Fear Spamming/mindjacking (Which an AMF may not shut down depending on source and possibly how Psionics/Magic relate in that particular game, as I believe Transparency isn't really a rule so much as common variant.) The Devil Blooded giving me HD=Natural Armor bonus, energy resistances, flight equal to my land speed (so 40' flight which isn't amazing but helps).

I mean I HATE template stacking. I really do. I don't like the idea of being in a level 10 adventure and only having 12 HP or something (Like I've seen happen). But if I'm going to be robbed of all gear worth a damn, and the ability for my allies to easily help me out.... I suddenly want those innate racial abilities.

I mean... if my DM bent over backwards for me... or I knew going in that the situation would be acceptable for it (Like the game was going level 3-5 only or something?) and so on... but man I'd have to become VERY reliant on mundane gear. Very, very reliant. Which will be hard with only 2 skill points per level and missing a lot of "interact with the world" skills on my class list.

I mean the game would have to be wrapped around this character entirely. In which case I wouldn't find it fun. Particularly if I was playing someone who wasn't This Guy in the party as I find myself being asked to sideline myself (I hate having to do that...) or be irrelevant to situations just so the DM can spoon feed that guy.